CBS fetes Sheen, Selleck
Charlie Sheen, doting dad? You bet.
Generally speaking, the first people showing up at the network parties are critics, network publicists and a smattering of eager young actors.
The critics cruise in early to get to the food before chumming for interviews and the young actors just don’t want to miss out on the opportunity to get their name in print.
So when the first busload of critics popped up at the CBS party Tuesday night, it was a shock to see Charlie Sheen (“Two and a Half Men”) standing alone on the red carpet entry way.
There he was, getting blasted by hundreds of paparazzi flashes.
Was Hollywood’s former baddest of the bad boys just making a quick appearance before racing to another party?
“I had to get here early because my daughter’s sick and my wife (Denise Richards) is pregnant, so I don’t want to leave her for too long,” Sheen says. “But I wanted to make sure I talked to some outlets about the show.”
It didn’t matter that he talked about newspapers like electrical sockets, plugging his show.
Doting dad? Attentive husband? You bet. And he even has a series that is the funniest comedy on television.
Ray Romano learns to act (Yum, coffee!)
You know, no matter how big the star, they still have those insecurities. Take Ray Romano.
Everybody loves Ray, yet he still dwells on the one Web site that constantly berates his acting. The site he keeps visiting.
“He likes to pick at it like a wound,” says the show’s co-creator Phil Rosenthal. “And it’s like three 13-year-olds anyway.”
Romano, a stand-up comedian, was asked when he first thought of himself as an actor. While he still won’t cop to being an actor, Romano says he finally realized he couldn’t just keep playing himself, even on the show. The scene called for him to drink coffee.
“But I don’t like coffee,” he told the writers.
This, he was told, is when the acting part kicks in.
It pays the bills for Tom Selleck
It didn’t take long for Tuesday night’s party to get into full swing, with an odd mix of star sightings.
Tom Selleck stood head and shoulders above the crowd, talking about a new movie he’s doing for CBS based on a Robert Parker novel.
“I need to do two movies a year to make the mortgage and a third would be perfect,” says Selleck.
So what’s he doing these days other than riding his horses? “Reading a lot of bad TV scripts…”
Don’t kiss the staffers
Not far from Selleck was David McCallum (“NCIS”) and former ’60s heartthrob from “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”
He still looks great and loves smooching any woman who remembers him fondly. But the reporters weren’t buzzing around him either.
Oh just shut up, Baby
Oh, but there was a crowd around “Amazing Race” host Phil Keoghan, wondering why he didn’t step in and stop the abusive Jonathan as he verbally attacked his wife Victoria.
“If she had been in any danger, we would have stepped in,” says Keoghan, who admits this hasn’t been his favorite group of contestants.
“Just wait until the next ‘Race,’ ” he promises. “We have a really good group this next time.”
Really, they couldn’t be any worse than this group.
He also agrees that the use of “baby” as in, “Come on Baby…you can do it Baby…I love you Baby…” should be banned entirely.
Les has to pay for that rock, somehow
You didn’t need bright lights to spot the sparkler on Julie Chen’s hand.
The massive, 10-carat engagement ring and multi-carat wedding band practically lit up the entire room. Chen (“The Early Show”) recently wed her longtime lover Leslie Moonves, the big cheese at CBS and Viacom.
Talk about job security.
Will this “Numb3rs” make it to No. 14?
You may not immediately recognize David Krumholtz, star of the new series “Numb3rs”), but he was one of the most popular guys at this, or any other, party.
Critics love him for being a great actor, other actors remember him for being in so many failed series.
“I look across this room and see a graveyard of lost TV shows,” says Krumholtz, who has made a record 12 TV pilots and six series which never made it past the 13th episode. “I’m just hoping to see 14 one of these days.”
Some of Krumholtz’s fallen TV buddies include Selleck (“The Closer”) and Jon Cryer, now co-starring in the hit “Two and a Half Men.”
Yet Cryer was a little bitter to discover that Krumholtz had omitted their shared series “The Trouble With Normal” from his official biography.
“Where is he?” joked Cryer. “It’s smackdown time.”
As for Krumholtz: “Oh, yeah. Like he’s putting THAT one at the top of his resume.”
Does Mission Control know this?
And we leave you today with this odd little tidbit: Cryer collects, of all things, memorabilia from the early Soviet space missions. That’s almost as obscure as “The Trouble with Normal.”