PEOPLE
Bowersox to appear on Broadway
2/12/2013Crystal Bowersox is set to have an exceptionally busy year.
With a new album to be released sometime in March or April and a tour that will bring her to Toledo March 3, she’s also gearing up for a run on Broadway in Always... Patsy Cline, in which she will play the lead role of the 1950s era country singer who died in a plane crash in 1963.
The play is set to open this summer. The musical’s Web site said it is based on a “true story about the friendship between Patsy and her most devoted fan, Louise Seger, which began when they met one night at the Esquire Ballroom outside of Houston. It is complete with down-home humor, true emotion, and the story of a relationship that any fan would dream of having with their idol.”
The production includes such Cline hits as “Crazy,” “I Fall to Pieces,” “Sweet Dreams,” and “Walking After Midnight.” No theater or dates for the Broadway production have been announced.
Bowersox is an Elliston, Ohio, native who was American Idol runner-up in 2010.
Top British film awards captured by ‘Argo,’ Affleck
Iran-hostage drama Argo continued its journey from awards-season outsider to favorite Sunday, winning three prizes, including best-picture, at the British Academy Film Awards.
Ben Affleck was named best director for the based-on-reality story of a longshot plan to rescue a group of American diplomats from Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and the film also took the editing trophy.
Affleck, who has made a remarkable journey from little-regarded actor to award-winning director, dedicated his directing prize to “anyone out there who’s trying to get their second act.”
George Clooney, a producer of Argo, quipped: “I don’t know what you’re going to do for a third act.”
Daniel Day-Lewis won his universally expected best-actor trophy for Lincoln — the only prize out of 10 nominations for Steven Spielberg’s historical biopic.
Emmanuelle Riva, the 85-year-old French film legend, was named best actress for Michael Haneke’s poignant old-age portrait Amour. It also was named best foreign-language film.
Made-in-Britain French revolutionary musical Les Miserables won four prizes, including best supporting actress for Anne Hathaway. James Bond adventure Skyfall won trophies for music and best British film.
The British awards are an indicator of likely success at the Hollywood Oscars. In recent years they have prefigured Academy Awards triumph for word-of-mouth hits such as Slumdog Millionaire, The King’s Speech, and The Artist. This year they spread their honors widely, with multiple trophies for Life of Pi, Silver Linings Playbook, Amour, and Django Unchained, as well as Argo.
Kathryn Bigelow’s Osama bin Laden thriller Zero Dark Thirty was shut out of the prizes, despite five nominations.
Argo has been building steam with big prizes at ceremonies such as the Golden Globes, the Producers Guild, and the Directors Guild of America Awards. It is now considered a front-runner for the best picture Oscar on Feb. 24, even though Affleck was not nominated for best director there.
Telling her story
Amanda Knox, the college junior who spent four years in an Italian prison after being accused of murdering her British roommate, will sit down with Diane Sawyer for a prime-time special airing April 30. The exclusive interview also will be featured on other ABC News programming.
Knox was an American student studying in Italy when, in 2007, she became the center of a murder case that seized the world’s attention. She was convicted in 2009. But after an appeal, she was acquitted and released in October, 2011.
The interview is timed to the publication of Knox’s book, Waiting to Be Heard.
HBO therapy
Beyonce calls the making of her upcoming HBO documentary Life is But a Dream a therapeutic process.
She tells the March issue of Vogue, “this movie healed me in so many ways” and thinking about it makes her “want to cry.”
The film addresses topics that the notoriously private singer normally doesn’t address in public. It chronicles her 2011 decision to no longer have her father as her manager, her miscarriage, and rumors that she was faking her pregnancy with daughter Blue Ivy by really using a surrogate. It airs Saturday.