CELEBRITIES IN BRIEF
Curry leaves ratings-poor Today after year as co-host
NEW YORK (AP) — Ann Curry is officially out as Today show co-host after one year.
She announced her departure on the show Thursday, ending a week of awkward television as she continued working after word spread that NBC was looking to oust her. The popular morning show is facing its biggest challenge in the ratings from ABC’s resurgent Good Morning America since the mid-1990s.
Curry started as the show’s news anchor in 1997, and was promoted last June following Meredith Vieira’s exit. But things never really clicked with co-host Matt Lauer. Today hadn’t lost a week in the ratings since 1996 but this spring lost four times.
NBC’s Savannah Guthrie is expected to replace Curry.
Rogers’ home, estate sold before scheduled auction
JEFFERSON, Ga. (AP) — The northeast Georgia home owned by country singer Kenny Rogers that was scheduled to be put up for auction has been sold.
Grand Estates Auction Co. in Charlotte, N.C., says Rogers sold the house and its 150 acres Wednesday for $2.25 million.
The property is located near Nicholson, Ga., and included a 5,681-square-foot-house, a 2,675-square foot pool, an eight-acre lake, horse riding trails, go-cart track and other amenities.
The Athens Banner-Herald (http://bit.ly/M7Ee94 ) reports the auction was called off suddenly Tuesday afternoon after attracting nearly a dozen potential buyers. Soon after the auction was scheduled to take place, organizers announced Rogers had taken the property off the market.
Ferguson keeps things lively as lights go out at Late Late Show
NEW YORK (AP) — Craig Ferguson kept it light when the lights went out.
CBS says Wednesday’s edition of The Late Late Show was faced with lighting problems after a transformer blew, shorting out the light grid above the stage for the taping just hours before airtime.
Ferguson, referring to his mechanical sidekick, quipped that the show would rely on “the light of a robot’s eye.”
Not quite. Two temporary lights were positioned to illuminate Ferguson and his guests, former Friends star Lisa Kudrow and producer Harvey Weinstein, who also joked around with flashlights.
Ferguson, whose show is taped at CBS’s Television City in Hollywood, has weathered technical glitches before. In October 2009, he had a power failure and taped part of the show entirely by flashlight.
And he isn’t the only late-night host who’s lost juice. Two years ago, Jimmy Kimmel was forced to tape his ABC show with his laptop’s webcam after a power outage in the studio control room.
But the future burns bright for The Late Late Show: It’s scheduled to move to a better-equipped studio by summer’s end.
Of course, sometimes people ask Ferguson why he’s making a move, he noted during his monologue.
“And I say, ‘Oh, no reason,’” he cracked as he gestured toward his darkened stage.