The Secret Life Of James Wolk

Mysterious as he is on "Mad Men," James Wolk is just as full of surprises as his character Bob Benson.

Although he's made quite a name for himself over the years -- and this year especially as the guy who hit on Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) on "Mad Men" -- Wolk insists he isn't above the classic odd job.

In an interview with Vulture's Denise Martin, Wolk admitted that one of his best memories is emceeing at bar and bat mitzvahs.

I grew up in a town where there were an immense number of bar and bat mitzvahs. When I was 15, I was approached by one of the bar and bat mitzvah companies to, like, dance and pass out glow sticks and do inane stuff, and I was told that ultimately it would lead to emceeing. So I started when I was 15 and everyone thought I was 18 or 19 because I was really tall. No one knew my dad was dropping me off five blocks before the temple. I emceed in metro Detroit throughout college, and even when I moved to New York, I would actually fly back on a Friday, emcee on a Saturday, and fly back on Sunday so that I could audition during the week. It was a big part of my life.

Sunday's "Mad Men" finale won't likely see Wolk whipping out any of his emcee skills, but hey may have an opportunity to put them to use on CBS' new comedy "The Crazy Ones" this fall starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and Robin Williams.

"My character is a total bulls*** artist," Wolk told Rolling Stone of Zach, his latest small screen alter ego.

Catch the season finale of "Mad Men" tonight, Sun., June 23 at 10 p.m. ET on AMC.

View the original article at Huffington Post / Celebrity

Etta James on breathing machine in Calif. hospital

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Grammy-winning singer Etta James, who has been deemed terminally ill with leukemia, has been hospitalized in California and placed on a breathing machine, her long-time manager and friend said on Friday.

James, 73, best known for the blues ballad "At Last," was taken to the hospital near her home in Riverside, east of Los Angeles, earlier this week because she was struggling to breathe.

"They took her to the hospital. She was having trouble breathing, so they intubated her. She is on a breathing machine and is resting," Lupe De-Leon, the singer's manager for 30 years, told Reuters.

The singer has been in failing health for a number of years and suffers from leukemia, kidney disease and dementia but had previously been cared for at her Southern California home.

Her live-in doctor said last week that James was considered terminally ill, and that she communicates mostly with nods and simple words.

The three-time Grammy Award singer earlier battled obesity and was addicted to heroin for many years.

"It is really sad. She is like my sister," De-Leon said on Friday.

James was a key figure in the early days of R&B music with hit songs like "The Wallflower" and "Good Rockin' Daddy". But it was her 1961 recording of "At Last" that put her on the map.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

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New York's Met loses James Levine to back injury (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – James Levine, the music director for the Metropolitan Opera in New York, will be unable to conduct performances for the rest of the year because of a back injury, the organization said on Tuesday.

Levine fell and injured himself while on vacation in Vermont last week, according to the opera house.

As a result, Italian conductor Fabio Luisi has been named the Met's principal conductor, and he has canceled performances with the Rome Opera, the Genoa Opera, the Vienna Symphony and the San Francisco Symphony to accommodate his new role at the Met.

Luisi, who last year was named principal guest conductor for the Met, will conduct performances of "Don Giovanni," which premiers on October 13, and "Siegfried," on October 27, as well as the MET Orchestra concert at Carnegie Hall on October 16.

"While Jim's latest setback is hugely disappointing for all of us, he joins me in welcoming Fabio's larger role," Peter Gelb, the Met's general manager, said in a statement.

Luisi is slated to conduct the first five performances of "Don Giovanni" and two performances of "Siegfried." Louis Langree will conduct the last four shows of "Don Giovanni" and Derrick Inouye will conduct "Siegfried" on November 1.

Levine, who had his debut with the Met in 1971, was due to begin orchestra rehearsals for the new season on Tuesday. He was recuperating from another back surgery when he suffered his latest fall, and he underwent emergency surgery in New York on Thursday, the Met said.

Levine will continue to hold his position as music director while he recuperates, the Met said.

He plans to return to the Met in January for the new production of Richard Wagner's "Gotterdammerung."

(Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis)

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Met's James Levine cancels fall shows after injury (AP)

NEW YORK – Metropolitan Opera music director James Levine (luh-VYN') has canceled his fall conducting engagements after reinjuring his back.

The Met announced Tuesday that Italian conductor Fabio Luisi (FAH'-bee-oh loo-EEH'-zee) has been named the Met's principal conductor. He's filling in for Levine, who has led performances at the nation's premier opera house for four decades.

Levine was to start rehearsals Tuesday for the new season.

He was in Vermont recuperating from previous back surgery when he fell last week and damaged one of his vertebrae. The 68-year-old musician underwent surgery in New York on Thursday.

Luisi was appointed the Met's principal guest conductor last year. He will conduct "Don Giovanni" and "Siegfried."

Levine's remaining shows will be led by Louis Langree (looh-EEH' lahn-GRAY') and Derrick Inouye (ih-NOH'-ay).

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James Franco drops out of making Broadway debut (AP)

NEW YORK – James Franco can't make time for Broadway.

Publicist Robin Baum confirmed Tuesday that the workaholic actor has dropped out of a planned production of the steamy Tennessee Williams play "Sweet Bird of Youth."

It was to mark Franco's Broadway debut and would have created one of the hottest tickets of the season because he was to be paired with Nicole Kidman, who is still on board.

The play tells the story of an aging actress and the gigolo paramour who uses her as he tries to help her get back into movies. David Cromer is scheduled to direct.

Franco, last seen in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" and "Your Highness," is shooting the film "Oz," appearing on "General Hospital" and earning a doctorate in English at Yale.

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Oprah, James Earl Jones to receive Oscars (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Actor James Earl Jones will receive an honorary Oscar this year and Oprah Winfrey will be presented with a humanitarian award, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced.

Winfrey and Jones, both past Oscar nominees, will receive their awards at the academy's annual Governors Awards on November 12, along with makeup artist Dick Smith, who will also be honored with an Oscar.

Jones, a veteran of more than 50 films starting with "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb," was nominated as best actor in 1970 for "The Great White Hope." Younger fans know him as the voice of Darth Vader in the "Star Wars" franchise.

Winfrey, who will be honored with the Jean Hersholt award, was nominated as best actress in her debut film, "The Color Purple," in 1985.

Smith, who is known as the "godfather of makeup," won an Oscar in 1984 for "Amadeus." His other noteworthy films include "The Godfather," "The Exorcist" and "Taxi Driver."

Both honorary awards, as well the Jean Hersholt award, are in the form of Oscar statuettes.

(Reporting by Chris Michaud; editing by Patricia Reaney)

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James Franco says he didn't want to host Oscars (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap) – Remember that disastrous Academy Awards show back in February?

Well, it wasn't James Franco's fault that he was a lousy host. In fact, he didn't even want the gig and acted dull on purpose.

Four months after a brief Twitter-fueled tiff in which he criticized Oscar writer Bruce Vilanch (and then made up with Vilanch the next day), Franco is in the August issue of Playboy magazine with his first in-depth comments about what was widely seen as a debacle of an Oscar show, with Franco's listless performance drawing near-unanimous scorn.

And there's nary a mea culpa to be found in Franco's comments, which repeatedly circle back to the same theme: I didn't write that stuff, and I did what I could with substandard material.

Oscar observers could be forgiven for thinking that Franco in fact did what he could to sabotage lackluster material by appearing dazed and confused while co-host Anne Hathaway was unnervingly chipper.

After the show, one staffer told TheWrap that Franco had been even more lethargic during rehearsals, leading staff members to hope that he was "saving it for the show" -- while others said that the actor's performance was the object of some serious 11th-hour discussions among top show staffers, who knew his detached style presented a huge problem.

To read Franco's comments in Playboy, though, he was simply a victim of bad writing, and a loyal deckhand who figured there was nothing to do but go down with the ship.

In fact, he uses that exact metaphor at one point, after saying that he considered himself "trapped" by the material.

"I felt, this is not my boat," he told Playboy's Stephen Rebello. "I'm just a passenger, but I'm going down and there's no way out."

Other tidbits from Franco's interview:

* He didn't want to do the show, but he thought it'd take some of the pressure off Fox Searchlight's push to get him a Best Actor Oscar for "127 Hours," because "at the time I thought no one had won an Oscar the year they hosted the show." (He was mistaken: David Niven had.)

* He figured he could handle the gig even though he was attending Yale and couldn't show up in L.A. until a few days before the show, because the Oscar host doesn't really have all that much to do. "They knew I could rehearse only on weekends because of school, but how much do you have to rehearse?"

* After first seeing the material, he told the show's producers, Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer, "I don't know why you hired me, because you haven't given me anything. I just don't think this stuff's going to be good."

* He acted blase on purpose. "I thought, Okay, Anne is going the enthusiastic route. I've been trained as an actor to respond to circumstances, to people I'm working with, and not to force anything. So I thought I would be the straight man and she could be the other, and that's how I was trying to do those lines."

* He tweeted during the show as a "cutting-edge" way of reminding people that he didn't write the stuff he was saying.

* Contrary to rumor, he wasn't high.

* He didn't want to come onstage in drag, and in fact was so mad about that that he once planned to deliberately trip and fall when he came onstage. "Me in drag is not funny," he said.

* When it comes to the writing staff, "there were a lot of cooks who shouldn't have been cooking." And Judd Apatow wrote some funny stuff for the show that wasn't used.

* But afterwards, Cohen told him that Steven Spielberg had called it "the best Oscars ever!"

That last comment reminded me of Allan Carr, who produced the even-more-disastrous 1989 Oscar show, and afterwards defended his own debacle by announcing that Ronald Reagan had called it "the best television show I've ever seen."

But the scariest part of the Franco interview isn't the Oscar material -- which, after all, is old news at this point.

The unsettling thing is that Franco starts hitting many of the same notes when he talks about his upcoming film "Rise of the Planet of the Apes."

He says he "doesn't feel the same way" about the film that he feels about "Milk" or "127 Hours"...that he doesn't think of "Apes" as showing off his creativity...and that reshoots pushed the film in the direction of more action and less character development.

"I was just doing my job," he says, and later adds, "I was an actor for hire."

And then he adds, "critics will be out to kill this movie and blame me for it."

Hear that, critics? "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," it seems, belongs in the same category as the last Oscar show: if it isn't good, it isn't James Franco's fault.

The entire interview is available at Playboy.com.

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James Franco says he didn't want to host Oscars (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap) – Remember that disastrous Academy Awards show back in February?

Well, it wasn't James Franco's fault that he was a lousy host. In fact, he didn't even want the gig and acted dull on purpose.

Four months after a brief Twitter-fueled tiff in which he criticized Oscar writer Bruce Vilanch (and then made up with Vilanch the next day), Franco is in the August issue of Playboy magazine with his first in-depth comments about what was widely seen as a debacle of an Oscar show, with Franco's listless performance drawing near-unanimous scorn.

And there's nary a mea culpa to be found in Franco's comments, which repeatedly circle back to the same theme: I didn't write that stuff, and I did what I could with substandard material.

Oscar observers could be forgiven for thinking that Franco in fact did what he could to sabotage lackluster material by appearing dazed and confused while co-host Anne Hathaway was unnervingly chipper.

After the show, one staffer told TheWrap that Franco had been even more lethargic during rehearsals, leading staff members to hope that he was "saving it for the show" -- while others said that the actor's performance was the object of some serious 11th-hour discussions among top show staffers, who knew his detached style presented a huge problem.

To read Franco's comments in Playboy, though, he was simply a victim of bad writing, and a loyal deckhand who figured there was nothing to do but go down with the ship.

In fact, he uses that exact metaphor at one point, after saying that he considered himself "trapped" by the material.

"I felt, this is not my boat," he told Playboy's Stephen Rebello. "I'm just a passenger, but I'm going down and there's no way out."

Other tidbits from Franco's interview:

* He didn't want to do the show, but he thought it'd take some of the pressure off Fox Searchlight's push to get him a Best Actor Oscar for "127 Hours," because "at the time I thought no one had won an Oscar the year they hosted the show." (He was mistaken: David Niven had.)

* He figured he could handle the gig even though he was attending Yale and couldn't show up in L.A. until a few days before the show, because the Oscar host doesn't really have all that much to do. "They knew I could rehearse only on weekends because of school, but how much do you have to rehearse?"

* After first seeing the material, he told the show's producers, Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer, "I don't know why you hired me, because you haven't given me anything. I just don't think this stuff's going to be good."

* He acted blase on purpose. "I thought, Okay, Anne is going the enthusiastic route. I've been trained as an actor to respond to circumstances, to people I'm working with, and not to force anything. So I thought I would be the straight man and she could be the other, and that's how I was trying to do those lines."

* He tweeted during the show as a "cutting-edge" way of reminding people that he didn't write the stuff he was saying.

* Contrary to rumor, he wasn't high.

* He didn't want to come onstage in drag, and in fact was so mad about that that he once planned to deliberately trip and fall when he came onstage. "Me in drag is not funny," he said.

* When it comes to the writing staff, "there were a lot of cooks who shouldn't have been cooking." And Judd Apatow wrote some funny stuff for the show that wasn't used.

* But afterwards, Cohen told him that Steven Spielberg had called it "the best Oscars ever!"

That last comment reminded me of Allan Carr, who produced the even-more-disastrous 1989 Oscar show, and afterwards defended his own debacle by announcing that Ronald Reagan had called it "the best television show I've ever seen."

But the scariest part of the Franco interview isn't the Oscar material -- which, after all, is old news at this point.

The unsettling thing is that Franco starts hitting many of the same notes when he talks about his upcoming film "Rise of the Planet of the Apes."

He says he "doesn't feel the same way" about the film that he feels about "Milk" or "127 Hours"...that he doesn't think of "Apes" as showing off his creativity...and that reshoots pushed the film in the direction of more action and less character development.

"I was just doing my job," he says, and later adds, "I was an actor for hire."

And then he adds, "critics will be out to kill this movie and blame me for it."

Hear that, critics? "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," it seems, belongs in the same category as the last Oscar show: if it isn't good, it isn't James Franco's fault.

The entire interview is available at Playboy.com.

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"Gunsmoke" star James Arness dead at age 88 (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Actor James Arness, who personified the tall, rugged lawman of the American frontier as Marshal Matt Dillon on "Gunsmoke," U.S. television's longest-running prime-time drama, died on Friday at age 88.

Arness died of natural causes at his Los Angeles home, said his business manager, Ginny Fazer.

The actor was in relatively good health but had "just been fading" in recent years, Fazer told Reuters. "No disease, nothing untoward, he just got tired, I guess," she said.

Arness was best known for his 20 years on TV playing Matt Dillon, the U.S. marshal in the dusty wild-west town of Dodge City, Kansas, a role for which he was recommended by his showbiz mentor and friend, the film star John Wayne.

When "Gunsmoke" left the CBS airwaves in 1975, Arness had set the record for the longest-running role played by a single actor in prime time. The feat that went unmatched until Kelsey Grammer tied the record after 20 years of playing psychiatrist Frasier Crane on two NBC comedies -- "Cheers" and "Frasier."

"James Arness will always be remembered as one of the biggest stars in the history of television, playing an iconic role on the medium's longest-running prime-time drama ever," CBS said in a statement.

"Gunsmoke," which originated on CBS radio in 1952 with William Conrad as the voice of Matt Dillon, debuted on TV as one of the first in a wave of "adult westerns" that sought to portray gunslingers and cowboys in a way that appealed to grown-up viewers, rather than youngsters.

Although not an immediate hit, "Gunsmoke" climbed up the ratings chart to No. 8 in its second season and went on to become the top-rated show on U.S. television from 1957 to 1961.

The show's success helped generate a lot of competition, with network television's prime-time lineup including more than 30 westerns at one point, but "Gunsmoke" outlasted them all.

MEMORABLE ENSEMBLE CAST

The cast comprised one of television's most memorable ensembles of supporting characters -- the good-natured but gullible deputy with a limp, Chester Goode, played by Dennis Weaver; the red-haired, whiskey-voiced saloon keeper Miss Kitty Russell; crusty old "Doc" Adams, and Louie, the town drunk.

Chester, who spoke with a pronounced twang -- "Meester Deellon!" -- left the series in 1964 and was replaced by scruffy deputy Festus Haggen. Miss Hannah took over the Long Branch Saloon after Kitty's exit.

Arness, who stood 6-feet-7-inches tall, earned three Emmy nominations for the program over the years.

Born James Aurness in Minneapolis to a family of Norwegian heritage, Arness dropped the "u" at the outset of his film career. He attributed his acting success to luck.

He was severely wounded in the leg in World War Two, which left him with a life-long limp.

While recuperating, his younger brother Peter -- who gained fame as the actor Peter Graves in TV's "Mission: Impossible" -- encouraged him to take a radio course. Arness got an announcing job, but then headed to Hollywood in hopes of a movie career.

He made his film debut in "The Farmer's Daughter" in 1947 as Loretta Young's brother, and appeared four years later in the title part as a space alien in "The Thing from Another World."

An agent who represented John Wayne later introduced him to Arness, and Wayne took the actor under his wing, giving him roles in several of his movies. Wayne ultimately suggested Arness for the lead part in "Gunsmoke," and even introduced the first episode for CBS.

Arness returned as Matt Dillon in five "Gunsmoke" reunion specials, the last of which aired in 1994 when he was 71. He also starred in the 1977 TV mini-series "How the West Was Won," the modern police drama "McClain's Law" in 1981, and reprised John Wayne's role in a TV remake of "Red River" in 1988.

Wayne is survived by his second wife, Janet, two sons and six grandchildren.

(Additional reporting by Vicki Allen; Editing by Jill Serjeant)

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Jim James leads My Morning Jacket on new journey (AP)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Jim James is on a spiritual quest of sorts, and you're invited to listen in.

The My Morning Jacket frontman sat in the prayer room of a church in a quiet neighborhood of his hometown last month, talking about old records, religion, philosophy and his perpetual yearning for understanding. These things color the Kentucky quintet's much-anticipated new album, "Circuital," and James says the record reflects a search he's been on for some time.

"I just want to be peaceful," James said. "I just want to find peace. I don't want to be questioning anymore. I don't want to be searching anymore."

Don't get James wrong. He understands he's living the life millions dream of as the head of an increasingly important and influential rock band. That part of his life is great. James is looking for solace in other places as well, however. He jokingly calls himself a recovering Catholic and says he's given up on organized religion. He's now seeking comfort from other sources.

"There's so much stuff that you just don't need in your brain that they hammered there so young and you're trying to deal with it," James said. "I don't consider myself any faith. I just try to listen to all faiths and all ideas and sift out what I believe and what I don't."

Increasingly James is finding answers in music. Long a rock `n' roll fan, he started to grow uninterested and turned to different forms of music to feed his need for new sounds. His discovery of soul music has influenced his own music over the last five years. More important, it's opened his mind about the possibilities of life.

"I'll never forget hearing (Marvin Gaye's) `What's Going On' for the first time and being like, `Oh, my god,'" James said. "All this rock music is beautiful and serves a purpose, but so much of it is about pain and darkness. And when I hear `What's Going On' or when I hear some of Sam Cooke's religious work, I hear all the mystery and passion that I loved about my rock music, but I also hear hope and praise and all this glory that I feel like I don't hear in all this sad stuff growing up, listening to Nirvana. When I put on Nirvana now, it's like nails shooting into my ears."

Like Gaye, Pastor T.L. Barrett also blew his mind, and helped set the stage for the recording of "Circuital," My Morning Jacket's first album since 2008's "Evil Urges," out Tuesday. Barrett's little-known "Like a Ship ... (Without a Sail)" was a gospel funk masterpiece that all but disappeared after a small pressing decades ago. Boutique label Numero Group reissued the album, which Barrett recorded with his Chicago church's youth choir.

James decided he wanted to recreate the uncommon energy and communal spirit of that album and other lost gospel records, and rented the church (the band asked its name and exact location be withheld for privacy reasons). The church's large, echoing gymnasium was the perfect space for the band to gather after a yearlong hiatus. There was room for everyone to set up and face each other, and they were able to strip away all the artificial separation you find in a traditional studio.

"We're in a band. We play music live all the time, so I wanted this album to showcase just us being a band, all playing together and hopefully achieving that moment of good tape together," he said.

After a rather confined experience recording "Evil Urges" in a New York City studio, the "Circuital" sessions were freewheeling and loose for the band, which also includes bassist Tom "Two-Tone Tommy" Blankenship, drummer Patrick Hallahan and multi-instrumentalists Carl Broemel and Bo Koster. James brought the lyrics and skeletons for songs and the band worked each over for a few days, at most, before recording them. They skipped the usual step of rehearsing and making rough demos for each song and went right to the tape recorder, keeping it loose as they tried to turn the sprawling church's gym, soaring chapel and various gathering spaces into something useful.

"There was an element of do-it-yourself with this one ... because we just walked into a space that isn't a studio and had to make it sound good," Hallahan said. "We built a tent around my drum kit to reign in the cymbals because it's such a big, wide room. We had to dampen the whole floor with acoustic absorb material. It was just like a big project that never ended."

Hallahan describes the group as "five compassionate and curious souls" and James' bandmates get where he's coming from when he's translating his spiritual questions into artistic expression. Each has had his own journey over the last half decade as My Morning Jacket toured relentlessly, earning the combination of critical adoration and experimentation-indulging fan bases of top rock acts like Radiohead and Wilco.

So James' ruminations resonated with his bandmates as they laid down the tribal vibe of opening track "Victory Dance" or matched the beauty of James' soaring tenor on "Wonderful (The Way I Feel)." They nailed the title track, which builds over a long crescendo to some of the album's most heroic guitar work and interesting sonic moments, on just the second take.

Todd Haynes picked up on that connection on the record when he first heard it. The "Far From Heaven" director is helming a live webcast of My Morning Jacket's Tuesday concert at The Louisville Palace Theater. Haynes met James when the singer stole a scene in his Bob Dylan film "I'm Not There" and has followed the band for some time.

He called "Circuital" a "powerful" album and noted how different it is from My Morning Jacket's previous sound, which has evolved from lush alt-country to Neil Young-style rock to something fairly unpredictable.

"When I really listened to `Circuital' through the first time, I really noticed it as a through-line lyrically in this record — this sense of a new beginning, of a new life, of sort of turning the page on the past and having a kind of confidence. It's very optimistic," he said.

And why shouldn't they be? With one of the year's most anticipated albums and tours, they've attained a kind of long-term stability that's rare in the music world. It seems natural that should be reflected in their music.

Now the question is, will it help James find some of that peace he's looking for?

"There's things that I'm trying to figure out that I haven't figured out," James said. "I'm getting clues and stuff but I don't know why it's built into my brain that way. My brain is just not satisfied. It has to question something infinitely. And usually it questions something so much that it eventually kills it, and then I go somewhere else, and then it questions that. So I'm trying find a way to stop that."

___

Online:

http://www.mymorningjacket.com

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Etta James hospitalized with blood infection (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Singer Etta James has been hospitalized with blood poisoning, her son said on Friday.

The 73 year-old blues legend was admitted to hospital in Riverside, California, earlier this week with a urinary tract infection and the blood infection sepsis, said her son Sametto James.

"It was a really bad infection," Sametto James said before adding, "Right now she's doing a lot better."

Etta James is a three-time Grammy winner whose songs like "The Wallflower" and "Good Rockin' Daddy" made her a key figure in the early days of rock 'n' roll. Her signature song, the 1961 ballad "At Last," proved her a master of the blues.

James, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, has struggled with obesity in the past. In 2003, she underwent gastric bypass surgery.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis: Editing by Christine Kearney)

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Etta James hospitalized with blood infection (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Singer Etta James has been hospitalized with blood poisoning, her son said on Friday.

The 73 year-old blues legend was admitted to hospital in Riverside, California, earlier this week with a urinary tract infection and the blood infection sepsis, said her son Sametto James.

"It was a really bad infection," Sametto James said before adding, "Right now she's doing a lot better."

Etta James is a three-time Grammy winner whose songs like "The Wallflower" and "Good Rockin' Daddy" made her a key figure in the early days of rock 'n' roll. Her signature song, the 1961 ballad "At Last," proved her a master of the blues.

James, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, has struggled with obesity in the past. In 2003, she underwent gastric bypass surgery.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis: Editing by Christine Kearney)

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Blues singer Etta James in hospital with infection (AP)

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Blues singer Etta James is in a Southern California hospital with a potentially deadly infection.

Her son, Sametto James, tells the Riverside Press-Enterprise that his mother was admitted to an undisclosed hospital earlier this week for treatment of sepsis caused by a urinary tract infection.

Sepsis is a potentially deadly blood poisoning caused by a bacterial infection.

The 73-year-old James lives in Woodcrest and was hospitalized for the same problem early last year. She suffers from dementia, leukemia, kidney problems and other ailments.

James is best known for her version of the song "At Last."

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Winfrey plans 2-episode interview with James Frey (AP)

CHICAGO – Oprah Winfrey's interview with author James Frey will stretch over two episodes during the final full week of her talk show.

The shows will air May 16 and 17, more than five years after Winfrey accused Frey on live television of lying in one of his books. During a short promotional clip on Tuesday's episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" an announcer deemed it "the biggest controversy in Oprah show history."

Winfrey chose Frey's substance abuse story "A Million Little Pieces," for her book club in September 2005, making it a million-seller.

Frey subsequently acknowledged on Winfrey's show in January 2006 that he had lied in the book. Winfrey told him she felt duped and that he had betrayed millions of readers.

Winfrey's show ends May 25 after 25 years.

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Anne Hathaway, James Franco Bring the Funny in Oscar Promo

As the Academy Awards inch closer, a new promo for the big night shows co-hosts Anne Hathaway and James Franco prepping for the ultimate hosting gig -- complete with dance lessons and wardrobe-malfunction preparedness.

In the new clip, Franco and Hathaway can be seen working on their fitness -- using Oscar statues as weights -- and brushing up on their seemingly rough dancing skills.

And, in an effort to prevent any wardrobe issues, Franco jokingly practices throwing a blanket over Hathaway as a strap on her dress breaks while on stage. See the video after the jump!

"I'm just kind of going with the flow," he said, getting some helpful hints from a past host. "Billy Crystal said to wear tennis shoes, or something, but I don't think I'm going to follow that advice."

The 83rd Academy Awards air Feb. 27 at 8PM EST on ABC. http://xml.channel.aol.com/xmlpublisher/fetch.v2.xml?option=expand_relative_urls&dataUrlNodes=uiConfig,feedConfig,entry&id=691977&pid=691976&uts=1294158078http://www.popeater.com/mm_track/popeater/music/?s_channel=us.musicpop&s_account=aolpopeater,aolsvc&omni=1&ke=1http://cdn.channel.aol.com/cs_feed_v1_6/csfeedwrapper.swfReese Witherspoon keeps her hands in her pockets as she tries to stay warm while out in New York City on January 3rd.oKExp.start("popeater3-popeater_music_popscene");

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Is Keira Knightley Dating Rocker James Righton?

It looks like Keira Knightley has finally moved on after splitting up with ex Rupert Friend in January.

The Mirror is reporting that the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' actress has been quietly dating James Righton, co-vocalist and keyboard player of the band The Klaxons.

Knightley, 26, was introduced to Righton, 27, by mutual friend Alexa Chung four weeks ago.

A friend of Knightley is quoted saying, "She's extremely happy right now and really enjoying spending time with James. He's a real rocker and a lovely guy with it and she likes that whole scene -- lately she's become far more rock and roll and has been hanging out with a really trendy crowd."
The friend continues, "Keira's really smitten with James but wants to just quietly get on with it and see what happens."

But a source does reveal that Knightley plans to "take things slowly," especially since she and her ex were together for five years before they broke up.

The source says, "Keira's been making sure things move slowly. She certainly won't be stepping out on a red carpet with James in the near future. It's really early days."

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James Franco denies being stoned at the Oscars

Did you think that James Franco looked totally stoned off his rocker when he hosted the Oscars with Anne Hathaway? Nope, we didn’t either. But apparently it was a big enough deal for David Letterman to ask him about it on his show last night.
 
The story goes like this: James and Anne were drafted in as presenting hosts, hoping to bring something young, fresh and funky (we reckon that’s the kind of lingo the people in suits behind the scenes use) to the awards, but their efforts came under scrutiny as James, apparently, had little energy which lead some people questioning whether he’d been smoking da herb.
 
People said I was under the influence,

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James Franco denies being stoned at the Oscars

Did you think that James Franco looked totally stoned off his rocker when he hosted the Oscars with Anne Hathaway? Nope, we didn’t either. But apparently it was a big enough deal for David Letterman to ask him about it on his show last night.
 
The story goes like this: James and Anne were drafted in as presenting hosts, hoping to bring something young, fresh and funky (we reckon that’s the kind of lingo the people in suits behind the scenes use) to the awards, but their efforts came under scrutiny as James, apparently, had little energy which lead some people questioning whether he’d been smoking da herb.
 
People said I was under the influence,

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Elizabeth Taylor's Dark Secret About James Dean Revealed

As the world mourns the loss of an American icon, newly released details from a 1997 interview with Elizabeth Taylor reveals a shocking secret about legendary film star James Dean that she allegedly kept for most of her life.

According to The Daily Beast, writer Kevin Sessums interviewed Taylor for a cover story for POZ, an American magazine dedicated to AIDS activism. It was then the actress reportedly let him in on a secret about Dean, a close friend of hers.

"I loved Jimmy. I'm going to tell you something, but it's off the record until I die. OK? When Jimmy was 11 and his mother passed away, he began to be molested by his minister," she revealed to Sessums, who was sworn to secrecy.
"I think that haunted him the rest of his life. In fact, I know it did," she said of her friend. "We talked about it a lot. During 'Giant' we'd stay up nights and talk and talk, and that was one of the things he confessed to me."

Taylor and Dean starred together in 1956's 'Giant,' a film in which Dean earned his second posthumous Best Actor Academy Award nomination. The actor was killed in a car accident in 1955 at the age of 24.

Taylor died Wednesday of congestive heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she had been hospitalized for the past six weeks.

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