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Behind The Scenes: Trivia And Other Gossip


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Patrick is from my state and every year he helps out with funding for cancer research and also gave a large amount to the hospital in Lewiston. I've seen him on live local news and he seems to be a very compassionate and kind human being. He's also funny and very down to earth. I think Washington is an arrogant hot head and if it weren't for Shonda he would have been fired a long time ago. There were probably many other times on set that Washington wasn't professional.

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4 hours ago, rcc said:

Patrick is from my state and every year he helps out with funding for cancer research and also gave a large amount to the hospital in Lewiston. I've seen him on live local news and he seems to be a very compassionate and kind human being. He's also funny and very down to earth. I think Washington is an arrogant hot head and if it weren't for Shonda he would have been fired a long time ago. There were probably many other times on set that Washington wasn't professional.

Well, Patrick Dempsey had his own issues which appear to have resulted in Rhimes firing him and killing Derek. He was known for being late on set, but it doesn't appear that it was so bad that they couldn't have dealt with it. However, he had that affair with the much younger production assistant that turned the set into a war zone. Rhimes moved the staffer to another department where she'd be less likely to be in contact with Dempsey. I think the affair had been going on for about 6 or 7 months by the time Rhimes found out about it. Unfortunately, Ellen Pompeo found out about it and told Dempsey's wife, who was friends with Pompeo. If you've ever seen Pompeo's episode of Punk'd, it's clear she finds nothing funny about cheating.* Anyway, Dempsey and his wife separated and filed for divorce. Dempsey and Pompeo were not getting along because of this. The set was a disaster because their two leads hated each other.

There was also something going on with Dempsey in the 90s that turned a career with some heat kind of cold. I don't know if it was his marriage to his 1st wife, who was 30 years older than him, or that she alleged that he was physically abusive. Their divorce dragged on for a couple of years. Dempsey's had his issues too.

I don't know how Shonda Rhimes managed to cast so many people with problematic reputations: Washington, Heigl, Dempsey. It's especially funny because she originally wanted Rob Lowe for McDreamy.

*For context, their server was hitting on Pompeo's husband. Pompeo was ready to cut a bitch.

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5 hours ago, GaT said:

This is an old one. When Jeri Ryan joined Star Trek: Voyager as Seven of Nine, Kate Mulgrew was apparently not at all happy & was a bitch to her.

http://trekcore.com/blog/2014/11/ryan-mulgrew-feud/

Interesting because everyone on the Orange Is The New Black set loves Kate and looks up to her as a mother figure. She's hosted dinners at her house for the cast and everything. Maybe Jeri was a pain in the ass on set but we'll never know.

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46 minutes ago, memememe76 said:

I don't watch GA but I am shocked Patrick was fired. Patrick still wanted to be on the show? 

It's not explicit, but it's the kind of thing where they're talking around the issue. Dempsey "says" he wanted opportunities to pursue other things, but that the twist was written late in the season. However, he still had a year on his contract and wanted to decrease the number of episodes he had to film for the same salary. The network didn't do much promotion for his death, which they usually do to juice the ratings. Then Shonda gave an interview where she joked about firing an actor because she didn't like them. She didn't say who.

http://people.com/tv/patrick-dempsey-chandra-wilson-on-his-greys-anatomy-death/

http://people.com/tv/greys-anatomy-abc-exec-on-killing-off-patrick-dempseys-derek-shepherd/

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1 hour ago, memememe76 said:

I don't watch GA but I am shocked Patrick was fired. Patrick still wanted to be on the show? 

Dempsey was fired from the show, but not for the fight with Isiah Washington. Washington was fired, and as I recall, was sort of black-listed for years after this. Dempsey was fired years later.

BTW, I don't watch Grey's Anatomy either, but it seems I can't ever escape hearing about the behind-the-scenes shenanigans. Someone should really make a show based on all the crap going on off-screen on that show. All they need is an cast-or crew-member popping up alive when thought previously dead. ;)

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2 hours ago, maraleia said:

Interesting because everyone on the Orange Is The New Black set loves Kate and looks up to her as a mother figure. She's hosted dinners at her house for the cast and everything. Maybe Jeri was a pain in the ass on set but we'll never know.

The show got rid of Jennifer Lien (Kes) to pay for Jeri, & Kate was pissed & took it out on Jeri which I think is very unprofessional. It's wasn't Jeri's fault the show decided to get rid of Jennifer.

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39 minutes ago, GaT said:

The show got rid of Jennifer Lien (Kes) to pay for Jeri, & Kate was pissed & took it out on Jeri which I think is very unprofessional. It's wasn't Jeri's fault the show decided to get rid of Jennifer.

The problem was that there really wasn't much more that they could do with Kes.  Kes was rapidly evolving into a near-omnipotent creature whose powers would have made it ridiculously simple for her to zap Voyager home (as it was, she was able to send the ship nearly 10,000 light-years further in the direction of the Alpha Quadrant in less than a minute as her "parting gift"to the ship and her crew).  As I always understood it, it was a mutual decision between the producers and Jennifer Lien to let her go.

And Jeri Ryan once said in an interview that she knew exactly what she was letting herself in for when she went in for her first costume fitting after Seven's transformation.  She knew full well that she was more or less intended to be the show's female eye candy.

Edited by legaleagle53
2 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

 As I always understood it, it was a mutual decision between the producers and Jennifer Lien to let her go.

There was one additional factor involved in this.  Jennifer Lien wasn't really the first choice to be let go.  The producers wanted to get rid of Garrett Wang; Ensign Kim.  They didn't really have any more ideas for what to do with him.  So they had planned to have him be killed off, and Jeri would have "replaced" him. 

However, in between seasons 3 and 4 (the time frame here), Wang ended up on People magazine's "50 Sexiest" list for that year.  That bump to his popularity is what kept Kim alive and moved the axe to Lien.

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10 hours ago, SVNBob said:

There was one additional factor involved in this.  Jennifer Lien wasn't really the first choice to be let go.  The producers wanted to get rid of Garrett Wang; Ensign Kim.  They didn't really have any more ideas for what to do with him.  So they had planned to have him be killed off, and Jeri would have "replaced" him. 

However, in between seasons 3 and 4 (the time frame here), Wang ended up on People magazine's "50 Sexiest" list for that year.  That bump to his popularity is what kept Kim alive and moved the axe to Lien.

Really? Never knew that. I'm glad they didn't kill off the one Asian on the bridge, but man, Kim got some horrible stories. They definitely didn't know what to do with him, and it showed.

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I binged-watched Voyager on Netflix a couple months ago. After Seven of Nine joined the cast, it became "The Seven of Nine Show".  I liked the character, but I understand why the "star" of the show would resent that.

That said, taking it out on Jeri Ryan was unprofessional and petty, but actors are creatures of ego.

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Maybe it was a dastardly ingenious plan of Kate's to make their on-screen relationship feel more realistic since Seven of Nine was somewhat wary and suspicious of Janeway in the beginning? ;)

It must have been incredibly uncomfortable for the the other cast members and the crew too. That's very disappointing.

1 hour ago, DittyDotDot said:

Maybe it was a dastardly ingenious plan of Kate's to make their on-screen relationship feel more realistic since Seven of Nine was somewhat wary and suspicious of Janeway in the beginning? ;)

Ironically, there was a Captain Seven shipping sect in the fandom that Jeri Ryan never could figure out.

On 02/01/2017 at 6:52 PM, MaryMitch said:

I binged-watched Voyager on Netflix a couple months ago. After Seven of Nine joined the cast, it became "The Seven of Nine Show".  I liked the character, but I understand why the "star" of the show would resent that.

That said, taking it out on Jeri Ryan was unprofessional and petty, but actors are creatures of ego.

Well, Voyager pre-Seven of Nine was not a good show, and would probably not have lasted seven seasons, meaning Mulgrew and everyone else would have been out of a job.

Jeri Ryan effectively saved them by playing a character that energised writers and engaged fans who had not been particularly enamoured of the dry, cold, boring tales that the first three seasons offered up. Not that it became a particularly good show even with Seven, but it was better, and offered something new in the form of a Borg drone learning to become human again. Yes, she got the lion's share of storylines, but it's not like there was much competition. I mean, what were they going to do, give us more Chakotay episodes?

If Mulgrew made Ryan's life as difficult as stories say, then screw her for being an unprofessional asshole. She should have known full well that actors aren't responsible for creative decisions made at executive level.

Interesting that they were considering killing Harry Kim off, because he was utterly useless. Nearly as useless as Neelix. I am baffled as to how Garrett Wang got onto any Top Fifty Sexiest list, though. He's an attractive guy, but using character had all the charisma of a bowl of cold porridge.

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I mean, what were they going to do, give us more Chakotay episodes?

I'd have kept watching if they had.  Seven of Nine (or Miss Jello Molds, as a friend and I called her) killed my interest very quickly.  You're right that it wasn't a very good show pre-Seven, but for me, it got worse afterwards, not better.

That said, if Kate Mulgrew treated Jeri Ryan badly behind the scenes, there's no excuse for it and it would've been very unprofessional.  Having always liked KM, I hope that wasn't the case.

Edited by proserpina65
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I stayed to the end with Voyager and while it wasn't good I did resent it becoming the Seven of Nine show.  I was a Kes fan so that might have had something to do with it. 

I also thought part of Voyager becoming the Seven of Nine show had to do with Jeri Ryan divorcing her husband and becoming involved with a producer of the show. Did I imagine that?

I just hate all sci-fi that seems to think the fans won't stick around if there's not a hot girl to ogle.

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5 hours ago, jah1986 said:

I also thought part of Voyager becoming the Seven of Nine show had to do with Jeri Ryan divorcing her husband and becoming involved with a producer of the show. Did I imagine that?

Yes, she started dating Brannon Braga, who was a producer of the show. She's said that things got better after that happened.

Interestingly, I just found this video from DragonCon with Jeri Ryan & Garrett Wang, & he discusses what the set was like with the tension.

On 10/21/2016 at 5:57 PM, Blergh said:

  Chaos Theory,

 

 Not a bad hypothesis yet I seriously doubt that Miss Barr or Mr. Arnold  would EVER retrospectively consider the positive aspects of their relationship which ended quite toxically .    They been by no means   Lucy/ Desi in that capacity.

 

Actually, it's possible they might.

Tom Arnold did appear at Roseanne's Comedy Central Roast in 2012, and praised her and her career. Time can heal some wounds, I guess. 

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3 hours ago, UYI said:

 

Actually, it's possible they might.

Tom Arnold did appear at Roseanne's Comedy Central Roast in 2012, and praised her and her career. Time can heal some wounds, I guess. 

I guess at least on his part some wounds have healed but I've never heard anything on her part to draw that conclusion. Time will tell.

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More political trivia:

Jeri Ryan's super messy divorce and custody battle forced her ex-husband, Jack, to drop out of the race for the senatorial seat that Barack Obama would win that brought him to national attention and gave him a platform to run for and become President of the United States. If Jack hadn't allegedly dragged Jeri to sex clubs across the globe and forced her to have sex with strangers, things today might be very different. 

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1 hour ago, AimingforYoko said:

Eh, Obama probably would still have won. He definitely wouldn't have gotten 70% of the vote, though. (Alan Keyes, GOP? Really?)

You're right. He probably would have. Obama was up about 10 points in the polls. Alan Keyes was a fantastically terrible replacement candidate.

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On January 2, 2017 at 3:56 PM, legaleagle53 said:

Ironically, there was a Captain Seven shipping sect in the fandom that Jeri Ryan never could figure out.

I may need to go back and do a good binge watch but at the time when I was watching it live, oh yeah, the subtext of Captain Seven felt very real and while initially unintentional seemed to be was played up a bit as the show went on. Maybe like with Willis and Shephard in Moonlighting, the offcamera friction translated to onscreen chemistry.

Jeri appears to have had at least one friend on set as she and Robert Picardo are always crazy friendly on Twitter. I loved Doctor Seven and after Janeway, Seven had the most scenes with the Doctor. Story dictated/demanded that Seven's evolution be Janeway's personal project but hitting on the two 'misfits' of the crew also bonding and making their journey together and Ryan and Picardo having such great chem may have been a blessing for Ryan so she wasn't running for her trailer every chance she got.

The ST crews and behind the scenes are fascinating. TNG much like TOS had their male lead have diva issues which the cast resented but because they were all adults and in it together they became really tight. Patrick Stewart is always first to say he was a dick sometimes during his run and his cast mates agree and yet by the end he got over himself, apologized, and you regularly see them tweeting, hanging out, ribbing each other.

Nerdist has great podcasts from years back with Stewart and LeVar Burton where they touch on it. Patrick called LeVar out on dozing while wearing Geordi's eyepiece and LeVar laughs and says Patrick was worse. Also apparently if you discount XMen money, Michael 'Dorny' Dorn made out the best off of ST (obviously since he did 7 years TNG and 5 years DS9 and the movies) because he at the time had a jet, LOL.

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On 10/02/2017 at 0:21 AM, HunterHunted said:

More political trivia:

Jeri Ryan's super messy divorce and custody battle forced her ex-husband, Jack, to drop out of the race for the senatorial seat that Barack Obama would win that brought him to national attention and gave him a platform to run for and become President of the United States. If Jack hadn't allegedly dragged Jeri to sex clubs across the globe and forced her to have sex with strangers, things today might be very different. 

Not that it makes much difference, but I don't think he was accused of forcing her to have sex with strangers, but tried to get her to have sex with him in front of strangers, at sex clubs.

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14 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

Not that it makes much difference, but I don't think he was accused of forcing her to have sex with strangers, but tried to get her to have sex with him in front of strangers, at sex clubs.

What I think is a big difference, though, is the one between "force her" and "try to get her."  I'm less disturbed by the situation after reading this post, but I guess I still don't know whether he forced her to do things or tried to get her to do them.

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4 minutes ago, janie jones said:

What I think is a big difference, though, is the one between "force her" and "try to get her."  I'm less disturbed by the situation after reading this post, but I guess I still don't know whether he forced her to do things or tried to get her to do them.

Yeah, the reason I modified it is because I don't know whether she actually did any of the things he was trying to get her to do, or how forceful he was about it. This came out when their divorce case was unsealed during his election campaign, I think, but neither of them elaborated on it (understandably). Back then objectifying and demeaning your wife was a good way of killing your political career. How things change....

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Because I mentioned her in the "Green Acres" thread, I thought it might be fun to share a bit of one of my classic fave comediennes Gracie Allen!

Since her widower George Burns would live to 1996 before dying at age 100[!] and was a working entertainer almost until his death, I hope enough folks here are interested via him to consider her worth reading about.

 

 Anyway, she born in San Francisco sometime around the turn of the 19th century but was so coy about  the exact date that even George claimed not to know. She liked to say she was born in 1907 but that the Birth Certificate had been lost in Big Quake. When George pointed out that the Big One was in 1906- she'd quip "That was SOME quake!" Either via her birth or having gotten glass shards in one at an early age, she had differently colored eyes (one green and one blue). A more tragic childhood accident resulted in her badly scalding one arm with a pot of boiling water which she always took great pains to hide via constantly wearing long sleeves and/or gloves. From the time she was three, she helped support her mother and siblings by dancing since her father had abandoned the family but in her early twenties she decided to trade her dancing shoes for another kind of entertaining via auditioning for a 'straight girl' role with the struggling comedian George Burns (born Nathan Birnbaum). It was customary for there to be duos in which a zany man would bounce his lines off the straight woman to the audience delight. However; with Gracie's piercing, unique birdlike voice, the audiences laughed at HER straight lines and were silent at his zany ones. George was shrewd enough to realize that they could make a gold mine if they reversed the conventional deal by having her be the zany one telling wacky tales about her family with illogical logic ruling! So, it would be that they became a big hit on vaudeville stages nationwide and it wasn't too long they realized they loved each other and decided to flip another convention on its ear by marrying- which, in the 1920's was somewhat dicey due to his Jewish birth and her Catholicism but they overcame their mothers'objections due her charming his mother and telling her own that George 'would get over' his Jewishness!  After their joint stage career became successful, they decided to start a family but decided to adopt since they couldn't have any biologically.  They adopted a girl and a boy and, despite the duo constantly working and often travelling, Gracie especially was a dedicated parent. The stage career soon got them to radio and movie fame which George used to buy a Hollywood mansion with a swimming pool which he would swim in every day he was home well into his late 90's. Gracie herself had zero interest in sports or outdoor activities (which would have required her to expose that scarred arm) yet she was so determined to make sure her small children could swim that she secretly overcame her own fear of drowning and took swimming lessions then, one glorious day, she did a perfect swan dive than swam the length of the pool  one time JUST to show her children that ,if she  could learn to  swim, so could they. Then she got out of the pool, never to return,despite her family's pleas- ever!   She also was plagued with very bad migraines for a most of her adult life which would require her to go to a dark, quiet room and lie down (and even check into hospitals) yet, despite this, she only missed ONE radio performance due to them [in which, of all people, Jane Wyman subbed for her with the audience being none the wiser].  Gracie  wasn't above having a temper herself.  Once when George inadvertently forgot to hold a door for her, she kicked in him the backside and exclaimed "Next time, you'll remember to hold the door for a lady!"She and George did very well on television for seven years and were at the peak of popularity when she decided that her health and spending time with her grandchildren was more important than the show- and surprised everyone by retiring from entertainment after roughly fifty years. She'd spend the next six years enjoying her retirement before she died of a heart attack in 1964. There was a great deal of uncertainty whether George would have any kind of career after this (and he himself totally gave HER the credit for the success of the duo) but he proved naysayers wrong by becoming successful entirely in his own right the last few decades of his life.  Despite his many flirtations and flings after her death, he never considered remarrying visiting her grave monthly to 'update' her on his life- and when he died not only would be buried with her but his heirs had   the inscription changed(as per his last wishes)  to 'Together Again'.

Edited by Blergh
punctuation
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On 4/30/2017 at 3:32 PM, Blergh said:

There was a great deal of uncertainty whether George would have any kind of career after this (and he himself totally gave HER the credit for the success of the duo) but he proved naysayers wrong by becoming successful entirely in his own right the last few decades of his life.

Yes, his famous line was:  "All of a sudden, the audience realized I had a talent. They were right. I did have a talent—and I was married to her for 38 years."

Both their radio show and their TV show were not just really funny, even today, but kind of wildly surreal.  Not formulatic sitcom stuff at all.

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Speculation that Morning Joe co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were more than just colleagues goes back years with viewers and the media, even as they were both married to other people. With the recent announcement of their engagement, tales of how the story (largely) stayed under wraps are being unearthed (via The Daily Beast): 
 

Quote

 

Yet the gossip column cemetery is chock-a-block with killed stories about Joe & Mika’s alleged off-air intimacies.

In one such case in November 2013, shortly after Scarborough’s divorce from his second wife was finalized (and three years before Brzezinski’s official split from her own spouse), The New York Post’s Richard Johnson was preparing to declare them an item.

According to sources familiar with the situation, a distraught Brzezinski reached out to then-Fox News CEO Roger Ailes —like Johnson, a vassal in the Murdoch media empire—and tearfully asked Ailes, with whom she was friendly, to intervene with the gossip columnist, arguing that their respective children would be hurt by such publicity.

Ailes made his pitch to Johnson on Brzezinski’s behalf, and the columnist obligingly stood down.

The next day, the sources said, Johnson was rewarded when Scarborough phoned him and gave him the juicy scoop that Alec Baldwin was about to be fired from his short-lived MSNBC program.

 

I would love to know how often these sorts of "exchanges" happen in the celebrity gossip world!

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On 02/01/2017 at 0:38 PM, Trini said:

Really? Never knew that. I'm glad they didn't kill off the one Asian on the bridge, but man, Kim got some horrible stories. They definitely didn't know what to do with him, and it showed.

I am also surprised to hear this. That character was dead weight on the show and they never did anything with him, even after Seven was introduced. Are you sure this is an accurate story?

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Seems pretty mild so far, but the actor who plays Kevin James' wife on his sitcom has been let go for season 2 at the same time as Leah Remini was added as a cast regular (playing his former cop partner). Producers say they're going a different direction with the show, but it was doing all right in the ratings as is. Maybe a bit of retooling, maybe getting rid of dead wood? I may actually watch next season to see what's up.

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On 6/3/2017 at 7:08 PM, Lord Donia said:

Seems pretty mild so far, but the actor who plays Kevin James' wife on his sitcom has been let go for season 2 at the same time as Leah Remini was added as a cast regular (playing his former cop partner). Producers say they're going a different direction with the show, but it was doing all right in the ratings as is. Maybe a bit of retooling, maybe getting rid of dead wood? I may actually watch next season to see what's up.

That's interesting because according to the BTS gossip of King of Queens Leah was difficult and she and Kevin hated each other. Maybe she is a new person now that she is away from the Scientologists?

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I don't think Leah and Kevin "hated" each other. Leah has said that sometimes they got on each other's nerves on set but always made up. She has said she loves him and would work with him again. Now she has her wish and I'm looking forward to next season.

Kevin is an executive producer and if he hated Leah no way would he hire her for his new show.

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9 hours ago, rcc said:

I don't think Leah and Kevin "hated" each other. Leah has said that sometimes they got on each other's nerves on set but always made up. She has said she loves him and would work with him again. Now she has her wish and I'm looking forward to next season.

Kevin is an executive producer and if he hated Leah no way would he hire her for his new show.

I googled BTS gossip on King of Queens and the one article I found basically said that the BTS at Grey's couldn't top the BTS on King of Queens.  So that would be a lot of BTS drama.   It sounded like they were both strong personalities.

I don't know that he haters her.  Maybe time and distance mellowed whatever happened back then.  I would think that the ntwork might have pushed hard (like a condition of renewal) to get Remini in hopes of getting PR from her Scientology show with an added bonus of reuniting them and maybe picking up the lapsed portion of the audience that watched King of Queens.

I would also think that Leah leaving Scientology might be enough incentive to give working together a second chance because it removes a few likely circumstances that probably weren't supportive of a happy set.

6 minutes ago, cpcathy said:

Actually, in her book, Leah mentions that she never tried to recruit anyone on the set or any other set. She just left it alone. I think the Church wanted her to but she wouldn't do it. She said Kevin is Catholic (unless I'm mis remembering) and she didn't try to mess with that.

That isn't what I'm thinking of.  At a minimum, I would think the lack of personal and vacation time to relax required by studying Scientology couldn't have been good for stress levels and mood which would influenced relationships.

(edited)
Quote

Production on the upcoming season of the ABC reality series was halted over the weekend over "allegations of misconduct" following DeMario Jackson and Corinne Olympios allegedly hooking up in the pool after the cast had been "drinking all day." 

Are we supposed to believe this sort of thing has not happened before?

Edited by ennui
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