In this Feb. 17, 2016 file photo, Jennifer Hudson attends the Michael Kors 2016 show during Fashion Week in New York. Hudson and Harvey Fierstein will headline the cast of NBC’s “Hairspray Live!” (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File)
By Mark Kennedy, Drama Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --
Jennifer Hudson and Harvey Fierstein will headline the cast of NBC's "Hairspray Live!" on Dec. 7.
Based on the cult John Waters movie set in 1960s Baltimore, the show concerns the full-figured Tracy Turnblad whose fondest wish is to appear on a local television dance program.
Hudson, who will play Motormouth Maybelle, is currently in the Broadway revival of "The Color Purple." She won an Oscar and Golden Globe in 2007 in the hit film "Dreamgirls."
Fierstein, who is also writing the teleplay, will cross-dress and play Edna Turnblad, Tracy's mother, a role he created and won a Tony Award for in the stage version of "Hairspray."
The new live musical will be directed for TV by Alex Rudzinski, who helmed "Grease Live!" Kenny Leon will direct the stage show.
Chuck Woolery hosts a special premiere of the "$250,000 Game Show Spectacular" at the Las Vegas Hilton Saturday, Oct. 13, 2007, in Las Vegas. (Ronda Churchill/Las Vegas Review-Journal via AP, File)
Chuck Woolery, the affable, smooth-talking game show host of "Wheel of Fortune," "Love Connection" and "Scrabble" who later became a right-wing podcaster, skewering liberals and accusing the government of lying about COVID-19, has died. He was 83.
Mark Young, Woolery's podcast co-host and friend, said in an email early Sunday that Woolery died at his home in Texas with his wife, Kristen, present. "Chuck was a dear friend and brother and a tremendous man of faith, life will not be the same without him," Young wrote.
Woolery, with his matinee idol looks, coiffed hair and ease with witty banter, was inducted into the American TV Game Show Hall of Fame in 2007 and earned a daytime Emmy nomination in 1978.
In 1983, Woolery began an 11-year run as host of TV's "Love Connection," for which he coined the phrase, "We'll be back in two minutes and two seconds," a two-fingered signature dubbed the "2 and 2." In 1984, he hosted TV's "Scrabble," simultaneously hosting two game shows on TV until 1990.
"Love Connection," which aired long before the dawn of dating apps, had a premise that featured either a single man or single woman who would watch audition tapes of three potential mates and then pick one for a date.
A couple of weeks after the date, the guest would sit with Woolery in front of a studio audience and tell everybody about the date. The audience would vote on the three contestants, and if the audience agreed with the guest's choice, "Love Connection" would offer to pay for a second date.
Woolery told The Philadelphia Inquirer in 2003 that his favorite set of lovebirds was a man aged 91 and a woman aged 87. "She had so much eye makeup on, she looked like a stolen Corvette. He was so old he said, 'I remember wagon trains.' The... Read More
