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Articles written by Lynn Elber


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  • Crystal to the rescue for 84th Academy Awards show

    LYNN ELBER, AP Television Writer

    LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Oscar ceremony has much to prove Sunday, including whether a blockbuster-free field can draw a TV audience and if Billy Crystal's host routine remains a crowd-pleaser. Brian Grazer and Don Mischer, the show's producers, are laughing off the challenges: "Comedy is the direction we're going in this year," said Mischer. For Crystal, who returns to the ceremony (6:30 p.m. MST, ABC) after an absence of eight years, that means jokes and patter that were being rehearsed at the last minute to avoid punch l...

  • 'American Bandstand' host Dick Clark has died

    LYNN ELBER, AP Television Writer

    LOS ANGELES — Dick Clark, the ever-youthful television host and tireless entrepreneur who helped bring rock 'n' roll into the mainstream on "American Bandstand," and later produced and hosted a vast range of programming from game shows to the year-end countdown from Times Square on "New Year's Rockin' Eve," has died. He was 82. AP Photo/File Dick Clark selects a record in his station library in Philadelphia on Feb. 3, 1959. Clark, the television host who helped bring rock `n' roll into the mainstream on "American B...

  • 'Taxi,' 'Grease' star Jeff Conaway dies at 60

    LYNN ELBER, Associated Press Television Writer

    LOS ANGELES — Jeff Conaway, who starred in the TV comedy"Taxi," played swaggering Kenickie in the movie musical "Grease" and publicly battled drug and alcohol addiction on the reality show "Celebrity Rehab," died Friday. He was 60. The actor was taken off life support Thursday and died Friday morning at Encino Tarzana Medical Center, according to one of his managers, Kathryn Boole. "It's sad that people remember his struggle with drugs. ... He has touched so many people," she said, calling Conaway a kind and intelligent m...