Jodie Foster to get leadership award
LOS ANGELES - Jodie Foster needs to make more room on her trophy shelf.
The 45-year-old star will add the Sherry Lansing Leadership Award to her collection of Oscars, Golden Globes and other awards.
Lansing, former chief of Paramount Pictures, will present Foster with the award Tuesday at The Hollywood Reporter's 16th annual Women in Entertainment breakfast.
The actress-director-producer "has consistently maintained a sensibility and quality that is not easily sustained in this industry," publisher John Kilcullen said Thursday. "She clearly embodies the qualities of excellence and achievement that this award was created to honor."
Previous recipients include Barbara Walters and Meryl Streep.
Foster's film credits include "Taxi Driver," "The Accused," "The Silence of the Lambs" and this year's "The Brave One."
Movie planned about Bonds and steroids
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — HBO Films is planning to turn a best selling book about Barry Bonds' alleged steroid use and the federal government's wide-ranging probe into performance enhancing drug use in sports into a movie, one of the book's authors said Thursday.
Lance Williams, a reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle, said that Ron Shelton has been tapped to direct the flick and will co-write the script with "Tin Cup" partner John Norville once the Hollywood writers strike is settled.
The planned movie based on the book "Game of Shadows" was first reported Wednesday by Variety.
Williams co-wrote the book with sports writer Mark Fainuru-Wada, who recently left the Chronicle to join ESPN.
Much of the book was based on secret grand jury testimony of Bonds and other famous athletes leaked to them by Troy Ellerman, a disbarred attorney sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for denying under oath he was the reporters' source.
The book recounts how Bonds allegedly began using steroids in 1999 after becoming jealous of Mark McGwire setting Major League Baseball's single season home run mark the previous season.
An HBO spokesman declined to comment.
O'Brien to pay nonstriking staffers
NEW YORK - With his nonstriking "Late Night" staffers facing layoffs after Friday, Conan O'Brien has promised to cover their salaries next week, an NBC spokeswoman said Thursday.
"He's paying the staffers' salaries out of his own pocket," NBC spokeswoman Rebecca Marks said. She said O'Brien had informed his staffers earlier in the day. The nonwriting staff numbers about 75.
Production of "Late Night" has been suspended since the writers strike began Nov. 5.
Through this week, NBC had been covering the salaries of its nonwriting staffers, along with those of "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and "Last Call with Carson Daly," which are also in reruns.
But the network thus far has not said whether it intends to continue paying employees of any show on hiatus. All three programs are owned by Universal Media Studios, which, like NBC, is owned by General Electric.
Two weeks ago, before NBC made its initial arrangement, O'Brien had pledged to pay his staffers should the need arise. O'Brien is a member of the striking Writers Guild of America, as are fellow hosts Leno, ABC's Jimmy Kimmel and CBS's David Letterman.
About the same time, staffers of "Late Show with David Letterman" and "Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" were promised continued payment at least through December by Letterman, whose production company, Worldwide Pants, owns both shows. They continue in reruns.
Staffers for "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" continue to be paid by ABC, according to a network spokesperson.
Earlier this week, Daly, who is not a WGA member, announced "Last Call" was resuming production, with new shows to begin airing next week.
Defending his decision to return to work, Carson said in a statement that, otherwise, "roughly 75 staff and crew would have lost their jobs."
"As a non-WGA member I feel I have supported my four Guild writers and their strike by suspending production for a month," he said.
Negotiations between striking TV and movie writers and producers continued Thursday.