Nygel Lythgoe, Mary Murphy

Not that we would have guessed it, but Mary Murphy has spent part of this season’s “So You Think You Can Dance” audition period under a cloud of fear.  A survivor of thyroid cancer, the boisterous judge revealed to AARP.com that she has “had more health tests that were not looking good.  They thought I had ovarian cancer, and they thought the thyroid cancer had come back.”

She described coming in to work between medical appointments.  “It looked like for sure I had it after the first test.  They were saying you’re going to have an operation and blah-blah-blah,” she recalled.  “Then I got on the internet and read about it…and I thought, ‘What am I going to do with my bucket list?  I haven’t done everything I want to do.’”  Eventually, further tests showed that her ovarian cysts are not cancerous.  Now, a highly-relieved Murphy plans to be extremely good about keeping tabs on her condition, especially “because that’s how it started with my thyroid.  At first it was just a tumor that wasn’t cancerous, but years later it became malignant.  And I hadn’t been keeping a close eye on it because I was so busy.”  Her successful treatment included surgery in 2010.

As for keeping up her sunshiny front on the show these past weeks, the dance champion, choreographer and enthusiastic fan told us it wasn’t a front.   “One thing that’s amazing about dancing — it transforms you, it transports you to another world.  Just seeing that, I don’t care what kind of mood you’re in or what you’re doing.  When you see dancing, it’s uplifting.  With some of the things these kids come up with, you’d have to be a rock not to be moved.”  Those familiar with the outgoing, high-energy “Queen of Scream,” know she means it.   She is so excited about the selection of the Season 10 Top 20 finalists – being revealed on this Tuesday’s (6/18) two-hour episode – ”I get less and less sleep the closer we get.  I’m pretty revved up about it.”

If you’re not already into it, Top 20 night is a perfect time to begin watching the best talent competition show of the summer.  The wow factor of the dance numbers, in terms of creativity, execution and range of styles, continues to amaze.

“If anything, you get more excited because you know dancers push themselves more and more,” Murphy said.  “I feel like they’ve stepped up the game every year.  By now we’ve had several people tell us they were nine years old when they first saw the show, and decided right then and there that someday they were going to be on ‘So You Think You Can Dance.’”

The Best Actress in a Play category alone gives us Holland Taylor, who at 70 not only starred in, but also wrote her one-woman play about the late, tart-tongued Texas Governor Ann Richards.  And it gives us the brilliant Laurie Metcalf, 57, who has earned raves for playing a woman in the early stages of dementia in The Other Place.  Tony prognosticators, however, are predicting a Best Actress win for Cicely Tyson, who, at 79, is credited with making the revival of Trip to Bountiful a grand theatrical experience.

Then there’s Andrea Martin, nominee for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical for Pippin.  The 66-year-old funny lady of SCTV and My Big Fat Greek Wedding renown  stops the show every night with a jaw-dropping number in which she swings from a trapeze.

Of course, 56-year-old super star Tom Hanks — the odds-on favorite to win Best Actor in a Play — has perhaps the most touching back story of these awards.  It was not quite a year ago that he lost his long-time friend and collaborator, Nora Ephron (Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail) to a blood disorder.  Now, here he is, up for a Tony for starring in her last work, Lucky Guy, in which he plays a New York tabloid reporter.

Cyndi Lauper most certainly must be included among the exciting stars over 50 nominated for Tonys this year.  The legendary singer, 59, is up for Original Score honors for Kinky Boots, the merry tale of a transvestite who collaborates with a shoe factory owner to save the business, with book by 61-year-old theater fave Harvey Fierstein.

Sigourney Weaver, 63, and David Hyde Pierce, 54 are in the comedy sensation Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike — nominated for six Tony Awards including Best Play —written by Christopher Durang, 64, Weaver’s Yale Drama School buddy back in the day.

There will be 14 performances in the program, this year to be presented from Radio City Music Hall rather than the Beacon Theatre.  Neil Patrick Harris, 39, a producer on the show as well as hosting (for the fourth time) this year, told David Letterman that with the larger venue, they’re attempting to do an even bigger opening number than before.  If you’ve seen Harris’s past opening numbers (personal favorite: Not Just for Gays Anymore), you know that at the very least, the first 10 minutes of the 67th Annual Tony Awards are a must-see.

Well, I’m here to tell you, come Saturday, June 8, Lifetime unveils that movie. It’s The Good Mother starring Helen Slater. Slater, whose work we’ve enjoyed from Supergirl through The Legend of Billie Jean and The Secret of My Success, has been toiling away of late on ABC Family’s The Lying Game. Playing the woman afflicted with the rare and bizarre ailment known as MBPS gave her much more to do.

“There was something so satisfying about playing something with that emotional range. I would have to say it’s the most satisfying role I’ve had on film or television,” Slater told us. “She’s really hiding who she is. That was what made it such an interesting role; wanting to appear a certain way, then when the stress gets too much, just losing it, emphatically and explosively, in an operatic way, when she can no longer keep up the veneer of perfection.”

Slater, who cofounded the New York theater group The Naked Angels with Gina Gershon, is the genuine article as an actress. She loves stage work and does improv regularly. She approached The Good Mother with care. “I did coach for the part,” said Slater, who has a teenaged daughter in her off-screen life. “But once I was getting to set, it was kind of ‘Let go, let go, let go.’ I mean, you have to reach a point where you let go when doing something like this. I would talk to my husband as I was about to leave and he’d say, ‘What’s today?’ and I’d say, ‘Oh, I’m killing the children.’ ”

The Good Mother has been fashioned more as a thriller than a docu-drama, and Slater says she’s glad about that. “It’s obviously very dark subject matter. This mother who really loves her children but is making the children feel sick because she wants to feel needed and loved. I think the way it’s couched for this movie, where you really don’t know what is going to happen and there are so many interesting twists and turns, makes it really an incredible ride.”

Courtesy Talk Radio News Service Flickr photostream

At last — Michael Douglas as Liberace, on HBO. The highly touted, much-anticipated Behind the Candelabra, from filmmaker Steven Soderbergh, with Matt Damon as Liberace’s 40-years-younger lover, Scott Thorson, is clearly the TV event of the week.  In fact, it will air for weeks and be available on demand. Here are 10 points to enhance your viewing experience.

1.  Emmy time! Critics are almost universally calling Douglas’ performance a tour de force. Kudos are being heaped upon Damon as well, but this is Douglas’ show.

2.  It is a big, emotional comeback moment for Douglas, who teared up in a Cannes press conference last week as he talked about the role being a “gift” that came to him after he got through his battle with throat cancer.

3.  Douglas’ father, Kirk, owned a house in Palm Springs in the same neighborhood as Liberace, and Douglas saw a lot of “Lee” growing up.

4.  The actors threw themselves into the love scenes. Damon said at Cannes that he warned the crew about getting a look at his bare bum: “You can’t unring that bell.” Douglas said that kissing Matt wasn’t bad.

5.  “We take the relationship seriously. I was very anxious that we not make a caricature of eitherof their characters or of the relationship,” Steven Soderbergh made it clear at the Winter Television Critics Association press tour. He also said that he found it appealing that after a certain point in the film, “Lee” and Scott are “having discussions that every couple has.”

6.  Well, not every couple. One of the jaw-dropping sequences has a scene-stealing Rob Lowe as Dr. Jack Startz, the bizarro plastic surgeon enlisted by Liberace to remake Scott’s face into a younger version of his own.

7.  Debbie Reynolds, almost unrecognizable in the role of Liberace’s mother, Frances, got to know both mama and son very well when she and Liberace were headlining in Vegas at the same time. Soderbergh and Douglas said that Debbie’s stories were too spicy to repeat to the general public.

8.  The real Scott Thorson’s arc has gone like this: foster child to adored teenage boyfriend-of-the-star to druggie — to convict. He is currently in the Washoe County Jail in Nevada for burglary and identity theft. In an interview trumpeted to media with the headline “A lot of people wouldn’t think of him as a child molester …” Thorson told Entertainment Tonight that he was “taken aback” that nobody came to talk to him for the movie adapted from his book of the same title. Battling anal cancer, he also asked cancer survivor Douglas for help — “I’m desperate.”

9.  A who’s who of cinema creatives contributed to Behind the Candelabra. It was scripted by Richard LaGravanese (The Horse Whisperer, The Fisher King). The supporting cast also boasts Dan Aykroyd, Paul Reiser, Cheyenne Jackson and Scott Bakula. And the suitably dazzling musical component bears the magic touch of the late Marvin Hamlisch  Behind the Candelabra was his final project.

10.  Behind the Candelabra was turned down by Hollywood studios as “too gay,” according to Soderbergh, who says that the concern was that only the gay audience would be interested in watching it — which opens the question of just where gay people stand in this realm nowadays. It comes on the heels of the broadcast networks’ cancellation of a slew of series that featured gay characters, including The New Normal, Partners, Smash and Go On. And of course, great as they may be, Douglas and Damon continue Hollywood’s predilection toward having heterosexual actors play gay characters.

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And y’all had better hold on tight for the season finale of ABC’s Nashville on Wednesday (5/22). One of the few surviving shows from last fall’s crop of newcomers, the Music City soap led by Connie Britton and Hayden Panettiere has more than delivered on the promise of  Callie Khouri (Thelma & Louise) as creator and T. Bone Burnett supervising the music. It’s yielded two first-rate soundtracks and featured a number of Nashville names including Pam Tillis and Vince Gill. This week’s show has Brad Paisley as himself, singing with Rayna (Britton) and her guitarist/lover/secret baby daddy Deacon (Charles Esten). Nashville had a jaw-dropping penultimate episode that, if you missed it, you may want to watch prior to this week’s show. If so, don’t read any further.

As things stand, we have Rayna and Deacon ready to come out publicly as a couple at the CMAs and be happy in spite of mean ole ex-husband Teddy the mayor (Eric Close) and his restraining order shenanigans. But, uh-oh, daughter Maddie (Lennone Stella) has found the box! It’s not too sharp of Rayna to leave this evidence lying around in a not-so-hard-to-find spot. Maybe deep down she wants Maddie to know the truth despite her promise to never, ever ever reveal it. What would Dr. Freud have to say? Meanwhile, Juliette (Panettiere), who had to endure viewing the accursed sex tape with a group of lawyers and her mother in the room, doesn’t have to worry about being blackmailed any longer, because mama Jolene-the-addict (Sylvia Jeffries) shot Dante (Jay Hernandez)  and then OD’d.  Where the heck is all this going to go now?

According to the show’s Judith Hoag (politically ambitious sister Tandy), the cast is sworn to secrecy and all the scripts are watermarked, which makes her glad: “I think keeping secrets is a lost art.” She says that although the cast was optimistic about Nashville being renewed, “we’ve all had our hearts broken so many times when things felt like sure bets, we didn’t want to assume anything. And we had these really long pauses with two or three episodes in a row that were reruns. We really tested our audience to see if they would hang on. You have no say in it,” she adds, speaking of the network’s scheduling. However, adds the actress, “Social media saved the day. A few years ago, this wouldn’t have been possible, but now you can talk to your fans — you can tweet about it, now you can go to Facebook about it and let people know what is going on, and that is a really cool thing.”

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The worst is behind us – not only Randy’s tired catch phrases, but also Nicki Minaj’s endless self-important posturing and Mariah Carey’s and Keith Urban’s blandness.  Now we are at the good part:  The “Idol” finale’s array of guest performers ranging from Adam Lambert to Frankie Valli, Jennifer Lopez, Alicia Keys, maybe Jennifer Hudson – plus Mariah, poised to remind us of what she does best with a medley of her hits!  Let us hope it is much better than the awful “#Beautiful” video she unveiled on this past Thursday night’s show.  She looked like she was trying too hard with all the grinding atop a motorcycle, etc.

The fact that Jackson’s departure news comes on the heels of word that he is also no longer going to serve as Mariah’s manager, and reports that Fox was poised to give all the judges their walking papers, hints that the behind-the-scenes angst in this season of sharp ratings decline is even worse than we thought.  I never thought I’d feel sorry for Mariah, but the glitzy pop queen came into the show expecting to follow the success pattern of Jennifer Lopez and has ended up the loser in a war of words with brash rapper Nicki, whose Twitter feed has been rife with insults, calling Mariah bitter and insecure, among other things.

On the bright side, the season wound up with exceptional contestants.  The final three – Candice Glover, Kree Harrison and Angie Miller — already look like stars.  It will be nice to see Angie back performing this week after her unexpected ouster.  Who’ll score the win? Candice has the voice, as anyone who heard how she sent “Somewhere” rocketing into the stratosphere last week can attest.  Nashville songstress Kree has the back story, persisting in chasing her dream despite having lost her father in a plane crash and mother in an auto accident at a young age.

As for “Idol’s” future?  If the show lucks into the right judges it could be refreshed anew, as it was with Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez.  The post-Season 12 scramble to put “Idol” back together again is bound to be quite a show in itself.

Marilu Henner, left,  guest stars on Two and a Half Men Cliff Lipson/CBS

The broadcast networks’ season is coming to an end, and series showrunners are hell-bent to leave us wanting more.  The next two weeks we will see stunt casting, cliff-hangers and plot twists enough to lure even the most casual viewer to the tube.  Here are seven we want to see:

1.  Laura San Giacomo guests on tonight’s (5/5) The Mentalist season finale, which returns to Patrick Jane’s (Simon Baker) quest to find Red John, the serial killer who murdered his family.  He has his list of suspects down to seven as, in this episode, Red John strikes anew. These Red John teases had better lead to something soon.  As leading lady Robin Tunney herself pointed out, “Historically, with television, people will get on the bandwagon with something and then it’s very clear when they’ve given up.  Everybody wanted to know who killed Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks, but it went to a certain point and then everyone turned on David Lynch.”  Words to the wise for Mentalist creator Bruno Haller.

2.  On Thursday, May 9, Glee winds up its fourth season with Patty Duke and Meredith Baxter playing a lesbian couple who take lovebirds Kurt and Blaine (Chris Colfer and Darren Criss) under wing.  Sarah Jessica Parker, Kate Hudson, and Idina Menzel also will be back.  The show has lost its luster for me, but I can’t help being intrigued by all this guest star action.  Glee recently got renewed for not one, but two more seasons, and it appears Duke and Baxter will recur come fall. Duke has been wanting to do series work again for years, so this is great for one of our favorite stars.

3.  Also on May 9, Two and a Half Men will have another favorite, Marilu Henner, as the hot grandma of Hilary Duff’s character.  Ashton Kutcher is interested in 25-year-old Hilary , until becoming much more attracted to her fabulous, worldly-wise sexegenarian mamie.  This sounds like a dream scenario to me.  The DVR will be ready.

4.   On May 13, How I Met Your Mother concludes its eighth season with the long-awaited wedding of Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) and Robin (Cobie Smulders) promised by series co-creator Craig Thomas.  But wait.  Red flags are flying.  Barney isn’t really going to give up his womanizing ways, is he?  Robin has proven she gives as good as she gets, and doesn’t mind clobbering Barney emotionally.  Is this a couple that should wed?  One thing we know for sure is that the series’ title parent will not be revealed until Season 9.

5.  Also on May 13, there’s the Castle Season 5 conclusion, and Beckett (Stana Katic) wants to know if her relationship with Castle (Nathan Filion) is an ocean of love or just a sweet drop of rain, as Smokey Robinson might put it.  “An emotional cliff-hanger” is how exec producer Andrew Marlowe put it.  The hard world invades their happy bubble — at least until next season.

6.  CSI finishes its 13th season —Ted Danson’s second — on May 15 with a storyline that has Tim Matheson as a highly intelligent doctor suspected of a string of Dante’s Inferno-inspired murders.  Annabella Sciorra and Eric Roberts also guest star and there’s a special appearance by Black Sabbath!  Yeah, with Ozzy Osbourne.  Sounds like CSI all right.  Danson is always watch-worthy, and he has led the way for this granddaddy of current procedurals to remain strong.  No wonder that as soon as Ted’s deal was extended this past March, the show got an early pick-up for fall.

7.  May 16 brings us The Office’s series ender (preceded by a retrospective special), with the Dunder Mifflin gang gathering to chat about their lives post-documentary, as well as for a wedding.  There are surprise guests.  Is Steve Carell one of them?  He said a long time ago that he’d already done his farewell thing at the end of Season 7 and didn’t want to distract from anyone else’s now.  However, TV Line and others are reporting that Carell shows up in a cameo.  We’ll see.

The Big Bang troops turned into starry-eyed fans themselves when they had TV Academy Hall of Famer Newhart in their midst.  “We’ve have had some great people on this set, but he was the first person that I had that feeling of, ‘I can’t believe you’re real,’ ” Jim Parsons gushed to the Hollywood Reporter.  Executive Producer Steve Molaro told us Newhart “was a sheer delight. … It’s not often you get to work with a legend, and when the legend turns out to be as lovely as he is talented, it makes for a truly unforgettable week.”

As for Newhart, at 83 he is getting a big bang out of his career.  He still does stand-up dates,” about 20 a year.  “I’ll always do that, as long as the good Lord gives me the stamina to do it.  I can’t imagine not doing that,” he told us.  And he enjoys picking and choosing his occasional on-camera assignments, “when things come along that are interesting.”  A sequel to the big-screen Horrible Bosses is in the making  and other prospects loom.  The Big Bang Theory marks his first half-hour sitcom appearance in nearly a decade.  He was attracted both by the writing and the fact the show is shot before a live audience. He got a standing ovation from that audience at the taping.  No surprise.

See more blogs from AARP Blog Author Stacy Jenel Smith

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At 77, the actor-writer-director-author and science enthusiast prefers to apply simpler terms to his efforts to leave a mark on the world.  “I like to think of it more like planting a tree rather than making something that I’m remembered for.  What I’d really like to do is leave something that’s useful and helpful, and really changes things.”

Certainly, he already has.  These days, the man best known as Hawkeye Pierce on “M*A*S*H” for 11 seasons spends most of his time in the realms of academia and science, milieus that suit him well — as does his role as a visiting professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.  As we speak, preparations are under way for this week’s Stars of Stony Brook Gala, which is being held in his honor Wednesday at Chelsea Piers in New York City.  Alda is being celebrated for his work as co-founder and member of the advisory board of the university’s Center for Communicating Science.

The seven-time Emmy winner is on a quest to help women and men of science learn how to communicate complex concepts in an understandable way to the public, the media and fellow scientists.  He leads improvisational workshops and has helped develop course work toward that end.  This is Alda’s focus whenever he is not tied up with assignments such as his role as Laura Linney’s sharp-tongued oncologist on The Big C, which returns to Showtime for its final season April 29.  “It was wonderful to do, because I love Laura Linney,” he says.

His Dr. Sherman character, Linney’s oncologist, is known for being quite nasty at times – not what one would expect from a doctor who deals with the dying.

“I know.  There are probably reasons for that – probably communication problems,” Alda says with a laugh.  “It’s the same thing we’ve been talking about.  He could use a little learning about relating to other people and recognizing that there’s a person on the other side of his words.”

Asked whether he finds the show’s focus on end of life difficult, Alda thoughtfully refers back to his own past when he was stricken with a strangulated intestine while filming a PBS series.  “You know, I almost died nine years ago in Chile.  There were a few minutes there when I thought about death in the most real way.  When I thought I might have maybe two hours to live – and I went under anesthetic knowing, ‘I might not wake up from this’ – I took care of business.  I said to a friend who was standing by, I want you to pass on a message to my wife and my children and grandchildren.  It wasn’t a moment of panic,” he recalls.

“It was, ‘Well, I might not wake up from this so I better take care of what I need to take care of.’  Since that time, when I think about death, I don’t fear it anymore.  Because I already faced it.  I used to not want to die in any way but in my sleep when I was a young man.  I’d like to die awake now, if possible, with people around me who love me.”

The bright side of his brush with death has to be the impact it has had on his way of living.  Alda says life has tasted sweeter since the incident in Chile.  In his whirl of busy days now, he gives his time to what really matters to him.  Family time has always been a priority.  He and his wife of 56 years, Arlene, have three grown children and seven grandchildren.  According to him, of the seven, two are interested in acting and one is fascinated by psychology.  No scientists.  At least, not yet.

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Fans of the under-appreciated series will not be surprised that despite these ominous signs, there is a lot of humor in store.   Still, it won’t be an easy ride.  Alan Alda, who plays Cathy’s oncologist, recalled filming those last episodes: “As they got closer to the end of the series, they were really facing the hard realities.”  He stressed, “That’s what you want to do if you’re an artist.  You don’t want to just glide over them.  I realize it’s a tough subject, but when you’re dealing with a tough subject in art, you want to be as tough as possible.”

Besides Alda, guest stars in these final episodes include Brian Dennehy, who is playing the father of Cathy and her bipolar brother, Sean (John Benjamin Hickey).  Kathy Najimy is present as Cathy’s therapist, and designer Isaac Mizrahi is playing a version of himself who takes Gabourey Sidibe’s character under wing and provides light moments.

However things end with Cathy — and I’m not going to predict, because this series has given us unexpected turns in the past — there is no question that the show itself will soon be over.  But it just might find an afterlife in the realm of DVR and DVD.  After all, as Linney herself has stated, it will be helpful to some; for others it will be just too painful.

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