Love, Marilyn airs Monday at 9 p.m. on HBO.
Photo: Milton H. Greene ©2012 www.archiveimages.com/courtesy of HBO

“The Ancient Greeks had Oedipus. We have Marilyn.”

At first, that statement made by a Marilyn Monroe biographer at the start of the HBO documentary Love, Marilyn, sounds outlandish. But by the end of the mostly effective (if a tad too long) movie, which premieres Monday at 9 p.m., the comparison to Greek tragedy doesn’t seem so far-fetched.

After all, the Marilyn Monroe story long ago achieved mythical status. In the more than half century since her death in a Hollywood bungalow at age 36, she’s been the subject of more than 1,000 books and she remains a pop culture icon, instantly recognizable by the mere mention of her first name.

Even now, she makes the news on a fairly regular basis — last week saw the release of the notes of infamous Hollywood P.I. Fred Otash, who claimed to have secretly taped an argument between Monroe and Robert F. Kennedy hours before her death. The morning shows and Tinseltown trade mags took note.

But what else, really, is there to tell? Love, Marilyn does its best to add to the Monroe legend by using the actress’s personal writings — journal entries, poems, random thoughts, even to-do lists — that were unearthed after years in storage and published in 2010. Director Liz Garbus enlists an impressive roster of actors, including F. Murray Abraham, Janet McTeer, Uma Thurman and Oliver Platt, to give voice to the writings.

The gambit works to varying degrees: Thurman, for instance, lends tremendous grace to her readings, while the overly dramatic interpretations of some stars like Evan Rachel Wood and Ben Foster tilt toward the cringeworthy. And is it really a good idea to have poor Lili Taylor excitedly read a recipe for roasted chicken?

Garbus weaves in archival news footage and interviews, and some of the actors read excerpts from the pantheon of Monroe biographies, including works by Norman Mailer, Gloria Steinem and Lee Strasberg, the acting coach who steered Monroe toward legitimacy late in her career and once claimed that she and Marlon Brando were his most talented students ever.

Without much new information — there’s nothing in Love, Marilyn that anyone at all familiar with the legend of Norma Jean doesn’t know already — it’s up to the presentation, and Monroe’s heretofore secret writings do shed a little more light on her persona. They confirm what many suspected, and some knew: Behind that buxom, bubbly actress was a thoughtful, conflicted, talented artist. That she confined that part of herself mostly to her own personal notes is just another layer of sadness atop her already tragic story. 

Love, Marilyn premieres Monday night at 9 p.m. on HBO as part of its Summer Documentary Series. Watch the trailer here.

Jeffrey Tambor and Jessica Walter as George and Lucille Bluth on Arrested Development.
Courtesy Netflix

TV’s recent past is littered with sitcoms that portray older people as caricatures — the senile, loopy grandma played by Cloris Leachman on Raising Hope, William Shatner’s angry old guy at the center of the blissfully short-lived $#*! My Dad Says, even doddering Abe Simpson, bless his soul. But on Arrested Development, while George and Lucille are kooky, they’re also full-bodied, layered characters, vital to the chaotic storylines that careen around and crash together.

“Older characters usually just come on, punch it up, and leave,” says Tambor, 68, who plays not just George Bluth, but also his twin brother Oscar, both of whom have had romantic entanglements with Lucille. “We’re there, with a full workload.”

“Good TV parts for older actors are few and far between,” agrees Walter, 72. “Older people on most TV series are: dad is a (jerk) and mom is a loud-mouthed fool. I don’t think TV reflects how older people are important and valued in society.”

They both say they were lucky to have landed together on Arrested Development — “we make a good team,” says Walter — but their continued show biz vitality owes more to hard work and versatility than good fortune.

Walter currently gives voice to Malory Archer on FX’s animated hit Archer and until recently had a starring role on TV Land’s now-defunct Retired at 35. And between Arrested Development, a role as a TV news exec on the Amazon.com pilot Onion News Empire, a part in The Hangover Part III, a busy teaching and speaking schedule (his annual acting seminar at SXSW is one of the festival’s most popular sessions), the indie bookstore he owns in L.A. and a vibrant Twitter presence (@jeffreytambor), Tambor is as busy as he’s ever been.

“One of the secrets of Jessica and I is that we’re nimble,” says the actor, who doesn’t get much rest at home with four children under 8. “The work keeps me young. I’ve had the luck to have people around me, and inspiration around me, to be able to invent and reinvent myself.”

AD has been off the air since 2006, but restarting its engine wasn’t hard.

“It was a little bit surreal,” Walter admits. “But once we were all together in that penthouse (set) that was recreated down to the nails on the wall, looking at the same faces and hearing the same old voices — it’s like bike riding. You never forget.”

“It’s the right timing, the right property and the right engine,” Tambor says of the revival on Netflix, which will make all 15 season four episodes available at once. “People are telling me they’re going to miss work to watch all of it. I couldn’t be happier.”

Recently, a man stopped him in the airport. Tambor assumed he would be asked to pose for a picture. Instead, he asked for one favor: That he simply say George Bluth’s famous line, “There’s always money in the banana stand.” Tambor happily obliged — and has since turned the quote into a tagline at speeches, like the commencement address he recently gave at Penn State Lehigh Valley.

“It is sort of an optimistic note. When George said it he meant it literally, but now I’ve sort of co-opted it — to say there’s always hope.”

The Michael J. Fox Show will air Thursday nights on NBC beginning this fall.

NBC, like all the big TV networks, is in New York this week unveiling new fall shows for advertisers. But regardless of what they think, there was plenty for grownup viewers to like in the lineup revealed Monday. Taking a page from the CBS playbook, NBC has hired a number of boomer favorite stars in new comedies and dramas.  Among those appealing to the 50-plus audience:

The Michael J. Fox Show: Best remembered for his role as Alex P. Keaton in Family Ties, Fox, 51, has had memorable recurring roles on CBS’s The Good Wife and FX’s  Rescue Me — but this will be his first starring role in a sitcom since he left Spin City in 2001. The show is based on his life as a celebrity dad in New York City (Fox plays a local news star) raising kids and dealing with Parkinson’s disease, as is Fox, of course.

Watch trailer: The Michael J. Fox Show

Sean Saves the World: Sean Hayes, 42, of Will & Grace fame headlines this sitcom as a gay dad who takes custody of his teen daughter. Notable among the regulars is Linda Lavin, 75, who has been absent from the sitcom landscape since her starring role in Alice ended in 1985.

Watch trailer: Sean Saves the World

The Blacklist: James Spader, 53, is the world’s most wanted man, Raymond Reddington, who suddenly turns himself in to the feds and offers to help them track down assorted terrorists and baddies — but only if newbie agent Liz Kean (Megan Boone) is assigned to all his cases. Spader looks to be in his creepiest form, and the premise has a definite Hannibal/Agent Starling vibe, right down to the red wine (Chianti, perhaps?) Reddington swirls seductively in the show’s trailer.

Watch trailer: The Blacklist

Ironside: Blair Underwood, 48, wheels into the title role originated by Raymond Burr in this update of the 1960s crime drama about a brilliant New York City detective confined to a wheelchair. Also of interest, Kelsey Grammer’s daughter Spencer, 29, is part of the cast.

Watch trailer: Ironside

Dracula: Are vampires still cool enough to attract a TV audience? NBC aims to find out by exhuming the famously undead bloodsucker — this time around played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers, 35 — for another go-round, this one a period piece set in Victorian London. The cable influence is clear: Dracula is from the producers of Downton Abbey and Showtime’s The Tudors, and it’s as edgy and bloody as one might expect on network TV.

Watch trailer: Dracula

Huey Lewis and the News are touring this summer on the 30th anniversary of their hit album Sports.

Rest easy, America: Huey Lewis says the heart of rock ’n’ roll is still beating.

“Popular music is one thing America makes that the rest of the world still wants,” the easygoing singer said during a recent phone call from his Montana home.

It’s been 30 years since Lewis first weighed in on the pulse of America’s most coveted export. Sports, the album that produced “The Heart of Rock ’n’ Roll,” was released in 1983. When it  first hit record stores, Huey Lewis and the News were still finding their footing.

“Every evening I’d come home from the studio,” says Lewis, “and lie awake in bed for hours on end. I knew it was a make-or-break record.”

Lewis needn’t have worried. Sports became a mammoth hit, racking up sales of more than 10 million. In 1984, only four albums topped the Billboard charts: Michael Jackson‘s Thriller, Bruce Springsteen‘s Born in the USA, Prince’s Purple Rain and Sports (which dethroned The Boss for a week at the end of June).

The 62-year-old Lewis calls Sports a “collection of singles” that the band carefully crafted for maximum radio play. The album achieved that and then some, spawning five Top 20 singles, including “If This Is It” and “I Want a New Drug.”

To celebrate the album’s 30th anniversary, the group is hitting the road this summer, playing more than 80 shows across the country (the tour starts May 10 in New Brunswick, N.Y.). The plan, Lewis says, is to play the entire record, all nine tracks, in sequence.

“I was reluctant at first,” Lewis says about playing the entire album at each show, “but the rehearsals have been a gas. It’s going to be really fun.”

A newly remastered version of Sports hits stores on May 12. Throwing their most popular album a 30th-birthday party makes sense for the band, he says, because they were all around 30 when it was recorded. (Lewis was 32.) Huey Lewis and the News were never particularly cool, but that casual style has enabled the band to age comfortably.

“I’d be lying if I told you that was deliberate,” Lewis says. “I just am who I am. I realized early on that the object for us is a career. You start into this because you want to be a star or whatever, but then all you want is to play music and have people show up. If I didn’t do anything back then to be popular, why now?”

In addition to Sports tunes, fans can expect to hear such ’80s band hits as “The Power of Love” and “Stuck with You.” Lewis will also unveil a new song with the poignant title “While We’re Young.”

Lewis moved from San Francisco to Montana a decade ago, and it sounds like he has a pretty idyllic existence going out in the mountains.

“First thing I do every morning is take 15 minutes to put on my socks,” he jokes. “But I’ve got golf. I’ve got fly-fishing. Wait a minute — remind me why I’m about to do 85 shows again?”

Huey Lewis and the News will perform on Jimmy Kimmel Live on May 15. For their summer tour dates and ticket information, visit www.hueylewis.com. 

Last Dance for ‘The Office’: Phyllis Smith (far left) calls the series finale, which airs May 16 on NBC, “bittersweet.”

For the past nine years, Phyllis Smith has played Phyllis (Lapin) Vance, the sneakily snarky den mother on NBC’s The Office. The Lemay, Mo. native was a dancer during her youth—she was a member of the St. Louis Cardinals cheerleading squad and was once part of a burlesque troupe in her home city—but her role on The Office was her very first acting gig. When the series finale airs May 16 at 9 p.m., she will have appeared in all 184 episodes.

At 61, Smith plans to continue her unexpected acting career. We talked with her by phone from Los Angeles, where she lives with her 91-year-old mother and her four cats.

You filmed the final episode of The Office a few weeks ago. What was that like?

Bittersweet. Just about everybody on the crew has been with us for the entire nine years. We’ve seen so many babies born, and kids starting school and everything else. So that was hard. And for me, in the morning we’re so used to being greeted by the lovely people in the trailers who make us look gorgeous. Now I get out of bed and nobody does my hair and nobody does my makeup. I have to get used to that after nine years!

The Office was your first acting job, after years of casting shows like Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and Spin City. How did that happen?

I was working on the pilot in the casting department and we were pairing up people to see what the chemistry was like. The director had me read the character of Pam one day. I just assumed that someone hadn’t shown up, or was late, or whatever. I had no idea he was auditioning me. I’m glad I didn’t know.

How did the show change your life?

My parents were living in St. Louis at the time and they were older, and my dad was ill, and I didn’t know how I was going to be able to keep my job in casting. The work was in L.A. and they were in St. Louis. And I literally prayed to help me win the lottery. There was absolutely no way on my salary in casting that I could ever afford to travel back and forth to them and do what I’ve been able to do.

One of the appealing things about The Office was that it treated its older characters with the same respect (or comedic lack thereof) as the younger ones.

I felt kind of ageless there. Occasionally they would make note of the fact that Phyllis was older. They called me Granny Goose one time. In general, I think (creator) Greg Daniels and the writers did a great job of keeping the characters fresh. They didn’t dwell on age.

Any favorite episodes?

I enjoyed my wedding, of course. There were other little moments that really didn’t involve me that I loved. The Oscar/Michael moment when he kisses Oscar was very funny. That was completely ad-libbed. He planted one on him!

Any thought about what happens to Phyllis after the finale?

Well, I think even though she’s married to one of the richest guys in Scranton, she’s going to continue to work. Maybe a refrigerator falls on Bob and she ends up running Vance Refrigeration while he recuperates.

What’s next for you?               

I’m doing a voice in a Pixar movie, though unfortunately I can’t tell you the title. I think it’s really going to be great. I auditioned this past week for a film. I did an ABC pilot, though we won’t find out for a while if it’s going to get picked up.

You had quite a career transformation after your 50^th birthday. What would you say to others who are transitioning to a new phase of life, either at work or in their personal life?

Just go for it. Don’t be afraid of trying new things. You have absolutely no idea what’s going to present itself to you. Don’t be frightened. Just buckle down and do whatever your heart desires.

From left: Sarah Chalke, Elizabeth Perkins and Brad Garrett star in How to Live with Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life)

How to Live with Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life) sports a title (and a mouthful of one at that) that speaks directly to many boomers whose adult children have moved back home. Premiering tonight at 9:30 p.m. on ABC in the plum post-Modern Family time slot, the new sitcom bursts out of the gate with more than a few belly laughs. It’s funny enough to make you hope it can find an audience during its spring run so that it can stick around and get even better.

The show’s main selling point is its first-rate cast, a likable, talented group of sitcom vets led by Sarah Chalke (Roseanne, Scrubs) as Polly, a recently single mom who, along with her young daughter, moves in with mom and stepdad following her divorce. “I’m not a failure,” she points out to one of her co-workers at a Whole Foods-esque market. “I’m trendy.”

Mom and Dad are played by Elizabeth Perkins and Brad Garrett, who are no strangers to successful TV shows themselves. Perkins had a long-running role on Showtime’s Weeds, and Garrett has bounced around in middling sitcoms ever since his career-defining role as the brother-in-law on Everybody Loves Raymond. The show gives mom and dad the usual sitcom quirks, but at least they’re funny ones: Garrett, in fine gravelly voiced form, is an exercise nut who refuses to wear workout clothes, choosing instead to go jogging wearing a cashmere sweater and khakis, while Perkins is a boozy broad with no ability to censor herself and no shortage of self-regard. “I’m so delightful!” she shouts at one point during the premiere.

HTLWYPFTROYL (the acronym doesn’t really help much, does it?) certainly isn’t the first sitcom to capitalize on intergenerational cohabitation — that’s been a sitcom staple since Archie and Meathead were butting heads — but it’s a nice twist on the genre and could settle in to form a fun new-age family sitcom pairing alongside Modern Family. The current show it most closely resembles may be Fox’s wonderful New Girl, with Chalke in the Zooey Deschanel role as its funny, appealing center and Garrett and Perkins as her comic relief roomies, in this case offering sometimes surprisingly cutting boomer humor. “Kids are boring,” Perkins says to Garrett during a chaotic night of babysitting their granddaughter. “We’re the fascinating ones.”

Theo James (left) and Chi McBride star as partners on the NYC Homicide Task Force in the new CBS drama ‘Golden Boy’.

A lackluster stretch for new network dramas comes to an emphatic end tonight with the premiere of Golden Boy, the gripping new CBS cop show that breathes fresh life into the standard police procedural.

British newcomer Theo James, 28, plays New York City cop Walter Clark, the hotshot of the title. Golden Boy’s hook is that we first meet Clark seven years in the future, just after he is named the youngest police commissioner in the city’s history. The completed Freedom Tower looms outside the picture window of his enormous office. A newspaper reporter queries him about his quick rise up the NYPD ladder — and then the action flashes back to his present-day beginnings as a beat cop.

It’s clear that the series will use the framework consistently, with each episode further illuminating Clark’s path to his lofty perch. Telling the story this way is a risk, but at least in the first few episodes, it works wonderfully, lending the flashbacks, which make up most of each episode, added meaning, as we know (or think we know) how the whole thing turns out.

In tonight’s premiere, Clark’s heroism during a hostage standoff turns the fledgling officer into a media darling, a status he skillfully parlays into a prime spot on the city’s elite homicide task force, where he’s the youngest detective by a decade, and resented for it. There’s the usual assortment of macho rivalries among the detectives and soon enough, a body turns up dead.

The show relies on the standard case-of-the-week setup. But what sets it apart — and what makes Golden Boy such a promising variation on the reliable cop show trope — is the mentor-protégé relationship into which Clark settles with partner Don Owen, a long-in-the-tooth detective played by Chi McBride. Owen’s introduction borders on the cliché, especially as he barks to his chippy young partner about his impending retirement, which he hopes his eager young partner won’t jeopardize.

The 51-year-old McBride (Boston Public, House, M.D.) lends Owen a wonderfully self-assured air, the kind that comes from hard-earned experience, and it plays in nice contrast to Clark’s impulsive hothead. The show is snappily written, taking its time to reveal its characters’ ambitions and motivations — Clark cares for a young sister with drug problems, and there are hints that his past isn’t squeaky clean.

The best scene in tonight’s very solid premiere solidifies the May/December partnership at the heart of the show: old pro Owen calmly counsels his impatient young colleague against planting evidence, and warns against taking shortcuts when building a case. Watching it and knowing how far Clark will eventually climb, it’s easy to wonder if he advances because of the advice, or in spite of it — and to want to keep watching to find out.

Golden Boy airs tonight at 10 p.m. on CBS. It airs next Tuesday night at 10 p.m. as well, then moves to its permanent Friday night slot at 9 p.m. on March 8. Episodes are also available online at cbs.com.

Billy Campbell plays Abraham Lincoln and Jesse Johnson is John Wilkes Booth in National Geographic Channel’s ‘Killing Lincoln’.

With Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln still playing in theaters and among the favorites to win multiple Oscars, interest in the 16^th American President is high. National Geographic Channel is capitalizing on that Lincoln-palooza with its first scripted drama, Killing Lincoln, which is set for a President’s Weekend premiere on Sunday at 8 p.m.

Narrated by Tom Hanks and based on the book of the same name by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, the movie traces the actions of  assassin John Wilkes Booth in the days and weeks before and after the shooting at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1965. In recounting the three-pronged assassination plan put in place by Booth and his co-conspirators (who also attempted to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward) the movie effectively illuminates the constant danger that hovered over Lincoln during his final months in office. The assassination was the fifth attempt to kidnap or kill the President during the final year of his life. One of the first scenes in the film shows Lincoln (Billy Campbell) riding a horse alone on a farm outside Washington, when a sniper’s bullet takes off his hat, narrowly missing his skull.

Campbell, 53, holds his own in the thankless position of being the first actor to take on the role of Lincoln since the magnificent Daniel Day-Lewis, who carries Spielberg’s film to heights that Killing Lincoln can’t possibly match. But this story is really a police procedural, following the bread crumbs that led Booth to Ford’s Theatre that fateful night. Newcomer Jesse Johnson is nicely menacing as Booth, and the movie, directed by Gettysburg’s Adrian Moat, looks great. Yet for all the star power Hanks’ narration lends it makes the movie’s flow more than a little bit choppy. Nat Geo is calling it a “scripted drama,” and it is, but the narration makes it play like an odd mash-up of a Ken Burns documentary and a period drama.

The public fascination with Lincoln seems nearly limitless — Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals, on which Spielberg’s film is partly based, is still on the New York Times bestseller list eight years after its publication. Killing Lincoln is currently among Amazon’s top 100 sellers. This adaptation may not captivate those familiar with its story, but it fits neatly into the Lincoln canon, and makes for worthwhile viewing on President’s Day eve.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Alfred Molina stars as a demanding chief of surgery on TNT’s new medical drama ‘Monday Mornings.’

If the doctor drama was a hospital patient, it would be listed in serious condition, especially after last week’s low-rated debut of NBC’s Do No Harm all but guaranteed another cadaver will soon be ushered into the doc show morgue.

Turns out, though, that there’s almost always another doc show in the waiting room. Checking into the TV landscape tonight at 10 p.m. on TNT is Monday Mornings, an old school medical drama from veteran TV producer David E. Kelley, whose resume includes L.A. Law, Ally McBeal, The Practice and Chicago Hope.

The first episode starts off with a jolt of adrenaline, as the camera rides a gurney whisking a patient into the ER at Chelsea Hospital in Portland, Ore. From there, the pilot becomes a whirlwind of character introductions and diagnoses (or missed diagnoses, as the case may be) of rare diseases that are sure to have hypochondriacs opening their WebMD apps to check symptoms.

It’s a good thing, then, that many of the characters capture our interest, and that the diverse (but perhaps too large) cast includes actors like Alfred Molina, Ving Rhames and Bill Irwin. Molina is a particular standout as Dr. Harding Hooten, the demanding chief of surgery who runs the weekly meetings from which the show takes its title — tense surgeons-only sessions where medical mistakes are examined, and the doctors who commit them come under brutal examination before their peers. It’s that twist of self-examination (and self-recrimination) that makes Monday Mornings more intriguing than many medical shows of late.

Based on the novel of the same name by CNN correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Monday Mornings also delivers the goods for those who prefer medical dramas to dig up diseases of the week, House-style. But at least in its first few episodes, it doesn’t deliver the cures to those diseases quite so neatly. This is a series that acknowledges what most of us prefer to put out of mind when we visit a doctor or hospital — that any minor mistake or oversight could have drastic consequences. Whether there’s an audience for a show that puts that unsettling truth in viewers faces each week remains to be seen, but for now it merits at least a few follow-up appointments to check on its progress.

In NBC’s new Do No Harm, Steven Pasquale plays a brilliant doctor by day, and a raving lunatic by night.

The TV medical drama is on life support.  A genre that gave us ratings powerhouses like St. Elsewhere, ER and House has been disappearing from network lineups.  ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy is the only one still standing. Till now.

Next week, Monday Mornings, a medical drama from Chicago Hope producer David E. Kelley and CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta, debuts on TNT. Up first, though, is NBC’s Do No Harm, part medical drama, part thriller, premiering tonight at 10 p.m.  Do No Harm revolves around Philadelphia neurosurgeon Jason Cole (Stephen Pasquale) — a caring, brilliant doctor by day who transforms into raving lunatic Ian Price each night at exactly 8:25 p.m., then remains that way for 12 hours. There are moments of campy delight in the premiere — I especially liked the way the camera zooms in on Pasquale’s pupils as the character makes his violent transformation, a la Bill Bixby in the old ‘70s-era Incredible Hulk — but the premise strains credulity.  In just the first show, the doctor beats up a patient’s spouse, assaults a colleague and has a breakdown in the middle of surgery. Something tells me someone at the hospital — maybe the head of surgery played by Phylicia Rashad — would take away his stethoscope, fast.

Executive producer David Shulner told television reporters recently that the show has “a lot more layers than just good and evil.” Critics, however, disagree calling it “laughable” (The San Francisco Chronicle) and “bunkum” (Newsday). Conversely, The Wall Street Journal cited its “considerable charm.”

In fact, there’s potential in this Jekyll and Hyde update. But it needs to get better, stat.