Although NBC won’t let Conan O’Brien have a show at 11:30 p.m. on its network, a famous comedy club says it will give him a nightly spot.
The Laugh Factory, on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood, is where Michael Richards of “Seinfeld” got in hot water for a racial epithet and where Dave Chappelle broke comedy records by being on stage for more than six hours.
And now the comedy club’s marquee reads: “Laugh Factory offers Conan O’Brien 11:30 show every night.”
“Conan comes in quite often,” a Laugh Factory source told Radaronline, “and it’s always unannounced.”
Conan may take them up on the offer as a way to warm up his act that he’s taking on a 30-city tour beginning in June. It’s called “The Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television Tour.”
The comedian, who was pulled from his Tonight Show gig after seven months, is reportedly in talks with Fox to launch a talk show there.
George Clooney‘s girlfriend Elisabetta Canalis is going on TV.
Canalis, 31, will appear in five episodes of the TNT drama “Leverage” when the show, starring Timothy Hutton, begins its third season this summer, People reports. She will play a mysterious woman simply known as “the Italian.”
Canalis, who began dating Clooney, 48, last summer and has been by his side throughout Hollywood’s award-show season, is a popular TV presenter and actress in her native Italy. She made her professional debut 10 years ago on the satirical daily news show Striscia la Notizia and has appeared in various movies and TV series, including this year’s Fratelli Benvenuti.
“Leverage” features a gang of con artists who exact revenge against those who use power and wealth to victimize people.
Gabourey Sidibe is the target of a weight-loss company that is claiming the Oscar nominee should be worried about her health.
The “Precious” star has become the new focus of AcaiSupply, which says it wants to help Gabourey fight obesity. The company calls obesity “this terrible affliction” that has become a “major epidemic” in the U.S., TMZ reports.
The weight-loss company is offering Gabourey a year’s supply of their product if she’ll endorse it and lose weight.
“The only way you can reach your goal of someday winning that Oscar is by being active, fit, and most of all, healthy!” the CEO wrote in a letter to Gabourey.
Gabourey’s rep has yet to comment on the story.
Senn Penn says he and his relief organization will stay in Haiti “as long as this (earthquake refugee) camp is here.
He’s been everywhere in Haiti, helping out. Look closely at the foreigners buzzing around a hospital tent above one of Haiti’s biggest earthquake-refugee camps and a face stands out: There, carrying the box of supplies, that’s Sean Penn.
Now he’s guiding a Haitian girl to waiting doctors. Now he’s lobbying the chief of U.N. peacekeeping operations to provide better security for the camp’s 45,000 people. And now he’s talking to the press.
“These people are going to have nowhere to go, by and large, in the rainy season,” the Oscar-winning actor told The Associated Press. “The efforts that we’ve seen … have been extraordinary — down the line. But this is an impossible kind of situation.” The 49-year-old actor came to Haiti about a week after the Jan. 12 quake killed a government-estimated 230,000 people and made 1.3 million homeless. He’s left just a a few times since — mostly for Haiti-related meetings, he said, and to present the Oscar for best actress — and doesn’t plan to leave again until mid-April.
His blue-shirted workers with the newly formed Jenkins-Penn Haiti Relief Organization provide medical care, water filters and food. On Sunday, they opened a health clinic for mothers and victims of a growing sexual assault epidemic.
“As long as this camp is here, we’ll stay here. When this camp’s not here anymore then we’ll have to be where we are accessible to people,” Penn said.
— The Associated Press also contributed to this report
lsmith@denverpost.com
