What’s great about white sharks

Great white sharks are going to the beach in record numbers, and nobody knows exactly why. According to “Great White Invasion,” the massive predators have been found in increasing numbers mingling with bathers from South Africa to Australia and along the Southern California coast.
The documentary special airs Sunday, July 31, on Discovery Canada as the first show of the channel’s annual Shark Week.  Other programs include “Summer of the Shark” Tuesday, Aug. 2, about a deadly season in Australia;
“Rogue Sharks” Thursday, Aug. 4, which investigates whether there really are “Jaws”-type serial-killing sharks; and “How Sharks Hunt” Friday, Aug. 5.
“By visiting this pristine beach in South Africa, where there are no people at all, we found huge great white sharks swimming in water that was so shallow, they were basically scraping belly,” says filmmaker and shark expert Jeff Kurr over the phone from South Africa, where he’s working on another great white documentary for next year’s Shark Week. “What that tells me is that great white sharks coming close to shore is a perfectly natural thing. It’s part of what they do, and it’s something they’ve probably done for millions and millions of years.”
So rather than some alarming change of behavior, Kurr says, what we’re seeing is the result of more people going into the water and more shark sightings.
“In some places, like California, there’s an increase in white shark population,” he says. “And that’s due to really good management of the sharks off the west coast of the United States. They’ve been protected there since 1992. So a whole generation of sharks has been allowed to grow and prosper in California waters.”
To a generation raised on the film “Jaws” and its spinoffs, great white sharks prospering may not be a very appealing notion. However, Kurr says, the fictional image of the great white is a very long way from the truth.
“There are more white sharks and more people,” he says. “Does that mean more attacks?
“There may be more incidents, but that doesn’t mean more attacks.  White sharks and people share the same waters, and surfers are out there with their legs hanging down; sharks are going to be curious, and they might brush past.”
The statistics, he says, show that incidents of serious attacks haven’t increased with the shark population and the increase in human bathers.  And this is because the sharks don’t see people as food.
“White sharks are able to coexist very well with people in South Africa and California,” Kurr says. “If a white shark wanted to come in to a beach and kill somebody, it would be very easy for him to do it. When you’re in the water, white sharks are nearly impossible to see.  So people are swimming with them all the time and have no idea that the white sharks are there.”
Kurr started out as one of those “Jaws”-traumatized land dwellers, but he started diving with sharks and filming them 18 years ago and has been part of every Shark Week since 1991. “I think ‘Jaws’ scarred a whole generation,” he says. “And that’s including myself. I was deathly afraid of sharks when I was a kid. It took years and years of diving with them and researching them for me to overcome the fear of sharks.” “Great White Invasion” kicks off Shark Week Sunday on Discovery Canada.

A LOT OF HEART AND A LITTLE BIT OF ‘GLEE’

This may be the perfect reality TV show. It involves ordinary people showing special talent. It pits groups of people against one another vying to win a prize. And the prize goes to a good cause, leaving everybody feeling good. Debuting Wed, Aug. 3, on Global and Sat, Aug.
6 on Slice, “Canada Sings” involves workplace singing groups from organizations across the country, each aiming to win a $10,000 cash prize for a worthy cause. Two of the teams are from Vancouver and we recently chatted with the team captains of 1-800-GOTJUNK (airing Aug.
3) and Eric Hamber (airing Sept. 7) on their experience doing the show. Erin Raimondo handles public relations for 1-800-GOTJUNK and their team name is “Junk Notes”:
WO: How did you hear about the opportunity of Canada Sings & how did your team get together?
ER: I found out about it really late so had to scramble to put a team together. I made calls to our franchise operators in the GVRD and asked if any of their employees could sing or dance. It was a strange call to make!
WO: How did you make your song selections?
ER: We had a song for our “audition” but our voice coach & choreographer were the ones who figured out the song that would be best for our group.
WO: And what was it like to have to focus on the presentation & not just stand there and sing?
ER: It was really tough – very intense and more physical than we expected, but knowing that we were doing this for our charity (Harmony House), kept us going.
David Nicks from Eric Hamber is in the music department of this well-known secondary school. As the team is comprised of faculty members they call themselves the “Edutones”.
WO: Did you hold auditions for spots on the team or were the members obvious choices?
DN: I put up a notice on the school bulletin board asking for whoever was interested to just show up! We took all comers, but due to schedule conflicts we ended up only having three rehearsals with what became our final group.
WO: Was it difficult to get everyone on board with the dancing & performing that was necessary?
DR: Well, we’re not big dancers, we’re pretty much a middle-aged group. Kelly (Konno, choreographer) was great to work with. Those were crazy days as we were dealing with the time change from Vancouver to Toronto.
WO: What did you take away with you from having this experience?
DR: The whole idea was a great opportunity. The producers made it a charity event, not just a talent show, which we, as teachers, really appreciated. We’ve talked about staying together as a group and doing something maybe once a year.
WO: I’m sure all the students were aware of your participation. Have you given them a performance of your routine? I know the results of the show have been kept under wraps until the shows air.
DR: The producers gave us a really big surprise (I’m getting teary just talking about it!). On the fourth day of our “boot camp”
(training for the performance), they flew in 50 of our students to watch us perform. That was amazing!
In the other teams, some of the groups in the competition are all female,some are all male, and a few are mixed. They come from a range of occupations and workplaces including the Hamilton Police Department, Air Canada, Scarborough General Hospital, the Toronto Fire Department, a couple of restaurant chains and a fitness company.
Series creator, Bill  Brunton says, “Not only are these workplaces incredibly interesting and the work that they do is interesting, but it’s also the passion,” Brunton says. “If you see someone in a dance group singing and dancing, and you don’t know who they are, it’s hard to be emotionally connected or to want to cheer for one team or the other. “But if you hear a great story about someone, if you get a real sense of who somebody is, why they do what they do, the back story – if there’s a personal connection to the reason why they’re singing, the song, the lyrics, everything comes alive.”
The first part of each episode is a doc about the two glee clubs: who the members are, where they work and what their connection is to the cause for which they are performing. This is followed by a performance in front of the judges and a theater full of supporters. As Brunton says, there are a couple of key differences between “Canada Sings” and other shows of this type. “There’s something very specific about our show that separates it from all the other singing competitions. And it’s why you’re singing and who you’re singing for.”

Billy the Exterminator: It all began with ants

Lunch with exterminator Billy Bretherton and his mother, Donnie, can be entertaining, but perhaps not for the appetites of anyone in earshot. For example, Donnie Bretherton relates the incident that set her son on his eventual career path. “When Billy was a kid,” she says, “one of the things that stuck out more than anything is he got stung really bad by fire ants. I heard him screaming. I ran out into the backyard, and he had these cowboy boots on. I ripped the cowboy boots off, and the fire ants had gotten in the cowboy boots and stung him so bad that he lost every one of his toenails.
“What was amazing about it, he never forgot that. That was always in the back of his mind, to take care of the insects after that happened.” As to whether his motivation became revenge against pests, Billy Bretherton says, “Not really against anything but fi re ants and wasps.” On Tuesday, Aug. 2, the fourth season of “Billy the Exterminator” launches with 26 episodes on A&E Network, continuing to focus on the day-to-day operation of Vexcon, Bretherton’s family-run extermination business outside Shreveport, La.
Also on the payroll are Bretherton’s brother, Ricky; his mother, Donnie; and his father, called Big Bill. The working uniform of the company — mostly black with silver studs and a skull-and-crossbones motif — reflects Bretherton’s personal style.
In the new season, Vexcon is moving beyond the borders of Louisiana to tackle pest problems in other states. Bretherton and Vexcon head to the Florida Everglades to deal with pythons, to Texas to wrestle gators, to Arizona to chase a herd of sharptoothed javelinas and to South Carolina to fend off geese with an umbrella.
According to Bretherton, this is only the tip of the iceberg. “I don’t think production quite realizes,” he says, “that we’ve got another four or five years once we hit the road, because there’s so much out there.”
By the way, javelinas, also called peccaries, are native to the Americas. While peccaries are aggressive and can be destructive, they’re not the same as the feral domestic pigs — also called boars and hogs — now running amok in many parts of the U.S.
“It’s our No. 1 threat to everything,” Bretherton says. “They come in packs, they’re dangerous and violent, and they strip the land of all its nutrients. Anything that is there for other animals to eat, they just devour it all.”
While Vexcon has no problem with eradicating pests when necessary, whenever possible.
A large part of his business also involves dealing with troublesome wildlife, which he delivers to rehabilitators or releases safely if he can. But his kindhearted attitude doesn’t extend to all creatures, as one of his more softhearted employees discovered when he asked Bretherton what to do about a rat caught accidentally in a squirrel trap.
“I said, ‘Kill it,’ ” says Bretherton, “because it’s a plague. I think there are things that are undesirable, like cockroaches and rats. I can’t find a use for them on any level. All they do is disease and harm. Just put it down. And he said, ‘I’m not going to do it.’ ” According to Bretherton, the employee drove north to find a place to release the rat. Meanwhile, Billy and Donnie Bretherton were heading off to a movie set that had problems with wasps.
“We drive 25 miles from the office,” Billy Bretherton says, “I’m going down the road about 60 miles an hour, and this rat comes running across the street. I hit him with my front tire.”
Thinking he’d just hit a random creature that sprinted across the road, Bretherton then picked up his phone and reiterated his order for the trapped rat to be killed. Then his mother noticed that the employee in question was there at the side of the road. “It was so funny,” Donnie Bretherton says. “Of all the places, we never expected him to be there.  We’re just driving around in the middle of nowhere.”
Bretherton also claims he can walk into a place and know if it’s infested. “I can smell whatever’s here,” he says. “I can find evidence of whatever’s here, like a tracker. What I am is an animal tracker. Even the film crew, when we’re going around, they look at me first, ‘What’s going on?’ ‘Well, we’ve got rats and roaches.’ ” Luckily for this upscale seaside restaurant in Los Angeles, Bretherton says, “Nothing. No, we’re good.  No problems here.”
Although he has a successful family business and a reality TV show going into its fourth season, Bretherton hasn’t yet reached the bar of what he considers famous.  “I won’t feel famous,” he says, “until I’m spoofed by ‘South Park.’ Until it happens, I’m not famous.” Billy Bretherton stars in “Billy the Exterminator,” returning for its fourth season Tuesday on A&E Network.

Ferguson gets French lessons as Late Late Show visits Paris

It’s not a huge leap to imagine Craig Ferguson exclaiming, “Ooh la la!” CBS’ boisterous late-late-night host got a chance to do that in the most appropriate place in June, when he took his Peabody Award winning “Late Late Show” to Paris to record a week of shows. As they begin airing Monday, Aug. 1, Ferguson uses his comically offbeat approach to do the program wherever — and with whomever — he can in the City of Light.
He recalls the trip as “fantastic.  We shot five shows in four days, and I thought we wouldn’t have enough time. We probably got enough for six shows or even more, so we’re throwing out a lot of stuff, which is nice but heartbreaking at the same time. I’m cautiously optimistic that we have something quite special here.”
Still, Ferguson allows the schedule “really was crazy. We were doing 18-hour days, and we went everywhere, but we were in Paris, and the sun was shining, and (frequent Ferguson guest) Kristen Bell was there. They were long days, but they were fun days as well.” While in France, Ferguson also did a guest spot on the very similar talk show “Ce Soir Avec Arthur.”
With the work logistics involved in getting from the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre to Notre Dame Cathedral and the Palace of Versailles for taping, local authorities “were extremely uncooperative in places,” Ferguson reports, “but you’ve gotta expect that. It’s France. We just kind of bustled past it or ran away from the cops. We did what we could.” Also the voice of Owl in the current Disney movie “Winnie the Pooh,” Ferguson had long wanted some sort of “Late Late Show” road trip, but he indicates one major factor usually stood in the way.
“We don’t have any money!” he says. “We couldn’t get a theater in Paris to do a show, but I thought, ‘What does it matter if you do it in a theater anyway?’ Once you’re indoors, everywhere is Burbank, so I said, ‘Let’s just go and do it guerrilla-style.’ We took two cameras and a desk that we set up on the street, and we interviewed some people.  And we did some segments on bridges and were lucky that it didn’t rain most of the time.”
Along for the journey was Geoff Petersen, Ferguson’s skeletal, wisecracking
“Late Late Show” robot sidekick. “It was difficult,” Ferguson admits, “because they run on 220 volts over there, and Geoffrey usually runs on 110. It sped him up a little bit.”
CBS was “extremely supportive” of the overseas trek, Ferguson attests. “I have a very good relationship with them, and they know that I like to experiment with the format, which I’ve made no secret about.  They could have said ‘No,’ and they didn’t.”
It also helped that the Scottish-born Ferguson, who became an American citizen in 2008, is no stranger to Paris. “I’ve been there many, many times. And there are a couple of places I’m still avoiding!  You wanted this to be something of a travelogue, to give a feel of the place. It’s all the excitement and exhilaration of being on vacation in Paris without actually spending money or meeting French people.” One spot Ferguson really wanted to hit was the Moulin Rouge, the legendary showplace where he got to perform with its dancers. “You know, it’s one of the few things you should do in life,” he reasons. “Kill a bear with your bare hands, meet an astronaut and dance on the stage of the Moulin Rouge. I’ve done two of them now — so look out, bears!” “The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson” goes on location to Paris for a week of shows starting Monday on CBS.

Jersey Shore pumps it up for a fourth season

They’re living their dreams. It’s become sport to poke fun at the cast of MTV’s “Jersey Shore,” returning for a fourth season Thursday, Aug 4. But exclusive interviews with two of its top stars reveal Snooki and DJ Pauly D to be thoughtful, albeit a bit orange.  MTV allowed us rare access while shooting the fourth season in Seaside Heights. On the Friday before July 4, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, DJ “Pauly D” DelVecchio and SallyAnn Salsano, executive producer, talk separately on the roof. The cast usually talks to press only while the show isn’t in production.
Remnants of last night’s party litter the turf. The hot tub is silent, pillows on the outdoor beds askew, ashtrays overflow and bottles lie drained.
“We don’t drink as much as people think we do,” Snooki says.  “There is a lot of downtime, like normal time. At 26 I want to get married and start popping out the kids,” says the 23-year-old. “I’m getting old. I can’t party like I used to. I might as well enjoy it now.”
She doesn’t seem to be enjoying it at the moment, but she’s been skewered in the press and has learned the downside of fame.  “You can’t go anywhere,” she says. “You can’t go to the mall or to Chili’s. The opportunities we get are insane. I am fixing myself up for life.  I don’t want to work again. Honestly, I never liked to work anyway.”
Snooki, who prefers Nicole, always wanted to be famous. Granted, she has no discernible talent, but she has something that cannot be taught in a studio: People want to watch her. She intuitively gets that. She also is more self-aware than people realize. An animal lover, she thought she would be a veterinary assistant. Now she wants to fund an animal shelter, and is famous, which happens when you’re the breakout star on cable’s top-rated show.
Pauly D had just signed as exclusive resident deejay for the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. He’s unaware of a Connecticut deejay of the same name suing him. The show’s ban on cell phones and TV has its advantages. “It’s surreal,” Pauly D says.
Everything about this phenomenon is. First, they do not stand out on the Jersey shore, except for their fame. People are tanned — whether from booths or the sun — to burnished shades. Neon, animal prints and bling are what people wear — to breakfast, which can be fried Oreos.
Though some Italian-Americans are angry over the group’s use of “Guido” and “Guidette” to describe themselves, Salsano explains she wore “guidette” spelled out in diamonds on a necklace while in high heritage. Salsano shoots 700 hours for each hour shown, capturing them as they are. “My job is to tell a true story,” Salsano says, likening the show to a John Hughes coming-of-age film.  They are coming of age. Snooki is a brand, and she wants an empire. Her novel, “A Shore Thing,” written with Valerie Frankel, made it to the New York Times best-seller list. It’s a thinly veiled roman a clef, which in itself is part of the charm.  Snooki has nothing to hide.
In the new season, the gang is in Italy, where Snooki had a fender bender with their police escort.  “Italy was different,” she says.  “Being so far away in a different country, it was just different. I get homesick here and I am only three hours away.”
She shopped for souvenirs in Italy but didn’t do something that would have made headlines.
“I would have loved to have hugged the pope and fist pump,” she says.
In Italy, as tourists, “we really rely on each other,” says DJ Pauly D.  The group’s collective mantra of GTL (gym, tan, laundry) was more difficult there. It took 45 minutes to get to the gym, and there were no tanning salons, he says.
The best part of Italy, though, Pauly D says is, “all we did was eat, eat, eat. Every restaurant tasted like your grandmother’s home cooking.” Pauly D’s gelled hair, which takes 25 minutes to blow dry to standing perfection, is under a red cap turned sideways. His tank top reveals the muscles cut in those many hours in the gym and a tattoo of his late friend, DJ AM.
As Pauly D talks, the aerial tramway over the well-worn boardwalk goes right past the rooftop. Guys point and scream at him. He smiles but keeps his focus. It’s early enough that hangovers are being nursed as the boardwalk comes to life. Those in line to get into Shore Store snap photos of Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino posing, uncharacteristically, in a shirt. He’s next to displays of panties emblazoned with “Fist Pump” and “Jersey Girl” and T-shirts with “I started the friggin’ pouf.”
He’s supposed to be attending to customers, but Pauly D laughs and says, “Mike doesn’t like to work.” Like Snooki, he embraces this life in a fishbowl that brings fame and wealth. “The best thing about this is you are yourself,” he says. “And you can’t hide anything.”

Prison volunteers earn redemption in ‘Serving Life’

It may be fashionable in some quarters to sneer at the notion that prison may help a criminal reconnect with his humanity, but don’t try to sell that to the volunteers who work in the hospice program at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.
The prisoners held there are among America’s worst, serving an average sentence of more than 90 years. That means the vast majority will die inside.
But filmmaker Lisa R. Cohen reveals a far more life-affirming story unfolding inside Angola in “Serving Life,” a profoundly moving documentary premiering Sunday, July 31, on OWN Canada. Narrated and executive produced by Oscar winner Forest Whitaker, it spotlights a program in which volunteers assist staff members in providing often intimate care to their terminally ill fellow prisoners. In doing so, they are changed, perhaps permanently.  “Not just anyone can come in and sit with someone, know they’re dying, and take care of them day in and day out and then, when they pass, get up and start on another patient,” says Stacye Falgout, the facility’s assistant director of nursing.  The film focuses on four rookie volunteers: Charles “Boston” Rodgers, serving a 35-year sentence for armed robbery; Justin Granier, whose college work toward a medical career ended when he began serving life for second-degree murder he didn’t personally commit;
Ronald Ratliff, serving life under the “three strikes” law for drug and firearms crimes; and Anthony “Shaheed” Middlebrooks, serving a 40-year sentence for robbery.
Each makes for a compelling story, but none more than Rodgers, who spends most of his time tending to an inmate with stage four brain cancer and sits vigil for four hours by a terminal patient’s bedside, just to ensure that the man doesn’t die alone.

WEEDS #7: NEW YEAR, NEW FACES

Some big changes are happening on the hit comedy series WEEDS – a three-year time jump, a Big Apple move and the addition of Martin Short, Aidan Quinn, Lindsay Sloane and several notable guest stars, including returning special guest star, Jennifer Jason Leigh, all shaping up for an exciting season 7. SHOWTIME’s top-rated comedy stars Mary-Louise Parker, in her Golden Globe Award-winning role as Nancy Botwin, a former suburban mom-turned-pot dealer. Last season’s cliffhanger had our favorite quick-change artist surrendering to the FBI for the murder of Pilar Zuazo. We picked  up the new season as she completed a three-year stint in Federal prison. She’s now in New York, but no free bird – she must complete her probation in a strictly monitored halfway house, which means she’ll have to deal before curfew. A now bolder Nancy has to re-start the business from scratch.
Meanwhile, the boys – Andy (Justin Kirk), Silas (Hunter Parrish) and Shane (Alexander Gould) – who were camped out in Copenhagen – are now Big Apple-bound with Doug (Kevin Nealon) in tow, of course and will be stirring up major trouble.
The legendary Martin Short (Damages) headlines the guest star roster as an eccentric attorney in at least 3 episodes, while Aidan Quinn (Prime Suspect) will play a charismatic investment firm CEO in at least 4 episodes. Jennifer Jason Leigh returns for 4 episodes as Nancy’s estranged sister Jill Price-Grey who has been watching Little Stevie while Nancy was incarcerated. Lindsay Sloane (Grosse Pointe) has signed on for 6 episodes as Maxeen, an eccentric conceptual artist who Andy (Kirk) meets at a gallery event, and noted actor David Clennon (Ghost Whisperer) will play her husband, Charles. Pablo Schreiber (Lights Out) will star as Demetri Ravitch, an army supply sergeant and brother of Nancy’s former cellmate Zoya (guest star Olga Sosnovska), who begins to supply Nancy in her newest endeavor. And Gary Anthony Williams (Mad, The Boondocks) will play Ed Watson, Nancy’s halfway house counselor.

EX-DANCER PUTS THE MOVES ON HAVEN

If you’re a con artist and you stumble on a place like Haven, you stick around to see if there’s a way to play this weirdness to your advantage. That’s how Evi Ryan comes into the cast of characters of the sci-fi series this season, bringing actress Vinessa Antoine along with her.  In “Haven,” now in its second season Mondays on Showcase, Evi is an old love interest of jack-of-all-trades Duke Crocker (Eric Balfour).
In fact, they got married as a lark and never bothered to have the marriage annulled.
“She has an agenda,” Antoine says of the character. “And she comes to see if she can make a score, not realizing all the ins and outs of Haven.”
Duke’s connection to Haven intrigues her, Antoine says. In the past, she has  played good people – such as her regular character on CBC’s “Being Erica,” supportive friend Judith Winter.
Playing a con artist/femme fatale is “very fun,” Antoine says. “That’s one of the things that attracted me. She throws on different hats and personalities. She’s so different from any other character I’ve played.
Shot in Halifax and the Nova Scotia coast, “Haven” was inspired by the Stephen King novel “The Colorado Kid,” about a mysterious corpse found in a small town in northern Maine. The central character is Audrey Parker (Emily Rose, “ER”), an ex-FBI agent. Parker was brought to the New England seaside town of Haven on a case and kept there by her fascination with the strange “supernatural afflictions” (as Rose has called them) of the place.
The show also stars Nicholas Campbell (“Da Vinci’s Inquest”) and Lucas Bryant (“Queer as Folk”). Jason Priestley appears in a four-episode story arc this season and is directing.
Antoine says shooting “Haven” in Nova Scotia in the summer and “Erica”
in Toronto in the winter is like being paid to go to the cottage.
“This is the first time I’ve been in Halifax,” she says. “We’re by the water most of the time if we’re not in the studio.”
Born and raised in Toronto, Antoine moved to Vancouver when she was 13 after her mother was offered a job here.
Having studied classical ballet from the age of 4, her first choice as a career was dance, and when she graduated from high school, she moved to New York to study with the world-famous Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. “It was a huge, huge thing for me and my family,” she says.
“Without any family or friends in New York, to just pick up at 18 and go …I trained day and night, night and day. Blood, sweat, tears.”
Over the three years she was in New York, she says, she grew up quickly and decided that dance wasn’t for her.
She had done a bit of television and theater in high school and had even landed a recurring role in the series “Soul Food.” So she started studying acting.
Antoine spent some time in Los Angeles, then came back to Toronto in the mid-2000s and studied acting with Jeff Seymour (“Being Erica,”
“Jeff Ltd.”), who is now her boyfriend. “I was missing my Canadian peeps, if you will,” she says of her time in Hollywood. “Everybody I hung out with in L.A. was Canadian. We’d celebrate Canada Day. And those are the people I really felt connected with.
“I have wonderful friends who are not Canadian, but I found myself connecting with my people. And I missed being in Canada.”
Soon Antoine had guest spots on such series as “Heartland” and “ReGenesis.” Then in 2009, she was cast in “Being Erica” as the title character’s overachieving best friend. Now with “Haven,” she has a regular spot in two series – which, she says, kind of makes her wonder why she had to go through New York and Los Angeles to wind up with an acting career in her hometown.
“My mom tells me that all the time: ‘You shouldn’t have left. You could have stayed here and worked,’ ” she says. “Even in Vancouver she used to tell me that, and I probably could have stayed and worked a ton in Vancouver. “But I have to ay my experience in New York and L.A.
gave me a bit of a shine.
“I don’t know if I would have booked two series had I just stayed in Canada. “Canada has a funny way – at least in TV and film – of recognizing talent only when America says, ‘Good on you.’ ”

Finding gold in the tinsel and glitter

For movie nuts, it must seem as if Joe Maddalena got to go to heaven without having to die first. As the star and host of “Hollywood Treasure,” airing Fridays on Bravo! Canada, Maddalena’s life consists of hunting down film and TV memorabilia.
He gets to explore collections that can include everything from ancient movie posters, animation cells and models to special-effects heads, body parts and full-size robots, such as the legendary Robby from the 1956 sci-fi classic “Forbidden Planet.”
And sometimes he gets to play with them before they go to auction.  For example, this season, Maddalena handled the sale of the collection of 1950s film star Debbie Reynolds, which included the famous dress Marilyn Monroe wore in “The Seven Year Itch” – the one that gets blown up by the subway updraft. “That’s the most valuable costume in cinema history,” he says. “We valued that white subway dress at $1 million to $2 million.”
As it turned out, the dress went for $4.6 million when it sold in late June. Like any successful fortune hunter, Maddalena keeps his own collecting urges in check – otherwise he wouldn’t make any money at this. He does, however, admit to being a “Wizard of Oz” freak. He says the coolest thing he has ever owned was the Wicked Witch’s hourglass.  “It was about 2 feet tall and weighed about 40 pounds,” he says. “That was probably the most impressive piece I’ve ever handled.  I sold it for $375,000 15 years ago.  I’d buy it back for half a million; I’ve been trying to buy it back for years.  “It’s one of the most iconic pieces of film history. You have to see it to believe it.”
Maddalena compares what he does to being an art collector. The objects he handles are pieces of art that were used to create art, which has left emotional residue in the hearts of millions of film and TV fans.
“A lot of the things I buy and sell on auction, to me they’re art,” he says. “You look at Robby the Robot.  There’s no difference between looking at that and looking at a piece of art, whether it’s a piece of sculpture or a painting. It’s the same emotion.” One nice thing about Hollywood memorabilia is that the film and TV industries are always making more of it – though collectibles are getting harder to find, and it isn’t always easy to predict where the demand will be, Maddalena says.
He cites “Gladiator” as an example of a movie that has held up and isn’t showing any signs of waning interest. He calls that kind of iconic film a “ ‘Ben Hur’ moment,” after the 1959 Charlton Heston extravaganza.  “You never know which movies will pass the test of time; that’s the problem,” he says. “If you look at a movie like ‘Harry Potter,’ it’s chock full of iconic artifacts. But they never get released by the studio, so you’re probably never going to get to own them. “It depends on what’s released, what gets out there and what holds up.”
One thing that helped create the market for movie memorabilia was the breakup of the big film studios in the 1950s. That saw the sell-off of warehouses full of props, costumes and promotional material for many beloved films of the 1930s, ’40s and early ’50s.

Farewell, ‘Entourage’

Say goodbye to Hollywood. Well, almost. The whip-smart and Emmy-winning HBO showbiz-insider comedy series “Entourage” starts its eighth and final season Sunday, July 24, while rumors abound about a possible feature-film spinoff a la HBO’s “Sex and the City.”
For the time being, a movie figures in anyway, as just-released-from-rehab actor Vince Chase (Adrian Grenier) gets excited about launching another project that those around him aren’t quite as sold on: a drama about trapped miners.  His manager and close pal Eric (Kevin Connolly) now works with former nemesis Scott Lavin (Scott Caan, reprising the role he began before becoming a co-star of CBS’ “Hawaii Five-0”); Turtle (Jerry Ferrara) goes into business for himself; and Vince’s half brother and fellow actor Drama (Kevin Dillon, who moves on to CBS’ “How to Be a Gentleman” this fall) does everything possible to reinforce Vince’s newly sober state.
And, of course, there is Ari Gold. The ferociously whirling dervish of a talent agent played by Jeremy Piven, who has earned three Emmys for the role. Ari’s marriage to the so-called Mrs. Ari (Perrey Reeves) is on the rocks, prompting him to make some moves unexpected even for him – with mild comfort from Lloyd (Rex Lee), formerly Ari’s browbeaten assistant but now an agent in his own right.
“There’s definitely a sad undercurrent, because this is really a close group,” says “Entourage” creator Doug Ellin, also an executive producer of the show along with Mark Wahlberg. “Everyone’s a little sad, so everyone stayed a little longer. Nobody was rushing home.”
If the situations in the last “Entourage” season seem familiar, that’s exactly what Ellin was aiming for. “I was really trying to get back to the roots of Season 1. What the show ultimately is about is relationships, friendships and family. We’re dealing with some deep stuff with Ari, but with the guys, we’re getting back to guys hanging out and trying to look out for each other.”
Piven appreciates the depth of his material in the “Entourage” victory lap, such as Ari’s uncomfortable steps back into the world of dating, and he’s glad for the chance to take a different tack with the frequently short-fused character he has made iconic.
“This year has been like no other,” the actor confirms. “You have all the trademarks of Ari in terms of his blustery and incredibly abrasive behavior, but now, his world is turned upside down. The thing that means the most to him is his family, and it’s being taken away from him.  “You get to explore this transformation with this guy. He’s incredibly vulnerable, and it’s what you live for as an actor. If you hang in there and wait eight seasons, it’ll happen.  “That’s what’s so fun about a series,” Piven says, “and I’m sure what’s very enjoyable for Doug to write. He’s created all these really authentic and interesting characters that have such bite, and the entourage has been beefed up in a way. You get people who have been instrumental on the journey and have come back … and Perrey Reeves needs to be singled out as Mrs. Ari. Her (actual) name will be revealed this year.”
Also back for the “Entourage” swan song are Emmanuelle Chriqui as Eric’s ex-fiancee Sloan; Beverly D’Angelo as Ari’s agency partner, Barbara “Babs” Miller; Constance Zimmer as studio executive Dana Gordon; and Rhys Coiro as unpredictable moviemaker Billy Walsh.
Guest stars include Christian Slater, Andrew Dice Clay, Johnny Galecki (“The Big Bang Theory”), sports figures Carmelo Anthony and Alex Rodriguez, fashion’s Rachel Zoe, and entrepreneur Mark Cuban.  For Caan, returning to “Entourage” meant coming straight off a long and physically demanding first season of “Hawaii Five-0,” but he maintains he wouldn’t have missed it. “Essentially, it was like a vacation,” he says. “CBS was cool about letting me do it, but they only had to let me do two or three episodes. I actually fought to be able to do the whole season.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” Caan adds, “other than to say that you’re literally happy to have to get up early to go to work on ‘Entourage.’ I never saw a bad vibe or an argument go down there. They had eight years – five of them without me – so maybe there’s stuff I didn’t get to see, but it’s been a really pleasant place to work.”
And it could be again. In weighing a possible movie version of “Entourage,” Ellin reasons, “If the script could come together, which is on my shoulders, of course I’d love to do it. I’m not really ready for this to end; it’s been almost 10 years since I started this, and eight years with the guys and the crew. We’ve shot big episodes that felt like movies, so it could be interesting to see what we do with this on a bigger screen.” Piven also would welcome such a revisiting, but he’s satisfi ed with where Ari and “Entourage” are ending up for television purposes.
“To even have the chance to play a volatile character, and then get to the other sides of him, is just very rare,” he reflects. “This opportunity is not lost on me. I’ve been kicking around for a while, so I have enough perspective to know how lucky I am.”

Next Page »