Burt Reynolds on Cloud 9 with Burn Notice

At 74 and months after quintuple bypass surgery, Hollywood superstar Burt Reynolds was putting in 17- and 18-hour days as a guest star on the hit TV show “Burn Notice.” The episode airs tonight at 8 pm on the USA Network. Reynolds tells TCPalm he was glad to reunite with old pals on the set, like veteran stuntman Glenn Wilder-- whom he knocked through a window while performing his own stunts.

Reynolds performed-- and directed-- his fight scene with Wilder's son, Scott Wilder, in the 2006 beach volleyball comedy smash, Cloud 9, which was written and produced by our pals Burt Kearns and Brett Hudson from Frozen Pictures, along with their Academy-Award®-winning (The Godfather, Million Dollar Baby) producer pal, Albert S. Ruddy.

As Gary Busey as Buddy Holly would say: Oh boy!

Sixty-five-year-old Tabloid Baby pal Gary Busey is a father again, after his girlfriend Steffanie Sampson gave birth to a boy this morning.

Luke Sampson Busey arrived at 6:40 a,m., weighing 6 pounds, 7 ounces.


The couple released a statement:

"This feels like a dream. We feel so blessed and are overwhelmed with happiness at Luke's arrival."


Mom's 40. Busey was the cameo star of Cloud 9, the classic beach volleyball sports comedy starring Burt Reynolds and produced by our pals at Frozen Pictures.

NY Times obituary neglects to mention that theatre producer was alleged hermaphrodite who lived as John... and Joan

If Wikipedia and other sources are to be believed, the New York Times left some very colorful-- and essential facts out of its obituary for Midwest theatre impresario John Kenley.

The Times notes that Kenley, who died October 23rd at an astonishing 103, made his name "taking large-scale productions to small towns and cities and festooning the shows with headliners like Mae West, Gloria Swanson and (Cloud 9) star Burt Reynolds...

"Mr. Kenley was known to book stars, even unlikely ones, for their box office potential. He cast the television host Hugh Downs, for example, in 'Under the Yum Yum Tree' and the talk show star Merv Griffin in 'Come Blow Your Horn.' He hired Jayne Mansfield, the actress who had been promoted as the next Marilyn Monroe, to star in 'Bus Stop.' (Ms. Monroe starred in the film version.) And he recruited Joe Namath to play the drifter in a 1971 production of 'Picnic,' when he was still near the height of his career as quarterback of the New York Jets..."

Now why would The Times fail to report several colorful facts about Kenley that show him to have been even more of a pioneer in the past century? From Wikipedia:

"Griffin fondly recalls his 1963 appearance and remembers being taken aback by what he did not know was an opening night tradition. At the cast party, the first dance was reserved for Mr. Kenley, and the play’s leading man.

"Indeed, in his 1980 autobiography, Griffin puts in print what had frequently been rumored by many and known as fact by few, 'John Kenley is a registered hermaphrodite.' For his part, Kenley’s retort was, 'I’m not even a registered voter,' but there are many now who state that Kenley spent many a theatrical off-season in Florida as a woman, Joan.

"In his unpublished memoirs, Kenley writes, 'People have often wondered if I am gay. Sometimes I wished I was. Life would have been simpler. Androgyny is overrated.'"

The Winnick Ticket: Vanity Fair's starlet of the month is Olga from Cloud 9!

The latest issue of Vanity Fair is notable and collectable because of the dual Farrah/Jacko cover and the sad article on Ryan O'Neal, but there's an even more noteworthy feature on page 257. The Vanities section opens, as it does, with a glam portrait of the Hollywood starlet of the moment, and this moment belongs to Katheryn Winnick.

Katheryn in Cold Souls:
Katheryn in Cloud 9:

Canadian Katheryn's feature is billed as The Winnick Ticket because of her breakthrough role in the new Paul Giamatti movie, Cold Souls, in which she plays a Russian actress.

A Russian actress?

We know where she got her practice! You might recognize Katheryn from her role as Ivana Trump in the TV movie or her outstanding roles on the Law & Order franchises, but her real breakthrough Russian-accent role was in Cloud 9, the classic 2006 sports comedy written and produced by Brett Hudson and Burt Kearns, our Golden Ace Award-winning (The Seventh Python) pals at Frozen Pictures, along with their, pal two-time Academy Award®-winning producer (The Godfather, Million Dollar Baby) Albert S. Ruddy, and starring Burt Reynolds.


In Cloud 9, Katheryn played a Russian stripper turned beach volleyball star named Olga. Here's a Hollywood fun fact: The role was originally written as Inga, a Swede, but Katheryn's take was so strong she beat out the Amazonian stunner Victoria Silvstedt and made the role her own (she even inspired a drinking game). After the filming, the producers predicted she'd be the new Sharon Stone. Who'd expect she'd turn out to be the next Meryl Streep? But it's evident that Emmys® and Oscars® await Katheryn Winnick!


This is just another amazing one-degree of separation for Cloud 9, which has proven to be one of the most influential and memorable sexy comedies in years!

The dead Taco Bell chihuahua was NOT the dog from the classic sports comedy, Cloud 9

Fans of the classic beach volleyball motion picture comedy Cloud 9 can rest easy: the Taco Bell chihuahua who died tragically at 15 was not the little dog who co-starred in the hilarious cameo scene in which Gary Busey just about stole the movie from stars Burt Reynolds, D.L. Hughley, Paul Rodriguez, Angie Everhart, Gabrielle Reece, Katheryn Winnick, Kenya Moore, Bruce Bruce, Rick Overton, Pat Finn, Jeff Altman, John Caponera, Tony Danza and Tom Arnold!


Gidget was the name of the Taco Bell pup who succumbed to a stroke Tuesday. Moonie was the dog who appeared in Cloud 9. Gary Busey plays her owner, who grumbles and grouses while picking up Moonie's droppings. Busey's adlibs were so hilarious that the outtakes were compiled for the DVD extra, "Being Gary Busey."

Moonie also starred alongside Reese Witherspoon as Bruiser in Legally Blonde. Coincidentally, Gidget played Bruiser's mom in Legally Blonde 2.

Moonie and Gidget were best friends, and sometime roommates.


Cloud 9, the 2006 Frozen Pictures co-production written and produced by Brett Hudson and Burt Kearns along with two-time Academy Award® winner (The Godfather, Million Dollar Baby) Albert S. Ruddy, has incredible connections to Oscar® winners remains a pay-per-view and rental favorite in the States while its fame spreads around the world.


And mid-July is a great time to check it out!

Dom DeLuise

Dom DeLuise was not only a great comic actor and personality, he was a Tabloid Baby pal and neighbor. Dom was sought to do a cameo in Cloud 9, the Burt Reynolds comedy produced by our pals at Frozen Pictures (written and produced by Golden Ace Award winners Brett Hudson and Burt Kearns along with their pal, Academy Award winner (The Godfather, Million Dollar Baby) Albert S. Ruddy, but previous commitments kept it from happening.

Dom & Burt with Bob Sharka of The Pacific Palisades Film Festival

Said Kearns this morning: "Our movie The Seventh Python opens the Pacific Palisades Film Festival on Thursday, May 14th. We'll be dedicating the evening to our pal, Dom DeLuise."

Hudson added: "Dom was a big man in more ways than one."

Exclusivo! "Não são prostitutas! São 'strippers'!" Os trailer para Garotas Show de Bola!

Cloud 9 hits Brazil!

Garotas Show de Bola! Cloud 9 a hit in sexy Brazil!

Garotas Show de Bola!

Congratulations to our pals at Frozen Pictures! A little more than a week before they bring their acclaimed nonfiction musical film The Seventh Python to the New York audience at the New York Metro Fest for Beatles Fans comes word that their classic Oscar®-connected motion picture comedy Cloud 9 has conquered yet another international territory!

Brazil is the latest nation to embrace the sexy beach volleyball stripper comedy starring Burt Reynolds, D.L. Hughley, Paul Rodriguez, Angie Everhart, Kathryn Winnick, Tony Danza, Tom Arnold Jeff Altman, Rick Overton and Gary Busey and written and produced by Frozen's Brett Hudson and Burt Kearns along with Academy Award® winner Albert S. Ruddy.

And the Brazilians wax enthusiastic, describing Garotas Show de Bola like this:

Sinopse: Quando o fracassado Billy Cole vai almoçar em um lugar nada convencional - um clube de strippers- ele não vai apenas pelo show e sim para se divertir com as belas e sensuais garotas! Mas ele acerta em cheio quando resolve montar um time de vôlei com essas meninas! Conforme a popularidade delas vai crescendo, Billy quer atrair a multidão não pela beleza e sim pelas suas habilidades. Ele concorda que as beldades também merecem um momento de gloria e respeito, enquanto ele enche o bolso de dinheiro!!! As super estrelas Burt Reynolds e D.L. Hughley estão hilariantes nesta comédia.

The film struck gold domestically when it was released 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment in early 2006, became a massive hit in India and, under the name Mell Bedobás, warmed up Eastern Europe.

"Thanks for the news! You guys are fast! You reached me before our production partners did!" said writer-producer Brett Hudson when reached tonight.

"But I must say I'm not surprised that Cloud 9 continues to bring money in from all over the world on a continual basis. It's a testament to the international starpower of Burt Reynolds, one of the last of the classic movie stars and heroes-- and I must say, the script.

"The story of aspiration and triumph over prejudice and adversity, speaks to peoples the world over. And it's really funny, too!"

Yes, Cloud 9 is linked to Oscar®'s Best Picture!

Hey, we almost let the Oscars® slip away without mentioning the incredible connection between this year's Best Picture, Slumdog Millionaire, and Cloud 9, the hilarious 2006 sports comedy written and produced by our pals at Frozen Pictures. For a couple of years now, we've had an annual list of the eerie one-degree-of-separation between the beach volleyball sex comedy and social satire starring Burt Reynolds and the nominees and eventual holders of the golden statuette ("Michael Clayton star ((and Best Actor nominee)) George Clooney appeared with Cloud 9 costar Paul Rodriguez on the 2003 TV special, Playboy’s 50th Anniversary Celebration. He also appeared as “Joe” in the 1991 TV series Baby Talk, in which Tony Danza, who appears in Cloud 9, supplied the voice of a baby...").

And with our Tabloid Baby research staff has been let loose on other subjects this season, it's been left to our readers to point out the the link between Cloud 9 and Slumdog Millionaire: mainly that Cloud 9 remains a big hit in India! Bollywood giants Shemaroo Entertainment released deluxe DVD and VCD versions of the movie in 2007. Its popularity spread because of favorable comparisons to a Bollywood hit starring Indian superstar Shahrukh Khan (also known as “King Khan”), as a disgraced captain of the Indian hockey team who decides to coach a female hockey team. Wrote Shemaroo:


"The story is much akin to our Bollywood ‘Chak De’. A washed out former star, who is in need of money and an ambition to be fulfilled works towards a get rich plan and starts a volleyball team whose players consist of a group of beautiful athletic strippers. Burt Reynolds efforts in forming the world’s sexiest beach volleyball team with the strippers, is seen as a rib tickling comedy. Eventually though as the girls’ popularity swells, they want to win the crowds with their abilities, and not their bodies where these girls team up and play a match against actual volley ball players."

Cloud 9, of course, was written and produced by Frozen Pictures' Brett Hudson and Burt Kearns, along with Albert S. Ruddy, Oscar®-winning producer of The Godfather and Million Dollar Baby.

And get this: Shahrukh Khan introduced Slumdog at the Golden Globe Awards (where Burt Reynolds took home a Best Actor trophy in 1998) and starred with Amil Kapoor, the Bollywood star who played the TV host in Slumdog, in the 1995 Bollywood classic Trimurti.

We don't make this stuff up...

Delgo flops-- despite Frozen Pictures connections!

We’ve got to hand it to our pals at Frozen Pictures for taking credit for their Hollywood connections-- the good and the bad! In past years, we’ve brought out the incredible, downright eerie one-degree-of-separation connections between Frozen's classic ensemble sports comedy Cloud 9 and recent Academy Award-nominated and winning films, actors and actresses. But how about connections between Frozen Pictures productions and a real flopperoo?

The animated feature Delgo made cinematic history when it opened over the weekend. The story of “an adventurous but naive teenager” who “must rally his group of friends to protect their world from conflict between the Lockni and Nohrin people,” opened in 2,160 theatres last weekend and took in $511,920. That translates to two patrons per showing. It also makes Delgo the least attended film to open on more than 2,000 screens— ever!

Frozen Pictures connections? Let’s cut to the chase.


Burt Reynolds, the voice of Delgo's Father, starred in Cloud 9.


Eric Idle, the voice of Spig, is featured in Frozen’s acclaimed nonfiction musical biopic, The Seventh Python.


Louis Gossett Jr., voice of King Zahn in Delgo, is featured in Frozen’s lauded Bravo miniseries, All The Presidents’ Movies (recently updated and re-edited into the 2009 documentary feature, All The Presidents’ Movies: The Movie (From The Birth of A Nation to Obama Nation).


Val Kilmer, who voiced Bogardus, starred as porn actor John Holmes in the film Wonderland, whose structure and story was lifted from Frozen Picture’s landmark Court TV miniseries, Adults Only: The Secret History of The Other Hollywood.


And Freddie Prinze Jr., the voice of Delgo, is the son of late comedy star Freddie Prinze, who was the best friend of Alan Bursky, star of The New 30, the one-man stage show produced by Frozen Pictures.


There are other, more tangential connections (the late John Vernon, the voice of Nohrin Judge, played Dean Wormer in Animal House, the film whose highlight was a food fight set to the tune of Let’s Dance by Chris Montez (Frozen’s latest documentary subject). But there’s no reason to stretch things. Frozen Pictures seems to be in the middle of the Hollywood action.


On a more positive note, the Screen Actors Guild Award nominations were announced to.day And along with them the announcement that James Earl Jones will be receiving a Life Achievement Awards. James Earl is a star of All The Presidents’ Movies, the miniseries and The Movie.

Cloud 9 fleshing out to be a movie comedy classic!

Pop culture phenomenon alert: with a MySpace tribute page, constant exposure on pay cable television and a slobbering Internet-ogler fanbase Cloud 9, the beach volleyball sex comedy written and produced by our pals at Frozen Pictures along with Academy-Award winning producer Albert S. Ruddy is becoming a modern-day comedy classic.

Seriously.

The movie starring Burt Reynolds and featuring an all-star ensemble cast including D.L. Hughley, Paul Rodriguez, Angie Everhart, Gabrielle Reece, Gary Busey, Bruce Bruce, former Miss USA Kenya Moore, prime time TV star Katheryn Winnick, Tom Arnold and current Maxim en Espanol covergirl Patrica de Leon, among others, made a splash when it was released on DVD two years by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (a release held up by Ruddy’s successful Oscar® campaign for Million Dollar Baby), but its longevity and sleeper status is a surprise to everyone but its creators.

We stumbled upon the “Mr.Skin” factor to Cloud 9 when researching de Leon earlier this week. A Google search leads to a screen grab from Cloud 9 and a CelebVid site featuring sexy and naked stills of famous actresses. The Cloud 9 posting focuses on bikini’ed butts!

Other sites like SuperiorPics Celebrity Forums, Celebrity Movie Archive and HotFlick.net freeze the action from the flick, download the stills, polish and color them up and fetishize the beautiful actresses and, and we’re embarrassed to say—their individual body parts!

But even wilder is the new MySpace page that pays tribute to the film!


”Cloud 9 Movie Tribute” pays respects to "the sexiest, most hilarious and socially insightful beach volleyball motion picture comedy ever!" It includes video, stills and reviews, good and bad—including one that reads:

"...The definition of the phrase, "cloud nine", means a state of elation or happiness, but that's obviously a bad title for this movie. There's no one that should be happy about seeing Burt Reynolds and company at the nadir of their careers doing what they can to peddle T&A for not-even-worthy-of-Skinemax straight-to-video entertainment..."

Cloud 9’s script, that has Reynolds in a familiar rascal role, as a conman who strikes gold with a scheme to sell a beach volleyball team comprised of strippers, does have its “social insights,” with its Malibu location and characters like Tenspot the limo driver and Juan Gonzalez, a Chicano nursery owner who masquerades as Asian because "In this town, you're Mexican, you’re just an ordinary gardener-- you're Asian, you’re a landscape designer."

And it's clear that for a number of reasons (not the least being Reynolds’ charming central performance), the movie has struck a chord among moviegoers. It's become a staple on pay cable television in the States (it’s running on a number of systems this month), and has struck gold internationally. Cloud 9 is a hit in India, thanks to its kinship to a popular field hockey film starring Bollywood legend Shahrukh “King” Khan.

In an interview with journalist Yasmin Brennan coinciding with the film’s release by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, writer-producers Hudson and Kearns seemed to realize their film's potential as a sleeper hit:

HUDSON: Early on, we had this budgeted and scheduled to get Cloud 9 out for the Olympics. This was going to be a real 21st Century production. We were going to shoot this on Hi Def. We had a top DP who knew Hi Def in and out, and we had Panavision ready to do tests. But (Director) Harry (Basil) and his crew wouldn’t hear of it. They pleaded for film. And Al’s old school instincts won out.

KEARNS: Of course, it’s the best of the old school. In the end, all our experience and styles produced one hilarious, exciting picture. Harry goes for straight, lowbrow comedy. Al has the classic Hollywood sensibility. He knows how to tug at the heartstrings. (Executive producer) Gray (Frederickson) is from the Easy Riders, Raging Bulls era. He was in Big Wednesday! Burt Reynolds, what can you say? He’s an all-out legend and a true artist. And us?

HUDSON: Well, we made it happen. And we brought the contemporary vibe.

KEARNS: We kept reminding these guys to keep it more Ben Stiller and less Jerry Stiller.

HUDSON: More Vince Vaughn and less Robert Vaughn.

KEARNS: More Dodgeball, less bocci ball--

HUDSON: We get the picture.

KEARNS: Because of all that, because of the mix, Cloud 9 works.

HUDSON: We’re going straight to DVD, of course... But Harry is a direct-to-DVD director. That’s the kind of picture he makes and everyone knew that going in. And that’s not negative. It’s a whole new business and DVD and direct demand are the way of the future. Cloud 9 is going to be a great seller and a perennial rental.

At least check out that MySpace page.