PROFIT, NOT CREATIVITY, RUNS BROADWAY, DUNCAN SAYS

Profit, not creativity, runsBroadway, Duncan says
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Perennially perky Sandy Duncan is slamming what she considers the sorry state of Broadway musicals.
Duncan stars in a two-week run of "The King and I" starting Tuesday. The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical marked her professional debut as a 12-year-old in Dallas. But now, at 58, she said an industry once run by producers with vision and heart has devolved into a business run by "money men who don't have an eye for the product."
"It used to be that producers would make a profit, with the idea that they would put that money into a new show," Duncan told The St. Paul Pioneer Press. "Now, they want to make a killing, and so they're flogging these shows into 10-, 12-, 14-year runs. It hurts the whole creative community."
The result, she said, can be seen in the lack of new titles on Broadway and on the road. Her six-month tour as Anna in "The King and I," she said, just proves her point.
Duncan also said audiences in the rest of the country are being cheated by productions that claim to be Broadway musicals but are pale imitations, with diminished technical quality and less-experienced, nonunion actors.
"A lot of what's coming out of New York is dreck; they should be touring them in theme parks," Duncan said. "And then on top of that, they do it on the cheap so they can make more money. It's immoral, and it tricks the public."
Cosby skips criticism during charity event
MIAMI -- Bill Cosby avoided his recent criticism of some segments of the black community, instead sticking to humor and praise for parents during a charity event for at-risk children.
Many in Saturday night's crowd had expected Cosby to continue his series of remarks urging blacks to stop blaming others for social problems such as teen pregnancy, poverty and academic underachievement.
Cosby appeared before a packed crowd at Zo's Summer Groove, which is organized by former Miami Heat center Alonzo Mourning. Cosby, wearing a sweat shirt reading "Parent Power," joked that his parents and grandparents always knew exactly what he was up to.
"All day long, you were watched," he told the audience. "Even if there was a drawn shade, there was at least one eye peeking out of it. My mother knew everything I did."
In May, Cosby stunned an audience commemorating the landmark civil rights ruling Brown vs. Board of Education by citing elevated school dropout rates for inner-city black students and criticizing low-income blacks for not using the opportunities the civil rights movement won for them.
Spears' second weddingto cost $1.8 million
LOS ANGELES -- Pop beauty Britney Spears will marry fianc & eacute; Kevin Federline in a lavish wedding at the Beverly Hills Hotel this November, taking her vows for the second time in a year, imdb.com reports.
The singer, 22, is already busy arranging the finer details of the glitzy occasion, with the help of a wedding planner and her mother, Lynne. According to insiders, the estimated budget for the wedding is a cool $1.8 million, and Britney is particularly keen on covering the venue with special white tulips from Amsterdam at a cost of $180,000.
A source close to her wedding planner said: "She loves the tulips and wants the whole place decked out with them. She's also specified that she wants 300 bottles of Cristal champagne. She hasn't decided on a wedding breakfast menu yet but has said she isn't skimping on anything. She wants a massive affair that is nothing like the cheap Las Vegas wedding she had before, which was annulled after just 55 hours."
Today's birthdays
Former Sen. George McGovern is 82. Actor Pat Hingle is 80.Country singer George Hamilton IV is 67. Actor Dennis Cole is 64. Singer Vikki Carr is 63. Actor George Dzundza is 59. Rock musician Brian May is 57. Actress Beverly Archer is 56. Actor Peter Barton is 48. Movie director Atom Egoyan is 44. Actor Anthony Edwards is 42. Actor Campbell Scott is 42. Country singer Kelly Shiver is 41. Actress Rachel Miner is 24. Actor Jared Padalecki is 22. Actor Steven Anthony Lawrence ("Even Stevens") is 14.