Whoopi Goldberg to host the Tony Awards

May 11, 2008 at 12:00a.m.

NEW YORK —It will be Whoopi and Tony. Whoopi Goldberg will serve as host of the 2008 Tony Awards June 15 at Radio City Music Hall, the show’s executive producers, Ricky Kirshner and Glenn Weiss, announced Thursday.

“I love Broadway and I’m thrilled to be doing anything for the first time,” said Goldberg, who’s hosted the Academy Awards four times. “I’m gonna have a blast.”

Goldberg, a regular on ABC’s “The View,” has been on Broadway with her own one-woman show as well as in revivals of “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” and “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”

The 62nd annual Tonys, which honor the best of the 2007-08 Broadway season, will be broadcast live 8-11 p.m. EDT on CBS. Nominations will be announced Tuesday.

Trace Adkins records song for truTV series

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Trace Adkins, a former oil roughneck, has written and recorded a song called “Black Gold” that will open an upcoming truTV series of the same name. The show, which premieres 10 p.m. June 18, follows three drilling crews in their quest for oil in West Texas.

Before he was a country star, Adkins, 46, of Sarepta, La., worked as a roughneck and derrickman on offshore drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. “Trace knows that the men featured in ‘Black Gold’ are drilling for oil on our soil, an important but dangerous job, where loss of life or limb is not uncommon. His understanding of these men and what they face really comes through in his lyrics,” said Marc Juris, executive vice president and general manager of truTV.

Adkins has kept a high-profile in recent months. He was runner-up on NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice,” appeared in CBS’ “The Young and the Restless” and won best male video for “I Got My Game On” at the Country Music Television awards. The singer’s other hits include “You’re Gonna Miss This,” “Honky-tonk Badonkadonk” and “Ladies Love Country Boys.”

Today’s birthdays

Comedian Mort Sahl is 81. Singer Eric Burdon (The Animals, War) is 67. Actress Shohreh Aghdashloo (”24”) is 56. Actor Boyd Gaines is 55. Drummer Mark Herndon of Alabama is 53. Former MTV VJ Martha Quinn is 49. Actress Natasha Richardson is 45. Country singer Tim Raybon of the Raybon Brothers is 45. Bassist Keith West of Heartland is 40. Actor Coby Bell (“Third Watch”) is 33. Actor Jonathan Jackson (“Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights,” “Tuck Everlasting”) is 26.