Spinal Tap actors will leave wigs behind

Spinal Tap actors will leave wigs behind

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — The amps won’t be turned up to 11 for Spinal Tap’s reunion tour.

Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer — the actors who portrayed the faux heavy metal rock band in the 1984 mockumentary “This is Spinal Tap” — are leaving their wigs and costumes in their closets for the “Unwigged and Unplugged” tour.

“When we were doing the Tap show, it was 90 minutes to 120 minutes of really, really hard work and running up and down the rafters, and we had big special effects, and we played electric instruments, and we had wigs and we got very sweaty,” said McKean, who played lead singer David St. Hubbins. “This is none of that.”

Tickets are now on sale for the 30-city tour, which begins April 17 in Vancouver, British Columbia. It stops at Cleveland’s State Theatre on May 19.

Quaid revisits hospital for ‘Oprah’ episode

CHICAGO — For the first time since their twins were given an overdose of blood thinner, Dennis Quaid and his wife have returned to the Los Angeles hospital that administered the drug for an episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

Harpo Productions said in a release Thursday that Quaid and his wife, Kimberly, wanted to visit Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to see what steps have been taken to ensure a similar mistake won’t happen again.

The newborn twins were administered too much Heparin in November 2007. They recovered, and the Quaids settled with the hospital for $750,000 in December.

Quaid was accompanied by Winfrey’s cameras as he entered the hospital saying, “Being here brings back a lot of memories, not all of them good.”

The episode was filmed in February and will air Tuesday.

Willis files countersuit against producers

LOS ANGELES — Bruce Willis has filed a countersuit against a team of movie producers who had earlier accused him of breach of contract for backing out of a film project.

In his complaint, filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court, the 53-year-old actor alleges that the producers of “Three Stories About Joan” have failed to demonstrate they had full funding for the project by an agreed-upon deadline.

Willis seeks $8.7 million in compensatory damages against some two dozen defendants.

The producers sued Willis last week for $4 million. They alleged he quit as director without notice, in violation of his contract.

Today’s birthdays

Actress Sue Ane Langdon is 73. Actress Lynn Redgrave is 66. Musician-actor Micky Dolenz of the Monkees is 64. Bassist Randy Meisner (The Eagles, Poco) is 63. Singer Peggy March is 61. Singer Gary Numan is 51. Actor Aidan Quinn is 50. Guitarist Jimmy Dormire of Confederate Railroad is 49. Actress Camryn Mannheim (“The Practice”) is 48. Singer Shawn Mullins is 41. Actress Andrea Parker (“The Pretender”) is 39. Actor Freddie Prinze Jr. is 33. Actor James Van Der Beek (“Dawson’s Creek”) is 32. Singer Kameelah Williams of 702 is 31. Singer Tom Chaplin of Keane is 30. Guitarist Andy Ross of OK Go is 30.