‘Hank’ canceled after less than two months

November 13, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

NEW YORK — ABC’s cancellation of the comedy “Hank” makes it two failures in three years for star Kelsey Grammer.

Grammer, the multiple Emmy winner as the star of “Frasier,” also saw his Fox series “Back to You” with Patricia Heaton given the boot in spring 2008. At least it made a full season: “Hank” didn’t make two months. The Nielsen Co. said the show averaged 6.7 million viewers each week.

Its fate seemed sealed recently when ABC announced it was ordering a full season’s worth of episodes for its three other new Wednesday night comedies. They include old colleague Heaton’s sitcom “The Middle,” ABC’s biggest Wednesday hit, “Modern Family” and “Cougar Town.” ABC says Grammer’s 8 p.m. time slot will be filled by “Modern Family” reruns and holiday specials over the next several weeks.

Warhol painting fetches $43.8M at auction

NEW YORK — An Andy Warhol painting called “200 One Dollar Bills” has sold at auction for $43.8 million, more than three times its highest presale estimate of $12 million.

The silk-screen painting sold at Sotheby’s on Wednesday evening. The names of the buyer and seller were not disclosed.

The auction house says the bidding opened at $6 million and was immediately doubled. Five more people in the room jumped in, competing until a phone bidder was declared the winner.

The work was created in 1962. It once was owned by taxi tycoon Robert C. Scull, who purchased it directly from Warhol’s dealer. The current owner bought it in 1986 for $385,000.

‘Girls Gone Wild’ founder headed back to court

PANAMA CITY, Fla. — The founder of “Girls Gone Wild” is set to return before a Florida Panhandle federal judge who witnessed a tearful, nose-blowing apology from the young multimillionaire in 2007.

Joe Francis is due in Judge Richard Smoak’s court next Friday for a hearing involving four women who say Francis’ company filmed them when they were underage. Francis’ attorneys want the case thrown out, and the women’s attorneys want him to pay.

In 2007, Francis sobbed and asked to be freed from a Panama City jail. Smoak jailed him for contempt of court after Francis yelled at attorneys during settlement negotiations in another case.

The “Girls Gone Wild” video series features women exposing themselves on camera.

Liu: Fight against human trafficking will be long

CAIRO — Actress Lucy Liu, who has produced a film about children sold into the sex trade in Cambodia, says the fight against human trafficking will be long.

Liu praised several projects funded by the U.N. children’s agency in Egypt, where she was promoting the film “Red Light” at the Cairo International Film Festival.

The actress co-produced and narrated the movie, which follows the stories of a number of girls over the course of four years as they are kidnapped and sold to brothels in Cambodia.

Liu said Wednesday it “is really going to take a really long time” to fight human trafficking, labeled the third-most-profitable business in the world after weapons and drugs trading.

Today’s birthdays

Actress Madeleine Sherwood (“The Flying Nun”) is 87. Producer-director-actor Garry Marshall is 75. Actor Joe Mantegna is 62. Actor Chris Noth (“Law and Order: Criminal Intent,” “Sex and the City”) is 55. Actress Whoopi Goldberg is 54. Actor Neil Flynn (“Scrubs”) is 49. Comedian Jimmy Kimmel is 42. Actor Steve Zahn (“Happy, Texas,” “That Thing You Do!”) is 42. Actress Aisha Hinds (“True Blood”) is 34. Actress Monique Coleman (“High School Musical”) is 29.