NEW YORK – A decade after Dr. Mark Greene hung up his white lab coat for good on “ER,” Anthony Edwards is back as the star of a new television series.
He plays Hank Galliston, a magazine publisher wrapped up in an historical mystery after his wife is kidnapped on ABC’s “Zero Hour,” which premieres Thursday at 8 p.m. The action thriller requires an audience to concentrate as the story unfolds layer by layer.
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The road back to series television took Edwards many miles to travel — literally thousands upon thousands.
Edwards’ character Greene was the heart of what was then television’s most popular drama before the actor bowed out after eight years. Upon leaving, “I didn’t really have a plan other than I knew I wasn’t going to jump into a series again and I knew that I was really tired and burnt out,” he said.
Professionally, maybe. Personally, Edwards had a clear strategy. The California native moved his wife and four children to New York. He was going to spend time raising his kids and give his artist wife time to establish her career, before they took off on a dream adventure.
While fellow actors George Clooney and Julianna Margulies left “ER” quickly to try other things, Edwards committed himself to a four-year contract. At the time, the commitment seemed huge — four years seems a lot longer at age 36 than it does now, when he’s 50 — but the decision set him up financially for life.
He bought a plane and took the family (and two teachers) on a 310-day trip around the world, through Africa, India, Southeast Asia and just about every exotic place you could imagine.
“It sounds like ‘Howdy Doody,’ ” Edwards said. “But I’ve never met the older man who wishes he had spent less time with his kids while they were young. You don’t meet anybody who says, ‘God, I wish I had worked harder and was gone more.’ “
No more Beach Boys tours ahead
LOS ANGELES – On the night the Beach Boys won the first performance Grammy Award of the group’s half-century career, it was the spirit of another artist’s song that Brian Wilson invoked backstage after collecting the award for historical album bestowed on “The Smile Sessions” on Sunday: We are never, ever getting back together.
Like ever.
Asked whether he anticipates another round of Beach Boys reunion shows following the successful 50th anniversary tour the group mounted in 2012, Wilson told reporters, “No, I don’t think so.”
The tour, which made Pollstar’s list of the Top 100 highest-grossing tours of the year, notoriously ended on a sour note when singer Mike Love announced he would resume touring with his own lineup of the group, including longtime member Bruce Johnston, but without founding members Wilson, Al Jardine and guitarist David Marks.
Last year the Beach Boys received a Grammy lifetime achievement award in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the band’s first chart hit, “Surfin’.”
Grammys audience second-biggest since 1993
NEW YORK – While the Grammy Awards couldn’t come close to the freakishly high ratings generated in 2012 because of Whitney Houston’s death and Adele’s smashing success, this year’s show had the second-largest audience for the program since 1993.
The Nielsen company said Monday that music’s annual awards show was seen by 28.4 million people Sunday night on CBS.
The Grammys this year were packed with high-powered musical moments and, in its awards, celebrated the industry’s diversity rather than overwhelmingly honoring one artist. It also had a few water-cooler moments: Which boyfriend was Taylor Swift specifically dissing in her latest performance of “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”? Was Chris Brown flaunting his revived relationship with Rihanna?
The music academy’s decision to turn the televised Grammys into more of a showcase than an awards show appears to be bearing fruit. The show’s audience was nearly 2 million higher than the 26.7 million who watched in 2011. From 2005 to 2009, the Grammy Awards audience fluctuated from 17 million to 20 million viewers.
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