Hot Casting News: Kathy Baker Battles Demons

Kathy Baker (Picket Fences), Kelly Rutherford (Melrose Place), Jamie Ray Newman (Veronica Mars) and Victoria Pratt (DayBreak) have all been cast in their respective fall 2007 pilots.

"Picket Fences" veteran Baker who appears in big screen feature "The Jane Austin Book Club" has joined the cast of "Babylon Fields" (CBS), a comedic drama about a town where the dead are resurrected and resume their former lives.

She plays Shirley Wunch, a low-rent suburban housewife who, along with her daughter (Amber Tamblyn), is forced to face her cruel, abusive husband (Jamey Sheridan) whom the two of them murdered with an ax.

Next "Melrose Place" alum Rutherford has scored a role on The CW's "The Gossip Girl" about privileged Manhattan high school girls.

She will play the mother of Blake Lively's character, a former ballerina and rock groupie. The pilot is produced by Josh Schwartz, the creator of "The O.C."

Next, Jaime Ray Newman (Veronica Mars) has landed the lead in the CW's "I Am Paige Armstrong", playing a disenfranchised congressional aide who decides to run against her boss.

Finally, Victoria Pratt (Daybreak) has joined ABC's "Dirty Sexy Money" from "Brothers & Sisters" producer Greg Berlanti as Naomi Leeds, editor-in-chief of Elite Magazine (think Vanity Fair), an attractive woman who wants to profile the Darling family for a tell-all article.

She enlists Nick (Peter Krause) for an in-depth, probing interview, and bluntly reveals that she thinks the Darlings are "evil" and poisonous. It turns out she's got very personal reasons for wanting to publish a dirt-filled article.

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