Top-20 Riche$t Celebs on TV

Forbes has come up with the list of 20 richest celebrities on US television. Take a look at tube's biggest money-makers and their respective earnings between July 2006 and June 2007, after the jump.

1. OPRAH WINFREY ($260 million)
2. JERRY SEINFELD ($60 million)
3. SIMON COWELL ($45 million)
4. DAVID LETTERMAN ($40 million)
5. DONALD TRUMP ($32 million)
5. JAY LENO ($32 million)
7. JUDGE JUDY ($30 million)
7. Dr. PHIL McGRAW ($30 million)
9. GEORGE LOPEZ ($26 million)
10. KIEFER SUTHERLAND ($22 million)

11. REGIS PHILBIN ($21 million)
12. TYRA BANKS ($18 million)
13. CELEBRITY CHEF RAY ($16 million)
14. KATIE COURIC ($15 million)
14. ELLEN DEGENERES ($15 million)
16. RYAN SEACREST ($14 million)
17. MATT LAUER ($13 million)
18. BARBARA WALTERS ($12 million)
18. DIANE SAWYER ($12 million)
20. MEREDITH VIERA ($10 million)

53-year old talk show queen Oprah Winfrey is also the richest woman in the entertainment industry and the most powerful celebrity in Hollywood.

Her media empire also includes stakes in syndicated daytime talk shows by Dr. Phil McGraw and Rachael Ray.

Winfrey is worth over $2.5 billion, as of September, 2007 and has overtaken Ebay CEO Meg Whitman as the richest self-made woman in America.

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George Michael Returns to "Eli Stone"

George Michael has signed a new deal to guest star on two more episodes of ABC's upcoming midseason drama "Eli Stone" from "Brothers & Sisters" and "Dirty Sexy Money" uber-producer Greg Berlanti. Check out the singer's original appearance in the show pilot after the jump.



The legal drama revolves around an attorney (played by Jonny Lee Miller) who, after a string of bizarre hallucinations, thinks he might be a prophet.

In the pilot, Eli keeps hearing the sound of "Faith" in his head, and at one point has a vision of George Michael performing the song in his office.

According to TV Guide, Michael who returns in the show's 8th and 9th episode will get to both sing and act.

"Faith" was a an enormously popular 1987 debut solo album for the British singer which produced 4 #1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

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TV Ratings: "Big Shots"? Big Losers! (UPDATED) (9/27/07)

Almost half the people who watched "Grey's Anatomy" last night didn't even bother to give Michael Vartan's critically-panned "Big Shots" a shot and one quarter of those who did were gone by 10:30. Meanwhile, after losing some ground to "Grey's Anatomy" in 2006, C.S.I. was back stronger than last year easily beating Seattle docs by 4 million viewers, its largest lead over "Grey's Anatomy" to date. Check out the details and ratings for "Ugly Betty."

The battle royale between blockbusters CSI and "Grey's Anatomy" ended with the former beating the latter (24.85 million vs. 20.48 million). Meredith and the gang, however, pulled in much stronger 18-49 numbers (8.0 vs 8.7), and those are the figures that really matter to advertisers.

"Ugly Betty" launched its 2nd season at 8:00 p.m. with 11.05 million viewers. Although many of the fans may now be keeping up with the show on DVR, this is still quite a significant drop compared to last year's series premiere (16.32 million).

Finally, "Big Shots" proved to be a weak lead-out for "Grey's Anatomy." 12.98 million people began watching at 10:00, but then over 3 million of them abandoned the show within half an hour, so the show scored an average of 11.56 million. Last year's flop "Six Degrees" posted 12.56 million.

Now, if those numbers continue to go south and the network either pulls or reschedules "Big Shots" to a different timeslot, it will be interesting to see what replaces it. Will it be "Men In Trees," "October Road" or even "Dirty Sexy Money"? In any event, I smell blood.

UPDATE: How silly of me to forget about good ole "Smallville." As you can see I only choose to report ratings for shows I cover on this blog, but since "Smallville" is one of them, and I've always loved that hunkfest of a show, here we go:

"Smallville" actually did pretty well for its 7th season premiere (given the somewhat weak start for both "Reaper" and "Gossip Girl" I bet the CW is happy about that).

The show pulled in 5.08 million viewers, pretty much on a par with last year's premiere ratings. Since "America's Top Model" slid a little below 5 million the night before (blame it on "Dancing with the Stars"), "Smallville" will be The CW's top show this week. Not too bad for a drama in its 7th season.

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Daily Eye Candy: Sam Saffman

Young British model Sam Saffman has done runway and editorial work for Dolce & Gabbana appearing, among other, in their summer 2007 campaign. He and Matt Benstead are Models 1 agency's top rising stars. Today's Daily Eye Candy takes a look at his recent work including D&G.

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"Dirty Sexy Money" Recap #1.01 Pilot

The day I read a rough outline of the ABC pilot "Dirty Sexy Money" in February of this year I knew it would be love at first sight. What I didn't know is that Craig Wright and Greg Berlanti were about to come up with a witty and wacky pilot that may easily evolve into my new #1 show on television.


The escapist saga of Nick George (Peter Krause) and the notorious Darling clan of New York (whose net value runs into billions of dollars), begins with a plane crash that kills Dutch George, Nick's father and the Darlings' attorney and shenanigan-fixer.



The family patriarch Tripp Darling (the superb Donald Sutherland) offers Nick, who promised his loving wife to stay away from the Darlings for good, 5 million dollars for his charitable projects on top of a lucrative salary to take over his father's job. As Tripp explains, Johnny Cochran and Bill Clinton were not available for obvious reasons.



Despite his prior convictions, Nick is intrigued and asks for 10 million. As Tripp replies "Done!" one is to wonder, has Nick just made a pact with the devil?

Before the Georges have had a chance to celebrate, Tripp's kooky offspring begin to demand their money's worth.





Ne'er do well and coke-head Jeremy Darling (Seth Gabel) gets himself arrested while unknowingly smuggling a group of immigrants into the US on a yacht he won gambling. He possesses zero self-confidence and believes his father thinks he's an idiot.



Wannabe thespian Juliet Darling (Samaire Armstrong) learns her daddy bankrolled the play she unsuccessfully auditioned for and in a fit of hysteria wishes she's dead



The deliciously vindictive man of cloth, Brian Darling (Glenn Fitzgerald) tries to get his illegitimate son enrolled in a private academy and threatens the principal. Brian also hates George and thinks both he and his late father just inserted themselves into the family to squeeze money out of them.


The oblivious socialite Karen Darling (Natalie Zea) needs a prenuptial agreement prior to her fourth marriage, although she still adores her childhood love - George who as she points out to fiance Freddy - deflowered her.



NY state attorney general Patrick Darling (William Baldwin) is married with children, but has a weakness for his transsexual lover (Candis Cane). He is not able to break up with her, so he asks Nick to do it for him.



Finally, there's the boozy but swell matriarch Letitia Darling (Jill Clayburgh) who appears to be crushed by Dutch George's death more than anyone. Later, Nick gasps for air when he learns from Karen that Letitia and his father had an affair for 40 years.



By the end of the hour, an exhausted Nick exchanges fists with Brian on the Darling marble floor in the lobby, witnesses Juliet's suicide attempt, leaves his job with the Darlings, persuades Patrick to be the man and break up with Carmelita himself and learns there may be more to his father's death than meets the eye.



In the closing moments, a determined Nick returns to his job, but decides to find out who killed his father and make them pay for it.

The cast is stellar, the sets are impeccable, the execution is brilliant. Even the use of music is hilarious: Led Zeppelin rock out as the dysfunctional Darlings arrive for the funeral.

Also, each family member gets a different ringtone on Nick's phone - it was fun trying to guess who's calling when the phone played tunes like "Born to be Wild" or "Pretty Woman."



I loved the performances of the cast. Inept actors could easily portray the Darlings as cartoons, but the cast manages to reflect the humor, the tragedy and the emotional depth behind each character.

Part glossy soap opera, part witty satire, "Dirty Sexy Money" is a gem of a show which has made it to the very top of my must-see TV list.

Here are now my favorite lines. They are not as funny as the situations in which they are said or the tone in which they are delivered:



Brian (to Nick's daughter at the funeral): "I'm sorry grandpa's dead."

Reporter (to an arrested Jeremy Darling, barely audible): "Are you getting back together with Kylie Minogue?"

Peter Bogdanovich (about Juliet's acting): "She's uhm... She's not good."

Karen (after Nick's wife ironically excuses herself for interrupting her tender moment with Nick): "Oh, that's OK."

Tripp (to Nick after the wreckage of the helicopter in which his father died was retrieved): "Take my helicopter."

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VIDEO: Luke & Noah: Daddy Blows Up

The annoying idiot I generously refer to as Colonel Retard a.k.a. Noah's father goes berserk having witnesses a tender kiss between two young men in love. What a stupid homophobic moron. Of course, there's a soapy twist to the latest episode in the saga of Luke and Noah, as the homicidal maniac makes a decision to stay in town and presumably take care of Luke.

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"Gossip Girl" Recap #1.02: 'The Wild Brunch"

"I always knew you were a whore, I just never took you for a liar, too." You gotta love a vixen with killer lines like that. Blair rears her ugly pretty head again as sparks fly at a ritzy brunch gone wrong and a disgusted Dan abandons Serena.


Serena tries to patch things up with her former BFF Blair who is anything but interested. In fact, Blair confronts her ex pal, with shattering ice in her tone, about the night she slept with her boyfriend Nate.





Meanwhile, goody-two-shoes Dan regrets his dorky behavior on his date with Serena and decides to visit her and ask her to go out with him again. Nate also wants to speak to a suddenly popular Serena, but needs to wait in line with Dan.



Serena's mom is not very happy about her daughter seeing Dan and she meets his father whom she herself had an affair with when they were both young and poor.



In the meantime, as Dan and Nate still wait for Serena, Chuck comes by and clashes with Dan who punched him in the face the other night, while protecting his naive sister. Chuck whose family owns the building clashes with unrepentant Dan who shouts back: "That black eye looks lonely!"



Serena finally arrives and enthusiastically accepts Dan's proposal to spend the day together. Her mother however puts a stop to that and forces Serena to go to the Sunday morning brunch Upper East Siders traditionally attend. Speaking of which, did you see those models posing as sculptures? What a hoot. Anyway, Serena insists that Dan, who had not been invited, comes along.





From the get go, it is clear this was a bad idea. Chuck encourages Blair to sneak away and finally lose her virginity to Nate. Little does she know Nate is really eager to speak to Serena and has arranged that she wait for him in the room upstairs. When they both run into her, all hell breaks loose.




Chuck reveals to Dan what Serena used to be like in her bad girl party days and tells him of her affair with Nate. Dan is finally pushed off the edge when sleazy Chuck calls Serena and Dan's sister sluts and in a classic "O.C." moment punches the spoiled brat right in his potty mouth.




The brunch is over and Dan leaves. He simply can't stand Serena's "friends" and it appears, even the girl he was in love with, may not exactly be the way he had originally imagined her. He has however learned Serena's mom is having an affair with Chuck's dad. But what will the boy do with such information?




The show obviously takes creative liberties with regard to the books it was based on, but then again you wouldn't want it to follow the original storyline page by page, would you? How boring would that be.

The ratings are not that stellar, but The CW often struggles for its place under the Nielsen sun, so hopefully we'll get a full season of guilty pleasure that "Gossip Girl" most certainly promises to be.

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