Heather Locklear & "Lipstick" Hottie Robert Buckley in Hawaii

Has any one of former "Melrose" vixen Heather Locklear's Lifetime movies, that she has been doing rather extensively in the past few years, gotten as much buzz and paparazzi coverage as "Flirting with 40" (currently filming in Hawaii)? Call me crazy, but I say it has something to do with "Lipstick Jungle's" super-yummy hottie Robert Buckley.

Based upon's Jane Porter's same-titled chicklit novel, the made-for-TV about a divorcée who celebrates her 40th birthday in Hawaii only to find herself falling for her gorgeous and much younger surf instructor, is set to premiere on Lifetime later this year. The movie began shooting in snowy Calgary, Alberta a month ago.

Although she has been frolicking in the hot Hawaiian sun with the delicious Buckley, Locklear has had her eyes locked on her former "Melrose Place" co-star Jack Wagner, whom she has been dating since divorcing her rock star husband, Bon Jovi's Richie Sambora. Denise Richards, eat our heart out.

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Heather Locklear & Jack Wagner Spotted Days After 911 Call

Former "Melrose Place" sweethearts Heather Locklear, ("Amanda Woodward") and Jack Wagner ("Dr.Peter Burns") who are dating in real life, were snapped at the Malibu TraDiNoi restaurant enjoying lunch on Thursday, just days after an anonymous caller placed a 911 call suggesting Locklear, 46, was suicidal.


The frantic call was made by someone who claimed to be a medical doctor. Paramedics and sheriff's deputies were dispatched to Locklear's home in a gated community in Thousand Oaks, but found Locklear alive and well.



The call was released by the authorities on Wednesday last week, amid protests from Locklear's reps. According to TMZ the caller had seen an upset Locklear earlier in the day and feared she might overdose on her depression medication.



Locklear who starred in such classic TV hits as "Dynasty" and "Melrose Place" has struggled in recent years to find a new hit series. Her 2nd marriage to rocker Richie Sambora ended as did her friendship with former BFF Denise Richards, who is now dating Sambora.

Most recently Locklear appeared in several Lifetime made-for movies. Here's a funny video of Heather being embarrassed by reporters' questions while promoting a movie in January 2007.

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Heather Locklear Strikes a Homie Pose

Former 'Melrose' superbitch Heather Locklear appeared a bit on the intoxicated side this weekend at CoCo de Ville in Hollywood as she struck a wobbly gangsta pose for the adoring paparazzi. The actress may have been in a rush to catch an all-new episode of the Denise Richards' reality show. Or not.

Ms. Locklear who once made Mondays a bitch (there I go again using the b-word), will be seen later this year seducing the 27-year old "Lipstick Jungle" hottie Robert Buckley in a Hawaii-based Lifetime made-for. She is currently dating her 'Melrose' flame Jack Wagner ('Dr. Peter Burns').

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Locklear & Buckley in Hawaii

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Who's Afraid of Amanda Woodward?

I usually don't try to solve what Jon Robin Baitz in his blog referred to as "cutesy blind items" of TV Guide's scooper-pooper Michael Ausiello. Call me superficial, but this latest riddle concerning a C-list actress throwing a hissy fit over the casting of Heather Locklear on either ABC's "Cashmere Mafia" or NBC's "Lipstick Jungle" is simply too delicious to miss out on. Plus, it appears the answer is hidden in the casting timeline.

According to Ausiello, a spotlight-hungry C-list diva who was cast as one of the leads in a freshman show for the 2007-2008 season often referred to as "Sex and the City" knock-off, informed the producers she would be leaving the project if they went ahead with their plan to cast former "Melrose Place" vixen Heather Locklear.


Locklear, who began her career in the classic 1980s shows "Dynasty" and "T.J. Hooker" helped save Aaron Spelling's FOX sudser "Melrose Place" when she was added to the cast as a special guest star, transforming the timid twentysomething morality play into one of prime time's most outrageous soap operas in the 1990s.

An unnamed diva on either ABC's "Cashmere Mafia" or NBC's "Lipstick Jungle" was, according to TV Guide, afraid Locklear would overshadow her presence in the new series and demanded that the producers show Locklear the door. They complied by hiring a less imposing lead and giving our C-list heroine a 7-figure salary.



Since NBC's troubled project "Lipstick Jungle" was originally intended for the 2006-2007 season (Gina Gershon and Melissa George were originally cast to headline the pilot in February 2006) and the show's new principal star Brooke Shields was cast before Kim Raver and Lindsay Price joined the pilot in February 2007, the answer may lie over at "Cashmere Mafia."

Although Bonnie Somerville was the last to join the series on March 1, 2007, she actually had a special talent holding deal with the network and Touchstone Television signed in October 2006 calling for her to be cast in one of their projects in development or to develop one around her (at the time referred to as "The Untitled Bonnie Somerville Project").



In the entertainment industry, a holding deal is an agreement made between a studio or network and an actor, producer or writer, that holds the person to be exclusive to that entity for an agreed upon period of time, usually one year or "season", for an agreed upon amount of money.

It is most common for television networks to offer actors in high demand holding deals for an upcoming television season. A holding deal is different from a development deal in that the holding deal is simply looking to place the talent in any project the network sees fit.

For this reason, the holding deal would have given Bonnie Somerville leverage in negotiations and heavily impacted final casting choices.

Lucy Liu, possibly a less imposing lead than Heather Locklear, joined the series on February 28, just one day before Bonnie Somerville officially took over the role originally intended for Miranda Otto.

Both Otto and Frances O'Connor had been cast before that, in the course of February 2007.

Michael Ausiello also says the insiders expect the series in question to have a short life span. "Lipstick Jungle" has yet to premiere, while "Cashmere Mafia" has lost about half the audience that tuned into its inflated post-"Desperate Housewives" debut on January 7.

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Televisionista Flashback: "Melrose Place" - When Mondays Were a Bitch

JULY 8, 2007: 15 years ago today FOX unveiled an Aaron Spelling-produced spin-off to "Beverly Hills, 90210" entitled "Melrose Place," a tedious twentysomething morality play that nobody watched. Little did we know that six months later Heather Locklear would spice things up and turn "Melrose" into one of TV's campiest, trashiest, guiltiest pleasures. Take a jump back to 4616, Melrose Place, where "Mondays Are a Bitch."


Mediocre ratings plagued the Darren Star-produced LA apartment complex-set feel-good drama and its denizens from the get-go.

Michael, an ambitious doctor and his wife Jane, a budding fashion designer, had been a loving and saccharine-sweet couple. Ad agency receptionist Alison and her roommate and struggling writer Billy, were too busy dealing with "burning issues" to realize they had hots for each other. And resident gay man and social worker Matt had no sex life whatsoever.



But the audience couldn't care less about the drama's early preaching tone. They wanted to see people making mistakes. As soon as the writers introduced continuing and soapier storylines as part of the mid-course correction, they realized they needed a bad apple, a minx, a cat amongst the pigeons to stir things up. Enter vixen Amanda Woodward.

The 11th hour addition of Heather Locklear, was originally supposed to last only 4 episodes. But then the love triangle between Alison, Billy and Amanda helped "Melrose Place" blossom into one of TV's most brazenly sexy and shameless soap opera and the ratings went up. "Special Guest Star" Heather Locklear never changed her status in the opening credits, but she de facto became the show's principal star.


In its sophomore season, 'Melrose' and its buffed and beautiful creatures with enviable physique found their winning blend of the lusty, deceitful, ridiculous intrigues, dark humor, shocking moments and high camp, all generously sprinkled with Amanda's catty one-liners and micro-skirts.

A sex kitten with an MBA who always gives sage business advice to other characters, Amanda literally buys the apartment complex where everyone lives and moves in. She sleeps with Billy, the moves on to Jake (Grant Show), while she humiliates and torpedoes the hapless Alison with a laser-death glare in between.


But there was suddenly a lot more to Melrose than Amanda. Jane caught her husband Michael sleeping with a beautiful doctor played by Desperate Housewife Marcia Cross. Next, her manipulative kid sister Sydney slept with Michael, who then proposed to his beautiful doc, that's right before he drove her into an early grave. Allegedly.

As the years went by, the storylines got nuttier and the guest stars got prettier. An entire battalion of supermodels marched through the infamous complex gate (Antonio Sabato Jr, Alyssa Milano, David Charvet and even ex-porn-star Traci Lords to name just a few) kept the temperature up.



Unfortunately for West Hollywood's trashiest apartment complex, by the show's sixth season in 1998, the drama had run out of steam and turned into a parody of its former self as more than half of the original cast members jumped the ship and the show jumped the shark. Ratings erosion ensued.

An attempt to revive the show in its final 7th season with the return of the original cast member Josie Bisset and a switch to a lighter tone in storytelling came too late. Aaron Spelling announced the cancellation of "Melrose Place" on February 1, 1999, saying the drama would get a send-off it deserves come May.



Late last year, "Melrose Place" finally arrived on DVD (along with its predecessor 90210) and the show's brilliant second season was released on May 1. Here are now several additional images from the show that redefined the term "guilty pleasure" and raised the bar in shock factor in the prime-time soap-opera genre. Also, check out a video preview of the second season and the two-part Mancini divorce storyline.

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Heather Locklear's Pilot Nixed

It appears I will have to wait a teenie weenie bit longer to see Heather Locklear who played the nasty micro-skirt clad ad exec Amanda Woodward on 90s soap "Melrose Place" back on a Nielsen-shattering prime-time television show where she belongs.

ABC has decided not to pick up her pilot "See Jayne Run," a 30-minute sitcom in which she played the titular character.

Heather, who is rumored to be dating her former "Melrose Place" co-star and "General Hospital" vet Jack Wagner, went shopping for flowers this past weekend.

Extra Magazine recently reported Heather and Jack were seen on Memorial day Weekend holding hands on a Malibu beach.

The two also went together to a celebrity golf tournament hosted by Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones in April.



In the 1999 series finale of "Melrose Place," their characters Amanda and Peter faked their own deaths to escape the police and ran off into the sunset holding hands on a beach in Hawaii.

Locklear, 45, filed for divorce from rocker Richie Sambora, 47, last year.

Locklear and Sambora’s divorce became a public spectacle after the rocker began dating close family friend, Denise Richards, before the separation was final.

Sambora and Locklear have a 9-year-old daughter, Ava.

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Heather Locklear Tears It Up

Former "Melrose Place" star Heather Locklear who will be waiting to hear if ABC picks up her new comedy pilot "See Jayne Run" for its fall schedule played golf on Sunday at the 9th Annual Michael Douglas & Friends Celebrity Golf Tournament.

Joining Douglas and wife Catherine Zeta Jones were also "Desperate Housewives" star Kyle MacLachlan, "Las Vegas" heartthrob Josh Duhamel as well as Mark Wahlberg, Samuel L. Jackson, Haley Joel Osment, Charyl Ladd and many other.



the second season of Heather's hit show "Melrose Place" which ruled the prime-time soap opera landscape in the 90s is now available along with the 2nd season of "Beverly Hills, 90210" on DVD.

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Heather Locklear Returns

Foxy mama Heather Locklear is coming back to prime-time television. That is if her comedy pilot for ABC is picked up for the fall schedule. The network has ordered more pilots than any other network, so the competition will be tough.

Heather who is seen here promoting her last prime-time series, NBC's short-lived "LAX" in which she starred with Blaire Underwood in the fall of 2004, is of course known to audiences across the globe as sassy Sammy Jo Carrington on 80's soap "Dynasty" as well as micro-skirt clad ad exec vixen Amanda on 90's sudsfest "Melrose Place."



The actress was cast by ABC in the lead role on the comedy "See Jayne Run" as the title character Jayne Doherty, an accomplished alpha female working in the male-dominated world of investment banking who struggles to balance career and motherhood. The comedy pilot is produced by ABC's in-house production studio.

One of the most recognizable faces of US broadcast television, Locklear has also had experience in the field of comedy - for three seasons she co-starred on ABC's political sitcom "Spin City" with Michael J. Fox and later Charlie Sheen.

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