Jeff Conaway

Country singer Mindy McCready was found dead by apparent suicide on her front porch Sunday, the victim of a single, self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, according to officials in Arkansas. She was 37. Her death comes a little over a month after David Wilson, her partner and the father of her younger son, died of a gunshot wound to the head on that same porch in Heber Springs, Ark. "Just got a call from Mindy McCready's best friend that she shot and killed herself this evening," NBC's Andrea Canning wrote on Twitter on Sunday night.

A roundup of entertainment headlines for Friday. Roseanne Barr says she's running for president. ( Entertainment Weekly ) Brett Ratner, yes, the "Rush Hour" guy, will be producing this year's Oscars with Don Mischer. ( Los Angeles Times ) A "Sex and the City" prequel is coming, but as a TV series set in high school. ( Los Angeles Times ) Sarah Michelle Gellar is returning to "All My Children" for a short run before the series finally ends. ( Los Angeles Times )

In the wake of Mindy McCready's apparent suicide on Sunday in Arkansas, Dr. Drew Pinsky of "Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew" was defending the show Tuesday and explaining how things can go wrong with addiction treatment. In a call-in appearance on " The View ," the famous addiction doc mentioned his last phone call with McCready and shed light on why she might have left court-ordered rehab after only a couple of days. He said she was doing well until the death of her boyfriend, David Wilson, in January.

When Tiffany & Co. and Saks Fifth Avenue first expanded outside New York, they landed in Beverly Hills. Beverly Hills has become a second home for many New York institutions (including the Museum of TV and Radio coming in '96 and Bloomingdale's in '97) and it even has a New York Alumni Assn. with 15,000 members, according to the Beverly Hills Visitors' Bureau. So B.H. has come up with a way to celebrate the ties that bind the two cities: the "Beverly Hills Loves New York Parade."

A roundup of entertainment headlines for Thursday. Lars von Trier is very, very, very sorry for his Nazi comments at Cannes. ( Los Angeles Times ) Too late, Von Trier. Cannes says you're banned. Effective immediately. ( The Wrap ) Univision has plans to launch three new channels, including one devoted to those sexy, sexy telenovelas . ( Los Angeles Times ) While no one was paying attention, CBS' "The Good Wife" had an old-fashioned steamy lesbian love scene.

In "Hot Buttered Amour," a trio of one-acts at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, playwright Jacob Edelman turns eccentricity into a virtue. These light romantic comedies offer the kind of quirky, amusingly eccentric parts that actors--and many viewers--love. While the plays themselves are far from perfect, the Theatre Group (composed of veteran actors studying under teacher Milton Katselas) has put together an entertaining, if overly long, bill.

Judy Kaye's calling card should read: "Have Voice Will Travel." A Tony Award winner for "The Phantom of the Opera," Kaye has sung in musical comedies and operas here, there and everywhere. This Tuesday, she reprises her role as the egotistical opera diva Carlotta in "Phantom" at the Ahmanson. Kaye, who attended UCLA, got her Equity card while still in college by doing a season of musicals at the old Melodyland Theatre in Anaheim and appearing in TV series.