BUSINESS
March 6, 2012 | By Joe Flint, Los Angeles Times
Warner Bros.' international television unit is teaming with two Chinese production companies to create a Chinese teen drama series inspired by "Gossip Girl," which airs in the United States on the CW Network. "Gossip Girl," about a group of wealthy back-stabbing Manhattanites, has been a cult hit for the cable channel for the last five years and launched the careers of actresses Blake Lively and Leighton Meester. Tentatively called "China Girl," the show will be in Mandarin and launch in November on satellite television, with "Gossip Girl" creators Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage consulting.
ENTERTAINMENT
September 16, 2007 | Matea Gold, Times Staff Writer
Josh SCHWARTZ was shooting the finale of "The O.C." in Pasadena last season when he began to get an inkling about the potential of his next project. "All these teenagers from the neighborhood had gathered, upset the show was ending," said Schwartz, the young writer-producer who created the gauzy Newport Beach teen soap. "They said, 'You have to do another show for us.' " In fact, Schwartz told them, he was starting work on a television series based on the popular "Gossip Girl" books.
HOME & GARDEN
May 16, 2009 | LAUREN BEALE
In the real Orange County, not everyone ends up living in their custom-built home. The intended family residence of actress Kristin Cavallari has come on the market at $13.95 million in Three Arch Bay, a gated Laguna Beach community. Cavallari was playing herself in 28 episodes of "Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County" (2004-05) during part of the eight-year construction period but never occupied the feng shui-savvy residence.
ENTERTAINMENT
March 27, 2004 | Randy Lewis
The Television Academy's 25th College Television Awards will take place Sunday in Hollywood. More than 380 entries from 138 colleges and universities competed. Student filmmakers will be honored at the invitation-only black-tie gala Sunday, with Christopher McDonald as host. On Monday, winning films will be shown at the Television Academy. "The O.C." creator, Josh Schwartz, hosts the event, which is open to the public. -- Randy Lewis
NEWS
May 28, 2008 | LISA ROSEN
"GOSSIP GIRL" teems with rich teens obsessed with sex, drugs, status, fashion and themselves -- with a penchant for texting about it. They rival Gatsby's Daisy Buchanan in selfishness and desirability. (OK, who just stopped reading to Google Daisy Buchanan? For shame.) The underage characters swill cocktails, fall in and out of bed and scheme for popularity, with Blair Waldorf, played by Leighton Meester, being the most fabulously conniving of them all.
ENTERTAINMENT
September 26, 2011 | By Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times Television Critic
What is it with surgeons and their cold, cold hearts? Last week, CBS sent a ghost to help Patrick Wilson's driven doc find his inner humanity on "A Gifted Man"; Monday, the CW sends the Manhattan-centric Dr. Zoe Hart (Rachel Bilson) miles below the Mason-Dixon Line to find hers. ("Hart of Dixie," get it?) The idea that a small town has a more charitable sense of community than a big city rings true mostly to big-city dwellers who have never lived in a small town, while the notion that the folks of Bluebell, Ala., are somehow more real than the folks of New York is a canard certain politicians have been enthusiastically shopping around for some time now. Fortunately, "Hart of Dixie" creator Leila Gerstein and producers (and "O.C.