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"The Dog Whisperer" Cesar Millan is usually focused on rehabbing canines -- but he's now revealing some work he had to do on himself following a suicide attempt in 2010. In February of that year, he lost his top dog, Daddy, to cancer after 16 years as a team. A month later, Millan's wife told him she wanted a divorce after 16 years of marriage. The combined blow knocked him for a loop, he shares in "Cesar Millan: The Real Story," a documentary on Nat Geo Wild. In May 2010, he attempted suicide via drug overdose, winding up unconscious and hospitalized, he said.

AUSTIN, Texas -- As filmmaking partners go, they make strange bedfellows: Dan Mazer, writer of ribald Sacha Baron Cohen satires "Borat" and "Bruno," and Working Title, the British production company behind breezy romantic comedies "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and "Love Actually," have partnered on a new and unconventional entry in the date-night genre. "I Give It a Year," which makes its North American premiere Saturday at the South by Southwest Film Festival, begins where most romantic comedies end--with the fairy tale wedding of its protagonists, type-A advertising executive Nat (Rose Byrne)

Bravo! Dick Turpin serves the industry well by educating developers, architects and others on public relations counsel. NAT B. READ Pasadena

When Los Angeles muralist Richard Wyatt Jr. set out in 1990 to create a gigantic public artwork paying tribute to nearly a dozen great jazz musicians, he was given only two specific requests. "Nat King Cole's widow [Maria] asked me if I would show him wearing his favorite tie," said Wyatt, 57, as he stood next to his recently restored mural at the Capitol Records Tower in Hollywood last week. "And Joe Smith, who was president of Capitol at the time, asked me if I'd please include Ella Fitzgerald," he said.

AUSTIN, Texas -- As filmmaking partners go, they make strange bedfellows: Dan Mazer, writer of ribald Sacha Baron Cohen satires "Borat" and "Bruno," and Working Title, the British production company behind breezy romantic comedies "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and "Love Actually," have partnered on a new and unconventional entry in the date-night genre. "I Give It a Year," which makes its North American premiere Saturday at the South by Southwest Film Festival, begins where most romantic comedies end--with the fairy tale wedding of its protagonists, type-A advertising executive Nat (Rose Byrne)

On Wednesday, Oct. 10, Night + Market hosts a wine dinner -- or "anti-wine dinner" -- in its backyard herb garden, featuring petillant naturel wines (dry, fizzy wines made without added yeast or sugar) from Pascal Potaire.   " Pet-nat is French for awesome rustic fizzy fun wine topped with a beer cap," said Night + Market chef Kris Yenbamroong in a release.   Two pet-nats -- a white (100% Chardonnay) and a rosé (Cot and Gamay) -- along with Noella Morantin's Marie Rose (a Cabernet Sauvignon rosé)

Everyone who was there, or passed through it, seems to love remembering the Hollywood of the '30s and '40s, and they especially love correcting the faulty memories of others. Several readers have written to point out that Slapsie Maxie's was not on Beverly Boulevard, as Dr. Marvin H. Leaf recalled, but on Wilshire. So it was. Mrs. D.

REAL estate downturns aside, "90210" is still a very good ZIP Code. Slated to premiere Sept. 2, the CW's new version of the Aaron Spelling classic has dominated the entertainment press this pilot season like few other new television shows. Of course, TV fans have been hungry to learn who will be cast as the new clique of rich kids, but they seem even more interested in which of the old characters who left the prime-time schedule eight years ago might be stopping by West Beverly High or the Peach Pit. It's a challenge that executive producers Gabe Sachs and Jeff Judah ("Freaks and Geeks")

The San Fernando Valley is 260 square miles of suburbia. Actually, make that suburbia on nutritional supplements. And antidepressants. With perhaps a little cosmetic surgery south of Ventura Boulevard, where the big money is. Or maybe - now that it's grown to more than 1.7 million people in nearly three dozen cities and neighborhoods rich and poor - the Valley isn't even a suburb anymore. It begins just 10 miles northwest of Los Angeles City Hall, sprawling west to the Simi Hills, north to the Santa Susana Mountains, and east to the Verdugo and San Gabriel mountains.

Pity the poor Hollywood agent. In the '80s and early '90s, talent agents ruled the industry. Movie studios and television networks found themselves beholden to International Creative Management, the Creative Artists Agency and the time-tested William Morris Agency, the "big three" agencies that had a lock on most A-list stars. Agents made big money for both their clients and themselves, charging the TV networks, for example, huge so-called packaging fees to assemble talent for shows.

Re "Wingnuts, guns and liberals," Opinion, Feb. 7 When cable television came into being in the 1980s, each channel had a specific message and focus. Over time, the shift from the original concepts has been slow but seismic. I remember when A&E was the arts before "Law & Order" reruns. The changes were made for ratings. In 2000 I was doing work for the National Geographic Society, which was launching its own cable network. So how did this fabled institution get so far off message that its most popular program, as Meghan Daum notes, is "Doomsday Preppers?"

Some of the world's most iconic National Geographic photographs will be showcased in an exhibition at the Venetian in Las Vegas . The “50 Greatest Photographs of National Geographic” is scheduled to open Feb. 14 for a limited engagement. The exhibition will feature both familiar and never-before-seen images. Among those that guests will likely recognize are Steve McCurry's memorable “Afghan Girl” and Nick Nichols' photo of primatologist/anthropologist Jane Goodall with one of her chimps.

For the premiere episode of its third annual Big Cat Week, National Geographic Wild has upped the stakes. Having already explored man-eating lions and most of their lethally gorgeous kindred, this Big Cat Week opens Sunday night in Kabul where big cat tracker and National Geo fave Boone Smith and his team stops before entering the mountains in search of the elusive snow leopard. Hoping to find a part for their busted radio transmitter, they wander the streets of the Afghanistan capital like "Homeland" extras, while the requisite urgent voiceover explains that the Taliban is currently on a killing spree and that Smith and his team would do well to keep a low profile.

On Wednesday, Oct. 10, Night + Market hosts a wine dinner -- or "anti-wine dinner" -- in its backyard herb garden, featuring petillant naturel wines (dry, fizzy wines made without added yeast or sugar) from Pascal Potaire.   " Pet-nat is French for awesome rustic fizzy fun wine topped with a beer cap," said Night + Market chef Kris Yenbamroong in a release.   Two pet-nats -- a white (100% Chardonnay) and a rosé (Cot and Gamay) -- along with Noella Morantin's Marie Rose (a Cabernet Sauvignon rosé)

Best known for his roles in the "Karate Kid," "My Cousin Vinny" and "The Outsiders," Ralph Macchio has decided to take a break from being in front of the camera and instead get behind it as executive producer of NatGeo's new reality series "American Gypsies. " Airing Tuesdays at 9 p.m., "American Gypsies" centers on the Johns family and sheds some light on the modern Gypsy way of life in New York City. Macchio talks about his new show, the Romani lifestyle and his role behind the camera.

Maria Cole, the widow of music legend Nat King Cole and the mother of singer Natalie Cole whose own singing career included a stint as vocalist for Duke Ellington's orchestra in the mid-1940s, has died. She was 89. Cole died Tuesday at a hospice in Boca Raton, Fla., after a short battle with cancer, her family said. "Our mom was in a class all by herself," her three daughters said in a joint statement. "She epitomized class, elegance, and truly defined what it is to be a real lady.

"I know you heard it before, but it works," Dinah Shore said in response to the laughter that greeted her telling of an old joke. It was that sort of an evening: The old jokes still seemed funny, the old melodies still sounded romantic and everyone was happy to admit just how long they'd all known each other. Shore was emcee Friday night as the Society of Singers honored Tony Martin with its third "Ella Lifetime Achievement Award."

They're a homey pair. He has gray hair and, in recent years, a double chin. She wears sensible--OK, borderline frumpy--clothes and is not afraid to let her wrinkles show. When he talks about sports, she rolls her eyes. When she talks about family issues, he tries hard to look fascinated.

Maria Hawkins Cole, a singer who performed with Duke Ellington and Count Basie before marrying Nat “King” Cole, has died. She was 89. Cole, who had been living in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.,  died Tuesday of cancer, her family announced. Born Maria Hawkins in Boston in 1922, she sang with Duke Ellington, the Mills Brothers, Count Basie and others before she met Nat “King” Cole, the jazz singer and pianist who broke barriers as a black entertainer on network television in the 1950s.

There is something kind of groovy about "Peace, Love & Misunderstanding. " The mellow yellow comedy stars Jane Fonda as a 70-something hippie with a passion for pot and protest suddenly dealing with the prodigal daughter who is back in the picture after revolting against that lifestyle years ago. It's not "On Golden Pond" by any stretch, but it is nice to have Fonda back in the fractious family way. Written by first-timers Christina Mengert and...