Sheridan

The gig : Andrew Wiederhorn is the chairman and chief executive of Fatburger Inc., a fast-food restaurant chain based in Beverly Hills. The first Fatburger opened on Western Avenue in Los Angeles in 1947 and gained notoriety when rappers Ice Cube, Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. all mentioned the restaurant in songs. Since 2003, Fatburger has been owned by Fog Cutter Capital Group Inc., a Santa Monica investment company of which Wiederhorn is also chairman and CEO. Self-starter : Wiederhorn grew up in a single-parent family in Portland; his father died when he was age 9. In high school, he hired a lawyer to help him get permits to rent out jet-skis on the Willamette River.

Let's congratulate the Actors' Gang for at least bringing some novelty to our classical repertory. When American theater companies feel an itch to revive a work by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, they inevitably reach for "The School for Scandal," which has come to epitomize that post-Restoration genre known as 18th century comedy. "The Rivals," Sheridan's first play, is a more unwieldy affair, but there are hearty laughs to be had from this scattershot spray of silliness from 1775. To enjoy them, however, one most be willing to plod through dizzying stretches of ludicrous plot.

No one does a better impression of Irish filmmaker Jim Sheridan than his old friend Bono. On a recent crystal-blue afternoon in L.A., the rock star, who was in town for a concert at the Rose Bowl, lifted his shoulders, dropped his chin and scowled like Popeye. He slapped a palm to his forehead and began rubbing hard, like a man trying to sandpaper off an eyebrow. Then in a growled brogue, he muttered: "Do you want to have a look at the pitch-chur? It's a ting about brud-ders." Yes, the new Sheridan picture is "Brothers," and it's a thing about family, the nature of duty, war, guilt and calamity of the human heart.

Four years after a sweeps week audience watched Edie Britt, the bed-hopping real estate agent in "Desperate Housewives," draw her last breath, a Los Angeles jury said Monday that it could not decide the cause of her death. A judge declared a mistrial in Nicollette Sheridan's wrongful-termination suit after jurors said they were deadlocked as to whether the actress' character was killed off the ABC show in an act of retaliation or for creative reasons. Eight jurors — one short of the nine required for a verdict in civil court — sided with Sheridan, who alleged that she was written off the show because she complained that the program's creator, Marc Cherry, had struck her in the head during a 2008 rehearsal.

Christopher Reynold's splendid article about Sheridan, Wyo., and surrounding small towns captured the spirit of the area ("True West," June 19). I grew up in Buffalo, Wyo., 30-plus miles south of Sheridan. Legend has it that the Occidental Hotel in Buffalo was where the Virginian "got his man." Owen Wister, author of "The Virginian," stayed there briefly. The Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum in Buffalo has displays and artifacts of historical events of the area. U.S. 16 from Buffalo to Yellowstone will take you past streams, lakes and wilderness areas over the Bighorn Mountains and through Tensleep Canyon.

The pillars of political integrity are shaking in Irvine after revelations that City Councilwoman Sally Anne Sheridan has engaged in dozens of real estate transactions with city employees and Irvine Co. executives that netted the Sheridans' real estate partnership a handsome profit of more than $130,000 since Sheridan joined the council in 1986 (May 17, Orange County Section). These transactions presumptively taint Sheridan's capacity to render objective and disinterested judgments on matters concerning city employees and the Irvine Co. How can we ever know if Sheridan's votes on important policies--such as the Irvine Business Complex, open space preservation or residential developments, which all involve the Irvine Co.--were influenced in any way by her business relationships with Irvine Co. executives?

As a lifelong Republican, I was amazed to see Irvine Councilwoman Sally Anne Sheridan question my Republican credentials (Jan. 29, Page B2). Her comments were especially ironic when you consider Sheridan is a Democrat-turned-Republican who, to my knowledge, was Orange County's only Republican council member working for Michael Dukakis' presidential election in 1988. CAMERON COSGROVE Irvine Editor's note: Cameron Cosgrove is a member of the Irvine City Council.

A 13-year veteran of the Southern Baptists' Home Mission Board said he was fired because he publicly voiced a belief that Jews go to heaven. The Rev. George Sheridan of Union, N.J., said he was relieved from his duties then dismissed because of a 1987 meeting with board officials in which he was closely questioned about his belief that God promised Jews salvation in the Old Testament.

The furor raised by Mark Petracca about Irvine Mayor Sally Anne Sheridan's activities as a real estate agent ("Irvine Mayor to Pay $2,000 Political Fine," Aug. 17) are right in line with his traditional bashing of anyone who doesn't agree with his left-wing agenda. Apparently, he is much more concerned about Sheridan's defeat of Larry Agran for mayor than is Mr. Agran himself. I would like to recommend that the professor confine his vocal outbursts to the classroom, except that this concerns me even more than his activist efforts.

Thank you for printing the story about John Sheridan ("A Hit Man's Guilt," by Fred Dickey, Dec. 16). Before Sept. 11, I believed that everyone was basically good inside. People thought I was being naive, but I simply called it having faith in humanity. I even thought that murderers pray for their victims' souls. But when I woke up to the terrified cries on that September morning, my whole belief system shattered. Dickey's article allowed me to regain my beliefs. Although Sheridan's actions were wrong, it was enough for me that he realized what he had done and had started to repent for it. I hope people have not given up on the hope that there is good in everyone, even if it's just a little bit. Nina Besin Baldwin Park

Was it a conspiracy that went all the way to the top of ABC? Or was it the case of an exaggerating actress out for revenge? Nicollette Sheridan's wrongful-termination suit against the creator of "Desperate Housewives" and a studio wound toward a conclusion Wednesday as jurors heard closing arguments offering vastly different interpretations of the case. As the tall, blond actress and Marc Cherry, the balding, bespectacled writer who invented the world of Wisteria Lane, looked on from opposite sides of the courtroom, their attorneys debated for hours over what led to the 2008 death of Sheridan's character.

A trial pitting the creator of "Desperate Housewives" against a former leading lady on the ABC soap delivered jurors one final plot twist Tuesday in the form of a possible whistle-blower from within the show's ranks. The last-minute witness, a construction coordinator responsible for building the show's Wisteria Lane sets, took the stand on behalf of actress Nicollette Sheridan and recounted receiving an email on his work computer that he said discussed a plan to wipe hard drives clean of information relevant to her wrongful termination lawsuit.

With "Desperate Housewives" winding up its lucrative eight-season run on ABC, its creator took a moment last week to distill what he called the show's "original blend" of television genres. "Part comedy, part drama, part mystery," Marc Cherry said. To the audience he addressed, a Los Angeles jury in a lawsuit brought by a former actress on the show, the concept of watching something that was by turns funny, sad and confounding was not a foreign one. The two-week trial set for closing arguments Tuesday often seemed a black comedy about a black comedy.

A "Desperate Housewives" producer drew gasps from a packed courtroom Thursday when he revealed that a major character dies in an episode airing this weekend. George Perkins, an executive producer, disclosed the plot twist under questioning by a lawyer for actress Nicollette Sheridan, who is suing the show's creator and studio for wrongful termination stemming from the elimination of her character, Edie Britt. Asked if any other character of Edie's prominence had been killed off, Perkins shifted uncomfortably in his seat before answering.

"Desperate Housewives" creator Marc Cherry testified Wednesday that he killed off Wisteria Lane seductress Edie Britt in the fifth season because there were simply no more male characters for her to bed. "We had played out as many romantic complications with each of the women's husbands" as possible, Cherry told a Los Angeles jury in a wrongful-termination suit brought by Nicollette Sheridan, the actress who played Edie. The character had dalliances with the spouses or former spouses of three of the main housewives — played by Teri Hatcher, Eva Longoria and Marcia Cross — and the husband of the fourth — played by Felicity Huffman — "would never cheat," Cherry said.

The creator of "Desperate Housewives" testified Monday that his decision to kill off the character Edie Britt was made months before the actress who portrayed her accused him of battery. Marc Cherry told jurors in a wrongful-termination suit brought by actress Nicollette Sheridan that he plotted the promiscuous Wisteria Lane real estate agent's demise to "shake things up" creatively on the ABC show and not as retribution. But, in a daylong turn on the witness stand, Cherry acknowledged that eliminating Edie had the added benefit of ridding the show's budget of Sheridan's $4-million salary and him of what he described as a disruptive and unprofessional presence on the set. "It wasn't the primary reason for my decision, but it was something I was aware of," Cherry said under questioning by an attorney for Sheridan.

Big cast news at two network TV series. On NBC's "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," the stars are staying put. After months of negotiations, Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay have reached deals keeping them on the cop drama for at least one more year. Meanwhile over at ABC, "Desperate Housewives" has recruited its sixth housewife. With Nicolette Sheridan's Edie Britt dead for good, the network has confirmed that Emmy-winning "Sopranos" actress Drea De Matteo will join the cast as Wisteria Lane's newest housewife.

Finally released after spending half of his life in prison, and still he had to wait. So Christopher Boyce hung around the prison parking lot, rubbernecking, taking in the fresh air around Sheridan, Ore., unsure what to make of freedom. A half hour went by before the big Suburban at last came lumbering up the driveway, carrying his father, a former FBI agent, and his mother, once a Catholic nun.

It started as normal Hollywood friction - an actress who wanted better lines and a writer annoyed by her suggestions. But the squabble on the "Desperate Housewives" set four years ago took an unusually nasty turn that led Thursday to a windowless downtown courtroom. There actress Nicollette Sheridan told a jury that series creator Marc Cherry slapped her on the head during a rehearsal after she repeatedly questioned him about deleting what she considered to be a particularly funny line for her character.

?? Various artists, "Christmas From the Blue Note" (Blue Note). This mixed-bag compilation too often sacrifices coherence for novelty and hipness. Self-conscious modernism subverts "Deck the Halls" by singer Kate Davis and saxophonist George Garzone. Jimmy Scott, past his best days, sings a "Silent Night" as touching as it is painfully tentative. Vibraphonist Stefon Harris ably navigates through Rich Shemaria's layered writing on "Greensleeves. " A Latinate "We Three Kings" by drummer Francisco Mela is fine but Maya Azucena's gutbucket blues treatment of "O Holy Night" misses the point.