Channing Tatum Does Dirty Dancing in 'Saturday Night Live' Promo

Gearing up for his "Saturday Night Live" hosting gig, Channing Tatum is giving a taste of his comedic chops in a promo for the upcoming episode of the variety show. The Jenko of "21 Jump Street" teams up with Fred Armisen in some sketches, including the one which sees him getting trouble pronouncing his name.

In another sketch, Tatum and Armisen reenact an iconic move from "Dirty Dancing". "Hey, I heard you're a really good dancer, but are you a good dirty dancer?" the "SNL" regular asks before testing the "Magic Mike" actor's dancing skill.

"No one puts baby in the corner!" Armisen shouts while he is running into Tatum. The husband of Jenna Dewan tells the comedian, "Wrong movie, dude. Wrong movie!" but lifts him up anyway.

"SNL" featuring Tatum as the host will air this Saturday, February 4 at 11:30 P.M. ET on NBC. Tapped as the musical performer is Bon Iver.

It can be fun to pull pranks on your co-workers; leave a rubber spider by their computer, hit them with a water balloon, wear a fake penis when they’re bound to get an eye-full.

While shooting The Vow Channing Tatum decided the best way to pull a prank on his co-star Rachel McAdams was to wear a fake penis to one of their nude scenes. Channing didn’t have to resort to silly putty like Joey Tribbiani, he enlisted the help of professionals. The props department was happy to whip him up a faux package, lifelike enough to have Rachel wondering if it was the real thing. She explained what was going through her head when she saw the fake (and apparently very, very large) appendage saying, “I didn’t know what to do. I thought, ‘Is is the real deal?’ It was very realistic. It was ridiculous, the scale of it.”

The question is, how long did Rachel sneak surreptitious glances at it before Channing burst out laughing? Did they film the whole scene while she wondered if it would be rude to ask about it, the director asking her if something was distracting her while Channing fought the urge to yell, “Yes, my giant penis is distracting her.”

I hope he dragged it out at least for one take, the props workers had put all that time and effort into building it for him.

Tom Cruise to Present at the Oscars

Tom Cruise will serve as a presenter at the 84th Academy Awards, producers Brian Grazer and Don Mischer said Wednesday.

Cruise, a three-time Oscar nominee for his roles in “Born on the Fourth of July,” “Jerry Maguire” and “Magnolia,” will join previously announced presenters Jennifer Lopez, Tom Hanks and Rose Byrne, Ellie Kemper, Melissa McCarthy, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig from the film “Bridesmaids.”

The 84th Academy Awards, which Billy Crystal will host, will be televised live from the Kodak Theatre at the Hollywood & Highland Center on Sunday, Feb. 26.

Texas Rangers' Josh Hamilton gets personal about alcohol addiction

Texas Rangers star outfielder Josh Hamilton, a recovering alcoholic and drug abuser, admitted at a press conference today to having several drinks in two Dallas restaurants on Monday night.

“I had a weak moment on Monday night in Dallas," Hamilton told reporters gathered the Ballpark in Arlington.

The 2010 American League’s Most Valuable Player first drank alcohol in Sherlock’s Pub, according to the Dallas Morning News, which cited “individuals familiar with the episode.”

Hamilton said he called teammate Ian Kinsler, who joined him before going to an establishment across the street and talking baseball. Hamilton said Kinsler was unaware he had been drinking.

“Once I do drink I can be very deceptive, very sneaky in a lot of ways," Hamilton said.

Kinsler then drove him home and Hamilton promised he would not go out, but he admitted that he returned to the establishment they left and drank again. He said he took photos with people and assumed at some point they would end up on the Internet.

Hamilton, 30, said his abuse was restricted to alcohol, noting that he had two drug tests this week.

“I feel terrible about this because I feel like I let a lot of people down,” Hamilton said. “There's nobody that feels worse than I do."

It was the second known lapse by Hamilton since a famous episode in Tempe, Ariz., in January 2009.

The slugger had been suspended from baseball for more than three years for drug and alcohol abuse when he was a member of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, who drafted him in 1999.

Hamilton is scheduled to become a free agent at the end of the 2012 season. He and his agent Mike Moye had been talking to the Rangers about a long-term extension, according to mlb.com, but Hamilton admitted that those talks will be “put on the backburner for awhile.”

He told reporters he would soon meet with doctors for Major League Baseball and the Players Association in New York.

“After this happens and praying about it, I cannot take a break from my recovery," Hamilton said. "My recovery is Christ. My recovery is an everyday process, because when I take that one day off, it leaves me open for that moment of weakness and it's always been that way."

He apologized to his family, the team and to fans for letting them down and causing them any pain.

Hours before the press conference, according to the Dallas Morning News, Hamilton’s wife, Katie, posted on Twitter: “Truly appreciate all the encouraging & supportive tweets we've been getting. God is faithful and forgives - so thankful that you all are .... Showing us such love and encouragement during this time."

Popular character actor Ben Gazzara dies in NY

NEW YORK — Ben Gazzara, whose powerful dramatic performances brought an intensity to a variety of roles and made him a memorable presence in such iconic productions over the decades as the original "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" on Broadway and the film "The Big Lebowski," has died at age 81.

Longtime family friend Suzanne Mados said Gazzara died Friday in Manhattan. Mados, who owned the Wyndham Hotel, where celebrities such as Peter Falk and Martin Sheen stayed, said he died after being placed in hospice care for cancer. She and her husband helped marry Gazzara and his wife, German-born Elke Krivat, at their hotel.

Gazzara was a proponent of method acting, in which the performer attempts to take on the thoughts and emotions of the character he's playing, and it helped him achieve stardom early in his career with two stirring Broadway performances.

In 1955, he originated the role of Brick Pollitt, the disturbed alcoholic son and failed football star in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." He left the show after only seven months to take on an equally challenging role, Johnny Pope, the drug addict in "A Hatful of Rain." It earned him his first of three Tony Award nominations.

In 1965, he moved on to TV stardom in "Run for Your Life," a drama about a workaholic lawyer who, diagnosed with a terminal illness, quits his job and embarks on a globe-trotting attempt to squeeze a lifetime of adventures into the one or two years he has left. He was twice nominated for Emmys during the show's three-year run.

Gazzara made his movie debut in 1957 in "The Strange One," Calder Willingham's bitter drama about brutality at a Southern military school. He had previously played the lead role of the psychopathic cadet, Jocko de Paris, on Broadway in Willingham's stage version of the story, "End of Man."

He followed that film with "Anatomy of a Murder," in which he played a man on trial for murdering a tavern keeper who had been accused of raping his wife.

After "Run for Your Life" ended in 1968, Gazzara spent the rest of his career alternating between movies and the stage, although rarely with the critical acclaim he had enjoyed during his early years.

In the 1970s, he teamed with his friend director John Cassavetes for three films, "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" and "Opening Night." In another Cassavetes film, he appeared with Falk, and the two became friends (it was Cassavetes who introduced them to the Wyndham Hotel, according to a 1982 article in New York magazine).

Gena Rowlands appeared with Gazzara in "Opening Night," which also starred Cassavetes. Cassavetes and Rowlands were married; he died in 1989. Falk died last year.

"It breaks my heart to have this era come to an end. Ben meant so much to all of us. To our families. To John. To Peter. To have them gone now is devastating to me," she said in a statement.

She said her prayers and thoughts went out to "all his loyal and wonderful fans throughout the world."

Rita Moreno, who played Gazzara's wife in the 2000 film "Blue Moon," said, "He was a wonderful man, and I so enjoyed working with him. I wish I could have had the pleasure more often."

Other Gazzara films included "The Bridge at Remagen," ''The Young Doctors," ''They All Laughed," ''The Thomas Crown Affair," ''If It's Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium," ''The Spanish Prisoner," ''Stag" and "Road House." He also made several films in Italy.

He appeared on Broadway in revivals of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," ''Awake and Sing!" ''Strange Interlude" and several other plays.

Gazzara began acting in television in 1952 with roles on the series "Danger" and "Kraft Television Theater." Before landing "Run for Your Life," he played a police detective in the series "Arrest and Trial," which lasted two seasons.

Born Biagio Anthony Gazzara in New York on Aug. 28, 1930, he grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in a cold-water flat with a bathtub in the kitchen. His parents were immigrants from Sicily who met and married in New York, and his first language was Italian. Although he was baptized under his birth name, his parents always called him Ben or Benny.

As a child he became fascinated with movies, and after giving his first performance, in a Boys Club play, he knew he had found his life's work.

"I disliked high school," he once said, "and after two years of it I left without telling anyone at home."

Instead he spent his days in movie theaters.

He entered Erwin Piscator's Dramatic Workshop in 1948. Eighteen months later he auditioned for the Actors Studio run by Lee Strasberg and was accepted.

The school was a beehive of activity in those days, turning out such followers of method acting as Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Barbara Bel Geddes, Shelly Winters, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Rod Steiger and Julie Harris.

"There's a lot of voodoo about the Actors Studio," Gazzara told The Associated Press in 1966. "In the best sense it was a place for professionals to stay in touch with their craft, where newcomers and professionals mingled, to grow, to try parts they would never get in the professional theater and to even fall on their face."

Gazzara's first two marriages, to actresses Louise Erikson and Janice Rule, ended in divorce.

While filming "Inchon" in Korea in 1981, he met Krivat. They married the following year, and the union endured.

"Elke saved my life," Gazzara said in 1999. "When I met her, I was drinking too much, fooling around too much, killing myself. She put romance and hope back in my life."

He adopted Krivat's daughter, Danja, as his own. She recalled on Friday that he was a "complex soul" and that his role as a father to her and his own daughter was challenging.

"I adored Ben, and so did his daughter," she said. "But we both had difficulty with him ... I think the difficulty lay in his complexity of being an actor and those layers that you have, that you bring with you."

Besides Danja, Gazzara is survived by his wife, daughter Elizabeth and a brother.