Short takes/Celeb birthdays: Wednesday, October 21, 2009

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Published: October 21, 2009

BIRTHDAYS

→Actress Joyce Randolph ("The Honeymooners”), 85.

→Keyboardist Manfred Mann, 69.

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→Singer Elvin Bishop, 67.

→TV judge Judy Sheindlin ("Judge Judy”), 67.

→Actor Everett McGill ("Twin Peaks”), 64.

→Actress Carrie Fisher, 53.

→Singer Julian Cope, 52.

→Singer-bassist Nick Oliveri (Queens of the Stone Age), 38.

→Actor Jeremy Miller ("Growing Pains”), 33.

→Actor Will Estes ("American Dreams”), 31.

→Actor Michael McMillian ("True Blood”), 31.

TV BRIEF

U.K. show ‘Shameless’ coming to Showtime

Showtime and Emmy Award-winning television and film producer John Wells ("ER,” "The West Wing”) is bringing the long-running British series "Shameless” to American television.

Emmy Award-winner William H. Macy ("Door to Door”) will star in the pilot for this hourlong drama series that traces the lives of an unconventional family.

It will be executive-produced by Wells and the series’ original creator and Emmy Award-winner, Paul Abbott ("State of Play,” "Touching Evil”).

"Shameless” is Abbott’s most personal work, inspired by his complicated life growing up in a working class family with eight children.

For the U.S. version, the Gallagher family has been transplanted to working-class Chicago during the challenging times of today’s recession. Making ends meet is always difficult, especially with a mother who is absent and an alcoholic patriarch (played by Macy) who usually ends up passed out on the living-room floor.

That leaves daughter Fiona, 18, with the task of keeping her five younger brothers and sisters on the straight and narrow.

From Staff and Wire Reports