Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Names and faces
Star Wars creator George Lucas is engaged. A spokesman for Lucasfilm Ltd. said the 68-year-old director is engaged to 43-year-old investment firm president Mellody Hobson. No other details were provided. Hobson serves as chairman of DreamWorks Animation and is a financial contributor to ABC’s Good Morning America. Lucas helped to launch the modern blockbuster age with his Star
Wars sagas and Indiana Jones adventures. The original Star Wars still stands as the No. 2 film in terms of tickets sold domestically, behind only Gone
with the Wind. Lucas has three children: Amanda, Katie and Jett. He was previously married to film editor Marcia Lucas from 1969 to 1983. Disney completed its acquisition of Lucasfilm and the Star Wars franchise from Lucas for $4.06 billion in cash and stock last month. ABC this week will shift Jimmy Kimmel Live from 11 p.m. to 10:35 p.m., where the show’s host will go head-to-head with late-night titans David Letterman and Jay Leno. It’s a strategy that comes laced with a bit of irony. In 2002, ABC made an allout bid to lure Letterman away from CBS, offering him the time period occupied by the news program Nightline. Shortly after Letterman turned down the offer, ABC introduced Jimmy Kimmel in the post- Nightline hour to relatively little fanfare. Six years later, ABC aggressively wooed Leno, who was about to be replaced at NBC by Conan O’Brien — again offering the Nightline slot. But Leno instead tried an ill-fated prime-time show, before reclaiming The Tonight Show desk. Now, ABC is suddenly counting on Kimmel to deliver a ratings blow to both Leno and Letterman. Starting Tuesday, Nightline will air an hour later, allowing Kimmel to finally meet the late-night heavy-hitters on their own turf and eliminate the head start they’ve long enjoyed. It doesn’t sound like much: only a measly 25 minutes. But for Kimmel, the new start time is significant. “The big deal is that, for some reason, people go to sleep at midnight. You lose a lot of people at that time,” he told media members during a recent conference call. “So the audience is much bigger. There are a lot more people up watching television at 11:35 [EST] than there are at midnight. It’s as simple as that.”