LOS ANGELES - Steve Guttenberg loves Christmas, so playing Santa's son and heir in a new TV movie was the ideal role for an actor who lives like a big kid.
"Children have a terrific way of telling you like it is," he said. "I'm attracted to that. That makes me feel good."
Guttenberg plays Nick in the romantic comedy "Single Santa Seeks Mrs. Claus," airing Saturday on the Hallmark Channel.
"You have a single mom who is going along with her life and trying to get things done with work and her kid and trying to have a social life and this fellow comes into her surroundings and changes everything," the 46-year-old actor said. "It's about carrying on a kindness and goodness all year-round."
Guttenberg's interest in children's welfare inspired him to create Guttenhouse, an apartment complex that houses young people making the transition from foster child status to adult responsibilities.
He also spearheaded Sight for Students, a program that provides eyeglasses for 50,000 underprivileged and visually challenged children.
"There's an old saying, 'Don't let a crisis wake you up,'" he said. "Many times in life, that's what happens. You're asleep until something happens that makes you notice what's around you."
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FRANKLIN, Tenn. - Backstreet Boys member Brian Littrell has signed a deal with Christian label Provident Music Group's Reunion Records.
"This has been a dream of mine ever since I was a little boy, singing in church in Kentucky," Littrell said Wednesday.
Littrell, 29, said that singing with the Backstreet Boys was a "12-year steppingstone" to making his decision, and he hoped fans will realize through his music "that standing up for what you believe in is what's important."
He will release the single "In Christ Alone" on an upcoming WOW Christian Music compilation album next year. That will be followed with the debut of his solo album on the Franklin-based label.
Littrell also plans to tour with the Backstreet Boys, who are scheduled to end a three-year hiatus with a new project in March.
Their manager, Johnny Wright, said the group wasn't breaking up - just taking the opportunity to do solo projects.
Nick Carter is the only member to release a solo album, 2002's "Now or Never."
A.J. McLean also has expressed an interest in singing Christian music, Wright said. The other members, Kevin Richardson and Howie Dorough, are leaning more toward film and TV.
On the Net:
http://www.backstreetboys.com/
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LONDON - Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, and U2 frontman Bono will be guest editors of the British Broadcasting Corp.'s flagship radio news program later this month.
They will be among five guest editors of "Today" over the Christmas period, the BBC said Wednesday. The celebrity guests will choose some of the stories to be tackled by the daily current affairs program.
Ferguson has decided to focus on motor neuron disease, while Bono said he would highlight the global fight against poverty.
The programs will air between Dec. 27-31.
"I have to confess, I'm not a natural editor," Bono said. "I want to start the countdown to next year, when Britain can change the world for the poorest people on the planet."
Britain has said tackling world poverty will be one of its key goals when it holds the rotating presidencies of the European Union and the G8 group of wealthy countries next year.
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TOKYO - It won't be immediately clear whether "Godzilla: Final Wars," which opened in Japan last week, has broken any box office records. But the giant radioactive reptile's 28th film already has set the bar higher in one way - its cost.
Toho Co. executive producer Shogo Tomiyama said the studio shelled out $19.3 million, small by Hollywood standards, but twice that of any of Toho's past Godzilla movies.
"We wanted to make the best Godzilla movie ever," Tomiyama explained Wednesday at a news conference.
Marking Godzilla's 50th anniversary, "Final Wars" has the movie monster traveling around the world to fight old foes, as well as the new mysterious Monster X.
Tomiyama said Toho's filming on locations over 100 days required a bigger staff than usual. Production was so complicated that Toho divided its special-effects team into two units to handle the work, he said.
The fire-breathing monster, spawned by nuclear weapons testing, first debuted in Japanese theaters in November 1954, while the United States was conducting nuclear tests in the South Pacific. It is played by an actor in a rubber suit who crushes miniature sets.
Whether the popularity of "Final Wars" will top past Godzilla films is open to debate. For now, that honor rests with the original 1954 "Godzilla" and 1962's sequel, "King Kong vs. Godzilla," according to Toho officials.
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NEW YORK - And you thought the Grateful Dead toured a lot.
The New York Philharmonic will set the Guinness World Record for "the most concerts performed by a symphony orchestra" with concert No. 14,000 on Dec. 18.
Sir Colin Davis will conduct the orchestra in works by Mozart, Britten and Haydn. The concert also will feature the Philharmonic debut of mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson.
Board chairman Paul B. Guenther said the orchestra was thrilled to be recognized for its 14,000th concert.
"In the course of our 163 years, we have commissioned 128 new works, and performed 485 world premieres and 443 U.S. premieres, including music that has become a staple of the classical repertoire," he said in a statement Wednesday.
The New York Philharmonic is the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States and one of the oldest in the world. It plays about 180 concerts a year.
On the Net:
http://newyorkphilharmonic.org/
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