(Frederick M. Brown/ Getty Images ) - Actor Kelsey Grammer and actress Sanaa Lathan speak at the “Boss” discussion panel during the Starz portion of the 2012 Summer Television Critics Association tour at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on August 2 in Los Angeles.
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Starz brought Kelsey Grammer and other cast members of its show “Boss” to Summer TV Press Tour 2012, hoping that the hundred or so TV critics/bloggers/tweeters attending the tour’s waning days would help scare up more viewers for the series.
In the Chicago-set drama, Grammer plays Mayor Tom Kane, who is facing a fatal illness and trying to change his nature to achieve redemption. Grammer thinks it’s his “King Lear.”
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Pulitzer Prize winner, Peabody recipient, Medal of Freedom honoree -- Lisa de Moraes is none of these, but she is an authority on the bad direction, over-acting, and muddled plot lines being played out in the TV industry's executive suites.
“I can’t tell you how many people come up and tell me, ‘That’s the best thing you’ve ever done!’ . . . There are also people who come up to me and say, ‘When are you coming back to television?’ ” Grammer joked of the show’s challenged ratings.
Grammer says he does not know exactly what the numbers are.
Show creator Farhad Safinia, on the other hand, says: “I am completely aware what the numbers are, and I’m heartbroken. . . . It deserves a larger audience.”
In the second season, which debuts Aug. 17, Kane beats back the physical symptoms of his debilitating neurological disorder with high doses of medication — but he suffers heightened psychological manifestations of the disease. Kane now has a new chief of staff, played by Sanaa Lathan, and a new adviser, played by “Glee’s” Jonathan Groff.
“ ‘Boss: the Musical’ can be seen at the Pantages Theatre,” Grammer joked of Groff’s joining the cast.
Yeah, and if TV critics ever are attending a stage production starring Grammer, they’ll be sure to keep their cellphones turned on and feel free to answer them should they ring — after Grammer did the same to them during the “Boss” Q&A session.
As Grammer and gang lobbied for “Boss” in the Beverly Hilton ballroom, which was filled with journalists and company, Grammer’s cellphone rang and he took the call.
It was his wife.
“Hi, honey. . . . Okay. Cool. . . . I’m [on] stage right now, but go ahead. . . . Oh, that sounds great. . . . But they should bring the truck, so they can to go Universal after that. . . . Call Stan. . . . Okay, 310- ”
Only at that point did a technician turn off Grammer’s microphone, so TV critics could not hear as Grammer read the phone number of his publicist, Stan Rosenfeld, to wife No. 4, Kayte.
“Kelsey Grammer is actually taking a phone call while in the middle of his #TCAs12 panel and he is not keeping it brief. Power corrupts?” a pop culture writer/deputy TV editor tweeted angrily.
“Bad manners: Grammer takes a call while in the middle of the press conference#TCAs12,” agreed a TV critic in a tweet.
“KelseyGrammer has answered his phone onstage & we are now listening to his conversation. Some find this to be charming,” another critic’s tweet added even more peevishly.
“For the record, I would NOT take a phone call from my wife while sitting on a #TCAs12 panel,” tweeted the most miffed critic yet.
While Grammer made sure all TV critics’ eyes were on him and his phone call, “Boss’s” other cast members on stage stretched their improv muscles:
“I like your sneakers,” Lathan, who plays Kane’s incorruptible new chief of staff, told Tip “T.I.” Harris, who plays Trey.
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