They played roommates on the ABC sitcom for five seasons with the late John Ritter before Somers was fired in 1981 a salary dispute. The series continued on for three more years with Priscilla Barnes replacing Somers.

Somers invited DeWitt to be a guest on her web series Suzanne Somers: Breaking Through and they had a nice trip down memory lane.

“I really never wanted any attention, which is why becoming famous, I just tried to hide as much as possible,” DeWitt said. “I’ve often said to friends that when the press would come into the room, John would be hysterical, you would graciously hold court and I would hide.”

“I couldn’t figure it out!” Somers replied. “Why don’t you want to be famous? It’s so incredible to be famous. Not many people get to be famous.”

DeWitt left showbiz for decades after the show ended and always seemed to hold a grudge against Somers for putting the show in peril. Somers, of course, went on to star for seven seasons on the hit sitcom Step By Step, wrote dozens of health, beauty and cookbooks and become a hugely successful entrepreneur.

“We had very different approaches to our careers, we had very different needs,” Dewitt said. “I did not have a child that I was supporting on my own. I didn’t have a business head, so I didn’t understand someone who did.”

“But I respect the training so much and I do want you to know how much I learned from watching you,” Somers told DeWitt. “You were the first one to tell me we were doing farce and I thought we were talking about farts or something.”

MTV and its sister network Logo are preparing an It Gets Better special to air on Feb. 21.

It will be hosted by syndicated columnist Dan Savage.

The one-hour special, which will air on both channels, will focus on the struggles of three LGBT youth.

Savage will be joined on the It Gets Better TV special by Zachary Quinto, Margaret Cho, Chaz Bono and Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine, according to Entertainment Weekly.

To read more and to see a clip from the special, go to Gay Star News.

It’s a stark contrast to American Idol where gay contestants like Adam Lambert did not come out until after the competition was over.

‘It just seems crazy not to,’ Burnett told me during the TV Critics Association Winter Press Tour last week.

Levine also weighed in for me: ‘I think we always supported and nurtured all the amazingly talented people who have been in the show regardless of what they do in their private time.’

The show earned a GLAAD Media Award this morning. To read more, see my story posted over at Gay Star News.

He told a funny story about a woman who tore her top off last night at an appearance he made at an Apple Store in NYC and told the crowd that she was the “topless paparazzi!”

Scary.

Anyway, if you are fans of Matt – and who isn’t really? – then you will want to catch him tonight on White Collar which is returning with a whole new batch of episodes.

I’m still floating over seeing Matt at the TV Critics Association Winter Press Tour last week. He wanted to know why there is not a photo of he and I in the Greg In Hollywood banner. When I explained that I didn’t like how I looked in the photo we took over the summer, he insisted we pose for another then checked it personally to make sure it was a winner.

I think it is!

The plan is to update the marquee and make a few other little tweaks in time for Greg In Hollywood’s third anniversary the first week of March.

The Will & Grace alum is set to guest star on an episode of Parks and Recreation.

His character is known to the people of Pawnee as “the Matt Lauer” of their region. He will interview Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) which does not go over very well and could potentially hurt her political campaign for city council, TVLine reports.

Believe it or not, I just watched my first episode of this show last week (Tuc Watkins was guest star) and I now realize how utterly brilliant it is.

Can’t wait to see Mr. Hayes join in on the fun.

Also, NBC is developing a series for him to make a more regular return to television.

Fans of the show are familiar with gay teen Ian, who is tough, street smart and quite sexually active.

Well, we learned during the TV Critics Winter Press Tour a few days ago that Ian’s love life will heat up. That’s because the actor you plays him, Cameron Monaghan, is now 18.

“We were wanting to be realistic about those lifestyles choices he was making,” Executive Producer John Wells told us. ‘Literally there is a federal law which we were shown by Warner Bros. legal department.’

Wells promises ‘we see him engaged romantically with a man.’

To read more about it, see my piece in Gay Star News!

What an amazing reunion of past hosts – a group that has had some of the most successful careers in the history of television news.

Barbara Walters, the first woman co-host of The Today Show (1964-76) and the first female co-anchor of a network evening newscast (ABC in 1976). Then there’s Katie Couric, co-host from 1991-2006 and the first woman to be the solo anchor of a network evening newscast. And my personal favorite, Jane Pauley co-host from 1976-89 who went on to co-anchor Dateline NBC for about a dozen years. Also, kudos to Deborah Norville who showed up looking lovely and acting gracious despite her rocky tenure as co-host between Pauley and Couric. Then there is Couric’s successor, Meredith Viera whose five-year stint was preceded by nearly a decade on The View and a stint as a correspondent for 60 Minutes.

As for the guys, what a group! The great Hugh Downs who was responsible for elevating Walters to co-host (they would anchor 20-20 together for years and years). One of his successors was Jim Hartz who anchored with Walters. Tom Brokaw co-anchored with Pauley for five years before heading off to anchor NBC Nightly News for decades. He was succeeded by Bryant Gumbel who stayed for 15 years. The show’s currents hosts are Matt Lauer and Ann Curry.

As she prepares to turn 90 next week, Betty White won’t have to worry about having a steady job to go to.

TV Land has just renewed White’s hit sitcom Hot In Cleveland for a fourth season. The popular sitcom won the Peoples Choice Award last night for Favorite TV comedy.

White stars on the show with fellow sitcom vets Valerie Bertinelli, Wendie Malick and Jane Leeves.

Deadline Hollywood reports that the renewal is expected to help broadcast syndication sales as it is expected to bring the total of Hot In Cleveland to more than 70 episodes.

It’s also being reported that Greg in Hollywood fave Christopher Gorham, one of the stars of the USA drama Covert Affairs, will guest star in an episode later this season.

Huffington Post reports that Gorham will play Casey, a religious missionary who shows up at the cabin the four ladies are staying at.staying at.

Yesterday at the TV Critics Association Winter Press Tour, ABC ended its day of presentations with a Q&A with the cast of Desperate Housewives and its creator Marc Cherry.

I don’t think we heard a word from Marcia Cross but Teri Hatcher shared a long anecdote about her nude season from the show’s second season. As Cross sat there saying nothing and looking slightly bored, I thought back to the infamous Vanity Fair shoot during season one when there was a big fight over who stood where and who wore what!

Ah, memories.

Anyway, the openly gay Cherry had some of the most reflective things to say during the session about the end of a show that revived his career and came along at a time in his life where he was at a real low point.

“People keep asking if it’s bittersweet. And it’s not. It’s completely sweet because I’m smart enough to know there’s no such thing as a job that goes on forever,” Cherry said. “All good things come to an end. And I was SO fucked. I was over $100,000 in debt to my mother. I was three years without an interview for a job. Even friends weren’t returning my calls. And then I wrote this script to show people I could still write… And all hell broke loose. Right from the start I could see it was going to be a roller coaster.”

“But I’m smart enough and, the way my mom brought me up, humane enough to go, ‘It’s all good. Even the bad stuff is good. Even those days when I’m exhausted.’ I’m like 50 pounds thinner than I was the first season because I was stuffing carbs constantly into my face because I was writing so much of that first season…And even when some other show comes along and it’s the hot new show I’m like, ‘Good for you!’ That’s how this industry works.”

“To everything there’s a season,” he concluded. “Our seasons are coming to an end. And I’m just so grateful for the ride we’ve had. So that’s how I feel is grateful as I enter the next chapter.”

Sean Hayes is one of the producers of the TV Land sitcom Hot In Cleveland, now in its third season.

On tonight’s episode, titled One Thing or Another, the producer joins cast members Betty White, Valerie Bertinelli, Jane Leeves and Wendie Malick.

Spartacus: Vengeance doesn’t premiere on STARZ until Friday, Jan. 27 but the network has just released this exciting new trailer with Liam McIntyre in the title role. He replaces the last Andy Whitfield who died earlier this year.

On the heels of the bloody escape from the House of Batiatus that concluded Spartacus: Blood and Sand, the gladiator rebellion continues and begins to strike fear into the heart of the Roman Republic in Spartacus: Vengeance.

Gaius Claudius Glaber and his Roman troops are sent to Capua to crush the growing band of freed slaves that Spartacus leads before it can inflict further damage.

Spartacus is presented the choice of satisfying his personal need for vengeance against the man that condemned his wife to slavery and eventual death, or making the larger sacrifices necessary to keep his budding army from breaking apart.

Here’s a preview:

But the star of the Harry Potter franchise wraps up that engagement on New Year’s Eve and will be free to do other things.

His first post-Broadway gig: hosting Saturday Night Live!

The star of stage and screen, who has emerged as a staunch supporter of LGBT causes, will host the Jan. 14, 2012 edition of the show which enjoyed ratings for its most recent episode with guest host Jimmy Fallon.

Radcliffe’s appearance happens to come two weeks before the Feb. 3 release of his next feature film, the supernatural thriller The Woman in Black.

Sadly, the first nationally syndicated talk show to feature an openly gay man as host has been canceled and will end production after its current second season.

I have done a story on the cancellation for Gay Star News so do click over and read it. Also, here is a LINK to an interview I did with Nate last year just before the show launched.

Tonight’s episode, titled Beards, takes the ladies on an A-list gay cruise with hunky Gilles Marini guest starring as the sexy captain!

Victoria (Malick) is invited to speak on an A-list gay cruise and brings Melanie (Bertinelli), Joy (Leeves) and Elka (White) with her. On the cruise, Melanie runs into her estranged sister (guest star Laura San Giacomo) while Joy and Victoria, posing as a lesbian couple, face temptation upon meeting the ship’s sexy captain.

This news just absolutely makes my day!

The great Vivian Vance and William Frawley (aka I Love Lucy’s Ethel and Fred Mertz) are among the latest inductees into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame.

The star of the series, the legendary Lucille Ball, was included in the very first Hall of Fame class back in 1984 and was very emotional in her acceptance speech, sad that Vance, who died in 1979, could not be there for the momentous occasion. Desi Arnaz was inducted posthumously six years later.

Vance won an Emmy for her portrayal of Ethel Mertz and went on to once again play Ball’s sidekick in the follow-up series The Lucy Show while Frawley joined the cast of the sitcom My Three Sons. He died in 1964.

The others to be inducted are The Jeffersons and Amen star Sherman Hemsley, Real World creators Mary-Ellis Bunim and Jonathan Murray, former Walt Disney Co. CEO Michael Eisner, Sábado Gigante game-show host Don Francisco, lighting designer Bill Klages, and producer Chuck Lorre. Bunim died in 2004.

Marc Malkin of E! Online chatted with Happy Endings star Adam Pally about his character rekindling a romance with a former boyfriend to be played by the beyond gorgeous James Wolk who starred last season in the short-lived drama Lone Star.

“He’s funny and he’s a good-looking guy,” Pally told Malkin at the GQ Men of the Year party. “I’m just shocked that it’s a guy that Max could get, so we’ll see what happens.”

Asked if he’ll be locking lips like he has on the show with New Girl hottie Max Greenfield (pictured, left) Pally said, “We are going to make out. Most people make out in their relationships, so I would assume so. I would hope that we would be making out.”

Pally said he had no say in who was cast as Max’s old/new love.

“Are you asking if I had like a casting couch for my boyfriend?” he cracked. “I didn’t. I was open to it, but they said that would have been sexual harassment.”

I always feel like I’m at a cocktail party while watching this show and if Andy and his guests (often a cast member from Real Housewives or two) can keep up that tone, it should be a lot of fun.

Cohen, an openly gay Bravo executive, began Live as a blog which turned into a web series before becoming a twice-weekly television show in 2009.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Cohen will continue to host the series and shift his role from executive vice president of programming at Bravo to overseeing development and talent, where he will focus on creating new content as the cable channel builds its five-night-a-week lineup of original programming. He’ll continue to serve as executive producer of Top Chef and The Real Housewives franchise.

“In my wildest dreams when I started at Bravo seven years ago, I never imagined that I would end up fulfilling my lifelong dream,” Cohen told THR. “It’s the perfect storm — I get to do the three things I’m most passionate about — producing, developing and hosting for a brand that I love.”

It was interesting to see similar plot twists on Glee and 90210 last night involving gay characters and political races.

In both cases, the respective student’s sexuality – Teddy’s on 90210 and Santana’s on Glee - was used as a weapon against a candidate who, because of their association with the teen, was perceived as being pro-gay.

Sadly, this was a bad thing and at least in the case of 90210, video of Teddy participating in a mock gay wedding in Vegas was enough for his uncle to lose an election.

On 90210, Sue Sylvester (she’s running for Congress against Kurt’s dad, among others!), was the target of a hit piece which outs Santana to the world. Since Santana is head cheerleader and Sue the adviser, she is made to seem pro-gay and possibly a lesbian herself!

Earlier in the episode, it is Finn who outs Santana in the McKinley High corridor when he can be overheard saying to her: “You’re in love with Brittany, come out of the closet!”

I wish I could say these storylines could never happen in real life but being anti-gay seems to be what a lot of candidates believe is a requirement to get elected.

Spartacus has just been renewed for a third season by STARZ – months before the premiere of season 2!

Production on the third season of ‘Spartacus‘ is expected to begin in New Zealand in early 2012.

“There is no denying the impact ‘Spartacus‘ has had in the marketplace with fans across the globe thirsting for the continuation of the epic tale,” Starz Media Managing Director Carmi Zlotnik said in a statement. “We are thrilled to come to an early agreement that allows the writers and talent to get right back to work in preparing for season three.”

The most recent chapter of  Spartacus was the prequel, Gods of the Arena, which ran in January 2011 and averaged an estimated 6.2 million total viewers per episode across all linear channels and on-demand viewing.

Australian actor Liam McIntyre (Ektopos, Radev, “Neighbours,” “The Pacific”) assumes the title role of Spartacus in “Vengeance.”  McIntyre is joined by returning favorites: Lucy Lawless (“Xena: Warrior Princess,” “Battlestar Galactica”) as Lucretia; Peter Mensah (Avatar, 300, The Incredible Hulk) as Oenomaus – once known as Doctore; Manu Bennett (The Marine, 30 Days of Night), as Crixus; Dustin Clare (“Underbelly,” “Satisfaction”) as Gannicus; Nick E. Tarabay (“Crash,” “CSI: Miami”) as Ashur; and Katrina Law (“Third Watch”) as Mira.

Spartacus Vengeance will debut exclusively on STARZ – Friday, January 27, 2012 at 10PM ET/PT.

Will Nathan Lane finally find success on television?

The two-time Tony winner has starred in a few network sitcoms that came and went after less than a season. His recent guest stints on Modern Family have given him yet another shot at it – this time on cable.

The network announced Friday that Lane will star with Cheyenne Jackson and Ken Jenkins in a new half-hour, single-camera comedy from producer Douglas McGrath, according to The Wrap.

The comedy represents a big move for the top-rated cable network, best known for breezy dramas. It does not yet have a name and features Lane as an unlucky actor who puts his Broadway aspirations on hold to return to his Texas hometown and care for his sick father. Jackson will play a handsome doctor who befriends Lane.