Back to busy

After a long leave of absence, actor Paul Reubens is back to being in demand after agreeing to once again join the working ranks of television performers.

When I interviewed Reubens last summer, he hinted that he had accepted some TV roles.

But at the time, he seemed more concerned with promoting the return of his beloved Pee Wee Herman character to television and helping promote his new business partnership with Ted Turner and his Cartoon Network, which began airing reruns of his "Pee Wee's Playhouse" series last year.

While also working on the pre-production for his new feature film about the early life of Pee Wee Herman, Reubens is also making the rounds on a few of his friends' current television shows (ahem, shows sorta struggling and welcome to getting a boost.).

At 9 p.m. Tuesday, Reubens shows up on the new FX series "Dirt," playing a sneaky and unethical tabloid reporter who will stop at nothing to get the behind-the-scenes story about a high school cheerleader's mysterious death, which happens to also be grabbing conventional national headlines. "Dirt" stars Courteney Cox as the editor of the tabloid and also features Cox's husband David Arquette as one of the executive producers, both pals of Reubens.

Earlier this week on Thursday, Reubens was also on his friend Tina Fey's NBC show "30 Rock," playing a wacky European monarch who creates chaos for Fey and Alec Baldwin's characters when they join fellow guest star Isabella Rossellini attending a party given in his honor of His Royal Highness Reubens.

Grin, Bear it

Time for a daily dose of Retro Chicago Bears 1985-86 Super Bowl winning team trivia ...

A guilty pleasure football film that you gotta love is director Oliver Stone's 1999 "Any Given Sunday," which featured all-star cast Al Pacino, Cameron Diaz, Ann-Margret, James Woods, Dennis Quaid and Lauren Holly.

Chicago Bears former defensive back Shaun Gayle says he auditioned for the role of "Julian Washington" and thought he had it. But alas, it was given to LL Cool J.

Legendary loss

It was last July when I reported in this column that author and legendary TV-writer Sidney Sheldon was gravely ill.

After that item published, I was surprised to hear from so many people from around the country calling and e-mailing me about updates on the condition of Sheldon, who gave us shows like "Hart to Hart" and "I Dream of Jeannie" and wrote novels made into great movies like "The Other Side of Midnight" and "Windmills of the Gods."

Thank you to Trent D. Pendley, president of the Indiana Jewish Historical Society, who contacted me after Sheldon's passing this week at age 89, to share with me that not only was Sheldon born in Chicago in 1917, he also spent part of his youth growing up in Northwest Indiana in Hammond, Gary and the Indiana Harbor area before attending Northwestern University briefly during the mid-1930s.

Pendley said his organization moved to nominate Sheldon as an honorary board member to their group in 2005.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer. He can be reached at ppotempa@nwitimes.com or 219.852.4327.

celebBirthdays

Comedian Joey Bishop is 89. Comedian Shelley Berman is 81. Actress Blythe Danner is 64. Singer Dennis Edwards (The Temptations) is 64. Guitarist Dave Davies of The Kinks and singer Melanie are 60. Actress Morgan Fairchild is 57. Actor Nathan Lane and guitarist Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth are 51. Actor Thomas Calabro ("Melrose Place") is 48. Actress Michele Greene ("L.A. Law") is 45. Country singer Matraca Berg is 43. Actress Maura Tierney ("ER," "NewsRadio") is 42. Guitarist Nick Hawkins of Big Audio Dynamite is 41. Singer Daddy Yankee is 31. Cody Newton Gifford (son of Kathie Lee and Frank Gifford) is 16.