News Brief

CBS sweep of Emmy noms causes a lather
The 35th Annual Daytime Emmy nominations were announced Wednesday - and they were chock-full of surprises. The biggest? A virtual CBS sweep of the soap categories, including all five actresses up for Outstanding Lead Actress.

"I'm totally honored, but I'm bummed out Nancy Lee Grahn [Alexis, GENERAL HOSPITAL] isn't there," says Michelle Stafford from THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS, nominated for the seventh time (she's won twice). "Nancy is always phenomenal."

Not a single ABC actress was nominated in any category, which some in the industry question. The new nominating system of submitting three actors from every show meant the judges had to watch up to 27 tapes. Speculation is that not all the judges watched all the tapes, but simply voted for their network.

"It's the luck of the tapes," Stafford says. "Some years you have a lot of story, but it doesn't necessarily work on your Emmy reel. I'm not a big fan of submitting crying stuff for myself, but a lot of people did that this year. When [a judge] gets 21 CDs of crying, screaming women, they might go with something opposite."

AUDIO: Daytime Confidential #235: 2008 Emmy Nominations, WTH?
The 2008 Daytime Emmy Nominations were announced on April 30th and Daytime Confidential's Luke, Tina, Jamey and special guest TV Guide Canada's Nelson Branco are discussing the controversies surrounding who was snubbed and who is deserving. From Younger Actress to Lead Actor there is so much to talk about and so little time to cover everything.

Branco also talks about his recent visit to the GLAAD awards and the reaction to the Nuke controversy by those in primetime and movies as well as a couple of online rumors. One about ONE LIFE TO LIVE return and another about the possible return of a former daytime Co-Headwriter to daytime.

Soap star's passion is for Wings
It's a typical seduction scene in a soap opera. OK, maybe it's not quite typical, because the characters are actually married to one another.

But there's actress Alicia Minshew a few weeks ago, playing Kendall Hart on ALL MY CHILDREN, and from behind, you see that she's dropped her robe. "What do you think?" she purrs, and the camera turns to her husband, casino baron Zach Slater, as played by Thorsten Kaye.

"Oh, that's beautiful," he says, clearly awestruck. Then the focus returns to Minshew, and the audience on ABC sees what made Kaye swoon:

A Detroit Red Wings jersey.

Kaye, 42, has made Slater's passion for the Red Wings a defining part of the character. Thanks to him, viewers who don't know a hockey puck from a rubber duck recognize the winged wheel.

AFA should get a grip
Those hand wringing Christian fundamentalists at the American Family Association, led by Don Wildmon, are urging their sheep, er, members to write to AS THE WORLD TURNS because the show’s owner, Procter & Gamble, "promotes explicit open-mouth homosexual kissing."

What this really means: The soap let the two gay men on the show, Luke and Noah, finally share a series of smooches during its April 23 episode, after a grassroots campaign by fans who noted it had been more than 200 days since the guys’ last lip lock.

The group links to a YouTube video of the scene between Luke and Noah, but warns that "content is repulsive." Maybe they should use their hands for something other than wringing so they can get a grip on reality.

DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES unveils its newest bad girl
Eleven-year-old Rachel Fox has a nickname around the set of DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES.

"Eeeevil," Fox told the Daily News. "Every time I walk onto the set and get into the makeup chair, everyone calls me 'eeeevil.' I love it. I love playing evil. I feel like I can do more with the character than just playing the nice girl."

Fox plays Kayla Huntington, daughter of Tom Scavo and one-night stand Nora Huntington, and the stepdaughter of Lynette Scavo on the popular ABC Sunday-night soap.

After seven years it was time to leave HOLLYOAKS, reveals Kevin Sacre
Walking out of a potting shed with just a plant pot hiding your modesty would be embarrassing enough ...but what if it's beamed around Tesco? And you're in the store just as it is shown. That's just what happened to a red-faced Kevin Sacre, star of Channel 4 soap HOLLYOAKS. In two weeks, Kevin will be leaving the sexy show after playing Jake Dean for seven years.

And the 30-year-old remembers the good times and the bad. He said: "I will never forget that for as long as I live. Just as I walked into Tesco, the episode with me naked but for a plant pot popped up on screens all around the store. I was mortified and then caught the eye of this old woman who looked at me, then at the screen and back again. Her face was a picture."

EASTENDERS - Janine is back for good
Charlie Brooks is returning to EASTENDERS. The 26-year-old actress is set to reprise her role as scheming ex-prostitute Janine Butcher in the autumn after reportedly signing a £100,000 deal to return to the show, four years after she left. Negotiations for her comeback have been underway since Charlie made a one-off appearance for her screen dad, Frank Butcher's, funeral last month.

Charlie said: "I loved coming back for Frank's funeral. It gave me a taste for playing Janine again. And I'm excited to see what Janine will be getting up to now."