By: Valerie Milano – Pasadena, CA (Hollywood Today) 4-20-12

Summertime is more than picnics, vacation trips and sunburns, it is evenings chilling out by a fan or with the A/C on and enjoying the summer TV shows. NBC has a lot to offer its viewers this Olympic summer with an array of diverse shows, some familiar, some adventurous as well as very original concepts. The day long preview press day was held at the Langham Huntington Hotel and Spa in Pasadena, California on April 19, 2012. Press guests, stars and directors were quietly greeted by press photographers behind the rope as they exited the attentive valet area and they walked the carpet to the large press room with a raised stage and backdrop flanked by several large TV screens for previews before the panels. Spoiler alert…this is a teaser article of preview bits and pieces for future articles closer to air dates but we couldn’t wait to share the sensational summer shows with you!

Let’s start with ‘The breakfast’ in the elegant lobby

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By: Valerie Milano (Hollywood Today) 4-18-12

Born in Istria, chef Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and her family were forced to flee to a refugee camp in Italy, eventually gaining asylum in America where they landed in Queens.

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By: Valerie Milano (Hollywood Today) 4-16-12

Touchback, a new film from executive producer Patricia Eberle, opens in theaters throughout the South, on Friday, April 13th. The film stars Kurt Russell, Brian Presley, Christine Lahti and Melanie Lynskey and is directed by Don Hanfield. It tells the story of how the nation’s best High School football player is injured making the game winning play of his life, destroying his dreams and crushing his future. But fifteen years later, he is given the chance to go back and change history . . . does he?

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Celebrate the 2012 NALIP (National Association of Latino Independent Producers)

By: Valerie Milano (Hollywood Today) 4-11-12

The NALIP 2012 National Conference, “Diverse Voices, Universal Content” will be held April 13-15, 2012 at the Sheraton Universal Hotel in Universal City, CA. Highlights of the conference will be legendary actress Rita Moreno to accept her Lifetime Achievement Award in person, filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, and President/COO of Universal Studios Ron Meyer to give Keynote talks at the Sheraton Universal Hotel.

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By: Valerie Milano (Hollywood Today) 4-8-12

Magic City is a sexy and sleek new series that premiered this past Friday, April 6th on the Starz network. Set in 1950’s Miami, the story is created around the Miramar Playa Hotel, a local hotspot that is set to put on one of its biggest productions, a New Years Eve concert featuring Frank Sinatra. Built from the ground up by Ike Evans (Jeffery Dean Morgan), the hotel is aesthically magnificent, popular with A list celebrities, and is even known for hosting black entertainers at a time when this was still taboo. As Evans prepares for the evenings festivities, he soon becomes swept into a whirlwind of issues, including the threat of a union takeover before Sinatra takes the stage, and unsuccessfully bargaining with the Mob boss (Danny Houston), not so affectionately known as “The Butcher”, who has more of an investment in the Miramar than Ike would like to acknowledge.

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By: Valerie Milano (Hollywood Today) 3/27/12

Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., creator of the new PBS series Finding Your Roots was first intrigued by the question of ancestry and family history in 1960 at the age of nine. After viewing the burial of his grandfather, who was affectionately referred to as Casper because of his white skin, “I was standing there at his open casket, holding my father’s hand, and looking at my grandfather, and I was captivated by how white he was and where that whiteness came from.” The seed was planted for young Gates to explore the history of his own genealogy and ultimately the genealogy of American people and the bloodlines that bind us all.

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