Colorado honors a favorite son

Denver  Nearly five years after his death, John Denver was inducted into the Colorado Performing Arts Hall of Fame.

The singer was named to the hall late Monday, joining Douglas Fairbanks Sr., Glenn Miller, Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne and others.

Denver died in October 1997 at age 53, when his experimental plane crashed off the California coast. He’s best-known for such songs as “Sunshine on My Shoulders,” “Country Roads” and “Rocky Mountain High.”

Barker jumps generation gap

New York  Who says youth rules on prime-time television?

Bob Barker, age 78, begs to differ. After a 30th anniversary special for “The Price Is Right” did unexpectedly well in the ratings this winter, CBS ordered six more prime-time shows.

Each of the specials will feature contestants and an audience made up primarily of U.S. armed forces members. The first spotlights the Navy, Barker said Monday. No air date has been set.

The veteran game-show host is basking in his own newfound youth appeal. Every year around spring break, “The Price Is Right” studio audience is flooded with college students.

“It boggles my mind,” he said. “I am so grateful.”

Repeat performances

Los Angeles  Country singer Dwight Yoakam, who plays a volatile burglar in the new movie “Panic Room,” says working in a recording studio and shooting a movie aren’t that different.

“They’re both very fragmented,” Yoakam told reporters. “You’ll start out with a master take, the whole band plays it, and then we start doing coverage of each instrument, and it’s very similar to filmmaking in terms of the process, time involved and the repetition of performance.”

The 45-year-old Yoakam, who played the abusive boyfriend in 1996’s “Sling Blade,” said his friends would never pick him to play a bad guy in the movies.

“Actors are at the mercy of the opportunities that are presented to them,” he said.

‘Baywatch’ reunion resuscitated

Honolulu  “Baywatch” star David Hasselhoff’s stalled reunion movie of the lifeguard television drama has hit smooth sailing.

“We’ve got a TV movie for Fox,” Hasselhoff said Sunday. “It’s a two-hour (show) that’ll air in (November) sweeps. … Right now we’re trying to put the pieces together to bring it to Hawaii.”

Hasselhoff, the movie’s producer, said the cast will feature 20 actors from the “Baywatch” and “Baywatch Hawaii” shows.

“It’s basically just kind of an opportunity to get everybody together and have some fun here in Hawaii,” he said.

Hasselhoff hopes to begin three weeks of filming on July 8.