(Writing and reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis)
 
“Hannah Montana” star Cody Linley has waited patiently until he could reunite with his favorite high-stepper, Julianne Hough, who was out on medical leave. On Tuesday they hit the floor together again on “Dancing With The Stars,” after Cody squeaked past last week’s elimination round. But how long will they last? 

Tuesday night, 18-year-old Cody fretted over whether he could pull off his paso doble, saying he worried his young age could keep him from looking manly enough for the dance style, which is meant to resemble a bull fight. As it turns out, Cody had other problems with the dance. The judges called his performance wooden and stiff, and judge Len Goodman remarked on Cody’s military outfit and marshal choreography as he gave Cody a dressing-down.

“I’m afraid you’re going to get your marching orders, because that was not good. I’m sorry,” Goodman said.     
 
Cody and Julianne fell to the bottom of the scoring tally with a 46 out of 60 for their two dances. Cody has found himself in the basement for three weeks straight. But don’t blame Julianne. While Cody was struggling the past two weeks, Julianne was recovering from having her appendix removed and Cody had to dance with a replacement partner.  
  
Elsewhere, the judges had nothing but praise for former ‘N Sync star Lance Bass and partner Lacey Schwimmer, who scored at the top of the four couples left on the show with a 57 out of 60. Retired football star Warren Sapp dazzled audiences with his big personality that goes with his oversized frame, tying model and TV host Brooke Burke with a score of 49. But the judges have been hard on Warren, faulting him for having flat feet, while they have had almost nothing but praise for Brooke. Are Brooke and Lance bound to square off in the finals? Or will Cody somehow sneak through the elimination round again?

(Photos: Copyright ABC Inc; Kelsey McNeal)

(Reporting and Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis)

After having her appendix removed only two weeks ago, popular dancer Julianne Hough made her comeback on “Dancing with the Stars”  Tuesday, twisting the night away with her brother, Derek Hough, to the tune of Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Great Balls of Fire”. 

And Hough’s partner on the show, “Hannah Montana” star Cody Linley, was glad to have her back. In a segment with relationship expert Drew Pinsky, better known as Dr. Drew, the 18-year-old Cody opened up about his feelings for Julianne.
    
With tears streaming, Cody said he worried about Julianne during her hospitalization, which was related to complications from a condition called endometriosis. “She’s an amazing person who has let me grow as a person,” a tearful Cody said. Dr. Drew put a box of tissues between Cody and Julianne, who sat nearby also crying. All the couples got the Dr. Drew treatment on Tuesday, but the other contestants limited their concerns to overcoming rehearsal room sniping, while Julianne and Cody were the only ones to cry tears over their friendship.
    
The fans’ desire to see Cody and Julianne dance together again, after pro dancer Edyta Sliwinska stepped in as a replacement partner for Julianne, could have earned Cody some votes this week as he escaped elimination. Instead, Olympic sprinter Maurice Greene and his partner Cheryl Burke were voted off.
    
Burke told Greene that in her years on “Dancing with the Stars” she has never encountered a partner who worked harder. And playing off their catchphrase “winner, winner chicken dinner,” Burke told Greene, “You will always be the winner, winner chicken dinner of my heart.” And with that, four couples were left to compete next week.

(Reporting and writing by Alex Dobuzinskis)

Five celebrities are left on “Dancing with the Stars,” but only one is a woman. Fortunately for her and for fans, hostess and model Brooke Burke knows how to do the jitterbug, the samba, the rumba and whatever else the show’s producers throw at her.
 
Chalk it up, perhaps, to Burke’s time waltzing around the globe as the host of the E! travel show “Wild On…” All that globe-trotting must have taught her a few dance steps. On Monday’s show, Burke, 37, topped the leader board with a judges’ score of 55 out of 60 for two dances. Last week, she and her professtional dance partner Derek Hough scored this season’s first perfect 30. So, it’s a fairly safe bet she won’t be traveling anywhere except across the ballroom floor anytime soon.
 
Meanwhile, retired professional football star Warren Sapp is pressing on in the competition. On Monday’s show he huffed and puffed about being 300 pounds and having to glide across the dance floor. But he finished second in Monday’s scoring, with 54 out of 60, and got the judges smiling with a routine that included his partner tapping a door-knock on his head.
 
And Julianne Hough, the popular dancing partner of “Hannah Montana” star Cody Linley, is due back on Tuesday’s show, after taking a couple weeks off for surgery to deal with a complication from a medical condition called endometriosis. The 18-year-old Linley could probably use Hough’s help. His scores have been average throughout the competition, except for in week 5 when Hough helped him to a 28 out of 30 with a jitterbug inspired by 1950s icons Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.
 
Despite finishing at the bottom of the judges’ scoring on Monday, Linley stood next to thinly-clad temporary partner Edyta Sliwinska and delivered the best line of the night. When co-host Samantha Harris asked if he ever expected to be dancing with a half-naked woman, he answered, ”I may have imagined it but I never expected it.”
    
Still, funny lines are not enough to win the competition (as Cloris Leachman found out). And the question remains, does any man in the competition have what it takes to defeat Brooke? Or, could Brooke repeat Olympic skater Kristi Yamaguchi’s win from last season and give the women two wins in a row on “DWTS”?

(Reporting and Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis)

Susan Lucci left “Dancing With The Stars” with class on Wednesday night, as she radiantly addressed the audience after she was voted off the ABC ballroom dancing show, following in the footsteps of another soap star from two seasons ago who also made it far in the competition.

“I just have to say I have had the most incredible experience here, I leave with a life experience, something I will never forget,” Lucci told the audience.  

The daytime star did not play up the drama when she was eliminated. There were no tears, and her last dance was to the tune of the Ray Charles song “Hit the Road Jack.”
 
It was like the end of a saga, as “La Lucci” was asked to leave after overcoming a crushing foot injury, some drama with her partner and grueling flights back and forth between New York and Los Angeles to keep working on her daytime show “All My Children” while also starring on “DWTS.”

And in a plot twist that could have sprung from daytime television, Lucci made it almost exactly as far as fellow “All My Children” star Cameron Mathison in Season No. 5. Mathison was eliminated eighth in that season, and Lucci was eliminated seventh, not counting
Olympic volleyball champion Misty May-Treanor who withdrew because of an injury.
 
Judge Len Goodman pointed out a fact many audience members could have missed during La Lucci’s run in the competition — that she is in her 60s. Lucci is actually 61 years-old, which after Cloris Leachman at 82 made Lucci season No. 7’s second-oldest competitor.
 
The judges had been hard on Lucci, but she earned her moments of praise. She also appeared to have a perfectionist streak. Judge Carrie Ann Inaba had La Lucci get up in front of the audience on Monday and exclaim, “I’m doing good.” In an interview segment that played on Wednesday, La Lucci started off by saying, “I think I’m good.”

(Reporting and writing by Alex Dobuzinskis)

Only days after ”Dancing With The Stars” standout Julianne Hough announced she would take time off from the competition because of a condition called endometriosis, a second dancer has said she too has the condition — and it has made her “extremely weak.” 
    
Dancing pro Lacey Schwimmer, who is partnered with former “‘N Sync” band member Lance Bass, told celebrity television show “The Insider” that she was diagnosed this week with endometriosis, a condition in which tissue normally found in the lining of the uterus grows in other parts of the body.
    
Schwimmer told “The Insider” that she realized she had many of the same symptoms as Hough, and so she got checked out by a doctor and was diagnosed with endometriosis.
    
“It hurts very bad,” Schwimmer said. “Right now I’m insanely weak and the room is spinning.”
    
Despite all that, Schwimmer is not expected to take time off from rocking the ballroom on “Dancing With The Stars.” Hough, who had surgery this week to remove her appendix, will take at least two weeks away from dancing on the show. On her Web site on Wednesday, the 20-year-old singer and dancer said she would perform her single “My Hallelujah Song” on “Dancing With The Stars” Nov. 11.

Endometriosis is not contagious, and the condition affects only 5 to 10 percent of women.
    
(Photo: copyright 2008 ABC; Kelsey McNeal)

(Reporting and writing by Alex Dobuzinskis)

The judges on ABC’s “Dancing With The Stars” won’t have Cloris Leachman to kick around anymore. The grand dame of the show was shown the exit door on Tuesday night, but she was slow to leave.
 
The Oscar-winning actress and her dancing partner, Corky Ballas, were voted off a day after the judges gave them a rock-bottom score of 15. Leachman, 82, managed to stay in the competition beyond the season’s halfway point with a loyal base of fans, despite scoring at the low end of the judge’s rankings most weeks.

She always played up the humor of her being in the competition when she is way past retirement age, and Tuesday’s show was no exception. First Leachman said she was not leaving, even before the show’s hosts had announced her elimination. Moments later when she was kicked off, the crowd gave her a standing ovation. 
 
In the middle of it all, after thanking the judges, Leachman decided she needed a rest. So she sat down on the dance floor. Ballas and the show’s hosts followed suit.
 
“I’m going to get a pretty costume and be here next week,” Leachman said. “I’m going to sit right over there.” So, viewers of “Dancing With The Stars” and her fans can expect to see more of Leachman, — just not on the ballroom floor.
 
In the meantime, viewers will not see professional dancer Julianne Hough for at least a couple weeks. The partner to “Hannah Montana” star Cody Linley, 18, announced on Monday that she was diagnosed with endometriosis, a condition in which tissue normally found in the lining of the uterus grows in other parts of the body. 
 
On Tuesday’s show, Linley told viewers that Hough underwent surgery to remove her appendix and the procedure went well. 
 
On her Web blog at Fancast.com, Hough on Tuesday also shed more light on her condition, which among other things involves complications from cysts. She wrote that she ruptured a cyst that was on her ovary, which required a widely reported trip to the hospital last week and led to her diagnosis.
 
Hough wrote that doctors wanted to “clean out the cysts” and remove her appendix also, “because later on it can be affected by the cysts.”
 
Hough said she expects to resume dancing with Linley in two weeks. In the meantime, Linley is partnered with dancing pro Edyta Sliwinska. And, as they say in Hollywood, the show goes on.

We’ve seen it before on ”Dancing with the Stars.” Sometimes, it doesn’t matter how well you move across the ballroom floor or how much the judges admire your footwork, if fans don’t love you, you lose your dancing shoes (remember Cheetah Girl Sabrina Bryan in season No. 5?). Then again, if you have a sort of older, folksy appeal, voters seem to love it (Jerry Springer in season 3).

The latest example is Tuesday’s axing of singer Toni Braxton, even though she scored a point better than the bottom-rung contestants with 22 out of 30 points from judges. Below her at 21 was Lance Bass, who fell during his routine on Monday night. Even more shocking, perhaps, is that 82-year-old Cloris Leachman and her partner, Corky  Ballas, dubbed “Clorky,” managed to stay on the show, too, while scoring below Braxton.

It’s not that Cloris can’t dance. She has proven in the past two weeks that she can glide, shake, twist and turn on the dance floor, albeit a bit more slowly than the others. And even Braxton admitted she could have done better.

But really, who was the better dancer?

Still, Grammy-winning singer Braxton had no hard feelings. Braxton recently stopped performing after being diagnosed with microvascular angina, which involves poor functioning of blood vessels nourishing the heart and can cause breathing problems. 

Tuesday, she said one of ther goals in appearing on DWTS was to improve her breathing so she could return to performing. “My goal was reached, I wanted to do better, I wanted to breathe better and I definitely was breathing better. I’ve come a long way from week one to week now,” Braxton said, adding that her “heart is much better.”
    
Show co-host Tom Bergeron asked Braxton if that meant she was ready to stage a comeback with a show in Las Vegas, where she has performed in recent years.
    
“I still have to build up on performing for an hour-and-a-half, so this is good, this has been really good for me,” she said.
    
Health concerns became a theme for Tuesday’s show, because dancer Julianne Hough, the partner to “Hannah Montana” star Cody Linley, was rushed to a hospital with a stomach ache.
    
Hough wrote about it on Wednesday on her blog at the Fancast.com Web site. 

    
“I was with my mom when I checked into the hospital,” Hough wrote. “The minute I got there TMZ, ET and other (news) outlets were waiting outside. I was like oh my goodness. It was amazing how fast news can travel.”
    
Hough wrote that before she left the hospital she asked the doctor for “a note to sleep in” so she could get out of a group dance rehearsal.
    
Elsewhere, the show’s hosts announced that because of scheduling problems, judge Len Goodman will be out for the next two weeks, so Lord of the Dance star Michael Flatley will fill in for Goodman. We wonder whether he, like viewers, will be also be won over by the comedy of “Clorky,” more than their dancing. 

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis)

ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” hit its midway point on Monday, and  it seems no better time than now to write about it. The star of this year hasn’t been the dancing so much as the comedy provided by 82-year-old Cloris Leachman, who continues to hang on in the ballroom competition. And again on Monday night,  Leachman gave the show what was perhaps its most entertaining moment. 

When co-host Samantha Harris interviewed Leachman and and partner Corky Ballas backstage after they danced a salsa, she asked Leachman what kind of character she had tried to portray in her routine. Leachman said Ballas wanted her to play “A something ho.” She struggled to remember exactly what Ballas wanted until, finally and proudly, blurting out “A skanky ho.”

As for the actual dancing, there was plenty for the judges to gush about in an evening that featured celebrity competitors showing off their best West Coast swing, hustle, jitterbug and salsa steps. Brooke Burke and professional dance partner Derek Hough got a top score of 29 our of 30 for their jitterbug performance and were followed closely by fellow jitterbuggers Cody Linley and his dance partner, Julianne Hough with 28.  
 
It was a night for the athletes, as the judges praised former Olympic sprinter Maurice Greene and his partner Cheryl Burke, and former pro football player Warren Sapp and his partner Kym Johnson.
 
And if there was a DWTS version of the Purple Heart, it would go to daytime TV star Susan Lucci, who hit the dance floor soon after visiting the hospital and being diagnosed with a fractured bone in her foot. “I didn’t see any ounce of pain in your body and I love it, you just went through it like a trooper,” said judge Carrie Ann Inaba. 
 
The next elimination will happen on Tuesday’s show, but if you want to get in your favorite pick now. Here’s your chance. Tell us who should go.

(Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis)

(Photos: copyright 2008 ABC Inc., Kelsey McNeal)

For the 60th Emmy Awards , the show’s organizers made a bold decision to scrap the one-host format typical of awards shows.

Instead, they opted for not one, but five hosts — the five being Ryan Seacrest of “American Idol,” Heidi Klum of “Project Runway,” Tom Bergeron of “Dancing with the Stars,” Howie Mandel of “Deal or No Deal,” and Jeff Probst of “Survivor.” All were nominated for the newly-created category award for the best host of a reality or competition series.

As the show opened, the five-host strategy appeared to be a case of too many cooks spoiling the soup. After entering together in matching suits (including supermodel Klum, who towered over her co-hosts), the five Emmy hosts admitted that they had nothing prepared and were therefore winging it.

“We are like Sarah Palin’s bridge to nowhere,” Mandel joked.

It was the only joke.

To close out their opening bit, the hosts resorted to a cheap gag — ripping Klum’s pants off. The “monologue” ended with Klum standing on stage in a skimpy black lace outfit with Bergeron and “Boston Legal” star William Shatner.

Yes, William Shatner. We’re still trying to figure out what he was doing up there.

At the end of the show, Probst took home the “Host of all Hosts” Emmy for “Survivor,” which he has hosted since 2000.

“The Amazing Race,” however, took home the award for best reality series for the sixth straight year, leaving top-rated “American Idol” in the dust once again. “The Amazing Race” has won the best reality show Emmy for as long as that category has existed. In a world where there are so many reality shows, what gives?

Who says ballroom dancing is not brutal on the body? Just ask Chilean film star Cristian de la Fuente, who injured his arm Monday night on the popular U.S. TV show “Dancing With the Stars.”

De la Fuente, who gained fame on Spanish-language television and has guest-starred on U.S. TV on progams such as “CSI: Miami” and “Ugly Betty,” was finishing a saucy latin spin around the dance floor Monday night when he could no longer hold his pose with professional ballroom dancer Cheryl Burke. His arm seemingly cramped up, and after an impromptu commercial break on the live TV show, de la Fuente returned to the stage  grimacing in pain with his arm bandaged.

On Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the actor said he was seeing a doctor in Los Angeles, but would appear again on Tuesday’s episode of “Dancing With the Stars.” She said she did not know exactly what the medical problem was, adding that his condition would be fully revealed on the show Tuesday night.

It is not the first time a “Dancing With the Stars” contestant has been stricken on live TV. Last season, entertainer Marie Osmond fainted after one number, but popped back to her feet following a commercial break. Also this season, professional dancer Derek Hough, who is partnered with actress Shannon Elizabeth, hurt his neck in rehearsal and had to be taken to a hospital.

One lesson: If you gotta dance, get a medical check-up first.