THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

Neil Patrick Harris and partner David Burtka shocked fans recently when they got married in a romantic Italian ceremony, US Weekly reported. "Guess what?" the How I Met Your Mother alum, 41, tweeted with a photo of the tux-clad couple during the service. "@DavidBurtka and I got married over the weekend. In Italy. Yup, we put the 'n' and 'd' in 'husband'." Harris publicly came out as gay in 2006 and got engaged to actor and chef Burtka, 39, in September 2007.

Out British crooner Sam Smith has received raves for his recent cover of U.S. folk singer Tracy Chapman's Grammy-winning ballad "Fast Car," according to E! Online. Accompanied by a live band, including a pianist and cellist, the 22-year-old singer sang the song, originally released in 1988, on BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge and a video was posted on the U.K. outlet's website. "Fast Car" was a big hit for Chapman, 50, and earned her the Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. She is also known for hits such as "Give Me One Reason" and "Baby Can I Hold You."

The 69th Annual Tony Awards will be broadcast live from Radio City Music Hall in New York City on Sunday, June 7, 2015, on CBS, the network announced. The awards have been broadcast on the network since 1978. No host has been named for next year; the nominations will be announced live on Tuesday, April 28, from New York City.

Clint Eastwood's Jersey Boys, based on the long-running Tony-winning musical, will arrive on Blu-ray combo pack, DVD and digital HD Nov. 11 from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, according to Playbill. The film stars John Lloyd Young, who reprises his Tony Award-winning portrayal of the lead singer of The Four Seasons, Frankie Valli; Erich Bergen, Michael Lomenda, Vincent Piazza and Christopher Walken co-star.

Real Housewives of Atlanta star NeNe Leakes has been cast as Madame, the wicked stepmother in Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella on Broadway, US Weekly noted. The Glee actress will join the cast from Nov. 25 to Jan. 3, taking over the role from Sherri Shepherd, who hit the stage for the first time on Sept. 9. Leakes will be joining the stage alongside previously announced KeKe Palmer, who is the first African-American to portray Cinderella on Broadway.

Martina Navratilova recently made a lot of news at tennis' U.S. Open. The tennis legend popped the question to girlfriend Julia Lemigova on the big screen at the tournament, acording to 9News.com .au. The 57-year-old proposed in a TV suite off-court in between the men's semifinals to the cheers of fans who watched on live. Also, Navratilova and fellow tennis icon Chris Evert honored Serena Williams, who tied them with 18 Grand Slam wins after winning the women's side of the U.S. Open on Sept. 7. They gifted Williams with an 18-karat gold Tiffany & Co. bracelet to mark the milestone.

MTV's teen lesbian( ish ) dramedy Faking It has added at least two people for next season, according to SheWired.com . Yvette Monreal has been cast Reagan, a character the Hollywood Reporter described as "a hip, edgy lesbian with a rebellious streak." In addition, trans actress Laverne Cox will be playing Margot, the demanding drama teacher of the school's elite drama club. The next season of the show will premiere Sept. 23.

AOL Originals announced True Trans with Laura Jane Grace, a 10-episode series following the transgender pioneer and lead singer of the punk band Against Me! who publicly came out as a transgender woman at the height of her music career in 2012, a press release stated. The first four episodes of the series will be available Friday, Oct. 10, in a special advance celebration of National Coming Out Day on the AOL On Originals home page: on.aol.com/show/518250660-true-trans/518387725. Additionally, the series will be available on mobile devices through the AOL On app.

Mean Girls star Jonathan Bennett is among the latest batch of celebrities competing on season 19 of Dancing with the Stars, US Weekly noted. Back To the Future actress Lea Thompson, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air's Alfonso Ribeiro, Olympian Lolo Jones, hunk Antonio Sabato Jr., fashion designer Betsey Johnson and Pretty Little Liars' Janel Parris are among some of the other contestants. The show is also adding former pro dancer Julianne Hough as a judge, joining Len Goodman, Carrie Ann Inaba and Bruno Tonioli.

Disney announced that it would release a new animated short that brings back the characters from its Oscar-winning mega-hit Frozen, which earned almost $1.3 billion at the global box office, The Wrap reported. The log line released by the studio promises more fun than drama: "In 'Frozen Fever,' it's Anna's birthday and Elsa and Kristoff are determined to give her the best celebration ever, but Elsa's icy powers may put more than just the party at risk." The short will return directors Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck, and will feature a new song from Oscar-winners Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez.

Mary J. Blige has crossed the Atlantic to collaborate with some of this decade's most celebrated UK musical talent—including Disclosure, Eg White, Emile Sande, Jimmy Napes, Naughty Boy, SAM ROMANS and Sam Smith—and recorded a new studio album, The London Sessions. This new collection will be released Dec. 2 on Capitol Records. Blige will perform songs from the album at the iTunes Festival at London's Roundhouse on Sept. 25.

Modern Family co-star Sofia Vergara topped Forbes' list of highest-earning TV actresses, reeling in $37 million in the past year, according to Page Six. The 42-year-old bombshell retained her top spot for a third consecutive year, beating out her previous year's earnings by $7 million. Law & Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay ( $13 million ), The Big Bang's Theory's Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting ( $11 million ) and The Good Wife's Julianna Margulies ( $10 million ) trailed Vergara.

Celebrity chef Donatella Arpaia pulled out of her partnership with Sienna restaurant in New York after her business partners hired strippers as waitresses, Page Six reported. Arpaia—aan Iron Chef America judge who is a former co-owner of restaurants including davidburke & donatella—was allegedly appalled when her partners bused in 40 dancers from Midtown gentlemen's club Sapphire New York.

Comic Joan Rivers died at age 81 after suffering respiratory and cardiac arrest at New York City's Yorkville Endoscopy Center. Her first of many appearances TV's The Tonight Show was in 1965, and that helped her reach a national audience. Rivers had a big following in the LGBT community, and she was among the first celebrities to help raise money to fight the AIDS crisis, in the mid-1980s—including in 1984 for AIDS Project Los Angeles, Aid for AIDS and the Shanti Project.

Rivers' funeral was conducted Sept. 7 at Temple Emanu-El, a Reform Jewish synagogue in New York City. Among the scores of celebrities who attended were Howard Stern, Rosie O'Donnell, Inside Edition host Deborah Norville, Sarah Jessica Parker, Whoopi Goldberg and Dr. Mehmet Oz. Hugh Jackman—who won a Tony in 2004 for his role in Peter Allen's autobiographical Broadway musical The Boy From Oz performed one of the show's songs: "Quiet Please, There's a Lady on Stage." The New York City Gay Men's Chorus and Audra McDonald sang as well, E! News reported.

Tickets to The Audience, starring Academy Award winner Helen Mirren, were available to American Express card members beginning Sept. 3; passes will be available to the general public Sept. 12, Playbill noted. Continuing her award-winning portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II, Mirren will star in a limited engagement of Peter Morgan's play beginning in February 2015 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. Two-time Tony Award winner Stephen Daldry ( Billy Elliot; An Inspector Calls ) will again direct.

The Dallas Cowboys football team has confirmed that it has signed openly gay football player Michael Sam to its practice squad. The Cowboys posted this on DallasCowboys.com, written by Rowan Kavner, a team writer: "Sam, the first openly gay player to be drafted in NFL history, will join the Cowboys' practice squad [Sept. 3] after getting released from the Rams among their 53-man roster cuts during the weekend. 'We felt like it was a good move for our football team right now,' said head coach Jason Garrett. 'We're bringing a player in we wanted to see on the practice field, and got nothing but good reports about him from our people and the people in St. Louis.'"

Ken Burns' latest PBS opus, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History, runs 14 hours and aims to cover previously unexplored areas in the lives of Theodore, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. However, The Hollywood Reporter noted that the miniseries won't make any definitive statements on the much-speculated-about sexuality of the longest-serving first lady in U.S. history. "This is an intimate history, not a tabloid history," said Burns, who also took the time to address similar speculation about the 16th president. "There are intimate letters between Abraham Lincoln and one of his close friends, Joshua Speed … the intimacy between them would convince you that they had a homosexual relationship."

Actress Rosie Perez and political commentator Nicolle Wallace are expected to take the vacant seats on The View when the ABC daytime talk show returns for a new season Sept. 15, according to Deadline. They would join Rosie O'Donnell and Whoopi Goldberg. Wallace, who served as communications director for George W. Bush, was among the women who did a screen test for The View last month.

Gay singer Steve Grand, who became an overnight sensation with his YouTube video "All-American Boy" in July 2013, announced over the weekend that his album will not be released until January 2015, Gay Star News reported. The project, originally scheduled for late summer, is being funded by the $326,593 Grand raised through a Kickstarter campaign. This route was chosen because it enables him to make the record without a record company and to retain total creative control.

Jenny Shimizu, a model who once dated Angelina Jolie, married socialite Michelle Harper, according to US Weekly. ( "I would probably have married Jenny Shimizu if I hadn't married my husband," Jolie told Girlfriends magazine in 1997. "I fell in love with her the first second I saw her." ) Photos of Harper the bride wearing her voluminous wedding gown on the couple's big day were released Sept. 3. Shimizu, a Japanese-American model, and Harper met at a 2012 party.

In a recent interview with the Australian Broadcasting Commission, Kristian Nairn—the actor who plays Bran's loyal ally Hodor in the HBO drama —revealed that Bran and Hodor won't appear in the show's fifth season at all, according to TheWeek.com . Nairn added he plans to use the time off to travel around the world as a DJ, hosting a series of Game of Thrones-themed dance parties under the title "Rave of Thrones." Earlier this year, Advocate.com reported that Nairn came out as gay.

Ricky Ubeda, 18, has come out on top of Fox's So You Think You can Dance. The Miami native won the most recent season, edging Valerie Rockey. Ubeda says he's been watching the show since he was 8, but being on the series is so much more than he thought it would be. As for a judge's comment he'll always remember, Ubeda told SouthFlorida.com he liked it when Nigel Lythgoe called him a "magician of dance."

Adam Levine is developing a new comedy inspired by his childhood, Digital Spy reported. The NBC series will be titled Kids in America and follows a teenager, based on Levine, who dreams of becoming a rock star. The autobiographical series is likely to be set in the 1990s.

CeeLo Green apologized for the statements about rape which he says were "attributed" to him on Twitter, according to EW.com . In a series of tweets, Green argued that women can only be raped if they are conscious, writing, "women who have really been raped REMEMBER!!!" Following the ensuing outrage, TBS confirmed that Green's reality show, The Good Life, was canceled.

Molly Glynn, an actress who appeared on NBC drama Chicago Fire, died after being struck by a tree in a Chicago suburb a day earlier, The Wrap noted. Glynn, 46, was best known for her theater work around the city. The actress worked with companies including Steppenwolf, Chicago Shakespeare, Next, Northlight and Writers Theatre, where she was most recently in the cast of the national premiere of The Dance of Death.

Hundreds of items that Gone with the Wind producer David O. Selznick saved—including dresses worn in the film, scripts, story boards and other things will go on display at the University of Texas-Austin's Harry Ransom Center as part of a 75th-anniversary tribute, "The Making of Gone With the Wind," the Associated Press noted. The exhibit, which runs through Jan. 4, 2015, takes visitors on a journey from the 1936 purchase of movie rights through production and the film's eventual premiere. It also examines the casting of the moving and the decision to remove any mention of the Klan from the screenplay and avoid the use of racial slurs, which Margaret Mitchell used throughout her novel.

Julia Roberts is set to join Chiwetel Ejiofor and Gwyneth Paltrow in Billy Ray's The Secret in Their Eyes, which is based on the Oscar-winning Argentinian thriller from 2009, according to The Wrap. The original film featured two male leads and one female lead, but when Roberts expressed interest in being part of the project, Ray reconceived the characters. Juan Jose Campanella's Secret in Their Eyes followed a retired attorney who writes a book about an unsolved case and his own unrequited love for one of his former superiors, prompting old secrets to be revealed.

The death of girl-group singer Simone Battle has been ruled a suicide by hanging, NBC News reported. Lt. Fred Corral of the Los Angeles County Coroner's Department said the cause of death was determined Sept. 7, two days after the 25-year-old singer was found dead in her West Hollywood, California, home. Battle became famous through performances on the television show X Factor; her five-member band—G.R.L., originally a reboot of the Pussycat Dolls—had been signed by mega-hit maker Dr. Luke.

Openly gay feature director Roland Emmerich is set to direct and executive-produce New Angeles, a TV series from Slingshot Global Media, Deadline.com noted. Keanu Reeves and Stephen Hamel of Company Films brought the project to keanuEmmerich's Centropolis and will executive produce alongside Emmerich. Set in the future, the series centers on a young man who escapes the mundane reality of his life by entering a virtual-reality world called New Angeles.