DAN WOOTTON: a little of Hollywood involves Corrie as Robert Vaughn moves into the road

And,
surprisingly, the acting legend famous for The person from U.N.C.L.E, The
Magnificent Seven and, more recently, Hustle wasn’t too expensive.

Cheap date: Robert Vaughn didn’t make extreme demands to make an appearance in Corrie

Corrie executive producer Kieran
Roberts tells me: ‘We didn’t ought to change our payment structure, other
than throwing in a plane ticket to and from the U.S. It’s a real
coup.’

Robert — partial to
the work of Stephanie Cole, who plays Sylvia — was keen to do the show.
His character, Milton, is introduced as her love interest.

American TV executives are hailing ‘the Downton effect’ because the reason for a wave of U.S. period drama series. Major network ABC is making Gilded  Lillys, which follows the mingling of the classes (sound familiar?) at Ny’s first luxury hotel on the turn of the twentieth century.

And NBC, another terrestrial broadcaster, is operating on a version of Dracula set within the 1890s.

Singer
Nicole Scherzinger is not just being courted by Andrew Lloyd Webber to
be a judge on his new Jesus Christ Superstar talent show on ITV1, but
also to take a number one role within the musical.

The composer wants the yankee X Factor judge to play Mary Magdalene inside the production, in order to open at London’s 02.

But
the previous Pussycat Doll is probably not ready to commit. My source says:
‘She doesn’t know if she’ll be asked back for American X Factor, so it
is tough for her to make decisions.’