Cast News

If you thought Patrick Dempsey couldn't get any cooler, think again!

Patrick unveiled a cancer center in his name at the Central Maine Medical Center in his hometown of Lewiston, Maine, on Monday.

The Patrick Dempsey Center for Cancer Hope & Healing, which opens March 31, will offer education and support for cancer patients and their families.

The handsome Grey's Anatomy star, 42, says he was inspired after his mother successfully overcame ovarian cancer at the hospital.

"For a family to get a cancer diagnosis is devastating, and all the information out there can be overwhelming," the man behind Derek Shepherd said.

"A lot of the Web sites I went to just didn't have enough information."

Patrick Dempsey provided a seed grant for the center and will also take part in the center's public education campaign about cancer prevention and detection.

His sister, Mary, a hospital employee, will run the center.

Dempsey has been married to his lovely wife, Jillian Dempsey, since 1999. They have one-year-old twins, Darby and Sullivan, and a six-year-old daughter, Tallulah.

Laura Saltman of Access Hollywood was one of the lucky few able to get a seat at
UCLA inside Royce Hall Friday as the Private Practice and Grey's Anatomy cast put on a charity show for crew members dubbed "Good Medicine."

She dubbed the show a combination of American Idol meets the SAG Awards meets "The Gong Show" meets your local high school's talent show.

Sounds like a ton of fun to us. Here's her review ...

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The show started with a funny taped message from the one and only McDreamy himself, Patrick Dempsey, who said he was in Japan promoting Enchanted. With a wink, he couldn't miss a chance to plug the film, "Soon to be released on DVD."

Patrick Dempsey acknowledged how important the writers were to his show by joking, "Without them I'd still be known as that teen from Can't Buy Me Love."

Next to the stage was Dr. Izzie Stevens, Katherine Heigl, looking beautiful in a red knee length dress. Heigl, who is rumored to be leaving the show, revealed that all proceeds from the event would go to the Solidarity Fund started by the WGA.

True Grey's Anatomy fans know that Sara Ramirez, who plays Callie Torres, won the 2005 Tony for her role as 'The Lady of the Lake' in Monty Python's "Spamalot." I knew this, but I still had no idea how well this chick can really sing! Her voice brought the house to its feet with a performance of the song "Meadowlark."

Ellen Pompeo took to the stage next to briefly thank everyone for coming and to introduce the next singer, T.R. Knight. We know him as George O'Malley but T.R. got his start in theater and has appeared on Broadway.

Just before he tackled the song "Losing My Mind/You Could Drive A Person Crazy" from Sondheim's "Follies" T.R. Knight begged for a little understanding:

"It's been 13 years since I've done this and I'm following Sara Ramirez."

While T.R. Knight didn't have the pipes that Sara Ramirez did, he still did a great job with the song and had fun doing it.

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We can't confirm this Grey's Anatomy gossip with any degree of certainty, but BuddyTV is reporting that Katherine Heigl wants to leave the series that has vaulted her to critical acclaim and fame on the big and small screens.

Heigl, who has experienced success at the box office with movies Knocked Up and 27 Dresses, reportedly seems more focused on pursuing her big screen career now and believes that she may have "outgrown" Grey's Anatomy.

Rumors say that Katherine Heigl, who plays Dr. Izzie Stevens, has even asked the producers of the hit medical drama to kill off her character - and to do so in such a manner as to hopefully elicit record ratings for the show.

SIDE NOTE: It would be tough to top the viewer response that followed last season's three-part episode in which Meredith Grey died and was later revived.

Katherine Heigl is allegedly swamped with movie offers these days.

The Emmy-winning Grey's Anatomy actress has apparently been swayed by impressive box office performances of her theatrical releases that she no longer wants to be attached strictly to her small screen persona.

She is rumored to be keen on focusing on her film career and has even put together a production company with her manager and mother, Nancy Heigl.

Even if this were true, and we're not sure it is, simply orchestrating a dramatic exit from the Grey's Anatomy cast won't be easy for Katherine Heigl.

Not if the show wants her back, that is. Heigl's contract with ABC and Touchstone has her locked in at Seattle Grace for the next several years.

What do you think? Do you buy this report? And would you like to see Katherine Heigl (and Izzie Stevens) bid farewell to Grey's Anatomy?

Looks like T.R. Knight is off the market.

The Emmy-nominated Grey's Anatomy star, who plays George O'Malley, stepped out with boyfriend Mark Cornelsen during the 2008 Elton John AIDS Foundation Oscar Party held at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood on Sunday.

The two held hands and looked very happy together. See below:

Mark Cornelsen and Grey's Anatomy star T.R. Knight.

Here's a lovely picture of Patrick Dempsey and his wife, Jillian Fink Dempsey, at last night's 80th Annual Academy Awards. Wow, what a cute couple ...

Grey's Anatomy / Enchanted star Patrick Dempsey and wife Jillian Dempsey left the three children at home for a night out at the Oscars - and looked great doing it!

Follow the jump for more photos of Patrick and Jill ...

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During her unexpected wintertime hiatus, the award-winning Chandra Wilson wrapped up her tax returns, cleaned house, attended parent-teacher conferences, picked up an award and even visited her old high school.

Wilson, understandably, would have preferred to be at work, wrapping up Season Four as Dr. Miranda Bailey in the ABC drama Grey's Anatomy.

But the chance for the actress to return to her alma mater, Houston's High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, was one of the brighter spots of her forced time off during the Writers Guild of America strike.

According to her hometown Houston Chronicle, Wilson returned to the school bearing gifts â€" the promise to fund a pair of $2,000 annual college scholarships for HSPVA's theater graduates â€" and in just minutes, produced more genuine, heartfelt laughter than the stern, no-nonsense Miranda Bailey has provided viewers in four years of serious, on-screen hospital corridor stare-downs.

"There's a whole lot of my mom, a whole lot of Wilma (referring to her mother, Wilma Allen) in Dr. Bailey," Chandra Wilson said, laughing.

"You know mothers. Everything is justified from their point of view. I may see it differently, but she's completely justified with every reaction and suggestion."

Listening to her mom has served Wilson well thus far. Chandra Wilson had acted since age five in Theatre Under The Stars productions, but only applied for the performing arts high school in 1983 at her mother's suggestion - her urging.

"Within two weeks, I knew that was the best decision my mother ever made," she said. "I didn't have professional aspirations. My mom didn't want me to be idle."

Follow this link to continue reading this great account of the amazing Chandra Wilson's time off this winter in the Houston Chronicle ...

Tony Award Winners Audra McDonald, Sara Ramirez and Loretta Devine will all headline "Good Medicine" - a once-in-a-lifetime musical event with casts of the popular ABC television shows Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice.

Almost all the stars of these two popular TV series will be participating, and the evening will include musical performances by Paul Adelstein, Amy Brenneman, Tim Daly, T.R. Knight, Chris Lowell, James Pickens, Gina Taylor-Pickens and Chandra Wilson. Justin Chambers, Eric Dane, Taye Diggs, Katherine Heigl, Chyler Leigh, Sandra Oh, Ellen Pompeo, Brooke Smith, Kadee Strickland, Shonda Rhimes (creator/executive producer of both series) and Kate Walsh will also participate.

"Good Medicine," from the Private Practice and Grey's Anatomy cast, is held to benefit the Solidarity Fund - set up by the Writer's Guild of America to help members of film and TV productions who were put out of work by the strike.

The event is being held at Royce Hall at UCLA, on Friday, February 29 at 8:00 p.m. Tickets for the event ($85) are on sale and open to the general public. For more information and to purchase tickets click here.

The "fight against cancer" Eric Dane reportedly went through was not nearly as bad or dramatic as it sounded in OK! Magazine, the actor's rep said.

The OK! Magazine cover story in its February 18 issue sensationalized the fact that the Grey's Anatomy star, 35, was diagnosed with skin cancer and had malignant cells on his lip frozen off with liquid nitrogen in a doctor's office recently.

"Eric Dane does not have cancer," his rep told Us Weekly.

"He spoke with OK! to clear up inaccuracies they were planning to run. His story certainly does not compare to those actually suffering from the disease."

The actor who plays Mark Sloan (a.k.a. McSteamy) on Grey's Anatomy was reportedly mortified by the cover of the celebrity news magazine.

"Never in a million years would he have expected they would exploit his story," says the rep. "He's considering legal action."

Let this be a lesson to us all not to trust OK! Magazine.

In other news, thank goodness the writers' strike is officially over. Can we have some new Grey's Anatomy episodes already, for crying out loud?

After checking in an out of the UCLA Medical Center's psychiatric ward, Justin Chambers is doing just fine, according to the Grey's Anatomy cast.

"[Justin Chambers] just needed a break," says James Pickens, Jr., who recently spoke with the actor. "He said, 'Man I'm fine.'"

At the NAACP Image Awards Nominee luncheon Saturday in Beverly Hills, Ca., Pickens told People that Chambers, who recently left town, was headed to Arizona with his family because he just wanted to chill.

"He thanked everybody for their concern but everybody's good," says Pickens.

Also at the luncheon, co-star Chandra Wilson said, "Everybody goes through stuff. It's no different than anybody else in the world. We just happen to be in the public eye ... Justin's doing just fine."

Chandra Wilson says co-star Justin Chambers will be alright.

A rep for Justin Chambers said that the actor, who plays Dr. Alex Karev on Grey's Anatomy, chose to voluntarily check himself into the psychiatric ward because he was exhausted and suffers from a sleeping disorder.

The UCLA Medical Center, of course, is the same facility where Britney Spears was recently admitted and placed on psychiatric hold for nearly a week.

An Ohio native, Justin Chambers, 37, and his wife, Keisha Chambers, have been married for over a decade and have five children.

In a surprising and very serious piece of Grey's Anatomy news, Eric Dane was diagnosed with a form of skin cancer just last month.

Fortunately, he has successfully treated the disease and is recovering well. The actor spoke to OK! magazine about his struggle.

The Grey's Anatomy star first detected something was wrong when he looked in the mirror and saw what looked like chapped lips - but wasn't.

"I went to my dermatologist," Eric Dane tells the celebrity news magazine. "He said it was malignant tissue caused by sun damage."

The malignancy was treated by doctors who began freezing the cancerous tissue off with liquid nitrogen. Unfortunately for Dane, his skin had a severe reaction to a cream given to him to put on his lip after the treatment.

"My skin is very sensitive and my lip was traumatized by the procedure I had to go through," he said, noting that his reaction to the medication created a painful scenario that made eating difficult.

"I didn't eat very well for a couple of weeks and lost a bunch of weight," Eric Dane explains, estimating that he dropped at least 10 pounds off his ripped, 6'1" frame while dealing with his skin cancer.

We're very sorry to hear about this but glad Eric is speaking out about it, as it will raise awareness of the seriousness of the disease.

And we're glad we can expect Dr. Mark "McSteamy" Sloan back when Grey's Anatomy resumes production - hopefully very, very soon.