Quick Takes: ‘Dirty Dancing’ to be remade

The classic 1987 film “Dirty Dancing” is going to be remade, adding songs from the 1960s and brand new compositions to some of the original music, Lionsgate said Monday.

The beloved coming-of-age movie, starring the late Patrick Swayze as smoldering dance teacher Johnny Castle in a forbidden romance with teenager Jennifer Grey as Frances “Baby” Houseman, will be modernized for a new generation, producers said.

Kenny Ortega, the film’s original choreographer and the director of the Michael Jackson concert movie “This Is It” and “High School Musical,” will direct the new version, which has not yet been cast.

—Reuters

Loretta Lynn cancels concerts

Loretta Lynn has been sidelined by knee surgery.

Representatives for the 76-year-old Country Music Hall of Fame member said she had canceled appearances through Sept. 3 because she is scheduled to undergo reconstructive knee surgery and needs time to recover.

Lynn recently returned to live performances with a show at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville after being forced to cancel performances in Ohio and Connecticut because she was hospitalized for heat exhaustion.

—Associated Press

Youth orchestra taps Mester

Conductor Jorge Mester — who departed the Pasadena Symphony Orchestra last year after 25 years — has found a new job: He’ll be artistic director of the Young Musicians Foundation for the 2011-12 season.

The Young Musicians Foundation, founded in 1955, works to promote classical music for people aged 8 to 25. The L.A. organization’s main program is the Debut Orchestra, which features young musicians performing in free public concerts throughout the year.

Prior to his appointment, Mester served on the YMF Music Advisory Board for 12 years.

—David Ng

No Mt. Denver in Colo. for now

A movement to name a Colorado mountain peak after the late John Denver has hit a snag.

The effort had gained momentum in recent weeks as thousands of people signed a petition to recognize the singer with a mountain near where he wrote

his hit “Rocky Mountain High.”

Denver is a revered figure in Colorado — so much that it made “Rocky Mountain High” an official state song.

The peak in question is on Mt. Sopris, named after a man who led a prospecting expedition near the mountain. It’s also in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness Area, which poses a problem for the proposal, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names told the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.

The board’s executive secretary, Lou Yost, said renaming the peak could be forbidden under a federal wilderness law.

He said that based on the board’s interpretation of the Wilderness Act of 1964, applying any more new names to features in wilderness areas detracts from the wilderness experience. Exceptions could be made for safety or educational purposes, he added.

Denver was killed in 1997 when the experimental aircraft he was piloting crashed into the ocean near Pacific Grove, Calif.

—Associated Press

‘Children’s’ mom to reprise role

Agnes Nixon, creator of the ABC soap “All My Children,” will appear on the show starting Aug. 31. She will play Agnes Eckhart, a long-standing board member of Pine Valley Hospital — a role she invented for herself in 2005, when the series was celebrating its 35th anniversary.

Nixon is reprising the role on “All My Children” as the show heads for the end of its 41-year run on network television in late September. (It will, however, extend its life as an online entity.)

Other alumnae of the show are stepping up to pay their respects to the drama, including Sarah Michelle Gellar and Carol Burnett.

—Joy Press