Quick Takes: One Direction tops chart

Breakout British boy band One Direction made history Wednesday as its Stateside debut, “Up All Night,” bowed at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart after selling more than 176,000 copies last week, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That made it the first British group to take the top spot in the United States with its debut release.

“Up All Night” is only the second disc of 2012 to unseat the chart-topping run by One Direction’s Columbia Records label mate Adele following Bruce Springsteen’s “Wrecking Ball.” Adele’s behemoth “21” remained at No. 2 after pushing an additional 156,000 copies.

One Direction, a quintet of 17-to-20-year-olds, was pieced together by reality competition magnate Simon Cowell and Nicole Scherzinger after they had auditioned as solo singers on the British edition of “X Factor” in 2010. The group placed third.

—Gerrick D. Kennedy

Ex-wives of stars get reality show

Hollywood ex-wives surely have stories to tell, and now five of them will have their own TV series.

VH1 said Wednesday that it is making “Hollywood Exes,” a 10-episode series that will air this summer. Featured players are the ex-wives of Eddie Murphy, Prince, R. Kelly, Will Smith and Jose Canseco.

The network said that Nicole Murphy, Jessica Canseco, Andrea Kelly, Sheree Fletcher (Smith’s ex) and Mayte Garcia (Prince’s ex) “want to show the world that they are more than just a trophy wife with a pretty face.”

The series will follow the women as they establish their own lives apart from their famous exes.

—Associated Press

New late-night ‘Conversation’

Another combatant is joining the late-night talk wars.

Lifetime said Wednesday it has set April 26 as the premiere date for “The Conversation With Amanda de Cadenet,” an hourlong weekly program in which the British photographer chats with famous women.

The first installment will feature separate interviews with Jane Fonda, Zoe Saldana, Sarah Silverman and Gwyneth Paltrow. Future guests include U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Donna Karan, Diane von Furstenberg, Miley Cyrus and Melissa McCarthy.

The cable channel has ordered eight installments, which will air Thursdays at 11 p.m., opposite Conan O’Brien on TBS, Chelsea Handler on E! and Jon Stewart on Comedy Central.

—Lee Margulies

Alabama honors Oscar winner

Oscar-winning actress Octavia Spencer was honored at the Alabama Statehouse on Wednesday, where about 400 people turned out to welcome her.

Spencer won this year’s supporting actress Oscar for her performance as a maid in “The Help.”

She rode up to the Statehouse in a pink limousine. As she stepped out, she was serenaded by the band from her alma mater, Jefferson Davis High School.

A Montgomery native, Spencer told the crowd that she would do whatever she could to see that more movies are made in Alabama. She also cautioned young people in the audience to think twice before heading to Hollywood to become a movie star. The actress was then honored by a joint session of the Legislature.

—Associated Press

Brown’s choice for poet laureate

Juan Felipe Herrera, who writes about the lives of Mexican Americans and teaches poetry at UC Riverside, was nominated Wednesday by Gov. Jerry Brown to be California’s poet laureate for the next two years.

The appointment must be confirmed by the state Senate.

Herrera, 63, joined the UC Riverside faculty in 2005 and holds the Tomas Rivera Chair in Creative Writing.

The son of migrant farmworkers, he earned his bachelor’s degree at UCLA. His published works include the 2008 book “Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems.”

—Lee Margulies

‘Trapped’ again with R. Kelly

Remember “Trapped in the Closet”? R. Kelly’s sprawling musical narrative of sex and deceit will get another chapter on IFC this year.

The “Trapped in the Closet” saga began life as a five-part song on R. Kelly’s 2005 album “TP3. Reloaded.” Videos were shot for the five songs and released on a DVD with the album.

In 2007, it was expanded to 22 chapters for IFC and IFC.com, where it drew the channel’s largest online audience ever.

—Patrick Kevin Day

Finally

Not so wimpy: The seventh “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” novel, one of the few series as popular as “The Hunger Games,” is coming out in November. The first six books by Jeff Kinney have sold more than 75 million copies worldwide.