When famous singer Patsy Cline died in a plane crash at 30 her daughter, Julie, was only 4 years old. Today Julie remembers hearing her mother's songs. “It would be no big deal to be in my grandmother's home and be listening to the music because she was playing some music. And that is where I heard the songs, and knew which ones that I really enjoyed,” says Julie Fudge.

“As my own personal experience, I was a child of the '70s and listened to anything but (country music). But, at the same time, I became a true fan of Patsy. And so it's not just listening to ‘Mom,’ it's listening to ‘Patsy,’ and understanding what people hear and what people feel when they hear those things.”

What people hear will be a revelation when a bevy of current stars recreates Patsy Cline’s music in the “Great Performances” special “Patsy Cline: Walkin’ After Midnight” airing on PBS Friday.

Rendering those famous heartbreakers will be stars like Wynonna Judd, Pat Benatar, Kristin Chenoweth, Rita Wilson, Grace Potter and, most of all, Beverly D’Angelo, who played Cline in the film “Coal Miner’s Daughter.”

D’Angelo not only portrayed Cline, she actually sang in the film. “I was a singer before I was an actor,” she says, “and when I started singing, I sang with the legendary Ronnie Hawkins, who was a rockabilly before they came up with that name in Canada. And he said, ‘You know, Bev, you should check out the Patsy Cline songbook.’

“So I knew about those songs way before I played Patsy Cline. ... I came to that movie as a singer more than an actor. I'd just started acting. I think it's the third movie I did,” she recalls.

“I sang my way into it. And so I would say that for me, it was more like an homage. It wasn't about trying to sound exactly like her. It was more to find the similar resonances. And it was an actor's journey for a singer.”

D'Angelo earned accolades for that performance and worked with Owen Bradley on the soundtrack. Bradley had produced Cline’s most famous pieces, “Crazy,” “I Fall to Pieces” and “Walkin’ After Midnight.”

“There's so many reasons that she's important,” says D’Angelo. “She was the first woman to headline a country show. Independent, authentic at a time when there were a lot of housewives and Minnie Pearl was there with the (comedy schtick). And Patsy did something else that was true to her.”

And while Cline began as a country singer, her music crossed over to a variety of listeners. “It's the audiences that made Patsy Cline considered to be a crossover,” D’Angelo says.

“It was her audiences that listened to her and said, ‘This is more than just a country tune. This is more than just a country singer.’ I know it came out of Nashville. I know she's on the bill with Hawkshaw Hawkins, or whoever she was with.

“We know it's in that context, but people somehow knew. And the culture knew. And she really did cross over but not in the way that people cross over now — where you've got a singer who's established in one genre and then jumps over and tries another genre.

“She just did her thing. And people listened and wanted to hear more. And I think that it was an unfinished story, and I think we are all compelled to finish it for reasons we can hardly even explain.”

Cline watched several songs climbing the charts when she was badly injured in an auto accident. D’Angelo says she was listening to Cline singing “Sweet Dreams” when she heard something unique.

And I said, ‘Owen, was she crying?’ And he said, ‘No.’ He said her ribs hurt. And, all of a sudden, it was just this gift. And I could see her in pain in the studio. She hadn't even recovered enough to be able to take the deep breath that she intended to take.

“Because what I realized was this one (note) was ready to really finish that song. Just really LAY into it. And she couldn’t, but she did it anyway. .... That spoke to me about a certain determination to express herself,” says D’Angelo.

“It made me feel sorry for her and think about her as a person more than anything ... she really told her truth with those lyrics. So, when you hear somebody expressing themselves through lyrics that somebody else has written, you're going to hear their choices that most align with their truth,” D’Angelo says.

“And I think that was one of her real gifts as an artist ... that she really could take on any song and make it her own song — where you go, ‘There's no other way to sing it. There's no other way to phrase it.’ I know. I felt that at the tribute.”

Demi Moore costars in new series

Demi Moore is costarring with Billy Bob Thornton in the new Paramount+ adventure, “Landman.” The 10-part series is about the wildcatters in West Texas and the oil boom that shatters the status quo.

Moore tells me that her family moved often when she was a kid. "Being the new girl in class every six months proved difficult and the reception varied,” she says. "At one school I was very popular and at another I was kind of a nerd outcast, and then I would be popular again,'' she shrugs.

"That kind of lifestyle is perfect training for being either an actress or a pathological liar,'' she laughs.

She also admits that these moves made her shy. "But I have expertly masked that through my life by being extroverted or by putting out that I'm extremely comfortable,'' she says.

"I wouldn't care to be 20 or 21 again when my own feelings about my value and worth were so low,'' says Moore. "It’s only now that I can recognize that it was only my pure desire and interests and hopes of doing this that kept me going. Because I certainly didn't know if I could,'' she says.

Children's letters reach Santa

Every year children scribble their Christmas requests in letters to Santa. And the United Postal Service along with ABC and Hulu are taking note. In Season 2 of “Dear Santa, the Series,” audiences will travel cross-country as the networks search for the special letters written by children to St. Nick. These wishes will be fulfilled by anointed “elves” via USPS and its Operation Santa.

This marks the 112th year that the USPS has stood in for Santa and kept its promise of Christmas delights for deserving children. “Dear Santa, the Series” will debut on Sunday via ABC-owned TV stations. The series will also air on a passel of streamers like Hulu Live TV, YouTube TV, Vidgo, Fubo, Rockbot, Roku Channel, Tubi, Xumo, Samsung TV Plus, Prime Video and FreeVee .

It streams on Hulu beginning Nov. 29.

Danson stars as undercover PI

Ted Danson plays a man who earns a second lease-on-life in the new series, “Man on the Inside,” premiering on Netflix Thursday. When his wife dies, the former professor feels he has no place to go until he reads a classified ad for a private eye. Seizing the opportunity, he’s assigned to go undercover at a nursing home. What could go wrong?

The series is created by Mike Schur, the same guy who wrote the popular sitcom “The Good Place,” which also starred Danson.

For 12 years Schur worked for NBC. At the time, he said, “I think that there are many benefits creatively to being on a streaming service, depending on what kind of show you're doing. But a show that's extremely structured, I think benefits from the network structure because it forces you, as a writer, to think about act-breaks and to think about things that every writer back to the Greeks did, which was: What's the main character going through? What are the obstacles? What's the arc of this thing?

“And it's not that people don't do those on streaming services, but if you watch certain shows on streaming services, it's like the fishbowl — the fish expands to the size of the fishbowl,” he says.

While networks are burdened by a very limited time frame, Schur says, “Commercials are a pain in the butt, and the snipes that come up at the bottom of the screen for other shows are a pain in the butt. ... But it makes you hone the way you write, and it's a good feeling to me to leave moments and jokes and pieces of a story on the cutting-room floor because it means — if I'm cutting things I like — it means that everything that's in is something I liked even more.

It's not one-size-fits-all. It's not every show would be better on Netflix or Hulu or Amazon, or that every show would be better on ABC or Fox or NBC. I think you take the idea, you conceive of it, you figure out how you want to make it and find the right place for it.”

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