Stars shine in latest pilot projects

Former NYPD Blue star Nick Turturro has found a new life on CBS, while NBC is courting TV legend Bob Newhart for a sitcom with singer Sisqo, Reuters reports.

Newhart would both play himself and an actor in the pilot opposite the pop singer. CBS greenlit a pilot dubbed Mr. Life, a half-hour project starring Turturro as a blue-collar man who owns and operates an Italian restaurant with his two brothers.

In other pilot developments,
former Cybill regular Alicia Witt will play a lead clerk in the Supreme Court in The Bench, an ABC drama that may include Sally Field in the pilot. Randy Quaid will play the head of a blue collar family in The Kennedys, a CBS comedy pilot based on the BBC series The Royale Family. And Fox signed Mary McCormack (Private Parts) as a shrink whose own personal life is problematic in More, Patience.