Brown Leads Heading to ‘Dancing’ Finale

By SANDY COHEN

LOS ANGELES – Melanie Brown emerged from Monday’s "Dancing With the Stars" ballroom battle with the highest score, positioning her to claim the mirror-ball trophy during Tuesday’s season finale. Brown and her professional partner, Maksim Chmerkovskiy, earned 55 out of a possible 60 points for their cha cha and freestyle dances.

Coming in close second was race-car driver Helio Castroneves and his partner Julianne Hough with 54 points.

Marie Osmond and Jonathan Roberts collected 46 points for their two dances.

When judges scores are combined with viewer votes, the show’s third place couple will be eliminated at the start of Tuesday’s show. The remaining pairs will perform one last dance – their favorite of the season – which will help determine the winner.

The ABC show averaged around 20 million weekly viewers for each of its twice-weekly episodes in the 2006-07 season, eclipsed only by Fox powerhouse "American Idol.""Dancing" is still on its toes, with nearly 22 million viewers making it last week’s No. 1 show.

The season began with a dozen dancers. Model-actress Josie Maran was the first to be eliminated. Other nixed contestants were actresses Sabrina Bryan, Jennie Garth and Jane Seymour, entrepreneur Mark Cuban, entertainer Wayne Newton, boxer Floyd Mayweather, actor Cameron Mathison and model Albert Reed.

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