Issue Date: June 10, 2001
Did impetuous Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant get married? If so, who's the lucky bride?
Tucoya Norman Tacoma, Wash.
Vanessa Laine, 18, is Bryant's wife of two months; she was a high school senior when she won his heart last year. Talk about a fairy-tale romance! Imagine the excitement when the teen beauty, who met Bryant on a music video shoot, showed up in class wearing a seven-carat engagement ring. The media frenzy prompted Laine's grandparents (with whom she lived at the time) to home-school her. Asked by his coach if he wasn't too young for marriage, Bryant, 22, said, "Naw. I do everything young."
Why have none of Patricia Cornwell's best sellers been made into movies when other thriller authors see their works onscreen?
S. Davis, Las Vegas
If all goes well, Cornwell's tough medical examiner Kay Scarpetta will finally be personified. Last summer, Sony Pictures paid a reported $5 million for rights to Cornwell's 11 Scarpetta books, as well as any to come, for five years. Early this year, the studio hired screenwriter Robert Rodat ("Saving Private Ryan"), who tells us he begged for the job and visualizes the late actress Barbara Stanwyck when he writes because thinking of today's leading ladies distracts him. All Sony's spokeswoman would say, and tersely at that, is: "It's a long process." Perhaps seeming even longer when the clock is ticking.
What is actress Blythe Danner, mother of the young star Gwyneth Paltrow, doing these days? Any television or feature films in the works?
Julia Wickham, Lincolnton, N.C.
Danner turns up regularly in popular movies, like "Meet the Parents". But she's been best appreciated onstage, and that's where she's been lately. Critics love her in the Stephen Sondheim musical Follies now on Broadway. (At press time, Danner, 58, was up for a Tony as best leading actress in a musical.) She has been associated with the prestigious Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts since the '70s; Gwyneth grew up watching her mom dress for performances there. This year it's Gwyneth's dad, Bruce Paltrow, who's at Williamstown. He's directing Paddy Chayefsky's "The Latent Heterosexual".
Most of us know so little about Laura Bush's family. What can you tell us about her parents and siblings?
Marj Morris, Marysville, Calif.
Laura Welch Bush, 54, is an only child whose father, Harold Welch, died at age 82 in 1995. That leaves just the first lady and her mom, Jenna, 81, a breast cancer survivor. Welch remains close to her daughter and the big Bush family (the president has called his in-laws kind, wonderful people), but she continues to live in Midland, Texas, far from the unwelcome eyes of the White House press corps. The first lady grew up in Midland, where her dad was a successful homebuilder and her mom kept the books for the business. The first lady has said she knew her parents could have no more children, which made her eager to please them. No wonder she became an avid reader and strong student.
How did Steve Van Zandt go from playing guitar and mandolin with Bruce Springsteen to acting in HBO's award-winning series "The Sopranos"?
Marti Munro, Santa Rosa, Calif.
"Sopranos" honcho David Chase is a fan of musician-producer-social activist Van Zandt and envisioned a part for him from the start. Chase, who writes, directs and produces the series, heard Van Zandt's witty introduction of the Young Rascals at a 1997 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame event and knew Van Zandt was right for the show. He's "sort of like a little [Al] Pacino," Chase says. "He came in to read and he was great." Chase says Van Zandt created the character of Silvio Dante, the Elvis-bewigged henchman to Tony Soprano. Acting success notwithstanding, Van Zandt isn't giving up his day job. He toured last summer with Springsteen, continues to record, and this summer is promoting garage rock in Manhattan.
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THIS WEEK'S BIRTHDAYS
June 10: Leelee Sobieski, 19; Hoku, 20; Elizabeth Hurley, 36
June 11: Joshua Jackson, 23; Joe Montana, 45
June 12: George Bush, 77
June 13: Ethan Embry, 23; Tim Allen, 48
June 14: Yasmine Bleeth, 33; Donald Trump, 55
June 15: Leah Remini, 31; Ice Cube, 32 Courteney Cox, 37; Helen Hunt, 38
June 16: Eric Schweig, 34
Contributing: Evelyn Poitevent, Patty Rhule, Frappa Stout, Jeanne Wright
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