Issue Date: September 23, 2001
Is singer Chris Isaak, now the star of his own comedy on Showtime, planning to leave the music world? He's a San Francisco Bay Area boy, and we like to keep track of him.
Susan Stafford, Orinda, Calif.
The TV gig has kept Isaak busy since filming started in Canada last spring, but the northern California native, 45, is just on a hiatus from making music, his manager tells us. Although he hasn't released an album since my favorite, "Speak of the Devil", in 1999, Isaak would no more leave that world than he would his modest beach house in San Francisco, his thrift store clothes or his old Chevy Nova. In fact, it's his unique retro style that inspired the hour-long "Chris Isaak Show" (11:30 p.m. ET Fridays), and if you really want to keep up with the handsome, blue-eyed, still-single crooner, you must watch; it's based entirely on his real life. Filmed in an old auto plant, the "Seinfeld"-esque show features Isaak's band, his psychologist mother and an ex-girlfriend, actress Bai Ling ("Anna and the King" and "The Lost Empire"), all playing themselves.
I've read that Jennifer Lopez may soon get married. What about that other pop songstress, Britney Spears? Is she still single?
Alex Spencer, Eagle, Idaho
Spears, 19, is farther from a walk down the aisle than J.Lo -- she has said she's not ready for marriage -- but I wouldn't describe her as single. She and 'N Sync's Justin Timberlake, who met when they were kids together on "The Mickey Mouse Club", are so cozy they even dress alike. As for Lopez, she may be wed to dancer Cris Judd by the time you read this. The divorced actress and singer, 31, who ended a long-term, tumultuous relationship with Sean "P. Diddy" Combs earlier this year, won't confirm wedding rumors, but the engagement party last month sure looked like an affair to remember.
I was a huge fan of "Who's the Boss?" as a teen, so I watched a TV biography of Judith Light recently. What is she working on now? Has there ever been talk of a reunion show with her "Boss" co-star Tony Danza?
Marci Markwart, Mason, Mich.
Danza's production company has been approached about a reunion show, but there's no deal so far. Light, 52, stays in touch with Danza and Danny Pintauro, 25, who played her TV son, and she's been busy with stunning theater work. She earned critical raves this summer in The Shakespeare Theatre's "Hedda Gabler", and last year in the national touring company of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play "Wit"; she played a John Donne scholar stricken with ovarian cancer, a role for which she shaved her head and briefly appeared nude.
I'm hooked on the CBS drama "JAG" because its leads, Catherine Bell and David James Elliott, are so appealing. Tell me more about them. Have they had military training?
Nina Ash, Black Mountain, N.C.
You're not the only one hooked on "JAG", Nina. I get more reader questions about the military adventure series, which returned last week, than any other show. Neither Bell nor Elliott has served in the armed forces, but the show has military advisers so the actors get their Navy (Elliott) and Marine (Bell) characters right. Bell, 33, was born in London; her mother is Iranian, and Bell is fluent in Farsi. She's married to actor Adam Beason; they spent the summer building a house in L.A. The Toronto-born Elliott, who turns 41 this weekend, credits his role as hunky mover Carl on "Seinfeld" for producing the biggest career results. He and actress wife Nanci Chambers have a daughter, Stephanie, 7. They spent the summer in Australia, where the couple filmed "Code 11-14", a movie for CBS.
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Zach Braff is diving headfirst into his role on NBC's new Tuesday entry "Scrubs" -- even though it's sometimes painful.
"We have stunt people who show us how to do the trips and falls," says the fresh-faced actor, 26, who plays klutzy first-year intern John "J.D." Dorian in the hospital comedy. "But no matter how many times you do it the stunt way, until you just smack your face into something, they're never happy." Braff comes by his acting interest naturally; his lawyer father was involved in community theater in South Orange, N.J.
Before "Scrubs", Braff's debut TV role, he cut his teeth -- not literally -- on meaty projects such as Woody Allen's "Manhattan Murder Mystery" (at 18) and the Public Theatre's "Macbeth" with Alec Baldwin and Angela Bassett. He made his first TV pilot at 14 for Bruce Paltrow, with the director's daughter, Gwyneth. Braff, who majored in film at Northwestern, aspires to one day make "small films" like his favorite, "Glengarry Glen Ross". "I can watch five brilliant actors with great dialogue in one room for hours," he tells us, "but I get a little bored with guns and stuff blowing up."
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BIRTHDAYS
September 23: Jason Alexander, 42; Bruce Springsteen, 52
September 24: Kevin Sorbo, 43
September 25: Catherine Zeta-Jones, 32; Will Smith, 33; Scottie Pippen, 36; Heather Locklear, 40; Christopher Reeve, 49; Mark Hamill, 50; Michael Douglas, 57; Barbara Walters, 70
September 26: Serena Williams, 20
September 27: Gwyneth Paltrow, 29
September 28: Mira Sorvino, 34; Janeane Garofalo, 37
September 29: Bryant Gumbel, 50
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