Issue Date: December 30, 2001
I'm a fan of the Seinfeld cast, but I was disappointed in the sitcoms starring Michael Richards and Jason Alexander. No wonder they were canceled. Will Julia Louis-Dreyfus' fare better?
Scott Manitta, Rochester, N.Y.
Another TV actor recently told me a successful show is mostly about group chemistry; without it, you can have a set full of talented players, yet fall short of a great show. Seinfeld worked because the quartet had fabulous chemistry. Individually, they have less appeal. So there's no telling how Louis-Dreyfus' new show will do, and she wouldn't discuss it with us before TV writers gather in L.A. next month to see midseason replacements. Word is that NBC honchos like her pilot. (That was not the case for Alexander and Richards, who were faced with "retooling" demands from the get-go.) Also, the show is created by Louis-Dreyfus' husband, ex-Saturday Night Live writer Brad Hall (with her at left); he should know her strengths. What gives us pause? The working title, 22 Minutes With Eleanor Riggs, is also its restrictive premise: Each episode is a real-time 22-minute slice of Eleanor's life (22 minutes being the length of a sitcom sans commercials). Louis-Dreyfus, 40, will sing, too -- which, we feel compelled to point out, didn't even work for Bette Midler.
Playboy founder Hugh Hefner now flaunts seven young "girlfriends," which makes me wonder: What ever happened to his marriage to former Playmate Kimberley Conrad? How is she reacting to this?
Eric Marshall, Hammond, Ind.
Conrad, 38, lives in a $7 million home next door to the Playboy Mansion in L.A. Hef, to whom she's still married, bought the place to keep her and their sons close. Conrad tells us she and Hefner, 75, still "love and adore each other ... but we don't date each other." She and the boys regularly visit the Tudor-style house; Tuesdays are "family night" -- no girlfriends around. The mansion is so big that Conrad, who works out in the gym there, rarely runs into her husband's companions. "I don't care about them. They try to avoid me." Hefner is a devoted father, Conrad says, and they protect the kids from publicity as well as Dad's sexual shenanigans. But are the boys old enough to look at the magazine? Says Conrad: "They were born with Playboy in their laps."
 More with Playmate Kimberley Conrad
Who's the handsome guy in the black trench coat in the TV commercials for Sprint?
Hilary Neilson, Clermont,N.J.
He's Brian Baker, a single, 6-foot-1 Philadelphia native whom People magazine recently named "Sexiest Pitchman." "I'm wearing some pretty expensive clothes" in those ads, Baker, 34, tells us, as if the suits supplied the sex appeal. Originally contracted for five ads, Baker has appeared in 35 since 1999. The cellphone seller -- a theater actor and stand-up comic who left Chicago for L.A. three years ago -- tells us: "Phone etiquette is one of my pet peeves. If I'm going to dinner, I don't even take it. I would never take the phone into the movies." And talking on his cellphone while on a date is out of the question. So, who's his pick for Sexiest Woman Alive? "Juliette Binoche," he says without hesitation. "She's my favorite."
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It's difficult to picture a more red-blooded American than Gulf War veteran Cmdr. Harmon "Harm" Rabb of CBS' JAG. But David James Elliott, the man who brings Rabb to life every week, isn't an American citizen. Elliott, 41, has lived in the USA about 10 years but felt no rush to become a citizen -- until Sept. 11. Now he wants to "become a full-fledged member of this fabulous place. Even when I was a kid, I wanted to move to America. There's something about this country that has always attracted me." "Will & Grace"'s Eric McCormack, 38 -- who, like Elliott, grew up in Toronto -- says he always felt as American as he did Canadian. But two years ago, after years of shuttling between the countries, he made it official and got dual citizenship. For McCormack, the events of Sept. 11 highlighted that allegiance: "Canada wept from one border to the next, the same as Americans." Patriotism, however, is more difficult to express. "That's one of the interesting areas where Canadians and Americans differ," McCormack says. "Canadians have the American influence, but they also have the British influence, which is not to wear anything on one's sleeve, not to be too outspoken. To be Canadian is not to express it. It's to be embarrassed by how outrageous the Americans are, always with the flags on their cars and the flags on their hats. They've got three national anthems, for God's sake! [Canadians] have one anthem, no one knows the words, and we're all embarrassed to sing it. I'm exaggerating, but it's a very different mentality."
BIRTHDAYS
December 30, 2001: Tiger Woods, 26; Tracey Ullman, 42; Matt Lauer, 44
December 31, 2001: Joey McIntyre, 29; Val Kilmer, 42; Anthony Hopkins, 64
January 1, 2002: Verne Troyer, 33; J.D. Salinger, 83
January 2, 2002: Taye Diggs, 31; Christy Turlington, 33; Cuba Gooding Jr., 34
January 3, 2002: Mel Gibson, 46; Robert Loggia, 72
January 4, 2002: Michael Stipe, 42; Patty Loveless, 45; Dyan Cannon, 65
January 5, 2002: Marilyn Manson, 33; Diane Keaton, 56; Robert Duvall, 71
Contributing: Jennifer Mendelsohn, Frappa Stout, Jeanne Wright
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