Issue Date: February 3, 2001
Please tell us about the young man who makes those Dell computer ads such fun to watch.
Mary Ann Benson, Pensacola, Fla.
Online Extra: Full interview with the "Dell guy," Ben Curtis.
There are so many celebrity couples. Do stars ever date and marry non-stars?
DeeDee Sanders, Mansfield, La.
Of course. Sharon Stone married San Francisco newspaper editor Phil Bronstein four years ago on Valentine's Day. Lisa Kudrow is married to ad executive Michel Stern, and Sela Ward wed real estate exec Howard Sherman. Candice Bergen, whose first husband, French director Louis Malle, died in 1995, married real estate developer Marshall Rose. Julia Roberts, famous for dating her co-stars (one of her friends once told me, "Who else is she going to meet?"), is now seeing a cameraman; she once dated a fitness club owner. Demi Moore is involved with a martial arts instructor. It's not just women who choose significant others outside show business. Mel Gibson and wife Robyn, a nurse, have been married for 21 years. Chris O'Donnell married a teacher, Caroline Fentress. Don Johnson, after his on-again-off-again marriage to Melanie Griffith, married Kelley Phleger, a San Francisco socialite. Dennis Franz wed longtime love Joanie Zeck, a businesswoman. And Clint Eastwood married a local news anchorwoman, Dina Ruiz, in Carmel, Calif. And that's just off the top of my head.
Why did Paula Zahn move to CNN just when her Fox News show, "The Edge", was becoming so successful?
Maryanne Bell, Clarksville, Tenn.
CNN made her an offer she couldn't refuse: "the opportunity to create a morning show from scratch," says Zahn, 45, who "couldn't think of a better time" to switch. The $2 million salary probably helped seal the deal, but Zahn can legitimately sing the praises of an early-bird schedule. Before her job at Fox, she was the news reader at ABC's "Good Morning America" and co-anchor of CBS' morning show. The early start means Zahn gains time with her husband, developer Richard Cohen, and their daughter and two sons, age 12 and younger. "I'm home by the time they get home from school," she says, "and we're home most nights to be a family." Her news-focused American Morning (7 a.m. ET) didn't debut until early January, but Zahn has been seen on CNN since she pitched in on Sept. 11.
Does radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh owe his hearing loss to a disease called relapsing polychondritis? My husband was just diagnosed with that very rare condition.
Nancy Schmidt, Deerwood, Minn.
No. Limbaugh, 51, who in December had a cochlear implant to restore some hearing, has autoimmune inner ear disease, a different rare affliction in which the body's immune cells attack the inner ear. Doctors tried to treat Limbaugh with steroids; the outpatient implant surgery on his deaf left ear was Plan B. It takes four to six weeks for the system to function, so Limbaugh, who declined our interview requests, should know any day if it was successful. Doctors hope he'll get back 30% to 50% of his hearing. When he disclosed his hearing loss in October, Limbaugh already was deaf on the left and could barely hear on the right. Many of his 20 million listeners noticed last summer he sounded "chipmunk-ish." At the same time, he negotiated a reported $285 million deal to keep his three-hour show on the air through 2009. Premiere Radio Networks didn't know the extent of his hearing loss at the time (he says he didn't either) but insists it would have worked out the same deal regardless.
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Sound bite
Loathe or love the holiday release "Ocean's Eleven", one must admit the cast is out of this galaxy. Rarely do the stars align in such a big way. If you wonder how it really all came about, as I did, you'll enjoy this story, direct from director Steven Soderbergh: "George [Clooney] and I read [the script] at the same time. I called him and said, 'I hope you want to do it, because I want to.' George said, 'We have to go after Brad [Pitt].' George had worked with Mark Wahlberg a couple of times, so we were talking with him. But when he jumped into "Planet of the Apes", we both said, 'Let's go to Matt [Damon].' " Soderbergh brought in Julia Roberts, whom he had directed to an Oscar in "Erin Brockovich", because "I felt Julia and George would be interesting together [as a divorced couple]. George has a quality I think is very American. He has a strong code: You do certain things, not other things. There's a right way and a wrong way, and he makes the effort. He has a great inner solidity that comes across onscreen."
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BIRTHDAYS
February 3: Nathan Lane, 46; Blythe Danner, 59
February 4: Oscar De La Hoya, 29; Clint Black, 40; Rosa Parks, 89
February 5: Laura Linney, 38; Hank Aaron, 68
February 6: Natalie Cole, 52; Tom Brokaw, 62; Ronald Reagan, 91
February 7: Chris Rock, 37; Garth Brooks, 40
February 8: Seth Green, 28; Alonzo Mourning, 32; John Grisham, 47; Ted Koppel, 62
February 9: Alice Walker, 58; Joe Pesci, 59
 Ask Lorrie Lynch a question about a celeb!
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