Issue Date: April 21, 2002
What ever happened to Jennifer Love Hewitt? I saw her in "Heartbreakers" last year, and now it seems she has disappeared.
Samantha Whitford, Binghamton, N.Y.
Hewitt has been busy stockpiling films; she has three on the horizon. "The Tuxedo", an action flick with Jackie Chan, is due in June; "The Devil & Daniel Webster" and "Why Can't I Be Audrey Hepburn" come later. (Hewitt got to be Hepburn, her idol, in a 2000 ABC movie.) Fans can see the ex-"Party of Fiver" Sunday night, when she hosts the World Music Awards from Monaco (7 p.m. ET on ABC). It's a good gig for Hewitt, 23, who started out singing at livestock shows in Waco, Texas, and is now working on her fourth album, tentatively due in August. She got to rehearse with co-hosts Shaggy and Mark McGrath (Sugar Ray), not to mention Shakira, Destiny's Child and Alicia Keys.
Can you tell me about Jim Caviezel, who played the hero of "The Count of Monte Cristo"? He was great.
Shirley French, Indianapolis
Caviezel (ca-VEE-zel), 33, is so quiet and subdued it's difficult to imagine he once dreamed of "being a great basketball player." The 6-foot-1 actor, whose dad was a college hoops star, says he "never had the talent" to go far, but the sport taught him discipline. "I used to get into lots of fights," says the devout Catholic, who grew up in Washington state. "I went away from my faith for a while, but I've always felt [God's] gentle hand moving me in the right direction." A college foot injury forced him to change course, so he moved to L.A. to try acting. He won roles in "The Thin Red Line", "Frequency" and "Angel Eyes" and now stars as Ashley Judd's husband in "High Crimes". But don't expect any racy love scenes: Caviezel turns down sexually explicit scripts out of respect for his four-year marriage. (Caviezel met wife Kerri, an English teacher, on a blind date.)
I always had a crush on tennis star Gabriela Sabatini. Can you tell me what's going on in her life?
Martin Webb, Bangor, Maine
The Argentine athlete, whose aggressive game led her to win the 1990 U.S. Open, still is touted -- especially in South America and Europe -- as one of the world's great beauties. Now 31, she turned pro at 14, became the game's hottest glamour girl, won 27 singles titles and was ranked as high as No. 3 in the world. But she tired of the pressure, she tells us, and retired at 26. "It was tough waking up in the morning knowing I had to go and practice," she says. "I wanted to have a normal life." Not exactly normal: Sabatini walked away with $20 million from endorsements, modeling and her perfume line (which she still has). Today, she sees herself in Anna Kournikova, the cute Russian tennis player whose fan base also is largely male, although the young star has yet to win a tournament title. Sabatini thinks Kournikova should "take advantage of all the media attention she gets. It's her tennis that got her where she is. She has the game to be in the top 10, easily."
Is Eddie Van Halen still battling cancer? What is he doing musically?
Nickolas McDaniel, Salinas, Calif.
The last official word on Eddie's health was a statement posted on the Van Halen Web site last spring: "I'm told I'm healthier than ever and beating cancer," he wrote. "There's a good chance I will be cancer-free in the near future." Today, his management folks say the 47-year-old rocker is in fine health (but still won't reveal the type of cancer). Ironically, his career may be affected less by his illness than by his band's lack of a lead singer. Rumors spread that original frontman David Lee Roth would rejoin the group when Gary Cherone left in 1999, but that never happened. Bandmates Eddie, his brother Alex Van Halen and Michael Anthony persist and have been working in the studio. But Eddie, who lives in L.A. with wife Valerie Bertinelli and son Wolfgang, 10, now puts his family and health first.
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Screen legend Faye Dunaway is done with acting -- for the moment, anyway. After 35 years in show biz, the Oscar-winning actress is moving behind the camera. She wrote and directed "The Yellow Bird", a short film premiering at 8 p.m. next Sunday on WE: Women's Entertainment. A comedic look at a wayward Southern girl, the film is based on a short story by Dunaway's good friend Tennessee Williams, whom she met while starring in his play "A Streetcar Named Desire" onstage in 1972. "We used to howl with laughter and read it to each other," says the actress, 61. With her 21-year-old son away at college on the East Coast, Dunaway is working on her next project, a film version of Terrence McNally's "Master Class", which she hopes to begin shooting this year. She watches up to three movies a day -- "that's where you learn" -- but says Hollywood films "aren't deeply thought through enough anymore."
Contributing: Tameka Hicks, Nancy Mills, Frappa Stout, Jeanne Wright
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BIRTHDAYS
April 21: Andie MacDowell, 44; Tony Danza, 51; Iggy Pop, 55; Queen Elizabeth II, 76
April 22: Jack Nicholson, 65
April 23: Melina Kanakaredes, 35; Valerie Bertinelli, 42; Shirley Temple, 74
April 24: Barbra Streisand, 60; Shirley MacLaine, 68
April 25: Renee Zellweger, 33; Al Pacino, 62
April 26: Tom Welling, 25; Kevin James, 37; Jet Li, 39; Carol Burnett, 69
April 27: Casey Kasem, 70; Coretta Scott King, 75
 Ask Lorrie Lynch a question about a celeb!
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