Issue Date: May 5, 2002
I'd like to know more about Chester Bennington, lead singer of the rap-metal band Linkin Park. I didn't even know he was married.
Sandy Lopez, Orlando
Not only married, but a father-to-be. Bennington, 26, and his wife of five years, Samantha, are expecting a baby boy any day. The Phoenix native left a dead-end computer job three years ago to join the L.A.-based band, and he's glad he did: The singer had a banner year in 2001. Not only did Linkin Park's debut, "Hybrid Theory", become the year's top-selling CD (beating Britney Spears, Destiny's Child and 'N Sync), but the sextet toured for 325 days, got three Grammy nods and won Best Hard Rock Performance for "Crawling". Bennington -- who is outspoken about his past, which includes childhood sexual abuse and teen cocaine addiction -- grew up singing in metal bands but was "retired" when a friend suggested he audition with the group, named after a park in Santa Monica. Turned down by labels that saw them as "Limp Bizkit lite" (they don't curse in their lyrics), Linkin Park finally was signed by Warner Bros. With their DVD Frat Party at the Pankake Festival selling like hotcakes, a remix of the band's first album is due in July; a second CD is in the works.
I enjoy NBC's "Law & Order: Criminal Intent", especially Vincent D'Onofrio, who plays Detective Goren. What a hunk! Is he single?
Tina Ray, Manchester, Md.
No. D'Onofrio married model Carin van der Donk in 1997; they have a son, Elias, 2. (The actor also has a 10-year-old daughter with ex-wife Greta Scacchi.) Best known as the unhinged Marine in 1987's "Full Metal Jacket" -- and for the 70 pounds he gained for the part -- D'Onofrio, 42, has racked up 50 movie credits and a 1998 Emmy nomination (for a guest role on "Homicide"). Yet the Brooklyn native still doesn't see himself as a celebrity. "I don't go out into the limelight much," he says. "I kind of mind my own business." That doesn't stop the roles from coming, and D'Onofrio says he's content as a character actor. The Italian American plays a priest in this summer's "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys" with Jodie Foster as well as a drug dealer in this month's "The Salton Sea". But he's not vying for superstardom: "When the camera is rolling or I walk out onstage are the only times I like [acting]. The rest is just politics and business."
I'm a fan of the beautiful, intelligent Sharon Stone. How is she recovering from her illness? When will her next movie be released?
Kevin Herrick, Bremerton, Wash.
Stone, 44, stepped back into the Hollywood spotlight at the Academy Awards in a dramatic, low-back black Versace gown and several strings of diamonds. "She's doing great, as you can tell by the way she looks," says publicist Cheryl Maisel. Stone is deciding what her next project will be; nothing is in the works right now. As to wags who said Stone's Oscar-night glow was the result of a surgeon's scalpel, Maisel is clear: "She has had no plastic surgery at all." After an operation in late September for a subarachnoid hemorrhage (bleeding in the brain), Stone spent much of her recuperation at the San Francisco home she shares with editor husband Phil Bronstein, playing stay-home mom to son Roan, 2 this month.
I loved Stuart Townsend in such movies as About Adam and Queen of the Damned. He is an amazing actor and very good-looking. Tell me about him.
Leigh Llewellyn, Cooperstown, N.Y.
The Irishman was almost part of the Lord of the Rings box-office bonanza: He was cast as Aragorn but was dropped because of "creative differences" with the director. Townsend, 29, called it a "nasty experience"; American actor Viggo Mortensen, 43, replaced him. An avid photographer who grew up in Dublin, Townsend never thought of acting until a girlfriend encouraged him to enroll in Dublin's Gaiety School of Acting at 18. After graduation, he created his own theater company, Ether for Lunch. But it wasn't until he starred in 1997's Shooting Fish with Kate Beckinsale that he gained an American audience. Townsend stars next in the fall movie Trapped, alongside girlfriend Charlize Theron.
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Jazz singer Marilyn Scott got her first taste of the music business watching Jimi Hendrix play at the famed Monterey Pop Festival in '67. "I was right in front, watching him smash everything," says Scott, 49, who was 15 and in a rock band at the time. "It helped to see that's what you have to do. And I'm exactly like that: crazy and experimental." In her latest CD, "Walking With Strangers", Scott, known for her '90s jazz hits "Only You" and "10X10", blends those early rock influences and her love of R&B, blues, jazz and Latin music to make her own eclectic sound. Her past six albums have spawned hits on the Billboard Contemporary Jazz chart, but the L.A. native sees her music as "sophisticated soul." Once a backup singer for '70s group Tower of Power, Scott hits the road this month with Spyro Gyra and Al Jarreau.
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BIRTHDAYS
May 5: Kurt Loder, 57; Lance Henriksen, 62
May 6: George Clooney, 41; Roma Downey, 42; Tony Blair, 49; Willie Mays, 71
May 7: Tim Russert, 52
May 8: Enrique Iglesias, 27; Melissa Gilbert, 38; Don Rickles, 76
May 9: John Corbett, 41; Billy Joel, 53; Candice Bergen, 56; James L. Brooks, 62; Mike Wallace, 84
May 10: Bono, 42
May 11: Natasha Richardson, 39; Louis Farrakhan, 69
Contributing: Tameka Hicks, Evelyn Poitevent, Patty Rhule, Jeanne Wright
 Ask Lorrie Lynch a question about a celeb!
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