Issue Date: May 12, 2002
Q: I love ABC's "Alias," especially Michael Vartan (Agent Vaughn). Is he in any movies coming up?
Lyndsay Wise, Rochester, N.Y.
Yes. He'll star in fall's "One Hour Photo" with Robin Williams. Otherwise, filming the "Wonder Woman meets James Bond" show, he says, keeps the Franco-American actor, 33, plenty busy. No use asking for dish on the season finale (9 p.m. ET Sunday); the stars don't know the plot lines until the day of filming. So how did the former pro pool player, who dropped out of high school (and never got his diploma), prepare for his role? "We weren't allowed to talk to high-ranking CIA officials or anyone with inside knowledge," he says. "Everything the CIA told us was very [mundane]; you could find it on the Internet."
Q: I am hooked on reruns of "L.A. Law." What is the cast up to now?
B.J. Smith, Port Orchard, Wash.
Corbin Bernsen started a film production company and is married with four sons. Michael Tucker and Jill Eikenberry have been hitched for 28 years; Tucker was in Tracey Ullman's "Tracey Takes On ...," and Eikenberry has done several TV movies. Harry Hamlin has two kids with actress wife Lisa Rinna; he's made several indie films and the TV movie "Disappearance" with Susan Dey. Now, they all return to McKenzie-Brackman for "L.A. Law: The Movie" (9 p.m. ET Sunday), revisiting the series for NBC's 75th anniversary. And this may not be the last time, Bernsen tells us: "We've all got it in our heads we're going to do one or two of these a year." Not more? "Never say never. It could go on."
Q: I heard that Deborah/Debbie Gibson is going back to her singing career. True?
Vanna Nguyen, Las Vegas
Yes. More than a decade after topping the charts with "Foolish Beat" and "Lost in Your Eyes," the former pop princess, 31, released a CD, "M.Y.O.B.," and toured with 'N Sync last summer. She says she enjoyed "playing dress-up and pop star" again but never moped when her fame faded: "People rebelled against the genre. Nirvana replaced New Kids on the Block. Grunge came in. Perfected pop production was out." A Broadway star, she still won't ditch her squeaky-clean image: Unlike fellow '80s comeback girl Tiffany, Gibson said no to Playboy's offers for a nude spread. "Instant attention isn't that important."
Q: We read that Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Curt Schilling's wife has cancer. How is she doing?
Mr. and Mrs. Richard Ross, Killeen, Texas
"I have an incredibly resilient wife," says Schilling, 35, who last January discovered the mole on his wife's back that turned out to be melanoma. Since then, Shonda, 34, has had five surgeries and is now cancer-free -- and pregnant with their fourth child, due in July. Schilling says he's grown up a lot since his days of wearing an earring and streaks in his hair. Since 1992, the couple has been deeply involved in the fight against ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). Next weekend, the 2001 World Series co-MVP will pitch in for "Covering All the Bases with ALSA," a national event in which fans pledge money for every home run hit in the major leagues to benefit the disease (at alsa.org).
Q: I've noticed that CNN's "Larry King Live" gets a lot of female callers. Is this a screening tactic, or do men just not call?
Edward W. Bradley, Asheville, N.
Show officials insist neither King nor they notice any sex biases. "We don't track our callers' demographics. But some topics or guests may appeal to one gender over the other," says "Live" spokeswoman Erin Sermeus. We do know the show is earning better ratings than last year -- an average of 678,000 viewers a night for the first quarter vs. last year's 483,000 -- despite tough competition from Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor," which still leads with an average of just over 1 million a night.
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For Mother's Day, supermodel Vendela hopes her new book, "Model Mommy," will help with all aspects of new motherhood -- especially the emotional ones. "I wasn't prepared for a lot of the scary feelings I had after giving birth," says the 35-year-old Swede, whose daughters are 4 and almost 2. In the book, she talks about her intense doubts in herself and her husband, a Norwegian telecom exec, and her fears that something could happen to the baby. Never warned about postpartum depression before she suffered it herself, she now recognizes an extreme case in convicted murderer Andrea Yates. "That was a terrible tragedy, but you can get to a point where you're almost breaking." Still modeling, Vendela splits her time between Norway and New York and recently appeared in a Paul McCartney video.
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BIRTHDAYS
May 12: Kim Fields, 33; Emilio Estevez, 40;
George Carlin, 65
May 13: Stevie Wonder, 52;
Harvey Keitel, 63
May 14: Cate Blanchett, 33;
Tim Roth, 41;
George Lucas, 58
May 15: Emmitt Smith, 33;
Madeleine Albright, 65
May 16: David Boreanaz, 31;
Janet Jackson, 36
May 17: Bill Paxton, 47;
Dennis Hopper, 66
May 18:George Strait, 50;
Pope John Paul II, 82
Contributing: Tameka Hicks, Evelyn Poitevent, Jeanne Wright
Also:
 Interview: Natalie Portman
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