Issue Date: August 4, 2002
Update: Anna Nicole Smith
If watching a former Playboy bunny undergo root canal surgery or troll for men in nightclubs sounds appealing, watch Anna Nicole Smith's Osbournes-like reality show this month on E! Cameras follow Smith everywhere but the shower, although "they do show me in my towel with no makeup on," she tells us. It's part of her comeback from "rock bottom" after her elderly billionaire husband's death, her protracted legal battle with his son over an $88 million inheritance (she won) and her unfulfilled desire to have more children. "I'm getting on with my life," says the Rubenesque blonde, 34, who has a 16-year-old son. "I'm going out tonight, and I'm going to find me some men and get lots of phone numbers and business cards."
I found it in the poorest taste for you to list the birthday of Ann Landers the weekend after she had passed away.
Bob Hartmaier, Monroe Township, N.J.
Many other readers felt the same way, and I meant no disrespect to the advice columnist I read all my life. As Landers did, I work weeks in advance of publication. The column in which I noted her July 4 birthday went to press three weeks before her June 22 death; unfortunately, it could not be changed. Landers, whose real name was Esther Lederer, left editors with finished columns through July 27.
I haven't seen Claire Danes onscreen in a while. Will she continue her career after college?
Carol Szeszycki Hickory Hills, Ill.
That's the plan. In fact, Danes, 23, who has about a year to go at Yale, has kept her hand in showbiz even while studying literature there. She has two films coming this year: the romance It's All About Love, with Joaquin Phoenix, later this month, and The Hours, a December drama with Nicole Kidman and Meryl Streep.
I miss Patrick Swayze. I know he was injured while making a movie some time ago. Was it ever completed?
Cheryl Mills, Columbus, Ohio
Miss him no more. It's been five years since the affable actor, who turns 50 in two weeks, broke both legs falling off a horse while filming Letters From a Killer (never released in the USA). He now has three movies on the way. Most noteworthy, Swayze, who started ballet at age 3 and shimmied into stardom with 1987's Dirty Dancing, is still swaying -- as a dancer trying for a comeback in Without a Word. He wrote the movie, due later this year, with his wife of 27 years, Lisa Niemi (with him above). She co-stars and directs.
Please give us background on Charlotte Ross of NYPD Blue.
Mary Lester, Denver
Ross' success as Det. McDowell was a long time coming; the petite, single, easygoing beauty was in five flop series (she also guested years back on Blue, as a different character). Ross, 34, who grew up in Winnetka, Ill., was 8 when she starred in a film primer for dentists, My First Mouthpiece. After high school she headed to L.A., where she now lives with her dogs: Taco, a stray she picked up in Puerto Rico; Alex, a Labrador; and Katy, a one-eyed Pekinese.
Ross loves animals so much that she recently posed nude for PETA.
Richard T. Jones expressed dissatisfaction with his role on Judging Amy last season. Please tell me he isn't leaving that CBS drama.
Dianne Burford, San Rafael, Calif.
Jones worked out differences with the studio and is back to work on Amy after a vacation spent hunting for a bigger home. "We must have looked at 100 houses," says Jones, who with wife Nancy has two girls, ages 4 and 2, and a 3-month-old son. Although real estate shopping and the new baby left no time for moviemaking this summer, Jones, 30, will be seen in two upcoming films he'd made previously. The actor, who once aspired to be a lawyer, got his approach to work from watching his dad, a former pro baseball player and coach. "He had so much fun," Jones says. "I wanted to have fun, too."
With Frappa Stout Contributing: John Griffiths, Tameka Hicks, Jeanne Wright
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BIRTHDAYS
August 4: Jeff Gordon, 31; Roger Clemens, 40
August 5: Patrick Ewing, 40; Neil Armstrong, 72
August 6: M. Night Shyamalan, 32; Michelle Yeoh, 40
August 7: Charlize Theron, 27; David Duchovny, 42
August 8: J.C. Chasez, 26; Dustin Hoffman, 65
August 9: Gillian Anderson, 34; Whitney Houston, 39; Melanie Griffith, 45
August 10: Angie Harmon, 30; Antonio Banderas, 42
 Ask Lorrie Lynch a question about a celeb!
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