Issue Date: March 16, 2003
How did I ever miss Neal McDonough before NBC's Boomtown? He's so attractive.
D. Bonacum, Phoenix
As McDonough, 37, tells it, "I'd been doing tons of stuff, most of it small stuff no one saw." Then, just when he was thinking of throwing in the towel, Steven Spielberg called with "Band of Brothers". That project changed McDonough's life in more ways than one. He met fiancée Ruvé Robertson (with him, left) the first night he was in London for filming. "She's 6-foot-3, and I used the lamest pickup line of all time: 'Gee, you're tall.' " McDonough probably will use his coming hiatus to make a movie with "Boomtown" exec producer Jon Avnet. But there's another matter to take care of: a wedding. He and Robertson are thinking Ireland in September.
What's the real reason my favorite actress, Kim Delaney, left CBS' hit "CSI: Miami" after just 10 episodes?
Marjune Iooss, Brevard, N.C.
To some, her departure was as shocking as the gruesome demise of various "Miami" victims. Delaney, 41, won't talk, but tabloids were quick to claim co-star David Caruso was jealous. Truth is, her character just didn't gel. "Miami" already was in production when Delaney was added, but the investigator she played, a woman haunted by her husband's death, was too dour even for a show about corpses. All told, 2002 was no banner year for Delaney. She was arrested for drunken driving, and then "Philly", her law drama, got the ABC ax. She's reading scripts and hoping for a better 2003.
Why did longtime Republican strategist Mary Matalin leave her position as a close adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney?
Joan Stevens, Karns City, Pa.
Like many mothers with demanding jobs, Matalin wasn't seeing enough of her kids, Matty, 7, and Emma, 4. "It's just that I want to have more of them," she tells us. "I don't like not combing their hair in the morning. I don't like not knowing they've grown out of their clothes." After two years as the V.P.'s adviser, the Washington player, 49, now cooks dinner, helps with homework and gets the girls to activities like ballet. She'll still counsel Cheney unofficially, but "it all has to fit in with the kids." No more of the other way around.
Go to top
Rocker Ann Wilson, who led Heart to 30 million in record sales, is ready for her close-up. Sixty-some pounds lighter than she was a year ago, Wilson, 52, no longer fears making the videos necessary to sell new albums like the one she, sister Nancy and the rest of the band are working on right now. To be released this summer, it's Heart's first new record in more than a decade. Wilson decided that before she went to work on an album, she had to deal with her morbid obesity. "I tried every diet that ever came out," she tells me. "I had given up, but then I looked at my kids [ages 5 and 12] and thought, 'I can't give up. I have to be here for them.' " That decision led her to lap-band surgery, a laparoscopic procedure that's less invasive than stomach stapling; it shrinks the stomach so one feels full on less food. It's not without risks, but, Wilson says, the health risks of obesity were greater.
I hear Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart are about to be married. True?
Jane Symcox, Coventry, England
At press time, marriage wasn't even a possibility; Ford's divorce from screenwriter Melissa Mathison, with whom he has two children, wasn't final. But the 60-year-old actor's 14-month relationship with Flockhart, 22 years his junior, is very tight. The couple celebrated their first "anniversary" together at the Golden Globes (they met at the award ceremony in 2002), but they're so press-shy they slipped in a back door to avoid paparazzi on the red carpet.
Is Tom Hanks the voice behind Geoffrey the Giraffe in the Toys R Us commercials? He sure laughs like it.
Paul and Joanne Tscherne, Euclid, Ohio
No, but it's Tom's younger brother, Jim, 41. Toys R Us tells us its headquarters is flooded daily with calls about "the voice"; we've gotten plenty here, too. The brothers also look enough alike that Jim was Tom's running double in 1994's "Forrest Gump".
With Frappa Stout. Contributing: Bridget Byrne, John Griffiths, Tameka Hicks.
Go to top
BIRTHDAYS
March 16: Lauren Graham, 36; Jerry Lewis, 77
March 17: Rob Lowe, 39
March 18: Queen Latifah, 33; Vanessa Williams, 40
March 19: Bruce Willis, 48; Glenn Close, 56
March 20: Holly Hunter, 45; Spike Lee, 46
March 21: Matthew Broderick, 41; Rosie O'Donnell, 41
March 22: Reese Witherspoon, 27; William Shatner, 72
 Ask Lorrie Lynch a question about a celeb!
|
