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He and his wife, Caroline, are deep into new parenthood. First child Lily Anne was born Sept. 3 in New Zealand, where they will stay until February because O'Donnell, 29, is filming The Vertical Limit, a movie about a climbing expedition gone awry. "I told Caroline, 'Don't go into labor while I'm strapped to the mountain,' " he says. She didn't. With a new house in Chicago, his hometown, and another in L.A., he's already talking like a man who'd like lots of kids. "With young babies, you can be mobile. But when the kids are in school, the idea of going to New Zealand for six months to make a film is not attractive."

Does pretty tennis star Anna Kournikova have acting ambitions? She's very convincing in her TV spots for Charles Schwab.
Patrick Flahive, Cincinnati

We're told the Russian-born blond, who's appeared in about a dozen ads, has no such ambitions and "takes her tennis career very seriously." We're also told, however, that she is "very much sought after for commercials, film and television" and has accepted several recent offers. The bottom line, her spokesman says, is that at 18, Kournikova, No. 16 in the world this past summer, isn't even thinking about life after tennis.

U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona could make a dynamic president, but before I commit, I'd like the scoop on his wife.
Kay Richards, Clemson, S.C.

Cindy Hensley McCain describes herself as a "full-time mom" of four and an advocate for children's health care. She tells us she'd be a "millennium traditional" first lady: "My children and husband come first. My style is more subtle." But she also is vice chairman of her family's business, Hensley and Co., one of the nation's largest Anheuser-Busch distributors. And she has discovered the media hot seat: In October, she went on national TV to talk about her three-year addiction to painkillers and the shame of having stolen drugs from the American Voluntary Medical Team, a relief organization she founded in 1988. "I'm not worried about what effect it will have on the campaign, because it is who I am."

The Tuesday-night drama Once and Again is disparaged as "fortysomething," but it's TV's best new show, largely thanks to Sela Ward. Didn't she star on Sisters?
Chris Elkins, Burlington, Vt.

Ward played the most complicated of the four sisters on that former NBC drama and won an Emmy for it in '94. After it was canceled, the 43-year-old Mississippi-born beauty focused on her real-life marriage and two babies, though she would have liked film producers to come calling. Their loss. Her portrayal of a separated soccer mom who finds new love in the chaos of daily life has TV critics panting with praise. The TV academy may as well hand her another Emmy right now.

Actor-comedian Martin Lawrence has had his share of trouble, but his recent close call with death topped it all. Suffering heatstroke and slipping into a coma for a few days is awfully serious.
Adrianne Cunningham Queens, N.Y.

Lawrence, 34, released from the hospital in September, would agree. He's been taking recovery seriously, following doctors' orders, resting and finishing physical therapy. He's back to work in January on his next comedy, Big Mama's House. (His summer films, Blue Streak and Life, did well financially.) Piles of mail helped sustain him; no letter is left unread.

Has first daughter Chelsea Clinton made up her mind about a major at Stanford University? Is it medicine, as we've heard?
Robert Brown, Kingston, N.C.

Clinton, a 19-year-old sophomore, has an "interest" in medicine, says a White House spokeswoman. But she has not declared a major. If she pursues pre-med, it's defined as a "concentration" and would include two years of inorganic and organic chemistry, a year of biology, a year of physics, a year of English and two or three quarters of calculus.

Go to the top

DEC 5: Joan Didion, 65.
DEC 6: Ben Watt, 37; Dave Brubeck, 69.
DEC 7: Larry Bird, 43; Tom Waits, 50.
DEC 8: Sinead O'Connor, 33; Teri Hatcher, 35; Kim Basinger, 46.
DEC 9: Donny Osmond, 42; John Malkovich, 46; Joan Armatrading, 49.
DEC 10: Kenneth Branagh, 39; Susan Dey, 47.
DEC 11: Booker T. Jones, 55.