Year: 2012

Go Away With … Lucas Grabeel

Jae-Ha Kim

“On our first trip to Guatemala, one of our [mission] members had a heart attack and passed away,” recalls actor Lucas Grabeel. “That was devastating. My parents were giving him CPR for an hour and a half while we waited for the ambulance to come. It was pretty traumatizing for a 12 year old. The next year, we brought a monument for him. I’m definitely going to go back and look for it and help people again. I’d also like time to explore the country as well. We did a little bit of that, but our job was to help people when we were there. Guatemala’s really a beautiful country.”

Go Away With … Placido Domingo

Jae-Ha Kim

Opera star Placido Domingo, 71, was born in Spain. At the age of eight, he traveled to Mexico, where he studied piano and conducting at Mexico City’s Conservatory of Music. Since then, his repertoire includes more than 140 stage roles, 100 recordings and multiple television appearances. For his work, he has won an Emmy and 13 Grammys.

Go Away With … Melissa Francis

Jae-Ha Kim

Melissa Francis has an unusual background for a news anchor. As a child, she was a regular on “Little House on the Prairie,” portraying Michael Landon’s adopted daughter. Later, as a student at Harvard University, she was captain of the university’s polo team. The host of the FOX Business Network’s “Money with Melissa Francis” has also written a soon-to-be-released memoir, “Diary of a Stage Mother’s Daughter” (Weinstein Books, $26).

Go Away With … BeBe Winans

Jae-Ha Kim

Best known for his music, R&B/gospel vocalist BeBe Winans has won six Grammy Awards, 10 Dove Awards and three NAACP Awards. He’s also worked with artists such as Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight and the late Whitney Houston. It was his 28-year friendship with Houston that inspired him to write the book, “The Whitney I Knew” (Worthy Publishing, $19.99). He has just released his latest CD, “America America.”

Beyond funny horse-riding dance, PSY’s ‘Gangnam Style’ is sharp commentary on South Korean society

Jae-Ha Kim

South Korean rapper PSY’s “Gangnam Style” video has more than 200 million YouTube views and counting, and it’s easy to see why. No Korean language skills are needed to enjoy the chubby, massively entertaining performer’s crazy horse-riding dance, the song’s addictive chorus and the video’s exquisitely odd series of misadventures.

Go Away With … PSY

Jae-Ha Kim

What a difference two months make. For the past dozen years, PSY has been a popular rapper and entertainer in Korea. Then in July, he uploaded his video for “Gangnam Style” on youtube.com, and the song went viral to the tune of more than 161 million views. Katy Perry, Britney Spears and Nelly Furtado tweeted about the song to their followers. “Gangnam Style” charted at No. 1 on the iTunes Music Video Charts, topping Perry and Justin Bieber and cracked the Billboard Hot 100 chart at No. 64. PSY is now represented by Bieber’s manager, Scooter Braun.

Go Away With … Jon Landau

Jae-Ha Kim

Producer Jon Landau has worked on many films (“Avatar,” “Dick Tracy,” “Solaris”), but he says that being on location in Mexico for almost a year shooting “Titanic” was an experience he’ll never forget. “You ask what it was like to produce this movie, and I say that it was almost like being the mayor of a small city,” says Landau, 52. “We had our own school, police department, fire department, you name it! Parents (of the child actors) would complain about the tutors and the teachers would complain about the stage parents. There was a lot to deal with, but it was wonderful.”

Super Junior

Jae-Ha Kim

Young K-pop fans may have killed for the chance that we’ve had: to walk backstage on M Countdown, a popular cable television music program. Stepping inside Thursday, we saw immaculately-styled Sung Min, a member of Super Junior, whiz by us. Then up ahead, in the room with a paper sign showing the group’s name on the door, there was Shin Dong having his violet-colored hair styled up, as Si Won stepped out and with a manner worthy of a world star said hello to his interviewers.

Go Away With … Bobby Lee

Jae-Ha Kim

Born in San Diego, Calif., actor Bobby Lee’s career started after he dropped out of college. He got a job doing whatever needed to be done at the Comedy Store, before he worked up the nerve to try his hand at doing stand-up. Many television viewers remember Lee from his days on Fox’s MADtv.” He may currently be seen in the Blu-ray release of “The Dictator,” which is being promoted as ‘“banned and unrated,’ the version you couldn’t see in theaters.” Lee also is one of the co-stars of the NBC series “Animal Practice.” To stay in touch with the comedian, you may follow him on Twitter @bobbyleelive.

PSY’s Gangnam Style’s U.S. Popularity Has Koreans Puzzled, Gratified

Jae-Ha Kim

“People are surprised — bewildered, really — at PSY’s popularity abroad,” says Susan Kang, chief evangelist for Soompi.com, the mammoth online site dedicated to Korean pop music. “You have people saying, ‘We have all these beautiful guys and girls that have tried to break through to the U.S. market with little success. So why PSY?’ But of course they are embracing it to the fullest, and it’s causing a renewed interest in and respect for his music.”

Go Away With … Ywada

Jae-Ha Kim

R and B singer Ywada, who hails from Tampa, Fla., says that it didn’t come as a surprise to family and friends when she decided to pursue a career in music. Born to a singer and a sound engineer, she grew up in a household filled with music. Now 26, the mononymous artist is celebrating the release of her current single “Count Me Out.” She’s also working with the Women’s Breast Health Initiative (WBHI) to bring awareness to breast cancer — a disease her close family and friends have had to battle.

Go Away With … Steve Byrne

Jae-Ha Kim

When Vince Vaughn suggested that Steve Byrne create a sitcom, the comic — who’s Irish and Korean — came up with the premise for the TBS series “Sullivan and Son.” Vaughn — a longtime friend and supporter — is an executive producer of the show, where Byrne plays a fictionalized version of himself. “My daughter was born the day before the first table read,” says Byrne, 38. “My wife gave birth at 9:30 at night and I got in to work at 7 or 8 in the morning and I was beaming. The whole cast and crew were clapping and congratulating me. It felt like a good omen.”

Go Away With … Jason Kennedy

Jae-Ha Kim

“My boss told me to pack my bags for two days and head to the Bahamas to cover the death of Anna Nicole Smith,” says Jason Kennedy, the Los Angeles-based entertainment reporter for E! News. “I ended up staying four weeks, because of how the story developed. It was tough being away that long, but well worth it. I learned a lot about this business on that trip.”

Go Away With … Jason Lezak

Jae-Ha Kim

The 2012 London Olympics is the fourth Olympics in which American swimmer Jason Lezak, has competed. He swam in the 4×100-meter freestyle relay preliminaries, which helped the United States reach the finals, where they won a silver medal. While this race wasn’t quite as exciting as the same race at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 — where Lezak swam the crucial anchor leg that helped propel the U.S. to a gold medal — the California-based athlete says every competition at the Games has been memorable in its own way. Lezak, 36, spoke from London, about how swimming has given him an opportunity to see the world.

Go Away With … Candace Bushnell

Jae-Ha Kim

Candace Bushnell has a new contingent of fans, thanks to a pair of young adult novels that are prequels to her best seller “Sex and the City.” “The Carrie Diaries” and “Summer and the City” introduce readers to a teenage Carrie Bradshaw years before she became a famous Manhattan sex columnist. The CW is creating a series based on “The Carrie Diaries” that will air later this year.

Go Away With … Bruce Jenner

Jae-Ha Kim

After winning the gold medal in the decathlon at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, Bruce Jenner figured he’d be recognizable for a few years before fading out of the public’s eyes. Little did he know that three decades later, he would be instantly recognizable to a new generation of fans who knew of him not only as an Olympian, but as Kim Kardashian’s stepfather.

With Jeremy Lin Exit, Some Asian-American Fans Feel Betrayed By Knicks

Jae-Ha Kim

“People who say Lin is an opportunist expected him to be a meek, quiet Asian man who wouldn’t cause waves,” says Jae-Ha Kim, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. “This discussion about what he’s worth is insulting. Clearly these teams aren’t offering him this money out of the goodness of their hearts. And for what it’s worth, I’m a Bulls fan — I’ll just miss seeing Spike Lee go nuts over Lin.”

Go Away With … Daniel Gillies

Jae-Ha Kim

Born in Canada, raised in New Zealand and now living in the United States, Daniel Gillies has roles on two current series. He co-stars as Dr. Joel Goran on “Saving Hope” and as Elijah — a character who has been killed and resurrected no less than four times — on “The Vampire Diaries.” The 36-year-old actor and his wife, actress Rachael Leigh Cook, reside in Los Angeles.

Go Away With … Kendra Wilkinson

Jae-Ha Kim

When television audiences met Kendra Wilkinson-Baskett, she was presented as one of Hugh Hefner’s girlfriends on “Girls Next Door.” Now married to wide receiver Hank Baskett, the 27-year-old California native is a mom, author (“Sliding into Home,” “Being Kendra”) and star of her own reality series, WE tv’s “Kendra On Top.” An avid traveler who enjoys active vacations, the TV personality says one city stands out: Seattle. “Hank proposed to me there,” she says.”Seattle will always be special to me.”

Go Away With … Craig Hurley

Jae-Ha Kim

When Craig Hurley was in his early 20s, he seemed headed for stardom. Handsome, talented and one of the stars of a heavily hyped network series, films seemed like the next natural progression. But as detailed in his no-holds-barred book “27 And All Washed Up” (available at www.craighurley.tv), that’s not how Hurley’s career turned out.