Journalist, Author & Syndicated Columnist
In Hollywood, where every other person claims to be an actor, singer, model or screenwriter, actor Woody Harrelson doesn’t raise too many eyebrows when he jams with his group Manly Moondog and the Three Kool Kats. But when the “Cheers” star takes his 10-piece band out on the road, he attracts a crowd that’s made up of music lovers as well as a strong contingent of curiosity seekers who want to know if “the boy can really sing.”
A high school sophomore, Mayim Bialik more than holds her own in the title role opposite a cast of older, more experienced actors. Her co-stars include Ted Wass (of “Soap” fame) as her befuddled father and Eileen Brennan as their cantankerous neighbor. Bialik portrays 14-year-old Blossom Russo, the lone female in a household that includes two very immature older brothers. In tonight’s episode, Blossom’s coming-of-age is dealt with in a way that could make viewers uncomfortable. What could have been a touching and humorous look at how she views her first menstrual cycle with both amazement and fear is instead turned into a tacky lesson on what not to do in comedy.
Television actress Susan Lucci will be the center of attention again later this month when the 17th annual Daytime Emmys are presented in New York. But it won’t be because people are expecting her to win an award. Already a 10-time loser for best actress in a daytime serial, Lucci gets more publicity every year for not winning an Emmy than her peers do for winning.
When he was a child, actor Matthew Perry said, he had a major crush on Valerie Bertinelli. She was the co-star of “One Day at a Time,” a popular CBS sitcom. Years later, when CBS cast Perry to play the boyfriend of Bertinelli’s character on her new “Sydney” series, he was on Cloud 9. But after he had psyched himself up to kiss the actress, the producers told Perry they were changing his character from her boyfriend to her younger brother.
Michael St. Gerard’s Presley is the singer during his most attractive stage. Slim-hipped and ever-so-surly lipped, Presley idealistically dreams of fame and fortune as a means of moving his family up from its poor socio-economic roots. St. Gerard’s portrayal of Elvis also has won him admirers both with longtime Presley fans and with the press. Although “Elvis” hasn’t been the ratings winner ABC hoped it would be, the network seems committed to giving the show a chance. With nine shows already in the can, ABC gave the producers the go-ahead to film four more episodes this month.
Rap sensations D. J. Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince are famous for hits such as “Parents Just Don’t Understand” and “I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson.” But fans will see another side of them when the duo sings an unusual version of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” on a Disney special.
“I’ve had people tell me I’ve got to be more focused with my career,” says Billy Wirth. “But that’s bull. I don’t want to be just one thing. I do what I want to do because I like it. And as long as I’ve got food on the table, my rent paid and a little spending money, that’s all I need right now.”
Actor Stephen Caffrey was born in Cleveland, attended high school in five different states and now divides his time between Los Angeles and New York. But ask him where home is, and he’ll say Chicago. “My father was in a business that moved him around a lot, and as a result I was often uprooted,” Caffrey said. “The longest I’ve ever been in one place was the eight years I spent in Chicago. It’s hard to describe what bouncing around from place to place is like to people who haven’t experienced it. But eventually you end up just grabbing hold of home, and for me that’s Chicago.”
Being the young, blond, beautiful daughter of the executive producer for “The Young and the Restless” isn’t enough when an actress wants a job on the CBS soap opera. It pays to beg, said former Chicagoan Lauralee Bell. The 19-year-old TV star portrays high-fashion model Cricket Blair on the daytime drama.
While many would-be actresses would jump at the chance of nabbing a three-year contract on a television soap opera, Rebecca Schaeffer passed it up. “If I give you the real reason why I didn’t take it, I’m going to sound so cocky,” Schaeffer said during a break from working on her role in “My Sister Sam,” a CBS sitcom that airs at 7:30 p.m. Mondays on
WBBM-Channel 2. “But I got offered a role on `Loving’ within a couple of months after I had moved to New York. So I thought, if I got this so quickly, I might want to hold out for something that I really wanted to do.”