Journalist, Author & Syndicated Columnist
Julia Bedford (Linda Hamilton) is not having a great year. When the homemaker divorces her cheating and vindictive husband–who hides his assets and makes sure that she gets almost none of “his” money–she finds herself in a hopeless situation. The bleak and predictable premise is the basis of “Home by Christmas.”
As it turns out, having a cute toddler with a penchant for high-fiving strangers is like toting around catnip. Apparently, my son saves his worst for when it’s just us, in private. In public, he was like a well-behaved movie star. He went straight to work at the airport, charming the sort of shop girls I had always assumed were beyond human emotion. Put him on a plane, I learned, and suddenly he’s the flight attendants’ favorite passenger. I’m not ashamed to say that we used him as a means to reel in extra snacks.
In his recently published memoir “Late, Late at Night” ($26, Touchstone), musician-actor Rick Springfield, 61, reveals a dark side that few fans knew about. He tried to commit suicide when he was 17, cheated multiple times on his wife of 26 years and underwent plastic surgery at the ripe old age of 23 in an attempt to look even more youthful than he already did. Springfield, who wrote the book without a co-author or a ghostwriter, exhibits a humorous and poignant touch as he examines the ebbs and flows of his career.