Journalist, Author & Syndicated Columnist
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.”
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.”
“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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
Newsman Chris Matthews is a proponent of young folks studying overseas or taking a year off to travel before settling down in their careers. “I wanted to bop off to Europe, but I had to save money for graduate school,” says Matthews, 66. “I remember talking to the head of admissions at school about it, but he advised me to stay home and work. And that’s what I did. Taking time off seemed like such a luxury back then.”
Born in Ethiopia and raised in Sweden by his adoptive family, Chef Marcus Samuelsson currently resides in the United States with his wife, model Gate Maya Haile. Samuelsson, a TV personality and “Top Chef Masters” champion, runs his restaurants Red Rooster Harlem and Ginny’s Supper Club in New York and Norda in Gothenburg, Sweden. His latest project is his memoir, “Yes, Chef” (Random House, $27).
Comedian Chris Rock returns to the big screen as one of the voiceover stars of “Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted.” Though he’s been to Europe many times already, the 47-year-old actor has yet to visit Madagascar. “I’d love to go,” says Rock, who lives in New York with his wife and children. “Jeffrey Katzenberg (founder and CEO of DreamWorks Animation) always invites me to go, but I can’t because of work or other things I have going on. One day, though. One day.”
Sports agent Evan Morgenstein is used to the comparisons to Tom Cruise’s character in “Jerry Maguire.” But he says that Jeremy Pivens’ portrayal of uber-agent Ari Gold in “Entourage” was more true to life, because Gold ticked more people off. “I’m a little bit like them,” says Morgenstein, 46. “But I’m taller and have more clients.”
I recently did a fun interview with Helio Castroneves. I asked if he was a backseat driver, and he said, “I’m OK with being in the backseat but, yes, I can be. I’m mostly concerned when people try to show off. That’s when I get a little uncomfortable. People don’t realize that with ordinary cars, you can’t go fast like you can in a racecar and still be safe.”
Actor Noah Bean advises travelers to always know the route they’re traveling. Case in point: “When I was in college, a friend and I were bumming around Europe on a Eurorail pass. We were traveling overnight by train from Budapest to Venice. The conductor looked at our tickets, then looked at us and said, “Problem.” What happened was that we had left the European Union and gone into a place where our pass wasn’t valid … and they were ready to dump us off the train.”
Born in Hiroshima, Japan, Masaharu Morimoto is recognizable to “Iron Chef” fans as the serious chef who consistently creates artistic and delicious Asian fusion dishes. A star of the Japanese cooking competition that spawned “Iron Chef America,” Morimoto has been a dominant presence on both shows. The 56-year-old chef and restaurateur opened his first restaurant in Japan in 1980, before moving to the United States five years later. He owns restaurants in New York, Tokyo and Mumbai, has a line of sake and beer and is the author of “Morimoto: The New Art of Japanese Cooking.”