Journalist, Author & Syndicated Columnist
Having music legends as parents can be daunting. But Benjamin Taylor takes it all in stride. The son of James Taylor and Carly Simon, the 31-year-old singer-songwriter has his own successful career. Currently promoting his latest album “The Legend of Kung Folk Part 1,” Taylor’s eclectic musical style actually pays homage to David Bowie and the Roots than to his own lineage.
Best known for playing Marcia on “The Brady Bunch,” Maureen McCormick has a new generation of fans, thanks to her spunky appearances on reality shows such as “Celebrity Fit Club” and “Gone Country.” But reality TV has nothing on the actress’s drama-filled early years. In her page-turning memoir “Here’s the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice” (William Morrow, $25.95), McCormick — now 52 — reveals that life wasn’t as perfect as it seemed on “The Brady Bunch.”
Comedian Jamie Kennedy is used to getting laughs in the United States, thanks to his work in the “Scream” films and his TV show “The Jamie Kennedy Experiment.” But making foreign audiences laugh wasn’t something he felt confident he could accomplish.
Juliana Hatfield had a knack for penning clever songs with her group the Blake Babies. She was an indie sensation. What her fans didn’t know was that Hatfield was battling an eating disorder and depression. With her telling memoir “When I Grow Up” (Wiley, $24.95), Hatfield describes her life as a rock star. She also writes about being filled with self-doubt. Hatfield, who also has a new CD out called “How to Walk Away,” is an avid traveler who got the bug to get up and go at a young age.
Even Rick Springfield is surprised that his latest album — “Venus in Overdrive” — has charted higher than his 1982 breakthrough record “Working Class Dog.” The latter spawned the hit singles “I’ve Done Everything for You,” “Love is Alright Tonite” and, of course, “Jessie’s Girl.” As well known for his singing as his tall, angular good looks, Springfield is back on the road to promote “Venus.”
Born in the United States to Korean parents and raised in Canada — where she calls Vancouver home — Grace Park got the travel bug early. Though concurrent roles on “The Cleaner” and “Battlestar Galactica” — as well as the Canadian series “The Border” — preclude her from taking as many vacations as she’d like, Park says visiting new countries is one of the joys in life she shares with her husband, Phil Kim. India and Brazil hold special places in Park’s heart, but her favorite destination thus far is Italy’s quaint Vernazza.
Margaret Cho knows a thing or two about traveling. After beginning her standup career at 16, she toured the United States nonstop, bringing her unique brand of comedy to venues across the country. At 26, she broke barriers with her short-lived ABC sitcom “All-American Girl,” where she played a fictionalized version of herself. It was the first American television series where all the lead actors were Asian-American. In her standup routines, Cho talks frankly about how producers asked her at times to try to be more — and less — Asian. Now 39, Cho is ready to debut her new VH1 series “The Cho Show.”
Janis Ian is back in the news thanks to her provocative memoir “Society’s Child” (Tarcher/Penguin, $26.95). Ian, 57, recounts her life as a teenage prodigy and lets readers get a glimpse of how she came up with her hit songs (“At Seventeen,” “Society’s Child”), the sexual abuse she suffered as a child and her friendship with Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.
It’s not easy for the child of any celebrity to come out of their parent’s shadow. But Simone — the daughter of the legendary Nina Simone — makes it look effortless. A talented singer in her own right who performed on Broadway in “Rent” and “Aida,” the 46-year-old beauty is nonplussed by the comparisons some critics have made between the songs on her debut album “Simone on Simone” and her mother’s classic recordings.
It has been three decades since Henry Winkler became a pop culture icon, thanks to his scene-stealing portrayal of the Fonz on “Happy Days.” These days, the actor has a whole new generation of fans, thanks to his Hank Zipzer: The World’s Greatest Underachiever series of children’s books. Hank, an irrepressible fourth-grader, deals with dyslexia, bullies and a potential love interest in the latest installment — “The Life of Me: Enter at Your Own Risk” ($5.99, Gosset & Dunlap).