Dear Ken: How is Scott Eastwood, who co-stars in “Trouble With the Curve,” related to Clint Eastwood?

Scott, 26, is Clint’s son. He also has been in his dad’s movies “Invictus,” “Gran Torino” and “Flags of Our Fathers.” Eastwood’s latest film, about an aging Atlanta Braves scout who is losing his eyesight and wants to make one last trip to scoop up a new top prospect, also stars Amy Adams as his daughter, Justin Timberlake, John Goodman and Robert Patrick. Scott is set to play Deputy Carl Hartman in “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D,” which opens in early January. Clint, by the way, is 82.

Dear Ken: How old was matinee idol Tyrone Power when he died? Did he have a son and daughter who went into acting?

The handsome leading man, a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, died of a heart attack in Madrid, Spain, in 1958 while making the movie “Solomon and Sheba.” He made nearly 50 movies from the 1930s into the late 1950s including “Jesse James,”  ”The Mark of Zorro,” “Blood and Sand,” “The Razor’s Edge,” “Captain From Castille“ and “Rawhide“ and was equally adept onstage. His eldest daughter, Romina, 60, became a singer and actress with mostly Italian films to her credit. Her sister Taryn, 58, made less than 10 movies, the most famous being “Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger.” The girls’ half-brother Tyrone Power Jr., 53, who was born two months after his father’s death, worked in a dozen films such as “Cocoon” and “Dreamkiller” and was a guest in an episode of “Cheers.”

Dear Ken: Who had the pop hit song “Tonight You Belong to Me”?

That tune went to No. 4 on the Billboard charts in 1956 for the McIntyre sisters Patience, 11, and Prudence, 14, who recorded simply as Patience and Prudence. Later that year, the sisters had a No. 1 hit with “Gonna Get Along Without Ya Now.” 

Dear Ken: Who invented the Slinky and in what year?

The toy, also known as the “lazy spring,” was invented by Richard James, a naval mechanical engineer, in 1943. The toys were first sold for a buck apiece at Gimbels Department Store in Philadelphia, Pa., in late 1945. Now the official state toy of Pennsylvania, Slinkys have gone into the hands of more than 300 million children. And for those who were around in 1962, here are the lyrics to the famed commercial:

“What walks down stairs, alone or in pairs,

and makes a slinkity sound?

A spring, a spring, a marvelous thing!

Everyone knows it’s Slinky.

It’s Slinky, it’s Slinky.

For fun it’s a wonderful toy.

It’s Slinky, it’s Slinky.

It’s fun for a girl or a boy.

It’s fun for a girl or boy!”

If you have a trivia question about actors, singers, movies, TV shows or pop culture, e-mail your query to Ken Beck at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it