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Singer Lobo really had a dog named Boo |
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Tuesday, December 13, 2011 |
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Dear Ken: Is the singer named Lobo, who had a hit song called “Me and You and a Dog Named Boo” in the 1970s, still performing?
That would be singer-songwriter Roland Kent LaVoie, aka Lobo, 68, who is semi-retired and living in Florida with his wife. “People don’t know me much or the way I look and that’s OK. To this day, most probably think I’m some group,” he said. Over a four-year period in the early 1970s, Lobo also had hits with his folk-country tunes “I’d Love You To Want Me,” “Where Were You When I Was Falling in Love” and “Don’t Expect Me To Be Your Friend.” As for “Me And You and a Dog Named Boo,” he really had a German shepherd named Boo. Lobo released his last album, “Out of Time,” in 2008.
Dear Ken: Whatever happened to the stars of “Laverne & Shirley”?
Well, Cindy Williams, 64, who played Shirley, will star as Mother Superior in “Nunset Boulevard: The Nunsense Hollywood Bowl Show,” which will go on a multi-city national tour next fall. She was most recently seen on Broadway in “The Drowsy Chaperone,” and the mother of two helped produced the Steve Martin “Father of the Bride” movies. She also just finished the play “The Odd Couple,” opposite Jo Anne Worley, and stars opposite John Heard in the romantic comedy, a film that has yet to be released. Penny Marshall, 69, who played Laverne, just announced she would be publishing her memoir, “My Mother Is Nuts,” next fall with Amazon Publishing. The director of such movie hits as “Big” and “A League of Their Own,” said she will share tales about her childhood and her relationship with her brother, Garry Marshall, who produced “Laverne & Shirley” and “Happy Days.” She likely will discuss her marriage to Rob Reiner and will talk about her battle with lung and brain cancer in 2009. “People have always asked me how I got from the Bronx to Hollywood, so I thought it was time to tell how it all happened. I have had many lives (not in the Shirley MacLaine sense) and you will hear about them all. . . . just don’t expect any recipes . . . I don't cook,” she wrote in a statement.
Dear Ken: Our family favorite show is “The Closer,” and I have heard it will stop filming this year. We love to pick out who is guilty and watch the whole crew work together. How funny they are with looks, eye movements and comments between. |
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What’s your favorite Christmas classic? |
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Tuesday, December 13, 2011 |
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With Christmas rushing upon us as quickly as ever, these December evenings should be times to pause, kick off our shoes and enjoy gathering with family and friends in warm homes, and maybe even overdose on hot chocolate doused with marshmallows.
Parties are a holiday tradition, but watching some of those classic Christmas-themed shows are also a must-do for many. Thus, below are my picks for the Top-10 TV Christmas specials, followed by the Top-10 Christmas movies.
Most of these air every Yuletide season on network, cable or satellite TV, while a few may only be found on DVD.
Top-10 TV Christmas classics
 1. A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965): In the best animated-Christmas special of them all, Charlie Brown and his Peanuts pals discover the true meaning of Christmas while working on a school play and decorating a sickly fir tree. Linus saves the day with his recitation of the birth of the Christ child from the book of Luke. Fabulous jazz piano score by Vince Guaraldi.
2. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946): This feature film only came into its own when it began airing on TV. Jimmy Stewart stars as George Bailey, a small-town everyman who decides to jump off a bridge. An angel then exposes him to what life in Bedford Falls would have been like had he never been born. Remember, no man is a failure who has friends.
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Reliving the Thanksgiving tradition |
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Wednesday, December 7, 2011 |
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By JOHN L. SLOAN
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I remember Thanksgiving 1957. I was 13 and the proud owner of a beautiful, 16-gauge double barrel. It was a mint condition L. C. Smith. I later traded it for a 12-gauge but at the time, it was my prize possession. It was drizzly and cold in the Saline swamp and the afternoon before we had hunted ducks. I killed four.
Thanksgiving morning we would deer hunt for a few hours, make just one drive, and then head to camp to start the hog roast. The fire was already burning and coming to cooking coals. For one of the first times, I had the duty of handling the dogs. That meant I had scant chance at seeing a deer but I thought the job held great responsibility.
Uncles Lloyd, Lester, and Alphus dropped the dogs and I off on the Muddy bayou road and I sat shivering in the dark waiting for the first light to start. It would be a foggy morning, clear with patchy fog laying close to the ground, spooky in a way but I liked it, made the swamp mysterious. I would drive through the swamp about two miles until I hit the Alligator Bayou swamp road, just a mud track.
In a drive, you walk quickly, directing the dogs.
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Kevin’s ‘Home Alone’ siblings all the same age |
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Tuesday, December 6, 2011 |
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Dear Ken: Regarding the Christmastime movie “Home Alone,” how old now are the kids who played Macaulay Culkin’s siblings?
Well, Culkin, who starred as Kevin McCallister in the 1990 flick (which was the highest-grossing film that year at $477 million), is 31. The youngsters who played his siblings are all the same age: 34. They are: Devin Ratray, an actor-musician, as Buzz; Hillary Wolf, a member of the 1996 and 2000 Olympic Judo Team, as Megan; Angela Goethals, still acting, as Linnie; and Michael C. Maronna, an electrician in film and TV, as Jeff.
Dear Ken: What else has Ginnifer Goodwin, who plays Mary Margaret Blanchard on the TV series “Once Upon a Time,” done?
Goodwin, 33, who was born in Memphis, Tenn., earned a degree in acting from Boston University and trained with the Royal Shakespeare Company. She was in the TV series “Ed” and “Big Love” and did voices for “Robot Chicken.” Movie wise, she starred in “Win a Date With Tod Hamilton!” and played Johnny Cash’s first wife in “Walk the Line.” And she played Aunt Bea in “Ramona and Beezus” and appeared in “Something Borrowed” and “Birds of America.”
Dear Ken: Where was Roberta Flack, the singer of “Killing Me Softly With His Song,” born?
Flack, 74, was born in Black Mountain, N.C. She won Grammy Record of the Year for that song in 1974 and won the same honor in 1973 for “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.” The singer-songwriter is currently working on an album of Beatles’ classics and continues to perform around the world. She founded the Roberta Flack School of Music at the Hyde Leadership Charter School in the Bronx, which provides a music education program to underprivileged students free of charge.
Dear Ken: I just saw for the first time an actress named Gene Tierney in a wonderful murder mystery called “Laura.” Could she still be alive? What are some more of her movies?
Tierney died in 1991 of emphysema at 70. Sadly, because she believed she sounded squeaky on film, she began smoking to help lower her voice and that contributed to her death. For a few more of her classic roles, check out the films “Heaven Can Wait,” “Leave Her to Heaven,” “The Mating Season,” “The Razor’s Edge” and “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.” She made her last appearance in the 1980 miniseries “Scruples.”
by Ken Beck
If you have a trivia question about actors, singers, movies, TV shows or pop culture, e-mail your query to Ken Beck at
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