Kerr Smith is best known as the sweet, sensitive and gay Jack McPhee on Dawson's Creek, which is why he couldn't wait to twist his image in Final Destination, a new thriller about teenagers trying to cheat death. "I play a bully, a real jerk," he tells TV Guide Online. "This guy is a jock who lives on rage. It was going from one end of the spectrum to the other."
The film opens with a horrific plane crash and Smith admits that filming it was a little unsettling. "We were in this mock-up of a 747 fuselage that was rigged to twist and turn," he says. "We were sitting up there while some guy with a joystick was tilting us like crazy. It didn't take much acting to display fear. Actually, a couple of extras got sick. I thought I'd prepared myself by taking Dramamine, which turned out not to be a good idea. It made me drowsy and I kept falling asleep."
Smith doesn't deny that filming those scenes made it a little harder to get aboard a real plane. "I never h
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Jerry O'Connell had no problem dressing up in a space suit for his role in Mission to Mars, but there was no way that he was going to get into an aircraft commonly referred to by astronauts as the "vomit comet."
"There was talk about doing the vomit comet," the actor tells TV Guide Online. "But I don't go on planes that are nicknamed 'the vomit comet.' I don't do things like that. I don't like the left lane on the freeway, I don't like vomiting on myself. It's a little peeve I have."
On the other hand, O'Connell says he loved every minute he spent in his space suit. "To throw on a NASA-made space suit with an American flag on the arm ? it doesn't get any better than that. That's every little boy's dream come true."
O'Connell was so comfortable in his suit, in fact, that he occasionally nodded off while wearing it ? which isn't all that surprising given that he had to han
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Question: Who has made the decision to have African-Americans on every program on TV? Blacks make up less than 14 percent of the population, yet it is impossible to see a sitcom or adventure program without a lot of blacks on it. And at least 70 percent of the commercials are either mostly African-Americans, or all African-Americans. What is going on?
Don't really care what anyone thinks. I am not racist. But I am white, and would like to see all-white programs, just like the blacks have all-black programs. I am just waiting to see how long it takes for JAG to get a black admiral in charge, or have the Marine colonel have a love affair with a black lawyer. It has to happen sooner or later. — Bill Hoover
Televisionary: Man, oh man, Bill — where do I start? I suppose a couple of assumptions are in order: first, that you're responding to last week's column, where I said it's shameful that it took
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Question: Was there another Iron Giant on Saturday morning years ago? I remember when I was younger, in the late '60s or early '70s, there was a cartoon on about a large robot with a young friend who would ride on his shoulder. Is the current Iron Giant born from this cartoon? Do you remember this cartoon? If so, what was the name of it? Thanks for any help. — Robby Gann
Televisionary: Sounds to me like you're thinking of Frankenstein Jr., who filled half of the Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles show on CBS's Saturday morning schedule starting in September, 1966. It was axed in September of '68, but popped up again in reruns from 1976-77.
While similar in appearance — little kid with huge, robotic friend — the two properties have nothing to do with each other. Frank Jr. was a product of the Hanna-Barbera factory (not that I'm trashing their high output, you understand — I grew up with them, too). read more
Question: Who played Artemus Gordon opposite Robert Conrad in the original Wild Wild West?
Televisionary: Secret Service agent Artemus Gordon was played by the late Ross Martin in the series, which ran on CBS from September 1965 to September 1970, before being yanked from the schedule to appease the politicos during a particularly down-on-violence period.
Born in Poland, the multitalented Martin — he spoke Russian, Italian, Spanish, French, English, Polish and Yiddish and had degrees in law and psychometrics — was twice nominated for an Emmy for his efforts on the show, but his Wild work wasn't all smooth going. He suffered a near-fatal heart attack late in the show's run and had to take a break from shooting it.
Not that the series was much easier on star Conrad, who played fast-fisted ladies' man James West. The actors performed many of their own stunts and took the bumps and bruises one might expect from such work: In one of th
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Question: Can you tell us who played the commissioner in the TV series Ironside? We think his first name was Don. — JR and BG
Televisionary: Actually, Commissioner Dennis Randall, who allowed San Francisco detective Robert Ironside (Perry Mason's Raymond Burr) to stay on the job after a bullet put Ironside in a wheelchair, was played by actor Gene Lyons.
Don Mitchell portrayed Ironside's bodyguard, Mark Sanger, on the series, which ran on NBC from 1967-75.
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What's in a name? For Nash Bridges star Jaime Gomez there's more than you think.
"It's hard for any actor in this town, but being named Jaime (pronounced hi-may) Gomez and not looking like a gang member makes it that much harder," the actor tells TV Guide Online. "That's what every casting director thinks when they hear your name. They have a certain idea of what they think that you may be about."
The Latin hunk explains, "It would have been easier to change my name to John Smith but it was never something I wanted to do. I think it is more important to make people understand who you are and what you are by your given name than anything else. Instead of trying to fight against it, I try and make it work."
Gomez says he's faced many obstacles in Hollywood because of his heritage. "When I started to get into the business and saw certain parts that were open ... I found out that my agents wouldn't even submit me for these jobs because it wa
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They like you... they really like you! The gracious winners at Sunday night's TV Guide
Awards went out of their way to thank you, the fans, for participating in the awards
process and supporting them.
"This is a special treat because it's generated by the fans, the people who sit on their
couches and watch our shows," MTV's Carson Daly told TV Guide Online.
We caught up with the rising star while he was taking a breather with his dad, and he
admitted that these are heady times. "I don't know what the future holds, bro! My world
is spinning right now and I'm just taking things one day at a time."
Tyne Daly, unofficial spokeswoman for the Judging Amy cast, took a
jab at the press while applauding the viewers for recognizing her ensemble show. "The
audience caught on and appreciated us immediately, despite what the critics were saying.
We were thought of as a clone of Providence and that's not true ? and the
audience knows that. A
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Barry White might seem like a big ol' pussycat, but the 1970s singing phenom remembers being a real tiger when it came to protecting his daughters from the opposite sex.
White made a fortune with testosterone-driven love songs such as "I'm in Ecstasy When You Lay Down Next to Me" but he tells Playboy that he never stood for any actual hanky-panky between his five daughters and their dates. Would-be suitors showing up at the house were met with an unusual line of questioning from the imposing White: "I'd say to a young boy, 'What do you want with my daughter? You want to get between her legs, don't you? I know she's killing you, but is it her beauty that's killing you or the fact that you want to be with her sexually?' "
"That would always get them!" recalls White, 55, now a grandfather with 11 grandchildren and one great-grandchild. "I always find that honesty is the best policy when you're dealing with my daughters."
"I taught my chil
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Saucy Cybill Shepherd says that despite a failed romance and the cancellation of her show, she still has a great sex life.
"I love sex more now than I ever did," the 50-year-old actress tells More magazine. "And I thought I loved it so much at age 40 that I wouldn't be able to think about anything else."
Indeed, the self-proclaimed "menopause queen" says she's back in the dating game. She's even taken to dating younger men. "I found out that there were a lot of men my age who just didn't want to ask me out. My girlfriends said they seemed a little intimidated by me. So I went out with some younger men."
Shepherd says she's ready to start again after being devastated when her fiancé left her. "I have to say, I went through a loneliness that I hadn't before experienced. It was like everything I was counting on had vanished. It was my own personal deconstruction — the deconstruction of Cybill."
Shepherd, a political activist, also says th
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