Overseas People
Richard Gere To Give Major Aids Report
Actor Richard
Gere
Actor Richard Gere has been tapped to deliver a speech to commemorate World AIDS Day. His presentation, according to Columbia University, will be delivered at that institution's Graduate School of Journalism on Dec. 3. Gere will present the results of a special report on the presence and effects of the illness on the Indian subcontinent. Since the beginning of the AIDS problem in this country, Gere has been constantly involved in assisting groups in fundraising activities and has presented numerous speeches on the topic. Also at the meeting will be Chinese AIDS activist Wan Yan Hai. He will look at the spreading AIDS epidemic in other Asian nations. The AIDS program is scheduled to run all day at Columbia next Tuesday.
Hank's Son And Grandson Plan Opry 'First'
Hank Williams
Jr
Pat Boone, who hasn't been on the Billboard charts for 40 years, is back now, reaching No. 36 -- with a bullet -- on the Nov. 23 Hot 100 Singles chart with his new patriotic ballad, "Under God." The song is part of Boone's campaign to urge Americans to embrace the two words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. Those words were added to the Pledge in 1954, the year before Boone launched a four-year run as the second best-selling recording artist in America -- behind only Elvis Presley. "On a personal level, to be on the charts again, after all these years, well, that's a miracle," said Boone, "and miracles only happen in two places, heaven and show business." Boone is now touring the country, mainly doing in-store appearances at Wal-Mart stores, promoting the new single. He is scheduled to appear on NBC-TV on Dec. 1, as part of the lineup for the "Blockbuster Hollywood Christmas Spectacular" parade.
Spears Changes Menu At Eatery
Britney Spears
When Britney Spears opened her long-awaited
Manhattan eatery some time ago, she called it Nyla. "Ny"
for New York and "La" for Louisiana, her home state.
Coming from the world of bayous, crawfish and gumbo, she elected
to serve Cajun food. It may have been a sound idea on paper, but
New Yorkers didn't cotton to the concept. Now, according to the
New York Post, the singer-actress-dancer will turn Nyla into an
Italian restaurant. The publication says that she has hired chef
Larry Forgione to design the new dishes. The menu will be, in
the words of Morris Moinian -- owner of the Dylan Hotel, where
Nyla is based -- "continental with an Italian flavor."
Britney Jean Spears was born Dec. 2, 1981 in the small Southern
town of Kentwood, Louisiana (population: 1,200), where she has
lived most of her life.
She started performing at a very young age, first in local stage
productions and church choirs, later in national commercials and
off-Broadway plays, and finally, starting at age 11, in two seasons
of The Mickey Mouse Club TV show alongside future 'N Sync members
Joshua "JC" Chasez and Justin Timberlake.
Model For 'China Beach' Nurse Dies
File Photo:
Former US President Bill Clinton (R) congratulates US Sen. Daniel
Inouye, D-HI, after awarding him the Congressional Medal of Honor
21 June 2000 at the White House in Washington, DC, for his service
in World War II.
Anyone who even saw a single episode of the TV series "China Beach" quickly understood the heroism under fire of the nurses who served in Vietnam. One of those women was Lynda Van Devanter. Her exploits became the wellspring from which plotlines for the television series were drawn. Now, according to the Vietnam Veterans of America, Van Devanter has died -- possibly as the result of her coming into contact with chemical war-fighting agents during her time in Southeast Asia. After her return to the states, she became active in working to get health benefits for other returning veterans. She lobbied on Capitol Hill in her work, becoming closely associated with Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii. They worked on legislation that would give female veterans the same treatment rights at VA hospitals as their male counterparts. In the 1980s, she wrote of her wartime experiences in a memoir called "Home Before Morning." A loving wife and mother, she balanced her time with her family with countless trips around the country to talk with her fellow veterans and to crusade for investigations into the use of Agent Orange and other chemicals in Vietnam. As her condition deteriorated in recent months, she claimed that her contact with those chemicals had led to her getting a condition called collagen vascular disease. Lynda Van Devanter was only 55.
Is Stone's 'Alexander' On The Rocks?
Director
Oliver Stone
There are reports that the new mega-movie planned by Oliver Stone about the life of Alexander the Great may, in the words of reporter Richard Johnson, be "facing a slow death." One reason for the speculation is that award-winning director Baz Luhrmann is putting together his own film on the world-conquering wunderkind. And, Luhrmann seems to have his financial backing in place. All this is happening at a time when Stone has not fully gotten his project off the drawing board. Meanwhile, enough is locked in stone concerning Luhrmann's project that some of the details are already listed on the popular movie site imdb.com on the Internet. It's set for release in 2004 and will be filmed in Monaco. Additionally, Leonardo DiCaprio has been tapped to star as Alexander. And some of the tabloids have been having a field day about the possibility of seeing DiCaprio and another, as-of-yet-unnamed male star in a love scene -- seeing as how "eclectic" was Alexander in his romantic conque sts. The project has a budget of over $150 million.