That's right, boys and girls! It's time for another action-packed edition of
"All-Star Entertainment Wrap-Up." There's nothing you like better than an inside look at the all-star world of celebrity entertainment, and "All-Star Entertainment Wrap-Up" is your one place on the "internet" for all the latest news about the hottest entertainment celebrity stars! ITEM! Are you like me? Do you lie in bed wondering whether craggy tough-guy actor Sterling Hayden went to the funeral of Marshal Tito? Then this is your lucky day!
McNeil is not the only one who sends me
long clips about Canadian defense ministers who believe in
UFOs and
Jack Palance's painfully
reluctant plug of his cop show
BRONK. My friend
the Hollywood producer - yes, he exists, he is not imaginary, shut up! - sent me a ten-minute youtube clip (
"click" here - you know you're dying to!) that answers all your most burning questions! As a bonus, marvel at Sterling Hayden's godlike two-pronged beard, and relish the part where he explains his headband and his cane! ITEM! This reminds me of the time that
Mr. Ward and I went on the "press junket" for a film called BLUES BROTHERS 2000, a sequel to
the original Blues Brothers movie. We were interviewing
John Goodman and
Dan Aykroyd, and we thought it would be really clever to ask them things no one else would think to ask. For example, we asked which historical figures would make good Blues Brothers. That question made no sense! But we didn't care because we were so clever! So Dan Aykroyd stared at us like we were idiots - which in retrospect we probably were! - and said in a very deadpan way, "Marshal Tito." It was hilarious and put us in our place and we enjoyed it. We were like, "Thank you, sir, may I have another?" ITEM! I just remembered this! The BLUES BROTHERS 2000 press junket took place at the Essex House hotel in
New York City. I was waiting for Mr. Ward in the bar when I witnessed former
Nixon speechwriter turned actor Ben Stein (pictured) trying to
"pick up" a woman who was much too young for him, in my opinion, but it's none of my business! One of Ben Stein's "pickup lines" was "I have my own game show." Hey, maybe I'm imagining all this! No offense, Ben Stein! The incident - IF it occurred! - made its way into a short story in my second book
YOUR BODY IS CHANGING. Is "pickup" slanderous? Maybe Ben Stein was just harmlessly flirting! That's not a crime, is it? Or maybe he was making conversation to pass the time as innocently as can be or maybe nothing happened at all! By the way, Ben Stein had nothing to do with BLUES BROTHERS 2000 - he just happened to be in the Essex House bar. ITEM! And that just made me remember something that made it into my first book,
THE MYSTERIOUS SECRET OF THE VALUABLE TREASURE: Once upon a time,
MTV optioned a sitcom pilot that Mr. Ward and I wrote. It got into the rehearsal stages before it lay down on the floor and died. But we had to hire actors. That guy Shia Labouef auditioned, and we picked him for the lead role, but he had just signed up to do a feature film - one of his first, I think, if not the very first. So we had to go with our second choice, who by coincidence - this was a few years later - had portrayed the "little kid Blues Brother" (pictured, below) from the movie BLUES BROTHERS 2000. Yes, just one of the unfortunate things about BLUES BROTHERS 2000 was that someone decided there had to be a little kid Blues Brother in it. ITEM! And now I just remembered that Mr. Ward and I were on an
escalator after a press screening of BLUES BROTHERS 2000 and Mr. Ward was shouting "The musical numbers were LEADEN! LEADEN!" and I turned back to respond and who should be standing behind Mr. Ward on the escalator - unbeknownst to Mr. Ward! - but
Paul Shaffer, the man responsible for the musical numbers in BLUES BROTHERS 2000! That's it for this edition of "All-Star Entertainment Wrap-Up." Until next time, keep "reaching" for the "stars"!
