LL (Love Letters) Update

The Feb 12, 2005 performance of LL (Love Letters) in Joliet, Illinois has been postponed. The new date is Saturday, May 7, 2005.

Wagner, Schilling, Romano latest poker stars

For the fifth time, celebrities are ready to go all in for charity, as Bravo prepares to launch its fifth season of the popular "Celebrity Poker Showdown."

The new season of "CPS" will premiere Jan. 5 with a showdown featuring two "Everybody Loves Raymond" stars (Brad Garrett and Ray Romano), Catherine O'Hara, Sara Rue and World Series star Curt Schilling. No word on whether or not Schillings recently repaired ankle will have to be resutured for the night's round of No Limit Texas Hold 'Em.

After moving to Sunday in its last season, "CPS" will air on Tuesdays with its familiar format. Each of five episodes features a showdown between an eclectic group of stars, with the winner from each table moving onto a final game and the chance to donate the lion's share of the $250,000 prize pool to the charity of their choice.

This season's mixture of new and veteran players features Jason Alexander, Nicolas Gonzales, Allison Janney, Chris Kattan and Mary McCormack (all in Week Two), Lacey Chabert, Bonnie Hunt, J.K. Simmons, Robert Wagner and Scott Wolf (in Week Three), Brandi Chastain, Camryn Manheim, Colin Quinn, Tom Verica and Kevin Weisman (in Week Four) and Heather Graham, Jesse Metcalfe, Andrea Parker, Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Fred Willard.

Dave Foley will be back as host, joined by expert poker commentator Phil Gordon.

Previous winners have included Nicole Sullivan ("King of Queens"), Maura Tierney ("ER"), Seth Myers ("Saturday Night Live") and Mekhi Phifer ("ER").

This season's featured sponsor will be Cadillac, taking over for NetZero.

More Pix from "Angel in the Family"

The spirit of a deceased wife and mother revisits life to make amends - and mend the spirit of the broken family she left behind, in Angel in the Family, a Hallmark Channel Original holiday movie premiering Saturday, December 18 (9/8c). L to r: Meredith Baxter, Tracey Needham, Ronny Cox and Natasha Gregson Wagner star.



In this 2004 photo from Hallmark Entertainment, Natasha Gregson Wagner is seen starring in the Christmas-themed movie 'Angel in the Family,' airing Saturday, Dec. 18, 2004, on the Hallmark Channel. She co-stars with Meredith Baxter, Tracey Needham and Ronny Cox, background. She's the adopted daughter of actor Robert Wagner and the daughter of the late actress Natalie Wood.

For more pix from "Angel in the Family," go to:

http://www.hallmarkent.com/property.php?propertyId=AngelFamily&page=photos

Natasha Wagner to celebrate sunny, warm Christmas in LA

LOS ANGELES - Actress Natasha Gregson Wagner is planning to spend a warm and sunny Southern California Christmas with her family.

The holiday is one Wagner's favorites, so she jumped at the chance to star in the Christmas-themed movie "Angel in the Family," airing Saturday on the Hallmark Channel. She co-stars with Meredith Baxter and Ronny Cox.

Wagner, 34, and her husband, screenwriter D.V. DeVincentis ("High Fidelity" and "Grosse Pointe Blank"), will join her father Robert Wagner, his wife Jill St. John, and her sisters Katie and Courtney for Christmas.

"My nanny Willie Mae-South, who still lives at my dad's house, prepares her famous orange stuffed yams and my dad still writes a letter from Santa Claus asking if I've been naughty or nice," she said.

Wagner was 11 when her mother, actress Natalie Wood, drowned off California's Catalina Island a few days after Thanksgiving 1981.

"It left a huge hole in my heart," she said. "But with a lot of therapy and the support of my two dads and my sisters and my brother, I discovered how resilient the human heart can be."

Wagner's father is Richard Gregson, who was Wood's second husband. She was later adopted by Wagner, who married Wood twice.

"Angel in the Family"







Sarah Bishop, a struggling artist, and her estranged sister Beth, a successful advertising executive, are reunited days before Christmas when their father suffers a mild stroke. He wants only one thing for the holidays: to return with his daughters to the idyllic community and family home they abandoned after his wife's death. There, sweet memories stir Sarah's impossible dream: That her mother might be with them. Could such a miracle happen? Hallmark Channel airs "Angel in the Family" at 9 p.m. Saturday, starring Ronny Cox and Meredith Baxter as the parents, with Tracey Needham as Sarah and Natasha Gregson Wagner as Beth.

Jane Froman Stamp

Dear Friends,

I have just read and signed the following:

"PETITION TO SUPPORT THE ISSUANCE OF A STAMP IN HONOR OF JANE FROMAN"

We are trying to reach 5000 signatures, and we need your assistance!

Please help to get a stamp issued honoring the gracious and courageous Jane Froman by signing this petition. It only takes 30 seconds. Please follow this link:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/796528020

Once you have signed, help even more, by telling your friends and family to sign as well!

Thank you!
Meredy

With a Song in My Heart on DVD

20th Century Fox says that since there are songs by many composers, they would have to pay royalties to all of them, which makes it too costly to release "With a Song in My Heart" on DVD.

If you'd like to join in a letter writing campaign in an attempt to get the film released on DVD, please send a polite note to:

Mr. Peter Staddon
Senior Vice President, Marketing
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, Inc.
PO Box 900
Beverly Hills, CA 90213-0900

Relative Values: Robert and Courtney Wagner

The career of the actor Robert Wagner, 74, has spanned five decades. He has appeared in over 100 films and television shows, including The Towering Inferno, A Kiss before Dying, the Pink Panther movies, and the hit TV series Hart to Hart. More recently, he played Number Two to Dr Evil in the Austin Powers films. He lives in Brentwood, Los Angeles, with his third wife, the actress Jill St John. His wife Natalie Wood was found drowned after disappearing from their yacht in 1981. Courtney, 30, his only child by Wood, lives with him in LA. She designs jewellery for Wagner & Ko, the company she formed with the handbag designer Anita Ko. Courtney has two half-sisters.

COURTNEY: Growing up with Mum and Dad felt like being in a fantasy world. I was always entertained — quite mesmerised — by them. Maybe it was because they had this real connection and great love, and it was always so much fun. I'm not sure that I really understood the magnitude of who they were. Even now I'm not sure, so I sometimes compare them to, say, Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid, or Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder.

I remember there were so many people around, it was kind of crazy. Paparazzi were all over the place, and I didn't like that at all. I just knew it was wrong. It felt invading, and I wanted to ask them to leave us alone.

We did get some alone time, though. And we always did things together, like camping in Aspen and travelling a lot.
It was kind of a big posse, including my nanny and Dad's secretary and my other two sisters, Katie and Natasha.
My dad loves life and meeting people and doing activities. He's engaged in it all. He'll take me for a drive in his car up the coast just to watch the clock tick over 500,000 miles, or he'll come and get me if he sees a spider weaving a web in the yard. Or we'll see someone on the street that's really unfortunate, and he'll say: "Imagine what that person's perspective is." He instilled in me the need to have care and compassion for others. Not that we weren't spoilt. I always got great toys, and I got a car when I was 16, but he wanted me to make sure I had a manual gear so I'd pay attention to the road.

I don't remember very much about my mother. I do remember her laugh and the way she smelt, and I remember her hands — things like that that made me feel close to her. Today it's strange to see her in, say, Splendor in the Grass, as I didn't know her then. But to see her in my favourite movie of hers, The Cracker Factory, which was made after I was born, that's what I remember her to look like.

When she passed away I was seven.

I remember feeling I was watching all this stuff happen. My father and I and my sisters started travelling a lot. We went to Switzerland and spent a lot of time there, which I think was important. I think that everything Dad did then — like not being around this crazed atmosphere in LA with the paparazzi — was a good idea. It brought us all closer together. And I always had compassion and respect for him for keeping the family together — it could easily have fallen apart.

Dad got together with Jill soon after my mother passed away, though they didn't get married until I was 16. And I appreciated that stability. I think it would have been a real mess if a bunch of different women had been coming in and out of the picture, and that was never the case. I'd say that in the past three years I've developed a relationship with Jill that's been worth the wait. She's one of the smartest people I know. She knows anything about anything, and she's very funny. When I was younger I had a nanny, though — Willie Mae. She raised me, and is really more like my mother. I was glued to this lady like you've no idea, and that's maybe why things didn't seem as horrific for me as they did for other members of my family.

Willie Mae still lives with my dad, and I moved back myself recently, as I'd just sold my house. My sister Katie and I kind of rotate staying in his guest house, and it's nice being back close to Willie Mae and my father. Of course, I have moments where I think: "Oh God, am I stepping backwards here?"

But I feel it's important to stay in the moment. I don't think there are many people that have the relationship with their father that I and my sisters have with mine. He's a father, he's a friend, and he's been such a strong male role model that it's a concern, because I don't think I'll ever find anyone like him. And if I were to search for it, I'd find myself a very lonely lady. I tease him and tell him to freeze his sperm. I'm just joking — but not really. My sister thinks I'm sick for saying that. But I think if I was to find somebody who cared like he does about the Earth and humanity and feelings and family, then that would be good.

A lot of people ask me if there's any pressure living up to the Wagner name, but I don't think so. The only pressure
I would ever feel is, I would always want my family to be proud of me. I just want my dad to feel he raised a solid person to be compassionate and care about the things that he cared about.

ROBERT: Marriage and family were always very important to me. It was the real core, the most important thing in my life. If you've got the right relationship, one that's very strong, interference from things like your career won't affect it. The relationship takes priority.

It was most important for Natalie and me to have a child, and so exciting. Courtney's arrival was a very special moment in our lives. Our priorities were to try to spend as much time as we could with her. It was the most intense time of my life. When you have the privilege of having a child and watching her grow into a woman, it's a big-time odyssey — about the biggest trip you can have. And a journey where you have absolutely no control. I'm sure there were times when I was distracted by my career. Luckily, I managed to take my children with me on location, and I think that was an interesting education for Courtney — better in many ways than school, because I was able to take her to different countries.

Courtney was always very definite about what she wanted, and she was always looking for something different. She had a tremendous gift for art from an early age. Everybody thinks their child is so special, and they are — but she had a gift from around four years old. But I didn't try to push a brush in her hand — she found all the things she's been interested in for herself. I'd support her whatever she wanted to do.

I think it's a wonderful thing what she's doing with the jewellery — I have a few pieces. I wear a ring she gave me around my neck on a chain. She started that business all on her own, and I'm just glad to have a jeweller in the family.

I think I was as good a father as I could be. I was there for her, and am there for her, though there's often times where you think you could have done better here or there. What I tried to impress upon her was to love well. If you love well, everything falls into place in your life. In everything, if you have a feeling of love, things are good.

Courtney's mother loved her dearly. She was at a very young age when her mother left her, just seven. The loss of Natalie created a tremendous void for all of us. We all had to help each other, be together and try to get through the loss. We had a lot of wonderful people who helped, and we all hung onto each other. It brought us very, very close. And, thankfully, Courtney got on with Jill really well. She'd been around quite often and loved the girl — a lot of people love Courtney. She's a very special kid.

I think Courtney would be a wonderful mother. If she was happily involved in a relationship that was meaningful to her, I'd like to see her married. Though I think I might be scary to some of the boyfriends. Boyfriends are always a little on guard with the father, and there's been some I've disapproved of.

But I do absolutely nothing. There's nothing I can do. I don't think what I say would do any good, because it's not
my life — why should I get involved in her relationships? If she sees something in a guy, I might think he's an absolute asshole, but I can't say that. It's not my right to say that, unless I'm asked.

I've found that when your kids come to making choices, there's nothing you can do. I'm along for the ride — and I've been on the ride since she was a young woman. I'm just hanging on here.