May 24, 2005 |
Idol's Baby V. Voted Off
Last week audiences decided not to bring back Vonzell Solomon, aka Baby V., return to hit them with her vocal stylings one more time in the American Idol finals. The perky 20-year-old former Floridian mail carrier lost out to popular powerhouses Carrie Underwood and Bo Bice. So who does Baby V. have her money on to win? "They are both really great performers and artists, so I really don't know," she demurs. "I'm just praying for them. "We are all really good friends," she continues. "We are with each other every day. We go through all the stress together. You've just got to sit back and have fun and not let the stress get to you too much." But two Tuesdays ago, on May 10, she did let the stress of something get to her when she broke down in tears after performing "How Do I Live." So what was so traumatizing? Was there a death or illness in her family? "No, not at all," she insists. "It was nothing really serious, it was just that day for me was really emotional. I was stressed out and under a lot of pressure. I just kind of broke down when Paula asked me, 'How are you?' But it was nothing really serious; it was just a really tough day for me. Everything was going wrong for me." So has it sunk in that she's off the show? "I still feel like I'm dreaming," she smiles. "I never really grasped it all since I came out here in February. It has been an awesome journey. But I still feel like I'm going to wake up and have to go deliver someone's mail." And finally, what is with all her funky monikers? "All my life, my name has been very difficult for people to pronounce," Vonzell acknowledges. "So I've always had a whole bunch of names. I'm used to it and I just embrace it now. Ryan Seacrest found out about them and decided to use them. But he found them on his own, no one told him. It is kind of crazy how the same names just circulate wherever I go." |
Donald Trump's Hair Apparent
There's only one thing better than being hired as Donald Trump's newest apprentice, and that's playing The Donald himself in a TV movie about his life. Justin Louis of Lifetime's Missing — who happens to be 5-foot-9 and of Portuguese descent — was told "You're hired!" after auditioning to play the 6-foot-3, WASP-y fat cat in ABC's Trump: Unauthorized. It airs at 9 pm/ET tonight and, thankfully, there's no Omarosa in sight! Did Louis have to stand on crates during the entire shoot to match Trump's stature? "They made me walk around in these club kid-esque boots to make me taller," he tells TVGuide.com with a laugh. "I did wear them to the Missing set recently, so I [had] some fun with [my costar] Mark Consuelos. I walked right up to him and looked down on him. He laughed his ass off! Mark and [his wife] Kelly [Ripa] were at [Trump's] wedding to Melania, and Kelly was very sweet and generous when she learned I'd been hired. She broke the news on Live with Regis and Kelly. That was fun." Based on Gwenda Blair's acclaimed biographies, Unauthorized follows the Trumpster's life from ages 28 to 40, tracing his rise from toiling for his father's real-estate business to his current role as America's most celebrated mogul-turned-reality-television star. Costarring Katheryn Winnick (CSI: Miami; Oz) as Ivana, Jennifer Baxter as Marla, and Richard Portnow as former Mayor Ed Koch, the teleplay promises to pack as much punch as an Apprentice boardroom firing. Still, it won't address the biggest Trump mystery to date: Is that a hairpiece, a comb-over, or is Donald just happy to see us? "Apparently, it's his real hair," Louis says. "Can you believe it? And of course, I, like him, used my real hair. I grew it out while on hiatus [from Missing]." Mimicking Trump's mannerisms would be challenging (and fun) for any actor. However, says Louis, "I [wanted] to find out what makes this guy tick from the inside out. Anytime I see an actor rely solely on doing an impression, [they're] dead in the water. "It was kind of a blessing that I only had four days to prepare for this thing," he continues. "It's not like I was in Jamie Foxx's position, where I was playing the piano with Ray Charles for months. We shot [Trump: Unauthorized] in 22 days — six-day, 105-hour work weeks. My research consisted of [watching] an A&E Biography and some early interviews in [Trump's] forties. I did come up with [a method] for his sound: In his twenties, he sounded like Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon but, by the end of the movie, I evolved it into an aggressive, louder accent. If you watch The Apprentice, you'll notice there's a little Sopranos influence there. He's street smart." |
Death Comes to NCIS: Who's Out?
Down in the pine-forested Franklin Canyon of the Santa Monica mountains, weary, slaphappy NCIS cast members are laying odds on which of them will be killed off in tonight's terror-tormented season finale (8 pm/ET on CBS). With the five final pages of the script unavailable to the actors, no one knows for sure who it will be. They just know one of them won't make it to Season 3. "We're all so tired at this point, if someone is dying, you sometimes wish it were you," quips star Mark Harmon (Special Agent Gibbs), taking a breather during filming. Executive producer Donald P. Bellisario promises an end that will not disappoint. "It's not truly a cliff-hanger because it's final," he says. "But it's unique and we'll be thinking about it into the first couple of shows next season." In this episode, the execution-style murder of two Navy lieutenants escalates into a case of international terrorism. Evidence points to the medically astute operative named Ari (24's Rudolf Martin), who once famously held Ducky (David McCallum) and Kate (Sasha Alexander) captive in the morgue. In the cold darkness of the encounter, Ari grabbed Kate waaay too close, wounded Gibbs and escaped with the stealth of a master spy. Earlier this season, Gibbs plugged Ari with a bullet to the shoulder and left him to suffer. "Gibbs takes Ari very personally," Harmon says. "But that's the way it is with the real NCIS guys. They all have cold cases that never leave them." In the finale, the hatred boils over as Ari, who once professed to be working for the Mossad but is now working for Al Qaeda, unleashes the organization's deadly vengeance on Gibbs and his NCIS team, who have been weakened from an outbreak of bubonic plague the week before. (Michael Weatherly's Special Agent DiNozzo got the worst of it.) Kate is assigned to be Gibbs' protector and he has to take her orders. "Yep, Gibbs looks pretty horrified when he finds this out," says Alexander, tucking a wisp of her shoulder-length hair under that black NCIS cap. She'll have her hands full, though, what with DiNozzo sick — and about to take the brunt of an explosion. Things aren't looking so good for rookie agent Timothy McGee (Sean Murray), either. As the cast shoots retakes and swats mosquitoes in the heart of this wildlife preserve, the real money is on poor, eager-to-please McGee to die in service to NCIS. What are the odds? "Two to one," Murray says. All speculation ends tonight. |
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