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Strollerderby
When most people think about the movie “Say Anything…,” they think about John Cusack, a boombox and Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes.” Then they think about Lili Taylor singing “Joe Lies.” Then maybe they think about John Cusack, on a payphone in the pouring rain, proclaiming, “I gave her my heart. And she gave me a pen.”
But eventually, after they’ve covered all those things, they will eventually recall that Cusack’s character — the iconic, perpetually romantic kickboxer Lloyd Dobler — had a nephew. You remember this kid. He also did a little kickboxing. He had a mullet. His mom was played by Joan Cusack. And when Lloyd asked, “Hey, my brother. Can I borrow a copy of your ‘Hey Soul Classics’?,” the kid responded: “No, my brother. You have to go buy your own.”
Turns out little Jason Dobler was played by an actor named Glenn Walker Harris, Jr. And since 2009 marks the 20th (!) anniversay of “Say Anything…,” this seems like as good a time as any to find out what happened to him.
It takes a very special girl to win the heart of Steve Urkel. And Laura Winslow — as played by Kellie Williams during nine seasons of TV’s “Family Matters” — was just that sort of special girl.
Williams, a native of Forestville, Md., in the Washington D.C. area, dabbled in modeling and theater before she snagged her starring role on the ABC (and later, briefly, CBS) sitcom at the age of 13. So what has happened to her since the days of laugh tracks and listening to Urkel repeatedly ask the question, “Did I do that?” Let’s find out.
As mentioned in last week’s Rich or Rehab, I am devoting the month of October to tracking down child stars of the horror genre. Which brings us to this week’s subject: Alex Vincent, the boy who starred as Andy in the first two “Child’s Play” movies.
First of all, it could not have been easy being a 7-year-old kid and having to share so many scenes with Chucky, easily the ugliest doll in toy history. And I’m talking even before he started cursing at people and trying to murder them. Seriously, that little @*!#ing thing was just not attractive. But somehow Vincent managed to survive the experience. So where is he now?
In honor of October — the year’s most ghoulish, Halloweeny time — every Rich or Rehab this month will focus on kids who starred in scary movies.
Our first horror star: Danny Lloyd, the young boy who mumbled some stuff about “redrum” and darted through a maze to escape from a psychotic Jack Nicholson in “The Shining.” What happened to him after his uneventful and delightful stay at Stanley Kubrick’s version of the Overlook Hotel?
In last week’s Rich or Rehab, I wrote about five of the musically gifted kids who starred in “School of Rock.” This week I attempt — and not always successfully — to track down a few more.
Without further delay, let’s get rockin’.
If you watched “Welcome Back, Kotter” when you were a kid, you probably had a favorite Sweathog. Some preferred John Travolta’s Vinnie Barbarino because, let’s face it, he was pretty hot. Others admired the “Hi there” smoothness of one Freddie “Boom Boom” Washington. And still others stood in quiet awe of Juan Epstein and his unsurpassed ability to forge notes from his mother.
Then there was Arnold Horshack, the goofy, guffawing, naive and sweet Sweathog who won the nation’s heart with his constant enthusiasm for answering questions in class. Horshack was played by a young actor named Ron Palillo. Does anyone want to know what he’s up to now? Please, don’t all raise your hands and shout, “Oooh! Oooh!” all at once.
After the recent, sad passing of John Hughes, plenty of Gen Xers — and, for that matter, movie lovers of any generation — have been revisiting the writer-director’s filmography. The whereabouts of most of the stars of his many successful comedies — Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Matthew Broderick, Macaulay Culkin, Jon Cryer — are pretty well-established. But few may know what path was taken by the actress who played the title role in Hughes’s final directorial effort.
But that’s what today’s Rich or Rehab will determine: whatever happened to the girl who played Curly Sue?
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