Ask American Profile 7/20/2008

Q KISS has always been my favorite band. What’s up with lead singer Paul Stanley these days?
—Amy Astor, La Grange, Texas

Stanley, 56, who co-founded the durable rock group in the early 1970s with musical partner Gene Simmons, is hitting the road this year for a 35th KISS anniversary tour of Europe. When he’s not making music, he’s painting, a lifelong smoldering passion that he rekindled several years ago as a way of dealing with a painful divorce. To his surprise, he found that the public was interested in his brushstrokes, and several of his creations have sold for upward of $50,000. He’s a believer in the transformative power of art, in whatever form. “Whether you live in a station wagon or a villa,” he says, “art will make your life better.”

Q Señor Wences was a ventriloquist and a regular on The Ed Sullivan Show back in the 1960s. Can you tell me a little about him?
—Larry Jones, Fulton, Mo.

Born in Spain, Wences became famous as a ventriloquist through his repeated appear-ances on The Ed Sullivan Show, where his act typically includ-ed a puppet face made from his hand, and a disembodied head in box that growled “S’awright.” He became a pop-cultural icon in later years, with references to his act cropping up in TV shows such as Scooby-Doo, South Park and The Simpsons. He died in 1999, three days after his 103rd birthday. A section of 54th Street in New York, just around the corner from the Ed Sullivan Theater, is named Señor Wences Way in his honor.

Q Where was the building that was used as the prison “castle” in the movie The Last Castle?
—John Dorough, Beaumont, Texas

The 2001 movie about a court-martialed general (Robert Redford) and his clash with a corrupt military prison warden (James Gandolfini) was filmed on location at a real prison, the now-closed Tennessee State Penitentiary in Nashville.

Q What is Meg Ryan doing these days? Any more movies in her future?
—Frank Chavez, Copperopolis, Calif.

The When Harry Met Sally and You’ve Got Mail star, 46, has two new movies coming your way: The Deal, a comedy co-starring William H. Macy and slated for release in August, and The Women, a remake of a 1939 film, which will hit theaters in October. On the personal side, she’s a busy mom to daughter Daisy True, whom she adopted from China in 2006; she also has a son, Jack, 16, from her 10-year marriage to actor Dennis Quaid, which ended in 2001. During a two-year acting hiatus, Ryan worked with CARE, a humanitarian organization dedicated to fighting global poverty with a focus on women.

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