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Jackie Chan, Andrea Parker, Barry Manilow

I’m a big fan of Jackie Chan. Can you tell me his age and height? Does he have new projects coming up? Is there a fan club?
—Adrienne T., Washington

Born Chan Kong-sang in Hong Kong, the athletic martial arts actor is 48 years old and 5 feet 8 inches tall. When he was 7, Chan was enrolled in the China Drama Academy. The many theatrical skills he learned there included kung fu and gymnastics. After school, he started working as a stuntman, eventually working in the Bruce Lee films Enter the Dragon and Fist of Fury. When he moved into starring in his own films in Hong Kong, Chan imitated the great Lee, but had no success. It wasn’t until he let his sense of humor and personality shine through that he rose to stardom, first in China and then in the United States. For the most part, he does all his own stunts. As a result he’s broken his nose three times, his ankle, most of the fingers in his hand, both of his cheekbones, and cracked his skull. Coming up for the dynamic star: Shanghai Knights and Around the World in 80 Days. He does have an official fan club. Check out www.jackiechanfans.com or write to Jackie Chan Fan Club USA, P.O. Box 2281, Portland, OR 97208. Chan has been married since 1983. He and his wife have one child.

Is the actress who played Miss Parker on The Pretender back on television? She was able to play a killer and a softhearted person with credibility.
—Haven R., Wisconsin

While she is probably best known to fans as the dogged Miss Parker on The Pretender, which ran on NBC for four seasons, Andrea Parker now is displaying her comedic side. She co-stars on the ABC comedy Less Than Perfect. The native Californian began dancing at 6. When she was 15, she left home to pursue her dream of dancing with the San Francisco Ballet Co. After three years, Parker switched to contemporary dance and began working in Los Angeles, New York, and Europe. She also began studying acting. Her first big break was a Seinfeld episode. Her other television credits include recurring roles on ER and JAG. Parker lives in Los Angeles. Her hobbies include gardening, photography, travel, and stunt driving.

Barry Manilow mentioned during his millennium concert a play he was writing for Broadway. How is that project progressing?
—Barbara C., Tennessee

The play, Harmony, is waiting for a theater to become available on Broadway and is expected to open this fall. It’s an original musical, based on the true story of the Comedian Harmonists, a group of six young men in Germany who started out as street musicians in the 1920s and became wildly popular entertainers, mixing music and slapstick comedy. When the Nazis came to power, they considered the group a threat because some of the members were Jewish. The play has had a long road to Broadway. It debuted in California at the La Jolla Playhouse in 1997 to good reviews. Though best known for his successful pop music career, Manilow has written for the stage before. When he was just 18, working in the mailroom at CBS and attending Juilliard, a director asked him to arrange some songs in the public domain to use in a musical adaptation of a play called The Drunkard. The Brooklyn-born up-and-comer wrote an original score instead, and the musical ran for eight years. He also put together Barry Manilow’s Copacabana-The Musical, which is based on his hit song, Copacabana. It began as a television special in 1985 and opened onstage in London in 1994.

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