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In the movie Parenthood, there was a young actor named Leaf Phoenix who looks a lot like actor Joaquin Phoenix. Are they related?
—Rhonda Caswell, Cleveland, Texas

Actually, Leaf and Joaquin are the same person. He was born Joaquin (pronounced Wah-KEEN), the middle child of five. But when his show-biz siblings took names of earthy elements like River and Rain, he decided to change his to Leaf while raking the yard one day. In Parenthood, Phoenix was indeed Leaf, but the actor reclaimed his birth name in the 1990s before appearing in Gladiator, Ladder 49, The Village, Hotel Rwanda and, most recently, portraying Johnny Cash in Walk the Line, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for best actor.

Do the stars of Two and a Half Men—Charlie Sheen, Angus T. Jones and Jon Cryer— actually sing the opening song on the show?
—Deb Downs, Rozet, N.Y.

Even though the show has done a great job making it look like the trio is singing, the actors actually are lip-synching to a track performed by studio singers.

Do you know the significance of the wedding-type ring that Oprah wears on her left little finger?
—Kathryn B. Selness, Rochester, Minn.

"I had some diamond earrings that were too big; they were too gaudy," Oprah says. "So I had them taken apart, and I had all of the diamonds done into 10 different little rings and gave them to different friends." And she kept one for herself!

Whatever happened to Paul Williams?
—Hope F., Goldsboro, N.C.

One of contemporary music's most prolific and praised songwriters, Williams wrote "Evergreen" and other classics such as "Rainbow Connection," "Just An Old Fashion Love Song" and "We've Only Just Begun." Caught up in success and excess in the 1970s, he became an alcoholic, but later chose sobriety and spent three years helping others in recovery. After a lengthy period of creative inactivity, he returned with a flourish, releasing a new album, Back in Love Again, in 1997; writing a 1998 country hit, "You're Gone," for the band Diamond Rio; composing the songs to a new theatrical musical based on the TV show Happy Days; and adapting the book Chicken Soup for the Soul as a stage show. "It's Rip Van Williams," he says. "I went away and now I'm back."

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