The Who2 Blog

We were in Miami or St. Thomas, hanging out on one of the aft decks at a bar, waiting to shoot. This guy came up — turns out he was some mid-level executive at Princess Cruises. He said, “I had to come over here and talk to you two guys because — how do I say this? — you guys have made me so rich! I can’t believe it! This show is such a hit! We’re all making so much money! My God!” He just went into this paroxysm of euphoria about how successful he was. Then he calmed down and said, “Sorry, sorry. Do you want a Pina Colada or anything?

Which actor is the all-time champ in box-office receipts? Based on the total gross income of all his films, that is.(Hint: It’s not Tom Hanks.)The answer here. The women’s champ is more predictable.

Nine years already since Stanley Kubrick passed on.Less surprising: 40 years since the release of his masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968.Later that year when Playboy asked him “What does it all mean?”, Kubrick had some suitably deep thoughts.

The last known survivor of American forces in World War One visited the White House his week. Dude is 107.

Stephen Schwartz, composer of Godspell and Wicked, turns 60 today.

Actor Patrick Swayze has pancreatic cancer but is “responding well to treatment,” according to Reuters.Swayze’s publicist refuted claims by The National Enquirer that Swayze had been given five weeks to live.

It’s been 45 years, amazingly, since the death of country singer Patsy Cline. That’s 1.5 times her own lifespan of 30 years.And it’s 26 years ago today for John Belushi. He was 33 when he died in 1982. (Side note: Ayn Rand died the very next day.)

(The first in a series of excerpts from the biographies of popular musicians.)Today: R&B singers Pretty Ricky.”Miami heat is nothing compared to Pretty Ricky’s scorching musical inferno. Not since the days of music legends like The Beatles, the Jackson 5 or more recently NSync has there been such a fevered pitch, creating hysteria and chaos when crowds glimpse brothers Spectacular, Pleasure, Slick Em and Baby Blue.”(From their official site.)

John McCain is the Republican nominee for president in 2008.

In the recent flap over Mick Jagger and the Hell’s Angels, we discovered this Q&A he did with BBC News readers last October. A sampler:Q: “I’d like to know if the Mick Jagger one sees on stage is the real persona or a caricature developed over time and influenced by what you think the public expect.”