Inqlings: Letter-perfect honor for Kate Smith
The Flyers stuck by singer Kate Smith, and now the team is in line to host the unveiling of a Kate Smith stamp.
The Flyers stuck by singer
Kate Smith
, and now the team is in line to host the unveiling of a Kate Smith stamp.
The U.S. Postal Service says plans are being worked out for a ceremony at the Kate Smith statue outside the Spectrum. Her rendition of "God Bless America" has been the Flyers' good-luck charm: The team carries a 80-21-4 record when her recording is played before games.
The ceremony is penciled in for 1 p.m. May 19. Just after 1 p.m. May 19, 1974, Smith rattled the rafters live at the Spectrum before the deciding Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals, when the Flyers beat the Boston Bruins. Smith died in 1986.
The USPS will release the stamp on May 27 - by sheer coincidence, 35 years to the day that the Flyers won their second Cup.
At the movies
Film director
Neil Burger
said
The Dark Fields
- the movie he's shooting with Rydal-raised
Bradley Cooper
- could be the "tour de force" that puts the hunky actor from such comedies as
The Hangover
and
The Wedding Crashers
in a new light.
"Bradley gets to play so many aspects of a human being," Burger said. The thriller, based on Alan Glynn's novel, stars Cooper as Eddie, a down-and-out writer who gets hold of a smart drug that makes him "a better version of himself," Burger said during a break in filming Thursday, while newly arrived costar Anna Friel was getting hair and makeup tests in a trailer next door. "It's not sci-fi - it's based on drugs that are out there, like steroids for the mind," said Burger, who previously directed his own scripts (Interview With the Assassin, The Illusionist).
Philly, subbing for New York, has "the energy that only a few big metropolises have," Burger said.
Thursday and Friday, The Dark Fields was set up at 19th and Wood Streets, smack between Hallahan High (whose rear facade was done up to resemble a New York Police Department precinct) and the Family Court building (whose basement was turned into a jail). The sight of miniskirted "hookers" in front of a Catholic girls' school was surreal.
Monday and Tuesday will find the company inside Billy G's, a diner at 12th and Callowhill Streets, for a scene in which Eddie meets his ex-wife (Friel) for coffee. Robert De Niro, who plays the villain chasing Eddie, is due May 3 for a little more than a week of work.
Sweet
Another home confectioner is busily putting the
ton
in Burlington County. Less than a week after Delanco's
Sue Compton
won the Pillsbury Bake-Off with her Mini Ice Cream Cookie Cups, Medford's
Lisa Burns
was named a finalist in Dunkin' Donuts "Create Dunkin's Next Donut" contest.
Burns, 46, says she melded her two favorite flavors - peanut butter and chocolate - with Reese's Pieces candy and Reese's peanut butter cup shavings to come up with the Nut N' Fancy, one of 12 finalists among 90,000 entries. "It was just a lunch-hour thing to do," said Burns, 46, billing manager for Post & Schell, the Center City law firm. "I thought it looked like fun. Who knew?"
Online voting at www.dunkindonuts.com through May 3 counts for part of each contestant's score. She's headed to the chain's Donuts University outside Boston for a May 6 baking battle that will have her pumping in peanut butter filling and slathering on chocolate icing. Winner will be announced June 4.
As a finalist, Burns won $1,200 and a year's supply of doughnuts. She'd put the $12,000 grand prize toward a Shore rental for her family - husband James, son Brian, 21, and daughter McKenna, 13 - as Brian is bound for the Navy.
Meanwhile, Monday will mark the return to work at Greentree Mortgage in Marlton for Bake-Off winner Compton, who won $1 million on April 14. But she's coming back part time.
Briefly noted
We'll be seeing more of 6-foot-6, 320-pound Eagles tackle
Winston Justice
. He's signed on with MilkBoy Communications to handle publicity, interactive marketing, and personal appearances, such as May 7's Night of Champions benefit for Magee Rehabilitation. Also, Justice and his wife,
Dania,
who'd been renting in Southwest Center City, were spotted house-hunting in Center City with
Nancy Alperin
of Maxwell Realty.
Conestoga High grad Todd Glass, 45, who collapsed with a heart attack after an April 16 comedy show in L.A. with Sarah Silverman and Jeff Ross, described his brush with death Thursday on the Preston & Steve show on WMMR (93.3). The comedian underwent angioplasty. Hopped up on Lipitor, Glass plugged his dates May 7 and 8 at Comedy Cabaret in Doylestown.
Phillies announcer Scott Franzke and his wife, Lori, are first-time parents: a 7-pound, 15-ounce boy, born Thursday night shortly after the Phils beat the Braves. His name is August. A Phils rep explained that the couple just like the name "Gus." Most Phillies fans like the name "Octo."