Ren & Christy

As Ren Stevens in the sitcom "Even Stevens" (2000-2003), Christy Carlson Romano helped to define the Disney Channel as a favorite of tweens and teens -- a niche the channel would cement with the likes of Hilary Duff ("Lizzie McGuire") and Raven-Symone ("That's So Raven").

"Before `Even Stevens,' and then `Lizzie McGuire,' they didn't have a name to really call us," Romano recalled. "So we got coined as `the Disney Channel stars.' I felt kind of like, wow, this is for real. It was a big deal at the time."

Romano, 22, is all grown up now, but the teenage years are the subject of her new novel, "Grace's Turn," a semiautobiographical tale of a 16-year-old girl juggling the competing demands of ambition, friendship, and romance. In typical young-adult-fiction style, Grace di Giovanni struggles to remain true to herself while navigating a turbulent relationship with a self-absorbed jock and trying out for the lead in a high school musical (hey, there's that Disney Channel connection).

Romano says she wrote "Grace's Turn" in two months while filming a made-for-TV movie. "I was really interested in documenting some of my life experiences being in the business," said Romano, who has been acting professionally since she was 6. "What she embodies is something that I am in my daily life." Like Grace, Romano has gone through harrowing auditions in the cutthroat world of musical theater; and like Grace, Romano has had to battle severe bouts of stage fright.

``It's always in my mind when I'm going to audition for a show," she admitted, such as when she auditioned a couple of years ago for Disney's musical version of ``Beauty and the Beast." (She got the part of Belle, and enjoyed a lengthy run on Broadway.)

Romano is a native of Milford, Conn., and her godfather is Senator Christopher Dodd, a law school classmate of her father. She has been back in Connecticut recently to visit her family and to prepare to perform today in a free concert at Charter Oak Landing in Hartford. To hear her tell it, she also just needed a taste of the real world as an antidote to what she called ``such a trendy, even sick world as Hollywood."

"That's why I came home for a month," said Romano. "If you stay there [in Hollywood], you have to make sure as heck to keep yourself anchored." Her family is part of what keeps her anchored, she said . "They're so proud I've been able to cut through all the baloney I have to deal with sometimes." In the past year, the career carousel of the actress-singer-author has picked up speed. She has released a solo album, taken part in a concert tour with Raven-Symone and Jump 5, starred in two made-for-TV movies (including "Campus Confidential"), and earned a Daytime Emmy nomination for her voice work on the Disney Channel animated series, ``Kim Possible."

Romano is already contemplating a sequel to "Grace's Turn," one that will feature "more description, more artistic intent." She is on leave from Barnard College, but she made sure to drop off a copy of "Grace's Turn" to a favorite dean at Barnard. ``She was more than thrilled to see that I'm an author, that I'm not just hanging around the pool in Hollywood," said Romano.
DON AUCOIN

Paul McCartney's "Ecce Cor Meum (Behold My Heart)," a classical work for chorus and orchestra, will premiere at Royal Albert Hall in London on Nov. 3. The concert will feature soprano Kate Royal and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields Orchestra; London Voices; the boy singers of Magdalen College Choir, Oxford; and the boys of King's College Choir, Cambridge, conducted by Gavin Greenaway -- the same cast that appears on the studio recording, to be released Tuesday by EMI Classics. Anthony Smith, president of Magdalen College from 1998 to 2005, asked the former Beatle to compose a work celebrating the opening of the college's new concert hall.

After receiving complaints from patrons, a Los Angeles nightclub has canceled a performance by Buju Banton, a reggae star whose violent lyrics about gays and lesbians have made him a controversial figure. E-mails and phone calls from concerned customers prompted the cancellation of the Oct. 2 show, said Adam Manacker, general manager of the Highland nightclub and restaurant. In July, concerts featuring Banton and Beenie Man were canceled in Britain after activists said both artists refused to stop using anti-gay lyrics. Two of Banton's songs released early in his career, ``Batty Rider" and "Boom Bye Bye," glorify the shooting of gay men. Banton was tried and acquitted on charges that he participated in the beating of six gay men by a Jamaica gang in 2004.

After a little more than three years of marriage, Matt LeBlanc has finalized his divorce. The 39-year-old actor has been granted joint custody of his 2-year-old daughter, Marina, with wife Melissa LeBlanc, according to court papers. Melissa LeBlanc has two children from a previous marriage. The LeBlancs filed for divorce on April 6, citing irreconcilable differences. They will be officially single again on Oct. 6. LeBlanc will be financially responsible for his daughter's education, nanny, and other needs. He will also pay $15,000 a month in child support.

"We've said in a lot of interviews, "There's no way we're going to be 35 or 40 doing this show," and here we are at 35, and we're doing the show.' Matt Stone, co-creator of "South Park," which begins its 10th season next month.

FROM WIRE REPORTS