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Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise went for a jog in Back Bay yesterday. (INF) |
Names
Stars align for U2 show
A slew of celebs spent Sunday under the stars at Gillette Stadium, watching Bono and the boys play to a packed house. With a bird’s-eye view from an observation deck set up in front of the soundboard were A-list action man Tom Cruise and wife Katie Holmes, along with actresses Cameron Diaz and Ashley Judd, who was rocking with her husband, handsome race car driver Dario Franchitti. (Cruise and Diaz are in town shooting a big-budget flick, while Judd’s hitting the books at Harvard.) Before the show, Bono and the Edge greeted a few folks backstage, including Judd and Franchitti, J. Geils singer Peter Wolf, and former Boston Garden president Larry Moulter. Wolf, we’re told, chatted with the Edge about his upcoming solo LP featuring the likes of Merle Haggard and Shelby Lynne. U2’s manager, Paul McGuinness, was wandering about with his son, Max, a graduate student at Harvard. (Also at the show were Oedipus and Carter Alan, both DJs who helped break U2 in Boston back in the day.) After the show, Bono and the Edge dropped by Revolution Rock Bar, where VIP guests included Judd, Wolf, members of the Irish band Snow Patrol, and DJ Mateo of the Fun Lovin’ Criminals. Bono mingled for a while, dropping ducats in the laps of grateful Revolution staffers, before returning to the Four Seasons to get some sleep. The frontman was out the door early yesterday getting ready for the second show last night. Cruise and his wife, meanwhile, hit the bricks for a morning run in Boston’s Back Bay.
Gisele learning to fly in Marshfield
Paparazzi circled the Marshfield airport yesterday after gossip website TMZ.com revealed that Gisele Bundchen has been taking helicopter flying lessons on the property. “It’s ridiculous. There are cameras everywhere,’’ said Keith Douglass, president of Shoreline Aviation, the vendor at the airport. For the record, Bundchen is not taking lessons with Shoreline. Mrs. Tom Brady has hired a private instructor to teach her how to run a chopper. “This was the best-kept secret until last Friday,’’ Douglass said, laughing. Bundchen is apparently taking her lessons seriously. According to a source at Norwood Memorial Airport, the now-local supermodel recently stopped by the Norwood flight tower because Marshfield’s airport doesn’t have one. She requested a sit-down with Norwood’s tower manager so she could get a lesson in air traffic control. “He gave her all kinds of time,’’ our Norwood source told us. “I can’t say I blame him.’’ In case you’re worried, the Federal Aviation Administration tells us that it’s OK for the pregnant Bundchen to fly the friendly skies. FAA spokesman Jim Peters says that as long as Bundchen has an instructor by her side, she can fly throughout her pregnancy. If she decides to go solo, she’ll need an endorsement from her instructor and a medical certificate. Brady recently confirmed that Bundchen is due in December.
Fashion statement
What to say about that dress worn by homegirl Victoria Rowell to the Emmys? The strapless frock with President Obama’s face all over it made nearly everyone’s “worst dress’’ list after the awards ceremony. Rowell, who was born in Portland, Maine, and learned to dance at the Cambridge School of Ballet, did not wear a garment resembling a wall hanging when she married artist Radcliffe Bailey over the summer.
Mission of ‘Mercy’
People who knew Taylor Schilling back in high school in Wayland shouldn’t be thrown when they see the willowy blonde in the new NBC drama “Mercy,’’ premiering tomorrow night at 8. She’s talking like that because her character, nurse Veronica Flanagan, is from New Jersey. Although Schilling admits to struggling with the accent in the pilot, she’s enjoying digging into her role. Her character passes the tough days working at Mercy Hospital with her nurse pals Chloe (Michelle Trachtenberg) and Sonia (Jaime Lee Kirchner) and is dealing with a complicated love life. On one side she’s got volatile hubby Mike (Diego Klattenhoff) from whom she’s separated, and on the other she is surprised by the appearance of Dr. Sands (James Tupper) with whom she shared a fling during a tour of duty in Iraq. We chatted up Schilling in Pasadena, Calif., at an event for NBC’s fall season.
Q. What’s it like representing someone in the armed forces just back from Iraq? It seems like a huge responsibility.
A. It does, and I feel it. And I feel like the time I’ve spent with the unimaginably brave men and women who have come back or who are currently deployed, it’s like I can’t understand their experience fully, and actually I don’t know if that’s my job as an actor. It’s just to sort of represent them the best I can, and in a way I feel it’s just like paying gratitude.
Q. How often do you get home?
A. I actually get up to see my dad relatively often. I go over to New Bedford once every couple of months.
Q. Did you have any crummy jobs growing up?
A. I worked as a hostess at a restaurant in Wayland when I was in high school and I got fired after two weeks. (Laughs). I wore flip-flops to work and they were like, get out and stay out.
Q. Why do you think it’s important to have a show about nurses?
A. Working on this role it’s become more and more clear to me how nurses are the backbone of our hospital system. I’ve been spending time in different hospitals around New York, and it’s been really, really exciting.
Stern plays hard to get
If Boston University wants to honor Howard Stern, it will have to try a little harder. Talking yesterday on his
Taking folk music’s past into the future
Veteran folkies Jim Kweskin and Geoff Muldaur shared the Hard Rock Café stage the other night with new talents Meg Hutchinson, Anne Heaton, Matt Berlin, and Jonatha Brooke to celebrate the launch of the New England Folk Music Archives, which will be based in Porter Square. The Sunday night party happened to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Club 47, which in 1969 became the venue we know as Club Passim. Highlights of the festivities included Kweskin and Muldaur singing “Happy Birthday’’ to Betsy Siggins, the founder of the archives project who ran Passim for years. Siggins turns 70 next week.
Sarah Rodman of the Globe staff and Globe correspondent Steve Morse contributed to this column. Read the Names blog at www.boston.com/namesblog. Names can be reached at names@globe.com or at 617-929-8253. 
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.
