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Jon Hamm (left) and Titus Welliver during filming of "The Town." (Splash News) |
Names
Fireworks in the Fens
Actor Jon Hamm was packing serious heat this week on the set of “The Town,’’ in which the “Mad Men’’ star plays an FBI agent. (His character falls for a female bank employee played by Rebecca Hall.) For the past several days, homeboy Ben Affleck, who’s directing the movie based on Chuck Hogan’s book, has been shooting around his beloved Fenway Park. The fireworks continue this weekend around the Fens, where residents have been told to expect the sounds of gunfire and helicopters.
Knisely off the air at WCRB-FM
Richard Knisely is out at WCRB-FM, where he’s been spinning classical music for a quarter century. WGBH, which this week announced plans to buy the station for $14 million, has unceremoniously dumped the longtime DJ. Knisely’s layoff letter cites “financial constraints of the radio division,’’ but he sounds skeptical and isn’t going pianissimo. “The real issue is that they have been laying people off like me, claiming extreme financial difficulties, and now they suddenly have $14 million to buy another radio station,’’ Knisely told us yesterday. “It just doesn’t make a lot of sense.’’ Knisely suspects ’GBH just doesn’t want to pay his $63,000 salary anymore. Station flack Jeanne Hopkins wouldn’t comment on Knisely’s exit yesterday. For now, his noon to 4 p.m. slot is being handled by others.
Gisele can wait
Celebrity websites have reported that Gisele Bundchen is expecting a boy, but Tom Brady’s supermodel spouse swears the couple doesn’t know the sex. (For the record, we were told it’s a girl, not a boy.) “We decided not to know,’’ Bundchen, 29, told the Brazilian magazine Caras. “We will only know when it is born, in December. I want the emotion of finding out then if it is a boy or a girl.’’ Sounds like Mrs. Brady might like a little girl, if only to dress her. “I kept some little sizes from the collections thinking that, if one day I had a girl, she would love to use them,’’ she said, referring to her sandal line. “The baby versions are really cute.’’ Bundchen says she’ll travel for work, but “my home is in Boston.’’ Asked about Brady, she said her husband’s a big help. “Tom is marvelous,’’ she said.
Meyer on ‘The Host’
Sounds like “Twilight’’ author Stephenie Meyer is psyched about the proposed movie based on her book “The Host.’’ (We reported earlier this week that Gloucester couple Steve and Paula Mae Schwartz are producing the project along with Nick Wechsler.) “They’ve all been a dream to work with, so lovely and collaborative, and I feel like we’re in a really good place to make a great movie together,’’ Meyer wrote on her blog. “And then to have Andrew Niccol writing and directing? Truly awesome. If you’ve never seen ‘Gattaca,’ go watch it now. One of my favorite movies of all time. . . . I’m having an absolute blast imagining different dream casts, which I would post if people didn’t take my silly blogs so seriously these days.’’
Smithsonian welcomes artful Dodger
So you’re walking through the historic halls of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. And look, there’s that iconic silk-screened image from 1980 by Andy Warhol of our late Senator Ted Kennedy, and across from it is Shepard Fairey’s now famous portrait of President Barack Obama. And hey, isn’t that the foul-mouthed, pasta-loving, retired manager of the Dodgers, Tommy Lasorda? It may seem a curious juxtaposition, but the newest of the 20,000 works at the Smithsonian museum, a 60-by-50-inch portrait of Lasorda, painted by New York artist Everett Raymond Kinstler, now hangs next to Warhol’s portrait of Kennedy (separated by an elevator) and across from Obama. “Just lucky,’’ said Julia Zirinsky, when asked about how a pitcher who went 0-4 in his career (and later made the Hall of Fame as a manager) wound up next to the esteemed late senator and across from the president. “It creates interesting conversations because of the placements.’’
McDonough at benefit
Tom Brady’s right-hand man Will McDonough was among the guests at Boston Gives 2009, a benefit for Nativity Preparatory School, Match Charter Public High, Roxbury Preparatory School, and the Boys & Girls Club of Boston. The event raised more than $200,000.
Siegel receives radio award
Congrats to Kiss 108’s Matt Siegel, who won his second
Geoff Edgers and Doug Most of the Globe staff contributed. 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.
