As former FOX 6 reporter Joe LaBarbera likes to tell the story, after his heart stopped in 2002, he didn’t call in sick; he called in dead. Actually, Joe recovered and kept working for Fox until retiring in 2006. Since signing off, he’s worked on his master’s degree at UW-Whitewater, launched a company that teaches law enforcement how to handle the media and spoken on that topic at conventions around the country. Oh, and he serves as the voice of Beaver Dam High School football on WBEV-AM.
Frank Caliendo,the wildly popular comedian and impressionist (he does a great John Madden and George Bush) will host his own television sketch comedy series, “FRANK TV,” debuting Nov. 20 on TBS. Caliendo attended Waukesha South High School and graduated from UW-Milwaukee in 1996 before getting prominent roles on “Mad TV” and “FOX NFL Sunday.” Variety recently called Caliendo, “Rich Little for a new generation.”
Remember Marilyn Karos? She’s the former art dealer and Whitefish Bay resident who served seven months in prison in 2001 for possession of stolen Roman artifacts and then 20 months in 2004 and 2005 for obstruction of justice. It seems Karos committed yet another crime down in St. Louis by attempting to sell a fake copy of Rembrandt’s famous Man with the Golden Helmet for $2.8 million to an undercover FBI agent. She served a year in prison for conspiracy and mail fraud and was released in April.
Just a little off the top, please.Tammi Savic, who was twice voted top colorist in Milwaukee Magazine’s “Top Salons” feature, is leaving Beauty on Farwell to join Erik of Norway’s new Downtown location. Beauty is also losing Matt Mackai, who was heralded as a rising star by this magazine, and within the last year, it lost hair stylist Emma Laehn to another Downtown salon, Groom.
Is former Milwaukee Police Chief Arthur Jones gearing up for another run for mayor? A “Jones For Mayor” sign appeared on the 860 WNOV-AM building over Labor Day weekend, even though Jones has joined the staff of rival station 1290 WMCS-AM. Weird. Neither Jones nor WNOV owner Jerrel Jones (no relation) could be reached for comment.
The hot musical comedy The Producers opened in Lincolnshire, Ill., in September with Milwaukee stage veteran Ross Lehman starring as incorrigible theater producer Max Bialystock. It runs until Dec. 2 at the Marriott Theatre.
Actress Amy Pietz returned to her alma mater, Milwaukee High School of the Arts, for a presentation in September. Pietz stars in a new TV comedy, “Aliens in America,” set in a small (fictional) town in Wisconsin. Pietz says she’s still buddies with five different MHSA grads, including her roommate in L.A., Latonya Hagen.
Former UW-Madison chancellor and current University of Miami President Donna Shalala had one uneventful summer. In June, The Wall Street Journal asked 60 people what their goals for the summer were, and Shalala vowed to “read a bunch of Proust” and “lower her golf handicap from 20 to 15.” Three months later, Shalala achieved exactly none of her goals. Interestingly, she gave herself a B. Apparently grading on a curve.
Upon graduating from Marquette University, Buddhika Jayamaha enlisted in the U.S. military and is now stationed in Baghdad as a specialist with the 82nd Airborne. In August, he and six fellow soldiers wrote a much-debated op-ed for The New York Times that questioned current strategies and the merits of their mission. Since then, co-authors Omar Mora and Vance Gray have died in combat and Jerimiah Murphy was severely wounded, adding more angst for a divided nation.
Whitefish Bay’s “Healthy Communities Project” has garnered national attention from The Wall Street Journal.The story reported that “the village of Whitefish Bay has become a microcosm of the new turf wars. Intent on switching the community over to an organic approach, a citizen’s group is hanging tags on residents’ doors urging them to lay off pesticides…‘Some people are receptive and some are hostile,’ says (Whitefish Bay resident) Sandy Hellman.”
Four very fit firefighters from Merton (Waukesha County) – Thomas Clements, Josh Paral, Brian Wankowski and Tyler Gall – qualified for October’s U.S. Nationals Firefighter Combat Challenge in Atlanta and November’s World Combat Challenge XVI, to be held in Las Vegas. “We are working hard on our performance,” says team captain Clements. Apparently.
Here’s the pitch: A love-story thriller centered on the search for a missing actress and dog-fighting. Sort of When Harry Met Sally meets Kiss The Girls meets Michael Vick. That’s the plot of Dogged, a new film to be shot in Milwaukee this winter. Milwaukee native Genevieve Davis is producer-director and will feature local talent such as Carol Hirschi, who has performed with Milwaukee Chamber Theatre.
