Donnie's Career Goes Great Guns
Ex-New Kid on the Block Donnie Wahlberg's second career is going great guns as the Dorchester homeboy has become a regular Tinseltown titan. Fresh off his guest-starring stint in Belmont homey David E. Kelley's ``The Practice,'' on ABC, Donnie is headed across the pond to appear in ``Band of Brothers,'' a 13-hour, $120 million World War II epic produced by ``Saving Private Ryan'' boys Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. The HBO mini-series, which also stars Patrick Dempsey of ``Scream 3'' as a soldier in the Army's elite 101st Airborne Division, will shoot for more than a year at the former Hatfield Aerodrome in Hertfordshire, England, where ``Private Ryan'' was filmed.
We assume Donnie will be armed and dangerous in the new venture, although we fear he's becoming typecast as the angry young man with a gun. Did you check him out ``The Practice'' last week? Donnie played a disgruntled guy who takes his ex-lawyer, Bobby Donnell, hostage on the Boston legal drama. Didn't Donnie do something very similar in both ``Ransom'' and ``The Sixth Sense?'' It's a living! Of course, our favorite Donnie line was delivered after he asked Bobby, aka Dylan McDermott, where he went to law school. When Donnell replied ``Suffolk,'' Donnie retorted ``Suffolk! That's a racetrack!'' D'oh!
`Doodads' for dinner
And in other Donnie news, he and his partners are closing their newly acquired Howard Johnson's in Canton next month. And after they get rid of the orange roof, it will re-open in early summer as ``Doodads.'' We hear it will be a casual-dining spot with a take-away cafe. And, word is, the eatery will also employ the ex-New Kid's mom, Alma, as hostess and a Wahlberg brother - no, not = Mark! - will be slinging hash in the kitchen. .:*~
BOSTON HERALD
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