Summer's Latter-Day Stars
Move over, Kabbalah, there's a new sect in show biz. As JON HEDER, who plays a geeky Idahoan in the teen sleeper Napoleon Dynamite, explains, "Dude, it's cool to be Mormon." Heder and Dynamite's writer-director, Jared Hess, are members of the Mormon church, as are most of the film's cast and crew. RYAN GOSLING, the brooding heartthrob in the summer weepy The Notebook, grew up Mormon in Canada. But the toast (nonalcoholic) of Salt Lake City this July has to be Jeopardy! mega-champ KEN JENNINGS, who had won a record $920,960 by the end of last week. Jennings plans to donate 10% of his jackpot to the Mormon church. That's one mission accomplished.
Most Popular »
- How Cash Keeps Poor People Poor
- E.T. Turns 30: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Our Favorite Extraterrestrial
- No Spontanaeity Allowed: How to Visit North Korea as a Tourist in Four (Restrictive) Steps
- A New First Amendment Right: Videotaping The Police
- 15-Year-Old Creates Test for Pancreatic Cancer
- Fourth Flesh-Eating-Bacteria Case Confirmed in Georgia, Possible Fifth
- Nevada Ghosts: Rare Photos From an A-Bomb Test
- 10 Dangerous Products You Might Have in Your Home
- Euro Crisis: Why A Greek Exit Could Be Much Worse Than Expected
- Star Wars Turns 35: How TIME Covered the Film Phenomenon
- Researchers Probe the Potential Health Benefits of Palm Oil
- A Visit with Turkey's Controversial Religious Movement
- Feeding the Planet Without Destroying It
- Bubble on the Potomac
- Falcon's Liftoff: How a Private Firm Could Change Space Exploration
- The Fatal Flight of the Superjet 100: Why Did It Slam Into a Mountain?
- Learning That Works
- The Man Who Remade Motherhood
- Bibi's Choice
- Seoul: 10 Things to Do
More News from Our Partners
Top Stories on TIME.com
Quotes of the Day »
RAY KELLY, New York City Police Commissioner, on the arrest of a New Jersey man in one of the nation's most baffling missing-children cases, the disappearance more than three decades ago of 6-year-old Etan Patz.
