Q&A
Hollywood
Q: I have been watching “Family Feud” since it first came on with Richard Dawson, who started the tradition of dressing sharp with those three-piece suits. I've been wondering lately about Steve Harvey's clothes — are they his own suits? Or are they ones the studio buys for him?
A: The suits “Family Feud” host Steve Harvey wears are his own, and he says that lately he’s actually been trying to break from the show’s tradition.
You might have noticed a significant change in his style about two years ago — a number of fashion insiders certainly did. He continued to dress pretty formally — in the tradition of the show’s previous hosts, as you say. But sources such as the venerable GQ magazine have been commenting on a new embrace of color and pattern in his suits.
He said in an interview with GQ that the show had previously been a bit restrictive. The way it’s shot, he said, meant that he couldn’t get too flashy without causing problems in the editing process. But he said after they saw him in a few TV appearances dressing “how I dress when I’m not at work,” they realized that his style could be TVfriendly after all.And Harvey ran with it.
“It was a breath of fresh air for me, because it took the shackles off.And even though I’m 64 years old, my motto is to be fly ‘til I die.”
He said he went to his personal stylist, Elly Karamoh, and asked him to help him put a new wardrobe together. And you’ve been seeing the results for the past couple of years.
Q: Has Richard Gere done any action work?
A: For a guy best known as a heartthrobby, romantic lead — his most famous roles are still in “Pretty Woman” (1990) and “An Officer and a Gentleman” (1982) — Richard Gere has done more action work than you’d think.
See, for example, his turn in 2009’s “Brooklyn’s Finest,” directed by action-film auteur Antoine Fuqua. Or the espionage thriller “The Jackal” (1997), starring opposite blow-em-up legend Bruce Willis (known to many first and foremost for the Die Hard franchise).
And Gere embraces the genre with his whole self
— for example, he got hurt doing his own stunts for “The Double” (2011), in which he played a retired CIA operative, and “First Knight” (1995), in which he played a different kind of action character: Sir Lancelot.
“First Knight” actually seems to represent a bit of a turning point in his relationship to action, and he admitted at the time to feeling thrown into the deep end during the shoot.
“When I read the script, at first I had no idea there would be so much action,” he said in an interview with Variety magazine. He said that while tending to a head wound after being thrown from a horse.
Head wound aside, that could explain why much of his action work has come later in his career — he proved (or maybe realized) that he could do it on “Knight.”
Of course, with his silverfox good looks and his acting chops, action has remained just a sideline to his dramatic and romantic work.
Q: I just finished watching “Ancient Apocalypse” on Netflix and am wondering if I can see the host anywhere else. He seemed to know a lot and was good on camera.
A: Your description of him seems to be exactly how he got his own show in the first place.
Prior to taking center stage, along with his unorthodox ancient-civilization theories, on “Ancient Apocalypse,” Graham Hancock was a frequent guest expert on a number of similar historical shows.
Most notably, he has appeared 18 times (so far) on the long-running hit “Ancient Aliens.” He appeared, in fact, in the very first episode of the show back in 2010 and most recently appeared in 2021 for Season 17.
Interestingly, Hancock’s most famous theory (explored in-depth on “Ancient Apocalypse”) actually runs contrary to the most famous theory explored on “Ancient Aliens.” Namely, Hancock believes most unexplained archeological findings can be reconciled by the existence of a forgotten human civilization, while “Ancient Aliens” prefers to chalk it all up to our ancestors being visited by aliens.
He’s appeared as a guest on more than two dozen similar docuseries and specials — ones with likely names such as “Ancient Civilizations,” “History’s Mysteries” (a History Channel series hosted by Dan Aykroyd) and the 1990s Fox series “Sightings.”
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