The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page 84

In 1999, Hansel Tookes, who graduated from the University of West Florida with a master's degree in aeronautical systems, 8 was named president and chief operating officer of Raytheon Aircraft becoming the first black person to hold the position. Tookes had previously served as president of Pratt Whitney's Large Military Engines group in West Palm Beach. From "Block Firsts: 4,000 Ground-Breaking and Pioneering Historical Events' by Jessie Carney Smith The Palm Beach Post FAMOUS FIRSTS in BLACK HISTORY SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2003 PalmBeachPost.com i Movie and television producers Craig Zadan (left) and Neil Meron 2 0 1 -ft- w'tEUTERS1996 file photo Michael Jackson and Debbie Rowe, mother if 4 Movie musical 'Chicago' starring Catherine Zeta-Jones of his son PrincHGhHw daughter Paris. Puzzle: Why do Jacko's ldds have white skin? i Photo by David James TV musical The Music Man' starring Kristin Chenoweth JsJ izAlJ and Matthew Broderick And other questions of genetics and paternity. I 4f I I i I 1 ji US' Jn Palm Beach Post Staff Report Next week's Us Weekly magazine features photographs of Michael Jackson's son, Prince Michael and asks: With Prince's skin so light, doesn't that raise questions about his paternity? Yes, of course, it does.

Jackson has claimed to be the biological father of his three children, all of whom have pale skin. Prince has blond hair. Daughter Paris has blue eyes. Baby Prince II (nicknamed ap- Video tells Pears t0 have dark Jackson's side eyebrows but light of the story, 7D skin. ii i Is it possible (J cha(l ha for Michael Jack.

Gettin wlggy with son)Whowas 7 born a black man, to father three white children? And what about Michael's straight hair? Is it real? Some of these questions defy biology, but most of them don't. We'll explain. In the recent TV documentary on Jackson, which will be rerun this weekend on VH1, British journalist Martin Bashir questioned Jackson about his plastic surgeries Qackson says he has had just two operations on his nose, to help him hit high notes) and his bizarre bedtime behavior (he says he sleeps with children, but it's not sexual) Jackson showed how he hides his children's faces behind blankets or masks in public. But aside from one passing comment on the color of his daughter's eyes blue the TV special didn't make much of one thing: All three of his children appear to have white skin. Though Jackson is now a lighter shade of pale, he was born black.

The mother of his oldest children, Debbie Rowe, is a blue-eyed blonde. The mother of Blanket is black, See JACKSON, 7D 1 ABC photo Producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron are single-handedly reviving the film musical with 'Chicago' and their sparkling new TV version of 'The Music Strike up the band! them. "Now it's all changed," says Zadan, 53. "Because now they're all sort of in a state of shock. They don't know what hit them.

This is something that just came out of left field." The old-fashioned movie musical except for animated features like Beauty and the Beast or The Lion King had long been dormant in Hollywood. But because of a couple of high-stepping, gun-toting murderesses in the razzle-dazzle Chicago, studios are scrambling to get musicals into production. Such long-shelved projects as Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables and Swnney By HAP ERSTEIN Palm Beach Post Film Writer This is a good week for Craig Zadan and Neil Meron. OK, a great week. The executive producers of the film Chicago saw it receive 13 Oscar nominations on Tuesday, further cementing the popular return of the movie musical.

On Sunday, their new, nimbler version of the 1957 show The Music Man airs nationwide on ABC. And the phones keep ringing with calls from studio executives. The corporate suits who used to roll their eyes when these guys would arrive pitching musical projects are suddenly pursuing Todd, along with a new version of Bye Bye Birdie and a singing-dancing biography of composer-lyricist Cole Porter, are getting placed on the fast track. Much of this about-face on the commercial viability of movie musicals is due to the efforts of Zadan and Meron. But they credit Bette Midler.

Back in 1993, they were offered the rights to the backstage biographical show Gypsy for television. AH they had to do wg persuade one of the major networks to bankroll and broadcast it. They went to a personal friend, CBS Entertainment President Jeff Sagansky. See 'MUSIC MAN', 6D Leslie Gray Streeter The Flick Chick American' gets the scoop on journalism Mfi: THE M5JSBC BOY! (And he's not from River City, but Boca Raton!) 'mrt Freckle-faced Cameron Monaghan makes a big debut in The Music Man. During the Gulf War, when I was a sophomore journalism major at the University of Maryland, CBS reporter Bob Simon was captured by Iraqi forces near the Saudi-Kuwaiti border.

My mother worriedly asked whether I was planning to pursue that type of reporting. Mommy needn't have worried. The only dangerous borders I ever planned to pursue as a reporter were the long lines at the cineplex where the Star Wars fans camp out. Still, I have enough of the news bug to be in awe of hard-core reporters like Simon and CNN's Christiane Aman-pour. Do they risk kidnapping, torture and horrendous death out of some insatiable need to get the story, or are they out to get the story only because of some insat iable need for risk? When we first meet Thomas See FLICK CHICK, 4D Angeles trying to get cast on television shows.

He finally makes his television debut as Winthrop Paroo, the shy, lisping kid brother of Marian the Librarian in ABC's new production of The Music Man. That's quite a coup for a third-grader at Addison Mizner Elementary who got his start at Boca's Little Palm Family Theatre. But ask him how he got noticed by the show's producers and young Monaghan sure sounds like a show-biz veteran. "They told my LA. agent See CAMERON, 6D Cameron Monaghan, 9, plays Winthrop Paroo in 77ie Music Man at 7 p.m.

Sunday on ABC. The new version of 'The Music Man' stays faithful to the original show. REVIEW, 6D By HAP ERSTEIN Palm Beach Post Film Writer At 4-foot-2, freckle-faced and carrot-topped, Cameron Monaghan of Boca Raton is just like any other 9-year-old. Make that any other 9-year-old with a Screen Actors Guild union card, a major made-for-TV movie airing Sunday evening and years of experience jetting out to Los TIM STEPIEN Staff Photographer 1 Ex-Survivor to give her 2 cents for the new series. Celebrity Watch, 2D a Guarneri String Quartet at the Kravis Center.

Concert review, 4D.