Entertainment

It might be hard for Dallas Maverick Dirk Nowitzki to stay in the locker room during halftime of Sunday's 57th NBA All-Star Game at New Orleans Arena. One of Dirk's passions besides basketball is playing the saxophone.

Grammy-winning sax virtuoso Branford Marsalis and singer-pianist Harry Connick Jr. will co-headline the halftime show, which will include an all-star lineup of New Orleans entertainers.

During his recent dinner in the main dining room at the Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek, Oprah Winfrey's favorite personal trainer Bob Greene resisted the temptation to ask fellow diners to sign his "Best Life Challenge" contract to drop those extra pounds.

Instead, he ate his meal.

But that's why Bob was in town. The author of The Best Life Diet was here to drum up interest in the "Best Life Challenge."

He and Oprah hope to get a million people to sign contracts to lose weight.

Former Gov. Dolph Briscoe will be just shy of his 85th birthday when he receives the History Making Texan Award on March 3 at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin.

Mr. Briscoe, owner of an enormous South Texas ranching empire, will be honored alongside former UT football coach Darrell Royal at the Texas State History Museum Foundation's Fourth Annual Texas Independence Day Dinner.

Chef Jim "Sevy" Severson doesn't serve breakfast at his University Park hangout, Sevy's Grill. So why were 600 pancakes roaring out of the kitchen the other morning in less than an hour?

Sevy opened up on a Sunday morning for the third annual pancake breakfast fundraiser to benefit the Hillcrest High School baseball team. Players wearing their team jerseys acted as servers.

"We raised $5,000," Sevy says proudly, "including $1,500 in tips!"

More than 20 years after he fought Marvin Hagler, Dallas-based boxer Sugar Ray Phillips is still living large. Sugar Ray runs his own boxing gym and appeared with Kato Kaelin as the bailiff, Big Sugar Ray, on the courtroom reality TV series Eye For An Eye.

Sugar Ray celebrated his birthday Friday night at Al Biernat's steakhouse and as he was departing, he was heard saying, "Let's head to Love [Field], get in the jet and go to Vegas!"

Later this month, another reality TV star, Judge David Young, is flying to Dallas from his Miami home to attend the DIFFA Dallas Collection jean-jacket auction for the sixth year.

His TV show, Judge David Young, airs locally on KDFI (Channel 27).

Two big DIFFA (Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS) supporters, Patti and Howard Fields, lost their daughter, Dee Dee Fields McKittrick, to AIDS in 1996 when she was 27. Dee Dee was the cousin of Judge Young's partner of 14 years, Judge Scott Bernstein. That connection has fueled Judge Young's interest in the Dallas AIDS benefit.

That was Southwest Airlines president Colleen Barrett and Southwest Airlines chairman Herb Kelleher munching recently at the Palm steakhouse, their longtime hangout.

"Never judge someone by who he's in love with, judge him by his friends," says author Cynthia Heimel. "People fall in love with the most appalling people. Take a cool, appraising glance at his pals."

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