Celebrity Sightings – December 2017

 If you’re like me, or the other 12.6 million viewers, and have completely fallen in love with NBC’s hit drama “This is Us,” then there is a good chance you spend your Tuesday nights laughing, crying and cheering along the characters on the show as they portray the reality of an American family. Justin Scott Hartley is an American actor and is known for his television roles that include Fox Crane on the NBC daytime soap opera Passions (2002–2006), Oliver Queen on The CW’s superhero drama series Smallville (2006–2011), and Adam Newmanon the CBS daytime soap opera The Young and the Restless (2014–2016) which earned him an Emmy nomination. Hartley appeared in the recurring role of Patrick Osbourne in the third season of the television series Revenge. Since 2016, he has starred in the NBC drama series This Is Us.
Known as an American comedian, actor, philanthropist and television host, Jay Leno is also a giant “car guy”. Recently our local politician, Scott Wilk(R), Member of the California State Senate from the 21st district, had the opportunity to visit Jay Leno’s “garage” to marvel at some of the prized roadsters. After leaving The Tonight Show in 2009 Jay had a prime talk show, titled The Jay Leno Show, for a short-lived time before returning to The Tonight Show once again from 2010 to 2014. That same year, Leno was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame. Wilk earned his B.A. in Political Science from California State University, Bakersfield. He completed a four-year term on the Board of Directors of the Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital Foundation and he served on the Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce’s Legislative Committee. He is a member of the Simi Valley Chamber of Commerce and a past member of the Granada Hills Rotary Club. Wilk was appointed to the Santa Clarita College District Board of Trustees on August 23, 2006. He was re-elected in November 2007 and November 2011. He also worked as a small business owner, ran a communications firm, and was a former legislative staffer.
Local resident Taylor Kelstrom was kind enough to share a photo he snapped with Tae Bo program creator Billy Banks. Banks is an American fitness guru, martial artist, actor, and the creator of the Tae Bo exercise program. Blanks was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, the fourth of 15 children. Blanks began his study of the martial arts at the age of 11, attending Karate and Taekwondo classes. He was born with an anomaly in his hip joints that impaired his movement. The resulting clumsiness caused taunts from Blanks’ siblings and led his instructors to believe that he would never accomplish much. Blanks found the answer to these challenges in karate. When he saw Bruce Lee on television, he decided he wanted to be a world martial-arts champion, which helped counter the hip anomaly. In the late 1980s, Blanks developed the Tae Bo workout, while running a karate studio in Quincy, Massachusetts. He used components of his martial arts and Boxing training. The name is derived from taekwondo and boxing. Blanks opened a fitness center in Los Angeles to teach his new workout. He later attracted some celebrity clients such as Paula Abdul, and the popularity of the workout quickly grew, becoming a pop culture phenomenon after Blanks began releasing mass-marketed videos. He sold over 1.5 million VHS tapes in his first year, and is reported to have grossed between $80 million and $130 million in sales. Now a days you will find Billy living in Japan with his wife and her two children.
Have your own celebrity sighting? Share it with us by emailing the photo, along with your name and a few words to contest@santaclaritamagazine.com.