Parade 12 12 15

ASSIGNING EDITOR ___________ | MANAGING EDITOR __________ | COPY EDITOR __________ | PHOTO EDITOR __________ | EDIT. DIRECTOR __________ | EIC __________

PAGE: 01 CODE: 11A1 BOOK: 16 ISSUE: 12-13-15

Star Wars fans have fueled a $28 billion franchise over nearly four decades. Who are these Jedi and what makes them tick? We find out—just in time for the seventh blockbuster film, The Force Awakens.

PLUSFamous Christmas Trees, p. 4

Duff Goldman’s Foolproof Fudge, p. 13

Three generations of the Allen-Martin family, Edison Township, N.J., November 19, 2015

Star Wars fans have fueled a $28 billion franchise over nearly four decades. Who are these Jedi and what makes them tick? We find out—just in time for the seventh blockbuster film, The Force Awakens.

S U N DAY, D EC E M B E R 1 3 , 2 0 1 5 | PA RA D E .CO M

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© PARADE Publications 2015. All rights reserved.


2 | DECEMBER 13, 2015

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Cruise-in’ With TomHere are fi ve fun facts about the 53-year-old star of Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation, to be released on DVD and Blu-ray Dec. 15.

1. He took up acting after a knee injury cost him a spot on his high school wrestling team.

2. His fi rst career choice: Catholic priest.

3. When Cruise put on a pair of Ray-Bans for Risky Business (1983), sales of the sun-glasses increased 2,000 percent.

4. As a teen, he perfected his dance moves by watching Soul Train.

5. Disney used his good looks as the model for Aladdin in the 1992 animated fi lm of the same name.

Email your questions for Walter Scott to [email protected]

The Oscar and Emmy Award winner, 55, has a reputation for making anything better simply by being in it—like TV’s Treme and Wayward Pines and the movies Frozen River and The Fighter. On Dec. 23, she plays Georgia Hale, a financial adviser, as part of an all-star ensemble cast that includes Brad Pitt, Christian Bale, Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling, in The Big Short. The film, based on the best-selling

book by Michael Lewis (Moneyball), is about a group of outsiders who predicted Wall Street’s housing bubble collapse of the mid-2000s.

What can you tell me about Gwendoline Christie from Game of Thrones? —Paul R., Bellevue, Neb. A: The British actress is best known for her role as Brienne of Tarth in the popular HBO series. But that will change with the release of Star Wars: Episode VII—The Force Awakens on Dec. 18, in which Christie, 37, who stands 6 feet 3 inches tall, will play chrome stormtrooper Captain Phasma. Last month, she also starred as Commander Lyme, a former Hunger Games victor in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay—Part 2, the fi nal fi lm in the series.

WALTER SCOTT ASKS ...

What did Leo learn about Lady Bird Johnson from playing her for an upcoming HBO movie?

Go to Parade.com/melissaleo to fi nd out.

The Big Short sounds timely, but perhaps difficult to tackle. “[Director/writer] Adam McKay tells the story in a way that it really can be understood. When we have understand-ing about things, we can set about making them right. And we’re all going to have to just do it, like Americans have always had to do.”

Despite winning both an Oscar and Emmy, you call yourself a “working actor.” What does that mean? “I love the work of acting. Being in a hotel room and eating rice macaroni and cheese—that’s my life on the road. I am an actor and I am a player. That’s my role on the set, liter-ally speaking, and

it is play and it is a fun, wonderful thing and an arduous, god-awful life that I wouldn’t trade for anything. Don’t get me wrong.”Beyond acting, what are your big-gest interests?“Food is a world concern: what we

eat, when we eat, how we eat and who’s not getting food. Back home in Ulster County, N.Y., the farms have gotten together, and a lot of what might end up being waste they bring to schools and feed the children.”

MELISSA LEO

Is it true that Tom Jones and Elvis Presley were friends? —Gemma C., New London, Conn.A: Indeed they were. They met in 1965 and were friends until Presley’s death in 1977. Now Jones, 75, has released his autobiography, Over the Top and Back (Blue Rider), and a new CD called Long Lost Suitcase, which includes “Elvis Presley Blues” as a celebra-tion of the King’s life. “I wanted to let the people know how much I felt about Elvis,” the Welshman says. “I thought if we can capture that [in song], it would be a hell of a tribute.”

WALTER SCOTT’S

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11242015131053 Approved with warnings


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Oh, ChristmasTree!

Edited by M.B. Roberts / L I K E U S AT FACEBOOK.COM/PARADEMAG

Parade

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We’ve been decorating—seriously decorating—Christmas trees for 169 years thanks to England’s Queen Victoria, who ignited a world-

wide craze when she trimmed a royal tree in 1846. Here’s some inspiration along with instructions for

tricking out your own tree.

DECK YOUR TREE LIKE…THE ROCKEFELLER CENTER CHRISTMAS TREEThe exquisite 550-pound Swarovski star topper on the Rockefeller Cen-ter Christmas Tree in New York City is made of 25,000 crystals, 720 LED bulbs, 44 circuit boards and 3,000 feet of wire. Bedazzle your own tree

with a replica of the real thing, a Swarovski star ornament. $80, swarovski.com

BLAME IT ON CHARLIE BROWN

The popularity of the aluminum Christmas tree, introduced to the

mass market in 1959 by the Aluminum Specialty Company, took a nosedive when A Charlie Brown Christmas fi rst aired in

1965. (In the show, Charlie Brown and Linus choose a humble real tree over a

fl ashy aluminum model.) In the past decade,

aluminum trees—the cool-est ones feature rotating color

wheels that shine changing hues of light on the branches—have made

a comeback.

COUNTRY MUSIC TREESHankering for a Christmas tree just like Dolly Parton’s? You can bid on a tree dec-orated by Dolly (or other country music stars, including LeAnn Rimes and Little Big Town) as part of Parade of Trees: A Dazzling Holiday Fundraiser at Nashville’s Gaylord Opry-land Resort. Place bids (proceeds go to the stars’ favorite charities) at oprylandparadeoftrees.com through Jan. 2, 2016.

THE WHITE HOUSE TREETune in Dec. 13 at 6 p.m. ET for HGTV’s annual White House Christmas special for a sneak peek as the residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (and hundreds of volunteer elves) deck their halls.

Visit Parade.com/whitechristmas for a gallery of White House photos from the show.

And celebrate your own White (House) Christmas with the White House Historical Association’s offi cial 2015 ornament, which honors President Calvin Coolidge and the fi rst national Christmas tree lighting in 1923. The hand-crafted, American-made replica of the National Christmas tree is brass-plated with nickel and 24k gold and decorated with 14 tiny ornaments, each marking a milestone in Coolidge’s life. $19, shop.whitehousehistory.org/2015

Little Big Town’s got a Christmas crush (right).

1213_Picks.indd 4 11/24/15 1:08 PM



JOB NUMBER: None

Colors: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black

Fonts: Boton (Bold, Regular, Light; Type 1)

Images: Smokey5_PM_4C.jpg (700 ppi; CMYK), Forest Service logos.ai, Only you logo.ai, Ad Council logo.ai

Date: 6-21-2012 5:27 PM

File Name: M_Smokey_7x10_MAG_R1.indd

Media: Magazine

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THERE’S A LITTLE SMOKEY IN ALL OF US.9 out of 10 wildfi res are caused by humans. Which means 9 out of 10 wildfi res can be prevented. So if you see someone acting irresponsibly, step in and make a difference.

SmokeyBear.com

photo Jill Greenberg©USDA Forest Service

T:7”

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6 | DECEMBER 13, 2015

DIY HOLIDAYORNAMENTSThe New Christmas Tree (Artisan Books) is one of those fabulous books that inspires you to start making things right away—even if you’re not crafty. We ooh-ed and ahh-ed over all 24 of its featured trees and more than 100 handcrafted projects with step-by-step directions, and are ex-cited to share two of author Carrie Brown’s great DIY ornament proj-ects. $30, bookstores and amazon.com

BOTTLE-CAP STAR ORNAMENTS

Finally, a creative use for all of those decorative soda and beer caps you’ve been

recycling. Visit Parade.com/captree for directions on how

the caps can be made into hanging ornaments and tree toppers.

Parade

TYPOGRAPHY TREE TRIMMINGSWhat’s black and white and re(a)d all

over? This letter-perfect tree covered with simple graphic ornaments. All you need is paper, glue, a little

glitter and letters you print out. Visit Parade.com/typotree for instructions.

Excerpted from The New Christmas Tree by Carrie Brown (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2015. Photographs by Paige Green.

Visit Parade.com/treetrivia to take our Christmas tree quiz.

1213_Picks.indd 6 11/24/15 1:08 PM

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DES1212



Send questions to marilyn @ parade.com

Numbrix®

Complete 1 to 81 so the numbers follow a horizontal or

vertical path—no diagonals.

57

1

59

13

77

17

75

69

33

23

21

55

49

43

7

5

DECEMBER 13, 2015 | 7

Ask MarilynBy Marilyn vos Savant

A host and her three contes-tants each have a bag with three marbles: one each of red, white and blue. The host draws a marble first, Justin draws next, then Brody and then Alexa. The first contes-tant to draw a color that has already been drawn wins. Who has the best chance?

—Jeff Marchant, Port Jervis, N.Y.

Justin can win ½ (¾) of the time—when he draws the same color as the host. Brody can win ½ of the ½ of the time Justin loses—when Brody draws either the color the host draws or the losing color Justin draws. This means ¼ of the time. Alexa wins only if both Justin and Brody lose, or the remaining ½ of the time. So Brody has the best chance.

³ 9

³²

94

92

³²

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you have questions about medical treatment. Samsung is a registered trademark of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. Copyright ©2015 Samsung Electronics America, Inc. Jitterbug, GreatCall and 5Star are registered trademarks of GreatCall, Inc. Copyright ©2015 GreatCall, Inc.

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T H E C O L L E C T O R

In 1977, when the fi rst Star Wars movie hit theaters, no one had seen anything like it before. Steve Sansweet, 70, president and CEO of the nonprofi t museum Rancho Obi-Wan near Petaluma, Calif., and former head of Fan Relations at Lucasfi lm, was working as the Los Angeles bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal when he attended a press screening of the fi lm.

“This was a room of hard-bitten journal-ists,” he says. “When the movie opened and that huge star destroyer fl ew overhead, almost everybody in that audience lifted his or her head and looked at the ceiling to see where that thing was coming from. It was so real.” Sansweet asked for his screening pass back on the way out the door, to save as a collectible. (He now owns the largest collec-tion of Star Wars memorabilia in the world.)

One of the reasons the Star Wars fan base exploded and continued to grow is that from the beginning George Lucas and Lucasfi lm encouraged fans to get engaged, Sansweet says. “Where other companies were quick to issue cease and desist orders, Star Wars

T H E F O R C EI S W I T H T H E M

rom boomers to tots and everyone in between, Star Wars fans have fueled a franchise that has earned $28 billion over nearly four decades. Approaching the release of the seventh

blockbuster fi lm, The Force Awakens, Parade showcases some of Star Wars’ biggest fans.

By Kathleen McCleary • Cover and opening photography by HollenderX2.com

F

S T E V E S A N S W E E T

Three generations of Star Wars fans: (from left) grandparents Aneesah and Herbert, Brandon Jr., Amiyrah, James, Alannah and Brandon Sr. (as Darth). Read more about them on page 10.

1213_Feature.indd 8 11/24/15 1:06 PM



ASSIGNING EDITOR ___________ | MANAGING EDITOR __________ | COPY EDITOR __________ | PHOTO EDITOR __________ | EDIT. DIRECTOR __________ | EIC __________ ASSIGNING EDITOR ___________ | MANAGING EDITOR __________ | COPY EDITOR __________ | PHOTO EDITOR __________ | EDIT. DIRECTOR __________ | EIC __________


T H E C O L L E C T O R

In 1977, when the fi rst Star Wars movie hit theaters, no one had seen anything like it before. Steve Sansweet, 70, president and CEO of the nonprofi t museum Rancho Obi-Wan near Petaluma, Calif., and former head of Fan Relations at Lucasfi lm, was working as the Los Angeles bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal when he attended a press screening of the fi lm.

“This was a room of hard-bitten journal-ists,” he says. “When the movie opened and that huge star destroyer fl ew overhead, almost everybody in that audience lifted his or her head and looked at the ceiling to see where that thing was coming from. It was so real.” Sansweet asked for his screening pass back on the way out the door, to save as a collectible. (He now owns the largest collec-tion of Star Wars memorabilia in the world.)

One of the reasons the Star Wars fan base exploded and continued to grow is that from the beginning George Lucas and Lucasfi lm encouraged fans to get engaged, Sansweet says. “Where other companies were quick to issue cease and desist orders, Star Wars

is a very open universe and Lucasfi lm en-couraged fans to play in it,” he says. “They let fans show their passion for the stories in all kinds of ways,” from creating their own costumes to writing books to playing with the action fi gures sold to accompany the fi lms. In 1999, the company even began hosting “Celebrations”—described as “Woodstock for Star Wars fans”—pegged to The Phantom Menace’s release.

T H E J E D I B L O G G E R

“As soon as I saw the fi rst movie [re-released in theaters in 1997], I was obsessed, run-ning around the playground pretending to be Luke Skywalker,” says Sarah Dempster, 24 (above center), who works in digital market-ing in Atlanta. “The thought of being a Jedi and the light sabers and the power of the Force captured my imagination. It’s just a fun story.” Now Dempster blogs about Star Wars at eleven-thirtyeight.com, a website that’s named after the early George Lucas’ sci-fi

fi lm THX 1138 and is devoted to Star Wars news. Lucas worked the numbers 1138 into many Star Wars products as a sort of inside joke among fans.

T H E C O S T UM E D C R U S A D E R S

Erin Barrera, 40 (above, second from right), a barber from St. Paul, Ore., was so excited afterseeing Return of the Jedi at age 12 that his father, Edward, made him two light sabers out of scrap wood. Barrera painted them and played with them and repainted them. Last year he donated them to Rancho Obi-Wan.

“Knowing that something me and my dad built together ended up in a museum means the world to me,” says Barrera, whose father died a few years ago. Six years ago the series even inspired him to lose weight so he could fi t into a Star Wars costume and join the 501st Legion, a worldwide costuming organization founded in 1997 by fan Albin Johnson. Mem-bers assemble and build their own costumes with meticulous attention to detail. People make molds to form the plastic pieces of certain costumes (think of a stormtroooper or Darth Vader), then trim, cut, paint and sew them to homemade fabric suits.

“The 501st emphasiz-es making costumes as close as you can to what you see on the screen,” says Tom Schaefer, 48, who has been a member of the Midwest Garrison

rom boomers to tots and everyone in between, Star Wars fans have fueled a franchise that has earned $28 billion over nearly four decades. Approaching the release of the seventh

blockbuster fi lm, The Force Awakens, Parade showcases some of Star Wars’ biggest fans.

By Kathleen McCleary • Cover and opening photography by HollenderX2.com

F

S T E V E S A N S W E E T

S A R A H D E M P S T E R

E R I N B A R R E R A

1213_Feature.indd 9 11/24/15 1:06 PM





since 2000. 501st members often make free appearances at hospitals and other charity events. “You see really sick kids and see their eyes light up, and for a few minutes they forget they’re in a hospital because they see a real live Star Wars character in front of them and they just glow,” says Schaefer.

T H E L O V E R S

Schaefer met his wife, Cathy, 45, an account manager from Elgin, Ill., at Chicago Comic Con. Tom was attending in his stormtrooper costume as a member of the 501st, and Cathy was there with a friend also in the 501st. They sat next to each other at dinner and love bloomed. Their wedding in 2015 featured Star Wars references throughout the ceremony (“One cannot block the power of love any more than one can block the twin suns from setting”), a Star Wars cake and cupcakes as well as Star Wars trading cards that showed their engagement moment (above) and the two of them in Redwood National Park, where Return of the Jedi was fi lmed.

T H E FAM I LY A F FA I R

When Brandon Martin, 35, an electrician in Edison Township, N.J., saw the Star Wars fi lms in his late teens when they were re-leased on DVD, “it felt like a metaphor for a teenager growing up—how you really want to be on your own, how you have conversa-tions with your parents that are light saber

Thirty-eight years after Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope stunned theatergoers with high-tech special eff ects, nonstop action and heroes with a touch of sass,

the franchise includes six (soon to be seven) fi lms, several animated TV series and hun-dreds of books, as well as DVDs, comics, games and toys. And fans. Lots and lots of fans of all ages.

� at cross-generational love for all things Star Wars is unique, says Ben Mankiewicz, a host on cable TV network Turner Classic Movies.

“What’s remarkable is this fandom includes people who couldn’t have seen any of those fi rst three movies in theaters,” says Mankiewicz,

who saw A New Hope in 1977, when he was 10. “� at tells you the power of writer/director [George] Lucas’ story.”

� e saga portrayed in the fi rst two trilogies is “more than a hero’s journey—it’s a reluctant hero’s journey. � at’s critical,” Mankiewicz says. � e characters—Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, even Yoda—don’t set out to be heroes. “It’s Humphrey Bogart in Casa-blanca—he’s very cynical, but you know when it comes to the defi ning moment, he’ll do exactly the right thing,” he says.

� at theme of good winning out against evil was important to George Lucas, who shaped and steered the fi rst six fi lms before selling the Star Wars franchise to Disney in

2012. As a kid, Lucas says, he loved John Wayne fi lms directed by John Ford as well as “all the normal kind of adventure books—Kidnapped, Treasure Island, Huck Finn. I loved Swiss Family Robinson.” � ose classics infl uenced Star Wars, now a classic itself.

THE FEMINIST PRINCESSFor more than 30 years, controversy has stirred about the dearth of female characters in the fi lms. And while women in the fi rst six movies are few and far between (a total of seven named characters with speaking roles), at least one of them is a strong, memorable leader who’s inspired generations of women. “Princess Leia had the power and strength to tell the guys, ‘Shove it. If you don’t have a plan, I do,’ ” says Chicago-based fan Cathy Schaefer. “I admired her spirit and feisti-ness. Girls didn’t really have role models like that at that time.” “Leia is the center of gravity for the entire story,” says Jay Shah, 28, a Washington, D.C., attorney. “She’s the driving force and the glue behind the entire revolution that is Star Wars.” � e Star Wars Expanded Universe—a world developed through offi cially licensed novels and video games—features female characters including Mara Jade, a smuggler/Jedi master, and Ahsoka Tano, a Jedi apprentice.

“� ere’s been a huge growth in women who love Star Wars,” says collector Steve San-sweet. “� ere were always female fans, but the people distributing the movies perceived it as something for a teenage and older male audi-ence. � at’s been proven wrong.”

New Jersey fan Brandon Martin is excited that � e Force Awakens will feature a major female character (Rey, played by British actress Daisy Ridley), because his daughter, Alannah, 5, is also a huge fan. “When I was younger I used to see little girls who liked Star Wars be-cause of Leia,” he says. “Now my daughter will have someone else to love.”

T O M A N D C A T H Y S C H A E F E R

WHY FANS LOVE STAR WARSWhether you regularly peruse Wookieepedia (one of the largest fan-created encyclopedias

on the Internet)—or don’t know a stormtrooper from a storm drain—you probably know someone who is obsessed with Star Wars. Here’s what drives their passion.

continued on page 12

Part of the Star Wars charm: Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Han Solo are reluctant heroes.

LUCASFILM/20TH CENTURY FOX/NEWSCOM

1213_Feature.indd 10 11/24/15 1:06 PM



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fi ghts sometimes.” Shared passions

often lead to pas-sion. Martin met his wife, Amiyrah, 33, in an online rap music forum and they be-came friends. They began to chat on the phone (Amiyrah lived in New Jersey and Brandon in Ohio) and discovered they both loved Star Wars. “I knew from the start that who-ever I was going to marry would have to be as big a fan as I was,” says Amiyrah, who saw her fi rst Star Wars fi lm at age 8. They’ve been mar-ried 10 years and now their three kids (Brandon, 10; Alannah, 5; and James, 1) are “humongous fans,” Amiyrah says. “We think they’re go-ing to end up bigger fans than we are.” The Martins already have tick-ets for The Force Awakens. “We’re going Thursday night with friends, Friday night for a date night, Saturday early afternoon to take the kids, and Sunday we’re going with the kids and my parents [Aneesah, 55, and Herbert, 56],” she says.

T H E L I T T L E G U Y A G A I N S T E V I L

“The message of hope and pushing back against whatever the odds are is such a relatable part of Star Wars,” says Amy Ratcliffe, 34, (above center) a Los Angeles–based freelance journalist who contributes to Star Wars Insider, a fan publication that was formerly the Lucasfilm Fan Club Magazine. “You see it in Luke; you see it in Anakin before he goes to the Dark Side; you see it in [animated TV series] The Clone Wars. Every story is about a little guy rising up against big evil that seems impossible to defeat. That’s the universal language of Star Wars.”

from page 10

T H E M A R T I N S

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Table Fudge is a classic holiday treat, turning up in gi� boxes and on dessert pla ers all season long. Du� Goldman,

host of the Food Network's Du� Till Dawn and a judge on the network’s Holiday Baking Championship, shares a decadent version in his new cookbook, Du� Bakes: Think and Bake Like a Pro at Home (William Morrow). “The � rst time I tried making it 15 years ago, I was so surprised by how good it was,” recalls Goldman, who became a household name as the host of the Food Network's Ace of Cakes. “The chef I made it for said, ‘Wow, that's good-ass fudge.’” The silly name stuck, because it really is that good. —Alison Ashton

Line a 9-inch square pan with parchment paper; butter lightly. Combine 3¼ cups sugar, 1 cup evaporated milk and ¼ cup corn syrup in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir to combine. Insert candy ther-mometer; cook, without stirring, until mixture reaches 236–237°F (soft ball stage). Remove pan from heat. Add ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder, ½ cup butter, 1 Tbsp vanilla extract and a pinch of salt; stir 60 seconds. Stir in 1¼ cups chopped toasted walnuts. Pour into prepared pan. Let sit 1 hour; cover and let sit at least 4 hours before slicing. Makes 18 3-by-1½-inch bars.

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They’re everywhere. Bumper stickers that ask, “Where the heck is Wall Drug?” � e answer is Wall, S.D.,

population 876. � at’s home to the 76,000-square-foot empo-rium that sells everything from upscale Tony Lama boots to jack-alope hunting licenses and a Christmas ornament for every state. You’ll fi nd buff alo burgers, an old-fashioned soda fountain, lots of Western art and a place for kids to pan for gemstones.

No wonder as many as 20,000 people visit per day and Frommer’s lists Wall Drug among the top 100 places to take kids. And you can still get free ice water. After all, that’s what helped turn the humble small-town pharmacy purchased in 1931 by Ted and Dorothy Hustead into an inter-national roadside attraction.

It was the Depression and business was bad, says grandson Rick Hustead, now chairman. Until his grandmother had a brainstorm on a hot day: Why not off er free ice water to thirsty travelers? It worked. Nearly 85 years later, “people still keep com-ing back,” says Hustead, whose daughter, Sarah, is fourth genera-tion Wall Drug. —Diana Reese

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