Uncle Raul
When I was 11 and living in Calgary AB, my uncle Raul came to visit us. He was on his way from Chicago to Los Angeles; he and his friend Ken were going to see if they could get into movies.
When Raul and Ken were staying with us, they needed money, so a friend of ours hired them to do janitorial work at night. They were US citizens and they didn’t have work visas – I imagine they just got paid cash, but at 11 yrs old it didn’t occur to me to ask.
Anyway, one night they’re driving thru downtown Calgary at 3am in their beater car with Illinois plates, and the RCMP pulls them over. The cop gets out of the car, leans against the fender, bites off a bit of toothpick, spits it out, and says all Cool Hand Luke-ish “So. Where ya from?” It didn’t go well from there, but at least they didn’t get arrested.
They did, however, get deported. My mom & Raul drove over the border into Montana, stayed the night, and came back in the next day; Raul stayed most of a month with us before leaving for LA.
Ken didn’t come back, but went on to LA immediately. He eventually starred in a few movies and TV shows, the most famous of which is probably Wiseguy. Ken looks sort of like Christopher Noth, but he is not him, he is a different guy.
Raul is happily married with a daughter.
Ken retired and devotes his time to gardening and counseling young teens. Oh no, wait, that was someone else. Ken married Corinne Alphen, had a kid, got divorced, had a motorcycle accident, went into alcohol rehab, and last I heard has 3 or 4 kids and is married to his third wife, the extremely-unappealing-in-fact-downright-scary-looking Shane Barbi.
In looking for a link for this post, I noticed Ken has a website, but it takes FOREVER to load. Not that you cared.
posted by Rob @ 8:17:00 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Didn't Ken get really fat? And also, when you get around to actually looking at Shane Barbi's face--what happened???? Good thing nobody pays too much attention to anything north of, say, further south.
the deportation story! finally! (i tried to get your uncle raul to post this but you know how he is...:-)) i had forgotten about the ken wahl connection. what a weird saga he has had.
(uncle raul: if *you* had posted this maybe you would have had some links to yourself and not so many to/about ken wahl... just sayin'.)
Interesting twins! As a pro photog, I've seen how good makeup can really change someones face. It would be interesting to see what these two look like without the makeup. Good story by the way :)
Some folks might think being married to a Penthouse Pet of the Year (Corinne Alphen) and then marry one of the Barbi Twins (Shane Barbi) who appeared on the cover of Playboy a couple of times that this is a pretty cool resume.
I of course could have had this same type of provocative string of pinup wives with just the snap of my fingers but I saw the writing on the “Wahl’.
I think it was Mark Twain that said “Centerfolds can’t guarantee happiness”
(Mark Twain didn’t really say that but he did say a bunch of other profound things)
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