Montel Williams

An emotional Montel Williams joined state lawmakers Monday in Annapolis to urge the General Assembly to legalize medical marijuana. The Baltimore-born talk-show host suffers from multiple sclerosis and says he uses marijuana — and nine other medications — every day to alleviate pain. He said tearfully that traditional opiates don't work for him any longer. "I've used too many," he said. At his side were state Sens. Jamie Raskin, a Montgomery County Democrat, and David Brinkley, a Frederick County Republican, both cancer survivors.

As proposals take shape for a medical marijuana program in Maryland, the state is considering an approach that would put academic centers such as the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland at the helm as a way of closely monitoring the drug — and studying whether it is effective or safe for wide use. A state panel met Wednesday for the first time since being formed by the General Assembly with a relatively narrow focus: to...

Los Angeles -- THERE'S a presence about Montel Williams that lets you know he was supposed to find the spotlight.He thought it would happen when he left high school."

An emotional Montel Williams joined state lawmakers Monday in Annapolis to urge the General Assembly to legalize medical marijuana. The Baltimore-born talk-show host suffers from multiple sclerosis and says he uses marijuana — and nine other medications — every day to alleviate pain. He said tearfully that traditional opiates don't work for him any longer. "I've used too many," he said. At his side were state Sens. Jamie Raskin, a Montgomery County Democrat, and David Brinkley, a Frederick County Republican, both cancer survivors.

Television personality Montel Williams turned a homecoming speech at his alma mater, the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, into a giant talk-show session. The topics: racism in America, leadership, and a taste of that tantalizing TV staple, the dating game."This is the most racist nation on the planet," the Baltimore-born speaker asserted Sunday night, striding talk show-style around Alumni Hall with a hand-held microphone.He warned Midshipmen that unless the nation deals with hatred and ignorance, they could find themselves deployed onto the streets of America by the year 2000, dealing with racial strife at home rather than conflicts abroad.

When television talk-show host Montel Williams was growing up in the Baltimore area, his father insisted that he and his three elder siblings read daily from the encyclopedia, borrow books from the library and do a book report each week."

Montel Williams, the nationally syndicated talk-show host who grew up in Baltimore, has some sibling competition.Older brother Herman Williams, 42, is now executive producer of "The Charles Perez Show," one of the new crop of daytime talk fests that arrived this fall. It airs from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays on WBFF-TV, Channel 45.The brothers are the sons of Herman Williams Jr., Baltimore's fire chief.The talk-show producer previously worked as a producer on 38-year-old Montel's program (4 p.m.-5 p.m. weekdays on WMAR-TV, Channel 2)

Baltimore's Montel Williams was not in town long, but he wasn't going to let you forget he was here."There are station managers around this country who wouldn't put on my show," says TV talk show host Williams, who doesn't like to see things in black and white, but says that sometimes there just isn't any room for color."

"Homicide" opens late at night in an alley with two cop searching for a spent cartridge."If I could just find this thing, I could go home," says Detective Meldrick Lewis, played by Clark Johnson ("Colors")."Life is a mystery, just accept it," says his partner, Detective Steve Crosetti, played by Jon Polito ("Miller's Crossing"). Detective Crosetti is short, fat and bald, with an attitude -- which makes him just about a perfect Barry Levinson character."The quest is what matters," he says.

A Baltimore County man will be featured as a confessed serial rapist on "The Montel Williams Show," even though city police believe the man is a hoaxer who made the claims so he could appear on national television.During a taping of the show in New York City on Wednesday, Jerome Stanfield, 37, said he had raped at least 90 prostitutes in Baltimore from 1990 through 1992.But minutes after the taping -- as he was taken from the studio in police custody -- Mr. Stanfield, whose last known address was the 3600 block of Paskin Place in Rockdale, told reporters he hadn't raped anyone.

Montel Williams is 51, has six-pack abs, a new wife and multiple sclerosis. He's equally fine with all of it. Living Well, the title of his new book, released earlier this year, seems fitting to describe the life of the Baltimore native and the Emmy Award-winning host of The Montel Williams Show. Williams' book, which is subtitled 21 Days to Transform Your Life, Supercharge Your Health, and Feel Spectacular, details his 21-day plan for transforming your life and health through diet and exercise, and includes personal stories, expert interviews, recipes and workouts.

Even without James Earl Jones' stentorian tones to urge them on, officials and supporters of the planned Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture couldn't crow loudly enough about their fund-raising gala, set for Dec. 11 and featuring the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Jones, who will be among those onstage for the event, was detained in New York and couldn't attend yesterday morning's press conference at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. But those who were there, including Mayor Martin O'Malley, state schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick, NAACP President Kweisi Mfume and museum board chair George Russell, refused to let anything dampen their enthusiasm for an event they hope will add $1 million to the museum's coffers.

If I'm going to be in a wheelchair," says actor/talk show host Montel Williams, "I'm going to be faster than you. Guaranteed." The boast certainly jibes, but not the image. Wheelchair? The 45-year-old actor/talk-show host sitting across the table in a Hollywood hotel suite is cheerful and hearty, a former U.S. Navy officer who is powerfully built and buffed from years of weight lifting and careful living. Judging by outward appearances, nothing about this man says infirmity. But with a disease like multiple sclerosis, that is a possibility.

Was it the best of sweeps or the worst of sweeps? Whatever you thought of the programming during the annual network ratings sweeps this past month, it ended -- mercifully -- this past week. But just in case you missed it ... * Moments before Rick Rockwell kissed her on "Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?," Darva Conger said, "If you choose me as your bride, I'll be your partner, your lover and your friend, and we'll never be bored." * William Shatner returned to "3rd Rock From the Sun" in his meatiest role in years, as the Big Giant Head.

When television talk-show host Montel Williams was growing up in the Baltimore area, his father insisted that he and his three elder siblings read daily from the encyclopedia, borrow books from the library and do a book report each week."

Baltimore's Montel Williams was not in town long, but he wasn't going to let you forget he was here."There are station managers around this country who wouldn't put on my show," says TV talk show host Williams, who doesn't like to see things in black and white, but says that sometimes there just isn't any room for color."

It's called tabloid TV. It's often reckless, sometimes sleazy and always sensational. And if you don't believe it, watch "The Montel Williams Show" at 3 p.m. today and tomorrow on WMAR, Channel 2.Today, Williams is going to air the first of a two-part interview with a Baltimore man who says that he is infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and that he has raped 90 prostitutes in the city.It's an emotional session. The man cries as he talks about his addiction to crack, his "rage" when he couldn't get cocaine, and the details of rape.

Andy Warhol once said that, in the future, everybody would get their 15 minutes of fame. Well, the future seems to be here. Twice this week, Jerome Stanfield, a 37-year-old Baltimore resident, appeared on "The Montel Williams Show" to "confess" he had raped 90 prostitutes from 1990 through 1992. The producers of the daytime talk-TV show promoted the interviews as an unprecedented expose of a serial rapist.The only problem is that police say it never happened.The show was taped last week in New York City and aired in Baltimore Monday and Tuesday afternoons.

At age 13, Tina Lynn Akers was too young to consent to have sex with anyone, but she was not too young to marry her 29-year-old boyfriend and father of her child, and therein lies a legal twist.That twist, and some front-page attention from a national newspaper, have placed Tina, now Mrs. Compton and mother of 3-week-old boy, her family and various politicians running for office into the media spotlight.Hours after the story of the marriage of Tina, a seventh-grade dropout, and Phillip Wayne Compton Jr., a roofer, landed on the front of the Washington Post yesterday, the girl had signed a contract with "The Montel Williams Show" in which she promised not to talk to reporters.

"Matt Waters" don't run deep.The best that could be said of the new CBS drama starring Montel Williams as Matt Waters, a dedicated high school teacher, is that it's a '90s version of "Room 222," the early '70s drama that starred Lloyd Haynes as Pete Dixon, a dedicated high school teacher.But "Matt Waters," which premieres at 9 tonight on WJZ (Channel 13), has no new answers for the terribly complicated problems that have overtaken so many public high schools in the 22 years since "Room 222" went off the air. The producers mainly just rip off the formula of a concerned teacher returning to his old school and try to see how far they can run on the appeal of Williams' persona.