Although their introduction was inauspicious—they met at a murder trial they were each covering for rival networks in Huntsville, AL—Adam May and Derek Valcourt are perfectly paired both in and out of the kitchen. “Adam does most of the cooking, and I bake,” explains WJZ-TV reporter Valcourt. “I’m sweet—and he’s salty.” May, a national correspondent for Al Jazeera’s America Tonight, smiles and laughs at Valcourt’s clarification. “Sweet and salty—that totally sums us up,” he agrees. For example, “If there’s a problem with something, like, let’s say the pool guy screws up, I’ll deal with it because I’m the salty one.” Chimes in Valcourt, “And if it’s a friend in need, who has to deal with it? Me—because I’m the sweet one.”

Despite their different temperaments, the couple bonded 14 years ago over the B-52’s and a lifelong love of journalism. A gifted writer in high school, Valcourt had planned on pursuing print, but after interning in Boston at an NBC affiliate, he was bitten by the broadcasting bug and headed to Montana for his first reporting gig. “It was total culture shock,” he says, laughing at the memory. “I was in the state for one hour, and my father’s car slid into a deer as soon as we crossed the state line.”

For his part, May attributes his love of journalism to his Minneapolis days in his mother’s kitchen. “As we were prepping the food, we had a little TV that was up in the corner and was always on with the five and six o’clock news in the background,” he says. “I remember the people who were on the station and the kinds of stories they told. There was one where the reporter was doing a feature on Native Americans and how they harvest rice in northern Minnesota, and I remember watching that and thinking, ‘I want to do what [the reporter] does—that looks cool.’”

Off camera, May has been equally passionate about renovating the couple’s mid-century modern home, which sits on 1 1/2 bucolic acres in Pikesville. “We looked at this property, and it was in dire need of renovation,” he explains. But May, who is the Mr. Fix-It type, was undaunted by the idea of gutting the space as well as taking on the bulk of tile work, flooring, painting, and electrical work himself. “We were on a fairly limited budget, so I did most of the work,” explains May. Valcourt was equally unflappable. “It didn’t scare me, because I knew how handy he was,” says Valcourt. “I knew that as long as the outside worked for us, he’d be able to do anything I wanted with the inside.”

May’s proudest DIY moment? Installing a sleek, modern kitchen for less than $5,000. “I found a good deal on granite. The kitchen is all IKEA cabinets, which we spent three days assembling, and I got a coupon from Lowe’s for all the appliances,” he says. Even the stainless-steel refrigerator was a “scratch and dent.”

With the home renovation long complete, the couple enjoys family meals with their four-year-old son Jett and pet Weimaraner, Athena. While Valcourt is responsible for prep work and clean-up duty, May does most of the heavy lifting. “You make me the martini before I cook,” says May, smiling at Valcourt. “And Derek also keeps me on task—he once bought me a meat thermometer with a timer and a pager on it.”

Although May cooks with precision, he also displays an inventive streak. “I very rarely use a recipe,” he says. “Because we’re both so busy, we try to do things that are quick and easy and don’t take a lot of prep time—it’s usually a broiled piece of fish or a lean piece of meat on the grill with vegetables.” This recipe, however, is an homage to May’s mom’s so-called “hot dishes” as well as a nod to Valcourt’s love of New England seafood. “A hot dish is a Minnesota thing. It’s like a casserole,” says May. “My mom makes this egg hot dish. One day I had this leftover lobster, so I twisted my mom’s recipe, and I made it my own.”

---

Lobster Hot Dish

Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients

• 2 slices sourdough bread, toasted and cubed
• 2 steamed lobsters, shelled and torninto bite-sized pieces
• 1 1/2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded, divided
• 1/2 cup dicedscallions, divided
• 1 cup fresh spinach
• 8 eggs, beaten
• 1/4 cup light cream
• Dash of Old Bay
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

• Preheat oven  to 350 degrees. 
• Arrange bread, lobster, half of cheese, half of scallions, and spinach in large baking dish coated with cooking spray. 
• In a small mixing bowl, combine eggs and cream, and pour over mixture. 
• Sprinkle with Old Bay and salt and pepper. 
• Top with remainder of cheese and scallions. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until eggs are cooked through and cheese is bubbly.

A year ago, in this very space, we were already trumpeting the success of HBO’s VEEP, but were a little uncertain about this whole House of Cards thing.

Sure, the pedigree was unimpeachable: David Fincher as executive
producer, Kevin Spacey as lead. But Netflix? Is the world really going
to take Netflix seriously as a producer of original content?

Oh, what a difference a year makes. Because not only did House of Cards
become a much buzzed about hit (inspiring the popular debate: Is it
better to binge watch your favorite Netflix series or savor the viewing
over the course of a few weeks?), but it got nine Emmy nominations,
winning three (including Fincher for Best Director).

Meanwhile, VEEP continues to be a source of local pride,
garnering eight nominations and wins for Tony Hale (yay!) and Julia
Louis-Dreyfus, the VEEP herself (double yay!). Also, the
adorable moment where Hale (in character, mind you) assisted
Louis-Dreyfus with her speech was one of the agreed upon highlights of
the show.

“Me so happy!!!!!!”—Julia Louis-Dreyfus after the show’s big wins, on Twitter

On December 2, 2009, and after 21 years as anchor at WMAR-TV, Mary Beth Marsden signed off for one final time at the end of the 6 p.m. newscast.

It was a bittersweet moment for the Emmy Award-winning broadcaster, who, after months of stressful negotiations, had taken a buyout from the ABC affiliate.

While her three children (Jack, now 14, George, now 12, and Tess, now 10) and her husband, Mark McGrath, watched from the wings, she intoned, “Twenty-one years. Fifteen hairstyles—one for every news director,” during a three-minute montage that began with her first story at the station on changes at the Towson Library and ended with her final farewell.

Nearly two years to that day, Marsden sits on a brown velvet sofa in the living room of her storybook Cape Cod-style home in Ruxton and reflects on the end of an era.

“It was a great run,” she says, “but I think you can be someplace too long, and you need to have a change for yourself. I didn’t seek it—it just came down the pike, but it was the right time for me. After the newscast, we all went out to dinner, and I was free as a bird.”

But she was hardly retired. With her newfound freedom, Marsden developed a renewed passion for painting, exhibiting her work at art shows held at L’Hirondelle and Elkridge Country Clubs and even winning an award for her flower paintings at the Maryland State Fair. And in September of 2011, she was hired by WBAL radio to host the Maryland’s News Now With Mary Beth Marsden.

But one mission has been particularly near and dear to Marsden’s heart: In 2002, her daughter, Tess, was diagnosed with PDD-NOS (pervasive developmental delay, not otherwise specified)—a type of autism-spectrum disorder.

“I really didn’t fully accept the name of the diagnosis for years,” says Marsden.

Now, with her time away from the daily grind—and the unyielding spotlight of TV—Marsden was finally determined to do something proactive for her daughter and other kids like her.

When Tess was first diagnosed, Marsden knew very little about autism.

“We knew something was off,” she explains. “At two, she didn’t have two-word sentences, and she would sometimes act out, but autism was way off my chart.”

Marsden and McGrath took Tess for testing at Kennedy Krieger Institute. She remembers observing Tess’s session through a window with Rebecca Landa, the director for the Center of Autism and Related Disorders.

“She said, ‘I believe that Tess is unequivocally on the autism spectrum,'” Marsden says. “And then she went, ‘Blah, blah, blah,’ because I didn’t hear anything else she said. I was reeling. It was one of those moments where the whole world spins off its axis.”

Once she accepted the diagnosis—and she admits it took a long time—she set out to become something of an autism expert. Using the same kind of doggedness that made her a successful journalist, she voraciously read about the condition and consulted with educators, other parents, and experts in the field.

About a year and a half into Marsden’s “retirement,” she came up with an idea for a possible television show. “I knew I wanted to do something with autism,” she says. “My idea was doing a reality show called On the Spec, as in spectrum. I wove in aspects of [Dr. Seuss’s] Horton Hears a Who—it was all the people on the spec in Horton who were all screaming to be heard—so it was a play on that. I had envisioned a whole SuperNanny type of thing for autism. We would take a situation such as a parent trying to potty train his autistic 8-year-old, and try to solve it.”

While the powers that be at a national cable network showed some interest, ultimately autism was deemed a downer as far as programming was concerned.

“It got as far as a producers meeting [at the network], but they said it was ‘too depressing,'” says Marsden. “They love hoarders,” she cracks, demonstrating her trademark humor. “I was like, ‘What if I find an autistic hoarder?'”

And she bristles at the idea that her pitch was depressing.

“‘Really?'” she recalls saying. “‘Yes, there are moments that are depressing, but, by and large, the people I know in this world are the funniest, most creative, empathetic, warm, and loving people; I find it uplifting. If you are seeing it as depressing, the world is seeing it as depressing, and we need to break out of that.'”

So Marsden decided to take matters into her own hands, forging ahead and using her own funds (to date, approximately $15,000) to produce a library of video vignettes for her website, Real Look Autism, (reallookautism.com), a resource for anyone touched by or interested in autism.

Her goal? To focus on concrete strategies and pragmatic solutions—from dealing with messy table manners to awkward social skills and compulsive behaviors—that have worked with children who have autism spectrum disorders.

“Research is great,” says Marsden. “But we need to help people who are in it now.”

Though Marsden had misgivings about the idea of putting Tess—now a fourth grader in a special-education program at The Chatsworth School in Reisterstown—and her anxiety about school in the spotlight, she ultimately felt it was an important thing to do.

“I realized that if I was going to ask other people to tell their stories, I would have to tell mine, too,” she says.

In Tess’s video, she is shown with helpful teachers who offer strategies—reinforcing positive behavior and giving Tess “preferred breaks” like video-game time—that help her deal with her anxiety about school.

“People have told me they have shown the video of Tess as part of an IEP [individualized education plan] meeting at school. I’m like, ‘Wow. We helped someone.’ That makes me feel so good,” Marsden says.

All of the videos on the Real Look Autism site (eight to date), feature Baltimore-area families and are filmed and edited by Marsden’s former WMAR co-worker, videographer John Anglim.

“I thought it was a fantastic idea,” says Anglim, “and it was filling such a need that no one else was. It fit like a key in a lock. And from personal experience, there are members of my family on the spectrum, so it hit home.”

The videos have been a huge hit not only in America, but also in Australia and the UK.

“She throws herself at it,” marvels Marsden’s husband, Mark McGrath, a financial adviser for Stifel Nicolaus. “I thought this might be just a ‘Mary Beth project.’ I had no idea it would reach a global audience.”

Almost obsessively, Marsden tracks how many people have viewed her videos both on the Real Look Autism website and on YouTube.

“Fifty-thousand,” she says, scanning her website on the laptop in her kitchen. “That’s not enough. I want to get to one million. I could talk about autism forever,” she adds with emphasis. “You either find your thing, or it finds you. And this is my thing.”

As a child, Marsden, the oldest of three, was never afraid to go after what she wanted. And what she wanted in her teen years was to leave the family fold and get out and explore the world on her own.

“I was bossy and driven and independent,” says the Washington, D.C., native. “I couldn’t wait to get out of the house to work in Ocean City in the summers at the Longhorn Steakhouse. I wore a tight polyester uniform and spent the tips as fast as we made them.”

In 1979, Marsden headed off to Towson University to major in fine art. In drama class one day, the assignment was to perform one’s own obituary. Marsden performed hers as a newscaster.

“My friends told me I was a natural, so I think I had the bug at that point,” recalls Marsden.

By 1981, Marsden, then an education major, transferred to University of Maryland, College Park, to pursue journalism. Once there, she landed an internship at D.C.’s WJLA, writing news copy for anchor Rene Poussaint. (“If she stumbled on a word during a broadcast, you figured you’d written something wrong,” she laughs, “but she was really encouraging—in a standoffish way.”)

At that point, Marsden felt she had found her calling. “I knew that’s what I wanted to do. Period.”

Her rise was fairly rapid, though there were some dues to pay. After graduating in 1983 with a B.A. in radio, television, and film, Marsden joined the news team at WHSV-TV in Harrisonburg, VA.

“In the TV world, you have maybe 220 markets,” she says. “This was about 187.”

Within eight months, Marsden made the leap to a much larger market in Scranton, PA, at WNEP-TV.

“I shot and edited my own video while driving around in my Ford Bronco,” Marsden recalls. “I anchored and produced the show and ran my own prompter.”

It was during this initiation by fire in Scranton, while covering everything from township meetings to strip mining, that Marsden really hit her stride.

By 1988, Marsden’s former WNEP news director, Paul Steuber, hired her for a second time to work with him at his new station, WMAR-TV in Baltimore.

“I loved it,” says Marsden, “because I am a questioner, and I am curious. It also satisfied a creative side of me—you are putting together a story with video and audio and you are piecing it together in an entertaining fashion.”

And obviously Marsden and WMAR were a good match. She stayed at the job for more than 20 years.

On a sunny winter afternoon, Marsden sits at her desk on the third floor of WBAL-AM and gets ready to host Maryland’s News Now With Mary Beth Marsden.

Dressed casually in a Relentless 7 concert T-shirt and a pair of corduroy jeans, she’s got an hour or so to prepare before she goes on the air at 2 p.m. Of course, she’s already put in a full-day’s work on the domestic front: waking up at 6:30 a.m., riding the exercise bike for 30 minutes, getting three kids ready for school, driving Tess half-way across town to Chatsworth in Reisterstown, speaking at length with her children’s pediatrician, and checking comments from fans of the Real Look Autism Facebook page.

When Marsden was offered the job of weekday afternoon drive-time host, she was initially hesitant. “I had two days where I was in a deep depression,” she says. “But once I did two shows, I was like, ‘Okay, I can do this.'”

Her WBAL colleagues had no such reservations.

“She is a great addition to our team,” says sportscaster Brett Hollander. “She has always been incredibly well respected as a broadcaster and a journalist. Good broadcasters, I have always felt, can be chameleons in this field and can adapt to anything and move from TV to radio. Mary Beth has been able to do that with total ease.”

As she reads the show’s rundown, edits copy, talks to producer Jared Ruderman, and takes occasional sips of water out of Tess’s SpongeBob Squarepants water bottle, the pixie-sized powerhouse is the picture of cool and collected.

As for her laid-back duds? She went casual from day one. “I didn’t want to set the bar too high,” she cracks.

During the show, Marsden is a total pro, juggling everything from breaking news to live interviews, and incorporating up-to-the-minute information into her script with mere minutes to broadcast. On today’s docket, an interview with WBAL-TV reporter Jayne Miller about former Governor Robert Ehrlich campaign manager Paul E. Schurick’s “Robo-calls” trial.

“Listen to this,” she says to no one in particular in the studio as she scans an article from
The Baltimore Sun about the charges of election fraud meant to suppress the African-American voter turnout during the 2010 Gubernatorial election. [“Schurick’s attorney Dwight Pettit] called the whole thing a ‘faux pas.'”

She scribbles a few notes, and minutes later, she goes live with Miller. “Do you want to talk about what the defense said first?'” she asks Miller. “I love that Dwight Pettit called it a ‘faux pas.'”

So far, Marsden says she’s loving the gig. She really appreciates the fact that “WBAL has a lot of connections,” she says. “So you get to talk to Raven’s coach John Harbaugh or a Supreme Court Justice or Cal Ripken comes in. I almost have this little kid excitement about it. I get jazzed. I am never bored, and I don’t have to put my energies into making sure I covered a zit up!”

That being said, Marsden does have some designs on getting back on TV—just not how you might think.

“My parents had a big antenna put on the roof of their house in Montgomery County so they could get Baltimore stations, and now that I’m not on TV, my mother will say, ‘Do you think [WBAL-TV] will call you to ask you to fill in?'” she chuckles.

But Marsden has other ideas for sister station WBAL-TV.

“I want to mainstream the Real Look Autism videos,” she says with a glimmer in her eye, “and I am going to be pushing WBAL-TV in April during Autism Awareness Month to be running them. I have no hesitation about [a conflict of interest]. I’m like, ‘Screw it.’ If you have a venue, who is going to fault you? Journalism feeds my mind and keeps me sharp, but this feeds my soul.”

Baltimore isn’t like New York City for a lot of reasons (we’re okay with that), like when we see movie trailers on the side of the road, we’re taken aback and we usually ask someone on set, “What’s going on?”

The answer to that question recently has been Veep, an HBO series starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who plays a Maryland Senator turned U.S. Vice President. The eight-episode season was shot locally and filming wrapped in December.

“Everyone who’s been working on this show said how great the set is, how nice the people are,” says casting director Pat Moran. “This can hopefully give Baltimore a chance to compete in the industry again.”

While Baltimore is acting as a stand in for D.C. (à la Live Free or Die Hard and Enemy of the State), natives will surely recognize Veep’s filming locations when it premieres on HBO in the spring.

A scene in the pilot episode was filmed outside of MICA’s main building. The grand, white-marble stairs were able to mimic D.C.’s architecture. The crew even put a fake metal detector in the entranceway to add to that government feel.

There was also a scene at The Ottobar with about 200 people. Moran couldn’t reveal much, though she said that Veep is a comedy and this was a “big, funny scene.”

Another filming location that got attention (especially as many thought Mad Men was in town) was the Belvedere, which was the backdrop for a law enforcement retirement party.

“The Belvedere is a grand dame,” Moran says. “I don’t care about any standards of any city. It was a perfect place for this over-the-top event. We used many local retired law-enforcement folks for that scene.”

Other locations included Donna’s in Charles Village, a Dillon Street row home in Canton, the offices of DLA Piper, and the show’s soundstage in Columbia.

But Moran stresses that this show means much more to Baltimore than just glitz and glamour.

“In a city like ours, we need the revenue,” she says. “We were once top five in the nation in the film industry. Now people move to New York, New Orleans. Hopefully, this will help bring our crew base back.”

In the darkest hours before dawn, Keith Mills—Baltimore’s personable, ebullient sportscaster—is juggling his usual three morning gigs at WBAL on Television Hill.

He dashes into the AM-radio room on the third floor and tells early risers about the Orioles’ latest loss. Then, he tosses his headset and sprints down the steps to the second-floor TV studio, where meteorologist Tony Pann greets him as “The Man” before he mic’s up for home viewers, again reeling off the latest sports happenings.

After that segment, he’s on the move again, this time to his computer in a communal office to check on breaking news, delighted to find that Michael Phelps has won a gold medal at the World Swimming Championships in Shanghai. He’s back on AM with that tidbit, heads to the TV camera again, and adds a session on 98Rock to his crazy weekday schedule.

When he goes back to his desk to prep for another round of updates, the night scene outside his window has given way to glorious daylight. It’s an apropos analogy of his recent life.

Five years ago, Mills, now 54, was in a bleak tailspin. He was arrested for stealing prescription drugs from a neighbor, entered a celebrity-named rehab for his hydrocodone addiction, was fired by then-employer WMAR-TV, and put under house arrest.

Today, he’s back on track, working full time at WBAL. He also has been honored with the prestigious 2010 Maryland Sportscaster of the Year award and inducted into the Anne Arundel County Sports Hall of Fame. Recently, his court record was expunged. He makes it look easy. It hasn’t been.

His climb back to respectability has taken quiet determination, emotional pain, and the support of dedicated friends and family. But perhaps the biggest motivator has been his dogged efforts to regain the trust of his children, Alexandria (Ally) and Nicholas (Nick).

“I looked into my kids’ eyes. I had lost their respect,” says Mills, recalling the aftermath of his arrest. “It was bad when my kids had to deal with it. It broke my heart.”

His children are now students at Towson University, their dad’s alma mater (class of ’79). Ally, 20, is a senior, majoring in criminal justice and religious studies with a minor in Arabic. Nick, 19, is a sophomore, studying business and economics. They’re happy, polite, and busy young adults. In addition to their academics, Ally works as a part-time nanny; Nick is involved in club soccer and track.

During summer break, soon after their dad’s five-year probation ended in May, they talked about his very public arrest. Ally was 15; Nick, 13, at the time. They still remember the vivid details.

It was January 25, 2006. They were picked up at their separate schools just as classes were ending, taken to an aunt’s house where the family gathered, and told what had happened to their dad. “I was embarrassed, really angry,” Ally recalls. Her brother felt the same. “I was very angry,” he says. “He abused our trust for the second time. I couldn’t look at him.”

This wasn’t their dad’s first struggle with addiction.

In 2004, Mills—who was taking pain medications for back and ankle injuries he suffered while playing sports as a teen—was losing control. He knew it, he says, but didn’t fully realize the cruel power of dependency. “I didn’t understand the disease of addiction,” he says. “I thought you could will yourself out of anything.”

Mills eventually ended up detoxing at GBMC in Towson. At that time, WMAR-TV was more understanding, giving their longtime sportscaster time off to go to Father Martin’s Ashley rehab center in Havre de Grace. His friend and WMAR colleague Scott Garceau stood by him, asking what he could do to help. “He’s my shining knight,” says Mills, who is still close to Garceau. “He’s the big brother I never had.”

Garceau worked on air with Mills for almost 19 years and now hosts an afternoon sports talk show on 105.7 The Fan. He downplays his involvement. “I didn’t do anything extraordinary,” he says. “When he had issues, I’d just try to be there like any friend.”

There were no obvious signs of addiction, Garceau says, though Mills told him about taking painkillers. “He never missed work,” he says. “There wasn’t an impact on his job performance.”

Mills’s children weren’t as hurt by their dad’s behavior then. “I was a lot more sad,” shares Nick. “I was more worried about him.” Ally agrees: “That time, it wasn’t as big a deal.”

After a month, Mills left the upscale treatment facility in Harford County that overlooks the picturesque Chesapeake Bay with new resolve. “I thought I had a handle on it,” he says. And he did. For a while.

Mills is a people magnet—a trait that would later help him when he struggled during his second rehab stint. Just ask his kids about his popularity. When Mills took them on an Alaskan cruise a few years ago so they could bond and heal from his troubles, he ran into a guy he knew on a bus in the middle of nowhere. When the family goes to the mall, “he gets stopped 12 or 13 times,” says Ally. She and her brother are used to their father’s draw. “Nick and I just keep on walking,” she says. She knows her dad will catch up.

Even WBAL radio’s Scott Wycoff has a tale: “We’re in Cooperstown [N.Y.] and walking down Main Street, and people are shouting, ‘Keith, Keith,'” he says with a laugh. Wycoff, Mills, and other WBAL staff were in town for Cal Ripken Jr.’s induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2007. Baltimore fans just wanted to hobnob with the likeable sports guy from their hometown.

Mills, an Anne Arundel County native, started in the business as a production assistant/gopher at the defunct Baltimore News American in the late ’70s. He absorbed lessons from esteemed sports writers like John Steadman and Frank Lynch as he checked the teletype for race results and eventually covered high-school sports.

He’s interviewed his share of big names in the field. He is perhaps most impressed by former basketball player Wes Unseld, who founded the Unselds’ School with his wife, Connie, in Baltimore. The private school reaches out to inner-city youth. “He’s making a difference,” Mills says. “He built a school for kids who need it.”

Not surprisingly, Mills is a walking encyclopedia (or Google) of sports. He rattles off names and dates with impressive recollection. He admits that he’s stumbled over some pronunciations. “I’m king of the butchered name,” he says sheepishly. But one of his biggest on-air gaffes was with his own name. He chuckles at the memory, relating how he was reading the teleprompter one day before realizing he’d called himself what was mistakenly written on the screen, “Keith Miles.” Even the on-floor director cracked up.

That was almost as bad as the time he showed up to anchor an Orioles opening day wearing two different colored shoes—one brown, the other black. To his embarrassment, the cameraman panned down on his shoes at the end of his spiel. Mills admits he’s colorblind, a fact his TV cohorts are aware of.

Today, Stan Stovall and Mindy Basara, co-anchors of WBAL’s morning show, can’t help ribbing Mills as he waits for his on-air cue. “What are you wearing today?” they tease.

He actually looks natty in his charcoal-gray suit, super-starched white shirt, and regimental gray-and-pale green tie. Because he is color-challenged, daughter Ally helps her father coordinate his wardrobe. “She’s moving back in at the end of summer,” Mills says excitedly before he goes on camera.

He still lives next door to the neighbor he burglarized, in a ranch-style, white-siding house in the established, 1950s Crestwood section of Linthicum. Mills, long divorced from the mother of his children, has been there since 1999.

It was in this peaceful, suburban setting while walking his lively golden retriever Enoch that he got into trouble. He knocked on his neighbor’s door, asking if she wanted him to cut the branches from an overhead power line. That’s when he saw the bottle of pills on a nearby table.

With an addict’s obsessive nature, Mills couldn’t get the painkillers out of his mind after he left. He later returned to the next-door brick rancher to pocket the drugs, unaware there were security cameras in the house.

The police showed up at his door to arrest him. “I knew the cops,” Mills says. “They were friends of my father’s.”

His dad, George Mills, is an icon in the community. As a local athletic youth coach, he knows everyone, his son says. Mills felt as if he betrayed him, too. “It was difficult for my father,” he says. “He was so devastated. It crushed him.”

As a kid, Mills would tag along with his dad when he went to work. His father, who is 80 and lives in Brooklyn Park with his wife, Mary, would take him to WJZ-TV, where he was one of the studio’s first cameramen. Later, Keith would work there, too, starting as a sports producer in 1980.

Mills credits his dad with instilling in him a passion and drive to succeed. “I was raised on hard work and discipline,” he says. “He told me, ‘The next game has to be the best you do. The next show has to be the best you do.'”

After his arrest, Mills knew the next thing he had to do best was kick his addiction.

Scott Garceau tried to bolster his friend. “I told him, ‘You’re a good guy with a bad problem,'” he says. “I knew professionally things wouldn’t be the same. His job was on the line.”

Mills, who also covers the Ravens for WBAL, often remembers events by what’s happening on the football field. He recalls the year of his first rehab because Kyle Boller was the Ravens quarterback then, he says. He knows when he left Baltimore for his next rehab because it was Super Bowl Sunday and the Steelers and Seahawks were playing that day.

Pittsburgh would later overcome Seattle, 21-10. By that time, Mills was in Antigua at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Centre for residential drug treatment. He would soon be trying to leave.

Mills was just checking into the nurses’ station when he got the phone call telling him he was being fired from his job at WMAR. It was a corporate decision, made far from Baltimore. “I hung up. I thought, ‘I’m out of here,'” he says. “My whole life was crumbling around me.”

He took a walk outdoors while plotting how to get back home. “The campus was beautiful,” Mills says. “It was 85 degrees in early February.”

That’s when life intervened. Mills looked up and saw a guy smiling at him. In his six-degrees-of-separation universe, he realized it was someone he knew from Baltimore.

Mills had once done a story on this former lacrosse player from Towson University. The man urged Mills to give Crossroads a chance. “You gotta stay,” he told him. “Give it one night.”

That chance encounter—as well as the support of his only sibling, Diane Bennett—kept Mills there.

Bennett, a retired elementary- and middle-school principal who lives in Severna Park, told him on the phone, “You are not to leave.” She and her husband, Steve, were soon on their way to the Caribbean island for a family session. “My sister really stepped it up,” Mills says.

As an older sister and a former educator, Bennett wanted to fix the problem. Her visit to Crossroads helped her to understand her brother’s addiction. “We learned a lot about recovery and relapse, and what he was dealing with on a daily basis,” she says. “It’s not that easy.”

A doctor explained to her that addiction is like having a sleeping tiger on your shoulder 24/7. “The challenge is to make sure that tiger stays asleep,” Bennett says. “That was so powerful to me.”

She and her husband picked up Mills at the airport when he returned from the month-long treatment. “He looked wonderful,” she says.

But Mills was still without a job and had a looming trial date for his drug charges. Scott Garceau testified in his favor as a character witness. “I told the judge, ‘I’m betting on Keith Mills to beat this thing,'” Garceau recalls.

Mills was sentenced to five years’ probation and placed on house arrest for nine months. (It was eventually cut to 4 ∏ months.) He was allowed to leave for AA meetings, gym sessions, and to go to work if anyone would hire him.

“I stayed under the radar socially,” Mills says. “I watched sporting events.”

Not for long. WBAL radio came calling when it was beefing up its staff for Preakness coverage that year. Mills went to the job interview wearing his ankle monitor. “We knew how sincere he was to make his recovery work,” says Mark Miller, then director of news and programming. “Everybody admired him. It was a pretty easy thing to do.”

The part-time position eventually led to full-time employment. “Keith positioned himself to do it,” says Miller, who recently left WBAL radio after 31 years to pursue other opportunities. “It was terrific for Keith. It was terrific for the station.”

On a recent workday morning, Mills is anticipating an even busier schedule as the NFL gears up for its season. He will pretty much live and breathe Ravens coverage for the next several months in addition to his regular duties at WBAL.

For a man who gets up at 2 a.m. to get to work by 3, hard work is an elixir—that and his Turbo-sized iced tea, never coffee. “I love it,” Mill says. “I got a second chance. I’m going to savor the opportunity to do it.”

But he hasn’t forgotten about that sleeping tiger on his shoulder. “I’m much more aware of the signs. I don’t take it for granted,” Mills says. “I don’t drink. I don’t do anything.”

His family still worries about him, though the concern has lessened over the years. “We don’t think about it as much. We breathe a little easier now,” his sister says. “My dad had his faith restored by what he is doing now.”

His children are still a main incentive. “He wanted to prove to his kids that you can pick yourself up,” Bennett says.

Ally and Nick are coping. They’re still wary and have felt the after-effects of their dad’s addiction. “I can’t swallow pills,” says Nick, who had anxiety attacks and couldn’t sleep in the beginning. “How can we ever fully trust him?” Ally asks. “It can always happen again.”

Mills does everything he can to stay connected to his children, calling each day, hanging out with them, going to events, and taking family trips to Ocean City. They know he cares. “It’s gotten a lot better in the last two years,” Ally admits. Nick also appreciates what his dad is doing. “He’s taking a big interest in remaining in our lives,” he says. “It helps me build up trust.”

A new day is dawning for Keith Mills.

Update: This article has been updated to contain a sponsored link from rehabs.com.

In 1976, when Baltimore’s WJZ-TV decided to expand its six o’clock news format to an hour, the station couldn’t have possibly known that it was about to make history.

At the time, the news was anchored by Jerry Turner, arguably the most beloved broadcaster in Baltimore. But the one-hour format was deemed too long for a single person to handle, so then-news director Gary Elion conducted an exhaustive nationwide search for a co-anchor.

After watching more than 100 audition tapes over the course of many months, Elion still hadn’t found anyone he wanted to hire.

“I was getting the usual boring tapes,” he recalls.

But one of the tapes caught his eye: It featured an ingénue from WTVF-TV in Nashville, TN. Her name was Oprah Winfrey.

“She was relating a story about something that had happened at City Council,” Elion says. “And she explained it so well. Knowing nothing about the politics of the place, I understood exactly what had happened and the significance. It made her hugely different from anyone else I had seen.”

So Elion hired her. It was a bold move for the station to pair a rookie with an eminent anchor, but he was confident.

“I never had any doubt she was right for the job,” says Elion, now a practicing attorney in Sante Fe, NM. “But I felt she could acquire the experience. What she had was this incredible ability to communicate—that was apparent even then.”

The station promoted her with the tagline, “What’s an Oprah?” and Baltimore was about to find out, as Winfrey (age 22 and making $22,000 a year) debuted on August 16, 1976.

Working in a bustling metropolis was an adjustment for the girl born in rural Mississippi.

“I was assigned to learn every neighborhood in Baltimore,” says Winfrey, speaking to us from California. “I ended up doing neighborhood festivals every weekend. I never learned any of the streets. I was always lost and had to look for the TV tower to know where to go.”

It was no-frills for the talk titan back then. “No one did my hair and makeup,” she says, laughing at the memory. “I would be driving my Chevy from Columbia with my hair just washed and leaving the windows down for it to dry. I would be taking the rollers out as I was coming up TV Hill!”

The job itself also presented a challenge. Winfrey—always a sympathetic soul—took the stories to heart, which made her ill-suited to the bad news business of anchoring.

“I didn’t like every day having to think of the worst thing that was going to happen that day,” says Winfrey. “I never felt great doing it. I remember being at a funeral and not asking the family of the [deceased] child to comment and getting in trouble for it. The assistant news director was like, ‘You get back out there and ask,’ [but] I couldn’t do it. I was too emotional—I felt things so deeply it was hard for me to let things go. I was worried about the family. It helped lay the groundwork for knowing what I didn’t want to do.”

Station stalwart Turner was equally unhappy with the hire.

“He had an old-fashioned sense of men and women,” explains WJZ anchor Denise Koch. “He was from the South.”

Furthermore, it was difficult for Turner to fully embrace his fledgling co-anchor, given the fact that he assumed his friend, veteran WJZ reporter Al Sanders, would fill the spot. The combination was ill-fated from the start.

“She was teamed with the dean of Baltimore newscasting,” says WJZ weatherman Bob Turk, “and she was completely out of her league. She didn’t read well, she didn’t know news, geography, history, politics, or names. She was just very much in the wrong place and too young and inexperienced to be an anchor.”

Winfrey is the first to say the pairing was disastrous. “I remember being like a fish out of water with Jerry Turner,” says Winfrey. “I walked into a cesspool there. It was Harry Reasoner and Barbara Walters all over again. He didn’t want me there. I was young. I wasn’t just green behind the ears—I had cornstalks growing back there.”

Less than eight months after she was hired, Winfrey was unceremoniously dumped from the evening news just hours before she was about to go on air.

“I shall never forget April 1, 1977,” says Winfrey. “I got called out of the newsroom to meet with the general manager. He said, ‘We think you are so talented, we want you to have your own spot. We are going to move you to morning cut-ins.'” (Cut-ins are local announcements inserted into the network broadcast.)

“I was devastated,” Winfrey says. “I knew it was a horrible demotion, and Jerry Turner was saying, ‘I didn’t know anything about it, babe,’ when, in fact, they had been planning for weeks to replace me [with Al Sanders].”

Later that spring, Bill Baker, who had created Cleveland’s Morning Exchange, the highest-rated local program in the country, was hired as general manager of WJZ, and given the task of reinvigorating the ailing station.

“WJZ had slipped from number one to number three,” Baker says. “I was supposed to get things going again. I started looking at the news, and I also thought maybe it would be a good idea to do a local talk show.”

Baker met Winfrey for the first time at a cocktail party, though he was already familiar with her hiring history. Intriguingly, it was his wife, Jeannemarie, who identified Winfrey’s true potential.

“Jeannemarie was a housewife at the time and watched daytime TV,” Baker says. “And she said, ‘You know, if you are going to do a local talk show, that Oprah would be a great host. There is something magical about her—she wears her heart on her sleeve, and she is not at all pretentious.’ I agreed. She had all the right attributes to be a successful talk show host.”

As Baker developed his newly named show, People are Talking, he was convinced that Winfrey was the perfect person to cohost along with veteran newsman Richard Sher. Winfrey, on the other hand, felt she wouldn’t be taken seriously as a journalist.

“It was the last thing in the world she wanted to do,” Baker says. “She said, ‘Bill, I don’t want to do a talk show.’ She had tears in her eyes when she said it. I said, ‘If you are successful, you can have more power to do good and make more of an impact on the community than you would have in TV news.'”

But from the very first show on August 14, 1978, it was clear that Winfrey—with her warmth, natural presence, and ability to extensively ad-lib—had found her calling.

“From that first day, I knew instantly this is what I was supposed to do,” she says. “I felt like I had come home to myself.”

The New York Times TV critic Bill Carter, then at The Sun, remembers watching the show’s debut, which featured Tom Carvel, founder of Carvel ice cream, and two actors from All My Children.

“I watched the first show with my wife, and she said to me, ‘Wow, Oprah is good at this—every question she asked is the question I was thinking in my head,'” he says. “She connected with the female audience instantly. She was very in tune with the way people thought and was extremely comfortable and appealing when she stepped into this format. Oprah was genuine.”

Before long, the question, “What’s an Oprah?” was a rhetorical one, as the duo beat national talk-show behemoth Phil Donahue in the local ratings and was syndicated on 17 stations from Bangor, ME, to Honolulu.

“Making the transition to the talk show was the golden moment in her life,” says Koch. “News anchoring just wasn’t her thing.”

Where Winfrey’s partnership with Turner was toxic, her pairing with cohost Sher was a match made in ratings heaven. The chemistry between the cohosts was palpable, due mostly to a mutual respect for one another.

“We had fun all the time,” Sher says. “We never had an argument and we supported each other.”

Says former People Are Talking executive producer, Arleen Weiner: “She was very comfortable sitting in that chair next to Richard. She had a great respect for him and really cared about him as a person and colleague.”

And though things didn’t always go smoothly on air—an audience member’s hair once caught on fire from a light bulb, a show on orgasms inadvertently was conducted in front of an audience of church members—the two shared a lot of laughs and made compelling television together.

“Richard and I had a very different relationship,” says Winfrey. “He was not resentful of me. He was willing to try to teach me what he knew. Every day he taught me about timing and rhythm and pacing and how to inject the funny. He saw this as an opportunity for himself, and he recognized he couldn’t do it by himself. I had the best time with him.”

Off camera, Winfrey remains close to this day with both Sher and Weiner (mother of WBAL anchor Deborah Weiner), who introduced her to the city’s movers and shakers and gave her entree to Baltimore’s all-important Jewish society.

“At that time, Baltimore was an insular city,” says WJZ weatherman Marty Bass. “And Richard was a major player. To be put on that show with Richard meant Oprah was thrust into a Baltimore society that doesn’t like outsiders and will chew you up and spit you out. This is a town where people still go to their kindergarten reunions. Oprah was able to handle it all like Ripken at shortstop.”

While Winfrey came to Baltimore with undeniable talent, Baltimore itself was her ad hoc journalism school as she learned the tricks of the talk trade. Among them: a real willingness to show her vulnerable side as she revealed parts of herself, from her struggles with weight to her less-than-storybook upbringing.

“Baltimore is a warm, giving community,” says Baker. “It’s the kind of place that opened its arms. Once they saw how real she was, they allowed her to mature and grow. In its collective emotional heart, Baltimore said, ‘We want this woman to succeed. We are going to keep watching and be there for her.’ It was the unique crucible that helped gestate this wonderful, magical talent. There’s no question the place helped her.”

Winfrey says that her experiences were invaluable.

“My goal at that particular phase in my life was to learn as much as I could,” she says. “I looked at Baltimore as a learning opportunity, as a ‘teach me’ school for life. I learned the absolute most about myself there. It was my first time away from home starting out as my own true self—not with any family member—and learning how to negotiate in the corporate world. I look at those years as how they made me into the woman I am now.”

In addition to cohosting People are Talking (and eventually co-anchoring the noon news with Sher), Winfrey explored her love of acting, whether performing a one-woman show at Goucher College or a poetry reading at her church, Bethel A.M.E.

“That’s the first time I realized she was much more than a talk-show host,” says her former coworker and roommate Sandra Pinckney, who is still a close friend. “She starred in To Make a Poet Black and Beautiful and Bid Her Sing and was reading Langston Hughes poetry. I was sitting in the audience, and here comes this booming voice in the back of the church. I said to myself, ‘My God, this is Oprah.’ She was so much bigger than I imagined as she recited these poems in this beautiful, deep voice. The show went from Baltimore to Lincoln Center!”

Says Bass, “When I heard that Oprah was doing a one-woman show at Goucher, I remember thinking, ‘She is incredibly motivated. She is seeing a bigger picture here—in color and 3-D.'”

Even in those years, colleagues recall that Winfrey exuded uncommon confidence with her big personality, boundless energy, and ability to tackle anything.

“She was the most confident person I’ve ever met,” says Koch. “I’ve never met anyone who had such a strong sense of self and what they were going to do in the world.”

Koch, a prominent actress at the time herself, remembers when Oprah auditioned for the lead in a play at CentreStage.

“I remember thinking, ‘Why would they cast her when she’s not an actress?’ But she was sure she was going to get it. She didn’t do it in a bragging way—she just thought she knew her destiny.”

When the part went to a classical Shakespearean actress instead, Winfrey was reportedly livid. “Oprah was furious,” says Koch. “She was like, ‘How could they not cast me?’ She was stunned. I remember her saying to me, ‘What are we doing here, Denise? We should be on Broadway.’ I remember thinking to myself, ‘I don’t know what you’re doing here, but I’m here paying the mortgage!'”

Winfrey took the town by storm, but her colleagues secretly harbored the fear that the rising star wasn’t long for Baltimore.

“It was like, ‘We’d love to keep you here, but you’re not staying,'” Bass says.

Indeed, in January 1984, Winfrey was hired to host A.M. Chicago, a faltering half-hour morning show in the Windy City.

Ironically, according to Sher, the show first saw Winfrey when she appeared on an audition tape when producer Debra Di Maio was applying for a job. A.M. Chicago was immediately impressed with Winfrey (and also ended up hiring Di Maio).

Though the station threw a going away party for her at Café Des Artistes, some hard feelings were apparent.

“At the going away party, Paul Yates, the general manager, announced that he was going to give her a big color TV, but she never got that,” laughs Sher, who gave her an attaché case engraved with the word “Ope,” his nickname for her.

Says Pinckney, “I remember her looking so regal and so triumphant at her party. They were going to match her salary to keep her, but they could have offered her a million dollars, she was ready to go. She was ready for bigger and better things.”

Winfrey never questioned her decision to leave Charm City.

“Just like no part of me feels like ending [The Oprah Winfrey Show] at this point is a mistake, no part of me felt like leaving Baltimore at that time was a mistake. I had grown as much as I felt I could grow in that position. I didn’t want to become an ‘anchor institution.’ I didn’t want to be 25 years at an anchor desk reading news. I just wanted a different kind of challenge. I didn’t think I could be fulfilled if I stayed in Baltimore—it would have caused me to settle into a conditioned life. I wanted to be more than comfortable.”

Weeks later, Weiner drove Winfrey to the American Airlines terminal at BWI and put her on the plane.

“We cried at that point,” says Weiner. “She would come to our house for Passover. She would come for Thanksgiving. There were people who told her that there were landmines in Chicago, but I thought she could be much more successful there. Six weeks later, I went out to see her and we couldn’t walk down the street without everyone knowing who she was. I knew her star was ascending, but I didn’t know how far she would go.”

Despite the ups and downs, Winfrey is grateful for her Baltimore years. “‘I wouldn’t take nothing from my journey,'” Winfrey says, quoting from a traditional Negro spiritual. “Every single bit of it, every layer of my Baltimore experience, contributed to me being able to stand where I am today.”

---

Oprah’s Favorite Things (in Baltimore)

The Hippo
“One time, a bunch of us all went to the Hippo to get in some good dancing,” says former consumer reporter Maria Broom. “The music and DJ at that time was really good.”

Cross Keys Deli
“Cross Keys fries were number one,” says Oprah Winfrey, “and Maryland jumbo lump crabmeat. I remember it was $8 a pound back then. My favorite things, bar none.”

Ruth Shaw
“She laughed at herself if something didn’t fit,” says owner Ray Mitchener.

Tio Pepe
“She used to come in here for dinner on a regular basis,” says former TÍo Pepe maitre d’ Francisco “Paco” Lobo. “And now I watch her show every day.”

Her Apartment (8 Cross Keys Road)
“After a peeping Tom was at my window, Oprah took her key off her key ring and insisted I move in with her,” says Sandra Pinckney. “It was the finest three months of my life.” Says Winfrey, “I loved that place.”

Linen Outfits and Scarves From The Bead Experience
“I showed her how to wear a scarf over her shoulder and how it cut her in half,” says co-owner Idy Harris. “It became her look.”

Louie’s Bookstore Cafe
A popular hangout in the ’80s.

The Pimlico Hotel
“My first experience with a finger bowl was at The Pimlico Hotel,” says Winfrey. “I was like, ‘Okay, there’s lemon in it.’ I was two seconds away from drinking it.”

Bethel A.M.E. Church
“I’d give 10 percent of my [weekly] salary to Bethel A.M.E. Church every Sunday, $22.70,” says Winfrey. “I keep old checks. I think checks are the best indication of how a person has lived their life.”

The Cross Keys Inn
“We hung out there so much that people thought we were too close,” says Richard Sher. “When she left Baltimore, it was rumored that we were having a baby.”

The Prime Rib
“She dined here often,” says The Prime Rib’s general manager David Derewicz. “She usually ate with Richard Sher and sat in our ‘outside’ dining room [which was a porch 40 years ago before being converted to an indoor space].”

Edited by Max Weiss. Written by Jess Blumberg, Ken Iglehart, Suzanne Loudermilk, John Lewis, Amy Mulvihill, Evan Serpick, and Max Weiss

Delegate Keiffer Mitchell Jr. is at a cafe, being interviewed for this story, when his cell phone rings. “Hang on a sec, I’ve got to take this,” he says. He leans away and answers the phone. He’s discussing the Baltimore Grand Prix —the upcoming Indy car race that Mitchell was a key player in bringing to Baltimore. All of downtown will be affected by the race, and whomever Mitchell is talking to is clearly concerned about logistics.

The delegate’s omelet arrives and sits untouched as Mitchell continues to talk in a cheerful and reassuring manner. More than 10 minutes later, he’s off the phone. He looks up sheepishly. “Sorry, that was Brian Rogers,” he says, referring to the chairman of T. Rowe Price, who is on our list (under Finance Power). “Speaking of power. . . .”

Mitchell digs into his (now cold) omelet and resumes the interview.

The moment was not staged for the benefit of this story, but it very well could’ve been. Rogers has access (he was calling Mitchell’s cell) and influence (Mitchell was bending over backwards to accommodate him) and probably could’ve interrupted the breakfast (or lunch or family dinner) of just about any politician in town.

This story is our attempt to explore Baltimore power and the various ways it manifests itself in the region. Political power and financial power are perhaps the most obvious kinds, but there are other, less conspicuous types of power at play in such arenas as culture, health care, sports, and technology. What follows is our examination of power in all of its incarnations—from the boardrooms to the chatrooms and beyond.

Politics

The position comes with power. But it’s how you wield it that really counts.

Governor Martin O’Malley
He spends a lot of time in Annapolis, but Governor O’Malley is still a Baltimore guy, and he wields an enormous amount of power here. For one thing, the former Baltimore mayor was a mentor to Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, and the two frequently acknowledge their close working relationship. Further, the road-tested, iron-tough Democratic political machine that O’Malley built (or rebuilt) endures. And every time he has an important moment, whether launching a reelection campaign or declaring victory, O’Malley is in Baltimore, flanked by the city’s political elite, including Rawlings-Blake and Rep. Elijah Cummings. O’Malley is still captain of Baltimore’s Democratic ship.

Stephanie Rawlings-Blake
When fiery Sheila Dixon resigned last year, Rawlings-Blake’s low-key technocratic style was a welcome change. Now, the quiet machinations of her power are bearing fruit. After capably managing the biggest back-to-back blizzards in local history, she balanced an out-of-control budget, overhauling the police and fire department pension systems, making huge spending cuts, and passing a bottle tax—all without raising public ire too broadly. She announced ambitious new projects, like the 2011 Grand Prix race, and moved to renovate vast swaths of vacant housing. With all due to respect to Dixon, Rawlings-Blake demonstrates that one doesn’t have to wave a shoe to demonstrate power.

Rep. Elijah Cummings
Like all of Maryland’s U.S. Senators and Representatives, Cummings spends a lot of time in D.C. But more than any of the others, Cummings is a fixture in Baltimore. He fights for local interests, defending the fishing industry (maritimeprofessional.com calls him “the domestic maritime industry’s biggest advocate in Congress”) and proposing $2.25 billion in federal funds to clean up the bay. He sits on the board of trustees for the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore and the National Aquarium, and generally weighs in thoughtfully and impactfully on every issue of consequence, from slots to education funding.

And don’t count out:

• New Baltimore State’s Attorney Gregg Bernstein upset incumbent Pat Jessamy with support from police commissioner Frederick Bealefeld and a tough-on-crime approach that resonated with voters and could elevate him to higher office.
• Otis Rolley, Frank Conaway Sr., Councilman Carl Stokes, and Council President Jack Young have all been mentioned as potential 2011 mayoral candidates, but for our money, former Congressman and NAACP President Kweisi Mfume seems ripe for a return to prominence.
• As deputy mayor for Economic and Neighborhood Development, Kaliope Parthemos oversees the Baltimore Development Corporation, Board of Estimates, and Board of Municipal and Zoning Appeals. More importantly, she’s the Mayor’s most trusted consigliere.

Religion

For the faithful of all stripes, these men of the cloth carry the most clout.

Frank M. Reid III
Rev. Frank Reid, 59, is senior pastor and CEO of northwest Baltimore’s Bethel AME Church, the largest congregation in the city at over 10,000 worshippers and the choice for a number of politicians and other movers and shakers in the African-American community like Sheila Dixon.

Archbishop Edwin Frederick O’Brien
As if being the spiritual leader of half a million Catholics in central Maryland wasn’t enough, the O’Brien-led Archdiocese of Baltimore oversees five hospitals, 70 schools, two seminaries, a food kitchen that serves 250,000 meals a year, plus countless other social service programs. O’Brien’s military background—he was an army chaplain with the rank of captain who served in Vietnam—has undoubtedly served him well in dealing with the challenges of leading his flock in what have been difficult times for the Catholic Church.

Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg
For 32 years, Rabbi Wohlberg has been the guiding light of 1,400-member Beth Tfiloh, the largest modern orthodox synagogue in the United States, serving both as rabbi of the congregation and as dean of Beth Tfiloh’s 1,000-student, K-12 school. Dubbed “the master of the sermon” by the Baltimore Jewish Times, he is an author and regular panelist on WMAR-TV’s Square Off.

And don’t count out:

• Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr., 60, is longtime pastor of the 7,000-strong New Psalmist Baptist Church in northwest Baltimore. Like Bethel AME, New Psalmist claims its own VIP members (like Rep. Elijah Cummings), and Rev. Thomas’s live Internet broadcasts and regular radio services are followed by thousands.
• Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg, 34, the charismatic new rabbi at Beth Am synagogue, is packing the pews.
  “He is already the talk of the town,” says one member of the congregation.

Development

They’ve built this town, and, very often, they call the shots (and slots).

John Paterakis Sr.
Paterakis, 81, made his money as president of the family-owned H&S Bakery, the largest privately owned bakery in the U.S. H&S and its sister companies supply McDonald’s, as well as house brands for Giant Foods, SuperFresh, and others. But he’s as well known now for his H&S Properties, which has developed the $600 million waterfront Harbor East district, which includes high-end condos, office towers, restaurants, hotels, and retail space. Financing, schminancing: In the early years, his Harbor East vision was largely kept alive by Paterakis’s own checkbook, which also has bankrolled numerous political campaigns. And now he’s developing Harbor Point, a former industrial site just to the east that will be an $800 million complex of homes, offices, hotels and shops.

David S. Cordish
The 70-year-old president of The Cordish Companies is from a family that’s been doing urban redevelopment for more than a century (his sons are now VPs). He’s been behind Harborplace-esque urban renewal projects all over the U.S. that include entertainment venues, retailing, restaurants, gaming, residences, and hotels. His big new roll of the dice? The gaming casino at Arundel Mills shopping mall that voters signed off on in a November referendum. Cordish went door to door to make his case. Was there ever any doubt that he’d hit the jackpot?

Edward Miller
What’s the top guy at arguably the best hospital in the world doing under “developers”? Because Johns Hopkins Medicine Dean and CEO Edward Miller is the man behind the curtain for entire medical mini-cities, including the massive renovation projects that have transformed East Baltimore. The two new state-of-the-art hospitals for adult and pediatric patients represent one of the largest hospital construction projects in the nation. In his 13-year tenure as dean, he’s been the driving force for dozens of other Hopkins projects, too, and was a key mover in the Baltimore City-initiated biotech park north of the campus on a once-blighted 80-acre tract. We’re guessing Miller isn’t anywhere near done with his ceremonial hardhat and gold shovel.

And don’t count out:

• Michael S. Beatty, president of H&S Properties Development, is the guy who’s made John Paterakis’s ambitious and complex projects look like a cake walk.
• Edward St. John‘s company, St. John Properties, has built more than 13 million square feet of apartments, offices, retail, and warehouses worth over $1 billion. But St. John, 72, is also known for his generosity—he’s given more than $43 million to various causes through personal, corporate, and foundation donations.

Finance

Money is power and these financiers manage it, spend it, and control it.

Mark R. Fetting
Fetting, 56, the president and CEO of Legg Mason, was the board’s choice three years ago to fill the shoes of retiring founder Raymond A. “Chip” Mason, who in 40 years grew the global firm to nearly $700 billion in assets under management. Fetting was an executive senior VP at Legg for seven years prior to his appointment. He serves on several community boards, including Mercy Hospital and Gilman School.

James A. C. Kennedy and Brian Rogers
T. Rowe Price Group CEO/president Kennedy and chairman Rogers oversee a global investment firm that manages $440 billion in assets. Besides employing 5,000 people, the most noticeable impact that the duo has on the region is the culture they promote of community involvement by T. Rowe staffers, who contribute heavily to local education, arts, and social causes.

Charles Newhall
Got a great business idea? Wouldn’t you love to bend the ear of venture-capital giant Charles “Chuck” Newhall, cofounder (with Dick Kramlich and the storied Frank Bonsal Jr.) of New Enterprise Associates (NEA)? In the past 30 years, NEA has committed more than $11 billion to bankroll some 650 new information-technology, health care, and energy-technology companies here and abroad, of which more than 165 have gone public and more than 265 have been acquired.

And don’t count out:

• Since relocating to Baltimore from New York in 2002 to oversee the takeover of the former Allfirst Financial, Atwood “Woody” Collins III, the M&T Bank Mid-Atlantic Region president, has gotten involved in everything from mayoral task forces and the Greater Baltimore Committee to the city’s economic development board and the Babe Ruth Museum.

Media

Traditional media may not be as omnipotent as it once was, but it still has plenty of juice in this town.

Mary Corey
Corey has been at The Baltimore Sun for more than 23 years, starting as an intern. Over that time, she’s risen up the paper’s masthead, earning allies and kudos. In May, she took over as director of content, the first woman in the paper’s 173-year history to lead the newsroom, replacing Monty Cook, an out-of-towner brought in by the paper’s owners at The Tribune Company who oversaw massive layoffs and downsizing. Under Corey’s leadership, the paper has stepped up coverage of breaking news—evident in its coverage of the September shooting at The Johns Hopkins Hospital—and added new sections, including The Sun Magazine.

Jayne Miller
There is one journalist in Baltimore that virtually every public figure is afraid of: WBAL-TV reporter Jayne Miller. Her investigative reports have exposed corruption in public officials and failures of the criminal justice system. Her 2003 coverage of irregularities at mortgage servicing company Fairbanks Capital was picked up nationally, as one of the first stories to expose problems in the subprime lending industry. These days, whenever there is an important story in Baltimore—from Sheila Dixon’s trial in January to the November elections—everyone looks to Miller for the most decisive analysis, which impacts how everyone else reports the story.

Bob Philips
Philips, the market manager for all CBS radio stations in Baltimore, including The Fan, WLIF, and WWMX, plays a subtle but powerful role in determining the stories, events, and topics that become major in the area. By directing the news departments that Marylanders listen to in drive time, even on a non-news station like WLIF (which is often the number-one rated station), Philips helps to set the agenda for other outlets in town and directs the conversations at water coolers throughout the region.

Mark Miller
Miller has long led the WBAL-AM’s comprehensive news operation, and when longtime program director Jeff Beauchamp left the station last year, the unassuming Miller took on that role, too, playing a quiet but powerful role in the way Baltimore gets news. Over the last year, Miller has made WBAL more news-oriented—launching anchored news programs during morning and afternoon drive times—while still leaving it opinionated, installing right-leaning talk-show host Shari Elliker as anchor for the afternoon program and keeping former First Lady of Maryland Kendall Ehrlich on the air through the elections. It’s the kind of formula that has worked on national outlets like Fox News, and time will tell if it works locally and affects the way other stations in town operate.

And don’t count out:

• Larry Young’s talk show on WOLB (1010-AM) is a powerful voice on national and local affairs, particularly in the African-American community.
• Local NPR affiliate WYPR, led by president and general manager Tony Brandon, has probably the second biggest radio news operation in town, after WBAL (with more in-depth features), and an audience of affluent movers and shakers.
• Dogged Sun reporter Justin Fenton has been behind some of the biggest stories in town, scrambling to get to the bottom of the Hopkins shooting and breaking the news that Ehrlich operative Julius Henson was behind election-day robocalls.

Culture

The ever-strengthening arts community has some of its most high-profile leadership ever.

Fred Lazarus
Lazarus, the president of Maryland Institute College of Art, could vie for the top spot in the education category—MICA is, after all, one of the best art schools in the country—but that designation is too narrow for such a visionary leader. Lazarus has fostered strong ties with the business and nonprofit communities and gracefully shepherded an expansion of the school’s footprint that’s utterly transformed the Station North Arts District and enhanced the city’s cultural riches.

Marin Alsop
Alsop, the music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, has set the bar high for leaders of the city’s major arts organizations. Not content with being a programming genius and a captivating presence on the podium, Alsop isn’t shy about flexing some marketing muscle—putting the BSO in front of new audiences, whenever possible—partnering with non-classical artists, and reaching out to the community at large.

David Simon
Simon’s work (The Corner, Homicide, The Wire, and Treme) has resonated far beyond Baltimore to shape an ongoing dialogue about urban America. Its been the subject of college courses and even won him a MacArthur grant last year. As if that weren’t enough, he’s also married to author Laura Lippman, no minor powerhouse herself.  

John Waters
Baltimore’s bonafide cultural icon continues to evolve beyond film, with art exhibits at A-list venues like the Gagosian Gallery in L.A., a witty memoir (Role Models), and speaking gigs around the world. Whether trading quips with Letterman or hobnobbing at an Oscars party, Waters is our most enduring and effective ambassador.

Doreen Bolger
Under Bolger’s leadership, The Baltimore Museum of Art has shed its old image as an insular organization and forged stronger relationships with other arts institutions and community groups. While spearheading ambitious capitol campaigns and renovation projects, The BMA director is just as liable to turn up at a warehouse gallery opening as she is a corporate boardroom.

And don’t count out:

• Bill Gilmore, executive director of Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts, oversees a $6.4 million budget and local events such as Artscape, the Baltimore Book Festival, and the Preakness Parade.
• Carla Hayden, executive director, Enoch Pratt Free Library, has reinvigorated the Pratt as a vital cultural center and been named by President Obama to the National Museum and Library Services Board and the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities.
• Jed Dietz, director of the Maryland Film Festival, also serves on the board of Centerstage, where he’s heading the search for Irene Lewis’s replacement.

Education

They’re the toughest——and most important——jobs in Baltimore. These leaders are making a difference.

Andrés Alonso
Since coming to the Baltimore as CEO of public schools in 2007, Alonso has turned the system upside down, decentralizing power from North Avenue, closing failing schools, and opening more than a dozen new ones, with the intention of giving parents more choices. In the process, test scores and graduation rates have gone up, drop-out rates have declined, and many families who had previously fled public schools are taking a second look. With this year’s new contract between the city and the Baltimore Teachers Union, Alonso took on an even more prominent role as a reformer on the national stage.

Nancy Grasmick
As Maryland’s Superintendent of Schools, Grasmick led the charge to win some of the $4.3 billion in federal “Race to the Top” funds. With 19 years in the position, Grasmick was able to quickly mobilize the legislature and education officials across the state to overhaul tenure and evaluation systems, set new curriculum standards, and design a new way to collect student data. As a result, Maryland was one of nine states (along with D.C.) to win funding, earning $250 million that will go toward implementing reforms and creating new schools.

Ron Goldblatt
Tough economic times have meant that many private schools have struggled to maintain enrollment, but the Association of Independent Maryland Schools (AIMS) and executive director Goldblatt have provided a steely backbone for its 115 members. This year, the organization flexed its muscle to help shoot down new legislation that would have required greater state regulation of independent schools and held a steady stream of workshops to help increase enrollment.

Marietta English
The Baltimore Teachers Union took a bold step this year, approving a new contract that includes pay increases, but also ties salary to student performance, making it one of the most reform-minded contracts in the country. After the membership initially voted down the deal, union president English worked with schools administrators to nail down more specifics and held information sessions in every school in the city, which resulted in an overwhelming 1,902-1,045 vote.

And don’t count out:

• Alonso’s hand-picked Baltimore City Public Schools’ new chief academic officer Sonja Brookins Santelises is already getting attention for talk of increasing standards in city schools and raising elite schools to the level of the top public schools in the country.
• Cheryl Bost, president of the Teachers Association of Baltimore County (TABCO), led the fight against a cumbersome new student evaluation tool, the Articulated Instruction Module (AIM), delaying its implementation and putting county superintendent Joe Hairston on the hot seat for granting the program’s copyright to an employee.

Legal

These are the 800-pound gorillas of Baltimore’s law scene, and their firms have the revenue to prove it.

Peter G. Angelos
A honcho among honchos, Angelos, 81, could obviously fit into a number of our categories, including sports (as CEO and chairman of the board of the Orioles) and philanthropy. He’s made his millions representing the victims of faulty products, medical malpractice, and personal injury, but is best known for class-action suits against manufacturers of asbestos and tobacco.

Francis B. Burch Jr.
Frank Burch helped turn the regional law firm Piper & Marbury, with its 250 lawyers, into DLA Piper, an international practice with more than 3,500 lawyers and revenue of $2 billion. And he’s a trustee of The Johns Hopkins University, Johns Hopkins Medicine, and the Carey Business School of Johns Hopkins University, as well as past board chairman of the Greater Baltimore Committee and the University of Maryland School of Law.

James L. Shea
Shea, 58, is chairman of the board of law firm Venable LLP, with 600 lawyers based mostly in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and New York. He’s also on the boards of the Greater Baltimore Committee and the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore.

And don’t count out:

• Senior Venable partner Benjamin Richard Civiletti, probably the best-known name in American law, was U.S. Attorney General during the Carter administration, and recently became the first U.S. lawyer to charge $1,000 an hour.

Underground

Baltimore has become a national center for underground culture. Below, the leaders of the artists, hipsters, and tastemakers who make the scene.

Dan Deacon
In 2004, musician Deacon moved to Baltimore with a mantra: “The future surrounds us. Let us begin.” Setting up camp in the Copycat building on Guilford Ave., he and some friends founded Wham City, an arts collective bursting with creativity. Wham City threw massive dance parties in industrial spaces, drawing artists, musicians, and patrons from local colleges, especially MICA, and beyond. In 2006, they founded Whartscape—a more D.I.Y. answer to Artscape—giving a platform to local bands like Beach House and Ponytail, who would go on to gain national followings. They staged theatrical programs like Shoot Her! Jurassic Park: The Play. The excitement around the scene helped spur an arts renaissance in Station North. After a successful Whartscape in July, he announced that it would be no more. “Part of the fun was making it grow,” he said. “But we’d like to move on and try something new.” At the photo shoot for the cover of this magazine, Deacon huddled with BSO maestra Marin Alsop about a potential collaboration. Later that day, a BSO rep called the office looking for Deacon’s contact number. We can only imagine what he has in store for Baltimore next.

Matt Porterfield
Porterfield has a legit shot at being mentioned in the same breath as Levinson and Waters as one of the city’s finest filmmakers. Porterfield’s latest movie, Putty Hill, has been a hit on the festival circuit—screening in Berlin, Lisbon, Copenhagen, and Austin’s SXSW—and elicited raves from The New Yorker’s Richard Brody, who opined that “if there’s an independent cinema, [Putty Hill] is it, and if there’s a new director, here he is.” Porterfield gets extra credit for crafting music videos for local bands such as Double Dagger and teaching film at Hopkins.

Scott Berzofsky, Dane Nester, and Nicholas Wisniewski
These three MICA grads formed the arts collective Baltimore Development Cooperative (BDC), which addresses urban issues with a powerful mix of creative moxie and grassroots organizing. Their recent The Food Network exhibit at the Creative Alliance included installations by community groups such as Hamilton Crop Circle and info-sharing forays into city neighborhoods. The BDC also cosponsors STEW, a dinner (held three or four times a year) that raises money for various social justice projects.

And don’t count out:

• The folks at Red Emma’s present talks and performances at their Mt. Vernon bookstore/coffeehouse and at 2640 in Charles Village, and they operate The Baltimore Free School.
• Program director Megan Hamilton books a wide range of events at the Creative Alliance—a recent run of shows included Ethel Ennis, the Baltimore Men’s Chorus, Mink Stole, Maria Broom, a klezmer band, and a burlesque performance—and is a tireless advocate for the local arts scene.

Business

These impresarios of commerce provide the tax base that is the lifeblood the city.

Jack B. Dunn
The man behind the success of the $1 billion-a-year FTI Consulting has been CEO and president Dunn, a lawyer and former officer at Legg Mason (and current Orioles partner). Besides its corporate consulting services, FTI has some unusual skill areas, especially “forensic accounting,” or the science of finding out where the money went. (Investors hire FTI when a company fails——so that part of the business had been booming.) He’s also a board member at several major corporations.

Fred Festa
Yes, Festa, the chairman, president, and CEO of W.R. Grace, heads a company that went Chapter 11 after facing millions of dollars worth of awards in asbestos suits filed by the likes of Peter Angelos. But the Columbia-based Grace is back, selling close to $3 billion in specialty chemicals, catalysts, sealants, and construction materials worldwide. Better yet, both the company and its thousands of employees donate significantly every year to education, health, and human services causes.

Kevin A. Plank
Under Armour President and CEO Kevin Plank’s big idea (to create a synthetic, moisture-wicking fabric) sells close to $1 billion a year and has gone public. Now Plank is going after the industry giant Nike, with a foray into athletic footwear. (Don’t be too surprised if Nike tries to buy them.) Plank sits on the UM’s board of trustees, as well as serving on the board of directors for the Baltimore City Fire Foundation, the Greater Baltimore Committee, and Living Classrooms Foundation.

And don’t count out:

• Allegis, founded 27 years ago (as Aerotek) by Steve Bisciotti and James Davis, and now controlled by Davis, is a mammoth staffing company with more than $4 billion in revenues in 2005.
• Willard Hackerman, president and CEO of construction giant Whiting-Turner, may be 92 now, but he shows up at the office every day and still wields considerable influence in commerce, philanthropy, and politics.
• Mayo Shattuck, president and CEO of Constellation Energy, took his shareholders for a queasy ride after the market collapse in late 2008, but he’s stayed on the job because he’s making money again and even growing the $16 billion energy giant.

Green

Meet the eco-warriors who are fighting the good fight——and winning.

Malcolm Woolf
Anyone who doesn’t think finding sustainable ways to meet our society’s energy needs is the challenge of the 21st century hasn’t been paying attention. In Maryland, the man with the plan is Malcolm Woolf, head of the Maryland Energy Administration. He’s been instrumental in toughening up the state’s Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard, which requires reducing statewide energy consumption by 15 percent by the year 2015 and generating 20 percent of energy from renewable sources (including two percent from solar) by 2022. “He knows how and when to push and when to ‘play ball’ in crafting legislation,” praises Jim Pierobon, the communications director with the Maryland Clean Energy Center.

Michael D. Smith
Giving a Constellation Energy executive props for green power seems counterintuitive, to put it mildly. But who’s better poised to transform the energy industry than someone on the inside? Enter Michael D. Smith who, two years ago, became the chief sustainability officer for retail energy at Constellation NewEnergy, a subsidiary of the Fortune 500 company/utility that handles development and installation of sustainable product offerings, including its burgeoning solar business. If you want to go green, save money, or both in the future, chances are you’ll be buying what he’s selling.

William C. Baker
William C. Baker is the president of the 200,000-member-strong nonprofit Chesapeake Bay Foundation, which boasts a $22 million annual operating budget, 160 full-time employees, and offices in three states plus D.C. Because of these resources, the CBF is a player on both the state and federal level. They deal with “the big picture,” acknowledges Jana Davis, associate director of The Chesapeake Bay Trust, which contributes funding to some of CBF’s programs. Baker is “organizing their priorities the right way, and he’s getting a lot of big wins for the bay,” she adds, citing CBF’s role in strengthening storm water runoff regulations and Maryland’s new environmental literacy high school graduation requirement.

Beth Strommen
As manager of the Baltimore City Office of Sustainability, Beth Strommen is the city’s green guru, heavily involved in drafting and editing many of our metro’s most important environmental and land use regulations, including the Forest Conservation Program, the Baltimore Bicycle Master Plan, and the Maritime Master Plan. Says Prescott Gaylord, the owner of Baltimore Green Construction, “Beth is highly effective and may be the most well-known face of green in the city.”

And don’t count out:

• David Borinsky, CEO of nonprofit One Green Home at A Time, oversees green rehabs in some of Baltimore’s most blighted neighborhoods.
• Thanks to president and CEO Chickie Grayson’s leadership, Enterprise Homes has already built 1,275 green, affordable homes in the area and is committed to creating or preserving 5,000 more by 2013.
• As chair of the House of Delegates’ Environmental Matters Committee, Del. Maggie McIntosh (D-Baltimore City), holds sway over a matrix of issues ranging from agriculture to motor vehicles.

Technology

These tech titans heard the 21st-century bell——and answered it.

Dave Troy
Even those not too involved in tech circles know about Bmore Fiber, last year’s initiative to bring Google’s ultra-high-speed broadband network to Baltimore. Troy was one of the leaders of the movement, not to mention he has 25 years of experience in technology and design. “Dave is hugely influential in the startup scene,” says programmer Mike Subelsky. “He is definitely the man for our times.”

Sid Meier
Sid Meier has been called “the godfather of computer gaming”—and rightfully so. He’s had 26 years of experience and has helped create the popular simulation game genre. As current director of creative development for Firaxis Games, Meier established Hunt Valley as the gaming capital of Maryland when he started in the early 1980s.

Heather Sarkissian
Heather Sarkissian is somewhat of a tech renaissance woman. She was the CEO of mp3car.com, a local company that builds sophisticated mobile computers for corporate and government clients. She helped found Betascape, which is the tech version of Artscape. She also heads BmoreSmart, a group of social entrepreneurs in Baltimore aiming to make the city a better place. “Heather really knows how to get things done,” says programmer Mike Subelsky.

Jay Steinmetz
Steinmetz is CEO of Barcoding, a company that sells and programs inventory-tracking systems and has been included on several of Inc. magazine’s coveted top business lists. As chair of the Maryland Technology Development Corporation, which provides funding for local programs, Steinmetz is also helping the next generation of techies.

And don’t count out:

• Mike Subelsky is cofounder of Ignite Baltimore and web startup OtherInbox.com.
• Brian Reynolds was mentored by Sid Meier, and is now chief designer at Zynga East (creator of the infamous Farmville).
• Jennifer Gunner, the interim executive director of the Greater Baltimore Tech Council, is known for bridging “old” and “new” tech circles.

Philanthropy

Where government and the corporate world fall short, these captains of charity fill the gap.

William J. McCarthy Jr.
There are foundations and charitable organizations with more money and equally worthy causes, but few are more visible to average Baltimoreans than Catholic Charities, headed by executive director McCarthy. With 2,000 employees and 15,000 volunteers, Maryland’s largest private provider of human services, with an annual budget of $127 million, answered more than 600,000 requests for food and emergency services last year and served 350,000 meals to the hungry, as well as operating 80 other programs.

Marc B. Terrill
Since 2003, Marc B. Terrill has been the face of THE ASSOCIATED: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore, a 90-year-old foundation whose charitable reach extends far beyond the Jewish community through partnered initiatives in the region with Catholic Charities of Baltimore, the Harry and Jeannette Weinberg Foundation, and other groups.
As president, Terrill, who is also on the Baltimore Community Foundation board, oversees 20 agencies that meet educational, religious, humanitarian, health, and social service needs locally, nationally, in Israel, and throughout the world. And The Associated has financial clout: It raised $31 million last year and has a $500 million trust. (Among other Jewish Federations across North America, Baltimore’s boasts the highest per-capita giving.)

Deborah Flateman
Deborah Flateman oversees 80 employees, two warehouses, and $32 million a year at the Maryland Food Bank, all resources that are focused on gathering food donations from manufacturers, growers, retailers, and individuals and getting it to the needy through 600 soup kitchens, shelters, and other providers in central Maryland and the Eastern Shore. Economic times have increased the need for food assistance by more than a third.

Donn Weinberg
With total assets of $2 billion, the Weinberg Foundation is one of the largest private charitable foundations in the United States, funding nonprofits that provide services to economically disadvantaged people, primarily in the U.S. and Israel. Under the chairmanship of former trial lawyer Donn Weinberg, the foundation’s roughly $100 million annual grantmaking goes to programs to help seniors, the disabled, education, children, and basic human needs and health. And he can sing and dance, too: As a hobby, Weinberg is a volunteer singer-entertainer at older-adult facilities in the Baltimore area and for nonprofit fundraisers.

And don’t count out:

• James Piper Bond is president of the $16 million-a-year, 300-employee Living Classrooms Foundation, which uses boats and the bay to educate inner-city youth, and also provides job training, neighborhood rehab, and management of once-failing charter schools.
• Tim Kelly is director of Fells Point’s Esperanza Center, funded by Catholic Charities of Baltimore, which provides legal and social services to the city’s growing Hispanic population.
• Terry M. Rubenstein is executive vice president of the Joseph and Harvey Meyerhoff Family Charitable Funds, a $100 million group of family funds that doles out roughly $5 million a year to cultural causes here and in Israel, as well as meeting middle-class needs with library and school computers, city parks improvements, and scholarships for families with average incomes.
• He didn’t want to be on this list because he’s fairly new at the job, but we can’t totally ignore Annie E. Casey Foundation president and CEO Patrick McCarthy, whose Baltimore-based foundation, with its roughly $2.6 billion in assets, gives away close to $150 million nationally every year.

Sports

It’s not just our favorite pastime (and obsession), it’s one of the driving forces of the local economy.

Steve Bisciotti
There’s really no disputing it anymore: Baltimore is a football town. Last year, Forbes magazine estimated the Ravens’ worth as $1.1 billion (as compared to the Orioles’ $376 million). And owner Bisciotti has a low-key, hands-off leadership style that appeals to the local fan base. Pressbox’s Stan “The Fan” Charles praises Bisciotti for “being smart enough to know what he doesn’t know.” Says WNST’s Nasty Nestor Aparicio: “The Ravens have become the most important binding element in our local society—across race, color, creed, gender, age. When they do well, the city feels good. That’s a lot of power.”

Ozzie Newsome
Ravens’ GM Newsome’s ability to “gauge talent” is unsurpassed, says Pressbox’s Stan “The Fan” Charles, but he also knows when to give up draft picks and pull the trigger on a great trade. “He’s the prime [force] in making the Ravens great,” says WNST’s Nasty Aparicio. And since much of the Ravens’ enormous value stems from its on-field success, it’s no surprise that Steve Bisciotti told The Baltimore Sun last year: “We want Oz to be here as long as Ozzie wants to be here.” Looks like the owner can evaluate talent almost as well as his GM.

Andy MacPhail/Buck Showalter
Both these men represent a sea change in the Orioles organization: President Andy MacPhail was the first person under Peter Angelos to be given some measure of control. “Though he’ll always answer to Peter, there’s no question that Andy has been given total leeway to do his job as he sees fit,” says WJZ sports director Mark Viviano. As for Showalter? “Buck brought credibility to the position that it hadn’t had in 10 years,” Viviano says. “And it was immediately reflected in how the players responded.”

Cal Ripken Jr.
From introducing baseball in China to building little league stadiums, Cal Ripken Jr. is using his power as an ex-Oriole for good. “One of the greatest reflections of Cal’s power is that the mere mention of his involvement in something uplifts its potential,” WJZ’s Marc Viviano says. “He’s one of those personalities you just trust and believe.”

And don’t count out:

• Linebacker Ray Lewis “ultimately has the most power to change our city over the next 20 years,” says WNST’s Aparicio, “with his brand, star, and transcendence.”
• Jay Davidson, the president of Baltimore Racing Development, leads the team that took the exciting gamble of bringing Grand Prix racing to Baltimore.
• Terrance Hasseltine, the director of the Maryland Office of Sports Marketing, was responsible for bringing the 2009 World Football Challenge to M&T Bank Stadium.
• The Sun’s Mike Preston is the most influential sports columnist in Baltimore. Many believe that Preston’s relentless criticism led to the firing of Ravens coach Brian Billick.

Health

If there is a single dominant field in the Greater Metropolitan area, it’s health care. These are the scions of the industry.

Robert Chrencik
Chrencik served as the financial officer at the University of Maryland Medical System for more than 20 years before being named UMMS president and CEO in 2008. He serves on the board of each of the 12 UMMS hospitals (which have 15,000 employees), and gets out of the office, too: He’s on the board of the Greater Baltimore Committee, The Center Club, and is a past president of the Maryland Chapter of the Health Care Financial Management Association.

Ronald R. Peterson
As president of The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System, Peterson oversees Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Howard County General Hospital, Suburban Hospital, and Sibley Memorial Hospital, as well as The Johns Hopkins Hospital. How big a job is that? Hopkins hospital, consistently ranked America’s best, includes more than 2,200 beds, employs 22,000 people, treats more than 800,000 patients from all over the world, and brings in $1.3 billion in revenue (plus the value of $161 million in uncompensated care).

Robert Murray
Every spring, hospital administrators, doctors, and insurance companies around the state wait with bated breath to hear what Murray will say. As executive director of the Health Services Cost Review Commission, Murray leads a process that determines how much health care providers can charge for services. The Commission’s decisions directly affect virtually every doctor and patient in the state, and, in a state where health care is the largest industry, that makes Murray our local equivalent of Fed chairman Ben Bernanke.

And don’t count out:

• As president and CEO of Sinai Hospital and, after the 1998 merger with Northwest Hospital, of Lifebridge Health, Warren Green has been a leader in the world of community hospitals for 19 years, providing a perspective to balance the big university institutions downtown.
• Chester “Chet” Burrell is president and CEO of CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, the top medical insurer in the state. The company’s decisions—such as recent ones to include nurse practitioners in its network as primary care providers or to maintain child-only plans—have a huge impact.

Nightlife

Here are the forces behind everything that goes bump (and grind) in the night.

Heidi Klotzman
Klotzman owns special event firm HeidnSeek Entertainment, which specializes in event coordination, marketing, and runs an online entertainment guide with more than 30,000 subscribers. Beyond promoting parties at Red Maple and Milan, Klotzman advertises charity events and hosts networking functions. “She’s a promoter with a conscience,” says Sam Sessa, The Sun’s entertainment editor.

Cullen Stalin
Long before Baltimore’s nightlife scene was on the map, Cullen Stalin was drawing a crowd. He and Simon Phoenix are resident DJs of TaxLo, the city’s biggest dance party for nearly a decade (attracting such famous acts as M.I.A). Last year, he helped start “No Rule”—a hugely popular dance party at the Metro Gallery—that bridges the hipster and hip-hop scenes. Cullen has helped developed TaxLo into “one of the most powerful nightlife brands in the city,” says City Paper’s music editor Michael Byrne.

Bill Muehlhauser
As the owner of the Rams Head Group, Muehlhauser owns five spaces in Stevensville, Annapolis, and Baltimore—including Rams Head Live! and Pier Six. He was smart enough to partner with promoter Seth Hurwitz of I.M.P. to bring big-time national acts to Rams Head Live! (like the Beastie Boys and Smashing Pumpkins), and is currently working with David Cordish to plan a new live music venue in the Arundel Mills slots parlor.

And don’t count out:

• Casey Hard, beer manager at Max’s Taphouse, helps organize beer festivals and built the bar into what it is today.
• Marc McFaul is growing a little bar empire with two Ropewalk Taverns (in Federal Hill and Bel Air), The Stalking Horse, and McFaul’s.
• Frank Remesch, general manager of 1st Mariner Arena, has brought huge names to Baltimore, like Bruce Springsteen and Jay-Z.

Dining

These restaurant royals are at the top of the Charm City food chain.

Tony Foreman and Cindy Wolf
The formidable restaurant team—Foreman’s a restaurant visionary; Wolf’s a world-class chef—came to the forefront of the city’s dining scene in 1995 and haven’t stopped since. The business partners have since formed the Foreman Wolf group to oversee their four restaurants: Charleston, Cinghiale, Petite Louis, and Pazo (they also have two wine stores). It’s no surprise that this duo is planning another business venture this year. Their empire grows.

Eddie Dopkin
Dopkin is probably best known for transforming a stretch of W. Cold Spring Lane into a mini restaurant row with Miss Shirley’s Cafe, S’ghetti Eddie’s, and Roland Park Bagel Co. (He also owned Loco Hombre and Alonso’s until selling them about a year ago.) His Crazy Man Restaurant Group now has another Miss Shirley’s at the Inner Harbor, and Dopkin is grooming his son David in the business. Dopkin is also exploring locations for one, possibly two, Miss Shirley’s in the next year.

Vasilios Keramidas
Keramidas, who heads up Kali’s Restaurant Group, has carved out a dining stronghold in Fells Point. The elegant Kali’s Court started the buzz, followed by Mezze, Meli American Bistro, and Tapas Adela. Now, he and his partners—Karen Patten, Eric Losin, and Theodore Losin—are gutting and renovating the old Admiral’s Cup Cafe.

Qayum and Pat Karzai
The Karzais, along with son Helmand, didn’t stop with their success at The Helmand, Baltimore’s go-to place for delicious, authentic Afghan food. The couple added Tapas Teatro and b bistro to their restaurant roster and are planning to open a tapas place at the reinvigorated Senator Theatre. They’re also eyeing the long-shuttered and once esteemed Chesapeake Restaurant on North Charles Street as a location for a seafood venue.

Patrick Russell
When Russell opened Kooper¹s Tavern in Fells Point, naming it after his yellow Lab, he had no idea he was embarking on a mini restaurant conglomerate. Now, he and his wife, Katie, operate Sláinte Irish Pub and Restaurant, Woody¹s Rum Bar and Island Grill, and Kooper¹s Chowhound Burger Wagon. Patrick Russell has also joined forces with Bill Irvin, the restaurants¹ director of operations, to form the Fells Point Hospitality Management group. So far, they have acquired Celie¹s Waterfront Inn in Fells Point and plan to open a wine bar in Fells Point and another restaurant in Baltimore County in the future. They also brought in a top-notch chef, Bill Crouse, to deliver the best possible cuisine at the current restaurants.

And don’t count out:

• Although the Food Network has announced that this will be Ace of Cake’s final season, they’re already looking to develop new shows for Duff Goldman, who has brought national attention to our fair city.
• Spike Gjerde‘s three-year-old Woodberry Kitchen has raised the bar for everyone else in the field.
• The Vitales—Aldo and Regina and sons Sergio and Alessandro—exert their influence at Aldo’s Ristorante Italiano in Little Italy by entertaining local bigwigs and hosting political fundraisers. The younger Vitales plan to open an upscale pizzeria in Harbor East.

Society

Two couples rule the gala scene with their philanthropy——and their rolodexes.

Eddie C. and C. Sylvia Brown
The generous Browns could neatly fit into several of the power categories on this list, but they most conspicuously wield their power in the social arena. They were feted at galas at MICA and The Reginald F. Lewis Museum and have been coveted guests and honorees at nearly every big society event in town, including the Arthritis Foundation and the Living Classrooms Foundation.
“They’re the most influential African American couple in the state of Maryland,” says talk show host Anthony McCarthy. “Everyone is knocking on their door. White, black, and in between.”
And when the Browns chair a party—or, even more often, are honored guests at one—the A-list of Baltimore is at their beck and call.
“They go to the right parties, they chair the right galas, they show up at the right dinner parties,” says McCarthy.
“They are the quintessential power couple,” agrees Del. Keiffer Mitchell Jr.
Says McCarthy: “Their legend continues to grow.”

Art and Pat Modell
The Modells are the 3 Rs: Rich, retired, and revered. In a relatively short period of time (by Baltimore standards at least), they have become significant patrons of both the arts and local charities.
“They have given so many wonderful philanthropic gifts to so many institutions around town,” says Sandy Richmond, the executive director of the newly renamed The Patricia and Arthur Modell Performing Arts Center at The Lyric. “There’s no way to say thanks.”
And when the Modells chair a party, “people show up,” says one high-ranking society observer.
“Art and Pat Modell do not take their commitments lightly,” says Lori D. Mulligan, director of development and marketing for Gilchrist Hospice Care. (The Modells recently chaired its
Holly Ball.) “Their name alone is associated with good judgment and impeccable taste.”

And don’t count out:

• Look out for David and Michel Modell. After chairing parties for Pam Shriver and MAP, the couple are clearly following in Art and Pat’s (gilded) footsteps.
• Rising stars Jennifer and George Reynolds recently chaired the Walters Gala and are big contributors to St. Joseph Medical Center. She’s also the next National Aquarium board chair. “They cut a wide swath among all sectors,” says one insider.
• Aris Melissaratos, the former DBED secretary (now at Hopkins), has become a serious player on the social scene, chairing galas for Cystic Fibrosis and the American Heart Association.

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The Power Vacuum

How Baltimore’s power has shifted—and why that may not be such a bad thing.

By Max Weiss

Once was, it was easy to identify the powerful people. They were the CEOs of local firms like Alex. Brown, the Maryland Jockey Club, and Mercantile Safe Deposit. They were the political apparatchiks of William Donald Schaefer and later, Kurt Schmoke. They were graduates of the big urban public schools—like City or Poly—or the big private ones, like Gilman, Boys’ Latin, and Calvert School.

But now, as more local headquarters are closing (or being bought out), and as the old guard is retiring (or dead), there’s a bit of confusion in this town.

Who’s running Baltimore?

John Willis, the former Secretary of State of Maryland under Parris Glendening, now the director of the government and public policy program at the University of Baltimore, puts it like this: “No one knows who to call anymore.”

The Irv Kovens of this world—he was famously the kingmaker behind Schaefer—are gone, as are likes of H. Furlong Baldwin (the former Mercantile chief), Joe DeFrancis (from the Maryland Jockey Club), and Buzzy Krongard (of Alex. Brown). And while H&S’s John Paterakis and Orioles owner/superlawyer Peter Angelos are still enormously powerful, they have become less hands-on with time.

“We’ve run out of the kind of people who used to sit on the board of the GBC [Greater Baltimore Committee],” says Aris Melissaratos, the former head of the Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED) and now an adviser to the president of Hopkins.

And while Larry Gibson, the political adviser who helped put Kurt Schmoke in office, still has some measure of power, he wasn’t able to mobilize the vote behind the candidate he most recently supported, Pat Jessamy. (She lost her city State’s Attorney seat to newcomer Gregg Bernstein, largely because voter turnout was historically low.)

“Large groups of people just aren’t being controlled like they used to,” says WEAA talk show host Anthony McCarthy, the former spokesperson for Mayor Sheila Dixon. “It used to be easier to turn out voters.”

And that’s at least partly because of the waning influence of The Baltimore Sun.

“The media market is fractured,” notes Willis. “Makes it that much more difficult to reach large numbers of people.”

Of course, there are people who have power—the mayor, the governor, the county executives—just by virtue of their postions. But elected power isn’t the same as personal power. And everyone agrees that the personal power in this town has become splintered. But here’s the rub: Most feel that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

“There’s been a generational shift,” says Del. Keiffer Mitchell Jr., who himself hails from a long-serving political family. “Power these days can be influenced by the number of friends you have on Facebook.”

Adds Kathy Sher, the deputy director for external affairs at the National Aquarium, “It feels like the thirtysomething and fortysomethings have as much cachet as the old guard. And that seems like a very healthy and positive dynamic.”

As for the notion that you had to have been born and raised in this town to rise to power? Not necessarily true, our observers say, but Baltimoreans are still wary of outsiders.

“You can’t just fly in and have a Tea Party member [as CEO] and expect it to work,” chuckles Willis. “There has to be a certain amount of awareness.”

“You have to get involved with your community,” adds Mitchell. He points to Atwood “Woody” Collins, the high-ranking M&T Bank exec, who has become a local leader. “He doesn’t drive around in a limo. He walks to M&T. People like that.”

Worshipping at the right churches is still a factor, as is knowing the right opinion makers, what Mitchell calls the “chattering class.” But Melissaratos points out that even those folks are less easy to identify. “Who’s calling the shots right now?” he muses.

All agree that the best part of this power shortage is that it gives an opportunity for new leadership to emerge in rising populations, like the Latino community, the green community, and both the new technology and health care sectors. And power is also materializing from increasingly diverse pockets (which is why we broke up our larger feature into categories).

“Now it seems like there are different segments of power and they’re all very unique,” says Kathy Sher. “And they reflect the business and social complexities that are going on in Baltimore.”

For now, we have shifted from what Willis calls an “elite” power structure to a “pluralistic” one. But he’s not sure it’s going to last.

“Politics abhors a vacuum,” he says. “The question is, who’s going to emerge?”

Q: What are some of your favorite hometown memories?

A: My favorite memories were probably at the Roland Park pool. That was kind of my summer hangout. I lived off of Cold Spring Lane, so we would walk down to Sam’s Bagels and The Daily Grind. I went back about a year ago with my boyfriend, and all these memories came flooding back. I thought Roland Park Country School’s theater was the biggest I’d ever seen when I was in my middle-school productions. But it looked a lot smaller this time around.

Q: We hear you’re a big football fan.
A: I love the Ravens and every season, I’m like, “This is the year.” It’s always fun in L.A. because you don’t run into a lot of Marylanders. I was watching college basketball in a bar once and a man was wearing a Ravens jersey. We became best friends. I’m also the proud owner of a football from a Ravens game. It was a Christmas gift from a friend who plays for the Eagles [Jon Dorenbos]. My boyfriend asked if he could have the game ball signed by Steve McNair. The ball is dirty and deflated, but I love it.

Q: Most girls hate fantasy football, but you like it.
A: I’m completely addicted. It’s just so much fun and it gets so competitive. It’s kind of like gambling because you can look at the projections, but you can also go with your gut. In some of our closed circuit leagues, our friends would cheat and ask [Dorenbos] if Westbrook was playing that night. We get pretty cutthroat.

Q: The creator of Mad Men, Matthew Weiner, is from here as well.
A: It’s not just Matt—there are tons of people from Baltimore. When I wound up on that show, I was like, “This is where you’ve all been hiding.” Even in my audition, they loved the fact that I was from Baltimore. Baltimore is a big city, but it’s also small. It’s so cool to be able to cross-reference places back home with people on the set.

Q: Is playing Jane on Mad Men as fun is it looks?
A: I have an absolute blast. When I came on, I had no idea what would happen to the character. They keep you guessing, even the actors. I had no idea she was going to wind up marrying the boss [Roger Sterling]. I remember sitting at that table read and everyone was like, “What?”

Q: Do you get to keep any of the clothes?
A: Definitely not, but there have been times where I’m having one of those days, where I could really use my girdle. It’s uncomfortable, but it really makes you look so good.

When Terry O’Quinn isn’t playing the elusive character John Locke on the acclaimed ABC show Lost, you might spot the angular, bald actor picking up groceries at The Giant across from the Maryland State Fairgrounds, eating scrambled eggs at Miss Shirley’s in Roland Park, or taking a swing on the greens at Greystone Golf Course in White Hall.

After all, he’s one of us, a Marylander, since the mid-1970s. And when Lost— a convoluted saga about a group of plane crash survivors who find themselves on an island full of mysteries—wraps up filming its sixth and final season in Hawaii this spring, O’Quinn, 57, will be back in his Timonium townhouse with his wife of 30 years, Lori. He’ll be hanging out with friends and just being a regular guy, at least, until his next project.

There’s already buzz about another TV show, perhaps pairing O’Quinn with Michael Emerson, who plays the nefarious, bug-eyed Ben on Lost. The new series, in one possible scenario, would feature O’Quinn and Emerson as suburban hit men juggling family issues, according to the TV Guide Magazine website.

It makes sense. The two actors have a soul-searing on-screen chemistry, though O’Quinn wouldn’t confirm any specifics. “I have a couple of plans. It’s a secret,” says the actor, who spoke by phone from Hawaii while filming the waning episodes of the series. “It involves TV. I love television.”

Even before the Lost finale airs May 23, a wistfulness lingers in O’Quinn’s voice when he talks about John Locke, the enigmatic role he’s lived and breathed for so many years. There are similarities between Locke and himself, he says.

“He’s looking for something to believe in. He’s like me in that he wants to be appreciated,” says O’Quinn. “He’s an amplification of everyone’s desires.”

But is John Locke good or evil? “Yes,” says O’Quinn with a chuckle. “It’s the most honest answer. He could be one of The Others.”

Anyone who has followed Lost—or tried to—knows that The Others are a hostile, ragtag tribe of people on the island. Of course, for John Locke, the plot has gotten more complicated this season since the Smoke Monster—a roiling, undulating tube of blackness—has assumed the appearance of his supposedly dead body.

(If you’re a novice watcher, don’t even try and understand. In fact, regular viewers usually have no clue what’s going on either. We’re waiting for answers, ABC!)

At the time of the phone call, O’Quinn didn’t know what was in store for his character. “They don’t tell us anything. . . . I’m just a few episodes ahead of you,” he says.

When O’Quinn leaves his popular TV persona behind, he’ll slide into civilian life in Timonium with just a few minor tweaks.

“I think he’s pretty grounded,” says his wife Lori, a Reisterstown native and accomplished horse rider who reined in her husband when he needed riding lessons many years ago for a movie role. She acknowledges, though, that there is a period of adjustment when he returns to Baltimore after working in the limelight. “He comes back, and [I say], ‘Let’s get the trash out. Pick up this.’ I have to whip him back into shape,” she says, joking, sort of.

But by all accounts, the affable actor with the cat-ate-the-canary grin is not a prima donna, despite having appeared in more than a hundred stage and screen roles, and especially since he’s become a household name—and even a heartthrob—in the compelling Lost, for which he won an Emmy in 2007.

“He is, still is, terrifyingly handsome,” says Irene Lewis, artistic director at CenterStage. “There’s a whole bedroom quality to the man.”

Lewis, who came to CenterStage in the early 1990s, directed O’Quinn in plays here and in New England during his younger days. She mentions Watch on the Rhine (“He was quite brilliant in that”) and The Glass Menagerie (“It was sort of a translucent performance”).

The actor’s appeal crosses generations, she says, sharing how her 22-year-old niece, a college senior, is a big fan of Lost and particularly of O’Quinn. When the student e-mailed him, he wrote her back. “He’s just a person. He doesn’t let [stardom] affect him,” Lewis says.

O’Quinn downplays his Lost magnetism. “Josh [Holloway] and Evie [Evangeline Lilly], the young and the sexy, get a lot more attention,” he says modestly. (He’s referring to the actors who play the hunky Sawyer and gorgeous Kate on the show, a star-crossed pair if there ever was one.)

Lewis and O’Quinn have stayed friends over the years. She would love for him to appear in a play at CenterStage. “I wrote him and said, ‘Before we’re in wheelchairs, will you come back?'” she says.

O’Quinn would also like to reconnect with his theater beginnings. “I keep telling her, telling myself, I want to get back to CenterStage,” he says. “I intend to.” Lewis has her doubts “now that he’s hot,” she says.

But a curtain call could be tempting. After all, his performance in Tartuffe in the 1970s at the Baltimore regional theater was life changing in many ways. It brought O’Quinn, a Michigan native who had been acting in New York, to town and eventually led him to his future wife.

While he was here, O’Quinn, who had changed his name from Quinn earlier in his career, was offered a role in the movie Heaven’s Gate after he told a casting agent he could ride a horse. “Of course, I couldn’t,” says O’Quinn, laughing. “So I had to learn to ride.”

He ended up at Wood Gait Farm in northwest Baltimore County, where his now-wife Lori (Franklin High class of ’75) lived with her parents. He became the pupil.

“I’d put Terry on a horse, put him in position, and he would hold it.” Lori recalls. “It was very cool teaching him. He was determined.”

O’Quinn learned his lessons well. He took on the role of Captain Minardi in Heaven’s Gate, a Western that starred a slew of big names like Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, Jeff Bridges (a newly minted Oscar winner for Crazy Heart), and John Hurt. But the movie is probably best remembered as being one of the biggest box-office bombs of all time and the end of director Michael Cimino’s (The Deer Hunter) career. (Obviously, it didn’t impact O’Quinn’s future.)

At the horse farm, Lori wasn’t sure what to make of the guy who would become her husband—a theatrical-looking, almost effeminate figure perched in a saddle. “He had this little Shakespeare beard thing,” she says. “He was a tall drink of water, a thin, little thing.”

Then, they fell in love. She was 22. He was 27. There’s a reason for their long relationship, says Terry: “Don’t act on bad impulses.” He doesn’t elaborate.

Today, Terry and Lori are the parents of two sons in their 20s, Oliver and Hunter. They raised the boys in Reisterstown before selling that house about six years ago to move to Hawaii. Their Baltimore roots always bring them back.

“We’ve lived in 20 places, and every time, we came back to Maryland,” says Lori. “The last time, we said, ‘That’s it. That’s our connection.’ We’re always going to be connected to Maryland.” Terry concurs: “I’ve adopted Maryland as my home.”

He’s come a long way, literally and figuratively, from his days in small-town Newberry, MI, where he was one of 11 children in a close-knit, Irish-Catholic family. He was bitten by the acting bug in high school, he says, after watching Franco Zeffirelli’s film Romeo and Juliet. He started acting in theater at Central Michigan University, though he didn’t graduate. “College was a bridge to where I was going,” he says, sounding very much like his character John Locke.

Nowadays, his celebrity follows him.

“When I first met him, I was a little apprehensive,” admits Doug Elseroad, a golf buddy who lives in Owings Mills. “But he’s down-to-earth, low-key, and unassuming.”

Elseroad and his wife Jane (who has known Lori since their school days) often spend time with the O’Quinns. They visited the couple in January at their other home on Hawaii’s North Shore while the last episodes of Lost were being filmed. “It’s really funny,” says Jane. “He’s just Terry to me.”

O’Quinn took his Baltimore friends on location and introduced them to the Lost ensemble. “The cast made us feel comfortable,” says Jane. “We had an opportunity to meet Sawyer, Josh. He’s a funny, funny guy with a million-dollar smile.”

It wasn’t the first time that Baltimoreans visited the Lost set. Last year, Duff Goldman—of Food Network’s Ace of Cakes and Charm City Cakes—and his baking crew fashioned an island cake with miniature Lost characters to celebrate the show’s 100th episode. O’Quinn missed the cast party because he was filming elsewhere. But he salvaged a memento. “I have the little sugar figure [of John Locke] in my refrigerator,” he says.

Back at home, the O’Quinns and Elseroads pal around together, going to the movies, playing board games like Say Anything (which encourages players to reveal what they think about numerous topics), or listening to Terry strum his guitar. He’s a diehard Neil Young fan (as well as a big Ravens follower, he says). When they go out in Baltimore, Terry is often recognized, Jane Elseroad says.

But O’Quinn doesn’t mind. “It’s pleasant,” he says. “I’ve been around long enough. I count my blessings. It’s a sign you’re doing well.”

Josh Charles is living proof that you can take the boy out of Baltimore, but you can’t take Baltimore out of the boy. A working actor since he was 15, Charles left his hometown to work when he was 16, but remains a Mt. Washington boy at heart, religiously following the O’s and the Ravens and sometimes satiating his craving for crabs with transcontinental deliveries from Obrycki’s.

“I love Johnny Unitas and I hate the Redskins, you know? Things you just can’t help if you’re from Baltimore,” he says, speaking by phone from the New York City set of his new, hit CBS drama The Good Wife. “Anyone who knows me, knows that being from Baltimore is a big part of who I am.”

Charles, 38, grew up surrounded by Baltimore luminaries (father Allan Charles is the chairman and creative director of advertising and public relations firm Trahan Burden & Charles; mother Laura was the longtime gossip columnist for The Sun; and Boogie Weinglass, the basis for Mickey Rourke’s character in Diner, is an old family friend) and got his performing start here, albeit in an unlikely form.

“I used to go to open mic nights when I was [9-years-old],” he says. “I did comedy at the Charm City Comedy Club, which was in Harborplace.”

Even more surprising is his comedic inspiration.

“I snuck some Richard Pryor records somewhere, and I used to listen to them a lot—all the dirty jokes” he chuckles. “I thought he was kind of brilliant, a hero of mine. I used to try to imitate him.”

If the thought of a 9-year-old Charles mimicking Richard Pryor is too much cognitive dissonance to bear—Charles is, after all, probably best known for portraying shy Knox Overstreet in Dead Poets Society—he says the move made perfect sense to him at the time.

“When I look back on it, I definitely was precocious enough that you might want to smack me at times,” he cracks, “but it got me feeling comfortable performing at a young age, on a stage, in front of an audience.”

Proud papa Allan says he had total faith in his son. “He was amazing and the crowds loved him,” he recalls. “He could handle himself in just about any adult situation.”

Charles’s big break came in John Waters’s Hairspray, in which he played Iggy, a regular dancer on The Corny Collins Show.

Filming his first movie in his hometown was an “ideal situation,” he acknowledges. “It was really special to shoot my first movie in Baltimore and with John.”

From there it was on to Delaware to shoot Dead Poets Society and then to New York and L.A. for various roles in TV and film including the critically-praised Aaron Sorkin-created dramedy Sports Night, which ran for two seasons on ABC.

Now, Charles has returned to network television in another well-regarded program. The Good Wife‘s ripped-from-the-headlines premise follows Julianna Margulies as Alicia Florrick, a political wife getting on with her life after her husband was caught in a sex-scandal. Charles plays an old friend of Alicia’s who offers her a position at his law firm. The New York Times says the show, “imaginatively explores how one scorned spouse struggles to get past a life-shattering scandal.” (Charles’s take on the whole wronged-wife-standing-by-her-man phenomenon is succinct: “I just can’t believe so many of them do,” he says.)

Beyond the provocative premise, Charles says he was attracted to the project for all the usual actorly reasons: great cast, good script, and an interesting character to play. “I had never played a lawyer before so I thought it would be kind of interesting to research that,” he says.

Plus, as an added benefit, the New York location lets him visit Baltimore more often.

“Living in L.A., it’s harder to get to Baltimore a lot,” he says. “Now, I come back a lot throughout the year. I come back for a lot of Ravens games. I just jump right on the Acela [train] and two-and-a-half-hours later I’m at my parents house.”

Though visits keep him connected to his roots, Charles hopes to eventually return to Baltimore to work.

“I haven’t filmed anything in Baltimore since [Hairspray] and am not happy about that fact. Can you talk to somebody about that for me?” he quips.

He knows exactly what kind of film he’d like it to be, too.

“Diner is one of my all-time favorite movies,” he says. “It’s the kind of movie I would die to be in because it’s just so Baltimore. It’s a universal story, but at it’s heart, it’s so specific to Baltimore.”

Because of Weinglass’s connection to the movie, a 10-year-old Charles got to visit the set during filming and remembers meeting the cast, particularly Kevin Bacon, who spent time talking shop with the then-aspiring actor.

“It really left an impression on me,” he says, adding that not only would he have liked to act in the movie, he also wishes he had lived the movie.

“I’m sort of removed from that generation, but certainly, I still have that in my bones,” he acknowledges. “Had I been born at a different time, I like to think I would’ve been one of those guys in Diner.”

It’s a good thing Rhea Feikin isn’t superstitious. Almost two years
ago, the longtime Maryland Public Television personality sold her
Stevenson home of 42 years and moved into a swank new condo on Charles
Street in Baltimore. “I always knew I wanted to live in the Charles
Street area,” she explains. “My friends live in this area, and I was
tired of being the designated driver!” But literally a few days after
she moved in, disaster struck. Feikin woke up at 4 a.m. with a startle.
“I got out of bed and ended up walking through two inches of water,” she
recalls. A pipe on a water heater in a neighboring apartment had burst
and leaked water into her apartment.

While Feikin moved to the nearby Colonnade for a week (and her
belongings were stored), a team of disaster specialists dried out the
walls, pulled up the soaked carpeting, and dehumidified the space. Once
the apartment was restored, a reordered Karastan carpet was laid down
again, and designers Ted Pearson and Rita St. Clair (also two of
Feikin’s dear friends) got back to the business of decorating.

Crisis averted, right? Wrong.

Within days, Feikin noticed strange dirt spots appearing all over the
carpet. This time around, the carpet was deemed defective (the glue
backing was eating up into the yarn). Because Pearson and St. Clair were
afraid the glue would get on Feikin’s belongings, the movers came back,
put everything in storage for a second time, and Feikin moved back to
the Colonnade.

Unbelievably, yet a third round of carpeting was defective, and
Feikin was forced to hang her hat at the Colonnade again before moving
in for good in July of 2007.

“She was a champ,” recalls Pearson. “She was so kind and sweet and
patient with us the whole time. I said to her, ‘You’ve been so nice to
us—anyone else would have lost it.'”

As for Feikin? She took the whole thing with characteristic good
humor. “I’ve never been faced with anything like that before,” she
laughs. “What could I do except believe it was going to be all right?
Did it teach me anything? Not a damn thing other than don’t use that
carpet! I loved being here. I knew it was going to work out.”

Standing in her condo’s doorway, dressed in a navy-and-white-striped
boatneck sweater, elegant white trousers, and the perfect pair of white
leather sandals, the 73-year-old Feikin seems to have completely
recovered from the stress of moving in. In fact, she positively glows.
It was light, Feikin says, that sold her on the two-bedroom apartment in
the first place. “When I first saw this apartment,” she says, “the
light drew me. I love light.”

While Feikin also loved her suburban home, she decided it was time to move on after more than four decades in one place.

“I was living in the house by myself,” she explains. (Son Daniel
lives in Kenya and is an epidemiologist for the Center for Disease
Control; daughter Jennifer lives in Los Angeles.) “My second husband
[actor Colgate Salsbury] had died seven years before,” says Feikin, “and
my dog, Maud, died. So there I was in this house, which I loved, with
beautiful old trees, and a basement stuffed with things my kids couldn’t
get rid of. The years went on, and they never looked through any of it.
I just decided one day it was time for me to change my life.”

The first order of business was selling the house. Feikin’s Realtor,
Michael Yerman, thought the ’60s-era home, with its small rooms and
outdated spaces, might be a tough sell. But within several days of
putting it on the market in October 2007, a developer purchased the
one-and-a-half-acre property with the intention of razing the house and
building a new one on the land.

“I didn’t have to paint it or do anything,” says Feikin. “All I had to do was empty it and find a place to live immediately.”

Ironically, it was Feikin’s kids who found it more difficult to let
go. “My children, who come home two times a year at most, were
broken-hearted about my move,” she says. “We had to go through every
room of the house with a camera and talk about our memories from every
room. Then my daughter put it to music and gave us DVDs.”

Not everything was left behind. Feikin was able to take her favorite
pieces from her old county home and incorporate them into her new urban
one—while updating and creating a space of her own. The airy,
light-filled apartment is a rhapsody in cream, peaches, and pale pinks—a
palette based on the Indian silk taffeta Tafford curtains in her
bedroom.

“I didn’t want a lot of color,” she says. “I didn’t want to be
jangled. I wanted to feel calm and serene, and I wanted the art to show.
Because Rita knows me so well, I didn’t have to say a lot. I like Art
Nouveau and Art Deco. I wanted some of that feel here.”

Feikin brought all of her artwork (magnificent signed lithographs
from Art Nouveau artist Alphonse Mucha, a Douglas Hoffman painting,
wooden antique hand carvings from an Italian donkey cart) and objects (a
valuable 1920s Handel leaded stained glass lamp, a stunning silver tea
set samovar, a wooden box from a noted Chinese artist purchased at the
American Craft Council Show in Baltimore) from the old house. For the
furniture, St. Clair and Pearson balanced treasured pieces—like Feikin’s
Scandinavian table and chairs (actually purchased by St. Clair nearly
50 years ago) and a pair of black lacquered and zebrawood Art Deco
chairs—with new ones, including a Deco-style dining room sideboard, a
stunning living room sofa covered in a cream-colored Old World weavers
fabric, and woven outdoor furniture with leopard upholstered cushions
(where Feikin reads her beloved crime novels).

At least one relic from the Stevenson home didn’t make the final cut.
“I’m a big lover of bathrobes,” says Feikin. “When I get home, I don’t
put on warm-ups. I put on a bathrobe. I had my favorite old, ratty
bathrobe, and as I was washing it at my old house, I looked at it and
said, ‘Girl, I’m sorry, but you’re not coming with me—you go with the
house!'”

Feikin’s bedroom is a study in feminine glamour. After sleeping on a
platform bed for many years, Feikin wanted one with a headboard. “I told
Rita I wanted something really special,” she says. “She said, ‘I want
to show you something. If you hate it, just say so.'”

Rita’s grand idea? To take elements from an Art Deco armoire and
headboard she had bought at a French flea market and use them all
throughout the room. “She said, ‘What I’d like to do is take the armoire
apart and build you a headboard and side table,'” Feikin recalls. St.
Clair also designed an elegant walnut and silver-leafed dresser with
legs fashioned from the leftover wood.

The results are quite striking—and Feikin is thrilled with them. “It’s just what I wanted,” she says.

“I would like to think that we captured her look and personality,”
says St. Clair of the bedroom. “Rhea is a diva, but without all that
drama. She is not what I’d call a drama queen. She is a warm,
intelligent, and very feminine lady, and I wanted to create a ‘stage
set’ according to her personality and lifestyle.”

Part of that stage set includes a walk-in closet stocked with
beautiful clothing purchased at favorite shops such as Ruth Shaw and
Jones and Jones and a makeup table with ample lighting. “I am a makeup
junkie,” says Feikin, who loves Bare Escentuals makeup. “I’m fast, and I
can practically put it on in the dark.”

Of course, when Feikin gets dressed for the day, she has to mind her
fashion more than most. “I probably am a little more cognizant of how I
look when I go to the grocery store, although sometimes it’s bad,” says
Feikin, who is a fixture at such Baltimore restaurants as The Prime Rib
and Kali’s Court. “It’s part of the job. I’m grateful that people like
me. I’m grateful they want to say, ‘Hi,’ but that means I can’t go out
in my bathrobe. That’s the downside. It’s hard to look hideous when you
go out, though I’ve managed to do it quite a number of times!”

When Feikin was a little girl growing up in Hampden, she dreamed of
becoming a movie star. “I wanted to be an actress, and I acted all
through high school and college at University of Maryland.”

But her career choice was frowned upon by her family. “My parents
said, ‘You have to learn to do something. You can’t major in drama.'”
Feikin graduated with a degree in speech pathology, and went to work for
the Department of Education as a speech therapist.

As luck would have it, a year into her job, WBAL-TV was looking for
someone from the department to do a show on speech. “They said, ‘Who
wants to do it?’ And no one did, and I said, ‘I do, I do!’ and that was
the beginning of my TV career,” says Feikin.

A stint on the children’s show, Miss Rhea and Sunshine with puppeteer
Cal Schuman (who kept things lively when he came straight to work
hungover from a night of drinking, Feikin reports) followed, as well as a
weather gig with Schuman at WBAL-TV in the ’60s. “We didn’t know a
thing about the weather,” says Feikin. “They had teletype machines in
the newsroom and we would pull off the weather and make it up. Once in a
while, when the teletype machine didn’t work, we had to call the
weather bureau and talk to a meteorologist, and they were always so
annoyed that we were doing the weather and didn’t know the first thing
about it.”

Even as Feikin’s TV career was flourishing, she never lost her first
love: the theater. She helped found Centerstage in 1963 and appeared in
several productions including La Ronde by Arthur Schnitzler; it was also
where she met her second husband. Acting in professional theater,
however, helped her realize that acting was not going to be her calling.
“I was smart enough to know that, although I thought I was hot stuff in
college, I was mediocre when it came to people who really knew how to
act,” she chuckles. “So fortunately, I was able to forge a career in
TV.”

That’s an understatement. Feikin is about to celebrate her 35th year
with MPT. As the host of Artworks This Week (recently renamed Artworks)
and other shows, Feikin has proven herself the consummate
conversationalist, able to interview actor Jeremy Irons (an admitted
crush), cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and lifelong friend John Waters (whose movies
she has had bit parts in, including Hairspray and Cecil B. Demented)
with equal aplomb.

Ironically, she might even be most famous around town for her
cheerful and persuasive presence at MPT fund drives. “One time I came
home from doing a membership drive, and my second husband said, ‘You
know, you really are a fabulous actor.’ And I said, ‘What are you
talking about? I’m doing a membership drive!’ And he said, ‘You only do
one character—you—but you do it so well.’ That was a really wonderful
compliment because, in fact, I think people on TV who are closest to who
they really are are the most believable and successful—you can’t choose
a role you can’t play.”

Feikin, a devoted yogi, plans on playing herself for a long time to
come. “MPT doesn’t have this age neurosis, especially since they have an
older audience,” she says. “It’s never been an issue for me there. My
daughter says, ‘Who do you know that’s your age except Barbara Walters
who does what you do? You are making younger women realize they can have
a career on camera for longer.’ And I hope that’s true. I hope women
will be allowed to age on camera, just as men have been allowed to age
on camera.”

Meanwhile, off camera, Feikin couldn’t be happier about this turning
point in her life. “Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a hotel,” says
Feikin. “The feeling I get from living here is so welcoming and
comforting. And other times, I feel like I’m living on a big cruise
ship. Everything is here, and it’s all very easy.”

For now, it’s smooth sailing. “I’m finished with responsibility. I
went away to Italy recently and had my mail held at the front desk. I
closed the door, and I left. This is the right thing for me now. This,”
she says with dramatic emphasis, “is nirvana.”