Ethan

WILLIAM (Mark Webber) is a 20-year-old actor born in Texas and raised in New York after his parents divorced when he was a child. Some 15 years later, the trauma is still fresh in his mind, sparking flashbacks to his conception and, later, to his father's advice never to stray too far from Texas in his heart. William dutifully follows the tip, incorporating down-home elements in his hipster (hickster?) wardrobe and affecting a mopey cowboy demeanor.

Ethan Willoughby, 30, a Grammy-nominated audio and mix engineer, died Sunday when the car he was driving on the 101 Freeway in Sherman Oaks was hit about 4:15 a.m. by a suspected drunk driver traveling the wrong direction, according to the California Highway Patrol. Willoughby collaborated with Justin Timberlake on his 2002 debut album, "Justified," and received a Grammy nomination for engineering on Timberlake's 2006 album, "FutureSex/LoveSounds." Born Dec. 12, 1976, in Evansville, Wis.

If ever a movie begged for the resurrection of the drive-in, "Drive-Away Dykes" is it. A lesbian road-trip action sex comedy penned by writer-producer Ethan Coen ("Fargo") and his wife, film editor Tricia Cooke, "Drive-Away" promises all the laughs, thrills and mischief of the old double-bill sexploitation cinema. "Women on the road. All kinds of action," deadpans the tagline. I'm there.

WHO COULD BEAR to write an epitaph for Ethan Esparza? Ethan was celebrating at his 4th birthday party Nov. 19, playing with a new toy car in the frontyard of his Pomona home, when a gunman stepped out of an SUV and began spraying bullets into the crowd of children. After being shot, Ethan lived long enough to scramble to his mother's room and spend his last moments gasping for breath in her arms. There are no words strong enough to express her agony or the depths of a community's sympathy.

Ethan Esparza wasn't old enough for school, but his classroom was the front porch of his family's home in a working-class section of Pomona. There, his 8-year-old sister, Belinda, would show him her school textbooks, watch him doodle and go over the alphabet. "He only learned half his ABCs," Belinda said from the porch Tuesday, looking out at the frontyard where Ethan was fatally shot Sunday night during a party celebrating his fourth birthday a day early.

If a reigning star at American Ballet Theatre -- recently (if unofficially) crowned one of the kings of dance -- can't inspire enough support to launch even a midsize ballet company in Southern California, who can?

Ethan HAWKE tossed his trucker hat atop the plants in the cafe window and kissed the stunning waitress on both cheeks, French style. It was a Chelsea morning after the first preview of the off-Broadway revival of David Rabe's 1984 play "Hurlyburly," and Hawke was absolutely rumpled, the flagrant bed-head definitely not a result of over-styling. He still smokes. He still looks as he did in his early 20s, somehow both anxious and mellow.

The life and career of Edmund G. Brown, the two-term governor universally known as "Pat," spans a tipping point in the state's history, as we are reminded in "California Rising," journalist Ethan Rarick's colorful and masterful biography of the lovable old pol. In 1962, California became the most populous state in the nation, an event that, as Brown himself put it, shifted "the balance of the most powerful nation in the world ... from the Atlantic to the Pacific."

ETHAN HAWKE, who stars in the new movie "Taking Lives" with Angelina Jolie, has been doing the rounds of the glossy magazines and TV shows, talking about life and his split from actress Uma Thurman. The 33-year-old broodingly handsome actor has broodingly appeared in such films as "Dead Poets Society," "Before Sunrise" and "Training Day," and he has written two novels. Might relationship guru be in his future?

In Ethan Black's splendid "Dead for Life," an innocent New York cop is pilloried for dereliction of duty. A raging, resourceful, persistent cur -- determined to liquidate his prey for no evident reason -- claims that responsibility for his murders lies with Det. Conrad Voort. To save his honor and his career, Voort must discover the killer's motivation and foil his plans.