My real name is Elizabeth, but I had a nanny growing up who called me 'Elizabeanie.' So from 4 months old, my brothers were, like, 'Let's call her Beanie.' To show people the validity of it, I always say that if I met the president, I would say, 'Hi, my name is Beanie.'

My whole life, not just in my professional career but in community theater, I played the supporting role.

I saw 'Brooklyn' so many times.

I did my first little kids' musical, 'The Sound of Music,' at 5, in a jungle gym, essentially. I was a made-up Von Trapp child, Ingrid Von Trapp.

One of the most unusual shuttles operates at the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historic Site in Texas, carrying visitors on a one and one-half hour trip past Johnson's birthplace, the family cemetery and ranch house, and through the ranch.

When I was 11 years old, my family had to leave East Germany and begin a new life in West Germany overnight. Until my father could get back into his original profession as a government employee, my parents operated a small laundry business in our little town. I became the laundry delivery boy.

I've come to see the mosh pit as an apt description of American society - and of my childhood home. I was number nine of ten creative, mostly loud kids competing for airspace.

When my sister and I were very young, my father used to tell us fairy stories that he'd made up. My mother was always telling him that he should write them down, but he would say, 'Well, they've all been done before. There are so many blooming books in the world - why should I write another one?'