- published: 22 Mar 2012
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Hal Harry Magee Sparks III (born September 25, 1969) is an American actor, comedian, musician and television personality. He is known for his contributions to VH1, hosting E!'s Talk Soup, and the role of Michael Novotny on the American television series Queer as Folk.
Sparks was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, but grew up in the small community of Peaks Mill, Kentucky. He started Boy Scouts at age 7 and karate at age 8, and filled his childhood between video games, movies, and comedy albums since the nearest TV was a mile from where he lived.
When he was 14 years old, he moved to the Chicago area and enrolled at New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois, where he fortuitously entered the theater department. Thanks to an influential teacher named Mrs. Adams, he was able to cultivate his natural talent and boundless energy into marketable skill. Despite some initial opposition by his dad, by 15 he began performing standup comedy and by 17 he won the title of "Chicago's Funniest Teenager" from the Chicago Sun-Times.
Dennis DeYoung (born February 18, 1947) is an American singer, songwriter, musician and producer best known for being a founding member of the rock band Styx as lead vocalist, keyboardist and primary songwriter, a tenure that lasted from 1961 until June 1999.
Growing up in the Roseland neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois, DeYoung's career as a vocalist started in 1961 at the age of 14 when he teamed up with his 13-year-old neighbors, Chuck and John Panozzo, in a three-piece combo. The trio later added guitarist James Young and John Curulewski to form the band Tradewinds in the late 1960s. The band renamed itself TW4 in 1968 before becoming Styx in 1970.
Before the band met with success, DeYoung spent time as an elementary school teacher in the southern suburbs of Chicago, where he taught music at Kolmar School in Midlothian, Illinois. During this period, the band played a number of small venues and school auditoriums, refining their craft before the song "Lady" propelled them to national, then international, stardom.