Summer's Latter-Day Stars

By Rebecca Winters

Move over, Kabbalah, there's a new sect in show biz. As JON HEDER, who plays a geeky Idahoan in the teen sleeper Napoleon Dynamite, explains, "Dude, it's cool to be Mormon." Heder and Dynamite's writer-director, Jared Hess, are members of the Mormon church, as are most of the film's cast and crew. RYAN GOSLING, the brooding heartthrob in the summer weepy The Notebook, grew up Mormon in Canada. But the toast (nonalcoholic) of Salt Lake City this July has to be Jeopardy! mega-champ KEN JENNINGS, who had won a record $920,960 by the end of last week. Jennings plans to donate 10% of his jackpot to the Mormon church. That's one mission accomplished.