TheStar.com - New kid on screen When Donnie Wahlberg learned that his father, a longtime alcoholic, had suffered several serious strokes and was near death five years ago, he did what any other churchgoing Irish Catholic son would do.
"I had him baptized," the actor reveals.
"He was worried that he was going to die and he wouldn't go to Heaven, so I arranged for it. I said, `Dad, you sent us to church all those years and you don't even have a religion?'"
While Sunday mass played a big part in Wahlberg's life growing up in the middle-class suburb of Dorchester, Mass., the role of family was even larger. He shared a tiny bedroom with his five brothers (there were nine children in all), including Mark, 31, star of Boogie Nights and The Truth About Charlie.