Q. Is Raymond Burr so seriously ill he's stopped acting?
A. Burr, 74, has had his share of ailments, including surgery for colon cancer last year and a hip problem that necessitates a cane. Yet he's still a workhorse. Burr has made three two-hour "Perry Mason" TV movies recently and several "Ironside" episodes. He figures if he can work that hard he can't be that sick.Q. Wasn't "Silence of the Lambs" just a rip-off of the 1986 movie "Manhunter"? It also resembled the plot of the TV movie "Red Dragon." I loved "Silence" but felt disappointment once I found out it wasn't original. - J.A.Z., Buffalo, N.Y.
A. It was original. "Silence" was based on Thomas Harris' novel of the same title, the second in which serial killer Hannibal Lecter was a character. Lecter was a minor character in Harris' novel "Red Dragon," on which "Manhunter" was based. When "Silence" became a hit, NBC resurrected "Manhunter" and telecast it under the title "Red Dragon." Harris is currently working on a sequel to "Silence," title unknown and more than a year away from publication. The word is that it will again feature a clash between Lecter and FBI agent Clarise Starling (the Jodie Foster character).
Q. I've been a fan of Anthony Hopkins for years. How old is he? Is he married? Where does he live? - J.B., Tampa, Fla.
A. Hopkins is 53, has been married twice (daughter Abigail, 23, is from his first marriage) and lives a trans-Atlantic life, working in England, Europe or the United States as the jobs take him.
Q. Did Wayne Newton get his start singing with his brothers or in a group? My husband says he always sang solo. - Mrs. P.F., Coldwater, Mich.
A. Newton, who turned 50 on April 3, started singing professionally at 6 as a solo. Later, he and his older brother Jerry worked as a saloon act in Las Vegas. But it is as solo artist that Newton became famous after he made his TV debut on Jackie Gleason's show in 1962.
Q. I watch "The Bold and the Beautiful" and I'd like to know if the woman who plays Taylor Hayes is related to Loretta Young. - R.B., Columbia, Mo.
A. Hunter Tylo, who plays Hayes, is not related to Young. But Young did have a daughter who made a career of soap acting. Judy Lewis has been seen in "The Secret Storm," "Kitty Foyle," "General Hospital," "The Doctors" and "Bright Promise." She did one prime-time series, "The Outlaws."
Q. Why does artsy filmmaker Jim Jarmusch keep making movies without perceptible plots, let alone real endings?
A. "Life has no plot, no neat conclusion," says the iconoclastic Jarmusch, whose latest movie is "Night on Earth." (It's about five trips by five cabs in five cities on one night.) "I'm not a real director. I'm sort of a fake one," Jarmusch adds. "Spielberg, Coppola, those guys are real directors. I only made `Night on Earth' so I could travel and work with my friends. It's nice, but it's antithetical to a professional attitude." That also makes it hard to construct tidy endings. Jarmusch says he thinks them up much later - long after the films are playing on the big screen.
Q. Although she presents herself these days as elegant and refined, doesn't British actress Emma Thompson have a rather bawdy back-ground?
A. Thompson, who co-starred with Anthony Hopkins in "Howards End," has fought hard to have fun. She was a terror of energy as a child and aspired to be a comedian as an adult. First she tried a feminist stand-up act on male hygiene. Next she performed TV shows with humor deemed rude and offensive. Even when now-husband Kenneth Branagh proposed to her on his knees in Central Park, Thompson just "laughed." Four years ago she wrote and starred in her own comedy series, again to considerable controversy. "A lot of the criticism, much of it written by men, had a very strange kind of edge to it," Thompson said. "They're threatened by a moderately good-looking woman who tries to be funny as well. It's OK to be funny if you're fat or you're not pretty. But if you're patrician-looking . . . it confuses the signals. We are taught to take women only on a very few levels."
Q. Is there any new British invasion music on the scale of the Beatles that is predicted to change pop music in the '90s?
A. Listen for a more psychedelic sound a la My Bloody Valentine, a London-based quartet. Their recent album "Loveless," gushed a Rolling Stone writer, "may well stand as one of the most influential albums of the '90s." Their guitar-driven technologically radical music, a favorite of experimentalists like Brian Eno, has inspired British groups named Blur, Lush, Ride and Curve. Though the names are brash, there's not a lot of personality in these groups. The bookish-looking musicians are called "shoe-gazers," since they stare at the floor while performing.
Q. Give me some information on one of my favorites, Brent Spiner, of "Star Trek" and "Night Court." What other work has he done? Where can I write him? - C.N., Chicago.
A. Spiner, 41, is a native of Houston, Texas, and got started in theater there as actor/singer. He went to New York after graduation from the University of Houston and did off-Broadway plays until he landed on Broadway in the musicals "Sunday in the Park With George," "The Three Musketeers" and "Big River." He went to Los Angeles in 1984, did many TV guest roles and Woody Allen's movie "Stardust Memories." He was a semiregular on "Night Court" as Bob Wheeler. Last year, Spiner released an album, "Ol' Yellow Is Back." Write him: Paramount Television, 5555 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038-3197.
Q. Please tell me about Sean Patrick Flannery of "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles." Where can I write to him? Is it true that the show may go off the air for good? - K.B., Philadelphia.
A. Flannery, who plays Jones from ages 16 to 22, is 27, another Houstonian who started acting at the University of Saint Thomas in Houston, he says, to meet a beautiful woman he saw at the theater. He left school in 1988 to go to Los Angeles, where he waited tables and did bit movie parts and TV commercials until he was picked from 300 who tried out for the "Indy Jones" role. He's single. See above for his address at Paramount.
Q. Is the music from Ken Burns' "Civil War" series available on cassette? - J.B.D., Bradenton, Fla.
A. The soundtrack, authentic music of the time performed by many different artists, is available on both cassette and compact disc. If you can't find it at your local record store, write: Signals, the catalog for friends of public television, Box 64428, St. Paul, MN 55164-0428.
Q. What became of Barbara Bain, who was Cinnamon Carter on the original "Mission: Impossible"? After the ill-advised salary dispute that caused her to be replaced on the show, she seems to have disappeared for all time. Her husband, Martin Landau, is still active. - M.J.W., Beaverton, Ore.
A. Both Bain and Landau left "Mission" in 1969 in that dispute. She, too, has stayed active although he's been more visible in feature films including an Oscar nomination for "Tucker." They co-starred in a 1975-77 British-made TV series "Space: 1999." She's guested on many TV shows including "Moonlighting" and "Murder, She Wrote."
Q. I watched "Herman's Head" and fell in love with Herman. Tell me about him and where I can write. - A.P., Mt. Clemens, Mich.
A. William Ragsdale is from El Dorado, Ariz., started acting there and in college and drama school in Berkley, Calif. His big break came in 1985 when he landed a role in the Broadway play "Biloxi Blues." He's been in the features "Mannequin 2," "Fright Night" "Wally and the Valentines" and the TV movie "Frankenstein: The College Years." Write: Fox Broadcasting Co., Box 900, Beverly Hills, CA 90213.
Q. Where can I write Dinah Manoff? - D.P., Riverton, N.J.
A. Touchstone Television, 500 S. Buena Vista Blvd., Burbank, CA 91521.
Q. What is Vickie Lawrence doing now? She was on "The Carol Burnett Show." - A.K., Dearborn, Mich.
A. Lawrence did "Mama's Family," 1983-89, "Win, Lose or Draw," 1987-89, since the Burnett show faded in 1978. (She wasn't with Burnett in her two recent series on NBC and CBS.) Currently Lawrence is readying a syndicated talk show for fall 1992.
Q. We've been seeing "Rawhide" reruns without Eric Fleming, as Gil Favor, the original trail boss. John Ireland is the trail boss, also named Favor. Did he join the show after Fleming died? When was "Rawhide" originally on? - P.H., Burkburnett, Texas.
A. Fleming left the show in 1965 to make movies (and was killed in a freak accident on location in Peru in 1966). Ireland was one of three actors who joined the series in 1965. He played Jed Colby; David Watson was Ian Cabot, and Raymond St. Jacques was Solomon King (the first black actor to be a regular on a western series). Clint Eastwood, as Rowdy Yates, was with the show for its entire run, 1959-66, and it was Yates who took over as trail boss.
Q. Where can I write Will Smith of "Fresh Prince of Bel Air"? - L.P., Detroit, Mich.
A. NBC-TV, 3000 W. Alameda Ave., Burbank, CA 91523.
Q. I have always been confused about the group Spinal Tap. The group seems to consist of two ex-"Saturday Night Live" actors and the man who played Lenny on "Laverne & Shirley." What gives? - L.W.P. III, Tallahassee, Fla.
A. Tap's a wonderful satire of the rock world played with straight faces and intensity by Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer, the "SNL" alumni, and Michael McKean, the erstwhile Lenny. The group first surfaced in Rob Reiner's 1984 "documentary" lampoon "This Is Spinal Tap." Now, eight years later, Nigel Tufnel, David St. Hubbins and Derek Smalls (Guest, McKean and Shearer, respectively) are back with a new album, "Break Like the Wind" (the actors do their own music with only a little help) and are out touring and doing very serious publicity in character.
Q. The movie "Jane Eyre," made in 1944, starred Orson Welles, Joan Fontaine and Elizabeth Taylor. Is there any way I can get it? - D.P., Levittown, Pa.
A. The 1944 film is the second of three versions of the Charlotte Bronte novel and is available on laserdisc. Virginia Bruce and Colin Clive starred in the 1934 version and George C. Scott and Susannah York were in the 1971 British-made TV version.
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