Ask American Profile 9/10/2006

Bruce Jenner, Fess Parker, William H. Macy, Maria Lopez

Bruce Jenner, the Olympic gold medalist, always seemed like such a decent, all-American guy. What's he doing nowadays?
—N. Sears, Magnolia, Ark.

Jenner, 56, recently appeared on TV's Skating with Celebrities with TV ice-partner Tai Babalonia. "I'm proud of what I did considering I had no experience and have an arthritic knee,” says the 1976 Olympic decathlon winner. These days the father of 10 children travels with his motivational-speaking presentation called "Finding the Champion Within,” heads Bruce Jenner Aviation, an aircraft sales company, and is a spokesman for Euflexxa, a lubricant for arthritic knees.

What can you tell me about TV Judge Maria Lopez? I don't know anything about her, but she sure seems like she knows her stuff—and isn't afraid to say it!
—Sandy L., New Ulm, Minn.

Lopez, the outspoken real-life star of the new syndicated Judge Maria Lopez TV series, is a former Massachusetts Superior Court judge whose 14 years on the bench were sometimes controversial. (She resigned in 2003 after an outcry over her handling of a case in which she gave probation—instead of a harsher sentence—to a confessed child molester.) Her husband, Stephen Mindich, also is in the media spotlight as publisher of the Boston Phoenix, an alternative newspaper.

Whatever happened to Fess Parker, the guy who played Davy Crockett?
—Liz McCormick, Las Vegas, Nev.

Parker portrayed the famous frontiersman only a handful of times, in several episodes of the Walt Disney-produced 1950s Davy Crockett TV mini-series, and later in a couple of movies. But it was enough to ignite a nationwide Crockett craze of coonskin caps, toy muskets and other spinoff merchandise. Parker also portrayed that other famous frontiersman, Daniel Boone, on the TV series of the same name from 1964 to 1970. Now 83 and retired from show business for nearly 30 years, he owns and operates the Fess Parker Winery and the Wine Country Inn and Spa in Los Olivos, Calif.

I've been watching the new Curious George series with my children and noticed the narrator is William H. Macy. His voice sounds familiar—has he been in any movies or TV shows?
—Paige H., Corvallis, Ore.

Indeed, the talented Macy—who narrates the new daily PBS adventures of the "curious little monkey” who's thrilled kids since the first Curious George book was published in 1941—has appeared in more than 100 movies and TV series, including the films Fargo, Seabiscuit, The Cooler and Magnolia. The native Floridian is married to actress Felicity Huffman, who stars on TV's Desperate Housewives.

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