Ask American Profile 9/24/2006

Rachel True, Loni Anderson, Micheal Shanks, Ray Combs, Dick Cavett

I think Rachel True on Half & Half is so cute. What can you tell me about her?
—Tammy Harrison, Carthage, Texas

“My father was white, of German and Eastern European background, and my grandmother was a gypsy. My mother is black with some American Indian. I am the melting pot,” laughs the native New Yorker, who says her personality is very much like the character of Mona Thorne she played on the UPN sitcom Half & Half from 2002 until its recent cancellation. She’s 39 and has always looked young—she was almost 30 when she played a teenager in the 1996 horror movie The Craft.

Whatever happened to actress Loni Anderson? I know she divorced Burt Reynolds many years ago, but is she still acting?
—C. Tielert, Sebring, Fla.

Since her 1993 divorce from Reynolds, Anderson, 61, has appeared on various TV shows, including Melrose Place, Nurses and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. She currently plays Tori Spelling’s mother on the VH1 series So Notorious. Her first acting role, as an endangered beauty queen on a 1975 episode of S.W.A.T., wasn’t much of a stretch for this one-time Miss Minnesota runner-up.

I would like to know about Michael Shanks, who plays Dr. Daniel Jackson on Stargate SG-1.
—D. Vardeman, Waco, Texas

Canadian-born Shanks, 35, attended the University of British Columbia and was inspired to become an actor after seeing the early-1990s TV series MacGyver, starring Richard Dean Anderson—who, years later, would become Shanks’ co-star in the futuristic space drama Stargate SG-1. Shanks, who also has appeared in episodes of The Commish, Highlander and NYPD Blue, lives in Vancouver, B.C., with his wife, actress Lexa Doig, who starred in the sci-fi series Andromeda.

Please tell me whatever happened to Ray Combs, who hosted Family Feud.
—Mary Jane O’Bryan, Bullhead City, Ariz.

Combs, who began his career in stand-up comedy in the early 1980s, was hired in 1988 to host the popular TV game show, previously hosted by Richard Dawson. But by 1993, ratings had dropped, Combs’ contract was cancelled and Dawson returned to replace him. This contributed to Combs’ depression and subsequent suicide in 1996.

Dick Cavett was always one of my favorite TV talk show hosts. My husband tells me he got his start as a magician. Is that true, and does he have any plans to return to television?
—Mary U., Steubenville, Ohio

Cavett, 69, the witty and intelligent host of various talk shows bearing his name from 1969 to 1996, did indeed perform as a magician as a young man, even winning a “Best New Performer” trophy in 1952 at an International Brotherhood of Magicians convention. On Thursday evenings through Nov. 2, you can see him back on the air on the TCM network, hosting “encore” telecasts of some of his classic TV interviews from the 1970s with Woody Allen, Bette Davis, Alfred Hitchcock and Katharine Hepburn. A new four-disc DVD, The Dick Cavett Show: Hollywood Greats, repackages more of Cavett’s revealing celebrity conversations.

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