Ask American Profile 6/3/2007

Q Last year, Vanna White’s engagement was announced. There has been no more information. What’s the scoop?
—M.B. Flickinger, ThreeRivers, Mich.

White, 50, still is engaged to be married, according to a spokesperson for Wheel of Fortune. The game show’s longtime letter-turner announced her plans to marry California businessman Michael Kaye in 2004, but no wedding date has been set. White was previously married for 11 years to restaurateur George Santo Pietro, with whom she has two children.

Q We danced to the music of The Four Aces. What are they doing now?
—Norma Reinke, Ashland, Neb.

A “second generation” of the Pennsylvania-based quartet that recorded the 1950s hits “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing,” “Three Coins in the Fountain” and “Melody of Love” continues to tour, but without any of its original members—Al Alberts, Dave Mahoney, Sol Vaccaro and Lou Silvestri. Each present-day Ace replaced an original member sometime between 1957 and 1975.

Q Whatever became of the actress who played Miss Jane Hathaway on The Beverly Hillbillies?
—Minnie Flaherty, Magnolia, Ark.

Nancy Kulp had a degree in journalism, was decorated for her service in the U.S. Navy during World War II and worked in Hollywood as a movie publicist before director George Kukor convinced her to give acting a try. She appeared in the movies Shane, A Star Is Born, The Three Faces of Eve and The Parent Trap before taking the role of the love-starved banker’s assistant Miss Hathaway on The Beverly Hillbillies in 1962. After the series ended, she ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Congress in her home state of Pennsylvania in 1984; Hillbillies co-star Buddy Ebsen campaigned for her opponent. She died of cancer in 1991 at the age of 69.

Q My wife thinks Gunsmoke actor James Arness is related to Mission: Impossible star Peter Graves. I say they’re not. Who’s right?
­—Wayne Holms, Odessa, Texas

Your wife wins this one. Born James and Peter Aurness in Minneapolis, the Gunsmoke star-to-be later modified the spelling of his last name to Arness and Peter chose to use their mother’s maiden name of Graves. Although they were both very active in movies and television at the same time, they never acted together. But Graves did direct a 1955 episode of Gunsmoke, the long-running TV series that starred his big brother in the role of Marshal Matt Dillon.

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