Ask American Profile 10/14/2007

Q What is Lou Christie doing these days and how can I find out his tour schedule?
—Donna Lare, Alliance, Ohio

Born Luigi Sacco in Glenwillard, Pa., Christie, 64, continues to perform the 1960s pop hits that made him famous, “Lightnin’ Strikes” and “I’m Gonna Make You Mine.” You can find his tour schedule on his website, www.lou-christie.com. “The shows get better and better,” says the singer, who adds that his trademark falsetto is as strong as ever. “I still sing everything in the same key I recorded it in.” Christie’s 1966 hit “Rhapsody in the Rain” sparked a firestorm of radio controversy with its steamy tale of a teenage romantic encounter punctuated by the sound of a car’s windshield wipers that seemed to whisper “together, together” and “never, never.”

Q Cash Cab is a clever idea for a TV show. Interested to know if cab driver Ben Bailey was a cab driver before this show? And did he create it?
—Gene Lachawicz, Dunsmuir, Calif.

It would be a great story if Ben Bailey had been a cabbie and created the hit Discovery Channel game show, which takes place inside the cab he drives around New York. But he was—and still is—a standup comedian by trade. He had to obtain a taxicab driver’s license to get the Cash Cab job. Several years ago, Bailey, 36, was answering phones in the office of the famed Comedy Store in Los Angeles when he decided to try his hand at making people laugh. Since then, he has performed on all the late-night TV talk shows and in clubs across the nation.

Q Who’s the lady who did the voice of Felix the Cat? I understand that she was a pretty lady. I think she should get more recognition.
—Genevieve Daniels, Shamokin, Pa.

Felix, one of the first cartoon superstars, got his start in the 1920s in a newspaper comic strip. He later made the leap to short silent theatrical movies, but was eclipsed by another cartoon character, Mickey Mouse, when “talkies” took over in the 1930s. Felix was resurrected in the late ’50s for television, where he finally got a voice—but it was that of a man, Jack Mercer, who also supplied the voice of Popeye the Sailor in many Popeye cartoons of the era. You can see 31 episodes of vintage Felix from 1958 and ’59 on the just-released DVD Felix The Cat: Golden Anniversary Edition.

Q Was the actor who plays the detective on Amazing Grace one of the policemen on The Shield?
—Frank Canton, Hagerstown, Md.

Kenneth Johnson, who now steams up the screen as police Detective Ham Dewey on the TNT series Saving Grace, went out with a bang last year on the FX cop drama The Shield—his character, corrupt Detective “Lem” Lemansky, met his untimely end when a grenade exploded in his lap. A native of New Haven, Conn., Johnson, 44, is a former arm wrestling champion whose numerous roles also include parts on TV’s Cold Case, Smallville, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Just Shoot Me!, and in the movies Blade and Major League 3.

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