Ask American Profile 4/20/2008

Q Whatever became of actress Senta Berger? She played in spy movies and such.
—Patricia Fritz, Bellevue, Ohio

The Austrian-born beauty made a big splash in Hollywood during the 1960s and ’70s, when producers, directors and actors stumbled over each other to have her in their movies. She appeared alongside Charlton Heston in Major Dundee, with James Coburn in Cross of Iron and with Kirk Douglas in Cast a Giant Shadow. After the spotlight dimmed in America, she returned to Europe and starred in various theatrical and television productions. Today, at 66, she’s president of the German Film Academy, that country’s equivalent of America’s Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Q Do the second- and third-place contestants on Jeopardy! get any money? Or is it just the winner?
—Marjorie Pagano, Hollister, Calif.

Nobody goes home from Jeopardy! empty-handed. The winner takes home the amount of money he or she has earned answering questions—or “questioning” answers!—while the second-place contestant walks out with $2,000, and the third-place finalist gets $1,000. After his six-month-long, 74-game winning streak on Jeopardy! came to an end Nov. 30, 2004, a 30-year-old software engineer from Utah, Ken Jennings, went away with $2.52 million, making him the biggest winner in television game-show history.

Q What can you tell me about the actor who plays Landry on Friday Night Lights? He seems like a natural.
—Andrea Havens, Benton, Ky.

The NBC-TV series Friday Night Lights was a perfect fit for Jesse Plemons, who grew up loving and playing football in Mart, Texas. The show “really got it right on Texas football and what it’s like in these towns,” says Plemons, 20, who now lives in Austin. He first appeared at age 3 in a Coca-Cola commercial and decided to pursue acting after his role in the 1999 movie Varsity Blues at age 10.

Q What’s my favorite singer from the 1970s, Tony Orlando, doing today?
—Wanda Sims, York, Pa.

These days, the “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree” singer is a very happy man after shedding 106 pounds on the NutriSystem diet and becoming a commercial spokesman for the company. “I had always had a weight problem,” he concedes. Now living with his wife of 18 years, Francine, in Branson, Mo., Orlando, 63, performs more than 150 shows each year locally and on the road. A hugely successful entertainer in the ’70s, he had a string of hit singles with his two female singing partners in the group Dawn and hosted his own popular network TV variety series from 1974 to 1976.

Q What happened to Opie’s mother on The Andy Griffith Show? My friend says she died in childbirth, but I thought she had an accident.
—Sandra Reichman, Lake Wales, Fla.

Although the cause or event was never discussed, it was established that Opie’s mom—Andy Taylor’s wife—was deceased in the 1960 pilot episode when an unsuspecting Mayberry citizen, Mrs. Balford, accidentally steps on Opie’s pet turtle and kills it. Angry and heartbroken, little Opie demands that his sheriff father arrest Mrs. Balford. Trying to soothe his son, Andy gently tells him that sometimes bad, unexpected things happen, using the death of Opie’s mom as an example. This seems to register with Opie—who then asks, “Who stepped on Ma?”

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