Ask American Profile 5/4/2008

Q Who sang the theme song to Welcome Back, Kotter? What a beautiful voice.
—Joy Schriewer, New Braunfels, Texas

John Sebastian wrote and sang the theme to the popular 1970s TV series. As a member of the ’60s band The Lovin’ Spoonful, he also was the creative force behind the group’s hits “Do You Believe in Magic,” “Summer in the City,” “Make Up Your Mind” and “Nashville Cats.” Now 64, Sebastian continues to write, record and perform. He lives in upstate New York with his wife and two children.

Q What happened to the actors who played Spin and Marty, the series within the old Mickey Mouse Club TV show?
—David Liggin, El Centro, Calif.

Tim Considine and David Stollery, now both 67, played the respective title characters in a Spin and Marty movie and three serialized TV offshoots in the 1950s. Considine went on to play Mike, the oldest sibling on My Three Sons, but then turned mostly to writing and directing for television, later becoming a photographer, journalist and auto-racing expert. Stollery left Hollywood at the end of the series and became an automotive designer. Today he owns an engineering firm that makes patented fiberglass lifeguard towers.

Q What can you tell me about Jen Carfagno from The Weather Channel?
—Jessie Young, Fishertown, Pa.

Carfagno, 31, on the air weekdays as travel analyst for The Weather Channel’s First Outlook morning program, enjoyed watching the local weather as a young girl in a suburb of Philadelphia. “I happen to like math a lot, and meteorology really involves math, so it seemed like a perfect fit, and when I got to college, I loved it,” she says. The married mother of a new baby daughter, who arrived in October, loves yard work when she’s not watching the sky.

Q What was the name of the actor who played Grady on Sanford and Son, and what other acting work has he done?
—Jery Lewis, Kannapolis, N.C.

Although he went on to make guest appearances in numerous other television shows and the movies Boyz in the Hood, Waterproof and April Grace, actor Whitman Mayo will be forever remembered as the Sanford’s scatterbrained neighbor, Grady Wilson. Mayo died in 2001 of a heart attack in Atlanta’s Grady Memorial Hospital, a facility that happened to share the name of the character that became his trademark.

Q Fred Travalena is such a good impressionist. What is he doing now?
—Betty Mechem, Union, Mo.

Travalena, 65, performs several weeks each year on Royal Caribbean cruises and makes other appearances around the country. At age 6, his father taught him how to imitate “tough-guy” actors Edward G. Robinson and Jimmy Cagney for a church show, but it wasn’t until he was 19 and saw his idol, Frank Sinatra, that Travelena decided to make impressionism a career. He still laughs about the time his father brought him on stage and he threw up. “My dad stood there and said, ‘Ya know, that’s a tough act to follow,’” recalls Travalena, who lives in the Los Angeles area with Lois, his wife of 37 years.

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