Ask American Profile 8/17/2008

Q What is actor Jimmy Smits doing now? And is Cane ever coming back to TV?
—Janie Langston, Piqua, Ohio

Even though production stopped on Cane shortly after the Hollywood writers’ strike began late last year, the series wasn’t officially canceled until May. Now that he’s been released from his Cane contract, Smits, 53, is back at work, starring in Showtime’s upcoming season of Dexter as a district attorney. He just finished an as-yet-untitled independent film, and is developing projects for his own production company, El Sendero Productions, among which is The Inside, a TV movie for the FX network about infiltrating a drug cartel.

Q Whatever happened to actress Barbara Nichols? I saw her recently in a Twilight Zone rerun.
—L.J. Olson, Spokane Valley, Wash.

New York-born Nichols was a buxom beauty who typically played brassy bit parts that emphasized her physical attributes in B-movies and TV shows during the 1950s and ’60s. A former burlesque dancer, her movies included Pal Joey, Sweet Smell of Success and The Pajama Game. On television, she turned up in Hawaii Five-O, Emergency!, Adam-12, The Untouchables, Batman, Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Wild Wild West and dozens of other shows, including a 1961 Twilight Zone episode, “Twenty-Two,” in which she played a hospital worker with troubling dreams. She died in 1976 at the age of 46 from a liver disease.

Q My daughter is a big fan of the Jonas Brothers. What can you tell me about them, particularly Joe?
—Kim Thomas, Clay City, Ky.

Your daughter is not alone! The New Jersey-born sibling trio of Kevin, 20, Joe, 19, and Nick, 15, is hot, hot, hot, thanks to a barrage of teen-centric TV exposure, touring and two hit albums, with another, A Little Bit Longer, released this month. Currently living in Los Angeles, they also have their own movie, Camp Rock, which aired in June on The Disney Channel. Around the corner is a Disney Channel series, J.O.N.A.S., in which the brothers play government spies working undercover in a rock band.

Q Mickey Rooney is loaded with talent. Did any of his eight children inherit any of it?
—Pattie Valladolid, Sioux City, Iowa

Rooney, 87, actually fathered nine children, and the apples didn’t fall far from the tree. Three of his sons followed their father into acting: Teddy, 57; Tim, who died at 59 in 2006; and Mickey Jr., 62, who ended up later pursuing a musical path, hitting the road with his own gospel-rock band, Mickey Rooney Jr. and Friends. Rooney Sr. and his eighth wife, Jan, recently celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary and have taken their autobiographical musical revue, Let’s Put On a Show, around the world.

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