Ask American Profile 3/15/2009

The Darling Family, John O'Hurley, Yvonne Strahovski, Jo Stafford

Q What happened to the actors who played the Darling family on The Andy Griffith Show?
—M. Kelly, Albertville, Ala.

Actor Denver Pyle, who played Darling patriarch Brisco Darling, died in 1997. His “boys” were actually the members of the bluegrass band The Dillards. Brothers Doug (on banjo) and Rodney Dillard (on guitar) continue to tour as The Dillards. Bass player Mitch Jayne retired from music to write novels, penning the award-winning Fiddler’s Ghost, and mandolin picker Dean Webb performs in and around Branson, Mo. Margaret Ann Peterson, who played Charlene Darling, occasionally sings with Doug and Rodney and lives in Las Vegas.


Q What has John O’Hurley been doing since Dancing With the Stars?
—Robin Marcus, Everett, Pa.

O’Hurley, 54, stays busy hosting Family Feud and providing TV voiceovers for commercials and for characters such as King Neptune in SpongeBob SquarePants. Last year, he had the lead as King Arthur in Monty Python’s Spamalot in Las Vegas, a role he considered “the funniest thing I’ve ever done in my career.” O’Hurley and his wife, Lisa, have a 2-year-old son, William Dylan. “Fatherhood has changed my life profoundly. I have discovered a level of love I didn’t believe possible.”


Q Does the girl who plays Sarah on Chuck do her own fight scenes or does she use a stuntwoman to take on the bad guys?
—Jillian George, Warwick, R.I.

Yvonne Strahovski, 26, does some of her own stunts, but she also uses a stunt double for the more difficult tasks. The Australia-born actress has a dance background and gets kung fu lessons from the show’s fight coordinator. “I have noticed with the kung fu training that I move like a fighter now instead of a dancer,” she says.


Q One of my favorite singers has been Jo Stafford. Can you tell me of her whereabouts and how old she is now?
—Joe Valdez, Albuquerque, N.M.

The versatile pop singer died last July of congestive heart failure in Century City, Calif., at age 90. Beloved by American servicemen during the World War II and Korean War eras, she earned the nickname “GI Jo” through her performances for soldiers overseas. Stafford sold more than 25 million records from the late 1930s into the mid-1950s and won a Grammy Award for a comedy album she made with her husband in 1960. The biggest of her more than two dozen pop hits was 1952’s “You Belong to Me,” which sold
2 million copies.

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