Ask American Profile

Karen Essex, Shania Twain, Marion Hutton

I became a fan of writer Karen Essex when I saw her speak at our college. What is she doing now?
—Bruce F., New York

The novelist and screenwriter recently released two novels about the life of Cleopatra, Kleopatra and Pharoah. She spent five years researching the life of the Egyptian queen before writing one word. “I knew that contemporary women would identify with her and her situation,” she explains. “Like us, she had to make it in a man’s world. Kleopatra (the original Greek spelling of Cleopatra) was one of the major political players of her day, not to mention a devoted mother of four. Today’s Super Mom has much more in common with Kleopatra than you’d think.” Los Angeles-based Essex also is a super single mom to her daughter Olivia, 16, an actress and model. “She’s underage, so I have to stay very involved in her career too.” Warner Bros. is turning Essex’s books into a movie, so she’s working on that screenplay as well as several others. “I’m negotiating now for the life rights to a World War II spy who infiltrated the very deepest inner circle of the Nazis,” she says. “And I’m working on a book about Alexander the Great, bringing to light some aspects of his story that have remained unexamined.” When she’s not writing, the New Orleans native is obsessively reading. “I also love to travel, but it’s impossible for me to take a vacation because every place I go inspires me to write something else!”

Shania Twain is my favorite country singer, and I’d like to know more about her. Is she married? Does she have any children?
—Laranna B., Texas

The Grammy-winning country singer is married to her producer, Robert John “Mutt” Lange, and the couple has a son, Eja (pronounced Asia). Twain and Lange, married since 1993, live in Switzerland. Lange produced Twain’s albums, The Woman in Me, Come on Over, and UP!, and co-writes many of her songs with her. Twain took a two-year hiatus around the time her son was born (Aug. 12, 2000). Growing up in Timmins, Ontario, Canada, Twain cared for her two brothers and younger sister after their parents were killed in a car crash in 1987. She supported the family by singing and dancing. Come On Over sold more than 34 million copies, making it the most successful female artist solo album of all time. She recorded three versions of each song on her newest album UP!. One disc is country, one is pop, and the third has a world mix sound, with influences from music of other countries.

I’d like to know what happened to Marion Hutton, who used to sing with Glenn Miller’s band.
—Frances D., Tennessee

Marion Hutton, whose recordings included Chattanooga Choo-Choo and Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree, died of cancer in 1987 at age 67 after spending the last two decades of her life helping other women alcoholics. Born in Battle Creek, Mich., the former lead vocalist for the Glenn Miller Orchestra also appeared in Universal Studios films with Abbott and Costello and the Marx Brothers. She retired from show business in 1954 and married composer and bandleader Victor Schoen. She was the elder sister of Betty Hutton, a star of Hollywood musicals and comedies of the 1940s and early 1950s. After seeking treatment for alcoholism, she helped found a treatment center for women alcoholics, performing with bands to raise money for the center and making radio and television appearances to discuss recovery from alcoholism.

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