Ask American Profile 11/22/2009

Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly, Garry Shandling, Elinor Donahue, Dyan Cannon, Joshua Jackson

Q  I loved the TV series Cagney & Lacey with Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly. I see Gless now on Burn Notice as Michael Westen's mother. Didn't I see Daly in another series as someone's mother?
—Joan Baird, Spirit Lake, Iowa

You did, indeed. Daly, 63, portrayed Maxine Gray, the mom of the character played by Amy Brenneman on the legal drama Judging Amy, from 1999 to 2005. Fans of Gless and Daly's 1980s cop series will rejoice to know that the duo was reunited recently when Daly taped a guest appearance for an episode of this season's Burn Notice.


Q What has comedian Garry Shandling been working on lately?
—Roger Baldwin, Jacksonville, Fla.

Shandling, 59, is pretty excited that his hip, silly and sophisticated 1986-1990 TV series, which presented a surreal look at the daily life of a young, single comedian, was just released on DVD. It's Garry Shandling's Show: The Complete Series contains 72 episodes and plenty of bonus content. The best part of doing the show, he jokes, "was knowing it was going to be coming out on DVD years later, even before DVDs were invented. I was always ahead of my time." Watch for him next year in the movie Iron Man 2, in which he'll play a senator.


Q  Can you give us an update on Elinor Donahue, who starred on Father Knows Best in the mid to late 1950s?
—Blake Taylor, Franklin, Pa.

Donahue, after seven decades in film and television, retired from show business a few years ago. Besides co-starring as Betty "Princess" Anderson on Father Knows Best, she was a cast member in The Andy Griffith Show, The Odd Couple, The New Adventures of Beans Baxter, Get a Life and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. Donahue, 72, has four sons, and she and her husband live in Southern California. "We enjoy traveling, and our children live all over the U.S., so we travel from Maine to Tennessee to Monterey Bay, Calif., visiting various branches of the family and seven grandchildren," she says.


Q  What's up these days with actress Dyan Cannon?
—Mavis Reed, Hutchison, Kan.

Cannon, 72, is writing her autobiography. "I wanted to write a book that would inspire people to love again, so I'm basing it on my time with Cary [Grant]," she says, alluding to her famous first husband (1965-1968), with whom she has a daughter. "It's all about how to forgive and let love in again." The actress, who's appeared in more than 75 television shows and movies, is working on a documentary about Hollywood teens, continues to act and holds Bible-study classes at her home.


Q  It is no secret that actor Joshua Jackson is a sci-fi fan. His new TV series, Fringe, deals with parallel universes. What does he really think about that?
—Julio Martinez, Albuquerque, N.M.

"Maybe it's my West Coast, liberal upbringing, but the idea of parallel universes doesn't really strike me as being too far out there," says Jackson, 31, who was born in Vancouver, Canada, and portrayed Charlie Conway in the Mighty Ducks movies of the 1990s. "What defies my imagination is that there would be nothing out there that would defy my imagination."

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