Ask American Profile 11/29/2009

Tom Berenger, Ming-Na, Sherri Shepherd, Buddy Knox, Yul Brynner

Q  Tom Berenger has played a U.S. Marine in a few movies. Was he ever one in real life? And what is his latest project?
—Bill Crouse, Frankfort, Ky.

The closest Berenger, 60, ever came to military service was on screen. The Chicago native earned a degree in speech and drama at the University of Missouri. He began acting in theater before moving in the early 1970s to New York, where he got his TV break on the soap opera One Life to Live. He received an Oscar nomination for his role as a battle-scarred sergeant in Platoon (1986). Watch for him in the upcoming movies Smokin' Aces 2: Assassins' Ball, Firedog, Sinners & Saints and Inception.


Q  What has Ming-Na been doing since ER went off the air?
—Allison Smith, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Ming-Na, 46, has stayed busy with TV roles, including parts on Vanished, Two and a Half Men and the new Syfy channel series Stargate Universe. "I am a sci-fi geek myself, so it fulfills that fantasy. I love the fact that we're so challenged every week, whether it's with an action sequence or dealing with deep dark secrets of the characters," says the mother of a 3-year-old son and a 9-year-old daughter. Ming-Na was born on the island of Macau, not far from Hong Kong.


Q  I've been watching Sherri Shepherd on her new Lifetime comedy, Sherri, and she looks fantastic. How did she lose the weight?
—Shevayla Brown, South Gate, Calif.

Shepherd, 42, was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and jokes she was forced to go on the "Lose-Weight-Or-We'll-Cut-Off-Your-Foot Diet." Kidding aside, the Emmy-winning co-host of The View took the diagnosis seriously because her mother died of the disease at age 41. "I am feeling really great," she says. "It is not so much about a diet. It is about making healthy choices in my life and learning not to beat myself up when I do slip."


Q Whatever happened to Buddy Knox, who sang "Party Doll"?
—Pat McGahan, Auburndale, Fla.

Texas native Knox, whose 1957 No. 1 single "Party Doll" became a rockabilly smash, died in 1999 at age 65 of lung cancer. Eventually inducted into the Rockabilly Music Hall of Fame, he was never able to follow up his initial chart-topping success but continued to have modest hits into the 1960s and toured heavily throughout the '80s.


Q  What was Yul Brynner's nationality? How many movies did he make?
—Georgene Suchomel, Necedah, Wis.

The exotic-looking Brynner was born in Vladivostok, Russia, to an engineer father of Swiss and Mongolian ancestry and a Russian mother of Jewish heritage. He died of lung cancer at age 65 in 1985. Among his 40-plus films are The Ten Commandments, The Magnificent Seven, Westworld and The King and I, for which he won a Tony and an Oscar for his performances.

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