Ask American Profile 12/6/2009

Pola Negri, Bill and Coo, Navi Rawat, George Lopez

Q  Can you tell when and where silent film star Pola Negri died? She came from Poland to the United States in 1922. Did she have any children?
—Howell Uptain, Jasper, Ala.

This coal-black-haired beauty of the 1920s was already an international movie sensation when she came to Hollywood. Developing a reputation as a vamp onscreen, she married and divorced twice and had no children. Negri went into hysterics at Rudolph Valentino's funeral and always claimed that he was the love of her life. She died at age 90 of pneumonia in 1987 in San Antonio, Texas.


Q  In the 1950s, there was a movie called Bill and Coo, and practically all the performers were parakeets. Is the movie on DVD?
—Colette Fedor, Council Bluffs, Iowa

Produced in 1948, Bill and Coo starred actor George Burton's trained birds and was set in the avian community of Chirpendale. Filmed on one of the smallest movie sets ever, a model village mounted on a long table, it also featured dogs and cats and Jimmy the Crow, who portrayed an evil fowl known as the Black Menace. The film won a special Academy Award for "patience and persistence." The 61-minute color movie is included on the DVD titled Weird Cinema: 15 Freaky Flicks!


Q I enjoy watching Navi Rawat on Numb3rs. What is her nationality and does she understand the math on the TV series?
—Jessica Lang, Belmont Shores, Calif.

Rawat, 32, was born in Malibu, Calif., but her father is from India and her mother is of German descent. "I am totally devoid of the math gene," she says. "I double majored in college in American literature and theater, so I am more of a right-brain person." Co-star David Krumholtz, on the other hand, "has the math gene. Sometimes he will even correct the math professors who do the show. I can barely talk and write the equations at the same time."


Q We loved George Lopez and his sitcom. Is he going to do another TV series? Does he have children?
—Theresa Scoca, Spring Hill, Fla.

Lopez, 48, joined the late-night talk show wars in November with Lopez Tonight, airing on TBS. "I don't want to do anything but make it fun for everybody to watch," he says. Married since 1993, the actor and his wife, Ann, have a teenage daughter, Mayan, who appeared earlier this year with her dad in the TV movie Mr. Troop Mom.

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