Ask American Profile

How has Joey McIntyre’s approach to touring changed since his days with New Kids on the Block?
—Anita M., Texas

“When I was a kid, or I should say, ‘New Kid,’ I just jumped on a bus and went,” says McIntyre, who lives in Venice, Calif. “I didn’t worry about much. I had all the energy in the world—kind of invincible, blind youth. Now as a solo artist in my—ahem—very early 30s, it is more tenuous. When I’m onstage, I like to give it all I’ve got, so that means when I’m offstage, I really need to rest. If I don’t get a nap in, I kind of freak out. It doesn’t sound very rock and roll, but Bruce Springsteen takes a lot of naps and he’s the Boss, so I guess it’s the new rock and roll.” McIntyre, who has also launched a successful acting career, recently released a new CD titled 8:09, which marks his wedding anniversary date with wife Barrett.

Who was the male lead actor in the original Cheaper By The Dozen movie?
—Leland D., South Dakota

Clifton Webb played the head of the Gilbreth clan in that 1950 comedy, based on the real-life story of Frank Gilbreth Sr., a no-nonsense “efficiency expert,” who with his wife (played by Myrna Loy) had 12 children, a fact that dictated mathematical conduct of their lives. The film, set in the 1920s and based on a book by two of the children, was a huge commercial success. It spawned a 1952 sequel, Belles on Their Toes, that did not include Webb, as well as a 2003 remake starring Steve Martin. Webb died of a heart attack in 1966 at age 76.

Whatever happened to Victor French, the co-star of Highway to Heaven?
—Charles P., Maine

French, who played Mark Gordon, an ex-cop and the angelic Michael Landon’s earthly sidekick in the family TV drama, died of lung cancer on June 15, 1989, after completing the last episode of the show, which aired from 1984 to 1989. A prize-winning director as well as an actor, French started out in “bad guy” roles in Westerns and also worked with Landon on Little House on the Prairie.

I recently bought My Fair Lady. I don’t think Audrey Hepburn did the singing. Could you please tell me who did?
—Anne H., California

That voice belongs to Marni Nixon, who also sang for Natalie Wood in West Side Story and Deborah Kerr in The King and I. Now 74 and living in New York City, she still sings, appears occasionally on the show Law & Order, tours with her one-woman show, and is working on her autobiography, which she expects will be out in 2005. ”The feeling and satisfaction I get from a live performance (especially when it goes well) is what it’s really all about,” she says. “I love the perfection one can aim for, and get, in a recording and then I can admire that art object, as it were. But that’s different than the soul satisfaction of singing from one’s soul to another one’s.” She has three children, five grandchildren and is married to Al Block, a retired musician who has played with Miles Davis and Benny Goodman.

Hats Off to Terri Clark
Clark, who earlier this year turned down the cover of Playboy magazine, worked in a Western store as a teenager in her native Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and began wearing a cowboy hat then. But it wasn’t always a big part of her life. When she got her record deal in the early 1990s during country music’s “Hat Act” craze, “I put the hat on one day and went to the label just to see their reaction,” she says. “There was no female doing it, and we all thought, ‘Why not?’” Clark, who turns 36 on Aug. 5, admits that she worries that all of the fuss about her hat might overshadow her music, however. So we’d better mention that the nominee for Top Female Vocalist at the Academy of Country Music Awards just released her greatest hits CD.

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