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What’s happened to Mary Chapin Carpenter? Didn’t she get married?
—Betsy T., Texas

The 46-year-old singer-songwriter married contractor Tim Smith in 2002. Carpenter’s new disc, Between Here and Gone, is her first CD of new material in three years, and like Norah Jones’ efforts, has been hailed as pop music for adults. Two songs, Elysium and River, concern her marriage, which surprised no one more than Carpenter herself. “The day I met my husband, we took a drive to the Blue Ridge Mountains,” she recalls. “We came out into the Shenandoah Valley, and it was nearly spring, and it felt like the most perfect day. It sounds corny, but I just knew he was my soul mate.” Last year, Carpenter toured with songwriting peers Shawn Colvin, Patty Griffin and Dar Williams. This year, she’ll do solo concerts, though she says her life is so idyllic that she hates to leave her home in south-central Virginia.

My husband and I once saw a movie called Ruckus, starring Linda Blair. Do you know where we can get a tape of it?
—Jean C., Wisconsin

One reason you may have had such a hard time finding it is that the 1982 action-thriller has several titles, including Big Ruckus in a Small Town, The Loner and Ruckus in Madoc Country. Amazon.com sells copies of both the VHS and the DVD format as Ruckus. The film features Dirk Benedict as Kyle Hanson, a traumatized Vietnam War veteran who is rescued from bullies by the loving Jenny Bellows, played by Blair.

What happened to actor Robert Horton?
—Ida H., Missouri

Horton, 80, who is perhaps best known for his role as Flint McCullough, the scout on the television series Wagon Train, is retired and living with his wife of 43 years, Marilynn Bradley, in Encino, Calif. “It is always amazing to me, and rather flattering, that people remember me after all these years,” he says. “Yes, I am retired now, though from time to time I make personal appearances at various Western film festivals around the country.” When Horton left Wagon Train in 1962, he returned to musical theater and spent many years traveling around the country. “I was very fortunate that often my wife, who was a talented singer, and I were able to perform together,’’ Horton says. On Aug. 7, he received a Golden Boot Award, which is presented each year to those who’ve promoted the Western genre in TV or movies. He enjoys flying airplanes and collecting fancy cars. “I don’t show my cars,” he says. “I drive them. The two don’t go together. My hobby is my cars and they keep me very busy.”

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, Nixon 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 released next year. “The feeling and satisfaction I get from a live performance 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.” Nixon has three children and five grandchildren and is married to Al Block, a retired musician who played with Miles Davis and Benny Goodman.

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