Ask American Profile

Robert Redford, Angela Lansbury, Gene Pitney, Jerry Clower

The other night I was watching an old Perry Mason episode featuring a young Robert Redford as a newlywed. Was this his first acting job?
—Pam Greene, Mesa, Ariz.

The Perry Mason episode was called "The Case of the Treacherous Toupee" and aired in September 1960, which was indeed the year of Redford's acting debut, according to the Internet Movie Database. Redford also had TV roles that year on Tate, Playhouse 90, Hallmark Hall of Fame, The Deputy and Maverick. He later went on, of course, to his matinee-idol breakthrough role in the 1969 blockbuster movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

I always enjoyed watching the great Angela Lansbury in Murder, She Wrote. Did she act in anything after the show ended?
—Helen Foster, Terre Haute, Ind.

British-born Lansbury, 80, began acting in the United States as a teenager, was nominated for two Academy Awards (for her roles in the movies Gaslight and The Picture of Dorian Gray) before she was 21, and received four Tony Awards for her work on Broadway between 1966 and 1979. But it wasn't until the hit TV series Murder, She Wrote (1984-1996) that she became a household name. She's been busy ever since with guest roles on other TV shows and in four Murder, She Wrote television movies. Most recently, she appeared on the big screen in the comedy Nanny McPhee, which has just been released on DVD.

Can you give any current information on the singer Gene Pitney? I have all his albums from the "old days," but know nothing about his career now.
—Connie Gamble Ochse, Jacksonville, N.C.

The 65-year-old singer of "Only Love Can Break a Heart" and "Town Without Pity" died in his sleep of natural causes in April. He was in the middle of a British tour and had earned a standing ovation just hours before his death. In 1962, Pitney, who also wrote "Hello Mary Lou" for Ricky Nelson, became the first pop singer to perform at Hollywood's Academy Awards. A true international star who also recorded songs in Italian and Spanish, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002 and continued to be a popular concert draw. He and his wife, Lynne, lived in Connecticut, not far from where Pitney was born and raised.

Jerry Clower Keeps the Laughs Coming

For fans of the humor found in Southern culture, there has never been anyone better than the late Jerry Clower. Now a new double CD (Classic Clower Power) and DVD (Clower Power) showcase his sidesplitting, true-to-life stories about his rural roots and experiences with material culled from 28 previous albums and two of Clower's in-performance video collections. This double dose of the "Original Mouth of the South," who died in 1998, shows why he will always be remembered as one of the most authentic country comedians of all time.

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