Ask American Profile

Campbell Brown, Art Linkletter, Clarence Williams III, Fat Chance, Thomas Haden Church

What can you tell me about newscaster Campbell Brown?
—R. Roney, Rock Hill, S.C.

The co-host of the weekend edition of Today, as well as a primary correspondent for NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams and the Today show, Brown grew up in Louisiana and spent a year teaching English in the former Czechoslovakia before beginning her broadcast career at NBC-affiliate stations in Topeka, Kan., and Richmond, Va. She recently married Fox News analyst Dan Senor, a former adviser to President Bush.

I haven't heard anything about Art Linkletter in years. Please see what you can find out about him.
—Jean T., Sonora, Calif.

At 93, the former TV personality remains active and busy. He gives between 50 and 70 lectures a year on the topics of marketing, real estate (he owns a million-acre sheep ranch in Australia), drug abuse, the American family and successful aging, a topic that particularly interests him as chairman of the board of the Center of Aging at the UCLA School of Medicine. "I am now writing my 28th book on how to make the rest of your life the best of your life," he says. "I never knew who my parents were. I was abandoned as an orphan. But apparently they gave me great genes." Linkletter and wife Flora have been married since 1935.

Was Clarence Williams III of Mystery Woman also on Mod Squad?
—Virginia White, Lima, N.Y.

Yes. Williams, who plays Ian Philby on TV's Mystery Woman movie series, was Linc Hayes in The Mod Squad, the 1960s detective drama about a trio of ultra-hip crime fighters. You also may have seen Williams, who got his start acting on the New York stage, in a number of other TV shows, including Twin Peaks, Judging Amy, Deep Space 9, Hill Street Blues, Everybody Hates Chris and Miami Vice.

In 1974 I was on a Caribbean cruise, and Natalie Wood, Michael Caine and Robert Wagner were onboard making a movie called Fat Chance. Is it available on DVD, or under another name?
—J.K. Henderson, Ashland, Ohio

The title of the movie was changed to Peepers before it was released in 1975. It disappeared quickly from theaters and has not been released on video or DVD. (Wagner, Wood's husband, was not in the movie, although he was likely accompanying her on the cruise.)

I loved Thomas Haden Church as the romantically sidetracked buddy in Sideways. What can we expect to see him in next?
—A. Harrison, Concordia, Kan.

Church, who was nominated for an Oscar for his role as the likeable rogue in Sideways, co-stars with Robert Duvall in Broken Trail, a new four-part, TV-movie Western airing June 25 and 26 on the AMC network. He'll also play the villainous Sandman in Spider-Man 3, due for release next year.

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