Ask American Profile

The actress who plays the character Nina Van Horn on the television show Just Shoot Me looks so familiar. Where else have we seen her?
—Dave Y., West Virginia

Wendie Malick, who stars as the shallow ex-model and magazine fashion editor, received critical acclaim for her dual roles as the sibling advice columnists Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren in the 1999 television movie Take My Advice: The Ann and Abby Story. Other television work includes recurring roles on NYPD Blue, Anything But Love, Baywatch, and Kate & Allie, and guest spots on The X-Files, Cybill, Seinfeld, L.A. Law, and Mad About You. Film credits include The American President and Bugsy. Malick lives in the Santa Monica mountains of California with her husband, two horses, three dogs, and a cat.

Actor Morgan Freeman has had some powerful roles in such movies as Glory, Driving Miss Daisy, and The Shawshank Redemption. Does he have a favorite?
—Ty D., Maryland

Although he has had some of the most memorable roles of the decade, Freeman, a three-time Academy Award nominee, says his favorite is Glory—the true story of a Union regiment of African-American soldiers in the Civil War—because he’s a history buff and he felt it was important to get the word out about the participation of African-Americans in American wars. Freeman, 63, born in Memphis, Tenn., but raised in Greenwood, Miss. (pop. 18,117), made his Broadway debut in 1967 with Pearl Bailey in Hello, Dolly, but he became better known nationally for Easy Reader, the character he created for the children’s television show The Electric Company. Freeman, who is married and has four children, spent most of his career in New York but now lives in Mississippi.

I just love singer Lyle Lovett. What is he working on now?
—Sandi C., Rhode Island

“My next project will be recording a new record,” says Lovett, 43, who lives in his hometown near Houston, Texas. “I’m home writing songs.” The album will be released late this year or early 2002. He wrote the soundtrack for the Robert Altman film Dr. T & The Women last year and is filming a movie, The New Guy, in Austin, Texas. “Creatively, I enjoy it because it’s such a collaborative thing,” he says of acting. “Actors in a film are such a small part, really, of everything that’s going on. It’s a funny kind of thing because it’s such an intense experience for such a short period of time, and it’s all of these different people having to rely 100 percent on each other. Everything that everybody does affects everybody.”

I heard that country singer Wynonna Judd had a garage sale. If it is true, what was she selling?
—Clair T., Illinois

Several thousand shoppers, some from as far away as Washington state, waited in hour-long lines to pay for false eyelashes, vases, platform boots, scarves, and a $100 full-length pink faux fur coat at a yard sale that Wynonna Judd, 36, held last August at her Tennessee farm. Large-ticket items included a Harley-Davidson motorcycle for $18,000, an old restored Ford truck for $35,000, and a brown leather chair and ottoman for $2,500. One shopper overheard Judd negotiating prices via a walkie-talkie. Part of the proceeds (she never revealed the amount) were donated to charity, and the remainder will go toward Judd’s new house.

Charles Osgood, who hosts CBS News Sunday Morning, is such a pleasure to watch and listen to. Is he recognized within his industry for good work?
—Shane W., New Mexico

Indeed, he is. Charles Osgood, called CBS News’ poet-in-residence, and anchor of the radio program, The Osgood File, was inducted into the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 1990. His awards are too numerous to list, but among them are a 1999 International Radio and Television Society Foundation award for significant achievement; a 1997 Emmy Award for his interview with American realist painter Andrew Wyeth for Sunday Morning; three Peabody Awards, which recognize broadcasting’s best; and five Washington Journalism Review Best in the Business Awards. Osgood, father of five who lives in New Jersey with his wife, Jean, was called “one of the last great broadcast writers” by his predecessor on Sunday Morning, Charles Kuralt.

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