Ask American Profile

Jo Dee Messina, Allison Janney, Tim Russert, Tiger Woods

Is country singer Jo Dee Messina getting married?
—Karen S., California

Jo Dee Messina, 30, is engaged to her tour manager, Don Muzquiz, 36, who surprised her with a five-carat diamond ring last year. “He proposed to me on a playground,” says Messina, a native of Holliston, Mass., (pop. 3,400). “It was at night and he had a path lit with candles to this playground. It was so fitting because I’m an eternal child.” But instead of planning a wedding now, they’re organizing Messina’s first-ever headlining tour. “We’re not looking at wedding gowns and napkins yet; we’re looking at lighting rigs and sound equipment,” says Messina, who began the 75-city Burn tour in February.

Allison Janney is so believable as White House press secretary C.J. Cregg on the television show The West Wing. How did she get into acting?
—Annette K., Indiana

Allison Janney’s mother urged her daughter to chase her dream. “My mother had studied acting at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City (she roomed with Eileen Brennan and Rue McClanahan), but decided against an acting career when she got married,” Janney says. Janney, raised in Dayton, Ohio, also got words of encouragement from screen legends Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, who came to her college—Newman’s alma mater—to dedicate its new theater. Janney, whose screen credits include the movies Primary Colors and Six Days, Seven Nights, sees her character on The West Wing as a good fit for her. “The script was really great, and I immediately responded to the character,” she says. Indeed, she plays the character so well that she won an Emmy Award during the show’s first season.

Tim Russert of the television news show Meet the Press is one of the best, and most fair, political interviewers I’ve seen. What is his background?
—Charles W., Connecticut

Tim Russert, 50, moderator of Meet the Press and political analyst for NBC’s Nightly News with Tom Brokaw and Today, among many other duties, first joined NBC News in 1984 and took over the helm of Meet the Press—the longest-running program in television’s history—in late 1991. Before joining NBC News, Russert observed firsthand the inner workings of government as counselor in the New York governor’s office (1983-84), and special counsel in the U.S. Senate (1977-82). Russert, born in Buffalo, N.Y., graduated with honors from the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law and is admitted to the bar in New York and the District of Columbia. He is married to Maureen Orth, a writer for Vanity Fair magazine. They live in Washington, D.C., with their son, Luke.

How old was Tiger Woods when he first began playing golf?
—Rodney G., Texas

Tiger, born Eldrick Woods, (he was nicknamed Tiger after a friend of his father in Vietnam) has been playing golf almost as long as he’s been walking. The child prodigy, now 25, putted against Bob Hope on the Mike Douglas Show at age 2, shot 48 for nine holes at age 3, and was featured in Golf Digest at age 5. He went professional in 1996 and has won 29 tournaments, including the 1997 Masters Tournament, 1999 and 2000 PGA Championships, 2000 U.S. Open Championship, and 2000 British Open Championship. Woods lives in Orlando, Fla.

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