Question: I need your help in settling a dispute between me and my neighbor, a so-called Brady Bunch expert. After watching the recent broadcast of The Weakest Link with the cast from The Brady Bunch, my neighbor indicated that the actress who played Cindy Brady on the TV show actually died a few years ago and that the person who was on the The Weakest Link was actually the actress who played Cindy in the made-for-TV Brady movies and the short-lived sitcom in the late '80s or early '90s. I told her she was wrong and that, in fact, the actress who played Cindy on the original sitcom is alive and well and appeared on the game show. Please help settle this friendly neighborhood bet. — Steve C., Woodbury, Minn.
Televisionary: Boy, what are we coming to when poor Susan Olsen appears on TV and people like your neighbor still insist she's dead? Well, Steve, you just tell little miss "expert" that it was indeed the original Cindy doing h
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Question: Who was that gorgeous Russian actor in The Man from U.N.C.L.E.? Not Napoleon, the other man. Thanks, hon. — Jocelyn V., Valley Forge, Pa.
Televisionary: You're quite welcome, hon. And let me point out that while it was only Scottish actor David McCallum's character, U.N.C.L.E. agent Ilya Kuryakin, who was Russian, McCallum would most likely accept "gorgeous" over some of the other adjectives love-struck women came up with at the time.
Take, for example, the word "cute," a favorite of fan magazines during the tongue-in-cheek spy series's 1964-68 run on NBC. "That's an American word I hate," McCallum, who played opposite Robert Vaughn's American agent, Napoleon Solo, told TV Guide in 1966. "A litter of mongrel puppies is cute."
Of course, the actor didn
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Question: The series premiere of Crossing Jordon ended with a song entitled something like "These Are Tears from a Long Time Ago." If this is the correct title of the song, can you tell me who sings it? Thank you. Terri M.
Televisionary: Why, I'll tell you even if it's not the correct title of the song, Terri. And it's not. That was Indianapolis native John Hiatt's "Thirty Years of Tears," which can be found on his 1990 album Stolen Moments.
And if you really like the song, you can also check out a cover version of it by Andre Re on last year's Rollin' into Memphis: Songs of John Hiatt, a collection of Hiatt tunes performed by various artists, and another take on it by Kathy Chiavola, who included it on her album The Harvest.
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Question: I remember watching a very short-lived show (it might even have been only a two-hour pilot) about a planet that had one half permanently in the dark and one have permanently in the light. Do you know the name of this show? Thanks. — Eva N.
Televisionary: You're thinking of Fox's White Dwarf, a two-hour pilot produced by Bruce Wagner (Wild Palms) and Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now Redux, etc.), which originally aired in May 1995 and never made it to series.
In what
The L.A. Times termed "a sort of
Willow meets
ER set in the time of
Star Wars," it starred
Neal McDonough (
Band of Brothers, the upcoming
Minority Report) as a young do
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Since moving to UPN, Buffy the Vampire Slayer has pulled out all the stops to start viewers palpitating — and the best may be yet to come. Executive producer Marti Noxon tells TV Guide Online that the series soon will get an infusion of fresh blood.
For starters, former General Hospital ingenue Amber Tamblyn guest-stars in the Oct. 30 installment as Janice, a saucy classmate of the Slayer's kid sister, Dawn. "The episode revolves around Dawn and Janice and the misadventure that they get into," Noxon reveals. "It's a Buffy Halloween extravaganza!"
Given that Noxon and co. plan to expand Dawn's circle of friends, Tamblyn's stint may well extend beyond the haunted holiday season. Exploring Dawn's world, says Noxon, "gives us an opportunity to do some of the stuff that we didn't get to with Sarah Michelle Gellar
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As one of former president Bill Clinton's "other women," Gennifer Flowers has suffered a tarnished rep. But next to her fellow scandal-ridden contestants on tonight's Weakest Link — airing at 8 pm/ET on NBC — she looks downright tame!
Indeed, Flowers — a torch singer who penned the torrid tell-all Sleeping with the President: My Intimate Years with Bill Clinton — joins quite a rogue's gallery of infamous faces here. These include figure-skater Tonya Harding, O.J. Simpson houseguest Kato Kaelin, TV bride Darva Conger and child star Todd Bridges (Diff'rent Strokes). And in an exclusive interview with TV Guide Online, the Southern belle is gracious yet very plainspoken when it comes to this, er, rather eclectic lot.
First off, Flowers insists she w
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In his latest film, Focus (now in theaters), William H. Macy plays a Gentile man who is outcast and threatened because of his Jewish appearance. The Oscar-nominated star of Fargo admits the movie's theme is especially applicable in this post-Sept. 11 climate.
"It's about intolerance and the objectification of people," he tells TV Guide Online of the pic, which is based on the novel by famed playwright Arthur Miller. "It's sort of an exploration of what it takes to get people to rise up against intolerance."
"[My character] spends most of the film saying this is not my fight. If I were Jewish I would get involved, but I'm not a Jew so leave me out of it — which is what I think we all want to do," adds the 52-year-old actor
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Further proof that movie stars in search of quality roles are turning to TV in increasing numbers: James Marsden — who played visor-wearing mutant Cyclops in the box-office smash X-Men — joins the cast of Fox's Ally McBeal on Oct. 29 when the show kicks off its fifth season.
For his part, Marsden sees little difference between the two mediums. "I've always been a big fan of good work, and I don't think it needs to be separated by television and film," he tells TV Guide Online. "And [Ally creator] David E. Kelley was [someone] that I've always really wanted to work with, because as an actor, you want good dialogue... it helps you shine.
"I still have every intention of maintaining a film career as well," adds the 28-
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You want to see a real E.R., folks? Forget the prosthetic wounds and doctors-in-love dramatics on NBC's version. The Learning Channel's Trauma: Life in the E.R. — airing Mondays at 8 pm/ET — is an hour-long crash course in emergency medicine that may leave you ready to check yourself into a hospital, STAT.
The reality show's gory scenes apparently aren't meant to be gratuitous. "We are not there to do an exposé," notes exec producer Liane Thompson. "Our focus is on the caregivers and whomever [they] may treat." Still, the show does log 180 to 200 hours of footage from a month-long stay in a trauma unit, eager to give viewers an uncensored, all-access pass. And with its scalpel-wielding docs facing every woe from detached earlobes to head scalpings, Trauma is hardly for couch potatoes with weak stomachs.
Behind the scenes, Thompson laughs, "no one has passed out... yet. [Though] some of our crew, I'm sure, b
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Those eye-catching billboards promoting ABC's critically acclaimed spy caper Alias — featuring a provocative image of the show's leading lady, Jennifer Garner, sporting a candy-apple dye job — have been stopping traffic nationwide since making their roadside debut in August. Garner herself slammed on the breaks the first time she saw the IMAX-sized work of art.
"It really knocked me off my feet," recalls the 29-year-old Texas native, who was driving with her actor-husband, Scott Foley (Felicity), at the time of the sighting. "Even though I was expecting it, and I knew that they were out there and I knew what they looked like, I was completely overwhelmed and thrilled.
"But it's really not that big of a deal," she ad
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