Q. Is Sally Fitz of WSVN-Ch. 7 married? I think she is the best newscaster around, but I have never heard anything of her private life. — Dan Jones, Fort Lauderdale
A. You haven’t been paying attention. Fitz’s private life has been a lot more public than she would like. She is not married.
Q. Wasn’t the idea for Back to the Future taken from The Final Countdown in which Martin Sheen discusses being able to go back in time and visit his grandfather? — William Morrison, Margate
A. Your observation could be enough to set off a litigation frenzy among attorneys, but the fact is time travel has long been fertile territory in fiction. The current NBC series Quantum Leap fits into this genre. If you scrutinized the dialogue in the dozens of time-travel productions that have been made, you could probably find numerous instances that seem to segue into other works.
Q. You recently dubbed A Family for Joe “dreadful.” What is it you didn’t like: Robert Mitchum, one of my favorite actors, or the concept? — Lisa Biagi, Hollywood
A. Both. The idea was Sister Kate revisited, with Robert Mitchum taking over the reluctant guardian’s role, and Mitchum, as has been his custom in recent years, sleepwalked his way through the part. I hate to disillusion you, but Mitchum ranks second only to Michael Landon in being Hollywood’s most difficult person to deal with.
Q. Could you tell me who played the boyfriend of Carol’s who was killed in a drunk-driving accident on Growing Pains a couple of seasons ago? — Karen Lotz, Coral Springs
A. The young man’s name is Matthew Perry.
Q. Whatever happened to Walt Cronise, whose weather forecasts on WPLG-Ch. 10 were superb? — John T. Robinson, Fort Lauderdale
A. Nothing happened to him, but you have to get up early in the morning to find him. Cronise is doing the weather on Channel 10’s 6:30 a.m. newscast, as well as during the cut-ins on Good Morning America. He can also be heard on WAXY (FM 105.9) radio.
Q. Could you tell me what was the cause of Lucille Ball’s death? I know that she had been in the hospital, but it was announced that she was getting better just before she died. — Ceil Winderman, Delray Beach
A. In layman’s terms, Ball died of a heart attack just a little more than a week after undergoing open-heart surgery. The operation had been considered a success and she was thought to be recuperating.
Q. Can you tell me why WSVN-Ch. 7 does not carry a complete sports report instead of Jim Berry’s opinion of highlights. — Jon Case, Lauderdale-by-the- Sea
A. Why pick on Berry? All the local news operations are equally guilty of this offense. Their cop-out is that the people who watch newscasts aren’t that interested in sports. My response is, sports fans don’t watch TV news because they know they’ll get fluff instead of the scores and information they want. The “Berry Stat of the Night” I’d like to see is how many sports fans would tune in to all newscasts if sports, not the sportscaster, were the focus.
