Q. I read that Lorenzo Lamas of Renegade is dating one of the cast members of his show. I thought he was happily married to Kathleen Kinmont, who also is on Renegade. Is this why she isn’t on the show anymore? NMM, Fort Lauderdale
A. The stormy on-and-off relationship between Lamas and Kinmont is off for good, she told Howard Stern one morning recently. After they split, she appeared with Stern and said some nasty things about her ex-husband. The next day on the set, she said, Lamas told her that she was fired. It isn’t as if her career has suffered. She told Stern she has been cast in a Tom Hanks movie, which is probably the best revenge she could get.
Q. I want to report American Gothic as missing. I suppose it’s on the shelf next to Brooklyn Bridge and other programs that have been well written, directed and acted. Also, if the TV season is only three months old, why are we seeing reruns already? Sue Roberts, Margate
A. I want to report American Gothic found. It will return to the air on Wednesday, Jan. 3 at 10 p.m., its new time slot. Before you celebrate, Brooklyn Bridge got a number of chances before being permanently shelved. You are seeing reruns in December so that the networks can preserve original shows for later this season. Most series make 22 to 24 episodes. There are 30 weeks in the official Nielsen season, which ends in mid-April. A few episodes are also stockpiled for the May sweeps.
Q. Why did Chicago Hope kill off Peter MacNicols character? Some weeks his performance as Alan Birch was the highlight of the show. Was it his choice to leave? Miriam Silverman, Pompano Beach
A. MacNicol left voluntarily by all accounts. His explanation was that there just wasn’t that much for a lawyer to do on a hospital drama. He also feared that the scaling back by Chicago Hope producer David E. Kelley, whose writing specialty is law, would diminish the quality of scripts for Alan Birch.
Q. James Garner once starred in a TV movie based on Raymond Chandler’s famous private eye Philip Marlowe. Was there ever a Marlowe TV series, starring Garner? Ed Hirsch, Boca Raton
A. Yes and no. There was a Philip Marlowe series on ABC in 1959-60 but it didn’t star Garner. An actor named Philip Carey played the role.
Q. I have been watching Welcome Back, Kotter on Nick at Nite. When did the show start and end and what happened to the actors? Jessica Johnston, Fort Lauderdale
A. The bell first rang at James Buchanan High in the fall of 1975. School was out four years later. Thanks to the renewed popularity of the reruns on Nick at Nite, there is discussion, mainly among the lesser lights of the cast, about doing a reunion show or even a series revival. Gabe Kaplan, who was the co-creator as well as Mr. Kotter, attempted a comeback a couple of years later in Lewis & Clark, a short-lived NBC sitcom. Now he stays busy as a world-class poker player. The big star to emerge from the Sweathogs was, of course, John Travolta as Vinnie Barbarino. His co-stars have tried to stay active in the business with varying degrees of success. Robert Hegyes, who was Juan Luis Pedro Phillip de Huevos Epstein (“at your service”) played a detective for two seasons on Cagney & Lacey. Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, who was Freddie “Boom Boom” Washington, played Michael Jackson’s disciplinarian father in the ABC miniseries on the Jackson family. Ron Palillo shows up from time to time as a guest in series episodes.
Send your questions about local television, the networks or cable to Tom Jicha, TV/Radio Writer, Sun-Sentinel, 200 E. Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale, Fla. 33301-2293. Personal replies are not possible; please do not send self-addressed stamped envelopes.
