In this article: Birthdays "My Wife and Kids" star Tisha Campbell-Martin Interview: NPR's Neal Conan Last week's Who's News also this week: Ask Lorrie Lynch a question about a celeb!

Is Melissa George, the sassy crook on ABC's now-canceled "Thieves", the daughter of Christopher George, who was in the 1960s TV series "The Rat Patrol"?
Stan Abramson, Brooklyn, N.Y.

No, she is no relation. Melissa, 25, was born in Perth, Australia, and was a champion roller skater for 11 years. The flexibility and stamina she developed skating helped her with some of "Thieves"' many stunts, George tells us, and now she's studying martial arts, too. She twice won Australia's Golden Logie award -- that country's equivalent of an Emmy -- but even her skill and good chemistry with co-star John Stamos couldn't boost "Thieves"' ratings. Offscreen, George is married to a Chilean businessman she met while vacationing in Bali (they keep a home there) and has a 6-year-old stepdaughter.

David O'Hara was the main reason I watched CBS' police drama The District. Why isn't he on anymore?
Eddie Smith, Hattiesburg, Miss.

O'Hara, 36, wanted to leave the show, so his character, Detective Danny McGregor, was killed off in last season's finale in a car bombing intended for Chief Jack Mannion (Craig T. Nelson). But not since "Roseanne" switched the actresses who played daughter Becky have I had so many questions about one TV event. Like you, it seems many viewers didn't see the episode. To confuse things more, the season premiere ended with a note to the audience: "In loving memory of Jack Maple." Some fans thought that O'Hara's name was Maple and that the actor had died. So, to clarify: O'Hara, who's Scottish, wanted to go to Ireland to be near his son. Jack Maple, who died in August, was a co-creator of the show as well as the ex-New York deputy police commissioner on whom it is loosely based.

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It's not every boss who tells a new employee, "If you want to get pregnant, go ahead." But that's what Damon Wayans did when he cast Tisha Campbell-Martin as his sitcom spouse on ABC's "My Wife and Kids". It's a good thing he wasn't joking because just three months after that conversation, the actress, 31, and real-life husband Duane Martin, an actor and Florida sports agent, learned they were expecting their first baby: Xen Whaheed (which she says means "firstborn"), a boy, born in August. Campbell-Martin tells us that "show biz is more tolerant of mothers these days." Still, she was pleased to find continued support when she returned to work four weeks after giving birth. She has a nursery on the set, but more important, the show gave her time to deal with the 50 pounds she gained by writing it in, humorously, of course. "If we came back and ignored [the] huge weight gain, it would have made it harder on me," says Campbell-Martin, who works out twice a day. "Now I don't have to lose the weight the Hollywood way. I can do it gradually."

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NPR's Neal Conan knows a thing or two about talk. For 25 years he's been hosting news shows, covering wars and occasionally getting into sticky situations, such as being held hostage during the Gulf War. After a year-long sabbatical spent as a minor league baseball announcer, the married father of two, 52, is back on "Talk of the Nation", yakking it up with 2.2 million listeners daily.

Q: So, what is the talk of the nation today?

There is only one subject at the moment. I can't talk too long to anybody before we get back to [Sept. 11].

Q: Who decides what you talk about on the show?

Everybody on the staff is expected to come up with ideas. Even the science desk -- and the science desk usually gets to take the wars off.

Q: How does one master the art of talk?

One does it badly for a long time. The first time I went live on the radio, I was 17 and I wet my pants.

Q: Were you always a big talker?

Yeah. I've got a mouth. I come from a very verbal family, so if you didn't speak up, you didn't get any.

Q: Why did you decide to try baseball?

I'm a huge fan. It happened when I was getting ready to anchor the Democratic convention in Chicago five years ago. I was in my room preparing, with the baseball game on the radio, and I suddenly realized that [the commentator and I] were doing the same thing!

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BIRTHDAYS