TV Q&A: Oscar-TV link is long

Q: How many Oscar winners have had their own TV shows?

A: Would you believe dozens? In fact, we can break the names into categories: people who won Oscars and then did TV, people who were TV actors and went on to win Oscars and even some who won Oscars while working in TV.

That last category includes three supporting actress winners: Allison Janney, who won for "I, Tonya" while starring on "Mom"; Viola Davis, with "Fences" and "How to Get Away With Murder"; and Patricia Arquette, who won her Oscar for "Boyhood" about two weeks before her series "CSI: Cyber" premiered.

Another supporting actress winner, Lee Grant, picked up her Oscar for "Shampoo" about five months after her short-lived sitcom "Fay" was taken off the air. NBC showed some leftover episodes after her Oscar win.

As for Oscar winners who afterward had TV series, the long list goes back at least 65 years, when Loretta Young hosted an anthology drama, and goes on to Walter Brennan, Shirley Booth, Donna Reed, Anthony Quinn, Shirley Jones, Broderick Crawford, Patty Duke, Cloris Leachman, Timothy Hutton, Marlee Matlin, Mary Steenburgen, Dorothy Malone, Maggie Smith, Anna Paquin, Reese Witherspoon and Whoopi Goldberg, among others.

People who were famous first on TV and then won Oscars include Sally Field, George Clooney, Art Carney, Martin Landau, Robin Williams, Jamie Foxx, Mo'Nique, Melissa Leo, Denzel Washington, Red Buttons, Lee Marvin and Henry Fonda.

Q: What happened to "The Blacklist"? It's nowhere on NBC's schedule.

Q: Long ago, on "In the Heat of the Night," Althea Tibbs left the show with the explanation that she'd taken the kids and moved back to Philadelphia. I don't remember hearing why she left the series. What happened?

A: Anne-Marie Johnson, who played Althea on the 1988-94 drama (inspired by the movie of the same name), reportedly decided to "pursue other challenges" when she left the series in 1993. But she told the show's fan club in a 2013 interview that "I had a great run and I wanted to leave before Althea was phased out." In the same interview, though, she said "there were other factors I won't go into, but the timing was right and I was fortunate to move on to other respected projects."

Q: I have recently been bingeing the series "Heartland." I was wondering if the lead actors Amy and Ty are really a couple.

A: Amber Marshall, who plays Amy Fleming on the Canadian drama, and Graham Wardle, are not a real-life couple.