captioning made possible by johnson & johnson, where quality products for the american family have been a tradition for generations >> osgood: good morning. i'm charles osgood and this is sunday morning. in his soliloquy in shakespeare play hamlet speaks of the thousand natural shocks that flesh is err to. for millions of us one of those shocks is expressed in the phrase "oh, aching back."

you may have even said it yourself. is there anything we can do about back pain? for the legions of those afflicted, that is the question as martha teichner will report in our cover story. >> reporter: we don't want to get back pain sufferers too excited but there may actually be some good news on the horizon for some. >> i'm going to return your disks back up to the height that they were when you were a teenager. >> reporter: the agonizing reality is that eight out of ten americans will suffer debilitating back pain during their lifetimes. our nation's $90 billion a year backache later this sunday morning. >> osgood: simon baker is an actor enjoying a level of success right now, but even the character he plays on tee veep couldn't have foreseen it. he'll be talking about it this morning with our rita braver. >> reporter: just finishing its fourth season, "the mentalist," simon baker's hit tv series has been hailed by

fans and critics alike. how do you keep from getting that sort of star mentality and throwing your weight around? >> it is bigger than everyone else's. i have to behave accordingly. >> reporter: of course. ahead on sunday morning, simon baker, from surfer to star. >> osgood: which would you rather be? a woman starting a second career as a singer or the wife of a super star? rit a wilson has it both ways, as she told seth doane when they sat down for some questions and answers. ♪ >> reporter: she's a novice singer, who is also a show business veteran. she, rit a wilson, though you might know her as tom hanks' wife. is it hard to be your own person when you're with someone who is so well known? >> it depends on the people. like i am thrilled for him. he's thrilled for me.

>> reporter: rit a wilson, singing a new tune. later on sunday morning. >> osgood: to be on a first-name basis with people usually makes social events easier unless everyone has the same first name. ou lee cowan has dropped in on such an event. ♪. >> reporter: in the middle of nebraska, we found a gathering that has gotten a lot of ink in the past from the "new york times" to one of the state's oldest weeklys. >> look at that. on the front page. >> a nice big picture. >> reporter: what garners these ladies so much attention? well, in short, it's what they're called. it may be one of the few places where being on a first name basis can be, well, really confusing, right, betty? >> (altogether): right. >> reporter: the betty convention later on sunday morning. >> osgood: serena altschul walks us through the history of blue jeannes.

bill whitaker shows us the art of human powers. and a graveyard for cadillacs. first the headlines for this sunday morning the 6th of may, 2012. it took all day and much of the night, but the arraignment of the master mind and four other men charged in the 9/11 attacks has ended. jan crawford reports from guantanamo bay in cuba. >> reporter: khalid sheik mohammed sat at a table in the front of the courtroom. he was thinner than the last time we saw him four years ago dressed in the long white tunic and a black prayer cap. he was defiant. when the hearing began he and the four other defendants said nothing and refused to enter pleas. the military judge questioned them and they remained silent, faces down flipping through magazines and the koran. i was in the courtroom. mohammed has 30 feet away. during the break he talked to the other suspects. they whispered back and forth and seemed relaxed. at times they appeared to

laugh. nine september 11 family members came to guantanamo to watch the proceedings including this woman whose brother john was killed at work inside the world trade center. >> i feel very strongly that his children, his son is 16 and his daughter will be 13 in july-- they were robbed. >> reporter: more 9/11 families watched on a closed circuit feed to a military base in new york. lee hanson's son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter, also died aboard the second hijacked plane to hit the world trade center. >> i think people like khalid sheik mohammed, if they could have come back and told him we killed 50 children today he would have said wonderful praise allah. i say damn you. >> reporter: the 9/11 military commission is scheduled to resume this summer. for sunday morning, i'm jan crawford in guantanamo bay, cuba. >> osgood: it's election day in two european countries. the french are voting in a run-

off election between the incumbent president and socialist challenger. in greece voters are casting ballots for a new parliament. two of those american hikers who were accused of spying by iran have married. sarah shored and shane bauer became engaged after being detained along with joshua in july of 2009. and joshua was the best man at their wedding in california last night. former nba basketball star shaquille o'neal is now doctor. he graduated yesterday from miami's university with an earned doctorate in education. scoring a 3.8 grade point average. in the kentucky derby yesterday before a record crowd at churchill downs "i'll have another" pulled away to the run for the roses. the avengers is well on its way to becoming a super hero blockbuster. the movie pulled in more than

$80 million for its u.s. opening. that is the second best haul ever for a movie debut. a more subtle but still super spectacle made no money this weekend. that's the super moon. the largest full moon of the year. as seen overnight from southern california. now for today's weather. a nice day lies in store along the coast but some storms are sneaking their way across the country. the week ahead should be a warm one for most. >> it does hurt bad. >> osgood: next, what to do for that aching back. and later, jeannes. standing tall.

>> osgood: if our friend here could speak, he or she might very well be saying, "oh, my aching back." back pain is one of the most common of human complaints, which is why new treatments in the works are raising so many hopes. our sunday morning cover story is reported now by martha teichner. >> reporter: consider the human spine in all its glory. the 24 vertebrae connected by disks and joints that help make your back flexible, all the ligaments and muscles and nerves. the spine's elegant complexity

is a miracle of engineering or a curse when something goes wrong. >> i couldn't walk. i couldn't bend over. i couldn't lie down. i would say, oh, lord, can't you help my back. it does hurt bad. >> reporter: eight out of ten americans will experience debilitating back pain sometime in their lives. and the most common culprit? >> i think most people would think it's the intravertebral disk, whether it's herniated or just worn and arthritic. >> reporter: this doctor, a professor at harvard medical school, has literally written the book on lower back pain. he says the easiest way to understand a herniated disk is to think of a jelly donut. >> this is the crust of the jelly donut. in the center where the jelly is, it gets squeezed out. that would be the herniated part of the disk. >> reporter: when the jelly gets squeezed out, it presses

on nerves which can mean excrutiating pain. barring serious illness, the first line of treatments may not be what the patient, who is only after a quick fix, wants to hear. >> you need to make sure the patient doesn't have tumor or infection. once you rule those out, you can be confident you won't harm the patient by saying give yourself four to six weeks. >> reporter: believe it or not, 90% of disk injuries heal themselves after a few weeks. especially with physical therapy. but waiting it out can be torture. not everybody does get better. so that's where surgery comes in. more than 1.2 million americans undergo spinal surgery each year. that's triple the number of coronary by-pass surgeries, nearly four times the number of hip replacements. approximately 300,000 of those back surgeries were spinal fusions where vertebrae are

joined surgically so they can't move. they're often held in place permanently with metal screws or rods. for many patients, surgery is the only answer. salvation. br for all too many others it can be a nightmare. >> the pain on the right? >> reporter: which brings us to dr. kevin pauser. >> i spent decades treating patients who have had surgery, patients would do well for a year or two. they would always come to me and need more help. >> reporter: this doctor is a founder of the texas spine and joint hospital in tyler, texas. in his experience, fusion was usually the wrong answer. >> the spine is made to be a structure that bends with every movement that we make. if we immobilize a segment of the spine, the adjacent segment breaks down. that's known as the domini effect. my thought was, can we do something to that disk so that we don't have to fuse? can we bring that disk back to

life? >> reporter: that's the headline of this story. imagine a procedure that repairs and regrows disks, that doesn't involve spinal fusion, that's no more than minimally invasive outpatient surgery. >> i'm going to go to the direct center of your disk. >> reporter: his inspiration came when he thought about how an ordinary cut heals. >> what heals a cut is something that's very simple. it's two products that are in you and i. they're in everybody. >> reporter: in our blood plasma. they're called thrombin. >> the two components come together and they make a substance called fibrin. >> reporter: when the two components in concentrated form are injected into the disk through a kind of squirt gun that he invented, just like apoxy glue, they combine and become fibrin. >> it's traveling through the disk, permeating all the tears that exist in the disk and then over time it starts to

become firm. >> reporter: injected into the damaged disk, the come compound acts like a sealant filling cracks and crevices and eventually allowing the disk to regrow. >> that's exactly like a disk so if one were to look at that under a microscope two months after we put it in the disk it would look like normal disk material. it allows our degenerated disk to turn into a young, healthy normal disk. >> are you comfortable, rusty? >> so far. >> reporter: rusty templeton is typical of the failed fusion patients this doctor sees. he had his surgery in 2008 but the pain came back and was agonizing. >> i'm going to return your disks back up to the height that they were when you were a teenager. >> reporter: templeton is given a local and thes tick. the procedure takes about five minutes. there's no incision, no hardware. >> do you feel a pressure there? and your disk is now back up to a captioning made possible

>> some patients even say, gosh, i wish i never had this done. then several weeks later, the patients just turn a corner. we tell them that they can expect that there will be one day when they have pain and the next day it will just stop. >> reporter: he is hoping for food and drug administration approval of the procedure by 2015. phase 3 clinical trials are underway now at 20 sites around the united states. the doctor has successfully treated more than a thousand patients in his private practice. >> we started treating the first patients approximately five or six years ago. and the success rate is approximately 86%. >> reporter: how did rusty templeton do? >> my pain before was at least a 10. >> reporter: two months after the procedure? >> it's still around a 5 because i have an underlying issue. but i can lay down now. things are better.

i can walk around. i can drive where i couldn't drive before. >> the pain level i had before the procedure was probably around 6 to worse. >> reporter: christopher joseph was in a car accident. how was his pain two months after the procedure? >> right now it's at 0. >> reporter: is is this some wild and crazy idea or is this something that really has promise? >> i think it does possess incredible potential and therefore promise. >> reporter: dr. michael de palma is a spine specialist in richmond, virginia. the north american spine society has just published his paper on the latest experimental therapies involving disk restoration. >> stem cells are being that is being investigated to replenish cells within the disk by injecting them into the disk directly. injecting growth factors which are proteins to try to stimulate repair of the disk have also been evaluated and

investigated. >> reporter: he is involved in four different fda trials of the new procedures and believes these so-called biologics are the future of back treatment. based on the results so far, he thinks the doctor's fibrin sealant offers the most promise. if the doctor pulls this off, even if it's 50% successful with someone, is that significant? >> it would be huge. >> reporter: and then there's the cost. compare spinal fusion and fibrin treatment. >> the treatment for a fusion-- and this is a hospital fee, typically is in the $100,000 range not including the physician's fee. and again we don't have a set cost for this treatment yet, but it's approximately 95% less than the cost of a fusion. >> reporter: the doctor expects it to be widely available within five years. >> it's the first time in

history that we've been able to cause new tissue to grow within the spine. this procedure is "the" procedure that really the world has been waiting for. >> reporter: is it? the procedure is only for back pain sufferers with specific disk problems. but there are a lot of those. and dr. kevin pausa is absolutely sure he's found a better, safer, cheaper way of improving their lives. >> it's a little bit easier than surgery, isn't it? >> oh, yeah. >> you did great. >> osgood: next, a voice from the past. ♪

dave, i've downloaded a virus. yeah. ♪ dave, where are we on the new laptop? it's so slow! i'm calling dave. [ telephone rings ] [ male announcer ] in a small business, technology is all you. that's why you've got us. at the staples pc savings event, for a limited time get up to $200 off select computers. staples. that was easy. for a limited time get up to $200 off select computers. hershey's drops. a lot of hershey's happiness in little drops of milk chocolate. and cookies n creme. pure hershey's.

my name is sunshine and i have three beautiful girls. i like taking advil® for a headache. it nips it in the bud. and i can be that mommy that i want to be. ♪ [ male announcer ] take action. take advil®. >> i don't like >> osgood: now a page from our sunday morning almanac, may 6, 1945, 67 years ago today. the day a radio announcer of americans called axis sally made her last propaganda broadcast on behalf of germany just two days before germ knee germany surrendered. >> at the sound of the gong it is exactly 9:00 eastern war time. >> reporter: her real name was mildred gillers. born and raised in maine she

acted in productions at ohio wesleyan university and was any indicational broadway actress in the '20s before seeking her fortune overseas first in france and then in germany. while most americans fled that nation at the start of world war ii, mildred gillers stayed on and became the nazi short wave english language voice. >> good evening, women of america. >> osgood: arrested and

returned to the united states after the war, she was convicted of treason in 1949 and sentenced to prison. she was unapologetic about her broadcast saying she was a pawn of the nazis and her financee, a german foreign service officer. >> in a moment axis sally will come through the main gate. >> osgood: paroled in 1961 she returned to ohio where she would live out her life as a kindergarten music teacher. >> osgood: coming up, a healthy display of art. sometimes investing opportunities are hard to spot. you have to dig a little. fidelity's etf market tracker shows you the big picture on how different asset classes are performing, and it lets you go in for a closer look at areas within a class or sector that may be bucking a larger trend.

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>> osgood: among the many healing arts practiced at one of our nation's leading hospitals is healing art. here's bill whitaker. >> reporter: off a busy street in this bustling city lies a hidden treasure. a dizzying array of dazzling art by contemporary masters. literally hiding in plain sight. feast your eyes on the art collection of cedar sign ooi medical center in los angeles. >> in this hallway alone we have st. francis, we have raymond pettybone, robert raurbenberg. frank stella. david.... >> reporter: john t.lang is curator of the collection, one of the most extensive in los angeles. >> this is kind of a little secret. >> a little bit, yeah. a fun little secret. >> reporter: this is

throughout the hospital. >> it's everywhere. we try to put together little exhibitions like this that could be an entire waiting area. it could be half of a wing. a lot of wall space. we're talking thousands and thousands of pieces. >> reporter: jasper john. roy lichtenstein. andy warhol. sculptures. >> it's a fantastic collection. i would certainly think, you know, any artist would love to have their work in this collection. >> we're trying to create an environment conducive to healing. all the work on the walls is for the patient, for the visitors, for the staff. the idea is to give them a pleasant distraction, to uplift their spirits. >> it does. it helps you. >> it works? >> yeah, it's working. >> so you've been in the hospital how long. >> approximately two months already. >> reporter: we bumped into emily strolling the hospital

halls as though in a gallery. >> turning that corner is like walking in a museum for me. >> reporter: she had been diagnosed with addison's disease and found comfort in a series of photographs by lee weiner of president john f. kennedy who had also suffered from addison's. >> i imagine what he's thinking by just his expressions. that completely took me out of all of this for that moment. that to me is a process of healing. it made me feel really good. >> reporter: joanne was raced to cedar's with a brain aneurysm. >> it's amazing to see the walls in a place like this. >> reporter: she was in a coma for six weeks. >> it really helps me because i want to explore the hospital more and more and see more of the art. >> reporter: what would be a nicer thing than to have that type of artistic expression as your measure of how far you can walk? >> reporter: surgeon-in-cheer

says art work and doctors' work complement each other. >> it's sort of similar to, if you and i were sitting out on a porch looking out over a beautiful, you know, bucolic scene with a cup of coffee in our hands, our pulse rate will drop. the benefits of these fine pieces of art that we're fortunate enough to have extend to everyone. in most unexpected ways. >> reporter: exactly what contemporary art collectors and philanthropist marcia and frederick weisman envisioned when they started this collection almost 50 years ago. their portraits by warhol greet you in the main lobby. >> in the mid '60s frederick had a head injury. he landed at cedar sinai. he was forgetting names, having trouble speaking. one day she brought in a jackson pollack, a very small piece of art to his bedside. he pointed at it and said

pollack. he made a connection with the art work. >> reporter: that's how this grand collection began. >> they gave hundreds of people their art collection. they went around the city and spoke to art collectors, gallery owners, spoke to everybody and got everyone to donate art work to their collection. >> reporter: a tradition of giving that thrives today. every piece here was donated. >> i gave birth in the hospital. and so that's our hospital really. >> reporter: susan and leonard nimoy are passionate collectors of contemporary art. >> art of our period, our culture. >> reporter: they donated a sculpture and this painting. >> i called them on the phone and they were not, oh, yeah, bring it over. they wanted to see a jpg of it. they wanted to discuss it among themselves. >> not a place for art. >> reporter: they're very

particular. >> well and with good reason. >> reporter: art critic wrote the book on l.a.'s contemporary art scene that burst into the world's consciousness in the 1960s. >> they're not sea scapes or landscapes. these are... they might be etchings that david hockney that he did while traveling. it is museum quality art work in a hospital. >> reporter: which makes it all the more interesting that this hospital has chosen to focus on contemporary art. which as you're saying it's kind of challenging. it makes you think. it makes you question. >> hospitals are supposed to be sterile physically but not emotionally or intellectually. they don't have to be. >> reporter: at the medical center, even the wars are therapeutic.

>> osgood: next ♪ dream, dream, dream >> osgood: we get the score from rit a wilson. and later, the garment that never wears out its welcome. >> this is what you get when you don't wash.

>> cindy, what else do you do? >> movies, books, walks in the park. i worship the devil. >> i'm sorry. >> it's sunday morning on cbs and here again is charles osgood. >> osgood: rit a wilson was in front of the camera along with her future husband tom hanks in the early '80s tv series bosom buddies. night before last, however, she was on stage for another audience performing a very different sort of role. seth doane has more. >> reporter: the troubadour. this is quite a spot. >> here we are. they've all been here. carol king, james taylor, carly simon. cat stevens. >> please welcome rit a wilson. ( cheers and applause ) >> reporter: and now you.

>> oh, please. it's surreal. i couldn't even think of it in that way. ♪ i've given up my friends just for you ♪ ♪. >> reporter: the troubadour in west hollywood is the first stop for some on the path to singing stardom. friday night a new voice took the stage, a voice belonging to a show business veteran. ♪ won't you hurry ♪ come on, boy always wanted to sing. i always wanted to sing but i didn't know how to do it. i didn't know how to make the singing thing happen. >> reporter: and that's saying something because at the age of 55, rit a wilson has made a lot happen. >> do you want to meet a guy i met on match dot-com that i didn't like. >> wow, what a great offer. >> no, thanks. >> reporter: she's performed in 28 films. >> you walk into my daughter's room and you cut her hair.

>> she asked me to give a haircut. >> reporter: on tv. >> did you tell her that maybe it wouldn't grow back. >> i thought it was understood. >> reporter: and even on broadway. but she's probably best known for her marriage to one of hollywood's leading men. tom hanks. and if anyone is skeptical about her new born singing career, she's prepared for that. >> there are people out there who are... i'm sure are going to have a lot of lovely nasty things to say or negative things to say or whatever. but that's okay. i've been judged for a long time. >> reporter: some critics, of course, would say she couldn't do this if she wasn't tom hanks' wife. >> i'd say that's not true. i don't care how much money you have, how is a record label going to say, i'm going to do her a favor. >> reporter: so it's a whole range of... everyone is here. >> everyone is here.

i see fleetwood mac. carol king. >> reporter: rit a wilson's love of music goes back to her childhood. >> jefferson airplane. >> reporter: as a visit to ameeb a records in hollywood shows. >> oh, it's so good. ♪ dream, dream, dream, dream ♪ >> reporter: her new album features songs from the '60s and '70s with back-up vocalists far more famous than she is. sheryl crow, jackson brown and faith hill among others. >> i will show you where i useded to sit. >> reporter: as a teenager she did whatever she could to get to close to the musicians she loved. >> they would allow us to come up here and sit on the steps. >> reporter: and watch the show. >> and watch the show. >> reporter: she worked as a ticket taker at l.a.'s universal ample theater what is now the gibson ample

theater. you didn't have a childhood of great privilege. you had to work. >> exactly. part of the job here was you could see the show but then after the show i had to go and clean the bathrooms. and the bathrooms were really... mmmm. yeah, you can imagine a bathroom after a party. beer. too much beer, too much wine. that was my job. ♪ here's the story... > but get this. at the same time she was cleaning bathrooms, she was breaking out as a teenage actress. appearing on "the brady bunch." >> we have one hope for matt conway. >> reporter: which episode was this? >> it was the classic episode, seth. greg brady has to choose between his girlfriend and his sister marcia for cheerleader. >> gang, hit it. >> he decides, okay, i'm not going to vote. of course he becomes the

deciding vote. and i'm the cheerleader. >> yeah! >> reporter: but it was on the set of a movie called "volunteers" where wilson's future changed. that's when she worked with tom hanks. >> i like you very much. >> reporter: they married a few years later. after 24 years are widely said to have one of the most successful marriages in hollywood. is it hard to be your own person when you're with someone who has... is so well known for his success, for his career? >> it depends on, you know, the two people that are in that marriage. like i am thrilled for him. he's thrilled for me. >> with very little effort you can still pay off that amount you owe. >> no, i can't. >> reporter: wilson has had parts in several of hanks' movies. and they've also taken on

projects together with their production company. it was wilson who discovered a then little known play called "my big fat greek wedding." and produced what became the most successful independent film of all time. with a greek family background, she knew the territory. was that your life in any way? >> totally. when we first screened the movie for my parents, my mom said, oh, that movie is so funny. they're not like us. i'm like, no, mom, nothing at all. >> reporter: wilson's parents moved to the u.s. before she was born. your name rit a wilson couldn't sound more white bred american. that couldn't be farther from the truth. >> right. the name i was born with is marguerita abraham. >> reporter: has a real ring to it. her father took the name

wilson from the street they used to live on. but it was another name, hanks, that may have changed everything and put her in the spotlight. and now her new career path might just let her be seen in a whole new light. is tom worried the singing career might eclipse his career? >> he tells me he's going to come and carry my purse for me. miss wilson, may i carry your purse? i said just call me mr. rit a wilson. >> osgood: still to come, thoughts from the mentalist, simon baker. >> it can be more complicated because i am complicated.

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>> osgood: there is still no word when chinese dissident will leave china for the united states. his escape from house arrest triggered a diplomatic drama that captured the world's attention last week. national security correspondent david martin now with the sunday journal. >> reporter: in the space of two weeks, this man went from the isolation of house arrest in a village 300 miles from beijing to center stage in a diplomatic... between the world's two great powers, a journey made all the more remarkable by the fact he is blind. to escape from house arrest, he had to scale eight walls, breaking his foot in the process. and then rendevouz with a fellow dissident who drove him to beijing where, as u.s. ambassador gary lock described, the american embassy mounted an operation straight out of a spy thriller. >> when we got the word that he was in beijing and wanted to talk to us in the wee hours

of the morning we went out and contacted him. then we engineered almost a maneuver out of mission impossible to bring him in to the embassy. >> reporter: a u.s. government car rendevouzed with a van carrying chen. evading chinese surveillance he was transferred to the american car and smuggled into the embassy past chinese guards whose job is to prevent would-be defectors from reaching the embassy. at first no one, not even the president, would admit chen was in u.s. hands. >> i'm aware of the press reports on the situation in china, but i'm not going to make a statement on the issue. >> reporter: behind the scenes, chen was meeting round the clock with u.s. officials. ambassador lock flew back from vacation, and assistant secretary of state kirk campbell jeted in from washington to conduct a furious round of negotiations with the chinese. both sides trying to settle chen's fate before secretary of state clinton and treasury secretary geithner arrived in

beijing for long scheduled talks on economics and security. >> he did not want to go to the united states so the choice was to help him get back into china to be a freedom fighter as he wanted or if the conditions, negotiations with the chinese government were not to his satisfaction he was prepared to stay in the embassy and live there for possibly years. >> reporter: the chinese brought chen's wife to beijing and promised he would be reunited with his family and allowed to attend law school, if he came out of the embassy. if he didn't, his wife would be sent back to the village where they had been held under estimation brutal house arrest. american diplomats dutifully relayed that message to chen which formed the basis for later accusations he's been coerced into leaving the embassy. accusations presumptive republican presidential nominee mitt romney pounced on if these reports are true this is a dark day for freedom and it's a day of shame for the obama administration. >> reporter: ambassador lock insisted no one forced chen to

leave. >> i remember asking him if front of many many witnesses, are ready to leave? is this what you want to do? he just paused and sat there, very quiet, for several minutes. and then he just jumped up beaming, excited, said let's go. >> reporter: so excited he called secretary of state clinton, who by then had arrived in beijing, and told her, i want to kiss you. he was taken to a chinese hospital where he was reunited with his family. but then the wheels came off. >> it's apparent he must have had some sort of change of heart. >> reporter: chen suddenly popped up as the star witness before a house committee, testifying in his native mandarin over a speaker phone that he feared for his family's safety and wanted to leave the country. with chinese police ringing chen's hospital, u.s. officials were unableç to meet with him. it looked like the biggest crisis in u.s.-china relations since the chinese seized an american reconnaisance plane

in 2001. then at the press conference, secretary clinton unexpectedly announced a breakthrough. >> our embassy staff and our doctor had a chance to meet with him, and he confirms that he and his family now want to go to the united states so he can pursue his studies. >> reporter: not only that but the chinese had apparently agreed to let chen go. chen has a standing invitation to become a guest scholar at the new york university school of law. although his friend professor jerome cohen, says it will probably cost chen his hopes of changing china. >> he knows that chinese who come to the united states, however dynamic and able they are, have a very poor track record and interesting people in what's happening in the united states and china. >> reporter: two weeks ago nobody imagined a blind man would be able to escape from house arrest and capture the world's attention.

>> osgood: just ahead

>> osgood: what goes into a pair of good jeannes? denim, of course. and a lot of history as well. serena altschul follows the thread. >> length, dimples in the rivets. >> reporter: in the intricately woven world of denim, this man, michael allen harris, a commercial painter from orange county, california, is sort of a celebrity. >> you can't research this stuff on the web. nobody knows anything about it. so it's like a real... it's like a mystery. it's like being a detective. a denim detective. >> reporter: on weekends he hunts old mines in search of blue gold.

old jeannes. really old jeannes. the jeannes of the old west: dirty, dusty, tattered jeannes that can appraise for up to $100,000. >> this piece dates from about 1873-74 when the rivets on the top right here are unstamped. they're stamped only on the back. >> reporter: oh, my goodness. harris found this jacket. one of the oldest denim jackets known to exist which lynn downy, the historian at lee vie strauss, showed us. >> this has its previous life permanently imprinted on it. our designers are the biggest users of the historical collections here. there's such understanding. there's such respect and such love for this. >> reporter: downy says these antique jeannes are prized by designers because of their wear patterns. today those patterns are recreated by jeanne designers

like this one for that all important lived-in look. >> if you look at the way an old pair of jeannes has been worn away or torn, it's sometimes easy to surmise what kind of early life it had. if there are really significant wrinkles on the back of the knee, for example, you can tell that the person either spent a lot of time on a horse or did some sort of job where he was bending his knees a lot. >> reporter: cowboys wore them. so did bikers like the one marlon brando played in the wild one. >> hey, what are you rebeling against? >> what have you got? >> reporter: as did the demonstrators that brought down the berlin wall. no other garment personifies freedom more than denim blue jeannes. but jeannes were originally work wear. they were the essential

clothing of a hard day in the mines when jacob davis and lee vie strauss patented the idea to use a metal rivet to hold denim together. and those jeannes were made in america, like the rigid fabric from which they were cut. that is, until the 1990s when companies like lee vies become to shut down most of their american manufacturing. >> i mean it's not only levi's, it's everybody. >> reporter: so you might say they don't make jeannes like that anymore. that is, until you meet roy. >> i like the idea of the whole factory. you know, the whole factory of old machines that, i'm the mechanic and i'm the head designer. >> reporter: he is, in fact, a one-man sweat shop. he uses 14 different machines to make a single pair of jeannes.

>> it doesn't feel like this wispy little piece of something. it feels like... here, feel it. >> reporter: he designs and makes each garment out of this one-room workshop in oakland, california. >> there's this is like a big deal for me because this is my denim. >> reporter: he even designed the jeannes denim. and had it custom made at one of the world's oldest continuously operating denim mills. white oak mill in greensboro, north carolina. the fabric is woven on looms over 50 years old using a process that hasn't changed in hundreds of years. his jeannes are not only made the old-fashioned way. in fact, they're designed to actually look better as they age. right down to the buttons. >> when they wear out, they get kind of coppery, brassy color. basically everything on the jeanne is made so that as it wears, it looks more beautiful

than when it's new. >> reporter: the cost for all this scrupulous attention to detail? a tidy $340. you see, in the venerable world of jeannes, what's old is new again. except a little more expensive. >> the inaugural fit for men. >> reporter: like jeannes designed by matt and kerry edmundson in nashville, tennessee. >> matt and i both were always very in tune to this fabric. >> reporter: their company is is named after their grandparents. emma jeanne and willie. of course, jeannes like these require special care. >> we encourage mainly due to small amount of shrinkage to not wash your jeannes for six months. >> reporter: believe it or not, others are even more particular about the care of

their jeannes. >> i think the extreme is to never wash your jeannes. this sort of comes from the school know as miners and people wore their jeannes, the independent go left the fabric. and caused these amazing wear patterns that sort of evolved into the jeanne. >> see, this is what you get when you don't wash. like, who knows if this was ever washed? these creases are so strong that they're actually breaking through here. >> i can't think of any other piece of clothing that elicits the kind of emotional response and memory that blue jeans do. you're touching your own history every day. you're wearing your own history every day. >> reporter: these jeannes may be torn but woven in them is an american history of work and play.

>> osgood: still to come, tv's mentalist. >> it's a charming thing. that's easy. >> osgood: simon baker. but you know that. >> i kid you. >> osgood: and later driven to extremes.

>> you, my friend, are crossing over to the dark side. you shouldn't have sex. >> it's sunday morning on cbs, and here again is charles osgood. >> osgood: simon baker played opposite ann hathaway in the 2006 fashion industry movie the devil wears practiced a. these days he's on tv each week playing a role that seems to wear very well on him.

>> reporter: watching simon baker on the set of his hit tv show the mentalist, you'd never know he plays a character who is haunted by his past. >> it's not quite homicidal. were you cheating on him? >> no. >> not while he was alive. but now yes. that's it. >> reporter: he's patrick james, a phony psychic who went on television to announce he profiled a notorious serial killer. >> the police asked me to try and get a psychic to see if i could get a sense of who this man is. >> reporter: the enraged kill irmurdered james's wife and daughter. chastened and ashamed, he becomes a consultant to california crime investigators. while he doesn't have para- normal powers he has honed special skills. a knack for observing human behavior and an ability to smoke out lies in a brash style. >> let's be honest. you're a con man. i mean you're very charming and very good at it but you're

just a con man. you can no more help me than you can fly to the moon. >> reporter: what makes patrick james so popular with critics and fans.... >> i'm still angry. >> i'm sorry. >> no, you're not. >> reporter:... is how cocky and quirky he is. both annoying and charming. >> a frog? this makes everything better. doesn't it? >> i've always been a pretty shy person. to play a character like this is an enormous sort of challenge for me. to be confident with such bravado. the charming thing. that's easy. >> reporter: i can tell. >> i kid you. >> reporter: baker was born on the australian island of tass mania and grew up on the coast of new south wales. he's proud of his working class background but says he

had a difficult childhood. >> strong dominant stepfather that i never saw eye to eye with. in a lot of ways a repressed mother because of that. it gave me something to sort of rebel against and to find myself. >> reporter: his outlet was surfing, a passion he still pursues today. but he harbors a secret dream of becoming an actor. >> it's the kind of thing that would have gotten laughed at. >> reporter: in your family. >> in my family and also where wim from. you want to be an actor? yeah, me too. i want to fly to the moon. go move that pile of bricks over there. that was sort of the mentality. >> reporter: after high school he moved to sid nooe and literally worked his way into brief background appearances like this in music videos. >> i met the guy that was sort of directing them. i ran around and, you know, if he needed props i would run

and get them. you needed smokes, i would build a little fire in the corner of the studio and fan it. simon, jump up and get in there. we need another person. >> reporter: all that led to a series of parts on australian tv shows. baker was doing well. but the americans he ran into over the years fascinated him. >> i liked the americans. i think it was because i was shy and they weren't. and they weren't afraid to say what they felt. and if you did something good or felt good about something, good for you, man. good for you. we wouldn't do that really. you might get too big for your boots. just a different cultural thing. i took a shine to that. i thought, i need to go to that place. >> reporter: so in 1995, he decided to try his luck in l.a.. it must have felt a little bit like a different planet to you for a while.

>> it did. but like any place that you go, you figure out what it is that makes the place stick. >> reporter: he figured it out enough to land a small role in the acclaimed 1997 film "l.a. confidential." >> you know me. i'm keeping the streets safe, boys. >> take these two and get them dressed and book them. >> i thought this is fun. then i did three films that never saw the light of day. you come crashing down. that's what i like about it. always a bit of a crap shoot. >> reporter: perhaps his best known role was playing a smooth-talking writer in "the devil wears practiced a." >> i reviewed your collection of essays for my college newspaper. >> did you mention my good looks and charm. >> reporter: at age 42 he says it's the type of role he gets offered too frequently. >> a good looking guy that is maybe a little vacuous. >> baby, i'm stunned. >> i'm not your baby. >> this is why i like getting older.

you know what i mean? >> reporter: you think you won't be as good looking? >> it will take the pressure off. at least the roles will be more complicated because i am complicated. >> reporter: off screen baker has been married to actress rebecca rigs since 1998. >> i never met anyone as brash as her ever in my life. >> reporter: is is that what attracted you to her? >> it's what intrigued me. then, you know, like most people you scratch under the surface and you see a lot more. >> reporter: he is a dough voted father to their three children. you've also managed very successfully to be a family man. >> that's been kind of just the first thing i wanted to be good at. >> reporter: why did that matter so much? >> because i was from not a great.... >> reporter: so you wanted to create a happy family. >> yes. >> reporter: baker is also part of a family of australian entertainers who have made it here in the u.s.

nicole kid man is godmother to one of his sons. she and husband keith urban serenaded baker and his wife at a dinner honoring baker in l.a. a while back. ♪ you never would betray her ♪ of course he wouldn't, he's from australia. >> incredibly blown away. the gregariousness, the fact that they got up and did that for me. >> reporter: but he acknowledges before the mentalist he was not in the same league with some of his fellow australians. >> obviously you were expecting someone else. >> reporter: he's been in some 20 films including margin call where he played an unscrupulous executive. >> there are $8 trillion of paper around the world relying on that equation. >> we were wrong.

>> no, you mean you were wrong. >> reporter: he also starred in two other cbs tv shows: smith. and the guardian. >> are you all right? >> reporter: neither a big hit. so did you think at this point, well, i'm going to be a good actor? i'm going to goat parts? i'm not going to be a really big star? >> i just thought i would be a working actor as long as i can pay bills i'll be fine. >> reporter: but one person who believed he could be a star was cbs president and ceo leslie moonvez. he thought the mentalist was just the right part for baker. >> i saw him in his office. he said, look, i just wanted to say congratulations. i told you so. and he said and i'm glad it happened on my network. now get out of here. >> reporter: even with the mentalist and his star on the rise, that's not what matters

most to simon baker. he says there's one role more important than any he'll ever play on screen. >> all this stuff is great but at the end of the day, being a parent, that's head and shoulders above it all. >> how many people here were actually born.... >> osgood: coming up a bevy of betty. impact wool exports from new zealand, textile production in spain, and the use of medical technology in the u.s.? at t. rowe price, we understand the connections of a complex, global economy. it's just one reason 75% of our mutual funds beat their 10-year lipper average. t. rowe price. invest with confidence. request a prospectus or summary prospectus with investment information, risks, fees and expenses to read and consider carefully before investing.

>> osgood: if you have trouble remembering people's names, do we have a place for you. it's a place where everyone is on a first name basis. the same first name. lee cowan was there in a sea of bettys. >> reporter: as quiet farm towns go, hastings nebraska offers just the right mix of wide open spaces and "good to know you" neighbors. and at its well man cured country club as a parade of cars made their way in, we noticed something particularly familiar. from the license plates in the parking lots to the handbag to this long guest list, it's it became very clear that everyone here is on a first-name basis. >> my name is betty. >> i know. my name is betty too. >> reporter: for 16 years the bettys of nebraska have

assembled like this to celebrate the complicity of their name. do you have to prove you're a betty, show your driver's license or birth certificate? >> no. >> reporter: name tags seem more a formality than a necessity. >> all i have to say is hi, betty. >> reporter: they have nothing in common really. >> how many people here were actually born betty. >> reporter:... except their old-fashioned name or nickname in some cases. >> i wasn't really born a betty. i'm elizabeth. >> reporter: are you revealing this for the first time on national television. >> kind of. >> reporter: betty crampton emceeed the event which she admits can be, well, a bit confusing. what happens when you shout betty in a room like this? >> it's worse than yelling fire. >> reporter: the jokes are unending. >> hello, every-betty. >> reporter: even the grandsons of two different bettys couldn't resist working a few popular lyrics. ♪ we got to go

>> reporter: they weren't the only ones singing. ♪ betty, betty, little star ♪ how we wonder who you are > but the betty club has a betty club theme song. ♪ she will laugh and she will shine ♪ > it may look a boat load of bettys, 70 that registered but the truth is bettys are an endangered species. in the 1920s and '30s betty was one of the most popular baby names in america. in the decades that followed, there were bettys everywhere. betty grabl, betty davis, betty white, betty ford. even fictional bettys, betty rubble, betty boop not to mention that one betty who lived in everyone's kitchen cabinet. >> i'm betty crocker and i promise you a perfect cake every time you bake. >> reporter: everyone it seems

has an aunt betty. in fact this is my aunt betty in cape cod. but somewhere along the line, the name betty went out of favor. even bettys stopped using betty for anything. >> dog name betty? fish named betty? >> two no. >> nothing. i'm not even doing... carrying on the tradition myself. ♪ happy birthday, dear betty ♪ >> reporter: which is why there are far more bettys celebrating birthdays in their 80s than in their 50s. >> we lost one of our bettys just a few months ago. >> reporter:-why the chapter updates are sometimes filled with bettys who are no longer here. >> we lost a couple of members over the last couple of years. >> she was the wind beneath our wings and i really miss her. >> we haven't found any new bettys anywhere. >> reporter: at 88, betty is one of the oldest bettys here. she tries to keep spirits high. >> i didn't get a door prize so that's okay. >> reporter: she remembers a time when they are name meant

something a little extra. when somebody said you're a real betty that was a compliment, right. >> right. it really was. >> reporter: what did it mean back in the '20s and '30s. >> you're hot. >> reporter: that was news to the younger betty sitting right beside her. did you know you were supposed to be hot? >> no, i did not. that's very interesting. i'm going to tell my husband. >> reporter: the nebraska bettys didn't just happen by accident. >> this is how it all started. >> reporter: the first betty club was started by betty krueger back in 1994 when she placed a want ad in the local paper. >> anyone name betty or goes by the name of betty, would you like to meet other bettys? as simple as that. one betty told another betty and soon they had a betty club. >> here's the first meeting. >> reporter: that's the very first one, huh? >> um-hum. >> reporter: there are now more than a dozen local chapters. even nebraska's governor has recognized a betty. >> the 28th of april in 2001 he declared that as betty day. >> reporter: betty day. >> is that a bank holiday.

>> reporter: it should be, shouldn't it? hey, betty. while their ranks may be shrinking, the bettys are hardly going quietly. >> ♪ if you're betty and you know it, shake your booty ♪ >> reporter: do you think the name betty will make a comeback? >> i really doubt it at this point. it would be nice but i kind of doubt it. ♪ good-bye, betty snoet good-bye, betty ♪ ♪ good-bye, betty we're sorry to see you go ♪ > we are, too, bettys, each and every one of you. bye, betty. >> see you on the tv. they claim to be complete. only centrum goes beyond. providing more than just the essential nutrients, so i'm at my best. centrum. always your most complete.

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from the beastie boys. one of three jewish kids brooklyn along with two others who helped rap music migrate from the city to the suburbs. >> are you ready for the beastie boys? >> osgood: and the music mainstream. for years the beastie boys sold more 40 million records and had four number one albums. he also became a respected, independent film distributor. taking on a number of controversial subjects. >> our fellow band member.... >> osgood: already too ill with cancer to come to the induction in the rock'n'roll hall of fame a few weeks ago. in a letter he paid tribute to anyone who has been touched by our band. he was 47 years old.

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our old friend charles kuralt saw many odd sights in his travels across america. some of them are still there. our steve hartman has discovered on the road again in amarillo texas. >> reporter: tourists have been flocking to this wheat field pretty much everyday since kuralt's original story. >> yes, i remember seeing the original story. oh, my god. >> reporter: it was 37 years ago. and it was that memorable. >> we were just coming over this little rise on route 66 west of amarillo. i said, would you look over there? that looks for all the world

like cadillacs nose down in a wheat field. that's how we met stanley marks, iii. >> reporter: stanley was and still is the owner of this spectacle which has come to be known as cadillac ranch. stanley has a few years on him and his cars have a few layers of graffiti but for the reporter who must interview stanley one thing hasn't changed a bit. >> what are those cadillacs doing out there in your wheat field. what do you answer? >> i tell them whatever strikes my fancy. >> reporter: it's still hard to get a straight answer about these crooked cars. any reason why they're tilted. >> the angle of the great pyramid of giz a. >> reporter: you're making that. >> i am not. >> reporter: you are. >> yes, i am. >> reporter: for stanley keeping the mystery is much of the joy. he told these people pancakes told them to build it. he's never really given a good reason why other than why not? it's art. art which has since inspired

some equally baffling imitators. today america's roadsides are up to their shoulders in vehicles buried up to their belts. >> how could you not love this? >> reporter: the absolute weirdest one is in alliance nebraska. it looks like stone henge. >> it's supposed to look like stone henge. >> reporter: it's even called car henning. >> i think there's 38 cars. >> reporter: built by a cadillac car admirer, car henge is owned by the people of alliance although they're trying to sell it for nearly a quarter of a million dollars. >> is there $10,000 in the trunk of each car. >> reporter: no. but where else are you going to buy a tourist attraction for that? >> reporter: not in amarillo that's for sure. >> i never made a penny from the cadillac ranch. >> reporter: stanley is a purist. in fact once when a cadillac dealer tried to build near his ranch, stanley dug up the cars and moved them a mile down the road. stanley says you don't plant cars for profit. so why do you?

that's a secret he'll take to his auto graveyard. >> osgood: a story from our steve hartman. now to bob schieffer in washington for a look at what's ahead on face the nation. good morning, bob. >> schieffer: good morning, charles. six months to election day. we'll talk to both sides to where they think the race stands. newt gingrich and michelle bachman who didn't get the republican nomination will be here along with democrats chuck schumer and howard dean. >> osgood: thank you, bob schieffer. we'll be watching. and next week here on sunday morning,. >> the jeopardy round is where we start as we always do. >> osgood: quiz show hosts for $400. >> first impressions from you? >> it looks terrifying. >> osgood: questions for alex trebek.

hershey's air delight. experience light and airy, melty bubbles. made from pure, delicious hershey's milk chocolate. hershey's air delight. >> this sunday morning moment of nature is is sponsored by... >> osgood: we leave you this morning at the irqois national wildlife refuge in upstate new york, a courting ground for ducks.

i'm charles osgood. please join us again next sunday morning. until then, i'll see you on the radio. when i found out my irregular heartbeat put me at 5 times greater risk of a stroke, my first thoughts were about my wife, and my family. i have the most common type of atrial fibrillation, or afib. it's not caused by a heart valve problem. i was taking warfarin, but my doctor put me on pradaxa instead to reduce my risk of stroke. in a clinical trial, pradaxa® (dabigatran etexilate mesylate) reduced stroke risk 35% better than warfarin. and unlike warfarin, with pradaxa,

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