Newspaper Page Text
Griffin Daily News
No more television series
for 3-time loser Reynolds
By DICK KLEINER
HOLLYWOOD — (NEA) -
Burt Reynolds, Neile Adams
and Don Gordon were sitting
around Burt’s dressing room,
during the lunch break from
the movie, “Fuzz.” There
was a knock at the door and
a man asked if he could see
Burt for a few minutes.
Burt went out to talk to
him and then came back.
“You know who that was?”
he said. “That was Alex
ander Cohen, the big Broad
way producer. He’d flown all
the way from New York to
talk to me. He wanted to
sound me out on doing a TV
version of ‘Hellzapoppin.’ He
said that I’m a comedian but
I don’t realize it. I told him
that wasn’t what I wanted to
do.”
He says what he wants to
do is to make movies from
scripts that don’t have
fingerprints on them. By
that, he means he wants to
do roles that are offered to
him first.
“Fuzz” is like that. There
were no fingerprints on the
script when he got it. An
other one of the same sort
will be released first. Reyn
olds has the lead in “De
liverance,” the movie John
Boorman made from James
Dickey’s best-seller.
“Boorman is a very gutty
guy,” Reynolds says. "He
saw me on the Johnny Car
son Show—l got more jobs
from that show—and he
called me in. We talked for
15 minutes and he offered me
the lead in ‘Deliverance’.”
“Fuzz" is different. He’s
playing a cop in a kind of
“M*A*S*H”-like black com
edy. It’s his first comedy
role, although he’s known
around Hollywood as a gen
uinely funny man.
He was talking to Neile,
the ex-dancer who is Mrs.
Steve McQueen and plays
Burt’s deaf-mute wife in
“Fuzz,” and they were talk
ing about Burt’s old series.
He’s done four of them —
Riverboat, Gunsmoke, Hawk
and last season’s Dan Au
gust.
“I never even heard of
Hawk," Neile said. "I must
have been out of the country
then.”
“You could have been out
of the room and missed it,"
Burt said.
He thinks it was his time
slot that ruined him with Dan
August. The show was op
posite Hawaii 5-0.
"Given the choice of Jack
Lord in Hawaii or me in
Oxnard.” he says, “I’d watch
Hawaii 5-0 myself.”
He believes that the time
slot is the all-important thing
on TV. And he points to Mar
cus Welby as Exhibit A of his
theory.
“Welby is a good show,”
he says, “but it has no op
position. In that time slot,
you could have somebody
peeling bananas and get a
top 20 rating.”
At the moment, he’s not
interested in another series.
He won’t rule out the possi
bility completely, of course,
but he’d rather not. He
doesn’t think television is a
good medium for actors.
“Comparing TV and the
movies,” he says, "is like
this. Suppose you sit Van
Gogh and Picasso down and
you say, ‘Vincent, you have
15 minutes to paint a picture.
And Pablo, give yours to me
8
H I I " •■h”-' I I
V>l I J 4 Sr
Burt Reynolds
Movies, yes; TV, no.
when it’s finished.’ TV is like
giving Van Gogh 15 minutes,
but movies are done when
they’re finished, not to a
schedule."
He says there should be
sub-titles on TV screens, but
a particular kind of sub
title.
“They would read some
thing like this,” he says.
“ Tn this scene, the other
actor was drunk and the di
rector was upset and we had
three minutes to shoot it be
fore we went on overtime, so
I B, -
■HF M
THEN AND NOW—The airline luxury lounge is not new, as
witness the cabin arrangements in upper photos. United Air
please excuse the poor qua
lity.’ ”
Reynolds stars in “Fuzz”
with Raquel Welch, Yul
Brynner, Tom Skerritt, Jack
Weston, Steve Ihnat, Gordon
and Miss Adams. If the idea
of a cop with a deaf-mute
wife sounds familiar, you
probably remember the TV
show, 87th Precinct. This
film is from the same source
material, the Ed Mcßain
books.
(NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN.)
Airlines fighting
a ‘lounge’ war
Rivalry over the air travel
er’s dollar has become so
feverish among the airlines
that some carriers are consid
ering “live” entertainment in
their first-class lounges.
Indeed, the jetliner’s lounge
has become a sort of status
symbol of the airlines. This is
reflected often in their adver
tising. Television ads drama
tize the luxurious accommoda
tions and red-carpet services of
the spacious lounges aboard
the 747 jumbo jets and the new
er DC-10 air buses now going
into service across the coimtry.
For a time there was talk in
industry circles that some car
riers were thinking of topless
entertainers. The topless talk
turned out to be baseless, how
ever.
“I don’t believe the airlines
ever will come to that,” says a
spokesman for United Air
Lines. “But the luxury lounge,
not only in first class but in the
economy or coach class as well,
is serving a valuable purpose.
“In the case of passengers
who don’t fly often and still get
a little scared or airsick, the
lounge with all its activity and
happy people is a welcome di
version.
“Also the big lounges of to
day’s jumbos and air buses
give people a chance to move
around almost as much as they
would in their own homes, and
much more than they could
aboard a train or riding in a car
or bus.”
The only travel mode offer
ing more freedom of movement
than today’s big jets is the
ocean liners, and their number
is diminishing every year.
The 747 lounges are all things
to all passengers.
The first-class lounge is
perched in the upper level
Jr
Lines developed first true lounge 35 years ago. Lower photos
show plush lounge areas found in the modern 747 jumbo jet
above a circular staircase
leading from the main cabin. It
accommodates up to 12 passen
gers at a time and usually is
decorated in bright colors and
studded with plush swivel
chairs.
The forward coach lounge,
located amidship, offers a club
like atmosphere for 22 passen
gers. The rear coach lounge
seats 10. Each lounge has a
stand-up bar, double leisure
chairs for couples, cocktail
tables and multipurpose tables
for those who want to play
cards or write letters.
Airline stewardesses claim
no special age group frequents
the lounges. Everybody seems
to want to spend some time in
them, especially if the movie in
the main cabins is dull. Drinks
cost no more or less than those
in most big city cocktail
lounges.
While what the airline indus
try calls the “lounge war”
among the carriers was trig
gered by the advent of the giant
jetliners, the lounge idea was
born nearly 35 years earlier.
Only the most ancient of air
travelers are likely to recall
that lounges date back to the
19305. The first “lounge flight”
on record was logged Jan. 19,
1937, when a United Air Lines
DC-3 Skylounge Mainliner car
ried a full load of 14 passengers
on an historic one-stop flight
from Chicago to New York.
The DC-3, by the standards of
its day, was a grand airplane,
the workhorse of the airline
fleets of the 1930 s and 19405. But
because its fuselage was about
the size of one of the four giant
jet engines which power the 747
or DC-10, the DC-3’s entire
cabin had to be ripped up and
transformed into a full-cabin
lounge.