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Griffin Daily News
Smashing triple players—Bacharach to David to Warwick
He’s in love with his own words
By DICK KLEINER
HOLLYWOOD — (NEA )—
Hal David, the words half of
the Bacharach-David song
cartel, was in town while
“Lost Horizon" was shooting.
David, who lives in New
York, and Burt Bacharach,
who lives here, are probably
the world's only cross-coun
try songwriting team.
They’ve written the songs
for Ross Hunter’s big movie
version of the James Hilton
novel. Even though they
didn’t make any changes
David figured it was a good
idea to be in town during
the filming, in case he was
needed.
David says he doubts if he
and Bacharach would be
where they are today—
which is squarely on top of
the hit heap—were it not for
Dionne Warwick.
“All three of us have bene
fited from working to
gether,” David says. “I think,
if we hadn't gotten together,
we might all be important in
the industry now—but not as
important as we are. It was
the combination that
clicked.”
David never wrote a song
until he was in the Army.
He grew up in New York,
wanting to be a writer and
majored in journalism at
NYU. In the Army, he was
in a Special Service Unit in
Hawaii under the command
of Maurice Evans. It was a
small outfit. To stage shows
everybody had to do every
thing. When they decided to
put on an original musical
Hollywood hotline
Vicki chooses top students
By NANCY ANDERSON
HOLLYWOOD - Singer
Vicki Carr, who last year an
nounced that she would give an
annual SI,OOO scholarship
award to an outstanding Mex
ican-American boy or girl and
who then picked eight winners
to receive a total of $5,000, has
just chosen another 19 students
to receive a total of $11,750.
Vicki announced the winners
from Ixmdon, where she was
concluding a concert tour and
attending a Columbia Records
convention.
Two top winners, chosen
from among 1,000 applicants,
will receive $1,500 each.
They are 19-year-old Alvaro
Flores of Parlier, Calif., a
physics student, and 18-year
old Sandra Lucy Palacios of
Ix)s Angeles, an ecology major.
Two additional winners will
receive SI,OOO each, four $750
each, and four SSOO each. The
remainder of the $11,750 will be
divided into $250 grants.
One member of the panel
which chose the winners was
David Luna, a Harvard law
student, who received a $1,500
grant from Vicki last year.
+ + +
2
Hal David
“If 1 didn't force myself to
work, I’d be a tennis bum.”
David was the man assigned
to write lyrics. He liked it.
Now he’s writing a book
of serious poetry and he says
he is looking forward to
being judged as a serious
poet.
He says his biggest prob
lem, when he’s working on a
song, is the same as any
other writer’s—procrastina
tion. He works in a room
with no view. Otherwise, he
says, he’d constantly be ask
ing himself why he’s inside
when it’s so nice outside.
“If I didn’t force myself
to work," he says, “I’d be a
tennis bum. That’s what I
really like to do—not write.”
Nancy Walker, seen as ‘ Mrs.
Morgenstern” in “The Mary
Tyler Moore Show,” as Rock
Hudson’s maid in "McMillan
and Wife” and as somebody
else whose identity escapes me
in the movie "Stand Up and Be
Counted,” is a New York ex
patriate who can’t say enough
that’s bad about her hometow-n.
Currently living in California
but pining to retire in Rome,
she sighs, "New York used to
be the most magical city. I
loved it so I used to make heel
marks at the airport when they
dragged me off to some other
place.
“But now it’s a mess, and I
couldn’t care less whether it
straightens out or not.
“Anybody who wants to be
mayor of New York is crazy.”
Nancy thinks so well of Rome
that she and her husband,
David Craig, enrolled their
daughter, Miranda, in school
there when she was wily 16
years old.
“I hoped she’d find one of
those gorgeous Italian gen
tlemen,” Nancy says, her eyes
twinkling at the prospect.
“I wish somebody had given
me a chance like that when I
was her age. And she’s learned
to speak a foreign language,
too.”
Miranda has found a “gen
tleman” overseas all right, but
he’s not Italian.
Oh, well, Nancy, you can’t
win ’em all.
+ + +
Warner Brothers is shooting
“Class of '44” in Toronto, be
cause the action supposedly
takes place in Brooklyn and
“Toronto looks more like
Brooklyn did in 1944 than
Brooklyn does.”
That’s what a spokesman for
the studio told me.
+ + +
Visiting Toronto to talk with
the stars of the picture, I
thought I had located an old
friend, Brian Kelly, star of the
“Flipper” series.
As you recall, Brian had been
given the title role in “The Love
Machine” when he w r as in
volved in such a serious motor
cycle accident that he had to be
replaced in the film.
After that, Brian disap
peared from Hollywood and
MURPHY’S WAR
Rosemary Murphy is going
all out to make the world
Rosemary Murphy-conscious.
Phase One in the campaign
is to make a concerted ef
fort to appear in movies.
Miss Murphy is a much
honored Broadway actress.
But she found that Broad
way was self-limiting.
“I’d gone pretty far on
Broadway,” she says, “and I
did top parts in top plays for
five years. And I still wasn’t
a name. So I decided to try
Hollywood and movies.”
She’s in “Ben,” and it’s
doing well at the box office
but she’d rather forget it.
She’s featured in “Ace Eli
and Rodger of the Skies”
with Cliff Robertson. And
he thinks her best film role
is in “You’ll Like My Moth
er,” with Patty Duke. Be
sides, she has done a bunch
of TV roles —in Cannon and
Banyon, for example.
So the campaign is bear
ing fruit and she’s settling
in Hollywood—bought a
house, her very first —and
likes it here.
She’s the daughter of ca
reer diplomat Robert Mur
phy, once undersecretary of
state, and grew up in Paris
and, after the war, Berlin.
She speaks French fluently
and German with a French
accent, she says.
Being the daughter of
someone in the public eye
meant, she says, that her be
havior always had to be cir
cumspect. She remembers
once at a New York beach
she was in a brand new bi-
was recuperating, I heard, in
his home state, Minnesota.
However, when I registered
at my hotel in Montreal, I no
ticed a bulletin to the effect that
a radio panel show was to be
broadcast from its restaurant
featuring a Brian Kelly.
Further, the desk clerk told
me that the Brian Kelly of the
program was an actor.
As it turned out, though, he
wasn’t. The Brian Kelly of To
ronto was an expert on arctic
life!
So, Brian of Hollywood,
where are you and how are
you?
Your fans and friends would
very much like to hear from
you.
+ + +
When Beatrice Arthur and
her husband, director Gene
Saks, transferred from New
York to California where her
new television series,
“Maude,” is being produced,
their move was no casual one.
Traveling with them by plane
were their sons, Matthew and
Danny, a nephew, Robby, two
full-grown German shepherd
dogs, a cat, two turtles and 15
fc. -i
IP* 1
*:s'£ ' r -' r
Rosemary Murphy
Panic on the beach.
kini and “so glad I was thin
enough to wear it.”
A policeman came over
and said he’d have to arrest
her for indecent exposure.
Rosemary said she panicked.
“I could just see the head
lines: ‘Diplomat’s Daughter
Shows Too Much on Beach.’
But I managed to talk him
out of arresting me.”
Her parents, at first, op
posed her acting ambitions.
She thinks their reasons
were purely protective. They
thought it was too tough a
life.
“But my father has mel
lowed with age. He’s 77,”
she says. “I think he’s very
proud of me now.”
(NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE ASSN.)
pieces of luggage.
Only 15 pieces of luggage for
all that crowd?
The turtles must have been
light packers.
+ + +
“The Mary Tyler Moore
Slow” will be saltier — or
should I say "spicier?” — next
fall. In one episode, Mary will
be propositioned by Peter
Haskell playing (I might have
known it) a newspaper re
porter.
+ + +
Robert Vaughn, formerly
“The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,”
is en route back to your televi
sion screens byway of a role in
“Shadow in the Sun,” one of
“The New CBS Tuesday Night
Movies.”
Appearing with him in the
feature are Barbara Eden,
Stuart Whitman, Sidney Chap
lain and Larry Storch. You
girls will go mad for the clothes
and jewelry Barbara wears in
the flick.