New talent coming along.
The young actresses are the sexy new stars on Hollywood's horizon.
There are inside stories for the fourth weekend in June 1989.
Music
Hello once again everybody, I'm Lisa Gibbons.
And I'm Rob Weller and welcome to Entertainment This Week.
Well this summer's blockbuster movies are grabbing most of the headlines.
But three sexy new actresses are stealing their share of Hollywood's attention.
With any luck, they'll be headlining next summer's big movies.
There's some hot new talent in town that have the sass.
I'm going to get me some Louis Vuitton.
And class to be big stars.
Topping the list are Arneesha Walker, Sammy Davis and Joan Severance.
Severance started on her road to stardom through modeling.
Eventually making the leap to successful actress on the series Wise Guy.
Where her role as a sinister sister set the tone for future films.
I don't know what you're looking for, but it's a little to the right.
Shalimar Eve, whatever you want to call her in See No Evil, Hear No Evil.
She was me. She kills two people.
She kills the guy she's working for.
She has point blank range. She doesn't care.
Joan is also starring as a villainess in No Holds Barred.
Though her heart is softened by Hulk Hogan, who provided a challenge as her first on-screen romance.
In the bedroom scene in No Holds Barred, he got pretty angry at me.
He wasn't expecting me to go to slug him.
And he really got angry, which was very good for the scene.
But I was a little scared at that point because I didn't know what he was going to do.
Garnering praise for her performances, Severance is suddenly in demand.
But she says she's taking it one step at a time.
There's some lead roles there. Am I really ready to carry a film by myself?
Ooh, I don't know.
I think it's right to paint love in the house of God.
Seen in the rainbow as a young woman in turn-of-the-century England, it's British actress Sammy Davis.
It's the first starring role for the 24-year-old, who is still surprised by her success.
My image of an actress was very glamorous and beautiful and tall and everything like that.
And I thought, I've got this little sort of squidgy monkey face and I'm not tall and sophisticated.
I thought I'd never get on. But in fact, that's been a plus.
It's been great for me because it means I've been offered very interesting parts.
Those parts include her debut in Mona Lisa, a role in Hope and Glory, and a featured performance in Lair of the White Worm.
But the rainbow is definitely giving her the most exposure, especially since the film has plenty of nude scenes, something Davis wasn't quite prepared for.
You're sort of surrounded by about 50 people, half of whom are trying not to look at you, and the other half who are sort of just going, you know, sort of smiling and staring.
While still living in Britain, the English actress with a noticeable name is thinking about making her next big move to Hollywood.
In America, I think people leap on new people. They love new faces, new talent coming along, and they celebrate it and they make you feel really good.
Scene in Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills is newcomer Arneisha Walker.
Critics call her the scene stealer as Tobelle, an ex-porn star married to Ed Begley Jr.
We were both on the revamp.
In this cast, I am the least known. It was just a pleasure to be working with the rest of them. I sure didn't expect anybody would think that my performance was anything special.
Walker first received attention for her singing, getting a big break on stage with Dreamgirls.
In her first film, she got to combine both her talents by singing the closing song and one other tune in the movie.
Surrounded by a stellar cast, Walker still manages to shine on her own, prompting Hollywood to herald her as a fresh new star.
I think I'm on my way.
Currently, Arneisha is putting together a nightclub act that opens in July. Sammy Davis is in Hong Kong filming Snakehead with John Lone, and Joan Severance is co-starring in A Bird on a Wire with Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn.
TV commercials aimed at kids seem innocent enough. They sell cereals, dolls and action toys. But a group of critics claim these ads are giving children a warped sense of values, and they want the commercials changed.
Most kids' TV shows, such as the Flintstones, provide lighthearted entertainment for youngsters.
But when the commercials hit, it's hard to tell them apart from the programs.
They sell everything from cereal that looks like chocolate chip cookies to fruit-flavored drinks to futuristic war toys.
Not only do the commercials closely match the programs, critics also fear that advertising aimed at kids carries a subliminal message.
Ads selling blonde and blue-eyed dolls and featuring families straight from all-white suburbia give a distorted image of society. The danger is children will start believing these images.
We sell still food and toys, the wrong foods and very often the wrong toys. The advertising is still as sexist and implicitly at least racist as it was then.
Those commercials for Barbie dolls, the house, the furniture, the hair, the doodads that they sell, gives a message to a child that this is what it's important to look like.
Now we don't pitch black dolls on television. So what is a black child supposed to think, that it's important to be blonde?
With a lot of advertising, the need is that boys play war and girls play house.
We're going to have to re-educate children every ten years to the idea that women are people too. There's something nuts about that.
But some experts say critics of kids' TV commercials simply don't understand what advertising is all about.
I think there are critics of children's television who are very well-meaning and who have missed the point.
If the market that they perceive for their product is largely white male, they're going to aim their commercials at little white male kids.
It's just good sense. It's not the advertiser's job to reform society's flaws.
Psychologists believe kids are watching more TV these days, and many say what the children see in a commercial has a serious impact on their lives.
I see children today who are children of friends of mine who at four and five are requesting designer jeans, special kinds of sneakers.
I didn't even know how to dress myself until I was 11 years old. And these kids know exactly what they want to wear, what's in and what's out.
I think that's sad for a 40-year-old, and I think it's really sad for a five-year-old.
We contacted the advertisers, and none of them were willing to talk about their selling methods.
All right, stick around. The show has just begun.
Coming up next, moviegoers reveal why Ghostbusters is a blockbuster in our exclusive survey.
And later, Sammy Davis Jr. reveals how his friend Frank Sinatra helped him break the color barrier.
Well, I already get $29.5 million. Ghostbusters 2 had a spectacular opening weekend, and it may be one of the summer's biggest hits.
But despite the sold-out theaters, our exclusive movie track poll reveals that some moviegoers find this Ghostbusters a pale imitation of the first.
You're the best, we're the beautiful, we're the only Ghostbusters.
Ghostbusters 2 rated below the current box office hits Field of Dreams, Dead Poets Society, and Indiana Jones, but higher than Star Trek V.
Oh, baby.
Eight out of ten called the movie outstanding or above average, and the same number said they'd pay to see it again or tell their friends to see it.
Younger people rated the movie more favorably than older.
Audience comments were mixed. One person called it a very funny and outrageous film.
Another said, I definitely hope there's a Ghostbusters 3 on the downside.
One person claimed the first one was better. Another, this movie was disappointing.
If Bill Murray's deadpans were not a part of it, it would have flopped.
And yet another viewer said they didn't like the theme music, keep the original.
Actor Rick Moranis is seen double these days. He stars in two movies currently playing in theaters, Ghostbusters 2 and Honey I Shrunk the Kids, which opened this weekend.
Well, it's so confusing, you should wait until they're playing on a double feature to see them. Tony Harris has the story.
Rick Moranis is back in Ghostbusters 2 reprising his role as the quintessential nerd Louis Tully.
This time around, Louis has a new job. He's a lawyer now. Yes, he went to night school to get his law degree.
And a new girl. Why don't you come over here and sit with me? Okay.
So you want to play Boggle or Super Mario Brothers? Was it good to work with the Ghostbusters group again?
It's always great to work with those guys. They're wonderful. I wanted to do it again because I had a good time on the first one and I knew that there was an audience waiting for it.
In a busy summer for Moranis, he also stars as Wayne Zelinski in the Disney family comedy Honey I Shrunk the Kids.
It works. The machine works. Do the kids know? Well, yeah, the kids know. That's great. It's not that great. Why? I shrunk the kids.
Describe Wayne Zelinski. What's he all about? Wayne's kind of a nutty professor, I guess. Kind of the Fred McMurray of the 90s, maybe?
He's kind of a bumbling scientist who is a little too involved with his machine as opposed to his family.
I'll tell you, at their size, that backyard is like ten miles. Giant blades of grass. Huge insects. It's a jungle out there.
Elaborate special effects weren't the only obstacle Moranis had to overcome. Shot in Mexico City, there was also the language barrier.
It was a bilingual set, so everything was, you know, quiet please, silencio, por favor, we're rolling, rolando, you know.
And how does he explain his success in playing such nerdy guys?
I guess because of the way I am, because of the way I look, you know, I don't wear contact lenses and pump up my muscles so I don't get those Arnold Schwarzenegger rolls.
I play goofs as well as nerds.
And so far, it's a winning combination. Tony Hatties, Entertainment This Week.
Well, it's a hat trick for Moranis this summer. He also stars in Parenthood, which will be released August 2nd.
When the movie Batman opened this weekend, no one was more thrilled than Bob Kane. He brought the wing crime fighter to life 50 years ago.
As far as he's concerned, Batman is better than ever.
The fellow in the cape is the ultimate Batman fan. Bob Kane is the man who created the Cape Crusader back in 1939.
As Kim and Bob Kane will tell you, he's crazy about the new movie. From its director, Tim Burton.
He has a marvelous visualization style, as you will see in the movie. It's kind of a Citizen Kane look.
To Jack Nicholson as the Joker.
He's the only one I could ever conceive as playing Joker as Jack. He's just marvelous.
To Michael Keaton as his superhero.
He's gotten marvelous reviews as the new Batman of the 90s.
He even likes the sets.
The sets are like dynamite. And the Batmobile is menacing.
And of course, Bob Kane was a consultant to the filmmakers. And why not?
The idea sprang from his brain when Kane was an 18-year-old cartoonist 50 years ago.
His boss wanted a cartoon hero. And inspired by a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, the movie The Mark of Zorro,
and a 1930 movie called The Bat Whispers, Kane gave him one.
And today, Bob Kane still gets a credit in every Batman comic on the shelves.
Batman has made Bob Kane a wealthy man. His life is wrapped up in a bat cape, you might say.
He still draws and paints Batman art and sells it for prices up to $100,000, he says.
He thinks the Batman legend lives and grows because people need fantasies.
Boo!
Hold on.
Most people live mundane nine to five lives. They pay mortgages and have to save money to send their kids to college
and have fights with their wives.
They would all like to be a Batman, perhaps, to get away from that mundaneness.
I think most people would like to have a little bat cave in their apartments if they had a room for it, you know?
Kane was going to have a small role in the movie, but it didn't work out.
However, his autobiography, Batman and Me, will be out in October.
You have a bat cave at your house, don't you?
Actor Billy Dee Williams played Gotham City's district attorney in Batman.
He jumped at the role when he heard the movie star Jack Nicholson.
But the way it worked out, the joke was on him.
In the movie Batman, Gotham City is under siege by violent criminals.
The words Gotham City are synonymous with crime.
As newly elected district attorney Harvey Dent, actor Billy Dee Williams is charged with fighting crime through the system,
while Batman wages war from the outside.
People of Gotham City, I'm a man of few words, but those words will count, and so will my action.
My function is to do what I can to get rid of all of this debris that exists in Gotham City.
Which the Joker makes difficult not only for me, but for everybody else.
Police Commissioner Gordon has informed me that he has targeted those businesses suspected of running for the syndicates in this city.
Ironically, it was the presence of Jack Nicholson as the villain, the Joker, that attracted Williams to Batman for a relatively small role.
Jack Nicholson and I always talk about working.
Although we don't really have any scenes together, but whenever we've seen each other we always talk about working with each other.
But we came close, but maybe we'll do it more so next time.
But it was the Gotham City set that made the biggest impression on Williams, managing to surpass even his Star Wars experience.
The set is unreal. It's really gothic. I've never seen anything like it.
The Star Wars stuff was really fantastic to see. This is an outdoor set. It's one of the most spectacular things I've ever seen in my life.
He's right. Williams teams up with Peter O'Toole next for a remake of the classic horror film The Pit and the Pendulum.
Okay, find out why Johnny Depp is a crybaby. That's coming up next.
Movie maker John Waters developed a film cult following with pink flamingos and hairspray.
His new film is Crybaby featuring TV star Johnny Depp and some other actors not so well known.
It's action packed. It's the 50s. It's full of weird characters and it's shooting in Baltimore.
So it has to be the new film by John Waters, director of hairspray and pink flamingos. It's called Crybaby.
This is 54 before rock and roll even happened. It's about the dangers of conforming, if you want me to sound intellectual.
And if you want me to sound like it's a good movie, I'll say that it's a movie about juvenile delinquency and how much fun it can be.
The film centers on the confrontation between two rival gangs, the Drapes and the Squares, both made up of an odd assortment of members.
She's a real tough girl and she wears a lot of makeup and she's bad.
I guess she's about 17 and is pregnant with her third child.
She picks her teeth with a switchblade for fun.
The unusual cast also includes supporting roles by Iggy Pop and Susan Tyrell, Patty Hurst and David Nelson,
and former X-rated actress Tracy Lourdes, whose character is a real femme fatale.
She does things that would embarrass me.
Lourdes gets carried away by her role.
Get your clammy hands off of me!
21 Jump Street's Johnny Depp plays the main drape called Crybaby.
He's the kind of guy who's always been judged by everyone by the way he dresses, by the way he looks, by the way he acts.
Not the accepted, you know, look, so therefore he's a bad guy, therefore he's, you know, dirty or something.
But the film's no violent drama, it's a musical comedy and Depp never had so much fun.
This is the best vacation I could ever have.
I would have done this movie for free had I known what it was going to be like.
To me, it's my dream cast. I got everybody I wanted, except Mother Teresa.
I love the mix and I love that.
I mean, it's like when you have a good party, I think you invite people from all walks of life, and that's what I try to do in casting.
My favorite reaction I'd like to get is somebody who may read the ad and see who's in it and go, what?
That's what I'm looking for.
He's a trip. Crybaby will be in theaters early next year.
Alan Thicke is also making a movie during his break from the ABC sitcom Growing Pains.
It's the sequel to Not Quite Human, and in it, his android son is suffering an electronic coming of age.
Alan Thicke reprises his role as the scientist who created an android son.
Now he's creating ingenious ways to monitor chips.
No, Dad, isn't that a robot's spine?
No, no it's not. It's the scientific collection of data for the purpose of experimentation.
As we all know, an android needs supervision, so all heck breaks loose on the Disney Channel.
It's only heck. That's all that ever breaks loose.
But it breaks loose with a vengeance and with a lot of action and some exciting plot twists.
One twist will involve Jay Underwood, who returns as the robotic son.
He's older, in college, and for the first time he's discovering girls, a predicament for Dad.
The concept of androids and love is interesting and dangerous, and in our case comedic and has some adventure to it.
That alone makes it a different kind of teen love story.
Underwood sees endless possibilities for more sequels.
I was really looking forward to coming back and looking forward to parts three, four, and five.
Chips European Vacation, we think, or something like that.
But Thicke, whose character discovers keeping up with a college kid is exhausting, didn't expect the original to be such a big hit.
I think we knew when we were doing it that it had a chance to be successful.
We didn't know it would be this successful, not enough to spun a sequel, our own little rocky two.
And that thing could keep going forever. Not Quite Human 2 will begin airing on the Disney Channel in September.
And when we come back, Mr. Sammy Davis Jr., a man of many talents who's led several lives, he'll share a little of each with us.
You're back with us here at Entertainment This Week. I'm Lisa Gibbons.
And I'm Rob Weller. He's been in the public eye for six decades, but despite accolades in millions of fans worldwide,
Sammy Davis Jr. has had to battle an underlying, pervasive, and powerful foe, racism.
Gene Wolfe reports on that continuing battle.
Sing your song, Sam.
Now from a whispered well, high on the hill.
Sammy Davis Jr., 63, is celebrating 60 years of performing.
But the multi-talented Davis hasn't always been among the elite of the entertainment world.
Empty, lonely notes.
Starting out in the late 20s as the youngest member of the Will Mastin Trio, he lived the week-to-week life of a hoover.
For many years, oblivious to the fact that because he was black, he was supposedly different.
In show business, we live in a protective society. And you were with your own.
And the only thing that show people, particularly in those days of whatever, is that a good act or a bad act?
It didn't mean, you know, they didn't care what color you were. And they were very protective, so we protected each other.
I wasn't aware of what the average colored family had to put up with.
In 1942, Sammy found himself in the first integrated unit of the U.S. Army.
And he learned all too quickly the meaning of bigotry.
So you get in the Army, and this realization doesn't come gradually. It's like a smack in the face.
Oh, yes. And that's the way it happened, I think, to most people.
Except, I think, the guys who came from the South, meaning the black soldiers who came from the South,
they were more in tune with what was going on.
In tune? You mean they expected this kind of grief?
Yes, absolutely. And knew how to play that game.
Can you remember one incident in the Army that capsulizes the racism for you? One terrible memory.
Oh, when they whitewashed me.
They what?
They whitewashed me. They painted me white.
White, with the whitewashing fence, this color.
And you know how hard that is to get off with turpentine and all the rest of it.
But this humiliation of that, you want to be white, do you?
And I used to hear that some 25 years later from my own people. He wants to be white, you know.
And it was like a trip back into Deja Vu.
And I wasn't trying to be white, but I didn't want to be the stereotyped, quote, colored act.
I wanted to communicate with the audience. I wanted to be able to say to the audience,
hey, I'm a human being, I'm a performer, judge me on my talent.
That that old Southland gave birth to the Blue Leaves.
The nicest thing that happens to me is when I walk down the street, if it's Beverly Hills or in New York,
this long, long 8th Avenue, man, somebody will say, hey, Sam, a man.
Or the truck drivers will go, Sam, how's Frankie? You know, whatever.
It's like a one-to-one, like they belong in their house. And that's a good feeling.
And it's good to know Sammy survived all these years to keep on keeping us entertained.
Gene Wolfe, Entertainment This Week.
Sammy has just published his autobiography called Why Me.
He's also branching out with a line of food products, and he actually worked out the recipes himself.
Heart Condition is a new feature film which confronts the racism question with humor.
The movie stars Denzel Washington in a unique role that has him pumped up about the conflict between black and white.
When you start shoving this dog meat into your face,
I'm sorry, I have to step in and do something.
In the new action comedy Heart Condition, Denzel Washington plays a murdered lawyer whose heart is transplanted into a bigoted cop played by Bob Hoskins.
It's him against the world. It's true. He doesn't like anybody in this picture. And damn it, nobody likes him.
Matters are further complicated when Washington's ghost comes back to haunt Hoskins, who can't stand black people.
He thinks he's lost his girlfriend to a black lawyer, and she's a prostitute.
And he's fallen to pieces. The cop eats too much, he drinks too much, and he's a mess.
And he's only half a man. And when he gets the black heart, when the guy comes back, together they become a whole man.
But the transformation of a racist is not accomplished without a struggle, and in this case the stars hope a lot of laughter.
Well I always feel that when things are just funny, I don't laugh as much as when they mean something as well.
You know what I mean? And there's also pain in there. It's humor, real humor. The basis of humor is pain.
Well it's not hard to laugh at them. I mean, are they comedic? I don't think we're trying to do any issues, you know. I'm not.
But all of those involved with heart condition are quite aware of the potential pitfalls of creating a film comedy about the issue of race.
There's certain words that you can say here and certain things. And we've spent a lot of time discussing that,
and how to actually present rather nasty subjects with taste.
It's not like a heavy film that we're trying to make funny. It's not a heavy issue. People should laugh a little bit more. It's no big deal.
For actress Chloe Webb, who plays a prostitute romantically linked to both Washington and Hoskins,
laughter is not only the best medicine for film problems, but for real life as well.
I think it's the best possible way to talk about something serious is through comedy.
Because first of all, just like in real life, if you can get someone to laugh, you know, you put them right in your hand, right?
They'll give you the next half second of talking because they're with you for that second that they were laughing.
And Washington admits he'll do anything to get a laugh.
I steal, I rob, I do anything that I can do, anything for a joke, spit, take, trip and fall, knock down buildings, run into people.
Anything. Anything.
He means it.
Anything.
Heart Condition will be ready for release in October.
Washington will also be starring in another black and white drama. It's called Glory, the story of a company of black Civil War soldiers led by a white commander.
All righty. And when we return, the film story of a man who became famous playing the black and whites, great balls of fire, it's Jerry Lee Lewis.
What was it like to be a Bond woman? Monday on Entertainment Tonight, we'll meet some of the original sexy fems fatale and hear their secrets.
And next weekend on Entertainment This Week, Mel Gibson and Danny Glover have reteamed for Lethal Weapon 2.
We have an exclusive preview of this explosive new movie.
Goodness gracious, is there going to be a whole lot of shaking going on at a theater near you.
Great Balls of Fire starring Dennis Quaid as wild and wooly rocker Jerry Lee Lewis is on its way.
Great Balls of Fire charts the meteoric rise of rock legend Jerry Lee Lewis with Dennis Quaid heating up the screen as the killer.
The year is 1957 and a brash young piano pounding singer named Jerry Lee Lewis is giving Elvis Presley stiff competition for King of Rock and Roll honors.
I am a king. I have a god-given talent.
The film also features Alec Baldwin as Jerry Lee's cousin Jimmy Swagger.
Rock and roll is the devil's music.
And Wynonna Ryder as Myra, the 13-year-old cousin Lewis eventually marries.
I ain't nobody. I'm only 13.
Well you look all woman to Jerry Lee.
Great Balls of Fire opens from coast to coast on Friday. Also opening Friday is Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing.
Now in addition to Spike, it stars Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee.
And Ghostbusters 2 is not the only sequel for the summer. Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita are coming back with The Karate Kid Part 3.
It too opens around the country on Friday.
Now let's be honest. Every one of us thinks we've got a great sense of humor and we can't be topped when it comes time to tell a joke.
That idea has been put to the test by a movie maker and Leonard Malton is here to tell us all about it.
Leonard?
Well Rob, we've all seen funny movies but there's a new movie called Funny that just may take the cake.
It has no story, no characters, no special effect. What it has is 83 people telling their favorite joke. Now that's funny.
This duck goes into a pharmacy and he says, do you have any chopsticks? And the pharmacist said, sure. Will this be cash?
And the duck says, no, just put it on my bill.
Jokes. All kinds of jokes. Short, long, dirty, clean, simple, expressive.
Captured, collected and choreographed by a man who normally makes his living creating special effects for movies. His name, Bran Farron.
I was just finishing the effects for a film called Little Shop of Horrors and just prior to starting the next flash of films.
And this was something I could shoot on weekends in my spare time and it's a subject dear to my heart.
You can't see this, can you?
What?
I'm hearing it. It's most incredible thing. It's Japanese about that big. It cost about $150. It's just something that changed my life.
What kind is it?
420.
It started with friends and then friends of friends and then ads and newspapers and then pleading was useful.
Begging on street corners and basically any opportunity to drag someone in.
We even set up cameras in North Carolina gun stores and dragged people in as they were entering and saying, do you want to be in the movies?
There's a widow walking around a hotel lobby. She's a strange man. She says, where are you from? I've never seen you here before.
He said, well I just got out of jail for killing my wife with a hacksaw. She's all you're single.
Yes, there are some famous faces here but that's not really what the movie is about.
It was interesting because often the celebrities and professional comedians were the least funny and the hardest to get to be natural.
This is a film which you immediately can tell the difference between someone putting on a performance and someone being themselves.
And so contrary to what you would have guessed, very often the professional comics were the most awkward and the butchers and ax murderers were the most comfortable.
Why does the crack on your rear end run this way instead of this way? If it ran this way, when you slid down a banister and go oopie, bop, bop, bop, bop.
It's also clear that Ferent finds people just being themselves to be naturally funny and that's part of the film's charm.
No, I don't want to say the one word in it.
So anyway, there was a man who was driving down a suburban street when all of a sudden a car, a cat.
Then there's the actual study of jokes which grows organically out of the film. Many jokes fall into vague but recognizable categories.
There were these three couples, they went in front of the Catholic priest to join his congregation.
This fellow dies, goes to hell. He says, devil, there's got to be a mistake. I don't belong here.
This guy goes running into the psychiatrist office screaming, I'm a teepee, I'm a wigwam, I'm a teepee, I'm a wigwam.
And the doctor says, calm down, calm down, you're too tense.
And others, seemingly unique, have a way of getting around.
Who has told you that the three men standing in front of St. Peter have not had that yet? It's brand new.
These three guys die and go to heaven. These three guys are up at St. Peter's Gate in heaven. Three men.
We didn't stop anyone from telling a joke. If it's a joke someone else has told, they say, have you ever heard this? Of course not. And went from there.
Ferent shot over 2,000 jokes and whittled them down to the length of a feature film.
The results are a must for anyone who really likes jokes. And I suppose anyone who enjoys human nature.
For the filmmaker, it was a chance to flex his filmmaking muscles a bit and work on a project of his own.
Not only that, but it's a good way to get a few new jokes.
Take my wife, please.
There's only one Henny Youngman. Now, Funny opens this coming Wednesday at the Film Forum Theatre in New York City, and then it will be wending its way across the country.
And Rob and Lisa, in the interest of full disclosure, I should say that a lot of the jokes in this picture could not be told on television.
Alright, thanks Leonard. Did you ever hear the one about the three guys?
Alright, alright. The selection of movies being released on home video this week should provide enough choices to please all tastes, from ridiculous to comedy to the most controversial movie of the past year.
What do you think heaven's like?
The Last Temptation of Christ was called everything from blasphemous to brilliant. Now you can decide for yourself about one of the most controversial movies of last year.
The Accidental Tourist reunites William Hurd and Kathleen Turner as a couple torn apart by the death of their son.
Gina Davis plays a slightly off-center dog trainer in her Academy Award winning performance.
Pick up the phone and just talk. Don't you ever get the urge to do that?
Not really.
I'm gonna get you. Sucker takes aim at just about every black stereotype in the book as it lampoons Hollywood's early black action movies.
What makes you think you can be a black hero? I'm an ex-football player.
What's all this fuss I keep hearing about violins on television?
Emily Lattella and all of the late Gilda Radner's most popular comedy characters are included in this video. Radner left a legacy of laughter.
Jacques Cousteau is filming stuff in a Fisher's Starlet.
Oh, she was so funny in her book. It's always something is number four on the New York Times bestseller list.
Now when we come back we'll introduce you to the hot new pop singer out to unseat Madonna at the top of the charts.
Air transportation furnished in a promotional fee paid by Delta Airlines.
Delta has ranked first in passenger satisfaction among all major U.S. airlines for 15 straight years.
At Delta we love to fly and it shows.
Celebrating a birthday on Saturday, actor Joe Penny is 33. Actress Nancy Allen is 39. Drummer Mick Fleetwood is 42.
Actor George Stanford Brown is 46. Actress Michelle Lee is 47. And actor Al Molinaro is 70.
Celebrating a birthday Sunday, singer George Michael turns 26. Singer Carly Simon, 44. Actress June Lockhart is 64.
Director Sydney Lamette is 65. And writer-director George Abbott is 102.
She's a sexy singing sensation, but don't confuse her with Madonna.
Martika knows exactly who she is and where she wants to go to the top of the charts. And that's where her new single is headed, positioned at number 11 for this week.
What's a seven-letter word for pop star that begins with M and ends with A? It's not who you might think. This is Martika.
I might be the next Madonna. Madonna, what do you think? Born Marta Marrero to Cuban immigrant parents, this 20-year-old performer always dreamed of singing success.
When I was really young, like 10 months old, I started singing. My mother's so bad at singing. And before I could even talk. I don't think there was any one age where I knew what I wanted to do. I think I was born with it.
Although she started successfully as an actress, it was singing that really hit the right note with the young girl. And before she knew it, her first single, More Than You Know, rose up the charts.
Her second single, Toy Soldiers, surpassed even her expectations and became a sensation.
But it's a song about a very dramatic subject, drug addiction.
Someone who's really close to me went through a real problem with drugs, cocaine. And I just remember sitting up at night with him and he was just a completely different person.
And he would cry and he was really trying to fight this and he wasn't having a lot of success at it. And I saw him literally destroying his life in front of my eyes. And it was really painful for me to go through.
How could I be so blind to this addiction? If I was done, then this one's gonna be me.
Martica's painful experiences prompted her not only to write the anti-drug song, but also to join Jessie Jackson in a rally for Boston Against Drugs.
People don't realize that you're not only destroying your life, but the people around you love you too.
For this dedicated songstress, music is the medicine that makes it all worthwhile.
To me, that's my drug, being on stage and performing. When I have a great show, it's just like nothing else matters. The world is fine.
So that part of it is amazing. It's exactly what I thought it would be and more.
I love you more than you know.
The feeling's so strong inside.
I want to let you go.
Some additional background on her. Martica's first professional job came in the film version of Annie.
She played an orphan. She also starred on Kids, Inc. for three years and says that she got interested in music when Culture Club and Boy George came on the scene.
Well, it was a long time before Martica, but Dion found early success in music and now he's finding it again with a brand new album called Yo! Frankie that recalls those days gone by.
What my music is all about is black music filtered through an Italian neighborhood and it comes out with an attitude.
He was a teenager in love and the wanderer. If you lived as a teenager in the late 50s, Dion is one of those special names. Dion DeMucci of Dion and the Belmonts.
A certified, bona fide, card carrying legend.
He jokes, but he was and is a rock and roll legend. So after much water under the bridge, it was time for a new album.
In true New York form, he called it Yo! Frankie. One cut is called Written on a Subway Wall.
It's about memories that are under the posters and the graffiti on the subway wall and memories that you claim.
And the old neighborhood and your upbringing and things that you're real proud of. It's a song that has a lot of pride in it, but you can't go back.
This is where you get like, you get your basic drum sound.
Living now in Florida, Dion does go back to the Bronx neighborhood that he once made famous.
People remember him and the music, songs he for some time refused to let be a part of the many rock and roll revival shows.
I don't like sometimes the way those songs are presented. You know, like to me, Sha Na Na, they should shoot those guys.
I don't like to be insulted about my youth. Those songs are very important to me. You give me a doo-wop song, I get serious.
As he did in 1987 when he was offered his own show at Radio City Music Hall.
Something happened to me that night that was something special.
It was a night that would link his past to his future. Out of it came the start of the album.
My music is basically the same. And then what you put lyrically on that, you could sell sex, drugs, rock and roll, use cars, hamburgers.
You could talk about anything you want. So it's the focus. On here I'm talking about my journey, my feelings.
Recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Dion is back. Back with a handful of heartfelt songs, including one befitting his comeback.
It's about not knowing what we have till it's gone.
I never heard the melody until I needed a song. I come home.
It's a beautiful song.
And Dion has a new single out this week. It's called And The Night Stood Still.
He'll hook up with Lou Reed for a world concert tour beginning in Columbia, Maryland on August 10th.
And when we return, Johnny Paycheck finds out it's tough to tour from behind bars, but not impossible to make music.
Johnny Paycheck was a good-time honky-tonk country singer whose good times ended in a barroom brawl.
Now he's serving time, but he's found that prison has brought him back to his music.
Here at Chillicothe Prison, Johnny Paycheck is recording a live album and TV special.
It's the first time that an inmate has done a prison album from within. And I think it's going to be a milestone, you know.
Paycheck called on an old friend, Merle Haggard, to help out, and Merle obliged by writing a new song for the album.
I'm learning from inside the wall. A man can't get up till he falls.
Merle's done time in his early years, too, when he was young. And he knows what it's like.
And he called right back and said, I'll be there, you know.
The album was recorded live in front of an audience of inmates, one of whom also wrote a song for the LP.
Being behind bars has taught Paycheck some hard lessons about his hell-raising past.
Everything's a good time, but it only takes seconds for it to turn bad. And I'm a perfect example of that.
He plans to play it straight when he gets out, but he'll never stop playing honky-tonk music.
This job is sugar, I ain't working here no more.
Paycheck's album, titled Inside the Walls, will be released later this summer. And that's it for us for this weekend.
But next weekend we'll talk with Great Balls of Fire star Dennis Quaid.
And Monday on Entertainment Tonight, the sexy women who helped keep James Bond on the straight and narrow.
Now we're going to leave you today with pop singer Martika and her new hit single, Toy Soldier. Have a good week.
Bye, gang. Bye-bye.
**Sings Take00004 rs.**
People think that I'm terrified
I'll never give up
And I'll wait until I'm
Time goes by
Only emptiness remains
It replaces all of the pain
Once you come around and play with me