Music
Hi everybody, I'm Lisa Gibbons. And I'm Rob Weller. Mary Hart is in Boston. We'll be hearing from her in just a couple of minutes.
If you like sports from your living room television, this was the weekend for you.
NBC and ABC aired their first baseball games of the week.
CBS showed how Jack Nicklaus is still the master of golf.
And pro basketball ended its regular season, warming up for the playoffs just around the corner.
Celebrities were into it also this weekend, in the ring and on the racetrack.
General Hospital Steve Bond, who's been known to put the pedal to the medal on occasion,
attended the Long Beach Grand Prix and filed this Entertainment Tonight report from the pro celebrity race.
The celebrities came out for the fun and the friendship.
But by the pre-race drivers meeting, all the joking was put aside.
Then it was into the cars and butterflies in the stomach time for Falcon Crest's Anna Alicia.
You're the only woman in the race. How do you feel?
I've been asked that question so many times. You know, I never think about being the only woman.
I never think about being a woman or them being men. They're skilled drivers and I'm going up against them.
They have a higher skill level, more experience than I do most of them.
So I just have to run my race and just do the best I can.
Last year's winner, Lorenzo Lamas.
A lot of the thrillin' going on right now.
Knight Riders, David Hasselhoff.
As you can see, every good driver keeps a map of the race course.
Right here on the rear view mirror.
The Riptides, Perry King.
Ideally, I'd like to almost be falling asleep just before we go out on the track.
That's how it comes. Because as soon as that flag drops, there's like this little green demon in you
that jumps up out of your face and your mouth and you become a madman.
And you've got to make sure that that demon doesn't stop you from thinking.
All the celebrities here today have been required to go to a four-day safety course.
As you can bet with speeds approaching 100 miles an hour, this celebrity race is serious business.
First place in the celebrity division, driving in a pack with race pros Dan Gurney and Parnelly Jones,
went to Perry King.
Last year's second, this year first. How does it feel, buddy?
Oh, I feel great. The neatest part of it all was staying more or less staying with Parnelly and Dan Gurney.
Less satisfied because he didn't finish was David Hasselhoff.
Someone hit my car. Unbelieveable kit finds out about this.
And Alicia did finish in fifth place. Steve Bond at the Long Beach Grand Prix for Entertainment Tonight.
On screen, he's Detective Larry Zito of Miami Vice. Off screen, he's John Deal, middleweight boxer.
An actor's face often is his fortune. So what do Deal's showbiz pals think of him risking his good looks in the ring?
In all due respect to John, he's not going to put Donnie Johnson out of work.
John's a character guy, you know. He's all right. He'll be all right.
I tell you something, not many guys will climb up into that ring. That's scary.
But Deal soon found out that the knocks you can take as an actor are nothing compared to some of the knocks you can take in the boxing ring.
Deal was knocked out one minute and 24 seconds into the second round.
I asked him why he would subject himself to such abuse.
It's life after Miami Vice. And although I got only good things to say about it, I am looking to possibly get into other things acting-wise.
I'd love to do a boxing story. I mean, I think I could play a boxer.
Indeed he could. Aloe Wins Entertainment Tonight.
Well, a slightly different contest ended this weekend in Los Angeles. Gene Wolfe was there when the winner's name was drawn.
In the commercial campaign, Joan Collins offered the viewers a choice between dinner with her or a million dollars.
So have a Canada Dry Ginger Ale while you're mulling over this momentous decision. Me or a million dollars.
So, Cash or Collins, that was the deal. And out of 845,000 contestants, 50 finalists from across America were flown to LA for a gala celebration that would finally end the suspense.
Joan picked the envelope. The winner was Robert Priller from Baltimore, Maryland. And his decision?
The question is, Bob, will you accept the prize of a million dollars? Yes.
You'd never considered once dinner with Joan?
No. Not once.
The man didn't hesitate at all. He took the money.
Well, I think it would be a very stupid person not to take one million dollars rather than dinner with me.
Much as I would be invigorating and stimulating to have dinner with now.
Is there anyone you'd give a big sum to have dinner with?
No. Actually, I'd give a lot of money to have dinner by myself lying in bed in front of a TV.
Well, if Robert Priller wants his dinner in front of a TV, at least he can now have it catered by the best. Gene Wolfe Entertainment tonight.
Mary Hart, as we told you earlier, is on assignment in Boston today, and she has this report. Mary?
Thanks, Rob. It's that time of year again in New England, and here in Boston the rites of spring have begun.
The Red Sox kicked off their home season today in Fenway Park, and one week from today, America's oldest continuing race, the Boston Marathon, takes place.
But what would spring be without music? In Washington, D.C., this weekend, Peter Quinn Hackes was at the concert that never happened.
What do you call it when you can hear the music of the doors, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Creedence Clearwater all in one stage?
Well, try the concert that never was.
Down on the corner, out in the street, with the other poor boys are playing, and you think I'll touch it.
They've been selling out most everywhere they go, offering audiences a smorgasbord of 60s psychedelia that even features the same light show and operator used by the originals.
Love at your side, I'm going away. Love at your side, I'm going away. Oh, yeah!
But I'll train all of my tomorrow for one thing or yesterday, to be whole by this body and this mind.
None of these revivalists has ever actually been to a concert of the performers they mimic, but sometimes they come so close to the original, you can scarcely tell the difference.
It's bridging a gap. It's like the older folks that were there miss it. The younger folks heard it from their dads and older brothers and sisters, and they wish they were there. It's like bringing them all together.
Sure, they all have their own music they'd like to play, but for the time being, they find imitating old favorites both fulfilling and lucrative.
In Washington, Peter Quinhacus, Entertainment Tonight. Now back to Mary in Boston.
Thanks, Peter. If real music is your thing, another American tradition gets underway here in Boston on May 6th.
Conductor John Williams will give the downbeat for the 101st season of the Boston Pops, and we'll all get to see the orchestra when it performs at the unveiling of the refurbished Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor on July 4th.
Now back to you, Lisa. Okay, Mary, thank you. Vladimir Horowitz, who left Russia in 1925 vowing never to return, today did return to his homeland 61 years later.
When he sits down at his grand piano on Sunday, he will become the first artist ever to have emigrated from the Soviet Union who returned to perform.
In Moscow, fans stood in line in the cold for tickets, among them one elderly woman who said, I heard him before he went abroad and I stood in line all night to make sure I'd get a ticket to hear him again.
Horowitz's concert will be broadcast live on CBS Sunday morning.
Next, Wise Guys star Joe Piscopo, popping up to be the boss.
And ahead, Emilio Estevez, behind the scenes with the actor, writer, director.
Comedy still king at the box office. The Money Pit laughed its way to the top as the number one movie this weekend, according to Entertainment Tonight box office estimates.
Police Academy 3 dropped to number 2. There was a close race for third between Band of the Hand and the horror film called Critters.
And there was a close race for fifth as well between two more comedies, Gung Ho and Offbeat.
Following in the footsteps of Saturday Night Live alumni John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray and Eddie Murphy, Joe Piscopo is trying his hand in the movies.
Though his first effort in Johnny Dangerously was a bigger hit as a videocassette than at the box office, Piscopo's back on the big screen as one of two Wise Guys.
Barbara Hauer has more.
Why don't you place the bet? I'm a little too well known down there. You could disguise yourself as what? The time life builder.
In the movie Wise Guys, real life New Jerseyite Joe Piscopo joins real life New Jerseyite Danny DeVito to romp across the screen as two low level bungling mobsters who run afoul of what else? Their local New Jersey godfather.
Do we really hurt them by killing them? It's a good start.
Any fear that some real Jersey mobsters might come after you for retaliation?
By my relatives you mean? No. I have enough relatives where I think the boys will stay off our back. No, no, because we poke fun. We poke fun at it.
In your last picture you played somebody's sidekick. Now in this one, you're the leading man. Do you feel the responsibility to carry the film?
Yeah, I feel the big responsibility for this one. I'm very excited about it, you know. So sure, I'll take the responsibility one way or the other.
While Piscopo may manifest some of the attitudes of a full fledged star, he's not gone Hollywood, preferring instead to live where he's always lived, New Jersey.
I had the roots and I feel so stable, you know. In my mind, I want my son to have the kind of same thing. So I think that's the basic reason.
Basics matter. For an upcoming ABC television special, Piscopo even took to bodybuilding to do a parody on another of New Jersey's favorite sons.
I had to do Springsteen Stallone, so I wanted to prepare myself for it. I'm looking forward to one day playing the life story of Orson Welles, so I could just sit around and eat pizza all day.
A recent book on Saturday Night Live questions your friendship with Eddie Murphy, suggests that you may have been jealous of him.
Evidently they had it in for Eddie and I, and they said, Eddie, Joe are jealous, this, that, and the other thing. And they printed it, never once asking me.
And I could tell you, unequivocally, it's all lies.
There's a certain amount of giving a lie to those lies when you consider that Eddie Murphy appears with you on your upcoming special.
Eddie got out of sickbed to shoot that for me, so you tell me about rifts between us.
Piscopo may have been able to make the transition from TV comedy to feature film actor with his professional relationships intact, but his 12-year marriage didn't fare so well.
My ex-wife is doing great, you know. She's working, she's on her own. My son, which matters most of all, is wonderful.
And I've never been happier, and I feel guilty about it, but I'm having a great time.
Doonesbury is banned in Los Angeles, and Emilio Estevez adds directing to his writing and acting career. We'll have those stories when we return.
Coming up on Entertainment Tonight, tomorrow, Sissy Spacek goes romantic for Violets Are Blue, and an exclusive movie preview of Water, starring Michael Caine.
Wednesday, behind the scenes of Tough Guys with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas.
We seem to have no problem working together, and a certain chemistry comes across.
All on Entertainment Tonight.
Pink slips are flying at the newly merged Cap Cities ABC. Four of their own and operated stations have terminated, some 145 employees.
Dismissals were in the news departments and promotion departments at stations KABC-TV Los Angeles, KGO-TV San Francisco, WLS-TV Chicago, and WABC-TV New York.
More cutbacks are expected.
A third of the Cap Cities ABC cutbacks reached many television executives at the National Association of Broadcasters Convention in Dallas, where the latest in broadcast technology was on display.
Dick Shoemaker reports.
The theme of this year's Broadcasters Convention, Tuning in America, and some 40,000 TV executive salesmen and engineers gathered in Dallas to see the world's largest exhibition of broadcasting equipment.
Things like a TV camera, less than two inches long, that can shoot underwater. TV stereophonic sound amplifiers.
Computerized graphics. High definition TV monitors. And this Polaroid camera that prints 35 millimeter slides and color pictures directly from the TV screen.
In opening ceremonies, President Reagan spoke to broadcasters via videotape.
Under the leadership of FCC Chairman Mark Fowler, we've managed to get government off your back and on your side.
Now you're gaining speed in your efforts to be unshackled from unnecessary government regulation.
The NAB gave its Distinguished Service Award to the Chairman of NBC, Grant Tinker, who earlier told Entertainment Tonight reports of his leaving NBC soon are somewhat exaggerated.
But it won't be that far off. I'm not talking about being out of here by next week. But I'm also not looking into the 90s.
I think there are very good hands at NBC who are more than equal to the task of doing whatever I'm doing, and so I don't think they'll even miss me when I'm gone.
And what about the future of network television? Well, there was a time when viewers in large numbers were leaving the networks to watch cable TV and pre-recorded video cassettes.
Tinker believes that erosion now has stabilized, and the only direction the networks can go is up.
Reporting from Dallas, Dick Shoemaker, Entertainment Tonight.
Doonesbury is at the center of another controversy. Calling this week's strip overdrawn and unfair, the Los Angeles Times has decided not to run the strip for the next five days.
This week's story line centers on Reagan appointees who either resigned or were fired.
The Times, in a published statement, said the strip grossly exaggerates the real and alleged transgressions of many Reagan appointees,
and it was the Times' responsibility to guard against publishing damaging material. Doonesbury author Gary Trudeau would not comment.
Last year, the LA Times was among several newspapers which pulled the comic strip when it dealt with Frank Sinatra.
Simone de Beauvoir, considered France's greatest author of her generation, died today in Paris.
Her most famous work, The Second Sex, is regarded by many as the foundation for the women's movement around the world. She was 78.
Two-time Grammy winner Irene Cara married the president of the Stuntman's Association, Conrad Palmisano, in ceremonies this weekend on the cliffs of Palos Verdes in Southern California.
This is marriage number one for Cara, marriage number three for Palmisano. The couple met last year while working on the film Certain Fury.
On location with a man of many hats, writer, director, actor Emilio Estevez, when we return.
Here's the E.T. Digest for Monday, the 14th of April. New on home video, The Doomsday Flight, starring Jack Lord and Edmund O'Brien.
In concert today, Neil Diamond at the Civic Center in Hartford, Connecticut.
Celebrating birthdays today, Julie Christie is 45, Pete Rose 45, Loretta Lynn 51, Bradford Dillman is 56, Rod Steiger 61, and Sir John Gielgud is 82.
Emilio Estevez may be a card-carrying member of the Brat Pack. After all, he's starred in The Breakfast Club, St. Elmo's Fire, as well as Repo Man.
He's also a member in good standing of the Screen Actors Guild, the Writers Guild, and now the Directors Guild.
Gene Wolfe went on location for Estevez's latest project, appropriately enough, called Wisdom.
Emilio Estevez wrote That Was Then, This Is Now, and he's starred in the movie.
Now he's taken his talent one step further, adding directing to his credits.
At 23, with his new movie Wisdom, Estevez is perhaps the youngest writer, director, and star of a major picture.
How old do I gotta be before I don't have to check in anymore?
The film is really about not having a place and finding your place in society, finding your place in the system.
Do you really feel you're qualified to do that? Comment on the state of the world.
It's not really a coming of age film, it's more of a coming to terms film, coming to terms with yourself, finding out who you are.
Do you ever have a feeling that you could shortchange your own performance? You were directing yourself, you were trying to be fair.
I don't feel like I'm shortchanging anything, you know, on the writing aspect of it, the directing or the acting aspect.
I feel like I'm keeping calm, which is the most important thing I found to do for myself, is to keep calm and keep a level head and make clear, clean-cut decisions.
I mean, nothing can prepare you. No film school or anything like that can prepare you for coming out on the set, looking at 60 people around you,
and having to make the first decision of the day of where do you want to put your camera.
If there's no substitute for experience, at least Emilio knew where to go to borrow some.
Yeah, from your line, your reaction to it, I think.
Robert Wise, one of Hollywood's most distinguished directors, is executive producer of Wisdom.
It's turned out to just be a godsend, you know, to have Mr. Wise there to be able to go to whenever I have a problem, or, you know, even when I don't have a problem, just to discuss the scene.
Does he have more to prove on this set than the usual first director would?
Oh, yes, I would think so. I think because of his position as an actor, and he's starting to be highly recognized as one of the rising young stars, I think he then also has to prove himself as a director.
It's a nicer shot if I stay closer to it.
And to add to the challenge, Estevez is also directing his girlfriend, actress Demi Moore.
I am in awe of what he's doing. He's been able to maintain complete calm. He hasn't blown up.
It was good. It was good. How could it not? How could it not?
What a talent.
Wow, very impressive guy.
No kidding. We will be behind the scenes at the Academy of Country Music Awards, and on hand as Natalie Cole sings out against drug abuse, plus Sissy Spacek on her new movie, Violets Are Blue.
And that's all tomorrow on Entertainment Tonight.
Also tomorrow, an exclusive movie preview of Water starring Michael Caine.
And where there's a movie these days, there's bound to be a music video.
It's Freedom, performed by, among others, George Harrison and Eric Clapton.
Watch closely. You might see John Crease or Ringo Starr, Valerie Perrine and Michael Caine.
We'll see you tomorrow.
Bye-bye now.
Thank you.