It's one for the money. As Jack Lemon is honored in Hollywood. It's two for the show. As Pacino does Shakespeare and Dudley does opera. It's three to get ready. As Sinatra, Sammy and Dean prepare to hit the road. So go cat go. As Sherman Hemsley bears it all in a star-studded entertainment tonight for Friday, March 11th, 1988. I'd like to rest my case, your honor, but I'm quiet.
Hello everyone. Welcome to entertainment tonight. Both Mary Hart and John Tesharoff sitting in. I'm Rob Weller.
And I'm Liza Gibbons. Thanks for joining us. Think of all the best qualities possible in a Hollywood star and you'll end up describing Jack Lemon. A star who's delighted audiences for more than 30 years while earning himself a reputation as one of the nicest men in movies. So it was no surprise last night when an industry tribute to Lemon was as spectacular and glamorous a production as Hollywood could muster.
And by the stellar crowd in attendance, you might have thought the Oscars were being held a month early. But last night they all came to honor Jack Lemon, who's received the American Film Institute's 16th Life Achievement Award. I am here tonight because I have had the best of parts with the best of scripts, the best of directors and the world's best bloody actors around me. That is why I'm up here tonight.
What's your job? Officer in charge of laundry and more. And Jack Lemon's career goes on and on. He's appeared in over 40 movies in the last 34 years with eight Academy Award nominations and two Oscars to his credit. And he's managed to delight us with some of the most memorable characters to hit the screen.
Yeah, I think I strained my throat. The event to honor Lemon brought out many of Hollywood's media shy. Jack Lemon to me has always been a great hero. I've never heard him say a word. Didn't have behind it. 150% of his passion, his belief and his love of that. He's a pleasure.
He really is. There's no vanity with Jack. No ego with Jack. I don't think he's ever made a wrong move in comedy or drama. He's one of the few people who can do both. Who can do comedy and do serious drama and make it look easy.
Versatile, human, warm, companionable, lousy golf swing, and it goes on and on. The American Film Institute tribute airs this spring on CBS. Jack Lemon will be back at work soon on a new movie called Dad.
Well, even legends have to work hard if they want to give their fans the very best. So we sneaked into one of the hottest rehearsal halls in Hollywood yesterday to watch three of the giants of the entertainment world get ready for a major concert tour. Rehearsals were held on a huge Hollywood sound stage as Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Frank Sinatra got together with the band to smooth out the rough edges for their 29 city tour.
The built bar garage wants a grand, but we ain't got a grand on hand.
The trio will give 40 performances nationwide starting this Sunday night. According to Sinatra, nothing much has changed. We'll be here three weeks with this guy. And if rehearsals are any indication, there's going to be a lot of fooling around on stage.
If you're looking for action, he'll burn the spot.
Well, a Rat Pack tour will work its way across the country and conclude in Buffalo, New York in October. The spotlight was on Michael Jackson again last night, but this time it wasn't for one of his spectacular performances. It was so a lot of people led by the United Negro College Fund could thank him for his humanitarian work.
Wherever Michael goes, his friends follow. And last night, some of those friends included Yoko Ono, Liz Taylor, Liza Minnelli, Whitney Houston and Christie Brinkley, all on hand to see Michael become Dr. Michael Jackson.
There's nothing more important than to make sure everyone has the opportunity for an education. Michael Jackson is a national treasure. If he had his way, every kid in this country would learn.
I think you're one of the finest people that has hit this planet.
But there's more news for Jackson fans. His brand new TV special, Motown on Showtime, debuts tomorrow night.
And Michael's one-man tour continues this weekend with a stop in St. Louis, Missouri. Now some other showbiz favorites are generating heat on stage in Los Angeles and New York, and they're doing it in quite different ways than their fans are used to, with Dudley Moore in an opera and Al Pacino and Martin Sheen in a tragedy set in ancient Rome.
This was the most unkindest cut of all. The last time Al Pacino was on stage at the Public Theater, he was an unknown struggling actor. Now as Marc Anthony in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Pacino is one of dozens of stars lured back by producer Joseph Papp in his six-year undertaking of producing all 36 of Shakespeare's plays.
Just working here in this theater, it's like a hollow ground, you know. It's been 20 years since I've played in this building, so it's like a very sweet homecoming.
It was a Dudley Moore few have seen as he took to the stage in a new production of Gilbert and Sullivan's light opera, The Macado.
Moore compared the operetta with his more familiar film work. I don't think it's harder than film, it's just different, you know. You have to keep going, especially with music. You have to keep singing. Once you start, you better keep going, because otherwise things tend to fall apart, you know.
Well, the Dudley Moore Macado will run in Los Angeles through March 20th, and Pacino and Sheen's Julius Caesar opens in New York March 22nd.
Sherman Hemsley, the deacon we've come to love and respect in NBC's Amen, is about to shock his congregation and the rest of the primetime audience as he sheds his inhibitions and a lot more.
You little...
After being attacked and stripped naked by an angry witness, he's just questioned on behalf of the Reverend. Sherman Hemsley's deacon fry has nothing to hide in court on tomorrow night's episode of Amen.
Will both counselors approach the bench?
Do either of you have anything to add?
No, Your Honor. I'd like to rest my case, Your Honor, but I can't.
When we return, we'll find out if a butcher, a baker, and a lady wrestler can make it in a primetime chorus line.
And later enter the wonderful world of Stevie Wonder, who's still making magic at 37.
The winners of the People's Choice Awards are determined by a poll of the general public, so the producers of Sunday's 14th annual awards ceremony thought it'd be nice to involve just plain folks in the show, which they've done in the opening dance number.
It all started with this ad in the Hollywood trade papers.
This is not the opening of all that jazz or chorus line.
140 truck drivers, grocery clerks, lawyers, and other dreamers answered the call back in February, and 20 made the grade.
To right, left, right.
I like singing, I like dancing, and I want to be Ann Miller when I grow up.
I don't think my feet know it yet, but I'm having a lot of fun.
Although the CBS special airs Sunday evening, it wasn't until last night that the chorus had its first full rehearsal.
I'd give up the practice of law right now if I could do this full time.
I love this, this is awesome, awesome, awesome.
I can't dance my way out of a paper bag, so every time I manage to pull something off, I get so excited, it's great.
I know what I like.
That's what happens when you live in Hollywood.
Barbara Mandrell and Carl Reiner will host the two-hour special award show.
Can borrowing a famous name help push an ambitious but struggling lawyer to the top?
We'll see when the new sitcom Eisenhower and Lutz makes its debut.
Eisenhower and Lutz?
Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Eisenhower isn't, but Mr. Lutz is, hello.
Scott Bakula stars as ambitious young lawyer Bud Lutz Jr., who includes the name of the former president in his law firm to establish credibility in the desert community of Palm Springs.
I'm not the LA law type lawyer. People are going to be able to relate to me because I'm not making it.
I'm not driving a Jaguar. I'm kind of every man trying desperately to survive any way I can.
Hello, buddy.
But Bud's life is complicated by the presence of his high school sweetheart Kay, who is a high-powered lawyer in a competing firm and his current, often ditzy girlfriend, Megan.
I don't deserve you. Wait a minute, what's this? Southeast Las Vegas School of Law?
That's where you went.
Yeah, but I thought we were going to dress that up a little bit.
Well, I did. I took an acupuncture off.
Eisenhower and Lutz premieres Monday on CBS.
Two regular NBC series have a little different focus this weekend. They both involve the hearing impaired.
Hunter.
Saturday's episode of Hunter is about a deaf man who is stabbed and gives clues in sign language before dying.
What did you talk about when he called?
I think communication is, we're all trying to do better of anyway. I mean, those people probably communicate with their hands better than we do with our voices.
Hunter, with the help of an interpreter, interrogates actress Mary Vreeland. While deaf, she can read lips as well as sign.
So we asked Mary, after working on the show, does she think Hunter is a hunk?
Oh, yes.
No, Andy, Josh can't hear, but he speaks by signing.
On Sunday's episode of Family Ties, Brian Bonzel is introduced to a new preschool classmate.
Right now, he just said that he's very happy to meet you.
How'd you do that?
This is Josh.
Six-year-old deaf actor Daryl Utley plays a child who encounters a welcoming committee that's not entirely hospitable.
What do you mean he can't hear?
Let's see if he can hear this. Hey, kid, get out of the way.
To make the Hunter episode authentic, by the way, a special consultant was hired to monitor the production.
Coming up on Entertainment This Week, we'll see how one of Hollywood's most successful composers creates the music for some of our favorite TV shows.
And Monday, Sidney Poitier explains how his latest role as a spy hunter is one of the most challenging he's had in his movie career.
Travel arrangements furnished by Delta Airlines discover Hawaii, the Caribbean, Mexico, Canada, Europe or Japan on a Delta dream vacation.
At Delta, we love to fly in its shows.
Since the age of 12 with his hot-hit fingertips, Stevie Wonder has been one of the most successful and prolific musicians of the last three decades.
And our Tony Harris found that his newest album, Characters, is returned to the hard-edged side of Stevie.
I just love music. I love the music of Prince. I love the music, a lot of the rap stuff. I just like music.
Stevie Wonder's love of music has resulted in 25 albums in 25 years. His latest, Characters, is rich in music and message.
In the video for the single Skeletons, Wonder explores what people tend to hide, secrets including his own.
I think the most important thing really is if in fact you are making the musical statement that you want to make and if in fact what you're saying is understood.
But Characters, though a smash on the black charts and a platinum LP, is the first Stevie Wonder album since 1977 not to enter the top five on the pop charts.
Many feel its failure to cross over is due to this 1984 single.
I just want to say I love you.
Stevie Wonder, you know, he got so soft. Yeah. And his, you know, music. Right. The old music kind of.
Actually, basically, I, you know, I listen to various critics. If they think because maybe I wrote on, I just call to say I love you.
Not into writing another superstition or another whatever kind of thing or that because I'm 37 versus 17. I don't really know.
I mean, basically, I love music just as much or even more than I did then.
Like Stevie says, it's the message that counts. Still, Wonder is not above admitting he's ambitious commercially.
I don't feel bad that it didn't go number one the first week on the charts. Maybe the next one will. I'm very, very fortunate.
If it happens again, I'll be fortunate again. It's a good bet he will.
Tony Harris, Entertainment Tonight.
Stevie's next project includes a duet with Julio Iglesias for Julio's next album. Work will begin soon on the video.
Now, he was one of the two cute kids in the successful 1966 to 71 comedy series Family Affair.
He played Jodie and he's the subject of Where Are They Now?
Who originated the popular role of Scotty Baldwin on General Hospital?
He starred in a 1973 film version of Tom Sawyer.
In the series Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, one of his co-stars was a barking lobster.
The name is Johnny Whitaker, but to a legion of baby boomers, he'll always be Jodie on Family Affair.
Here's his very first entrance.
The situation comedy made Whitaker a star, but it only came about thanks to his one key scene and co-star Brian Keith in the hit movie The Russians Are Coming.
Brian and I became good friends. He had just adopted a son about my age and missed him because he was away from home.
And we became good friends, played baseball out in the parking lot after work, and he made sure that the producers at least would take a look at me,
even though the part of Jodie was for a 10-year-old boy. But when Anissa Jones and I got together at the audition, they said, we'll change the script to twins.
That's how it started. And then math on. Now come and erase your 19 there.
Today, Johnny is an administrative assistant in an accounting firm. He's especially adept at computer programming, but that's just one of several interests.
I can take one day free again. His Family Affair co-star, Anissa Jones, died in 1976 of drug-related causes.
And Johnny, who took it hard, temporarily gave up acting. A lifelong Mormon, he became a lay missionary in Portugal.
That's what was a great opportunity on my mission to just give because I was always taking. I was always the star. I was always me.
But now I wasn't me. I had to be in the Lord's service and working for him and not doing anything I wanted to do.
But at the same time, I was able to learn so much about people.
No woman's going to give me a bath.
When I look at Family Affair now, it's a different person. That's not me anymore. And it's a baby or a son or something maybe, but it's not me.
Amazing how careers can change, at least.
It's just in terms of faith, absolutely.
Now stay with us because when we come back, it will be Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep reunited on the silver screen.
And a first for Cagney and Lacey's Tyne Daly. She's going to sing.
Let's see.
Music.
In today's People Post scripts, Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep will star in a new movie called Corporate Love.
Producers say the film will be an unromantic comedy with the two stars having a relationship reminiscent of the Spencer Tracy, Catherine Hepburn comedies of years ago.
The release date is yet set.
Now doctors in Oxford, England say that singer Andy Gibb died of a rare viral infection of the heart.
Despite claims in several London tabloids today, a pathologist said that Gibb's death does not appear to have been connected with substance abuse of any kind.
Tyne Daly's policewoman character on Cagney and Lacey is so tough and self-sufficient that it surprised even her when she agreed to make her singing debut in a sensitive duet.
Music.
Tyne Daly is used to playing it tough on Cagney and Lacey, but tomorrow night she'll show a little softer side as she guest stars on Dolly.
It was nice with Dolly. There's no revelation in it. You know, I'm an actor.
All the time's on
It was fun to dip your toe in sort of variety. So it means that if you get silly minded enough, you go and give it a try.
Quite an interesting couple there.
Yeah, nice combination of different ladies.
All right, join us this weekend on Entertainment This Week. Remember Del Shannon and Runaway?
Oh, I should.
You remember that? Well, that's going to be on our making of a hit this week.
And Monday on the same show, Alf and Baryshnikov happening right here.
Really?
Mm-hmm. But we're going to leave you right now with Whitney Houston performing it last night's tribute to Michael Jackson. Have a good weekend.
Bye-bye.
Shining sea
Singing a song
Mallory is horrified when a friend of the family's makes a pass at her Monday afternoon on Family Ties at Five.
But now stay tuned for the exciting adventures of the Highwayman.
Next here on WJAR Channel.