Who won what at the British Oscars? Will Rock save the day for another cause? What big issues threw the stars to Washington? Did you know that all movie cassettes are not created equal? Entertainment Tonight puts on the hits and blitz for Monday, March 23rd, 1987.
Hello everybody. Thank you a lot, appreciate it. Bye bye.
Hello everybody, I'm Lisa Gibbons. Mary Hart is on assignment today. And I'm John Tesh. What's hot in music for this Monday? Well for the first time in nearly five years, George Harrison is recording an album. A former Beatle is busy in a London studio working on a new record for release this fall.
At the moment, just making a new album. Try and get it out by September, October this year. Produced by Jeff Lynne, the famous electric-like orchestra, who happens to be there, hello, Jeff, how are you? Hand camera to Jeff Lynne.
So you're quite excited about getting back in the music industry? I'm very excited about that, yeah. I'm making my best album I've ever made.
Well there's some hot news in the matrimony department. Pam Dauber and Mark Harmon tied the knot Saturday night in a small private ceremony in Los Angeles. The bride and groom dine with a party of 30 family and friends at Chameleon's Restaurant in nearby Santa Monica, California, following the exchange of vows.
What's hot in television? ABC has signed Dolly Parton to star in her own weekly variety show to begin airing in the fall. ABC paid Parton's company an estimated $44 million to produce the Dolly Parton Hour and to develop other special programs and television movies for the network.
It was reported that CBS was initially approached with the package deal, but decided against committing to it.
Jack Lemmon is also making television news today. The veteran screen actor has agreed to star in the upcoming NBC miniseries, The Ballad of Mary Fagan. Lemmon's last TV role was in The Entertainer that was back in 1975.
This time out, Lemmon portrays John Slayton, the Georgia governor caught in the middle of a 1915 lynching of a Jewish businessman erroneously convicted of killing a female employee.
What is hot at the box office? Lethal weapon. According to Entertainment Tonight weekend box office estimates, the Mel Gibson action picture killed all the competition at theaters for the third week in a row with a $6.6 million gross.
Whoopi Goldberg's Burglar stole a respectable $4.5 million in its opening weekend, good enough for second place. And Platoon is marking time in third position with nearly $4 million in business.
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts handed out their awards for excellence last night in London.
This is the 40th year the stars of film and television have come out in London for the BAFTAs.
It's our big award show and I think the Grosvenor House have done a wonderful job tonight. I've enjoyed myself a lot.
We didn't have any tears from actors and actresses tonight because I think they weren't allowed to speak. Take the thing and run. This isn't mine by the way, I took it with somebody else.
The winners included A Room with a View for best film. Winning is having a special touch. So that was very nice.
Best director and screenplay went to Woody Allen for Hannah and her Sisters.
Oh, there you are. I must apologize. I'm sorry, I'm so mixed up.
Best actor was Bob Hoskins for his role in Mona Lisa. I'm fired and you're street walking.
I always think I'm going to lose so I never, I just come for the party, really, to get drunk.
You know, and if I get drunk and I get a prize as well, it's wonderful.
Best actress was Maggie Smith for A Room with a View. Joan Collins won the award for Grand Entrance of the Night, fashionably laid of course.
Swamped by photographers, she refused to discuss the new man in her life, Bill Wiggins.
Former Beatle George Harrison was there too in his role as movie producer. His hand made films brought us Mona Lisa.
I'm really a musician, sort of a musician. Occasionally I'm a musician and this is like a hobby really.
The only disappointment of the night was the rather poor turnout by nominees.
Director David Putnam had a good explanation for everyone's absence.
After all you said respectable, they're very respectable. They won't tell anyone who's won.
And there's a lot of people who aren't prepared to fly 6,000 miles to sit there and lose.
Well one of the most interesting things about the British version of the Oscars is how last night's winners will measure up in our own Academy Awards.
That's one week from tonight.
Two-time Academy Award winner Maggie Smith came away from last night's British Academy Awards.
A big winner again. Her role in A Room with a View earned her the Best Actress Award.
It's ironically the same role for which she's been nominated in the Supporting Actress category here in the States.
David Frost talked with Smith on her London end of her Trans Continental Awards race.
It reminds me somewhat of the country around Shropshire, where I once spent a holiday at the home of my friend Miss Apesbury.
And I divine it Charlotte, you had an adventure there.
Faint to deny it.
To have had two Oscar winnings and one nomination in such a short space of time shows not only that you're a very good actress, but you're a very good picker of scripts.
It sounds as though I sit around and read lots of scripts. Believe me, I want to banish this thought straight away.
That doesn't happen. A script comes and if it's at all playable I'll do it.
I mean I haven't sort of sifted anything. I have just been incredibly fortunate in as much as these films have come along at the times they have.
You never had an alternative career in mind. You know, I want to be an actress or a train driver.
I was absolutely determined that I was going to. I truthfully cannot fathom why.
Because I didn't really go to the theatre or I think the first time I went to the cinema, well I saw the Jolson story and then I think the next thing I saw was Lord Olivier in Hamlet.
You know, so it was not a background of theatre or anything so I don't know why.
Señorina.
I think it was Sir John Gilbert said that there's just some nights when the gods are with you and they're not just with you, they're with everybody.
I mean with the audience, with every actor, with the people working the lights, with the people working the sound, the gods are suddenly with all of you.
And then it's just a magical night. But they're not very frequent so you're always striving and waiting for that one to turn up.
They do, just in the nick of time when you're ready to quit.
A third Academy Award for Smith would make her only the third actress in history to hold three of the prestigious gold statues.
Catherine Hepburn has four and the late Ingrid Bergman had three.
Denham Elliott didn't fare quite as well last night in the British Awards race.
Though he lost the best supporting actor award to Ray McAnally of The Mission, this year Elliott has been nominated for the first time for an American Academy Award.
And the veteran of over 75 films is genuinely pleased with his newfound recognition in the United States.
You love George. You love the boy body and soul as he loves you.
Even though a room with a view was a strong contender for Oscar nominations, Elliott's reaction to his was...
Total astonishment. I never in a million years expected to be nominated for the American Academy Award.
He feels the honor is especially important for a foreign actor.
You can be a distinguished German actor or French or whatever but it doesn't mean a row of beans unless you get yourself a bit of a name in the States.
And to be nominated was the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me. I mean I'm thrilled.
My vision is within. Here is where the birds sing. Here is where the sky is blue.
And the recognition is not just from his peers at the Academy. After toiling anonymously in over 75 films, people are finally putting the name with the face.
They do in the street now. The first time in my life in New York for instance.
Every day they come up and say how are you Denim or Mr. Elliott or something. I prefer Denim but you know.
The rewards of success have come late in life for the 64 year old Elliott but that's just fine with him.
It's marvelous to feel that people like your work and they've seen you.
But if I had that when I was 20 it would have affected me to totally live away.
I would have become a totally impossible egomaniac.
I mean insupportable and nobody would have liked me at all.
And you know I work with people like that who get their success early.
I'd rather get mine late because you can handle it late. But I'm very pleased that it's happening.
Really I'm thrilled and delighted.
Elliott is facing some stiff competition in his Oscar race.
The other supporting actor nominees are Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe of Platoon.
Hannah and her sisters Michael Caine and Dennis Hopper for Hoosiers.
Coming up next, Britain's biggest rock stars band together and come to the aid of the victims of the ferry disaster.
And ahead, that bargain video cassette may only give you part of the picture.
We'll show you what you're missing.
In the tradition of live aid and band aid, musicians have banded together again.
This time to help the victims of the Zabruga ferry disaster.
The song they've recorded is an old Beatles tune and it took cooperation from Michael Jackson and the former Beatles to make it happen.
Joanna Lumley has the story in London.
The record was made just one week after the ferry disaster.
It was not an easy task to get all of these stars together, including Boy George and Paul McCartney.
The biggest problem was getting permission to use the song.
The former Beatles and Yoko Ono had to give the OK, as did Michael Jackson, who now owns the Beatles classic.
There was no mean feat of us all to get the permission, which it took us only about 12 hours to get.
I mean, I think that is quite incredible to get, you know, four of the world's biggest pop stars of all time to agree to this one project.
The Sun newspaper organized the session and video.
Since the stars themselves have been watching the tragedy on television, the tabloid had no problems getting them down to the studio.
Like, this one little boy was eight, just completely on his own.
He lost everybody.
I mean, I've never really lost any of my family, so I, you know, I know I would be really horrified if I did.
Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler added the legendary guitar solo, completing the record.
The single is out tomorrow throughout Europe.
Organizers say U.S. release date is soon to follow.
In London, to unalumny entertainment tonight.
The song, by the way, is already the most requested song on British radio.
And on this side of the Atlantic, actors are busy helping needy people.
Falcon Crest star Susan Sullivan testified before Congress today.
She is concerned about children who require critical medical care.
She'd like them to receive that care at home, and she wants Congress to help.
Sullivan appeared before a House of Representatives committee as the official spokesperson of the Foundation for Hospice and Home Care.
All these parents want is the opportunity to take care of their own.
That organization is concerned that thousands of children are living in hospitals and institutions, not because they need to be there.
But because of the way insurance programs are set up, that is the only place where reimbursement is available for their care.
It's just a matter of insurance companies and the government changing some small increments of legislation
so that these children can be cared for and funded at home.
No, they shouldn't have to be scrambling to get the money.
That should be the easy part. Taking care of the child is the hard part.
Please don't forget these children. I think the only catastrophe would be if we didn't help them. Thank you.
Sullivan became a spokesperson for the Hospice and Home Care Foundation when a member saw her talking about her father's death on the Merv Griffin show and asked her to help.
Coming up on Tuesday, Mickey Rourke. In his latest role as a drunken writer, he's immersed in the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles.
Also, our exclusive movie preview. The police academy grads are back in school and it's just a ticket for fun.
And on Wednesday, the Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt trio is headed to the top of the charts.
But what brought these three diverse voices together?
16-year-old Cosby kid Malcolm Jamal Warner has become known as one of television's funniest young men.
But Dr. Huxtable's only son was in Washington this morning to take on a much more serious issue,
advising young people on the importance of just saying no.
If you know someone who's using drugs or thinking about using drugs, help that person say no.
Malcolm Warner, who appears in several of NBC's Just Say No public service announcements,
answered questions on drug abuse prevention from a room full of high school journalists.
By saying no, sometimes you wonder if that really is the right thing to do.
But I think it's something that kids should become more secure in just saying no.
I think that kids relate with my character on the show, so if I can use that and help one person to say,
well, whoa, maybe drugs aren't right, then I'm happy.
Warner takes his role model status seriously.
He campaigns for the President's Council on Physical Fitness, the Smoke-Free Generation,
and is the National Youth Chairman for the Miracle Network, which raises money for children's hospitals.
Film directors spend an extraordinary amount of time and money to make their films visually perfect.
But after the film is completed, any number of things could change the director's original vision.
Leonard Malton has the story of one classic gone slightly out of focus.
Leonard?
Thanks, Lisa.
All right, you go to your neighborhood video store or maybe drug store or hardware store,
and they're selling cassettes for $6.99, $9.99, $12.99.
You see a copy of the original, 1937, A Star is Born, with Janet Gaynor and Fredric March.
Wow, how can you go wrong at that price?
Even after you've watched the tape, you may think you did all right.
But in a sense, you've been cheated, because what you see on a low-priced tape like that
isn't what the film really looks like.
Oh, Norman, it's lovely.
Here's a sequence we copied from one of those bargain tapes.
The whole world's lovely.
Now here's the same sequence from the print the UCLA Film Archives has just restored
from the original three-strip Technicolor negatives.
Some difference.
Here we go again, before and after.
Care and maintenance of old color films is costly and unwieldy,
because there are actually four separate negatives to be stored.
But only when they've been properly cared for can someone like UCLA
go back and make up a new print that looks this good.
Quiet, all!
Of course, it helps that A Star is Born was so beautifully photographed.
Three-strip Technicolor was still fairly new in Hollywood,
and producer David O. Selznick wanted to use its full potential in this moving story
of an actress on the way up and an actor about to hit the skids.
Do I get them, or do I get them?
So now, for the first time in a long time, we can enjoy this film
the way it was meant to be seen when it premiered exactly 50 years ago.
Incidentally, the reason you see so many cut-rate copies of this film on cassette
is that its copyright was never renewed.
So that means it's in the public domain, and anybody who has a copy
can make a copy and sell it.
That's exactly what they do.
So by the time you get it at your local store, you've got a copy of a copy of a copy.
I hope now someone will have a chance to release this restored version on tape.
Leonard, I think that's really pretty scary.
Are there a lot of films that come under that category?
Oh, there are dozens, maybe even hundreds.
Some famous films, too, like Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life,
where someone just failed to or forgot to renew the copyright after 28 years,
which was the original system of doing it.
Is there better protection today? I mean, is the length of time longer?
Now, I think it's 75 years that a film can be protected as opposed to 56 in the old days,
but it's the same problem.
If it falls into public domain, anybody in the public can do whatever they like with it.
I have this vision of some guy in his garage turning out thousands of these things
and then selling them.
That's not far from the truth, either.
Nice report, Leonard. Thank you.
Thank you.
We'll take a break, and we'll be right back.
[♪upbeat music playing -♪
Celebrating a birthday today, actress Amanda Plummer is 30, singer Chaka Khan is 34,
actress Barbara Rhodes, 39, comedian Marty Allen is 65, and director Akira Kurosawa, 77.
[♪upbeat music playing -♪
In today's People Post scripts, veteran diplomatic correspondent Marvin Kalb
will leave NBC in June.
Kalb, who spent nearly 30 years covering the State Department for CBS and NBC,
will accept a post as professor of press and public policy at Harvard.
Wonder why you didn't see Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes last night?
Rooney has told his bosses at CBS that he will not appear on the show again
until the current Writers Guild strike against CBS and ABC is resolved.
Talk show host Larry King will be back on radio and television tonight.
King was out recovering from a heart attack he suffered three weeks ago.
And Oral Roberts' prayers may be answered.
Jerry Collins, a 79-year-old Florida dog track owner,
has promised to donate $1.3 million to Roberts' medical scholarship fund.
Roberts, you'll recall, claimed that God would call him home
if he didn't raise $8 million by the end of this month.
What's all this crud about no movie tonight?
Jack Lemmon brought the house down, delivering that line to James Cagney and Mr. Roberts.
Movies have always been important to Lemmon.
But starting with his first role, and it should happen to you,
his fondest memories are not of the movies, but of the people who make them.
I think back to George Q. Koe, who directed my very first film,
who's no longer with us, a brilliant actor's director, John Ford,
who directed Mr. Roberts, and that single experience of working with
Hank Fonda and Jimmy Cagney and William Powell, all those people are gone.
But it was just a privilege to have known them and to have been touched by them
and to have been influenced by them.
I think one of the reasons that I'm still around talking to you right now is because of them.
And we'll still be around to talk to you tomorrow when I have a rare interview
with a very candid Mickey Rourke.
Did you fall for him?
Oh, he's fascinating. Good actor.
I look forward to it.
We leave today with a memory of Robert Preston,
the 68-year-old actor who died over the weekend, a victim of lung cancer.
But the vitality and the charm of his film roles will continue to capture
the imagination of audiences everywhere, and his creation of Harold Hill
and the Music Man will come to mind anytime there's trouble in River City.
Thanks for watching. We'll see you again tomorrow.
Take care, everybody.
We've got trouble!
Right here in River City!
With a capital T in that Reinschitz, P in that Sands for Pool!
Surely got trouble!
Robert Preston's Tony Award-winning role of Professor Harold Hill
was undoubtedly his most memorable, but it was only one of scores of parts he played
since his days as a studio contract player.
Victoria, it'll work!
Oh, Toddy, it will not!
If you listen to me and do exactly as I say, in six weeks you'll get a toast to Paris,
and we will both be very rich.
Oh, yes!
His Oscar-nominated Toddy in Victor Victoria was among the most popular roles
for the versatile performer.
Robert Preston was one of show business's best-loved stars.
And you'll feel something akin to the electric thrill I once enjoyed
when Gilmore, Pat Conway, the great creator W.C. Handy,
and John Philip Sousa all came to town on the very same historic day!
Seventy-six trombones led the big parade
With a hundred and ten cornets close at hand
They were followed by rows and rows
Of the finest virtuosos, the cream of every famous man
Seventy-six trombones caught the morning sun
With a hundred and ten cornets right behind
There were more than a thousand reeds
Springing up like weeds
There were horns of every shape and kind
There were copper-bottomed tympani and horse platoons
Thundering, thundering all along the way
Double bell euphoniums and big bassoons
Each bassoon having his big fat say
There were fifty mounted cannons and a battery
Thundering, thundering louder than before
Clarinets of every size and
Desire them the skull!