I'm fighting for my life.
She helped build an empire with a song in the 60s.
Now today's stars rally to the cause as Mary Wells fights for her life.
This is Entertainment Tonight for Wednesday, September the 5th, 1990.
Hi everybody, welcome to Entertainment Tonight, I'm John Tesch.
And I'm Mary Hart.
The singer Mary Wells, the song My Guy.
In the early 60s, that magic combination helped launch a musical empire called Motown.
Mary Wells has now fallen on difficult times and many of today's pop stars are rallying
to her support.
Nothing you could do could make me a true to my guy.
Mary Wells is called the first lady of Motown.
As a black female teenager in the early 60s, she did the impossible.
She became a star by giving Motown a number one hit record.
Today Mary Wells is battling the odds again, but the stakes are higher.
She's fighting just to survive her current bout with throat cancer.
I agreed to talk because I have cancer.
When I first went in the hospital, I stopped breathing.
They had to put this straight in temporarily.
I'm fighting for my life.
Come on and let's swing.
You know you took my heart.
It's been a life lived mostly on the stage.
Mary got noticed by Motown when at age 16 she wrote this tune, Bye Bye Baby.
As part of the touring Motortown review of the early 60s, Wells shared the stage with
other black acts who would become legends.
Among them, a young singer-songwriter named Smokey Robinson.
I don't want you not know.
Smokey wrote hits for Mary Wells, songs which reunited her with Robinson on a Motown television
special in 1985.
You beat me to the punch.
The reunion meant more since when she was just 21, Wells left Motown Records for another
label.
She all but disappeared from the pop scene and from the public eye until the headlines
appeared.
Wells smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for 30 years.
She believes her smoking plus the country's air pollution contributed to her cancer.
This is a trait.
The other is a diaphragm of where they're going to use the radiation to get rid of my
cancer.
This is very serious.
I think that all the entertainers, everybody in the world should get involved in fighting
for this situation.
It's terrible.
Swing cigarettes, the pollution.
Look out there, you can't even see any sun anymore.
Everybody is fainting.
You better get it together fast.
As Wells receives her cancer treatment, her health problems are compounded by financial
problems.
She and her four-year-old daughter were evicted from this Los Angeles area apartment complex.
They're now staying in a hotel near her hospital.
Wells' plight has not gone unnoticed by a wide circle of entertainer friends.
Former Motown artists like Diana Ross and The Temptations have made substantial donations
to Mary, as have other artists including Bruce Springsteen and Rod Stewart.
And former Supreme Mary Wilson is coordinating what may be a benefit concert for Wells with
the help of Motown founder Barry Gordy.
Among those committed are Dionne Morwick and Stevie Wonder.
This is about just helping this woman.
This woman who, you know, gave a lot of happiness to all of us.
Motown Productions, which mounted a Motown 25th anniversary special, is planning to honor
Wells on its 30th anniversary special later this year.
With regard to the illness, of course, that's just something that we all have to pull together
and see to.
Mary Wells is, she's one of our institutions and we can't see an institution fail.
And Wells, for her part, wants her own ordeal to serve as a warning.
I feel that if nothing is done toward this, from me being ill, so everybody say they love
me, that our country's gonna go under.
It's from, they say it's from cigarette smoke.
But look at the pollution out there.
Our kids probably be walking around with traits in them.
Mary Wells, who is now 47 years old, has begun a six and a half week program of radiation
therapy in Los Angeles.
She hopes that the current financial support from other singers will lead to permanent
programs to help artists in need.
The movie world is mourning the passing of a name that spelled magic in the 30s.
Irene Donne, actress, singer, and comedian, is dead at the age of 88.
Irene Donne was one of Hollywood's classiest leading ladies.
She was a trained singer, hailing from Kentucky.
A chance meeting in an elevator with Broadway producer Florence Ziegfeld led to stage and
screen roles in the legendary showboat.
We could make believe I love you.
Donne had the rare ability among star actresses of being able to excel in musicals, dramas,
and comedies.
She threw Hollywood and fans a curve when she was able to leave soap operas behind and
star in two mid-30s screwball classics.
Theodora Goes Wild and The Awful Truth, the latter a smash hit opposite Cary Grant.
Donne received five Oscar nominations but never won.
They ranged from the early talkie epic Simran to her memorable matriarch in I Remember Mama.
More than anything, Irene Donne was a leading lady with regal bearing, usually playing noble
but never stuffy, and with acting and singing talents that pleased millions of people until
her voluntary retirements in the 1950s.
Irene Donne played important roles off camera as well.
She was often a delegate to Republican national conventions and was appointed by President
Dwight Eisenhower to replace Eleanor Roosevelt as a special envoy to the United Nations.
Now on our inside story tomorrow, the mysterious demise of a rolling stone.
Police say Brian Jones drowned, but a new book said it could have been murder.
I think they're all still quite fearful of what the consequences might be of what happened
that night.
The death of a rolling stone, accident or murder, the inside story tomorrow on Entertainment
Tonight.
Coming up next, four losers come home to mama, but can Mrs. Finnelli shape up the boys before
their television debut?
And later, Arnold Schwarzenegger has shaped his career into a winner, but we'll take you
back for a rare glimpse of Arnold in the days he was pumping up his dreams a pound at a
time.
The Finnelli boys have a problem.
They have a date with NBC this Saturday night, but they'll have to ask mama if they can go
out of the house.
It's your mother.
She says if you're late for dinner, she's going to kick all of you until you pass out.
The Finnelli boys are four Italian brothers who move back home with mama when their lives
fall apart.
What's so funny?
The kid, he's dating a woman twice his age and he's worried ma's going to be mad he dropped
out of college.
Ned Eisenberg, who plays the sensible brother, believes the show's premise is not far-fetched.
Stranger things happen, you know what I mean?
Especially in New York, because apartments are very few and very expensive.
I mean, we were always better together than we were on our own.
Yeah, like the monkeys.
Chris Maloney says the show feels just like his real Italian family, but Ann Gilbert,
who plays mama, says she's anything but ethnic.
I've never been to Brooklyn.
I've been to Brooklyn across the bridge, a block.
That's all.
I'm from Minnesota.
Andy Hirsch is the family's baby, while Joe Pantoliano is the older wheeler dealer.
Here, have a Rolex.
I didn't really get all A's.
Don't worry, it isn't really a Rolex.
Pantoliano predicts success because everybody gets along.
Let's hope we feel the same way in seven years.
After the Finnelli Boys debut Saturday night, they'll move to their regular time slot next
Wednesday night following Unsolved Mysteries.
The new HBO movie Criminal Justice is an indictment against an overburdened court system forced
to deal out expedience rather than justice.
The movie takes a hard look at one defendant's case, a case where justice served is criminal.
I'm going out of jail now.
Forrest Whitaker plays an underprivileged man accused of a brutal stabbing and caught in
the wheels of criminal justice.
Anthony La Polly plays his overworked public defender, and Jennifer Gray is the prosecuting
attorney determined to put him away at all costs.
His face was afoot from her, and nothing obstructed her view of him.
My man was Jesse Williams.
The jobs that these people do are so tough, they have to, you know, in a way detach and
also not lose their compassion and their humanity.
La Polly found his acting job tough, especially trying to act like an authentic part of the
legal system.
Make the prosecution carry the burden of truth.
Some of the dialogue is so technically exacting, and because as, you know, I'm not an attorney,
I have to learn to deal with that and learn how to make it sound like it really comes
out of my mouth every single day of my life, when in fact it doesn't.
The case detailed in criminal justice is by no means unique.
Last year in New York City, nearly 45 percent of criminal cases were disposed of by plea
bargains.
Less than 1 percent went to trial.
Over the past dozen years, Shirley Jones and Marty Engels have had their share of trials
and tribulations.
Now they put them on paper in a new book with a title that says it all.
Shirley and Marty, an unlikely love story, begins as Shirley was ending a 17-year marriage
to Broadway leading man Jack Cassidy.
Audiences knew her as the picture-perfect star of musicals, including Oklahoma, The Music
Man and Carousel.
Marty Engels was a screwball comedian recovering from a nervous breakdown, afraid to leave
his house.
Our first date, one of our first dates, I think it was the second date, he picked me
up in a 32-foot motor home so we wouldn't have to go to a restaurant.
Despite the rocky beginning, they married and Marty became the stepfather to Shirley's
three sons, Sean, Patrick and Ryan.
The set-up led to times of great conflict.
When he would discipline the children, he did it, there was no, I never felt there was
any love behind it.
They went through a lot of, you know, a lot of real back and forth, you know, even knock-down
drag-out fights.
But Shirley says it was Marty's strength that helped her go through an intensely painful
experience.
She was forced to commit her youngest son to a strict 17-month-long drug rehab program.
It cured him and nearly devastated her.
I had my own problems.
I cried day and night because they wouldn't allow me to talk to my child or certainly
see my child or give him any of my letters.
The couple says these tough times brought them closer together, and Shirley believes
this isn't such an unlikely love story when you consider Marty's unfailing sense of humor.
Oh, how about that, isn't that gorgeous?
How about this?
Ta-da!
Same thing.
Obviously, I need some of that, and he needs my sense of stability, and we give that to
each other.
By the way, contrary to popular belief, Shirley Jones is not David Cassidy's mother.
She feels badly that his real mom, Evelyn Ward, never got the credit due to her.
Another unlikely romance has perhaps helped Donald Trump's new book, Surviving at the
Top, into the number one spot on the New York Times bestseller list.
All that publicity with Trump and Marla Maples didn't hurt.
Speaking of number ones, Cheers captured the honors in the television ratings race last
week, and Ghost has just moved to the top spot for the summer movie season, bringing
in over $125 million so far.
The name Arnold Schwarzenegger has become synonymous with power and action.
Perhaps the name alone can guarantee box office success, but before Arnold became a big star,
he had a plan, a plan that required brawn as well as brains.
Very dramatic, Arnold.
Mr. Dynamo.
In the 1977 documentary, Pumping Iron, a then unknown Arnold Schwarzenegger knew he was
headed for greatness.
I love to be the best in the world, just the best.
Arnold did become the greatest bodybuilder in history, but in a new book written by Pumping
Iron director George Butler, conquering iron was just one of his many goals.
He had a very coherent plan for his life.
He decided he would become the best bodybuilder in history.
He did that.
He also decided that the way to power an America is through money, and so he set out to become
a millionaire, and he did it.
Arnold always knew bodybuilding would take him to the top.
I couldn't wait to go to the gym.
I couldn't wait to do another sit-up, another repetition of bench press or squats or whatever
the exercise was, because I knew each poundage that I lifted took me a step closer to this
goal.
I would like to get into acting and find out if I can be good in that.
In the early days, Arnold had his eye on Hollywood.
Today, he's one of the highest paid actors on the big screen, commanding over $10 million
a picture.
An incredible feat, considering when Butler first screened Pumping Iron to investors,
they all thought he was doomed for failure.
At the end of the screening, a very distinguished writer got up and said, George, if you make
a film about Arnold Schwarzenegger, you're going to be left off 42nd Street with him.
They brushed off the gloomy reviews and traveled to sunny California to complete the film.
It was wonderful to drive around Santa Monica in those days with Arnold, because we'd come
up to a stoplight somewhere and there'd be a UCLA cheerleader in a red firebird convertible
at the stoplight.
And Arnold would flex his tricep at her.
And it was the most extraordinary thing the woman had ever seen in her life.
Since those early days, Arnold has accomplished all he set out to do.
He took the most difficult means to an end imaginable.
He used his muscles to become the great success story in America, and that's a mind blower.
The new book includes 100 photos of Arnold, many unpublished before this, and his personal
anecdotes about that rise to fame.
Movies of course allow us to explore the deep recesses of the minds, the glories of victory,
the passion of love.
They also let us visit places and times we'd never get to visit in real life.
Leonard Maltin heads the expedition now into this week's video report.
Leonard.
Well John, part of the great appeal of movies is that they can take us anywhere in the world,
places we've never been and might never see for ourselves.
This week a fine film called Mountains of the Moon is coming out in video, and if you
missed it in theaters, it's your chance to catch up with a first rate story about a real
life explorer, Sir Richard Burton, who's just one of the explorers and adventurers to be
found on the shelves at your video store.
Don't be offended.
It's a blessing.
In Mountains of the Moon, Sir Richard Burton and his party are deep in uncharted African
territory, searching for the source of the Nile River.
But amidst all the adventure is a personal story of triumph.
It's the lake!
Of course, not every movie adventure is true.
King Solomon's Mines, a flying Dutchman, Captain Kidd's treasure.
It's Stuart Granger is the fictional hero in King Solomon's Mines, in which he and Richard
Carlson venture into darkest Africa on the trail of Deborah Carr's long lost husband.
What do you say when you meet people in the middle of Africa?
Why don't you say, howdy pod, how's Trace?
Spencer Tracy goes after one of the most famous missing persons in history, in Stanley and
Livingston.
The story itself is compelling and Tracy, as usual, is terrific as the New York reporter
who stops at nothing to get his man.
Dr. Livingston, I presume.
We've always done things they thought were impossible in the past and I don't propose
to stop now.
And here's Tracy again in one of my favorite films, Northwest Passage.
This time he's searching for a trade route to the Pacific, but encounters plenty of danger,
including Indians along the way.
This is not a good way to make war.
It is impossible to make war if you are dead.
Tell them that.
Northwest Passage is believable and exciting with a top notch cast and action to spare.
It's a page of American history vividly recreated on film.
Four mighty good movies there, two of them with one mighty good actor, Spencer Tracy.
And if you haven't seen Mountains of the Moon, the newest of the bunch, I really recommend
that one.
Thanks, Leonard.
The insider butters you up with the real story of the moth and the flame.
Don't cost your peanuts, so stay with us.
Air transportation furnished and a promotional fee paid by Delta Airlines.
From Europe to the Orient, from Mexico to Canada, Delta can fly you worldwide.
At Delta, we love to fly and it shows.
Celebrating birthdays today, actor Dweezil Zappa is 21.
Actress Christian Alfonso is 26.
Actor Michael Keaton turns 39 today.
Actress Raquel Welch is 50.
Actor William Devane, 53.
Actress Carol Lawrence is 56.
And actor Bob Newhart is 61.
From time to time, the ET insider comes across strange facts that the world might be just
as well off not knowing.
The theory being ignorance is bliss.
He will now share two of them with you.
It turns out there is a scientific reason behind the expression fatal attracted like
a moth to a flame.
The American Institute of Physics finds that male moths flutter around candles because
hot wax smells like female moths, but few live to tell about it.
Strange fact number two landed on the insider's desk from the highly respected and usually
authoritative Peanut Advisory Board.
They say Americans consume 800 million pounds of peanut butter each year.
Going on to point out that's enough to smoothly coat the floor and walls of the Grand Canyon.
The insider shudders to think what would happen to Arizona if male moths thought female moths
smelled like peanut butter instead of hot wax.
Paul McCartney paid homage to one of his rock and roll idols last night to salute the upcoming
Broadway musical Buddy the Buddy Holly Story.
In New York, McCartney led an all-star tribute to Holly as Buddy's fans and family reminisced.
I always say where Buddy's music is, he is there and I know he's here tonight.
For Paul it was a chance to sing some of his favorite music.
That was great, we had a Paul.
In Hollywood, rehearsals for Thursday's MTV Awards were in full swing as rockers like
Motley Crue prepared for the live worldwide event.
It's real, real important, you know, this is the 90s, it's the video age and these are
the video awards.
And Todd Bridges, recently acquitted of criminal charges, was on the set of Lassie where he's
guest starring as a deputy sheriff.
Former Differents Strokes producer Al Burton hired Bridges for the role.
It's great to know you have some friends who still care about you and are willing to help
you out when you need it.
And that's it for us.
New questions are now being raised about the 1969 death of Rolling Stone star Brian Jones.
We'll have that inside story for you tomorrow.
And as we say goodbye for this Wednesday, our thoughts and of course best wishes go
to Mary Wells and her courageous battle.
Here is her super hit of the 60s, My Guy.
This is Doug White.
The three Democrats running for governor of Rhode Island have plenty to say about the
issues and about each other.
They'll face off this evening right here on Channel 10 beginning at 8 o'clock.
Be sure to join us for the debate and for analysis tonight on the 11 o'clock News Watch.