Is this the best way to cheer in the new year? What do Butkus and Bubba resolve for 86? Will George stay on the straight and narrow? How many hats can Sydney wear?
Entertainment Tonight starts out the year with a positive attitude on Wednesday, January the 1st, 1986.
We're in excellent shape here.
Happy New Year everyone, I'm Rob Weller. And I'm Mary Hart. Baseball's Pete Rose and Nobel Prize winner Mother Teresa are sharing the honors today.
They both made the Millennium Society's 1985 Ten Most Inspiring People list.
So did Bob Hope and rock musician Bob Geldof, the man behind musical fundraisers to aid famine relief in Africa.
Geldof was also honored as Man of the Year by the British Broadcasting Corporation's Listener's Poll.
The BBC's Woman of the Year award went to Princess Anne for her work on the Save the Children Fund.
A theater troupe from Albany, New York is doing its bit for international relations, spending New Year's Eve in the air.
The troupe is flying to the Soviet Union as part of a cultural exchange program. Dixie Watley has that story.
At a press conference yesterday, the Empire State Institute for the Performing Arts introduced America's newest ambassador to the Soviet Union.
Raggedy Anne.
Cultural ambassador, to be exact. Actress Ivy Austin, who plays Raggedy Anne, leads a cast of a new children's musical called Rag Dolly,
which originated at the Institute in Albany.
They'll be the first performers to represent the United States and the Soviet Union in over six years.
We feel that it is so important that our countries exchange cultural events because really through the arts,
that's how we build the bridge of understanding between the peoples of these two superpowers.
Discussions for this theater-to-theater exchange began two years ago,
but the arrangements could not be finalized until an official cultural exchange agreement had been signed at the Geneva Summit by President Reagan and Soviet leader Gorbachev.
Everybody felt it was important that both sides know the value of both art, entertainment, music, dance.
And how does it feel to be a rags-to-Russia Dolly?
I think I'm just symbolizing togetherness, that's all.
Dixie Watley, Entertainment Tonight.
Rick Nelson, who grew up before America on television and went on to become a rock star,
was killed Tuesday evening in a plane crash en route to a New Year's Eve concert in Dallas.
Authorities say Nelson and six others died in the fiery plane crash in the woods of northeast Texas. Nelson was 45.
From his days on Ozzie and Harriet to his years as a teen idol, Ricky Nelson was one of America's favorites, TV heartthrob, top ten recording artist.
In the late 1950s and early 60s, there were few performers with such a following.
I never really tried to shake any image particularly, you know, because I grew up on television with my family and it was just kind of a natural thing for me.
Can you really tap dance, Ricky?
Sure.
I can sing, too.
We were shaking and dancing to Bebop Baby, Hello Mary Lou, Traveling Man, as Ricky Nelson sold more than 35 million records by the age of 21.
But it was his TV series that endeared him to us.
I'm the boss around here.
Oh, I know you are, Pop.
You do? How do you know?
Because Mom said you were the boss. And whatever Mom says goes.
Nelson made a top ten comeback in the early 70s with Garden Party and continued to tour.
A lot of people feel they grew up, you know, with us and with myself and everything and they kind of used me as an age gauge, you know.
Now, an end of an age.
A district judge in Houston, Texas has granted gymnast Mary Lou Retton legal status as an adult.
Mary Lou, who is 17, asked for the court order so she can conduct her own financial affairs, including investing in real estate projects.
Fellow Olympic gold medal winning gymnast Mitch Gaylord is also looking toward the future.
As Lisa Gibbons tells us, he hopes that means a career as an actor.
Before the Olympics, I think if you're walking in knowing you're going to win the gold, then of course you're going to think about the things that might happen afterwards.
But we were going in as underdogs and we thought we could possibly win the silver and then we won the gold, you know.
So everything after that was a surprise.
What happened after the Olympics was the starring role for Gaylord in American Anthem, a feature film, appropriately enough, about gymnastics.
It's going to show gymnastics a lot differently than you see it on the Olympics or on TV.
When you're watching that, you're just watching a competition and you really don't know what it takes to get there or what these athletes are going through.
And this movie is showing what the athletes go through to get to the competition as far as training and their personal lives and what other things are going on.
Gaylord's found the discipline of filmmaking quite different from that required in gymnastics.
In gymnastics, it's very concrete what you're competing for.
You could compare yourself to the other competitors at the Olympics or whatever you're at.
In the movies, it seems like everyone's doing their own thing and if the public likes it, then it's a success, I guess.
How do you think you're doing as an actor?
I'm getting good feedback from the people who are watching it and I'm enjoying it, so I'm happy about it.
I think Mitch is an extremely talented performer.
He's a perfectionist, very disciplined, and it's obvious he's bringing what he had as a gymnast to the acting arena.
So I think that we're in excellent shape here.
My last year in high school was a joke.
My father just lost his job from this place.
It screwed me up.
There's a lot of dialogue scenes and there's a lot of scenes where you have to be an actor.
And Albert's been unbelievably great to work with.
I don't think I could have done this without him and I'm really grateful to him for that.
So hopefully when the thing comes out, people will recognize me as an actor.
Yesterday, Leonard Maltin told us about what he considered to be the best movies of 1985.
Today, he lowers his sights.
Well, here I am at the dumpster again hoping to put a lid on the worst movies of 1985.
Believe me, there was a lot to choose from.
I'm talking about Certain Fury starring those two Oscar winners, Tatum O'Neil and Irene Cara.
The Sluggers' Wife, a rare strikeout for Neil Simon.
Moving Violations, a so-called comedy that sank into a pothole.
Weird Science, to which I say yuck.
Red Sonja, womanhood's answer to Conan the Barbarian.
But what was the question?
National Lampoon's European Vacation, which celebrated stupidity on two continents.
Invasion USA, with Chuck Norris combating commie paranoia.
Transylvania 6, 5000, a horror comedy that was mostly a horror.
Heavenly Bodies, the world's first aerobics musical, and with any luck, the last.
And Police Academy 2, the best argument yet for taking the law into your own hands.
I like to think of myself as an optimist, but there's already bad news for 1986.
They're making Police Academy 3.
Oh well, I'm Leonard Maltin, Entertainment Tonight.
Actor James Brolin has filed for divorce from his wife of 17 years, citing irreconcilable differences.
Brolin, star of the Hotel TV series, seeks joint custody of their two sons.
Here's the ET Digest for Wednesday, the 1st of January.
In the bookstore, the video movie guide 1986 by Mick Martin and Marcia Porter.
And celebrating birthdays, Frank Langella is 46, Dana Andrews 77, and Xavier Cougat is 86.
Out of Africa and The Color Purple are two films that made several critics year-end top 10 lists.
We're going to talk to two men intimately involved with each, Danny Glover from The Color Purple,
and director Sidney Pollack from Out of Africa.
This is Pollack's first film with Meryl Streep, his sixth with Robert Redford.
Barbara Howard talked with Pollack about his stars.
Out of Africa, based on the writings of and about Isaac Dennison, is the story of her years in Africa.
The author's own dazzling life has been enhanced by Meryl Streep's portrayal of her,
a characterization which according to director Sidney Pollack, defies superlatives.
You must make them understand that I will not be here to speak for them.
You believe her literacy, you believe her dignity, you believe her elegance, you believe her courage.
And yet, it's very simple, the performance.
It's not ostentatious, she doesn't flex a lot of look-at-me muscles.
It's a real simple performance, very elegant performance, I think.
How much of that was Meryl Streep's talent, and how much of it is Sidney Pollack's direction?
Do you know that there's no winning on answering that question?
If I say it's all Meryl, then you're going to say, well, I'm being, and if I say it's me, then I'd be a fool.
It's 99 percent Meryl, and that's the truth.
I'm going to ask you another no-win question.
There are a lot of people that think if there's a flaw in the film, it's the casting of Robert Redford.
You know, there's room for every opinion in the world.
I can't tell you that they're right or they're wrong.
I can only explain that I couldn't have made the movie without Redford.
There has to be something that's brought on screen immediately by that actor,
which has to do with elusiveness and unattainability and individualism and privacy
that's the baggage that Redford brings to every role from the collective images that he's always played
to what we know about his private life.
Pollack has an added understanding of actors because of his own early experiences as a performer,
but a certain residual passion for his initial career allowed him to let Dustin Hoffman lure him back
in front of the camera for their hit film Tootsie.
Are there any regrets anywhere in you that you didn't continue as an actor?
Not at all, Barbara.
I mean, there's no comparison for me between the sense of fulfillment I get as a director
and what I would get as an actor.
I could be a bit of a cameraman, a bit of an architect, a bit of a musician, a bit of an actor,
a bit of a writer, a bit of an editor.
I could do all those things and I like that.
The role of Mr. in the color purple is the most unsympathetic and most complicated one Danny Glover
has had to play in a brief but distinguished career in the movies.
Eric Burns traveled to San Francisco to talk to the man who has played Moses, Mal, and now Mr.
Danny Glover used to run along the beach in San Francisco with a cork in his mouth reciting Macbeth,
practicing his enunciation, hoping to be an actor.
Have a fine day, Mr. Hodley, and keep the plate.
Well, these days his mouth is empty, his wish fulfilled.
Danny Glover is starring in the color purple as a husband who cannot be kind to his wife.
Sealy, give me some lemonade.
I know what I am, Danny is, as a person in his relationship with women,
and I know that I don't physically abuse women, but at the same time I wanted to explore the part of that
side of me that's in all of us, as a sense of hostility that exists there, and in all men to some degree.
Ain't cold enough.
In other words, knowing that you might, under some circumstances, be capable of actions like that,
now you can guard against that all the more.
Exactly, yes.
Places in the Heart, you played a sympathetic character, Silverado, your character was sympathetic.
In the color purple, he's not a very sympathetic character.
Now, is that something that you wanted to do, to play that kind of person?
Whether he was unsympathetic, I thought he was in pain.
That's my assumption. I thought he was in pain.
Give me a hand and get in the house.
Sealy, hey, help me get in the house.
I can't help noticing, being a pretty sharp guy as I am, that we're in San Francisco today,
as opposed to Beverly Hills or Hollywood or someplace one would more likely expect to find a movie star.
What are we doing here? What are you doing here?
I live here.
Why San Francisco, Danny?
I was born and raised here, and I have...
You get your phone calls here.
I get my phone calls here, and I like it.
I like orchestrating my life here. I like reordering my priorities.
I have a 10-year-old daughter who goes to public school here, and everybody thinks I'm just a daddy.
And I can have some perspective on my life up here, and that's good.
It's always nice to look at the world with a telescope and to look at L.A. with a telescope, and that's what I tend to do.
I tend to look all the way with L.A. with a telescope.
When we return, country music's George Strait and England's new pop sensation, Skritty Politty.
I can't help it, we make a just affection.
He started out as a cowboy singing his songs on the range, but not for long.
George Strait finished 1985 with the Country Music Association's Male Vocalist of the Year and Album of the Year awards.
That and good looks, too. Elaine Gannick reports.
I have a real old bombardment up from San Antonio.
In an era when country music often resembles pop, George Strait is clinging to the traditional sounds of his Texas heritage and turning them into today's hits.
Texas has been so good to me and for me.
I still have so many friends down there, you know, and people that I see at every concert, you know, and they'll come out and I'll see the same people, and it's a great feeling.
You've had three gold albums in twelve months. That is almost unheard of these days in the music business. How did you do it?
I don't know. You know, I'm not kidding you when I say that. It's just wonderful, isn't it?
This handsome singer developed a huge cult following in the Southwest early in his career, which now has blossomed to an almost feverish level among his female fans nationwide.
What is it about you, George, that's so sexy?
You're going to have to tell me, Elaine, because I certainly don't know. You know, I don't look in the mirror and say, what is it about you, George?
All of your female fans are dying to know, do you sleep in pajamas or not?
No, I don't. No pajamas for this guy.
Street currently performs nearly 250 road dates a year, a schedule which even he admits places a strain on his family life.
You have to have a real understanding wife and we have two kids and it's a little hard on them at times, but I think we've adjusted as well as anybody can.
But all his hard work has paid off this year. He was just honored with two awards from the Country Music Association, winning four Album of the Year and the coveted Male Vocalist Honors.
I'm still in shock. I really am. It's a wonderful thing.
A Los Angeles Daily newspaper begged to differ with this year's list of Man Watchers 10 Most Watchable Men and came out with its own list.
Among them, John Malkovich, Danny Glover, Edward James Almos, and Green Strohmeier Gartside. Green Strohmeier who?
Well if that name doesn't ring a bell, how about Skritty Pallitti?
They were once described by a record company executive as that awful sounding band with a great name. Well Skritty Pallitti has finally made it big in America.
Perfect Way broke into the American charts and into the top 20. Quite an accomplishment for a controversial British band with an unusual name.
It very nearly means political writing in Italian. I think that's Skritty Pallitti, although I could be wrong.
There was a book I was reading of Italian political writings and I saw in the front of the piece it said, you know, translated from Skritty Pallitti. I changed it to Skritty Pallitti because that was more like Tutti Frutti.
Mixing political philosophy with popular music might not sound like a formula for success, but it's worked for lead singer songwriter Green Gartside.
I used to be a Marxist, you know, and that's a very useful way of analyzing and approaching and making sense of the world. I've subsequently come to largely abandon it.
Skritty Pallitti's climb to success is even more surprising when you consider their early musical inspiration came from punk rockers such as Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten.
Sure, yeah, I was a punk. Yeah, I wouldn't, I was an art student and the Sex Pistols and the Clash, everybody came to my college to play. This is in like 1977.
And that was it, you know, I was completely transfixed and I was, I cut my hair and got a leather jacket and I was a real punk and it was great fun. It was really very exciting at the time.
But you can only do that for so long, then you get bored with it, you know, and then it's time to really learn your instrument and, you know, tackle the problems of being able to write songs properly, see if you can do it.
While many of the old punk groups have hung on to their anti-establishment cynicism, Skritty Pallitti found big record sales in more commercial pop music.
In America, your record can be successful, you know, a star being successful, and you don't really get that sense of it until, you know, just recently it's happened, I think, for us, that we know we've had some, we've achieved some success here and it's great.
Still to come this week on Entertainment Tonight...
Tomorrow, Lisa Bonet of The Cosby Show.
And Friday, Kenny Rogers.
And check your local listings for time and station this weekend as Entertainment This Week presents 1985, the year in entertainment.
This weekend on Entertainment This Week.
Dick Butkus and Bubba Smith, the Abbott and Costello of pro football and Bud Light commercials.
Ask them a straight question like, what is your New Year's resolution? And you get a straight answer.
Almost.
Well, how can you tell them?
Well, I have a New Year's resolution.
You're not supposed to tell anybody, huh?
I can tell one of them.
You got more than one?
Yeah, I got about four.
Give me one of them.
I got two New Year's resolutions.
I hope we're working for more than 12 weeks.
It's one.
And I hope to find a wife.
Oh, no.
Oh, do you, oh, you're gonna announce, can you announce it on your show? Like, no, I did.
I'm not announcing it. I said I hope that I find a wife.
Yeah, boy, wait a minute. She said that she wanted a New Year's resolution.
Not the same one you've been going over for five years.
No, I'd like to tell you what else.
When I see Dick and I see how much fun he has with his family, I want to get married too.
I don't think they ever had a straight conversation.
I don't think so either.
Tomorrow on Entertainment Tonight, an interview with The Cosby Show co-star Lisa Bonet.
Plus, behind-the-scenes reports on Hal Linden's new series, Black's Magic, and the Mummers Parade from Philadelphia.
Friends count count a whole lot. That's the subject of Dionne Warwick and Friends' new hit.
We also hope it's a message that'll stay with all of us through the New Year. With that, we start it. Goodbye.
Bye-bye.
MUSIC
Coughing