Banner Graphic, Volume 10, Number 146, Greencastle, Putnam County, 23 February 1980 — Page 4

A4

The Putnam County Banner Graphic, February 23,1960

People in the news 'Nothing Personal' apt title for her

NEW YORK -- Now that Suzanne Somers, the jiggle-and-giggle girl of television’s “Three’s Company," is awaiting the release of her first starring movie, “Nothing Personal." in which she plays a Washington lawyer, she is no longer averse to acknowledging that she has been to college, has published a couple of books of verse, is an excellent cook who once took a six-week crash course in puff pastry at the Cordon Bleu School in Paris and has a 13-year-old son. ’Tve been playing what 1 think is one of the best dumb blondes that’s ever been done, but I never got any credit,” she said. "1 did it so well that everyone thought I really was a dumb blonde." WHILE NOT INCLINED to be too severe with the medium that has made her rich and famous, Miss Somers said she has found advantages in making films. “I always try for excellence, and television can be frustrating because it’s often necessary to settle for less.” In "Nothing Personal," a comedy scheduled to open in April, she continued, she had to struggle to match the experience and ability of her co-star, Donald Sutherland. “I was giving 110 per cent," she said, "but even so. it wasn’t going well the first week. For one thing, in the daily rushes my teeth looked black. I said. ‘I don’t want to be temperamental, but unless you fire the lighting man. I’m not going to continue.’” After that, she said, the shooting continued without a hitch, and she believes that she did a good job. "When I’m not happy with my performance, I tend to slump in my seat. My hands sweat, and I find it difficult to make eye contact,” she said. “None of these things happened when I saw the completed version of ‘Nothing Personal.’” SOMETHING LIKE THAT did happen some 10 years ago, she said, when the need to pay medical bills for her son led her to pose in the nude for a series of photographs that ultimately ended up in Playboy last month. Not that the magazine escaped a certain degree of embarrassment, too, of a financial nature. Unable to find Miss Somers’ release form in its files, it was forced to pay her $50,000, which, she said, she has donated to the Easter Seal campaign for the handicapped, of which she is national chairman. For the record. Miss Somers is a Californian, she is Irish on both sides of her family, her education was religious right through Lone Mountain College, her father, Frank (Ducky) Mahoney, played second base for the old San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League, she was the girl in the white Thunderbird with whose fleeting image Richard Dreyfuss falls in love in "American Graffiti,” and that improbable mane of platinum-blond hair is untinted. MISS SOMERS, WHO HAS continued using her first husband’s surname professionally, is now married to Alan Hamel, the host of Canadian television's most popular talk show. They met when he was the master of ceremonies and she was one of the models on the old "Anniversary Game" television show. Although she has high hopes for a film career, Miss Somers will continue to appear on television, but the 1980-81 season, her fifth, on the immensely successful “Three’s Company,” will be her last. She has already signed a fiveyear contract to do her own show on CBS. • FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (AP) Ruth Carter Stapleton says an eight-nation tour has convinced her the world has regained respect for “the strength and stability of the United States” and for her brother, President Carter. Mrs. Stapleton, said in a recent interview after arriving back home in Fayetteville that foreign leaders told her they had seen “a different president” since Iranian militants seized American hostages in Tehran. “They wanted to be convinced that he was truly a leader,” Mrs. Stapleton said. “They had questions before November and now it was as though they were asking, ‘Tell me really is this just temporary or, is he like what we see right now?”’ Mrs. Stapleton left the United States Jan. 12 for visits to England, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Oman, Jordan, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. Another country-and-westem love story has gone into production. It’s “Hard Country,” and among its stars are Jan-Michael Vincent, Kim Basinger and Tanya Tucker, the singer. The last two are making their screen debuts.

Hero worship Ritter had dad Tex to idolize

HOLLYWOOD (AP) “Everyone needs to have heroes,” observes John Ritter, star of the TV hit series “Three’s Company” and the new movie “Hero at Large.” He had his own heroes while growing up in Hollywood. Foremost, “even though it sounds corny,” was his own father, the western singer-star Tex Ritter. “I guess I held onto him as a hero longer than most kids do with their fathers because he played a hero on the screen.” said Ritter. “My brother and I used to dress in cowboy hats and guns, and we outfitted all the other kids in the neighborhood. We spent one summer shooting an Bmm movie we called ‘Bananas,’ a takeoff on ‘Bonanza.’ Lots of action and ketchup. “My other heroes included Roy Rogers and all the Dodgers of 1957, and when they came here from Brooklyn, in 1958, and when they won the world championship. And the astronauts, until they became so many I couldn’t remember all their names. “Also comic book heroes, like the Fantastic Four and Archie. I couldn’t really identify with Archie because he had two girlfriends, a blonde and a brunette, and I couldn’t imagine that happening to me. Look at me now.” Ritter pointed to both sides of his dressing room at CBS (where the ABC series is taped). The adjacent rooms were occupied by brunette Joyce DeWitt and blonde Suzanne Somers, his co-stars of "Three’s Company." Ritter himself became an instant folk hero or at least the envy of American males with his portrayal of the roommate of the two beauties. He is a hero of a different sort in MGM’s “Hero at Large.” He plays an unemployed actor who is hired to impersonate Captain Avenger for the opening of a movie based on the supernatural character. The actor becomes a kind of earthbound Superman, performing do-good acts for astonished New Yorkers. The romantic interest is Anne Archer.

V ' . H| ~/,*** * t,* *' wjl : n * *?*r i ?•*'*’» JBm

SUZANNE SOMERS: As a lawyer? Roberta Peters, the coloratura soprano who made her Metropolitan Opera debut three months ahead of schedule in November 1950, will give her 500th performance at the Met next Thursday, three days ahead of schedule. Miss Peters, 49 years old, had been scheduled to perform at the Met for the 500th time on March 1, which would also have marked her 53d Met broadcast, in the role of Oscar in Verdi’s "Un Ballo in Maschcra.” But the illness of other singers forced several cancellations, and Miss Peters’s 500th will now take place Feb. 28, in the role of Norina in Donizetti’s "Don Pasquale.” Back in late 1950, Miss Peters was scheduled to make her Metropolitan debut, at the age of 19, as the Queen of the Night in Mozart's "D'e Zaubcr Hoflote,” but circumstances changed her debut role to that of Zerlina in “Don Giovanni,” and advanced the debut date to Nov. 17, 1950. This means, of course, that the soprano has another significant date coming up in November, the 30th anniversary of her debut. • "This is clearly an example of taxpayers’ money going down the drain," said Sen. William Proxmire in awarding his widely shunned Golden Fleece award to officials of Trenton for a new sewer line said to be likely to cost at least $1 million extra because it must bypass a 100-year-old sewer that has been declared a landmark. The sewer, brick lined, is "25 feet underground," the Wisconsin Democrat added, "has been viewed only twice in the last 23 years, will not be on public view in the future and is not unique.” A spokesman for the Environmental Protection Agency was quoted as having said that the part of the cost attributable to the preservation of the 19th-century sewer was “very small.” But Trenton’s mayor, Arthur Holland, agreed with the senator, saying: “It would be different if it were the only segment, but we have another 20 miles of sewer. Any part of that is equally historic." • CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) Playwright Edward Albee is a long way from the lights of Broadway, but he’ll be attending some plays here as he visits Venezuela for a week of discussion with theater writers and aspiring actors. Albee, 51, whose play "The Lady From Dubuque,” currently is playing in New York, arrived Friday. During the trip, the Pulitzer Prize-winner will visit Angel Falls, the world’s highest, and the jungles south of the Orinoco River before traveling on to Bogota, Colombia, next week. # The name of the man who brought us FM radio and, by extension, television and long-range satellite telecommunication is not a household word, not in most households, but now it is on the roster of the National Inventors Hall of Fame. It is that of Edwin Howard Armstrong, a Columbia University professor who died in 1954. During World War I, Professor Armstrong invented the superheterodyne receiver, which led to the development of FM radio. The hall of fame was set up in 1973 by the National Council of Patent Law Associations; nominations are made by representatives of scientific and engineering societies. The “superhel circuit” was described by W. Stevenson Bacon of the Armstrong Memorial Research Foundation as "by far the most important and classic of Armstrong’s inventions,” and it is the basis of modern electronics telecommunications.

% -ifev - ---i* imm

JOHN RITTER: At large "When I first read the script, I liked what the author (A.J. Carothers) was up to,” said Ritter. “He was saying how important it is to care for each other in today’s world. We can’t just live in our own huts and camps; we have to reach out to each other. “The film demostrates our need for heroes in the 1980 s. But it also points out that we can’t depend on heroes to do it for us. We need to display a kind of heroism ourselves.”

Peanuts

( ¥OU HAVE TO BE ( WELL, hello') I 11/ I CAREFUL WHEN */ A THERE 1 J I THAT FAT STOMACH I [ RUN INTO A \WRE \BAR6EP COMff ENT I)

Garfield

7 ICOOLPOSEAi j THIS IS ©REACT. , \ ATT _, .AA GOOD PACK WALK, I ( YOU'D MAKE SOMEONE I ( NO CLAWS/ \ V GARFIELD ') V A GOOP WIFE ) (NO CLAWS .M i 75 JW 7 ft- ■ - .*

Winnie the Pooh

BAT \ / A TWO /■ -V AY / (POUND HE p FALJ.V\P/, / WHAT N

Beetle Bailey

I LIKE PARAPES. J \ WELL, THE BIS ONE 1 /...AND THE LITTLE ] r SET TO SEE I * R _ E 1 IS FOR BUILDING * ( MEDALS ARE FOR / THE GENERALS / ■ ■ mmjm ™ Ey I OUR FIELD LATRINE * V DESIGNING THE / .rwL,

Box Sawyer

T WHAT CAN \/mAKE ME PRETTY. > * YOU WANT TO^HE'D YOU MIND. WE'LL / . Hgflgßit WE DO FOR II WANT THE WORKS.* I V LOOK PRfTTY ) NEVER 1 HAVE YOU LOOKING LIKE J 1 m a.ll,iHlß> , BOOM

Wand Loll

WILL YOU Y ( SURE ) . DON'T FORGET/ IF I WIN 5? MAIL THIS ) —i THE SWEEPSTAKES, FIRST -ft) C/j y FORME, / . PRIZE IS A *5,000 RACING

Mentis

~ ’"W ~ ¥T WHAT was that NOISE -*) (%•%) r ■ fir [ V'L jp v 5

Bomey Google and Snuffy Smith

n' TIME I DON'T KNOW [I FEET iIWT WHAT IT'S 1 W-VS A^ssf^\^OßTH' JJJJ* rousherow-

Redeye

*i says\ t 2 7 set? i roio you \ THIMK ) SHOW HER £ . SNAPPRA6OWS WECE ]