Banner Graphic, Volume 17, Number 132, Greencastle, Putnam County, 5 February 1987 — Page 7

People in the news Some like him, but IRS doesn't WASHINGTON Tennis star John McEnroe’s net profits and losses have landed him in a court battle with the Internal Revenue Service, which claims that he owes more than $l.B million in taxes for 1978 through 1982. Documents filed in U.S. Tax Court here show that the agency has sent McEnroe separate “Notice of Deficiency” statements asserting that he underpaid his taxes by $1,804,456 for the five years. If the IRS prevails, the interest on the taxes could bring the total to near $2 million. But in petitions filed with the court, McEnroe denies he owes any taxes. The disputes stem from losses McEnroe claimed from commodities futures and other so-called “straddle” transactions. IRS papers filed with the court state that some of the transactions “were shams or devoid of the substance necessary for recognition for federal income tax purposes.” The papers continue: “The claimed losses are disallowed because of the lack of any profit motive with respect to the alleged commodities transactions.” McEnroe, who will be 28 this month, turned professional in 1978 and in subsequent years won most of the world’s major tennis titles. He is now attempting a comeback after dropping off the professional tennis tour for a period roughly coinciding with the birth of his first child and his marriage to actress Tatum O’Neal. Court documents show that his income skyrocketed in his first years as a professional. His total personal service income of $291,480 in 1978 jumped to almost $1.6 million in 1979, to nearly $2.6 million in 1980 and to $4.3 million in 1981. The documents show his corrected taxable income for 1982 was more than $5.7 million. LOS ANGELES (AP) Tristan Rogers, who plays a dashing police commissioner on television’s “General Hospital” daytime soap, was booked for investigation of drunken driving after police spotted his car weaving, authorities said. Police Sgt. Chuck Urso said Wednesday the 40-year-old Australia-born actor was pulled over late Tuesday, booked at the Hollywood Division police station and released on his own recognizance. Cast as the worldly Robert Scorpio on the ABC-TV series, Rogers is credited with breaking ground for other Australian actors working in the United States. • HOLLYWOOD (AP) Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner of “Star Trek” have been nominated for best actor awards to be presented by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” and “Aliens” gathered 11 nominations each Wednesday to lead the field for the 14th annual Saturn Awards. Sigourney Weaver received a best actress nomination for her role in “Aliens,” about a battle against insect-like monsters, while Nimoy and Shatner were nominated for “Star Trek IV.” The nominations were announced by Vincent Price.

Midler, Disney'marrying' kind

c. 1987 N.Y. Times News Service HOLLYWOOD Since the death of the long-term contract, Hollywood studios and stars make a deal, do one picture and then go their separate ways. Now, in an arrangement that harkens back to the old studio system, Bette Midler has signed a contract with Walt Disney Pictures to star in three movies. “We got married,” quipped Jeffrey Katzenberg, chairman of Walt Disney Studios. Because even the biggest studio only makes around 15 movies a year, there is no chance that Hollywood will return to the contract system of 40 years ago, when M-G-M could boast that it had “More Stars Than There Are in Heaven.” Yet Clint Eastwood has had a handshake agreement with Warner Brothers that has kept him there for all but one of his movies during the last decade. And in June 1983, Eddie Murphy was signed to a five-picture contract by Katzenberg, who was then president of production at Paramount Pictures. An arrangement such as Midler’s allows a studio to do some of the long-range star-building that was commonplace 40 years ago. “The old system was something that worked for a business where each studio was making 50 films a year,” said Katzenberg. “Actors were cattle. They were told where to go, what to do, and when to do it. There was no “Why?” in the vocabulary. This arrangement is a genuine partnership, and it takes immense trust on Bette Midler’s part.” “Why shouldn’t I trust them?” asked Midler, who has starred in three successful comedies for Disney during the last 12 months. “Down and Out in Beverly

THE FAMILY CIRCUS @ By Bil Keane

“I’m not tattletaling. I’m just telling you what happened.”

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RON REAGAN: Good morning, America

NEW YORK (AP) President Reagan’s son Ron will have a five-part series on ABC’s “Good Morning America” next week in which he recreates five acting roles. In the Monday segment, he takes on the Tom Cruise role in the movie “Top Gun,” and finds out what it’s like inside an F-14. The segment was taped at Miramar Air Base in San Diego, ABC said Wednesday. Other roles he recreates are from Broadway’s “42nd Street;” Burt Lancaster’s 1951 movie “Trapeze;” Sean Connery’s “View to a Kill;” and Jackie Gleason’s “Minnesota Fats.” • NEW YORK (AP) Country music stars Crystal Gayle and Gary Morris will introduce a theme song they wrote for NBC’s “Another World” daytime series when they appear on the program in early April. The song “Another World (You Take Me Away To),” will be heard at the opening of each segment of the program, and Miss Gayle will appear in other segments besides the one to introduce the song, NBC said Wednesday. “This venture is the first time that artists of the caliber of Crystal Gayle and Gary Morris have written a theme song for a daytime drama series, and we are honored,” said executive producer John P. Whitesell. Morris, meanwhile, has recorded 30- and 60-second radio and television jingles to boost tourism in Tennessee. • CEDAR FALLS, lowa (AP) Tom Pettit, NBC’s former vice president of news and a two-time Emmy winner, is returning to his alma mater as a visiting professor.

Pettit will hold two-credit seminars in “National Election Coverage Methods” July 6-17 and “General Public Affairs Reporting Methods” July 20-31, the University of Northern lowa said Monday. Pettit, a Waterloo native, is a 1953 UNI graduate. He won an Emmy, a Peabody and an Alfred I. DuPont award in 1969 for his investigative report on chemical-biological warfare experiments and won another Emmy in 1970 for reporting on nuclear establishments.

Hills” sold $62 million worth of tickets, ranking 10th among movies released in 1986. “Ruthless People*” grossed $72 million at the box office and ranked Bth. And “Outrageous Fortune,” a movie about two women two-timed by the same man, broke the Disney record for an opening weekend. Shown in 1,081 theaters last weekend, “Outrageous Fortune” grossed $6.4 million. “These people are the only ones in town who gave me a job,” said Midler. “I did ‘The Rose’ and never got another job for five years. I finally did ‘Jinxed,’ and ‘Jinxed’ really put me in the sewer. After the proverbial seven years of lean, I’m marketable again, and these people are the ones who did it for me. Why shouldn’t I be loyal to them?” Midler, who had previously been signed to play the voice of a spoiled Park Avenue poodle in the studio’s upcoming animated version of “Oliver Twist,” will also be allowed to develop projects under her new deal with Disney. Midler actually had to be talked into all three Disney films. When Paul Mazursky, the writer and director, asked her to be in “Down and Out in Beverly Hills,” Midler, who was 40, was stunned. “I was happy to be offered something, but the part was the mother of a 20-year-old daughter,” she said. “I imagine myself to be a perennial 25-year-old type. Then I thought, ‘Oh what the hell, who cares? A job is a job.’ For the first time I didn’t stop to think about my fans or my image. It was a good lesson. A simple lesson. Good parts don’t come along that often and if you’re in for a penny, you might as well be in for a pound and really commit yourself.”

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February 5.1987 THE BANNERGRAPHIC.