Banner Graphic, Volume 21, Number 141, Greencastle, Putnam County, 18 February 1991 — Page 4

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THE BANNERGRAPHIC Febfuary 18,1991

People in the news Magician melts Hoosier’s heart EVANSVILLE (AP) field used magic to attract his current girlfriend, but he relied on flowers to impress her on Valentine’s Day. For the past 15 months, Copperfield has been dating Rachael Wilhite, a 19-year-old University of Southern Indiana sophomore whose telephone number he guessed during one of his shows. Last week, the 34-year-old Copperfield displayed a flair for the romantic. “I got home from school about 3:30 and there was a bouquet of flowers,” Wilhite said. “About 4 p.m., 20 heart-shaped balloons arrived. I thought, ‘My gosh.’ Then the floral delivery guy came right back and said, ‘I have some flowers, Miss Wilhite.’ I said, ‘Come right in.’ He kind of laughed and said, ‘A whole van load of flowers.’” Copperfield had ordered 16 floral arrangements, from five dozen carnations of every conceivable color to several dozen sweethearts, a dozen peach roses, spring flowers such as tulips and numerous exotic flowers like the protea and torch ginger. Now Wilhite spends her weekends flying to wherever Copperfield is performing, even all the way to Indonesia to catch one show. • MONTECITO, Calif. (AP) Comedian Jonathan Winters and his wife, Eileen, have bought a 6,000-square-foot French Normandy-style house with an ocean view and guest house in this community near Santa Barbara. Winters, 65, who plays the father of a high school principal in ABC-TV’s new comedy series, “Davis Rules,” paid about $2.5 million for the three-acre site, real estate agents told the Los Angeles Times in a report published Sunday. The Winters are staying in a home they already own on the same block while the new one is renovated. Their chief residence is in Toluca Lake. • LONDON (AP) The British public favors taxing Queen Elizabeth II and it’s particularly unhappy with her daughter-in-law, the Duchess of York, better known as Fergie, according to a new opinion poll. The poll published Sunday in The Mail said 70 percent believed the queen should pay taxes. In 1990 Fortune magazine listed the monarch as the world’s fourth wealthiest person with an untaxed personal fortune of $11.7 billion. The poll also found that 48 percent of respondents thought some members of the royal family abused their positions and 74 percent surveyed pointed at the duchess, wife of the queen’s second son, Prince Andrew. Fergie has often been out of favor for her partygoing, her “Budgie the Helicopter” books and her taste in clothes and home architecture. A publicized donation of blood last week apparently failed to bring the public around to her side. • lOWA CITY, lowa (AP) Writer Allan Gurganus gave the University of lowa Writers’ Workshop $25,000 as seed money to endow a chair. The gift was announced Friday. “I think about all the people here who encouraged me and helped me,” said Gurganus, who attended the workshop in 1973. His first short story was published a year later, but his first novel, “Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All,” was published in 1989 and became a national bestseller. His latest book is “White People.” Workshop Director Frank Conroy said the money will contribute to the estimated $1 million needed to fully endow the chair.

Concert is ‘poison’ to Hoosier

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) A hard rock band has been sued by a Spencer woman who claims she suffered job-theatening injuries at a concert two years ago. Diana L. Sims, 40, said she was knocked backwards over chairs and onto the floor of Market Square Arena during a concert by the band Poison. The woman had taken her teen-age son and his two friends to the show. Sims alleged the melee began after drummer Rikki Rockett threw a drumstick into the crowd and con-cert-goers rushed to retrieve it. THE COMPLAINT, FILED Thursday in Marion Superior Court, alleged she was “violently thrown to the floor and sustained serious injuries” at the Feb. 19,1989,concert Sims is suing Poison, its four members individually and Sunshine Promotions for negligence. According to the complaint, Sims suffered soft tissue and nerve damage that is causing a loss of func-

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NEIL SIMON 27th play opening

NEW YORK (AP) Playwright Neil Simon reaped the fruits of Broadway hits, but 30 years of commercial success isn’t the kind of respect he likes to bank on, he says. “I know how the public sees me because people are always coming up to me and saying, ‘Thanks for the good times,”’ Simon, 63, told Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. “But all the success has demeaned me in a way. Critically, the thinking seems to be that if you write too many hits, they can’t be that good.” His 27th play, “Lost in Yonkers,” opens Thursday on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers Theater. “Even if my play is successful, I will never win the Pulitzer,” he said. There are other rewards. He’s worth more than S3O million, thanks to such hits as “The Sunshine Boys,” “The Odd Couple,” “Brighton Beach Memoirs” and “Barefoot in the Park.” BOSTON (AP) The private papers of screen star Myma Loy, who starred in the “Thin Man” film series of the 1930 s and ’4os, were donated to Boston University for its 20th Century Archives. University officials called the acquisition a “milestone.” Loy, 85, will receive an honorary Oscar at the Academy Awards March 25. Her other screen credits include “The Great Ziegfeld,” “Petticoat Fever,” “Too Hot to Handle,” “The Best Years of Our Lives” and “Cheaper by the Dozen.” She also appeared in many stage plays including “Barefoot in the Park” and “The Women.” Loy’s papers, presented at a reception Saturday in Palm Beach, Fla., are the archive’s 1,500 th acquisition. • SAN ANTONIO (AP) A Texas Ranger who says he was promised $70,000 to teach actor Nick Nolte how to act like one of the fabled lawmen has dropped his lawsuit against the companies that made the 1987 film “Extreme Prejudice.” But Ranger Joaquin Jackson said in a motion filed Monday in federal court that he will continue to press his civil lawsuit against Nolte. Dropped as defendants were Tri-Star Pictures Inc., Extreme Prejudice Productions Inc. and Carolco Pictures Inc. Jackson alleged in a lawsuit filed last summer that he entered an oral contract with Nolte to help him “dress, walk, talk, act and look” like a real Texas Ranger. Jackson said he was to have received $70,000, which he was going to use to put his son through college. Jackson said he never received the money. FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif. (AP) Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tom Lasorda has a new team to coach: Operation Home Front. Lasorda was named national chairman of the program, which will organize sports activities for children with parents serving in the Persian Gulf. The Orange County-based U.S. Youth Athletic Network created the program. “The children of our troops need positive activities to occupy their time and thoughts, and youth athletics provide that,” Lasorda said.

tion and motion in her neck and arms. “She received injuries to her neck, back and arm,” said her attorney, John J. Fuhs of Spencer. Fuhs said Sims lost her job as a meter officer and school crossing guard for the Spencer police soon after the incident. Sims, now unemployed, could not be on her feet or move as much as those jobs required and her doctor said she could no longer do that type of work, the attorney said. Sims seeks compensatory damages to pay for past and future medical and hospital expenses. She also seeks to recover past and future earnings lost as a result of her injuries, according to the suit. IN ADDITION, SIMS IS asking punitive damages from Sunshine Promotions, which booked the concert, and from Poison, to deter it and other groups from similar “misconduct.” Beth Bueltmann, promotions and publicity director for Sunshine, said company officials did not want to comment on the lawsuit.

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