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Michael Pare • 10
Brand new screen presence
JOE PlSCOPO • 12
SNL’s next breakaway star
A Flock of Seagulls • 17
Flap, flap, caw, caw ...
Brainstorm • 18
Doug Trumbull's beleaguered special ejjecis bonanza
Special Fashion Section • 20
Sneakers of the Gods
Your Fashfbn Future
Keeping Warm
Your Wardrobe: Good Slews 6- Bad News
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In One Ear
Letters
& Out the Other • 9
News, rumor & bype
Our Cover
Joe Piscopo was photographed by New Yorker Deborah
Feingold
®UT
THE OTHER
goings on
by Steven Ginsberg
No Laughing Matter
After yiikxing it up in Meatballs,
Stripes, and Tootsie, former
Saturday Night Lire star Bill Murray
is now taking on his first seridus
role. He plays a young man coming
to terms with the world in 1920’s
Paris in The Razor's Edge, based on
the W. Somerset Maugham novel.
Murray co-wrote the screenplay with
director John Byrum (who wrote the
putrid Heartbeat) and is shooting on
locales in England, France and the
Himalayas. And if the transition to
drama doesn’t work? "I promised to
do a comedy if 1 mess this up," Mur
ray says. It’s a safe bet: he’s already
signed to do Ghostbusters with Dan
Aykroyd. Aykroyd and Harold Ramis
wrote the script (to be directed by
Stripes’ Ivan Reitman), which was at
one time intended for Richard Pryor.
The 1984 Big Brother Calendar,
the brainchild of Deborah
Caulfield, David Crook and Michael
Gershman, “celebrates” our real-life
versions of George Orwell's night
marish fiction. The calendar, which
unfolds as a generous 3x4 poster, de
tails Nixon's crimes, HUAC’s
blacklist, Vietnam, and dozens of
lesser-known but no less shameful
American events. (Example: In
November 1972, “Rep. William
Moorhead reveals White House plan
to install FM receivers that can be
operated by government in every
home, boat and auto.") Available in
campus book shops, this calendar is
a great gift for the truly paranoic or
the merely worried. Coming next
spring from the same trio (plus
Robert Ellis Smith) is The Big
Brother Book of Lists.
Signing Up
Remember the old days in Hol
lywood when everyone had a
studio contract? They’re coming
back. Paramount Pictures has in the
last few months signed long term
deals with Eddie Murphy (for a mere
$15 million and his own production
company); Staying Alive co-star
Cynthia Rhodes (for a six-figure sal
ary and an option to do five films);
Winds of War director Dan Curtis
(for the opportunity to make fea
tures); and Flashdance producer
Don Simpson and Jerty Bruckheimer
(for ...?). Why the sudden urge for a
stable of talent? “There are certain
people whose creative vision we
share and want to make movies with
over a long period of time,” a
Paramount rep explained. And we
thought they just wanted to make
money.
AMPERSAN
D
Sept. /Oct. 83, page 9
Old Loiters Never Die
Check very closely and you’ll find
Diane Keaton in one of the
many still shots contained in Woody
Allen’s latest him, Zelig. Keaton is
seated at a table in a party scene with
.Mien's Zelig character and costar Mia
Farrow But it's doubtful you’ll find
Keaton in any of Allen’s upcoming
films. She’ll be spending a good part
of next year in Europe starring in the
filmization of John LeCarre’s novel
Little Drummer Girl. After that it's the
lead in Modem Krule, where she
portrays a woman in her thirties get
ting married for the first time.
Mike Nichols has committed to
direct a him version of Nora
Ephron's roman a clef Heartburn,
the humorous story of a marriage
breakup that is said to be based on
Ephron’s own stormy matrimony
with Watergate hero Carl Bernstein.
The novel centers on a Washington
columnist and his wife, a kind of hip
Julia Child who has her own cooking
show, ft also offers at least one rec
ipe about ever}' 20 pages — though
none for popcorn.
Bo-Zo
Poor Bo Derek. First she finds out
that her costar in her new
movie, Bolero, Fabio Testi, has
herpes (and after they did some
major romantic scenes). Now she
suffers the further indignation of
having to retitle her film. Bolero has
already been registered by someone
else. But BoBo gets the last laugh
this time. She’s simply calling her
epic — Bo-Lero. Get it? ... We
thought you would.
The Bible, Baby
or Get Down With
Thy Bad Self
Because we knew you must be
wondering what self-possessed
ladykiller Richard Gere could ever
do to top himself, we’re happy to tell
you he’s found a new niche — in the
Bible. Gere will portray the biblical
hero David in The Story of David, a
saga that shoots next year in Europe
The adventure story takes David
from innocent shepherd boy
through fun times with Bathsheba
and his reign as the King of Judah.
But tear not. Though Bible heroes
may seem lily white, insiders tell us
that David liked to flirt and seduce to
get his way. At least as portrayed
here.
It’s Not All Glamour
PRODUCTION HAD TO BE shut down
for three weeks on Indiana
Jones and the Temple of Doom, the
sequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark. It
seems star Harrison Ford hurt his
back on the set. But fear not. Ford
was sent home from London to re
cuperate in L.A. with new wife
Melissa Mathison (E.T.'s screen
writer). After three weeks of atten
tion, and a program of swimming,
Ford is said to be as good as new.
E.T.’s adoptive sister, Drew Bar
rymore, will next star as a pint
sized pyromaniac in Eirestarter, a
film based on the Stephen King'hor
ror novel for King Kong’s producer
Dino Delaurentiis. Being the star she
is, Drew, of course, won’t set things
aglow with an ordinary pack of
matches. She uses telepathy powers.
(Remember Sissy Spacek in Carrie?)
Respect
You just had to be at Aretha
Franklin’s L.A. concert at the Be
verly Theatre in Beverly Hills to ap
preciate it. Not only did the queen of
soul do just 55 minutes, relying
mostly on the vocal power of her
background singers, she wore a blue
glittery mermaid-type gown that was
so tight we got to see what kind of
navel she has (we always wondered).
... OK, you win. It’s an “inny.”
The guys behind the comedy hit
Airplane are back in the saddle
(or air) again in a new movie only
being referred to as Top Secret.
Again written by brothers jerry and
David Zucker (and a third writer,
Martin Bruke), the film is shooting in
London under the most confidential
of circumstances. The only thing its
distributor, Paramount, will say is
that the film's subject is top secret
and that we'll get to see it next
summer.
T erry Hopkins, star biographer
I ([Elvis: A Biography, Elvis: Tlx
I'ituil Years, and No One Here
Gets Out Alive, about Jim Morri
son), has produced another —
Hit and Run, the Jimi Hendrix
story. Revealed in same is a
bizarre kidnaping of Hendrix
which was, amazingly, kept si
lent at the time. Hopkins’ next
subject (a live one, for a
change): David Bowie.
Jimi Hendrix
Anne Bancroft, best known to
contemporary audiences for
roles in The Turning Point and The
Graduate, should be known as a
singer by Christmas. She is said to
steal hubby Mel Brooks’ remake of
the Ernst Lubitsch classic To Be or
Not to Fie with her Polish rendition
of “Sweet Georgia Brown.” Actually,
Bancroft is not a newcomer to music.
She was the original choice (before
Barbra Streisand) to do Funny Girl
on Broadway and has won Emmies
for her musical TV specials in the
late Sixties.
Comic Book Mentality
From the producers of Superman
1,// and ///, get ready for—Santa
Claus(?y. A $50 million version of a
syrupy Santa story featuring at least
one evil elf (what else?) is going to
be shot early next year so it can be at
theaters in time for Christmas, 1984.
Personally, we’d rather have coal in
our stocking.
Speaking of Superman stories,
know how much Marlon Brando re
ally made for 12 days work on the
first two of the series (he was cut out
of the second) — $13-114 million, ac
cording to its producers Ilya and
Alexander Salkind in a recent New
York Times interview. But they’ve
learned. Brando is nowhere to be
found in the upcoming Supergirl,
which we'll be treated to next sum
mer (when does it stop?). Actually,
we were figuring the leviathan
Brando as a natural for Santa Claus.
Save on padding, you know. Anyway,
newcomer Helen Slater is in the title
role battling it out with arch villai
ness Faye Dunaway.
Amazing Meryl
VVT hat else can Meryl Streep do?
W Sing. A single is supposed to
be released in a few months with the
two-time Oscar winner warbling
"Amazing Grace," a number she does
in her latest movie, Silkwood. Por
traying Karen Silkwood, a woman
who died mysteriously while un
raveling the reasons behind unsafe
conditions in the plutonium plant in
which she worked, Streep apparently
surprised skeptics and did a top
notch job with the tune.
No More Tomorrows ...
Please.
Just when you thought it was safe to
like orphans again, producer Ray
Mark has announced plans to make
Annie II. The new picture stars now
not-so-little Aileen Quinn (who will
he 13 years old during filming next
year) in an “action adventure story
with music.” Boston-based indepen
dent filmmaker Jan Egleson directs.
Why continue the story? For one
thing, sources close to Stark say
market research shows little girls
and their mothers are interested in
another Annie story. And — Quinn’s
exclusive contract with Stark was
about to run out. At one point, the
studio was even thinking of putting
Quinn into the forthcoming sequel
to Eating Raoul. Really.
More News
Not ah. stories in the film biz
have unhappy endings. Di
rector Jonathan Kaplan’s latest pic
ture, Heart Like a Wheel, a compel
ling biography of female race car
driver Shirley Muldowney, seemed
all washed up after it bombed in its
initial release down south (film ex
ecutives aren’t likely to release a film
elsewhere if it doesn’t do good busi
ness with the audience it’s meant
for). But because a few people at
Twentieth Century-Fox liked the pic
ture, they’ve thought up a whole new
ad campaign. Now they’ll be using an
ad approach a la Norma Rae by
painting Shirley as a woman who
goes up against the system (profes
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