For Immediate Release on Entertainment Drive
Released by Beck/Smith

"Baywatch" Babe Laughs Last
Hollywood -- Jan. 22, 1996 -- "Baywatch" babe Gena Lee Nolin laughs at the many parodies inspired by that beach-bound series she's on. "Extra!" showed excerpts of a Brit spoof a few days ago, in which closeups of busts, chests, and men's shorts appeared on screen with banal beach dialogue heard in the background. "I think it's hilarious! It's funny," says Nolin. "The show is so successful, we have to take a little heat. And if that's heat, well, ha-ha." Nolin notes she attended the unveiling of David Hasselhoff's star on the Hollywood walk of fame last week. "It reminded me of how unbelievably the show has done -- 145 countries, over a billion viewers." This makes it easy, she notes, for the gang to laugh. Nolin, who plays bad girl Neely Capshaw on the series, admits that she felt "a major amount of pressure" when she joined the cast of the show this season. "I had done 'The Price Is Right,' but other than that, well, I'd never been on a set. But everyone was wonderful. Everyone welcomed me in. Everyone wants to get along," insists Nolin. She refutes tabloid reports that have her "involved with an ex- convict and God knows who else. It's hilarious, what they come up with," says the blond, who's been wed for two and a half years to husband Greg, a video production company owner. Greg, she says, "goes with the flow" as her sex symbol status rises. Jan. 28, she'll host the pay-per-view "Real Men Don't Watch Pre-Game" Super Bowl Sunday special -- which will feature teams of bikini-clad bimbos in sports competitions, such as the Hooters Calendar Girls versus the Hawaiian Tropics Girls. How does Greg feel about her involvement? "He'd probably like to be there himself," says Gena Lee.

Sager Charts Oscar Future -- And Lack of It
Hollywood -- Jan. 23, 1996 -- Grammy-winning songwriter Carole Bayer Sager believes the man she lives with, Warner Bros.' Chief Executive Officer Bob Daly, is about as close to perfection as a man can get. "The one thing I've ever taken issue with is, well, I used to say he wasn't interested enough in my music. Now that he and Terry Semel have taken on heading up the music division of Warner Bros., that's changed," she informs with a laugh. "We sit down and listen to albums together now. My son Christopher has him listening to Hootie & the Blowfish," says Sager, referring to her 10-year-old from her former marriage to Burt Bacharach. Not surprisingly, Sager believes Bob and his fellow chief exec Terry Semel are just what the beleaguered music division needs. "Bob and Terry are such stable, grounded men, I think they'll bring a stability it [the music division] can use....There's a family feeling there now, where everyone had been feeling a little disconnected." Sager is up for Grammys again this year, for penning the recent Reba McEntire hit "On My Own," and for writing "When You Love Someone" -- the James Ingram-Anita Baker single from the "Forget Paris" soundtrack. In a startling and unique interview statement for this time of year, Sager made it clear she isn't holding out any hope that "When You Love Someone" will find its way into the Academy Awards race. "I'm not thinking that's going to happen this year," says Sager, who's been up for Oscars the past two years -- for tunes she penned for "Beethoven" and "Junior." "It's okay," she adds. "Nobody wants to be always a bridesmaid. If you go in, you want to go in feeling like a strong contender. I don't think it would be the winning song if it was nominated. I'd like to have something stronger maybe next year."

A Mystic Journey for Guthrie
Hollywood -- Jan. 24, 1996 -- Arlo Guthrie has his first studio album in more than a decade -- "Mystic Journey" -- coming out late in the month. The new album is mostly written by Arlo, but does contain a couple of tunes penned by others -- including Charlie Chaplin's "You Are the Song." "A lot of people don't know that besides being an actor and director, Chaplin wrote music....He was a hero to my parents. Not just his work, but everything about him," says the 60s counterculture hero -- son of the legendary folk artist Woody Guthrie. Not surprisingly, Chaplin's tune "is not a rock song," he adds. Arlo also reports that just a couple of months ago, his label put out a remake of the 18-minute "Alice's Restaurant" monologue that made him famous. "It got a lot of airplay over Thanksgiving weekend. Some stations even played both versions, back to back, and compared them." Arlo recalls the day in 1967 when he first recorded the famous tale in which, arrested for littering, he winds up being deemed unsuitable for the draft. He came home and found all his friends excitedly listening to the brand-new Beatles "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," and he realized "everything recorded up till then was obsolete -- including what I had just done." Some 28 years later, he redid the recording with up-to-date technology. "You would've thought after all these years, you'd be safe from competing with another Beatles record. But guess what?" says Arlo. Suddenly, the new Beatles anthology comes to mind. "Yup," he says. "Same day. I couldn't believe it!"

Owens Laugh-In Again for NBC
Hollywood -- Jan. 25, 1996 -- Broadcasting Hall of Famer and onetime "Laugh-In" regular Gary Owens says his Feb. 4 guesting on "Mad About You" -- with his former co-stars Arte Johnson, Jo Anne Worley, and Henry Gibson -- was a real kick to do. In the segment, they replicate the old cocktail party bit from the 60s series. "It was really old home week in many ways," says Owens. "I've known Paul Reiser for years. I'd never worked with Helen [Hunt] before, but her father, Gordon, has been a friend of mine for 25 years. He was the casting director at Hanna-Barbera, and I've done a lot of work with him. And Gordon came by when we were shooting the show." As for his "Laugh-In" colleagues, Owens says he gets together with them socially from time to time. They also got together for the "Laugh-In!" reunion a couple years ago, and for a photo shoot for Vanity Fair's recent TV Hall of Fame issue. "I'm so pleased to be a part of that magic group." He and Arte used to share a dressing room for weekly "Laugh-In" taping sessions, Gary recalls. "I was also doing a daily show, 'Letters to "Laugh-In!",' and for that one, they had me using Dean Martin's dressing room....And I can tell you, Dean's dressing room had a lot more liquor in it than Arte's and mine." Owens notes that Johnson also helped create an indelible "Laugh-In!" impression when "my mother came to town to visit me. She was living in the Midwest at the time -- I'm from South Dakota -- and I put her in a seat right up front to watch the taping....We didn't have a studio audience per se, but people came in and watched. And all the sudden, Arte decided to moon the camera. I came up to my mom afterwards and explained, 'That was unexpected.' And she said, 'Oh, that's all right. I've seen those things before.'" Owens recalls, "Just about every star in Hollywood wanted to do a 'Laugh-In' cameo for a time." He still wonders whether history might've been different if it weren't for the show. "It was a very, very close election between Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon -- and there is general agreement that Nixon coming on 'Laugh-In!' and saying 'Sock it to me' had a positive effect on voters who thought he had no sense of humor....We had 40 million viewers every Monday night." Conversely, "The day after Nixon taped his cameo, Hubert Humphrey was at NBC to do a 'Meet the Press' segment, and we asked him to do a 'Laugh-In!' cameo, and he said he would like to come back and do it. But in the meantime, one of his advisers convinced him it would be a bad idea, someone might throw him through a trap door or something. So this man, who'd always been known for having a good sense of humor and not taking himself too seriously, left the building without coming back to do his cameo."

Tony Danza's Show Changes Direction
Hollywood -- Jan. 26, 1996 -- Don't blame Tony Danza for the new direction "Hudson Street" is reportedly taking. The ABC sitcom's move away from a romantic comedy to a family sitcom, centered around Danza's character, leaves series femme lead Lori Loughlin somewhat out in the cold. But Danza, who also exec produces the show, says the changes came at ABC's suggestion. "We're backing away from the romance because the network is telling us that it wasn't that well received. We'll be doing more of the same kind of stories -- only without the romance." Recent reports have it that Loughlin was unhappy to hear that the new directional shift would reduce her role on the show and that she has asked to be released. According to studio sources, the former "Full House" co-star will likely remain through the current season but probably won't return if the series is picked up. As it's turned out, "Hudson Street" will have to work on finding a new audience since the network decided to move it to Saturday nights starting next week -- after its pummeling in the ratings by NBC's "3rd Rock from the Sun."

Copyright (c) 1996 Beck/Smith Ent.


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