For Immediate Release on Entertainment Drive
Released by Beck/Smith

Mama Naomi Judd Keeps Wynonna's and Ashley's Egos in Check
Hollywood -- April 22, 1996 -- Sounds like Wynonna and Ashley Judd will always keep their egos in check if mama Naomi has anything to say about it. The country music heroine reveals that since Wynonna's solo career is so hot and Ashley is one of today's most sought-after young actresses, she's given them some advice for all the media they're talking to now. "I told the girls, 'It's nice to be important, but it's much more important to be nice.' I said, 'If you really want people to like you' -- and I know they both do -- 'ask them about themselves.'" Naomi says, "It just blows my mind how most celebrities act....I just get real ticked off with celebrities in this country. We don't have a royal family, so we've made celebrities our aristocracy, then they create their own etiquette. The American public is so darn gullible, they think just because someone has fame or power or money that they've got it together personally." Until recently, Naomi says, she had little fondness for actors. "When I lived in Hollywood in the early 70s I thought people who became actors did so because they had no personal history....I thought they were just vacuous, self-absorbed, egocentric people and I had great disdain for them." The country singer says that changed after Ashley "went to Hollywood to become an actress and I started hanging out with people like her acting coach, Bob Carnegie. He's one of my favorite people and one of the most moral men...in fact, I call him the moral compass. He makes [his acting students] read books. I felt much better about the company Ashley was keeping after I met him."

Shania Twain Says Past Year Was a Test
Hollywood -- April 23, 1996 --Country music phenomenon Shania Twain says she wouldn't trade in the past year "for anything, but it's definitely been a challenge and a test, to be faced with this kind of stress level and pressure. You kind of have to dig down and find out what you're really made of." Twain's multi-award-winning "The Woman in Me" recently became the biggest-selling country album by a woman ever (surpassing "Patsy Cline's Greatest Hits"). She says, "I kind of owed it to the record to push it as hard as I could, I felt." That push has included activities such as her recent Mall of America appearance, where 20,000 fans reportely lined up to greet her! Her schedule has been such that she spends at least three weeks a month away from home. The pace landed her in bed with the worst flu of her life, "on and off for three weeks" a few months ago. "My record company would hate to hear me say this, but I think I'll be relieved when the album peaks for the last time." Twain has been singing professionally since the age of eight, trying to make this dream come true. Her parents helped her and got her bookings in her early years and were her biggest boosters. Tragically, they were killed in an automobile accident when Shania was 20 -- and the songstress went on to help raise, and support, her younger siblings. (She has one older sister.) Asked whether her brothers or sisters were inclined toward careers in music, she said, "I don't think so. They've seen my lifestyle, how hard I've worked, and they've thought they could work that hard, too -- and then not have it happen. Even now, they see the way I live and say, 'You can have it.'"

Cast Trials on "Dead Man's Walk" Set
Hollywood -- April 24, 1996 -- When viewers see the forthcoming miniseries adaptation of Larry McMurtry's "Dead Man's Walk," little will they know of the drama -- and comedy -- that occurred off-camera. The company that lensed the saga of Texas Rangers trying to make their way out of a godforsaken no-man's-land alive had to endure weeks of 105-degree temperatures, rugged conditions, and nighttime returns to, well, less than plush quarters. One of the wide spots in the road where the crew was housed was a town with a population of 49, which featured a beer-drinking billy goat...as mayor. "David Arquette and I got videotape of this goat," reports Patricia Childress, the sole femme star in a cast that includes Edward James Olmos, Harry Dean Stanton, Keith Carradine, and F. Murray Abraham. "You give the goat an open bottle of beer and he swigs it down in just seconds, and then he spits it out at you. I was thinking of mailing the tape to 'America's Funniest Videos.' I wouldn't mind winning the $100,000," says Childress, who is quite a character herself. She lets us know, "Harry Dean Stanton and I get along great. It was kind of awkward at first because he plays my lover and he's 69 and I was 24 when we shot this. We actually had this kissing scene, and I said, 'Harry Dean, I'm going to cut off your tongue if it passes my lips one more time.' I told him, like, 'I know you're an old geeze and you want some sleaze, but I'm not the one.'" And yet, she says, they became pals. "We have very good onscreen chemistry. And I got to liking him. We'd have nights where he and Keith would get out their guitars and we'd all sing. It was great. We were in a place that got maybe four TV channels, if you shifted the foil on the satellite dish just right." She also says, in order to combat fatigue and boredom, "we all played pranks on each other. One night, the director's assistant and I got into David's room by saying we were dropping off dailies, and then we went in and just wrecked his room." There was also much nighttime imbibing, to hear Childress tell it. "Spirits were one way to keep up our spirits." In another town, "which consisted of a store and 18 motels, where truckers stay," some of the "Dead Man's Walk" group had a contest "to see who could hold the most liquor. It was tough, a couple of mornings, working out in the hot sun after that." Perhaps as hard to take as the hangovers, for Childress, was the lack of radio selection. "I had to sort of surrender to the country music. I thought, 'I'm surrendering to whatever the universe is bringing me and it's bringing me country music,' but I wanted to vomit." By the time production was finally ending, "everyone hated everyone -- but in a loving way. There was no wrap party. We all just wanted to get the hell away."

McGovern Plans to Keep Busy
Hollywood -- April 25, 1996 -- Maureen McGovern is touring the country, singing with various symphonies to promote her new "Out of This World: McGovern Sings Arlen" CD. But she'll take time off to do a very special show at the Warner Theater in Washington, D.C., May 4. "I'm doing a concert with Roberta Flack, Judy Collins, and Melissa Manchester called 'Ladies of Note,'" says McGovern. "It's an AIDS fundraiser and it's going to be a wonderful evening. I've been friends with Judy for a long time. I've known Melissa and Roberta just in passing....And I have enormous respect for them all." The show is being called "the world premiere of 'Ladies of Note,'" so there's a possibility the veteran singers could be doing more shows together later. Meanwhile, McGovern is working on doing the music for some children's books and putting together material for the next in a series of albums featuring the music of famous songwriters. The singer, who's appeared on Broadway in "The Pirates of Penzance," "Nine," and "Threepenny Opera," says she'd also like to do more acting. "I'd love to do some theater and certainly over the next five to ten years that's what I'm going to be doing...more musical theater and film and television. I plan to keep busy."

Opening of '96 Olympic Games to Fete 100-Year Anniversary
Hollywood -- April 26, 1996 -- Expect to see Olympic tradition treated with the utmost respect in the Opening Ceremonies for the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta -- only 85 days away. That's the word from Don Mischer, who's producing both the opening and closing cermonies of this year's games. Mischer reminds us that this is the 100th anniversary of the modern Olympics, and he notes that the Olympics Centennial is one of two themes that'll be stressed in the ceremonies (along with Atlanta/The American South). "We want to put the time-honored Olympic protocols into a context where they have the utmost meaning." Of course, there'll also be "artistic segments with dancers and production and spectacle" -- and a cast of 8,000. Mischer says there'll be more showbiz in the closing ceremonies than the opening, "because they're more of a celebration than a ceremony." He's not naming name talent yet. "Negotiations are going on now with several people." But with all his planning -- and Mischer's been working on this for years, including visiting Olympia, Greece, twice -- the producer knows "the real emotion of the Olympics comes from things you can't produce. In Barcelona, one of my favorite moments of the ceremonies was seeing this tiny Chinese gymnast trying and trying to find Magic Johnson of the American Dream Team. She wanted to meet him. And when she finally did find him and they embraced -- it was so touching. That's what it's really all about: people of the world coming together." Mischer also says that for the first time in history every single nation in the world is being represented at the Games, a very nice celebration of 100, indeed.

Copyright (c) 1996 Beck/Smith Ent.


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