|
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.
|