For Immediate Release on Entertainment Drive
Released by Beck/Smith

Underwood to 'Set It Off'
Hollywood -- June 3, 1996 -- "I call it Thelma & Louise Meets Pretty Woman Meets Girls in the Hood,'" says Blair Underwood of New Line's "Set it Off" drama that's due for release in October. "It's about four sisters in the hood who are frustrated," says the former "L.A. Law" co-star. "Their backs are up against the wall, they feel they have no choice -- and they start robbing banks." Underwood says that though the film --in which he co- stars with Queen Latifah and Jada Pinkett -- "is very voilent, it's also a real nice love story between Jada's character and my character. That's one reason I wanted to make it." The handsome Underwood plays a banker who becomes involved with Pinkett's character when she cases his bank for a robbery. The two could have a steamy love scene in the movie, "Depending on how much they keep in," says Blair. Underwood was among the celebs at The Dominican Republic last weekend for the 9th annual Rene Enriquez Celebrity Tennis and Golf Tournament. The event, sponsored by General Motors, raises funds for orphanages. Underwood reports he recently signed to make his big-screen directorial debut with a romantic comedy being written by his brother Frank Underwood. But first he'll do the Columbia scifi "The Eighth Day" with Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke. It starts in July.

Klugh and Benson Together Again -- Hopefully
Hollywood -- June 4, 1996 -- Grammy-winning jazz guitarist Earl Klugh is laying plans to do another album with that other Grammy- winning jazz guitarist, George Benson. Klugh, who recently released his latest Warner Bros. disc, "Sudden Burst of Energy," says it's just a matter of the two veteran musicians getting their schedules to mesh. "I see George every few months and we talk about...I'm sure it's something that will happen." Klugh hasn't worked with Benson since their bestselling 1988 album, "Collaboration," but they go way back to when Klugh joined Benson's band at the age of 17. Klugh says he's also interested in working with "almost any of the more contemporary jazz guys...George Howard and Dave Grusin are two people who come to mind." Harvey Mason, Gene Dunlap and Paulinho Da Costa are among Klugh's buddies who joined him on "Sudden Burst of Energy." He has so many cronies in the business he says it's sometimes hard to decide who he's going to call up to work on his album projects. "That's one of the great things about making records...it keeps me in contact with a lot of people I really like and admire." He'll be touring the country through the fall, but Klugh will concentrate on doing weekend dates. Klugh says just between this year and last year his frequent flyer mileage "is pretty crazy." Ironically, he says "I'm scared to death of airplanes. I'm one of these people where I'm fine as long as you don't hit even the slightest bit of turbulence -- because as soon as we do that I'm thinking This is the end.'"

Keaton on 'Multiplicity,' 'Batman'
Hollywood -- June 5, 1996 -- Test screening results on Michael Keaton's July-debuting "Multiplicity" have been so good, the actor's in an especially buoyant mood these days. He tells us the final, final post- production is being completed on the movie now, and "It's put together so well, no one will ever know the enormous amount of work that went into it and how tough it was to make" -- which is just what he and director Harold Ramis and everyone else involved in the picture wanted. "Multiplicity" has Keaton as a guy who deals with his overburdened life the way we've all wished we could -- by having himself cloned. Trouble is, the clones are missing various elements of the main character's, well, character. Keaton has arguments with himself, outsmarts himself, even finds his wife (Andie MacDowell) in the arms of another self. "If it weren't for the guys who helped me with my stuff off-camera -- the actors I worked with to do all these scenes -- I couldn't have done it. I can't say enough about how enormously helpful they were," Keaton says. "The movie's pretty cool. I think you're going to like it. When the editor stars laughing during editing, you know you've got something." Keaton also says, "Every time I see it, I spot something I didn't notice before. That's a credit to Harold." Keaton, incidentally, tells this column he thinks it would be fun to return to the "Batman" fold -- as a supervillain - - some day. "I'm a great fan of irony," notes the star. Keaton might've toplined another movie that's opening this summer -- "Kingpin," which ended up starring Woody Harrelson and Randy Quaid. He now says he backed out of the project because "after a few meetings it became clear that it was going in the wrong direction to be the kind of movie I wanted it to be...I always try to elevate things if I can, you know. Well, everyone tries to elevate things they do," he says. We disagree. Already "Kingpin," with Harrelson as a broken-down ex-pro bowler who tries to mentor Amish protege Quaid, is being hailed as the king of this summer's fart-n- flush lowbrow humor league. It's brought to us by the Farrelly Brothers, the duo who gave the world "Dumb and Dumber."

Jeremy Irons 'Stealing Beauty' Happiest Shoot Ever
Hollywood -- June 6, 1996 -- Jeremy Irons, who currently stars in Bernardo Bertolucci's "Stealing Beaty" with Liv Tyler, reports the film represented "Probably one of the happiest shoots I ever had." Bertolucci requested that the entire cast live where they shot -- in the hills of Tuscany in Italy. "My wife and I and our two sons lived one hill away from the shoot. It was unbelievable -- waking up in the morning to the sweet smell of grapes growing and the sound of birds. I would get on my motyorcycle and wisk down the hill to work, or to the city of Siena. Thegroup of us were all close friends by the time we finished our three- month shoot." Next in release for the Oscar-winner is the remake of "Lolita" -- about a middle-aged man sexually fixated on a 14-year- old. Irons tells us, "It's too early to tell, but I'm quite excited about it." It's hardly the first controversial movie he's made. There was, for instance, the film adaptation of the play "M Butterfly," in which he played a middle- aged diplomat in love with a woman who turned out to be a man. The movie didn't make much of an impact, and Irons feels, "It got what it merited. It never really quite came together."

McCartney the Emotional Beatle
Hollywood -- June 7, 1996 -- John Lennon was regarded by most as the heart and soul of The Beatles, while Paul McCartney was seen mostly as the cute one. Well, now he'll be known as the emotional one as well. McCartney reveals, "One of the reasons I can write melody is because emotion is thrown up through melody and I AM emotional." In a statement to a member of the German press, he adds, "I get accused of being sentimental but it's really that I am quite emotional -- and I don't have a problem with that." Although he admits he used to have a problem with it. "When I was younger I would try to hide, to suppress my emotions, but these days I'm quite happy to show them. I'm not afraid to shed a tear watching a sad film." McCartney says he's often very moved by his own music. "When I first heard a choir sing acapella at the end of the first movment of Liverpool Oratorio' it made me cry. The emotion of that moment moved me to tears and I'm happy to admit that that is what music sometimes does to me. I remember being in Africa once, hearing 30 African musicians play music in a style that I'd never heard before and the power and emotion of it made me weep -- and I mean really cry! I was gushing tears because of the power of this music. It was such a good feelign for me, it was a release. I felt like I was being born again."

Copyright (c) 1996 Beck/Smith Ent.


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