Hollywood Studio Magazine (June 1971)

Take it from the top News notes on the Hollywood scene by Zelda Cini Nymphos Author Irving Wallace must have had fun researching his newest best seller, “The Nympho and Other Maniacs.” For instance, in his chapter about “one of the most attractive and glamorous nymphomaniacs in modern times. Lady Ellenborough of Great Britain, “Wallace reports she once wrote in her diary about her fourth husband, an Arab sheik named Medjuel: “It is now a month and twenty days since Medjual last slept with me. What can be the reason?” Lady Ellenborough was seventy-six years old when she wrote that. *** Shadows of the past Are you ready for this? A 15 year-old ninth grader from Walter B. Hill Junior High School in Long Beach recently won the chance to become a television actress by having her name drawn from a drum of thousands of casting-call slips filled in by visitors to Universal Studios. Her name is Karen Hansen and she was assured that she would appear in Universal’s “Marcus Welby, M.D.” TV series. HANSEN cast from a drum *** Her qualifications? She won the contest for answering a question: “What’s your favorite television series?” and dropping her answer in a drum. No further comment. *** Trick shooting at Disney Despite all the talk about studio doldrums, Disney continues to turn out majors, the latest “Now you see Him, Now you Don’t” a comedy concerning itself with a group of college science students who learn the secret of invisibility, a lovely premise to conjure with. Adapted from a story by Robert L. King, who is coproducing with Ron Miller, the screenplay is by Joe McEveety, with Robert Butler directing. Anybody but me remember the old Thorne Smith novel about a guy who’d been fooling with film-developing solutions and found himself thereafter regardless of circumstance and totally without warning intermittently visible only as a skeleton? *** New TVseries It’s probably only coincidence that Glenn Cowan, 19-year-old member of the U.S. Table Tennis Team has signed as co-host with John Garfield, Jr. for “Reach Out”, TV series headed for the airwaves through Youth Marketing, Inc., Young Cowan, the son of the late motion picture-TV publicist Phil Cowan, had to sign with somebody after returning from Red China. Especially since Youth Marketing and Gold Key Entertainment are sister companies presently planning a second project, a theatrical documentary on Cowan’s experiences in China based on some footage he shot himself. *** Out of the past Chester Conklin, oldest living Keystone Kop who was discovered by Mack Sen nett, made the spotlight again recently when former boxing champ PIONEER STARS - Minta Durfee Arbuckle and Chester Conklin, both Keystone Kops veterans, were given proclamations honoring their contributions to the Hollywood film industry. Presented by Noble ‘ Kid Chissell, on behalf of Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty, the proclamation was made on the occasion of Conklin’s 80th birthday. Noble “Kid” Chissell and Minta Arbuckle, widow of comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle and onetime leading lady for Conklin, presented him with an official proclamation from Mayor Sam Yorty. Sam wasn’t there, at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital, where the award took place. Conklin, in his early days as a comic, exerted a strong influence on the career of a fellow-comic, a young chap named Charles Chaplin who heeded his advice to stay on as an actor in motion pictures instead of returning to the stage. Chaphn gives Conklin full credit in his autobiography. But how in the world did Mayor Sam get into this act? *** Blue note from CATv Some of the larger Cable Television Systems, now obliged to gear up for local origination programming, are struggling uphill against the “broadcasting” label. “We do not intend to compete with off-the-air broadcasters,” is the flat statement of policy by one big CATv company. “We may threaten the weekly newspaper in some areas, but we have no intention of even trying to compete with existing commercial television,” the program director added. Within the CATv industry itself, for one thing, there’s no budget for production. Average systems employ four or five people in the program department and these individuals do everything — direct, edit, gaff, perform . . . drive and set up the mobile unit, and operate the two cameras. In answer to the question “What’s an actor to do?” came the answer; “Go back to little theater, where he can relearn how to double in every kind of job, and enjoy All set for Golf? Tee off and get nostalgic is the advice of pros at Calabasas Park Country Club, in case you didn’t know. The course is laid out where old Warner’s movies were filmed and right in the middle is the original white frame Warner Bros, ranch house, now executive offices for Bechtel Corp., one of the developers. Just in caseT you play there and start looking for old sets, the old road on the 4