Monday, Oct. 04, 1976
qedSo far, the $8.5 million Penthouse production of Gore Vidal's Caligula has had all the success of an open-air orgy in Antarctica. First, Writer Gore Vidal quarreled with Director Tinto Brass and was barred from the movie's sets in Rome. Next to exit was Actress Maria Schneider, who called the film biography of the Roman emperor "a grotesque pornographic movie," and walked out after a day's shooting. "For an enormous amount of money they're asking people to prostitute themselves. I was ready and willing to act, but not to take my clothes off and do whatever they wanted me to," she complained. Enter Penthouse Publisher Bob Guccione, who found Schneider's story out of focus. Not only did she need help in paying some old hotel bills and a trip to Paris for an abortion, insisted Guccione, but she was all wrong.
"If the film was obscene, what would Sir John Gielgud and Malcolm McDowell be doing in it?" he asked. Then what about Actress Teresa Ann Savoy? Quickly hired as Schneider's replacement. Savoy last starred in a 1975 sado sexploitation special titled Salon Kitty --made by Director Brass.
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Mick Jogger, take note. That gun-steel gaze and pistoleer's pose belong to your wife Bianco. But relax--she's not thinking about your nights on the town during the Rolling Stones' tours. She's working in Flesh Color, a movie by Belgian Director Francois Weyergans.
The film features Actress-Model Ve-ruschka as a part-time stripper, Dennis Hopper as a misogynistic photographer and brown-eyed Bianca as a streetsmart nightclub impresario and all-round rough customer. The movie's message? "Women don't want to fall in love with the tough hero," says Bianca, "but rather with the child in the man." Got that. Mick?
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SORRY U.S.A., WE STILL LOVE OUR PRINCE announced several placards and banners as Queen Juliana and her disgraced husband, Prince Bernhard of The Netherlands, rode in their 1898 golden coach to the opening of the Dutch Parliament. Just a month earlier Bernhard had ceased all official duties and resigned his post as armed forces Inspector General after a government investigation uncovered "extremely imprudent" links between the prince and the Lockheed Aircraft Corp. Despite the gray civvies that replaced the favorite naval uniform he had relinquished.
Bernhard hardly looked the fallen prince on his return to public life last week. No wonder. As if to ease the pains of humiliation, the Dutch government had voted him a 10% raise, giving Bernhard a princely $321,000 a year in pocket money.
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Her grandfather spent his time in a castle called San Simeon. For Patricia Hearst, 22, the foreseeable future will be spent in a California prison cell. Convicted last March of armed robbery and of using a firearm to commit a felony, Patty came to U.S. district court in San Francisco last week for sentencing. With her counselor Episcopal Priest Edward John Dumke seated behind her, along with Father Randolph Hearst, owner-publisher of the San Francisco Examiner, and Mother Catherine, the 90-lb. heiress stood tight-lipped as Judge William Orrick Jr. sentenced her to seven years, minus 371 days for time already served. "Violence is unacceptable in our society," lectured Orrick, a 1974 Nixon appointee. Though she will be eligible for parole in 16 months, Patty still faces trial in a state court on eleven counts stemming from a shoplifting and shooting incident at a Los Angeles sporting-goods store. If convicted she could be sentenced to life.
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Franklin Roosevelt made his name a catch-phrase joke, but Hamilton Fish is still battling for the last laugh. A flinty New York conservative and 13-term member of the House (1920-45), Fish helped inspire the celebrated 1940 Roosevelt refrain citing Congressmen "Martin, Barton and Fish" as three banes of New Deal legislation. Now a sprightly 87, Fish recently surfaced with a new book lambasting Roosevelt (F.D.R.: The Other Side of the Coin), and he shows no signs of slowing down. Last week the hardy widower announced plans to marry Alice Curtis Desmond, 79, a friend of 40 years. "She's a remarkable woman --highly intelligent," said Fish approvingly. "She's very much in favor of my political views."
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At 16, Cornelia Sharpe stashed her braces and auditioned for the first of her 200 TV commercials. Now 28 and a seasoned cinema bunkmate (appearing with Al Pacino in Serpico, with Michael Sarrazin in The Reincarnation of Peter Proud), the actress has sunk her straightened teeth into a new role. Cast as a neo-Mata Hari in The Next Man, Sharpe sets out to wipe out a Saudi Arabian Minister of State, played by Sean Cannery, 46. Would-be assassin, however, quickly turns amorist. "It's a love story dipped in oil," coos Cornelia, who hints that her days as a femme fatale might be heading for a fadeout. "I don't think I'm very beautiful," she says unconvincingly. "Let's put it this way, honey. For a girl, after 21, it's downhill all the way."
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More than a year after signing Singer-Composer Stevie Wonder to a $13 million contract, the folks at Motown Records were getting nervous. A colossal 60-ft. by 265-ft. billboard in New York's Times Square had been heralding the coming of his new album for three months, but Wonder kept fiddling away at his unfinished work. Last week the wait ended as Stevie, clad in Lone Ranger rig, welcomed critics and reporters to North Brookfield, Mass., for a preview of Songs in the Key of Life. The record just might earn a silver bullet on the charts. Even before public release this week, more than 1 million copies of Songs have been sold.
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When he met Novelist Dashiell Hammett years ago, recalls Jason Robards, the hard-drinking author of The Maltese Falcon was overflowing with praise for his lover and protegee, Lillian Hellman. Now at work on a new film titled Julia, Robards portrays Hammett, opposite Jane Fonda as Playwright Hellman. But it's no love story. Based on a chapter from Hellman's 1973 autobiographical Pentimento, the movie tells the tale of Lillian and the childhood pal (played by Vanessa Redgrave) who pulled her away from writing to help spirit Jews out of Nazi Germany. So far, reports Robards, the collaboration between Activist Fonda, 38, and Trotskyite Redgrave, 39, has been honey-smooth. "They're wonderful girls," he says, "and very good friends."
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