The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 442

TV TIMES BY CECIL SMITH Kirk Douglas gets his wish to do a musical with Jekyll and Hyde' They say every clown wants to play Hamlet; by the same token, every Hamlet wants to be a song-and-dance man. Kirk Douglas is no exception. Through 30 years of dramatic parts on stage and screen in which he has played everything from Van Gogh to Spartacus, Kirk has concealed a secret hankering to do a Fred Astaire. He's finally made it (though hardly in an Astaire part) in the TV musical wrought from Robert Louis Stevenson's masterpiece of the good and evil in every man, "Dr. Jekyll and Mr.

Hyde," produced as a 90-minute special by David Winters and Burt Rosen for airing on NBC Wednesday night (Channel 4 at "For some reason," Kirk was saying the other day, "I have never been able to convey the image of Mr. Good Guy. When they see me as Dr. Jekyll, people will say: 'Now he's But when I come on as Mr. Hyde, they'll say: 'There's the real Kirk "It's a part any actor finds intriguing," he said.

"The easy way to do it is get into the makeup room and create a monster. I think that's a violation of the Stevenson story, which says Hyde is the monster who dwells within each of us. I twisted my face and body into a monster without makeup, only adding "When I say I've always wanted to do a musical, this goes back to Broadway when I was doing 'Kiss and Tell' for George Abbott (as Richard Wid-mark's replacement). Abbott decided I should do a musical for him and put me to work with a vocal coach. The more we worked, the more scared I got.

I wound up with the worst case of laryngitis in history it lasted 30 days and lost the part. "Years later in pictures, the late Harry Cohn, boss of Columbia Studios, cast me as 'Pal Joey. That was for me. Joey was supposed to sing lousy he was a cheap, bum entertainer. I was working on the part when Cohn changed his mind and cast Frank Sinatra as Joey Sinatra, who couldn't sing bad if it killed him." Last year, Kirk "was persuaded" to do a song-and-dance bit with Tom Jones in another Winters-Rosen project: "The Special London Bridge Special." It worked out so well that when they talked to him about "Jekyll and Hyde," he agreed and flew off to Yugoslavia to make the movie "Scalawag," figuring it would be a couple of years before such a major project was accomplished.

By the time he finished "Scalawag," which he also directed and his wife Anne produced, "Jekyll and Hyde" was ready. It is certainly a handsomely mounted production with Sir Michael Redgrave, Susan Hampshire, Susan George, Donald Pleasence and Stanley Holloway in the cast. The film, directed by David Winters, will be distributed in theaters abroad. And the more he thinks about it, Kirk admits it's not his first singing part he made his' Broadway debut in 1941 in "Spring Again" (which starred Gladys George and C. Aubrey Smith), as a messenger boy delivering a singing telegram, and he sang a sea chantey in the Disney movie, "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." Susan Hampshire, Kirk Douglas star in "Dr.

Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" Wednesday, NBC. a couple of things, like a contact lens to give Hyde a cloudy eye Kirk did the transformation as he talked, the pliant face with the skin tightly stretched across the bones twisting into something grotesque and hideous, a gargoyle. It was astonishing to see. The idea of "Jekyll and Hyde" as a musical would have been laughable a few years ago but since Lionel Bart turned "Oliver Twist" into that marvelous musical "Oliver!" anything goes.

Bart was involved in "Jekyll and Hyde," but to a less extent than was hoped. The "Jekyll and Hyde" book is by Samuel Yellen, who wrote the Broadway hit "The Rothschilds," and most of the songs are by Mel Mandell and Norman Sachs. Douglas said Yellen did such a remarkable script from the Stevenson novel that the head of a major studio wanted to turn it into a feature film sans music. "I didn't want that," said Kirk. "I've been looking for a long time for something to do for television, something very special and unusual.

I've been offered TV movies, some of them very interesting, but the way I look at it I'm on television all the time in movies if it isn't 'The it's 'A Gun-fight' or 'Cast a Giant Shadow' or 'The War Wagon' or 'Seven Days in or even 'Spartacus' or I have such enormous respect for this medium that if I did something for television I wanted it to be unique and special, unlike anything I've ever done. 'DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE' An original musical version of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic. Book by Sherman Yellen.

Music and lyrics by Mel Mandell and Norman Sachs and by Lionel Bart. Producer Burt Rosen. Director David Winters. To be presented Wednesday on NBC (Channel 4 at 9:30 p.m.). THE CAST Dr.

JekyllMr. Hyde Kirk Douglas Gen. Danvers Michael Redgrave Isabel Susan Hampshire Annie Susan George Smudge Donald Pleasance Poole Stanley Holloway ON THE COVER: The transformation of Kirk Douglas from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde is captured in pictures takes by tke actor's sob, photographer peter Douglas.

TWO LOS ANGELES TIMES.