Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 17

INSIDE: DIE Yfld Turn the page to catch a 7i ni SECTION Li WUkik ENT, Page 3 Television, Pages 3-4 Feature Page, Page 5 Call The Way We Live: 1-313-222-6610 peregrine iaicuns. Tuesday, Jan. 17, 1995 Detroit Sktt )ws0 2 13 1 R1 7 rii MAY ruin' 'ivmj S- I ffsi Susan SS ACER a Everyone has joined the secret society reveal that I have not already confessed. siqeswiping a parked car when 1 was 20, then driving away in terror. I've described how much I like to be naked in the summer in the privacy of my own yard.

Neither confession provoked much "The Scene" dance TV show told Detroiters to "Start Dancing!" in 1975, and they kept it up for 12 years. Now, episodes of the WGPR show have been repackaged and can be seen on Barden Cablevision. In the 1976 photo below, Lutisha Williams, then 17, did her stuff for the camera. reaction, ana now i airaia i ve utue ClOC LU UIIVCU, 1 -1 I'1J1 dislodged no repressed memories. uaieraperi weniaiongtogeiaionga time or two, but I wouldn't call it rape.

'I Cocaine use as a young professional? 1 Photos by X)HN COLUEROetrolt Free Press Unlike Oprah Winfrey, who revealed on her show last week that she smoked prack 20 years ago, the most I can confess is now and again drinking too much. I smoked pot a half-dozen times, but I already revealed that to neither applause nor 'i II71i. i i Back inTime Stepping wnai secrei siaraes anymore, in a culture sodden with secrets shared as casually as the time oi dayr High and mighty 'The Scene' returns to TV and the fans are dancing My heart did skip a beat as I first spotted the story on the AP wire called OPRAH-DRUGS. I guessed: Uh oh. The Kjyi mi vuacaaiuu win nuw ut: uamcu revelations she's deep into cocaine.

Instead, the story told me, she revealed a dried-out sin two decades old, one we can easily forgive. By Marian Dozier Free Press Staff Writer ven now, some 20 years later, Tate Devon can tell you which dancers on "The Scene" Detroit's locally produced, first-ever black dance show "got the most camera," who invented which dances, exactly when the show Cynics accused her of playing for ratings. You have to wonder. Am I jaded? It's hard to keep track of which celebrities are open about their abortions, and which are not. Which were abused as children, and which have not yet remembered abuse.

Is it too late them, revealing secrets, to win any 'publicity juice? In the past few years, celebrities' lives have split open at the seams, forcing the rest of us to contend with the contents of their characters. We've learned about: Sex with a Thus was born "The Scene Back in the Day," which began airing last month at 10 p.m. on Wednesdays and Thursdays and 9 p.m. on Fridays on cable access' Channel 60. Morris, now an independent producer, hopes to do a reunion special.

He held a kickoff party recently at a Southfield skating rink, and invited veterans of the show's 12-year run from 1975 to 1987. About a dozen former dancers showed up good enough for Morris and he plans another for March. While the original tapes of the show are a study in low-budget production, the repackaged versions require some patience. They run in no particular chronological order and hopscotch from new music videos to old dance clips and even older star performances. But never mind all that.

"The Scene Back in the Day" is a reminder of the heyday of this generation of Detroiters. Love it or hate it, "The Scene" was a Detroit institution. A new day "The Scene" arrived during a heady time in 1975. Coleman Young had recently swept into office, carrying with him promises of self-determination and a better destiny for a weary black populace. WGPR-TV had just come on air as the nation's first black-owned See SCENE, Page 2C mr fnpnrl arinnrpri rianohtAr I Wnnriv Allen), raoe of a beautv aueen (Mike moved from once a week to three shows weekly.

He easily ticks off the names of most of the regulars. He saw. one of them Yvonne Gooden once, a few years ago, in a fast food restaurant on Woodward, but was in such awe he couldn't say a word. He saw another on the bus a while back, and got her autograph. Such devotion to TV personalities is notunusual, except that these stars were teens or young adults who might have lived around the corner.

Devon, now 39, said that doesn't matter. "The dancers, you'd see them do things you wished you could do. They were the hottest dancers, the most creative," he said. "I was always in front of the TV set, from '75 on. If it was coming on and I wasn't home, I was on my way there." And now, "The Scene" is back.

It has been seven years since it went off WGPR-TV (Channel 62), and one of the original hosts, Nat Morris, decided last year to empty his 300-episode vault and broadcast a "repackaged" version of the original show on leased Barden Cablevision airtime. Tyson), the alleged murder of an ex-wife (0 alleged shenanigans with children i (Michael Jackson), admitted shenanigans with adults (Jim Bakker, Jerry Falwell, Chuck Robb), alleged episodes with floozy women (President Clinton), sexual abuse as a child (Roseanne) and Oprah's own incest ll No wonder we're weary. And dare I say it? bored. Secret sharers 't The old secrets, over-confessed, are withering for lack of interest. No new jOnes are emerging to stir us.

i Public confessions have lost their draw. So many secrets from so many sources, shared on TV with a couple of million confidants, make us feel not flattered but sticky. Not trusted but Treasures of famed Detroit couple go on the block by Judy Rose Free Press Homes Editor eorge and Florine Trumbull were among the golden children of Detroit's auto age. Born just after 1900 with ties to the Fisher Body family they were early owners of General Motors i 1 1 The Trumbulls were well-known for their philanthropy. At Beaumont Hospital they donated a vision research center; at Meadow Brook Music Festival they donated the Trumbull Terrace.

They endowed scholarships at Oakland University. George Trumbull died in 1975, but Florine Trumbull just died in October, healthy almost to the end. When she turned 90 last February, she threw a party for 25 at the Lark restaurant. Nancy Boos remembers her wearing a black-and-white Chanel suit still a trim size 4 set off by a dazzling collection of rubies-and diamonds. "She looked smashing," says Nancy Boos.

"She really did it up brown for that event. People just loved being with her because she was just so witty and with it." This Friday and Saturday, the furniture, see Trumbulls, Page 2C Privately, a shared secret brings two 'people closer, warming them in the glow lof intimacy and trust. It's a rare and i special thing to find someone to whom you can tell all your secrets, and who will still say nice things in your eulogy, But I'm more chscriminating than I 'used to be. I share less. I ask less.

I want 'less, especially from strangers and celebrities who are not my friends. I've encountered a few people about whom I want to know more. About too many I already know too much. Susan Ager's column appears fuesday, Thursday and Sunday in the Free Press. To leave a message for her, "call 1-313-222-6862 anytime.

74722.723compuserve.com. stock, which made them very rich. By all accounts, the Couple enjoyed their life "friendly, open, jovial, fun-loving" are words used by a family friend, the auctioneer Frank Boos, into whose hands the family has entrusted the auction of the Tmmbulls' treasures this weekena. Typical of the Trumbiills, says Boos, was George Trumbull's little 1959 Fiat, outfitted with a surrey-like canvas top, in which he used to run guests and his grandchildren around the estate. Driving the little car across the lawn, he'd save them the 400-foot walk from the patio to the pool.

This necklace of rubies and diamonds will be among the items auctioned. An 1811-12 epergne is estimated to sell for $10,000 to $15,000. GUINDON Bottom figures from an exhibition I'D HfiDA FEW TOOMANY HE DIALED 191. 1 WOKE UP rlcHarO I WENT TO BED WHICH MEANT I DIDN'T SHIP Al 1 IIS I if I A Ir-Tl I SW r. AND FELL ASLEEP ON THE TO A VOICE oAYINo OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

"IF YOU ill ivvm mm nr chucj a COUCH. AND MY KID 6CT WORRIED WHEN HE MY HERO. ho says the arts are a drain on taxpayers? Remember last winter's great exhibition "The Age of Rubens" at the Toledo Musetim WANT TO MAKE A CALL, un wain. COULDNT MKE ME. HIAOL flANO UK museum.

Not a bad influx of fresh cash. Who are the visitors? Two out of three were women. More than 80 percent were 35 years or older. Most were highly educated. The best part: All those people got the chance td see great baroque paintings by masters like Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck.

And the museum made money. The exhibit cost $2.2 million. The TMA, which undertook the show without any major corporate sponsors, ended up with a profit of $765,000. By Marsha Miro of Arts? Well, the figures are in and not only was it an attendance record-breaker, but a huge money-maker. The exhibit brought in over $22.8 million to the metropolitan Toledo economy.

Of the 234,030 visitors, 35 percent went from Michigan. The typical out-of-towner spent $36.31, of which $20.15 was at Toledo businesses, the remainder at the museum, Visitors spent nearly $2 million at restaurants outside the.