The Anniston Star from Anniston, Alabama • Page 31

3D (Thf Attniatmt Thursday, Jan. 21, 1982 Norman Lear Law firm says bill to censor APT is illegal Small screen giant tackles the big screen "educational and non-political factual programs." The bill has been approved by the House State Administration Committee and awaits further action by the full House and Senate. The letter to Wegener from the law firm of Hogan.fe,& Hartson said: "Virtually all AETC programming undoubtedly contains material that some would consider 'fact' and others would consider MONTGOMERY (AP) -An official of the Alabama Public Television Network says lawyers have advised him that a proposed new law to restrict the network's programs is probably unconstitutional. Edward Wegener, general manager of the network, said a Washington law firm advised him that the bill would violate Federal Communication Commission rules and is "impermissibly vague." "Our Washington attorneys have said this apparently prevents us from carrying out FCC man dates," Wegener said Tues rlav IK "JUI By ALJEAN HARMETZ New York Times Writer HOLLYWOOD Embassy is the smallest of the four movie studios that have been sold during the last 10 months. In that time, Marvin Davis, the Denver oil magnate, paid nearly $800 million for 20th Century-Fox; Metro-Goldjjryn-Mayer bought United Artists for $380 million; Coca-Cola offered $75 a share for Columbia on Monday, and A.

Jerrold Perenchio and Norman Lear purchased Embassy from Avco late last November for $25 million cash on the barrelhead. Although stopping short of saying that they would turn Embassy into an instant major studio, Perenchio and Lear did say they intended to produce 8 to 10 movies a year. "We should do O.K.," Lear said, "if we don't try to outguess the public but just make the things we want to make." What was the lure of owning his own movie studio for the 59year-old Lear, the creator of a whole stable of abrasive, trailblazing television comedy series, including "All in the Family," "Maude" and "Sanford and "NOT UNLIKE the character Steve Martin plays in 'Pennies From Lear said, "I am a child of the 30's and 40's. I love the silver screen and all of the cinema kings and queens. After all those years in television, in which you have very little time to make love to an idea, it will be a joy to make some films on which you can lavish that kind of love and time." In recent years, Avco Embassy has been best known for such horror films as "The Howling," "Scanners" and "The Fog." It had a major critical and commercial success last fall with its distribution of "The Time Bandits." Perenchio said he had not allowed Lear to see Avco Embassy's next two releases, "Seduction" and "Vice Squad," both left over from the previous regime, because he was "too young." A year ago Lear purchased Madeline L'Engle's classic children's fantasy, "A Wrinkle in Time," and he has just hired Robert Bolt, the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of "Dr.

Zhivago" and "A Man for All Seasons," to do the screenplay. The movie, the first announced by Perenchio and Lear since purchasing Embassy, is planned for production in the summer of 1983. PERENCHIO a former talent agent and sports promoter whom Lear calls "a visionary in a business sense" had his own more common-sense reason for purchasing Embassy. Having just sold his 49 percent interest in National Subscription Television, a successful over-the-air pay-television company that owns Los Angeles's ON-TV, for $55 million, he decided that "the technology was exploding too quickly." "I didn't want to guess which technology was going to win direct satellite-to-home, cable, over-the-air pay-television, something else," be said. "I wanted to get out of hardware.

I wanted to be a software company. We'll make the razor blades for any kind of razor." Embassy is the fourth movie company Lear and Perenchio have considered buying into during the last few years. They tried to purchase Fox and buy into Columbia, and backed away from the troubled Filmways. They were searching in particular for a distribution apparatus. One lower bidder for Embassy, Tom Laughlin of "Billy Jack" fame, called the $25 million purchase price too high.

But Perenchio said: "It would have cost us $15 million to put together a distribution network. So we attach a $10 million value to the company's 250-title film library. But who really knows what the library's worth?" UNLIKE Columbia or Fox, Embassy, which has been a money-loser for Avco, does not own soundstages or valuable real estate. The company, which increased to a 5 percent share of domestic movie rentals in 1981, is debt-free, and Perenchio said he planned to bankroll its eight or 10 movies a year through creative financing: "We intend to do off-balance-sheet financing, to bring in partners. We're planning one major tax-shelter deal of $100 million which will include negative cost and the cost of prints and advertising.

There will be no cherry picking. That is, we won't leave out the pictures we have confidence in. Our whole slate will be in the shelter." Lear and the 51-year-old Perenchio met more than 25 years ago, when Lear was represented by the talent agency for which Perenchio worked. "Even then, I told Jerry we should get together," Lear said in a joint meeting in Perenchio's elegant Century City office with its motif of owls and pigs carried out in paint, wire and glass, and its brass sign "Trouble Is Also Opportunity." The bill sponsored by state Rep. Bob Gafford of Birmingham would bar Alabama Educational Television employees from taking part in any program of "political bias or opinion." It says the state's public television network should show only NEW "HAPPY HOUR" NORMAN LEAR, MOVIE PRODUCER Making razor blades for any kind of razor They finally got together in 1973, when Lear asked Perenchio to become president of Tandem, the television-production company that he shared with Bud Yorkin.

Lear and Perenchio then formed TAT Communications, which produces "The Jeffersons," "One Day at a Time" and "The Facts of Life." Through Perenchio's urging, the company also expanded into cable, and owns part of several television stations and ON-TV in Detroit. IN TERMS OF structuring their new organization, the two men have formed a corporate parent, Embassy Holding Company. Embassy Pictures, the movie producing and distribution company, will retain its current president, Frank Capra Jr. TAT will become Embassy Television, and PITS (Pie in the Sky), the syndication arm for Tandem and TAT, will become Embassy Telecommunications. Alan Horn, president of TAT and Tandem, will become chairman of Embassy Holding with Charles Weber, who resigned as president of Lucasfilm last year when that company moved to Northern California, as president and chief executive officer.

Monday-Thursday Friday Saturday Mug of BEER 50( FREE Popcorn pizza 'Boy ITALIAN RESTAURANT 1702 Quintard Ouintard Mall Cliff Robertson not waiting on a 'Brainstorm' Enrtunng Forever Contemporary if By BOB THOMAS Associated Press Writer HOLLYWOOD (AP) Picture of a man in waiting: Cliff Robertson. Along with other members of the "Brainstorm" production team, Robertson's immediate future is on ld while MGM and insurance companies seek a solution the suspended movie. Reports indicate that the film jnipany wants to scrap the project, left unfinished by the drowning of Natalie Wood Nov. 29, and collect $15 million in insurance. The insurers are arguing that "Brainstorm" can be completed despite the loss of Miss Wood.

In Hollywood to film a TV commercial, Robertson admitted he had no inside information on whether "Brainstorm" will continue. "I'm not the best person to ask," the actor said. "All I know is that both Natalie and I had four more days of filming, and I had one minor scene with her. As far as I could see, the major part of the film had been 95 per cent finished. But of course there was a great deal of special effects to film after the principal photography, and that's what Doug Trumbull (the director) is so expert in.

accomplice to a felony." The pressure on him to keep quiet was intense, he said, and it came from the highest powers in the industry. Begelman pleaded no contest to grand theft and was placed on probation. In 1978 he became president of MGM and last October was named chairman and chief operating officer of United Artists, which MGM had acquired. He headed MGM when Robertson was hired for "Brainstorm," but the two never met during production. "I DON'T know whether it was a coicidence," the 56-year-old actor remarked, "but as soon as I was cast in my phone started ringing again." Robertson isn't waiting around for the decision on "Brainstorm." Among his future plans is "Charly II," a return to the character who won him the Oscar for best actor of 1968.

"I've written the script and I'll direct it," he said. "I'll use one scene from the earlier movie and the rest will be played by the same actors, 10 years older. It took me five years to find the money to make the first This will cost five and a half million, and I'm willing to wait until I find it." "DOUG TOLD me he is prepared to finish and is confident that the film can be completed with a little rewriting. But of course the decision is not up to him, and so we all continue to wait." Besides the tragic overtones, "Brainstorm" has an added significance: it was the first Hollywood movie for Cliff Robertson in three and a half years. "I was very grateful for the job," he admitted.

"That was a long three and a half years, a long time for an actor to be off the screen. Before that time I had been averaging one or two pictures a year." While Robertson says he can't ascertain the reason for his career freeze, he notes that it coincided with l'affaire Begelman. That was the industry-shaking scandal in which David Begelman, then president of Columbia Pictures, was disclosed to have stolen $61,000 from the company. The misdeeds began to come to light when Robertson discovered an Income tax form for a sio.ooo check he had never received. It turned out that Begelman had fraudulently endorsed and cashed the check.

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