The Galveston Daily News from Galveston, Texas • Page 5

FRIDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 19,1988 THE GALVESTON DAILY NEWS5-A; Stroke rate declines, but disease still nation's No. 3 killer SAN DIEGO (AP) The death rate from strokes is falling about 6 percent annually, but the disease still will cost Americans nearly $13 billion this year, according to a medical report released Thursday. Despite its declining mortality rate, stroke remains the third- leading cause of death in the United States after heart disease and cancer. A report released by the American Heart Association showed that stroke also continues to be a major financial burden. This year, the association estimates that $9.2 billion will be spent on hospital and nursing home care alone for stroke victims, who often are left paralyzed by their disease.

When doctor and nurse bills, medicine and lost productivity are added, the total annual cost of strokes in 1988 will be an estimated $12.9 billion. In 1985, the last year for which statistics are available, about 500,000 Americans suffered strokes; 152,700 of them died. About a third of all survivors need help caring for themselves. Not all the statistics are bad, however. The decline in the stroke death rate has been picking up speed in recent years.

"The death rate is falling very dramatically," said Dr. Philip A. Wolf of Boston University Medical School. For the past four decades, the death rate from stroke has been dropping at a rate of about 1 percent a year. But since 1973, that decline has averaged 5.7 percent a year.

No one knows precisely why this cause of death is becoming less common. However, the risk of heart attacks also is going down, and many experts believe the same factors are involved in curbing both diseases. "A lot of people think the control of blood pressure, changes in lifestyles, changes in diet, more exercise and more health consciousness are affecting vascular (blood vessel) disease in general, said Dr. Louis R. Caplan of Tufts Medical School in Boston and chairman of the heart association's stroke council.

Wolf, who also is an epidemiologist at the long-running Framingham Heart Study, said that control of blood pressure appears to be the single most important of these factors. Douglas Edwards is retiring Apples for teacher Galveston Chamber of Commerce presented each member of the O'Connell High School faculty with an apple for "Teacher Appreciation Day" during the school's recent observance of Catholic Schools Week. Pictured are (from left, front) Carol Smith, Pat Torrefranca: (second row) Kenneth Voss, principal; Veletta Murphy, Sister Jacinta Slyne, Greta Ayers, Penny Ghinaudo; (third row) Tom Comeaux, Paul Lewis, Pat Teltschik; (fourth row) Victor Messina, Sister Ann Brangan, Keva Hoffman, Galveston chamber; (fifth row) Virginia Eggleston, Rosario Fernandez, Janet Meitzen, (sixth row) Steve Kelly, Carlos Roman and Carol Childs. PEOPLE NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) IS CES GARDE A nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor, says he's been preparing for his role in "Moonstruck" all his life.

"I've absorbed my own Italian heritage, and 1 remember my father, my mother and my grandfather," Gardenia said Wednesday after the Oscar nominations were announced. "1 grew up in an Italian community and still live in one in Brooklyn." Gardenia portrayed Cosmo Castorini, a rich plumber who fenrs growing old and has an extramarital affair in the hope of regaining his youth. "I felt he was very real," Gardenia said of his character. "And 1 thought it was good that we were able to show an Italian man who was not a thief or any other stereotype. Instead, he was just an ordinary man, capable of showing emotion and being sentimental." Gardenia is starring in the Broadway play "I'm Not Rap- paporl" at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center through Sundav.

LOS ANGELES (APi JOAN KIVEKS on Thursday praised a judge's ruling allowing her to proceed with her S50 million lawsuit against Gentlemen's Quarterly, which published an article saying she wished her husband dead. Superior Court Judge Dzjntra Janavs on Wednesday tossed out an emotional distress claim Miss Rivers made in the lawsuit. However, the judge allowed her defamation claim against the magazine and writer BEN STEIN to stand and go to trial. "Thank God Judge Janavs saw the real issue and denied GQ's motion to dismiss my libel suit." Miss Rivers said through her publicist, Richard Grant. The article in GQ's December issue claimed Miss Rivers told a visitor she wished her husband EDGAR ROSENBERG was dead before he committed suicide in August.

Attorneys for Conde Nast Publications, publisher of Gentlemen's Quarterly, denied the defamation allegation as well as the emotional distress claim. NASHVILLE. Tenn. (AP) PuliUcr Prize-winning cartoonist GARRY TKl'DEAU says writing for television is similar to drawing daily comic strips. Trudcau is in Nashville for the filming of "Tanner '88," a two- part show that he wrote for Home Box Office.

"This is much closer to what I do in the strip than if I were writing for a feature film this is anecdotal and episodic, there's less of beginning, middle and end. It's open-ended like the strip." Trudeau said Wednesday on a set of the show, being directed by ROBERT ALTM AN. "Tanner "88" follows the campaign of a Democratic candidate forpresident. "1 was more interested in exploring the process of a modern campaign from a backstage point of view," he said. "The candidate we put together is the one 1 felt most interested in writing for, but I could just as easily have written a character from the right." LOS ANGELES (AP) Director LOUIS MALLE, whose "Au Revoir Les Enfants" received two Oscar nominations, says he drew on his childhood experiences, especially days at a wealthy boarding school in France, to write the movie.

The movie, nominated Wednesday for best foreign film and best original screenplay Academy Awards, isn't altogether autobiographical, however. "Imagination used memory as a springboard: I reinvented the past." Malle said in an interview published Thursday in the Los Angeles Times. "Au Revoir Les Enfants." which means "Goodbye, Children." is about a Jewish boy who, during World War II. is hidden and protected by monks who run a boarding school. The boy is eventually betrayed to the Gestapo by a kitchen helper.

As a schoolboy. Malle befriended a similar Jewish boy, who met the same fate when someone betraved the monks. MARANELLO, Italy (AP) ENZO FERRARI went to work as usual Thursday at the factory that builds the legendary fast cars that bear his name, and then sat down with his workers at lunch to celebrate his 90th birthday. Ferraris have been a fixture of the highly competitive Grand Prix Formula One races since he founded the company in 1946 in this northern Italian town, and the company's exotic sports cars have appeared in movies and TV series and graced rich collectors' garages. NEW YORK (AP) Douglas Edwards, who covered World War II with the legendary Edward R.

Murrow and became the nation's first nightly network TV news anchor in 1948, announced Thursday he is retiring after 46 years with CBS. Edwards' retirement is effective April 1, just two weeks short of the 40th anniversary of the first broadcast of CBS' "Doug Edwards with the News." Fourteen years later Walter Cronkite became the anchor of the "CBS Evening News." Edwards said he was "a little sad, but exhilarated" about retirement. "His name has been synonymous with CBS News since the dawn of television," said CBS News President Howard Stringer. "Doug will be sorely missed, his accomplishments long treasured." "He's been solid and accurate and straightforward and reliable through the years. He has not been flashy, and he has not been sensational, he's been solid," said Mike Wallace, who worked with Edwards in radio years before the two met again at CBS.

"Doug Edwards has been a friend and a mentor since before I joined CBS News," said Dan Rather, only the third CBS news anchor in the history of the broadcast. "He's a giant in our craft, and all of us in television and radio news are indebted to him." Edwards, 70, still does the network newsbreaks and a weekly show, "For Our Times," as weU as regular radio broadcasts. "I've had a daily TV news AP Laserphoto Edwards report without a break since April 15, 1948, which is a record, almost 40 years now," Edwards said in an "interview. He laughed and added, "That and a dollar will get you a ride on the subway." Edwards already had 10 years of broadcast experience when he joined CBS Radio in 1942 at age 25. He later joined Murrow's staff in London covering World War and after the war, became Paris- bureau chief.

An interview on the local New York CBS station about his coverage of the Middle East impressed CBS executives. "They seemed to like the way I conducted myself in front of the camera, and they asked me afterwards if I'd like to do some television news," Edwards said. He started by doing the Thursday and Saturday news shows. His participation with Murrow and Quincy Howe in CBS' acclaimed radio coverage of the 1948 presidential conventions led then-CBS President Frank Stanton to tap Edwards for the nightly TV anchor job. "We did very well, the three of us on those conventions," Edwards recalled.

"Afterward, CBS asked me to go into television, and I did it with some fear and trepidation and trembling, not because I was nervous about being on television, I had done quite a bit of it, but radio was the power, and I was pretty young at the Permanent Lile "Term Lite and group plans. Call- HiNITFRfUDiNIUIC INS. AGENCY, INC. Hi 70-7111 Golvejton Independent School Dutrict REMINDER TO GISD Tuesday, February 23, is an early dismissal day for students. Students in grades Kindergarten Two will dismiss at 1:15 p.m.

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