Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 26

REPUBLIC EJHAL The Arizona Republic aturday, May 24, 1986 Lake Wobegon comes to Washington Garrison Keillor addresses the National Press Club, and he says his stories "start with the truth, like most of what people in this room write." GlS. Calendar Cinemafare Bridge Television G14 G14 G16 G17 G13 Short takes WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY Gallagher (8 p.m., Symphony Hall) The comic also performs Sunday. Great American Street Fare (noon to midnight Phoenix Civic Plaza) More than 30 food booths street dancing, rides, crafts and entertainment. Part of the proceeds go to Arizona Opera Company Same hours Sunday; noon to 7 p.m. Monday.

CHATTER Actor-seaman Sterling Hay den dies of cancer United Press International SAUSALITO, Calif. Actor Sterling Hayden, whose passion for the sea, his family and writing contradicted the roles he portrayed in films such as Dr. Strangelove and The Godfather, died quietly at his home Friday of cancer. He was 70. "It was a quiet passing," said his son-in-law, George Ruckert.

"He more or less went in his sleep. He's been ill with cancer for several years, and he's been bedridden since Christmas." An actor who hated movie-making, Hayden was a man of contradictions. Off screen, he was a cloak-and-dagger World War II hero who became a pacifist and a scion of wealth who seemed happiest as a sailor. On screen, he played uncomplicated men of silent strength in most of his 37 films. Hayden had box-office appeal, although critics called his acting wooden.

On the other hand, his two books, HANDS ACROSS THE POOL Not all the Hands Across America fund raising is linked to Sunday's cross-country lineup. A poolside fund-raising cock tail party begins at 6:30 p.m. today at Sedona's Poco Diablo resort, with singers Robert Goulet, Dorothy and Christine McGuire and singer-composer Ray Parker Jr. (he wrote and sang the Ghostbusters theme) scheduled to attend. Admission is $15.

At 6:45 p.m. today at Arcosanti, gospel singer Thelma Houston (mother of Whitney) will perform with the George Hamilton Trio; Quintessence, a classical quintet from the Valley; folk singer Ekim Beau; and jazz performers Matt Cartsknis and Friends. The $8.50 tab covers dinner, the perfor mance and overnight-camping charges. Arcosanti is 60 miles north of Phoenix, off Interstate 17 at Cordes Junction. 4 Kz ml.

"isy CELEBRITY HANDHOLDING Arizona won't be celebrity heaven at noon Sunday during Wanderer in 1963, and Voyage: A Novel of 1896 written in 1976, received critical praise but were not best sellers. "He was bigger than life, so I can't believe he's dead," said Herb Caen, ''i A I 1 tftl i the Hands Across America linkup, but gawkers at the rich andor famous will have a few Charles Krejcsi Republic opportunities. Ed Begley Jr Elvis entrepreneur Jimmy Velvet oversees his traveling museum. columnist for the Hayden (St Elsewhere) and Thelma Houston will be with the KOOL radio group near Sunset Point on 1-17. Parker and Begley Herve Villechaize Fantasy Is land) will be in the American Express group near mile marker 364 on 1-40 three miles east of Holbrook.

Joining them will be Gov. Bruce Babbitt. Fans pay homage to Elvis clothes, cars, kitsch Singer Marilyn McCoo and Erma Bombeck will be with the KTVK-TV group on 1-17 between Deer Valley Road and union Hills Drive. Goulet will be in Tonopah, near the westernmost end of the Arizona line. Matt Southart, formerly of the rock group Kansas, will be in Winslow on 1-40.

Peter Reckell, who plays Bo on the soap opera Days of Our Lives, will be in the KLFF radio group on 1-10 at 99th Avenue. Smokey the Bear and Ladmo will be on 1-17 at Pioneer Road, and Phoenix Mayor Terry Goddard and Glendale Mayor George Renner will be at 51st Avenue and Indian School. Although participants are not required to register San Francisco Chronicle and long-time friend. "He's a big man in every way, tall and strong. He did a lot of writing.

He was a radical to the end, an angry man. In earlier years Hayden was a tant former Communist who said despised himself for cooperating with congressional investigators in the 1950s. He once said he spent a lifetime selling out. "I always hated acting but I kept on acting a commuter on a tinsel train." Hayden appeared in such films as The Asphalt Jungle, The Godfather and Dr. Strangelove, in which he played Gen.

Jack D. Ripper, whose worry about polluting his bodily fluids leads nuclear war. His first film was Virginia, made in 1940. His last film was a minor role in Venom, made in 1982. Hayden led a fiercely unconventional personal life that often overshadowed his Hollywood career.

A former ship captain who was an instant success at the box office when he began appearing in movies in 1940, he quit after two films because he was "restless" to return to the sea. He became a star twice more, and aban- his career both times to roam the oceans on a sailboat. At the outbreak of World War II, -using his real name (John Hamilton), he joined the Marine Corps. As a lieutenants he volunteered for the Office of Special Services, the spy-and -guerrilla unit that was the ancestor of the CIA. Assigned to run guns and supplies to Hayden, G16 and may join the line at any point, it not fair to play but not pay the requested $10 or more to help the hungry and homeless.

You can register until noon Sunday by calling 990-1999. Participants contribute at least $10 each. The line enters Arizona and he gave him a $50,000 ring off his finger. "One look into a person's face was all it took. He liked to give." Since Presley died, Velvet has been tracking down some of the things the King gave.

So far, he has 13 automobiles and about 1,200 other items. The Chris-Town exhibit shows off 101 of them. They are locked inside glass cases to which only Velvet has a key. In fact, Velvet is the only person with keys to the in his other museums. That means he has to hop on a plane at a moment's notice when anything goes wrong at any of them even for something as simple as a tipped-over photograph.

He says it has been this way since he found out an employee had loaned one of Elvis' limos to a friend who wanted a classy set of wheels in which to deliver pizzas. The limo he brought to Phoenix is not the pizza limo. It is a '66 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III that was owned first by actor Michael Landon, then by Presley, singer Charlie Rich, a Memphis doctor and singer Charley McClain. He displays photocopies of the registrations under the different names. Elvis, GW By HOLLY D.

REMY Arizona Republic Staff The reverent file quietly past the solar-powered Elvis Presley mugs that play My Way while a beverage is going down the hatch and past the Love Me Tender brand moisturizing shampoo, creme rinse, milk bath and lotion. Some are buying the souvenirs, but most have come to Chris-Town only to look. Their goal is near the main entrance to the mall, where the Jimmy Velvet Museum has set up 20 display cases of jewelry, jump suits and other items that are worth gold because "the King" touched them. The free exhibit closes at 5 p.m. Sunday.

Until then, long lines of people are expected. "People stand in line for hours, and they don't seem to mind," says Jimmy Velvet, who came to Phoenix with the show. He is the man behind this and two other road shows, plus permanent displays in Honolulu; Orlando, and the original, in the mecca of Elvis fans Memphis, Tenn. Velvet, who says he also made records in the early '60s, began planning the first museum shortly after Presley died in 1977. He had a Mercedes limousine and 22 other items that had belonged to the King of Rock Roll.

He decided to collect a little more, then open a museum near Graceland, Presley's estate. His interest is more than a fan's worship of an idol. He is not quite like the people who dream beneath Elvis bedspreads. Velvet says he and Presley were cousins of the kissin' variety. He says he met the star in 1955 after a concert in Jacksonville, Fla.

"He performed there again in 1956, and I saw him then. The security guards were throwing everyone out from backstage. Elvis saw me, and he shouted to the guards, 'No! That's my "There was a story about it in the paper, and from then on, people thought we were cousins. I'm not his cousin, but we were as close as cousis." They were close enough, Velvet says, that Presley gave him a 1969 Mercedes limousine. "Elvis gave everything away.

He gave away more than 300 cars, and he gave away 28 houses in Memphis. "In Mobile, one time a guy waited in line six days to get into an Elvis concert. His picture was in the paper, and Elvis read about it. During the concert, he called the man's name, from the west on 1-10, jogs north on 59th Avenue in Phoenix to Indian School Road, runs east on Indian School to 1-17, north on 1-17 to Flagstaff and east on 1-40 to New Mexico. SHORT SORTIES MARTIN GABEL, a Tony iff Award-winning stage actor for Big Fish, Little Fish who also appeared in such movies as Divorce American Style and Mamie, has died at age 73.

His wife, the actress and television personality Arlene Francis, was with him when he died Tuesday after a heart attack in their New York aDartment. 1 BROOKE SHIELDS has in- vited 200 of her closest friends to celebrate her 21st birthday at a party Thursday at Nishi restaurant in New York. The cocktails-buffet dinner-and-dancing 'Cobra' strikes viewer with action, not story affair will have music by a 14-piece, all-woman band. JOHNNY PAYCHECK has been released from jail in Ohio under $50,000 bond made by country Movies Review entertainers George Jones and Merle Haggard, a spokesman said Friday. The singer left for Dallas, where he was to perform Friday night.

Paycheck, 47, was convicted last Friday in Hillsboro, Ohio, of wounding a man in a barroom dispute. He was sentenced to 9 Vi years in state prison. OUR DALY QUOTE "Spiders copulating." Feminist Germaine Greer on what she thinks of when she thinks of Joan Rivers. Republic StaffWire Services By MARSHA McCREADIE Arizona Republic Staff Sylvester Stallone can't use the Twin-kies Defense for Cobra. As a self-proclaimed health-food enthusiast in the movie, his predilection for violence must have causes other than junk food.

In fact, he doesn't offer any defense for his actions. Cobra (short for Detective Marion Cobretti) hates courts. "Ask the judge," he replies testily to the question of why criminals are released onto the street. Much of the textless text of Cobra is an indictment of American Civil Liberties Union values. Not much is said in the movie.

Cobra prefers chewing a matchstick to verbal exchanges. He'd rather just blow away the lowlifes he hates so much. Apparently, the audience would prefer it too; excitement seems to run highest in the theater when Cobra loads up his pistols, stacks up his bombs and sharpens his knife. In a crime-filled version of Los Angeles at Christmastime, Cobra is a detective called in when street crime and crazies get out of hand. This appears to happen all the time in the tattoo parlors and supermarkets of southern California.

(The movie gets a little confusing when Stallone as Cobra wants to go "upstate" in the second half of the film, and autumn leaves seem to be tumbling down.) Everything is grim and grimy in the angularly shot nighttime scenes, as if a cartoonist took over the cameras of a German expressionist film maker after seeing a lot of 7ms noir. Even more stark is the moral landscape, which, of course, is exactly what ym need if the idea is to get so justifiably mad that you COBRA A Warner Bros. Cannon Group release directed by George P. Cosmatos, screenplay by Sylvester Stallone from the novel Fair Game by Paula Gosling, photography by Ric Waite. Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Brigitte Nielsen, Reni Santoni.

Rated R. just can't take it anymore. It's nothing personal, you see. Thus, the vigilante slant leans more toward Clint Eastwood and away from Charles Bronson. The secret army of Nazilike nasties are just plain, unregenerate evil.

The army springs an occasional subhuman killer into the streets of a city that has been plagued by a series of violent crimes against women. Most of the police force has been fooled into thinking the slasher techniques point to one ritual killer. Cobra knows better. There's no time for things to heat up (Stallone as screenwriter has dispensed with exposition). But romantic interest is added when a model, played by Stallone's real-life wife, Brigitte Nielsen, witnesses one of the murders.

There's a really silly high-tech montage of Nielsen doing modeling poses, then we get right down to basics: the killers hunting her down. ill 1 if A Ili flfty sMji. WW, if wft AP ack Binion, left, owner of Binion's Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas, turns over $570,000 to Berry Johnston, 50, of Oklahoma City, winner of the 17th annual World Series of Poker, and his wife, JoAnn, on Thursday. Johnston outlasted 40 other players for four days of play. An Cobra is her personal protector, along ace-10 combination took the last hand.

4 'Cobra, 'GIG Sylvester StalloneWots it up in Cobra.