St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 241

People ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1987 5W-1 Place Where mstem Beatings In Pregnancy sr -rrm I lit I .1 U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop has recognized this issue as a "public health problem that is too frequently overlooked or ignored by even the best-trained health care professional." Koop has characterized the issue as a serious challenge to health care professionals "first to provide for the woman's own health needs, and second, to do whatever we can to protect her unborn infant from further harm." The March of Dimes has initiated an education program to help health care practitioners recognize signs of abuse among their pregnant patients. Repeatedly missed appointments, vague medical complaints and visible injuries such as black eyes or bruises are some the signs.

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (UPI) ONE FREQUENTLY overlooked health problem in this country, the battering of pregnant women, is coming to the attention of health professionals and health care policy makers. One study funded by the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation shows that one in 12 pregnant women receiving routine prenatal care in Houston-area clinics was beaten. The specific effects of the physical abuse of pregnant women on the unborn child have not been documented, but battered pregnant women are more likely to have miscarriages and babies with low birthrates, according to a spokesman for the March of Dimes. Women Buying By the Associated Press RECENT market research indicates women have passed men in the purchase of many consumer electronic items.

Women buy more sophisticated I i Electric Items I .11. t-t (5 c- telephones, televisions and typewriters than ever before, according to GTE Consumer Communications Products Corp. In 1986, women purchased 55 percent of all telephones, a 20 percent increase since 1983. Al Lewis, TV's Vampire And The Face On A Village Window A VAMPIRE FACE is painted on the windows of Grampa's Bella Gente Pasta Pizza Restaurant, a storefront operation at 252 Bleecker Street in New York City's Greenwich Village. It's the face that Al Lewis wore for his role as Grampa Munster on 1960s television's "The Munsters." Lewis, 77, owns the restaurant.

He seats and chats with its patrons six nights a week. "We use the best ingredients possible the freshest and we have the best chefs. I don't have cooks, I have chefs," says Lewis, a self-described "meticulous eater" "pretty much 90 to 95 percent 1 vegetarian the last 40 to 45 years." "People love Grampa. All ages. All ethnic groups.

Since opening in May, the clientele has ranged from "8-year-olds who drag their parents in who want to meet me, to grandparents who say, 'My grandchildren love your Other visitors have included former "Munsters" co-stars Fred Gwynne (Herman Munster) and Beverly Owen (niece Marilyn), actor Ben Gazzara, singer Donna Summer, "Batman" star Adam West, newsman Dan Rather, members of Manhattan Transfer and, Lewis adds, "that dopey guy on Letterman" Larry Gwynne, now the voice-over announcer on Hardee's commercials, is "the closest of friends," Lewis says, but "he won't stand still for 10 seconds to talk about 'The "He now considers himself an actor. In 'The he was a cartoon character, and this is beneath him. He would like to erase the fact that he played Herman." Lewis says he's never seen any of his series not even "The Munsters" or "Car 54, Where Are You?" The Nickelodeon cable channel is I broadcasting "Car "The i Munsters," in syndication since 1966, I is shown in 44 countries "Not 1 cities, states, counties or townships. Forty-four countries," Lewis says, and "Munsters" fans from 30 countries have visited the restaurant for example, a photographer who watched the show for years in Czechoslovakia. "There are a few countries I haven't met people from Burundi, Afghanistan "The most common thing I hear all over the U.S.

is 'Mr. Lewis, I want to thank you for all the hours of OPEN FOR BUSINESS! houses and Broadway plays. Lewis has appeared in stage productions such as "Do Re Me," with Phil Silvers and Nancy Walker, and Lewis' favorite the 1956 production of Eugene O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh," with Jason Robards; and in films including "Used Cars" and "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" More recently, he played an coin expert on the soap opera "Search for Tomorrow" "played him for four months, then he finally got killed," Lewis says. Chomping a cigar and puffing out a cloud of smoke, he muses, "You start off getting well-known. Then you become famous.

Then you become a cult figure. I think now I'm an icon." Lewis predicts that pasta restaurants will be "the next gigantic national franchise." He hopes to open two more Grampa's Bella Gente (Beautiful People) restaurants in Manhattan and, by 1991, to expand into Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago and sell a commercial line of pasta products. "That's not bad in four years," Lewis says. "I've got to make it to 81, though." Frank DeCaro of Knight-Ridder Newspapers provided information for this story. They have eight million dopey questions.

9 DURING RECONSTRUCTION To compensate for the inconvenience' 30-50 OFF Everything in our store! Large selection of Briefcases, Attaches, Portfolios, etc. LEFT: Al Lewis (right) welcomes Butch Patrick, a castmate on "The Munsters," to Lewis' new restaurant. ABOVE: Actor Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster. BELOW: Gwynne in last summer's "Jake's M.O." Tropic if 14 0W ex 0 Handbag Factory" ALWAYS AT GREAT SAVINGS TOWN COUNTRY COMMONS formerly Loihin.inn's Plaz.i Vi Mi. South On'Hwy.

4C On oodsmill RJ. 391-8883 Hours: M-F 1C-9 Sat. 10-6 Sun. 12-5 -it-1 -VSr- -S You become famous. Then you become a cult figure.

I think now I'm an icon. Al Lewis 9 enjoyment you've given me and my If I haven't heard that 10,000 times, I haven't heard that once." Lewis also performs on the college circuit. "I entertain them, and then they have eight million dopey questions. I answer some of them, and that's the end of the act." Several years ago, he was the opening act for Eddie and the Monsters, the rock 'n' roll band of Butch Patrick, the "Munster" grandson who sometimes joins Lewis for lunch. "Butch was a great kid on the set.

He was a normal kid. We had great fun throwing a baseball around in costume and makeup." The unmarried Lewis, grandfather to a 7-month-old, has three sons Ed and Paul, students at the University of New Mexico, and David, an engineer in California and a girlfriend, "an actress 40 years my junior." He says that he ran away from home in upstate New York to join a circus and become "one of the few Neanderthals left" a performer in carnivals, medicine shows, burlesque 11,1 Shop's Annual 1 Save 15 to 50 during our annual, storewide rattan and wicker furniture safe! Right now is your opportunity to save up to 50 of some of the most imaginative, creative and quality Enjoy a truly fun shopping (or browsing) trip to one of the most unique stores in St. Louis and save 1 5 to 50 storewide on rattan and wickerl MX rattan and wicker furniture to be found anywhere in the entire Midwest. i (Liberals) have a lot of residual guilt. When the black woman comes to clean up their house, they talk to her.

Mort Sahl From page one "I started all of that" 1953's "Mort Sahl Iconoclast." Back then, Sahl would joke about President Dwight D. Eisenhower: "We need a man on a white horse. Well, we got the horse, but there's nobody on him." Those were lonely years for liberals, he recalls, but "sometimes your handicaps turn out to be your greatest assets. The Democrats didn't have anyone speaking for them. They still don't." By 1960, Sahl was earning more than $300,000 yearly, with night clubs, television and roles in films such as "All the Young Men" and "In Love and War." Current Biography was describing his act: "When Sahl appears at night clubs, wearing his uniform of slacks, sweater and shirt open at the collar and carrying a rolled-up newspaper, he disparages everything with a nihilistic impartiality." Variety was saying, "There is no subject that's safe from the Sahl scrutiny President Eisenhower, Queen Elizabeth, veepee Nixon, Lewis Straus, Governor Rockefeller and he makes mince meat of them all.

It's irreverent, but it's not irresponsible, and the 40 minutes he's on doesn't seem long enough to cover what's on everybody's mind." Sahl helped raise money for presidential candidate John F. Kennedy, then made Kennedy the butt of jokes after inauguration. Sahl's bookings dwindled to insignificance after Kennedy's assassination. So, Sahl wrote for the screen, mostly behind the scenes, he says. For instance, five years ago, he wrote a script about a colonel who builds a secret government within the White House.

"Sound familiar?" Sahl asks. "My friends, who are liberals, were too scared. None of this stuff surprises me." -b In I960, Mort Sahl and Adlai E. Stevenson appeared on a Broadway stage to raise funds for Democrats: Sahl: "The Republicans say Senator Kennedy is an immature 43, where in only 13 years Nixon will be 60." Stevenson: "I'm going to talk about the Republicans, and it's not a very demanding subject You don't have much of a problem keeping up with them, as they stay in the same place. As you all know from the circus parades, the elephant proceeds best by grasping the tail of the predecessor." Sahl: "The news of President Eisenhower campaigning depressed me.

After a clear record of eight years I hate to see him involved in politics." Stevenson: "I don't think anyone has shown so many different faces (as Nixon) to the American people since the death of the late, lamented Lon Chaney." In 1974, Sahl raised funds for Democratic congressional candidates, predicting that Richard Nixon would resign "and become a tax consultant" This year, he helped former Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. launch his Republican presidential campaign. Sahl classifies himself as a "populist" He equates liberals with the Sunday New York Times, croissants and guilt asserting that "most real liberals are social democrats, which is how the Nazis started in 1932. They're holding wine-and-cheese parties to protest there aren't enough black anchormen or Puerto Ricans as if that's the answer." America's liberals "have a lot of residual guilt When the black woman comes to clean up their house, they talk to her," he quips.

"As a group, they're apolitical "They destroyed dissent spouting mealy-mouth stuff about feminists or why horses dont have rights." In another era. he notes, "nobody had to tell somebody to hire Charlie Parker because he was black." But "egalitarianism led us into trap," he says. "You get people without specific qualifications." Sahl chides Bill Colby's top-rated television show es 0 "Cosby the 'Cosby and Harriet It's 1944 TV. People say. 'Gee, it's good to see (blacks) are just like Sahl bristles: "The idea of this country is individuality.

"The '80s aren't the '50s. "Then there were writers like (Jack) Kerouac. There's nothing like that now. They are all consumer-oriented, interested in MTV and renting videos. "That generation had some rebellion.

"You've got to realize there will always be problems. It's what you do to rise up and fight them," Sahl says. "I'm relatively optimistic. "I'm an American kid. I believed it when they told me that no matter how weird my views, there would be room for them.

And there was. That's all I am. An American kid." He says his job is "to take an issue which is familiar to people, and then present a side which they have not previously considered." "I'm still at my post but the others have left," he contends. "We got more comics and less humor than ever before: 'I'm your waiter and I do "Humor should have a point of view. We got guys who have never been in the Army, never been married, never even fallen off a barstoot telling us about life.

I don't want to be a misanthrope. Sahl is appearing these days in a one-man Broadway show. He's still asking a favorite question: "Is there any group I haven't offended?" Ernest Tucker provided much of the information for this story in a dispatch distributed by North America Syndicate. peak and so are your savings! I Up to 50 off: sofas sofa VdtSJ beds love seats chairs swivel UUTriJ WrXtl fl rockers recliners dining table iMjllMnSM 1 1 1 and chair sets dinette sets KOLfj lj bar and counter stools C1--S I wicker bedroom furniture I j1 desk and chair sets etageres! jl'" 90 DAYS SAME AS CASH jlitrtll CLAYTON: 7817 Clayton Rd. between if vJStl llTtf Hartley and Brentwood.

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