St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 63

7-1- ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH EVERYDAY SECTION THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 1993 JERRY BERGER ft Patflda Stallings, unjustly sent to prison for the death of her son Ryan, can't bear to watch a TV movie about the ordeal Painfully True v. Banks, Eugene Slay Huddle On The Hill NOTES FROM A SALOON COLYUMNIST: Just who do you think was huddled in a corner of the back room Monday night at Giovanni's on The Hill? None other than state Sen. J.B. "Jet" Banks, D-St.

Louis, the state Senate majority leader, with businessman Eugene Slay. Both of the swells were the subjects of a story the other day reporting that Banks is opposing the passage of a law that would let Missouri begin issuing licenses to gambling boats on the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. Businesses associated with Slay lease much of the riverfront, including potential casino sites. Both Banks and Slay were mum on almost any subject, while shuffling documents What? You haven't yet heard about the to-do over at Willoughby's Bar Grill on Manchester Road? Well, it seems that lead partner and lawyer Steve Schumaler not only has parted company with inner Flrmin Puricelll, but on Monday he evicted chef Paul Mlneo as well. Said Schumaier, "I wish Mineo all the best.

With the help of restaurant consultant Nell Quirk, I've brought in Joy Magnano as manager. She was formerly with TGI Friday's in London and New York." CALLING ALL SUPERHEROES: Glitterati will don their favorite superhero costumes for the COCA-cabana fund-raiser for the Center of Contemporary Arts on June 5. Themed "Comic Capers," the event will include a live and silent auction, dinner and dancing to a rhythm blues band, the Face. An art exhibit titled "Heroes, Heroines and Hollywood" will feature prints from Andy Warhol's "Myth Series" 'It i i Patricia and David Stallings in September 1991, after she I was cleared of charges in the death of their son Ryan. (Wendi iff A v.

By Tom Uhlenbrock Of the Post-Dispatch Staff AT THE END of a TV movie on the ordeal of Patricia Stallings, the actress playing the young Jefferson County woman turns to her husband and says: "What do you think would have happened if RJ hadn't been born?" The answer, of course, is that Stallings still would be in prison, serving a life sentence without possibility of parole. Stallings was unknowingly pregnant when she was jailed for murdering her son Ryan, and she is free loday because she gave birth to a second son who had the same rare genetic disease that killed her first-born. Because doctors misdiagnosed Ryan's illness as poisoning, it went untreated and led to his death. Stallings was in jail when her son died and was not allowed to attend his funeral. She also was kept from her second son for the first 18 months of his life.

The two were reunited only after the mistaken diagnosis was discovered and charges against Stallings were dropped. The tragic episode in the life of Patty Stallings and her husband, David, is told in the two-hour CBS movie "Without a Kiss Goodbye," which will be shown at 8 p.m. Sunday on Channel 4. The Stallingses are called Laurie and Ray Samuels in the movie and are played by Lisa Hartman Black and Christopher Meloni. Robert Ritter, the St.

Louis lawyer who gained Patty Stallings' freedom and who is the hero of the TV movie, said she did not want to be interviewed about the show and did not plan to watch it. The wounds are still too fresh, he said. "Patty and David prefer to get on with their lives and raise their baby and try to reach a degree of normalcy," Ritter said. The movie is painful to watch, especially the scene in which a social worker calls Patty Stallings in jail to say her S-month-old baby had hours to live. She returns to her cell, bitterly choking back tears, while David waits beside the baby's hospital bed, fate-fully watching the beeps of a heart monitor.

"Please, God, don't let him hurt," pleads David as the monitor goes flat. The movie is no jazzed-up Hollywood fantasy; it is eerily accurate. Producer Dan Schrier says the story needed no embellishment. "That one woman, one family, went through this much trauma is unbelievable," Schrier said. "The second child is in many ways a miracle baby.

There was only a one-in-four chance that that second baby would even have the disease." Meloni plays the husband with the justifiable outrage that marked the feelings of the real David Stallings during his efforts to free his wife. And Black, as the wife, shows the same defiant, almost detached demeanor that led many See STALLINGS, Page 6 I 1 i' Patty and David prefer to get on Miiii. MiiniiiiiUwJV i In, i. with their lives and raise their baby and try to reach a degree of normalcy Lawyer Robert Ritter, who won Stallings' release Rights Fees Go Up, Up, Up ,0 I A mi iiinii From left, planning "COCAcabana" are Robin Walpert, Faith Berger and Dianne Shapiro. and work by local artists.

Tix starting at $85 may be ordered by calling 725-6555. Proceeds will support programs and scholarships at COCA. Chairwoman of the event is Faith Berger, with assists from Robin Walpert, Kristy Volmer, Marsha Shepley and Dianne Shapiro. EVER ONWARD: Jon Prel, the acclaimed CWE floral designer, will vacate his shop April 30 at 40r North Euclid Avenue to opt for space in Clayton. Building owners Herb and Adalaide Balaban will reclaim the spot, possibly for an antiques shop.

The Balabans already have a shop in Big Sky, called the Cold-Blooded Trader. Historical footnote: In the 1960s, Herb had an antiques shop there called H. Balaban Carp (where Ernest Trova had one of his first exhibitions), then a hip-fashion boutique called Gypsy Cowboy. Later on, the space was occupied by the sophisticated gift emporium Pseudonym St. Albans Valley is the monicker for a new subdivision near the St.

Albans C.C. golf course. Andy and Gary Tankersley have snapped up 50 acres from land baron Jack Schwartz to develop the 14 lots Jim Dierberg's First Bank has added two more execs to its roster. The former Merc Bank veeps, Russ Whites and Don Williams, will begin their lending chores any edition. PEOPLE, Blair Brune, granddaughter of the late Mo.

Guv. Jim Blair, is being sued for divorce by her husband, John Brune (she's repped by David Lacks; his barrister is Chuck Todt) St. Louis University has lured back into its fold the Rev. John Foley, the famed hometown Jesuit who wrote liturgical music in the early 1970s. Foley, personally wooed by SLU prez Larry Biondi, will return in July to establish a liturgy and music center on the campus The Gregorian University Foundation has tapped for its Women's Advisory Commisn: Fran Barrett, Angle Mary Jane Johnson, Joan Junker, Joan Lipic, Pat Meyer, E.M.

"Tinker" Reilly and Ruth Stretch. Longtime pals of Phyllis and Allan Lieberman, the developer who eluded the feds last year after being indicted, are looking forward to debriefing Phyllis when she arrives this weekend at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel. She will be receiving there while attending the wedding of her niece. Allan will not be leaving his hideaway in Santiago, Chile. CALLBOARD: Touchstone Pictures will hold auditions for "young and interesting actors and actresses who sing andor are musical" 14-18 years old to appear in "Sister Act II," starring Whoopi Goldberg.

The tryouts will be held from noon to 8 p.m. Sunday at the Clarion Hotel. A speak said those chosen will play "disgruntled youth" in the flick. By Eric Mink Post-Dispatch Television Critic PREGNANT and jailed on false charges of having murdered her infant son, Patricia Stallings had more important things to think about in the spring of 1990 than television. Nonetheless, when Ohlmeyer Productions called Eric Rathbone, then her lawyer, with an offer of some $25,000 for TV-movie rights to her still-evolving story, they accepted the offer.

Today, the quest for rights fees for the hottest true-life stories has escalated into a feeding frenzy. On the heels of three count 'em, three ratings hits about the sensation alists Amy Fisher case, rights fees have skyrocketed. Producer Michael Jaffe, for example, is believed to have set an industry record by paying Nevada couple James and Jennifer Stolpa some $400,000 for their lost-in-the-snow story with the happy ending. Joan Harrison, director of motion pictures for television for CBS Entertainment, said the trend troubles her. "Very few of these true-crime stories have any social value," she said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles.

"A lot of the time, all they have is a very exploitive story. We look for some insight into the motivations of the characters, and very often it's just not there in the material we have to work from." Lisa Hartman Black as the Patricia Stallings character in "Without a Kiss Goodbye." CBS, Harrison acknowledged, can't competitively afford to get out of the true-story business entirely, but it is becoming more selective. See RIGHTS, Page 6 1 1 mi lllllllllll iniiiiiiiiinitiiiitiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittnitiiiiiii Clinton: Time For A New Watch? i Ji By Gene Weingarten 0 1993, The Washington Post IT BEGAN showing up in photographs early in the presidential campaign, an unsightly blemish that just wouldn't heal. Lately, it has become improbably conspicuous, as though the president were flaunting it, a bride-to-be flashing her fat new rock. It is a plastic digital watch, thick as a brick and handsome as a hernia.

calibrated to the hundredth of a second, the digits flying by with such ferocity that they are just a blur of phosphorescence. The band is corrugated rubber, resembling the tread of a tractor tire. The face is bowting-ball black and pumpkin orange, like a bag of Cheez-balls. The president's watch! This would never happen in France. The populace would not permit it.

Let us note that Clinton's watch is by all ac A I -j i ABOVE: President Bill Clinton's watch of choice, a Ti-mex Ironman Triathlon. RIGHT: The watch was often in evidence on the campaign trail last fall. No one disputes that the most powerful man on Earth should be free to wear whatever he wishes, but we should not confuse freedom with license. If President Bill Clinton began arriving at state dinners in bare feet and bib overalls, stock prices would edge uneasily down. The president need not be impeccably tailored, but a certain dignity is expected.

So what's with that, that toaster on his wrist? The White House reports that it is a "Timex Ironman Triathlon" with lighted dial, and we have one here in front of us. We paid $39 for it at a drugstore. The time is displayed in boxy segmented numerals, as on your microwave. It can be counts a technological marvel. It can work efficiently 100 meters under water.

It can perform as three stopwatches at once, keeping track of both time and laps. If you fling it contemptuously to the floor and stomp on it with the heel of your shoe, it will continue to function. We tried. One need not be schooled in design to comprehend the abominable ambiance of this watch, as compared with a timepiece as thin as a Necco wafer with fixed Arabic numerals on the circumference of a dial swept by thin, graceful hands. That is a timeless design, unchanged since Columbus, a triumphant marriage of symmetry and function and civility.

When the Saxons were manufacturing crossbows, and the Mongols were crafting catapults that could hurl an elephant the length of a battlefield, the peaceable Swiss were manipulating gears the size of a See WATCH, Page 3 Renyold FergusonPost-Dispatch Misty is a year-old spayed and housebroken female, calm-natured and good with children. To adopt: Apply in person at the Humane Society of Missouri, 1210 Macklind Avenue, before noon Saturday..