The Pittsburgh Press from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 228

TV 2f PITtiBL-RGH li.srf- TV Cover NBC shoots for success with 'Noble House By Jerry Buck I mem 1 CQt JfMQ 4 on the Yangtze River. In December 1941, he arrived in Singapore as a newly commissioned lieutenant in the British Army. When Singapore fell to the Japanese, he escaped to Java and hid out for about six months. He was captured and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in Singapore. Clavell survived the next 2Vi years on one-fourth of a pound of rice a day.

He came out of the camp weighing 130 pounds. Fourteen out of every 15 prisoners died. After the war, Clavell became a screenwriter in Los Angeles. During a strike he wrote "King Rat," loosely based on his experiences as a POW. When it sold as a movie, he had the money he needed to move his wife and two children to Hong Kong in 1963.

"James Michener's 'Hawaii' had just come out and I suggested to my publisher that I do James Clavell's 'Hong he says. "Then I asked for some money. They told me to go and write the book first." He wrote 500 pages and found he had only covered four days in 1841. That became "Tai-Pan." Later, he wrote the screenplay for the movie "The Great Escape," which he says took him 3Vs weeks. It was about a POW prison break from a German camp in World War II.

"Then I began to learn about the Japanese connection and that became Next I wrote about how Japan and Hong Kong compete, but set that aside to write 'Noble which is set in Iran, ties up many of the loose threads." Associated Press AUTHOR JAMES CLAVELL believes that "Noble House," his novel of intrigue and power struggles set in Hong Kong, is particularly pertinent now that Great Britian is preparing to give up its Asian colony. The British will turn over Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China when its lease expires in 1997. "Noble House" has been turned into a four-part mini-series, beginning Sunday night at 9 on NBC and running four consecutive nights. An earlier Clavell book, "Tai-Pan," told of the founding of Hong Kong in 1841. The tai-pan is the leader of the largest trading house.

Pierce Brosnan stars in the mini-series as Ian Dunross, who takes over as tai-pan of Hong Kong's oldest and most powerful trading house. It also stars Deborah Raffin, Ben Masters, John Houseman, Denholm Elliott, Gordon Jackson, Julia Nickson, John Rhys-Davies, Nancy Kwan, Bert Kwouk and Khigh Dhiegh. The "Noble House" novel was set in 1963, but the mini-series was made contemporary so that it could deal with the issue of the upcoming takeover by the Chinese. Writer-producer Eric Ber-covici and director Gary Nelson also found that Hong Kong has changed enormously in the past 25 years and said it would have been difficult to find locations for a 1963 setting. Bercovici also adapted Clavell's "Shogun" as a mini-series.

It was telecast in 1980 and is still the highest- Khigh Dhiegh, left, plays Four Finger Wu opposite Pierce Brosnan as Ian Dunross in NBC's "Noble House." rated mini-series ever on NBC. "This is the age of the Pacific," Clavell says. "California, Vancouver, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan and Singapore, all on the Pacific rim, represent an enormous amount of wealth. The political weight of the world is there. The untapped markets of the world are there." The British-born Clavell now writes mainly about Asia.

His last book, "Whirlwind," was the fifth volume in what he calls his "Asian Saga." With five more books in the planning stage, he makes his home in Europe because he says most of the research material he needs is there. Clavell's Asian connection began when he was a child. His father, a naval officer, told him stories of the gunboats Pierce Brosnan: mini-series a good distraction By Michael E. Hill Press news services PIERCE BROSNAN was in a jetliner over the Atlantic. The steward announced the movie would be "The Living Daylights," the latest James Bond film starring Timothy Dalton.

It was a little like running into the woman you once wanted to marry with her new husband. What to do? You can't walk out on the feature at 30,000 feet. Besides, Brosnan was with one of his sons and the boy wanted to see the show. So Brosnan clamped on the earphones and watched. "I thought he'd done an excellent job," said Brosnan, recalling the film.

"I thought the story was a bit convoluted for my taste, but I enjoyed it. "I suppose I did think, 'If I'd done it Pierce Brosnan almost did play Bond. His TV series, "Remington Steele," had run its course and he was being touted as the next James Bond. But then "Steele" was called back into production short-run production, as it turned out, but long enough for the Bond people to turn elsewhere for the successor to Roger Moore and Sean Connery. It would have been a chance to play a larger-than-life feature-film character who has shown surprising endurance over the years.

In the midst of this angst came a larger-than-life, about 6-inch-thicki script. Even in its heftiness needed a weight-lifting course to pick it the script was a severe distillation of yet another of James Clavell's larger-than-life novels, "Noble House." It was Brosnan they had in mind to play Ian Struan Dunross, powerful tai-pan (leader) of Struan and the old and influential Hong Kong trading house of the novel. "It came at a point where I'd just gone through the Bond and Steele affairs," he recalled. "It seemed a good time to do something that would distract me for three months." The show is "James Clavell's Noble House," an NBC mini-series airing Sunday night at 9, through Wednesday night. With the series, NBC has a $20-million series with a ready audience.

More than 700,000 hardcover copies of the book have been sold, plus more than 2 million in paperback. One of the most memorable moments in "Noble House" comes when a floating restaurant with most of the principals aboard catches fire. Director Gary Nelson spent three days on that scene during the production's 12 weeks in Hong Kong. Additional fire scenes were shot later during studio work in North Carolina. "It was very hot and toasty," said Brosnan.

The fire, on the specially built, fire-resistant structure, was fed by 300 cylinders of gas. "If anything went wrong, there was only one way to go over the side and into the water." No one was hurt, but a lot of cursing had to be erased from the soundtrack. Amid the action and intrigue the fire, a landslide, romance and betrayal there is always the idea that business is done differently in Hong Kong. And there is Chinese joss: a mixture of destiny, lucfr and coincidence. Pierce Brosnan, after six months of shooting a series in which he appears in virtually every scene, will watch the series with his wife over a cup of tea "maybe a large vodka." He says he's wondering what doors will open next.

Brosnan's light-comic touch that prompted Cary Grant comparisons in his "Remington Steele" days seems but a memory now. In "The Fourth Protocol," Brosnan's most recent feature, he seemed to be after the record for fewest lines of dialogue in a starring role, and he was convincingly mean. One of his upcoming theatrical films, "The Deceivers," he likens to Conrad's "Heart of Darkness." "My work before 'Remington Steele' was always diverse. Then I found myself in the Cary Grant, debonair mold. As a foreigner, an outsider, I am glad for 'Remington But I was trained for other things." There are offers coming in.

"The money is tempting, but the substance isn't there." The Bond deal still grates on him. "I've tested myself," he said of his effort to land the part. "I have an edge I wouldn't have without it." He doesn't minimize the angst. "There is a lot of anger to shed. Anger can destroy the goodness in yourself." Would he chase the Bond role if it came open again? "I wouldn't consider it.

It would be foolish. It would be 27 years old. For me, it would be a bit stale. It would be too much like going back into an old cupboard with too many ghosts in it." (The Washington Postdistributed by LA Times-Washington Post News Service.).