The Republic from Columbus, Indiana • Page 25

THEllELJliLlC South Central Indiana's most colorful ancj mosUpformative newspaper! Junior Carrier HOME rFi ivfry Motor Carrier $25.50 for 4 months $28.50 for 4 months $51 .00 for 9 months $57.00 for 9 months SUBSCRIBE TODAY! Wednesday August 22, 1990 if. Call 379-5601 or toll-free, 1-800-876-7811. 1 Series fun-for; 'Cfaeers'xbaril3y Like Norm Peterson, George Wendt is a down-to-earth guy i if I CRYSTAL GAYLE LORETTA LYNN The Webb sisters Loretta Lynn, Crystal Gayle join forces Not likely. Wendt a natural when it comes to comedy and character acting, is eminently employable. But even though he's just finished playing Robert De Niro's best buddy in a straight dramatic film about the painful Hollywood blacklist days in the early 1950s (working title "Moment of Wendt calls movies "a tough racket" "I haven't been happy with the results," he said of his supporting roles in "My Bodyguard," "Fletch" and "Gung Ho." "The movies haven't exactly set me on fire as a feature film actor.

'V Besides, "Cheers" is one heavenly security blanket Does he worry about life after Norm? "Constantly. It's a terrible thought You'd have to be so lucky to get another TV job that was as good." Obviously, "Norm is a sublimely comfortable career fit for Wendt. Though never a winner, he's been nominated six times for the Emmy as best supporting actor in a comedy series. Beloved by your public, respected by your peers. Not a bad gig.

Wendt is married to actress Bernadette Birkett, whom he met at Second City in Chicago and who was a co-star on "It's Garry Shandling's Show." They have five children, two sons of Birkett's by a previous marriage and three young Wendtlings under the age of6. For a family man, one of the main joys of working on a half-hour situation comedy is that the hours are ridiculously humane, -almost like stealing money. The typical day on any sitcom taped before a live studio audience is usually 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The one long day, which lasts 12 hours, is when an episode is taped or filmed.

"And even then, I'm home by 9 p.m.," Wendt said. When it is suggested that his performance as Norm Peterson is truly something special, however, he modestly dodges the praise. "I don't exactly put a pound of putty on my nose and walk around with a limp like I'm Sir Alec Guinness," he said. "I get great jokes and I deliver them sort of well." And within a few moments, Wendt has taken several slugs of (gasp!) post-jogging mineral water, climbed into his old, well-worn BMW with the rock 'n' roll tapes all over the floor and headed home to watch the White Sox play the Tigers on ESPN. By Mike Duffy Knight-Ridder Newspapers LOS ANGELES This is too weird.

Out on a sun-dappled high school track, nestled into a gentle slope-1 at the edge of the San Fernando Valley, Norm Peterson is jogging. And there isn't a bar stool or a cold brewski anywhere in sight Whoa, just a darn minute here. Norm Peterson doesn't jog: Norm Peterson chugs beer in a famous Boston bar and cracks memorably funny lines of taproom wisdom. He is America's favorite chunk-style barfly. He Is the pilsner-packed, tie-loosened everyman of hops.

And each Thursday night, he puts many of the very finest chuckles into "Cheers." So what's going on? Well, Norm Peterson may not jog. But George Wendt, the amiably rumpled, Chicago-bred actor who plays the non-stormin' Norman, does. Slowly, yes, but with a certain undeniable, wobbly panache. He was out there in mid-afternoon recently, several weeks before heading back to work earlier this month for another Season of "Cheers." He was sporting a wicked-looking athletic brace on his left knee, his rock 'n' roll skull filled with Walkman-transmitted tunes by the seminal Los Angeles punk group slogging purposefully around the red all-weather tract Even a loyal beerhound has to stay in some sort of shape. Besides, basketball has been on the back burner of Wendt's fitness regimen ever since the fateful knee injury last year.

Whoops, hoops? "I waSflt a birthday party at my manager's house and we were playing three-on-three in the reway Wendt recalled. "And I don't know what happened. I just came down wrong. My manager handles a lot of comics. And Bob Saget and Jon Lovitz and Garry landhng were there, standing around razzing me while I writhing on the ground in pain.

"Shandling comes over and says 'I've got to move my car. Can you get out of the End results The gray, RoboCop-sleek titanium brace, which a doctor suggested instead of surgery for the damaged knee ligaments. "That procedure," said Wendt, assuming the stilted professional tone of an imaginary surgeon, "is Still Time, But Hurry! George Wendt stars as the "Cheers" barfly Norm Peterson. By Bill Bell New York Daily News By the time Brenda Gail Webb was ready to hit the road, big sister Loretta was a star, but not so big that she couldn't share the spotlight and a few Kentucky coal-country harmonies. But for some reason, they never became a singing sister act "I guess we were too different," says Loretta, who was known as Loretta Lynn.

"I was older (by 16 years), with kids and all." But she did give Brenda the song that got her career rolling. It was something she wrote called "I've Cried the Blues Right out of My Eyes," Loretta wrote it about the same time she changed Brenda's name to Crystal Gayle. That was 1970 or there "We'd get together every now and then to whoop and holler," Loretta said when she was in New York last year. "But, we didn't do all that much-." Look what a year can do. Loretta and Crystal are sharing more and more bills, as part of the Nashville Network's country music series.

Their material, delivery and styles are so different that they could work as the Grits Glitz Sisters. Crystal is the city girl, all fancy frocks and a down-to-the-hips hair. Loretta is the twarigy earth mama. It's a kind of twofer because they appear separately, singing their own catalog of hits, before hey wind it up with a few songs a couple of Loretta's hits Come a Long Way, Baby" is one), a gospel song and a couple of standards. "A lot of people said they wanted to see us together," says Loretta noWand so, we just started pfayingdates together," It sorted afterMhey appeared on a Disney Channel special and in concerkwith, all outfits, the Boston Their recording stt heydays are history.

Crystal has a new album, "Ain't Gonna Worry" (Capitol), but it's not setting any sales records, and the first single went nowhere. The second single, now out, Is "Never Ending Song of Love," a remake of the 1971. hit by Delaney and Bonnie, and Crystal's got her fingers crossed. Loretta vanished from the charts long ago. But their popularity is holding up.

REPAIR Cooling System Leak 376-0372 True to his Chicago roots, where he sharpened his im-provisational comic skills at the famed Second City, Wendt is a down-to-earth, no jive, sports-loving guy. He "possesses the hang-loose Midwesterner's built-in bushwa detector. He has a passionate fascination with current affairs and White Sox baseball. He's modest He still goes to rock 'n' roll clubs to see groups with names like the Mudwimmin and Green Jell-O. People yell, "Norm, lemme buy you a beer," And they do.

Best of all, he hasn't gone Hollywood. So forget the glitzy La La Land party circuit "Those industry things, I don't find them very relaxing," Wendt said. "I'm not exactly on the cutting edge of the new thing. I've got a big mouth. And there are too many important people at those things.

"I'm afraid I may say something stupid and some big shot will say, 'You'll never work in this town LO0IH More Automotive 3 net indicated for fat, 40-year-old Like his "Cheers" persona Norm Peterson, Wendt, 41, manages to slice some wry out of most situations. "I'll match my titanium brace against anyone's anterior cruciate ligament," he joked. 1 "Cheers," heading into its ninth year on NBC and creatively stronger than ever, can match its stylish wit with any comedy series in the history of television 'The Dick Van Dyke Show," "MAS.H.," "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," you name it It's consistently that fine the one true sitcom classic from the 1980s that has survived and thrived into the '90s. "I'm real excited to get back," Wendt said of the upcoming reunion with his pals in comic chemistry, including Ted Danson, Kirstie Alley and Rhea Perlman. "'Cheers' is very comfortable.

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