The Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio • Page 178

4 Akron Beacon Journal Sunday, May 13, 1979 A mother and her daughter reunite after 20 years, finding themselves trangers i Gena Rowlands and Bette Davis Miss Rowlands, who played a lesbian mother fighting for custody of her child in the ABC movie "A Question of Love," confessed she watches little television. "I like dramatic shows and they don't have that many," she said. "I like comedy, too, but not as much as other people seem to. I think television's well-suited to drama, contrary to what some people think, because people are more able to accept something close to their own lives if they watch it in their own home." "Strangers" does offer a good deal. First, of course, is the estrangement and reconciliation, and the numbing realization that the daughter has come home to die.

Equally important, it is a film in which relationships are built on everyday occurences. MISS ROWLANDS, who occasionally acts in films written and directed by her husband, John Cassavetes, said, "I think the hardest thing to show in acting and on film is love. It's a quiet thing, not powerful and noisy. I thought it was amazing the way the author Miss Rowlands are absolutely splendid. The screenplay evolved in a roundabout way.

Michael De Guzman had written a short story about an estranged father and son, but when he read a newspaper interview in which Miss Davis lamented the lack of good roles for women, he changed the story. He met producers Robert W. Christiansen and Rick Rosenberg. The two producers later chanced to sit by Miss Davis at a film conference and described de Guzman's story to her. She expressed interest, and 18 months later the script, written by de Guzman, was delivered.

"I WAS FASCINATED by the way he held it together and made it move," said Miss Rowlands. "There are no ambulances, no car chases or shootouts that you usually see. I also like the way everything isn't explained. You don't know fully what happened to Abigail when she was in Boston and finally it doesn't matter." By JERRY BUCK Associated Press LOS ANGELES Bette Davis and Gena Rowlands play mother and daughter, and the chemistry between them is strictly volatile. They react in "Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter," which CBS serves up tonight for' Mother's Day.

Abigail Mason returns to the home of her mother, Lucy, in a New England fishing village after 20 years in Boston. Lucy grudgingly admits her to the house, then silently works a jigsaw puzzle while Abigail keeps up a one-sided conversation. Finally, Lucy explodes: "I don't want you here! I don't want you to hurt me any more! But you'll do what suits you you always did!" FROM THAT BITTER beginning they start a cold war in which Lucy recites past hurts. Under Abigail's good-natured prodding, they work their way toward a truce and, finally, a warm relationship. It is a marvelous, tightly constructed story, and Miss Davis and piled little things together until it was undeniably there.

It didn't matter what happened during the last 20 years. They loved each other." She got her break in television in the 1950s. "I came in at the end of the golden age," she said. "John and I starred in a TV drama Reggie Rose had written. Josh Logan and Paddy Cheyefsky saw me and that's how I was cast in the play 'Middle of the Television was so exciting then.

We worked for practically nothing and couldn't have been happier. "But I think something interesting is going on in TV now. Just the fact that I would run into two good parts within a year indicates something's happening. It wasn't that way a year ago. I hope what I'm seeing is a trend." MISS ROWXANDS has returned to television occasionally.

She played the deaf wife of Robert Lansing in five episodes of 87th Precinct, and was in Peyton Place for several months. She recently appeared in "Two-Minute Warning" and "The Brinks Job." She won an Oscar nomination for "A Woman Under the Influence," directed by her husband. She said she and Cassavetes expect to start a new film after the first of the year. The gaveVs banging away on Channel 25 More than 4,000 items will be auctioned off, said Ms. Depke.

Among the gems to be shown and hopefully sold will be a $15,000 oil painting by the 19th-century French artist Felix Francois Georges Philibert Ziem (1821-1911), an autumn haze capelet (that's a fur piece) worth $1,000, a $695 gray Persian lamb and leather stroller and a $2,000 redwood hot tub. FOR MEN AND WOMEN of the world, there are trips to Copenhagen, Caneel Bay (Virgin Islands), Toronto, Florida, Las Vegas (Caesars Palace), Escondido (California) and Cedar Point. Other auction items include an AMC Concord, a micro TV, stereos, a microwave oven, hindquarters of beef and a $500 shopping spree from the May Co. every night of the auction. The star-struck among you can look forward to vying for dinners with television luminaries Judd Hambrick and Dick Goddard; to being a guest producer on Channel 5's Morning or Afternoon Exchanges; to being a tipster on PM Magazine; and to a bevy of other possible guest appearances on Geveland TV programs.

SPORTS LOVERS can bid on two tickets to the Super Bowl; be a sports-caster for a day with Bruce Drennan on WBBG; spend a day with the Cleveland Browns; or watch an Indians game from the WHK loge in the stadium. Music aficionados may look forward to concerts at the Willoughby School of Fine Arts and the Geveland Institute of Music or the opportunity to share a box in Severance Hall for an evening with Israela Margalit (Mrs. Lorin Maazel). Television, radio and other well-known personalities galore will be on hand to help Channel 25 raise the dough, among them Fred Griffith, Merle Pollis, Amanda Arnold, Mr. and Mrs.

Lorin Maazel, Rena Blumberg, Vincent Dowling, Alice Weston and the aforementioned Ham-brick and Goddard. PLANS FOR this year's auction began months ago, when the station sent out 600 volunteer "go-getters" to ask merchants to donate items. Ms. Depke said many merchants are extremely willing, of course, to give their wares. "They get all that on-the-air promotion free," she said.

"Everything they By DONALD ROSENBERG Beacon Journal Staff Writer Don't just sit there biding your times pick up the phone and start bidding your dimes. This little phrase though losing a bit of its inherent grace in translation from the original French might be an appropriate call to arms by WVIZ, Channel 25, which Saturday began its nine-day Auction '79. The auction is one of the public broadcasting station's annual drives to raise funds for its programming, which is certainly an intelligent and much-needed alternative to the sometimes brainless offerings of commercial TV. Bidding will fill Channel 25's screen for 80 hours this week, pre-empting all evening programs and winding up at 2 a.m. May 21.

THERE WILL BE plenty of action on the block, according to Nancy Depke, Channel 25's public service director, who said that everything from a hairdryer to a car will be up for bid. "It's the biggest single event of our year," said Ms. Depke. "Everyone seems to get swept up in it. It's really a lot of fun, whether you bid or not." donate over $50 is shown on screen, and we give the location of their stores." Some merchants who have donated in the past may have overlooked this year's auction, said Ms.

Depke, but "going on the air reminds them that they forgot to do it (donate). Merchants can still donate items during the auction." Ms. Depke said almost 300 volunteers each night will be manning the phones and doing other odds and ends during auction week. CHANNEL 25 first held an auction in 1968, when the total for three days of trading was $52,000. The station has added time and money to its till each auction year, and in 1978, WVIZ garnered $447,759 in nine days.

Considering that the station's budget this year is $2.5 million, funds from the auction indeed have become an essential part of WVIZ's daily bread. Auction hours are 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. 5 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Monday through Thursday; 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. Friday; 3 p.m. to 2 a.m. Saturday; and 4 p.m.

to 2 a.m. next Sunday. Akron area viewers can bid through a toll-free number, 1-800-362-1440..