The Morning News from Wilmington, Delaware • Page 41

Thursday, Jan. 29, 1981 The Morning News Wilmington, Delaware 0 Obituaries D3 Classified D4 no SECTION Si i You've probably seen Playhouse actress in TV role is that she was born in a Washington, D.C., hospital and spent the first five years of her life in Baltimore. Her family then moved to Miami, which was her home until she decided to strike out for New York City and a theatrical career. She was 16 when she graduated from high school. However, though her parents wanted her.

to go through college and "would pay for it," a headstrong Tricia had other ideas. She'd been dancing since 3 and making public appearances through high school and earlier. She had no doubts about what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. And, she promised her parents, she could still go to college in New York while working. In this she had her mother's full support.

My mother had been a ballet dancer and had a chance to join a company but her parents refused to let her go. It just about broke her heart. She never really got over it. She understood exactly how I felt," said a duly appreciative Patricia Harty. Her father also went along with his dancing daughter's dream.

In addition to studying acting, dancing, jazz and other theatrical arts with such topnotchers as Irene Dailey (Dan's sister), Herbert Berghoff, Sandy Meisner and Matt Mattox, she says, "I took a lot of English courses at Columbia came East from her California home last year to "see as many shows as I could and to see what was going on in the theater." She had no intention of trying out for the role that Joyce Van Patten had in the Broadway production of "I Ought to Be in Pictures." "I hadn't even seen the show, but my agent arranged for me to talk with Simon and the director," she says. The audition went well and both liked her in the role, but instead it went to Bernice Massey. Patricia Harty, not feeling at all deflated, went back to California, but soon received a call to audition for the same part in the national company, still playing opposite Macy. This time it clicked and the show went into rehearsals in November. It opened in St.

Petersburg, on Dec. 1 and after playing Orlando, her old hometown of Miami and Fort Lauderdale, it moved north to Wilmington. The tour has brought her to Delaware for the first time and she is soaking up the sights and such attractions as Winterthur Museum. "I don't know how I've missed Delaware. It's one of the few states I haven't been in.

I know I must have passed through Wilmington on the train going from Washington to Philadelphia," she said. "I've made the trip many times." What makes it more unbelievable role on the Perry Como Show and later became one of three featured dancers on Garry Moore's sue-' cessful series where she worked with choreographer Peter Gennaro and was in comedy sketches with Bnother newcomer Carol Burt nett. Through her association with Gennaro, she won a chorus part in the musical "Fiorello!" where she eventually moved up to the featured role of Dora and caught the eye of Noel Coward, who singled her out for the young romantic lead in his musical, "Sail Away." Coward wrote three songs for her the ballads, "Where Shall I Find Him?" and "When You Want Me," and the novelty number, "Beatnik Love Affair." "Sail Away" brought her back to television and the role of Blondie in "Occasional Wife" and as Bob Crane's wife in his TV show. She also has been guest star on many a Movie of the Week. The Blondie experience is one she doesn't cherish, but it served its purpose by causing one of her occasional long leaves from the business.

"Something tells you when things just aren't going right for you," she says. Then it's time to stop and take stock and start over again when the time is right." That's the way it was when she By BETTY BURROUGHS Staff writer That "lean and hungry look" is Patricia Harty's signal to slow down and start piling in the proteins and fattening foods. Unlike many who struggle to ward off weight, she has to guard against getting too thin. Though some may be envious of her "weight problem," it is a constant and serious concern of this veteran entertainer who has been in and out of show business since 16. The 5-foot-6 dancer-singer-actress ended a three-year lull in her career last fall when she joined the national company of "I Ought to Be in Pictures." She plays Bill Macy's girlfriend in the Neil Simon Broadway hit which is at The Playhouse through Sunday.

It's her first national tour and she not only is excited about it but she also is writing about it. "I don't think that's ever been done," she said. "I think it's terribly interesting the people you meet and the places you see." Although "Tricia" Harty may not be a headline or household name, she's been seen on everyone's television screen many, many times and on the Broadway stage even more so. Her very first TV appearance was in the dancing chorus on the Pat Boone Show. She also had a dancing I I i i Patricia Harty has a starring role in "I Ought to Be in Pictures." Simon has written it.

While the lines may be the same, every performance is different, she explains. "We're not putting on a performance," she says. "We're acting." Patricia Harty makes it quite clear that the two are not Theatrically, this ageless, pixielike actress is concentrating more on acting than dancing and singing. And she's still studying. The Simon play, she says, is "beautiful" because although the players follow a script, they really are acting out what they feel inside.

That's the way Let yo fing rs do the wa king through the (skip, skip) pages ffijjf. Wilmington 1 1 flixfZ? 4 By MARTHA E. ESPEDAHL Staff writer It'll be a shorter hike for people who let their fingers do the walking through the white page listings of some 1981 Wilmington books of the Diamond State Telephone Co. The recently delivered book has a few omissions in the white page listings. For example, one book delivered along with two others that were OK skips from page 68 in the C's to 117 at the end of the D's.

A company spokeswoman explained that there were "sporadic" reports of missing white page sections. "Some books are missing the white page listings from through while others don't have just the S's," the spokeswoman said. But area consumers can keep their charges down for directory assistance by either using last year's white pages or calling the phone company for a replacement for defective books. They'll also save a buck by checking out the money-saving coupons repeated in this year's green section. The phone company official said consumers can simply call the business office and the firm will deliver new books in exchange for those that aren't complete.

But telephone use should remember that a charge is made alter three free calls per month to directory assistance. Also missing from this year's book is a description of the cover photograph. In small print above the bucolic scene a note says "See contents page for story." What the contents page should have said was "The cover of the directory features a beautiful scene along the Brandywine near the Hag-ley Museum just outside Wilmington. The cover is designed to demonstrate that Delaware offers to its residents and visitors a world abounding in history and natural beauty and a rich variety of cultural and recreational facilities." A common complaint from phone book users is: "What happened to the last page where you used to be able to write numbers frequently called?" The company's explanation is, "That was used as a filler page (in past years) and we didn't make any money on that page. However, we do give out small personal directories free of charge." This year's book does have an expanded, easier-to-read customer guide section.

E.P. Bissell, Diamond State's Wilmington district manager, said, "The new guide replaces and improves the information formerly contained in the call guide in the front of our directories." The customer guide contains information on billing, including sample bills and instructions on how to read the bill and the toll statements, how to make international calls as well as other long distance calls, and some money-saving hints. Last year's book contained merchants' coupons, which give discounts on purchases or work. Those merchants contacted said a lot of people used them. This year's book contains 43 coupons in the "green" section.

Merchants pay $50 to place the coupon. "The response to last year's coupon was tremendous," said a spokesman for Mar-cozzi Radio TV Repair, "I'd say we had 500 or more coupons brought in." At John G. Merkel Sons, home health-care specialists, an employee agreed and added that placing the coupon in the phone book "helped us a lot." At Rayco Car Service, a spokesman said the firm already received about 15 or 20 from this year's book and last year's "really paid off. In fact we had a number of people who were really mad when they found out about the coupons and had forgotten to bring them." The 1981 Wilmington phone book is still being distributed. There are more than 290,000 copies in the total distribution area.

Consumers will find 144,131 listings in the white pages if they have complete books. 'i it itf-'iittff uying a 25-cent panda recalls days of 'panda-moriium Betty Burroughs Shopping Center. The name tag was LING-LING and the price 25 cents! And it was the only one there. I grabbed it quickly, bolted into the shop and said to the owner, Robert Lock-erman: "I couldn't pass by this one. Are you sure it's marked right?" He assured me it was and if I hadn't bought it he would have kept it himself because, he said, "it was the panda that got me started in Some people who no longer are little are pushovers for stuffed animals.

Toys, that is. It's a hangup that hangs on for a lifetime. Inhibited victims may try to hide this foolish fetish. It seems unseemly a sign of immaturity, i insecurity, etc. For the afflicted ones, the Christmas shopping season is the ideal time to indulge your fancy.

Stores are flooded with a great assort ment. So you may shop, handle, fondle and buy with abandon on the pretext you are looking for something for a young friend or relative. But the true fuzzy wuzzy fanatic is not fazed by such frustrations. In fact, I threw caution and camouflage to the winds when, in early December, I spotted a panda bean-bag among the marked-down miscellany on a table outside the R.L. Collection gift shop in Graylyn business." "How so?" I asked him.

He told me this fascinating tale. Lockerman, an Ardenite, is a candle maker and had been turning them out by the carload and not making too great an impression on the market. Then in early 1972, when the People's Republic of China gave the panda pair Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing to the United States, Lockerman waxed wise. He began making panda candles in his kitchen in Ardentown. "Pandamania had swept the country and I decided to get into it," he said.

The pandas, once ensconced in the National Zoo in Washington, were in the headlines and the spotlight. Everyone had gone ga-ga over the huggable, black-and-white bearlike hulks. Lockerman and his then partner, Diane Rosbrow of Carrcroft, worked feverishly and took their first lot of candles to the National Zoo. "They liked them because they were authentic and just what would he said. "They bought that lot and ordered more.

We were in business." The candles made such a hit that cent purchase turned out to be rather prophetic. After nine years of planning and postponement, I finally got to see Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing in the fur and flesh last Friday. And they lived up to my expectations even if they have disappointed their keepers by not pro- ducing little pandas. About the time that Lockerman was making panda candles, it was in the cards for me to go to see the famed pair at the National Zoo and do a special story for the News-Journal papers. Back then, the media were beating a path to the pandas, so why shouldn't we? But somehow I never made the trip.

In due time the "panda-monium" subsided. Time marched on and so did the parade of presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan. Last week's visit to the National Zoo my first ever was not to see the pandas. I accompanied Brandywine Zoo director Tom Skel-don and senior, zookeeper Nancy Falasco, who went to pick up some new additions of another ilk. But a stop at the panda house was a "must" for all of us.

We even went back at feeding time to watch them See PANDAS D2 Lockerman decided to make a special one for President Nixon. "I took it to Washington and wanted to deliver it to him in person but the security was too tight. I dropped it off at the White House and left it with a guard and he took it into the building," he said. "It had to be and fluoroscoped before it went to the president." Lockerman said for awhile he wondered if it would ever reach Nixon's hands but about a week later a letter came: It was from the White- House and "it had 'personal' written at the top." The letter, which was signed and he's sure composed by Nixon, said "how much he and Pat enjoyed the panda candle." He keeps that letter among his souvenirs. But the best thing that came out of that encounter was that it established him in the candlemak-ing business.

Small wonder he has a soft spot for pandas. So have I and that 25- 'v. ati WSW vl-K-KiHi Pandas Ling Ling and Hsing Hsing at the Washington (D.C.) National.