The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 57

3Hw Jnqutrrr THURSDAY December 22, 1988 SECTION DAILY MAGAZINE PEOPLE HOME MOVIES THE ARTS TV STYLE 'V-fgTOpr11 mi in ,.111 MM, i 1 1 1 i iiim ii imiiii i i i Nj.ii ii iijiumu 4,. wh lull v1 The body of St. John Neumann lies in a crystal casket beneath the altar table in a chapel shrine at St. Peter's Church. Kneeling in prayer are Chucky McGivern, 13, and his mother, Nancy.

The Philadelphia Inquirer J. KYLE KEENER On Saturday afternoon, 1:15 p.m., a boy and his parents knelt at the A Christmas tit Jew Shrine of St. John Neumann inside St. Peter's Church at Fifth and Girard. This close to Christmas, they probably had other things to do.

For these three, however, it was the right Nancy McGivern is different. She wanted a miracle, but she knew miracles happen for the chosen and she didnt feel chosen. What the doctor told her she accepted. The only way to attack the problem now was with prayer, and in this the McGiverns had strong allies. Three relatives had given her religious medals, and one was of St.

John Neumann, the fourth bishop of Philadelphia. Nancy knew St John Neumann. When she was a child, her aunt took her to novenas at the Shrine of St. John Neumann at Fifth and Girard. She hadn't been there in years because, at this point in her life, Nancy had not been attending church much.

Still, the sight of the medal brought back gentle memories and comforted her greatly. She threaded the three medals on a safety pin, placing the St John Neumann medal in the center; then she pinned the medals to the pillowcase next to Chucky's head. A few days later her cousin came to visit, and from his wallet he pulled a piece of cloth. It was from a robe once worn by Bishop Neumann. The saint was going to become an important person in Nancy's life.

She just didn't know it yet. "This relic means a lot to me," he said to Nancy. "I was in a terrible accident once, and I believe it saved my life." "YouH get it back," Nancy said. "In fact, Chucky will give it back himself." If only her belief could be as strong as her words. She pinned her cousin's relic to the pillow on the other side of Chucky's head, next to the bolt protruding from his skull.

In a few days, Chucky McGivern, a smart kid with blue eyes he inherited from two good-looking parents, slipped closer to death. His lungs collapsed, his kidneys stopped working. Nancy McGivern said she didn't want her son kept alive by machines, and she and her husband signed papers authorizing the hospital to distribute Chucky's organs (See CHUCKY on 9 F) By Frank Rossi Inquirer Sun Writer Six years ago, three weeks before Christmas, in a home near Oxford Circle, a 7-year-old boy named Chucky McGivern came in from school with chicken pox. His mom, Nancy, put him to bed straightaway Thursday, but instead of getting better, Chucky got worse. On Friday he was bad.

On Saturday, when Chucky lost consciousness, Nancy McGivern knew he had something worse than chicken pox. She called the doctor again. Chucky was admitted to Rolling Hill Hospital and later to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, where doctors diagnosed his problem: Reye's syndrome, a rare disease of the nervous system, brain and liver almost unique, and often fatal, to children. Nancy and Chuck McGivern waited while the doctors did what they could, which wasnt much, to stop its advance. Don't be afraid when you see him, the McGiverns were told.

But they were. Chucky was white and cold, his body hard. A tube in one leg went to his liver, another to his kidneys; there were tubes in his nose, another down his throat; a machine monitored his heartbeat The worst was the large bolt in his skull inserted to relieve pressure on his brain, the doctors said. Chucky looked dead. The Reye's syndrome was so advanced, his chance of survival was small.

Even if he lived, his brain might be damaged so badly he never would be able to take care of himself again. "What are his chances of coming out of this?" Chuck McGivern asked. "Slim," the doctor said. "But there is a chance?" The doctor said yes, and that's all Chuck McGivern wanted to know. He is a quiet man, a believer, but not even now a traveling salesman for God.

His faith is his own and it's strong. In December 1982, it was enough for him to know that his son had a chance to live, even if it was a 10 percent chance. of LIFE moment to say a prayer of thanks for what they are certain was a Christmas miracle. A show on life support Backers hope to revive TVs "USA Today" The call of the wild How did Pedro Almodovar go from phone-company worker to Spain's hottest director! By Ann Kolson By Lee Winfrey hiinr TV Wrtur ARLINGTON, Va. Can a stillborn television series be resurrected? USA Today: The Television Show will attempt to answer that highly expensive question on Jan.

9. GTG Entertainment the TV production arm of the Gannett spent $40 million to launch USA Today: The Television Show on Sept. 12 on 156 stations, including KYW (Channel 3). The premiere was a catastrophe, the Nielsen ratings for the series are still less than half of what GTG expected, and a new boss has been brought in to try to turn this TV sow's ear into a video silk purse. Can it be done? Maybe.

The premiere of ABC's 2020 on June 6, 1978, was a disaster of comparable proportions, but prompt and wide-ranging changes salvaged the series, and it has endured on the air for more than a decade. Jan. 9 is the date set for what GTG struggling series. The high-rolling company plans to spend five million fresh dollars on a promotional campaign, using the theme, "See it from a different angle." It's designed to persuade people who tuned out on the show to tune in again. Besides this infusion of new money, and the example of 20120 to serve as inspiration, the 168 staff workers on USA Today- The Television Show have one more reason, an important one, to hope for improvement in 1989.

One of the best show doctors in TV, Jim Bellows, is now in charge at the series' headquarters here, just across the Potomac River from Washington. Bellows, 65, is renowned for refurbishing and reviving Entertainment Tonight in 1981-M. putting that senes on track toward the success it now enjoys on 166 stations. Before that be was a highly respected newspaper editor, serving as chief of one of the most beloved papers of this century, tfl old hew York Herald Tribune, as (See "USA TODAY" on 7-f has been piling up awards and opened luis ion i New Yolk rum FeMlvai lo raves. (How is it to open the festival? "I feel more beautiful more elegant, more tall," he told the audience.) It is playing in Philadelphia at the Ritz Five.

Born in 1951 in a remote Spanish village, Calzada de Calatrava, the writer-director was influenced most by the Hollywood movies of the '50s and '60s. "I liked the beautiful living." he says of such glossy favorites as Pillow Talk and How to Marry a Millionaire. He found further inspiration in such overwrought soapers as Splendor in the Crass and Peyton Place. "I felt corrupted by the big melodramas," says Almodovar, a short pudgy cherub with a mop of black hair and a mischievous glint in his dark eyes. "But I like to feel that." He left home for Madrid at age 17, took a senes of odd jobs, and landed at the national telephone company in where he toiled unhappily for 10 years (thus the ram of telephones and answering machines in Women on the (See ALMODOVAR on 7-F) NEW YORK In Pedro Almodovar's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Pepa, the man-crazed heroine, keeps a chicken coop on her penthouse balcony, sets her bed on fire, throws two phones through her windows and tries to kill herself with a pitcher of gazpacho laced with a bottle of barbiturates but succeeds only in inadvertently doping six visitors into unconsciousness.

All this, Almodovar says, makes perfect sense because women "are the ones who really know how to behave when their boyfriend leaves them high and dry. They dont know what shame is, or even that horrendous thing that used to be called self-esteem, or what it means to make a fool of one's self. Their reactions run the full gamut of possibilities." So does Almodovar run the full gamut of possibilities, that is and it has paid off. His wildly funny movie is the highest grossing in Spain's history. Index Joe GratxtooOn med'cmo 2-f IdfW Bj fronds 2-F Ann 2-f Dr.

But ct 2-f Word wrKrrtr 2-f Dnl Sord 3 TS Am gxte 4F pywyt 4-f Tvgn TVAxSo if ii ii mi in jtmam I II I 11 CO Almodovar, whose latest film is "Women on the Verge cf a Nervous.