The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 33

QTfie ipfiilabelpltia Inquirer Television Morning anchor Harry Smith is sure he's about to get the heave-ho in Ata'c reviews, from Lou Reed to Choral Arts. D6. Daytime TV Grids. D9 Night-Owl TV Grid D9 Prime-Time TV Grid Radio Soap Synopsis D9 idGailShisterS. Lifestyle Entertainment D5 Monday, March 11, 1996 Philadelphia Online: http:www.phillynews.cort yfH: 2 of fashion's lesser lights steal the shows in Milan 1 I Miuccia Prada and Tom Ford for Gucci outshone couture's bigger stars.

Their designs for fall and winter set the new standard for the young and the hip. FROM INQUIRER WIRE SERVICES I i if 6 11 I if I ii. in 5 I .4 I I 1 George Burns died Saturday, just weeks after turning 100. Tributes to Burns pour in Salutes, like comic's life, seem endless. ILAN In the fall women's collections here, the newsiest silhouette was long, slim had set, yet moved the Gucci line further forward.

In fact, during Milan's fashion week, when about 60 designers presented collections, the Gucci show stood apart from the rest. It was a combination of new fashion ideas, beautiful fabrics, snappy accessories and most important wearable shapes. Ford opened with a dashing military coat in deep midnight blue, a color with the sophistication of black but less of the harshness. The long coat, trimmed with epaulets and flap pockets, was worn belted over narrow flared trousers and high-heeled platform shoes. This long, lean silhouette recalled the 1970s but also looked cleanly modern.

Ford's previous collections for Gucci have been filled with bright colors and bold prints. This one was quiet by comparison, done almost entirely in neutral shades of navy, brown, camel and white. The trademark pinstripes, this time in white on navy wool, were the only pattern. But there was no end of fresh ideas. Continuing the mod theme he started a year ago, Ford showed close-fitting flared pants with low-slung waists, elongated jackets that skimmed the hips, pinstriped eight-button pea coats and lots of slim, French-cuffed shirts worn open to the waist.

Ford's take on evening wear ought to please just about any woman. For those who value comfort as well as style, there Q- i 4 li i and simple. Retro harked back to the 1970s. Pantsuitsf particularly pinstriped, were the number-one item. Maxi coats, pea jackets and sweaters were other winter favorites.

The uniform triumphed. The little dress was big. And two outsiders led the way as the international round of high-fashion shows started here last week. This week, the caravan moves to Paris. Amid the high-powered talents of Giorgio Armani and Gianni Versace, it was Tom Ford of Gucci and Miuccia Prada who heated up the Milan shows with fall collections that ignored the 70s rage and set the new standard for the young and the hip.

Prada still favored the matronly "signora" style, but there were more sport and fun in her collection. Youthful Giorgio Armani showed a magenta shirt with a deeply slit skirt. Associated Press LUCA BRUNO FROM INQUIRER WIRE SERVICES LOS ANGELES At George Burns' colonial home in Beverly Hills, near a stack of unopened mail on the porch, someone left a pot of daisies with a cigar and an unsigned note: "George, one for the road. We'll miss you." Burns' audiences never deserted him, and after he died over the weekend at age 100, fans and friends from the White House to Hollywood's Walk of Fame poured out praise, recalling the nostalgic days of radio and early television when he appeared with his wife, Gracie Allen, and his re-emergence as a movie star in the 1970s. "There'll never be another era like George Burns' 100 years," said Carol Channing, who was a friend for 40 years and often performed with Burns.

"What he stands for is the dignity and the aristocracy of show business." "It was hard to imagine show business before George Burns and it's hard to imagine it without him," said entertainer Bob Hope. Many noted Burns' career longevity. "When you're still active at 100 you have an Olympian humor, and that is very true of Burns. He was unique I expected him to go on forever," Sir Peter Ustinov said from Britain. President Clinton, making an election-year stop in Northern California, called Burns "one of the great entertainers of all time." "He enabled us to see humor in the toughest of times and laugh to-See BURNS on D7 were bright velvet tuxedos, worn with blue French-cuffed shirts and blue satin scarves tied at the neck.

On Friday, the final day of the collections, pinks, reds, purples and greens, on their own or mixed, made up the Giorgio Armani Christmas package. Part Gypsy, part vamp, and all lady, the new Armani woman wears a tight-fitting raspberry red suit, a slinky magenta evening gown open in the front, or a colorful Gypsy skirt with the same Armani class. Pistachio green and carnation pink were other knockout shades, especially when used for body-hugging silk jumpsuits. The jacket still played a role at Armani, with the latest version long and straight. Daytime suits were tailored, with box jacket and mannish pants, accessorized by ultra-classic brown loafers and clutch purse.

Coats were long and slim. Cocktail suits harked to the 1920s in midnight black, complete with vintage beaded jewelry. See FASHION on D7 pantsuits with wool safari jacket and flared pants, sporty double-breasted coat jackets, and gaily colored wool stockings worn with winter sandals added up to an army-navy look with feminine charm. Whereas the hemline at most of the shows soared above the knee, Prada pulled hers down to midcalf. The silhouette was loose-fitting.

Even the belts lay on the waist rather than cinched it. There was a lot of home-furnishings fabric, of the geometric-squares kind once used for couches and curtains, in the new Prada collection. These heavy wools and silks were fashioned into daytime suits and elegant evening coats. Colors were still in the green (bottle), purple (plum) and orange (tangerine) Prada palette, but this time they were in tone with the season. The other star in Milan was Ford, a 34-year-old American from Austin, Texas, who took over the design reins at Gucci about 18 months ago.

Ford showed that his early success at Gucci was not a fluke. His sharply tailored, sexy collection of women's wear continued with trends he The posh "preppy" oo is I rom Jj' Sander. Turtleneck sweater and man-tailored trousers are worn with a camel-hair coat and classic brown loafers. Sander, questioned about her prices ($2,000 for a suit), compared her styles to a good bottle of wine: "You pay a lot, but it goes down so smoothly. Poems, of course, for Joseph Brodsky On Theater By Clifford A.

Ridley Americans edge the Brits in dueling Shakespeares rf By Carlin Romano INQUIRER ROOK CRITIC EW YORK "It's just an awful emptiness with-i out him," confided dancer Mikhail Baryshni-I kov, somber in gray suit and black turtleneck, gazing up like a chastened choirboy toward the vast nave of Manhattan's Cathedral of St. John the Divine. He was talking Friday evening about the loss felt by many friends of Joseph Brodsky, the Russian poet who came to America at ASMNGTON The best Shakespeare company in England and Wl (arguably) the best one in .1.. jiiiai.ij.iiiiiii)jiiiiiii.iinniJiimiiiiiiiiiiii Mill The late poet laureate is remembered with longing at a New York service. age 32 after years of hardship at home.

Brodsky won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1987, served as poet laureate, of the United States from 1991 to 1992, then died suddenly of a heart attack on Jan. 28 at age 55. "It feels like a giant hole," Baryshnikov continued of his countryman ss 11 i i i-X I I I 1 ZL It I 1 I 'if i a America are duking it out across town here these days. To those who think the Brits have such a game won before it begins, I'd say, "Not so fast." The shows in question are A Midsummer Night's Dream, currently on view at the Kennedy Center in a prior-to-Broadway staging by the Royal Shakespeare Company, and All's Well That Ends Well, the season's third production by Washington's own Shakespeare Theatre. The first is delivered in the King's English, the second in the Founding Fathers'.

The first is among the most familiar of Shakespeare's com- edies, the second among the least. The first is easily accessible, the second less so. So which did I prefer? All's Well, by a whisker although, truth to tell, it's hard to go wrong with either. All's Well That Ends Well is a problematic play, dating from soon after Hamlet and just before Measure for Measure, which in certain respects it resembles. (It also contains echoes of The Merchant of Venice, The Winter's Tale and Henry IV.) Its verse seldom sings, and its principal characters the obsessive Helena, the callow Bertram, and the rascally Parolles are selfish and manipulative.

In short, it presents a formidable challenge, one that director Laird Williamson meets with invention and good sense. sc.v and fellow emigre, with whom he'd bonded during their years in New York. "We're all lost." A church, of course, is one place mourners go to find themselves again, to set their memories right. Late Friday afternoon, they came by the hundreds to pack the largest Gothic church in the world, its aisles stretching back the length of a football field, to pay homage to the caustic, brilliant native of St. Petersburg whose poetry made him a cultural giant in the two most powerful countries in the world.

The weather cooperated. As if Tchaikovsky's Winter Breams had changed into background frosting for the event, an afternoon snow squall laced the immense cathedral with wisps of white, joining the fierce cold to make the throngs of Russian Americans who arrived feel at home. Inside the cathedral, Brodsky's memorial service surprised some. No words spoken about him. Only words once spoken by him, but now spoken 'by others.

i See BRODSKY on D7 Alex Jennings is Oberon and Lindsay Duncan is Titania in "A Midsummer Night's Dream. The story, simply put, tells what happens when the orphaned Helena (Kelly McGillis) sets her cap for Bertram (Paul Michael Valley) and, as a reward for curing the King of France of an apparently terminal illness, is favored with the young man's hand. He, however, flees to the side of France's enemy, the Duke of Florence, leaving Helena to follow him and, by means of a trick that exposes him as a cad, bring him to heel. In a comic subplot, Bertram's friend Parolles (Philip Goodwin) is unmasked as a treacherous cow-See THEATER on D9 TV in 4y 1 V' v-v If Ml (K.Kl Associated Press CHARLES TASNADI Nobel winner Joseph Brodsky (shown in 1991), who died in January, was eulogized at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine..