Clarion-Ledger from Jackson, Mississippi • Page 45

ANN LANDERS HOROSCOPE TV LOG January 6, 1983 THURSDAY si The Simpson sisters began performing while students in the Bel-zoni Consolidated Schools, as seen in this yearbook photo. Simpson siblings treat hometown to song dance 1 Stall photos by Kfn Newsom fl nist with the Jackson Symphony Orchestra when she was 1 5. She received her bachelor's degree in piano at the University of Alabama and a master's from the Manhattan School of Music in New York City. She has played for the Alvin Ailey Dance Company, Metropolitan Opera Ballet and American Ballet Theatre and worked on production of the movie 77ie Turning Point. In 1978 she became the official pianist for the U.S.

Rhythmic Gymnastics team, traveling with the group to competitions in England, Canada, Brazil and Germany. Among her other credits, the U.S. Gymnastics Federation commissioned her to compose music for the national compulsory floor exercises required for all competitions from 1980-84, and she has recorded nearly 40 record albums for music that she has arranged for dance and gymnastics. Married to Harold Mayer, they live in New York. Belzoni's Simpson sisters Bonnie, Tanya and where they will sing, dance and play tonight be-Sheila strike a piano pose at the Depot Theatre, fore a sold-out hometown crowd.

By SYLVIA CAMPBELL CUrioB-Udjrr SUH Writer BELZONI They teethed on bites of the Big Apple, so it was only natural that the Simpson siblings would be among the few to find themselves on the long-dreamed-of stages of New York. Sitting in the Belzoni studio where they learned to sing and dance, Sheila Simpson Mayer, at 36 the oldest sister, put it this way: "We heard New York with mother's milk." "Mama told us we could sing so we thought we could," added Tanya Simpson, 33. While she and sister Bonnie, 31, forged careers as professional singers, Sheila became a professional pianist Tonight, at the request of Belzoni Mayor Tom Turner they'll show what they've learned when they bring their "sisters' act" home for a one-night performance. The 7 p.m. performance at the Depot Theatre is part of the town's community concert series.

Although they haven't been on stage together since they were teenagers in Mississippi's Dixieland Talent Show, each sister has worked separately as a professional artist in New York. Their performing careers began when the sisters put an act together while their mother was out of town and called the late Maurice Thompson, a Jackson arts entrepreneur. "We called him and said, 'We sing. we come recalled Bonnie. "We went to Goldberg's and charged two dresses each to Daddy.

And we went on Teen Tempos, (a dance-entertainment show produced in Jackson)." Consequently, no one in Belzoni was surprised 13 years ago when the Simpson sisters packed up and moved to New York. "There was never really a question Tonight is a big night at the Depot Theatre, remodeled from the old Delta Southern Depot Story on Page 5F. as to whether we'd do it or not," Bonnie said of tonight's sold-out performance. "People who'd never buy tickets, bought tickets to come see us." "They just wanted to see us bomb," said Tanya, compelling a belly laugh from her sisters. 'Tanya is the humor.

When we get together she keeps us laughing," Sheila said. "Bonnie gets things done," Tanya chimed in. "Sheila is definitely the big sister." But behind each success story is Minnie Simpson, matriarch of the clan. From the time the sisters were old enough to sit up in a concert hall seat, they traveled Mississippi with their mother attending symphony concerts and ballet performances. When they got older, she drove them to piano, ballet and voice lessons.

Mrs. Simpson also had a dream, and left Belzoni to find it when she was 18. "My dancing teacher told me to go to New York, so I did," she said. She arrived in Manhattan to enroll at the Albertina Rach School of Dance, but first she had to find a place to live. She ended up at the Rehearsal Club, a famous boarding house for young actresses, where her roommates were the likes of Alexis Smith and Phyliss Thaxter.

Coming home to Belzoni 10 months later, she opened the Minnie Simpson School of Dance, which every summer since has improved its repertoire through her return trips to New York. Mrs. Simpson said she didn't push her daughters to become professional performers. Mississippi's public radio choices grow By BILL NICHOLS CUrioLe4r SUH Writer National Public Radio and public radio programming in general will gain an additional voice in Mississippi with completion of an eight-station public radio network under auspices of the Mississippi Authority for Educational Television. Lee Morris, executive director of the authority, said state and federal funds have been secured for the station targeted for broadcast next year and construction permits recently were granted by the Federal Communications Commission.

The ETV station joins WMPR as the second Jackson-based public radio sta- tion scheduled to go on Mississippi airwaves within a year's time. WMPR, a public radio station also using National Public Radio programming but unrelated to the ETV station, should be on the air by mid-year, said Omega Wilson, WMPR general manager. 'A FM station, WMPR is a project of the J.C. Maxwell Broadcasting Group, a non-profit organization formed in 1979 to build a public radio station emphasizing programming for Mississippi's minority population. Several college-based radio stations, including Jackson State University's WJSU, also have tentative plans to include some National Public Radio pro- gramming in their schedules, Morris said.

WMPR will serve an estimated 80-mile radius, while the ETV station will be broadcast to stations located in the same sites as ETVs television transmitters: Jackson, Oxford, Meridian, Mississippi State, Booneville, Biloxi, Greenwood and Bude. All of the ETV stations will broadcast at 100,000 watts except for Mississippi State, at 63,000, and Booneville, at 85,000. National Public Radio, based in Washington, D.C., is a non-profit ration started in 196S that includes 280 affiliate stations in 48 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. Among the 115 hours of weekly programming available to National Public Radio member stations are news programs such as Morning Edition and All Things Considered and entertainment and music programs such as World of Opera, International Concert Hall, Jazz Alive! and NPR Playhouse and Earplay, two examples of the network's selections of radio drama. Morris said the authority board also plans for the ETV station to serve visually handicapped audiences.

Readings from newspapers and magazines can be made available to the handicapped through a sub-channel that can be received through use of a special adaptor. Morris said the authority was created to include radio and television programming, adding that the ETV board decided three years ago to begin taking steps toward putting a public radio station on the air. Financing was obtained through a $l-million grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Agency, an agency within the U.S. Commerce Department. Morris said the grant was matched by $500,000 from the state, and operating expenses for the station were authorized through the Legislature's annual appropriation to the authority.

He estimated that the ETV station could be set up for about half the normal start-up cost because existing ETV transmitters, towers and technicians can be used, with minor modifications, to broadcast the station. The station is scheduled to air seven days a week, 19 hours a day. Linda Flentje, who has been hired as manager of the ETV station, said the programming schedule will be "eclectic," although final decisions on schedules haven't been made. She said, however, that locally produced and National Public Radio public affairs programs and classical musical programs would be among the offerings. WMPR also will air public affairs programming produced locally and by National Public Radio, but will use a musical format concentrating on jazz and blues, music indigenous to Mississippi.

"Our watchword in television is quality and it will be the same in radio," Morris said. He said because radio programming is less expensive to produce, the ETV radio station will appeal to a more diversified audience than the public television station. Morris said the authority also plans to explore the possibility of the new station producing educational program-ming for schoolchildren. Ms. Flentje said it isn't unusual for a city to have more than one public radio station, but she said she hopes the ETV station can coordinate programming with WMPR as much as possible to avoid duplication.

Since 1969, the year the sisters left Belzoni for New York, each has compiled enough stories to fill volumes. The first time Bonnie was chosen for a bit part from a group of extras at the New York City Opera, "My first response was out loud, 'Mama, I finally made it to the Met and I'll probably never be here "Everybody thought I was crazy," she said with a grin, the excitement of that moment still with her. Bonnie performed in the New York City Opera with Beverly Sills and Richard Fredericks for three seasons, and performed under the direction of Leonard Bernstein in Mass. In between parts she worked as a tour guide at Lincoln Center. Bonnie left show business in 1974 and spent the next eight years as an executive manager for est Now, she's a freelance management consultant for the Boston Area est Center.

In August she plans to marry Dr. Stephen Dretler of Boston. Sheila performed as a concert pia Tanya attended Delta State University where she got her first real taste of the theater by performing in the Cleveland Community Theater's productions of Bells Are Ringing and South Pacific. While in New York she sang in nightclubs, dinner theater and summer stock before joining a rock band, The National Scene, which toured the nation. The group settled in Orlando, where Tanya performs at Rosie O'Grady's Good Time Emporium.

Tonight the sisters will open their show with a brief musical review of their lives. To prepare for the performance, they've spent the past two months humming tunes over long distance telephone lines and mailing each other tapes. Just as it has always been, Sheila will play the piano while Bonnie and Tanya sing and dance. And appropriately, the show will open with Gee, But It's Good to Here. From left to right, sisters Bonnie Simpson, Tanya Simpson and Sheila Simpson Mayer credit their mother Minnie Simpson with promoting their performing talents and encouraging success.

positive II xr 11 II Those who have them 'accent9 the Larner said he of ten was amused at the degree of sophistication and polish attributed to him. "I think of it when I'm doing my laundry," he said. He says he makes a special effort to pronounce such words as chance, dance and ghastly in the American way, but nevertheless, occasional resentment surfaces at his accent "Sometimes people at cocktail parties, who have had a few, will say.Tll bet if we woke you in the middle of the night, you'd sound like everyone "he said. Both Larner and Myriam Zwierzinska, who was born in Paris, agree that because of the increasing number of foreigners making their home in the United States, perceptions are gradually changing. "When I first came here in the 1960s, I lived in Washington, and it was a small, conservative, Southern city," said Miss Zwierzinska, an Air France employee.

"People still had the idea of a Frenchwoman being like a naughty postcard, easy and flirtatious, very boudoir." She believes the tendency to treat Frenchwomen as very charming and not too serious still exists, but are perceived by some, and there are Australian introverts. Some accents are apparently an asset and others a mixed blessing, according to those who were born with them. "It's a great boon," said Wendy Liebmann, an Australia-born partner in a Manhattan importing concern. Appropriately, it's called the Australian Connection. "I practice my accent faithfully I want to keep it" Miss Liebmann, who also is a marketing director for Revlon International, says Australians sometimes are mistaken for English and "therefore a bit snooty." But, "Once Americans realize that you're Australian, they're inclined to think you're friendly and happy-go-lucky.

My accent is a real door-opener for me." Lionel Larner, a theatrical and motion picture agent for such stars as Glenda Jackson, Diana Rigg and Mia Farrow, is English. "Absolutely everyone tells me that my accent is total intimidation," he said. "I find myself working overtime to relax people, especially those who are less sophisticated." By ENID NEMY N.Y. Timet Nem Service There is absolutely no accounting for the perception one has of someone else, particularly on first meeting. Sometimes this perception is based on physical aspects of the other person.

Other times, accents, which as all Southerners know are no more reliable than physical characteristics, cement that first impression. For example, it's easier to attach the label of "patrician" to a tall, well-groomed man than it is to a roly-poly bundle in an unpressed suit And although no law says a nuclear scientist, male or female, can't be extraordinarily good-looking, it comes as somewhat of a surprise, even shock, when he or she turns out to be a knockout To many, a French accent conveys chic, sophistication and a knowledge of food, whereas logic dictates that there are millions of French citizens who are anything but sophisticated and know nothing about food other than how to eat it In the Northern states, a man or woman with a Southern accent is frequently underestimated in business. There are Germans who are not thorough, no matter how they it isn't as prevalent as in the past. Apparently still prevalent, however, is the French reputation for chic. "Generally, there seems to be a belief that French and Italian women have a certain ability to put things together that Americans haven't mastered," she said.

D. Lydia Bronte found her Southern accent a disadvantage when she moved to Princeton, and later to New York. "Northerners are inclined to assume that someone who speaks slowly is not too bright," she said. "I discovered that I would have to spend a lot of energy compensating for the fact that I was both a woman executive and a Southerner. "I decided to treat moving from one region to another just as if I were adapting to an unfamiliar country," she continued.

Miss Bronte, who is a consultant to the Carnegie now considers her "Northeastern" accent just as genuine as her Southern accent was, or her French accent is when she is speaking that language. "It was a very useful thing to do," she said. -f.