Philadelphia Daily News from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 5

TUESDAY, AUGUST 17, 1993 THE PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS PAGE 5 BUBO D1 Suicide touched even the jaded set 73 0uU0uT Hollywood, they usually react coolly to earth-shaking developments. It's a necessity the I by Leigh Jackson did not enjoy seeing his name in newspapers, or on television. Coyle may not have been looking forward to "Money For Nothing" as eagerly as many would suppose. The director remembered his first meeting with Coyle, during which members of the production company peppered Coyle with questions based on a lengthy newspaper article recounting Coyle's million-dollar misadven place is built on a fault line. Snafus, shake-ups and last-minute surprises are part of the business.

Yet even in jaded motion-picture circles, news of Joey Coyle's shocking suicide left showbiz veterans shaken and humbled. 66 She got away, as she was making her way up the steps, she was shot twice in the head. Todd Donahue, of his mother, Donna Willard Director Ramon Me-nendez was in Berkeley preparing the final version of "Money for Nothing" a Disney-backed feature that recounts Coyle's brush with money and fame when he heard the news. "I'm stunned. It is very jarring," said a solemn Menendez.

"It really puts things in perspective." tures. "Let me tell you something about Joey Coyle. We're asking him all these questions, and he says, how do you know this? We told him it was in the article. The guy had not read it. Most people would be curious, but I guess he just couldn't be bothered." "Money for Nothing" is said to present a fairly Daily News Staff Writer His voice has changed from a child's soprano to the unsure tenor of a 16-year-old.

He's a foot taller now and wears his light brown hair in a stylish fade. He still smiles a child's smile, shyly, sweetly, but what he has seen in his short life would make a grown man shudder. When he was 12, Todd Donahue saw his mother die. Donna Willard was shot twice in the head on March 6, 1990, just days after she received a subpoena to testify against her former lawyer, Robert Burke, in a federal grand jury investigation of insurance fraud. Yesterday, Burke's friend, James David Louie, said he had hired Willard's killer on Burke's order.

Burke, who pleaded guilty to insurance fraud, is now being tried for masterminding Willard's murder. Willard's son testified two years ago against the hired gunman, Javier Lebron, who was eventually convicted of her murder. But yesterday Todd got his chance to testify against what Willard's family has long considered the big game: Burke. Ever since that horrible night, the family has insisted that Burke ordered Willard killed because she would not cooperate in Burke's scheme to cover up his insurance scams. Folding his coltish legs under the witness seat, Donahue, dressed in khaki shorts and Michigan Wolverines T-shirt, described how he was upstairs in their two-story rowhouse when his mother came home around 9 that night.

Then they heard a knock. "She was in the kitchen," he said in a clear voice. "I came down the steps and I asked her, 'Should I get the She said, to go upstairs, 'I'll get I went back upstairs but I made a turn, because I always checked on my mother. She opened the door and somebody grabbed her and threw her against the wall. She got away, as she was making her way up the steps, she was shot twice in the head," he said.

"After thnt, the murderer ran out the door. I ran downstairs. I covered my mother, went upstairs, got my two sisters and went to the neighbor's house." "You did good," his grandmother later assured him. "You did good." On the day Willard received her subpoena, Burke, in a telephone call, ordered her to "commit perjury or else she was going to be found dead with two bullets in the head," Willard told her co-worker Beverly Pinto, an elegant blonde with a tanning-booth tan. At first, Pinto and the other hairdressers at the So Hair It Is salon where Willard worked, thought Willard was joking, Pinto testified yesterday.

See BURKE Page 19 upbeat account of Coyle's days, glossing over such things as his battle with drug addiction and bouts with depression. Menendez doesn't think audiences should have a problem reconciling the genial "Money For Nothing" portrait of Coyle with the man who killed himself last weekend after an argument with his girlfriend. "Money for Nothing" concentrates on the larger-than-life attributes of Coyle's story, he explained. The movie sees Joey Coyle as a folk hero a myth who means different things to different people. Menendez noted that in doing research for the picture, he found there were as many different views of Coyle as there were Philadelphians.

"During our first visits to Philadelphia two years ago, there was a game I was playing with my partner. Everywhere we went, we asked people if they knew about Joey Coyle bartenders, taxicab drivers and they would say, 'Yeah, I know the Joey Coyle Every single person had a different account of the story," said Menendez. "Money For Nothing" is just another version. "The story we're telling is the story of a working-class Irish kid who is down on his luck," he said. "He thinks all this money will solve his problems.

He's very innocent in that sense. He thinks happiness can fall out the back door of an armored truck." The movie may not be scrupulously biographical, Menendez said, but in retrospect, it seems poignantly clear that "Money for Nothing" is true in at least one sense. "This is not a documentary. We have deleted and omitted certain details, and we have enriched others. It is essentially the story of an ordinary guy coming into contact with a tremendous amount of wealth.

He thinks there's no price to pay for newfound wealth. That's not true in our movie, and it's not true in real life." Gary Thompson is the Daily News movie critic. Menendez was astonished that Coyle a man ust a few weeks from seeing his life story on the big screen would take his own life. Menendez's "Money for Nothing" creative partner, writer producer Tom Musca, had found a cordial message from Coyle on his answering machine just a few days before. "He played the tape back for me.

Joey was saying, 'Hi, Tom, everything's and wanted to know how things were going. I would never say there was anything desperate in his voice." Menendez said he and Musca 's first thoughts were of Coyle's family. Musca, he said, will fly to Philadelphia today to console survivors, and to discuss an appropriate tribute to Coyle one that might be added to the movie, due out Sept 10. Hollywood Pictures, a Disney subsidiary, is sticking to that release date for now, the director said. "Whether we will dedicate the film to him or not is being debated," Menendez said.

"We will do what we think is appropriate vis a vis the surviving family members." The director had last seen Coyle a few months ago in Philadelphia, when the former longshoreman appeared in a riverfront scene. "The last time I saw him was the last day we shot there. He was an extra, a dockworker. He looked in fine spirits. A little overweight and a little pallid maybe, but besides that everything was fine." Coyle's friends and neighbors say people naturally took to the affable Coyle, and the production crew found that to be true.

"We like Joey Coyle," Menendez said, his disbelief anchoring him for a moment in the present tense. "He was a good man. I'm just really sorry that he won't be around to share the experience of seeing the film. I don't think he saw any of the footage as we were shooting." It's said that lives are immortalized on film, so it seems a cruel irony that Coyle committed suicide before he could see it happen. Menendez, however, knew Coyle to be a man who valued privacy.

He a twill if i Jar ANDREA MIHALIK DAILY NEWS Striking out against paylessness Out-of-work PGW workers line up outside their union hall on Frankford Avenue yesterday to apply for unemployment compensation, claiming they've been locked out by PGW management. The company claims they are on strike. Story on Page 19..