Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 21

Variety Minneapolis Star and Tribune Monday September 261983 GOOD DATE OF SALE ONLY 1C. coi It's a rerun at Emmys: Third-rated NBC wins again 3 Associated Press Los Angeles, Calif. Third-rated NBC crushed its rivals at the Emmys for the third straight year Sunday, winning 33 awards on the strength of two critically praised but struggling series, "Cheers" and "St. Elsewhere," and its offbeat police drama "Hill Street Blues." NBC won more Emmys than the other two networks combined as the Academy of Television Arts Sciences held its 35th annual presentation of awards for excellence in prime-time programming. ABC won 1 4 Emmys and CBS 1 1 Each of the last two years, NBC had dominated the awards with 20.

"Cheers," about hijinks in a Boston bar, was named best comedy series. Shelley Long won top acting honors as an intellectual barmaid. The show also won a writing award for brothers Glen and Les Charles and a directing award for James Burrows. "Hill Street Blues," which has become a ratings winner after a slow start, was the year's best dramatic show. It supporting performers Carol Kane and Chris Lloyd.

NBC picked up the comedy show last season after ABC dropped it, but now NBC has canceled it too. "Doesn't anybody know that we've been canceled?" Hirsch joked as he picked up his award. "When you can't get us out of your mind and you keep giving us laurels you really should put us back on the air." "The Thorn Birds," based on Colleen McCullough's novel about three generations of an Australian family, won the best actress Emmy for Barbara Stanwyck, while Jean Simmons and Richard Kiley won supporting awards. The show also won an award for art direction. ABC also picked up an award for best direction of a special, "Who Will Love My Children?" Another highly-rated ABC miniseries, "The Winds of War," got 13 nominations but was shut out of the top awards.

"Nicholas Nickleby," the Royal Emmys 2C Ed Flanders Best actor in drama Shelley Long Best actress in comedy TyneDaly Best actress in drama JuddHirsch Best actor in comedy Daly, star of the canceled police show "Cagney and Lacey." NBC's controversial "Special Bulletin" about news coverage of a nuclear disaster was named best special. It also won for best writing in a special. NBC's "Taxi" took three acting prizes for star Judd Hirsch and for for Roberts, who dedicated her Emmy to husband William Guyen, who died Aug. 29. ABC's top winner was "The Thorn Birds," the most-watched miniseries of all time.

Embarrassingly for top-rated CBS, its only award out of 29 announced during the NBC telecast was for Tyne also took prizes for writing, directing and film sound mixing. Ed Flanders won the Emmy as best actor in a dramatic series for "St. Elsewhere," about a rundown Boston hospital. Doris Roberts and James Coco, who played a bag lady and her derelict boyfriend on an episode of the series, were honored for outstanding support. It was an emotional victory Anchors don't outweigh flaws in WTCN's news 'AfterMASH' has a tough act to follow Nick Coleman Ml -W' 'ill fFw4'' I I WTCN-TV unveiled its new anchors and its revamped news programs last week.

But it was a funny unveiling: Channel 1 1 officials, fearful that their new product might not withstand intense scrutiny, refrained from promoting the station's new look, doing without the usual barrage of announcements and hype that herald a change-over in a TV news department. It was a wise decision. New co-anchors Paul Magers and Diana Pierce were cool, professional and attractive. But shiny anchors don't make a leaky boat seaworthy and Channel 1 1 's rowboat still isn't up to speed with the sleek runabouts at KSTP and WCCO. the first show last Monday was an unqualified disaster.

Its top report featured a live shot by newcomer Diane Rossi at the scene of a natural gas explosion that destroyed a home in Newport. Rossi, who a few weeks ago was a registered nurse in Denver, doesn't belong as a news reporter in a major TV news market. Arriving late at the scene an Old problem at Channel 11 the station wasn't able to get any taped footage of the destroyed house before dark. So Rossi, staring at some strange spot on the ground, introduced a live report by telling Pierce: "Well, Diana, as you can see, there isn't much left to this house here." The problem was that no, we couldn't see: It was pitch black behind Rossi. She also repeatedly used the egregious phrase "at this point in time," referred to an injured resident of the house as "a ByLeeMargulies Los Angeles Times Hollywood, Calif.

"Pressure? Sure we sense it," Jamie Fair confessed, looking somewhat out of place on Stage Nine at 20th Century-Fox. He was still playing Max Klinger but, after 1 1 years of snowing up for his scenes in dresses and army fatigues, the actor was wearing slacks, a dress shirt and an argyle vest "M'A'S'H" is over. But life civilian life goes on, at least for Klinger and two of his cronies from the 4077th in Korea, Col. Potter (Harry Morgan) and Father Mulcahy (William Christopher). For them there is "AfterMASH." You would think that anyone working on the sequel to one of the best television series ever made wouldn't have a worry in the world: If ever a show had a guaranteed tune-in, it is "AfterMASH," which premieres with a one-hour episode tonight at 7 p.m.

(and thereafter will be seen Mondays at 8 p.m., the old "M'A'S'H" time slot). "I'm sure we'll have a big audience the first couple of nights," Morgan said, "because they'll want to see what we've done to 'MASH' and where it's going. Whether we can hold on to them? That's a hard question to answer." He was referring to the dichotomy faced by any sequel: The advantage that "AfterMASH" enjoys over other new series, in terms of name recognition and built-in audience interest, is also its greatest potential liability. Simply put, how do you live up to the achievements of That is the pressure that Farr, Morgan and Christopher feel. So does executive producer Burt Metcalfe, who was with "MASH" from the beginning, as associate producer for the first five seasons and executive producer for the last six.

"We may forever be judged by that yardstick," Metcalfe acknowledged. But the best thing they can do to deal with the pressure, they said, is to ignore it. "We can't be WA'SH' Christopher said. "We don't have The Swamp with those rowdy guys in it and AfterMASH 7C six-month-old baby child" and, amusingly, called the scene of the explosion "the scene of the crime." The only crime here was committed when Rossi was assigned to the story. To be fair to Rossi, it isn't her fault that she doesn't have the experience necessary to do a live report.

Rossi, who did TV spots in Denver for that city's Poison Control Center, was hired mainly to do taped medical features. (She does those as if reading public service announcements, but that's another story.) One station official said the next day that Rossi had "been thrown to the lions" by an assignment editor who used poor judgment in sending her to the story. And the official said it wouldn't happen again. But Rossi's disaster points out a problem at Channel 1 1 one that is shared by many other stations. This kind of gimmick hiring doctors and lawyers and, now, nurses as reporters leads to the kind of problem Rossi ran into.

Channel 1 1 which has been short Coleman 2C Staff Photo by David Brewster WTCN's new co-anchors, Paul Magers and Diana Pierce. Grant Wood's neighbors learn much at exhibit of his paintings knowledge of a major painter, but the lowans returned the compliment. When she finished, they applauded, and Stamats touched her arm and told her she was marvelous. "We've learned so much that we didn't know before," she said for example, that the painting of Washington crossing the Delaware, the background for "Daughters of Revolution," was painted by a German, which was Wood's ironic gibe at people who wrapped themselves in the American flag. The show continues Tuesdays through Sundays through Jan.

1. Hours are noon to 5 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, noon to 9 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Saturdays and Sundays. high school teachers. As for the most famous work in the exhibit, "American Gothic," which shows a dour farmer (actually Wood's dentist, Dr. B.H. McKeeby) and his spinster daughter (Wood's sister, Nan), Mrs.

Carl Kesler recalled that "Dr. McKeeby was our dentist and he looked just like that when he looked in my mouth." Occasionally the visitors gently corrected the docents. "This woman is in costume," said one docent about "Woman With Plant." "Oh, no," chorused several of the women, "she dressed like that." "Oh, really," said the chastened docent. "We were told it was a costume." Lieberman said it was fascinating to talk to people with firsthand mother (Stamats) pushing a baby carriage and a dashing figure on horseback. After Lieberman had finished, Stamats did volunteer "something silly that's fun: When a painter came to our house, he looked the painting over and said, 'There isn't any outlet for the plumbing on this side of the "So Grant came back and here it is," she said, pointing triumphantly to a detail from the painting.

"And the cat was named Boots because he had white boots." That reminiscent mood was typical of the hour-long tour. One visitor recalled how Mrs. Wood, the artist's mother, made cookies for her, and another recognized the grim faces in the "Daughters of Revolution" as her ByBobLundegaard Staff Writer "I'm almost reluctant to tell you about these paintings," Minneapolis Institute of Arts docent Sara Lieberman told the tour group. "You should be telling me." It's easy to understand why she felt that way. The paintings are the works of Grant Wood, and many of the people she was addressing a busload from Wood's hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa knew Wood personally.

One of them, Isabel Stamats, received one of the paintings, ''Overmantel Decoration," as a surprise 29th birthday present from her husband in 1930. The 30 lowans were the first visitors Sunday on the first day of the Institute's three-month-long exhibit, "Grant Wood: The Regionalist Vision." They'd driven five hours from Cedar Rapids Saturday morning, attended a gala preopening party that night and had arrived at the museum before it opened at 10 a.m. Sunday. They were part of an opening-day crowd that totaled 1 ,288 by the museum's 5 p.m. closing time.

When the group got to "Overmantel Decoration," several of her friends urged "Billie" Stamats, a diminutive woman with a ponytail, to talk about the painting. "No," she said to Lieberman, "I'd rather hear what you have to say." The painting depicts the Stamats's rhymes with playmates," she said) home in Cedar Rapids, with a 1.