The Minneapolis Star from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 27

Variety The Minneapolis Star Tuesday, Jan. 15,1980 1C Jim Klobuchar Glossy nightclub act shows why she's 'first lady of Las Vegas' Falffiha jTjtlk i-l I tits the bill I 1 r. 'AX I Why do they want to be chief? A screening committee advising the mayor of Minneapolis has unanimously recommended two men from distant and relatively tame dominions New York City and Cincinnati as finalists for the job of Minneapolis police chief. My advice, to the two chosen candidates is brief: Pull out, boys, while there is still time. With nothing more than the fragmentary sketches provided to us by the committee biographers, we should be able to fairly arrive at one preliminary conclusion: A Anybody who would voluntarily submit himself to the job of Minneapolis police chief is immediately suspect, either on grounds of (a) naivete or (b) basic masochistic tendencies.

Reviewed by ION BREAM Minneapolis Su Surf Writer Lola Falana Is billed as the "first lady of Las Vegas entertainment." If hat is Indeed true, then next time I go to Vegas Til spend my money at the blackjack tables, thank you, not in the showrooms. It's not that Falana, who is appearing this week at the Carlton Celebrity Room, is not a first-rate entertainer. She put on a thoroughly enjoyable show Saturday night. It's that her show illustrates why I would rather see a concert performer than a nightclub entertainer. Quite simply, concert performers specialize in voice and interpretation; nightclub entertainers stress showmanship and entertainment.

Nightclub acts present contemporary standards and well-polished patter; concert singers offer songs identified with themselves and often don't say anything between songs. Falana certainly has no problem projecting. She paid her dues in the before she moved into the spotlight. She grew up in Philadelphia, danced with the Jerome Gaymon Dance Trio and served as a backup singer-dancer for diva Dinah Washington. In the mid-1960s, she answered a "cattle call" for dancers for the Broadway musical "Golden Boy," starring Sammy Davis Jr.

She went on to television, appearing on dramatic and talk shows and Ben Vereen's variety series. She starred in a series of her own specials and did a few commercials. She also has appeared in feature films, starring in five Italian movies, Including the hit "Lola Colt." In 1975, Falana was nominated for a Tony Award for her performance in the Broadway production of "Doctor Jazz." Two years later, she received the Song and Dance Star of the Year award from the American Guild of Variety Artists. These days, Falana, 37, spends most of her time in Las Vegas, Where she makes her home. She performs 16 weeks a year at the Aladdin Hotel and reportedly grosses about $3 million there annually.

She also is working on an album for Motown Records. Falana really could use a couple of her own hits to spark her show. Just about all the songs she sang in Saturday's opening, one-hour set were overly familiar to anyone who listens to top-40 radio, watches "The Tonight Show" or frequents hotel bars. There were the recent hits (Melissa Manchester's "Don't Cry Out Loud" and Gloria Gaynor's "I Will the obligatory disco medley, the contemporary classics Over Troubled Water with the Aretha Franklin arrangement) and the inevitable, inappropriate Vegas finale, "My Way." None of the songs received especially memorable readings. (Why does just about every nightclub singer insist on using grand gestures to end just about every song?) FaTana's voice was neither especially powerful, rich nor unforgettable.

Like most nightclub singers, she projected polished professionalism, not passionate vocal Interpretation. In many ways, her slick, well-paced show recalled last year's glossy production by Diana Ross at Met Center rather than Liza Min-, Falana Turn to Page 4C I offer this proposition after sympathetically observing the performance and psychiatric graphs of the last six police chiefs in Minneapolis, and also after receiving a predicted telephone call from one of my confidantes in the department. "Some of our people have done private, grapevine research on the two guys they picked," (Anthony Bouza of New York City and Howard L. Rogers of Cincinnati)," he said. "Our best information is that they are both nerds.

Independent search groups and Investigators will soon confirm that. "With all of the raw talent and sensitivity available in our own department, these doodlers go out and pick a police bureaucrat in Cincinnati and a guy who is now a professor in New York City. It's a kick in the crotch to the department and a terrible insult to the city." "How can you make such a crashing prejudgment of these two candidates?" I asked. "I predict strife in the department if either of these two guys are picked," he oV' clared. So do I.

As a matter of fact, I predict strife in the department if they aren't picked. I would predict strife in the department if Donald Fraser passed over both Anthony Bouza and Howard L. Rogers and picked a reincarnated J. Edgar Hoover or Douglas MacArthur. You could take St.

Francis of Assissi of Mahatma Gandhi, install him as Minneapolis police chief, and within six months he would be in trouble with the police federation and the Civil Liberties Union. Give him another six months, and he Klobuchar Turn to Page 7C i Star Photo by Stormi Greener Falana performed at the Carlton Celebrity Ro SNE-GQbOR Barbara Flanagan Valerie Harper faces life armed with wisecracks Sheer poetry in a reunion debut as principal guest conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra Jan. 30 in Orchestra Hall. Wtfi i I 6 I if. 7 I Burt Grossman of The Little Prince restaurant may stage the classiest evening of poetry reading In town If he can find a date to get his family together.

Grossman's brother, Allen, professor at Brandeis University, has already won recognition as a major American poet. And his second cousin, Dick Grossman, who lives here, is working on his second book of poetry. Burt Grossman assured me, incidentally, that The Little Prince, at Harmon Place and Spruce Place, has not been sold and will not become Les Quatre Amis. So where is Les Quatre Amis locating when it moves to the Twin Cities from Northfleld, Minn? How about in Kathy Koutsky's "Mayfalr Market" building at 12th Street and Harmon Place? The Klausketeers Include such famous names as Henry Ford II and pianist Arthur Rubinstein, although I don't know if Rubinstein is involved enough to exchange tapes with other members. Local Klausketeers include Bob Epstein and Gerry Joss.

Among the things they do is teach all of 4 close, and you'd either say, 'Oh, I wish it would run or you'd say, 'I'm so glad this turkey is Both are at odds with the truth, which is that it's over. 'Rhoda' was moved around the schedule a lot and pre-empted six times its last year. It wasn't getting the numbers. It just ran its course, and it was over. "I was satisfied.

I had nine years in the part. Doing more would have been like graduating from college but staying on. "It's curious the last two years, TV comedy has turned mindless. So many shows seem aimed at 6-year-olds. I'm convinced that they'll look back on 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' and its spinoffs as a golden age." Harper didn't start out as a comedian.

"Comedy used to be closed to women. It used to be that if you didn't wear a pinkie ring and an orange alpaca sweater, you weren't funny. "In the last 10 years, It's opened up. Listen, it's a co-ed world out there. In comedy, women can be more people.

Outside comedy, women are mothers or victims or hookers. It's what a man does, how a woman looks. "I never really suffered from that. When I was dancing, they had to cast eight boys and eight girls, no getting around it. As long as you danced well enough and had Harper Turn to Page 7C 4 jir By BART MILLS LOS ANGELES "This morning I had a great meeting with Paul Newman," buzzes Valerie Harper.

"You know what he told me? He said, 'Valerie, you can do frazzled better than Harper may not have gotten the part in the new Newman picture, but she certainly made an Impression. She can do frazzled, but she Isn't. "I am not now, nor have I ever been Rhoda," she says. She talks a blue streak, because she has a lot to say. As she says, she got A's In school, but as far as her friends were concerned, she majored in lipstick.

In any case, "Rhoda" is over, and Harper, 39, has a new career In features. As she did on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" In her pre-spinoff days, she has the best-frlend-of-the-star part in two comedies, "Chapter Two" and "The Last Married Couple In America." Harper Is taking films seriously enough to open her own production company. "This afternoon I spent looking at office furniture. First things first. "My company will produce things starring me.

I have to watch one thing, though. I don't want to get too big. I don't want to be the boss lady who bombs into the office like a Rosalind Russell character, wearing a pin-stripe suit." Harper's Dlue-streak discourse is full of wisecracks. She's the most entertaining talkathon in Los Angeles. She can get seri- us how to pronounce name correctly.

It's TEN- Tennstedt their hero's schtet. til mm AM-. v. 4nMmuit r. 1 Valerie Harper ous, but there's always a joke within half a clause of every pronouncement.

She's a graduate, if that's the word, of est. As such, she likes to look reality in the eye. She didn't blink when "Rhoda" was canceled a year ago. "I was in a lot of Broadway shows. I danced In those days.

The show would Look alert, Minnesota! The Klausketeers are coming! Some of them already are here and waiting Impatiently for the arrival of their hero, Klaus Tennstedt. The fans have turned Tennstedt into the cult hero of classical music since his first appearance in the United States in 1974. He is a native of Germany. The 54-year-old Tennstedt will make his There is no organized fan club for Rudolph Bubalo yet, but the Duluth-born composer is gaining fame fast. His composition "Spacescape," for orchestra and tape, will be played Saturday Flanagan Turn to Page 4C 1 i 3 Wta5-ft A- SL 'l ft Ol NORTHSI NEW 1979 COUGAR XR7 WSW RADIAL TIRES AIR CONDITIONING TILT STEERING WHEEL SPEED CONTROL TINT GLASS 35 1 CIO ENGINE AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION POWER STEERING BRAKES TWtfJ COMFORT SEATS with passenger recliner ENGINE BLOCK HEATER DAY DATE CLOCK REAR WINDOW DEFOG WIDE BODY SIDE MOLDING ROCKEH PANEL MOLDING LINCOLN-MERCURY 800 W.

Broadway, Mpls. 588-0561 Visit our 50 Car Indoor Showroom Conveniently located Just 5 minutes from Downtown Buy with pride at Northslde for a ns 79 Lincoln, Ust Price $7982 SALE PRICE ONLY includes freight prep For Leasing call Gary Abear ONE CofoR.