Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 67

1 I TODAY'S QUOTE "Television is for appearing on, not looking at." Noel Coward, English dramatist, actor and composer wwwtartribune.comfreetime StarTribune Sunday, July 2, 2000 Section .1 .1 POPSIAND 7 USB jlj I Fine arts gets short shrift on network news. 3 FOP MUSIC Gorgeous, glib, goofy and a ratings gorilla: Paul Magers is the anchor that news directors would love to clone. 5ff PtNi)pilHii- III IgUPsSaSaSaSaM 0 I tV I) 1 1 Larry Long's new album celebrates everyday people. 8 r' Mil i BOOKS Star Tribune photos by David Brewster Above: Paul Magers does a KFAN radio show from his office desk with headphones flipped to keep his newscast cotf Intact Left Magers and co-anchor Diana Pierce prepare to go on the air for a p.m. newscast Two novels explore the Civil War's aftermath.

16 iana Pierce was talking about her longtime coanchor, Paul Magers, when she volunteered a suggestion that necessitated a double take. "You'll have to ask him about the flaming balls of death," she said. The flaming balls of. ARCHITECTURE But when he steps in this building, he's singing something. He's messing around with people, playing jokes on them.

And it just brings the mood up." On a recent afternoon, Magers proudly showed a visiting reporter evidence of a stunt Sports director Randy Shaver has an old photo behind his desk showing himself with then-Gophers basketball coach Clem Haskins, who is clutching some kind of paper. Magers swiped the photo and inscribed Jan GangelhofTs name and other scandal-related information in tiny letters on the paper. Afterward, while talking to Shaver, he pretended to suddenly notice the "smoking gun" that Shaver had supposedly overlooked. MAGERS continues on "KARE bears" made one of the most dramatic turnarounds in the annals of local TV news. digs in Golden Valley know that Magers' value to the station extends beyond his ability to read news reports authoritatively and to pull in those advertiser-coveted adults, ages 25 to 54, by the thousands.

Magers, 46, is not just KARE's main anchorman. He's unofficial morale officer. Fiery paper-balls, water-pistol ambushes, practical jokes Magers is Patch Adams in a BugsySiegelsuit "Shortly after I took this job," recalls news director Tom Lindner, "Paul said to me, "You know, one of my main roles here is to keep morale I don't remember an anchor ever saying that, and I've been in this business for 24 years." "He comes here singing every day," says 10 p.m. director Greg Bee-son, who has been with the station since it was WTCN. "You know he's got issues, he's got problems.

He's got a good life, but things go wrong. Television Noel Holston death? "1 can tell you what it is, but you should ask him, too." It seems that she, Magers and the other on-air talent at KARE-Channel 1 1 have been known to wad up their scripts when they're done with a late-evening newscast and have paper-ball fights in the newsroom. "On occasion, Paul has lighted one of these things and thrown it at somebody, just to keep them on their toes," Pierce said. "Nothing's ever been damaged," she quickly assured. "No alarms have ever gone off.

It's just the little kid in it- s-aeifo him coming out." Anyone who has watched KARE's news over the past decade knows that Magers has a look of mischief about him. He'll slip in an oddball bit of video or a sly comment that suggests wink-wink, nudge-nudge "Let's not any of us take this too seriously." But few outside KARE's dome-topped Tom Meyer's dream: A mill for the millennium. 18 A TV rake returns to his roots at the Guthrie INDEX Movies PageF2 Pop Stand PageF3 OnStage PsgeF4 8 Days Out Pages F6-F7 Pop music PageFS Classical music PageFS Crossword PageFlO Videos PageFIS Movie review tie PageFIS Books Pages F16-F17 Architecture PageFIS sentimentality," he said with a wink over a ham sandwich and white wine at the Loring. "When you do a soap opera, they get to see your face and head it's all about the close-up. People think they know you because they can read your eyes that triggers something in us, allows us to trust." Keating, 58, is a fit fellow with a big-hearted exuberance who has had a 40-year acting career.

London-born and the son of working-class parents, his life might have been much duller had he not gotten jazzed by theater, he said. KEATING continues oa F4: Actor first appeared at the Guthrie 32 years ago, directed by Tyrone Guthrie himself. star! Soap opera star! Soap opera star!" Keating, in town to rehearse for the Guthrie Theater's "Twelfth Night," has caused a similar stir wherever he has gone in the Twin Cities: at area eateries, at the recent gay pride parade, and outside the theater. The fluttery-buttery swooning is not because of a theater background that includes stints in the companies of the Guthrie and Royal Shakespeare Theatre. People go gaga because they know him from the tube: Keating played hero-cum-villain Carl Hutchins for more than a decade on the late NBC daytime series "Another World." His amoral, conniving and sexy rake was big on the goosebump factor.

"It's not all sap and cheap By Rohan Preston Star Tribune Staff Writer When actor Charles Keating entered the Loring Cafe in Minneapolis recently, smile at the ready and silver ponytail keeping time on his neck, the hostess became apoplectic. She sucked air for a few long seconds before her voice finally caught up with her breath. "I saw you on 'Xena' last night," she said in an oh-my-gpd sort of way, covering her mouth with the plastic edge of a menu. "You're the soap opera star, right?" He nodded. She regained her composure (this was the oh-so-cool Loring, after all) and led Keating to a patio table.

As the happy hostess skipped, she began to sing to fellow employees: "Soap opera Star Tribune photo by Tom Sweeney It's In the eyes: Actor Charles Keating..