Asheville Citizen-Times from Asheville, North Carolina • Page 36

TV Dialogue Ire Avwvi'ie 'Xun ma l.fi Sal Apt TJtKj Marrying Actress Just 'Terrif ic9 For This Actor What's it like when your leading lady is also your wife? For Gary Collins il temlic. He and Mary Ann Mubley have worked together Irequciilly over the course ot their 12-year marriage. Besides television and motion pictures, ttieir joint appearances include nightclubs, conventions, charity telethons and summer theater productions. Their most recent co-credit is "The Secret of Lost Valley," a two-part telefilm for "Disney's Wonderful World" (April 27 and May 4 in which they play the anguished parents of an 11-ycar-olii hoy who gets lost in the woods. "Being parents helped us create the right attitude," explains Collins.

Adds Mary Ann, "We kept imagining our own 12-ycar-old in the same situation." I 'orhups the key to their success as marriage partners is the same reason they work so well together as performers. There is no comclitmn between them and, according to Collins, "Neither one of us has a giant ego." "It very comtorlable working with Mary Ann." says Uie genial It 2 in actor. "It's also convenient. We only need one call sheet and one driver. We're highly compatible on screen as well as oil For Mary Ann, working with Gary allows her the freedom to experiment and try things she might not try with other acts.

"1 can always count on him for an honest opinion," says the petite dark-liaired former Miss America, "and that encourages me to try new things. I may not always agree with him," she adds jokingly. Ollstage the talented duo are avid athletes and rigorously exercise together and apart. Gary keeps in shape with a disciplined 10-mile run every day while his athletic spouse exercises with tennis, swimming and horseback. And their careers continue to expand.

Collins, a veteran of way, if you care about this sort of thing, Susan's maiden name is Tomaling. IN THE SADDLE Cau you tell me whether David Hartman was ever a regular on "The Virginian," or if he ever appeared on the show at any time? I seem to recall seeing him, but the ladies I work with say I'm wrong. Judi Thompson, Longview Wash. This is one that you get to go nyah-nyah-nyah-nvah over. Before "The Virginian" finally rode into the sunset, many actors and actresses passed through for varying lengths of time.

From 1968 to 1969 David Hartman played David Sutton on the show. Lee Majors showed up in 1970, Tim Matheson in 1969, and so on. WAX FIGURES I know I'm a bit late on this one, but can you tell me the names of the English actors who portrayed The Beatles on the special that Dick Clark produced? Lonnie Drew, Trenton, N.J. John, Paul, George and Rin-go were played respectively by Stephen MacKenna, Rod Culbertson, John Altman and Ray Ashcroft. (Send your letters to Pepper O'Brien.

NEA, 200 Park New York, N.Y. 10017) FALLEN ANGELS Can you tell me when "Charlie's Angels" will be taken off the air? It's not as good as It once was. David Rogers, Lawrence, Mass. It seems the way the producers have decided to perpetuate the Angels' reign on earth is to fire one every year or so and keep America on tindcrhooks while they scour the streets for a replacement. So, you can expect it back next year with some new cur-vacious cutie replacing Shelley Hack, who will continue to be a Charlie Girl, if not an Angel.

At the moment. Bo Derek's sister looks like a shoo-in for the part. FAMILY AFFAIR I recently saw an actor named Chris Sarandon in "The Day Christ Died." Is he related to the actress Susan Sarandon? Also, what else might I have seen him in? Rita Woods, Columbia, S.C. They were related through marriage, having formerly been husband and wife. Susan's kept the name.

As for Chris Sarandon, you might have seen him in something of the antithesis to playing Christ; he was Al Pacino's transsexual lover in "Dog Day Afternoon," for which he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. In recent years he's been in "Lipstick," "The Sentinel" and "Cuba," as well as a number of theatrical projects in New York. By the MARY ANN MOIILEY. GARY COLLINS lour television series I "The Wackiest Ship in the Army." "Iron Horse. Hie Sixth Sense." "Bora is planning a return to the small screen this year as the host of a new syndicated talk show called "Hour Magazine." Mary Ann recently completed a cameo appearance opposite Burt Reynolds In the upcoming sequel to "Smokey and the Bandit." Their participation in the annual "Circus of Uie Stars" has become a regular event and together they have walked tightropes and performed trapeze acts.

"Being man and wife comes first," explains Collins. "We're just lucky that that's the way we are." TV STARSCENE Gideon, again, might frame an appeal that would go all the way to Uie Supreme Court. Or. they could do it Uie judge's way and dismiss the charges, if it sounded like an option Gideon might jump at. Gideon Is there a way to compress celebrity interviews to phase out the frills and get to the nitty-gritty? MCTV, that Time Inc.

subsidiary with an eye for new cable, as well as VHF syndicated shows, thinks so, and that what Virginia Woodruff did with her "First Nighter" special has series potential. A veteran critic, as well as a TV host of a New York television show, she gives viewers a shrewdly rounded package. Celebs sing their show-stopping turns from hit shows and are then captured on the wing lor in the wings?) in interviews that have only brief beginnings, long middles and no prolonged goodbyes. Does it work? Seems to. For instance, Sandy "Peter Pan" Duncan, who is in the process of an "amicable" breakup of her marriage, lamented that nobody got the record clear.

She did not marry the surgeon who removed the tumor Uiat cost her the sight of an eye, but rather a colleague of his. But no interviewer, mourned Sandy, had wanted the straight tacts. Until she met Virginia Woodruff on camera, that is, who dug for the unslanted truth. All concerned with the CBS April 29 special. "Gaugin: Uie Savage," agree that David Carradine was the perfect choice to star.

Yet. muses J.B. Miller, the scriptwriter who spent ten months doing research (which means he drank some of Uie painter's illegal absinthe in addition to reading fit) books about him), Carradine might not know who recommended him for the part. Miller tells us. "It was my secretary.

While I was writing. I hadn't thought ol who should play Gaugin. Then she called me one afternoon. "Tune in she said, 'to a movie titled "Hopper" with David Carradine. He's your I did.

She was absolutely right I passed the word along the line." court-appointed attorneys for Uie indigent accused in capital cases. Says Anthony Iwis. "As I remember the real Gideon. Henry Fonda does not look like him. but he has caught his qualities.

He looks like a beaten-up bum lold beyond his years) who has a mule-like stutiborness." Gideon changed the law. of course, and exccpl lor one minor incident was never in trouble with it again. And that incident has its amusing side. Kecalls Lewis. "Gideon lost all his money betting on the Kentucky Derby in 15 and was arrested on that most minor of charges vagrancy.

As he was being locked up for the night, he handed a copy of my book about him to the police magistrate and said. Head this before tomorrow The judge did, and he had a sense of humor said he could sentence Gideon to six monUis and By RUTH THOMPSON Ihore is a rule of thumb now proven fallacious by Henry Fonda that viewers turn cool on non-series stars they see either as guests or in TV movies more than tour times a year. Superstar Fonda has already racked up more than a year's prescribed maximum in the past six weeks, and the public has yet to be sated. Because, according to pulitzer prize-winning journalist Anthony Lewis, viewers will be seeing something fresh, "Not the typical noble, romantic Fonda," in the CHS docu-diuma, "Gideon's Trumpet," Wednesday, April 30. Lewis has seen the preview.

He its toughest audience. And he's cheering though everything was stacked against his liking it. He wrote the book about the late Clarence Earl Gideon, a drifter who loughl all Uie way to Uie Supreme Court and won the right to HBO To Present 'Beyond Category' Lou Rawls i i mn ii ii mi ft Bawls' career went into a slump in the mid li)7us. "The largest group of people in show business." Bawls told People magazine, "is not the has-beens or never wases. it's the whatever hapciicd lo's.

You see hundreds of people go through, many with number one records or hit show and they 're only there for a minute. I said that wasn't going to happen to me and then it did. "What I'd forgotten." continued Hawls. "was that no matter how successlul you get. you still have to deal with the dude on the street corner.

II don't mean nolhin' it you can't deal Willi him and have him come up to you and say that's my man." In his work. Bawls aims for the class of Nat King Cole. "The class becomin' elegant element he represented just isn't there today." says Uie singer. "The tuxedo-wcarin' people still exist. The whole world ain't beomce a big Levi.

There are people who like to dress up to go out, and I'm giluha be the tlafubbVaht. finger-poppin' engagements and gave the group expense money: enough to cover "gas and a glass ol milk each, a big jug ot lemonade and Uie world's largest box lunch." Hawls told People magazine. Alter a stint in the army. Bawls began singing in clubs on the "chitlin' circuit." "These were places where you end up singing behind the bar, standing over a cash register that rings at your big moment on 'The Shadow of Your explained Hawls to John S. Wilson of the New York Times.

"You dressed in storage rooms or in broom closets. Anil you played to people who didn't even know you were there." In Hawls moved to Los Angeles and appeared with the Dick Clark Show at the Hollywood Bowl. "Every other act on stage Uiat night lip snyched I was the only one who sang live." said ihe singer. Within six years, thanks to a Capitol record contract, TV appearance, rave reviews for concerts, club dates and albums. Hawls had become nationally known, filar-.

i 1 Alter 'M albums, and twe Grammy awards. Lou Hawls is a singer that his mentor Duke Ellington might have called "beyond category." Within his ui-concert act. Hawls includes soul hits like his own "IX-ad Knd Street, the Ellington jazz evergreen "Sophisticated lidy," the Philadelphia sound of "You'll Never Kind Another Line Like Mine." and even visits the world ol Broadway anil its current master Stephen Sondhciin with a performance of Siinilheim's "Send in the Clowns." Home Box Office subscribers will see and hear the versatility of Hawls when the national pay-TV network presents "An livening with Lou Hawls" beginning Saturday. April 26 at in Videotaped al the Las Vegas Hilton, the special includes all the songs listed above plus a special tribute to Nat King Cole. Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong accompanied by vintage photos and movie lootagc.

K.iwls began at the age of 7 with his local church choir in Chicago. As a teen-ager. he. the late Sam Cooke and two other friends formed a gospel quartet; By the time Kuwls was 14 Uiey had already appeared with the queen of gospel, Milhalw. sjaekson.

lheir LOU RAWLS,.