Honolulu Star-Bulletin from Honolulu, Hawaii • 19

Star-Bulletin Ttwdoy, July 1, J986 ninmonf I it i I i. i i What's on TV. 2 Dear Abby 2 Puis of Paradise 4 LI RC ror zu If vears, nes oeen rT 7 i it gt (l 1 tfesi -y i-N 1 '--i-i (l i oa .1 .1 Lr-0 on I mI Nxjj luwuii vvuiici ummict. wii inuuy, Says Goodbye ne ciosesT na landing. It was just an incredible experience.

There would be long periods of nothing coming through on the audio line (from the astronauts) and I had to ad lib. I had gone to the Apollo 9 and 10 missions, so I had a feeling for the space program. "We were the only station with a commentator in Houston, and when we took an overnight rating to test our audience share, we had more than a 90. That means that more than 90 percent of the television sets in use were tuned to KGMB for that period. That's the highest rating I ever got, and probably Sevey proaching 20 years as anchorman here.

20 years on the Fourth of July. I've seen a lot of things happen, I've reported a lot of remarkable things, but you know what they say. 'A reer is a job that has gone on too "It's time to sign off and do something else I can't say what right now, but I'll be staying in Hawaii. My actual date of employment was July 1, 1966, but it was a Friday. All I did that day was to walk into the studio and watch them do the 6 p.m.

news. The following Monday, July 4, was really my first day Dj the highest rating ever given to a TV station here." If tftat was a high in beating the competition, Sevey's other major memory of a national news (story involves cooperation among the local stations. "The assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 was at a time before satellite coverage," he said. f'We were dependent upon videotape being snipped in. I remember going on the air just after 9 a.m., and just talking from wire copy and a portable radio with the network news plugf ed into my ear.

We signed off ill other programing, and first they said they could- possibly go. How coum tney leave the kids home? They had a aioint. en we kids on Third step- pefl in; it was unthinkable to us that Mary and Bill should miss a holiday, not to mention a respite from their unruly brood. So we hatched a plan: Mary's mother would move in fr the week, and we kids on Third would be home, ready to bnck things up; Mary and Bill could then simply board their Sane and depart for a worry-ee week of no kids and any qumber of pleasures. All the Itids thought it was an excellent ftlan.

Cheryl, the senior sibling at 16, was battling acne, overweight and myopia, and agreed instantly that what her parents needed was romance. Bob and Roberta, the 14-year-old twins who did a lot more gum chewing than talking, indicated the arrangement ought to work. So did 13-year-old Nancy, the nearest thing to the egghead of the family, what with tier visions of perfecting her Spanish so that she could be a stewardess for a I South American airline. Kenney, the hulking 11-year-old. allowed that all would be line if there was enough to eat And Lori, the 6-year-old with a bed-wetting problem, was sort of caught in the tide of the whole deal.

We kids on. Third took Mar) and Bill to tKe airport for their mid-morning flight after Grandma had been installed on First i By Lois Taylor Star-BttUetin Writer FRIDAY night, amid all the hoopla for the Statue of Liberty, history will be made in a smaller way right here on Kapiolani Boulevard. Bob Sevey, the local TV anchorman with the highest credibility among Hawaii's audiences, is quitting. He announced this decision last night during his 6 o'clock new-cast on KGMB-TV, adding that his final telecast will be Friday. Sevey talked about this decision yesterday afternoon in his small, remarkably neat office at the station.

"It's something that has been building toward a conclusion as I realized I was ap- Pat Morita used to think success was an opening act in a nightclub. Now he's found it can come from the big screen. At Last, a Role With Punch By Stephen Hunter Baltimore Sun NEW YORK Once upon a time Pat Morita simply wanted to be an opening act. "For the longest he recalls, "the only thing I wanted in my career was to be a really good, solid, journeyman comedian, able to open ror anybody. There was something fascinating in that: If you could really get a hot 22 or 23 in front of the star, and lift the audience out of their seats and leave the star just enough of a trail of smoke to come in on, it made their job that much groovier.

It made the whole evening easier. I gained a nice reputation opening for people and I'm really proud of it" "I think from time to time the desire (to be a headliner) sneaks in. But when you're up against a Buddy Hackett or a Shecky Greene or a Don Rickles, you have to look at the realities of your place. And to, me, opening for anybodv was a gas. I accepted it." I Ah, Wilderness, Or, Where Are You iMother Nature? if p.

I -'f of anchoring the news." Reflecting on the biggest story he did during those 20 years, he chose the Apollo 11 moon landing. "It wasn't a local story, but it was for local audiences," Sevey said. "In those days there was only one satellite serving Hawaii, and there was no way three network stations could each bring in their own coverage. "So the station bought an audio booth at Mission Control in Houston and I did the reporting from there. It was July 20, 1969, and I was on the air for four hours for the first moon don't know what those numbers mean.

And then when it just went on and on and fan letters just kept on coming." It also earned an Academy Award nomination for a onetime opening act. Now Mr. Miyagi and Pat Morita are back in 'The Karate Kid Part II." "It's forced me to use my reading glasses more, because the contracts are fatter now," he says with a grin. Morita, in the flesh, is a far mellower, more humorous person than the reserved Miyagi; he's also a lot younger. He's also still baffled by what the success of the first film and the probable success of the second one means.

"I think it's still coming at me, what it means, in terms of like offers and considerations. I can walk in to an executive's office, where maybe as little as two or three years ago I couldn't get into the mail room. You Tarn to Page B-3 the other stations did the same thing. "We decided to put competition aside for this one and only time to pool our news CBS. ABC and NBC network news.

All three anchors appeared together on one show, and this went on for three days. This is unique in news coverage." When Sevey joined KGMB in 1966, he was hired as news director as well as anchor, but two years ago he gave up the first title. "As a practical matter, it was too much," he said. "In the old days, when life was Turn to Page B-3 with the six kids. We waved gaily as their plane pulled out and congratulated ourselves on helping to make their vacation possible.

1 Then we drove home. From the street, we could hear the music blasting from the house. From the alley, we could see kids literally pouring in and out the windows. Through the open door, we could see Grandma sort of slumped over the kitchen table, dragging on a cigarette and staring into her coffee cup. In the living room, a swirl of kids was tromping a jumbo bag of spilled potato chips into the carpet.

We turned down the stereo and called a pow-wow, trying to keep it sort or light- "Kids, go easy. This is new for your Grandma," we said. "Only one friend at a time over at once for each of you. Keep the music low. Don't eat on the carpet Okay?" We went upstairs.

Moments later. Grandma was knocking on our door. "Do you have any liquor?" she asked. It was 10.15 a.m. and Taffy the dog was right behind her, looking nervous.

We sent Grandma back down stairs, without benefit of liquid fortification, and contemplated first her fate and then the week that lay ahead. Through. ur kitchen windw. we could Tarn to Page B- Pat Morita: 'Miyagi was an amalgam of people I grew up with. He kind of talks like my father and my IT was a Norman Rockwell mid-summer distorted through a fun-house mirror.

The idea hatched so instantly, so easily. How could it have been anything but wonderful? We were called "the kids who live on me, wife and three-year-old, on the top floor of what once had been the attic of a big old house in Minneapolis. Mary and Bill, our landlords, called us that. They lived on First, and were so easy to love. Bill was quiet and calm and gentle.

Mary was plump and generous and always laughing and sharing. They were instant family, anchors and touchstones, a couple of bedrock people whose mere presence made you feel you had footing for life that was just a little bit firmer than it was before you met them. The big thing about Mary and Bill, though, was their kids: six of them, usually in very rapid motion. First floor was a very loose ship, and all the kids always had friends over and it was always noisy and inevitably messy, almost in a metaphysical sense. Marv and Bill would almost always grin and bear it, but sometimes they'd sigh at the thought of a respite from the kids.

Then, over the Fourth of July, Bill and Mary got their chance. They received an invitation-plus a pair of plane tickets to visit relatives in California. But then the business dried up. "I've always been blessed with great instinct about the condition of our business. I mean, you can't get work, agents won't hire you and that's got to tell you something.

And because work became less and less, I decided to try and get into acting. started to do little bits and pieces and commercials." One day he went to a cattle-call audition, and there won the part of Mr. Miyagi. Glory and triumph, riches and power, it all followed. Mr.

Miyagi, of course, is the Okinawan immigrant who taught Ralph Macchio how to throw spin kicks and chest punches in "The Karate Kid," one of the great hits of 1984. with over $190 million in domestic rentals. "I don't" think anyone could perceive $hat could happen," he said. "I mean, people in their wildest dreams didnt know. I.