Quad-City Times from Davenport, Iowa • 25

Head 'em up! Move 'em out! It's the last Roundup of the Elephants' TV PAGE QUAD-CITY TIMES Wednesday, June 16, 1982 Aew doss rocrs fte doer MQAD Bv David M. Scheehter of the Timet handle special projects. She has not responded to the station's offer. Ms. Zinga, well-regarded by her news media colleagues, has been sharing anchoring duties with Ms.

Brandenburg. In March, Ms. Zinga was to have replaced Wendy Ellis as an anchor at WHBF-TV, Channel 4, but stayed when WQAD officials asked her to remain as an anchor. McCarthy talked Tuesday about strengthening news coverage on Weekday Magazine to better utilit-ize Ms. Zinga's reporting talents but did not specify any contemplated changes.

Ms. Zinga would not comment on the WQAD sha-keup. Until June 28 she and King will anchor the weeknight news. No change is planned for the weather or sports, McCarthy said, where weatherman Bill Bailey and chief sportscaster Thorn Cornelis "are doing a great job McCarthy characterized the station's audience as "people who are down to earth, who want the facts but don't want a lot of show business, who want a harder, more aggressive edge to the reporting, with less cosmetics." WQAD, an ABC affiliate, is owned by the Des Moines Register and Tribune Co. MCCARTHY, 36, comes to the Quad-Cities after two years at WBBM-TV, a CBS affiliate with Chicago's top-rated news programming, where he was a reporter and investigator.

He also worked a year as an investigative reporter at a station in Portland, after several months at a Rockford, station. He also is a Harvard University law school graduate who worked for the Small Business Administration and a private firm handling consumer law. McCarthy said, and station insiders confirmed, that the changes were being considered before recent Ar-bitron ratings were released. They showed WQAD barely trailing WOC and WHBK at 6 p.m., and in second place trailing WOC but leading WHBF at 10 p.m. Incoming news directors often make changes and the staff usually expects it but this action came faster than many staff members expected.

McCarthy said he had reviewed tapes of the WQAD staff's work before arriving in Moline. "I am accelerating pre-planned changes to present the overall audience with a choice, sooner rather than later," he said. "The viewers can't lose with this. They'll gel a more complete, intelligent newscast." The next ratings period is in July, but that falls too early to gauge the success of the changes. "Judge us in November," McCarthy said.

WQAD operates with an annual news and special affairs budget of about $900,000, he said. Kathryn Bohn Joan Brandenburg Jim King John Natelle Andrea Zinga The promotions department at WQAD-TV may be busy changing the personnel photographs in the Moline station lobby after Tuesday's announcement of major changes in the news operation. Pat McCarthy, who took over as news director a week ago, has hit the street running. "We are laying down the gauntlet to the others in terms of credibility," he said. McCarthy confirmed what media insiders had expected and what regular viewers of Channel 8 must have suspected some familiar faces are fading away while others become more prominent.

'i The major changes, to take effect June 28, are Joan Brandenburg is off the air. The former weeknight anchor is being paid her full salary while she looks for another job. "I don't want somebody to be without a check in an economy like this," McCarthy said, adding that Ms. Brandenburg did not want to be a reporter, preferring to be an anchor only. "No hard feelings," Ms.

Brandenburg said Tuesday night. "Pat was very nice about it." Ms. Brandenburg said that rather than be a reporter, she decided to "save a little embarrassment" and seek other employment. John Natelle also will be removed as a weeknight chor on the weeknight newscasts at 6 and 10 p.m. Ms.

Bohn, who previously worked at WOC-TV in Davenport and KDUB-TV in Dubuque, Iowa, currently hosts the Weekday Magazine. McCarthy's reporter-anchor concept calls for Ms. Bohn and Ketz to do more stories themselves than most anchors do. "Anchoring is only a part-time job. Reporting is a full-time job," he said.

Most television reporters consider anchoring a prime assignment, insiders say, and some bruised egos can be expected when a station changes anchors. Andrea Zinga has been asked to host Weekday Magazine, and to continue her consumer reports ani anchor. Instead, he will anchor and produce the weekend news, and be a reporter on the Active 8 Weekday Magazine program, McCarthy said. Natelle would not comment Tuesday, but said he would make a statement Thursday. Colleagues said Natelle was not happy about the situation.

Jim King, the station's silver-haired cornerstone for 20 years, is going on the road. He is being given an airplane ticket marked for Washington, D.C., Des Moines and Springfield. Beginning this fall, he will anchor an as-yet unannounced but probably linked to the fall elections segment on the nightly news. Kathryn Bohn will join Kris Ketz as reporter-an LEON s- LEVINE FOR HER broke up the wedding-to-be right in the church, and since then it's been nude horseback riding, leather sheets and hot oil rubs. Conrad was born in New York City the son of a career Army man, and he served in the artillery during World War II.

"I wasn't brought up by a man," he says. "I was brought up surrounded by women and it's had an enormous effect on my life. I'm very comfortable with women. I have no preconceptions. The women I grew up with were very strong women.

They didn't treat me like a little boy. I was the man." When he got out of the Army he went to City College of New York and studied drama at the Dramatic Workshop of the New School. He did some summer stock and was in the national tours of "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Mr. Roberts." "I couldn't make a living as an actor until I was 33," he says. "I always did something else.

Whenever I couldn't get work as an actor I went out and got another job. But I knew that if I stuck with it some day I would make it. I loved the work so much. And I didn't have a lot of middle class values to support so I could skimp by." HE ALSO FOUND sustenance working on such New York shows as "Naked City" and "The Defenders." He traveled to Louisiana for a guest shot on one of the first "Route 66" episodes. After moving to Los Angeles in 1963, his first role was a guest spot on "Wagon Train," followed by stints as the bad guy on such shows as "Gunsmoke," "Laredo," "Rawhide." In the following years he did a lot of "physical roles." Frequently, he was the baddie, but not always.

He was the football coach in "The Longest Yard." He was the locomotive engineer in "Cattle Annie and Little Britches." He was also in such movies as "Castle Keep" and "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" All those years on the wrong side of the law may have helped him play a policeman. When asked how much research he did for his role on "Hill Street Blues" he makes a circle with his thumb and forefinger. "Zip. I'm not one of those actors who believe that you have to research your roles." Make This a Stylish Summer Stvlishlv simple, classically timeless. You' 'Hill Street's' Phil Esterhaus xHis private life is strictly from the fantasies of the writers' enjoy Summer in Leon Levine's pull-over polo shirt with five-button placket front and stitched edge collar and yoke.

Looks smart with your skirts, slacks and shorts. 60 cotton 40 polyester in white, beige, navy, brown, kelly green, pink, red and yellow; sizes S-M-L-XL. $19. Better Sportswear LOS ANGELES (AP) In late 1979 Michael Conrad got a call from a producer friend who asked him to keep the following March clear for a show called "Hill Street Station." The call came from Steven Bochco, who had created and produced another police series, "Delvecchio," in which Conrad had a starring role. "We had good chemistry and we laughed a lot," Conrad says, "So I asked him what kind of a part it was.

He just said to the effect he was a police sergeant who been out on the street too many years and was burned out. Everybody knows he's burned out, but they value his expertise. But he never goes out on the street. He gets edgy if he even thinks about it." WHEN MARCH rolled around, he took the role of Phil Esterhaus in what was now called "Hill Street Blues," co-created by Bochco and Michael Kozoll. The character was tailored for Conrad.

Last September when the BC series won an unprecedented eight Emmys, one of them went to Conrad as best supporting actor in a drama series. Esterhaus is usually an island of serenity amidst -the chaos that grips the Hill Street station. The officers are trying to cope with the crime in the blighted ghetto area surrounding the station and going just a little bit Crazy because it's an impossible job. Esterhaus has not been totally out of action, however, and has been carry- lhg on a sizzling affair with Grace Gardner Barbara Babcock). ti "His private life is strictly from the fantasies of the writers," Conrad, a 6-foot-4 actor who spent most of his -career playing what he calls "physical roles," says.

Z' "Of course, I have a wife 25 years younger and they know I've done all right with the ladies. But I'd never played a ladies man before so they kind of played around with that It can be a bit much. The pilot said Phil Esterhaus was a man 48 years old with a 17-year-t old girlfriend named Cindy. It's highly improbable, but possible." THE EPISODE that won him the Emmy was the one that nearly took him to the altar with Cindy. Grace Tomorrow By Marilyn Lane Entertainment editor Dance and theater make up the bulk of Thursday's entertainment.

The Joffrey II Dancers will present a lecture-demonstration at 7:30 p.m. in the Gal-vin Fine Arts Center at St. Ambrose College, Davenport A reception will follow. Junior Theater continues performances in Davenport parks and playgrounds. "Tortoise and the Hare," "Peter Rabbit," "Little Miss Muf et" and "Who Likes the Rain" will be presented at 9:30 a.m.

at Northwest Park and 10: 30 a.m. at Peterson Park. The Royal American Shows carnival continues on the Davenport levee. "On Golden Pond" is playing at 8 p.m. at Timber Lake Playhouse, Mount CarrolL 111.

"I Ought To Be In Pictures" will be presented at 8 p.m. by the Old Creamery Theater Company on the City of Clinton, Iowa, Showboat PETERSEN HARMED VONMATJR 7 I 1.