Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • 17

Hljc HarlforjL) oufanl CONNECnCUT LIVING SECTION SATURDAY JANUARY 13, 1990 Julie Harris Combating sexism on the military front Third-rated ABC is No. 1 at taking risks Barbara T. Roessner A nil Daisy" at the Shubert Performing Arts Center I Julie Harris stars in "Driving Miss James Endrst Lw ON TV UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. It may still be closer to No. 3 in the ratings than No.

1, but ABC is starting to look more and more like the network of the '90s. While top-rated NBC has enough creative and ratings steam to stay on top for at least another season, ABC is the network taking the kind of creative risks that change the face of television, the kind of risks once associated with NBC. Critics are responding enthusiastically to several new ABC series slated for the second half of the 1989-90 season and previewed recently during ABC's leg of the January press tour here. By far the most talked-about program for reasons that will become obvious when it premieres in March is "Twin Peaks." A fascinatingly off-kilter mix of soap opera and mystery, the hourlong drama is the creation of feature-film director David Lynch "The Elephant Man" and "Blue and co-executive producer Mark Frost Street Set in a small town in the Pacific Northwest, where life is commonplace only on the surface, "Twin Peaks" stars Kyle MacLachlan "Blue as a highly unusual FBI agent. Often bizarre, always quirky, sometimes dark and cryptic yet surprisingly humorous, it is a Please see ABC, Page C2 The Color Wheel Inc.

One thought suitable only for casual wear, shorts now are designed as office attire. 'Proper' dress is concept By ELIZABETH SNEAD Fort Lauderdale News Sun-Sentinel 1' changing A of theater Women in combat. In recent weeks, those three words have made strong men quake. They've sent politicians diving for cover. They've exploded like a grenade in a culture still cowering behind the concept of the female as a weak and vulnerable sex in need of male protection.

And the casualties have been extremely high. Chief among them is the idea that women cannot and do not go to war. They can. They did. With M-16s slung over their shoulders.

I don't like war. I love Linda Bray, especially the way she wears that camo-colored cap pulled way down on her brow. I like the way her face looks, pretty and totally unadorned. I like her forearms. I adore the way she talks to reporters totally matter-of-fact, just-doing-my-duty about having made social and military history in a kennel on the outskirts of Panama City.

Manuel Noriega and his followers weren't the only ones laid low by the American invasion of Panama. The forces of justice also have triumphed in the social firefight that ensued. It's rather funny, really, that so many people continue to be so terrified by the specter of women at war. Pssst. They've already been, and come back.

The real battle is to free Congress and the military hierarchy from a host of false assumptions and the absurd inequities resulting from them. The hardest lesson of Panama is not that women are toting guns and firing on the enemy, but that it's time once again to force our institutions to own up to this new reality. Bray, for example, the military police captain who happened into the history books when she led her troops into a Panamanian Defense Forces attack-dog compound, is ineligible for the prestigious Combat Infantryman Badge. Hers is officially a "support" job, not a "combat" job, which by law or regulation if not in truth must be filled by a male. Meanwhile, men who saw far less action than Bray did can and will receive the badge.

And then there is Sgt. Rhonda J. Maskus, the paratrooper and Panama intelligence analyst for the elite 82nd Airborne Division, who claims she wasn't even allowed to go, thanks to her gender. She claims a male analyst, with no expertise in Panama, was dispatched in her stead. According to Maskus, who has filed a sex discrimination complaint, her superiors were confused about whether they were authorized to send women into the field even on so-called combat-support missions.

Supposedly, Army policy was clarified in the affirmative after similar administrative blundering during the 1983 invasion of Grenada. But apparently not everyone got the message. "Because of the lack of a clear policy about deployment of females in combat situations, I was denied the opportunity to do my job," Maskus says. "They've got to make a decision about women in the Army or else they will keep going around in a circle." So, we're betwixt and between, all mixed up and getting more so all the time. Although bald sexism remains almost sacrosanct in the military arena, we can't quite bring ourselves to bar women altogether.

Which isn't to say we'll let them in, totally, or if we do that we'll recognize and reward them, fully. We won't give them the Combat Infantryman Badge, but how about the Bronze Star, the Silver Star, the Distinguished Service Cross or the Medal of Honor? We can't even decide what combat means. A full 11 percent of our armed forces is now female, and we spend millions recruiting them, training them, preparing for any eventuality including annihilating the enemy and then we tell them they're non-combatants. But by the way, go ahead and fight, sort of. We say all of this springs from some primal need to protect them from danger and children and then we penalize them both financially and psychologically, denying them promotion, commendations and higher levels of salary and decision-making.

We're still chanting the old playground taunt, even though it has lost its bite. But at least Panama has given us a new rejoinder. Your mother wears combat boots. Yes, in fact, she does. Stephen Dunn The Hartford Courant in New Haven.

"Somebody said to me the other day, 'I love the things that are unspoken in the play. They are so And although the play is very funny and beautifully written, it vibrates with undercurrents. Vividly. It's like Chekhov: All the unspoken things you hear just as loudly as the spoken." "Daisy" is enjoying a high profile with the national release of the movie of the same name, starring Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman. Harris says she has not yet seen the film.

The end of the tour is a bittersweet time for Harris and co-stars Brock Peters, who plays Hoke, and Stephen Root, who plays her son Boolie. "It seems very hard to believe that we won't have this in our lives anymore," she says. "It's been a very special play for me, and it's been a very happy time for us. We've been a family for a year and a half." Please see After, Page C3 Celebrate each day; first, do the Cuckoo By DEBRA-LYNN B. HOOK Knight-Ridder Newspapers No more Thanksgiving.

No more Christmas. No more New Year's Day. Ho-hum. But wait! Doesn't today mark the beginning of Cuckoo Dancing Week? According to "Chase's Annual Events 1990" (Contemporary Books, $27.95 hardcover), this is indeed the week named in honor of Laurel and Hardy. So instead of sitting around listlessly waiting for winter to pass, couldn't you watch old Laurel and Hardy movies on your VCR, memorize some trivia and do some slapstick with your pals? Maybe you could don your favorite lid on Friday and tell people you're celebrating Hat Day, sponsored by the Hat Day Education Committee in Glenmont, N.Y.? You could write everything by hand on Jan.

23 in celebration of National Handwriting Day, then do something really special for National Kazoo Day and National Popcorn Day on the 28th. There's more during January! There's National Clean-Off-Your-Desk Day and Please see Revelers, Page C3 Style lines With a little thought, vintage clothing can prove to be worthy addition to one's wardrobe. Page CS By FRANK RIZZO Courant Staff Writer Don't call Julie Harris a grand lady of the theater. Though that accolade is hers for the taking, with a 45-year career that includes some of the most memorable performances on Broadway, such talk makes the actress blush. "I don't feel anything like an institution, or that I'm a grand lady of anything," the 64-year-old actress tells a visitor this week at the Shubert Performing Arts Center in New Haven.

"When I have enough rest, like today, I feel part of me is convinced I'm still 16. So I have a lot of energy and excitement and curiosity about life." Harris smiles sweetly, her blue eyes brighten and her voice engages with charm and care. So when she says, "I just feel like I'm still a kid in this wonderful Too much 'Glory' makes Freeman a nervous man By GARY THOMPSON Knight-Ridder Newspapers Mi 1 organ Freeman is pleased by his sudden success in Hollywood but he's worried, too. Worried that he might become too successful. That he might, heaven forbid, win an Oscar.

"Look what happened to Louis," Freeman said, speaking recently to a room full of reporters in New York's Regency Hotel. He was talking about Louis Gossett who in 1982 won a best-supporting-actor Oscar for "An Officer and a Gentleman," then, Freeman claims, had a hard time landing roles. "Everybody supposes that your price is going to triple, so they don't even bother to ask," Freeman said. Right now, the offers are plentiful, and Freeman doesn't want anything to mess it up not even an Academy Award. 7 fall in love with these ladies and their lives.

business," you believe every word. Harris is starring in Alfred Uhry's "Driving Miss Daisy," which is ending its 16-month national tour in New Haven. The three-character play, now at the Shubert, continues through Jan. 21. Though the story of a little old lady from Atlanta and the black driver hired for her by her son could be obvious and sentimental, the writing is spare, gentle and brilliant, Harris says.

Trl-Star Pictures Morgan Freeman portrays a Civil War soldier who rises to the rank of sergeant major in "Glory." "I don't particularly want it," he said. "People say that it will mean more roles, but can you guarantee that's going to happen? Louis disappeared almost immediately. The thing just sat on a shelf." Please see Freeman, Page C3 Ann Landers V. d'f A 'SSV i nl "nmaji I was pondering the concept of "appropriateness" the other day This brain activity (in itself a rare occurrence) had to do with a reader's letter in response to a recent column. The column dealt with the mixed messages sent to women by a thrill-seeking fashion industry and "a conservative society The reader informed me that, especially as a fashion writer, I mus pay closer attention to what is deemed "appropriate" clothing for cif ic locations and social occasions.

in other words, she WHUMWthHWmmM Commentary that's OK. For, liiethZ- 2- veritable silver lining on a cloudy day, her letter spurred some office discussion on the ever- changing concept of appropriate clothing. i My co-workers and I recalled more than a few garments once considered inappropriate attire. Garments once thought shocking, subversive downright countercultural. Garments that aren't seen that way at all today.

For instance: Pantsuits. Today, a basic of any working woman's wardrobe. But in 1968, they were deemed terribly inappropriate. Actress Susan- Please see The fashion, Page C8 Film review Inside Almanac C6 "Ann Landers a C6 Crossword C7 Gaimt PA. TV this weekend "Jury Duty" is a travesty; Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson team up in a new Western.

PageC2 Want to know what makes a state trooper cry? Today's column gives vivid example. Pago C6 Richard Gere makes a comeback in the engrossing cop thriller "Internal Affairs." PagtC4 Horoscope C6 JumMe C7 -vrvvOTiiuvn 1,3 Style lines C8 Television C2.