Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 27

Today's Highlights MetroSouth Central (Chicago (Tribune Sunday, February 6, 1972 Home Garden SPECIAL EVENTS a. m. 7 I. N. K.

The second program in this children's series offers an explanation of where electricity comes from. 11:30 a. in. Face the Nation. Newsmen interview Xuan Thuy, North Viet Nam's chief delegate to the Paris Peace Talks.

12:00 noon 5 Meet the Press. Newsmen interview Eugene J. McCarthy, a candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination. 12:30 p. m.

7 Issues and Answers. Newsmen interview Sen. Henry M. Jackson 1:00 p. m.

5 Ethnic Factor. A report on the changing feelings and aspirations of three ethnic groups Italian, Polish, and Jewish in the metropolitan New York area. 7:00 p. m. 9 People to People.

Tonight, a discussion on the problems ex-law offenders have in regard to employment after their release from prison. SPORTS 1:00 p. m. 2 Hockey. Toronto Maple Leafs vs.

Rangers in New York. 1:10 p. m. 7 Pro Basketball. New York Knicks vs.

76ers in Philadelphia. 1:00 p. m. 11 Tennis Championships. The first of five telecasts on the U.

S. Indoor Winter Tennis Championships. 2:00 p. m. 5 Winter Olympics.

Coverage of selected events from Sapporo, Japan. Additional coverage at 10:30 p. m. 3:30 p. m.

7 American Sportsman. Wally Schirra works for game control in Kenya and Fabian fishes for trout in New Zealand. 4:00 p. m. 7 Hawaiian Open.

Final round of the golf tournament from Waialae Country Club in Honolulu, Hawaii. VARIETY-DRAMA 7:30 p. m. 9 Artists' Showcase. Tonight's performers are cellist Jerry Bobbe and soprano Martha Anderson.

8:00 p. m. 11 Six Wives of Henry VIII R. Tonight's episode focuses on Henry's relationship with bis last wife, Catherine Parr. New York Today The 'Conceit' of Playing Lt.

Columbo A4 Hour By Hour 6 a. m. 6:40 5 Minutes to Live By 6:45 Newi 6:50 Thought for thi Day 6:55 Early Report 6:57 WGN Editorial 7 a. m. 7:00 Tom and Jerry Cartoon Corner 7:25 Reflections 7:30 Groovie Goo I res Consultation Cartoon Corner 8 a.

m. 8:00 Backyard Safari 2 Whys? and Otherwise! 5 Directions 7 Three Score 9 Day of the Discovery 32 New Life in the New Testament 44 8:15 Mass for Shut-ins 9 8:30 Magic Door 2 Memorandum 5 Jubilee Showcase 7 Faith for Today 32 mmmmmtmmmmmmmm tib-JJi. SS'S'l KV r'SVuS i i.rf,'l-H5' I 1 9 a. m. 4 p.

m. 4:00 Mother Goose Assembly 2 Zoorama Hawaiian Open 7 French Chef 1 1 Voice in the Desert 26 Merri Dee 44 4:30 Animal World 2 Sports Action Pro-File 5 Election 1972 11 The Session: Today's Sound 44 5 p. m. 5:00 60 Minutes 2 Comment! 5 Washington Week in Review 1 1 Bob Lewandowski 26 Kid Talk 32 European Kaleidoscope 44 5:30 News Garrick Utley 5 Wall Street Week 11 My Favorite Martian 32 6 p. m.

6:00 News Julian Barber 2 Wild Kingdom 5 Survival 7 Sunday Night Special 9 Sunday Evening Club 11 Italian Variety 26 Avengers 32 Conservative Viewpoint 44 6:30 CBS Movie 2 "The Brotherhood of the Bell." Walt Disney 5 This Is Your Life 7 Dr. Preston Bradley 44 7 p. m. 7:00 FBI 7 People to People 9 Sesame Street 1 1 Hellenic Theater 26 Roller Game of the Week 32 Jim Conway 44 7:30 Jimmy Stewart 5 Artists' Showcase 9 8 p. m.

8:00 Bonanza 5 ABC Movie 7 "Ice Station Zebra." Part I. Hce Haw! 9 Six Wives of Henry VIII 11 Assyrian Special 26 Evelyn Echols Travel World 44 8:30 Cade's County 2 Lithuanian TV 26 Nashville Music 44 8:55 News 32 9 p. m. 9:00 Bold Ones 5 Lawrence Welk 9 Uncle Bob's Philippine Hour 26 Peter Falk debuts as a director and stars as Columbo in Wednesday's episode of Mystery Movie' at 7:30 p. m.

on NBC channel 5. 32 44 9:00 Lamp Unto My Feet Some of My Best Friends Reluctant Dragon Heritage of Faith Hour of Power Jerry Falwell Religion 9:30 Look Up and Live Everyman Double Deckers Issues Unlimited 10 a. m. BY CAROL KRAMER Peter Falk is warm, witty, not too tall, dashing, and athletic. He asked me to say that.

In turn, he promised to be entertaining, informative, interesting, and original. He was. All this happened while Falk, a press agent, and I were sitting in the living room of the spacious East Side apartment he is subletting while starring on Broadway in Neil Simon's latest hit, "The Prisoner of Second The interview got off to a real Lt. Columbo start. Falk wasn't wearing that ragged old raincoat when we knocked on his door.

But within two minutes, he had invited us to have coffee, discovered that there were just a few remnants left in the Taster's Choice and Instant Sanka jars, let me go ahead in the preparations, pronounced my brew "superb," then spilled it all over the kitchen floor. As I snatched the last paper towel in the room and wiped it up Women's Lib, forgive Falk said, "Don't do that, my wife will be here on the weekend and she can do it." That sounds just like something Lt. Columbo would tell one of those rich, sophisticated, self-centered bad guys he encounters in his segment of NBC's Mystery Movie. "Those guys are always crazy under a veneer of sophistication," Falk says, "and they have delusions of superiority." Then Lt. Columbo, who according to his press releases, "hides a razor-sharp mind behind an unprepossessing facade," traps them.

But could he ever convict Robert Culp, Eddie Albert, Jack Cassidy, or Roddy McDowall? "Oh, don't ask me about entrapment," Falk laughs. "I don't know whether I can get a conviction out of any of them." But then, "This is not a hard-hitting documentary crime show, it's a conceit." And it's also a hit one of the few hits of the television season, putting Falk in the position of being a big hit on television and a big hit on Broadway. When he was offered the role of the "Prisoner," he accepted because "I wanted to work with Mike Nichols and Doc Neil Simon and because I had never been in a Broadway hit." In 1963, he got raves playing Stalin in "The Passion of Josef but it closed almost as soon as it opened. But now that he's had his Broadway hit, Falk has also had Broadway. "The Prisoner of Second Avenue" has a nervous breakdown every night.

As he recovers, he drives his wife, played by Lee Grant, to her own breakdown. "First, I was anxious about speaking loud. It's unreal to have to talk loud enough for the second balcony. You're convinced you're making a total ass of yourself because you're screaming. You can't be subtle." Then, in New Haven, where the show previewed, Falk, at 44, had his very first anxiety attack.

"I'll tell you how dumb I was. I never knew they existed. In 'Husbands' I played an anxiety attack, but it was so bad John Cassavetes had to throw it out." One night he spent two hours trying to memorize three lines. "It was a self-pitying speech. There was nothing wrong with the speech." But you do get the feeling that Peter Falk, the person, has attacks of self-pity as often as he has anxiety attacks.

He couldn't sleep that night. The next morning he was irritable and felt a tingling in his neck. "Somebody must have told Mike I was acting peculiarly because the stage manager suggested I take a Valium. I started to learn the lines, I fell asleep, and that was the end of it." So he says "never again" to a Broadway play. "I think the theater is designed for unrealistic plays, for stylized things.

I like a camera, so I can talk like we're talking now." It's nice to meet someone who doesn't know too much about anxiety and for most of his life has let things come to him. Of course, we could all be unlucky and Falk could still be working as an efficiency expert in the Connecticut State Budget Department in Hartford. After growing up in Ossining, N. where his father owned a clothing store, Falk attended college off and on, sometimes taking off as a cook with the Merchant Marine or bumming around Europe. Eventually he got a bachelor's degree in political science at the New School for Social Research and a master's degree in public administration from Syracuse University.

"But I never had any goal in my mind. I just accepted it," he says of the two years he spent in Hartford. At night he acted in the community theater there. Was he unhappy then? "No, and I should have been. I think there's something wrong with my reactions.

They should be cleaner, more intense. But I never had any Idea of what I wanted to do. Public administration was a half-ass idea. I guessed I had an Idea that something would happen." And something did happen. He met the famous actress Eva Le Gallicnne while acting at the White Barn Theatre in Westport, Conn.

He was 26. Sho watched him play "Richard III" and said, "What are you doing in Hartford? There's no theater here." "I quit that afternoon," he recalls. "She wrote me a letter to introduce me to producers. "I really guarded that letter," he says. "But no one was interested in it.

Still, I kept it until it became frayed." Where is it now? "I think it's in Ossining with my folk's stuff." Letter or not, within a month of moving to Manhattan he landed the choice role of the bartender in an off-Broadway production of O'Neill's "The Icev man Cometh." Sixteen years later, with two Oscar nominations 10:00 Camera Three 2 Sunday in Chicago 5 Bullwinkle 7 Secret Agent 9 Oral Roberts 32 Amazing Grace 44 10:30 Old Time Religion 2 Make a Wish 7 Morning Western 32 "Great Jesse James Raid." This Is the Life 44 and an Emmy under his belt, he still considers that the high point of his career. It led to television, movies, and Broadway. And what if Miss Le Gallienne hadn't told him to move? He thinks a while. "I hope I would have had enough sense to get out of what I was doing. "My wife says if I was alive I'd be a terrific actor.

She means sometimes I react quickly and other times I'm detached. I don't think my emotional responses come up often enough. You know, a lot of what passes for living is just routine." Has he ever considered psychoanalysis? "No, but I think it would be If you knew ahead of time that the guy was terrific and could help you. But you can't even find a guy who's good at selling you a suit of clothes." Was he scared when he gave up his job in Hartford? "No, that's what my wife means. If you're 26 or 27 and embarking on something that precarious, you should be scared." Alice Falk has known Peter a long time.

They met as students at Syracuse, went together for three years, and then, "She threw me out in 1955 and refused to see me. She said, 'If you don't know now, you'll never I grew up a little bit in the next five years," he says. They were married in I960. They have two daughters, Jacqueline, who's 5V4 and called Jake, and Kate, who's 1V4. Mrs.

Falk is staying in California while Peter is on Broadway so Jake can go to school on the West Coast. But she visits occasionally on weekends. Meanwhile, her husband keeps busy. He recently discovered he has a "bent" for sketching and takes lessons at the Art Students League. He returns to California in June to shoot next year's Columbos.

This year there were seven, mainly because Peter wanted to direct one. You can see that segment Wednesday night at 7:30 on NBC Channel 5. Patrick O'Neal is the guest criminal in "Blueprint for Murder." Directing is Peter's idea of "a nice way to spend your day." Meanwhile, he's still a little slow in his reactions. His good friend Elaine May once told Peter while they were filming "Luv" that "You have to stop doing these parts," meaning bumbling, lower-class slobs. So, said the formidable, talented lady, "I'll write something for you." "In six weeks she sent me a script.

It was 'A New Leaf." Peter said, "You're crazy," and refused to do it. Elauie said, "Peter, you have no courage at all." So Walter Matthau ended up playing the wealthy playboy. Is Peter sorry? "Yeah, I am," he sighs. But his next movie will be "Mikey and Nicky," directed by Miss May. Who knows what Elaine May has in store for Falk? A matinee idol? He does say he's dashing.

And the last time I saw him he was dashing down First Avenue flagging a taxi. (Chiuio Tribuns Press Service II a. m. 1 1 :00 Marriage in Three Parts I. N.

K. Chicagoland Church Hour Wrestling Champions Sunny Vetter 11:30 Face the Nation Of Cabbages and Kings Housing Guide 26 44 44 32 -44 2 11 26 Champions News of the Psychic World 9:30 David Frost Will You Join Usf Kathryn Kuhlman 12 noon 32 44 9:45 David Littlejohn: Critic at Large 11 10 p. m. 10:00 News Julian Barber 2 News John Palmer 5 News Bill Beutel 7 News Jack Taylor 9 Wall Street Week 1 1 Candid Camera 32 Movie 44 "Letter to Three Husbands." 2 7 11 26 32 44 9 Rosy 10:15 News Dan Rather News John Drury 10:27 WGN Editorial 10:30 Name of the Game Winter Olympics Sunday Movie I "The War Lord." WGN Presents "San Francisco." Surveillance: Who'l Watching? Movie "Clipper Ship." if I hS'I ilv.u" A. A 12:00 Growing Up with Children Meet the Press Matinee "The Scarlet Claw." Roller Derby Bob Luce Wrestling 12:30 N.

H. L. Action Sports Challenge Issues and Answer! 1 p. m. 1:00 Hockey Ethnic Factor Pro Basketball Tennis Championships Spirit of Greece Science-Fiction Cinema "Ring of Terror" Re Humbard 1:30 Movie "The Romance of Ridge." 2 p.

m. 2:00 Winter Olympics Malcolm College Talk to Mr. Psychic Addams Family 3 p. m. 3:00 Ken MacDonald Welly's Workshop George KefalopOulos 3:30 N.

F. L. Action American Sportsman Family Classics "Captains Courageous." Laurel and Hardy 11 32 After 12 26 44 32 WW i S' ri 1 3 12:00 Late Show 2 "The Story of Will Rogers." Consultation 32 12:30 News Final 32 12: SO News Carl Greyjon 9 1:20 Sunday Movie II 7 "Sullivan's Travels." Cromie Circle 9 2:15 Late Report 2 2:20 Meditation 2 2:50 Up to the Minute Nnws 9 2:55 5 Minutes to Livt By 9 3:15 Reflections 7 i 4 Is. I 26 32 44 2 7 9 32 Peter Folk Heft, Ben Gazzara, and John Cassavetes starred in "Husbands," the' jilm in which Falk "played an anxiety attack.".