Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 24

2 -Section 2 Chicago Tribune, Wednesday, December 15 1976. IL9l People Tower Ticker By Aaron Gold TribUM Pholot br Mlchtfl Budryt Alexander Solzhen'rtsyn reportedly has retreated to this quiet, estate in. Vermont, Solzhenitsyn's solitary watch on his freedom -t Continued from first Tempo page through Russian emigre contacts in Canada. For a while he claimed that only he lived in the bouse no one can see from the road off a path no one can enter. Now he says "Even if I -knew anything," he said to one reporter this fall, "I wouldn't tell you." Quentin Phelan, town manager of Cavendish, said' at the time, "We're no damn fools: We know who's moving up there, no matter what the Vinogradov fella says." CAVENDISH IS PRETTY much a picture post- card image of a small New England town.

There's a white frame church the Cavendish Baptist Church, Rev. Kittle J. MacNeill, minister another church made of ttme the Universalist Church used for community projects church services with visiting ministers official- a monument to soldiers, of the Revolutionary War, and a larger monument to soldiers of the Civil War. a volunteer fire department, a museum, a gas station and gun shop, a plastic moldingcompany, a grocery store, a post office. The Black River along the south edge of town.

The main street is Polaski Street. Postal employe Sophie Snarski expressed an attitude typical of the 1,200 or so residents. "I can't tell you his mail comes through here or give you any of that kind of information, but I'll tell you what I think. I think that if he wants privacy, he should have it' If he wants to come out and -meet us, hell be a part of the community. We're friendly people here in Cavendish.

Teddy Roosevelt's daughter lived here. She used to coma OS ANGELES Cruelty and 1 1 stupidity pass for humor I in this make-believe land where L-Z7 the hottest joke (origin: East Coast) involves two of the most eagerly awaited movie blockbusters of the year, "King Kong" and "A Star Is Born." Supposedly, producers Dim De Lasteatils and Joa Peters meet on the street and congratulate each other on completion of their respective epics. And both hope that the other's film will make millions. But De Laurentiis tells Peters that "Star" will make more money than "Kong" because his monkey sings, The chic (or so they think they are) Hollywood social set is hoping that Barbra Streisand will fall flat on her lower extremities with the remake of "Star." But then -why shouldn't they? She doesn't live according to their standards, which would include going to, and throwing, lavish parties for a bunch of vacuous piranha. But millions of fans are pulling for Barbra and Jon, and that includes many of the talented hard workers in the movie industry who have great respect for the way Barbra has put herself on the Barry Mamlow 4 A' taking part in President-elect Carter's Jan.

19 and 20 pre-inaugural and "nagural" (that's what it's being called in tinsel town) hoopla in Washington. Other celebrities scheduled for the White House bash are Beverly Sills, Stevie Wonder, Leonard Bern- stein. Jack Albertson. and Paul and Joanne (Woodward) Newman The -three-record "Wings Over America" album recorded live during the Pan! McCartney group's recent U.S. tour, is sensational And the on-again-off-again marriage of Diana Ross and Bob (Silbersteln) Ellis is on again.

Solzhenitsyn left Zurich because of threats, be-cause he feared harassment or worse from th KGB (Soviet' police). Moscow he has said, "have particular feelings toward me so my own destiny may be decided before that of my country. -They' may1 try to get rid of me fore the fate of my country changes for the better. I sometimes get news of that sort." His presence may. be all the greater for its lack of tangibility.

The only Cavendish residents who claim to have seen him are Tony and Emily Janowski, who Market in town. They say he came in in April with two other men. "They were speaking Russian," Tony "My uncle came out of there 20 years ago, and if 1 didn't know better, 1 would have thought it was him. It was Solzhenitsyn all right, he's got aMace all his own." Is he sure that Solzhenitsyn lives' in 5 the house on, Windy Hill Road. "Oh yes, he's there.

You can feel it." .1 It would be hard not to feel something standing in the quiet loveliness of the woods, listening to the birds and the far-away bark of a dog and thinking about something Solzhenitsyn said in one of his books. Countless prisoners in the forced labor oamps, he wrote, escaped into the vast snowy wilderness to certain death, ust for a "few gulps of free air." 1 dikjw frlbum Pir Imitt PRODUCERS Mike Merrick and Don r.mmrv and their "Citizen Tom Paine" line. "If this movie fails," she said, "then star Kirk Douglas shouldn't be invited my failure. This time there's no to the same party. Dpuglas' throat It's my ihm in Mama WVitla I'm ctill wish.

to church suppers bringing her baked beans just like anybody else." It may be a while before the 8-year-old author shows up with his bean pot at the Baptist Church. The secrecy and security of the place up on Windy Hill Road is so strong you can almost feel it in town. A deer hunter who signed himself "A Gun-totin Vermonter" wrote a letter to the Black River Tribune complaining about that "giant, fenced-in little Russia" in the middle of good hunting land. Another hunter in town said that if a big buck jumped into the place, no fence would keep him from following. AND YET THE townsfolk are protective of the man they've never seen, a man whose books most of them haven't read, a man who may not be here at all.

Barney Crosier, a reporter for the nearby Rutland Herald, said, "People don't care if he's there or not; they've got more important things to be concerned about There was an election here, you know, and there are a lot of local issues. I think that's one reason he came to this part of the country. He knows nobody will bother him. I'm a fan of his, and I don't care if he lives in Caven-dish or Timbuctu." 1 There seems to be some local sport in watching the press head off blindly into the woods in search of Solzhenitsyn. "Vinogradov's Clerk Butler said.

"It's Out that way, down a hill and up a hill. You turn left and you turn right." "Is the road marked?" "Couldn't say." "Sounds like a good place to get lost." "Yup," Butler said smiling. Once you find the property, there's no mistaking it Chaih link stands out like a sore thumb amid tall pines heavy with snow, a jarring note in a forest silent save for, an' occasional bird song. The gate was open but there was a large "No Trespassing" sign. There are some small, unobtrusive metal poles on either side of the approach to the gate.

The first is an electric eye. The third is a device that accept magnetized cards to signal the gate to open. The second is a speaker box that, a few seconds after wo broke the beam, spoke with an American accent: "What do you want?" "Is Mr. Solzhenitsyn there or Mr. Vinogradov?" "Nobody's here.

There's no one to talk to, and you can't come in." The gate swung silently shut and the click of an electronic latch seemed to echo in the frozen stillness. Further talk into the metal box brought no response. One feels absurd shouting into a sophisticated device while the chickadees look querulous. The chickadees were not the only eyes. Glancing up, we noticed, mounted on a post extending into the tree branches, a television camera.

IT ALL SEEMS a bit silly, all. the cloak and dagger electronics in a Robert Frost woods. But a Russian scholar advised, "remember what hap- pened to Trotsky in Mexico City." (He was murdered with an ice pick.) tog that things had been done differently with 'Up the Sandbox' and The Way We with 'Star' I have had total control." THE SOUNDTRACK album already has been certified gold (almost 600,000 copies sold) and Warner Bros, executives who have seen the rush cuts are smiling these days. Saturday's world premiere is a benefit for Filmex (the A. International Film Exposition) at the Village Theater in Westwood with some 1,200 people, most of whom have paid $125 so they can attend the late upper disco party afterwards at Dillons.

Guests have been asked to dress in white or light gray. The real Joke is on De Laurentiis who spent $1.7 million of his reported $24 million total "Kong" budget on a mechanical ape that looked so bad it's used for only five seconds. The actual ape scenes were done by Rick Baker a monkey suit with five different heads whose facial expressions are done by remote control. And everyone with the movie was invited to last weekend's De Laurentiis screen- problems caused a oeiay in proaucuon of the one-man stage but his "take charge" attitude turned the producers off, and they're now after AT Paclno. If that doesn't pan out, the tour probably will be canceled and the play turned into a two-hour TV movie.

ZSA ZSA GABOR became the, laughingstock of Hollywood when It was disclosed that her complicated divorce-property settlement from inventor Jack Ryan was not final when she married Michael O'Hara, her seventh husband. Now that the divorce is final, her lawyers recommend that she and O'Hara get married again. And the story goes that when Gabor fired her third set of Jawyers by telegram, she had it charged to, Ryan's telephone, BACK IN CHICAGO: Barry Manllow, whose Jan. 12 to 15 Auditorium con-' cert tickets (16,000 of them totaling $140,000) sold out in five hours, has tried to add extra concerts to accom- modate his many unhappy fans. But his schedule is just too tight, so he's going to buy an ad to say he's sorry.

And his Kraft Food's TV special airs March 2 on ABC. Wednesday openings include Stan Gets at Ratso's; a Second City touring company revue at Chateau Louise; and the Matteson-. Phillips tuba, jazz consort including drummer Louis Benson at Jazz Show-case And you know Christmas is getting-closer when' you find notes in elevators in high rise apartment buildings saying you don't have to face front unless you want to. i-ewV 'WWn Jllfclt U1 tjWWrj). wUttll i iS ini HTn.ii.iiM.'ilii iifiiiMiOTuMMWiimfi UK aim iuu uuuicr pauy iui uic jui- ign press (a typical move to buy the Golden Globe award) except director Joha GMlermln.

He crashed anyway and created a scene that had Jessica Laage rushing to her limo in tears. It's now doubtful that De Laurentiis till will hire Guillermin to direct his hurricane disaster film. FREDDIE PRINZE, whose wife Hatty Just filed for divorce, is excited about Postal employe Sophie Snarski: "If he wants tol the come out and meet us, he'll be a part of the Reporter Charles Leroux's response from speaker box was a brief, "Nobody's here." Gyi ou haven't seen a crafts store 'til you've seen' ygJrv II SN3I IIMItfc Cumrdt (f JX-yl II I I Mllfll ll Gift Certificate VTp VViMVtyVVUjlJ jJ this Christmas Ernest Tubb and his Troubadors keep on trouping down the road HE COLD, rainy, recent Friday night they rolled into. Chicago to olav the Old Town I 1 School of Folk Music was the 40th concert tU of' this oarticular road trio. It wasn't much 1 Country music By Jack Hurst Wife BoutiquaOmaments! more than a typical evening for Ernest Tubb and the Texas Troubadors.

A'jmember of the band had a new son at home whom ha would see for the first time when they arrived in Nashville the next day. Tubb himself had a M'Sraabon. -But they wouldn't loiter long admiring the babies. FATTER WORKING the Gnnd OleOpry S.tn, day aight, they would spend three or four days at home, then head for Odessa, Tex. That trip, which would wind up in Virginia, would be easy.

It would require only a piddling 16 days. S'Since I joined the Opry in 1942, 1 think the most rve ever been off at one. time was two weeks," says Tubb, 62, whose decade oif membership fat the Coun-. try Music Hall of Fame would seem to relieve him of such prodigious treks. "Wa used to take a two-week vacation once a year: but lately we haven't even done that Everybody's had friends who retire and start doing nothing and, then pass away.

I've got. two record shops in and my son Justin and I have a little publishing company, and Justin enjoys fooling around there In the office, filing things away. I'm not cut out for that. I'm happy on the' HONE OF THESE days, he says, he's going to "slow up some" and perhaps open a nightclub la fyashvUle. But as long as he has his health.

"I'm making a little money and enjoying what I'm dejng, and if you keep a band you've got to keep working -r- unless you're a millionaire, which 1 am he once said be was popular because a man could play a Tubb record for his girlfriend and then boast, "Hell, I can sing better than that guy." The story was printed in a New York gossip column around 1950. Tubb says today that a New Yorker who had written a song for. him made the story up to get him a plug. He later called Decca (now MCA) Records to apologize, but Tubb wasn't offended. "THERE be some truth to the story even if I didn't say it," he says and laughs.

"I don't know. I never heard Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, George Jones, or anybody else say they thought they had great voices. "What we have is sincerity and our own styles. There are lots of people with great voices that you'll never hear because they sing correctly, mechani-' cally, just like each other. If I write you a letter on a typewriter, anybody could write it But if I write it in my own handwriting, it's individual." A voice teacher who once longed to train Tubb's Sowerful baritone admitted that if he did "you'd ave 10 per cent of the fans you've got now." Tubb should remain the way he was, the instructor concluded, because he.

was a "natural." don't know about that part," Tubb shrugs. "But I've been eating regular for a pretty good while." Shooting Stars REG. 4.99 12 pw kit VA" diameter 2 each in blue, green, silver, gold, red end fr ic.n.,n.id. I -VrUtf-iey 23" iTV All kfacomptoM With mitHlalttndlnitnietlsni fuchsia he watches telephone Doles so by the windows fV Corn Husk Dolls cSSVG Qtj I 'l-'M Chrirtmsi Tree Llghtt f3ji GG l' friafl UX. Approved '-A'sss Super Specials -r lM, MtoilS? Xl-i k-' Tinial Garland iJoVVlSTi JJ -V HfSgfiTS Holly Garland ''d Wovalty fOp frrxf Tgg-v 'e R.idy to h.ngljfyft, 1 yJ VVVwX1 I WM) 1117 i mm ftr If.

1 oflus touring bus and gets off to sing when the door opens. The hours in between he whiles away playing inckei-dime-quarter poker with the band he confesses with a grin, "we go higher than and reading. 'I read best sellers usually, mainly fiction," he aSjrs. O'Hara 's one of my favorite writers. Caldwell.

Teanessee Williams. Anything, that's a little different I Wad The Other Side of Midnight' recently. I 1 thought that was pretty good." TUBB IS SUCH a hero of country music traditionalists that it is often forgotten that he was also 040 of its important innovators. His was first Opry act aver, allowed to feature an electric lead guitar oifthe Opry's conservative stage. He "went elec-totef' he says, because a Texas Jukebox operator tou him his records couldn't be heard over the A native of the Lone Star State, Tubb Is utterly unassuming.

He helped such stars as Hank 1 Williams, Hank Snow, Johnny Cash, Jack Greene, and Cal Smith become established, but he never has sought credit for doing so. He Is perhaps the humblest of his music's giants, and one of the great stories about him although aptcryphal Illustrates this trait. AccoVding to it. mint W4 N.I I rmi rout urara mnaiyccawnna ihmmpiih i i VTir rkVIYuil WVflmj'9mwtW IM HirMm ind CmmM at HmlWn Atftnw I I llvl HwlEIJ iVrT Ml.iliJO. ImWi Holllne e.

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