Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 14

2 Chicago Tribune, Tuesday, May 24. 1977 lom People I Si Bessla Griffin is ready to be Bessie Griffin By Boris Weintraub Tower Ticker By Aaron Gold ASHLNGTON Bessie Griffin walked into the National i A I is 1 -a li i I I 1 I I I i iV" i I tt 1 v. -V; EV YORK Tom Courtenay is leaving the I Broadway hit "Otherwise Engaged" in mid-1 1 I July, and the producers are after Dick Cavett to replace him. They also are after Allen Bates and Jon Voight and still hope to land Richard Chamberlain for a Studebaker Theater, production in Chicago. It is one of the most beautifully written comedies on Broadway and a good production of it would be a great addition to Chicago's theater scene this summer.

LEIGH TAYLOR-YOUNG seems to be stuck in an acting rut. NBC has set a two-hour film titled "Murder in Peyton Place," and good old Leigh (now divorced from Ryan O'Neal) will pick up where she left off in the original "Peyton Place," with Dorothy Malone expected to return, too. Doubleday just signed the "Ann Landers Encyclopedia" to be published near Christmas of 1978 that will cover advice on everything from A (abortion) to (Zen). It'll be original stuff and not a collection of her col- umns. Moody Blues i I ress club and Paused to a sign advertising the concert she was going to give.

"Bessie Griffin," the sign read, "most acclaimed gospel singer since Mahalia fjsclcson" There is was again, that comparison. It seems inevitable: both were born in New Orleans, both reached fame in Chicago, both were sizable women who have had a series of medical problems, and so on. Still "It was an honor for a while," says Bessie Griffin. "People, even in Europe, they'd embrace me and say how much I reminded them of Mahalia, how much I sound like Mahalia. But I think I could be Bessie Griffin now." 4, Bessie Griffin's idol when she was growing up in New Orleans was not Mahalia, but her own grandmother.

"SHE TOOK In sewing, was a seamstress," she remembers. "She'd sing various numbers while she was working, and pretty soori. I'd be singing along with her." Her grandmother and her mother also werev devoted members of the "strict Baptist church," so young Bessie had plenty of opportunities to practice her gospel singing. Each Sunday would start with a 5 a.m. service, continue with Sunday school at 9, another service at 11.

"Then we'd go home and have dinner, or maybe eat at the church," she recalls. "Then there was another service tell you. I wasn't allowed to attend parties, or go to dances or to the theater." Very early in her life, people began to discover that Bessie Griffin had a re-- markable voice. And just as early, about age 5, she began to discover her remarkable voice meant she had a way out of the predictable life for a black girl in the Depression-era South. THERE WERE no lessons, no training.

Griffin says that she tried to get lessons several times, but each time a teacher would hear her sing, he would turn her away. "They always said I was a natural." she says with no hint of either boasting or false modesty. It's a simple fact. There is no way to teach the power in Bessie Griffin's voice, to teach someone to moan and stretch a lyric or convey its meaning the way she does. By the time she reached junior high school, she was part of a gospel-singing quartet.

There never was any suggestion that she might turn from gospel to blues or pop music; such a thing was out of the question In 1947, when the quartet reached New York and made some records, the producer of the session spotted, her talent and recorded her as a solo performer, too, her first records. But she returned to New Orleans while people raved about Mahalia Jack- son, who had gone on to fame in Chicago, "I'D NEVER HEARD Mahalia, never heard her records," Griffin says. "But -people were talking about her. She came back home to give a concert in New Orleans in 1951, and I decided I had to hear her. So I went.

Well, she'd been told about me, too. So I sang for her. And she said, 'She's good, too good to be down And she said she'd send for me to come to Chicago and sing. "Well, I liked that, but I didn't think she would, because lots of people had said that. But she did." For those who are familiar with the early history of there is an eerie parallel between the way the great King Oliver called the young Louis Armstrong from New Orleans to Chicago, and the way Mahalia Jackson summoned the young Bessie Griffin.

There was an all-star gospel extravaganza headlined by Jackson at the Coliseum on the seedy near South Side, and it drew an astounding 42,000 gospel fans. In the late 1960s and in the early 1970s, Bessie Griffin suffered a succession of serious illnesses that took her away from singing for a while. She had a heart attack in 1970, and had a series of battles with peritonitis. "THE LAST TIME, the doctors about gave up on she says. "I had a temperature of 109, and they gave up.

I 1 was worried about dying. I told my husband. 'They're not doing anything for me He held my hand and told me I'd be all right, and then he called the doctor in, and he talked for a while. "When the doctor left, I said to myself, 'Now is the time to really Just like Hezekiah in the Bible, I talked to the Lord. I said, 'Lord, I've always lived my life for you, to sing your message.

You can reach out and touch me and heal me so I can go And here I am!" She says this triumphantly, as though she has proved her point. But, just in case a listener hasn gotten the message, she leans forward to make it bluntly. "Prayer changes things," is what she savs- Washington Star fans will be thrilled with five of the never-before-released songs on their new "The Moody Blues-Caught Live 5" album that'll be released next week. THE singularly most electrifying presence on Broadway these days is Yul Brynner in a magnificent revival of "The King and The producers spent nearly $1 million mounting the musical (almost three times what it cost in 1951) and the lavish sets and costumes are, according to Brynner, "more beautiful than the original Broadway show and the movie. And I at 3.

The Sunshine Band for us kids at ,5, the Baptist Young Peoples Training was a Union at 6, and right out of that to the night service. Oh, it was a long day, I Gospel singer Bessie Griffin: "They always said natural." jf Yul Brynner Established 1667 am much more suited and capable to play the king now because I have grown up as an actor and a man. Some say the I play is more contemporary. The times have caught up with the play." But it isn't just Brynner who makes this musical such a memorable and moving (don't forget a hankie!) experience. He's too smart for that.

He fought for, and landed, some of the most talented performers to fill the key roles. The Crown Prince (Gen Profanato), Tuptim (June Angela), and especially the First Wife (Hye-Young Choi, who stops the show nightly with "Something are virtual unknowns but deserve to be stars. And Connie Towers as Mrs. Anna has the perfect voice and stage presence to compliment Brynner's arrogant, volcanic, yet vulnerable king. Brynner's only major problem with the show is that the audience applauds so much that if he doesn't cut them off, the show runs too long and the backstage crew goes into golden overtime.

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BAUIV In ttlllAUu; ne ni insuiuic uni uuu hi- rector Brian DePalma that he could not film any 1 portion of "Fury" there. It'll costar Kirk Douglas and Carrie Snodgress, and I don't understand the refusal. (They will film at the public library and Grant Park.) WLS Radio's razzle-dazzle basketball team ended its season with 10 wins, losses, and $20,000 raised for high school clubs and civic organizations. MARRIOTT'S GENE PATRICK wants to talk with playwright Meredith Wilson about rearranging his "Music Man" so it'll be more like a town meeting when it opens in September at Marriott's Lincolnshire Theater. And Patrick even is considering a black leading man.

Congratulation to Larry Kart, who's The Tribune's new night life critic. TICKER BITS: The Bantam Books people estimate that Frank Sinatra can make close to $7 million for the worldwide distribution of the memoirs he's writing. Congratulations to Pump Room assistant maitred' Harry Rubinoff on graduating from De Paul law school. Happy birthday to Bob Dylan, Chong (as in Cheech and), and Peter Nero. And Happy 45th anniversary to Variety Club's Hank Markbreit and his Rena.

Tuesday events include: Jean Paul Vignon at Arlington's Top of the Tower; Anthony Newley for two nights-at the Park West ($20 a and the Travel Light Theater unveils its new Belmont Avenue location with "Scapino." And Phyllis DHIer's neighbor was arrested for talking dirty to plants. "That's known as an obscene fern call. Chicago Tribune Press Service Crusade sets sights on 'special accounts' Free Interior Design Service! Bring your floor plans to the store nearest you. Our interior designers will be delighted to consult and advise absolutely no obligation. All of our designers are registered members of I.D.S.

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F. Cinellis of Grosse Pointe Farms, Mich. ROBIN CHANDLER (Mrs. Angler Biddle) Duke, who will speak on "Population and Politics" at the Chicago Planned Parenthood's annual luncheon meet ing Wednesday in the Ambassador West Hotel, has been named the first woman trustee of the East River Savings Bank in New York City. It was in that bank in May, 1848, that a woman opened one of the first bank accounts exclusively hers.

Previously, money in a woman's account could be claimed by her father, son, or according to law..