The San Francisco Examiner from San Francisco, California • 32

Page Feb. 13 195 Good show tunes get loving care a Jot and we flii 9 coins 6 We fought 5 (i I i HI I 1 4, 4. Tony Martin and Cyd Charisse (we remember them well) talked of old and new times yesterday in their suite at the Fairmont. Seated with them was 24-year-old Tony Martin Jr. to remind us of the unusually long show-business marriage that his parents have managed to hold together through separate careers since May 15, "We honeymooned here at the Fairmont," said Martin, who looks hale and hearty at 61.

His wife, a decade younger, still has the stylish elegance of her reigning years as dancing star of so many MGM musicals. They've been working together the past couple of years in a supper-club act with Tony Jr. The show was prepared for Las Vegas and has toured the club circuit, alighting tonight in the Fairmont's Venetian Room. Miss Charisse has never performed in San Francisco. But Martin as a native son born in Franklin Hospital, raised in Oakland and professionally weaned (as saxophone player and singer) at the old Bal Tabarin.

"I would have been a lawyer," said Martin. "But my father was financially strapped and 1 ended up a sax player." I He was Alvin Morris when he went to Hollywood in 1936 in the heyday of Chester Morris and Wayne Morris. This called for a new name and he chose Tony after Tony Biddle Duke and Martin after Freddy Martin. "They always took me for a New York Italian," said the former Oaklander. "A Jewish leading man was unthinkable in those days and they were glad to see Alvin Morris go." Miss Charisse was born Tula Ellice Finklea in Amarillo, Texas.

She came to MGM in 1943 from the American-based Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Cyd is her nickname younger brother called me that because he couldn't say and Charisse was her first husband. Considering that each was starred in some 25 how did they protect their marriage from the professional Jealousy endemic to Hollywood? 'We fought a lot," said Martin, "and got it out of our system." 1 And how did they resolve their "We flipped coins," said Miss "Well, I just as happy to see her do all the Martin added. "I'm essentially lazy." Both came out of their movie careers with no animosity for the studio system that built them into stars. "'I feel grateful for those said Miss Charisse, who danced with Fred Astaire Band and Gene Kelly in the during the MGM fifties.

"What makes me sad is that Hollywood is a wholly different place. I went' back to MGM recently to film a segment for 'Medical Center' and we were the only ones shooting on the lot. It's like a ghost city." Martin recalled his happy days (at RKO, Fox and Universal) and deemed his best' pictures "Casbah" and "Two Tickets to Broadway." "Our working marriage would probably not have turned out as well if hadn't been through it once before," said Martin, whose first wife was Alice Faye. "Since we enjoy working, we put together the club act as a miniature Las Vegas production not especially for nostalgia lovers, since we're very Now Tony Jr. started his career with the Beach Boys.

He was then signed by Motown to record his own compositions. He cut an album, "Dazzle Them With Footwork," before joining his parents in the club act. Stanley Eichelbaum Symphony rsclio ols try to saye workshop By Philip Elwood Fans of popular-music singers have had quite a week in San Francisco Linda Ronstadt, Bobby Short, Blossom Dearie, Lana Cantrell, Tracy Nelson. Bonnio Raitt And now, through Saturday, inimitable Sylvia Syms a Manhattan sons stylist more heard about than-heard. Miss Syms.

who is eon fortably established at El Matador, loves show business and show tunes, she wants to sing and spread the word about genuino songs and lyrics. By her winning lack of pretention she conveys a warm and attractive image of herself and of her selected lyrics. Her voice is sometimes unsteady but her rich timbre carries her along. Lyrics of songs I've heard for decades (like "Honeysuckle take on a fresh meaning when Miss Syms tackles them. She is a short but large woman like Mexican food, Chinese food, French food I like it all," she says) and she is a student of songs.

Each number is introduced, with historical comment. And each is treated like an especially delicate hothouse plant to be nurtured with great care. Miss Syms must have majored in enunciation and rhythm back in.the 1930s when she was at Brooklyn's Madison High. Verse stanzas make sense when she treats them and principal lyrics fall into place. A tune like "Why Did' I Choose You" becomes a bit of poetry.

It doesn't matter that it came from a disastrous show. Besides' "Honeysuckle" she also does "Keepin' Out of Mischief Now," another Fats Waller number. Both TONY MARTIN and Cyd Charisse are here to appear at the Venetian Room in a club act with Tony Martin Jr. eomnrPhotobKnofonston Comedy of an ugly duckling SYLVIA SYMS Sensible sophistication Rwing beautifully, bassist Mario Suracci working with Sylvia's voice knowingly. She sings "It Amazes Me" with a touching beauty that makes one wonder why the tune never has been popular.

Perhaps Benny Barth's sensitive brush work on the drums is as important an element as her voice. Miss Syms provides a running guide to her show, dropping often hilarious and sophisticated remarks and providing background information." She sang "As Long As I Live" (which you may have on one of her obscure. LP with Kenny Burrell on guitar) and then matched it with another Harold Arlen gem, Sleeping Bee" among the toughest of songs to sing. Pianist John Price is as invaluable in accompaniment as Miss Syms is" in vocal interpretation. No super-slick, glitter and plastic, Miss Syms? If you like good (and often unusual) songs prepared with loving care then she's your star.

If not, why not? 7088 iwmnw) jmt ji poll, si ly at- 1.30. 3.30. 5.45 Ipol and 16.00P.M. 1 I "I Daily at- 1.30. 3.30.

5.45 o. yuanu 1U BARGAIN MATINEES DAILY til 2: 00P.M. SI. 25 I i'iv-i A faMmiHint Pirmrr mm again, this aid is set to total $200,000, half of it from private donors and half from the NEA. Among the expenses are six weeks' use of the Lowell High School and Lakeshore Elementary School campuses, and such incidents as sheet music, audio-video equipment, instruments and security.

Hundreds of students arid 15 school mu llll till I i 1 1 1 nj iIvi Though money problems of the schools may cancellation of this year's San Francisco Symphony school Summer Music Workshop; the Symphony and the School District are not going to take the threat lying down. "Both the Symphony Association and the school district are concerned. They don't want to see the project endangered. They'll do all they can to save it," said Symphony manager Joseph Scafidi yesterday. Basically the workshop, since its start in 1970, has owed -its existence to aid of the National Endowment for the Arts.

This year a i IV at 1 00. i 50 7 00 and 10 00P.M. No Passes or Bargain CtiEAKY 1 Matinees forriii 18th Atf Engagement I AST BAY Oakland CENTURY 21 Pleasant Hill CENTU.RY 22 Berkeley UC BERKELEY HUH1 i-e I 'II 1,1 '66! 51lO.C.nn.I Porul Vicnt Shows Tonight at: 6 7.30,8:30,9:30 10:30 -7 hopelessly in Jove. "Oh my God," she tells him. "I never thought it would happen to me.

For the first time in my whole life, I felt like a woman." This, of course, frightens him off, giving Sheila a chance for liberation through a job with a chil- dren's record firm. But it's a hokey gesture, for Sheila spends the rest of the film chasing after and winning the doctor, whose turnabout is as preposterous as Sheila's humiliating and heavy pursuit Sheila's adventures are meant to be pathetic and funny. But by and large, they're painfully hackneyed and embroidered in hearts-and-flowers samplers, like Sheila's self-evaluation (to her mother, Janet Brandt), "I'm a nice girl and there's nothing that will keep me from being a nice girl, except the feeling that I've been gypped." Sidney J. Furie directed the film in a glossy, made-for-TV manner that sug-i gests the only logical re-J fuge for manhunting Sheila and her drivel. Stanley Eichelbaum PICTURE EVER DIRECTED tnj BRUCE LEE (Mi SHIM UN KMl I JIN IE! nmmn i lllfntll ml Druno Ion A KCHIC OROt iiimi mini UM3 "SHANGHAI CONNECTION -KARATE KING" GQ WARHELD 776-6)10 I OPEN DAILY 12 NOON.

BARG MATS $1.00 TIL PM (FX. SUNHOI fIJ tiff ur ted of the mm WiU tMXn woanoii' Has tethnkofcif baTA Goofy SPCOT rACULAR 8181 1 Shows Tonight at 7:15 9:20 PM Bargain Mats 1st. Hour Saturday Bi HIND lEMPORUIM DAILY 'MAN' AT i.ju, GOOFY If. 00, zo. 7:30.

BARG MATS DAILY IEX SUNHOLSI ID! IS AM 00 PM Plus "SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WEST" Nightly 'Man' 7.10, 10:45 'Seven' at 9:05 PM I AM I BiHINO 1 V.EMPORHIM 6R8 0291 SAN BRUNO 755 5000 El Camino SHicki-v JEANNIE BERLIN AS SHEILA LEVINE Marriage or a career in children's records? Sheila Levine is every sinqle qirl who ever 661 1940 had to attend her younger sister wedding. PkMmounl Pwiurrs Prrscnts "SheilacIeYine. Jeannie Berlin is alive but acts as if she were dead most of the time in "Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York," which opened yesterday at the Metro. The star and title are both misleading in this dreary screen version of Gail Parent's not-much-better and dubiously popu- lar novel about a fat girl searching for a husband. Lots has changed since the book, starting with the omission of Sheila's insincere suicide attempt, which gave meaning to the title and triggered the female Portnoy stream-of-con-sciousness style of Ms.

Parent's joke-and-sex-drenched potboiler. The author is a successful TV comedy writer Carol Burnett, Mary Tyler Moore) and writes accordingly, with a mass-audience bombardment of easily identifiable cliches. The same barrage of triteness marks her screenplay, co-authored with Kenny Solms, who is Ms. Parent's TV writing partner. They've transformed the novel into a cheerier but.yawningly standard sitcom for the ladies' market, even injecting a modish bit of Women's Lib to give Sheila's out-of-date, moth-eaten story some "relevance." For Jeannie Berlin, who earned an Oscar nomination for her hilarious jilted-bride portrayal in "The Heartbreak Kid," the new film is an unfortunate overload, since she's obviously unprepared for a big, juicy starring role and can't cut it.

She's very limited and was perhaps lucky to get her first break under the tutelage of her mother, Elaine May, who directed "The Heartbreak Kid." Her hesitant, ungainly, improvisational approach to acting does nothing for Sheila, except to project an ugly-duckling image. The fat-girl problems isdeadandlmnginlNewYork PGjNHHUltWUCiSaUfSttl i 1 t. tvin 4i Exclusive San Francisco Engagement- TONIGHT at 7:15 and have been dropped for Jeannie, who's merely plump, not obese, and the camera concentrates inj stead on her gawkiness and somewhat coarse features. But Jeannie Berlin, alas, is no Barbra Streisand, who started the ugly-duckling-is-beautiful vogue, from which most women get a vicarious charge. Jeannie is cold and hasn't the inner glow the appeal and magnetism that an actress needs to carry a film.

There are no compensations in "Sheila Levine." Jeannie gives a lifeless, mmm HIS "WIeiON4 UNIVERSM HClURt Tonight at 8:20 unassured performance in a badly written, unbelievable role of the mother-fixated near-virgin from Har-risburg, Pennsylvania, trying to make it on her own in cruel, stony-hearted New York. After a one-night stand with a swinging bachelor, Roy Scheider, who happens to be a doctor (the dream of every Jewish' girl) Sheila is acatiia tmsnn "I nwm on the ORIENT EXPRESS mm (turn by unuifun uioimmmu lUDiminnriciET 776-5505 1 Matinees DallV at IJJJ'lJ'lg 12-30. 3:00, 10:20 PM Barg Mats Daily SU11 EH 1st 1-bU on VAN NESS Available Seating. Shown Tonight at 7: 15 and 9:30 PM Jumpero Sffrra-Colma 68B 029 Dally 10:30,11.45, 4:25, 5:20, 6:45, 7 40, 9:05, 10:00. BARS MATS DAILY IEX, SUNHOLS) 10: is am PM sic teachers work hard in the project.

In the final two weeks, Symphony musicians serve and play free public concerts. Their pay part of their year-long symphony employment contract. Daily: 1:00,4:00 7:00 SANJOSf San Jose CENTURY 22 PENINSULA Menlo Park GUILD Theatre Burlinqame HYATT Theatre 3C- Dally at 10i30, 12i 30,2: 30,4 30 Barg. Mats Dally (ex SunHols) 10: 15 IrOOnm. Tonight Shows at 5:30, 6.1b, 7:45 and 8:30.

Twlllte Hr 5:00 -6: 15... $1.50 at it's deadliest! MHItftl tt 19th Ayy 1 VbltiNGA OHMUNT TiFi9ih HrFIT A UNlTip A HI 1' THtAT'i TONIGHT at :45P.M. Cont.Sat.,Sun.lon.frortl 1. 19 For Thli En9ajrnentj SHOW FRIDAY at FRIDA AND SA TURDA Yl LATE AN fHANUjjUJ IHLAiHto UI-iliiY WO I 1 EXCLL'Sl fm i.tii.! SANfRANLlSCOTritATRii.SC MATINEES DAILY t. jV3o! 5.55ind 8.45p.m.

No Pastes or Bargain Matlneti Bllilllllff-ilsiii iifici 6(1 iii EXCLUSIVE SAN FRANCISCO SPECIAL MIDNIGHT SHOWS STEPFORD WIVES AMtt mtHlcrn MisjM-mr sltir IriMTtthfdutlKir ttf KostfiurBjh A Ca.jMBlAI'l'ljR! tr Ml? Vi I Shows Tonlgnt 6.00,8.00,10:00 Barg mats Wed Shows Tonight at 6:30, 8:30 and 10:30 PM Sat til 5 1st Hr SunHols $1.50 KarateKung-Fu iiisiifiM jiNO-l'wiiiiii-l'iliIWiilfi I JOHNWllilUMS MJHIH aBSOU JfNNINGSiJIKE ENGAGEMENT! JTSGO QOOR Ingmar Bergman's "The. Year's Most Honored Film "Hio" I SCENES FROM A MARRIAGE TrieipiDGe I tJ II GEARV AT BLAKE Exclusive ill alV 7i-Mia San Francisco 44, 1 At Both Theatres i :30.S! 15 And 10:00. 1 ffi 441-IIW fcf DinbuldbvC01.UMBIA'plCTURC9 I safe I iM MATINEES DAILY If 9Unh Tll'l "(flTH WS It- if -fir''- I 9 00430700945 Uiwilul I ittt t41.llLlll) ffif o. 1 nn i'in K-Oft Drasloe Fist "also itjE And 9:45 After 6pm Exclusive Shows P.M. Adjacent FREE Marking All Day Sun.

Hon. aOdj -8thWEEKt- INNIE the POOH and TIG GER TOO TCCHKCOUM' San Francisco Engagement Tonight 7:00 9:15 P.M. 613 'Starts TOMORROW.