Calgary Herald from Calgary, Alberta, Canada • 38

Entertainment LIVING WITH THE LEGEND Sinatra, Cronkite became unlikely pals after TV profile 'V or C6 CALGARY HERALD Thursday, May 21, 1998 -4 0k v'; I IK I 1 GAILSHISTER Knight Ridder Newspapers Frank Sinatra and Walter Cronkite the ultimate odd couple. Hard to believe, but Sinatra, epitome of tough-guy Hollywood style, and legendary newsman "Uncle Walter" became pals after Cronkite profiled Sinatra in a 1965 CBS documentary. Not seen since, Frank Sinatra: Living With the Legend will air tonight at p.m. (Ch. 12) in a special edition of CnrtUoli CBS's 48 Hours.

Sinatra died Thursday at the age of 8z Frank Sina- "Frank and I had a lot of areas tra: Living of common interest," recalls With the Leg-Cronkite, 81, who relinquished end airs his CBS Evening News anchor tonight at 11 seat to Dan Rather in 1981 after P-m. (Ch. 12) a 19-year reign as the Most on 48 Hours. Trusted Man in America. "Events of the time.

People in the news. We exchanged stories. He had some behind-the-scenes anecdotes about John Kennedy, which I hadn't heard before. Frank could be a very pleasant companion alone. It was when there was a crowd around and he needed to be 'on' that he could turn difficult, to put it mildly." Cronkite and Betsy, his wife of 58 years, even travelled to London with Sinatra and his wife, Barbara, in the early 1970s for a Sinatra concert.

Hitting the hotspots, Cronkite "was always a little uncomfortable," he says, because of Sinatra's ticking timebomb of a temper. "One of the major problems being with Sinatra was sensing his mood," Cronkite recalls. "You never knew when he would explode, and frequently you didn't know what had caused it. You wouldn't know which way to turn. I was particularly sensitive to it when he was approached by news people." Had Sinatra had a meltdown with a reporter in front of Cronkite, "I would have considered it the ultimate embarrassment It would have looked like I was on his side." Warner Bros, file photo Sinatra, left, starred in the 1964 movie Robin and the Seven Hoods with Sammy Davis, Dean Martin Associated Press file photo Sinatra sat with John F.

Kennedy at the Jatter's 1961 presidential inauguration ball. Quotable You never knew when he would explode. 99 Walter Cronkite on Frank Sinatra Fortunately, Cronkite was never the target of a tirade. "I decided I was a better diplomat than I thought I was." Diplomacy played a major role in CBS's '65 documentary. At the peak of his success, Sinatra allowed CBS cameras to shadow him for six months.

All was ducky until Cronkite asked the singer about his alleged mob ties. "His face clouded over, and he became ex- tremely angry," Cronkite remembers. "He said we couldn't ask that question, then he stood up and stormed off to the bedroom, followed by his lawyers. (Producer) Don Hewitt went in, and they discussed the matter." Hewitt, who would go on to create 60 Minutes, emerged from the meeting with an agreement that Cronkite could ask "the questioa" He did. Sinatra, naturally, denied any Mafia connections, saying he only appeared in photographs with owners of "joints" he frequented around the world.

Cronkite, who hung out with Sinatra mostly in private, insists he wasn't starstruck, but "fascinated and with the.Chairman of the Board's lifestyle. "The limos, the personal bodyguards, the military precision of moving him around. I can see it to this day." Not one to resist the roar of the greasepaint Cronkite loved his guest shot a few years ago on Candice Bergen's Murphy Brown Uncle Walter says there's a "certain symbiotic relationship" between Hollywood, politicians and news types. "There's a great curiosity among the people in Hollywood as to how the great big outside worlds which they touch so intimately really works. Bjj the same token, there's an interest on our part oi who is the person hiding behind the on-screeri! image we see." Sinatra's larger-than-life image has made hi? death a defining cultural moment It's as if we've lost a head of state, Cronkite says, "because, in a sense, Sinatra was a head state.

He certainly was up there at the front of th parade of all those who brought us popular cul cure in the last half century." Will there ever be another Sinatra? "Never say never," Cronkite says. "For allll know, they may clone his DNA." And that's the way it is. NEW VIDEO RELEASES As Good As It Gets lives up to name -rr flUS I I Si 1 JOHN MCKAY The Canadian Press AS GOOD AS IT GETS Indeed it is. This comedy boasts 1997's two top Oscar-winning performances in one film. Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt spark wonderfully off each other playing out their novel May-September'romantic relationship.

This is not to rmnimize the contribution of next-door neighbor Greg Kinnear, and his little dog, too. Hunt fans always suspected she could act well beyond TV sitcom levels and now may regret that she will soon be lost to the small screen and they will have to pay to see her. Nicholson, meanwhile, is Nicholson, as rascally and devilish as ever. If there's a sour note, it's that his crusty, grumpy novelist character, Melvin Udall, is also disturbingly racist, sexist and homophobic. for his hero leads, including Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards, Dizzy Flores and NSC Patrick Harris.

ZZ2 But his tongue seldom straJE far from his cheek as the stylisjg filmmaker riffs on everything; from the invasive Internet to t-classic practice of using propaganda to demonize one's enemies. A group of young friends sign up for combat service in a society that is about to go to war with a race of hostile alien insects. Like characters in old-time Hollywood war pictures, they are an eager and idealistic bunch during training exercises. Then the brutal reality of hits home. For a Dutchman, Verhoeven paints a surprisingly friendly picture of a neo-fascist future But then that is all part of tf subtlety of his multi-layered, sci fi satire.

The "bugs" may be mostly computer-generated, but the rer suit is intensely repulsive and not recommended for the squeamish, the veneer of humor notwithstanding. (The DVTJ version, by the way, will include five sequences deleted from th original theatrical release, plus several behind-the-scenes fea-turettes.) 'i, Scene from Silent Cradle, a movie partly financed by A-Channel. A-Channel keeps funding promise TV I tMlSL -VsPt id Canadian Press That's somehow explained Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt star in Oscar-winning comedy, away as a manifestation of his Sr AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN PARIS Sixteen years after the London original, this foUow-thrqugS boasts the appropriate improve? ment in special effects, plus thaj delightful blend of pure horror and humor that made the origi nal such a favorite. When it's obsessive-compulsive disorder and he's portrayed as really not a bad fellow underneath. But it does permit Nicholson, director James L.

Brooks and co-screenwriter Mark Andrus to fire off a number of politically incorrect jokes. (OK, they are a guilty pleasure, aren't they?) Hunt and Nicholson get to deliver the script's sharpest lines as they move unerringly towards love, although any skepticism from viewers about the likelihood of two such different people ever coming to romantic terms is welcome. Meanwhile, some other supporting roles shouldn't be forgotten here. They include Cuba Gooding, Shirley Knight and Skeet Ul-rich playing, respectively, a scary, it's really scary and when it's tongue is in its cheek, thii fright film is bang oa An American student on "daredevil tour of Europe" de cides to bungee jump from thi Eiffel Tower and meets the allur ing but haunted Serafine. View Stonewood Communications Tom Everett Scott and Julie Delpy star in American Werewolf sequel.

BOBBIAKEY Calgary Herald A year after opening its wallet for Alberta movie and TV producers A-Channel has committed about $2 million toward new films just as it promised. The movies have budgets totalling $16.5 million, most of it spent in Calgary and Edmontoa In addition to the certain projects, another $20 million worth of movies carrying $1.38 million of A-Channel money are in the planning stages, pending total funding approval or script completion. Most of the films will be delivered to A-Channel by 1999. Completed movies partly financed by A-Channel include Silent Cradle, starring Lorraine Bracco, Margot Kidder and John Heard, and Ebenezer, starring Jack Palance, Albert Schultz and Rick Schroeder. CFCN has aired Ebenezer and Silent Cradle will be seen in Calgary theatres in July.

A-Channel signed on as a new TV station in Calgary and Edmonton last September, but the broadcaster's drama fund started collecting movie proposals in earnest last spring. Joanne Levy, who heads the fund, says A-Channel's commitment to run a movie after it has been seen in theatres, or even on a competing channel, gives a big boost to local ventures. "As a regional broadcaster, we're prepared to offer a national licence and make sure (the film) gets national exhibition' Levy says her phone has been ringing steadily since she took the job, in part because few Canadian broadcasters do this kind of spending in the West. "I like to think I'm the happy recipient of pent-up supply," Levy says. The A-Channel Drama Fund's commitment of a small percentage of each project's cost, combined with an assurance it will eventually broadcast the films, triggers other funding agencies and private investment.

When A-Channel received its seven-year licence from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission last year, it promised to spend $14 million on Canadian production during the term of the licence. Levy says the broadcaster will spend at least that amount Among the confirmed movies: Bad Money, a story of "downsized" workers who turn to crime, begins shooting in Calgary next month. Producers are John Hazlett and James Gottselig. Question of Privilege, a lawyer thriller from Calgary producerdirector Bruce Harvey, goes before the cameras in Edmonton next month. Blood Money, a cop movie from Michael Ironside and Bruce Harvey, is filming in Edmonton in late summer.

friend, Hunt's mom, and a nasty burglar. STARSHIP TROOPERS The future militarism of Robert A. Hein-lein's classic sci-fi novel is brought to the screen by director Paul Verhoeven with the same savage lampoonery he injected into his earlier Robocop. Plus there are some of the ickiest alien bugs ever, thousands of them, quite able to deliver the creepy-crawlies to the most hardened monster movie fan. In contrast to the enemy "bugs," Verhoeven casts the freshest young faces around ers know he should just stay away, but that wouldn't make the rest of the film any fun, would it? Soon he is plunged into a nightmare involving, natch, digitally-created werewolves.

Tom Everett Scott (That Think You Do) and Julie Delpy star. SUNDAY CELEBRATION Film based on poems to highlight writers' fete Vti 1111 performances by Denise Clarke, Wal-i ter Wittich and Jent van Dalen, and an original score by Bruce Leiti The film, partially subsidized by the BravolFACT program, will air on the Bravo channel at an unspecified time. On Sunday night, show time is 8 p.m., preceded by a reception at 7:15. The Science Centre is at 701 nth St. S.W.

Admission is free, but reservations are recommended. Call 264-5779 to reserve. like a jazz artist, using rhythm and metre to revolutionize perceptions of the common ballad form. Jazz vocalist Cheryl Fisher will kick off the evening by performing original music based on poems by Dorothy Parker. Several Calgary writers will then read from their work: Claire Harris, Rosemary Nixon, Sheri-D Wilson and Suzette Mayr.

Playwright John Murrell will talk about Dickinson, and then comes Beauty Crowds Me, which features KEN MCGOOGAN Calgary Herald A film based on three poems by Emily Dickinson will highlight a celebration of women writers Sunday night at the Calgary Science Centre. The eight-minute film, Beauty Crowds Me, was shot by Calgary moviemaker Julie Trimingham. in this city and central Florida. Dickinson (1830-1886) was an American poet of immense depth and stylistic complexity who wrote Cheryl Fisher.