Calgary Herald from Calgary, Alberta, Canada • 27

Calgary Herald Disney's daughter sets record straight PageBll CFCN'sGord Kelly ready to retire Page BIO r- J-" 1 jg LiBtt HNTEKIA LNMENT James Van Der Beek The Kurt Vonnegut and yearns for the col- lege education which will allow him to escape the jock mentality of his town. JAMIE PORTMAN Calgary Herald NEW YORK "ames Van Der Beek has turned millions of adoring teenage females to mush because of his weekly appearances on Dawson's Creek. But does he enjoy this kind of power? Not really. Creek Daws broade ons nsh He plays loot ball tor political reasons: if easier to don football gear than to refuse and suffer the ostracism of class- mates, community and parents. However, Mox does not believe in winning at all costs, and he definitely has his own views on what should happen in the field.

This places him in direct confrontation with his maniacal coach. Van Der Beek himself played football at high school in his native Connecticut although he, too was grounded by an injury and turned to baseball and swim- ming instead. While he enjoyed sports, onzo Four years ago, when he was only 17 and winning the plaudits of New York critics for his work in an Off-Broadway play by Pulitzer Prize winner Edward Albee, the last thing he wanted was to become some kind of male pin-up. All he wanted was to earn respect and a decent living as an actor. But the hit Global-Warner they were never his first love; by the time he was 13, he was performing in local theatres and knew he wanted to be an actor.

Before landing Dawson's Creek, Van Der Beek had worked in a couple of small films, but he knows Varsity Preview Varsity Blues opens Jan. 15 in Cal gary theatres. Dawson's Creek airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on Calgary 7. Bros.

TV series, in which he plays sensitive hunk Dawson Leery, changed all that, and Van Der Beek is still trying to deal with the fallout. Don't get him wrong. He loves doing Dawson's Creek. He knows if opened new doors for him. But he's still coming to terms with the fact that he's being touted as the small-screen answer to Leonardo DiCaprio.

Last year he was getting desperate about the price stardom was exacting. Td reached the point where I couldn't really visit a mall" he recalls. "I had to be careful about eating out" It seemed that everywhere he went he was recognized. "I was being asked to sign autographs all the time, and it was getting kind of crazy." He was working on his new movie, Varsity Blues, at the time, and he frantically turned to his veteran co-star, Jon Voight, for advice. He wanted to know how he should deal with his fans.

Voight reminded him that as a star, he had certain responsibilities to his public. "Basically, you now have the power to give little gifts to people," Voight told him. "You have the power to make a little girl happy by signing your name for her, and thaf a great power to have." "Jon was absolutely right, and he was very, very helpful" Van Der Beek says now. Nevertheless, the 21-year-old actor is determined not to be locked into his Dawson's Creek image. That's the reason for Varsity Blues, which deals with a different kind of teenage world one far removed from the small Massachusetts coastal community that is such an integral part of the Dawson's Creek dynamic The new Paramount-MTV comedy-drama, which opens Jan.

15, focuses on a small West Texas town where high school football is king and the teenage players find themselves under fero Blues is crucial in selling his -credentials to a big-screen audience. "Dawson Creek has given me so many opportunities," me lanky, good-natured actor admits. "But the trick is to get myself to the point where I won't be derailed for the rest of my career." He knows nothing is forever partic- ularly a TV series. "So I have to establish enough work that people can make comparisons which is why I wanted to do something completely different from Dawson's Creek I wanted to stretch myself and also work with peo- pie I could learn from like Joa" Even before release, Varsity Blues is receiving criticism for suggesting the average male high school jock is obsessed with alcohol and sex. Some Texas journalists are particularly livid about these sequences because they see -them as a reflection on their home state.

"I know there will be questions about booze and dames and the whole thing," Van Der Beek acknowledges. "But I don't judge it I think if a realistic depiction and thaf what I heard from guys who have actually lived it These things do go on." Among those "guys" were the 40 bona fide Texas football players led by for- mer University of Texas quarterback Peter Gardere assigned to work on the field with the film's five main actors. Van Der Beek, who upped his weight from its normal 165 pounds to 180 to do the role, says he heard endless horror stories from these athletes about coaches who terrorized their players. And he argues that for all its scenes of jock carousing, Varsity Blues deals 7 if i' i. 1 with a fundamental moral issue.

cious pressure both from their tyrannically obsessive coach (Voight) and the parents who "One of the reasons I liked this movie is that if about stand- ing up to authority- live vicariously through their victories. Van Der Beek when authority is in the plays Mox, a second-string quarterback who is forced to take over the team wrong. If more about questioning the society into leadership after the star quarterback is injured. But Mox is no football fanatic he prefers reading which you were bom than it is about winning the big 1 game." Paramount Pictures James Van Der Beek (top) tries his hand at football while Amy Smart (right) plays the girlfriend in Varsity Blues. IN CONCERT TELEVISION RATINGS Friends is Calgary's No.

1 show Step back, Honky Cat! Elton fans will have to wait to show Elton making his way to town, yet Of course, that might change. While we're on the subject of ru Calgary Herald Ma glton John is coming to Roanoke, Virginia. "As a station, we are doing extremely well-Tin the market" However, Calgary 7 and CFCN have most of the winning shows because A-Channel's prime-time movies, while attracting viewers, don't reach the viewing peaks scored by such regular fare as Friends, X-Files and ER. Spokesmen for each of the private stations saw the new figures based on surveys taken last Oct 29 to Nov. 25 as positive because BBM statistics can be interpreted in many different ways.

If each of the top 20 shows is listed once in -the ranking, Calgary 7 wins by virtue of hav- ing 12 shows out of 20, compared with six iotZ CFCN and two for A-ChanneL But if each night of the week is measured separately, which permits repeated rankings for suppertime news programming, CFCNZ has 15 of the top 20 shows. Six of them are thcZ CFCN News at 6. "We're extremely pleased," said Calgary 7 CEO fun Bagshaw. "We're No. 1 in the mar- ket just about all the way through.

BOB BLAKEY Calgary Herald A-ChanneL Calgary's newest TV station, has made several big audience gains in ratings, with its weekday Big Breakfast show enjoying the largest surge. The new TV ratings "book," to be released Tuesday, also identifies the most popular TV show among Calgarians. It's Friends, the sitcom about six cappuccino-sipping young adults who commiserate about romance and their generation's challenges. Calgary 7 owns that NBC series in this market, as well as Fox's The X-Files, which has surpassed ER as a Calgary hit for the first time. Preliminary figures for the fall, released Monday by the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement, show that on an average quarter-hour basis, between 7 p.m.

and p.rrL, 61,100 Calgarians are tuned to CFCN. Calgary 7 draws 49,700 and A-Channel is watched by 49,300. CBC's audience is 29,200. "It's quite a start to the new year," A-Chan-nel president Drew Craig said. But there is apparenuy no" truth to local radio re-pdjts that Elton is signed arjjl sealed to deliver a show at the Saddledome later this year.

Slis record company, Universal Music Group, sajs any Elton shows in wptem Canada are mere speculation at this point Inlfact, his only North American date confirmed scCfar is at the Roanoke CJic Centre. While there is interest in bunging the diminutive superstar to Calgary, no dales have been inked into mours: no dates have been announced yet for Bruce Springsteen's worldwide tour with the Street Band this summer; Aero-smith is still not coming to this neck of the woods (as has been rumoured for months); and Alanis Morissette's confirmed tour dates range from New Orleans on Jan 30 to Los Angeles on April 7, with not one stop scheduled in Canada so far. The only confirmed Saddledome concerts in 1999 are The Tragically Hip on March 4-5 and Rod Elton John Kl jl jSj his touring schedule Tour information available at Pollstar's Website also fails Stewart on May 1 (although tickets are not yet on sale for Srewart). Cast of Friends See RATINGS, Page BIO zi.