The Vancouver Sun from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 29

he ncoiiiw Sun SEPT. 13, 1979 5 71? New job for TV executive -2S. mm boydmV1-J; IP'I By PETER WILSON water that I made my decision. It was the challenge and I knew I had to go." Mintz, who remains president of KVOS for the next month and a half, started out in his native Pittsburgh with an Industrial engineering degree. To pay his.

way through college he worked as a radio announcer. "When I got through with college I knew the one thing I didn't want to be was an announcer. The minute I graduated I broke my slide rule in half and ripped up my notebooks and threw them in the wastebasket. And then I took out my broadcast yearbook and Xed off all the radio stations near Pittsburgh and got in my car and drove. I got a job at the 25th radio station I hit, From announcing Mintz got into programming and from there into sales which he regards as his forte.

After helping get KVOS on the air, Mintz had to keep it on the air, physically. i "The first day we went on the air I wrote the log out by hand, helped splice the film, filled the slide cartridges and then took everything in my car to the transmitter and did the announcing. In those days we had picture trouble, tremendous ghosts, after all we were broadcasting from a little bill in Bellingham." And so the station grew, becoming a major factor in the Vancouver market. Mintz bought a minority interest in KVOS 1S55. He and his partners sold out to Wometco of Miami in 1961 but Mintz stayed on as president.

Things were going well, CBS affiliation and all, until bill C-58 came along which prohibited Canadian advertisers from using their fees paid to U.S. stations as tax deductions. This hurt KVOS financially and simultaneous substitution (allowing 3 rH she sr.r Dave Mintz Canadian stations to knock out U.S. stations carrying the same prof-amming on cable) caused Mintz to have to become a clever Independent programmer. The battle over C-58 continues on both sides of the border but Mintz will be removed from It.

"What I am for is free competition," he says. "I believe that the more choices advertisers have the more money there is fc'ft. Today Dave Mintz becomes part the Canadian television establishment he has battled for so long. The president of KVOS-TV the scourge of the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, the only man who could ever unite BCTV and CKVU in a common cause is to be president of Ontario's Global Network. Yes, the man from Bellingham who spearheaded the drive to keep U.S.

border stations alive in the face of Bill C-58 will move to Toronto Nov. 1 to take up his duties. Lest anyone think an American is taking over yet another Canadian enterprise, Mintz pointed out in an interview held in his KVOS office on Burrard before leaving on a plane for his introduction to the Toronto media that he is a landed immigrant who moved to Vancouver from Washington State two years ago. He adds that his wife Sue is of French Canadian stock from Kirk-land Lake, Ont. Ever full of surprises, Mintz says he is taking the chief of the CBC television network, Don MacPherson, with him to Global as vice-president of operations of the network and president of a film-making enterprise called Barber-Greene Productions.

MacPherson has been saying for some time that he would like to get back into private production. Rumors have been floating around Vancouver for days about the move by Mintz. It had been thought that Mintz might replace Paul Morton as chief executive of Global. However, Mintz says Morton is merely moving up to become president of Global Communications and the company is being split into four divisions the network itself, Barber-Greene Productions, The Toronto Blizzard soccer club and Tee-Vee Records, each with its own president. Mintz allows that Global is not so much a network as one station with six towers and transmitters serving 94 per cent of the Ontario market.

He is quick to add that this market area is equal to 51 per cent of English Canada and is delivered to almost a million and a half cablevision subscribers. A tad bigger than KVOS. Why Mintz for the big job in Toronto as boss of 270 full-time employees and as many again part timers? The man himself will only say that one of the reasons is that he had 15 years experience with Canawest, a film production company subsidiary of KVOS and that Global is considering going into Canadian production in a big way. He also admits to being experienced in sales, in program acquisition and in programming an independent station. He has, after all, been around since 1952, a year before KVOS went on the air.

One might also add that he Is known in this country, as well as below the border, as one of the best lobbiests in the broadcast industry. Who else could have planted the seeds of doubt that got the Vancouver public roused to such a state of anger that it practically laid siege to a CRTC hearing and forced the regulatory body to change its mind about dumping U.S. stations from 1 the primary cablevision dial? They'll probably be seeing a lot more of Mintz in Ottawa over the next few years. Mintz says he's going to be sad to leave. "The bigggest part of the decision I had to make, had to do with the love affair I've been having with Vancouver.

There are all the friends I've made here that I will miss and then there is my boat. It will be hard to do without my boat. It was there, out on the '4 7 I sUM 3M It's been 55 years, but Orphan Annie is still popular It Impulses need control Gary Bannerman and CKNW paid off another one on the courthouse steps this week and it set one to wondering if, when and why this talented but impul-. sive talk-show host is going to destroy himself. The libel suit filed against Banner-man in January of 1978 by Vancouver lawyer Peter Brown never got to court.

It was settled by the payment to Brown of $5,000 in damages and $600 in costs. Originally, Brown had retained Allan McEachern to represent him and Charles Maclean did the preliminary work for 'NW. But so much time had passed since the Writ was filed that McEachern had been elevated to a judgeship and Maclean had been replaced by Doug Hogarth. Maclean's position with CKNW has been a strange one. In 5ft years, Maclean says he had handled 103 actions for CKNW and he has had a remarkable record for keeping the station out of major embarrassment.

Additionally, he delved so deeply into the legal intricacies of the talk-show concept that he became one himself, filling in for Banner-man and Barrle Clarke during their vacation time. But Maclean says now he no longer represents the station legally and his future as a program host is speculative. It would serve no purpose to repeat the libel'against Brown that brought this week's settlement. It was an enormous one and at the outset, a year and a half ago, Brown said he wanted full, public vindication. But time wore him down, a common happening in our ponderous, slow-moving court system.

Brown wound up handling his own case and all he wanted to say yesterday was, "I took the advice of my lawyer and did what I thought was best. I settled and it's over." But is it over for Bannerman? He faces a criminal contempt of court charge related to the Fats Robertson cocaine conspiracy trial. Bannerman has come a long way since he was a $65-a-week newspaper reporter. He makes in excess of $100,000 a year and with the defection of Jack Webster to television, Bannerman is the most dynamic presence on Vancouver radio. He is also a moralistic paradox.

He could increase his income another $50,000 a year by doing sponsor testimonials, what he refers to as "dollar a holler" commercialism. But he refuses to pander. Yet, when it comes to things like observing the Broadcast Act and the basic fibres of libel, slander and defamation, he operates as if the law is an ass and he is there to kick it. I don't think he deliberately courts legal action to build up listenership through a tough guy image. He simply doesn't seem to understand law.

And the station and the parent company, Western Broadcasting, seem to be incapable of, or disinclined to control him. It's too bad. He's a talented, Informed, tireless broadcaster. But he is going to destroy his credibility. Ironically, they put a six-second delay on talk-show callers.

What they need is a control-delay on Bannerman's impulses. On the other hand, 'NW put on a gold-plate $160-a-head dinner Tuesday night that set a record for such affairs 514 tickets sold and raised over $40,000 for the Orphan's Fund charities. There was an elimination draw held for prizes, Including top prize of $20,000 for last-man-out and a grand consolation prize. Eight guys hedged their bets and split the $20,000 and Woodward's Stores won the consolation, air tickets for two to any Air Canada destination. Clothier Murray Goldman headed up a seven-man syndicate that bought 70 tickets at a cost of $11,200.

Goldman won a prize: a suit from Gentlemen Two. Stan (Cuddles) Johnston Is in jazzman's heaven: he has just signed to do a 10-day road gig with the Jimmy Dorsey band. was 19 years ago when a young cameraman went to work for Croton Studios. This week, after a career in newspapers and television, BUI Linn went back. He bought Croton from the estate of the late Bob Dibble.

can all feel a little safer now that torture freaks Gypsy IUggtns and Buck Sharma have been convicted of the attempted murder of soldier Pvt. Jacques Groulx. During the trial, court was told that an undercover cop asked Sharma If he had any remorse. Sharma is said to have answered, "I don't give a Society can't touch us. We're a family, We're the Clark Park gang.

We rule on the street and in the joint. We've sent many to hospital and many to their graves." 1 jT, Vv 4 J- for advertising budgets and the more budgets there are. I see nothing wrong in having to scrap to get your share." Whether or not this is the philosophy of the Global Network itself remains to be seen. Taking over from Mintz as president of KVOS is his associate of 17 years Doug Davis who is now vice-president and general manager. The man at the Alvin's box office says Annie isn't expected to drop in attendance even when the full fall season gets going.

"She has her audience," he said, rolling his eyes. What audience? It's tough to figure out just why this show is still going strong just as it is to figure out why a comic strip born in the devil-may-care capitalism of the '20s continues to have a readership. And not only is the musical set in the darkest Depression (1933) but at Christmas. It must be the only Yuletide show to pack the house in September. Nor is Annie blessed with the landmark music that propels My Fair Lady, Man of La Mancha, and Fiddler on the Roof to their thousand-plus runs.

Annie's score by Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin (who also directed) is pleasant, often catchy, and it did win awards. But the tunes from it have not won the public exposure of an Impossible Dream or If I Were A Rich Man, and they aren't likely to. Moreover the story, by Thoman Meehan Is almost grotesque at times especially the slngalong featuring Franklin Roosevelt and his Brains Trust. But those limitations it turns out are merely theoretical. In the end it would be a cold, cold heart that was not charmed by Annie.

The play is more than a nostalgia trip. There are a few period references about Hooverville's, Al Smith and the like but obviously Annie has survived a thousand performances on a bigger audience than those who lived through the Depression. The presentation is mostly funny as In: Secretary: "Harpo Marx called." War-bucks: "Oh what did he want?" Secretary: "He didn't say." The overall message amid the laughs is of a tireless optimism: "When I am stuck with a day that's grey and lonely, I just stick out my chin and grin, and say Oh the sun'U come out tomorrow so I gotta hang on 'til tomorrow come what may I Cornball perhaps but it delivers the same message as the strip. There waj a time, not so long ago, when things looked a lot more bleak than now and people did manage to make it through. Beyond that musicals are a fragile, often absurd, thing and either they click or they do not.

Annie does. Young Sarah Jessica Parker, who is a mite more sentimental about finding her folks than Annie's creator Harold Gray would have allowed, still has more spunk than a dozen TV generation kids, The flashiest star of the show is Reid Shelton whose dynamic Oliver Warbucks is even larger than life than was Gray's character: "You don't have to be nice to people on the way up if you're not coming backdown again." Bill Prokopchuk (fiddle) and Peter Mouse (guitar) In Paper Wheat By VAUGHN PALMER NEW YORK The eternal Orphan is proving to be almost as Indestructible on Broadway as she Is in the funny pages. Annie, a musical based on the Little Orphan Annie daily comic strip, celebrated its performance Wednesday night with no end In sight. Not a Broadway record setter (yet anyway) but not bad for an 11-year-old girl turned 55 last month. It was August 1924 when Little Orphan Annie made her debut In the New York News In a strip that would run for nearly 60 years and which continues in rerun form in the Vancouver Sun and many other dallies.

The musical Annie opened on Broadway at the Alvin Theatre in spring 1977 and two and a half years into the run Annie is still a tough show to get tickets for despite competition from the likes of A revival of Peter Pan starring Sandy Duncan; A live comedy show featuring Gilda Radner of the TV show Saturday Night Live; Dancin' a musical directed and choreographed by the veteran Bob Fosse; The Tony award winning Sweeney Tod with Angela Lansbury and Canada's Len Cariou; Evita (the life of Eva Peron) a new musical by the team that brought Jesus Christ Superstar to the stage; Theme shows based on the life and works of artists as varied as Fats Waller and Gertrude Stein. Tomorrow in Leisure TV Week The liveliest arts What's on tap Othis season In theatre, music and dance. And why they may be your best entertainment bet of all. OHard rain's gonna fall: Born-again Bob Dylan's new album goes the Christian route, and Don Stanley finds It hard to be a fan. Einstein's brain: After the great man died, scientists preserved his brain In jar and began a study.

Twenty-three years later, they got some results. Oand much morei Movies, jazz, hiking, boating, dining out and complete television and entertainment listings. Show has warmth and honest humor jj -vi in. I a crusty, gravel voiced old hold-out from the wheat pool. Skai Leja has some fine moments (in particular her timorous but iron-firm attempt to convince farmers to plan ahead lingers In the mind) and David Francis and Lubomir Mykytiuk offer nicely crafted portraits of a variety of characters that range from bedrock-solid to Loo-ney Tunes.

Mykytluk's Illustration of how a farmer's profits are eaten up he expertly juggles two balls and a bun. gradually and hilariously devours the bun. BUI Prokopchuk, himself a retired wheat farmer and the only member of the group old enough to have first hand knowledge of the period of the piece, Is thank God a genuine Canadian old time fiddler. Which is to say, his music Is based on the folk fiddle tunes people actually used to play at square dances In rural Canada, and not some imported bluegrass derivative. Like most things about this play, it's a treat.

And If the play itself 'sometimes lacks that air of bitterness contained in, say, certain episodes of similar work like Ten Lost Years, it's surely no real drawback to play that chooses to emphasize how people pull through rough times by working together. Paper Wheat, in the midst of a successful cross-Canada tour, Is at the Cultural Centre (1805 Venables) until Oct. 0. By WAYNE EDMONSTONE Paper Wheat, which opened last night at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre, may at times seem paper-thin when it tries to recapture some of the bitterness of depression-era sodbustlng on the prairie but it does have plenty of the kind of warmth that leaves you smiling to yourself at the end of the show. And enough honest humor to keep you laughing aloud throughout it.

This consistently good-natured little panorama of the history of the co-operative movement In rural Saskatchewan is done in the Improvised, ensemble playing tradition of Ten Lost Years and The Farm Show (where the actors write and create their own script) by six talented performers who double in a variety of roles; Interchanging characters and sometimes even sexes. Singing, dancing, miming and mugging (but only in the sense that some of their vig nettes are designed as pure lampoons) the five character actors, ably backed up by old-time fiddler Bill Prokopchuk, manage to make more than 50 years of prairie history and more than two hours of stage time seem to pass In something less than the the twinkling of an eye. A theatre company prepares for this sort of thing by getting out Into the boonies and observing, talking, and above all listening to the old-timers who've lived through the years and the lifestyles they want to portray. and this company of young actors from Saskatoon has obviously done Its homework. They treat their characters with respect and even a good deal of love.

but also with an irony that saves the show's more didactic speechifying on the need for farmers' co-operation from turning wheat pools Into cornpone. The result is at times as Canadian as a gopher sitting by a fence post, and filled with charming and frequently moving miniatures of real people who orbit back and forth from youth to a wistful old age. all created with a minimum of makeup and properties, but with the actors at times occupying their work cloths and various period costumes like second skins. Performances are uniformly good, although actor Peter Meuse still needs to get more of a handle on his Irish accent, curb a too-obvious and distracting enjoyment of what the other actors are up to while he's on the sidelines and learn to age more from the Inside, Sharon Bakker remains convincing whether she's playing a young farmer's wife pining for the company of another woman; bumbling sound-effects technician in spoof on early CBC broadcasts, or.