The Vancouver Sun from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 26

Entertainment C2 The Vancouver Sun, Monday, December 23, 1996 PLAYERS from page CI Porn king reborn as freedom's defender LARRY FlYNT: cameo part as a judge in new film Social Outcast (Dove Books, 265 pages, $22.95) and a critically acclaimed biopic directed by Milos Forman, The People vs. Larry Ffynt, opening in Seattle and Vancouver on Dec. 27. The film stars Woody Haralson as a fiery Flynt, and punk-rock diva Courtney Love as Flynt's troubled fourth wife Althea. Flynt says Love's convincing performance as the disintegrating bisexual junkie "blew him away." But she wasn't his first choice.

"I fought hard to get Ashley Judd or Patricia Arquette. Courtney is nothing like Althea. Althea was a small, petite woman. Courtney is a very big girl. And Althea was much more reserved." In both book and film, the unlikely man of the hour is celebrated as a depraved but determined First Amendment savior for his landmark court battles to protect his and therefore everyone else's free-speech rights.

"We pay a price to live in a free society, and that price is tolerance. We have to tolerate things we don't necessarily like," the 54-year-old publisher said in an interview at the Sorrento Hotel, where he was accompanied by bodyguards and nursefiancee Liz Berrios. A film of sickly sweet cigar smoke hung over the room as a puffy-faced Flynt spoke in his barely audible voice, cutting loose occasional wisecracks. "When people ask me what else I might have done with my life," said the porn king, puffing on his cee-gar, "I always answer that I would have become either an evangelist or a gynecologist." M.L.LYKE Seattle Post-Intelligencer Smut merchant Larry Ffynt takes a puff off a Cuban "cee-gar" and mumbles in a raspy voice that could be coming from a derelict. MI wouldn't give up my legs for anyone or anything," says the publisher of Hustler magazine from his $85,000 gold-plated wheelchair, bought after an incensed reader's bullet partially paralyzed him.

Ffynt's lips curl in a twisted grin. His watery eyes travel over his interrogator. "I guess that disqualifies me as a hero." So why is he treated like one? In the past three months, Fhnt has been featured in high-profile spreads in Vanity Fair, Los Angeles Magazine, File and other mainstream magazines that trace his rise from Kentucky hillbilly to multimillionaire porn king. "Fhnt is kind," wrote an interviewer in George magazine. Broadcast shows, too, have been inordinately friendly.

The man once dubbed "America's pimp" is not used to such soft-glove treatment. "A decade ago, when I was on a radio call-in show, four out of five people who called in would rake me over the coals. It seemed like I represented everything that was basically wrong in America. "Now, this tour I'm on, the most amazing thing is that the situation is completely reversed." Behind the hoopla is a just-released autobiography titled An Unseemly Man: My Life as a Pornographer, Pundit and 5C I i 1 -JUL From safe choice to the compromise Baton executive Ivan Fecan is widely respected in Canada's production community and was the architect behind some of CBC-TVs best TV-movies and minseries of the past 10 years. Fecan is being aided in his bid by former BCTV news director Cameron Bell, and Vancouver Television is favored by some of Canada's most prominent writers, artists and producers, including director Daryl Duke (The Thorn Birds, Tai-Pari), impresario Y.H.

Lui, screenwriter Nancy lsaak (Liar, Liar), writer Suzette Couture (Million Dollar Babies), Atlantis Communications' president Michael MacMillan and SFU communications professor Catherine Murray. Baton's access to the CTV network means that B.C. productions will be seen across the country. The broadcaster is promising that 35 per cent of its advertising revenue will be redirected toward Canadian programming. Baton is proposing five storefront community news bureaus in Vancouver and one in Victoria, each staffed with bilingual reporters.

Baton's bid has the support of several First Nations, the Chinese Benevolent Association of Canada, as well as British Columbia Institute of Technology broadcasting instructor George Orr and Langara College journalism chair Robert Dykstra. Verdict: The safe choice. vrrvVancouver Independent Television (Craig Broadcast Systems) 150 jobs A promising, highly unusual blend of multi-ethnic, multicultural programming and broad-based, youth-oriented English-language programming it has been described as a cross between Moses Znaimer's Citytv and CFMV, Rogers' proposed multilingual channel. Craig Broadcasting was considered the long shot until the CRTC startled observers last month by handing the Winnipeg-based Craig a licence in Edmonton, at the expense of heavily favored Can West-Global (a station in Alberta would have allowed Global to become Canada's third television network, joining CTV and CBC; as it is, Global remains a Toronto-based system of stations, with just one western outlet Vancouver's U.TV). In its ruling, the CRTC cited Craig's financial commitment to Edmonton-based drama production, as well as the broadcaster's willingness to foot the bill for local news and entertainment programming.

Craig's proposal for a $14 -million B.C. drama production fund has earned the support of the Directors Guild of Canada, among others. Craig's proposal generated 1,300 letters of support to the CRTC 800 of them from B.C.'s production community alone. VITV has wide ranging support from, to name a few, radio Rim Jhim's Anirudh Chowla and Sushma Dart, the Urban Native Indian Education Society, Studio B. C.

host Colleen Leung and veteran CHMV talk-show host Hanson Lau. Verdict: The compromise. VITVVancouver Island Television (CanWest-Global) 135 jobs A solid, broad-based mainstream station for one of the most underserved, fastest growing regions in Canada. Last September, Vancouver Island residents served the CRTC with a petition with more more 60,000 names and addresses of people supporting a second Victoria-based station. VTTV will duplicate less than 35 per cent of U.TV programming (supporters note that's a much lower ratio than the duplication of programming between BCTV and Victoria's CHEK-TV).

The rest of the broadcast day will be taken up with Vancouver Island-based programming: 13 hours of local each week be-tween 5 p.m. and midnight, a daily two-hour breakfast show, and weekly programs including businessjifestyles issues, environmental concerns, a wrap-up of provincial politics, and dairy morning, supper-hour and late-night newscasts. VTIVs bid is supported by Victoria mayor Bob Cross, former B.C. premier Dave Barrett, the Victoria Native Friendship Center and development councils in both Port Alberni and Nanaimo. Verdict: The logical choice for Vancouver Island.

CFMV (Rogers Broadcasting) 111 jobs Many of the Lower Mainland's multicultural and ethnic groups say the present system a pay TV service costing more than $30 a month is antiquated and condescending in a city where multilingual diversity is now the rule rather than the exception. Greater Vancouver's ethnic population will grow to 835,000 by 1999, or 37 per cent of the region's population, according to Rogers' projections. Rogers' proposal is to acquire Talentvision, the multilingual pay-TV service, and convert it to a free-access, over-the-air service offering programming to 18 different ethnic groups in 15 languages. Twenty-two hours of multilingual programming will be shown in prime time each week, in eight different languages. Rogers' bid is supported by activist May Brown, en-trepeneur Lucy Roschat, the Affiliation of Multicultural Societies and Service Agencies, the Immigrant and Visible Minority Women of B.C., the Italian Cultural Centre Society and the Laurier Institution (Roslyn Kunin and Associates).

Verdict: The multilingual choice. VANAIM1 LAHUH5I AND Bit KNOWN RECDhO ITVHfc SAM'S TRADITIONAL I BOHING DAY SALE AT ALL THE SAM'S STORES I PLEASE; NO PHONE CALLS, CREDIT SLIPS OR EXCHANGES UNTIL, DECEMBER 28. NEM1CAI COMPACT DISCS CASSETTES VIDEOS FORO CENTRE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS 2 (604)280-2222 GWS (28 OR NfflW) CALL- (94) 844-2558 fis rio naiifait teMbitit tafeh. adrift) Wirfnj Spin ml jamapatjij Inn's Saiet EVERY LABEL EVERY BOX SET EVERY ACCESSORY EVERY EVERYTHING ONLY CASH GIFT CERTIFICATES MAJOR CREDIT CARDS Ull V83D-701-9070 HOTfl VANCCMJWS tx tci to an SWSff KtMWV ma, irtKnl pwaps I "lUt'i an" CMD IS NOT VMIO DlilMO I0IIN0 PAY Mil. a mm BOB MARLEY (RASH TEST DUMMIES A Worm's lift TRAINSPOTTING Original Sooadrrack SwIAbiigfatyViLl 1HIS HOLIDAY SASOM 6i IW bill Of SUWII XT I vim.

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