The Province from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 11

THE Moud), January 10, 1911 Ml) ril I TT 1 1 -aw1 Native son boosts homeland II I. XJ Canada 'bloody good' says Berton t. Toronto broadcaster for six year end lu had hu avndtialed I show fur IU ear hi addition lu being a headline identifier on the I'liC televUiun ahuw, Front Page llullenge, fur II ear. "To instill confidence, somebody has la ha a little overconfident," he said. "What I've been Iryinu lu ahuw myself and everybody ele Dial we can make il hire.

"I couldn't tin any taller in the Slates Ihan I'm dtiing here and there are damn CitnititUa Yttot TOHONTO Pierre Uertun, a best-arlling Canadian author, says lie Is pur-poely anoint at Canadiaii national-Ul. "I don't ninth like arrogant hut I think Mime Canadians hae got lu say I bloody he said in an interview. "It's nut me In), Imt I don't care. There's method in lliii, ami it i(itMrtanl." Meritorious mediocrity i A Yanks honor underachieve! Attorney Jerome Tracktenberg, a society member from Nyack, New York, is contemplating selling up Millard Fillmore scholarship for "guys who don't finish first or second but with something like a average." How did Apostle get the idea for such a society? "Well," he says, "like all ad agency people we were silling there having a few drinks after work, and we got to talking that only Washington and Lincoln among presidents had their birthdays observed. So we got to looking through the book for the 'least known' and Fillmore was the one who had Uie least ritten about him." By EDWARD V.

Ill IIKS New York Timet NEW YORK Glasses alt.ft and tongue in cheek lite Millard Fillmore Birthday Parly Society dniorted itself Friday at Its 7lh annual "Dutch Treat" luncheon to salute the president with the "luastest." To those gathered in Perruna's Res-tauranl in Spring Valley, New York, Thomas Apostle, founder and national president, cheerily read off a list of distinguished Americans who had Hlituly declined invitations to the wing-ding. They included 42 governors, a host of senators, George Wallace, who wanted to be "handy" at home in case of political developments, and U.S. president Nixon, wlm seemed to have other business. It developed that Nixon was choosing the day to say he would run again. Stoutly defending Fillmore, often described as the least known of the presidents, Apostle quipped: "Maybe 10 years front now, people will ask: 'Who was IJEST SELLING AUTHOR I'lEIiliE KENTON cunfidenlly nationalistic as he fries to show us who we are.

In choosing the championship site Businessman Bobby favors high bidder Freda sensuous, involved and an absolute charmer vtt fj 4.Vr,"; I 09 I few people anywhere who are doing as well as I am. There are damn few American writers who have a book out that's sold luo.ouo copies. 1 have every reaMtn lu say from my own experience lhat if jou forget about other countries and comeiitiala on your own audience you can do it. His next big protect is the story of lite opening of the Prairie. "One of I he roaMiii I write aboul Canadian subjects such as the Klondike and (he railway Klondike was just as great a book, but it was written in 1057 before I was well known it that I'm trying to show Canadians who we are.

"A lot of people are going to psychiatrists because they're rootless and they don't know who they are, and that is (rue of nations too. "That's why Canadians have been lacking in confidence. The only way to find it is to go back to oitr childhood, 1867 and beyond, and find out who we are." He said the CPU books took Utree years of research, causing him to give up two "very good" jobs and cutting his income in half. "I paid about $25,000 in expenses out of my own pocket. Those books were not written to make money.

I thought I'd lose money on them, and maybe I will because the tax will all come off the top. "But I never object to paying tax. I'm just happy I'm in a position to pay il." By ALKliN WHITMAN New York Times NEW YORK Bobby Fischer, the 28 year old American chess wizard, would like it best if a U.S. city were the high bidder for next spring's world title match with Boris Spassky, 34, of the Soviet Union. In an interview here, he said, his second choice would be Canada.

Eight bids for the match had been received as the deadline approached for offers to put up $100,000 or more for the purse, the biggest chess prize ever. Bids had been submitted by Canada, France, Iceland, Israel, Switzerland and Yugoslavia, which sent in two offers. A last minute bid came from Brooklyn on Wednesday. The winner is to get 62.5 per cent of the purse and 37.5 per cent will go to the loser. After the bids are unsealed, both the United States Chess federation and its Soviet counterpart must agree on the match site.

Presumably the highest bidder will win the match. The deadline for this accord is February 1, "I'd like to play in the United States because I'm used to the climate and the people and the lighting is better," Fischer said, adding, with an enigmatic laugh: "But I wouldn't want to play in Brook ft a 1 ft-. 1 lyn. Some other American city, but not Brooklyn." The Brooklyn bred Fischer did not elaborate, but he is accustomed to playing his matches in such metropolitan centres as Hucnns Aires and Belgrade. He earned the right to challenge Spassky, who has held the world championship since 1969, by defeating Tifjran Petros-ian of the Soviet Union in Buenos Aires last fall.

I'etrosian is a former champion. "I'll play Spassky regardless (of the site)," Fischer said. "I want the money and I want the title even more." The money, he added, is very important plenty of ways to spend because "chess is my business." Fischer believes his chances of taking the world title are good. "I'm looking forward to the match," he said. "I'm definitely confident that I'll master Spassky." Should Fischer win the 24 game match, he would become the first American world chess champion.

As it is, he is the first American challenger since the championships were instituted in 1866. Since 1951, all the champions and challengers have been Soviet players. Although Fischer is accounted young at 28, he will not, if wins, be the youngest champion. Mikhail Tal of the Soviet Union was 23 when he gained the title in 1960. Fischer will be 29 on March 9.

Hi riuii doesn't behove ha ha la go In the I titled hutes lu be successful ami lu' proving ii. lite National Dream is Hearing lite luu.ouo mark in sales, lit sequel, The I aal Spike, sold copies in ill fust twu months in a country vt hit considers btHik Hut sell J.Ooo hardcover copies a bestseller. In addition In hi hooks, Sertoli hai dime a daily radiu dialogue till another Apostle, a Spring Valley advertising man, described Friday's celebration as a "Truman laimte party where nobody shows up." It mustn't be thuught, though, that the far flung group of 20 members is frivolous about Fillmore. Last year, MFBPS sponsored a nationwide contest among college students who were told to write an essay on "What would this country have been like if there had been no Millard Fillmore?" There were -too entries. First prize was $64 15 and second prize, $64 10, but nobody seems to remember who won.

The members of the society are "flung" as far as St. Louts and San Francisco. Does the society really transact business at these festive luncheons or is it all just champagne and cake? Yes, the society transacts business, and no it's nut champagne but martinis. A resolution was adopted, for instance, to urge Rockland county supervisors to change the nuine of old route 304 in New City, New York, to Millard Fillmore Parkway. You Go Away, and approach a Bealjo medley from several mood directions.

Always, like a protective buffer between the voice and the band, is the cradle of piano from conductor Henry Kay. The notes caress the peripheries of Miss Payne's chiaroscuro sketches, introduce or slightly extend an emotion, soften a line or deepen a passion. Much of tiie appeal, indeed, does lie with the instrumental foundation. Arrangements are occasionally ruthless and quite inspired, a particular example being the angular, unusual handling of Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline. The flair of all the arrangements, however, not only draws an especially bright and spirited performance from the Bobby Hales orchestra, but elicits continuous physical as well as emotional response from Miss Payne herself.

She interprets sensually as well as intellectually, expressing a song with much theatrical gesture and involvement. Miss Payne maintains visual as well as vocal poise at all times, and the result is a fine 50 minutes of entertainment. Ex-wife has custody of the two children, and ex-wife's new husband, a mere schoolteacher with idealistic dreams of equality, moves the kids out of their posh boarding school to lite relative squalor of a semi-slum school where he teaches. As ex-father and new teacher-father meet in angry debate, ex-father Main offers to subsidize new father to keep his children in boarding school. Not a chance, says current father.

You never had time to give your wife and kids love and attention and just because you make bundles of money doesn't mean that you're a good provider. Next Friday night at 10 p.m., Main launches a custody suit to get back his two kids. In this instance viewers will probably hope their new lawyer hero will lose the case. If by chance you're still worried about his other case, this is to inform you that the MD is probably guilty of mercy killing. The judge rules that there is enough evidence to proceed with trial.

But the murder trial will not continue next week, according to the plot outline provided by CBC. We will just have to assume guilt. With the surfeit of U.S. courtroom drama flooding the airwaves, viewers will either scream for mercy or thank the CBC, according to their leanings. Canadian viewers schooled in the intricacies of U.S.

law will be less inclined plead the Fifth Amendment the next time they face a traffic court after watching the British version of what happens in a courtroom. Not that ve need more television judges and juries, but a home-grown TV lawyer is just what the CBC should be providing. And a few gag writers to furnish him with lines. 7 if? Beautiful. Freda Payne is beautiful.

She is lithe and arrogant and an absolute channel'. And she sings as well. She deals with a song boldly, glowing with elegance and ability. Clearly professional, she is capable and enjoyable. Freda Payne opened at the Cave Saturday night and will be there until January 15, offering a show that is extremely tasteful, appropriately varied and consistently entertaining.

In other words, a sterling night club act. Even the unusually grim and leaden first night audience, which remained surprisingly unmoved by comic George Stevens' witticisms, relaxed and responded to Miss Payne's electric presentation. Her voice, often hard-edge and vigorous, can slip into a pool of huskiness at will. She uses the breadth of it to create a sense of drama. She will strike high and funky with her pop hits' Band of Gold, Bring the Boys Home, and the more recent Cherish.

She will wind down into jazz colors, artfully interpret a classic ballad like If BobI)y 'unjust' Soviets James SPEAKS Associated Press" MOSCOW The Soviet Union's leading sports newspaper has accused U.S. chess master Bobby Fischer qf a mercenary attitude toward his match against Kussia's Boris Spassky for the world crown. Sovielsky Sport charged Fischer with "anarchy" and "disrespect" because he said he would only meet Spassky in a city lhat offered to pay them enough. The paper's chess commentator, A. Roshal, expressed fear that Fischer's demands will force the world chess com Czech maintains balance BOBBY FIStHEK capitalist motives 4 ti rlw!" Iv tfiL BOKLS SPASSKY world champion munity to raise the stakes of future international competitions.

"Other players will probably share his point of view to see chess primarily as a means of enrichment," Roshal wrote. Koshal also complained that Fischer ruled out Moscow as the site of the championship match. "It is unjust tli at the International Chess Federation did not stipulate the match should be held in the reigning champion's motherland," he added. To date, Belgrade has put up the highest bid with $152,000. so.

it was the highlight of the concert. Turnovsky showed himself to be very much in sympathy with a style which demands that climaxes emerge from Uie music's natural processes and not front forced pressures from without. He bgan well, plunging into the opening Moderato misterioso with a rhymic fervor that carried him and the orchestra through the many changes of tempo to the coda's blazing convietion. In the Adagio it did seem to me that the music suffered through the VSO's somewhat thin, bright violin tone, for such rich luxuriant stuff needs a fat string sonority, a plowing rather than a glittering tone quality. However, the scherzo and the captivating handler trio were alternately stamped and stroked out with explosive energy and beguiling charm, while the concluding Allegro displayed an amalgam of all that had gone before, including a very schmaltzy tune which is Bruckner at his most sugar-coated, passages of dramatic rhetoric and infectious enjoyment and.

finally, a triumphant blistering conclusion. Through all these changes of mood Turnovsky never permitted his enthusiasm fr the music to exceed the bounds of good taate and styie. The end result was a splendid performance of a big score whiih i rih ia culor and iccideut. iv VnL fV tLtl A British detective series without a sense of humor? Next to impossible, you might say, but in the opening episode of the new series Main Chance that's what it looks like. Title character David Main is a hotshot barrister with Oxford credentials and a nasty personal life who, as do all good TV lawyers, plays detective to save his clients from the clutches of the law.

He has a senior law partner and several juniors plus a secretary. Discreet indications of potential love affair are present whenever Main and secretary come within 12 feet of each other: Sparks fly. Yet Main, played by John Stride, can't find time far a single clever comment to client or secretary. He's all business. Furthermore, he vaguely resembles two Canadian television heroes not particularly remembered as comedians; Wojeck and Quent Durgins, M.P.

Combine a coroner and a politician and you have some idea of the impact this new British character will have on the public for the next six months. Beore you yearn for the fantastic plots, lively repartee and weekly car chases of such defunct British series as The Avengers and The Persuaders, here's a word of defence for the new series. As drama material, this new character offers a two-dimensional twist to the apparently inexhaustible supply of TV detective types. He's a good lawyer and a terrible father. la addition to his client (who was bringing a privale charge of murder against his MD father for the death of bis mother suffering from leukemia) our nun Main was also completing final arrangements in a recent divorce bis own.

By LAWRENC CLIDERAY The Queen Elizabeth Theatre was nicely filled Sunday afternoon for visiting Czech conductor Martin Turnovsky and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and the concert was one of the most musically satisfying so far this season. Although I do not feel Turnovsky always makes the VSO play to the limit of its potential, I like his work. His gestures are quiet and he allows the music to say what it has to say by itself, never overloading phrases with more expression titan is consistent with the general flow of the rhythm. Thus Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio Overture emerged with point and precision, there was a bit of lovely olxie work by Warren Stannard in the middle section and enough Turkish delight to satisfy everyone. As for the same composer's Symphony No.

40 in minor, the nicest balance was maintained between the essential singing style and the more tragic deeps under the surface. Textures were mostly clear, there was some nice dovetailing of strings and wind in the Andante, and the final two movements had strong impulse and precise articulation. Despite the fact it reveals its composer in his least garrulous light, Bruckner's Third Symphony is heard less often than most of its successors. Even CHESS FEVER MOUNTS I an atmosphere of deep concentration prrvaded the ballroom of the McAlpin Hold as more than 4HI young cliess enthusiasts gathered for the scvenlli annual New York High hool I hess Championships..