The Charlotte Observer from Charlotte, North Carolina • 42

MM 21 THE CHARLOTTE ORSLRVER Thursday July 16 1992 -yyrfijr Weekend tests at 2 churches seek marrow donors $30 fee Lash LaRue whips up memories of yesterday Westerns Hey pardners: You ridin out to the Western Film Fair? YV I5 Fi rnyfc tt 4 4 A A video Courtney Crawford The odds of finding a marrow match with a nonsibling are 1 in 20000 There are 600000 to 700000 people on the registry this increases the likelihood of finding a match Calvary Church is at 5801 Pine-ville-Matthews Rd (NC 51) Providence Baptist Church also will have a screening on Sunday for Ashlyn Carpenter It will be held 10 am to 2 pm at the church 4921 Randolph Rd Ashlyn 3 recently was diagnosed with leukemia This screening will also cost $30 per person Details on marrow screenings: Call the Red Cross at 527-0313 8:30 am-5 pm weekdays Melissa Manware Want to attend the Western Film Fair where you can meet the likes of Lash LaRue Pierce Lyden A Lyles Donna Douglas Jane Nigh John Lupton and Tommy Cook? It's at the Radlsson Plaza Hotel Trade and Tryon streets today through Saturday Recurring events Include screenings In four film rooms the first at 10 a the last at 11 pm and a dealers' room where posters and photos and such will be sold Its open 10 am-ll pm today and Friday 9 a -4 pm Saturday Mock gun-fights will be held at noon each day In front of the hotel You can question actors at panel discussions which start at 2 30 pm each day plus 8 30 pm today and Friday There's a walking tour to Randolph Scott's grave at 9 am Friday leaving from the hotel On Saturday there'll be a banquet at 7 30 In the Radisson Plaza ballroom The meal costs $20 for general seating $25 for a seat at a table with a western star The LeGarde Twins Australians specializing in trail songs will entertain The registration fee Is $15 a day but a married couple can take part all three days for $55 Saturday's banquet is extra but the fee buys access to all other events Details: Call 365-2368 after 6 pm daiy iawrence Toppman Bone marrow screenings to help Courtney Stevens Brent Crawford and others who need marrow matches will be held Saturday at Calvary Church Screenings sponsored by the Friends of Courtney and conducted by the Carolinas Blood Services of the American Red Cross will be 10 am to 2 pm and cost $30 per person The procedure requires 10 to 15 minutes reservations necessary Courtney 16 is a junior at Monroe High School Two months ago she was diagnosed with CML (chronic myelogenous leukemia) a disease that is not treatable except through a bone marrow transplant Crawford a student at Campbell University Buies Creek and a member of Calvary Church has been searching for a donor for three years he has ACL (acute lymphocytic leukemia) The screening procedure is simple A small vial of blood taken from the arm is put through extensive testing Results which indicates marrow compatibility are placed on the National Marrow Donor Registry The $30 charge pays for blood testing it's tax-deductible Tonight On I 1W4JI i-y 1 I i HIM For the first time PBS and NBC combine their award-winning news teams for television most comprehensive coverage of the '92 Democratic Convention Public television's live primetime reporting goes beyond the podium to focus on the major issues of the '92 campaign Get the complete story with in-depth reporting from some of the most respected journalists Convention Wrap-Up THE NBC for on PBS ORTEGA GAINESStaff Tools of the trade: Lash LaRue is better known for his bullwhip than his guns but these stag-handled six-shooters used in some of his films bear his initials and elaborate decorations MACNEILLEHRER NEWSHOUR and News join forces Unconventional Convention Coverage seen the Anybody wanting to know the real cowpoke at least as he sees himself can check out LaRue: A Man and His a self-produced $25 video that can be bought at the Western Film Fair or ordered from Lash LaRue Enterprises 1 120 Santa Rosa Blvd Fort Walton Beach Fla 32548 The 70-minute cassette lets Lash recite his poems (which have titles such as reminisce about bearded co-star Fuzzy St John (who like Lash bore the real name of and review clips of himself aboard Black Diamond who could do 35 tricks and though a gelded quarter horse himself like a We learn interesting tidbits about let his hat fall off during fights his guns because western fans verisimilitude He did most of his own a style that suited his stature: punch down on taller opponents Lash in western garb is abbreviated intriguing excerpt is his non-western movie in which he and another doctor buxom redhead so she can relive He looks a little like an uneasy film which is titled it came out Hollywood Lawrence Toppman From preceding page him from obscurity at Universal Pictures where made a spy serial called "The Master Key" "Bob Tansey was producing a western of Old Wyoming" in 1945) and needed somebody to pluck a flower with a whip for a little girl I told him Tve been messing with one since I was a which was a he I rented an 18-footer and a 20-footer and beat myself to death trying to crack them in front of me Got scars all down my back But I At last Lash could lay the identity of Alfred LaRue to rest Alfred was the guy born in Gretna La in 1917 whose father died in World War I and whose mother was a workaholic who moved the family to New Orleans Dayton Ohio and finally Los Angeles while troubleshooting for Clairol Alfred sold real estate worked as a hairdresser scratched around until his late 20s Alfred studied theater briefly at the University of the Pacific to overcome a speech impediment slurred sounds that gave the young man a vocal resemblance to Humphrey Bogart as well as his physical one and played a suicidal gunman in a show that attracted a talent scout Afresh personality never liked he says "When 1 sold newspapers on the streets every fat-bellied tobaccospitting character was named or That for me" But Lash! A guy named Lash could ride a horse called Black Diamond and have a grizzled side-kick like Fuzzy St John Lash could become a comic book hero his exploits laid out in panel form Lash could tour the country with a live show earning $3000 a day snapping newspaper from the lips of trusting kids with his bullwhip Of course a guy named Lash going to be cast opposite Doris Day in a romantic comedy thought if you were a good actor you could move around But Hollywood makes up categories: They saw only a whip not an actor behind it If you were in budget westerns you move up to pictures And a lot of stories went around that I was hard to handle "If the studio had let (producer) Howard Hawks have a piece of my contract have had a shot at the Montgomery Clift part in I think have been more believable as John Wayne's son And if been taller have had a shot at Jim part in They wanted a big man and you act The curtain began to descend on movie westerns around 1959 and Lash slipped over to TV for a season as Sheriff Johnny Behan on Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp" That pan out either Hugh kept looking for a halo to come his head We get along at all In one fight scene I kept drawing my gun and firing before he cleared leather The producer asked you slow down? You make him look I said instinct like to kill When Steve Brodie replaced Lash after one year the future held nothing but tumbleweeds He traveled with a rodeo until the market dried up He invested his few funds was never a good in a hotel in Reno then found God in 1973 and spoke in churches for a year and a half touring in the Hollywood Western Revue for the Lord: was inclined to say things they fTrTPr fi ar LEHRER in television news See live interviews and up-to-the-minute reports from the convention floor Hear insightful commentary and analysis Viewers trust public television to put the issues and events of the campaign into perspective PBS coverage of the Democratic Convention is part of the year-long Election 92 coverage available to all viewers on public television Tonight Beginning at 8pm old films? Try it when I was in the area She got so she made pretty good biscuits and we fell in love been a long time coming but At 75 he says he has the love of three sons and two daughters He has learned to show affection something he seldom saw from his mother And he finds solace in writing optimistic poetry which he quotes from memory and church enjoy everything but singing I was never a singing He travels in his white Cadillac Fleetwood with the license selling bullwhips ($10 a foot) and replicas of lobby cards from his films He profit by those movies now: He says he once owned a piece of Western Lash: He occasionally and reloaded demanded fights developing leap in the air and The footage of so the most picture: a hypnotize a childhood traumas Monty Clift in the Touch Me" After Adventure Productions the Charlotte-based company that produced some but he used it as collateral for a loan and lost it when the loan was bought by a third party under the says the man who ends conversations with a good rather look to the future including the inevitable hope that someone can use an actor who has learned lessons the rough way could have played Indiana father he asks mostly seriously can't understand why they didn't contact me Harrison Ford and me cracking those bullwhips that would've been a great 92 DEMOCRATIC Sk res CONVENTION NBC understand If the spirit hit me go out into left field and scare the hell out of Drifting along the one who been scared He was arrested for vagrancy and public drunkenness in 1974 and marijuana possession a year later Folks with long memories dredged up a 1 956 charge of fencing stolen property maybe forgetting Lash had been exonerated He hit cinematic bottom with Dark Power" and "Alien directed in and by North Carolinian Phil Smoot Lash dueled baddies from outer space but you find these ultra-low-budget exploits on video Even his most recent marriage one of nine or 10 depending which source you use had fallen apart average guy thinks with his (groin) until he gets too old to use says Lash politely reluctant to discuss the subject was never one to cry over spilt milk though I always hated to leave a mess behind Yet his story had a happy ending the kind you might have found in the own of the or of the Lash who had been traveling as a celebrity for hire found a good woman at a housewarming married her after a wait of almost a decade then settled down on the Gaffney homestead two years ago had a separate little apartment and stop by and use GIGI GUYTON and a tea Details (704) 295-7851 9 am to 5 Monday through Saturday and 1 to 5 pm Sunday Father-daughter dinner On July 26 five Charlotte Guild debutantes will be honored at a 7 father-daughter dinner at The Spaghetti Warehouse Honorees are Elizabeth and Kathryn Barnhardt Meg Dowd Shannon Edge and Ashley Griffin Hosting the dinner are Jud and Zibbie Alien Larry and Dianne Biggers Woody and Beck Efird Don and Anita Holland Dick and Judy Kennedy Jon and Pam McLean John and Laura Roddey Harry and Ann Smith and Sam and Judy Woodard Social Notes appears each Tuesday Thursday and Saturday in the Living section WVa University alumni will host coach Nehlen SPECIAL CLOSEOUT PURCHASE TOYS FROM OUR 1991 CHRISTMAS WISH BOOK DOLLS GAMES ACTIVITY TOYS ACTION TOYS AND MORE! MANY TOYS ONE-OF-A-KIND The Charlotte Chapter of the West Virginia University Alumni Association is having a summer reception next Thursday featuring head football coach Don Nehlen The event is from 6 30 to 9 30 at the Marriott Executive Park (1-77 Tyvola Road exit) Also expected to attend are Steve Douglas and Will Armistead from the WVU Alumni Association and Rex Foster president of the Mountaineer Athletic Club Details: 841-8696 anytime Blowing Rock home tour The mountain home of Juanita Mclnnes of Charlotte will be featured in the St Mary's of the Hills parish annual Tour of Homes in Blowing Rock on July 24 The tour is 10 a to 3 Tea will be served in the parish hall from 2 to 4 The tour starts at the church on North Main Street and transportation is provided Cost is 1 5 and includes the tour 1 HURRY FOR BEST SELECTION Sale Starts Thur July 16th! 3205 Freedom Dr inside Freedom Mall Mon thru Sat 9 til 9 Sunday I til 6pm Phone 394-5163.