Newsday du lieu suivant : New York, New York • 174

TELEVISION 1 ITViSPOTS iimmi i Rebirth of a Salesman By Steve Parks DID YOU HEAR the one about the traveling salesman and the made-for-pay-TV movie? He was so worried about being typecast as an all-purpose sexual freak first as a tight end who goes out for a sex change (The World According to Garp), then as a guy who cant tell whether his lover is a man or a woman (M. Butterfly) Regular Guy script that came along and turned it into a get-me-some-straight-roles screen test. Judging from his performance in Traveling Man, an HBO movie premiering Sunday at 9 p.m., John Lithgow belongs in the same Regular Guy league now led by Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman. This is not a role for a character actor. It calls for a that-could-be-me kind of face.

There are no freaks lurking in the character of Ben Cluett, just plenty of flaws. Ben Cluett makes his living on the road, off the cuff, in the bottle and out of a suitcase, selling industrial foam for. a company called Chemiton. Hk not inspired work, but it's the only constant in hk life. Ben gets hk mail in Atlanta but spends most of hk time at any place where he can park hk car any motel, bar, fast-food joint or girlfriends apartment along this route hes nursed over the years.

He used to have a wife but, as scriptwriter DavicfTaylor put it for Ben: She got tired of my bein on the road. So she found somebody who didn't know how to drive. Right now, Bens pretty tired of being on the road himself, only he doesnt let himself know that. Theres always something to distract him: Another drunken night out with a client; another broad in another town. (Thats about the only disingenuous moment in Lithgows portrayal of Ben Cluett.

When he uses the word broad, you dont quite buy it from thk legend among traveling salesmen.) Thk time Bens distracted by the kid tagging along with him. His sales manager (John Glover) told him to show young Billy Fox the ropes. Billy is played green enough and earnest enough by Jonathan Silverman (Eugene Morris Jerome on Broadway in Neil Simons trilogy Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, Broadway but he doesnt prepare you adequately for the treachery Billy Fox dkplqys after learning enough about Bens ropes to steal them. Its treacherous enough to put Ben in a party-pooper mood, even in the middle of Mardi Gras. He goes to a French Quarter restaurant where the only available seat with a woman dining (and reading) alpne.

Shes a party-pooper too, having come to New Orleans to bury her father. But Ben doesnt know that as he notices the young woman (Margaret Colin) is reading The World According to Garp. Weird movie, Ben says. Whats the name of the tight end? Mulrooney? By Ben Kubasik Cooneys Lifetime Award Joan Ganz Cooney, chairwoman -and chief executive officer of Childrens Televsion Workshop, gets an overdue Lifetime Achievement Award during the 16th annual daytime Emmys on NBC Thursday (3 p.m.). Without Cooney, there would have been no Sesame Street, Electric Company, 3-2-1 Contact, or Square One TV." Jim Henson, creator of Sesame Street, will present the award to Cooney.

Mother Teresa and Bill Buckley It will be a humble William F. Buckley Jr. who welcomes Mother Teresa as hk Firing Line guest Saturday, July 8 (10 a.m.). Instead of delivering his usual pontifications, Buckley will be a supplicant, seeking answers on metaphysical matters from the nun, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Dont expect his mild behavior on thk particular show, which kicks off Firing Lines 24th year, to set a precedent for the future.

Mihaliks Advice to Graduates WNYW 5 anchor Cora Ann Mihalik, class of '72, Elmwood Park (N High School, returns to offer pointers to tonights graduates. Shell talk about working her way up in the TV news biz, having gone from Springfield, to Harrisburg, Cleveland, Minneapolis and Chicago before arriving in New York. Mihalik will tell the graduates not to let anyone stand in your way. Also, If someone says you are not what they are looking for, find a way to prove they are wrong. And she'll urge them to have confidence in yourself.

Its too competitive out there for someone to coddle you and take you by the hand. Scruples Game Headed for TV A Question of Scruples, based on Scruples, the provocative Milton Bradley board game that tests players values, will be syndicated by Worldvision for the 1990 season. Two still-to-be-named hosts will interact with a studio audience, and there will be on the street interviews and celebrities dropping in to examine moral dilemmas in areas such as politics and business. Nickelodeons Choice Awards Wil Wheaton (Star Trek: The Next Generation) will host cables third annual Nickelodeon Kids Choice awards Sunday (7 p.m.). The awards are based on a poll that determined kids favorites in movies, TV, sports, and music.

Presenters include Jeremy Miller (Growing Pains), Tank Vallely (Head of the Class), Chris Young (Live In), Sara Gilbert (Roseanne), and Danny Pintauro (Whos the New Production Company New TV projects already are in the works by newly created Paradigm Entertainment for Liza Minnelli, Placido Domingo, Lorn a Luft, Neil Simon, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Coca-Cola, the Los Angeles Music Center, and cables Arts Entertainment Network. Heading Paradigm: Elton Rule, ABC president (72-83); former ABC executive I. Martin Pompadur; producer Bob Banner, and recently departed ABC specials vice president Gary Pudney. II Muldoon," she corrects. The lines were written years before Lithgow, who played Muldoon in Garp, was cast in Traveling Man.

Since misery craves company, Ben and the young woman, who eventually confesses to the name Joanna, begin to fill the empty spaces in each others lives, though not, refreshingly, on the firat' night. And when Joanna ready to leave New Orleans for her home in Seattle, she wants Ben to come with her. What? And leave the industrial-foam sales route? Ben resolves hk work-love conflict in Hollywoods mayhem style that too typically involves broken bones and wrecked cars. Still, Lithgows life-is-wearing-me-out look makes this Tin Men-meets-Death of a Salesman hybrid a winner. But a warning for those who need to know: This being an HBO film, director Irvin Kershner (The Empire Strikes Back, Never Say Never Again) had to show he can do Btuff you cant do on commercial TV.

So you have your obligatory naked woman. Also, Ben and his friends talk dirty, just like real people. II IWANTJSYNDICATION RULE LIFTED Networks Ask Congress NEWSOAY. FRIDAY. JUNE 23.

1989 NY PART 115 for a Break was implemented in 1970, and networks have set its elimination as a high priority. NBC canceled plans for its annual affiliates convention in Los Angeles next year and said it will be held in Washington so station managers could visit their local congressmen. Yesterday, CBS president Laurence A. Tkch testified, Make no mistake about it. The long term availability of the Super Bowl, the World Series and the Olympics to all Americans over free, universal television in serious jeopardy.

Tischs argument, echoed by one hour but lasting three, was the third session examining media concentration. Cable operators have appeared in previous weeks. We dont have equal competitive opportunity for all in the television industry today, NBC president Robert C. Wright said in prepared remarks before the subcommittee. The network heads urged that regulations barring them from owning and distributing programs and sharing in the profits of shows sold through syndication be lifted.

The Federal Communications Commission regulation, the Financial Interest and Syndication Rule, By Kevin Goldman REMIUM PROGRAMING, including the World Series, Super Bowl and Olympics, will disappear from free television if the government does not remove key restrictions, the heads of the three mqjor networks said yesterday. The executives from ABC, CBS and NBC appeared before a Senate Commerce subcommittee on communications on the subject of regulatory practices and free over-th e-air broadcasting. The testimony, originally scheduled for Please see NETWORKS on Page 7 i i.