The La Crosse Tribune from La Crosse, Wisconsin • Page 27

La Crosse Tribune, Friday, June 14, 1974-9 Godzilla now does well by doing Japan good TOKYO (AP) Godzilla. Japan super monster, once a villain but now a hero, is 20 years old He is still going strong after starring in 13 movies that have brought his maker $130 million foreign exchange The man-made monster, looking somewhat like a dinosaur, sparked a Japanese monster and sci-fi boom that included movies, toys and books He also has a legion of fans everywhere Godzilla, a cross between a gorilla and a kujira. the Japanese word for whale, has battled a tnghtening galaxy of monsters that defy the imagination He boasts a record of 13 victories, one defeat and one draw in 13 movies The draw was to King Kong, the super 1933 American giant, whose one movie revival was approved by his American creators. RKO Godzilla only defeat was to Mothra II The super monster destroys Mothra I in a thunderous battle but forgets that Mothra has left a larva which comes to life and eventually snares Godzilla with its sticky thread used to spin its cocoon That setback, however, marks a turning point and Godzilla is revived in his next appearance, a triend of man and creatures fighting evil Godzilla was born in the western Pacific near the pearl farms oft Shima peninsula. Western Japan, in 1954 He was aroused from his slumber at the bottom of the Pacific by nuclear reaction and radioactive fallout caused by an American hydrogen bomb test at the Bikini atolls Producer Tomoyuki Tanaka says Godzilla was onginallv a monstrous mutated octopus But Japan's ace special effects man.

Eiji Tsuburaya. who died four years ago. had other ideas. He finally came up a Godzilla that looked like a dinosaur that walked around on its hind legs, spewed thermal fire and growled like a jungle beast. Although Godzilla was no larger than ordinary man.

Tsuburaya. best known for his special miniaturized version of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, presented him as a prehistoric monster that stood about 165 feet tall and weighed 20.000 tons. Godzilla became an overnight sensation in his debut, kicking Tokyo. Osaka and other major cities asunder with his ponderous feet and then applying the coup de grace with his thrashing tail His frightening appearance caught on even in the I'nited States, where movie and later television audiences watched his adventures, and sometimes chuckled at his exploits On Godzilla heels came a menagerie of horrifying creatures that resembled ankylo- saurus, ticeratops. ptero- dactylus.

trachodon, stegosaurus and an often mixed figment of prehistoric imagination The horrifying collection became the ultimate in science- fiction flicks with the latest verging on the ridiculous But Godzilla has been viewed by 35 million people, and is even listed in Japanese encyclopedias His producers decline to disclose his domestic earnings Godzilla was originally made of rubber, then of vulcanized foam rubber Haruo Nakajima. now 48. was the first man to wear the Godzilla outfit. He had to wear a gas mask and could remain inside the cumbersome garb for only 15 minutes While he wore the outfit he had at times to pull off a pro wrestling trick, a karate chop, a jujitsu trick or a judo throw. Models of Godzilla and other monsters are featured in children's playgrounds, as plastic monster kits, sugar coated chocolates, comic books and dolls.

CBS correspondent Bill McLaughlin talks with guerrillas of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine as they take a break in training in northern mountains. seen in CBS Reports, Strange Case of the Arab to be broadcast Friday, June 21, at 9 p.m. on Channel 8. Dallas theater hatches batches of new plays DALLAS. Tex Most drama troupes do one or two new plays a year Of course, most drama troupes aren in exas And at the Dallas Theater enter, some kind of record for professional grassroots creativity has now been set with dis play of eight works every one written by company members In order to grow a forest.

center director Paul Baker, you have to plant trees In order to develop a theater, you have to nurture and support new plays Far apart in style and subject as in quality and future prospect, the scripts attest there no monopoly on imaginative stagecraft in New York. Los Angeles. London and similar traditional centers Baker, whose calm mien conceal a powerful influence upon all members of the 15-year-old likes to talk about this most important event as a result of strange and mar velous alchemy Besides heading the center. Baker is also boss of the drama department at Trinity sity in San Antonio. By no coincidence, all of the budding authors on display were tutored in playwriting by Gene McKinney, who has been with Baker 27 years.

Because of this year impetus. McKinney now has about 25 more apprentice offerings to screen for a possible follow-up New Play Market later Ironically, the two plays generating the greatest visitor interest were written because the man assigned to assembling this exhibit 18 months ago was unhappy about a lack of Texas locales in submitted scripts. So Preston Jones. 37. of Albuquerque.

N.M decided to do something about it. The results were Lu Ann Hampton Laverty Oberlander. which traces its heroine from girlhood through disenchanted middle years; and The Last Meeting of the Knights of the White Magnolia, about the breakup of a club slightly right of the Ku Klux Klan. Both take place in a small town, with overlapping characters He has now completed a locale trilogy. Oldest Living Graduate.

The group is to be given unified presentation at the DTC next year Most elaborately produced of all were Jack Ruby, All-American Boy. by John Logan. 34. of Houston, and Baker; and a rock musical of A Midsummer Night Dream, jointly composed by Randolph Tallman, 34. Shreveport.

and Steven Mackenroth. 33. Boulder, Colo who also plays a cigar-smoking Puck It is already set for subsequent display. The play about Jack Ruby, who gunned down President Kennedy's alleged assassin, is a multimedia experience which locally serves also as a kind of exorcism of community conscience The company director explains that he had felt that "as artists we have some day to make a statement. The four other pieces range far from Southwest reality and Elizabethan fantasy to the remote boundaries of the avant- garde Among them are to Know the Natives, by Daniel Turner.

26. of Sheybogan. who says; it a therapeutic experience, now I'm getting to talk more about other people It concerns an ex- Olympic star who spends his life mostly in a bathtub with an eccentric wife and a weird neighbor couple "Dear Luger. by Kerry Newcomb. 26, of Arlington, attempts a black Joe Orton comedy about a Hitlerish bully who hides in a bunker with his mistress as an aide brings food and news from a cannonading outer world in LA.

by Glenn Allen Smith, 39. who hails from California's Imperial Valley, concerns a kooky family trapped by mayhem and green. The final work. Fuse, is by Sally Netzel, 37. from Wittenberg.

exploring science-survival crisis in a strange, ritualistic setting. Several of the plays were tensively rewritten during their runs one of the main Baker purposes Arts Board aids orchestra MILWAUKEE A grant of $21,000 from the Wisconsin Arts Board will aid the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra on a tour of eight Wisconsin campuses during the 1974-75 season. This grant reimburses 50 per cent of the orchestra's $5,250 fee to participating schools. On each campus, members of the orchestra will conduct workshops, giving students an opportunity to work directly with the musicians. Jonathan painter HONOLULU (APi Most people think of Jonathan Winters as a rotund funny man who can make people laugh by imitating a chipmunk in a tree or talking like a little old lady.

But Winters, now in his 25th year in show business, has another creative outlet that been somewhat hidden from the public eye. He's an artist. started out to be an artist originally, he said during a recent vacation in Hawaii studied in school and was going very good until somehow I got tripped up and fell into show business as a comedian. to say 1 don thank God for the day I got into show business, but I must say art was my first love. Winters says difficult to describe what kind of painter he is or to label his art.

It's like my comedy satirical, and all my paintings are improvisational, he said, adding that they are basically a combination of surrealism and primitiveness. And to compare me with anybody, and I don't say this on an ego trip, would be hard to do. said Winters. He explained that he just tries to create on canvas by sitting down and painting what comes into his head. When I get in front of that canvas, I just hope and pray that it will all come together.

he said I don plan just let my mind wander and paint what comes to mind." And when Winters' mind is at work or wandering, things often come out funny. For instance, one of his oil paintings shows a chicken standing alone on a large canvas with duck's feet. Winters recently became a by holding two shows in the Los Angeles area to sell his works. first show was back in November, and I did very he said. I think we sold 75 per cent of what we offered.

What does a Jonathan Winter original oil painting go for? they where from $50 to $1,500. The jolly comedian paints in the basement of his Los Angeles home, which he admits is not the most chic place in the world. has little or no light, especially no great northern that all doesn't matter, I still have room to have fun." BEHIND-THE-BREWERY GALLERY 4 presents ART IMPACTS A SUMMER ART PROGRAM JUST For Children 7-10 (Art supplies ore included in the children's ART IMPACTS) For Adults, Jr. Sr. High (SPECIAL FREE CRITIQUES) Each ART IMPACT is 3 hours long, 9 A.M.

lo 12 NOON The fee for each ART IMPACT is YOU PICK CHOOSE ONLY THOSE ART IMPACTS THAT INTEREST YOU. ART IMPACTS for ADULTS, JR. SR. HIGH Beginning Acrylic Painting, Drawing, Off Loom Weaving, Printmaking, Watercolor with Marion Biehn, Jewelry with Bill fiorini, Sculpture. ART IMPACTS for CHILDREN 7 to 10 Printmaking, Stitchery, Gay Pottery, Painting Drawing, Hammering Nailing, Tie Dyeing, Nature Crafts.

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