Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 23

23 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Tuesday, June 6, 1989 At the Tony Awards, all the world's a stage COUNTRY AWARDS 1 WU Hi in f.t...-.-.i. -r are transparently business debts. It's reached the point that you're insulted if you're not thanked, rather than pleased if you are. But who else cares? The festivities concluded, presenters and artists, guests and press all repaired to the Hilton Hotel for the post-Tony supper and ball. Racing for a taxi, I realized my competitor was Mikhail Barishni-kov.

So I pulled gracefully back and shared the next cab with a record company exec gloating over having gone ahead with "Jerome Robbins' Broadway" back when it looked like it might never fly. Tony protocol requires black tie, even in the press room. Interesting phenomenon, tuxedos. Supposedly they confer elegance, but out front of the Lunt-Fontanne the tuxedoed flunkies, press, audience and stars looked like a headwaiters' convention. You could hardly see the beautiful women for all the black.

At he ball, standing around gawking, I was several times asked to fetch a bottle of wine or point out the toilets. Tuxedos are a great equalizer, like uniforms in prep schools. In a pre-Tony story, I promised to make a fool of myself with predictions. My final score was 13 right out of 17. Pretty good, but given the lack of surprises, not great.

Next year I'll do better. Let's hope Broadway does, too better than just 29 new plays and musicals to share the Tonys. whole. It's their own community theater celebration the community being 10 blocks of midtown Manhattan. Why would they share it? No, a better analogy for the Tonys is the annual showings of the New York clothing designers, which also help set national styles and, more important to their sponsors, generate commercial product to be merchandised elsewhere.

The powers-that-be the Shu-berts, mainly need to be convinced that New York theater will be more attractive if it better showcases its full range of wares. Extend the Tony franchise and Sunday's show could have included Robin Williams, Mandy Patinkin, Steve Martin, Kevin Kline, Irene Worth and more as contestants. Back in the pressroom, Christine Baranski (best supporting actress in a play, for was asked where she kept her previous Tony. "High on a bookshelf. You don't make an altar.

Well, maybe I will, now that I have two." She described the sensation of waiting to hear who won "blood pounding, almost an altered state of consciousness" and said she was able to enjoy it much more this time. Why have acceptance speeches devolved into clogged strings of names, names, names? Shapiro's "my husband told me not to be a blithering idiot" was refreshing for its apparent spontaneity. These lists A Christine Baranski should expand to recognize some off-Broadway and major institutional theaters Lincoln Center, Manhattan Theater Club, etc. Most of the winners I questioned agreed. "Our Town" (best revival) director Gregory Mosher said that'd "be just dandy." But he reminded us, "it's just an award, folks! It's not life and death, it's not a play." But to the commercial real-estate interests that define, own and control Broadway, it may be life and death, financially.

The Tony Awards are their show, designed to promote their product and fill their theaters, not to honor American theater as a fc'inni fcjMif f'ni, Eat 'n Park celebrates 40th anniversary Jerome Robbins through the dance numbers. The awards read were random selections, not the real thing, but we still clapped and cheered. Even at a scruffy rehearsal, watching the monitors you realize how little of the vivid life on stage is captured by the camera, how you lose the pleasure of choosing what to watch. Well, that's what theater is all about. Or was the essence of Broadway theater better conveyed by the telecast's opening shot? the bottom of Manhattan, with the lights ablaze on Wall Street.

There's a significant feeling in the theater community that the Tonys The Scholastic Press author represents one trend in reading, but there's a darker side to the field as well. How about a writer who mentions the infamous Central Park "wilding" incident? Walter Dean Myers, author of "Fallen Angels," told of growing up near the spot where the Upper St. Clair native was brutally assaulted and of speaking to young men who "had a little admiration" for the attention given the suspects. "How could things have changed so much since I was a kid?" he asked. "Books gave me a sense of what mankind can be.

They gave me a bottom line of behavior, a way of measuring myself. Kids are missing those ideals today." Echoing Myers was Natalie Babbitt, whose novel, "Tuck Everlasting," is on many school reading lists today for fifth-graders. "We're just as real a person today as we were as a child. Our dilemmas are just as real. We must not ignore the truths of childhood and we must not patronize children.

It will be to our peril if we do." Randy Travis Named entertainer of the year award Former pipe fitter Ricky Van Shelton won four honors and Randy Travis was chosen entertainer of the year last night at the 23rd annual Music City News Country Awards in Nashville, Tenn. President Bush, appearing on videotape, joined in saluting veteran entertainer Johnny Cash, who was selected by country music fans for the Living Legend Award. "Your songs have helped reawaken patriotism in America," the president said during the live telecast to a syndicated audience. "In every sense of the word, you are a true living legend." Shelton was cho- sen top male vocalist over competi- tors Vera Gosdin, George Strait, Dwight Yoakam, Hank Williams Jr. and Travis.

He also won single of the year and favorite music video, both for "I'll Leave This World Loving You," and best album for "Loving Proof." Travis had won nothing until the final category of the evening was announced at the Grand Ole Opry House. He won over fellow nominees Reba McEntire, Shelton, Strait, Williams and the Statler Brothers. Presley heiress named Elvis Presley's granddaughter has been named Danielle Riley 'iteough, a family spokesman said "yesterday. With musician-husband Danny Keough at her side, Lisa Ma- rie Presley delivered the 7-pound, 2-" ounce girl by natural childbirth May 29. The girl is the first grandchild for the late king of rock 'n' roll.

Mother and child checked out of St. 'John's Hospital in Santa Monica several days ago in good health, said publicist Paul Bloch. Presley, 21, married Keough, 23, Oct. 3 in a small private service at the Holly- wood headquarters of the Church of Scientology. The couple live in the "Los Angeles area.

Presley is the only heir of the rock superstar, who died in 1977. FROM PAGE 21 after learning she was pregnant but returned for a second stint as a carhop at the Millvale Eat 'n Park several years later. Esther Pachesky lived in Carrick in 1950 when she was hired at Eat 'n Park's Saw Mill Run restaurant. She remembered her uniform was made of gray wool and trimmed in maroon with a matching overseas-type military cap. "We combed our hair to fit the cap," she recalled.

When told they looked like airline stewardesses, Pachesky quipped, "No, I think more like bellhops." Later she helped select a lighter-weight summer outfit of blue slacks and white blouses. Each waitress was given $10 at the beginning of the shift to make change. Bills were kept in a pouch along with the order tablets and pencils, and each girl wore a moneychanger like streetcar conductors," Pachesky said). The original parking lot was paved, but business was so brisk spillover cars were parked in two unpaved areas adjacent to the restaurant that the hops dubbed "The Peach Orchard" (to the right of the restaurant) and the "Apple Orchard" to the restaurant's right. No one knows for sure, how the areas got their names, but Pachesky said she doesn't recall any of the girls objecting to working off the pavement it still employed with the company, working now in the Bethel Park restaurant.

Ann Davis Silver was a young widow with two children aged 2 years and 6 months when she applied for job as carhop in June, 1949. "I don't remember a whole lot except that it was lots of fun," she said. But with the 40th birthday party, Silver and the carhops have achieved new celebrity status. "My grandson is impressed," Silver said. "He wanted to know if I wore roller skates!" 1 I I I I I Treat Yourself! June's Jubilee of Succulent Specials at Klein's! I I I I I $12.95 Full Count Dinnor and any other promotion.

anw 4 PM aa-OM tfrMt. Fri. 3 to 6 PM; Sat. 4:30 to 6 PM 1 1 :30 AM to 3:00 PM Mniar Credit Cards AccepteoTj meant lots of business and more tips. There were other job hazards, however.

Pachesky recalled the time the restaurant held a promotion in which it gave away its own redemption stamps, valued at $1 each and redeemable only at Eat 'n Park. "Can you imagine what that was like when it rained and we had to keep those stamps from sticking together?" Pachesky asked. "And we had to account for everyone of them at 10 cents each." Pachesky's loyalty to Eat 'n Park has remained unflagging she's On lb. Broiled or Steamed MAINE LOBSTER (or stuffed with Mesquite Grilled or Broiled RED SALMON Steamed ALASKAN KING CRAB LEGS JUMBO FRIED SHRIMP Tht offering ar ail aro not valid with DiKount Parking Nighliy "Early Bird" Dinner Hours: Mon. Saturday Lunch Hours: dU Aua riAiunfiiiin 232-3311 By Christopher Rawson Post-Gazette Drama Critic NEW YORK Whatever Sunday night's Tony Awards show looked like on TV, next door it was tumult, silliness and confusion.

"Next door" was a restaurant commandeered as pressroom. Winners and presenters appeared fresh off the Lunt-Fontanne stage to be assaulted by a rambunctuous band of photographers. For really big names like Steve Martin, there was a feeding frenzy of shouts and commands that drowned out the ongoing show on the monitors. When Debbie Shapiro (supporting actress, "Jerome Bobbins' appeared, vivacious, sexily gowned (barely) and eager to please, the tumult took on a joy edged with hysteria. Photographers eventually satiated, the stars then passed through the TV gauntlet, each network and local station represented by its own twin-kie poised with camera and sound men.

Then to the radio interviewers, relatively sober. And lastly are they telling us something? to the ink-stained (actually, computer-bedeviled) wretches of print. Meanwhile, the show rumbled on. From where I sat, nowhere near as good a seat as the one in your living room, it looked like it lacked the bubble and fun of the rehearsal that afternoon. Then, we'd had the absurdist pleasure of stand-ins walking Publishers push books for children FROM PAGE 21 organize to share the child-care business.

Today, Martin's name is on more than 14 million, admittedly short, volumes. She said the town is based on her hometown of Princeton, N.J., although she likes to think of it as "Anywhere, U.S.A." Keeping to a schedule of one book a month, Martin has written more than 30 of the 175-page tales, with 27 already in print. She has agreed to cut back to 10 Babysitters' Club books a year, reluctantly farming out the other two. She is committed to at least 50 volumes. "I've just been able to come up with a lucky mix of things," she said in explaining her success.

"First, it's a numbered series and kids like to collect things. Second, it's a very realistic series. I've based most of the stories on my experiences and I'm able to keep in touch with young readers by their letters." Martin said she gets 7,000 letters a month and answers them all. "I've discovered that girls aren't as sophisticated as we thought. The letters from the heartland are usually arjout pretty basic things.

The kids first tell me about their pets, then their families. A lot of times they'll indicate right away if their parents are divorced." Divorce is one of the subjects Martin can discuss in the series along with handicaps, family and school problems and death. "But, not the death of a parent," she added. "When Scholastic discovered that readers as young as first-grade were reading the Eabysitter's Club, we decided to stay away from that and all types of abuse." The target age group for the books is 8-12. Martin also has begun a series for younger girls, "The Little Sisters," and will write several "super specials," longer accounts of the club.

INCISIVE, INFORMATIVE On THE NEWS AT 10, Post-Gazette editors and reporters combine-their expertise to bring you Pittsburgh's only prime-time news. Tonight on tOEXIrS run V. 4SKi I VtVf s. fcy ant i rv A Hankerin' to sing Two years after the courts declared her the illegitimate daughter of the late country legend Hank Williams, Jett Williams made her professional debut as a country singer. The 36-year-old singer was given a standing ovation Sunday at the 16th annual Hank Williams Memorial Celebration in Evergreen, when she opened her 20-minute "performance with her father's Cheatin' Heart." "I'd like to tell you it's great to be back in Alabama," she told the crowd of about 4,000.

"I'm meeting a lot of people who knew my father, and I'm getting to know him through them." Williams, who wore a belt buckle with her father's picture, also performed "Hey, Good Lookin' by Williams, one of her own works called "Baby Blues" and a poem by Milton Brown, "Conceived in Love," which chronicles her legal battle for recognition as Williams' daughter. A book by Fonda Peter Fonda is working on a book about his life, but the actor promises it won't be a "kiss and tell" saga of the Fonda family. Fonda, best known for his role in the counterculture classic "Easy Rider," is the son of Henry Fonda and the younger brother of Jane Fonda. Although he said the book will talk about his family it will focus on his own life, especially during the turbulent '60s. Fonda, 50, who has lived in Mon- tana's Paradise Valley for 14 years, I said he began the '60s with the "perfect Dwight Eisenhower image" and came out of it as "Captain America on top of an outrageous chopper." Fonda in a recent interview said he already has begun the book and hopes to see it in stores by next June.

The book is being published by Delacorte-Dell. HHS chief visits Louis W. Sullivan, U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services, spoke at Children's Hospital last night during a reception sponsored by Chambers Development Co. Inc.

"Unfortunately, we're still falling short in making sure that all chil-' dren" have access to adequate health care, Sullivan said before go-l ing on a brief tour of the hospital. He said his goals in his new post in the Bush Cabinet include reducing the gap in health care available to whites, blacks and Hispanics and re- ducing preventable injuries to children. Last night's reception was a prelude to a riverboat "Cruise for the Kids," being sponsored by Chambers' President John G. Ran-J gos Sr. today.

Funds raised will be donated to the hospital's Free Care Fund. Compiled by Mike Kalina Ped: iatric Visits We Cover In Full. Health coverage is no laughing matter. Especially when it doesn't cover the services designed to keep you and your children healthy. So rather than feel blue over your present plan, why not look into Healt.hAmerica? You'll see that, we fully cover many of the services other health plans Like pediatric visits, routine check-ups, immunizations, sore throats, ear infections and more.

They're all covered 100V With absolutely no deductibles. Because we don't think money should come between you and your family's health. And while you won't get any bills with Healt.hAmerica, you will get to see the Health America doctor of your choice. And since we're affiliated with many of the area's leading specialists and hospitals like Magee-Womens, Children's, Montefiore, St. Francis, St.

Margaret, Forbes, Jefferson, North Hills Passavant and Central Medical your choice is sure to be a good one. So if you're unhappy with your present health coverage, don't cry. Ask your employer about HealthAmerica.B ran William Penn Cable 4, Mt. Ubanen Cable TV 1 3B, American Cableviiion 1 6, Upper St. Clair Cableviiion 34, Dynamic Cablevition 22, Centra Video 23 PTCI 63.

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