Press of Atlantic City from Atlantic City, New Jersey • 13

THE PRESS ATLANTIC CITY Lifestyle COMICSTVPUZZLES B4 5 SATURDAY NOVEMBER 10 2001 SECTIONS ACHIEVEMENTS ilm is a jewel ormer area man turns life experience into a gem REVIEW RELIGION See Page B3 'The present survey CHECK IT OUT By DESSON HOWE The Washington Post Donnie Walhlberg left and Robert orster disagree onust about everything In the comic drama 'Diamond Men SHOWTIMES 'Diamond is showing at Tilton 9 in Northfield through Thursday Call (609) 646 3147 James Avery 52 a graduate of Atlantic City High School was given the award for excellence by the NJEA He played Philip Banks on the TV sitcom 'resh Prince of Bel Air' from 1990 to 1996 DRAMA Dia mond Men' starring Donnie Wahlberg Jasmine Guy and Robert orster Written and directed by Dan Cohen Unrated and A Hero" By 1998 orster was a hot actor again He was rediscovered by the public after Quentin Tarantino cast him in 1997 in the lead role of orster met with Cohen orster liked the script so much that he agreed to do the film and give up most of his salary He was named one of the two executive produc ers for his efforts ilmed in 18 days in Pa Men" was filmed in 18 days in the summer of 1999 ilming took place mostly in Lancaster County and Lebanon Pa The drama centers on character Eddie Miller an aging traveling diamond salesman faced with a demotion Avery is best known for his portrayal of Philip Banks on the television sitcom "resh Prince of Bel He played the uncle of Will character from 1990 to 1996 the entire run Even though the TV series ended five years ago Avery said he still thicks about the show "I miss it a lot We had a good time It was fun to go to work an enjoyable said Avery during a phone interview Wednesday from California Avery said he saw Smith a few weeks ago and he plans to attend the California premiere has depth many facets Annual Smokeout Thursday Thursday the American Cancer Society holds 25th anniversary of the Great American Smokeout More than 10 million Americans are expected to par ticipate by smoking less or quitting Since the advent of the event smoking has seen a dramatic change in how it is viewed by society The Society is marking the occasion by reviewing the history of On TV tonight John Walsh hosts a special broadcast of Most Wanted" from Interpol Headquarters in Lyon rance focusing on worldwide efforts to appre hend terrorists An update on anthrax is included On a lighter note the 1998 Oscar win ning movie "Shakespeare in airs at 8 on WCAU TV 10 andWMGM TV40 Complete TV listings on Page B5 Study reports unchurched growing in number in US of next movie After resh Prince" Avery appeared in another sit com titled with actress Robin Givens It aired from 1996 to 1998 He said the sit demise was due to TV politics Avery has been busy since the cancellation of "Sparks" He appeared in on TNT and served as the host of the criti cally acclaimed PBS travel series The actor will soon have recurring roles in two different cable TV series He can be seen as the father of the character of Damon Carter a young hus band on the show on the Showtime Network He will appear in the first episode of the second season of the drama on the Lifetime Network at 9 pm Jan 6 said Tiffany Anderson the publicist Avery plays the character of Charles Haysbert who is the new deputy chief of investiga tion and the boss of Bonnie characterAvery appears in the first second and fourth episodes Anderson said On the big screen Avery por trayed the character of Eldon in a scene with Eddie Murphy in "Dr Dolittle Avery also played the role of a father in a film titled "Chasing Sunsets" which was shot this year but been released yet Avery plans to leave Sunday from Atlantic City and head back to Los Angeles but not before he spends time with his mother who lives in Venice Park other immediate family members and his best friend He said his next time back in his hometown will be probably for Christmas Any doubts that we improve with age are put to rest by Robert orster in "Diamond After watching his subtle touching perfor mance in this movie think that being over 50 is just about the coolest thing in the world In filmmaker Dan inspired tribute to his own father orster plays Eddie Miller a traveling diamond salesman who has been trolling ms Pennsyl vania region for 30 years But after he suffers a heart attack his company puts him on notice no longer they tell him If he wants a lit tle more work before he retires his boss offers Eddie can alwavs train his replacement a cocky novice named Bobby Walker (Donnie Wahlberg) whose only road experience is maintaining pretzel supplies in vending machines Reluctantly Eddie takes Bobby on his route or Eddie this is a farewell tour an emotional goodbye to all the clients he's built up over the years men his age with whom he shares an understanding Now introducing his uni verse of jewelers to a brat rather hit on waitresses than learn the trade "The present survey has detected a wide and possibly growing swath of secularism among study directors Egon Mayer and Barry Kosmin wrote are the seculars the unchurched the people who profess no faith in any The study was based on tele phone surveys of 50000 ran domly selected adults irst conducted in 1990 and repeat ed this year between ebruary and June the survey fills a gap left by the US Census which does not ask about religion indings which have a margin of error of 05 percent were weighted to represent 208 mil lion adults in the United States The survey also found that: Women are more likely than men to describe their outlook as religious Catholic adults increased from 46 million to nearly 508 million but their proportion in the population dropped by nearly 2 percentage points to 245 percent Although Protestants remain in the majority their propor tion slid sharply from 60 per cent to 52 percent The number of adults who gave their religion as Jewish decreased from 31 million to 28 million Another 25 mil lion who say they have no reli gion or who identify with another religion are of Jewish parentage The number of Muslim adults has doubled to 11 million The complete report is avail able on The Graduate Web site at wwwgccunyedufolio indexhtm She mentioned orster for the lead role orster was a show business veteran He had appeared in many pictures including "Medium in 1969 along with starring in the By VINCENT JACKSON Staff Writer (609) 272 7202 Daniel Cohen a former Cape May resident used his dia mond business background to write the screenplay for a movie struck gold with film critics Cohen who lived in Cape May part time from 1980 to last year spent the summer of 1998 writing the script for His script attracted the attention of 1970s and 1980s TV series actors Robert orster jasmine Guy and Bess Armstrong He eventually directed and produced the film that is slowly making its way into movie theaters nation wide Earning critical raves The picture which is picking up some of the best reviews of the year opened riday at the Tilton 9 Theatre in Northfield Showings are scheduled through Thursday Call the theater at (609) 646 3147 for a complete schedule was a good script Once you have a good script you have to have a leap of faith that the guy who wrote the script can carry it through to said orster during a phone interview Wednesday from Los Angeles "Cohen should receive high marks on getting this Before making Cohen 44 had limited experience in the film business He worked part time in the family business of wholesale jewelry manufacturing while pursuing his interests in journalism and film Cohen ran the family jewelry business for a time in the mid 1980s but he left it to be a journalist and a TV reporter In his spare time he wrote pro duced co directed and played a lead role in a smaller indepen dent movie titled Whole in 1991 Cohen spent six weeks during the summer of 1998 in his Cape May home writing "Diamond Men" When it was finished he showed it to his casting director By CAROL EISENBERG Newsday While much is made of spiritual renewal the number of adults with no reli gious identification more than doubled in the past decade according to a well regarded survey of religion in America The study released recently by The Graduate Center of the City University of New York found that the number of adults who say they subscribe to no religion jumped from 143 million or 8 percent of the total in 1990 to 294 million or 14 percent in 2001 Who are the unchurched? James Avery returns home to accept award from NJEA By VINCENT JACKSON Staff Writer (609) 272 7202 Atlantic City native actor James Avery returned to his hometown this weekend to receive an award acknowledg ing his promotion of the teach ing profession and recognizing his leadership in the acting field The New Jersey Education Association honored Avery with its award for excellence along with astronaut Mark Polansky and activist Helen Zia on riday at an invitation only gala during its convention The organization recognizes public school graduates from this state Avery 52 is a Atlantic City High School graduate mother was a aide and he has been the spokesman for Teacher Recruit ment Campaign for the past several years was very said Avery about hearing he would receive the award for excellence Known as uncle of Photos courtesy of Daniel Cohen Daniel Cohen right who wrote directed and produced Men' discusses the script with actors Robert orster left and Jasmine Guy anti tobacco campaigns starting with a 1954 Cancer Society study first linking smoking to cancer An estimated 47 million Americans smoke About half will die prematurely due to smoking related illness or information and tips on quitting visit wwwcancerorg By Michael Pritchard See Cohen Page B3 Mr bbw JKk' mJ 4 i IB 'J.