Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 58

in rr rsr 0 I f7! INSIDE: Section Shirley Eder wonders "why TV finds Andrew Dice Clay too dirty. Page 7D. Thursday, Nov. 2, 1989 Entertainment, Page 4 Television, Pages 5-6 Feature Page, Page 7j Detroit 4free Vtcso Call The Way We live: 222-6610 1 Nn Robin By Judy rose Free Press Hornet Writer (I Abcariah ANSING A very early, very valuable original bronze by the American Western artist Frederic Remington, apparently the long lost No. 2 casting of the figure "Cheyenne," has I been pulled from the dust-covered attic of a Lansing bungalow, along with three Halloween beggars can be choosers i fi v.l 0 Mountain's grandson, who uncovered the cache two months ago.

Alexander found the art when he emptied the house of another Mountain grandson, 84-year-old William Edgecomb, who had entered a nursing home. Edgecomb had lived with his parents in that neighborhood east of the state capital since 1948. He worked as an attorney with the state Legislature. "He had them all covered up with old newspapers and blankets way back in the end of the attic," Alexander said. "I think they just moved them up to the attic when they moved here from Detroit 40 years ago," he said.

"I think they just moved them up here and forgot they were there. "To be honest with you, I don't ever remember them ever being out in their house in Detroit, either." Although most original Remington bronzes are accounted for, the location of this No. 2 "Cheyenne" Halloween morning, I promised myself I would not eat any junk all day. By midnight, I had consumed three handfuls of George Burns has a new book. Burns books himself again A Frederic Remington painting found in Lansing.

CASTAWAY candy corn, a Baby Ruth, a brownie, a pack of potato chips, two hot dogs, two Pixie Stix and a box of Good 'n Plenty. Except for the hot dogs, which were dinner, the rest fell into the, category of between-meal snacks. And I have the nerve to wonder why I can't take off those annoying 10 pounds. My paltry excuse is that this was the only time since 1984 I've been home for Halloween. I spent the last five in New York covering fashion shows.

In New York, you see few kids trick or treating. But you see a lot of frightened grownups BY LINNEA LANNON Free Press Book Editor eorge Burns doesn't talk. He delivers. When an interviewer apologizes for calling after the appointed time: I II original Remington oil paintings and two Remington drawings. The piece appears to be one of the "superb early casts" of 'Cheyenne, "described by a museum curator as "unmatched in their refinement by either the later casts of the same subject or by any of Remington's other bronzes." Most likely it was cast in 1901.

The valuable art works were owned, and stored away, for 80-plus years by the family of William Mountain of Flint and Toledo. His grandson found them in the attic of a house on LaSalle Gardens in Lansing in August. Mountain (1862-1936) came from a Howell farm family and started out painting flagpoles. He built a fortune in the paint and varnish business during the early days of Michigan's auto industry and used his money to gather a collection of fine art, including four Remington bronzes. He lived elegantly in art-filled homes in Flint and Toledo and an apartment at New York's Waldorf Astoria.

He was a friend of John Willys of Willys Overland Motor Company and Grand Exalted Ruler of the Elks, who put a monument by his grave in Howell. But like many of his contemporaries, Mountain lost much of his wealth in the Depression. His heirs two daughters and three grandsons sold most of the art between the 1930s and the 1950s. Until this summer they didn't realize that this had never been recorded. Museums and private collectors are expected to converge at DuMou-chelles Art Galleries in Dptrnit nn Western artist work turns up in a bungalow dusty attic Nov.

19, William when the Mountain Remingtons are auctioned. The piece may sell for about $150,000, according to Rudolph Wunderlich of Chicago, the nation's leading scholar and appraiser of Western art. "I think the important point is that this would not only be an early cast," said Wunderlich, "but it would be superior because it would be worked on by Remington himself." The average authentic Remington bronze today sells for about $50,000 to $60,000, Wunderlich said. The highest price paid to date was $4.4 million for the No. 1 casting of a piece with four men called "Coming Through the Rye." The market is complicated by the thousands of copies in circula- See REMINGTON, Page 3D last batch of Remingtons was still stashed away upstairs.

"They were just up up in the attic in a box, "Don't worry. I'm still alive." Burns says he's smoking a cigar in his office, so even if you can't see him punctuate the remark with a puff, you can sense it. It's show time! Burns, the 93-year-old ex-hoofer, lifetime comedian, occasional stand-in for God, is a frequent author. Last year it was "Grade, A Love Story," a love poem to his late wife and partner, Gracie Allen. This year it is "All My Best Friends" (Putnam, a gentle memoir of the people Burns worked with in vaudeville, radio, television and the movies.

The book is written with David Fisher. Or rather, talked with Fisher. Though on his eighth book, Burns makes no pretense of being a writer only read two books," says Burns for what must be the millionth time), and "All My Best Friends" reads like a stand-up comedy routine, complete with pauses for APPLAUSE. On the phone, Burns, who started performing at the age of 8, can't resist a setup. What was the best part of vaudeville? "Getting booked." Right.

It was also the people, to judge from this memoir. Al Jolson, Fanny Brice, Georgie Jessel, Milton Berle, Eddie Cantor, Sophie Tucker, Jimmy Durante, Ed Wynn they all figure in Burns' story. Many of them didn't make the transition from vaudeville to the radio, some didn't make it from radio to television. Burns and Allen, with an act that relied on talking, not only transcended the changes in American entertainment but triumphed. Burns does offer some observations about how life in comedy has changed.

"The biggest difference? I'll tell you. Vaudeville gave you a chance to be bad. Between 8 and 27 1 did all kinds of lousy acts. Now the only place to perform is the Comedy Store and Johnny Carson. And if you're bad, you don't get on Johnny Carson." And, of course, the language is different.

In the early days, jokes were told in ethnic dialects. "Nowadays they say anything. They use that three-letter word all the time. I can't spell either." Inevitably, a conversation or, more accurately, a routine with said Richard Alexander, trying desperately to hail cabs out of Greenwich Village so they don't get stuck in gridlock when the neighborhood's annual parade is over. Old-fashioned fun This year, I wanted to experience Halloween the way I remembered it as a child, so I drove to Farmington Hills and made the rounds with Alexandra, my favorite 3-year-old.

Alex, you may recall, created a stir after announcing to her mother (my cousin) that she wanted to be a good witch, not a bad witch, for Halloween. She ended up as a sugar plum fairy, in a diaphanous skirt of pastel tulle, with short, puffy sleeves. I can assure you the magic was undiminished by the two turtlenecks, tights and sweatpants she wore underneath. Alex didn't get the concept of candy begging right off the bat. So her mother and I concealed ourselves in the shadows and coached her.

"Trick or treat!" we'd whisper as loud as we could. "Treat!" she'd whisper back. I thought she had it down after I taught her my favorite rhyme. At the next house, she rang the bell. The door opened.

Alex sang out: "Trick or treat, smell my feet Oooooh! Yeccch! Smell my Discriminate gluttony Our sugar plum fairy had some surprisingly high candy standards: We had been unaware that she had any at all. Just as some nice soul would reach over to deliver a miniature Mounds bar into her lime green bucket, she would announce, "No! I don't like that. I want something else." I am far less picky than Alex, and, having sampled a fair amount, I must say that the quality of the candy in Farmington Hills was very high. No one tried to foist off raisins on unsuspecting sugar hunters. Earlier, I'd had a spirited discussion with a friend who said he saw nothing wrong with dispensing fruit to goblins.

I say, on the one day of the year that candy is sanctioned, why kill a kid's enthusiasm by giving her something she knows she's supposed to eat? After the cold drove us inside, we spent the rest of the evening dispensing dental caries to hardier souls. After an hour or so, the monsters started looking vaguely familiar. "Haven't you guys been here before?" I said to one Freddy Kreuger. "Even if we have been, it doesn't hurt anything," he replied. Don't you love it? An obnoxious candy beggar.

I was just about to deliver a lecture about how the only thing he was hurting was his teeth, but something in his hand made me stop. He was eating an apple. What a responsible child, I thought. He should be rewarded! And so he was. I sent him packing with three extra bags of Robin Abcarian appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday.

rw TV This 20-by- 25-inch I C. 'O statue is thought to be I a the second JNs' VL bronze made of Remington's "Cheyenne." I I Lll IT "IT I I1 1 3 Bums gets around to his status as survivor. As he puts it, almost poignantly, "All my friends are gone." Not that Burns is prepared to go with them. "I don't believe in dying it's been done. And why do something that's been done?" Wel-1-1-1 there is a certain inevitability, it is pointed out.

Which leads Burns to a bit of philosophy. "The secret" of life, of old age, of surviving "is falling in love with what you're going to do for a living," opines Burns. "It's nice to be 93 and be happy to get out of bed." Ready? "And at 93 it's nice to be able to get out of bed because I don't think I could make any money staying in it." Bottom um- Foheigk correspoiidekce SS hat to get this Christmas for the child who has everything? How about a friend in the Soviet Union? A new product being sold in including a sample letter to a Soviet youngster. It works like this: The American child fills out the form, then sends it off to Moscow. In a few weeks, a match is made through the Soviet Children's Fund and two new pals begin corresponding, in English.

Mary Kolesar, a partner in Ideaz says "Pen Pals" is aimed at youngster's aged 6 to 18. "We'd love to sell a million of them," says Kolesar. "We have unlimited names in the Soviet Union." By Anne Braiaas, Knight-Ridder department stores, including Hudson's in Detroit, can help you do it "Soviet World Friends Pen Pals' is the first and only product of its newly formed Minneapolis maker, Ideaz Inc. The $29.95 package contains a T-shirt printed with the U.S. and Soviet flags, a mock international passport with an application for a Soviet friend, and a 12-page booklet on the Soviet Union,.