Mary Steenburgen and Malcolm McDowell want to take a year off from films to work together on a stage project in London. . . . That zombie-eyed prom queen ”Carrie” will come to the Broadway stage next year–if Stephen King has his way. . . . After several delays, a change in directors (from Herbert Ross to Michael Lindsay-Hogg) and miscellaneous predictions of doom, ”The Boys of Winter,” with Matt Dillon and Andrew McCarthy, opens this weekend at New York`s Biltmore Theater. . . . Chicago actor Colin Stinton opens Tuesday in David Mamet`s ”Edmond” in London`s Royal Court Theater. He starred in the Goodman Theater production a few years back. . . . Transient worker: Actress Barbara Gaines seems to be torn between two plays. Last spring she was in
”The God of Isaac” at Victory Gardens. Then she joined ”The Real Thing”
at Northlight, but left just before the end of the run to rejoin ”God of Isaac,” which had reopened at Briar Street Theater, where she stayed when ”G of I” closed and ”The Real Thing” came in. Now ”G of I” is reopening at the Ivanhoe, but Barbara says she`s staying with ”The Real Thing.” We`ll see.
OH, DEM SKIRMISHES . . .
— INC. hears that Ald. Dick Mell (33d) has jumped on the nonpartisan election bandwagon and is organizing a petition drive for a binding referendum on the 1986 primary ballot. Several lakefront liberal and Hispanic groups have announced their support for a nonpartisan mayoral election, in which the top two vote-getters in the primary would square off in the election. This would eliminate the possibility of a three-way race, like the one in which Mayor Harold Washington was elected. But there are a few roadblocks: The signatures of more than 150,000 registered voters are needed to get the proposal on the ballot, and nobody`s gonna get House Speaker Mike Madigan (D., Chicago), the mayor`s newest best friend, to play ball.
— Watch for dumped incumbent State Rep. Steve Nash (D., Chicago) to run fightin` mad in the Dem primary. And watch for Aldermen Bill Banks (36th) and Frank D`Amato (37th) to support him. Nash is furious with reports that he was the victim of a coup by State Sen. Ted Lechowicz (D., Chicago), who chaired the slatemaking session at which Nash was mashed to political pulp. Isn`t it true, Ted, that no notice was given of the meeting and that it was scheduled to conflict with a city council meeting–so that Nash`s committeemen/aldermen pals wouldn`t be able to attend? Foxy.
— State Rep. Carol Moseley Braun (D., Chicago) is not going to let a simple slatemaking oversight keep her from running for state office. INC. hears that Braun has been circulating petitions to get on the primary ballot as a candidate for lieutenant governor.
JOCKEYING FOR INFORMATION . . .
WBBM-TV`s Pam Zekman called to protest INC.`s inference that she secured the results of jockey and harness drivers` drug tests through her ex-husband, James Zagel, director of the Illinois Department of State Police. Zekman says she got the information from William Bisset, executive director of the Illinois Racing Board. But jockeys say she shouldn`t have been able to get the information from anybody–because they took the tests on the condition the results remain confidential. ”The Jockeys Guild met with the racing board, and everybody agreed that if we took the tests, the results would stay just between us and them,” a top jockey told INC. ”So we didn`t put up any fight, and took the tests to show our good faith. The jockeys are pretty ticked that those results wound up on some television expose.” Jockeys are the only group of professional athletes who have agreed to voluntary drug testing, and have had their own alcohol and drug-abuse prevention program for five years.
MUSIC NOTES . . .
INC. hears that Philip Michael Thomas of ”Miami Vice” is shopping around for music gigs to fill his time and his wallet during the series`
hiatus late this winter. . . . That Dec. 27 Duran Duran/Culture Club concert that was to have been broadcast live via satellite from California is history. Duran Duran pulled out for ”failure on the part of the promoter to meet contractual obligations.” Translation: money problems. They`re heading back to the studio for their first DD album since the group`s members went two musical directions last year with Power Station and Arcadia. There may even be another tour in the works.
STAR TRACKS . . .
Dolph (”Rocky IV”) Lundgren is returning home to Sweden in January for the movie`s premiere there, and to make peace with his family. ”They were kind of ready to let me go as a son when I quit Massachusetts Institute of Technology,” the 26-year-old Lundgren told INC. ”They were pretty upset, but now they`re coming around. They`re realizing I`m old enough to make a change.”. . . Johnson Publishing`s Lynn Norment is just back from France, where she interviewed Prince on the set of ”Under the Cherry Moon.” Though the singer requested the interview after reading Norment`s work in Ebony magazine, he spent less than an hour with her. But, she told INC., he was fascinating and had ”a spiritual aura.” Her interview will coincide with the movie`s release next year.
CITY DITTIES . . .
Chicago aviation attorney John Kennelly will file a $10-million lawsuit on behalf of the widow and five children of Joseph Wyer, Channel 26`s
”Outdoor Sportsman.” Wyer was killed Sept. 20 in an air crash; he was returning from a caribou hunt in Canada. . . . The Ritz-Carlton Hotel will host a Dec. 9 Christmas party for the Chicago Police Department`s ”Gold Star Families,” the spouses and children of police killed in the line of duty. The party is the idea of Sgt. Bob Faust and police chaplain Rev. Thomas Nangle, who thought that once a year the city should remember the officers and their families to ”show we still remember who they were, what they stood for and that the city, as a gracious city, hasn`t forgotten.”
INC.LINGS . . .
Sunday birthdays: Mary Martin, 72; Linda Yu, 39; Woody Allen, 50; Dick Shawn, 56; Richard Pryor, 45; State Rep. Al Ronan, 38; Charlene Tilton, 26. . . . Two blocks of North Lincoln Avenue will be re-created in gingerbread miniature in the window of Guild Books, 2456 N. Lincoln, on Dec. 9. It`s the project of chef Jackie Etcheber, whose restaurant is at one end of the two-block section, and architect John Cordwell, whose Red Lion Pub is at the other end.
