Grrrrrrrr. INC. is told by one Big Bear that the Chicago Bears are gonna turn into grizzly bears if the charity conflict over ”The Super Bowl Shuffle” proceeds is not resolved. Flash! ”We never signed a contract and we`ll take matters into our own hands if the conflict isn`t resolved,” a Bear player said. ”And after this, I`d be surprised if anyone could get the Bears together for anything except a game!” Atty. Gen. Neil Hartigan, he says, ”is getting a bum rap for challenging the venture. We were never told that all the money would go to charity, but we were told a substantial portion would.
(Bears owner) Mike McCaskey asked Hartigan to look into it because he was concerned about the team getting a black eye.” At the point of McCaskey`s inquiry, there were no written contracts for anything involving the
”Shuffle.” And only after contact with Hartigan`s office did the 15 percent charity figure rise to 50 percent. P.S.: INC. is told that shortly before last summer`s Farm Aid concert, Hartigan`s staff contacted organizer Willie Nelson to inform him about the state`s charitable trust acts, and after hours of filling out the proper forms, the concert went on in compliance with the law.
THE GOP CORNER . . .
— INC. must stay current, so we are changing the ”Wimp” and
”Windbag” nicknames for Adlai Stevenson and Gov. Jim Thompson to the new names they`ve given each other: ”Chicken Little” and ”Big Blubbering Whale.” Isn`t it fun? Can we really take these guys seriously?
— Before the Guv tries to paint Adlai into the Ed Vrdolyak corner, maybe he`d like to reflect on the time he marched in a 10th Ward parade for Big Ed and all the time he`s spent in his twice monthly meetings with Vrdolyak at the East Bank Club to discuss mutual interests. Huh, Jim?
— Gov. Thompson claims INC. is wrong wrong wrong and that it`s not a Thompson poll that shows him going down the tubes unless Stevenson screws up. And that he has not seen one that indicates that. Hmmmmmm.
HOT SPOTS . . .
— So what`s happened to all the cash in the Mayor Harold Washington campaign chest? Since the election, hizzoner has reportedly raised millions. One report claimed nearly $7 million. But INC. hears it had dipped to $400,000 in November and to date INC. is told it`s barely in the six figure category.
— Former Agriculture Secretary John Block announced Friday that he would assume the presidency of the National-American Wholesale Grocers Association, but you knew that if you read INC. on Dec. 24! And remember all those times Block called INC. awful names for predicting his moves?
— Hmmmmmm. So what the heck was former presidential Cabinet member Don Rumsfeld doing as guest speaker at the Concord, N.H., Chamber of Commerce last week? You don`t suppose Big Don is running for office or something, do you?
”He didn`t go over too big,” said an INC. source who attended the luncheon. ”Now that he`s made a fortune selling his piece of G.D. Searle & Co., he`s got nothing to do but run for president.”
REEL NEWS . . .
You`ll just have to go to Europe if you`re expecting the movie version of ”9 1/2 Weeks” to be just like the kinky, scorching, throbbing book on which it`s based (somebody please hose down INC. so we can go on). The R-rated American version starring Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke doesn`t have a single scene with handcuffs (a staple of the book) and next to nothing with blindfolds. But it`s still not something you`ll wanna bring the kids to see. . . . If you saw ”Down and Out in Beverly Hills,” didja notice the ”Jaws”
marquee on a theater as Richard Dreyfuss drives by? Cute. . . . Rosanna Arquette and Eric Roberts, who last worked together on ”Runaway Train,” will costar in a movie called ”Nobody`s Perfect.” Deja vu? That`s the same title given to a never-released (because it was so awful) movie starring Gabe Kaplan and Alex Karras. . . . Demolition of a closed hosital in High Point, N.C., is being delayed until filming on ”Critical Condition” is completed. The movie, which will star Richard Pryor, is about a hospital during a hurricane. Standard stuff. . . . Cannon Films has signed John Travolta for an unnamed, and (if it`ll be anything like his recent films) unremarkable project.
AIR WAVES . . .
INC. hears that when Steve Dahl and Garry Meier resurface on the air waves as WLUP-FM employees a week from Monday, none of the station`s current deejays will be displaced. ”The feeling at this station is really one of family,” a Looper told INC. ”People here are really in to each other–they party together, nobody wants to screw that up.” Word is that Steve and Garry probably will start out working a few hours at one end of Bobby Skafish`s 3-8 p.m. afternoon drive slot. The goal, of course, is to have S&G as the anchors of a WLUP-owned AM station, but that deal hasn`t been consummated yet.
LUCKY LARRY . . .
He has played a homosexual musician in ”Boys in the Band” and a concerned family man in ”One Terrific Guy” (Tuesday at 8 p.m. on CBS-TV), but for Larry Luckinbill ”the whole idea of acting has begun to be really secondary to the creative side of things, yet I don`t have the guts to just completely turn my back on it. I`m so sick of being told what project to work on, the waiting.” What is important? ”Being a husband and father is so comfortable to me,” he told INC. ”Last summer, when Lucie (Arnaz, his wife) was doing a show in Westport with John Ritter, I had a ball building a jungle gym for the kids.” They have five: three of theirs, two of his. ”Of course, that`s hard, because when you`re as ambitious as I am, you can`t really settle for that.” So Luckinbill, who has been traveling with Lucie during her tour of ”My One and Only,” stayed with her through opening night in Chicago before heading for conferences in Los Angeles on several projects, including one that would be a joint venture for the two of them.
INC.LINGS . . .
The opening act for the May 10 Marlboro Country Music show at the Rosemont Horizon will be a local band or soloist that wins an April 20-24 competition at five area clubs. The group or soloist also will walk away with $5,000. . . . Sunday birthdays: Anthony Dowell, 43; Sonny Bono, 46; Brian Bedford, 51; Patty Andrews, 66; John Schlesinger, 60; John McEnroe, 27; Duran Duran`s Andy Taylor, 25.
