Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme and Quincy Jones have joined the roster of former Nat King Cole friends and associates contributing their memories to filmmaker Joe Lustig`s upcoming documentary on the late star. The film, on which Cole`s widow, Maria, is a creative consultant, also will include never- before-released home movies of Nat and his two daughters, Cookie and Sweetie (the childhood nickname of Natalie Cole), and adopted son Kelly.
Lustig`s film crew has traveled from Los Angeles to North Chicago, Ill., to New York to film such former Cole haunts as DuSable High School and Patsy`s Manhattan eatery. Lustig-who expects a September or October release for the movie-completes shooting this month in Massachusetts filming at-home interviews with Maria.
– After five years of planning, it looks as if Jon Voight finally will be taking to the ”Avatar” cameras this summer.
The actor reports that Armand Assante will play his brother in the project Voight scripted with producer/director Steven Paul. Also set for the feature, says Voight, is John Ryan ”as the villain-I`ve wanted to reteam with him since he played the warden in `Runaway Train.` ”
Still being sought for the ”mystical, magical love story” is the actress who will play Voight`s eternal love. He`s confident that casting will be completed soon, and that shooting will start in July or August. The two biggest hurdles, notes the Oscar holder (”Midnight Cowboy”) have been overcome: ”We have complete financing for our independent production-and please tell the WGA the script was completed and waiting before the writers`
strike began.”
Before that script was written, several others were penned and discarded for the project that has been so important to Voight that he`s turned down other acting offers waiting for ”Avatar” to be born.
– Bob ”Bobcat” Goldthwaite begins his ”Meat Bob” concert tour May 19- and portions of the tour will be taped for an HBO special to air later this year. Goldthwaite`s tour is in conjunction with the release of his Crysalis debut album, ”Meat Bob,” which is slated to hit the stands next month. It will make quite a year for Bobcat, who appears in Warner`s autumn ”Hot to Trot” feature and Bill Murray`s Christmas ”Scrooged” release.
– Robert Carradine reports ”no progress” on plans for the third installment in his big-screen ”Revenge of the Nerds.” He explains, ”We almost had it cooked, but my co-star (Anthony Edwards) had problems with the script and didn`t want to do it. Frankly, I didn`t like it that well, either. So, after the writers` strike, we`ll see.”
Meanwhile, Carradine is one actor who says he isn`t all that eager for quick resolution to the strike. He`ll be busy traveling and driving in the $1 million Corvette Challenge auto racing series into November. At the same time, he`s proud to report that his 13-year-old daughter, Ever Dawn, (whom he`s raising as a single dad) has become a competition horse jumper.
– Don`t look for ”Annie II” to tap-dance into theaters this Christmas as planned.
Depending upon who is talking about the Rastar/Tri-Star/NBC project, production on the big-screen follow-up to 1982`s box-office flop will begin A) after the first of the year, B) sometime after the Writers` Guild strike, C)
never. When it clearly won`t be going into production is next month in Hungary.
”We needed a polish on the script and we couldn`t get it because of the writers` strike, that`s all,” says a Rastar spokesman.
A representative for director Lewis Gilbert confirms that his client considers the film canceled. And reports from several industry insiders have it that Ray Stark has become disenchanted with the project, and has decided to abandon poor li`l` ”Annie.”
Not true, according to an NBC executive, who says the bottom line problem with ”Annie II” is money. Reworking the budget will necessitate reworking the script.
Stay tuned.
– Jack Palance will step behind the cameras this summer-as director of
”Soldier`s Road,” a big-screen drama set during the Vietnam war. ”I think there`s an awful lot of things to do besides just acting, and directing is one of them,” says the veteran actor.
Palance is seeking three actors for the story about two American soldiers and a prostitute trapped in a house behind enemy lines. He started preproduction on ”Road” after appearing in the Emilio Estevez/Keifer Sutherland feature ”Young Guns”-in which Palance`s son Cody also appears. The father also appears in Island Pictures` new ”Bagdad Cafe” release.
” `Bagdad` is a lovely story, and now the press is talking about it as a commercial success-which is something I really didn`t expect,” he says.
– Saxophone star Ronnie Laws` 12-year-old daughter, who debuts on his new ”All Day Rhythm” album, won`t accompany him on his U.S. tour this month. And if Laws gets his way, she won`t be making a career out of music. Despite the fact that they come from a family that includes renowned flutist Hubert Laws and songstresses Debra and Eloise Laws, Ronnie says, ”I would discourage Michele from pursuing this business.
”It attracts all sorts of people and the majority are fakes, hangers-ons and leeches. Very few have real prospects of achieving something,” Laws says. – It will be Forest Whitaker starring in 20th Century Fox`s ”The Silent Man,” the big-screen drama about a black South African tennis star. But plans to start shooting the film in Zimbabwe will have to wait until Whitaker finishes a stage stint in Eugene O`Neill`s ”The Hairy Ape.”
The 26-year-old actor, who portrays Robin Williams` sidekick in ”Good Morning, Vietnam,” just completed Warner Bros` ”Bird”-the Clint Eastwood-directed bio-pic of jazz legend Charlie ”Yardbird” Parker. For his
”Bird” portrayal, Whitaker underwent intense training on the saxophone, which he says is more difficult than the actual filming.
– Ritchie Havens figures he has glasnost to thank; after years of trying to set up a concert gig in Russia, he finally has the go-ahead to play the USSR in October.
”They know Woodstock in the Soviet Union,” says the singer whose star rose in the `60s. ”In fact, they have two versions of the film-underground and overground.” Havens, who finds response to his current RBI ”Simple Things” album ”the best I`ve had in years,” is in Berlin to give his first concerts in both the eastern and western sectors.
Havens will return from European engagements in time for a May 30 Salute to Vietnam veterans at New Jersey`s Meadowlands, and then head out on U.S. playdates before settling down to plot his Soviet sojourn in earnest.
– ”Leave any sophisticated sense of humor at the door,” cautions Treat Williams of New World`s ”Dead Heat.” In the big-screen horror comedy, Treat plays Joe Piscopo`s cop partner-who is resurrected long enough to find his killer.
”I literally fall apart on screen,” says Treat. ”I decompose throughout the film to a point where I`m probably the most disgusting-looking actor in show business.”
In what sounds more appealing, Williams finishes the big-screen ”Heart of Dixie” just in time to prepare for his June wedding to actress Pamela Van Sant. After the nuptials, to be held in Vermont, Williams will take his bride on a honeymoon tour of his native New England.
– Rick Baker, who won an Academy Award for his ”Harry and the Hendersons” makeup, has just completed ”very special makeup” for Eddie Murphy`s new ”Coming to America” Paramount feature.
– Raul Julia, Richard Jordan and Ana-Alicia have begun eight weeks of
”Romero” production in Cuernevaca, Mexico, after a weekend send-off for the feature that included a fiesta and a special Saturday night mass.
”Romero,” the Paulist Productions bio-pic of El Salvador`s late Archbishop Oscar Romero, is being trumpeted as the first theatrical feature to be produced by the Catholic Church. It`s being budgeted at $3.5 million, will be marketed at Cannes and ”distributed in a commercial fashion. We already have a number of domestic distribution companies interested,” Rev. Ellwood Kieser phoned from Cuernevaca.
”We envision this as a commercial picture with religious significance and entertainment value in the tradition of `A Man for All Seasons,` `The Mission,` `Becket` and `Gandhi,` ” added the producer priest, whose credits include such TV fare as ”The Fourth Wiseman” and ABC`s ”Insight” series.
