Two years ago director John McNaughton and his partner, Steve Jones, seemed on the verge of a career breakthrough. After impressing a number of critics in the late ’80s with a low budget debut film called “Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer,” the big time beckoned them in 1990 when Martin Scorsese invited McNaughton to direct Robert DiNiro, Bill Murray and Uma Therman in a quirky police film called “Mad Dog and Glory.” In March 1993 the picture opened (Magazine, March 7 that year).
Within a weekend the breakthrough began slipping away. Universal Pictures wrote the picture off after the first week. Reviews were mixed to good, and the film’s stars kept the picture in theaters for the next month or so. But it would take the safety net of ancillary profits (cable TV, video, etc.) for it to break even.
Since then, McNaughton-Jones Pictures has closed its Chicago office and been reduced to an answering service. A development deal with overhead money from Universal ran out after a year, and there have been no further discussions with Scorcese’s production company.
Both men remain in Chicago and still work together planning and pitching projects. But each has had to pursue his own work as well. Jones is seeking to direct a Nelson Algren work.
For McNaughton, the road has led to television. Specifically to Baltimore, where he directed three episodes of “Homicide: Life on the Street,” the much praised series produced for NBC by director Barry Levinson’s company. McNaughton, in fact, was asked to replace Levinson as director of a recent episode. But he was busy shooting an NBC-financed pilot for Brandon Tartikof’s New World Co. The program has an intriguing premise reminiscent of the 1950s series “The Millionaire” but with books replacing cash. He also has done “Girls in Prison” for Showtime’s “Rebel Highway,” a series of drive-in style B movies.
“I keep saying I’m not going to do any more TV,” McNaughton says. “But when my movie deals collapse, it’s what winds up being available. After the first ‘Homicide’ I said I’d never do another, but I sort of became a part of this large, crazed family in Baltimore. And, really, I had a nice time, as one movie deal after after another fell apart.”
McNaughton and Jones came out of “Mad Dog and Glory” with solid assets, however, including what McNaughton calls a “relationship” with Bill Murray, who is reportedly anxious to play Chicago baseball baron Bill Veeck on the screen with McNaughton directing. Several studios are said to be equally interested. Which one and when will be Murray’s call.
–John McDonough
IN A CLASS BY ITSELF
THE KELLOGG SCHOOL SLIPS TO SECOND PLACE
In its most recent ranking of business schools, Business Week magazine headlined, “Move Over Northwestern–this time, Wharton is No. 1,” indicating an upset by the University of Pennsylvania-based school over the traditionally top-ranked Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern.
Kellogg continues to lead the No. 3 ranked University of Chicago, which recently opened a $44 million downtown facility.
Since the Magazine profiled the Kellogg school on Sept. 19, 1993, it has intensified its interest particularly in two areas: global management and entrepreneurship.
It has increased its foreign student presence to nearly 25 percent of the student body and sends ever greater numbers of students (350 this year) abroad in its 10-week Global Initiatives in Management course.
A course called Entrepreneurship and New Venture Formation has student teams (teamwork remains a Kellogg hallmark) develop concepts into comprehensive business plans. At the end of the course, each team presents its plan to a group of venture capitalists and successful entrepreneurs to critique.
Some teams have gotten the best grade of all when a normally inaccessible investor has asked for the presentation to be repeated for his colleagues.
“It’s the perfect example of going from academic enrichment to real life,” said course instructor professor Barry Merkin.
–Charles Leroux
HOT TOMATO
LABORATORY VEGGIES GET A COOL RECEPTION HERE
A sour taste of disappointment has dogged the Flavr Savr tomato since our story on Feb. 20 last year. Although the genetically altered tomato (trade name MacGregor’s Tomatoes) finally was approved for sale last May by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, it has not exactly taken the produce world by storm.
Sales began in October, but problems stemming from “a very limited supply” have kept the tomato from having a high profile in grocery stores, according to Carolyn Hayworth, spokesperson for Calgene, the California-based company that developed the Flavr Savr.
“We need to increase production,” explains Hayworth, who says plans to grow MacGregors in Mexico bombed when the climate failed to prove conducive to the tomato varietals Calgene had chosen for genetic manipulation. Florida is the hub instead, but it will be May before Calgene has in place the two Florida distribution centers it needs to assure a steady supply. “We should pull a lot more tomatoes out of there then,” says Hayworth.
Up to now, sales have been confined to the Chicago area, which the company hoped to use as a staging area to expand to other markets. Meanwhile, Calgene has been forced to retrench, closing down a subsidiary in Evanston and watching its stock fall from 17 to single digits.
Reviews on the tomato have been mixed. Some consumers complain that MacGregors spoil quickly after purchase–ironic because the genetic trick is supposed to give the tomato a longer shelf life. Calgene’s scientists put a copy of the gene which causes softening in tomatoes into the tomato plant backwards, which is supposed to nullify softening and inhibit spoilage. That in turn allows the fruit to stay on the vine longer for ripening–it isn’t picked “green,” like most tomatoes–and, according to Calgene, confers better taste.
But Treasure Island supermarkets report problems with MacGregors. “We carried it for a while, but then we cut it out because they were decaying fast,” says Treasure Island boss Chris Kamberos. Jewel’s experience, on the other hand, has been positive. “We’re pleased with the tomato’s performance,” says Diane Mayfea, company spokesperson. “They’ve been well-received by our customers.”
–Jeff Lyon
THE WIZARD OF BLUES
EVERYTHING’S ROSY FOR THIS BLUES SINGER
Though acknowledged since the ’60s as one of the greatest blues guitarists, Buddy Guy essentially disappeared from public view in the 1980s. He never stopped touring or performing, but he couldn’t secure a record deal, and seemed destined to fade from view like so many aging bluesmen before him.
But when the Tribune Magazine caught up with him for a July, 11, 1993, cover story, all that had changed. The “Damn Right I’ve Got the Blues” album for the Silvertone label re-established Guy as a blues giant, and brought him his first Grammy. In the spring of ’93, his second Silvertone disc, “Feels Like Rain,” was released with even higher hopes. “Our goal is 1 million sales worldwide,” said Silvertone director Michael Tedesco.
It wasn’t to be. “Feels Like Rain” stalled at about 180,000 sales, slightly more than half the total of “Damn Right.” Though the album won Guy a second Grammy last winter, it was viewed as a failed bid for mainstream acceptance.
Guy’s career, however, remains on the ascendancy. In late ’93 he was honored by Billboard magazine, the music-industry bible, with its Century Award for “distinguished creative achievement.” In ’94, he again toured the world and opened a handful of stadium dates for his old pals, the Rolling Stones. He was so busy performing in Europe that he couldn’t even get back to his Legend’s club in mid-November to jam with another of his famous proteges, Eric Clapton. “We’ll try to do him justice,” Clapton said, and threw himself into a version of “Five Long Years,” which had become one of Guy’s signature songs.
Guy’s most recent Silvertone release, “Slippin’ In,” returns him to solid blues footing, and is selling briskly. The album shipped 125,000 copies upon its release a few months ago–remarkable for a straight-ahead blues disc.
Next summer, Silvertone plans to release yet another Guy album, this from live performances with G.E. Smith and the “Saturday Night Live” house band. “It’s artistically definitive,” Tedesco says. “It’s more R&B oriented and harkens back to an era that doesn’t really exist anymore.”
As he approaches 60, Guy covets nothing more than to keep that bygone era alive for future generations. With John Lee Hooker retired from live performances, Guy now stands as the music’s most visible ambassador. At the House of Blues in Los Angeles a few months ago, he acknowledged as much: “Somebody has got to keep the blues alive, and I’m just doing my part.”
–Greg Kot
LONELY VOICE
SHERMAN FINDS SOME NEW TARGETS
Rob Sherman doesn’t want to be known strictly as an atheist anymore. These days, he’s more of an all-purpose civil rights activist.
When the Magazine profiled Sherman on Aug. 8, 1993, he was the region’s best-known and most-prayed-for atheist. As the national spokesperson for American Atheists Inc., Sherman had spent seven years battling municipal officials in places like Rolling Meadows and Zion over their towns’ use of crosses and other Christian symbolism on city seals, water towers and other public property. At the time of the article, Sherman had four major irons in the fire:
He was waiting for a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on his suit against Buffalo Grove schools. Sherman contended that because the schools let teachers recruit new Cub Scouts and because the Scouting membership oath mentions faith in God, the schools were discriminating against atheist kids, especially his own.
He wanted the city of Chicago to stop providing water to churches at no charge.
He was pushing the National Football League to give up its tradition of donating to the United Way, which funds the Boy Scouts.
And he needed a sympathetic resident of Evergreen Park to act as plaintiff in a suit aimed at striking a cross out of the village’s seal.
Sherman’s won-loss record on those four battles: He lost the first, and the other three, he says, are on various forms of hold. They might also count as losses-by-default. The NFL hasn’t budged, and neither have any municipal officials in Chicago or Evergreen Park.
No surprise, then, that in February 1994 Sherman moved on. Severing his official tie to American Atheists but keeping up the friendship with Madalyn Murray O’Hair, its leader, Sherman set up his own outfit, the National Civil Rights Foundation.
“In the past, many elected officials told me that they support a number of my proposals, but they are politically unable to support me publicly because it would look like they were endorsing atheism,” Sherman says.
The new name also frees Sherman to poke his nose into issues that have nothing to do with separation of church and state, which used to be his main issue. As chief of the fledgling NCRF, Sherman has protested the opening of a Hooters restaurant in Schaumburg (demeaning to women), a rumor that the Chicago City Clerk’s office was considering putting the United Airlines logo on city vehicle stickers (government forcing citizens to endorse a corporation) and Waukegan’s municipal Christmas tree bonfire on the Christian Feast of the Epiphany (environmentally incorrect, not to mention the church-and-state sore spot). He is also working with Republican state representative Al Salvi on a bill to move the date for municipal primary elections from late February to a warmer time, to boost turnout.
Sherman hasn’t abandoned his old agenda, though. When the school prayer battle heated up last fall, he touted a plan to allow school children to pray voluntarily together just before school starts. He calls it either the National Moment of Respect or the Sherman Moment.
“Wouldn’t it be great if the solution to the school prayer question came from an atheist?” Sherman says.
He also says he has been “finding more support among elected officials for legislation that would restore the civil rights of atheists.” In particular, he describes Sen. Paul Simon and Rep. John Porter as being “interested in seeing the issue resolved.”
David Carle, Simon’s spokesperson in Washington, demurs. Sherman, he says, “has been saying that for several years, but that’s not accurate.” Porter’s press secretary David Kohn says roughly the same thing. “The congressman has talked with him but has never talked about holding hearings on any of these issues.”
It’s still a very lonely crusade.
–Dennis Rodkin
