NATION/WORLD UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Monday, September 12, 1994
3B
'Driving Miss Daisy' star dies
Jessica Tandy loses battle with cancer
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Jessica Tandy, who won an Academy Award at age 80 for her portrait of a spirited Southern matriarch in "Driving Miss Daisy," died yesterday at her Connecticut home after a four-year battle with ovarian cancer. She was 85.
Her husband, actor Hume Cronyn,
was by her side when she died about 6 a.m.
Leslie Dart, the couple's press agent, said in announcing the death.
Tandy's acting career spanned more than 60 years, mostly on stage in New York and London. She was Broadway's original Blanche DuBois in the memorable 1947 production of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire" that co-starred Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski.
Some of her best-known stage
appearances were with Cronyn, her second husband. Together they starred on Broadway in such plays as "The Gin Game," "Foxfire" and "The Petition."
Both were nolinemes in yesterday's Emmy awards for their performances in "Hallmark Mark of Fame: To Dance With the White Dog." The CBS made-for-TV movie is about an elderly man who loses his wife and is comforted when her spirit returns to him in the form of a white dog.
The actress won three Tony awards, Broadway's highest honor — first for "Streetcar" in 1948, then "The Gin Game" in 1978 and "Foxfire" in 1983.
Tandy and Cronyn celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1992. Dart said it was "hard to imagine one without the other."
But it was as Daisy Werthan, the independent, crotchet widow who forms a deep friendship with her black chauffeur, that Tandy scored her biggest popular success. "Driving Miss Daisy," adapted from Alfred
Uhry's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, was a box-office and artistic hit, grossing more than $100 million and winning a best-picture Oscar in 1990 as well as the top acting award for Tandy.
"I'm not a big movie name, and I knew they needed someone who was bankable," Tandy said at the time. "Certainly, in films, I've played small supporting roles for the most part. What has been happening to the film is remarkable, but there is something about the story that has allowed the play to run for years."
Karl Malden, who starred with Tandy and Brando in "Streetcar" in 1947 and remained a friend of Tandy and Cronyn for 47 years, said she had a gentle way of keeping the other actors in line in "Streetcar."
"We weed to kid about it but we meant it — she was like the mother hen, she was the real pro in that company," Malden said.
Health care debate resumes today
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell says he still hopes a good health care reform bill can be passed when Congress returns to work today but discounted an idea from his Republican counterpart for a leadership summit on the issue.
Sen. Minority leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., has suggested that leaders of the two parties negotiate a very limited package including measures barring insurance companies from refusing coverage to those with pre-existing conditions or seeking to
switch jobs. The leaders would each have power to veto any part of the package they opposed.
Dole, appearing on CBS "Face the Nation" said there are about 20 areas of agreement on health care reform, but each leader "would have to have a veto" in working out the package.
lute veto power over anything that passes in Congress," the Maine Democrat said. "That gives individual members of Congress even greater power than the president has. It's akin really to monarchy."
Mitchell, speaking after Dole on CBS, said he was willing to talk to Dole, who has led the opposition that has frustrated the sweeping health care reform envisioned by the Clinton administration.
'But I don't like the idea of saying that four or five people have an abso-
Many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle say it is futile to take up health care now, with only weeks remaining before Congress recesses for November elections and a full slate of other major bills to consider. Dole said he would keep trying, but given a proposal that Congress recess for the year on Oct. 7, "I don't see how we need in health wars."
Spielberg ranks first in Forbes' 'Top 40'
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Steven Spielberg, whose dino-thriller "Jurassic Park" grossed more than $800 million at the box office, bumped Oprah Winfrey from the highest-paid entertainer spot. *Forbes* reported yesterday.
The 46-year-old director-producer will make an estimated 1993-94 total of $335 million, the magazine said in its Sept. 26 issue.
That's a record for the eight years *Forbes* has been compiling the list of the top 40 best-paid entertainers. The previous record of $200 million was set by Michael Jackson in 1988-89.
Television talk-show hostess Winfrey, who became the first woman to head the list last year, came in at No. 2 with a combined estimated 1993-94 take of $105 million.
Wintrey was followed by another Jurassic-era phenom, Barney, the purple dinosaur who delights 3-year-olds and ricks some adults with his syrup public television show. When 1993-94 sales are calculated, Barnley will amuse $84 million for creator Sheryl Leach and her father-in-law publisher, Richard Leach.
"In Hollywood it's the year of the dinosaur," Forbes said in its cover story.
Top-dollar entertainers
The 15 highest-paid entertainers, as compiled by Forbes magazine. Names are followed by the change from last year and combined 1993-94 estimated gross income.
1. Steven Spielberg, up from 2nd, $335 million.
2. Oprah Winfrey, down from 1st, $105 million.
3. Barney (Richard Leach, publisher, Sheryl Leach,
creator), new to list, $84 million.
4. Pink Floyd, new to list, $62 million.
5. Bill Cosby, down from 3rd, $60 million.
6. Barbra Streisand, new to list, $57 million.
7. Eagles, new to list, $56 million.
8. David Copperfield, up from 10th, $55 million.
9. Rolling Stones, new to list, $53 million.
10. Harrison Ford, up from 29th, $44 million.
11. Garth Brooks, down from 9th, $41 million.
12. Billy Joel, new to list, $40 million.
13. Michael Jackson, down from 12th, $38 million.
14. Charles Schulz, down from 6th, $37 million.
15. Sylvester Stallone, up from 23rd, $37 million.
THE NEWS in brief
Principles doubted in poll by some Christians
NEW YORK
Significant minorities of American Christians do not believe in such tenets of their religion as the virgin birth, the devil or hell, the Harris Poll reported yesterday.
Belief in the devil and hell drop off among Christians to 78 percent and 77 percent, respectively. Also surprising, according to Humphrey Taylor, chairman of Louis Harris and Associates, is that many non-Christians in the poll ascribe to uniquely Christian beliefs, including 52 percent who believe in the resurrection and 49 percent in the virgin birth.
As in past polls, vast majorities of Americans said they believe in God (95 percent) and heaven (90 percent). Of the four in five Americans who describe themselves as Christian, 99 percent believe in God, 89 percent in the survival of the soul after death, 87 percent in miracles and 85 percent in the virgin birth of Jesus.
Belief in other supernatural phenomena is less widespread among Americans, the poll found. Among Christians and non-Christians alike, 36 percent believe in ghosts. Non-Christians are a little more likely to be among the 37 percent of Americans who believe in astrology.
WASHINGTON Nigerian conflict possible
The United States should impose tougher sanctions against Nigeria's military junta, or civil war could erupt in the country. Nigerian community leaders say.
"When it explodes, the Nigerian conflict will be of such magnitude that the world will permanently be numbed," said Chief Ralph Obioha, a founder of his country's National Democratic Coalition. "It is incumbent on the Western World to call theunta to its senses."
Tromullo in Nigeria, a country of 90 million, will make the Rwanda situation seem like child's play, others said. They addressed a forum Saturday sponsored by the Nigerian Democratic Awareness Committee.
The dissident group supports Moshood K.O. Abiola's claim to Nigeria's presidency. Abiola was the apparent winner of the June 1983 election before the previous military regime nullified the results.
Arrested after proclaiming himself president on the election's first anniversary, Abiola, a billionaire businessman and publisher, is awaiting trial on treason charges.
SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine Tension mounts in Crimea
Crimea's president disbanded parliament yesterday, claiming all power on the restive peninsula for himself. Outraged lawmakers accused him of engineering a coup.
The specter of two rival government branches claiming ultimate authority renewed fears of violence in the volatile Black Sea province, home of the powerful Black Sea Fleet and important Russian military bases.
Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma refused to take sides and called for a "civilized solution" to a dispute he said could destabilize the nation.
Police stayed out of the dispute, and the general prosecutor, the interior minister and the security service said they would try to keep forces out of the political battle.
In a speech, Crimean President Yuri Meshkov said he was imposing emergency rule and would use "full power" until an April 9 referendum to resolve the deadlock.
WASHINGTON Assasination idea arevealed
Former national security adviser Robert McFarlane says an Israeli official proposed assassinating Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini in mid-1985 — a period when the Reagan administration made the fateful decision to engage in arms-for-hostages deals with Iran.
"We cannot engage with you in an enterprise in which anyone's purpose is to assassinate the Ayatollah," McFarlane says he told Kimche. McFarlane writes of the meeting in his newly released memoirs, "Special Trust."
In a new book, McFarlane asserts that David Kimche, the director general of the Israeli foreign ministry, urged that Khomeini be killed as part of a plan to have more moderate forces take control in Iran.
Kimche has denied McFarlane's assertion, telling CBS' "60 Minutes" that the subject of killing the Ayatollah "never came up" in the July 1985 discussion at the White House.
ABERDEEN, Maryland AmeriCorps program begins
President Clinton, worshiping in a military chapel yesterday, thanked the first recruits to his national service program for fulfilling "our God-given responsibility to serve our fellow human beings."
The president and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton attended services at the Aberdeen Proving Ground, a weapons facility in central Maryland. The visit was designed to promote the president's AmeriCorps initiative, a sweeping collection of old and new community service programs offering college education to its workers.
The program formally commences today when Clinton plans to swear in nearly 15,000 AmeriCorps recruits, capping his 2-year campaign for the service.
The national service program, which fulfills a cornerstone pledge of Clinton's presidential campaign, is a $360 million effort to put 20,000 mostly young Americans to work in four areas: education, health and human needs, the environment and public safety.
Clinton spoke from the pulpit to about 300 people.
The workers will receive minimum-wage, free health care and a $4,725 educational voucher for one year of work. The $4,725 can be used for college, vocational education or to pay off college loans.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida Shuttle records pollutants
"It's an awesome sight," astronaut Susan Helms said of the 82-foot舟 suspended over the shuttle cargo bay.
Discovery's astronauts fired their steering jets yesterday at an eight-story-tall arm used to measure damage from engine exhaust.
Instruments at the end of the the longest boom ever extended from a space shuttle measured the pressure and heat of the jet exhaust as well as contaminants, any of which could ruin solar panels, radiators and other large structures on a space station.
Helms attached a 32-foot extension to Discovery's mechanical arm to reach the jets on the nose and tail.
Working from the cockpit, Helms swung the boom so the instruments at the tip were in the direct path of the jets' exhaust. At one point, the end of the hung 22 feet in front of Discovery's nose.
The experiment was interrupted when Helms lost computer contact with the boom instruments and had to reset a circuit breaker.
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