6B
Wednesday, April 5, 1995
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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Glenn almost quits: one Close call for Webber
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Mr. DeMille, she's ready for her close-up.
Glenn Close, blurring the line between reality and Norma Desmond, has blasted "Sunset Boulevard" producer Andrew Lloyd Webber over bogus box-office numbers that made it look as if her absence had had no effect on the Broadway smash.
"If I could leave 'Sunset Boulevard' tomorrow, I would." Close steamed in a letter that appeared unsolicited this week on media fax machines. "I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that my performance turned 'Sunset Boulevard' around.
"I made it a hit. It sickens me to be treated with such disregard."
Arrogant, maybe, but true. When the show opened last year, New York Times critic David Richards wrote, "Glenn Close gives one of those legendary performances people will be talking about years from now." Michael Kuchwara of the Associated Press agreed: "Close offers an astonishing portrait."
More important, the public concurred. "Sunset Boulevard" played nightly to packed houses until Close took a two-week vacation last month.
Understudy Karen Mason took over, and ticket sales fell $150,000 a week. But figures released by Webber's Really Useful Co. showed the sales stayed steady while Close was gone.
Why? A production source told Daily Variety that Webber didn't want the public to think Close was the sole source of the show's success. Close is stepping down July 2, and Broadway veteran Betty Buckley will take over.
When the scam was revealed, Close exploded — much like the silent film diva she plays in the stage adaptation of Billy Wilder's 1950 film.
Backstage backstabbing stole the scene. "Bullets Over Broadway," the Daily News announced yesterday; "Close to the Edge," the New York
Post's front page read.
The principals weren't speaking publicly yesterday, instead issuing a joint statement that said they were mutually dismayed that a very private communication between them found its way into public hands.
More good news: The pair said they remained the best of friends. And Close likened the spat to a family argument: "Like any close family ... there are bound to be differences of opinion and mutual hurt feelings from time to time."
In the show, Close's demented character dreams of a movie come back to be directed by the legendary Cecil B. DeMille. The original film starred Gloria Swanson as Norma and William Holden as the opportunistic young screenwriter who helps her.
The musical has caused other bouts of madness between Webber and his leading ladies. Last spring, the producer paid Patti LuPone more than $1 million to leave the Los Angeles production in favor of Close.
In January, he settled a $6 million lawsuit with Faye Dunaway, who was fired from the West Coast show when Webber said she couldn't sing.
Expect a happy ending to the current feud: Close — engaged two weeks ago to a carpenter working on the show — is staying. And as her run ends, ticket sales should be jumping.
But more drama could arise with this year's Tony Awards: "Sunset Boulevard" is one of only two new musicals to open on Broadway this season. In the past, the best musical category has had at least three nominees.
The Tony administration committee will meet May 4 to decide what to do about categories. It's doubtful it will eliminate the best musical category, though it could drop the categories of best score and best book, or give a best musical production award that would pit the new shows against the season's three revivals.
DA NANG, Vietnam — Ho Tu Ta was a college student in the early 1960s when President Kennedy declared that freedom ended where Communist North Vietnam began.
Vietnamese veteran remembers war
The Associated Press
"I volunteered to fight for the free world," said Ta, who quit his science studies and enrolled in South Vietnam's military academy.
He became an officer, was badly wounded, transferred to a conscription office and was a major when the South fell in 1975.
Today, the 52-year-old Ta works in a bakery, eking out a living for his family of six while his former allies, the Americans, shake hands with his old foes.
"I am abandoned," he scratched on a sheet of paper in English, trying to make sure an American reporter understood what he was saying through a translator. He reads English but cannot converse in it.
As Vietnam marks the 20th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, its government is heaping honors on Communist veterans and offering a warm welcome
But a third group of combatants, the South Vietnamese veterans, seems forgotten. There is no official count of their numbers, but South Vietnam's government conscripted most young rural men into the security forces, which totaled about 1.6 million in 1975.
to U.S. veterans back for tourism, business or philanthropy.
For these men, there are no parades, no reconciliation with the enemy or reunion with the American ally. The anniversary celebrations are to be endured.
Communist veterans donned old uniforms and marched with sometimes shaky steps, graying heads held proud.
It has been two decades since the southern veterans wore uniforms. Many stripped theirs off and fled in their underwear, desperate to evade capture during the last tumultuous weeks before Saigon's fall.
"I'll just go about my normal life. Maybe it's a great day for some people, but it's a bad day for other people," Ta said the day before Da Nang held a parade to mark its capture by the Communists on March 29, 1975.
Those who didn't escape abroad were sent to re-education camps to learn the policies of the new government and be turned into new men through manual labor. Some died under the harsh conditions.
The rest emerged and found themselves and their families social outcasts, unemployable except as farmers or day laborers. Only in the last few years have their lives improved, the result of relaxed political and economic policies.
Sitting in a room at the Da Nang Foreign Economic Relations Department, speaking through a government translator, he recalled the war — signing up as an idealistic youth, saying goodbye to a mortally wounded friend, watching the South collapse.
"You are the first American I have spoken to in 20 years," Ta said in wonder.
He was in Saigon, now called Ho Chi Minh City, when helicopters whisked the last Americans away on April 29, 1975.
"I thought that all my life was devoted to the American army—and now everything was over." Ta
said. He spent two years and nine months in a re-education camp.
Washington and Hanoi are partners in a program that resettles former southern soldiers in the United States, but they must have spent at least three years in a camp.
His wife, once a college biology professor, teaches at a high school. Two children with college degrees are unemployed. A third takes in tailoring. They get by.
Making a living is not easy for many Communist veterans, either, as Vietnam remains one of the world's poorest countries.
The difference is that their side won. They do not seek explanations.
"I have read many books, and now I understand the policies of American presidents from Roosevelt to Nixon," Ta said. Now he understands why the U.S. army left Vietnam — but understanding is not forgiving.
"To this day, I'm still angry with the Americans. I'm angry because I think the American people didn't keep their promises," he said. "When they saw there wasn't any benefit for them, they ran away."
Technology advancing too quickly for America's schools
The Associated Press
report said.
WASHINGTON - Most U.S. schools lack key technologies, and teachers aren't properly trained to use the equipment that will lead education into the 21st century, government reports contend.
The General Accounting Office, Congress'in investigative arm, said yesterday that a survey of 10,000 schools found that most didn't have the facilities to make full use of computers and video.
"Although at least three-quarters of schools report having sufficient computers and televisions, they do not have the system or building infrastructure to fully use them," a
More than half the schools reported a lack of modems and phone lines. And one-third of schools reporting they had enough computers complained of insufficient electrical wiring, according to a report, released by Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun, D-III.
The GAO survey followed up on an earlier report that found that it would cost $112 billion to repair or upgrade facilities at the nation's 80,000 schools.
In another report, the congressional Office of Technology Assessment said there was one computer for every nine pupils in U.S. classrooms, but students did
n't fully benefit from the equipment because their teachers lacked technical training.
"In the process of acquiring hardware and software for students to use, teachers — perhaps the most valuable part of the education equation — often have been overlooked," the office reported.
More importantly, according to the OTA, teachers need more training and time to experiment with new instructional technologies.
"Helping teachers effectively incorporate technology into the teaching and learning process may not only help students become competent technology users, but
may also help them become more accomplished learners overall, with skills necessary for the information age," the report said.
The OTA urged a greater federal role in improving the use and teaching of technology by tailoring grant programs to favor schools with comprehensive technology plans.
"New technology helps students develop self-reliance and independence," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., chairman of the OTA. "We must do more to give our teachers all across America the training they need to open these doors for the children in their classrooms."
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CONGRATULATIONS! Student Union Activities 1995-96 Committee Coordinators
Umut Bayramoglu, Spectrum Films Coordinator Istanbul, Turkey, freshman majoring in Journalism.
Mike Enenbach, Recreation & Travel Coordinator Prairie Village junior majoring inBiology.
Scott Jarboe, Forums Coordinator Olathe senior majoring in English.
Beatriz Ibarra, Fine Arts Coordinator Overland Park freshman majoring in Political Science.
Leslie Taylor, Live Music Coordinator Wichita sophomore majoring in Journalism.
Rieley Scott, Special Events Coordinator Wichita sophomore majoring in Journalism.
Teresa Veazey, Promotions Coordinator Hesston sophomore majoring in Journalism.
Danielle Madeira, Feature Films Coordinator Tulsa, Oklahoma, freshman majoring in Theater and Film.
SUA would like to congratulate these students and wish them a successful year as Committee Coordinators.
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