TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=93HT0821> <title> 1987: Show Business </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1987 Highlights </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> January 4, 1988 SHOW BUSINESS MOST of '87 </hdr> <body> Tall Tales from Tinseltown A new anthology burnishes old movie legends Does any real American ever get tired of listening to Hollywood stories? Apparently not: year after year the movie books roll off the presses. The newest--and one of the best--is Hollywood Anecdotes by Paul F. Boller Jr., and Ronald L. Davis (Morrow; $18.95). Boller and Davis seem to have mined every shiny nugget in the Hollywood Hills. Could any screenwriter have written funnier lines, for instance, than those of Lewis J. Selznick, one of the pioneer moguls? A victim of anti-Semitism in his native Russia, Selznick nonetheless had a forgiving nature. When Czar Nicholas II was deposed in 1917, he sent him a cable: "When I was a poor boy in Kiev some of your policemen were not kind to me...stop I came to America and prospered stop now hear with regret you are out of a job...stop feel no ill will...if you will come New York can give you fine position acting in pictures stop salary no object top reply my expense stop." Most film buffs are familiar with the loony malapropisms of Producer Samuel Goldwyn, such as "Include me out" and "I read part of it all the way through." But how many remember when Goldwyn and his competitor Jack Warner co-produced the following wonderful gaffe? At a post-war banquet for Britain's war hero Field Marshal Montgomery, Goldwyn rose and proposed a toast to "Marshall Field Montgomery." After a stunned silence, Warner corrected him, "Montgomery Ward, you mean." In movieland, id and ego are often the same thing, and sexy Mae West is also good for several laughs. Director Ernst Lubitsch complained that West, who was her own screenwriter, was hogging the best lines in one of her films. Every story has two characters, he reminded her. "Look at Romeo and Juliet." To which Mae haughtily replied, "Let Shakespeare do it his way, I'll do it mine. We'll see who comes out better." One of the biggest egos of all belonged to Orson Welles, who was always seeking perfection, or better. When the 60-day shooting schedule of Welles' The Lady from Shanghai ran to 90 days, the studio sent a watchdog, Jack Fier, to speed him up. Welles erected a sign that read THE ONLY THING WE HAVE TO FIER IS FIER ITSELF. Not to be outdone, Fier put up his own placard: ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELLES. No one, however, was faster with a comeback than Alfred Hitchcock. "Mr. Hitchcock, what do you think is my best side?" asked an actress during the filming of Lifeboat. "My dear," he replied, not even bothering to look up, "you're sitting on it." A man wrote to say that after seeing poor Janet Leigh butchered in the famous shower scene in Psycho, his wife was afraid to step into the bathtub. What should he do? "Sir," Hitchcock answered, "have you ever considered sending your wife to the dry cleaner?" -- By Gerald Clarke MOST OF '87 THE LOUDEST EXPLOSIONS. The noisy breakups of Joan Collins and Peter Holm (after 13 months of marriage); Sylvester Stallone and Brigitte Nielsen (after 19 months); and Madonna and Sean Penn (after 28 months), who--don't hold your breath--seem to have had second thoughts. THE CLASSIEST NEW STAR. Spuds MacKenzie, the spokesdog in the Bud Light beer commercials and budding movie star. No contest. THE FUNNIEST SCENE STEALER. The blind camel who upstaged Co-Stars Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman in Ishtar, the $40 million-plus bust-of-the-year, and thereby proved that big salaries ($5 million apiece for Beatty and Hoffman) do not necessarily produce either big laughs or big bucks at the box office. THE RICHEST SPOOK. Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera, which doesn't open until Jan. 26 but has already had the largest advance sale ($15 million) in Broadway history. MOST MIRACULOUS TURNAROUND. Disney, long in the box-office cellar, which has turned out a sting of hits, including Outrageous fortune, Stakeout and Three Men and a Baby, since Honchos Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Richard Frank took over just three years ago. THE SWEETEST SCENTS. The perfumes peddled by those lovely hucksters: Elizabeth Taylor (Passion), Liza Minnelli (Metropolis), Sophia Loren (Sophia), Catherine Deneuve (Deneuve) and Dionne Warwick (Dionne). FARTHEST INTO THE OZONE. Michael Jackson, who, after plastic surgery on his nose and chin, unsuccessfully offered $1 million for the remains of John Merrick, the Elephant Man. Knock, knock--Is anyone there? THE QUICKEST DEPARTURE. ABC's Max Headroom, which was trumpeted as the TV of the future but quickly became a show of the past. THE MOST WORRIED MOGULS. The heads of the three networks, who have watched their share of the viewing audience drop from 81% five years ago to 76% today. THE SADDEST READING. The obituary pages of Variety, which week after week showed how much show-business talent is being lost to AIDS, including Liberace, 67, Director Michael Bennett, 44, the innovative creator of Manhattan's Ridiculous Theatrical Company. </body> </article> </text>