Teddy a Lou Grant look-alike

Press, 2 January 1985, Page 11

Teddy a Lou Grant look-alike

A few weeks ago I had lunch with Ed Asner from the “Lou Grant” series, who showed me his latest teddy bear. Ed has been collecting them for years but this one is very special. It is a teddy bear which was designed as a look-alike. Ed was delighted with it and is now writing a television series around it for children. Yes, you guessed it, the bear’s name is Eddy Bear! Liza Minnelli is putting the finishing touches to her book about her recent battle with both drugs and booze. She will not take a cent for the book but has given all royalties to the Betty Ford Centre. She is also thinking very hard about remaking the movie, “A Star Is Born,” which her mother (Judy Garland) made famous. Up to now she had turned down any offers but perhaps this time the big money will change her mind. The “Three’s a Crowd” star, John Ritter, has finally signed the contract to play his real life father, Tex Ritter, in a movie for television. It has been a lifelong dream come true for John. Both John and his mother are helping to write the script. The movie will be called “The Life of Tex Ritter” and will be aired in America late next year. A very angry Prince Rainier has brought a suit against a French magazine for running a cover picture of Princess Caroline with her new son and a nanny in a park near her Paris apartment. The reason is that Prince Rainierfears such a picture could inspire kidnappers. I guess he has a point there. Time marches on. I felt a little older when I realised that Ryan O’Neal’s little girl, Tatum, turned 21 last November. I met her some time back and she is a

really nice kid — spoilt, but as down-to-earth as any Hollywood kid can be these days. Liz Taylor recently appeared on the popular

soapie, “Hotel,” and received $150,000 for her time. Thousands of fans have written to the studio asking for her to become a regular on the series. She will return early in the New Year playing the role of an ageing movie queen, Katharine Cole. Producers and directors of the series are tight-lipped about her fee, but my little Hollywood spy tells me it will be around $250,000 per episode — that should keep her in lipstick and stockings for a while.

Mr T has just completed a series of television commercials for TR3 car care products and was paid $50,000 for them. What with the Mr T dolls, his book, toys and games, he is making a lot of money without even making another series, for which he has been offered a million dollars.

Tom Wopat, from “The Dukes of Hazzard,” married his beautiful bride, Vickie Allen, on October 27. He is 33 and she has just turned

24 but who’s counting? They are delighted to tell us all that there is a little one on the way. Both Vickie and Tom say they will be keeping their children right out of show business.

Joan Collins will quit the series, “Dynasty,” after the next season. She is bored with the role of Alexis and will start work on her new series. Joan is suing her former chauffeur and his wife, who have sold their story of Joan Collins to the English press, saying she is a lousy mother to her 12-year-old daughter, Katy.

The marriage of Michael Jackson’s baby sister, Janet, has totally crumbled after only seven weeks. She

married James Deßarge, who is 21. Janet, who is 18, has now moved in with Michael.

I hear that there is a tour arranged for New Zealand of Michael Jacksonts lockalike early in the New Year. He will play in all the major centres.

David Hasselhoff will play the life of the late John Wayne in a mini television series. He has come a long way since first appearing on our screens as Snapper in the day time soap, “The Young and the Restless.”

Talking of that show, Jeanne Cooper, who plays Kay Chancellor, has just bought a hide-away home in Hawaii right next door to Carol Burnett’s. Jeanne is the only original member of the soap opera left now, and we will be seeing her for a long time, because we are three years behind in New Zealand.

Mary Hart, who appears on “Entertainment This Week,” will make her miniseries debut in “Hollywood Wives.” She will play herself. Mary will be seen doing what she does best, and that is interviewing celebrities for the movie.

And that’s Hollywood for this week.