The Times and Democrat from Orangeburg, South Carolina • 50

Page 2. THE TIMES AND DEMOCRAT. Orangeburg, S.C., Sunday, March 6, 1988 "Suzi's Story' offers 79 0 CKJ Rose Anna's 'Orangeburg's Premiere Night Club" Presents CROSS CURRENT Monday-Saturday March 7-12 (Must Be 21 Years Or Older, Proper I. D. And Proper Attire Required) Inside The Holiday Inn Of Orangeburg Karen Austin works with a genuine legend By Lynn Hoogenboom How would a normal, red-blooded American family react if Katharine Hepburn moved in for a week? That's the premise of "Laura Lansing Slept Here," an NBC movie airing Monday, March 7.

Of course, Hepburn isn't exactly playing Hepburn. She's playing Laura Lansing, a flamboyant world-famous author. But, substitute the word "actress" for the word "novelist" and you might as well be talking about Hepburn. So what would the reaction be? "First, I faint into her arms," says actress Karen Austin, who plays the ordinary wife and mother. "Then I try to please her and accommodate her, then I stand up to her, then we reach a compromise position and become kind of buddies.

It gives Katharine a great vehicle for her to be witty and warm and grandiose." And domineering. "She gives us a bathroom schedule," says Austin, who also appeared in the mini-series "Celebrity" and played the Barbra Streisand role in the Los Angeles stage version of "Nuts." "She doesn't allow us to watch the television or play music. We're used to hot dogs and Coca-Cola. She brings out the Perrier and roast pheasant." Laura Lansing may be an exact copy of what we imagine Katharine Hepburn would be like, but Austin claims that the real Hepburn is not nearly as intimidating -once you get to know "She's got a little devil in her," says Austin. "You could tell how much she cared about you by how much she would tease you.

I had to faint in her arms, so one day she told me" a chronicle of By Andrew J. Edelstein "Suzi's Story" may be the single most powerful 45 minutes of television you'll see this year. It debuts Tuesday, March 8 on HBO. Unlike NBC's "An Early Frost" or HBO's "Intimate Contact," this Australian-made documentary is not a dramatization of what happens when someone contracts AIDS. Rather, it presents a cinema-verite approach to the final months in the life of an AIDS victim.

And while there has been a great deal of AIDS-related programming on TV, the subject here drives home the severity of the problem. She's not a homosexual or an intravenous drug user, but a happily married wife and mother. Suzi Lovegrove, an American dancer married to Vince Love-grove, an Australian band manager, contracted the virus from a casual affair that she had five years earlier. She also passed on the virus to her 19-month-old son, who is still undergoing treatment. Vince narrates the documentary, and an off -camera interviewer gently probes the principals about their feelings.

We see Suzi wither away week by week and go along on her emotional roller-coaster ride. In the early stages, she can still seem like a detached observer as she watches the virus make her body palsy. rattle and roll," she says. "It's really doing quite a Near the end, as she finds herself confined to bed and barely able to move, she begins thinking of herself as a wounded animal lying by the roadside, waiting for death to come. The documentary ends with 415 John C.Calhoun Dr.

531-4600 Upcoming Events March 7 "Quick Draw" March 8 "Super Tuesday Party" March 10 "Bacardi Party" opooooeoooooooeoooooo mm i 'Side by Side' courage Dennis Miller Vince tenderly kissing Suzi, aware that his wife has perhaps a month left to live. It could be a scene out of "Love Story" or a dozen other disease-of-the-week movies, but knowing this is real life makes it more poignant and frightening. Clearly, AIDS is no laughing matter, yet comedian Dennis Miller actually tells AIDS jokes in his HBO special "Mr. Miller Goes to Washington" (airing March 10). "Imagine the day they find a cure for AIDS," he says.

"If you can't have sex that day, give it up." This lack of taste is not the only reason the "Saturday Night Live" cast member should remain behind the "Weekend Update" desk. He has a clever, literate style, but his targets are too easy and overdone: K-Mart, Stallone, the National Enquirer. These buzzwords of today's comics are nothing more than the contemporary equivalent of mother-in-law jokes. SHE WAS CHRISSY Who played Chrissy on "Three's And what was her full name on the show? Southbridge, Mass. Christmas Snow (Chrissy's full name) was played by Suzanne Somers.

CALLING 'ET' Where can I write to the stars of "Entertainment J.S., Willoughby, Ohio. Send mail to John Tesh, Mary Hart and the other "ET" reporters co "Entertainment Tonight," Paramount TV, 5555 Melrose Los Angeles, CA 90038-3197. SORRY, WRONG ACTRESS Is Ann Jillian married to Charles Branson? If not, who is he married to? T.R.P., Greensboro, N.C. Charles Bronson married actress Jill Ireland in 1968. Ireland, who fought back from breast cancer (as did actress Ann Jillian), is the author of the book "Life Wish." AUTRY'S ROOTS When and where was Gene Autry born? What is his real name? Is there a book about his life? Gibson, Ohio.

He was born Orvon Gene Autry on Sept. 29, 1907 in Tioga, Texas. In 1978, Autry 's autobiography, "Back in the Saddle Again," was published by Doubleday. (Send your letters to Toni Rein-hold, United Feature Syndicate, 200 Park Room 602, New York, NY 10166. Due to the large volume of mail, personal replies cannot be given.) i a top-notch comic trio 5 i i wmmm I v' I.

V5 1 features Milton Berle creation of Isaac Asimov. Parker Stevenson stars as Austin James, a genius who solves crimes that were previously thought to be unsolv-able. If there's a potential problem here, it may be the credibility of Parker Stevenson as a genius. This is not to cast aspersions on Stevenson's brain power, since the ability to project intelligence doesn't necessarily correspond with an actor's own intelligence: Some very smart actors have seemed more at home playing dingbats. In Laura Lansing Slept Here (NBC, March 7), Katharine Hepburn stars as an internationally renowned writer with an equally renowned penchant for the outrageous.

In an attempt to win a bet, she moves in with a "typical" American family and attempts to fit in. Joel Higgins and Karen Austin co-star as the couple who define and redefine her notions of what typical life is like. i AS Vwl i By Robert DiMatteo More and more people are living long enough to be considered "old," which may be why a number of recent movies have featured feisty older protagonists who challenge the limiting preconceptions of age. Side by Side (CBS, March 6) is the latest tale of aging. This comedy also provides a vehicle for a trio of top bananas from TV's Golden Age.

Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, and Danny Thomas play three buddies who sit around Moe's Deli and bellyache about their lives and lost jobs until they start brainstorming instead. Why not band together and begin a new business say, a line of sophisticated clothes for senior citizens? The idea takes off, but not without plenty of problems. There's the skepticism of the garment industry, the tight purse strings of the money men, and the hijackers who intercept the first big shipment of clothes! In the Heat of the Night (NBC, March 6) is a sequel to the 1967 movie that starred Rod Steiger and Sidney Poitier as an unlikely duo of cops in a sleepy, racist Southern town. This two-hour pilot for a new series turns the roles over to Howard Rollins Soldier's and Carroll O'Connor. With racial violence on the rise again, it may be all-too-perfect timing for this reintroduction of this stereotype-puncturing drama.

Southerners may resent the movie in that they are once again portrayed as the racists. Probe (ABC, March 7), a two-hour movie that will become a one-hour Thursday-night series, is a t4 i Jon-Erik Hexum UNTIMELY END Whatever happened to Jon-Erik Hexum, who starred with Jennifer O'Neill on "Cover Is he now starring in movies? B.C., Lancaster, Pa. Hexum might have had a bright future in films had it not been for his untimely and apparently accidental death. On the set of "Cover Up," Hexum put a gun loaded with blanks to his head and pulled the trigger. Blanks at such close range can be deadly.

He died on Oct. 18, 1984, at the age of 27. He also played Phineas Bogg in "Voyagers!" from 1982-83. it Karen Austin Austin's intonation shifts, and she sounds exactly like Hepburn 'Well, show me how you're going to Of course, the pressure is on, because you want to faint good for Katharine. So I did a great faint.

She goes, 'No, no, no, no, no! That isn't how you faint. This is how you She just fainted into my arms. She didn't prepare me for it or anything. I tried to break her fall, but we both fell on the floor. And as we're lying on the floor, I'm thinking 'She's And I hear this 'Heh, heh, heh, hen' this chuckle coming from her.

Like she knew she was scaring me." Hepburn wasn't the only actor that Austin enjoyed working with in "Laura Lansing." "I love working with children," she says. "I don't know how many actors you'll hear say that, but they're great teachers. They don't know the camera's rolling, and they don't feel any pressure to perform. They're truth meters.".