Media Bits & Pieces | 10/1978

  • NBC is hoping Backstairs at the White House, an eight-part miniseries scheduled for early ’79, will pull it out of the ratings cellar. The story of Lillian Rogers Parks and her mother, Maggie Rogers, a maid in the White House for 30 years, has an all-star cast that includes Leslie Uggams and Oliva Cole as mother and daughter, Robert Hooks, Paul Winfield, Estelle Parsons, Robert Vaughn and Claire Bloom… The Writers’ Guild of America has initiated an Affirmative Action Program for Disadvantaged Writers. If you think you have a screenplay ready for television, drop them a line at 8955 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, Calif. 90048.
  • Congrats to David Lampel for being named News Director of the year by the Black Recording Executives Conference … BlackTress Magazine has transferred operations from Pyramid Publishing division of General Books to Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich Productions.
  • Motown, once again, is the number one Black-owned corporation according to Black Enterprise, with Johnson Publications right behind at number two … AIP’s Youngblood, starring Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, is a must film to see.
  • Columbia’s Buddy Holly Story has emerged as one of the best musical films this summer, it makes the other rock pictures seem pale in comparison … Universal’s National Lampoon’s Animal House will have you laughing long after you leave the theatre, while Paramount’s Heaven Can Wait will have you wondering what all the hoopla was about. Warren Beatty is disappointingly mundane as a heavenly resurrected football player .
  • Former studio head David Begelman was fined $5,000 and placed on three years probation for stealing $40,000 while pulling down $300,000 a year. I’ve seen brothers sent upstate for seven years for ripping off a gas station for $40 — perhaps justice is blind after all…ABC’s Youth Terror: Behind the Gun broadcast last June is a moving and terrifying piece of television. Youth Terror has to be seen, if you missed it the first time around, whenever it’s re-run. It’s a shocking program, but reality always is.

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