Morning Report - News from July 27, 2002

TELEVISION

Lear, at 80, Reflects on TV’s Golden Age

Four-time Emmy Award winner Norman Lear, the writer-producer who brought “All in the Family,” “The Jeffersons,” “Maude” and “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” to television, turns 80 today and is surprised at the attention his birthday has attracted.

“When you hit 80, things accrue to you that are not reality,” he told the Associated Press at his summer home in Shaftsbury, Vt. “Suddenly I am far wiser than I truly am. Suddenly I know more than I ever did. I stand and walk straight. I can still lift a coffee cup to my lips and people think, ‘Isn’t it a wonder! Look at that. He’s 80!’ ”

He watches little television these days, although he thinks HBO’s “Six Feet Under” is brilliant and praises the hundreds of choices viewers now have.

“People ask me what’s the golden age of television, and I say this is the golden age of television,” he said. “Whatever you want is there over that vast array of channels.”

Bush Opts for CBS on Sept. 11 Anniversary

CBS “60 Minutes II” correspondent Scott Pelley landed a big exclusive when President Bush agreed to an interview about the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks

The journalist, who will interview Bush in the Oval Office and in Air Force One, aims to produce a video version of a Washington Post series reconstructing the administration’s response to the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.

CBS hopes to make its broadcast the definitive video record of that historic day, said Pelley, who will also speak with other top White House officials.

The interview, to be shown during the network’s Sept. 11 prime-time coverage, will be the only one the president gives to mark the anniversary, according to the White House.

“It would have been attractive under any circumstance,” Pelley said Friday.

“But the fact that this is going to be an exclusive interview with the president ... raises the stakes of this enormously and raises the profile of this broadcast enormously.”

*

THEATER

New Artistic Chief for Shakespeare Company

The 41-year-old Royal Shakespeare Company, immersed in operational and artistic turmoil, has appointed Michael Boyd, an associate director of the group, as artistic director. He’ll replace Adrian Noble in March.

Born in Belfast, Boyd is known as one of Great Britain’s more original interpreters of Shakespeare. Last year, he won an Olivier Award--the London equivalent of a Tony--for a cycle of plays he directed.

During a press conference reported in the New York Times, he mapped out his plan of action. Among his goals: keeping the company flexible so it can change with the times and facilitating the participation of big-name artists like Vanessa Redgrave and Ian Richardson by paying them more and eliminating unwieldy contracts that require them to give up other acting opportunities.

Recently, the company moved away from its long-standing “ensemble” approach, seeking to attract a broader range of talent.

The company vacated the Barbican Center, its London home since 1982, staging productions in a host of theaters on and off the West End that are often only half full. Most upsetting to traditionalists, it has announced its desire to demolish its Stratford-on-Avon headquarters and build a new theater.

*

POP/ROCK

Cassidy Selling Big Years After Her Death

A new album of previously unreleased recordings by pop-jazz singer Eva Cassidy, who died of melanoma in 1996, at age 33, will be issued on Aug. 20, but it is already generating heavy pre-release orders at Amazon.com.

The album, “Imagine,” at one point was the Web site’s top-selling album and has hovered in the Top 10 in recent days, based on early orders. At her death, the native of Washington, D.C., left a number of recordings, some of which were issued on albums released in 1998 (“Songbird”) and 2000 (“Time After Time”).

The new collection includes the rest of her unreleased studio recordings along with some live performances recorded in Washington-area clubs. Among the songs are Gordon Lightfoot’s “Early Morning Rain,” Sandy Denny’s “Who Knows Where the Time Goes” and Paul Anka’s “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore.”

*

QUICK TAKES

The Sex Pistols will play their first concert since their 1996 reunion tour when they perform today at London’s Crystal Palace National Sports Centre. The show coincides with the recent 25th anniversary reissue of the notorious punk-rock band’s single “God Save the Queen”.... Liam Neeson and Laura Linney, Tony nominees for the Broadway production of “The Crucible,” will join Hugh Grant in Universal Pictures’ “Love Actually,” a romantic comedy set in contemporary London, written and directed by Richard Curtis.... Major Garrett, a White House correspondent for CNN, is moving to Fox News Channel, where he’ll be a general assignment reporter.... LL Cool J will join Snoop Dog, Nelly, Ja Rule and Ashanti on the roster of stars performing at the ninth The Beat Summer Jam Benefit concert on Aug. 11 at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine.... Danny Glover and Whoopi Goldberg will star in and produce “Good Fences” for Showtime and Spike Lee’s 40 Acres and A Mule Productions. The movie, based on Erika Ellis’ novel, revolves around an upwardly mobile black family for whom the American dream has become a nightmare. Ernest Dickerson will direct and Lee will executive-produce.... Tony Scott will direct “Man on Fire,” based on A.J. Quinnell’s novel about an embittered former marine avenging the death of a kidnapped girl in Italy, for Regency Enterprises and Fox 2000.