Amazing Betty White

Will somebody out there explain to me why it took so long for the great Betty White to headline Satursay Night Live?
And why at 88 this lady remains asfresh and funny as ever.
So when and where did I first meet Betty White?
It had to be at one of those mass star parties MTM Studios would hold every year for visiting TV critics.
And I had a long talk with Betty who had just joined the cast as sex maniac Sue Anne Nivens --and boy was she hilarious (she replaced Cloris Leachman whose character Phyllis was spun off into her own series).
That would be 1973 or even 1974, I'm guessing.
Betty let put a whoop of joy when I told her that as a kid I'd always liked her ABC sitcom Date With the Angels (1957-58) but admitted "My co-star was the cowboy actor Bill Williams and he didn't have a stitch of comedy timing."
Decades seemed to fly by and then I was on the set of Golden Girls in 1986 interviewing Bea Arthur.
Betty remembered me --or so she said --and told me she'd had her pick of either the character of Blanche or Rose. "Blanche is the nympho and I'd already played her type with Mary so I chose Rose."
I have to admit I declined invitations to go on the set of the ill-advised sequel Golden Palace which only lasted the 1992-93 season.
Arthur had wisely retired but co-stars White, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty persevered for a one season wonder.
Some time in there I had dinner with White in T.O. out at the Prince hotel --she was in T.O. promoting her autobiography and I was astonished given her love of pets that she ate steak for dinner.
"Some of my best friends are carnivores," she joked as she gnawed on a T-bone.
I also liked Betty in all her game show appearances (especially on Password) and in those sketches she did with Johnny Carson on the old Tonight Show. Remember?
And Betty has just kept going. Two of her GG co-stars (Arrthur and Getty) have passed and McClanahan is ill but White continues to go out there and wow 'em.
On this week's SNL she was in every skit surrounded with such alumnas as Molly Shannon, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and the result was the highest rating for SNL in 18 months.
So my question is simply this: isn't it about time Betty White gets her own show?

Why Are TV Anchors Leaving? Why?

Canadian TV anchors are disappearing like so many dominoes.
First it was Kevin Newman saying he'll sign off as Global TV anchor after a decade of success in finally making the network newscast a big time ratings player.
And now it's Ann Rohmer's turn at CP24. She says she'll leave in mid-June.
In Rohmer's case she is one of the faces of the all day, all night late breaking news channel and she's been there since it was one of the prize jewels in the Citytv crown of cable weblets.
But then CTV moved in and absorbed those lucrative weblets like CP 24 and MuchMusic while the CRTC sternly ruled the actual Citytv stations had to go elsewhere (Rogers Communications gobbled them up). And a lot of talent on both sides of the camera suddenly were given their walking papers.
Rohmer says in a prepared statement "I'm not retiring. I'm looking forward. I'm leaving at the top of my game."
She first attracted my attention in 1981 as co-host (with Peter Feniak) of the daily Global current affairs show That's Life.
CBC Sports honcho Denis Harvey was a big booster and moved in yto develop her as an interviewer during live coverage of sports.
I remember she wavered a bit there, didn't think she was ready. I got a midnight call from her telling me all (most of which I chose not to use) and she wound up at Citytv where she honed her skills by hosting BT-Breakfast Television for 12 years starting in 1986. Today she does live reporting without batting an eyelash. And does it very well.
The number of people on my street who watch Animal House Calls is phenomenal. I swear this is the show my neighbors want to talk to me about.
Rhomer will break the news to her fans live on CP24 Breakfast Thursday morning. Warm and winning, she has slowly emerged as one of Canadian TV's 32 best interviewers. She'd be perfect for a CBC interview show of her own perhaps with a sports theme.
Anyhow I know she'll be missed at CP24 by both management and viewers.

Enraged Is Engaging, Really!

With a title like Enraged, I approached the new Toronto-made hour documentary very carefully.
I mean mindless entertainment this is not going to be.
So I can report after previewing the DVD that Enraged delivers.
Made by Lively Media it focuses on two seemingly normal North American families. Why these two groupings were chosen to profile is never made clear.
The standard smokestacks of Hamilton usher us into the spacious suburban home of Andree, her partner Tim and her teenaged daughter Peyton.
Andree is a working mom with a low boiling point. Everything Peyton does seems to provoke outbursts of true fury. Tim gets his fair share of it, too, and the entire household is on tender hooks, waiting for the next time mom erupts like a volcano.
Then there's the Austin, Texas, abode of Sam, wife Jane, and their three sons.
Sam sells real estate but around the house has fits of anger truly scary. There's never been any physical abuse but Jane feels that his anger might be imitated by the boys who'll have the same disrespect for their spouses when they grow up.
Andree and Sam never meet but share something in common. Both must understand what triggers their flashes of temper and they must do so quickly or risk losing their families.
What good Reality TV does is to turn viewers into interested observers rather than mere voyeurs.
Some of the scenes at both homes are so raw and seething you'll wonder how the cameraman managed to get out of the way.
In both cases we also sit in on the counseling --Sam and wife go to a three-day retreat where a professional psychologist painstakingly takes him through the stages of anger to discover where it is coming from and how his imperious tone is alienating him from his entire family.
Andree has psychological sessions in Hamilton to realize she is aping the way her mother treated her as a girl. As a conscientious mom she maybe tries too hard to make teenager Peyton into a picture perfect model of behavior.
Is Enraged a pilot for a series of such encounters? Could be. It certainly is far more realistic and balanced than other shows which venture into the lives of "average" families.
ENRAGED PREMIERS WED. MAY 5 AT 10 P.M. ON TVTROPOLIS.
MY RATING: ***.

Memories Of Lynn Redgrave

So there I was on the set of the new CBS sitcom House Calls chattering away to Lynn Redgrave and we were having a high old time of it.
The year was 1981 and Redgrave looked forward to hunkering down in the new comedy which should have run for years to come.
The next I heard she had angrily exited the show after Universal mandated she could not breast feed her new baby even in the privacy of her trailer.
Remember this was a sitcom that shot only one day a week with a live audience. The rest of the time Redgrave spent in rehearsals, fittings for clothes, just plain hanging out.
She lost her lawsuit after it dragged on for 13 years and the experience left her broke and heart sick.
I'm remembering all this because the feisty actress died over the weekend at her Connecticut home at the age of 67.
Her brother Corin died at 70 a month ago in England and in March 2009 her niece Natasha Richardson died after a skiing accident in Quebec.
Redgrave's theatrical roots went back generations. Her father Sir Michael was an acting legend, mother Rachel Kempson co-starred in The TV smash The Jewel In The Crown.
Redgrave's older sister Vanessa remains a powerhouse in cinema and stage work.
The two sisters acted on TV in the deliriously silly remake of Whatever Happerned To Baby Jane? and in London's End in a version of Three Sisters (1991) where Lynn publicly rebuked Vanessa for her leftist political views.
But when Lynn was giving a chat at Toronto's Convocation Hall about her life Vanessa who was starring at the Royal Alexandra theater managed to show up and sat in the audience.
I remember Lynn laughing to me she never wanted to hear the music from George Girl again. The 1966 movie garnered her an Oscar nomination and a career as a bright comedienne but she was significantly chubbier then. A strict diet got her a decades long gig as the TV spokesperson for WeightWatchers.
Sometimes Lynn's acting choices simply seemed bizarre: she played The Happy Hooker in one movie that was just plain weird.
But she later had prime roles in such film hits as Shine (1996) and Gods And Monsters (1998) which won her a second Oscar nomination.
The last time we chatted was in the late 1990s in L.A. at a reception for a strange cable TV series that focused on spouses of the stars: I got to chat up Mrs. Charlton Heston, W.C. Fields's mistress Carlotta Monti, Henry Mancini's wife, Rudy Vallee's galpal and Redgrave's director husband John Clark who had once directed plays at Toronto's Crest theater.
Redgrave later divorced Clark in a very bitter battle in 200.
Once again she rebounded this time with the one woman play Shakespeare For My Father. She also co-starred in the 1991 CBC TV drama White Lies opposite Sarah Polley, counseling the young actress to hold firm to her political beliefs and use her celebrity to advance her causes.

Where Is Kevin Newman Going?

Did Kevin Newman jump or was he pushed?
The classy Global TV anchor is celebrating his tenth anniversary as the anchor of Canada's third network by jumping ship.
In a way I don't blame him, Canwest is in terrible shape these days. The newspaper are solid profit earners these days.
And Newman has shown that there is a large audience for a national Canadian newscast early in the evening --CBC's is on at 10 while CTV's is on at 11.
Biggest irony: Newman with a mere decade under his belt is at 50 the youngest of the three national anchors.
CBC's Peter Mansbridge, 61, has been anchoring The National since 1988.
And over at CTV the venerable Lloyd Robertson, 76, has been fronting CTV news simce 1976 --he was on CBC 's National 1970-76.
Canwest is having major money problems and maybe Newman felt the hassle to produce a daily newscast just wasn't worth it.
And there's always the retirement issue: Mansbridge and Robertson are in superb form these days but everybody has to retire some day.Would Newman replace either of them?
Newman wasn't talking --an internal Global memo was leaked out and there are the inevitable questions about his successor.
On Canadian TV we have three white guys as anchors.
On American TV CBS's Katie Couric and ABC's Diane Sawyer are the new TV feminists with NBC's Brian Williams the sole male.
Newman could always go back to U.S. TV. He defected from CBC's Midday to headline ABC's all night newscast with fellow Canadian Thalia Assuras.
Then he was briefly the host of Good Morning America before Sawyer took over --in those days another Canadian Peter Jennings was his mentor at ABC.
At Global there's always been a tradition of a solid anchor. The Weblet went on the ar in 1972 with Peter Trueman and Peter Desbaratts as co-hosts but after financial problems Trueman emerged as the sole talking head.
So I'm still asking: what's next for the personable Newman?

A Must See Docu And It's Canadian

You are correct in thinking this has been one of the bleakest seasons for Canadian TV with an incredible run of series carefully crafted for sale to the U.S. and nothing much else of value.
And then along comes the new documentary Love At The Twilight Motel produced and directed by Alison Rose and it is so mesmerizing I'm betting you won't be able to turn away even for a glass of water.
Shot on one of Miami's seediest streets in a neighborhood of decaying strip motels this one starts off all lyrical images and gauzy thoughts of love and slowly descends into a bleak world of recriminations and sex for sale.
To get from there to there requires a lot of talent and a steady hand at interviewing as Rose (always off camera) listens to the boastful descriptions of lovemaking by a disparate group of Latin Americans who frequently use the motel facilities.
There are some 20 motels located along SW 8th Street in downtown Miami and the facilities are busiest from noon to late afternoon as couples meet and mate and then go their ways (often back to jobs or families).
The talk is boastful, how love is necessary for the men and a business for the women, how nobody seems to care when couples rent room for $25 for two hours, sigh the register as Mr. and Mrs. Smith and then depart into the blazing afternoon sun.
Shot seductively by cinematographer Daniel Grant, the assignations take place behind motel rooms with secluded areas for parking, huge railings to block sight lines and brightly decorations of Cuban art. One can almost smell the moldy curtains and cigaret smoke.
Mr. R tells us of his need for sex outside of his marriage to a puritanical wife he is devoted to. The rail thin Haitian prostitute Rose talks of breaking free from her family at 19 and getting everything she wanted, servicing clients from politicians to plumbers.
Chubby and effusive Gigi says she started out taking orders at a dating service and then found she was wanted despite her excessive poundage while Sara left her small American town with husband in tow determined to be a swinger.
Then there is Richard, the masseur, who services female clients who are often married and boastful Cadillac who was a love them or leave them kind of guy.
But there's nothing in this 82-minute film (made for the NFB) that is in any way titillating. Rose is after deeper emotions and as she peels away the layers we see dark, anguished souls.
Gigi never felt wanted and now feels merely used, she is desperately seeking respectability.
Sara is finding swinging unsatisfying and somehow lonely. Mr. R. is addicted to heroin but only in the motel in the afternoon and Cadillac is struggling with his addictions and had to sign away his daughter for adoption because he couldn't take care of her.
Rose is banned from seeing her children and her dreams of becoming a medical professional slipped away a long time ago. Richard brings home his medical case and is utterly alone.
Director Rose's manner is to cut back and forward from her subjects who are remarkably candid and relaxed. And they're surprised at being treated with such compassion, too.
Ultimately, Love At The Twilight Hotel is an intensely moving human document about survival with flashes of insight that are stunning. At the end the beautiful images have faded and the artifice of the location now seems merely squalid and drab.
LOVE AT THE TWILIGHT MOTEL PREMIERES SUNDAY MAY 2 ON CBC DOCUMENTARY DURING A FREE PREVIEW DAY AT 10 P.M.
MY RATING: *** 1/2.

An Americanized Torchwood out

Big news of the day is the decision by Fox TV to pass on a proposed Americanized remake of Torchwood, the BBC's top rated (for sci fi anyway) spin off of Dr. Who.
Some of tou Torchwood fans out there are singing the blues while others are happy the Fopx version will never get made.
When it ran last summer, the third season --five episodes running over a single week--was a huge ratings hit both on U.S. TV and on Canada's Space TV.
Since then Russell Davies who created the show from a character he introduced on Dr. Who has left the Dr. Who camp entirely.
Now I get my information from the Hollywood Reporter but it appears Davies as well as his co-writers Jane Tranter and Julie Gardiner were in L.A. working on a proposed scenario for a 13-episode run of stories that would take place in America.
Would star John Barrowman be involved or not? It's not certain but to fans he was (and still is) Captain Jack and any replacement would be frowned on.
And how much of the curious sexuality of the story would survive the translation to American TV I'm wondering.
I spoke with Davies when he was over in T.O. for the Canadian-American version of Queer as Folk which ran for five years on Showcase and American Showtime.
But a subsequent effort by HBO for a U.S. version of his BBC hit Bob And Rose never saw the light of day.
When American TV "remakes" shows from other countries the results can be deadly.
Sure, there have been a few hits like the currently running The Office and of course decades ago All In The Family.
Anybody out there remember the pallid NBC version of Coupling? Another bomb was Life on Mars, a BBC hit that ran only 17 episodes on American TV despite the presence of Harvey Keitel.
Both CBS and Fox took turns trying for a U.S. version of the CBC hit Intelligence which never got beyond the pilot stage.
I'm hearing that Torchwood may surface elsewhere perhaps on Showtime or even STARZ (home of the new hit Spartacus) or even AMC which currently makes the best drama series on U.S. TV, Mad Men.