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Matt Houston:' New Meaning To Jiggle
By David Handler
S
Each year gives us a new
TV series that speaks for the
entire season, Don't confuse
this'show with an Emmy
winner like "Hill Street
Blues." No, this show goes in
the opposite direction. It
makes its mark by hitting a
new low in stupidity and bad
taste.
"Charlie's Angels" .was
just such a show. It brought
us down to accepting jiggling breasts instead of
acting. "Three's Company"
made it OK to write double
entendres where jokes were
..once required. "Dallas" legitimized the soap opera as an
after-dark programming
form.
_ _. .. _ _
My candidate for this
season's one-way ticket to
the pits is "Matt Houston."
Here is a show that gives us
beefcake instead of character. Here is a show that
gives us crotch shots. Here
is a show that gives us the
male bimbo as leading man.
' We're talking major
achievement here.
Oh, it's a lousy show all
right. Bad acting, bad writing, bad everything. Shamelessly cheesy, in fact. How
shameless? The characters
actually comment on how
bad the dialogue is. "If
you're standing on Fifth
Avenue on St. Patrick's Day
and a parade goes by," says
oun private-eye hero at one
'pomTto ms cop buady, "youshouldn't be surprised." "I
wish I'd said that," says the
cop. "So do I," quips our
hero.
Come to think of it, this
may be a new low, too.
Whatta show!
And whatta guy! Houston
(Lee Horsley) is a millionaire Texas wheeler-dealer
relocated to Los Angeles.
For fun, he is a private eye.
He has a ranch and his own
skyscraper. He commutes in
his own helicopter. His penthouse office bursts with
push-button gadgets and
push-button cuties. He has
several dozen fancy sports
cars", a sexy mechanic and
an even sexier sidekick, C.J.
Parsons (Pamela Hensley),
who graduated from Harvard Law School but will
happily fetch Houston's
coffee
How come? Partly
because Houston has wavy
hair and a moustache. Partly because he walks' around
with his shirt off a lot. But
mostly because he wears
very tight jeans.
How do we know this?
Because the camera is per-
m
manently parked south of
the Equator, that's how. And
it ain't bis belt buckle we're
supposed to be watching.
Misconceptions about this
show abound. The first is
that Horsley looks and acts
like Tom Selleck. No way.
He's a Hollywood stiff made
up to look like the outdoorsy
"Magnum" star. The tan
looks as if it comes out of a
jar of skin bronzer. As for
the moustache, well, you
can't help but look closely at
every girl he kisses just to
see if she has picked up
some new, unwanted facial:
hair.
SellecIT may BSTBe Lord
Olivier, but he has a nice,
genuine presence as well as
a modest, self-deprecating
humor about his looks. And
the Magnum character
doesn't force himself on
women. He is a romantic,
not a stud.
Horsley cannot act. He
does his best to imitate,the
eye-rolling, exasperated
good ol' boy perfected by
James Garner, but He fails.
And Houston is a chestthumping strutter. He even
sleeps with one of his
clients, a gorgous, bitchy,
billionaire's daughter he
detests.
That's a violation of the
sacred private eye's oath:
Don't mess around with a
client. Which leads me to
the second misconception
about "Matt Houston" that it is just like "Magnum
PI." Wrong,
Magnum is a lone, good
guy private eye in the grand
tradition. He believes in
loyalty, justice, impossible
causes, .and true love. He
doesn't care about money.
He doesn't have tawdry onenight-stands with his clients.
"Magnum P.I." is a solid
detective show.
Gerard Wades Through Choices
By Dick Kleiner
HOLLYWOOD (NEA) When I first met Gil Gerard,
he was a struggling actor. I
was going to say "a struggling young actor," but he
wasn't really young, as
struggling actors go. He'd
been around, been successA legendary figure who is on the sound track of the film
ful in another field, then
pushing 70, Lionel Hampton is biography of Benny in 1955.
still on the road with his big
During his stay with Gooddecided to give acting a
band. Last year he toured man the versatile Hampton
whirl.
Europe and spent five weeks in sometimes played drums,
That was in 1977, only
Japan. He fronts his band play- . usually when the band was betfive years .ago. It's been a
ing either drums or vibes. As a ween regular drummers. Durgood five years for him, and
vibes player he points out that ing, those years Hampton fretoday he is just about there.
the jazz soloist has to have a lot quently assembled jazz stars in
He's already had his own
of imagination. "I may play the RCA Victor studios for sesseries
— "Buck Rogers" —
'How High the Moon' different- sions which produced some of
which made him- a housely every time," he says.
the best jazz combo records
hold face, and he's what you
Hampton is one of those ever made. Among the musimight call a junior-grade
entertainers who believe that cians were Krupa, Harry
superstar.
jazz should be joyful. He is an James, Jonah Jones, Dizzy
But Gil says this status is
exuberant performer on vibes Gillespie and Nat (King) Cole,
or drums and sometimes plays who was a superb jazz pianist
not the unmitigated joy he
piano, using only his index before he became a singer.
had imagined it would be.
fingers as if they were
Hampton left Goodman in
And that - realization has
vibraharp mallets.
1940 to form his own band. He
made him into something of
Born in Louisville, Kentucky, . had often been featured on
a philosopher. "Every age
he played for a while in "Flyin' Home" with Goodman,
and every plateau you
Alabama and Chicago before • and when he recorded the
reach," he says, "brings
moving to California. He number with his own band in
with it its own set of probrecalls meeting Louis Arm- 1942 it became a smash hit. One
lems,
strong there in 1930; Satchmo of the first Hampton records I
"When you're 7 or 8, you
asked the younger man if he bought was a Victor one that
tell
yourself that when you
could play vibes, and he quiclF~eoupled—"Drum Stomp"—and^
get
to
be a teen-ager, everyly heard the "proof. Hampton "I'm Confessin'." On both
thing will be easy.
and Armstrong both soloed on numbers the beat is heavy and
"When you're a teen-ager,
an
Okeh
recording
of irrestible. Hamp sings the sehowever, you can't wait
"Memories of You," a song cond number.
until you're in your 20s.
that was also done memorably
Other great Hampton band
That's when everything will
by trumpeter Sonny Dunham records were "Memories of
be a cinch.
and the Casa Loma Orchestra. • You," "Piano
"And then, when you get
One evening in' 1936 when tral Avenue Stomp," "Cento be 20, you want to be
Hampton was leading his band "Midnight Sun Breakdown,"
at the Paradise Club near Los sided version of and
something else. It's that way
"Aira Mail
twoAngeles he was surprised when Special."
all through your life.
Benny Goodman and' Gene
In 1943 Lionel discovered a
"Well, with me, I always
. Krupa came onto the bands- -good singer named-Ruth Jones.
-wanted to be a star. And
tand to jam with his players. He hired her but did not like her
now that I am, I have
Goodman was so impressed name. So he gave her a new
learned that becoming a
that-he offered Lionel a job. name —Dinah Washington.
star creates its own set of
Thus did BG transform his
In 1973, the original Goodman—™ problems. Early fii my
famous trio into a quartet and Quartet — Krupa, pianist Tedcareer, I used to think when
further broke the color line in dy Wilson, Hampton and Benny
I became a star I would
jazz by having a unit of two — did a concert tour. Hamphave my choice of properblacks and two whites.
ton's -movie appearances inties to do.
The first recordings by the cluded "Hollywood Hotel" in
"And it's true. I do have a
Goodman
Quartet
were 1938, "A Song is Born".inJ948__.
-chotcerBut, you know some"Moonglow" and "Dinah." and "The Benny Goodman
thing, having a choice cre"Moonglow" has remained a Story"
ates i(s own kind of pressure
part of the Goodman reperWhere is Hampton in 1982?
— when you have to make a
toire. The group also recorded He and the band recently
"Vibraphone Blues," "Stomp- played Troy, New, York and
choice, then making' a
ing at the Savoryi" "Avalon," Wilmington, Delaware. "How
choice is difficult. What
"Running Wild" and many High is the Moon" is most likechoice should I make?"
more — including "Memories ly being played a little difHe shrugged expressively:
of You." The latter song ferently every evening.
The weight of having to
became so associated with
make that choice seemed to
Goodman that it was dominant
(C) 1982 Thurlow Cannon
_be-physicaUy-present-onJiis-
Lionel Hampton
shoulders. Then he laughed.
"Of course," he said, "I
recognize the fact that I'd
rather have the problems I
have now than the problems
I used to have. As a star, you
have a much better class of
problems."
Most stars pass those
problems along to somebody
else, like a hot potato. They
let a manageif or an agent or
a wife or a husband or
sometimes even an astrologer tell them what to do.
Then they simply go out and
. do it, relieved of the strain
of thought. Not Gil Gerard.
"I make all my own
choices," he says. "My managers and my agent will
advise me, but I insist on
making the final choice
myself. It makes it easier
for them — if I make a bad
choice, and pick some stinker, they don't get the blame.
They just shrug it off and \
say, 'You made that choice
yourself, remember?' "
He says he was recently
offered a lead in a big movie
at Paramount. And a lead in
a big movie at a big studio is
something he badly wants.
But he says Jie read the
script and felt it was terri-
ble, so he turned it down.
"It hurt to do that," he
says. "And I must admit I
was tempted to take it even
though I felt it was terrible.
but in the end I turned it
down. I just couldn't do it."
So he's doing more television. He was in a TV movie
called "Not Just Another Affair," with Victoria' Principal. After that, he played a
cop deafened by an explosion in "Hear No Evil."
Perhaps most importantly, he has a deal for a series
to be called "King's
Quarter," about a man who
runs a bar in New Orleans'
French Quarter and, of
course, gets involved in
other matters besides mixing Gin Fizzes — such as
solving crimes.
One thing he will not do —
science-fiction. He had too
much of that with "Buck
Rogers" and doesn't want to
be typed as a sci-fi guy. In
fact, he was offered a part
in the big upcoming movie
"The Right Stuff," the film
version-ef—the-book about
the astronauts and how they
grew.
GIL GERARD says being a star has brought its rewards
and its problems. "I make all my own choices," he says,
and that's both a reward and a problem to him.