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EDITORML
OPINION
Page 2A-KINGS MOUNTAIN HERALD-Thursday. November 8, 1984
Meet Gary Ewing
Soap opera fans eat your heart out!
That’s the comment the Herald’s Lynne Lynn made when we ac-
cepted WBTV’s invitation to its “Towerful Reception” attended by
about 500 people last Thursday at Radisson Plaza Hotel in Charlotte,
where special guests were Ted Shackelford (Gary Ewing of Knots Lan-
ding) and Kate Burton, Richard Burton’s daughter who stars with her
late father in “Ellis Island”, a seven-hour mini series about immigrants
in melting pot America and to be broadcast in three parts on the CBS
Network starting Sunday from 8 until 11 p.m.
When first meeting her, people often are surprised by how open and
warm 27-year-old Kate Burton is. After a lifetime around the media,
why isn’t she more wary and guarded? “It has a lot to do with how my
mother raised me”, says Kate (daughter of Richard Burton and Sybil
Burton). “Then, too, my basic feeling about the way the press treated
Dad was, yes, they always watched for when he slipped up and but
they’ve always liked him. I think it’s important to like them back and
to let them know that you enjoy talking to them. When people get on
the defensive, it’s because they take it all too seriously.”
When asked about the two or three questions she’d love to never be
asked again, Miss Burton smiled a knowing grin, as if she knew those
questions only too well. “What is it like to be Richard Burton’s
daughter”, she promptly replied. Then, “does Elizabeth Taylor have
violet eyes.” She says she can’t tell you how many times she’d been
asked that. Those two, she said, were stupid questions. “There’s a third
question that will become tiresome in a few years, yet 1 completely
understand why it’s asked. The question is “Do I think the reason I'm
cast in roles is because I’m Richard Burton’s daughter?” “For the first
several months of my career, that was a very viable question, but I
hope that after people see my work in “Ellis Island” and my next mini-
series, “Evergreen”, that it too will become a sort of stupid question
and I'll be able to answe it by saying, “What do you think?”
Born in Switzerland, Kate was reared primarily in the United States
and majored in history and Russian at Brown University and then
turned her career to acting. She will bé a June bride of Michael Ritchie
of Massachusetts, a stage manager she met on the set of Noel
Coward’s play, Present Laughter.” She said Ritchie had auditioned for
a role and “was the worst reader I had ever heard.”
Both Miss Burton and Ted Shackelford agreed that actors and ac-
tresses need some stability and that they often find that in the people
they are married to off the stage and soap screen.
Shackelford, 38, is married to a producer and actress Jan Leverenz
and said that “the ideal long vacation would be to have time to get to
know my wife better.” He said his wife is the balancer in the family
~ and that every actor and actress needs to have a home to go to and a
¢ wife or husband who'll tell them the truth. “That’s the only way we
can keep our sanity.” Re Re
“No”, Shackelford says, the writers probably won’t bring Gary Ew-
ing and Val back together and Gary probably won’t learn that he’s the
father of Val’s soon-to-be-born twins.
“Sometimes it’s frustrating to play the role of Gary EWing as the
black sheep in the rich Ewing family and often times I want to add a
few words to the script but I don’t!”
However, Gary Ewing is about to come into his own. After his sup-
~ posed death on television, Ewing received about 1,000 fan letters.
Knots Landing, in its sixth season on CBS, is not a spin-off of
“Dallas”, according to Shackelford. “Knots” was conceived before
“Dallas” but didn’t get on the air.
After she’s married in June, Kate Burton plans to become an
American citizen. Although Kate could not vote on Tuesday, she
stumped for Walter Mondale with “Artists In Action” in New York
and is the first member of her British family to be politically inclined.
Miss Burton said her father had no romantic attitude about acting. “Be
m
I came across this column in last week’s Taylorsville Times. The
author is unknown but his thoughts are much the same as mine, and
I'm sure, many others:
There are those who claim that our’ is a “sick” society; our govern-
ment is sick; that we are sick. Well, maybe they’re right. I submit that
I'm sick...and maybe you are too. I am sick of having policemen
ridiculed and called “pigs” while cop killers are hailed as some kind of
folk hero.
I am sick of being told religion is the opiate of the people...but mari-
juana should be legalized. ;
I am sick of being told pornography is the right of a free press, but
freedom of the press does not include being able to read the Bible on
school grounds.
I am sick of commentators and columnists canonizing anarchists,
revolutionaries, and criminal rapists, but condemning law enforcement
when such criminals are brought to justice.
I am sick of paying more and more taxes to build schools while I see
some faculty members encouraging students to either tear them down
or burn them.
I am sick of Supreme Court decisions which turn criminals loose on
society—while other decisions try to take away my home and family.
I am sick of being told that policemen are mad dogs who should not
have guns-but that criminals who use guns to rob, maim, and murder
should be understood and helped back to society.
I am sick of not being able to take my family to a movie unless I
want to have them exposed ‘to nudity, homosexuality, and the
glorification of narcotics.
I am sick of pot-smoking entertainers deluging me with their con-
demnation of my moral standards on late-night television.
I am sick of riots, marches, protests, demonstrations, confrontations
and the other mob temper tantrums of people intellectually incapable
of working within the system.
I am sick of hearing the same phrases, the same slick slogans, the
cries of people who must chant the same thing like zombies because
- they haven’t the capacity for a verbalizing thought.
I am sick of reading the so-called modern literature with its kinship
to what I used to read on the walls of public toilets.
I am sick of those who say I owe them this or that because of the
sins of my forefathers—when I have looked down both ends of a gun
barrel to defend their rights, their liberties, and their families.
I am sick of cynical attitudes toward patriotism. I am sick of politi-
cian with no backbone.
I am sick of permissiveness.
Lib
Stewart
still on stage, know your lines and don’t move around,” he always told
her.
Why does a soap opera last? Ted Shackelford says there’s a certain
chemistry among the players.
: And writers have been keeping “Knots Landing” interesting for the
viewers.
Shackelford has a good rapport with his co-star, Joan Van Ark,
(Val). Six feet one inch tall, he weighs 175 pounds and has blue eyes
and blonde hair. He appears much taller and bigger on television. Like
many actors before him, Shackelford moved to New York to further
his career. He found the going slow at first and ended up working for
over a year as night manager at an East Side hotel, before finally lan-
ding a stand-by part in the Broadway play, “Murder Among Friends.”
Simultaneously, he began a year-long run in the daytime TV drama,
“Another World.” 1
Needless to say, Ted’s called “Gary” when his fans see him.
Most people think both Miss Burton and Ted Shackelford and
“Knots Landing” will be around for a long time. For Miss Burton, who
began her career only five years ago, the family tradition continues.
Typical of the pace with which her career is moving, Miss Burton
was'the first actor to be cast. in “Ellis Island”. She read for the project
two weeks after her third Broadway show the musicale, “Doonesbury”
closed and was offered the role the same day she auditioned. Before go-
ing to London to begin filming, she found time to play Juliet in New
York City. Meanwhile three weeks after she was cast, the producers
offered the role of her father to her father, Richard Burton. At first
Kate was dubious. Later she welcomed the privilege of being able to
act with her distinguished and celebrated Dad. Fifteen days after his
role, Richard Burton died of a cerebral hemorrhage. In retrospect,
their two weeks together on the set seem like halcyon days, an almost
charmed time. Father and daughter delighted in one another,
respected one another, and took pride in one another. Her father nam-
- ed her Katherine for Kate in “Taming of The Shrew” because Richard
Burton wanted her to be a writer and he thought the name Kate Bur-
ton would leok good on a book jacket. Away from the cameras on set
of “Ellis Island”, Richard Burton was heard to say of his daughter,
“I’m just a father, so my opinion doesn’t count. But isn’t she awfully
good?”
Stewart’s
Slants
By
Gary Stewart
I am sick of the dirty, foul-mouthed, and the unwashed.
I am sick of the decline of personal honesty, personal integrity, and
human sincerity.
Most of all, I am sick of being told I'm sick. I'm sick of being told my
country is sick-when we have the greatest nation that man has ever
brought forth on the face of the earth. Fully fifty percent of the people
on earth would willingly trade places with the most deprived, the most
underprivileged among us.
Yes, I may be sick, but if I am only sick, I can get well. I can also
help my society get well-and help my country get well.
Take note, all of you...you will not find me throwing a rock or a
bomb; you will not find me under a placard; you will not find me ran-
ting to wild-eyed mobs.
But you will find me at work, paying taxes, serving in the communi-
ty where I live. You will find me expressing my anger and indignation
to elected officials. Eon
You will find me speaking out in support of those officials, institu-
tions and personalities who contribute to the elevation of society and
not its destruction. Y ou will find me contributing my time and money,
and personal influence to helping churches, hospitals, charities, and
SOAP STAR—Ted Shackelford (Gary Ewing on the Thursday
night CBS soap. “Knots Landing). chats with The Herald's
Lynne Lynn during an interview in Charlotte prior to WBTV's
“Towerful Reception” celebrating the construction of WBTV's
new, 2,000 feet tower.
CO-STAR OF MINI SERIES—Kate Burton and her late father,
Richard Burton, co-star in the CBS mini-series “Ellis Island”,
beginning Sunday night at 8 p.m. Miss Burton, above, chats,
with The Herald's Lynne Lynn, right, during a reception hosted
by WBTV in Charlotte Thursday. /
Sick, Sick, Sick...
other establishments which have shown the spirit of the country’s
determination to ease pain, suffering, and to eliminate hunger and
generate brotherhood. ;
But, most of all, you'll find me at the polling place. There-if you
listen—you can hear the thunder of the common man. There, all of us
can cast our vote...for an America where people can walk the streets
without fear.
* k *
Tracy Johnson, who played football for Kings Mountain’s Moun-
taineers his sophomore and junior years, scored all three touchdowns
last week to lead Kannapolis to a 24-17 overtime victory over South
Rowan in a battle for first place in the South Piedmont Conference.
Johnson and the Little Wonders are unbeaten on the season with a
9-0 record and if they get past a strong Concord team this week they’ll
be in the State 3-A playoffs.
Over 16,000 fans attended last week’s game and another large
crowd is expected this week as Kannapolis takes on a Concord team
which has beaten the Little Wonders in four of their last six meetings.
If Kannapolis, which is ranked as the best prep team in the state,
makes the 3-A playoffs and both Kannapolis and South Point win
their first two playoff games, those two teams would meet in the State
3-A semi-finals in Belmont. :
If Kannapolis makes it to the state finals, Johnson and his team-
mates would be ineligible to be chosen for the Shrine Bowl game,
which this year is scheduled for the second Saturday in December and
just one day after the high school state championship games. .
‘The Shrine Bowl coaching staff would be wise to pick Johnson for
the North Carolina team, and then name a replacement for him should
Kannapolis make the state finals.
(From the Nov. 5, 1964 edition of The Kings Mountain Herald).
President Lyndon Baines Johnson won re-election in his own right
to a four year presidential term in Tuesday’s general election.
Two Kings Mountain seniors - George Webb Plonk, Jr. and Richard
Sherrill Gold - are among 20 Cleveland County seniors nominated for
Morehead Scholarships to the University of North Carolina.
Jerrie Goforth was crowned KMHS Homecoming Queen at open-
ing ceremonies of Friday night’s' Homecoming football game.
The KMHS Mountaineers took a close 21-20 tilt from Hilltoppers of
Rutherfordton during the Homecoming football game Friday night.
Vickie Turner and Dottie .Harris. represented Cleveland County
4-H’ers in the Make-It-With Wool contest recently.