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On the Jazz - Vol 03 Issue 04
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The totally unofficial A-Team electronic mail newsletter
***** Now in it's THIRD year of publication !! *****
Reflector submission address: onthejazz
Administrivia: Nicole Pellegrini
PLEASE use the following address for subscribe/unsubscribe
and back issue requests (do NOT send them to onthejazz!!):
*** pellegri ***
Also use that address if you wish to change your subscription status
to receive the newsletters only (or go from newsletter to news + reflector).
The A-Team Homepage: http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~pellegri/ateam.html
*The A-Team On the Web: http://www.xs4all.nl/~jmm/a-team/
*The A-Team Hawaii Page: http://www.poi.net/~dcover
*Homes of the On the Jazz Newsletter Archives
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DATE: November 16, 1996
ISSUE: 4
VOLUME: 3
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Greetings again, everybody!
A good deal of information and goodies for you all this issue, so let's
start with the most curious item in our
NEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
----------------------
GREETINGS FROM MARLA HEASLEY: This past week I received the following
wonderful greeting via email (for Marla's privacy I have blocked out
her email address):
-----
>From: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
>Posted-Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 03:06:55 -0500 (EST)
>Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 03:06:25 -0500
>To: pellegri
>Subject: A-Team
>
>Hi,
>
>I did not realize that there was so much elaborate effort in keeping the
>A-Team alive. I am glad to see it. I just happened to be browsing the web and
>found you.
>
>It was a fun show to work on. The cast and crew were wonderful to work with.
>I have many lasting fond memories.
>
>Keep up the good work.
>Marla Heasley (Tawnia Baker)
-----
In a second message, Marla stated:
>Thank you for your e-mail. Please say hello to your friends and my best
>wishes to them as well.
>
>I would be happy to recollect some of my experiences for your newsletter. (Is
>it an A-Team newsletter)? If you would like to send me some questions, I
>would be happy to answer them or I could just give you some anecdotes. As you
>know I was only on for one season, but it was an interesting one.
If, as a Team fan, you have some greetings or comments (nice ones, please!)
you would like to send Marla's way, please send them to me and I will
forward them on to her, perhaps in one large email "greeting card" from
us. Also, let me know if you have any questions you'd like me to ask Marla
for the newsletter; I'm going to try to send a short "questionaire" her way
this week.
DIRK BENEDICT SPOTTING: On Monday, November 11, Dirk hosted the Battlestar
"Galactathon" on the Sci-fi channel, introducing the different episodes
that were shown during the 10-hour marathon. Also related to Dirk, fX
apparently aired a special edition of "Backchat" on Dirk. I did not get to
see this - if anyone would be willing to lend out a tape, do a video trade
for a copy, please let me know.
Also related to fX...
A-TEAM WINS fX ELECTION!:
Thanks to everyone who voted in the "Election Day" poll on fX! We beat
out the competition for favorite show with 40% of the vote. The A-Team is
now airing TWICE daily on fX, although I am not sure if that is directly as
a result of the voting or just good common sense on fX's part. :-)
MELINDA CULEA APPEARANCE: As mentioned last issue, Melinda appeared in the
TV movie "Buried Secrets" on NBC, Monday November 4, 9 PM EST. She played
the mother of the girl "possessed" by another girl's ghost, and while not
the
starring role she was featured prominently and did a fine job.
UPCOMING DWIGHT SCHULTZ APPEARANCE: There is now less than a week to wait
for the release of "Star Trek: First Contact" in theaters, which we know
will feature Dwight as Reg Barclay in at least a small (a few minutes perhaps)
appearance. No matter how small the part, I'm sure I won't be the only
die-hard Dwight fan waiting in line on opening night! (Anyone else in the
Philly area interested in going as well?)
Also related to Dwight, a slightly early but nevertheless heartfelt
>>HAPPY BIRTHDAY<<
greeting for November 24 (yes, the 24th, I've double checked this after some
debate on the mailing list, and also the birthyear is 1947, so he'll be 49.)
---------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIPTS, ETC
Two great transcripts to present this week. First, thanks to Gill (and
Danny) Dunn for getting the much sought-after transcript together of the
recent article in "Hello" magainze on Dirk Benedict:
-----
Dirk Benedict, a fishing rod in one hand and his six-year old son Roland at
his side, saunters down the narrow forest trail to the clearing behind his
log cabin above Flathead lake in Montana.
A dozen paces off in the undergrowth, a tawny buck, its antlers
held high ambles through the speckled sunlight filtering through the
leaves. Trout splash invitingly from the mirror-like water shimmering ahead.
Dirk, who eight years ago overcame cancer, says "I bought this
cabin as a vacation escape some 20 years ago." The 51-year-old former
A-Team star adds: "I knew one day I'd make this my permanent home, a place
to raise my children. I feel blessed, I've managed to make my dream come
true."
Well, almost. For Benedict's great adventure, he confides, has
turned bittersweet. Six months after he and his wife of nine years, actress
Toni Hudson, 34, and their two sons Roland and George, now eight, had sold
their mansion in Los Angeles' Santa Monica and moved here, Toni said she'd
had quite enough.
"Toni is a city Gal," says Dirk, a wry grin masking the sadness in
his eyes. "We started out with such high hopes; the idea was to live here
for ten years then head back to the city when the boys were grown."
"Toni often went back to Los Angeles after we moved here. Her
visits became more frequent and she would stay longer. One day she called
me at my office [a second, smaller log cabin closer to his nearest town,
Big Fork], and said she was leaving. At first I thought it was just another
trip. Then she said, "You don't understand. I'm leaving for good!" Dirk
quips: " That kind of changed the dream a bit."
Raised in Montana - the son of an accountant - he always knew he
would return one day. He left in his 20s to seek fame and fortune, and
found both. First on Broadway, where he landed as an unknown actor and was
teamed, incredibly, with Gloria Swanson, playing the famous actress' son in
Butterflies Are Free.
Hollywood beckoned, and Dirk scored very quickly in two popular
television hits - as the ace pilot and space heart-throb Lt Starbuck on
Battlestar Galactica and then as Faceman on the weekly demolition derby
known as The A-Team, with the late George Peppard and muscular,
gold-chained Mr. T.
He met Toni during The A-Team's early years, though they waited
until 1986 to marry. Once George and Roland were born, Dirk's longing to
return to his native countryside grew, and two years ago, he and Toni sold
up and headed north.
The actor continued to accept limited assignments from Hollywood
(he co-starred, for example, with Charlton Heston in the successful, newly
released adventure film Alaska directed by Heston's son Fraser.). But Toni
felt cut off in the remote spot on the Canadian border where her husband
had brought her.
Dirk notes that even while his wife was pregnant she had still
managed to land small film roles, appearing in Sally Field's 'Places In The
Heart' and a slew of horror movies including The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Says Dirk: "Her ambition was simply too strong."
His voice matter-of-fact, the actor reveals: "I didn't want to
stand in her way. Nine months after Toni left we were divorced and she had
remarried. I didn't know you could do it all that fast." He got through
that hard time with help from best friend Dwight Schultz, his A-Team
co-star.
Today, Dirk's two boys live with him and occasionally travel to LA
to see their mother. Toni's new husband, Dirk discloses, is a young
musician currently working as an LA waiter. "I guess you could call him a
hunk," he says, his grin back.
Though he does seem to have taken the traumatic events of the past
18 months in his stride, the actor reflects: "I do miss the companionship,
we enjoyed a lot of beautiful sunsets here together..."
He gestures at the postcard-like vista stretching beyond his
private jetty. "It's the perfect place to raise children away from big-city
violence and drugs. Heck, we only get one TV channel here, and then not
very well."
"All in all, a paradise," he concludes, wondering aloud why anyone
would want to live anywhere else. "We are all vegetarians here, and except
for a mountain lion that's been hanging around and killed our dog, we don't
have a care in the world."
Their home lies down a steep slope that needs a four-wheel-drive
vehicle in winter. During the summer, however, Dirk hammers his gleaming
blue Porsche 911 roadster on the paved mountain highways, noting happily,
"You can't leave civilisation behind entirely."
He drops the boys off at school in Big Fork each morning and spends
his own days writing at his office-cabin. He has two books to his name, the
bio-graphical Confessions Of A Kamikaze Cowboy and the 1994 novel And Then
We Went Fishing. He currently has a Broadway play being cast, a tongue in
cheek comedy about the last starlet in Hollywood to have breast implants.
"A man can't help but be creative here, surrounded by all this
beauty," he says, radiant and at peace with his lot. "They're telling me to
move to New York if the play does well. Those guys obviously haven't been
here!"
-----
Our second transcript comes courtesy of Jasper, and is an older text
describing the Team's infamous tour of Holland in 1984. As Jasper pointed
out, "Remember that this text was of course in Dutch and that the quotes in
this article were also in Dutch and translated back to English, so these
are not exact."
I have also attempted to correct some of the translations to read more
smoothly and accurately; in any event, it's very interesting...
--- Algemeen Dagblad, April 24 1984, page 9 -----------
NETHERLANDS ASSAULT A-TEAM
Producer: they are all equally crazy
by: Henk Langerak
Hoevelaken - The A-team is hardly five minutes in the Netherlands before the
heavily perspiring Lawrence Tureaud - B.A. in the series - gets very angry.
"What are you saying, how dare you call me that? Lawrence Tureaud. No
man, I am Mister T. and nobody is allowed calling me otherwise. I don't
wanna talk to you anymore."
Tureaud arranges the fifteen kilos of chains around his neck,
fumbles a bit with his colossal rings set with dozens of diamonds, and
walks away,
towards his girlfriend who is standing aside, dressed in a shabby ski-jack and
a pair of jeans.
The former bodyguard of boxers like Cassius Clay and Leon Spinks,
pop-star Michael Jackson and actor La Var Burton (Kunta Kinte in Roots)
feels deeply hurt. He is a star now, and absolutely wants to be treated
like one.
Shouting like Cassius Clay in his best years, he tries to make his way through
the obtrusive audience during the arrival at Schiphol (our national airport
- Jasper), saying "I love you, I love you, I love you all."
CAP GONE
Dirk Benedict, the hansome guy in the series who is called Face because of
that, waves with a big cigar to the 15,000 shouting people. Dwight Schultz,
the crazy Murdock, mourns about his lost cap, which was snatched from his
head by the crowd. "That was my lucky cap. I was wearing it since the series
started. No matter how dirty or sweaty is was." [Nicole refrains form
making a comment here...]
The visit is costing the TROS (the television company broadcasting The
A-team - Jasper) 100,000 guilders on plane tickets alone, because everybody
has taken thier wives and kids. Hannibal (George Peppard) hasn't come,
because he has other obligations in America.
Dwight Schultz is, without a doubt, the nicest of the whole bunch
(12 in
total), that spent the Easter weekend with wives and kids in the
Netherlands. He also says that the words of his black colleague are to be
taken with grain of salt. "He always has a big mouth. He says everything
that comes to his mind. He cannot keep anything to himself."
HAPPY
Anybody else would [be fed up with it?], always having to play the fool in a
TV-series. But Dwight says he really loves it. "I have been working now for 13
years without much success, and this is my big chance. I have played in a
number of shows, but before you could blink I was gone. Now I finally have a
leading part, I finally have some money now. I never owned a car, now I
have two. I finally have an apartment with more than one room, and recently
I got married. I have never been so happy."
The A-team leaves the champagne for what it is, but the wooden
shoes are
accepted eagerly. Then they go by limousine - in one of these, Vanessa (she
can be compared a little bit with Marilyn Monroe - Jasper) is behind the
wheel - towards Noordwijkerhout, for the television show.
On the way, the A-team get a little example of what chaotic scenes
are awaiting them for the next few days. On every road around Schiphol cars
are stopping on the hard shoulder to catch a glimpse of the Americans. A
long row of cars is driving on the highway, alongside and with the same
speed as the
limos. People are hanging out the windows to take pictures and are suddenly
hitting the brakes, almost causing a big chain collision.
FLOWERS
By taking an exit at the very last moment, some of the pursuers are shaken
off. The remaining persuers see how the A-team is driving past the
bulb-fields, where only daffodils are still flowering. They also see how the
A-team stops in Lisse at a street-organ and that for each car a flower chain
is bought at a flower stand in Sassenheim.
In Noordwijkerhout it becomes clear that behind the big mouth of
Mr. T. a small heart hides, because he has a big package with construction
sets of
A-team cars being delivered at a creche.
Somebody asks him if it is true he is supporting president Reagan
for his reelection. "I support no one else but God" he replies as grumpy as
before,
and besides that he still doesn't talk. Also not about the contradiction
between the violence in this children's series and him now acting as a
childs' friend.
Producer Stephen J. Cannell, who created the idea and the
characters for the series, does want to say something about that.
"Everything isn't that
realistic. There is gunfire and you will see stunts, but you will never see
anybody get shot, and no one ever get's hurt." (not entirely true - Jasper)
"It is pure fantasy and adventure. It is like a cartoon. A cartoon for real."
And says Cannell, he is sure that the children can see the distinction
between other violent stories. "If I wasn't sure about that, I would never
have created this show. It is funny, bizarre, and one big fantasy at the same
time. The main characters are equally crazy, yet very different from
character and appearance. There is something for everybody. That's the fun
of it."
That's why Dirk Benedict never gets tired of always having to play the
hansome guy, who is always in luck with the ladies. "Are you kidding? This is
a fantastic job. You can play the fantasy of someone else, every week you
have a nice girl in your arms, and you even get paid for it." he says
cheerfully.
On the second day, everybody is again present at the NOS television
studio in Hilversum. There, Mister T. refuses to fight a small judo
player, because he claims to be a peace lover. Fighting is something he
only does on screen. He also refuses to lift a small boy, or to eat a
salted herring (a Dutch speciality - Jasper). And only after he is urged to
do so by everybody, he agrees to operate the organ, as his colleagues did.
Children want to know how come Face's hair is always dressed so neatly.
"That's because my contract says, I have to be followed by someone with a
comb."
A ten year old girl asks for a kiss, "But only on my cheek". And Murdock does
one of his famous animal impersonations.
For the cameras Mister T. says he never felt so much friendship and
warmth as here in the Netherlands, but a few minutes later he again refuses
to
explain his performance. B.A. the abbreviation stands for Bad Attitude
(slecht gemanierd) (I see no point in translating slecht gemanierd to bad
attitude again - Jasper) is still angry.
ROUND TRIP
The next day, Mister T. doesn't have time to behave bad. There's a
helicopter round trip above the Netherlands scheduled, with visits to
Harderwijk, Sneek, Texel, Arnemuiden, Zandvoort and Valkenswaard.
Everywhere the A-team is greeted by thousands of people. People climb in
trees, lampposts, and on rooftops.
Nowhere was such a crowd expected. Only in Texel was it possible to get
through the full welcoming program. Over there Mr. T. gets a lamb, and a car
is crushed by a bulldozer. In the other places the A-team visit, it turns
out in complete chaos. Police cordons are torn down as soon as the
helicopter
lands. The A-team gets stuck in the crowd and the visits are prematurely
ended and welcoming comities were left with gifts. In one or two places it
is possible do do a small round tip by car, but soon the A-team flees inside
the helicopter.
In Harderwijk the milking of a cow is canceled, and in Sneek the
sailing
trip with a skutsje (a traditional type of sailing boat from the provence
Friesland - Jasper) and in Arnemuiden the A-team doesn't make it outside the
airport, causing the round trip to be canceled. In Zandvoort fences are
demolished, and in Valkenswaard a giant cigar, that had to be taken for
Hannibal, stays behind.
The A-team sees nothing of the old workman's crafts, and the
competitions 'Who is the Mr.T look-a-like', 'Who is as crazy as Murdock',
and 'Who can pick up girls as Face can' are canceled.
In Harderwijk and Sneek the on-TV-so-fearless A-team doesn't dare
to stay outside the helicopter for more than five minutes. The trio
withdraws with fear.
"I have played rugby, but there was never so much pushing and
kicking, as today" says Dwight Schultz [Note: I know Dwight played American
Football in college, I wonder if that's what that quote refers to -Nicole].
Dirk Benedict sticks with "Fantastic, overwhelming. I have never seen
anything like this before." And Lawrence Tureaud, Mister T. according to
his passport, still doesn't say much. He only says "Wow, too much".
---------------------------------------------------------------
A-TEAM MERCHANDISE
------------------
TAPES WANTED: Lorrie Roussin <lrouss> is looking for tapes of
the A-Team from anyone who might be willing to help her out. Please contact
her privately if you can supply copies.
TRIVIA TIME
-----------
Last issue's questoin was:
>In "Where is the Monster When You Need Him?" what was the stage
>name Face took for his starring role in the movie?
This one was much too easy! Everyone was sending in correct responses, but
the first 2 came from Nicole (SrtaAminta) and Rhonda
(reudaly)
who knew the answer was "Lake Charles".
This time, hopefully a tougher one:
>What was the name of Tawnia's fiance in "Bend in the River"?
---------------------------------------------------------------
That's all for this time, as an advance warning, the next newsletter will
either be a week early or a week late, depending on how ambitious I am. I
will be away from November 27 through December 6, perhaps checking my mail
once during that time.
Until next issue, stay on the jazz!
nicole
---------------------------------------------------------------
Quote of the week:
"When the going gets tough, the tough get aeronautical."
(Murdock in "Skins")
---------------------------------------------------------------
sockii, aka nicole
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"I'm not nuts, I'm condiments - I've been promoted!"
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