"They are like Hope and Crosby, like Laurel and Hardy. They have just the right chemistry," says Director Mark Rydell of his current stars, James Caan and Elliott Gould. On location in Mansfield, Ohio, for the filming of a comedy titled Harry and Walter Go to New York, the pair portray 1890s vaudevillians who end up in prison with an urbane safecracker, played by Michael Caine. Caan and Gould get wind of Caine's plot to break out of jail and into a bank, and before long they are racing him to the vault. To the actual habitues of Ohio State Reformatory, where part of the movie was shot, it sometimes seemed that the wrong folk were behind bars. During a between-scenes football game that included Gould, Caan and a stunt man, Gould caught a long pass from his co-star and celebrated by doffing his clothes and leaping around the end zone. "The prison guards," observed Caan, "didn't seem to understand."
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Few ex-convicts receive the warm greeting from society given to former Illinois Governor Otto Kerner. Convicted in 1973 on charges of mail fraud, bribery and tax evasion, Kerner spent seven months in prison before his parole in March to undergo an operation for lung cancer. Last week as an organ growled out Stouthearted Men, Kerner strode into a testimonial dinner in Springfield, Ill., to thank 1,100 friends for their support. "In prosperity, it's very easy to find a friend. In adversity, it's one of the most difficult things," observed Kerner, now 67 and director of a program to improve prisoner morale. Responded Illinois' current Governor, Dan Walker: "He's paid his debt to society. We ought to welcome him back."
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Golfer Lee Trevino won last year because he could "talk a cowgirl out of her boots." Now the 700 members of the Girls Rodeo Association have given their "Man on the Trail" award to part-time Cowboy Steve Ford, 19, the President's youngest son. Despite competition from Actors Warren Beatty and Tennis Star Jimmy Connors, Ford rode off with the prize, a silver belt buckle. "He's just about the closest thing to the big man in Washington -an outdoor type with executive demeanor," cooed Association President Margaret demons. "The girls would love to tie up with him on the trail to happy destiny."
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"I can't remember ever seeing a portrait of Queen Elizabeth which wasn't academic and dull. None of them show her doing a modern job," said London Gallery Owner Nicholas Treadwell, 37. So, hoping to replace formality with fun, Treadwell asked 29 artists to submit something new in the way of royal portraiture. Last week his West End art gallery displayed the results, which included paintings of Her Majesty sipping tea from a Union Jack mug, holding hands with Henry VIII, rowing a boat and grinning from a heart-shaped valentine of daisies. "I see them as very affectionate portraits, but I don't know how she would see them," said Treadwell, explaining why he did not send the Queen an invitation to his exhibit. Despite her absence, he added, business has been brisk with tourists. The Queen, he said happily, "is good for exports."
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Sedaka's Back, promises the album cover of Neil Sedaka, 36, the pop tunesmith who set penny loafers dancing with hits like Breaking Up Is Hard to Do. For now, however, Sedaka is simply back out of work. Hired as a show opener for a tour by Richard and Karen Carpenter, Sedaka lasted seven days at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas and then was abruptly fired. "I was asked to leave because of standing ovations," complained the singer-songwriter, whose big receptions by Vegas crowds made him a hard act for the Carpenters to follow. At least breaking up is getting easier. Sedaka announced last week that he had accepted an invitation to return to the Riviera in December -this time as a headliner.
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"This show demonstrates that photography is accepted as an art," exulted Photographer Richard Avedon of his exhibition at Manhattan's Marlborough Gallery. Avedon, 52, who helped revolutionize fashion photography by focusing beyond cosmetic beauty on the human side of his models, has put over 100 portraits on view, and prints of 75 on sale. Like that of Sculptress June Leaf, 46, most photographs show an unsmiling subject, slightly off center, standing before a plain white backdrop. "June is one of the most beautiful women I've ever photographed," said Avedon of Leaf. "What came forward was not the fact that she has a beautiful face, which she has, but her quality as a woman." If Avedon's subjects are beautiful, so are his prices. An 8-in. by 10-in. print costs $175, while a couple of huge blowups, including a 360-in. by 96-in. enlargement of Artist Andy Warhol and members of The Factory, are on sale for $20,000.
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Birds do it, bees do it, even celebrities do it. Now the precise details of how 28 prominent Americans lost their virginity have been compiled in a new book, The First Time (Simon & Schuster; $7.95), written by husband and wife Freelancers Karl and Anne Taylor Fleming. "There was candlelight and wine and nice music and considerable fumbling," recalled Fear of Flying Author Erica Jong of her first bedding with a Columbia University sophomore. "I don't remember it being painful or bad," she disclosed, "nor do I remember the earth moving." Columnist Art Buchwald succumbed to the charms of a 30-year-old chambermaid at the Long Island resort where he worked one summer. He was 15 at the time, said Buchwald, "and I think she seduced me." Comedienne Joan Rivers spent $42 on a brand new dress for the big event. "The whole thing lasted about a minute and a half," she reported, "including buying the dress." Actor Jack Lemmon was a student at Harvard whose big encounter became a case of coitus interruptus when a parking-lot attendant discovered him entangled with a girl in a borrowed convertible. Said Lemmon: "If that didn't turn me off, nothing would." Despite such traumas, the first time was never the last for the Flemings' subjects. Actress Mae West, 83, who first performed for her music teacher at the age of 13, later elaborated on the theme. "I had a whole band one time," she disclosed blithely. "I was just fickle."
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What's this? Sultry Cher, with smoking eyebrows, dressed in chrome jeans? With green hair, holding a mercury ball? Indeed. To liven up the opening sequence of Cher's TV show this season, the producers hired Rollin Binzer, Jim Benedict and Leslie Brooks, three film makers who call themselves Kid Millions. Using photographs of their subject, the three painted on Daliesque wardrobes, added laser lights to create an eerie effect, and built a 58-second animated lead-in to the program. "I love it," announced the star after watching the first screening. "The only trouble is, it will make the rest of our show look like the 11 o'clock news."
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