Low-budget, all-star pic could make 'Magic'

GOOD MORNING: It's good news for all filmmakers when pictures, made for a price, get good reviews and, of course, good public reaction. Like "The English Patient," "Shine" and "The Crucible." I got the reaction visiting the set of Par's "Magic Hour," which stars three Oscar winners, Paul Newman, Susan Sarandon and Gene Hackman, and which will probably come in for around $22 million. The principals, including director-screenwriter Robert Benton, and writer Richard Russo, producers Scott Rudin and Arlene Donovan and exec producer Michael Hausman, are taking less than their usual salaries against you-know-what. But Hackman laughingly said, "It'll have to do better than 'Forrest Gump' for us to see any of it (profits)." However, they are all happy to be doing the pic with the team that made "Nobody's Fool" also for Par. And Sherry Lansing told me "Fool," also led by Newman, did over $40 million, having been made for under $20 million. She predicts "Magic" will do even better with its three Oscar-winning stars, plus co-stars including Jim Garner and Stockard Channing. Lansing said, "It's a great love story and a thriller in a quality production." Director-writer Benton told me he is constantly re-writing, honing the script. This is his first film on a Hollywood lot in 30 years. (He directed a coupla of screen tests here, one with John Ritter!) Hackman and Sarandon work only four weeks in the film carried principally by Newman. Hackman and Sarandon play former Hollywood movie stars and, in a scene I watched, Hackman, near death following cancer surgery and a heart attack, says, "When you're an actor and you think you've got the lead (in a script) and you find it's a small part." Did that ever happen in real life? "You bet," said Hackman. So did Newman. Not recently you can bet! Hackman has gone from one film to another, his most recent co-starring with Clint Eastwood in "Absolute Power." Producer Donovan said the trio of Newman, Sarandon and Hackman are not only something special to watch in a scene "But off camera, when just talking among themselves, they are remarkable." They were working on Par's giant Stage 15 but the set was a tiny room in Hackman's large house fashioned after great art director Cedric Gibbons' own home in L.A. The downstairs library was converted to a bedroom with a hospital bed because of Hackman's (screen) illness. I watched him and Newman play gin rummy. They play old friends and they seemed like they were. The movie will have no special effects, no car chases. But between scenes, Newman and Hackman talked car racing. They both agreed their car racing days are long behind them. They kid constantly about their age. Hackman said, "I read a story and say to myself, 'That would be great for me!'-- then I realize it would have been great for me 40 years ago!" Newman reminded Hackman he had asked him to star in a movie he, Paul, was to direct, "Tin Lizzie Squad." Would Paul direct again? Mebbe but not something in which he'd also star. He's busy most of the time with his philanthropic -- life the Hole in the Wall Gang camps and his Newman's Own Products, which have donated all profits -- tens of millions -- to charities. Wife Joanne Woodward is in D.C. helping the committee for the National Endowment of the Arts. "Would you believe," said Paul, "the government gives more money to marching bands than to the arts?" I asked Newman what made him return to movies, not having made one since "Nobody's Fool" for which he won an Oscar nomination, his eighth (having won one for "The Color of Money" in '86 plus an honorary one). He told me it was the good script and the same team he worked with in "Nobody's Fool."

ART IMITATING LIFE: In 'The Cape" seg shooting in Florida, young thesp Chad Willet tells me he plays a teacher-astronaut who is launched into space in a story which has references to the catastrophic Challenger flight. Willet sez NASA is giving the series complete cooperation "And treating us like gold," he added. Willet said he was shooting the TV's launch scene at the same time Columbia went off. Although they were a couple of miles away, Willet said, "It made you shiver! And when you see a shuttle go up you will never forget it!" ... Back on terra firma, Don Rickles and Angie Dickinson guested this week on an upcoming "Larry Sanders" show with Angie playing an old flame of Rip Torn's. ... On hand at the Strip's Billboard Live return of the Monkees -- Mickey Dolenz, Davey Jones, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork -- (after 27 years!) to launch their (Rhino) disc "Justus" were fans including Kevin Costner and his children, as well as Little Richard, Dwight Yoakam, David Spade, Jonathan Silverman, Jon Cryer, Julie Brown, etc. ... And Buddy Greco plays one night, Nov. 26, at the Moonlight Tango in Sherman Oaks. ... Talking D.C. earlier, Lee Minelli tells me she narrated film clips from Vincente Minelli's Oscar winning movies at a black tie'd gala in his honor at the Smithsonian Museum. Lee, who had been at RADA pre-Hollywood, asked Nina Foch to coach her before her "debut" in D.C. The evening got a standing ovation. She (and Liza, who was not present) donated the model of the fountain from "An American in Paris" to the Museum.