HEROIN, COKE, AIDS, AND ACTING IN THE ’80S

May you build a ladder to the stars And climb on every rung May you stay forever young Forever young, forever young = Bob Dylan The setting for Valerie Bruni Tedeschi’s Forever Young is the renowned drama school Ecole des Amandiers in Nanterre (the film is titled Les Amandiers in France) in the 1980s, but […]

STUDY: TV PRESENTING REALISTIC VISION OF DRUG USE

Unlike TV shows in the past that presented fanciful images of drug users and sellers, “America’s most popular primetime shows reflect growing skepticism about the effectiveness of the 40-year-old War on Drugs,” according to a study released on Thursday by he Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and […]

NBC STATION REFUSES TO AIR THE PLAYBOY CLUB

NBC’s upcoming new drama The Playboy Club may not feature any of the soft porn presented in Hugh Hefner’s legendary magazine. Indeed, it may not be any racier than any number of crime dramas airing on network television. (It’s set in Hefner’s Chicago night club during the 1960s.) But a Salt Lake City television station, […]

VETERAN TV DIRECTOR LAMONT JOHNSON DEAD AT 88

Lamont Johnson, one of the most prolific — and daring — directors of TV dramas, many of them touching on controversial issues of the day, died Sunday in Monterey, CA of heart failure at age 88. Beginning his career as an actor — he played Tarzan on the radio series — Johnson turned to television […]