April 23, 1979

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Frontlines

Robert Altman: a Young Turk at 54

There are perhaps two dozen people in the tiny screening room at Lion’s Gate Films, West Los Angeles, but the major characters in the small drama number four: three are executives from Twentieth Century-Fox, mega-studio; the fourth is film-maker Robert Altman, grey-bearded Hollywood maverick and creator of fresh, inventive films like M*A*S*H, Nashville and A Wedding. By Wayne Grigsby11 min

Show Business

Coming home with Oscar

He walks into the breakfast room, preOscar, at the Plaza in New York looking frail and, from a distance, slightly androgynous. He’s wearing an old sweater that seems to have landed on him from the third floor of a Salvation Army store, and he has certainly gotten the wear out of his blue jeans.

World

Uganda: butcher on the block

The voice, hazed in static, was flat, unemotional. But the message sent a sigh of relief round the world. “From today,” said the speaker, “the oppressive regime of the traitor Idi Amin is no longer in power. The liberation forces have appealed to all peaceloving countries to support the people in their cause.” By David North, Dan Turner8 min

Letters

I thought Maggie in the Marketplace ... (March 26) was your best attempt, to date, to cloak gossip in the guise of news. However, I can find absolutely no news value in a two-column, color revelation of Adrienne Barbeau’s (People, April 2) cleavage, nor in a description of the how, what, where and why of her new image.

Canada

THE THIRD MAN

The gleaming DC-9 jet on the tarmac at Ottawa International Airport last week told the story. It was Ed Broadbent’s plane—at least for the duration of the election campaign. No longer would the leader of the New Democratic Party have to lumber around the country in an elderly turbo prop, as David Lewis, Broadbent’s predecessor, did in the last two election campaigns. By Ian Urquhart6 min

Canada

Atlantic Canada: where bread and butter count

Edward Ezekiel had other things on his mind as he sat, heater blasting, in a red half-ton down by the St. John’s docks. Ears full of seagull complaints and pockets empty, the 25-yearold Newfoundlander was acutely aware that the bloody bucket of seal flippers in back was as full at suppertime as it was when he first came down. By Roy MacGregor6 min

Music

Up, up and away and changing gears

Murray McLauchlan was eight dates into his current national tour, playing to a near-capacity house in Ottawa’s gloriously spiffy National Arts Centre. Introducing his song What Would Bogey Do?, McLauchlan told a story about another man suffering a Casablanca fetish, Woody Allen. By Arthur Fuller5 min

Frontlines

The sheik of Massawippi

One of the big events of the summer in North Hatley last year was the landing of a 25-pound lake trout on Lake Massawippi. It’s that kind of town, a beautiful, bucolic resort community where nothing much ever happens. And if the summers are quiet, then the winters—when the population is halved to some 750 full-time residents—are positively dead. By Peter Hutchinson5 min

Medicine

Childhood leukemia: a stalemate in a long war

When Becki Scott was 21 months old, she developed fever and a rash. She had acute lymphocytic leukemia and was given five days to live. That was six years ago, but as a result of chemotherapy Becki recovered. Fifteen years ago her remission would not have been possible. By Brenda Rabkin4 min

Column

Sometimes it’s tough to tell the would-be PM from a guy up on a hubcap-stealing rap

There really hasn’t been anything like it since Harry Houdini locked himself in a coffin and had it lowered into the Hudson River. If one of the more audacious election strategies in history is to succeed, it will mean that Joe Clark’s intellect, such as it is, will remain suspended below water until May 22. By Allan Fotheringham4 min

Column

Death in small doses—Riel, we have hanged you again, on a rope of tedium

May some scalawag god of drama spew a great spume of fibs and conceits, of exaggerations and intensities, over the TV dramatist who worships historical accuracy. Riel, we have hanged you again, on a rope of tedium. Though hyped to high heaven, this Riel is not drama—it’s history murmured by teacher-drones. By William Casselman4 min

April 161979