Hollywood Shuffle

Midway through the fourth quarter of the Lakers' visit to San Antonio to play the Spurs on Wednesday night, the game inexplicably halted with 5:09 left on the clock. Apparently, there was some confusion regarding available timeouts and television advertising, as described by referee Bill Kennedy in a clip that was obviously not intended to air on the ESPN broadcast. Kennedy explains to coaches Mike D'Antoni and Gregg Popovich he's "stalling. I'm stalling for commercial time.

As the summer doldrums, the period between the spring flings and the summer wonders, set in, the late spring's big box-office shaker--Universal's "Secret of My Success"--continued to set the generally languid pace last weekend. The Michael J. Fox vehicle scored another $4.6 million at 1,333 screens, for a total take thus far of $33.4 million. In second place was a newcomer: New World's "Creepshow 2," based (as was the original) on Stephen King short stories, which scared up $3.

Patrick Goldstein's "Hollywood Burning" (April 16), on the plight of blacks in Hollywood, asks whether it is racism or economics that keeps blacks out of the industry. I don't see how it could be economics when the majority of films with unknown black casts released in recent years have been quite successful, i.e., "The Color Purple," "A Soldier's Story," "Hollywood Shuffle" and "She's Gotta Have It." (Were there any films with black casts that weren't successful?) And when you consider "Coming to America," earning $100 million, in which the cast was mostly unknown except for Eddie Murphy, I don't know how economics can be blamed.

You don't even have to be famous to get caught up in what Beverly Beyette covered in "Hollywood Shuffle." Years ago, when Friday lunch at Ma Maison was de rigueur, I was taken there for my birthday by the publisher of the then-very "in" Beverly Hills People. We sat at the third table and were joined by the then-very de rigueur Mr. Bon Vivant, Henry Berger. The introductions went like this: Publisher: Henry, do you know Chloe Ross? Henry Berger: Chloe Ross?

She says she pulled a "Robert Townsend." Lonnie Lardner helped finance the creation of Artik, a Beverly Hills art gallery, with credit cards, just as Townsend financed the movie satire "Hollywood Shuffle" with his plastic. Lardner, a former KCAL-TV Channel 9 news anchor who descends from a long line of journalists, hopes her new gallery, which she opened in September with the help of two partners, will gain the word-of-mouth success enjoyed by Townsend's underdog film.

Have burger ads become actor-director Robert Townsend's own version of the "Hollywood Shuffle"? Granted, Townsend's movies--like "Hollywood Shuffle," "The Five Heartbeats" and "Meteor Man"--have generally not had much of an impact on the box office. But Townsend's latest effort-- playing a director in a current McDonald's Big Mac TV spot--only seems like a slightly cruel reminder of what Townsend's potential once was.

In Goldstein's April 17 article, "The Hollywood Shuffle," Spike Lee is quoted thusly: "Lots of people--even black people--thank Cleopatra was a white woman just 'cause Elizabeth Taylor played her in the movie." Actually, lots of people think Cleopatra was white 'cause she was! The last of the Ptolemy rulers of Egypt, Cleopatra was descended from the Greek general of the same name, one of the men who helped Alexander the Great conquer the known world. When Alexander died, his generals divided up his territories and Ptolemy chose Egypt.