Montel Williams

Montel Williams is not your typical pot-smoking snowboarder. Best known as an Emmy-winning talk show host, the former Marine and decorated naval intelligence officer was also a champion boxer, bodybuilder and power-lifter. In 1999, Williams was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and it hit him hard. After a downward slide to rock bottom, Williams decided to get his life back. Were you active in your younger years? I was extremely active. I was a martial artist.

Montel Williams is not your typical pot-smoking snowboarder. Best known as an Emmy-winning talk show host, the former Marine and decorated naval intelligence officer was also a champion boxer, bodybuilder and power-lifter. In 1999, Williams was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and it hit him hard. After a downward slide to rock bottom, Williams decided to get his life back. Were you active in your younger years? I was extremely active. I was a martial artist.

TV host Montel Williams has thrown his support behind legalizing medical marijuana in New York, saying pot helps him cope with multiple sclerosis. Williams, who was diagnosed with the neurological disease in 1999, said he uses marijuana every night before bed to relieve the pain in his legs and feet. "I'm breaking the law every day, and I will continue to break the law," Williams, host of the syndicated "Montel Williams Show," told reporters in Albany, N.Y.

Jeff Wilcox lopes across the nearly empty parking lot, aiming for a large brick building. Inside, he excitedly shows off the cavernous space, once used to make wire, vacant now for a decade. He imagines it running 24/7, filled with glowing lights, gurgling irrigation systems, whirling ventilators and workers coaxing thousands of pungent marijuana plants to bud. And that's just one part of his proposal. Wilcox, a retired builder, owns a campus of aging, idled industrial plants. On a wall in an unused conference room, a sketch of the property shows how he could fill most of the 172,000 square feet with growers raising high-end pot and entrepreneurs turning out brownies, drinks, tinctures and other products.

Montel Williams is a jack-of-all-trades, and Los Angeles will help decide if he's a master of one: television talk-show host. "The Montel Williams Show" debuts today at 4 p.m. on KCOP Channel 13 in a 13-week test for possible national syndication. Viacom Enterprises, Freddie Fields Productions and Chris Craft Industries Inc. have invested millions in the show, based on the belief that this former Navy intelligence officer is the Oprah of the '90s.

I have read, in utter disbelief, about the brouhaha over the Whoopi Goldberg roast at the Friars Club ("Was Ted Letting Off Steam?," Liz Smith, Oct. 12). OK, so Ted Danson put on blackface and made a few racial jokes. Apparently, no one paid attention when Goldberg told the media that she wrote the material and hired Danson's makeup artist. No, instead everyone rallied around those "politically correct" party poopers, Montel Williams and New York Mayor David Dinkins, both of whom know a good publicity stunt when they see one. This whole episode is symptomatic of the current, often-mindless obsession many Americans have with being politically correct.

Montel Aweigh: Montel Williams will tape a special edition of his talk show Thursday on board the amphibious assault ship Essex in San Diego, and then stay aboard to tape video greeting cards for family members to send to U.S. troops in Somalia. The program is scheduled to air Monday (at 4 p.m. on KCOP Channel 13). Williams is a former Navy officer and is still a reservist.

Has anyone noticed how filth is steadily attaining a stronghold on American television? Look around, it's everywhere. "Entertainment Tonight": Nude soap operas in Australia. "A Current Affair": A stripper instructor. "The Love Connection": Playing the guitar in the nude. "Hard Copy," "Studs" and "Inside Edition"... Montel Williams, Phil Donahue, and Jenny Jones are no exception, either. The future looks bleak for those of us considering taking up entertainment as a profession.

Viewers of his mid-season prime-time series are about to discover what viewers of his syndicated talk show already know: Montel Williams is an actor. In fact, the new CBS hour "Matt Waters" is in some ways an extension of "The Montel Williams Show," the latter being part soapbox from which the Great Bald Hope aims didactic darts at the subculture wretches he exploits while serving them up to daytime audiences.

Kristen Wilson is looking to get picked up. More specifically, she's anxiously waiting for word about whether her new CBS series, "Matt Waters," will be returning to the fall lineup. The drama, which premiered Jan. 3 and is set at an urban high school, begins what's likely to be a promising 1996 for Wilson, who made her first big splash last year playing fellow thespian Robin Givens in HBO's "Tyson." "My characters are all very different," Wilson, 25, says from her Manhattan digs.

TV host Montel Williams has thrown his support behind legalizing medical marijuana in New York, saying pot helps him cope with multiple sclerosis. Williams, who was diagnosed with the neurological disease in 1999, said he uses marijuana every night before bed to relieve the pain in his legs and feet. "I'm breaking the law every day, and I will continue to break the law," Williams, host of the syndicated "Montel Williams Show," told reporters in Albany, N.Y.

I don't want this to sound like a celebrity shootout at the MS corral, but Montel Williams ("TV Host's Fight Against MS More Than Just Talk," Nov. 20) put a very personal and misleading spin on this disease and on the valiant and dedicated effort that many people--particularly those associated with the National Multiple Sclerosis Society--are making to ease the plight of those affected and to get us to the point where "cure" and "reversal" are at least dreamable.

I just can't let Montel Williams' diatribe against the National Multiple Sclerosis Society go unchallenged ("TV Host's Fight Against MS More Than Just Talk," by Cheryl Lavin, Nov. 20). I am a volunteer for the society's Southern California chapter, a board member for five years and research advocate for the last two years. Williams charges that the society has "made a career out of us being sick" and that "the research isn't going to find a cure," instead "going for stopgap measures."

Plans, big plans. I had lots of them as I hobbled home after reconstructive knee surgery to begin a two-week stay on my living room couch. I'd dreaded this "vacation," but, with nothing except painkillers and time on my hands, I was going to make the most of it. I would breeze through that copy of "Ulysses" for the first time since college--and might actually understand it this time. I'd finally pick up that Faulkner trilogy I got from the Book-of-the-Month Club.

STAGE But Will Julie Andrews Approve?: Broadway producer David Merrick, who lost a recent legal scuffle with the Tony Awards over that group's declaring some songs from his "State Fair" production ineligible for awards consideration, is lashing back by proposing his own competing awards show--to be titled none other than "The Merrick's."

Kristen Wilson is looking to get picked up. More specifically, she's anxiously waiting for word about whether her new CBS series, "Matt Waters," will be returning to the fall lineup. The drama, which premiered Jan. 3 and is set at an urban high school, begins what's likely to be a promising 1996 for Wilson, who made her first big splash last year playing fellow thespian Robin Givens in HBO's "Tyson." "My characters are all very different," Wilson, 25, says from her Manhattan digs.

I just can't let Montel Williams' diatribe against the National Multiple Sclerosis Society go unchallenged ("TV Host's Fight Against MS More Than Just Talk," by Cheryl Lavin, Nov. 20). I am a volunteer for the society's Southern California chapter, a board member for five years and research advocate for the last two years. Williams charges that the society has "made a career out of us being sick" and that "the research isn't going to find a cure," instead "going for stopgap measures."

STAGE But Will Julie Andrews Approve?: Broadway producer David Merrick, who lost a recent legal scuffle with the Tony Awards over that group's declaring some songs from his "State Fair" production ineligible for awards consideration, is lashing back by proposing his own competing awards show--to be titled none other than "The Merrick's."

Viewers of his mid-season prime-time series are about to discover what viewers of his syndicated talk show already know: Montel Williams is an actor. In fact, the new CBS hour "Matt Waters" is in some ways an extension of "The Montel Williams Show," the latter being part soapbox from which the Great Bald Hope aims didactic darts at the subculture wretches he exploits while serving them up to daytime audiences.

A small Los Angeles production company named Ice Entertainment recently had a screening for "Peter," a witty, satirical film about a few pretentious film students who gratuitously stomp all over a stranger's privacy just so they can make a film about the experience. "Peter" is fiction, a low-budget film ridiculing tabloids and other TV predators. Yet there is a beam of truth here.