At 10:56 AM 5/28/97 +0100, Leo Enticknap wrote:
>On Mon, 26 May 1997 19:33:53 -0400 Joe Lamantia <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> What other
>> examples of news or journalistic personalities playing themselves as
>> news providers do the members of Screen-L recall ?
>
 
In "The Patsy," by Jerry Lewis, Lewis plays a bellboy turned up-and-coming
comic.  At a cocktail party to meet the Hollywood press, he is introduced
to Hedda Hopper, by then as much an icon of pop culture as a journalist.
But he is also introduced to Vernon Scott, a longtime UPI entertainment
columnist, and to Richard Gehman, a freelance Hollywood journalist who was
at that time working on a paperback biography of Lewis, "That Kid."  Both
men play themselves, but they have no lines.
 
And I can think of a million times when contemporary sportscasters and
local LA and NY newscasters have played similar types on
TV-broadcasts-within-movies:  Jerry Dunphy, Chick Hearn, Marv Albert, Roger
Grimsby, etc.  Usually this occurs without any naming going on:  the
authenticity of the talking head is apparently meant to stand for itself.
 
The unusual things about Bernie Shaw's bit in "Lost World" it seems to me
are: 1) he's one of the top four anchors in the nation and it would seem an
extremely face-losing task for the man who reported live from beseiged
Baghdad to hire himself and his aura of authority out; 2) It's a *long*
cameo:  two distinct paragraphs of script; 3) He's rumored to be in a
wobbly position at CNN:  Hasn't Tom Brokaw been offered his job?
 
Shawn Levy
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