• October 09, 1978
• Vol. 10
• No. 15

Chatter

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
The intruder who broke into the stately Brockett Hall residence in Welwyn, Hertfordshire had a unique explanation. "I'm Katharine Hepburn," she told police, who replied, "A likely story," or words to that effect, and prepared to haul the culprit away. But then Lord Brockett himself arrived on the scene and assured them: "It is Katharine Hepburn." Upon arriving late for a personal tour of the mansion and finding her host absent, she had pried open a window and climbed in to await his return.

Round 16
At the moment Muhammad Ali trounced Leon Spinks in New Orleans, musical heavy hitter Bob Dylan TKO'd up-and-comer Bob (Night Moves) Seeger. How's that? Well, when the decision went to the Greatest, ABC closed out its coverage with highlights of the fight accompanied by Dylan's tune Forever Young ("May your hands always be busy/May your feet always be swift"). But had the decision gone the other way, ABC was prepared to go with a tape of Seeger's The Famous Final Scene ("Everything must have an end/...it's the famous final scene").

Good Noose
One of the funnier scenes taped for NBC's Little House on the Prairie won't be seen on TV—because it wasn't called for in the script. Cast and crew had been carefully rehearsing a dramatic sequence in which actor Moses Gunn, portraying the only black resident of Walnut Grove, anxiously answers a knock at his door. He hopes to learn if Charles Ingalls (Michael Landon) has been able to talk the townsfolk into letting him join their lily-white church. The scene went well in the run-through and the set was silenced for a take. But when Gunn answered the door he collapsed in laughter. There stood Landon, who has a rep as a practical joker, wearing a white hood, swinging a rope and muttering, "Boy, have I got news for you." The scene was reshot.

The Ron & Jerry Show
Texas gubernatorial candidate William Clements attracted the GOP's top act, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, to campaign on his behalf—but he may wish he hadn't. First the former President, showing familiar form, told newsmen he was confident Clements would be elected governor of "the great state of California." Then Reagan, asked how he thought Clements' race against Democratic opponent John Hill was going, reportedly replied, "It looks great for Hill." Later the former governor (and actor) said he'd been misheard—that he'd said "Bill," not "Hill."

Glug
When country crooner Willie Nelson's 62-year-old stepmom, Edna, broke her hip a year and a half ago, he built her a therapeutic whirlpool bath behind her Austin, Texas home—for which she is doubly thankful. Not only did it help get her up and walking again, she says, but it provides a comfortable—if sometimes turbulent—home for her pet bullfrog, Amos.

Sacked
In his injury-studded career on the gridiron, Joe Namath learned the meaning of pain. Other things eluded him. A reporter recently asked the former quarterback—now turned TV star in The Waverly Wonders—what he thought about football players practicing celibacy the night before a game. "What does that mean?" asked Namath. When the reporter explained, Joe was decisive. Declared he, "I am against the no-sex rule 100 percent."

Furthermore

•To perk up a post-concert party in L.A. for Bob (French Kiss) Welch, Capitol Records staffers laid on a surprise act by a pair of flamenco dancers. When the two costumed men burst from the crowd and leapt onto Welch's table, the effect was overwhelming. Especially to the table, which collapsed.

•At Beverly Hills' Bagel Nosh, kid star Tatum (International Velvet) O'Neal, 14, recently paid her bill with a check. "I can't stand it," groused the cashier. "She does that all the time." Tatum's tab: 83 cents.

•The New Sound on discs is that of Walter (House Calls) Matthau, who makes his singing debut on the sound track album for CBS's December Singingest Man in Town special. "His voice," says a studio musician, "is a cross between Louis Armstrong and the whistle of corduroy trousers."