Baseball season may be over, but Ozzie Smith, George Steinbrenner and others are back in the ballpark, playing themselves in The Scout, a comedy starring Albert Brooks as a talent hunter for the New York Yankees. According to Brooks, the movie's toughest recruit was Tony Bennett, who sings the national anthem. "Tony was worried about everything," says Brooks, 47. "He was afraid he was being made fun of. He told me he didn't sing songs that glorify war. He said he'd never sing at a game. Finally I said, 'Tony, this is a movie.' Then he wanted to sing "America the Beautiful." I told him you can't sing that, even in a movie World Series." At last, Bennett stepped up to the plate. "I'm more proud of getting Tony than anything," says Brooks, "but I'm exhausted."
POLITICS, AS USUAL
All My Children's private eye Chris Lawford is moonlighting as a campaigner for his uncle Sen. Ted Kennedy. He recently mounted a bus trip of actors to register voters in Massachusetts, where Kennedy faces his stiffest challenge in 32 years. "I like to say how I feel and why I'm doing this," says Lawford. Because he believes in Kennedy's principles and ideals? "Because he's my uncle and I love him and I'd do anything for him," says Lawford, 39. "Aside from that, yeah, I believe in his politics." Although Lawford has no immediate political aspirations, he did play the mayor in Damon Wayans's comedy Blankman. "I didn't have to do any research," he says. "It all just came flooding out. It's instinctual."
NO MORE MS. NICE GIRL
What's a nice girl like The Brady Bunch's Maureen McCormick, who played Marcia, doing on Broadway as the girl gang leader in Grease? Filling the leather jacket left by Rosie O'Donnell until Brooke Shields takes over the part Nov. 22. Wouldn't Sandy, the poodle-skirted sweetheart, be a better fit than the gum-smacking Rizzo? "Actually, I think there's more Rizzo than Sandy in me," says McCormick, 37, whose daughter, Natalie, 5, asked the same question before Mom left L.A. for the seven-week run. "We watched the movie [with Stockard Channing and Olivia Newton-John], and I explained to her, 'Mommy's leaving and flying to New York to play that girl [Rizzo].' And she said, 'Oh, no, Mommy, I want you to play Sandy, the nice one—not the mean one!' I said, 'Honey, I've played Sandys all my life.' "
CAPTAIN'S COURAGEOUS
When Genevieve Bujold jumped ship after a couple of days shooting Star Trek: Voyager, the TV series due in January, Kate Mulgrew happily climbed aboard as the starship's first female captain. She's a natural space case. "I can't work a computer and I wouldn't know what to do with a fax machine," says Mulgrew, 39, "but I have the kind of brain that speaks fluent science fiction. I just have to learn phrases like 'evasive pattern Delta four' and 'ready the tri-cobalt devices.' " Though no one has asked her, Mulgrew would boldly go where Enterprise captain Patrick Stewart has gone before. "I was transported to a state of such happiness when I walked on the set," she says. "I wouldn't even mind going bald for this part."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
