• May 18, 1992
• Vol. 37
• No. 19

Chatter

By Kim Cunningham

SWAMP THING [BR] When Mel Gibson was in Washington, D.C., last month to accept a local theater's William Shakespeare Award for playing the title role in Handel, he presided over an early-morning acting workshop for 15 high school students. A jet-lagged Gibson ("I staggered in at 3 A.M.") led the students in warm-up stretching exercises, read a passage; from Hamlet and fielded questions from the kids. When one student asked why he was fidgeting. Gibson gestured to the students parents and the press in the audience and replied. "I'm nervous as hell. This is a very unnatural situation. I'd rather get you guys in a swamp. You know, a place where we have thumbscrew-and no witnesses." Good night, sweet prince. [P] HER DAUGHTER'S IMAGE [BR] Despite more than 20 years of starring on Broadway, in movies (most recently as Nick Nolte's wife in The Prince of Tides) and in two short-lived TV series. Blythe Danner makes no claims to being a household name. "I'm a semi-anonymous person in the TV business," says Danner, 49. "I don't think I have any TV-Q at all-whatever that is." So how come she won the plum part of the mother in Cruel Doubt, an NBC miniseries airing Sunday and Tuesday (May 17 and 19)? "I was cast because of her," says Danner. referring to Gwyneth Pa I Iron. 19, who plays her daughter in Doubt, a role she also holds down in real life. "She got the part first, and I guess they thought looked light as her mother. [P] AN UNMARRIED WOMAN [BR] Donna Mills was back on TV on Sunday (May 10) in a CBS movie, In My Daughter's Name, playing a mom who seeks vengeance after a jury acquits the man who murdered her daughter. Although Mills says she doesn't believe in taking the law into ones own hands, "except in self-defense," she does identify with women who take control of their lives. "I've always been terribly independent," says Mills, 48, who has her own production company. "What influenced me the most [growing up| were the times my mother worked. She was so much happier than when she was home all day." Does Mills's fixation on independence explain her never having married? She says. "I never dreamed about bridal dresses. [P] DADDY SILLIEST [BR] Comedian Dave Coulier, star of Full House and America's Funniest People, finds a new forum in on the ABC comedy special Inside America's Totally Unsolved Lifestyles, airing next Monday (May 18). Coulier and Dave Thomas, his cowriter and costar, spoof reality shows through segments on Easily Solved Mysteries, Totally Hidden Witnesses and KNN: Kennedy News Network ("All the Kennedys, all the time"). At home when he is watching television, Coulier mostly looks at cartoons with his son Luc who is 18 months old. "We watch Sesame Street in the morning," says Coulier, 32. "We sing the songs and we play. Sometimes I think Luc's looking at me thinking, 'Boy, you must have had low SATs.' " [P]