• April 19, 1999
• Vol. 51
• No. 14

Insider

By Nancy Perry Graham

Actor Danny Glover had a tough time taping portions of Scared Straight! 20 Years Later, a followup to the 1978 Oscar-winning documentary, which he hosts April 15 on URN. In Scared Straight! producer Arnold Shapiro focused on a program at New Jersey's Railway State Prison (now the East Jersey State Prison) that tries to help troubled teens by exposing them to the harshest aspects of prison life. In the sequel, we'll learn what happened to the nine convicts and 17 teenagers featured in the first production. Glover remained upbeat while taping outdoor spots at an abandoned county jail in L.A. Then the shoot moved to a tiny jail cell. "This prison was so depressing," Glover said later. "I felt my bones aching. It's not a place that affirms life." But the program impressed him: "These men take one step outside of themselves and tell these kids, 'You don't want to go through here.' "

Exactly five years after the death of Kurt Cobain in 1994, Christie's East was preparing to auction off three signed pieces of art by the grunge rocker that had been consigned to them by Cobain's former high school art teacher Robert Hunter. A pencil-and-watercolor rendering of Michael Jackson, completed by Cobain as a student in Aberdeen, Wash., in 1983-84, carried an estimated value of $3,000-$5,000. Cobain's drawing of Ronald Reagan was expected to fetch around $3,000. But I'm told that when Kurt's mother heard about the proposed auction, she contacted Hunter and requested that the pieces be given to the Cobain family instead. Hunter obliged, and Christie's scotched the plan.

Sarah Michelle Gellar, who turns 22 on April 14, is finally going to a high school prom. She missed her own, which was held on the same night that she attended the 1995 Daytime Emmy Awards. But on the season-ender of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, her cult hit on the WB Network, she'll get her chance, decked out in a pricey gown by designer Pamela Dennis. On the same episode we'll see Buffy get married in a Vera Wang gown as part of a fantasy sequence. But when Gellar gets married, she is planning on a far simpler wedding. "The gown made me feel like a princess," says Gellar. "And I'm no princess."

The offices of Dr. John Becker, the curmudgeonly physician played by Ted Danson on Becker, are going to get seriously crowded on May 3, CBS's "crossover Monday." The fun—and CBS insists that it will be—begins on Cosby when Hilton Lucas (Bill Cosby) wanders into Becker's waiting room after his car breaks down. Next, on The King of Queens, Doug Heffernan (Kevin James) gets hit by a foul ball at a New York Mets game and ends up you know where. Then sportswriter Ray Barone (Ray Romano), who was covering the game for Newsday in Everybody Loves Raymond, comes to Becker's office to pick up Doug. Being a hypochondriac, Ray has a few questions for the doctor too. Finally, on Becker, the doctor enters his waiting room to find the trio seated side by side, with Doug and Ray gorging on lollipops.

• Contributors:
• Hugh McCarten.

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