Lately it seems there is often more to Miss America winners than initially meets the eye. Now it appears that the newest Miss America, Susan Akin, 21, crowned last month, has a bit of family history that pageant sponsors haven't gone out of their way to publicize. In 1964 Susan's father, Earl Akin, then 32, and grandfather, Bernard Lee Akin, then 50, were among 21 men arrested in connection with the murder of three civil rights workers near Philadelphia, Miss., one of the most notorious crimes of the era. In a case fraught with controversy, charges against most of the group, including both Akins, were dismissed. Susan, through a spokesman, declined to be interviewed about that period. Her mother, Dorothy Little, who was divorced from Earl Akin almost a decade ago, notes that "Susan went through all this before when she won Miss Mississippi, and I'm sure she'd say the same thing now that she said then: That happened 20 years ago, and I refuse to believe the public would hold me responsible for something that happened that long ago.' "
Some dancers in the movie A Chorus Line find it amusing that on the cover of the film's souvenir 1986 calendar, actress Audrey Landers is very much out of step. For her part, Landers, who plays Val, says that she had trouble because she joined the cast four weeks after filming began. "I dance a lot in my Vegas act, but dancing in the movie was a tremendous challenge," she says. "I practiced day and night to catch ¦up. Sometimes I went home crying." Director Richard Attenborough offered her a dancing double. "That," says Landers, "made the hair on my neck stand up. I used no doubles!"
Debra Winger, who hasn't made a movie in two years, is considering a lead role in a film titled Black Widow. Winger would portray an investigator tracking down a woman who murders her rich husbands. The producers are talking to Meryl Streep about playing the killer....
Motown's famed songwriting trio—(Brian) Holland, (Lamont) Dozier and (Eddie) Holland—are scoring the new Broadway rock adaptation of Oliver Twist. The three are responsible for such Supremes classics as Baby Love and Stop! In the Name of Love....
Dee Wallace, known for her maternal roles in such films as E.T. and Cujo, will be cast against type in a Polish movie, White Dragon, co-starring Christopher {Back to the Future) Lloyd, in which Wallace plays an evil gypsy with an Eastern European accent. "I'm going to have so much fun," says Wallace. "I get to play a bitch. I'll have black hair. And I won't be anyone's mother!"
Michael Dudikoff, star of American Ninja, has landed the part of Lt. Rudy Bodford in ABC's 12-hour mini-series North and South, Book II. Dudikoff was scheduled to film The Delta Force, now shooting in Israel with Lee Marvin and Chuck Norris. But one insider suggests that Norris had Dudikoff bounced from that film. Wonder if it was because Norris' son, Mike, lost the lead role in American Ninja to Dudikoff?
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