Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 24, 1993 TAG: 9304240402
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRAZIER MOORE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Or maybe it just seems that way.
Consider the evidence:
- Halmi's adaptation of the Jack London classic "Call of the Wild" airs Sunday night. It stars Rick Schroder as the young man who leaves home and family for adventure in the Yukon wilderness.
- Next Sunday, May 2, Halmi's "Blind Spot" is the next Hallmark Hall of Fame. Joanne Woodward portrays an ambitious congresswoman whose family is thrown into turmoil when a daughter's cocaine addiction comes to light.
- Halmi's four-hour miniseries "The Fire Next Time," a drama about the threat of global warming, aired last week.
And there's much more in the pipeline from Halmi's RHI Entertainment, which boasts some 200 motion pictures and television films to date, including "Lonesome Dove," "Mayflower Madam" and the feature "Mr. and Mrs. Bridge."
By next month "Lonesome Dove II" (with Jon Voight) will be in front of the cameras in Texas, "Sudden Fury" and "Family Secret" (with Walter Matthau) will be filming in Atlanta, and "The Black Fox Trilogy" will be in production in Spain.
And TV projects in development include a remake of the musical "Gypsy" (with Bette Midler), "My Life: The `Magic' Johnson Story" and the much-anticipated film version of "Scarlett," Alexandra Ripley's sequel to "Gone With the Wind."
Speaking with an accent that befits his birth in Hungary 68 years ago, Halmi defends his TV "Scarlett." It is not a rip-off of the world's most beloved movie, but "an eight-hour study in American history," he says.
"Some will say it's about nothing but money," he says softly, "but it's obviously not about money: Nobody in his right mind interested only in money would have paid $9 million for that stupid, bad book, which `Scarlett' was."
Maybe, maybe not. But Halmi presents himself - and convincingly - as a throwback to the old-fashioned impresarios whose films were as attuned to the bottom of the heart as to the bottom line.
"Today's producers are just money people who have X number of dollars and with them they buy people, mostly on the phone," he says. "I'm somebody with pretty good taste who goes one step further. With the creative process, everything has to be nurtured. I know on every project, every day, where it stands dollars-and-cents-wise, but I also know did someone have a cold."
A former still photographer for Life magazine, Halmi moved into moving pictures in the mid-'60s and found television a receptive venue for his product - something he takes pains to characterize as wholesome family entertainment.
"The American public is so underestimated," he sighs. "They're NOT all 10 years old and sex maniacs!"
Now with his son, Robert Halmi Jr., on the team, RHI Entertainment plays its hearty game based not in Hollywood, but in an office suite in midtown Manhattan.
The game starts early and goes late.
"You know, people are shocked in Los Angeles when they find out that we are here before eight o'clock in the morning," Halmi says. "We don't have swimming pools. We don't have power meetings. We read a lot. We maybe don't read Variety that much. We have lots of books. Every book is a potential movie."
Husky, ruddy-faced and sporting impeccably groomed white hair, Halmi is sitting cross-legged in his chair. But he seems not to stay at rest for long.
He visited the "Call of the Wild" shoot in the chilly Klondike. "It took 2 to 3 hours in 20-degree-below temperature to get to the location every day."
More recently, while scouting locations for another film in northern Kenya, he took time for some mountain-climbing. And also got a touch of malaria, which, he reports, has responded well to treatment.
"I'm rather active," Halmi sums up, with knowing understatement.
"There are two English words which I never could understand or cope with ever since I came to this country. One is `security.' The other is `retirement.' "
by CNB