100 New Yorkers of the 1970s Part 33

"I like theatre and I'm going to do more of it," said Tom, 42, during a recent dressing room interview after a matinee performance. His brother d.i.c.k, 40, had other plans. "As soon as this show is over, I have to go back to California and do some bottling for my winery. And I want to do more auto racing. I race for American Motors. As far as making a career in acting on Broadway: no. I think I could work at it and become a fairly decent actor, but while I'm making wine, I want to play in cabaret theatre and dinner theatre. It's fun, and it keeps you sharp. Broadway isn't a place you should learn. What we're doing is apprenticing on Broadway.

"But that's how we got our television show," protested Tom. "We'd never done a television show before."

In spite of the box office success of their Broadway debut, d.i.c.k cannot help feeling disappointed that, as always, he is cast as the straight man.

His character Wally is a foil to the lovable, slow-witted Alvin. "There's not a whole lot to do with Wally," said d.i.c.k, pouring me a gla.s.s of his Smothers white Riesling wine. "The fact is, everyone is pretty locked in except for Alvin. We're all dancing around him."

Tom's only complaint about the show is that it has put a strain on his health, and especially on his throat. "This is the first time I've been close to the edge of anxiety healthwise," he confided, sipping hot tea with lemon. "As soon as I arrived n New York I got tonsillitis. Now I have insomnia. Antibiotics really drain your body. I've lost 15 pounds so far.

It's a very demanding part physically."

Both brothers seemed very serious offstage, although Tom went through his full range of marvelous mug expressions as he answered the questions and posed for photos. Asked about how his current salary compares to what he has earned previously, he replied: "Broadway you do for love of the craft. The money is nothing to what you can make in film. You do it because not many actors can do theatre." d.i.c.k commented: "Some of the big stars in Las Vegas get 20 to 30 times what we're making. It's the prestige and the experience."

Tom and d.i.c.k were born on Governor's Island in New York Harbor.

Their father, an Army major, died in the Philippines near the end of World War II. Their mother then took them to the West Coast, and when Tom was 12, she gave him a guitar. "I wanted to be a bandleader first, then a comedian," he recalled. "At San Jose State, I was in a trio, and we needed a tenor. So I got d.i.c.kie to come to school." While still in college, they played their first professional engagement as the Smothers Brothers at San Francisco's Purple Onion nightclub and got four encores. Before long, Jack Paar invited them on _The Tonight Show_, and their career was a.s.sured.

One thing that is particularly touching about Tom and d.i.c.k Smothers is the great affection they have for each other. They live in separate Upper East Side apartments about a mile apart, but d.i.c.k drives Tom to the theatre each day, and they frequently socialize together.

Tom's mind is currently on a 19th-century farce, _Nothing but the Truth_, which he plans to start rehearsing this fall and hopes to eventually bring to Broadway. d.i.c.k, meanwhile, is thinking more about the jeep he recently won in a celebrity auto race. "I'm going to drive it home to Santa Cruz," he commented, with obvious satisfaction. "It has four-wheel drive, bush guards, a roll bar, and heavy off-road tires. It's perfect for Manhattan."

WESTSIDER VICTOR TEMKIN Publisher of Berkley and Jove Books

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Victor Temkin, who looks like a character out of d.i.c.kens and comes across with the gruff friendliness of television's Ed Asner, is sitting in his midtown office on Friday afternoon trying to deal with three things at once. The telephone is jangling, visitors are dropping by unannounced, and I'm throwing him questions about the publis.h.i.+ng business.

What complicates matters is that Mr. Temkin is in the process of moving his offices to another floor; has ad and his staff of 80 are packing everything into cardboard boxes, and now it's impossible to find anything.

But the short, pink-faced man with gold-framed spectacles takes it all in stride. He lights a Lucky Strike, props one hand against his chin, and explains how he got to be the head of Berkley Books, which has long been the paperback division of G.P. Putnam.

"I came to New York in 1960 as a lawyer. I became a.s.sistant U.S.

attorney in '61. I stayed there till '64," he relates in short bursts of speech. "Then I went into private practice until September of 1967, when I got into the book business. I became house counsel at Bantam Books, and worked my way up, and later became a vice president. I came here in July of 1977 as president and chief executive officer.

"Since that time, we purchased Jove Books from Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. It's another paperback house. ... Berkley does largely reprints of hardcovers, but Jove does exclusively paperback originals. Together, the two companies put out about 300 or 325 books a year. Of these, 120 are from Jove."

Berkley Books, he admits, is one of the smaller paperback houses, perhaps sixth or seventh. But the company manages to get its share of best-sellers.

At New Year's two were in the nation's top 10 -- _Mommie Dearest_ by Christina Crawford and _Nurse_ by Peggy Anderson. _Mommie Dearest_, says Temkin, "is the first time we've had a story of child abuse at that level off society, which I think is a great thing for the people to read. It isn't only poor kids that get beat up, it's the rich kids too -- just as badly."

In terms of sales and profits, he says, "There's no such thing as an average book. It depends on what you pay for the advance and what the cost of manufacturing the book is. ... I can have books sell 50,000 copies and make a profit, or I can have books sell a million copies and lose money. ... It's not hard to spend a million dollars on a book. That's easy to do. The hard thing is to find a book like _Nurse_, where you didn't pay the million for it and you can sell a million and a half. We jumped in and bought it early on, before it was a hardcover best-seller."

Berkley's hottest author at present is John Jakes, whose seven-volume Kent family saga has sold 30 million copies. Jakes' new book, _The Americans_, is scheduled to be out in February 1980. "The first printing is over three million copies," says Temkin. "We expect it to be a number one best-seller.. ... What a great success story. John has been around for many many years and he's written a lot of books but he's never had the commercial success until that came along. You can never tell in this business. That's why we're in it: You don't know what tomorrow's going to be."

Temkin, who antic.i.p.ates losing money on seven out of 10 books he publishes, does frequently travels around the country on business, and makes it a point to observe what people are reading on buses and in bookstores. "I think kids today are coming back to books. Because it's the best form of entertainment there is for the money," he says. "I read a lot.

I try to read two, three books a week. I have a rule that I don't read books by authors who are friends of mine that I am publis.h.i.+ng, because I know it will be nothing but trouble. ... I can't tell them I don't like a book, and if I tell them I do like it, they may not believe me. But I like writers. I enjoy being around them."

A native of Milwaukee, Temkin lives on the West Side with his wife Susan and their 8-year-old twins, Andrew and Peter. Susan has a busy career as a caterer who runs her own cooking school for kids.

In December, 1977, Berkley brought out a book about the Jonestown tragedy, _The Guyana Ma.s.sacre_ by Charles Krause, which was written, published and distributed in a single week. "It's instant journalism,"

Temkin explains. "We're going to do a book late in 1980 about the 1980 election, to tell how and why it happened."

He laughs when asked whether his skills as a lawyer have been helpful in his publis.h.i.+ng career. "No, I think I've forgotten most of what I know about being a lawyer. It's not the same."

WESTSIDER JOHN TESH Anchorman for WCBS Channel 2 News

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"I've had a lot of luck in my career," says John Tesh of WCBS Channel 2 News."I enjoy working hard and I know exactly what I want. Who knows, 10 years from now I may not be that way. A lot of my friends are afraid I've gone too far too fast."

During the first 18 years of his life, when he lived in Garden City, Long Island, John was a top student, a star athlete, and a fine musician. After graduating from high school he left for North Carolina to attend the state university on a soccer scholars.h.i.+p. His goal -- to become a doctor. But when John returned to the New York area in 1976 at the age of 24, it was not as a professional athlete or a physician, but as a television news reporter. Today, at 27, he is one of the most highly respected young broadcasters in New York. Throughout the week he appears regularly on Channel 2's 6 o'clock news as an on-the-scene reporter, and each Sat.u.r.day and Sunday he co-anchors both the 6 o'clock and the 11 o'clock evening news. According to Tesh, his 6 o'clock weekend show is watched by more people than any other local news program in New York.

As if this job were not enough, last September John opened his own sporting goods store, Sports Stripes, located on Columbus Avenue at 75th Street, a few blocks from his apartment. The compact, brightly decorated store specializes in running equipment and is the only place in New York City where running shoes can be resoled on the premises.

When I stop by Sports Stripes one afternoon to talk with John over lunch, the first thing I notice is his sheer size. At 6 foot and 190 pounds, he makes a commanding presence. There is command in his voice as well; it is as deep and rich as a Russian ba.s.s-baritone's. He seems extraordinarily calm, and when I comment on this, he says that "there's not as much pressure in New York as there was then I worked in North Carolina. Here you're able to concentrate solely on your reporting. There you were concerned with logistical problems -- shooting the film, developing it, editing it, selecting slides, producing the broadcast, and then anchoring it. ... But I'm not as calm as I might appear. I think people at Sports Stripes and CBS think of me as frenetic."

His entry into broadcasting was totally unplanned. Halfway through college, he got a part-time job as a copy boy at a local radio station. One day the station's two newsmen called in sick, and John was asked to fill in. Instantly bitten by the broadcast journalism "bug," he decided to trade in his premed courses for television/radio production and political science.

"When I finished college," says John in his low-keyed manner, "I had the choice of going to medical school or continuing in broadcasting, so I felt l could go either way. I decided to stay in broadcasting for a while." After working at television stations in North Carolina, Florida and Tennessee, he was offered a job at WCBS.

"I would say that most correspondents try to get to New York, because the production is a lot better here. ... I wouldn't like the anchor job without the field work," he adds thoughtfully. "I have been told that my forte is breaking news. Last year I won an Emmy for that. The same year I won an Emmy for outstanding reporting.

"Unedited, live television is what it's coming to. It's interesting, because it's come full circle. At one time, everything was live. Then for some reason it went so heavily into tape, and now it's back into live journalism.

As the public becomes better informed, so changes the news.

"When Fred Cowan was holed up in a warehouse in New Roch.e.l.le, and he had killed at least one police officer and was holding several hostages, I was in a house across the street from there. We were reporting as it was happening. There were shots fired; I didn't realize until afterwards how intense it was."

Asked about which skills are required for live journalism, John says: "I think it's being able to explain quickly and concisely the situation at hand without becoming too involved in the situation. Becoming the eyes and ears of the viewer. Being able to ad-lib is actually what it is. [Walter]

Cronkite is one of the great all-time ad-libbers."

A bachelor who lives alone, John still finds time for sports and music: "I get enough excitement out of the store and work so that when it's time to go home I like to be quiet. I have an electric piano, which I play with headsets. ... I've run two marathons here in New York. I'm too big to be a good marathon runner, but I do train hard. My ambition is to find some race to win."

John says he likes the West Side to much that "my friends have to drag me to the East Side. I do all my shopping on the West Side because I figure, why shouldn't I help out my friends who live here by shopping at their stores?" When John decided to open his own store, he called up his boyhood friend Paul Abbott to run it. The pair were cla.s.smates from grammar school through high school.

John says he hopes to eventually open his own seafood restaurant -- "on the West Side, of course. This is where I plan to live for the rest of my life."

WESTSIDER RICHARD THOMAS John-Boy teams up with Henry Fonda in _Roots II_

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Seven years ago, on Christmas Day 1972, CBS aired a holiday program t.i.tled _The Homecoming_ about a family living in Appalachia during the Great Depression. All who were involved in the project went their separate ways after the filming, including a young actor from the Upper West Side named Richard Thomas. But it drew such a favorable response that CBS decided to turn it into a series. The rest is history: _The Waltons_ became a hit and made Thomas a television superstar.

For five years he charmed his way into American homes as the beloved John Boy. Then in 1976 he decided to leave _The Waltons_ in order to concentrate on his marriage, write poetry, do stage acting, perform ballet and make movies. On February 18, in what is certain to be his most closely watched performance to date, Richard will star in the first segment of ABCs _Roots II_, playing the son of a wealthy railroad lawyer (Henry Fonda) who marries a black schoolteacher. He will appear, to a lesser extent, on the two following evenings as well, before leaving the scene as a 54-year-old man.

In an interview at the New York School of Ballet at Broadway and 83rd Street -- which is owned by his parents, Richard Thomas III and Barbara Fallis -- he talks enthusiastically about his role in Roots II. "My character is an actual historical figure," says Richard. "He had just come back from college and didn't know what he wanted out of life. ... Obviously in 1892 or 3, his marriage was considered a disaster. His wife Carrie was Alex Haley's first teacher. Her school is still in Tennessee today."

Sporting a newly grown moustache, casually dressed, and still boyish looking at 27, Richard carries an air of tremendous confidence about him.