In a rather ailing mood Friday night, I sat around at home-whi- ch can be a very dangerous thing to do if you're not ued to such a traumatic experience. So, grabbing the TV Guide and curling up with an appropriate beverage for the occasion, I flicked on the television set. By some quirk of fate, it just happened to be 7:30 p.m., and NBC by the same quirk, the television dial had been left on an station. So, when the picture cleared I found myself looking at an animated figure of a snake growing heads right and left. Now, I don't know if this is a reflection of my personality or what, but tor some reason this captured my fancy. 1 OPENING the TV Guide I saw that the program was an NBC World Premiere Movie called "Ellery Queen: Don't Look Behind You," a pilot for a possible Ellery Queen series next fall. As you "In can guess, the show was a mystery-thrille- r. The animated snake, it seems, only took the screen after its u human counterpart in the show-call- ed Hydra-h- ad committed a (I murder. Each hea thus signified a murder. Some quick background on the show finds English mystery writer, criminologist, and amateur sleuth Ellery Queen (Peter v;. in New York by hook and by crook, he is A Lawford) City. There, convinced he should help his aged American uncle (Harry Morgan), an Inspector for NYPD, find the Hydra, who has strangled five people to date (males with blue cords, females with . on in a Fillmore pink). After Ellery enters the case, the murderer wipes out two "King of Rock and Roll". .Chuck Berry turns the audience more people. style concert Friday night at Pershing Municipal Auditorium. TO MAKE a long story short, after much clever deduction and a certain amount of good luck, the Hydra is captured and found a to be the mentally mixed-u- p wife of Oates-Hollywood- t. victims were all 's gynecologist-turned-psychiatris- The new antihero delivered. . her husband had And if did well he it?-W- ell, was Martin Kasindorf you that you restaurant and eventually Sounds exciting doesn't the strange thing is, it by overall the show Newsweek Feature Service got to be the second heavy." started getting small roles on exciting. True, there were some bad parts, but In the antihero Oates brought to the parts TV. was well handled. unromantic, an st impassive frontiersman kind When TV E G Marshal as the gynecologist-turned-psychiatn- and movies of the past decade, production of face (a shifted to in Lawford and were all good. Minor characters Sergeant character, roles have proved to long jaw, horsy Hollywood 1957, Morgan sun-crinkl- ed eyes)-a- nd a headed west. Within Velie and a TV interviewer (Bob Hastings) also be the surest ticket to stardom. teeth, Oates (Bill Zuckert) even he The has Lee Kentucky twang they three weeks he had a job-t- turned in pleasing performances. process produced marvel at in Louisville. He also I MEAN sound like a male chauvinist, but it was the Jack on DONT to Marvin, George Kennedy, of dedication to horseback-an-fourth heavy were Stefanie Powers Nicholson now Warren brought years d he has been female characterizations that disappointing. and his craft earned him a Lawford was She just can t Oates. that working steadily ever since. as the romantic lead for really poor. as an actor's actor from of The Girl from U.N.C.L.t. of a Warren Oates? The face is reputation Oates' transition seem to shake the stigma a first came seasons as well it to be and, eventually, $150,000 fourth to heavy (blessed) many ago. familiar, ought when his TV work the as the is not given much exposure in after some 14 under a year. caught Coleen Gray, Hydra, years They didn't bring him fame, of Sam who v which to a character until the end of the show. As a Stetson on television and eye Peckinpah develop though, or any of the roles he signed him for his acclaimed result she seems to be made of cardboard. movje screens. And the name wanted. "I was winners in the show are the writers and the he was christened with back in really always Ride the High Country, Major THE REAL script cast as a or a Dundee and The Wild Bunch. men The writers wrote one of the best 42 ago soom hillbilly rowdy camera script Kentucky years cowboy," Oates says of those in ve on television in a His These films, turn, mystery-suspense-detecti- scripts to appear will be familiar, too. of be because the as a years. "Most sophisticated attracted the attention long time. However, this may partly explained brilliant performance and directors are not was from a 1949 Ellery Queen noval "Cat of Many motorist in producers Hollywood's talented script adapted wandering interested in that idiom. producer-director- s were for some fine Two-Lan- e and his They shoestring Tails." The camera men responsible extremely Blacktop a feverish of New York as Peter don't notice anybody in that and he kept up location photography City. memorable role work. beneath schedule the Oates in with some "cuteish" but if the Fonda's sidekick in Hired Hand kind of It's putting Lawford did come off dialogue, 'em." oatcrs. writers watch this and keep the intricate, detailed plot and have assured that. script Two-Lan- e has "Three he notes. location for the show, there is Blacktop years ago," the excellent photography working "The character man has the and "I did five films back to back." reason to believe could be an show to changed all of that every Ellery Queen exciting conflicts which carry the are about He into brawls on location watch fall. directors talking got next significant part of the drama," Oates as a new "which started at precisely man Humphrey Oates explains, "so the Bogart. In the movie, he drives 9:30 on Saturday night." He who it well is to i'&'houns a plays going an orange car across the had a house with a day f move But the sports big tte on." moving, up hitchhikers swimming pool-a- nd a broken was slow. country, picking ! until this year, and creating a new fantasy marriage. "It took me about lTdaysaweek megt "I started playing the fourth character for himself to fit his nine months," he says, "to on horse-t- he heavy back the jstimatc of what each rider figure out that was nowhere." was nutty son who quiet and vants to hear. cam Two-Lan- e lWdh coffee would Then brooding and suddenly Reviewers have called it the and Hired Hand and, Oates of his Blacktop explode," says performance of his career, and best of all, Peter Fonda's 5121 "O" STREET : roles in the Have Gun, Will some have the recent offer to let him direct a a batch Z Travel and Burke TV suggested o9 They making Stoney character of GTO is not unlike picture to be called The Land -- series. if right now! -g, 1t z "Ot course, you got Oates himself. of the Prickly Pear. the chance to explode and had For Oates's hours "I'm not satisfied with had a happiest just good motivations, you are around the Oates said Dovua ; shot at the third spent driving acting now," (a) being heavy. Southwest in a camper built on recently at the (smaller tiny a Chevy truck frame with a than the swimming pool) pool 254-horsepow- er engine. house in Laurel Canyon he There's beer in an ice chest, a shares with Vickery. "I want to horned cow's skull on the direct. I want to construct BREAKFAST dashboard and Bach playing on films that cover lengths of cassettes. Vickery, his blonde time, that would make you second wife of a few years, and understand a period of history his children (Jennifer, 10, and as you understand a man's Tammy, 7) usually are along. life." 79 But GTO, Oates, insits, is an Success is still a matter of immoral character, while his wonderment. "Vickery and I," -- own strong personal morality is he smiles, "we talk about all k Eggs "still influenced by the this, and the thing I keep Southern Baptism of my saying is, 'Woohh!' " Bacon or boyhood." Sausage Oates was born in Depoy, Ky., a coal-fiel- d town, and Buttermilk or toast spent his adolescence in pancakes Louisville. From high school, Now Posters he drifted into the Marines and after his entered the 1 discharge 7-- 1 a.m. University of Louisville. There, Marvelous he got involved in student drama, playing (what else?) a New Every Monday thru Friday hillbilly moonshiner. "Acting," he recalls, "gave Display We'll be closed on Thanksgiving me some identity." He left Thelirternational college in 1954, sold his car at the and went to New York to take House of Pancake NEBRASKA 1135 15th K 'Q' Streets acting lessons. To support Q3s himself, he got a job as a BOOKSTORE 'R'ST. coat-check- er at the "21" PAGE 6 THE DAILY UEBRASKAN MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1971