Supreme takes theatrical tour

Olympian news services

Originally published Sunday, March 17, 2002

NEW YORK -- Mary Wilson has been a Supreme. Now she's a sophisticated lady.

The former Motown star is touring the country in a version of "Sophisticated Ladies," the 1980s hit Broadway musical based on the music of jazz great Duke Ellington.

"It really is about the Cotton Club in Harlem and what was going on in the '20s and the '30s," Wilson said.

Although Wilson has toured for decades, this is her first time doing so with a play.

"It's almost like going back to school," she said. "It's a good kind of learning experience and discipline."

The play finishes its run in May, but Wilson hopes to go back on the road with it in the fall.

LOS ANGELES -- E.T., the spindly alien star of "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial," got a facelift for the movie's 20th anniversary re-release.

In the updated version of his high-grossing classic, director Steven Spielberg had more than 140 shots reworked and, in some cases, filmed again.

The upgraded version is set to premier nationwide on Friday.

Special effects artists digitally manipulated E.T. to make him more lifelike.

Even the movie's signature shot of the boy Elliot riding his flying bicycle in front of a full moon was reshot to replace a figurine used in the original with an actual child.

"What worked in 1982 doesn't quite hold up," said Bill George, who supervised the updated special effects for Industrial Light & Magic.

LONDON -- Even Alicia Keys can't win everyone's hearts.

The five-time Grammy winner's performance Friday at a building connected to Parliament has drawn the ire of one of Britain's legislators.

An invited audience of journalists and schoolchildren saw the 21-year-old Keys sing at Portcullis House in a room often used for lawmakers' committee meetings. Playing a keyboard, the singer played songs including her hit single "Fallin" and a rendition of Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly."

But opposition Liberal Democrat legislator Paul Tyler was not impressed with the performance, saying Parliament facilities had effectively been used to promote a musician's albums.

"House authorities may have unwittingly created a precedent for all sorts of commercial events. How can they now resist the Brit Awards, Miss World or the launch of a new deodorant?"

Lawmaker David Lammy, 29, asked Keys to perform there in an effort to convince his younger constituents that Parliament is "hip," not dull.

Lammy said Keys -- who grew up in a tough New York neighborhood and whose debut disc, "Songs in A Minor," was one of last year's top sellers -- could inspire youngsters from his own inner-city constituency of Tottenham in north London.

"We see, on the news, stories of black boys underachieving in schools, stories about gun violence. Alicia is obviously the opposite to that -- and so, I hope, am I," Lammy said. "Soul comes out of the neighborhood, neighborhoods just like Tottenham."

Both Lammy and Keys are black.

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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