Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, April 15, 1991                   TAG: 9104150004
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

PEOPLE

It recognizes "outstanding achievement for sustaining the Cole Porter legend and for winning new audiences to appreciation of his genius."

"This is a thrill for me," said Margaret Cole Richards, the late songwriter's cousin, who presented the large trophy. "Your music and your recordings set the standards for Cole Porter's music in the '50s."

Fitzgerald, who was in good voice through a long concert Saturday night, included a medley by Cole Porter. "Those songs never go out of date . . . ," she said. "This is a beautiful night for me, this beautiful award, being with Louis Bellson's band and my trio and my audience from home."

Director Oliver Stone says his new movie on the assassination of President Kennedy will be something like "Rashomon," a 1951 Japanese film that presents alternative views of a murder witnessed by different people.

Today he begins five weeks of filming in Dallas, site of Kennedy's 1963 assassination.

Some local officials have expressed concerns that Stone might cast Dallas in a bad light. But Stone, who has won best-director Academy Awards for "Platoon" and "Born on the Fourth of July," said his movie "doesn't point the finger at Dallas."

He has filmed parts of two other movies, "Born on the Fourth of July" and "Talk Radio," in Dallas.

Most of his opponents notice only Michael Jordan's basketball skills, but all a 6-year-old boy saw was the star's big heart.

Jordan, a member of the National Basketball Association Chicago Bulls, took time out before a game with the Detroit Pistons on Friday in Troy, Mich., to visit with Kevin Hardiman, who traveled by ambulance to see his hero. The boy has been paralyzed since he was hit by a car March 1.

"He came right down to the ambulance," said Dr. Elizabeth Contreras, one of Hardiman's physicians in the pediatric intensive care unit at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital. "I can't believe he really took the time to care for a child. It really shows he has a big heart."

Kevin and Jordan chatted for a few minutes, and Jordan signed the brim of a Bulls hat for the boy. Friday's visit with Jordan was Kevin's first trip out of the hospital.