Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 25, 1995 TAG: 9511300003
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-26 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SUSAN KING LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE: HOLLYWOOD LENGTH: Medium
``I'm a sportswriter and I have always been interested in history and the connection to larger culture,'' says New York Times reporter Robert Lipstye, who created and penned the documentary. (His wife Kathy Sulkes is the series producer.) ``The most interesting way to tell the history of the century through sports was through sports figures rather than through issues or sports.''
Says Jacoba Atlas, supervising producer for Turner Original Productions, ``I think a lot of things done on sports is just hero worship. Put in a social context, `Idols' is really trying to say something about this century using sports as a vehicle for it. It is about who we are as a country and Americans as seen through the eyes of sports figures. It is not about wins and losses. I think it really does resonate for people who don't necessarily care about sports.''
The documentary is divided into three parts. Monday's ``Inventing the All-American'' examines such sports legends as Jim Thorpe, Babe Ruth, Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, Arnold Palmer and Muhammad Ali.
Tuesday's ``Babes in Boyland'' explores the differences in the sexes in the world of sports and profiles all-around athlete Babe Didrikson, tennis champions Billie Jean King and Chris Evert, boxer John L. Sullivan, Mickey Mantle and Joe Namath.
Thursday's ``Love and Money'' looks at the battle of values in sports. Shoeless Joe Jackson, Charles Barkley, Michael Jordan, Knute Rockne and Mary Lou Retton are featured.
Dabney Coleman, who portrayed a sportswriter on the ABC comedy series ``The `Slap' Maxwell Story,'' is the host and narrator of the series. He plays ``the Scribe,'' a fictional, ageless sportswriter who has seen - and written about - it all.
``Turner wasn't going to put me on the air,'' Lipstye says, laughing. ``I did want somebody to be a consistent voice who would be my voice and that's why the Scribe. I really kind of struggled with that one, but I loved the idea of a fictional character in a documentary. I think [Coleman] was wonderful.''
``The Scribe,'' Atlas adds, ``seems so intrinsic to the story because it's really Bob's voice. This more than any other documentary has such a strong point of view. It's not an overview. It's very much Bob's personality.''
Lipstye created a standard for choosing which athletes to be profiled: They all had to be major crossover figures. ``My favorite from my kidhood was Joe DiMaggio,'' he says. But, ``there was no way he could make the cut. The idea being he really didn't become any kind of a cultural icon until after baseball when he married Marilyn Monroe. Mickey Mantle, on the other hand, so quickly became a symbol, particularly a male symbol. Arnold Palmer is another example, but he has been totally overwhelmed by other golfers. Jack Nicklaus is a far, far better golfer, but certainly he has had none of the same cultural impact'' as Palmer.
by CNB