Posted on 11/03/2002 4:05:03 AM PST by weegee
NEW YORK -- Actor Christopher Reeve knows how to get to fellow celebrities.
As consultant to the upcoming PBS series Freedom, he wanted well-known actors to provide voices for characters from American history.
But if he went through managers, publicists or agents, Reeve knew he'd get some brush-offs. So he wrote to the celebrities themselves.
He assembled an impressive list: Jennifer Aniston, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, Tom Hanks, Robert Redford, Meryl Streep, Kevin Spacey, Robin Williams and many others.
Reeve, 50, wanted to participate because his half brother, a teacher in rural Vermont, had such trouble interesting his students in history.
"The kids don't want to read, they don't want to write and sometimes, the kids, and their parents, get so upset because they have too much homework," he said Thursday.
The series' narrator, Katie Couric, said she hoped the series would encourage children and their parents to talk about history.
One of the actor voices, Susan Sarandon, had a surprise for Reeve.
At a news conference at the Rainbow Room, she said the actors had donated their $1,000 fees to the Christopher Reeve paralysis foundation. The gifts were matched by corporate sponsors, so the foundation got a $100,000 check.
Reeve has regained some movement and sensation in his hands and feet seven years after a horse-riding accident left him paralyzed from the neck down.
Since this is PBS it will be paid for in part by your tax dollars. Since the show is called "Freedom" I expect it to have some political bent. Since it deals with history, I expect it to have some revisionism.
They could surprise me on this one but I call them as I see them.
At a news conference at the Rainbow Room, she said the actors had donated their $1,000 fees to the Christopher Reeve paralysis foundation.
How generous of Susan...it just touches my heart.[/sarcasm].
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