People talk 9/30/02

ZZ Top picks up tour where they left off

HOUSTON -- ZZ Top finishes what it starts.

The "little ol' band from Texas" had to drop the European leg of its world tour in 2000 when bassist Dusty Hill fell ill with Hepatitis C.

Now that Hill is better, he and his two band mates are ready to rock the continent throughout October.

"I'm living proof that Hepatitis C can be contained and that ZZ Top cannot," said the 53-year-old Hill, who sports the band's trademark long beard along with guitarist Billy F. Gibbons.

Hill, Gibbons and drummer Frank Beard boarded a Lufthansa jet Saturday. The Houston trio begins its European tour in Helsinki, Finland, on Tuesday.

"It's great that we can go out and do what we do for everybody who's been so supportive while we've been off the road," Beard said.

The 22-stop tour wraps up Nov. 1 in London.

Actor back on Broadway but in different play

NEW YORK -- Henry Goodman, the British actor fired last April as Nathan Lane's replacement in "The Producers," is coming back to Broadway.

Goodman will star as the title character in "Tartuffe," Moliere's classic comedy about a charming hypocrite who insinuates himself into the good graces of a prominent family.

The Roundabout Theatre Company production opens Jan. 9. Previews begin Dec. 6. Also starring in the revival are Brian Bedford and J. Smith-Cameron.

Goodman played the rapscallion Max Bialystock in "The Producers" for only four weeks last season before being dismissed. At the time, the show's director-choreographer, Susan Stroman, said Goodman was let go because the musical's creators "decided to pursue a different quality for the role." Goodman was replaced by Lane's understudy, Brad Oscar.

'The Rock' cast in role of Hawaiian royalty

HONOLULU -- Makers of a movie starring "The Rock," wrestling star Dwayne Johnson, want the state's permission to film a stunt at the site of a once sacred bathing area.

Producers of the Columbia Pictures film plan to send a jeep over the 30-foot waterfall at Kapena Falls into the pool below, which ancient Hawaiian royalty used for bathing.

Johnson announced in June that he would play the Hawaiian warrior king Kamehameha the Great in the movie.

-- From wire reports

, which has yet to be renamed after its original title -- "Helldorado" -- was scrapped.

Producers want to shoot the stunt early next month. Filming began on Oahu Monday.

Kamehameha ruled from 1795 until his death in 1819.

Johnson's movie credits include "The Scorpion King" and "The Mummy Returns."

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LEPANTO, Ark. -- This northeast Arkansas town will be the setting for a movie based on John Grisham's novel "A Painted House."

Filming for the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie will take place in November, said Paul Boydston of McGee Street Productions of Studio City, Calif.

Grisham, who is one of the producers, based the book on his childhood in Black Oak, about 20 miles north of Lepanto.

Set in 1952, the novel tells of a family of cotton growers as seen through the eyes of their 7-year-old son.

Boydston said the main drag in Lepanto, Greenwood Avenue, retains the ambiance of the 1950s.

"When I rolled into town, I said, 'This is the town,"' Boydston said. "I spent the next two weeks trying to prove myself wrong."

He also looked at sites in the Mississippi Delta region, including Black Oak and Holcomb, Mo.

"We're very excited about Lepanto and the way it looks," he told a crowd at city hall Thursday.