Monday, June 15, 1981

BOB THOMAS

Hollywood CA -- BY BOB THOMAS HOLLYWOOD (AP) - The era when studios were wary of casting television stars in feature movies seems to be over, Lindsay Wagner is happy to note.

''You only have to look at the names in movies today. Mary Tyler Moore, Alan Alda, Carol Burnett, et cetera - to see that the old prejudices no longer exist,'' Miss Wagner says. ''The business is changing and television is where the power is. Television names are easily recognizable to theatre audiences. Television names can assure a good sale (of the movie) to the networks. And eventually the movie ends up on video-cassettes and cable, so it all amounts to home entertainment.'' As a result of her 2 1/2 seasons as The Bionic Woman, Miss Wagner is in demand for features. Two now are at theatres: Nighthawks and High Risk.

In Nighthawks, a thriller about international terrorism, she plays Sylvester Stallone's estranged wife. Some critics complained they saw too little of her. ''I have the same complaint,'' she says wryly. ''Sly (Stallone) and I had some powerful scenes together. But the picture was too long, and they wanted to keep the action moving. So our scenes together were cut. I was sorry because I liked showing the emotion.'' In High Risk, she plays the wacky accomplice of four adventurers (James Brolin, Bruce Davison, Cleavon Little, Chick Vennera) aiming to snatch $5- million in ill-gotten cash from a drug dealer (James Coburn) in Colombia. The movie also stars Ernest Borgnine as a gun-runner and Anthony Quinn as a jungle bandit. ''Stewart (Raffill, writer-director) wrote a very spare script and we took it from there,'' Miss Wagner says. ''All of us worked on our characters to bring out the humor of human beings in real situations. All of the characters are rich, especially Bruce Davison, who does a wonderful job. And Anthony Quinn deserves an Academy nomination, but I don't suppose he'll get it." High Risk was filmed in Mexico, where Miss Wagner learned the power of television. ''One of our locations was in a tiny village near the border of Nicaragua,'' she recalls. ''It's near some very famous ruins, and about as remote as you can get. On the day I arrived, I stepped out of the car and people started shouting, 'Mujer Bionica]' "I couldn't imagine how they could recognize me. Then I looked around and saw television antennas on all the houses. I hadn't noticed them before.''