Word: charming
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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FRANK'S PLACE (CBS). Tim Reid stars as a transplanted college professor running a New Orleans version of Rick's Cafe. No big laughs, but a stewful of colorful characters and laid-back charm...
That exchange was typical of the Gorbachev style, a remarkably Western mix of charm and sermonizing. The effect was apparent during the December summit with Ronald Reagan. Alternately jovial and argumentative, combining sharp intelligence with a homey touch and playing to the camera in the most effective way -- by seeming to ignore it -- he came across as a Kremlin version of the Great Communicator. Add an attractive, strong-willed wife, and the picture of an American-style politician is complete...
Raisa's campaign appearances revealed a convergence of the Gorbachev style: each talking but rarely listening, each lecturing and posturing, while gushing charm. "This is the first person I've ever met who talks more than I do," marveled Barbara Mikulski after her encounter with Raisa. So what's new in politics...
...gentlewoman trying to maintain moral equilibrium while on the skids. But Streep's role is small. Nicholson must carry the film, and it is no fair burden. In one or two other films, this sexy, daredevil performer has renounced his star quality, tamped his radiance, sat on his capacious charm, as if this were a higher form of acting. It is not. Pudgy and hollow-eyed, Nicholson gives the viewer no reason to follow Francis into the cemetery of all souls. But the actor is to be blamed only in believing that this role, robbed of its festering spiritual vitality...
Gorbachev had another interlocutor: the American people. From his Monday afternoon arrival at Washington's Andrews Air Force Base to his rainy Thursday night departure, the General Secretary seemed to be leading a full-court media blitz. He unfailingly turned on the charm in his public appearances, such as Tuesday night's state dinner at the White House, where he and Wife Raisa joined Pianist Van Cliburn in singing Moscow Nights. Later in the week he stopped his motorcade on Connecticut Avenue to hop out and press the flesh with passersby. Gushed one thrilled bystander: "It was like the coming...