CONFESSIONS OF A FILM FOX

Neil Diamond has been offered, the lead in Death At An Early Age, based on Jonathan Kozoi's book about his experiences teaching in a Boston slum ... Rod Steiger's been approached for the role of Chief Nazi, Martin Bormann by Paramount. Title's The Aftermath of the Fourth Reich. Here's hoping Steiger won't disappear, too ... Rod's former wife, Claire Bloom is currently starring in A Dolt's House... Another movie version of A Doll's House, shooting in Roeros, Norway, stars Jane Fonda, who announced plans to marry SDS founder and Chicago Seven conspirator, Tom Hayden ... The Burton-Taylor team are busy shooting Dylan Thomas" Under Milk Wood and Divorce His - Divorce Hers. While in Italy, Liz had to hire bodyguards to protect herself from threatening Arab terrorists ... Marlon Brando has upped his salary to $500,000 plus 10% of the gross for The Godfather II in order to invest in a lobster farming venture ... A1 Pacino (who's definitely gonna be in the Godfather sequel) has been busy filming The Scarecrow and Serpico (written by Peter Maas, author of The Valachi Papers) and seeing Tuesday Weld, whom he broke up with his longtime girlfriend for ... Country-western singer Charlie Pride is featured on the soundtrack album of UA's Tom Sawyer ... Warner Brothers is preparing a full-length documentary and soundtrack on Jimi Hendrix ... Charlie Chaplin is making movies again. The latest, The Freak, stars his daughters, Josephine and Victoria. It starts shooting in London shortly . . Rudolph Nureyev is the lead in Don Quixote, a ballet film on location in Australia ... Yvette Mimieux, filiming The Neptune Factor with Ben Gazzara and Ernest Borgnine, in Toronto, snuck away from the set to fly off and marry director Stanley Donen ... Raquel Welch had her nightclub debut in Vegas, with the Kroffts puppets joining in on the act. Her set includes five songs frdm her movies, among other material. She appears alongside a 12-foot dinosaur, 36 Rockettes and a Frankenstein puppet... The Cin-A-Rock show is touring the country, merging rock and movies. Dr. John and Wet Willie appeared in Atlanta to a sell-out crowd along with Free, the Randall's Island Festival movie... Popcorn, the most popular movie munchie, is also big with the American Dental Association, who recommend it for health reasons — low in calories, high in protein, and good for teeth. However, the Krafto Corp. is being sued by several theatre owners for $5,000,000 for selling artificial buttered popcorn ... The stars of Lady Sings the Blues, Billy Dee Williams, Richard Pryor and Paul Hampton have joined forces again, to shoot Hit... Pryor has also written a comedy-western with Mel Brooks, called Black Bart... Clint Eastwood, directing High Plains Drifter and Breezy, will soon star in the Dirty Harry sequel (Son of Dirty Harry?) ... Bob Dylan will definitely be a member of Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid gang, along with Kris Kristofferson (Billy) and new Atlantic country star, Willie Nelson. Dylan may do the soundtrack, too, with or without Kris and Willie ... The Hobbitt and Siddhartha, more nuggets from the golden age of psychedelia, are in progress as movies . -. Bob Evans, vice-prez of Paramount pictures, separated from his wife Ali McGraw (who left him for Steve McQueen, her leading man in Peckinpah's The Getaway), is producing Law and Order. The script was written by NYC policewoman Dorothy Uhnak, and chronicles an Irish-American family's involvement in the police department. .. Model Cybil Shepard, best known for her role in The Last Picture Show and director Peter Bogdonovich's life, is starring in The Heartbreak Kid. Bruce Jay Friedman's script is supposed to be superb ... Bestseller The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, is "soon to be a major motion picture," starring Burt Reynolds. The search goes on for the leading lady. Stay turned next month for that news and other crazed memos. ★