Hollywood Exclusive by Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Malcolm McDowell doesn't mind admitting that he agreed to contribute his talent and time to Warner Home Video's six-film DVD release of Stanley Kubrick's works — if the studio would also release McDowell's 1973 "O Lucky Man!" 

"'A Clockwork Orange' doesn't need my help. It is what it is," shrugs the affable British actor. "O Lucky Man!" is being released today (Oct. 23), as is the Kubrick collection that includes a documentary on the filmmaker plus "2001: A Space Odyssey," "The Shining," "Full Metal Jacket," "Eyes Wide Shut" and, of course, McDowell's landmark 1971 movie about a young sociopath who agrees to a disastrous course of being brainwashed into good behavior.

Did McDowell ever have second thoughts about making Alex, the amoral punk killer rapist at the center of "A Clockwork Orange," so charming? "God, no!" he laughs. "It's a black comedy. A rape to 'Singin' in the Rain'? Come on, that's hilarious."

Of course, that wasn't how many audiences reacted 36 years ago, when the film was met with disgust and outrage as well as raves and excitement. McDowell recalls, "When it first came out, there was not one laugh in the whole movie, and it seemed we'd totally failed. Now audiences laugh from the first second of voiceover. They're shrieking with laughter. College students keep finding it and making it their own. It's not the film that's changed — the audience has changed."

McDowell gets the documentary treatment himself as part of the "Lucky Man" DVD package. The darkly humorous tale of a young, innocent, British coffee salesman surrounded by an array of devious characters "is the kind of film that they would never in a million years make today — beautiful and very, very subversive," says McDowell. He wrote the initial treatment from his own experiences, and he stars along with Ralph Richardson, Rachel Roberts and Helen Mirren. 

HELPING HANDS: Once a homeless teen herself, multiplatinum recording artist Jewel notes that young people in such straits often go unnoticed. "Most kids just sort of blend in, and I think people think they're just looking at vagrant punks or thugs or kids that are skipping school," she says. She wants to change that. Next month is "National Homeless Youth Awareness Month" — which Jewel, spokesperson for Virgin Unite's Youth Homelessness Campaign — helped lobby to achieve. 

She recalls her days living on the streets, dispelling any misconception she was a struggling musician by choice.

"I moved out and was on my own by the time I was 15, and I was just doing what I could to get by," she says. "I'd been functioning, had jobs and things like that. … It's just the poverty cycle really caught up with me. My health declined, and I couldn't really afford rent. Then, when my rent was finally due, my boss wanted me to sleep with him and I wouldn't, so he fired me without paying me. As a result of that, I got kicked out of the place I was living in. I was singing just because it was kind of a way to make some cash, but it wasn't a ploy to try to pursue a dream or anything."

She adds that her relationship with Virgin Unite (the charitable arm of Virgin United) is twofold. "Joining forces was in exchange for them taking over and helping me with my charity," says Jewel, who founded Higher Ground for Humanity and its flagship effort, ClearWater Project, which was organized to bring safe, clean drinking water to impoverished communities worldwide.

TAKING THE REINS: "Law & Order: SVU's" Tamara Tunie took home a Tony this year for her work in producing the smash Broadway musical hit "Spring Awakening," and she says it has made her feel like there is justice in world. "The show was so deserving of everything it got that I was just incredibly pleased that everybody saw what I saw and agreed that this was really something deserving of attention," she notes of the show, which recently recouped all of its initial investments. "I think it's what musical theater should be. It's provoked thought, and it's very moving and entertaining. It is the show to see. For that to be my first Broadway production really sets the bar high for other shows that I get involved with," she adds with a laugh.

However, this won't be the first or last time you'll see Tunie behind the cameras as she recently wrapped her directorial debut on the movie "See You in September" starring Justin Kirk and Estella Warren. "If you're an actor and you've been working in front of the camera and you pay attention to what's going on behind the camera, you'd be surprised at how many skills you bring to the directing process." 

IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK: Host/comedian George Gray says his favorite part of working with HGTV's "What's with That House?" — the show that searches for some of the country's most unusual houses — is the chance to get some good dirt from the neighbors. "For every person who absolutely loves the house, there's somebody who just thinks it's horrible. To me, that's funny," notes Gray, who many remember from his days of hosting the daytime version of "The Weakest Link." "You show people talking about how innovative and wonderful the house is, and then you cut to somebody who says, 'It looks like Barney threw up!' We just die laughing."

With reports by Stephanie DuBois and Emily Feimster.

To find out more about Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith and read their past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2007 MARILYN BECK AND STACY JENEL SMITH

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