Peter Fonda to receive Spirit of Montana award

Peter Fonda to receiveSpirit of Montana award
BOZEMAN, Mont. -- Actor, director and Montana resident Peter Fonda will receive the first Gary Cooper Spirit of Montana Award, according to the fledgling film festival giving out the award.
Jeff Bridges will present the award from the HatcH Audiovisual Arts Festival, scheduled for Thursday to Sunday. Like Fonda, Bridges has a home in Montana's Paradise Valley.
Penny Ronning, the festival's chairwoman, told the Livingston Enterprise the award honors Fonda's contribution to film and the arts and his ties to Montana.
Fonda said he was honored to receive an award named for Cooper, whom he knew through his father, Henry Fonda.
"He was a great Westerner -- his bearing, everything about him," Fonda said of Cooper. "When I found out he was from Montana, I thought 'Well, that's why."'
Peter Fonda produced and co-starred in the landmark film "Easy Rider" and was nominated for an Oscar for the 1997 drama "Ulee's Gold."
'Major Dad' actor isreleased from hospital
LOS ANGELES -- "Major Dad" actor Gerald McRaney was discharged Friday from a Texas hospital after surgery to remove a small cancerous growth from his lung, his publicist said.
The actor had been hospitalized since surgery last Monday at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. He will remain in Houston for several more days before returning to his hometown of Collins, Miss., to rest, spokesman Henri Bollinger said.
McRaney, 56, experienced no complications, according to his doctor, Ara Vaporciyan, who performed the surgery. "The tumor has been removed in its entirety," he said.
The malignant growth was detected during a physical examination three weeks ago. The actor's doctor said the growth was at an early stage, Bollinger said. McRaney was a longtime smoker.
McRaney plans to return to Los Angeles by Sept. 29, when he is set to begin work on his new WB sitcom "Commando Nanny."
'Pulp Fiction' prequelstays on back burner
VENICE, Italy -- Pulp Fiction, the Prequel?
John Travolta, who played hit man Vincent Vega in director Quentin Tarantino's blood-drenched 1994 film, said Tarantino has been considering another episode of the drama.
"Every six months he calls me to talk about a project on the story of the Vega brothers -- a type of prequel to 'Pulp Fiction,"' he said in an interview, La Repubblica newspaper reported in Friday's editions. "Then, it all remains in his mind."
Travolta is in town for the Venice Film Festival to promote "A Love Song for Bobby Long," while Tarantino is a co-presenter in a retrospective of Italian B-movies.
"The problem is that we worked together in tight times," Travolta said of the collaboration. "Now he makes films for millions of dollars. I don't know if I'd still be OK for him."
Notable death
William Pierson, a raspy-voiced movie, television and stage actor perhaps best remembered for his role as Marko the Mailman in the Billy Wilder film classic "Stalag 17," died Aug. 27. He was 78. Pierson died from respiratory problems at Valley View Care Center in Newton, N.J., publicist Dale Olson said in Los Angeles.
Today's birthdays
Comedian JoAnne Worley is 67. Country singer David Allen Coe is 65. Country singer Mel McDaniel is 62. Actress Swoosie Kurtz is 60. Comedian-actress Jane Curtin is 57. Rhythm and blues musician Claydes Smith (Kool & amp; The Gang) is 56. Country singer-songwriter Buddy Miller is 52. Country musician Joe Smyth (Sawyer Brown) is 47. Actor-comedian Jeff Foxworthy is 46. Actor-comedian Michael Winslow is 44. Rock musician Perry Bamonte (The Cure) is 44. Actor Steven Eckholdt is 43. Pop musician Pal Waaktaar (a-ha) is 43. Rock musician Kevin Miller (Fuel) is 42. Country singer Mark Chesnutt is 41. Actress Rosie Perez is 40. Singer CeCe Peniston is 35. Rhythm and blues singer Darryl Anthony (Az Yet) is 35. Rock singer Dolores O'Riordan (The Cranberries) is 33. Actor Justin Whalin is 30. Rock singer Nina Persson (The Cardigans) is 30. Rapper Foxy Brown is 25.
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