Steiger a no-show, but press conference filled with his legacy

Lisa Ferguson

Friday, Oct. 2, 1998 | 11:40 a.m.

Rod Steiger was a no-show.

The legendary actor was scheduled to appear at a press conference Thursday to announce activities scheduled for the upcoming CineVegas Film Festival.

The four-day festival will showcase feature-length and short films, dramas, documentaries and videos by local filmmakers, producers and directors, as well as a collection of short films by UNLV students sporting such titles as "Vegas, An Essay," "Pictures of Girls" and "The Spaghetti Kid."

The "Festival of Festivals" event will be comprised of free screenings of critically acclaimed new films programmed by directors of the Singapore, Locarno, Seattle and Cannes film festivals.

Besides the premiere of a yet-to-be-named major Hollywood motion picture, casting and writing workshops, tributes and an awards presentation will also be held. Several "special screenings" will include the North American premiere of "Legacy," an action-suspense film set in Manilla, in which Steiger stars.

Production duties on another film, however, prevented the seventy-something actor from attending the press conference for the December festival. His "Legacy" co-star, David Hasselhoff, was busy on the set of his mega-hit show "Baywatch" and was also unable to attend.

But actors Corin Nemic ("Parker Lewis Can't Lose") and Doug O'Keefe ("Murder at 1600"), who also star in the film, humorously filled in for their colleagues, trading anecdotes about their time on the set with Steiger.

Nemic said it would be hard to forget working with the actor. "Especially the times we rehearsed with him in his trailer and he was in his underwear," he said. "During a break in filming, O'Keefe recalled Steiger telling him, " 'You're losin' it' " -- not his cool, but his hair.

Those who did attend and spoke briefly at the press conference, held at Bally's hotel-casino, included CineVegas' executive director Joshua Abbey; President Paul Bodner; Vice President Michelle Berk (also "Legacy's" executive producer); Clark County Commissioner Lorraine Hunt; and Nevada Film Commissioner Charles Geocaris.

"CineVegas is simply a celebration of film, the greatest art form of (this) century," Abbey said. The free admission to "Festival of Festivals" screenings, he explained, is "an effort to promote an opportunity for education about world cinema that rarely meets our shores and screens."

"We're really intending that mainstream America will be able attend a film festival of this level," Bodner said. "Most people across America don't think of going to Cannes (the influential film festival in France), don't think of going to that level of film festival."

Proceeds from some of CineVegas' screenings and events will fund scholarships at UNLV, as well as benefit the school's film studies department.