THp DENVER POST Tues,, Mor. 4, 1 980 ©fffl TGd® ^Icr by CLARK SECREST Davis Takes On ‘White Mama’ Role WlfO SAYS THERE’S no work these television outing, they are teamed with days for Hollywood’s old-timers? Bette Davis, this year celebrating her 50lh anniversary in the business, will star Wednesday night (CBS and Channel 7, 8 p.m.) in “White Mama,” comic Jeff Altman, but the entire de but of this show was quite unamusing and a yawner to boot. The girls’ sing ing was OK, but their strong suit seems to be slinky sex appeal, which it the story of an almost destitute widow seems will wear very thin very quick- who takes in a homeless and illiterate ly. black street youth. Because of last- minute editing difficulties, the two- hour special was unavailable to me for pre-screening, but suffice it to say that Miss Davis accepts no substandard roles, and this show probably will be worth your time. To be sure, Miss Davis is offered all the work she’s willing to accept in Hol lywood. She regularly does two or three specials a season — shows whose scripts she finds appealing — and last season she won a well-deserved Emmy for her outstanding portrayal in “Strangers — The Story of a Mother and Daughter." i In “White Mama,” we find Miss Davis portraying a nearly penniless widow who’s too proud to go on wel fare and a bit too young for Social Se curity, attempting to keep body and soul together on a meager income. Be cause of her financial position, she finds it necessary to take in a street wise 16-year-old with a criminal record. The story involves the growing bond of trust and respect between the two, culminating in the stand he takes on her behalf when she is threatened with eviction. The role of the youth is taken by Er nest Harden Jr , a regular on “The Jeffersons.” METHINKS THAT bottom-ranked NBC, scrambling to discover some thing that people are willing to watch, again has missed the boat in coming up with “Pink Lady,” an hour-long musi cal-comedy series which premiered Saturday and which will play on five Fridays beginning March 14 It is our misfortune Pink Lady, for the unacquainted (and I should think there are legions of them), is the name of the Japanese singing duo of Mie Nemoto and Kei Masuda, and I am told they have lots of fans overseas In their American It’s not that “Pink Lady” is especial ly terrible; it’s just mediocre, and tele vision has quite enough of that already THE ROUGH EDGES, and there were plenty of them, seem to be work ing themselves out at Channel 12, our new non-profit, non-commercial televi sion outlet. The station, which went on the air in a rush 10 days ago, devoted much of its initial airtime to taking cheap shots at Channel 6, but that seems to have abated, thank goodness At the outset, it w'as obvious that the station had no live camera, no live mi crophone, no studio, no film-projecting device, a station-identification slide that appeared to be scrawled with lip stick on a piece of cardboard, and no programs. Then why go on the air’ To give the impression back in Washing ton, where Channel 12 is embroiled in legal problems, that the. station is a se rious enterprise. I don’t know what the reaction was in Washington, but around Denver Channel 12 looked like a joke. But things are improving, as they only could Though the station still ap pears to have no operable studio (ev erything originates from the mountain- top transmitter site near Idaho Springs), it now at least has a camera and microphone so somebody can tell us what we’re going to see, and the film machine seems to be working. Maybe Channel 12 has matured past the crystal-set age. After all, even though the station still offers a too- heavy dose of counterculture hippie music, can any outlet playing “The Cabinet of Dr Caligari” be all bad 7 Footnote People in parts of Boulder County, which is Channel 12’s home base, tell me they still have difficulty in seeing the station, as had been feared by engineers I’ve talked to 5 5 6 6.30—2 7.00—2