Hitsville Goes Hollywood

By Janice Castro

Can the company once called Hitsville, U.S.A., which produced a generation of singing superstars from Stevie Wonder to the Supremes, hit it big in pictures? That question is producing a heart-thumping atmosphere at Motown Productions these days. Founder and Chairman Berry Gordy, who sold his legendary record label to MCA last June for $61 million, is now plunging his company into the equally high-risk field of movies and television. In doing so, Gordy, 59, is banking on the talents of his ace protege, Suzanne de Passe, 42, the president of Motown Productions and one of the most promising new mini-moguls in Hollywood.

TV viewers will get the chance to judge for themselves next month, when CBS broadcasts Motown's first mini-series, the eight-hour Lonesome Dove. Starring Robert Duvall, Anjelica Huston and Danny Glover, the series is based on Larry McMurtry's best-selling 1985 novel about a 19th century cattle drive. The epic will air on four consecutive nights, starting Feb. 5.

In making Lonesome Dove, de Passe rejected the TV industry wisdom that westerns no longer draw a big audience. All three major networks initially turned down the rights to produce McMurtry's 843-page prairie odyssey. Even the author warned de Passe, "You probably wouldn't like it." Intrigued, de Passe eventually snared movie and TV rights for $50,000.

A former concert-booking agent, de Passe started as Gordy's creative assistant when she was 21 and produced several hit records in her 13 years in the music division. Her masterstroke: persuading Gordy in 1968 to sign the Jackson Five, an unknown group starring nine-year-old singer Michael Jackson.

In 1980 de Passe was put in charge of Motown Productions. Under Gordy's direction, the division had scored a hit in 1972 with Lady Sings the Blues, starring Diana Ross. But some other Gordy efforts, including Mahogany and The Wiz, were box-office disappointments.

De Passe is widely credited with bringing Motown to life by expanding into TV movies and other programs. Wielding a budget that has jumped from $12 million in 1980 to $65 million this year, de Passe is picking up Motown's tempo. Among the latest productions: Bridesmaids, a TV movie scheduled to air on CBS next month, and two feature films, The Jackie Wilson Story and Heatwave a teen romance.

De Passe, who is married to actor Paul Le Mat (American Graffiti, Melvin and Howard), has had an occasionally stormy working relationship with Gordy. She describes him, only partly in jest, as a special kind of mentor, "a tormentor." Yet Gordy has given de Passe the freedom to run the company as she sees fit. Says Gordy: "If somebody had asked me a year ago, I would never have guessed we were going to do a western." Now that de Passe has reached near the top of Hollywood's mostly white, mostly male elite, she maintains that she has no yen to jump to a major studio. Says she: "There really isn't anything out there that I am interested in. I was planted in a garden that allowed me to grow."

With reporting by Karen Bates/Los Angeles and Naushad S. Mehta/New York