MARK AGAINST AN ACTOR’S GOOD NAME

Mark Lindsay, hired after an “exhaustive” talent search to play John Lennon in a coming television film, has been fired by NBC and Carson Productions because it was learned that the actor’s real name had a disturbingly familiar ring to it--Mark Chapman.

Another Mark Chapman--no relation--was convicted of assassinating the former Beatle in 1980.

Due to this bizarre coincidence, the network and the production company said that they felt it was “in the best interest of the project that another actor be cast as John Lennon” in the three-hour movie, “Imagine: The Story of John and Yoko.”

No replacement for Lindsay, a virtually unknown British actor with scattered British stage and television credits, has been found so far, Michael O’Hara, a spokesman for NBC, said Wednesday, but he said both the network and Carson Productions “are looking again at this very moment.”

Production is scheduled to start July 8, but O’Hara said there might be delays if another actor isn’t found to play Lennon soon.

Kim Miyori will stay on to play Yoko Ono in the film. Miyori, a Japanese-American actress, played Dr. Wendy Armstrong on NBC’s “St. Elsewhere.”

The British press, which has been following the “Imagine” story closely since its inception, made the revelation about Lindsay’s real name in stories published over the last few days.

According to those stories, Lindsay changed his name to Chapman when he joined British Equity because another Mark Chapman already belonged to the union.

Lindsay, whose hiring was the result of what Carson Productions President John J. McMahon called “one of the most exhaustive casting searches in the history of television,” has been bricklaying with his father in England while waiting to begin production on the TV movie.