MOVIES - July 14, 1992

New Screen Duo: From one of the nation’s most powerful editors to Hollywood actor? It could only be Ben Bradlee, former executive editor of the Washington Post. Bradlee and his wife, writer Sally Quinn, have just turned in their debut screen performances in Hollywood Pictures’ remake of “Born Yesterday.” The duo play Secretary of the Navy Alex Duffee and his wife, Beatrice, opposite stars Melanie Griffith, Don Johnson and John Goodman. The couple wore their own clothes, had six lines apiece and together received $10,000 for three days’ work--cheap by Hollywood standards but pretty good as newspaper work goes. Bradlee, who retired from the Post last year at age 70, said they were motivated by the money--which will go to Children’s Hospital of Washington--and the experience. “We did it as a lark,” he said. And the downside? “I learned how to hurry up and wait. We did things over 5,000 times,” he said. In short, no second career is planned.