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Autopsies Performed on Young Girls Found Murdered near Chicago; Police Fire on SUV After Chase; Atlanta Serial Murder Cases Reopened; Broadway Legend Discusses New One-Woman Show

Aired May 09, 2005 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CO-HOST: President Bush in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. The greeting was festive for the fourth and final stop of Mr. Bush's five-day trip. Tomorrow, in the capital city of Tbilisi, Mr. Bush will deliver a speech focusing on democracy and freedom.
MILES O'BRIEN, CO-HOST: Well, one girl was eight, the other nine. They were friends. They went to Beulah Park Elementary in Zion, Illinois, near the Wisconsin border. And less than a day ago, they were the subjects of an all-out search by Zion police. Today their killer is.

CNN's Keith Oppenheim is following this heartrending story from Chicago -- Keith.

KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon, Miles.

Minutes ago I got off the phone with Dr. Richard Keller, the Lake County coroner, and he confirmed that these two missing girls were the same girls who had been reported missing in the city of Zion on Sunday night.

The bodies of these two young girls were found early this morning in a city park in Zion, which is about 40 miles north of Chicago near the Wisconsin border.

Dr. Keller said one of the girls, as you said, Miles, 8 years old, the other 9. They're friends and their identities will be made known later this afternoon at a press conference at the Zion Police Department.

The bodies of these two young girls are undergoing an autopsy right now. Dr. Keller would not give specifics on the nature of the injuries or possible cause of death. He only said to me and I'm quoting, "There were obvious injuries to these young ladies." I asked if he believed whether there had been any sexual assault. He said no signs of that at this point, but the autopsy will tell more.

In terms of a suspect, the coroner had no information yet on any physical evidence but that the police are looking for a murder weapon at this time.

Again, at 5 Eastern Time, 4 p.m. local, there will be a news conference, Miles, at the city of Zion Police Department, and that should give more details, as they have been coming out this afternoon. Back to you.

O'BRIEN: All right. Keith Oppenheim in Chicago, thank you very much -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: A rap sheet yes, drunk or high, maybe, armed, apparently not. And if you were with us last hour, you heard the L.A. County sheriff talk about the driver on whom deputies opened fire after a chase overnight in Compton, California.

CNN's Peter Viles has all the new information now. Peter, a lot of questions answered.

PETER VILES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A lot of question, not many answers at this point, Kyra.

First, let's go back to the chase and the shooting itself. A very brief chase, maybe 10 or 12 minutes, not always a high-speed chase. Sheriff's deputies cornered this guy in an SUV in this residential neighborhood and then on videotape, which we have, the shots broke out. Here's what the way it looked like.

Big question is why did they start shooting? We do know now that 10 different deputies fired on this man. We do know now that he was not armed, according to the sheriff. The question is why did the shooting start? The sheriff, as you said, had a press conference just this past hour. Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERIFF LEE BACA, LOS ANGELES COUNTY: I have no idea one way or the other as to why and what the officers were thinking at the time. Suffice to say, there is an intensity level. There is a suspect who is leading them on a chase.

And then the suspect circles back to the origin of when that suspect was first encountered by the deputies, and there's an intensity level that leads to what decisions subsequently will be made by deputies. That's the key piece of information.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VILES: A little bit of background here, Kyra. This man driving this car was behaving strangely, if you consider driving around the same neighborhood for four hours behaving strangely and refusing to pull over when several deputies' cruisers were chasing him. I counted four or five chasing him in the videotape around the neighborhood.

So he was behaving strangely. The police on this in Los Angeles County is a deputy shoots on a moving vehicle if that vehicle is putting someone's life in danger, either through the use of the vehicle or perhaps the person in the vehicle is armed.

But we do know now that he was not armed. That's not to say the deputies didn't believe at the time that he was armed. Remember, one other piece of information. They came to this neighborhood about midnight last night, responding to reports of gunshots involving a white sport utility vehicle. So they had some reason to believe, perhaps, that the man driving the vehicle was armed -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Peter, those 10 deputies, will they now be suspended while the investigation continues or are they still on duty?

VILES: As far as we know they're still on duty. There will be three big pieces of this information. They'll interview everyone on scene, including those 10 deputies. They'll survey the scene physically for evidence, which they've already done this morning. We saw them mark and pick up close to 100 pieces of physical evidence here.

Third thing they'll look at is the videotape. It tells you exactly the sequence of the gun fire. The gunfire as we measured it takes about 16 seconds -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Peter Viles, thank you -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Let's flash back 25 years. African-American parents here in Atlanta terrified to let their children go outside because of a wave of child murders. And now those killings are getting some new attention because of the doubts of one local police chief.

Sarah Dorsey reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARAH DORSEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For three years, starting in 1979, the city of Atlanta and gradually the rest of the nation watched with horror as 29 African-Americans, mostly boys and young men, disappeared and turned up dead.

In 1981, an emotional sigh of relief nationwide, as this man, Wayne Williams, was arrested. He was eventually convicted of two murders, and sentenced to two consecutive life terms. Most of the evidence against Williams, circumstantial, based on fiber analysis of a carpet material called Wellman 181-b.

Williams has always maintained his innocence. Since his conviction, controversy has surfaced over the very evidence that put him behind bars.

Louis Graham agrees. He was the assistant police chief in Fulton County, Georgia, at the time, and part of the missing and murder task force.

CHIEF LOUIS GRAHAM, DEKALB COUNTY, GEORGIA, POLICE: I don't think Wayne Williams is responsible for anything.

DORSEY: Today Graham is police chief in adjacent DeKalb County, where four of the victims lived. Their cases were shelved when Williams went to jail. Now that he's in charge, chief Graham is reopening those cold cases, armed with technology not available 25 years ago, seeking answers in the deaths of Patrick Baltazar, Curtis Walker, Joseph Bell and William Barrett. GRAHAM: If we can solve one case, if we can, then I'm satisfied with that, but at this point, they are just too many open questions.

DORSEY: Old wounds reopened, a two decades old high-profile case about to be put back under the microscope.

Sarah Dorsey, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: News across America now.

A deadly school bus accident in Missouri to tell you about. Investigators want to know why a bus packed with elementary school students slammed into two vehicles at an intersection in Liberty. The drivers in the cars were killed. Twenty-three children were hurt.

The search ends for two missing sailors off of Virginia. One sailor was rescued by a merchant ship, the other found dead. The Coast Guard says the two abandoned ship for a life raft after they ran into bad weather on the way from Connecticut to Bermuda.

A small North Carolina church is trying to woo back nine congregants who say they were kicked out because of the politics. The pastor at the East Waynesville Baptist Church welcomed the nine, and some of their lawyers, at services yesterday. One of the ousted members says he was told supporting John Kerry meant he was supporting abortion and homosexuality. The reverend calls it a great misunderstanding.

We will check the markets next. Then things get a little crazy around here

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATTI LUPONE, BROADWAY PERFORMER: (singing)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Patti Lupone, looking good. A Broadway legend here in the house. Maybe she'll even give us a little something. Maybe sing for us live. Patti Lupone, coming up next.

ANNOUNCER: You're watching LIVE FROM on CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: All right, take heart. Gas prices are down some more, and the smart money says it will probably drop some more still. The Lundberg survey finds the average pump price down three more cents in two week, $2.21 a gallon for self-serve regular now. That's a 7.5 cent drop in a month for those of you keeping score at home. Survey publisher Trilby Lundberg credits improving crude oil and gas supplies. She expects the trend to continue. PHILLIPS: Well, it could be I-85, Highway 101, or the mixing bowl. It doesn't matter. Traffic gridlock is getting worse across the nation. And that's according to a Texas Transportation Institute report.

It finds there were almost four billion hours of travel delay in 2003. Also, almost 2.5 billion gallons of foil wasted. So in which cities are drivers wasting the most time? Los Angeles tops the list with 93 hours of delay a year. San Francisco is second with 72. Washington drivers are wasting more than 69 hours, and here in Atlanta, 67. Houston comes in at 63 hours.

O'BRIEN: Think of all the things you could be doing in that time.

PHILLIPS: Well, the folks in Detroit might be seeing a bigger bill for their Big Mac.

O'BRIEN: Susan Lisovicz, joining us now with details on something to add to the special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions.

(STOCK REPORT)

O'BRIEN: Thank you, Susan. Appreciate that.

Can we call our next guest a living legend? And when you start doing that, do they get a little uncomfortable?

PHILLIPS: No way. I think we can. She's a bigger name than, say, Miles O'Brien.

O'BRIEN: That goes without saying.

PHILLIPS: Check this out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LUPONE (singing): Lying in my bed, I hear the clock tick and think of you caught up in circles. Confusion is nothing new

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: I know, I like it much better than Cyndi Lauper, I've got to be honest. "Time After Time" she's been a hit on the Great White Way, TV, even the movies. You know her, you love her, the amazing superstar Patti Lupone, next on LIVE FROM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: All right. Wow. A household name since she won the Tony for "Evita," Patti Lupone has been a Broadway star for more years than any of us even want to count. Am I allowed to say that?

She's here in Atlanta, starring in her own one woman show, "Matters of the Heart" over at the great Fox Theater. It is so great to have you with us.

LUPONE: Thank you. I'm very impressed.

PHILLIPS: You like the place?

LUPONE: I do.

PHILLIPS: I was excited about you being here.

LUPONE: Thank you, but this is big time for me.

PHILLIPS: This is big time for us. Let's talk about "Matters of the Heart."

LUPONE: Yes, it's a show they -- I started doing one woman shows while I was doing "Evita," because people saw this sort of blond fascist tap dancer, and my applause used to dip after Mandy Patinkin's. Mandy was Che, and I was Evita. And I was going, as I was bowing, I was saying, "I was so good in the role, they don't know what to make of me."

Then I said, "You know what? They need to see who I am. I have brown hair. I'm funny." And so I started doing one woman shows, and they're very satisfying for -- for an actor. They taught me more, actually, about how to deliver a song to an audience than my time at Juilliard did.

PHILLIPS: Well, it's a lot -- sort of like we do. It's storytelling. It's telling...

LUPONE: There's an act.

PHILLIPS: Right, exactly. So it's all about your sense of humor and your mannerisms and your voice and who you are.

LUPONE: Who you are as a person.

And you deliver -- when you're delivering a character such as Evita or Rita Sweeney or any of the, you know, straight characters that I've played, there is -- the person is hiding behind the mask or is behind that mask of that character.

This is, I really have to engage in an audience. I really have to look an audience in the eye. You know, I look an audience member in the eye. I have to command the stage when I go out there as me, as Patti. And it's a lesson. It's a big acting lesson, and it's great to -- to have that communication with the audience. It's great. I love the audience.

PHILLIPS: And you had music in your home since you were a little girl.

LUPONE: Yes.

PHILLIPS: Mom and Dad always had various types of music going, right? LUPONE: Mom had opera, and Dad had jazz. And of course, when I was grew up I was listening to transistor AM radios and sort of...

PHILLIPS: So did I, doing the paper route.

LUPONE: The beginning of rock 'n' roll. So you know, I remember seeing Elvis on "Ed Sullivan" with the hound dog on a pedestal on a black and white TV screen.

PHILLIPS: Wow. So did you just start singing along and Mom and Dad thought, "Wow, she's got a gift. Something -- there's something here"?

LUPONE: They didn't -- my dad didn't want either my brother or I to go into show business. He wanted us to be teachers. He was the principal of an elementary school. And my mother was a -- a housewife, a homemaker. She -- I think the talent was a surprise to them both.

PHILLIPS: Wow.

LUPONE: But I knew -- she would always -- when I was four, I would do -- I was doing Marilyn Monroe imitations. And she'd say, "Patti Ann, come here. Do your Marilyn Monroe imitation." And I would.

PHILLIPS: Well, let me have a little something.

LUPONE: Gosh, it was sort of like. And I was doing -- I was 4!

PHILLIPS: That was pretty sexy, wow!

LUPONE: And I remember Marilyn did that and other thing off the shoulder was she never had that many clothes on, but she had clothes on.

And I knew I could sing. I knew when I was a kid that I could sing. And so I just -- I got bit by show business when I was f4 years old, and I never turned, never stopped.

And there was nothing my mother could do. My mom and dad got divorced, so Dad was out of picture. And there was nothing my mom could do except support my brother's and my drive or, you know, this acknowledgement at a young age.

And we -- neither of us have ever, you know, gone -- everybody in show business has gone was this the right decision? It's a grueling, difficult, heartbreaking, ecstatic profession but -- but...

PHILLIPS: It becomes addictive.

LUPONE: It's something...

PHILLIPS: It's like the news business, too. It can be so cruel, but it can be so fulfilling.

LUPONE: Yes. Yes, exactly. And if it's something you've chosen to do, then you take the good with the bad.

PHILLIPS: So of course, I want to ask you, what is -- what has been, maybe, the most memorable moment in your career. And I love this quote that I read, so I'm not going ask you about that. But I am going to ask you about this quote.

"I've never had a specific preference for anything. I don't have a favorite food or color. I don't have a favorite part. I do have wanderlust with a passion."

LUPONE: Yes. Yes.

PHILLIPS: Tell me what you mean by that?

LUPONE: I would travel, if I could, if I could afford it, and if -- that's what I would have done with my life, just travel the world. I think Earth is a spectacularly beautiful place. I think every county is equally as beautiful as the next. And I think the people of the world, we're all the same person. We are all the same person.

We were in Burma. We were in Myanmar. And my nanny -- my husband didn't want to venture out, and of course, my son was quite young. And my nanny and I went let's go out into the -- into -- OK, so what was the name? It's Rangoon now. So what was the name of it?

PHILLIPS: Right, when you were traveling.

LUPONE: And so we went out into the night with, of course, a guide, and a Burmese man grabbed us and spoke very little English at all but pointed out a Baptist church in Rangoon to show to these westerners that they had Christianity there.

And it was a pure communication with -- he just wanted to make contact with us. They would grab my son out of my arms and just hold him.

PHILLIPS: Wow.

LUPONE: So I think we are all the same person. Of course, we won't talk about the war, but we're all the same person. We all have different cultures, but to travel and to experience that, it only makes one a better person.

PHILLIPS: It's a tremendous gift to be diverse.

LUPONE: Yes.

PHILLIPS: And you talk about you've loved being a mom, a wife, an actor, a musician, a chicken farmer. I don't think we know this part about you?

LUPONE: Yes, chickens. Yes, we had -- the flock got quite big because my husband wouldn't cull the flock. So we had lots of chickens and we had guinea fowl, which ate the ticks, because we live in Connecticut. So we have Lyme's Disease.

PHILLIPS: Oh, boy. Got to have something to eat the ticks.

LUPONE: Guinea fowl, by the way, if anybody is interested.

PHILLIPS: If anybody wants to know.

Well, of course, my favorite, I know you can't say you have a favorite, but "Evita." So as we go, I want to plug "Matters of the Heart," of course, and I want everyone to come see you as you travel.

LUPONE: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: So give us -- give us a little "Don't Cry for Me."

LUPONE: Or how about "What's New Buenos Aires"?

PHILLIPS: That's even better.

LUPONE: "Just get a little stuck on you. You'd be on me, too." OK, how's that?

PHILLIPS: I love it. What do you think, Miles?

O'BRIEN: You know, it's hard to get you out of your shell, isn't it? It really is.

PHILLIPS: She's very introverted. She's low key. I was nervous about this interview, because I was afraid she wouldn't have anything to say.

O'BRIEN: She was serenading the entire newsroom today. It's rare (ph) when you get that. And now we know for sure she is a good egg. She's a chicken farmer, truly.

LUPONE: A good egg!

PHILLIPS: He's always got THE corny puns. I'm sorry.

LUPONE: Good for you, though.

PHILLIPS: He sings, too.

LUPONE: Do you?

O'BRIEN: No, I do not. Thank you for dropping by.

LUPONE: Thank you very much.

PHILLIPS: Judy Woodruff. I bet you Judy Woodruff has seen our friend Patti perform now and then. Judy?

O'BRIEN: Once again. Always give her a tough act to follow and we've done it again. Hello, Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF, HOST, "INSIDE POLITICS": Very tough act to follow. I'm a fan, though.

PHILLIPS: She's a fan.

WOODRUFF: Kyra, Miles and Patti, thank you all.

The fight over the president's judicial nominee still raging. Is the Senate preparing to go nuclear? We'll take a look.

Plus was it simply a misunderstanding or something more? Churchgoers in one North Carolina town say they were told to leave the church because of their support for John Kerry. Our Bruce Morton goes inside the controversy when "INSIDE POLITICS" begins in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired May 9, 2005 - 15:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CO-HOST: President Bush in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. The greeting was festive for the fourth and final stop of Mr. Bush's five-day trip. Tomorrow, in the capital city of Tbilisi, Mr. Bush will deliver a speech focusing on democracy and freedom.
MILES O'BRIEN, CO-HOST: Well, one girl was eight, the other nine. They were friends. They went to Beulah Park Elementary in Zion, Illinois, near the Wisconsin border. And less than a day ago, they were the subjects of an all-out search by Zion police. Today their killer is.

CNN's Keith Oppenheim is following this heartrending story from Chicago -- Keith.

KEITH OPPENHEIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon, Miles.

Minutes ago I got off the phone with Dr. Richard Keller, the Lake County coroner, and he confirmed that these two missing girls were the same girls who had been reported missing in the city of Zion on Sunday night.

The bodies of these two young girls were found early this morning in a city park in Zion, which is about 40 miles north of Chicago near the Wisconsin border.

Dr. Keller said one of the girls, as you said, Miles, 8 years old, the other 9. They're friends and their identities will be made known later this afternoon at a press conference at the Zion Police Department.

The bodies of these two young girls are undergoing an autopsy right now. Dr. Keller would not give specifics on the nature of the injuries or possible cause of death. He only said to me and I'm quoting, "There were obvious injuries to these young ladies." I asked if he believed whether there had been any sexual assault. He said no signs of that at this point, but the autopsy will tell more.

In terms of a suspect, the coroner had no information yet on any physical evidence but that the police are looking for a murder weapon at this time.

Again, at 5 Eastern Time, 4 p.m. local, there will be a news conference, Miles, at the city of Zion Police Department, and that should give more details, as they have been coming out this afternoon. Back to you.

O'BRIEN: All right. Keith Oppenheim in Chicago, thank you very much -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: A rap sheet yes, drunk or high, maybe, armed, apparently not. And if you were with us last hour, you heard the L.A. County sheriff talk about the driver on whom deputies opened fire after a chase overnight in Compton, California.

CNN's Peter Viles has all the new information now. Peter, a lot of questions answered.

PETER VILES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A lot of question, not many answers at this point, Kyra.

First, let's go back to the chase and the shooting itself. A very brief chase, maybe 10 or 12 minutes, not always a high-speed chase. Sheriff's deputies cornered this guy in an SUV in this residential neighborhood and then on videotape, which we have, the shots broke out. Here's what the way it looked like.

Big question is why did they start shooting? We do know now that 10 different deputies fired on this man. We do know now that he was not armed, according to the sheriff. The question is why did the shooting start? The sheriff, as you said, had a press conference just this past hour. Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERIFF LEE BACA, LOS ANGELES COUNTY: I have no idea one way or the other as to why and what the officers were thinking at the time. Suffice to say, there is an intensity level. There is a suspect who is leading them on a chase.

And then the suspect circles back to the origin of when that suspect was first encountered by the deputies, and there's an intensity level that leads to what decisions subsequently will be made by deputies. That's the key piece of information.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VILES: A little bit of background here, Kyra. This man driving this car was behaving strangely, if you consider driving around the same neighborhood for four hours behaving strangely and refusing to pull over when several deputies' cruisers were chasing him. I counted four or five chasing him in the videotape around the neighborhood.

So he was behaving strangely. The police on this in Los Angeles County is a deputy shoots on a moving vehicle if that vehicle is putting someone's life in danger, either through the use of the vehicle or perhaps the person in the vehicle is armed.

But we do know now that he was not armed. That's not to say the deputies didn't believe at the time that he was armed. Remember, one other piece of information. They came to this neighborhood about midnight last night, responding to reports of gunshots involving a white sport utility vehicle. So they had some reason to believe, perhaps, that the man driving the vehicle was armed -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Peter, those 10 deputies, will they now be suspended while the investigation continues or are they still on duty?

VILES: As far as we know they're still on duty. There will be three big pieces of this information. They'll interview everyone on scene, including those 10 deputies. They'll survey the scene physically for evidence, which they've already done this morning. We saw them mark and pick up close to 100 pieces of physical evidence here.

Third thing they'll look at is the videotape. It tells you exactly the sequence of the gun fire. The gunfire as we measured it takes about 16 seconds -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Peter Viles, thank you -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Let's flash back 25 years. African-American parents here in Atlanta terrified to let their children go outside because of a wave of child murders. And now those killings are getting some new attention because of the doubts of one local police chief.

Sarah Dorsey reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARAH DORSEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For three years, starting in 1979, the city of Atlanta and gradually the rest of the nation watched with horror as 29 African-Americans, mostly boys and young men, disappeared and turned up dead.

In 1981, an emotional sigh of relief nationwide, as this man, Wayne Williams, was arrested. He was eventually convicted of two murders, and sentenced to two consecutive life terms. Most of the evidence against Williams, circumstantial, based on fiber analysis of a carpet material called Wellman 181-b.

Williams has always maintained his innocence. Since his conviction, controversy has surfaced over the very evidence that put him behind bars.

Louis Graham agrees. He was the assistant police chief in Fulton County, Georgia, at the time, and part of the missing and murder task force.

CHIEF LOUIS GRAHAM, DEKALB COUNTY, GEORGIA, POLICE: I don't think Wayne Williams is responsible for anything.

DORSEY: Today Graham is police chief in adjacent DeKalb County, where four of the victims lived. Their cases were shelved when Williams went to jail. Now that he's in charge, chief Graham is reopening those cold cases, armed with technology not available 25 years ago, seeking answers in the deaths of Patrick Baltazar, Curtis Walker, Joseph Bell and William Barrett. GRAHAM: If we can solve one case, if we can, then I'm satisfied with that, but at this point, they are just too many open questions.

DORSEY: Old wounds reopened, a two decades old high-profile case about to be put back under the microscope.

Sarah Dorsey, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: News across America now.

A deadly school bus accident in Missouri to tell you about. Investigators want to know why a bus packed with elementary school students slammed into two vehicles at an intersection in Liberty. The drivers in the cars were killed. Twenty-three children were hurt.

The search ends for two missing sailors off of Virginia. One sailor was rescued by a merchant ship, the other found dead. The Coast Guard says the two abandoned ship for a life raft after they ran into bad weather on the way from Connecticut to Bermuda.

A small North Carolina church is trying to woo back nine congregants who say they were kicked out because of the politics. The pastor at the East Waynesville Baptist Church welcomed the nine, and some of their lawyers, at services yesterday. One of the ousted members says he was told supporting John Kerry meant he was supporting abortion and homosexuality. The reverend calls it a great misunderstanding.

We will check the markets next. Then things get a little crazy around here

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATTI LUPONE, BROADWAY PERFORMER: (singing)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: Patti Lupone, looking good. A Broadway legend here in the house. Maybe she'll even give us a little something. Maybe sing for us live. Patti Lupone, coming up next.

ANNOUNCER: You're watching LIVE FROM on CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

O'BRIEN: All right, take heart. Gas prices are down some more, and the smart money says it will probably drop some more still. The Lundberg survey finds the average pump price down three more cents in two week, $2.21 a gallon for self-serve regular now. That's a 7.5 cent drop in a month for those of you keeping score at home. Survey publisher Trilby Lundberg credits improving crude oil and gas supplies. She expects the trend to continue. PHILLIPS: Well, it could be I-85, Highway 101, or the mixing bowl. It doesn't matter. Traffic gridlock is getting worse across the nation. And that's according to a Texas Transportation Institute report.

It finds there were almost four billion hours of travel delay in 2003. Also, almost 2.5 billion gallons of foil wasted. So in which cities are drivers wasting the most time? Los Angeles tops the list with 93 hours of delay a year. San Francisco is second with 72. Washington drivers are wasting more than 69 hours, and here in Atlanta, 67. Houston comes in at 63 hours.

O'BRIEN: Think of all the things you could be doing in that time.

PHILLIPS: Well, the folks in Detroit might be seeing a bigger bill for their Big Mac.

O'BRIEN: Susan Lisovicz, joining us now with details on something to add to the special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions.

(STOCK REPORT)

O'BRIEN: Thank you, Susan. Appreciate that.

Can we call our next guest a living legend? And when you start doing that, do they get a little uncomfortable?

PHILLIPS: No way. I think we can. She's a bigger name than, say, Miles O'Brien.

O'BRIEN: That goes without saying.

PHILLIPS: Check this out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LUPONE (singing): Lying in my bed, I hear the clock tick and think of you caught up in circles. Confusion is nothing new

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIPS: I know, I like it much better than Cyndi Lauper, I've got to be honest. "Time After Time" she's been a hit on the Great White Way, TV, even the movies. You know her, you love her, the amazing superstar Patti Lupone, next on LIVE FROM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PHILLIPS: All right. Wow. A household name since she won the Tony for "Evita," Patti Lupone has been a Broadway star for more years than any of us even want to count. Am I allowed to say that?

She's here in Atlanta, starring in her own one woman show, "Matters of the Heart" over at the great Fox Theater. It is so great to have you with us.

LUPONE: Thank you. I'm very impressed.

PHILLIPS: You like the place?

LUPONE: I do.

PHILLIPS: I was excited about you being here.

LUPONE: Thank you, but this is big time for me.

PHILLIPS: This is big time for us. Let's talk about "Matters of the Heart."

LUPONE: Yes, it's a show they -- I started doing one woman shows while I was doing "Evita," because people saw this sort of blond fascist tap dancer, and my applause used to dip after Mandy Patinkin's. Mandy was Che, and I was Evita. And I was going, as I was bowing, I was saying, "I was so good in the role, they don't know what to make of me."

Then I said, "You know what? They need to see who I am. I have brown hair. I'm funny." And so I started doing one woman shows, and they're very satisfying for -- for an actor. They taught me more, actually, about how to deliver a song to an audience than my time at Juilliard did.

PHILLIPS: Well, it's a lot -- sort of like we do. It's storytelling. It's telling...

LUPONE: There's an act.

PHILLIPS: Right, exactly. So it's all about your sense of humor and your mannerisms and your voice and who you are.

LUPONE: Who you are as a person.

And you deliver -- when you're delivering a character such as Evita or Rita Sweeney or any of the, you know, straight characters that I've played, there is -- the person is hiding behind the mask or is behind that mask of that character.

This is, I really have to engage in an audience. I really have to look an audience in the eye. You know, I look an audience member in the eye. I have to command the stage when I go out there as me, as Patti. And it's a lesson. It's a big acting lesson, and it's great to -- to have that communication with the audience. It's great. I love the audience.

PHILLIPS: And you had music in your home since you were a little girl.

LUPONE: Yes.

PHILLIPS: Mom and Dad always had various types of music going, right? LUPONE: Mom had opera, and Dad had jazz. And of course, when I was grew up I was listening to transistor AM radios and sort of...

PHILLIPS: So did I, doing the paper route.

LUPONE: The beginning of rock 'n' roll. So you know, I remember seeing Elvis on "Ed Sullivan" with the hound dog on a pedestal on a black and white TV screen.

PHILLIPS: Wow. So did you just start singing along and Mom and Dad thought, "Wow, she's got a gift. Something -- there's something here"?

LUPONE: They didn't -- my dad didn't want either my brother or I to go into show business. He wanted us to be teachers. He was the principal of an elementary school. And my mother was a -- a housewife, a homemaker. She -- I think the talent was a surprise to them both.

PHILLIPS: Wow.

LUPONE: But I knew -- she would always -- when I was four, I would do -- I was doing Marilyn Monroe imitations. And she'd say, "Patti Ann, come here. Do your Marilyn Monroe imitation." And I would.

PHILLIPS: Well, let me have a little something.

LUPONE: Gosh, it was sort of like. And I was doing -- I was 4!

PHILLIPS: That was pretty sexy, wow!

LUPONE: And I remember Marilyn did that and other thing off the shoulder was she never had that many clothes on, but she had clothes on.

And I knew I could sing. I knew when I was a kid that I could sing. And so I just -- I got bit by show business when I was f4 years old, and I never turned, never stopped.

And there was nothing my mother could do. My mom and dad got divorced, so Dad was out of picture. And there was nothing my mom could do except support my brother's and my drive or, you know, this acknowledgement at a young age.

And we -- neither of us have ever, you know, gone -- everybody in show business has gone was this the right decision? It's a grueling, difficult, heartbreaking, ecstatic profession but -- but...

PHILLIPS: It becomes addictive.

LUPONE: It's something...

PHILLIPS: It's like the news business, too. It can be so cruel, but it can be so fulfilling.

LUPONE: Yes. Yes, exactly. And if it's something you've chosen to do, then you take the good with the bad.

PHILLIPS: So of course, I want to ask you, what is -- what has been, maybe, the most memorable moment in your career. And I love this quote that I read, so I'm not going ask you about that. But I am going to ask you about this quote.

"I've never had a specific preference for anything. I don't have a favorite food or color. I don't have a favorite part. I do have wanderlust with a passion."

LUPONE: Yes. Yes.

PHILLIPS: Tell me what you mean by that?

LUPONE: I would travel, if I could, if I could afford it, and if -- that's what I would have done with my life, just travel the world. I think Earth is a spectacularly beautiful place. I think every county is equally as beautiful as the next. And I think the people of the world, we're all the same person. We are all the same person.

We were in Burma. We were in Myanmar. And my nanny -- my husband didn't want to venture out, and of course, my son was quite young. And my nanny and I went let's go out into the -- into -- OK, so what was the name? It's Rangoon now. So what was the name of it?

PHILLIPS: Right, when you were traveling.

LUPONE: And so we went out into the night with, of course, a guide, and a Burmese man grabbed us and spoke very little English at all but pointed out a Baptist church in Rangoon to show to these westerners that they had Christianity there.

And it was a pure communication with -- he just wanted to make contact with us. They would grab my son out of my arms and just hold him.

PHILLIPS: Wow.

LUPONE: So I think we are all the same person. Of course, we won't talk about the war, but we're all the same person. We all have different cultures, but to travel and to experience that, it only makes one a better person.

PHILLIPS: It's a tremendous gift to be diverse.

LUPONE: Yes.

PHILLIPS: And you talk about you've loved being a mom, a wife, an actor, a musician, a chicken farmer. I don't think we know this part about you?

LUPONE: Yes, chickens. Yes, we had -- the flock got quite big because my husband wouldn't cull the flock. So we had lots of chickens and we had guinea fowl, which ate the ticks, because we live in Connecticut. So we have Lyme's Disease.

PHILLIPS: Oh, boy. Got to have something to eat the ticks.

LUPONE: Guinea fowl, by the way, if anybody is interested.

PHILLIPS: If anybody wants to know.

Well, of course, my favorite, I know you can't say you have a favorite, but "Evita." So as we go, I want to plug "Matters of the Heart," of course, and I want everyone to come see you as you travel.

LUPONE: Thank you.

PHILLIPS: So give us -- give us a little "Don't Cry for Me."

LUPONE: Or how about "What's New Buenos Aires"?

PHILLIPS: That's even better.

LUPONE: "Just get a little stuck on you. You'd be on me, too." OK, how's that?

PHILLIPS: I love it. What do you think, Miles?

O'BRIEN: You know, it's hard to get you out of your shell, isn't it? It really is.

PHILLIPS: She's very introverted. She's low key. I was nervous about this interview, because I was afraid she wouldn't have anything to say.

O'BRIEN: She was serenading the entire newsroom today. It's rare (ph) when you get that. And now we know for sure she is a good egg. She's a chicken farmer, truly.

LUPONE: A good egg!

PHILLIPS: He's always got THE corny puns. I'm sorry.

LUPONE: Good for you, though.

PHILLIPS: He sings, too.

LUPONE: Do you?

O'BRIEN: No, I do not. Thank you for dropping by.

LUPONE: Thank you very much.

PHILLIPS: Judy Woodruff. I bet you Judy Woodruff has seen our friend Patti perform now and then. Judy?

O'BRIEN: Once again. Always give her a tough act to follow and we've done it again. Hello, Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF, HOST, "INSIDE POLITICS": Very tough act to follow. I'm a fan, though.

PHILLIPS: She's a fan.

WOODRUFF: Kyra, Miles and Patti, thank you all.

The fight over the president's judicial nominee still raging. Is the Senate preparing to go nuclear? We'll take a look.

Plus was it simply a misunderstanding or something more? Churchgoers in one North Carolina town say they were told to leave the church because of their support for John Kerry. Our Bruce Morton goes inside the controversy when "INSIDE POLITICS" begins in just a moment.

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