www.upn31.com

Directors Guild joins National Coalition on Health Care

LOS ANGELES (AP) The Directors Guild of America board has elected new officers and agreed to join an alliance to improve health care coverage for Americans nationwide.

Director Michael Apted will serve as vice president. Apted, whose credits include ``Coal Miner's Daughter,'' ``Nell,'' ``Blink,'' ``Gorillas in the Mist,'' and ``The World Is Not Enough,'' replaces John Frankenheimer, who died July 6.

The board also voted to join the National Coalition on Health Care, a Washington-based non-profit group that favors universal health insurance.

DGA president Martha Coolidge (``Out to Sea,'' ``Valley Girl,'' ``If These Walls Could Talk'') said directors intend to ``play an important role in educating the public about the alarming crisis, and in continuing to assure quality health care not only for our members but for all Americans.''

Apted has served on the DGA's national board and also serves on the guild's Western Directors Council and Independent Directors Committee. He becomes the group's fifth vice president.

At a meeting Saturday, the board also elected director Donald Petrie (``Miss Congeniality'') to fill Apted's seat. Director Michael Mann (``The Insider'') was elected to fill Petrie's seat as an alternate board member. Television director Bob Jeffords (``Murphy Brown,'' ``CHiPS,'' ``Streets of San Francisco,'' ``Barnaby Jones'') was elected as an associate board member and television producer Cleve Landsberg (``Wonder Woman'') was elected as a national board second alternate.

(