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Tom Selleck didn't show.
The last hope that he might fly in on the Concorde died with the announcement Monday at the Waldorf Astoria that his 64-year old mother, Martha Selleck of Van Nuys, had not been named 1985 Mother of the Year by American Mothers Inc.
Mothering's highest honor went instead to Louise Monaco Cimino, a 61-year-old mother of 10 and grandmother of 14 from Omaha, Neb.
The media were unintrigued.
"It's not much of a story, is it?" a reporter from Woman's World magazine asked rhetorically as Cimino told a press conference that motherhood is an undervalued profession and that she is for the equal rights amendment but against abortion.
Ever since Selleck had arrived here on Thursday as California's nominee for Supermom, she had, to her chagrin, drawn the spotlight away from the 47 other candidates, women who had accomplished much but had never baked chocolate chip cookies for a future superstar.
"Where's Tom?" she was repeatedly asked.
"Tom is in London, filming a special two-hour segment of `Magnum, P.I.,' " she explained graciously each time.
Unfailingly, she added, "We have four wonderful children. We're very proud of Tom, but we're proud of all of them." And then she or her husband, Bob, 64, head of public relations for Coldwell Banker, would name them all: Bob Jr, 41, of Studio City; Tom, 40, of Honolulu; Dan, 29, of Manhattan Beach, and Marti Ketchum, their only daughter, 31, of Agoura, a former model, now a full-time housewife and mother of two.
If his mother was concerned about the fuss over Tom, American Mothers Inc., the 50-year-old group that sponsored the competition, was not. The organization hired the New York public-relations firm of Edita Kaye to explain to the media that the mission of the nondenominational group is "to strengthen the moral and spiritual foundation of the home." Kaye unfailingly told the media that the television star's mother was one of the nominees.
Ironically, Kaye, 38, recently left her two children with their father in North Carolina to start her business. "I envy these women," she said of the 300 unrepentant good housekeepers and shameless chauffeurs at the five-day gathering. "I wish I had the confidence in the rightness of my choices that...