Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 19, 1994 TAG: 9403190150
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By Harriet Winslow The Washington Post
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Butler may be outspoken and brash as the star of ABC's hit, "Grace Under Fire," which stemmed from her cheeky standup-comedy act, but there's more.
A complex, introspective woman, Butler, 36, also writes poetry, is married to a New York attorney and hates the tabloid intrusions into her personal life.
But her Georgian accent is real, and so is her sense of humor.
"I come from a really funny bunch of women," she said.
With the success of "Grace Under Fire," which has the highest season-to-date ratings of any first-season series this year, she has found that fame is not all glory. "I'm not complaining," she said, but "the hard part about it is the intrusions into my personal life."
The biggest adjustment since the public's warm welcome (it's ranked fifth of 116 shows overall this season) to Butler's Wednesday night show, which tails another ABC hit - "Home Improvement" - was the change from working as a largely anonymous performer to becoming a well-known one "who people are curious about," she said.
If only she could keep her privacy and still be one of the funnier comics in the public eye, that would be ideal. That's the way it started - with Butler simply out to be funny.
"When I started out, I never wanted to be called a good woman comedian," she said, "I just wanted to be called funny."
This season, she's been playing Grace Kelly, divorced mother of three, in the Marcy Carsey-Tom Werner sitcom. Recently "Grace Under Fire" won two People's Choice Awards: It tied for favorite new comedy series, and Butler won favorite female in a new series.
Butler did not actively pursue a television deal and said she was happy doing standup when she was seen in New York.
"I did not seek or require this to fulfill myself. It was actually my goal to be a really good standup comedian. (Talent scouts) saw me in New York almost by accident and flew me out (to California) and said, `Why haven't we heard of you?' And I said, `Because I never wanted to be on a sitcom.' I was sort of following my little artistic goal, and a commercially viable alternative came up. So I'm really trying to do them both."
When the show's producers called, she assumed that she'd be cast as the "wacky next-door neighbor" in keeping with her sassy standup act. But no matter how complex a woman may be, she learned, her existence within a sitcom "has to be redeemed by the presence of three fictitious children."
Butler, childless by choice, took the role anyway. "I am the oldest of five daughters that my mother raised alone, essentially, and I look at the way that I am as Grace as a way of edifying my mother. She's an amazing woman, and she's really a sweetheart."
Butler's mother named her for Lady Brett Ashley in Ernest Hemingway's novel, "The Sun Also Rises," and she took her stepfather's last name when he adopted her at age 6. She did her first standup at 8 in a school pageant.
After a short marriage, she moved to New York to do standup full-time. Now she rents a house in Los Angeles while taping "Grace," but home is with her husband in New York, who flies west when he can. The secret to a long-distance marriage sounds simple, and like something Grace would say: "We have completely opposite personalities."
"Grace Under Fire" gets a rest after Wednesday night's episode and will return the first week of May.
Butler's goal for the show is simple: "I'd like it to be as good and meaningful as Roseanne's. I'm not sure it ever can quite have that edge by virtue of the fact that we have three (young) children on the show. I'm hoping that we can transport it into a more and more meaningful realm."
As the kids on "Grace" age, the show may gain in sophistication as ABC's popular "Roseanne" has. But Butler pointed out one difference that will keep the two shows distinct: There are men in Grace Kelly's life, but no husband as a counterpoint like "Roseanne's" John Goodman. "I'm forbidden to be a Roseanne," she said.
Like Arnold, Butler is in good company with a talented supporting cast that includes SCTV veteran Dave Thomas (who, with Rick Moranis, comprised the early '80s "Great White North" skit of Canada's Bob and Doug McKenzie); Julie White as Nadine; Casey Sander as Wade; and Jon Paul Steuer, Kaitlin Cullum and Dylan and Cole Sprouse as Grace Kelly's kids. Charles Hallahan and Walter Olkewicz work with Grace at the oil refinery.
Butler noted that Chuck Lorre, who created "Grace Under Fire," is leaving at the end of this first season.
But she sings the praises of executive producers Tom Werner and Marcy Carsey. In football terms, she said, "They have really, really blocked for me. They bought my vision, my personality and my way of saying things."
by CNB