Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 9, 1995 TAG: 9502150006
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SCOTT WILLIAMS ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
He's back, he's bad and he's ... bald!
``It was my idea to make him bald,'' said John Shea, the actor who played the evil billionaire as a charming sociopath in an Armani suit.
``Last year it was Cary Grant and Richard III,'' Shea said. ``This year, no more Cary Grant.''
Fans of ABC's ``Lois & Clark'' will recall last season's finale, when Superman thwarted Luthor's evil designs on Lois Lane. Rather than face imprisonment, Luthor leaped to his death from the penthouse suite.
Luthor was street pizza. An acute case of asphalt poisoning.
End of story? Nah. We saw Luthor's remains encased in a ``cryogenic suspension chamber,'' a hedge against the day when scriptwriters might need him.
That day came sooner than expected. Warner Bros., which had sold ``Lois & Clark'' internationally, found that viewers everywhere wanted to know what REALLY had become of poor Lex.
Shea, however, was not entombed. He had amicably left the series after the finale and gone home to New York City to his wife, Laura, and son, Jake.
There, he went to work on two independent films he'll direct this year, ``The Brass Ring,'' set in South Boston's mean streets, and Shea's own screenplay of ``The Junkie Priest.''
``You don't do that for the money,'' Shea said. ``Lex Luthor makes more money in one episode of `Lois & Clark' than I'll make in six months working on the films.''
When his phone rang with an offer to reprise Luthor on ``Lois & Clark,'' Shea was torn.
``You can't kill off Luthor. At least, I couldn't,'' Shea admitted. ``He's just too much a part of Superman's world.''
When the producers gave him script approval, Shea happily came aboard.
``The writers really rose to the occasion,'' he said. ``I came up with certain story elements, they came up with others, and we put this thing together.''
The new Luthor in Sunday night's episode has come down in the world, Shea said.
``This is the man who had it all, falls from grace and eight months later comes out of a coma and wakes up, like Lucifer, into a hell,'' he said.
``He's stripped of his power, stripped of his money, and stripped of his reputation as the golden boy, the philanthropist and politician. The public persona has been torn off,'' Shea said.
``In addition to stripping him of all material things, I thought that it would be great symbolically to strip him of his hair.''
Comics fans will note, too, that Shea's baldness also brings Luthor into registration with his namesake in DC Comics' tales of Superman.
Shea's character is a desperado who literally lives underground, in the sewers, he said.
``What is he to rely on? He has no money. All he has is whatever he's got inside: How much heart he's got, how much wit - and his rage,'' Shea said.
And, of course, all that rage is directed at Superman.
Shea's explanations grew more impassioned when he describes Luthor's feelings about the big guy in the blue tights and red cape:
``The worst thing about Superman is that he's a trust fund baby,'' Shea said almost contemptuously. ``He's somebody who's inherited everything and earned ... nothing!
``Lex Luthor is the true superman, in the Nietzschean mold: The man who, through will and imagination, has created an empire unparalleled on Earth - and lost it all because of a ... trust fund baby!''
Instead of his Armani suits and Cuban cigars, Luthor is reduced to stealing clothes off dead men. He wears black jeans, a T-shirt, an Army surplus jacket, a baseball cap - and he's bald.
``Here's what I discovered about being bald: It is an amazing aphrodisiac,'' Shea said. ``You become a predator. You become slightly reptilian. Snakelike. Dangerous. And, therefore, sexy.''
``The man who shaves his head is sending out a signal that he's gone extreme at some level,'' he said, grinning. ``And sexually, that's an exciting concept for women - I'm told.
``I didn't do it for that reason, but it has that side effect.''
by CNB