Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 2, 1990 TAG: 9006020493
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JERRY BUCK ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The CBS comedy, in which she plays a young and single private detective, is her first series since "One Day at a Time."
Bertinelli literally grew up on "One Day at a Time" as one of the daughters of Bonnie Franklin. She began when she was 15 and was 24 when the show ended in 1984.
"I was never allowed to go this far with Barbara Cooper on `One Day at a Time,' " she says of her character on "Sydney."
"I couldn't yell at people and make it funny. Sydney yells at everybody when she doesn't get her way. She puts her foot down and says, `This is the way it's going to be.'
"I've been looking for a new series ever since the old one went off," she said. "My manager and partner, Jack Grossbart, and I must have gone through a hundred ideas. Then Michael Wilson came along with `Sydney' and it clicked for me. I want it to stay on a long time." (The series is not on CBS' fall schedule.)
The show was created by Wilson, who also is a co-executive producer.
"I'd heard so many ideas and they all sounded alike," Bertinelli said. "I don't know if it was the idea or Michael himself. I really, really liked him. I liked his energy and the way his mind worked so fast. I knew I wanted to work with him."
Bertinelli's Sydney Kells is the daughter of a policeman, now dead, and sister of a rookie policeman played by Matthew Perry. She does most of her detective work for a conservative lawyer played by Craig Bierko, and drives him crazy. She hangs out at a neighborhood bar run by Barney Martin, her father's old police partner. Rebeccah Bush is her best friend, Perry Anzilotti is her snitch and Daniel Baldwin is the barroom pest.
"I keep wanting to say Sydney is like part of me," she said. "But it all goes back to Michael. It's like the part of me I've never allowed anyone to see. She's gregarious. She's smart, intuitive and naive in a way. Let's say she's naively jaded."
The stories involve both her cases and her personal life. Sometimes, they're mixed. In one episode, her best friend is kidnapped and she has to find her.
The show's theme music is "Finish What Ya Started," from the latest album by Bertinelli's husband, rock guitarist Eddie Van Halen, a member of the group Van Halen.
"I begged Ed to let me use it," she said.
The first part of the name of her production company, OOMP & Friends, "is a little personal thing between Ed and me," Bertinelli said. "Let people try to figure it out," she added.
After "One Day at a Time," Bertinelli starred in the miniseries "I'll Take Manhattan" and 11 TV movies.
She last was seen in October in the movie "Taken Away," in which she played a single mother falsely accused of child abuse. Before that, she was a pioneer aviatrix in "Pancho Barnes."
by CNB