
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, February 23, 1991                   TAG: 9102230450
SECTION: SPECTATOR                    PAGE: S-13   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ACTRESS SEES MOVIE AS WAY TO DOWNPLAY GLAMOROUS IMAGE

"People generally think if you have a pretty face, you don't have a soul. I suppose that makes you kind of defensive. I kind of have a strong reaction to being merely thought of as glamorous. I have more to offer than that."

Rachel Ward wants to prove just how much she has to offer in "And the Sea Will Tell," CBS's four-hour miniseries airing Sunday and Tuesday (at 9 p.m. on WDBJ-Channel 7 in the Roanoke viewing area). The story was adapted from the book of the same name by Bruce Henderson and Vincent Bugliosi, the former Los Angeles district attorney who successfully prosecuted the Charles Manson family.

The story is based on a true case Bugliosi handled after he left the district attorney's office to become a defense attorney. Ward plays Jennifer, the girlfriend of a charismatic young fugitive named Buck Walker (Hart Bochner). Bugliosi (Richard Crenna) defends Jennifer after she and Buck are accused of murdering a wealthy couple on a South Seas island.

Ward, 33, does not want to be a glamour girl on screen and plays down her looks in person. For an interview she was wearing little makeup, black cowboy boots and a shapeless multicolored minidress. The former model, however, still looked stunning.

"I really do find I am attracted to the dark side of people and places and things, I suppose," Ward said. "I find it much more interesting to play someone who is a little more ambiguous than someone who is sugarcoated or formularized to appeal to, and appease, a mass audience."

That's why the British-born actress said that she leaped at the opportunity to play Jennifer. "Unlike a lot of things I see on American TV, she had some aberrant behavior which I find interesting to explore."

"And the Sea Will Tell" is Ward's first miniseries since she starred opposite Richard Chamberlain eight years ago in the Emmy Award-winning "The Thorn Birds," one of the most successful miniseries of the 1980s.

In 1983 Ward married "Thorn Birds" co-star Bryan Brown and then relocated from Los Angeles to Sydney, in Brown's native Australia.

"I did a lot of theater in Sydney," she said. "I really thought about the type of things that I wanted to be part of and what stimulated me."

by CNB