Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 6, 1991 TAG: 9104060563
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JERRY BUCK ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
She plays Anne Matheson, the character who stole a million dollars from her daughter and while clad in a $3,000 designer suit helped herself to money in a Christmas charity kettle.
"People do see her as wicked, but I see her as a victim herself," says Phillips. "She's really a nice woman. She hasn't done anything really terrible except embezzle a million dollars from her daughter.
"I think she's really a warning to women around the world that no guy is going to take care of you. Your knight in shining armor isn't going to pay your rent. It's a good idea to have a talent, or simply a job.
"That's what's happened to Anne Matheson. She's a victim of this antiquated attitude that women have to be taken care of by men. She's unprepared for the 21st century - or even the 20th century."
Phillips sang with the Mamas and the Papas, a group associated with the drug culture and love generation of the 1960s. She co-wrote the hit song "California Dreamin'" and in an autobiography of the same name tells the story of the band's reckless lifestyle. She married John Phillips and they had a daughter, Chynna, who sings with the musical group Wilson Phillips. She is currently not married.
"Somebody asked Chynna in an interview what she thought of her mother," Phillips says. "She said, `I really wish she'd shut up. She's too outspoken.'"
The Mamas and the Papas broke up in 1967. "We had exhausted what we had at the time," she says. "If we'd gone back to the Virgin Islands, re-grouped, written more songs, we could have gone on. But we had gotten tired of each other's faces. It was difficult for John and me to be married and work in the group. It was very hard work. It wasn't much fun all the time. I wasn't completely in control of my own destiny. John was."
She said drugs did not cause the breakup.
"We all did drugs and we were very happy," she says. "We were also very lucky because cocaine wasn't around then. It would have been a disaster if there had been. We took psychedelic drugs and smoked pot. We were basically drinkers."
Phillips is no longer recording, but does occasionally sing with Geoff Tozer, a singer-writer-producer who wrote "Singer in the Band."
In "Knots Landing," the character of Anne Matheson is the kind of humorous, larger-than-life addition more common to "Dallas," the prime-time soap opera that gave birth to the more realistic "Knots Landing" in 1979.
Phillips first joined the series in 1987 as the mother of Paige Matheson, played by Nicollette Sheridan.
"I did a limited part on `Hotel,' playing the same character for six episodes," she says. "Then I did one season of `Knots' and I was won over. I loved it. I was working steady. I loved the character. Then I was off the show at the end of the season. I was crushed."
She appeared once the next year and became a regular member of the cast during the 1989-90 season.
by CNB