Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 2, 1992 TAG: 9202290243
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PATRICIA BRENNAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
As Janice Pasetti in NBC's 1991 series, "Grand," Reed played a divorcee who lived in a trailer with her chubby, teen-age daughter and cleaned house for the town's well-to-do. She was the bright spot in an otherwise odd series that mixed generations and socio-economic levels.
This week, in "Woman With a Past" (tonight on NBC), a fact-based movie, Reed does it again. She plays a woman who climbs from the West Virginia underclass to a comfortable life in California with a career, a new husband and two sons by her first marriage.
Only problem is that Dee Johnson never mentioned that she had been serving a prison sentence. So when she's arrested at her picture-book home, handcuffed and shoved into a patrol car, the boys stand in the street crying with disbelief.
Dee Johnson, it seems, was once Virginia Porter, convicted of armed robbery. But Virginia-Dee's sons were also imprisoned, in the custody of their abusive father, so during a work-release program, she slipped away and began searching for them.
"You get into a downward spiral," said Reed. "One thing leads to another. She had no self-esteem - she was just in the toilet. And it wasn't until she met her [second] husband that things started turning around for her.
"But she's the one who changed her own life. She's the one who studied for her high-school equivalency, finally, and went to community college. Nobody made the mistakes she did, and nobody took the great, courageous steps that she took."
Born in Tacoma, Wash., Reed moved to Washington's Maryland suburbs with her family when she was 12.
She was known as a girl with a sense of humor. "I thought I would be an airline stewardess. I thought that would be a great thing to do with my life," she said. "But a counselor told me I should focus on home economics. I can cook, and I was hell with a seam ripper."
Reed enrolled at the University of Maryland briefly, switched to Western Washington State College and finished at the University of Washington, with a degree in drama. Her home-ec skills came in handy when, to earn tuition, she got a job as a cook's helper on the Alaska pipeline north of the Arctic Circle.
In New York Reed began collecting kudos: a Drama Desk nomination for "Curse of the Starving Class," a Drama Desk Award for "Getting Out," an Obie Award and an Ace Award for "Tanner '88." Among her several theatrical movies is "Kindergarten Cop," and her television work includes Emmy-winner "Caroline?," the mini-series "Hemingway," and "Rachel River," for PBS's "American Playhouse."
Reed lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Sandy Smolan (who directed her in "Rachel River"), and their son, Reed Michael, born in January 1991. But she'd rather be in Colorado, she said.
"We've been out here for three years, because this is where the work is, but my dream is not to be in New York or LA in five years. I love acting, and I did the right thing, but this is an insane way to live your life. The unemployment rate for actors is between 85 and 95 percent."
Reed isn't one of them, however. Look for her in "Passed Away," a Disney comedy out this spring.
"Woman With a Past": airs tonight at 9 on WSLS-Channel 10.
by CNB