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

DATE: SATURDAY, May 8, 1993                   TAG: 9305080381
SECTION: SPECTATOR                    PAGE: 22   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JUDITH MICHAELSON LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

LIFE GOES ON AFTER `DESIGNING WOMEN'

Don't expect Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, creator of "Designing Women," "Evening Shade" and "Hearts Afire," to go mouthing off about CBS' cancellation of "Designing Women" - certainly not with the sharp one-liners the show's smart, sassy Southern characters might have come up with.

And don't anticipate Bloodworth-Thomason, who deflects such questions, confiding whether good friend Hillary Rodham Clinton might have had something to say about the administration of CBS Entertainment President Jeff Sagansky.

The politically astute Bloodworth-Thomason, who also made "The Man From Hope" about good friend Bill Clinton for the Democratic National Convention, is putting a buck-stops-here face on the demise of "Designing Women," about the lives and loves of four women and one man who run an Atlanta interior decorating firm.

The series, she said in an interview, "was my most rewarding creative experience, so it's always sad to say goodby to something like that. Everybody who does a series comes to a point where it is almost impossible to maintain the original quality of it. The cast was certainly still delivering, but behind the scenes it had become a struggle to maintain the creative quality."

She said the cancellation did not come as any surprise "because we've been discussing it for a long time - Harry [Thomason, her husband and business partner] and I and Jeff Sagansky and Peter Tortorici [executive vice president of CBS Entertainment]."

"Designing Women," which since its 1986 debut tackled such issues as AIDS, breast cancer, pornography, women clergy and her clear favorite, the sexual-harassment battle between Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas and law professor Anita Hill, had "run its course." She felt its point, as a "showcase for very outspoken, man-loving feminists," had been made.

Now Bloodworth-Thomason has other fish to fry.

- A new TV show that is expected to open in mid-season next year about a blue-collar family and will deal with current political issues. She's contemplating writing the pilot "right away" so she can begin "stockpiling scripts."

- A potential new TV show about women in Washington. (That won't constitute a second Washington series because next season she will move "Hearts Afire" away from its Capitol setting. "It was very unfocused in that the real franchise of this show is the relationship between John [Ritter] and Markie [Post], the home and the kids and the relationship with Billy Bob Thornton.")

- A low-budget feature that she and Thomason hope to make next year as independents starring young Clark Duke (who plays Elliott Hartman on "Hearts Afire"), whom she likens to Ron Howard when he played Opie Taylor on "The Andy Griffith Show."

by CNB