Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 10, 1993 TAG: 9311110492
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PATRICIA BRENNAN THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Instead, this week he plays a Cook County, Ill., police officer in ``Jack Reed: Badge of Honor'' (Friday night at 9 on WSLS-Channel 10), a man he portrayed last season in another NBC movie, ``Deadly Matrimony.'' Susan Ruttan plays his wife, Arlene, a teacher.
This week's drama focuses on another of Reed's actual cases, a murder of a young single mother that appears to be linked to a larger plot involving the hijacking of arms. But Reed's investigation is hampered by Federal Witness Protection Program officials who are using Reed's prime suspect as an informant on another case.
``The guy is deliberately and unapologetically evil,'' said Dennehy. ``It presents an interesting dilemma: Reed is chasing him for one set of reasons, and the government is trying to protect him for another set of reasons.''
The man Reed suspected of murder and rape was given a job working at the Census Bureau, supervising a team of young women, said Reed, 53. Appalled, Reed pointed out this dangerous situation to federal officials, he said, ``but they just give you a blank look. It's like this is a new thought for them.''
Aside from the frustrations of working with other agencies, Reed is known as a good and honest man who apparently fascinates producer Steve Krantz and writer Andrew Laskos, the pair who did ``Deadly Matrimony.'' There are plans for another ``Jack Reed'' movie in the spring, with other ideas afloat.
``What makes this movie interesting to me is him, the guy it's based on,'' said Dennehy. ``He is a strong family man, a religious man, an intellectual. He studied for the seminary. My father had done the same thing.
In those days, for an Irish kid, the church was a real option. Jack reminds me of my father, very strong sense of right and wrong.
``I identify with him in the sense that I come from a working-class, blue- collar, Irish-Catholic family. There are a lot of cops and public servants in my family, and there's always been a sense of a more important life to come, in the religious orientation. That's the way we were brought up. We're of the same generation, the same background. We were brought up to believe in ethics, rules, responsibility.
``Obviously all those rules have changed. They really haven't been replaced by anything except MTV. So someone like Reed, with his absolute rooted sense of what is right and wrong and a willingness on his part to risk virtually everything he has on the side of what is right, makes him a kind of unique character.''
In Chicago Reed had applied to the police academy and was working temporarily as a driving instructor when he was assigned to a client in his old South Side neighborhood: Arlene, who soon became his wife.
Reed is one of about 560 police who cover the unincorporated areas of Cook County, he said. Over the years, he worked in what he called ``pork-and-beans jobs: patrol, task force, training academy, state's attorney's office.'' But what he liked best was the homicide unit, with a current staff of about 25 to 30.
In three years he'll have 30 years and could retire, but he doesn't plan to stop working. That fits in with his image.
``The mystery of good police work,'' Reed says, ``is that there is no mystery to it - it's just going out and going back for the second, third, fourth interviews. If you look at successful police cases, the ones that are solved are the ones where you go back for the interviews. The ones where you don't go back aren't solved.''
One of Reed's favorite television characters is Peter Falk's Columbo, who follows Reed's pattern: going back again and again to pick up clues. And like Columbo, Reed believes in listening and not brutalizing suspects.
``The police have an enormous legitimate power, myself included,'' he said. ``We have to be on guard and vigilant with that power. We've brought a lot of criticism on ourselves. A lot of regulations came about because of police abuse. Someone once said, `Brutality is the tool of the dull-witted.'''
Dennehy once considered a law-enforcement career but turned to acting instead and built a career that includes 23 theatrical movies, dozens of television movies and miniseries (with ACE and Emmy nominations) and several stage productions. Most recently he starred in a 4-hour, 40-minute presentation of ``The Iceman Cometh'' at Dublin's Abbey Theatre.
by CNB