Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 29, 1994 TAG: 9401290258
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-16 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By PATRICIA BRENNAN THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"Cafe" started out last October with a Saturday-night slot and shaky ratings. During its stay on Saturday night, the series averaged an 8.3 rating/15 share, averaging 74th of 100 shows.
In early January NBC moved the series to Tuesday nights, although it's not airing this week. Despite shaky ratings there as well, Bertinelli, a proven TV draw, and company have been assured they can spin their adventures across a full season.
"This show is ahead of its time, even if it fails," said Graham Beckel, who plays disgruntled American businessman Steve Sullivan. "If we can make this work, great, but if not, somebody will."
Bertinelli plays Holly, a young American working as a waitress in a Parisian cafe run by Margaret, an American expatriate. The cafe draws an assortment of customers, most of them with at least some grasp of English (although the show has used subtitles).
From the standpoint of its international cast, "Cafe" is an unusual series. Lila Kaye, who plays Margaret, is a veteran British actress; Sofia Milos, who plays flamboyant and egotistical model Fabiana Borelli, and Luigi Amodeo, who plays underwear model Carlo Benini, Fabiana's madly jealous boyfriend, are both Italian; and Maurice Godin as Marcel, who first romanced Fabiana and now Holly, is a French-Canadian from Toronto.
Jodi Long, who plays sharp-tongued Madame Ybarra, and Beckel are from New York City.
The show hasn't relied much on guests, but the few who have shown up have been interesting: Bertinelli's husband, rocker Eddie Van Halen, as a street musician, and former "Laugh-In" comic Arte Johnson as the photographer Pascal.
The series got under way last fall when Holly, recovering from a divorce, set off for a new life in Paris and met the audacious Fabiana on the airplane.
"Fabiana is an exaggerated character, but there are models like her," said Milos, who worked in that world from 15 to 25. "For me, personally, it is in a way life imitating art."
Born in Rome, the daughter of a Greek mother and Italian father, Milos grew up in a traditional Catholic family with an older brother. "If it were my father's choice, I'd be singing in the church choir," she said.
But that's not what happened. At 13, Milos posed for a prominent Roman portrait artist. At 15, she moved to Milan, alone, and began appearing on magazine covers. Then she moved to Munich and Paris and made commercials. At 17, she appeared in Italian and French films.
Along the way, she picked up Italian, French, English, German and Greek and now is studying Farsi.
When Milos arrived in the United States four years ago, she also found that her English wasn't as good as she had thought.
"When I first got here, I couldn't understand," she said. "I missed 90 percent of the jokes. It took me one whole year to get (the meaning of) `That doesn't cut the mustard.' "
When she was modeling, Milos, who is 5 feet 8, weighed between 107 and 112 pounds. "If I hit 112, I'd be freaking out." Now, she said, she weighs about 120.
Brighton-born Lila Kaye, who plays the American owner of the cafe, bases part of her character on her mother and part on her mother's best friend, Fat Mary, who ran clubs in Sussex and outside London.
Kaye is also a bit of a character, having worked as a vegetable chef and a waitress at a club in London while she was trying to keep her acting career alive.
Graham Beckel thought his role as Steve Sullivan was to be only a guest spot in the pilot but found that the writers had decided to keep the character.
Beckel grew up in Greenwich Village and in Lyme, Conn. As a college student in the late '60s, he decided to quit school and tour Europe.
"I decided I had to go back to the cornerstone, the Greeks, and find the most viable entity, the Oracle at Delphi." he recalled.
"I slept in the Temple of Athena, and I was determined that I was going to hang out there until I got some guidance. And then, as I was standing there, looking over the olive groves that go down toward the sea, on a breeze came a word: It said, `Go be an actor.' "
by CNB