Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 28, 1994 TAG: 9405280076
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: 16 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By Joe Logan Knight-Ridder Newspapers
DATELINE: PHILADELPHIA LENGTH: Medium
Of course, now she doesn't have to play the club scene, not with her hit ABC series "Grace Under Fire" (9:30 p.m. Wednesdays), and everybody calling her the "Southern Roseanne." All of a suddenly the Marietta, Ga., native is having to learn to cope with fame.
"Getting this much power and attention is like handing a baby a loaded gun," Butler, 36, says. "That baby is eventually going to shoot himself or somebody else. I'm not going to do that."
Keeping the ego in check would be a tall order for a lot of people. But Butler says she has a plan.
With "Grace" wrapped for the season, she's continuing live appearances. She also retreats when possible far from the glow of Tinseltown to hang out with pre-fame friends.
"Just say I'm calling from a small, undisclosed location in Texas," Butler says in a recent phone chat. "After this interview I'm going fishing. Do you think I need to put on makeup for the fish?"
For those who haven't seen "Grace," the drawling, deadpan Butler stars as Grace Kelly, a divorced mother of three (including infant) who has dumped her booze-guzzling husband and gone to work as a "token babe" in an oil refinery.
In some ways "Grace" and Butler are similar to "Roseanne" and Roseanne Arnold. Both shows are driven by strong, funny women living an everyday, blue-collar life. It works for "Grace," which just ended its first season ranked No. 6 overall, up there in the rarefied Nielsen ratings air with the likes of "Home Improvement," "60 Minutes," "Seinfeld" - and "Roseanne."
In real life, Arnold and Butler both are graduates of Hard Knocks U. Arnold's story you know. Butler's is just as compelling.
Born in Alabama, reared in Marietta, the oldest of five daughters. (She is named for Lady Brett Ashley in Ernest Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises.") Her father left when she was 4. "We were poor but educated," she says of her family. She moved on to an early marriage, trailer-park life that included alcohol and physical abuse from her husband, then divorce. Always funny, she tossed her things in the '69 Pontiac and took off for New York to try stand-up comedy.
Twelve years later, her agent got a call from the Carsey-Werner people, producers of "Roseanne," "The Cosby Show" and "A Different World." They were putting together a new sitcom and wanted to test her.
Disbelieving, "I told my agent, `Yeah, right, they're gonna give me a show."'
Since then, Butler has risen to stardom and become fodder for the supermarket tabloids, just like Arnold.
"When people compare me to Roseanne, I know they are trying to be crappy," says Butler. "But that woman turned TV on its head, and it NEEDED to be turned on its head. In that sense, I'm proud."
Moreover, Butler says she has come to know and like Arnold. "Rosie has been great to me. She has pulled me aside and given me great advice."
Much of that advice has to do with how to stand her ground and how to exercise control and maintain standards on her show. That has earned Butler a growing reputation as difficult.
"I do have genetic demons inside me," says Butler, a recovering alcoholic. But she insists that she doesn't sweat the label. "I do have a hissy fit over a script, if it's not right. So when people ask, `Are you difficult?' I say, `Yes. Bite me."'
She also is beginning to have fun with another label occasionally thrust her way: "white trash." Butler prefers to think of herself as "proletariat."
"I have a Southern accent and I eat macaroni and cheese, and if people think that makes me white trash, they can bite me, too."
by CNB