Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 25, 1995 TAG: 9501270022
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: NIKI KAPSAMBELIS ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
As a technical adviser, writer and sometime actor for NBC's medical drama, Gentile acknowledges the show exacts its toll on his personal life. But the 45-year-old emergency-room surgeon wouldn't have it any other way.
``This is like the biggest toy shop. This is play,'' Gentile said on the set of the hit series. ``A doctor buries his mistakes, and here you see 'em on reruns.''
Professionals like Gentile are finding more work in television and films these days as the demand for technical advisers - and their knack at making a fictional story ring true - grows.
The job may be a sideline enterprise for the run of one show, with an adviser getting limited authority over storylines. Some draw heavily on their own experiences to flesh out characters, and find themselves backing into a whole new career.
At 50, Bill Clark is retiring from his 25-year stint as a New York City policeman to work full-time at enhancing the true grit of ``NYPD Blue.''
``Most of the stories are cases I've worked on,'' said Clark, whose official title is consulting producer. ``I think I'm doing more to assist in people's understanding [of police work] than all the community service officers in all the world.''
Technical advisers have been around for years - usually with limited roles, sometimes even working for free. But with television's recent drift toward reality-based shows, the demand for that genuine touch has increased.
``They wouldn't have a need for a Bill Clark on `Kojak,' '' Clark says. ``That kind of show isn't based on reality.''
Gentile agreed, saying shows such as ``Rescue 911'' have helped viewers understand more about the human failings of doctors - and caused them to demand more from their fiction.
``I think they're much more sophisticated, and you can't get away with that Marcus Welby stuff anymore,'' he said.
The power of mass influence also draws people to advising work. Dan Cooke, a retired 35-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department, never accepted payment for his contributions to shows such as ``Dragnet'' and ``Adam 12,'' fearing a conflict of interest.
But his department's stamp on those shows helped shape the way an entire generation views law enforcement.
``We had tremendous influence,'' Cooke said. ``We used to use several of the shows as training material for the recruits.''
On the set of ``L.A. Law,'' where he worked as a technical adviser for eight years, Los Angeles lawyer Charles Rosenberg was particularly proud of the ``substantive balance'' the show gave to both sides of every issue.
``Although I was concerned about the accuracy of the language, what I was mainly interested in was making sure that both sides of issues got presented, however it came out,'' he said. ``And we got pretty good marks for that.''
Unlike other advisers, Rosenberg doesn't see his current profession as a segue into a permanent slot in the entertainment world. Since the demise last year of ``L.A. Law,'' he has continued with his Westwood law practice and recently published a book, ``The Trial of O.J.,'' designed as a viewer's manual for the O.J. Simpson trial.
``I'm not totally interested in making a full-time career out of television and movies,'' he said. ``I mean, you know, if somebody came along and had some particularly interesting proposal, I suppose I'd look at it, like anything else.''
Gentile, on the other hand, is immersed in ``ER.'' He had a bit part in the pilot. He reads letters from doctors who write to comment on storylines. He moves frenetically through the show's hospital set, coaching actors on medical terminology, demonstrating how a blood pressure gauge should be operated, snooping on a crew member taking a nap in the set's ambulance during a lunch break.
In the second episode, Gentile noticed actors were studiously examining a X-ray that was displayed backwards. The error so horrified him that he started snipping off a corner at the top of the X-rays to cue the actors and set decorators about how the film should be hung.
``I wanted them to be exact. I was being compulsive,'' he admitted. ``To me, when I watch that scene, [the backwards X-ray] is all I see.''
At one point, the crew tweaked him for his meticulous approach by putting his name on a large board behind the set's nurse's station that describes the ailments of fictitious patients. It was marked ``Patient: Gentile. Complaint: Rectal pain.''
But lest the entertainment world start making him soft, Gentile still puts in 12-hour shifts in the emergency room twice a month at hospitals in Los Angeles and suburban Lakewood.
``It gives you a grounding in reality, which television tends to erase,'' Gentile says. ``At the end of it, you go home, and there's some sort of victory that you don't get here ... the stakes are so much higher.''
by CNB