Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 18, 1995 TAG: 9502240011
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICK DU BROW LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE: HOLLYWOOD LENGTH: Medium
The boyish, mischievous, 31-year-old has a way of getting noticed, despite his relatively smaller audiences in TV's twilight zones - fringe areas out of the mainstream of prime-time series on the Big Four networks.
First came ``Talk Soup,'' an irreverent digest of TV's top talk shows that won a cultlike audience for cable's E! Entertainment channel.
That propelled him to NBC and a 1:35 a.m. series, ``Later With Greg Kinnear,'' which follows the higher-profile Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien shows.
So far, so good.
But then, recently - whammo - and maybe the jackpot. Out of the blue came a leading role for Kinnear in a major motion picture that most prime-time TV stars would kill for.
The film is ``Sabrina,'' a remake of the charming 1954 Billy Wilder comedy that dealt with Audrey Hepburn as a chauffeur's daughter and the two men in her life - Humphrey Bogart as a wealthy but stuffy businessman and William Holden as his rakish younger brother.
In the remake from Paramount, Harrison Ford is playing the Bogart role, Julia Ormond has the Hepburn part - and Kinnear inherits the breezy Holden character. The producers are Scott Rudin (``Nobody's Fool,'' ``Sister Act'') and Sydney Pollack (``Out of Africa,'' ``Tootsie''). Pollack is also the director.
It is, as Kinnear's boss, NBC Entertainment President Warren Littlefield, puts it, ``the chance of a lifetime.''
``I was stunned when I first heard about the meeting to go in and talk with Sydney,'' Kinnear said from his New York hotel room. ``It literally came out of nowhere. I didn't believe it. It was flattering, but it was just a meeting. But that meeting led to other meetings, and after about three months I finally got the role.''
On the basis of Kinnear's two modest but attention-getting series, Rudin and his colleagues obviously saw potential in the young performer, who says he decided to give up ``Talk Soup'' - his contract was up - to focus on the film and his NBC show.
But there was a major problem to be worked out:
With Kinnear heading off to New York to film ``Sabrina'' right smack in the middle of the TV season - including the key February and May ratings sweeps periods - it took some high-level negotiating to protect NBC's interests. The network clearly had special concern because of CBS' move to claim overall late-night dominance with David Letterman and Tom Snyder.
NBC Productions is the primary owner of the network's late-night lineup - Leno's ``Tonight'' show and the O'Brien and Kinnear series - and thus has a high stake in anything that might upset its long-term plans.
``We've spent a lot of time and money and energy on the late-night schedule,'' says Michael Zinberg, president of creative affairs for NBC Productions and a prime figure in working out the Kinnear arrangements.
Adds Zinberg: ``When Scott Rudin called and said, `Can we work this out?' - he said Greg was charming, bright, new and funny - we really wanted to. Greg has a nice, light comedic quality. I think the guy's a TV star, and obviously they think that translates onto the big screen.''
So, says Zinberg, a plan was worked out to protect NBC's interests: ``We banked [taped] about four weeks of original shows. We'll do a couple of weeks of reruns. Then Greg's got a hiatus from the movie, about three or four weeks, and he comes back to do more originals in Hollywood. We'll also be doing about two or three weeks with guest hosts.''
Kinnear's ``Later'' show - inherited from Bob Costas - is a mixture of interviews and comedy. It already is up 11 percent in total households and 51 percent among 18-to-49-year-old viewers favored by sponsors since Kinnear took over the series one year ago this month, according to NBC.
While the ``Sabrina'' offer was the stuff that dreams are made of, Kinnear's performing ambitions began early. With his father in the State Department, he grew up in Indiana; Washington, D.C.; Beirut, Lebanon, and Athens, Greece, where, in his teens, he served as host for a show on Armed Forces Radio called ``School Daze With Greg Kinnear.''
After studying broadcast journalism at the University of Arizona, he headed for Los Angeles and became a host on a new cable channel, Movietime, which evolved into E! He then was emcee of an HBO entertainment show and also landed acting parts in the series ``Life Goes On'' and the television movie ``Murder in Mississippi.''
Kinnear maintains that regardless of how ``Sabrina'' affects his professional standing, ``I can't imagine my feelings about my [NBC] show or my commitment changing. Unlike sitcoms, where you gotta strike and you gotta strike quick, one of the reasons I got into late-night is that it's a long game, and it's not about finding yourself in six episodes or one movie.''
by CNB