ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, November 9, 1996 TAG: 9611120137
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-27 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PATRICIA BRENNAN THE WASHINGTON POST
As Judith Light plays her, Anna Lerner is a spunky woman, with determination and a sense of humor that stand her in good stead as she battles to get care for her younger son, paralyzed as the result of a diving accident.
It is largely because of Anna's flinty, upbeat personality that ``A Step Toward Tomorrow'' (Sunday night on CBS) is not a maudlin movie. That and the fact that the script is by Tom Nursall and Harris Goldberg, stand-up and sketch comedians who turned to writing.
Light, who played an uptown ad executive on ABC's ``Who's the Boss?'' from 1984 to 1992 with Tony Danza, shines as a working-class mom on her own.
But it is the return of Christopher Reeve, paralyzed in an equestrian accident in May 1994, that will draw many viewers to this film. Reeve plays a quadriplegic who talks to young Georgie Lerner (Kendall Cunningham) to ease his apprehension and give him hope.
Obviously this is a cameo for Reeve, a quadriplegic who uses a breathing tube. But Light said that Reeve, best known for his role as Superman, is determined to walk again.
``And he will walk,'' she said. ``If anybody is going to walk, it will be Christopher.''
Executive producer Craig Anderson agreed: ``He's got such courage and such will and incredible determination. If anyone can pull himself through this, it's Christopher Reeve. He said, `It's the people around me that keep me going, and besides, one day I'm going to walk again.' Chris believes that. If anyone's going to do it, he's going to.''
Anderson was also clear that Reeve appears in only three, relatively short scenes. ``This is not Christopher Reeve's movie. He makes a special appearance. I hope people will hang in there for it.''
Light, Anderson and the movie's cast - including Tom Irwin as a surgeon, Kendall Cunningham and Tim Redwine as Anna's sons, Georgie and Ben - filmed most of the movie in Wilmington, N.C. They went to Atlanta to film scenes with Reeve, who helped open the Paralympics last summer after the 1996 Olympics.
In Washington with her husband, actor Robert Desiderio, for the display of the AIDS quilt in October, Light talked about the movie and about her volunteer work as co-chair of the Names Project, which oversees displays and archiving of the quilt.
She chose the fight against AIDS as her charity work after she played the mother of a young hemophiliac with AIDS in ``The Ryan White Story'' in 1989, a year before the teen-ager died.
It was while she and Reeve were doing a benefit for AIDS in Los Angeles, she said, that he reminded her he had seen her perform in a play when she was a student at Carnegie Mellon University in 1970. But until this movie, they had not worked together as actors.
``Working with Christopher is the highlight of my career,'' Light said. ``It reminded me of so many things I tend to forget in my everyday living. I loved making this movie. Having the first scene with him his first time back - I'm not sure how to describe the experience, the thrill. I picked up so much of his energy and his joy and his delight at being able to do this, of being back.
``For a lot of people it will look like he's playing himself. But Christopher is playing a character. When we were together, we were actors talking about parts we were going to play together.''
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Judith Light and Kendall Cunningham (far right) star inby CNB``A Step Toward Tomorrow,'' airing Sunday at 9 p.m. on WDBJ-Channel
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