ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, January 2, 1997 TAG: 9701020101
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JENNIFER BOWLES ASSOCIATED PRESS
After producing more than 3,000 hours of primetime programming over a 40-year television career, Aaron Spelling is plying new waters: daytime TV.
Introducing ``Sunset Beach,'' presented in the finest Spelling tradition of beautiful people doing nasty things in exotic settings. But don't call it an afternoon version of ``Baywatch.''
Why's he exploring daytime? ``I don't know why ... because it was there?'' he replied, facetiously.
Actually, the idea for ``Sunset Beach'' emerged a couple years ago in a chat with Don Ohlmeyer, president of NBC West Coast.
``And then, I started thinking about it and you know my daughter [actress Tori Spelling], she's crazy about daytime, she watches everything,'' Spelling said. ``So I thought it might be an interesting idea and we came up with `Sunset Beach.'''
``Like an idiot I asked Don if he'd be ordering 13 or 22 episodes,'' Spelling said, referring to the standard production contracts for nighttime series.
``And he said, `I'm ordering 250 hours,' so that was my first shock,'' Spelling said.
But daytime is not really that much of a stretch for Spelling. After all, this is the man who brings us such salacious nighttime fare as ``Melrose Place'' and ``Savannah.''
And who can forget the wicked and wealthy who reigned in Spelling's 1980s hit ``Dynasty,'' which he created along with then-partner Leonard Goldberg?
Videotapes of the heavily promoted ``Sunset Beach'' weren't available for review before its debut on Monday.
But if you've watched NBC at all recently, you couldn't have missed those alluring ads suggesting a format something along these lines: Gorgeous, bare-chested men walking seductively along a beach or embracing shapely women in skimpy bikinis, all against a perpetually golden sunset.
Looks like daytime ``Baywatch'' to me, Aaron.
``No, gosh. I think I'd slit my throat,'' Spelling said - before confessing to having two lifeguards in the cast.
But while ``Baywatch'' films its scenes along the star-studded shores of Santa Monica and Malibu, ``Sunset Beach'' shoots its exteriors 30 miles down the coast at less-glamorous Seal Beach.
With its pier and boardwalk, the quaint Orange County town radiates a feeling that ``everybody on that beach knows each other,'' Spelling said.
That helps the soap achieve one of it's main objectives, said head writer and co-creator Robert Guza.
``What we tried to do is create a community, make the town itself a character,'' he said. ``Kind of like how Cicely, Alaska, was in `Northern Exposure.' It's a special place where people gravitate to and where the people live a little larger than life.''
The town also works well, Guza explained, in promoting the legend behind ``Sunset Beach,'' which goes something like this: ``In the 1920s, a brokenhearted but handsome European aristocrat, Armando Deschanel, came to Southern California determined to start a new life. At Sunset Beach a beautiful woman dressed in black appeared at the water's edge. Basking in the beauty of the setting sun, they fell in love. Armando built a beachfront castle as a monument to their eternal love. The castle no longer stands, but the legend continues.''
With this in mind, Spelling went about inhabiting the modern-day ``Sunset Beach'' with the typical daytime fare: a high-powered defense attorney (Sam Behrens) possessing the moral code of a snake, his beautiful but indifferent wife (Lesley-Anne Down), a mysterious European (Ashley Hamilton) - the spitting image of town founder Armando Deschanel, a crooked cop (Peter Barton), two male lifeguards (Casey Mitchum and Jason George) and the town's confidant (Leigh Taylor-Young), who owns Elaine's Waffle House and keeps the legend alive.
And let's not forget Randy Spelling as the rebellious son of wealthy parents.
``Who's that?'' the elder Spelling asked coyly.
Randy Spelling, who also was cast in his father's now-defunct show ``Malibu Shores,'' won't confess much about his role.
``Well, my mom's an alcoholic, I don't get along with my father, and there is a murder that happens and I am semi a part of that. That's all I can say,'' said the 18-year-old.
Despite his TV veteran status, the elder Spelling actually admits to being a little anxious about his new project.
``I'm going to be a nervous wreck,'' he said. ``I hear it's very hard to launch in daytime. We'll find out.''
LENGTH: Medium: 85 linesby CNB