THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, July 18, 1995 TAG: 9507180051
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Bonko
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
SOMEWHERE ON the outskirts of this city where the Yellow Pages are full of plastic surgeons who specialize in tummy tucks, ``Beverly Hills 90210'' begins filming it's sixth season in a few days without Gabrielle Carteris.
The smartest kid to graduate from West Beverly High is nowhere to be found in the drab-looking warehouse-turned-studio where the Fox series originates.
At age 34, and weary of playing a character who is more than 10 years younger than she is, Carteris left the show and a fat paycheck to plunge into talk TV.
``Gabrielle,'' a daytime talk show from 20th Century Fox, is coming to a TV station near you in the next few months. Andrea Zuckerman of ``Beverly Hills 90210'' has given way to Talk Show Gabrielle.
She has set a high goal for herself. Carteris and her producer, J. Darlene Hayes, have decided to re-invent the daytime talk show by giving it wings.
While Ricki, Jenny, Oprah and the others in the talk show game rarely leave their studios, ``Gabrielle'' will get plenty of fresh air. ``Look for live remotes,'' Carteris said when she met the TV press gathered here to see what's new for late in 1995 and 1996 from the networks and studios.
``We have our marching orders to be different, take risks and chance failure. The chains have been taken off to see how creative and experimental we can be,'' said producer Hayes, who started her career on ``Donahue.''
Carteris joked that she decided to leave ``Beverly Hills 90210'' before she was eligible to collect Social Security. While other cast members hid their ages when they played high schoolers, Carteris admitted that she was darn near 30 when producer Aaron Spelling hired her.
Why spill the truth, she was asked? ``I can't speak for the others who were in the cast with me, but I like being my age. I earned the right to brag about being 34.'' On ``Beverly Hills 90210,'' her character has packed up and left that famous Zip Code to realize her dream of studying at Yale.
First Brenda, played by Shannen Doherty, goes off to London, never to be seen again. Now Andrea, played by Carteris, vanishes.
Say you'll stay, Donna and Kelly.
Carteris and her producer showed the TV press a snip here and a snip there in introducing ``Gabrielle.'' They did a thing on sneaking into a movie theater and on taking clothes back to the store after you've worn them once or twice. Then came the debate. If you do such things, are you a thief?
I say yes.
On the practice shows, Carteris focused on life in fraternities and sororities in the 1990s. She did a show about young men who love older women. And a show on couples of one race who adopt children of another.
And one on kids who take drugs in high school and go to class higher than the Goodyear blimp.
Sounds like the same old TV talk-show stuff to me.
Not so, said Carteris and Hayes. They'll take viewers to the sort of places they have never been before, the women promised. ``We are not looking to be like every other talk show on the air today. We want to find a different way to do talk on television,'' said Hayes.
This show will be different from the others in one way at least. It will have Carteris, whose character leaves ``Beverly Hills 90210'' after giving birth and having a fling with a doctor in training. Carteris expects devotees of ``Beverly Hills 90210'' to tune in just to check her out.
``The aim of our show is not to bring people before the cameras to shock and embarrass them,'' Carteris said.
I remember hearing Jenny Jones say the very same thing when she launched her talk show. MEMO: Television Columnist Larry Bonko is in Los Angeles for the twice-yearly
Television Critics Association.
by CNB