THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 24, 1995 TAG: 9507210168
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Larry Bonko
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Long : 239 lines
From the land of incredible bods, bleached blondes and billboards that urge, ``Resist Satan,'' here is what television's Beautiful People are saying during the semi-annual Television Critics Association press tour:
Jennifer Aniston of NBC's ``Friends,'' who has risen from totally unknown actress to a hot-property cover girl in less than a year: ``The stuff I've been reading in those stupid tabloids gets me so crazy that I want to scream, `Stop!' They say I've dated all of my male co-stars. That is so outrageous, so un-true. But I sort of wish it were true. They're cute guys.''
Katey Sagal of Fox's ``Married With Children'' who appears in an NBC movie, ``Trail of Tears,'' with Pam Dawber: ``Peg Bundy will continue doing the same thing she's always done. She'll never go to work. The kids will never leave home. Al is still going to work in the shoe store. It will still be funny stuff. The Bundys are who they are.''
Jamie Lee Curtis, the daughter of actress Janet Leigh and actor Tony Curtis, who will soon star in ``The Heidi Chronicles'' on TNT: ``To be the child of celebrated parents is an isolating experience. It culls you from the rest of your colleagues, friends, students and peers. And on some levels, it makes you stand out. It highlights you. You get a lot of attention but yet you feel lonely.''
Norfolk actor Stephen Furst, a husband for 19 years and father of two who co-stars in a Fox sitcom, ``Misery Loves Company,'' about three divorced friends: ``I know no deep, dark secret to making a good marriage. I just do everything my wife tells me to do.''
Bryant Gumbel, co-host of the ``Today'' show as well of host for a new series on HBO, ``Real Sports'': ``In all fairness to those who find fault with what I do or disagree with what I do or criticize me for being smug, there are a lot of reasons to dislike Bryant Gumbel.''
Jason Alexander of ``Seinfeld'' on NBC who is taping a revival of ``Bye Bye Birdie'' in Vancouver for ABC: ``It is very possible that this is the last season for `Seinfeld,' and not for any lack of love of doing it. Because we love doing the series we would want to go out on a high note. I believe the decision to continue with `Seinfeld' will be made in the middle of the upcoming season.''
Sela Ward of ``Sisters,'' a natural brunette who will appear very blond on screen in the Showtime film about an NBC anchorwoman who died in an automobile accident, ``Almost Golden: The Jessica Savitch Story'': ``You can't imagine how they fried my hair for the role. When I arrived in Toronto, where we were filming, it was right after I spent 16 hours lightening my hair. The producers said I wasn't blond enough. They sent me to New York to do three more hours of lightening. If I had known that would be necessary, I probably wouldn't have taken the role.''
Ted Turner, CNN founder and cable mogul, on his futile attempts to buy CBS or another broadcast network: ``It's frustration. I go to bed and then wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, gritting my teeth, beating on the bed with my fist, yelling, `I've got to get a network! I've got to get a network!' I try about every month to make a deal to buy CBS, NBC or ABC. Fox, too. But it's eluded me. However, I think I still have a shot at buying a network.''
Swoosie Kurtz of ``Sisters'' on NBC: ``As an actor, I pray to be involved in the three D's - disease, divorce and deception. Early on in the series, I recall going into the producer's office to say, `My character has no life. Give me disease. Give me tragedy. Give me all the things that you don't want to happen in real life.' ''
Comic Howie Mandel, appearing on Showtime in ``Howie Mandel's Sunny Skies'': ``The truth is that I've never been a favorite of the critics. I suppose that is because what I do is not highbrow humor. Although there is an audience for what I do, and some find me very funny, a select group of critics are left out of my less-than-literate bathroom humor.''
Alan Thicke of NBC's ``Hope and Gloria'' also on the subject of criticism: ``When I was doing `Thicke of the Night,' it was painful to read the reviews. Only one critic in the country liked it. Underneath the surface of most of us who appear on stage or before a camera is pathetic insecurity. After bad reviews, your heart's breaking and you feel you're suffocating, but you've got to go out there and keep the train moving.''
John Walsh, host and executive producer of ``America's Most Wanted'' on Fox, which has helped to bring dozens of criminals to justice: ``I've had many, many threats. I travel with bodyguards. We've had bomb threats in the studio where we tape. There was a psychopath who threatened me for several years until the FBI caught up with him. Unfortunately, there are people out there who may have decided to become famous by threatening or killing me.''
Danny Bonaduce, a former member of ``The Partridge Family'' cast who is launching a syndicated talk show in the fall: ``I make a wonderful talk show guest. If I'm going nowhere with the guests I'm interviewing on my show, I'll just sit on the couch and interview myself. It's an ace I have up my sleeve.''
Marie Osmond, who appeared in ``The Sound of Music'' at Norfolk's Chrysler Hall last year, and co-stars with Betty White in the new ABC sitcom, ``Maybe This Time'': ``There are some preconceived ideas about me out there that not entirely true. People see me and think, `Oh, Marie. She's goody-goody and so naive.' I laugh when I hear that. You cannot last long in show business if you are naive.''
Singer Little Richard, who will soon appear in the special ``The Concert for the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame,'' on HBO: ``When I started, I played the piano with my toes, my elbows, my whole body. Everybody thought I was crazy. They said I was wild. They said I should be kept out of cities because I ran the children wild. Nobody on stage dressed like I did. The originator, emancipator and architect of rock 'n' roll is me. I'm history alive.''
Marilu Henner, the star of the upcoming NBC movie ``Fight for Justice: The Nancy Conn Story'': ``My baby is due in November, during the ratings sweeps period. My son was born a year ago in May during another sweeps period. I guess my next one, if I have another, will come during the February sweeps.''
Also pregnant Melissa Gilbert, a working actress for 29 of her 31 years, on what she plans to do after co-starring with husband Bruce Boxleitner in ``Danielle Steel's Zoya'' for NBC: ``I intend to stay home for a year and do nothing but bake bread, churn butter and have a baby.''
Jacques-Yves Cousteau, who will soon be seen in a special, ``Cousteau: My First 85 Years,'' on TBS: ``I have never counted the number of dives I have accumulated since I began in 1950. The number is in the thousands. I still dive, but at my age, I dive less and must be careful not to dive in cold water and risk pneumonia. I am now a warm-water diver.''
Katie Haas, host of ``Wildhorse Saloon'' on The Nashville Network: ``It's a strange place to do a TV show. It's a real working bar where about a thousand people show up every night. I call it combat TV because the crowd is drinking, squawking, scratching, spitting, hollering, yelling and yacking.''
Academy Award nominee Gary Sinise, who plays former president Harry S. Truman in HBO Pictures' ``Truman'': ``He had qualities that were very admirable. You can't help admiring him greatly, loving the man. He was a humble man from the Midwest who never went to college, never owned his own home, and rose to the most powerful position in the free world. When are you ever going to see another man elected president who never owned a house?''
Vanessa Redgrave on the last days of the late Raoul Julia with whom she co-stars in a Showtime original movie, ``Down Came a Blackbird'': ``I realized straight away that he was fighting very hard to do this role, that he was ill but did not wish to talk about what was happening to his health. He was thin, but full of energy. He smoked big, smelly cigars and ate macrobiotic food. A lot of it. We could see that he was far from OK, but his work was terrific.''
Linda Hamilton of the ``Terminator'' movies, and the star of a USA Networks original film (``A Mother's Prayer'') about a young woman afflicted with AIDS: ``To get ready for this role, I lived on 1,200 calories a day and lost a lot of weight, including muscle. I got very thin. But I had to know what it was like to be ill with AIDS. I had to sink in from the inside. In the end, I did get quite sick. When the shooting ended, I had huge meals and milkshakes.''
George Hamilton, who will soon co-star on a syndicated talk show with his former wife, Alana Stewart: ``I survived in movies on hand-me-down roles from other actors. I took roles the other actors refused to take. If that wasn't happening, I produced my own films. I was desperate. And if this talk show doesn't work, I'll be appearing at a dinner theater near you, taking second billing to the roast beef.''
Matthew Fox, one of the stars of the critically praised but low-rated Fox drama, ``Party of Five'': ``There are people out there who like certain shows but do not give those shows the support that our series received. Our fan base is very strong now. When they heard the show might not be renewed, they wrote, faxed and sent e-mail to the network. In part, that support is what brought us back.''
Teri Hatcher, who plays Lois Lane in ABC's ``Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman,'' on her relationship with co-star Dean Cain: ``We were shooting a scene the other day, and I said to him, `Isn't it funny that we have this great chemistry onscreen, and everybody thinks we're such a cute couple? But in real life, we're not attracted to each other at all.' ''
Erika Alexander of the Fox sitcom, ``Living Single'': ``When I was going to an all-girls high school, I was determined to study science, to be a mad scientist. I attended college for two weeks at New York U. Then I got a job. That was it for my plans to be a scientist.''
John Lithgow, Hollywood actor taking part in his first sitcom (``Third Rock from the Sun''), which will be on NBC later in the year: ``After doing the pilot for this show, I came to appreciate the extraordinary quickness, quick-wittedness and headlong nervous energy that goes into doing a situation comedy. Starting with the script reading on Monday, and through the taping on Friday, it's a charged, nervous process. I just love it.''
Lea Thompson, starring in a NBC sitcom, ``Caroline in the City,'' that appears to have been inspired by ``Friends'': ``I'm a married person who loves to watch the `Friends' kind of shows about young people trying to find love. It's fun to live vicariously through these characters and bring back some of the feelings and emotions you experienced when you were single.''
Joey Lawrence, who will co-star with brothers Matthew and Andrew in the new NBC sitcom ``Brotherly Love'': ``People should know that my character in this show is different from the Joey character on `Blossom' by about 40 I.Q. points. If there was someone to be made fun of on that show, it was my character. Now I get to play a smart 21-year-old guy who lives on his own whose life is reality, not fantasy.''
David Alan Grier, who will star in the new Fox series ``The Preston Episodes,'' on his former co-star from ``In Living Color'': ``I sat next to Jim Carrey at the premiere of `Ace Ventura, Pet Detective.' When the film ended, he asked me what I thought. I told him that he sucked all the funny stuff out of the world. After that movie, there was no more funny stuff left for the rest of us to do. If he is paid $20 million a movie, as I have heard, Jim deserves every dime. Look at all the money he has made for the movie studios.''
Brian Henson, who will later this year produce ``The New Muppet Show'' for ABC, on how Miss Piggy was discovered: ``On the first or second Muppets' show, we used six or seven pigs. Somebody threw a wig on one of them, and that pig got popular. Miss Piggy broke out from the pack. She still looks great - not a day older - and will continue to have a relationship with Kermit.''
Jeff Foxworthy, the comic who specializes in what he calls redneck humor, and the star of the new ABC sitcom ``The Jeff Foxworthy Show,'' reflecting on the 1996 Olympics coming to Georgia: ``My feeling is that we're going to screw this up. I guarantee you that when they let those doves go during the opening ceremonies, there will be guys in the parking lot with shotguns aiming for them. `Hey, Ed! I got me a white one.' The Olympic rings will be five old tires nailed together and set on fire because they burn a long dang time.''
Ted Harbert, president, ABC Entertainment, on why he decided to cancel ``My So-Called Life'' despite overwhelming support for the series among the young: ``It was a hard thing for me to do because I loved the show. It was so creatively rewarding. But the compelling evidence in our ratings suggested that people in large numbers who sampled the show did not come back to it. We hoped they would stay. But they did not. In this business, we must reach a broad audience.''
Cindy Katz, a relatively unknown New York actress who will co-star with Mark Harmon in the new ABC private-eye show ``Charlie Grace'': When I first came out here from New York, and went to one audition after another, I was Second Choice Sally all the way. I kept losing roles to actresses who were better known, who had `names.' I asked my agents how I could get one of those names. Could I buy a name? I want to be a name.''
No problem, Cindy.
If ``Charlie Grace'' is a hit, you'll be a household name overnight. A year ago, she was Jennifer Who. Then came ``Friends.'' Now Jennifer Aniston has. . MEMO: Television Columnist Larry Bonko is in Los Angeles for the
twice-yearly Television Critics Association.
ILLUSTRATION: NBC
Jason Alexander
AP
Jamie Lee Curtis
TOUCHSTONE TELEVISION
Stephen Furst
FOX
Katey Sagal
AP
Bryant Gumbel
ABC
Teri Hatcher has great chemistry with Superman Dean Cain, right, but
says, "In real life, we're not attracted to each other at all." Lane
Smith also stars.
FOX
Erika Alexander of "Living Single" was determined to ne a scientist,
but she gave up college at NYU after two weeks.
by CNB