THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, March 28, 1996 TAG: 9603280044
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LARRY BONKO
LENGTH: Long : 133 lines
NOT SO VERY long ago, she was earning more than $100,000 a year anchoring the news at the CBS affiliate in Miami, the 16th-largest television market in America. Lately, Diana Morgan has been happy to make $40 a day as an extra in Hollywood.
At the peak of her career in TV news - she won a regional Emmy and was nominated for three others at Miami's WCIX - Morgan gave it up in 1994 to pursue an acting career.
This is the same Diana Morgan who co-anchored WAVY's 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts for five years and became the most talked about TV personality to ever work in this market.
Her fashionable, expensive wardrobe had female viewers buzzing. With her exotic good looks - high cheekbones, eyes set wide apart and stunning figure - Morgan was irresistible to male viewers.
Morgan had a delivery that annoyed some viewers but captivated others. With almost every bit of news she read - upbeat or downbeat - there was just a hint of a smile. Not everybody liked Channel 10's Mona Lisa. But almost everybody watched.
In 1981, with WAVY's 6 p.m. newscast so bad that it trailed reruns of ``Wonder Woman'' in the ratings, the station's bosses brought in the young, upbeat quartet of Morgan, Bob Grip, Don Slater and Bruce Rader to shake up the market.
``The Daily News'' team clicked. Morgan had everyone talking.
Viewers were still talking about Morgan in 1990, when the big time called. Miami. She anchored the news at WCIX on the weekends and then on weekdays at 4 p.m., while also reporting from the field.
Two years ago, Morgan decided that she had had enough of Miami's mean streets, the anchor desk, reporting. All that.
``It was total burnout,'' she said.
Leaving her lucrative contract behind, Morgan returned to her home in Chicago for a year of R&R.
This paragraph is on her resume:
``I kept my cool in the middle of gunfire-filled riots, chased down politicians who didn't want to be interviewed, survived a near-drowning in 30 feet of water, was chased down a Miami expressway for miles by a crazed trucker in an 18-wheeler, crawled through darkened crack houses with camera crews to do interviews.''
While in Chicago - relaxing and re-charging her batteries - Morgan decided that if she was going to make her living in front of a camera, it would be as an actress.
``It had always been a fantasy of mine to be an actress,'' she said. ``It was tucked away in the back of my mind. I said to myself a year ago, `Wouldn't it be great if you could do that now?' ''
Diana Morgan's fantasy has evolved into fact.
Since packing up and moving to Los Angeles 10 months ago, she is a dues-paying, resume-sending,pager-carrying, agent-connected, always-auditioning working actress
And Morgan has done very well for somebody so inexperienced, so new to Hollywood and its legion of hard-to-impress casting directors. She's appeared in six films, including Arnold Schwarzenegger'snewest. The others: ``The Vagrant,'' ``The Sunchaser,'' ``While You Were Sleeping,'' ``Primal Fear'' and ``Up Close and Personal.''
She's also been in seven TV shows. She had a nice fat part in a recent ``Weekly World News,'' the spoof of TV magazine shows seen on the USA network Saturday nights at 10:30. Morgan played a psychiatrist treating adults who are hopelessly addicted to baby food.
Casting directors, note: Morgan can handle comedy.
Come April, Morgan will appear in the syndicated sci-fi series, ``Babylon 5.'' Playing what? ``A crazed public-relations lady,'' she said in a telephone interview.
Her agent, Tyler Kjar, says flat out, ``Diana will make it here.''
To be sure, she has a long way to go, said Kjar. ``But Diana has already come a long way. It wasn't necessary to change Diana. She had it together when she arrived here.''
With one exception, Morgan in 1996 is essentially the same Morgan who lit up WAVY's newscasts. Now, her hair is longer.
Mark Malis of Prime Time Studios in Los Angeles, who schooled Morgan in the actor's art that includes learning the right way to do a soap opera, says she has the talent and smarts to succeed.
``If anyone has a chance to make it out here, where only 10 percent of the men and women in the Screen Actor's Guild earn a living in films, it is Diana,'' Malis said. ``I don't see what can stop her.''
Morgan did not face the casting directors in Southern California unprepared. Before leaving Chicago, she studied at three actors' workshops, including Second City. In California, she has been in a half dozen study groups.
She learned quickly that her years in TV news were not enough to get her work in Hollywood. The actor's technique is different from the anchorman's, she said.
``The style of television news is stiff and fake. You project. You almost shout,'' she said. ``Acting is totally different. Acting is having a quiet conversation with the camera.
``It's all about being real. It's all about truth. When I began to study acting, I had to un-learn everything I had learned about being in front of a television camera.''
Her resume says she is 5-7, 125 pounds. Single. What type is Morgan?
Her agents send her out to read for parts that call for the attractive, sophisticated career woman. She could easily be cast as an executive of a Fortune 500 company. Or an attorney. Or a woman in real estate, public relations, broadcasting.
Could anybody in Hollywood play the role of a TV anchor better than Morgan? If Michelle Pfeiffer had known that Morgan was somewhere in the background during the shooting of ``Up Close and Personal'' (Pfeiffer played an inexperienced TV news babe), she might have asked for a tip or two.
For the first three months or so in Southern California, Morgan took jobs where she could find them, including extra work which pays $40 to $65 a day. No auditions at first. Just extra work.
``If I knew how hard it was going to be to get started, I probably wouldn't have come out here,'' Morgan said. ``I was so depressed at first. But now I'm doing fine. I feel I belong here.''
She saved her money. Invested wisely. She plans to stick it out. Television never was her thing, Morgan said. Not really.
``Do you know what I did after I signed my last contract at WAVY, a contract that paid me in six figures? I went home to my apartment and cried because I had obligated myself to continue in a profession that left me unfulfilled.''
As for leaving Miami, Morgan has no regrets. ``It is such a crazy place. A reporter's life is at risk there. Anyone's life is at risk. The building I lived in had a staff of 25 security guards.''
That stress is behind Diana Morgan. Today, she is a working actress in Hollywood, a member of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television Artists.
Make that a working and struggling actress.
In her television career, coming to Portsmouth and WAVY from a small TV station in the Midwest was her big break. The job here got her ready for Miami. Now, Morgan is looking for the big break in her acting career. ILLUSTRATION: FILE PHOTO
Diana Morgan
KEYWORDS: PROFILE MOVIES by CNB