DATE: Tuesday, July 22, 1997                TAG: 9707210263

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E2   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: Larry Bonko, Pilot TV writer

DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: 69 lines

NETWORKS HIRE NAMES INSTEAD OF VETERANS TO WIN BACK AUDIENCE

THIS IS A place of a zillion talented, highly trained unemployed actors, any one of whom would gladly part with a limb or two to be in a TV series.

So, who do the networks hire?

Rappers. Recording artists. Go figure.

In the past, there was Will Smith of ``The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,'' Queen Latifah of ``Living Single'' and LL Cool J of ``In the House.'' Now comes Ice-T to co-star in ``Players,'' an NBC drama about ex-cons on parole assisting the FBI.

It's scheduled for Friday nights at 8.

In TV news, there must be dozens of men and women, highly qualified journalists, who are dying to anchor a network news show - people who have paid their dues.

So, who did the network brass pick for ``CBS News Saturday Morning,'' which will be launched soon?

Susan Molinari, a politician who never even auditioned for the job, never filed a news story, never conducted an interview on camera. Go figure.

At a time when networks see their share of the audience relentlessly eroding - the drop was in the neighborhood of 10 percent last year - they're looking all over the place for people to help stop the slide.

NBC hired a singer who made his name doing the controversial gangsta rap - former Newark, N.J. street hustler and admitted drug peddler whose real first name is Tracy Marrow, which evolved into ``Trey,'' and finally just ``T.''

CBS signed Rep. Molinari largely on the strength of her sizzling speech at the Republicans' national convention last summer.

Molinari's hiring as co-anchor with Russ Mitchell on the Saturday morning show raised a fuss at the recent meeting of TV writers and CBS brass. The reporters questioned Molinari and CBS News' president Andrew Heyward about the timing of all this.

Molinari was re-elected last November to represent the 13th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. In August, she will be deserting the voters in Brooklyn and Staten Island to join CBS.

Shouldn't Susan Molinari be ashamed of herself?

Molinari says there is nothing to apologize about.

``Sometimes a great opportunity comes up in your life - the opportunity to do what you've always dreamed of doing. You have to seize these moments when they come. When I join CBS in August, I will be out of politics for good.''

Ice-T has appeared in 10 films and the Fox series, ``New York Undercover,'' but he still considers himself a singer who's learning to act. ``For some in music, it's a natural transition to acting. Elvis and Frank Sinatra did it. Now I'm doing it because it's fun.

``Will I be taking acting classes? No.''

Ice-T talks like he wants young kids to look up to him - the former gang-banger, drug dealer and still the irreverent rapper who is on the verge of making it big in what he calls the white man's world. If ``Players'' pulls in a 30 rating, Ice-T will be a major TV star.

``I thought I'd be an auto-body repairman but I ended up hustling on the street - drugs and things. Today I tell the kids I've been there. I tell how this cat was nearly burned doing what I did. I tell them I'm an example of how a person can change totally if given the opportunity.''

Why has the rap star in 1997 become the darling of network bosses? ``Because this is our time. Rap is the hip thing right now. It's our era. People want to see us cats on TV,'' said Ice-T, who hates it when people call him Tracy. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by HARRISON FUNK

Rapper Ice-T will co-star in ``Players'' on NBC this fall.

FILE PHOTO

New York Rep. Susan Molinari ventures into TV news for CBS.

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