IN STYLE JULY 1999
JANE'S ADDICTION
Jane Leeves, a woman who only a few short years ago stayed out all night going to clubs, wore lots of leopard prints, and dyed her hair colours not found in nature, is sewing table napkins for her mother back home in England.
“I know it sounds bizarre," says Leeves, who portrays home-care worker Daphne Moon on the sitcom Frasier. "I always fancied myself this racy, jet-setting kind of girl. But I find I have become like Daphne. I just want to stay at home and cook for my friends and family."
Credit the change, perhaps, to her storybook romance with husband Marshall Coben, a Paramount Television executive. They spotted each other at an office Christmas party in 1995 "I'm, like, a simple Malibu surfer guy," recalls Cohen, "and here was this tall, sexy, beautiful Englishwoman. I didn't think there would be any chance in the world I could interest her. But she kept smiling at me." Though he was at first too shy to ask her out, he soon over-came his timidity, and within a year the couple were married at a I4th Century English village chapel. These days, apart from attending the occasional industry event, they are happy to stay in and order takeout food or entertain friends.
But don't think Leeves' San Fernando Valley home is all hand-crocheted doilies and frilly pink things-the sort of "fairy explosion', Daphne might prefer. The actress's suppressed wild side still shows through in a variety of exotic "bits and bobs" scattered throughout the white clapboard house. A riot of brass monkey’s perform double duty as lamps and candelabra, among other things. They nicely complement an assortment of Turkish rugs, English bamboo antiques and tropical plants, creating a playful, neo-colonial effect that Leeves calls "Englishwoman in the tropics." "I like a jungly kind of thing," she explains, looking tall, lithe and elegant in a black cashmere sweater, white capri pants and sandals. "But not so overboard with fake bah-nah-na trees and all that. Just that little hint of jungly thing."
Leeves' exotic tastes are, to say the least, somewhat out of sync with those of both her husband and the staid residents of East Grinstead, the small town in rural Sussex where she grew up Coben, who as a bachelor made do with a cardboard box for a coffee table, has politely asked her to "stop collecting the monkeys." And Leeves' mother, Ruth, confirms that her daughter is a tad on the adventurous side. "I tend to be a little more conventional. She has such flair in her dress and style. But I've never been ashamed to go out with her. You do hear that from mums now and then."
Though the two women are extremely close-they mail fabric samples and Polaroids back and forth-Leeves recalls their history somewhat differently. At age i8, after she moved to a flat in London to pursue her dancing career and began dyeing her hair a series of colours from pink to purple, "my mother would make me duck down in the car whenever I came home," she says.
The actress, who endured such childhood nicknames as Spider and Rubber Lips, had grown into her mile-long legs and full mouth. To support herself, she took a variety of humiliating jobs, including one serving drinks at a model home, which required her to wear "frilly knickers" and a pink gingham dress, open at the back. "I started to cry," she recalls. "I must have been the silliest sight. This girl with the frilly bum walking around with the drinks tray, crying!"
A few years later, however, after appearing in a brief but memorable stint on The Benny Hill Show, Leeves was winging her way to Los Angeles. She had nothing but $1,000 and a suitcase to her name, but she was intent on pursuing an acting career. "The whole flight I was holding my book upside down," she recalls with a laugh, "not reading it but hiding my tears."
One of her first acquaintances was Faith Ford, who became her roommate and close friend. When Ford landed the role of Corky Sherwood, the blond, air-headed newscaster on Murphy Brown, Leeves nearly gave up hope that she would find a job, figuring lightning wouldn't strike the same tiny apartment twice. But a three-episode stint playing Jerry Seinfeld's virgin girlfriend (ultimately bedded by JFK Jr.) led to a recurring part on Murphy Brown, which got her a shot at Frasier, fame and fortune. This fall she will appear opposite Meryl Streep in Miramax's drama 50 Violins.
Leeves bought her house four years ago (before she met Coben) and credits much of its look to her decorators, Pamela Galloway and Kathy Hartz, of the home-design store Ferret. They return compliment. "Jane's sense of humour and wit is reflected in what did," says Galloway. The next biggest influence has been I mother, who has "very English-country taste," says Leeves. "I love crusty old things except people. I'm kind of attracted to the crumbling, elegant quality. [The Valley] is a hard place to find that. Unless you get a 6.7," she says, referring to the magnitude of 1994 Northridge earthquake, which struck not far from the house "Then you get plenty of crumbling!"
Leeves and Coben are shopping for a larger home, preferably on firmer ground. They also are "very seriously thinking about having children," and have names picked out. "There will be a battle if it's a girl," says Leeves. "He wants Olive. Catherine is my choice. Children, of course, figure prominently in choosing a new home "So many houses have separate wings for them," she says, appalled "I couldn't live like that, especially in earthquake country!"
When she finally finds her dream home-"something like Gull Cottage from The Ghost and Mrs. Muir "-there will be a place in it for the 12-foot alder table that currently resides in her long, narrow dining room. "My favourite thing to do is have a huge table of foe says Leeves. "Real rustic, big pots." In fact, Leeves prefers to cater for large, captive audiences. "Her shepherd's pie is almost a shrine to our relationship," says Coben. "All my surfer friends think it' exotic." Daphne, on the other hand, would feel right at home.