Visit to TV set proves pleasant surprise

By Polly Drew --
Los Angeles...We were prepared.

Weeks before our mother/daughter trip to the warmest place our frequent-flier miles could get us, people in the know started warning us about the world-class show-offs who live here.

"You'll see fake lips and fast cars. Most aren't paid for," said my friend Heidi, a transplant to Wisconsin from Southern California. She loves her birthplace but appreciates the genuineness of Midwesterners.

Sarah, 15, seems comfortable in her skin, but no teen is immune to eating disorders or a twinge of the body-image blues. For that matter, neither am I.

So on the flight out, we talked about healthy choices and that caring about others is more important than the illusion of cool.

She talked. I listened. She listened. I talked. But then she rolled her eyes and said, "Just don't quote me, mom."

"Think of it as being like Disney World," I said. "If you spot a star, it's like spotting Pluto!"

Sure enough, the first night here, we saw the bishop who died on "ER." He looked perfectly healthy as he munched Chinese food. At the same restaurant, Benicio Del Toro, best supporting actor Oscar nominee for "Traffic," ate a noodle dish and sipped red wine.

The next day, we went to the set of "Once and Again," the critically acclaimed ABC television drama that's found itself in a bit of a ratings slump.

Up against "Law and Order" on Wednesdays at 9, this cast works for two of the hottest writer/producers in town, Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz ("Traffic").

Unlike TV comedies with studio audiences, TV drama sets are quiet and somewhat intense. It's tedious work. Eight 12-hour days are needed to make a one-hour episode.

Story lines are so well developed that fans discuss characters as if they were friends. And family therapy training institutes have used clips from episodes to teach special issues that divorced families face.

On the way to the studio, I prepared myself for disappointment. Lead heart-throb Rick couldn't be that genuine.

I love it when I'm wrong. Sarah and I -- it appeared -- had stumbled onto a Hollywood set with heart.

As we were taken through Phil's restaurant, Judy's bookstore, Rick's house and Lily's house, we were allowed to lie on beds, look in refrigerators, drawers and even medicine cabinets. Sarah peeked in Lily's bathroom cabinet, where we discovered that she takes power mushrooms, shark cartilage and Premarin.

Illusions are created for TV, of course, but there's also lots of attention to detail. Pictures on the refrigerators were drawn by crew members' children. The actors' actual family photos are used.

The action that morning was in Rick's office. Director Dan Lerner smiled and asked where we were from. Script supervisor Adell Aldrich encouraged us to move in and "have a look."

Then, "very quiet please." A bell rings. "Ready . . . and . . . AC-tion!" yells Lerner.

Billy Campbell (Rick) and Susanna Thompson (Karen, his TV ex- wife) share a scene that will last two minutes on the show but will take all morning to shoot.

Between takes, I discover that "Once and Again" has parties for children who are trauma survivors, recycles cans and bottles and donates unused food.

Studio caterers make mounds of food to feed cast and crew during their long days. Typically, the leftovers are discarded. But tired of the waste, Aldrich, Zwick and Herskovitz decided to donate food to Angel Harvest, a food pantry that distributes still-warm leftovers, within 30 minutes, to Los Angeles' hungry.

Desi Tiscareno, driver for Angel Harvest, said the donation of food is new and that just a handful of TV-show sets donate. "Once and Again" has set a standard that is catching on, he said.

As we leave the set, Billy Campbell sits in his director-like chair eating tuna out of a paper cup and going over his lines. Soon, Campbell will begin shooting "Enough," a theatrical movie with Jennifer Lopez and Noah Wylie.

"Sit down," he says to us, moving Sela Ward's chair for me and Susanna Thompson's chair for Sarah. My heart stops. I wasn't planning on an interview. "Milwaukee? I loved playing rugby on your lakefront when I lived in Chicago."

"Last year, you were on magazine covers," I say to last season's "it" man . . . for grown-ups. "But what's it feel like . . . "

He finishes my question: "You mean if we don't get picked up (renewed)? Hey, in this business, at this point in my career, my expectations are realistic. I'm hopeful. But these things happen, you know?"

With television stars who seem authentic and a crew that gives back to the community, "Once and Again" has proved that it is a diamond in this rough, sometimes fickle, world of showbiz.

As last year's "it" guy knows, this business, this town, is no trip to Hollywood. Or Disney World.

And Campbell is definitely not Pluto.__Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (March 25, 2001) ------------

Polly Drew is a marriage and family therapist. Write to her at P.O. Box 11377, Milwaukee, WI 53211 or e-mail her at pollyd@execpc.com.