Even if you've seen only the commercials for the NBC series 'Ed', ten bucks says you know who Carol Vessey is. She's that girl who set the title character on a rather odd path. To win Carol's love, Ed Stevens (Tom Cavanagh) bought a bowling alley back in his hometown of Stuckeyville, Ohio, donned a suit of armour, attempted skywriting and tossed waffles at her roof. Imagine, then, the sort of alluring creature the actress would have to be. "We auditioned every woman with a driver's licence," says Rob Burnett, executive producer of 'Ed' (NBC, Wednesdays, 8PM/ET). "She was very, very hard to find." Then came Julie Bowen, who was "so appealing," he says, "it was hard not to pay attention to her."
Of course, Prada and pearls can do that for a woman-not to mention an endless supply of perfect hair days, which Bowen's character enjoys. But not so fast: "Julie could not be more opposite from Carol Vessey," warns her costar, Lesley Boone. And in early December, when the 31-year-old Bowen greets her interviewer at Manhattan's bustling Cafe Lalo, her appeal is of a different sort. She has adorned he corner table with an outsize mug of hot tea-and a roll of toilet paper. She sneezes, she wheezes, she blows her nose. Her black woolen varsity track sweater (from high school!) slopes to one shoulder; her white T-shirt bunches at her neck; her worn vintage jeans could have been borrowed from Johnny Rotten.
"I usually have to convince people I'm on the show," says Bowen, laughing. "Carol is kind of attractive. I look a bit more like Macaulay Culkin." Actually, she looks more like a cute coed nursing a cold in the midst of finals. In fact, everything about Bowen is charming, including her self-deprecating story about how nervous she was when she met David Letterman. (His production company, Worldwide Pants, developed 'Ed'; he also occasionally tweaks the scripts) "What's that Elvis Costello song about Alison?" she asks. (The answer: Alison) She quotes it's lyric: "I wish I could stop you from talking when I hear the silly things that you say." Unspooling a wad of tissue, she says, "I felt a bit like Alison in that moment."
Luckily, Letterman himself has been known to say a silly thing or two. No doubt he could wring a joke out of the actress's real last name: Luetkemeyer. ("So you see why I use my middle name, Bowen,"she says.) The Luetkemeyers, Jack and Susie, raised their three daughters in Baltimore, where Jack works in commerical real estate. (Older sister, Molly, 32, is an interior designer in Los Angeles; younger sister Annie, 27, is a doctor in San Francisco.) Bowen went to Brown University-"a star-studded school," she says. "Lisa Loeb. Duncan Sheik. Tracee Ross. Did I know these people? No. But I thought they were pretty." After a few years "slogging away in acting classes" in New York, she moved to L.A., quickly landing a Showtime movie ('Runaway Daughters'); some TV guest spots; and the role of Adam Sandler's love interest in 'Happy Gilmore.' "I had no concept that every boy who was then 14 would grow up to quote me lines from that movie," she says. Teen girls might know her, too-as Dawson's free-loving Aunt Gwen on 'Dawson's Creek' last April. Off-camera, "I kept saying really dirty things to creep Katie Holmes out," Bowen says mischievously. Also of note: her 1998-99 stint as Dr Carter's insurance-agent girlfriend, on 'ER'.
But 'Ed', which is filmed in suburban Northvale, New Jersey, has brought her back to New York-specifically and Upper West Side apartment she warmly calls "a dark, unhappy troll hole just behind the garbage cans." It also lacks her boyfriend, David Brooks, a British film-maker who's looking after her L.A. house. "I think he's baffled by Ed and can't imagine anybody being that charming," she says.
Then again, her on-screen Don Quixote may soon lose some of his fervor when actress Rena Sofer (General Hospital) joins the mix this month as his new love interest. "She is one of the most gorgeous women I've ever seen," Bowen says with a sigh. But she is diplomatic: "I would love it if Ed grabbed me and kissed me," she says, "but if he's not going to go out with Carol, he should go out with *somebody*." Then she smiles coyly. She knows, of course, that only Carol Vessey merits a bowling alley. ---By Jennifer Graham (TV Guide)