Prim and proper Curtin reluctant to play ‘Allie’

Press, 28 August 1986, Page 19

Prim and proper Curtin reluctant to play ‘Allie’

By

JOHN SMALLWOOD

Jane Curtin was a reluctant heroine when it came to accepting the costarring role of Allie in “Kate and Allie” (Two, 8.30 p.m.). It was the other star, Susan Saint James, who did all the persuading. She had total creative control over the programme and thought, right from the start, that Curtin would be perfect to play her room-mate and friend in the show. “Jane wasn’t too thrilled about taking the role when it was first offered to her,” says a studio insider. “She had just had a baby a couple of months before and, naturally, wanted to spend some time at home. But Susan was persistent and got her to do the pilot show. Now, with the series a hit, Jane is thankful that Susan wanted her all along.”

The studio bosses believe that the two stars play their roles so well because they grew up living them. Susan Saint James, like her character, Kate, is a self-confessed former hippie who went the whole route, including experimenting with drugs. Jane Curtin, like her character, Allie, grew up more

of a prim-and-proper girl in New England, and rarely strayed beyond the bounds of convention. Now, both actresses are contented wives and mothers, leading relatively conventional lives in the Connecticut countryside within the commuter belt of New York City. Saint James is married to Dick Ebersol, the producer of “Saturday Night Live” for American TV and, by one of those strange coincidences, that was the show that gave Curtin her start in showbiz.

Curtin comes from an upper-class, Irish Catholic family in Boston, and her strict upbringing left her very much ill-at-ease when she was working on the "Saturday Night Live” show from 1975 to 1980.

“She was totally different from other cast members,” says a former production executive. “They used to go to wild parties in Manhattan and do crazy things. Jane was a conservative girl who preferred being with her husband, producer Patrick Lynch.”

Curtin has now won two Emmy Awards for her part as Allie. Saint James has also received two

award nominations for her part at Kate in the series, but lost each time.

Says Curtin: “I don’t really know why I won. But I do know that my character of Allie has had more opportunities than Kate. It’s hard to be ‘showy’ when, like Kate, you’re the practical, predictable one.”

The real-life friendship between Curtin and Saint James dates back to 1980 when they made a movie called “How to Beat the High Cost of Living” with Jessica Lange. It was a light-hearted tale about thre law-abiding ladies who found themselves short of ready cash and decided to take matters

into their own delicate hands by embarking on a complicated heist at a shopping centre which brought them in a cool quarter of a million dollars. The movie and Curtin’s part in it prompted Saint James when she was looking for a partner to join her in “Kate and Allie.”

It is a matter of great importance and pride to both actresses that they have created a working schedule that allows them to be home most evenings by six o’clock — an unusual situation in a TV series.

“There’s a lot going on in our lives apart from work,” says Curtin. “We both wanted a job where we could go to it, be comfortable, have pleasant people to work with — and leave it all behind when we go home at night.”

—Copyright DUO features.