'Peyton Place’ gang scheming again

Press, 30 August 1986, Page 18

'Peyton Place’ gang scheming again

Children were sent out of the room while parents watched “Peyton Place. Although it took a lot of putting together, “Peyton Place — The Next Generation’* should be just as hot.

Pat Morrow has a busy practice as a litigation lawyer in Los Angeles, but she consented to drop everything and return to acting for just one show.

It is a tribute to the old gang that they all thought that it was great to be back together again for old times sake.

The old gang were, of course, the people from “Peyton Place.” It was not easy to round them up to make “Peyton Place — The Next Generation,” but producer Fierman’s agents tracked them all down and, with the addition of a few youngsters, they are all back scheming the old schemes and loving the old loves.

Only two of the original cast are not appearing in the next generation show — Mia Farrow and Ryan O’Neal, who were not available.

Dorothy Malone, who recreates the role of the bookshop owner with the illegitimate daughter in the small New England town says: “So many things are the same, but of course the script has been updated because so many years have passed.” Malone is the first to admit that the passing years are the ones she would like to forget off stage as well as on. ‘T’ve lived on my ‘Peyton Place’,” she says wryly. “I died a couple of

times on the operating table and had a couple of horrendous divorces —

both of them leaving me poverty stricken." Old-time viewers will remember that Malone as Constance Mackenzie Carson in “Peyton Place” was rushed off the set in a real-life drama to an emergency hospital to undergo 10 hours of surgery to remove blood clots from her lungs.

Then there was the heartbreaking divorce from her first husband, Jacques Bergerac, then the disaster of her threemonth marriage to a banker, Robert Tomarkin, and the equally disastrous one-year marriage to a Texan land dealer, Huston Bell.

“If I had not been on ‘Peyton Place’ my personal problems would not have made the back pages. But ‘Peyton Place’ enlarged everything I did, or everything people did to me at the time. Everything was larger than life.”

Forty-two-year-old Barbara Parkins, who played the petulant, sexy vamp in the original series and who now plays a wealthy widow says: “I don’t think I’ll ever get away from ‘Peyton Place,’ and I don’t intend to. It started my career and it gave me stardom. I made some money to invest and I am proud of it.

“I’m proud of the people I worked with and am back with again. “My role has changed though; I’m not vindictive. My character is a woman with power now because she owns the paper mill, the mansion and has a lot of money. She enjoys being the lady of the house. She’s had a wonderful son whom she has over indulged, and she is

about to marry someone who she feels is a wonderful guy. “She is interesting, vulnerable, she cries and is sensual. That’s me— all the things I am.” Ed Nelson is also very happy to be back with the old gang — he had travelled a long way to get there to be Dr Rossi again. Nelson has been

playing a senator in another series called “Capitol” for C.B.S. in New York.

“Getting together like this helps remind us of the things we’ve forgotten about ‘Peyton Place’,” he says.

Tim O’Connor, who plays Dorothy Malone’s husband, has accepted the passage of time and has

refused to put on extra make-up.

“I’m just older, that’s all there is to it. My hair is grey and I have more lines.”

Chris Connelly, who plays Norman Harrington, was recalled from Europe where he has been acting ever since "Peyton Place.”

“It’s amazing that kids who are now 25 come up and recall their parents sending them out of the room when the show was on. Even the phones were taken off the hook.”

He is proud of the fact that even now in Middle America they remember him in "Peyton Place.” ■ “They come up to me and say ‘That TV series you were in represented. some of the happiest days of my life’.” The original series ran from 1964 until 1969 and was the hottest thing on the screen. The next generation, being made in’ Waxahachie, near Dallas in Texas, promises to be even hotter. Copyright DUO Features.