‘Dallas’ sinners get message

Press, 26 December 1986, Page 8

‘Dallas’ sinners get message

By

KIRSTY NUNN

DUO Features

Donna Krebbs shines out from the cast of “Dallas” like a light and comes over as a pretty nice lady. So, too, does the actress, Susan Howard, who plays her, but there are steely depths to her, seeing the sinful series as a way of doing good. She is deeply religious and has even managed to get the script changed when it went against her beliefs. She was once asked to run for Congress and is a lay preacher on a religous network. An unusual background for someone in show business, just how did she become an actress? “Simple,” says Susan Howard. “When you grow up in a small town like Marshall you look for ways to get out in the world. “After I graduated from high school I went to the University of Texas for a couple of years to study drama. In 1966 I came out to Hollywood and pounded the pavements like every other young actress looking for a job. I was lucky enough to be picked up by Screen Gems, which then had a new talent programme. I became a new talent, along with Sally Field and David Soul.” A few bit parts led to the highly regarded “Petrocelli” series and finally to “Dallas.” Howard made conditions about her character in “Dallas” and insisted that Donna must remain free from wrong-doing or scandal. As a born-again Christian, religion plays a big part in her life; she reads the Bible every day, and hopes the message in “Dallas” — that sin will eventually meet retribution — gets over. “I put my life into the hands of God. So many good things have happened to me since I began taking God seriously that I just can’t count them all.” She recalls that some years ago there was a crisis in her marriage. “My husband and I realised that we weren’t happy. We had the right look and all the right but somehow there was no real happiness. “Then one day my husband came to me and said: T think we need to go to church.’ “I looked at him and said, ‘Yes, yes.’ Something deep inside me knew he was right. “Together we went to a church we had passed by many times and the experience changed my whole life.

“Suddenly I could learn and grow and reach out to other people, and I could really love. I truly found the peace I had been looking for.” And she is equally certain about her role in “Dallas.”

“Even though I’m a Christian, I’m not going to lock myself up in a nunnery. And when people do wrong in ‘Dallas’ they have to suffer for it in return. If they commit adultery, steal or lie, it normally backfires on them.

“It’s not a bad message to get across.”

Howard and her second husband, producer Calvin Crane, own a ranch near her home town, Marshall, Texas. She was asked to run for Congress in a special election to replace a representative who had resigned his seat. She is highly regarded in Texas political circles and would have stood a good chance of being elected. “Had I accepted the nomination I would have left ‘Dallas’ in order to campaign for the August election. But with some good advice from a judge I know, I decided I didn’t want to be an actressoddity in Congress who wouldn’t be taken seriously, so I turned it down and remained with ‘Dallas’.”

As Jeri Lee Mooney, Susan Howard grew up in a family that was devoutly Christian.

“We were disciplined. We had respect for our parents, teachers and the church.

“I was raised in a family where women were not exalted, but they v were considered equal; I felt secure and loved. My mother was able to balance everything — her work in her store, and the home. Once I sent her a subscription to ‘Ms.’ magazine. She’ thanked me, then she said, ‘I doon’t want it because there are things that I may know and there are things I’d be just as smart not to be aware of’.” .

Howard has two passions — running and clothes. “I used to smoke more than two packs of cigarettes a’ day, but then I was persuaded to give them up and to take up running.

“It took me six weeks to work up to half a mile. It was disgusting. •

“Now I can do 10 miles and I usually do two or three miles a day. “Everybody in ‘Dallas’ is into athletics; we must be the fittest TV cast in the world.”

And, they hope, the best dressed.

Howard is allowed to go shopping for the clothes she wears in the show in the smart stores and boutiques of Dallas and Beverly Hills, and Lorimar, the maker of

“Dallas,” picks up the bills.

“I don’t want to give any figures, but we are talking about big money.” That means $lOOO dresses and $5OO casual outfits, but Howard only wears them on the screen or at promotional parties. At home she prefers her own casual clothes.

Her strong principles also led to some script changes in “Dallas.” Originally in the series, Donna was supposed to become pregnant and then have an abortion when she discovers the baby would be born with Down’s syndrome.

Howard talked to the producer and argued against the script.

“We’ve had two abortions already in the show,” she said. “Why can’t we show the other side — that a Down’s syndrome child can lead a productive life with the right guidance and training?”

The final script was not quite as straight forward as that; Donna lost her baby through an accident, but it inspired her to work in the Woodgrove School for handicapped children, where she met a boy whom she tried to adopt to replace the child she lost.

Howard was' i only originally contracted to four episodes of “Dallas,” but has now been with the show for seven years and in one season she appeared in 19 of the 22 episodes.-. “It’s like going to school again for nine months solid every year. The pressure is constant.”

And it looks like going on for as long as “Dallas” lasts and Howard does not mind. “There are a lot of things I want to do in life, but none I want to do desperately. “I do want to make my own movies. I have already got a script. I want control over what I do.” But- in the meantime there is the glamour of being a star in an international series. “It’s what I’ve wanted to be ever since I was an itty bitty little girl.” — DUO Copyright.