Anything But Love Article (St. Petersburg Times Mar. 6, 1991)

[Skywalker]

WILL LOVE KEEP THEM TOGETHER


"I see marriage. I see pregnancy. I see Marty in the delivery room," said Jamie Lee Curtis about the future of the heated-up relationship between her character, Hannah Miller, and co-star Richard Lewis' Marty Gold on ABC's Anything but Love.

Whoa, wait a minute. First, it should be officially noted that Marty and Hannah have ended the foreplay for the sake of funny lines, and are now an item. Not that this is a news flash for fans of the comedy - but tonight's banter between Hannah and Marty in the show's opening sequence quickly moves from a diner to the bedroom.

"You steal the covers," charges Hannah. "You snore . . . loud," counters Marty. And then the two continue an energetic love-a-thon, before facing co-workers back at the office of Chicago Weekly magazine. So the big event finally happens, and TV has yet-another hot romance between two leads.

In a recent telephone interview, Curtis said that Hannah and Marty stand apart from other TV pairs, who traditionally fade from view after the sparring ends and the loving begins. Curtis believes Hannah and Marty will remain interesting as a couple.

"There are viewers who will want to see us fail, I'm sure," she said. "A relationship that goes wrong is the expected way to go on television." But Hannah and Marty have a true friendship, Curtis added. They've grown comfortable with one another. "They don't fight or dislike each other," she said. "They both were in a romance all along. They just didn't know it."

Curtis, 32, has been in Florida for two months filming My Girl, with one more month to go. Talking during a break on the Sanford set, near Orlando, Curtis was was tight-lipped about My Girl, only confirming that she's playing a funeral home cosmetologist. Oh yes, and she did admit to losing some money because of the movie. Popular child star Macauley Culkin, it seems, is the recipient of Curtis' occasional bursts of profanity. So a curse-word fund was established to restrain Curtis' vocabulary; every time she swears in front of Culkin, she kicks in some cash. The total to date? "Two-hundred bucks," she said.

Curtis sounded weary of talking about tonight's schmaltzy sequences on Anything but Love. But then, talking about sex is pretty much all Hannah and Marty do - this isn't the movies you know. Hannah, in a short nightie, and Marty, bare-chested but covered by a comforter, refer to the lust stuff, but their romantic relationship mainly is portrayed verbally before the camera. What they don't talk about is safe sex. Curtis said that a discussion of condoms between Hannah and Marty would have "stifled the comedy. We're not there to preach."

She added that AIDS has certainly caused people to rethink their sex life. "But it's not an issue that has stopped people from living their lives. Hannah and Marty are young people who probably are more committed, even more marriage-minded, than they would have been a few years ago because of AIDS. I know marriage is old-fashioned, but I personally have been faithfully practicing it for seven years."

Curtis, married to actor-writer Christopher Guest (a cast member from 1984-85 on Saturday Night Live), said the way the show handles the new sexual relationship shouldn't offend anybody. Lewis, the ultimate neurotic, recently recalled the filming of the big moment for the Los Angeles Daily News: "How would you feel? I mean, with all due respect, you might feel confident about yourself, but in front of a studio audience being practically naked . . . ?"

Then, to Curtis, he added: "I was good in bed. It took about 100 takes, though, didn't it?"

Tonight's episode isn't limited to the bedroom. There is a series of four flash-ahead scenes where Hannah and Marty imagine what will happen back at work when news of their night together gets out. The spoofs skip from the 1930s The Front Page, a frantic film about a Chicago newspaper, to a Tennessee Williams drama to Noel Coward high-brow to today's soap, Twin Peaks.

"We shot the four sequences live in order," said Curtis, "and with all the costume changes, we were flying. But it was fun."

Curtis said she'd like nothing more than to have Anything but Love renewed for another season in May. The show has had a rocky history. It premiered on March 7, 1989, had its first regular run in September 1989, was canceled at the end of the season and now has been back on the air since February 6. The ratings are so-so; the sitcom ranked 37th for its last episode.

But even if Anything but Love isn't renewed, Curtis says she still feels very lucky.

The daughter of famous Hollywood parents, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, Curtis made her mark in show biz with a string of screamers, Halloween and its sequel, Halloween II, Terror Train, Prom Night, The Fog and Road Games.

In 1989 she scored critical acclaim with her comedic role in A Fish Called Wanda and then began life on television as Hannah Miller.

Before hanging up, Curtis said, "This is ideal for me. I do TV, I do movies. No one needs to feel bad for me."



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