Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 16, 1993 TAG: 9303160062
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MATT WOLF ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: INKPEN, ENGLAND LENGTH: Medium
A DIFFERENT ROLE FOR JOANNE WOODWARD
The schizophrenic, the seductress, the prosperous Midwestern housewife: Now, welcome another "face" of Joanne Woodward, coming to television in "Foreign Affairs" - the Anglophile."She's a lovely character," Woodward was saying of her role as Virginia "Vinnie" Miner, speaking between takes one sunny afternoon on location at a stately home in the west country. "There's something very wry about Vinnie, and very sharp."
Based on Alison Lurie's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "Foreign Affairs" casts Woodward as a reticent, vaguely snobbish college professor who strikes up an unexpected liaison with an American while on sabbatical in London.
Brian Dennehy plays Chuck, the Oklahoman engineer who pierces Vinnie's contempt to win her affection and something approaching love.
Eric Stoltz ("Mask"), Ian Richardson and Stephanie Beacham co-star in the film, premiering at 8 p.m. Wednesday on Turner Network Television.
Between takes last summer, Woodward busied herself with needlepoint and chatted about this role, her distinguished career - and her ambivalence about TV.
She described "Foreign Affairs" as the tale of "one of those dedicated American Anglophiles who have this glorified image of Britain and how that is tempered by reality. In the end, Vinnie has to accept that not all Americans not on her social and intellectual level are ugly Americans."
In Chuck, Woodward continued, Vinnie finds her "total opposite, seemingly, whom she begins to appreciate. She can fade into being a pseudo-English person, whereas in no way could Chuck ever fade into the wallpaper."
But on this particular day, the 63-year-old actress was sounding wary about television as a medium.
"It's tougher to do work like this for TV," said Woodward, "because you have that funny necessity to keep people's attention. In movies, you can hope people will pay attention. In TV, you just can't guarantee that; you have to make sure you've got them."
As a result, she said, a certain complexity is sacrificed.
"In a way it's too bad this is being done for TV, which I'm sure is heresy, because so many of the intrinsic values of the book which are all interior really can't be done on TV," she said, "whereas you could in film."
"This Vinnie has all the outlines of Vinnie in the book, but she lacks some of the internal difficulties. She's not as complicated, or you don't see she is. In my head she is, but I'm not sure that comes through."
Like Vinnie, Woodward has high standards. The Georgia native chooses her work carefully, often in conjunction with her husband of 35 years, Paul Newman.
Away from Newman, she won an Academy Award for one of her first films, playing the schizophrenic patient in "The Three Faces of Eve" (1957).
Newman directed three of her finest performances - as the New England schoolmistress in "Rachel, Rachel" (1968); the voraciously angry mother in "The Effect of Gamma Rays On Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds" (1972); and the wounded, and wounding, Amanda Wingfield in "The Glass Menagerie" (1987).
More recently, she and Newman made an indelibly idiosyncratic screen couple as the Midwesterners "Mr. and Mrs. Bridge" (1990), James Ivory's film adaptation of the Evan Connell novels.
Woodward spoke proudly of her recent endeavors in another sphere altogether, as a student at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y., alma mater of two of her three daughters.
"I walked into freshman Italian class; all the kids were yakking away, and I walked in and dead silence," she laughed at the memory. "First, they thought I was the professor. Then, they realised I wasn't. ... It took about six weeks before they got used to me."
Energized by the experience, Woodward now is thinking of pursuing her master's degree - in Italian and English literature from the 12th to 15th centuries.
Since "Foreign Affairs," she has completed two additional projects. She plays Tom Hanks' mother in "Philadelphia," Jonathan Demme's first film since his Oscar-winning "The Silence of the Lambs." And in May, she will be seen on CBS in "Blindspot," a Hallmark Hall of Fame production.
"The acting I choose to do or that I like to do I still can do," she said. "I'm wending my way through all the parts I've finally grown into."
Elsewhere in television
ABC News' late-night show "Nightline" edged the first half-hour of NBC's "Tonight" show to win the February sweeps. "Nightline," anchored by Ted Koppel, averaged a 5.7 rating and a 16 audience share, while "Tonight" had a 5.2 rating, 14 share. CBS' "Crime Time After Prime Time" package trailed at a 3.5 rating, 10 share.
"Nightline" posted ratings 21 percent higher than the February '92 sweeps. For the week ending March 7, "Nightline" had its highest rating - a 6.2, 17, since May 3, during the Los Angeles riots.