Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 1, 1993 TAG: 9305010305
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SCOTT WILLIAMS ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In "Blind Spot," Sunday's Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation on CBS (at 9 p.m. on WDBJ-Channel 7), she plays U.S. Rep. Nell Harrington, a member of Congress who aspires to the U.S. Senate, and whose family is shattered by drug addiction.
Nell Harrington is an intriguing character, but is she walking around inside Joanne Woodward? "It's been my perception through the years that the people I know who are the most together and in charge are usually, somewhere, missing a stitch," she said.
In 1978, the actress lost her stepson, Scott Newman, to an accidental overdose of alcohol and the tranquilizer diazepam. She and her husband, Paul Newman, established the Scott Newman Center for drug education and recovery.
About five years ago, the center began to explore the long-range problems of drug-affected babies. She encountered the children and determined to do something to get the issue before the public.
"This piece was my contribution," she said. "Rather than making speeches, I said, `Why don't I do what I know how to do?' "
Woodward, a co-producer, said "Blind Spot" started out as a very different kind of story, but emerged after three years' work.
"I wanted it to be something that people could not reject out of hand by saying, `Oh, that's a minority problem,' " she said. "That's why we purposely put it in the upper middle class."
When a death in Nell Harrington's family is linked to cocaine abuse, the congresswoman must confront the press in her grief, just as Woodward and Newman had to endure the public eye after Scott's death.
She acknowledges the pain. "But that's also one of the reasons to do something like this," she said.
"The toughest scene for me in the whole film was the press conference," Woodward said. "It was just unfortunately reminiscent of really bad times, of having to talk about it and explain - which, of course, one never can.
"We felt that Scott's life should mean something," she said. "It meant a lot to us, but it's nice that it can mean something to somebody else. And it has."
Nell, she said, is the ultimate control freak who can cope with anything, even a personal tragedy. Only when she's forced to confront untidy home truths does her character begin to show its darker side.
"I've had that happen in interviews, years ago, when I was very young," Woodward said. "I had this perceived notion of what I was ... brought up by a nice Southern mother and had good manners. . ..
"It always came as such a shock if someone would ask me something that I considered untoward. I either was so stunned that I was totally unable to cope with it, or I would revert and become this" - she pauses for the right word and smiles - "virago."
There's no quarrelsome, shrewish woman here. There's an Academy and Emmy award-winning actress who's at the top of her form, doing the work that she loves so well.
"If it works, if the script works in my terms, that work gets done in some kind of subconscious fashion," she said.
"It comes from a childhood, I think, of playing make-believe," she said. "This fortunately allowed me to go into doing what I like doing and what I did best - 'cause I didn't know how to do anything else."
by CNB