Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 5, 1994 TAG: 9403050212
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By JACKIE HYMAN For The Associated Press
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
It was acting subservient that was the major stretch in playing the role, says Meredith Baxter, who plays the heroine of the ABC movie "One More Mountain," airing Sunday.
The film, a Disney Theater presentation, is based on research into the ill-fated Donner Party's crossing of the Sierra Nevada in the winter of 1846-47.
Left alone, Margaret not only saves her four children, she does so without resorting to cannibalism. Of the 82 members of the Donner Party, only 47 survived, and most ate human flesh.
"I did have a hard time with the demeanor," Baxter said during an interview over coffee and pie at a bakery-cafe. "I read diaries, letters back and forth of women of the period, trying to get an idea of what their lives were like, what their relationships with their families were like. I found women who did not want to go, but they had no voice."
She had particular difficulty with a scene in which James Reed tells his wife they must leave their home in Illinois to seek a better life in California.
"My tone would become argumentative," she said. "I resented so that she had no part in it. But I had to get off that horse."
The Reeds join the Donner Party, which takes an untested short cut through the mountains and is trapped by a series of heavy blizzards.
James Reed, unfairly accused of murder and banished from the group, goes ahead to seek help.
Baxter considered herself an unlikely choice to play a pioneer woman.
"I think I'm too modern-looking in my face and features," explained the actress, who played a very modern mom on the long-running NBC series "Family Ties." "I think I looked better after they dirtied me up."
She has played a killer in the movie "A Woman Scorned: The Betty Broderick Story," a lesbian in the Schoolbreak Special "Other Mothers," and a mentally ill woman in the movie "For the Love of Aaron," all for CBS.
But the scope and subject matter of "One More Mountain" were new to her.
"I've never done anything that was such an extravaganza," she said. "It was a real departure."
The company involved more than 100 people, 18 authentic reproductions of wagons, 20 oxen and many cattle and horses. Cabins were designed based on descriptions found in diaries, using authentic materials.
Costume designer Heidi Kaczenski and 15 seamstresses created more than 500 costumes, including such accessories as hats and bonnets, gloves and shoes.
Both summer and winter scenes were shot in Calgary, Alberta, last October and November in sub-zero weather. Baxter recalls trying to appear warm during one outdoor scene that was supposed to occur in warm weather.
"We had to loop that scene (re-record the voices) because our lips were so cold you couldn't understand us," she said.
"We just gained such incredible respect and admiration for the incredible hardships that these pioneers endured. We were up there in the comparative lap of luxury, we could drink coffee, we could stop and go inside. They didn't have these boots; they endured it much longer than we did. I don't know how they did it."
Baxter's next project, being shot in Toronto, is tentatively titled "My Left Breast: A Big City Story of Love, Cancer and the Perils of Dating," for CBS.
"It's not a sad, weepy story. It's an assertive, bold look at breast cancer," Baxter said.
She will co-produce as well as star in the film, based on journalist Joyce Wadler's true story.
The 46-year-old actress lives in Santa Monica with her 9-year-old twins, Mollie and Peter, from her marriage to actor David Birney. She and Birney, who are divorced, also have a daughter in college, and Baxter has two grown children from an earlier marriage.
by CNB