Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 24, 1994 TAG: 9411050023
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SUSAN KING LOS ANGELES TIMES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Last fall, the New York-based theater actress came out to Los Angeles to appear in an engagement of ``Jeffrey,'' Paul Rudnick's acclaimed comedy about love in the time of AIDS. Harris, who also was featured in the original cast of ``Jeffrey'' off-Broadway, was the sole female in the cast.
``It was really a great thing for everybody who was involved in it,'' says Harris, who played multiple roles in the play, which is now being made into a movie with Sigourney Weaver cast in the part(s) Harris played.
Speaking about herself, Harris says, ``I guess if you can do comedy your chances of being cast are increased. I think that helped all of us because casting agents were looking for people who could be funny. It was much easier than coming out to California without a job or in a straight play.''
``Jeffrey'' led to guest shots for Harris on ``Frasier,'' ``The George Carlin Show,'' ``The X-Files,'' ``Monty'' and ``Good Advice.'' And now a juicy starring role on ``The Five Mrs. Buchanans.''
In the deliciously acerbic sitcom, Harris plays the uptight Vivian Buchanan, ``the prude from Indiana,'' who has a less-than-faultless past and twin children from hell. She and the three other Mrs. Buchanans - Judith Ivey, Charlotte Ross and Beth Broderick - have little in common except for fear of their insufferable and, some would say, evil mother-in-law, Mother Buchanan (Eileen Heckart).
``She is a wonderful character,'' Harris says of Vivian. ``She is such a snob, such a control freak and so judgmental. But she's the most out of control person on the show.''
Born in Texas, Harris got involved in acting as a youngster. ``I think my mother worried I was going to be terribly shy,'' she says.
The stage was a place ``to kind of stomp around and shake my fist. You can't do that in polite society. I think it really didn't do much for my shyness. I was still pretty backward for a very long time, but at least I was just scared of individuals. I'm at home in a room of 350.''
At 17, Harris was accepted at New York's famed Juilliard School. ``One of my godmothers read about Juilliard when she was in the dentist's office,'' Harris says, laughing. ``She called my mother and said, `This may be the place for her.' I was lucky enough to get in because I was in a private school at the time and the counselor was in despair that he wouldn't be able to recommend me to any place because he thought I wouldn't apply myself and that I had better get into a theater school because that seemed to be the only thing I was interested in.''
Harris blossomed at Juilliard. ``It turned out to be great. It was wonderful to get to New York at such a young age and meet so many people who wanted to do what I wanted to do and didn't look at it as an unrealistic goal. It was also great because it meant all of those kids' parents actually thought they would become actors, too, or thought they should have a chance to do it.''
Harris began her acting career upon graduation from the Juilliard School, joining a repertory group called The Acting Company.
``I stayed there for three years,'' she says. ``We toured, like, 40 weeks a year.''
Next, she worked primarily in regional theaters. ``I still have a kind of baby-like face,'' she explains. ``It's not terribly well-defined. I don't have a great Roman nose. I didn't have an ideally pretty ingenue face, either. I was pretty tall and had a low voice. Nothing fit. There was no way to have a wonderful career as a 22- or 23-year-old in New York. I was just a misfit.''
Still, she says, ``I was able to do a lot of ingenues who killed their mother - that kind of good stuff. About six years ago, I started concentrating on staying [in New York] because I got too tired to go out of town.''
Although ``Mrs. Buchanans'' tapes in Los Angeles, Harris still calls New York home. But, she acknowledges, she's having a wonderful time in California. ``I have a lot of friends out here. The weather is great and much more like Texas than New York. You can have an outdoor life without being armed. At this point, I still need to come back to [New York] on my breaks because this is where I have lived for a long time. So this is very much home. But I feel the pull of California.''
by CNB