Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 26, 1994 TAG: 9402260176
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LYNN ELBER ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Medium
Arnold stars in the CBS comedy "Tom" which debuts at 8:30 p.m. EST on Wednesday (on WDBJ-Channel 7). He plays a blue-collar worker who dreams of reinvigorating the family's old Kansas farm as a homestead for his wife and five children.
"It's something that's from my life," Arnold says. "After `Jackie Thomas,' I wanted to play a family guy."
Arnold and Alison LaPlaca are husband-and-wife Tom and Laura Graham, parents of five children ages 6 to 14 (Jason Marsden, Josh Stoppelworth, twins Tiffany and Kathryn Lubran and Andrew Lawrence).
"He loves his family," Arnold says of his character. "He would do anything for his family. It doesn't always work out, but he does try. He's a dreamer."
His quest ends up sentencing the Graham family to a construction trailer outside a small town. Their neighbor is the city dump.
"His wife is apprehensive," Arnold says. "His kids hate it."
The husband, a welder, also discovers his wife has her own plans: enrolling in law school.
"I want her to work at Wal-Mart and make an extra $5 that we could use in the family right now," Arnold says. "And I don't understand why she'd want to be a lawyer and be away from me and the kids."
Arnold recognizes that the Rolls-Royce life he leads with TV star wife Roseanne Barr is a big jump from his working-class days in Ottumwa, Iowa. But that doesn't mean he's lost touch with it, he says.
"People that I worked with at the meat-packing plant, I still see them back home," he says.
Arnold is jumping networks to CBS with "Tom," leaving ABC, which is home to his wife's hit series "Roseanne" and also "Jackie Thomas."
The former stand-up comedian had taken heat last year when ABC scheduled his series in the choice spot after his wife's sitcom. Some critics said he was trying to ride her well-established coattails.
When the network wavered about renewing his series - eliciting veiled threats from Ms. Arnold about her future with ABC - he discovered other opportunities. It was a good move, Arnold says.
"I needed to have some separation," he says. "I did the deal completely myself. I wrote the show myself, with a writer. The concept was mine completely."
Does that put him under more pressure to deliver a hit series?
"I think there's less pressure. With `Jackie Thomas' there was such a buildup, and (critics) were ready for me," he says.
He did take part of his old series with him: LaPlaca, who was part of the `Jackie Thomas' cast.
"I loved working with her . . . we did have good chemistry," Arnold says.
Arnold is tackling more than acting and producing duties (with co-executive producer Steve Pepoon) on his new show. He remains co-executive producer, with his wife, on "Roseanne" (he calls it "our bread and butter") and is producing two new series for ABC.
Arnold also has squeezed in a movie: "True Lies," an Arnold Schwarzenegger action-comedy about U.S. spies trying to foil nuclear terrorists.
How has his wife reacted to his new busy schedule? Location filming did put some strain on his wife because he was away for long periods, Arnold says.
"It would be only natural if you were used to having somebody who worked for you, who was kind of under your umbrella all the time, and then to have that changed . . . it'd be natural to feel a little abandoned at first," he says.
But in an industry where a performer might be lucky to have five or 10 years of success, opportunities can't be squandered, Arnold says.
"You've got to take advantage of it. If we work for five more years, that will be very lucky," he says. "I try to get (Roseanne) to understand that."
by CNB