STUDIO CITY, Calif. _ Sitting across the table from Lindsay Wagner, you are convinced that she IS the bionic woman. Not the comic-book character she played for two years on television _ but an uncompromising idealist who hasn't let show business corrode her principles.

Of course, principles often get in the way of a hot career. And at her peak Wagner was Fahrenheit 6,000. Now most people know her for her straight-from-the-shoulder commercials for the Sleep Number Beds or for her 13 years as spokesperson for Ford Motor Co.

But Wagner hasn't quit acting. She's just "been a hermit about six years," she says over a salad Nicoise in a busy restaurant here.

That voluntary hiatus is about to end when she costars on the Hallmark Channel's "Thicker than Water," airing Saturday.

Wagner plays a country woman who takes in all kinds of strays and causes _ including wild horses _ and meets up with a career-minded female attorney, to whom she might be related.

Wild horses couldn't drag Wagner to a role that she didn't admire, but wild horses were the carrot for this project. "I tried to talk to networks about a story about wild horses earlier," says Wagner. "That was fun when it finally came around."

But she didn't filibuster for the role. "They just called my agent. I don't think they had a clue about the wild horses. I think that was a higher power manipulating," she smiles.

Wagner believes that when we live our lives correctly higher powers do intervene. She's been on a spiritual path since she developed ulcers at 21. Though she's cautious about discussing her past, it's clear that she comes from a dysfunctional situation and that some member of her family was the victim of domestic abuse. She functioned as the caretaker.

"My family had a lot of problems. I was in a lot of pain, and my way of covering it up was humor and personality. The more I hurt, the funnier I would get. So I was kind of a born-actor, I guess."

"At that time I had ulcers and gall bladder problems _ old male executive illnesses _ when I was a kid. That's the way I handled stress. One of biggest (aids) was the people who helped me through that, a minister at the Science of Mind church. They look at body, mind and spirit from the spiritual direction. And I went through not having to have surgery and was able to heal myself by way of learning and understanding the connection of the body, mind and spirit. Through the modalities they taught me, I healed myself without surgery," she says.

Wagner, 55, has starred in 32 movies like "A Light in the Forest," "Paper Chase," "Contagious." "Most of the movies are about people transcending their circumstances because human potential is my passion, learning what stimulates it, what makes it evolve," says Wagner who's dressed in cream sweater set.

"I have such a profound faith in the magnitude of that, I think we have no clue what or who we are. If we can find that out in some way, even through a movie, it's very exciting to me."

Wagner was also dyslexic when she was a kid and had difficulty in school. "I've done my own education at my own speed and in my own way. I've studied a lot. I am extremely knowledgeable for somebody who couldn't get through college," she says, ordering more hot milk for her espresso.

"But I had to break through the stigma of learning differently. I think in our culture we acknowledge left-brain capacities. We equate that with intelligence and stop there."

The mother of two boys, ages 22 and 18, Wagner has been married four times. She says she's learned a lot about relationships and wouldn't rule out another.

"I believe we need to take a deep, deep responsibility _ most people think that means blame, and that's not what I'm saying. Somehow we participate in generating what shows up in our life, and our experience of what shows up in our life is very much 100 percent all about us," she says.

"We're 100 percent responsible for our experience in that relationship. So maybe you're not responsible for the way he was, but how you responded to the way he was created how you were together."

In her spare time she cares for her mother, organizes a non-profit group for the victims and the perpetrators of domestic violence and plots her entertainment moves with larger issues in mind. "It has to feel to me that it's going to offer something more then entertainment," she shrugs. "I don't believe you have to sacrifice entertainment for communication. I think a fair amount of my career makes the point. That's what's important to me that's what's exciting to me. It's not just the process, it's the resonance in the audience."

Luaine Lee, Tribune