1997 Archive>
TAKE 5: AMC PITCHES ROMANCE

July 8, 1997

The publicity department at American Movie Classics made up trading cards as a refresher course for those interested in the careers of its three ``Romance All-Stars'': Jaclyn Smith, Jane Seymour and Lindsay Wagner.


The three women will be used in a bit of baseball All-Star Game counter-programming today - romance films.


``Scruples,'' starring Wagner, airs at 3 p.m., followed at 5 by Smith in ``Rage of Angels,'' and at 9 by Seymour in ``The Woman He Loved.''


The event will be hosted by actress Julie Brown, who has found a great deal of success with musical comedy movies.


The staff at AMC put together a card for her as well, which jokingly includes miniseries credits such as ``Lewis & Clarke: The New Adventures,'' and ``Young (Cute) Emergency Doctors in Training.'' Her telefilms, it says, include ``Encino Wives,'' ``Me & Quincy Jones,'' and ``Yahoo, the Virtual Runaway Pet.'' It goes on to nickname her, ``The Queen of Everything.''


``I think that's very funny,'' Brown said. ``They were wonderful. The whole experience was hilarious. Their idea was to build these shrines to these women who were wonderful and funny at the same time. I wrote tributes for all three women, and they gave me great props like a Lindsay Wagner doll and an English tea service to toast Jane (which Brown got to keep). It was so great and so insane that it perfectly fit my sensibility. It was a blast.''


Brown, a consultant for the UPN sitcom ``Clueless,'' in which she plays a gym teacher, is developing a musical dark comedy about gun control for HBO called ``Trigger Happy.'' She is also writing one about pink Cadillac-driving, cosmetics queen Mary Kaye and her nemesis, Ginger Heath of Beauty Control.


It would seem that someone with that resume is not exactly a great fit for AMC.


``I think the whole channel is really successful because it has appeal, especially for women, and it's campy and fun,'' she said. ``They gave me copies of these movies to watch, and I was watching them with my husband and he was saying, `This is really ridiculous.' I had to write my tributes, so I turned them off for a while. He said, `I want to watch to see what happens.' There is something compelling about these movies.


``This is going to appeal to more women than men. These things are funny. They really cracked me up. ... Just like `Showgirls,' which was in no way intended to be funny, it's better when they're not trying to be funny. They should put `Showgirls' on this channel.''


The problem is, ``Showgirls'' is not likely to be a classic any time soon.







Guy Allen, Webmaster of Bionic and Beyond

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