David Caruso ‘Michael Hayes,’ CBS
UH-OH. IT’S ““MR. DIFFICULT’’ again. David Caruso is in a steamy courtroom in Los Angeles, shooting a scene for his new CBS drama about a New York City district attorney. And he is not happy. ““That’s not it,’’ he seethes as he screws up a line he’s already missed more than once. Another take. The notoriously moody actor smacks his hands together–““Come on!’’–and walks off his mark to confer with the director. When he comes back, he still can’t get Hayes’s long speech to the judge quite right. ““He’s such a perfectionist,’’ says an awestruck stand-in. ““Just like De Niro, Pacino–all the great ones are like that. He’s going for the truth of the moment.’'
Actually, Caruso calmly says over lunch in his trailer afterward, ““I just couldn’t remember my lines.’’ It’s Thursday, the penultimate shoot day of a sped-up Labor Day week. Acting as both star and an executive producer of ““Michael Hayes’’ is taking its toll. (The show airs Sept. 15 at 10 p.m., before going into its regular 9 p.m. Tuesday time slot.) ““I never understood the concept of exhaustion until I did TV,’’ he says by way of explaining why he went ““into the tank’’ in the courtroom and why he was prone to similar funks on ““NYPD Blue.’’ Another stress enhancer: Caruso’s career may be riding on the success or failure of this TV comeback. Listen closely: you can hear the sound of knives being sharpened.
Few actors have been so lionized and so demonized so fast. As Det. John Kelly on ““NYPD,’’ Caruso was hailed as the great red-haired hope of prime time, until his well-documented falling out with producer Steven Bochco over a movie deal led to his rapid exit from the show and a filmography that ran the gamut from bad to worse. ““I went from making a $50 million Paramount movie [““Kiss of Death’’] to a point where there was no reason to own an answering machine,’’ he says in the flat Brooklyn monotone that has always made him so credible as a cop. Off camera, Caruso’s charisma loosens up. Mr. Difficult–the nickname inscribed on his chair on the ““NYPD’’ set–becomes Mr. Casual: relaxed, jokey, colorfully conversational. He’s 41 and, unlike most actors, taller in person, with an ex-jock’s rangy swagger. ““The media, if they choose to,’’ he says, ““can terminate your livelihood. If they decide you need to be called on the carpet, that’s gonna happen to you. And Hollywood will abandon you in 20 seconds. I was shellshocked, and I didn’t work again for almost a year.’’ Then again, making ““Jade’’ didn’t help.
Suddenly, TV was looking pretty good. Caruso started talking to his agent about going back. He met with writer and mob scholar Nicholas Pileggi–whose book ““Wiseguy’’ became the movie ““GoodFellas’’–to discuss a script about a Manhattan district attorney. Other top writer- producers were recruited, including Bochco veteran John Romano, whose first words upon meeting Caruso were ““I hear you’re crazy.’’ Romano was persuaded otherwise: ““He’s very afraid of coming back in a vehicle that is anything less than what he did before.’’ Even when ““NYPD’’ executive producer David Milch trashed Caruso on ““Charlie Rose’’ in 1995 for ““making everybody miserable,’’ he conceded that his performances were ““extraordinary.’’ Caruso admits he could have been more pleasant in those days but doesn’t apologize for the way things turned out. ““The truth about what took place is on the footage,’’ he says. ““The footage is gonna transcend whatever celebrity grows up around the show.’’ He remembers somebody telling him, ““Relax, man. It’s only a TV show.’’ His response: ““Not to me it isn’t. I don’t coast.''
He remains as intense about ““the footage’’ as ever. Even when ““Michael Hayes’’ lapses into courtroom-drama clichEs, Caruso’s laserlike focus makes every line count. ““I have not lost my desire to do this. I am not going back to my trailer thinking about my golf score.’’ Nor will he admit to having been humbled by ““the big crash,’’ as he refers to his recent downward career spiral: ““I would say that I’ve been educated.’’ Especially by his wife, Margaret, a flight attendant he met while making ““Kiss of Death,’’ who stuck around even after that aptly named career move. ““If “Michael Hayes’ doesn’t work out, Margaret’s still gonna be there,’’ he says. ““That takes a lot of the fear out of it.''
Meet the new, evolved David Caruso. It’s no accident that D.A. Michael Hayes is ex-NYPD–basically an evolved Det. John Kelly, forced to deal with more challenging bad guys: terrorists, mob bosses, city politicians. Caruso’s character has more people working for him now, but he’s still the Lone Ranger. ““Watching reruns of “NYPD,’ I’m struck by how simple Kelly was,’’ says Caruso. ““He has a real innocence that Hayes can’t afford. In order for Hayes to survive, he’s got to play the game. I’m not sure Kelly would have had the patience.’’ Let’s see if Caruso does.
Jenna Elfman ‘Dharma & Greg,’ ABC
REMEMBER THE FIGHT SCENES in the old ““Batman’’ TV series? How they’d pop cartoon exclamations like POW! and BAM! onto the screen between punches? That’s how Jenna Elfman talks. Not so much in sentences as sound effects. ““After every episode we’re, like, “Whoa!’ “Yeaow!’ ‘Arghhh!’ Ha-ha-ha!’’
Elfman, 25, is the hippie-chick half of ABC’s amusingly improbable romantic duo ““Dharma & Greg.’’ Every TV season has its designated babe, and she’s this year’s TEa Leoni. A bubbly blonde with gams that go into the middle of next season, this former L’Eggs model and ZZ Top backup dancer emerged from the wreckage of last year’s ““Townies’’ with a vehicle of her own. She’s the flower child of aging flower children who speed-marries Greg, a lockjawed WASP (Thomas Gibson) who’s somehow also her soulmate.
Typecasting? The only ““Dharma’’ touch on Jenna–who’s stylishly turned out in a black sweater set, print skirt and sandals–is the tattoo on her ankle: a symbol she says means ““purity.’’ And just because Dharma is sorta, like, ditzy doesn’t mean she is, too. ““I’m, like, “No!’ I’m not. I’m pretty smart, actually. I do know a lot.’’ She knew when she was bagging groceries in the San Fernando Valley that if she could just get one commercial, she’d be a star. She got 30. Now her face is on billboards all over L.A., and she just wrapped a movie with Richard Dreyfuss. ““I never thought of myself as funny,’’ she says. ““Until I did the Honda commercial and the crew said, “You’re, like, so funny.’ They were, like, so right.''
Jonathan Lipnicki ‘Meego,’ CBS
DON’T MESS WITH JONATHAN Lipnicki. You know, the adorably moussed moppet from ““Jerry Maguire’’ who says, ““Did you know the human head weighs 8i pounds?’’ Well, not only does the owlish 6-year-old now have his own CBS kidcom, half an hour of innocuous family fluff called ““Meego.’’ He also just got his yellow belt in jujitsu. Which, as he’ll tell anyone within side-kicking range, is the same as a blue belt for a grown-up. Ask The Lipper about a recent magazine article quoting him as saying, ““I hate people,’’ and he gets madder than George Clooney in a roomful of paparazzi.
““I was tired!’’ the little fella protests during a lunch break in the Warner Brothers commissary. To emphasize his point, he stands up on his chair and waves around a spoonful of marshmallow frozen yogurt. Hey, who wouldn’t be tired? Those 8i-hour days on the lot, making deals for a piece of his TV show (““Show me the money!’’), then having to work the media all night. So he cracked! It happens to the best of them. Bronson Pinchot, who plays the boy’s alien nanny on the show (don’t ask), had to explain that there are good entertainment journalists and evil ones. Has the miniature martial artist considered retaliation against the evil interviewer? ““He was mean to me, so I’m not going to be nice to him.’’ Look out: if the tyke gets into action movies, he’s got his signature ““I’ve got your nose’’ move down. And he doesn’t even have to take off his glasses.
George Hamilton ‘Jenny,’ NBC
HAMILTON WAS STILL a teenager, working on the MGM lot with another young contract player named George Peppard, when a little boy walked up and asked the future ““A-Team’’ front man, ““Are you a movie star?’’ Back then Peppard was a Method guy who took his craft very seriously. ““No,’’ he bristled. ““I’m an actor.’’ The kid turns to Hamilton. ““Are you an actor, too?’’ His turn to bristle. ““No. I’m a movie star.’’ Even then, he had the tan to prove it.
Has any actor ever worked less for more fame? Unlikely. Way before it became hip for fading Hollywood fixtures to reinvent their careers via knowing self-parody, Hamilton, now 58, was making movies like ““Love at First Bite’’ and ““Zorro, the Gay Blade.’’ He walked through the looking glass of irony and came out the other side without a scratch. ““I’m the last guy to take myself too seriously,’’ he’ll say. And on NBC’s ““Jenny,’’ a silly sitcom contrived for MTV funny face Jenny McCarthy, he’s at it again.
The producers had asked Hamilton to do a guest shot for the pilot as McCarthy’s long-lost father, a vain B actor named Guy Hathaway who dies and leaves her his Hef- ner-style bachelor pad. Hamilton’s ““video will’’ scene supplied ““Jenny’’ with a much needed boost, given the show’s dubious premise and terrible time slot (Sundays opposite ““Touched by an Angel’’ and ““King of the Hill’’). Soon they were writing more posthumous scenes: fake infomercials, bad movie clips, him auditioning for Spock on ““Star Trek.’’ ““My agent called me up and said they want me to play a dead guy,’’ Hamilton recalls. ““I said, “I love it!’ ’’ Hathaway’s ““ruined dignity’’ reminded him of Errol Flynn (““I knew Errol, and I liked him’’). That Guy is ““a little bit sleazy’’ doesn’t bother him, because ““we know he’s got a good heart.’’
Inside Hamilton’s Humidor in Pasadena, the latest in his chain of clubby cigar bars, the man looks like a million bucks–Savile Row suit, Turnbull & Asser shirt–cruising on a yacht of effortless charm. Pulling a Cohiba lighter and cutter from a mock-croc case, he lights up one of his own brand of Dominicans. ““Isn’t it time for a little pleasure in our lives?’’ says the Humidor’s opening-night invitation, quoting its founder. A little? It’s amazing this Bentley-driving master of the good life makes time for anything else, even if he has, as his bio sadly announces, ““given up polo.’’ McCarthy worships him: ““He’s my idol now!’’ she effuses. ““I thought I had a great tan until I took a picture with him. He’s an incredible actor!’’ More important, he’s a star.
