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NEWS: Dec 8th 2006.
TVGUIDE.COM will feature quotes from the Knots Landing Forum this Friday when Daniel Coleridge sheds some light on Constance McCashin.
Check out his column at http://www.tvguide.com/soaps/soapsnews which currently contains info about the Knots Reunion and updated this Friday with more Knots news.
The show reunites the same production team responsible for DALLAS REUNION: THE RETURN TO SOUTHFORK: Henry Winkler and Michael Levitt are the Executive Producers, Gregory Sills is the Supervising Producer, Gary Tellalian is Producer, Michael Dempsey is Director and Stephen Pouliot is the Writer. Linda Giambrone is the Executive in Charge of Production and James Yarnell is the Production Designer. In addition, Michael Filerman and David Jacobs are serving as Co-Executive Producers.
Gal pals come in for a 'Landing'
By William Keck, USA TODAY
GRANADA HILLS, Calif. — Knots Landing glam gals Michele Lee (Karen), Donna Mills (Abby) and Joan Van Ark (Valene) were TV's original desperate housewives — loving, losing and lusting after their neighbors for 14 seasons.
But the behavior of these sexy 62-year-olds on the set of Knots Landing Reunion: Together Again, a retrospective special airing on CBS this fall, suggests that the ladies of Seaview Circle could teach the women of Wisteria Lane a thing or two about photo-shoot etiquette.
As the temperature hit 100 degrees Tuesday at the San Fernando Valley cul-de-sac where the prime-time soap was shot from 1979 to 1993, makeup began to melt.
And each of the ladies, dressed in gowns from their own closets, madly primped before hand-held mirrors as a photographer positioned them for a cast photo alongside Ted Shackelford (Gary), Kevin Dobson (Mack), William Devane (Sumner), Michelle Phillips (Anne), Lisa Hartman (Cathy) and a surprise guest, 79-year-old Julie Harris (Lilimae).
But unlike Desperate Housewives' much-publicized Vanity Fair cover shoot, which involved Knots Reunion no-show Nicollette Sheridan (who is on a worldwide Housewives promotional tour), not one actress attempted to upstage another.
"I walked up to the photographer before we started and said, 'I think the two blondes (Van Ark and Mills) should be standing together,' because I didn't think it would look good with me in the center with a blonde on either side," says Lee, who ended up in the center anyway. "The reason this show ran so long is because we are all healthy professionals. Donna speaks out for what she wants, quietly. Joan does her own thing. And I make it very understood what my needs are and defuse a lot with humor."
"We were an acting company, not an ego company," Mills adds.
Van Ark says the only tense reunion moment occurred during a scene when she ad-libbed: "The only reason you want to watch these reunions is to see whether we're in wheelchairs or on walkers." Another actress, whom Van Ark declines to name, demanded that the line be cut and the scene be restarted.
"But it is true," says Van Ark, who is never far from her treasured "Mona," a hand mirror bearing the image of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. "Why else watch this reunion but to see how we look?"
"Hair and makeup was a big part of the show," acknowledges Hartman, who describes herself as "low maintenance" but remembers seeing Van Ark driving through Beverly Hills while applying mascara.
"We'd always lose about a half a day because of hair and makeup," Shackelford remembers. "But what did I care? I had a job."
All are quick to spoof their vanities ("How can you not?" asks Mills, a self-described "lighting freak"), but no one will cop to nips or tucks.
Phillips has been dating L.A. plastic surgeon Steven Zax for six years. She came to the reunion prepared to witness signs of facial reconstruction but says she found no scars among her co-stars. "And I can see it," she says.
"Fortunately, no one on this show has done (plastic surgery)," Dobson says, adding with a smirk: "Not today anyway."
