Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • 135

SUNDAY, APRIL 15, 1984 THE HARTFORD COURANT G1 TVPols Rarely Heroes Historian Puts Pen On Hold fi I mmw I I Xy lit I 1 i 1 i if I v. I City Becomes Home Offstage for Cast Of Three Sisters' It's a life pretty much limited to where their feet and the city's public transportation system can carry them. And yet they make do. For example, there's Frank Grose-close, who is from New York and plays the part of Ferapont in the play. He says he spends his free time pounding the pavement of downtown Hartford to get the feel of the city or poking around in the Wadsworth Atheneum.

Michael O'Hare, 31, a saxophone-playing jazz fan based in New York, says he re-energizes by tuning in to the music at the city's South End jazz spot, the 880 Club. O'Hare plays the part of Solyony, a manic mix of nihilist and romanticist, in "Three Sisters." Also of New York, Mary Layne, 33, who plays the part of Masha, likes the quiet sophistication of Shenanigans, a downtown nightspot. With her working mother status, 'f I I vl- By OWEN McNALLY Courant Staff Writer Rarbara W. Tuchman, best-selling historian the and winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, leads the way up a steep, rocky, brambly hill to the cabin where she writes. It's a spare but proud tower of a retreat overlooking her white manse in Cos Cob, a wealthy section of Greenwich.

On this rustic estate, the handsome, silver-haired, 72-year-old author lives with her husband of almost 44 years, Lester Tuchman, a retired New York physician. "We built the cabin with the money that came in from 'The Guns of she says. "Guns of August," which was said to be one of President Kennedy's favorite history books, was Tuch-man's classic chronicle of the first month of of World War I. It sold more than 400,000 copies in hardback in 1962 and won Tuchman her first Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction. "For the first time then, I felt like a real professional writer with a real office all my own," she says as she opens the door to her sanctuary less than 50 yards from her elegant, sprawling house.

There on a plain desk she wrote "The Proud Tower" (1966); "Stil-well and the American Experience in China" (1971, her second Pulitzer Prize winner, focusing on Gen. Joseph Stilwell, a key figure in Ameri-can-Chi-nese relations); "A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century" (1978, her all-time best-seller with more than 600,000 in hardback); and "Practicing History" (1981, a collection of essays). And now her latest, "The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam," just published by Alfred A. Knopf, with a first printing of 150,000. Tuchman's writing roost is a small, Spartan room equipped with a telephone, a fireplace that doesn't work, wall-to-wall books and honorary degrees and a modest wooden desk covered with well-thumbed reference works.

Curiously, there's no typewriter in this virtuoso writer-historian's workplace a shocker that would be much like discovering that piano virtuoso Arthur Rubinstein doesn't keep a piano in his studio. "There's no typewriter here," Tuchman explains, "because I'm not doing any writing right now. I haven't even yet begun to think of the topic for my next book. I'm just too busy now with interviews, having to attend honorary award ceremonies and special dinners connect-ed with the new book." You can tell by the way she says See Her, Page G3 Alfred A. Knopf BARBARA W.

TUCHMAN Pulitzer Prize Winner ARTS WEEK "Winslow Homer: The Croquet Game" opens this week at the Yale 1 University Art Gallery in New Haven. A description of the show, which features such renderings of the "ladies' sport" as "A Game of Croquet," right, is in Gallery on Page G7. For listings of more arts events in the area, see Arts Week, Page G4. John Long The Hartford Courant Actress Annalee Jefferies and her 2-year-old daughter, Pace, sit on a window sill in a Richardson Building apartment with, from left, Michael O'Hare, Frank Groseclose and Mary Layne, all cast members in "Three Sisters." Life After the Curtain Falls By MARC GUNTHER Courant TV Editor ity the citizen of Virginia who is represented in Washington by congress man Sam "Trey" Clegg III. Clegg is a playboy and opportunist.

He waffles on important issues. He spends his family's fortune on campaigns, and hires private detectives to snoop on his opponents. As if that weren't enough, Clegg is the father of an illegitimate son whose mother, an ex-prostitute, was paid off to cover up their sordid affair. Fortunately for Virginians, Clegg is a fiction, appearing on the popular CBS soap opera "Capitol.6 But Clegg's character reflects an undeniable reality it's hard to find an admirable politician on television these days. From "Capitol" to "Knot's Landing" to "Hill Street Blues," TV entertainment shows present viewers with a rogue's gallery of politicians.

Those politicians who aren't sleazy, such as Gov. James Gatling on "Benson," tend to be buffoons. And a few TV pols, like "Boss" Hogg on "The Dukes of Hazzard," manage to be both corrupt and inept. It wasn't always that way. Several TV shows of the 1960s and early 1970s portrayed political figures as heroes.

"The Senator," for example, starred Hal Holbrook as an idealistic politician who relentlessly fought for his beliefs. Such a program would be hard to imagine today. Public esteem for politicians has declined dramatically in the last decade, and with it the image of TV politicians has tumbled. i "It would be hard for a TV producer to envision a show with a virtuous, crusading politician after Vietnam and Watergate," says Richard Ohmann, an English professor at Wesleyan University who' has written about television. Whether TV, in its disdain for politics, is just mirroring public opinion or also helping to shape it is a difficult question to answer.

To some degree, at least, TV probably does both. But there's little doubt that, as real candidates campaign for state and federal offices this year, TV politicians will continue to scheme and bumble. Some examples: On "Knot's Landing," state Sen. Gregory F. Sumner, the character played by William Devane, is in cahoots with Mark St.

Claire, a crooked developer who is trying to build on some environmentally protected coastal property. Devane's character has also become romantically involved with See TV, Page G9 ABC JAMES NOBLE Plays Gov. James Gatling BOOKS On the Books page, you'll find reviews of new releases, plus two new features: In Brief, a column of local book short reviews, and the week's best sellers; and Magazines, a column that takes a look at what's in the latest issues of the nation's magazines. In Vanity Fair, West Hartford-native Dominick Dunne writes about the blondes who are hot in Hollywood. See Page G3.

Ml By OWEN McNALLY Courant Staff Writer Annalee Jefferies changes from her 19th-century Russian costume as quickly as she can each night after the curtain falls on the Hartford Stage Company's production of "Three Sisters." When Jefferies finishes her 2yz-hour stint in the emotionally draining role of Olga one of three angst-filled sisters in Chekhov's play she hustles out of the make-believe world of the Stage Company, up Church Street and around the corner to Main Street and her apartment at the Richardson Building. Then she sends her baby sitter home and resumes her real-world job as mother to 2-year-old Pace, a precocious child who recites snatches of Shakespeare with the slightest bit of prompting. Jefferies, who lives in New York City, is one of about a dozen out-of-town actors who have had to adjust to living in an apartment building in downtown Hartford during the 10 weeks of rehearsal and performance of the Chekhov masterpiece. Jefferies' life in Hartford upstages that of the other actors. "My day begins whenever Pace's does that is whenever she comes down the stairs in the morning to wake me up," she says during an interview in her apartment.

"When she says, 'Cheerios, Cheerios, it's time for me to get up." After the daily ritual of feeding and bathing Pace, doing the laundry and general apartment maintenance, mother and child hit the downtown streets, with Pace taking in the sights from her stroller. They wheel down Main to Asylum Street, heading for the Civic Center Plaza, where they browse in the shops. If Jefferies, a 29-year-old Houston native, has a major complaint about Hartford, it would be the New England winter. It has sometimes curtailed those stroller excursions through downtown. "During that storm a week or so ago, I couldn't believe it when it rained, hailed, snowed and then the wind almost blew me, Pace, stroller and all right into the traffic in front of the Civic Center," she says.

"I went down See City, Page G8 in iif mini i ummajm. .11. n.u,m i DEAR READER: This is the first edition of ArtsEntertainment, a new Sunday section devoted to the arts and entertainment. Inside you'll find familiar features, like Music Notes, and new features, like Showbiz, an entertainment news roundup. We hope you like what you see.

Drop us a line at The Courant, 285 Broad Hartford, 061 15, and let us know what you think Henry E. Scott Features Editor ssr- ft 5r DmhI i.