Producer excited over 'Helm' series BURBANK, Calif. - Charles B. Fitzsimons has the Irish gift of gab and when he begins talking about the new ABC-TV series he is producing, Matt Helm, he makes it sound very appealing. “It’s an exciting, different and magnificent show,” he says, “with no resemblance to the movies or the books except for the title. “Matt, played by Tony Franciasa, is no longer a member of a CIA-type organization. He is an ex member which means he will exhibit the ability for detailed, exhaustive work. He is a trained, thinking, deducting machine. He is also tough and resourceful.” All of this Fitzsimons says with his soft brogue adding a musical accompaniment to his words. He came to America 24 years ago, “but I can’t lose the Irish,” he says. Matt Helm is also the series in which the hero quite obviously has a sexual relationship with a woman to whom he is not married. “Laraine Stephens plays Kronski, who is the modern woman’s heroine,” he says. “She is tops as a lawyer. She is Matt’s friend, confidante and bed partner. She i$ liberated apd deals with a man on a one to-one basis.” The sets in the show are extravagant (“movie quality,” Fitzsimons says), Helm “plays with a quip on his lip at moments of danger,” and the general air is sophistication, which Fitzsimons feels is what the public wants in antithesis to all the realism, blood and gore on TV. “We deal with beautiful people, and the studio thank God — is willingly supporting the finest sets in town. We are trying to give the audience opulent escapism.” As far as the sex on the show Charles says “the network gives us a tally of how often we can see them in bed together and when it is OK if she is in pajamas. However, the audience has no doubt they sleep together and enjoy it.” Fitzsimons came to America as an actor, after being a member of Ireland’s prestigious Abbey Theater He was also a lawyer, the youngest ever to qualify as a barrister, being 20 at the time. “I had to wait until 1 was 21 to be called before the bar. The second youngest before me was William Pitt,” he says proudly. He says that acting is not considered the most desirable profession for a man in Ireland. “An actor is considered as one-fifth of a man,” he says. “You’ll hear a woman say to another, ‘Did you hear what happened to Mrs. Murphy’s son? He became an actor! ’ ” When he got to the United States he found more frustrations. “There are difficulties being an English- Charles Fitzsimons speaking, accent actor. It is easier for a woman like my sister.” His sister is the ever beautiful Maureen O’Hara who lives such a good life today, he reports, that she only acts if something really interests her. r‘She has a home in the Virgin Islands, a home in Ireland, an apartment in New York and a hideaway in Brentwood,” he says. “She called me from New York one day and said she was hopping off to Ireland to measure the living room for new draperies. I thought that was the height of elegance,” he smiles. Beats Matt Helm. Even!