The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 132

i I i i i ii ir i it it i -m I'll iHnVil 1iVi1.lliii--- Uiii ii u'iiriiinl in liH'I'H 'J I U'l Versatile Tracey Ullman shows she hasn't lost her knack in skits 1 i 4 "It at the way Ullman's "can-do" spirit does. Ullman told TV writers this summer in Los Angeles that she loves accents, picking them up from real people, not dialect coaches. "If you want to do someone from Brooklyn," she says, "I used to phone a car showroom in Brooklyn, pretend I want to buy a car and you listen to the guy. Some of them (accents) are hard but I listen to public radio a lot, too. She says that in England she could never do the Newcastle accent, so she took a job in that area and listened to how people talked.

Listening also to the radio phone-ins, she says (here her voice slips easily into character), "One man was selling golf clubs. I've got a grit put er (great putter)." Ullman's executive producer on this HBO series is her husband, Allan McKeown, who also produces "Love-joy" which airs on both the BBC and Arts Entertainment. The reason Ullman hasn't been so public lately, she explained, is because the couple had another child. She's done some theater of the Shrew" with Morgan Freeman and her one-woman show, "The Big But a number of movies, including "I Love You to Death" and "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" haven't produced a hit. Ullman thinks it's be- By JAMS D.

FROELICH Register TV Editor Emmy winner Tracey Ullman has an uncanny ability to disappear inside 'die characters she creates. So after a three-year lack of no zany Tracey on TV (her Fox variety show ran from 1987 to 1990), it's like welcoming a bunch of old friends back when her cable special premieres Saturday at 9 p.m. on HBO. Titled, "Tracey Ullman: Takes on New York," this is a collection of three interconnected skits where Ullman plays everything from a bubbly Wisconsin woman on vacation in the Big Apple to a New Jersey anxious Jewish mom in the big city for her daughter's wedding. The material is predictable, but Ullman's chameleon skills are something marvelous to behold.

"She is a can-do gal," says her hubby in the third segment, played by "LA. Law's" Michael Tucker. This is after Fern Rosenthal (Ullman) scales an airport baggage claim belt to retrieve luggage. The same can be said of Ullman. It's impossible to imagine anyone (other than Carol Burnett in her heyday) bringing these comedy sketches to life "Tracey Ullman: Takes on New York" The mistress of imitation is back on TV with a cable special.

Tracey Ullman says she listens to real people to pick up her wonderful accents, and not a dialect coach. Saturday at 9 p.m. on HBO. cause she doesn't fit the fabulous babe mold. "You know, unless you work out for five hours a day and have implants and look like Miss World, it's bloody hard.

They don't want to film people that look like real people, especially women," she says. Dressed in a body-concealing black pantsuit and wearing her long hair a dark reddish color, Ullman has a flashy personality but wouldn't stand out on the street for her looks. As for her background, Ullman's father was Polish "with a very strong Polish accent. My mother is from South London but had pretensions, you know, read poetry and wore Jesus sandals and university scarfs. She thought she was better than anybody else." She said the family's fortunes went up and down, so she lived The HBO special "Tracey Ullman: Takes on New York" features the Emmy-winning comic in multiple roles.

all over the place. "I'm not like Michael Caine, the real thing. On talk shows, I pretend to be this loveable Cockney. I'm not" Ullman says she knows she's sounding so "I just love everybody." But she doesn't feel she's making fun of people with her characterizations. 1 -1 i "I did a character in my show (for Fox) called who is somebody I based on a woman in the Midland Bank in London, who was a little spinster who lived with her disabled mother.

That I could make her popular in America gave me a great thrill because I think she is gorgeous." TKE NASHVILLE NETWORK The lli'tirt of Country ,2 8 s- J5 9 ''I pm.