The Tampa Tribune from Tampa, Florida • 149

Amy Prentiss A Capable, IDard-Working (Lady) Cop said, but she's very pleased with the opportunity to play Amy Prentiss, a character she feels is closer to herself. But Amy Prentiss almost didn't make it to firm spot in NBC's schedule. The pilot for the show was aired last spring as a two-hour special "Ironside," and NBC turned it down as a series until programming executives saw the excellent ratings the pilot drew. "I was really devastated when the pilot didn't sell because I really believed in it," the striking brunette actress said. "So it was sort of an-ticlimactic when NBC bought it.

Now I have nightmares that the first show will air against a really great movie." By CHRISTOPHER WRIGHT Tribune Staff Writer 0 LYWOOD-Women have mostly been mop pushers or funny girls in television until this year's season of shows. While most women on TV still have only supporting roles in dramas, two emerged as central figures Angie Dickinson in "Policewoman" Teresa Graves in "Get Christie Love." Now a third woman in a central dramatic role will appear Sunday on NBC-TV, and she'll outrank her TV sisters. The lovely Jessica Walters will play the chief of detectives in the San Francisco Police Department in "Amy Prentiss," a mini-series that falls under the "Sunday Mystery Movie" umbrella. "There hasn't been an hour-long dramatic show with a woman in the lead since Barbara Stanwyck did 'The Big Valley'," Miss Walters said. "I hope the trend is changing.

The more women shows that succeed, the better it is for all actresses." Although she's appeared in movies, on the stage and in TV, Miss Walters said she, like other actresses has found few good roles stories "about her." Rather, she's been typecast as a "heavy," a neurotic woman of the type she played in "Played Misty For Me." Heavies are more interesting to play than ingenues, she Although establishing her character's credibility may be a problem the show will face, the beautiful and bright Miss Walters is aptly cast for the job. Amy Prentiss in the pilot was chief of policewomen and qualified highest on a test for the police chief's job. She was passed over in favor of a man, but rules ordered she had to be offered his last job chief of detectives. To the dismay of the men under her, she took it. "A person who happens to be a woman trying to do a job the best she can is the basis for the show," Miss Walters said.

The show will be a police drama rather than an action-adventure thriller, so she will be spared scenes depicting karate combat or gunbattles "I assume I will be soft and feminine, which is the way I am," Jessica said. "The male cops in the show are macho, but I handle them pretty well in the stories I've seen so far, I'm not going to use my being a woman as a gimmick." Conflicts will arise from the men in the department who resent having a woman chief, as they did in the pilot, but Jessica doesn't think the premise stretches credulity. Amy is interested in doing her job and pursuing her rights, she said, not in preaching for a cause. And Amy is written as a very capable detective. AMY PREMISS is a mother, at right she manages to spend time with her daughter Jill, played by Helen Hunt, and Amy Prentiss is a detective, as shown at right as she waits tensely with Art Metrano, who plays Lt.

Rod a bombing suspect to swr-render. But most of all Amy Prentiss a woman played by the lovely Jessica Walter, above. W2- I mk AW4l.