The Spokesman-Review from Spokane, Washington • 87

Ml 44IMMMM ft The (Spokesman-Review Sunday July 17, 1983 I 1 i i I i Working on Hill Street is sheer pleasure X- 1 -v produced by Steven Bochco. Bochco later cast him for a similar part on the pilot for Paris, another cop show, which starred James Earl Jones. Martin spent the next year in New York appearing on the soap opera The Edge of Night, when Bochco called to say he had created a role specifically for Martin on his new cop show, Hill Street Blues. After a perfunctory screen test ordered by NB, Martin became Johnny LaRue. As originally conceived, LaRue was one-dimensional.

There was a heavy emphasis on him being an alcoholic and a very impulsive and compulsive human being. But as the show developed, we found you cant play just one note. You cant have a cop screw up and be a drunk five times in two years. Twice in three years we got away with. But its onward and upward now.

Now, Martin says of J.D., hes still a total opportunist, totally impetuous and quite unrealistic in his attitude toward advancement and success. But hes a very good cop, which is something that not many people mention. He does it by the numbers and he does it ratner well. I know, because Ive worked with a lot of cops on it. In spite of J.D.s flaws, Martin is proud that racism isnt among them.

His partner, Neal Washington, played by Taurean Blacque, is black, but race has never been an issue. My partner is a lot calmer than me, a lot more cerebral and hes got a lot more realistic attitude. When you have a completely hyper personality, such as J.D. is, the balance obviously is a much more serene and capable personality, as Taurean plays. There is a false idea within the industry and without that in order for something to be interesting if its between two people of different colors it has to be based on that difference.

Thats bull It doesnt need to be done now. My character is involved in enough screwups and career-shortening attitudes that he doesnt need to be a racist on top of it. Since Hill Street Blues ended production on last seasons shows in March, Martin has spent most of his time vacationing with his second wife at their homes in Malibu and in Mexico or fishing off the Pacific coast. So he hasnt been in touch with fellow cast members, except to check on the condition of Michael Conrad, who plays Sgt. Phil Esterhaus.

Conrads visibility on the show last season was cut back because of cancer treatments, but Martin says Conrad has been responding quite well. MTM, the company that produces Hill Street, has not announced whether Conrad will return next season. Ego trips by actors on the show havent become a problem, Martin said, because thats just not permitted. The finest thing that ever happened to keep down prima donna attitudes has been having 14 stars in one show, because there isnt enough time in a day for all of them to be snotty. So nobody gets to be.

Martin often must rely on videotape to catch up with Hill Street episodes he has missed. Among the few he hasnt seen is last seasons finale, in which he provokes corrupt detective Sal Benedetto, played by Dennis Franz, to kill himself. I hear I had lots of big stuff in it, but I havent seen it. How did I do?" he asks. Pleased to hear a positive response, he says, Really? It was OK? Thats great, man.

Great. By ROBERT FEDER Chicago Sun-Timtt CHICAGO Kiel Martin doesnt know what the writers of Hill Street Blues have in store next season for his character, the womanizing, get-rich-quick-scheming cop Johnny J.D. LaRue. But he wouldn't mind falling in love. That is one of the things Id planned to bring up during a story meeting this year, Martin said from his Malibu home.

I havent seen one script yet and I know absolutely nothing. But they may have thought of it anyway. These people are not stupid. Production resumed recently on Hill Street, the hit series that begins its fourth season in the fall Thursday nights on NBC-TV. Unlike the first year, when shaky ratings might have killed the show, Martin says hes excited about returning, regardless of what J.D.s story will be.

That first season gave me a heart attack daily. Its my gig, its what I do for a living and I wanted it to succeed. Now that it has, Im quite happy about it. The major difference now is its more of a pleasure to get up and go to work on a good show, on quality. Part of maintaining that quality, Martin says, is the involvement of the cast in the creative process.

Once we begin the year and start the story lines, everyone has equal Input. There is no hesitancy on the part of the writers and producers to get any ideas we might have. Theyre very good about it. The best example for Martin came last season in a story about LaRue being enticed by a high school girl, played by Ally Sheedy. There was one point in the early draft of the script when I actually got it on with her, Martin recalled.

It said, Head disappears below frame. Heh, heh. But after I read it a few times, it finally got to me and I realized it was unredeemable. Once you do it, theres no way back. You cant say it didnt happen.

And I figured Ive still got a couple more years on this show. So I went to my exec producer and expressed my concern and it was altered because they care. Theyre not adamant on any subject at any time. When they rewrote it, they had me tell her to forget it. And it worked.

One of Martins favorite stories last season involved a typical scheme by LaRue to make a fast buck by latching onto a failed comedian named Vic Hitler, who turned out to be a narcoleptic. The casting of Terry Kaiser in that role was an inspiration, Martin said. I thought he was just the greatest. We had every big name comic in Vegas trying to get on the show to play him. All of them.

But thank Goa they went with an actor. That guy really wailed. It was great. Martin, 39, grew up in Hialeah, not far from where his parents still live. He was named after the German city of Kiel (pronounced keel), he said, because Im of German extraction and my father liked the sound of it.

Just as he was about to drop out of high school, he turned to acting. My old man took me down and talked to a drama coach ana got me to audition for a bit part in a high school play. I got the lead and after that, it nit me just like in the books, man. I decided what I was going to Kiel Martin on J.D.: hes stiil a total opportunist, totally impetuous and quite unrealistic in his attitude toward advancement and success. But hes a very good cop.

be and never looked back. Ive worked ever since. In 1967, he signed with Universal Studios, which changed his last name from Mueller to Martin. They told me about it on the plane from New York to L.A., man. But I didnt mind.

Its more Anyman and its easier for me. If I had used Kiel Mueller when I first came here, I might have been typed as a Nazi for the rest of my career. As it turned out, most of his early television parts were as psychopaths and killers. One of those roles came on Delvecchio, the Judd Hirsch detective drama Hee As strong as undiluted moonshine By JOE EDWARDS NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) Hee Haw! the corn pone comedy and country music show syndicated to television stations across the United States, is as strong as undiluted moonshine as it heads into its 15th year of pickin and grinnin this fall.

The hour-long show, co-starring Roy Clark and Buck Owens, is shown on 217 stations and reaches 11 million households. There are 83 million television households in the United States. (Its seen at 5 p.m. Saturdays on KHQ-TV.) One reason the show has endured, Clark sa ys, is because it doesnt hurt anyone. rTheres no Roy Clark alternative to NBCs Rowan Martins Laugh-In.

CBS dropped the show in 1971, but it immediately went into syndication and continues to pull respectable ratings. The show has just been picked up in Boston, where for years that northeastern city was the only major market not showing the bib overalls, buxom Southern belles and twangy country music spots. Little has Changed on Hee Haw! from the time it was first shown. There are still segments featuring Archie Campbells barbershop, Goober Lindseys gas station and Clarks Empty Arms Hotel. The key is simplicity, says Campbell, whos been with the show since the beginning as a performer and writer.

The whole world is seeking simplicity something you dont have to worry about. People always want to go to the country, and thats what we are. Comedian Skip Stephenson, who will be a guest on Hee Haw! this fall, says the show is similar to his Real People program on NBC. Viewers, he says, accept the people as part of the family; they want to have them around. Its not one continuous thing you can get up and go to the refrigerator and not miss a thing, he said after taping a Hee Haw! segment, Lulus Truck Stop, on the set in a television studio at the Grand Ole Opry House.

The oldest pros in the business are here, he said. Its not easy to tell new Jokes for 13 years. Stephenson, and veteran western actor Dub Taylor, are but a few of the performers who ask to be on the show. Everyone wants on it, Campbell says. Sam Lovullo, the shows easy-going producer, says Hee Haw! fills a need.

There is a demand for our music and comedy, he said. Weve been copied by other TV production companies. Theyve copied our technique. Beyond that, its one family united we stand together, Lovullo said. As Ive said so many times, as long as theres a Grand Ole Opry, therell be a Hee Haw! The Grand Ole Opry, a live country music show, has been presented for 58 years.

Hee Haw! still has a way to go to set a longevity record. The Tonight show, starring Johnny Carson, has been on the air since 1954. Walt Disney also began in 1954 and went off the air last year. There is Disney programming on cable television. There will be a few changes on Hee Haw!" this year.

There are new segments on aerobic dancing, called Fit as a Fiddle, and Minnie Pearl will be in The Grinders Switch Gazette. The aerobic dancing segment features Misty Rowe, -Gunella Hutton, Diana Goodman and Victoria Hallman. Its designed to attract young male viewers, even though research shows the program already has a high male viewership. continuity, he says. Theres old tired and tried jokes.

We dont kill and maim. We just generally enjoy each other, its a show of outtakes. Outtakes are scenes in movies and television shows that are not used in the finished take shown to the audience. Hee Haw! began on CBS in June 1969 as a cornball.