Hollywood's new import: Floridians

Two actors, a Napoleonic expert and a producer/writer, all from the Sunshine State, are players in the fall TV season.

By ERIC DEGGANS

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 26, 2000

[Times files] Greg Pitts plays John Goodman’s son in a new Fox sitcom that has been revamped since its pilot.

PASADENA, Calif. -- This is how fortunes turn in Hollywood: on a single telephone call.

Greg Pitts got it just before heading to a play reading at former Roseanne star Laurie Metcalf's house. Already, the Sarasota native was riding high -- cast as John Goodman's son in the star's new sitcom project for Fox TV, a success that came after years of false starts and close calls.

Don't panic, his manager told him. Everyone in the cast is being dropped from the show but you and John.

Apparently, test audiences didn't warm to the pilot, which featured Goodman as a gay man living in a chic, West Hollywood home with his son.

Now, Goodman will play a gay man who returns to his Ohio hometown after coming out to his ex-wife and children and spending four years living in Los Angeles.

"I couldn't see it coming," said Pitts of the changes. "People have this nine-year ingrained image of (Goodman) as Dan Conner, and maybe the new show didn't fit. Sometimes, we (in Hollywood) don't understand what we're about to unleash on the rest of the country."

Producers told reporters here the new location allowed for more storylines. But with production scheduled to start next month, the show remains a sketchy concept that doesn't even have a title.

"Gay today is a different story than it was five or 10 years ago," said executive producer Bonnie Turner (3rd Rock From the Sun). "Putting this story in an urban environment is well-trod ground. The new ground is much more interesting."

Pitts, who endured similar turbulence as a cast member on Damon Wayans' short-lived Fox sitcom Damon, remains unperturbed.

"I guess I've grown more skeptical over the years," said Pitts, 30, whose boyish blond looks allow him to play Goodman's 21-year-old son. "Never assume anything . . . Just because a show gets picked up, doesn't mean it will stay that way."

Though he did find time for a small role in the movie Speaking of Sex with Jay Mohr and Bill Murray, Pitts hasn't been free to do much else since the Goodman show's pilot taping earlier this year.

A graduate of the University of South Florida, he spent time in Tallahassee with family earlier this month. But when it comes to sharing Hollywood stories with relatives, he's learned to keep some details of his work to himself.

"I remember when I first moved out here, I used to tell my family and friends about every audition," said Pitts, laughing. "I started to realize, every time I'd tell them they'd want to know the outcome -- and 50 times out of 51, it would be me saying, "Nope, didn't get that one.' Nobody wants to make themselves that vulnerable."

'Titans' star went to Farragut

Even in the middle of a raging party, Casper Van Dien has that military edge: muscular, clean-cut, direct and respectful.

The Starship Troopers star learned his military moves at Admiral Farragut Academy in St. Petersburg -- from which Van Dien graduated in 1988.

Now playing a Navy pilot who returns to his family in NBC's new fall nighttime soap opera Titans, the actor draws on his Farragut experience daily -- along with the example set by his father, a decorated Navy pilot.

"Every male in my family has served in the military except myself," said the former Tarzan and the Lost City star last week, working the room at a press party for NBC's new fall season.

"I chose to leave home at 16 and put myself through military school," added the actor, who still visits the school and has been asked to speak at its graduation next spring. "(The Academy) is a tough school. I chose it because I didn't want the easy way out."

Born in Milton, Van Dien eventually landed at Florida State University as a pre-med major, but that didn't turn out so well -- "Basically, in college I was drinking beer," he said, laughing -- so he headed to Los Angeles with his mom.

"When I was 7, I fell in love with Natalie Wood and decided I wanted to be the big man onscreen kissing her," said Van Dien, who is married to actor Catherine Oxenberg and the father of two children. "It just took me a while to get here."

In Titans, Van Dien camps it up as a Navy pilot who unknowingly has an affair with his stepmother -- played to vampy perfection by former Baywatch babe Yasmine Bleeth -- and impregnates her.

So how might his military relatives feel about his latest role?

"Well, my family has always encouraged me to be my own man," he said, with a wink. "They're my biggest fans."

FSU prof behind PBS's 'Napoleon'

[Times files: Bill Serne 1995] Producer/writer David Burke has given up his South Pasadena home to work on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, but still owns a condo here.

What's an internationally known expert on Napoleon doing in front of a bunch of TV critics?

If he's Florida State University professor Donald D. Horward, he's educating a worldwide audience on the influence of the French Revolution and Napoleon on modern life and government.

"What we value today, are the ideas of the French Revolution . . . liberty, equality and fraternity," said Horward, who pressed his point of view here during a press conference on PBS's Napoleon, a four-hour documentary airing in November. "The world we live in today, is the world of the French Revolution."

Despite decades as a prominent expert on Napoleon, Horward had never appeared in a TV documentary before. During interviews with documentarian David Gruber, Horward makes his case for Napoleon's achievements, including the abolishment of aristocratic privilege, guarantees of religious tolerance, and the creation of landmark educational systems in France.

These days, FSU's Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution boasts one of the most extensive collections of books related to Napoleon and the French Revolution in the nation. It houses some 18,000 titles in the city that happens to be the final resting place of Napoleon's cousin.

"There's so much political correctness out there, they de-emphasize the importance of the French Revolution and Napoleon," said Horward, whose energy and passion for the subject remains, four decades after taking the job at FSU. "If somebody doesn't get out there and teach this stuff, it will all be lost."

And more from David Burke

Once upon a time, producer/writer David Burke (Wiseguy, seaQuest DSV) hoped to keep his TV career going without ever straying far from his South Pasadena home.

But a series pilot he filmed in St. Petersburg for Fox in 1997 was never picked up, and his wife, Mindy, was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, requiring extensive treatments in Los Angeles.

So Burke sold his Florida home and turned to old friend Dick Wolf -- creator of Law & Order -- who promptly hired him for the spinoff series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

"For me, it was a match made in heaven," said Burke, who worked on the series Crime Story while Wolf was on Miami Vice in the mid-'80s. "I know that world and I get Dick Wolf. Some people think he's a big ol' bear, but we work well together."

These days, the producer is hip-deep in storylines for the new fall season, including cases involving a runaway who falls into the world of Internet pornography and a cop accused of raping his wife.

With a new assistant district attorney character added to the cast, Burke expects the show to strike a sharper balance between the courtroom and police work, with more details on each character's life.

Burke, who still owns a condo locally, hopes to get back to Florida soon. "I'm developing a project, as always, that will shoot in Miami," he said, laughing. "I can't help myself. I just love it too much down there."

-- To reach Eric Deggans, call (727) 893-8521, e-mail deggans@sptimes.com or see the St. Petersburg Times Web site at http://www.sptimes.com.

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