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By ERIC DEGGANS
© St. Petersburg Times, published July 26, 2000
PASADENA -- Producer Darren Star swears it was just supposed to be a minor joke.
When developing characters for a nighttime soap opera satire on the WB Network called Grosse Pointe, Star created a hopelessly insecure actor who is the niece of a powerful yet "loony" executive at the network that airs the show.
But the similarities to Aaron Spelling's real-life daughter -- former Beverly Hills 90210 star Tori Spelling -- proved too much. Spelling, who also created 90210, called the WB's CEO Jamie Kellner to complain.
The result: when Grosse Pointe debuts this fall, the nepotism angle will be eliminated. But other characters in the comedy set in a Beverly Hills high school lampoon well-known 90210 actors.
There's the caustic, troublemaking raven-haired actor reminiscent of Shannen Doherty and a vain, balding guy who secretly wears a hairpiece and looks a little too much like Luke Perry.
Star would only acknowledge that Spelling is one of the few men in Hollywood powerful enough to prompt a change on his show.
"Frankly, I didn't want the WB to look at this and say, (Spelling's) got two shows on the network (Charmed and 7th Heaven) and this is just a pilot . . . let's get rid of it," said Star, who worked with Aaron Spelling on 90210 and Melrose Place.
Spelling says he was just defending a daughter devastated by the characterization. "If you depict what an actor or actress plays, that's one thing, but if you make fun of the person themselves . . . it's very hurtful," said Spelling, who said Tori "cried and cried for days and days and days" after seeing the Grosse Pointe pilot.
The publicity also has given the show a higher profile than it might have had otherwise. "Obviously, it's helped a little," says Irene Molloy, who plays Grosse Pointe's Doherty-like diva Hunter Fallow.