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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Personally And Professionally Life Is Good For Jane Seymour

Paul Lomartire The Palm Beach Post

Thankfully, Jane Seymour doesn’t hold a grudge.

The back lawn of the Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel is littered with stars from Mariel Hemingway to Mandy Patinkin during a recent CBS fall preview party. But no one draws a bigger crowd than “Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman.”

Her crowd includes many TV critics who trashed and wrote off her 1860s frontier show when it premiered in January 1993. But now, as “Dr. Quinn” is set to begin its fourth season in September, the series is one of the few bright spots at No. 3-rated CBS.

“My personal life is fabulous,” Seymour’s saying, and to prove she’s a nearly giddy team player, she won’t even complain about her 8-9 p.m. Saturday time slot known as television’s Death Valley.

“I love my time slot,” she says. “We are Saturday night.” Then, coming as close as she can to a dig at the critics, she adds that it’s nice to be a hero on a show that wasn’t supposed to work.

Seymour, wearing a sun hat and a tastefully low-cut, polka-dot sundress, is known as a class act throughout the TV business. The actress once called the Queen of the Miniseries (“War and Remembrance,” “Captains and Kings,” an Emmy for “Onassis”) is also known as a publicist’s dream who will go anywhere to promote her show.

“She’ll go to the opening of an envelope,” says a former publicist who worked with her.

It’s no secret that Seymour, 44, is pregnant, carrying twins. Her mail almost daily delivers teddy bears and other baby things from fans. It’s all at her house. She’s going to take a photo of it surrounding her and the babies so fans can see it arrived. Then charity will get it all.

She knows the sex of her twins but won’t tell. She’s due Dec. 20 and, just in case her doctor won’t let her go back to work quickly enough, an episode has been written called “Bedrest” in which Dr. Quinn gets sick and has to take a bed break from healing Colorado Springs.

It’s a second Seymour family phase to go with her children from a previous marriage, son Sean, 9, and daughter, Katie, 13.

Seymour’s new husband, the director James Keach (brother of actor Stacy) is standing near her, near enough for Seymour to work him into her conversation. He brought two stepkids to Seymour’s growing family, Jenny, 15, and Kalen, 18.

Keach met Seymour when they made the sexy TV movie thriller “Sunstroke,” which the virtually Victorian Seymour calls “my answer to Sharon Stone.”

She and Keach are writing a book about being second-family parents past the age of 35. The untitled book will feature a woman’s and man’s point-of-view on subjects such as how kids from the first marriage handle step-siblings from the second marriage.

“Twins run in James’ family, a wonderful, pleasant surprise!” she says.

And, no, she’s never had a problem pregnancy. “I’ve had great pregnancies,” she explains. “As sick as anyone could be the first three months, I still managed to make eight shows.”

Now it’s time to get to Quinn business.

Dr. Quinn will have a baby this season that’s due the final week of May sweeps. The child was planned before Seymour’s pregnancy.

The new season begins with Dr. Michaela Quinn, or “Dr. Mike” as Seymour calls her, married to mountain hunk Byron Sully, played by Joe Lando. For the season premiere, they’ll return from their honeymoon on the new train that stops at their town of Colorado Springs.

Also on the train will be a pain-in-the-butt banker from Boston named Preston A. Lodge III (played by Jason Leland Adams, who previously played Gen. Custer on the show). Lodge will be out to collect interest from local folk on outstanding loans while he establishes the town’s first bank.

Throughout the season, says Seymour, “the romantic aspect between me and Sully is obviously heightened now instead of lessened because now we’re married and there’s a lot more we can do and a lot more we can play.

“We have a lot more love scenes and romance between the 8 o’clock parameters.”

Reminded that there’s all kinds of sleaze planned on other 8 o’clock shows this fall, Seymour shakes her head. Regardless of what else is going on at 8, she has her own ideas of what’s proper. “I love the idea of people watching two people loving one another and it’s your imagination that tells you the sort of bare thing.”

Seymour says a Halloween episode is near and dear to her. It will involve a man crippled with arthritis who is shunned by nearly everyone. Dr. Quinn prescribes hot springs even if he only thinks it helps him. Seymour suggested many twists in the plot, but won’t receive a writing credit.

Also, she adds, within the first eight episodes, a series regular will die during a story about rabies. The death is not the result of an actor’s contract up for renewal, but is a dramatic turn the show needs, she says, without identifying who dies.

And, no, Dr. Quinn will not have twins because it’s hard enough to work with infants on a TV show, she explains. For every baby on a show, you need at least twins or, preferably, triplets, so you don’t work them harder than the law allows.