Mandy Patinkin Leaving ‘Chicago Hope’ Cast
“Chicago Hope” will be poorer without Mandy Patinkin for much of this season. And if there’s any justice, he’ll be far richer for it.
What we have here is the uncommon story of a successful, Emmy-nominated actor who is answering a higher calling: his wife and their two sons.
CBS network executives are responding in kind by releasing Patinkin from a five-year contract. He’ll appear in Hope’s first eight episodes this season as temperamental Dr. Jeffrey Geiger, the series’ driving force. Then it’s back to his home in New York to rediscover 13-year-old Isaac, 9-year-old Gideon and his wife, Kathryn Grody.
“I won’t be as famous and I won’t be as rich,” Patinkin said at a weekend lawn party thrown by CBS. “But I will have my kids and my wife. And that’s all I wanted.”
The grinding, nine-month Hollywood-encased commitment to a prime-time drama series was more than Patinkin imagined - and finally, more than he could bear.
“My wife and I made a deal that we wouldn’t assess the thing until it was all over for the year,” he said. “When we added it all up, I came to one realization. I have a 13-year-old and a 9-year-old. I have five years left with my 13-year-old before he goes away to college. And I have nine years left with my 9-year-old. I lost one year traveling back and forth doing this job. And I can’t lose anymore. Nine years from now I’ll try to get in another series. But I won’t try until I don’t have my sons at home anymore.”
CBS prepared for Patinkin’s departure last week by announcing it had signed Christine Lahti to join the “Hope” cast as an “irreverent” cardiothoracic surgeon. It is possible that Patinkin will return periodically to the Monday night series if the producers choose to write him in and out.
The testosterone-heavy “Hope” “could use a strong woman character,” Lahti said. And as the mother of three, she likes “not carrying the whole show and still being challenged as an actor. When you work in an hour drama, apparently you have no life.”
Lahti’s cardiologist character “is brash, brilliant and irreverent.” A former small-town whiz kid, the divorced Dr. Austin will play doctor with at least one “Hope” regular, Lahti says. “I think there’s a lot of handsome guys on this show she’ll be pointed toward.”
TV critics honor ‘Frasier,’ ‘ER’
“Frasier” is the best sitcom on TV for the second year in a row, the Television Critics Association said in honoring the NBC sitcom at its awards ceremony Friday.
“Frasier,” this year’s most-Emmy-nominated comedy series, was named the best comedy last year by the association of critics and reporters now gathered in Pasadena, Calif., for the summer TV press tour.
This year’s most-Emmy-nominated series, NBC’s runaway drama hit “ER,” was named the season’s best series overall by the TCA. However, it was not named best drama series; that honor instead went to ABC’s defunct “My So-Called Life,” amid much lamenting about its demise.
Though “ER” didn’t win twice, Ken Burns’ “Baseball” did; TCA named the PBS series best special and best sports program.
For the third consecutive year, “Nick News” won the TCA trophy for best kids show, accepted by the show’s producer, Linda Ellerbee.
Michael Jackson special Friday
In the continuing effort to jump-start sluggish sales of Michael Jackson’s new double compact disk, the ABC network and the MTV and BET cable channels will simulcast a half-hour special, “Michael Jackson Changes HIStory,” at 9:30 p.m. on Friday.
In announcing the plan, ABC Entertainment President Ted Harbert said that ABC was getting the show for free and that the prime-time commercial minutes the network will sell within it will generate more revenue than the value of 10 scattered commercial spots the network provided earlier to Epic Records to advertise Jackson’s new release.
In addition, Harbert noted, the 30-minute special will pre-empt a repeat of “Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper” and bring at least some first-run energy to a rerun-dominated summer that has resulted in record-low ratings for all the networks.
The show, which is being produced by MTV, will be composed of at least four main elements, Harbert said, one of which is the premiere of a video of “You Are Not Alone,” another single from Jackson’s CD.