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Dana Does Double Duty / 'China Beach' star Delany appears in and co-produces a TV thriller THE MORE COMPLEX the role, the better Dana Delany likes it. The actress reaped big benefits from such a part by winning two Emmy Awards for the series "China Beach," and she's now back as another career woman forced to reassess choices she's made. The new ABC suspense movie "Final Jeopardy" (tonight at 8, WABC/7) casts Delany as an attorney who specializes in prosecuting sex offenders. That makes her a possible revenge target. She loans her beach house to an actress friend who is murdered while staying there, suggesting that Delany's character may have been the intended victim. The lawyer then tries to determine the killer's identity before she actually does end up in that person's sights. A detective (Billy Burke, of last year's series "Wonderland") stays close to her, as does a reporter (Joelle Carter) determined to get every detail of the story. The film is based on a novel by Linda Fairstein, a noted prosecutor who played a major role in New York City's so-called "Preppie Murder Case." In researching "Final Jeopardy," which she also co-produced, Delany spent a day with Fairstein and deems her "an amazing person. The books she writes are basically [about] her life and experiences, and ABC has already asked for a script for another one, so we'll hopefully do a few of these. Her fourth book in the series is just coming out, and my producing partner, Larry Sanitsky, has the film rights to all of them." Delany considers her "Final Jeopardy" character "very good -and very tough -at her job, but she's like a lot of successful women in that she has a hard time figuring out her personal life. That plays directly into the plot here. I said at the time I played ['China Beach' nurse] McMurphy that after that part, it would be hard to go back to playing 'the girlfriend' or 'the wife, ' and I haven't." "Final Jeopardy" qualifies as something of a milestone for Delany, since it's the first project she has both produced and starred in. "I loved the process of developing this," she says, "working on the script and getting to have a say in things like who the director would be. [That turned out to be Nick Gomez, a veteran of HBO's 'Oz.'] Being on the set as both a producer and an actress made me a little schizophrenic, though. "It can be hard to ask for another take for yourself when you' re also the producer, and I learned that I had to put that aside once I was acting. As a producer, you have to be aggressive and forward-thinking, while as an actor, you have to be receptive. Those are very different processes. It was a sticky thing, because I think I'm too polite. I learned some lessons." Seen recently in an episode of the CBS show "Family Law," Delany is aiming to return to series work for the first time since "China Beach" left the air in 1991. She is currently making the pilot for "Pasadena," a proposed Fox drama about a privileged publishing family with more than a few problems. "They're all a little twisted," Delany says with a laugh. "I tend to pick oddball projects, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed." Diane Keaton is an executive producer of the show and she also is directing the pilot. Last year, Delany decided to star in the play "Dinner With Friends" in New York, Los Angeles and Boston "because I was tired of all the network deal-making. I just wanted to act." She says a big consideration for her in moving toward another series is the shift in the TV-movie realm, in which she has long thrived. "Times have changed," Delany says, "with reality programming on the rise while made-for-TV movies are sort of dwindling. I think the networks are being a little more careful these days, and that's kind of a shame." |