A Veteran's Continuing Battles

Date: 10-02-2002 - Publication: The Record (Bergen County, NJ) - Author: VIRGINIA ROHAN

Dana Delany, on a medical mission in a war-torn land, runs toward a whirring helicopter.

Got that déjà vu feeling?

That opening scene of CBS' new drama "Presidio Med," which bowed last week, brought many viewers back a decade, to Delany's searing Vietnam drama, "China Beach," and the role that won her two Emmy Awards: nurse Colleen McMurphy.

The déjà vu was deliberate. Like Delany, "Presidio Med" executive producers Lydia Woodward and John Wells are veterans of "China Beach" (1988-91).

"They put the helicopter thing in as a kind of a homage. It's like coming full circle," Delany says. "Lydia wrote my character with McMurphy in mind. She thought, 'Well, where would that person be 10 years from now?' It's not McMurphy, but an essence of her."

In "Presidio Med," Delany plays an empathic oncologist, Dr. Rae Brennan, who works in a San Francisco medical group. She also volunteers annually for humanitarian missions, hence that opening scene in a Pakistani refugee camp. The wrinkle here: The married Brennan has been having a once-a-year fling with a handsome Greek surgeon (Oded Fehr).

"She takes her work very seriously, but she also has an adventurous side," Delany says. "The tag line that actually was in the pilot script was that 'Rae Brennan is a good Irish Catholic girl who's not always so good.'-"

If Delany's character has evolved since "China Beach," the actress shows little sign of time's passage. Seated serenely in a lounge at the Ritz Carlton on Central Park South, dressed in a tight brown sweater and matching skirt, the petite Delany has a youthful beauty that makes it hard to believe she is 46 now.

She seems keenly aware, though, of how the industry has changed in the past decade.

"Television is more of a business. You can't take as many risks, because there's so many channels now, and the advertising's dropping," Delany says. "That's why we have seven characters [on 'Presidio Med'], so that hopefully somebody will appeal to somebody, and you can keep the audience interested with so many different story lines going."

Delany is in good company on her new series. Fellow doctors are played by Blythe Danner, Julianne Nicholson, Anna Deavere Smith, Sasha Alexander, Paul Blackthorne, and Fehr (whose Greek surgeon character lands a job at Presidio Med, deeply complicating life for Dr. Brennan).

Delany calls the cast a true ensemble -- "we're all equal, and there' s nobody who's really the star" -- -and says she loves her co-stars. "We laugh all the time," she says. "Blythe cracks me up. She's so much ditzier than people realize. She's not this patrician blonde that people think she is. She's very silly."

Still, because of the large cast, a staple of other Wells dramas, including "ER," "The West Wing," and "Third Watch," Delany is adjusting to a very different pace.

"When we did 'China Beach,' we worked an average of 16 hours a day, and I loved it, 'cause it was exciting and you were being well used, " Delany says. "But this is different. Some days, I'll just work one scene. I'll go in at 6 in the morning,

and I'll be done for the day at 9:30 in the morning. I'm all made up, and my hair is done, and I'm thinking, what do I do now?"

Another change, which Delany definitely welcomes, is the influence of cable programming.

"I like the edginess of HBO shows, and Showtime, too," says Delany, who did a Showtime movie, "Conviction," that aired Sunday. "It has nothing to do with nudity and profanity. It's just the attitude that people don't have to be perfect, and it doesn't have to be nice. Not everybody has to be likable."

In fact, "Presidio Med" is pushing the envelope by having Delany's character in an adulterous affair. Was there any concern about alienating viewers?

"I'm not concerned," Delany says. "Maybe someone else is. I like that aspect, because I think it's real and it's human."

She pauses. "It's interesting. When we tested the pilot, the women were fine with it. It was the men that had a problem with it, 'cause they're really threatened by that idea that a woman can compartmentalize her life and live with that as easily as a man can."

Noting that her character loves her husband, but their marriage is "in a state of confusion," Delany says: "I don't' think that will play out forever, 'cause then it becomes sort of tedious in a melodrama way. Right now, I'm trying to stay faithful to my husband, and we' re trying to work it out, but I have a feeling it's not going to be successful."

The actress says there are three projects that fans most often talk to her about: "China Beach," and the movies "Tombstone" and "Exit to Eden."

Does she prefer TV or movies?

"It's wherever the good writing is," Delany says. "We all know that television is better for women as they get into their 40s. You could be more three-dimensional, not just the wife or the mother."

Last season, Delany did a quirky Fox series, "Pasadena," about murder and intrigue in a rich California family. Its quick cancellation was a big disappointment.

"We shot 13 episodes, and only four aired," says Delany, who hopes that the series will either be picked up by another network and shown in its entirety, or maybe even be made into a movie, on the order of "Mulholland Drive."

Pointing to the fact that "Pasadena" writer Mike White now has a promising career in feature films ("The Good Girl"), Delany says, "I don't think it's dead. I just have this feeling about it."