"China Beach" opened up a lot of doors for me in a hurry' - `Pasadena's' Delaney flush with a full life

Date: 11-12-2001 - Publication: The Washington Times

Every time you flush a public toilet in the United States, chances are that Dana Delaney's family coffers overflow. Her grandfather invented and manufactured the Delaney Flush Valve, a small, but crucial component enabling "quick" flushes in commercial toilets. It may seem like a dirty business, but the highly profitable enterprise provided enough bread and butter to put Miss Delaney through prep school at the extremely exclusive and expensive Philips Andover Academy in Andover, Mass. She was not required to work part time or incur burdensome student loans while earning a bachelor's degree in theater at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn.

Today, Miss Delaney's formal education probably could be regarded as a giant tax deduction as she portrays superwealthy socialite Catherine Greely McAllister in "Pasadena," the Fox network's lusty, mysterious and bizarre saga of an old-money newspaper publishing family in California. The concept and its characters seem to bear more than a passing resemblance to the Chandler family - the incredibly wealthy and powerful heirs that once owned the Los Angeles Times.

"I really don't have to stretch too much for this [role]," laughs Miss Delaney, 45, a two-time Emmy Award winner with a bone-dry sense of humor.

"I understand the world of eccentric, moneyed WASPs, a dying breed that is sort of an anachronism and you rarely see in movies or on TV," she says. "Catherine is hanging on for dear life to her nice family and great lifestyle as it is crumbling around her. I know what that environment is like; [ex-Los Angeles Times publisher] Otis Chandler went to Andover just like me. My mother is an interior decorator with great concern about the furniture matching the carpet."

Miss Delaney passed on offers three times to star in "Pasadena," a quirky series created by executive producer Mike White, the man who wrote the recent offbeat motion picture "Chuck & Buck." Diane Keaton directed the pilot, also featuring Martin Donovan (Will McAllister), Balthazar Getty (Nate Greely), Natasha Gregson (Beth Greely), Alison Lohman (Lily McAllister), Alan Simpson (Henry Bellows) and Barbara Babcock (Joan Greely). The primary reason for giving "Pasadena" the thumbs down initially was that it would shoot in Vancouver, British Columbia, which is in the same time zone as Los Angeles, but still far from home.

"I love to travel, but I'm tired of being on the road working," Miss Delaney explains. "What finally convinced me to take the show was loving the `Pasadena' script and watching `Chuck & Buck' over and over again. And, finally, Brad Gray [one of the executive producers] told me I was an idiot if I passed on it."

She has serious reservations about working in Canada one more time, too.

"It's not that I don't like Canada or have anything against Canadians, it's just that Hollywood loses a lot of money whenever a production leaves the U.S. Producers need a tax break soon to bring it all back home. And it's tough on the cast and crew, who leave husbands, wives and kids back in L.A. I'm probably the only person on `Pasadena' who is single, has no children and no boyfriend."

Accustomed to slamming her front door shut and getting on an airliner, Miss Delaney also stars in the upcoming Showtime cable TV movie " Conviction." She headlined and co-produced her last telefilm, "Doubled Jeopardy," and has another in development also based on the best-selling novels by New York sex crimes prosecutor Linda Fairstein.

"I love producing, but it's tricky," she says. "I've learned that acting is to be very receptive; producing is to be proactive."

Miss Delaney now stays at home more than ever, but she couldn't resist spending her summer "in Tuscany, like everybody else. Practically surrounded by friends, it wasn't terribly adventurous but certainly a lot of fun. I also very much enjoyed visiting Madrid, because I am studying Spanish, a language I think everyone should know - particularly in California."

As a rule, Miss Delaney prefers traveling in Third World countries, particularly in Asia. Most memorable of all were two visits to Vietnam (in 1989 and 1991), long before there were signs of the communist state trying to normalize relations with the United States. It also coincided with her multiaward-winning role on "China Beach" (1988- 91) as Colleen McMurphy, a tough combat nurse who embraced work, alcohol and sex with equal enthusiasm.

With Vietnam's borders still closed to Americans, Miss Delaney entered both times through Canada. Strictly supervised by native "tourist guides," she knew that she was being watched by government agents 24 hours a day.

"There were many wonderful and terrible things to see, including war atrocities museums in Hanoi and Saigon," she says. "I felt a great sense of guilt when I saw their side of things. Yet the people were wonderful and kind. They really liked Americans. And they were familiar with `China Beach,' introduced to them by visiting Australians."

Born in New York City and reared in Stamford, Conn., Miss Delaney and her two brothers enjoyed every benefit provided by the profitable family business. Upon graduation from Wesleyan in 1978, she headed straight for the Big Apple to earn her keep. Impressed with her upper- crust education and credentials, local producers made sure that she served apprenticeships as a cocktail waitress and clerk.

She made her professional acting debut with a nine-month gig on " Love of Live," a long-defunct daytime soap opera, followed by a three- month Broadway run in "A Life." A one-year stint on the daytime serial "As the World Turns" ("playing the world's oldest virgin") finally led to such TV movies and feature films as "Patty Hearst," "A Winner Never Quits," "Sweet Surrender," "Tombstone," "Masquerade" and "Moon Over Parador."

Some actually were worth watching. But it was "China Beach" that changed her life forever with four Emmy Award nominations (she recently earned another nod for a guest shot on "Family Law").

"I had been playing guest-shot girlfriend roles, including for Tom Selleck and Bruce Willis, until `China Beach' came along," she explains. "Afterwards, I couldn't play a victim or anything but a strong character. It opened up a lot of doors for me in a hurry."