Actor delivers happy ending to ‘Unhappily’
New satire tries to show a lighter side of divorce
By Adeline Yee
Richie Cunningham from "Happy Days" never had to worry about Mom
and Dad calling it quits.
And neither did Greg Brady and his sibs on "The Brady Bunch."
Prime-time family sitcoms in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s seemed a whole
lot happier.
Today’s sitcoms may not be reflected as happily, with one out of
two marriages doomed for failure. At least that’s the case with
"Unhappily Ever After," Touchstone’s new comedy.
Actor Kevin Connolly may be the modern-day version of Richie and
Greg, as he plays 16-year-old Ryan Malloy, in the midst of divorce.
"There’s a lot of real life families out there that are in the same
situation," Connolly says.
The show centers on a dysfunctional couple and their three kids
"untying the knot" after 16 years of marriage. Connolly plays the
eldest of the three, who looks like your "boy-next-door."
"There’s a lot of kids like him in America, he’s your basic
average kid … he’s not ugly, but girls aren’t falling over him
either," Connolly says.
Connolly’s lifestyle in reality, however, is anything but
ordinary.
Connolly, 21 in March, has been in the acting business for 15
years, starting at age six as a child model.
"I was discovered by a photographer at my uncle’s wedding and
started doing print ads," he recalls.
After doing commercials and playing the bully who beats up
Rocky’s son in Rocky V, Connolly moved to Los Angeles to work on
the short-lived Fox television series "Great Scott." (While working
on "Great Scott," Connolly lived on Hilgard Avenue. Wait, isn’t
that sorority row? "That’s why I moved there," he replies.)
Nowadays, Connolly works weekdays on the set which prevents him
from either enjoying college life or acting school.
"The first and foremost thing (for aspiring actors and
actresses) is to get into an acting class," Connolly says. Even
though you haven’t gone to acting school? "That’s what I mean …
I’m over myself … a month from today, I’ll be in an acting
class," he vows.
Connolly just finished filming the movie "A Brief Moment in the
Life of Angus Bethune" co-starring Kathy Bates and George C. Scott,
to be released this year by Turner Television Network.
For now, Connolly is satisfied with "Unhappily Ever After" which
bares little resemblance to his upbringing.
Although his father died, he grew up in Long Island, N.Y., with
married parents. "We had a very, very traditional family … the
picket fences, the dog, the whole bit," Connolly says.
Instead of being torn apart by the divorce in "Unhappily Ever
After," Connolly’s TV alter-ego seems to portray the opposite. By
pitting their parents Jack and Jennie Malloy (Geoff Pierson from
"Ryan’s Hope" and Stephanie Hodge from "Nurses") against one
another, self-centered Ryan and his sibs manage through the
divorce.
Although the show satirizes divorce, many of the plotlines are
taken from real life situations. Having gone through divorces
themselves, executive producers Ron Leavitt and Arthur Silver, also
the creators of "Married with Children," decided to draw from their
own break-ups.
"We hope that ‘Unhappily Ever After’ will do for divorce what
‘Married with Children’ did for marriage," Leavitt says.
Connolly’s goals for the show my not be as lofty. "This show is
for pure enjoyment purposes… (‘Married with Children’) speaks for
itself, it’s been aired in 32 different countries … we’re just
trying to create a show from the bottom up," Connolly says.
Television: "Unhappily Ever After," Wednesdays at 9 p.m., WB
Television Network (Channel 5).