‘Blue’ star proves redhot as troubled detective
Kim Delaney reads back the record of her journey from soaps to
police drama
By Frazier Moore
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Kim Delaney, who plays Detective Diane Russell (and
Jimmy Smits’ snookums) on "NYPD Blue," almost chose a different
role in life: court reporter.
Here, let’s read back the record …
Delaney: "During high school, I was modeling a little bit. Then
I came up to New York to model. But I was also taking a course in
court reporting."
Moore: "Uh … why?"
"Back in Philadelphia," she explains, "most of the people I knew
were either secretaries, or got married and had five babies. That
was the kind of neighborhood I came from. Court reporting was
something a little more exciting and challenging than what
everybody else was doing."
Then Delaney took an acting course. Plans changed.
Now turn the page to last spring, when she gained admittance to
the gritty and grand world of "NYPD Blue."
She was signed to play an undercover cop for the season’s
concluding four-episode arc. As has happened with a number of other
characters who just dropped in, Detective Russell was asked to
stay.
No wonder. This character was by turns strong and fragile, dishy
and demure, abrasive and endearing. With her brown curls and
delicate features, she looked like an angel – yet she had a problem
with booze and a family that was ready to explode.
(On last week’s episode, it finally did: Russell’s abusive
father was shot dead by her mother in a domestic dispute for which
her brother was ready to take the rap. Tuesday at 10 p.m. EST on
ABC, Russell has to pick up the pieces.)
There was another reason she clicked with viewers (and the
show’s fast-on-their-feet creative team): the sparks Delaney struck
with Smits as the hunky detective, Bobby Simone.
Theirs is a complex, and at times, raw connection, often warm
and caring, but never a be-my-valentine romance.
"We’re not a perfect couple," Delaney happily acknowledges
during a quick trip to Manhattan last week. "Sometimes our
relationship takes two steps backwards to get one step forward. We
all hope to keep finding ways to keep Diane and Bobby on the edge,
so that things don’t get predictable.
"I know what’s coming now," she laughs; and yes, here comes that
what-is-it-like-to-play-Smits’-love-interest? inquiry.
"He’s talented, first off," she replies. "And he’s charming. And
he’s sexy, and he’s sweet and he’s a good guy."
And what of those occasional bedroom scenes, perhaps the raciest
on series TV? Are they uncomfortable for her? A little odd?
Fun?
"All of that," she says. "I just always tell our D.P. (director
of photography) he’s dead if he gets the wrong angle."
Clearly, Delaney has come some distance since her first role on
the daytime soap "All My Children." It was back in 1981 that she
became Jenny Gardner, whom Delaney describes as "a high school
ingenue, a straight little thing."
Three years later, Jenny went out with a bang. She died on an
exploding jet ski.
"I was ready to leave the show, but they must have figured I was
holding out for more money," Delaney recalls. "When my contract was
up and I really did leave, they had to write me out fast."
A few years later, she joined the prime-time drama, "Tour of
Duty," as a war correspondent for a wire service.
Numerous TV films followed, the most recent of which premiered
Sunday at 8 p.m. on the Lifetime cable channel. In "Closer and
Closer," Delaney plays a disabled writer whose literary creation, a
serial killer, seemingly comes to life and stalks her.
Delaney, divorced with a 5-year-old son, looks forward to being
part of "NYPD Blue" for the duration. "This is the perfect
television series for me to be doing.
"And I have NO complaints with what they’re doing with my
character," she adds. "Like Diane, the characters that I like to
play usually have a darkness."Comments to
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