<< back                                       November 28, 2005
Beacon Journal
Author: R.D. Heldenfels

Actress has series in works, movie tonight and is busy with husband, four sons

Bay Village native Patricia Heaton ended her long run on Everybody Loves Raymond last spring. She doesn't seem to have slowed down much.

She has a new series in development for ABC, although it's in the "baby stages," she said in a recent telephone interview. "It's going to be about me in something."

Definitely not in baby stages are her four sons with actor husband David Hunt, who are now ages 6 to 12.

"There's too much homework!" she said. "I can't go out anymore, because I have all this homework to monitor."

Still, she found enough time to act in and be executive producer for The Engagement Ring, a holiday-tied movie premiering at 8 tonight on TNT.

It's a family affair in several ways. Heaton and Hunt are executive producers (and Hunt also appears in the film) through their Four Boys Films. The movie itself involves two generations of winemakers and conflict across the generations.

Nick Di Cenzo (Tony Lo Bianco) and Alicia Rosa (Lainie Kazan) were once close to marriage; Nick sent a wedding proposal and ring from overseas, only they were lost in the mail. Feeling ignored, Alicia instead married an old friend, Johnny Anselmi (Chuck Shamata). That caused a rift with Nick.

In the present day, Alicia and Johnny's daughter, Sara (played by Heaton), is dealing with business problems, and maybe some romantic ones. She wants to merge Nick's vineyard with her family's. That brings up the old grievances, and introduces Nick's nephew Tony (Vincent Spano), who looks like an appealing contrast to Sara's fiance, Brian (played by Hunt).

"We had the script for quite a while," said Heaton, who wanted to do it because it was set in the Napa Valley of California.

"It could be about a serial killer, as long as he's killing in a vineyard," she joked.

In fact, economic considerations led to the movie being shot in Canada. Still, she said, "This was so great, with all the family and food and wine." And not just on-camera. Lo Bianco and his wife, Elizabeth, made a killer pasta and sauce, she said.

In addition, Heaton said, "I loved that it was about finding out what true love is. I loved the multi-generational love story."

The Engagement Ring also has an ensemble reminiscent of Raymond, more than capable of conveying love through shouting matches.

Lo Bianco and Kazan take over the movie for long stretches. Heaton said everyone worked constantly to make the script funnier as they went along. And it didn't hurt that the director Steven Schachter is also a writer, having often collaborated with William H. Macy on scripts like Door to Door and The Wool Cap.

The resulting movie "is purely entertainment," Heaton said. "I wanted it to be entertaining and funny, and sophisticated. People need a break, and need that kind of escape.''

Not that Heaton and Hunt are trying to flee their own growing body of work. They have been making the festival rounds with the Hunt-directed documentary, The Bituminous Coal Queens of Pennsylvania, about a long-running beauty pageant. And besides Heaton's series, they're developing a drama about William Wilberforce, an abolitionist politician in 18th century England.

"I'm happy that I don't have that regular schedule (from the TV series),'' she said. "But nature abhors a vacuum."