People Magazine

"Medic Alert: What Ails Dr. Kerry Weaver?

Laura Innes has no clue"

Laura Innes knows all about medical trauma. The first trip to the hospital for the actress, who plays attending physician Kerry Weaver on NBC's ER, came when she was just a year old. "I swallowed a piece of acorn shell that moved in and out of my air passage for three years," recalls Innes, who underwent three tracheotomies before doctors found the fragment. It isn't exactly a case of the acorn falling near the tree, but this season, Innes, 37, a guest star in 14 episodes last year, officially joined the ER cast as the relentlessly efficient Weaver, foil to Dr. Mark Greene (Anthony Edwards), the ward's more relaxed attending physician.

Of course, Weaver isn't so much cold as hard to know. "Relationships don't come easily for her," says Innes. But even Innes doesn't know why Weaver uses a cane and drags her left foot."We never attached a reason," says executive producer Lydia Woodward. "And we don't care." Innes's empathy for her character is bred in the bone. "When I first got the part, people asked me, `Oh, do you have any experience with disability?' " says Innes, who grew up in Birmingham, Mich. "I would always say no. But then I thought, `Well, of course I do. My sister.' " Kathy Innes, 51, a budget director for the health department of Multnomah County, Ore., was left without the use of her left arm as a result of polio contracted at age 5. "In my family, it was never viewed as anything," says Innes. "Kathy is maybe the most capable person in the family."

As for her interest in acting, Innes, the youngest of six children, credits her father, Robert, a tool-and-dye company executive who died in 1995. (Her mother, Laurette, 76, is a homemaker.) "Amid all the chaos of kids and TV watching," says Innes, "my father would always be reading a book, usually Shakespeare or Yeats." Many summers he took the family to Stratford, Ontario's renowned Shakespeare festival. After seeing Twelfth Night there as a girl, Innes knew she loved the stage. A 1977 graduate of Seaholm High in Birmingham, Innes studied acting at Northwestern, where she dated an aspiring actor. He moved to L.A. and was only 22 when he was shot and killed in a parking dispute in 1980. The death, Innes says, is still "so painful. He was a wonderful person." She went on to pursue stage work, first in Chicago, then in New York City. She met her future husband, actor David Brisbin (the newscaster in Forrest Gump), 42, when the two were doing summer stock in Woodstock, N.Y., in 1987. They fell in love, and within a week went through their first medical crisis: Innes wound up in the hospital with what was later diagnosed as a ruptured appendix. "When you meet under those circumstances," she observes, "it separates the men from the boys." They married in 1988. The birth of son Cal in 1990 was another drama. Due to complications, Innes was hospitalized for three months before labor was induced, and the baby was eight weeks premature. Cal, now 6, weighed a mere 3 lbs., 2 ozs. "If you have a child in that kind of jeopardy," says Innes, "they become so precious to you. Fortunately, he had no problems other than being very small."

With a baby to feed, the couple moved to L.A. seeking higher-paying roles. In 1993, Innes landed the part of Bunny, Thomas Haden Church's sex-loving ex, on Wings. Two years later she played Louie Anderson's wife on CBS's short-lived sitcom Louie. Luckily, she'd already started a second job as Weaver. On the ER team, says Julianna Margulies (nurse Carol Hathaway), "Laura balances everything out. She's so strong and grounded." ER's long workdays keep Innes away from her quaint two-bedroom bungalow in Venice, Calif. "But even when Laura has to work late," says her husband, "she always gets up in the morning to get Cal off to school." In fact, the only lifestyle change Innes has made since earning six figures annually was to hire a stylist to revamp her wardrobe. "All of a sudden I needed clothes," she says, a bit embarrassed. "I didn't want to look like the poor cousin." But her greatest satisfaction is being granted star billing on America's top show. In September, the cast met in a producer's office to watch the season premiere. When "Laura Innes" popped up in the opening credits, says Edwards, "we gave her a toast with our Diet Cokes."