Gannett News Service
JOHN KIESEWETTER; 05-04-2000
Hattie Winston laughs at the suggestion.
"I'm not mean to him!" says Winston, who plays chief nurse Margaret Wyborn for Ted Danson's rude Dr. John Becker on "Becker" (9:30 p.m. EDT Monday, CBS).
"I just sort of put him in his place," she says of her character. "I set him straight. I don't take any crap from him."
Her bone-chilling glare is the only thing that can penetrate Becker' s hard, thick exterior.
"I do give Becker that Evil Eye a lot," she says. They noticed that I was doing that, and now they make sure it's always a part of the show," the actress explains.
"When she got the role, I said this was typecasting if I'd ever seen it," laughs her husband, Broadway composer Harold Wheeler, who composed a musical review called "Swing," which opened in December. "Margaret is very much her, in a lot of ways. And that little laugh she has. And the warm side of her too," Wheeler says.
With all the talk about the lack of African-Americans on prime-time TV, it's important to note that the role of the no-nonsense nurse Margaret Wyborn was not written for a person of color.
"Becker" producers looked at white, Asian and African-American women before hiring Winston, who had a broad range of TV, stage and film credits.
As Margaret, Winston gets to say what every viewer is thinking when Becker goes off about voice mail, HMOs, low-cholesterol diets, government red tape or whatever is bugging him.
Her counter-balance, in fact, allows Danson to be even more politically incorrect. And funnier.
"She's got the thankless job of being the voice of reason," says David Hackel, who created the CBS comedy, partially owned by Procter & Gamble Co. It has been renewed for a third season.
"If you're going to have an opinionated character like John Becker -- he's not necessarily right, but he's opinionated -- it's good for the show to have some governors on him. And Margaret makes a perfect foil for him," says the former "Wings" writer from Delaware, Ohio.
Without her, the show wouldn't work. She's as valuable to Becker as Patricia Heaton is to "Everybody Loves Raymond."
How many times have we laughed at Tim Allen or Roseanne, failing to appreciate, respectively, the contributions of Patricia Richardson or John Goodman?
"In the writers' room, we call her 'The Rock.' She represents the sanity in the office," Hackel says. "I get the impression that nothing would get done without her."
The Mississippi native made her TV debut in 1971 on the Electric Company, the Emmy-winning PBS series. Ten years later, she co-starred in Michael Learned's "Nurse."
Another 10 years passed before she appeared on ABC's "Homefront," the post -World War II drama which now airs noon weekdays on TV Land.
She also has been in "Clara's Heart," "True Crime," "Jackie Brown, " "Beverly Hills Cop III" and other movies, and on Broadway in "The Tap Dance Kids" and "Two Gentlemen of Verona."
Hackel says that when Winston was cast "I just wanted the best person for the part. She came in to play a nurse, not a black nurse."
So-called "colorblind" casting is how Hollywood should work, says Winston, former national Equal Opportunity Committee co-chair for the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA).
"In the writing, and in the casting, that's where it all happens," she says.
She blames the void in minorities on new shows last fall on the networks' obsession with young adult shows such as "Popular," "Odd Man Out, " "Wasteland," "Time of Your Life," "Mike O'Malley," and "Angel" - - all written by young white males.
"New young writers write what they know about," she says. "And young white male writers write about young white males, and young white male fantasies: beautiful young white girls."
The NAACP's outcry last summer has resulted in the networks agreeing to add minorities in front of, and behind, the cameras. Networks also promised to help recruit and train young African-American writers.
"That's very important," Winston says. "My only problem with that, is that ... I know at least 25 good writers right now who are unemployed. There should be an active search by the networks to include some of these veteran writers."
All anybody wants is an equal opportunity. From there, they'll fend for themselves.
Winston recalls auditioning for a TV commercial needing two actresses, an "attractive woman" and a "black woman."
"So I said to the casting person, 'Which shall I read for? I'm in both categories.' And the lady didn't know what to say.
"I said, 'I'm feeling attractive today. I'll go for attractive.' "
And she didn't give anyone the Evil Eye.
-- John Kiesewetter is the TV critic for the Cincinnati Enquirer.
JOHN KIESEWETTER, Winston keeps Becker" in line on CBS. , Gannett News Service, 05-04-2000, pp ARC.