TV’s most unlikely sex symbol finally puts his behind on the line
Dennis Franz celebrated his 50th birthday by showing America his bare behind.
As Det. Andy Sipowicz on ABC’s “NYPD Blue,” Franz has turned an obnoxious drunk into something of a sex symbol. And nabbed a few awards in the process.
Franz, profiled on Jan. 23, 1994, won an Emmy in September for lead actor in a dramatic series, beating out, among others, his co-star, David Caruso, who after only a year on the show caused a furor by leaving to concentrate on movies.
Franz rose above the controversy surrounding Caruso’s departure, and was in a way rewarded for that effort in January. Franz won a Golden Globe award for playing Sipowicz, who has cleaned up his act, kicked the booze and turned into a solid police detective on “NYPD,” a critical and ratings hit.
Franz’s character has since joined up with Det. Bobby Simone, played by Emmy winner Jimmy Smits of “L.A. Law,” and Franz has continued his reputation for solid acting. That’s a tag that’s followed him since his days with the Organic and Goodman theater companies in the 1970s. But the stocky Franz as a sex symbol?
He’s done that by making Sipowicz almost warm and cuddly. But Sharon Lawrence deserves some of the credit. Their first “NYPD” scene together, with her playing an assistant district attorney, resulted in Franz’s grabbing his crotch and telling her to “ipso this!”
Now they’re a couple. Sylvia Costas and Sipowicz did a shower scene a few months ago (Franz’s first nude shot on the show) that was seen by some as being controversial, and by others as tender and loving. Their love affair has proved to be a constant spark on the show.
And now, Sylvia Costas and Sipowicz, who have been living together, are planning to get married. They must have been inspired by Franz and his longtime love, Joanie Zeck, whom he will have been with for 13 years on April 1. Franz finally proposed, partly, he said, because he was getting too old to continue calling Zeck his girlfriend.
–Allan Johnson
BATTLE OF THE MIDWAY
THE ORANGE LINE REMAINS FREE OF GRAFFITI
They gloated a bit, reveled in their new-found fame, then braced for an onslaught. It was late 1993, and the ragtag unit of Chicago undercover graffiti cops, members of the department’s Public Transportation Section, had won the opening battle (the original article appeared on Jan. 30, 1994) against tagger crews bent on defacing the CTA’s new Orange line to Midway Airport. They were convinced, however, that their success would carry a price.
“We kept waiting for the backlash,” said Lt. Robert Angone, Chicago’s storied anti-graffiti foe who led the six-month assault. “We thought they’d bomb a station or throw up on one of the big walls. But it never happened.”
Graffiti arrests in 1994 were down by 250 from those of a year earlier, Angone said, a drop he attributed to less tagger activity because the lure of the pristine new Orange Line had become passE.
“And I think they were just sick of taking pinches (arrests),” Angone said.
There were attacks. “Someone eulogized (rock star) Jim Morrison in Shantytown (34th and Damen), and the Pulaski Wall (Pulaski and Archer) was hit twice in 15 months,” Angone said. “But nothing major, nothing like we expected.”
Angone’s unit remains active and undercover, pinching spray painters as well as etchers who gouge bus and train windows.
They feed computerized data on every tag and tagger to each police district, which enables officers to identify and nail neighborhood scribblers.
“But the best news came in January when the Court of Appeals upheld the city’s ban on the sale of spray paint to minors,” Angone said.
“That was beautiful. It’s one more weapon we got to keep the heat on the bugs.”
–Bill Brashler
FATAL MEMORIES
A DAUGHTER CALLS, A FAMILY IS STILL DIVIDED
The call came last August.
“Hi Dad,” said the woman’s voice, and Ralph Vance was suddenly talking to his daughter Kristin after a silence of three and one-half years. Kristin, while undergoing psychotherapy in college when she was 20, had accused Vance and his wife of sexually abusing her when she was a toddler. (The original article appeared on Feb. 27, 1994.)
“She was sort of touching base,” Vance said. “There had been some deaths in the family and she was feeling down. ‘It can be tough not having parents,’ she said.
“I was sympathetic, but I thought: You have parents; you rejected them. But I held back. I said it was important to talk. I told her I loved her. I told her to call her mother.”
Vance has stayed in the Chicago area and, though his divorce is final, he and his ex-wife, Joanne, are cordial and communicate often. She told him that Kristin did call her.
“Their conversation was strained. Joanne was more hostile. Kristin said she is not retreating from her memories. In fact, she said she has had more memories of abuse and Satanic rituals,” Vance said.
Kristin did supply her parents with an address in care of a friend, though she has not communicated with her parents since that call. Her brother, Troy, who later joined her in the accusations, has not re-established contact.
Vance’s first-person article, which he believes his children have never read, elicited a storm of responses nationwide. He is working on a book and is actively involved in the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, a national organization of those who have been similarly accused.
“There are now 18,000 members,” he said.
–Bill Brashler
STRENGTH IN NUMBERS
A YEAR OF TRAUMA TESTS THE GROUP’S FAITH
It has been a hard year for Rhea Freeman’s Monday-night support group at the Cancer Wellness Center, a non-profit organization on the North Shore that offers psychological sustenance to cancer patients.
Since the group, led by psychologist Freeman, was profiled in the Tribune Magazine on Dec. 5, 1993, three of 12 members have died.
Bob Shea, the fantasy novelist, succumbed to colon cancer last March. The fall brought the deaths of Sherry Jaecks, the social worker, and Jane Nielssen, the 43-year-old mother of three. The women, both breast cancer victims, weathered bone marrow transplants, and there had been hope for them.
“Sherry and Jane would come in as long as they could and tell their stories,” says Al Levine, a retired advertising man and a group stalwart. “The fight never left either of them, though in the end we could sense they were losing.”
“These losses have been very traumatic,” says Elaine Burke, a retired librarian and group member for three years. “This has put us in touch with the elemental forces of life.”
Levine confesses to having been shaken to the core. “I almost dropped out,” he says. “I couldn’t stand to see my friends hurt.” From the time of Shea’s passing, members have discussed death and dying more openly than they did before.
The local wellness movement has itself undergone change and growth.
In April the Cancer Wellness Center moved into a building it had bought in Northbrook. The Hinsdale-based Wellness Community, a branch of the group that became famous for bolstering actress Gilda Radner through her final fight against ovarian cancer, has cut ties to its parent and is now called Wellness House.
A third organization, the Cancer Support Center, opened last September in Glenwood.
Freeman’s group has been reconfigured some. Four members left, and two new members joined. Despite the recent traumas, members remain committed to the group’s purposes.
“Nothing’s changed,” says Levin. “This process is still dynamic, and very necessary. You can’t bring up your fears and concerns with your family and friends, but here you can talk about what’s deep inside you.
“After coming on Monday night, you’re better able to fight a shock to the system like cancer. I really believe that, and the others agree with me.”
–Grant Pick
THE REBIRTH OF MICHAEL MAGGIO
AFTER A MIRACLE, A TROUBLED RESURRECTION
The title of the most recent play staged by Michael Maggio for Steppenwolf Theater–“Time of My Life”–could hardly provide a more apt update of the director’s story.
The high drama of Maggio’s duel against the deadly lung disorder cystic fibrosis and his troubled resurrection after a landmark double-lung transplant operation at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis (as told in the Tribune Magazine on Jan. 3, 1993) has turned into a saga more remarkable than most playwrights could dream up.
A uniquely talented and tormented man whose work continues to delight theater audiences and has won him three straight Jeff awards since the article, Michael Maggio remains a medical marvel.
“I can’t explain it,” he says, “but I haven’t had a single rejection episode since the operation back on April 28, 1991.
“I must say that occasionally I get the unhappy word that another one of my ‘classmates,’ who had the surgery the same time I did, has passed away. Obviously, that’s disconcerting. A jolt of mortality. But I’m doing so well it’s scary.”
Maggio’s surgeon, Dr. Joel Cooper, the father of lung transplantation, had stated in the article that he was seeing a lot of identity crises and marital breakups among his patients. And evidence is accumulating that the psychological trauma of chronic lung disease and the transplantation process itself may be as powerful as the trauma of surgery, and longer lasting.
In any case, Maggio’s recovery devastated his family. Last December, he and his wife, costume designer Julie Jackson, ended their 13-year marriage, a union in which she had been his primary caretaker and stood by him throughout the ordeal of his surgery and its aftermath.
“I went through a real period of confusion,” Maggio says. “I suddenly was a healthy person, after years of being very dependent. It was like one year of recovery, then two years of trying to figure out who the hell I was.
“It was frightening, but also exhilarating. I finally was getting a chance to do things a person usually does in his 20s. I went a little nuts.”
He may be right. A 1990 study by the Toronto Lung Transplant Group reported that as many as 50 percent of lung transplant patients suffered from myriad psychiatric problems before and after surgery, including organic brain syndrome, major depression, anxiety attacks and alcohol or substance abuse.
Professional counseling is now strongly recommended and something Maggio has undergone. His immediate future includes his Broadway directorial debut on May 3 with “My Thing of Love,” starring Laurie Metcalf, who plays Jackie on the TV hit “Roseanne.”
Immediately after that, Maggio will direct the world premiere of a musical at the Goodman Theatre, where he serves as associate artistic director. The show is by the same team that composed “Wings,” the production Maggio directed for the Goodman as his comeback after his operation.
As a transplant recipient four years out, Maggio does not dwell on long-term survival statistics–in fact, he avoids them. He freely admits the agony he has caused and downplays the agony he has endured. He is single, says he tries to be a good father to his and Julie’s son, Ben, takes his cyclosporine and fistful of other pills each day and looks ahead.
“I’m a happy guy now, in a fuller sense than at the time of the article,” he says. “Before, I was happy to just be alive. Now, I’m happy because I feel like I’m complete.”
–Peter Gorner
