Whether as Dr. Andy Campbell on Lifetime’s “Strong Medicine” or as Jill Taylor on “Home Improvement,” Patricia Richardson radiates an air of calm efficiency.
The notion that she is actually like this prompts Richardson to say, “Any of my friends who heard this would fall on the floor laughing.”
This just proves what a solid actress Richardson is, and her comment confirms that she simply tells it as she sees it. At 52, she celebrates her age and her life, which includes three teenagers, an amicable divorce from their father, and a live-in beau.
Though enjoying “Strong Medicine” (which airs in repeats weekday evenings this week), the medical drama in which she plays a women’s health specialist, Richardson is frustrated that the show does not deal with abortion. “The main reason for this show was to educate women about important public health issues,” she says from her Los Angeles home. “And we have had a real impact about organ donorship and abuse and the list goes on and on. We get awards from AIDS and domestic violence (groups) up the wazoo, and we have never done a show about abortion.”
A spokeswoman for the studio producing the series says “Strong Medicine” aired two episodes concerning abortion before Richardson joined the cast during Season 3 last year, but the drama has not waded into the maelstrom that surrounds abortion since then.
Richardson wants the issue tackled again. “You want ratings and you are afraid to do something controversial?” she asks incredulously. “I already know how to do this so you would have more than one point of view. I have born-again Christians in my family, and they are completely against abortion … Everybody’s got to stop being afraid of it real soon. Who’s going to do it if a woman’s network doesn’t? People are going to be dying,” she says in reference to the possibility of legal abortions being repealed in the United States. “Losing their reproductive rights is the first step to how women live in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.”
That aside, Richardson enjoys having a gig without laughs. “I didn’t want to do comedy again,” she says. “It is way harder when you are doing comedy. You can’t just concentrate on the character and the plot. In comedy, the writers, instead of obsessing about character and plot, obsess about the jokes.”
Richardson had no delusions when she signed on for “Home Improvement.” “I didn’t really want to play that character,” she says of Jill. “I went in and read for that as part of a contract I had with Disney. The mother part is really boring. It’s always about taking care of others … I had done a bunch of series work before and you generally do it, it airs once and it dies. Then you can go on and do something else. I was shocked to find myself in the middle of the storm for eight years.”
As forthright as Richardson is about her politics and art, she is equally forthright about two topics often considered taboo: money and love. In love with Dr. Mark Cline, a retired psychologist whom she knew when they were students at Southern Methodist University, Richardson acknowledges she was cautious. “When you’re a woman with a certain amount of fame and money, you are never certain what someone’s motives are,” she says.
“… To some extent, I am getting back to someone I know. He is the sexiest and smartest man I ever knew.”
To our readers:
This week’s Conversion Chart (pages 46 and 47) includes new lineups for Wilmette, Wheaton and Naperville. Next week’s chart will add Orland Park and Schaumburg.
