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Crewson makes a killing
By KEVIN WILLIAMSON
Calgary Sun
Flying in the lifted-and-tucked face of Hollywood, Wendy Crewson is perfectly fine with aging gracefully.
Just not too gracefully.
Compare her role as mystery sleuth Joanne Killbourn to Angela Lansbury's crime-solving granny in Murder, She Wrote, for example,
and Crewson sounds downright homicidal.
"Don't say that! It's my Prime Suspect, thank you," says Crewson, referring to Helen Mirren's British police series during
a phone interview from her Toronto home.
A Killing Spring, the fifth Kilbourn CTV movie based on the best-selling books by Gail Bowen and starring Crewson, airs Tuesday
at 9 p.m. on DE.
Even Crewson admits at this point, her character's been solving so many killings, it's a wonder anyone wants to spend time
with her. "No one wants to be her friend.
"She's the only one ever left standing. The secret is she's the murderer!"
After more than a decade living in San Francisco, Crewson moved her family -- she and her husband have a daughter Maggie,
12, and son, Jack, 9 -- to Toronto this past year.
"We're sort of straddling both coasts. We've rented a place here and are trying it out.
"I love Toronto and being back home, but I hate the weather. I've become soft -- too many years on the east bay on San Francisco
where it's always 65 degrees ... You forget after awhile how blissful it is."
Crewson has enjoyed success on both sides of the border. She's appeared in numerous Hollywood blockbusters in recent years,
including as Harrison Ford's wife in Air Force One (she had a small role -- again with Ford -- in What Lies Beneath).
She also starred opposite Robin Williams in Bicentennial Man and Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Sixth Day.
In Canada, she's won two Geminis -- the first for a guest role on Due South in 1998 and then, a year later, for At the End
of the Day: The Sue Rodriguez Story, in which she played a victim of Lou Gehrig's disease, who battled for the right to die.
Crewson has since become involved with fundraising and is patron of the Calgary-based Betty's Run for ALS.
Next up for Crewson is reprising her role opposite Tim Allen in The Santa Clause 2 and she'll attend the Berlin Film Festival
to promote Suddenly Naked, an Anne Wheeler-directed movie in which Crewson plays the "older woman" romancing a younger man.
She decided to move her family to Toronto "because I figured if I didn't do it now, I'd wait until I was 65, I'd be too tired.
"But I've ruined my daughter's life. She's a California girl, so she's going to school in these pleated skirts and I just
see her bony little cold legs ... I keep telling them, 'You're half-Canadian!' I took everything for granted. I knew the national
anthem, but they had no idea. I figured I could sign my son up for hockey.
"Get them on skates, give them a stick and they shoot the puck. You know, I'll take him to Canadian Tire -- that gives them
knowledge to play hockey. But then I put all this equipment on him, thousands of these big pads and he said this is the third
time he's ever been skating. I've been a neglectful Canadian mother.
"There are no rinks in San Francisco -- nobody goes skating.
"But he loves it. It's in the genetic code."
CTV Mysteries
Gemini Award winners Wendy Crewson (Airforce One, The Sue Rodruigez Story) and Victor Garber (Sleepless in
Seattle, Titanic) are back in their roles as ex-cop Joanne Kilbourn and Police Inspector Philip Millard.
Kilbourn may have resigned from the police force, but when a case affects her and the people she loves, she gets involved.
To get the job done, she must find the balance between working a case her own way and relying on the resources of the police
-- a combination which sometimes puts her at odds with Millard and sometimes makes them strange allies.
In The Wandering Soul Murders, Kilbourn is pulled into a case when one of her daughter's employees is found murdered.
She quickly learns that the death is only the latest in a series of homicides involving teenage prostitutes. When she publicly
criticizes the police force for mishandling the investigation, she is asked to produce an investigative story for a local
television newsmagazine. Will Millard help her find the killer?
Kilbourn has no patience for sloppy police work. She quit the police force when they failed to find her husband's murderer.
In A Colder Kind of Death, Kilbourn comes face to face with the case that changed her life. Six years after her husband's
death, the police have found enough evidence to arrest a prime suspect, who is himself murdered by an unknown killer. When
the suspect's wife is strangled to death, Kilbourn is shocked to learn the instrument of death was her own scarf. To make
matters worse, other evidence and the ensuing investigation all point to Kilbourn as the murderer. She must push aside all
the resurfacing pain and memories to learn the truth and exonerate herself. The Wandering Soul Murders and A Colder Kind of
Death are produced by Toronto's Shaftesbury Films.
Deadly Appearances
Starring: Wendy Crewson, Victor Garber, Robert Hays
Politics, make strange bedfellows and no one knows this better than Joanne Kilbourn. As a former policewoman, she thinks she
has seen it all but when her old friend, and rising political star, Andy Boychuk is implicated in the murder of young Lori
Evanson, a student at a local Bible College, she is once again shocked as she uncovers the truth about the murder. Rated PG.
Love & Murder
Starring: Wendy Crewson, Victor Garber
This is a CTV Literature Initiative. Upon returning to the small town where her roots were, Sally, a renown artist, renews
her friendship with her childhood friend Joanne - a widowed professor with 3 children - Before long Clea, Sally's partner
is found dead and then Sally is murdered - Joanne is left to find out the truth and dark history of her childhood friend!
Rated PG.
A Killing Spring
Starring: Wendy Crewson, Victor Garber
Fear, deceit and violence run rampant at the School of Journalism where Joanne Kilbourn was once a professor. When the dean
of the journalism faculty is found dead under suspicious circumstances, Joanne is unofficially enlisted to solve the crime.
The promise of a prestigious internship, the revelation of journalistic corruption and a threat against Joanne's professional
life all play a part in unmasking one man's determination to advance himself at any cost. "A Killing Spring" is part of the
on-going "CTV Mystery" strand and is the fifth in the series from Canadian author Gail Bowen's popular murder mystery series
(Deadly Appearances; Love and Murder; The Wandering Soul Murders; A Colder Kind of Death). The two-hour special features Gemini-Award-winning
Wendy Crewson (The Sixth Day) as ex-cop Joanne Kilbourn. Written by Joe Wiesenfeld and Jeremy Hole, and directed by Stephen
Williams (Hard Times: The David Milgaard Story), this made-for-television film is produced by Toronto-based Shaftesbury Films
in association with CTV.
Verdict In Blood
The sixth and final installment of its popular "CTV Mystery" movie strand, "VERDICT IN BLOOD", will make its television premiere
MONDAY, MAY 27 at 9 p.m. ET (check local listings). Gemini Award winner WENDY CREWSON reprises her role as ex-cop turned mystery
sleuth, Joanne Kilbourn, in the feature-length, made for television special.
"Verdict In Blood" is part of the CTV Mystery strand and is the final adaptation from a series of six "Joanne Kilbourn" murder
mysteries from Canadian author Gail Bowen (Deadly Appearances; Love and Murder; The Wandering Soul Murders; A Colder Kind
of Death; A Killing Spring).
The MOW also stars Sally Kellerman (The Boston Strangler, That's Life!) as Judge Marcia Blackwell, a forgiving judge who ends
up dead, Robert Davi (Contact on Cherry Street, Profiler) as Wade Waters, a criminal rehabilitator, who is romantically involved
with the judge and becomes the prime murder suspect and Shawn Doyle (The City, Blue Murder) as detective Alex Emanuel.
The murder of a prominent and wealthy judge on the eve of her retirement casts suspicion on a group of ex-cons. Formerly tough
on crime, Judge Marcia Blackwell had revised her feelings about punishment. But when a new will surfaces, those close to her
fear that her newfound belief in rehabilitation was really a product of the opportunism of the former convicts she was helping.
In the midst of a documentary on Blackwell, Joanne Kilbourn determines to help find the murderer. The distance the perpetrator
will go to get Blackwell's fortune puts everyone, including Joanne, at risk until she is able to uncover the shocking truth
behind the crime.
Written by Andrew Wreggitt, Jeremy Hole, and Janet MacLean. Directed by Stephen Williams (Milgaard). The made-for-television
film is produced by Toronto-based Shaftesbury Films in association with CTV. Christina Jennings is Executive Producer of Shaftesbury
Films. Bill Mustos is Senior VP, CTV Dramatic Programming.
"Verdict In Blood" is part of CTV's Canadian Literature Initiative, a series which has enjoyed critical and ratings success.
Established in 1997, the CTV Canadian Literature Initiative seeks to bring Canadian literature to the small screen.
Actress juggles dual career
Date: 2000/08/19
Wendy Crewson gets small roles in big U.S. movies, but lead roles in Canadian features
By Jim Bawden Toronto Star Tv Columnist
Canadian actress
Wendy Crewson claims she owes it all to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Harrison
Ford. "Well, maybe Robin Williams and Tim Allen have something to do with
it, too," she says.
It's because of her appearances in American blockbuster movies opposite
these big name stars, she figures, that she gets so many juicy roles in
Canadian TV movies.
And while she's usually a co-star in U.S. movies, in Canada she's had the
lead in a string of critically praised features. "I really have two
separate careers," is how she explains it.
Nearing midnight in Mississauga, Crewson is finishing filming A Colder Kind
Of Murder, her fourth Joanne Kilbourne murder mystery movie for CTV. Months
ago, she finished the third one, The Wandering Soul Murders. Both are
scheduled for the upcoming TV season.
The location is a swank mansion deep in a grove of trees that borders the
Credit River. The private house has been rented to serve as the Regina
residence of character Joanne Kilbourne, a widowed mom of three and an ex-
cop who teaches criminology. In the latest movie, Kilbourne has been
offered the crime beat on a TV news show.
Crewson made the first two Kilbourne movies last year: Love And Murder
attracted 1 million viewers, while Deadly Appearances captured 1.2 million
viewers.
"I've been busy, yeah," she says. She's currently co-starring in Robert
Zemeckis' What Lies Beneath, which stars Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer. And
she'll soon be seen in the upcoming Roger Spottiswoode feature, On The
Sixth Day, with Schwarzenegger.
Last year, she played opposite Williams in Bicentennial Man. "My son
(Jack) was at the premiere with me," she says. "It was very tense because
the movie wasn't working at times. At the end, Jack could be heard saying
'Well, I liked it,' " she says with a laugh, relaxing in her trailer
recently between takes.
Other big American movies she's been in: Air Force One with Ford, Gang
Related with Tupac Shakur, The Santa Clause with Tim Allen, To Gillian On
Her 37th Birthday with Pfeiffer, Corrina, Corrina with Whoopi Goldberg and
The Doctor with William Hurt.
But Crewson is always way down on the cast list; Hollywood never gives her
billing above the title.
"It would be awful just to do the American stuff," says the actress who
returns to Toronto every year for a TV feature or two. "All right, I'm
doing a scene with Harrison Ford. Say it's in Air Force One. Do you think
during our scene the camera will be on me? Of course not. I get a nominal
shot so people can see who's talking to him. But he's the star. No, let me
correct myself - he's the superstar."
Hanging out with Ford on a big blockbuster can be fun, she concedes. "He's
cool. He does have a sense of humour. But after all, he is Harrison Ford.
When I went in for the audition, he was there, of course. With a ball cap
on, behind shades. I was intimidated for a minute, and then I thought,
`Hey, wait a minute my husband and I know Woody Allen.' So the tension
passed."
Schwarzenegger she describes as "just very funny, very accommodating. And
it never hurts to be in a film that millions of people will want to see."
Crewson and her husband, actor Michael Murphy, live in San Francisco, a
place they thought ideal for raising their two small children. "Now I'm
thinking about coming home with them," she says, laughing. "I miss cold
weather, things like that. But my accountant said I'm already in Toronto
six months of the year. What more do I want?"
She returns for work here "to feed my soul." Never mind that many of the
Canadian features she stars in never air on American TV. "That's beside
the point," she says. "I can do something that would never be offered to
me in the U.S."
Her Canadian TV movies include Getting Married In Buffalo Jump (1988),
"opposite the Paul Gross," I'll Never Get To Heaven (1994), directed by
Stefan Scaini, Frostfire (1995), Lives Of Girls And Women (1996), Let
Sleeping Dogs Lie (1998) and At The End Of The Day: The Sue Rodriguez
Story, which won her a best actress Gemini.
"The Sue Rodriguez story (about a woman with ALS, also known as Lou
Gehrig's disease) was typical. I think CBC eventually sold it to Lifetime
(a U.S. cable network). I heard from some neighbours they'd seen it and how
it affected them. But a major U.S. network would not have touched it
because it was truthful."
Crewson has run marathons to promote research for ALS victims, and says
it's the one role that has most affected her.
The two new Joanne Kilbourne mysteries were shot back to back this summer
in Toronto. Crewson says the TV mysteries could possibly become a Prime
Suspect-type of gritty series that airs occasionally or it could go the
more bland weekly route of Murder, She Wrote. "If we went as a weekly
series, it would definitely lose its edge," she says.
(Executive producer Christina Jennings says there are still two more books
by Gail Bowen to film.)
Crewson originally moved to Hollywood in 1985 after success on Canadian TV
in two CBC series: Home Fires and War Brides. "My daughter loves watching
me in Home Fires. All I see is a young girl with enormous cheeks and a
braying voice."
She says she would never have attempted the move to the U.S. "if I knew
then what I knew now. It's a very cold, soul-deadening place, a heartless
business. You go to auditions and take anything because, by that time,
you're practically living in your car and need the money. Before you get
the final audition, you have to sign the standard seven-year contract and
the pay is bottom-line."
Crewson co-starred in the short-lived 1987 CBS drama series Hard Copy
(where she met her husband). She also had dismal luck two years later with
her second series, an ABC drama about TV journalists called Studio 5-B.
Last season, she was considered for the second lead in the new series Once
And Again. "The producers said I looked too much like Sela Ward and asked
me to dye my hair blonde. I told them I look awful as a blonde."
"So here I am back in Toronto - and still a brunette."
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