LAVIN TURNS SHEPHERD IN NEW TV FILM

Linda Lavin likes playing women “who walk through fire and come out standing up,” she says. So when she got a call asking her if she would like to go to Australia and learn how to herd sheep, she immediately said yes.

“A Place to Call Home,” Lavin’s new movie for CBS, airing tonight at 9 on Channels 2 and 8, is not really about how to keep sheep. The point of the telefilm, which Lavin produced, is to show how a family can pull together in a crisis.

Based on a true story, “A Place to Call Home” begins in Houston in 1971. The Gavin family decides that the time has come to move, along with all but the two oldest of their 13 children, to the Australian sheep ranch they have owned since the Korean War.

“One week before the move, the husband told his wife he needed more time to clear things up at work and she should go ahead with the 11 children,” Lavin recounts. “He never came. What happened? She was an affluent housewife and mother who knew how to make dinner and play golf. How did she cope?”

And how could Lavin, 49, an outspoken supporter of women’s rights, resist such a project? “All the movies I’ve made are about women who accept challenges: a female factory worker who goes on the all-male assembly line (“The $5.20 an Hour Dream”), a nurse who works with the terminally ill (“A Matter of Life and Death”) and a woman who becomes an instant stepparent (“Another Woman’s Child”).

“These women were not necessarily political. They were ordinary women who just wanted to have a life. To me, the message is the most important thing.

“I can’t second-guess whether a movie will be successful,” she continued. “But I believe television must be used to tell the truth, hearten, enlighten and entertain. It’s a way to connect with other humans, to let people know they can sit and watch a story and see themselves. That’s why ‘Alice’ (her long-running CBS comedy series) was so successful. The identification was so strong.”

Lavin spoke about her movie just after she came back from Australia. Soon afterwards, she went to Broadway to star in Neil Simon’s latest hit, “Broadway Bound.”