‘Law’ on the Set, Order at Home

“When I met Alan, he said to me, ‘I don’t want any drama in my life,’ ” Joanna Frank said placidly. “We’d already had relationships that had big highs and big lows and a lot of drama in them. I said, ‘Great--I don’t want any drama, either.’ ”

True to the promise they made to each other before they got married, there isn’t much drama in the lives of Joanna Frank and Alan Rachins. They have a cozy home just above Sunset Boulevard, an energetic 5-year-old son named Robbie and an uneventful, ultra-domestic existence far removed from the Hollywood fast lane.

But drama is the name of the game in their professional lives--and not just because both are actors. They portray callous, wealthy law partner Douglas Brackman and his bitter, unfulfilled and estranged wife, Sheila, on NBC’s hit series “L.A. Law.”

Despite the domestic bliss of their own lives, Frank and Rachins as the feuding Sheila and Douglas Brackman are a match made in hell.

In the next three episodes of the show beginning tonight, the Brackmans’ story will heat up as Douglas tries to reconcile with Sheila with the aid of his recently discovered half-brother, portrayed by Jeffrey Tambor. (In the “L.A. Law” tradition of breaking TV taboos, next week’s episode features a frontal nude scene with Tambor in which network decency standards are maintained only by a large, strategically placed pottery vase.)

Frank and Rachins are not the only real-life marriage on the “L.A. Law” set. Michael Tucker, who plays the genial Stuart Markowitz, and Jill Eikenberry, who plays the crusading Ann Kelsey, are married--and their characters tied the knot this season as well.

The family ties don’t end there. Frank’s brother is the show’s executive producer, Steven Bochco. And although she doesn’t appear on “L.A. Law,” Bochco’s wife is also nearby on the 20th Century Fox lot portraying feisty police captain C. Z. Stern in another series that Bochco helped create, ABC’s “Hooperman.”

Both Frank and Rachins say the presence of family on the set is definitely an advantage to their work.

“It’s rolling out of bed in the morning and going to a place where there is extended family,” said Frank, a small, delicate woman with a soft cloud of curly red hair. “My husband is there, my brother is there, my sister-in-law is on the lot. It’s so low-key, so low-pressure. My only problem now is, what if I get another job and it’s not on the Fox lot?”

Rachins, whose reserved, gentle manner is a startling contrast to the abrasive Brackman’s, interrupted her. “Don’t say that; it might be better,” he admonished. “It might be a part that you like better, that you find more fulfilling.”

Frank and Rachins acknowledged that while they enjoy their roles, the part of Sheila is the smaller and somewhat less rewarding of the two.

“Playing Sheila Brackman has been a very mixed bag for me,” Frank said, her voice rendered barely audible by a recent case of the flu. “On the one hand, you want to work desperately, and here’s a role that is wonderful, it’s being written by people who are terrific and every word that is written is going through your brother’s typewriter. All of that is great.

“But here you are, playing a role that is very different from your personality. And in fact it’s not just a different relationship, it’s a different person--a person with more bitterness and negativity and strife on an emotional level than I have.

“She’s not really a pleasant person; she’s not all nice, gooey, warm, funny and loving. I don’t get to smile at all. I always have to look sullen, and that tends to make you look older. So that’s what the mixed bag is.”

Frank said her brother, Bochco, warned her and Rachins that the Brackmans were not likable people, but the experience is still difficult.

“It’s just the opposite of what every other actress is saying: ‘Why can’t I have a good, heavy, juicy role?’ ” she wailed. “

Rachins, 45, said he had the same reaction to Brackman at first, but now he thinks the character, through crises with his personal life and grappling with middle age, is developing depth beyond the comically evil, mustache-twirling villain.

“When people say you’re playing the character we love to hate, frankly, I don’t buy it,” he said. “Maybe last year, but not anymore. Maybe I’m the only one who feels this way, but I think the way they (the writers) have rounded out his character is a more understandably pathetic or sad or locked-in kind of character. I think they’ve made it much more complicated than that.”

Despite disappointment at being denied a stab at television glamour, Frank is encouraged by the reaction of women to Sheila’s struggle for personal growth.

“They (women friends) say this character of Sheila Brackman is someone they can relate to very well,” she said. “She is a character with a lot of angst and personal problems, trying to work out a life for herself while she is still young enough to do it. She doesn’t have any glamour at all; she’s just a real person.”

Somewhat like the Brackmans, Rachins describes himself and his “40-ish” wife as late bloomers who struggled with finding themselves as people and as actors for years before finding each other--and now, finally, good television roles. They met in an acting class when both were well into their 30s, and it’s the first marriage for both.

“Our relationships with the opposite sex had not been a terrific success until we met each other,” Rachins said.

“And the second thing is, we’ve sort of solved our career problems, because we both felt we had a certain amount of promise that we hadn’t fulfilled as actors. And we’ve proven that as well.”

Rachins spent more than two years at the Wharton School of Finance preparing to inherit his father’s food manufacturing business, then dropped out and headed for New York to study acting. In addition to performing on stage and screen, he studied at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles and wrote and directed TV series episodes, including another Bochco co-creation, “Hill Street Blues.”

Frank, a New York native and protege of Lee Strasberg, came to Los Angeles following years of study and landed roles in series television and feature films. Dissatisfied with the product, she later returned to Strasberg and the New York stage. She met Rachins after returning to Los Angeles to try again.

“In a way, working together is no different than not working together, because when we were unemployed we were together all the time, working on the marriage,” Rachins said. “Working together is just a part of that.

Added Frank happily: “There is a sense, and I think Alan has it too, that this is the beginning. This is not the peak, this is the beginning. And that makes our future in the industry very exciting. This is a hell of a way to begin.”