Television Reviews : Interview Series Bows Tonight on Channel 7

And now, each week, you can meet those nice people behind the supermarket tabloid headlines.

“Public People/Private Lives,” a new interview series debuting tonight at 6:30 on KABC-TV Channel 7, offers celebrities a cozily sympathetic forum to dispel negative rumors and “press fantasies.”

Teasers for tonight’s show: “Joan Rivers . . . turned away from her alma mater ‘The Tonight Show,’ fired from her own talk show, recovering from the suicide of her husband of 23 years.”

“Malcolm Forbes . . . one of America’s richest men, ambassador to the world in a balloon, keeping very close company with Elizabeth Taylor.”

“Pat Riley . . . basketball’s man of mystery.”

“Cybill Shepherd . . . cover girl emeritus . . . reportedly at war with co-star Bruce Willis and difficult on the set.”

The show’s host, Sarah Purcell (“Real People,” “A.M. Los Angeles”), with one of the more likable grin-and-twinkle routines in the business, lets her subjects know that she is on Their Side.

“Most people would be exhausted !” she gushes to Rivers about her daily schedule. Referring to Rivers’ role in Neil Simon’s “Broadway Bound” and her concurrent work as a stand-up, Purcell gets tough:

“Aren’t you asking a lot of your fans . . . to see you doing a stand-up bit as well as see you do a serious part on Broadway?” That airball leaves Rivers understandably nonplussed.

Rivers and Forbes actually make the hour worthwhile, despite its gush and tease. Rivers, minus her usual hard-edges, is thoughtful about her career and the death of her husband and vulnerably glowing about her daughter.

Forbes disarmingly comes across as one of the jolliest, just-plain-folks-with-buckets-of-money you’d ever hope to meet. He is jubilant at having bested the Kremlin in the acquisition of one more Faberge Egg and boyish about the attention given his friendship with Elizabeth Taylor.

We never know what makes Lakers Coach Pat Riley a “man of mystery,” nor do we learn much about Shepherd, except that she doesn’t like bad press, and she doesn’t seem too sure of Purcell. There’s just so much a smile can do.