High Spirit

Actors rarely seem happy acting. Ask them if they like what they’re doing and, invariably, you hear: “Yeah, but what I really want to do is sing.”

Katey Sagal’s an exception--sort of. The star of Fox Broadcasting’s snide sitcom “Married . . . With Children” and appearing in the current Touchstone release “The Good Mother,” Sagal’s been working at her music much longer than she’s been acting.

“I’m actually making a living as an actress, which surprises the hell out of me,” says Sagal, a 32-year-old cigarette-smoking ball of energy with dark red hair and a growling, frequent laugh.

“I never expected it. I associated success in ‘The Industry’ with my father (the late veteran director Boris Sagal) and mother (the late Sara Zwilling, a singer, writer and also a director), and their friends and peers.”

Instead of following her parents’ route, Sagal spent many of her formative years in Los Angeles hanging around in rock ‘n’ roll hot spots, learning to write music, play the piano and sing like blues stylists Etta James or Koko Taylor.

But success as a solo musician eluded her.

“I was trying to get yet another one-record deal with a biggish label off the ground,” Sagal says, “when I sort of stumbled into a production at the Mark Taper Forum. Danny De Vito saw me and recommended me for ‘Mary’ (Mary Tyler Moore’s abortive sitcom in 1986). And from there, I got ‘Married . . . With Children.’ ”

Sagal is pleased with her current lucky streak. “I’m not gonna come off and say working regularly on a national TV show upsets me--I can’t stand that attitude,” she says. “I really do like working on a series. It’s safe, and scheduled, and fun, and it provides my life with some much-needed structure. The money’s fine, and . . . in a way it sorta juices me up for being in a band.

“Working creatively in one way keeps my spirits high for everything else.”