Frann Says Goodby to ‘Newhart’ Image as a Jackie Collins Heroine

Does Bob Newhart know about this?

For eight seasons, actress Mary Frann played the sweet, sweater-clad wife of button-down Bob on the CBS comedy series “Newhart.” But she sheds her goody-two-shoes image, her sweaters and a lot more in NBC’s miniseries “Jackie Collins’ Lucky/Chances,” which airs Sunday-Tuesday at 9 p.m. on KNBC.

In the six-hour melodrama based on the two Jackie Collins’ best-sellers, Frann plays the sultry Clementine who gives a young man (Vincent Irizarry) is Ph.D in sex education.

The actress says she’s been “real careful” about the projects she has done since “Newhart” ended in May. “I wanted to do something that would surprise people,” she says. “The public, I think, is far more adaptable than people in the industry.”

Frann jumped at the opportunity to play such a savvy, sexy lady as Clementine. “I thought it would be outrageous, flamboyant, glamorous,” she says. “I wanted to remind people that I was capable of playing many different roles.

“She’s is a very rich powerful and glamorous socialite in the 1930s,” purrs Frann. “She meets this character who is handsome and rough around the edges and becomes his tutor. She has her own set of rules. She doesn’t care what people say.”

People will probably be saying a lot about Frann’s steamy sex scenes with co-star Irizarry, including one in which she feeds him strawberries dipped in chocolate. “After we shot three scenes the first day, the next day we had to close the set,” she recalls. “After they saw the dailies, we had 50 extra people on the set.”