Curtis Is Happy to Stay Home With a Sitcom

Jamie Lee Curtis, star of TV’s on-again, off-again series “Anything But Love,” has chosen the sitcom life over movies because it is more compatible with motherhood.

Curtis has been in demand since her 1988 starring role with John Cleese and Kevin Kline in “A Fish Called Wanda.” Now she is co-starring with Joe Mantegna and Kevin Bacon in “Queens Logic” and in “My Girl” with Dan Aykroyd and Macaulay Culkin--the 10-year-old star of “Home Alone.”

It came as something of a surprise when she made her weekly series debut in “Anything But Love.”

The decision was not as astonishing as if Meryl Streep had announced she was joining the cast of “The Golden Girls,” but it was an unexpected career move nonetheless.

“Doing a TV series in Hollywood was a great temptation for me,” Curtis said on a brief trip home from the location shooting of “My Girl” in Orlando, Fla.

“A series is a wonderful opportunity to have a regular job in California while at the same time being a full-time mother. Fewer movies are made in Hollywood, which means a lot of travel and time spent on locations.

“My daughter Annie is 4, an age where it is vitally important that she is with me every day and has the security of a comfortable daily routine and the familiarity of her own home.

“I take Annie to preschool each day. Every morning and evening she is with her mother and daddy (actor-writer-director Christopher Guest) in a normal family environment.

“I realize how fortunate I was that my mother always provided a happy and orderly home life for me when I was growing up.” Her parents are Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh.

Although her role as Hannah Miller in “Anything But Love” keeps her busy eight or nine months a year, Curtis hopes to find enough time to slip a movie into her schedule.

“When that happens, as with ‘My Girl,’ I take Annie along,” she said. “I keep her with me on all my locations. Annie especially likes this movie because she has a crush on Macaulay Culkin.

“She comes to the set with me and looks at Macaulay with big eyes, a red face and a beating heart.”