Maggie Sebastian’s TV Gig Won’t Allow Her to Give Up the Day Job

Maggie Sebastian is an Emmy-winning talk-show hostess--poised, she hopes, on the brink of major success--but she still hasn’t quit her day job. Despite winning a statuette for best host/moderator at this year’s Los Angeles Area Emmy Awards, Sebastian still toils away as the junior sportswear and swim buyer at Val’s Surf Shop in the San Fernando Valley.

It’s not your ordinary story, but Sebastian’s acting gig is a bit precarious. She plays the Lovely Miss Mags, sidekick to Peter Chaconas (who also won an Emmy), on “The Late Mr. Pete Show,” the cult fave that originated four years ago as a public-access show on Century Cable. The show was picked up last September on KTLA Channel 5, dropped after four weeks, and then, to everyone’s surprise, picked up this summer by KTLA for another 13 weeks. It currently airs Fridays at 11:30 p.m.

“Thank God!” says Sebastian, who has her fingers crossed for that big break at last. Although her co-workers have begun to call her “Miss Mags,” she hasn’t exactly had legions of fans hounding her for autographs.

“Yeah, right,” she says. “I’m always amazed when someone recognizes me. But lately I’ve been getting more ‘I know you’s.’ Now I kind of blurt it out--I say, ‘I’ve got this TV show. . . .’ ”

Part of her anonymity, she says, could be because as Miss Mags, she remains partially hidden under a gold wig and various other costumes (for this season’s first show she dressed as an Emmy--gold wings and all).

There’s one more reason Sebastian hopes the show will catch on on local TV: She and Mr. Pete can’t go back to cable.

“After we did the first four shows for KTLA we tried going back to public access,” she says. “But their schedule was so full, they hardly had room for us.”