TV Reviews : Show-Biz People Are Good Guys in ‘Secrets’

Industry attention has been focusing on Robert Altman’s soon-to-open feature “The Player,” a black-comic dig at Hollywood that some insiders have doubted will “play in Peoria.” Meanwhile, airing tonight with Peoria written all over it is “Danielle Steel’s ‘Secrets’ ” (at 9 on NBC, Channels 4, 36 and 39).

It may not cause quite the same buzz in the local biz but, in fact, it’s actually even more startling an expose.

This daring TV movie rips the lid off the underbelly of the entertainment business, to mix metaphors, and uncovers as its chief “secret” this truly shocking find:

People in Hollywood are mostly fundamentally decent and really, really nice.

Gasp.

Oh, Steel’s principal characters--actors hired to star on a “Dynasty”-like nighttime soaper called “Manhattan”--do all have some sort of dirty linen they’re trying to hide from the world and each other. But they’re all good folks who’ve basically been victimized in some way by people outside the industry .

Suffering Jane (Linda Purl) has a jealous, battering, land-developer husband who forbids her to remain in show biz. Studly Zach (Gary Collins) is being blackmailed by a couple of hicks over an old small-town dalliance. Sulky Bill (Ben Browder) has a wife who’s an addict and a prostitute. Perky Gabrielle (Josie Bissett) doesn’t want anyone to know she comes from a moneyed, high-society family. And sultry Sabina (Stephanie Beacham) is hiding some kind of secret up in San Francisco--which her producer/suitor (Christopher Plummer) suspects is another lover, but which will turn out to be something far nobler.

That’s six main cast members, equally divided between sexes. Could it be that they’ll all pair up, fight off the outside forces that threaten their happiness and live successfully ever after? Could it be that this will be another Steel-vs.-sports counter-programming ratings bonanza for NBC?

The astounding revelations of “Secrets” are scarcely belied by the deceptively benign opening and closing appearance from the titular paperback writer herself, Steel, who grins effusively and offers her welcoming comments with the kind of slow, stilted enunciation usually reserved for talking to 2-year-olds.

No comment.