Fox Trots to ‘Melrose Place’

As “Beverly Hills, 90210” has settled into cultural phenomenom status, the president of the Fox Entertainment Group is saying the network’s new “Melrose Place” could emerge as an even bigger hit.

“From a demographic standpoint we expect it to be slightly broader than ‘90210’ since the characters are all four to five years older and we will be able to deal with slighty more mature and older relationships,” said Fox’s Peter Chernin.

He is confident “Melrose Place” will draw in both the teen-age “90210” fans looking for a preview of their lives and the “twentysomethings” eager for the rare chance to see a series featuring characters their own age.

“Melrose Place,” a look at eight neighbors who live in a Spanish courtyard apartment in a trendy Los Angeles neighborhood, has much in common with “90210,” the Angst- filled goings-on of students at fictional West Beverly Hills High. (The real Melrose Place is a three-block stretch of interior design stores just east of La Cienega Boulevard off Melrose Avenue.)

They are both produced by Darren Star and will run back to back during the summer. One of “Melrose Place’s” stars, Grant Show, was introduced on “90210” and “90210’s” Jennie Garth will appear on the first three “Melrose Place” episodes. Ian Ziering, Tori Spelling and Brian Austin Green from “90210” are also expected as guests in future episodes.

But “Melrose Place” is no “90210: The Next Generation.” The new kid on the block is far more heterogenous.

“I just think it would be a misrepresentation to have it any other way in terms of who lives in Los Angeles,” Star said. “It feels more real to me to have a much greater diversity of ethnic types and sexual preferences.”

Like “90210,” look for a wide range of stories to come out of “Melrose Place,” mixing personal relationships and issues, taking advantage of what Star said are “issues of responsibility when you are in your 20s that have never been present in your life before.”

“The stakes are a little higher when you get involved in relationships,” he said. “Your job is not a part-time job, but your career. We’ll be doing stories involving ethics in the workplace and what it’s like to be out of work.

“A lot of stories deal with living up to parental expectations and becoming your own person when your parents expect one thing and and you’re living the other. But we’ll also have a lot of fun stories.”

“Melrose Place” is one of the few dramatic series in television history to have a gay character among its regular cast: Matt Fielding (Doug Savant) is a USC graduate and social worker who runs a halfway house for runaways in Hollywood.

Star “can’t imagine” a repeat of the boycott calls and controversies that have dogged other series with gay characters.

“He’s such an unthreatening personality,” Star said. “Once they know this character they’ll know him in terms of who he is as a person, rather than what defines him sexually.”

While “90210” has drawn fire in some circles for having an all-white cast, “Melrose Place” has a black regular, Vanessa Williams, not the former Miss America but an actress who had recurring roles for two seasons on “The Cosby Show.” She plays aerobics instructor Rhonda Blair.

“The part wasn’t specifically written for a black actress,” Star said. “The best person for the part happened to be black.”

Two other neighbors are the married Mancinis, Jane (Josie Bissett) and Michael (Thomas Calabro). She is a designer who works at a boutique. He is a surgical intern having trouble adjusting to Los Angeles after moving from Chicago.

“(My character) is the straightest and squarest guy on the show and happy about it,” said Calabro, a Brooklyn native who has performed on off-Broadway and played Peter Falk’s nephew in a “Columbo” episode.

Bissett promised some “pretty serious” scenes as she tries to cope with her husband’s long hours and fatigue.

“To me, our marriage is No. 1 and he gets home late and sometimes doesn’t come home at all, and I’m like super lonely,” said Bissett, who spent two seasons on “The Hogan Family” as Jeremy Licht’s girlfriend and has made guest-starring appearances on “Parker Lewis Can’t Lose!,” “Quantum Leap” and “Doogie Howser, M.D.” “I didn’t think marriage was supposed to be that way, so I’m a little freaked out about the whole thing.”

Calabro has received assistance in his role from his sister, a surgeon.

“In the beginning we talked at length about the whole process, which has led us to add some things to the script,” Calabro said. “We used to call her Grumpy, just like this guy is.”

Alison Parker (Courtney Thorne-Smith) is fresh out of college from the Midwest and working as an advertising agency receptionist.

“I like her earnestness,” said Thorne-Smith, who was Harry Hamlin’s Laker Girl girlfriend on “L.A. Law” two seasons ago. “She is very meticulous. Her home is important to her. I’m not as extreme as she, in terms of how things should be, but I do understand it. It’s actually fun to wallow around in it and to be this definite.

“Things seem so simple to Alison and if it’s not that way, it’s upsetting. There are very few gray areas in Alison’s life.”

She also has a roommate in struggling writer and ballroom dance instructor Billy Campbell (Andrew Shue).

And “Melrose Place” wouldn’t be able to completely and accurately depict Los Angeles without an aspiring actor or actress among its regulars, in this case Sandy Louise Harling (Amy Locane), who like many a real-life aspiring actress waits tables to pay the rent.

Fox, which has relied and benefited from massive promotion of its series, has made “Melrose Place” one of the most publicized series which hasn’t hit the airwaves yet.

“The hype is beginning to feed on itself and is becoming bigger and bigger,” Show said. “I’m kind of watching it with amusement.”

Try as she might to avoid it, Bissett admitted the hype causes her concern.

“I don’t think about it when I’m working,” Bissett said. “I just think about doing good work. I don’t think, ‘Oh God, everybody’s expecting this,’ because if I think that, then I’m totally screwed.

“But when I’m not working, I think, ‘Yeah, there’s so much hype and publicity before it’s even on the air, it’s a little scary.’ People are going to expect so much, they might get let down.”

But Bissett applauds the promotional strategy.

“Seeing how ‘Beverly Hills’ took off, bringing those characters on to our show and taking the humongous audience over is the smartest thing anyone can do,” Bissett said. “Scary or not, it’s the right thing to do.”

Show has been the subject of much of the hype, landing on the covers of People and TV Guide weeks before the show’s premiere. He is being pitched as the show’s Luke Perry-Jason Priestly hunk.

Show prefered to downplay that aspect.

“I hope that’s a press thing and it’s forgotten when people see the character,” he said. “That’s not the way I see myself in real life.”

Instead, Show is trying to make his construction worker and carpenter a well-rounded character.

“If you look at this guy as a stock character, he normally doesn’t have a sense of humor, and I’m trying to give him one,” Show said. “I don’t think he’s a bad person, but he does bad things. (Hanson will be arrested in the second episode.)”

According to Show, his character never graduated from high school, is a product of a dysfunctional blue-collar family and served as a surrogate big brother to “90210’s”Dylan McKay (Luke Perry).

Show also sees the character as “somewhat nebulous to others.”

“(In one episode) he disappears for 36 hours and when he’s asked where he’s been, he says, ‘None of your business,’ ” Show said.

Before “90210” and “Melrose Place,” Show’s most prominent role was a four-year stint as police Officer Rick Hyde on the ABC daytime drama “Ryan’s Hope,” from 1983 to ’87.

Show didn’t work for a year after leaving the serial, in part to eliminate the “soap stench,” he said. He then moved to London, attending the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. After returning to the United States, he performed in the Broadway production of “The Boys of Winter,” starred in “On the Waterfront” at the Cleveland Playhouse and in NBC’s short-lived “True Blue.”

“This show is not going to make or break because of me,” Show said. “Sometimes I feel the pressure to fill Luke and Jason’s shoes. It creeps into my head, but I’m here to do a job and I know it has nothing to do with anyone else but me.”

“Melrose Place” premieres Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. with a 90-minute episode on KTTV and XETV and moves to its regular 9 p.m. time slot on July 15.