WITH AN EYE ON . . . : Polly Bergen pulls a love triangle out of storage for NBC movie

Twenty years ago, Emmy Award-winning Polly Bergen (“The Helen Morgan Story,” “Winds of War” and “War and Remembrance”) had two feature films in development. Neither was made.

“I had one at Warners and one at Metro,” recalls Bergen, who made her movie debut opposite Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in 1950’s “At War With the Army.”

“I had written both stories, but there’s a big leap from writing a story to getting a screenwriter or a TV writer who can bring that story to life in a script. In both cases, I was not thrilled with the scripts as they came in. One film, in fact, the studio accepted the script and wanted to film it. I owned the rights and hated the script, so I just pulled the project.”

So Bergen soon pulled out of the producing biz. “I ended up getting married and got involved in a lot of business, so I ended up putting (the stories) away.”

But last year Bergen, 64, felt the urge to produce again. “I suddenly decided that I really wanted to get into it seriously now at this point in my life and at my age. I started pulling out projects.”

One was a love story, “Leave of Absence,” which, Bergen says, is her personal favorite. “This was one I had not attempted to sell before. It was strange, because I realized I could not play (the character) because almost 18 years had passed. I knew it was a very solid story.”

Bergen thought about selling it as a feature. “Suddenly, I thought, ‘Why go through that?’ I think it’s much more interesting as a television film. There aren’t many movies being made for TV which are like this film. It’s really an adult love story. It’s every man’s dream and every woman’s nightmare. By and large, they don’t do love stories for television. They do car chases, they do child abuse, they do murders, they do robberies. I think it’s about time we did some of these. I’m just thrilled that one of the early ones is going to be mine.’ ‘

“Leave of Absence,” which airs Wednesday on NBC, stars Brian Dennehy as a happily married man, Blythe Danner as his loving wife--the role Bergen envisioned for herself--and Jacqueline Bisset as his mistress.

“This is a study of people, none of whom you want to end up being the heavy,” Bergen says. “Yet, there are things in the story that automatically say that this person is a good guy and this person is a bad guy. But there are no good guys and no bad guys. There’s just life. It is what we have to deal with every day.”

Bergen says she came up with the idea after discovering via her own life experiences and those of others she’s known that a person can be in love with two people at the same time for entirely different reasons.

“That’s what this story is about,” Bergen says. “I don’t want to give the story away, but this is a guy who is an honest guy. The minute he goes to bed with (Bisset), the very next day he goes to his wife and says, ‘I am having an affair.’ He is devastated by his own action, but is incapable of not committing the action. It becomes this terrible story of three people who are caught up in passions that none of them can change. Then, natural events in life change everything.”

Though she was no longer right for the lead, Bergen, who is co-executive producer, has a small part in her film. “I play my mother,” she says, laughing. “I play the mother of the character I originally wrote for myself. I play Blythe’s mother.”

Bergen says she didn’t have any intention of being in the movie. But the writer, Betty Goldberg, had other ideas.

“She made her mind up she was going to write a part in it for me,” Bergen says. “When she turned in the script I read it. She said, ‘I want you to play the mother.’ I said, ‘No. I don’t want to act in it because I am going to be producing. I don’t want my attention to be divided. Ultimately, the director said, ‘Polly. You are perfect for it.’ And I was perfect for it, because it had been written for me.”

“Leave of Absence” airs Wednesday at 9 p.m. on NBC.