Rep. McCarthy Goes to Hollywood

NBC’s Sunday movie, “The Long Island Incident,” chronicles the inspiring, courageous story of Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.). “I’ve watched it three times,” the congresswoman says. “The first time I cried, mainly because every scene would bring back 100 points of pain.”

The Long Island housewife and mother’s safe, happy life turned upside down on Dec. 7, 1993.

That fateful day, McCarthy’s stockbroker husband of 30 years, Dennis, and their 26-year-old son, Kevin, were on a crowded commuter train when Colin Ferguson opened fire with a semiautomatic handgun, killing six passengers and wounding 19 others. Dennis McCarthy was mortally wounded. Kevin McCarthy was shot in the head and hand and was given a 10% chance to live.

A registered nurse, McCarthy personally supervised her son’s recovery. She also became actively involved in gun violence issues, and decided to run for Congress in 1996 after her district’s representative voted to repeal the ban on assault weapons. She won and is now in the midst of her first term.

Laurie Metcalf (“Roseanne’) stars as McCarthy in the drama directed by Emmy Award-winning Joseph Sargent (“Miss Rose White”). MacKenzie Astin is featured as Kevin. Barbra Streisand and Cis Corman (Emmy winners for NBC’s “Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story”) are the executive producers.

Though McCarthy is pleased with “Long Island Incident,” she never wanted a TV movie made about the tragedy and her subsequent congressional campaign. Producers, though, pursued her relentlessly. She turned down all requests because they wanted to dramatize the shooting. “They were looking for the sensationalism of what had happened,” she explains.

Though this movie was initially going to be done simply using material that was in the public domain, McCarthy decided to cooperate when Streisand and Corman became linked to the project.

McCarthy, 54, says she had “some control over the movie. Obviously, the first thing [I said] was the inside of the train or anything that happened there will not be shown. That’s not where [Corman and Streisand] wanted to go. They wanted to go with an inspirational story.”

“I saw her on TV a lot,” Corman recalls. “I was very impressed with this woman’s dignity and courage. I was very moved by this woman.”

Writer Maria Nation worked closely with McCarthy. “I kept saying Kevin should have a bigger role in the movie,” McCarthy says. “He’s the hero as far as I am concerned. As the script grew, she expanded his role greatly. I think Kevin is a very, very large part of the movie, especially on the inspirational level, [getting] to where he is today.”

McCarthy spent one day on the set in Toronto and was encouraged by what she saw: “On the bulletin board and green room, they had everything about gun violence to keep them focused.”

“Long Island Incident” won’t win awards from the National Rifle Assn., the powerful organization that has lobbied heavily against gun control. The movie challenges the NRA’s contention that bans on assault weapons violate the Constitutional right to bear arms.

“I have to give NBC a lot of credit,” McCarthy says. “I give them a lot of credit to bring the issue of gun violence out there.”

Director Sargent is thrilled with the film’s political stance. “When Cis told me the picture was going to take on gun violence and the NRA, I leaped because I have been a little bit [angry] with the position the NRA takes--the misrepresentation of the Second Amendment,” he says. “It’s totally inconceivable that they keep hanging on [to the idea] that we are going to take away their guns from them.”

Corman says “Incident” really tells two stories.

“I think the earlier part of the story is the combination of Carolyn’s determination and Kevin’s courage,” she says. “Not only did he recover, but he’s not disabled. After their lives changed so drastically, she became an advocate for gun control. That part of the story is ‘Mrs. McCarthy Goes to Washington.’ She’s not a one-issue woman. The Republicans--they may say it grudgingly--say she’s effective. I thing they have great respect for her.”

McCarthy’s main priority in Congress is education. “We have gun violence because so many young people lose faith in the system and drop out of school and go into violence of some sort and go into drugs,” she says.

“We could cut down on gun violence tremendously by shoring up our educational system and giving our young people hope. My whole thing about going to Congress is that if I could save one family from going through what we went through, then I have done my job.”

McCarthy acknowledges that when she went to Congress last year, “I thought I could be in for one term, try and do something and then leave. Now I’m going, ‘OK. This isn’t going to work.’ Things go a bit slower. But I do feel I can do something. I was a nurse for many years. In Congress, I have what I consider 550,000 patients, instead of a floor of patients.”

“The Long Island Incident’ airs Sunday at 9 p.m. on NBC.