Brady's Bits

Courtney's fiancé is Andrew Conrad. An actor? "No," she said. "He's a genetic scientist. We have a house in Malibu and four dogs. Mine are Ed and George. His are Max and Buzz. About 500 pounds of dogs." It turns out that Andy Conrad went to school with Rob Estes, who was on Melrose until the show ended last season. "Now we see more of the cast socially than we did when I was on the show," Courtney said. Since there was a popular writer named Thorne Smith (without the hyphen), I asked if she'd taken that as a stage name (with a hyphen). "No," she said. "It's a combination of my mother's maiden name and my father's name. We're not related to the writer, though people always give me books he wrote." Courtney added that she thought Thorne Smith was best known for Topper. "But don't quote me," she said. Oh darn, I just did. But she's right. He did create Topper.

IN STEP      WITH

COURTNEY
THORNE-SMITH
BY JAMES BRADY

RIGHT ABOUT NOW, the cast of the Fox TV series Ally McBeal is winding up its summer hiatus and returning to the set. "How hard do they work you?" I asked Courtney Thorne-Smith, who plays the pivotal role of Georgia, the smart and sexy lawyer who's married to Ally's only true love.
     "We work about eight days per episode," she said. "David [Kelley the creator of Ally as well as The Practice and Chicago Hope] will write an eighth of a page, something like, 'Girls have a cat fight,' and we work out what that means and how to do it. It's a long day for the crew and Calista [Flockhart, in the title role]. But some days I don't have to be there at all. Which is great."
     This is hardly Courtney's first big series. For five years she played Alison on the trashy hit Melrose Place - a role she made so much her own that, after leaving, she found herself typecast as Alison and struggled to get another job. "I'd worked a long time on TV and in movies before Melrose," Courtney said, "and I was surprised by how quickly you become stereotyped. Not by the audience but by directors and producers, who were surprised I wasn't Alison. David [Kelley] doesn't care what anyone thinks, so there was no problem with him."

Personal: Born Nov. 8, 1967, in San Francisco, Calif. Single. Television: Includes Fast Times, 1986; The Thanksgiving Promise, 1986; Welcome to 18, 1986; Infidelity, 1987; Day by Day, 1987-89; L.A. Law, 1990; Melrose Place, 1992-97; Breach of Conduct, 1994; Beauty's Revenge, 1995; Ally McBeal, 1997- . Films: Include Lucas, 1986; Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise, 1987; Side Out, 1999; The Lovemaster, 1997; Chairman of the Board, 1998.

     Last season there were all those stories about Calista Flockhart perhaps suffering from an eating disorder. How big a distraction was that on the set? Courtney took her time answering. "It's an incredibly supportive cast," she said, "and we all have pressures and have to work things out. So, no, it didn't distract us."
     Courtney had just returned to California from Hawaii when we spoke. A film shoot or vacation? "No acting this hiatus," she said. "I didn't really want to do anything." (Even so, she has been working as a new spokeswoman for Almay cosmetics.)
     Courtney began her acting career early, performing in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in kindergarten. Her real showbiz break came when 20th Century-Fox discovered her while scouting high schools for "new faces" for a Charlie Sheen film called Lucas - just as she was planning to attend Allegheny College in Pennsylvania. Bye-bye, Allegheny; hello, L.A.
     She was in lots of movies, mostly forgettable (Summer School, Revenge of the Nerds II), but Courtney scored as Harry Hamlin's "Laker Girl" girlfriend on L.A. Law and in other TV series. Any more movies in her future?
     "I'd more readily do a stage play than another movie," Courtney said. "I'm eager to have the safety of a stage experience, where you rehearse for weeks. Also, I don't want to leave my family. I have my sister and her baby nearby and my fiancé, and I don't want to go off on location."