Hollywood WIVES is good, fun entertainment! Coming out in 1983, at the heart and height of DYNASTY and DALLAS fame, Hollywood WIVES is a prime example of a time when miniseries used to be enjoyable and could hold your attention for 3 days! I'll bet the average viewer now couldn't stand a 3-part effort like this. No attention span anymore. Containing an eclectic mix of past, present, and future TV and movie stars, some has-beens, some never-will-bes, Emmy winners, Oscar winners, etc., etc. The list goes on and on! WIVES is perhaps the most enjoyable miniseries ever!
What a cast! Anthony Hopkins (Hannibal Lecter!), Candace Bergen (MURPHY BROWN!), legendary Rod Steiger (ON THE WATERFRONT,IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT), Angie Dickinson (POLICEWOMAN herself!), Roddy McDowall (boy genius and quirky adult!), Joanna Cassidy (always there, always reliable), Stefanie Powers (HART TO HART!), Mary Crosby (Kristin from DALLAS!), Steve Forrest (DALLAS again!), Andrew Stevens (son of legendary Stella Stevens!), Robert Stack (Eliot Ness!) and none other than Suzanne Somers (CHRISSY SNOW!). In what universe does Hannibal Lecter get to get it on with Chrissy Snow! In Hollywood WIVES universe, that's where! And Hopkins and Somers make a hot duo in this one!
I remember first seeing this as a kid in 1983 and totally enjoying this miniseries. It's so much fun. So many story lines. About the Hollywood film community elite (producers, directors, writers, actors, agents, etc.), WIVES weaves many tales within this 3-part soap opera. The core s/l is about a mentally deranged Illinois man (Stevens) who kills his parents after he finds out he was adopted and that his mother is some Hollywood bigshot who didn't want to be saddled with a kid at a young age. Who is it? That's the mystery. Is it Bergen, Powers, Cassidy, Dickinson, Somers? What fun! Stevens actually plays a dual role of this pyschopath and a young struggling actor named Buddy with a sexy wife. OBVIOUSLY, these 2 men are connected as Buddy later finds out that he too was adopted. Twins! Another soap opera cliché!
During this core s/l, lots of other drama occurs. A new big movie is about to be cast and Steiger (the producer) needs a star. Somers (in the absolute, positive, sexiest role of her career) plays Gina Germaine and she wants to be the star. So she seduces and blackmails Hopkins (the co-writer of the film with his wife Powers) into giving her an audition. Somers and Hopkins are terrific together in this. This was way before Hopkins became a real Hollywood A-lister when TV was still good enough for him and after Somers had been dismissed from THREE'S COMPANY. I remember always wishing that this had become a TV series after this, kind of DYNASTY set in Hollywood.
Other s/l include Forrest as a has-been actor trying to stay young with his wife Bergen trying to get him the lead male part in the new film. Cassidy is Bergen's best friend and Hopkins' first wife. Dickinson is a powerful agent and friend of Somers, each of which shares the scoop on current-goings-on in Hollywoodland. Crosby is the daughter of retired actor Stack and she is having affair with Forrest. Oh what a tangle web we weave...! Needless to say, all these s/l converge near the end and we actually get a kind of open-ended conclusion where you could imagine a future TV series. I actually thought that's what was going to happen. Too bad it didn't! Hollywood WIVES is fun!
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