"'Christy,' Kellie Martin: One Perfect Match"

Lynette Rice

The Los Angeles Daily News

April 2, 1994

Kellie Martin was thrilled with the role of Christy as soon as she saw the script. Heartwarming, wholesome, dramatic, a great challenge to play a 19-year-old teacher who teaches poor children in the Smoky Mountains, she thought.

But there was a problem. Martin figured the show's producers would prefer a 30-year-old woman to play the important part, not some 17-year-old from Studio City.

Thankfully, she was proved wrong. Just like her start in the business--an aunt showed her picture to the late Michael Landon because the then 7-year-old wanted a spot on "Little House on the Prairie"--Martin got what she asked for.

She got the title role of "Christy," a family drama set in 1912 in rural Tennessee.

The show, which also stars Tyne Daly ("Cagney and Lacey") as Christy's mentor Miss Alice, begins 8 p.m. Sunday on CBS as a two-hour movie, then continues at 8 p.m. Thursdays.

"Obviously, with the success of 'Dr. Quinn,' I think that TV has a place for a show like 'Christy,'" said Martin, show earned an Emmy nomination for her role as Becca Thacher on the ABC series "Life Goes On."

"I think that with the violence on TV, audiences are looking for a show like this to sit down with the family and watch."

Already a veteran of the business-she has appeared in numerous TV shows and films like "Matinee" and "Jumpin' Jack Flash" with her four years as Becca her most notable role--Martin is a pixie teen-ager who is in awe of the Hollywood scene.

She's set to study English Literature and French at Yale University next winter, but Martin still longs for a chance to make more feature films, not mention the chance to rent a flat in Paris and take a stab at screenwriting.

So she's a tad idealistic. But then again, so was Christy--one of the many qualities Martin respects in the character made popular in the Catherine Marshall best seller now in its 84th printing.

"The cool thing is there's nothing she can't do," said Martin, the daughter of a talent agency worker and an investor. "She honestly believes that she can do anything she goes after. She looks for the good in people, and I pretty much do that."

Co-executive producer Ken Wales--who struggled more than 18 years to pull the "Christy" production rights out of MGM's basement and onto the screen--said Martin had just the right mix of innocence and naivete to pull off the part.

"Kellie goes very deep. She reaches down to see what makes Christy tick, said Wales. "She has spunk in the very best sense of the word."

It helps that the filming took place in a town at the base of the Smoky Mountains called Townsend, Tenn., population 300 ("It's so far from Hollywood, it's not even funny," Martin said.)

The crew spent three months in the community that's an hour outside of Knoxville, where restaurants close at 8 p.m. and there's not a movie theater for miles, Martin said.

"We had to start filming as soon as the sun came up and stopped filming when the sun went down, so I always saw the sunrise," said Martin. "There was this thick layer of fog over the Smoky Mountains every morning. ... I've never had that kind of experience in my life."

Her filming experiences, instead, were spent depicting family life in the ABC series that starred Patti LuPone. The show took its share of risks; Becca's brother was afflicted with Down syndrome while she became involved with a young man who had AIDS.

Chad Lowe ultimately won an Emmy last year for hit portrayal of her boyfriend. Martin was up for the similar honor of Supporting Actress in a Drama Series but lost to Mary Alice in NBC's "I'll Fly Away."

Martin was sorry the series never got the audience it deserved.

"We never had the opportunity to be successful against "60 Minutes," but that's why we were able to take risks. We didn't have the pressure to come in first," she said. "We always knew we'd be in the No. 2 time slot. We could do the AIDS story line and not worry about it."

Six hourlong segments already have been shot for the "Christy" series; martin figures she will know whether the viewers like it after the third week. If they do, Martin will have to postpone the English literature studies again.

"Oh, to have such problems," she said.