China Beach Star Elopes!

By Jenny Cooney
Australian TV Week – November 25, 1989

CHINA BEACH star Marg Helgenberger, who plays prostitute KC, has eloped in real life.

The young actress, who’s also just completed a starring role with Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfuss in Steven Spielberg’s latest film, Always, married actor Alan Rosenberg in San Francisco, and reveals to TV WEEK that the pair were forced to elope.

“We anticipated some opposition from our parents and got some,” she says, confirming the marriage took place secretly in September.

“It was more or less religious differences —I was Catholic and he was Jewish. Neither of us is very religious, but our mothers are and it was a big issue with them.”

Marg met Alan several years ago when they worked together on soap opera Ryan’s Hope, which is no longer on air.

“Four years later, I moved to Los Angeles and so did he.”

“We ran into each other my second day in L.A. —in the bank where I was opening my account, of all places— so it must have been fate!”

Marg has become the first women to play a prostitute in an on-going TV role in the U.S.

”Initially, I think everybody liked to describe KC as a hooker with a heart of gold, but I don’t think that’s what she is,” Marg says.

“She doesn’t really have a heart of gold and she’s proud of that —that’s what makes the character interesting.”

“A lot of people were like KC in Vietnam, under the guise of being patriotic and fighting against Communism and everything, but really just there to make money.”

For Marg, it was more difficult to research her character, as most of the women who solicited during the war were not willing to come forward.

“I don’t really blame these women for not wanting to talk about it,” she says. “But because they haven’t written to me personally, I’ve had to use my own imagination for KC.”

Although Marg’s role was considered slightly controversial when the show first aired, viewers seem to have accepted KC with little fuss.

“I don’t get much negative mail, and the one letter I do remember started out telling me I needed to reform and all that stuff —this guy from Texas telling me how he didn’t approve of what I was doing. Then at the bottom of the letter, in bold type, he’d written, ‘Will someone please put some lipstick on McMurphy (Dana Delaney)’— so figure out what that’s supposed to mean!” she says with a laugh.

Marg’s portrayal won the approval of Steven Spielberg, who cast her in his new film, Always, as an airline mechanic, after spotting her in the series. Although her success in China Beach has resulted in casting agents beating a path to her door, Marg candidly admits she was bitterly disappointed when not nominated for an Emmy Award earlier in the year.

“I’d worked hard and really felt I deserved it,” she says.     ♦