Heart of Hollywood
This radio interview was done by the show host of Heart of Hollywood Joe Sutton and aired on Los Angeles’ Retro 1260 AM on July 3, 2010. You can download the audio file of the interview on the station’s website. The transcript showed on this page was transcribed by Anne and is owned by Margamania. Please credit us when you use the content of the transcript.
Joe Sutton and Marg Helgenberger = JS and MH
MH: [...] But there was clearly an audience that was very, had an appetite for it because we were put on a, initially our timeslot was what they refer to as, you know, “death slot”, you know, it was, Friday night at 9 or 10, or something like that.
JS: Friday night is a bad night, yeah.
MH: Yeah, it’s probably, yeah, it’s one of the, it’s probably the worst night that you can ask, you know, that you can be put on. Anyway, it, you know, it surpassed anybody’s expectations and then, within, I’d say, half a season, we were moved to, which is still considered the hottest night on television, Thursday nights.
JS: Right.
MH: And it was a move Les Moonves made which was pretty risky because he put us opposite, um, all the big hits that they had at the time, Friends and uh, ER, and anyway, so we were opposite, and we clobbered our competition and the rest was history.
JS: Well, ER, poor George Clooney. You were his gal for a while on that show.
MH: I was, I did four episodes in the second season. Which was, a lot of fun. I mean, he was, he was, he’s, I mean, you’ve probably met him, and interviewed him.
JS: I’ve met him.
MH: Yes, and he’s, you know, he’s very gregarious and funny and smart and all those things. And um, in fact I just bumped into one of the producers of the show, that was the producer of the show at the time, and he said, “You know, you’re the only one while he was on ER, you were the only one that got him to take his shirt off in those love scenes”. [Marg giggles] He refused to take off his t-shirt, with every other, you know, love interest he had on that show. He takes his shirt off for features, but he didn’t take it off for TV. [Marg bursts into giggles again]
JS: Did you know that, before?
MH: I didn’t know that until this producer told me last week, yeah.
JS: You know what, he reminds me of, of Cary Grant. He’s the closest thing to Cary Grant and you…
MH: Yeah, yes he is.
JS: Marg Helgenberger, remind me, and I must tell you this, Rita Hayworth.
MH: My goodness, that’s, that’s uh, high praise.
JS: Yeah. And I mean it.
MH: Oh, thank you.
JS: I mean, a) the look, the talent, the everything that you have going for you.
MH: Oh, thank you very much.
JS: When you started the show, was it overwhelming, the lingo you had to learn for CSI?
MH: I wouldn’t say that they, that the amount of the medical jargon, or the, you know…
JS: Forensic…
MH: …all the forensic stuff with the science. At times it’s, it’s like, you know, Shakespeare, you kind of have to learn it by rote, because it’s not something that will just come to you, or you can’t ad lib, really. But, um, on the other hand I don’t play, I don’t play a medical examiner. The gentleman who plays our coroner, Robert David Hall, my god, he’s, he always has the tricky stuff to memorize so I take my hat off to him every time I play a scene with him. But um, what, the hardest thing about a new television series are the hours. Just it takes uh, a lot of effort on everyone’s part and every department to, trying to figure out what the show’s about and what the tone of the show is.
JS: Right.
MH: And, you know, getting the chemistry right between the cast and, and um, and trying to do it so you’re not working around the clock. But nonetheless, it’s kind of typical for all hour episodic shows…
JS: It’s hard work.
MH: … It is, I would say, you average 16, 17 hours a day on a new show.
JS: Now you did soap as well. You came out of college, you did the soap opera.
MH: Right. Ryan’s Hope, yeah.
JS: Ryan’s Hope. Is this more difficult? Because they say soap opera work is the hardest work in the world. Learning, you know, 17 to 25 pages a day is hard work. Is this as hard as that was, CSI?
MH: It’s harder in a different way. It’s harder in that the hours are, at least on our show, because, especially in the beginning, because our show it’s about a group of criminalists that work the graveyard shift in Las Vegas, so, we always, whenever we shot on location, we always strived to have those, uh, nighttime locations but that means you’re shooting until 3 and 4 and 5 o’clock in the morning, which is very hard to do, I just…I know there’s people that are night owls and they prefer to shoot at night — I’m not one of them. And I, especially at the time, when I got the show my son was nine. You know, so I was getting up in the morning with him, um, you know to get him ready and off to school.
JS: After working all night.
MH: Yeah. Yeah, so it was hard.
JS: Oh, Marg, wow.
MH: Yeah. It was hard. Um, but, the soap operas are difficult in that it’s a new script every single day and the material is, uh, not always inspired in that it’s something fresh, it’s kind of, you feel like you play the same scene over and over again and I, I don’t feel like I’m talking out of turn, or I’m certainly not being…with all due respect to everyone who’s worked on daytime, they can probably understand what I’m talking about. They can relate. [Marg laughs]
JS: The thing that impresses me most about soap actors, is the fact that they have to hold that shot at the end of every shot.
MH: Oh boy, did we hate that.
JS: How do you do that?
MH: I hated it. I hated…I mean, I don’t know, I don’t think there’s anybody who enjoys it. And it’s that, what people always refer to it as having egg on your face, you know? Because half, I mean, now an acting teacher would tell you “well, that’s, you shouldn’t be bothered by that, you should be in the moment until they say cut. You know, you stay active, your thoughts stay active”. But nonetheless, it’s just, it’s still hard to do, cause you know that the scenes over, you know that they’re ready to…And because there’s like the closeup on your face, like somebody just dropped a bomb on you, you know, verbal bomb on you. And then you have to, right, then you’re oh my god. So I don’t even know if I have any tips other than what, you know, the acting teacher or the acting coach would tell you to do.
JS: Yeah.
MH: Stay in the moment.
JS: Now you graduated from one of the great acting schools in the country, Northwestern University, right?
MH: I did.
JS: Did you go through their drama. I, you know, I didn’t know that, it said you went to Northwestern, I just assumed you went through their drama program.
MH: Yes. Correct. Well, I transferred there from a state college in Nebraska, where I’m from, and so I spent the, spent my last two years at Northwestern in their uh, which was then called the School of Speech, which is now called the School of Communication.
JS: Right.
MH: Yeah, and yes, it is still a terrific school, I’m still involved with the school, I’m on the advisory council, and I love, um, I love speaking with the dean of the School of Communications, Barbara O’Keefe to find out what’s going on, and sometimes I go back and I work with the students and that’s…I always enjoy that. I did, especially when they have their MFA program there, it was, all their graduate students had written a play and we got to do all these stage readings with them and for them to see how this worked on its feet with professional actors. That kind of thing, it’s really fun. I enjoy it, working with the students.
JS: Can they take away the, uh, the awesomeness of you? To them your stardom, when they work with you at the school, or is it hard to reach them, does it take a while for Marg to get connected to these kids?
MH: For me, it doesn’t…
JS: You’re a superstar.
MH: Oh. [Laughs]
JS: You know, to them, we’re in Hollywood, we, you know, you assume everybody’s like this, but when you go back to Northwestern and they see someone who’s so well-known, been in major motion pictures, been on the biggest show on television for many years, are they overwhelmed by you when you go back?
MH: I, I don’t sense that they are. Um, most of the students at that school are very driven. And most of them know that they want to go into the entertainment industry so, I, perhaps they might be somewhat intimidated in the beginning, but I think because they usually are, they know the questions to ask, or they, you know, as I was just talking, the play that they, you know, the play is the thing. The words are the thing so that’s what we focus on, and…it’s a limited amount of time so we really try to utilize our time as best as possible. And also there’s a lot of well-known, a lot of alumnus that return to the school…
JS: Go back.
MH: Yeah. And um, either work with the kids or are available to, you know, pick their brains in some way or another.
JS: Let’s go back. Tell me about the young Marg.
MH: [Laughs]
JS: The Marg Helgenberger growing up in Nebraska…
MH: Yes. North Bend, Nebraska. Population 1200.
JS: Didn’t they do a TV series about North Bend, Nebraska? 1200, really?
MH: 1200, yeah.
JS: And what were your dreams as a little kid, Marg?
MH: Wow. You know, my dreams as a child were, I kind of knew at a young age that I wanted to, um, experience the world, certainly not necessarily stay in the state of Nebraska. I didn’t really have any designs on becoming an actor, probably not until I got to be, you know, my upper teens, and I sort of fell into that because my English teacher in high-school was starting a speech and drama program and she needed, was recruiting kids to be in the, cause it…the speech and drama program they essentially, you work on, whether it’s duet acting or it’s interpretation of drama, and it’s uh, you would um, perform opposite, at these various tournaments I guess, these speech and drama tournaments, against people in your conference. [Laughs] When I think back on it…
JS: That’s Nebraska, great football team. You guys always…
MH: Ah, yeah, they had been the big 8 for years and then now they’re the big 12 and now they just left the big 12 to go to the big 10. Anyway, that’s a whole other…
JS: Which is now going to be called the big 12.
MH: [Laughs] Yeah, exactly. Go figure. It’s so bizarre.
JS: I know, I know. It’s all about money. It’s all about…
MH: Yeah.
JS: You know, the sports support our colleges.
MH: Yes, right. It’s all about them.
JS: I hate to say it and I love to say it. Because where would the education system be without the sports that support it all these great programs?
MH: Yeah. I know, I know. Um, and I guess somewhere while I was in high-school and performing in plays that I’d been recruited for, I, you know, like many kids you get bitten by the bug, it just kind of sneaks up on you. But it wasn’t, like I was never one of those kids that was play-acting or doing any of that when I was, you know, a young child. Um, but uh, I certainly, it was a great outlet for me, you know? Even though when you go, when you’re from a small town and you’re, and the school is very small too, the extracurricular activities you get involved in are, you know, there’s many you get involved with just to alleviate boredom. [Bursts into laughter]
JS: All of a sudden my mind went to 4H Club and things like that.
MH: Well I had, many of my friends were in the 4H Club. I was in the band, and, you know, both the high-school…marching band and the stage band and the concert band and…
JS: What’d you play? What’d you play?
MH: I played the French horn. I wasn’t particularly that good of a player.
JS: You do not look like a French horn player. [Laughs]
MH: [Laughs] Which is a hard instrument to play!
JS: I know, that’s what I’m saying. That’s a tough, tough instrument.
MH: Yeah. And I sort of got roped into it, but I, I have to say, my late father was insistent upon all of his kids learning an instrument. And I’m glad that he was that insistent. I have a brother who played the trumpet, and a sister who played the trombone and um, I, you know, I have enormously fond memories of being in the band when I was in junior high and high-school and I wouldn’t have had those experiences if my father hadn’t been so insistent upon us playing an instrument.
JS: Yeah. What was it like going to Northwestern and then Chicago? Or was it just outside?
MH: Just outside. In Evanston. Mhm.
JS: That’s like a big town to you from…
MH: Chicago?
JS: Yeah.
MH: Oh yeah.
JS: What was that like? The transition?
MH: That was, that was fun. The harder transition I think, for me, was just Northwestern itself because it was, you know, an academically challenging school and I, even though I was a good student at my state college, I didn’t really need to apply myself that much. And I was mostly doing plays and musicals and having a good time! [Laughs] You know. Going to class, of course. Not oft…not always, all the time. But anyway. So um, and I was with kids that were from, not only from all over the country but all over the world and they, they knew what, that they wanted to be, you know, professional actors or directors or filmmakers or whatever in the industry. And I was still just kind of, kind of a babe in the woods, just uh, everything was, I was awestruck by a lot of things. So, but Chicago, even though it’s a large city, it doesn’t, it felt like just a big mid-west city, which it still is. And it still…
JS: The nicest people in the world come from Chicago.
MH: …has that. Yeah, and it’s uh…
JS: They’re very friendly.
MH: They are. They’re very friendly. They love their city. They love, uh, they love to have a good time. And it’s a beautiful city. I mean I love the architecture throughout the city and, you know, with the lake there of course.
JS: There’s only one thing wrong with Chicago.
MH: The weather.
JS: Winter. [Laughs] It’s the coldest place in the world.
MH: Yeah. Yes.
JS: When you went to Northwestern, was that by design, did you have a scholarship, or, you know, this is a school I want to go to because this is the profession I want to be in?
MH: Again, that was another thing I kind of fell into. My high-school boyfriend was applying to the medical school, well, they had a program, which may still exist, it was three years pre-med, three years medical school at Northwestern. So you gotta skip two years, and that’s what he was applying to, and he said, “you know, would you like me to get you an application for their School of Speech, cause I know they have a good school.” And I said “Sure. Okay.” And then I started investigating and, after I, as it turns out, I got in and he didn’t. [Laughs]
JS: [Laughs]
MH: I mean, he was applying to a program that they take a handful of students practically, and anyway, it was kind of a life-changing experience for me actually.
JS: Sure, sure.
MH: Yeah, having gone there.
JS: You were discovered during your college years to go to New York, right? By the soap?
MH: I was, yeah. That’s right. I was in a production of The Taming of the Shrew at Northwestern and a casting agent that was a talent scout for ABC daytime television in the audience that night and she called me for an interview. She wanted to see me the next day and mentioned that I’d be perfect for soap operas, are you interested. And I said well, you know, thank you, I’m flattered. I had a quarter left of school and I really wanted to finish, you know, cause it was important to me…
JS: Yeah, to get a degree.
MH: ..to get a degree. Yeah.
JS: Yeah.
MH: Yes. So I, as it turns out, [chuckles] people have told me I have good karma. I guess I kinda do. But like two weeks after I graduated, I’m not joking, this woman called me to say, you know, there’s this part available on Ryan’s Hope. I’d love to have them fly you out for a screen test and are you interested? And before I could even really give it a whole lotta thought, you know, I didn’t have an agent or anything, and that it was a whirlwind. Then the next thing I knew I was packing up and moving to New York.
JS: New York City. Now that had to be fantastic for a girl from Nebraska, 1200 people, to New York City…
MH: I couldn’t believe it happened that fast. Because my plan was just to stay in Chicago. Because you know, it’s a very, still is, a very active theatre town.
JS: Yeah, yeah.
MH: And, you know, great talent in that town, community. So I, wow. But, you know, life takes you where it needs to take you, I guess.
JS: Were you in shock when you…what’s it like when you’re coming from college, Northwestern, you come from a small town in Nebraska, you hit New York, and you probably had to go to work right away.
MH: Pretty much.
JS: Or did you have a period of adjustment, to like, get comfortable and…?
MH: No. No. No, I was dating a guy who was, that was living in New York. He’d gone to Northwestern. And I crashed with him for a little while, but he lived in a s…just…
JS: Right. I got it.
MH: Pardon my French. It was just a dump. [Laughs] So I couldn’t wait to get out of that place. But it was, as it turns out, one of the actresses on the show had a sublet. She’d recently gotten married and she wanted to hang onto her apartment, although she was moving in with her, she and her husband had found a place and it was one of those illegal…
JS: Safety valve.
MH: …one of those illegal sublets which I of course…they never turn out well, usually, because…
JS: Really?
MH: Well, it was a cute apartment. Little on…West End Avenue, Upper West Side and you know, I remember one time, just like, moving up, I’d bought a standing lamp, I was like taking the three flights up to it, and the landlord of the building said, “well who are you, and what are you doing, and you know”. And then I felt like I was being used as a pawn, you know, cause that landlord wanted the tenant out, and she was just…
JS: Sure, so the rent will go up…
MH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was like, I just chalked it up to one of those ‘welcome to New York’ stories. Could have been a lot worse.
JS: You did the soap for quite a while, right?
MH: I did it for…three years? Three and a half years? Something like that, yes.
JS: Was it fun?
MH: You know, at times it was. At times it was kind of tedious. You know, it’s funny, people on soap operas, they, I don’t know, there was an attitude about it that was just like, almost like a defeatist attitude. That they were, that the tedium had gotten to them and, um, I don’t know, it was just kind of odd, I didn’t quite, that surprised me and, uh, I didn’t know what to make of that.
JS: Yeah.
MH: You know.
JS: It’s, it’s almost like, um, a unique part of…well all of it, television, movies, and, you know, soaps, are almost three different classifications of work.
MH: Mhm. Yes.
JS: You’re all actors, but the work is so different in each medium, you know. Movies you have all the time in the world. You’re doing an hour dramatic show every week, it’s gotta be bogglingly different. But daytime television is like, you’re there, you’re out, you better know your lines, you know, you don’t have time for retakes. Boom, you’re gone. So it’s almost like you’re playing three different sports professionally.
MH: Right. I mean, you know, and that’s, you brought up how it’s, you’re not, seldom are you do you retake anything or reshoot anything and they always — I remember the producers, they would always get upset if you, you know, you went up on your lines and you just said “Okay, we have to cut here” and they, it always would irritate them if you cut. Because nobody would cut. The director wouldn’t cut, the camera operator, no one. And um, so…
JS: Did you have cheat sheets? Did you have like, uh…
MH: You know what, they did have teleprompters. Um, I never liked them, I never used them. Some actors would, it was like a security blanket for them. They really relied on them and I hated it because it meant that they weren’t…I mean, I understand if you don’t…there’s a lot of dialogue, you know, but when you feel like you’re not, your partner, your acting partner isn’t connected with you, I always felt it was like acting in a vacuum. It always bothered me.
JS: Yeah. Interesting, because if you’re reading you’re not thinking about the emotion of it, imagining it.
MH: Right.
JS: You know, it just becomes rote…
MH: Yeah.
JS: …rather than emotional or real.
MH: Right.
JS: Did you have time, while you were doing the soap, to do any theatre in New York?
MH: You know what, I didn’t, I worked with a children’s theatre company, called Ta Da, which is actually still in existence. So, wow, they’ve…they were just, it was a bit in their infancy back then, in the 80s, and, um, I enjoyed that quite a bit, working with the…And they were all kids…
JS: Were you teaching the kids how to work?
MH: Yes, and I was helping, yes. I was working with the kids along with the director, and the artistic director of the company and it was…Cause at the time, you know, it’s funny, when I was doing the soap opera it can feel like almost like a bit of a factory, like an acting factory, or, you know, cause they just, you know, you just churn…
JS: You churn it out.
MH: Yeah, they didn’t want you to do extra takes and I just…I don’t know, I felt a little bit like, “What’s this?” after having done like Shakespeare and [laughs] Tennessee Williams and Chekhov! So, um, working with children gave me an opportunity to think, because I thought maybe that’s what I wanted to do, was maybe just devote myself to children’s theatre.
JS: Isn’t that fun?
MH: Yeah. Um, so, I was glad I had that outlet and, you know, I did a few readings. I never, I didn’t do any plays while I was in New York. I regret that. It’s a little difficult though, with your schedule, and that’s kind of what the difficulty of having, on a television series too that’s a big hit, which is incredible, makes you feel incredibly secure, that you’ve, you don’t have to like, where’s the next job coming from? But on the other hand, you’re limited to what else you can do.
JS: Did you get to enjoy New York at all as a young gal? I mean, you’re there in New York…
MH: Well of course! Of course!
JS: [Laughs]
MH: You know, early…
JS: But that’s hard work…
MH: …early twenties and single, and uh, [laughs]
JS: Having fun. [Laughs]
MH: [Laughs] You bet. Yeah.
JS: What brought you out to Hollywood?
MH: I was cast…
JS: We’re chatting with Marg Helgenberger. Let me fill everybody in.
MH: [Llaughs]
JS: Cause I’m getting lost in the conversation here and I forget to do my job.
MH: Okay.
JS: What brought you out here, Marg?
MH: What brought me out initially was a very, I was cast in a short-lived television called Shell Game, that starred Margot Kidder. And we just did six episodes, it didn’t last long. But it brought me out to Hollywood. And I reconnected with a man who I had met in New York, an actor, who I then ended up marrying, Alan Rosenberg and so, uh…
JS: He was head of SAG, correct?
MH: That’s right, yes. He was president of SAG for four years, yes.
JS: Yeah, yeah.
MH: In a very tumultuous time, sadly.
JS: Yeah, I know. It still is.
MH: Yeah, yes it is, yes.
JS: We’ll get it all straightened out one of these days. [Chuckles]
MH: Yeah. Gotta have faith, I guess.
JS: Oh boy, without that, where would we be?
MH: Yeah.
JS: So you came out and you do the show. Is she alright now, you know? I hope she is. She’s had some…
MH: I know, yes. I, uh, I haven’t heard anything about her in a while, so, um…
JS: I heard good. I heard she was really up on her feet and really doing very, very well.
MH: Oh good, I’m glad to hear that.
JS: I always am.
MH: Yeah.
JS: It’s a tough town.
MH: Yeah. Absolutely.
JS: And success doesn’t always make it better. Sometimes it makes it a lot worse.
MH: I agree. I recently read the book Day of the Locust, which was…
JS: Oh yeah, sure.
MH: I started a book club about twelve, thirteen years ago, something like that and that was our selection last month. Wow. That is one sad story, and disturbing. I mean, brilliant writing, I think, but I, it made, yeah, just cause he really got a lot of the desperation in Hollywood and people’s, you know, what they do for, to strive for fame and success and, ooh boy.
JS: It gets tough.
MH: Yeah.
JS: It gets tough.
JS: Back in the studio….
JS: This woman, Marg Helgenberger. My gosh. There’s no bigger star in Hollywood. She’s been the star of CSI which is the number one show in the world. And she’s the boss next year, her eleventh year. Have you heard a nicer person on this show? She’s humble, she’s sweet, she’s gorgeous, she’s talented. It’s so nice when you get to chat. I feel like, blessed when I get to meet these people and really and chat and see how marvelous they are and their core, their souls. Marg Helgenberger. We’ll be back in just a moment. I am Joe Sutton.
[Commercial Break]
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