Christine Lahti, who once refused to work on TV shows, stars on the CBS series Chicago Hope. Miss Lahti says the writing on Hope is better than most of the film scripts she was being offered.SUSAN STERNER/ASSOCIATED PRESS

TV role opens doors for Lahti

Web posted May 29, 1997

Associated Press

NEW YORK - So much has changed over the years for Christine Lahti.

She used to hate not working. Now she's strongly considering taking the summer off. She once considered herself good at her career but not good at her personal life. Now she enjoys domestic bliss with her husband and three kids.

And if she ever won an Academy Award, she figured it would be for acting. Now she has one for directing.

One thing has remained constant, though, since she started in the 1970s: She effectively conveys the self-doubt of the post-liberated woman, offering a humanity and vulnerability to her feminist roles.

These days, Miss Lahti is most visible on the CBS medical drama Chicago Hope as Dr. Kathryn Austin, a cardiothoracic surgeon.

The 47-year-old actress, whose directing debut, Lieberman in Love, won the 1996 Academy Award for live-action short, says she turned to acting on television and directing films in frustration.

The reason? The age discrimination she sees in film.

``This is a very real age barrier for women in movies. In television it seems to be not so bad,'' she says. ``Also, I thought the writing, on Chicago Hope in particular, was far superior to a lot of the feature-film scripts that I had been getting anyway.''

All too often she was getting offers to play ``earnest moms.''

``There's nothing wrong with playing an earnest mom once. But it gets really boring,'' Miss Lahti said during an interview.

Growing up in an affluent Detroit suburb, Miss Lahti was the third of six children. Her father was a surgeon. Her mother relinquished a nursing career to take care of the kids.

``He didn't bring his work home very much,'' she recalls. ``When I first got on the show, he said, `I'm really proud that one of my kids finally turned out to be a doctor.'°''

Now her TV success is opening some feature-film doors.

``When I was first starting out, if you were acting on television, it was a real stigma. The crossover wasn't happening. TV actors were TV actors, and film and stage actors were a whole different thing. And now there's just a lot of crossover.''

And that's why she was downright ``snobbish'' about doing television. She refused to even meet with the people who wanted to consider her for the Cheers role that Shelley Long eventually got. But she has no regrets.

``If I had been on a sitcom for 10 years, instead of doing all the varied theater and film parts that I've done - it just wasn't for me.''

Instead, she played Goldie Hawn's friend in Swing Shift, for which she received an Academy Award nomination; a wife and mother on the lam from her '60s radical past in Running on Empty; and an eccentric aunt in Housekeeping.

Her other features include `` ... And Justice For All,'' ``Just Between Friends'' and ``The Doctor.'' Among her made-for-TV movies were ``The Executioner's Song'' and ``Amerika.'' She also has appeared in numerous stage productions, including ``The Heidi Chronicles'' on Broadway.}

Married since 1984 to director Thomas Schlamme, Miss Lahti has three children - 8-year-old son Wilson and 3-year-old twins Joe and Emma.

She says doing the series affords her the time to devote to her family because her character is the focus of the main story line one out of three episodes.

``I was a gypsy my whole life, until I did this series. For the first time I can stay home. The studio's only 20 minutes from my house. So it's nice to be able to go to work and come home.°.°.°. It's a real life.''

about directing is that you have no time for anything,'' she says. ``I think it was the greatest diet in the world. I lost 15 pounds without thinking about it, because you truly don't have time to eat, go to the bathroom, or do anything, but answer questions from everybody.''