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COPYRIGHT 2004 Newsweek, Inc. All rights reserved. Any reuse, distribution or alteration without express written permission of Newsweek is prohibited. For permission: www.newsweek.com
Byline: Marc Peyser and David J. Jefferson
Here's a dirty little secret about entertainment journalism: the writing and interviewing are easy. The hard part is the photo shoot. And so it was when the ladies of ABC's "Desperate Housewives" gathered for their NEWSWEEK close-up last week. Nicollette Sheridan arrived 45 minutes late. Eva Longoria then insisted she'd stay only for a half hour. Marcia Cross bristled at the thought of wearing her hair in the trademark flip of her character, Bree Van De Kamp. The drama! It was almost as juicy as the show itself, which is saying something considering that "Housewives" is the juiciest show to hit TV in years. To be fair, the shoot took place at 8 p.m. and the women had worked all day--Sheridan and Teri Hatcher started at 5 a.m. At one point, the photographer, Nigel Parry, asked the cast to "vamp it up." Fortunately, these women vamp like most people breathe. Sheridan immediately grabbed Felicity Huffman's right breast. Then, Huffman turned to Cross and said, "I hear people are going into salons to get their hair red like yours." To which Sheridan retorted: "And their [pubic hair] to match."
Those brackets mean Sheridan said something naughty--let's just say she wasn't talking about our president. "Sorry, Nigel," said Huffman. "We're usually worse than this."
Like when they're working from a script. "Desperate Housewives" is everything you've heard--racy, funny, smart and sexy. It is also something of a miracle. Not just because, with almost 25 million viewers every week, it hit the top five faster than any new drama since "ER" in 1994. "Housewives" is what network television isn't supposed to be. It's a soap opera in an era when procedural shows like "CSI" and its clones rule. It's on ABC, a network that hasn't launched a hit show since the fall of the Berlin wall. (That's only a slight exaggeration.) Most amazingly, it's a show about housewives--in their 40s! This being Hollywood, these are naturally the hottest housewives you've ever seen--too hot, perhaps, to judge by last week's hubbub over a promo Sheridan did with NFL star Terrell Owens, where she seduces him in a locker room by dropping her towel. ABC quickly apologized for the "inappropriate" spot, though you wonder how sorry they can be. Last month's controversy--when advertisers pulled their ads because they thought...
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