Originally http://www.press-enterprise.com/newsarchive/1998/06/13/897693373.html

Things were looking pretty grim the last time most of us checked in on the life of Betty Roberts. Victor Comstock had returned, but decidedly worse for wear. Jeff Singer and Hilary Booth appeared headed for split city. Several people were waving guns about and the workplace seemed infested with suspected spies. In short, it was the perfect way to end a season and it left a loyal cadre of "Remember WENN" fans wondering what could possibly happen next.

But now they can stop wondering. At least they can Friday when this often intriguing series about a struggling 1940s Pittsburgh radio station returns to AMC at 7 and 10:30 p.m. -- and if you thought things were hectic before, wait until you see what happens once Season No. 5 gets under way. Hint: It evolves bullets, blood, fainting, reconciliation and America on the verge of entering World War II. Or, as Amanda Naughton, the actress who plays Betty puts it, "Things are going to get a little wild."

She also says there will be "more hilarity" and, not surprisingly, much of it will revolve about Betty, the lady who writes the scripts, supervises the help, holds the hands and basically keeps everything going.

That's been enough to get chat rooms on the Internet interacting excitedly while wondering what could happen next. But Naughton says she can't help them that much right now because new plot developments will "open an unbelievable number of story lines."

However, she always knew things would be unbelievable at "WENN." That was brought home to her the first day she walked on the set and found it to be the same one she left during one of her few earlier ventures into television, a small role in the ABC soap opera "All My Children." "I played an actress on stage in a theater production of a kind of `Gaslight' play," Naughton says. "They hadn't changed a thing. It was the same furniture."

On the other hand, she concedes, it was perfect for this show that has remained remarkably faithful to its era. Naughton says she knows that because she's been told -- by co-worker George Hall (Mr. Eldridge on the series), who worked in radio during the depicted period. Also by her father, actor Jack Naughton, an NBC page during the transition period from radio to TV.

Her own role seems to match the era too, fitting the image of so many of the unheralded women workers who really ran the stations while the male executives postured and posed. "But she's not just a gal Friday," Naughton says. "She's got more responsibility than that. I sort of think of her as a Rosalind Russell-type character, but not as glamorous.

"And I definitely have a back story for her. I see her as from a small town. I think her father was a newspaperman. She was probably the only girl in the family and cleaned up after her brothers. She went to high school and college and probably worked on a newspaper before coming east to get into radio."

But is Betty anything like Amanda? "No, not really," Naughton says. "I mean I eat sushi, own motorcycle boots and listen to rock music. But then, when we had our office party I was the one who ran the contests and put up people's baby pictures. I guess that would be a Betty thing to do."

Things will change, though, when she gets to San Diego this fall for a Sept. 26-Oct. 31 gig at the Old Globe. "I'm doing a musical called `Paramour,' " Naughton says. "It's an adaptation of `Waltz of the Toreadors' and it's definitely corsets and bodice. I'm going to play the mistress of a well-established general."

Who ARE these people?

Willow Bay, co-anchor of CNN's new Thursday (10 p.m.) "Entertainment Weekly," says two upcoming reports should be of special interest to film fans.

One deals with audience testing and who actually makes these surveys. Another is a study of the movie press tours and what actually takes place during them.

Bob Sokolsky, entertainment writer for The Press-Enterprise, writes a column on television and radio that appears Monday.

Published 6/13/1998