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The Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio, R.D. Heldenfels Column: Life Echoes Art in an Eerie Way for `Everwood' Actor Amandes

Posted on: Thursday, 23 February 2006, 18:01 CST

By R.D. Heldenfels, The Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio

Feb. 23--"Creepy" is not a description usually applied to Everwood.

But Tom Amandes, who plays Dr. Harold Abbott on the WB drama, found himself feeling that way during the making of one episode.

Dr. Abbott was awaiting the results of an examination of his TV wife for cancer, Tom recalled during a recent visit to Wadsworth. (Tom is married to actress Nancy Everhard, a Wadsworth native.) At the same time, he was waiting for the results of an examination of his mother.

"It was sort of disturbing, actually," he said. "It's nice now to be able to talk about it in the past tense (since his mother is doing better). On the day of, it was sort of creepy. Literally, I was in a mock waiting room, pretending that my wife was in for surgery. And, meanwhile, my mom's surgery went a lot longer than we thought. I had expected to get a call early in the day. It was late in the day, and we still hadn't heard.... That stuff gets you."

Although the news from that surgery was not good, Tom's mother has been doing well under treatment. But the situation helped remind him that "there isn't anyone that cancer doesn't touch."

For one thing, Nancy's mother, the Rev. Martha Everhard, is also a cancer survivor and founder of a Wadsworth support group that held its annual dinner on Monday.

Tom and Nancy spoke to the group about the way cancer has affected their lives and their participation in the Lance Armstrong Foundation's LiveStrong fundraising bicycle rides.

Both have made 100-mile trips, though not always easily; Nancy said she "hit the wall" 70 miles into her first trip, although she recovered enough to finish.

The race mattered, after all, as one example of how people collectively deal with illness. At the dinner, Nancy read aloud the Armstrong Foundation's manifesto, which includes lines such as "We believe in living every minute of it with every ounce of your being. And that you must not let cancer take control of it."

"So much of this is what this (Wadsworth) support group is about as well," she said.

But that was not the only topic of the night. Fans of Everwood wanted to know what is going on with the series, which has been on a long hiatus.

It returns to the air on March 27, Tom said, although its future beyond this, its fourth season, is not clear. The WB and UPN are merging into a single new network, The CW. There won't be room for all the two networks' shows.

The merger was an ironic surprise for Tom.

"I was at a Sundance party the night before the merger announcement, and I was talking with a guy who's working on Arrested Development, and he's just scratching his head, saying, 'what does it take?' " Tom said after the dinner. "And he said, 'What do you think will happen with your show?' And I said, frankly, I worry more about the network being canceled than our show being canceled.

"And then, the next morning, there it was," he said.

But times had not been great lately for Everwood at The WB.

"I know that (former WB entertainment boss) David Janollari was not a huge fan of our show," Tom said. "We weren't shown the respect that was due to the show. They moved us without any notice at all (from Monday) to Thursday nights.... We felt we had earned the Monday night slot, and then they very abruptly gave it to the Don Johnson thing."

That was Just Legal, a series The WB expected to get some attention. It was taken off the schedule after just three low-rated episodes.

"We felt a little betrayed, in a sense," Tom said. Now he tries to be optimistic. Janollari will not be part of The CW. The return to Monday nights could bring back viewers. "Hopefully we'll be seen as something of value."

But the show is being guarded, preparing different scenarios for the end of the season based on whether it is renewed. The producers will know the show's fate before they finish the last episode.

And there are things to worry about besides how a TV show does. The cancer support group is one reminder of that. Another is Tom and Nancy's 7-year-old son, Ben. He has been living in Utah, where Everwood is shot, since he was 3.

"We're right at the point of making a decision about Ben's school," said Tom. "We won't know until well past the school deadlines. So we're going to make a go of it for another year even if we're not picked up."

R.D. Heldenfels writes about television for the Beacon Journal and for a blog at www.ohio.com. Contact him at 330-996-3582 or rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio

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Source: Akron Beacon Journal (Akron, Ohio)

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