BACK ON THE SCENE – EVIDENTLY, ACTRESS MARG HELGENBERGER WAS DESTINED FOR A TV FORENSICS ROLE
The Washington Post
by Robin Dougherty
December 17, 2000
Marg Helgenberger believes that life’s paths sometimes choose you.
The actress, now starring in CBS’s drama “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” has appeared in several high-profile film and TV projects recently, from “ER” to “Erin Brockovich,” but she hadn’t returned to a regular TV series since “China Beach.”
Nonetheless, she seemed destined to play a forensics investigator.
“In the course of the last six years, I made two network pilots,” Helgenberger said. “One was with [“China Beach” producer] John Sacret Young. I was a forensics expert. And then I did one a couple of years ago for CBS, in which I played a cop.”
Neither shows came to fruition. When “CSI” came along, however, Helgenberger jumped at the chance to play Catherine Willows, a crime-scene investigator and a single mom. In doing so, Helgenberger not only stepped into one of the few hits of the fall season, she apparently found a role that was meant to be.
She co-stars in the series, airing Fridays at 9, with William Petersen as Gil Grissom, Gary Dourdan as Warrick Brown, Jorja Fox as Sara Sidel, George Eads as Nick Stokes and Paul Guilfoyle as Capt. Jim Brass, head of the CSI team.
“Since ‘China Beach,’ most of my time has been working out of town, which got to be very old,” said the actress, who is married to actor Alan Rosenberg (“Civil Wars”) and is the mother of 10-year-old Hugh.
Having won a 1990 Emmy for her role as China Beach’s gritty prostitute K.C., Helgenberger, 42, went on to work in several cable movies as well as the film “Species.” Earlier this year she portrayed Patsy Ramsey in the miniseries “Perfect Murder, Perfect Town.” When “CSI” came along, Helgenberger landed a job that keeps her close to her family and also provides compelling perks.
“I missed being able to work on a show and a character that you are continually developing. It’s always creative and there’s little down time. On a feature film, there’s plenty of down time. It doesn’t have quite the crackle of doing everyday television.”
Much of the crackle of “CSI” comes from its subject matter and flashy storytelling techniques. Set in Las Vegas, the series follows forensics investigators on the graveyard shift as they mine the evidence of murders, suicides and robberies in and around the city’s famed strip of casinos.
Back at the forensics lab, the CSIs analyze the evidence. In recent storylines, viewers have been treated to microscopic close-ups of hair follicles and toenails. The show also uses visually arresting dramatic re-creations to portray the forensics experts’ theories as they speculate about events leading up to a particular crime. By studying blood-splatter patterns and ballistics evidence, for example, investigators are able to prove that a death originally labeled a suicide actually was a murder.
Helgenberger, known for her razor-sharp portrayals of women on the edge, plays the gun-toting Catherine as a cool-headed crime solver. Her character is seldom fazed by the uglier aspects of forensics investigating, which range from interviewing rape victims to collecting maggots off corpses.
Instead, Catherine’s vulnerability comes from being the single parent to a young daughter, whom she leaves each night as she goes to work. That facet of Catherine’s life, as well as her past as a strip-club dancer, drew Helgenberger to the role.
“The path that she took is an interesting path,” she says. “Also, being a mother and juggling a career is always complicated, but a single mother working a graveyard shift on a homicide beat? What would compel you to take a job that takes you away from your child?”
Like her character, Helgenberger has a complex back story. She originally had planned to go into nursing.
“Acting was just something I was doing to have some fun” while at Kearney State College in her native Nebraska, Helgenberger said. Nonetheless, she applied to Northwestern University’s prestigious acting program, and moved to Chicago, but left when she was cast on the TV soap “Ryan’s Hope.”
“That wasn’t the plan,” she said. “The plan was to stay in Chicago and enter the theater world that was just starting to pick up there in the early ’80s. At the time, my father was diagnosed with [multiple sclerosis]. He was wheelchair-bound and was dead in five years. The job came at a time when my family needed the financial help.”
Later, the actress moved to Los Angeles, where she ran into her future husband on her second day in town. “It was a great way to move to a new city.” She still lives there.
Although “CSI” is filmed in Los Angeles, Helgenberger traveled to Las Vegas to meet real-life forensics cop Yolanda McCleary, upon whom her character is based.
“She is my size, not a large woman, and she’s got a funky, bubbly personality,” Helgenberger said.
To prepare for the role, the actress got the CSI to talk about her job, including her struggles with its less savory aspects.
“You bring in a CSI and the corpse could have been there for a long time,” Helgenberger said. “They are responsible for taking the clothes off the victim and sometimes it’s gruesome. What got to her was the smell. She still can’t get used to it.”
McCleary helped Helgenberger understand why she continues to love a job that most people would shun and even overcame her own initial repulsion.
“After a few months, she thought, ‘I can’t do this.’ She talked herself into staying with it because it was fascinating. She said, ‘I’m going to have to learn how to suck it up,’ ” explained Helgenberger.
McCleary’s resilience has rubbed off on Helgenberger’s portrayal of Catherine. “It’s not that anyone becomes crass or irreverent about the corpses,” the actress says. “But they do their job and even have a sense of humor about it.”
Helgenberger also said McCleary and her CSI colleagues in Las Vegas are fans of the show.
“A lot of what they do is pretty dull; watching someone analyze some blood or urine samples can’t be that interesting. We take liberties, but they don’t seem to be freaked out.”