Posted on: Monday, December 29, 2003

'Goodbye Girl' reality has changed little

By Mike Hughes
Gannett News Service

When Neil Simon wrote "The Goodbye Girl" in 1977, he described a genial New York world of show-business vagabonds.

Actors and dancers whisked between apartments, feuds and romances. In the movie, two of them fall into hate and love.

Now a remake airs in mid-January on TNT.

Jeff Daniels and Patricia Heaton step into the roles that Richard Dreyfuss and Marsha Mason had in the original movie.

The basic story — love, hate and leases — still seems current as Heaton plays Paula McFadden, a former Broadway dancer who comes home one day to discover her boyfriend has walked out and subleased their apartment to another actor Elliot Garfield (Daniels).

Since apartments are scarce in New York, the pair decide to share the apartment temporarily along with McFadden's daughter, Lucy (Hallie Kate Eisenberg). But tensions mount as Paula becomes aggravated by Elliot's habits.

"Right now, there are kids walking around here trying to get jobs in the theater," director Richard Benjamin said in an interview from New York. "(They're) sharing apartments with people ... and that love story is going to go on forever."

For both Daniels and Heaton this is old turf. Each independently spent years apartment hopping in New York.

"This just speaks to me," Daniels, 48, says of the role. "I was this guy."

It also speaks to Heaton, 45. "In nine years, I had eight different apartments" in New York, she says.

Both were among the great wave of people from mid-America trying to make it as actors in New York.

Daniels grew up in Chelsea, Mich., where his dad had a lumberyard.

He went to Central Michigan University, then impressed a New York director at a workshop. Soon, he was a scrambling actor in New York.

"Jeff gave us his heartbreak tour around New York City and every location," Heaton says. "(He'd say), 'Oh, and that's where I lived when I couldn't get a job.' It was pathetic."

Heaton grew up in the suburban comfort of Bay Village, Ohio. Her dad (a noted sportswriter) and mom (a social activist and devout Catholic who attended Mass daily) had five kids.

Then came Ohio State University and New York. "I came right from Delta Gamma sorority to the Chelsea hotel," she says.

She easily found day jobs. She was a waitress. She proofread reports for a financial firm. She veered into management, then bailed out.

"I never lasted more than six months" in any job, Heaton says. "After that, you start to worry that you'll be doing it permanently. So I'd start to show up late or miss work."

It was during that time, she says, that she had many roommates and some "Goodbye Girl" extremes.

"I've had huge, huge fights," Heaton says. "You're living with very strong personalities."

And in one case, there was romance. She met her husband (David Hunt) after subletting an apartment from him.

During all of this, Heaton — like the characters in "Goodbye Girl" — kept grasping for the big break.

She was in a musical, "Don't Get God Started," but that soon died. She produced and acted in some off-Broadway shows, eventually taking one to Los Angeles. That's when the situation-comedy roles started rolling in.

Heaton co-starred with Linda Lavin in ABC's 1992 "Room For Two," with a young Gaby Hoffman in NBC's 1994 "Someone Like Me" and with Delta Burke in CBS' 1995 "Women of the House."

In 1996, she landed a role on "Everybody Loves Raymond" and reached stardom.

That happens to be one of the shows Simon likes. "I watch Patty's (show), which I think is wonderful," he says.

He's not the only fan.

"They love the show," she says of the New York fans where most of "Goodbye Girl" was filmed. "So, much to Jeff's chagrin, I'm being mobbed by fans. They keep mistaking Jeff for Bill Pullman. Or Jeff Bridges."

Between jobs, Daniels retreats to Michigan. Heaton returns to Los Angeles, where she surprised everyone (including herself) by having four sons between 1995 and 1999.

"We didn't really plan it that way," Heaton says. "But it all went so well. It was sort of, 'Let's see what comes out this time.' "