Watergate’s Liddy Looks for Laughs With NBC’s ‘Camp Cucamonga’

Who would have ever believed it?

Seventeen years ago, G. Gordon Liddy, the former FBI agent and intelligence chief for Richard Nixon’s Committee to Re-elect the President was the most notorious villain involved in the Watergate break-in and cover-up.

Now he’s best known as a character actor specializing in, of course, villain roles. He takes his first stab at comedy in NBC’s “Camp Cucamonga,” airing Sunday at 7 p.m. on KNBC. “The comic plot is driven by mistaken identity,” says Liddy. “The camp director is expecting two people: One is the repair man and the other, the camp inspector. I am the inspector, but am mistaken for the other.”

Liddy is back--playing the bad guy in the two-hour premiere of the new syndicated action-series “Super Force,” which premieres Friday at 7:30 p.m. on KTLA. “I am an evil genius in this,” he says with a laugh. “If you can believe this, I’m part Irish, part Portuguese and part Japanese. I think the worst of all three is wrapped up in me.”

Liddy made his acting debut five years ago as the evil Capt. Real Estate on “Miami Vice.” Universal’s casting director, Bonnie Timmerman, approached him about the role. “It was originally envisioned that Don (Johnson) would shoot me and that would be that,” he says. “We actually shot this great death scene. It was so well done that my wife was in tears. I thought, ‘I just got a Emmy Award here.’ But they liked me so much that decided to bring me back in a reoccuring role, so my Emmy-winning death scene never got out of the cutting room.”

And what does Liddy think of President Bush’s handling of the Iraq-Kuwait situation?

“I think up to the present moment, he has performed very well,” says Liddy. “He and Hussein are now two scorpions in a bottle and the first one who blinks is going to die. The whole question is whether the country will stay with George Bush long enough to do what I think he intends to do, and that is get rid of Hussein. There’s no point in talking with Hussein because you can’t believe anything he says. If he says it’s high noon you better put your head out the window and check, because he is probably lying.”

Anderson’s ‘Orpheus’ Role on TNT Is Second Time Opposite Redgrave

Acting opposite the legendary Vanessa Redgrave, says Kevin Anderson, “is like walking out on the court with Michael Jordan.”

The 30-year-old actor made his Broadway debut last year opposite Redgrave in Tennessee Williams’ sultry drama, “Orpheus Descending.” Anderson played Val Xavier, a mysterious stranger who arrives in a small Mississippi town and falls in love with a lonely Sicilian housewife (Redgrave).

Both Anderson and Redgrave are repeating their roles in the TNT movie version of “Orpheus,” premiering Monday at 5, 8 and 10:30 p.m.

Anderson, a member of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre who has appeared in such films as “Orphans” and “In Country,” had flown to London to audition for “Miss Saigon.” He didn’t get the part in the lavish musical, but was hired immediately for the role of Val after meeting with “Orpheus” director Sir Peter Hall and Redgrave.

“This may sound really meathead,” says the Illinois native, “but I didn’t know a lot about Peter Hall. I knew he was a director of a big theater in England. I kind of stupidly asked, ‘Are you with the Royal Shakespeare Company?’ And with Vanessa, I hadn’t seen seen all of her movies. I wasn’t in awe of them, I was just trying to get the job.”

Appearing on Broadway wasn’t fun for the soft-spoken actor. “It was hard on me,” says Anderson. “It was my first time on Broadway, which is a big deal. Then I had to deal with me being compared to Marlon Brando, who had done the movie version (“The Fugitive Kind”). It was very pressured.”

Anderson still has doubts about whether he’s right for the part of the ex-stud clad in a snakeskin jacket. “I thought I was a little too young,” he says. “And having seen the Brando movie, I was wondering if I would be sexy enough. But there are a lot of comparisons between me and Val. He is sort of a wild boy who grew up in the bayous, and I grew up in a small town in a very free environment. I think this guy is what everybody wants to be like--pure and free.”