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April 15, 1994
TV Weekend; Jane Seymour as a Model Of the Noble Southerner
By JOHN J. O'CONNOR


Jane Seymour is that peculiar creature called a television star, a performer who can almost miraculously transcend mediocre material. Long before "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman," her current series on CBS, she was collecting assorted and deserved awards for her television work in "East of Eden," "Jamaica Inn," "The Woman He Loved," "The Phantom of the Opera" and "War and Remembrance." The vehicles may sometimes sag noticeably, but Ms. Seymour's energy and determination are constantly in motion. Just watch her breathe life into "A Passion for Justice" on ABC on Sunday.

Here is yet another television exercise that "although fictionalized," viewers learn, is based on real people and events. Among the real people is Hazel Brannon Smith (Ms. Seymour), who in 1964 became the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. This movie, set in Mississippi in 1954 (but actually filmed in Georgia), fills in the background. We find the vivacious Hazel returning from a European tour with a new husband, a Yankee named Walter Smith (D. W. Moffett). Smitty is six years younger than Hazel, who is described by one friend as having "been in more laps than a napkin."

The times are a-changin' in America -- especially with the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, ending legal segregation in public schools -- but the small town of Lexington wants to hang on to its old ways. Hazel is ready to move easily into a racially integrated society, but many of the whites, including her closest friends, are resisting. When Hazel begins to use her small newspaper -- here called The Lexington Advocate, instead of The Lexington Advertiser -- to write outspoken editorials against local bigotry, she finds her newspaper and, indeed, her life endangered.

Once set in motion, "A Passion for Justice" moves inexorably along a predictable path. It's enlightened Hazel and Smitty against benighted types like the murderous sheriff. At one point, Hazel even gets to cry out, "If they wanna stop me from tellin' the truth, they're gonna have to kill me." Snooze time, perhaps, except that Ms. Seymour keeps things crackling on the level of a vintage Bette Davis movie. Maybe it has something to do with the 42 wardrobe changes, which are mentioned in a news release about the program. Maybe it's the vintage hats. Maybe it's sheer gumption. But the British actress survives impressively, Southern drawl and all.

The executive producers are David Brooks, Ms. Seymour and James Keach, her husband. Mr. Keach also directed. '

All clips and images in this feature copy right ABC television -
My thanks to Canice and Irene for their help with this tribute

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