Running Out - TV Premiere
(TV Digest - Jan 22nd-29th 1983)

"Running Out" - a contemporary drama about a young woman who comes back into the lives of her ex-husband and the 12 year old daughter she abandoned as an infant, will be presented on CBS-TV Wedensday Evening January 26 at 9 p.m. The original teleplay by Elissa Haden Guest dramatizes the emotional upheaval that occurs and the capacity for forgiveness that is tested when the mother, who was 16 and ill-equipped for parenthood when she fled from husband and child, finally sums up the courage to contact them (12 years later)

Deborah Raffin plays the mother, Tony Bill her ex-husband who's brought up their child, and Ari Meyers portrays their daughter. The cast also includes Toni Kalem as the current romantic interest in the father's life, Daniel Keyes and Joseph Buloff. Ms Raffin played her first film role at 19, with Liv Ullman in "Farty Carats" three weeks after she made her initial TV special, Fred Coe's "Of Men And Women".   Among the many Movie & TV roles she has played since are Brooke Hayward in "Haywire", the mother in "Willa" and the introverted, simple young woman in "Touched by Love" for which she won a Christopher Award and, in Taiwan, The Golden Horse, the Far East;s equivalent of an Oscar Tony Bill is an actor-producer-director who made his debut as Frank Sinatra's younger brother in "Come Blow Your Horn" and continued acting in films like Warren Beatty's "Shampoo" and on TV while branching out into his behind-the-camera careers. He directed the recent film "My Bodyguard" as well as the current "Six Weeks" with Mary Tyler Moore and Dudley Moore, co-produced "The Sting" and was executive producer of "Going In Style." Ari Meyers, who was doing commercials with Bill Cosby when she was five, has played three roles since her acting career began just a year ago. She was the daughter in "Author Author" with Al Pacino and Tuesday Weld, and made her debut on TV in "Haunted." Toni Kalem, the girl who beat up Goldie Hawn in the film "Private Benjamin" has been seen in such films as "Silent Rage", "I'm Dancing As Fast As I Can", and "Paternity" (with Burt Reynolds) and on TV in "Splendor In The Grass", "Xerox's "The Boy Who Drank Too Much" and in episodes of several top series. Twenty-nine year old Elissa Haden Guest who's making her screenplay debut with "Running Out" is a former nursery school teacher whose book for young adults, "The Handsome Man" was published two years ago. She drew "Running Out" partly from her still-vivid recollection of a very lonely teenage mother-to-be she met briefly more than ten years ago. Filmed entirely on location in New York City, "Running Out" was directed by Robert Day and produced by Jonathon Bernstein, with Gerald W. Abrams as executive producer.

Deborah Raffin - Not Running Out Of Star Roles. It was a day of blocking, a casual rehearsal of lines and moves, on the set of CBS's "Running Out."   Deborah Raffin and 13-year-old 'Author! Author!" actress Arl Meyers were running through a scene of the Jan 25 GE Theater presentation in which they play a mother and daughter--reunited 12 years after the mother has abandoned her family. As the sequence progressed, tears began streaming down Ari's face. "Even though she'd done films before," Deborah recalls, "I wasn't sure she knew, so I told her, 'You don't have to give 100 percent now. You'll wear yourself out. Hold it till the final rehearsals."   She said, "1 can't help it. It's just so sad."   Deborah felt no less emotional as the "simple, intimate, relationship story" was being unfolded before the cameras (with actor-filmmaker Tony Bill portraying Ari's father). Those feelings were something of a feat in themselves, since, as Deborah admits, she embarked upon the project finding her character hard to understand. The delicately beautiful actress with the gracious gentle manner comes from a close-knit family and has a devoted marriage with no children. Her "Running Out" character married as a young teen, then left her husband and abandoned her infant child.   Deborah has a career history that not only offers substantial proof of her talents - but of a strong backbone inside the lovely exterior that's enabled hw to endure difficult times. Though today finds her and her producer husband, Michael Viner, thriving professtonally, with impressive work to each of their credits, they began their married life eight years ago with a rollercoaster ride in the professional sense. He co-signed a loan for a client who defaulted and ended up bankrupt. She went into a withdrawal from film work in order to hoist herself out ol "plastic, pretty girl parts" and into artistically rewarding roles. The woman she portrays in "Running Out" is trying to come to terms with what she did while in an emotionally shattered state --and reconcile herself with the daughter she hasn't seen in 12 years. Obviously, the role meant a formidable stretch for Deborah. She describes the experience as "very difficult at first, very emotional and different from anything I'd done before." "I had no frame of reference whatsoever.   It took time for me to understand why she did what she did.   I had to use a lot ol imagination."   Deborah credits director Robert Day with "creating a character who doesn't ask for pity. - who faces the mistakes she made but has the attitude that today is a new day and life goes on.. "You understand that it's going to take a lot of work -- but that doesn't delete her love and desire to be vith her daughter. There are no trite or cliche answers in this piece,' she adds. "There's nothing saccharine about it,"   What heightened the emotional experience of making "Running Out" was the warm relationship that grew between Deborah and her young co-star. "We developed a rapport but even if we hadn't, Ari is a remarkably talented 13-year-old who I'm sure would have been able to handle her role very well," she says enthusiastically.   "I respected her as an actress on an equal basis. As it was, this very real and honest rapport may have enhanced what's on film. "It's that very special kind of show the networks will do once, maybe twice a year," says the actress who's played parts ranging from a spunky lady truck driver in TV's "Willa" to Brooke Hayward in the CBS adoption of "Haywire" to the sensitive aide at the handicapped children's home in the moving "Touched By Love" film. "Certainly it's a rare and a lovely experience for an actor to find something like this." That's particularly true when all too often in an actor's life the criterion for accepting a film assignment has to do with its lack of shortcomings as much as with its merits.   Deborah often refers to a project as either being "insulting to the public's intelligence" or not. She's acutely concerned about avoiding such jnsulting fare. It's a refreshing attitude in an industry in which many seem to believe - and indeed joke - that it's impossible to insult the public's intelligence. Her determination to make high-quality, artistic contributions was what prompted her to put the brakes on her career after her "Once is Not Enough" film led to a string of offers to play shallow beauties. Instead of following the road to tacky T. &. A., she left the business for a time in order to study her craft with coaches, including Catherine Fleming at the National Theatre in London.   Deborah admits. "I've read things that are so poorly written I wonder, 'Who would do this? ' "On the other hand, I've read scripts that were wonderful--but the finished product was vastly different, like night and day. And I've seen the reverse; projects turning out better than you could've imagined from the scripts. A film can be improved or greatly harmed once production is completed. Actors are really vulnerable and helpless in that sense." In spite of that, Deborah has managed to carve a career highlighted with projects in that "special" category into which she places "Running Out."   One of those, the 1980 "Touched By Love" which Michael produced, is now opening in China-- serving as a follow-up to "Nightmare In Badham County." the 1977 TV film that's become a phenomenon in that land. It's been seen by an estimated 2.5 million people in Shanghai alone, and it's made Deborah the best-known Western actress that side of the Great Wall.  Deborah modestly and wisely attributes its popularity to the film's novelty to the Chinese. She and Michael will soon be leaving on an unprecedented promotion trip, to tubthump "Touched By Love" in China. "Hopefully, it will allow the Chinese to see a more positive side of American culture." she says. "Even though I'm proud of 'Nightmare' and feel it's a valid, true story, I was concerned that it showed a negative side. Actually, I think one of the things that sparked interest was the fact that it showed American filmakers can make a film that's critical.   In a way, that was a positive statement in itself--though certainly not on the surface." If her phenomenal popularity continues in China, perhaps the next Deborah Raffin film to travel there will show an American mother and daughter getting to know each other after she went "Running Out."