John Shea (8/89 Small Sacrifices)
Excerpt from Sun Sentinel 8/16/89: John Shea | Small Sacrifices
The Pitfalls Of Turning News Into Drama
August 16, 1989|By KAY GARDELLA, New York Daily News
ABC, which next season is offering an expanded movie (24) and miniseries (four) schedule, faced the problem with its fact-based four-hour mini Small Sacrifices. The drama, about an Oregon woman accused of shooting her three children, stars Farrah Fawcett, Ryan O`Neal and John Shea and is being directed by David Greene (Fatal Vision). ABC was content to obtain the rights to the book about the crime, and left it at that.
© Sun Sentinel
Excerpt from LA Times 11/10/89: John Shea
For TV, Crime Is Drug of Choice
November 10, 1989|HOWARD ROSENBERG
"Small Sacrifices" features gleaming performances by Fawcett, Shea and Emily Perkins as the eldest daughter, Karen (not her real name).
....
Shea's relentless, methodical Joziak (Fred Hugi is his real name) is meticulously measured, outwardly stolid, yet inwardly seething, so emotionally swept up in the case and paternalistic toward Karen that he becomes, in effect, her surrogate father.
© LA Times
Excerpt from The Bryan Times 11/10/89: John Shea
Farrah Fawcett stars in miniseries
By Joan Hanauer
Assistant District Attorney Frank Joziak, ably played by John Shea, becomes progressively more disturbed by her story and convinced of her guilt.
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"I remember in school, in writing class, asking where writers get their stories and being told to buy the daily newspapers because true life is stranger than fiction," Shea said. "These days, if a television drama isn't based on real life, the audience doesn't believe it. If we had done a fiction story, people would say, Oh, well, that's so outlandish we could never believe it.
"People forget there is a truth as true as any day-to-day reality and that's dramatic truth, the truth of an idea, the truth of a concept. But people are demanding more and more verisimilitude in storytelling."
The actor, who also starred in the "Baby M" docudrama on surrogate motherhood and in "Do You Know The Muffin Man?", a drama that was a composite of several child abuse cases, has some ideas on the reasons. "People's lives are so screwed up," he said. "They want to see people's lives that are even more screwed up than theirs. People have so much trouble they love to watch stories of people with more trouble. It's not just that misery loves company, it's that they don't feel so alone."
Shea said there was a real effort to make "Small Sacrifices" more than tabloid TV. "We all tried to make it something beyond the sensational, tabloid aspects," he said. "You can treat a subject like this in an exploitive way or you can explore the mind of the sociopath, project an in-depth portrait of a sociopath, what makes up that personality, which happens more frequently than we like to admit.
"What are the forces that shape it? You look out at the desert and you see these weird earth shapes and arroyos that look strange on the mesa plateau. In a case like Diane Downs, what forms that strange shape of personality on the flat horizon of American culture?"
Shea, after playing good guys in TV films about Baby M, child abuse and child murder, said he is reading scripts for his next project. "It won't be anything with children in it, anything to do with real life situations or social significance. I hope it will be a feature film instead of television and instead of the hero, I will be the bad guy. It's like a pitcher -- if you keep throwing the same pitch, they hit you. You need a changeup pitch."
&Copy; The Bryan Times
Excerpt from The Register Guard 11/11/89: John Shea
Drama looks at Diane Downs case
By Lloyd Paseman
In the case of "Small Sacrifices," the two-part made-for-TV movie based on the book by Seattle author Ann Rule, that was hardly necessary. The movie will be broadcast on KEZI-TV (Channel 9, Cable 10) in two-hour segments Sunday and Tuesday, starting at 9 o'clock each night.
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John Shea, who portrayed the father in the made-for-TV movie "Baby M" and who co-starred with Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek in "Missing," is convincing as Joziak/Hugi, but director David Greene ("Fatal Vision") tends to end too many scenes with close-ups of Shea looking intense and staring off into the distance.
© The Register Guard
Excerpt from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 11/11/89: John Shea
'Sacrifices' is well done
By Ron Wieskind
On the other hand there is Shea as Joziak, a determined man made all the more so by the grim case he is investigating and by the difficulties inherent in its prosecution. His lips press together intently but his eyes are what we remember. At first they convey the horror of what he perceives might be the truth, and gradually they narrow in contempt of his prey. He stands in judgment of Downs and becomes nearly obsessed with the case on behalf of her children.
© Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Excerpt from Orlando Sentinel 11/12/89: John Shea
'Small Sacrifices' Is Brutally Fascinating
November 12, 1989|By Greg Dawson, Sentinel Television Critic
John Shea, who won an Emmy for his role in the surrogate-baby miniseries Baby M, is much better in Small Sacrifices as Frank Joziak, the assistant district attorney who moves in on Downs ever so slowly. He's a man of few words, but you can feel his outrage building, smoldering, until it finally explodes at the trial in a torrent of indignation and sorrow.
© Orlando Sentinel
Excerpt from New York Magazine 11/13/89: John Shea
Television: Mommie Dearest
John Leonard
As her nemesis, John Shea is equally persuasive. On the evidence of Baby M., Do You Know the Muffin Man?, and Small Sacrifices, he's growing up from Wayne Rogers to someone more substantial, in the vicinity of Paul Newman. As Assistant D.A. Frank Joziak, he is, all at once, dark angel, Grim Reaper, and Banquo's ghost. Until the very last second of the mini-series, I couldn't figure out why his real-life name, and the names of the children, had been changed from the book, while Diane's and Lew's hadn't.
© New York Magazine