The mark of a good hotelier "is the extent to which they will provide guests with the small things," says actress Joanna Cassidy. "I cannot sleep unless I'm on a huge down pillow," says Cassidy, who plays widowed hotel owner Eleanor Mayfield on CBS' Hotel Malibu. The CBS prime-time summer soap - which comes from Bernard Lechowick and Lynn Marie Latham, the creators of Second Chances and Homefront - checks in Thursday at 10 p.m. ET/PT for a six-week stay. "Even if I arrive from location at 3 o'clock in the morning I insist that housekeeping find me one. And if they don't have it, I'm not a happy camper," says Cassidy, who received an Emmy nomination for her work on Buffalo Bill, a short-lived '80s sitcom with Dabney Coleman. But Cassidy - who also has appeared on Northern Exposure and L.A. Law in addition to Stephen King's The Tommyknockers - doesn't see herself as a difficult guest. "If they want you to come back . . . they have to do the dance." Eleanor, she adds, would expect no less.
The one-hour drama is part Hotel - the popular series that aired on ABC from 1983-88 - and part Upstairs, Downstairs, the British import that examined the chasm between the moneyed and the minions, which aired on PBS. But unlike those who endured the upside, downside of life Upstairs, Downstairs, the hired help in Malibu, she says, can help themselves to a piece of the American pie. The Malibu menu includes upper-crust Eleanor and her offspring (and partners in the family business), Stephanie (Cheryl Pollak, The Heights) and Jack (John Dye, Jack's Place). Adding flavor to the mix: mixologist Harry Radzimski (Harry O'Reilly, Homefront), maid Nancy Salvucci (Romy Walthall, Civil Wars, L.A. Law) and assistant bartender Melinda Lopez (Jennifer Lopez, Second Chances). Pepe Serna (Second Chances) plays Melinda's overprotective father (and Eleanor's old flame), Sal. "I'm not sure what they have in store for them," she says of the rekindled relationship. As in any soap, "They're writing it, so we don't know what's coming around the corner." But in an upcoming episode, she hints, Eleanor is blindsided when she discovers that her beloved husband "was not alone" in the car crash that claimed his life. And that tasty morsel, she promises, "is just the beginning."
USA TODAY, 08-02-1994, pp 03.