One of the great patriarchs of '80s TV, Family Ties star Michael Gross, will join The Young and the Restless on Aug. 15. He'll once again be seen as an antiestablishment, hippie dad — only this one is radically different.On his beloved sitcom, Gross played Steven Keaton, a former '60s peacenik holding onto his flower-power principles while trying to raise a family in Reagan's America. On Y&R, he's River Baldwin, a former Vietnam-era activist who was connected to a group of student terrorists.So far, viewers have been led to believe that River — the long missing dad of Genoa City attorney Michael Baldwin (Christian Jules LeBlanc) — was a drifter, druggie and draft dodger who abandoned Michael and his mother, Gloria (Judith Chapman), and fled to Canada. He was also wanted for murder after his participation in a bank bombing."But the truth is not so black and white," says Y&R head writer Maria Arena Bell. "In trying to track down his father, Michael fears he's go...
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Question: I was talking about this with my girlfriend and could swear I read somewhere that Family Ties was originally supposed to be about the parents but ended up being about the kids when they become popular. Truth or urban legend? Thanks, and keep up the good work.
Answer: Not only is it true, Peter, it was foreshadowed by Michael Gross, who played man of the house Steven Keaton, though he probably didn't know it at the time. In 1982, while shooting an episode of the series in which Keaton kids Alex (Michael J. Fox), Mallory (Justine Bateman) and Jennifer (Tina Yothers) run amok when Steven and wife Elyse (Meredith Baxter Birney) are away, the actor engaged in a bit of unintentional soothsaying. "Maybe after several episodes, Meredith and I will die, and then the series could really take off," he joked to TV Guide. "We could be kille
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Michael Gross is a master thespian with a Yale Drama School diploma on his wall. His trophy shelf nearly buckles from the weight of his awards (Obie and Drama-Logue prizes, for starters). His résumé is packed with appearances on high-falutin' series like ER and Law & Order: Criminal Intent. And yet, to us B-movie lovers, the good-humored actor will always be Burt Gummer, the gun-toting survivalist in the Tremors movies. (You know, they're the ones with the giant, man-eating earthworms.) In honor of the fourth flick's Sci Fi Channel debut today at 9 pm/ET, TV Guide Online invited the former Family Ties dad to lock 'n' load, and take aim at seven silly questions. As you are about to read, Mr. Tremors 4 came back at us with both barrels blazing.
TV Guide Online: So far, we've seen graboids (the aforementioned human-munching nightcrawlers) that live underground, graboids that fly, graboids that live in the Old West...
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