TV Veteran Patrick Duffy Plays The Hero In Movie

LOS ANGELES - Patrick Duffy, television's Mr. Nice Guy, portrays a firefighter struggling to save the life of a girl on tonight's CBS Tuesday Night Movie, "Heart of Fire" (9 p.m. on KSTW).

"Although it's based on a true story, it's not one of those based-on-a-true-story kinds of movies," the Montana-born actor explained. "It's just an adventure. It's like a `Backdraft' with an oil tanker.

"I'm really getting tired of those cause-oriented TV movies. This was a nice, refreshing thing: to just get out, be a hero, get a little action and call it a day."

In "Heart of Fire," Duffy plays Max Tucker, a firefighter struggling to free a girl (Alex McKenna) who is trapped beneath an oil tanker that has crashed and exploded. Even when the rescue seems hopeless, Tucker stays with the girl and works on a plan to free her.

"You know I'm playing the hero, so I'm not going to die," Duffy said. "We take that for granted going in. It's not that he does superhuman feats. It's a relationship story that takes place in a close-to-death inferno situation."

`Bang for your buck'

The cost of all the heavy equipment prompted the producers to film in Australia, Duffy believes - "you get more bang for your buck on the dollar exchange."

He added: "Keeping in mind that safety was always paramount on the set, the restrictions about fires, explosions, etc., are a little bit looser there. Because it's more of a frontier industry.

"The studio would let you blow up huge trucks right on the lot without going through a thousand extra permits that are just extraneous and time-consuming. We were able to do a lot of things that would have just drawn out and exhausted everyone here."

From gillman to dad

Duffy has been a creature of series TV for most of his career. He started as the gill-equipped "Man from Atlantis," which lasted two seasons, 1977-1979.

In 1978 he began his role as Bobby Ewing on the rip-roaring "Dallas" and stayed with it to the end in 1991. And still it goes on. The recent "Dallas" reunion scored excellent ratings.

Duffy continues making the sitcom "Step by Step," which started in 1991 but was left off ABC's fall schedule. He and Suzanne Somers play a married couple with three children apiece from their previous marriages, plus another from the current marriage.

He has made 15 episodes of a new season, and ABC is picking up the tab for 24, an amazing show of faith.

One of the lucky guys

Nothing official, but he hears the show will return as a midseason replacement. That doesn't bother Duffy except that he can't plan another series while "Step by Step" is in limbo.

Duffy calculates that he has been under contract for series for 20 years, with only a week or two in between. The reason for his survival, he believes, is that he is never the focal point; he has always been part of an ensemble.

"I'm one of the lucky actors in television," Duffy reflected. "I don't make a lot of big waves, there's no tsunamis happening. But there's a constant activity, and that's the way I prefer to live my life."