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By Marc Peyser
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Believe it or not, Darren Star says there was one "Sex and the City" episode that was actually too raunchy to air. The show in question revolved around Charlotte (Kristin Davis), the prissiest of the sitcom's hormonal quartet. Charlotte's boyfriend kept pestering her for oral sex. She kept refusing. Finally, Charlotte walked out, leaving the frustrated guy alone in his apartment with Buttercup, his golden retriever. The camera didn't show what happened next, but let's just say that Buttercup really is Man's Best Friend. "To me, there's just something funny about single guys living with their dogs," says Star, who yanked the episode at HBO's insistence. It's also worth noting here that Star himself is a single guy who lives with a golden retriever. "Her name is Judy," says Star, 39. "Not Buttercup."
The people at PETA will be glad to hear that. The fact is, Star has spent the past decade fictionalizing his life and turning it into one hit TV show after another. He based "Beverly Hills 90210" on his high-school friends in Potomac, Md. "Melrose Place" came from the cozy L.A. apartment complex where he lived. Now Star is launching two new TV shows, and his roots are showing again. Next month is the debut of "The Street," which follows a group of stock traders who obsess over sex, money and power--Star calls it the male answer to "Sex and the City," only these characters actually go to work. But the show that really hits close to home is "Grosse Pointe," which debuted last week on WB. "Grosse Pointe" is a behind-the-scenes peek at a TV show about impossibly beautiful high-school kids. There's the raven-haired ingenue who tries to undermine her costars. The round-shouldered actress with food issues and no self-esteem. The actor who's way too old to play a high-school stud. Sound familiar? "Grosse Pointe" may be set in Michigan, but its ZIP code is still 90210. "There's something interesting about the show coming from me," says Star. "I have material nobody else has."
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Maybe too much material. Months before the show debuted, Star heard from his old boss, "90210" producer Aaron Spelling. Spelling complained that some of the "Grosse Pointe" characters--especially the one who looks remarkably like his daughter Tori--mocked the "90210" stars. At the time that character (played by Lindsay Sloane) had reddish-blond hair, bulimia and a powerful relative who helped her get acting jobs. Spelling wanted all that changed. "In my mind, I wasn't doing a hatchet job on any particular character," says Star. "The bitchy actress, the insecure actress--those are Hollywood archetypes." Still, he removed those offending traits--grudgingly. "Since Aaron is someone I have had a relationship with for years, I did make some changes," Star says. "But it's a satire. People don't usually take this kind of thing personally."
Star was born with a Hollywood name, and he didn't waste any time putting it to work. He used his bar mitzvah money to buy a subscription to the Hollywood bible, Variety. "I was like the Jason Priestley character in '90210,' though not quite as earnest," he says. He sold his first screenplay--for the sci-fi teen flick "Doin' Time on Planet Earth"--when he was 24. But it wasn't un- til Fox teamed him with Spelling for a show about high-school kids that he started getting noticed. " '90210' was definitely one of those things that nobody had any hopes for," says Star. "I was basically told, 'Do whatever you want.' I delivered a draft and it was like, 'Hmm. This might be something'." Every show Star has created has been something--except one. Star's 1995 drama, "Central Park West," lasted only 17 episodes. "It was a huge public failure with a lot of joyful dancing on my carcass," says Star. "It was a good experience in failure. It forced me to say what I really want to do."
Which is how he finds himself writing and producing three TV shows--with the two new ones not only running simultaneously but taping on opposite coasts. "I haven't had time to buy new socks. I'm recycling the same pair every day," says Star, who, despite creating some of the biggest clotheshorses in TV history, prefers jeans (some with ink stains) and open-neck shirts from Banana Republic. The irony of Star's autobiographic TV tendencies is that he's very different from his characters. He's been in a steady relationship with TV director Dennis Erdman for four years. Even at his most-stressed-out moments--and there are about 20 a day at the moment--he'd never throw a "Melrose"-like hissy fit. "His schedule is so crazy, I'm always surprised he has a smile on his face," says Irene Molloy, the Shannen Doherty look-alike on "Grosse Pointe." Strangely enough, Star hardly even watches TV, and not because he's so busy. "I'm not really a fan of television," he says. "I love movies. I'm a huge Woody Allen fan. My mother took me to see 'Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask)' when I was in high school. The minute Gene Wilder was sleeping with the sheep, she said, 'You have to wait in the lobby'." Did he? "Of course not. I went to the back of theater." And he started taking notes.
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