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After all the hype these last weeks about Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake it’s so comforting to know that there is some excellent family programs on the air and there are celebrities that believe in family values. One of these celebrities is Stephen Collins from the excellent family WB drama, “7^th Heaven.” This isn’t saying that Mr. Collins career has been all focused on family entertainment, but I’m sure you’d never see him ripping a woman’s blouse off on live television.

The first time I watched Mr. Collins perform was on a television show called “The Tattingers.” It was a wonderful drama-comedy on NBC in 1988-89 and told the story of Nick (Collins) and Hillary (Blythe Danner) Tattinger and get this, it was about a restaurant owner and his family, not cops or doctors. It was an excellent series, too good to last, and it didn’t. I was very disappointed that it was canceled. At the time I worked for another viewer organization who didn’t quite think it was quality material and really didn’t do anything to help save it. Anyway that was the first time I really noticed Stephen Collins and fell in love with him and his acting ability.

Later I watched him in “Working It Out” with Jane Curtain in 1990-91 and in the last season of “Sisters” in 1995-96 and now of course “7^th Heaven.” Stephen has appeared in eight television miniseries and fifteen television movies. One of my favorite television movies was when he starred in “An Unexpected Family” with Stockard Channing and its sequel, “An Unexpected Life.” In 1987 he won an Emmy nomination for his role in the miniseries “The Two Mrs. Grenvilles” opposite Ann-Margaret.

Stephen Collins has appeared in numerous feature films including “Star Trek-The Motion Picture” (he was, very briefly, captain of The Enterprise), in ’79, “Stella,” opposite Bette Middler in’90, “First Wives Club,” in which he played Diane Keaton’s philandering husband in ’97 and “Drive Me Crazy,” where he and his wife actress Faye Grant, co-starred as the parents of Melissa Joan Hart, in ’99. He’s acted in theatre on Broadway and off Broadway, has written two novels, “Double Exposure” and “Eye Contact,” and sings and plays guitar; and has a recently released CD of classic rock’n roll songs.

Besides all this talent he’s happily married to actress Faye Grant and has a nine-year-old daughter Kate, who says, “My Dad is nice, brave, funny and number one.” I’ve met Stephen and Faye a number of times and I can truly say they are the greatest; they are fun to be with, very sincere and lovely people. They are what we’d hope all entertainers would be like.

When we were in L.A. last October, I went over to the set of “7 Heaven” and presented Stephen with the Viewers Voice Award or Favorite Actor in a Drama series and he was gracious enough to do an interview with me and I’d like to share part of that with you.

Stephen replied after accepting the V.V. Award: “This is my third Viewers Voice Award and I’m so delighted. Of course I voted 800 times myself on line, I hope that’s ok? I am so tickled and delighted. I have come over the years to understand the work that Viewers Voice does and your commitment has been such a long standing thing and the fact that you do what you do and that you look at television closely and you think about it and you acknowledge shows that you really believe in is so different from the way things have come to be done today; the awards can be hyped and bought by ads and stuff like this. I can’t tell you how much this means to me, so thank you and thank you for the work you all do.”

I then asked Stephen how he felt bout “7^th Heaven” being on only one more year after this season. His reply was: “There’s two ways to look at it; we’re picked up for another year, there’s very few shows on television that know there on next season as well. We are one that does know that. I think the network would like to have us on longer, so I think it will be a question of tune in next year at this time. So far one month into the season we are still The WB’s highest rated show, so I don’t think they’re going to cancel their highest rated show. So you guys keep the pressure on them.”

I teased him about asking for maybe a couple of million dollars per episode, like some of the hot-shot stars do when a show becomes popular. His comeback was; “Don’t hold your breath. One of the strange things about hour long television and I don’t know if you guys might be aware of it or not, but one of the ironies of hour long television is we work about twice the hours of a half hour comedy. We work much longer in a year, it takes nine months in a year to shoot and we don’t take every fourth week off like the sitcoms do and we make a lot less money. It all has to do with how much shows make when they’re sold into syndication. I wouldn’t trade this show for anything; this job has been the greatest thing to come along in my life and I’m just so grateful for it. You know we don’t get a lot of acknowledgement from the big awards. “7^th Heaven” hasn’t even been nominated for a “People’s Choice Award” and I don’t know how that is. We never got any Emmy nominations because family shows tend to be forgotten and so the fact that you guys notice us means a lot.”

Be sure to tune into our Viewers Voice TV Show (Mondays, 6:00-6:30 p.m., on channel 14 in West Allis) and watch the interview with Stephen and some clips from our visit to the “7^th Heaven” set.

Until my next column, let your voice be heard.