Cast hopes TV viewers will be hot for series

June 16, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

McClatchy Newspapers

LOS ANGELES

There’s no shortage of experience on the new TV Land comedy series “Hot In Cleveland.” Stars Valerie Bertinelli, Jane Leeves, Wendie Malick and Betty White have been acting a total of 165 years.

“We’ve been doing this a long time and we know what we are doing,” Bertinelli says during a break from rehearsals. “We are not vain about it. We are very giving with each other.”

The series focuses on three best friends from Los Angeles — novelist Melanie Moretti (Bertinelli), eye-brow archer to the stars Joy Scroggs (Leeves) and former soap star Victoria Chase (Malick) — who find their lives changed when their Paris-bound plane makes an unexpected landing in the Ohio city.

When the friends discover they are hot in Cleveland, they decide to stay. White plays the caretaker of the house they rent.

Bertinelli, 50, expects the new comedy — which falls somewhere between “Sex in the City” and “The Golden Girls” — to click with audiences because it’s easy to identify with the characters.

“A lot of women, and I’m one of them, want to see things out there they can relate to. Ads for cosmetics have 18-year-olds selling wrinkle cream. I don’t buy it. I want to see people my age,” Bertinelli says.

Malick, 59, is certain viewers will like how the show depicts unwavering friendship.

“These women have al-ways had each other’s backs,” Malick says. “And they’re not the easiest women in the world. They’re somewhat complicated and self- involved and are overly dramatic and vain. Behind all this is a true friendship between these women.”

Leeves, 49, likes how the show deals with major and minor events.

“All of these characters are at crossroads in their lives. An actress aging who can’t get work. A divorcee. I didn’t want this to be a show about how the women look but where they’re going next in their lives. And that’s what it does,” Leeves says.

White, 88, was originally cast for one episode but then signed on to appear in all 10 of the first-season shows.

Some of White’s best work has been on situation comedies featuring strong female characters, from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” to “The Golden Girls.” The success of those shows, says White, wasn’t the gender of the cast.

“It’s always the writing,” White says. “I have been so blessed with great writing. Actors like to take a lot of credit for stuff, but you can’t do it if it’s not on that page. This show has great writing.”

“Hot in Cleveland” is the latest in what’s being called a resurgence of White’s career — talk that surprises White.

“I didn’t know I went away,” White says. “I’ve been working constantly since 1949.”