Gloria Reuban

"I certainly did take a giant pay cut when I quit `ER,`" says Gloria Reuben, who earned a worldwide following and an Emmy nomination as Jeanie Boulet, the HIV-positive physician assistant with little luck in love. "Money is very important, but it isn`t everything."

The lithe, 5-foot-7, 36-year-old Reuben decided to follow her instincts instead and joined the explosive Tina Turner as one of Turner`s two backup singers on a three-month U.S.-Canada tour that ended in June.

"My philosophy is to do whatever is right for me, then the money will follow," she explains. "And I knew that music was an important element in my life long left on the backburners.

"Had I stayed on the show, I wouldn`t have been able to go on the road with Tina," Reuben continues. "I felt in my bones that it was time to move on after asking myself what was missing and what I really wanted to do in life. Leaving acting for several months was a huge risk and a huge turning point, not just in my career but in my life."

Every night, Turner would introduce Reuben last among the seven musicians, three dancers and two singers on stage. And every night Reuben would receive a huge audience response, in large part because of her past high "ER" profile.

"It was very exciting to get that kind of a reception, made me think about doing it on my own - actively pursuing a solo (singing) career," she says.

Reuben writes her own songs, "sort of a cross between the work of Peter Gabriel and Sheryl Crow," and plays guitar and piano. While gathering material for her first album, she is also shopping for a record label.

"The music business is every bit as tough as acting, but at least you feel like you have some control over your destiny. In acting, your fate is always in the hands of others."

Not yet about to give up her day job, Reuben`s current acting project is the small but pivotal role of research scientist Rose Tucker in "Dean Koontz` Sole Survivor" (Wednesday, Sept. 13, and Thursday, Sept. 14, 8-10 p.m., Fox), a four-hour mini-series based on his best-selling suspense thriller of the same title.

The story revolves around Joe Carpenter (Billy Zane), a Seattle crime reporter who loses his wife and young daughter in a plane crash, and how a vicious government agent (John C. McGinley) tries at all cost to prevent Tucker and Carpenter from comparing top-secret information.

"I was offered the part and happen to be a huge Dean Koontz fan, so I had read the book 1 1/2 years ago," says Reuben, a Toronto-born Canadian citizen who shot "Sole Survivor" in Vancouver, presenting the opportunity to visit with her mother and four siblings. "The one thing I love about Koontz is that he loves women, which means that his heroines are incredibly intelligent, very brave and prone to take big risks. I also like the fact that the character was written without age or ethnic restrictions. Just a scientist doing her job."

The singer-actress recently returned to Toronto to shoot a Showtime cable movie called "Feast of Saints," an Anne Rice novel set in 1850s New Orleans without a single vampire in the cast of characters. Reuben portrays the mulatto mistress of white landowner/businessman Peter Gallagher, with whom she has two children.

"It`s a wonderful, complex role in a story that depicts a unique lifestyle," she says, "and what happens when the next generation rejects it."

But good parts for women of color over the age of 30 remain few and far between, according to Reuben.

"It`s incredibly frustrating to audition for films and television roles (in Hollywood)," she sighs. "I cannot tell you how many times I`ve heard directors speaking about me, saying things like `She`s so beautiful, sexy and talented ... but we have to go white on this one.` I swear to God."

If anything, Reuben feels the situation is deteriorating daily.

"There is more segregation than ever," she says, stressing every word. "White people are making white films with predominantly Caucasian casts, crews and production teams. Black movies are made predominantly with African-American casts, crews and producers. It`s really frustrating for me. When you`re both (black and white), you kind of get shut out of all of them."

An ethnic woman has very little chance of succeeding in the long run, according to Reuben.

"I can`t remember the last time I looked through a newspaper at movie ads and saw a black female in one of the photos. OK, `Coyote Ugly` was out recently, with Tyra Banks - who`s had straight hair forever wanting to look not what we really look like. Where is Angela Bassett? Where is Alfre Woodard? If you`re a (white) teen-age actress and look it and have taken a couple of acting lessons, then maybe you can be in a movie. I know it sounds bitter, but it`s true."

Reared in London, Ontario, from the age of 12, Reuben is the second youngest of six siblings born to a housewife and an architect (who died during her youth). Her half-brother, Denis Simpson, has appeared on Broadway and in several films, but they have not worked together professionally. Encouraged by her mother, a fine singer, she studied piano, ballet and jazz from the age of 6.

She finished her musical education at the Canadian Royal Conservatory, then turned to modeling, print ads and TV commercials in Toronto for three years. By the time she left for Los Angeles in 1988 ("it was a lot warmer there"), Reuben had made her legitimate acting debut with a modest part in the U.S. mini-series produced in Canada titled "Amerika."

"I didn`t have to wait tables in L.A. because a bunch of national commercials came my way immediately," she explains. "I must have done about 45 commercials in all; the first one was for Sears. Before joining `ER` halfway through the first season (1994), I was a regular on a series called `The Round Table` (1992) and got good exposure in the features `TimeCop` (1994) and `Nick of Time` (1995)."

After 11 years in Los Angeles, she made her permanent move to New York to be at the side of husband, Wayne ("just Wayne"), a producer for the VH1 music network whom she met at a Sting concert a couple of years ago.

"We were married last November, and me being on the road with Tina Turner was tough on us newlyweds," she says. "We don`t have children yet, but you`ll be the first to know."

"ER" is now part of Reuben`s distant past with no regrets.

"I left the show not knowing what I was going to do," she recalls. "I quit because it was becoming very clear to me that I was doing less and less on the show and that the writing was kind of stagnant. With the serious issues facing Jeanie, it was incredibly important to keep my character vital. Like I said, it`s not all about money."

(c) Copley News Service

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Author: Eirik Knutzen