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This is just the part of the article that specifically mentions the play Billy was in. Below is the link if you want to read
the whole article.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/entertainme...ay-sweet27.html
Once again, the company's belief in Sweet had concrete rewards at a crucial point in its history. "Flyovers,"
a 1998 hit featuring Petersen, Morton, Marc Vann and Linda Reiter, drew huge audiences, including some theatergoers who returned
to see it three or four times. (About a
successful movie critic's betrayal by his former friends, the play anticipated the current interest in the cultural and
socioeconomic divides between the "red" and "blue" states.) In the process, the success of "Flyovers"
helped to erase a substantial amount of Victory Gardens'
accumulated debt.
"It was probably my favorite experience doing a play anywhere -- it was like breathing pure oxygen, watching this
perfect cast crackling along every night," Sweet recalls. "My hair just stood on end with pleasure,
because the show just connected on every level. Even the actors knew what was happening. Every night, Billy would sneak
out of the house and stand at the back and watch Amy Morton and Mark Vann do a particular scene in the
middle of the show. He had such love and appreciation and respect for them, but nobody in the audience ever knew that
he was there."
2001 Articles, US Magazine Feb 2001
WILLIAM PETERSEN IS DEAD SERIOUS about his work on the hit series CSI, staying single and not stepping on bugs.
By: Rachel Abramowitz
William Petersen loves to watch animals copulate. The 48-year-old star of the new hit series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
says that perhaps his favorite video of all time is the five-part PBS series on the sex lives of animals, featuring such oddities
as a species of lesbian lizards. It's somehow fitting viewing material for an entomologist -- or at least a man who plays
one on T.V. Petersen stresses, however, that unlike his character, Las Vegas forensic investigator Gil Grissom, "I'm
a terrible science person. It took me six years to get through high school. I hated to study."
That seems to be the primary difference between Grissom and the actor who plays him. Both are workaholics, consumed with
re-creations of sorts. Indeed, Petersen, who also executive-produces the show, explains, "Here's the deal: When I'm acting,
I'm a way more interesting person. When I'm on a date or in a bar, I shut down. Grissom defines himself through his problem-solving.
Men often define themselves through their work, and I think there are a lot of people out there who understand that."
Apparently so. CSI is the dark-horse hit of the season, now pulling in 21 million viewers on Thursday nights after snagging
a Golden Globe nomination for best drama earlier this year.
The critical and commercial adulation comes as a pleasant surprise to an actor who has long chosen the unconventional
career path, preferring theater over film and Chicago over the more lucrative pastures of Las Angeles or New York. It took
CBS president Les Moonves eight years to persuade the earnestly macho Petersen to try his hand at series television. Even
his best-known Hollywood performances -- in the mid-"80s cult hits Manhunter Michael Mann's chilly prequel to The Silence
of the Lambs, and in William Friedkin's To Live and Die in L.A. -- required his directors to seek him out. Marg Helgenberger,
Petersen's CSI costar testifies to the actor's elusive nature. "Bill is a very compelling, enigmatic man," she says.
"You think you know him, but the next day you realize how little you do."
Petersen was born in Chicago, the youngest of six children in a family descended from "four generations of Scandinavian
furniture makers." He first discovered the world of culture when his schoolteacher mother forced him to forgo football
practice once a week in order to attend a great-books class with "all the smart girls." Petersen attended Idaho
State University on a football scholarship but drifted into the theatre program and wound up traveling Europe performing plays
after school. And in the early 1980s, Petersen launched the Chicago's Remains Theatre. "I was always concerned about
creating something I wanted to create," he says. "It's just been in the blood."
Indeed, what seems to appeal most to Petersen about CSI is the opportunity to re-crate his own little repertory company,
with people "I care about, that I like." His motto for the show is "Think outside the box." He even had
T-shirts made for the crew bearing a logo of a box with the work THINK outside of it.
Like Grissom, Petersen, who has a 25-year-old daughter from a failed marriage, is single. "I've had maybe five relationships,
and they have all been long-standing, but I'm always gone," he says. "I had a relationship with a gal in Chicago.
She's there, and I have 14-hour days here. It's just too hard. I go off to Australia to make a move, I go to the Philippines,
I go to Canada. If they want to have their lives and their careers, they can't just come along with me."
There will, however, always be enough time for bugs. "I don't kill ants anymore," says Petersen, describing
the show's influence on him. He recalls a recent shoot during which they filmed a woman's corpse crawling with worms and beetles.
"We put on thousands of bugs. The crew was really creeped out, but I have no problem with it. I said, 'This is how you
are all going to be. You will be with the bugs and the beetles. They will restore you back to the earth. That's the job."
--------------------------------------------
Chicago Sun-Times
December 26, 2000
Gritty reality of 'CSI' proves a surprise hit
By Bill Keveney
VALENCIA, Calif.--Harsh sunlight burst through the ceiling of a burned-out house, turning the "CSI" criminalists
into shadows against the charred walls. Smoke particles hung in the air, but, three months after an arson, the crime scene
appeared cold.
"There's nothing left, Gris," Warrick Brown (Gary Dourdan) said to his boss, Gil Grissom.
"More than you think," the cerebral Grissom (William Petersen) responded, already rooting out clues.
"More than you think" might as well be the slogan for CBS' "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation." It drew
scant attention before its premiere this year but has emerged as TV's top-rated new drama, getting about 15 million viewers
per week, more than its heavily promoted lead-in, "The Fugitive."
The Friday sleeper has turned forensic science--the evidence collection and examination that traditionally have served
as background on police shows--into prime time's hot new occupation.
"The audience was looking for something new," says Petersen, whose Grissom leads a graveyard shift of Las Vegas
criminalists, or forensic investigators. But, "I don't think anybody expected this would happen."
"Puzzle-solving is part of the appeal. The audience feels like they're part of it," says Marg Helgenberger,
whose Catherine Willows has a determined , street-savvy way that rivals Grissom's scientific expertise.
Viewers have responded to the freshness of "CSI" in a TV season in which attention was headed on returned stars
and conventional themes, says David Morans, research director of MindShare, a media company.
Early episodes have focused on the characters' work lives, with the exception of Willows, an ex-stripper who juggles job
and parental duties and duels with an ex-husband. Details of Brown's gambling problem and the connection between criminalist
Nick Stokes (George Eads) and a prostitute will be explored.
Another co-star with an interesting background is the setting: Las Vegas. That's where creator Anthony Zuiker was operating
a hotel tram three years ago as he researched the script. He--and later the actors--rode with a crew of criminalists, two
of whom became rough models for Grissom and Willows.
The 24-hour gambling mecca is a hospitable homicide host, providing a lake for "floaters," a mountain for slain
hikers and a desert for the desiccated departed, Zuiker says.
As with programs such as "ER," "CSI" strives for workplace precision. Criminalists employ the latest
technological tools and toss out fun facts (linoleum is the best surface for picking up shoe prints). When Grissom explains
complicated terms to his younger colleagues, he also is talking to an audience that may not know the particulars but wants
the authenticity.
Many plots are based on real cases, and 15-year criminalist Elizabeth Devine is technical adviser.
"It's like any of the police shows on television. There's a kernel of reality, and the rest is entertainment-based,"
says Barry Fisher, crime lab director for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and Devine's former colleague. "You
can't have somebody looking through a microscope for an hour. That would be terribly boring."
"We're still feeling out the show," says Petersen, who also is a producer. "I want us to be to crime drama
what 'The West Wing' is to political drama. I want us to be the smartest show on television."
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TV GUIDE, SEPTEMBER 22, 2000
THEY SEE DEAD PEOPLE
At the outset, CSI looked like a run-of-the-mill drama about, well, crime scene investigators who had a sixth sense it
would be such a hit?
By Mark Schwed
It wasn't supposed to happen. CSI a huge success? No way.
For the first fall television season of the new millennium, network honchos dug deep into their pockets in the hope of
scoring serious ratings. Big names were called in and big money was at stake. One pilot, CBS's The Fugitive starring Tim Daly,
cost a hefty $6 million. "Titanic" director James Cameron delivered the lavish-looking Dark Angel and its sexy heroine,
Jessica Alba, to Fox to lure young male viewers. Stars Geena Davis and Bette Midler were considered sure things for ABC and
CBS. And NBC was gambling on Seinfelds's Michael Richards.
Little did those TV bosses know that the biggest new stars of 2000 would be maggots, decomposing pigs and torn fingernail
fragments -- and a bunch of geeks who spent too much time in the high school science lab and now believe anal swabs are cool
and science is sexy. Confused? Then you're among the few who haven't discovered CSI; CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION (CBS, Fridays,
9 P.M./ET), starring William Petersen and Marg Helgenberger as crime analysts on the graveyard shift in Las Vegas. They are
not cops. They don't go to court and haggle with lawyers. What they do do is gather evidence, dissect body parts and examine
blood samples. They see dead people -- all the time.
"They're scientists and nerds," says Petersen. "But with DNA and this forensic stuff, they're like cyber-cowboys.
It's Sherlock Holmes in cyberspace."
Or Law and Order for the 21st century. But the idea that people would want to watch CSI seemed so improbable that CBS
almost didn't put it on the air. It's got a high body count but little violence, guns but few shoot-outs; sexy leads but no
sex (at least not yet). The cast? A team of investigators headed by Gill Grissom (Petersen), an entomologist (read: bug lover)
who would rather watch tadpoles than bed some Vegas beauty. Rounding out the squad: fellow analysists Warrick Brown (Gary
Dourdan), Nick Stokes (George Eads), Sara Sidle (Jorja Fox) and Catherine Willows (Helgenberger), a single mom and -- in a
nod to the seedier side of Sin City -- an ex-stripper.
What's more, creator Anthony Zuiker had never written a TV script In fact, four years ago he was making $8 an hour operating
a tram at Vegas's Mirage Hotel. To bone his material, he rode with real crime-scene analysts and scoured the Internet and
libraries for information about forensics. In other words, he winged it. As CBS president Leslie Moonves says, CSI "was
not a slam dunk."
It may have helped that there was one big gun attached to the project: producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who has made such ear-busting,
macho megamovies as "Top Gun" and "Armageddon." "We definitely were the underdog," says Bruckheimer.
"In a way, it was a great position to be in."
Even as CBS was poised to announce its fall schedule, CSI was hanging by a hangnail. Says Helgenberger, "The question
CBS was asking was, 'Is it going to fit into our demographic?'"
And then something amazing happened. Folks at CBS research reported that CSI's pilot was doing well with test audiences.
In particular, women were loving it, which was strange for a crime drama. CSI got the green light and has been No. 1 in its
time slot (save for a special Friday airing of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire last month), far outperforming its much-hyped
Friday-night CBS partner, The Fugitive.
"Men like the cop stuff. Women like the puzzles," exp
lains Moonves. And everybody likes Vegas, Zuiker believes. "It's a mecca for a bunch of forensics stories,"
he says. "Here's Lake Mead -- floaters, right? Here's the desert -- mob hit gone wrong. Here's the mountains -- dead
men hiking. Here's off the Strip -- quadruple murder. It's all here."
But it probably wouldn't have happened without Petersen, best know for the cop features "To Live and Die in L.A."
and "Manhunter." For a decade, Moonves had been wooing him for a TV series. "He's the type of TV star women
dig and men want to hand out with," says Moonves. But no project ever seemed right.
"Yeah, he had a lawyer show this year that he wanted me to do," says Petersen. "I could stand in a courtroom
and do closing arguments and make people cry. And I'm like, 'Shoot me now.' I didn't want to be in a hospital, either. Or
be married or be a single father or divorced. I wanted to be a cowboy, but in a different way."
He got his wish. If CSI is like anything it's like an old Western, where the good guy always gets the bad guy. Vegas adds
a bit of flash, just as South Beach did for Miami Vice, but there's a grittier feel here. "CSI is shot like a feature
film," says coexecutive produce Sam Strangis. "The lighting is designed to reflect the mood and tone of the show."
At its heart, the series is about process, with a little flash and lots of extreme close-ups.
"If you've never seen the show you'd think, 'Well, it's microscopes and hair fibers and blood an DNA, and how could
that possibly bey fun?'" says Zuiker. "The fact is, it is fun."
Perhaps, except all those dead bodies remind us that this stuff is inspired by real crimes. Whether he's right or not,
Zuiker believes that we're making this world a safer place. Criminals will watch this and go, 'I don't think I can get away
with that' because we solve some pretty hairy stuff. You can't just shoot somebody and get away, because we're going to get
you."
Petersen agrees. "These are the guys over the next 20 years that are going to redefine our criminal justice system,"
he says. "They're going to decide who goes to jail and who doesn't."
DANIEL HOLSTEIN AND YOLANDA McCLARY SEE DEAD PEOPLE TOO. UNFORTUNATELY, THEY'RE REAL
How do you spot a real crime-scene investigator? Similar to the way you spot one on CSI. "We're the ones standing
over dead people, three inches away, playing with maggots," says Daniel Holstein, who, with fellow Las Vegas analyst
Yolanda McClary, helps the folks at CSI get their facts straight. Before writing the pilot, creator Anthony Zuiker rode shifts
with McClary. Now CSI's writers e-mail Holstein to check their science and sniff out new stories.
So, does CSI get it right? "We don't throw bodies off roofs to see if they were pushed or fell or jumped," says
Holstein, 36 who has a degree in biochemical criminology from the University of Nevada Las Vegas. "But it was cool when
they did it (on the show)."
"They do their homework well," says McClary, 37 an ex-secretary for cops who took a class in crime-scene investigation
and "fell in love with it."
The two do have their differences: She carries a gun. He does not. He loves maggots and blood. She does not. He's had
to tackle someone to keep evidence from being destroyed. She has not. ("I prefer mace," she says.) But their jon
is the same: "Everything around you is trying to tell you something and you've got to be able to see that," says
McClary, who has worked nearly 3,000 calls in six years. "Detectives interrogate people," says Holstein. "We
interrogate the evidence."
Sometimes, what they see is almost unbearable. A few weeks ago McClary was investigating the death of an infant when the
father came home unaware of what had happened. "I have this baby in the other room," she says. "Your stomach
burns, your skin crawls, and tears well up in your eyes. At first I thought, 'is this something I want to do?' But it's about
catching the bad guy. Telling the truth."
ASCP news, August 3, 2004
ASCP Award Honors CSI: Crime Scene Investigation's William Petersen
William Petersen, star and co-executive producer of the highly rated and critically acclaimed CBS drama, "CSI: Crime
Scene Investigation," attended the ASCP's "Pathology Today" Annual Meeting to accept the ASCP Special Recognition
Award for his positive portrayal of forensic and investigative sciences. Through his work on the CSI television program, he
has helped to create a tremendous increase in the public's awareness of pathology and medical laboratory science.
In his acceptance speech, Petersen said, "This is a wonderful honor. I want to thank all of you who are part of the
ASCP for this beautiful award. More importantly, I want to thank you for inviting me to your great event; I've received recognition
in the past [from other dramatic groups]; but this [award] stands out as being truly unique. To be honored by a group of talented
professionals who have real jobs and real lives, it's entirely different, believe me."
Petersen commented on passing by the ASCP microscope course, "Core Biopsies of the Breast." "Every one
of those microscopes had a pair of eyeballs attached," Petersen said. "All these men and women studying some miniscule
matter; This must be an amazing group of people who have come to New Orleans to grow and learn and get better at what they
do. I applaud all of you for your dedication and your commitment, and I want you to know that I feel truly humble to be here
tonight with you."
In closing, he said, "I can only hope that some appreciation for the great efforts that you all make in the name
of humanity will reach those young people in our country who perhaps like myself, didn't understand how truly magical and
exciting science, technology, and medical examination can be. It takes a special person to be capable, qualified, and courageous
enough to crawl into the belly of the beast that is human life and human death. And it is you; you in this room, who are the
heroes. Hopefully more will follow you and become like you: investigators, researchers, examiners, the 'lab rats' You are
the men and women who can come closest to the truth of our fragile world. You solve the mysteries; you put the puzzles together
and answer the questions and riddles that taunt our society. I have you to thank for the opportunity to portray just a small
portion of what you and the American Society for Clinical Pathology stands for and has become. It is an honor and a privilege
to allow me to try and use my small talents to help you. And I and all of us at CSI, we are at your service. Thank you very
much."
Petersen also spoke to ASCP Board members and presented a special session designed exclusively for the ASCP Annual Meeting.
Attendees got a firsthand peek at how the CSI post-production staff portrays the reality that medical examiners and forensic
pathologists observe in their daily work.
In this presentation, Petersen and CSI associate producer Brad Tanenbaum explained how many of the special effects (for
instance, the sequence of a bullet entering a person's body from the bullet's point of view) are not computer-generated. They
are done by using mini-models.
Many of the makeup effects are based on photographs of real-life death scenes from medical books. Sometimes the real thing
is too intense, so they need to clean it up a little for dramatic purposes. "You need to recognize who the character
is," said Petersen.
Often, they start with a model of the actor, cast in latex and silicone, and sculpt the wounds in by hand. "A lot
of work goes into 8 seconds of the show," said Petersen.
During the presentation, several videos were shown including a tour of the CSI special effects workshop and a montage
of clips from the show.
"Needless to say, we are proud of the show, and proud of the people who do all the stuff for us, and we are proud
of all of you," said Petersen referring to the pathologists and laboratory professionals in the room. "We've just
begun to have this great relationship with the science community. When [2002-2003 ASCP President] Dr. Baillie asked us to
come [to the ASCP Annual Meeting], we were excited. We are here to say that there's an awful lot more that CSI can do for
the laboratory community in this country. And we are going to try to do that in the next few years."
Billy walking Relay For Life
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/c...getcsistarpower
Cancer survivors get 'CSI' star power
By Garrett Ordower Daily Herald Staff Writer
In the summer of 2003, Mary Kay Bowman walked in the Relay For Life because she thought the American Cancer Society a
worthy cause.
With her parents both relatively healthy in their 90s and no history of cancer in her family, her motives were purely
altruistic.
"I really never thought I'd have cancer," said Bowman, 62.
A few months later during her yearly checkup, a mammogram detected a lump. A few days later a biopsy determined it was
pre-cancerous, but fortunately contained.
By the end of the summer she had a lumpectomy, then a mastectomy and re-constructive surgery.
Unlike many of the more than 1 million people diagnosed with cancer every year, Bowman has become a survivor.
So this year, for the second time, Bowman will walk in the survivors' lap at Barrington's Relay For Life. Joining her
will be her younger brother, William Petersen, star of the hit CBS television show "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation."
Petersen also will auction off the opportunity for two people to attend a live taping of "CSI" in Los Angeles.
Petersen walked in the survivors lap with his sister last year, and just this week arranged to help her with the
fund-raiser she is co-chairing.
"He's always been supportive," Bowman said. "He came to the hospital to visit me. And I asked him last
year if he'd like to come out and walk the track for the survivors event, and he and his wife were gracious enough to come
out and do that."
The lap that takes place for survivors and there families is the most emotional part of a very emotional event. While
Bowman will be walking as a survivor again this year, hundreds of thousands of others across the country won't. The American
Cancer Society estimates 570,000 people will
die of cancer this year.
Bowman's cousin, Judy Millbury, was one of them. She died at the age of 55 in April, after having been diagnosed with
breast cancer the year before Bowman. She walked the survivors' lap last year.
In Illinois, more than 36,000 cancer survivors have participated in Relays since 1992, according to the society.
"You see a lot of people who are still struggling with their cancer, and they're walking and you have hope for them,"
Bowman said. "But there are those who walked with you last year who aren't walking this year. They were
fit and vibrant and their life was taken away. It's a wicked disease, and we have to do as much as we can to cure the
disease and prevent others from getting it."
The relay runs from 6 p.m. Saturday to 6 a.m. Sunday at Barrington High School, 616 W. Main St. Teams take turns running,
walking or jogging around the track to demonstrate that "Cancer Never Sleeps."
In Illinois, the 190 Relays this year aim to raise $18 million. The society spends money on programs to help survivors
and their families, and to research the disease. It spends $130 million on research every year.
Its 24-hour help line can provide advice for those suffering from cancer from those who have been there. The society set
Bowman up with others who had undergone similar re-constructive surgery to help her through that process.
"You can talk about anything, any questions you want to ask," Bowman said. "It's a wonderful help line."
Call (800) ACS-2345 or visit www.cancer.org for more information on the Relay For Life and the disease.
Relay: Illinois will have 190 relays to try to raise $18k
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