MY LEADING LADY

Recognize my leading lady?

She's none other than television and movie star Catherine Oxenberg...better known to those who remember the prime time soap opera "Dynasty" as Amanda Carrington. Well, I, personally, picked her to play Anna Leonowens, the English widow who goes to 1862 Bangkok as teacher to the children and wives of Mongkut, the King of Siam.

This is a picture of her as Cassandra Barash, a talk-show hostess, from the 1999 apocalyptic thriller "The Omega Code", which co-starred Michael York as self-made prophet Stone Alexander and her husband Casper Van Dien as motivational expert Dr. Gillen Lane.

When I spoke to Catherine and Casper about the role, Catherine was more than a little shocked...due to the fact that she was going to perform in a musical and she had never sung a note in her life!

Since I already knew about this "problem", I told Catherine that she had three months to learn...and that I was not going to take "no" for an answer.

Catherine sought out one of the best vocal coaches in Los Angeles to help her with what she thought was "the impossible". But, her husband had high hopes that she would succeed.

"If you put your mind to it", he told her, "you can't help but succeed!"

She reminded Casper that he had never sung before.

"Well, comedy is a lot harder to do than any other kind of acting", he said. "I pulled it off several times already".

Realizing what he said was true, Catherine nodded her head and decided that she would give it her all.

I just hope, come opening night, that's enough.