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BY JAY BOBBIN 'Blue Bloods' lets Len Cariou know when it's time for dinner As long as the members of television's Reagan family gather to eat each week, Len Cariou always will know where his next meal is coming from. As patriarch and former New York police commissioner Henry Reagan, the stage and screen veteran is guaranteed his moment in every episode of the Friday CBS police drama "Blue Bloods." That's true even if Henry's relatives feed him in the hospital – as happened one Thanksgiving – and Cariou finds such scenes special for several reasons. "We're usually done by lunch," he reports. "Because of the kids, we film (those scenes) early. It's the biggest scene in any episode, so it usually takes the most time because you have to cover everybody filmwise. Everybody looks forward to it, though, because we have that time together every week." Cariou believes those scenes appeal to viewers because "they all did this at one time in their lives, sitting around the dinner table with the family. I was in Europe in the spring, and two or three people stopped me on the street and said, 'We love your show. Our whole family watches it because of that scene.' " The dinner sequence has been a staple of "Blue Bloods" right from the pilot episode. "In fact, that was the very first scene we ever shot," Cariou confirms. "Tom (Selleck) and I looked at one another and said, 'Gee, maybe we should wait a day or so, so that at least we all know who we are.' "We made up a scenario about the family pretty quickly, though. We said to (executive producer) Leonard Goldberg and the writers, 'If we know there's going to be a dinner scene, it'll be a special scene every week.' And indeed, that's exactly what it's turned out to be." Now well into the fourth season of "Blue Bloods," Cariou – whose earlier work includes the movie "The Four Seasons" and a Tony-winning stage performance in "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" – has learned a big trick to filming the dinner sequences. "If you're really clever, you don't have to eat at all," he muses, "although when the camera is on you, you can be swallowing something. I think the kids have gotten a few tummy aches." Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway of "Bonnie and Clyde" "Mommie Dearest" Faye Dunaway and William Holden of "Network" 8 The Goshen News • Spotlight TV • December 9-15, 2013 Len Cariou What are you currently reading? "I'm reading Michael Feinstein's book about the Gershwins, because I'm putting together an evening of Gershwin music." What did you have for dinner last night? "I had lobster." What is your next project? "The Gershwin show is really the next thing." When was the last vacation you took – where and why? "I went over to England in May to do a concert honoring (theater producer-director) Harold Prince at the Royal Albert Hall." BEST FAYE DUNAWAY MOVIES BY JAY BOBBIN "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967) Dunaway had made a couple of earlier movies, but this gangster classic announced her arrival loudly and clearly, thanks to producer-star Warren Beatty's casting of her as Bonnie Parker to his Clyde Barrow. "The Thomas Crown Affair" (1968) Alternately headstrong and vulnerable, Dunaway made a perfect almost-foil for Steve McQueen in the original version of this crime caper about a millionaire thief and the insurance investigator on his trail. "Chinatown" (1974) "She's my sister! She's my daughter!" Dunaway takes her hits, literally, as the woman who draws a private eye (Jack Nicholson) into a world of hurt – also literally – in director Roman Polanski's great mystery. "The Towering Inferno" (1974) The stunt players are the true stars here, but Dunaway adds allure to producer Irwin Allen's disaster epic about a fire on opening night of the world's tallest building. "Three Days of the Condor" (1975) Dunaway dials down her on-screen strength as the hostage of a CIA employee (Robert Redford) forced on the lam after his co-workers are all murdered. "Network" (1976) Arguably Dunaway's signature role, the part of an ambitious (to put it very mildly) television executive earned the actress an Oscar for best actress in writer Paddy Chayefsky's eerily omniscient satire. "Eyes of Laura Mars" (1978) The fragility Dunaway sometimes portrays works well for her as a photographer with the ability to see through a killer's eyes. "The Champ" (1979) The father-son relationship evoked by Jon Voight and Ricky Schroder is this update's main selling point, but Dunaway has her moments as the woman in their lives. "The First Deadly Sin" (1980) Dunaway is compelling as the ill wife of a New York cop (Frank Sinatra) nearing retirement but seeking a serial killer. "Mommie Dearest" (1981) For sheer camp, it's hard to do better than Dunaway's portrait of actress Joan Crawford, crystallized by one line: "No wire hangers ... ever!" "The Thomas Crown Affair" (1999) It's stunt casting to a degree, but it's still fun to see Dunaway assume a different role – the title character's (Pierce Brosnan) psychiatrist – in this remake.

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