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      To Keep TV Shows Afloat, Some Networks Are Cutting Actors’ Pay

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      In a shrinking business, actors on some shows are being guaranteed less money, an issue that’s helping to fuel the Hollywood strike.Starring on the CBS sitcom “Bob Hearts Abishola” has been good for Bayo Akinfemi. Being a regular cast member for four years has given him financial security and made him a star in his native Nigeria, where the show is wildly popular. It even helped him branch out from acting, when producers gave him the opportunity to direct an episode.But Mr. Akinfemi and 10 of his castmates were told this year that the only way the half-hour show was going to get a fifth season was if budgets were cut. How the actors were paid was going to change.No longer would they be guaranteed pay for all 22 episodes of a season. Instead, Mr. Akinfemi and his castmates would be reclassified as recurring cast members. They would be paid the same amount per episode, but unlike regular cast members, they would be paid only for the episodes in which they appeared and would be guaranteed only five of those in a truncated 13-episode season, once the actors’ strike was over and performers returned to work. (Only Billy Gardell, who plays the white middle-aged businessman Bob, and Folake Olowofoyeku, who plays Abishola, the Nigerian nurse he loves, will remain series regulars.)“It was a bit surprising, for all of 10 seconds,” Mr. Akinfemi said in an interview before SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, went on strike. “We are disappointed, but we also understand at the end of the day it’s a business.”For decades, actors playing supporting characters on successful network television shows have been able to renegotiate their contracts in later seasons and reap financial windfalls. But this is a new era for network TV.It’s a business that has been struggling with depressed ratings, decreased advertising revenue and fierce competition from streaming services, resulting in millions of viewers cutting their cable subscriptions. And one way networks and production companies are trying to deal with the changing economics is to ask the casts of some long-running shows to take pay cuts.“Bob Hearts Abishola” was not the only show facing budget cuts, Channing Dungey, the chairwoman and chief executive of Warner Bros. Television Studios, said. David Livingston/Getty Images“The glory days of linear television are sadly behind us,” said Channing Dungey, the chairwoman and chief executive of Warner Bros. Television Studios, the studio behind “Bob Hearts Abishola.”This new reality in network television is one of the reasons behind the Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes. Those on strike say the economics of the streaming era have effectively reduced their pay and cut into money they get from residuals, a type of royalty. The studios say they aren’t making the kind of money they used to, meaning that they’re having to shave costs wherever they can.The sides are at a standstill. The writers haven’t spoken to the studios since going out on strike on May 2, and the actors haven’t since walking out on July 14. No negotiations are scheduled.“Blue Bloods,” a CBS drama starring Tom Selleck, is returning for its 14th season only because the entire cast agreed to a 25 percent pay cut when the strike is over. On the CW network, “Superman & Lois,” which is entering its fourth season, and “All American: Homecoming,” which is hanging on for a third season, saw their budgets cut and cast members reduced to day players or eliminated.Not even the juggernaut represented by Dick Wolf’s lineup of shows on NBC is immune. A number of the actors on shows like “Chicago P.D.” and “Chicago Fire” are being guaranteed appearances in fewer episodes for the coming season, according to two people familiar with the productions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.“This is something that’s happening across the board,” Ms. Dungey said, adding that CBS wanted to renew “Bob Hearts Abishola” only if Warner Bros. was able to produce it for the network at a reduced cost. “There are a number of different shows, both on CBS and elsewhere, where the same kinds of considerations are coming into play.”CBS and NBC declined to comment.Word of the salary adjustments for “Bob Hearts Abishola” came out in late April, just days before SAG-AFTRA authorized its strike with a 97.9 percent vote in favor.“This is the beginning of the end for working-class actors,” the actress Ever Carradine, who has been in shows like “Commander in Chief” on ABC and Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” wrote on Twitter at the time. “I have never worked harder in my career to make less money, and I am not alone.”Today, first-time series regulars often earn anywhere from $20,000 to $50,000 an episode, depending on the budget of the show, the size of the role, and the studio or network that’s footing the bill. Commissions for agents and management are subtracted from those sums.To some, the recent reductions are an inevitable correction from the era of peak television, when studios were eager to lure talent with lucrative contracts. Some executives argue that paring back salaries will ultimately allow more shows to be made, at a more reasonable price.Network shows do not draw anywhere close to the viewer numbers they did when 20 million people were watching “Seinfeld” and “Friends” every week in the 1990s.At the end of its fourth season, “Bob Hearts Abishola” was averaging 6.9 million viewers per episode, according to Nielsen’s Live +35 metric, which measures the first 35 days of viewing on both linear and digital platforms. Hits had bigger audiences, like CBS’s “Ghosts,” which averaged 11 million viewers over 35 days, and ABC’s “Abbott Elementary,” which averaged 9.1 million.But the rise of streaming has cannibalized network television on a scale the networks weren’t prepared for, and not even scaling back on scripted offerings has been enough to stem the bleeding. “Bob Hearts Abishola” is one of four prime-time scripted comedies left on CBS.“It is hard now to get shows to Seasons 5 and beyond, but it doesn’t mean that it can’t happen,” Ms. Dungey said. “It just is less likely to happen as often as it did in the past.”Yet the new reality means actors must decide whether to remain on a show at a reduced rate but with some job security or leave to see if they can find other jobs.The management team for Kelly Jenrette, an actress on the CW’s “All American: Homecoming,” told the trade publication Deadline that she had chosen to become a recurring character rather than “opt for a return as a series regular on reduced episodic guarantees.”Ms. Jenrette declined to be interviewed because, she said, she was told that doing so would violate the actors’ union’s ban on promoting projects associated with struck companies. The CW declined to comment.For some, the pride they take in their shows is also an enticement to stay. On “Bob Hearts Abishola,” Mr. Akinfemi plays Goodwin, an employee of Bob’s compression sock company who was on his way to becoming an economics professor in Nigeria before he left the country.Fans have stopped him in the Nigerian airport, in the streets of Toronto, even at the CVS near his home in Los Angeles to marvel that whole scenes of the show are spoken in Mr. Akinfemi’s native Yoruba tongue. (He also serves as the language consultant for the sitcom.)“The idea that there could be a show like this that really showcases Nigerian culture, it’s just unfathomable,” Mr. Akinfemi said. “That we are really representing Nigerian culture as accurately as possible and in a positive light, on American television, is mind-blowing to a lot of Nigerians and Africans.”He and the 10 other cast members affected by the pay changes on “Bob Hearts Abishola” all chose to stay.“These actors are attached to good, important, groundbreaking work,” said Tash Moseley, Mr. Akinfemi’s manager. “I think they knew that the actors would come back and do it no matter what.” More

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      in Theater

      A Stage Adaptation of ‘Smash’ Is Setting Its Sights on Broadway

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      Producers including Steven Spielberg have been exploring several possible incarnations of the decade-old TV series. Now they have a plan.A long-discussed stage musical version of the television series “Smash” is finally coming to Broadway … but fans are going to have to wait a bit more.The adaptation’s producers, who include Steven Spielberg, announced Wednesday that they expect to bring the show to Broadway during the 2024-25 theater season. They said the musical will be directed by Susan Stroman, a five-time Tony winner whose latest endeavor, “New York, New York,” starts previews on Friday.The “Smash” musical will be based on the two-season series, broadcast on NBC in 2012 and 2013, about a group of New York City theater artists struggling to bring “Bombshell,” a musical about Marilyn Monroe, to the stage. The show, with plenty of soap-style backstage drama and exuberant production numbers, was dreamed up by Spielberg, developed by Robert Greenblatt and created by Theresa Rebeck, and, although its TV run was canceled because of declining ratings, it retains a passionate fan base.“It’s crazy that we’re still talking ‘Smash,’ but not a week has gone by where somebody doesn’t tell me they miss the show, so it’s kind of great to be seeing it in another incarnation,” said Neil Meron, who was an executive producer of the TV series.Meron and Greenblatt, who will produce the adaptation with Spielberg, said the stage version would be funnier than the television show, and that it would include some of the same characters, but also new ones, and would be set in the present day.“It’s a backstage comedy about the putting on of a Marilyn Monroe musical,” Meron said, while Greenblatt’s summation was: “We’ve been calling it a comedy about a musical.”The musical will feature a score by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, including songs they wrote for the television series as well as new ones; the team is best known for the Tony-winning score of “Hairspray” and is represented on Broadway this season by “Some Like It Hot.” The book will be written by Rick Elice (“Jersey Boys”) and Bob Martin (“The Drowsy Chaperone”). Joshua Bergasse, who choreographed the television series, will do the same for the stage show.The producers oversaw a developmental reading of the script about a year ago, and said they expect more workshops before the move to Broadway. The long lead time was needed to accommodate the schedules of the creative team, they said; casting has not yet been determined.“Every few years the show comes back into our lives, and now we’re excited to go on a new adventure with it,” Greenblatt said.The creative team has always imagined there would be a path from the television show to the stage, but its form has changed over time. In 2013 there was a concert performance of songs from “Hit List,” the musical that was a subject of the second season, and in 2015 an effort to develop a Broadway adaptation of “Bombshell,” the musical that was the subject of the first season, was announced after a concert performance of songs from that show.But then in 2020, the current producers announced that they would develop a loose adaptation of the series itself, rather than working with one of the musicals-within-the-television-show.“What we didn’t want to do was just put the TV series onstage — we wanted our own spin on it,” Meron said. “We are very conscious of our fan base, and very conscious that there’s a new audience that’s never been exposed to ‘Smash’ before. So our take is more comedic and more of a love letter to Broadway.” More

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      in Movies

      Jerrod Carmichael to Host Golden Globes as Broadcast Returns From Scandal

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      The tarnished ceremony will air on NBC in January after questions were raised about the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s diversity and ethics.The stand-up comedian Jerrod Carmichael will serve as host of the Golden Globes next month, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced Thursday. It’s the first time the tarnished film and television awards ceremony will be broadcast since a 2021 scandal over the ethics and diversity of the H.F.P.A., the group behind the Globes.Carmichael may be best known for his critically acclaimed HBO stand-up special “Rothaniel,” in which he came out as gay. He also was the star of an NBC sitcom, “The Carmichael Show,” that ran from 2015 to 2017.The Globes are trying to re-establish themselves as a must-watch evening. While the awards were never an indication of Oscar voters’ mind-set, the ceremony did provide studios and stars a high-profile opportunity to campaign before the Academy Awards. Or at least that was the case until 2021, when investigations by The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times revealed the nonprofit group’s lack of diversity (at the time it had no Black members) as well as members’ high compensation.NBC canceled the show later that year, and a much-reduced version of the ceremony was held last January. It was not broadcast; instead, at a Beverly Hilton ballroom where no stars were present, the winners were announced and then tweeted out.Since the articles appeared, the H.F.P.A. has taken steps to include more journalists of color and to tighten its ethics rules. This year, the group sold the Golden Globes to a private company, Eldridge Industries, owned by Todd Boehly, that also bought Dick Clark Productions, producer of the ceremony. In September, NBC said it would air the 2023 show in a one-year test.It remains to be seen who will show up for the ceremony, which once was known as an off-the-cuff affair. Brendan Fraser, the star of “The Whale” and a strong contender this awards season, has said he will not attend if nominated. In 2018, he said he had been groped in 2003 by a then-member of the H.F.P.A., who denied the allegation.The nominations for the Golden Globes will be announced Monday, and the telecast is set for Jan. 10. More

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      in Television

      2022 Emmy Winners: Updating List

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      The list of winners for the 74th annual Emmy Awards.[Follow live updates of the 2022 Emmy Awards here.]The 74th Emmy Awards are being broadcast live now from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles — and streaming live for the first time on Peacock.Similar to last year, the ceremony will be largely in-person and reminiscent of prepandemic award shows. Kenan Thompson, who won an Emmy in 2018 for his work on “Saturday Night Live,” is hosting.HBO’s satirical family drama “Succession” is up for the most awards, with 25 nominations including for best drama. At the Creative Arts Emmys, which was held over two ceremonies this month, it picked up its first award: outstanding casting for a drama series.The Apple TV+ sitcom “Ted Lasso” is up for 20 awards, including for best comedy and for best actor in a comedy for its lead, Jason Sudeikis. And “The White Lotus” is this year’s most nominated limited series, with 20 nods.The list below will be updated throughout Monday night’s ceremony.These are this year’s Emmy winners so far.Best Actor, Limited Series or TV MovieMichael Keaton, “Dopesick”Supporting Actress, DramaJulia Garner, “Ozark”Supporting Actor, DramaMatthew Macfadyen, “Succession”Supporting Actor, Limited Series or MovieMurray Bartlett, “The White Lotus”Documentary Or Nonfiction Series“The Beatles: Get Back” (Disney+)Documentary Or Nonfiction Special“George Carlin’s American Dream” (HBO)Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series“Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” (HBO)Outstanding Variety Special, Pre-Recorded“Adele One Night Only” (CBS)Outstanding Variety Special (Live)“The Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show” (NBC) More

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      in Television

      The nominations are being announced right now. Here’s where to watch.

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      J.B. Smoove (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”) and Melissa Fumero (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine”) are announcing the nominees virtually.Nominations for the 74th Emmy Awards are being announced, in a virtual presentation hosted by J.B. Smoove (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”) and Melissa Fumero (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine”). The presentation can be live-streamed here.Winners of this year’s Emmys will be unveiled during a prime-time ceremony on NBC and the streaming service Peacock, on Sept. 12. NBC has not yet announced a host.More than 17,000 members of the Television Academy will be able to vote for the biggest awards, including best drama, comedy and limited series. Eligible shows for this year’s Emmys had to premiere between June 2021 and May 2022. More

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      in Television

      Ken Bode, Erudite ‘Washington Week’ Host on PBS, Dies at 83

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      Beginning in 1994, he brought to the moderator’s role credentials as a political activist, an academic and a national correspondent for NBC News.Ken Bode, a bearded, bearish former political operative and television correspondent who, armed with a Ph.D. in politics, moderated the popular PBS program “Washington Week in Review” in the 1990s, died on Thursday in Charlotte, N.C. He was 83.His death, in a care center, was confirmed by his daughters, Matilda and Josie Bode, who said the cause had not been identified.Beginning in 1994, Mr. Bode (pronounced BO-dee) coupled congeniality and knowledgeability in steering a Friday night discussion among a rotating panel of reporters about the issues of the day coming out of Washington. His role, as he saw it, was to “bring in people who are really covering the news to empty their notebooks and provide perspective, not to argue with each other,” he told The Washington Post in 1999.As host of the program, now called “Washington Week,” he succeeded Paul Duke, who had helmed that roundtable of polite talking heads for two decades, and preceded Gwen Ifill, a former NBC News correspondent who died in 2016 at 61. The program, which debuted in 1967, is billed as TV’s longest-running prime time news and public affairs program. The current host is Yamiche Alcindor.The program’s loyal and generally older viewers were so brass-bound in the 1990s that when Mr. Bode took over, even his beard proved controversial. He proceeded to introduce videotaped segments and remote interviews with correspondents and bring more diversity to his panel of reporters.He also took more liberties with language than his predecessor.Mr. Bode moderating an episode of “Washington Week in Review.” He hosted the program from 1994 to 1999 while teaching politics at DePauw University in Indiana. PBSEnding an interview with Bob Woodward of The Washington Post about President Bill Clinton’s economic policies, Mr. Bode quoted a British newspaper’s snarky prediction that the president’s impending visit to Oxford, England, would present people with an opportunity to “focus on one of the president’s less well-publicized organs: his brain.” He described a vacancy on the Supreme Court as constituting “one-ninth of one-third of the government.”Still, Dalton Delan, then the newly-minted executive vice president of WETA in Washington, which continues to produce the program, wanted to invigorate the format. He proposed including college journalists, surprise guests and people-on-the-street interviews and replacing Mr. Bode with Ms. Ifill (she said she initially turned down the offer) — changes that prompted Mr. Bode to jump, or to be not so gently pushed, from the host’s chair in 1999.Kenneth Adlam Bode was born on March 30, 1939, in Chicago and raised in Hawarden, Iowa. His father, George, owned a dairy farm and then a dry cleaning business. His mother, June (Adlam) Bode, kept the books.Mr. Bode in his office in 1972, when he was involved in Democratic politics.George Tames/The New York TimesThe first member of his family to attend college, Mr. Bode majored in philosophy and government at the University of South Dakota, graduating in 1961. He went on to earn a doctorate in political science at the University of North Carolina, where he was active in the civil rights movement.He taught briefly at Michigan State University and the State University of New York at Binghamton, and then gravitated toward liberal politics.In 1968, Mr. Bode worked in the presidential campaigns of Senators Eugene McCarthy and George S. McGovern. He became research director for a Democratic Party commission, led by Mr. McGovern and Representative Donald M. Fraser of Minnesota, that advocated for reforms in the selection process for delegates to the 1972 Democratic National Convention. He later headed a liberal-leaning organization called the Center for Political Reform.His marriage to Linda Yarrow ended in divorce. In 1975, he married Margo Hauff, a high school social studies teacher who wrote and designed educational materials for learning-disabled children. He is survived by her, in addition to their daughters, as well as by a brother and two grandsons.After working in politics, Mr. Bode began writing for The New Republic in the early 1970s and became its politics editor. He moved to NBC News in 1979, encouraged by the network’s newsman Tom Brokaw, a friend from college, and eventually became the network’s national political correspondent. In that role he hosted “Bode’s Journal,” a weekly segment of the “Today” show, on which he explored, among other issues, voting rights violations, racial discrimination and patronage abuses, as his longtime producer Jim Connor recalled in an interview.Mr. Bode left the network a decade later to teach at DePauw University in Indiana, where he founded the Center for Contemporary Media. While at DePauw, from 1989 to 1998, he commuted to Washington to host “Washington Week in Review” and wrote an Emmy-winning CNN documentary, “The Public Mind of George Bush” (1992).Beginning in 1998, he was dean of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism for three years and remained a professor there until 2004.Mr. Bode said he retired from broadcast journalism for family reasons. “I was raising my kids from 100 airports a year,” he said. As he told The New York Times in 1999, “I knew then that my problem was, I’ve got the best job, but I’ve also got one chance to be a father, and I’m losing it.” More

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      in Music

      ‘American Song Contest’ Puts a Stateside Spin on Eurovision

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      Stars vs. hopefuls. State vs. state. Eurovision fans will recognize the format of NBC’s new original song competition. For everyone else, here’s a primer.Hosted by Kelly Clarkson and Snoop Dogg, the eight-week reality competition “American Song Contest,” scheduled to premiere Monday on NBC, is totally new.Its format, however, will be familiar to millions of people across the Atlantic: The show emulates the Eurovision Song Contest, in which countries duke it out in a singing battle for pop supremacy. Eurovision catapulted ABBA’s career in 1974, and the most recent winner, the Italian glam-rock band Maneskin, has gone on to achieve global fame, appearing in January as the musical guest on “Saturday Night Live.”ABBA’s victory in the Eurovision Song Contest of 1974 catapulted the group into international stardom. Robert Dear/Associated PressThe American version will largely follow the Eurovision template, including the live broadcasts. “We are very literal,” the executive producer Ben Silverman, who helped translate “The Office” into American and pursued the Eurovision rights for years, said last week by phone.Fine, but that does not help NBC viewers much since Americans are largely unaware of Eurovision’s intricacies. The headline? “American Song Contest” is not “American Idol” or “The Voice.” It is, in many ways, more layered than those shows — and more combustible: a state-vs.-state, stars-vs.-hopefuls showdown in which group and solo artists compete for the title of Best Original Song.So those are the basics. But in this time of Red State/Blue State polarization, can America handle Jewel (Alaska) squaring off against Michael Bolton (Connecticut)? Sisqó (Maryland) against … Jake’O (Wisconsin)? Let’s dive into the fun stuff.Where are the contestants from?With 56 entries encompassing 50 states plus five territories and the District of Columbia, “American Song Contest” has even more contestants than Eurovision, whose 2022 edition, in May, will feature 40 countries ranging from tiny San Marino (pop. around 34,000) to the much larger Germany (83 million). The scope is similar here: Sabyu, from the Northern Mariana Islands (pop. 47,000), will rub elbows with Sweet Taboo, representing California (nearly 40 million people).Whereas each European country independently selects its entry, the American show’s team relied on a network of music-industry insiders. “We went through the professional community to spread the news; we spent a lot of time having conversations, making sure people really understood what this was,” the executive producer and showrunner Audrey Morrissey (a veteran of “The Voice”) said by phone. “We had a big submission process that lasted for months, with several rounds of review.”Will I know any of the songs?No, because they have to be new. Contestants don’t have to write their own material, though — this is not a singer-songwriter contest.A key criterion is that the songs cannot be longer than 2 minutes 45 seconds, which is shorter than Eurovision’s three minutes. “It’s right to the point, pow!” said Christer Björkman, one of four Swedish Eurovision experts brought in as executive producers and a former Eurovision competitor, from 1992. “The contestants really need to nail it from the beginning with energy and everything.”Wait, what are Jewel and Michael Bolton doing there?“All those people wanted to be on the show,” Silverman said of the American celebrities. “They wanted to represent their state. And they earned it with their songs,” he added, pointing out that it will be fun to watch famous people go head-to-head with up-and-comers like the Brooklyn singer-songwriter Enisa, who represents New York. Once again this is true to the Eurovision format.The singer-songwriter Jewel will represent her home state of Alaska.Duane Prokop/Getty Images Michael Bolton will represent Connecticut.Phillip Faraone/Getty ImagesCelebrities and hopefuls alike must have a strong connection to their state or territory. Bolton, for example, was born and has spent most of his life in Connecticut; Jewel grew up in famously tough conditions in Alaska. And if Oklahoma is represented by a K-pop singer, AleXa, well, that’s because she is from there.“It is different to say, ‘I’m not here to get a record contract or become a star — I’m here to represent my home and I’m proud to do that,’” said Anders Lenhoff, another member of the Swedish special-ops executive producing team, in a joint video interview with Björkman. “We see it in Eurovision all the time but there are no shows like that in the U.S.”How does the elimination process work?The first five episodes, referred to as “qualifiers,” introduce 11 of the songs per show (one busy week will have 12). Through those early rounds, the 56 entries will be progressively winnowed down to 22, which are then split into two semifinals of 11 each. Another vote sends five performers from each semi to the grand finale, on May 9.Viewers will be invited to vote, and the results will be balanced against the votes of a 56-person jury representing all the participating constituencies. Jurors are not permitted to vote for their own states or territories.Do bigger states have an advantage?“The great thing about this format,” Morrissey said, “which we remained faithful to from Eurovision, is that there is no advantage for an artist and a song coming from a more populous state.” Eliminations are made based on a complex points system in which, according to NBC, “every state and territory votes with equal power, regardless of population.”Anyway, as Morrissey noted, “There might be more people voting that know people from Texas than they do Guam, but they haven’t heard that song from Guam yet — it might steal their hearts.”In addition to the 50 states, the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories have also put forth competitors, including Jason J., who represents Guam.NBCThe history of Eurovision (where, admittedly, the voting rules have changed many times over the years) tends to confirm that the votes seem relatively fair: Ireland has won the contest a record seven times whereas France, with roughly 13 times Ireland’s population, has only five.Which is to say: Don’t yet rule out Wyoming.Will there be outlandish contestants?Eurovision is famous for some, er, eccentric entries — this year’s competition will include such numbers as “Give That Wolf a Banana” and “Eat Your Salad,” which live up to their titles. It is natural to wonder whether “American Song Contest” will honor that tradition as well. “We have the diversity of America and the diversity of American music represented,” Silverman said. “One person’s cliché is another person’s truth. Some of them are self-aware, some of them aren’t.”We’ll take that as a yes. More

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      in Movies

      Farrah Forke, Who Played a Helicopter Pilot on ‘Wings,’ Dies at 54

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      Forke, the namesake of a not-yet-famous family friend named Farrah Fawcett, played Alex Lambert on three seasons of the popular sitcom, a fixture of the NBC schedule in the 1990s.Farrah Forke, the actress who catapulted to fame playing a helicopter pilot on the NBC sitcom “Wings,” died at her home in Texas on Friday. She was 54.Her death was confirmed by her mother, Beverly Talmage, who said in a statement that her daughter had had cancer for several years.Forke played the alluring pilot Alex Lambert on three seasons of “Wings,” which aired from 1990 to 1997 and followed the adventures of the offbeat characters at a small airport on Nantucket.Her character’s affections were battled over by Joe and Brian Hackett (Tim Daly and Steven Weber), brothers who ran a one-plane airline.On Instagram, Weber described Forke as “every bit as tough, fun, beautiful and grounded as her character ‘Alex’ on Wings.”Farrah Rachael Forke was born on Jan. 12, 1968, in Corpus Christi, Texas, to Chuck Forke and Beverly (Mendleski) Forke. She was named after Farrah Fawcett, a family friend who wasn’t a well-known actress at the time Forke was born.“They just liked the name,” Forke told The Dallas Morning News in 1993.Forke began her acting career with a role in a Texas production of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” In 1989, she moved to New York, where she studied acting at the Lee Strasberg Theater & Film Institute in Manhattan.Her acting career took off when she joined “Wings” as the smart and saucy Alex.“I don’t mind playing pretty women,” Forke told The Dallas Morning News. “But I do mind playing bimbos. Alex is definitely a sexy woman. But she’s also focused, and there’s a lot of qualities about her that people will admire.”The show, which was created by the “Cheers” and “Frasier” writers David Angell, Peter Casey and David Lee, ran for 172 episodes and was a mainstay of the NBC schedule for years. The show also starred Crystal Bernard, Tony Shalhoub and Thomas Haden Church.From 1994 to 1995, Forke had a recurring role as the lawyer Mayson Drake on “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman” on ABC.Her other television acting roles included “Dweebs,” “Mr. Rhodes” and “Party of Five.” After making her film debut in “Brain Twisters” in 1991, she appeared in “Disclosure” (1994), directed by Barry Levinson, and “Heat” (1995), directed by Michael Mann.Later in her career, she supplied the voice of Big Barda on the DC Animated Universe television series “Batman Beyond” and “Justice League Unlimited.”Forke had health problems related to leakage from her silicone breast implants, which she had implanted in 1989. She had them removed in 1993 and then filed a lawsuit a year later against the manufacturer and her doctor for damages, noting that neither the implant makers nor her doctor properly warned her of possible complications, according to The Associated Press.In addition to her mother, Forke is survived by her twin sons, Chuck and Wit Forke; her stepfather, Chuck Talmage; and three sisters, Paige Inglis, Jennifer Sailor and Maggie Talmage.Kirsten Noyes More