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GIVEN THE SUCCESS OF TOUCHED by
an Angel, Roma Downey, a star of the weekly CBS drama, can be forgiven
some celestial excess. Take the decor in her trailer near Salt Lake City, where
she waits while filming the exploits of Monica, an apprentice angel out to
spread a simple God-cares-about-you message to troubled Earthlings. Every
manner of angel--many are gifts from fans--flutters about her. There are angels
in pictures on the walls, an angel pillow, an angel mobile twirling above the
sink. Says Downey: "I have angels coming out the wazoo."
These days the actress is feeling blessed in many ways. On June 9, Downey, 33,
and her husband of six months, director David Anspaugh (Hoosiers), are
expecting their first child. The baby was a surprise to the couple, who had no
plans to start a family just yet. Anspaugh, 48, says he experienced "maybe two
seconds of shock" at the news.But now Downey thinks it was "God's way of
saying, `This little baby wants to come to you guys.' " Viewers probably can't
detect Downey's maternal bloom--recent scenes have been filmed from the
shoulders up. "A pregnant angel," says Downey. "It's certainly a first."
Her show seems to be setting a precedent too--for making up ground in the
Nielsen rankings. When Angel started in 1994--costarring Della Reese as
Tess, a saucy angel supervisor--critics gave the show hell. (Variety
called it "a sudsy little weep-along.") Executive-producer Martha Williamson
clipped the computer-generated wings and focused on family values instead
of special effects. But she kept the stars. "Della and Roma have a chemistry
that you can't buy,"says Williamson. The audience agrees: Angel, once
barely airborne at 74 in the ratings, is now a Top 20 hit.
With good things happening to her, Downey says she firmly believes in angels.
"How could I not?" she asks. "It's just that sometimes they come disguised as
friends or family or strangers." Heaven knows, she's needed help at times.
Growing up in the Catholic minority in Derry, Northern Ireland, Downey was the
youngest of six born to Patrick Downey, a schoolteacher, and Maureen, a
homemaker. As a child, Downey became accustomed, she says, to the British
Army's "sandbags and guns."
Violence claimed many in her town, but Downey's deepest sorrows were more
personal. Her mother died of a heart attack when Roma was only 10. Her father's
death from a heart attack 11 years later, while she was studying at Brighton
Art College in England, hit equally hard. "I don't think you ever get over
it,"she says. With her parents gone, though, Downey says she also felt a sense
of liberation, "the freedom to say, `Where should Igo, and what should I do
with my life?' " Realizing she did not want to paint, she turned to acting and
enrolled in the London Drama Studio. During a brief marriage in 1986 to a
fellow student, she moved to New York City to act. Her break came in 1989, when
she was cast opposite Rex Harrison in his final Broadway show, The
Circle. Then in 1991 she starred in the TV miniseries A Woman Named
Jackie. When Angel came along, she found herself touched by the
script. Compared with others she had read, "there was no violence, no bad
language, and Iwouldn't have to take my clothes off," she says. "It was a
breath of fresh air."
Busy preparing for the show in 1994, she had little time for romance --and kept
putting off attempts by a mutual friend to introduce her to Anspaugh. He put
them off too but finally invited Downey to Hal's restaurant in Venice,
Calif., where his resistance melted. "When Ikissed her at midnight,"he says,
"that was it."
He proposed five months later, and the two married last Nov. 24 in Salt Lake
City, where Angel is filmed. Downey's brother Lawrence, 37, gave her
away, and Anspaugh's only child from a prior marriage, Vanessa, 17, was
bridesmaid. Reese gave her co-star the kind of wedding present that only
someone who is an ordained minister and a singer can give: she performed the
ceremony, then entertained the 70 guests after dinner with a jazzy, romantic
set.
The couple own a sunny townhouse in Santa Monica and just bought a rambling
French country home in Salt Lake City, where Downey has already decorated the
nursery. To welcome the baby, Reese plans to tape some lullabies but suggests
that Downey keep mum. "Have you heard Roma sing?" she asks, grimacing. "I don't
want the baby to be tone-deaf."
-- CURTIS RIST
-- CATHY FREE in Salt Lake City
-- PHOTO BY John Storey
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