AFTER ALL THIS, STILL THE UNKNOWN ELEANOR.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

Eleanor Roosevelt left upon the 20th century an imprint as indelible as that of her husband's, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. How disappointing, then, that she receive such perfunctory documentary treatment from PBS' ``The American Experience'' series.

Roosevelt grew up in a profoundly troubled, unhappy family, bedeviled by alcoholism and illnesses both physical and mental. She married a charismatic womanizer who, in the ultimate position of power, essentially hid a crippling illness from the entire country. They lived lives that were essentially separate yet intractably linked, mutually beneficial to one another.

She initiated programs aiding the Depression-hammered poor; her husband presided over America's involvement in World War II. She befriended women and significantly younger men in relationships that raised eyebrows, if not the enmity of her detractors. After the death of her husband, she helped painstakingly charter the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights and championed civil rights in the South. Yet her children seemed to be unhappy underachievers, resentful of their parents' perceived lack of attention toward them.

Given such a cast of characters and series of events, it's curious that ``The American Experience: Eleanor Roosevelt'' is such a bloodless exercise, an ``educational tool'' that tidily, meticulously separates its subjects' humanity from their history.

Eleanor's celebrated, oft-recounted history is delivered by writer-director Sue Williams at an overly protracted length spanning more than 2 1/2 hours. But the fascinating glimpses it does offer into the Roosevelts' lives - rare home movies, personal letters and notes from J. Edgar Hoover's FBI files - are offset by dispassionate interviews and a reluctance to too deeply explore their emotional landscapes. The telling detail that would humanize Eleanor seems just out of reach: We're not shown what prompted Hoover to disgustedly scribble ``This is nauseating'' on a precis about her - was it a questionable dalliance or her righteous civil-rights views?

For another example, Eleanor, who had already discovered one of her husband's affairs, left him in Georgia with another secretary to rehabilitate from the effects of polio. She remained with friends from the women's division of New York's Democratic Party, in a home Franklin had had built just for her. This documentary merely allows, ``It was an unusual arrangement.'' Sure, one that today would make the Clintons look like mere pikers.

Later she had a close relationship with a lesbian reporter, Lorena Hickok. The documentary is content to dismiss speculation over whether the relationship was sexual in nature by having a granddaughter say, ``My feeling about that is, who cares?'' Well, for starters, the gay community might enjoy less prejudice and greater acceptance if it were well known that the most respected woman of the 20th century had sympathies for, or even numbered herself among, homosexuals.

And when a daughter arranged for a mistress, and not Eleanor, to be by FDR's side at his death, the motivation for such a betrayal goes unexplained here. Certainly there's been enough, and well-deserved, writing about Eleanor Roosevelt. Why not provide a more well-rounded portrait? Sorting out the human amid the towering achievements would no doubt make her all the more impressive.

THE FACTS

--The show: ``The American Experience: Eleanor Roosevelt''

--What: Documentary on the legendary first lady.

--Who: Narrated by Alfre Woodard.

--Where: KCET.

--When: 9 tonight.

--Our rating: Two and one-half stars

CAPTION(S):

4 photos, box

Photo: (1 -- 4) From top, Eleanor Roosevelt as a child, in 1903 at the age of 19, at the time of her marriage in 1905, and as first lady in 1936.

Box: THE FACTS (see text)