HELLO AGAIN NEIL SIMON HOPES TO REACQUAINT AUDIENCES WITH 'THE GOODBYE GIRL' ON TNT.

Byline: Valerie Kuklenski Staff Writer

As long as there have been Neil Simon scripts, there have been people anxious to remake them, the playwright himself included.

It's easy to understand the temptation. Many have been beloved by critics and the public alike and have made a vast fortune among stage productions of the last 50 years. A few even have endeared themselves in various forms, such as the classic dark comedy ``The Odd Couple,'' which hit it big on Broadway, film and as a TV series.

There have been some bumps along the way, such as the female staging of ``The Odd Couple'' and, in the reckoning of Simon and many theater critics, the 1993 musical version of ``The Goodbye Girl.''

But neither the lukewarm reception for the ``Goodbye Girl'' musical nor the memory of Richard Dreyfuss' best actor Oscar for the 1977 feature were enough to dampen TNT's and Simon's desire to revisit the story of an aging New York dancer and a struggling actor who find romance after circumstances force their co-habitation. The made-for-cable film debuts at 8 p.m. Friday.

TNT unpacked Simon's screenplay from studio mothballs and got the playwright on board for a television treatment. Simon in turn looked to his old friend, Richard Benjamin, to produce and direct. Benjamin, with Simon's enthusiastic approval, put Emmy winner Patricia Heaton and Jeff Daniels into the roles originated by Marsha Mason and Dreyfuss.

Michael Wright, TNT's senior vice president of movies and miniseries, said certain movies that are perfectly rendered or suited only to their time are off limits to producers. But audiences come and go. We may be in the fourth generation since the advent of motion pictures from an anthropologist's view, but many more generations have passed in the eyes of demographic-conscious entertainment executives.

``As Neil Simon said to me ... : 'Well, nobody under the age of 40 ever saw the first one, so why not?' '' Wright said.

Heaton, 45, said ``The Goodbye Girl'' was one of the first `'grown-up'' movies she saw, having her entertainment choices previously restricted by her parents. She said she found it heart-warming and jumped at the chance to be in a remake.

``It's very real,'' said Heaton, who put in time herself as a struggling New York performer before series success with ``Everybody Loves Raymond.'' ``Paula doesn't have a dancing career left. What little career she had is now rapidly becoming out of her reach, and yet she has this daughter to support. And she had a husband who left her and now a boyfriend who left her.''

The last thing Paula McFadden is looking for is another man in her life, least of all an actor, when Elliot Garfield shows up late one night, an out-of-towner who holds a sublet lease on the apartment she and daughter Lucy (Hallie Kate Eisenberg) have been sharing with Paula's just-departed boyfriend. Elliot has been cast in the title role in an off-Broadway production of ``Richard III,'' which he believes will be his long-awaited big break.

``Elliot is a guy who's got this one shot at stardom and it looks like it's going to blow up in his face,'' Heaton said. ``So you've got two sort of desperate people who are kind of losers, and I don't know anybody who doesn't feel that way in their life, or hasn't been in that place. It's a very human story, and it's very universal, those feelings of, you're just looking for your little piece of happiness on Earth for this short time that we're here.''

Finances being tight for both, they agree to share the two-bedroom flat. He chants in the morning and plays guitar in the nude in the middle of the night; she keeps him beyond arm's length by addressing him through clenched teeth as ``Mr. Garfield.''

``I so relate to Paula because, although I didn't have a child, I was struggling as an actor and never really got a solid foothold and neither has she,'' Heaton said. ``The running joke in this is she's always doing revivals - she's never in an original production. And she's dating all the wrong guys and they're all actors, and I did the same thing.

``And I also ended up marrying one who I disliked intensely when I first met him,'' she said with a laugh. ``So I had to do no research for this part whatsoever. And my story turned out great too.'' (She has been married to David Hunt for 13 years and they have four sons.)

Benjamin recalls his own tough start in show business, heading from drama school at Northwestern University in 1960 to cattle-call auditions in New York while his bride, Paula Prentiss, was launching her career as a Hollywood movie star.

``It was four horrible years which, in the great scheme of things, is very short,'' he said. ``But not while it's going on it isn't, because you don't know the end. It's not like, OK, I've been doing this two years and in two years I'm going to get a really good job. You don't know any of that.

``It's just horrible. And you're walking around with your picture and resume and people are throwing you out, especially in New York, or just dumping your picture in the garbage,'' Benjamin said.

But he said ``The Goodbye Girl'' has relevance to viewers who have no acquaintance with life in the theater.

``It's the dumper, the dumpee, whoever it happens to, the walking out, that's the universal part, and falling in love,'' Benjamin said. ``And then coming to New York to make it. Whether it's the theater or newspapers or business or teaching or whatever, New York is the city of professionals. It culls off and makes the people the top of whatever form they are. It just demands that.''

Simon said the project has legs because ``people like to watch characters in trouble and work it out.''

He did only minor tinkering with the screenplay, leaving in an archaic reference to bicarb for lack of a better stomach remedy coming to mind but adding a line that includes CNN and ESPN. With much of the action taking place inside an old New York walk-up, he said the characters did not mix with the outside world in a way that compelled dialogue updates.

But Simon, 76, admits it would have gone against his nature to throw in references to laptops, e-mail or cell phones.

``It's harder for me to write about today's world because I don't speak that language,'' Simon said.

For Heaton, the movie's timeless appeal lies in the very credible path the characters take on their way to learning they are meant for each other.

``In all our lives there are so many stumbling blocks that get in the way or that we put there, which is what happens to Paula and Elliot,'' she said. ``And then there's that moment of grace where, somehow, you can get beyond all that and find that little bit of love and find that little bit of happiness.

``You can see that nothing's ever going to be perfect with them, but at least they have each other. For once it works out.''

Valerie Kuklenski, [phone]

valerie.kuklenski(at)dailynews.com

THE GOODBYE GIRL

What: Remake of the Neil Simon romantic comedy about a pair of struggling performers who go from being awkward roommates to lovers.

Where: TNT.

When: 8 p.m. Friday, replaying 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. (TCM airs the original film at 7 p.m. Thursday.)

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) Jeff Daniels and Patricia Heaton bring to television Neil Simon's ``The Goodbye Girl,'' which has previously seen life as a play, movie and musical.

(2) Heaton says she had much in common with her character in ``The Goodbye Girl.'' ``I was struggling as an actor and never really got a solid foothold and neither has she.''

David Sprague/Staff Photographer