NO PAIN, NO 'RAIN' JEAN SMART DELIVERS A DIFFERENT KIND OF MOTHER'S DAY MOVIE.

Byline: Valerie Kuklenski Staff Writer

THE HALLMARK brand is one of the great economic engines of Mother's Day, so it is to be expected that the Hallmark Channel would mark the holiday with the premiere of a Mother's Day-themed movie.

But ``Audrey's Rain'' is not an ordinary Mother's Day movie. For one thing, the main characters do not answer to ``Mom,'' nor to ``Dad'' for that matter.

Jean Smart, best known as Charlene on ``Designing Women'' and more recently recognized with back-to-back Emmys for her guest role on ``Frasier,'' plays Audrey Walker, a single woman who for decades has been looking after her mentally disabled sister, Marguerite (Kathleen Wilhoite). She more recently took charge of her niece and nephew (Kristina Malota and Angus T. Jones) after Audrey's other sister, Bess, committed suicide.

Audrey's mother died young, and she expects she will too, so she spends her free time dressed in black, running from one funeral to another in search of the best preacher to deliver her eulogy.

Enter Terry Lloyd, Audrey's one true love, whose marriage proposal she turned down long ago because of her family obligations. Terry is widowed and has returned to town to help his sister sell her house and move. He is played by Richard Gilliland, Smart's husband of nearly 16 years.

``At first you sort of think it's this story about this woman who has to take care of her niece and nephew because her sister committed suicide, and she has another sister who's autistic, and you're thinking, 'Oh, this sounds like a barrel of laughs,' '' Smart said. ``Not that that's not a valid story. Unfortunately more people's lives are probably similar to that than we imagine.

``But it's a romantic comedy with some rather harsh overtones to the story,'' she said. ``She does finally become a mother in a sense. Through rediscovering this love from a long time ago, she allows herself to love and be loved by these children.''

Smart and Gilliland met while making ``Designing Women,'' although he played Annie Potts' boyfriend and had few lines to exchange with Smart. They made another TV movie about 10 years ago, ``Just My Imagination,'' that put Gilliland in a supporting role. ``Audrey's Rain'' is their first time to appear as romantic leads since performing the play ``It Had to Be You'' in Santa Barbara in 1987.

``In some ways, you think this is easier with a stranger in a funny way because you sort of started from scratch,'' Smart said of the characters' intimacy. ``There isn't a bunch of other stuff cluttering it up.

``But it seemed the most natural thing in the world,'' she said. ``The only part that seemed funny was laying in a blanket in the orchard and making out, and the crew's watching. We thought, 'This isn't right.'

``A couple of the girls on the crew said, 'I should turn away. It just didn't seem right, knowing you guys are married.' And I was thinking the same thing, where I'm kissing him and I'm thinking I should be kissing a total stranger. It's very odd. It's like peering in someone's bedroom, I guess.''

Gilliland said he and Smart both appreciated that ``Audrey's Rain'' is not ``a sappy love story,'' and that it involves romance between two people past the hard-body time of life.

``It was refreshing to both of us immediately that it deals with a couple in the middle-age area, not 30 or less - and even 30 these days seems to be a little long in the tooth - but real people that aren't 28 or 30, their struggles and their love,'' he said. ``You don't really get a lot of that these days.''

``Audrey's Rain'' airs at 9 and 11 tonight on the Hallmark Channel.

Other Mother's Day program highlights:

-- Lois (Jane Kaczmarek) goes into labor while Hal (Bryan Cranston) and her sons are at a bridal exposition on Fox's ``Malcolm in the Middle'' at 8:30 p.m.

-- At 8 p.m., Oxygen presents ``Baby I'm Yours,'' a documentary in which three women in their 30s share the ups and downs of motherhood, including putting careers on hold for children.

-- A&E's ``Biography'' (8 p.m.) looks at ``Shirley Jones: Hollywood's Musical Mom,'' who began in traditional movie musicals and went on to co-star with son David Cassidy in TV's ``The Partridge Family.''

-- Cartoon Network kicks off its seven-hour ``Breakfast in Bedrock'' Flintstones marathon at noon with episodes focusing on wife and mother Wilma (love her prehistoric appliances), culminating in the 5 p.m. premiere of ``Hollyrock-a-Bye-Baby,'' a two-hour movie with Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm married and looking forward to their own bundle(s) of joy.

-- Animal Planet runs a 9 a.m.-to-5 p.m. string of programs looking at the young-bearing, egg-laying females of assorted species. (Maybe kids will be even more grateful for their own mothers if they witness a few in the wild who actually eat their offspring.)

-- TLC shows episodes of ``Maternity Ward'' from 6 p.m. to midnight, wrapped around a 9 p.m. special, ``World Birth Day: Delivering Hope,'' which documents the experiences of 11 women around the world who gave birth on July 5, 2001.

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2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Real-life wife and husband Jean Smart and Richard Gilliland star in ``Audrey's Rain'' on the Hallmark Channel.

(2 -- color) no caption (Flintstones)