TUNING THE NATION'S TV VIEWERS IN TO LOU GEHRIG'S DISEASE.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

If you've never watched NBC's medical drama ``ER,'' watch it tonight.

Watch it for Gary Hand, Denise Glass and the 30,000 other Americans living with Lou Gehrig's disease.

Watch it for their children, most of whom will lose a mother or father within five or six years of the first ALS symptoms.

After the disease starts attacking the nerve cells and pathways to the brain and spinal cord, and their loved ones start tripping and dropping things.

After fatigue attacks their arms and legs, and their speech begins to slur. After periods of uncontrollable laughter and crying, and small tasks such as buttoning a shirt become nearly impossible.

Watch ``ER'' tonight to see the wonderful job a handful of local ALS patients - all with sharp minds trapped in deteriorating bodies - did in teaching actor James Woods the depth and feeling he needed to nail his role as a doctor diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

``I play a hard, arrogant man who has all the underpinnings of his life removed when he's diagnosed with ALS,'' Woods said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

``When I met with the ALS patients in December, we all sat in a circle - from the early stages to the final stages of the disease. I could see how ALS progressed - where a person would be six months, two years or five years from now.

``There were just so many aspects of this role I could have never gotten right - the walking, movements, trouble eating and talking. They were so kind to me, and showed such incredible courage and spirit.

``I left that meeting determined to show people with ALS in a poignant light, and I think I did,'' Woods said.

Watch and find out for yourself, because a lot is riding on tonight's show.

ALS is such a quick killer that high-profile people with the disease don't live long enough to become a national spokesperson, like Michael J. Fox is for Parkinson's disease.

Lou Gehrig, who gave ALS a face and name more than 60 years ago, was a great baseball player and role model. But he's been gone so long a whole generation is growing up not knowing about the New York Yankees' first baseman or the disease named after him.

For the ALS Foundation to grow and continue helping the families of ALS patients - for it to help find a cure for this deadly disease - it needs to capture the nation's attention and help now.

What better way to start than on an award-winning prime-time TV show? And, who knows, maybe if they're lucky, an Emmy nomination next year for the actor who stopped by to sit with them in a circle - watching and learning.

``(Thursday) night is huge,'' Glass says, walking around a meeting room at the ALS Foundation of Greater Los Angeles headquarters in Calabasas, taking pictures of everyone.

Photography is one of her hobbies now, along with travel. When the 48-year-old legal secretary was diagnosed with ALS four years ago, she knew she had to cram a lot of living into a few good years.

She'll be sitting around her TV tonight with a few friends watching ``ER'' - ``celebrating a little and crying a lot,'' she said.

When she could still walk without the aid of a cane, Glass made a list of the places she wanted to visit. The Antarctic was at the top, and she visited there two years ago.

``It's a good thing I didn't wait because I could have never made it across the ice with my cane now,'' she says.

``I visited Paris last year. There isn't a day goes by I don't think of the Antarctic and Paris. I try to do as much fun stuff as I can, while I still can.''

Gary Hand can't. Not anymore. The 44-year-old father of two boys sits paralyzed in a wheelchair, answering my questions by computer-generated voice because he can no longer speak on his own. His mind is still sharp, but ALS has taken control of his body.

Hand was a successful CPA in Woodland Hills when he was diagnosed in 2001. He was in a wheelchair by 2003 and had a feeding tube inserted in 2004.

Every day, every minute with his wife, Barbara, and sons is a gift to him. Like Glass, he knows tonight is huge for ALS patients, and he's proud of the help he gave Woods to grab viewers' hearts and minds on prime-time national TV.

Of all the people he studied for this role, it was Hand who got to him the most, Woods says. The ALS patient sitting in the circle at the final stage of the disease.

``Mr. Woods was very nice throughout the meeting,'' Hand says, tapping his knee that still has sensation against a switch that activates pre-existing words and sentences, or allows Gary to build new words that are then spoken in computer voice.

``From what I have seen, Mr. Woods did his homework and nailed the part. I don't believe he could have portrayed accurately an ALS victim without meeting a number of us at different stages of the disease.''

No amount of acting experience or awards could teach you what it's like being locked in your own body without a way to express yourself. For that, Woods had to sit with her husband and look into his eyes, Barbara said.

``Your mind is the same; you're still the same person,'' she said. ``But you just can't express it anymore.''

A lot is riding on ``ER'' tonight for the 30,000 Americans fighting ALS.

It's huge. Watch it.

Dennis McCarthy, [phone]

dennis.mccarthy(at)dailynews.com

THE FACTS

``ER'' will air at 10 tonight on KNBC (Channel 4). For more information on the ALS Foundation, go to dailynews.com.

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Photo:

(color) From left, Barbara Hand of Thousand Oaks stands with her husband, Gary, an ALS patient, and Denise Glass, who also has ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. They met with James Woods to help him prepare for a role on ``ER,'' which airs tonight on NBC.

The ALS Association

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THE FACTS (see text)