TV or Not TV, March 31, 1995, by Mike Hughes.

There is something gently reassuring about Anthony Head.

He is well-spoken, well-educated. You feel like settling in for conversation and coffee.

Yes, coffee. With one exception (Sharon Maughan), no one drinks it better.

Head and Maughan are in all those commercials. They've turned sipping into an artform and coffee into a love potion.

Now he gets the spotlight. Beginning Friday, he joins the stylish VR5, at 8 p.m. EST on Fox.

"The thing that I was fascinated by was John Sacret Young's script," Head says. "I was really drawn into it."

At the core is Sydney (Lori Singer), a computer buff who has overachieved. She leaps into her virtual-reality system, where even her late father and her comatose mother can run free.

"A lot of her childhood is represented," Head says. "The Committee seems to know about it."

And Head is from that committee. It is all confusing and compelling; it's also similar to a British series called The Prisoner.

That one confused Americans in 1968, but fascinated people in England, Head's homeland. "It was just great, far-out stuff," he says.

Of course, Head always has been happiest about fiction.

"I was hopeless at soccer," he recalls. "I was useless at all sports, actually."

And then he found theater. "It was around me. I didn't have to go far to think about it."

His dad was a prosperous sort who loved the arts. His mom was an actress who co-starred in a 1960s BBC series, based on the Chief Inspector Maigret novels.

This was a family that went to the theater. No one was surprised that Head graduated from the London Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Soon, he had top roles. He was Jesus in a touring Godspell. He was Frank N. Furter in a revival of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

But what about crossing over?

Head did try one U.S. invasion, with so-so results. "They were not ready for (playwright) John Osborne," he says.

And he almost had a big offer to be a beer spokesman. At the last second, movie star Rutger Hauer took the job. "They really didn't think they could get him."

One beverage to the right, Head found a winner.

The coffee commercials were perfectly played. In real life, Maughan has long hair and a glorious, youthful smile; in the commercials, she and Head capture richly restrained romance.

She's married to actor Trevor Eve, with two children; he has a companion named Sarah, with two children. Still ... "There is definitely a chemistry," Head says.

So they've gone on to do a separate set of U.S. commercials, this time for Taster's Choice. He's also done a TV movie (Royce) and now VR5.

The latter is from Young, of China Beach fame. Intelligence and visuals are mixed as skillfully as ... well, a fine cup of coffee.

Page created May 1999. Original material © Betsy Vera (bentley@umich.edu). This website is for information and entertainment purposes only and is not intended to infringe on copyrights held by others.

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