Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Commentary: America ready for spate of self-help TV?

"UNFORGIVABLE" is the name of tonight's CBS movie about a wife beater who seeks professional help.

In the film, to be shown at 9 p.m. on Channel 8, actor John Ritter plays a married man "whose violent tendencies are manifested through rough treatment" of his wife and mistress, according to a network promotion.

The real-life role model for the film is Paul Hegstrom, a reformed abuser who operates Life Skills International, which today helps treat violent abusers in 40 cities throughout the United States and Great Britain.

At an interview in Las Vegas two years ago, Hegstrom, 54, said, "I was so violent that I pushed my girlfriend down two flights of stairs. Had I not gone for treatment, I probably would have been in prison."

Today, instead of wearing stripes and eating prison chow, Hegstrom is happily married with children in Denver, where Life Skills International is headquartered.

I suppose that if "Unforgivable" does well in the nightly television prime-time ratings battle, it will show the American public is ready to forgive an admitted abuser, and the major networks are ready to entertain more ideas about self-help stories.

Titles of some future docudramas revolving around self-help themes might include:

* "Heart Like a Rock," the story of the reformation of "King of the Deadbeat Dads," Jeffrey Nichols, a 48-year-old commodities investment adviser who in 1995 was charged with crossing state lines to avoid paying $580,000 in support for his three children. The story would center on how Nichols finally comes to terms with his greed, sells all his belongings to avoid jail and to provide his kids with support and learns about the fun of using double-coupons to shop at the local supermarket.

* "Fresh Squeezed Juice," based on O.J. Simpson's latest autobiography, "Pulp Nonfiction," is the story of how the defrocked superhero finally comes to terms with his history of arrogance and domestic abuse. In the movie, O.J. will be shown doing volunteer work at halfway houses and shelters for victims of domestic abuse. Following the TV film, O.J. will appear on a special segment of "Larry King Live," during which he will discuss his new role as spokesman for the manufacturer of Isotoner Gloves.

* "Diary of a Guy Named Bob" is former Oregon Sen. Bob Packwood's own story of how his offensive treatment of women cost him his political career and how he's turned his life around and has found employment as a bouncer at the Olympic Garden adult cabaret, where touching the girls is not allowed.

* "When the Chips Are Down," a film based on a composite of the lives of about 22,000 Las Vegas gamblers. The hero, Frank "All-In" Allen, loses everything in the casinos and then fakes his suicide in an elaborate insurance rip-off scheme, only to be caught when he tries to cash in a rack of $100 chips from the old Landmark hotel-casino at a little gambling club in St. Martin.

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