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October 07, 2002
Sheen-tilated!
By Robert Kahn
Newsday
Don't call Ethel Kennedy at home on a Wednesday night - she'll be too wrapped up in "The West Wing" to answer the phone.
"It's an incredibly timely show," Kennedy said at the Regent Wall Street Hotel, where she attended a dinner honoring, among others, "Wing" president Martin Sheen.
"The characters are so lively," said Kennedy, wife of the late Robert Kennedy. "And Martin ... he's so easy on the eyes."
Kennedy, 74, says she's often surprised at how "West Wing" so closely mimics real-life Washington politics.
One recent episode - which saw three aides missing their ride to the airport during a campaign stop - hit very close to home.
"The same thing happened in Bobby's campaign in 1968," she said at the dinner, hosted by the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law. "His press secretary was running behind the bus trying to catch up with it."
Kennedy was at the Regent to see Sheen honored for his real-life activism on behalf of poor and working families.
She also said Sheen - who played RFK in a 1974 TV movie - could consider running for office.
"A lot of people would probably vote for him," she said.
ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT. Because of his responsibilities to "The West Wing" - and the terms set forth in a plea agreement with the feds - Sheen, who has been arrested more than 70 times for civil disobedience, can no longer fight injustice quite the way he prefers.
"My hands are tied quite a bit," said Sheen, who is serving 3 years' probation for his role in a protest last year at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base. "If I get arrested for anything now, I go right in the slammer."
Sheen said he misses being free to get locked up.
"I do feel restrained now," said the actor, whose "West Wing" contract also forbids him to do anything that might result in lost time on the set. "... but I'll be off probation in another year- and-a-half."
Posted by MorganG at October 7, 2002 12:45 PM