By James V. Ruocco
"You wait and wait and wait for the perfect part to come your way," she explains. "And then you finally realize that there are all these wonderful parts that are absolutely perfect for you, waiting for you to play.
"Then, all of a sudden , the whole world opens up. Instead of being someone who can't find something to do, you find millions of things to do."
Thomas, of course, is perhaps best known for the ABC series "That Girl" and dozens of network telefilms.
The turning point in her career came a couple of years ago when she decided to play the part of the eccentric mother Beatrice in a Cleveland production of Paul Zindel's "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds." That was followed by the part of Martha in Hartford Stage's revival of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" last season.
In her current role, she plays Ouisa in the national touring company of John Guare's "Six Degrees of Separation." The two-act play, directed by Jerry Zaks, includes a one-week run engagement at the Stamford For the Arts Center, Feb. 16-21.
Assessing her career rebirth, Thomas says she feels completely liberated. "The joy of life," she says, stems from making choices."
Doing theater the last few years, the actress says that people began to look at her very differently.
"I have found that, in theater, people are much more open and fresh in their approach to casting. With TV and film, the things I get offered are always some kind of throwback to whatever."
Thomas says she likes the challenge of an audition.
"With 'Virginia Woolf,' I had to audition. I not only felt confident about it, but the director saw what I could do as an actress rather than just hearing about it from someone."
Still, Thomas, like others before her, faces typecasting.
"Once you play something in film, television or whatever, people add that to the list of things they now think you can do. Up till that point, they're not always sure about it until they see you do it.
"When I did 'Nobody's Child' (the actress won an Emmy Award for her portrayal of a woman who spent 20 years in a mental institution), everybody sent me every 'woman going crazy' movie,"she recalls.
"Then, you being to wonder if they can see you playing a crazy woman, why can't they see you as an alcoholic in 'Virginia Woolf? ' "
In "Six Degrees of Separation," the actress finds herself cast as a woman who has put aside the parts in her life that don't work in favor of the charming, more social aspects that do.
"The play is based on the real story of a young black man who pretends to be actor Sidney Poitier's son in order to mix with the rich, famous and self-involved.
"Ouisa and her husband are the couple he scams," she explains. "But as the story develops, we see that he's just someone who wants to get to know them because he wants to belong to a family and a better class of people."
Thomas quickly points out that "Six Degrees of Separation" is really a comedy.
"There's more laughs in this play than any comedy you'll see," she says."You've never heard so much laughing."
As she tells it, that's because John Guare is a genius.
"With all this laughing, what you're actually seeing is a slice of your own life and the fact that you'd probably do the same thing as Ouisa."
Being the daughter of television star Danny Thomas, the actress says didn't exactly open doors when she decided to enter the business as a teenager.
"He would have helped me," she recalls, "but I didn't want that."
What she does remember was that her father was very much concerned about the whole idea of her becoming a professional actress.
"Much later in life, he told me that he was afraid I wouldn't make it, and he didn't want me to relive his first years again, which were very difficult."
After doing several college plays at the University of Southern California, Thomas was discovered by Mike Nichols who cast her as Corrie in the London production of Neil Simon's "Barefoot in the Park."
Then came "That Girl, the smash ABC sit-com which the actress developed using her own life and family relationships as inspiration.
"That was a show about a girl who didn't want to get married and had just graduated from college, whose father was scared she was going to lose her virginity.
"All of the things I was going through with my father," she muses.
Once Thomas believed "the show had run its course," she took it off the air, moved to New York and studied acting with Lee Strasberg.
"I always knew I could do comedy but I wanted to see what else was out there. With the benefit of an early success with 'That Girl,' the right people saw me and I was on my way."
Today, Thomas says, she's expanding and developing her options as an actress.
"Right now, I'm stretching and stretching but opening up my whole perspective on things."
(This interview was originally published on February 7, 1993)
