Try as she might, Stephanie Zimbalist says she can't get producers to see her in anything but "a suit with a starched shirt buttoned all the way to the collar."
"They seem to forget that I'm the gal that did Centennial (a historical drama from the '70s), Remington Steele and all kinds of things," sighs Zimbalist, 37, who adds she's turned down roles because they "just weren't right."
Sunday night at 9, she stars in CBS' Incident in a Small Town. "Here we go again," she laughs. "Date rape, 1953."
In Sunday's movie, savvy attorney Harmon Cobb (Walter Matthau) comes to the aid of an old pal (Harry Morgan) whose estranged daughter (Zimbalist) is threatened by a secret past.
Even though the movie doesn't "tickle a lot of funny bones," Zimbalist says, she jumped at the chance to work with such "consummate professionals."
The close-knit cadre dined together "nearly every night" she says, adding an "extremely generous" Matthau insisted on paying the tab. "If anyone else tried to pay, he'd get angry."
It was "three weeks of heaven and lots of nice memories," she says.
But even so, "I'd love to be able to laugh in a movie again."