The fractured Framptons

Show business is tearing the Frampton clan apart!

OK, maybe that's overstated. But at the very least, it's putting some serious strains on the family fabric.

As a rock musician, father Peter, best known for his 1976 monster album Frampton Comes Alive!, has always led a peripatetic lifestyle. His current tour brings him to the Mohegan Sun Casino in Wilkes-Barre tomorrow night and the Keswick Theater in Glenside next month.

Meanwhile his wife, Tina, and young daughter, Mia Rose, have relocated to Los Angeles from their home in Cincinnati so the precocious 13-year-old can pursue an acting career.

"It's stretching us pretty thin," says Peter. "We would all prefer to be living together all the time. Now, I have to keep doing the hippity-hop between Los Angeles and Cincinnati."

The move seems to be paying off for the aspiring actress. Mia Rose's resumé has gained heft since she landed a recurring role on ABC Family's new hit series, Make It or Break It. The drama is a pommel-horse opera about girl gymnasts.

Because Peter's recording studio is attached to the family manse, he now spends more time in the Queen City than anyone else. Usually alone.

The irony of a British rock idol marooned in the Midwest is not lost on Frampton.

"When Tina and I started getting serious, I told her, 'Alright, but I'm not moving to Cincinnati [her hometown].' Now look where we are," he says, laughing.

Frampton probably should have seen where his daughter was headed a decade ago. "When she was 31/2, every time a Toys R Us commercial would come on, she would say, 'I want that. I want that,' " he recalls. "Then a little girl came on during one of the commercials and [Mia Rose] looked around at me and said, 'I can do that.' "

The die was cast. She began appearing in school and local productions. "It gave me the idea I want to do this - being somebody I'm not," she says.

Still, it took a lot of pleading to get her parents on board for the move to California.

"I wanted it really bad. My mom is very supportive, but she says the minute I don't love it, we're gone," Mia Rose says. "She's definitely not the typical stage mom."

Playing Becca on Make It or Break It has meant a steep learning curve for Mia Rose.

Fortunately, TV veteran Peri Gilpin (Frasier), who plays her mother on the show, has taken Mia Rose under her wing.

Gilpin's generosity isn't based on the girl's lineage, although she admits, "I did some major making out to her dad's music."

The actress is extending herself because she remembers how painful her own initial TV experiences were.

She recalls flying up to Vancouver to play a cop who apprehends a suspect in an episode of 21 Jump Street. "I was sitting next to a guy who was doing the same episode and I said, 'Oh my gosh, I just realized I'm playing a cop and I don't know how to handcuff people,' " Gilpin recalls, "and he says, 'Oh, it's all phony.'

"Cut to this man's bloody wrists after I've tried snapping those cuffs on him 25 times [on camera]. I hurt another actor my first time out!"

Mia Rose is grateful for Gilpin's guidance. "We were doing an emotional scene the other day, and she told me to tilt my head toward the camera so they can see my face," she says by way of example.

As a recurring character, Mia Rose doesn't have to be on set every day.

"I can be a regular kid," she says of her schedule. "I still have friends I hang out with. Everyone is so excited for me. I do miss a lot of school, but they're very flexible. Sometimes I have to do school on the set."

All in all, the move is working out pretty well. Except that she's an adolescent thousands of miles from her father.

Mia Rose, who inherited some of her dad's musical talent, recently wrote her first song, "My Memories," with these lyrics:

Warm sheets they hold me tight

Their smiles are so bright

He moves from place to place

Her smile begins to fade.

Autobiographical? You bet.