Word from the Inside

GIGI LEVANGIE GRAZER, the wife of Oscar-winning über-producer Brian Grazer, knows a little bit about the pretensions and snippy mores of the privileged Brentwood crowd and has shared them with the world in her three novels about Hollywood.

Her latest, "The Starter Wife," has been made into a miniseries which premiered last week on the USA Network and continues at 9 p.m. Thursdays through June 28.

In it, Debra Messing stars as Molly (the character was named Gracie in Grazer's novel, but Messing had already played a fairly iconic character named Grace), whose oily studio-executive husband dumps her for a newer model, spouses serving essentially as status accessories in Hollywood.

He also gets custody of most of her friends - those who want to work in the industry again, that is. Decamped to a pal's home in Malibu, Molly must figure out how to reinvent herself and start a new life.

Despite airing Tinseltown laundry, Grazer says, "I've somehow managed to stay friends with everyone. I'm not looking to destroy anyone. I do it with affection, by telling the truth, and believing people can improve . . . "

She pauses, a beat worthy of a comedian. "Much to my eternal disappointment."

In fact, after each book, Grazer says acquaintances seek her out to share anecdotes potentially worthy of being incorporated in future works.

"After my last book, a woman came up to me, scandalized - her husband was dating a 40-year-old woman from the Valley!" she reports with a mock shudder, then laughs. "That was the worst thing she could say about her."

Jon Avnet, who directed "The Starter Wife," says, "Gigi has written a very good book that makes fun of people that I like and people that I don't like - and myself, as well."

Grazer conceived "The Starter Wife" when she spied a woman recently divorced from a big star on a beach in Malibu, flirting with a hunky guy that Grazer knew was homeless. "I thought, 'That's a novel.' "

"It was sophisticated and the comedy was subversive, a little perverse, a little mocking of, you know, the Hollywood culture," notes Messing, who adds that there's something rather precise about the Hollywood wife. "I encounter them every single day in Los Angeles. There are high expectations for the wives of the power brokers, and there is a kind of look to the starter wife. There's the polished hair and the beautiful nails and the designer clothing and the white teeth and the, you know, very trim body."

Of her character, Messing observes, "There's something very universal about what Molly goes through. It's incredibly painful seeing a woman who was so successful in her life as a partner and wife to this incredibly successful man and everything she contributed to his success, to be just discarded and to have all of the respect that had been hers with him sort of walk away with him. All the issues of identity and choices made - 'Where am I going, and am I going to have a chance to do it again?' "

Grazer agrees that although the book and miniseries are set in Hollywood, their emotional core has a wide appeal.

"I don't want to keep it just to Hollywood wives," she says. "It's a very real thing that women can go through - being dependent on the man they're with, financially dependent, socially dependent. There's a very real fear. I see it in my own life with people I know. It's a terrible thing to have to live with."

Though Grazer receives an executive producer's credit on "The Starter Wife," she did not seek to work on the screenplay (that task went to Sara Parriott and Josann McGibbon, whose big-screen credits include "Runaway Bride" and "Chicken Little").

Grazer, who reportedly wasn't enthused about her own foray into screenwriting ("Stepmom"), jokes about the devotion needed for such an enterprise.

"Six hours of television - do you know how many meetings that translates into? How many trips on the 405?" she says, with a laugh.

"Also, I have small children. You have to work too hard. I'm working on my next novel. I like my three-hour workdays."

More seriously, she says, "Handing over your baby is fine if you hand it over to people qualified to take care of it. And they were uniquely qualified. My ego was beaten out of me a long time ago in terms of protecting my writing.

"I wasn't worried - and had good reason not to be. When I got the first draft of the first hour, I was immediately on board. They got the tone, and it's a difficult tone - it's light, it's airy, it's feminine, but the undertone is dark and questioning of the world we live in. And there are satirical bits and pieces - well, they're not satirical if you live in my neighborhood. I'm happy with the outcome. There'll be no lawsuits coming from me."

Grazer's next book, due next spring, is titled "Queen Takes King," about another power couple divorcing. But her friends hoping - or fearing - to see themselves as doppelgangers in her next novel can rest easy - this one is set in New York.

As for Messing's next project, well, after eight years on "Will & Grace," she's not anxious to be nailed down to another TV series anytime soon.

"I got several phone calls from people with offers for TV shows," she says.

"I felt like saying, 'Where were you guys 10 years ago?'

"After eight years of having such a structured life, I just knew I needed some time to be a gypsy, as much as I absolutely loved having that job. I really am enjoying being able to wake up in the morning and not having to be anywhere and not having to do anything.

"Having that freedom is really wonderful, and it's revitalizing for me right now." *