BUFFALO COURIER-EXPRESS, Sunday, May 23, 1982
In 'a soap opera age of bland blond 'and boring brunette beatities, red haired Lurlene Harper on 'Texas" is a flapjawed, awkward, yet endearing relief. She's clean and fancy-free in appearance, guileless in manner and backwoods in speech. She may be the only TV woman capable of pronouncing her boy friend's name, Joel, in six syablles. She is so full of goidurned spunk and cotton-eyed charm that she outdistances the other "Texas" ladies in appeal by a country mile. "She's good-hearted and naive," says actress Tina Johnson, describing the character she plays. "She trusts everyone and doesn't believe that people can be ruthless, heartless or unfaithful, which produces a lot of conflict for her, especially in a soap opera.
Lurlene also doesn't believe she's attractive. She's merely cute. She fantasizes about the men of her dreams who'll sweep her off her feet. ''She had a giddy crush on Jeb Hampton a year ago, and that was the only romance in her life until ' Joel tame along. But he's blind, literally. Otherwise, he might see her as other men do: a good pal."
Ms. Johnson doesn't have a trace of the Texas twang she uses on screen as Lurlene, While most other actors on "TX" struggle to no authentic avail to deal with a Lone Star accent, Tina's is as authentic as sagebrush and armadillos. "I grew 'up in Tyler, Tex., and people back home see me on the show and say, 'her folks sent her to all those fancy schools and she's talkin' laik she always daid,'" explains Tina. Her christened name is Varina and it has been the name bestowed on every first girl born in her family for four generations, ever since her great-grandmother, an admirer of Jefferson Davis's wife.
"My pa was, and still is, head of the music department at the Tyler High School. Ma's a violin teacher. I sang in the church choir since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, and there was never a doubt me and my brother, who is now a songwriter and guitarist, wouldn't pursue music in some way." An interest in music professionally began for Tina at age 12 when she appeared, with Sandy Duncan, as one of the Trapp children in "'The Sound of Music," in Dallas. After graduating from North Texas State University, Tina toured in "Peter Pan" as Wendy and in "Cactus Flower" with Ann Miller. I never deliberately set out to change the way I talked. I just picked up accents naturally. I'm a sponge. I lose myself in the magic of acting and become this other creature. You have to mold your whole being for a character."
By
Paul Raven ·
