HOLLYWOOD -- So, you want wholesome? How does Christina Applegate grab you for wholesome?
In most viewers' minds, Applegate, who portrays airhead Kelly Bundy in the hit TV series 'Married ... With Children,' is anything but the image of a clean-cut, all-American girl.
Applegate can currently be seen as Swell Crandell, the rebellious eldest daughter in the movie 'Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead.'
Kelly and Swell have little in common. However, they both reflect Applegate's ability to convey a sort of smoldering youthful sex appeal.
'I'm the quintessential WASP teenager,' Applegate said during a recent interview, one of a number designed to publicize 'Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead.'
'I'd rather look like an exotic, tropical island goddess, but I don't mind looking like this,' she said.
'It can't be helped that Kelly and Swell look alike because that's me. But in the movie, Swell changes her life and her values when she is forced to assume the responsibility for her three younger brothers and her sister.
'Swell grows up in a hurry. But Kelly never learns.
'I change all the time. When I have to do my job, I'm professional and I'm a businesswoman. When I'm not working I'm still 19 and I act like it. You could say I lead a double life.
'I've been working since I was three months old when my mom held me in her arms in (the soap opera) 'Days of Our Lives.' I moved out on my own when I was 17 and I've made all my own professional decisions.
'I listen to the opinions of my elders. Then I do what I think is best. When I make a mistake, it's my own mistake and I take the responsibiity.
'I'm grateful for my maturity, but I still do kid things like going to Disneyland.'
It was Applegate's decision to play Swell in the Warner Bros. comedy. She was also the one who chose to star in the movie 'Streets' in which she played a 16-year-old heroin addict.
'Swell is about 16 and it's easy for me to remember being that age,' she said. 'You think you know everything. You believe you're cool and hip. I like the lessons Swell learns and what becomes of her.
'In my own life I tried to grow up a little too fast before I realized it wasn't time. I learned to take life one step at a time instead of figuring I knew all the answers.
'It's hard not to grow up too fast in show business. I see these 11- year-olds running around trying to be sophisticated and I want to tell them some day they'll realize the fact they lost the chance to really be 11 years old. They'll never be 12 or 13 and they'll miss it.
'I hit all those ages and enjoyed them for what I was then -- a kid -- even when I was working in episodic TV shows all the time and did two short-lived series. I always set time aside for myself.'
Applegate is starting her sixth year in 'Married ... With Children,' the Fox network's sitcom with a spin.
Thanks to the series, viewers have had an opportunity to watch Applegate grow up, an experience she doesn't fully appreciate.
'I never want to see reruns of the earlier seasons of the show,' she said. 'I lived through those years. I don't want to live them again. I've done it.
'Who would want to see themselves 15 pounds heavier with a round face and a horrible hairdo. I had enough of her while I was there.
'Maybe when I'm 40 I will look at the reruns and say, 'Oh, look. No wrinkles.'
'But I'm really close to the other members of the cast. They know things about me nobody else does.
'I was an only child in a one-parent home. One mother, one child. My mother and I have always been close. But I'm independent. Always have been. When I was 16 and bought my first car, I was gone. Doing my own thing.
'Some day I want a family of my own. I can hardly wait. I want to live on a ranch somewhere away from any city and raise children. I love kids, which is one reason the part of Swell appealed to me. She has to take care of her four younger siblings.
'When I have a daughter, I'd want her to be like Swell. Definitely not like Kelly Bundy.'NEWLN:COPYRIGHT:Copyright 1991 U.P.I.
