Cathy's World: Sister act

LOS ANGELES, D.C., Dec. 12 (UPI) -- Christina Vidal's life isn't the only one that echoes her starring role in "Taina," the Nickelodeon series about a Puerto Rican teenager commuting from Queens to attend a performing arts high school in Manhattan.

Her older sister Lisa Vidal, who co-stars as one of five female detectives in Lifetime's police drama "The Division," attended the same school 16 years earlier.

Both popular cable shows celebrate their first anniversary next month.

In addition to "Taina," the Fiorella H. La Guardia High School of Performing Arts (as it's now known) also inspired the movie and TV series "Fame." Christina, who says she "always wanted to be just like Lisa," was thrilled to follow her older sister there. Still, her first day was a little embarrassing.

"There were some people teaching who remembered her," Christina recalls, "and they were like, 'Oh, my gosh!' You're Lisa Vidal's sister! I changed your diaper!' I was, oh, great ... great first day of high school."

Christina, 19, is the youngest of four children; Lisa, 35, is the oldest. Lisa, who helped raise her youngest sister and often took her along on auditions, landed her first TV role (on the PBS series "Oye Willie," about a Puerto Rican family) at age 14; Christina's career began when she was cast in the Michael J. Fox movie "Life With Mikey" at age 11.

Their mother, a retired hospital secretary, and father, who still owns a gas station in the Bronx, moved to Los Angeles with Christina a few years ago when the young actress's Hollywood career took off. Lisa lives a few minutes away with her real estate broker husband and two young sons.

The sisters arrived together for lunch at a restaurant near their homes. "Can I just ask if you're one of those writers who says 'And she walked in, wearing a long black dress?'" she asks as she walks in, wearing a long black dress. "Because I think it's so cool when writers do that!"

They're too far apart in age to have much sibling rivalry. Still, like any sisters, sometimes they do quarrel. "We have our stuff where she's sort of reprimanding me," says Christina. "She always gives me a lot of advice about being professional. I started really young, and when I did 'Life With Mikey,' I'd run off somewhere and they couldn't find me."

"I'd tell her, 'Christina, you never leave a set without telling an A.D. (assistant director) or P.A. (production assistant) where you are," says Lisa.

Looking out for Christina has long been second nature for Lisa. "I've been through things, and I don't want people taking advantage of her," she says. "I worry about everything. I'll never forget when 'Life With Mikey' came out, and she came home crying from school because her friends were not treating her nicely anymore.

The problem was that right outside their house was a bus stop bench, and right on that bench was an ad for "Life With Mikey" featuring Christina. One morning when she walked outside to take the bus to school, she found that someone had smeared gum and onion rings all over her "Life From Mikey" face.

"For a little girl it's hard to understand those things," Lisa says, "so that's when I started to get a little tougher with her. You know, look, there are people you have to be on your toes about."

"I wouldn't say you were tough, though," interrupts Christina. "You were always very gentle. I think it saved me from a lot of stuff child actors go through, because I had my sister who already knew how it worked and protected me from the bad people."

Hollywood being Hollywood, that started early. "There was this guy, we were supposed to meet about my talents, whatever," Christina says. "And he basically said if I went away with him to Puerto Rico ... I was 16. He was like 32. And I was like, 'Um, no.' He said, "I'll buy you a pager."

"Like she needs someone to buy her a pager!" Lisa snorts.

"And I said, "You know what? I need a record deal, not a pimp," continues Christina, who's a little spicier than her innocent Taina character.

"We're from New York, you know what I'm saying?" notes Lisa. "There's not too much you can put past us. But my mother raised us to believe we were talented enough without having to subject ourselves to that type of situation. My mother was always, 'Oh, no, no, no. A man looking at you for that, and that only, that's all you're gonna get out of him.'"

Lisa regularly refuses roles she feels are demeaning to Latina women and doesn't want her little sister taking them either.

When Christina was around 12, she was offered a role in the Spike Lee film "Crooklyn." But Lisa didn't think the script's language was suitable for a young girl.

Lee called the Vidals' house, telling their mother it wasn't wise for Christina to start turning down roles so early. "He didn't understand that we've got certain values that we want to try to stick to even though we're in this business," says Lisa.

"The kind of roles that are offered to young Latina women ... it's the loose chick in the car, the one everybody wants to screw, and it just so happens they choose a Latina to do that role," she adds, sounding rather exasperated. "I'm just so tired of seeing that. Why can't the Latina be the main focus in the film and someone else play that secondary crap role?"

Both Vidals want to be considered for non-ethnic roles, so they always ask, when interviewing a new agent or manager, "How do you see me?" What's the worst answer they ever got?

"Rosie Perez," says Christina.

"I respect Rosie, really I do, and I like her," adds Lisa with a laugh. "But unfortunately she was pinpointed to this one specific idea of what a Latino person would look like and sound like. So every audition it was, 'Can you do Rosie Perez?' And I'd say, 'No, I'm a different actor.'"

"They find something that works and just want to keep doing that," says Christina. "But Jennifer Lopez crosses over. It's like, here's this Puerto Rican, and she's playing Sharon Stone parts."

You might think that the sisters get together for regular TV-watching nights, since they live so close by each other. But actually, they don't often, because they're always working.

"But wherever we are we watch each other's shows," says Christina, who still remembers how nervous she was when she got a big guest role in "Touched By An Angel" a few years ago."

"I was wondering what Lisa was gonna say!" she recalls.

"She's such a talented little bug," says Lisa with a smile. "I'm so proud; it's like my child out there. I get sick listening to myself sometimes. Somebody'll call to interview me, and there's just no way I can't bring up Christina."

"And every time they ask me, who was your inspiration growing up? I say, 'My sister Lisa Vidal! She's on "The Division" and she was on this and this and this..." adds Christina.

"It makes me want to cry sometimes," says Lisa. "And that theme song, 'Taina,' makes my sister and I cry every time we hear it. Because it is so Christina, it is so her dream. That's why this role for her, to me, it's a gift."

"She cries at everything anyway," notes Christina. "We're both supersensitive."