‘Seinfeld’ Spots Launched Him to Fame

NEW YORK â€”  The UPN publicist just has to ask.

And who can blame her?

She wants to know whether the interview with actor Phil Morris is going to be more of a Jackie Chiles story or a Will Sanders story.

The answer, truthfully, is it’s Jackie, that cockamamie Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. clone Morris played on NBC’s “Seinfeld,� that got us here. But it’s Chief Purser Will Sanders of UPN’s Aaron Spelling retread “Love Boat: The Next Wave� that lives on in prime time, giving us the excuse to stay.

Either way, we’ve come calling for Phil Morris.

Many people think the actor practically stole the show in the super-hyped “Seinfeld� finale.

And, sitting in an empty theater at the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, Morris, 39, shyly confirms: “Enough people have been telling me that that I’m starting to believe it.

“I really appreciated it,� he says. “It was an honor to be asked to do it. I thought--like many of the guest cast--I was going to come in and just kind of sit around in the gallery or just kind of say, ‘Hi,’ [but] they fed into this character so heavy-duty.�

Morris, for the foreseeable future, is finished with the grandiose Mr. Chiles, although he said he wouldn’t be surprised to see the character pop up again down the road.

In the meantime, Morris is sailing along in his day job as Will Sanders, a shipshape sidekick to star Robert Urich’s Capt. Jim Kennedy on “Love Boat.�

“Will Sanders is probably closer to me as people know me than Jackie is,� Morris says, “so Will is not that much of a stretch for me.� Though critically maligned--just like the original series, which ran from 1977 to 1986--and not a ratings hit, UPN’s updated “Love Boat� has potential, Morris says.

The original show, he says, “was very personality-driven. It was clever and witty--to me, too much. It was a little overdone. Our show does not do well when we do that.�

Instead, Morris says, he’s hoping “The Next Wave� will take advantage of its floating fantasy island.

When the show, which made its debut in April on Monday nights at 8 and is now in reruns, returns next season, Morris wants to see: “The festivities on the ship, the spectacle of the ship on the water, in port, different ports. I’d love to see the show branch out into more international waters.�

It’s an escapist formula that has worked for other shows, he says. “I mean, you tuned in to ‘Hawaii Five-O’ as much for the island as you did for McGarrett.�

Morris knows a little something about revivals of prime-time television shows. The son of the late Greg Morris of “Mission: Impossible� fame, Phil Morris was part of the ensemble in the 1988 remake of that same show, cast as Grant Collier, son of Barney Collier, the part his father played in the original.

“Obviously I’m a product of my father’s choice of careers,� he says of his dad, who died in August 1996.

“I never thought I would do this,� Morris says of acting. “I thought I’d be an athlete, an animator, an artist. I’m pretty adept at that stuff. And when you’re a kid and your father is in the No. 1 show in the nation seven years in a row, everybody asks you, are you going to follow in your father’s footsteps?�

One day, he decided “Yes.�

His father’s reaction?

“He was not overwhelmed,� says Morris, whose sister, Iona, is also an actor. She recently mounted a solo theater work in Los Angeles about her father.

“As good as his career was, it was hard. It was a fight all the time and especially after ‘Mission,’ when he felt like he had proven himself, he had done his things . . . where were the offers? And it just never came down, and that hurt him a lot.�

There’s a little of his dad in Jackie Chiles, though.

“As much as Jackie is a Johnnie Cochran-esque character,� Morris said, “he is also part of my father, my uncle from Cleveland. Any effusive, larger-than-life black man that I have come into contact with in my life is kind of embodied in my representation of Jackie Chiles. . . . He’s pretty easy to call up.�