RICCI IS A SURVIVOR
NWhile preparing for his role as Jose Menendez in Tuesday’s “Law & Order True Crime: Menendez Murder” episode on NBC, (inset) took issue with the script’s implications that his character molested the sons who killed him.
“The more research I did on the character, the more I was going back and forth if these people really abused these kids or not,” he told us at the Paley Fall TV Fest in Los Angeles. “If they did, I think he was a monster and that’s what I’m portraying, because as an actor, I’m playing what’s on the script. My personal opinion is different from that.”
and 1989 killing of their wealthy parents in the family’s Beverly Hills mansion made for one of America’s most controversial murder trials. Lyle, 21 at the time of the murder, and Erik, then 18, were found guilty in 1996 and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
The brothers initially blamed the shootings on the mob, but later claimed they shot their parents in selfdefense after years of sexual abuse by their millionaire father Jose. Prosecutors argued that the murder was over inheritance money.
Gomez, a 55-year-old New York City native who also starred as Jose Capos on “Madame Secretary,” says he’s “50/50” on the Menendez brothers’ guilt and understands why many people are sympathetic toward their claims. Gomez expects that viewers of Tuesday’s episode may side with the Menendez brothers.
“They might,” he said. “It could very well give them a new light.”
In the week’s leading up to Tuesday night’s program,
— who plays the brothers’ tenacious lawyer,
— said that her reseach made her more sympathetic to the defendants. But she said at a media event, “I’m very reluctant to get into that” when pressed on whether or not she agreed with the jury sentencing them to life in prison.
Lyle and Erik are now both doing time in two California prisons 500 miles apart. Earlier this month, Lyle told People magazine that he and his younger sibling stay in touch via written correspondences and even play chess by mail. Before becoming White House chief of staff Emily Rhodes on ABC’s “Designated Survivor,” (inset) played a 24-year-old cancer survivor on ABC Family’s “Chasing Life,” which wasn’t easy. “I got to go home every day and take my character April Carver’s makeup and bald cap off,” she recently told a friend. “It bothered me. Real young adults with cancer, they don’t get to leave a set and wipe it off.” “Designated Survivor” starts its second season on Wednesday.