from Canadian TVG - Sept. 2 - 8, 1995

Being named Sexiest Actress drew a gratified response from Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman's Jane Seymour, especially since she's currently several months pregnant with her third child. "In my condition, that's a huge compliment," says Seymour, whose pregnancy has been written into Dr. Quinn for next season. "We're certainly aware of the show's popularity here in the States, but it's lovely to know that so many Canadians enjoy it. Thank you so much".

As for Seymour's costar, voted once again your Sexiest Actor, "It's not easy to be number one with competition like (Seinfeld's) George Costanza out there" says Joe Lando, "but I promise I'll just keep putting my buckskins on one leg at a time."

from In Style, September 1995

What's sexy now?

"Monogamy."

What's not sexy?

"Rush Limbaugh."

Sexiest gift given?

"A surprise trip to Jamaica for the weekend."

Sexiest meal?

"Strawberries, cream and a cold bottle of Cuvee Dom Perignon Champagne"

Sexiest smell?

"Ysatis perfume"

Sexiest Place?

"New York City, Room 1005 at the Ritz-Carleton."

What do you do while dressing to make yourself feel sexy?

from People, May 29, 1995

Wedding bells ring out this month of the season finales of Martin, NYPD Blue, Wings and a half dozen other shows. But the prize for the most romantic nuptials should go to CBS's Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. In the midst of a flower-strewn meadow, Boston-bred frontier doc Michaela Quinn (Jane Seymour) finally gets hitched to her longtime love, mountain man Byron Sully, played to grizzled perfection by Joe Lando. Seymour, 44, can hear the fans swooning. "Joe's the object of women's fantasies," she says of her 33-year-old costar. "And I'm on the on-air recipient."

Despite Lando's status as one of TV's hottest hunks, he is, by all accounts - including his own - a shy guy who is close to his family, has a steady girlfriend and lives alone in a leased two-bedroom house in L.A. that he shares with his pet Labrador, Rosie - his frequent companion on the Dr. Quinn set. Playful and good-natured ("childlike," says Seymour, meaning it as a compliment), Lando helped Seymour's 9-year old son, Sean, celebrate a birthday on the set by showing him and his friends how to throw a tomahawk. "Joe can play tough and at the same time be sensitive," says Beth Sullivan, Dr. Quinn's creator. "That's a rare combination."

That may explain why he has had women in his corner all his life, beginning with his sister Kathy, 10 years his senior. During her decade as an only child, Kathy says she begged her parents - Joseph Lando, a Chicago fishing-tackle manufacturer, and his wife, Virginia, a homemaker, for a sibling. When Joe came along, Kathy says, "He was my baby."

As a teenager growing up in the Chicago suburbs of Park Ridge and Long Grove, Ill., Lando met another important woman in his life, future John Laroquette Show star Alison LaPlaca. When they began dating, LaPlaca, then a senior at Adlai E. Stevenson High School, inspired Lando, a sophomore, to try out for a part in the school production of L'il Abner. He got a role, but just before opening night he broke his foot and never went on.

Undeterred, he headed for California after graduating from high school in 1980 - with encouragement from Kathy, now 43, a day care provider and mother of four. Lando didn't tell his family all the details about the lean decade that followed, during which he supported himself much of the time as a waiter and bartender.

After a few bit parts and commercials, his break came in 1989, when he won the role of bad boy Jake Harrison on One Life to Live - a plum that was not, at first, without drawbacks. Relations between Lando and his leading lady, Jessica Tuck, who played Jake's wife, Megan, were, to put it mildly, strained. "We couldn't stand each other," Lando says. Tuck, 32, concurs.

"Neither of us liked to lose an argument or be wrong," she says. "It was so absurd." Finally, a castmate arranged for them to have drinks after work one day, "and things started mellowing out," says Lando. "We got so close, it was great." Those early scratch marks have healed, the two still keep in touch.

When Lando left One Life in 1991 and moved back to L.A., CBS asked him to chose one of three pilot scripts. He picked Dr. Quinn because, he says, "I got to be a cowboy." But not a lonesome cowboy. Three years ago, while filming Dr. Quinn's pilot episode in Agoura Hills, Calif., Seymour - then recently separated from her third husband, real estate businessman David Flynn - fell for Lando and he for her. After a few weeks, she left to make a TV movie in Arizona, directed by James Keach, while Lando toured the southwest to research his role as Sully. "By the time I got back," Lando says, "she was in love with James, and the rest is history." Keach, 47 and Seymour married in 1993.

No hard feelings, insists Lando, who was a guest at the wedding. Says Seymour: "We get together socially from time to time. He's very happy in his relationship, and I am too." Lando's contentment is evident as he flips through a photo album showing pictures of him with a former grammar school teacher from New Zealand he has been dating on and of for the past five years. Zealously guarding their privacy, he won't name her. When they venture out, he says, fans rarely recognize him without Sully's trademark buckskins - and that's fine with him. "I walk down the street with my sunglasses on and a baseball cap," he says, with a grin. "I have my job, and then I have my real life."

Michael A. Lipton

Karen Brailsford

from U.S. TVG, May 6 - 12, 1995

The bride is ready. Jane Seymour steps out of her trailer, clutching the folds of her voluminous offwhite silk wedding gown, revealing feet encased in slender, cream-coloured buttoned boots. Her blond-streaked hair is a mass of perfectly pinned curls and ringlets that cascade past her shoulders.

She smiles as she makes her way down the dirt path to a meadow where the wedding guests await. Were this the real American frontier, Dr.Michaela Quinn probably would walk a dusty road to her own wedding. But it's unlikely that the hardworking doc would be trailed by a costumer holding up the hem of her gown, a personal dresser carting the pearl-embroidered train, and a driver slowly piloting a Ford Explorer. Usually, Seymour gets ferried around the location of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, in the rolling hills just north of Malibu, but on this day, bride and gown can't get into the vehicle without getting squished.

"Do you like it? Isn't it heaven?" says Seymour, displaying her gown as she arrives at the meadow, now dotted with ribbon-swagged rows of seats assembled to make an outdoor chapel. "I like it better than my own wedding dress," adds Seymour who is now living with her fourth husband, actor and Dr.. Quinn director James Keach.

The groom is ready too. Sort of.

"I don't know if I'd ever want to go through one of these things in real life," says the unmarried Joe Lando, clad in tuxedo trousers and a leather Indian war shirt adorned with bead and porcupine-quill work, his face bronzed by makeup to look like an outdoorsman's. "All the planning and stuff." Speaking like his alter ego, Byron Sully, the eccentric, independent-minded mountain man who won Dr. Quinn's heart. He pulls on a cigarette as he observes the wedding madness from a distance. "Jane gets nervous about things - especially about the wedding. She's been nervous, I can tell," he says, chuckling. "It's like she's actually getting married."

She balks when later confronted with his observations.

"I noticed that the flower girls weren't carrying flowers," Seymour says. "Apart from that I didn't butt in too much, Joe. I was on my best behaviour."

Lando pauses. "I feel an argument coming," he deadpans. They both laugh.

Three seasons ago, Seymour set out as Dr. Michaela Quinn to conquer the frontier West and the even more dangerous territory of Saturday-night-television - known as ratings quicksand. Derided by critics as schmaltzy but praised by its champions as smart family fare, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman has become a staple of Saturday night with its moral tales that touch on everything from Indian customs to book burning to family life in a rustic new land.Along the way, the scrappy Dr. Quinn, who left her comfortable Boston surroundings for the challenges of the West, won the loyalty of viewers, the trust of the townspeople of Colorado Springs, and the love of the handsome mountain man.

Now in answer to all those fans clamoring for a consummation of the most chaste love affair in prime-time television today, Dr. Mike, as she is affectionately known in the town, will wed Sully in the two-hour season-ender (May 20, 8- 10 p.m. ET).

The show's creator and executive producer, Beth Sullivan, had resisted. Conventional television wisdom holds that nothing kills off a sexy, watchable couple like a happy, unconflicted marriage. "Fans would ask, "when are they going to get married?" recalls Sullivan, "and I would say, "The last day of the show."

But Sullivan enlisted the help of CBS marketing analysts, who policed viewers and found them all ready for a commitment. "People wanted to get on with seeing more of the relationship," says Sullivan.

Once betrothed to a man who died in the Civil War, Dr. Quinn has never been married. Engaged for a whole season, she will go to the altar a virgin bride at 37. "Her experience in this area is nil," says Sullivan. "It's 1870."

The couple will begin their honeymoon in a train suite decorated by the three children Dr. Mike adopted at the beginning of the first season to fulfil the dying wish of a friend. "We get on a train and we pull away, How much more Freudian can you get for 8 o'clock?" quips Lando.

Benign as their on-camera relationship is, it attracts attention, partially because Lando and Seymour were romantically involved after making the pilot (and before Seymour began seeing Keach).

Since then, the only steamy rumor that ever surfaces from the set of the show is that Seymour and Lando do not get along and don't even speak. "Well this is not true," says Seymour calmly. "I read that too, But we definitely speak to each other. Not only speak to each other - he usually comes on the set and gives me a great big wet kiss with his dark makeup on. I mean, he came to my wedding!"

Later, Lando echoes the show's star. "Next to "how do you like being considered a hunk?" that's probably the most-asked question," says Lando, once a heartthrob on One Life to Live and Guiding Light. "Jane and I, we're out here doing our job. We get along fine."

Lando, by the way, has a girlfriend, a former grammar-school teacher who now manages a coffeehouse. "We're friends" he says of Seymour. "But she's got a family, she's got kids. You know, we have different lifestyles."

Seymour says their history helps more than hurts. "There's an intimacy that obviously exists, because we did know each other well. I think in a funny way it really helps the characters because we're very comfortable with each other."

Producer Tim Johnson says whatever frictions the stars might have are the natural by-products of long schedules. "Jane and Joe often work 14 hours a day. To expect them to be in great moods all the time isn't realistic."

It looks like the first morning of the wedding shoot might be one of those frictional times. Lando is missing as Seymour and others take their places for a wedding rehearsal. When it is finally time to shoot the bridal party processing down the aisle, Lando shows up expressionlessly, takes his place, and then vanishes as soon as the director calls "Cut." Later, in the afternoon, he reappears in the meadow, considerably more relaxed and voluble. He explains he had been shooting a scene in which his character bids a sober farewell to his dead wife and child shortly before he was called to do the wedding scene.

"You have to go, in one day, from one extreme to another," says Lando. "That's what I've been going through. Now I've had some time to chill out." But that's not all. "I'm kind of trying to keep away from the bride," he says. "I'm trying to make it as real as possible."

The men who will play Sully's ushers put off donning their heavy black coats over white band-collared shirts until the last minute, as the morning turns from balmy to hot. Twenty-year old Chad Allen's hair is slicked back, and the hole in his earlobe has been brushed with makeup. I wouldn't do for Dr. Mike's eldest adopted son to have a pierced ear.

"Or a pierced stomach," Allen adds, raising a white shirttail to reveal a silver ring in his navel.

Of course, part of the wedding story will be the conflict over what Dr. Quinn will wear. Her overbearing mother arrives from Boston with an elaborate concoction. The townspeople have made a simple gown for her. She ends up, Solomon-like, crafting parts of both dresses into one.

Costume designer Cheri Ingle went through some 30 sketches, trying to conjure up a dress that would please Seymour, respect the historical period, and also appeal to a 1990's viewership. "You wouldn't want to see her in some demure little thing," says Ingle.

In fact, the dress has more than the feel of the period than the actual historical look of the era, which would have been ruffles and high-collared and probably not white. Seymour found the pearl-encrusted fabric herself in London last Christmas but Ingle had to special-order the fabric from India at a cost of $2000. "This is a very expensive show," says producer Johnson, who estimates the wedding show will cost 30 percent more than a regular episode's $1.5 million price tag. "It has taught me personally to want to elope."

But that wouldn't have done for Dr. Quinn and Sully. And when they return from their honeymoon, plenty of new conflicts await them

Yes, the couple will probably have a baby. "Eventually," says Sullivan, "but there will be tragedy first."

Next season, Sullivan says, she wants to plumb the uncharted territories of the couple's personal relationship. First comes the romance. "She likes sex and feels guilty," says Sullivan. "She's really into it but feels strange initiating it."

And then comes the reality: They've already had to compromise with each other on symbolic matters, Sully refuses to wear a wedding ring. Dr. Quinn won't change her name. Now comes the hard part of living together. "Sully, the mountain man, is accustomed to a certain independence," says Sullivan. "He's still going to come and go, but now there's more at stake.:

Carla Hall

from Bravo Magazine, April, 1995

Joe Lando: "I will marry Dr. Quinn"

"I was really down this morning, but the BRAVO readers have saved my day" Joe welcomed the BRAVO-team on the set of Dr. Quinn. During the presentation of the Otto Award (ed. note: BRAVO readers award) (it looks like an Indian) in various categories, Joe came in #3 as the best TV actor, he gives away a secret to the BRAVO readers ...

"I'm totally thrilled, this Otto (award) seems to be made for me personally. You know as Sully I play a white guy who has lived with the Indians for a long time. That's why the BRAVO Indian is such a great award for me" tells Joe Lando (34) happily. Joe even took off his lunch break for the award presentation and welcomes the BRAVO team to his trailer on the set of "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" in Agoura Hills, about 15 miles north of Los Angeles.

He has hardly opened his trailer door when a young, black and white Border Collie puppy jumps towards him. "That's Rosie, she's three months old and still very playful. Rosie's mother belongs to a colleague on the set. When she had five puppies he asked me if I'd like to take Rosie. And because I once had a dog when I was a boy, I was very happy with that, I just said yes and now I'm really glad that I did. It's like having a baby."

But the 34-year old actor is still far away from having children of his own. It's true that he is seriously involved, but still he had planned to move into his newly built house in Arizona on his own. But that's not going to happen anyway..."in the end I didn't like the construction. That's why I've already sold it again. Instead I've now bought a wonderful house in the mountains outside of Los Angeles. Originally I only wanted to live in Arizona because my parents are living there. And when my sister and her kids came for a visit, the place was just too crowded. Now we'll all just live in a hotel."

Joe's girlfriend, who's name he doesn't want to tell, has her own house. Seriously he says: "As long as I'm not married, I don't want to live together with anyone. There would be nothing left to look forward to. I'm really old fashioned about that, but we spend a lot of time together."

Shining blue eyes, long dark hair and always sun-tanned, that's what made so many female fans have a crush on him. And now he surprises us again. Joe pulls off his shirt. "Look, my chest is as white as a sheet. The tan you see is only make-up. But I'm glad about that. It has sunblock effect so I won't get cancer in any way. The long hair is part of my contract. So it would be a problem for me to go bald for a different character!"

While Dr. Quinn went on season's break on March 19th here in Germany, the shooting for the third season is in full progress. But before Joe answers the most important question for us, he tantalizes us: "We just finished working on a 2-hour episode. It's most of all about my friends, the Indians. The episode, "Washita" deals with the massacre on the Cheyenne, by General Custer about 130 years ago. The Indians were actually slaughtered. I really took this episode to heart."

But still all the fans are waiting for something completely different. "Yes I know" Joe laughs, "I will tell you. In the near future we will shoot a spectacular wedding episode. Yes I will marry Dr. Quinn!"

Translated by Susanne Dippel

from The E. Robbins Magazine, April 1995

We started off this month with a terrific coup, spending the entire night with Joe Lando and being the only photojournalists permitted access to him at the cocktail reception in the International Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Joe looked absolutely fabulous with that great smile and that manly body in a period tuxedo suit, which, except for a contemporary tie, could have been right of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. His rugged, good looking face, surrounded by that gorgeous mane of hair, had every woman in the place ogling him all night. In real life Joe is a very private man and it is most difficult to pin him down at most occasions, so a shoot like this is not only great for us but an even bigger plus for our members who have placed him high in our most wanted new star list. You gals seem to be really turned on by this guy who has fast become the current Hollywood Hunk.

Joe is a great lover of animals which is why he accepted the invitation by the Ark Trust to be a presenter at their ninth annual Genesis Awards, which honors outstanding individuals in the major media and artistic community who have spotlighted animal issues in their works, and since we have 11 kittys in our studio and home it was an honor to be invited to this event.

After Joe arrived I joined the electronic media in the Empire Room for the VIP reception with the thought of getting some setups with him. Before long, I realized that, because the press room had become so crowded, Joe chose to remain at the reception in the adjacent ballroom, which by then I had joined and with his cooperation, was unobtrusively photographing him freely without interrupting his covnersations with other guests. When one of the tv interviewers asked him to accompnay her to the press room for a few moments he gently declined. I watched as he was approached by various guests and he was very gracious to everyone, chatting and even signing a few autographs for some children. I was still intent on getting Joe in a photo with another star and saw my opportunity when Ed Asner walked by me. We were about ten feet from Joe, and while it is customary, out of respect to bring the younger (or comparatively lesser known) star to the veteran, I knew from personal experience what a truly nice man Mr. Asner is, so I told him who Joe was and asked if he would mind being photographed with him. He said that while he hadn't yet met him, he'd be delighted to do it and graciously followed me to where Joe was standing with a group of people. As we were nearing Joe someone stopped Asner briefly and I used the time to ask Joe if he would pose with Ed Asner, who had already agreed and was on his way over. Joe was astounded and replied "but he doesn't know me from Adam!" At that very moment Ed joined us and Joe immediately extended his hand to him saying, "Mr. Asner, I'm Joe Lando. It's a pleasure to meet you sir." They shook hands, and Ed Asner's relaxed manner soon put Joe at ease. They then turned to me and Joe asked one of the people in his party to step back out of the way saying, "please give us a moment, this photographer wants to get a picture of the two of us." The whole epsiode took only a few minutes, but was most revealing. Another star of his status might have required the younger star be brought to him (it's an ego thing) but I've known Ed Anser for many years and was not in the least surprised by his kindness, decency and total lack of pretension. In response, Joe Lando was obviously impressed by the older man's generosity and was totally deferential to him, giving him the respect he deserved, with great appreciation of his gesture. They were still chatting when I left them.

from Hitkrant, the Spetter (Hunk) Page - (Holland) 1994

Translation by Harmony Kingston

"Say, why isn't there ever anything about Joe Lando in Hitkrant? He happens
to be the biggest thing on the tube. He plays Byron Sully in the series
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. Apart from that, I don't know anything about
him. Can you put a picture of him on the Spetter (Hunk) page? And do you have
info about him?" Kim v. Welde, Oostrum."

Joe Lando was born almost 34 years ago (yes, really, he's already that
old!) in Long Grove, near Chicago, the son of a fish seller. His mother
worked in public relations. When he turned 18, he left home to go to
Los Angeles to make his way in Hollywood. Because of his skills as a
cook and pizza maker, he got work on the film I Love You to Death. Then
he appeared in the soap One Life to Live, before getting chosen for Dr.
Quinn, Medicine Woman. Last year Joe was named in the American magazine
People as one of the sexiest men on earth."

"Do you have a Spetter (Hunk)? Do you want to see a beautiful picture of your favorite...."

from Canadian TVG - Dec. 10 - 16, 1994

He's tall, he's hairy, he's hunky. He's got soul, and he's almost got Dr. Quinn. He's always there when you need him, he knows when to shut up and when to take a stand, and he doesn't smell half bad considering all that time around horses. He's Byron Sully, the spiritual, peacekeeping frontiersman, played by Joe Lando on Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman.

And hold onto your britches, he's sitting right here. Joe Lando is sprawled on the floor of his trailer, in Sully's 1860's chick leather togs, on location for Dr. Quinn in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains. Looking at the TV GUIDE reader Poll issue in which he was named the Sexiest Man on TV (ahead of Star Trek: The next Generation's Patrick Stewart) - an honor previously bestowed upon on the likes of Tom Selleck (Magnum P.I.) and MacGyver's Richard Dean Anderson - Lando muses: "So, Patrick Stewart was second this year? Well that's just the way it goes in this business."

No, Lando, 32, is not ungrateful' he's just a realistic product of work-orientated Middle America who still sounds surprised to be in a hit series, even though this is the third season that he and Jane Seymour have been slaying the Saturday-night network competition. Says Lando: "Now that I'm on a freight train, I'm riding it as far as it goes."

That train should keep rolling. Following the example of keeping Angela Lansbury on Murder, She Wrote all these years, CBS can be expected to back Brink's trucks up to Seymour's door when her contract is up. So with Sully now engaged to Dr. Mike - "I'm told the end of the season will involve a wedding," says Lando - the actor looks to be sitting pretty. If he's not crowing about that right now it's because "it seemed to take forever to get there," says Lando of his current good fortune. "All kinds of acquaintances in this business were making an impact before anybody every heard of me. I feel now like I played the lottery with my life and won."

Growing up in Prairie View, Ill., a countrylike area near Chicago, he had always dreamed about becoming an actor. "I loved pretending, and I was a big fan of Daniel Boone, so I ran around dressed up like him," Lando recalls. Looking at his Sully attire, he asks "Looks like I've come full circle, doesn't it? Only now I get paid for dressing like this."

At Adlai Stevenson High School, he met "the first big love of my life," Alison LaPlaca, who also had a hankering to act. (She's currently on The John Larroquette Show.) By now, Lando is sick of answering questions about his motorcycle capers in those days, but does own up to having broken every finger, both wrists, his nose and his jawbone. "Look, he explains, "when you're that age the testosterone is flowing like crazy and you feel invincible. But for the sake of my mom, who was always saying "Now what happened?" I finally just didn't let myself get on a bike anymore."

Lando went off to L.A. where he studied acting and wound up working as a chef, a fact he's proud of. "Yeah, I was a genuine chef - multi-course meals, six nights a week in a real restaurant, no burgers and fries stuff. There's all kinds of actors in Hollywood who bitch and moan about starving, but never do anything about it. I never knew if the acting would pan out, and I got to the point where backers wanted me to start my own restaurant in Chicago. But I decided not to give up on the acting dream."

He got his SAG (Screen Actors Guild) card with a brief appearance in Star Trek IV, then moved to New York in 1990 to become drifter Jake Harrison on One Life to Live. After that, he arrived back in L.A. just in time to become the first cast member signed for Dr. Quinn. When Seymour was cast as Dr. Mike after other actresses turned down the role, she and Lando hit it off so well that they dated briefly. (She's now married to actor-director James Keach).

"Unassuming charm" is Lando's key quality, says series creator Beth Sullivan. "Joe combines great looks with a sincerity and sensitivity that's real. He's straightforward; I don't see any phony star stuff in him."

That's about as close as anybody can tie together the real Lando and the considerably more mysterious Sully. For the record, Lando would like to straighten out what makes the character tick. "There's still a lot of confusion," he says. "He's a guy from Irish and English immigrants who lost all of his family which is why he's so concerned about this family he's sort of adopting now in Dr. Quinn and her (adopted) kids. He was an orphan when he came west at 11; he married, but his wife died. He enlisted in the Civil War to lose himself in fighting, but being an assassin was repugnant to him, so he went AWOL. And he would have gone insane if he hadn't found spirituality by going off to live with the Cheyenne."

With marriage looking like a lock for Sully and Dr. Mike (next season may bring - shudder - the end of her virginity), the show is using the characters' closeness to also point out basic differences between them. Dr. Quinn, for example, wants the railroad to come through town. Sully was deadset against it as an intrusion that will ruin an entire way of life. "But there's give-and-take between them," says Lando. "She tells him, "If it (the effect of the railroad) ever gets too much for you, we'll move some place else."

As for his personal life, Lando doesn't see marriage on the horizon. "I have a girlfriend I've been going with off and on since before I had any acting success," he says, "but once I clock in here (on location), I'm here til I'm released and that can be late into the evening, so it's hard to maintain a serious relationship. I don't know how some people in this business, especially the ones doing hourlong drama, have successful marriages and kids and th whole shot."

But the Sexiest Man on TV, poking fun at himself, does see little indications of domestic taming. "Hey," Lando says, "I'm responsible for Bob the Bird (his pet cockatile). That's pretty adult. I just got a border collie/lab puppy,Rosie, which is a big responsibility. And I've moved into a house. Maybe I've started down that slippery slope after all."

Glenn Esterly

from Star, October 4, 1994

Star - October 4, 1994

Medicine Woman's Joe Lando collapses on Set

A real life medical emergency shook up the set of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman when Jane Seymour's hunky co-star Joe Lando collapsed with chest pains.

Jane - who'd been feuding with Lando - put aside their differences to hurry to his side. "Everyone dropped everything and rushed to help" says a set insider. Even Jane came running up, her skirts flying to see what all the commotion was about. About 40 people were crowding round Joe. He was gasping for air, Jane took charge and shouted "back up, give the man some air."

Then she bent over him and loosened his shirt, saying "relax. Take it easy. Help is on the way." Jane was perfectly calm and collected.

Adds another set insider. "Joe is the bite the bullet kind of guy, so when he grabbed his chest, groaned and sagged to his knees, everyone feared the worst."

At first, Lando - who plays Sully on the show - tried to laugh it off, saying "I'm sure it's nothing serious. I'm a perfectly healthy 32 year old."

He blamed his pain on a cracked rib he thinks he got in a fight scene for this upcoming TV movie, Shadow of Desire.

"For Joe to complain about anything, it has to be absolutely intolerable," says the insider. "The assistant director was on the walkie-talkie calling for a driver to come and pick up Joe immediately. The producers were white with fear, because they saw the show going down the tubes, so they insited he go to the hospital."

Lando was rushed to a hospital in Thousand Oaks, Calif. where tests showed he was suffering from muscular tension and shortness of breath.

"Joe is a favorite with the crew, so they were worried, until the good news came," says a setsider. "They started nervously cracking jokes - things like, "Did anyone see Jane slipping something into Joe's drink?" referring to the ongoing tension between the two stars.

"It's gotten better on the set since the producers ordered them to be nice to each other, but the tension is still there."

Lando and Seymour were called into a network meeting this spring where execs warned that if they didn't stop quarreling, they would be replaced.

Dave LaFontaine

The Hollywood Reporter 1994

"SHADOWS OF DESIRE"
       Review

In Shadows of Desire, one of the quality writers in TV long form, Joyce Eliason, goes plumbing the depths of the Snow family in small town Utah and finds all the old wounds--then re-opens them.

There's no comedy lines here but it's fine writing, among the more probing television dramas of recent seasons, with strong, rich characters thrown into conflict.

The essence of the A story is a twisted triangle involving Jude (Adrian Pasdar) and Sonny (Joe Lando) and a complicated woman, Rowena (Nicolette Sheridan), who desires to redeem her life but seems more drawn to satisfying her sense of excitement, her loins for example.

The B plot is Jude, the good son who runs the store for his belittling mother Ellis (Piper Laurie), but can never hobble out from under the shadow of the daring, dashing brother Sonny, the bad boy who returns with, we learn, some nasty danger not far behind. sonny, of course is/was/always, the whole apple orchard of his mother's eye.

Even though Jude tells his brother about his growing adoration of Rowena, Sonny never reveals a messy relationship with her an eon ago and starts pressing himself on her.

The leads turn in powerful performances. Pasdar is the boy any mom would want for herself, but his mom doesn't realize it; Sheridan presents a sharp image of the conflicted woman; Laurie is perfectly demanding as a woman who is never satisfied.

Lando is wonderfully dangerous--but he requires a double take. He's the same guy who plays passive, if manly Sully on "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman."

Director Sam Pillsbury has fashioned long, deadly shadows across the emotional landscape. But it's Eliason's landscape, and she has a sharp Tennessee Williams eye for aberrant behavior and revealing what's wrong with this family portrait.

by Irv Letofsky

from an unnamed French magazine, September 1994

DOCTEUR QUINN
JANE SEYMOUR: SHE HAS NOT THE ACKNOWLEGMENT OF THE HEART

The time is far when the beautiful Jane was giving
ALL... her body to Joe Lando! Today, between them, it's the war!'

from Entertainment Weekly, April 8, 1994

Love, Medicine and Miracles

With a sod-busting 22 million viewers a week, seeded heavily with young women, Dr. Quinn has quietly instigated several television revolutions, some of which are just now becoming evident to viewers. Most significantly, it has reinvigorated the previously dead hour-long family drama; other bucolic inter generational series have crowded the post-Olympic airwaves, from ABC's The Byrds of Paradise and CBS's The Road Home to CBS's new daughter-of-Quinn period drama, Christy. In addition, the show has revitalized once-mordant Saturday evening network viewing, pulling CBS from fourth to first place for the night and helping it maintain No. 1 status overall despite its post-Lilliehammer fade; revived the TV Western, along with its 10 p.m. guy-appeal counterpart, Walker, Texas Ranger with which it has created a clever programming sandwich; and brought a '90's feminist agenda to the classic Hollywood interplay between cowboys and Indians - correction, between frontierpersons and Native Americans.

Oh, and it has brought a '90's age-of-caution twist to romance, as Michaela inflames the heart of strong, silent, buckskin-clad mountain man Byron Sully (Joe Lando of One Life to Live), yet remains a virgin.

Meanwhile, cynical critics have been left in the dust, simultaneously contemptuous and awestruck by Quinn's not-just-a-one-season-fluke success.

Perched in her trailer in the hills outside Los Angeles that have been transformed into 1867 Colorado Springs - if that town had stocked camera dollies, boom mikes and Ray Bans at the general store - Seymour sits with her back straight and her lace-up boots gleam without a trace of frontier mud. "Oh!" she lilts. "You wouldn't believe the people that watch this show! It's about the only show that you can really sit down and watch with your entire family, male and female, old and young, and everybody gets something out of it. I don't think the critics even really watched it, to be perfectly honest. I think they just kind of put it on and went, 'Oh, it's soft, it's not Northern Exposure, it's not quirky, it looks normal,' and therefore passed."

In fact, many critics didn't simply pass - they trampled on the series, flinging accusations of "treacle" and overbearing political correctness when it first appeared on New Year's Day, 1993, as a mid-season replacement for Frannie's Turn and Brooklyn Bridge. And who didn't giggle at Quinn's unlikely premise - Michaela battles frontier hardships while single-handedly maintaining her neighbor's health and raising three adopted children and chastely stoking the sparks with Natural Man Sully, yet resisting any conflagration from those desires.

"Oh yeah, Sully's been awfully patient," says Lando, fingering the impressive tomahawk with which Sully communicates far more eloquently than with mere White Man's words. "This guy is really emotional, he's sensitive, and he's definitely whupped when it comes to Dr. Mike. Hey, he's been out here alone in the woods all these years with his wolf," says Lando, referring to the side-kick - actually a Malamute - who accompanies Sully everywhere. "What's a couple more years until she breaks down?"

When they said to me, "You're playing a virgin," I said, 'Oh God!" recalls Seymour with a laugh as, a few steps away from her door, young men thrilled to be in show business scoop genuine Western horse droppings into a wheelbarrow. "I could just see the jokes. But actually, it's a wonderful romance, because it's so appropriate in this day and age." Seymour's wisdom on the subject cannot be discounted: She has appeared, invariably with romance in the script, in more than 40 TV dramas, including War and Remembrance and East of Eden (earning her the royal title Queen of the Miniseries); she is the author of the 1983 book Jane Seymour's Guide to Romantic Living, she owns a terribly romantic 1,000-year-old manor house near Bath, England; and she recently married her fourth husband, actor-director James Keach (brother of actor Stacy Keach), 46, who has directed occasional Dr. Quinn episodes and whose floral watercolors brighten her dressing room.

Despite Seymour's marquee value, Dr. Quinn had not been expected to do well. After all, with Saturday viewing co-opeted by cable and video rentals, CBS hadn't had a hit series that night since The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1977. "But I knew people were home watching TV" says series creator and executive producer Beth Sullivan. "Baby Boomers were there - I know, because I'm a baby boomer and I'm home." Sullivan, 44, who also created 1992's short-lived series The Trials of Rosie O'Neil, had unsuccessfully pitched ideas to the network before. This time she asked for guidance. The Hallmark production of Sarah, Plain and Tall had just done exceptionally well for CBS, "so they suggested a period piece with a woman and, since it was going to be a series, something with a franchise."

Sullivan, who minored in history in college, loved the post-Civil War era. "You know, they were more politically correct then than we are now," she continues, addressing criticism of the show's omnipresent earnestness. "They had nudist colonies, they had women running for President, there was the emancipation of the slaves. Women were making important contributions."

Lando was signed immediately, but the list of actresses who wouldn't commit to the series was long (including Mel Harris), and Seymour was cast at the last minute. (Lando and Seymour romanced briefly after the pilot was shot and before Seymour, then separated from third husband David Flynn, connected with Keach).

Sold to more than 75 countries, the series has been renewed for another season, during which, Sullivan suggests, proper Dr. Quinn might actually make a questionable judgment or two. "We've tried to soften her, give her character some flaws," she says.

And will Michaela give in to Sully, too? "Well," says Seymour, "I think (our relationship) is hotter than the two of us taking our clothes off and climbing into bed and saying, you know 'What position are we gonna choose tonight, honey?' But who knows" All kinds of things could happen."

Out on the set, women dressed as prostitutes chat with men dressed as soldiers in General Custer's army. Lando, rehearsing, gets set to straddle a horse. A hawk circles high overhead. For a moment the landscape looks as it might have more than a hundred years ago. With not a TV critic in sight.

Lisa Schwarzbaum

from Playgirl, February 1994

As Sully, the prairie hunk on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Joe Lando has been making women flip. But few know that flipping was how Lando got his start in show business.

When Lando first moved to Los Angeles from hometown Chicago to join the herds of actor-wannabees, he worked as a dough flipper in an Italian restaurant. “I was the pizza man. My job was basically to get the dough ready for the pizza makers,” he says. “Not to brag or anything, but I was pretty good. I could flip the dough over my head and it usually never hit me back in the face. I was like a guy in one of those movies.”

In fact, Lando was such a good dough boy that one night two guys who worked for director Lawrence Kasden wandered into the restaurant and watched Lando do his stuff. “They told me they were doing a movie and the cast needed to learn how to flip pizza dough. I figured, ‘Why not?”

Why not indeed? Lando landed on the set of I Love You To Death where his official title was Pizza Consultant. “My job was teaching Kevin Kline, Tracey Ullman and River Phoenix how to flip pizzas.” How did they do? “Well Kevin actually was a very talented pizza flipper. He was good with his hands. River Phoenix was second to Kevin in pizza throwing.” And Ullman? “Let’s just say she wasn’t in to it.”

Lando says, “I learned a lot just being on the set and ended up with a small part. It really was a break.” From there, he went on to One Life to Live before being snagged by Dr. Quinn to play Jane Seymour’s love interest. “These days, I get dirt rubbed on my fact to play Sully. I have this fake sweat rolling down my shoulders. That seems a lot worse than a little flour on your hands.” And as for pizza, he rarely eats it anymore. “I’m watching my weight,” he says. “I never eat too much cholesterol.”

Susan Smith

from Woman's World, February 1994

"He's Just My Type"

Sully, (Joe Lando), Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

Dr. Chapman

from Daytime TV, January 1994

Medicine Man

When CBS informed daytime journalists that Joe Lando would return to daytime for a six week period on Guiding Light, we just couldn't contain ourselves! After all, wasn't this the man who broke millions of hearts as Jake Harrison on One Life to Live and is breaking many more on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman as Byron Sully? For those of you who missed Joe's exciting storyline, here is a recap of what happened during a six-week period this past summer.

The Davenport Murder Mystery kept Springfield on the edge of its seats this summer, as Nick (Vincent Irizarry) called on Macauley (Joe Lando) in Chicago to get further information on this case, on which he was writing an investigative report. David (Monti Sharp) and Gilly (Amelia Marshall) were connected to this murder and Nick was out to find the real story being their supposed connection to it.

On Nick's urging, Macauley came to town to try and help Nick uncover the facts of this puzzling case. Mac knew that Gilly had killed a man, and that David had taken the heat for her crime, but as of yet, that information was not public. Nick dug both his heels into the investigation, and came out with the shocking information regarding Gilly. Once made public, it sent shock waves throughout Springfield, for no one would believe this upstanding young woman would perform so diabolical an act. When it was revealed that Gilly acted in self-defense and David was only trying to protect her, the tension relaxed somewhat, but not enough for Gilly's liking. Mac knew his job of helping David was completed and he left the young man with a gift of hope and promise for his future.

Meanwhile, Macauley found a woman in town who was very much to his liking, but the biggest obstacle was, she was seriously involved with another man! Mindy (Barbara Crampton) found herself very attracted to Mac and he to her. At first, their relationship was based solely on a need to help Nick with his work, but as they spent more time with each other, Mindy felt she could rely on this strong and handsome man. They shared several passionate kisses and embraces, and it was on these mutual strong feelings that Mac asked Mindy to return to Chicago with him. However, after weeks of arguing, Mindy and Nick had reached a new place in their relationship and they couldn't deny the enormous chemistry that exists between them, despite their many problems. A gracious loser in love, Mac left Mindy and a town full of people who were both mesmerized by and grateful to this man. The door is still open to him to return to finish what he started.

DTV

from The Tribune, January 27, 1994

It's five days after the big quake. Joe Lando, actor is standing in a doorway - portable telephone in hand - as the fifth aftershock in 15 minutes rattles his 3rd floor apartment in Hollywood.

Having awakened a half-hour earlier to discuss his role as Sully, white-man friend to the Indian on TV's frontier saga Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Lando is jolted into real time, compliments of Mother Nature.

"God of Earth: angry, mad" Lando says, Tarzan-like. "That's how it feels. There's no place to run, the ground is shaking and only the sky is safe."

At this West Coast frontier, Lando turns on his radio, then forges ahead. "I've grabbed my bird Bob. Bob goes everywhere with me - and shoes. My car's been packed for days. Now, where was I?"

Lando hd been reminiscing about his boyhood in Park Ridge, Ill. where he grew up. "I was in love with going to the movies with my mom and dad, seeing James Bond, "Dr. Zhivago," whatever. From real early on, I memorized every movie name, who was in it, what year it was made, movies I'd never seen. It was weird. But like every boy I knew, I dreamed of being in a Western."

The 30-year-old Lando has finally beaten a path to that dream. "Up until a few years ago, I was making under $5,000 a year at acting. I kept up for eight years before I had a payday. I'm tenacious" he explains.

When Dr. Quinn premiered in January, 1993, Lando was cast as the long-maned frontiersman of few words, a beacon in the wilderness to the proper, citified lady doctor played by Jane Seymour.

Lando chose Dr. Quinn he says, after considering three pilots. "I would have been hearbroken if it hadn't made it" he admits, "since it's my first prime-time venture out and because I liked it. It struck a chord and it had something for everyone - animal lovers to children, adolescents to older people. There's not a lot of violence, it's not controversial."

When he was 18, Lando moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting. Most of the jobs that popped up were in restaurants and he worked his way up to master chef. "I'm pretty reasonable and thought I've got to grow up and make a decision. I dropped out of acting for a while and became a chef."

In 1989, while contemplating opening a restaurant of his own, he recalls, "I said to myself, 'I need to get into a soap and make $100,000 a year and turn my life around."

That's when he got the call that led to the role of Jake on One Life to Live. Two years later, after his story wound down, Lando was fired and he packed for Chicago. Just two days before returning to his home-town, CBS called. Lando had not gone unnoticed on daytime and was offered a deal on the West Coast, "so I bought a pick up truck in Chicago, packed and moved to LA. CBS was calling. I had to go."

Last summer, in a move calculated to boost the ratings for the CBS soap opera Guiding Light, network honcho Jeff Sagansky asked Lando to do a guest stint for the serial while on hiatus from Dr. Quinn. "I was nervous as hell to go back to daytime and do that job. I had a lot to lose" Lando remembers. "People thought I'd lost my nightime job. Then too, I was a character who comes from out of nowhere, I felt pressure from myself to do it. It was a challenge."

Although the door was left open for his GL character to return this summer, Lando says he'll probably make a "movie of the week" instead. "Make hay while the sun shines" he says as another tremor hits and he mentions the house he is building in Arizona, near his parents' residence.

If he should move out of LA altogether, it won't be because his dreams didn't come true there. "I'm a fighter. I picture things and try to make them come true. Now I'm 30 and playing Cowboys and Indians and I'm thinking 'this is just like playing in my back yard in Park Ridge with the guys - when I was dreaming that someday I would be in a Western - and I'm doing it. Of course it's work" he continues, "but on that one day when maybe I'm on a crane and the horses and the stagecoach are coming across the shot, I think I'm in a Western! This is way cool!"

by Marla Hunt