Scripps Howard News Service 10/5/1999 JAG'S Catherine Bell dons a new uniform in 'Timeshifters'

PASADENA, Calif. - Catherine Bell was such a nerd that she actually programmed a computer game when she was in junior high school. She wore glasses, was tall and skinny and didn't have a clue how to wear makeup or arrange her hair until a girlfriend taught her in the 11th grade. You'd never guess that today, looking at the tawny beauty in the green cotton sundress and the short, licorice colored hair which is brushed off her face. People know Bell as the spit-and-polish Marine Sarah MacKenzie who matches wits with Navy lawyer Harm Rabb on CBS' "JAG." But Bell sees someone else. "I was a straight-A student, good at math and biology and was going to be a doctor," she says. "I was the biggest geek. I know you hear this all the time, and you don't believe it. But I was, though. People made fun of me. I was the outcast." Bell fills a new uniform on Oct. 17 when she stars as a magazine researcher pursuing a time traveler who mysteriously reappears at natural disasters in "The TimeShifters" airing on TBS Superstation. The woman on "TimeShifters" is far more similar to Bell than Lt. Col. MacKenzie, she thinks. "Rather than being together and a weapons experts like Mac is, this character is a nerdy little researcher wearing glasses and working on a computer. And, all of a sudden, she's thrust into this world, and she's silly and in shock. I got to have a lot of fun with her," says Bell. The daughter of an Iranian mother and English father, Bell's exotic looks overwhelmed her innate shyness enough for her to pose for her first commercial head-shot at 8 and to try modeling in college. Unsure about what she wanted to do, she dropped out of UCLA to pursue modeling, a decision that not only took her to Japan but to the brink. "I hadn't picked a major yet, was really partying more than I was going to school. The agency here set up a meeting with a Japanese agency. They told me to lose 10 pounds, which I did. I was about 15 pounds lighter than I am now, if you can believe that. And they told me to lose 10 pounds." It was in Japan that Bell watched the other models binge, purge and starve themselves into a size 2. "All these models were anorexic or bulimic, and that rubbed off after a while," she confesses. "People were showing you how to throw up. You're taking diet pills. Everyone's partying so you start drinking a lot, and drugs. A couple of years messed me up for a while." Trouble really gripped Bell when she came home. "I gained a lot of weight. I was eating three Big Macs in one sitting because you can't deprive yourself of food like that. You can't get so obsessed about wanting to be so thin. Then all I wanted to do was eat. And when I had the chance, I would. It would start to get better, than I would fall back into the wrong crowd." A friend suggested she try drugs as a way of controlling her weight. "She showed me how. 'You just do a little bit, so you don't eat.' At first I was happy. I had all this energy, cleaned my whole house, lost all this weight. But when it wears off, you're so depressed. And you crash. And you just want to eat and don't want to do anything, so then you have to do more. And it becomes such an ugly cycle ... to where you're doing more and more and more." It was through her acting teacher that Bell became acquainted with Scientology, which she credits for helping her repossess her life. Happily married for five years to actor Adam Beason (they've been together for seven), Bell met him when he was a production assistant for director Bob Zemeckis. "I put my phone number in his pocket, and he was so shy he didn't call me. He thought I was kidding," she smiles. "He was the first nice guy I ever dated. I always went after the bad boys. At first, my mind was going: 'He's boring. He's not interesting because he's so normal. He calls when he says he's going to call, shows up when he's supposed to."' Bell tried to discourage him, "And he wouldn't go away. He did that without giving up his integrity. It was, 'I understand that you're under some stress and I want you to know that I love you and I'm not going anywhere. "It was the first time that I could ever just hold someone and sob about all this stuff. And it really changed me as a person. All of a sudden I was able to have a relationship with somebody and stay in it."