San Diego, Springfield revel in 'Tide'

On a typically gray October morning on Mission Beach, "High Tide" actors Rick Springfield and Yannick Bisson are standing at the water's edge, about halfway between Crystal Pier and the South Mission jetty.

The playful Bisson spots a tame seagull that's ventured close. Pretending to be the seagull, Bisson squeals: "Hey! Aren't you David Hasselhoff? I don't care who you are! Get off my beach!"

With its sun-and-sand milieu and high skin quotient, "High Tide" bears a visual resemblance to Hasselhoff's "Baywatch." It takes full advantage of bikini-clad lovelies, some of whom are former Playboy centerfolds cast in recurring roles.

But "High Tide" is about hunky detectives, not lifeguards. Springfield and Bisson star as free-spirited guys who own a beach-front surf shop and solve crimes when they're not surfing or charming nubile female companions.

For Springfield, 45, "High Tide" marks a revival of his once-vibrant career. A singing star as a teen in Australia, Springfield hit it big in the United States in the early 1980s, most notably for a Grammy Award-winning pop single, "Jessie's Girl," and his role as Dr. Noah Drake on TV's "General Hospital."

By the mid-80s, he said, "I was very burned out, very depressed and overcome by self-doubt. It was crazy because I had everything I had dreamed about since I was a little kid. But I was the most miserable I'd ever been."

As a result, he opted to take an extended break from performing, songwriting and acting.
"But it got out of hand and I ended up becoming a hermit for about five years," he said softly during a shooting break. "I wouldn't see anybody. I had this beautiful ranch in Malibu with a lot of land and I just couldn't go out. It was a choice that became an obsession. I was in a very dark place, thinking I had failed, that my life was over."

By 1992, after several years of intense psychotherapy, he decided to return to acting. When an offer came to star in "High Tide," he jumped at it.

"One of the ironic things about life is that the greater the pain, the deeper the colors," said Springfield, who is still in therapy. "I really feel like I survived a very dangerous crossroads in my life. Put it this way: I'm very grateful to be working again."

Sunny adventure
Now airing in 118 U.S. cities (locally on KUSI/Channel 51, 2-3 p.m. Saturdays), "High Tide" is seen by several million viewers in the United States and millions more overseas. Like "Baywatch," which reaches one billion viewers each week as TV's most-watched series, "High Tide" has tapped into an audience hungry for sun-drenched adventure.

"Television and film are escapist mediums," said "High Tide" producer Rex Piano, of Stu Segall Productions. "People want to watch something that's attractive and fun, especially if you're living in Peoria or somewhere else where the sun doesn't shine all year 'round. San Diego is filled with lots of very attractive shooting sites and lots of very attractive people. It's perfect for a series like ours."

Now in its second season, "High Tide" has been shooting throughout San Diego County since June. Weekly episodes of the series began airing last month on KUSI and will continue for a total of 24 episodes. (Last year, "High Tide" was shot on location in New Zealand.)

The show's 100-member production crew, working 12-hour days Monday through Friday, has been using as headquarters two main sites: the parking lot across from the Mission Beach roller coaster, where a half-dozen mobile trailers are kept; and a Pismo Court site along the Mission Beach boardwalk where many scenes are shot.

Formerly a record store, the two-story building has been brightly decorated to look like a surf shop, cluttered with racks of swimsuits, bikinis, wet suits and surfboards. Upstairs serves as a messy bachelor apartment for the show's main characters, Mick Barrett (Springfield) and his younger brother, Joey (Bisson).

In each hourlong episode, the brothers find themselves entwined in a connect-the-dots detective case, often involving attractive young women who seek protection from all manner of crooks and bad guys. In tomorrow's episode, Mick and Joey take the case of a homeless, handicapped man who's a suspect in the murder of a punk Rollerblader.

According to "High Tide's" story line, Mick and Joey were orphaned when they were growing up. Mick, older and more practical, is a former big-city cop who was forced out after being blamed for the death of his partner -- though it wasn't Mick's fault.

As for Joey, he's young and excitable, untrained in detective work but prone to finding trouble. The brothers' smart-aleck assistant, Annie, is played by Julie Cialini, Playboy's 1995 Playmate of the Year.

In concept, "High Tide" is reminiscent of "Harry-O" and "Simon & Simon," two network series that were shot in San Diego. In the mid-1970s, ABC's "Harry-0" starred the late David Janssen as Harry Orwell, a middle-age beachboy gumshoe who reluctantly took on oddball cases. And in the early 1980s, CBS' "Simon & Simon" featured Gerald McRaney and Jameson Parker as partners in a struggling detective firm.

Unlike those two series, however, "High Tide" calls for its stars to be experienced surfers, or at least pretend to be reasonably comfortable in the ocean.

Bisson, a Canadian-born actor in his early 30s, calls himself "an OK surfer" -- but not Springfield. Seems the Australian native can't shake a lifelong fear of sharks and doesn't surf or even swim in the ocean.

"But, hey, Brian Wilson never surfed either," said Springfield. And with that, he went back to being Mick Barrett, surfing detective, for another 12-hour day.