Because he needs a housekeeper and the children need a mother, he has placed a newspaper advertisement in a paper back East. 'She's the kind of woman I've always liked - she's unselfconscious about her looks, and if anything, she's probably insecure.'Īnd because Close, at 5-foot-5, is not particularly tall, her 'Sarah' boots were equipped with 4-inch lifts, she said.Ĭlose plays opposite Christopher Walken as Jacob Witting, a young widower living with his two small children on a farm growing shabby from lack of care. Sensible Sarah Wheaton of Maine is that sort of person. 'I think of 'plain' to justify whatever is plain-spoken, unadorned,' said Close.

MacLachlan said she fielded many inquiries from filmmakers, but not until Glenn Close did she feel confident that she had found the right producer and star.įew would describe Close, who plays Sarah Wheaton, as plain, nor is she particularly tall, but she didn't hesitate to take the role of the woman who leaves her beloved Maine to journey westward to Kansas and a family that needs a mother.

Patricia MacLachlan's 58-page book, published just over five years ago, won the prestigious Newbery Medal for children's literature in 1986 and quietly became a classic, selling more than a million copies.Īs a television movie, it is the 168th sponsored by Hallmark Hall of Fame, which has established an admirable record of underwriting high-quality productions that often garner Emmys.

Viewers who have grown tired of violence and weary of war on their television screens get a break this week when CBS offers 'Sarah, Plain and Tall' (Sunday at 9), a beautifully filmed story set at the turn of the century in the Kansas farmlands.

Sara tall and plain