Liberation -- for herself and hicks

For the record, Linda Bloodworth-Thomason says the small Arkansas town in her debut novel, “Liberating Paris,” is not her hometown of Poplar Bluff, Mo.

Nor is the married doctor, who can’t resist a fling with his old flame, based on a certain former U.S. president.

And none of the smart steely magnolias in Escada, the warm, sexy men in Armani or the sweet alcoholic relatives who people the novel represent any person, living or dead, including herself.

Still. When the creator of TV’s “Designing Women,” who is probably best known for her ties to Bill Clinton, has had the same best friends for three decades -- much like the characters in the book -- you can’t help but wonder some.

Bloodworth-Thomason, now settled in Hollywood with her colleague and husband, Harry, says simply, “I wanted to write about smart, intelligent people who live in the rural South.” They’re the sort of people, she says, who believe in traditional values but don’t believe in Jerry Falwell. “That’s been the characterization of America’s heartland population by narrow-minded bigots. I wanted to show a different side of that.”

But that sort of literary social work comes with a heavy artistic burden. Because of its agenda, “Liberating Paris” is not a pure novel, she says. And after the book tour (which starts today with a spot on the “Today” show), she says, “I want to move on to purely artistic endeavors without having to carry this mantle.”

Over the phone, her voice betrays little trace of her rural roots, except for the colorful language that expresses her fast-paced thoughts. Because she is still recovering from treatment for a detached retina, she declined to talk in person.

In a starred review, Publishers Weekly called the book “poignant, welcoming and warmly funny ... an irresistible page-turner.” Writing it marks a new path for Bloodworth-Thomason, 57, who says she is returning full time to creative pursuits after what she mockingly calls her “little Ken Starr vacation.”

In 1980, Bloodworth-Thomason was on her way to a successful career in television (“Designing Women,” “Evening Shade”) when she met Clinton through her husband’s brother, Danny, who had sung with the future president in choir as a boy. The couples hit it off and developed a trusting relationship. “We made a decision at the start,” she says. “If he got elected, we wanted to keep our friendship authentic.

“We were there for every scandal, summers at Camp David, Christmas morning in our pajamas. We were there the first night, we drove our Suburban there at the end to help them pack.”

The couple produced a film, “The Man From Hope,” a sentimental look at small-town America, which was shown at the 1992 Democratic National Convention. Bloodworth-Thomason also came up with Clinton’s catchphrase: “The Comeback Kid.”

In 1993, Starr investigated the Thomasons for allegedly seeking to obtain travel business from the White House and to have employees who rejected the plan fired. No one was ever prosecuted in Travelgate, as it was dubbed, but Bloodworth-Thomason says she and her husband were devastated career-wise.

In 1992, she says, she had three television shows, 300 employees and a lucrative production contract with CBS. “By the end of the Clinton presidency, I had not one television show, a single secretary and Ken Starr had in his possession every piece of paper I’ve ever owned.

“I look at it as serving my country in a far less significant way than someone who went to Vietnam,” says Bloodworth-Thomason, who remains in close contact with the Clintons. “I consider it an honor to have served.”

Still. The friendship took its toll. She and her husband hadn’t paid full attention to their careers for eight years. She decided to turn to novels and feature films. As an older woman in Hollywood, she felt she had to prove herself. So she got a small office and started writing.

Bloodworth-Thomason is now working on a film version of “Liberating Paris” that she and her husband will produce. Michelle Pfeiffer has agreed to portray the up-from-dirt-poor wife of the wayward doctor, she says. In November, she will direct her first feature film, based on the documentary “Southern Comfort,” about five transgender people. It’s to star Demi Moore, Sissy Spacek, Alan Cumming and Melissa Etheridge. And she has another novel in mind, one she’s thinking of calling “Estrogen in Hollywood.”

She says she can’t stand the lack of strong women on television now. “If they’re strong, it’s mostly in a sexual sense now. There’s no Lucy, Maude, Mary, Candace, Suzanne or Julia. It’s basically dead hotties in morgue drawers waiting for autopsies. I resent it as a form of entertainment. I think it’s misogynist and destructive to women.”

She also resents the characterization of Hollywood as elitist. “It’s nonsense that we’re nothing like Middle America. We are Middle America. Most of us came from Minnesota and Iowa, Missouri. It amazes me. Hollywood probably gives more money for good reason than anywhere else in the country.”

In 1999, she joined Mavis Leno in a movement to help Afghan women suppressed by the Taliban. She also created a foundation in her hometown that she says has sent 100 young women to college.

She hasn’t dropped politics cold turkey, though. She is finishing a film for the Clinton Presidential Library that opens Nov. 18. Unlike “The Man From Hope,” she says, “it’s just him, no talking heads and no childhood friends. Just him. It’s like when Johnny Cash picked up his guitar and played Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Hurt.’ ”

She made a campaign film for Gen. Wesley Clark (“He’s from our home state”) before he dropped out of the presidential race but is not working actively in the Kerry campaign. “I think from here on, my goals would probably be better served If I stuck to my creative endeavors.”

Neither has she been able to stop writing about the South. Now that “Liberating Paris” has elevated the perception of smart hicks she knew and loved, she says she’s earned the right to portray their darker side. She’s writing a pilot for an HBO comedy series called “The Shakespeares,” about a small-town family that owns a car dealership: “This is about hicks who participate in casual depravity or go to church. They could do either one in the span of an hour. It is to hicks what ‘The Sopranos’ is to the mafia.”

Though they drive cross-country to visit their hometowns every year, Bloodworth-Thomason says she and her husband have become true Californians. “We love the freedom of this place. There’s something about coming west. It sounds corny, but looking out onto the Pacific, there’s a sheer optimism of it.

“I think we’re here to stay ... unless they kick us out.”