Charm To Spare

A PREGNANT woman approached with three tots in tow. "I am so sorry," she said, one hand on her protruding belly, the other covering her mouth. "I love you. I love you," she gushed as she got closer to Blair Underwood, dining at Clementine, a sidewalk cafe near Century City. "It was the funniest thing when you were on that show, 'Christine,' " the woman said. "I was dying. The whole time I was dying."

"I was too, 'cause I loved it," replied Underwood, who has been toiling in TV and film for two decades and might just get his first Emmy nomination this year, if buzz is a reliable barometer of such things.

The woman referred to Underwood's guest-star stint on CBS' "The New Adventures of Old Christine" this season in which he played Christine's (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) suave, sexy boyfriend, Daniel.

But that was only one of three prominent spots Underwood held on the tube this season.

On ABC's new drama, "Dirty Sexy Money," he plays the wealthy, dashing and ambiguous Simon Elder. On HBO's nine-week series, "In Treatment," which ended in March, he took on Alex Prince, a troubled Navy pilot whose brusque demeanor disguised his profound pain. Week after week, Underwood's exacting portrayal of that duality captured both critics and his peers, leading to industrywide speculation that this could be Underwood's year.

"You know, I've never had that conversation before this year," Underwood said. "So by the grace of God, this is 23 years in the business. These three projects are all projects I'm proud of. It's not just fluff or doing it because you can. So to be able to have the opportunity to do the work and then for people to respond in such a way, to engage in that conversation, is in and of itself a reward to me."

Underwood's commitment to "Dirty Sexy Money" doesn't allow him to return to "Old Christine," which is really why Daniel broke up with Christine, crushing women everywhere, including, possibly, Louis-Dreyfus.

"I was flying on Southwest Airlines somewhere," Louis-Dreyfus said, "and as I'm exiting the plane, the two flight attendants come running up to me and they go, 'I'm sorry, we don't mean to trouble you. We just have one quick question: Is Blair Underwood a good kisser?' " Her answer? "Oh, yeah."

Over the last two decades, Underwood has turned in solid performances on popular TV series such as "L.A. Law" and "Sex and the City," and films like "Full Frontal." In Tyler Perry's "Madea's Family Reunion," he portrayed a charismatic man who secretly beats his wife and later falls apart.