The Lively Set presents Paul Petersen

For our next production, a sequel seemed the way to go, and Patty was involved from the start. She suggested I cast another former child actor in a major role, and I asked her specifically about Paul Petersen who had been a favorite of mine. I thought he was terrific on The Donna Reed Show and, as a teenager, had bought his records. I was also impressed that he had gone on to a solid career as a writer - in fact, he and I started writing crime novels (paperbacks) at about the same time. Patty told me she and Paul were friends, and filled me in about his child-actor advocacy.

The part of true-crime writer Paul Conway was written especially for Paul Petersen, who was always friendly and gracious and professional during our phone calls as we negotiated his price and availability for the role. When I picked him up at the Moline airport a day before production was to begin, he was unpretentious and down-to-earth. With my second production as director/writer about to begin, I was fairly keyed up, but Paul put my mind to rest where he was concerned. He was clearly a team player.

He had already proven this when, a few weeks before production, I got the nerve to ask him to sing a song for the movie. My retro band Crusin' - a weekend-warrior kind of thing I've done off-and-on since high school - had recorded the songs for Mommy; songs I had written. This was not egomania, but low-budget moviemaking reality: I can afford me. We were doing the same for Mommy's Day and I had written - and recorded a vocal for - a song called Little Ice Princess, an early '60s style tune. Our hope was to convince Paul to sing it - and he agreed, immediately. "I never met a microphone I didn't like," he said.

Paul didn't have to work on the first two days of shooting, but he showed up on the set both days to show his support and offer himself to the media, helping keep them off my back during the crunch of production. On the second day, I approached him and said, "Remember us talking about you singing that song? I need to get you together with that guy I told you about on the phone, my friend Paul Thomas..."

"Oh," Paul said, "I recorded that last night."

My jaw dropped. I asked him how this was possible.

"I knew you had your hands full," he said, "so I looked up your buddy in the phone book and we got together. We did it last night."

This kind of professionalism and low-key eagerness to make the project work is typical of Paul.

Here's more typical Paul Petersen behavior. One of the first things he asked me was where the nearest church was to the hotel; he constantly kept up with hundreds of child-actor advocacy e-mails by laptop; and he was approachable at all times and sat chatting about his career ups and downs, including his years as a limo driver. He related to everyone - was never standoffish to the crew. In fact, just the opposite. He gave off no sense that he felt working on a project in Iowa was in any way hick - he was proud of his own Iowa roots, and Donna Reed's. To top it all off, although it took a little coaxing, Paul got up and joined in with the karaoke session at the Hotel Muscatine where the cast and crew were staying. It blew everyone away!

As a performer, he brought all those hours of TV and movies with him to the set. A couple times I embarrassed myself as a director telling him things he already knew - like to make the performance smaller 'cause we were moving in for a close-up. Though he was extremely patient with me, it soon became clear he didn't need any help other than to be told where the camera would be on him.

We had great people on that shoot, but no one was better prepared than Paul. He had the trickiest part to play – which once you've seen the picture you'll understand - and he followed my most important piece of direction (which I can't reveal) to a tee.

Mostly what I told him was: "Give me Carl Betz." "You got it," he'd say.

His one-on-one scene with young Rachel Lemieux is one of the best in the picture, and he and Patty have a great scene, also.

Behind the scenes, Paul was helping out with a crisis involving one of our child actor's parents, who was going off the deep end and causing problems. Paul dealt with local authorities as well as the troubled parent, and - while I was up to my rearend in alligators on set - made sure we were able to keep going, even while representing the best interests of the child actor and her parent. He did all of this without missing a beat in terms of his primary role as an actor.

He is an amazing man, a vastly underrated actor and, I like to think, a friend. I hope we will work together again. And I hope you take a look at Mommy's Day and see just how good an actor Paul Petersen still is.