Halle Berry must choose between a black man and white man in TV movie 'The Wedding.'

Jet, Feb 16, 1998

Preparing to say "I do" has the youngest daughter of a wealthy, socially elite family exploring the true meaning of love in Oprah Winfrey Presents: The Wedding.

Striking actress Halle Berry plays Shelby Coles, the youngest daughter of the privileged and socially accepted family. She is faced with a major decision on the brink of her wedding day during the summer of 1953.

Shelby's mother, Corrine (played by Lynn Whitfield), is busy attending to the details to make sure the wedding of the summer comes off without a hitch. The big event is scheduled to take place at the family's summer get-away, Martha's Vineyard, a haven for the upper class. However, more than typical wedding jitters threaten the well-planned event.

Shelby's fiance is a White, underemployed musician. While his social status is less than desirable, his color pleases the matriarch of the family, Gram (played by Shirley Knight). She is Shelby's White great-grandmother, the daughter of a slaveowner. She has tried to insure that her racially mixed descendants will stay as close to White as possible.

While Gram is pleased with Shelby's selection, apparently the groom's family is not. They refuse to attend the wedding, which is revealed only days before the big day. The revelation causes a tiff between Shelby and her fiance, Meade (played by Elie Thal).

Adding fuel to the fire is Shelby's older sister, Liz (played by Cynda Williams of Mo' Better Blues), who a few years earlier defied the family matriarch and married a dark-skinned aspiring doctor. Liz's husband also refuses to attend the wedding because he is still insulted by the uppity clan. Liz, trying to balance her true love and her family's beliefs, unloads her stress on her younger sister and forces her to evaluate her thoughts on how she views men's skin color.

In steps Lute McNeil (played by Carl Lumbly), a dark-skinned, seductive, Martha's Vineyard intruder who is looking for a mother for his three daughters. A successful businessman, he wants Shelby to be his next wife, and he usually gets what he wants.

"About ten days before her wedding day, Shelby meets Lute McNeil, a very interesting man, very different from any man she's ever been attracted to before," Berry reveals. (In the story her father says, "You have not given the time of day to a single colored fellow who's shown any interest in you!")

"This feeling awakens a part of herself she didn't know existed. She has to rethink her life; she has to grow and decide what she's going to do about this discovery."

And Lute is a force to be reckoned with; he cannot be ignored.

"Lute wants love," explains Lumbly, who was the star of the TV series "M.A.N.T.I.S." "He's a good man with a problem: He keeps making the same mistake over and over again with women. Now--with Shelby--he's found a woman who is different from those hi normally chooses. He's honest--to a fault--but selfish, so he simply makes himself known and inserts himself into her life when she really doesn't need that. He is smitten with Shelby."

The riveting drama is based on the novel written by Dorothy West, who is touted as the last surviving member of the esteemed Harlem Renaissance era. The novel, the last work edited by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, is dedicated to the former first lady. Onassis and West met on Martha's Vineyard, where West has lived since 1943.

The Wedding is a two-part mini-series, which airs on ABC February 22 and 23. It is the first miniseries for Winfrey's Harpo Films, which produces feature films and television movies. Winfrey and Kate Forte are executive producers of The Wedding. Doro Bachrach is producer, Charles Burnett is the director and Lisa Jones wrote the script.

Rounding out the cast of the multilayered love story is Michael Warren of "Hill Street Blues" fame, who plays Shelby's father, Dr. Clark Coles. His marriage to Corrine is for social reasons only, and they have never forgiven each other for forfeiting love for status.

Other cast members include Richard Brooks ("Law & Order" fame), who plays Liz's unacceptable husband, and Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Secrets & Lies), who plays Dr. Clark Coles' mother, who also is a social climber.

"On the surface this could seem like a story of racial issues," Berry comments, "but what it's really about is love. It's about family. It's about people accepting one another for who they are, not for the color of their skin, or how much money they have, or how educated they are. It's really about dealing from the heart. Expressing love no matter what color you are, or what `class' of people you belong to."

Whitfield agrees that The Wedding is centrally about love.

"This story is about the journey of a family, learning the truth of adages like `You cant judge a book by its cover,' and that it takes more than `things' to bring happiness," Whitfield says. "You have to move with your heart, not external pressures. When all else falls apart, learn to love the person behind the fluff.

"As wonderful as it is to have the estate and the sea and Martha's Vineyard and the wonderful town house in New York, ultimately happiness comes from within. And you can't always make decisions based upon what someone looks like; that's so superficial. This story says that race cannot always be the issue. It just cannot. If you find the person you love, you have to go with that. Love is what holds a family together."