Open House starred
Alison La Placa as Linda Phillips, the former studio executive who brought the same zeal pushing costly houses for Juan Verde Real Estate as she did working at World Wide Studios. The series also starred
Mary Page Keller and
Chris Lemmon continuing their roles as Laura Kelly and Richard Phillips. Newly separated from her writer husband Ben Coleman, Laura also quit catering, and became an apprentice agent. Richard, Linda's husband, was a pianist at Jasper's, but left the hangout — and his wife — by mid-season. Among Linda's eccentric co-workers were Ted Nichols (
Philip Charles MacKenzie), her main rival; Scott Babylon (
Danny Gans), a talented impressionist; Margo Van Meter (
Ellen DeGeneres), the sassy, man-hungry secretary; and Roger McSwain (
Nick Tate), the manager of Juan Verde. The premise of the series had originated in the series finale of
Duet, in which Linda was introduced to Ted, who brought her to Juan Verde to start her new career. LaPlaca and MacKenzie had been dating for several years by the time they worked opposite each other on
Duet and
Open House (they first worked together on a 1985 episode of MacKenzie's former series,
Brothers). ==Cast==