Jennifer O’Neill and Jon-Erik Hexum have little in common except perhaps the fact that both former models have faces and bodies that have sold millions of magazines.

Thirty-seven-year-old Jennifer O’Neill was born in Brazil, the granddaughter of Oscar O’Neill, president of the Bank of Rio de Janeiro. While attending the exclusive Dalton School in Manhattan, Jennifer began her modeling career at age fourteen. Within two years her sparkling visage would be making her an annual income of $80,000. She began acting when she was 23 years old, but it wasn’t until 1971, when she starred as Dorothy, the older woman in ‘Summer of ‘42,’ that she achieved solid public recognition.

Jon-Erik Hexum, on the other hand, is 27 years old and was raised in Tenafly, new Jersey, but his mother Gretha (his parents were divorced when he was four), who worked two jobs to support the family. After graduating from Michigan State University, Hexum traveled to Manhattan and attempted - with little success - to parlay his good looks into a job in show business. While working as a housecleaner to pay his bills, he was spotted vacuuming the carpet of a friend of Bob Le Mond (ex-manager of John Travolta). With Le Mond’s professional guidance, Hexum landed the role of Phineas Bogg in NBC’s now-defunct series “Voyagers!”. His big break, though, came last year when he starred as the beefy protégé/lover of Joan Collins in ABC’s “The Making of a Male Model.”

Their personal styles are equally divergent. Jennifer, who has been married five times, lives in a cluttered Beverly Hills home with 17-year-old daughter Aimee and four-year-old son Reis Michael, two dogs and several cats. In her spare time she paints and composes music. She has, as well, acquired a reputation for being accident-prong (she has survived three car crashes, a fall from one of her seven horses that broke her back and neck, and her most highly publicized mishap - when last year she shot herself in the stomach with a .38 Smith and Wesson while checking to see if it was loaded).

Hexum, a confirmed bachelor, lives three minutes away from the San Fernando Valley’s Burbank Airport in a three-bedroom house devoid of furnishings, save a foam pad to sleep on and an ironing board that doubles as a desk. He is known to be thrifty, even eccentricity so, and has a quick-witted, absurdist’s sense of humor.

Despite their obvious dissimilarities, Jon-Erik and Jennifer co-star in CBS’ “Cover-Up” (with Hexum playing a male model/military weapons expert and O’Neill the head of an international model agency who accepts undercover assignments from the United States government), and manage to make their differences work as onscreen chemistry.

For the interview Jon-Erik and writer Margy Rochlin met at Jennifer’s Spanish-style house on Pack Drive. The duo was let in by a uniformed maid. After fifteen minutes, O’Neill had not yet appeared. Hexum, a one-time cocktail lounge piano player, fiddle at the baby grand in the living room. Then more minutes passed and still no O’Neill. The maid arrived to announce that Jennifer had called to say she had been stuck in a traffic jam. Hexum shifted restlessly on a couch and helped himself to the contents of two silver bowls sitting on the coffee table. After ten more minutes passed, Mary Rochlin joked, “If she doesn’t get here soon we’re going to be forced to amuse ourselves by going through the medicine cabinet.” “Nope,” deadpanned Hexum, “I already did that.”

JENNIFER O’NEILL: I do apologize for being late. We were with a lot of Olympic runners playing the most ridiculous volleyball game on the beach. My daughter happens to be a really good volleyball player.
JON-ERIK HEXUM: What beach were you at?
JENNIFER: We were in the Colony. Anyway, I’m sorry I’m late.
JON-ERIK: That’s all right. We ate all your Cheez-Balls while we were waiting. And about half of the raisins.
JENNIFER: Would you like something else?
JON-ERIK: Uh, no. I mean, I really filled up on the Cheez-Balls.
JENNIFER: I think I’m really going to enjoy this interview.
JON-ERIK: Why? Do I look uncomfortable?
JENNIFER: No! Who did you have to say that?
JON-ERIK: I don’t know. Sometimes you look at me and it makes me feel very self-conscious or something. Like you think I’m being weird.
JENNIFER: No! That must be in your head. You are so easy to make blush. Right through your makeup or anything.
JON-ERIK: Hey, when is your horse getting here?
JENNIFER: Thursday.
JON-ERIK: You’re just flying one out?
JENNIFER: One’s enough. I’m bringing out the colt. He’s six years old.
JON-ERIK: He’s six years old and you still call him a colt?
JENNIFER: Once they’ve been gelded you still call them colts.
JON-ERIK: Gelded. That’s like castrati.
JENNIFER: Yes, but he doesn’t speak in a high voice.
JON-ERIK: Why do you geld horses? Just to keep them in line?
JENNIFER: There are very few horses that qualify to be stallions. And some are just difficult to manage. A lot like you.
JON-ERIK: I haven’t been gelded. You mean that some horses are real hot-headed and run around and don’t’ want to be told what to do? Does it hurt the horse’s development? If you castrate humans they lose their beards and their hormones go all out of whack.
JENNIFER: No, I ‘ve never seen a gelded horse lose its beard. Seriously, you wait until they are about a year old, and once you’ve decided that they aren’t going to be stallions, you geld them.
JON-ERIK: So you’re saying that they stay the same physically, but they aren’t as aggressive or hard to handle anymore? Do you think that means that aggressiveness in males is sexual? Is that why human males are more aggressive than women?
JENNIFER: Do you really believe that?
JON-ERIK: Certainly.
JENNIFER: Okay.
JON-ERIK: You don’t think so? You think it’s all sociological?
JENNIFER: I don’t think of it in terms of male and female. I think in terms of individuals. A lot of the issues that concern feminists are things that were never a problem to me. I’ve always been very independent. In fact, I’m a reversal. I yearn to be in a position of being feminine. I’ve always wanted to be married and have lots of kids.
JON-ERIK: Well, I’m not saying that you can’t have a feminine personality and not be aggressive as well. My only point is that men are more aggressive.
JENNIFER: No.
JON-ERIK: What about the biological thing you were saying about horses.
JENNIFER: When did you take up pointing at people, Jon-Erik? It’s very rude.
JON-ERIK: Well, I was gesturing more than pointing. I’ll try and stop. I didn’t mean to be not nice. Maybe we should just leave this subject alone. I think guy are more aggressive and women are more passive.
JENNIFER: I don’t know any mares that have been through menopause either. I think it’s a bad equation to compare people and horses. It’s not an appropriate analogy.
[Jennifer exits the living room and returns with coffee]
JENNIFER: Jon-Erik, you are just not an ethereal person, I am. It’s not a criticism of you. It’s just like...Well, I write music. I can’t play the piano like you can. You play beautifully. But I hear music in my head and the music that is write is sometimes very classical. There should be no way I can write it. But I just hear this stuff in my head and it has to come out. And I don’t even have feeling in my right hand. I went through a window.. Nerve damage.
JON-ERIK: What do you mean? I don’t even think about it when I play.
JENNIFER: Well, you play, but you don’t write. Let me play you something. [Jennifer goes over to the piano and plays a host, melancholic piece.] Do you know who Dory Previn is? She was married to Andre Previn. Do you want my to play you a Dory Previn album? I write very thematic stuff like hers. Everything I write is very extreme. All the stuff I write is for film scores. [long silence] I guess you don’t want to hear Dory Previn...
JON-ERIK: What? What?
JENNIFER: I don’t know. In a way I’m not sure that we know each other at all.
MARGY ROCHLIN: How long have you two known each other?
JON-ERIK: We’ve known each other since March. But we don’t usually talk like this. We just come into work and race in there and everyone says, “Hurry up. Hurry up. You’ve only got ten minutes.”
JENNIFER: I like to tease Jon-Erik a lot.
JON-ERIK: A lot.
JENNIFER: Sure, you love it. Okay. Here’s an example: we’re working on the set, say, the Marina. Well, there’s the catering truck and then usually a small group of people will go out to eat together if there is a restaurant around. Now, Jon-Erik will never go to the restaurant because the catering truck is free. I respect Jon-Erik. by the time he’s 30 years old, he’ll be secure for the rest of his life. But he’s a cheap son of a bitch. I mean he will drive for hours to get to a location. And if it is suggested that he stay on location, he won’t stay at a regular hotel. He comes back to the set the next day and says that he slept in some place that cost $18 a night.
JON-ERIK: It was called Nick’s and it only cost fourteen dollars a night. The one they went to cost $126.
JENNIFER: So What?
JON-ERIK: To sleep? I got my eyes closed when I sleep. I can’t tell what the wallpaper looks like.
JENNIFER: You didn’t have your eyes closed. You told me that there was some guy ripping off a car in the parking lot. That’s what happens when you stay in a fourteen-dollar-a-night places.
JON-ERIK: That’s true. There was this guy that was about 65 years old in the next room. He was just sitting there in his underwear with the door open, surveying the happenings in the parking lot. Then about three a.m. six guys in a pickup truck and hit three cars. Just like boom, boom, boom. You know, in a lot of ways were are sort of on different planets.
MARGY: do you two ever get to fall in love in Cover Up?
JON-ERIK: Oh no. We’re just buddies. Jennifer’s my boss...
JENNIFER: And he definitely doesn’t love me.
JON-ERIK: Not true at all. They might throw in a romance at some point. You never know.
JENNIFER: But did you notice how fast he said, “No, no, no...”? Jon-Erik, you’re blushing again. This time it’s only a two-shaded blush.
JON-ERIK: I think the show’s more interesting without the romance.
JENNIFER: Oh, we couldn’t deal with having a romance on screen right now.
JON-ERIK: Well, it could be a problem.
JENNIFER: Why do you think it could be a problem?
JON-ERIK: I was just really trying to agree with you. I don’t want to get into an argument.
JENNIFER: Why do you think it would be a problem?
JON-ERIK: I don’t know. I take it back, okay? Why do you think it would be a problem.
JENNIFER: No, this is my question. You get to answer. Now be definitive.
JON-ERIK: I don’t think it would play as well. It’s too predictable.
JENNIFER: I think it would be disastrous if we had a romance in the series at this time. And the reason why is because you can’t answer my question. Once you figure it out maybe we can get down to romance. On the screen.
JON-ERIK: Are you pointing out that it has to be on the screen?
JENNIFER: I was only speaking about the screen. I think that our on-screen relationship is really wonderful because it is warm and caring. I suppose by nature of the fact that you are male and I am female it could become romantic. But what I was talking about was the reality of trying to do romantic. I mean, we had to do one kiss and we almost knocked each other’s teeth out, Jon-Erik. But it did get better. We had to do three takes.
MARGY: Jon-Erik, what was the difference between working with Jennifer and working with Joan Collins?
JENNIFER: That’s a really weird question. Why did you ask him that?
JON-ERIK: Well, first of all, from the very beginning Joan’s and my relationship was meant to be romantic. But also Joan is just a lot more Hollywood. She sweeps into a room. She was very, very nice to me, but for all of our differences I still think that Jennifer and I are more alike. Like, Jennifer would have stayed at Nick’s motel a lot faster than Joan would have. Joan would have helicoptered to the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.
JENNIFER: You’re right. I just tease Jon-Erik because he’s cheap. But those things really don’t matter to me because I’ve done it all.
JON-ERIK: Joan and I would end a lot of our conversations with, “Okay. You do it your way and I’ll do it mine.” When Jennifer and I talk it is a lot more low key. Joan is from Europe. Maybe that’s it.
JENNIFER: I don’t know the lady or anything, but I can just imagine her sitting there watching you... Sometimes you can be really...Well, let me give you an example. we’re shooting stills for CBS and I had the flu and a temperature of about 101. I was wearing this evening gown with my hair all done up on the right side with this thing stuck in it. So they took some pictures and then they wanted Jon-Erik to come in for the two-shot.
JON-ERIK: I don’t think this is a story I want to hear again.
JENNIFER: But you must. It’s something you’ve changed and I’m proud of you. So Jon-Erik walks in and the photographer says for him to stand on a certain side and look this way. And Jon-Erik says, “Well, I was really kinda hoping I could be on this side. This is my better side.”
JON-ERIK: I didn’t say it was my better side. I said it was the side that I had the part on in my hair.
JENNIFER: Well, that’s why it was your better side. And I said to him, “What? You want the whole thing turned around because your part is on that side of your head?” I thought he was kidding and he wasn’t. And he hasn’t done anything like that since. God bless you.
JON-ERIK: I solved that problem. I don’t have a part anymore. But if we’re talking about equality here, why is it all right for you to want a specific side and not me?
JENNIFER: I suppose it just struck me oddly that a guy would be worried about his part. Besides, it wasn’t my side. My whole hairdo was built up on one side.
JON-ERIK: Did I not go to the other side and defer to you? Yes, I did. Am I not ultimately reasonable? Yes, I am.
JENNIFER: I love this kid. Even though I could just kill you sometimes....
JON-ERIK: You can really make me paranoid. [laughs] I can’t point. I have to think about the part in my hair and I’m trying not to blush. I’m working on it.