At Casting Calls, She Brings the Family : * Acting: A Newport Beach mother launched careers for her three young children when she joined a support group for families of twins.

By RICK VANDERKNYFF

Jan. 30, 1992 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

NEWPORT BEACH — As Hollywood legend has it, Lana Turner was just a pretty young girl sipping a milkshake in Schwab’s drug store when she was “discovered.” But fast-rising twin actresses Candace Lynn and Lauren Ashton Mead may be able to go that story one better.

In a few more years--say, when they are old enough to talk--they’ll be able to boast about how they got their big Hollywood break while still in the womb.

Denise Mead, the girls’ mother, joined a twins club when she learned she was expecting a double birth. She was just looking for support and advice from other parents of twins. But what she also got was a series of calls from a personal manager specializing in twins who urged her to put her babies to work as soon as possible.

Hollywood needs twin infants, she was told. Because TV shows and movies can use babies for only very short periods, they often cast twins so they can double their filming time. Mead was suspicious at first, but decided finally to give it a try.

By the time they were 3 1/2 weeks old, the girls had landed a role on the soap “Days of Our Lives”--playing twin boys, as it happened (they were getting screen time even before they were supposed to have been born, having arrived 5 weeks premature).

Just 18 months old now, the Mead twins already have accumulated screen credits that would make an adult actor envious: several TV shows and miniseries, including “thirtysomething,”and a trio of film roles, most notably a pivotal role in the current “Grand Canyon,” in which they play the abandoned infant taken in by Mary McDonnell and Kevin Kline.

Now Candace and Lauren are taking a little bit of a breather and letting their big brother--4 1/2-year-old Courtland--take a shot at the limelight. In just a year since his first audition, he has appeared in a series of national commercials and now is getting ready for the spring premiere of his first feature film.

Meanwhile, father Robert Mead has been bitten by the acting bug and is taking drama lessons. Is this how the Barrymores started?

Courtland’s role in the forthcoming film “Only You” involves only a few scenes, but they are crucial ones. His character acts as the catalyst that brings together two of the film’s stars, Andrew McCarthy and Helen Hunt. Initially, his was a non-speaking role, but filmmakers were so won over by Courtland that they expanded the part. He now figures prominently in the film’s trailer.

“Courtland just knocked us all out,” said Wayne Rice, “Only You” producer and writer. “The kid’s going to be a star.”

Rice’s comments apparently are more than mere flattery. He has cast Courtland in a “pilot presentation” he hopes to sell as a TV series, to be called “Little Squirts.” “I wanted to bring back ‘The Little Rascals,’ ” Rice said, describing the show’s concept. “I see Courtland as a young Spanky.”

While there are lots of cute kids making the audition circuit in Hollywood, Courtland--blessed with irresistibly puffy cheeks and an impish grin--has more going for him than most, according to Rice. While many kids his age get quickly bored with retakes, Rice said Courtland keeps his focus. And, he takes direction well: “If you ask him for a sad face, he gives you a sad face,” Rice said.

After only a year in the business, Courtland is being specifically requested by casting directors for some projects. “That’s really a compliment,” said Denise Mead. Casting directors “see thousands of kids.”

Michlene Ragsdale, a Mission Viejo-based personal manager who specializes in twins and “exceptional singles” (and represents more than 200 young clients, including the Mead children), thinks it’s just a matter of time before Courtland lands a spot on a prime-time series. “You’ll be hearing about that kid,” she said.

So what has all this meant for the Mead family? Is it all glamour and glitz? Are the kids demanding entourages and throwing stormy on-set tantrums?

Well, it’s not exactly glamorous. Imagine four hours in stop-and-go traffic with a 4-year-old and a pair of toddlers, with quick meals in fast-food restaurants and the wait in rooms full of other young Hollywood hopefuls and their anxious moms. For one audition, Courtland had to play in a pool of Cream of Wheat, which substituted for mud; for a commercial (a Little Caesar’s Pizza spot that gets regular play) he had do 34 takes.

“It’s a full-time job,” Denise Mead said. “It’s an 8-hour day, (sometimes) even 12 hours.” On average, she makes the two-hour drive into Los Angeles three times a week.

While demand for infant twins is high--Ragsdale estimates that 85% of the newborns she represents get work--the Mead girls have had a remarkable string of success. Once again, it goes beyond cute: babies also are cast for their dispositions, as well as for the dispositions of their parents.

“Sometimes you get those stage mothers,” Rice said. “Denise is just the opposite.”

Her twins were a big hit on the set of the set of “Grand Canyon,” Mead said, where they worked for close to three months. Kevin Kline, whose wife Phoebe Cates was expecting at the time, took a particular shine to Lauren and Candace and has since sent gifts for their birthday and for Christmas.

Mead said she still takes the twins on auditions, but is much more selective as she concentrates on Courtland’s career. The girls have hit a bit more difficult age, another factor in the decision to back off a little. “Babies are babies,” she said. “I’m not pushing them right now.”

As for her reputation of not being a typical stage mom, Mead said she’s not even sure what “stage mom” means. She stays on the set to make sure the kids are being cared for physically and emotionally, but otherwise stays out of the way. “That’s what (directors) appreciate,” she said.

Mead said she takes show business “day by day,” and has no qualms about calling the whole thing off if the kids stop having fun, or if the inevitable rejection of auditions that don’t pan out start to have an emotional effect.

“He’s enjoying it right now,” Mead said of Courtland. When the family decided to take a break over the recent holidays, in fact, Courtland declared that he wanted to go back out on auditions--not so much for the work, but so he could play with the other children who would be trying out.

The other thing she watches for is the development of a “star” attitude--somehow believing he’s more special than other kids because of what he does. That hasn’t shown up yet, she said, and so far he’s more interested in his video games than in Hollywood shop talk. He has been recognized because of his commercials though.

“People have asked him for his autograph,” Mead said, “which is funny, because he can’t even write his name yet.”