‘FORD’: HO-HUM LOOK AT AN INSPIRING LADY

TV is the great homogenizer. Hence, “The Betty Ford Story”

despite tracing the rise, fall and recovery of a former First Lady whose candor about her problems became a national inspiration--is essentially just another triumph-over-adversity profile. TV has honed the formula to a fine mediocrity.

Airing at 9 tonight on ABC (Channels 7, 3, 10, 42), “The Betty Ford Story” is drawn mostly from Ford’s book, “The Times of My Life,” and stars Gena Rowlands as a woman whose well-publicized personal tragedies included breast cancer and alcohol and prescription drug addiction.

In fact, Rowlands’ fine, layered performance as Betty Ford is really the only compelling reason to watch this movie that David Greene directed from Karen Hall’s script. Rowlands conveys the pain, intensity and internal horror of Ford’s physical and emotional problems without stepping over the edge. And she gets nice support from Josef Sommer as Gerald Ford and Nan Woods as the Fords’ daughter, Susan.

The story takes the appropriate course: Betty Ford’s courageous announcement of her cancer, her slide into drink and prescription drugs while setting her own agenda according to her husband’s, her family’s anguish and her ultimate rehabilitation.

These are all surfaces, however, and “The Betty Ford Story” never really does get to the heart of Betty Ford. She goes through the usual self-denial, followed by the usual therapy, followed by the usual self-awareness, followed by the usual recovery, all adding up to the usual triumph. Meanwhile, Jerry puffs his pipe.

Change the names and this could be any other triumph-over-adversity movie, one more familiar than inspiring.