WITH AN EYE ON . . . : Being a daddy on ‘The Mommies’ sets David Dukes apart

One of the benign daddies on NBC’s sitcom “The Mommies” played a rapist in his first high-profile television role.

While David Dukes considers theater roles (“Bent,” “M Butterfly”) as turning points in his career, he says one of his favorite roles was in a watershed “All in the Family” episode that introduced him to a national television audience as Edith’s (Jean Stapleton) potential rapist.

“It was a very difficult scene to do,” he recalls. “It was getting the laughs while dealing with something very serious. I learned a great deal from Jean by watching the farcical situations. She was stunning.”

Although Dukes was active in dramatic pieces, in both theater and television--notably “79 Park Avenue” and “Winds of War”--he was also comfortable in comedy (“Date With an Angel”).

“Comedy is very difficult,” he says. “You have to create a realistic situation and be funny.”

In “The Mommies,” he plays hard-working accountant Jack Larson, who’s happy to take a quiet back seat to his more ebullient wife.

A real-life daddy to Shaun, 27, now a computer-graphics designer, and Annie, 10, Dukes says he applies experiences gained from real-life fatherhood to his character, though much of that came from latter-day parenting.

“I was running around doing a job, getting jobs and I was gone for most of Shaun’s life,” he says. “I was more of a boarding-school daddy.” When he and his first wife separated, Dukes received custody, but Shaun attended boarding schools. “I’d never quite experienced the hands-on fatherhood, even though I had the emotional responsibility.”

He’s much more active in Annie’s upbringing.

“I now have more regular hours,” he says. “I take my daughter to school and have dinner with her every night. It’s been a whole different world. I’m ... more aware and learned, from being there for her.”

Dukes, who has appeared in more than 70 plays, laughingly says that he “loves theater because I don’t have to watch myself. With film and television you have to look at yourself and it’s always ‘No, no, you’re using your hands too much, you’re too nervous.’ ” He may not like to watch his film work, but audiences get a chance to see him on the big screen as another father--”the kind of dad a kid would like to be kidnaped away from”--in the feature film “Me and the Kid,” which is currently showing in theaters.

Dukes says that while he’s “not much of a writer,” he “absolutely” is looking to direct. He hopes he gets the opportunity to direct an episode of “The Mommies.”

While he plays a non-social person on “The Mommies,” he insists that he’s pretty gregarious in real life. He met his wife, USC English professor Carol Muske-Dukes, in Italy while she was on a Guggenheim Fellowship and he was making “Winds of War.”

And, as out of character as it may seem, Dukes likes to sing hillbilly songs for relaxation.

“It’s a great way to keep sane,” he says. “Caterwauling takes wonderful concentration.”

“The Mommies” airs Saturdays at 8 p.m. on NBC.