Nasty As He Wanna Be

The actors' digs aren't much more glamorous than the inmates'. ''When I first saw the dressing room, I said, 'Are you kidding?''' says Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters), Oz's warden, of his spartan quarters. ''It's pretty harsh.''

The cast isn't getting hazard pay for its efforts, either. Says B.D. Wong (All-American Girl), the prison chaplain, of his paycheck: ''On the Hollywood food chain, it's really on the bottom.'' (The budget for each episode is more than $1 million, about average for a network drama, but Oz's large cast and elaborate set mean salaries aren't comparable to, say, Seinfeld's.) ''I'm not exactly going to buy a house with what I'm getting. Forget that — I'm not going to buy a designer suit,'' cracks Oscar-, Emmy-, Grammy-, and Tony-winning Rita Moreno, who costars as a nun. ''But you do it because you don't have the opportunity — particularly in TV — to work with such a high-quality writer.''

That sentiment is echoed by other members of Oz's ensemble. ''To find a show with 15 or 20 well-drawn characters is really difficult,'' says Terry Kinney (thirtysomething), who plays a bleeding-heart prison administrator.

Fontana's ebullient personality also attracts actors. ''It's hard to be naive and hopeful and function in this business, but Tom has kept that enthusiasm,'' says Edie Falco, a Homicide vet who plays a guard. ''He's like a kid.''

Maybe so, but these days Fontana is feeling every one of his 45 years. He wrote all eight Oz scripts himself. ''I have to go to a chiropractor because I write longhand bent over my desk, and my shoulder is killing me,'' he groans. ''It's cutting into my drinking time.''

If HBO orders another season of Oz, Fontana says he'll let others pen some of the scripts. The decision to renew won't depend entirely on ratings (this is pay-cable), but then, that's not something Fontana has ever seemed to care much about anyway. ''I don't think Tom is worried about being commercial, which is his biggest asset,'' says Lee Tergesen, another Homicide alum, who plays a convict on Oz. ''It's also what keeps people from watching his shows.''

''I have no f---ing clue what kind of reaction this is going to get,'' says Fontana, a Buffalo native who lives alone in Manhattan. ''If it's horrible, I'm going to have to call [Touched by an Angel's] Martha Williamson and beg for a job.''

Not likely, but he will have to go back to the tamer world of network TV soon. Homicide returns to NBC this fall, and he and partner Barry Levinson have a series development deal with ABC. The prospect of facing network censorship again terrifies Fontana: ''I'm a little nervous that I'll be going 'What do you mean I can't see his d---? It's not his whole d---, it's just the tip of his d---!'''

The caption on his T-shirt seems strangely apt: ''One Sick Puppy.''