How Long Is “Silk Hope”?

The will-o'-the-wisp black sheep of a North Carolina farming family, Frannie Vaughan (Farrah Fawcett) reacts to the news that her mother has only six months to live in her usual quirky fashion -- she dashes off to parts unknown, intending to return home in exactly six months so that she may be at her mother's bedside "when the time comes." Imagine her embarrassment when, upon coming back to the farm, Frannie learns that her mother's demise occurred three days before schedule,in fact, she is even late for the funeral. When she finds out her embittered sister, Natalie (Ashley Crow), intends to sell the farm, Frannie tries to make up for past misdeeds by earning enough money (200,000 dollars to be exact) to keep the property in the family. That is why the heroine ends up packing underwear in the local silk mill owned by a handsome and unattached chap named Ruben (Brad Johnson). An odd mixture of comedy, pathos, and heavy drama (including the loss of a limb in some faulty factory machinery), the made-for-TV Silk Hope originally aired October 17, 1999, on CBS.