by Jean M. Peck

DAVID CANARY BOUNDS breathlessly into an Italian restaurant on New York's Eighth Avenue, dressed casually, but in full makeup. The UC alumnus is due back on the set of the popular soap opera "All My Children" in exactly one hour, but he's also hungry and has invited two guests to join him.

He doesn't want to rush, but he can't keep the other actors waiting -- and he doesn't want the waiter to think he's rude. It's a situation he handles with courtesy and poise, because he is, after all, what one veteran Broadway producer has called "a mensch." In the New York-Yiddish vernacular, which is the city's mother tongue, that means simply, "a good guy."

His craggy good looks and sonorous voice suggest he should be playing Abraham Lincoln, not that blackguard Adam Chandler, the duplicitous, double-dealing, son-of-a-gun of Pine Valley, the fictitious setting of ABC's best-known daytime drama. Up close, Canary is commandingly tall and ruggedly handsome, with iron-gray hair and a demeanor that inspires calm and confidence. Although a Lincoln script has not been made available to him, he is now considering the role of another well-known figure in American history: Clarence Darrow, the famous lawyer and legal mind behind the Scopes trial and the Leopold and Loeb case.

"Clarence Darrow was a man of great moral fiber who fought for the unions," says Canary. "I don't know if I can do it, because of my schedule, but I've fallen in love with the script."

He is a good listener, considering each question put to him with thought and care. He does not like to talk about himself, but will when it is nothing too personal. He loved growing up in the Midwest, he says. What bothers him are injustice and "people who take advantage of those without power."

Before he knows it, he is 15 minutes late and it is a 10-minute quick-stride back to the studio. "C'mon," he motions to his guests, both the interview and his salad still unfinished. "We're not supposed to bring people into the studio, but just say you're with me."

And with him I go, breezing past the guards at the gate, down the hall, up the stairs, past the studio housing Barbara Walters and "The View," and onto a vast stage that is home to Pine Valley. "Susan Lucci isn't here today," he says almost apologizing for her absence. "She's starring in 'Annie Get Your Gun.'" Then off he lopes, disappearing down the stairs into his dressing room, where he must change clothes in order to play the double role of Stuart Chandler, Adam's meeker, milder brother.

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