Most 26-year-old single women would be flattered by a marriage proposal from an older man who reminded them of Cary Grant. But to Ann Jillian, the sexy Cassie in ABC's waitress sitcom that last season was called It's a Living but is renamed Making a Living this season, the offer presented nothing but problems.

"It happened five years ago in Chicago," she recalls. "I was doing Sammy Cahn's 'Words and Music,' and I stopped by my hotel's lounge for a nightcap one night. This attractive man came over and asked if he could buy me a drink. He was so smooth about it, he reminded me of Cary Grant. So I said OK."

Three months later, Andy Murcia, a 36-year-old police sergeant who was moonlighting as head of security at the hotel, was asking Ann to be his wife.

"I was speechless," Ann says. "It couldn't have come at a worse time. Finally, my career was beginning to take off. In a few months, the play would move on to New York, I worried about the short time we'd been together, our age difference, his being a cop. He knew very little about the stage, and the only cops I'd ever met gave me tickets."

Worse, she realized that she couldn't ask a 20-year police veteran to give up his career to gamble on hers. Stumped, she compared the pluses and minuses of marriage to Andy with those of continuing her own career. Andy won. "I did the only thing I could--I quit the show and married the man I loved. For 26 years, I only had my parents to lean on. I never really had a boyfriend to give me the support that every real woman needs. Andy did, and much, much more.

Ann was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1950, to Lithuanian parents who'd fled their Soviet-dominated homeland several years before. Spurred by her own dreams of stardom, Ann's mother encouraged her to seek a theatrical career. When Ann was 4, her mother had her sing on stage at a civic function in Cambridge. Finishing to an enthusiastic audience, Ann was hugged by her mother backstage: "Dat vas vonderful. Von day soon, ve go to the Holly-vood!" A year later, the family settled in Woodland Hills--a suburb of Los Angeles--when Ann's father found employment with a large industrial firm.

With her mother's help, Ann soon had an agent, appearances on several TV shows and the role of Little Bo-peep in Disney's "Babes in Toyland." But as the child grew into a teenager, the offers began to dry up; except for a minor role in the movie "Gypsy" and a few bit parts on TV, she found herself out of work.

"It was a very trying time for me," Ann says. "I was so mixed up and confused. I enrolled in a junior college and began to study psychology. But I wondered if I'd really given acting my best try."

Hearing about an acting scholarship offered by a local workshop, Ann auditioned and was accepted. She quit school and immersed herself in the program. After a year, she formed a song-and-dance team with another student, Debra Schulman. "We didn't exactly take the entertainment world by surprise," she laughs, "but we had a great time and learned a lot. We played in Las Vegas, London, Reno, San Francisco."

But San Francisco was the end of the line; the offers, for the second time around, melted away. The team broke up, and Ann stayed in town to wait tables. "I was ready to go back to psychology.

"Then the phone rang one night. It was a stage manager who'd seen Debra and I perform, and he wanted to know if I was free to come to Chicago for a job. I asked who I'd be working for and what I'd be doing. A second later, I was talking to Sammy Cahn himself! He needed a replacement for a singer in 'Words and Music.' I left the next morning."

Ann's debut in "Words and Music" was a great success. When it was evident that the show was too, she was assured the role was hers to keep when the production moved on to New York.

But then she met and married Andy. Goodbye New York. During that first year, she cooked and cleaned. But the itch to perform was still there, and Ann began doing bit parts in local theatre. She got a role in "Goodnight Ladies" with Mickey Rooney, who then recommended her for the tour of "Sugar Babies." There was, however, a hitch--she'd have to move to New York to start rehearsals. Andy made the decision for her this time. "I knew she had the talent," he says, "and seeing as she'd given up her career to support mine, I offered to do the same. I took a year off to be with her in New York. At the end of the year, we decided we'd figure out who'd bring home the bread."

It turned out to be Ann. "Sugar Babies" had hit Broadway, and veteran talent scout Joyce Selznick was in New York on a national talent hunt for ABC. She interviewed Ann, saw her in the show and offered a Hollywood screen test. Andy quit his job; Selznick became Ann's manager.

Once in Hollywood, ABC discussed several sitcoms with Ann; but it wasn't until she read the pilot for It's a Living that she found a character she liked. "I immediately fell in love with Cassie. She wasn't naive, vague or dumb; she was street-tough and sharp. But I felt that she had a heart of gold. I did the screen test and landed the role."

Tony Thomas, the show's executive co-producer, says that when he first saw Ann walk in to audition, he knew that he'd found Cassie. "Ann is very attractive, and yet she's vulnerable at the same time," he explains. "She can come off quite sassy, but behind the fluff, she's like a little girl--all heart."

During their first year in Hollywood, with Ann often at the studio until late at night, Andy found himself in a role he'd never imagined--that of househusband. More recently, he has become Ann's publicist. "I won't be happy until she's a household name," he declares.

But they both admit Ann still has a way to go. "In fact," she laughs, "just the other day I was going for an ice-cream cone, and I bumped into Dick Van Patten. He had a little boy with him who asked if he could come along with me. Dick had to run some errands, so he said OK. The minute we stepped into the store, that little kid got mobbed! I waded in to try and rescue him, and I heard a girl yell, 'Look! It's Nicholas from Eight is Enough'. I had Adam Rich in tow, and I hadn't even recognized him. I really felt dumb. It showed me I'm not exactly mob material yet."

A $50,000 offer from Playboy magazine to pose in the nude could have changed all that. Ann's response was an unequivocal no: "You won't see me doing nudes, period. Teasers, maybe, but nudes, never. I mean, how can a girl do that and expect to be taken seriously as an actress? I'm not selling skin. I'm selling talent--a 22 year career."

Reminded that her show has a reputation as a "jiggly" sitcom, Ann says, "That's true--but the producers have made a number of changes for this season designed to upgrade our image."

One of the changes is the new title, Making a Living. Another is that Louise Lasser plays an older waitress, Maggie. "And we've changed Ann's character somewhat," says Tony Thomas. "We feel we allowed Cassie to drift off to a point where she was a little rougher than we wanted. We're going to keep Cassie sexy, but we're toning it down and making her a more likable person."

Even with the changes, Ann and the cast of Making a Living have their work cut out for them: the series is scheduled opposite Dallas. "The only way I can look at it is the old David and Goliath syndrome," she sighs. "We're small, but mighty. We can't worry ourselves sick; we're just doing our very best."

And if their best isn't enough? "Well, I won't sit home and weep. I'm looking at several TV-movie scripts right now and working on a nightclub routine in my spare time. Andy's trying to book me into Vegas, and we're discussing the possibility of my doing a poster--a tasteful poster. One a kid could hang in his room and not get spanked.

"And who knows?" she shrugs, a grin appearing on her pretty face. "Maybe one day, I'll be the one getting mobbed in the ice-cream store!"