Chip Hayes

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Still the Place with Laura Layton, Courtney thorn Smith and.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Daphnews Amiga and iHeartRadio Podcast.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
Well, welcome back to Still the Place.

Speaker 4 (00:16):
Today we have our producer Chip has Hereday.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
I've been talking about.

Speaker 5 (00:23):
This is such a treat here in the room with
the first of all you guys. You three looks spectacular.
It makes it even more impossible to believe it's been
thirty two years. I know, because you look great, and
it's it's just so much fun to be in a
room with you guys.

Speaker 6 (00:37):
I guess, isn't it.

Speaker 7 (00:38):
We've been having so much fun.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
That's the biggest surprise of this is how much fun
we're having.

Speaker 5 (00:43):
I have been addicted to the to the podcast. You
guys are knocking it out of the park, and I've
been watching these episodes along with you, and I have
not seen them since they first aired. Yeah, so it's
like a I mean, what an eye opener?

Speaker 7 (00:55):
Is crazy? What you remember, you, caulse I find I
remember that line.

Speaker 5 (00:58):
Yeah, I remember the set, remember you know the location, scout,
But then I don't remember shooting that. I don't even
remember ed aging. I don't remember anything about that. So
there are these things that jump out at you that
your mind is totally erased. And then O the little
things that you remember about the day that we shot
that or something.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
Do you remember one that you were like, oh, I
can't believe that moment, like something that really struck you.

Speaker 5 (01:19):
I'm trying to think of the ones, you know, they
came fast and furious. I remember the thing that I
remember looking at and I'd totally forgotten about, was that
we experimented with putting a sky above the I sat
there and went, you know, that doesn't look too bad.
Why didn't we keep that up? I don't know. Do
we lose it? Did? I don't think so?

Speaker 6 (01:39):
Are we going to lose it because we've seen it?
Like in three?

Speaker 5 (01:42):
I remember, I remember the rain, and I think it
was the last time we did the rain because remember
the director was really wanted the rain for that scene.
You know, for that scene that makes sense you had
to put in the cloudy skies above the you know,
the set that was on stage and had nothing it's
scaffolding up above them. Yeah, and I looked pretty good

(02:04):
for the day when there was no such thing as
blue screen and yeah, and effects that you can do
like that now. For some reason, said, I don't remember
seeing it again.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Chip came, we ran into each other and he brought
in so much stuff from his storage.

Speaker 6 (02:17):
He has so many memories and stories.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
And the cool thing about Chip is that he was
with us on set every day, you know, for the listeners,
like he was like Darren started the show, but he
was with the writers. Warn Spelling executive produced. Obviously he
was in LA with the writers, but we were way
out in Santa Clarita and you were in the trenches.

Speaker 6 (02:36):
With us every day. On purpose. You put it out
there on purpose.

Speaker 5 (02:40):
So I chose Santa Clorida Studios on purpose to get
us out of lay from LA because it's tough enough
as it is doing what we were doing without having
the network popping in and going hi. You know, we
were just down the block.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
So we just want to say, why do you say
tough shooting what we were shooting.

Speaker 5 (02:57):
It's a new series, and anytime you go into a
new series, you're going to have difficult days, you know,
where you're feeling your way. People didn't know each other,
you know. I mean how easy it was in season
two compared to season one as far as going in
there knowing the crew knowing the rest of the cast,
being more comfortable and starting a series. And I'd done

(03:18):
a number of them because most series go for six
or thirteen and goodbye. And I knew that it was
not going to be you know, milk and cookies and
let's but by the way, let's have all of corporate
and network come by and visit every day and watch you,
you know, do what you do.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Right, speaking of the beginning, So we were talking in
the ratings, and I remember, and I'm sure you remember
Andrew shoe Like being very paying attention to the knowing
all the numbers, checking all the trades.

Speaker 5 (03:43):
He would come up to buy office every day and
ask Lisa, where are they? Where are they they come?
And I kept saying, Andrew, calm down, Wow, we love her,
God's gift everything. She was amazing and so twitted out
about radio. Say Andrew, calm down, we're cool.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
But when we were starting, one of the fans sent us,
like the ratings, I thought we weren't that great, but
we were ninety two of ninety five.

Speaker 5 (04:08):
Well, you don't listen, you don't. First of all, we
never looked at the rankings. You looked at the.

Speaker 7 (04:14):
Number, number, how many okay.

Speaker 5 (04:15):
Fox. Fox was a brand new network and it only
started about four or five years before that, and they
didn't have nearly the affiliates the number of stations around
the country showing the show as CBS, ABC and NBC,
And so that was fallacious to look at that and say, oh,
we're doing awful. Look at how low rank we are.

(04:36):
You just looked at what Fox had done and you
compared it to what Fox. The other shows on Fox
was and they only had one hour that was successful,
and it was not successful in its first year, and
that was Beverly Hill's nine of two and zero and
they had married with children was doing well, and the
Tracy Almonds Show, which spun off into The Simpsons, and
that was it at that point. But they were half

(04:59):
hours our dramas nine O two and O is it
And if you go back and look at nine O
two and oh it was it had worse waitings, I
think than we did. And it wasn't until they started
airing them in the second season in July where they
caught that audience, that summertime audience that they started to climb.
So I had been on enough spelling shows where I

(05:23):
was able to say Hey, it's gonna be okay. Just
what you know, we'll fix any problems. We'll get him there.
And Andrew, Andrew, no one, we're gonna get canceled first
of all. And I'm trying to remember this. I was
trying to remember this when I was listening to you
guys on the podcast a couple of weeks ago. I
think we were picked up for a full twenty two
episodes from the get go.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
Well, we as a cast were picked up for thirteen r.
We had a thirteen contract.

Speaker 5 (05:46):
But that was more because if a character or a
performer wasn't working out, we could we could get rid
of them at the end of thirteen.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
And so you knew, even though we weren't doing well
at thirteen, you knew we were going to do twenty.

Speaker 5 (05:58):
Sarin will correct me if you talk up again, but
I'm pretty sure we were picked up for a full
season because Aaron and the other thing. I remember talking
to Aaron about it when the ratings were slipping, and
I said, so you think we're going to go The
worry was not that we were going to get canceled
mid season one got picked up for a second season,
and I remember asking Aaron I said, so you think
we're gonna be okay, Aaron, and he said, ah, we're

(06:20):
making some tweaks. We're making some tweaks, we're making some changes.
It'll be fine, and we're going to find our Alexis.
I said, okay, that's what he's doing. And I realized
at that point, Aaron's gone through this before, He's done
this before Dynasty, and the parallels with Dynasty with our show.
I was just thinking on the way over here, the

(06:42):
parallels with Dynasty is fascinating because Dynasty was made as
an ABC pilot and the pilot sold. But the pilot,
which was originally called Oil there's a great name, very
good name.

Speaker 7 (06:54):
Change tried Vinegar but it just eld.

Speaker 5 (06:57):
The original pilot of Dynasty had George Prepard playing Blake
Carrington and the Aaron said, I remember going on the
set of the pilot. It was over at the Fox Studios,
and because I knew a lot of the crew, and
it was it was like one of those sets where
you open the door and the tension hits you like

(07:18):
a miasthma. It was like everybody's upset everything, you know.
I don't want to speak ill of the dead, but
George Prepard was a monster. It was just horrible and
made Lynda Evans cry every day. And so when Aaron
got a pick up, he says, I'll take the pickup,
but we're recasting the lead. And they brought in John Forsyth,
who was like one of the most lovely men I've

(07:39):
ever worked with. He and Ricardo Monelbon are on my
you know, the Furman is the greatest people I've worked
with men. So so just like we had to. And
when we recast Billy, it wasn't because he was he
was a sweetheart. He just didn't embody the character the
way that the writers had visioned him. And so we

(08:01):
recast our lead. And then I knew that Aaron was
sitting there making the tweaks with Darren. The two of
them got together and said, this is what we want
to do here, this is what we want to do,
and then we have to cast a Joan Collins because
that's what saved Dynasty. Dynasty was in the toilet for
the first year, the beginning of the second season, and

(08:23):
that's what it took off when he brought in, when
he brought in the villainous and so Aaron had done
this already knew, he knew what to do.

Speaker 4 (08:31):
And these conversations were happening as you'd already begun the show, right,
I mean, we started the.

Speaker 5 (08:36):
Show premiered very well behind Beverly Hills because the crossover
with nine O two one oh. But as it went on,
you know, and looking back on it, I was expecting saying,
oh God, Okay, we look in those first few episodes,
I bet they're awful because we had to make changes.
They weren't better all they were well written Darren. You know,
Darren wrote a great pilot, created some great characters, but

(08:59):
you didn't have anything that was hooking you, that was
bringing you back. We yeah, these little angst written polemics
of what twenty somethings are going through, and it didn't
really suck people in. And one of the things I
think that helped us a whole bunch and helped Darren too,
because Darren, this was the first I think this was
the first show Darren ran on his own as a showrunner.

(09:20):
He had created nine of two one zero and written
the pilot, but I think there were other head writers there.
He can correct me on that. But what helped I
think at the time was that Chuck Pratt was on
staff as a co producer at the time and one
of the main writers. From the get go. Chuck had
already won Emmys for running Santa Barbara Days of all

(09:45):
daytime soap barbers, and Chuck had that, you know, that
daytime sensibility that he could pull the tropes out of
the thin air. And like, the very first thing that
I noticed it was a change before they even start
serializing it, before they started doing Cliffhanchors, which is another
daytime you know staple, was he brought in the wolf

(10:07):
in sheep's clothing character, which is another standards daytime self character.
The guy you think is, oh, he's so nice and
he's going to be so wonderful. It was Billy Moses.
He's going to be so wonderful for Alison, and it's
interesting he's married and he's cheap, and then he gets
darker and darker, and it's you know, we had a
lot of those characters show up on the show, and yeah,
really it really worked, and uh, oh god, I've got

(10:30):
a great Chuck brought story for you. This this is
emblematic of you know, and I went to high school
with Chuck, so he was he had a warped imagination
from from high school.

Speaker 6 (10:41):
Did wrote my first first feature. I remember Para the
horror film, and.

Speaker 5 (10:46):
Chuck and I worked with them later. I ended up
going and writing All My Children for a few years,
and he ended up being the head writer on it
and being in the room with him. He comes up
out of left field, comes up with ideas. And this
one time was the big beginning of the second season.
We were in Aaron's office because we went and we
screened every rough cut with Aaron, and Aaron would give
us the notes and I may have to reshoot something

(11:07):
or And we were sitting there and we had already
shot the accident that Michael had with Kimberly that killed Kimberly. Right.
He the whole story was that he had he had
divorced Jane, and he was with Kimberly and.

Speaker 7 (11:23):
Hapened in season one beginning.

Speaker 5 (11:25):
Of season two, but they were planning it in season A.

Speaker 7 (11:29):
Lot more happened in season one than I remember, right.

Speaker 5 (11:31):
And he had had an affair with Sydney and cheated
on Kimberly with Sydney and Kimberly, was I right? And
then he crawled back to Kimberly with a wedding ring
and he was drunk and driving and he said marry me,
and she says yes, and it's great, and he's he's
plastered and he drives off a cliff and we shot
this this stunt where the car comes rolling down the cliff,

(11:53):
and unfortunately it was a lot more violent than we
had had planned. It landed on it its roof and
crushed the roof, and we were out there going, well, nobody's.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
Living, so get rid of that guy.

Speaker 5 (12:08):
The plan was to kill off, you know, Kimberly, and
then drive Michael's whole storyline through the rest of that
season and dealing with that out aftermath. And we were
sitting there screening an episode or two before that with
Aaron and Marsha Cross had some scene that she just
as she usually did, just knocked it out of the park,
and we were all sitting there going, oh, man, she

(12:28):
is so good. I'm so sorry we're having a loser.
I mean, we all knew that was the plan. And
then and Chuck got this evil grin on his face
and he said, you know, we should wait till the
end of the season and bring her back from the dead,
and right, that's the daytime soap mentality he brought to it,
and everybody in the room went yes. And Marsha played

(12:52):
along beautifully because she said I'm off the show and
and and even when she came back for that, she said,
don't put me in the credits on this show. And
it led to that great shot that Charlie Carrell did
at the Beach House where you and Michael Sydney and
Michael are romping in the bedroom and the camera pulls
back and the waves are crashing in it's night and
suddenly there's this figure that standing and watching them in

(13:15):
the camera then arcs around and there's Kimberly and it
was black. When nothing aired, my home phone rang.

Speaker 6 (13:25):
That was the end of two No.

Speaker 5 (13:26):
That wasn't the end of two No. That was that
was like two or three episodes before the end of.

Speaker 6 (13:31):
Seasons okay, because then.

Speaker 5 (13:34):
We had the great shot that Nancy Malone shot of
of Kimberly going into the into the bathroom to get
a paint pill and she pulls the wigs the famous
we were screening that. We sat down and Aaron looked
at me and said, I sure hope this works. It
was It was just child that was I mean, it

(13:57):
was a writer's room, so I mean they would sit there.
I'm sure Darren had.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
Some Did he just jump on board the whole soap
mentality when he had to let go of the whole realistic.

Speaker 5 (14:07):
I think he, I mean, he could really got into
another Here's a Darren story for you. They came. They
came in season three, and I know you want to
talk about double ups and you just go, this is
a great Darren story about midway through season three, they
were planning out what was going to end season three,

(14:28):
and man, we've got Kimberly talking to some guy in
the back stat of the car going some imaginary friend, right, psycho,
And Darren calls me up and there had been a
in real life, there had been a assessment plane somebody
had taken and landed on the White House lawn and

(14:49):
you know, it was a major security breach of Clinton's
White House and it was in the news. And about
two days later, Darren calls me and he says, sure, Okay,
we're talking about the end of the season and I
want I want Kimberly to to steal an airplane and
fly it into Melrose Place. Just come yea, So it

(15:12):
wasn't It was like, oh, okay, I that's interesting. I
always learned as as a line producer, never tell the
head writer or the show writer, no, you can't do it,
we can't afford it. Goodbye. So I told it. I
told her. I said, okay, well, well let me let
me look at it, let me touge it out. Let
me see what it costs to fly an airplane into
a building because there was no scene.

Speaker 6 (15:34):
God.

Speaker 5 (15:34):
So I got called him back after I'd run the numbers,
and I said, well, we can't exactly afford an airplane,
but we can blow the thing up. We can blow
the building up.

Speaker 7 (15:44):
So was it picking up?

Speaker 1 (15:46):
Because we're watching the beginning starting to get busy. We
just had the Billy Moses storyline. It's starting to get
more and more exciting. And we did thirty three episodes
the first season.

Speaker 5 (15:54):
We did thirty two and a half a half.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
It was right, So we did an entire twelve months.
I remember you might remember this. So we were at
Lake Hastaic because we couldn't afford real skiing, so we
were water skiing in January, some freezingle thing at Lakestaic
with me and Heather and Andrew.

Speaker 7 (16:12):
We did some and we got picked up again.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
And Lona, our makeup artis and I could not stop
crying because we were like, we got picked up. We
just both started crying up and then we were so
tired and you're like it's good news.

Speaker 7 (16:25):
You're like, okay, it was a year.

Speaker 5 (16:30):
Solid started in May and we ended in March. I
mean we had eleven months. Yeah, it was less.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
So was it because we were gaining steam and we
didn't want to lose That is that why they kept
making up for episodes.

Speaker 5 (16:43):
That Fox Fox started trying to rerun it, and the
reruns tanked. So we were climbing in the ratings steadily
through the end of season one, and then you know,
as they want to do, they want to push stuff
to February and May sweep, November, February, May sweeps, and
so they tried re running some episodes from earlier in

(17:03):
the season, and it just nobody wanted to watch because
they had already gotten hooked on that week to week
what's coming next? And when they tuned in and said,
this isn't a pick up from last weekend, you know,
where's where's uh? Alison and Keith they didn't want to
get interrupted, they didn't want their flow to be in.
It's why Daytime doesn't rerun.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
Well because Brainchild was the double ups? And had you
done double ups on other shows? Was that spelling thing?

Speaker 5 (17:31):
Who you're looking at him?

Speaker 2 (17:37):
I liked you for all of us. I mean, yeah,
I didn't know that when.

Speaker 5 (17:48):
We got to pick up, Uh, Aaron called me with
Darren in this in the room and I think Peter
Chernan made been who was head of Fox, and he's
good news, we're getting picked up. But Fox leantus you
know how many episodes original episodes weekend air without a
break and they and I said, I said, well, how
many do you want? He said, just just work it out,

(18:12):
work out a calendar for me, and we're looking to
do as many as we did the first season, which
we did thirty two. And I said, you got a Boston.
I hung up the phone and I went, how the
hell are we going to do this? We're already in
you know, January or February chick up and we'd have
to start never go on to hey this and even
then we weren't going to be able to make the
air days. And I started, you know, I remember a

(18:35):
big long memo to them with all the possibilities including, well,
maybe we can get a waiver from the guilds and
work six days a week. And you were allowed to
do that if you're on location, you can shoot six
days a week. So I said, I said, well maybe
we you know, cut out. At that point, we were
doing seven day shoots, two days on location, five days
on stage as well. Maybe we do six day shows

(18:56):
to try to cram extra pages.

Speaker 7 (18:57):
In the thing about six issues.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
I just want to say, so there's twelve hours between
you leave and when you come back. So it'd start
on Monday at six am, and it worked at eight pm.
Then we'd start at eight am, worked till ten pm.
By the time you were on Friday night, you started
two in the afternoon and worked till four am Saturday.
If you only had one day off, that's our turnaround.
But the crew's working that whole time.

Speaker 5 (19:20):
But the cruise turn around is at that point was
like eight hours. It was.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
It's ridiculous if you do a six day week, so
you can do it on location for a few months
or but if you're doing that all year, you don't
have any day to recover because you go home and
have to learn the lines. Yeah, so thank god, I
just want to thank you right now for not doing
that well.

Speaker 5 (19:39):
I had to lay out the options for them, but
as I saw it from a budgeting standpoint, and then
I started thinking, well, you know what if we if
we start just getting a whole new crew in here.
And I experimented by by taking just a couple of
random episodes. And when you when you break down an
episode from a script, you put them on strips, you know,

(20:00):
called boarding the show, and the strips go into a
big board and they're all the strip has that scene
where it is who the actors are and all assa.
And I took the strips from an old two old
episodes and started messing around with building two boards out
of it, and it worked.

Speaker 4 (20:16):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (20:17):
We had enough actors, We had enough storylines. Just actively,
we had enough storylines. We were telling two and sometimes
three storylines in an episode, and we had two stages
at the time. We would later get to three and
two days of location, and so we had enough locations
and thespians to arrange two cruise shooting at the same time.

(20:41):
And when that hit, I said, okay, this because I
was paid by the episode. You were paid by the episode.
The writers are paid by the episode, so everybody would
be on board with more episodes. It's like hello, college fun.
So I started laying that out for Aaron and Darren,
the and the network. I did not know if it
was going to work or not. But by the time

(21:03):
we finished and I had kind of perfected how how
you slipped by one day, and so anything you couldn't
get done, it always fell into another another days, double up,
another episode, double up that if we did that three
times a year, we could shoot six episodes in the
space of three each time, and that would allow us

(21:24):
to take hiatuses, Christmas off, all those good things, plus
a three month hiatus at the end of the season.

Speaker 6 (21:30):
Did we do that twice a year or three times
a year?

Speaker 8 (21:33):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (21:34):
It was a win win win win win in many
ways because not only did we get extra paychecks, but
we hired an entire crew, a Hollywood crew for three
months out of the year. So we were giving employment
to people three months out of the year that normally
wouldn't have it. The keys were happy, The heads of
the departments were happy, because I mean a deal with
them for one hundred and fifty percent of their normal

(21:56):
salary during double ups, they because they got an entire crew,
like Wardrobe had two crews. So Denise, you know, we're
still we're working a few more hours, but they were
making one hundred and fifty percent of their normal paycheck.
They were happy. And the biggest thing about double ups
that was kind of like I didn't realize until after

(22:17):
we started doing them, was that they saved a lot
of money because you were still paying rentals on the
stages for the same amount of time. You were still
paying office rentals for this. All the facilities and phones
and everything else was the same span of time, so
I could split out that between all the episodes. So
suddenly I'm banking some money. I'm looking good. And that

(22:38):
because the network did not give us money for the
explosions and the car chases and the boats blowing up
and all that stuff. But we had to work on
what was a pretty modest budget. I mean it was
a modest budget on Melrose Place. Yeah, certainly not. You know,
X files came along the next day and I'm going,
how much are they making? And so was I would
have a little piggy bank of the account and would

(23:00):
keep track of all the money I was saving. And
when Darren calls me up and says I want to
fly an airplane into the building and blow it up,
I'm not going yeah right, yeah, I said we can
blow it up though, And that's because that money came
from my little slush fund from double ups. Wow, the
network got their episodes. We all got extra paychecks and

(23:20):
made extra you know, dollars, and you guys had to work.
I tried to. I really tried to keep from bouncing
you from one episode to the other in the same day.
You told me you remember one day where.

Speaker 6 (23:31):
You had to different places.

Speaker 5 (23:34):
I tried to keep, you know, so going where am
I you?

Speaker 3 (23:38):
You modeled how to do it?

Speaker 6 (23:39):
And so other shows I'm sure.

Speaker 5 (23:41):
I'm sure there have been other shows that have had two.
I mean lots of shows have second units running all
the time where they have another unit that's shooting stuff
and other stuff and they'll bring actors over. So I didn't,
but I think I was. I want to know. It
was the first one. It's spelling to do entire episodes
with a full crew, you know, and four directors, two prepping,

(24:02):
two shooting.

Speaker 3 (24:03):
Yeah, thirty two episodes. Was so exceptional that you figured
out how to.

Speaker 5 (24:06):
Make it thirty four hours thirty two that we did
two two hours, remember every year, So we did thirty
four hours.

Speaker 1 (24:12):
Do you remember the first time? And I remember we
were like, it's not going to be like we're just
trying it. We're just trying it.

Speaker 7 (24:16):
I remember, very.

Speaker 1 (24:17):
Convinced that it wasn't going to work, and we go
back to Norman. I was like, one thing, I know,
we're not doing this again. Cut to what would really
help me.

Speaker 5 (24:27):
I always rolled around and this was key, And none
of this could have happened if it wasn't for Darren
and the staff, if I didn't have six scripts to
board all at once. Yes, yeah, it was a useless exercise.
And so I had this, you know, I said Darren,
it can you do this? You know? And he said,
I'll get them to your chip, don't worry. And I had.

(24:49):
I never had a problem where I said I don't
have the script, I can't board the shows. They had
to work as fast as we did to get those scripts.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
Out and I was and they couldn't have somebody heavy
in two episode Side decides to be doing one and two,
three and four, five and second they were good about.
I remember they were very good about you be heavy.

Speaker 7 (25:09):
On one on one?

Speaker 1 (25:10):
Was it teammate and team B? Heavy on Blue team
and not heavy on Red Team because you'd have six episodes,
and in those episodes that.

Speaker 7 (25:19):
Was a long time on Melow's Place.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
Anything happened episodes, So you're trying to remember with Mary,
was it Dolan's married donn or a script adviser sitting with.

Speaker 7 (25:29):
Her going where am I?

Speaker 5 (25:31):
Like? Where?

Speaker 7 (25:31):
What has happened? Where am I?

Speaker 1 (25:33):
Because you're trying to keep it so much.

Speaker 5 (25:36):
To try this.

Speaker 7 (25:38):
Well, then we found because some of it was so arch.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
Just play the scene, like pretend to the standalone scene
because sometimes you get so confused. I'm just committing to
what I see on the page today. I don't have
any idea.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
I don't know I came before, just committing to just
commit to the word and the intensity.

Speaker 5 (25:56):
You know, I remember the first year was you can't
change any lines. Towards the end of that, you know,
the writers, you know, trusted me enough to know whether
it was something I had to call them about and say,
because if you if you did change things, it seemed innocuous.
You didn't realize what they had planned way down the
line back. It is important. You know. There were once

(26:16):
or twice they said why did you let them cut
that chip? And I went, oh, shoot.

Speaker 4 (26:20):
And do you think that that planning that far in
advance developed because of necessity with the doubleops?

Speaker 5 (26:27):
Or do you think that was good writing team that
that that didn't that knew where they were going? And
and Darren and then uh, Chuck and then later Frank
South came on board, and then I think in the
second season h who else came on? Frank, Chuck, Carol Mendelsohn, Carroll,

(26:48):
and Carroll was just such a good writer. I mean
she ended up running on and she had a great
mind for for story and stuff. So we had a
really good staff of writings and they were if they
hadn't worked, none of this would have worked.

Speaker 1 (27:03):
And then I saw in our little cheat sheet that
you started writing in these season three?

Speaker 7 (27:07):
Were you writing?

Speaker 5 (27:09):
I've been writing fantasy islands and stuff on any show
that I was on. I've been writing off and on.
I ended up going and writing full time on All
my Children for almost ten years.

Speaker 2 (27:17):
Wow, did you see Melrose stories for all my children?

Speaker 5 (27:23):
The head writer, the head writer?

Speaker 7 (27:24):
Did we know you were writing, because I don't remember that.

Speaker 5 (27:26):
Did we know you directed a few two?

Speaker 7 (27:28):
Yeah, I do remember that.

Speaker 5 (27:30):
I found something I'll share with you as soon as
I look at it. I found six days of dailies
from season four show I directed. Wow, it's fun very
daily too.

Speaker 3 (27:42):
That's just so fun and funny because like, that's.

Speaker 5 (27:44):
All this work, all the days, stuff that didn't make
it to the cut and all the my I had
a show that where Kristin Davis was haunting she had died,
and she rose out of the pool and everyone like
the ghost of Christmas path. My god, my god.

Speaker 8 (28:04):
Hi, I'm Kristin Davis, and I want to know, are
you a Charlotte. In nineteen ninety seven, my life was
forever changed when I took on the role of Charlotte
Yorke on a new HBO show called Sex and the City.
As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte navigate relationships
in New York City, the show helped push once unacceptable

(28:25):
conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative
around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them
as they searched for fulfillment in life. Sex and friendships.
Now I want to connect with you and share untold
stories and all the behind the scenes together.

Speaker 7 (28:42):
With special guests.

Speaker 8 (28:43):
What will begin with sex and the City will evolve
into talks about themes that are still so relevant today.
Are You a Charlotte is a much more than just
rewatching our beloved show. It brings the past and the
present together as we talk with heart, humor, and of
course some optimism. Listen to Are You a Charlotte on

(29:04):
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 5 (29:11):
The one. The other thing that really helped was by
that time I had a stable of directors that I
really liked, and I mean I looked at the I've
looked in the first season as some of these directors
and I go, I don't remember that person. And there
was the one that you mentioned that I remember very
well because you didn't come to me and complain about

(29:32):
the one that said you cry on this. Yeah, but
it got back to me and he didn't come back.
He made court upset. Well.

Speaker 3 (29:42):
He has since become a very successful editor.

Speaker 5 (29:45):
So we went through a whole bunch of different directors
until Ife and I Charlie Crawl I'd known since I
was a child, Charlie, and I brought Charlie and as
soon as he was available, and then at the beginning
of each season, I just said, here, Charlie, pencil your
name and you do like every third one.

Speaker 1 (29:59):
He did every other ones, every other and Richard Lang member.
Richard get us out. I remember one time I was like, oh, darn,
I didn't get out in time for lunch. He goes,
hold on, We're going to Grace and just did a
shot to get me out at lunch.

Speaker 7 (30:11):
I was like, oh I didn't. Oh wow, thank you.

Speaker 5 (30:13):
Yeah. My brother produced the Dantanna Vegas Show for Aaron
and I filled in as a social producer a couple
of times. And Richard had directed that pilot and did
a bunch of man he was I loved him so much,
he was, yeah, amazing and Chip Chalmers, who was our indeed, yeah,
he ended up directing a bunch of them. You keep

(30:36):
it in house. You got to have fun because you're
working so hard, and if you don't have enjoyable people
to be around, enjoyable directors, enjoyable you know, crew. Because
we really really lucked out with the cast.

Speaker 7 (30:49):
We lucked out.

Speaker 5 (30:50):
You all know now after you know, all the time
in the business. Yeah, and I had just come I
I was telling that I had just come before this
from a very short lived series in Las Vegas for
Aaron with a couple of actors that just were very
grumpy and unhappy, Thestians, and you know, I had a
chair thrown at me and just I mean, it was

(31:11):
not a pleasant time.

Speaker 6 (31:12):
It wasn't a pumpkin pie.

Speaker 5 (31:16):
I remember so well. I remember very well the very
first photo shoot before we started shooting the eight of you.
It was down in Culver City, I think, at an
MGM stage, and that was the first time I met
all of you. And I went down there specifically go hmm,
I wonder who's going to.

Speaker 7 (31:33):
Get everybody out?

Speaker 5 (31:39):
I thought, I said, well, Thomas is a little brash,
but he ended up being the biggest pussy cat of all,
you know, And so all we were so blessed with
the cast that and then when we brought people at Heather,
you know, I mean I'd worked with Heather on t J.
Hooker and she had done a TV movie with my
wife Deborah just before we started. And Susanne Summer is

(32:01):
called Rich Men's Single Women with Susanne, my wife, Debora
Deren and Heather and it was about it was a
light comedy. Actually it was about three women looking for
rich men. And so Heather I knew was going to
be adult.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
At what point and how did it come about that
Heather was the Alexis.

Speaker 6 (32:20):
Heather was going to be.

Speaker 5 (32:21):
Aaron had told me that we're looking for our Alexis.
Now he obviously had sat down with Darren and Darren
created the character of Amanda.

Speaker 2 (32:28):
But when during season because she came on in episode late.

Speaker 5 (32:35):
Yeah, twenty one. Yeah, and the writers had already started
fine tuning things. I mean they started adding you know, cliffhangers. Yeah,
which was the big thing that brought people back. They
started adding those. Alison and Billy was such a one
of the things that tested very well because the network
is always on a new series, especially testing what's working,

(32:56):
what's not working, And Alison Billy was the shoe star.
That was it. So if you, I don't know if
you noticed, but you started working a lot more. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
So let me ask you a question. How horrified dream
you found out Andrew and I were dating.

Speaker 5 (33:10):
Oh, I knew right away. I had a secret weapon there,
and that was Lisa Bell, my assistant. Anything that was
ever said in the in the makeup trailer or the wardrobe,
Lisa somehow found out about it. I don't know if
she had it bugged, but she was. You had the
makeup tiler, Andrew and Court here and it was the

(33:32):
funniest thing was was that after season one was over,
before we started shooting again, I took you, and Andrew
and my then wife Deborah, and I took you out
to Trader Vix.

Speaker 7 (33:43):
Oh my gosh, that's right.

Speaker 5 (33:44):
And you guys didn't tell me that you had broken up.

Speaker 7 (33:48):
Broken up already.

Speaker 5 (33:49):
You had broken up already about a week in the
office for the first time. And Lisa says, you know,
I handed the Trader Vix bill. Let's say you're putting
in for this, And she said, you know, they broke up.
They didn't tell me.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
It was a very friendly breakup, although we had Andrew
on the trace, it was very friendly breakup.

Speaker 7 (34:10):
And he goes, that's not how I remember. It was like,
I'm gonna.

Speaker 1 (34:12):
Say, we went to dinner with Chip and ever, so
clearly it was friendly, you know, it.

Speaker 7 (34:19):
Was on a good front, seemed happy, But no, I thought.

Speaker 5 (34:22):
It was great listen, there's bound to be on set romances,
you know, And they happened, and the good thing was
was that it was nobody ever used them as a
cudgel for any reason. You know.

Speaker 1 (34:34):
Well, yeah, but it's that moment of fear this could
go wrong.

Speaker 5 (34:38):
Well yeah, you know. Most of the time it's it's like, well, yeah,
you're right. Actually, if they do break up and suddenly
they've got all these love scenes to do, it's more difficult.
But that's more, that's more your problem.

Speaker 6 (34:48):
Yeah, that's what you get paid for.

Speaker 7 (34:50):
It all worked out. Everybody's worked.

Speaker 8 (34:56):
PI. I'm Kristin Davis, and I want to know, are
you Charlotte. In nineteen ninety seven, my life was forever
changed when I took on the role of Charlotte Yorke
on a new HBO show called Sex and the City.

(35:17):
as they searched for fulfillment in life. Sex and friendships
now I want to connect with you and share untold
stories and all the behind the scenes together with special guests.

(35:37):
Are You a Charlotte is a much more than just
rewatching our beloved show. It brings the past and the
present together as we talk with heart, humor, and of
course some optimism. Listen to Are You a Charlotte on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2 (36:03):
At what point did you guys know, number wise, you
and Aaron and Darren know that it was really picking
up and doing great.

Speaker 5 (36:11):
Just about well, you know, it didn't. It didn't go
through the roof until season three, until they moved us
from Wednesdays to Mondays and they had that great advertising
campaign with a close up of Heather's face and Monday's
are a Bitch? Yeah, that was great, and that was
the season that suddenly everybody was watching it. So it
was yeah, it was not so much it really jumped.

(36:31):
It just started climbing back again slowly, and it climbed
enough to where we got to pick up for the
second season.

Speaker 6 (36:37):
And by that, why did they do Monday. Why who
that was?

Speaker 5 (36:40):
That was Fox programming? They they I think they had uh,
I think they moved when. I don't know when X
Files X Files premier. I think in ninety three ninety four.
First of all, I was not that worried about getting
canceled two or much because they did not have a
big development slate. Fox was a you know, I kind
of kept tabs on what shows they were developing. They
had to, you know, if they canceled us, they were

(37:01):
gonna have to slide something in there. And I remember
hearing that their development wasn't looking too good. They had
this big, expensive show called The X Files, but that
as long as we showed some improvement, not just in
ratings but in everybody's opinion of the show. It's not
like the network said, oh god, these first episodes are awful.
They were good shows. They just wanted to find a

(37:23):
way to tease the audience to tune in more and
to come back. You know, they knew they could get them.
If they could get them, they needed a way to
bring the people back, and it was those serializing the
show just was obviously the secret. And once we started
doing that, once that that Billy Allison relationship was threatened
by Keith and whoever you know Billy was dating and

(37:46):
and you kept And then they brought in the other
soap opera tropes like you know, fibroid tumors and is
she going to die? And the wife that did and
and then I mean it really started clicking the And
it wasn't so much the ratings as the network was
enjoying the shows. The little story of Jake and his son. Yeah,

(38:08):
after the second episode you were on, I watched it
and I said, you know, this is so sappy, but
it is so sweet. Played it so honestly. And the
thing was that was not so much a storyline for
Grant as it was a storyline for the two of you,
and it was there to service your relationship. And the
writers did such a good Darren. I mean, you know,

(38:30):
there's a reason why he went on to become Sex
and the City and all that. He didn't have all
the experience in the world of running shows, but god,
he had some raw talent at that time that was
just so obvious for story character. He developed these characters
that were so good and having a solid writing staff
underneath him, especially Chuck who had done all this many
many times on daytime. It was just a wonderful blend

(38:53):
of talent writers, talented actors.

Speaker 2 (38:55):
Well, you know, that's what we've really discovered from watching
the first fifteen is that it really was well written,
It was touching, it was ahead of its time. It
took on issues that other shows weren't taken on. It
wasn't it was escape, but relevant, escape in a way.
And I didn't think of the show as that back then,
but watching it now, you're right.

Speaker 5 (39:17):
And Aaron was always very proud of tackling the issues issues,
and you guys were talking and I love Doug's you know,
I've read all the publicity he's had since on Hollywood
Deadline and stuff like that. It really was not Aaron
or Darren or even the network that put a kebash on,

(39:37):
you know, let's have a gay kiss or let's push
the envelope on that, you know, it was it was
just reality. It was the advertiser and they would take
it right up to the point where the advertisers went, whoa.
And without advertisers, you didn't have a show. So you
had you had to, you know, walk up to that
line and push as hard as you can and Aaron
always did that. I mean, Dynasty had a gay character

(39:59):
ten years earlier. Yes, you know, the son came out
as gay, and of course it couldn't talk about it
as honestly as we did in Melo's place. But you
saw the progression, he said, And then look at thirty
years later, here we are, and it's because of show
And I'd worked on a show at Showtime in the
eighties called Brothers, which was all about three brothers and

(40:20):
the youngest one came out as gay and he had
a best friend who was a very flamboyant gay played
by Philip Charles mackenzie who was absolutely hilarious. And it
was a funny, funny show. And yet but it was
on Showtime, so it was it was not at the
whim of advertise mission. So we were able to do
the show about AIDS when an AIDS first hit and

(40:41):
be honest about it and you know, make a teaching
moment out of it. And Aaron tried, and the network tried,
and we went as far as we could go in
that day and age, and it was it was. He
did that on a lot of a lot of his
shows where he had.

Speaker 6 (40:58):
A synergy with Darren and Ain.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
Yes, just those stories, not just the gay story, but
the stories and the.

Speaker 5 (41:04):
Relevant stories came out of the writer's room. Aaron was
not in the writer's room. Aaron was running zillion other shows,
an entire and building a really big house. But no Darren.
Would you know. They would pitch the stories to Erin
before they pitched them to the network, and Aaron would
give his no, I think you should do this or
do that, and I can guarantee you Aaron was the

(41:27):
one that said, we need to bring in a villain,
we need an Electis Carrington in here, because he'd done
that before.

Speaker 1 (41:34):
Did he know early on that it was going to
be Heather? Like was he waiting for Heather to be available?

Speaker 5 (41:38):
I don't know. He did not tell me. He just said,
we're going to find our Alexis is what I remember
was the hole.

Speaker 7 (41:45):
At one point she was doing two of his shows at.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
Once, like, yeah, and she was such a she was.

Speaker 7 (41:52):
Certainly our lucky Penny.

Speaker 5 (41:54):
Yeah she was. She was. She took put the retro
rockets on the back of it and took off. But
things were progressing, the ratings were creeping up even before
she came out. She just kind of took it to
that next level and then all the stuff that came
out of that, you know, the writers just ate it
up and just went with it, and so it was

(42:14):
such a you all know, I mean, these things, you
don't know what's going to work and what's not going
to work. But if you don't start with a really
good talent in the writing staff and a great talent
on screen, you don't have much.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
And the c of a producer to know how to
do double ups and make the money and from what
all the talent he has.

Speaker 5 (42:31):
I thank you very much.

Speaker 6 (42:32):
But oh it's like takes all these different.

Speaker 5 (42:34):
My job was to make sure it got done on time,
on budget, and everybody it was great.

Speaker 4 (42:39):
Do you remember any other storylines or any other things
that you guys wanted to do that maybe got pushed
back either side of the network or advertisers or just
wouldn't fly, Like things that you or the writers wanted
to do but couldn't quite You.

Speaker 5 (42:53):
Know, that's going to be a question for Darren. Yeah,
because the or Chuck Pratt or wherever you can get
talk to, because is by the time I got scripts
or I got told what the stories were, they had
already been approved by the network, and they were in
the works because it was God, we were doing so
many that it was just give me a script. Okay, okay,
let's put it on. Give me that script. Gime in,

(43:14):
and it was not. There was no time for me
to certainly go and sit in on anything but rough cuts.
And I was only there for so I could get
barked that when when actors wore sunglasses.

Speaker 7 (43:25):
Sunglasses, we were like, and that's the last time.

Speaker 1 (43:27):
And also remember you wanted Joe to chew gum And
the word came down from Aaron, no gum.

Speaker 5 (43:34):
I got yelled at. He said, didn't I teach you
better than that? What the hell is she doing?

Speaker 6 (43:41):
I know?

Speaker 5 (43:42):
And I came back and I totally understand his Uh.

Speaker 6 (43:47):
It look terrible.

Speaker 5 (43:48):
I'm looking.

Speaker 6 (43:49):
Aaron's like hating this, and I'm hating it. So Gum's
just done.

Speaker 5 (43:53):
The sunglasses thing. I told you he didn't mind if
somebody was wearing sunglasses across the street or something. But
Aaron always said this, listen, television is a close up medium.
And if I have to sit there and watch somebody
for two pages talking to you know, somebody with sunglasses
on I don't know what they're thinking, you know, the
old eyes of the window of the soul. And he knew, Boy,
he knew what.

Speaker 2 (44:14):
Really true because to this day, like when we were
doing Fantasy Island in Puerto Rico, and I wanted to
it's very sunny and very blow very windy, and I
wanted to wear sunglasses. Any character out on the beach
would wear them. But if you're by the pool, unless you're.

Speaker 6 (44:29):
Doing this on purpose, they really don't like them. And
it's for that reason. They want to see what you're looking.

Speaker 5 (44:35):
He had zillions of shows for a reason. Yeah, and
he always told me. One of the things he taught me.
I started in the mail room for him years ago,
did you Yeah, I was a nepo baby because my
dad was his business man.

Speaker 8 (44:48):
Okay, but.

Speaker 5 (44:51):
He gave you a shot. But if you didn't prove itself,
I was. I was in the mail room with his
nephew when he fired his nephew. So you had to
you had to work hard improve your show. It did.
But Aaron always said, look, think about how the average
person watches television. And this is the day before streaming,
the days before before more than three networks. Even people

(45:11):
are are doing things. They're house cleaning, they've got the
TV on. They're not it's not an appointment television. People
are barely concentrating on a show. So you've got to
always tell them where you are, don't confuse them, and
show them good looking, attractive faces who are telling the story,
because people don't want to see unattractive people. They don't

(45:34):
want to see uh fancy schmancy directorial things that you're going,
wait a minute, what's going on here? He says. That's
why you always have establishing shots. In Aaron's world. You
know where you are, you're you're you're at shoot you're
at shooters. So when you cut to some of the
in shoes, you already know I'm in shooters. I don't
have to go where are they? Yeah, and he you

(45:57):
know it. It's different these days, obviously, because we have
streaming and we sit down and we start, we decide
when the show starts. In those days, if you weren't
there at nine o'clock to watch the show, you missed it.
We had the DVR. So he really knew what he
was doing, and he came out of that era where
where a boy he was really successful in doing it.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
I mean that was a real transition too, because when
you think of Aaron Spelling, you think of the dynasties
that that the decade or two decades before us. So
what I really what's so smart about him is that
he made that change into the younger Melrosee hit it
off with Darren's That's where it was.

Speaker 5 (46:35):
Darren wrote the pilot nine O two one zero and
Darren had just done a couple of successful Adie features
I think before that, and he latched on with Aaron
and it was a great team because because Darren, you know,
Aaron had started I mean his first big successful series
was The Mod Squad. Oh I loved the money, right,
So Danny Thomas was his partner, and I had a

(46:56):
poster on my wall and it was about you know,
who had the sixties counterculture and you had these three
young kids being cops and so he always kind of
appealed to that. But he it would helped to have
Darren and appeal to this whole new generation. Yeah, uh,
he got. He was a smart guy. He was a
very smart man.

Speaker 4 (47:17):
And we were also sort of culturally happening at a
time when things were shifting, because we remember when like
Chip Hayes, our producer, also liked our dad on set
got the first cell phone, right, and you would come
with this giant brink of a cell phone. But you
were also you know, you were coming to us with

(47:38):
the numbers and stuff and like you. But it was
just this transition where this information was being delivered in
new ways and the Internet and like chat rooms were
starting to be a thing, and you were starting to
share that stuff.

Speaker 5 (47:49):
I think Harry Bring was and I were the first
on AOL. And I mean you just didn't have there
was no there was no office email in those days.
Spelling did not have this email fact factes and pagers
fast the beepers. You know, if I wanted, if Aaron
wanted to talk to me while I was driving, get
a beep yes.

Speaker 6 (48:10):
And you'd have to pull over find In the.

Speaker 5 (48:11):
Beginning, I'd had to you know, get to the office
and call them right away. But later on you had
the cell phone, the car phone not a cell.

Speaker 7 (48:17):
Phone was yeah, we all got car phones during the place.

Speaker 2 (48:22):
So what are some of your the business side alone,
but like of us or other actors are just being
on set.

Speaker 5 (48:28):
I just I remember Melose Place was the happiest time
of my professional career, without a doubt. You guys made
it that way. You made that going to work a joy.
And I always, you know, I was My goal was
always to get to there at Crew Hall, because you know,
you had to walk the sets. I was always taught,
you walk the sets, there's going to be something wrong,

(48:49):
fixed it before you know the actors get there. And
it was just I remember talking to Laura. We used
to bump into each other every morning at the craft
service because we both were for the box of Lucky Charms.
We both love lucky charms.

Speaker 1 (49:04):
And wait a fuel your day.

Speaker 5 (49:06):
To this day, I can't go a supermarket cereal isle
without thinking of Laura. Because there's a song in Sunset
Boulevard the redoing. There's a song in there about as
if I never said goodbye, about the early morning madness
and the magic and the making and the cardboard trees

(49:27):
and the painted seams, and she's singing about what it's
like to be on a set, and that's I remember
that that morning where you've got a lot of work
ahead of you, but you're working with really good people. Yeah,
it ended up being the directors that we found. We
found some really good people, and it made it a
joy to go to work, and you were working really hard,

(49:49):
but it was not an unpleasant work. It was fun.

Speaker 4 (49:51):
You say that all the time, but to have you
come in and say it from where you were sitting
and well.

Speaker 5 (49:56):
Yeah, you guys, that warms my heart because that was
my goal. I had been on sets where I didn't
want to go into work because that so and so
was going to be there and oh no, that's here,
they're coming in. And it was never that way. We
just had fun and the writers were so good about
not changing things at the last minute. You know, you
wouldn't get tons of pages at the last second. You'd

(50:17):
have to may you know. I made sure you guys
had communication with me. I said, if you've got a
problem in a script, please don't please don't bring it
up to me on the day of shooting. I'm bringing
it to you days in advance. Read it and we'll talk.
Get the writer on the phone in my office and
we'll fix it. So you're not having problems on the
set and costing us time. I mean, there's always lines
that you say, you know, need to say a little

(50:38):
differently when you're rehearsing them, but we had a good
system going there. You know, if you needed time off,
I'd make sure I'd rearrange things for you. I found
just a beautiful note from marshacross to me. She had
somebody close to her pass early on in the in
the shooting, and she came to me and said, I've
got to do this Shakespeare play down and San Diego

(51:01):
I think it was. And he took a little bit
of work, to cost a little money to rearrange the schedule,
but I knew she really needed it, and she wrought
the most beautiful note to me afterwards about how much it.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
Meantor yeah, yeah, it was such a different time, you know,
and I really missed. Some people talk about series, Oh
it's the same thing every day. I love that family
that you get to know each other, that you bond
that I mean, I bought a house, I got dogs,
and I remember bringing polaroids of my house and my
dogs to show the crew and to show everybody, like,
when you're together fourteen to sixteen hours a day and

(51:34):
you're lucky enough to have a happy cast and crew,
it's really extraordinary. It is rare, and I think you're right.
A lot of it with Santa Clarita.

Speaker 5 (51:43):
We were always against traffic, so getting out there was
easy and coming back home was easy because Trafford was.

Speaker 6 (51:47):
Always going nighttime.

Speaker 1 (51:48):
It was thirty minutes exactly from my door to the
twenty six miles I remember that, which in La could
be two hours.

Speaker 5 (51:55):
But because and then it worked out right when we
started shooting on an auctionar because he just went out
twenty six straight across Santa Paula and fillmore and that
you were at the beach. Yeah, Oxnard with yeah, it
made it. It all worked out. Break then I'm missing Hi.

Speaker 8 (52:11):
I'm Kristin Davis, and I want to know, are you
a Charlotte. In nineteen ninety seven, my life was forever
changed when I took on the role of Charlotte York
on a new HBO show called Sex and the City.

(52:31):
as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships.
Now I want to connect with you and share untold
stories and all the behind the scenes together with special guests.

(52:52):
Are You a Charlotte is much more than just rewatching
our loved show. It brings the past and the present
together as we talk with heart, humor, and of course
some optimism. Listen to Are You a Charlotte on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 4 (53:18):
You did another nice thing for I think it was
for Courtney. I heard something about this early on, when
she was so overwhelmed by working so much like the
Angenoux who had all the scenes, and you were just
really tired from working so much in those early episodes.

Speaker 3 (53:34):
I think I remember sometimes.

Speaker 5 (53:35):
Well people don't understand is that not only were we
working you on set to death, but when you weren't working,
you were off doing publicity interviews, photo shoots, and I
can't remember. I think we were at La After or
something shooting something this one time and you just came
in and just said, I'm so exhausted, I'm so tired,
I can't do this today. Can we do something, and

(53:57):
I'm going on location, and you said just and you
were very up. You were just exhausted. You look like
you were going to just drop. And you had you
had just shown me or talked to me about wanting
to get a house and a dog. I remember, so
I I said, tell you what because you were crying.

(54:18):
He was just really exhausted, and I said, don't worry.
I rearranged the schedule as best I could so that
you could decompress a little bit. But then I had Frank. Uh.
It was Frank, our prop master, and I said, Frank,
I said go to you know, because prop department is
in charge of animals. I said, go rent me a.

Speaker 6 (54:39):
Puppy appy for the day.

Speaker 7 (54:44):
I vaguely, vaguely remember.

Speaker 5 (54:47):
I remember it more. I knocked on your door and
I said, this is not a gift, this is a loan.
Whatever it was, I think it worked. I think you
you were so enamored with playing with the puppy that
you forgot that you were horrible.

Speaker 6 (55:05):
Yeah, that's very creative.

Speaker 5 (55:08):
It was great. When we've got the day's work done.

Speaker 7 (55:11):
She was out there like her life and normally that's
something you do for toddlers. Apparently I was a very
four years.

Speaker 5 (55:21):
Towards the end of that first season we had you
and and Andrew. I guess could just roll with the bunches.
Of course he always came in going what are we
doing today?

Speaker 1 (55:28):
You didn't learn your But also he didn't do as
much like I was in the scenes with him, and
then I was the bridge for other scenes.

Speaker 5 (55:36):
That you were like crying, having to cry in every.

Speaker 1 (55:39):
Other Yes, it was very sad a lot because if
the tumor and whatnot.

Speaker 5 (55:45):
Put you through the emotional wringer a lot of the time.
So I remember that day very well, bring her a puppy,
She's gonna be a puppy. And he was there within
a half hour.

Speaker 6 (55:59):
Very you knew that.

Speaker 2 (56:01):
Yeah, you really have to be creative problem solver on
shows like this that go so fast, because you never
know what it's going to be with all the It
could be the cast, could be the crew.

Speaker 5 (56:10):
Or it could be the riders. Remember we were blowing
up a boat on Lake Piru. We had built that
boat that Kaffee Ireland and Uh and Jake and we
built like a We bought a sailboat and made it
look like that that yacht that you guys were on
by like a fifty scale model and we put it

(56:32):
on Lake Piru and our John Gray, our special effects guy,
had rigged it with all these great explosions and gasoline
and we're all laying up there and we're and we
go and three two one, and he pushes the button
in nothing. Oh my god, and my heart goes into
my stomach, going, what are we going to do now?

(56:53):
There's been an electrical charge that has been sent through
And he says, give me a minute, and I'm going on, John,
I got Harry Brain was the production manity, and I said, guys,
we got to have another safety meeting here because this
is not this is getting me very concerned. That John
said I can fix it. And John Gray had to
go crawl over all these explosives and bladders of gasoline.

(57:14):
And I'm sitting there just going, I'm envisioning myself on
the stand at a.

Speaker 9 (57:19):
Trial with the headlines with the headlines of and I'm going, oh,
and that that was an example of oh, this pleasant
night where we're going to have fun with fireworks and
blow up a boat and turning it.

Speaker 5 (57:31):
Into ohmos, don't die, please, don't die. And he had
to go crawl over that, and he found that that
one of the wires had pulled out and reconnected Jesus
and came out. He got it, got it bus and
then we blew that it was I still see that
explosion in stock footage to this.

Speaker 3 (57:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
Yeah, multiple cameras all the time, work four cameras, I think.

Speaker 5 (57:55):
Yeah, and then we would cut the in and it
looks like it blows up eighteen times.

Speaker 2 (57:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (58:00):
Yeah, it was great. It was a great sign. It
was But that was one of the nights where you
just so this was not expected.

Speaker 1 (58:08):
So when the apartment blew up, it wasn't an airplane, right, No, it.

Speaker 5 (58:11):
Wasn't an airplane. It was marsh across Kimberly Place.

Speaker 7 (58:15):
I got a picture ship photographs.

Speaker 4 (58:18):
He's the only one who has these wonderful photographs explosion.

Speaker 5 (58:22):
Kimberly had wired the building with explosives. Oh and this
was another here's something I expected. We had shot this,
you know, we built the entire half of the building
out in the parking lot, and we had done some
small explosions on stage, you know, with windows blowing out,
and we had air cannons blowing heather or off the
balcony or something, and and we didn't. And then we

(58:43):
went outside and we blew it up and burned it down,
and it was all. It was great stuff, and it
cut together great, and we had the rough cut with
air and it was wonderful. And I'm on an air
I'm getting in the airport on my way to vacation
during hiatus of this was the third seat end of
the third season, before or the fourth, and I look
up and CNN's got this whole thing on the Murror

(59:05):
building in the Ooklahoma City just blew up. And I go, oh,
first of all, the tragedy of what happened, but then
I went, oh, my god, we're supposed to air this
episode in about three weeks where she blows up a building,
and boy, the phone calls started flying between us, and
I'm going, I'm going to have to suddenly call everybody

(59:26):
back and reshoot a different show. And we ended up
instead of blowing it up, then we froze the end
of the third season on her pushing the button, and
then froze it more. It didn't the explosion didn't happen
till the beginning of the fourth give every month later,
three or four months of you know, decompressing out of

(59:47):
that tragedy before we did this. So it's amazing some
of the things that fate throws your way doing.

Speaker 3 (59:54):
This and the adjustments you were able to make and
still have an amazing.

Speaker 7 (59:59):
Did you go in your vacation?

Speaker 5 (01:00:00):
I did with the phone's.

Speaker 4 (01:00:03):
Phones ringing off the So you've talked about a couple
of these like stunt scenes and explosions and everything.

Speaker 3 (01:00:10):
If you were to say like three to five of
your like.

Speaker 4 (01:00:15):
Quintessential Melrose like moments or like things that you're so
or proud that we were able to achieve, But what
would they be?

Speaker 5 (01:00:24):
Though? That sequence was pretty difficult. Yeah, we appreciated a
lot of had to do days of shooting on that,
but I mean, I mean we ran a train into
a car. I can't remember on what it was, but
we went to fillmore I think, and then and had
a train coming by it sixty miles an hour plowing
into a car we had right outside. We built a

(01:00:47):
whole propane tank for Again I can't remember the episodes,
but this we did a great car car chase that
ended there and it slid into the propane tank and
that I can't remember who was in it. Well, some
of the bad guys we killed up started going the
arm of the of the hose. It was spraying, proprating
out and you know, and then suddenly a spark and

(01:01:07):
the whole thing blows up. And I mean we did
a lot of that.

Speaker 6 (01:01:11):
Will let us know who that was. But was it Billy?

Speaker 5 (01:01:14):
I think it may have been into the brothers.

Speaker 6 (01:01:16):
Johnny knows they've played their brothers.

Speaker 7 (01:01:20):
That's right.

Speaker 5 (01:01:23):
Who was the guy that played the crazy guy on
the boat with you? I was James Wilder, James Wilder, James.
That was the time and the thing. There's another thing
I remember was getting Grant, not in your sequence, I think,
but the kaffiy Ireland sequence. We were out shooting night
work on the Pacific Ocean. This is I mean, there's

(01:01:46):
nothing more difficult than than boat work, because you've got
a picture boat where you're you're photographing, you've got a
camera boat, you've got a lighting boat, you've got a
support boat, and everything has to line up. And so
you line it up, you get a shot, and then
everything's floated.

Speaker 6 (01:01:59):
Off and then they have to act night and I.

Speaker 5 (01:02:03):
Remember Charlie Carroll was there and usually you're going you know,
hurry up, everybody. We're losing the light. You know, we're
losing the light. No, we're losing the night. Don as
Dona is coming. And we walked this night stuff and
we got Grant in the Pacific Ocean falling overboard and
he said, no, let me do I was gonna have
a stunt. Guy, let me do it. And he was
in the ocean at night in the way.

Speaker 1 (01:02:25):
God, I can't believe you did the actual ocean And
where is it?

Speaker 7 (01:02:30):
Paramount has the back with the water.

Speaker 5 (01:02:32):
That's that's only if you're standing still and if you're
not going to if you want to boat traveling. And
we we had you know, James Wilder, there was a
shotgun evolved.

Speaker 6 (01:02:42):
It was a huge shot season.

Speaker 5 (01:02:44):
Is that I can't remember.

Speaker 6 (01:02:46):
It was three three It was our big season, so
much ahead of us to stop. Now, I know that
you were.

Speaker 5 (01:02:55):
Everybody was really game. We got you in the water
a few times the lake.

Speaker 7 (01:02:59):
Stay of One, that's what it was hailing. And I
was crying. It was hailing. I was crying.

Speaker 6 (01:03:05):
There were no puppies and.

Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
I don't remember who was directing it, but I remember
they said okay, and I'm like it is helling Courtney,
can you splash your hands so we don't notice the hail.

Speaker 6 (01:03:16):
So like, oh my god, and then the ship comes
and goes.

Speaker 2 (01:03:24):
Hey, guys were picked up for another years.

Speaker 1 (01:03:26):
And Loan is crying because I'm crying. So she's trying
to touch me up and she's crying.

Speaker 7 (01:03:32):
I'm crying.

Speaker 5 (01:03:34):
We had the best crew and Loan and hairdressers was
who was our hairdresser?

Speaker 3 (01:03:39):
We had Ril for a while.

Speaker 6 (01:03:40):
We had Yeah, I can see her yes.

Speaker 3 (01:03:49):
Every now and then my memory.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:03:51):
But they were such a great they were. They were
so good to you guys. And and when they did
when they were asked to do something special like Kimberly's
vault the scar Boy, they knocked it out of a park.

Speaker 7 (01:04:01):
Oh yeah, alone is amazing. She could do anything. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:04:05):
So here's what I'm finding.

Speaker 4 (01:04:06):
I'm finding that Chip has more memories and more stories
than we we need more than one episode. So I
think we may be having Chipped back because there's so
much to talk about. But we did have a lot
of fans send in some questions that they were interested in.

(01:04:27):
So maybe we'll try like a lightning round and.

Speaker 7 (01:04:28):
We'll get some fan question.

Speaker 4 (01:04:30):
Great, can you tell us some casting possibilities that were
never realized.

Speaker 5 (01:04:34):
I partly got into the casting. They just showed up,
going Hi, I'm here for wardrobe.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
So did you come that day when Andrew was cast?
Were you there at Aeron's that day?

Speaker 5 (01:04:42):
Not that day? No, because we were shooting the pilot
if you remember.

Speaker 7 (01:04:46):
That happened on Saturday.

Speaker 5 (01:04:48):
I know, but I had to I had to reorder
the whole board because we had to push all of
Billy scenes to the end of that Shoe Deutsch, because
Howie Deutsch had come to me and said, I said
that one scene where where Billie's lifting the toilet seed up,
uh plot and he shot it like twenty times, Howie,

(01:05:09):
and he came to me and he said, you know,
this guy doesn't seem to be you know, getting it.
And I got on the phone to Duke Vincent and said, Duke, uh,
I'm going to rush dailies over to you tomorrow and
take a look. And the next thing I know, you know, so.

Speaker 7 (01:05:22):
I later he was great, he's not the.

Speaker 5 (01:05:26):
Envisioned Yeah, so that's going to be a different question,
because you know, I got handed the cast.

Speaker 3 (01:05:32):
So you weren't always you weren't in regularly.

Speaker 5 (01:05:36):
That was all the way in West La and yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:05:40):
All right, more questions. What was the hardest part of
I think you've sort of answered it. What was the
hardest lot of time naturally filming two episodes at the
same time. Did you ever did we ever have any
like major snaffoos that's like not really.

Speaker 5 (01:05:54):
I I I ended up because you're dealing with four
different assistant directors too, prepping to shooting on that. So
I did all the boards myself. I love puzzles. I'm
a puzzle guy. So I'd sit down on the floor
of my office and I knew so I knew where
all the pitfalls might be, and I was trying. I
tried to anticipate, you know, what might be a problem

(01:06:15):
here on this double up and then oh but I
tried never to if I moved you from one show
to another, was because you had to go from stage
to stage. Rarely did I say Oxlard to Santa Cloria,
because then you have that unknown of who's going to
you know, be early and everybody's gonna be tapping their
toes waiting for Laura to.

Speaker 1 (01:06:33):
Get here from the It happened sometimes, but rarely, so
I try to anticipate.

Speaker 2 (01:06:36):
That was the episode of the bombing of the building,
which was season four episode one, the most expensive and
controversial then.

Speaker 5 (01:06:45):
Probably because we spent days on that, and I had
to I had to be extra good about my my
slush fund because the network never gave us breakage and
stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (01:06:54):
Would they ever give you more when the numbers start
to go and season three were doing so great.

Speaker 5 (01:06:58):
The only time they would give you extra money was
if you were stunt casting like Priscilla Pressley or Lonnie Anderson,
something they could get publicity out of. They would give
you extra cast breakage. But but and you know, when
Heather came on board, that was a network network, separate
network money. You know, we didn't. We barely could afford you.
We had to fire and located to afford you. And

(01:07:20):
even then I had to, I had to find some
other savings to afford you. Chip.

Speaker 2 (01:07:24):
That's funny you bring that up, because I remember calling
you because the end of season four, I mean to
be honest, I was like, I want, I'll talk to
Darren about this, but my storylines were just so much the.

Speaker 6 (01:07:35):
Same, and another bad guy, another bad guy, on and
on and on.

Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
But I remember calling you because they didn't call me
back for after that, and I was like, did I
do something wrong? Or did you hear my therapist office?

Speaker 6 (01:07:49):
Because I was hating.

Speaker 5 (01:07:50):
The I was, I was, I was heartbroken. Happen anytime
you have questions like that, it always comes down to money. Yeah,
And the network was not It was not generous with
you know. I mean we had a moderate budget, but
not a big budget, and they kept the thing is,
if the writers wanted to bring on two new characters,
something else was going to have to change, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:08:12):
I mean, I remember you said, honey, I think you're
making more money than anybody said.

Speaker 5 (01:08:17):
The problem was like, okay, you had a big bump,
do you if you were to be picked up, your
your your agent made a too good of a deal.

Speaker 6 (01:08:29):
What I remember?

Speaker 5 (01:08:31):
I just remember it's always money because we loved you.
I loved all of you, and it broke my heart
every time one of you left the show.

Speaker 1 (01:08:39):
Yeah, because after five, a lot of us left, right,
How did that feel it coming back to six?

Speaker 5 (01:08:46):
Well, especially with somebody, you know. I remember it was
at the airport, was your last scene, and it was
like saying goodbye to you. You were off the gang walking
down the airway and I was probably near tears. Five
years of working with really fun neat people like you guys,
it's hard to say goodbye.

Speaker 2 (01:09:06):
Yes, And I remember, don't you guys remember the show
really was changing, I mean the cast, and I think
it's because the contracts were ending. But season four, at
the end of four, that was the end of mine.
But I was there the whole season. I remember like
new characters coming on and people having less of a storyline,
and it was they were shifting.

Speaker 5 (01:09:24):
Well, it gets tough after you do you know two
hundred hours and Darren had left, and Darren left at
the end of three I think, so.

Speaker 6 (01:09:31):
It was really changing.

Speaker 5 (01:09:32):
And yeah, it was that it's tough to keep any
show alive.

Speaker 3 (01:09:37):
Coming up to his stories.

Speaker 5 (01:09:38):
And you know, you're always at your best in season
two and three, in any in any series you look at,
you'll notice that, you know, season one is where you
got all the kinks out, season two is where you
really hit it going. Then by season three you really
fired in all cylinders.

Speaker 6 (01:09:54):
And then why don't you change it?

Speaker 2 (01:09:56):
Because their contracts are going to be over and the
work and Aaron Spelling wants to be ready for to
keep this.

Speaker 5 (01:10:04):
Going with bringing new actors with the five year contra,
and you bring them in in season three or four,
and if they work, then you've got somebody you know,
that you can afford and pick up. And and then
some people we asked, you know, you want to come
back and try to make that deal, and some of
you just said, now you know, Like I remember, Grant

(01:10:24):
just was like and go was like, ready to get
out of this. He's done five years and that's enough. Yeah. No.

Speaker 1 (01:10:31):
I tried to make a deal and I had a
number in line and they weren't willing to match it,
and I was like, okay, oh yeah, no, no, no.
It was honestly, I was kind of ready. I thought
I would stay for this, and I was ready. But
I remember what they did, which is really smart, is
once they knew I wasn't coming back, like my character
faded into the distance. I remember one episode I wasn't in.
It was like, oh, this will be an easy week,

(01:10:53):
Like I wasn't in because they sort of they're they're
focusing obviously on the new characters that are going to
be They don't want it to notice when when I
get on the plane, they're like, we haven't really seen
her anyway. There she goes on blind that's okay, And again.

Speaker 5 (01:11:03):
These are I mean, Darren would be able to give
you the real ins and outs behind that because I wasn't.
You know, I only heard about it second hand about
what happened. But it's always money.

Speaker 2 (01:11:13):
But it's so interesting this conversation because here we are,
you know, artists.

Speaker 6 (01:11:17):
This is the nature of this business, is the art
and the commerce, and you are coming in.

Speaker 2 (01:11:22):
You have a foot in both. You have to meet
those needs and make us all happy too, you know.
But this is what acting in this business is.

Speaker 5 (01:11:30):
It is and as long as as long as it
my job was done, as long as you guys said
I can't wait to get off that set. If anybody
said that, then I would know I'd failed in my job.
And that's all I can do. Very happy. The rest
of it is, you know, between you, your agent, the network,
and the writers and whether or not a lot of
times the writers just say, you know, I don't know

(01:11:52):
where that character is going anymore. And it was mutual.
I mean they're saying, you know, we've kind of our
brains can't come up with new stuff, so we want
to have fresh.

Speaker 1 (01:12:02):
That it never happened with Sydney because they just do something crazy, make.

Speaker 5 (01:12:05):
Us want me to become that cult stuff cult. That
was the coldest shooting, shooting that cult stuff where we
were in the mountains. It was in like the middle
of February, and it was that was that was when
I started having mister Cappuccino show up every night on

(01:12:27):
because it was so freaking cold up there.

Speaker 1 (01:12:31):
When we had Thomas on, they were talking about like
a hot string.

Speaker 4 (01:12:37):
Okay, so she was yes, So the hot the hot
springs hot space.

Speaker 3 (01:12:42):
Yeah, the hot Springs place. I love that.

Speaker 4 (01:12:45):
That's part of what Chip has brought is he's got
some snapshots, he's.

Speaker 2 (01:12:48):
Got some receipts that it wasn't like some cleazy, old,
dirty clarified tell us all about that.

Speaker 5 (01:12:54):
We were wherever the mountains were there and we found
the spot. We dug a hole with a bulldozer and
lined it with blackfist green plastic days before, days before,
and filled it with water, chlorinated water that had been
tinted so that you couldn't see the plastic to the one,

(01:13:16):
and we heated it for two days. We had portable
heaters and filters. So when you said it was just awful.
It was dirty, filthy filters.

Speaker 4 (01:13:28):
I absolutely corrected, it was not filthy.

Speaker 6 (01:13:32):
It was Thomas who was bothering Thomas.

Speaker 3 (01:13:35):
Thomas claims not to remember it at all.

Speaker 5 (01:13:37):
It was the date on that is, February something ninety
four and it was cold. So I created this war,
made a.

Speaker 6 (01:13:45):
Nice heart that looked out in the nowhere like there
you go it. Yeah, this is how good you took
care of us.

Speaker 5 (01:13:54):
I mean your acts happy.

Speaker 4 (01:13:58):
I had a shower in the trailer after words, like
cleaning off and get I was well taken care of.

Speaker 5 (01:14:03):
You've got to keep it was so good, it was
like a happy shows.

Speaker 4 (01:14:09):
Well, we have loved having you, and we give you
full permission to call us anytime we get something wrong.
We know that we're going to invoke your name again.

Speaker 5 (01:14:18):
We're always be a reference. That's I've never even opened
that count.

Speaker 1 (01:14:24):
Were you listening when Colleen found the Mellow's place perfume?

Speaker 5 (01:14:28):
Yes, yes, I heard that.

Speaker 3 (01:14:32):
The most obscure but thank you so much for bringing.

Speaker 1 (01:14:39):
Oh we can't even wait when it starts to get diceier.

Speaker 5 (01:14:43):
We started this experience for me too. I'm watching them
just as you guys are doing the podcast and so
I haven't seen this in thirty two years, so they're
I'm finding all sorts of surprises. I know. Yeah, it's
really fun and we.

Speaker 4 (01:14:58):
Hope that our listeners are watching the episodes to watching
along with us and thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:15:03):
So we want everyone don't forget to follow us at
Still the Place on Instagram and Facebook and work are
you TikTok Still the Place and then to download and
lead us leave us some reviews on our podcast.

Speaker 4 (01:15:15):
And thanks so much for coming to our very special
interview episode with Chip Haye

Speaker 6 (01:15:24):
Than thanks Chip,

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Episode Transcript

Hosts And Creators

Laura Leighton

Daphne Zuniga

Courtney Thorne-Smith

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