All My Children, Mama’s Family, The Nanny | Giving Thanks for Dorothy Lyman

“The roles I’ve played on soap operas are infinitely superior to any roles I’ve played anywhere else. They are about women and women’s stories. The men are just there to screw you -- or screw you over.” -- Dorothy Lyman

Just three chicks sitting around talking...
Susan and Sharon clean house -- and air some dirty laundry -- with The Nanny director and Emmy-award winning actress Dorothy Lyman. You may know her as Opal Gardner from the long-running soap opera All My Children or as Naomi Oates Harper from Mama’s Family. But did you know she also directed an astonishing 74-episodes of the classic Fran Drescher comedy, The Nanny?

THE CONVERSATION

• One-day of work a month on Search For Tomorrow was enough to keep Dorothy from “serving cheeseburgers.” The pay was $400 -- and rent in NY was only $65!
• COMING CLEAN ABOUT SOAPS: Soap operas addressed abuse and abortion and mental illness and many other issues long before prime time TV. “I think it helped a lot of women stuck at home feeling the same things.”
• ON SOAP OPERA FANS: “I couldn’t buy myself a beer anywhere in America the whole time I was on the soaps. The fans are different. They feel like they know you.”
• WHEN CAROL BURNETT CALLS: “Carol Burnett and Vicki Lawrence would watch me as Opal on ‘All My Children’ during their lunch hour on ‘The Carol Burnett Show’ -- that was their ritual. And that’s how I got the job on ‘Mama’s Family’.”
• A COUPLA WHITE CHICKS SITTING AROUND TALKING: on directing the long-running, Off-Broadway hit starring Susan Sarandon and Eileen Brennan.
• TRY AGAIN: Mama’s Family was completely reconceived after the first pilot. “We shot one that was really awful. I think the problem was, it was too mean. And it wasn’t funny at all.” 
• THERE’S THE DOOR: After directing three seasons of The Nanny, Dorothy says, “I never got another job directing a single moment of television. I spent many years thinking I’d done something terribly wrong. But it was because I was over 50 -- and I was a woman.”
• What do you do when Hollywood directing gigs go away? You buy a chicken farm in upstate New York and start writing plays, of course!
• ON CHANGE: “Change is where it’s at. Nothing stays the same. And I’ve always been one of those people -- if I wanted to do something, I did it.”
• ON DIRECTING: “It fits my personality. I’m bossy.”

So join Susana and Sharon -- and Dorothy -- as they talk Milton Berle, Edge of Night, Celine Dion, visiting Egypt, Another World, Bette Midler, The Women’s Room, Fran Drescher, baked croutons -- and “Where do you keep your Emmys?”

AUDIO-OGRAPHY
Watch Mama’s Family for free on Pluto TV.
Follow Dorothy Lyman at Instagram.com/dorothy_lyman

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This year is the 45th anniversary of President Carter's Crisis of Confidence speech. Get Susan’s new play about it: Confidence (and the Speech) at Broadway Licensing. 

Credits: 80s TV Ladies™ Episode 308. Produced by 134 West and Susan Lambert Hatem. Hosted by Susan Lambert Hatem and Sharon Johnson. Guest: Dorothy Lyman. Sound Engineer and Editor: Kevin Ducey. Producers: Melissa Roth. Sharon Johnson. Richard Hatem. Associate Producers: Sergio Perez. Sailor Franklin. Mus