May 7, 2025 • 51 mins
"It is equally treacherous when you are very successful as when you are trying to get your foot in the door in terms of keeping the sense of who you are.” -- Asaad Kelada, producer/director, The Facts of Life
In Part 2 of their conversation with Asaad Kelada, Susan and Sharon talk with the director about the gifts and pitfalls of success; his reputation as a director who brings harmony to the most disharmonious sets in Hollywood; and the challenge of breaking into the “Hollywood TV Club” for an Egyptian with “a name with all of these vowels!”.
In a career spanning four decades, Asaad Kelada has directed over 340 episodes of television, including Rhoda, Phyllis, The Tony Randall Show, Benson, WKRP in Cincinnati, One Day at a Time, Night Court, Valerie, Who’s the Boss, Family Ties and The Office -- as well as four seasons of The Facts of Life and over five seasons of Who's The Boss?.
THE CONVERSATION
AUDIO-OGRAPHY
Find out more about Asaad Kelada at IMDB.
STILL IN FLUX: Watch Season 2 and 3 of The Facts of Life for free on Tubi.
Season 1 and 3 are available for sale on Amazon Prime.
Buy the complete season on DVD at Ebay. Check YouTube for other episodes.
Watch Asaad Kelada Television Academy interviews on YouTube.
VITAL READING
Check out Democracy Docket here.
Learn more about the ACLU here.
Check DontGetPurged.org to make sure your name has not been purged from voter rolls!
Let your voice be heard! Call your reps. Make 5 Calls makes it easy.
In Part 2 of their conversation with Asaad Kelada, Susan and Sharon talk with the director about the gifts and pitfalls of success; his reputation as a director who brings harmony to the most disharmonious sets in Hollywood; and the challenge of breaking into the “Hollywood TV Club” for an Egyptian with “a name with all of these vowels!”.
In a career spanning four decades, Asaad Kelada has directed over 340 episodes of television, including Rhoda, Phyllis, The Tony Randall Show, Benson, WKRP in Cincinnati, One Day at a Time, Night Court, Valerie, Who’s the Boss, Family Ties and The Office -- as well as four seasons of The Facts of Life and over five seasons of Who's The Boss?.
THE CONVERSATION
- How directing his first episode of network television - "Rhonda Questions Her Life and Flies to Paris" - felt like coming home.
- THE “TIES” THAT BIND: An old friend, Gary David Goldberg, asked Asaad personally to direct the pilot of Family Ties.
- Michael J. Fox ad-libbed the “P” in “Alex P. Keaton” when picking up a call from his girlfriend -- and it got the biggest laugh of the night. That’s when Asaad knew the show was going to be a hit.
- Michael J. Fox was actually the SECOND choice to play Alex Keaton. Matthew Broderick was first.
- ON PERSISTENCE: Observing and learning for five years to direct his first episode of television. “People would wave at me and say hello, but were they looking at an insane man, or were they looking at someone who was just determined? How am I being perceived by persisting and persisting? Was I somebody who was really deluded? When doesn’t he take no for an answer? I think I just outlasted them.”
- Directing “Les on a Ledge” for WKRP in Cincinnati.
- DIRECTING WHO’S THE BOSS?: Tony Danza had a photographic memory and hated rehearsal. Katherine Helmond and Judith Light loved to rehearse. Plus, the kids? Everyone had to be directed differently, but it all had to come together.
- The “Requiem” episode of Who’s The Boss? is where Tony Danza and Asaad really connected. After that, he was invited to stay -- for four years.
- WHO REALLY WAS THE BOSS? “No question -- it was Tony Danza. Tony was volatile. He made everybody feel good -- until he didn’t.”
- GETTING TO KNOW BENSON: Asaad only directed two episodes of Benson -- but he and Robert Guillaume became lifelong friends.
- “LOOKOUT FOR CLORIS LEACHMAN!” -- “I was told ‘She may try to take over, she is always changing things -- and she is a flirt. Maybe you can use that to tame her’.”
- WELCOME TO THE “TV CLUB”: “Even when you get accepted into the TV club, it is a temporary membership. And it can be revoked at any time.”
AUDIO-OGRAPHY
Find out more about Asaad Kelada at IMDB.
STILL IN FLUX: Watch Season 2 and 3 of The Facts of Life for free on Tubi.
Season 1 and 3 are available for sale on Amazon Prime.
Buy the complete season on DVD at Ebay. Check YouTube for other episodes.
Watch Asaad Kelada Television Academy interviews on YouTube.
VITAL READING
Check out Democracy Docket here.
Learn more about the ACLU here.
Check DontGetPurged.org to make sure your name has not been purged from voter rolls!
Let your voice be heard! Call your reps. Make 5 Calls makes it easy.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Weirding Way Media Hands Pretty through the City.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome to eighties TV Ladies, where we lift up the
stories of women in television. Here are your hosts, Sharon
Johnson and Susan Lambert had him Hello, I'm.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Susan and I'm Sharon.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
On our last episode our guests was the incredible Colada,
and he had so much to tell us we had
to break it into two parts. Here is part two.
Buckle up, it's going to be a great ride. Now
he's going to tell us all about Chlorus Leachman. Eventually,
I promise you we'll get through it.
Speaker 5 (00:54):
The pressure that I felt when I got through Da
Goes to Paris, when I got that one I was
going to show is that, Okay, I've been sitting here
for five years.
Speaker 6 (01:04):
I have literally five days.
Speaker 5 (01:08):
To demonstrate whether you can do that well us all
I learned anything, whether I'm worth putting any more investment
in or whatever. And it is unbearable pressure until we
started rehearsal, and then something else happened.
Speaker 6 (01:27):
I was just doing the.
Speaker 7 (01:27):
War were you just did it feel like home?
Speaker 6 (01:30):
It felt like home. Rep.
Speaker 5 (01:31):
Valerie and Julie Kavner, whom I knew from San Diego whatever.
Speaker 6 (01:35):
They were so welcoming.
Speaker 5 (01:37):
I felt people were rooting for me because they saw
me put in the time and the script was wonderful.
I mean there was no rewrites. It was just what
we read is what we shot, and it just went twelve.
I was a tense day for me. It was camera blocking,
which was the fourth day of the week, because that again,
now that is the.
Speaker 6 (01:56):
Reals is doing a play.
Speaker 5 (01:59):
I know how to, but how do I deal with
these four cameras, one hundred people on stage. Everybody has questions,
everybody needs an answer now, and I'm there, and I
have to actually move these behamios, these these multiple cameras whatever. Again,
the crew, which I will always bow to, the crew
(02:20):
are the unsung heroes.
Speaker 6 (02:22):
They had seen me, they knew me.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
I had done my homework as well as I could,
and when I stumbled, they were there to offer a
suggestion whatever, and we did it and the episode was
very good.
Speaker 8 (02:36):
Do you think it was more difficult for you to
break in because you were Egyptian?
Speaker 6 (02:40):
I think so.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
It's only logical. It stands to reason. My name is
all these vowels and this as in an a. I
look different, I sound different. I never tried to be
somebody else. I didn't think of changing my name to
something more colloquial or whatever.
Speaker 6 (03:02):
It's such who I am.
Speaker 5 (03:04):
H never tried to speak differently, and it was not overt.
But television, for anybody, is a closed club. You have
to be connected, you have to be somehow supported by
somebody or whatever. And I knew no one except for
(03:28):
Beverly Sanders who said, Mary's my friend, go to MTM.
So for everybody it is a closed club. For somebody
like me, it was even more the fact that I
was allowed to go in and acted on it. I
took the initiative, fortunately, to take that chance, to make
(03:50):
that leap of faith. But television is Jewish humor.
Speaker 6 (03:55):
It is it is.
Speaker 5 (03:57):
Carl Reiner says that books had written that it is acknowledge,
and it is what makes it brilliant. Fortunately, there is
a cadence to the rhythms to do whatever, that's not
far removed from the way I grew up. Maybe that
is why I was able to kind of shift. But
that makes the club even more insulated. And I knew
(04:20):
going in that why would they pay attention to me?
I didn't know that, but I know now why would
they give me a chance? All the odds are against this.
It's difficult enough to Will James or whatever, but to
give a multimillion dollar show and trust it to somebody.
(04:41):
So I had to prove myself I will be honest.
I was not accept a couple of instances that were
not even during my time when I was trying to
break in, but even since then, that there were overt
incidents that were unfortunate, the fact that I was Egyptian
or other, or this or that. But it was more
(05:04):
the gaining credibility, getting past the anonymity of not only
being somebody whom nobody knows, but being somebody who is foreign,
somebody who is Egyptian, which is alien to this format.
All of these aspects were conjoined together to make it
(05:26):
really a very very steep climb. But I to answer
your question, yes, I'm sure if nothing else, it delayed
the process, and I've constantly had to demonstrate that I
could still be a member of the club that as I.
(05:49):
That's something that I a sentence that I wrote in
the book, that I could speak the language, even though
I may not have the vernacular still maybe with an accent,
but I could speak the language of television. I have
to keep proving that because as a guest director, every
time it was starting over again, having to prove from
(06:13):
day one that I can earn your trust, that you
can have a good time with me, and that we
will do okay by the end of the week. And fortunately,
again I kept doing the work I have been prepared.
I never took it for granted. I never assumed it
was now mine to have. I had to keep earning it.
Speaker 8 (06:34):
So you know you worked with James Brooks and Alan Burns.
Did you also work with Charlotte Brown, the staff writer
became the Rhoda showrunner first.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
Yeah, well she was a writer when I first met her.
I don't think she was a producer yet. She might
have been, because again I spent so much time, but
I knew her at a distance, as I did with
everybody else. She was also a friend of Beverly Sanders,
who got me into observing Rhoda. So eventually I did
get to meet Charlotte, and when I did my first episode,
(07:05):
she was a producer by then, and she, I remember,
was one of the primary supporters. I felt that she
was kind of lifting me up and you can do
it and this is finally where you need it to be.
And then after I left the show, after I directed Rhoda,
and when I was going on to other stuff and
(07:26):
we'd run into one another, she was always cordial and warm.
And people tend to move on from those they work with.
They just we're all again replaceable that way, because everybody's
meeting hundreds of people all the time. But I always
felt with Charlotte that I was identified. I was always
somebody that she had a relationship with. So I remember
(07:50):
her very very fondly, and no question, she was brilliant
to what she did as a writer and as a producer.
Speaker 8 (08:00):
To shut out MTM for putting women on staffs, putting
Egyptians behind.
Speaker 7 (08:05):
The camera, well you know, absolutely that was very progressive
for the time. I'm very unusual now.
Speaker 5 (08:12):
That you bring that up. That is very true now
that I think back. I mean EMPTM had a lot
of women writers, women producers. I mean I remember on Rhoda,
I mean there were several of them. Pat Nardo I
think was another writer. So yes, a shout out to
EMPTYM for that. Grant Tinker and Mary were remarkable. They
(08:36):
really that place was a home for everybody there. And
the thing just because I Grant Tinker played a big
part in my life. The thing that set him apart
is that he was vociferous in his support of the
talent working with him. He was what I'm using all
these big words, but he was a barrier between the
(08:59):
sioux or the people who were the executives and the
artists and the writers. He gave writers full freedom, he
never interfered, which it was unique. I remember when I
couldn't get over the fact coming from the theater that
you get to do a show and then a whole
(09:19):
army of people would come in, everybody with their notes
and pads and whatever. Grant, who was the head of
the company, was only there to support and if a
writer needed somebody to be a.
Speaker 6 (09:33):
Barrier or a filter.
Speaker 5 (09:35):
So anyway, he was truly a talent lover supporter and
I can vouch for it on a personal level. Wonderful
and she was an ally, absolutely And when I started working,
she was a supporter and I was exceedingly fond of her.
She was a wonderful producer, a wonderful writer, and she
(10:01):
became a friend. She was supportive. But again these relationships
were formed after I started to work.
Speaker 6 (10:07):
I knew them.
Speaker 5 (10:08):
After a while, I was unavoidable. I just was always there.
I wondered when they would look at me, and now
they would wave at me and say hello, whatever, But
but they looking at an insane man or looking at
somebody who was just determined. Constantly, it was always that
who am I here? And how am I being perceived
(10:30):
by persisting? Persisting? Either this was somebody who was really deluded.
When does he take no for an answer? How long
does he wait? And I really feel that I just outlasted,
outlasted no, give him one.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Get here. It's a strategy.
Speaker 7 (10:55):
It's a strategy they clearly are winning. But Yale School
of Drama is not a slouch school.
Speaker 5 (11:04):
Yeah, it's interesting. It's a paradox because it really doesn't
have much weight in television. But now as a director
and a producer, and when I was sitting on the
other side of the table as auditioners came in, when
we looked at the resume and it said Yale School
of Drama, everybody sat up because you knew there was
(11:28):
a work ethic, there was a training, there was something
behind it. It was not just somebody who is beautiful
or witty, or is fun at parties. Who says I
can be an actor, but somebody who committed to a career.
So I thought that this would be my calling card.
And it was in the theater to some extent, but
(11:50):
again the theater is lean pickings unless you're with a
company or so. Anyway, I still look at my diploma
and as a Yale School of Drama.
Speaker 8 (12:04):
Wait, so you were just saying that you directed pilot
of Family Ties while you were doing the Facts of Life.
Speaker 7 (12:11):
Yes, that was a year.
Speaker 5 (12:13):
Yes, well I went out a lot when I was
directing the Facts of Life. I would go off as
a guest director. I who asked people would want me
to go as a visiting director. And Gary Goldberg was
a very close friend of mine because I had directed
his very first series, which was called The Last Resort,
(12:33):
and they ran for sixteen episodes. It was really a
wonderful series that given had it been at another time.
It was a precursor to Friends in some ways because
it was about young people working in the catskills and
it was beautifully written and funny and great looking cast. Anyway,
so Gary and I had first met him when I
(12:55):
directed the Tony Randall Show and He and Hugh Wilson
were the producers, so I met both of them. As
a result of that, I started working with Garry and
then I ended up working with you on WKARP. So
all these relationships, if they're solid, if they're good relationships,
if they're enhanced, they reverberate over time. Because I worked
(13:20):
with Gary on the Last Resort and it was an
enjoyable experience, and the show was what was getting numbers
that would make it huge hit now, but at the time,
if you didn't get kind of forty million people a night,
it was So he wrote the script, said I have
a very special script that is close to my heart
(13:41):
that I want you to read. And I read it.
It was Family Ties, and I called him back immediately
and I asked him to promise me that if it's
ever picked up, that I can direct it. And I
directed it. I was working on the Facts of Life
at the time, so I took that time. They gave
me the time to do the pilot, and that's why
I wasn't the director on Family Ties, because I wanted
(14:04):
to stay loyal to the Facts of Life. So I
went back to Family Ties and directed several episodes every
year throughout the run. But I would have loved to
be on family ties all the time because it was
a joyous experience.
Speaker 6 (14:19):
But that's how I did it.
Speaker 7 (14:21):
So from the get go, did you guys think this
is going? Do you know?
Speaker 5 (14:25):
The night of shooting that show, you could touch it
in the air. Every single time Michael J. Foxx bless
him walked on stage, the audience went crazy and he
made the history that night in the sense that to
(14:47):
tell you how connected he was to the part is
that there is a scene in the kitchen and his
girlfriend calls and his sister, the young Sisters, makes fun
of him. I your girlfriend. He picks up the and
he says, hello, Alex P.
Speaker 6 (15:02):
Keaton. He was not in the script.
Speaker 5 (15:06):
His name was Alex Keaton and he just add lid that.
And the minute he said pee, because it was not
heard at any other time in the episode, the audience
roared and Gary looked at me and he said, we're
in and it became Alex from that point on. But
he was so not only him, everybody. It was a
(15:30):
charmed cast that was like the family was and they
were assembled kind of not haphazardly over a long period
of time, but you're picking people who've never seen each other,
and they became a family two days into the rehearsal.
This is what capturing lightning in a bottle is that cliche?
Speaker 6 (15:52):
It really is.
Speaker 5 (15:52):
It's like with who's the boss? Putting Tony and Judith
and Catherine together and the uncle Elisa, and so it's.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
Lightning in.
Speaker 9 (16:03):
Whatever something happens. Something happens. And Mike Well, Michael J.
Fox was a last minute casting.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
Gary wanted Broderick, Matthew Broderick, and he was sold on him,
and Matthew Broderick was cast and then he called Carry
and he said, I had to drop off because his dad,
James Broderick, the actor, was very sick and he wanted
to spend time with him. So he went to New
York and Garry said, Matthew, Matthew man he is, And
(16:38):
then casting director Julith Wiener said, I have this young
man who is brilliant. You will like him. He's not Matthew.
He's not Matthew, he said, just read him. So he
read him. He liked him, but he was still caught
on the other thing.
Speaker 6 (16:57):
He read him again.
Speaker 5 (16:59):
I was working fact, so I wasn't in on those readings,
but Gary would tell me, you know, I saw the
same guy.
Speaker 6 (17:04):
He's just terrific. I can't get him off my mind.
He's not mad, he broader.
Speaker 5 (17:08):
But finally I was in Gary's office when Michael called
to find out if he was cast, and Gary told him,
you have the role, and I could hear the screen.
Later we found out that Michael used practically his last dime.
Speaker 6 (17:27):
He was leaving Los Angeles.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
He was going to go back to Canada because he
was not getting work, and he said, okay, this is
not for me. If he had not gotten this role,
he would have gone to Canada. He got it during
the week. Every day he demonstrated there is something extraordinary
about him. But he was insecure. And he came to
(17:49):
me one day and he said, are they going to
fire me? I said, what are you talking about, Matt?
I said, I don't know, I don't know. I think
he was almost afraid to trust everything that was in him.
And I keep doing the stuff that's coming out of me,
and I said, just hang on. We had that run through.
Immediately after our conversation. Producers and writers were screaming it
(18:14):
was brilliant, and I said, there's your answer. And we
became Michael J.
Speaker 7 (18:20):
Fox, Michael Gross.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (18:28):
Cast really lovely people, lovely people.
Speaker 7 (18:30):
And they really did fit, like they really did fit.
Speaker 5 (18:33):
They fit, and they were very different backgrounds. Justine had
not acted at all.
Speaker 7 (18:41):
She was brand new, She was.
Speaker 6 (18:42):
Brand brand new. She was a model, a child model.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
Alice Meredith Baxter had this enormous amount of history, mainly
on television, so she came with that. The father, Michael Gross,
was from the theater. He was cast at the very
last minute because a tape was sent from New York.
He had not even been out here. He was working
in the theater in New York, and we watched the
(19:07):
tape at Brandon Tartikoff's office and we said, okay, this
is him. The cast was complete, but he was from
the theater, and so he came with a completely different discipline.
Tinajodas was a child actress, so she was the one
who just came and was herself and she was terrific.
So it was all kind of from desperately assembled and
(19:31):
then they just found themselves. The one big adjustment that
I remember did have to be made during the pilot
rehearsals is that Michael was theatrical and Gary's vision for
that role was the subtlety saying he was the center
of gravity by reacting not acting. He was the one
(19:55):
that you knew was the steady voice. All the other people,
Michael the young activist or Justine Bateman was the shopperholic
and they wanted to do this, and Alex p. Keaton,
who's a Nixon follower whatever, They're all on their own bend.
But the father was the steady The father and the
(20:18):
mother were the steady ones. And so the work that
had to be done was to bring Michael Gross down
to make it because he was from the theater. He
was playing to the balcony, yes, and it had to
be brought down. It was really interesting to see it
come together. But the night we filmed it, it was
(20:39):
clear was.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
That the first time you'd had an opportunity to be
involved at the beginning of one of the shows and
be involved in the casting and range.
Speaker 5 (20:47):
No I was involved before, but this was certainly the
first time with something as enormously successful as this was
because I had directed other pilots before the last Resort
with Gary, and I was involved with casting throughout. When
I was on the Facts of Life, I was always there,
but this felt like something that was really being born
(21:10):
in front of us.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
There are lots of I'm sure, good shows, good pilots
that are out there that for whatever reason, didn't resonate
with an audience. Were there others that you did that
you thought, you know that it was inexplicable, why it
configure out?
Speaker 8 (21:23):
Why?
Speaker 5 (21:23):
Yes, well, the last resort it was inexplicable. Why it
was canceled because it was successful, it was doing very well,
very well, but again relative to the times, not well enough,
I guess in those numbers. The other I did a
pilot with Michael Keaton that ran for a few episodes.
(21:47):
But again the flip side of that is that everybody
knew that he was brilliant, but the kind of the
concept is not fully baked. So you you can tell
we all knew that family ties that the pilot was unique.
We just didn't know that it would take off the
way it did the night we filmed it, because the
(22:11):
reaction was really unlike anything anybody has experienced, where it
just said, we know these people, we want them, we
want to be with them every week, roaring and accepting,
just embracing them.
Speaker 7 (22:27):
Lightning in a bottle in a bottle like Who's the Boss?
Speaker 6 (22:32):
Very good?
Speaker 7 (22:34):
Who How did you get involved in Who's the Boss?
Speaker 6 (22:39):
Okay?
Speaker 5 (22:40):
An interesting connection. When I went to meet Grant Tinker
and he gave me his advice. He said, also, if
you need to talk to somebody, go talk to Marty Cohen.
Marty Cohen is a director who works occasionally on Rhoda
and he may give you some advice. I never did
get to talk to Marty. Other things took place. I
(23:02):
directed w k RP, and the first episode I did
was written by Blake Hunter. It was called less on
a Ledge and it less nessman settanding on a ledge,
wanting to kill himself because he was somebody misunderstood something
so well. He was accused of being gay, and at
(23:24):
the time that was anathema. Anyway, it was a wonderful script,
very funny, and gave me my in road into w
k RP, which then I was a part of throughout history.
So Blake Hunter wrote that episode, and by that time
I think there was word out that I was good
with actors, that harmony was always established on the set.
(23:49):
People got along, everybody was happy, and apparently the Who's
the Voss set was in turmoil. The week before the
episode that I was to direct, I heard of us
I had a story of conflict with the then director
and that a chair or a ladder was involved in
the altercation between Tony and the director, so there was
(24:12):
trife on the set. I was told that that was
one of the reasons they said maybe it would be good,
but also my name was becoming part of at least
a conversation. So I was given two episodes also the
trial period, and when I got there it was wonderful
to reconnect with Blake and relive w k RP. And
(24:36):
I told Marty that he was going to be the
one to give me some career advice, which he never did.
Speaker 6 (24:45):
I did the episode.
Speaker 5 (24:46):
The first episode was just a fun episode of Tony
and his Crony is.
Speaker 7 (24:50):
Going to do but.
Speaker 8 (24:53):
What is that They go to the just stating someone
and he is a fan of Tony dance.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
And they go to Vegas and that went well. Tony
was still he hadn't made up his mind exactly who
I was or whatever, but it was peaceful and the
people who were magical to me were Judith and Catherine.
They were again from the theater, so we had our language,
we could speak, and they were so generous and supportive.
(25:22):
I felt they were my cushion. I could have a
soft landing with them. I felt wonderful and the episode
went well. The second episode was called Requiem, and it
was a very personal episode to Tony based on his
own life experience when his dad died. It's about Tony
(25:42):
and he seems to disappear and nobody can find them.
He comes back into the house and then he disappears again.
Mona of course thinks he's being pursued by the mob.
That's that funny aspect of it. But we discovered that
his dad's apartment, which he still maintained and had to
have a second job to pay the rent for.
Speaker 6 (26:03):
That was still yet.
Speaker 5 (26:05):
His dad died around Christmas and it was still left
intact with the Christmas decorations and the Christmas tree and whatever.
And it's about Tony coming to terms with his dad's
passing and letting go moving on with his life. It
was a very very delicate, sensitive and emotional episode. And
(26:29):
this is when Tony and I connected. We worked very closely.
I talked about our father's we talked about loss and
all of that, and the episode was very special, and
Tony did wonderful work and he found aspects of himself
that people had not seen, just his emotionality and so forth.
(26:50):
So we connected well and he was very pleased with
the episode and he felt safe and protected. I remember
going to a part after we shocked the episode, and
I just said, it would be nice to stay with
this group. I wonder if it's reciprocal. I got a
call a short while later and Tony and Blake and
(27:14):
Marty decided they wanted me to do the series.
Speaker 6 (27:17):
So that's how it happened.
Speaker 5 (27:18):
And then I went started with these two episodes and
I was there for four years.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Amazing, it's break time, We'll be right back.
Speaker 7 (27:31):
We're back.
Speaker 8 (27:33):
You got to do the first Kiss episode, and that's
the one I was thinking of. That had Jeff Conway
as a guest.
Speaker 6 (27:38):
The first Kiss with Tony and.
Speaker 8 (27:40):
Yeah, because they go drink, they get drunk, Yes, yes, yes,
get drunk with his friend.
Speaker 7 (27:44):
Yes, Danny, Danny to give me.
Speaker 5 (27:48):
Danny so sorry, okay.
Speaker 7 (27:53):
Say it one more time, so we have it.
Speaker 6 (27:57):
One more Thank you, Danny, Danny pinto.
Speaker 7 (28:03):
Perfect. Yeah.
Speaker 8 (28:05):
So that was different styles of actors, right. You have
Mona from.
Speaker 5 (28:11):
The theater, Catherine Hellman Theater, and so that was a definite,
delicate balance. I mean distinctly. I remember it very clearly.
Tony did not like to rehearse a lot. He had
phoorographic memory. He was off book the second day, so
everybody had to scramble to keep up with him. Very
very intuitive, very quick. He's really was terrific and connected
(28:34):
to that part. A lot of it was him, but
he also was one to rehearsal lot. Judith and Catherine
were theater actors, and they just the image that I
have is that with them they wanted to speak in paragraphs.
Tony wanted to speak in sentences, short sentences. So I
had to balance those two things. How to keep Tony's impatience.
(28:56):
If I'd be talking to them and say, hey, come
on now, guy, let's go the work, come on, he
would it was his set. So I had to learn
the keywords that would resonate with Tony, and he and
I developed vocabulary, a language. He knew what I was thinking,
so after a while it was almost unspoken, And with
Judith and Catherine it was more about maybe what the
(29:19):
scene was about, and what the character is doing here
or there, but again briefly, succinctly, and then also young
young children. Danny and Alissa were really young. They were
sharp as attack. Alissa was enchanting, and he was adorable.
(29:40):
But it is how to keep that spontaneity that they
have naturally. How to keep that you can you can
muffle that if you overdirect it, if you try to
make them do something as opposed to have them do
what they do, but channel it where we wanted. So
(30:01):
it was a combination of languages. I was speaking in rehearsal,
and we found a rhythm all of us. We found
a balance that seemed to work for everyone. It was
primarily predominantly a happy set. Tony was very volatile. He
is Italian to the hilt and he is uncensored, so
(30:24):
whatever he came to the set with that morning kind
of colored the day. But everybody loved each other and
were very genuinely close and genuinely committed to the show
the first year, finding we were all finding our path,
our track. Judith was having a bit of difficulty again
(30:47):
to balance her role in the play and her role
on the set and all of these personal and professional,
all of these things, and that is where I believe
that directing on televis shows where everything is so compacted
and so in a way surface, if you don't hit
(31:07):
the right note quickly, then you could really lose your
position whatever. That it is a matter of creating a group,
having everybody feel that they're part of something larger than
what the yellow marker is on the script of the week,
(31:29):
that this is about something, and that everybody is treated
equally and everybody's loved and respected and all of that.
This to me is this is what I lead in
lead with, whether rightly or wrongly. It some people may
think it's for waste of time, and maybe it is,
but this is what I do. It's about the people.
And so in spite of the different backgrounds and the
(31:52):
different methodologies and techniques, the thing that was in common
is that everybody genuinely cared for one another and they
and the show was fun. And Tony was the leader
in that. He was he was larger than life, He
was joyous. He came in and he was inventive, and
he made everybody feel good until he didn't and then
(32:13):
we got past it. And me he would come one
day and say, this is ship and need to throw
the script in the trash and walk away. And then
he says, what do we do? Go talk to him?
And then I there, we talked whatever.
Speaker 6 (32:25):
That was.
Speaker 5 (32:26):
Part of my role also is to maintain the equilibrium,
maintain the piece, and also get the show.
Speaker 7 (32:36):
So I guess you answered the question of who's the boss?
Speaker 6 (32:41):
Was no, who's the boss? There was now.
Speaker 7 (32:50):
In looking at your stuff. I had to watch a
couple of episodes of Benson.
Speaker 6 (32:54):
I did a couple of but there were a couple
of episodes. You watched my entire repertoire.
Speaker 7 (33:01):
But come on, that's a good show.
Speaker 8 (33:03):
The bugging the Governor's office episode is off the hook.
Speaker 7 (33:09):
It's so delightful. That scene in the bathroom. You got
to tell me.
Speaker 6 (33:14):
I have to remind myself.
Speaker 8 (33:16):
Okay, yes, So Benson discovers there are bugs and the
governor's chins in the kitchen and the office, and so
they keep meeting in the young daughter's bedroom where they
have to sit in the little kid chairs, and in
the bathroom. There's this one downstairs bathroom that's not bugged.
It's so much physical comedy, it's so ridiculous. The three
(33:37):
of them, Rocky Home and James Noble and the it's
the other guy, the assistant guy. Yes, yes, any right,
but they are my camera. It's fantastic. And then there's
Inga's Benson and Missy Gold. Everybody gets a moment.
Speaker 5 (33:54):
Well again, this was early in my career, the Benson thing,
and it was I mean, it was spin off of
SO and so.
Speaker 6 (34:05):
This was a big, big deal.
Speaker 5 (34:07):
And Thomas Tony Thomas, and I was a bit intimidated
going and yeah, I mean but again I.
Speaker 6 (34:14):
Remember going in and I was a day in.
Speaker 5 (34:18):
I just felt they said, this guy knows what he's doing,
and they were well. We all became a family. And
interestingly after that, Chief Robert Guiom and I became very
good friends. He was living a neighbor and he just
felt I think we developed an affinity, he and I.
I'm not quite sure where it came from, whether because
there was something subliminal that he was very soulful man,
(34:42):
and of just being the other working here, both doing well,
but that there is something to life more than what
we're doing. We just communicated on that level a lot,
and we became very close.
Speaker 6 (34:59):
The government.
Speaker 5 (35:00):
James Noble was like a floating, floating ethereal presence. I
could he was lovely, but he was just had can
I can I hold you? Can we talk? And so anyway,
I really don't have a distinct recollection of that episode,
(35:23):
except that the two episodes I directed there were were
lovely and they I still get an occasional seven dollars Benson.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Last money.
Speaker 7 (35:36):
Yes, you a cup of coffee? All right?
Speaker 4 (35:40):
I really want to ask about an episode of one
of the shows we've covered that you directed.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
You did an episode of Designing Women.
Speaker 4 (35:48):
Yes, the episode was called picking a Winner, And I
wonder what if any memories of that.
Speaker 5 (35:54):
Of that is that there was a problem on the
set and the director left. Really I was brought in
the second or third day.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 5 (36:03):
So I had to kind of pull it together, get
it together, and I just remember how lovely those ladies were.
I said, what can be better than working on a
set with nothing? But it's just lovely. No, they were
just delightful. There was an actress who had just joined
the cast. Yeah, it was she was from Saturday Night Live.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
Was Jen Hooks?
Speaker 6 (36:28):
Jen Hooks?
Speaker 5 (36:29):
Yes, I think that may have been very early in
her tenure. If not the first one, I don't know,
but it was early in her tenure, and of course
Anny Potts was delightful, And so my recollection of this
is just like a blur of being called and said,
come in, go to Designing Women. It's the third day
(36:52):
of rehearsal, or the second day of rehearsal. And I
just had to learn, because I always made it my
job to learn about the show before I went in.
I would visit the set or whatever. I couldn't do
any of that. I just had to show up and
get my weeks.
Speaker 4 (37:08):
And did that happen on any of the other directing
jobs that you got where you were kind of tossed
in in the deep end like that.
Speaker 5 (37:16):
No, No, this was the only time where I was
brought in to replace someone else, although it was a
different circumstance. But I directed Chuck Laury's very first series, oh,
very short lived series called Franny Stern.
Speaker 6 (37:31):
Yes, Franny Stern.
Speaker 5 (37:33):
It was with Miriam Marghalese, who's a British character actor.
Oh yes, And it was the first time Chuck Lory
had a series on the air.
Speaker 6 (37:41):
It was very short lived.
Speaker 5 (37:43):
And he had already he had done a pilot that
was directed by someone else, and I guess he didn't
get along or whatever. He wanted another director for the series,
so I was brought in after that and I directed
the five Episodesllowing and that was a very very difficult
show for.
Speaker 6 (38:04):
Reasons that not Chuck was working.
Speaker 5 (38:07):
Was no Chuck and I didn't work together again after
that on Dharma and Greg and but this show was
difficult just because the casting was was unfortunate.
Speaker 6 (38:18):
It was just not well cast.
Speaker 5 (38:20):
The she was British, her husband was Cuban who didn't
speak English, and so he was in an American sitcom
where there were rewrites every hour and he couldn't try
to imagine it is really it was laughably.
Speaker 7 (38:40):
It was.
Speaker 5 (38:43):
Until it became really devastating because there wasn't a single
shooting night with the poor my heart went to. He
was a nervous wrecked He couldn't speak English and you're
doing a sitcom where the lines are changed every hour.
So and Chuck was it was his first series, so
(39:05):
C fours was was very intense about that. He's intense
to begin with. But we developed our relationship and we
became friends, and then I worked with him again happily.
Speaker 8 (39:17):
Okay, I think the only person we haven't asked about
that was on my list is Cloris Leachman.
Speaker 6 (39:21):
Oh, Laura Willis, did you work with her?
Speaker 2 (39:26):
No?
Speaker 5 (39:26):
I didn't work with her. It was Phyllis and Two
and a half.
Speaker 7 (39:30):
Men and two and a half Men.
Speaker 5 (39:32):
Phyllis was my second episode ever. After Rhoda questions her
life and goes to Paris. I was given that episode.
Said that's wonderful. That's four episodes in my debut year.
So I was in heaven. The episode was Mother Dexter's wedding,
which was the biggest episode they've done up to that point.
(39:53):
And it was Phyllis's grandmother. She's in her nineties and
she's getting married to her swaying her Bow who's in
his nineties. Two wonderful, lovely people with Clorus Leachman in
the middle. Okay, So when I got the episode, I
was told, okay, beware of Cloras Leachman because she's a handful.
(40:15):
I went to Jay Sandrich, whom I had met during
my years of observing, who had worked with her.
Speaker 6 (40:22):
I mean, I met him once briefly.
Speaker 5 (40:23):
He didn't know me, but I kind of girded my
courage and I went to him and asked if he
would give me some pointers because he knew her, and
I'll never forget how generous he was. He said, let's
go to the set, and we walked to the set.
We talked about it because it was a huge episode
with crowds, the wedding scene and all of that. He said,
(40:45):
the one thing be careful of chloris because she may
want to take over the set. But she's a professional though,
but she's always changing things whatever. And the other thing
is that she's a flirt so you infused that to
maybe tame her, so.
Speaker 6 (41:10):
Only to the success.
Speaker 5 (41:14):
So we did the show. The show went very well.
It was a delightful episode. And then when I was
doing Two and a half Men and she was, by
the way, very flirtatious. She says, oh, I went to
meet her at the table and I said in Egyptian,
I did this. They said, oh, and the eyes connected.
All of that was fine. And then several years later
(41:34):
I got Two and a half Men and Chuck said,
well we have somebody who worked with before. Cloris Leachman
is the guest actress. Now that was years later, and
of course years in my life that were multiplied because
my life had changed so much. So the only kind
of little anecdote is that we sat at the table
(41:55):
for the table read and I went to her and
I said, Sleachman Chloris, I don't know if you remember me.
Speaker 6 (42:01):
I'm a sad Calada.
Speaker 5 (42:02):
We worked on Phyllis and she said, oh, yes, of
course the Egyptian. So there it was, and what's coming
full circle.
Speaker 7 (42:15):
You were in.
Speaker 8 (42:19):
I'm also fascinated because it was a time of young stars,
so Missy Gold, Alissa Milano, Danny h.
Speaker 7 (42:27):
Thank you.
Speaker 8 (42:28):
And then all the facts of life cast You were
working with a lot of young people like some who
shot to start on, some who left the business, some
who struggled.
Speaker 7 (42:38):
I was just curious about your thoughts on that. I'm
not sure what my question is.
Speaker 5 (42:41):
Well, I have marveled at how first of all, at
the ones who really shot into the stratosphere top of them, all,
of course is because he is in his own firmament
with Michael Funks. But the thing that found myself thinking
more about were the one who didn't. And I've thought
(43:02):
a lot about why did that happen? Or what was
it by choice? Or was it how to deal with
the pitfalls and with the challenges of success. There were
those people who were able to parlay it to more
success and learn from it and manage to find their
(43:26):
way through it, and others who either were dazzled too
early by it and made wrong decisions. And I could
see that, and I've actually I remember talking with Todd.
I ran into him a while back later, and he's
doing very well now. But he went through through a
turbulent time in his life, Todd Bridges. Tod Bridges, that's
(43:49):
it was on different struggles. Yeah, he went through very yeah,
seriously seriously troubled, and then he managed to find his
way back in a completely different persona and doing very well.
These are the things that I find myself thinking about,
and I'm always I always look at it as a
continuum that you can find your moment, and that it's
(44:12):
a kind of fire cracker and it goes up and
flashes and it's brilliant and then it goes or it
becomes a steady kind of life path. And how you
negotiate that. From my own experience, it never stopped being
a challenge, a more enjoyable one as things got better.
(44:35):
But one of the things that maybe you disrelates to
your question. One thing that I learned is that it
is equally treacherous when you are very successful, as when
you're trying to get your foot through the door, in
terms of keeping the sense of who you are and
(44:57):
the pressure that is when you're on top and the
pressure that when you're trying to get through the door.
There may be different kinds of pressure, but they're equally intense.
The pressure that I found doing very well is to
avoid falling, and you can't avoid falling into the trap
of I've got to maintain this. I've got to do
(45:20):
everything I can to make sure this does not change.
And I caught myself getting in that at one point,
and I mean decisions were made and so forth. But
this is a roundabout way of trying to answer your
question or prodding me, is that it is the challenges
(45:41):
are always present, personal challenge. I mean, there are challenges
in all professions, but I think we're always being tested
on a personal level because it is so ephemeral, it
is so unpredictable. You are always dispensing, you are always replaceable.
(46:03):
Even when you're sitting on the throne, it could change
in a matter of months and then you are yesterday's news.
That to me is a phenomenon that does not exist
in any other profession. And how and why we voluntarily choose.
Speaker 6 (46:25):
To put ourselves through.
Speaker 5 (46:27):
That day in and year in and year out is
because again the rewards, apart from the tangible rewards, which
are kind of obscenely over their outrageous in their excessiveness,
but also the rewards are from the fact the ego
gets rewards rewarded in no other way, and the sense
(46:52):
that you are part going back full circle, that you
are part of a very exclusive club. You are being
recognized now for it.
Speaker 7 (47:02):
You're no longer the alien sitting out there in the dark.
Speaker 5 (47:06):
But the question is, and the challenge is do you
ever get rid of that feeling if it is intrinsic
to who you are. You are a member of the club,
but it is a temporary membership. It is a membership
that can be withdrawn. It is never a life guarantee.
So this is part of what makes it so tantalizing,
(47:31):
is that you're always in the process of getting somewhere
or holding onto something or making yourself relevant.
Speaker 6 (47:41):
Yes, at every given point, And.
Speaker 5 (47:43):
I can only say as my thought here is that
I have been inordinately lucky. I may have worked hard,
and I have done this or done that. But I
have been very lucky in that I have been welcomed
into the club, and I have been recognized in it,
rewarded while being in it, and my life is very
(48:07):
filled with the memories and with the people who have
become a part of my existence. So I think I
thank the time for.
Speaker 7 (48:18):
I think that's it.
Speaker 8 (48:19):
I think we you know, often at the end of
the Sharon turns to me and it's like, this is amazing.
We just had an amazing interview, and I'm just going
to say it right here. We do that after the guests,
but this has been amazing. I clearly could talk to you.
We could pick your brain all night. Thank you for
being so patient, Thank you for telling your stories and
(48:39):
it's been delightful time.
Speaker 5 (48:41):
Thank you so much for having me and for putting
up with my endless verbiage. But thank you and thank
you for doing what you're doing and throwing the light
on ladies who need to be reacknowledged. Thank you very
much for having me.
Speaker 3 (48:57):
You're so welcome. As Susan said, we could happy to sit.
Speaker 4 (49:00):
Here and talk to you for best email, because you're
talking to us about something that's very near and dear
to our heart and the history of television and the
history of the ladies and the men who were part
of making it happen for us and for the rest
of the audience.
Speaker 3 (49:15):
And it's been a joy, it really has.
Speaker 6 (49:18):
Thank you so very much.
Speaker 4 (49:23):
In today's audiography, find out more about Asad Kolata at
IMDb dot com.
Speaker 3 (49:30):
The link will be in our description.
Speaker 7 (49:32):
You can watch the Facts of Life for free on
the Roku channel and toob and just search all the
other forty shows he worked on.
Speaker 4 (49:41):
And we highly recommend the Television Academy Foundation interviews with
Asad Kalata. You can find them on YouTube and we'll
have a link in our description.
Speaker 8 (49:51):
And if you're looking for ways to help and hang
in there, I recommend donating or helping Democracy Docket, the ACLU,
and abortion funds, particularly local ones.
Speaker 7 (50:03):
We'll have some links in our description.
Speaker 8 (50:05):
Next up soon we'll be talking with the nineties TV
babies about the facts of Life.
Speaker 7 (50:11):
We're going to teach them a thing or two.
Speaker 4 (50:13):
I can't wait to hear what the nineties TV babies
have to say about the facts of Life.
Speaker 3 (50:17):
I don't even know what to expect.
Speaker 4 (50:19):
I don't know if they've even heard of it, let
alone watched any episodes.
Speaker 3 (50:23):
I just know it's going to be great, and.
Speaker 7 (50:25):
You know what it turns out.
Speaker 8 (50:26):
We haven't yet decided which episodes of the Facts of
Life we should show them, So listeners, what do you think?
What episodes of the Facts of Life would you like
us to assign the nineties TV babies to watch? Which
ones will really represent the show in such a way?
Send us your top five episodes.
Speaker 4 (50:49):
Send us your thoughts at Eightiestvladies dot com or email
us at Eighties TV Ladies at gmail dot com.
Speaker 8 (50:57):
Now, take care of yourself out there, take care of
yours and family. I have to remind myself all the time.
We start where we are and we do what we can.
Look for joy, spread kindness, stay active, and hang in there.
Speaker 4 (51:10):
As always, we hope Eighties TV Ladies brings you joy
and laughter and lots of fabulous, bold and news shows
to watch, all of which will bring us closer toward
being amazing ladies of the twenty first century. See you
next time, so pretty through the city, good things
Speaker 1 (51:38):
The man world
Weirding Way Media Hands Pretty through the City.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome to eighties TV Ladies, where we lift up the
stories of women in television. Here are your hosts, Sharon
Johnson and Susan Lambert had him Hello, I'm.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Susan and I'm Sharon.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
On our last episode our guests was the incredible Colada,
and he had so much to tell us we had
to break it into two parts. Here is part two.
Buckle up, it's going to be a great ride. Now
he's going to tell us all about Chlorus Leachman. Eventually,
I promise you we'll get through it.
Speaker 5 (00:54):
The pressure that I felt when I got through Da
Goes to Paris, when I got that one I was
going to show is that, Okay, I've been sitting here
for five years.
Speaker 6 (01:04):
I have literally five days.
Speaker 5 (01:08):
To demonstrate whether you can do that well us all
I learned anything, whether I'm worth putting any more investment
in or whatever. And it is unbearable pressure until we
started rehearsal, and then something else happened.
Speaker 6 (01:27):
I was just doing the.
Speaker 7 (01:27):
War were you just did it feel like home?
Speaker 6 (01:30):
It felt like home. Rep.
Speaker 5 (01:31):
Valerie and Julie Kavner, whom I knew from San Diego whatever.
Speaker 6 (01:35):
They were so welcoming.
Speaker 5 (01:37):
I felt people were rooting for me because they saw
me put in the time and the script was wonderful.
I mean there was no rewrites. It was just what
we read is what we shot, and it just went twelve.
I was a tense day for me. It was camera blocking,
which was the fourth day of the week, because that again,
now that is the.
Speaker 6 (01:56):
Reals is doing a play.
Speaker 5 (01:59):
I know how to, but how do I deal with
these four cameras, one hundred people on stage. Everybody has questions,
everybody needs an answer now, and I'm there, and I
have to actually move these behamios, these these multiple cameras whatever. Again,
the crew, which I will always bow to, the crew
(02:20):
are the unsung heroes.
Speaker 6 (02:22):
They had seen me, they knew me.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
I had done my homework as well as I could,
and when I stumbled, they were there to offer a
suggestion whatever, and we did it and the episode was
very good.
Speaker 8 (02:36):
Do you think it was more difficult for you to
break in because you were Egyptian?
Speaker 6 (02:40):
I think so.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
It's only logical. It stands to reason. My name is
all these vowels and this as in an a. I
look different, I sound different. I never tried to be
somebody else. I didn't think of changing my name to
something more colloquial or whatever.
Speaker 6 (03:02):
It's such who I am.
Speaker 5 (03:04):
H never tried to speak differently, and it was not overt.
But television, for anybody, is a closed club. You have
to be connected, you have to be somehow supported by
somebody or whatever. And I knew no one except for
(03:28):
Beverly Sanders who said, Mary's my friend, go to MTM.
So for everybody it is a closed club. For somebody
like me, it was even more the fact that I
was allowed to go in and acted on it. I
took the initiative, fortunately, to take that chance, to make
(03:50):
that leap of faith. But television is Jewish humor.
Speaker 6 (03:55):
It is it is.
Speaker 5 (03:57):
Carl Reiner says that books had written that it is acknowledge,
and it is what makes it brilliant. Fortunately, there is
a cadence to the rhythms to do whatever, that's not
far removed from the way I grew up. Maybe that
is why I was able to kind of shift. But
that makes the club even more insulated. And I knew
(04:20):
going in that why would they pay attention to me?
I didn't know that, but I know now why would
they give me a chance? All the odds are against this.
It's difficult enough to Will James or whatever, but to
give a multimillion dollar show and trust it to somebody.
(04:41):
So I had to prove myself I will be honest.
I was not accept a couple of instances that were
not even during my time when I was trying to
break in, but even since then, that there were overt
incidents that were unfortunate, the fact that I was Egyptian
or other, or this or that. But it was more
(05:04):
the gaining credibility, getting past the anonymity of not only
being somebody whom nobody knows, but being somebody who is foreign,
somebody who is Egyptian, which is alien to this format.
All of these aspects were conjoined together to make it
(05:26):
really a very very steep climb. But I to answer
your question, yes, I'm sure if nothing else, it delayed
the process, and I've constantly had to demonstrate that I
could still be a member of the club that as I.
(05:49):
That's something that I a sentence that I wrote in
the book, that I could speak the language, even though
I may not have the vernacular still maybe with an accent,
but I could speak the language of television. I have
to keep proving that because as a guest director, every
time it was starting over again, having to prove from
(06:13):
day one that I can earn your trust, that you
can have a good time with me, and that we
will do okay by the end of the week. And fortunately,
again I kept doing the work I have been prepared.
I never took it for granted. I never assumed it
was now mine to have. I had to keep earning it.
Speaker 8 (06:34):
So you know you worked with James Brooks and Alan Burns.
Did you also work with Charlotte Brown, the staff writer
became the Rhoda showrunner first.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
Yeah, well she was a writer when I first met her.
I don't think she was a producer yet. She might
have been, because again I spent so much time, but
I knew her at a distance, as I did with
everybody else. She was also a friend of Beverly Sanders,
who got me into observing Rhoda. So eventually I did
get to meet Charlotte, and when I did my first episode,
(07:05):
she was a producer by then, and she, I remember,
was one of the primary supporters. I felt that she
was kind of lifting me up and you can do
it and this is finally where you need it to be.
And then after I left the show, after I directed Rhoda,
and when I was going on to other stuff and
(07:26):
we'd run into one another, she was always cordial and warm.
And people tend to move on from those they work with.
They just we're all again replaceable that way, because everybody's
meeting hundreds of people all the time. But I always
felt with Charlotte that I was identified. I was always
somebody that she had a relationship with. So I remember
(07:50):
her very very fondly, and no question, she was brilliant
to what she did as a writer and as a producer.
Speaker 8 (08:00):
To shut out MTM for putting women on staffs, putting
Egyptians behind.
Speaker 7 (08:05):
The camera, well you know, absolutely that was very progressive
for the time. I'm very unusual now.
Speaker 5 (08:12):
That you bring that up. That is very true now
that I think back. I mean EMPTM had a lot
of women writers, women producers. I mean I remember on Rhoda,
I mean there were several of them. Pat Nardo I
think was another writer. So yes, a shout out to
EMPTYM for that. Grant Tinker and Mary were remarkable. They
(08:36):
really that place was a home for everybody there. And
the thing just because I Grant Tinker played a big
part in my life. The thing that set him apart
is that he was vociferous in his support of the
talent working with him. He was what I'm using all
these big words, but he was a barrier between the
(08:59):
sioux or the people who were the executives and the
artists and the writers. He gave writers full freedom, he
never interfered, which it was unique. I remember when I
couldn't get over the fact coming from the theater that
you get to do a show and then a whole
(09:19):
army of people would come in, everybody with their notes
and pads and whatever. Grant, who was the head of
the company, was only there to support and if a
writer needed somebody to be a.
Speaker 6 (09:33):
Barrier or a filter.
Speaker 5 (09:35):
So anyway, he was truly a talent lover supporter and
I can vouch for it on a personal level. Wonderful
and she was an ally, absolutely And when I started working,
she was a supporter and I was exceedingly fond of her.
She was a wonderful producer, a wonderful writer, and she
(10:01):
became a friend. She was supportive. But again these relationships
were formed after I started to work.
Speaker 6 (10:07):
I knew them.
Speaker 5 (10:08):
After a while, I was unavoidable. I just was always there.
I wondered when they would look at me, and now
they would wave at me and say hello, whatever, But
but they looking at an insane man or looking at
somebody who was just determined. Constantly, it was always that
who am I here? And how am I being perceived
(10:30):
by persisting? Persisting? Either this was somebody who was really deluded.
When does he take no for an answer? How long
does he wait? And I really feel that I just outlasted,
outlasted no, give him one.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Get here. It's a strategy.
Speaker 7 (10:55):
It's a strategy they clearly are winning. But Yale School
of Drama is not a slouch school.
Speaker 5 (11:04):
Yeah, it's interesting. It's a paradox because it really doesn't
have much weight in television. But now as a director
and a producer, and when I was sitting on the
other side of the table as auditioners came in, when
we looked at the resume and it said Yale School
of Drama, everybody sat up because you knew there was
(11:28):
a work ethic, there was a training, there was something
behind it. It was not just somebody who is beautiful
or witty, or is fun at parties. Who says I
can be an actor, but somebody who committed to a career.
So I thought that this would be my calling card.
And it was in the theater to some extent, but
(11:50):
again the theater is lean pickings unless you're with a
company or so. Anyway, I still look at my diploma
and as a Yale School of Drama.
Speaker 8 (12:04):
Wait, so you were just saying that you directed pilot
of Family Ties while you were doing the Facts of Life.
Speaker 7 (12:11):
Yes, that was a year.
Speaker 5 (12:13):
Yes, well I went out a lot when I was
directing the Facts of Life. I would go off as
a guest director. I who asked people would want me
to go as a visiting director. And Gary Goldberg was
a very close friend of mine because I had directed
his very first series, which was called The Last Resort,
(12:33):
and they ran for sixteen episodes. It was really a
wonderful series that given had it been at another time.
It was a precursor to Friends in some ways because
it was about young people working in the catskills and
it was beautifully written and funny and great looking cast. Anyway,
so Gary and I had first met him when I
(12:55):
directed the Tony Randall Show and He and Hugh Wilson
were the producers, so I met both of them. As
a result of that, I started working with Garry and
then I ended up working with you on WKARP. So
all these relationships, if they're solid, if they're good relationships,
if they're enhanced, they reverberate over time. Because I worked
(13:20):
with Gary on the Last Resort and it was an
enjoyable experience, and the show was what was getting numbers
that would make it huge hit now, but at the time,
if you didn't get kind of forty million people a night,
it was So he wrote the script, said I have
a very special script that is close to my heart
(13:41):
that I want you to read. And I read it.
It was Family Ties, and I called him back immediately
and I asked him to promise me that if it's
ever picked up, that I can direct it. And I
directed it. I was working on the Facts of Life
at the time, so I took that time. They gave
me the time to do the pilot, and that's why
I wasn't the director on Family Ties, because I wanted
(14:04):
to stay loyal to the Facts of Life. So I
went back to Family Ties and directed several episodes every
year throughout the run. But I would have loved to
be on family ties all the time because it was
a joyous experience.
Speaker 6 (14:19):
But that's how I did it.
Speaker 7 (14:21):
So from the get go, did you guys think this
is going? Do you know?
Speaker 5 (14:25):
The night of shooting that show, you could touch it
in the air. Every single time Michael J. Foxx bless
him walked on stage, the audience went crazy and he
made the history that night in the sense that to
(14:47):
tell you how connected he was to the part is
that there is a scene in the kitchen and his
girlfriend calls and his sister, the young Sisters, makes fun
of him. I your girlfriend. He picks up the and
he says, hello, Alex P.
Speaker 6 (15:02):
Keaton. He was not in the script.
Speaker 5 (15:06):
His name was Alex Keaton and he just add lid that.
And the minute he said pee, because it was not
heard at any other time in the episode, the audience
roared and Gary looked at me and he said, we're
in and it became Alex from that point on. But
he was so not only him, everybody. It was a
(15:30):
charmed cast that was like the family was and they
were assembled kind of not haphazardly over a long period
of time, but you're picking people who've never seen each other,
and they became a family two days into the rehearsal.
This is what capturing lightning in a bottle is that cliche?
Speaker 6 (15:52):
It really is.
Speaker 5 (15:52):
It's like with who's the boss? Putting Tony and Judith
and Catherine together and the uncle Elisa, and so it's.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
Lightning in.
Speaker 9 (16:03):
Whatever something happens. Something happens. And Mike Well, Michael J.
Fox was a last minute casting.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
Gary wanted Broderick, Matthew Broderick, and he was sold on him,
and Matthew Broderick was cast and then he called Carry
and he said, I had to drop off because his dad,
James Broderick, the actor, was very sick and he wanted
to spend time with him. So he went to New
York and Garry said, Matthew, Matthew man he is, And
(16:38):
then casting director Julith Wiener said, I have this young
man who is brilliant. You will like him. He's not Matthew.
He's not Matthew, he said, just read him. So he
read him. He liked him, but he was still caught
on the other thing.
Speaker 6 (16:57):
He read him again.
Speaker 5 (16:59):
I was working fact, so I wasn't in on those readings,
but Gary would tell me, you know, I saw the
same guy.
Speaker 6 (17:04):
He's just terrific. I can't get him off my mind.
He's not mad, he broader.
Speaker 5 (17:08):
But finally I was in Gary's office when Michael called
to find out if he was cast, and Gary told him,
you have the role, and I could hear the screen.
Later we found out that Michael used practically his last dime.
Speaker 6 (17:27):
He was leaving Los Angeles.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
He was going to go back to Canada because he
was not getting work, and he said, okay, this is
not for me. If he had not gotten this role,
he would have gone to Canada. He got it during
the week. Every day he demonstrated there is something extraordinary
about him. But he was insecure. And he came to
(17:49):
me one day and he said, are they going to
fire me? I said, what are you talking about, Matt?
I said, I don't know, I don't know. I think
he was almost afraid to trust everything that was in him.
And I keep doing the stuff that's coming out of me,
and I said, just hang on. We had that run through.
Immediately after our conversation. Producers and writers were screaming it
(18:14):
was brilliant, and I said, there's your answer. And we
became Michael J.
Speaker 7 (18:20):
Fox, Michael Gross.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (18:28):
Cast really lovely people, lovely people.
Speaker 7 (18:30):
And they really did fit, like they really did fit.
Speaker 5 (18:33):
They fit, and they were very different backgrounds. Justine had
not acted at all.
Speaker 7 (18:41):
She was brand new, She was.
Speaker 6 (18:42):
Brand brand new. She was a model, a child model.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
Alice Meredith Baxter had this enormous amount of history, mainly
on television, so she came with that. The father, Michael Gross,
was from the theater. He was cast at the very
last minute because a tape was sent from New York.
He had not even been out here. He was working
in the theater in New York, and we watched the
(19:07):
tape at Brandon Tartikoff's office and we said, okay, this
is him. The cast was complete, but he was from
the theater, and so he came with a completely different discipline.
Tinajodas was a child actress, so she was the one
who just came and was herself and she was terrific.
So it was all kind of from desperately assembled and
(19:31):
then they just found themselves. The one big adjustment that
I remember did have to be made during the pilot
rehearsals is that Michael was theatrical and Gary's vision for
that role was the subtlety saying he was the center
of gravity by reacting not acting. He was the one
(19:55):
that you knew was the steady voice. All the other people,
Michael the young activist or Justine Bateman was the shopperholic
and they wanted to do this, and Alex p. Keaton,
who's a Nixon follower whatever, They're all on their own bend.
But the father was the steady The father and the
(20:18):
mother were the steady ones. And so the work that
had to be done was to bring Michael Gross down
to make it because he was from the theater. He
was playing to the balcony, yes, and it had to
be brought down. It was really interesting to see it
come together. But the night we filmed it, it was
(20:39):
clear was.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
That the first time you'd had an opportunity to be
involved at the beginning of one of the shows and
be involved in the casting and range.
Speaker 5 (20:47):
No I was involved before, but this was certainly the
first time with something as enormously successful as this was
because I had directed other pilots before the last Resort
with Gary, and I was involved with casting throughout. When
I was on the Facts of Life, I was always there,
but this felt like something that was really being born
(21:10):
in front of us.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
There are lots of I'm sure, good shows, good pilots
that are out there that for whatever reason, didn't resonate
with an audience. Were there others that you did that
you thought, you know that it was inexplicable, why it
configure out?
Speaker 8 (21:23):
Why?
Speaker 5 (21:23):
Yes, well, the last resort it was inexplicable. Why it
was canceled because it was successful, it was doing very well,
very well, but again relative to the times, not well enough,
I guess in those numbers. The other I did a
pilot with Michael Keaton that ran for a few episodes.
(21:47):
But again the flip side of that is that everybody
knew that he was brilliant, but the kind of the
concept is not fully baked. So you you can tell
we all knew that family ties that the pilot was unique.
We just didn't know that it would take off the
way it did the night we filmed it, because the
(22:11):
reaction was really unlike anything anybody has experienced, where it
just said, we know these people, we want them, we
want to be with them every week, roaring and accepting,
just embracing them.
Speaker 7 (22:27):
Lightning in a bottle in a bottle like Who's the Boss?
Speaker 6 (22:32):
Very good?
Speaker 7 (22:34):
Who How did you get involved in Who's the Boss?
Speaker 6 (22:39):
Okay?
Speaker 5 (22:40):
An interesting connection. When I went to meet Grant Tinker
and he gave me his advice. He said, also, if
you need to talk to somebody, go talk to Marty Cohen.
Marty Cohen is a director who works occasionally on Rhoda
and he may give you some advice. I never did
get to talk to Marty. Other things took place. I
(23:02):
directed w k RP, and the first episode I did
was written by Blake Hunter. It was called less on
a Ledge and it less nessman settanding on a ledge,
wanting to kill himself because he was somebody misunderstood something
so well. He was accused of being gay, and at
(23:24):
the time that was anathema. Anyway, it was a wonderful script,
very funny, and gave me my in road into w
k RP, which then I was a part of throughout history.
So Blake Hunter wrote that episode, and by that time
I think there was word out that I was good
with actors, that harmony was always established on the set.
(23:49):
People got along, everybody was happy, and apparently the Who's
the Voss set was in turmoil. The week before the
episode that I was to direct, I heard of us
I had a story of conflict with the then director
and that a chair or a ladder was involved in
the altercation between Tony and the director, so there was
(24:12):
trife on the set. I was told that that was
one of the reasons they said maybe it would be good,
but also my name was becoming part of at least
a conversation. So I was given two episodes also the
trial period, and when I got there it was wonderful
to reconnect with Blake and relive w k RP. And
(24:36):
I told Marty that he was going to be the
one to give me some career advice, which he never did.
Speaker 6 (24:45):
I did the episode.
Speaker 5 (24:46):
The first episode was just a fun episode of Tony
and his Crony is.
Speaker 7 (24:50):
Going to do but.
Speaker 8 (24:53):
What is that They go to the just stating someone
and he is a fan of Tony dance.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
And they go to Vegas and that went well. Tony
was still he hadn't made up his mind exactly who
I was or whatever, but it was peaceful and the
people who were magical to me were Judith and Catherine.
They were again from the theater, so we had our language,
we could speak, and they were so generous and supportive.
(25:22):
I felt they were my cushion. I could have a
soft landing with them. I felt wonderful and the episode
went well. The second episode was called Requiem, and it
was a very personal episode to Tony based on his
own life experience when his dad died. It's about Tony
(25:42):
and he seems to disappear and nobody can find them.
He comes back into the house and then he disappears again.
Mona of course thinks he's being pursued by the mob.
That's that funny aspect of it. But we discovered that
his dad's apartment, which he still maintained and had to
have a second job to pay the rent for.
Speaker 6 (26:03):
That was still yet.
Speaker 5 (26:05):
His dad died around Christmas and it was still left
intact with the Christmas decorations and the Christmas tree and whatever.
And it's about Tony coming to terms with his dad's
passing and letting go moving on with his life. It
was a very very delicate, sensitive and emotional episode. And
(26:29):
this is when Tony and I connected. We worked very closely.
I talked about our father's we talked about loss and
all of that, and the episode was very special, and
Tony did wonderful work and he found aspects of himself
that people had not seen, just his emotionality and so forth.
(26:50):
So we connected well and he was very pleased with
the episode and he felt safe and protected. I remember
going to a part after we shocked the episode, and
I just said, it would be nice to stay with
this group. I wonder if it's reciprocal. I got a
call a short while later and Tony and Blake and
(27:14):
Marty decided they wanted me to do the series.
Speaker 6 (27:17):
So that's how it happened.
Speaker 5 (27:18):
And then I went started with these two episodes and
I was there for four years.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Amazing, it's break time, We'll be right back.
Speaker 7 (27:31):
We're back.
Speaker 8 (27:33):
You got to do the first Kiss episode, and that's
the one I was thinking of. That had Jeff Conway
as a guest.
Speaker 6 (27:38):
The first Kiss with Tony and.
Speaker 8 (27:40):
Yeah, because they go drink, they get drunk, Yes, yes, yes,
get drunk with his friend.
Speaker 7 (27:44):
Yes, Danny, Danny to give me.
Speaker 5 (27:48):
Danny so sorry, okay.
Speaker 7 (27:53):
Say it one more time, so we have it.
Speaker 6 (27:57):
One more Thank you, Danny, Danny pinto.
Speaker 7 (28:03):
Perfect. Yeah.
Speaker 8 (28:05):
So that was different styles of actors, right. You have
Mona from.
Speaker 5 (28:11):
The theater, Catherine Hellman Theater, and so that was a definite,
delicate balance. I mean distinctly. I remember it very clearly.
Tony did not like to rehearse a lot. He had
phoorographic memory. He was off book the second day, so
everybody had to scramble to keep up with him. Very
very intuitive, very quick. He's really was terrific and connected
(28:34):
to that part. A lot of it was him, but
he also was one to rehearsal lot. Judith and Catherine
were theater actors, and they just the image that I
have is that with them they wanted to speak in paragraphs.
Tony wanted to speak in sentences, short sentences. So I
had to balance those two things. How to keep Tony's impatience.
(28:56):
If I'd be talking to them and say, hey, come
on now, guy, let's go the work, come on, he
would it was his set. So I had to learn
the keywords that would resonate with Tony, and he and
I developed vocabulary, a language. He knew what I was thinking,
so after a while it was almost unspoken, And with
Judith and Catherine it was more about maybe what the
(29:19):
scene was about, and what the character is doing here
or there, but again briefly, succinctly, and then also young
young children. Danny and Alissa were really young. They were
sharp as attack. Alissa was enchanting, and he was adorable.
(29:40):
But it is how to keep that spontaneity that they
have naturally. How to keep that you can you can
muffle that if you overdirect it, if you try to
make them do something as opposed to have them do
what they do, but channel it where we wanted. So
(30:01):
it was a combination of languages. I was speaking in rehearsal,
and we found a rhythm all of us. We found
a balance that seemed to work for everyone. It was
primarily predominantly a happy set. Tony was very volatile. He
is Italian to the hilt and he is uncensored, so
(30:24):
whatever he came to the set with that morning kind
of colored the day. But everybody loved each other and
were very genuinely close and genuinely committed to the show
the first year, finding we were all finding our path,
our track. Judith was having a bit of difficulty again
(30:47):
to balance her role in the play and her role
on the set and all of these personal and professional,
all of these things, and that is where I believe
that directing on televis shows where everything is so compacted
and so in a way surface, if you don't hit
(31:07):
the right note quickly, then you could really lose your
position whatever. That it is a matter of creating a group,
having everybody feel that they're part of something larger than
what the yellow marker is on the script of the week,
(31:29):
that this is about something, and that everybody is treated
equally and everybody's loved and respected and all of that.
This to me is this is what I lead in
lead with, whether rightly or wrongly. It some people may
think it's for waste of time, and maybe it is,
but this is what I do. It's about the people.
And so in spite of the different backgrounds and the
(31:52):
different methodologies and techniques, the thing that was in common
is that everybody genuinely cared for one another and they
and the show was fun. And Tony was the leader
in that. He was he was larger than life, He
was joyous. He came in and he was inventive, and
he made everybody feel good until he didn't and then
(32:13):
we got past it. And me he would come one
day and say, this is ship and need to throw
the script in the trash and walk away. And then
he says, what do we do? Go talk to him?
And then I there, we talked whatever.
Speaker 6 (32:25):
That was.
Speaker 5 (32:26):
Part of my role also is to maintain the equilibrium,
maintain the piece, and also get the show.
Speaker 7 (32:36):
So I guess you answered the question of who's the boss?
Speaker 6 (32:41):
Was no, who's the boss? There was now.
Speaker 7 (32:50):
In looking at your stuff. I had to watch a
couple of episodes of Benson.
Speaker 6 (32:54):
I did a couple of but there were a couple
of episodes. You watched my entire repertoire.
Speaker 7 (33:01):
But come on, that's a good show.
Speaker 8 (33:03):
The bugging the Governor's office episode is off the hook.
Speaker 7 (33:09):
It's so delightful. That scene in the bathroom. You got
to tell me.
Speaker 6 (33:14):
I have to remind myself.
Speaker 8 (33:16):
Okay, yes, So Benson discovers there are bugs and the
governor's chins in the kitchen and the office, and so
they keep meeting in the young daughter's bedroom where they
have to sit in the little kid chairs, and in
the bathroom. There's this one downstairs bathroom that's not bugged.
It's so much physical comedy, it's so ridiculous. The three
(33:37):
of them, Rocky Home and James Noble and the it's
the other guy, the assistant guy. Yes, yes, any right,
but they are my camera. It's fantastic. And then there's
Inga's Benson and Missy Gold. Everybody gets a moment.
Speaker 5 (33:54):
Well again, this was early in my career, the Benson thing,
and it was I mean, it was spin off of
SO and so.
Speaker 6 (34:05):
This was a big, big deal.
Speaker 5 (34:07):
And Thomas Tony Thomas, and I was a bit intimidated
going and yeah, I mean but again I.
Speaker 6 (34:14):
Remember going in and I was a day in.
Speaker 5 (34:18):
I just felt they said, this guy knows what he's doing,
and they were well. We all became a family. And
interestingly after that, Chief Robert Guiom and I became very
good friends. He was living a neighbor and he just
felt I think we developed an affinity, he and I.
I'm not quite sure where it came from, whether because
there was something subliminal that he was very soulful man,
(34:42):
and of just being the other working here, both doing well,
but that there is something to life more than what
we're doing. We just communicated on that level a lot,
and we became very close.
Speaker 6 (34:59):
The government.
Speaker 5 (35:00):
James Noble was like a floating, floating ethereal presence. I
could he was lovely, but he was just had can
I can I hold you? Can we talk? And so anyway,
I really don't have a distinct recollection of that episode,
(35:23):
except that the two episodes I directed there were were
lovely and they I still get an occasional seven dollars Benson.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Last money.
Speaker 7 (35:36):
Yes, you a cup of coffee? All right?
Speaker 4 (35:40):
I really want to ask about an episode of one
of the shows we've covered that you directed.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
You did an episode of Designing Women.
Speaker 4 (35:48):
Yes, the episode was called picking a Winner, And I
wonder what if any memories of that.
Speaker 5 (35:54):
Of that is that there was a problem on the
set and the director left. Really I was brought in
the second or third day.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 5 (36:03):
So I had to kind of pull it together, get
it together, and I just remember how lovely those ladies were.
I said, what can be better than working on a
set with nothing? But it's just lovely. No, they were
just delightful. There was an actress who had just joined
the cast. Yeah, it was she was from Saturday Night Live.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
Was Jen Hooks?
Speaker 6 (36:28):
Jen Hooks?
Speaker 5 (36:29):
Yes, I think that may have been very early in
her tenure. If not the first one, I don't know,
but it was early in her tenure, and of course
Anny Potts was delightful, And so my recollection of this
is just like a blur of being called and said,
come in, go to Designing Women. It's the third day
(36:52):
of rehearsal, or the second day of rehearsal. And I
just had to learn, because I always made it my
job to learn about the show before I went in.
I would visit the set or whatever. I couldn't do
any of that. I just had to show up and
get my weeks.
Speaker 4 (37:08):
And did that happen on any of the other directing
jobs that you got where you were kind of tossed
in in the deep end like that.
Speaker 5 (37:16):
No, No, this was the only time where I was
brought in to replace someone else, although it was a
different circumstance. But I directed Chuck Laury's very first series, oh,
very short lived series called Franny Stern.
Speaker 6 (37:31):
Yes, Franny Stern.
Speaker 5 (37:33):
It was with Miriam Marghalese, who's a British character actor.
Oh yes, And it was the first time Chuck Lory
had a series on the air.
Speaker 6 (37:41):
It was very short lived.
Speaker 5 (37:43):
And he had already he had done a pilot that
was directed by someone else, and I guess he didn't
get along or whatever. He wanted another director for the series,
so I was brought in after that and I directed
the five Episodesllowing and that was a very very difficult
show for.
Speaker 6 (38:04):
Reasons that not Chuck was working.
Speaker 5 (38:07):
Was no Chuck and I didn't work together again after
that on Dharma and Greg and but this show was
difficult just because the casting was was unfortunate.
Speaker 6 (38:18):
It was just not well cast.
Speaker 5 (38:20):
The she was British, her husband was Cuban who didn't
speak English, and so he was in an American sitcom
where there were rewrites every hour and he couldn't try
to imagine it is really it was laughably.
Speaker 7 (38:40):
It was.
Speaker 5 (38:43):
Until it became really devastating because there wasn't a single
shooting night with the poor my heart went to. He
was a nervous wrecked He couldn't speak English and you're
doing a sitcom where the lines are changed every hour.
So and Chuck was it was his first series, so
(39:05):
C fours was was very intense about that. He's intense
to begin with. But we developed our relationship and we
became friends, and then I worked with him again happily.
Speaker 8 (39:17):
Okay, I think the only person we haven't asked about
that was on my list is Cloris Leachman.
Speaker 6 (39:21):
Oh, Laura Willis, did you work with her?
Speaker 2 (39:26):
No?
Speaker 5 (39:26):
I didn't work with her. It was Phyllis and Two
and a half.
Speaker 7 (39:30):
Men and two and a half Men.
Speaker 5 (39:32):
Phyllis was my second episode ever. After Rhoda questions her
life and goes to Paris. I was given that episode.
Said that's wonderful. That's four episodes in my debut year.
So I was in heaven. The episode was Mother Dexter's wedding,
which was the biggest episode they've done up to that point.
(39:53):
And it was Phyllis's grandmother. She's in her nineties and
she's getting married to her swaying her Bow who's in
his nineties. Two wonderful, lovely people with Clorus Leachman in
the middle. Okay, So when I got the episode, I
was told, okay, beware of Cloras Leachman because she's a handful.
(40:15):
I went to Jay Sandrich, whom I had met during
my years of observing, who had worked with her.
Speaker 6 (40:22):
I mean, I met him once briefly.
Speaker 5 (40:23):
He didn't know me, but I kind of girded my
courage and I went to him and asked if he
would give me some pointers because he knew her, and
I'll never forget how generous he was. He said, let's
go to the set, and we walked to the set.
We talked about it because it was a huge episode
with crowds, the wedding scene and all of that. He said,
(40:45):
the one thing be careful of chloris because she may
want to take over the set. But she's a professional though,
but she's always changing things whatever. And the other thing
is that she's a flirt so you infused that to
maybe tame her, so.
Speaker 6 (41:10):
Only to the success.
Speaker 5 (41:14):
So we did the show. The show went very well.
It was a delightful episode. And then when I was
doing Two and a half Men and she was, by
the way, very flirtatious. She says, oh, I went to
meet her at the table and I said in Egyptian,
I did this. They said, oh, and the eyes connected.
All of that was fine. And then several years later
(41:34):
I got Two and a half Men and Chuck said,
well we have somebody who worked with before. Cloris Leachman
is the guest actress. Now that was years later, and
of course years in my life that were multiplied because
my life had changed so much. So the only kind
of little anecdote is that we sat at the table
(41:55):
for the table read and I went to her and
I said, Sleachman Chloris, I don't know if you remember me.
Speaker 6 (42:01):
I'm a sad Calada.
Speaker 5 (42:02):
We worked on Phyllis and she said, oh, yes, of
course the Egyptian. So there it was, and what's coming
full circle.
Speaker 7 (42:15):
You were in.
Speaker 8 (42:19):
I'm also fascinated because it was a time of young stars,
so Missy Gold, Alissa Milano, Danny h.
Speaker 7 (42:27):
Thank you.
Speaker 8 (42:28):
And then all the facts of life cast You were
working with a lot of young people like some who
shot to start on, some who left the business, some
who struggled.
Speaker 7 (42:38):
I was just curious about your thoughts on that. I'm
not sure what my question is.
Speaker 5 (42:41):
Well, I have marveled at how first of all, at
the ones who really shot into the stratosphere top of them, all,
of course is because he is in his own firmament
with Michael Funks. But the thing that found myself thinking
more about were the one who didn't. And I've thought
(43:02):
a lot about why did that happen? Or what was
it by choice? Or was it how to deal with
the pitfalls and with the challenges of success. There were
those people who were able to parlay it to more
success and learn from it and manage to find their
(43:26):
way through it, and others who either were dazzled too
early by it and made wrong decisions. And I could
see that, and I've actually I remember talking with Todd.
I ran into him a while back later, and he's
doing very well now. But he went through through a
turbulent time in his life, Todd Bridges. Tod Bridges, that's
(43:49):
it was on different struggles. Yeah, he went through very yeah,
seriously seriously troubled, and then he managed to find his
way back in a completely different persona and doing very well.
These are the things that I find myself thinking about,
and I'm always I always look at it as a
continuum that you can find your moment, and that it's
(44:12):
a kind of fire cracker and it goes up and
flashes and it's brilliant and then it goes or it
becomes a steady kind of life path. And how you
negotiate that. From my own experience, it never stopped being
a challenge, a more enjoyable one as things got better.
(44:35):
But one of the things that maybe you disrelates to
your question. One thing that I learned is that it
is equally treacherous when you are very successful, as when
you're trying to get your foot through the door, in
terms of keeping the sense of who you are and
(44:57):
the pressure that is when you're on top and the
pressure that when you're trying to get through the door.
There may be different kinds of pressure, but they're equally intense.
The pressure that I found doing very well is to
avoid falling, and you can't avoid falling into the trap
of I've got to maintain this. I've got to do
(45:20):
everything I can to make sure this does not change.
And I caught myself getting in that at one point,
and I mean decisions were made and so forth. But
this is a roundabout way of trying to answer your
question or prodding me, is that it is the challenges
(45:41):
are always present, personal challenge. I mean, there are challenges
in all professions, but I think we're always being tested
on a personal level because it is so ephemeral, it
is so unpredictable. You are always dispensing, you are always replaceable.
(46:03):
Even when you're sitting on the throne, it could change
in a matter of months and then you are yesterday's news.
That to me is a phenomenon that does not exist
in any other profession. And how and why we voluntarily choose.
Speaker 6 (46:25):
To put ourselves through.
Speaker 5 (46:27):
That day in and year in and year out is
because again the rewards, apart from the tangible rewards, which
are kind of obscenely over their outrageous in their excessiveness,
but also the rewards are from the fact the ego
gets rewards rewarded in no other way, and the sense
(46:52):
that you are part going back full circle, that you
are part of a very exclusive club. You are being
recognized now for it.
Speaker 7 (47:02):
You're no longer the alien sitting out there in the dark.
Speaker 5 (47:06):
But the question is, and the challenge is do you
ever get rid of that feeling if it is intrinsic
to who you are. You are a member of the club,
but it is a temporary membership. It is a membership
that can be withdrawn. It is never a life guarantee.
So this is part of what makes it so tantalizing,
(47:31):
is that you're always in the process of getting somewhere
or holding onto something or making yourself relevant.
Speaker 6 (47:41):
Yes, at every given point, And.
Speaker 5 (47:43):
I can only say as my thought here is that
I have been inordinately lucky. I may have worked hard,
and I have done this or done that. But I
have been very lucky in that I have been welcomed
into the club, and I have been recognized in it,
rewarded while being in it, and my life is very
(48:07):
filled with the memories and with the people who have
become a part of my existence. So I think I
thank the time for.
Speaker 7 (48:18):
I think that's it.
Speaker 8 (48:19):
I think we you know, often at the end of
the Sharon turns to me and it's like, this is amazing.
We just had an amazing interview, and I'm just going
to say it right here. We do that after the guests,
but this has been amazing. I clearly could talk to you.
We could pick your brain all night. Thank you for
being so patient, Thank you for telling your stories and
(48:39):
it's been delightful time.
Speaker 5 (48:41):
Thank you so much for having me and for putting
up with my endless verbiage. But thank you and thank
you for doing what you're doing and throwing the light
on ladies who need to be reacknowledged. Thank you very
much for having me.
Speaker 3 (48:57):
You're so welcome. As Susan said, we could happy to sit.
Speaker 4 (49:00):
Here and talk to you for best email, because you're
talking to us about something that's very near and dear
to our heart and the history of television and the
history of the ladies and the men who were part
of making it happen for us and for the rest
of the audience.
Speaker 3 (49:15):
And it's been a joy, it really has.
Speaker 6 (49:18):
Thank you so very much.
Speaker 4 (49:23):
In today's audiography, find out more about Asad Kolata at
IMDb dot com.
Speaker 3 (49:30):
The link will be in our description.
Speaker 7 (49:32):
You can watch the Facts of Life for free on
the Roku channel and toob and just search all the
other forty shows he worked on.
Speaker 4 (49:41):
And we highly recommend the Television Academy Foundation interviews with
Asad Kalata. You can find them on YouTube and we'll
have a link in our description.
Speaker 8 (49:51):
And if you're looking for ways to help and hang
in there, I recommend donating or helping Democracy Docket, the ACLU,
and abortion funds, particularly local ones.
Speaker 7 (50:03):
We'll have some links in our description.
Speaker 8 (50:05):
Next up soon we'll be talking with the nineties TV
babies about the facts of Life.
Speaker 7 (50:11):
We're going to teach them a thing or two.
Speaker 4 (50:13):
I can't wait to hear what the nineties TV babies
have to say about the facts of Life.
Speaker 3 (50:17):
I don't even know what to expect.
Speaker 4 (50:19):
I don't know if they've even heard of it, let
alone watched any episodes.
Speaker 3 (50:23):
I just know it's going to be great, and.
Speaker 7 (50:25):
You know what it turns out.
Speaker 8 (50:26):
We haven't yet decided which episodes of the Facts of
Life we should show them, So listeners, what do you think?
What episodes of the Facts of Life would you like
us to assign the nineties TV babies to watch? Which
ones will really represent the show in such a way?
Send us your top five episodes.
Speaker 4 (50:49):
Send us your thoughts at Eightiestvladies dot com or email
us at Eighties TV Ladies at gmail dot com.
Speaker 8 (50:57):
Now, take care of yourself out there, take care of
yours and family. I have to remind myself all the time.
We start where we are and we do what we can.
Look for joy, spread kindness, stay active, and hang in there.
Speaker 4 (51:10):
As always, we hope Eighties TV Ladies brings you joy
and laughter and lots of fabulous, bold and news shows
to watch, all of which will bring us closer toward
being amazing ladies of the twenty first century. See you
next time, so pretty through the city, good things
Speaker 1 (51:38):
The man world
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