Episode Transcript
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(00:06):
The better to teau with. Why, Yes, I'm Alixon Argram and this
is the Alison Ingham Show. Uh, some of you may remember me is
Neillie Olsen, Evil Millie Olsen fromthe Little House in the Prairie. But
(00:29):
tonight I'm Alice at Argram and thisis the Alison Ingraham Show. And here
in the alisont Argham Show, wetalked about things that make us feel good,
the TV shows and the movies thatmade us feel good and the people
who made them, and people whoare doing things now to make the world
a better and more interesting place.And oh do I have a good one
tonight? Okay, I just methim, but I feel like we knew
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each other as childhood friends. AndI keep saying did we cross pass?
Because this is bananas? Okay,So he's real. This marvelous book mom,
Dad and Me in classic TV itsounds like my life. His father
is a very very famous producer,Harry Ackerman, and his mom was helenor
Donna. You guess Helena Donna,who for father knows best at all of
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those shows. So he grew upin the same kind of wacky Hollywood MELEEU
that I did. And I'm readinghis book and going and I was at
that yesterday. I know that person. I knew that person. Okay,
this is this is getting blake spookywhen I like, at one point just
stopped and said, I have todo word search my own name and little
house in the prairie to make sureI'm not in here at some point because
this is crazy, absolutely fabulous,marvelous stories, fascinating person through show business,
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got into show business and then becamean Episcopalian priest. Wait what yes,
ladies and gentleman, the fabulous Peterk Ackerman. Thanks, as this
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is great, This is great.Yeah, I'm reading your book and I'm
just going and that was my week. Wait what Batman? Wait? As
a child, I was just talkingabout this this morning. It's session.
I was with you talking about beingin the said of Batman. I My
agent was lou ryl who was AdamWest's agent. When I was a child,
I was with Batman's say so hisguests was all like crossing over.
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Hollywood is a tiny, tiny town. People joke about to say it's a
really small town. There's like fiftypeople. They just move around a lot.
It's true. It's crazy. WhenI read someone's auto biography grow up
at Alli at the same time Idid. I'm like, huh, so
I was probably ten feet away.For like, all of it's bonkers,
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and yours is absolutely this, thisname drop circle, because it's the same
kind of people. You were borninto apses they said, born into Hollywood
royalty, and you were. Yourfather was the executive producer on all of
our favorite shows from our childhood,certainly mine, and then your mom was
on all of her favorite shows,and you were just growing up in this.
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It was all normal at the timefor you, right, it was.
And I was born. My firstmemory or second memory really was my
mother on television and I was sittingon her lap and Father Knows Best was
on its weekday rerun, you know, Channel five at four o'clock, and
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in walked her character Betty Anderson,the oldest daughter on Father Knows Best,
and she said, look, honey, look there's mommy. And I looked
and saw my mother on the screenin black and white, and okay,
that's that's what it is. Andas we had a prior conversation, it
was a few years later, I'mwith my friend down the street, Johnny,
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and I finally asked him because itwas bothering me. And I said,
Johnny, my mom's on Channel fiveat four o'clock. When is your
mom on? And that's when Ilearned that. And he said, Peter,
not everybody's mom's on television. I'mlike, oh, that's when the
penny dropped. I swear until Iwas about six or seven, I thought
everybody was on TV. That itis like the Andy Warhols fifteen Minutes of
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Fame. I thought people took anin terrence. They took a terrence in
the winter. I loved that whenness, what does your mother go on?
My mother was in all the cartoons, and so her voice would just it
was perfectly normal to turn on thecartoons and have her be all of them,
and even the one she wasn't starringin the office of the Gummy cast,
but sometimes she'd be a guest.So I'd be watching completely and related
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cartoon and suddenly her voice comes outof it, like surprise, he's in
that one too, And I thoughtthat was like totally normal. I was
just very normal to have your motherbe a cartoon. It was years before
I knew that that was not howpeople. People did all live like that.
You you. You enjoyed it enormously. You tell then astic stories of
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being a small child and then evenold and going to the set and meeting
all of these people and having thembe just regular folks that your folks knew.
Yeah, I just fell in lovewith the industry at an early age.
And one thing my parents did isin the family system. They and
I was born at the top oftheir careers. My dad was doing all
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these shows at screen Gems, Bewitchedand It's The Menace, the Flying Nun,
and he was also the head ofproduction at screen Gems as well.
He had been the vice president forWest Coast Programming for CBS and helped to
start I Love Lucy and just hishands were everywhere. But at home we
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were just a regular family. Wewere like a family out of one of
his TV shows, So there wasnone of that and you get at some
places that Hollywood elitism that you'll get, and we were just regular folks.
So going to the magical place thestudio was just always a hoot, and
the first time was really my daddid it as a favor my older brother
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Brian, and I loved Batman andmy dad knew the executive producer of Batman.
So he made arrangements took us tothe set, and that was a
really pivotal moment for me because Iremember standing with my older brother in the
stately Wayne Manor interior set and seeingthe bust of Shakespeare and the bookcase was
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already slid open. I could seethe bat poles and I walked over looked
down and there were just about asix foot drop and two large kind of
sofa pillows down there to help stopthe actors when they slid down them.
And it wasn't the bat cave,and it didn't disappoint me. I got
it that this was magic and okay, and that was it. I was
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in love. But how old wereyou then when you saw the bat poles
and realized it? So I probablywent. It must have been in sixty
seven, so I would have beenfive six. It was totally the same
age. And that's the thing isis I knew I'd been with my mother
to the studio and seeing that cartoonsare some people go in a room and
talk into big microphones and somebody somewhere'sdrawing pictures and they make this thing.
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And I knew when I had beento sets I is what I knew a
lot of stuff wasn't real. Iwasn't upset by it, but I knew
stuff wasn't real at five, six, seven eight watching TV, and I
had friends who were still just surethat tiny people were inside the television.
If not, you know that it'sjust this was real. And it's so
strange to his young child and havethat sense of reality versus fantasy and actually
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know that the TV isn't real thatearly. That's people don't learn that until
they're adults. Happen, right,And some of them still think, you
know, everybody they see on TVis just that way in real life and
has gone through those experiences. AndI have to laugh. And my mother
is still alive and retired, andyou know, people will ask her questions
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like they'll name a show and they'llsay, you know, when your character
picked up the spatula instead of thespoon, what why was that? And
she doesn't know. It was justthat was the prop and they said pick
something up from the table when youmove across the room, and that's what
she did. But it wasn't likeshe put a lot of thought into it.
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Oh well, we have to breakit to people all the time with
little house in the prairie that thatwas not real snow, and no,
we weren't in the mountains. Andno, it doesn't look like Minnesota because
we worked in Minnesota, and it'sall thing though. Those were big plastic
flakes and really it looked like stuffand just the thing. For it's fifty
years later, and you would think, but to learn that as a kid
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you have pauland stories. Now,how did you meet Pauland I met pauland
it was the greatest opportunity for mewhen I was I guess we're talking now
about seven four, So what amI twelve? I think we're exactly the
same age. This is crazy.I read your book and I think we're
born in the same year. Idon't mind naming it, but I don't
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want to out you so they allknow, Okay, this year I'm the
same age as the year I wasborn. So I'll just put Yes,
what month is your birthday? Haveyou turned it yet? April? I've
turned it in, Oh sure,January. Yes, I've been it down
for I'm sixty two and a half. All right, awesome, awesome,
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So Paul in my dad took mybrother and I on different days, and
I stayed to go down to theset. We had I think because we
went to Catholic schools, our holidaybreak was different than the public schools,
which is what the studios went by. So when we had the week off,
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production was happening. So Mom wouldbe like, get these kids out
of the house. So Brian wenton Monday. Didn't I want to go
again, although he made a friendthat day sitting next to a guest actress
on The Paul Lyn Show, JodyFoster, who he joined in coloring.
And I went on Tuesday through Fridays, and I even saw the taping of
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the show and it was great.At that age, I got to sit
in my spot and I hardly movedfrom it. I was a shy kid,
so I never talked to Jody Foster, who was sitting up with her
mother behind me in the stands.And got to watch production unfold and got
to see what happens. And soon my first day, Dad took me
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backstage of the set, the backof the set, and there was Paul,
and he took me over and said, Paul, I'd like you to
meet my son Peter. And Paulwas reading a newspaper and he looked up
at me, and I stuck outmy hand like I was taught to do,
and said hello, I'm Peter Ackermanand stuck out my hand and he
gave it a very weak fish likehandshake and said hellou, and then just
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put his paper back up. Andthen I've heard that Paul ind didn't like
kids, and I can say thatI can tell that's true. He was.
He was sort of open about that. It was see how the old
don't work with children or animals,right, which she got stuck stuck working
with all the time. So thereyou go say children. But he was
marvelous. I mean I watched himdo the same lines in the same scenes
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every week, and he was atrooper. I mean, it was great
watching him work. You talked aboutlike your mother and even doing the autograph
sessions and all these kinds of thingsas a young girl. And and now
we do all that now with allthese like you know, comic cons and
everything, and it just do peoplestill I mean, she's she's retired,
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does she still get called where peoplewanted to come and do the autograph shows
and the personal appearances and the wholethey do. She doesn't like doing them.
She did it for so many yearsfor free. She fans would find
out her address. There's now there'swebsites. I don't know how they did
it, but yeah, but fanswould just send the requests in the mail,
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sometimes without self addressed envelopes to sendback or anything, and my mom
would pay the freight, she wouldpay for the picture, she would sign
it, she'd put it in anenvelope, pay the postage, and send
it off. And she did thatweekly, lots and lots and lots of
fans. And she tried the autographshow thing and it just wasn't for her.
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And then she told me recently thatthough we are not wealthy because the
shows my parents made were not madein the times where you made the big
bucks, she's and my stepfather arewell off enough for the rest of their
lives. She's eighty seven. Andshe felt bad because, without naming them,
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there's other there's contemporaries of hers whogo to those shows who actually need
the money. Oh yeah, yeah. Feels that she's taking from them issues
for the people that are deciding shouldI get an eleanor Donahue or a blank
And she just figured not going todo that. That's very sweet. I
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mean, it's funny talking about itjust the other day because we're off to
another one this weekend with the LittleHouse can. It is not for everyone.
There has to be a certain mindsetof people who can sit there and
do that all day. I don'tmind it. Other people just would love
it. But many people like,Nope, that is not a thing I
do. Realizing some actors are justlike, no, that's not a thing
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I do. I know I'm notgoing to sit there and write my name
all day. I can't. Ican't do this. This is not And
I love that she's like worried aboutthe other people, because it's true.
There's some people. There's people thatare just giving them money to charity.
There are people that are absolutely hopingthey will make the rent if they get
in there and sign enough. AndI find I try to be helpful because
I draw, so I'm always like, sit next to me. There will
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be a lot of people over here. Get I'll tell them to go to
your table. Yes, I tryto get it, oh by something.
But it's such a weird environment.And I wonder how she handled that,
because obviously she would be into mad. People would want her to do it.
But it's like, hey, peopleget to retire, and it's interesting
when you should not crazy crazy wealthylike the people are on the later shows.
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That's a phenomenon that people don't realizethat there was a period in Hollywood
where you could be like a workingclass as person. You are a working
Hollywood person and you made a living. But unless you were on one of
these shows or this movie, youdidn't get rich. That wasn't a thing
right and where my life would havechanged, and I think I would have
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done poorly with wealth is My dadhad an opportunity during Bewitched the Muckety MUCKs
that screen gems went to him andto Bill Lasher. Bill Asher was the
director, the producer and married atthe time to Elizabeth Montgomery, and said,
how about we pay you less,but we're going to give you we'll
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give you ownership in the show.Bill said yes, my dad said no,
and then we ended up struggling.And Bill was I remember when my
mom would go out to dinner withBill and his wife. He had a
stack of twenty dollars bills. He'stipping the guy opening the door, the
person that seats them at the table, the person that comes and says hello,
and he he just was lousy withmoney. Well, but that's the
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thing, it's getting that piece ofthe thing. My mother still she joked
for years and years about it.My mother's life to talk about that.
She did the first Family album,the one with Vaughan Meters, GF Pictures,
Caroline and John Junks. When theywere all the people were signed to
do that, they were asked ifthey wanted a percentage or a flat fee.
Everybody took the flat fee because theydidn't think it would go anywhere.
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They didn't think it would even getdistribution. So the producers made up very
then they went, I should havetaken the percentage. What did I know,
you'd have gone to private schools wouldhave been great. It would have
been called we don't realize it.And like little House, we got paid.
Okay, we got the residuals.We were in that in perpetuity seventy
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zones. We got the residuals.But I always tell you it wasn't friends
money, right, that was awhole other universe. They didn't pay people
that much money on a show.It just didn't exist. And we just
know and none of us got thatlevel of money and people people didn't and
many people who you saw in dozensof shows they got a house adventure,
but like a regular size house thatthey live in. It's yeah. And
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the movie Once upon a Time inHollywood. I love that movie. It
takes me back to where we grewup in the era and everything. A
great example of an actor who's pluggingaway doing the thing and not necessarily rolling
in the dough. But I loveit that movie. I laughed so hard.
I'd heard about it. My friendswere all saying, they said,
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never mind any of the man's andstuff. No, no, if you
grew up in Hollywood during that timeperiod, or heaven forbid, or in
the industry at that time, gogo go see this week. All my
former child star friends were like,go see this movie, and they were
in and I did. I burstout laughing. And when the little girl
on the porch in the Western TVshow is giving him the hard time,
I turned to my husband and said, I'm sorry, I didn't realize I
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was in this film. I washysterical. The whole they got it was
so dead and we did. Wegrew up in this whole time periods people
wondering what was it. We grewup in that once upon a time in
Hollywood time period, in that wholezone where we didn't have There wasn't social
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media yet, so actors you didn'tknow them unless maybe you saw them on
talk shows interviews. So to seethem in your living room at dinner or
go to the set was really weird. It's not a usual thing and just
and for us, I mean justseeing them around town, and it wasn't.
I don't know how it is todaybecause I don't live on the West
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Coast anymore. Gosh. I remembergrowing up Studio City. I'd go to
Wintel's Donuts and I'd be walking inand walking out as Lafe Garrett and it
was no big deal. It wasjust a Wafe Garrett went in there to
get a donut. I'm going into get a donut. Lafe Garrett's here.
I remember. I used to workat that McDonald's across from CBS Radford.
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That was my first job and somewhere. That's why I remember that area
so well. I think I wasdriving by this time, and I remember
your star on Little House on thePrairie. I'm sorry, I can't pull
names on a name. Melissa Gilbert, Melissa Gilbert was not only she was
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working at CBS Radford or it wasliving in that area, but she was
roller skating. Used to see herroller skating all the time down the vent
normal, that's right, yeah,because she lived in her family lived in
Encino when she was in that area. And every a Schwabs drug store,
which is a real thing, notjust made a thing. And Dick van
Dyke would be eating at the campjust everyone. You would walk in and
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you would sit down next to afamous person at the counter, and this
was completely normal. You pick up, you're picking up your dry cleaning,
going to Burbank Airport all of thedo you see famous people? Like any
place? When I was in mytwenties maybe thirties, and people would come
to town and they'd say, wewant to see somebody famous. Where should
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we go? I'd always tell themto go to Jerry's Deli when Jerry's Deli
existed on Venture Boulevard, because thatwas a place just sit and give yourself
five minutes and look around. You'llsee somebody. Hamburger Hamlet at sunset and
Doheny was also crawling with people becausethe nine thousand building and the other offices
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near were all the agents and managerswork, and they would all meet with
their agents and booms like but yeah, you could go, you could go
get fries with people. It wasjust totally You have a whole long story
in there about the whole Beowitch things. You said, Bill Asher married to
Elizabeth Montgomery, and you're even yourefer to as Auntie Liz several points.
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There's this close to Elizabeth Montgomery andthen they're splitting up on the show.
And it was a huge thing,and people forget families are involved and people
get tangled up with you so andthen what happens when things happen. Yeah,
and it was it was so itwas such an interesting time to grow
up and place to be. SoLiz and Bill were aunt Liz and uncle
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Bill to us Ackerman boys. I'mone of four boys, by the way.
And apparently my mom and Liz,i learned later, were in a
race to have a girl to seewho would have the girl first, and
so my mom had me, theyhad Bill Junior. Then they we had
my brother James, and they hadRobert, and then we had my brother
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Chris, and they had Rebecca.So they got the girl. They but
we were close and they were alwaysat our house. I think every weekend
they were at our house. Andso I'd go to the set and I'd
see people I knew and it wasgreat. And my last time on the
Bewitch set, I was sitting deadleft me he had something to do,
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and so I was sitting in hisdirector chair and had Liz and Dick Sargeant
on either side of me, andwe were playing the Jumble game that was
a puzzle in the La Times,and it was just such a magical day.
I'll skip the story. There waskind of a joke she played during
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the Jumble game. We can getback to that. It's in the book
if people are interested. At onepoint they were filming a different part of
that scene where she had to faint, and the director made a comment about
her dairy air and all Liz andit wasn't her husband directing this episode.
Oh Liz, honey, I couldlook at that all day, or watch
you do that all day, yice, And it wasn't uncomfortable based on the
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crew. It was. She laughed. They laughed, but that was Aunt
Liz, and she did what mymom did. And I saw my mom
act on sets like I'm seeing heract and it just didn't compute, and
I something was up and I wastoo young and innocent. They didn't know
any divorced people didn't know about that. But it didn't surprise me when whatever
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time it was after that, whetherit was a month or two months,
the show ended it and I heardit end. Liz apparently was willing to
go on if my dad would agreeto push Bill out and bring in her
boyfriend, this fellow who was directingthat as the new producer. And my
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dad said to her on the phone, Liz, I can't do that,
builds my partner, and she said, well, then be wished is over.
And I heard my dad get offthe phone. I heard him relate
that conversation to my mother, andthat's how the show ended. And see,
this is mind blowing to people.People don't realize that people's personal lives
in Hollywood do interact and do afactor in People go, why did that
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show end? Was that the range? Was it this? Well? No,
this person got a divorce, butthis person's ex husband was still the
partner. You're like, wait,that's the thing. And people's lives changed.
I mean, even with little Iwas like, well, Michael wanted
to move on and he had anidea for another show, and everything had
changed, and everyone had gotten olderand people had all gotten divorced and remarried.
It was a different world. It'slike, well, we're not doing
this anymore. It like idt people'slives and I'll do an interact with the
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production decisions. And it's hard forpeople to believe, but there you go.
And how weird for a kid togo away? What's going on?
What? And I probably the biggestregret I have, and it may have
been a part of why their kidsnever came over to our house again,
is that the last time they wereat our house. I think it was
the morning I had heard that,and Bill brought the kids over, probably
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to have a conference with my dad. And I was out back and Bill
Junior, who was known as Willythen, and I were playing on the
treehouse in our backyard and I saidto him, so did you hear about
your parents? And I was innocent, I was not trying to be a
jerk, and he goes, yeah, they told us that there they still
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love us, but they're not inlove anymore. And I said, well,
I heard she's in love with thisother person on the show, and
it was so innocent, and hejust kind of went, oh, okay.
Fast forward to Christmas. We're supposedto host Bill and the kids,
and Bill shows up and my momsays, where the kids? And he
looked at her and said, Lizdoesn't want them coming over here anymore.
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And I'm going, oops, Iknow why I didn't say it is maybe
that little pictures have big ears.It's you know, that's what and children
are going to commiser rage. Imean you, if anything, you were
hoping like, hey, that's reallytoo bad about your folks. How you
do it? How would you wouldn'tknow? He was this is the adults.
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What did that mean to you toeven say I think she's in love
with the other right, But theymust have had fourteen fits. He came
home his mother like guess what?Guess Yeah, yeah, it could have
been her disappointment with my dad's decision. But I kept thinking and Liz was
nice to me. I met Lizone more time on Paramount and Dad was
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working maybe still in his advisory rolewith screen Gems, although he was working
for Paramount Studios for a while,and he said, oh, I ran
into Liz. She's filming a TVmovie, Lizzie Borden, and I told
her I was bringing you by tomorrow. She said to bring her by this,
bring you by the set, andso I did. It was a
wonderful time to see her, anda nice memory back in the middle of
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the divorce. And it wasn't quiteas yeah, but yeah, a lot
of situations you didn't let on thatI had said anything. She treated me
nice. She heard I was takingtap lessons, and she said, show
me your stuff, and I gaveher the shuffle ball change a couple of
times, and yeah, it endednicely. But I should go see a
therapist for this. Not that they'rebroadcast a lot, but I have never
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ever, ever, ever seen anyof Liz's post Bewitched work, of which
they're all fabulous. She gets good, good reviews, and I just there's
something about that encapsulation of time andthe aunt Liz I knew. I'm sure
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one day I'll be going around cableand I'll be looking for something to watch
and something she did up up andI'll watch it. But you're right,
that's really interesting that you somehow managedto not watch anything after that. That's
just I want to remember Aunt Lizas I remember her. Yeah, and
she may she may have totally realized, okay, it's the kids, but
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thought, well, let's snip thisin the bud. Maybe we don't need
the children having any more interesting conversationslike he didn't mean it, but God
knows what else is going to comeout of that child's mouth, don't get
She could have asked she trusted mebecause we were leaving a RAMS game once
and going to the limousine that weall took. And I don't know why
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I said limousine with air quotes,but it was a limite so weird yes
on the way, I said,again, innocent kid, I said,
hey, Aunt Liz, can youwiggle your nose for me? And she
gave me kind of a stern,asked me when we get into the limo,
And so we got a limo andI said, can you wiggle your
nose? And she said, Peter, I will wiggle my nose for you.
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She goes, I will do itonce as long as you promise you'll
never ask me to do it again. And I said, okay, I
promise, and she did it andthat was it. So she could she
could have trusted me. But thatwas because I'm not wiggling my nose here
in front of eight thousand people.Because it's the one word alone, we
will wiggle the nose. It's understandable. But that's the thing to be a
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kid in these situations with all ofthis stuff going on, but with a
child's innocence going away. What ishappening? Why is this all this going
on? It's so strange. It'ssuch a strange phenomenon. And obviously I
was there, I know, andso that's why I found you a book
fascinating. And of course you talkedabout all the stuff your parents did back
in the beginnings of television, whichgoing back to radio, and that the
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infamous the three camera method that allof us knows, the three camera method
of every sitcom ever on the baseof the earth. And everyone talks about
who started it, how did itstart? Your father was there. He
was part of parcuing the three cameramethod. And my dad's version of it
makes the most sense because now Iremember when Desi Arnez called our home to
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say, Harry, I'm writing myautobiography and I'm putting in that I came
up with it. Oh, hecame clean to my dad and you just
said, I'm doing this, it'llhelp me sell books whatever. But everybody
has said it was solo, myidea, and my dad said, no,
it was collaborative. I said theAl Simon, who was I think
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the what was al was? He? He was I must have been the
camera director of photography. I thinkAl Simon, and he had used multiple
cameras on I think Truth or Consequencesat CBS wasn't three cameras, but I
think it was two cameras, sohe was used to multiple cameras. And
some discussion about Lucy Lucy needs anaudience, Well, how would you do
do an audience and film it soit's fresh and she can go off the
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laughter and we don't have to tryto repeat the laughter. Well we've done
multiple cameras, let's do that.Oh yeah, how about that? How
about And it was a collaborative Andall those people have taken so little credit
that were on sets had something todo with it. So they were kind
of all in on it. Theydid contribute if they were all there.
But yeah, because you can't saywhat can't be just him and trust him.
(30:22):
I mean, everyone says it's there, but that makes sense and that
all these people also coming out ofradio, and you mentioned how like,
you know, with Lucy Obull comingout of radio and having a live audience
and playing off them and then likeokay, we're going to TV. What
you know, TV was so likeradio in the beginning. It really was
kind of like, well, Iguess it's radio show. We have pictures
now, right, Yeah, andyeah, but it was it was tricky.
(30:47):
How do we I Love Lucy isgreat just for any TV historian because
it took it to a different level, you know, that three camera technique
and the reasons and the breaking ofthanks I mean, having the first pregnant
woman known as pregnant pregnant character onTV. You know, it's a word.
It was like unbelievable. And thefact that you know, she did
(31:11):
a show about this cute couple withan actor a different guy, and then
when what if? What if itwas the real husband? Yeah? Yeah,
And that was tricky because he wasof Cuban descent, Cuban American,
and that shocking, shocking interracial.He was a foreign person. It was
like, oh, it's a bigdeal. Broke a lot of a lot
(31:33):
of bounds and we don't realize that. I mean I didn't when I watched
I Love Lucy. It was inreruns and it was on every night,
and it was an enjoyable show.But I didn't think anything of it.
But yeah, you read back aboutthe times, it really it really pressed
its boundaries, and I think wethought nothing. I would go, oh,
yeah, well they're so beloved.Oh yeah, Desie and losing Diesel.
Everybody loved Desie and you're going,wait, he was He was a
(31:56):
foreign person who spoke another language andwas would be considered interracial in its day
and a big deal, like theillegal in some states. And here they
were a belove a TV couple.It was absolutely or shattering at the time,
right, yeah, yeah, it'samazing. And TV does that good
TV does that. It pushes theboundaries. I've always loved my mom's characters.
(32:22):
You know, somebody once made acomment she did do she was I'll
call it hired the Star Trek.One of the Star Trek conventions invited her
to be the VIP guest one daybecause she appeared so crazy she was on
Star Trek. I mean, it'sjust like that blows my mind, right,
There no one episode of the originalseries called Metamorphosis, and they asked
(32:43):
her on Saturday. This was Ithink in twenty sixteen, to be the
VIP guest at the Star Trek conventionin Vegas. The VIP guest on Sunday
was a fellow named William Shatner,and my mom was the Saturday guest.
And she just got paid. AndI never talked money with Mom, but
(33:05):
she was paid one lump sum andshe just had to have an intimate conversation
with people who paid for the VIPpackage and then do the stage interview,
and then do the pictures with thefans, and then do the signing of
the autographs. And at the endof it, they handed her a check
and she went home. And heronly negotiating point was she wanted one of
her sons to hang out with herduring the day, and so they said
(33:29):
yes, and she chose me.So that was just ringside seats for everything.
So but somebody asked there about mymom. It was weird. They
said that she and Metamorphous played sucha strong character. And I said,
you know, Betty Anderson and FatherKnows Best was a strong character. And
(33:52):
Ellie May and Andy Griffith was astrong character, pushing boundaries. You know,
Ellie may Walker ran for city council. There's an episode in first season
and that right makes everybody's head toexplode in Mayberry because a woman is running
for city council. Oh she wasnever She didn't play like the doughty dizzy
or the dumb characters or everything.She played the characters that were out doing
(34:14):
stuff and we're very active. Ohyeah, no, that totally makes sense.
But yet, once you do anyepisode of any of the incarnations of
Star Trek, that's it. You'rekind of on the list for the conventions
for life. I'm really I justwant to do like one line in one
episode somewhere of any of them,and then then I just get to go
to all the conventions always. Iwould love it, you know, I
(34:34):
would. You know. The obviousquestion is how have you watched industry change?
But you did watch industry change,because when you started working in it,
you wound if you wound up workingon We talked about Friends, Money,
You worked on Friends. You workedon all of these shows and gs.
You worked with Dean Butler el Manzowhen he was Moondoggie on The New
Gidget. Right during my brief actingperiod. I was on some episodes of
(34:59):
The New Game. And yes,nepotism, I'm sure played a hand in
that because I was not a greatfilm actor. And yeah, Baby Dean
and Karen Richmond, who played Gidget, they were great. They were a
great on screen couple. He wasa wonderful man. I cheer him on.
(35:19):
I have yet to read his book. That just got relieved. I
bet, I bet great guy,great guy. And so I did see
the industry change. It was duringthe New Gidget, that was my dad's
last show he executive produced in themiddle eighties. My dad had knee surgery
somewhere in there. He needed somebodyto drive him around for a couple of
(35:43):
weeks because he couldn't drive, andhe asked me. I was working at
Hamburger Hamlet Sherman Oaks doing the actorwaiter thing, and I took time off
of work and became his driver.And for that second time, this time
as an adult, I got tosee that the other side of the business
and fell in love with it.And so that's what started me. I
was a production assistant on TV commercialsand music videos and then eventually was working
(36:07):
for Warner Brothers. Television sometimes farmedout to be what's called a production coordinator
on a pilot series, and whichmean to do everything. That's one of
those what is the production whatever justneeded to be done at that second.
Yes, production assistant definitely was everything, great things, and the production coordinator
a lot of things, not asmuch as the production assistant perhaps, but
(36:31):
good stuff. And then I wasworking as the production coordinator on the first
season of a show called The Wighan'sBrothers. That was an experience. It
was a show that was in lastplace, and if it aired twice in
the same week, it would bein the two last slots. And I
thought, well, you know,it's a job. And then my friend,
(36:53):
who I had done a pilot witha line producer named Cad Stevens,
needed a new assistant and his showhad been picked up the year before and
his assistant was leaving after season one, and he said, Pete, you
want to come on and be myassistant on Friends. It's like, yes,
(37:13):
goodbye Wayan's Brother's Hello Friends, Andso it was great. I worked
on Friends for two seasons and thenI realized television wasn't calling me. Something
else was calling me. But whatI learned during my time at Warner Brothers
Television was how much the industry hadchanged, and maybe I was spoiled my
(37:34):
dad's shows and the sets sounds likethe Little House sets. They were very
much a family. The people cameto work together. Everybody was working on
the same product. I remember whenI was on acting on the New Gidget,
I was in a makeup chair andthe lady was doing makeup was really
nasty, not to me, butshe was talking to the main makeup person
(37:58):
and said, I bet you thatlittle witch who was in here before took
my eyeliner or a rouge or whatever. Just was really rude. And when
she left to probably go get herrouge or whatever she was looking for,
the head of the makeup person lookedat his assistant and said, call the
union and make sure she's not ontomorrow. And that was a Harry Ackerman
(38:19):
show. The system you can't dothat. Yeah, if you don't fit,
you're not the system's going to pushyou out. So we used to
say in a Little House that ifpeople really weren't fitting, and we say,
you know, you could die ina buggy crash. Things happened on
the prairie there could be another fire, another outbreak of anthrax. It's just
oh, oh she didn't make it. Oh so yeah, people have just
(38:40):
if it really was like unpleasant.It was like where'd they go? Oh
they're not here, but you see, you see people from the older shows
or are still friends, so likethey cast to Gilligan's Island were all weirdly
tight and the Little House people werefriends of Walt's friends. And then you
see, I mean, yeah,what I want watch the Friends cast reunion
(39:01):
thing on TV again was great,but they talked about how some of them
had hardly spoken to each other sincethe show. It was like, oh
goodness, you know, when didyou last each other? A few years
ago? They weren't hanging out.A couple of them were like sort of
friendly and hung out. Most ofthem did not hang out together the hall
after the show, and that's thenorm people from TV shows generally. That's
(39:23):
kind of it. You finish theshow and you go, well, that
was swell. I'll see you peoplearound right, and you talk correctly about
you know, Little House of course, but father knows best. My mom
is still in contact with Billy andLauren, the actors who played her younger
siblings and throughout her life, JaneWyatt was a mother figure for my mom
(39:45):
and they would go out to lunchand dinner frequently, and Jane would offer
my mother, you know, counseland suggestions. And Jane, Jane was
so close that she was at mywedding. You know, we had We
still call each other up for stuff. I mean, Karen, I mean
that's his mom. And I'll tellyou Charlotte, the Miss Beatles, one
of you know, my besties.I'm besties with Miss Beadle. Now it's
(40:07):
very strange, but it's that kindof thing, now, how okay.
So of course, now of courseyou are father Ackerman. Uh back east?
Where are you know what? You'rein Virginia? No, I'm now
in Maryland, Maryland, Oh lovely, okay. And so you became you
became an Episcopalian priest. Yes,you know we well it started by being
(40:30):
an Episcopalian. It didn't help thatmy mother, who was not anything,
decided that when she and my dadwere married and my dad was adopting my
older brother, Brian, whom shehad quite secretly during father knows best,
my mother, you know, America'steenager, gave birth to a son and
that thing that you know, peopleback then didn't know what was going on,
(40:51):
but it was so Brian, myolder brother was getting baptized. My
mother decided, well I should bebaptist and it was the Episcopal church.
They decided to go to All Saints, Beverly Hills, and she was pregnant
with me. No problem except afterbaptism at the Saturday night service called the
Easter Vigil, the Saturday night beforeEaster, when baptisms happened, her water
(41:15):
broke on the way home. SoI was born on Easter Sunday. So
I think the die was cast destiny. But what happened was I was on
Friends. I was active in myepiscopal church. Marie and our kids were
going to so many churches now inmy life, Saint Michael and All Angels
and Studio City, and I realizedon Friends, I wasn't fulfilled. Here.
(41:42):
I could pick up the phone andcall the representative from Nike who handled
the Friend's show. Anything that Friendsneeded, they would supply. All I
had do was call up the phoneand say I need a new pair of
running shoes, and the next dayI would have shoes, shirts, socks,
everything on my desk and I wasn'tfulfilled. And I said, Okay,
I love my church, I lovemy family. Why am I not
(42:07):
loving my job? What's here?And so I took a leap of faith,
no pun intended, and I justleft television. I went working a
nine to five job in a propertymanagement office, getting the same pay I
was getting on friends, just workingnormal hours. So that was great.
And soon my church said, hey, we're looking to put somebody on staff
(42:28):
part time as our youth leader.Would you be interested? And I said
yeah, and I started doing thatand then the parish administrator job opened up
and it fit everything else I'd beendoing and was doing. So I took
that job. And people in thechurch, the clergy, the parents of
the youth, other people have startedto say to me, have you ever
(42:50):
thought about becoming a priest? There'ssomething about you? And I had done
the same thing, and there's awhole discernment process. And my bishop wanted
me to go to Virginia. Sowe moved to Virginia. Ended up staying
in Virginia for fifteen years, onlythree of it was schooling, and we
liked it out here. Twenty nineteen, my wife and our son and I
(43:12):
moved our daughter lives in Chicago.Now, we moved back to California,
to Lodi, California, and itjust wasn't a good fit. And COVID
happened and we realized raising up ourkids on the East Coast that was home
now, so we returned here.In the Episcopal Church, we clergy can
find our own jobs. So wejust look at the listings and we apply
and interview, and that makes itkind of easier to move around. And
(43:37):
that's why I'm now in Maryland.That's crazy and it's a fabulous thing in
the book. And you also talkedin the book about your sobriety being a
major factor as well. Yeah,yeah, I've been sober now for twelve
years. And it's you know,when I was a kid, my dad
(43:59):
would dan when he came home fromwork, and he would change. He
was a very alphable, affable fellow, and he would change. It was
just something dark. And I rememberone day as a kid saying to him,
Dad, you know when you drink, you change. Could you not
drink anymore? He said, Hegave me something like, okay, thank
you for letting me know, Peter, and nothing changed, and I didn't
(44:22):
pay attention, but I started toget this little tapping that I was going
down the same road one. Iwas drinking every night since I was in
my twenties. And you know,I again drank every night. I'm ordained
priest and I'm drinking every night.And when my daughter was young, she
(44:45):
came up to me and said,Dad, when you drink, you change,
could you not? Oh, notanymore? And I said, thank
you for letting me know, Amy, I'll attend to that. And I
didn't, and yeah, and Ihad my sobriety came in an amazing way.
I was a typical night of drinkingand concluded I was in bed.
(45:07):
I made it to bed. Thistime Marie was sleeping next to me,
and I woke up around three inthe morning, staring at the ceiling,
stone cold, sober, and aconversation started in my head and in my
voice, and I said, I'man alcoholic And I answered, so what
does that mean? And I saidit means I am not going to drink
(45:28):
anymore. And I then said tomyself, how are you going to do
that? And I said, Iguess I'm going to go to one of
those meetings. And I went onthe computer. Thankfully computers are around now,
and I found a meeting at sevenam in northern Virginia, where we
lived at the time, and theroad to happy destiny began there. Wow.
Wow, that's did it freak youout? Though? To have your
(45:52):
daughter literally come to you and sayexactly the same thing that you said your
father, did that feel weird?It felt weird in the fact that as
an alcoholic, we pretend, andwe're really good at fooling ourselves. I
pretended that I wasn't and that Ididn't have a problem. And when I
heard that, I think what Idid was I told her the right thing,
(46:12):
and then I drank it away soI would have to face it.
Because now that I look back onit, I know exactly how I was
feeling. I was caught. Shecaught me. You know, I was
a psychologist will have a field daywith it. But I was trying to
show my dad how it's done.My dad would change. I was going
to show you could drink and justbe happy and have a good time,
and that's it. And I endedup becoming just like my dad was he
(46:38):
over time. He never went intoany rooms that I know of, never
admitted to anything. His drinking didchange. He went from hard liquors to
beer and wine, and that easedup somewhat in the experience of his drinking.
So I don't know. I can'tsay he was in nineteen ninety one
(47:01):
at the age of seventy eight.I can't say that he was an alcoholic
because he never admitted it himself.But I know I drank exactly like he
did, and I acted like hedid when I drank, and I know
I'm an alcoholic. So that's whythat personality change in Ding Ding Ding Ding
Ding Ding, you know, butjust incredible. So how now do you
(47:24):
look at, you know, thetelevision industry and growing up from the perspective
of someone who's in episcopalitia increase someonenow with such a spiritual basis of living.
How do you look back now onthe industry? Does it seem different?
Or you must be really relieved thatyou had the family that you had
at least? Yeah, I believeme. I milked. I've milked my
(47:45):
experiences. Part of the reason Iwrote my book, Mom, Dad,
Me and Classic TV is that Iwould share my stories as kind of sermon
stories. So I'd open up asermon, you know, telling about the
time I was on Batman and thishappened iffact. I don't just tell it,
but if there's a way to weaveit into the text, you know,
(48:06):
we great, great way to getthe congregation to wake up but fall
asleep during a certain that as longas you can get the story to be
as part part of the tie upof the sermon as well. And so
the point is really on the scripture. In the Episcopal Church, we're on
what's called electionary, so we knowany given Sunday what the readings are.
So sometimes I'm looking at the readingsand I'm like, Okay, this is
(48:27):
where I feel God's calling me topreach on for my congregation. And then
I'll think, what's a good storyto tie in with this theme? And
I'll say, oh, I know, And so I weave in Hollywood stories,
not all the time, but frequently. So I'm milk my Hollywood past.
And people have kept saying to me, you should put those into a
book, you should put them intoa book. And finally I listened.
(48:51):
I'm so glad you did. Wherecan people find you? Where can they
find your book? Where can theytalk to you? You're on you have
a website, where where do wefind you? I have a full time
vocation. I'm not I'm not intothis author thing, so I don't have
it on TikTok. Then I dohave a Facebook page, and of course
there's a lot of Peter Ackerman's outthere, including a Peter Rackerman producer.
(49:15):
So if you put in my middleinitial K, that will help your And
then I've also got on Facebook asmall page devoted to my book Mom,
Dad, Me and Classic. I'vehad people that want to have a book
signed, they buy it, theyI can arrange them to mail it to
me and I'll sign it and sendit back to them, and you know,
(49:37):
and they can order it. Igot I have it on Kindle.
I totally order and Kindle and it'sfabulous and uh so they can get it.
Did you do an audiobook as well? No, Bear Me bear Manner
Media is my publish bear man LoveBear Manner. Yeah, great books,
great books, and they in mycontract with them it said I could opt
(50:00):
to do the audio if I hadthe equipment. And I'm not a voiceover
person, and during COVID I lookedinto it. I just don't have the
wherewithal to make the sound room andall that. So I don't know that
it's going to be made into anaudiobook. Barnes and Noble carries it,
Amazon carries it in hyperms hardcovers,and as you said, digitally, never
(50:22):
know. Because our our fabulous MissbeadleLesa Charlotte Storre. A lot of my
friends who went with Bear Manner,and a couple of them said, oh,
okay, well I did a separatedeal with did an audiobook, so
there's there's hope for you yet.Well I'll check that out. But yeah,
no, it's it's a marvelous bookfor anyone if if you like Once
upon a Time in Hollywood and lovethe stories of how TV began and Millard
(50:44):
don Hue and fabulous stories of achild going wait what is happening? Oh
look, everyone's on TV? Fantasticand then a whole story of just of
yes, of finding yourself and yourtrue calling is. It's a marvelous book
and will told and you you clearlyadore your family. They come really jump
off the page as lovely people.Then they are so thank you Allison.
(51:07):
All right, well, thank youso much for coming on and thank you
and I'm Alison argument. This isthe Allison Arm Show.
The better to teau with. Why, Yes, I'm Alixon Argram and this
is the Alison Ingham Show. Uh, some of you may remember me is
Neillie Olsen, Evil Millie Olsen fromthe Little House in the Prairie. But
(00:29):
tonight I'm Alice at Argram and thisis the Alison Ingraham Show. And here
in the alisont Argham Show, wetalked about things that make us feel good,
the TV shows and the movies thatmade us feel good and the people
who made them, and people whoare doing things now to make the world
a better and more interesting place.And oh do I have a good one
tonight? Okay, I just methim, but I feel like we knew
(00:51):
each other as childhood friends. AndI keep saying did we cross pass?
Because this is bananas? Okay,So he's real. This marvelous book mom,
Dad and Me in classic TV itsounds like my life. His father
is a very very famous producer,Harry Ackerman, and his mom was helenor
Donna. You guess Helena Donna,who for father knows best at all of
(01:15):
those shows. So he grew upin the same kind of wacky Hollywood MELEEU
that I did. And I'm readinghis book and going and I was at
that yesterday. I know that person. I knew that person. Okay,
this is this is getting blake spookywhen I like, at one point just
stopped and said, I have todo word search my own name and little
house in the prairie to make sureI'm not in here at some point because
this is crazy, absolutely fabulous,marvelous stories, fascinating person through show business,
(01:41):
got into show business and then becamean Episcopalian priest. Wait what yes,
ladies and gentleman, the fabulous Peterk Ackerman. Thanks, as this
(02:02):
is great, This is great.Yeah, I'm reading your book and I'm
just going and that was my week. Wait what Batman? Wait? As
a child, I was just talkingabout this this morning. It's session.
I was with you talking about beingin the said of Batman. I My
agent was lou ryl who was AdamWest's agent. When I was a child,
I was with Batman's say so hisguests was all like crossing over.
(02:24):
Hollywood is a tiny, tiny town. People joke about to say it's a
really small town. There's like fiftypeople. They just move around a lot.
It's true. It's crazy. WhenI read someone's auto biography grow up
at Alli at the same time Idid. I'm like, huh, so
I was probably ten feet away.For like, all of it's bonkers,
(02:44):
and yours is absolutely this, thisname drop circle, because it's the same
kind of people. You were borninto apses they said, born into Hollywood
royalty, and you were. Yourfather was the executive producer on all of
our favorite shows from our childhood,certainly mine, and then your mom was
on all of her favorite shows,and you were just growing up in this.
(03:06):
It was all normal at the timefor you, right, it was.
And I was born. My firstmemory or second memory really was my
mother on television and I was sittingon her lap and Father Knows Best was
on its weekday rerun, you know, Channel five at four o'clock, and
(03:28):
in walked her character Betty Anderson,the oldest daughter on Father Knows Best,
and she said, look, honey, look there's mommy. And I looked
and saw my mother on the screenin black and white, and okay,
that's that's what it is. Andas we had a prior conversation, it
was a few years later, I'mwith my friend down the street, Johnny,
(03:51):
and I finally asked him because itwas bothering me. And I said,
Johnny, my mom's on Channel fiveat four o'clock. When is your
mom on? And that's when Ilearned that. And he said, Peter,
not everybody's mom's on television. I'mlike, oh, that's when the
penny dropped. I swear until Iwas about six or seven, I thought
everybody was on TV. That itis like the Andy Warhols fifteen Minutes of
(04:15):
Fame. I thought people took anin terrence. They took a terrence in
the winter. I loved that whenness, what does your mother go on?
My mother was in all the cartoons, and so her voice would just it
was perfectly normal to turn on thecartoons and have her be all of them,
and even the one she wasn't starringin the office of the Gummy cast,
but sometimes she'd be a guest.So I'd be watching completely and related
(04:38):
cartoon and suddenly her voice comes outof it, like surprise, he's in
that one too, And I thoughtthat was like totally normal. I was
just very normal to have your motherbe a cartoon. It was years before
I knew that that was not howpeople. People did all live like that.
You you. You enjoyed it enormously. You tell then astic stories of
(05:00):
being a small child and then evenold and going to the set and meeting
all of these people and having thembe just regular folks that your folks knew.
Yeah, I just fell in lovewith the industry at an early age.
And one thing my parents did isin the family system. They and
I was born at the top oftheir careers. My dad was doing all
(05:21):
these shows at screen Gems, Bewitchedand It's The Menace, the Flying Nun,
and he was also the head ofproduction at screen Gems as well.
He had been the vice president forWest Coast Programming for CBS and helped to
start I Love Lucy and just hishands were everywhere. But at home we
(05:42):
were just a regular family. Wewere like a family out of one of
his TV shows, So there wasnone of that and you get at some
places that Hollywood elitism that you'll get, and we were just regular folks.
So going to the magical place thestudio was just always a hoot, and
the first time was really my daddid it as a favor my older brother
(06:05):
Brian, and I loved Batman andmy dad knew the executive producer of Batman.
So he made arrangements took us tothe set, and that was a
really pivotal moment for me because Iremember standing with my older brother in the
stately Wayne Manor interior set and seeingthe bust of Shakespeare and the bookcase was
(06:29):
already slid open. I could seethe bat poles and I walked over looked
down and there were just about asix foot drop and two large kind of
sofa pillows down there to help stopthe actors when they slid down them.
And it wasn't the bat cave,and it didn't disappoint me. I got
it that this was magic and okay, and that was it. I was
(06:53):
in love. But how old wereyou then when you saw the bat poles
and realized it? So I probablywent. It must have been in sixty
seven, so I would have beenfive six. It was totally the same
age. And that's the thing isis I knew I'd been with my mother
to the studio and seeing that cartoonsare some people go in a room and
talk into big microphones and somebody somewhere'sdrawing pictures and they make this thing.
(07:15):
And I knew when I had beento sets I is what I knew a
lot of stuff wasn't real. Iwasn't upset by it, but I knew
stuff wasn't real at five, six, seven eight watching TV, and I
had friends who were still just surethat tiny people were inside the television.
If not, you know that it'sjust this was real. And it's so
strange to his young child and havethat sense of reality versus fantasy and actually
(07:40):
know that the TV isn't real thatearly. That's people don't learn that until
they're adults. Happen, right,And some of them still think, you
know, everybody they see on TVis just that way in real life and
has gone through those experiences. AndI have to laugh. And my mother
is still alive and retired, andyou know, people will ask her questions
(08:03):
like they'll name a show and they'llsay, you know, when your character
picked up the spatula instead of thespoon, what why was that? And
she doesn't know. It was justthat was the prop and they said pick
something up from the table when youmove across the room, and that's what
she did. But it wasn't likeshe put a lot of thought into it.
(08:24):
Oh well, we have to breakit to people all the time with
little house in the prairie that thatwas not real snow, and no,
we weren't in the mountains. Andno, it doesn't look like Minnesota because
we worked in Minnesota, and it'sall thing though. Those were big plastic
flakes and really it looked like stuffand just the thing. For it's fifty
years later, and you would think, but to learn that as a kid
(08:48):
you have pauland stories. Now,how did you meet Pauland I met pauland
it was the greatest opportunity for mewhen I was I guess we're talking now
about seven four, So what amI twelve? I think we're exactly the
same age. This is crazy.I read your book and I think we're
born in the same year. Idon't mind naming it, but I don't
(09:09):
want to out you so they allknow, Okay, this year I'm the
same age as the year I wasborn. So I'll just put Yes,
what month is your birthday? Haveyou turned it yet? April? I've
turned it in, Oh sure,January. Yes, I've been it down
for I'm sixty two and a half. All right, awesome, awesome,
(09:31):
So Paul in my dad took mybrother and I on different days, and
I stayed to go down to theset. We had I think because we
went to Catholic schools, our holidaybreak was different than the public schools,
which is what the studios went by. So when we had the week off,
(09:52):
production was happening. So Mom wouldbe like, get these kids out
of the house. So Brian wenton Monday. Didn't I want to go
again, although he made a friendthat day sitting next to a guest actress
on The Paul Lyn Show, JodyFoster, who he joined in coloring.
And I went on Tuesday through Fridays, and I even saw the taping of
(10:16):
the show and it was great.At that age, I got to sit
in my spot and I hardly movedfrom it. I was a shy kid,
so I never talked to Jody Foster, who was sitting up with her
mother behind me in the stands.And got to watch production unfold and got
to see what happens. And soon my first day, Dad took me
(10:37):
backstage of the set, the backof the set, and there was Paul,
and he took me over and said, Paul, I'd like you to
meet my son Peter. And Paulwas reading a newspaper and he looked up
at me, and I stuck outmy hand like I was taught to do,
and said hello, I'm Peter Ackermanand stuck out my hand and he
gave it a very weak fish likehandshake and said hellou, and then just
(11:01):
put his paper back up. Andthen I've heard that Paul ind didn't like
kids, and I can say thatI can tell that's true. He was.
He was sort of open about that. It was see how the old
don't work with children or animals,right, which she got stuck stuck working
with all the time. So thereyou go say children. But he was
marvelous. I mean I watched himdo the same lines in the same scenes
(11:24):
every week, and he was atrooper. I mean, it was great
watching him work. You talked aboutlike your mother and even doing the autograph
sessions and all these kinds of thingsas a young girl. And and now
we do all that now with allthese like you know, comic cons and
everything, and it just do peoplestill I mean, she's she's retired,
(11:45):
does she still get called where peoplewanted to come and do the autograph shows
and the personal appearances and the wholethey do. She doesn't like doing them.
She did it for so many yearsfor free. She fans would find
out her address. There's now there'swebsites. I don't know how they did
it, but yeah, but fanswould just send the requests in the mail,
(12:07):
sometimes without self addressed envelopes to sendback or anything, and my mom
would pay the freight, she wouldpay for the picture, she would sign
it, she'd put it in anenvelope, pay the postage, and send
it off. And she did thatweekly, lots and lots and lots of
fans. And she tried the autographshow thing and it just wasn't for her.
(12:28):
And then she told me recently thatthough we are not wealthy because the
shows my parents made were not madein the times where you made the big
bucks, she's and my stepfather arewell off enough for the rest of their
lives. She's eighty seven. Andshe felt bad because, without naming them,
(12:52):
there's other there's contemporaries of hers whogo to those shows who actually need
the money. Oh yeah, yeah. Feels that she's taking from them issues
for the people that are deciding shouldI get an eleanor Donahue or a blank
And she just figured not going todo that. That's very sweet. I
(13:13):
mean, it's funny talking about itjust the other day because we're off to
another one this weekend with the LittleHouse can. It is not for everyone.
There has to be a certain mindsetof people who can sit there and
do that all day. I don'tmind it. Other people just would love
it. But many people like,Nope, that is not a thing I
do. Realizing some actors are justlike, no, that's not a thing
(13:33):
I do. I know I'm notgoing to sit there and write my name
all day. I can't. Ican't do this. This is not And
I love that she's like worried aboutthe other people, because it's true.
There's some people. There's people thatare just giving them money to charity.
There are people that are absolutely hopingthey will make the rent if they get
in there and sign enough. AndI find I try to be helpful because
I draw, so I'm always like, sit next to me. There will
(13:56):
be a lot of people over here. Get I'll tell them to go to
your table. Yes, I tryto get it, oh by something.
But it's such a weird environment.And I wonder how she handled that,
because obviously she would be into mad. People would want her to do it.
But it's like, hey, peopleget to retire, and it's interesting
when you should not crazy crazy wealthylike the people are on the later shows.
(14:20):
That's a phenomenon that people don't realizethat there was a period in Hollywood
where you could be like a workingclass as person. You are a working
Hollywood person and you made a living. But unless you were on one of
these shows or this movie, youdidn't get rich. That wasn't a thing
right and where my life would havechanged, and I think I would have
(14:43):
done poorly with wealth is My dadhad an opportunity during Bewitched the Muckety MUCKs
that screen gems went to him andto Bill Lasher. Bill Asher was the
director, the producer and married atthe time to Elizabeth Montgomery, and said,
how about we pay you less,but we're going to give you we'll
(15:05):
give you ownership in the show.Bill said yes, my dad said no,
and then we ended up struggling.And Bill was I remember when my
mom would go out to dinner withBill and his wife. He had a
stack of twenty dollars bills. He'stipping the guy opening the door, the
person that seats them at the table, the person that comes and says hello,
and he he just was lousy withmoney. Well, but that's the
(15:30):
thing, it's getting that piece ofthe thing. My mother still she joked
for years and years about it.My mother's life to talk about that.
She did the first Family album,the one with Vaughan Meters, GF Pictures,
Caroline and John Junks. When theywere all the people were signed to
do that, they were asked ifthey wanted a percentage or a flat fee.
Everybody took the flat fee because theydidn't think it would go anywhere.
(15:52):
They didn't think it would even getdistribution. So the producers made up very
then they went, I should havetaken the percentage. What did I know,
you'd have gone to private schools wouldhave been great. It would have
been called we don't realize it.And like little House, we got paid.
Okay, we got the residuals.We were in that in perpetuity seventy
(16:14):
zones. We got the residuals.But I always tell you it wasn't friends
money, right, that was awhole other universe. They didn't pay people
that much money on a show.It just didn't exist. And we just
know and none of us got thatlevel of money and people people didn't and
many people who you saw in dozensof shows they got a house adventure,
but like a regular size house thatthey live in. It's yeah. And
(16:41):
the movie Once upon a Time inHollywood. I love that movie. It
takes me back to where we grewup in the era and everything. A
great example of an actor who's pluggingaway doing the thing and not necessarily rolling
in the dough. But I loveit that movie. I laughed so hard.
I'd heard about it. My friendswere all saying, they said,
(17:02):
never mind any of the man's andstuff. No, no, if you
grew up in Hollywood during that timeperiod, or heaven forbid, or in
the industry at that time, gogo go see this week. All my
former child star friends were like,go see this movie, and they were
in and I did. I burstout laughing. And when the little girl
on the porch in the Western TVshow is giving him the hard time,
I turned to my husband and said, I'm sorry, I didn't realize I
(17:23):
was in this film. I washysterical. The whole they got it was
so dead and we did. Wegrew up in this whole time periods people
wondering what was it. We grewup in that once upon a time in
Hollywood time period, in that wholezone where we didn't have There wasn't social
(17:44):
media yet, so actors you didn'tknow them unless maybe you saw them on
talk shows interviews. So to seethem in your living room at dinner or
go to the set was really weird. It's not a usual thing and just
and for us, I mean justseeing them around town, and it wasn't.
I don't know how it is todaybecause I don't live on the West
(18:04):
Coast anymore. Gosh. I remembergrowing up Studio City. I'd go to
Wintel's Donuts and I'd be walking inand walking out as Lafe Garrett and it
was no big deal. It wasjust a Wafe Garrett went in there to
get a donut. I'm going into get a donut. Lafe Garrett's here.
I remember. I used to workat that McDonald's across from CBS Radford.
(18:30):
That was my first job and somewhere. That's why I remember that area
so well. I think I wasdriving by this time, and I remember
your star on Little House on thePrairie. I'm sorry, I can't pull
names on a name. Melissa Gilbert, Melissa Gilbert was not only she was
(18:52):
working at CBS Radford or it wasliving in that area, but she was
roller skating. Used to see herroller skating all the time down the vent
normal, that's right, yeah,because she lived in her family lived in
Encino when she was in that area. And every a Schwabs drug store,
which is a real thing, notjust made a thing. And Dick van
Dyke would be eating at the campjust everyone. You would walk in and
(19:15):
you would sit down next to afamous person at the counter, and this
was completely normal. You pick up, you're picking up your dry cleaning,
going to Burbank Airport all of thedo you see famous people? Like any
place? When I was in mytwenties maybe thirties, and people would come
to town and they'd say, wewant to see somebody famous. Where should
(19:37):
we go? I'd always tell themto go to Jerry's Deli when Jerry's Deli
existed on Venture Boulevard, because thatwas a place just sit and give yourself
five minutes and look around. You'llsee somebody. Hamburger Hamlet at sunset and
Doheny was also crawling with people becausethe nine thousand building and the other offices
(19:57):
near were all the agents and managerswork, and they would all meet with
their agents and booms like but yeah, you could go, you could go
get fries with people. It wasjust totally You have a whole long story
in there about the whole Beowitch things. You said, Bill Asher married to
Elizabeth Montgomery, and you're even yourefer to as Auntie Liz several points.
(20:18):
There's this close to Elizabeth Montgomery andthen they're splitting up on the show.
And it was a huge thing,and people forget families are involved and people
get tangled up with you so andthen what happens when things happen. Yeah,
and it was it was so itwas such an interesting time to grow
up and place to be. SoLiz and Bill were aunt Liz and uncle
(20:42):
Bill to us Ackerman boys. I'mone of four boys, by the way.
And apparently my mom and Liz,i learned later, were in a
race to have a girl to seewho would have the girl first, and
so my mom had me, theyhad Bill Junior. Then they we had
my brother James, and they hadRobert, and then we had my brother
(21:03):
Chris, and they had Rebecca.So they got the girl. They but
we were close and they were alwaysat our house. I think every weekend
they were at our house. Andso I'd go to the set and I'd
see people I knew and it wasgreat. And my last time on the
Bewitch set, I was sitting deadleft me he had something to do,
(21:23):
and so I was sitting in hisdirector chair and had Liz and Dick Sargeant
on either side of me, andwe were playing the Jumble game that was
a puzzle in the La Times,and it was just such a magical day.
I'll skip the story. There waskind of a joke she played during
(21:44):
the Jumble game. We can getback to that. It's in the book
if people are interested. At onepoint they were filming a different part of
that scene where she had to faint, and the director made a comment about
her dairy air and all Liz andit wasn't her husband directing this episode.
Oh Liz, honey, I couldlook at that all day, or watch
you do that all day, yice, And it wasn't uncomfortable based on the
(22:10):
crew. It was. She laughed. They laughed, but that was Aunt
Liz, and she did what mymom did. And I saw my mom
act on sets like I'm seeing heract and it just didn't compute, and
I something was up and I wastoo young and innocent. They didn't know
any divorced people didn't know about that. But it didn't surprise me when whatever
(22:36):
time it was after that, whetherit was a month or two months,
the show ended it and I heardit end. Liz apparently was willing to
go on if my dad would agreeto push Bill out and bring in her
boyfriend, this fellow who was directingthat as the new producer. And my
(22:59):
dad said to her on the phone, Liz, I can't do that,
builds my partner, and she said, well, then be wished is over.
And I heard my dad get offthe phone. I heard him relate
that conversation to my mother, andthat's how the show ended. And see,
this is mind blowing to people.People don't realize that people's personal lives
in Hollywood do interact and do afactor in People go, why did that
(23:22):
show end? Was that the range? Was it this? Well? No,
this person got a divorce, butthis person's ex husband was still the
partner. You're like, wait,that's the thing. And people's lives changed.
I mean, even with little Iwas like, well, Michael wanted
to move on and he had anidea for another show, and everything had
changed, and everyone had gotten olderand people had all gotten divorced and remarried.
It was a different world. It'slike, well, we're not doing
this anymore. It like idt people'slives and I'll do an interact with the
(23:48):
production decisions. And it's hard forpeople to believe, but there you go.
And how weird for a kid togo away? What's going on?
What? And I probably the biggestregret I have, and it may have
been a part of why their kidsnever came over to our house again,
is that the last time they wereat our house. I think it was
the morning I had heard that,and Bill brought the kids over, probably
(24:11):
to have a conference with my dad. And I was out back and Bill
Junior, who was known as Willythen, and I were playing on the
treehouse in our backyard and I saidto him, so did you hear about
your parents? And I was innocent, I was not trying to be a
jerk, and he goes, yeah, they told us that there they still
(24:34):
love us, but they're not inlove anymore. And I said, well,
I heard she's in love with thisother person on the show, and
it was so innocent, and hejust kind of went, oh, okay.
Fast forward to Christmas. We're supposedto host Bill and the kids,
and Bill shows up and my momsays, where the kids? And he
looked at her and said, Lizdoesn't want them coming over here anymore.
(24:56):
And I'm going, oops, Iknow why I didn't say it is maybe
that little pictures have big ears.It's you know, that's what and children
are going to commiser rage. Imean you, if anything, you were
hoping like, hey, that's reallytoo bad about your folks. How you
do it? How would you wouldn'tknow? He was this is the adults.
(25:18):
What did that mean to you toeven say I think she's in love
with the other right, But theymust have had fourteen fits. He came
home his mother like guess what?Guess Yeah, yeah, it could have
been her disappointment with my dad's decision. But I kept thinking and Liz was
nice to me. I met Lizone more time on Paramount and Dad was
(25:41):
working maybe still in his advisory rolewith screen Gems, although he was working
for Paramount Studios for a while,and he said, oh, I ran
into Liz. She's filming a TVmovie, Lizzie Borden, and I told
her I was bringing you by tomorrow. She said to bring her by this,
bring you by the set, andso I did. It was a
wonderful time to see her, anda nice memory back in the middle of
(26:07):
the divorce. And it wasn't quiteas yeah, but yeah, a lot
of situations you didn't let on thatI had said anything. She treated me
nice. She heard I was takingtap lessons, and she said, show
me your stuff, and I gaveher the shuffle ball change a couple of
times, and yeah, it endednicely. But I should go see a
therapist for this. Not that they'rebroadcast a lot, but I have never
(26:32):
ever, ever, ever seen anyof Liz's post Bewitched work, of which
they're all fabulous. She gets good, good reviews, and I just there's
something about that encapsulation of time andthe aunt Liz I knew. I'm sure
(26:53):
one day I'll be going around cableand I'll be looking for something to watch
and something she did up up andI'll watch it. But you're right,
that's really interesting that you somehow managedto not watch anything after that. That's
just I want to remember Aunt Lizas I remember her. Yeah, and
she may she may have totally realized, okay, it's the kids, but
(27:15):
thought, well, let's snip thisin the bud. Maybe we don't need
the children having any more interesting conversationslike he didn't mean it, but God
knows what else is going to comeout of that child's mouth, don't get
She could have asked she trusted mebecause we were leaving a RAMS game once
and going to the limousine that weall took. And I don't know why
(27:37):
I said limousine with air quotes,but it was a limite so weird yes
on the way, I said,again, innocent kid, I said,
hey, Aunt Liz, can youwiggle your nose for me? And she
gave me kind of a stern,asked me when we get into the limo,
And so we got a limo andI said, can you wiggle your
nose? And she said, Peter, I will wiggle my nose for you.
(28:02):
She goes, I will do itonce as long as you promise you'll
never ask me to do it again. And I said, okay, I
promise, and she did it andthat was it. So she could she
could have trusted me. But thatwas because I'm not wiggling my nose here
in front of eight thousand people.Because it's the one word alone, we
will wiggle the nose. It's understandable. But that's the thing to be a
(28:23):
kid in these situations with all ofthis stuff going on, but with a
child's innocence going away. What ishappening? Why is this all this going
on? It's so strange. It'ssuch a strange phenomenon. And obviously I
was there, I know, andso that's why I found you a book
fascinating. And of course you talkedabout all the stuff your parents did back
in the beginnings of television, whichgoing back to radio, and that the
(28:48):
infamous the three camera method that allof us knows, the three camera method
of every sitcom ever on the baseof the earth. And everyone talks about
who started it, how did itstart? Your father was there. He
was part of parcuing the three cameramethod. And my dad's version of it
makes the most sense because now Iremember when Desi Arnez called our home to
(29:11):
say, Harry, I'm writing myautobiography and I'm putting in that I came
up with it. Oh, hecame clean to my dad and you just
said, I'm doing this, it'llhelp me sell books whatever. But everybody
has said it was solo, myidea, and my dad said, no,
it was collaborative. I said theAl Simon, who was I think
(29:33):
the what was al was? He? He was I must have been the
camera director of photography. I thinkAl Simon, and he had used multiple
cameras on I think Truth or Consequencesat CBS wasn't three cameras, but I
think it was two cameras, sohe was used to multiple cameras. And
some discussion about Lucy Lucy needs anaudience, Well, how would you do
do an audience and film it soit's fresh and she can go off the
(29:59):
laughter and we don't have to tryto repeat the laughter. Well we've done
multiple cameras, let's do that.Oh yeah, how about that? How
about And it was a collaborative Andall those people have taken so little credit
that were on sets had something todo with it. So they were kind
of all in on it. Theydid contribute if they were all there.
But yeah, because you can't saywhat can't be just him and trust him.
(30:22):
I mean, everyone says it's there, but that makes sense and that
all these people also coming out ofradio, and you mentioned how like,
you know, with Lucy Obull comingout of radio and having a live audience
and playing off them and then likeokay, we're going to TV. What
you know, TV was so likeradio in the beginning. It really was
kind of like, well, Iguess it's radio show. We have pictures
now, right, Yeah, andyeah, but it was it was tricky.
(30:47):
How do we I Love Lucy isgreat just for any TV historian because
it took it to a different level, you know, that three camera technique
and the reasons and the breaking ofthanks I mean, having the first pregnant
woman known as pregnant pregnant character onTV. You know, it's a word.
It was like unbelievable. And thefact that you know, she did
(31:11):
a show about this cute couple withan actor a different guy, and then
when what if? What if itwas the real husband? Yeah? Yeah,
And that was tricky because he wasof Cuban descent, Cuban American,
and that shocking, shocking interracial.He was a foreign person. It was
like, oh, it's a bigdeal. Broke a lot of a lot
(31:33):
of bounds and we don't realize that. I mean I didn't when I watched
I Love Lucy. It was inreruns and it was on every night,
and it was an enjoyable show.But I didn't think anything of it.
But yeah, you read back aboutthe times, it really it really pressed
its boundaries, and I think wethought nothing. I would go, oh,
yeah, well they're so beloved.Oh yeah, Desie and losing Diesel.
Everybody loved Desie and you're going,wait, he was He was a
(31:56):
foreign person who spoke another language andwas would be considered interracial in its day
and a big deal, like theillegal in some states. And here they
were a belove a TV couple.It was absolutely or shattering at the time,
right, yeah, yeah, it'samazing. And TV does that good
TV does that. It pushes theboundaries. I've always loved my mom's characters.
(32:22):
You know, somebody once made acomment she did do she was I'll
call it hired the Star Trek.One of the Star Trek conventions invited her
to be the VIP guest one daybecause she appeared so crazy she was on
Star Trek. I mean, it'sjust like that blows my mind, right,
There no one episode of the originalseries called Metamorphosis, and they asked
(32:43):
her on Saturday. This was Ithink in twenty sixteen, to be the
VIP guest at the Star Trek conventionin Vegas. The VIP guest on Sunday
was a fellow named William Shatner,and my mom was the Saturday guest.
And she just got paid. AndI never talked money with Mom, but
(33:05):
she was paid one lump sum andshe just had to have an intimate conversation
with people who paid for the VIPpackage and then do the stage interview,
and then do the pictures with thefans, and then do the signing of
the autographs. And at the endof it, they handed her a check
and she went home. And heronly negotiating point was she wanted one of
her sons to hang out with herduring the day, and so they said
(33:29):
yes, and she chose me.So that was just ringside seats for everything.
So but somebody asked there about mymom. It was weird. They
said that she and Metamorphous played sucha strong character. And I said,
you know, Betty Anderson and FatherKnows Best was a strong character. And
(33:52):
Ellie May and Andy Griffith was astrong character, pushing boundaries. You know,
Ellie may Walker ran for city council. There's an episode in first season
and that right makes everybody's head toexplode in Mayberry because a woman is running
for city council. Oh she wasnever She didn't play like the doughty dizzy
or the dumb characters or everything.She played the characters that were out doing
(34:14):
stuff and we're very active. Ohyeah, no, that totally makes sense.
But yet, once you do anyepisode of any of the incarnations of
Star Trek, that's it. You'rekind of on the list for the conventions
for life. I'm really I justwant to do like one line in one
episode somewhere of any of them,and then then I just get to go
to all the conventions always. Iwould love it, you know, I
(34:34):
would. You know. The obviousquestion is how have you watched industry change?
But you did watch industry change,because when you started working in it,
you wound if you wound up workingon We talked about Friends, Money,
You worked on Friends. You workedon all of these shows and gs.
You worked with Dean Butler el Manzowhen he was Moondoggie on The New
Gidget. Right during my brief actingperiod. I was on some episodes of
(34:59):
The New Game. And yes,nepotism, I'm sure played a hand in
that because I was not a greatfilm actor. And yeah, Baby Dean
and Karen Richmond, who played Gidget, they were great. They were a
great on screen couple. He wasa wonderful man. I cheer him on.
(35:19):
I have yet to read his book. That just got relieved. I
bet, I bet great guy,great guy. And so I did see
the industry change. It was duringthe New Gidget, that was my dad's
last show he executive produced in themiddle eighties. My dad had knee surgery
somewhere in there. He needed somebodyto drive him around for a couple of
(35:43):
weeks because he couldn't drive, andhe asked me. I was working at
Hamburger Hamlet Sherman Oaks doing the actorwaiter thing, and I took time off
of work and became his driver.And for that second time, this time
as an adult, I got tosee that the other side of the business
and fell in love with it.And so that's what started me. I
was a production assistant on TV commercialsand music videos and then eventually was working
(36:07):
for Warner Brothers. Television sometimes farmedout to be what's called a production coordinator
on a pilot series, and whichmean to do everything. That's one of
those what is the production whatever justneeded to be done at that second.
Yes, production assistant definitely was everything, great things, and the production coordinator
a lot of things, not asmuch as the production assistant perhaps, but
(36:31):
good stuff. And then I wasworking as the production coordinator on the first
season of a show called The Wighan'sBrothers. That was an experience. It
was a show that was in lastplace, and if it aired twice in
the same week, it would bein the two last slots. And I
thought, well, you know,it's a job. And then my friend,
(36:53):
who I had done a pilot witha line producer named Cad Stevens,
needed a new assistant and his showhad been picked up the year before and
his assistant was leaving after season one, and he said, Pete, you
want to come on and be myassistant on Friends. It's like, yes,
(37:13):
goodbye Wayan's Brother's Hello Friends, Andso it was great. I worked
on Friends for two seasons and thenI realized television wasn't calling me. Something
else was calling me. But whatI learned during my time at Warner Brothers
Television was how much the industry hadchanged, and maybe I was spoiled my
(37:34):
dad's shows and the sets sounds likethe Little House sets. They were very
much a family. The people cameto work together. Everybody was working on
the same product. I remember whenI was on acting on the New Gidget,
I was in a makeup chair andthe lady was doing makeup was really
nasty, not to me, butshe was talking to the main makeup person
(37:58):
and said, I bet you thatlittle witch who was in here before took
my eyeliner or a rouge or whatever. Just was really rude. And when
she left to probably go get herrouge or whatever she was looking for,
the head of the makeup person lookedat his assistant and said, call the
union and make sure she's not ontomorrow. And that was a Harry Ackerman
(38:19):
show. The system you can't dothat. Yeah, if you don't fit,
you're not the system's going to pushyou out. So we used to
say in a Little House that ifpeople really weren't fitting, and we say,
you know, you could die ina buggy crash. Things happened on
the prairie there could be another fire, another outbreak of anthrax. It's just
oh, oh she didn't make it. Oh so yeah, people have just
(38:40):
if it really was like unpleasant.It was like where'd they go? Oh
they're not here, but you see, you see people from the older shows
or are still friends, so likethey cast to Gilligan's Island were all weirdly
tight and the Little House people werefriends of Walt's friends. And then you
see, I mean, yeah,what I want watch the Friends cast reunion
(39:01):
thing on TV again was great,but they talked about how some of them
had hardly spoken to each other sincethe show. It was like, oh
goodness, you know, when didyou last each other? A few years
ago? They weren't hanging out.A couple of them were like sort of
friendly and hung out. Most ofthem did not hang out together the hall
after the show, and that's thenorm people from TV shows generally. That's
(39:23):
kind of it. You finish theshow and you go, well, that
was swell. I'll see you peoplearound right, and you talk correctly about
you know, Little House of course, but father knows best. My mom
is still in contact with Billy andLauren, the actors who played her younger
siblings and throughout her life, JaneWyatt was a mother figure for my mom
(39:45):
and they would go out to lunchand dinner frequently, and Jane would offer
my mother, you know, counseland suggestions. And Jane, Jane was
so close that she was at mywedding. You know, we had We
still call each other up for stuff. I mean, Karen, I mean
that's his mom. And I'll tellyou Charlotte, the Miss Beatles, one
of you know, my besties.I'm besties with Miss Beadle. Now it's
(40:07):
very strange, but it's that kindof thing, now, how okay.
So of course, now of courseyou are father Ackerman. Uh back east?
Where are you know what? You'rein Virginia? No, I'm now
in Maryland, Maryland, Oh lovely, okay. And so you became you
became an Episcopalian priest. Yes,you know we well it started by being
(40:30):
an Episcopalian. It didn't help thatmy mother, who was not anything,
decided that when she and my dadwere married and my dad was adopting my
older brother, Brian, whom shehad quite secretly during father knows best,
my mother, you know, America'steenager, gave birth to a son and
that thing that you know, peopleback then didn't know what was going on,
(40:51):
but it was so Brian, myolder brother was getting baptized. My
mother decided, well I should bebaptist and it was the Episcopal church.
They decided to go to All Saints, Beverly Hills, and she was pregnant
with me. No problem except afterbaptism at the Saturday night service called the
Easter Vigil, the Saturday night beforeEaster, when baptisms happened, her water
(41:15):
broke on the way home. SoI was born on Easter Sunday. So
I think the die was cast destiny. But what happened was I was on
Friends. I was active in myepiscopal church. Marie and our kids were
going to so many churches now inmy life, Saint Michael and All Angels
and Studio City, and I realizedon Friends, I wasn't fulfilled. Here.
(41:42):
I could pick up the phone andcall the representative from Nike who handled
the Friend's show. Anything that Friendsneeded, they would supply. All I
had do was call up the phoneand say I need a new pair of
running shoes, and the next dayI would have shoes, shirts, socks,
everything on my desk and I wasn'tfulfilled. And I said, Okay,
I love my church, I lovemy family. Why am I not
(42:07):
loving my job? What's here?And so I took a leap of faith,
no pun intended, and I justleft television. I went working a
nine to five job in a propertymanagement office, getting the same pay I
was getting on friends, just workingnormal hours. So that was great.
And soon my church said, hey, we're looking to put somebody on staff
(42:28):
part time as our youth leader.Would you be interested? And I said
yeah, and I started doing thatand then the parish administrator job opened up
and it fit everything else I'd beendoing and was doing. So I took
that job. And people in thechurch, the clergy, the parents of
the youth, other people have startedto say to me, have you ever
(42:50):
thought about becoming a priest? There'ssomething about you? And I had done
the same thing, and there's awhole discernment process. And my bishop wanted
me to go to Virginia. Sowe moved to Virginia. Ended up staying
in Virginia for fifteen years, onlythree of it was schooling, and we
liked it out here. Twenty nineteen, my wife and our son and I
(43:12):
moved our daughter lives in Chicago.Now, we moved back to California,
to Lodi, California, and itjust wasn't a good fit. And COVID
happened and we realized raising up ourkids on the East Coast that was home
now, so we returned here.In the Episcopal Church, we clergy can
find our own jobs. So wejust look at the listings and we apply
and interview, and that makes itkind of easier to move around. And
(43:37):
that's why I'm now in Maryland.That's crazy and it's a fabulous thing in
the book. And you also talkedin the book about your sobriety being a
major factor as well. Yeah,yeah, I've been sober now for twelve
years. And it's you know,when I was a kid, my dad
(43:59):
would dan when he came home fromwork, and he would change. He
was a very alphable, affable fellow, and he would change. It was
just something dark. And I rememberone day as a kid saying to him,
Dad, you know when you drink, you change. Could you not
drink anymore? He said, Hegave me something like, okay, thank
you for letting me know, Peter, and nothing changed, and I didn't
(44:22):
pay attention, but I started toget this little tapping that I was going
down the same road one. Iwas drinking every night since I was in
my twenties. And you know,I again drank every night. I'm ordained
priest and I'm drinking every night.And when my daughter was young, she
(44:45):
came up to me and said,Dad, when you drink, you change,
could you not? Oh, notanymore? And I said, thank
you for letting me know, Amy, I'll attend to that. And I
didn't, and yeah, and Ihad my sobriety came in an amazing way.
I was a typical night of drinkingand concluded I was in bed.
(45:07):
I made it to bed. Thistime Marie was sleeping next to me,
and I woke up around three inthe morning, staring at the ceiling,
stone cold, sober, and aconversation started in my head and in my
voice, and I said, I'man alcoholic And I answered, so what
does that mean? And I saidit means I am not going to drink
(45:28):
anymore. And I then said tomyself, how are you going to do
that? And I said, Iguess I'm going to go to one of
those meetings. And I went onthe computer. Thankfully computers are around now,
and I found a meeting at sevenam in northern Virginia, where we
lived at the time, and theroad to happy destiny began there. Wow.
Wow, that's did it freak youout? Though? To have your
(45:52):
daughter literally come to you and sayexactly the same thing that you said your
father, did that feel weird?It felt weird in the fact that as
an alcoholic, we pretend, andwe're really good at fooling ourselves. I
pretended that I wasn't and that Ididn't have a problem. And when I
heard that, I think what Idid was I told her the right thing,
(46:12):
and then I drank it away soI would have to face it.
Because now that I look back onit, I know exactly how I was
feeling. I was caught. Shecaught me. You know, I was
a psychologist will have a field daywith it. But I was trying to
show my dad how it's done.My dad would change. I was going
to show you could drink and justbe happy and have a good time,
and that's it. And I endedup becoming just like my dad was he
(46:38):
over time. He never went intoany rooms that I know of, never
admitted to anything. His drinking didchange. He went from hard liquors to
beer and wine, and that easedup somewhat in the experience of his drinking.
So I don't know. I can'tsay he was in nineteen ninety one
(47:01):
at the age of seventy eight.I can't say that he was an alcoholic
because he never admitted it himself.But I know I drank exactly like he
did, and I acted like hedid when I drank, and I know
I'm an alcoholic. So that's whythat personality change in Ding Ding Ding Ding
Ding Ding, you know, butjust incredible. So how now do you
(47:24):
look at, you know, thetelevision industry and growing up from the perspective
of someone who's in episcopalitia increase someonenow with such a spiritual basis of living.
How do you look back now onthe industry? Does it seem different?
Or you must be really relieved thatyou had the family that you had
at least? Yeah, I believeme. I milked. I've milked my
(47:45):
experiences. Part of the reason Iwrote my book, Mom, Dad,
Me and Classic TV is that Iwould share my stories as kind of sermon
stories. So I'd open up asermon, you know, telling about the
time I was on Batman and thishappened iffact. I don't just tell it,
but if there's a way to weaveit into the text, you know,
(48:06):
we great, great way to getthe congregation to wake up but fall
asleep during a certain that as longas you can get the story to be
as part part of the tie upof the sermon as well. And so
the point is really on the scripture. In the Episcopal Church, we're on
what's called electionary, so we knowany given Sunday what the readings are.
So sometimes I'm looking at the readingsand I'm like, Okay, this is
(48:27):
where I feel God's calling me topreach on for my congregation. And then
I'll think, what's a good storyto tie in with this theme? And
I'll say, oh, I know, And so I weave in Hollywood stories,
not all the time, but frequently. So I'm milk my Hollywood past.
And people have kept saying to me, you should put those into a
book, you should put them intoa book. And finally I listened.
(48:51):
I'm so glad you did. Wherecan people find you? Where can they
find your book? Where can theytalk to you? You're on you have
a website, where where do wefind you? I have a full time
vocation. I'm not I'm not intothis author thing, so I don't have
it on TikTok. Then I dohave a Facebook page, and of course
there's a lot of Peter Ackerman's outthere, including a Peter Rackerman producer.
(49:15):
So if you put in my middleinitial K, that will help your And
then I've also got on Facebook asmall page devoted to my book Mom,
Dad, Me and Classic. I'vehad people that want to have a book
signed, they buy it, theyI can arrange them to mail it to
me and I'll sign it and sendit back to them, and you know,
(49:37):
and they can order it. Igot I have it on Kindle.
I totally order and Kindle and it'sfabulous and uh so they can get it.
Did you do an audiobook as well? No, Bear Me bear Manner
Media is my publish bear man LoveBear Manner. Yeah, great books,
great books, and they in mycontract with them it said I could opt
(50:00):
to do the audio if I hadthe equipment. And I'm not a voiceover
person, and during COVID I lookedinto it. I just don't have the
wherewithal to make the sound room andall that. So I don't know that
it's going to be made into anaudiobook. Barnes and Noble carries it,
Amazon carries it in hyperms hardcovers,and as you said, digitally, never
(50:22):
know. Because our our fabulous MissbeadleLesa Charlotte Storre. A lot of my
friends who went with Bear Manner,and a couple of them said, oh,
okay, well I did a separatedeal with did an audiobook, so
there's there's hope for you yet.Well I'll check that out. But yeah,
no, it's it's a marvelous bookfor anyone if if you like Once
upon a Time in Hollywood and lovethe stories of how TV began and Millard
(50:44):
don Hue and fabulous stories of achild going wait what is happening? Oh
look, everyone's on TV? Fantasticand then a whole story of just of
yes, of finding yourself and yourtrue calling is. It's a marvelous book
and will told and you you clearlyadore your family. They come really jump
off the page as lovely people.Then they are so thank you Allison.
(51:07):
All right, well, thank youso much for coming on and thank you
and I'm Alison argument. This isthe Allison Arm Show.
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