Authors: Barney Rosenzweig
38
Leo Corday was a lyricist of such modest hits as “There’s No Tomorrow,” “How Many Stars Have to Shine,” and “Take a Little Off the Top.” His most famous work was the Chevrolet theme, made famous by singer Dinah Shore.
39
Reference is to the then-current feature film
Heaven Can Wait
, starring Beatty and based on the earlier Robert Montgomery vehicle
Here Comes Mr. Jordan
.
40
It was doing worse than we had done and, in this new year of 1984, was averaging less than a 20 share of audience.
41
Then in charge of networks on-air promo and advertising campaigns.
42
“Bounty Hunter” was one of the best episodes we made and featured a terrific (and rare for us) guest star appearance, in this case from Brian Dennehy. Bill Duke directed with some help from James Frawley. Script was written by Steve Brown. Mr. Dennehy, with his appearance on Broadway in
Death of a Salesman
, became one of the many
Tony
Award-winning performers connected with our show.
43
Barbara’s only child, Evan Corday, was then entering adolescence and attending a private high school in Los Angeles. Today she is a successful literary agent in Hollywood.
44
Each set of script changes is put out in a different color. Blue is the first set of changes, pink the second, and on and on through goldenrod. The original script— or first draft—is on white paper.
45
Mr. Barr’s prediction aside, Tyne Daly would win again, this time for her work in our episode “The Baby Broker.” I agreed with Mr. Barr’s assessment, however, and made “Choices” our official entry with the Academy for Best Series over Lefcourt’s urgings to submit “Baby Broker.” To this day, Lefcourt claims we would have won had I followed his advice. To imply that I would listen to Barr over Lefcourt is to ignore my earlier statement: “Choices” was always a strong personal favorite of mine.
46
Black/jazz slang meaning “issue” or “problem.”
47
Exceptions might have been
Dynasty, Dallas
, and some of the soaps, which had extremely high license fees and few production requirements outside of studio control. Since soaps have never had much residual value, due to their serialized nature, they had always commanded top dollars from the networks, hence lower or nonexistent deficits. For the rest of us, it was not uncommon for programs such as
Hill Street Blues
to be running at a six-figure per episode deficit while a year later
Miami Vice
would rack up deficits of over a quarter million
per
episode—more than five million dollars per year.
48
I take some pride that without any push from me—in fact without any foreknowledge on my part at all—the Museum of Television & Radio used this brief sequence of my shots in their collage of television moments of the past fifty years.
49
Literally means “major force,” such as war or labor strike or other things prohibiting a firm from conducting business. What it comes down to is giving the company the right to suspend and extend contracts and make no payment on them.
50
This last sentence was a phrase used regularly in meetings with the writing staff and alludes to the title of the John Ford Noonan play
A Couple of White Chicks Sitting Around Talking
.
51
It was always part of my plan to expand from our unrealistic seven-day shoot to an eight-day. Now the Daly pregnancy made that a virtual necessity.
52
By Cap-Cities. The men at ABC who had made so many bad decisions that had resulted in the stock being devalued (which allowed this takeover to happen) were now each rewarded with millions as part of their buyout. Justice indeed.
53
A scorpion asks a camel for a ride on its back so as to cross the Nile. “No,” says the camel, “you are poisonous, and if I let you ride on my back, you will sting me and I will die.” “Nonsense,” says the scorpion, “then I, too, would also die when you sink in the Nile.” That made sense to the camel, and so a bargain was struck. Midway across the river, much to the camel’s surprise, the scorpion stings him. Immediately the poison rushes through his veins, and, as he is dying, the camel asks why. Why this betrayal, especially since it will only result in both their deaths? “It’s my nature,” says the scorpion. Just for the record, I know of one other rejoinder from the scorpion, which is again delivered after a shrug: “It’s the Middle East,” he says.
54
The date of our unusually early start, necessitated by Tyne’s condition.
55
Besides the aforementioned winners, Sharon Gless, writer Deborah Arakelian, composer Nan Schwartz, and supporting actor John Karlen were also nominated.
56
It was good enough to become our season’s premier episode, directed by Alex Singer and written by Cynthia Darnell.
57
“The Clinic,” written by Judy Merl & Paul Eric Myers and directed by Alex Singer.
58
Refers to the span of time or number of calendar days during which a series may be shot without incurring penalty payments to the actors. By going eight days per episode, instead of seven, we were automatically adding twenty-two extra shooting days to the overall schedule. The possibility of violating “the span,” therefore, became a real economic issue.
59
MTM shows, always among the most expensive to produce thanks to an almost-exclusive policy of hiring hyphenates to run their shows, had
Hill Street
listed as their most expensive. Cost issues came to a head in 1983 when NBC bought another show from Bochco,
Bay City Blues.
That was canceled after four low-rated episodes and, coupled with increased costs on that series plus
Hill Street
(which Bochco resisted efforts to reduce), proved to be the last straw for MTM. Bochco was fired soon after the hundredth episode was filmed. No need to mourn; Bochco had another series commitment from NBC, so all that was needed was a new studio. Fox and Harris Katleman to the rescue, and
L.A. Law
was born. It might have given Rosenbloom, et al., pause that
Hill Street
was soon canceled after the Bochco departure.
60
The Bergmans’ lyrics include the songs from
Yentl
,
The Way We Were
and “Windmills of Your Mind” (the theme from
The Thomas Crown Affair
), to name only a few. The evening for Barbara was a smash, with Variety stating it was “produced perfectly.”
61
Producer of
Love Is Never Silent
and other classy projects.
62
None of our writing staff could possibly lay claim to the accolades that have come to their then-competitors: John Wells, Steven Bochco, David Kelley, David Milch, Michael Kozell, Marshall Hershkovitz, Ed Zwick, Winnie Holtzman, Glenn Gordon Caron, Linda Bloodworth, Barbara and Karen Hall. I salivate at the thought of what it might have been like to work with such talents. True as that is—as great as this list of writers was and is—none of them, in my obviously biased view, have a greater television series credit to their dossier than
Cagney & Lacey.
63
Reference is to classic (1942) award-winning film,
Yankee Doodle Dandy
, directed by Michael Curtiz, written by Robert Buckner and Edmund Joseph, with uncredited writing by Julius and Philip Epstein. Actor James Cagney received the
Oscar
in a career-defining role as George M. Cohan .
64
Starring Jack Lemmon (for which he won the Best Actor
Oscar
) and Jack Gilford, written by Steve Shagen, directed by John Avildsen, and produced by my old pal and Filmways alum, Ed Feldman
65
In this context, a show business term referring to a black actor who also has appeal to white audiences. There are more and more notable examples every day, and far too many to mention. A very nice contrast to my early days in the business when the only one who would come to mind was Sidney Poitier.
66
My first
Emmy
nomination was in 1982 for the eight-hour miniseries John Steinbeck’s
East of Eden
, but I lost that year to
Shogun
.
67
Yiddishism meaning craziness, aggravation, or tumult. Pronounced mish e goss.
68
At that time, South Africa was still in the grip of apartheid, and many artists were asked to support boycotts of the offensive regime. Orion would authorize my promise to Tyne not to distribute the series in South Africa as long as the country continued its policy of apartheid.
69
Our seven nominees: Tyne, Sharon, the show itself, Karlen, guest stars Peggy McCay and James Stacy (first time the category of Performance by a Guest Star in a Dramatic Episode was established, and the only coed acting category in the
Emmy
award structure), and Georg Stanford Brown for direction of a television series episode.
70
Episode referenced is “The Gimp,” written by Cynthia Darnell, story by Norm Chandler Fox, directed by Sharron Miller. Since Stacy himself was an amputee and not a paraplegic, once cast he balked at playing the part from a wheelchair. That the character be “wheelchair bound” was an important story point, and I was very forceful in advising James that we had hired his talent and whatever empathic feelings he might access, not his particular/unique handicap.
71
Not only were the BBC ratings on the show huge, that network would rerun the entire series three separate times in prime time. At that time such a thing had never happened before in the UK.
72
“Turn, Turn, Turn” Part I, written by Georgia Jeffries; “Turn, Turn, Turn” Part II, written by Shelley List & Jonathan Estrin. Both episodes directed by Sharron Miller.
73
“Turn, Turn, Turn” Parts I and II for the National Council on Alcoholism.
74
Gene Jankowski, then head of the entire CBS network and ranked over Bud Grant and Kim LeMasters.
75
1987
Emmy
nominees were the show, Sharon, Tyne, John Karlen, editing (Jeanene Ambler for “Turn, Turn, Turn” Part and Georgia Jeffries for “Turn, Turn, Turn” Part II)