B004YENES8 EBOK (13 page)

All the conversations concerning billing—and all the contracts on this issue— were all about position on screen on the show’s titles. Nothing had been said about publicity and advertising. Often times this comes into play in the movie business where, besides newspapers and magazines, advertising includes the lobby displays and marquees of the theater. There are no lobby displays or marquees in television and precious few print ads. Still, it was enough.

Then—a significant sin of omission: Tyne was not told. Her contract was revised upward to receive equal money with her costar. She was given assurance of equal treatment in accommodations and whatever other perks had been granted Ms. Gless, and she was to receive top billing on screen in every other episode. Her final concession was that she would take top billing on the even-numbered episodes, thus assuring Ms. Gless top billing on the first show, an odd number and, coincidentally, our opening night. This is usually the show reviewers across the country see, comment on, and write about. It is this episode from which they invariably record the billing of the series.

This is where Tyne, managing her own affairs, didn’t get as much for herself as I had offered her in the first place. Her contract, unlike Sharon’s, simply neglected to say anything about publicity and advertising. Had Tyne accepted to the right and higher, everyone in the industry would have understood that this was the closest thing to equality there is in Hollywood billing disputes. By negotiating for herself and angering me (her primary ally) in the process, she wound up with second billing in all publicity and advertising and second position on the only episode that really mattered: the one that opened the season.

None of that was of any import at the end of the first week in June 1982. I had delivered on my pledge to supply Sharon Gless; Corday was supervising the clothes shopping for the Cagney look; April Smith and her cohorts were writing; and our production staff was busily making preparations to commence principal photography. The first of our thirteen-show order would be before the cameras in a matter of weeks.

Monique James and her beautiful client, Sharon Gless, in my favorite picture of this duo.

Photo: Rosenzweig Personal Collection

Chapter 16 

LETTING GO … AND OTHER FAILURES 

I could now turn my attention to fulfilling my obligations to Gary Nardino and Paramount by actually trying to earn the right to the splendid offices in which I was ensconced.

Modesty Blaise
was now in the past: “toast” as some say in Hollywood. I began to develop new projects under my Paramount deal. I went to work with Gil Grant on a couple of scripts, with Ronald Cohen on a third, with award-winning writer Sidney Carroll on a possible miniseries, and with a relatively new writing team, Steve Brown & Terry Louise Fisher, on my old favorite,
This Girl for Hire
. I was determined to redevelop this as a movie-for-television, emulate
Cagney & Lacey
, and have it serve as a back-door pilot. This new-to-me writing team would work from the very succinct Avedon & Corday treatment.

I knew it was a possible series, so did Nardino, and so did our writers. I elected to tip off Shephard as well, saying I’d rather develop through my friends in his movie department—and then deal directly with him—instead of the “naysayers” in charge of series. Harvey Shephard understood.

At night I would make the 30–45 minute drive from Paramount Studios in Hollywood to L.A.’s west side to check in with April and her gang. I would even make an occasional late night appearance at our production center at Lacy Street, another drive of nearly an hour, depending on traffic. On the night of a Dodger game? Fuggetaboutit.

Most of the crew from the Meg Foster era was intact, but the place had changed. In order to make certain camera moves possible and to increase our efficiency, aspects of the set itself were altered. April had requested that Samuels be given an office with a view of the squad room instead of a desk right in the middle of everything as he had had in the first six shows. This request followed TV writing convention and made it somewhat easier for separate confrontations to be written and staged. It was also closer to that with which she was familiar from
Lou Grant
.

April also brought some further attention to detail that I thought was valuable and that became an integral part of our series. It was she who insisted on the conceit of having the dramas appear to take place at the same season of the year they would air. Thus, even though it was summer in Los Angeles as we filmed, if the episode would be broadcast in November, then it called for heavy coats and scarves to be issued. It did more than add verisimilitude; it also brought something to the show I had not anticipated—a continuity of character. Now one episode would follow its predecessor just as the spring follows the winter. I had never done this, really never considered it before. It was April’s idea and one that our cast took full advantage of as they “strung their beads.”

We were not a serial, but the characters were to become more and more serialized. It’s true each episode had a beginning, middle, and end and could stand on its own, but now the actors could treat their work as evolving characters in a novel. Cagney and Lacey would unfold, and change, as events impacted on their lives.

In my previous series experience, 90 percent of the episodes could be run in any order. What April was proposing made it a bit more complicated to produce but infinitely more satisfying to watch.

She also moved the Laceys from Manhattan to Queens (much more plausible given the Laceys’ economic status) and altered the decor of Cagney’s loft. She encouraged me to try a different style of music for the underscore, and, although we didn’t agree on the result, the music certainly changed and, I believe, for the better. She also wrote “Recreational Use,” which, in my judgment, was the single best script ever delivered on our series.
²⁴

Of all the writers I worked with on this show, April Smith had the greatest impact and made the finest creative contribution. What then went wrong?

It wasn’t just the lack of humor in the episodes; for years I continued to try getting more and better jokes into the show no matter who was on the writing staff. It wasn’t the lack of political commitment, although this was a problem for me. April not only didn’t seem interested in feminism, she appeared downright opposed to it. (One early episode, “Affirmative Action,” was, on paper, one of the most flagrant examples of Queen Bee-ism I have ever read, and only the sympathetic performances by Sharon and Tyne—and the former’s comedy instincts—elevated that negative piece of material to the point where its anti-feminism tack was pretty much neutralized.)

It wasn’t April’s lack of experience in production or post-production, for she quickly acknowledged my superiority in post and gradually began to defer to our production manager on most matters in that arena.

What it came down to was our inability to work together on any kind of a collaborative basis. I had promised her I would be an absentee boss—that the show would be hers to run. After giving her relative autonomy on a few episodes and seeing what I felt were opportunities squandered, I found I could no longer stand by while my views and offers of help were scarcely heeded.

April was talented. Many of her ideas were unique and top drawer, but the episodes themselves were not working, not living up to their potential at all. Further, Ms. Smith was not, in my judgment, showing signs of maturing in the job or giving any indication that she would listen to anyone’s suggestions. Corday had given up. So had Rosenbloom, whose solution was to try to find a replacement for Joe Stern, to find a producer he could respect who could get control over this series, and to put a rein on Ms. Smith and her writing gang. For this he was prepared to pay top dollar. It was not the sort of thing you heard from Rosenbloom or Orion, and it certainly indicated just how desperate he had become.

I was spending more and more time on
Cagney & Lacey
, trying to undo what I perceived as the damage being done during the day by reediting the film material at night. I also was indefatigable in my attempts to impose my views on the scripts.

Meanwhile, I did put a good face on our troubles with the network and with Tyne and Sharon. Ms. Gless was quite good on film I thought, but, in the first week or so of filming, Corday and April were less than sanguine. They took the actress to lunch, women to woman, to discuss their feelings and to suggest ways Sharon might change her performance. The actress listened but basically ignored their instructions.

I was not unpleased. On the contrary, I felt Ms. Gless was asserting herself and demonstrating an amazing contrast to her predecessor, finding humor on the page even where it was not written. The actress was now in fast company with better material and more of it than had been part of her previous series experience.

She had an instinctive kind of timing that was working, and yet she remained insecure. Tyne was the vaunted dramatic actress. Sharon, on the other hand, had no such reputation. One TV reporter smirked in print that Gless came from the Copacabana School of Acting.

I believed, and Joe Stern agreed, that what we were getting was quite special. Meg Foster was a fine actress but somehow never claimed the role as her own. The show with Meg was more Lacey & Cagney than the other way round. Now the screen was being vested with behaviorisms (many invented by the actresses themselves) that defined who these people were and how they were different: Cagney was always first through the door. Lacey drank coffee from a pottery mug; Cagney from a Styrofoam cup (the nester/the transient). Cagney could never look at her watch without winding it, and so on.

We began to do things to augment this, not only in the writing, but in the way things were photographed. The Lacey character, like so many working women, was not only being asked to do her full-time job, but to be a full partner at home and mother to her children. She could best be described in one word: tired. Still, as if it were
The Enchanted Cottage
, we photographed her more tenderly, more lovingly, at home. With the addition of Gless, Lacey’s partnership with Cagney fell into proper balance. We could, therefore, more effectively deal with the characters’ differences in terms of expressions of ambition, social and moral responsibility, and their individual attitudes toward their profession.

They didn’t always catch the bad guy. That was just not done in television twenty-five years ago. We almost snuck this by CBS, but Tony Barr wouldn’t have it. April begged me to take this fight. I did, and we won.

But these things aside, the show itself left a great deal to be desired. Nardino wasn’t happy either.

“Barney, this really is unfair,” he said. “Either give up that series and come to work here full-time or give me relief on my deal.”

Leaving Paramount had me sacrificing six figures of guaranteed compensation, my lovely, pretentious office, and—should one of my various projects there ever get off the ground—a lot of upside potential. Nonetheless, Nardino was right. I phoned Rosenbloom.

“I found the producer you’re looking for,” I said. Rosenbloom was ecstatic when he heard it was me. I was only going to do it until we got on track. There was no way they would pay me what I could get in the marketplace, but I wanted this show to be launched properly. The money problem was not only their penury, but that other factor that would dog me and this series for years, Mace Neufeld.

“I’ll work for the non-exclusive executive producer fees you’re already paying me,” I said, “but I want several things in return.” I asked for Rosenbloom to take on the payroll my assistant, PK Knelman, and my secretary, Adam Chuck . I wanted him to bear the costs of my move down to Lacy Street and, finally, I wanted everyone who was in the West Los Angeles office and who was connected with the show to be moved down there as well: editors and their equipment, along with April and her staff. I did not want to spend my life on the freeway. Rosenbloom agreed to every point without a whimper. Joe Stern’s office would be quickly cleaned out for my arrival, and construction crews would appear over the weekend to build the cubicles inside the Lacy Street edifice that would house writers and editors. It would take weeks to even partially work out the kinks of inadequate air-conditioning, heating, plumbing, and soundproofing in that nearly one hundred year-old structure. It would not take nearly so long for April and me to come into direct conflict with one another.

I thought I could be a coupon clipper, a grandfather to this project I had conceived. If that was ever possible, it was not to be with April Smith. She had been reared in the MTM
²⁵
school that traditionally allowed great freedom to its writer-producers. April had basked in the reflected creative light of Gene Reynolds and Jim Brooks on
Lou Grant
. She had apprenticed under Seth Freeman on that same show. She had, in reality, produced little, if anything. The opportunity to do more would have been in her future on that MTM series, if only the Ed Asner vehicle had remained on the air another season or two. That hadn’t happened, and so the chance was denied her. Now she was getting her break on
Cagney & Lacey
. Well, not exactly. She had to deal with me.

I like to feel I am a reasonable, even benevolent, despot. I engage in debate with my staff. I like to create the impression of a non-totalitarian environment. I might say, for instance, “If I cannot convince you of the efficacy of my argument with my argument, well then, I will reexamine my argument.” But that is not necessarily as democratic as it appears.

First of all, I am glib. I have a gift of gab. Few, particularly those in less powerful positions, can stand up to my verbal blitzkrieg. Second, there was passion; I cared deeply about what it was I did, and I approached the work with nearly religious fervor. Third, most of the time I had more experience than the person I was confronting. I’d just been at it longer and, invariably, on a day-to-day basis, put in more hours doing it. It was, therefore, tough to beat me in an argument on my subject unless you do what April did.

April would appear to listen, then do basically what she wanted in the first place. Not completely. She did defer to me in editorial. On the first filmed episode, she had spent twice the allotted (and budgeted) time closeted with our film editor, second-guessing herself so many times that the inordinate number of splice marks made it almost impossible to run the film through our projectors. She remained unhappy with the results. She then consented to viewing the film with me and watching how I might reedit the work. She was impressed, and when her loyal lieutenant Bob Crais viewed this latest version, she heeded his urging to turn over the supervising of the film editors to me.

By the time of our second episode, Corday had lost whatever consulting voice she might have had. Barbara’s few notes were disregarded, sometimes ridiculed. My spouse became so offended and was made to feel so impotent that she simply gave up and stopped contributing.

It was one thing for them to treat my friend, and Orion TV topper, Dick Rosenbloom as if he were some sort of cretin, but Corday was a fellow writer—the co-creator of this series. It was no small thanks to her that these people had jobs. Barbara Corday and her erstwhile partner, Barbara Avedon, saw to it that none of us, ever again, had to face the proverbial blank page. The hardest part of the writing had been done; the creation of the characters, the finding of their voices, the venue in which they operated, all that—plus a thirteen-show order with Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly —had been handed these writers. All of that seemed not to matter to the gang of four (as I had come to refer to them). They patronized me by relinquishing post-production. On everything else, it seemed, I was only to be paid lip service.