B004YENES8 EBOK (24 page)

On my back, in traction, and on the job. Not sure how I got away with smoking a cigar at Cedars-Sinai Hospital.

Photo: Rosenzweig Personal Collection

Chapter 26 

CHOCOLATE AND VANILLA 

I was beginning my second week of traction and back treatments at Cedars-Sinai hospital, when Terry Louise Fisher called with the news that CBS hated the script on the biological clock episode. We were within two weeks of shooting this material, and the network wanted major changes. They were even willing to go back to the original idea they had once rejected—let Cagney be pregnant and miscarry. At least, they said, that had some action and drama.

Terry, Peter, and I had all come to love the compromise we had been forced into and did not want to return to the original notion. Peter indicated to me that Terry was in a funk about all this, and so I told them both not to despair. They didn’t even have to meet with Barr or anyone else at the network; I would handle it and call for a meeting at the hospital. Tony agreed to meet with me in my room at Cedars and even brought his assistant, Karen Cooper.

After the amenities were over, I asked to hear their notes on Terry’s script. I was attentive as they recited every predictable complaint you could possibly imagine. The bottom line was that the picture was, in that pre-
Seinfeld
era, “about nothing,” that it had “no action,” was “talky,” and, as if that were not enough, a “major bore.” They felt there would be no one left in America to watch the less-than stirring conclusion I had all but dictated.

I acknowledged their concerns, conceded the possibility that they might be right, and disarmed them with the news that I had a solution. Having said that, I then went on to state that I did not
believe
they were right and that, while they were presenting a unified front on their side, I had Lefcourt, Fisher, Gless, Daly, and Corday on my side.

“We all love the script,” I said. I went on, “Here, then, is the problem. You say it’s vanilla, and I say it’s chocolate. I can do a lot of things to this, but I can’t make it vanilla. I will never be able to satisfy you or your notes on this script.”

I think they assumed my solution was that I therefore had another script we could get ready in time for production. Nope. The solution was that they pull the plug on this, the last of our contracted-for seven episodes.

“Let’s make six,” I said. “I’m sure I can get Orion to come around. The six should be more than enough for Shephard to make his pickup decision one way or the other, so no hard feelings.” This was a major bluff. The cost to Orion of one less episode into which they could divide all the costs of doing business on our series would have been in the tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands. I wouldn’t have flinched even if I wasn’t in traction.

“We’re not going to pull any plug,” said Mr. Barr. “You’ve made too many good episodes and done too much good work for us not to honor your desire to make this one your way.”

They understood that I could not accomplish their notes. They got it that they would never like this episode and could only hope that there would be a next season and that I would then see eye to eye with them, based on what—they were totally convinced—would be a learning experience for me.

I thanked them, and we parted pals. Well, they parted. I was still in traction.

A week later, I was finally released from the hospital and, against the doctor’s advice, immediately went back to work. Sharon was basically content with our biological clock episode and seemed most concerned with the two scenes involving Ron, the new confidante created for her by Terry Louise, as the Cagney counterpart to Harvey Lacey. Ron was a new neighbor, and he would be single, good-looking, but gay. He and Cagney were to become pals.

Why gay? Our thinking was, if Cagney needed someone to talk to other than Lacey, we did not want this person to be another woman; that would just compete with what we already had. If he were a heterosexual male, then the romantic possibilities clogged things up for us. The character of her father (played by Dick O’Neill ) really didn’t work that well for us in certain areas, so, quite naturally, we came up with this. Terry had written him wonderfully well.

Meanwhile, broadcast standards continued to plague us on language concerning the pregnancy test stuff in the script, among other things Cagney’s line where she needed to excuse herself from a conversation with her new neighbor because it was time for her to “pee in a bottle.”

I met and read several actors for the part of Ron, the new neighbor. Sharon participated in the process. One Saturday (so selected because Ms. Gless’s shooting schedule didn’t give us time on a weekday), Sharon and Terry Louise came to my house for a script conference, mostly on the Ron scenes. That same afternoon the new
Ms.
magazine arrived, and our return to the airwaves was also featured nicely. I was feeling good as it was my only day (thus far) sans back brace. Sunday I spent at Lacy Street preparing for Monday night’s presentation for the National Organization for Women’s fund-raising event for the L.A. Chapter, which amounted to putting together film clips from all of our—as yet to be broadcast—new season’s work.

The following day, I met with Harvey Shephard. I wanted to push him for more promotion money and more publicity for the show, but, almost before my pitch began, Shephard interrupted. He wanted to know if we had cast our seventh episode yet. I thought it a strange question on such a minor issue (considering it was coming from the head of network programming). When I said we hoped to be fully cast that same afternoon and that we would start shooting in forty-four hours, he lowered the boom.

It was a major mistake, he believed, for Cagney’s new confidante to be gay. He pointed out how much resistance the show already had in small-town America, how “they” had yet to accept mature, working women as leads.

“Please,” he begged me, “win that fight before you take on another.”

He felt that I might be undoing all the hard work that had been, and was being, done to save this show. I was not prepared for this broadside.

I told Shephard I would do what I could, but I was in turmoil inside. What would I tell the writers? What would I tell Sharon, who had already registered her enthusiasm for, at last, getting her own version of a Harvey Lacey? I didn’t have a clue. Following this, Mr. Shephard went on to assure me of his good will toward the series and of his intention to do even more to promote the show. I staggered out of this meeting in which I got all I could have asked for, but there was no joy due to this new wrinkle.

I canceled my public speaking engagement at my step-daughter’s school,
⁴³
telephoned the writers to alert them, returned to Lacy Street to tell Sharon and confront my then-despondent writing staff.

We needed a substitute for Cagney’s gay neighbor. “Let it be the brother!” (I was pushing hard for Cagney’s long-estranged/California-based brother to be the one with whom our heroine could confer). Terry and Peter were glassy-eyed, as they knew few of the jokes in the script worked with the brother. Still, they would try to make my fix work.

Sharon was terrific. She saw how difficult this was for me and immediately shifted into her team-player mode. If I had asked her to help me fight CBS on this, she would have—I am sure—gone to the wall with me. Both of us realized this was no time to make such a stand. We wanted to live to fight another day.

All afternoon was spent polishing the reels for that night’s presentation to a hundred-plus paying guests. I could not, in the time allowed and with my back aching, and with my mind on this script problem, get this down to less than an hour. Too long—too bad.

The evening began as I was being driven to the screening room. (I could not drive due to my back injury.) As we left Lacy Street, I was handed the new
TV Guide
with a “Welcome Back
Cagney & Lacey
” article by Erich Segal. The essay was a three-page love letter to the series. I had never imagined anything like this. It was a glowing commentary by a respected writer, published in a magazine with more viewers interested in television than any other in the world, and all on the eve of our premiere. It was staggering. Then the screening, which was greeted by cheers, tears, and a standing ovation! It is what most people would consider a triumphant day. I only mention this with any hedge at all to indicate how distracted I was by the morning’s meeting with Shephard.

I retired at 11 pm with a sleeping pill, a new addition to my life due to the back injury. At 4AM, I awoke with a start. The brother solution would not work. I had given the writers an impossible fix. I went to my den and began writing, completing the two requisite scenes by 7:30AM.

At 9:30, Lefcourt arrived at my house to discuss Terry’s new pages. I presented him with mine, and Terry’s went into the dumper. My solution worked and survived (with minor modifications) that afternoon’s reading and that evening’s meeting with Sharon. I then went to approve the dub on the first episode and concluded my twenty-hour day at 11:40 pm.

I slept well, despite a horrific nightmare, and awoke to discover we were in
The New York Times
with an interview with me and a reminder that production on the much-maligned biological clock episode was finally under way. A good start to a good day.

Oh, yes, there is more. The broadcast standards notes on language also came to a head (no pun intended). In trying to make some “horse trades” with them, I pointed out the good news that Ron was no longer gay. “Oh no,” they moaned. “We felt he was a good image for the gay community.” Sometimes it is very hard to keep up in this business.

A digression or two is in order for those who keep score on such things:

My fix turned out to be, at best, a band-aid. I converted Ron to a heterosexual recently out of a long and (he thought) loving marriage; he was, thus, too damaged to be fair game for Ms. Cagney. We cast it, shot it, but I eventually excised the entire subplot, along with most references to the new neighbor from the finished filmed product. (Among other things this meant losing the hard-won line about peeing in a bottle.) Terry Louise Fisher’s creation of the gay neighbor would finally appear in our last two seasons on the air (86–87 and 87–88) with nary a whimper from CBS. Barry Sattels played the part, and Ms. Fisher, then with
L.A. Law
, objected to our use of this character she had created until we reminded her that she had fashioned this work while on the
Cagney & Lacey
payroll, specifically for
Cagney & Lacey
, and that the character was, therefore, owned by Orion and
Cagney & Lacey
. We also pointed out that she had been cashing her character reuse fees on a regular basis without previously mentioning any kind of problem. The objection was quickly dropped.

The day of our opening night arrived, and with it excellent to out-and-out rave reviews for our episode of “Matinee.” The biggest cloud on my horizon—the almost all-consuming concern as to what I would do or say if reactions were a yawn and the response was “What was all the fuss about?”—was lifted. I had, it seemed, been living under that shadow forever.

The next day’s overnight ratings were incredible—high 30s and low 40s. We were all (me, Shephard, Rosenbloom, Corday) in disbelief. How amazing this would all work so well. The world was calling, commenting on the quality and content of the episode, and now the numbers as well.

The national numbers, revealed twenty-four hours after the overnights, fulfilled the promise of the earlier ratings: A 21.9 rating and a 38 share. It was a truly phenomenal set of numbers for CBS on a Monday night. My feelings were strange: first, exhilaration; next, concern (how big would next week’s almost-certain drop-off be?); then, excitement again. The primary reaction was tiredness. I felt like the only wrestler left standing in the ring after a “Louisiana Death Match.” The previous day I had had plenty of energy. Perhaps, I speculated, it was simply the rarified atmosphere of success to which I was having trouble adjusting.

Everyone was buzzing about us.
Donahue
wanted the women to fly to Chicago and be on his show. We’d been trying to get on his program for a year, and now he was asking us. I do love to win!

Tony Barr, of course, was the one who called with the numbers initially. He was quite pleased but noted that the blue
⁴⁴
pages on “Choices” (our biological clock episode) hadn’t helped him at all. I reminded him that I had once told him I could not satisfy his notes and that it was silly for us to argue now as the episode was in the final stages of production. He agreed but just wanted to log a reminder for next season. We were all beginning to assume there would be one.

The ensuing week we scored again: a 35 share. We were actually rated ahead of
60 Minutes
, an unbelievable coup for CBS on a Monday. If Shephard’s months-ago statement held, that only March numbers would count, then our pickup for next season seemed assured.

On April 5, I attended my final rough-cut screening of the season at CBS ; it was “Choices.” Though I was steadfast in my approval of the episode, I was now steeled for the worst. My best-case scenario was that perhaps I would get a “not bad” from Tony Barr or a “not as bad as I feared” kind of comment.

As the film came to a close and with the lights not quite yet fully illuminated in the CBS projection room, Tony Barr got to his feet. “It’s an
Emmy
show,” he exclaimed. He went on to state that this episode would bring Sharon her
Emmy
.
⁴⁵
Barr then extolled the direction (Karen Arthur ) and closed by admitting he was completely wrong; he said he could not visualize from the script how perfectly this would play.