Eighty Is Not Enough: One Actor's Journey Through American Entertainment (29 page)

Eight Is Enough
was a family show at a time in America when family life had been challenged by a series of social changes, some of which were positive and others less so. When the pilot aired in 1977, Americans were just coming out of the rebellions of the 1960s and early 1970s. The Vietnam War had ended only a few years earlier, and the Watergate scandal had shaken confidence in public officials and institutions. Everyone living through that period knew that many of the values we cherished as Americans had been put to a severe test. As a result, I think there was a genuine desire among many people to restore a semblance of normalcy and stability in American life. That desire was reflected in the kind of television people chose to watch.

The enormous popularity of
Eight Is Enough
was, I suspect, connected to a feeling of comfort people experienced in watching the exploits—often harebrained exploits—of this big, loving and goofy family. The Bradfords were not wrapped up in war, economic crisis or the battle over America’s culture that had preoccupied the country for so long. For many people, the Bradfords represented a reaffirmation of the primacy of family life in a world that had long seemed consumed with other things.

But that’s not to say the show turned a blind eye to the world. I’ve always believed the writers of
Eight Is Enough
, particularly the creator and head-writer Bill Blinn, found just the right mix of that idyllic world inside the Bradford household with events outside the home that were not so idyllic. Bill had no desire to create just another family comedy with cardboard characters who lived uncomplicated lives. In an interview, Blinn noted that one appealing aspect of the book,
Eight Is Enough
is that Tom Braden had put up no pretenses: “Braden was flawed,” Blinn recalled. “His family was flawed. His kids were flawed. As we all are. And [Braden] acknowledged it.” That honesty caused the reader not only to recognize the family as realistic, but also to identify emotionally with the issues they confronted and the often less than perfect way they resolved them.

Being a family television show,
Eight Is Enough
episodes usually had happy endings. Yet in the process we managed to touch on a good number of themes carrying real lessons about the difficulties we all confront in life—especially in the years in which our children are coming of age—and how to better manage them in this rapidly changing world. There were episodes dealing with drug abuse, interracial dating, premarital sex, single parenthood and a great number of related topics that would have been considered off-limits for prime-time television just a few years earlier.

We were not the only show addressing such topics. Nor did we address them as strongly as others.
All in the Family
was a truly groundbreaking show, far more stark in raising such issues as bigotry than
Eight Is Enough
. There were others as well. But we did it in the context of a family that was not dysfunctional. If we dealt with divorce, it may have been a softer version, but it was represented in a world that was not angry or hostile toward marriage.

The most important recurring theme involved the difficulties of coming of age. There comes a time when children realize that life is not always what it seems. We began with eight different children, both boys and girls, so the writers could imagine the problems confronted by children at all different stages of development, and they did this with great success.

*  *  *

The casting of
Eight Is Enough
had been a difficult process. As Bill Blinn described it, the auditions were about more than just finding talented young actors. Bill recalls kids who were terrific standing alone, but less believable when matched with others. The key was getting the “chemistry” right. And even the final selections for the pilot episode turned out to be less than final. In fact, four of the eight original Bradford kids were replaced by the time the first season aired.

My head was also on the chopping block. It turns out Bill Blinn was opposed to my getting the part. He preferred an unknown actor, someone the public would see as a fresh face. And by this time, with my career now revived, that wasn’t me.

Through the years I came to greatly admire Bill’s work in writing and overseeing the development of the show. More than anyone, in my view, Bill was responsible for the great success of
Eight Is Enough
. But I’ll take the liberty of saying that on this one point, and with the benefit of hindsight, Bill may have gotten it wrong. Fortunately—and without my knowing it—I had friends in high places. Actually there was one friend, and he was in the very highest place—Fred Silverman, the President of ABC.

As I heard the story, after working with another actor for a few days, Fred thought the performances needed to be a little more upbeat and comical. Fred, an old fan of
I Remember Mama
, told the producers: “Dick Van Patten has a funny bone.” And that was that. As Bill Blinn commented in very good nature: “Silverman, one, Blinn, zero.” It certainly made me happy. In fact, I’ve never hesitated in saying that I owe everything to Fred Silverman. His decision propelled my career back to a place I hadn’t known since
Mama
closed down over twenty years earlier.

Like
I Remember Mama
,
Eight Is Enough
was designed to be a show with two parents sharing the task of raising their children. I had learned from
Mama
, as well as
The Goldbergs
, the importance of the mother’s character in the center of family life. Peggy Wood’s ability to fill that role had been central to
Mama’s
success. It was critical that the producers find someone equally gifted to play Tom Bradford’s wife, Joan.

I could not have been more pleased to learn that my friend, Diana Hyland, was in the running. Diana was a marvelous actress whom I had worked with in New York on
Young Doctor Malone
. I was delighted the day she called to say she landed the role. She seemed so happy at the time, and, once my own position was secured, we looked forward to working together for as long as the show lasted—hopefully for years.

Diana had just finished filming a television movie,
The Boy in the Plastic Bubble
. She was the mother of a child whose immune system had been so completely destroyed that he was forced to live in a sterile environment. She played that maternal role so beautifully that I have no doubt the producers of
Eight Is Enough
were hoping Diana would bring those same qualities to our show. Diana won an Emmy for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in
The Boy in the Plastic Bubble
. Sadly she would not live long enough to accept the award.

John Travolta played Diana’s son in the film. A talented young actor and dancer from Brooklyn, New York, John had not yet exploded into the American consciousness as the principal image of the new disco dance craze and a cultural icon of the 1970s. Although a good deal younger than Diana, the two fell in love on the set of The Boy in the Plastic Bubble. At the time there were some skeptics because of the age difference, but I can say from my own observations that John and Diana were deeply in love.

No one connected to
Eight Is Enough
knew Diana was dying of cancer. On every television series, the actors are required to obtain medical clearance from a studio doctor. Obviously it’s important for the producers to know if someone is ill. Continuity of characters in a series is critical, and the studios are investing tremendous sums of money, relying on the ability of the actors to continue playing their parts. It’s a mystery to me how the doctors could have missed diagnosing Diana’s cancer, which must have already advanced to a critical stage. But somehow they didn’t see it, and we were all extremely happy that Diana would be playing Joan Bradford.

As expected, Diana was wonderful in the pilot and the three following episodes. I still remember John Travolta picking her up at the studio. They seemed so genuinely happy together, it would have been hard to imagine that she was carrying a terrible burden. But the truth was that her cancer was rapidly progressing.

In retrospect, Diana’s final episode,
Turnabout
, held a really ironic twist. In it David, played by Grant Goodeve, began dating an older woman—David was nineteen and his new girlfriend, Jennifer, thirty. Tom was upset by the age difference and raised the issue to Joan at bedtime. He told her: “I just don’t understand how a mature, healthy woman can be attracted to someone David’s age.” Diana, as Joan, took David’s side: “Well, men can appreciate a firm young body, why should women be any different?”

I wonder if Diana was thinking of her own relationship with John Travolta during this discussion. In fact, there is a kind of eerie moment when the possibility is suggested in the show that this is some kind of Freudian fixation and that David is really in love with his mother. What makes it stranger, still, is that Grant Goodeve bore a bit of a resemblance to John, and the scenes between Grant and Diana took on an added component in light of all of this. I never asked him, but it’s hard to believe that Bill Blinn in writing the episode wasn’t in some way influenced by the real-life relationship between John and Diana—if not consciously, then perhaps at some deeper level. In any event, it was another example of
Eight Is Enough
taking on the somewhat controversial topic of age differences in relationships, while still continuing to present an image of family wholesomeness.

Shortly after we began filming the first season, Diana became too sick to continue. At first she seemed to have some kind of injury, but after just four episodes, she would never come back. Her collapse was rapid. Pat and I visited her as she was dying. I’ll never forget ringing the doorbell at her home when John Travolta came to the door. It immediately struck us that he was wearing his famous three-piece, white suit from the movie,
Saturday Night Fever
. Apparently Diana loved to see him in that outfit.

John quickly told us it was almost over. We went into Diana’s room and tried to give her some encouragement. But as soon as I saw her, I knew this was the end. I asked if she would like to see a priest. John agreed, and I called Father Bob Curtis. He came to the house and administered the last rites of the Catholic Church.

Soon, Diana was unresponsive. In a few minutes, with me, Pat, John and Diana’s mother all in the room, she died. It was a terrible moment. John was devastated.

I helped with a few of the practical arrangements. There was a need to have some legal papers signed by her next of kin. Diana had not yet divorced, so that meant they needed the agreement of her estranged husband to proceed with the funeral arrangements. Pat and I drove to his home, and after some initial reluctance, he signed the document in the presence of his attorney. It was all very bizarre. More important, I had lost a friend and colleague, and it affected me deeply. I also gained a tremendous respect for John who stood by Diana throughout her entire illness, never abandoning her for a moment in her time of need. He showed real character, and I know that he suffered immensely.

After Diana’s death, many of us believed the show would be cancelled. Already four episodes into the season, it seemed impossible to simply shove another woman into the role as though nothing had happened. But while Bill Blinn and the producers understood things were looking dismal, they came up with the idea of weaving a new love interest into Tom’s life. It was a gamble, but one that paid off in the end. We all felt lucky that the show wasn’t pulled right off the air.

In the pilot, the part of my oldest son David had been played by an unknown actor named Mark Hamill. At the time, Mark was filming the lead role in a new science fiction movie by George Lucas, the director of
American Graffiti
. The film was having production difficulties, and they kept putting off its release date. Still, there was a buzz in the air that it was going to be something special. Just two months after the first season of
Eight Is Enough
began airing in March of 1977,
Star Wars
hit the theaters, catapulting Mark from my son David in a pilot television program to one of the most recognizable actors in the world as the swashbuckling Jedi knight, Luke Skywalker.

But before the world came to know Mark as the hero battling Darth Vader and the “dark side,” he did his share to help us market
Eight Is Enough
. In fact, the pilot is largely centered on the strained relationship between David and Tom. The pilot was actually the first of many of those “coming of age” storylines on
Eight Is Enough
. It reflected the tensions arising when a young man’s need to break from the restraints of home collides with a parent’s resistance to his efforts for independence. When this happens, something has to give way. In the pilot, David moved out of the house and rented his own apartment.

The final scene was, in my view, one of the best in the entire series of
Eight Is Enough
. Realizing that he may have been too restrictive, and not wanting to lose the affection of his son, Tom swallows his pride and visits David at his new apartment. Upon entering, things immediately take a turn for the worse as Tom notices a piece of woman’s clothing on the floor. It’s obvious David has female company. In this scene, Bill Blinn wrote some beautiful dialogue reflecting the bond between a man and his son—a bond stronger than the disagreements they have about how to live their lives.

That central tension between father and son remained with the show until the very end. Much later my old friend David Wayne would help out in a two-part episode of
Eight Is Enough
, where, once again, the age-old conundrum of parent/child discord was front and center. Coincidentally, David, who came in as Matt, Tom Bradford’s estranged father, had also played my father in
The American Way
in 1939. Now, forty years later, and with a little more grey, we did it again. I wonder if there have ever been two actors who played father and son with a forty-year gap.