Thursday, July 14, 2016
GOP War on GOP Women
Labels:
2016Election,
CNN,
Convention,
Coulter. GOP,
Palin
Thursday, February 11, 2016
Hillary Can Win By Doing This One Simple Trick...
Hillary can win by doing this one simple
trick …Wear the same outfit twice! Sure
it sounds shallow, because it is. Commenting
on the female candidate’s appearance is a sin, especially if you’re a pioneer femi-nazi
libtard like me. But if Hillary is
wondering why more young women and more ordinary women aren’t relating to her,
well, her endless fashion show of beautiful, butt-covering jackets could be one
reason. Every day, she’s decked out in
at least $2000 (my estimate) worth of gorgeous brand-new mature CEOess outfits. Dare I mention her stunning, perfectly
coordinated Statement necklaces? Yes,
they’re fabulou$! I can’t stop myself from wondering who gets Hillary’s hand-me-downs.
It’s hard to be
dressed for success these days because everyone is more casual, including the
candidates. Do clothes still make the man? We can’t unsee the image of a
paunchy Ted Cruz with a plaid shirt precariously stretched over his pillowy
midsection. Dressing casual isn’t for
everybody. Do you want to see Hillary in
Carly’s low-rise skinny jeans? (I
apologize for planting that visual in your mind).
Still, I get where
Hillary’s coming from. A collection of sharp
clothes is one of the perqs of earning the big bucks, plus you’re expected to
wear sharp clothes for your high-level job.
For the female exec, it’s the vicious cycle of work, shop, work, shop.
Elizabeth Warren is
the most perfectly dressed female politician.
She’s mastered the art of being practical with just the right amount of
pizzazz. Warren wears the same basic
black pants and black top every day, but she tops it off with collection of
brightly colored short mandarin jackets – all the same exact style. It’s almost a uniform. Wouldn’t you know Elizabeth Warren doesn’t
waste any time choosing an outfit in the morning? That’s so very Elizabeth Warren.
Another fashion example:
Nancy Pelosi. She’s rich. She could easily
put on a fashion show every day if she wanted to. Instead she wears beautiful mannish pantsuits
and same beautiful jade necklace over and over again. Looks great.
Looks successful enough.
If Hillary hopes to
attract more women: NO NEW OUTFITS till November. She should start wearing each outfit at least
20 times; like a normal woman does so that she can divide the cost of the
outfit by the number of times she will wear it in order to justify her guilt. Votes
will follow.
***
Thursday, October 08, 2015
Sunday, September 27, 2015
Bye Bye Boehner
Open
Letter to departing John Boehner.
Goodbye Leaker of the House! Goodbye to your big icy blue watery hound dog
eyes. Goodbye to your Cowardly Lion sentimentality,
in short, goodbye to your undiagnosed melancholia. Only a man could have gotten away with this much excessive bawling. If you were Jane Boehner, they’d have said you were on the rag, or thrown you in the loony bin or whatever the politically correct term is for the nuthouse these days.
Goodbye to your not-just-for-St.
Patrick’s Day Kelly green wide neckties and your swarthy Man Tan skin. You were a clown in men’s clothing and fairly
easy to draw. Goodbye to your cigarette smokin’,
martini swilling, macho Mad Men persona.
Goodbye to your oily Sinatra swagger, your Vitalis hair, your radio
announcer baritone and your condescending, mocking attitude. You weren’t the most interesting man in the
world, but you were certainly the orangest.
I can’t believe I’m going to miss you!
Karyl Miller
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Political Discourse
Tuesday, May 05, 2015
Getting Pri- Married
Thursday, April 16, 2015
Hillary Takes Off
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Hillary Campaign, Day One
Monday, March 02, 2015
Boehner's Boner
When I first heard about this secret invitation I was so outraged, and still am. To go over the head of our president is so disrespectful. Now I see it as the trend that it is - today we can and do avoid the gatekeepers. You want to be an actress? make a video and get famous without the permission from a movie studio. Simon and Schuster hated your book? publish it yourself. Our voices will be heard.
Thursday, January 08, 2015
Wednesday, January 07, 2015
Thursday, September 25, 2014
QUITTING COSBY - 12 Years a Writer
We wrote and filmed four episodes
before the "Cosby Show” show went on the air. My writing partner, Korby Siamis, and I were
absolutely convinced that “The Cosby Show” was going to be the biggest flop of
all time. Here’s a cartoon she drew and
sent to our agent, Bernie Weintraub. She
drew a sinking ship-- “The S.S. Cosby”-- and stick figures labeled Korby and
Karyl swimming back to L.A. Why? The cast was wonderful; the writing was top
notch. But live in the studio, the
audience reaction seemed luke warm. They
didn’t seem like they were loving it. No
question the writers were living in a bubble (true on all shows) but did our
bone-weary exhaustion completely color our perception? The feminist in me thought who was going to believe Claire is an
attorney AND cooks a full meal for six in high heels every night, keeps the
house clean with no maid, and why is she not completely and totally exhausted
like the rest of the moms in America? Who is going to believe she’s never mad at
Cliff, no matter what he does? Claire’s a mom who's having it all and she’s got a briefcase that looks empty. So fake!
Day One of “The Cosby Show” began
at lunch on the 65th floor of 30 Rock in an all glass private party room
adjoining the famous Rainbow Room. This was
my 12th year a writer and I already knew the First Day is the Best Day
on any TV show because nobody knows anybody yet, so nobody hates anybody yet,
etc., etc. It’s downhill after today. Still, the views from here are fantastic. Truth be told, that’s why I took this job. Not to bob and weave for a comedy superstar
(been there, done that), certainly not to stay up all night writing joke after
joke till I want to KILL THE PERSON WHO IS KEEPING ME AWAKE! DISCLOSURE: I took this job for 1. A free trip to New York, all expenses
paid. 2.
To have fun in New York 3. The $$$$.
4. To get a break from my rebellious teenage son.
It was a gorgeous July day. Spectacular views with all of New York at our
feet, literally. We were gathering for a
First Table Reading of our script with Bill and cast. This would be the first day of everybody
meeting everybody else. There were two
long tables. One table had a script set
at each place: our script, Korby’s and my perfect script, a script so wonderfully written it would be filmed First. On the other
table was a bar mitzvah- worthy spread of deli delights on silver platters. There was a silver coffee urn, fine china and
pink tablecloths! A floral centerpiece! It doesn’t get any nicer! I love my job (at least so far)!
A few NBC
executives were milling around along with the William Morris agents (who had
packaged the show), Tom Werner and Marcy Carsey (exec producers), and a reporter
from TV Guide. We met our line producer,
Caryn Mandabach, who was around thirty and extremely pregnant. The child actors and their parents were there. Gorgeous kids have gorgeous parents. Phylicia Rashad, who was going to play Bill’s wife, was just charming and went
around introducing herself and asking us about ourselves. She loved our script! We loved her.
How could you not? Everybody we
met complimented us on our script. We
were the writing stars of the day! “The
Cosby Show” will appreciate my writing. Yay!
Everyone was mingling and nibbling, and NIBBLING.
An hour goes by and we’re sick of nibbling
and smiling at each other. I was already
tired, having arrived at 6 AM on the red-eye. Everyone’s looking over everyone else’s
shoulder and keeping an eye out for the man of the (no-longer-lunch) hour, Bill
Cosby.
Suddenly everybody in the room
perked up. That could only mean one
thing in show biz: the star is in the building.
Cosby enters with his longtime agent, David Brokaw, over an hour late. No smiles.
No apologies. Ouch!
As Cosby made
his way around the room, he could have just stepped from the pages of GQ. His silk shirt and linen jacket exuded style
and star power. He wears a bulky sterling
silver ID bracelet engraved with the words “Camille’s Husband.” I’m wondering, He needed a reminder? And why did he have to spoil the picture with
the stinky old wet cigar? What is
with men? Even unlit, don’t they know
cigars stink? Don’t they care they’re
driving people away, especially me?
After
Bill sat down, everybody quickly took a seat at the table. The director, Jay Sandrich, welcomed everyone
and went around the table first introducing the actors and then the writers. It was like the first day of Camp Success and
everybody was smiling and happy to be there on full scholarship.
Cosby was reserved to the point of
being almost not friendly. I tried not
to take it personally even though I had fantasized he’d immediately get a kick out of me and think I was cool. When you’re a major star, everyone wants to
be your friend and you have to be careful who you welcome into your inner
circle. We also knew Cosby had wanted
black writers on the show. Carsey and
Werner hadn’t found a black writer yet, but were still actively looking. The title of Producer (which should have been my title) was being held in
reserve in case a qualified black writer materialized. For now, the first “Cosby Show” writing staff of
four were one hundred percent white, seventy-five percent Jewish, and fifty percent
female. I hoped Cosby wasn’t going to
hold that against us. However, if I had
created a show starring a woman about her life as a woman, I’d be mad if they only
hired men to write it. I’d be furious.
Jay Sandrich
had directed my second “Mary Tyler Moore “episode, “WJM Tries Harder,” and
other episodes of mine over the years. He was
very gracious in introducing us and praised our script. “They perfectly capture the voices…” blah blah blah.” The reading began. Jay read the stage directions aloud and then
the actors jumped in. It was the first
time we had heard our script on its feet and it was pretty exciting. It’s very gratifying to hear the little
chuckles and laughs along the way. Everyone seemed pleased.
Korby and
I had lifted the theme of our script, “You’re Not a Mother Night,” from one of
Cosby’s most enduring monologues where he gives his long-suffering wife a night
out at a fancy restaurant. Claire
automatically cuts Bill/Cliff’s meat out of habit from excessive mothering. Back home after dinner they wind up dancing romantically
together in the bedroom, whereupon Bill says, “Let’s get it on.” They kiss and we fade out. End of episode.
Keshia Knight Pulliam, who was five, sat next to Tom Werner,
who was thirty-five. Like a nice daddy, he shared his
script with her and pointed to each word she should read aloud. She was completely adorable. Everybody loved her. Malcolm Jamal Warner was perfect and seemed to
have already memorized his lines. All the
actors gave it their best with one exception: Bill Cosby. As the reading went on, Cosby began to mumble
his lines into his lap. He was visibly
unhappy and barely projecting his voice.
Obviously Cosby was the only one
in the room who hadn’t read the script beforehand. Everyone exchanged furtive glances of alarm. The reporter from TV Guide feverishly took
notes! Eventually, just to make sure we
picked up on his displeasure; Bill shoved his entire cigar into the side of his
cheek so that only a few inches stuck out. His line readings became indecipherable. I started getting heart palpitations. I couldn’t wait for the reading to be over so
I could throw myself out the 65th story window onto 50th
Street. By Fade Out, the Wrath of Cosby permeated
the room. There was polite applause, but
the director was quick to announce that there were “a few kinks in the script”
that needed to be worked out. "Perfect, but with kinks?" That's a new one.
When you
sign on to staff write a new TV show, you never know if that job will be a dream
or a disaster. For instance, when we
signed on to staff writer Tony Randall’s “Love Sidney,” the fired writers from
the previous season told me, “Tony Randall's
a maniac and a monster. There’s
constant rewrites, no days OR nights off, so if you’re taking the job just to
see New York, forget it. You’re never
leaving the Writer’s Room.” We took the
job anyway. Tony turned out to be a
doll. I saw New York and had the time of
my life. It turned out the previous
season, Tony’s wife had been gravely ill, so Tony can be forgiven for his uptightness. His anger was temporary. I realized you never know the pressures that
go on in another person’s life that can turn them into a Gila monster and you, his lunch.
Like
everyone in America, I loved the stand-up Cosby, the “I Spy” Cosby and the
irrepressible Jell-O Cosby. But there
was a new Cosby, a late night talk show guest - Cosby who was a snarling
preacher. He was scary. I told myself maybe Reverend Cosby was grumpy
because he needed his own sitcom. Cosby
wasn’t doing “The “Cosby Show” for the money.
He already had all the money in the world. IMHO Cosby was doing a sitcom because it was
the biggest pulpit he could find. Reverend
Cosby had a message and he wanted America to hear it. I could totally relate because I write for
the same reason. I hoped and prayed, now
that Cosby had a sitcom bully pulpit, he’ll morph back into the Jell-O
Cosby.
A private
meeting was called post haste with Cosby, Brokow, Carsey, Werner, Sandrich, and
our exec producer/head writer whom I’ll call Geeky. All of us little people were sent out into the
hall like schoolchildren while the grown-ups held their secret talks. If Geeky doesn’t defend our script, Korby and
I will go from stars to schmucks in thirty minutes flat. It was all in the hands of Geeky. Heaven help us.
The upshot of the private confab is
that Bill had “serious problems” with our episode. He had an idea of how to “fix” our script, but
a new set will have to be built. Karyl
and Korby’s script is set aside and a re-write on the next almost written script – will begin.
A script by (surprise, surprise) Geeky.
Bill’s “improvement” on our script?
Instead of a restaurant, Bill takes
Claire to a hotel room and the dinner is brought via room service. That way, Bill reasoned, sex can take place
immediately following the meal. Really? As a woman and mom, if my husband gave me a
night out away from mothering, I hope we wouldn’t spend it hidden away in some
hotel room eating notoriously terrible Room Service food just so we can
conveniently have sex after dinner. I
would be furious, thinking I hunted for the perfect dress, got my hair done, and got waxed SO HE COULD
HIDE ME IN A HOTEL ROOM?! This hotel
room idea was a man’s fantasy of what a woman/mom wanted, but it was actually what the man wanted. And the man was my boss.
More bad
news for me: The Cosby Show wasn’t
going to be shot at Rockefeller Center because “Saturday Night Live” takes over
the studio. Been there, done that. We were going to be working out of Brooklyn. I HATE working in the middle of nowhere. PROOF: In my previous career as a dress
designer, I quit a perfectly good job because I had to leave Manhattan to work
in a factory in Long Island City.
NBC Studios
Brooklyn was a decrepit brick building in the heart of a run-down Orthodox
Jewish neighborhood. Midwood, Brooklyn is
famous for only one thing: It is the birthplace of Woody Allen. Is he still
living there? No, of course not. He moved away and for good reason: There were
no decent restaurants, no fashion boutiques, none of the New York big city
sights and sounds I had taken this job for.
Like on all
new shows, the offices were makeshift and temporary. There were never any actual offices for us to work in. Over the years I’ve worked in myriad hellholes
including trailers, dressing rooms, hotel rooms, and once in the back of a
speeding truck. Our producer had rented two
apartments to use for offices in a pre WWII residential building near NBC. The groaning elevator took around two years
to go up two floors and reeked of Ben Gay and matzo balls. The tiny dark living room was set up with a card
table and steel folding tin chairs: our ad hoc Writer’s Room. So inspirational, especially the previous
tenant’s granny-like wallpaper! Caryn, Tom
and Marcy had the apartment above us along with the secretarial pool and mountainous
piles of office supplies. A fire hazard
waiting to happen.
The desks
and typewriters were rented and they looked it.
The secretaries had a new-fangled thing that only one secretary knew how
to use and nobody would dare touch -- a computer.
Instead of the Empire State Building
and the stunning Manhattan panorama, my view was of Avenue M, the main drag,
with its ancient kosher butcher shops, candy stores and low-end baby
boutiques. Instead of spotting
fashionable women dashing in and out of Saks Fifth Avenue, I would watch the
prudently dressed Orthodox Jewish moms in their wigs and white tights with
their enormous broods of children in tow marching to Yeshiva school. I think: This
is the cult branch of my religion and like all religions it’s about the
subjugation of women. These are the
thoughts that float through my mind while writing comedy.
Tuesday
we assembled on the dark, freezing NBC sound stage for a cast reading of the new first Cosby episode. We writers had worked past two AM writing Geeky’s
script in a sub-zero conference room in NBC 30 Rock. Isn’t a freezing room a form of torture? This is why I know I wouldn’t last two days at
Gitmo. I hate being cold and I hate
being tired and, guess what? I’m both
and I haven’t been on the job one week.
To those former bosses who have accused
me of having an "attitude problem," I say, Fuck You! Fuck you for keeping me up all night because you didn’t think the script was funny
enough! I guarantee you I was funnier at
eleven than I am at one AM. Why can’t you
make a fuckin’ decision?! But we don’t
get to go home till the executive producer, the King of All Comedy declares the royal script sufficiently funny. So we’re being
punished with sleep deprivation for being not funny enough. Happens
on EVERY show. Everything is taking
twice as long as it should. My bosses are always the kings and queens of comedy and we, their mere court jesters. Been there, done that. The thrill was gone. Way.
The
“Cosby Show” had arranged for a Town Car to pick the writers up in Manhattan and deliver us to Hell every day.
There was BabyCakes, Geeky, Tom Werner, Korby, me and our driver, Jupee,
from India. We were Jewish sardines in a Crown
Victoria. As we emerged from the Midtown
Tunnel I took a wistful last glance at my beloved Statue of Liberty. I said a silent goodbye to her and to the
beauty of Manhattan. Soon we were at NBC
in Brooklyn. We went from the hot July
sun into the dark, dank mildew-y freezing NBC studio. There were the usual bleachers set up` across
from the familiar Huxtable household set.
Our group had grown since yesterday. Our numbers now included stagehands and wardrobe
people. New York Child Protective Services
laws mandate that besides a parent or guardian for each child actor, a social
worker and a tutor must be on set at all times.
Bill had
an entourage of two: A personal chauffeur and valet who held Bill’s cigar for him while he
was acting, and Bill’s teenage son, Ennis, who was a “gofer.” Ennis was a tall skinny kid of sixteen. He was shy and, like everybody else, seemed a
little intimidated by his dad. It must
be difficult if your real dad is everybody’s fantasy dad. Celebs’ kids are notoriously screwed up and
spoiled, but Ennis exuded good upbringing.
He was a lovely kid. Sadly, ten
years later Ennis was murdered in a random robbery on an LA freeway off-ramp.
The cast
reading went well. Cosby was more
engaged than when he was reading our script. He only swallowed a quarter of his cigar! Naturally, Geeky was hailed as the show’s savior. He stood up and took a big exaggerated bow
while everyone applauded wildly. Did Geeky
share the credit or acknowledge those of us writers who lost sleep making his good
script great? He did not. Not a peep. So now I return the favor by omitting his name.
After the
reading there was a break before rehearsal.
Bill/Cliff’s doctor’s office set, which didn’t exist in the abbreviated
pilot presentation, had been built and the producers wanted to show it to
him. The writers went to see it,
too. Bill was playing a gynecologist,
but when he saw the stirrups on the examining table he winced. Apparently he was only thinking of Cliff being
a cute baby-deliverer but neglected to contemplate the yucky lady parts place
where babies came from. He had the prop
man remove the stirrups immediately.
BabyCakes
and I were poking around backstage when Bill came by on his way to his dressing
room. “Ah, my writers! Gotta minute? Let’s talk about some stories.” He seemed fairly upbeat. Maybe yesterday was an anomaly. I was nervous as we followed Bill backstage
in the dark, through a labyrinth of giant black curtains.
Bill’s
dressing room was tiny, old and cold, with exposed brick like a tenement. Cosby obviously hadn’t personalized it
yet. There were no pictures or telegrams
or the typical things you’d find in an actor’s lair. We sat across from Bill on a threadbare pink
satin piano bench that was wedged into an alcove. I immediately took out my notebook and pen,
in case any good story ideas got pitched. Since I had failed to win Bill over on day
one, I was hoping this was my second chance.
Bill sees
my pen and says, “Don’t bother with that – let’s just talk a little and get acquainted.” I thought, Great. I put down my pen. Bill asks, “You’re four- eleven, right?” Turns out, so was Bill’s mother! Cosby likes
short ladies! I’m IN! “I’m going to call you ‘Legs’,” he
declared. I took it as a compliment.
BabyCakes,
unable to let the attention fall on anyone else for too long, launched into his
I’m just a first-time writer and humble
country boy show. He says with wide-
eyed wonder, “I cannot believe I’m sitting here with Bill Cosby! I was only in Hollywood for one month! I’m from Podunk. If a guy like me wanted to learn about jazz,
where would he start?” Cosby’s love of
jazz is well known. Was it shameless
pandering or genuine interest on BabyCakes part? It didn’t matter. Bill completely perked up at the thought of schooling
this goofy-cute and funny young man in the nuances of Dizzy Gillespie et al. In my mind, I rolled my eyes. There’s one on every show just like there is in
every office and every classroom. They’re
not bad guys. They’re young, attractive,
fun and they have an uncanny talent for getting ahead in this world. BabyCakes was just the newest! BabyCakes’ greatest desire was to be “SFL”-- meaning,
“set for life.” A man in his late 20s
was planning his retirement.
Cosby turns
his attention to me and asks what other shows I’ve written. Before I can begin BabyCakes interrupts and
says, “She knows Richard Pryor. She
wrote a ‘Sanford and Son’ with him! She won
an Emmy with Richard for writing on the first two Lily Tomlin specials.” BabyCakes was telling Cosby that Other black comics liked Karyl and Bill
should too… or something.
Whatever BabyCakes intention, it
backfired. Upon hearing the name Richard
Pryor, Bill’s attitude completely changed. Just as he had done the day before at
Rockefeller Center, Bill could barely speak.
He stared at his knees and said very softly, “No… like… dir-ty talk. “ Then the unlit wet cigar went all the way into
the cheek and I knew I was shit after all.
BabyCakes, ever the eager beaver, jumps in,
“Got any story ideas, sir?” Cosby was in
charge of accepting or rejecting story ideas, so finding a story Bill liked was
a big leg up on a script assignment. “Yes
I do,” said Bill, whereupon he put his hands behind his head, looked at the
ceiling and rattled off a slew of absolutely fabulous story ideas. Some ideas were kernels, others more, but all
eventually became scripts. BabyCakes and
I were writing as fast as we could, but BabyCakes took dictation like an ace stenographer
on speed. I’d never seen anything like
it. At that moment I realized, if you could write fast enough, you could become
the star writer on this show because Cosby himself would tell you what to write. The best Cosby writer was Bill Cosby.
Wednesday
afternoon there’s a run-through on the stage so the writers can see what’s
working in the script and what isn’t.
Secretaries, interns, parents and guardians of child actors, extras and
stand-ins are summoned to take up seats in the bleachers and to laugh where
it’s funny. The writer’s personalized
director’s chairs hadn’t come yet so the writers sat in the back row of the
stands.
There was
a scene in Geeky’s script where the doorbell rings. Tempestt Bledsoe/Vanessa runs from the
kitchen to the front door yelling, “I’ll get it!” and opens the door. Malcolm enters. Suddenly Bill steps out of character and
yells, “Cut! Stop the music! Everybody hold your places.” All eyes are on Bill. I thought it was shocking. The director is the only person on set ever
allowed to call “Cut.” It was a breach of
show business protocol. I held my breath
wondering what would happen. Was this
the tip of the iceberg as far as Cosby’s controlling the show? Short answer: yes.
Bill had
a serious problem. “Is this little girl
going to open the door without knowing
who’s on the other side? I gulped. Cosby
was so right, but I knew fixing this minor detail meant yet another late
night rewrite. Why? Because, it’s not going to be simply Vanessa
asking, “Who is it?” and Malcolm answering, “It’s Theo.” That would be too easy and not funny. It’s got to be something cute like Vanessa
saying, “Who is it?” And Theo saying, “Come
on, open the door. You know who it
is. It’s me!” And then Vanessa might say something like, “Me
who?” And then Theo would say, “Theo,
your brother.” Then Vanessa would say,
sassily, “Oh really? You got any proof?” Etcetera. Add that exchange and the script will be a page
too long and we’ll have to cut some lines elsewhere in the script. With Geeky, THAT could take hours and HOURS.
“The WRITERS don’t have a problem with the
door?” Bill booms.
Geeky
mutters to me out of the side of his mouth, “Obviously we didn’t have a problem
when we wrote it. It’s a minor detail. It’s a dramatic
license, for Christ sakes.” Bill doesn’t
want to let it go. He shades his eyes,
squinting up into the dark bleachers. “Somebody,
turn up the lights so I can see who I’m talking to!” he yells. BLAM! The
houselights come on. I have a heart
attack right then and there. Geeky whispers
to me, “Stand your ground, this is bull. We’d still got the pilot to finish writing tonight. I need some sleep. You gotta help me out. ”
It gets
worse. Cosby’s voice bellows, “Will the
writers who are parents please stand up.”
I want to die. Geeky and I
stand. All heads turn to us. “Do you let your children open the door
without knowing who’s on the other side?
What about you, Legs?” I’m dying.
Cosby already hates me twice, for my
script and for Richard Pryor. Now I’m
about to dig myself another hole? “Legs,
do you let your child answer the door without asking?”
“Yes,” I peep, unconvincingly. There was no time to explain that our door had
a fan shaped window in the top, so we could see easily who was on the other
side. Of course my son knew not to just
open the door for anybody, but Geeky was depending on me to hold the line with
him against Cosby. Cosby is now glaring
at me like the bad mom and/or lying writer that I am. ”And it’s okay
with you?” he asks with great disgust.
All I could do was grin and shrug my shoulders sheepishly.
Next it
was Geeky’s turn. At last, Geeky will
rescue me. “How about my Executive Pro-Doocer? Do you let your children answer the door without
asking? ” booms Bill. Geeky says, “No sir, I don’t let them open the
door ever, even to go out. I pass them
through the window, but only to people we know really well, like their
grandparents.” That gets a chuckle from
everyone, including Cosby. That leaves
me standing in a steaming pile of bad parent poo. Thank you Geeky! “Back to the drawing board, kiddies!” Bill says pointing at the writers. We worked on BOTH scripts that night. At three AM we finally finished the pilot
script scenes, which were going to be filmed Friday night along with Geeky’s
episode.
The Cosby
schedule almost never improved. Since
there had been no pre-production time there was no backlog of scripts. All of the freelance scripts needed complete
re-writes. Our scripts were typewritten
which made the entire pre-computer process of assembling a daily script
amazingly, fantastically, time consuming!
We could never catch up. In our
spare time, we were tasked with reading from a pile of scripts to find writers
worthy of replacing us when we went back to LA after the ninth show. We often worked all day Sunday too, and only
got to quit at 4 PM because that was the deadline for Monday’s script to be
typed and duplicated.
Wednesday’s
breach of parenting ethics lead to the hiring of Dr. Alvin Poussant, Ph.D. Poussant
was a psychologist and a longtime crony of Bill’s. The good head doctor was going to review each
script to make sure that it passed psychological muster. To me the whole arrangement had the stink of
censorship and I hate all censorship. My
motto is: stay away from experts or they will SUCK the comedy out of your
script. In my experience there’s no
greater comedy-killer than psychologists.
Putting a shrink on the payroll meant we were going to do more than
entertain. It meant we were going to
TEACH. Reverend Cosby wants to sell his
code of ethics to as large an audience as possible. The sitcom is his forum.
Bill
wanted to show the TV audience THIS is the proper way to live. If you have these Huxtable morals and
standards, you will lead a good, purposeful life. Cosby was doling out life lessons, just like
Garry Marshall did on Happy Days and Tony Randall did on all his shows. The Cosby pilot was the perfect example: Cleo and Cliff are in the bedroom. The son tells the father he plans to drop out
of school. Bill sets Theo straight with
a funny money demo. If that didn’t get
the message across, Cliff says, “I brought you into the world and I’ll take you
out!” The father says essentially, “I
will kill you if you drop out of school and become a bum.” That was Bill’s message to youth and I
couldn’t agree more.
The TV
Guide article came out about the first Cosby cast reading. The writer described Korby and me as the “slack-jawed
writers” reacting with shock to Cosby’s trashing our script. I guess it was some sort of vindication.
After we
got home, Tom and Marcy invited us to the Cosby wrap party at the LA Museum of
Science and Industry, to a Cosby Emmy party at the David Geffen Theater, and to
a slew of Cosby related events. Months
later I visited the gorgeously remodeled NBC Studios in Brooklyn. Besides putting in new beautiful offices, they
had a professional kitchen with a chef cooking healthy lunches and dinners for
the writers. I finally got to meet one
of our replacement writers -- a guy I like to think I had helped discover from
a pile of scripts on Marcy’s desk. I had
read his off-Broadway play. With a name
like Matt Williams, I was sure Cosby would finally get his wish and have an
excellent black writer. He got an
excellent writer, albeit white. Best of
all Bill was more than gracious when he spotted his old friend “Legs.” He said he didn’t know I was leaving till I
was already gone. I guess that’s an
example of the deep separation between Stage and Writer’s Room. I was relieved Reverend Cosby still had a
little Jell-O left in him.
ADDENDUM:
“The Cosby Show” was a milestone for
women in sitcoms. We had a female
executive producer and female line producer, plus two women writers (although
technically, as partners, we were only counted as one person). I felt like women were finally making it in
sitcom. One day on stage I noticed our
producer, Caryn Mandabach, was missing. I
asked around and someone told me she had her baby yesterday. “Oh.” A
little while later I spotted Caryn walking around on stage and she was still
big as a house. “Oh Caryn, you’re here. Some idiot just told me you had your
baby.” And Caryn said, “I did, yesterday. He’s up in the stands with his nurse.” Caryn waved to a smiling toothless black lady
in a white uniform. The lady waved back
while holding a teeny, tiny one-day old baby.
ONE DAY!? ONE DAY?! And she’s back to work, like she skipped work
yesterday in order to get her roots touched up?
What was the world of working women coming to?
(The day
after I gave birth I was still in the hospital, walking bowlegged while straddling
an industrial strength sanitary pad the size of a canoe. My hair was in a point. I was exhausted, stressed and so overwhelmed it
lead to a case of post-partum depression so severe it lasted for eighteen
years! Did I rush back to work? I did not.
I took six months.)
My generation of working women
accepted the old Ginger Rodgers dictum that said to get ahead women had to do
what men did “backwards and in high heels.”
This was my 12th year in show biz. Caryn represented a new generation of Hollywood
working women. She couldn’t take a few
days off to have a baby? Now we’re
supposed to give birth in the field, tie the umbilical cord with our teeth and
go back to picking cotton? What the
hell! If Caryn set the new standard, I
couldn’t compete. I had neither the
stamina nor the ambition, but Caryn did.
Eventually it paid off to the tune of three hundred million dollars when
“The Cosby Show” was sold into syndication. No one can say she didn’t earn it.
***
Saturday, September 06, 2014
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Sunday, November 17, 2013
JFK Assassination
I'm reposting this memory piece on the murder of JFK.
50 years have gone by and I STILL can’t watch Kennedy videos without getting as lump in my throat. I remember watching Kennedy’s Inaugural speech – we were so thrilled. So much hope, so alive. And then, the opposite. I realize now I will never get over the loss of Kennedy. Every Kennedy image reminds me of what might have been and brings me back to that horrific day when we were hearing the impossible. “The president’s been shot.” I was thinking Not OUR president. They must mean some president from some backwards country where they’re always overthrowing each other. Not here. We don’t shoot presidents in America.
I was a just-out-of-high-school showroom girl at a wholesale hat company in the legendary garment center in New York. The switchboard girl said “The president’s been shot.” I thought that maybe they meant our boss, Mr. Abramson, the president of the hat company - whom I hated, but not that much. Someone hated Mr. Abramson even more than I did? At least that’s what I told myself when they sent me to the bank to make the deposits.
The garment center was jammed, as it always was back when we still manufactured clothing right there in NYC USA. This was the hub. The joint was jumping. Trucks were honking and double parking and backing in and out of driveways. People are always yelling at each other and flipping each other off. Sidewalks were teaming with Puerto Ricans navigating racks and racks of clothing between the salesmen, the masses, the 6-foot models all painted up and scurrying to their next job.
1407 Broadway was the Mecca of it all. There was always a line up of chauffeured black Cadillac limousines circling the building waiting for their owners – the top designers who worked there. As I got closer I realized every chauffeur had his door open and a crowd gathered around, trying to hear the radio. If you accidentally made eye contact with a stranger, you exchanged worried looks. Everyone was wishing Please don’t let it be true. The people closest to the radios passed the info back to us. I heard what sounded like “presidente” in fifty different languages. Then I heard the word “morte,” which I guessed meant the news was very bad indeed.
My heart sank. I had to stop fooling myself about Mr. Abramson. I had to accept the fact that our beloved president John Kennedy was shot and killed. And just when things couldn’t get any worse, they got worse with more and more dying in Vietnam. Then they killed Martin and Bobby – Bam! Bam! Back to back in 60 days. We boomers and beyond had the optimism beat out of us. That’s what happens when they take away your heroes. It's not just Kennedy I mourn today.
John Kennedy Inaugural , 50 Years Today
by Karyl Miller
1.20.2011
50 years ago today John Kennedy was sworn in as our knight in shining armor. I was in high school, but I would have voted for him if I could have. For those of you not fortunate to have been there suffice to say, Kennedy was the white Obama. We Democrats just loved him. He was young, he was smart. He was a gorgeous man with a gorgeous family. He shared our values. We just loved him.
I was a just-out-of-high-school showroom girl at a wholesale hat company in the legendary garment center in New York. The switchboard girl said “The president’s been shot.” I thought that maybe they meant our boss, Mr. Abramson, the president of the hat company - whom I hated, but not that much. Someone hated Mr. Abramson even more than I did? At least that’s what I told myself when they sent me to the bank to make the deposits.
The garment center was jammed, as it always was back when we still manufactured clothing right there in NYC USA. This was the hub. The joint was jumping. Trucks were honking and double parking and backing in and out of driveways. People are always yelling at each other and flipping each other off. Sidewalks were teaming with Puerto Ricans navigating racks and racks of clothing between the salesmen, the masses, the 6-foot models all painted up and scurrying to their next job.
1407 Broadway was the Mecca of it all. There was always a line up of chauffeured black Cadillac limousines circling the building waiting for their owners – the top designers who worked there. As I got closer I realized every chauffeur had his door open and a crowd gathered around, trying to hear the radio. If you accidentally made eye contact with a stranger, you exchanged worried looks. Everyone was wishing Please don’t let it be true. The people closest to the radios passed the info back to us. I heard what sounded like “presidente” in fifty different languages. Then I heard the word “morte,” which I guessed meant the news was very bad indeed.
My heart sank. I had to stop fooling myself about Mr. Abramson. I had to accept the fact that our beloved president John Kennedy was shot and killed. And just when things couldn’t get any worse, they got worse with more and more dying in Vietnam. Then they killed Martin and Bobby – Bam! Bam! Back to back in 60 days. We boomers and beyond had the optimism beat out of us. That’s what happens when they take away your heroes. It's not just Kennedy I mourn today.
***
Labels:
JFK,
John_ Kennedy,
Kennedy_Assassination
Monday, October 28, 2013
Scary pink grapefruits.
Labels:
#Halloween,
centerpieces,
pumpkins
Monday, October 07, 2013
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Twerking in DC
Labels:
DC,
Midterm_elections,
Midterms,
Repiublicans,
Tea_ Party,
twerking
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Filner vs. Weiner
Women Wonder: What if Mayor Filner sexted us and Weiner Frenched
us? Would that be better?
Today every woman in my Zumba group agreed we would die if our
mayor, Bob Filner, stuck his tongue down our throats. As a Democrat, nothing makes me madder than
Democrats behaving badly. My opinion of
Weiner the-wienie-waver? I‘ve never
sexted but certainly wouldn’t do it with a stranger, especially one who called
himself Carlos Danger. How can you say that
name without laughing? Wasn’t the name
Weiner funny enough? – Especially when you’re sending photos of same? Carlos Danger, the world’s most in-teresting dick.
Before they had a word for sexual harassment at work, my
generation of women called it “having a job.” By today’s standards, I‘ve been harassed on almost
every job I’ve ever had. In the sixties, being harassed was the price a woman
paid for the privilege of being one of the boys (though paid less). We trained ourselves to ignore the silly
little men and their pathetic attempts at flirtation.
Filner’s excuse for his behavior is: he’s
from the Mad Men generation where harassing women was a time-honored business
activity. Oh, yes, I remember it well. Women had to be good sports or we’d be out of
a job. An occasional swat on the butt? Fine. Rubbing my shoulders? No big deal.
Telling an occasional dirty joke?
No big whoop. Forced Frenching? NOT OKAY!
Never was and still isn’t!
I remember the first time the subject of harassment hit the news. At first no one was sure know how to
pronounce harassment. Was the accent on
the ha or the ass? It was during the hearings
for Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas.
Anita Hill, an attorney and former Thomas
underling (at the EEOC, ironically) came forward and accused Thomas of
harassment. She was forced to recount the most embarrassing details of Thomas' crude
and dumb improprieties...live and on television.
Not one woman in America doubted Hill’s story. It was obvious this refined and serious woman
didn’t dream up something about “a pubic hair on a coke can.” Or a porno movie called “Long Dong Silver.” Thomas was obviously guilty (as far as women
were concerned).
The entire country was
glued to the hearings. Men couldn’t
believe or understand why Hill didn’t quit. Women couldn’t understand why men couldn’t
understand why a woman would just ignore the harassment.
It was a way of life for working women!
More than a few couples broke up arguing over the subject.
Besides Anita Hill, there were five other women waiting in
the wings to testify against Thomas, but they weren’t allowed. If the five other women had testified, would Thomas be a justice on the Supreme Court today? Would a man who obviously knew he was breaking the rules be rewarded with a lifetime job interpreting the constitution?
***
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Rebecca Schaeffer 7/18/89
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Don't Take Your Daughters to Work Day
Thursday is Take Our Kids To Work Day. Since women are still only making 70 cents to a man's dollar, let's not show up for work at all. Maybe it would benefit women more if we just said no to the gyno dollars and let the whole damn office, restaurant, store, school, hospital and factory fall apart without us.
After a day spent NOT taking our daughters to work, let's get together in our back yards and light up our barbecues, but instead of cooking dinner, let's re-enact a moment from feminist folklore: Let's burn our bras! Let's toss our foam-filled Victoria's Secrets onto the flames. Let a bonfire of the bras send out a toxic smoke signal that says "We're raising a stink because we want the financial equality we were promised years ago and we want it today!"
***
Friday, March 08, 2013
International Womens' Day
Sojourner Truth (1797-1883): Ain't I A Woman?
Delivered 1851
Women's Convention, Akron, Ohio
Women's Convention, Akron, Ohio
Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?
Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?
Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.
Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Pope Resigns
Protected Roger Mahoney who protected numerous child rapists.
Only he knows the whole terrible truth.
Good riddance and may he be haunted by his misdeeds.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Dear Abby RIP
If I could be any other writer, I
always wanted to be Dear Abby. Dishing
out homespun advice and Jewish wisdom to the confused masses seemed like a
dream job. I was Abby’s biggest fan and
one day I got to meet her. I was writing
on a new family sitcom created by Erma Bombeck.
Erma was the Executive Producer of “Maggie” and she was the sweetest and
easiest boss I ever had. Erma knew
absolutely everybody. Behind Erma’s desk was hung an enormous patchwork quilt,
each square containing a famous person’s autograph embroidered. The daily parade of luminaries who came to take
Erma to lunch was amazing – one day in walked Ann Richards, the governor of
Texas. But toping them all, for me, was
when Dear Abby walked in, resplendent in her trademark helmet hair.
Like every woman in America, I have
a treasure-trove of yellowing Abby columns on my fridge and I insisted on recounting
them to Abby before I would let Abby and Erma leave for their lunch. Abby was more than gracious while I ticked
them off.
Here
are a few of my Abby faves:
1. A poem called FORGIVNESS
The friend who ran off with your
wife, Forgive him for his lust, The chum who sold you phony stocks, Forgive his
breach of trust; The pal who schemed behind your back, Forgive his evil work;
And while you’re done, forgive yourself for being such a jerk.
2. “Regret is the cancer of life.”
3. A story about a teacher who had
her students write down one good thing about each person in the class. The teacher then copied them over and gave
each student a list of 30 positive things others had said about them. An Abby reader died and the list was found in
his wallet. He had carried it for forty
years.
4. Letter writer Lois in New York
didn’t ask for Abby’s advice but sent some of her own pearls of wisdom about
not trusting male nurses because “men are the adulterers, the child molesters
of the world…” I thought Lois that was
pretty funny and I guess so did Abby. Abby
will be missed.
Karyl, sad in San Diego
Labels:
Ann_Richards,
Dear_Abby,
Erma_Bombeck
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Post Election Republican Outreach
Don't Tickle Me Elmo!
Wednesday, November 07, 2012
Obama is Re- Elected!
Monday, November 05, 2012
NeoCons Win
Labels:
2012_election,
Neocons,
voter_supression
Sunday, November 04, 2012
Friday, November 02, 2012
War On Women
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Monday, October 29, 2012
Prayer for Sandy
Friday, October 26, 2012
Poll of Unlikely Voters
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Likely Voters
Monday, October 22, 2012
Bayonette 'n Horse
Catholics' Dilemma
Labels:
2012_election,
Catholics,
editorial cartoon
Friday, October 19, 2012
Scariest Costume
Labels:
2012_election,
editorial cartoon,
Romney
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Monday, October 15, 2012
Presidential Debate #2
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Ryan Vs. Biden
Friday, September 28, 2012
The Honeymoon is Over
Labels:
2012_election,
editorial cartoon,
Ryan
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Ryan Goes Rogue
Labels:
2012_election,
editorial cartoon,
Rove,
Ryan
Friday, September 21, 2012
Romney Plane Fire
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Romney Ad For Undecideds Only
Labels:
2012_election,
cartoon,
editorial cartoon,
Romney
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Truth in Advertising
Labels:
2012_election,
editorial cartoon,
Romney
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Helen Gurley Brown, my hero
When I was in high school sex-before-marriage was
forbidden (for girls). What did we do
with our raging hormones? I don’t get
national credit for this but: I invented the lap dance in the back seat
of a ’57 Chevy. As long as there was
some jeans fabric separating your tunnel from his little red wagon, you were
okay.
My mother, who was an expert on the rules of the
time said, “You’re either a nice girl or a nafka.” Nafka was Yiddish for prostitute and the word
whore was also forbidden. “If you have
sex and the boy brags about it—which he will--your reputation will be ruined,
you’ll be damaged goods and you’ll never
get a good husband. The best you’ll get
is living in a trailer park with a drunk. If you get pregnant, you’ll be sent to a home
for unwed mothers run by mean nuns and after the baby is born, you’ll have to
move to some other state.”
After Helen Gurley Brown’s Sex and the Single Girl came out in 1962, (the year I graduated
from high school) everything changed.
Brown said if a girl was unmarried and had a career, she could have sex
and not think of herself as a whore. I
so agreed, especially since I had already lost my virginity around my 16th
birthday (in the back of that same ’57 Chevy). Coincidentally (and luckily), the Pill came
out around the same time--so the timing could not have been better. Thus began the Sexual Revolution (where I
became a foot soldier). We went from
being junior Jackie Kennedys to swimming naked at Woodstock in just a few years’
time. I thank Helen Gurley Brown for
that.
***
Wednesday, August 01, 2012
Fifty Shades of Grey: Book Four
Book Four of
Fifty Shades of Grey should open with Christian Grey holding a dust cloth. That’s a universal turn-on for any woman, isn’t it? A guy, who without urging, picks up a broom
and utters those three little words, “How can I help?” Now that makes my heart flutter. The reason working women today are complaining
they can’t have it all is because obviously their husbands aren’t doing their
half.
I blame Madison Avenue for brainwashing the American public with their
sexist commercials. In every ad who’s
washing the toilet? The woman. Who’s having fun washing the car and playing
with a hose in the driveway? The man. Who’s knocking herself out cleaning and
cooking? The woman. Who’s playing cowboy in the yard killing
weeds with squirter that looks like a gun?
The man. At the heart of the
battle of the sexes is the battle over whose job it is to wash the toilet.
How to Housebreak the Average American Male
1. Don’t be a little elf,
magically cleaning while he’s not there.
ALWAYS vacuum right under his nose.
He’ll feel guilty, appreciate you more and someday ask if he can help.
2. If he offers to wash the
dishes, don’t tell him how to wash the dishes. Men hate that. Look away if you have to. If he breaks the dishwasher, let it go. Eventually he’ll learn.
3. Thank him profusely for
his help. Why? Men unconsciously still think housework is your job and
they’re doing you a favor. Whatever. Would it kill you to fake it a little? It won’t be the first time. Gush.
Gush with all your might, “Honey the floor looks fantastic! What did you do? Our rug looks brand-new! Thank soo much!’’ Works every time.
Got any bright ideas? Let me know ...
Got any bright ideas? Let me know ...
***
Thursday, July 05, 2012
Can a Woman Have it All in Hollywood?
As long as women have kids
and careers, the question of whether we can have it all isn’t going to go away anytime soon. In a recent article in The Atlantic, “Why Women StillCan’t Have it All,” Ann-Marie Slaughter mentions the pioneer
femi-nazis (not her term) of the previous generation for having to be “like
men” to succeed in the bad old Mad Men days. The next generation (ours) only had to be
better than men to get ahead. We were
the first women to run ourselves ragged in the workplace in droves, and we did
it voluntarily. I was a young housewife
and mother when the women’s movement came along and said the worst thing you
could be was a young housewife and mother.
If a woman wanted respect, if she wanted her own money, she was going to
have to earn it. I decided to become a
writer because a woman could do it from home and still be a mom, a maid, a chauffeur
and have dinner on the table by six. If I
could squeeze in my writing when nobody was looking, how could my husband
object?
Two years and many spec scripts later, I became one of the
newly liberated working women writing about one of the newly liberated working
women on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. My son was seven and in the second grade. The first thing I did was run out and buy a
Norman Todd pantsuit just like Mary wore on the show. Once women won the right to wear pants to
work, there was no holding us back.
Seriously.
The Women’s Liberation Movement was reaching a feverish pitch
when Mary debuted in 1970. Mary represented the ideal, freshly minted
career woman. Mary was who women aspired
to be--more than a secretary (but less than a boss). Every week we got a soft little lesson in
liberation. You could be thirty and a
single woman and not hate your life. You
could have a career with responsibilities and still be feminine. You could stand up to your boss (as Mary did
to Mr. Grant in her job interview) and still get hired. Mary had spunk. We all wanted it.
Flashback to 1964. A
funny thing happened to me on the way to my honeymoon. I was twenty-one. I had just married a “great catch.” I could finally relax. Married life was gonna be great. Goodbye to first dates and lonely birthdays. Hello wonderful world of kooky-artistic
wife-of-successful musician. In my
fantasies we would be just like Lucy and Ricky, only Jewish. Just like on I Love Lucy, if I dented the fender, I would have some ‘splaining
to do and Hubby would scold me (in a cute way) because it was his car and his
money that I was wasting by “driving like a woman.” And that was just fine because we all thought
women stank at driving back then. Women
were considered less good than men at just about everything.
My groom was tall and thin and nerdy-cute, with Clark Kent-ish
tortoise-shell glasses. He wore
beautiful sports jackets and always left a trail of that intoxicating (at the
time) “Aramis.” He was smart, he was
interesting. He was a songwriter. I was awed by his talent. We both loved music and art. We had lots of things in common, but the main
thing we had in common was our absolute fascination with him.
So, there we are, my groom and I, about to board our honeymoon
plane to Bermuda. In those days, the
husband paid for everything and the wife offered her homemaking and baby raising
skills in trade. That was the default
position even for college-educated women.
My mother was proud to say she only went to college to get her “Mrs.”
degree. Back then being a wife and
mother was good enough and no higher goals were necessary for a woman to be
respected and to respect herself. Hubby
would bring home the bacon, and Wifey would fry it right under her
diploma.
A job was just something a woman did till she landed Mr.
Right. I was an artist, an oil painter
who also had a passion for fashion. I
was brainwashed by my mother at a very young age with her lecture “What a Woman
Is and What a Woman Does to Attain the Happy Life 101.” I’ll never forget her sweet admonishments,
uttered in her Midwestern monotone, “You don’t like school, so college is out and
being a teacher is out. You think
nursing is too ‘yucky,’ so that’s out.
You’re too short to be a stewardess.
You flunked typing twice on account of uncontrollable giggling, so you
can’t be a secretary. So what are you
good at? Art. You’re very good at art, no one would deny
that. You say you want to be an ‘artist’
and ‘paint pictures all day.’ That’s
nice. Let me ask you something Miss
Picasso: who is going to pay for the paint?
I’m asking you! Don’t roll your
eyes at me, little Missy. Answer me
this: How do you eat between the time
you finish your masterpiece and the day you finally sell it? Can you last a month? What if it takes a year? How will you support yourself? Okay that’s a trick question so I’ll answer
it: You don’t support yourself. You find a good husband and HE supports
you. You let HIM pay for the paint. Next question: How are you going to get a good husband IF
YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW TO SET A TABLE?
How are you going to be a good hostess when he brings his business
associates home for dinner!? Ye gods,
Karyl! Answer me that!”
I knew what I had to do: move as far away from Mom as
possible, so I moved to New York.
Despite my limited education, I always landed amazing and glamorous
jobs. Why? I was smart.
I knew instinctively to always dress for the part, and I was a great
bullshitter. I created a PR job at
Macy’s. As their Teen Coordinator, I set
up teen boards made up of girls from
local high schools, put on teen fashion shows, had celebrity autograph
signings, and wrote a teen newsletter. I
was a little bit famous. I was in Newsweek. I was interviewed by Mike Wallace. I won Seventeen
Magazine’s AMY (Award for Merchandising to Youth) Award. I also helped organize, and was a clown in,
Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
I planned on working till I got married. After that I’d paint and take art classes,
but my main job would be to serve my successful husband so that he could become
even more successful. I would bask in
his glory and raise our children singlehandedly (if need be) so he could
concentrate on his career. I had always
viewed weddings as a sort of retirement party for the bride, because sooner or
later it would be the man’s responsibility to support the family.
Hunting for something to read on my honeymoon, I grabbed a
best seller that had just come out in paperback: The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan. I had been wondering what all the fuss was
about. Only a few pages in, Friedan said
smart women (like me!) who signed on to be “just housewives” (like I just did)
were desperately unhappy. They got no
respect. They had no money of their own
and had to justify every single purchase to their husbands. These formerly smart college graduates had
become nothing but diaper changing, ass-wiping zombie house slaves. Stuck in the suburbs they were lonely,
isolated and practically suicidal.
Meanwhile, their husbands were respected business executives enjoying
three-martini lunches and a plethora of cleavage at the Playboy Club in midtown
Manhattan. The more I read, the more I
knew Friedan was right. All I could
think was: I’ve just made the biggest mistake of my life.
I needed to come up with a Plan B--and fast--hopefully before
the honeymoon was over. I realized if a
wife wanted any respect, she was going to have to fight for it. How could I get my husband of one day to
accept my new idea of my working full time?
I had just spent the past 6 months selling him on my domestic skills and
convincing him that I couldn’t wait to wait on him hand and foot and to bask in
his glory. But now that I’d read this
book, I still wanted to be married, but maybe not in the original Lucy-Desi way
I had envisioned. I wanted a job. I wanted to stay vital.
I secretly vowed I would do everything I could to grow as a
woman--as long as it didn’t interfere with my marriage. All I had to do was be the perfect housewife
and maybe I could fulfill myself from nine-to-five just like Betty Freidan
suggested. As long as I kept the house
clean, the refrigerator filled and had dinner on the table by six, how could my
husband say no?
My husband gave me permission to work! Yay!
The first two years of our marriage, I did PR for rock groups--most
notably, the Rolling Stones. Then I
wangled myself a job on Madison Avenue as an Account Executive capitalizing on
my special knowledge of what teenage girls want. Still unfulfilled, I decided to become a
dress designer. I was an artist. I could draw.
I had style. I made up a bunch of
sketches and I talked my way into a wonderful job designing Junior
dresses. I earned while I learned. I took patternmaking at the Fashion Institute
of Technology at night. Of course, I
still kept up with my marriage and my life plans. I got pregnant. I worked until my water broke and then I quit
my job. As a new mother, I was lonely
and bored pushing a baby carriage in Central Park. Chatting with other moms about the newfangled
Pampers versus cloth diapers made me want to scream. During Adam’s nap, I played “Sergeant
Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” over and over. I missed designing. I missed my friends in the garment
center. I missed having something
interesting to say when my husband came home for dinner. Would he let me go back to work?
With great passion, I stated my case for NOT being a
stay-at-home mom. He agreed to my plan
to return to work ONLY after I agreed to pay the nanny’s salary out of my
designing salary because, taking care of the baby was the mom’s job. Yes, I agreed to that. It was another time! It was a work-around to get what I
wanted. I returned to the garment center
as head designer for a division of America’s #2 dress manufacturer--Bobbie
Brooks. After taxes and paying the
nanny, I netted exactly zero dollars.
But I was fulfilled.
Everything changed when we moved from New York to LA. For me, going to LA meant returning home. I had grown up in LA. After high school, I moved to New York to
find a husband. Now I was returning with
my booty. No one, especially my mom
could say I had failed at achieving my goal of finding a nice Jewish husband
and starting a family. But that goal
wasn’t enough for me anymore. I promptly
got a job designing dresses, but the garment center in LA had none of the
action and excitement of New York. I
wanted to make a career switch. Once
again, it was time to re-invent myself, but as what?
One night we were watching the Emmys on TV. Lily Tomlin showed up in a 1950’s tulle prom
dress. Fashion jokes always kill
me. Lily’s outfit poked fun of the
pomposity of the event. She was
hilarious. I totally “got” her. I decided at that moment to become a comedy
writer and to one day write for Lily. Two
years later my wish came true.
The same day I was hired to write a Mary Tyler Moore episode, I was hired to staff write on Lily, Lily Tomlin’s first special. Almost half the writers on Lily were women but I was the only wife
and mother. My son went to a private
school less than a mile away. How was I
going to manage being a full-time mom and having a full-time job?
Luckily, I had Maria, a “criada,” a live-in cleaning lady/baby
sitter illegal-from-Mexico. She didn’t
speak a word of English, didn’t drive, couldn’t cook anything except tortillas. My plan: I could drop Adam at school on my
way to the office if his dad could pick him up from school at three and bring
him home. Maria could take over from
there. My husband lived on song
royalties and didn’t work. He had
nothing to do all day except go to the gym, meet friends for lunch and call
people on the phone. Still, he balked at
running this errand while I “fulfilled” myself.
I begged him. It was only for six
weeks and then I promised I’d be back at my job as Number One husband-and-child-tender. Reluctantly, he agreed.
When Golda Meir was Prime Minister of Israel she was famous
for saying that whenever she was running Israel she felt guilty about her
children and whenever she was taking care of her kids, she felt guilty about
Israel. I could relate. Whenever I could include Adam and work, it
was good. After writing on Lily, Richard Pryor and I became friends
and decided to write a Sanford and Son
together. Richie’s daughter, Rain, was
Adam’s age and sometimes the two of them played while we wrote. Whenever that happened, it was the best of all
possible worlds. I staff wrote on a
sitcom with Renee Taylor and Joe Bologna.
They had a son Gabriel who was Adam’s age, and again, I got really lucky
that the boys could play together while we wrote, sometimes late into the
night.
I was a writer on the pilot of Cher right after she split from Sonny. For our first staff writers' get-acquainted
meeting, Cher greeted me at the door of her palatial Sunset Boulevard mansion
with a naked two-year-old Chastity Bono resting on her hip. Before the meeting began she handed Chastity
over to her criada.
After Mary, TV
became a hotbed for shows starring funny women.
It slowly dawned on Hollywood they might need funny women to write for
them. Yay for me. For once, I had impeccable timing. I wrote a Maude,
a Karen Valentine Show, a Diana Rigg Show,
and just about every other series about a 1970’s career woman or about a mom
who wants to be a 1970’s career woman. Even
Edith Bunker had pangs of liberation. Women
writers became Hollywood’s newest novelty.
Every show wanted one. There were
around a dozen of us writing sitcoms.
Our unique status drew us together and we became friends. We founded the Women’s Committee of the
Writers Guild. We were among the first
members of Women in Film.
Just like all the other disgruntled housewives of America, women
writers bonded, threw consciousness-raising parties and got enlightened. Consciousness-raising was a lot like group
therapy. Once someone read aloud an
article from Ms. Magazine (the feminist’s bible) called “I Want a Wife.” The satirical piece was an amazingly long
list of household chores assigned exclusively to the wife. The more we heard, the angrier we got. It concluded with “Who wouldn’t want a
wife?” Everyone in the room was blown
away by it. Everyone could relate. Everyone got mad. Then, everyone scurried home to cook dinner
for their husbands. If we were going to
change our husbands, first we had to change ourselves.
My career really took off. I could hardly keep up with my writing. One night, purely by coincidence, I had three
different shows on the air. I wrote a
second Mary Tyler Moore. I wrote many other relics of that time
including the wife-swapping sitcom Bob
and Carol and Ted and Alice. I was
so popular; I got my fifteen minutes of fame.
Ms. did a photo story on
sitcom moms. My son and I were pictured
goofing off wearing matching baseball shirts.
I was interviewed on the first Regis
Philbin Show. By the end of my first
year as a professional writer, I was nominated for an Emmy and a Writer’s Guild
of America Award for Lily. I got invited to speak at colleges that would
never have admitted me as a student. By
the end of my second year, I won the Emmy for Best Writing on Lily Tomlin’s
second special, along with the American Academy of Humor Award, and the Rolling Stone Magazine award for the
Best Special of the Year.
Like everyone who becomes successful in show business, my
private life stank. After I won my Emmy,
my marriage imploded and my son needed an exorcist. The freelance writing market dried up and
staff writing became the only way to write sitcoms. Now that I was divorced, writing was no
longer a hobby. I needed the money. Even though we women had our own anthem and
were Strong, Invincible, Wo-maaan, our rightful equality was taking longer than
anticipated. I don’t know why. All we had to do was convince men to give us
half of all their jobs, to pay us equally, and to wash their own goddamn
socks. How hard could that be?
Even though I was now a single mother, I was dammed if I going
to let that stand in the way of my burgeoning career. Of course I no longer lived in a big house
with a live-in criada; I had to rely on the kindness of teenagers.
I was being considered to write an episode for the police
sitcom, Barney Miller. It wasn’t a woman’s show, so the fact that
they liked my Mary Tyler Moore
writing enough to ignore the fact that I had a vagina meant a lot to me. I knew I would be the first female they hired. I was determined to show them they wouldn’t
regret hiring a woman and a mother. I
wanted to hit it out of the ballpark for my sisters in the Writers Guild.
I was resolute in playing down the mom thing because being a
mother was a reason NOT to get hired. If
a child gets sick, who stays home? The
mom. Could I have predicted my story
meeting would run over to 2:30 PM and that soon my child would be waiting for
me on the curb in front of his school? Could
I have predicted that after picking him up and racing home and finding a sitter
(Of course, I’m NOT going to bring my child to work--that would sabotage my
whole case), that my car would break down on the freeway? That my shoe strap would break when I ran to
the Call Box? That my Ex would have
cancelled my AAA card? That I would
finally return to my story meeting two hours later sweaty and bedraggled? Suddenly, all the stress, the hurt and the
anger over the divorce came spewing out in an avalanche of tears and boogers. Everyone knows there is no greater sin than a
woman crying at work. I was flunking as
a feminist and that made me cry even more!
After Mary and Lily I was the only woman in the
Writer’s Room AKA the Frat House for the first ten years of my comedy writing
career. I was a feminist in the frat
house. Good thing I had an older brother
who once threw a Lionel train at me and taught me everything there was to know
about armpit farts, or I wouldn’t have survived it.
I went to London to write on a musical comedy special starring
Sandy Duncan. Did my Ex help me out and take
our son for a month while I went on location?
Did he help me out with my career while we were still married? Luckily, another PTA mom took Adam so I could
take the job. I was the only woman
writer on staff. I was jealous because all
my co-workers (men) had wives back home who were holding down their forts. I thought I was going to be like Sally on the
old Dick Van Dyke Show. There were three guy writers and me. I was newly divorced and I couldn’t wait to
explore London. The first night after
work we were riding back from Elstree Studios in our limo. We were laughing and joking and I thought I’m
finally accepted as one of the boys when one of my co-writers piped up, “Hey, let’s all go out and get laid.“ Luckily I brought my knitting. It was still a man’s world.
If it wasn’t for women actors, (or actresses, as they used to
like to be called), I probably wouldn’t have worked at all. I wrote on the staff of Erma Bombeck’s
sitcom, Maggie. I co-wrote a Kate and Allie. I staff wrote
and was Supervising Producer on My Sister
Sam, which starred Pam Dawber and the late Rebecca Schaeffer. I staff wrote on the first nine Cosby Shows.
The Cosby Show was a
milestone for women in sitcoms. Tom
Werner and Marcy Carsey hired four writers to complete the unfinished pilot and
write or re-write the first nine Cosby
episodes. The two other writers on the
staff were guys. Women writers were
finally 50%! I felt like women were
finally making it in sitcom. Our
Executive Producers were 50% female and our line producer, Caryn Mandabach, was
overtly female, being very very pregnant.
One day on stage I noticed Caryn was missing. I asked around and someone told me she had
her baby yesterday. “Oh.” A little while later I spotted Caryn walking
around and she was still as big as a house.
“Oh Caryn, you’re here. Some
idiot just told me you had your baby.”
And Caryn said, “I did, yesterday.
He’s up in the stands with his nurse.”
Caryn waved to a smiling buck-toothed black lady in a white
uniform. The lady waved back while
holding a teeny, tiny one-day-old baby.
ONE DAY? ONE DAY and she’s back
to work, like she played hooky for a few hours to get her roots done? Is that
what Yahoo Mom Marissa Mayer is planning? What was the world of working women coming
to?
The day after I gave birth I was still in the hospital,
walking like Roy Rodgers while straddling an industrial strength sanitary pad
the size of a canoe. My hair was in a
point. I looked like Phyllis
Diller. I was exhausted, stressed and
overwhelmed. I had a case of post-partum
depression so severe that it lasted for eighteen years! Did I rush back to work? I did not.
I took six months.
My generation of working women accepted the old Ginger Rodgers
dictum that said: to get ahead women had to do what men did “backwards and in
high heels.” Caryn represented a new
generation of working women—fourteen years after Mary Richards showed us her spunk. She couldn’t take a few days off to have a
baby? Now we’re supposed to give birth
in the field, tie the umbilical cord with our teeth and go back to picking
cotton? What the hell! If Caryn set the new standard, I couldn’t
compete. I had neither the stamina nor
the ambition, but Caryn did. Eventually
it paid off to the tune of eighty gazillion dollars when The Cosby Show was sold into syndication. No one can say she didn’t earn it.
I turned to writing movie scripts as a way to get some sleep, sold
a screenplay to Kevin Costner and found out why they call it “development hell.” Still wrote all night.
During my career I wrote sitcom pilots for Karen Valentine,
Nancy Walker, Madeline Kahn, Talia Shire, Mariette Hartley, Melba Moore and Pam
Dawber. See a theme emerging? If the show was about a woman or a family, I
got the call. I brought my pen and my
vagina. I started out as a Hollywood
housewife with a hobby, but that blossomed into a writing career that lasted
thirty years.
Writing on a TV show isn’t like any other job on the
planet. They pay you boatloads of bucks
to sit around a table with the funniest people you ever met and try to crack
each other up. Every day, your sides
ache from laughing. Of course, the
majority of the jokes are actually hostile remarks about coworkers. But that’s the good part. The bad part is: if the writing takes 24/7
well, you’re STILL overpaid, so just grab some toothpicks, prop up your eyelids
and keep on writing–and you better be funny.
Will you be the only mom in the room? Probably not. Will you have a more helpful husband than I
had? Hopefully. Can a woman have it all in Hollywood? Yes she can, but she’s still going to be
really, really tired.
***
Labels:
editorial,
Having_it_All_in_Hollywood,
working_women
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