B004YENES8 EBOK (18 page)

Shephard ended the budding confrontation by sending me out to sign the actress. Too late. In the intervening days since coming to my office, Ms. Smith had accepted the sought-after role of Madame Sadat in the prestigious miniseries
Sadat
, starring Louis Gossett Jr. I was now guilty of selling something to a network that I could not deliver.

Harvey Shephard had more important things to do than help me cast this movie, even if it was a possible back-door pilot. Of course, it wasn’t that to Ms. Guest. It said M.O.W. on the interoffice business affairs memo, and—as far as she was concerned—that’s what it was. She suggested I go after Teri Garr, and that I do so the same week Ms. Garr learned she was one of five nominees for filmdom’s
Oscar
as Best Supporting Actress for Sidney Pollack’s
Tootsie
. It took nearly two weeks to get an official turndown from Ms. Garr, who was then in Europe promoting her latest film and, I presume, celebrating her
Oscar
nomination.

All the while money was being spent.
My
money, for I was on the line as being financially responsible on this project. It was a first for me, making me an owner, not an employee, and giving me (in 1983) investment tax credits worth nearly $100,000 and the potential for up to a half million dollars in ultimate profits. It was a great opportunity but required my mortgaging my home as security to demonstrate my financial stability to the network. It is all about delivery. The network wanted to be assured that when their air date arrived, I would be there with a film—and not with a tin cup.

Anything the film might cost over the agreed-upon license fee would be my responsibility. I would be required to personally pay the difference. The casting delays were forcing postponement, thus increasing costs. These delays would escalate into other departments, as wardrobe, for instance, would have to be created at overtime rates due to the scheduling problems brought about by our inability to have an actress available in a timely fashion for costume fittings.

If Jean Guest wanted a recognizable television name, Paramount’s Gary Nardino (who still had some control over my fate since his studio owned the series rights) demanded an actress who would also agree to a series should the M.O.W. be successful. This was a major complication and added to my conflict with Guest.

I tried to remind Gary of my success with
Cagney & Lacey
despite the necessity of recasting Loretta Swit . He was not interested in taking that kind of chance. He threatened to enjoin me from making the film and argued that I was damaging his negotiated-for rights to
This Girl for Hire
as a series. Attorney Stu Glickman said not to worry, but Gary is formidable. More than once he brought forth the specter of the full weight of the Gulf & Western Corporation.
³⁴
Karen Allen, who, long before she was the girlfriend of
Indiana Jones
, I sort of discovered for my miniseries
John Steinbeck’s East of Eden
, turned me down. She was exhausted from the play she’d been doing off-Broadway. It was the same play Farrah Fawcett was going into (
Extremities
), thereby replacing Ms. Allen. Each of these firm offers took an average of nearly a week to transmit and to get rejected.

Each week was costing thousands. Production manager Tom Kane was beside himself. So, too, were my business manager and my agent. They combined, along with my lawyer, to convince me to give up ownership for a smart distribution deal with Orion. I was still trying to save
Cagney & Lacey
from its all-but-certain demise, and the whole process had me exhausted. I gave in to my representatives and made the Orion deal at just about the same time I agreed to make my ninth offer for the lead in this movie.

CBS had finally given assent to Barbara Hershey, who I believed to be perfect for the part, but she was in the tenth spot. First I was required to go to number nine, Ms. Guest’s choice, Bess Armstrong. I capitulated; and that’s what Mary Poppins was doing in my loving but light tribute to film noir.

All of this came to its conclusion during the week of network scheduling meetings in New York. I was in the Big Apple at Rosenbloom’s request to help with the all important sell on
Cagney & Lacey
. We had put together a brochure, at the last minute, consisting of reviews and whatever research data we could come up with that gave our cause any credibility at all. It was not a strong case. Still, NBC and ABC’s schedules were so unimaginative, and really unchallenging to CBS in 1983, that Rosenbloom and I began to believe that CBS (and Shephard in particular) would renew
Cagney & Lacey
simply because it could afford to do so.

It was late in the afternoon when I received a call at Orion’s New York office from Harvey Shephard. He was calling personally to tell me of his decision to cancel my series. I had been passing time, looking at a preview copy of Rick Rosner’s
Lottery
pilot, which had just been given a go at ABC. Shephard talked. I listened. Rick’s successful pilot droned on in the background. Shephard told me what a difficult decision this had been.

“I know,” he began, “that you know how much I love the show.” He didn’t feel it could be made any better (or quite obviously that it should be given another chance).

I had felt for some time his personal disappointment in the ratings performance of the show. Somehow, in some way, despite the acclaim, the reviews, and the genuine affection for the series in the Hollywood community, I believe Harvey Shephard had been embarrassed by the (to him) one-sidedness of this love affair.

I remained low-key, telling him I understood. I thanked him for the opportunity of making twenty-eight episodes of a show of which I was quite proud. I turned off Rick’s pilot, informed Rosenbloom, and went to my Orion-provided cubbyhole to begin notifying all concerned.

First Corday, then Tyne, a message to Sharon to return my call when she got back to her hotel from her then-current location shoot in New Orleans (on
Hobson’s Choice
, a CBS M.O.W.), the office, the remaining cast, the writers, and my mother. The conversations with the cast members were moving, albeit brief. I also took the time to phone a few of our most vocal fans, the ones with whom I had previously struck up some correspondence. I had quite a list.

“I’m OK,” I told Rosenbloom. “I was steeled for this.” I went on to say that I felt good about the work, that I was very proud of what had been done, and that I had no bad feelings or regrets. Mamma always said, “Leave ’em wanting more,” and that was what I was doing. At the hotel I received my first condolences.

“My God,” I thought, “people already know.” I felt a twinge of pain. I decided to escape, to go to the theater. A musical would be a good idea, I theorized. Why did I pick
Nine
(the musical play based on Fellini’s
8
1/2
—the great Italian filmmaker’s free-wheeling homage to
Death of a Salesman
)?

Early in Act II, I was depressed and walked out midway through the performance. From the bar at Frankie and Johnny’s 45th Street bistro, I phoned Sharon Gless in New Orleans. She was alone in her hotel room and matching me drink for drink. We both were in tears, and, well, it was just sad, that’s all. I finished the call and ate alone.

The next day I was a bit hung over but resolved to resurrect
Cagney & Lacey
. I began to formulate a pitch: “The show that would not die.”

This Girl for Hire
needed attention, but I kept flashing on
Cagney & Lacey
. I realized then, the day after cancellation, why all of us (or at least why I) felt so close to this. Just as in
M*A*S*H*
,
Barney Miller
, or
All in the Family
, our characters were honest and true to themselves. Most things in movies and TV are not. Archetypes and melodramas are the hot commodities. It is, after all, easier to sell James Bond than
On Golden Pond
; easier, yes, but it is the Golden Ponds that people remember and about which they get emotional.

In eight months, Sharon, Tyne—all of us—revealed more about ourselves to each other than the folks on
Dallas
or
Dynasty
might in eight years. I really believed we could have caught on with one more chance. But who would give it to us? ABC? NBC? HBO? The last two had already said no. I returned to Los Angeles. I had major work to do on
This Girl for Hire
. Production was really only days away, and I hated the wardrobe and sets. I did some yelling and some last-minute fixes, but I remained in a funk. Corday said I was always like this when in pre-production. It wasn’t that. It was the movie of the week business as opposed to the series game. As if I didn’t miss
Cagney & Lacey
enough, the process on this M.O.W. only exacerbated the problem.

Starting up any production is difficult, but with a M.O.W. you’re going through this whole crank-up only to dismantle it all within a matter of weeks. At least with a series, things finally smooth out and one gets to do the job one really knows how to do. Series television is the closest thing to the old studio system we have in Hollywood today: crews who know each other, know how to work together, and understand the project on which they are working. A family emerges, a camaraderie, a shorthand. None of that occurs on these twenty-day one-shoots. It was all just start-up: one crisis, one disappointment, one compromise after another, then time to strike the sets and wrap.

I busied myself with revamping Bess Armstrong’s wardrobe and pressing for some additional work on our sets. I also had to begin to pack up my office at Lacy Street with still no clear idea of where I would go.

Judy Mann of the
Washington Post
called. She had been the first big-time newspaper columnist to give
Cagney & Lacey
a major boost. She had understood and appreciated what we had attempted. Now she wanted to know what I was doing to save the series. I explained there was little to be done, but that if I thought of anything I’d let her know.

Corday had recently left her post at ABC and had taken a spot as a producer at Columbia. Herman Rush, Columbia’s top guy in television, had given her an outstanding deal and was offering me the same contract to join his studio. Things had recently been so difficult with Nardino that I questioned whether any studio would be the right idea for me. One option was to stay in the M.O.W. game as an indy. Considering what I was going through on
This Girl for Hire
, that was also a less-than-happy prospect.

I turned my attention to the mail. There were perhaps two dozen letters awaiting my return from New York. They concerned themselves with
Cagney & Lacey
. It was fan mail, but not of the usual sort; it was not written with a crayon, nor did it say anything about the author kissing their pillow every night while asking for a photo.

Many of these fan letters were typewritten and on personalized stationery. They were well thought out and articulate. The senders were clearly educated and in that upwardly mobile group Madison Avenue likes to reach out and touch. Their letters were primarily missives of thanks. Their authors were, at the time of writing, unaware of the network’s cancellation of the series. They had simply seen something that affected them and had begun to watch. They were pleased to discover that it was not a one-time thing and hoped that this series, and its quality, might continue.

It took me a little over a week, but I eventually responded to each of those letters, answering whatever specific questions the correspondent might have asked, and generally responding with thanks for his or her support. I then went on to inform them of the cancellation and to let them know that my next project, which also had series potential, was a M.O.W. called
This Girl for Hire
. As Grandma Fanny would say, “It shouldn’t be a total loss.”

About the time I finished the last of these nearly two dozen letters, a man arrived at my office. He was a messenger carrying three boxes. Each box was big enough to contain a case of wine. What these boxes contained was much more heady than wine—it was more fan letters: conservatively, more than a thousand.

The messenger had come from CBS. Apparently their policy on a canceled show was not to burn the mail but to forward it on to the producer. The messenger put down his burden and left.

I took a handful of envelopes at random from each box. Many of these were typewritten and/or on personalized stationery. There was, however, a difference from the earlier letters; these people were angry. They were writing to protest the recent CBS cancellation (something that had yet to occur when the letters I had just answered had been composed).