B004YENES8 EBOK (29 page)

What if, I speculated, I told Orion I would not deal with their shit any longer? “Find a producer for
Cagney & Lacey
and pay me my non-exclusive fees,” I could say. I would move from Lacy Street, the writers’ strike would hit, and Orion would put my overall development deal (due to expire seven months after that February date, in September 1985) on force majeure.
⁴⁹
I felt this strike, should it happen, could go on for months. Without me at Lacy Street, crossing the picket lines, could they make the show? Doubtful. Therefore, I would have to go back, without leverage, to protect my syndication payoff of two or three million dollars plus. Or would I? I can be a pretty self-destructive asshole when I get righteous.

With the possibility of no income from Orion and none from
Cagney & Lacey
and the industry shut down due to a strike, I figured I’d better spend the weekend going over our accounts to see just how we could operate on Corday’s salary alone. I was digging myself into a very deep emotional hole.

I was cheered somewhat by the news delivered to me on Monday morning that our pickup from CBS was official. We were renewed--even before
Dallas
--for twenty-two more episodes. Admittedly, we did have to go to extraordinary lengths (Tyne’s pregnancy) to get it.
All
we had to do now was make the shows.

At a birthday bash for La Gless, hosted by yours truly, at the very original Chasen’s in Beverly Hills. Sharon is flanked by her first leading man (RJ Wagner) and her [at that time] last leading man, John Ritter. From left: the then Mrs. John Ritter (Nancy Morgan), RJ, La Gless, Ritter, Barbara Corday, Robert Walker (agent and Ms. James’ escort), and Monique James. Standing between Hector Figueroa (right) and me is Jill St. John (the then soon-to-be Mrs. RJ Wagner). Tyne was out of the country on a holiday and not able to attend.

Photo: Rosenzweig Personal Collection

Chapter 34 

BUSINESS AND JUSTICE 

The “impossible” conditions to which I have referred were primarily the hours and how our format required Tyne and Sharon be in virtually every scene. Since we could not change the latter without doing a major revamp of the show, what I was attempting to do was change the former. We were working at least fourteen hours per day with only half-hour lunch breaks. It was inhumane, even without factoring in Tyne’s pregnancy.

Much of this is about these two, very hardworking women, but, as long and hard as Sharon and Tyne worked, when they arrived at our factory in the morning, people were already there to greet them, to clothe them, and to apply makeup and dress their hair. Electricians and grips, assistant directors, caterers, and drivers were already well into their day. When our stars left for the evening, many workers still remained to clean and wrap the equipment and the wardrobe and prepare for the next day. The workload was truly insane and fueled by greed (both of the rank and file and the bosses).

At this point, it seemed to me, with the benefit of a rare early go-ahead from the network, we could make some adjustments, returning our work schedule to some semblance of sanity, reminiscent of the way it was in the 1960s.

Singleton, Stan, Rosenbloom, biz affairs maven Robert Mirisch, and I met to discuss plans. Rosenbloom was presidential, and I was semi-calm, but not very. I had come down (or was it up?) a bit from my mood(s) of the weekend, but I was not in the best of shape. Still, I was somewhat effective, and I believed I would get the tools I needed. Rosenbloom and Stan voiced genuine concern whether we could continue with Tyne pregnant. I was tired of being second-guessed, and my latest ploy was to analogize myself with Patton: “Just give me the gas, and I will get us to Berlin.”

I had offered a producer post on the series to Ann Daniel of ABC. She was flattered and now mulling the career change. She couldn’t come to work until summer, but I wanted to keep that possibility open. I believed she would be terrific. I had, at that time, no second choice. I needed someone I could respect and trust, and who had communication and leadership skills. This was not a job for any of the types who had worked under me in the past. I would be better off, I reasoned, having no one than spending bucks for that kind of “talent.”

A week of these interminable conferences with Rosenbloom and his staff had now elapsed. Rosenbloom had yet to capitulate on several points, but I believed I would win, though I knew there would be fights and waste ahead. Despite a great deal of underlying mutual affection, we really were from very different camps—and this was often illustrated in the peculiar Lacy Street idiom of the time.

There was the question/answer used by the staff, department heads, and writers, known as ABC. It stood for “At Barney’s Convenience” (as in, “When’s lunch?” “ABC.” Or, “When are dailies?” Again, “ABC” would be the answer. The second was chiefly used by the crew. SSN stood for “Stan Says No” (as in, “Can we have another (a) set of lights, (b) camera, (c) roll of toilet paper?” The answer was invariably “SSN”).

Stan Neufeld (I reiterate, no relation to Mace) was known as the
White Rat
even before his tenure on the groundbreaking
Naked City
New York series in the early days of episodic TV. He reportedly once answered a crew member’s request for water on the set with the admonition that the worker should bring a canteen from home. At Orion, while his bosses flew nothing but first class from L.A. to New York and back again, Stan would likely book himself on some obscure airline with a layover in some place such as Fargo, North Dakota, for two hours or longer, saving the company $130 on his airfare. If it were my money, I think he’d be my first choice to handle it, but only after being assured he would attend several seminars on the dangers of tripping over dollars to pick up nickels. That, in a very real way, is what we were now meeting about.

On a happier note, Pulitzer Prize–winning critic Howard Rosenberg had become a born-again
Cagney & Lacey
fan. He now wrote a rave for the series and for our cancer two-parter in
The Los Angeles Times
.

I continued to press on in a most manic way. These phases were noteworthy in that my moods were high, as was my energy, until day’s end, when I collapsed into sleep. There was so much to do that, even without the Orion stumbling block, it would have been a Herculean task. With them, fumbling along, it was all the more arduous.

By week’s end, as promised, Steve and Terry delivered nine scripts of
Cagney & Lacey
for the new season. God bless them, they did work hard. My lawyer and agent suggested a meeting to discuss the future. It was hard for me to see beyond this current mass of work. Corday was also inundated in her presidential post at Columbia Studios, largely due to the pending WGA strike. Our marriage was literally on hold.

On Saturday morning, March 2, 1985, I was awakened by a phone call from Steve Brown . He informed me that the writers had voted to strike. It would become official at midnight the following Monday. My natural instinct was to want to escape to avoid the depression I was feeling.

This strike had nothing to do with me. None of the issues really touched me. I had run a model shop, employing women, minorities, and freelancers. The irony was that this strike would have a greater negative impact on me than on anyone else. Others could shut down: the season might start a little late, but everyone would be in the same boat—everyone, except this producer and his pregnant star. A delay was disastrous and probably put us into a situation where we could not deliver to the network. In that event, cancellation was more than just a possibility.

My come to me/go from me fortune was getting on my nerves. The stress factor was such that I felt I might not live to see (let alone enjoy) the damn money anyway. What I had to do, I theorized, was to forget about the fucking millions and just do what I wanted—easier said than done.

What did I want? To go on strike with everyone else and have a holiday of sorts and possibly see the show canceled? To work? To go for the gold, cross the picket lines, and tell the Guild to go screw? Each had appealing aspects. Each had disastrous potential. The obstacles placed in my path and that of this show had truly been Homeric. That’s why it’s such a good story. “Without conflict, it’s just two white chicks sittin’ around talkin’.”
⁵⁰

Abe Somer was also back in my life. My old college chum had resurfaced—this time as Tyne Daly’s attorney. He was on the phone delivering a not-so-veiled threat that Tyne Daly might not return to the series because I would not defend her claim against CBS concerning her personal contract with them for TV movies.

(Ms. Daly apparently wanted to enforce the pay-or-play provision of her deal, and CBS , understandably, wanted the commitment rolled over due to the short
Cagney & Lacey
hiatus, which was not their fault but rather a direct result of
her
pregnancy.)

I reminded Abe that his client was pregnant, and “on empty” just days before; did she really want to go right into work again? Then, in a more menacing tone, Abe reiterated the threat that his client would withhold services. I was so tired and beaten down that I honestly didn’t care. I said the equivalent of “do me something.” And the conversation was over.

Of all the bad news that week (Abe, the strike, Tyne Daly), by far the most debilitating was that delivered by the men of Orion. I felt they were so blind and unappreciative.

Just for publicity, or as an entree to talent and networks alone, any company would gladly sustain a flagship like
Cagney & Lacey
, even if it was only a break-even proposition. At this time it was at least a fifty million dollar–plus bonanza and still Orion kept up their miserly, pessimistic, poor-boy gloom-and-doom mentality.

I felt betrayed by them. It felt as though they not only failed to help but added to my burden. They did not pay me well. They did not appreciate what I had done. They only seemed to question me and get in my way, forcing me to use up precious energy, which I needed for other battles.

I do not believe this was only my singular point of view; of all of the writers, directors, and actors to whom—thanks to
Cagney & Lacey
—Orion had access during the 1980s, none of them, although many were asked, chose to make any kind of overall deal with that company. Compare that simple fact to the long-standing relationships that existed between talent and MTM, Paramount, or even the oft-times maligned Universal Studios, and some idea can be gleaned of how this company was then being perceived by the industry.

I would have liked strokes. They seemed incapable of strokes. OK, I didn’t need them. The money? Well, I was paid in other ways: glory, fan mail, peer accolades, prestige, celebrity, the illusion of power. I would plead with them to give me what I needed to do, what I had to do, and to stop questioning and examining everything ad nauseam!

I had proven that I knew what I was doing: two revivals after cancellations, no deficit after fifty-seven episodes, a public relations and critical blockbuster, and a totally independent operation requiring virtually no draining of their capital, overhead, or manpower—plus an industry hit—for whatever that meant in relations with all three networks! Jesus, it aggravated me!

I was beside myself as I thought about the future, post–
Cagney & Lacey
. My growing inability to tolerate notes would not serve me too well in the marketplace. I remembered how frustrating unemployment was and how embittered I felt. I tried to think positively. Unemployment, as I had experienced it, probably wouldn’t happen again: I wouldn’t be dead broke so quickly for openers, my children were grown, and I had had the satisfaction of having pulled off my miracle in
Cagney & Lacey
. Lastly, I was nearly twenty years older; I did not have to worry about filling up as much time as I had when I was a youth of thirty. No, this time I did not foresee having to flip a coin, as I nearly did in the mid-1970s, between bar tending and driving a taxi cab. Despite this interlude of positive thinking, I was feeling totally frazzled in 1985 and remember getting a big laugh from the then-hospitalized Sidney Clute, when I paraphrased famed comic writer Hal Kanter, that I did not actually have a beard; it was my face that was unraveling.

I stated earlier that I genuinely like Dick Rosenbloom. Whatever our differences, we had (and I believe still maintain) an underlying affection for one another. He is a nice man. Because of these feelings, I took the time, in mid-March of 1985 while the writers’ strike was still stumbling toward a conclusion, to tell him the truth of how I was feeling about our relationship.

He took it fairly well but didn’t really get it. He told me it was all a result of my paranoia about Mace and my understandable physical exhaustion—not a bad couple of guesses on his part. This was followed by a typically long Rosenbloom led meeting on next season’s plans, in which I finally won—I thought—my plan for an eight-day schedule.
⁵¹

They wanted to drop the annual New York shoot, and they were planning an unrealistically short break for Tyne’s baby to be born. These both concerned me. I reasoned that these things could be confronted later. I was on my game in the meeting and behaved myself as well. I did not believe any real damage had been done twixt Rosenbloom and me.

Rosenbloom seemed to be softening on his hard line, vis-à-vis our additional production costs for the season. I was working at being patient and tolerant. The veneer on my shield was very thin.

Tyne was seething. She was angered that I would not take up her cause with CBS over her pay-or-play commitment. She had now aligned me completely with the bosses. She was “disgraced,” her honor (my spelling, not hers) demeaned. She was seeking justice—as usual, by her definition and to her specifications. It was all so childish and petulant, and yet, somehow, eloquent.

That I did not agree with her position was greeted with derision. When I suggested that perhaps she’d prefer having another producer to talk to, she accused me of deserting her. It was complicated by my understanding her pain and my empathy for her search for justice and fairness.

It wasn’t money that Tyne wanted. She longed desperately to win—to beat the bosses. She forced them to sign a pay-or-play commitment, and now they were using her unborn child to “punish” her by reneging. She just could not let go of the pain of her past. And I did—and do—relate to all of this; did—and do— understand it. And I also heard how crazed she sounded. No wonder my attorney, Stu Glickman, had been avoiding my phone calls that week—to him I probably sounded every bit as distraught as Ms. Daly.

“They” (the bosses) get to us because it is their nature and because it is our fate to be gotten. The trick here, I think, is to recognize that we play just as big a part in this as they do. I was ruminating on something very much like the above, sitting poolside in my beautifully manicured yard (which was adjacent to my very own tennis court and all-tile swimming pool), having just received the news that the writers’ strike was officially over, and realizing—if you can believe it—that I was depressed. It was partially a postproduction malaise, but only to a degree. The confrontation with Tyne, my ongoing, not necessarily realistic, concerns for my financial future, my vain obsession with my fifteen-pound weight gain over that past year, all of it had me wallowing in a syndrome that at best could be described as unattractive. I needed to make some decisions, and I seemed unable to do so. I was feeling lost and overwhelmed.