Directing 80s Television with Karen Arthur

So Pretty the City. Hello Wyn, Welcome to Eighties TV Ladies, where we explored the fabulous female television shows of the nineteen eighties with your hosts Susan Lambert Adam and Sharon Johnson. Hello everyone, I'm Sharon and I'm Susan. And that was Melissa, our producer, introducing us. Because we like to mix it up a bit.

Recently, we've been talking about Cagney and Lacy, a police procedural drama starring two women detectives who were solving crimes as they manage their personal lives. It aired on CBS from nineteen eighty two to nineteen eighty eight. This show is arguably the most female driven show we've covered so far. Two women leads working together and being really well drawn individuals in a male dominated field. The women are leading the story and being the heroes.

And I really liked that the show dealt with the issues of the day, racism, abortion, sexual assault. It did not shy away from those, and it did it in really smart and surprisingly subtle ways. In addition to the series, there are several Cagney and Lacey TV movies. The original television movie that would spawn the show, which aired in nineteen eighty one, which we talked about a few episodes back, and then CBS aired four TV movies between nineteen ninety four and nineteen ninety six, picking up the characters and the actresses. Several years later, Cagney and Lacy starred Tyme Daily as Beth Lacey and Sharon Gless playing Christine Cagney.

The other stars included Al Waxman, John Carlin, Carl Lumley, Sidney Clute, and Martin Cove, who you may recognize as John Crease from the Karate Kids series all the way through the new television sequel series Cobra Kai. In our previous episodes on this show, we spoke with the Trifecta creator and producer Barney Rosenswig. Then both leading ladies Time Daily and Sharon Glass sat down and talked with us. Check out those episodes if you haven't already. It's just some of our favorite interviews with some of our favorite people.

But today we're speaking with another wonderful special guest, Karen Arthur. In nineteen eighty five, she was the very first woman to win an Emmy for Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series for an episode of Cagney and Lacy entitled Heat. Karen was born in Omaha, Nebraska. She started as a dancer and actress in the sixties and seventies. She was an actress in TV shows like The Monkeys Get Smart and the Streets of San Francisco.

Karen became a director in the nineteen seventies. In addition to Cagney and Lacy, she directed episodes of Heart to Heart, Remington Steel, one of the earlier shows we covered on our podcast, If You'll Recall, Seventh Heaven, and other popular series. She also directed many movies. Some of her most famous TV movies and ones I actually remember watching include The Rape of Richard Beck, Victims for Victims, The Teresa Soldonna Story, The Jacksons, an American dream miniseries, and The Staircase, which starred Barbara Hershey, William Patterson, and Diane Ladd. Karen, Welcome to the show.

We are so grateful to have you join us on our podcasts. So let's start at the beginning. How did you get started in this crazy business? Well, you know, it changes if you live as long as I have lived. I'm eighty one now, which has given me an opportunity for a lot of careers, and each career feeds into the next career, if you know what I mean.

I started out as a ballet dancer back in the fifties, and then I became a choreographer very young. I had actually choreographed a peace and let me see nineteen fifty I'm looking at a cheat sheet five and at a beautiful playhouse in Pompey's Florida, the Royal Ponciana Playhouse, and it'll have a lot of well healed people. And this woman came up to me afterwards and she said, I am missus Louis B. Mayor. I said, oh, I had no idea who Louis B.

Mayor was. Oh that's great, and she said, we don't have as many fine choreographers and directors as your work here tonight shows me. You need to come to Hollywood and you need to talk to me and I will put you in the movies. I said, great. Wow.

Ten years later I finally make my way to Hollywood. I had no intention in those days. I was going to be a ballerina, you know. So it's funny how things kind of at Who knew. But I started out as a ballet dancer and then a choreographer, and I just followed that path the rest of my life.

Amus csical comedy performer than a musical comedy director, a dramatic actress than a dramatic director. Then I go to Hollywood in sixty six and I'm acting in all of these crazy shows on TV and whatnot films and so forth, and then I get bored waiting for the phone to ring, and so I say, well, why don't I just direct? And so anyway, but it's always been one thing following another, which I think a lot of people's careers are, and you drag from each of those careers, or each of those chapters into whatever you oc current. So you're constantly feeding from your past into your future. I love that.

I think that's amazing. And I have had a lot of weird, crazy career stuff too. I did not think two years ago i'd be doing a podcast right now. But we're having a blast, and I am very curious about the transition to director. I was directing in the theater.

Actually, I had done a production of The Little Prince and though one of the reviewers this was in Hollywood, and one of the reviewers said, this director is so visual. Her work is just so cinematic. I don't know why she's not directing in Hollywood? Why is she not a director in film? And I thought, why am I not a director?

Hello, I can do that. Were there many other women directing for the stage when you first got started, or were you kind of out there by yourself? There were, oh god, so many more women directing in theater than directing. Obviously in film there were nobody in film, and the theater today I would say is populated probably by seventy five percent women directors over men, which is obviously not true in film. Do you remember what your first job was, directing television?

Well before I directed television, I made several movies, several feature films. I wasn't interested in television. Oh no, Now you have to do movies features, whoo. But you also have to raise the money for those, And so there goes five years of your life while you're raising the money to make this wonderful film, and then you have to go take care of that film and take it to all the festivals all over Europe and whatever. And then you come back and you're trying again raising the money again for your next feature.

And that was ultimately what pushed me after three features, that's what pushed me into television. But without making those features, I wouldn't have gotten into television because I would have had nothing to show. But because I had made those features, I was able to say, see, I can do this. So that was legacy in the MAFU Cage. I could see the Mafu Cage and Lady Beware.

So it was the independent route, really your only way to direct at that point for film or even television. Well, I didn't even think about television. It was strictly I was going to be a director, and that there were European women who were directing making films, and there were a handful of documentarians and back in our early days of course, starting with of course Alaski Blache and Lois Webber and Dorothy Arsner and going all the way through. I supposedly was the first woman to get a DGA card after idol Apino. I've tried to sush this out.

I got my card in seventy four, seventy five, but the DGA is kind of shaky about putting that down. They have me down a seventy nine. Well that's horse. But I was directing on Universal Studios at nineteen seventy five. The first TV job was rich Man poor Man.

And because I had been in the theater all those years back in my musical comedy days, I was doing Irmil Aduce in all of these wonderful roles. And I was at the Barn Theater in Michigan, and there was a guy there who was one of the kind of producer guys, Michael Gleeson, And we used to sit on my bed and drink rot gut wine, and he would talk about how he was going to go to Hollywood and he was going to be a big writer producer, and I was going to go to Hollywood and I was going to be a big star. Blah blah blah. Well he got to Hollywood and he became a big writer producer, Michael Gleeson, and he wrote and produced rich Man Poorman. So I went to him and I said, Michael, I'm directing now.

And I had legacy, and I had a Mafu cage. I think at that point I don't think I had I forget the years of all these things. God, when you're my age, Hello, No, I hadn't done Lady Beware yet, But I had done Mafu and Legacy, so I gave him the films. He looked at them, and he went to the tower and he said to the suits in the tower, I want to give her a rich Man poor Man. And they said, oh my goals, or don't hire her.

He said, you don't understand. I don't want to her. I want to hire her. She's a good director, perfect for our show. Anyway, he put his he put his job on the line for me, and I got rich Man Poorman.

That is amazing and I know, but like so for our listeners that don't know what she's talking about. What the tower. There's a building that's black that's called the Tower at the Universal Studios. That's where all the executives are, and when you go there, it's it's quite intimidating. Often they're intimidating.

Yeah. Perfect, Well that was kind of a throw you in the deep end sort of experience from going to independent film into a network television miniseries. What were the things that you found that you had to learn or relearn when you first stepped into that role for that show. Well, I parked my car where it said director on the lot, right by the sound stage and I start into the sound stage and the security guard said, wait a minute, Wait a minute, lady, Hey lady, you can't you can't park there. That's for the directors.

I said, I am the director. Through that, throw my script over my shoulder, and marched in on my high heels. That was fun day one, and then day one the assistant director, when I got on the sound stage, said okay, we're starting in the dining room and I've moved the wall over there so we can know that, so you can put your camera there. And I said, excuse me, you moved wall. He said yeah.

I said, you don't know where I'm putting the camera. I said, a d right, director right, put the wall back, hope, but it'll take I said, I don't care what it takes. Put the wall back. We won't shoot in the dining room right now. We'll go to the living room.

We'll shoot seeing blah blah blah blah. And then at the end of the day we went back to the dining room and I said, okay, now you can pull the wall, but it's that quaking in your boots. But you have to demand your position. And I just knew that by having done whatever else I'd done my whole life. That's fantastic.

I just you're my hero. Now there's two stories. It was so cute that I was leaving the first day to go back to my director's spot right to get my thing and to get my car, and this big, old, burly kind of guy came to me and he said, you know, he said, I'm I'm an electrician. I'm up in the gods. And he said, I've been looking at you.

I've never seen a woman director before. He said, you're pretty good, you know, old guy. It was so cute. I earned my stripes. Absolutely.

That is so great. Did more jobs come or were they? Did? They talk? Heart to Heart followed pretty soon after that, and I did.

I did, I don't know ten, twelve, fifteen, heart to Heart So I did a ton of them and Remington Steel and we're going to slow down because I want to talk about Heart to Heart. It's a show that we will at some point cover we haven't covered yet on this show. But because of Stephanie Powers and every other person who talks to me about this show, when I'm like, oh, I'm doing this podcast, it is like Stephanie Powers, You're gonna talk about Sephanie Powers, So can you tell us a little bit about working on Heart to Heart? And with those actors, it was, it was fabulous. The content of the show was always fantastical.

So it threw you into Chinatown or oh, or you're off in Afghanistan or you're whatever. Of course you're on the back lot. But it gave you all these things to do. Oh you're a mystery, You're this, You're that, You're a thriller, You're oh, you're funny, You're a romance. Oh fun So you're constantly having all of this great stuff.

And at the beginning, the great Mark Crowley was a producer and so I got to work with him and that was terribly exciting. And Stephanie, when I first met her, she was the one who had wanted a woman director, and so she had gone to the Powers and said, I want a woman director, and so my name came up. And I went and watched them work, and they could be tough on directors, They could be tough. I saw several directors walk away, one in tiers, one kind of like shell shocked, and I thought, oh God, you're come into the lions Den. And so the day before I started to shoot.

I'd been on the set meeting people and all of that, and Stephanie called me into her trailer and she said, you know, Karen, she said, you have to be authoritative. She said, I see you you hug people while I'm a hugger. And I said you're hugging the crew and that you can't do that. Hands off you. I mean, whoa, You have to maintain your distance.

And I thought, oh boy, here it goes. And I said, steph you know what, I'm just me. I hug people. I love people. I'm sorry, I'm gonna I can't stop hugging people at just who I am.

No. She said that that's good. That'll work outside, no worries. And she and I used to sit on their big bed. I've got Stephanie's stories that I can't tell, but I used to sit on the big bed during the takes, during all of the while the crew setting up, and we would sit there and we would talk like a couple of girls at a slumber party.

You know, it was fabulous. She was amazing, such a stunning actress. I saw her not too long ago off Broadway and we just went, well, my god, and you know, and caught up. It was She's just stunning. But you know, we went through on heart to heart.

We went through um, Natalie's death, that's right, um, um Holden's death, both of them. But then I won't say weeks but months of each other. One had just recovered when the other when, I mean, it was just it was it was uncanny and horrible and terrible and just the worst, just the worst. Oh my gosh. Things like that, either I think, bring everybody that's working together together or it really it was a pretty together group to begin with, you know, so um and you know, both of them were such huge stars in their own right.

I remember going to the wake at RJ's house for Stephanie, and I walked in the door and they were all these fabulous people, and RJ took up, grabbed me and said, oh, Karen, I'm so glad you came. I want you to meet my dear friend Elizabeth Taylor. And you know, it was they were stars in a firmament that you don't often see in television now. And so they had this other life as it were, certainly hold and did and RJ and Natalie. So there wasn't a point where it seemed like perhaps the show might end as a result of these two tragedies that happened so close together.

Well that's good because I think they they truly loved each other. They loved making the show. You know, it was always fun, it was always alive and whatever, and and I think the money was pretty damn good. Doesn't hurt, Oh no, don't hurt at all. Well, Remington Steel is one of my favorite shows from back in the eighties.

What can you tell us about your experience working on that show? And I did a couple episodes for them. Well, again, that's my friend Michael Gleeson from rich Man, Poor Man. He created that as well. And of course in the middle of it, Pierce Scott offered James Bond and had to say no because he still was under contracts.

So that was a pretty sad thing. Pierce was just he's an actor you don't come across very often. This guy used to eat flaming torches, you know, in Piccadilly Circus. I mean he was he could do anything, and he was shoot at the hip, hysterically funny, and poor Stephanie was running to catch up all the time. Because if you don't have that god given talent, you just don't.

And Pierce was just a one off aside from being one of the great men of all times and mensch. And we went through on the beginnings of his wife getting cancer and then he stayed with her through her demise and so forth. He had a very tough life and had those boys to raise. So but he and I, all, you either have the same kind of funny bone or you don't. Pierce and I always had this similar funny bone.

So we got on really well. I loved him. It was great. Well I was. I was struck by the episodes that you directed because they were sort of these verrier I mean, the show was a little bit um.

I think there's one quote from Stephanie exam the list where it was like three feet off the ground. But you directed in season two two episodes Steel Threads about the fashion line and Laura and Remington's stumbling into murder and high intrigue, and then episode thirteen, High Flying Steel, where they have to go undercover at a circus carnival florkas Right, where they get to be truspees artists and Pierce Brasen gets to eat fire. What do you used to do for a living so awesome, so awesome, blood, really fun. You know, it's it makes so much sense in watching your direction that you were a choreographer, because there's such beautiful choreography to your shots and to the scenes that you put together.

And I'm thinking particularly of the scene in Laura's apartment where they're practicing their trapeez and you do this whole exposition scene with them just sort of swinging back and forth on these two trapeez. Yeah. Wow, but you see that, And I'm glad you brought that up, Susan, because that's the That's what I mean by you drag your past with you, You drag all that you know with you. And I mean I remember getting the Emmy for Cagney and Lacy and saying, Barney, who put up with all my ten and a master's Because I would choreograph everything and we would start in a close up and then burner and we're over here and over there, and then we would in another close up and very really in the lifts, and boom, we're done.

And one day I was done at like three o'clock and I said, oh, because I did everything in big master shots. And then I would come back and cover if I needed to, but that, you know, and the crew loved it because they were all running with the dollies in the electrical paw of the whole. Everybody's running as okay, back to one, are over again, and there we go, We're off again, Here we go. And it was true. But that was my style because I was a choreographer and so I wanted everything on its feet, everything moving, camera always moving.

You know, I met my husband, you know, the great director of photography, Thomas Newworth on Cagney and Lacy, fell madly in love on the first show that we did together, which was Heat, which won the Emmy. And he and I are about to celebrate our thirty ninth year together. That's fantastic, gradual, that's amazing. And we made all my movies, his movies, our movies from Cagney and Lacy on together. That is so great.

And so I guess we're going to jump ahead to Cagney Lazy. So you did like eight episodes for Cagney and Lacy in season three and four, and you worked on the second one you worked on was called Choices, about a sort of a shady landlord died and so there's an investigation into the witness and then meanwhile Chris Cagney has a pregnancy scare, which is you know, it's always very exciting when there's an emotional personal component to those episodes. But it seems like that's the first time you work with editor Millie Moore could have been Millie and I had a long career after that. Again we met on that show, and then I took her with me for several other shows that when I started doing Mow's and then mini series, and so we had a long career as well.

You sort of collecting people along the way, you know, you do you do know, you find there's somebody that there's a shorthand in vocabulary, and you understand each other. You don't have to spell it out. Somebody has your similar rhythm or your similar you know, I whether it's a cameraman or an editor. And I was trained by the great editor Carol Littleton. She was my editor on Legacy and Mafu Cage and her husband, John Bailey was my cameraman on those.

So I had the best and we all came up together, the three of us and Carol and John. We were being interviewed for Mafu Cage for a DVD version, and they gave me the great compliment I've ever had. They said that working with Karen, she set the bar so high that that's what we have attempted to reach and stay there for the rest of our creative lives. And it was truly because we were I had Mafu Cage screened at MoMA and so for oh, for a filmmaker to be honored. So I was doing the Q and A and the gal who was Karen who was interviewing me, she said, what was so special about Mafu And I said, I had to think for a minute, and then I said, you know, it was before I moved into television.

And when you move into television, you get producers, financiers, studios, executives. All of these people now are telling you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, what not to do, or we don't like this, we like this, blah blah blah blah blah. When you make an independent film, nobody tells you what to do. It's right here, it's right here, and you go out and you create with these wonderful people that you've pulled together. Because this is a collaborative art form and together you just create whatever is in your mind that you want to create.

You can't get back to that place in television, you just can't. Wow, that's a very good description of the difference. I think. I think there's some a little bit with streaming, and there's some indie like sort of indie streaming projects that feel like you're an indie and you know, but the minute somebody pays for something, that's where you start getting chipped away at. So it's very very it's financially oriented, and I believe for a long while that's why women were not given the horns the reins.

I mean because not that we couldn't drive the horse, but we didn't have the money to buy the horse. And men have been very tight fisted financially in wanting to support a woman and her efforts. And so when you think back, it's all about the tower not wanting to give that little girl the reins. Well, I think we've I think we can stop our podcast, right, I think we have just you encapsulated it. We're done.

Check. This is so great. So let's let's go back to Cagning Lacy. We're kind of all these amazing people you met and things happened. So the fourth episode that you do is Heat, and that is the episode you won the Emmy four star against first one that started a new season.

The other two were done. The cameraman on that was Sharon Gless's husband, Oh, He'll come to me. And then tom My tom took over on Heat and totally changed the squad room in terms of the lighting apparatus and all of that. And that was a show that we shot all on location because Lacy Street was being earthquake proofed. So it was five days or six days.

I forget how many days we did, but we did it all on location. And to tell our listeners if you haven't watched it, it is comes in season four. I believe Heat and stars Michael Madson pretty early in his career, not long after Diner, and he had done The Natural and War Games. But Marybeth has taken hostage in a train yard by a very dangerous person and there's a big standoff and it's very hot because there they first are stuck in a train car. He sort of holds up in a train car, and it's it's very different.

It's shot very different from the other episodes, it feels very different, you know, again where we can kind of catch these things on streaming and sometimes it's not accurate. But in the episode that I watched and Sharon, I don't know, we haven't talked about this. It started without the credits. Also, if you notice there's no music. Yeah, Barney said, I'm not going to put any music on this.

It is so powerful without having anything other than heightened sound effects. And that was his call. But but no music. That's when you were shooting that, were you like, this is this one special? Well?

It was. It was the first one with Tommy. I could sense that as a director and a director of photography, this was an amazing connection blend. And also we were falling in love, so it was very special. Wow, that's a big year, Holy crap.

And so then you go on and continue doing episodes and all. So he just stayed. He was the DP from then on for a long time. Yeah, after well after I left. Yeah, he stayed for a while after that, and then he started to join me doing movies of the Week, and then we hit the miniseries Rock and Roll Time.

You know. All right, so let's talk about the Emmy win. I want to actually kind of go right before the win and talk about when you were nominated. It's nineteen eighty five. You were the first woman to ever be nominated for directing Emmy after thirty five years of Emma.

What did that feel like? I didn't think we were gonna win. I was gonna win at all. I didn't even buy a new dress. I had an old nightclub gown that I used to use in my nightclub act.

And I had a feather boa that I used to use in my nightclub act. I used to skip rope in it, so it was weighted on ends. So I thought, I'm just going in the old you know this. I'm not going to get this. I said to Tommy, I don't know why you're getting a limo.

This is crazy. You're spending all this money for a limo. Come on, we're not gonna win. So when I wont, it was WHOA a pretty while? So the network didn't even send you to the Emmys in a limo.

L luck, but they're on the bus. Who cares? Not the likes of me, maybe the likes of other people they bring to the Emmys without me? No wait, oh my god, Tommy got him limo. So we were in that limo.

You went home in style with an Emmy in your hand. Do you get to go home with the Emmy? You got it? You get to go home with the Emmy? That not sure?

Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely, that's fantastic. All right? So did it change things for you in your career? Oh? Sure?

Oh god? Yes, oh god? Yes? In what ways? What ways did it?

Did it change things? Well? People opened up? I think actually was a funny story. Yeah.

Returned to Eden. Returned to Eden was before the Emmy and the executives it returned to Eden. We were away shooting in Seattle area and the suits didn't like what they were seeing, and so they said, uh, fire them. So we got a call from the suits saying that we were fired. I was fired, and then of course every other people go.

And the producers who wrote the piece were very strong and they said, no way, man, we're not firing her. You fired her, you're gonna lose everybody. Come on, no way, we're moving. We like what's going on here, and we're the writers, we created it. Okay, So they managed to save the job.

So when we were watching in those days, you used to see a screening with the executives and everybody. When the show was finished and we'd finished editing, and you know, so I'm sitting there. I would always sit way in front so I could hear what they were rabbiting about, like that at wrong now that's good, at whatever. Anyway, a man and a woman who had been my executives, who had wanted to fire me. The lights come up and Brandon Stoddard I think it was Brandon Stoddard and Tartetkoff, but I think Brandon Stoddard was the guy.

I think it was CBS. And he said, this is so always ABC. He said, this is so fantastic. I love this movie. I'm gonna make it ABC Circle blah blah blah blah.

And of course the man and woman who had fired us fired me said, oh, yes, it's just oh it's swoba. So the night of the Emmy's Richard Krena gets an Emmy for rape with Richard Beck, right, And of course I got mine and I was the same year. I guess I hadn't put together that. He said, he said, you you've already he said, she should get an award for this, but you've already given her an award. So my director Karen Arthur blah blah blah.

So I'm walking out, Tommy and I are walking out and in my old gown holding my Emmy, and I go by the man and woman who wanted to fire me, and he said, oh, come here, come here, come here, and I went over years, Oh, we're so proud of you and bad bad, and I said, okay, thank you, and he said, we want to hire you to do the next three movies of the week. You can choose whatever you So did it make a change, absolutely, even in people who were ready to plush you down the toilet. It made a change. Wow, that's amazing. And I literally like, I didn't put it together, but that was the same year that, you know, because that's amazing.

So you were like just all over the Emmies that year. Yeah, well, the Queen of the Emmys and of course Sharon and Tyne one and you know it was me and Lacey was pretty much a juggernaut right thirty years. I love what you were saying too, though, about your decision to sit down in the front of the screening so you could hear what the people behind you were saying to each other. Did you ever get any interesting tidbits or whether you want to tell us in them or not, about things that were helpful to you or interesting or anything that that you might have earned or gleaned, you know, Sharon, because the network and the executives are so much a part of the editing process, you know, much to your chagrin most of the time.

However, there have been many, many times when I have learned a great deal from somebody who I maybe during the writing process or the initial process I might have tossed away. They are very, very intelligent on many levels, and unfortunately you get into a combative situation just by the nature of the being. Until they really get to know you and respect you. Then you can have great relationships with executives, which I have had. But if you're coming in cold as it were, you know, it takes time, like any relationship.

So yeah, I would hear things that I would go, WHOA, that's a damn good idea, or I can I'll make a change in the edit or whatever. You know. Oh yeah, you're always learning. I mean, we're babies in this world, you know, As certainly I was to start, you don't know anything, and so you're picking it up from whoever. Oh that's a good idea.

You have to recognize the idea, mind you, But okay, that's a good idea. Did someone give you the idea to do that, to sit down in front? I'm not sure that how many people would have thought, Okay, this is a great place for perhaps or I can learn some things bad as someone who sits in the back during my things. But and in some ways I think for me in theater, when I'm doing a theater show, I like to sit in the back so I can watch the audience. You're absolutely right.

And in theater I'm always in the back row. And in a screening of my movies, I'm always in the back row. But not when I want to hear what the big wigs are saying, then I want to be in the front row. Also, I think if I'm in the back, I intimidate them. Oh she's watching us, she's going to see what we're thinking.

Oh, we can't do that. So you know I love that move. Yeah that's great. If I'm ever back in film, I will be amazing that move. It's very different.

But when when you want to know something, it's good just a ear. Little ears are pricked up. You know. That's great. Now, okay, so one more question about the Emmy win.

Do you think your Emmy win changed things for other women? Oh? Of course, of course. And I was up against the big dogs men, the big guys who always win, and so the fact that I got that over them said something also which would have helped break the glass ceiling at that point. Absolutely.

Yeah, it's it's sort of a shame that it took ten years, I think for another Emmy woman to women director. Well, yeah, you know, yeah, I think it was Mimi Leader. Mimi shot one of my films for me a million years before that when I was at the A five Women's Directing Workshop and I was in the first year with all those great women and Bancroft and you know, Lee Grant and all these great gals, and so we made two films, and one of those films now I think maybe shot both of them as a matter of fact, as her daddy was a filmmaker. You know, yeah, yes, that's amazing. Yeah, she directed a pilot of My husbands that never went But I loved meeting her as great, great gal.

Yeah, wonderful assault to the Earth, you know, just another story of film projection. How things happened. I was in a trying to raise money for legacy, and a f I gave me some screening time so I would have a screening and i'd invite prospective investors. And I knew this wealthy guy from Palm Beach, and I invited him. And he came in like a half hour late in his tennis togs and sat down for about twenty minutes and got up and left early.

And I thought, oh, well, thank you, George, thank you for coming. And then the next day he called me and said, Karen, I'm having a screening four your film, and it's going to be at twentieth Century Fox at five o'clock. Be there or be square. So okay, fine, So I go and I have no idea. All I can see or heads, you know.

I'm in the projection booths looking to see who's there, just hids. So the film's over and I go out to say hello to everybody, Say hello to George and his wife Claris Leachman, who knew, and they're very dear friends, Paul Newman and Joeanne Woodward and his very good friends Start Stern, the writer and Rogers and Cowen, the big pr guys up the funded my movie. They each wrote me a check right then and there, and I got the rest of the money for that film. Wow. Wow.

Later on, I was an actress and I was in a movie with Winning with Paul and Joanne and RJ. So that was a funny situation. And then later I was doing a movie with Marley Matlin and I wanted to get the rights to Glass Menagerie. We were doing it, a deaf version of it, and I knew they had just done it on film and they were doing She was doing Sweet Bird of Youth in Toronto and I was filming another movie over there. So I grabbed the producer.

I said, we're going back, going backsta. I said yeah, and so I you know, and they said okay. And instead of just her being there, there was Paul with his beer. You know, he care legacy blah blah blah blah blah blah. I said, my god, I need help, I need blah blah blah blah.

And they gave me Maria san Just, who was the Tennessee Williams head of the estate, and we got the rights to do grass Glass Menagerie sign So, you know, it things attlet That's fantastic, How generous and kind of them to do that as well more of them to see the talent. So on Cagney Lacy, which of the shows that we've started covering, we look kind of look at the numbers and the stats when it comes to both women directors and writers on those shows, M and and quite honestly, Cagney Lacy comes out pretty good. Did you notice that when you were on Cagney and Lacy that there was a higher percentage of women writers and directors. Well, remember it was started by Barbara Corday. Yes, so it was she who gave it its legs.

And Barbara was always very very open to women, and I mean she needed help up the ladder, and so she was willing to help women up the ladder. And Barney was very female supportive. I mean, there's no question about Barney's loyalty to women and belief in their talents and fighting for them. Well. I haven't seen Sharon and forever, but I bumped into time every now and again because we're both New Yorkers and I we go to the theater and bump into each other in the theater, you know, So so I get to see her.

You have worked with some incredible actresses and actors, any standouts, any other amazing people that you're like, Oh my god, this really changed the way thought about things. Well, there's been a lot. And you know, for somebody who comes from not a star background like myself, when you work with bona fide stars, there is always that oh, how will I be accepted in this world? These are not just TV stars. These are you know, people like Vanessa Redgrave and Michael York And while Angelina was a baby when I got her, but you know Angelina Julie for This is Women.

Yeah, Angelina and Harris. I gave him on Heart to Heart his first job. First, I'm sorry because you gave ed Harris his first job on Heart to Heart. Yeah, oh my god. We're gonna have to find that.

I know. Ye he had done a biker movie and I saw that and I just I was just struck. I said, this man is so stunning. And I literally I would sit there behind the camera and just go like that because he's doing what he was so awesome. But you know, you get people and and and it's really exciting.

So part of it is you trying to calm your inner and at the same time, you know you have an opportunity to work with these great people and understand what their process is, because as a director, that's always my goal is Number one is the actor. Who are you? How do you work? How do you like to work? What do you want from me?

What don't you want from me? Where can I be for you? Where shouldn't I be for you? You know? Can I give you background research?

Can I do this? Can I do that? It's all having that opening for them to be as comfortable or uncomfortable as they choose to be given the way they choose to work. Was that something you developed as a result of your experience as a performer and working with directors. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Times when you feel that a director is smothering you and you don't have room. It's like I learned a great lesson from Lee Grant and Carol Kane. I'm a very effusive person, a very positive person, up up up, you know. And I would go on the set in the morning and oh, we're doing this, and wow, but we wear a room. And one morning they said they wanted to see me before we started, and I went in and these two kind of faces, and Lee said, Karen, you know, you just don't give us any room to fail.

And they said, what do you mean, Well, you're so positive, you know everything all the time. You're never questioning anything, You're just always there. I said, but I'm the director. I'm supposed to do that. And they said, no, You've got to be a little less sure so we can be a little less sure so we can try things out rather than having to live up to your expectations.

That one was a big lesson. Well wow, and so how do you shift that since it's so close to your personality. I'm not one hundred percent sure all the time. I fake it a lot. I think girls fake a lot of all our lives.

You know, we're we're constantly going, oh, I can be that, I can do that. I can. But so it allowed me to say, okay, there are times when I don't feel that on top of it, to either go to the actor and say, you know, I'm not feeling really great about this scene. What am I missing here? Or what could we do to got any ideas here?

You know, just to include the question and include other people in the question. I never had any problem doing that with a cameraman or an editor or whatever. But I always felt that I was the director and I was supposed to be the person that directed the actors, and so I never gave the actors that space, that other space. You know, Wow, what a like, what a great thing to learn and to be able to make that adjustment. And I mean, that's the actor, right, that's the that's the performer who learns how to make adjustments, adjustments exactly.

That's that's amazing. So I have a question about, um, women on set again and women on crew. Have you ever worked on a show where there was fifty percent or more women on the cast and crew? Oh? Yeah?

When when when I did Mafu Cage it was only I think I think we were ninety five percent women. Wow? Um, But then I had control, I could do that, but not not really And and you know, I don't think it's a good idea. It's like I was a film festival kittie for a lot of years. It was my movies where my frequent flyer.

I've went all over the world and did all the film festivals from con on and on and on and on. And there was a several film festivals which were women's film festivals that I would go to and or be invited to, as you know, participate, I should say, in And they made me angry when they wouldn't allow men, no men in the audience. Now I'm not even talking about no men in our discipline, but no men in the audience. Oh wait, this is insane. The whole thing has got to be about coming together.

So I really don't like the concept of all women on a crew other than obviously you're giving women an opportunity to do something, and that's important. But I just think I believe in homogeneous behavior together was the way we make it through life. I want to be hand in hand with my fellow men and will and so you worked from from the sixties all the way through the two thousands. What changes did you see, both in just how television gets made and movies got made, and just in terms of the opportunities for women, And you know that everybody working together. Well, the you know I made through the years, obviously some very dear friends who were female directors or whatever their persuasion was, and we would clock in every now and again.

Certainly film festivals, who are a wonderful way to connect to women in Europe and the world that I would not have been able to know about in my own backyard. And obviously women were starting to do more and more work and that was exciting. But at the same time my career was growing, I was into big mini series and things like that. And you've become a little myopic, you know, because it's just a lot to Those are big jobs and they take an enormous amount of your time and effort and energy. And I could lose track very easily of who was doing water whatever.

And Joan Tewkesbury and I used to come together every now and again and break bread and various other gals. You know that I knew Martha Coolidge and whatnot, and you know, we would catch each other up to date as to what was going on. But I think basically, you get on your own horse and you're just riding so hard that that you don't your peripheral vision is not as good as it might be. We've seen that in the past few years with several women who have had big successes and gone on to get another big chance and another big chance. It's always getting that one chance, that one chance, so that people can say, oh, I saw that.

Oh she did a damn good job on that. Oh that made money. Okay, you know, but it's getting that shot. And that's where the people who believe in you become wildly important, because then they stand behind you, you know. Yeah.

I'm struck by all this, all your stories, how somebody was sort of in your corner fighting for you because they believed in you. And that's such a valuable part of being a creative person at all is to have that. And I'm also really struck by your choices. And I don't know how much. It's just Okay, here's the job that was offered to me, and here's the job I want now.

I became miss Karen. No. I would throw those scripts in the fireplace we lived in Malibu, and I would just toss him and you know, no, no, My agent would go, kucko. You can't say no again, I said, but it's not about anything. These are my babies.

I don't have children. I make movies. These are my babies. How can I put that out on the planet, that's about men killing women? Oh?

I can't do that. How can I put this out? This is not anything important. I'm going to spend ten months of my life on this What I got to do that every day and go to that ugly place. No I can't do it, no, no, no.

So I've been very selective about what I choose to do and have been so fortunate to have great scripts. And I had a producing partner for years, Craig Anderson of has more talent and grace and creativity and sensitivity than anybody I know, and so we would just look for projects that were just special. And you live with it every hour of every day. You know it's in your head or you're actually doing it, or you're cutting it, or you're worried about it. And man, if it's if it's not worth it, why do it?

The Rape of Richard Beck nineteen eighty five, and again I'm now just realizing the same same Emmy year for our listeners, it's also known as Deadly Justice, So if you're searching for it, sometimes it comes up as that. But it aired as that because I remember this airing because it was such a powerful title and a powerful story starring Richard Krenna Meredith Baxter. Krenna won an Emmy for his portrayal of the hard bitten, tough cop who's not incredibly sympathetic to other victims of violence and sexual violence, and he becomes a victim of himself of sexual assault and has to deal with the aftermath of that. And nineteen eighty five, you're making this movie about male rape and the aftermath of sexual assault?

How did that come to happen? That was a that was a true story. The cop was in Seattle, let's see. Yeah, I think Seattle, even though, and it's funny we shot there, not for that reason, but that was a true story. And these two writers, Jim and Jim and Jim we used to call him.

I can't remember their last names. I'm sorry, guys, but they were terrific and they were producers as well, and they what had they seen something of mine? And they took me to lunch at a at a Japanese restaurant, I remember, and told me about this story. And I just was like, oh my god, I love this story. I think this is amazing.

And I pitched my husband, my husband, my lover as the DP, and of course they went, oh my god, oh god, and I have a DP and a director sleeping together. Oh no, this is terrible. We can't put the wedge in between the two. Oh my god. Anyway, that was the big thing with that.

But they finally said okay, and they were fabulous. They were just fabulous, and Richard Krenna won an Emmy for that performance. He came on the set the first state Krenna is one of the great raconteurs of all time. I mean, you can't he's got stories. Oh my god, they're just fabulous.

So he comes on the set the first time. We were just getting ready to shoot and everybody is there, you know, first shot and all that, and he turns around and he pulls his pants down and moons us and on the back of his fanny, it says, be kind. That breaks some tensions and I'm sure, yeah, oh yeah. So we were ready to go then. And did that have like what impact do you think that TV movie had?

I mean, how do people respond? Well? As I mentioned, the network really got behind it and made it an ABC Circle film. So that was a big deal at that time, and the critics were just a few about it. In terms of the public, I you know, you never really know.

I just know that through the years people have said to me, oh my god, you did rape of Richard Beck. Oh that was so way before its time and so fat so I know it stays in people's mind. You know that that when you hear something of a long career, an old movie, and that somebody it still resonates for somebody, that that's that's very powerful. Well and that and that brings me to the Teresa Sildonna story of Victims for Victims, because I think I'm ninety percent sure that I actually reviewed it for the usc Daily Trojan newspaper. It was like a press you know, event, but it was sort of impactful as a young person to like actually hear her story and then and then see the movie and she plays herself in the movie about the attack on herself and her recovery and how basically postramatic extress from being a victim of violence turned her into a bit of an activist who created an organization for other victims to support each other, you know, called Victims for Victims.

And how did you get involved in that? That was on the heels of Cagney and Lacy, Yes, because that was Orion, and Orion was the home for Cagney and Lacy, and they had this script and I was doing all of these things and had won the Emmy and all of that. So Orian came to me and said, here's it's because it was my first movie of the week, was Victims for Victims, and that's how it came about. And I spent a lot of time with Teresa, and I remember the first time she came to my house. We walked in and I said, I do one some coffee or something.

I went into the kitchen and she immediately grabbed the knife rack and shrew it out of the way, and you know, and she was still very very raw. That that was really extraordinary. And seeing this man who he kept all these diaries of what he was going to do, what he was going to do to her and all of this. You know, he came from Scotland over here to do it, and he wrote I mean like the head of a pin and just they were they looked redacted. They were so black from the obsessiveness of this man's insanity.

His psychosis was just off the scale. Wow. All right, well that's a good place to take a break. We're gonna take a break and then we'll come back and wrap up. We're back and we're gonna have to wrap up.

Even though this interview has been so much fun. We could just talk for days any place where, like, I know you you made a documentary. Yeah, I retired. But when we retired, we moved to Nassau and the Bahamas and got bored very quickly. And I always go to museums wherever I go, so that I can understand what people are like based on what their art is like.

And so I met this museum and the National Gallery and looking at and I said, well, where are the masters? This is a very uber contemporary show. Where are the masters? And they said, oh, well, we don't have room for that. Whatever I said, Oh, I said, ah ha, Tommy, we have we have a documentary.

Let's learn how do my documentaries? So we made four features on Bahamian artists and this was the joy of joys. Number one to work in documentary, which is a whole other world, and number two to work with artists. And so it was an extraordinary experience. And we were able to give to that country this legacy of these gorgeous documentaries and narrated some of them by Sydney Poitier and whatnot, and anyway, that was a fabulous thing.

So that was part of our retirement. And then I went back into the theater, and I've been directing in the theater now. So if there's some place that people want to keep up with what you're up to, is there a way for them to find you? Or you just like, yeah, you just have to search hard. I don't do anything.

You don't do anything. Okay, that's you. Listen. That's a good way to keep saying. All right, So we are going to have three questions.

What's the eighties ladies TV show? And you can name your own that resonated with you in the eighties with sopranos in the eighties. No, but it's a good show. Yeah, I like that show well, Cagney and Lacy. I mean I thought that was a ban or show.

Whether I had directed it or not, I would have been glued just because of the bravery and the female issues and so on and so forth. So yeah, all right, are there any female driven shows that are on now or that you've seen recently that you really like? You know, I don't watch television. I watch features. I'm heavy into Criterion Channel.

I see all that. I say. Okay, I'm doing Lena vert Miller now this month or week or whatever. How long I can take it and watch every piece she ever directed in chronological order and or whatever the director is, so that that's what I do when I'm looking at stuff like that, you know, But I'm not a big I couldn't even name a TV show that I've seen, and I know they're out there, and I know they're fabulous because they are now not only content but also visually they are able to do things that we could never have done in for instance, Heart to Heart or rich Man Poor Man or whatever, because oh they wanted everything shot with you know, the sun coming at you know, and then there's no such thing as shadows or things or whatever.

So the whole thing has changed. The whole medium has changed, and for the better, both content wise and not so much performance, because actors are actors and they're all going to be fabulous when they are. But content and visual acuity, I think is very different and wonderful, very supportive of that. And what is like the most sort of either action hero or television like something like a moment in your life where you're like, is this scripted? Is somebody just made up this moment for me?

Do you have a moment like that? Either on set or offset? I don't think so. I mean, I'm sure I do. I'm sure I've got a thousand of them, but I can't pull one up right now.

Huh. All right, well that's a good place to leave it in the mystery. Ah, Susan jumps in and fixes all things. You've brought us so many great stories and such a particular and unique and beautiful point of view and lovely projects that you talked about. So thank you so much.

Yeah, your insights from behind the camera are I think will be so interesting and invaluable for our listeners. And let's Susan said, we could talk to you for days, weeks, months, I don't know. It's just been fantastic. Thank you for acknowledging me, remembering me, and for all of the work which is so As I mentioned earlier, it's a collaboration and all of the great artists that I had the opportunity to work with to create these wonderful pieces. So thank you from all of us.

Thank you. Hugs to your husband, and I'm so excited that he was a part of Cagney and Lacy, and thank him from his work and all the work that you guys worked on together. And um, can we can we see your Emmy? It was on the high shelf. I almost dropped.

It is so heavy. They look heavy, so heavy. Funny story. This is a new Emmy, my old Emmy which I kept, but because I lived in Malibu, the sea ate it and it busted. It's oh wow.

So I called the Emmy people and I said, I have this old corroded Emmy and it just broke its base? Can can you help me? Can you put it back on? And they said no, we'll give you a new one. I said, oh okay, And you didn't even have to give the old one back.

That's what's great. So this is the new old amts is a great story. And we were gone from the beach at that point so it didn't get corroded. It's safe now, I think now. But they're heavy.

I mean you pick it and you go like that. You know, well, congratulations. That is a fantastic for both of your emmy's. You can pretend you got too. You should have if I just had the base on the other one.

Fantastic. Thanks, Thank you so much from you Melissa, wherever you are there. She is very much absolutely okay. To Day's audiography includes two books, Defining Women Television and the Case of Cagney and Lacy by Julie Dioce and Primetime Feminism, Television, media culture and the women's movement since nineteen seventy by Bonnie jay Doo. In this episodes eighties TV Ladies Salute, we want to acknowledge an honor the recent passing of some TV and film ladies.

First Niko Taka She was an American actress of Japanese descent, perhaps most famous for starring opposite Marlon Brando in nineteen fifty four Cynara. She was also in the eighties TV mini series Shoguns starring Richard Chamberlain and Toshira mfune Keina Lolo Brigitta, the Italian actress and international sex symbol of the fifties and sixties. In her later years, she became known as a photojournalist and activist. She played Esmeralda in the nineteen fifty six Hunchback of Notre Dame, opposite to Anthony Quinn. She was also very big in eighties television, guest starring in five episodes of Falcon Crest, two episodes of Love Boat, and two episodes of a TV mini series called Deception with Stephanie Powers, amongst other projects.

We also recently lost Cindy Williams. She was most famous for playing Shirley Feeney opposite Penny Marshall, first in Happy Days and in their very own successful spinoff, Laverne and Shirley. She also notably appeared in American Graffiti and The Conversation. Annie Worshing not in eighties but a very modern TV lady lost way too soon. She was a lovely actress who starred as Renee Walker in later seasons of twenty four.

She also starred in Bosch and Marvels The Runaways. She was the voice and bodywork for Tess in the video game The Last of Us, and had recurring roles in The Rookie and as the Borg Queen in Star Trek Picard Last We Have Lisa Loring. She played Wednesday Adams in the original Adams Family TV series. In the eighties. She did some small roles, including Cricket Montgomery in the CBS soap As the World Turns.

Thank you eighties TV ladies, We'll remember you. Oh my gosh. Thank you to all the people who have been writing us thanking us about the Remington Steel episodes. Thank you Sherry and Dakota, who's watching with her dad and is eighteen years old. I love that younger generations are finding the show.

Also, many thanks to Tracy and Chris for sharing their thoughts about Remington Steel as well. Love hearing from you guys. Please keep it coming, and Tracy reminded us basically sent us an article explaining that shows we're leaving during the eighty four Olympics, so we now have proof, solid proof of our theory, and many people had written about that to us. I also love that Chris recommended one more episode she would give to people to make sure they understood the show. When we did our nineties TV Babies episode, we gave them some and she said we should add a season three episode one steal at it as a good example of the show.

Thank you all for reaching out and sending us your feedback. Keep it coming, let us know what you're thinking about the show and what you like about the show, and let us know how you're liking the Cagney and Lacy episodes. Our next episode, we'll be bringing back the nineties TV Babies to talk about Cagney and Lacy and can't wait to hear their thoughts. We are already making our plans for season two. Tell us what shows you think we should be covering next season.

We do want to lighten it up a bit, so we're looking for comedies and sitcom suggestions from the eighties filled with ladies. That's the criteria. Send your message at eighties tv ladies dot com. As always, we hope Eighties tv Ladies brings you joy and laughter and lots of fabulous new and old shows to watch, all of which will lead us forward toward being amazing ladies of the twenty first century. So bretty ta out into the city.

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