Director Ladies: Mary Lou Belli | From Steve Martin to Ms. Pat

Welcome to Eighties TV Ladies, part of the weirding Way Media Network Eighties So Pretty, Through the City, Gunning, Good Money, Man, worl. Hello, friends, welcome to Eighties TV Ladies, where we explore female driven television shows from the nineteen eighties and celebrate the people who made them with your fabulous hosts Sharon Johnson and Susan Lambert had him. Hello, I'm Sharon and I'm Susan, and we're fabulous apparently. Thank you, Melissa. We are super thrilled for today's guest.

An impressive and versatile Emmy nominated, an Emmy winning director, and a fabulous eighties television Ladies who has first hand insights into what has changed in her thirty five years are working in Hollywood. Mary Lou Belli has won two Los Angeles Area Emmy Awards and is a two time Primetime Emmy nominee for The Miss Pat Show. Mary Lou is a television director who has worked on such shows as Charles in Charge, NCIS, New Orleans Station, Nineteen, Devious Maids, The Hugh Glees, Wizards of Waverley Place, and so many more, in addition to directing over one hundred and fifty episodes of TV. Miss Belli is a director of award winning short films as well, and she's an acting coach and the co author of four books, the new sitcom career book Acting for Young Actors, Directors Tell the Story, and Acting for the Screen.

As an incredible leader in the industry, she serves on several councils, boards and DGA committees. Is an honorary board member of the Alliance of Women Directors and Advisory Board member of Women and Media. Please welcome to eighties TV ladies, Miss Mary Lou Belli. Oh, I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

We are so happy to have you here. And I want to hear all about your journey. Okay, happy to share that with you. It was a nice journey. You went to Penn State and did you study acting or and or directing there?

Yeah? Well, I had one directing class. I was terrible. I mean I was terrible because so much of directing is having a point of view in the stories you tell, because that's basically what we are now what I was really good at from an early age, and it was because I was a lifelong reader. I mean, I was that kid who went to the library and came home with a stack of books every Saturday, and any genre, you know, the science fiction for ten years, and then it was you know, something else.

But my field of study was acting. And I graduated from Penn State in three years with thirty extra credits because I still looked like no kidding fourteen years old. And I scooted my butt to New York City, where I'd grown up, fourteen miles outside the city, so I got there as quickly as I could to try to get those parts where I was playing kids, and I did while I was in my early twenties, like early early twenties, so and I worked pretty steadily. I had my equity car for the theater a month after I arrived in New York, which was you meet people go years without that, and then I was doing you know, you know under fives on soap operas and you know, auditioning for commercials and stuff like that. But it was only about two years into that journey my husband at a commercial audition, he skated me home because we were both un roller skates.

I'm sorry, hold on the rest is in the book, but he was from Los Angeles or he was from southern California. Actually he's from the East Coast, but had grown up a bit of his life and he still had a car in his parents' garage, and I went, I really want to look at this TV thing. So we came up for a visit like a month after we got married, and we were living in Los Angeles a year later. Wow, and the rest is history. He keeps entertaining ideas.

We've looked at real estate in the Berkshires in New York City, and about two years ago he came down for breakfast and he said, you're never leaving this house, are you a one? I love California. I love We've just taken two major road trips. Desert mountain seashore trip. We did Joshua Tree, then had dinner in Palm Springs with friends, went to the mountains in the Cleveland National Forest, and then we ended up in del Mar.

And we just finished Sonoma, where we stayed twenty minutes from a redwood preserve and twenty minutes from the coast, you know where they filmed Hitchcock's The Birds Birds. Yeah, And then stopped at our favorite beach in Pontacito. You know, I had made eggs salad this morning. We ate our ex salad on the beach. You're a California girl, you know, not born and bred, but kind of in the blood of course.

You know, this is so funny. I have two children. My bridesmaid had two children about the same time. She stayed in New York City because that's where I got married. Both kids came out to California for school.

My kids born in Los Angeles, went to New York City and they're still there, both my kids. Oh my goodness. Yeah. So you know. It was but the acting, singing, dancing informed and a well really good theater degree in which I was made to take things like lighting and set design, and you know, and also because it was a state university, I had to take things like symbolic logic.

And I had a great Shakespeare teacher and I and at Penn State all the all the theater and film and television disciplines were very split up. So I studied dance in the visit department, sometimes with like some of the football players in my ballet class. I studied music and the music department separate. I got my degree in the theater department, but the big communications school now, which I mentor for is the Bellisario School, which is a completely different college than Arts and Architecture where I studied. So yeah, I want to go back to the eighties.

Okay, great, let's please too. One of your first jobs memory was on a nineteen eighty four sitcom called Domestic Domestic Life. Yes. Oh, and you're going to talk about one of my favorite actresses of all time. Yes, Judith Marie Bergen played Martin Mull's wife on that.

After many, many, many many decades of working in the television industry, she left and became one of the leading ladies at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where I saw her do countless roles. She remint the lifelong bring. We lost her a few years ago, and it was it was a great job. And the little girl who I worked with on that show, Megan Follows who at that time, I can't remember if she'd already been Anne of Green Gables. It doesn't look like she had.

I don't think she had. She was about sixteen, guys. I taught her to drive on the backlot of the Universal Studios in my crappy car. I think it was like a used volkswagon that we had bought so that, you know, because it was like on the backlot we could do things like that. You taught Anne Shirley how to drive?

Yes, I taught Anne Shirley how to drive. And I don't know if you know this, And maybe she should be a person on your on your show. She has now become a director. When she was doing the CW show Rain R E I g N, she ended up directing the show. Now mind if she comes from a long line of I mean, her dad was a very famous Canadian director, her mom a leading actress at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.

Her sister or older sister I think, was a director as well. But now she's the hyphen it too. That is amazing that I didn't know that she had become a directors and I would love to have we'd love to have her on the show. I mean love. Just remind me of all the introduce I'll make an intro.

That'd be great. That's wonderful, Okay. I do want to say it starred Martin mull but Steve Martin co created the show. Martin was our executive producer. Martin and Steve are close, close, close, close friends to this day.

And mainly because not of their TV interests, although you know Steve was a megastar from Saturday Night Live. But Martin mull is one of the finest painters of our time. I don't know if you know this. He's represented by one of the by the Freeman Gallery. He's an extraordinary artist.

Rizdy trained in huge museum collections and Steve has one of the foremost art collections in the world. I know that part, but I did not know the Martin Bull part. Okay, so here's my great story about that. They would sit in the audience, Steve would be in the front row, and Steve wasn't there all the time. But I remember one day when Steve and Martin was doing a entrance down the stairs and coming and yelling back upstairs to his wife or maybe Judith Marie Bergen was already in the kitchen.

He was yelling as she he was entering the room, or yelling back to her because she was upstairs. Of course, there was no upstairs because it was a TV stairs into the living room and Martin ad libd or Steven Martin. Steve and Martin would decide what the adlete was going to be. He'd try it. Everybody would laugh and then they put their heads together and you go, no, no, no, I go try another.

Mind you. This was a non secretary It had nothing to do with the scene, but it was about can we get a laugh on Martin's entrance? Every single one, like I was peeing in my pants. Every single one was funny. And the two of them sat down in a very intellectual way and disgust, which was the funny est.

And that was my introduction to sitcoms. And I went, oh, like an education right there. Oh my goodness. It was an education and it was about perfection and refinement and improvement, and that show was all about that. Also, there was a wonderful other actress.

You know. Domestic Life was about the domestic life of a person who was a talk show hoster, and there was a wonderful actress she introduced me to still one of my favorite Chinese restaurants in Chinatown, Los Angeles to this day. Her name was Mia or is Mia Hunt, and she was wonderful on the show in a show that was at a lot of men. Yeah, but it was Mia and Jeuth, Marie Bergen and me and follows. That is amazing.

What were you doing on the show. I was called the understudy. Like in theater. There was a director, Will Mackenzie who had come from the theater. He'd also been on New Heart.

I mean he was an actor and a huge voiceover artist as well at that time, and he said, if these two children on the show are going to be in school four or five six hours a day, you need to get me two adult actors to play them so that I can rehearse my whole time. And I was that person for me. It was the onset of that time of women playing professionals, or women being strong like a Shelley Long or a Reapparelment or a Kirsty Alley from Cheers or Felicia Rashad. You know, you know there was It was a time of empowerment in terms of women being smart and a leader in the family, you know, Murphy Brown. I mean, you know, you look at Kandasburg and in that and then you know all the quirkiness of the Golden Girls, you know, although I knew the Stells work ooh from the theater.

She had starred in the original production of Torch Song Trilogy with Harvey Feierstein. She played his mom in the third act of that, which was the third play called Women and Children First I think I think that was the name of the third act. And she was brilliant. It was really about Harvey's relationship with the mother figure. And I mean she was probably fifty or sixty playing older at that time.

It was before Golden Girls, and it brought her to light and everybody in the New York theater scene, who is that actress in this sensationally good play? So how did you go from that to directing in today? You know? It's so interesting because on domestic life. Jack Riley, who had also been on New Heart before that, he had played the very famous role of mister Carlin, pulled me aside one day because you're a director, and I said, no, No, I took one class at Penn State.

I was terrible. I was a good stage manager, but I again didn't have that point of view yet. And he said, no, you're a director. And it's sort of lit a fire in my belly. And I went back to a theater company that I belonged to as an actress' Theater West here in Los Angeles, right on Kowenga Yeah, was founded by Betty Garrett who became a lifelong friend, and Andy Park's her son, and Garrett Parks and Karen, the daughter in law I mean.

And I directed my first play there with a woman who I had known for my theater work in New York City, a woman named Dinah Lenny, who's still a close friend. We wrote my second book with her. She's written many many other books solo since then, a memoir specialist, and she's doing another play in Los Angeles now that I can't wait to see. So full circle. But Jack took me aside, Jack Riley and said you're a director.

I said, you're on, and then I went to the theater and I went and it was a very safe, protective environment. It's the same theater where Chas, Pam and Terry developed Bronx Tail, you know, piece by piece. We saw a lot of it at that theater before it became a Bronx tail. Fast forward, my son is in college in the BFA program at Pace University, and his favorite teacher freshman year when he was on the dean's list was the author of the first play I directed, called Today's Special The author's name was jud Lear Silverman Judith Marie Bergen from Domestic Life starred in I did. I directed the play twice.

Donald Lennie started at once in Judith Marie burg in the second time, and directing got the bite of me and I went, oh yeah. And also I was much more mature. Between the time I graduated from college and the time I got to Los Angeles, my New York roommate's mother passed away from luck cancer it was not and I was there to support her through that. And you know, when like kind of kickchen the butt, you grow up a little bit faster. And that was one of the big life events among others that happened to me during that time.

And by that time, I went, oh, yeah, I do have a point of view. You formulate a point of view. Yeah, And I became very opinionated. Well that works for a director, it does, it does. It worked very well.

And so Theater West was my home. And at that theater I produced and or directed over seventy five plays. Wow. Now most of them were one acts because Theater West was known for, you know, really stimulating new talent. You know, some very very famous people had plays done there.

Peter Noah, I think I think being a current exec producer and then the other company I belonged to, his Company of Angels, where I directed quite a bit, and one of the first places I did there Will Calhoun. You know, a play I directed that ended up being Will was on Friends later and many other shows. But I ended up selling that play as a movie to trystar. So it was yeah, Wow, Tom Hanks for a minute was interested in possibly playing the role. It's a wonderful, wonderful play that has yet to be made into a movie and should be.

As you were beginning to go down that road and think I should look into directing television. What were the things about it, over say, acting in television that you said, Okay, this is what I want to do. Oh, Sharon, what a great question. I didn't like acting that much. I mean, I love acting, I love actors.

I love the process of acting. But having been in the theater, I remember reaching the one hundredth performance of the show I was doing and I went, oh my god, I'm going to kill myself. I am so bored. So for me, the thing I loved about the theater was the puzzle, and in TV it was a new puzzle every week, and I loved that about it. I love the change.

You know. Even my agents, you know, who have brought me things like do you want to try a few? And I go, you know, it have to be a really really strong script for me to even consider at this point. And I've turned down more than I can tell you films because I go, no, I could probably do like five six episodes in that same amount of time, and if I'm developing it, it's two years. It's you know, now, movies made for television are different because they're just like directing, you know, what we do all the time, which is a block of two episodes, because it's the same length.

So that's different. But I love the pace. I love the pace and the challenge of the new puzzle. And it's also why I really love going from show to show to show. You know.

I'm an exec producer on the Miss Patch show now, so I'm there for the entire season. But sitcoms don't take us long as a season of eppisodic, which is kind of like a nine month commitment. Sitcoms depends if you're not taking hiatuses can go as quickly as you know, ten episodes in ten weeks, So I like the fastness of that. And then having taken so long in my career to break out of comedy and get a huge amount of respect as a big action director and drama, which I love, love, love love that genre. It's nice to be able to now go back and be able to do both.

Which I specifically did not try to direct any sitcoms or really was very very nope, keep me in this, keep me in this lane for a while until I make a name for myself, and then you know, when I saw Debbie Allen's pilot of The Mispatch Show, I went, oh, yeah, this is the one, this is one. As many as they want, I'm there. So you came back to comedy for the Mispatch Show. Yeah, yeah, because I was going to say, not many directors go back and forth between comedy and no. It's hard.

You know why. It's so sad because people pigeonhole you. I mean I got pigeonholed when I was doing children's programming, when I was doing all the Peter Engle shows, a guy who created Saved by the Bell, who is still a lifelong friend, and you know, I'm so grateful for he and the two women who worked for him. Linda Mankuzo who's no longer with us, and Carrie. I'm so grateful that I got support from them.

There was one other who am I thinking of, Robin Schwartz, who said, yeah, give me ReLU the chance. And it was because I'd come up as being a coach for Saved by the Bell, the New Class, and they said, oh, she directs, she wants to direct, Let's give her the shot. I think I had already directed Charles in Charge and maybe Major Dad. So I was the series director. So I would do twenty two episodes or twenty episodes or First Saved by the Bell.

For the other shows I did, I did a show called Usa Hi, and then I did one called One World. And those were my like four years for Peter Engel and it was a great, great time and the learned so much well, and it gave you a lot of You banked a lot. I banked a lot. You banked a lot. Yeah, And it's not you know, and it's not just the directing actors, which really came easily to me.

It was a chance to do other things with cameras. And then on top of that editing. Editing is huge part of the job. It also is a place where there were women working, which was kind of nice, and still it's also a big place women move up from. And so that's what I was going to say.

So this is the nineties, right that you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it sounds like you were on that show with a lot of other women creators and women behind the sun, a lot of women executives especially, And then you know script supervisors, who are the unsung heroes of our business, smartest, hardest job, good at it, not merely compensated for the expertise they bring. But you know, there were some really formidable directors who kind of mentored me or who I got to watch. I watched Debbie Allen. Nancy Malone was my mentor for my first documentary, for which I won my first LA Local Emmy.

Lee Shallett Shemel, I can't remember she was just Lee Shallett then, but I knew her from her theater work and I was so grateful. I think I watched her on the Ellen Degener Show. Linda Day was a huge person, and Joan Darling, who I went later on to direct in a play. That's amazing. And so you would shadow them or how would they help meant to you.

I shadowed Lee JOONI I knew because so many people I knew studied acting with her. Linda Day was just like the person I wanted to be, and Nancy Malone I knew through the guilt. So your first show was Charles in Charge. Well that you got to direct. That was the first episode of television.

I was there for the first season when it was a CBS show before when they just bought then one hundred episodes I think were one hundred close to one hundred for syndication. So it was Julie Cobb the first year who played the mom, and then in the second reincarnation it was Sondra Kerns and Ellen Travolta. They brought on again three amazingly strong mom figures. You know, although it was always interesting because they had the most interaction as an adult with Charles played by Scott Bayo. But you know, there were you know, very smart young women sassy who were on that show.

And then on Major Dad, the second show I went on to direct, it was Shanna Red and again the mother of three smart, amazing women. So it's you know, and at the same time, you know, Judith Light was doing Who's the Boss, and there was a lot happening in eighties television, which is why we do the podcast. But yeah, and then I got to follow on the New Heart Show, and then Julia Duffy, you know, became a friend. I love Julia Duffy. Yeah, who was if you remember one of the other designing women.

Oh yes, yes, Smart and also a theater person, goes back and forth to the theater. You know, I've seen her at Pasady playous, I've seen her at the Lagoon to playoffs. I've seen her do gobs and gobs of work. But also you know, all of those women were formidable, Dixie Carter and Delta Work and the brilliant Gene Smart. Love her.

You know, Annie's has never stopped working, you know, and always done amazing note from films to television. But the breadth of roles that Jean Smart has played since then, oh my god, I mean and also my they one of my favorite sitcoms of all time. I think they didn't do more than six, maybe ten episodes. Style and Substance, Yes, brilliant, So I remember that. Yeah, and I think Peter Peter what was his last name?

Peter created it, He went on it was an Emmy Award winning writer. But it was a great She played a Martha's Stewart like character on that. Although that might have been you know, nineties, Yeah, but you know, twenty four and now hacks so amazing. Nancy McCann I was like there was somebody anti balance, like there was somebody yeah, yeah, Nancy McKeon, who had already done I think Facts of Life, right, Mindy Kim, Yeah, Peter Tolan was the creator. Peter Tolan.

Yeah. Yeah. There are a lot of shows that didn't last nearly as long as they quote unquote should have. Domestic Life TV guy called the best new sitcom of the season. They aired the first six or seven episodes in four different time slots.

Oh gosh, who thought that was a good idea and then went, oh gosh, this is not working. Well, you know, give it a chance. Come on, I don't know how you don't give these Steve Martin Martin mull created show. I mean, he had already done the and he was dlreaty, Steve Martin, that's right. Really almost don't understand.

Hey, guys, I did pilots. I did a pilot with Sarah Jessica Parker that I thought, and Alan King, playing the father of three young women, I thought was the funniest pilot I had ever worked on, never saw the light of day. Sadly, a lot of times the decision whether or not to pick up a pilot is not necessarily about whether or not the pilot is good. There are a lot of other factors. I'm going to tell you a story, and I'm going to name who it was, because I don't think this is telling stories at school.

I was in Steve McPherson's office on the Disney lot. I was interviewing him for one of my books, and he came in and it was I think one or two weeks before upfronts. And this is for people who don't know what upfronts is, when they decide what the next season is going to be on television. So from all the pilots they make, they're choosing what the lineup is and very often tossing out hundreds of good shows. And I remember him coming in and something was, you know, I didn't know him that well, but he was not happy.

I mean, I mean he wasn't crabby or anything, he just is he seemed sad, and I said, everything, okay, He goes. I just had to tell the people who wrote the best pilot of the season that they weren't getting on the schedule. First of all, the empathy I had for the person in that job, because it was about programming, what goes with what? What audience is going to stick with one show to the next, and you know, gobs of other reasons. You know, they're you know, sometimes shows don't go because people are and you know, life is too short to work with os.

Okay, totally agree. Okay, if you can talk about getting that first episode of Charles in Charge, Yeah, it was the director of the show when it came back in its second incarnation was amendamed Phil Ramuno. He was doing I think all all the episodes. I stayed with Phil every night that he did shots because they trusted me with the acting they did. You know, that was you know, I was coaching the kids on the show, and you know they knew I understood that part of the storytelling, and Phil was generous enough.

And this was before we wrote a book together. It's a gone career book that I just started marking my script the way he did until I understood it, and then I started marking the script by myself and then comparing it to what he did. And it was in the booth of that show that Phil's agent sat next to me. I didn't know who it was. He said, what do you do?

And I said, oh, I just do this. You know, I mark all the shots so I can compare it. He says, why, I said, practice. That man went on to be my agent for nineteen years through three different agencies. Wow.

Yeah, it was great to do that show. And so did you say I want to direct? Oh yeah, I said, definitely I want to do. They knew it and I made it clear. But more than that, And I remember Al Burton, who was exec producer, who was very generous during that time I was there.

He gave four women their first episode. Awesome. That's huge for eighties television, unheard of one, let alone four. But he had come from the Norman Lear school of good and generous and you know, supportive, and you know they said, give Mary Leu a shot, and they thought I was doing my homework. And the other thing I did simultaneously because I started directing theater was this was before the internet where you could say, oh, here's my good review I would hand out.

I would xerox. Every good review I got, the mass would take a half the sheet and then the review would be next to it, and the review would have a highlight of sometimes the nine words that were about me. And I was totally okay with people going oh, how great and tossing it just fine, but there was a It was sort of my way of saying, people are noticing. And I teach this still to directors who are trying to make a name for themselves. Is having an authority figure other than yourself or people who are making money off of you, like your agents or managers.

Having an authority figure like a newspaper say oh she's good, or an exec producer from a show you've worked on, Oh she's good, made all the difference in the world. And for me, it was every play I had, Oh, Mary Lou you did this, yeah, or oh you produce this, oh, or you direct this? And you know, I was writting, you know, getting nominated for Drama Logue Awards and you know, LA Drama Critics Awards and stuff like that. So I was making my name in the theater, and every time I did, you did a little paper email. Look what happened.

Okay, We're going to take a little break, be right back. Welcome back, good thank you. I'm so excited to continue this conversation and to give you congratulations for your Emmy nomination for the Miss Pat Show. Thank you for twenty twenty three, my second prime time one in children's programming. I have two LA Local Emmys already.

One Local Emmys were for a documentary social justice things I did for Cable TV, and one of the directors who had mentored me, Nancy Malone, had been the exec producer of one of them, the first one, and then when Nancy passed, I went on to become the exec producer for sponsoring I think six More Women. It was an all women project. It was just amazing. That is amazing, And so we'll jump back to your shows and the people you worked with, but I do want to talk about your sort of work with women in film and media and in teaching and coaching and bringing up the next generation and a diverse and inclusive generation and what that means to you. What's important to me now is to make sure that we shine a light on the talent that is there and ready and trained.

And I know because I've trained a lot of them and I know they're ready if they could just get a shot, And some have and exploded in their own careers. One of them, Keisha Sharp, who was one of the girls on Girlfriends, is now like a fabulous director, and Tracy Ellis Ross is directing, and you know, and so many Mara Brakakiel who created Girlfriends is directing, And there's so many people who have just you know, said Okay, I'm a storyteller, this is what I do. I want to direct as well, So that's what I do now. I have been teaching a lot of the diversity programs for NBCCBS places where I sit on the board, like Women in Media, Film, Paytale, Lines of Women Directors, the Director's Guild, which is my guild, where I teach a lot and mentor and teach the first time director's class AFI.

You know, I've done lectures for Women in Film, which was the first organization, and trailblazers for all those women organizations long before any of the others existed. But I'm in that position now and a lot of it comes from not just being a director who has experienced, but a lot of it also has come my way because of the books I've written, it's my pleasure and privilege to teach. I do most of it with the co author of the Directing Book of Bethany Rooney. Our book is Directors Tell the Story in its second edition, hopefully about to go into its third. Yeah, and not just teaching craft, but also teaching I mean, one of the last seminars that I loved, Bethany Rooney joined me on this one.

We went into breakout rooms, was taking a meeting. You know, how do you craft that elevator pitch? What are people looking for in that interview? You know, it's not just being able to say I know the craft, I can do it, but giving the confidence. Because directing in particularly is a personality driven job.

You have to be the person that an entire crew is willing to follow and listen to and respect and jump on board in terms of your vision. Anybody who tells you it's not a personality driven job is wrong. I remember being invited to a dinner and I won't say specifics because I mean, you could someone might be watching, okay, but there was a director you said to me, I have this film. I've done all the shot lists for the entire movie because I don't want anyone asking me any questions and I went, oh, wrong, business, You're not a director. All of them does all day long is answer questions.

And if you think, if you want someone to leave you alone so you can be the so tour, yeah, not gonna last. It sounds like somebody wants to write as opposed to direct, because you can sit and write on your own and do it anyway you want. But when you're trying to do something where all these all these other people are expected to execute your vision, they have to talk to you otherwise, how will they know what you want? Yes? But and even more than that, Sharon, it's such a wonderful best idea wins kind of job that if I've created an environment where anybody from craft Service on my up to my DP, or you know, the creator of the show gives me a good idea and I run with it.

You know, that's my job. And it's my taste of saying, oh, good idea, I'm stealing it, or great idea, I'm smart enough to recognize it. And especially, and this is something that Bethany and I teach is so important, is recognizing the contribution of the actor. So you come in with all your homework done in terms of prep, which is really where directors do most of their work. But to be open once you say action to a better idea that comes from an actor and you go, oh, yeah, and I can amend my plan to do this, this and this, but oh wow, that was ten times better than anything I thought of.

Yeah, and I'm smart enough to see it. There are a lot of smart people around you, hopefully that can maybe come up with that better idea absolutely, yeah, yeah, And to be able to adapt around it if you've done your homework. If you've done your homework, Susan, it is I feel, the key to being able to adapt and pivot because you still have to get the work done on time and on budget. And the prepping you were doing that specifically to say this is the way it will work. Well, I like to tell directors, now, this is a way it will work.

And now you know the ingredients. But the ingredients, you know, you might shake them up differently and there might be a new ingreamer. You're so funny, you're so excited, Like when do you sleep? Do you sleep? I've had trouble sleeping since I was a teenager, and every once in a while I'll wake up in the morning, I'll say to my husband, oh my gosh, I slept through the night, which is unusual.

But I'm a person who gets up in the middle of the night when I can't sleep and I read. I'm a huge reader, so I always have a couple books going. I'm reading this book, but it feels like a monograph that one of the exec producers from Monk had sent because what we share is our favorite director is Sidney Pollack. So this is a fabulous, fabulous book on Sydney Pok about Sydney pot a little dry, but the information is great. And so I rewatched Havana last night and I was in the middle of the chapter about Havana, and I'm waiting for a DVD of Bobby Deerfield to show up that works.

I had one last week. It didn't work. That I'm going to watch next And I think every other film that's talked about in the book I've seen because I didn't even realize I had never seen Bobby Deerfield. How did that happen? It's the Patino movie and I miss it.

And so what's the name of the book, Uh, Sydney Pollack, Existential director. Existential is in the title I'll find it and it's great. It's it's very very interesting, especially if you're Sidney Pollack. So I'm doing my first job or my second job. I'm on the Universal lot.

I'm headed to my parking spot and Sydney Pollack Mirage Productions had their office not far from the sound stage. I and Sydney's walking only was walking to the commisarrea whatever. I almost hit him. I was so excited to say, oh my god, oh my god, what is it about him as a director that you think appeals to you? So, Sharon, I think first of all that he came up very similarly to me.

That he was a dialogue first, so he was an acting coach. He also was trained Meisner, and I had a lot of Meisner training, So I think we think alike. But also his subject matters. And it's so interesting when Bethy and I teach, if it's from casting, we always want to add it's this, this, and this, which is the obvious, and then throw in something else, throw in in opposite. If you're suggesting casting, give me two adjectives that describe the character, and then give me a third one that's contrasting, so that character immediately becomes three dimensional.

And there's a dimensionality to all of Pollock's work. You know, his romances are romantic, but you know, they don't always have happy endings, you know, or they're complex. And I also loved how many genres. I mean, if you think of Jeremiah Johnson to uh TUTSI to out of That, for cull to the Firm, and you go, those are all Sidney Pollock films, you know. I mean if you you go to some other directors, you just go, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that feels like a sell and Soo film, you know, like a Chris Nolan film.

I go, oh yeah, yeah, although Oppenheim, I'm really looking oh Oppenheheimer. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that because I think that might be a little bit of a departure. So but you know, there's there's you know, a Kris Nolan film. Yeah, yeah, yeah, although I hate being boxed in, but I think the box at Sidney created for himself. And then of course, his last film before he died was a documentary about Frank Curry, you know, and you just go, oh, he liked architecture too, and he you know, so it's like so smart, and he loved actors, loved actors and always appreciated their contribution, and I think we have that in common.

Yeah, I love the Electric Corseman. And I talk about one other podcast on your podcast, Yes please, Yuyia, Louis Dreyfuss's Wiser than Me. The interview with Jane Fonda is priceless. And I just said to my husband, who listened to that podcast with me, I said he hadn't seen I think Fonda in five acts or four acts, whatever it is. I said, oh, I'll watch that again because she just inspires me as an activist and a feminist, and she's just a remarkable human being for sure.

I saw her on the line with Lily Tomlin outside of Netflix for the strike, So that was fun, all right. So let's travel back to seventies and eighties for a second and just as a woman in that space trying to walk onto a set and have a crew of mostly men listen to you, what'd you do for that? You know what? There were tricks, okay with the generation above me, and I still use this with people who are used to and demand respect first and foremost before they'll even listen to you. You post something as a question do you think you know?

Right? To? Most people say I'd like you to try. But posing things as a question to that generation, especially of men who thought they knew better than it, was just a respectful way of doing it. And I have to say, and not a bad thing, because anyone who's worked that hard and long.

I had an older actress on a TV series I directed last year the year before who they were having a lot of challenges with the amount of time being demanded by this person while shooting. It was effing things up. It was not good. I approached the director producer and said, I think I'd like to try this. He was pulling his hair and he goes, go ahead, see if it'll work.

I did, and it did work. You know, sometimes attention just must be paid, especially if someone has accumulated enough credits and they want to be heard and they want to be considered, and they want the work they're putting in listened to and part of the package, and you just have to do it. I just made sure I did it on the weekend with the writer present, so that but time we got to set, she knew what I was going to do. So it was no problem and respect was owed, you know that hard and long, you know. I mean there's stories of people who, you know, a friend of mine, the men who created Major Deck.

I hope I'm not telling a story. Out of school went into CBS to sell a Carobournet special before the last one that just happened, and one of the executives he said, I have you know, there's all these outtakes from the original cawbour Net show. I think it would make it. It did it like mega mega hit in terms of viewers that watched this because it's sold in the room. And one of the executives they said, well, do you know who this is?

I mean, there's the CBS studios. The joke was CBS stood for Carol Burnett's studio, and she said, oh yeah, she played this hand again. I mean, you know, you take what you know. Goodness. Well, I think there's I can't remember the story, but I think there's also a Shelley Winter story about I mean, I think she'd won an oscar and then went in you know, and like, I don't know, I don't know.

I don't know it well enough to talk just the bones of it. Basically, She went into a meeting with a producer or director who was considering her for a role on a film, and there was some concern I guess that was conveyed to her before the meeting about whether or not, for lack of a better phrase, she could handle the part. So she walked in, sat down, pulled one of her oscars out, pulled the other one out, and you know she got the parse, right, I have it right here. She sat down in the casting director's office and uh after you know, hello's the man said, Now, miss Winter's remind me what you've done, oh dear, And then she reached her bag and pulled out the acade of words. I mean, how do yeah, just how do you take that meeting?

I mean, I don't know, but I how do you not do your recent moment? Do you have your assistant do the research some if you're not going to do it yourself? Yeah, it's crazy, Yeah all right, But what do you think has changed? You started in the eighties, The industry has changed dramatically. But for you, for women behind the scenes and in front of the scenes, well, I will tell you identifying us as minorities women because the number of jobs that went to women were so small was the best thing that ever happened to us, because in our case, affirmative action, which I truly believe in in every sense of the word, even though Supreme Court might not.

Don't get me started. We'll do that in another podcast. Exactly. Yes, open the playing field so much so that people who were skilled and would benefit from experience got a shot at it. So that exists, and we have dated to prove how many people have now had a chance and succeeded and gotten asked back and have you know, careers.

So that's changed drastically. And here's another thing that changed. This is not a good thing. I mean, it's good that it's changed, but it wasn't a good thing At the time when I was coming up, the competition amongst women was so fierce and the opportunities were so small. Sharon, I can see your face, so I know you're smiling.

There was only place for one person in the room. And I've witnessed this not just in my field, but with politicians who have been the only women in the room and know what it's like. And therefore, the competitiveness amongst women is once you got on top or got into the club. Not everyone was as generous as they could have been, and I understand it. They fought hard, they got it.

That's not the case anymore. I find the wave of generosity now that might be as a result that there's way more jobs out there. We're not talking about ABCCBS and NBC. You know, we had Fox and then we had cable and now we have streaming, so there's a lot more opportunities. So maybe I'm in the position to be more generous, or people who weren't generous might have been under those circumstances.

But that is something that has changed for the better that I would say. For an example, I'm having a tea tomorrow for women directors and a couple assistant directors who one of whom is only directed one episode, but that's what she wants to do. And I said, and a mentee, you want to bring there's no hesitancy of I'd like to be in the club and I'd like to bring someone along. And that spirit of generosity, I'm gonna cry. The spirit of generosity that is the wave of change is so amazing and it makes me really proud to be of this time.

And also I'm not going to leave the men out of it. The generosity for men to help women, the you know, we for she or just the men who let me observe you know, and said, yeah, Mary Lou deserves a place at the table. Or Bethany Rooney who let me observe her. And then you know wrote a book with me. And you know, there's people whose careers were far more advanced than mine were that said, sure, come on, and not only come on watch me in a shadow me, but if you have any questions, I'll answer them.

And oh, I'm having lunch and the exec producers over at that table. Let's go eat with that exec producer so they can see who you are. You know, there's there are a lot of good people out there, and their generosity touches me. And now it's those of us in a position to bring forward that next generation. It's not just our privilege, it's our obligation.

And especially now that we're finally seeing that the authenticity of the storyteller is really important. So in my development, which I'm doing now because I sold my first pilot first time out how that happened last year to NBC, I'm very very careful now because I've been so privileged to be in a field where I was a storyteller, but it wasn't really I might not have been the best storyteller, but I was the lucky one that got to tell the story. I'm very careful about appropriation now, so trying to find the right storyteller. So in my development, I'm also trying to say, and I don't want to direct this, but I want to execut, produce this. I want the story to be told, but maybe there's a better director than me for it.

And now that the talent and the experience is out there, you know we're not getting young as well as she hasn't done or he you know, you know, okay, you don't think that's good enough. Even the Director's Guild of America has a contract that says, if you feel that this person isn't ready, you can hire another experienced director to just be there as backup. You really want to put your money where your mouth is and you want to give somebody a chance, but you're nervous. Fine, be nervous. You can have Mary Lou there to back her up or him up, but you're going to give that person a shot.

A contract exists for that with the director's build of America and negotiate it. That's fantastic. It wasn't aware of that. That's awesome. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, now mind you.

You know, we could also just say, which I did with numerous people, Hey, they can call me in the middle of the ninth of any problems and I do get those goals. Or they can come to my house and we'll shot list on the weekend. I'll do that. You know, it's not a problem. But having the person that they can fall back on or a person that is there to help and sort of guarantee their success, because I'm really saying, this person knows what the hell they're doing, and are they going to fall on their face.

Who might make a mistake. I make mistakes, but what they learn from them, the people I'm recommending will get better with every opportunity they have, and they'll fail up like a man have done for decades. Exactly. That is true. I mean, I want to second everything you just said, but particularly the shift in community.

It's happening on the writer front, it's happening on the director front. It's happening, you know, I think even on the actor front, like in a way that oh, I think did not happen in the eighties. Yeah, and you know I got introduced to you through Jen McGowan. I want to shout out for her amazing strike brunches. She was bringing together all sorts of fantastic, super talented, really amazing people during the strike once a week and it's such a welcoming and I don't know, it is such a different world.

We can be creating and are given the opportunity to continue having an entertainment industry hopefully. Yeah, it's true. And you know I had people like that during the pandemic. Wendy Calhoun had a gathering for people who was like it went, oh, yeah, this is so nice to talk to colleagues during this time when who knows. This was before we were back to work and our industry led the world in saying we can work under safe protocols even though I got COVID dwice.

But did you get it from set? Who? You never know? You know what you get? All right?

So back to the Air nomination, I want to ask what that means for you personally and in your career. What does the Emmy nomination mean? Okay, so the first one was a huge surprise. I mean the first primetime one as a person who's a member of the Academy and sees the magazine come in and see the amount of print ads and television commercials for shows that have a lot, lot, a lot of money put in to their pr and sometimes there is a connection to those pieces getting nominations, I'm just going to say. And then to be on one that had done nothing, zero or very little, and a show that a lot of people hadn't even heard of on a network that people go, what's b ET?

You know, And I'm so proud to work in that space. That space has been very, very very generous to me that I got to tell some of these stories. I mean, I've done many shows on b ET and for a smaller cable. You know, it's like UPN and the WUB, you know, when they were fledgling, you know, in their first years. It was a place where I was asked to work and I went, oh, yes, I'd love to.

So the first one was, oh my goodness. The second one was I really belong here. And I'm going to tell you that feels good. It feels good because it wasn't an accident. And a few more people know about the show.

And more important, it's not me, It's Jordany Cooper who created the show. It's Debbie Allen, who directed the pilot that got it sold. It's miss pat and her authenticity and uniqueness. You know that has been recognized by people like Norman Lear. And you know, I saw this pilot and read it and I went, this is as groundbreaking as all in the family.

And for me to get an opportunity to be part of this storytelling, yes, yes, yes. And I learned something new every day on that show. And I am overwhelmed by the generosity of people who respectfully share with me what I don't know, but I respectfully want to learn, and not that I want to be schooled. It's my responsibility to know a lot of things, like, for instance, this subject of which is the title of the show I've been nominated for, just don't touch my Hair. I know a lot.

I know a lot about hair. I know a lot about how important it is, especially to black women. I'd also been on a show where I thought, oh f I am not going to get this shot because of the humidity today, or a PA who doesn't understand that I need an umbrella to walk this person who's going to walk as quickly as possible from the makeup and hair trailer two set so that the hair still looks good. So I get it. I've seen the Chris Rock documentary, which I'm sorry, I have schooled more white people to say, you need to watch this.

Call good hair. I said, you need to watch this. Don't ask people to tell you you need to watch. But that's enough. But it's also, you know, my first a d on the Miss Patch Show, Drew Powell is possibly of the kindest men I've ever you know, and if I've misstepped, he kindly tells me and says, don't do that or you know you did that, and I go, oh my god, did I?

And you know? But it's with a spirit of generosity and respect, so that I go out into the world more respectful. So second Ammy nomination meant a lot even more than the first. Wow. Yeah, definitely kudos and I will be I will certainly be rooting for you.

I'm not a member of the Academy, so I can't vote for you, but unfortunately otherwise I would. And now that I'm governor of the Academy, one of the Governor's been the directing peer group. I myself one of the exec producers of Miss pat and one of the actors. We did a campaign to get more people to join, and we put our money where our mouth is because we offered to pay the application fee and first year's dues if they got accepted to the Academy. And I want to encourage anyone.

So many will go, oh, am I eligible. I go, hell, yes you are. You're working in the industry, you are eligible to join the Academy. Please join and please vote. I worked for ABC Television as an executive assistant for twenty two years wow for better or worse, and I worked for very high level folks within the company and such, but I was not eligible to be a voting member of the Academy for whatever reason.

In some ways, it seems, for lack of a better word, sexist, because by far, most of the people that do that job are women, have been women, probably still are women, and like a lot of support positions, things don't get done without us. And yet we couldn't participate in that part of the process. And frankly, we are probably more likely than many of the other members to have watched a lot of the shows and be able to make an objective judgment about what is good and what isn't based on having seen it. I just made a note in my calendar tomorrow. I am in the unique position as a governor and the Academy to say something.

So I will be calling Brandy Curry tomorrow morning and say, why don't we the category for support positions? And I will say that all right. For several years I was a non voting member, which allowed me to go to various events and screenings and such, but I was not eligible to vote. The Alliance of Women Directors now has an ally position where if you're a student or person who wants to support the Alliance of Women Directors, you can join and it's a very small fee. I think it's fifty dollars a year, and there's a lot of benefits to it.

So I love that organizations are doing this. And listen, there's so many support or organizations. If you look at Start with Eight or the Black Magic Collective, there's so many. What I want to shine a light on is the advocacy and bringing up this next generation. And that's the story I want to tell you.

Know, Listen, I've done enough episodes two more episodes of this is not going to make or break my career, but providing ten opportunities for somebody else, that's a legacy I'd be very proud of. That is amazing. So we could talk all night, all day, whatever time it is. I don't know. Do you have any favorite actresses or what are the highlights?

Debbie Morgan, she could read the phone book and I would direct her if she allowed me. I had adore her or did you work with her on Our Kind of People? And then I cast her on Sacrifice with Paul Patton? Okay, and I went and it's a very different role. Tracy Ellis Ross, Jennifer Lewis, I mean, oh my, I mean I got, I get chills.

Uh Michael Beach him well, I love him too. And young ones. You know, Soraya who I work with on Kingdom Business is astounding, as is Chandra who plays her love interest on the show. Paula Patton. You know talk about beautiful and bright, I mean smart as a whip exec producer.

Yeah, Scott Bacula, we love Scott Bacula. Then on the Planet, uh Anna Ortiz that I worked with on Devious Maids, I mean that whole that whole cast of Devious Maids was amazing. There's there's there's so many. I mean, I mean, I love all my actors so much as I like, Oh my god, I forgot like ten of them I should mention right now. But there's ones that just touch heart.

Cusha Sharp, you know, I knew girlfriends, I went, oh wow. And also I'm really good at seeing the actors who have directing potential, and it's the way they approach their work. It's they tend to me be macro thinkers as opposed to micro thinkers, and micro thinking being very good for a character. And it's also probably why I would be really terrible as an actress now because I can't turn off that watching Gene Listen. I consume a lot of television because I think it's my job too, but also because it's like the best part of my job, and you never sleep, so that yeah, well, you know, I just want to talk real quick about ncis New Orleans, Scott Bacula, CCH Pounder, CCH.

I and I knew she had the show. We ran into each other Trader. First of all, you know, CCH also has one of the foremost art collections. I mean people ask borrow stuff for museum shows. And she used to run a gallery.

She had one here in la and then she and her late husband also I think, had a small museum in Senegal. And I'm going to tell a great cch. CCH knew that my daughter wanted to enter the art world, where my daughter is now a director of a very prestigious gallery in New York. But when Maggie was applying, you know, she always you know, did she get into Sarah Lawrence? I mean she was.

I think she might have been an offer to write, you know, a letter of recommendation. But cch and I run into each other at Trader Joe's in Hollywood and she goes, I just got cast in a show with Scott Bacula, and I go, oh my god, this before I even got invited to direct the show. It was great. I love her as a person, I love her as an actress. I love her as a curator of art.

Oh oh, And I will tell you my only thing that pissed me off sometime is because I've watched every episode bencis New Orleans, was if there was a scene that cch didn't sing in, I would go who directed. I wanted to kill it. I wanted to kill him because Cch was and always is possible of creating gold, acting gold, and if you left when it was only silver, you're a bad director. All Right, wait for the It'll come. It'll come every time.

Oh that's awesome. That is awesome. Well, Melissa worked with Scott Bakula and he has some wonderful scenes. Scott does with his now present wife Chelsea Field, who played especially in that last season and recurred in the season before that. You know, they're great together.

But cch and Scott from the beginning, it was oh, this is special, this I'm you know. It was just you couldn't vetch it. They were just I still have one on my reel which was from the first episode I directed, and I'll tell this fairly quickly. It was the Katrina episode. So it's the genesis story of how a lot of these characters knew each other.

Flash forward present day of when the series is taking place. There's a moment in a I don't know if you called it a mortuary tent. It was a tent attended by physicians likes character that was just full of dead bodies and Scott's character meets CCH's character for the first time since Katrina has happened, and it's a silent moment between them. I mean, I get goosebumps even thinking about how good their work was, and they hug each other, and it's you just go, well, who's going to think I'm a bad director watching that? It was amazing?

And then they again and again and again. I remember, you know, one of the last episode scenes I directed with the two of them. Then you just go, oh, yeah, they are magic together. That is fantastic. That is amazing.

It's been so delightful to talk with you. I wish we could keep talking, but apparently we can only run these podcasts so long. Well, thank you both so much. And who's listening with Melissa. I'm sorry, okay, but thank you all so much.

It's been a pleasure and best of luck. My fingers are crossed and everything else for you. Thank you and listen. You know. My feeling is I'm a winner already.

I'm in. I'm in a category with some unbelievably talented people, and any recognition I can bring to Jordani Cooper and miss pat and the people who were wise enough to take a chance on this show and say, yeah, people need to see the authenticity of this story. I'm proud to shine a light on it in any small way I can excellent. All right, well we'll be cheering, be cheering. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Now I have to find you, Duss. Thank you so much for joining us today. We really can't thank you enough. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Bank, thank you, bye bye bye bye for our audioography today.

You can find all things maryloub Belli at her website m A r Y l o U b E l l I dot com. She is also on Instagram, Instagram dot com slash maryloub Belli. We also have a special holiday episode where Sharon and myself and Melissa and Serta Fontanesi from our nineties TV babies do a watch through of the Lifetime movie Ladies of the Eighties, a Diva's Christmas. It's only available on our Patreon, so if you'd like to see it and enjoy the movie with us, please go to Patreon dot com slash Eighties TV Ladies and become a Patreon member. It's going to be super fun.

Yeah, it'll be a blast. 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. Just like Marylou and C. H.

Pounder, we should only be so lucky. God bless us, see you next time. Eight So Pretty to the city World.