Bea Arthur Was Something Else

I was saddened but not surprised to hear of the passing of Beatrice Arthur at 86.

The last time I saw her was in her one woman show as she passed through Toronto in 2003 and she seemed somewhat diminished.

Our first meeting was in a freight elevator at CBS Television City in Hollywood --I was there to interview Bill Macy who was about to co-star with the formidable Arthur in the new situation comedy Maude.

"Quite frankly I'm terrified of her," giggled Macy who knew Arthur was standing right behind us.

"That's because I'm taller!" she retorted as she jumped off the lift and rushed into the rehearsal hall.

Arthur later told me she was delighted to "suddenly" be a star at age 50. 

It was in 1970 when she was visiting husband director Gee Saks in Hollywood. On a whim she accepted producer Norman Lear's invitation to guest star in an episode of All In The Family playing a very liberal relative of the Bunkers.

The episode tested so strongly CBS offered her a spin off titled Maude. When I visited the set to interview Macy  it was July 1972 and the half hour sitcom had yet to debut (on Sept. 12, 1972).

It proved to be an almost instant hit. Arthur's character, Maude Findlay, had been several times divorced, was currently wed to Walter, an appliance salesman. Also living in the home was Maude's 27-year-old divorced daughter Carol (Adrienne Barbeau) and her nine-year-old son Phillip (Brian Morrison).

And what about Maudie's housekeepers --there were three of them starting with Florida (Esther Rolle), then Mrs. Naugatuck (Hermione Baddeley) and finally Victoria Butterfield (Marlene Warfield).

And let's not forget the next door neighbors : Dr. Arthur Harmon (Conrad Bain) and wife Vivian (Rue McClanahan).

Maude was a feminist., One episode even had her contemplating an abortion (she decided to have the procedure), Then she had a face lift, confronted menopause and Walter battled alcoholism. With ratings drooping in 1978 Lear decided to have Maude run for the U.S. congress but Arthur wisely bowed out with the show still near the top.

I interviewed Arthur on the set of her next sitcom Amanda's --remember that stinker? It ran on ABC for five tortured months in 1983 and was --get this --a remake of Fawlty Towers (although unacknowledged).

Arthur then thought she could rest on her laurels but suddenly Golden Girls was on for a seven year run (1985-92). 

Arthur was perfectly cast as Dorothy Zbornak opposite Betty White, Estelle Getty and Rue McClanahan. Arthur always said it succeeded because of the brilliant writing of Susan White but it was mostly Arthur's show. With her deep voice and arched eyebrow she could get a laugh off the most mundane line.

But characteristically it was Arthur who begged off after seven seasons. The rest of the cast soldiered on in the sequel The Golden Palace which only lasted a season.

Richard Kiley who acted opposite Arthur in the 1998 dramatic TV movie My First Love said she was a worrier who was always unsure of herself. Betty White said it was Arthur who had stomach aches just before each week's taping before an audience.

In real life Arthur wasn't formidable but kind and considerate, doting on her two son and helping out dear friends. When the late Brian Linehan came to L.A. to visit he'd stay with her although his immaculate image often proved irksome. She'd joke she would stagger out of bed in the morning and Linehan would already be up wearing his customary blazer.

Arthur came to L.A. with a proud stage career that included huge roles in Fiddler On The Roof and Mame which she repeated in the 1974 movie version.

Way back on live TV days she was seen to advantage in skits starring Canadians Wayne and Shuster on Ed Sullivan's CBS variety hour.

So Bea Arthur really had two big careers. Her later, huge success on TV was richly deserved, the icing on the cake.

PICTURED: ARTHUR AND HER MAME CO-STAR ANGELA LANSBURY.

The Sweeps Get Swept Away

Whatever happened to the May sweeps?

The month of May was traditionally the hottest TV month of the season. Dozens of series farewells and cliffhangers, specials every night, new miniseries and TV movies. But all that has changed because of the competition from cable TV networks.

Sure, there are going to be some dandy cliffhangers like who gets married and who dies on Greys Anatomy.

But other shows have already said farewell like ER. Other shows like Life simply vanished without a formal ending.

And what about the magnificent miniseries we could watch like The Winds Of War which was on two or three nights every other night?

Well, my U.S. sources are admitting the traditional networks are really hurting these days. Unlike the 1980s when the Big Three routinely took 90 per cent of the American TV audience these days it's a close fight between traditional webs and cable weblets.

With revenues crashing due to the recession networks no longer have the luxury of ordering up buckets of pilots. ABC seems to buy many of its new shows from parent company ABC while CBS plays "homer" with Paramount series and NBC shops from parent Universal.

Unlike the old networks cable fare goes on right through the summer without resorting to reruns.. Mad Men became a big hit precisely because it started up in August.

And as far as "minis" and TV movies go when was the last time you saw anything of them on the BigFive (I'm adding Fox and CW)?

And industry observers like Variety have also complained it no longer really matters because there are few daily newspaper critics left to comment on any possible rivalry. TV critics are an endangered breed --just like the traditional U.S. networks.

PICTURED: ROBERT MITCHUM IN THE WINDS OF WAR. 

ABC's Fall Line-Up Almost In Place

ABC is the first American network out of the gate in announcing most of its fall lineup.

It's a huge relief to report Ugly Betty is coming back --the network had been worried over a ratings free fall this season.  Ugly Betty was taken off for several week and sitcoms tried out in its slot but they fared much worse in the numbers race.

And also back is Private Practice which only seems to thrive when it follows Grey's Anatomy.

Other ABC hits getting early season pick ups include Desperate Housewives, Brothers & Sisters, Dancing With the Stars, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, The Bachelor, America's Funniest Home Videos, Supernanny and Wife Swap.

Missing from the list I've seen: The Unusuals, Scrubs, Cupid and In the Motherhood. Also missing are the new shows Cupid, Samantha Who.

ABC will only agree to renew Desperate Housewives one season at a time meaning executive producer and creator Marc Cherry does not get a renewal for four more seasons as he wanted.

And where is Lost? That one already has a renewal slip from ABC for at least one more season.

ABC's formal announcement of its new season doesn't happen until next month before potential advertisers in New York city.

ABC also says it will program aggressively this summer with fewer reruns than usual. On Sunday May 24 and Tuesday May 26 ABC has the miniseries Diamonds with Judy Davis (already on CBC)  which was partly filmed in Canada. And June 21 and 26 there's another "mini" called Impact with Canadian expatriate David James Elliott. the mational Spelling Bee is on May 28 as well as a slew of ABC news documentaries.

PICTURED: KATE WALSH STAR OF PRIVATE PRACTICE AND GUEST STAR DAVID SUTCLIFFE. 

CBC-TV's Fall Schedule

CBC-TV's fall schedule looks suspiciously like the one just ending. Why? Because the cash starved publicly underfunded Corp hasn't the means to mount the bold new season needed to attract viewers.

Back are two hour long dramas The Border and Heartland but the third dramatic hour Wild Roses is out after drawing anemic ratings. In other seasons when CBC was flush Wild Roses would have won a reprieve for a second season.

There'll be another "unreality" outing pitting hockey players as gitzy professional pairs skaters called Battle Of the Blades, While other networks are starting to bail out of the discredited reality mode CBC is storming ahead. Don't ask me to explain this.

The sole piece of good news has veteran Ron James returning in a new comedy. Now James is as funny as all get out in those wonderful one man comedy specials he makes. And hopefully he's learned from the mistakes made in mounting the ill fated 2001 sitcom Blackfly.

In another new series Canada's Super Seller Evan Solomon plays game show host as 12 great young spellers battle it out to become Canada's Super Seller.

The winter season will see the debut of an hour drama The Republic Of Doyle set in St. John's, Newfoundland. Also new will be a domestic comedy titled 18 To Life.

There are no new TV movies listed, no new Canadian miniseries. 

I can't find any mention of the arts which has sent many upscale viewers scurrying to PBS for their cultural fix.

Such staples as Little Mosque On The Prairie, Rick Mercer, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, The Tudors, Dragons' Den, Being Erica are back but some with a reduced number of episodes.

A Tale Of TV's Teen Hunks

Let's all give rising teen hunk Zack Efron some slack. After all the personable young man (actually he's 21) seems poised to make that magical jump from TV notoriety to genuine movie stardom.

Good luck to him, I say. But after viewing his first solo starring venture 17 Again I'm willing to bet he might wind up back on TV in perhaps in a sitcom of his own.

After all that's  exactly what happened to Michael J. Fox: from Family Ties to movies and then back to TV with Spin City.

I'm all too familiar with the trials and tribulations of TV teen hunks. Their actual age may be older --but it's the screaming teen girlies who give them their box office clout only to precipitously take it back to bestow on the next hunk du jour.

TV hunks just don't last very long. It isn't so much that they're growing up it's their fans. Girls who swoon after Efron today will become embarrassed by their emotions a few years from now.

Look, I know what I'm talking about. Way back in 1973 I interviewed the dazzlingly handsome newcomer David Cassidy on the set of The Partridge Family. 

I'd already covered him the year before at a sold out concert at the CNE Stadium before 30,000 screaming fans.

The next year he was back at the CNE but the size of the crowd had dwindled and  by the third year his teen stardom days were fast dwindling. He was promptly replaced by younger brother Shaun who had the same exerience of going from mass hysteria to indifference in just a few outings.

So far Efron is doing all the right things. He came to attention in two Disney High School Musical TV flicks but the third one was released theatrically to a North American gross of over $251 million.  And Efron was also prominently featured dancing again in the theatrical flick Hairspray.

In 17 Again he's plainly the star with Friends' Matthew Perry reduced to playing the square oldster.  Efron not only dances here, he romances, he plays basketball and he takes his shirt off --a requisite for any teen hunk.

What are Efron's chances for survivability? Well, I remember a rather unkept youth who attended a press conference for his series 21 Jump Street and a lady TV critic bawled him out for looking so disheveled.

 Yeah, it was Johnny Depp and that was in 1989. In the next 20 years he has defied all odds to become a bona fide movie star.

And so did Leonardo di Caprio who I once saw on the set of TV's Growing Pains.

I didn't interview him because he was considered a lesser cast member ; instead I wanted to meet red hot Kirk Cameron then riding high as a teen heart throb.

That was in 1991 and today di Caprio is one of movies' most respected actors while Cameron maintains a low profile.

I could name other teen hunks who've gone nowhere: Bobby Sherman, Parker Stevenson, Joey Lawrence, Patrick Cassidy, Ben Savage are a few names that come to mind. But I also interviewed John Travolta before he became a sensation on Welcome Back Kotter and look how long he's lasted.'

That's why I'm rooting for Efron who seems like sane, sensible young fellow. He's wisely decided to withdraw from the remake of Footloose figuring his dancing days are over. 

Efron craves respectability in serious dramatic parts and if he gets the right roll of the dice he could wind up as successful as Depp or di Caprio, two ex-TV hunks who beat the system.

It's Time For Cliffhangers!

Those midnight phone calls have started up again. And that means  it's just about time to welcome back TV's cliffhangers.

One familiar voice whispers the denouement of Lost and what he's saying makes sense. Another source has all the news about the finale of Prison Break which is ending its run so it's not technically speaking a cliffhanger.

Another authority gives me the low down on Gray's Anatomy and how that hospital melodrama will end. Yes, there will be a death but I'm honor bound not to give the name out. But I can say there'll be guest stars a-plenty incliding Kaley Cuoco (Big Bang Theory), Liza Weil (Gilmore Girls) and Debra Mooney (Everwood).

Cliffhangers! Where would U.S. TV series be without them?

Well, it just so happens I was in L.A. for the very first cliffhanger. And, yes, it was the infamous "Who Shot J.R. ?" episode of Dallas that climaxed the first season of that prime time slice of Texan ham.

Before 1979 cliffhangers were frowned on by studios and networks alike. Networks felt it forced them into running episodes in a specific order and studios said they were bad for the rerun market.

Here--let me give you an example of the impact of reruns as powerful then as now. In May 1977 the still popular Mary Tyler Moore Show ended its run and star MTM had to insist on a farewell episode despite opposition from CBS. 

In that hugely rated half hour most of the staff except Ted Baxter were fired and Mary got to tell them they were all her family. But CBS and even her own production company were afraid the big good bye wouldn't play in reruns.

It was the same for cliffhangers. Most shows simply slid off for the summer so that studios could package them in any order for the lucrative rerun market. Rerunning cliffhangers meant subsequent episodes explaining all the plot convolutions would have to be run in subsequent sequence.

And then along came Dallas. It debuted on CBS as a short run series in April 1978.

It returned in September 1978 for a full season, still struggling in the ratings because it was on Saturday nights at 10. A move to Sunday at 10 produced no ratings boost. Only when CBS in one final desperate ploy moved it to Friday nights at 10 did it blossom.

But at the conclusion of the 1979-80 season the relationship between star Larry Hagman and the network was deteriorating with Hafgman demanding more salary and critical imput. It's then that CBS decided to have his character of J.R. shot and the last image of the season would show him heavily bandaged.

That way if Hagman balked at resigning CBS could toss in another actor. 

I remember I was in L.A. at the time and heard the rumor Robert Culp (I Spy) had been signed as the replacement. I confronted a surprised Culp during an interview session and he denied it. So I stil wonder who the replacement was.

Of course the "Who Shot JR?" episode wemt through the roof and Hagman returned after all. But the mania for cliffhangers was on.

Worst ever cliffhanger was the one on Dynasty with cast members trapped in a collapsing mine shaft with a hidden Nazi art treasure. That was in 1989 and it was a desperate attempt to stay off series execution but it failed. 

I have no idea how the cast got out of that one because they all were reunited in a 1991 TV movie sequel.

And good luck to the cliffhangers of 2009. I can only hope they're just as ludicrous --and  just as entertaining.

PICTURE: LINDA GRAY AND LARRY HAGMAN IN DALLAS.

It's Pilot Season!

Forget about the current TV season. It's toast as far as the U.S. networks are concerned. 

Instead everybody in L.A. is all excited about the new pilots most of which the viewing public will never get to see. 

One surprise: in these recessionary times the networks are splurging on pilots some of which will get green lighted into series for the 2009-10 TV season.

I've canvassed my L.A. sources and here's what I can tell you. Showtime startled everyone by financing four pilots and then passing on all of them including the well regarded pilot by Tim Robbins all about the U.S. pharmecutical industry. Titled Possible Side Effects, it co-starred Ellen Burstyn and Josh Lucas.

CW which used to be the WB and UPN networks before a merger has predictably bank rolled a Gossip Girl spinoff set in the 1980s and looking at a young Lily van der Woodsen. And there's the remake of Melrose Place which tested so high it's a sure bet for a series spot.

CW comedies include a U.S. version of Ab Fab it is said to be high on. Another is Eva Adams which looks at a sexist sports agent finding he has been turned into a woman.

CBS which has few spots to fill (it is No. 1 in ratings) is hot on the sitcom Ace In The Hole with Adam Carolla as a driving instructor. And there's Jason Biggs in the sitcom Happiness Isn't Everything. Drama possibilities include a new medical entry from Jerry Bruckheimer (CSI) titled Miami Trauma and one from directors Ridley and Tony Scott called The Good Wife (the wife of a Washington politico ia a district attorney).

NBC is touting a Kristen Chenoweth drama Legally Mad, Bradley Whitford in the sitcom Off Duty (it's a bromance), Day 1 (a Global catastrophe). But remember NBC is losing five prime time hours --weeknights at 10--to the new Jay Leno comedy-variety outing.

ABC says it likes Patricia Heaton in The Middle--it's set in the American MidWest. And her former co-star Kelsey Grammer is a Wall Street lawyer who lost everything in the recession in Pryors. Remakes include Eastwick (based on The Witches Of Eastwick), V (remember the 1980s miniseries?) and Limelight (set at a New York city performing arts school or shades of Fame).

Now don't get too excited about any of this. the. One of the worst pilots I ever saw was Welcome Back, Kotter  (1975) which initially seemed to be a sort of Blackboard Jungle. But ABC listened to the criticisms and rewrote the show into a hit.

Then there was the strange case of The Good Witch Of Laurel Canyon  (1976) which was sold based on the chemistry of Kim Cattrall and Aret Hindle. CBS promptly retitled it (Tucker's Witch), recast it with Tim Matheson and Catherine Hicks and their lack of sparks doomed the actual series to instant trash can status.

Best ever pilot I ever saw: Tenspeed And Brownm Shoe (1980) but the actual series lasted a few months. All the plot had been used up in the pilot and co-stars Ben Vereen and Jeff Goldblum had nowhere to go.

And just a few years ago there was the brilliant pilot Crazy with David Julian Hirsh and Lara Flynn Boyle which was judged too good for TV and CBS passed on it.

So let's not get too swept away by TV's pilot season until we see the actual new series debuting this September.