TV Guidance Counselor
TV Guidance Counselor Episode 48: Sondra Currie
[music] Hello, it's Wednesday, which means it's time yet again for an all-new episode of TV Gaiden's Counselor. As always, I am Ken Reed, your TV Gaiden's Counselor, and I'm here to talk about classic television. My guest this week is the one and only amazing Sandra Curry. You probably best know her, or my listeners probably best know her at least, as Zach Gellifenakis' character's mother in the Hangover series of films, but she has an amazing career in television and in movies. We talk about both in this episode, but she has done so many television shows, so you can watch guest art on every major show in the 70s and 80s that you can think of. The Night Stalker, pretty much everything. We get into it. We go through her IMDB, basically, which is extensive. I highly recommend you look it up. I'll probably link it on the TV Gaiden's Counselor webpage. And she was so nice and so gracious, and I really enjoyed our conversation, and I think you will love it too. So sit back and listen to this week's episode with my guest, Sandra Curry. ♪ Living inside of a little classroom ♪ ♪ Living inside of the tube ♪ ♪ Everyone's made out of little thin lines ♪ ♪ Sometimes the fingers are blue ♪ ♪ I do ♪ - Miss Sandra Curry. - Hello. - Hello. Thank you so much for doing this. - This is so fun. - We're kind of just flipping through some TV guides and seeing what occurs to you, which is kind of fun. - Yeah. - And you've been in television, as I always said, you did a ton of episodic stuff in the '70s, especially in '80s, and every big show that I can think of, especially in the '70s, and you were saying, you know, a lot of the cop shows, but you did, you know, incredible Hulk and Stark Ski and Hutch and everything. And so this is all kind of flooding back as we look through some of the stuff. - Ah, sure is. - And you grew up in California, right? - I'm a California baby. I'm a Valley girl. - Right. Valley girl? - And your mom was an actress, right, Mary Herman? - Marie. - Marie. - Marie Herman. - She was Roy Rogers' leading lady before Day 11s. - Right. - And then she did a lot of those Westerns then. There was a man who was really popular named Sunset Carson. - Okay. - And she played his leading lady in several of them. She was under contract to Republic, so she did a lot of those films. - And were you sort of around a lot when she was doing that sort of thing? - No. - I think she kept it very separate for me. - Yeah, she kept it separate. And actually she kind of stopped working much after I was born. Yeah, mom did a ton of movies. She did movies with Loretta Young and she, as I said, Roy Rogers and Michael Redgrave. And she did a lot of stuff. And, wildly enough, she was very good, which we didn't really pay all that much attention to. And then when TV land started on the air a few years ago, they started re-running some of the old films, those "Audbury Rogers" shows. And so she was ordering them and Alan and I went out there one day and we looked at it and we went, "Oh my gosh, she was really good." - 'Cause you never really sat down and watched her. - No. - 'Cause you had no way to do that, I guess. - I guess, yes, that's true. And also, she was so young, but she was innately funny. - Right. - And she had an innate sense of humor that came out there and her timing was good, she wasn't active at all. - Right. - So I was, I'm like, "Whoa." And even Alan said he goes, "My gosh, she could have had a huge career." - It was like another side of her that you never really realized and were like, "Yeah, that's mom, that's how she is." - Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it was like that. And really, by the time I was growing up, she was really, she kind of, she wanted to be in the retail dress business. - Okay. - She was selling clothes and she loved clothes and she always dressed like a zillion dollars. And she had me always dressing that way too. So she was much more into modeling things and that kind of stuff. - So how did you sort of get the acting bug then did she encourage that or discourage that? Or did you always know she was an actress sort of before me and kind of intrigued me? - I don't know that I really thought about that she was an actress before me. That's why I said we were so surprised that she was so good. - Right. - She did vicariously, I think, lived through me. - Right. - A lot of points. And so I had lessons practically every day of the week. The ballet and the tap and the acrobatic and all that kind of thing. - Do you think that was, I imagine a lot of your peers growing up did the same thing though. Was that sort of the way that it kind of things were out here? I mean, I grew up in Boston and it's obviously not the prominent industry. It's not movies and television. So it's sort of always fascinating to me for people who grew up with that being the norm. - Yeah. As far as people around me doing that, no, they didn't. The people that were at Hollywood professional in those days obviously did that. But I was going to Catholic school. I didn't really have that. I was a cheerleader. But the only thing I think about getting lessons all the time part of it, I think my mom gave me ballet and one of her poise. Because she really was the kind of person who I really had to walk with a book on top of my stuff. - Right. Do this properly. - I still teaser about it today because I'll say, "Mom, is this right?" She starts to laugh. The only thing about it lessons all that time is that by the time I think I was 12, I was so burned out. It was kind of the last thing I really wanted to do. I went in high school, I really wasn't sure. And then I kind of fell into it. I'm trying to remember why I did that. I was doing a summer job in the fan mail department. - Okay. - Which is people would forget they had a fan mail department. - Yeah, they had a fan mail department at Bing Crosby Productions. - Okay. - And so that was on Gower and Columbia was also on Gower now. I'm trying to think, I think it's just called the Gower Studios now. And there was a thing called Film Industry Workshops. - Okay. - Fiwi. And you could actually go to Workshops there on the lot on the stage. And it's crazy to people who don't have that kind of, you know, their summer job, their scooping ice cream or something. - Yeah. It was just so normal, you know. And so I thought, oh, I'll try going there. And I really enjoyed it. I thought it was fun. - Right. - And it was a different way. It's not as technical. I mean, it was very technical as far as things like going in and out of a door and how to fight on camera and how to pick up a telephone and talk. - Right. And look naturally. - And look naturally. I mean, it was really elementary. But they had, I think I went two or three nights a week to that. - Oh, wow. - And through that, I kind of got bitten by the bug. - Right. - And also I was kind of seeing some of the dollars and cents that were going out. - Yes. - I thought I had a wrong business. - It seems like a good idea. And this was also the tail end of sort of the Hollywood studio system was just starting to kind of break up around that time. - Oh, it was a long broken up. - Yeah. Because your mom was under contract. - Late '40s or '50s or a public. - Republic, that's right. And that was a very, very different world and a very different Hollywood. - Completely. There were still some contract players at Universal. - Right. - They had a contract program in fact, Sharon Glass was in that. - Right. - But I was, when I started working, I actually got very lucky right out of the box. And I started working there. And so it was almost like a contract pillar because there was like a half a dozen of us that practically rotated through the show. - Right. - Universal, because their infrastructure for that was still there. - Yeah. - It was a train program. - Yeah. So, yeah. So we just went, you know, if I didn't get it, I knew so-and-so, any Lockhart or Cassie Eights or somebody like that was going to get it. - Right. And it wasn't that competitive. You were just kind of like, yeah, everyone. - It wasn't. That's the thing that I so miss about it now. - Right. - I mean, I read where there are 2000 submissions on some episode of whatever. - Right. - When we were guest starring in shows in those days, by the time you were going in for the audition, there was maybe six, maybe ten. - Right. - But never like it is now. - And what were some of the things that you would watch, did you watch TV with your mom when you were growing up? Did you guys sit and watch things together? And you have two younger siblings? Is that the only siblings? - I have three. - Three younger siblings. - I have sisters who are twins. - Yep. - Shari and Marie, and my brother Don. - Okay. - So. - And Shari and Marie did trues and the runaways and musicals all the time. - That's right. - But she did some acting as well. - She did. - Uh-huh. - And did Marie, did Marie do something? - She only did one film. She did something together. And I think it was called, I think it was called like The Rose Hotel. - Okay. - Something like that. - Okay. - That they shot at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood. - Oh, okay. - Yeah, right now. - But Shari did a few things. I mean, she was quite fabulous in Fox. - Foxes was great. I mean, that's a fantastic movie. - Yeah. She did Foxes. She did something called Parasite, which was kind of bizarre. - Right. Yes. Charles Band. Demi Moore's first movie. - That's right. - In 3D. - Yeah, that's true. - So did you all sort of watch things together? - I'm not really with the twins, no. And I honestly, I was more into reading wildly enough at that time. I mean, I really don't remember getting into television so much until probably in my teens. - Right. - I just, I wasn't really paying all that much attention. I did like I told you earlier, though. - Well, you were out doing things every single night with that. - Yeah. I was doing all that kind of stuff. And as I say, I like to read. But the shows that I like, I like the cartoons. - Yes. Yeah, you're saying you're new to me. - And Tony Tunes and Casper and Tommy Jerry and I love those movies. - Those are just timeless, too. I mean, part of it, obviously, is when something is animated. It's hard to look dated. - Yeah, that's a good point. - The Looney Tunes and Tommy Jerry, the people were doing them. We're not aiming them at a specific audience. And I think that one of the things that's changed now is that everything's very narrow-casted. So they'll say, "We're aiming this cartoon at 11-year-old boys." - And it's dark. - It is. Oh, it absolutely is. It really concerns me that the young people are watching things that are in that so normal for them. - Yeah. Yeah. And you wonder if it's not necessarily the world has changed, which is the way that it's reflected in the popular culture is. But the Looney Tunes were, for me growing up, a lot of people were basically sort of cliff notes for old Hollywood in a lot of ways because you had all these very in-jokey references to the big actors of the '30s and the '40s. And I wouldn't probably know who a lot of those people were for not having watched the Looney Tunes. - Is that right? Oh, that's interesting. - Because a lot of their movies weren't running at least at the hours that children were watching them. - But were you interested growing up in things like Gone with the Wind or did you study any of those songs? - I did. So I did when I was... We're there. I worked at my wife and I met at working at Turner in London. - Oh. - And she would air... - Turn the causes. - Yes. He had a screening room that just would air Gone with the Wind all day. You could just like, "On your lunch, go down and watch Gone with the Wind." - Alan did a thesis on that. - Oh, really? - Yeah. - I definitely watched it when I went to college and was studying film and had us watch it. But growing up, I was always more interested in sort of film noir and horror movies. - Oh, the film was tremendous though, but third man. - Yeah. - Third man. Kiss me deadly. - Kiss me deadly. - Oh my gosh, yeah. - All this sort of downtown LA, you know, gree, the world of LA confidential kind of stuff was really appealed to me. And it's still, I mean, those classics truly are classics and a lot of filmmakers are even studying them now. - Oh, yeah. I mean, and I don't know if they knew what they were doing necessarily on purpose, but really captured this lexicon of film in this one genre. And things like DOA and Double Indemnity. - Double Indemnity. - I worked on Double Indemnity in class a while back, I mean, years back. And so I really watched it and paid attention to it and I just thought it was phenomenal. It was so good. - It's interesting too, I think, when you look at movies and how they were at the television is all those films were sort of coming out on television were sort of just starting to be mainstream. And the types of stories, which are kind of small character stories that a lot of those noir films would do, are the things that we see now on police procedurals. They're not the kind of things you see in movies now because movies are almost purely spectacle for the most part now. - Fortunately. - Yeah. So these sort of smaller stories that do become more timeless. - This year I actually, and I think it's going to sound funny, but I thought this would be exciting. I was asked to judge on the Polish Film Festival. - Oh, interesting. - And they'd asked me before and I went, "Yeah, I don't have time to do it." - Right, right. - And this year when they asked me, it was like April or May or whatever, and I thought, "Yeah, I think that'll be really fascinating because I'll see something different and all that." And I knew I was knocked out, they sent me five because they whittled it down to five. And I think four of the five, three of the five were really exceptional. And the actors also, one of the actors, if he was here in the States and it was in English, would be a huge star. It was very much like a Daniel Day Lewis kind of person. - Right, right, right. I wonder if that's just a resources thing where they don't have the ability to do a spectacle movie, so they're sort of forced to step up their game and make a really interesting movie that people are watching. - I think if you thought about it like that, but you know you're right, that's certainly possible. Nowadays with the way that you can film things, you can really get in there. You've got a decent script. - Oh yeah. - They're so hard to find. - It's so much easier to make a movie now for most people, whereas they don't need millions of dollars worth of physical film stock, but at the same time, it's really easy for anyone to make a movie now. So it's harder to sort of wade through everything to get to the good stuff, but I think that it's easier to make really good stuff if you have the seat of it in the first place. - Are you watching Ray Donovan? - No, I'm not. My dad loves it. He keeps telling me I haven't. - Can't. - I heard it's great. - I heard it's great. - I know. I've heard it's great. And it's very Bostony as well. - Yeah, that's why when I was asking about it. - Yeah. My dad's like, "You gotta watch Ray Donovan. It's great." And I just haven't caught up because I can throw it on season two now, so I'm like, "Alright, I will catch up." I almost watched it on the plane over here because they had a couple episodes, but I'm like, "I need to start from beginning." - Yeah, I was going to say, "Watch it from the beginning." - Yeah. - You need to have that structure. But John Voitz never been better. - Yeah, I mean, he's really good. I mean, actors should watch this just to pay attention to him and his work. - And what he's doing. Yeah. - Yeah, because what he brings to that character, he's so is just brilliant. - And again, a very gritty sort of crime drama, which was always the genre of film more. And now it's television and with Cable who can do more things with it. - And House of Cards? - Yes, yes. I've seen the original to the British one. - Okay. - And then I saw two episodes of the new one, which was also very good. - How do they stand side by side? - They're very different, I think, because the political climates in the two countries are very different. - Uh-huh. - So it's not quite a one-to-one translation, just like I'm also a huge comedy person and there's Vip. - Is it good? - It is good. The original UK show he did was called The Thick of It and is much better. - Uh-huh. - For what reason? - It's more like a fly-on-the-wall documentary style and it doesn't spoon-feed you as much stuff. Not that Vip does, but it does much more than the other one. There are things that you watch in The Thick of It when you're like, "What's happening?" Because you're basically just eavesdropping on people and you kind of have to do some work as a viewer to work out what's going on because it's so fast-paced and there's all these alliances and it's probably pretty accurate to how the political environment is. And I don't know if people here would watch a show like that where they have to do some work. - And thank you. - They're watching it. Yes. Yes. - Oh my gosh, do I have to think? - Right. - Right. - Here's the plot. We'll say it again and again and again. And Vip is a smart show, but it definitely has not quite sanitized but simplified some of the structure. You have to really just try to watch it because Dryfus keeps getting very good in it. - She's very good in it. Yeah, and the supporting cast is very good as well, but The Thick of It is great. It's Peter Capaldi who just became Dr. Who now. - Oh my gosh. - And he's very Scottish. She was in a punk rock band with Craig Ferguson when they were growing up. - I've got to see Dr. Who because I haven't seen it and actually this pilot that we just did, this sci-fi pilot called Ganymede Pan, everybody, but we've heard about a half a dozen different comments when he was, it reminds me of Dr. Who. - Right. Dr. Who's very different now than it was because that show currently is the longest running show on television. It's gone from over 50 years. - So it's about basically a time traveling alien. It's actually very similar to a show that you were on. I think you're on an episode of the show Voyager. - Mm-hmm. - Voyager's was sort of a U.S. attempt to make a Doctor Who. - I did that pilot. Yeah. - Yes. And it's very similar to that where you have sort of an alien that time travels and through various sci-fi incarnations with a companion, and it was originally intended to be an educational show for kids so they could go back like we're in the Roman Empire now and here's we're going to learn something. - Oh, that's a trip. - But it's definitely been more, that you matured it a lot with a new reincarnation. It's a lot more sort of hard sci-fi. - Oh, I really want to look at that. The other one that was aliens that came, in fact I did this show too, was called, oh, they came from outer space. - Yes, which was a very broad comedy among aliens just with-- - Yes, speaking of comedy, yeah. - Yeah. - Do it Frackin' and Dean Cameron was on it, yep. That show was very interesting. It's one of those shows that's sort of before everyone had the internet and it came out to DVD. - And it was so sophisticated. - It was very sophisticated and when I would talk to people about it, it was one of those shows people like, "Hey, am I-- is this real shit like they were kind of half remembering on the kind of--" - Oh my god. - And then other people like, "I remember that show." And it was only the one season. - Was it only one season? - It was only one season. It was a syndicated show. - Oh. - And it was a first run syndicated show, which was when they were really pushing it. It was sort of early '90s, late '80s, I think. - The one kind of fun thing about that show, for me, in hindsight, is that Hallie Berry was one of her first TV shows. And I remember she had been working and we had to juggle the-- the schedule had to be juggled, yes, because she was coming out from Chicago and I mean, this was in the early '90s, I think. She had done a brief show on ABC called Living Dolls that was a spin-off of Who's the Boss. - Oh, I remember that, wasn't. - She was. Really a remedy was the main character on that show. - And Hallie was-- - And Hallie was on that as well, yeah. - And it was-- - Before it outer space. - I think it might have been the same year, but it was a very, very similar time. And yeah, that was a very transitional time as well because you had the syndicated shows that basically ended up building networks like Fox and UPN and they kind of backdoor built them with these small stations, which sort of changed everything now. But you've done a ton of sci-fi stuff and horror stuff, sort of inadvertently over the years, maybe, of-- I don't know if you're a fan of the genre specifically. - Oh, yes, I'm a big fan of the genres. I'm not so nuts about the goryness of the things now. A friend of ours is the exact producer on the show called Strain. - Yes, yep. - I watch it when-- ew, I don't know if I can do that. - This is not the vampires I was thinking about. - Yeah, I was a thing of those kind of vampires. I wanted the cape and the fangs and all that, but these things coming out of my stomach and all that. I'm not so sure about that kind of growth. - We'll sit through a bunch of makeup for that. Like, it's actually very similar to Parasite, where they-- - Yeah, yeah, Parasite, but the other one I just went through makeup for a long time was Alien Nation. - Yes. - That was one you had to be able to-- makeup was like four hours practically. - And that was a great show. That was Ken Johnson, I think, who did Incredible Hulk, which I think you were in-- - I did, yes. - Well, yeah, that show was very smart and sort of ahead of its time as well, and was a show based on a movie, but I think worked better as a series. - I think so, too. I mean, I really think he wanted to bring that back a couple of times, and I think it was brought back in another incarnation. - They did some TV movies. I think he did four TV movies. - I did a couple of them for him, because my character was Terry Cloth. - Right. - T-E-R-I-Cloth. - Right. - Which was such a great joke, because the premise was that there was essentially an Ellis Island for aliens, and the people working there gave them sort of joke names to sort of ridicule them. - Yeah, yeah. - Sam Francisco was the main guy. But again, I think sci-fi and horror in these genres reflect much like more did what's going on in the society at the time, more than any other genre. And so like Ken Johnson specifically, something like V, which is about the rise of fascism in Nazis, probably wouldn't have got greenlit, but when he goes, "They're aliens!" They're like, "Great!" - Well, so, and then the last one, actually that was very provocative, and it can stay on the air a lot. The one that they did with "Marina Baccarin." - The remake of "E" and the environment was just, you know, politically and stuff. I think people weren't into that sort of... - And they may not have wanted to come face to face with what really was going on. - Right, right. - You know, people really tend to stick their head in the sand a lot of times. - Absolutely. And they're in their entertainment now, and "Alien Nation," which is a show about racism. It's about immigration and racism, and you couldn't make that show if the aliens were from El Salvador, or were Chinese immigrants. - You're absolutely right. - It would be the same show. - But I think that the fact that you can't use, you can't use anybody, for instance, using a black person as a servant is disrespectful. You can't do that. - Right. - But in fact... - Even in historical drama. - In fact, in a historical drama, that was how it was. - Right. You know, I think it's different between acknowledging maybe the spotty history of something that might be sort of a black mark on their culture, and acknowledging that's what it is, is different from pretending it didn't happen ever, which is an odd thing. And I think that definitely, especially recently, there's a huge rise in science fiction series again. And the last time that sort of happened was in the '70s and early '80s, and I think politically the climates are very similar. And culturally, we're sort of in a similar place where, since you can't almost be really on the nose and talk about those issues out front, you have to very, sometimes very thinly code them in these sort of sci-fi trappings, which is interesting to me. The first horror show I remember seeing you on is the Night Stalker. - I'm just going to say Night Stalker, because I actually had forgotten about that. And now they're all coming back on, people are sending me things that are, I guess, on the Internet. - Oh, really? - Yeah, I don't know how, but just recently, some of us always saw the Night Stalker at the other night and went, "What on earth did you see it on?" - Where did you see that? - Yeah, well, they remade that as well a few years ago, but it wasn't quite the same magic that the original had. - Yeah, Darren McAvon was really good. - He was the only person who could do that. - Yeah, he had a very formidable presence, and he was kind of scruffy, much like Peter in Colombo, the same kind of, almost, not Leslie Fair, because he was very serious about what he was doing, but he wasn't all pinned down and neat. - Yeah, he wasn't sort of an action hero either, a monster would attack him and really smack him around. - Yeah, yeah. - He wasn't, "I know Kung Fu, all of a sudden, now I'm going to try to monster." And the episode you were in, Erica Strato is in as well. - Eric and I worked together about three or four different times in different shows, and we started to tease about that, but that's right. And I'd forgotten, I mean, I remembered kind of what it was about, but... - He's an, he's a, you're an Aztec goddess who is watching over Erica Strato's character, who is being prepared to be as the sacrifice for some Aztec mummy god. - Wow, you know way more about it than I do. - Yeah, no, I've seen it. - Ask Ken. - Yes, I remember the Night Soccer. It's a very strange episode, but it's pretty interesting. And Erica Strato is sort of a cocky guy who's prepared to sacrifice himself. - Really? - Yeah, 'cause there's some who will let us be a willing sacrifice or some kind of weird logic. And Darren McGavin talks a lot of it at the end, but it was pretty, the monster was terrifying. - Wow. - It was very, very scary for a network television show, much of the Night Stalker was. And we were talking before, we were recording about some of the things that used to scare you when you were growing up, and invaders from Mars came up, and House of Wax, and you didn't see these on TV. And I think that most people see these sorts of things on TV, and in some ways it's scarier. - I think they were way scarier than some of the others that are so, you know, like the hatchet films and things like that. Those were really scary because I think it's possible in a way we could have aliens from outer space. The one that I loved really that I loved, and I think we still need, we need a cosmic gift. And another alien come down like him, wasn't it War of the Worlds? - Yes. - And it was Michael Renney, who came out of the Flying Saucer. - Yes, Clattoo Barretta, Nick Too. That's the day the Earth stood still. - Yes, that's what it is. - That's the robot. - Yeah, that's it. But he was, no, he was a person. - Yes. - And he came out, I remembered when everything opened up and he came out because we'd gotten so, so in trouble, the world, much like today, that someone from outer space had to come down and he just prevailed to have peace. - Right, we will help you. - Yes, oh my gosh. I thought that was really impressive. - They really made that with Keanu Reeves. - It didn't work. - It didn't work. - It just wasn't all. - You needed to have that presence of that actor. - Yeah, absolutely. - He was really superb. - And again, back to sort of Darren McGavin, these certain roles, it's not necessarily the gimmick or the premise of the show or the movie. A lot of the magic is the person who was that role, and you can't quite recreate that with someone else. So you did, "Night Stalker" comes to mind, you also were a Knight Rider member, you think you did a Knight Rider? - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I was trying to think of all the science fiction things, but yeah, Knight Rider, that was a good role, I liked that because I was kind of a feisty, strong lady for those days. - Oh yeah. - A rancher, that's what it was. And someone was trying to heist off our water rights that was gonna affect the whole time. - Today, same thing's happening pretty much, actually. - Isn't that the truth? - Yeah, which is very strange. - I mean, when we really look at the world the way it is, oh my gosh. - I remember in the 80s, early 80s, mid 80s, I mean so many plots where people were Vietnam veterans or Magna P.I., a good example of another show that you're on, is a Vietnam vet. And that came up as a plot all the time. And we've been in Iraq for over 10 years, and I don't remember seeing a single plot where someone's in Iraq warbed. It doesn't seem to come up that often. - This stuff like Homeland had something to do. - Oh, are you not seeing Homeland? There may be out there, I just may be missing. I know I'm missing everything, especially the ones that you would love. - I know. And I love Claire Daines, she's great, so it's one of those shows I'm like-- - And Damien Lewis is exquisite in that show. And I don't want to tell you what happens, since you haven't seen it. - I know. - But there's a season end, was it this year or last year, which I won't even tell you because you really go, "Oh my gosh, they didn't do that." - Because you're watching Night Stalker. - That's right, that's right. - I do watch Fringe. Did you see Fringe at all? - I saw it a little bit. I thought that was provocative. - I love that show. That was a great show, speaking of sci-fi shows. And a show that was pretty high up hard science fiction, but was about, at its core, letting go of people. That's what that show was about. It's about fathers and sons. And just letting people go. That's the whole show. That's the core of the show. Being that your real passion is comedy. What shows have stayed with you throughout, since you really started paying attention? - I was a big sketch show person growing up. - Did you like Tracy Omen? - I loved Tracy Omen because of her versatility and the sadness of a lot of the sketches. A lot of the characters were bittersweet, so the Francesca character with the two gay dads. It was just a very character, it wasn't like a sketch kind of gimmicky, which was interesting to me under-freshing, because you didn't see a lot of that stuff on your STV. I loved SC-TV. One of my two of my favorite actually comedies of all time are Phil Silvershawn, Car54, where are you? - Oh yeah, sure. - Phil was totally sick of me, and Car54 is so sophisticated. - Joey Ross? - Joey Ross, yes, yes, absolutely. And he, I mean, that show was so modern in the sense of humor, and still holds up absolutely today, and is great with dialogue, but also the sort of intertwining plots and the coincidences and all that is gold. I love that show. That's definitely one that I still rewatch and sticks with me. Is there any comedy stuff that you really enjoy other than the Lumetans? - Oh yes, of course, you know, I mean, I love Lucy. I think that holds up through time, and the Carol Burnett show, I mean, I thought some of those were so hysterical. - Tim Conway, Tim Conway was beyond brilliant. - Did you go to any like tapings or anything like that when you were growing up in this area? Did they have like, there was so many variety shows and game shows? - No, not really. My grandmother took me to things like The Price is Right, because in those days you could do, you know, that kind of thing went to with her because she liked to do things like that, but not as far as going and sitting in the audience. Really no, not until I really started doing them, but I started doing them in the 70s. So I did a slew of three companies, and I did it. - Yeah, you did like three or four, three. I think he played three different characters. - I did, though the last one was supposed to be a recurring role. - Right. - I was the new next door neighbor. - Okay. - The art teacher. And then they decided to finish the show that year, and I don't remember exactly why now. - They transitioned it into three's a crowd, right. Which was very strange. It doesn't happen that often when these shows kind of mutate, but at that point, it almost never works, I can't, that point it happened a few times, because you had, on the family became Archie Bunker's place the same time, three's company became three's a crowd. I can't, MASH was basically morphed into like after MASH. So you were doing all these guest roles, and then it sounds like that the three's company thing was intended to be an ongoing role. - There were a few of those, even the Golden Girls, when I did the Golden Girls, they thought that was going to continue. And that one was more "ruh" that didn't, why it didn't look, yeah. - That's true. You know, someone said, "You should have gotten a good hair commercial out of that show." - Absolutely, yeah. - That's true. - It's a very good episode, too. - People remember. - Yeah, oh, absolutely. - And Mark Cherry, even the last time I saw Mark Cherry, which was about a couple of years ago at the Pasadena Playhouse, and he goes, "Oh, I remember you, the widow Spencer," and I went, "Let's do that again." - Well, they did a great job setting up this character, and yeah, it makes sense that it's supposed to be a reoccurring role, because it's a very memorable introduction of a new character. And it's interesting that it didn't end up working out. - Oh, I was so, I was heartbroken on that. - Oh, I would imagine. - And I do remember that the director, actually David Spielberg, directed that show. - Really? - And he took me to lunch, and could it try to tell me that it really had nothing to do with me? - Right. - Which doesn't necessarily help. - No, it didn't. - Yeah. - Because I mean, that was really upsetting, because there's nothing you could do about it. - And did you want to have a reoccurring series, or did you sort of enjoy getting to do different things all the time? - Yes, I wanted to have a recurring show, because a recurring character, because it really gives you much more clout to choose what you want to do otherwise. And you have a home, and actually doing half hours is so luxurious, and it really is. You really go in. For instance, like on Newhart, we worked three days. He didn't even work a full week, five days. He knew, he so was at the top of his game, that you would come in and read through one day, block in the afternoon, do the run throughs, and that was really a lot of fun. And Susie, Suzanne, was kind of like a big sister, because I knew her through another friend, Madeleine Rue, who passed on. And they were kind of like sisters, so she took me to lunch too, kind of filling me in on what was going on. - How it works here. So that's interesting that you seem to be very friendly with a lot of the people behind the scenes too, which is probably unusual for people coming in as sort of a guest role, where there's these very solid casts who have a real sort of familiar relationship. And some people, like you said, you feel really alien when you come in, but it doesn't sound like you've had the chance at all. - No, I don't think I've ever felt alien on a show coming in. I mean, even, well, the last steady gig I had was last year on The Tyler Perry Show. And that was a little difficult or challenging, I should say, because he shoots so fast. So you don't have any time to acquaint yourself with everybody. It's just cut to the chase. You better get this dialing down. - Get it down. - It was shows, the earlier shows, really, you know, you either knew them, sometimes you knew them socially, you know? - It seems like it was a smaller world here. - It was a much smaller world, Canada. And you know what? The business was so much more personal. So even when you would go to audition, you really had relationships with a lot of the casting people. They knew you. They even could tell you ahead of time, "Look, this person doesn't talk to this person." There was the funny story about that, is that Ryan Holt-Wiggy, who ended up being one of our very best friends. - He did. And I caught and was a writer on Farm Miller. - Barney Miller, yeah. - Another speaking of comedies. Another one of my all-time favorites. - That's right. It was tremendous. It was really notorious for being just the insanely in control exec producer/writer. - Right. - He was a showrunner now as a kind of show. - Yeah, yes. And he worked 32 hours a day. And you were told up from before you ever went in for him. Don't even get into a conversation with him. Don't talk to him. Don't ask him any questions. Just go in and read. - Basically, everything short of don't make eye contact. - Yeah. Yeah. And later, when we really became good friends. In fact, we would go out to dinner just he and I when Alan was away shooting and Shelley, his wife was away. And he was such a big teddy bear. See, I knew him after he retired at 40. So I knew him just the year after that I met him that year. And Alan, of course, met him that year. And we knew him as such a, oh, he was so fabulous. And I told him, I remember having to come in and audition for you. And you were really snarky. - Was it a Barney Miller that you wanted to do? - No, Night Court. And the other thing that was so cool about Ryany, he was such a fan, I mean, a mind, which I loved. - That's great. - And he would email me. I said, why don't you go back to work? - Yes, yes. - You've got to create something. - There's a lot of things that need doing. - Yes. And my friend, I introduced him to my friend Lonnie Anderson. And so at Alan's birthday party a couple of years ago, the year before he passed on, he was there. We were both sitting on his lap going, "Now, Ryany, you need to go back to work now. You've got to come up with something for the girls." - Right. We need some shows. Come on. - But he would give some old rerun of Three's Company, it would be on at three o'clock in the morning 'cause he was an exomniac. Yeah, he would email me. I saved those emails. They were such... - Well, he was a brilliant writer. I mean, and he learned from a great showrunner, which wasn't really the term at the time, but Dan Arnold had a very similar reputation. And Barney Miller was almost a dictatorship. And he was able to change the way that the studios made Three-cent camera sitcoms by not having an audience there and insisting they didn't, which was very unusual for Three-cent. - Very unusual. And truthfully, for the actors, it's fun to have the audience. I mean, your heart beats a lot faster 'cause when they go 5, 4, 3, 2, you know, you better get it. - Like theater. - Yeah. - Did you have you done some live stage stuff or theater stuff? - Oh, sure, sure, sure. - I know it's slightly different with the Three-camera stuff, but is it almost like sort of using that muscle or scratching that itch of theater when you do one of these live taped in front of a live audience type shows? - Yes, I suppose so. - Yeah. - You never did like about all the network stars or any of those two or any sort of thing? Those were back to the world being a lot smaller. Yeah, there was only three networks, so everybody watched everything, so I imagine people recognize you from things, you know, Three's Company wasn't out of three, whereas I ate a clock and everybody watched it. - Yeah, that's true. - And so you knew all these people and everyone seems like they were, you know, much more familiar as we said. - So did you watch those sorts of big events and, you know, see you along Anderson on this thing and see your friends do this like stuff? - Well, sure, Lonnie, because Lonnie was doing a lot of that, but she never did circus at the start. She'd go, "No, that's not going to do that. That's not up my alley." But yeah, I mean, if I knew somebody that was going to be on it, a good friend. - Sit and watch it and kind of. - Yeah, because she and I go all the way back, actually. We go really far back to the mid '70s, in fact, the week that she decided to go from a brunette to a blonde, we had been on a commercial audition together. She was brunette still. And we walked out of the audition and I'm thinking, "This is like such a pain in the neck." I mean, I wasn't happy about it. I did quite a few of them, but it wasn't something I was ambitious about going after. And she finally said, "I don't think I'm going to do this anymore like this." And she went completely from brunette to blonde. And then she started really working a lot. And we were auditioning for the same shows a lot of times. There were like three different instances where they could make up their minds and they gave us each shows. - Interesting. Which I feel like wouldn't happen now, were they just like, "Oh, we've got two good people here." - Yeah, let's get them. They did that on The New Heart Show, they did that on Three's Company, they did that on, I think it was either Night Rider or one of those shows I had to look and see. But we almost thought we were good luck for each other at that point. - Right, right. If I don't get it, I'll get something else because you got it. - Yeah, that's exactly right. It's such a sort of a refreshing take on the way that people sort of look at the Hollywood system. - And she was gutsy. She was very gutsy, though. She was gutsy in a way that I remember with the audition because I had to go in on WKRP also. - Right. And you went up for the same role for Jennifer? - Yes. Yeah. And they were right down towards the end and she was going the next day. And I think she went in for an initial interview and then they were having her come back to meet Grant Tinker, and she decided she didn't want to play this ditzy blonde, Jennifer. - She wanted to be Bailey? - No, she wanted her to be smart. - Oh, okay. - So she said, you know, I don't think it should be played like this, and she's talking to Grant Tinker, who's the head of it, and I'm thinking, Lonnie Kay, how did you ever get the guts to do that? You're telling Grant Tinker that you want to change his show and that character? Well, he loved it, and he needs to say cast her, and the rest was kind of history. - Yeah, I mean, she definitely owns that character, and it is sort of, you know, back to three's company, which is, you know, to me the sort of quintessential ditzy blonde kind of character on at the same time. And, yeah, Jennifer is kind of the person who's like, "I know what's going on here more than everyone else in the whole company." - Yeah, she was very voluptuous and, you know, kind of sexy, but still had a non-threatening air about her. - Right, right. - Which I think was the big key in those days. - Right, absolutely. - Where men and women could appreciate you, and you weren't threatening to the women. - So you think that was a big factor in a lot of the stuff of casting, was being threatening to the women watching or in the show? - No, I think that if you were threatening to women, a lot of times they wouldn't be following you. - Right. - They wanted to maybe look at you and appreciate you and enjoy your talent, but not too much of a man. - But not too much of a man. - Not worry about that your husband was going, you know, fantasizing about you somehow. - Really? I mean, that makes sense. I guess that's not a thing I would think of not being a woman. That, yeah, that makes perfect sense. - Yeah, I mean, your likability factor has to go across men and women, needless to say. - Right, right. That must be an odd thing to wrap your head around sort of philosophically for your career or where you're, you know, you're just trying to go out there and do roles and act and do good work and then you have to sort of consider that sort of thing seems like it would be. - You know, truthfully, I think, now, of course, I look at it in a little bit different of a way. I mean, then we were cast a lot for how we looked, of course, and oh, I think it's really the work. A lot of the young people that are acting now are really solid, fabulous actors. - Right. - And they have their technique done and they're studying. I mean, I still go to the actor studio twice a week when I'm home. And a lot of people do. Bradley came out, Bradley Cooper came out of the actor studio. - Yeah. - So I think you've got a lot more serious actors, kind of, than we did then. - Because then it was kind of like, well, cast a woman who looks right because we can't make that happen and then we'll try to make, teach them after. - Well, they did. You know what I mean? And plus the fact, when they did have that contract thing going on, you know, or they brought in coaches. - Right. - You know, they brought in coaches to work with people. - We'll get you up to snuffin' it'll work. - Yeah. - So you, your mom, did she watch things you were in? - Yes, she did. She was really, she was a really good supporter and, wildly enough, she's Zill now, she's got Alzheimer's, but she, before, that's only been like two years, two and a half years. And she was always, she was so thrilled. She would go on the set or she would, you know, and especially even when Alan was directing, she loved to go on the set. She was very supportive. So when she said something was really good, or she had this thing, I feel it in my heart. - Right, right. - Like, oh, really mom? Do you tell me, is that the truth? - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah, so she would say that. - The first thing that you did, that she was really like, yeah, you're really, you're really doing it now. This is... - The first thing, well, probably, you know, I did so many of those like, slice and dice films I call 'em. - Right, in the early '70s, you were kind of wondering what it was. - Yeah, the '70s to the early '80s, actually. - Driving the police, the police woman, was that right? - Police woman, and Jessie's girls, and Concrete Jungle. - Right. Some of those were like AIP, or like Crown International, I think did some of them. So, and I didn't, I don't remember her being raving about any of them, because I had some nudity in them. - Right, right. - Not all of them, but a few of them I did, although the nudity that we had in those days, you can see on television now. - Right. - Did you see them though, and was just kind of like, I'm not thrilled about it? - One that she was particularly, I don't know that she really saw, oh, I'll tell you what it was, Jessie's girls was edited for television. - Right. - So she, my stepdad, who was brilliant, he was head of the World Bank for the Southeastern Nations, who was a doctor of economics, and he loved Jessie's girls. He thought it was a comedy, which I thought was a riot, I mean, he thought that was a comedy. - Right, right. - But he saw the edited version of it, of course, and so they loved that, but, and even last married couple they saw, because of Natalie and George Segal, they also saw the edited version. So there wasn't any nudity there, but one of her friends had seen the film, and she was just mortified. - Which must have been a very odd conversation, where they think, you know, they're like, "Your daughter's in this movie, yeah, she's great." - Yeah. - Like, have you seen them? - Yeah. - So she, she was very upset. She thought I'd really embarrassed the family, and... - Which would be very different if she's coming from a 1940s Hollywood, where that would have been a scandal, and, you know, the spy mag, or whatever the magazines were, but was pretty much the norm in their early 70s. - In those days, yeah. That was, you did the film sort of before you got into TV, or is Howard the same time? - It was almost simultaneous, I think, but, well, the first I got my Screen Actors Guild card on Rio Lobo. - Right. - So, and Howard, I'd met him in the, in the building that I was living in, on the Sunset Tower, because he had an apartment there, and he lived in Palm Springs, and he goes, "I'm gonna put, that's how I got my card," so that ended up, like, really on the cutting room floor needless to say, but it was, huh? - He still got the card. - I got my card, and someone just sent me, I've got to send this to you. It's such a prized possession of mine now. I don't even know where it came from, but it's a still of, within the scene of John Wayne and me. - That's pretty great. - It's so great, and it's a really sharp picture. - You can tell that it's you, and John Wayne, yeah. - And you can tell it's him. - Yeah. - And he's looking at me with this kind of, well, it wasn't disdain, 'cause he didn't have that look in him. - Right. But that classic John Wayne looked at you. - Yeah. - Just a disapproving look. - Right, 'cause you're like a prostitute or something like that, right? - I was a hooker. - Yeah. I was a hooker. They went hookers. What did they call them like? - A Gal of Easy leisure. - Yeah, a Gal of yeah. - And a saloon. - Yeah. - So-- - Director of Recreation. - I like that, Director of Recreation, yes. Yeah, that's true. - So how high is the bar for that? I mean, a major studio movie with John Wayne, sort of, in the sort of height of John Wayne, yeah, he was ill then, but he came up to me, oh, can I got to tell you, this is so fun, 'cause I sat on the stage. I mean, Howard had said, "You can come as often as you want, just to pay attention and look." And I did. And one day, I never called him the Duke, Mr. Wayne, of course John Wayne came up to me, and he came up and he went, he stuck out his hand, he said, "How do you do? I'm John Wayne." - You don't know. - I first out laughing. I said, "I know who you are. I'm Sandy Curry." - Right, right. - I was like beet-ratted, and oh my gosh. - And you wonder if that he really thought no one did know who he was? - He was, I think he was just being a polite. - Right. - You know, I mean, basically he was the star of the thing, and he was being polite. - He introduced myself to people. - Yeah. - Well, that actually happened. - That actually happened. And when they sent me that still, I thought, "Oh my gosh, that's forever, I got to keep that." - It comes flooding back when you see these things. - Yeah. - But anyway, so you were asking me about television and the features. So after I did that, though, I started working, and I think the next, the first television show I got was Manix. - Right. Right. 'Cause we're talking about that when we, when I first heard somebody wrote it. - Yeah, and I think that was just on the air recently, 'cause someone sent me an email. I haven't seen it. I can hardly remember what is so bad. I remember I was either a librarian or worked in a librarian or something. - Manix is Robert Blake. - Huh? - No, Manix is Robert Blake. - No, Manix was Mike Harris. - That's Mike Harris. That's right. Yeah. - But I remember my character's name was Miss Wickwire. - Yes. That's a very memorable name. - I remember the character was a Miss Wickwire. So I did a few episodes of things then. - Which were definitely shot probably more like movies and probably more like independent movies like you're used to. - No, that was a studio show. Manix was filmed on the Paramount line. - Oh, I did not know that. - Yeah, so they were old fashioned television shows that, well, I shouldn't say old fashioned. They were ours. They were dramas. - Right. - But-- - Not locations. - No, not location shooting. And I did a couple of things for Disney and I did another Disney movie called Scandalous John. - Okay. - You know, some odds and ends things. And then I auditioned for something, oh, I'll tell you, this is actually pretty wild. I had worked at the Encino Theatre. - Okay. - And I was working as an usher when I first started. I was just a teenager in school as I was making money there before I did the fan thing. And the projectionist was a writer. And I would go up on my breaks and just sit there and chat with him and all that kind of stuff. Well, I didn't realize that he was really a writer. - An actual writer. - An actual-- - An actual-- - A real writer. - A real writer. - Yeah. - And so about a year or two years after I started working, I got a call from him and to come in and talk to him, he says, "I've written a role for you and this was in a film - Wildly enough, this too, I'm saying wildly enough so often." But they are just small circumstances, yeah. That he had written about Terri Moore, Terri Moore who was married to Howard Hughes a long time ago and that when she had gotten involved with her pool man or whatever, it was quite a scandalous thing then. I can't remember. Honestly, I really don't remember much about it, but she had a best friend. And so he wanted me to come in and do the best friend. - Right. - So, sure, you know, I'll do it. - Right, yeah. - And then the woman who he had playing the lead role, I can't really remember who it was, because I did another thing with a woman named Juan de Hendrix at that time. She was also a star in the, she was married to somebody else. - Aldo Ray, yes. Who was in, I'm not Flash Gordon, but Aldo Ray was using a lot of serials and things. - He did a lot of those war movies, didn't he? - But anyway, so I can't remember who the woman was, I was replacing. But he said, he called me in and goes, "I want you to take over the lead." And I went, "Whoa, wait." - That's a big promotion. - Yeah, really, it was. And sure enough, I did that and it took about two years to shoot, really, because he really was shooting. He must have had 10 hours of dailies on that. John Russell played my husband because he was the older senator and I was the young wife. And I get busted because I run off with my lover who was akin to the- - As you do. - Yes. - Yeah. - What happens, yeah? - So, I got that film and then, as I say, it took a couple of years, he'd finished it. He came back, he made more money and he'd finished the film. But in the meantime, I'd also gotten lucky on something called "Police Women." - Yes. - The movie, because that movie had been cast with a girl named Catherine Bauman. And Catherine got a Frankenheimer film, so she was pulling out of the police woman and I had been backing her up. I backed up so many people and then they get something else and I get the job. - Right. I didn't even know that they have an understudy in movies like that. - It's not an understudy. - It's a backup? - Well, when I say back, it was a second choice. - Gotcha. - So basically, they always, they still do that. Well, this is our first choice. If we can't get her, this is our second choice. - In America. - She's unable to fulfill her duties for the leaves. - Yes, yes, yes, yes. - I'm gonna take a look at it. - Yeah, I mean, Morgan Fairchild and I became friends like that because I replaced her on something because she'd gotten a pilot for Quinn Martin, I remember in those days, but so I kind of slid into a couple of them like that, so I got police woman and then I actually became a bit of a name and that kind of arena. And so I did that movie with Gloria Graham and the movie with Wanda Hendrix. - Because police woman was a huge sort of drive-in hit and was- - Yeah, they were all driving. - But that one really seemed to stick around for quite a while. I mean, it was on TV a lot too. - Yeah, police woman did and Jessie's Girls did. - Those were sort of a stunt heavy movie, police woman, right? Was there a lot of fun? - Yeah, and I did my own stunts for the most part in that. I mean, I really worked about a whole month before trying to look believable and those tumbles and stuff. - Yeah, yeah, I believe it. - Good. - You're a sweetheart, you're the perfect fan. That's how I kind of rolled into it and then I started doing a lot, a lot of television. And I think I just got lucky. I don't know that there were that many maybe redheads around. - Yeah, we were in our, well, I really was in my early 20s then, but throughout my 20s, I just did a lot of television. - You think you stood out because of that? - I do think that. I didn't really realize it until later until someone came up and said, "You know, you're really in a minority." And I went, "Well, how do you figure?" - Right. - I said, "Next time you're in an auditorium, look around and see how many redheads." - Right. - And this is before people was trendy to be a redhead. - The room was sort of a disproportionate number of redheads on TV comparatively to the population. - And I did not get jobs because Lucille Baldon, not one another redhead in her show, because I went in and read that. - Her life with Lucie was at the same show. - And it was like the last one she had on whatever that was. - Yeah, the mid 80s, she had that succumb, yeah. - And that was one and Anne Margaret was another one. They didn't want another redhead. - No, it was her and Margaret. - Yeah. And I would understand that actually. I wouldn't want someone neck and neck with me unless it's playing my daughter or my mom or somebody like that. - Right, right. - So I do understand that. - Was that a TV series with Anne Margaret? - No. It was a special. - Okay. Margaret's special, one of the big variety shows. - Yes, that's right. - What was the role, like a sketch? - A dancer. - Oh, a dancer. - I went in as a dancer. - Did you do any of those variety shows? - No. Mm-mm. Oh, well, which I think. Did I do? - 'Cause that's a genre that I think a lot of people, social people, you know, younger than me, don't really realize was, a lot of ways, the predominant genre in the 70s. - Well, and I'll tell you, Lily Tomlin lives right next door. - Oh. - When you go down in our driveway, she's the big White House and a lot of-- - My wife is a huge Lily Tomlin fan. - She's phenomenal. And she's a really, really warm, very nice lady and a genius. - Yeah. - I mean, I don't even know how she has the energy to do it. She does. - And her variety shows is sort of what created almost directly at Saturday Night Live. - Is that right? I thought I didn't know. - As that right, I thought I didn't know. - That Lauren Michaels produced her shows. - Produced Lily's-- - Produced Lily's-- - Because George-- - George Slaughter. - Who was on the laughin'. - Laughin'. And Alan directed that show. - Oh, really? I didn't know. Yeah, I believe Lauren Michaels is a writer for that and he hired a couple of people to do some Lily Tomlin things and then that kind of morphed into doing this now. But, I mean, between her and Carol Burnett, those were sort of setting the groundwork for modern sex comedy. - I actually think that anybody who wants to do comedy now should really study those two women because even when I was doing the Tyler Perry Show last year, I ordered the whole set of "Momma's Family" because that was not Carol, but Carol did a few of them. - Yeah, Victor Lawrence was not, yeah. And it was just how all the characters were interacting and you really can study and learn a lot from those. - Yeah, I mean, that show definitely, as a sitcom, was not one of my favorite shows. - Which one? - "Momma's Family." - Oh, yeah. - But I enjoyed seeing Vicki Lawrence, who was like a 30-year-old woman. - Who played this older woman. - Who played this older woman. - Who played this older woman. - And have it be convincing. It never-- you never really questioned it. - No, she was really good. - Which is pretty impressive. - Whereas the woman who plays "Momma Hattie" in Tyler's show is also a younger woman, but I think she should look at Vicki Lawrence's "Momma." - Yeah, because Vicki probably had a lot less prosthetics and makeup and stuff to make it look as convincing. - She had the fat suits, you know, and Sota's Patrice, Patrice Lovela is her name. She wears those too. - It's an acting thing, I think. It's not just relying on the look, it's relying on the character and being that kind of character. And "Rome Clan" was on the first season as well, so it just didn't go up for that, because it took a regular on that show. But yeah, Lily Tomlin really started more comedic, sort of, I don't want to say cutting edge, but edgier variety shows. I think a lot of them in the '70s you had, you know, you had Donnie Marie and Captain and Tony Orlando and those sorts of things, and they were very much everything to everyone. And Lily Tomlin ones are the first ones I can think of that had a real point of view or like a real sense of something in the now. - Dean Martin, though, on his Friday, you sure remember he had a lot of those? - Yes. - Bob Newhart was on that very frequently. - Oh my gosh, that whole gang was, they were all part of it. And even Sinatra was that, in fact, Alan directed the last thing Sinatra did, he directed the magnum that Sinatra did. - Oh, okay, I forgot he was in the magnum. - That's right. That was his last television show. And I went over for that, because, and that's, I don't get star struck very often, but that was, I met Cary Grant at a party one night, and that kind of, I was going, "Oh my God, Cary Grant's standing right behind you." - Did you speak to him? - Yeah, so it's a polite conversation, high, so, and so, our host, it was Richard Anderson and Richard and Alan were friends, because they did all the bionic women together, bionic women. But, and then the other one, of course, was Sinatra. So when Alan was shooting that show, I went over there, you bet, and watched that. - Not that you need too much of it, she used to go to Mallory. - No, no. That was shot in Honolulu. - Oh, did Honolulu, okay. - But, yes, because Tom is, well, now he's getting some of the, the credit that he should have. But Tom has that innate comedy sense. - Yeah, he's very funny on that show, but could still do, still be a convincing action humor. - Yeah, leading man. - Yeah, I believe. - But you have that awe shucks, that self-deprecating kind of humor, which I think is a real key, with, and Clooney does the same. Let me think of someone who, James Garner, I love, but occasionally he almost gets too good at being the sort of wise-ass, where it almost would take me out of the show occasionally. - Really, when he was doing Rockford? - Rockford, or even Maverick, which he's great at. - Maverick, we did it, yeah. - Yeah, we were just kind of like, it's almost waking up the camera sometimes. And, and I think that Clooney can approach that occasionally as well, but can be very serious. - Right, actually, because I think that even in the thing that he did last year with Sandy Bullock, oh my gosh, every time I keep saying this, then that brings up another memory. Because again, Alan did the first bionic woman spin-off, which Sandy played the bionic woman. - Oh really? - Yes, in the late '80s? - No, that was in '94. - You need to grow up the series as well. - I did. That was, I loved that character, that was fun of another villain. - Another sci-fi as well. - Yeah. - Did you direct that episode? - Yes. - Is it, did you direct a lot of the things you've done? - No, not a lot, but we've worked together maybe 14 or 15 times. - Is that strange to be directed by your husband? - Truthfully, it was fabulous. It was, the downside of it was that he was so, he knew what I could do so well that he wouldn't let me slide. - Right. - And I got hurt. - It was much harder on you than everyone else? - Yeah, but I got very dependent on his eye that way. So when I was really working for other directors, I don't think I was nearly as spot on is when I worked with him. - Right. - I had, then we went for years without working together. And then this last thing that we did was the first time in, gosh, maybe 10 plus years that we'd worked together. - That's an interesting, it's kind of working with your husband. You wouldn't think that it's on a set and they're telling me what to do. - Well, the crews used to really laugh at us because they go, "Oh, here they come." - Right, right. - And we did do a couple, like we did, we did a Cosby mysteries together. - Yes. - Oh, that was another one. He's fantastic too. Talk about comedy, he's brilliant. - That's true, I was always disappointed and didn't really quite hit. - I don't understand why, truthfully, because I thought he was wonderful. - I think part of it might have been that the model of the sort of mystery movie of the week, which had been so popular for so long and it kind of gone away by the time he had started that, I don't think the time was quite right. I think that it was about '94-ish, I want to say, and that's a show that I wonder if people will rediscover at some point. - They could, because it was fun to do. Also from an acting point of view, both working with him and working with Peter were the two biggest acting lessons you can get because one of them, Bill, will riff on things. So you have to really, he rarely goes according to the script. So you have to really, really listen, you have to figure out almost like an outline, but the graph needs to be the most important. - You know where you're going. - And yeah, know the most important information so you can dive back in. - Right. - So that's a really good lesson. - And is that not how you used to working, I imagine? - No, most people stick with the script. - Yeah, because especially if you're doing these episodic televisions, you get pretty tight schedule. - Oh my gosh. - Yeah, you can't be fooling around with the script. I mean, occasionally you can say this quite doesn't quite work. You miss such and such a thing here. And I did that last year and I don't know that it was such a good thing to do with Tyler Perry because there was a scene where mama feels like she's going to be dying soon. - Right. - So she's going to give away everything and she calls a family meeting with everybody, including me, although I wasn't in the family, but I own the building. - Right. - So she starts saying, "I'm giving you 50% and I'm giving you 50% and you're going to get all this." And I went to Tyler and I said, "Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. She doesn't own 50%, I own 50% of that." So he had to go, "Oh yeah, that's right, but rarely do you get a chance to do that." And so he didn't tell her actually that we were doing this, but within the scene when she goes on, then 50% is going to you and another, "No, no, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait. You don't. I own 50% of that." - Cause there's a joke right there. - Yeah. But she looked at me like, "What are you doing within the scene?" And then again, the next time she said, "I went up and I raised my hand and actually Palmer." Yeah, Palmer, who I love, I think he's sensational, "I know, I know, you own the 50%." So he was able to play on it and made it work, but normally you can't change the subject. - Oh yeah, absolutely. Also, back to Sinatra being in this Miami PI, I think people who maybe weren't watching TV when he was still around or when they were sort of, or entertainers of that level of fame, how big of a deal it was for them to be in a TV show. That was huge. - Huge. - Huge, huge, huge, huge. I mean, especially for Sinatra, cause he was like the king of the-- - And you never get that sort of crossover. Clooney doesn't go back and do TV or anything. - I think he probably would. Oh, that's what I started to tell you when I segued into Sandy Bullock. I thought that did not work for me when he did gravity. - Gravity. - Gravity, yes, yes. - Gravity, because Clooney was playing Clooney in that. And I think that it kind of pulled the urgency a bit of, I mean, she was fantastic, not taking into account. - I feel like he's in danger because he's so on it. - Yeah, I think that that's true in that one. Now, when he's done other things, though, I really, when he did the Syrian, the thing about that, I thought that was really great. - And on ER, which I think you believe you did an episode as well. - That was so early. - Yeah. - He was into a script then too. - He was, I mean, he was able to be that sort of George Clooney character, which prior to that was all comedies, I mean, he was in so many sitcoms and doing comedies, which he's very good at, but able to be that sort of character would be very serious and have a real life and death stage. - He did do one series after all the comedies because David Jacobs created the show. - Right. - David created Dallas and Not Landing and David created this show and it was a, it was done over at Warner Brothers and it was a one hour and George was in it and I wish I could think of the name of it, but we have to look it up. - Yeah. - It's not, it was a cop. - He was a cop, he played a cop. - Oh, I believe that. Yeah. I could see him playing a cop. - But the heck is the name of that? - Because he wasn't more cops. I can't remember. And now that you mentioned it, I remember the show, it was, it was very short lived. It was like maybe six episodes or something. - Oh, yeah. Shoot. - Oh, look it up. I'll put it, I'll put it on the website with the episodes. - Yeah, look it up. - Yeah. It's funny because people listen to the show and I always have to say that I don't have a computer and everything, it's all off the top of my head, and so. - Yeah, that was just, hello, Touche. That's pretty good. - Yeah, and the two and so when I listen to stuff, I know when I listen to shows and people hear it and they're like, "It's the show," and I'm like, "I, so I feel their pain when they're listening. I'm sure someone's yelling the name of the show." - It was a good show. - Yeah. - Oh my gosh. Yeah, it'll come up. - If you were going to choose a show that you wanted to be in as an actor, what would that have been? - That's a really good question. - Knowing you and your comedic talent. - Right, right. I am very bad, one of the reasons I never pursued a lot of acting stuff is I can only do things that are very much like me, and I'm very versatile in the world of acting. - That's not a bad thing. You could cast you in a number of things. - And so if it was comedy, I would show, I guess, CTV, which is much more sketch comedy as a show that I would love to have done some fun stuff. - Half hour stuff. - Half hour stuff. So we're talking sitcom, half hour sitcom. - Well, or Steven, something member soap? - Yes. - Soap was great. - Soap was tremendous. - Soap is a great show. I think- - You could have been Mulligan's son or something. - You could have been Mulligan Richard. I love Richard Mulligan. - His son. I love him, obviously. - Yeah. - I actually feel like I'd probably go with Barney Miller. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Oh my gosh. - Oh my gosh. Even Night Court. You could have been on Night Court. - Oh, Night Court. - I love Night Court. Drumler is one of my all time absolute favorite television, or I have to- - Oh, yeah. He's so amazing. - And he's a guy, again, much like Clooney, who was able to do that sort of- - He's actually very serious person. - Yeah. - And he's very, very serious, but could do physical comedy, like Lucy and physical comedy on that show, which was very surprising. Yeah, Night Court or Barney Miller would probably be- - Yeah, there's a lot of places you could still be if you wanted to do that now. - Baby, the thing I miss is that there's not a lot of shows like those shows now, where it's, see the thing about Barney Miller to me, and I apologize to the listeners because they've heard me go on this soapbox a lot, but that show was a pure writer's show on like anything else I can think of. And it is, anyone who wants to write comedy needs to watch that show because it's four guys in a room, one room for a half hour, and that's it, and is engaging and hilarious. And Night Court was very much like that as well, though they were able to bring in bigger world stuff. - Well, what do you feel about, for instance, like the Chuck Laurie shows though, because they really have his stamp on them? - True. They're very much him. - Or Mark Cherry. - Yes, yeah. I prefer a lot of Chuck Laurie's earlier stuff, and like I love Grace Under Fire and the sort of more. But I also have an affinity for like the very blue collery kind of, are we going to lose the house type sitcoms where the humor is sort of almost a gallows humor, like Roseanne and that sort of thing where I really just identify with that in a more natural way. But yeah, it'd be interesting, it'd be interesting because I like the other thing about Barney Miller and Night Court is that they're much darker. - That's true. - And I feel like a lot of-- - But six feet under? - Yes, oh absolutely. And that's much more cinematic too. But the three camera stuff now I feel like is much more aspirational. - Tried to watch, but it's just not a reality. - It's really rude a lot of the stuff, which doesn't offend me in my sensibilities from like a, like I'm not a prude, but it just seems lazy. - I'll tell you something though, Lonnie and I, because as I say, she's one of my very closest friends, and we talk about things like this a lot. And there are a few shows that she goes, I wouldn't even do that show. And they're hit, hit, hit shows. They're offensive, they're offensive to women. They can make women come off like complete, either fluff, incidentals and they are-- - Really dumb or really evil. - Yeah, but also very, like you said, very rude, mean. - You also don't need to have a good character because they would say something outrageous. And it's, part of it I think is it's a faster paced world and people want jokes more like Twitter where it's just a line and this here and you don't want to have to build whole character and have jokes based on the relationships and stuff like KRP did. It's harder to do that. So people, if they don't have to, they won't. I don't watch a lot of three-camera sitcoms now and that's, I love three-camera sitcom. I think it's ripe for a resurgence of quality stuff. - And modern family, that's a whole other way of doing things. - Yeah, with the sort of pseudo-documentary feel. - But it's way out there. I mean, I've watched a few of them and of course, this is like a number one, not number one. Big bang theory is number one. - Right, and it's been on for like 12 years at this point. - Yeah, there's very few that I watch now. I watch a lot of British stuff because it's a completely comedy-wise because it's a very different model where you're sort of one person who is the whole rights every episode, which you just don't get here. - Well, you do on something like Mark Cherry shows. - Correct, yeah. - And Chuck Lorre, I'm sure, has the final approval on all the shows. - With all the way he had to go through decades of-- - Well, that's true, but a lot of times it's by committee also. - True, yeah. - And then the jokes get watered down or they just get dummed down. - Yeah, or make very little sense, you'll have a joke at the expense of the whole show. There was actually, and I think Lonnie did a guest spot on this when she was still married to Bert Reynolds, when Dom del Luis had a show that was a sketch show sitcom and it was a very, very weird hybrid where it was a sitcom was him as a barber, but then it would also be a variety show and a sketch show within the show, and he would have a guest on and they would break the fourth wall a lot and it was very ahead of its time, much like it's Gary Schanling's show, was it sort of a similar time. - Oh, Jeffrey. - Yes, yes, yes, yes. And I would love stuff like that and that stuff doesn't happen very often either. - Jeffrey is, you know, played to sit, my husband in all three hangovers, so, and actually we were in class together in Melka Tsellis when he was still around and he was phenomenal to watch. I have to tell you on that, on those films, Zach, who's much like what you do, I mean, as far as stand up for that, he's very, very sharp, very fast. He goes completely off the charts with the kind of things he comes up with, and those are films that are interesting and as much as they're scripted, but the first one was really scripted, but Todd Phillips, who's, I think, a genius director, I mean. - And started as a documentary. - Yes, of course he did, yes, so he's got that background. And he sits there and he has his photo assist, and he'll let Zach riff, and if it goes off, he just lets him go off, and the rest of us know, I mean, he's a stickler for a word for a word for a word. You put a, and that, we don't want that down. - So you guys are on script, but Zach can go. - We're on script, and Zach can run. - It's not like we got one that we can use, let's just see what happens. - Not really, well, I guess we did do it on the last one, we did some of that, but then when he edited it all down, it kind of-- - What's the script? - What's the script? - And that's going to be terrifying and sort of exciting, where you have no clue-its. - Both, but for instance, that whole thing where Zach, in the last one, where he breaks out in this cry, this whale that, you know, that was off the top of his head that he just did that. - Yeah. And so the reactions were pretty real. - What? And he tips over at the glass, and that was kind of like, he was like, Alan, you know, and I almost like say, Zach, what are you doing? - What are you doing? We're filming, don't you? - Yeah, I mean, speaking of Jeffrey, we're as a development as a show that was, you know, that's a kind of show I would love, that buddy's so intricate, and so complicated seeming from the behind-the-scenes part, I seem like people really have to know what they're doing to do a show like that. But he's great in that. - He's a really gifted man, he's a really gifted man. I think he's in another show this season, he's never out of work. - Yeah, I mean, he pops up, he was in so many shows as a guest star, and has had a bunch of sitcoms as well. - Even in drama, as well as, I mean, he did a lot of drama, I think he went all the way back to like, what's the name, Kramer versus Kramer or something like that? - Yeah, yeah, he was, so I think a lot of people knew him as a mostly dramatic actor until he started getting this comedy flair, and even some of the sitcoms, he had, he was in a sitcom called Mr. Sunshine, where he played a blind man who was a lawyer, I think, and he was kind of like a crumajini straight man, but I think, and that show was one season as well, but as it morphed through the season, they kind of realized he had really comedy chops, and it sort of changed a little bit over the years, so it's interesting to see these people sort of become comedic. - And hotter as they get older, you know, someone like Charlie Durning did not get his first paying job as an actor until he was 49. - Really? Well, they kind of have to grow into their face or something, or like, that's the guy that you are that people want to see. - And even Ruth Gordon. - Yes. - She came around later. - From Boston. - Yeah, yeah. - And Mildred Natwick, in fact, I was, I don't know, I just remember that. The new heart that I was supposed to do, I was supposed to do another one, and it conflicted with another show. It was not another recurring role, and they replaced me, actually, on emergency. - Oh, yeah. - They were going to be doing two-hour movies of the week, so I was scheduled to do them, and then the new heart that I was also boarded to do was with the Ruth Gordon, and then either she became sick, actually, and they tried to wait for her, and then that didn't work, and then they replaced her with Mildred Natwick, and that was my first commitment, and I had to get out of the emergencies, which I was heartbroken about that, because that did go on to do about four of those, and a girl, a red-headed girl named Lenihan was her last name. I can't remember. I don't remember. Another red-head. - Ended up taking the role. Because Ruth Gordon, they did have back in the new heart series in the '80s, so they had her play a role in that after the Bob Newhart show, so I wonder if that was like, we couldn't get her from Bob Newhart. - Probably. - We'll have her in Newhart. - Probably, because Mildred Natwick got the role. - This is one of the last things she did. One of my favorite stories about her is that there's a movie theater in Boston called The Coolidge Corner, and they would run Harold and Maude as a Midnight movie. She would go every week, and so these college kids would probably be a little under the influence at Midnight at this movie, and they're watching it, and they turn around, and she's sitting behind them in the theater. - Wow. - They were probably like, "Am I actually seeing this right now?" - Wow. - Which I'm sure was fun for her to do that as well, she seemed like that kind of person. - Yeah. - You know who's a good friend of mine now, and we're actually working together as Barbara Baines. - Oh, really? - And Barbara, of course, had mission. And that was, she said that was like the quintessential role. She said that, in fact, when Brian Cranston, who's also a friend of ours, when he got the last Emmy, and she said, "Vince Gilligan is Brian's," what did she say? It was like, she had her Bruce Geller, and Brian has his-- - And Gilligan. - Yeah. - Because she got to play a zillion different roles, and she was so good. - Yeah. - But it takes someone to see that in her. Because Brian Cranston, great community character, and kind of just been a jobbing actor for years. - That's right. And then he saws in this character. - Yeah. - And is now almost totally defined in that role. - Yeah. - And it takes someone going, "Ah, you can do this thing." - And you talk about a really serious actor, though. He's not somebody who can just come in and pick up the script. He works at it. - Right. - Those characters are broken down, and he knows everything. And he is so savvy and so smart, aside from being so gifted. - Right. But he's another second-generation actor. His father was in a lot of lessons. - Yes, yes. And he works his tail off. I'm telling you, when you're doing shows like that, you can't be out partying the night before. - Right. Oh, yeah. You got to show up, and a lot of people are relying on-- - You got to show up. - You're getting that done. - He's very specific about his diet, and what he eats, and he's lean, and he sleeps the right amount of stuff. - He's living it, exactly. - Yeah. Well, you know, you have to do that when you're doing that. - Yeah. - That kind of issue. - Oh, yeah. - And, you know, I don't know, I think it takes a certain kind of person who is able to do that. - I know. The stage of the game, I'm going, "What do you want to do something like that?" - No, that's-- - I shouldn't say no, because I don't want to say anything negative to the universe. You know, if it's coming one way, that's-- - I'll do it, right. - I'll just say yes. - Yeah. - You figure it. - Yeah. - But I would prefer to be in an ensemble. - Right. - You know, if I was going to say, "This is--please give me this." - Right. - I'd love to be in an ensemble show. - What's your--out of all the great things we've talked about today, what's the thing that you love the most? Like, you might watch it or that, you know, be like, "That's the thing I'm so glad that I did." - Oh, my shows. - Yeah. - I think the Columbus. - Really? - Yeah. - Because I think working with people like that is such an upper. - Yeah. - And you learn so much. There's been several actors that I--bill, of course, Cosby, that I've really paid attention to. - Yeah. - New heart. You can't--you learn from these people. These are great-- - Yeah. - All comedic actors, yeah. - Geniuses. - Yeah. - You really learn a lot from them. Honestly, in drama, the people that I learned, and I didn't work with her, but Julie Harris. - Yeah. - You know, I mean, I pay attention to her work. I study her work. - Right. - Geraldine Page. - Yeah. - Is another one. You know, those are the ones that really had a huge impact on me. - And what do you watch now? Like, we've talked about a lot of shows that I have embarrassingly not checked out yet. What's your-- - Getting the evil iPhone. - No, no, no, no. I have a list. I have a working list. We'll check back in after I do it in my homework. What are the shows that you can't miss now? Like, every week you have to-- - Well, my date TV is with Spader on Blacklist. - Okay. - I mean, I love--I just think he's so-- - Perfect role for him. - So perfect. I'd love to play the villainous, obviously to him somehow. - Right. - House of Cards. - Right. - Ray Donovan. - I'm making myself watch The Strain because of--I have to pay attention to the genre even with Carlton Q's as the showrunner on that, but so--but as far as, like, week by week by week, and then I got hooked into the Roosevelt's in the kind of-- - Did you haven't seen it, but I've heard this very, very good. - It's really, really good, and I love--I really wasn't such a history buff in school. - Right. - And now I really enjoy seeing how the world ticked. - Right. - Yeah, we got to where we are today. - Yeah, and I pay attention more now to historical things. I like cosmos. - Yeah. - I think that's really good. The ones that are evil, I'm paying attention. - Right. - Besides looney tunes and Tom and Jerry. - Right. - We always need those there. - We always-- - They're always-- - By Saturday morning, I need Tom and Jerry. - Yeah. I think everybody does. Yeah, exactly. - So I have to really think about it more. You know, and I was really kind of going over these cheers. That cheers is a great show. - Which season of cheers were you-- - The last one. - And the last one. That was another character. Remember? - Yes, that's the first one. - I was the stepmother. That stepmother? I was-- - It's woody. - Woody. - You got married. - I was Woody's-- - In-law. - Yes, that's right. Having an affair with like his girlfriend's father. - Right, right, right, right. Yes, yes, yes. - It's very complicated. - Yeah. - But yeah, that's-- and that was another one that was going to continue and then they changed that one that year too. I had that number. - Yeah, this is just the string of those keeping hitting you. I'll say, you know what, maybe I should be in it from the beginning but you know I'd rather not go through all that. You know you go through the-- going through pilot season is rigorous. - That's what I've heard. - Oh my gosh. I used to be the test queen. I tested for so many shows and the anxiety that you go through-- - It's just like-- - Happy days. Unhappy days. I don't know if you know this, but happy days. They were spinning off a show called Pinky Tescadair. - Yeah. It was Ross Kelly. - Ross Kelly got that. And I actually, though, was the studio's choice on that. - Really? - I actually have letters from them saying I can only tell you I chose you, I owe you one. - Right. - And I went back five times with that. And finally, they were talking about the spin-off shows, it was going to have a series, all this kind of thing. - That was Gary Marshall. - Gary Marshall. It was Miller, Milka, some Marshall. - Right. - And finally, there was a woman at ABC, her name was Pam Dixon. And that's when Mike Eisner had a ABC. And they said, "You know, the network is really dragging their feet on finalizing me for that character because they really didn't think I was street enough." - You weren't tough street enough. - Well, Pinky Tescadaira. - Yeah, Pinky Tescadaira. But they had groomed me. The studio brought me in over and over again saying, "Okay, but you walk this way, you talk this way, you wear this, all that kind of stuff." And I pulled it off, but I mean, I'm about the least street person to take off. - Right, right. - But it's like an unsolicited rejection where it's like they've asked you to do this, they've set you up for it, and then go, "Ah." - Well, the studio stayed with me. - Yeah, okay. - They stayed with me all the way. But then Pam said, "No," and she had just met this girl, Ros Kelly, and she goes, "Okay, let's bring them both in to meet everybody." Just the two of us together. - Together. - That's gonna be weird. - It was weird. And she shut up on a motorcycle with a six-pack of beer in the back of the vehicle. - So she went all out. - She went all out doing it, and she went in. And plus the fact she hadn't had to go back over and over. I was kind of spent by the time. - Yeah. - She went back over and over and over again, and I was so nervous that she went in and she nailed it. - That's a lot of pressure. I mean, if-- - It's unbelievable pressure. - If people should understand going for any job interview, and the person you're interviewing against is sitting in the interview with you, that would be crazy. - That happens a lot, though, Cam. - Fear it does. - It happens a lot. I mean, in New York also, when you go to the network, now, that even used to be more personal. Like, when we went in for that show, at least everybody, they were in a big office, but everybody sat around on sofas and all that, NBC the same. Now, though, ABC had built a little theater. The last few times I had to go in the network. You still know everybody that's testing, your test deals are all set ahead of time. And then you go into this little theater, and now, it's like a little stage there. And they're packed to the gills up, and you'll get some voice out of the darkness in the back. Thank you, Sandra. - And then you just kind of ask it. - And you want to just, like, hang yourself. - Yeah. - You might hear. You might not. It's like... - Well, you hear, generally, because when you're down to the wire like that, unless you're going to start casting again, you kind of know right away. - How long are you usually, like, right away, you'll know? - Pretty much, because pretty much, you'll know whether or not they picked one of us, or they've shelved all of us, and they're going to go and start all over again. - So it's a tough business, absolutely. - It's a tough business. You really have to have... You need to have a lot of grit, and determination, and strength, kind of the shell of a turtle, but not... - Right. - Because you got to really not let everything... I mean, I wouldn't be doing it. I've been in the business... Oh, I can't even tell you. Well, it's... - For years? - I got my guilt card in 1970. - '70, I'm telling you, okay. - Yes. - Now that I've been in the business 70 years. - Right. - I got my guilt card in '70s. So you can't be in it all those years. Which is odd for the work is being able to emote and being perceptive about behaviors, but the stuff you go through to get to that work, you have to be the opposite. - What do you mean? - You almost have to shut down your... You can't be a sort of too empathetic with the process of having a sort of thick skin in a tough shell and dealing with the rejection and all that stuff. - The business of the business leaves me cold, but the actual work I'm really turned onto. - Exactly. - And the thing, though, that saves me now is I try to... I mean, I try to go after each thing for the work. So if I'm doing my work, I've really convinced myself and I really have that I never waste my time. So if I don't get that particular thing, it'll lead to something. - It'll lead to something. - It'll lead to something. - Yeah. - You know, you just set positive energy, you're trying to put out there. It's best that you can do, and then you have to... - That's all you can do. - Yeah, but in the early days, you're vested in every single thing. - The kind of person that's drawn to performing tends to be a little more sensitive to certain things. - Well, that's true. - In order to pick up how people behave and sort of absorb how to be a character and get in a mindset and understand emotion and all that sort of stuff. - Yeah, I guess you're right there. - But then are put in a world that you have to be sort of less sensitive than your average person, 'cause if you go for a job interview at a law firm, they're not sitting the person who's your rival next to you in the interview, and they're looking at your resume. They're not going, "You don't look right for this, or we're thinking of something." And so it's sort of abnormally personal, that piece of it, and the acting is personal as well, but that you can't approach them the same way. - Yeah, that is true. I mean, the business of the business is rugged, and be able to focus on it. But through the years, even when I teach seminars myself, or I'm asked to give one, and when I was in Japan, they wanted both Al and myself to do a seminar, and the questions that they had interpreters for us. But the questions were much about the business of the business and how to, you can't really separate it, because it is what you do, you are your own commodity. But I think that the, honestly, I think if you hang in there long enough, I think a lot of the people, they would say, "Just hire her already, and get her out of my hair." - Exactly. - Is she here again? - It absolutely is good. - Yeah. - It is. You have to be that way. You have to say there's nothing else I can do. So one way or the other, you, unless you... - If they see you enough, they will find the thing that works for you. - I mean, there's people I have no clue who they are, both that are stars in shows, but even as far as like the casting people, I go, "Who is that person? I've never heard of that person." So that's a little disconcerting. - Yeah, I guess that there's so many things that have produced more or less independently now or sort of shell corporations, but done in sort of silos, whereas it was just the three networks. - Well, that's true. Yeah. I mean, you can shoot off on some stage converted warehouse someplace. - And then sell it after. So you probably, it's a lot of people, that might be the only thing they are casting direct around. And then they go back to doing whatever they did before. - Yeah, there are very few. There's a handful that are still around, that have been throughout my career also. You know, but not many. - It's an interesting place to be at, too, to see where the future is going for this stuff for better or worse, and to also-- - I'm just going with the flow. - You just go with the flow. You also have this history of, you know, like what your mom had at experience, which is also very different, and being able to have sort of a pretty unique perspective of seeing the sort of the whole spectrum of where it goes is pretty cool. - I still love talking about the craft, though. You know, I mean, Brian, I love talking to Brian and listening to his take on it. And one of the things I love about the actor studio is that there's a lot of much older actors who have been around forever. Eli Wallach just passed on, but when he was in LA, he would come into class. - Really? - Yeah, and that was-- - Still has to, you know, just even being in the same room with him. Marty Landau is the moderator, Marty's in his 80s now. - Speaking of it's impossible. - Yeah, speaking of, speaking of, and his points of view are just phenomenal and very intuitive, and it really makes you think of everything so you really pay attention in a different way. - And then Ed Wood is one of my all-time favorites. - I just saw that again recently. - He's so good. - And he did something about two, no, maybe it's longer, maybe four years ago called "Lovely Still." - Okay. - If you ever get a chance to see it, it's with Alan Burston. - Oh, yes. - And Alan actually heads up the New York studio. - Oh, great. - And the two of them together, watching these two people together, I mean, I was talking to him going, he has Alzheimer's in the thing, which you don't know until the very end. But he's, it's a daily process of brushing his teeth and all that kind of thing and every day it was interesting. I thought, I said, "How on earth did you do that?" And he kind of gets this very kind of... - He's hoping you'd ask me that. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Grinn, and he had something specific every single day that he was working on. And it's really, that's an acting lesson to learn. - That's great. - To still, to not be like, "I, I got it. I got everything." - To still know that they're... - Oh, these people work really hard. - They still get it. - They still really, and they still are curious. That's actually the number one key, I think. Curiosity. - Yeah. - Curiosity, just in life. - We still have to be interested in it. - We still have to be interested in it. - Why do you do it? - Or that or something. - Yeah. - You know, you have to be curious. But you know, we'll have a part two. - Yes, yes. - Next time you come out to L.A. - Absolutely. Thank you so much. - Thank you so much. - You're welcome. - Thank you so much. - And there you go. That was Sandra Curry. It was a long one. It was a good one. I could have talked to her for even longer. She's a fascinating woman, has a ton of great stories, and, you know, maybe someday we'll do a part two. I don't know. You can find out all about her on the TV guidance counselor webpage. She does a ton of charity work. I'll link to all that stuff on there, so definitely go and check that out. And as always, like us on Facebook, there's more information about all our episodes there. You can follow me on Twitter @kennethwread, or you can email me at www.cannadicandread.com. If you have any questions, happy to field them the best that I can. And we'll see you again next week for an all-new episode of TV guidance counselor. He stuck out his hand, he said, "How do you do? I'm John Wayne." - If you don't know. - I first out laughing. I said, "I know who you are. I'm Sandy Curry."