A few years after MTM went off the air, I was totally engrossed in the reruns which generally played night after night at the time. Enough time had passed since the infamous final episode where the entire WJM News team, sans Ted, got fired. I thought it was high time to bring it back. Well, at least in a book that would be all about the Mary Tyler Moore Show production.
The number of books I had written to date? None.
I didn't care. So, along with my friend. Djinn from the Bronx, as co-writer on the project, we forged ahead in attempting to contact all those folks who had a hand in the making of the Mary Tyler Moore Show. To entice their participation, we included a little pop quiz on MTM trivia. Hopefully, it would have a two-fold benefit. They could be pleasantly amused. And also aware that we knew our stuff.
Back in those days, there was no e-mail or Facebook. Our major attempt at contact? A letter enclosed in an envelope with a stamp on it. Amazingly, we got some responses.
Show creator Allan Burns wrote back and corrected some spelling mistakes on our quiz.
Writer Lorenzo Music, who had voiced "Carlton the Doorman" on Rhoda, offered any help he could. "I know what I know."
Henry Winkler, who had one of his first TV acting stints in a MTM episode, would help if he knew the name of our agent.
Linda Kelsey, who also had one of her first TV acting job in a MTM episode, would help if she knew the name of our agent. Perhaps she had just eaten lunch with Henry Winkler.
Walter Cronkite, yes, that Walter Cronkite, would commit to giving us five minutes.
Writer Treva Silverman wanted to know how we had found her address.
We had held back on approaching the cast as we figured they would fall in line if the original writers had agreed.
And then one letter hit a real bulls eye. One night, I got a phone call from an executive secretary.
For Grant Tinker, the former husband of Mary and the one time head of MTM Enterprises. At this moment, he just happened to be the president of the entire NBC TV network.
Ummm.
Would I be available for a call from him the following night at 6PM?
Gulp.
He was very interested in what we were doing and would be happy to help.
I wanted to replied that I should be revived from my dead faint by tomorrow at 6PM. Instead, I simply stammered "yes" and "goodbye."
Somehow, I got through the next day. And thought the entire time that, at 6PM, Grant Tinker, the grand pooh of NBC Television, would be calling me on the kitchen wall phone in my North Broadway, Yonkers apartment. I suddenly began to panic. I envisioned a complete telephone system shutdown that stretched across Westchester County. Or worse? A phone call from a friend that just wouldn't shut up.
I decided that all personal relationships on that day were suspended. I had time for no one but Grant Tinker at 6PM.
Starting at 530PM, I parked myself on the kitchen stool and didn't flinch. I wanted to be ready. And then I started to think about stupid details.
Could I possibly say "hello" without my voice cracking like a teenager going through puberty?
How many rings should I allow? Picking it up on the first ring would convey a sense of anxiousness. Allowing more than two rings might be rude. Back in the 80s, there was no way to check out protocol on the internet. There was no internet.
As the digital clock on my then-very clunky microwave oven clicked from 559PM to 600PM, the phone rang. NBC was the number one network at the time. And, apparently along with the ratings crown, promptness was also a part of "Must See TV." I went for the second ring pick-up and answered not with a "hello" but my name.
"Hold on please for Mr. Grant Tinker."
Yeah, I think I can manage that. I fantasized that he was wrapping a phone conversation with Ted Danson.
"Hi, Len."
Wow, first name basis right off the bat. I like this guy. I called him "Mr. Tinker."
He was pleased that somebody was taking the time to chronicle MTM and that I apparently had a passion for what they had created. He loved our quiz with or without the spelling mistakes cited by Allan Burns. And then Mr. Tinker offered to set up access for us to look at all the historical records for the show which had been donated to the University of Wisconsin. Why there, I asked?
"They were the first ones who asked."
Oh.
Of course, after about twenty minutes of an incredibly congenial dialogue, we got around to the main event of questions. How would I get the cast to participate?
"They all will. But you'll never get Mary."
Mary.
I was on the phone with Grant Tinker discussing his ex-wife. Hello???
Mr. Tinker (I figured that if Mary could keep calling Lou "Mr. Grant", I should do the same thing with Grant) elaborated that, despite the success of the show, she wasn't looking to relive the past at that point. Her son had killed himself right after the series went off the air. She had just embarked on a new marriage.
"She's trying to move forward and doesn't want to look back."
Oh. Well, that sucks. My thought, not a statement.
While he pledged his help, Mr. Tinker didn't think the book would be as robust and compelling without his ex-wife's participation. And I tended to agree.
But, still, it was an exciting phone conversation.
Ultimately, there was no book to pursue. And, about five years later, when there was one authored by these two lofty media culture professors, it was dull as dirt.
And, among all the acknowledgements, there was no mention of Mary. Mr. Tinker knew from what he was talking about.
Within the last two weeks, I discovered that there is yet another book about the series coming out. Entitled "Mary and Lou and Ted and Rhoda," I am hoping that this time somebody got it right. I totally expect it was a lot easier to get a hold of the cast for participation. After all, the phone likely doesn't ring as much as it used to for the likes of Edward Asner and Valerie Harper. Maybe I should have revisited it. Perhaps a lost opportunity.
As for my buddy Mr. Tinker, I would run into him a few times once I moved to Los Angeles. At a car wash. In a French restaurant. I was at the next table. He was clearly having a romantic evening out. At the Daily Grill where he was having lunch at the next booth with MTM director Jay Sandrich. We were seated with legendary Lucy writer Madelyn Pugh Davis. With some trepidation, she felt compelled to go and say hello to them.
I'm glad she didn't offer to introduce us. I doubt that Mr. Tinker would have remembered calling me in my Yonkers kitchen about two decades ago.
Or maybe he would have.
Anyway, let me salute the Mary Tyler Moore Show one more time with this wonderfully rare clip. The curtain call that was broadcast only once after the original airing of the series finale. One of a kind memory.
Just like the show itself.
Dinner last night: BLT sandwich at Blue Plate.
2 comments:
Thank you Len for this wonderful story. I was a big fan of MTM back in the day, I very much enjoyed a trip back in time.
Great to see that clip of the curtain call. Had never seen it.
It's interesting that while some 70s sitcoms (MASH, All in the Family)have continued to survive on TV, MTM has been gone from anything on my cable system for well over a decade, even though it was one of the best-made shows ever made. No idea why, unless the powers that be at cable networks feel it's too dated -- I've always wondered the same thing about Murphy Brown, another well-done show that's been long gone for years.
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