In a career full of "almosts" and "possiblys," there were certainly a lot more "unlikelys" and "doubtfuls." But you never give up. Especially when you consider how close I came to actually working for these three folks.
At the time, we were wet behind the ears and probably even wetter when it came to figuring out how to start a writing career. Somehow and someway, we wound up being affiliated with the William Morris Talent Agency in New York.
Impressed? Don't be.
We weren't exactly clients. No, as we sat in the reception area once a week for a meeting with our "not exactly" agent, we watched the parade of real people blow through for their "not pretend"meetings with their real agents. Jack Lemmon, for instance.
Through an introduction by another friend, we had become associated with some junior agent named Andy. Okay, I should have been immediately suspicious. Who uses the name "Andy" in a business setting? That's the name of a rag doll or the sheriff of Mayberry. That's not the name of a William Morris agent.
Well, Andy liked us and our work and arranged for us to meet with him once a week to "talk." Was he serious about our careers? Or did he simply need to show the other big agents that he, too, had people he could "take a meeting" with? Who knows? But we were stupid and didn't know what the hell we were doing. So, we dutifully showed up once a week to pitch him ideas. For TV shows, movies, recipes for rice pudding, whatever. Essentially, if any one of these clicked, we'd be signed to a contract and then the requisite Maserati car lease would immediately follow. Andy was only interested in us in the remote possibility that we could make him a little money.
To this day, William Morris and most other talent agencies love to develop "packages." Matching their out-of-work writers to their out-of-work directors and their out-of-work actors in the hope that they could produce something that would get them all out-of-work. One week, while we were staring blankly one more time at our non-agent, Andy struck a mental gold mine.
"Carol Channing!"
Huh?
She was the typical William Morris client. An out-of-work star looking for some out-of-work writers to put together her upcoming night club act.
Huh again?
What the hell did we know about putting together a night club act? All I knew about night clubs was what I had seen Ricky Ricardo do in the Tropicana Club on "I Love Lucy." First, he sings "Cuban Pete" and then Lucy does something to mess up the act. Check. Got it. Except I didn't think that was what Carol Channing was looking for.
Yet, who were we to turn down potential writing work? We crafted a few ideas to pitch to "Miss Channing." Then, we were supposed to take the train down to Baltimore, where she was either currently performing or looking for the best crab cake Maryland had to offer.
Seems easy? Well, not so much.
It seemed to take forever to book a visit with Miss Channing. But, at last, we had a date. We'd pack up our hearts, our dreams, and our best jokes for what could be a lifelong association with Carol Channing. We'd be saying hello to Dolly. In Baltimore, for God's sake.
The day before we were to hop onto the southbound Amtrak, we got the word. Carol's Baltimore hotel had caught on fire. Guests were evacuated in the middle of the night. Perhaps one of her wigs got a little too close to her hot plate. Whatever the case, she was too overcome to meet with us.
Apparently ever. That was the last time we heard from her. And pretty much the next-to-last time we heard from the barely-past-puberty Andy.
Moving the calendar pages forward now. To another writing partner and an equally misguided approach to a career. We were hungry and open to any options. One day, an advertisement in a writing magazine caught our eye.
"World Famous Actor looking for fresh new writers to collaborate on TV series."
Okay, we'll bite. In retrospect, we should have realized that no world famous actor would need to resort to a career personal ad to get his next gig. But, what did we know? And it wouldn't cost more than a dime to call the attached phone number. I let my writing partner dial the phone.
It was Tony Lo Bianco.
The tough New York actor who's been working for years and always plays the Mafia guy who kicks the shit out of the hero. On the phone, he sounded like a tough New York actor who could easily kick the shit out of two writers. But, he seemed sincere about whatever concept he wanted to flesh out.
The only trouble is he never made any sense to us. In two phone calls, he prattled on endlessly but rarely got to the point of anything. He shared his version of a script with us. He himself had started the writing process.
It stunk. And, suddenly, we had this vision of telling him what we really thought. And then a subsequent vision of cement slabs tied to our bodies at the bottom of the Hudson River.
Yeah, it was time to ease away from Tony Lo Bianco. But, not before he sent us a potential partnership agreement which tied us to him for both a movie script and a weekly vacuuming of his living room rug.
Moving on....
More calendar pages turning. Same writing partner, different coast. And a real, honest-to-God agent attached to us and, in one of her last acts prior to quitting the business and starting a yoga class, she was trying to find us work in Hollywood. One afternoon, she called with this gem.
"Tom Arnold just got his new sitcom picked up and he's looking for writers."
At the time, he was fresh from his explosive marriage and divorce from Roseanne Barr. After all those dust-ups, he was looking to become a star in his own right. And in his own mind. Our agent made the necessary connections for us to meet him. Our spec scripts had gone over to him and he was allegedly interested. We had some trepidations because we heard he was a jerk. But, then again, who were we to scoff at some work?
She booked us a meeting with Tom. Wednesday 2:30PM at his office on the Universal lot.
That notation was on our calendar for the next five weeks. Because each week there would be a cancellation. For a variety of reasons.
"Tom is meeting with the network."
"Tom has food poisoning."
"Tom wrenched his back."
One week, we were walking out the front door for the half-hour drive down the 101 Freeway to Universal.
Ring, ring.
"Tom has a killer migraine."
Perhaps as a result of previous intense bouts with the network, rotten sushi, and/or bad posture.
The last one was a dilly. We walked out the front door and even waited momentarily. The phone remained silent. Whew.
We got to the front gate of the Universal lot. As we handed over our names to the clipboarded guard, he impeded our forward motion.
"Hold it right there. I have a message for you."
Duh.
We debated whether we wanted to extend this misery any further. Maybe next week we would get as far as the reception area. Or maybe even his office where we could stare at his empty desk and some photo of Roseanne Barr with a moustache drawn on it. We decided it wasn't worth the trouble and we told our agent so.
"That's okay, guys. He was just looking to hire some writers he could beat up."
Oh.
Frankly, if we wanted to be physically abused, we could have stuck with Tony Lo Bianco. If we were looking for that kind of treatment, we wanted to go with the expert.
Dinner last night: Orange chicken.
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