Betty White in Person Page 5

  Six weeks later, Mary invited us to Chasen’s for what she called a “TV dinner” . . . so we could all finally see the show before it aired, and be able to see what we had done.

  There were television monitors at the tables . . . only those directly involved in the show were there that night . . . and we laughed up a storm. We hadn’t realized it at the time, but it was a very funny episode. Then came the final scene, and we all got rather quiet, but we were still okay . . . until Lou Grant said, “I treasure you people!” The sob was in unison!

  As a result, to this day, many many reruns later, I have yet to see that scene except underwater.

  We filmed the series on the MTM lot that began as the Mack Sennett Studio. We shot all the episodes on one of the original sound stages . . . which had started out as comedienne Mabel Normand’s home base back in the twenties. On a bronze plaque to the left of the big stage door, in honor of Miss Normand, it says:

  We dedicate this stage to the memory of a lovable artist. May we never forget her. A great soul who pioneered and gave purpose to the early motion picture. Through this new art she brought laughter and beauty otherwise denied millions burdened with despair and drabness.

  After Mary’s closing episode was filmed, another bronze plaque was placed to the right of that same big stage door, reading:

  On this stage a company of loving and talented friends produced a TV classic. “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” 1970-1977.

  Any show that manages to keep everyone happy is rare enough when it is a one-star situation . . . but multiply that by four, make them all females, and it could be a nightmare. Especially for the poor director, who is on the front line with these potential dragons. Once again, “The Golden Girls” producers, Paul Witt, Tony Thomas, and Susan Harris, have pulled off a miracle. We have been given a director, Terry Hughes, at whose feet we openly worship . . . and his firm hand on the reins is so unobtrusive, we are all convinced we are getting our own way.

  Interviewers repeatedly want to know what I would really dream of doing in this business, if I could choose anything I wanted. I can’t ever seem to get the point across that I am doing it . . . right now!

  Over the years, there have been some tremendously successful television shows where, after the first hue and cry, tedium sets in. One or another cast member gets claustrophobic and defects, to go in search of bigger and better things. Some have discovered, too late, that the water outside is deep and cold. There are so many diverse, private, and often valid reasons that have a bearing on that defection that it is impossible to generalize and say it was a dumb thing to do. But if the reason was jealousy . . . it was.

  There doesn’t seem to be any special age at which professional jealousy is finally outgrown. Some actors, old enough to know better, can’t say anything good about anyone else in their category. On the other hand, youth and inexperience are often components in the problem. That’s understandable . . . lack of seasoning, and sometimes bad advice, can warp a young performer’s perspective, until he begins to believe that someone else, less talented, got the good breaks that he deserved . . . or worse . . . that he deserved the breaks he got. There is no cure for this particular work hazard . . . some succumb to it . . . some overcome it . . . and some never had it in the first place.

  When the sitcom “Happy Days” began, I don’t believe anyone could have expected the Fonz to take off quite as much as he did . . . so it might have been understandable if Ron Howard had resented it ever so slightly. The Fonz himself, Henry Winkler, could also have become a little insufferable. Instead, being the class acts they both are, they worked together as mutually talented friends. It is not surprising that both continue to carve increasingly important places for themselves in the producing and directing field, as well as acting.

  Michael J. Fox is another whose career took off like a rocket. However, far from deserting television after his successes on the big screen . . . he not only remains with “Family Ties,” but says he will be there as long as the show exists.

  So much for youth’s so-called warped perspective!

  At this writing, Bea, and Rue, and Estelle and I, together with Terry Hughes, have been working together for two full seasons . . . fifty-one shows in all so far. If we haven’t gotten in trouble with each other by now, I think it highly unlikely we ever will. I can only hope we’ll be hanging in there together for many more seasons to come . . . the network, the public, and God willing.

  On Competition

  Professional jealousy may be nothing more than healthy competition that is stagestruck.

  Wasn’t it during the sixties that “competition” became such a dirty word? And “pride” . . . there was another one. “Too much competition” was the battle cry . . . and became the scapegoat for practically every sin known to man.

  It’s the “too much” that seems to be the villain from where I sit. We are a too much society on virtually (hardly the right word) every front. For one thing, we spend too much time talking about it.

  But why must competition take the rap? And what’s so bad about pride in a job well done?

  Fortunately, the proverbial pendulum seems to be swinging back to the point where the competitive spirit is almost returning to favor . . . just as well, because where would we begin to eliminate it from our lives?

  New parents compete to see who can elicit baby’s first smile.

  Drivers compete from the moment they get behind the wheel.

  And . . . as any television viewer worth his salt can tell you . . . housewives are in a constant swivet as to who has the whitest wash!

  Facetious examples are a cheap shot . . . I do not mean to make light of a serious subject. Stress is a killer . . . and much of that stress comes from simply trying to make it through the day in our competitive world.

  Ideally, competition on the job, or in school, should serve as an incentive to make us try a little harder, or reach a little farther. Unfortunately, nothing ever works quite the way it’s supposed to. If the pressures exerted are inordinate . . . or what’s even worse . . . if everyone isn’t playing by the rules, the results can be, and often are, tragic.

  But if we can’t lick competition . . . join it! Turn it around and make it work for us.

  Dieters find solace in challenging a buddy to see who can lose the most poundage in a given time.

  Some smokers find it easier to go longer without a cigarette if they are trying to beat someone else.

  Ret Turner, one of TV’s Emmy-winning costume designers, made a hefty bet with a friend that he could go a whole year without chocolate. As of now, he is in the seventh month of the bet . . . alternately stalwart, then drooling . . . however, he admits he never could have done it on his own. Ret realizes, better than anyone, that he is really competing with himself. But to call it old-fashioned willpower would take all the fun out of it . . . he would slip off the chocolate wagon in no time.

  In show business, competition is the name of the game . . . purely by the nature of the industry itself. The fact that we showfolk must thrive on it is indicated by the staggering number of award shows designed to celebrate the best of our best. Here, the competition is rife . . . but, hopefully, healthy. There is only one winner in each category . . . but if you’ve made it that far . . . there are no losers. I can’t buy the fact that show business is more competitive than most other callings . . . we just have a higher profile.

  Don’t you think that most winners wind up really only competing with themselves over the long haul?

  Competing against yourself, day by day, stretches your capabilities and allows you to grow . . . just don’t make the standards too high. Remember, the object is to wind up feeling good about yourself . . . so the goal must be attainable . . . the rest is up to you. Of course, there’s no law against raising the sights from time to time . . . as long as they remain within reach.

  Oh . . . and it’s very important to be a good winner. Pounding one’s opponent into the ground is frowned on at best . . .
but it’s an especially bad idea when you are your opponent.

  Granted, I get a little carried away in the competition department. Sometimes, when I’m taking a shower, I try and see how many times I can flip the soap in one hand without dropping it . . . then try and beat the number with the other hand. Tomorrow, I try and better the score. It does sound a little weird on the face of it, I have to admit . . . but it’s great for the upper arms. No one knows better than I that there isn’t much of a call for soap-flipping . . . it is simply a ridiculous example of trying to do something better for its own sake, without having someone standing over you . . . which would be particularly unseemly in my shower.

  Taken to its logical . . . and certainly less frivolous extension, the philosophy of healthy competition makes for personal pride in accomplishment. Carried over into the workplace, it means you do what you do . . . what-ever that may be . . . to the best of your ability, just because it makes you feel good.

  That is far too simple an antidote to be an effective cure for job disinterest and shoddy workmanship. A great deal of research, time, and money is being spent these days, trying to find a way to instill pride in performance in the current work force. Strange that it’s such a hard sell to put across the idea that whatever you do . . . at work or at play . . . is not only more interesting if you do it the best you possibly can . . . but the time slips by so much faster.

  Being compulsive about anything is a fairly bum idea, and I guess the work ethic is no exception. Moderation is the answer, as we learned in Shangri-La, but it’s not that easy . . . that damned pendulum never stops in the middle. We are not only immoderate about what’s bad for us . . . we even have a tough time taking the middle road with things that are supposed to be good.

  How do you rein in a workaholic? Or how do you fire up a drone?

  There are those to whom work is a four-letter word. These types spend a great deal of effort and creative energy putting in as little time on it as possible. Nonwork to them is nirvana . . . which would be swell, if they didn’t also refer to their off-time as bor-ing! Evidently, even not working is too much effort.

  These people are not the same breed of cat as the folk who purposefully abstain from work altogether . . . your dedicated beachcomber . . . your career surfer . . . your card-carrying knight of the road. This group elevates not being gainfully employed to an art form. They don’t complain about it . . . they celebrate it.

  By way of contrast . . . at the other end of the spectrum are those suffering from chronic workaholism. Someday I’m sure it will be included in the list of bona fide social diseases. It is truly incurable.

  The White Rabbit would be perfect for the part. The workaholic works all the time. At something. Always hurrying to finish the job at hand in order to rush to the next, during which time a new project is taking place in his . . . or her . . . head. I plead guilty to this persuasion, but I came by it naturally.

  My father was never satisfied with doing just two things at once if he could possibly squeeze in a third. Mom used to call him “Hurry Horace, the Humming bird.” I can still hear her . . . “Honey, do you think you can light long enough to eat dinner?”

  Dad’s time off was the same. Like Allen, he too was a gardener, and on weekends this meant he was out there at dawn, and working like a field hand, until, at the other end of the day, it got too dark to see. He did come in midmorning for our threesome brunch, where we would gab about everything under the sun. But it wasn’t long before he would begin to chafe at the bit to get back outside.

  Dad’s job was his pride and joy. In the forty-five years he spent with the Crouse-Hinds Company . . . selling floodlights, traffic signals, explosion-proof fittings for the Navy . . . he went from office boy to commercial vice president. There was a mandatory retirement age of sixty-five, and he used to make a lot of noise about how he didn’t mind that at all. He had big plans for his retirement . . . travel, various projects . . . but somehow they all had a rather hollow ring. Dad’s problem was solved when he died six months before his sixty-fifth birthday. I’ve often wondered if he might just have been scared to death.

  It’s a pattern with which I can readily identify . . . I’m just luckier than he was, in that there is no retirement age stipulation in my line of work. I hope to hang around playing something as long as I am able to stand up. As far as my animal work is concerned, the animals don’t care how old I get. So I am much better off than my dad.

  But my social life does take something of a beating at times. I keep saying, “Things will let up soon as I finish this . . . or that . . . or something else.” My closest friend shakes his head in complete disgust . . . “Until you start working on the next thing!”

  The more angrily I deny it, the more I know in my heart he’s right.

  I’ll work on it.

  On Laughter

  At last it has been officially established that laughter is beneficial to one’s health and well-being. Well, that takes a big load off my mind . . . most of the things I like to do are so bad for me.

  And I do love to laugh. Thank Heaven I’m in the funny business. Although it often surprises me how serious many comedians are about comedy. Not all, I’m happy to say . . . but more than I ever suspected.

  The late comedian and television host Hal March used to come on my first series, “Life with Elizabeth,” as a guest star . . . when we could afford one. He and Del Moore, who played my husband Alvin on the show, and I used to laugh so much together that the filming would run overtime. But Hal was irrepressible and Del was no help. I was dignified and perfect.

  Hal was the first to point out the fact that everybody didn’t have as much fun working as we did. He used to say, “Put five comics in a room together telling jokes . . . there are no laughs . . . only frowns. Somebody will tell a joke, and one frowner will comment, ‘That’s funny.’ Another joke, and somebody else will frown, ‘Now, that’s very funny. That’s hysterical.’ They don’t have time to laugh, they are busy filing the jokes away in their heads.”

  I like the laughers better.

  Breakups onstage, or in the studio, are devastating . . . to the person involved . . . as well as everyone else onstage at the time. The more prone a person is to this sort of thing, the tighter rein he must hold on himself. Or herself!!!

  The problem is, you never know when something is going to happen that will set you off. Ninety-nine percent of the time it isn’t even anything particularly funny . . . but when it hits, you are helpless. The harder you try to shape up, the funnier everything gets.

  Now, you would expect an idiot like me to have this weakness . . . and, God knows, I do. But the least likely person in the world, with all her wonderful professionalism, I have seen turn into a mess before my very eyes . . . my tall friend Beatrice Arthur.

  It doesn’t happen often . . . maybe three or four times in the past two seasons. There are no warning signals, and no sound . . . but you know you are in trouble when you throw Bea a cue and get no answer. You turn and find that she is beet red, with tears streaming down her face, and she is going through these paroxysms, but making no noise whatever . . . just helpless little gestures with her hands.

  Of course, it is contagious and spreads like wildfire through the cast. We finally pull ourselves together to go on with the scene . . . but the damage has been done. From then on . . . (we rehearse for a week before taping) . . . every single time we get to that spot in the script, Bea is gone. It happens all over again, each time, and she is helpless . . . this controlled, dignified, consummate actress! By the time we get to the actual taping, she manages to get through . . . but there is absolutely no eye contact between any of us until we are past the danger zone.

  What starts it? Who knows what strikes a funny bone with anybody? One time it was a line in the script that hit Bea funny. The plot was: Sophia was accepting an award. We were all at this banquet where Don Johnson was to appear. He couldn’t make it . . . but they introduced his clothes!! That may not do it for
you, but Bea collapsed every time.

  What makes it so marvelous in her case is that normally Bea is not a laugher. She may enjoy a joke with a smile, maybe a small chuckle . . . she is more likely to react to a funny remark with a deadpan stare. It’s just such fun to see her fall apart! Rue said that once when they were taping “Maude” they finally shut down for the afternoon and sent everybody home . . . they simply couldn’t straighten up.

  It may tickle you when it happens to somebody else, but, having been there, it can be a killer. The more you try to stop, or the harder you bite your cheek, or the sadder the mental images you try and conjure up . . . the more hysterical everything becomes.

  By now, I’m sure you are thinking that they should throw a net over all of us, and you’re probably right. Just keep in mind, we are not in the most stable line of work.

  Connie Chung, the excellent television newsperson, was on locally here in California before going network. Connie has a delicious sense of humor, but is, to be sure, all business when reporting the news. There were, however, some rare occasions on the early evening news in Los Angeles that were memorable. A slight stumble in words, on her part or someone else’s . . . meaning to say one thing, but something else came out . . . could set her off.

  Watching her lose the battle with herself was worth the price of admission. At first, she would try and ride it out by ignoring it, a deep serious frown suddenly appearing between her eyes . . . but then her voice would tighten, and she would lose it. Momentarily, only . . . as she had to keep fighting valiantly from one grim news story to the next.