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Home , Charles Kimbrough, Diane English, Faith Ford, Grant Shaud, Joe Regalbuto, Marcia Wallace

The characters of MurphyBrown, from left: Miles Silverberg (), Frank Fontana (), (), Jim Dial () and Corky Sherwood ().

64 June 2009 Watch!

FdCW0609_64-70_Murphy_v2.indd 64 4/7/09 4:10:30 PM By Jim Colucci Politics as usual

A pioneer in politicAL When CBS executives first heard writer ’s idea for a new to be called Murphy issues and women’s Brown, they didn’t like many things about its core character. They didn’t want Murphy to be returning rights, Murphy Brown’s from the Betty Ford Center. They didn’t want her to be as old as 40. And they didn’t want Candice Bergen. critically acclaimed Although Bergen had grown up comedy royalty as the daughter of ventriloquist Edgar, she had been comedic run was known throughout her career mostly for her blond nearly a no-go. Here’s beauty. The now 63-year-old actress points out that most of her best film roles up to that point had had the story behind the elements of comedy—such as her Oscar-nominated turn in Starting Over, where she was called upon classic show, more than to sing deliberately badly, a skill she would again employ in the Murphy . She admits that 20 years after its debut. Murphy was a role “that no one who knew me ever would have thought I was right for. But for me reading it, the character of Murphy Brown came with the most detailed road map. She was so specific and tart and strong, and such fun to play for 10 years that I can’t even tell you.” With her big-screen career flourishing, she had never before been tempted to take a regular role on television. But English’s pilot script “had that crispness of 1930s/’40s comedy,” Bergen remembers. “It was so far superior to most film scripts I ever got.” After flying to New York to meet with Bergen privately, English stood up to the network, ensuring that she landed with the historic part. It was just the latest in a string of crucial decisions in which the writer, luckily for TV posterity, got her way.

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FdCW0609_64-70_Murphy_v2.indd 65 4/7/09 4:10:57 PM Right From Its First Draft “I had my most fun with Grant comedi- English had worked on several CBS cally, just the way the parts were written,” —she created the short-lived but Bergen remembers. Their scenes together critically acclaimed Foley Square before —with Type-A Murphy driving the neu- taking over My Sister Sam—when she got rotic Miles to pop antacids—“had a great the rare opportunity, particularly for a comic energy. And we had the worst prob- woman, to create something of her own. lems together with breaking up on the set. Having started out as a journalist herself, They couldn’t stop us from laughing.” English decided to place her alter ego in the world of network news, where, she Carefully Chosen Textures notes, “anchorwomen such as Barbara Whenever a patron entered Murphy’s sec- Murphy ’s Motown Walters and Diane Sawyer were sud- ond home, the bar run by the all-knowing When Murphy Brown premiered in the denly becoming more famous than their Phil (Pat Corley), “everybody would fall of 1988, it was groundbreaking in interview subjects.” Herself half Italian scream, ‘Close the door!’ ” Bergen remem- many ways. The show featured a strong female lead. It trafficked in political and raised in what she remembers as “a bers, laughing. And as successful as she humor. And it had no theme song. blue-collar neighborhood” in Buffalo, N.Y., was at everything else, Murphy never did Series creator Diane English reveals English figured that a patrician ASW P was manage to find an assistant who wasn’t, that she had written a theme, but then likely to have a last name doubling as her well, a complete loser (see sidebar). It was scrapped it in favor of a rotating selec- first.S o she chose “Murphy” and “Brown” a comedic bit inspired by English’s own tion of Motown music that she and her lead character, as baby boomers, loved from the phone book, as placeholders. troubles finding someone suitable from from their youth. In the process, Eng- But when the 1988 writers’ strike hit, among the Warner Bros. secretarial pool. lish introduced a change to the format, CBS needed a pilot to film for the ensuing “Diane incorporated touches like those where Murphy’s “cold open” scenes— fall season. And by union law, English that you haven’t seen in other sitcoms,” underscored by such classic performers was not allowed to change a word. “They Bergen says admiringly. “The texture of as Stevie Wonder and Martha Reeves and the Vandellas—hooked viewers weren’t allowed to give me any notes, the show was unique. That’s what I loved directly into the episode’s story. “We and so we shot my actual first draft,” she about it as much as anything.” just didn’t see the point in using that pre- remembers. In quick succession, that And Bergen, too, was involved when cious screen time doing an opening title pilot episode introduced a cast of char- it came literally to choosing Murphy’s sequence that’s exactly the same, week acters destined to become a beloved, texture. She had a very specific idea in after week, and then going to a commer- cial and allowing people to change the decade-long ensemble. Corky Sherwood mind when it came to Murphy’s mode channel,” the producer remembers. (Faith Ford) was a vapid blond Miss of dress; she sometimes stole blazers In the show’s pilot, Murphy bops America, brought in originally to replace out of men’s wardrobe to create what around her Georgetown townhouse, Murphy during her stint at Betty Ford. became her character’s signature look. singing along—badly—to Aretha Franklin’s Frank Fontana (Joe Regalbuto) was a And whereas the original design for “Natural Woman.” And the episode’s opening sequence, set to Franklin’s rugged, adventure-seeking reporter, Murphy’s townhouse was more “taupe “Respect,” tested so well with audi- albeit one obsessed with vanity and his and modern,” she remembers, Bergen ences that English was encouraged to troublesome toupee. Jim Dial (Charles requested some Oriental rugs and Tiffany dig further into the Warner/Chappell Kimbrough) was the stoic, Cronkite-like lamps, to create an eclectic and heirloom- Music catalog to introduce and even set veteran anchorman. And, patterned after filled home more in keeping with her up the story of each week’s show. For Candice Bergen, Murphy’s love of English’s husband and fellow executive character. By the end, “I loved that set, music was one trait that she says helped producer, Joel Shukovsky, 25-year-old and wanted everything in it,” Bergen her get to the core of the character. And wunderkind Miles Silverberg (Grant says—apparently a huge compliment for English, it could often serve as a spring- Shaud) became the boss of the fictional for Murphy’s workman Eldin Bernecky board for stories. In the beginning of the FYI. When Shaud left Murphy after Sea- (Robert Pastorelli), who in 10 years never series’ fourth season, Murphy nearly misses her chance to interview her idol son 8, he was replaced by as got around to finishing painting the place. Franklin, only to ultimately get the even the hard-driven—and unfortunately for bigger thrill of sitting beside her on the Murphy, even harder to fool—veteran The Politics of Real Life piano bench. To film that sequence, “it producer Kay Carter-Shepley. With its debut in September of 1988, was such an exciting moment for us to Of all the interwoven comedy dynam- Murphy Brown was critically acclaimed. fly to New York” to meet the famously airplane-phobic singer, big fan Bergen ics among its fabulous fivesome, Bergen But the show did not turn into a ratings remembers. “Fantastic. I mean terrifying, says it was in her moments with Shaud hit until its second season. By the time but fantastic!” where Murphy most often made magic. Continued on page 70

66 June 2009 Watch!

FdCW0609_64-70_Murphy_v2.indd 66 4/7/09 4:11:21 PM Bergen had a very specifi c idea in mind when it came to Murphy’s chosen mode of dress; she sometimes stole blazers out of men’s wardrobe to create what became her character’s signature look.

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FdCW0609_64-70_Murphy_v2.indd 67 4/7/09 4:11:33 PM

The Revolving Secretarial Pool

Preeminent journalist Murphy Brown traveled the globe and hob- nobbed with world leaders. But she couldn’t hire a good secretary to save her life. Throughout 10 seasons, it seemed like every wack job within the Beltway managed to find his or her way to spend an episode at that desk in FYI’s bullpen. Among them were the listless and lazy, the chronically cranky—one time, even a chimp. For Murphy, good help may have been hard to find—but we sure had fun while she tried. 4

1 Annabelle Gurwitch, so I went in and gave it the vengeance of life. the head,” Wallace points out—but he gave his “I Would Have Danced All Later, I realized I had totally ignored Candice entire Murphy salary to the then-struggling Night,” Jan. 9, 1989 Bergen, so I asked the director actress. And because Newhart’s old show was New York theater actress and Guiding Light if I should say the lines differently, to relate to a flagship of Nick at Nite at the time, “from alum Annabelle Gurwitch had just moved to Murphy. And he said, ‘No! Do what you’re doing! the moment I walked out on stage—and then L.A.—and didn’t yet own a television, never mind It’s perfect!’ ” Unusual for one of Murphy’s ex- when Bob appeared—the audience went wild.” watch the show—when she landed a Murphy employees, Judy later resurfaced in a second Wallace eventually received an Emmy nomina- audition. But from the moment she first saw the episode, as a grocery cashier with a grudge tion for the episode. Today at 66, she is beloved script, she became a lifelong fan. As an aspiring against her former boss. And Susi went on to by fans of as the voice of the actress insisting on staying in character as My myriad other sitcoms, including her current gig teacher Mrs. Krabappel, and has begun a recur- Fair Lady’s Eliza Doolittle, Gurwitch’s curtsying as the off-screen voice of Wolowitz’s mother ring role on The Young and the Restless. She Secretary No. 10 would speak only as Henry on . also currently tours the country, reading about Higgins might have instructed. “I was married to surviving breast cancer from her memoir, Don’t a Brit at the time, so I felt my accent was good— 3 , “Anything Look Back, We’re Not Going That Way. but I was actually probably doing a good job of But Cured,” March 14, 1994 playing a terrible actress who thinks she’s doing In 1994, Marcia Wallace’s husband had recently 4 , “The Good a good job,” Gurwitch remembers. Today, the died, his long illness racking up debt for the Nephew,” March 13, 1995 actress and writer, 47, is working on her second actress best known as super-secretary Carol When Paul Reubens got the call to become book, You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up, and hosts Kester on the 1972-78 sitcom The Murphy’s 76th secretary, “I said yes, without environmental program Wa$ted on the Planet Show. To help her out, Murphy executive pro- hearing anything more about it. Because when- Green channel. ducer Gary Dontzig convinced his fellow writers ever I would be in Florida visiting my parents, that Wallace should reprise Carol as Secretary we would watch Murphy Brown,” he explains. 2 Carol Ann Susi, “Going to No. 66—but only if Newhart would also appear Although Reubens had already achieved super- the Chapel,” May 21, 1990 as his character Bob Hartley, begging for Carol stardom playing alter-ego Pee-wee Herman on When prolific character actress Carol Ann Susi to return to his employ. “From beginning to CBS’ Saturday morning Pee-wee’s Playhouse, had her third audition for a Murphy secretary, end, this was one of the magic gigs of my life,” “I couldn’t wait to hang up the phone and call “I just decided to go for broke,” she remembers. says Wallace appreciatively. Not only did the my folks to say, ‘Guess what show I’m going to “They said this woman [Secretary No. 37, an comedy legend agree to step out of Murphy’s be on!’ ” Andrew Lansing turned out to be one angry divorcée named Judy] hated her husband, famous elevator—“a job he needed like a hole in of Murphy’s most capable secretaries—not to

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mention the most hilariously officious and president’s competent and beloved secretary and penultimate secretary—a role specially underhanded. And so, after his first, Emmy- Mrs. Landingham on The West Wing. And tailored to her well-known obsession with nominated appearance, Andrew was promoted backstage waiting for their cues at Murphy, Broadway musicals. She performed her scenes to recurring character. For Reubens, this meant Joosten struck up a friendship with Lily as the singing Ann Marie Delaney in less than more time working with comedy idols like Tomlin, who would go on to play her sister an hour, and now regrets that she wasn’t able Candice Bergen and , who played on . to linger on the set “and get the feeling of that his uncle, network president Stan. “Faith Ford, beautiful family that happens when you’re Grant Shaud, Charles Kimbrough, Joe Regalbuto 6 , “From the doing a musical or a sitcom.” But O’Donnell, 47, —I was such an admirer of every regular char- Terrace,” Dec. 17, 1997 does have one fun memento by which to acter on that show,” the actor says. Now 56, When actress/comedian Julie Brown first remember her turn in Murphy’s bullpen. “I keep Reubens recently shot appearances in several read the part of Secretary No. 88, a seemingly very, very few show business things in my upcoming films and is “putting the final rewrite” demure woman who snaps after being fired, house,” she explains. “But I have a photo from on a third Pee-wee movie. locking the cast out on a balcony as she trashes that episode with two incredible legends. I the office, “I thought it was hilarious, and said to remember at the time feeling, ‘This is so weird— 5 , myself—and I don’t usually feel this way—‘I’ll just Candice Bergen and Lily Tomlin—and me?’ ” “That’s the Way the Corky die if anybody else gets this part,’ ” she remem- Crumbles,” Oct. 28, 1996 bers. “I went for it as hard as I could, performing 8 , “Never Can A late bloomer, former Illinois housewife like my hair was on fire.” The episode reunited Say Goodbye,” May 18, 1998 Kathryn Joosten had lived for only a few years Brown with Lily Tomlin, who had provided her In 1992, Bette Midler had famously serenaded in Los Angeles before she began popping up first break, via a role in Tomlin’s 1981 film The a teary Johnny Carson as the final guest on his all over the TV dial. At the time, Joosten made Incredible Shrinking Woman. Now 54, Brown version of The Tonight Show. So six years later, a specialty out of delivering what she calls continues to write and perform music and com- it only seemed fitting that she should become “Bite me!” lines—as she did as Murphy’s can- edy, most recently penning and appearing in Secretary No. 93, the last to sit behind that now tankerous Secretary No. 83. “It was a plum spot the hit Disney Channel movie Camp Rock. infamous desk. “I still can’t believe that I was the getting to be one of Murphy’s secretaries,” last,” enthuses Midler, now 63 and performing she remembers. “You knew you wouldn’t have 7 Rosie O’Donnell, “A Man and her concert show The Showgirl Must Go On in many lines, but what you would have would be a Woman,” April 27, 1998 Las Vegas. “It was a thrill to be one of so many choice.” The appearance led to other work— Rosie O’Donnell was appearing in her self-titled terrific comic performers, like being voted into including ironically her best-known role as the talk show when she asked to become the 92nd some delirious Comedy Hall of Fame.”

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FdCW0609_64-70_Murphy_v2.indd 69 4/8/09 8:16:22 AM Continued from page 66

of the 1992 election, this sitcom about the news business had itself made the front page, after vice presidential candidate singled out fictional Murphy as a symbol of bad “family values” when she became a single mother. Ironically, Bergen remembers, the baby storyline had not been devised without careful planning, including introducing the baby’s father as Murphy’s ex-husband Jake, rather than some one-night stand. And ulti- mately, although campaigning against Murphy gave Quayle a national plat- form, Bergen believes that the strategy Blurring the Lines of backfired. “There was no question that [Murphy Brown] affected the election.” News and Sitcoms Murphy continued to effect real-life In the fall of 1989, was a CBS would host such journalistic luminaries as change right through its final season, anchor, one of merely a handful of women Irving R. Levine, Morley Safer, Mike Wallace, in which the seemingly invulnerable at the top of the network news game. And Charles Kuralt, Lesley Stahl, Tom Snyder Murphy Brown battled breast cancer. so Murphy creator Diane English was eager and Cronkite himself—three times. “The show tackled something so delicate to recruit Chung for a cameo appearance In the series’ 100th episode in 1992, with such sensitivity, humor, intelligence beside her TV counterpart. “I kept telling her Murphy found herself at a baby shower and depth,” Bergen says proudly. “It was that yes, I know had done thrown by , Paula Zahn, Mary a very emotional year, because we used The Mary Tyler Moore Show—but if you’re Alice Williams, Joan Lunden and other a lot of actors who were real cancer survi- Walter Cronkite, you can do anything you famous faces. “We had almost every female vors in the show.” And even more tellingly want. For the rest of us, I said, I just didn’t anchor in TV fly in from New York, some about Murphy’s continued popularity, think it was appropriate for news people to right after their morning shows, so that they the storyline “had a real impact,” Bergen do walk-ons on sitcoms, because it ruins our could film on Friday afternoon,” Candice adds, in persuading women to undergo credibility,” the news veteran remembers. Bergen remembers. “And they were fan- mammogram testing for themselves. But ultimately, English prevailed—by tastic. They didn’t need rehearsal, and they In its near record-setting run, Murphy promising Chung she could say just that, nailed it in every take.” Brown spanned both Republican and and even script the lines herself. And so, in Perhaps that’s because, as Chung points Democratic presidential administrations, a second season episode airing on Oct. 16, out, especially today, there’s not all that and took on the foibles of both. That’s Murphy makes a disastrous cameo on a much difference between showbiz and the why in the beginning, as Diane English sitcom inspired by her news show FYI—and news. While making on-stage appearances remembers, “the network was very wor- colleague Chung shows up to scold her. such as at affiliates meetings, she explains, ried about the show being ‘too smart.’ “I think it’s wrong for a journalist of your TV news stars are often required to walk to People actually had to read the news- stature to appear in a sitcom,” Chung chides, “marks” on the floor, as would an actor in a paper to understand the jokes.” As did, with a wink to Murphy’s audience. multi-camera sitcom. And today’s anchors she points out, her writers. “We had this “It was perfect,” Chung says, “because are more skilled than ever before in being gigantic burden of trying to predict what we all knew that I totally was making fun of able to “walk and talk.” The two worlds, she the headlines were going to be three weeks myself for being such a stick-in-the-mud.” laments, can sometimes come “perilously hence, so that the show would always feel The appearance, she adds, was well-received, close.” But in the end, as Murphy Brown fresh. And sometimes we even surprised even by her co-workers who all “certainly proved, there is definitely room for cross- ourselves how close we would get to cur- had been aware” of the new sitcom depict- over. “A lot of people in the news business rent events,” English, now 60, remembers. ing their profession, but few of them, as they take themselves too seriously, too,” Chung “In a way, we were of that trotted the globe, had had much chance to says. “So it’s great when you can see they’re time, because people were actually getting tune in. In the seasons that ensued, Murphy having fun.” news from watching our show. And so I’m proud of that.”

70 June 2009 Watch!

FdCW0609_64-70_Murphy_v2.indd 70 4/7/09 4:12:45 PM FdCW0609_AlzheimersAssoc.indd 1 4/6/09 12:18:58 PM FOR THE SEVENTH YEAR IN A ROW, CBS WILL CELEBRATE JULY FOURTH WITH THE ANNUAL BOSTON POPS FIREWORKS SPECTACULAR

By Jennifer Goddard R E M I C A’ A S BIRTHDAY P Y A R T The skies over Boston have seen their share of explosions, providing a dramatic backdrop for the fi rst skirmishes that helped create a country like no other before it. Boston’s skies continue to burst every Fourth of July with musical notes, fi reworks and patriotic pride courtesy of the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular, now in its seventh year on CBS.

72 June 2009 Watch!

FdCW0609_72-75_Happy BDay America.indd 72 4/7/09 5:31:16 PM Keith Lockhart conducts the Boston Pops during the city’s annual Fourth of July celebration on the banks of the Charles River.

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FdCW0609_72-75_Happy BDay America.indd 73 4/7/09 5:32:58 PM