Rita Lakin - The Only Woman in the Room: Episodes in My Life and Career as a Television Writer

Copyright 2015 by Rita Lakin

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, without written permission, except by a newspaper or magazine reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review.

Published in 2015 by Applause Theatre & Cinema Books
An Imprint of Hal Leonard Corporation
7777 West Bluemound Road
Milwaukee, WI 53213

Trade Book Division Editorial Offices
33 Plymouth St., Montclair, NJ 07042

All images and photographs are from the authors collection.

Printed in the United States of America

Book design by John J. Flannery

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lakin, Rita.
The only woman in the room : episodes in my life and career as a television writer / Rita Lakin.
pages cm
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-4950-1405-5
. Lakin, Rita. 2. Television writers--United States--Biography. I. Title.
PN1992.4.L28
[A3 2015]
812.6--dc23
[B]
2015028676

www.applausebooks.com

This book is about women.
But it is dedicated to men.
The men who helped, who were kind. And cared.
Mel Bloom, Steven Bochco, Eddie Feldman, Michael Filerman,
Freddy Freiberger, Frank Furino, Michael Gleason, Merrill Grant,
Buck Houghton, Mort Lachman, Paul Monash, Sydney Pollack,
Larry Sanitsky, Dale Sheets, Ned Tanen, David Victor,
yes, and even Aaron Spelling.

And most of all,
Douglas Unger,
mentor, author, and dear friend.

Contents

How I Almost Met Cary Grant, Doris Day, and Alfred Hitchcock, All in One Day

Home Not-So-Sweet Home, Not Anymore

Where I Learn About Cottage Industries, Lew Wasserman, and Jules Stein

In Which I Tell You About Friends

Bad Day, Bad News

And How I Taught Myself to Write

And I Finish My Sample Script

My First Appointment, and My Sister Helps Me Pick Out an Outfit

I Enter the World of Dating, Heaven Help Me

Where I Meet David Victor and Sydney PollackColor Me Terrified

In Which I Learn What Makes Me a Writer, and My Sister Checks In

Making a Choice, with the Help of the Kids

Where I Sneak onto the Set and Raymond Massey Does Something Mean

How I Met Dick Berg, Important ProducerMy Big Break

Inge, Serling, Silliphant, and Schulberg: Famous WritersIm in Great Company

Biting My Nails and Watching My Dr. Kildare Show with Judy

Shattered Me

Pans and Praise

Learning What That Meant

Picking Up a Guy While Flying

A Very Black-and-White Dinner Date

Guys and Two Dolls

What a Way to End a Relationship

I Decide to Buy a House, and Judy Has a Big Announcement

And Moving Up, and Moving On

How I Meet Women Writers at Last and Learn How to Drink Martinis at Lunch (Like Guys Do) and Not Fall Down, and Mia Cuts Her Hair

Cute Meet

And It Does Take a Village

Even the Kids Love Evan, and So Do the Cat and Dog

Sonya, Peggy, Carol, and Me, and the Japanese Tourists Visit and Catch Us Off Guard

Things Are Heating Up

Then They All Fall Down

In Which I Entered the Odd World of Daytime TVIt Was Like Inhabiting Another World , Pun Intended

The Kids Are Away and the Mouse Will Play

I Meet a Man, Mysteriously, and Ask, Whats It All About, Alfie?

With an Offer I Couldnt Refuse?

We Girls Go Jogging, and I Get Teased

Another Year Passes By, and the Relationships Are Piling Up

Introducing Harvey Fishman, Quiz KidExcuse Me, Harve Bennett, Producer

Meeting the One and Only Aaron Spelling, and the Girl, the Guy, and the Brother

My First Production MeetingYou Dont Wanna Know

I Get to Choose Women to Write for Our Show, and the Men Are Perplexed

The Price of Fame

In This Corner, Me: A Stolen Prize, and the End of an Era

Hello Again, Bob

The MOW and Aaron: Moving Up in the Biz

Coffee with Bob

My Kids Get to Visit a Set, and an Actor Flees

Bob Moves In

Round Three with Aaron

The Clock Stops at Midnight

My WayYeah, Sure: Aaron Does an Aaron

Bob Gets a Dream Offer, and We Decide to Buy a House

We Watch Anyway

Bob and I Get Married, and Im Told an Omen

How Could I Explain What Went Wrong?

RL Square Is Born

The Last Bad Days

Meeting the Head of Universal Studios and Being Stupid

An Embarrassment of Riches, a Tale of Two Movies

TV Movie Number Two

Adventures in England

A Great Morning After, and I Get an Odd Phone Call

An Intriguing Producer and an Actress Who Cant Do a Bronx Accent

Executive Producer, Executive Suite , Executive Problems

My Best Friend Surprises Me by Asking a Most Unexpected Favor

I Do the Impossible

A Dramatic Trip to Our Past with the First Official Female Showrunner, Me

Germany, Italy, and a Spectacular Birthday Dinner

The End of the Marriage

Freedom from Marital Stress at Last; a Lot of Pink Birds and Barrels of Fun

Wonderful Chance Meetings, with Redemption at Last

Alison

Terribly Tasteful and Tastefully Terrible

Love Means Never Having to Say Youre Sorry. Signed, Yours Truly, Aaron Spelling.

Good Night, Nightingales ; Goodbye, Rita

We write to taste life twice,
in the moment and in retrospect.

Anas Nin

You own everything that happens to you.
Tell your story. If people wanted you to write warmly
about them, they should have behaved better.

Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

I have written fiction throughout my entire writing career. First for television, and most recently novels. So when it came to doing something personal and autobiographical, I looked at it as I always have. Is this a good story? Who are the characters? How does it flow? Whats the theme? What am I trying to say? And who is my audience?

Many people today dont realize that prime-time network television writers in the 1960s and early 1970s were virtually all men. Generally, it wasnt prejudiceit was cultural. Gender roles, gender expectations. My story is based on the twenty-five years I worked during these early days as a pioneer woman writer in Hollywood, when I was almost always the only woman in the room.

Accurate memory is a challenge for all of us. Im telling you what I remember to be true, often with vividly recalled details. But at times I took the liberty of recording my adventures in a different chronology, telling my story in a way that makes it more cohesive. Every so often I needed to recreate an event in which details were blurry. In these cases I indulged in a bit of restrained creative recall. All events involving famous people, those whose names you will recognize, actually happened just as I describe. In a few cases, I chose not to use real names. I felt it was important to protect the innocent, and equally important to protect myself from the guilty. If you catch me in a mistake of name, time, or place, its unintentional.

I also must note that the device of the young reporter is a means of compiling questions asked me by many reporters through the years. Again, this was to avoid tedious repetition and to tell the story as smoothly as possible.

I hope whoever reads my insider journey will be intrigued, entertained, and perhaps even amazed by this slice of life from one womans unliberated Hollywood past.

It took a village and here are my villagers:

First and most important of all, my A-Team family: my sons, Howard and Gavin Lakin, for loyalty above and beyond, patiently reading draft after draft, after draft, after draft... There arent enough adjectives to thank them for all they do for me.