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“She’s got ‘the bug,’ ” he would say to Mom.

After two years of college, I was restless and told my parents I wanted to go to New York to study acting. “Finish college first,” Dad said. “That way you’ll have something to fall back on.”

The day I graduated from USC as an English teacher, I handed him my diploma and said, “This is for you. Now I’m going to study acting.”

I remember one night around that time, we were arguing about this during dinner. George Burns was at the table, and listening carefully to the back-and-forth. After a while, he took my side.

“What do you want her to be,” he asked Dad, “a milliner?”

A milliner. What a choice. But it took the air out of the argument, and made us all laugh. Then George said something that I found touching and revealing.

“To tell you the truth, Danny,” he said, “I feel sorry for anyone who isn’t in show business.”

And so I just kept on plugging. I studied, did workshops, appeared in plays (even got good reviews), auditioned for everything I could, took meetings, knocked on any door that I could find. And I was getting nowhere.

Finally, my father couldn’t take watching my frustration any longer and begged me to let him help me by setting up a meeting with a producer friend of his, Mike Frankovich at Columbia Pictures. I immediately felt uncomfortable about the meeting, but I went anyway. I sat across from Mr. Frankovich at his big mahogany desk feeling both desperate and hopeful.

He began by telling me what a great guy my dad was—a brilliant performer, a terrific golfer. After a while, I tried to bring the conversation around to me and my work. Mr. Frankovich looked at me dismissively.

“Why would a lovely, educated, well-raised girl like you want to be in this lousy business? Why don’t you marry your boyfriend, settle down and give your father some grandkids.”

I was totally demoralized. I called my father, told him about the meeting and drew a very clear line.

“Please, Dad,” I said. “Don’t ever—ever—make any more calls on my behalf. I’m going to have to do this on my own.”

But as I continued to try to make my way, it continued to eat at my father that I, his beloved daughter, was pounding the pavement in vain. So one night, he decided to talk to me about it.

“If you were a solo performer,” he said, “like a singer or a comic, you’d always be able to find work, just like I always can. But actors are too dependent on others for a job. They need a writer, a director and other actors. Too many things have to fall into place.”

And then he said in very plain language that he thought I should give it up—that it was a long shot that lightning would strike twice in the same family, and that I should rethink what I wanted to do with my life.

The more he spoke, the more upset and insistent he became.

“You’re an educated young woman. You could be a senator, for God’s sake! Why would you pick something at which you cannot succeed?”

I couldn’t believe it. After all the years of unconditional love, of encouragement, of support in everything I did as a kid, he had withdrawn his belief in me.

I got up from the table and walked to the doorway. Then I turned back to him.

“Not only am I going to make it,” I said in a fury, “but someday you and your partner, Sheldon Leonard, are going to want to hire me and you won’t be able to fucking afford me!”

And I stormed out.

Later I learned that my mother had overheard it all, and had immediately gone to my father.

“Don’t you think you were too tough on her?” she said. “Maybe you should go after her.”

“No, let her be,” Daddy said. “If she really wants it, she’ll have to face a lot tougher rejection than this.”

YEARS LATER, after I had my own television series, my father and I were standing together in the wings of a Las Vegas showroom, watching Terre at the microphone, singing her heart out to the crowd in one of her first professional engagements. Tapping her foot as she sang, she looked adorable and sounded great. She has the loveliest voice—a lot like my mother’s—and as I watched her, I thought back to