Growing Up Laughing_ My Story and the Story of Funny - Marlo Thomas [87]
Edgar (by this time he was Edgar) was the true father of That Girl. And a true mentor of this one.
Despite Edgar’s support, there wasn’t a lot of enthusiasm for the premise of the show. And the research proved it. Television audiences didn’t like show business stories, they didn’t like girls without families and they didn’t much care for shows starring actors no one ever heard of.
But the night we premiered, we won our time slot. What happened? What happened was that this girl, who seemed like a revolutionary figure to the men in suits who did the research, was not a revolutionary figure at all. She was a fait accompli. There were millions of That Girls in homes across America. We were not our mother’s daughters. We were a whole different breed. As Billy Persky would later proudly note, “We threw a grenade into the bunker and cleared the way for Mary Richards and Kate and Allie and everyone else to walk right in.”
Once we began taping the series, the mail started pouring in—and it was startling. We got the usual “I love your haircut” type of letter. But I was also receiving mail from desperate young females unloading their secrets.
“I’m 16 years old and I’m pregnant, and I can’t tell my father. What should I do?”
“I’m 23 years old, and have two kids, no job and a husband who hits me. What should I do?”
I didn’t expect it. I was doing a comedy show. But the more I read these letters, the more I realized that these young women had no one to go to but this fictional young woman they identified with on TV. They laughed with me, so they felt they knew me. I was close to their age. And I felt responsible.
So my assistants and I tried to find places of refuge for these young women. We hunted in city after city, but there weren’t any such places. This was before the term “battered wives.” Back then, it was just called “unlucky.” That mail politicized me. And as much as anything else I had witnessed in my life, it was the seed for much of what I’d put my energy toward in the years ahead.
Even though the show was doing well, the battles went on. Some at the network wanted my character to have an aunt move into her apartment with her.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because people would prefer to see a girl living in a family unit.”
“A family unit?” I countered. “The Fugitive doesn’t even have a city. Why do I have to have a family?”
The debates weren’t just in the executive offices. We were finding our way in the writers’ room, as well. One week, we were reading the script for the next episode, when I stopped cold at a joke. The story was about computer dating. Ann Marie sends in her picture, as does a handsome young man (played by comedian Rich Little). On the night of the big date, Ann is getting dressed when the doorbell rings. So her neighbor, Ruthie (played by Ruth Buzzi), runs to answer the door. Ruth had become famous for her funny characters on the variety show Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. An audience favorite was a funny-looking biddy who was suspicious of all men and rapped them on the head with her purse.
In our script, when Ruth opens the door, Rich was to look at my picture in his hand, then at her, and mutter, “She must have gone right through the windshield.” The guys in the room thought this was very funny.
I hated that joke. It undermined everything I believed we should be saying to girls. And I didn’t want Ruth to feel insulted.
“I want to take this out,” I said.
“Why?” Ruth asked. “It’s funny.”
“It’s not funny, Ruth, it’s demeaning.”
“Hey, c’mon,” she said. “It’s my bread and butter.”
I should have known. I grew up with comedians. Phyllis Diller had made a livelihood with this kind of self-deprecating routine. The joke stayed in, but I was always uncomfortable that it was in my show.
AFTER THE FIRST successful year of That Girl, an agent had the idea of my playing the part of Gloria Steinem, a young reporter who had gone undercover as a bunny at