Lisa gets us started.
As someone who knows the inside of the business and someone able to know the real creative people who make the difference in making a great movie. Can it be said that Robert Evans is one the greatest Producers of Hollywood? As per his book, he made significant creative contributions in the making of Godfather and Chinatown - 2 of the greatest movies ever. Also uncredited help in the final version of Godfather Part 2.
If you read his book you’ll think he also was the first man on the moon and invented electricity.
Yes, Robert Evans was a major player and no one can deny that during his watch Paramount made some truly great movies.
But he was also a real character. Instead of reading the book, may I recommend to anyone that you listen to the audiobook? He narrates it. And it is HYSTERICAL. I mean, drive-off-the-road funny. And not intentionally. His marriage with Ali McGraw alone is worth the price of the audiobook.
From Nate Lantzy:
I'm watching Cheers for the umptheenth time. Just started again. Pilot, once the bar is full, near the end. Older lady in a wheelchair, one appearance. Sitting all alone. I love to make my own canon on how the hell she got down those stairs, but is there a a behind the scenes story on her?
I’ve talked about this before – I don’t know her real name but that woman was originally a character in the series (Mrs. Littlefield I believe). And she had lines in the pilot. But when the pilot was cut together and was real long the decision was made to eliminate the character. So her lines were cut but there are still a couple of shots where she is still visible in the background.
Gazzoo queries:
Another Friday Question regarding Burghoff,...since he missed so many episodes his final few seasons, how much notice did you have of Gary's absence when writing scripts? I assume you sometimes had to rewrite stuff that was supposed to go to him.
Gary was signed for I believe 18 of the 25 episodes that season. We worked out with him the episodes he would miss before we went into production and then planned our season accordingly.
So if we broke a story where Radar was not needed we slotted it in one of the weeks we knew he’d be absent.
We missed having his presence in every episode, but working around him was not a major hardship.
Brian asks:
Did an actor ever ad-lib a line in one of the shows you worked on that got left in?
Yes. Ray Romano on EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND.
And finally, from Steve:
If second episodes are tough because you have to retell the pilot, what about all the viewers who jump on at episode 3, 4, 8, or the second series premiere? Is there a rule of thumb for when you can start assuming people know who your characters are, or do you try to ensure every episode would make sense to someone completely new to the show?
I would say that by episode 4 you can assume most of your audience knows your show. Especially now that people can easily go back and catch up on past episodes.
What’s your Friday Question? You can leave it in the comments section. Thanks.
from By Ken Levine
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