Even This I Get to Experience

by Norman Lear

  Our pilot opened with shots of a farmhouse, the camera moving slowly into its living room and settling on a radio from which FDR’s inaugural address was emanating: “. . . And here I assert that we have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Listening to it is the woman who has been placing the ads. We learn quickly that she has already hired a grandfather, a daughter, and a son, and is at this moment about to receive a man answering her ad for a husband. Two of the best comic actors I have ever worked with came together—and I will admit to a tear of joy that accompanies the memory—when Rue McClanahan opened the door for her husband-to-be, Dabney Coleman. Of the seventies shows that didn’t make it, Apple Pie might have been the one I cared for most. ABC dropped it after two episodes because it drew only 22 million viewers. A top-ten show today can draw less than half that.

  • • •

  BY THE END OF 1977, as much as I enjoyed television and the company of those I’d been working with, I felt the need to stretch in other directions, to do a film or a play and devote more time to the causes that interested me. I informed Jerry, and Alan started to think about who might replace me. A writer-producer, someone with my background, seemed the logical go-seek, and I solicited a number of men I knew well, starting with guys in our own shop—Allan Manings, Bob Schiller, Charlie Hauck, and Hal Kantor, among others—all wonderful writers and collaborators, and to a person their response was “Are you kidding?” I reached out to men outside the company—Carl Reiner, Larry Gelbart, Stuart Ostroff, and others—and got the same reaction. What I was doing—seven series on the air—seemed impossible to them and none was interested.

  I began to realize that if the situation were reversed, and one of them had my job and asked me to replace him, I’d have thought it impossible, too. I didn’t suddenly inherit this forest of shows and actors, scripts and rehearsals, hits and failures. I grew up in that soil. Two shows required me to think and move faster. A third and fourth show required my brain to compartmentalize, a fifth to compartmentalize further, and a sixth saw a broom growing from my butt so I could sweep up the floor, too.

  What I needed in a replacement, I came to realize, was an executive with a creative bent, a respect and affection for writers and actors, an eye for incredible detail, and the strength to tell whiners, complainers, and fakers to “Fuck off.” It didn’t take long before I knew our own Alan Horn, who by then I understood to define the word decent, was our man.

  Typical of my penchant for acting on impulse, I phoned him the instant I thought of it and asked him to meet me for breakfast at the Beverly Hills Hotel the next morning. Alan was shocked by my proposal but felt he could handle the job as I described it. But did I think to discuss this first with my partner, Jerry Perenchio, the man who actually ran the company businesswise, and from whom I would be stealing Alan in the first place? The question answers itself.

  Perenchio was predictably angry. I was predictably sorry. In any event, as angry as he had every right to be, Jerry still agreed my choice was a good one. His opinion was far from unanimous. The creative teams on all the shows we were doing—the writers, producers, and directors—were very unhappy with my decision to replace myself with a Harvard MBA business guy, no matter who he was. They complained for weeks, giving Alan short shrift and finally calling for an all-hands meeting with me. It was set for a weekend morning at our Century City headquarters and I asked Alan to attend. He thought it was wrong for him to be there, and my insistence alternated with his demurrals until, as he recalls, I ended the discussion with: “Alan, I am not ‘requesting’ this.”

  At the meeting I listened to everyone’s objections, told them I appreciated what I’d heard, pointed to Alan, and said very simply, “My mind is unchanged. This is Alan Horn. He is the man you and your shows report to, and if anyone here can’t live with that your resignation will be accepted now.” None was forthcoming, and the slow and deliberate transition I’d intended continued. The choice was apparently a good one. Alan Horn went on to cofound Castle Rock Entertainment (with, among others, Rob Reiner), served as president and COO of Warner Bros., and is currently chairman of the Walt Disney Studios.

  • • •

  AS I WAS EMBARKING on my respite from the daily grind of television, an unexpected reward presented itself. I received a call from the China People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries in concert with the Chinese delegation at the United Nations. They respected several of my TV shows, thought they showed an appreciation of other cultures, and invited me to put together “a group of like-minded people in the entertainment industry” and lead them on a tour of China.

  The invitation came before our countries normalized relations in 1979, which was a pleasant and exciting surprise to everyone I invited on the tour, a group that included Mary Tyler Moore and her husband, Grant Tinker, then president of NBC. In early April we arrived in Canton, the first stop on our tour. We’d heard this would happen, but nothing could prepare us for the novelties we were. A crowd, all in their Chairman Mao suits, would gather just to look at us everywhere we went, and everything about us was of interest: our clothes, our shoes, and anything we took out of our pockets—wallets, family pictures, mints, chewing gum, anything. There was nothing threatening in this, we were simply objects of interest, great interest, like museum pieces.

  The arts in China were in ferment at that time. After years and years of radical repression, artists and filmmakers who had been condemned and silenced by the infamous Gang of Four were being celebrated once more. As a consequence, the Ministry of Culture centered our visit on meeting the most successful representatives of the arts, seeing plays and operas, visiting soundstages, and meeting with authors, playwrights, and composers.

  Our visit was a feast of unique experiences—everything from shooting film on the Great Wall (the first group to be allowed to do so, we were told) to talks with some of the top figures in the arts and sciences and private flights to communities rarely seen by nonnatives. Toward the end of our visit we spent an afternoon with a class of students about to graduate from college, most of whom spoke English. While we came away from our tour with varying opinions as to what we’d experienced and learned, after our time at the college an opinion we’d held from the beginning was totally affirmed. The Chinese had a self-deprecating sense of humor, as did we Americans. I’m not so sure we haven’t lost ours in the new century, but in the 1970s we had the ability to laugh at ourselves, as did the Chinese.

  • • •

  THE DEBATE THEN GOING on in Congress over the proposed Panama Canal Treaty fascinated me. It was finally passed in 2000 when the United States turned control of it over to the Panamanian government, but in the late seventies the issue was red-hot. President Jimmy Carter and Vice President Walter Mondale were pushing it, while in the Senate the strident and powerful Strom Thurmond (who filibustered against the Civil Rights Act) and Jesse Helms were accusing the administration of “surrendering a strategic American asset.” Ronald Reagan, former governor of California, then planning his run for the presidency, was staunchly against signing the treaty, and it occurred to me that Mondale and Reagan debating the issue would make good television.

  Concurrently with that idea I’d been thinking about political debates in general. Following just about all of them, we’d see or read the next day that one or the other candidate misquoted, misspoke, told a half-truth, or lied altogether, and the opposing candidate didn’t have the facts at the ready with which to call him on it. As a consequence, no feathers were ruffled and no one was seen to get under the other guy’s skin. I wanted to change that.

  I don’t know what caused me to think of the bullfight as a metaphor, but I’d seen several of them in Tijuana in the sixties and one in Madrid in the seventies. I was fascinated by the picadors on horseback whose job it was to anger the bull and weaken his neck muscles for the matador, whom they would then help to save should the bull manage to threaten his life. Coul
dn’t that apply as a metaphor for a two-person political debate? The debaters—here considered the matadors—would each be backed by a research professional, performing in this context as their picador. They would be allowed whatever pre-Internet-era materials they required—their opponent’s speeches, related articles, history, etc.—to check on the veracity or correctness of any statement. It was a format designed to rattle cages and raise some dust around the debaters, who could no longer feel perfectly safe. It would make, I was sure, great television.

  I phoned Ronald Reagan. He took the call with no fuss and as easily accepted an invitation to have lunch to talk about whatever I had in mind. I had met Reagan once or twice at social events, but he made me feel like an old friend on the phone. That was true every time we were in contact over the ensuing years. I invited Geoff Cowan—who’d formerly run Voice of America, was then a board member of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and had authored See No Evil, a book about the Family Hour lawsuit—to join me for lunch with the governor. We met him at the offices of Michael Deaver, his longtime press representative, who had just partnered with Peter Hannaford. Deaver was present and we talked for just a bit, but when we went to lunch, Geoff and I were alone with Ronnie, which is what he said we might call him. Neither Geoff nor I was able to do that.

  The governor could not have been more charming and self-effacing. “It’s a thrill to be in this setting with Norman Lear,” Geoff recalls him saying as we entered the restaurant. I was sure he thought I wanted to talk to him about a guest shot on one of our shows. (His friend and political ally John Wayne had recently guest-starred on Maude.) We talked instead about the Panama Canal Treaty, my debate idea, and the possibility of his taking on Walter Mondale on the issue. The governor was intrigued with the notion of picadors and amused that he would play the role of matador. But his serious side was stirred by the debate itself because he thought the treaty such a bad idea. The United States would be “giving away something it bought and paid for, and should be eternally proud of,” he said. All we needed was Walter Mondale and the airtime, and Governor Reagan was a go.

  Geoff and I flew to DC for a lunch with the vice president. I found Mondale an affable, friendly sort, though no match in the charm department for Ronald Reagan. The vice president was fascinated by the new debate format and believed firmly in the administration’s position. He couldn’t commit firmly until he knew the date and the auspices, but he was certainly interested. Geoff and I thought that was as much as we could expect at this point so I turned to securing the airtime and a date.

  It didn’t take a week to learn that the networks, all three of them, were not interested. “We cover the news,” they said, “we don’t make it. Tell us where this is taking place and we’ll see about getting a camera there.” Recalling how we sold Mary Hartman, I called Al Flanagan at Combined Communications, told him I had Vice President Mondale and Ronald Reagan interested in debating the Panama Canal Treaty in a new format, and didn’t have to say a lot more before he told me to come back when I had them firmed up and he’d find the time on his stations.

  I reported the news to Governor Reagan and got an immediate “Count me in.” The vice president was pleased, an aide reported, and would get back to me. With that I asked Tandem/T.A.T.’s production manager, Michael Weisbarth, to locate and put a hold on a proper facility to stage the debate in both L.A. and DC. After several weeks went by with no word from Mondale, I received a call from Governor Reagan, now being talked about everywhere as a possible candidate for the presidency in 1980. The governor had just gotten a call from William F. Buckley Jr. asking if he would be willing to debate the Panama Canal Treaty with someone of his stature on Firing Line, Buckley’s TV show. Reagan told him he’d like that but had a previous commitment to me on the same subject, and that’s why he was calling me now. I told the governor I’d get back to him in just a few days and thanked him for his courtesy.

  I immediately phoned the vice president to say that I couldn’t wait any longer for an answer. Through an aide he said he’d get back to me in a few minutes, and indeed he did. “I wanted to tell you this directly,” he said. “I’ve been advised not to get in the ring with Ronald Reagan.”

  That ended my plan for this debate costarring Ronald Reagan, but, unbelievably, not the debate itself. Not long after my effort died on the vine, the governor did get to debate the Panama Canal Treaty, and on Firing Line. The “person of equal stature” in the debate turned out to be Buckley himself. The treaty represented one of their rare disagreements. Host and facilitator for the debate was Senator Sam Ervin.

  While I’m on the subject of Ronald Reagan, let me flash forward a bit. In December 1979, with Reagan having just entered the race for the GOP presidential nomination, I called him and asked if I could send a reporter and camera crew on the plane with him as he flew around the country raising funds and seeking endorsements.

  It was early in the race and George H. W. Bush was in the lead, but I sensed this was Ronald Reagan’s moment and, before his campaign caught fire, here was an opportunity to get some real time with Reagan and learn what was driving him. I brought bestselling author and investigative journalist Robert Scheer aboard to grill our presidential hopeful. Scheer, who’d been editor of Ramparts and an early force at Mother Jones, later created the well-known left-leaning Web site Truthdig. He was and continues to be a tough, outspoken liberal, known for his take-no-prisoners style. Ronald Reagan knew all that about Scheer and had no problem with his joining him on the trip.

  The film that resulted was altogether remarkable. They sat side by side in shirtsleeves on a small jet plane over a four-day period, with Scheer in his inimitable hard-ass fashion pressing the governor on every issue. Each time an aide to Reagan looked like he was ready to interrupt the interrogation, Reagan waved him off and took the next question. Nothing Scheer asked seemed to rattle him. He remained cool and open throughout. Many of Scheer’s questions demanded a depth that the candidate seemed unprepared for, a situation under which most politicians would take refuge in spewing bullshit, but not Ronald Reagan. He didn’t go there because he couldn’t go there, yet he never avoided a question. And somehow he made it work. A good example of this occurred when Scheer called Reagan’s attention to the increasing use of drugs in America and asked how he proposed to handle it. Reagan, years before his wife uttered the words as first lady, replied that he’d tell drug users to “just say no.”

  Ronnie (as his kitchen cabinet knew him) had a sly sense of humor, developed and borrowed over years of cocktail party chatter and ringside tables, and it was of no small help to his political career. The film revealed no better example of that than when Scheer asked how the candidate felt about the issue of homosexuality and, not wishing to go there, Reagan said he hadn’t thought about it much. Then, with a nod to British actress Beatrice Campbell, he added that he didn’t see much cause for concern “so long as they don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses.”

  I presented a ninety-minute edit of the hours-long interview to Nancy Reagan in 2002. Mrs. Reagan, too, thought the interview remarkable and together we dedicated it to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, where it can be found today.

  • • •

  I’M NOT SURE which came first, my interest in modern art for its own sake or empty walls in the first nice rooms I thought of as mine, but I started collecting in the early seventies. Mentored by my friend Dick Dorso, my passion for it mounted with my ability to purchase it. In addition to the pleasure of building a collection, it led to as profound an enhancer of the good life as I have known. By 1980 I had come to know a number of other collectors, one of whom invited me to Pasadena one day to see his collection. He had some extraordinary pieces that we were discussing over lunch when his daughter stuck her head in the doorway to say she was going out for a while. “And oh, by the way,” she told her dad, “Ken Noland called while you were with Mr. Lear.”

&
nbsp; Kenneth Noland was a major contemporary artist, variously termed an abstract impressionist, a minimalist, and a Color Field painter. I loved his work and already owned one of his stripes paintings. As we talked about Noland my host wondered whether he’d sold his farm yet. Idly I asked about the farm, and when I heard it was in Vermont and it had belonged to Robert Frost, my heart started to pound. If a baby about to enter the world has feelings, that might be the best way to describe mine at that moment. Not that I’d ever entertained the thought before, but something clicked in me as if it had been a lifelong dream and this kid from New England just knew he was about to own a farm in Vermont, and a Robert Frost farm at that.

  I left Pasadena with Kenneth Noland’s Vermont phone number and called him the next day. He was a fan of All in the Family, welcomed my call, and, yes, the farm was still for sale. When was I coming east? I told him I was due in New York the following week and he told me of a small air service that was based at the Bennington airfield—the farm was in the bordering town, Shaftsbury. He suggested they could meet my plane at JFK and fly me to Bennington in fifty minutes, where he would meet me and take me to the farm, which was ten minutes away. The detour would take no more than three to four hours. I took Ken’s suggestion, and a week later I stepped out of a prop plane in Bennington into the embrace of a man about my age who oozed something I came to think of as enthusiastic kindness.

  Beautiful downtown Shaftsbury was a blinking yellow light at four corners, and a right off Route 7 took us to a delightful wooded area just a minute away. Around a turn, down a light grade, and there on the right was a driveway, at the edge of which was a tree bearing a sign, THE GULLEY, spelled that way because Mr. Frost spelled it that way. It was a bit of a climb to the house, trees to the left, and if a grassy hillside can have a gender, off to the right the most feminine, softly rolling hillside on the planet. That first drive to the farmhouse brought my inner center as close to rapture as it would ever come, and I’ve experienced a touch of that every one of the hundreds of times I’ve driven or walked it since.