One of my favorite moments from the wedding episode was when Rhoda is walking down the hall in her wedding regalia, on her way into her parents’ apartment, and meets a neighbor taking out the trash played by the laconic Bella Bruck. “Hey, Rhoda,” Bella says, “what’s new?”
“Not much,” Rhoda replies. Little touches gave so much character and texture to—and really Rhoda-ized—the wedding.
On account of all the gifts and the coverage in TIME, I had a sense that the show was going to be popular, but I didn’t realize that it was going to be record-breaking. More than fifty-two million people—half of the American television-viewing audience—tuned in to watch Rhoda and Joe get married. The numbers were unbelievable. All over America, people hosted their own wedding parties for Rhoda and Joe. They dressed in party clothes, some in black tie, and laid out trays of canapés and toasted the couple. Dinner parties were canceled in deference to or planned in honor of the television event. People who were driving when the show aired pulled off the road and checked in to motels to watch.
On October 28, 1974, the wedding went up against Monday Night Football on ABC. During the game, the famed sportscaster Howard Cosell kept a running commentary going about Rhoda’s wedding. He indicated that Rhoda was stealing a lot of his viewers. Throughout his broadcast, Howard joked that he hadn’t been invited to the wedding, and before a commercial break, he declared, “Let’s get over to Rhoda’s wedding quick. The chicken liver is getting rancid.” It was unheard of for someone on one network to refer to a concurrent show on a rival network. By all accounts, the show was a hit!
After the wedding aired, I was constantly congratulated by well-wishers on the streets. “Congrats, Rhoda, you landed a good one!” It was this hour-long special that permanently united Valerie Harper and Rhoda Morgenstern for life. Before the wedding, I’d often been called Rhoda, but after the special aired, it took on a whole new dimension. The audience felt as if a family member had gotten married.
While the wedding special was a highlight of the first season of Rhoda, it was by no means the pinnacle. Rather, it was a fantastic launching pad from which Rhoda only grew stronger. The writers had drawn viewers in, committed them to watching Joe and Rhoda’s relationship develop, and now that they had the country’s attention, they were going to delve into the couple’s life together. Because the wedding had been so sensational, there would be no time to rest on laurels. We’d have to work diligently to live up to the hype we’d generated.
Being the central character on a show was much more tiring than I’d expected. While secondary characters rested between their scenes, I was always on. Occasionally, we’d film three shows and then have a week off. Sometimes we’d film for five weeks straight without taking a break. I’m not complaining because it was great to be working, but this shooting schedule tended to wear me down. I often felt that I was playing an eternal game of catch-up. The scripts were fantastic, and I pushed myself hard to be on top of the material.
In order to really be sure of my lines, I began to write them out from memory, along with the lines of everyone else in my scenes. It took me ages to get through a script, but it allowed me to discover what I knew by heart and what I had yet to learn. My hairdresser, Mack Eden, was kind enough to come by my house on Thursday nights to do my hair for filming the next day. He often found me sitting in the living room, eating a pizza, writing out my lines. “Look at you!” Mack would exclaim. “You’re a big star, and you’re sitting here all alone, eating cold pizza and scribbling away.”
I asked Mack, “A big star? What does that even mean?” I was a working actress. And I had a lot of work to do. I wanted to hit pay dirt on show night.
chapter
SEVEN
The first season of Rhoda was a smash. I won the Best Actress Emmy, which I accepted in true Rhoda fashion, dressed in a top made from an antique embroidered piano shawl. That night, many members of my Mary Tyler Moore family won awards, too—Ed, Betty, Cloris, Jim and Allan, and Ed. Weinberger and Stan Daniels—another terrific writing team. The same year, I won a Golden Globe Award in the same category. While I was delighted with these accolades, the award that was especially pleasing to me was the Golden Globe that the whole cast and all the producers received for Best Comedy of 1975. Rhoda was a team effort, and we had a winning team.
Over the course of the first and second seasons, the other main characters in the show really began to emerge—in particular, Carlton the doorman, voiced by our producer Lorenzo Music, who developed an almost cult following. His slurred speech, his loneliness, his comedic interference with Rhoda and Brenda, as well as his loyalty, intrigued viewers. It didn’t hurt that the writers found endless ways to tease the audience into thinking they were going to show Carlton. This constant disappointment notwithstanding, the writers were able to sustain an invisible character from season to season by imbuing him with enigma and a fumbling sort of wisdom. Carlton’s motto was “Aim low. Avoid disappointment.”
Ida Morgenstern grew more demanding, nosy, and clingy, and more beloved by viewers. Her constant nagging and meddling in Brenda and Rhoda’s lives—her inability to let anything slide—always hit the mark. No one, not even Mary, was spared her barbs. Nancy Walker ran wild with her role, spewing Ida’s vitriol gleefully. It was a delight to watch her and act alongside her.
Then there was Brenda. Brenda was to Rhoda as Rhoda had been to Mary Richards on Mary Tyler Moore—an insecure, overweight, unlucky-in-love sidekick. Julie Kavner brought quiet humor and sweet naïveté to Brenda’s misfortunes. Julie channeled her own shyness—she absolutely hated being recognized in public—into her portrayal of Brenda. But, oh Lord, she was so good and incredibly funny, always. I’ve never had more fun or gotten more satisfaction than I did when I was acting with Julie.
The writing team created delightful supporting characters: Charlie, Joe’s obnoxious pal (superlative Dick Schaal, my husband); Justin, Joe’s business partner (comical Scoey Mitchell); Alice, Joe’s eccentric secretary (one-of-a-kind darling Candy Azzara); Myrna, Rhoda’s window dressing partner (adorable Barbara Sharma); Susan, Rhoda’s friend nicknamed “Easie Susie” in high school, now mother of six, pending seventh (talented Beverly Sanders). During the second season, the writers alternated between shows that focused on Rhoda and Joe and shows that focused on either Brenda or Ida. I always thought it was fun when the shows featured supporting characters, and I thought the writers did, too.
While audiences loved the second season of Rhoda, unbeknownst to me, the writers had hit a roadblock. So much of Rhoda’s original humor—the self-effacing comedy that had drawn viewers—had been anchored by her hapless love life and her poor self-image. Now Rhoda was happily married and, except for the odd battle with a Sara Lee pound cake, fairly confident in her looks. The writers were struggling to make Rhoda funny.
As the second season progressed, the writers began writing more and more shows for Brenda and Ida and fewer that focused on Joe and Rhoda’s marriage. This didn’t bother me at all—in fact, I loved sharing the laughs evenly with my talented costars. It seemed fitting that Brenda, single and overweight, should inherit Rhoda’s self-deprecating mantle and come into her own, just as I had done on Mary Tyler Moore. Soon Brenda’s discombobulated love life and countless quips about her body became Rhoda’s go-to gags.
Ratings were still high. The audience seemed devoted. As far as I could tell, Rhoda was moving along perfectly. So it came as a surprise to me to learn the writers were bored and frustrated with the newer, happier Rhoda they’d created. They’d lost the original hook for their show—the original Rhoda—and calculated that the audience would start to tire of Rhoda’s “Sadie, Sadie, Married Lady” routine. Rhoda had lost her vulnerability. She was no longer a “victorious loser,” as TIME magazine had put it; she wasn’t a loser at all.
Eventually, Allan Burns and Charlotte Brown came to me and explained what was going on behind the scenes. “We sit around and try to think up conflicts for Rhoda, but we can�
�t,” Charlotte said. “Everything is going too well in her life. So, when in doubt, we go to Brenda.”
“That’s fine,” I told them. I thought the Brenda shows were tremendous.
“Yes,” Allan said. “But this show is called Rhoda, not Brenda.”
While I could see their point, I could offer no solutions. Apparently, the writers had tried everything: Rhoda gets pregnant, Joe loses his job, anything to bring the comedy back to Rhoda. Nothing clicked. The show’s biggest success—Rhoda’s wedding—had become the writers’ biggest pitfall. Rhoda, once an independent, wisecracking woman, had settled into the precise relationship she’d always wanted. The only problem was, it wasn’t funny.
I was shocked when they told me what they had in store for the third season. Rhoda and Joe were getting separated. This was a nerve-wracking prospect. Rhoda’s wedding had been a record-breaking episode, and now we were destroying everything we’d created. However, I could see how a separation might herald the return of old, insecure Rhoda. A failed marriage—what could cause more guilt and self-reproach than that?
Restoring Rhoda’s comedic center was not the only motivation the writers and producers had for separating Rhoda and Joe. Here was a young married couple encountering difficulties, arguments, personal struggles that the writing team wanted to show in a funny yet mature way. Unfortunately, the writers were hamstrung by the rules set by Broadcast Standards and Practices. In 1976 the so-called family hour on television demanded conservative material. If the writers of Rhoda had been given the freedom to do a show such as Mad About You, which aired ten years later and showed a young married couple’s struggles warts and all, I think Rhoda and Joe might have stayed together, comedically suffering all the pitfalls of a modern marriage.
Separating Rhoda and Joe was an enormous risk. Nothing like it had ever been done on television. Fifty-two million people had cheered for Rhoda’s wedding. Now she was separating. It would be a blow.
Nevertheless, it offered so many new possibilities that it was a risk worth taking. During season two, Joe had become something of a traditional sitcom “wife,” taking a backseat to Rhoda. Now he would have something to play with, a new dimension to his character. That would give David Groh some meatier scenes, which appealed to him. The writers knew they could find humor in all the uncomfortable situations that would come with separation—marriage counseling, first dates, awkward run-ins.
Starting work on the third season felt different. The set seemed somewhat empty and less familiar. Ida and Martin Morgenstern had taken off in a camper to tour the country. (In fact, Nancy Walker had gone to a different network to star in her own show.) David Groh appeared briefly in the first episode, in which he tells Rhoda that he’s leaving her, then appeared only sporadically. Besides the bombastic Jack Doyle, Rhoda’s boss at the costume retail shop played beautifully by Kenneth McMillan, the writers introduced a couple of new characters. Two of these were Sally Gallagher, an airline stewardess, played by the ever funny Anne Meara; Gary Levy, a new neighbor played with inveterate New York charm by Ron Silver; and the wonderfully funny Doris Roberts played Gary Levy’s mom years before Everybody Loves Raymond. Ray Buktenica brought his marvelously quirky personality to become Brenda’s boyfriend, Benny Goodwin. The hope was to bring back the fun Rhoda. Thankfully, hilarious Julie Kavner, that doll, was an absolute mainstay as Rhoda’s perennially loveable little sister, Brenda. (Not so trivial trivia: Julie appeared in every single episode—all 105—so Brenda was perpetually at Rhoda’s side!)
The fan reaction to Rhoda and Joe’s separation was vehement. People wrote angry letters. A psychologist complained to CBS that the network was trivializing marital separation. Viewers felt betrayed, and fans were 100 percent behind Joe. David Groh received nearly a thousand letters telling him he’d been treated unfairly by the show and that he had to get back together with Rhoda. Despite the outcry, the writers stuck to their guns. Good comedy was their priority, and with the couple living apart, they were able to get back to that.
David Groh appeared in only nine of the twenty-four episodes of the third season, each one focusing on some attempt to reconcile the couple. Toward the end of the season, Allan Burns broke the news to me that Rhoda and Joe were getting a divorce. I was floored. I’d thought their relationship was troubled but on the mend. I had no idea that it was about to be taken off life support.
“Listen,” Allan said, “we see letters every day from the audience. They’re upset. Either we fix the marriage or we divorce you. But this constant back and forth during the separation is killing the viewers. Obviously, the world wants Joe and Rhoda to get back together. But we’ve done two and a half seasons with Joe. We think we’ve mined everything there. It’s time to move on.”
I wished it wasn’t so, but when brilliant writers tell you they’ve hit a wall, you listen. Rhoda was freer and funnier without Joe. She had always been a scuffler and it seemed now was the time to get back to her comedy roots. Rhoda’s divorce literally rocked the land of television. There had been divorced characters before, but never had the stars of a show gotten a divorce. It was a gutsy move by the producers, and CBS backed their decision.
Nevertheless, I felt terrible for David, and so did the writers. Charlotte told me later than she and Allan had drawn the “short straw” and had to break the news to David. The whole situation was made worse by the fact that when David came into the meeting, he said, “Hey, guys, I just bought a house in Hancock Park.” He’d thought his job was secure. I’m sure he never imagined he wouldn’t be with Rhoda until the end. I knew that he would be devastated.
Audiences loved David—his looks, his warmth, and the passion he brought to Joe’s darker moments. He was great at playing comedic anger. But the show wasn’t working. He was a victim of circumstance. David’s last day on-set was incredibly painful. He knew that I’d advocated for him and that it wasn’t my decision to write him out of the show. Still, it was very difficult to see him go. I prayed that Rhoda would open up many doors for him.
With Rhoda newly single, the laughs returned. Suddenly, there was room for a host of zany characters and amusing insecurities. Rhoda was funnier divorced than she had been married, that was undeniable. One of my favorite episodes from the later seasons was “One Is a Number,” which guest-starred the respected stage actress Anne Jackson playing a waitress in a diner. In this episode, Rhoda decides to treat herself, a newly single woman, to a night on the town. In 1977 it wasn’t entirely common for women to eat out alone. But being able to enjoy herself without a date was an empowering lesson for Rhoda and her fans. Speaking of fans, one of my favorite actors, Eli Wallach, was at the filming cheering on Anne, his wife of twenty-five years at that time—now sixty-four years!
Rhoda wasn’t going to be alone for long. Now that she was able to date again, the writers were free to bring in numerous guest stars, such as Judd Hirsch and Michael DeLano, as potential love interests. These characters were more colorful than the reserved Joe Gerard had been, and they put Rhoda right back where the writers wanted her: on shaky ground.
Michael DeLano played Johnny Venture, a monumentally sleazy Vegas lounge singer who woos Rhoda. With his Liberace-style costumes and his comedic velvet-voiced crooning, he brought a lot of the humor back into Rhoda’s life. All in all, after the divorce, there seemed to be a little more air in the room, more space to laugh and experiment.
Before the fourth season, Dave Davis (who by this time was deeply involved with Julie Kavner—they are now married) and Jim Brooks announced they were leaving Rhoda to develop a new show about New York taxicab drivers that would become the famous Taxi. While I was worried that one of the original creators and one of the executive producers were leaving, I was thrilled about their venture. Jim assured me I’d be in good hands—and so I was. After all, Allan Burns was sticking around, as was Charlotte Brown, who had begun as a writer on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and had worked her way up in television comedy. She was the first woman writer-producer of a multi
ple-camera show. Charlotte was fearless in securing wonderful guest stars for the Rhoda show. She approached Albert Finney and Alan Bates—her credo was “All they can do is say no.” The British icons declined but she did land Vivian Vance as Rhoda’s neighbor, and octogenarian Ruth Gordon as Carlton’s hugely eccentric mother. Two fabulous ladies! Charlotte had also gotten me involved with an extraordinary, desperately needed organization—the Rape Treatment Center. Gail Abarbanel, the founder, had been a school chum of Charlotte’s and deserved support in helping rape victims. As a television star I could assist the organization.
Rhoda got its groove back in the fourth season. Nancy Walker returned to the show to much fanfare, and it felt like the early days. However, I could sense something in the air. The writers were doing excellent work, as were the actors, but the network heads, a constantly changing group, seemed to be shifting priorities. I wasn’t sure that CBS wanted us back. So I was surprised when Rhoda was picked up early for a fifth season.
During the fifth season, we hit our hundredth episode and celebrated with three large, round cakes that Mimi lined up, each with a digit on top so together they formed the number 100. But there were storm clouds on the horizon. CBS kept moving the show around, airing on different nights at different times. Ratings went down. I wrote to the big brass, explaining that it was incredibly difficult to keep a loyal fan base if the show’s time slot kept shifting. The boys in charge ignored my protests and moved us again, six times in total. Charlotte, who had become a very close friend over the years, and her whole writing staff were doing excellent work, as was everyone on the show, but the writing was on the wall.
In December 1978, while on hiatus, we learned that Rhoda was being summarily canceled. We’d never be going back into the studio again. The network wasn’t even bothering to air the final four episodes that we’d filmed. Rhoda was done.
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