NEVER TROUBLE TROUBLE TILL TROUBLE TROUBLES YOU - February 1964 (Breaking Point)

My last booking for the 1963-64 season proved to be my last BREAKING POINT. The script, NEVER TROUBLE TROUBLE TILL TROUBLE TROUBLES YOU was written by Lorenzo Semple Jr. Three and a half years earlier I had directed a production of GOLDEN FLEECING, also by Lorenzo Semple Jr., on the main stage at the Pasadena Playhouse. I've never met Lorenzo, but then I’ve never met most of the authors whose screenplalys I’ve directed.

NEVER TROUBLE TROUBLE TILL TROUBLE TROUBLES YOU was the most conventional of the three scripts that I directed for BREAKING POINT. It was the story of an up-and-coming boxer, Rosie Palmer, who in the initial scene loses an important bout under suspicious circumstances. He is accused of throwing the fight, of taking a dive. He pleads his innocence, insisting he was hit, knocked out. Film of the fight shows otherwise. He is suspended by the Boxing Commission. His fiancee returns her engagement ring. He seeks psychiatric help. He swears he was hit; he felt the punch. And if he felt a punch that wasn’t thrown, does that mean he’s going crazy. What made this an unusual show was that it was cast with negro actors, although it was not a negro-themed story. (This was before ‘black’ and ‘African-American’ became the accepted terms of reference.) It could just as easily have been a story about a white boxer.

I don’t have a copy of NEVER TROUBLE TROUBLE..., so I don't remember very much about the shooting of the show, but there were two incidents in preproduction that are worth relating. Because Rosie in his sessions with the psychiatrist speaks of his past, there were flashbacks in the story. We needed an adult Rosie and a seven year old Rosie. Now under ordinary circumstances the adult Rosie would be cast, then a child Rosie would be matched to him. But this was episodic television. Everything is worked on at the same time. So while the search for the adult Rosie went on, Lynn Stalmaster, the casting director, brought in three seven year old negro boys. Our plan was that we would see the children, but hold off making any decision until we had our boxing Rosie, when we would cast the young boy who most closely resembled him. One of the boys who came in was the son of LA Councilman Melvin Dymally. The fact that he was a Councilman’s son didn’t mean anything to us. The fact that the child was beautiful and absolutely enchanting did. He was light-skinned with light brown wavy hair. His whole demeanor was angelic and sensitive. He had the qualities we were looking for in the youngster’s scenes. We decided not to wait; we cast him on the spot. We hoped our adult Rosie would match him, but if he didn’t, make-up would solve the problem. We then cast a New York actor, Terry Carter, as Rosie. Terry was a dark-skinned Sydney Poitier look-alike. There was going to be a problem, but we knew it was solveable.

The day young Dymally was to shoot arrived. He reported to make-up where I had given instructions on what I wanted. I could not stay in the make-up room to oversee, as I had to continue filming. When his make-up was completed, the make-up man brought him to the set for my approval. I took one look and said, “No. He needs to be darker.” They returned to the make-up room, and a short while later returned. “No,” I said again. “He needs to be darker.” Again back to the make-up room, and again a return to the set. He was still too light. I took the boy and the make-up man over to where Terry Carter was seated. “He is still too light,” I said. “He needs to be darker. He is playing Terry as a child. His skin needs to be the same color.” The make-up man looked at me quizzically, as if I had lost all my marbles. “Well don’t they get darker as they grow older?” he asked. Now that was a funny line, but it was also shocking to me. A hundred and nine years after the end of the Civil War it was inconceivable to me that anybody with any intelligence could ask that question. I later related the incident to Diana Sands, who was cast as Sarah, Rosie’s fiancee. And this is why people who one day might want to write a blog should keep journals. Diana, laughing, responded, “He probably thinks ...” and I don’t remember the rest of her statement. I just remember that we had a good laugh.

There were two older characters in the script: Rosie’s father and Sarah’s father. We immediately cast Joel Fluellen as Rosie’s father. I had worked with Joel when he was in the cast of one of my stage productions. For the role of Sarah’s father we wanted Rex Ingram, a black actor with a very distinguished resume. He had played the role of De Lawd in the Broadway production of Marc Connolly’s THE GREEN PASTURES and repeated it in the Warner Brothers’ filming of the play. He had portrayed Lucifer, the Devil, in CABIN IN THE SKY with Ethel Waters and Lena Horne. He was Jim, the runaway slave, in THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN with Mickey Rooney. So our casting director had Rex come into our office. We had a nice chat, after which I handed him a script. “You mean, I got the job?” he said. I responded, “You had the job when you came in. We just wanted to meet you.” I never get over bemoaning the cruelty of this profession, that older performers who should be revered for their talent and experience are so casually shunted aside. And all of this compounded in Rex’s case by the color of his skin.

Five and a half years later in the summer of 1969 I worked with Rex once again. IMDB (the Internet Movie Data Base) includes the following in its bio of Ingram: Although in ill health, the 74-year-old Ingram took on his last role, on a Christmas episode of "The Bill Cosby Show,"* because star/co-producer Cosby, a long-time fan, personally asked him to. Shortly after filming ended, Ingram passed away on September 19, 1969. The episode was aired a little over two months later, on December 21, and earned the show some of its highest ratings to date.

*This was not THE COSBY SHOW with the Huxtable family. It was an earlier series Cosby did in 1969, when he played a gym instructor.

SHADOW OF A STARLESS NIGHT - January 1964 (Breaking Point)

The end of my 1963-1964 season saw me returning to BREAKING POINT for two more episodes. The first turned out to be a wonderfully unusual experience. Director Guild rules required that the script for an assignment be delivered three days before the director reported for preparation. That very seldom happened. Usually the script was waiting for the director when he reported to the studio (unless like the first ROUTE 66 it hadn't been completed yet). In the case of the first of these two assignments I became involved about a month before my report date. Jean Holloway, who was going to write the script, had done an enormous amount of research and found that in the United States there were six or eight practicing physicians who had been born with sight, been blinded, but returned to the practice of medicine. She interviewed all of them by telephone, then blended that material into a script about a young doctor, who in an automobile accident is blinded, and the story of his eventual return to practice medicine. The script (IN THE DARK ALL CATS ARE GRAY) was an exciting project, and I was thrilled to be involved in it so early.

Jean learned that I was going to San Francisco to visit family for the holidays, and she asked if I would contact the Guide Dogs for the Blind organization in San Rafael. Possibly I could visit them and get some information that she could include in her script. So while I was in San Francisco, I called the school, made an appointment and traveled across the Bay to this magnificent establishment set in the rolling hills east of the Bay. Bill Jones, the executive in charge, gave me a tour. I learned that they bred their own dogs. Three breeds: golden retriever, German shepherd, and black Labrador. When the puppies were six or eight weeks old, they were put out to foster homes, where they could be indoctrinated to relate socially to people. Then they were brought back to the school, where the staff of trainers turned them into Guide Dogs for the blind.

The next step in this process was the blind. A class of 12 or 14 accepted pupils would arrive to receive and be trained to use a guide dog. I was told that they were going to be starting a class of new students the following Monday. I was invited to audit those classes. I accepted the invitation and starting the following Monday I attended all of the classe for the next five days.

At this time I was very proficient in short-hand. (Why I had taken a short-hand class in high school to this day I can’t explain, but on more than one occasion it certainly came in handy.) I daily traveled across the Bay (fortunately gasoline at that time was priced more reasonably), attended all of the classes, taking voluminous notes, which I would relay to Jean Holloway each evening in extended ninety minute telephone calls. Jean was thrilled with the material I was providing, so that what originally was going to be a short interval in her story ended up being a full act -- one fourth of the script.

I returned to southern California, and in January reported to the studio, where I found a very fine script (now titled SHADOW OF A STARLESS NIGHT) by Jean awaiting me. Casting for this show was simple. Bradford Dillman was cast as our young doctor, Peter, and Dianne Foster was cast as his wife, Debbie. (I do remember that we submitted the script with an offer to Barbara Rush to play the role of the wife. Barbara turned it down, but did say she would be willing to accept if the wife could be the blind one.) The dominant psychiatrist in this script was Dr. Raymer, the Eduard Franz role. He was the Dr. Gillespie of this series. Jean’s script was very intriguing, because she presented, beside our young doctor’s dilemna in coping with his blindness, the problem faced by his older psychiatrist friend who doesn’t know how to help him. And she introduced a new character, Dr. Watkins, a young psychiatrist, a new arrival at the hospital, who had had previous experience dealing with the blind. For this role we cast a fresh new face, Charles Robinson.

I suspected at the time (and I still believe) that this casting was done with an eye to getting a renewal for the series for the following year. I’m afraid that Paul Richards, a fine actor, had not turned out to be another Vince Edwards or Richard Chamberlain (Ben Casey or Dr. Kildare).

Further casting involved the blind people in the class. These were not speaking roles, but they were obviously very important. Bill Jones offered to contact graduates of the school who lived in Southern California. He did, we cast, and that’s how our class was put together. And each one came with his own Guide Dog.

I would have loved to have been able to shoot the show at the school in San Rafael, but with a television budget, that was not possible. We ended up at a Girl Scout camp in one of the canyons of Los Angeles . It was more wooded than San Rafael, but it was very scenic, very beautiful and a location that I returned to several times for later productions. So because we couldn’t go to the school, the school came to us. Bill Jones came to southern California for the shoot, bringing several dogs and one of the staff trainers. Bill proved invaluable as an uncredited technical advisor.

Jean’s script, after an introductory birthday celebration scene followed by the fatal accident, zeroed in on the young doctor’s journey back from the depths. It began with a very powerful scene as Peter, the young doctor, wakes up after surgery and discovers his eyes are bandaged. He carefully lifts the bandage covering his left eye and then the bandage over his right eye. He realizes his sight is gone.

There was another role I found easy to cast. A young man comes in to help Peter learn to shave himself. Nine years earlier when I was connected with one of the Hollywood area theatres, I had directed as a show case the soda fountain scene in OUR TOWN. At the time I just knew the two young actors I was directing as Jimmy and Judy. One day when we arrived at the theater, we found there was no available rehearsal space. So Judy said, “We can go up to my house to rehearse.”

I asked, “Where is that?” and she answered, “Just up the street.”

So up the street we traipsed to a large house on the corner of Fountain. When I entered, I felt as if I were entering the set of an MGM movie. Marble floors, tall white columns. I had never seen anything like this in Mason City, Iowa. And then I saw an Academy award statuette up on a shelf.

“Whose is that?”, I asked.

Judy replied, “My mother’s.”

“Who’s your mother?”

“Loretta Young.”

And I don’t know why, but I blurted out, “But you don’t look like her.” (Although actually she does.)

And Judy said, “I’m adopted.”

After the rehearsal I returned to the theatre, eager in my naivete to tell anyone who would listen about this exciting occurrence. And that was when I learned that Judy was really Miss Young’s daughter, the child of a liaison between Loretta Young and Clark Gable. Many years later when I read Judy Lewis’ wonderful book, UNNATURAL AFFECTION, I realized that I knew the facts of her parenthood before she did.

We cast Jimmy Hayes as the young man in the shaving sequence.

One of the joys of Jean’s script was that, unlike too much television, her scenes weren’t filled with static dialog to be spoken by ‘talking heads’. Peter’s return home from the hospital is a perfect example. And as you will see, I paid attention when Charles Hagedon told me John Ford's advice to "move the actors, not the camera."

Our filming began of course at the camp location. There we did the exteriors and the interior of a very large glassed-in room we used for indoctrination and dining scenes. We aimed to reproduce as accurately as possible what I had seen the month before in San Rafael. There was the first class devoted to getting the blind to move more freely, not fearfully. The trainer in this scene was played by a fine actor, Don Hanmer. Don was a member of the famed Actors’ Studio. He told me of an incident years before in one of his classes. The assignment was to perform an activity using sense memory. Don chose to eat a banana. Seated in his chair in the classroom he pantomimed picking up a banana and slowly starting to peel it. At this moment Cloris Leachman arrived late. She quietly slipped in and took a seat directly behind Don and took a banana out of a sack for her late lunch. Don, engrossed in his pantomime suddenly looked up and said to Lee Strasberg, “I’m so into this, I can actually smell the banana.”

At one point I checked with Bill Jones to make sure Don’s performance as the trainer was technically authentic. Bill smiled as he replied that the performance was fine, but the trainer who accompanied him from San Rafael had noted that if Don’s trainer walked as much as he did in San Rafael, he would be a lot slimmer.

When I moved to Carmel, I discovered Don and his wife, Susie, lived in Monterey. We reestablished contact and remained close friends until their deaths.

When we did the first dining sequence I asked the actors to remember the first time they had a meal in San Rafael and to eat and talk just as they had then. If you listen carefully, you willl hear one of the blind actors say, “I see we have carrots; I understand carrots are good for the eyes.” Jean didn’t write that line. It was an incredible ad lib.

One other role in the cast was a young blind girl. One of the executives in the production company knew a young actress who was blind. So Marcia Blakesley became our Nancy.

Before they received their dogs, the class had to learn how to handle the leash and commands. The trainer became their two-footed dog. I guess this was part of the walking that kept the trainer’s weight off.

And finally each class member received his Guide Dog. These dogs incidentally were not just randomly assigned. I was told the staff tried to match up dog and future master based on their personalities. And then came long days of walking on public streets

.

One day I sat talking to Bill Jones about the climatic scene in the script when Peter returns home from the Guide Dog School to find his wife has left him. I was excited about the potential power of the scene. Bill just smiled as he told me of an instance when a graduate of the school returned home to find, not only his wife had left, she had taken all of their furniture. Like in the comic strips and Superman on film, a light went on over my head. That was the way I was going to stage the scene. Now use your imagination. The shot starts close on the door to the apartment as Peter enters the foyer with his dog. As he moves to the archway into the living room he calls out, “Debbie, Debbie I’m home.” The camera slowly pulls back and up to a high wide shot of the bare living room. No answer. As Peter leans over to release the leash on his dog, he calls out again, “Debbie.” No answer. The camera pans him as he slowly crosses into the living room, tilting down to see him bump into something in the center of the floor. It is a reel to reel tape recorder. He kneels and turns it on. The camera moves in to a close shot of the winding reels as Debbie’s voice tells him she has left him. Well I hope you have gotten a good look at that scene, because it wasn’t and isn’t in the picture. Richard Collins, who was now producing the show (George Leffers having left for New York, although he still was listed as executive producer) was on the set when we shot the scene. He asked me to shoot an alternate version of the scene WITH the furniture. So we did. And it was the alternate version that made it into the film. Several months later when I was working with Suzy Parker, Brad’s wife, she told me that when Brad saw that scene the night the show aired, he almost threw something through the television screen. I wonder, if George Lefferts had still been producing, which version would have ended up in the final print; in fact I wonder if George had still been producing if there would have been an alternate version.

Here’s the aired scene.

Our acting dog was a guide dog, not an actor. We got him to knock Brad over, but we had trouble getting him to lick Brad’s face. That is until we put chocolate syrup on it.

Lke THE BULL ROARER, SHADOW OF A STARLESS NIGHT has gone into television oblivion. There are no commercial copies available. I have a copy, so if you want to see how the show ends, I guess you have to come visit Carmel.

One of life’s final ironies. I learned years later that Bill Jones, who was in charge of the school, in his later years lost his eyesight.

THE BULL ROARER - July 1963 (Breaking Point)

The booking of directors in episodic television was unlike booking actors or writers, who would be booked for specific projects. Directors were booked by dates. A series would block out its full season. Episode 1 would start preparing on a certain date and start shooting 6 or 7 working days later. Episode 2 would start preparing the day episode 1 start shooting. And so on through the season. Directors were then booked into those slots. For the first time by the end of April, 1963 I was booked solidly for the entire 1963-1964 season with shows to be shot in both Hollywood and New York.

My favorite series for the season was BREAKING POINT, a series which unfortunately lasted only one season. It was a medical-psychiatric series out of Desilu Studios, the companion piece to their highly successful BEN CASEY. George Lefferts, a writer-producer based in New York, was the producer. George told me the story of his involvement. ABC had sent the Meta Rosenberg created project to him with the offer to produce it. George said that he would accept, but only on condition that he would be able to include half a dozen specified topics usually on television’s verboten list. ABC agreed. George signed onto the project.

George’s first choice for the young psychiatrist was Robert Redford. He sent Redford the script and the plans for the series. He told me that Redford said he had walked the beach for hours, pondering his decision. This was a 27-year old Robert Redford with dozens of TV guest shots, but only one independent movie in his resume. He was still six years away from his breakthrough performance in BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID. The financial security alone must have looked inviting. But he decided he would turn it down in favor of doing a summer stock tour of a new unproduced play. The play was Neil Simon’s BAREFOOT IN THE PARK. Paul Richards was then cast with Eduard Franz as the older, wiser psychiatrist

One of the topics on George's ‘demand’ list was homosexuality. When the story outline for that projected script was submitted to the network for approval, they turned it down. They said the topic of homosexuality was unacceptable George said, “Read my contract.” And so THE BULL ROARER, written by Ernest Kinoy, continued development into script. It was the story of a gentle, sensitive young man, Paul, dominated by his macho older brother, Murray. Because his behavior is less predatory than his older sibling, Paul has doubts about himself. He seeks psychiatric help. Is he a man -- or a homosexual?

We immediately cast Dean Stockwell as Paul, Ralph Meeker as Murray and a young 23-year old actress who had been doing a lot of theatre work in the Hollywood area, Mariette Hartley. But a couple days later we had a call from Dean Stockwell's agent. Dean wanted to come to the studio to meet with me. I agreed. Dean came to the studio, and he and I went to a little bar on Melrose Avenue. He apologetically told me that he didn't want to do the show. I sensed he was fearful of the material. So we released him from his commitment

Lynn Stalmaster, the casting director, immediately had a hot, new young actor, a ‘rising star’, he wanted us to meet. Michael Parks. So Michael came in to the production office. I remember he sat on the couch, I sat in a chair. George was also there. We spent the first few minutes in get-acquainted conversation. And then I asked Michael to read. Michael announced that he didn't read for parts. George and I were both a little startled by this announcement. Stars don’t have to read for parts. Well-established character people don’t have to read for parts. Twenty-three year old wannabes read for parts. So I thanked him for coming in and stood up; and he stood up. But instead of leaving, he kept on talking. A couple of times I broke in, trying to end it all, but he just kept talking. So finally I reached over, took his hand, shook it and said, “Thank you again Michael for coming in.” He finally left.

I was not unhappy with the way this turned out, because I had an ace up my sleeve. Just a few months before I had worked with a young actor in New York on the last NAKED CITY that I directed, Lou Antonio. We had a print of that show, COLOR SCHEMES LIKE NEVER BEFORE, sent over from Columbia Studios, and George viewed it. He approved. So we brought Lou out from New York to complete our star trio. So many New York actors at this time would come out to the west coast with their noses up in the air about doing television. Not Lou! From day one he just said, “I love it here!”

There was one line in the script that even George was sure we would have to lose. The scene was a construction site where the hills were being graded for future home construction. The workers are at work, when a very pretty young Betty Lorimer, who works in the office, walks across the grounds. The guys have a ball, teasing her, calling out suggestive remarks. One of them yells, “Honey, you want to ride on my bulldozer.” I said, “No, George. We don’t have to lose that line. You see, he’s sitting in a bulldozer when he offers the invitation.” So the line was left in. And with that explanation it survived all of the later ‘censorship’ meetings that were held.

As we neared our opening shooting date, there was the necessary meeting with the censorship department of ABC. Dorothy Brown, who was the head of that department, came over with a couple of underlings and all of her notes for changes she was going to request. George, Richard Collins (associate producer) and I listened to her requests, most of them inane. Many times I suggested cutting lines she was finding objectionable rather than using her suggested substitution. But then we arrived at a place in the script where Dorothy was insistent that somebody call Paul a sissy. I’m afraid I went ballistic. George finally invited me to leave the room with him. We went out into the outer office and he said, “I think you'd better go if we’re to get through this.” And so I went home, and they got through it, And nobody called Paul a sissy. But I had my own little private moment of revenge. I’m sure nobody besides me ever recognized it. I’m not sure it even means anything except to me. But in a sequence where Paul and Murray have driven Betty home, Murray is berating Paul because he has not been forward enough in ‘nailing’ the gal. Paul nervously tries to light a cigarette with the car lighter. And when he goes to put the phallic-like lighter back in its dashboard receptacle, he has trouble inserting it. Like I said, it probably doesn’t mean anything to anybody else, but to me it’s “UP YOURS, DOROTHY BROWN!”

An interesting sidebar: Richard Collins the associate producer, was a very talented writer. He would by the time I returned for more assignments later in the year have moved up to producing the show. We also worked together a dozen years later on another favorite series, THE FAMILY HOLVAK. Anyway, I remember during the prep time for THE BULL ROARER, Richard was being bombarded with telephone interviews. He, a decade or so earlier had been one of the people called to testify before the McCarthy hearings. And he was one of the people called who had named names. I don’t think I had ever before met a real dyed-in-the-red member of the Communist Party. I thought he was great -- just like all the other true-blue Americans I knew!

Finally, the first day of shooting arrived. We started naturally at the construction site. In seeing the film today, you would think we had gone to some distant place away from the city. But we were shooting in the heart of Los Angeles, in the hills off Mullholland Drive just west of Laurel Canyon. Today it is a totally built up populated community. The tours on ROUTE 66 and NAKED CITY had prepared me for the task ahead.

Robert Hauser was the director of photography and again, like Jack Marta on ROUTE 66, wonderfully cooperative. There was a sequence in the opening of the episode where Paul, emotionally distraught, runs out of a room, stops for a beat at the top of the stairs and then runs down them. I asked Bob if rather than shooting Paul running down the stairs, could we do his point of view of the descent. Now today, with the the Steadicam, there would be no problem with such a shot. But we’re talking about close to half a century ago, B.S., before steadicam. Bob got so excited about the shot that he ended up operating himself. He strapped an Arriflex camera to his forehead with his eye looking through the lens and ran down the stairs. He could have broken his neck. Instead he got what I think is a terrific shot, even though it lasts only about 3 or 4 seconds. I really loved and appreciated the professionalism and enthusiasm of those guys.

There were shows that were produced a decade later where homosexual relationships were more fully explored. That is not the case in THE BULL ROARER, . Homosexuality is not explored, it is actually feared. But just the fact that the character of Paul said the word, “homosexual” for its time was a major breakthrough. The real lesson Paul faces is “What is a man?”

Unfortunately BREAKING POINT is one of the greater achievements of early sixties television that is no longer available to the public. But I have a copy. If you want to see it, I guess you just have to come visit Carmel.