How David Janssen Got The Part As "The Fugitive"

I learned this first hand from the man who was David Janssen's agent at the time.
He was later on my first agent in Hollywood.
He was directly responsible for Janssen getting this job.
I would be too embarrassed to admit it.
But then, I'm not the legendary Abby Greshler,, the agent in question.
He seemed to revel in telling it.
Quinn Martin was the very successful producer of many dramatic series of the 1960s
Abby couldn't even get Martin to look at him, even though Janssen already had a hit series in the late 50s,  Richard Diamond.
That's the one where you only got to see Mary Tyler Moore's legs.
So Janssen wasn't exactly an unknown.  And he was pretty good on Richard Diamond.
But Quinn Martin wouldn't budge.
He wouldn't see David Janssen.  He wouldn't even give him a meeting, much less a reading.
Abby Greshler remained undaunted, even after Quinn Martin stopped taking his calls.
There was an upcoming ABC affiliates meeting where the new Fall Lineup would be announced.
"The Fugitive" was announced for the Fall Schedule.
But the lead wasn't cast yet.
And Abby knew this.
How did he know this?
Abby had a way of knowing everything.
Maybe he was pitching one of his other clients.
So he went to this event, and brought David Janssen with him, dressed appropriately I'm a tuxedo.
He saw Quinn Martin go into the men's room.
He made his move.
He dragged Janssen into the men's room with him, spotted Martin at the urinal.
He went right over to Martin and introduced him to Janssen, who just stood there sheepishly.
And Abby just leapt into his pitch, with Martin holding his dick in his hand.
During mid-piss, Martin relented and agreed to meet Janssen on Monday.
And one thing led to another and Janssen got the part.
It worked out well, don't ya think?

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My books, "Show Runner" and it's sequel, "Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Along with the newer ones, "The Man Is Dead", and "Report Cards".
They are all compilations of blog entries that have since been removed from the blog.
So this is the only way you can find them.,
You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne and Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
Check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.
The paperbacks, "Mark Rothman's Essays" and my new novel, "I'm Not Garbo" are not e-books.
But they are available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings lined up for those, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.
If you'd like one of the paperbacks, personally autographed, contact me at macchus999@comcast.net
And now, we've got my reading of my "Laverne and Shirley Movie" screenplay on YouTube.

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Second Acts.

I left New York City to live and start working in Los Angeles to work on "The Odd Couple" in 1972.
And very rarely came back, even to visit.
One thing that was always sure, when I lived there, was that I was broke.
Totally financially insolvent.
Oh, I had jobs.  Mostly jobs that required no notable skills.
That was my specialty.
My favorite of  those was as a page at the ABC Television Network.
A monkey could do it.
I just happened to fit into the suit better than most apes.
As I lived at home until I was 24, I was besieged to contribute much of my income to help support the household.  Not that they couldn't have gotten along without it.
These were upper middle class Jews who raised me.
When I was Bar Mitzvah'd, my mother insisted on throwing me the swankiest one that could be had in all of Forest Hills.
One that we all knew would throw them into debt for the longest time.
And my mother successfully convinced me that she was doing this for me.
If I had been able to be at all objective about this, I would have realized that this was not being done for me, but instead, for the purpose of keeping up with the Goldsteins, or the Silverbergs, or name the Jewish family of your choice.  It was done purely and extensively for her.
But I let her keep up this ruse.  And as I did, I knew that whatever Bar Mitzvah gifts I would receive
(the going rate back then was usually a $75 savings bond), I would never get my hands on.
And it didn't matter how swanky the event would be, the gifts would be the same.
You don't downgrade the gifts based on how shabby the event is.
So, we had a first-class bash.
Surely enough, just a few months later , my parents came to me, pleading poverty, and can we cash in the bonds?
Me, simultaneously being the good son and knowing that I'd never see that money again, relented.
And I never confronted them about it. And, of course, they never apologized.
Consequently, I was always broke.
But my bitterness grew and grew unexpressed over the years.
My one salvation was, living in New York, was that I could go to the theater.
Not as often as I wanted to, and as reasonable as ticket prices were, I was still totally broke.
So what to do?
There was a very common practice that I took advantage of quite often called "Second Acting"
It involved waiting for a play or musical to break for intermission, mingle with the crowd, and finding a seat for the second act.
Usually you could figure out what happened in the first act.
I considered that my first writing lessons.
It was quite helpful.
Or I'd read the play.
Most of them were available from the library.  Remember them?
So in the sixties, I saw almost everything in one form or another.
I have come to learn that at some point after I left, the Nederlanders and the Shuberts have cracked down on this practice.
Second Acting is now a thing of the past.
And it's not that the plays are any better these days.
If anything, they are only far more expensive.
Just another way that the past was better.
And then, the more successful I got, the more my father resented me.
Otherwise, to quote one my of my second-acters , life is a Cabaret, old chum.
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My books, "Show Runner" and it's sequel, "Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Along with the newer ones, "The Man Is Dead", and "Report Cards".
They are all compilations of blog entries that have since been removed from the blog.
So this is the only way you can find them.,
You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne and Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
Check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.
The paperbacks, "Mark Rothman's Essays" and my new novel, "I'm Not Garbo" are not e-books.
But they are available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings lined up for those, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.
If you'd like one of the paperbacks, personally autographed, contact me at macchus999@comcast.net
And now, we've got my reading of my "Laverne and Shirley Movie" screenplay on YouTube.

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The Upgrades on "Decades"

First, they have  brought back reruns of "The Ed Sullivan Show".
It's far less than perfect.
It's poorly edited.
They show them in  2 back-to-back half-hours usually from the  same episode.
They replace most of the music that accompanies the jugglers and acrobats, and the unicyclists,
and the guy spinning the plates with generic music that they don't have to pay for.
It seems cheesy and it is.
But where else are you going to see Totie Fields these days?
So you overlook the crappy production values and revel in the overwhelming nostalgia of it.
I'm addicted to it.
But the main thing they trot out are wonderful episodes of the original live episodes of the great anthology series "Studio One". 
They are not edited at all, and easily recapture what was great about Live Television of the 1950's.
They are on almost every day.  Always new episodes.  And they're all in black and white. 
Get used to it
They're on at odd times, so just set your DVRs..
This is rare stuff, and we owe a great debt to "Decades".

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My books, "Show Runner" and it's sequel, "Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Along with the newer ones, "The Man Is Dead", and "Report Cards".
They are all compilations of blog entries that have since been removed from the blog.
So this is the only way you can find them.,
You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne and Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
Check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.
The paperbacks, "Mark Rothman's Essays" and my new novel, "I'm Not Garbo" are not e-books.
But they are available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings lined up for those, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.
If you'd like one of the paperbacks, personally autographed, contact me at macchus999@comcast.net
And now, we've got my reading of my "Laverne and Shirley Movie" screenplay on YouTube.

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Animal Acts, Part Two.

I'm going to talk about the funniest animal act 1 ever saw.
In the fifties and sixties there was a very funny man named Bob Williams.
In the 50's, he trained a dog named Red Dust.
He showed up on many variety shows.
Red Dust was and old, big floppy -eared mutt, who was trained to do absolutely nothing.
I don't mean that he wasn't trained.
I mean he was deliberately trained to do absolutely nothing.
They would bring out a big table, and Red Dust would be requested to jump on to it.
The dog would just stand there.
And not just stand there.
He would appear to not be able to move.
Bob apparently tried to get him to sit.
He had his legs positioned so that the front and back legs were inverted towards each other.
Bob would try to push him down, but couldn't get him to budge.
In the mid-to-late 60's Red Dust re-emerged as "Louie".
It would appear to be the same dog, but simple math would dictate that this was a second generation
of Red Dust. 
Red Dust must have been dead by then.
I mainly remember the act as "Bob Williams and Louie".
The joke was whatever Bob would ask Louie to do, Louie would just stand there.
Or sit there.
Or lie there.
But Williams drove the act.  He was hilarious.
Half of why it was funny were the things he asked Louie to do, and the manic desperation he would display when Louie would do none of it:

"he's thinking about it"
"he sees me now"
"don't get excited boy"
"you can do it boy"
"a little higher boy"
"you got your breath back, boy"
"a year ago, he couldn't do a thing."

Maybe it doesn't sound like much on paper, but in context it's hilarious.
And to think of how hard it must have been to train a dog to do absolutely nothing.
And Bob Williams did it twice.
It was amazing.
There are several clips of Bob Williams  and Louie on YouTube.
I recommend the approximately 9 minute clip of them appearing on "The Hollywood Palace Christmas show, hosted by Bing Crosby.  Just type in Bob Williams and Louie.
I don't know what became of  Bob Williams and Louie.
I'm pretty sure they are both long since gone.
Bob was no spring chicken then.
And dogs don't live all that long.
But I don't want to end on a downer.
So don't let anything dissuade you from checking out Bob Williams and Louie on YouTube.
You'll thank me.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My books, "Show Runner" and it's sequel, "Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Along with the newer ones, "The Man Is Dead", and "Report Cards".
They are all compilations of blog entries that have since been removed from the blog.
So this is the only way you can find them.,
You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne and Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
Check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.
The paperbacks, "Mark Rothman's Essays" and my new novel, "I'm Not Garbo" are not e-books.
But they are available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings lined up for those, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one.
If you'd like one of the paperbacks, personally autographed, contact me at macchus999@comcast.net
And now, we've got my reading of my "Laverne and Shirley Movie" screenplay on YouTube.

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