[Watch the video interview on YouTube here]
Film Courage: How much writing had you done before you were hired on [Bob] Newhart?
Billy Van Zandt, Comedy Writer/Playwright/Author: We had probably seven or eight plays published with Samuel French and going around the world. They were looking…it was the seventh season of Newhart I guess. They were looking for playwrights. The people who ran the show, this is just a weird coincidence but it worked out great, Mark Egan/ Mark Solomon had been writers who had been taught by Bob Carroll, Jr and Maline Davis who were the I Love Lucy writers.
I Love Lucy is the whole reason I got into show business in the first place. I wanted to do that sort of comedy. They were hiring playwrights to be on their writing staff. We met with them and had a great time and I ended up getting friendly with Madelyn and Bob and it just couldn’t have been better.
We went home at 5:00 every night as opposed to shows that last till 3:00 in the morning doing rewrites.
Bob Newhart spoiled me for every show that came afterwards. It was a perfectly run show and we went home at 5:00. As writers, we went home at 5:00 every night as opposed to shows that last till 3:00 in the morning doing rewrites.
Any show I’ve ever done where you write, you’re rewriting at 3:00 in the morning, nothing you’re writing is good. It’s just different.
I asked Bob and Madelyn once because they did 39 episodes a year on I Love Lucy alone, just the two of them and they always went home by 5:00. They didn’t rewrite anything until the middle of the night and all that I said “How did you do that?” She said “Well if you…(Watch the video interview on YouTube here).
About:
Billy Van Zandt and his writing partner, the late Jane Milmore, are two of the most often produced playwrights in the world. Billy and Jane met at a high school acting competition in their home state of New Jersey. Together for 46 years, they wrote and starred in 25 plays together. Billy’s solo play “The Property Known as Garland” starring his ex-wife Adrienne Barbeau broke box office records at Off-Broadway’s Actors Playhouse. The plays have been produced in thousands of theaters worldwide, including two productions directed by Oscar winner Olympia Dukakis (“Billy and Jane are funny, outrageous, off-the chart writers/performers”) and one by film legend Burt Reynolds. For television, these award-winning writers have produced over three hundred hours of television comedy, including “Newhart;” “Martin,” which won them a People’s Choice Award; “The Hughley’s,” which won them a Prism Award;” “Suddenly Susan” for Brooke Shields; “Daddy Dearest” for Don Rickles and Richard Lewis; “Anything But Love” for Jamie Lee Curtis and Richard Lewis; “The Wayans Bros.”; and “I Love Lucy: The Very First Show” which won them an Emmy nomination. As an actor, Billy made his film debut in “Jaws 2”; Billy lives in Los Angeles, when he’s not touring the world in the last Van Zandt/Milmore musical, “The Boomer Boys Musical.”
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BECAUSE IT’S FUNNY!: The Plays of Billy Van Zandt & Jane Milmore
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