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MY FIRST TIME IN VARIETY
November 15, 1950
“Lure of the East Thins H’wood
Ranks of TV Comedy Writers”
If anyone deserves to write a memoir, it’s
Norman Lear, who reinvented television
comedy in the 1970s with “All in the Family,”
and whose “Even This I Get to Experience,” a
how-to book about understanding the TV business,
comes out in paperback Oct. 27. Lear was
first mentioned in Variety on Nov. 15, 1950, as
part of a story about an exodus of L.A. writers
moving to New York for TV jobs. TIM GRAY
Norman Lear
“Suddenly Simmons & Lear were major comedy writers. All
those other writers came out of radio, but we were the TV
writers . But the joke was that we didn’t have any experience.”
How did you get the
New York gig ?
Ed Simmons and I had written
a routine for Danny
Thomas’ nightclub act, which
led to New York and Jack
Haley’s “Ford Star Review.”
Jerry Lewis saw a sketch that
he knew he could do better,
so he wanted us. MCA handled
both shows, so it was
easy to move over to Martin
& Lewis. Within three weeks,
we were writing for “ The
Colgate Comedy Hour.” Suddenly
Simmons & Lear were
major comedy writers. All
those other writers came out
of radio, but we were the TV
writers . But the joke of jokes
was that we didn’t have any
experience.
Did you watch TV?
We didn’t own a set. We
used to go to my uncle’s
house to watch Milton Berle.
You hadn’t been in L.A. long.
We moved there at the end
of ’48. I was a kid of the
Depression, and I had one
uncle who was a press agent;
as the family said, “He was
a good provider.” He would
slip me a quarter. I wanted
to be an uncle who could
slip a quarter to his nephew,
so I wanted to be a press
agent, too. I didn’t even
know what that was. I didn’t
want to be a star, I wanted
to be the guy with the star.
What were cross-country
flights like?
I was the only one in the
family who had done that.
I took a TWA red-eye at 11
p.m., and they had sleepers.
I think we arrived at 8
in the morning. And the 747
had an upstairs lounge for
first-class. You could go up
and smoke a cigar, and they
served caviar.
Did you have any key teachers?
There were two. Roland Kibbee
was head writer on “The
Tennessee Ernie Ford Show”
(Bud Yorkin was producer-director).
I would sometimes
do the opening monologue.
Roland taught me
that even a simple thing like
that has to have a throughline
— a beginning, middle
and end. It had to have
a story, and had to be taken
seriously. And then Nat Hiken,
who later created (“The
Phil Silvers Show”).
What did you learn from him?
He taught me funny.
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PHOTO: BEI/REX SHUTTERSTOCK; ILLUSTRATION: CAROLINE ANDRIEU
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