Women in TV, Film, and (why not) everywhere!

As I work on my book (and yes, I have only 7 more chapters on which to do a substantial re-write and edit!), I think how lucky I have been to be able to pursue a career that I wanted. It wasn’t always so easy for women to choose anything that excited them and go for it.

I have been lucky in my life that I was born into a family where I had many strong women as role models. My paternal step-grandmother was a judge, a mayor, and was, in general, a no-nonsense kind of woman! My great aunt was an obstetrician, one of the first females to graduate in the early 1900’s with a medical degree. There was also a distant cousin who was an Arctic explorer in the early 1900s! So it never occurred to me that I couldn’t do whatever I wanted because I was a woman. It just never entered my mind.

 In high school, most of my classmates were going on to be either nurses or teachers. It seemed a pretty limited selection to me, but I already knew I was going to be a dancer, so what did I care?

 By the early 1970’s I was living in Los Angeles, and it’s not to say that there weren’t obstacles to overcome as a woman. It was difficult at that time, if not downright impossible, for a woman to buy a house without a father or husband to co-sign. Can you imagine! Do you remember Edith Bunker trying to get a loan at the bank? The 1970s were a tumultuous time with all sorts of reexamination of women’s rights going on, and women such as Gertrude Stein, and Erica Jong and Germaine Greer drawing attention. And of course, the demand for equal rights and the sexual revolution changed so much in how we could lead our lives. It was an intoxicating period, with the promise of greater freedom and power!

 And as I started my transition to my career in costume design, many of the top television producers, stars, designers were women. Think Murphy Brown, Designing Women, and Gilmore Girls. The very first producer who took a chance on me, hiring me for The Facts of Life, was a woman, and many of the producers (and a few directors) I worked for in television subsequently were women, including Penny Marshall, Yvette Lee Bowser, Irma Kalish, and Lisa De Cazotte.

 I still believe that it’s important not to feel that you are coming from behind, but that you are starting from the same start line, and that excellence in what you do is the thing that will propel you forward. Not nepotism, not cronyism, not anything but commitment and talent and passion. Call me naive or an optimist, but I’d like to think even men wouldn’t be dumb enough to ignore someone who is really really really good at what they do!

ADORABLE FUNNY FABULOUS BETTY WHITE!

What you see is what you get with Betty White. She is every bit as funny, adorable, and (dare I say it) nice as she appears to be. A year or so ago, the entertainment news kept talking about the “come back” of Betty White, but if you look at her IMDB, you will see that she has NEVER stopped working, and working a lot at that.

I had the excellent fortune of working with her on a TV sitcom called “Ladies Man”, which ran for two years on CBS. How can you not love Betty? She was and is the most professional, competent, and delightful actress you could ever have the good fortune to work with. On “Ladies Man” we had two “young people”, Alexa Vega, age 11 at the time, and Kaley Cuoco, age 15 at the time. cast as family members. (Sharon Lawrence and Alfred Molina played the parents of the family in this sitcom.) It was wonderful to see how the younger actresses instinctively learned from a true pro - how to be on time, know their lines, be appreciative to the crew, and thoughtful to all those around them.

I learned quickly what Betty’s “look” was. Her color favorites were all the sherbet colors - blue, turquoise, aqua, green, sometimes pink, and very occasionally yellow. She liked turtleneck tops and long sleeves, and pants, not skirts. Because of the quick changes on “tape night” I always changed any jewelry clasp to a small magnetic clasp that didn’t require putting on glasses to fasten it.

But what impressed me about Betty was that she was game for anything and never complained if she were in an uncomfortable scene or costume. One time she was dressed as Joan of Arc in full metal armor, a very heavy costume, and yet, not a peep out of her. Another time she was in an angels wings, the harness of which was cutting into her skin. She never used her age (then 78) as an excuse for special treatment.

A few years later I was thrilled to find out that she had been cast in a TV movie I was designing in Vancouver, Canada. She arrived the day before filming, but I already had the advantage of knowing her sizes, preferences, and taste. 

One Friday night I was at the Vancouver airport taking a flight back to LA (where I was starting to design “Passions” on the weekends) and she went whizzing by on an escorted VIP cart. When I saw her again she was so embarrassed that she had a ride to the gate and I had to walk, dragging my suitcase. She apologized over and over, despite my protests. I asked her why she was flying back to LA for such a quick trip when she had lots of big scenes again on Monday and she said, “Oh Diana, I can’t  leave my dogs that long, I miss them too much.” Her love of animals is legendary, and her stamina, talent, and humility are also legendary.