This week, we're rerunning season one, episode six, Scarecrown, Missus King with Martha Smith.

This originally launched on September twenty eighth, twenty twenty two, and this is our first actress slash celebrity guest, and thank goodness it was Martha Smith.

We adored her.

Her energy and enthusiasm is delightful and contagious.

I hope you enjoy this as much as we did.

Hi their Eighties TV Ladies listeners, we want to take a moment to remind you that your vote is your voice, and your voice matters.

This coming November is one of the most important elections of our lifetime, so please make sure you are registered to vote.

You can go to vote dot org to check your registration or sign up and make sure that your voice is heard.

That's vote dot org, vote DOTRG.

Bread through the City World.

Hello everyone, Welcome to Eighties TV Ladies.

I'm Susan Lambert HadAM and I'm super nerdball Excited today and.

I'm Sharon Johnson.

We're your hosts and we're talking about female driven TV shows from the nineteen eighties.

And I am nerding out Sharon because we have another special guest today from Scarecromis is King.

Today we're going to be talking about acting in the eighties Kate Jackson, Bruce Boxleitner, and eighties hair with the actress who played agent Francine Desmond in Scarecromas's King.

And I have many, many questions about Animal House and Love Sidney.

Welcome to SMK Special Edition with Martha Smith Baddah.

Martha is probably best known for her motion picture debut as the Southern cheerleader Barbara Babbs Jensen rival to John Belushi's Blueto, and the comedy blockbuster Animal House.

She's made hundreds of TV appearances and shows from Days of Our Lives, Happy Days, Charlie's Angels to Taxi.

So welcome Martha Smith.

We thank you, guys.

I'm going to nerd out, so forgive me for that.

I'll nerd with you.

Okay, good.

We have so much to talk about, but before we get into all things SMK, we need to talk about a couple of projects that happened before Scarecrow.

Okay, Animal House, Yeah, I mean things happened for you before that, But Animal House, can you talk about did you know what you were getting into with that movie.

Not at all.

Now is everybody's first movie except for like Donald Sutherland and Tim Matheson movie.

But so we were all virgins.

For the film scene and Animal House, I got called in to read for the other role, the other blonde head that always gets confused with me.

But you know that scene read in the script she stands nude in front of the window and masturbates herself.

And there was another scene in the script that said she's entered cheerly out, but she jumps up in the splits with nothing on underneath her skirt and John Belushi looks up.

So I thought, somebody to do this right now, My first film role, you know, had been fighting that image.

And I saw the other role, the son and cheer leader who was just such a bitch, and so I thought, well, this looks like a lot of fun.

I could get my teeth into that.

And I asked him can I read for Bobs?

And they said yeah, And so that was the genesis of how that came about.

And no nobody knew Landis knew John Landis our director.

He sent us a little kind of nineteen thirties postcards every day in our mailbox at the hotel, and he sent us.

They would see, we're making a great movie.

This is going to be historic, this is legend.

And he'd say at the end of the scene, you know, this scene's going down in history.

Where I were right, nobody knew.

But it all came together in such a fresh way that at that time hadn't happened.

And I really attributed so much that to besides casting, our writers were phenomenal from Harvard Lampoo called National Mpoon, Doug Kenny who we lost in nineteen eighty, and Harold Grammas and Chris Miller, those guys, and then John Landis his spin on it all also being very new to film.

It's like his second or third film, you know, and he had this brnetic kind of comedy sensibility.

So and BELUTIONI you know, throw throw that in the mix from set at live and boom it.

Just it just did it amazing.

And so you know, those guys have a reputation.

What was on.

All of them?

Belushi and all of them.

But so was it like professional on set?

Was it like chaos on set?

Well, there was a kind of organized chaos for the comedy to spin.

John Landis is a character who you can tell in his films he is operating at a different hyper speed than everybody else.

So he's like he funny throwing, you know, he's really on top of the rhythm.

But that was the chaos.

The chaos was nothing to do with jumble of Jumbalushi was a totally professional actor, always on time, always there, did his role, new it to do, very funny, very kind, and I loved the working my head.

I didn't see drugs.

I'm sure I'm not, you know, I'm seeing the stories and read the books and all of that, and I know how he died.

But for his filming on the set of our movie, he was there as an actor.

You know.

I went to a party at his house and even then I did you know, it was a brunch, I see anything.

We all were to party.

I don't know.

It's just something that was separate.

What a phenomenal talent, And I just it's so funny how many six degrees of separation there are.

Because Eugenie russ Lemming started with John Belushi and city so we talked to her, you know, last week, and.

So Kevin Bacon throw him into I know, they go.

Everybody's connected everywhere around the world.

Melissa has a question.

No I have.

I have a connection to both Tim Matheson and Harold Ramis.

Okay, rest in peace, Harold Ramis.

Yes, he was great to work with.

I worked with him.

He was directing a TV movie that I was working on.

You you were working on what do you remember with the name of it?

No, it was you know, But it was really fun working with him.

He seemed like a sweetheart.

Yeah, so Melissa was in camera work for for many a year's many a decade?

Yeah, math Hason directed Without a Trace.

Okay, all right, Tim's great, what a wonderful honor.

He's a gun in college is now.

Hills and I have a good friend who is an extra on Animal House.

He was in the scene near the opening of the show Where movie where there's a party at the frat house.

And what's hilarious about Dennis is being able to see him on screenes he's wearing the yellow sweater, and well, the yellow sweater, do.

You really I think that's a great scene that I'm in that scene.

So you see him sitting over in the corner somewhere with some people, and then they cut away to the looking at the other direction.

There he is going out the door, So throughout the entirety of the scene you see that.

But he's also in in the scene where the the pledges are being rousted out of bed and they're lined up, and he's in that.

He's one of the guys in that as well.

And he I was just recently.

I was just telling them recently that when he was shooting it, he was a freshman at OU and one day found a couch to sit on to do some reading for a class, and here comes John Belushi and sits down and they proceed to have a lovely conversation for about an hour.

Yeah, so you know, I had nothing but great things to say about him, which echoes exactly what you were saying as well.

Yeah, and I hate what happens posthumously when they take lots of these people and everybody's got flaws, but they'll take them, magnify them, make them uber dramatic, like some sort of novella, which they're doing right now with Hefner, And it really bothers me when the dead person isn't there to defend themselves going for this kill.

You know, everybody's not one thing.

So yes, so let's talk about your playboy time, because that was a big breakthrough.

And so there's a good Segon you brought it up.

Let's go.

But I mean, come on, you're from Midwest, right, You're like you're young.

Were you trying to be an actress and a model?

No, No, that was the least thing in my mind, honestly, I was.

I wanted to be a shrink.

I wanted to be a psychologist.

And actually I had been accepted to a community college at a very young age, but they told me that they discouraged me from going on.

I was going to major in psychology.

They said, you're going to you know, not socially, it's not good for you.

It'll kill your passion for psychology.

And so I went and worked in medlititation instead.

At that time as a very young person in an extremely regressed war.

But I saw later on the similarity between you know, acting and psychology and all of these other ologies that you just take your character card.

I wanted to be a professional.

I was in that era where that was what I was going to do, but didn't get a full college education.

So my next goal was to get out of the and to move into my own place.

Very young and get a little money to put down a brand.

And I took up modeling because my sister was a model, and she had been in playbood before me.

She had been the top half of a rare bird.

You probably remember that.

I don't, but I'm going to go look it up.

But it was just one of those, you know, exotic pictures, and so she kind of broken the ice for the family, which is a very conservative family from the Midwest.

Like you say, so, I was modeling for in Detroit.

When you're a model, you're actually modeling for cars and windshield washer wipers and generators and engines and glamorous work.

So I was modeling for an board motor company doing a brochure for the new cars.

And a guy walked in and said he was a talent scout for Hefner, and he was.

In fact, he wasn't lying go figure.

In those days, people really work and he gets a little kicked back for everybody gets accepted, right, And he said, would you be interested in shooting the pictures?

I said, okay, why not, I'm thinking bread money, and we shot the pictures.

They went to Chicago.

They called me in immediately to fly into shoot and then they accepted me after the test shoot and they I think this was like just a few months before.

You know how publishing is, There's there's a lead time, right.

They had to throw out another person who was scheduled for my month, which was July, and put me in really fast because they were excited about it, right, because it was a really good shoot.

So that's what happened.

That all happened really fast.

They hand you this contract and just say sign here while you're shooting it.

Okay, I'll sign it.

He's a teenager.

I don't know you think about contrasts.

So that's what happens there, and that part of it is true.

You do get kind of wrangled into a lifetime in perpetuity contract for all media ever invented in the future of the universe.

Yeah, every every picture you take, everything you shoot ends up somewhere, you know, anytime you sign.

Off on it.

Wow.

So I was really young.

I got my I got my rent.

When I got your rent, you made rent.

I did.

I did, and still didn't want to be an actress.

I mean I had studied a bit, but mostly more from the theatrical side, and that was just kind of an anomaly.

But they put me on the road for like five or six years, a lot of travel.

I was representing the magazine for meet and greets and the press and things like that, openings of whatever, and so that they liked that I could walk and talk at the same time as you can see Chatty Cathy's going.

And so that became a lot of travel and brought me to La quite a few times, which I decided I'd move out here, and then everything else happened by accident.

Honestly, Well, it's beautiful weather out.

Here, so yeah, you're here too, right.

I am here too, And Georgia isn't terrible weather.

It's beautiful weather too.

But I wouldn't I love the snow.

Yeah to visit, Yeah, but I wouldn't.

I couldn't live in it for very long.

I don't say no.

I got in my Impala.

I had this big, green, honking Detroit metal car, and I had cruise control, so I thought it was suber cool through cruise control in my car.

So I'm doing like yoga pastors driving on the freeway going to California.

You're right on everything I own in the back.

Of the pala And what year is this.

What year is this?

This is nineteen seventy five?

I think pretty sure it was seventy five.

Yeah, And I'm an idea what I'm gonna do, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to roll you, sale it and go back to study.

That was my plan.

And what happened was I was still modeling and still working a playboy, and somebody called me at Universal Studios to do an album cover for the music department.

And the guy that was there at the shoe, he said, I really want you to meet my friend Bob la Sangka upstairs in the tower.

And Bob Lasenka was head of casting for all Universal everything at the time.

Older man, very gentlemanly, and for some reason he did not hit on me or anything like this, but for some reason he said, this girl suld be a star like old Hollywood.

And he took me down the single Universal casting director in the tower and introduced me in that same fashion.

Next thing I knew, I had like six roles at Universal, the kind that you know you get stabbed and shot and strangled and core formed to death.

But that were my first roles.

We're all Universal, Oh my good.

Then Animal House came in shortly.

There and then shortly after this.

This is now.

This was my discovery today.

Ebony Ivory and Jade Hotally, that is so great.

This is nineteen seventy nine TV movie co starring Debbie Allen and Burke Comby and Nina Fosh And we're gonna talk about her in a minute now.

It's not to be confused with Ebony Ivory and Jade black'sploitation movie from nineteen seventy six.

This is basically a Charlie's Angels, right, like, yeah, it kind.

Of And actually I did the first season of Charlie's Angels with Kate, which is also ironic, and I did How the West Was Won with Bruce Way before Scarecrow.

But anyways, back to Ebanie Irony j with Debbie.

Wow, yeah, that was everybody in town audition for that.

And I was not a singer dancer.

I mean, I had son and I have sung professionally, but it is I'm married to a singer, so I know my level, my limits very very modest and mediocre.

You're beautiful, you have a like it's a beauty.

I saw the opening number.

It's fantastic.

Yeah, nobody dances like her.

I mean, she's like and so foor thing I felt sorry for because they throw me in with her at very different levels, you know.

And but I got it and they kept telling you, don't worry, we'll fix it in post.

And I'm remember the audition because I sang roll and I was dancing.

It is fantastic.

I only got to watch the first ten minutes and I'm I'm I'm hooked.

I'm gonna go back and finish it.

So Burt Combed stars as Mick Jade, a former tennis bum turned to Las Vegas song and dance man and who doubles as a private eye with two female dancers, Ebony and Ivory, and the trio go undercover to protect a lady scientist from an international hit man as she heads to Washington, d C.

From the Middle East with her secret formula.

Good god, that's a great show.

And doesn't that sort of bring a little bit of scarecrow?

Sounds a little bit like scarecrow, Missus King?

But how adorable you and w I haven't are fantastic?

Again, I only got to watch ten minutes of it, But I'm going to go back and think good enough anyway.

But you have a beautiful singing voice, and so did, but you didn't train as a singer.

I did a bit, and why was there was something?

It was it was abne av j, but there was something else, like, well, my very first sad job, I said, but that was just silly.

I think it was for ebane avged that I started the lessons maybe earlier, and then I continued them and I actually met my husband while singing.

This is a good story.

I'll give you the story.

It's fine, it's your choice.

But dh one had come to do a story on me as I started a singing group.

It was one of those strikes we get intown.

I always do another creative project when we have a strike.

So I had all my girlfriends, a bunch of girls get together and we had a friend who owned a cabaret in town.

So we did this group.

I had a stand up bass and it was kind of a cabaret weird show.

But I wanted to do a duet.

There's a song that Tom Waitson and Bett Midller did called never Talked to Strangers if you know that one, and I wanted to do that song really badly.

So I needed a guy and I was out VH one had done this show on me, showing my singing at home with piano, and I said, just use any of this footage you want.

Don't use the first fifteen seconds because it's off key.

Well, VH one used the first fifteen seconds.

Martha smut is singing for her supper, and you know, it was just this pathetic character that was off the show Scarecrow and didn't have anything going on.

She was singing in this little place.

It was one of those I was so depressed watching that show.

I went to our local hangout and there was they have people singing there, you know, if you're good and even singing at this place.

It was called Backstage in Beverly Hills, and my husband was my now husband was singing this amazing voice right and I'm really drawn to voice, and he was singing.

I don't remember which song he was singing at the time, but I went up to him and started singing with him.

And I didn't know then he never shares his microphone.

But anyways, where was really going well?

And I asked him if he could do a duet Tom Waits.

He said yes, he came for rehearsal.

He did Tom waits so well.

I gave him six songs in the show.

And here's the fun part the show.

We fell in love on stage performing the show.

I went on and it developed.

It was kind of the storylines like theater and music.

So these couple meets, they hate each other, they get together, they love each other, they divorce, they get back together.

So while we're doing the show, he had fired my bass player and hired a new one.

He fired my keyboard player and hired a new one.

He fired the backup singer and hired a new one.

And then he fired me, had a band and married me and had a wife and a band.

He never tells that part of the story.

He always says I saw him singing and fell in love the.

Story and that's the end of the story.

I like a record straight The record is now straightened.

And then I also want to talk about you start in an episode of Taxi.

You started in a lot of eighties television, but Taxi I love.

Yes, the best show, the best people, the best writers, the best producers and directors.

It was just a wonderful, wonderful show.

It totally holds up.

We've been rewatching that too, because this all started because my husband and I started rewatching eighties television during the pandemic and yeah, and we actually met because of our mutual love of Stephen Cannell shows.

But ultimately we've just gone through like the seventies and the eighties a lot.

And then I was like, well, I really have something to say about all these ladies in the eighties and what they were, and so, you know, we had to make a podcast.

But you started in season three Elaine's old friend.

I love that we're rewatching it.

The show holds up pretty well, I mean, like really well so far.

The writing is really great, the characters are really great, the acting is really great, and the guest stars are pretty amazing.

And they were all so nice.

Just a jug Hirsch who was at the time he had the biggest dressing room and he was like the star of the show.

He gave me his best room because I kind of came into the last time.

My quick study for everybody in town kind of knew that.

So I did these jobs at the last minute.

If you learn a script in like thirty two minutes, yes I'll be there, you know.

So he gave me his dressing room.

A dozen roses.

I mean just as a gesture of welcome to a guest star.

Wow, very sweet, very sweet.

Oh my god.

All right, well okay, I'm so excited.

Okay, but now now I think we have to get into Scarecrow, Missus King, because that's the whole point of this show, that's right.

Oh yeah, I am interested in what you were doing right before you got cast in Scarecrow, Missus King, Like, how'd you get the gig?

Do you want to know this?

I do?

We want to know.

Nineteen eighty two was a really rough year, you know, the stress test.

I was checking every box off on the show.

I was in the middle of going through a divorce.

I had gone ear early in the year to Korea to do a movie with Bick Moore, who I got very close to during the filming.

Later that year he was to die, and then we also lost John Belushi.

In that year, I had been working on a soap opera.

Also, I did Days of Our Lives and the The Ball of nineteen eighty two, maybe Keven what months it was, But anyways, they fired me at the end of the year.

On Pearl Harvard Day, they dropped the bomb on me and they fired me.

Very unceremoniously, I will say.

And it was good though, because I was playing with like crying surgeon that was always killing my patients.

One of them was my husband Oops.

So I called her Sandy oops Porton, doctor Sandy Morton, and two days later after they fired me.

It turned out to be a good thing, which happens in life so often.

I went for Tony Randall over at Warner Brothers.

This is how it ties in.

Tony Randall was looking for a brand new lead on his show, which was Love Sydney.

You're familiar with that.

Yes, that was the only American TV show to star a closeted gay man.

And yet because at the time this was again the eighties, so there was the special interests that we're trying to get show not to do that, and so they had to dance very carefully, and they brought me in as his first female love interest.

And this was the first time they were going to really share with the audience that he was actually a gay man.

And I think this Loved Sydney has taken from a movie at the same name and about that where he actually was gay.

They were allowed to do that movie was different cause you had sponsors and in persons.

So this episode was like a double episode tier jerker, and it's a sitcom, right, but they wanted to introduce this character.

My character has no idea he's gay and why is he rejected me?

We fall in love and it's this really beautifully written.

And meanwhile, what happened was the head, the president of Warner's Television, President of Warner's TV, came to our tape and he was very impressed with my work.

Now, my work was really good because I had been going through the divorce, had the doubts, and that the big fired and all these things that it just happened.

So I had the tears were coming very naturally.

A little bit of method going on there, and.

He made note and it was shortly thereafter, like the next month that the Scarecrow script came around and I it was three years later that I found out that he had shepherded me into that role and championed me.

Now, he said he didn't have to, you know, twist any arms or anything, but he wanted to make sure that I got the proper attention because he'd seen my work in life and I did comedy and drama in that in that particular show.

Now The Sydney did not get picked up for another season unfortunately, because I was going to be I was really excited to work with Tony Randall.

Yeah, but then again how that all works out?

Along Comb Scarecrow, that along Comb Scarecrow, Long Comb Scarecrow.

And so you had worked with Bruce and Kate before that, Yeah, very small roles, yes, And so when you went in did you know that you were did you know who was going to be starring in it or was it still all unknown for me?

For my readings and my I had three auditions, it was it was only called the Secret Kate Jackson Project, and everything was very hush hush, So yeah, just like Scarecrow, right, and they wouldn't give you the script, they just gave him sides.

So I just had my scenes.

So I was kind of had hard to put together who everybody was.

But I knew Kate, I didn't know Bruce.

I don't even know Bruce was brought on.

At my first interview.

I went to read for Eugenie and Brett Eugenius liting for Mary Hartman and Brad Buckner, and Eugenie read Kate's role and we did a couple of scenes, and in those scenes, I noticed because I had at the time, I had this photographic memory, so I know everybody's lines in every script.

So I noticed she was changing the lines a lot, and I'm thinking, well, that's weird.

Maybe she's just like watching me and not looking at her script or something.

And I just improbed and did it a second callback, same thing, Eugenie changing the lines again.

Okay, it went really well and the laps were in the right place.

It was comedic foil.

And then I found out later about her second City background and all of that.

I knew about Mary Harton, but I didn't know.

And I found out later also that on Scarecrow we had to very very very often work in pro.

Scripts were changed frequently, like while you're walking onto the set, well the camera's action, so you had to think on your feet.

And I think I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure that's sort of what they were testing.

Got down to three people for the screen test.

Do you know who the other two were?

No, they were very beautiful.

They were blonde, and we were all in the hallway together and not looking at each other and not talking to each other.

But in those days, you could.

They had the final screen test in just like an office room, and I was the third one of the three to go in, and I could hear the two before me and they're reading.

I kind of knew at that point because there is certain comedic snap to find scene that has to be really crisp, and the scenes they were doing, I just sort of knew I could have fun with that.

And I went in the third knowing this is gonna be.

My god, I was so excited.

Oh my god, So you're so you're excited you're shooting a pilot.

But like in some ways, like was Ebony Ivory and Jada a backdoor pilot?

Do you think were they thinking of making a show?

Was a pilot?

That was a pilot?

Yeah, I did quite a few pilots.

It seems that didn't get sold, so that the producer said, if it sells, you know, they're all happy.

If it doesn't sell, you get the ballons.

I don't think you saw the sequin gowns we wore and in the Las Vegas show at the Aladdin.

So I've still got that gollon.

You still got the gown?

Oh wow, they are fabulous gowns.

Again, that that opening sequence.

Very impressive, but all right, so you get the pilot and then they shot the pilot in d C.

You guys shot the pilot in d C.

Did you go to d C.

No, I didn't go d C.

They shot a lot of the external and filler stuff in d C with Kate and Bruce, but none of us went to I don't think Billy melrose Mel, I don't think he went either.

I'm not sure, but no, I didn't go to DC the pilot.

Let's see.

We did the pilot in March and then I got in a big motorcycle accident and because they were having the you know, the big gallo event that the networks have to show all the affiliates around the country, it's called the Oh and O Event Black Time thing.

So I was in crutches and a big cast for that because I'd just gotten at a motorcycleice so I had to like hobble across the stage with all the new stars just CBS.

They would talk about that, I don't think.

And then then I went on tour with Rod Stewart because we had a little few months between, and that's another story.

And then we came back and did Yeah, then we came back to do it got sold right away after it was shown to the network.

I got picked up for thirteen and we started filming.

I do want to come back to the Rod Stewart story.

Okay, that's a for a second, because that's hard to pass up.

You went on tour with Stewart.

Body Wishes Tour.

Yeah.

I was good friends with Rita Wilson at the time, and she had been studying in Europe.

I believe that's what she was going on.

I was.

I decided to go to Paris because you know, we were in between the pilot.

You got like three months between the pilot and the shoe day, so I knew I had all this time.

So once my leg field that I could walk again and dance, I went to Paris and first night I went to La Caapole, which is a big, huge, nineteen twenty seven nas restaurant, enormous restaurant.

We go to the back booth and city.

What next to us in the next booth is a guy I grew up with in nineteen seventies Michigan, Detroit.

A rock and roller.

I knew because I've always been a rock and roller and he's sitting there and I said, what are you doing?

He says, oh, I'm on tour with my band, and he said you want to come with us?

So about two seconds later, after thinking it over really thoroughly, I said, yeah, okay.

It was Rod Stewart and it was the Body Wish's tour and they were that next day.

I think we went to recite Paris, South France, Italy kind of around and it was really really fun, really exciting.

You know.

I thought it was like research for grand scene.

Oh my god, that is hilarious.

Okay, I wrote for sure it was all for work.

It wasn't for having Oh no, I'm getting a picture now.

Motorcycle rider were running off with Rod Stewart's band.

Yeah, okay, all right, hard working, hard, play hard Martha Smith, Oh my god, all I'm so excited.

Okay, we're going to have to take a break here.

I think that's a great idea.

Stay tuned for more of our interview with Martha Smith from Scarecrow and Missus King.

Some gowns have all the luck, Some gowns have all the pain.

This coal lots hard with rugs, doer sack.

Gown starts back at missus King.

Martha Smith.

Works Hop plays Hak Martha Smith, Martha Smith.

All right, and we're back.

Welcome back to part two of our interview with Martha Smith from Scarecrow and Missus King.

This is eighties TV ladies.

And so suddenly you're on a hit show that's running, and you know you have thirteen episodes.

And mind you, I had just been divorced, kicked out of my house.

I had six days from I got the show six days after I moved into a new place.

I didn't grab a roommate, find something, move all the boxes, and that all happened.

I didn't think i'd have, you know, any money entergy war because I had started a greeting card line, so all my money was tied up from the soap opera in this in these car and so we're just sitting at a warehouse and it was six days and I had that.

So then it becomes a hit.

You imagine these this like cast fading.

Good luck that I got, thank you.

And so we sort of mentioned when we were exchanging emails at the freend scene that Eugenie russ Leming and Brad Buckner created was the Frenzine You liked the most.

Yes, and that's just personal, because that's just I love satire and I love comedy.

Those are the things I love.

Those guys did it great.

They knew it.

That was their genre.

Now, I think if I were to look more objectively and not just looking at myself what I like, if I look at the whole big picture of the show, the show was better when it became a little bit more of a generic tone of the romantic comedy adventure series that it ended up being as opposed to, There was more bite in everything in the earlier this is my opinion, but especially from my character only.

So I loved that, and I loved playing that.

It turned out that it wasn't loved by everybody, and so there was some back and forth trying to figure out how to work with that part of the character.

And for a while they just stripped it out and I became kind of expositionary, like somebody billy line for pick up.

Now there's the file, I'll get the truck, Lassie.

So for a while that's what happened.

But I think we rediscovered her well.

I think that it was one of the things that I loved about the show really was that there was another female agent.

A right, huh.

You could easily do this show and it's just her in a sea of male agents.

But there was another female agent who was clearly capable, who was clearly had her own agenda.

Yes, and that even though there was some snark, oh yes, lots of snark.

Yeah, yeah, in those early episodes, there's a weird kind of I'll make room for you, but I think you're an idiot, you know, like yeah, you know, yeah.

And so the fact that basically there were just two very different women approaching a particular career in a very different way.

Yeah, felt very female driven because there were two women doing something in the same space.

I don't know between Eugenie and Brad, but that was probably Eugenie's input that that part of the storyline and the characters and a frend scene was so power driven and she could have been easily a man in the script.

You can just take away her fashion sense.

We could call it okay, okay, great, let's dive in.

Come.

Oh you're going to go there, you're gonna call the We're gonna wait, but now we're going to do it, like, okay, we got to talk about Francine's hair.

Francene's outfits, costumes, and hair huge and we know with women, particularly in television, that there's a lot of discussion about what the women's hair is going to be doing, at least there is now.

So you see, this has like been my hair since probably I graduated from my school un change, but I've played those characters for The hairdresser was a lovely woman.

She's so sweet and so kind and I just hate to say anything at all disparaging, but she was from an era and styles that were considerably different than you know, and that was the vision that she brought to the early friend scene.

As time went on, I got a perm and I you know, everybody did in the eighties, right, So I kept begging that they would let me kind of go more natural in the makeup and the hair because there was a lot of makeup too in the earlier days, and then the wardrobe was not.

So what I ended up doing after season or two is I made a big folder of what I thought fran scene should look like.

I just wanted to please help me on this, you know, and your Winter producers and everybody, and I showed him.

I pulled all these tar sheets out of bog and bizarre, and I saw her as very sophisticated, very avant garden into fashion.

But she used fashion more like she used for words, kind of like a weapon, her one upsmanship, you know what I mean.

She was really into that and her rivalry.

So fashion was part of it.

I thought it was really important, but it didn't quite get a cross.

But things got better and easier as as time went on.

It was just a lot of a justice, all right, all right, And I've been taking up a lot of time.

I've been taking a lot of questions, so I have to have to hand them off to Sharon.

Oh okay, well let's for the moment anyway, Let's stay a little bit with you know, the hair and wardrobe, I, Sharon, because I, as someone who worked in an office at that time, there was a somewhat consistency with what women were asked to wear at the time, So we're not asked to wear but what was sort of this style maybe a little exaggerated in some respects, but still Francine looked like a professional woman of that time.

It kind of made sense.

But I so.

Did I put you on the spot?

No, not at.

All, not at all, because I mean in a lot of ways, that was that sort of the lived experience.

But that said, I wasn't sure.

I don't know anything about the spy business, so I don't know that that's necessarily what all was the female spies were wearing at the time, but certainly.

Those earrings, yeah, exactly.

There were some times where I thought, really, but again, it's a television show.

So but I did like her.

I did like her style to a large extent, and because she looked like a professional woman of that time what people were wearing in the office.

And I know that the relationship between Francine and Kate Jackson's character evolved over time, which I also appreciated.

And it also kind of brings me back to something else that you said earlier about in the roles that you had over time.

You did comedy, you did drama, You did a lot of different kinds of things.

But did you have a preference or do you have a preference in terms of drama versus comedy?

Oh man, take comedy any day of the week.

I mean, I just like hanging out with comics.

I like funny people.

I really believe there's a higher value to making people laugh beyond the obvious.

It feels good.

I think there's even a medical value to that, and psychological certainly.

I'll take comedy and satire the finest form of comedy and the hardest to write and really recognize.

I think I'll take that any day.

Yeah, did you have a sense too over the course of the series, as different writers and different show runners came in, was there a change to your mind in terms of the tone of the show?

Be it now we're more comedic, Oh, now we're less comedic, and okay, now we're going I mean, I know, you know, from episode to episode, maybe, but I just I kind of mean more in general in terms of what their approaches might have been.

Yeah, we had a lot of comings and goings of production and writing staff.

So it's hard.

These people sometimes came on and from the ground running.

They had to familiarize themselves with the show like they might have done before this podcast, you know, with the episodes with the characters, and so obviously the focus is going to be on Kate and Bruce, the meat and potatoes.

The show, you know, we're just a little bluff on the side dishes.

So I think a lot of times spends seeing would get lost in the shuffle, and they didn't quite know what is this.

She's like kind of a kind of a I don't know, she's talk backing kind of secretary or something.

They didn't know what to do with her, and so Hans not a lot was done with her for quite a long time.

But yeah, there were changes, and so we would just take meetings and try to talk and communicate that.

And it wasn't until I think year three that I did have to go to Alan Shane, who was again the president Warner Brothers the time, and I had to go to him for a couple of reasons.

I had to say, it was getting really hard here.

I'm not being allowed every contract every year.

I was allowed to do three guest stars on other shows my day's off.

Nobody was letting me do those guest stars.

And I kept getting offers and having to turn them down.

And at the time I was saying, again, you know, Billy, hurry, the truck's coming.

I was not doing much.

I was sitting in my trailer, and so I had to go to him to ask a contract would be honored and if I could maybe get my character thoser to some semblance of what it originally was created just those kind of things, a little discussion.

He was so nice and he's that's when he told me about the Love Sydney and all of that.

So I didn't know that for years.

He, by the way, is ninety.

Six now, oh wow, and still active.

And he wrote a book called Double Life that he was the closeted gay himself in early Hollywood.

And he's had the same husband now for over fifty years.

Oh.

That's amazing.

That's very beautiful.

And I think his special interest in Love Sydney comes from his life was sort of reflected in that show in some ways, you know, and so maybe that's why he came that to that.

You know, it all just felt together that way.

I really liked him.

What you mentioned about your contract allowing you to do guest appearances on other shows, was that fairly common at the time for that.

To be everybody.

I think the standard contract when you get like when you do the pilot, they lock you in for a seven year contract just in case the show gets point big and you're still stuck with You're got a ten dollars increase next year.

Yeah, you know, so in that contract you have these I think it was three outs per year to do other and I've been even asked by the network to do uh.

I used to do a lot of the on camera reality stuff, so they wanted me to host parades like the Christmas Bread the Masons, that kind of stuff.

I had to turn those down.

It wasn't like I was carrying a big storyline.

I just wasn't being allowed out.

I'm not even sure why.

Aren't who a little about it?

But it was difficult, and I'm because I wasn't being creative on the show so much.

Then I wanted to do something where I could play another character or play a character.

You know, I'm fascinated by when women get to be in scenes together that aren't you know about men.

So there were a couple episodes where friend Scene and Amanda get to work together and did the mad one.

I love, that's my favorite.

It's adorable.

You guys are fantastic together.

You're really funny together.

It's it's wonderful.

I think friend scene gets to be very friend Scene and Amanda gets to be very Amanda and then and yet you sort of both kind of win, right, So it's to me it was one of the you know, the stronger episodes of that scene.

Do you know what season that was?

Was that two?

I'm curious because that was a really nice kind of forming a relationship with Amanda and Francine there, and that was so fun to shoot.

She was great, She really was wonderful.

You tell her she did a great job.

Oh my goodness, it's so startling and she's so startling.

You're like, that was great marriage where she pushes the meat over or somebody and like at the end, yeah.

At the end and we shake hands or something.

And that was that actual meat packing plant in Vernon.

Oh my goodness.

Now, yeah, I want to talk about the fans.

It's a really core fan base for Scarecrow, Missus King.

It's amazing.

And yet what's funny is it seems to be multi generational.

Seems to be people that originally found the show, and then people that found the show later and that weren't and watch.

With their parents.

I get a lot of that in my mom, and I watched it when I was little with my mom, you know.

And do you see a difference in those fans and what they love about the show.

It always kind of confused about No, honestly, I mean I think it's a great show and all, but they're so happened, and they're so they're very smart in our fans, and they know, like I say, they kind of memorize everything.

So I asked, actually, David, who I think you might be talking with.

David Johnson's working on the book with Taya.

I talked to him recently when he was in town about what is it?

And he gave me, you know, that it was the characters and how real they were and the storyline and all of that stuff.

And I see it.

But it's just that it's lasted so long.

I mean, there's still we have Jeanette Throws these events that are in these reunions along with David and other people, and these people come from all over the world, from other countries.

They fly in just to talk about this show.

How many years later.

Well, I think that's something sort of unique to television because you know, it comes into your house every week and you watch it and you, as you said, fall in love with the characters, and then their reruns and you can watch them over again, and there's so much content.

And it's also something that everybody else can watch everybody else, you know, and you can and when the Internet allows you to make it easy to find other people who share your love of something, I think it's you know, I know that all sorts of content has all sorts of fan bases, but I think the television fan bases are very unique in that way.

Yeah, and I think there was a warm a warmth in the relationship, certainly with Kate and Bruce that kept them coming back for more as they kind of teased that relationship along slowly ininted and you know, played with the audience a little bit with that.

I think that kept them coming.

But I think it's also the relationships that that Amanda had, that everybody had between them.

They it really was a good team for all of the ups and downs and back and forth.

It's it's a it's a good team that ultimately does work really well together.

Yeah, and it definitely the first season felt more like a little bit more like an ensemble show, and then it does sort of become, you know, not that it's not about Bruce and Kate, because it is, it's Scarecrow Missus King, but it felt more ensemble.

In the first season.

It felt like there was more time spent in the spy world of spies, Yeah, trying to figure it out.

And yet and yet the later seasons feel very casey, right, They feel very case of the Week, right, and more concentrated on that and more serious.

So I'm curious about because there was a big upheaval in the middle of the season one where Eugenie wrestling ming and Brad Buckner left the show and Jannita Bartlett came on.

Can you talk about that at all?

Do you have memories of that time?

What it felt like.

I am usually the last person on a set or on a job or anywhere to hear like the scoop, you know, I'm always the one.

I don't know what it is about me, but I am literally always the last person.

Really, that's what happened, So I just knew that, you know, they had gone rather quickly, and Juanita had a real different flavor, but she had a really literary background, quite different in terms of tone, but I liked that she was strongly based from publishing background and whatnot, and I enjoyed her work, her scripts and still friends.

Sine was different but interesting.

You know.

I didn't feel deluded or anything, just a little different shade from my point of view.

There was.

Every set is difficult, and ours had its difficulties.

So I don't really want to go into it, but I'm telling it.

I was always happy.

Yeah, I was.

Every time I drive onto that lot and say hi to that dark page and see my name on that parking spot stage twenty four, I was a happy camper.

You know.

I had no problems on set or anything.

I found it all just a great experience.

Really.

And so and so uh brus a box lightner.

And you guys, you guys are still in touch.

You still show up at the reunions.

Yeah, those reunions every now and then, we'll see you.

And and uh.

Bruce and I have maintained the same sort of antagonistic relationship with each other, but it's just kind of a faux antagonism.

It's really sort of like brother and sister bickering at each other.

You know, you I seize me for some reason.

It's this like wild liberal and so he says, I don't want to talk about any politics neither do I really, now, Bruce, I don't want to talk about any horses.

Okay, let's let's get this straight.

It was that broken leg, It was that motorcycle accident.

That he's like, she's always with the rock stars.

Yes, yes, Bruce always made fun of the the Matt and I was dating, And now that I look back, he was probably right, but he was always had something to.

Say, and he calls you chatty Kathy.

He does.

Isn't that endearing?

I heard a little friend scene in that come back.

Oh and so you got to work a little bit with Beverly Garland more in the early seasons.

How was that?

How was she?

I almost never got to work with her, actually a little bit here and there, Yeah, like the Pilot and then of course it's Magda.

But Beverly I adored.

I just loved her.

Her birthday was one day off for mine, so we always had neutral birthday cake celebration and stuff.

And she was she was a real hero to me.

I just loved her everything about her as a woman, as a person, as an address.

And it was always But I didn't get to work with her very much at all, and her scenes were often another day, another location, another set, so I didn't get to see her.

But we saw each other socially, and she would always invite me into her big boxing day parties and stuff like that, and we go lunch and I.

Love Beverly, and solet's talk about season two.

So the beginning of season two is a lot of Europe shows.

Did you get to go to Europe?

I think you were in Yes, I went to Europe.

Yes.

Okay, please don't ask.

Bruce about are you interviewing Bruce?

Did you do it?

We haven't done it already.

Okay, we don't try and get him, but I don't know when you.

Asked him about Europe, You're going to get all these terrible stories about me and german Men and get all these people and the guynecologist story isn't true.

The you got to hear stories, you just tell them.

You'd rather not discuss those things very private?

You cant very private.

I only want to hear about Rod Stewart.

Yeah.

And so I think it's interesting when you know, you look at Remington and you look at Scarecrow in particular, because there's sort of two sides of a coin and Moonlighting being sort of the third of the third side of that coin because coins have three sides.

But it was the beginning of and Cheers being part of that.

It was a real exploration of power in relationships, and like I'm attracted to you, but I also need to be my own person.

You noticed Frenccene never had a boyfriend until like the last.

Season, I know, and so you know and again.

But but Francine was having a life, right she was.

She was like, I'm going embassy parties.

I need to meet the prince of you know whomever.

I did like that about Francine.

Francis was very clear about what she wanted that became.

That was very clear, clear and unapologetic.

She was not apologetic about what she wanted and what she was doing and how she was doing it.

And I like that a lot about her too.

Oh thank you, thank you.

Francine appreciates that.

I had decided that Franccene was a daddy's girl, and daddy was extremely ambitious and wanted her to strive to obtain the same sorts of standards, and so their competitiveness came out of just her hardwiring.

She couldn't really do to think about it, and so she just accepted it and that was her life.

She just needed to always further succeed, climb that ladder and get, you know, get to the top of everything, and nothing was going to get in her way.

And so what were some of your favorite most memorable episodes for Francine.

Oh, definitely life at the Party, which is what I call means.

But anytime I could go undercover and loved.

I loved anytime I could speak different languages, and like we had the Afghanistan kidnapping episode.

Yeah, I got to wear no makeup and my natural hair in that one when I got kidnapped, you know, because I was supposed to be all I'm so happy that that was what it looked like.

In those days, nobody knew what I looked like.

People would come to interview on my home and they'd go Francy.

Yeah, and Magda was fun, Magda Petac from the hung And of course I got to do that twice.

I got to do that, So that was fun because nice don't get the Jackie.

Oh look, I think they're one of my favorite Franccene and Amanda scenes.

Was I think early in season four when it really became apparent everybody else that Amanda and Lee were seeing each other outside the office, if you will, And Francine said to her, are you sure?

Because of the way that this could complicate things, complicate.

Your life, and it wasn't.

It didn't come across as anything other than concern for Amanda as far as I was concerned.

Oh, it wasn't Caddie.

It wasn't jealousy.

It was just have you thought about all the ramifications of this, and are you sure you really want to do this?

And I really appreciated that.

And I don't remember that you must have cut out the tag part always on the editing room.

But see, I never really saw Francine as she may have been snarky, but she wasn't Caddy.

She you know.

It was more that she just had a hard time understanding how and why this person who wasn't trained and hadn't gone through the things that Francine had gone through was getting the opportunities that she was getting.

But it was never it never came across as as anything other than that.

It wasn't personal, It wasn't jealousy.

It wasn't you know.

She wasn't trying to undermine her in any way, you know, which I thought was great.

Do you remember the scene that we had Kate and I in the freezer?

Yes, I love it.

Where we could establish relationship.

We didn't get a lot of opportunities in the script to do that, but there's such action to going on.

But that one was you know, really you got to see into where they were coming from and intertwined their own needs, you know kind of that was that was interesting in Thundered, And that was another one of those that was actually written as you're walking.

On okay, and so what what was happening that was creating that?

Was that just the writers were doing that or was networking do you know why you were.

Network was really around to make those kind of notes.

That was just a you know, Kate was very specific about what she wanted.

It was partially her show, you know, her production company owned part of that show, a good part of it, and she really knew what she wanted and if it wasn't what she wanted, she would make those adjustments, you know.

So like I said, we all kept on our clothes and it was for the better, you know, she would make the scene better.

And I love again that is the charm of the show.

The show survives, I think and maintains its charm because of the relationships in the show, those little moments, the moments between Francine and Amanda, the moments obviously between Amanda and Scarecrow and Listetson and even the mouse do it like.

It's just a very charming show.

That's a good word for it.

Yeah, it has a lot of charm, and it's the kind of show that doesn't really get made as much anymore, which is sort of an action comedy show.

We can see that in movies, but we take our spying really seriously.

Now.

Yeah, no, I think it's too innocent.

Also, yes, to be made today, it's not.

It doesn't have the edges, even with friends in it.

Without it doesn't have today's I don't think.

But yet people you know, like I say, these fans are still watching it, like on their own tv ds and things.

So I do want to ask you about season three.

Kate Jackson directed a couple of episodes, the only female director on the season.

I mean, on the show.

How was that?

How are those shows?

And did that change anything for Francine and for you as an actress.

I don't think it did no.

I mean, she obviously knew the show better than anybody in the back of her hands, so it went went well.

And then of course the episode titles, I never remember that.

I have my own names for all of them.

You know.

The other thing is is that I think there was a couple episodes where Kate Jackson had to leave.

So there's a tennis episode that I think seems to have been written for you know, yeah.

Good, you're not supposed to see that.

Well, you know, Playing for Keeps is the tennis episode?

Yeah, was that the last minute?

Did you remember that episode?

And do you remember being like, okay, Francine's being called up to the show.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, I do remember.

I remember actually on the set being handed the script and that all they kind of did was cross out, you know, Amanda and put Francine.

I remember talking I think it was to the ad who had his walkie talking on at the time with production office, and I remember saying, you know, Amanda and Francine are like, give me different kinds of characters, and you can't just really give me this dialogue.

It's the producer didn't know that I was listening on the other end.

She got a problem with that.

I'm always like, really, you know, diplomatic about things, and I'm just saying, it's not going have a problem.

It's just that they're really different characters and it's a little sticky.

But you know, yeah, we did what we could.

But when you go into season three and season four of a of a show and you're not being used as much as you would hope as an actress or you would hope for your character, like, what do you do?

How do you make that work for you?

Well, that's why I was at I was begging literally to do other shows because I was being offered roles, and begging is what I was doing.

So that's what you do.

I try.

Also, I went to production office.

I had one very teary eyed meeting with our producers at the time.

You know, that's when I had my little notebook full of this is what Francie means.

Can we kind of try to like save the whales?

I was trying to save franc scene, you know, I wanted to bring her back a little bit, and it didn't.

They seemed to be understanding that things proceeded as they were more status quo, and I was getting the feeling also that I don't know, I never took it for granted.

You know, I was always extremely grateful.

I'm telling you, literally, every time I drove onto the plot, it's just like this is a wonderful, wonderful gift, but I was starting to feel like, you know, don't say anything, don't make any ways, You're lucky to have a job at all.

And then in season four, you know, Kate Jackson gets diagnosed with breast cancer and we know that.

Now, and I didn't know that for the longest time.

I didn't know that groused it.

And I think it was Bruce that told me.

But it was quite late, so I really didn't know what was going on.

I just kept hearing she wasn't well it's kind of generic, you know, couldn't come in.

But I didn't know until really really late.

Again, I'm always the last one to know anything.

I don't know what it is.

I mean, and it see and and so it does seem like there were a couple episodes again where Francene sort of gets kind of shoved in.

Yeah.

Well the script the last where I had to finally had a boyfriend and I had an apartment and all that stuff that was written by one need back back in early season was when did wanted.

To do she was she was.

She came on the second half of season one and all of season two, and she.

Wrote that script and it, for whatever reason, didn't get made, but it was on the shelf for the longest time.

So years later when we needed material and we needed material with Franccene, there was that script.

It was already written.

So I had They had to build my set for my apartment.

They had to bring on the boyfriend that you know, I didn't know I had.

I was rather excited because I went along time to have a boyfriend.

Beaman was as close as I got, and I just wasn't interested.

Oh my god, there's a lot of fan love about Francine and Beaman.

I got to you as a person.

He's a great guy, but uh, Frantine wasn't into it.

It is surprising there's a script written in season one or two that basically would have established a whole other life for Francie.

Oh yeah, I just know it's there.

That's that's and it gets done in season four.

Yeah.

Wow, it gets pulled out, dusted off and bound.

There we go.

And you weren't aware that the script even existed until they dusted it off.

Oh my goodness, you have.

And there was one line that I believe is in late season three or early season four episode.

I couldn't find it.

I went looking for it again, but I couldn't.

I didn't have time to watch all the shows again to find this one line that's kind of a throwaway line.

Lee Stetson is on the phone with Billy and and they're, you know, like, you know, do this and do that and whatever.

Have Franccene do her hooker routine?

Oh, I remember the hook is Literally the line has a lot of routines.

I gotta tell you, I kind of almost fell out of my chair at the dounk this or the couch because I was like, that would never have been a line in episode one.

I mean in season one.

Well, what it would have actually been would have been doing her honeypot and that is intel talk or the same thing that you know.

So whoever wrote that, I don't know, but that was what seen you said.

Three it's late three year.

I thought it was in three years.

We've already lost one by then.

Probably.

Yeah.

It was just sort of startling.

And now my husband and I say it a lot.

Oh, just have Friency do her hook a routine.

You know, my husband says that too.

That's fun.

And so here's my question.

When you were on the show, did you feel like, oh, this is this is a show that puts women up front.

Did you feel like it was a what we would call a feminine show now, or at least a female driven show.

I think it was.

Right in the target of the time in terms of that, because I was that age where when I grew up in this very traditional family with a mother who stayed home and the father who worked, all I wanted was to be a professional because I was in that era right where that was sort of being first introduced, and it sounded very exciting to me.

So all I wanted to do was and so fran Seeing also, and then Amanda even also maybe later and maybe in a different in her own way.

But I think that now this is, you know, eighties, and I was growing up more or the born in the fifties, so you know, see that difference in time.

But I didn't start thinking about those things until being of age to work, so I don't know about I don't think it was ahead of the game or behind the game.

Actually, I think it was kind of right there where it should be at that time.

And I fran see, like I said, Francine could have easily been a male character, and she wasn't.

She was that combination of that for Yang, you know, here's that combination of energies that was definitely it was career, it was power, it was the whole nine yards.

And again as a counterpoint, uh, you know, Remington Steele lower Holt is way more francine than she is Amanda King.

Right, we're about to look We're gonna look at Remington Steel next, and lore Holt is all about business and all about this.

And then you know, a man walks in, so you know, it gets a little a little more complicated.

We have a little segment, a special segment on our show called nineties TV Babies, and it's a younger generation that looks at these shows from a different perspective and talks about them.

And I have to say, you're a favorite of theirs in the episodes of Scarecrims King because they're like the outfits, the hair, the attitude, and they really like it does really sort of pop for them.

That's good to know, good to know.

I know I did a lot of also in the eighties, I did of Dick Clark's Up Pyramid.

It's a game show, right, and they have celebrity contestants.

Well, Dick Clark and I really got along well.

So people have me on all the time, and on that show, I could dress as myself, so I wore all the I mean, I was Cyndi Lauper Madonna.

I had the lace gloves, the ribbon, and the hair, the big shoulder's, the big hair, the spiky rod Stewart here there's back the rest do it.

And the people that go back and watch us now like a YouTube and whatnot.

And you're right, it's all the younger people that say, oh, she was classic Evings.

I love it.

You know, it's so fun to be historically admired.

I just really keep going back to the life at the party of the Maids with Kate.

That that was just when you when Kate's sounded roll and you get to work with her like that with a good script and everything's working right, it's just magic.

You know.

It's like a band when all the instruments are just kind of entyanc with each other.

And and that really stands out for me a lot.

It's my favorite, my favorite episode in every way, I mean, just as a viewer and a participant.

And and then you know, so season four comes and and uh and you don't get picked up don't get renewed.

Oh do tell no, come on, we're some say some say that we did, and but it wasn't to be.

It wasn't to be.

Is that in the book?

Is that we're saving it for the mid I don't think.

I'm not sure.

I haven't gotten that part yet.

So when you when you when you ended season, when you stopped shooting season four, was there had it not?

Had it been determined at that point whether or not the show?

We were told that was.

That was pretty that we were told that was it because I remember the last day of shooting and I was shooting that episode, by the way, that frenzy episode of her apartment and her uh, that was I think the last way we shot, and I could not say goodbye to everybody.

It was too difficult, it was too emotional.

I was crying great thinking about it.

I drove off, you know, and had my farewells afterwards.

But yeah, it was really really sad because that's forty years of really intense being with people that many hours a day.

When they say it's like a family, and it's like Kate had helt issue that we're priority and I don't want to say anything that's not.

You know, I don't know what's public and what's so I'm just saying that that was the most important thing.

She had to take care of that, and so there was not to be anymore.

And she knows she had to have surgeries and all sorts of things.

It was not easy, and that wasn't was scared one as king that was the show.

So there was there was no show with that k texting and and and such a scary time.

Like it's scary all the time.

But I think, you know, thirty forty years ago, yeah, getting a diagnosis of breast cancer was terrifying.

Yeah, and if everything had been in order, and if Kate had been healthy in all life perspect we would have gone for another sin cure.

Yeah, I mean that.

And and it's also sort of seems like scary to even announce that.

In the eighties, I think women were not comfortable saying, hey, I need this time.

Well, it's always very personal health matters, you know, you don't want to have everybody in your face.

And when she's a huge star she was at the time, her TVQ you know, which is rating on the scale, was way way up there.

She was one of the few women at the top of TVQ if you combined both genders.

You know, she was like right up there on the topic.

It's Charlie's Angels and everything else.

And so you're still in touch with Kate Jackson.

I am.

We had a lot of years when we didn't see each other.

We just, you know, like happens on shows, you lose touch with people.

And then we reconnected a few years ago and we went out to the movies together and had a lot of fun, and then lost touch again, and so I'm trying to reconnect again.

She actually wanted to do a podcast about our show with kind of fast forward going where our characters would be today, that kind of thing.

You know, she was talking to me about that, and she has some.

Really good ideas that could be fun.

Yeah, I think people would be ready for that, So you should tell her, well, yeah, you know, we'll promote it.

We'll have her on God.

But also I think it was just a kind of a perfect blend of Kate Jackson and a character that was gonna see goodness in people, like there's a really again.

That's where I think the charm and the and the stuff that that sort of holds up.

It's a good point.

Yeah, yeah, I think you're right.

It's one of the things when I'm looking back at shows and and and again, it felt like, in some ways a more innocent time or I was just you know, it was a young baby person.

But it also felt like there was a lot of possibility in those characters.

And so I'm glad that Francine and Amanda are friends.

I'm glad to hear that, yes, and.

I see Bruce Evan Allan.

Then also at the there's these share charity events the Hollywood throws that Bruce goes to him because every every year when they have this event in pastor wear, it's always western were and I like, Francine and me have zero western were I have lit one cowboy hat that just for these events.

And then I throw on some like, you know, high heeled boots or something.

I think it's kind of western, right, And then Bruce shows up in his full garb, you know John Wayne look.

With saddle over his shoulder.

And brings the horse to the parking lot.

Oh my gosh.

All right, and so we're going to get to three questions, which is our sort of last wrap up.

But what what's happening?

No?

Don't worry.

They're easy, They're super easy.

You're chatty, You're You're fine.

No, we love chatty.

It's a podcast about chatty.

Chatty is great and wonderful.

It's a compliment.

Okay, I'll take it.

Oh sure, when Bruce Boxinger says it, he's on you.

Blaffy Bruce.

We call him blaby Bruce.

Blaby Bruce.

We be for chatting.

Good podcasts.

Love chatty, and you know, I love women who have something to say.

But I did want to say, what's happening?

Stuff happening.

I am doing real estate, and I'm kind of doing the friends version of it.

I mean, I've got a small high end clientele, but I sold homes to princes and rock stars and celebrities of all types.

So you know, it's that certain I have.

Right now, I'm listing for fourteen million dollars that's really really beautiful, and hoping to sell soon.

I dream of retiring, honestly, I'm kind of There's a lot of nonprofit work I'm interested in, and I would really like to branch out and do things a little bit more in a meaningful sector.

You know, at that point in my life where I want to make my big footprint of meaning on the world.

So all right, well, keep us posted, let us know when you're doing your next creative project, because we want to hear that.

And when you're selling something like a like a four hundred that.

I think that's a garage here.

I was going to say, is there such a thing in this area in Los Angeles anywhere?

A nice try, nice try?

I just you know, but fourteen million dollars, I think that's going to sell.

Really well, that's for a young professional.

That's not what that's not the high end yet, that's not the twenty million enough.

They just sold one for like one eighty five million, you know in Bellham.

Wow, ridiculous house.

Ridiculous one hundred and eighty five million.

Yeah, it was.

They kind of shaved a mountaintop and built this house that goes on forever with you know, like theaters and bowling alleys and all this in our whole thirty two bathrooms.

It was more of like a city, more like a real estate porn is what it is.

Isn't that the house that the guy built think you know, and and it had to go to auction or something.

Yes, that's the one.

It's called the one.

Yes, Oh my god, I's called the.

Half because it sold for half.

Its just I do.

Okay, all right, so here we are three questions.

What's the eighties ladies driven TV show that resonated with you and you can't say scarecro Missus King because you were on it.

But I didn't watch eighties ladies.

I like Kney and Lazy.

Does that count?

Totally count?

Totally counts?

Okay, yeah, all right, okay, one now check what are your favorite ladies of TV shows that you're watching or just TV shows you know, but you don't watch TV.

I know this.

Well, let's see.

Now I'm going to come up with something because I do occasionally watch things like on Netflix or you know, like and I just had to watch all that stuff for the wards, which I love to dope sick.

But that wasn't so much.

It doesn't have to be network.

Oh yeah, no, it doesn't have to be network, right, they can be streaming again.

What's the one on the Netflix of that at the making of Anna inventing.

Ann Oh Annadel.

I just watched that.

Yeah, she was great, and I was so curious about her accent, but that, in fact was a correct accent.

Found later, Oh really, because there has been a lot written about what the heck was that accent?

And was a German tesla answer name?

She's a German.

I think she's a microbiologist, and she had the exact same accident.

It was almost like she borrowed her from her, and so I thought, well, this must be a certain part of Germany.

Maybe she researched it because it's a rare accent I hadn't heard before.

And then I got a year for accents.

Oh that's fascinating.

Yeah, that's fascinating.

Yeah, all right, final question.

No, listen, you've already told us like three of these.

What's the most like television moment or action hero moment or sort of just like one of those moments You're like, this must have been scripted that you've experienced in real life.

But it sounds you told us like five of them, so you could revisit one of them.

Oh wow, yeah, my whole life has been that way.

Honestly, I would say maybe Humes, you know the way that all came down, probably going for that other role, asking to do Babs, getting Babs, and then all of a sudden the movie blowing up like huge all of that kind of put together was really sort of like a Hollywood movie, you know, kind of happening that you don't see in life that much.

Yeah, fantastic.

Yeah, And I'm super impressed about your ability to advocate at a young age for yourself and for what you wanted.

It's pretty amazing when I think about you like that, you you know, or it's like, hey, here take this role, and you're like, what could I have the other one?

And it was interesting because in those days when you did Playboy, you had to hide it in Hollywood you're going to be an actress.

And I became an accidental actress because of that thing that told you about that.

That's another one of those moments, right.

But so when I was offered roles like that, I couldn't Nobody knew I was Playmate when I'm filling on auditions, Nobody in Hollywood.

My agent was probably the only one who knew.

And I didn't talk about it, and I didn't want anything to kind of reminisce back and show Up and Playboy, although they did always say our Martha on happy Days, you know, and I always put the magazine when I when I would do something, But yeah, I had to be really, really careful.

And then flash forward many years later, I'm still not talking about it, and I going on audition for I don't remember what.

It was a movie and the character was supposed to have been a playmate and I didn't get the role, and the feedback was, we don't buy that, she couldn't be a planemate.

That was the best feedback I ever got an audition.

Audience isn't gonna buy it.

No, that's so like and so such an interesting thing.

So you feel like, do you feel differently about having been a playmate now than you did then?

Or whenever I feel much of anything?

Then?

To be honestly, I had been a muddel and to me it was another model and job with a lot more money and no clothes.

It just really didn't seem you know, I was a hippie and being without your clothes wasn't a big deal.

It wasn't sort of like and I wasn't, you know, doing anything pornographic.

I was lying with, you know, a little piece of sheer fabric between my legs and flowers behind me, and everything was soft focused and it was all that girl next door kind of looking the day very fuzzy, soft and pretty.

And I've always been a fan of artwork, and to me, it was like beautifulwork.

Had some of the best photographers of the world shoot me.

I really loved the images they came up with.

There was nothing I felt compromised about.

I was paying really well.

But it was during Women's liberation, so I was going on the road and I was meeting and greeting and people were coming up with throwing brass at me and I it was kind of weird, a juxtaposition of themes.

Every audition I went to, I went business first.

That's why.

That's why they said that nobody believed she could be a playmate.

You know, this went a different way.

But no, no, that's fine.

I know what that we're looking at, you know, TV ladies from the eighties, and and this was a big part of it, and and how women had to navigate a world that was not always welcoming to them, was not always you know, easy to navigate.

Thank you so much for being on the show, and for talking about Scarecrow is King and your amazing career and and and just your experience.

And I'm super excited about just how like enthusiastic you are about life like that, That's what I'm getting from this.

It's like, Oh, I'm going to go on the road with Rob Stewart.

I'm going to go create a show over here.

I need to do a cabaret show and uh and sing with a guy.

I need to find a guy who's going to sing with me.

Oh, okay, I'm going to marry him.

I think that's great.

And how all along through your career you were you were looking for different creative outlets.

If it wasn't happening here, you said, fine, I'll just go make one over here and I'll go try this.

And that's really amazing.

That's really amazing.

Well, thank you, guys.

But we did have a lot of writers' strikes and actress strikes to fill the gaps and during note so, but thank you.

I appreciate that.

Yeah, anyway, it's it's been great.

I'm a big fan of the show and a big fan of yours, and I'm really glad that you were able to come on and talk with you.

It's been a real treat.

Thank you for sharing.

We really appreciate you sharing.

Mine.

Okay, we're gonna go out with the song thank you MS.

It's been wonderful.

I really appreciate it.

Be well, take care hi.

Our audioography for today is the Martha Smith official Facebook page at Yes Facebook and the Scarecrow and Missus King Anniversary website also on Facebook, Facebook dot com Slashcarecrow and Missus King Anniversary.

That's a page devoted to the reunions featuring Martha Smith, Bruce Black, Sleeitner, and other people involved in Scarecrow Missus King.

I want to thank Fiona W for enjoying our Scarecrow episodes and recommending a very cool book for our audioography, which I'm just going to add here today.

She recommended When Women Invented Television by Jennifer keishin Armstrong.

Tamera m was inspired by our Scarecrow discussion about female characters not needing a romantic relationship with male counterparts to recommend that we discuss Hunter with Stephanie Kramer and Fred Dreyer.

Hunter has come up before.

It's not a show I know very well, Sharon, but I think we definitely will have to cover it at some point.

It sounds like a plant.

Okay, so we haven't actually completed exploring season four of Scarecrow, Mimis is King, and a lot happens in that season.

No spoilers for now.

But we're going to pause for a minute or several episodes on Scarecrowmas's King.

We reserve the right to return, recall witnesses, and bring new interviewers on at any time.

Who knows.

We know we'll be talking to some wonderful SMK fans that we're going to bring on the show, and we are still reaching out to Bruce and Kate.

Keep your fingers crossed.

You never know what can happen anything at all at eighties TV Ladies, that's the fun part.

When we started this podcast, we never intended to do episode by episode walkthroughs of Scarecrow and This is King, even though we love those kinds of podcasts.

West Wing, Weekly, Office Ladies, Parks and Recollection love them all, just to name a few, but that's not what we're doing because we want to cover more shows and we would be able to by going episode to episode.

So we're curious what you think.

This is season one and we are enjoying ourselves immensely, But do you love going season by season?

Do you love the interviews?

Do you like a combination.

Continue to reach out.

We want to know your suggestions.

Tell us an eighties TV Lady show that resonated with you, and tell us what you'd like to see us cover on this show.

So on our next episode, we will be talking about another romantic comedy action show, Remington Steel, starring Stephanie Zimbalist and Pierce Brosnan.

This happens to be one of my favorites.

This is a Sharon pick.

We have some very exciting guests who will be joining us over the next few episodes to talk about this show.

Send in your questions.

What do you want to know about Remington Steel, What do you want to know about Laura Holt's deep dark Secrets?

And let's say we got oh, I don't know.

Stephanie Zimbalist star Remington Steele on the show.

What questions would you have for her?

Email us Eightiestvladies at gmail dot com or go to the website Eightiestvladies dot com.

We hope Eighties TV Ladies brings you joy and laughter and lots of fabulous new and old shows to watch, all of which will lead us toward being amazing ladies of the twenty first century.

Some gowns have all the luck.

Some gowns have all the pain.

This guy looks heart with throg Steward.

Same gown starts back at Missus Kane, where this man