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Brittany
Dec 2, 07 - 1:32 PM |
An interesting piece of history....
I stumbled across this and thought I'd share. For those who weren't already aware of it (like me - lol,) apparently the "Suddenly Susan" that ran with Judd for three seasons was not the original version conceived nor the one filmed as the original pilot, which never aired. Though obviously Judd enthusiasts wouldn't have had it any other way, I think it would've been fun to see the spin Philip Casnoff put on the role. For those of you who don't know who he is, Mr. Casnoff is probably best known as the villain Elkanah Bent in 1985's "North & South," and more recently as Dr. Jackson on Lifetime's "Strong Medicine." Like Judd, he also came within inches of winning a Golden Globe, for his portrayal of Frank Sinatra in 1992. Oh, and exactly how many days is it until Valentine's Day, Cecilia?  TV's Real Survivors Suddenly Susan had an even more torturous route to the promised land of everlasting life in syndication. Susan took life in the winter of 1996 as a dramedy from the pen of Clyde Phillips, who was coming off a modest hit Parker Lewis Can't Lose on Fox. NBC had commissioned the script but was lukewarm about the show's prospects after reading Phillips' first effort. The network agreed to give the show a second look if Phillips re-wrote it as a multiple-camera comedy that could be shot in front of a studio audience. It was a format Phillips had never written before. The resultant script brought another resounding yawn. Not one to give up, then Warner Bros. President Tony Jonas (subsequently fired) asked then NBC President Warren Littlefield (subsequently fired) what would it take to get a pilot order for Suddenly Susan. Without blinking an eye Littlefield said, "Get me Julie Warner (an upcoming actress NBC wanted to ‘be in business with') or Brooke Shields." After Julie Warner passed (to do Chicago Sons) Phillips took Shields to dinner and convinced her of the merits of his project. With Shields firmly signed to a contract, NBC and Warner Bros. promptly fired Phillips. Well, they didn't officially fire him – yet – but they did take creative control of the show away from him. (He would ultimately leave the business.) In came Anything But Love veteran show runners Jane Milmore and Billy Van Zandt. They were given the almost impossible task of writing a new script, then casting and mounting a show in less than three weeks. By now it was now early April. Somehow all the deadlines were met. Brooke would be a junior book agent in Palo Alto, California; Phil Casnoff, who had starred in the mini-series Sinatra as Old Blue Eyes himself, was cast as Brooke's boss/love interest. Tony award winner Elizabeth Ashley was cast as the agency's most important client – a diva author of romance novels. Maggie Wheeler, the whiney Janice from Friends, was cast as Brooke's best friend, and Nancy Marchard was cast as Nana. After three arduous 14-hour days of shooting and a week of around-the-clock editing, the show was delivered to the network on May 8. Within 48 hours Suddenly Susan was given the prime time slot in all of television, 9:30 on Thursday following Seinfeld. Its success was secure. There was only one problem. Although NBC loved Brooke, the network hated the show. Despite their Herculean efforts, Van Zandt and Milmore were fired. "Their comic sensibilities were wrong." Casnoff was "too old" to be Brooke's love interest. Goodbye. Wheeler and Ashley were "too over the top." See ya. Only Marchard would have returned with the series, but she was suffering from terminal cancer and could not be insured. HBO didn't care about Nancy's health, and she wanted to work, so David Chase cast her as the tortured Mafia mother, Livia Soprano, in his new series The Sopranos. Nancy won an Emmy in the months leading up to her death in what would become the signature role of her career. Marchand was an actress in a role she otherwise would not have been available to take. The Sopranos' gain was Susan's loss. Into the void created by the departure of Van Zandt and Milmore came Gary Dontzig and Steven Peterman, the writers who had taken over Murphy Brown from Diane English during the "Dan Quayle" year. Dontzig and Peterman had their own "vision" for Susan. The book publishing house became a magazine (greater urgency) and Judd Nelson, Kathy Griffin, Nestor Carbonell, David Strickland and Barbara Barrie would become television mainstays. While a new pilot script was being re-conceived for the third time and re-shot for a second time, the joke around the set was that the name of the show should be changed to Eventually Susan. |
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