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EP. 308 - All My Children, Mama’s Family, The Nanny | Giving Thanks for Dorothy Lyman

Melissa Roth: Weirding Way Media.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Hello listeners, A little note. On this episode, we try to craft our seasons to make some kind of thematic sense together, but then sometimes things happen and we end up having to change our minds. So this interview was originally intended for last season and was recorded in 2023 over a year ago, right at the tail end of the writers’ strike. So it's kind of like a sweet little time capsule for you, back when we were all younger and more hopeful, all bright eyed and bushy tailed.  

But either way, in this time of being grateful, I actually want to give it a very important thank you and shout out to our producer, Melissa, who chases down so many of our amazing guests. It takes time and a lot of emails and phone calls. You know, we love to get people on, both from in front of the camera and behind the scenes to talk about their experiences on the 80s shows we cover. And we were holding these episodes hoping we would be able to add, say, a, Vicki Lawrence or a, Carol Burnett. We keep trying, so let us know if you've got an in with one of them.  

But until then, I'm just so grateful for all of you, for our amazing team and for the amazing people we get to be in conversation with on this podcast. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do. Sending you all the best for a mindful Native American Heritage Month, a peaceful and lovely Thanksgiving, and a beautiful holiday season to come. Enjoy.

[Music] [Singing] Amy Englehardt: 80s TV Ladies, So sexy and so pretty. 80s TV Ladies, Steppin’ out into the city. 80s TV Ladies, often treated kind of sh-[wolf whistle]. Working hard for the money in a man’s world. 80s TV Ladies!

Melissa Roth: Welcome to 80s TV Ladies, where we look back in order to leap forward. Here are your hosts, Susan Lambert, Hatem and Sharon Johnson.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Hi, I'm Susan.

Sharon Johnson: And I'm Sharon.

Susan Lambert Hatem: This next show we're looking at was not on my list, and I have a long list. But then when it came to our attention, I was like, yes, yes, of course. It IS an 80s TV Ladies show.

Sharon Johnson: Today we're talking to a special guest from the 80s Vicki Lawrence and Carol Burnett sitcom, Mama's Family.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Mama's Family was a sitcom spinoff of the Carol Burnett Show. It started as a series of sketches on Carol Burnett, which ran 1967 to 1978, and then also on the Carol Burnett & Company, which ran in 1979.

Sharon Johnson: The sketches spawned a TV movie called Eunice. The movie launched the series Mama's Family, which ran on NBC for two seasons from 1983 to 1984, and then it.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Was picked up for syndication. like many other 80s TV lady shows and ran from 1986 to 1990. Mama's Family starred Vicki Lawrence as the titular Mama. Ken Berry, Dorothy Lyman, Rue McClanahan, Betty White, Karin Argoud and Eric Brown.

Sharon Johnson: And today we get to talk with an actress, writer, director and producer from the 80s that you may remember from your favorite soap or from her work playing Naomi Oates Harper on Mama's Family. Dorothy won two Emmy Awards for her role as Opal Gardner on All My Children.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Dorothy Lyman directed the breakthrough off Broadway hit, A Couple of White Chicks Sitting Around Talking, which starred Susan Sarandon and Eileen Brennan. In television, she directed 74 three entire seasons of the hit 90s show the Nanny, starring Fran Drescher.

Sharon Johnson: Dorothy Lyman, welcome to 80s TV Ladies.

Dorothy Lyman: Thank you.

Sharon Johnson: We're delighted to have you join us today. We're so thrilled. it's really, we're really looking forward to the conversation today.

Dorothy Lyman: Okay.

Susan Lambert Hatem: I know Sharon is, because she wants to talk, soaps and I want to talk theater because you just got back from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, I understand.

Dorothy Lyman: Yep, yep. I went for a month and performed a one person play that I wrote and it was really, really fun.

Sharon Johnson: Had you ever been there before to that festival?

Dorothy Lyman: No. I just heard about it, of course, like everybody else has for years. But it's a place for, basically for young people to launch themselves. There were 3,500 different acts, if you can believe it.

Sharon Johnson: Wow.

Dorothy Lyman: I know it. It was, the catalog of events was like a phone book. I don't know how anybody ever decided what they wanted to see, you know, so there was a lot of competition for the audience, but there were tons of people there. It's a very, very popular festival. So I basically performed mine for an hour and then spent the rest of the day and evening watching other people's projects.

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Dorothy Lyman: And, basically I tried to see as many one person plays as I could since that's what, what I was doing to see where I fit into all of that. Yeah, it was very, very interesting.

Susan Lambert Hatem: That is amazing. Our theme song singer and, co-writer with me, Amy Engelhardt was there with a one woman show as well. And so I was like, I know you're super busy doing your show and so all, but you should go see Dorothy Lyman's show.

Dorothy Lyman: Oh, I wish I'd known that. I would have looked her up. Did she have a good experience there?

Susan Lambert Hatem: She did. We haven't really had a chance to sort of talk with her about that. We just got to see her show. It's really quite amazing. It's called Impact. she knew five of the students that were on the Pan Am flight that went down in Scotland.

Dorothy Lyman: Lockerbie or whatever Lockerbie is.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yes, in Lockerbie. And so it's sort of about her journey back there, like, 30 years after the event and what that meant to her. She's very funny. She's sort of a musician and comedian. and so it's really like, you know, super grief and funny, which is, you know.

Dorothy Lyman: Yeah, a. Ah, good combo. Yeah.

Susan Lambert Hatem: But I am interested in your play, because, it's called Violet and Me. Right. And it's about your mom. Is your mom Violet?

Dorothy Lyman: Yeah.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Can you tell us a little bit more about the play?

Dorothy Lyman: You know, my mother was an orphan, and so we really didn't know much about her past. And for some reason, I got curious about it during the pandemic. I found a little suitcase full of her papers up in my study that I'd never really looked at. And in it, I found all kinds of interesting stuff, including the names of her real parents. I had always thought that foster people were her adopted parents, but she really didn't go to live with them till she was 14. So she had lived with her real parents till she was six, and then she was in an orphanage. But she really suppressed that part of her life. You know, she never talked about it to me at all. So I paid somebody to research her, people and found out all kinds of interesting stuff. So it explained a lot about my mother to me. The, play charts, my searching for her identity, but also coming to terms with my own as a mother, because I actually left my first two young children with their dad and went into the city to have a career which was not a popular choice to make in 1978. And, I've always carried around a lot of guilt and regret about that action, even though my daughter's 52 and my son is 49. And they are perfectly happy, healthy people, and we have very good relationships now. But I know that my leaving them when they were three and five was traumatic for them. And I know that my mother's mother leaving her when she was 6 and putting her in an orphanage must have been traumatic for her. So it's just about how these things seem to repeat itself from generation to generation. And, you know, about loss and forgiveness and motherhood and a, little sprinkling of my journey as a feminist.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Well, that sounds amazing and right up my alley, you know, I am fascinated by that, you know, that journey. I think that's sort of one of the reasons we make this podcast, is sort of looking back at the roles for women, literally and figuratively and kind of how we got here from where I feel like I started, which is sort of coming aware in the 80s of, you know, just life and art and roles for women. So I'm fascinated by anybody who is balancing all the aspects of life that we have to balance now, but particularly as a mom and stepmom, balancing how you feel like you're. What you're doing well, you know. Or not.

Dorothy Lyman: Yep.

Sharon Johnson: So had you performed the play before the festival or did it make its debut there?

Dorothy Lyman: No, I wrote it over the last year and it was sort of tailor made for the festival. I had one hour and 15 minutes to get on, set up and get off. They had plays coming in every hour and 15 minutes, you know, every hour and a half. It had to come in at 53 minutes, you know, nothing more. So, we did four performances in New York City before we went to Scotland and then a week later opened up down there. So, yeah, it was, ah, it was a whirlwind summer, so we'll see. But I think I have a piece that's viable anyway now, and I just got to figure out what to do with it, that is.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And you've been writing a lot of theater the last few years?

Dorothy Lyman: I've written three or four plays over the last decade, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You know, when my career in Hollywood was inadvertently terminated because of my age, I suppose, you know, I moved away in a kind of huff

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Dorothy Lyman: and, bought a dairy farm upstate New York and spent 20 years living up there. And I began to write mostly to create roles for myself and my friends who are my age who are at the peak of their abilities as actors. But there's very few roles really, that I feel are, you know, worthy of, of us and our stories. So that's been my personal mandate as a writer to try to just, you know, I'm very aware that all of the greatest women's roles were written by men. Ibsen and Tennessee, and Arthur, Miller and Clifford Odette, you know, but, Edward Albee, certainly. Yes, but why shouldn't women write something, you know?

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yes. When we spoke with Tyne Daly, she talked about all the stories are dads telling stories and men telling stories and all of our passed down stories. We've lost the women stories. They're not as forefront.

Dorothy Lyman: Well, Tyne and I are on the same page about that then.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Well, I would love to, back up a little bit and find out how you ended up doing theater and movies and television. What took, you there from, you, Grew up in the Midwest.

Dorothy Lyman: I grew up in Minneapolis. Yeah, Minneapolis.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah.

Dorothy Lyman: Actually, I did my first play in the basement of our church at age 15. And, before that I wanted to be a Spanish teacher. But after that experience doing the play, I was committed to being an actor and did community theater my last couple of years of high school there and then did a summer of summer stock before going to Sarah Lawrence. And then at college, I stayed for only two years, but I studied theater there with, like, genius teachers. And one of them was a man called Joe Chaikin, who had a group called the Open Theater. And so when he heard that I didn't want to go back to school for my third year, he invited me to join his company off Broadway. And I did that and worked with them for the next two years. And then after that, I began to get a little bit of work in daytime television. Just a day, a month or something, which in those days was enough that I didn't have to serve any cheeseburgers, you know. So the first one I did was called Search for Tomorrow. And I didn't have a last name. I was just the young ingenue named Kelly Wood. Her character is, like, confidant and best friend. So whenever they needed her to tell any secrets, I got a day's work out of it. Paid 400 bucks. My rent on McDougall street was $65 a month, so I had plenty left over. Yeah, that's great.

Susan Lambert Hatem: We should have that ratio, again.

Sharon Johnson: Exactly. Exactly.

Dorothy Lyman: But I kind of got my break on the soaps on a show called the Edge of Night, which was live in those days. And one of the young actresses went skiing and ran herself into a tree. And so while her face was healing, they called me on a Sunday and said, could I come into work the next day and play her part until she got better? Which was something which you could do on the soaps, you know, the part of Norma will now be played, you know. So I did her part for a couple weeks, and I guess out of gratitude, a few months later, they offered me a part of my own. And that was my first real running part. And, people really dug it. And it lasted about nine months, and I was voted Best Female Newcomer of 1972 by Soap Opera Digest.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Nice.

Dorothy Lyman: You know, and then I got bogged down having my kids and raising my kids. And my next break came on a show called Another World, which was an NBC soap that starred Beverly McKinsey and Doug.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And you played, Gwen?

Dorothy Lyman: I played a character called Gwen Frame and she was an architect. And I got a lot of letters from young women who said, you know, I decided to go to architecture school after watching your character, which I thought was, like, really cool. You know, that's fantastic that you could play a, you know, a sort of woman with a career. You know, I've always found that the roles that I've had on soaps are infinitely superior than anything I've played anywhere else. They are about women and women's stories and the men, we refer to them as handbags. You know, they're there to screw you or screw you over or, marry you or. But the stories are about you, you know, the women. And also, I felt that soap served a very important social function, that they popularized topics like abuse and abortion and adoption, and, mental illness and things like that. Suicide, you know, long before it was popular fodder. And I think it helped a lot of women stuck at home feeling these same things.

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Dorothy Lyman: Also, I found the fans of soaps very different because you're in their living rooms every day. They feel they really know you. You know, I, I couldn't buy myself a beer anywhere in America for the whole time I was on the soaps. You know, movie stars are kind of in awe of, you know, but soap stars, they feel, are just them. M. It's really cool.

Susan Lambert Hatem: It's like television cubed, right? Like, it's like superpowered television soaps. And that. It really is coming to my life, you know, And I'm engaged with the characters so much. I mean, soaps are so much about the characters that the fans fall in love with, I feel like.

Sharon Johnson: Yeah, especially because the episodes run five days a week. you check in to see who. What's going on with your favorite characters. And for good or ill, I think the writers, especially, you know, the Agnes Nixons and the other women who wrote for soaps took it upon themselves to use what was going on in the world to tell women stories, which I always thought was really great. And as you were talking about earlier, about how just, a day part would pay your rent for quite a while, it occurred to me that in some ways, certainly at that time, soap operas were what kind of. Some of the other, I think, of Law and Order, which shoots in New York, and all the theater people and all the theater actors who had a chance to do work on those shows and in between their shows, and it gave people exposure in ways perhaps that other things did not. And I've always thought, too, that they're. Some of the hardest working people in show business because of the nature of the fact that, you know, it's a five day week show, you gotta get it done and move on. And it's hard work. It's very hard work.

Dorothy Lyman: If you wanna keep up with the plot, just watch every Friday. That's the day they do the recap.

Sharon Johnson: Yes, Mondays and Fridays were usually the best days to watch because of that. Yeah, you get to see what's coming during the next week. Perhaps on Mondays and Fridays you get to catch up on what you miss. But yeah, Susan said I was a, And still am a soap opera fan. During the time that you were doing it. It was a time when it wasn't feasible to watch every episode for me anyway. Cause I was in school or at work and until VCRs came along, it really wasn't possible to follow along. But I've been trying to think of how I managed to stay up to date nevertheless in the time before the Internet and the time before YouTube or whatever to catch up. But somehow, some way, I managed to. And over time, I think I watch most of the shows at Somehow, someway.

Susan Lambert Hatem: I never even thought about that, Sharon. Like we didn't get home till 3:30.

Sharon Johnson: Yeah, right.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And then I was doing a lot of after school stuff so I wouldn't get home till later. But somehow I managed to watch. I didn't watch soaps quite as much as you did, but I still caught them. And I'm not sure. By maybe summer. Yeah, I don't know.

Dorothy Lyman: Well, if you're homesick or Christmas vacation or. Mm,

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah. All right, well, we have to talk a little bit about Opal Gardner and.

Dorothy Lyman: All My Children, all my paychecks.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah. Now do you get residuals for soaps?

Dorothy Lyman: No.

Susan Lambert Hatem: No.

Sharon Johnson: Well, I would imagine because at the time there was no expectation that these shows would ever be seen again.

Dorothy Lyman: Right.

Sharon Johnson: They aired once and they. They moved on to the next episode.

Dorothy Lyman: That's right.

Sharon Johnson: You know, so there was, there probably was no thought about the need for residuals being in the contracts.

Dorothy Lyman: No.

Sharon Johnson: Wow.

Susan Lambert Hatem: I mean, it really was like a play a day.

Dorothy Lyman: Totally. Yeah.

Sharon Johnson: So how did you find it, making that transition into that kind of volume and having to learn it and perform it so quickly?

Dorothy Lyman: You know, luckily I have a kind of photographic memory. It was very, very easy for me to learn those lines. And frankly I made half of them up. So, you know, I mean, everybody said, why doesn't she sound like the other characters? And I said, because I refuse to say what they wrot which was, what they. Same stuff they wrote for everybody else, you know. But the thing is, if I was going to change my lines, I changed the words. I never changed the meaning, the thought. So the other actor wasn't thrown by what I was doing. And I always did it from the very first rehearsal in the morning so that they knew what I was going to be doing. And it played so well that they never suggested that I stop it.

Susan Lambert Hatem: It was such a humorous and, I mean, just a breakout character, obviously, which is why you have two Emmys. can you talk about what it was to be nominated and win your Emmys?

Dorothy Lyman: Well, you know, there was Susan Lucci, you know, who had been nominated every year for her entire life and never won. And along I come and scoop up one for Best Supporting Actress in 1981, and then for Best Actress the following year. And then I left the show because I had my commitment to Mama's Family out in Los Angeles. And they had

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Dorothy Lyman: worked around me, for the last year of my contract. They had shared my time between California and New York. And I would work three days a week on the soap playing Opal. And then I'd fly out to LA and do the other four days making an episode of Mama's Family with Vicki, because we did three weeks on and one week off. And because the soap is pre-taped, it's a pain for them. And it was very nice of them, the soap, to accommodate my schedule like that.  

And Carol Burnett traded a week's worth of work on All My Children for my services, which they were thrilled to have. Of course. Vicki and Carol used to watch me as Opal during their lunch hour while they were taping the Burnett show, that was their lunchtime ritual. They'd watch All My Children. And so when Carol decided she didn't want to do the Burnett show anymore after 11 years, but didn't want to throw the 200 men out of work who were her crew all those years.  

So they cooked up this idea of making a show for Vicki. And she. And Vicki said, why don't we ask that young woman to come out here and do it with us? And so that's how Mama's Family came from watching.

Susan Lambert Hatem: You on the soap.

Dorothy Lyman: That's right. One day my phone rang in my apartment, and, a woman said, hey, Dorothy, this is Carol Burnett. You know, how'd you like to come out to Hollywood and work with us on a sitcom? And I was like, yeah, which one of my goofy friends as this, you know, go on? she said, no, really, it's really. It is, Carol, and we're big fans of yours, and Vicki and I were wondering if you'd want to be part of her sitcom. So that's what happened.

Susan Lambert Hatem: I mean, did you just fall over at that point?

Dorothy Lyman: Well, there were a few hiccups in between. After they'd negotiated a contract, they suddenly decided maybe they didn't want to fly somebody they'd never met out to LA to be in it. And they tried to back out of it, but, my agent said, oh, no, no, no. You know, you will either use her or pay her. And so I said to them, I wouldn't hire me if I hadn't met me either. Let me fly out and read with Vicky and meet everybody and see. And if they don't want to use me after that, after I've had a fair shot at it, you know, that will be fine. And so I flew out and I said, but I want to meet with Joe, the executive producer, Carol's husband. I said, I want to meet with him first. You know, I don't want to walk into a room without anybody on my side.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah.

Dorothy Lyman: And so, yeah, I met Joe for breakfast, and then he and I went into the meeting. And after that it was all systems go.

Sharon Johnson: You know, I knew that Carol Burnett was a big fan of All My Children, but I wasn't aware of how she ended up on the show eventually, because I know that she, I think a couple of times over the years, but I had not heard that story before. That's awes. Awesome. That's fantastic. And it is a little surprising that they decided to. I mean, I think you were great on, All My Children and subsequently on Mama's Family, but it's almost unheard of that they would not at least have you come out for some sort of chemistry test or to, you know, or something before signing the contract. So. How great. That's really great. And that was really smart of you, I think, too, to insist on not just coming out, but getting a chance to meet the executive producer first before going in. That's. That's really smart.

Dorothy Lyman: Well, you know, it is show business. I mean, talent is really the least part of it sometimes.

Sharon Johnson: Very true.

Susan Lambert Hatem: I'm just impressed at, just how savvy you were.

Dorothy Lyman: Well, I had good advice.

Sharon Johnson: Excellent.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah, that is amazing. All right. But I hear there were two pilots for Mama's Family.

Dorothy Lyman: There were. We shot one, which was really awful. And then. Then we were all sent home for months at a time. Then we came back and it had Been completely reconceived.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And so what was wrong about the first one?

Dorothy Lyman: Oh, you know, I really don't remember. I just think it was mean. I think it was mean. M. You know, it just wasn't funny. And my character was like a poor white gal with six kids and hanging washout on a clothesline and an apron. you know, it just wasn't funny at all. I mean. And after that, they fired the two executive producers and retooled it and reconceived it.

Sharon Johnson: Were Betty White and Rue McClanahan in the original pilot, or did they come with the retooling?

Dorothy Lyman: No, they came with the retooling, I think.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And so what was it like to go and start working with what were considered at that point, you know, sort of TV comedy superstars icons? Yeah, for sure. Did you feel like a newbie? Did you feel like, I got this?

Dorothy Lyman: You know, they were all very welcoming. And, I had an Emmy, too.

Sharon Johnson: Yeah, that always helps. Add the one that's right.

Dorothy Lyman: No, Carol is the nicest woman in the world. You know, there was a big bouquet of flowers on my dressing table every episode for 126 episodes.

Sharon Johnson: Wow.

Dorothy Lyman: Wow. Yeah.

Sharon Johnson: That's the kind of thing you love to hear about someone that you admire.

Dorothy Lyman: Oh,

00:25:00

Dorothy Lyman: yeah, I know. And here she is, 90. I can't believe it.

Susan Lambert Hatem: So amazing, you know, amazing career. Seems like an amazing person and everything I hear.

Dorothy Lyman: All true.

Susan Lambert Hatem: The gift that she gave to the world, you know.

Dorothy Lyman: Oh, totally. Totally.

Susan Lambert Hatem: The astonishing thing about Vicki Lawrence was to realize later in life that she was not an old lady.

Dorothy Lyman: Well, you know, I just spent a weekend with Vicki in Tennessee at one of these, Well, not a comic con, but a kind of television, con sort of thing where you sit and sign autographs for fans and stuff. And so we spent a nice long weekend together reminiscing. And, of course, Kenny's dead, which is sad. Ken Berry. And, you know, Vicki is still playing Mama. She has a nightclub act.

Susan Lambert Hatem: I know she's got the show. We were trying to get down to see it.

Dorothy Lyman: She does half as herself and half as Mama. I haven't seen it, but I'm sure it's absolutely fantastic. She's a wonderful performer, wonderful singer.

Susan Lambert Hatem: So Harvey Korman directed most of the ones that I watched.

Dorothy Lyman: Yeah, the first 26, I believe. Yeah.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah.

Dorothy Lyman: Before we were canceled by the Network.

Susan Lambert Hatem: That was a surprise to me that he was directing. I always had thought of him as an actor.

Dorothy Lyman: Well, you have to understand the nature of the job of A television director. He didn't shoot the show. They had a proper director. Harvey was there to work with the actors. Okay, but, you know, that's the easy part. the hard part of television is how to move those four cameras around and back those shots up against each other and tell the story visually. And Harvey was not doing that. That was a wonderful guy called Dave Powers, which then directed all of the other 125 episodes that we did for syndication.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Okay, so it was sort of. He was of the family, knew how Carol and Vicki and everyone worked, and was directing that part.

Dorothy Lyman: Well, he ran, you know, he ran the rehearsals with the actors.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dorothy Lyman: And then. And Dave was, was there figuring out the shots.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And, I hear that you, were interested in directing on Mama's Family, but they didn't let you.

Dorothy Lyman: No. Dave Powers taught me how to do it. Which is why when I finally got my shot working for Fran on her show, I was able to do her show in four days instead of five because I've been taught by Dave Powers, you know, how to get a show done. And, But it was a deal breaker every season in my contract with Mama's Family. They were not about to give me a shot at it. No.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And why do you think they didn't want to give you a shot?

Dorothy Lyman: Well, if they let me do it, maybe they'd have to let Beverly Archer do it. Maybe they'd have to let Vicki do it. You know, every show has a lot of actors in it, but only one director. Those jobs are highly coveted and highly sought after. And, you know, they.

Even when I got my job with Fran, there was a feeling that, oh, I got that job because I'm a friend of Fran. You know, I was a comedienne. I didn't come up through the news, you know, what did I know about focal point and lens length?

Sharon Johnson: And, you know, had you had some interest in directing before you went to Mama's Family, or did it. Did it develop during the time you worked on.

Dorothy Lyman: I had. I had directed in the theater. I'd had a big success.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Hm.

Dorothy Lyman: Off Broadway with a play called A Couple of White Chicks Sitting Around Talking by John Ford Noonan that starred Sue Sarandon and Eileen Brennan. And then after three months, Dixie Carter and I took the roles over. And after that, who was it? Louise, Lasser and Jo Beth Williams did it. Ann Archer and Susan Terrell did it. Carrie Snodgrass and Candy Clark did it. And then it closed. And then there was a national tour with Elizabeth Ashley and Susan Anton. So I had that big success in the theater as a director. Yeah.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And that was a huge. That ran for a long time.

Dorothy Lyman: It ran a year off Broadway. It became one of Samuel French's, you know, top 10 best selling scripts because it was for two women. You know, every summer stock, every college theater did it, you know, and it kind of launched.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Susan Sarandon.

Dorothy Lyman: Well, she's been doing movies, but it made people think of her as a serious actress. Yeah, yeah, it did. Ruined our friendship. But other than that. Oh no. She and I had been very, very close girlfriend, you know, chums, until I became her boss, her director and her producer. And then, you know, the power sort of shifted and she wasn't happy about that.

Sharon Johnson: That can be difficult under the best of circumstances when someone becomes the boss. And I guess I was thinking more in terms of television directing. I didn't mean to imply I didn't know that you had directed theater as well, but you made that transition obviously from theater to television, which is not always easy to do. So that's really awesome.

Dorothy Lyman: I spent much more time doing TV

00:30:00

Dorothy Lyman: than I did doing theater.

Dorothy Lyman: I mean, television was always my bread and butter and frankly my preferred medium. And so I was always hanging out in the control rooms, even in the soaps, and looking at the camera and asking the camera guys to let me look through the lens. And so. And then I spent five years after Mama's Family ended, before I got my shot from Franny, just observing other directors, you know, and I thought if I had to sit and watch, you know, one more week of one of these sitcoms, you know. Anyway, when I finally got my shot to do one of Fran's episodes, I was really ready. And you know, you get one episode to direct if you're a friend of Franz. You don't keep your job for three years and do 75 consecutive episodes because you're a friend of Fran.

Sharon Johnson: Right.

Dorothy Lyman: But once my years that the nanny ended, I did seasons three, four and five. I never got another job directing a single moment of television. So that tells you something.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And why, why not?

Dorothy Lyman: Didn't.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Like, I don't understand that at all. It was one of the biggest shows.

Dorothy Lyman: Of the 90s, you know, I was over 50 and a woman. I mean, I spent many years thinking I had done something terribly wrong, that I must have really up, you know, gotten drunk at the cast party. I don't know what I thought I might have done that caused the industry to which I had given such good service for 40 years, you know, and then I realized that it was my age and my sex, and there's nothing I could do about either one of those things. So that's when I started to. Right. That's when I moved away from Hollywood, became a chicken farmer. Yes. And I raised eggs. I still do. Moved to the country and, became a playwright.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And did you know about chicken farming?

Dorothy Lyman: You know, my first husband's father had been a chicken farmer in New Jersey. And when he died, when I was pregnant with Emma, we did move to that farm and tried to run it for a year until we were able to find a buyer for it. So I actually do know something about chickens.

Susan Lambert Hatem: So you had some experience, and you were like, okay, I can do that. That seems like a huge life change to go from Hollywood to chicken farming.

Dorothy Lyman: To upstate New York. It was, yeah. Ah, it was. But it was at a time I was ready to do it.

Susan Lambert Hatem: You're ready to do it. And were your kids grown at that point?

Dorothy Lyman: Yeah.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah.

Dorothy Lyman: Okay.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And so were you alone?

Dorothy Lyman: Well, I was with somebody when I first bought the farm, but that relationship packed up after a few years, and so I was, I was on my own there. Yes, I was. And then the year before the pandemic, my son and his wife bought a place down here in Connecticut with two homes on it and an old barn. And they said, why don't you bring your horses and your hens and move down here with us? And so I did. And then the pandemic hit, and thank God I did move here because I would have been really alone up there upstate. This way, at least I had them to be a little pod with during the pandemic. So. Yeah. Yeah.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah. Okay. We're going to take a short break.

Dorothy Lyman: Oh, totally.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And then we'll keep talking for a little bit longer.

Dorothy Lyman: Wonderful.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Okay. Okay, we're back. I mean, you've done a lot of things.

Dorothy Lyman: Well, look, change is where it's at, right? Nothing stays the same. And I've always been one of those people that I guess if I wanted to do it, I did it. You have to have the wherewithal, you know? I'm lucky. I made a good living. I have retirement, Social Security, and things like that. So I'm kind of free to do whatever I want right now. It's a, great luxury. I realized that.

Sharon Johnson: Yeah. That's awesome.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Did directing take precedent over acting for any specific reason, or just. It was always both.

Dorothy Lyman: Well, you get to play all the parts, don't you? If you're the director also, you know, I'm bossy, and so directing kind of suits my personality. And, well, it's just I've made two films, and there's nothing better than that, really. Especially since when you make a film, every audience member sees exactly the same thing. When you do a piece in the theater, it's kind of different every night because it's human and the actors get up to stuff, or don't, you know. But films, everybody sees exactly what you meant, and you can direct their eye, you know, in the theater, you're welcome to look anywhere on that stage you want, but a film director is really choosing for you what you are to look at. And that is an interesting exercise for me.

Susan Lambert Hatem: It's extra bossy.

Sharon Johnson: Do you prefer directing over acting?

Dorothy Lyman: Sort of. I mean, acting is, like, totally fun now, especially when I say my own words. The

00:35:00

Dorothy Lyman: inside matches the outside, you know, truly, for the first time. And so I feel my acting has actually better than probably ever, you know, right now, at a time when there's really nothing for me to do.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Your words are very needed because there is a lack of roles for women.

Dorothy Lyman: You know, I auditioned for parts. the description is a woman in her 80s lies in the hallway of her brownstone, severely beaten. And I, like, say to my agent, I'm like, is this a career move for me, do you think? You know, I read the words severely beaten, and I know that that's three hours in the makeup chair before you ever get on a set.

Sharon Johnson: So, I mean, we're hearing that things are better in terms of roles for women, but clearly there's still a long way to go. I mean, I do think it's true. I think that some of the complexity in female characters has gotten better over the years, but it still has a way to go, that's for sure. And women of all ages, not just younger, or whatever, just the complexity of women of all ages can be better seen. And frankly, you know, again, I know that, soaps are disparaged, but that is a place where you get a chance to see women of all ages having interesting stories to tell, for sure.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Can we talk for a minute about Ruby in Paradise?

Dorothy Lyman: Oh, what a lovely film.

Susan Lambert Hatem: I love that film. And I remember you from that film. You and Ashley Judd. It was such a beautiful, poetic, calm film.

Dorothy Lyman: And Todd Field. And Todd Field, who's become, like, this ace, director, you know. No, Victor Nunes that, you know from Tallahassee, sort of a Southeastern filmmaker. I don't know what he's been doing. I've lost Touch with him. But, he made a film called Uly's Gold after that. No, it was wonderful. It was Ashley Judd's first movie.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yes. So. And it sort of came out of nowhere. I remember it being like indie film time, when indie films could do that. You would never hear of them. And then suddenly they were out. And, successes.

Dorothy Lyman: Well, he shot it with a little old camera that made an awful whirring noise and had to have a pillow wrapped around it. And he knew exactly what he wanted. You know, he shot exactly what he wrote. It was an amazingly nice experience to go down there. Panama City Beach, Florida. You know, it's not on dvd. I mean, you can't. I mean, a, disc. It never. It never came out. I don't know what it was with the contract or what it was. That's a shame that you can't get it. I mean, you could probably find an old. Yeah, an old vhs. I think I have a VHS in Spanish or something upstairs. But, yeah.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah, there's a lot of, lost in between. Right. There's a lot of saving the very old films and such. And then stuff that was made recently is much more easily, digitized, obviously, because it started digitized, but there's some 80s shows that don't exist. And you're like, how could it have run for four seasons or five seasons.

Dorothy Lyman: And not be anywhere and disappear like that? I know it. I know it. Yeah. No, I feel very lucky that Mama's family and the nanny both have become kind of really classic. I mean, the nanny is still, supporting me 20 years later, as it should. And how about our friend? Yes, how about our friend, President of a huge labor union.

Susan Lambert Hatem: That speech.

Dorothy Lyman: Oh, I know.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Man, that was some fiery goodness.

Dorothy Lyman: I got a robo call from her today. Hi, this is Fran, your newly elected president of the Screen actors, trying to encourage me to get out and pick it or something like that.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yes. So I've been revisiting the Nanny and really enjoying it. My husband had never seen it. I'm like, you're going to watch the Nanny with me. And he was very trepidatious because he's like, I've never seen it. And I'm like, and you're going to love it. He loved it. He's like, this is just a big farce every episode.

Dorothy Lyman: And I was like, yes, well, remember the Donald Trump episode?

Susan Lambert Hatem: I do not remember that Donald Trump episode.

Dorothy Lyman: Yeah, yeah. He and Marla came on to do an episode. You know, it was all about how Mr. Sheffield was trying to raise money for his Broadway plays. So he invites Donald and Marla over for drinks, I guess, or something to try to get him to invest in a play. And meanwhile, Fran and Marla, you know, become friends or something. And it was really Marla who was in the episode. Donald was in just a little bit. But when he first ran for president, let's see, the Wall Street Journal called me, the Sunday magazine section, the LA Times, Vanity Fair, they all got in touch with me. Oh, you directed

00:40:00

Dorothy Lyman: Donald Trump. You know, what can you tell us about Donald Trump? And I said, listen, he's going to be president and I don't want my taxes audited. Okay? So I'm nothing. I'm not saying anything about him except that his hair was very, very strange.

Sharon Johnson: Some things don't change.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Enough about that. Let's talk about Tyne Daily, because she was on an episode that you directed of The Nanny.

Sharon Johnson: Yeah, one of the first ones you directed, I think, if I'm remembering correctly.

Dorothy Lyman: Well, I did 75 of them, so.

Susan Lambert Hatem: I don't remember time Daly, but there were a lot of guest stars on the Nanny. Did you have any favorites? Did you have anybody that surprised you?

Dorothy Lyman: Well, I mean, it's kind of amazing when you have Elizabeth Taylor as your guest star. Milton Berle was horrendous. Oh, yeah, no, Bette Midler was fabulous. Celine Dion. I mean, it was, you know, one thrill after the next, you know. No, it was wonderful.

Susan Lambert Hatem: So you're directing. Like, how do you direct back to back episodes? Do you just never stop?

Dorothy Lyman: Well, somebody else is editing it. I mean, all I am responsible for is Monday through Friday nights shooting. And once it's shot, it's out of my hands. The director is supposed to get a first cut, but by the time I saw the first cut, the executive producers had already made a bunch of changes that they wanted. So I thought, this is kind of wasting my time, you know. So Fran liked the consistency of one director. And as I say, I was able to give her a whole day back in her schedule because, you know, you read the script on a Monday for the writers and then they go away and they completely rewrite it and you get a brand new script on Wednesday. So I said to them, why are we working on Tuesday on a script which is going to be completely different by Wednesday morning? Let's go home after the table read on Monday and come back on Wednesday. These actors know what they're doing. We can stage 22 minutes in one day. And so we start at 10 in the morning. And by 2 in the afternoon, we were able to show the thing on its feet in the sets.  

We luckily had our soundstage to rehearse on. And the writers follow along and look at each scene. Then they rewrite again. And by about 8:00 that night, I get a brand new script. And then I write my shots and fax that in. And the next morning we have camera rehearsal day all Thursday. And then at the end of the day in the afternoon on Thursday, we tape it. Not in costume or hair or anything, but we just tape each scene so that the producers can look at it again and then make whatever changes they want for Friday when we come in at noon and tape twice. Once at 5 and once at 7:30 in front of live audiences.  

And we've been taping each scene all day until 5 so that basically it's in the can by the time those audiences come in. But they don't want to use that. They feel the audience brings a, life to the performances. So they try to use the footage from the two live shows. And if we didn't get it clean in either one of those shows, then they would take it from what we had done in the afternoon and stick it in in the editing room. M so you know, I was done at 8 o'clock on Friday night until Monday morning when we'd start another episode. So the people who are editing it and putting it together finally, they were the ones who really had to go to work once we finished.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Well, it's a very busy schedule.

Sharon Johnson: Yeah, but see, you learn something new every day. Because I had not, thought about the process on a four camera show like that and how it differs from a one hour single camera drama.

Dorothy Lyman: Oh, totally, totally. Which shoots for eight days.

Sharon Johnson: Right. And then the director is involved with the editing process. So it's impossible to have the same director week in and week out because they've got other things to do. That's very interesting. That's very interesting.

Dorothy Lyman: Right. Well, even most sitcoms change directors. They'll give you three or two or one a month or something. But as I say, Franny liked the consistency of one person.

Sharon Johnson: Huh?

Dorothy Lyman: And also we were chums. She had been my acting student before she was famous. I started a little theater in Hollywood and in order to pay for my productions, I gave acting classes. And one day this, fabulous gal showed up. It was Franny. Oh, Dorothy got such colors out of me. I had her do, Lillian Hellman's the Children's Hour.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Wait a second. Fran Drescher?

Dorothy Lyman: Yeah.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And Lillian Hellman's, the Children's Hour, you know.

Dorothy Lyman: And at that point, she and Pete had a crouton business. She made these croutons which were baked, not fried, which was like in 1984, whatever it was.

00:45:00

Dorothy Lyman: 87 maybe was a new wrinkle, you know. And, ah, most of them were fatty.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah.

Dorothy Lyman: And so she packaged them and sold them. They baked on Thursdays, mailed them out on Fridays, you know, she and Pete. And she said if they don't make it as actors, they're gonna have a food empire. You know, that this was just the flagship. But do you know she sold that crouton company to Pilgrim Bread or something. it was a big la, brand of bread. I forgot the name of it now, but, M. Yeah, so she made good on the croutons. And then the nanny happened. You know, she was sitting on an airplane. You've heard that story how she.

Susan Lambert Hatem: No, I haven't heard that story.

Dorothy Lyman: She was sitting next to the head of comedy or something at CBS on a flight to Europe. So she had his undivided attention, I think in self-defense. He said, all right, all right, you can come in and pitch it. Just please stop talking, Please stop talking.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Let me fly in peace. Well, you know what, actors are very entrepreneurial. They have to be right? And so many arts people, you're producing for yourself, you're doing all sorts of things. But in particular, like, I know a number of actors that have sort of side businesses that are like really intriguing. It's like lunchboxes, and croutons and.

Dorothy Lyman: You know, cookies, perfume or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Susan Lambert Hatem: That's amazing. So. But you were one of the few and early female four camera sitcom directors. There weren't a lot of you.

Dorothy Lyman: There were nine of us listed in the Directors Guild registry of, four camera sitcom. But of course, if you shoot with four cameras, they don't think you can shoot with one camera. So, you know, you. I said, it's a camera, right?

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah. And it shots.

Dorothy Lyman: Yeah, but there were nine of us. But you know, recently at the last two jobs I had, I, had a part. I played Sarah Jessica's mother in her series, which I thought was charming, called Divorce okay with Thomas Hayden Church. I did an episode of that as her mother. And that woman director came up and said to me, I just want to thank you. You know, I know what you did. And that meant a great deal to me. Then the next job I did was in a series that that very talented young woman, Elle Fanning. Did not the great. But, you know the story of the, girl who persuaded her boyfriend to kill himself over the text message, and he did, and she was sent to jail for it. Carter. The Michelle Carter story or something that had a woman director. That episode had a woman director. And she also said to me, I actually hired you because of what you've done.

Sharon Johnson: How awesome. That's fantastic.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Because from one there will be many, right?

Dorothy Lyman: Yeah, no, it's good. You know, I mean, they promised me in the 70s that it was going to be about women. Well, I'm sort of still waiting.

Sharon Johnson: Yes, well, they tried in the 80s. They really were making some efforts and making some m. Inroads, as we're finding and looking back at some of those shows.

Dorothy Lyman: Yeah, well, now it's all in retreat.

Sharon Johnson: Yeah. Not, sure what happened.

Dorothy Lyman: It's all under attack. Yeah.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Ah, it's all under attack because of the inroads, I think.

Dorothy Lyman: But.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Well, that's a different podcast, isn't it? Maybe, maybe not. So where do you keep your Emmys?

Dorothy Lyman: Oh, they used to be here in the dining room. I think I put them in the. In the bedroom. Yeah. They make excellent door stops, for example.

Sharon Johnson: They are very heavy.

Dorothy Lyman: I keep saying they're lonely.

Susan Lambert Hatem: They're lonely.

Dorothy Lyman: They want a friend. Yes. It's a long time ago now, those Emmys. 42 years or something. Shocking.

Susan Lambert Hatem: You know what? The time. Time is shocking. It really is. But let's go back to your question that, you were talking about in your play, because it struck me when you said how you got to feminism or how you became feminist.

Dorothy Lyman: I read a book called the woman's room in 1977, and I realized that I didn't have to stay home and look after those kids, you know, that I could go live my dream if I just had the courage to do it. And, you know, that's what I did. I didn't have enough money to, like, take the kids with me, so I left them with their dad in Connecticut. And I was the visiting parent and he was a live in parent. And I mean, I had an apartment with room for the minute and things in New York, but basically he wanted to stay out here with the kids. And they were in their school and they had their friends. And so that was the choice we made, that the mother would not be the, custodial parent.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And that was an unusual choice for the time.

Dorothy Lyman: It was, as Soap Opera Digest reminded me. Yeah. The headline said, Dorothy Lyman sacrifices children for career. Wow. And they

00:50:00

Dorothy Lyman: had two little pictures of Emma and Sebastian at age 3 and 5 with the caption underneath it. Oh, Mommy, do you remember when you used to live with us?

Sharon Johnson: Oh, my.

Dorothy Lyman: I mean, thank God there was no Internet.

Sharon Johnson: Oh, my goodness. Yeah, you know.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Wow, that's terrible.

Dorothy Lyman: no, it's awful.

Susan Lambert Hatem: I'm sorry.

Dorothy Lyman: I. Only recently, when I was working on the Mama Log, as I call it, I came across that article, and, you know, it was horrified.

Susan Lambert Hatem: So that's m. Horrifying. But your husband was, like, part of this discussion. It wasn't like he didn't have a choice in the matter.

Dorothy Lyman: Oh, no, he wanted the kids.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah.

Dorothy Lyman: He would have fought me for the kids. And I was like, no, I can't get into that. You know, you go to court and he accuses you of this and that, and you accuse him of that and that. No, no. Then child protective circ. No, no, I will walk away rather than get into any kind of mess. No, you know, I don't talk about that part in the play. And, you know, I hope he's not going to listen to the podcast, because he and I have become, you know, we're sort of back together. You know, my son, I moved back here to Connecticut, and he lives eight miles away, and we see each other all the time. You know, we're. We're grandparents together. We spent a month in Egypt last winter to get away from the cold. We spent two weeks in our daughter's place in Montana together. I mean, we're, you know, we're as back together as two old people can be. And, my son said, you know, oh, mom, my whole life I wished you and daddy would get back together. And now that you have, you know, I don't really care.

Sharon Johnson: But, you know, it does seem like the two of you, as difficult as it must have been at the time, it seems like the two of you made the best of it for the kids, and that's the important thing.

Dorothy Lyman: Yeah. And then I had a second marriage and, had a third child with my second husband. And that, I was a much better mother at age 38 than I had been at age 24. And, that kind of healed the wound left by my first marriage, and I was finally able to forgive myself for what I had done.

Susan Lambert Hatem: But did your kids think you had done something? I mean, at the time, they're kids, and, you know.

Dorothy Lyman: Well, I kind of always worked, so I guess, you know. No, I think they knew that, you know.

Sharon Johnson: Yeah, kids are pretty resilient.

Dorothy Lyman: But on the other hand, they Liked coming to the studio and, you know, they understood I was working.

Sharon Johnson: And your daughter's a producer and I would imagine some of that exposure helped. You know, my daughter's huge.

Dorothy Lyman: She produced both Jokers. Yeah, she's, at the Toronto Film Festival right now with a couple of projects. And, she was Martin Scorsese's producer. Yeah, for 20 years she worked for Mr. Scorsese and now she's striking out on her own, which is so great.

Susan Lambert Hatem: It sounds like you have a great relationship with your kids.

Dorothy Lyman: Oh, yeah, no, it's all good.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah. My mom was a working mom and my dad was gone. Right. my dad was a gone dad. He didn't pay child support. He was supposed to, but he didn't.

Dorothy Lyman: Oh my gosh.

Susan Lambert Hatem: You know, we saw him when my mom would fly us, would pay for us to go see him. I don't think he paid for those flights.

Dorothy Lyman: No, probably not. Oh, wow.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And no one was like, oh, Vic and his sad children and I love my dad. It was the right situation for us. It would have been better if he were more dad like. But at the same time, he wasn't mean, he wasn't, you know, he, he was doing a thing. But there was no, there was no judgment on him. So I mean, it's interesting that you got that judgment. But no one really ever, you know, called my dad out. Of course he wasn't. He wasn't on a soap opera, but they wouldn't have. You know, no one's ever calling out men for going off and working.

Sharon Johnson: Well, I think that's still true today. The way that society responds to the same thing done by the male or female parent is very different because there's still this expectation of what the mom is supposed to do versus what the dad is supposed to do. it's better. But we're still not there yet.

Dorothy Lyman: No.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Oh my gosh. So my husband had two kids. We had chair custody completely down the middle. So when they were pretty young, he got his first TV show that he was making. So he sort of had this little side office and he sort of set it up for the kids. And then his assistant would go, and the week that it was his pick up the kids, bring them back to the office, and basically she would sort of babysit for them while they continued the workday of, you know, breaking the episodes.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And everybody thought it was the greatest thing in the world. So charming. Oh my God. So amazing that Rich is watching his kids. He wasn't. The assistant was,

00:55:00

Susan Lambert Hatem: but he would Go in and play with them. And he's an incredible father. But the perception of that versus a woman doing her first television show trying to pull that off.

Susan Lambert Hatem: It would not have been as praised. Yeah. So you're writing roles for yourself and other women of your age. What is the drive for your writing?

Dorothy Lyman: Well, after my 20 years on the chicken farm, for example, I wrote a play about a widow dairy farmer whose kids want her off the place after four generations. they want to buy a place in Florida, so they want to move their old mom off the farm. And was processing my own grief about leaving my own farm. the first play I ever wrote was about a feminist professor and the young woman from the New York Times magazine section who comes to interview her about why the professor quit her tenured position at a top eastern university in a huff when her young female protege was passed over for promotion for a man. And because she was the head of the feminist studies department, she felt that her remaining at the university was promoting, an awful lie, and so she quit. Anyway, this young girl who is far from a feminist, comes to talk to the professor. And the third character is a professor's husband who's busily, setting the table and cooking the dinner and, you know, picking up the dry cleaning. And they're in a very special marriage that the young girl doesn't understand, of course, and disparages. So that was kind of a dialogue about feminism, the first play I ever wrote. And then I wrote another play about two old women who bought tickets to the moon from Elon Musk.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And what are those plays called?

Dorothy Lyman: Well, the moon play is called Soft Landing. And of course one of them is terminally ill, so they're not really going to go to the moon. But isn't it more fun to talk about going to the moon than about the fact that you're terminally ill?

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yes.

Dorothy Lyman: So it's a comedy about assisted suicide.

Susan Lambert Hatem: That'S, you know, as you do, kind.

Dorothy Lyman: Of a tough sell. Although it's really very good, if I do say so myself. And the farm play is called in the Bleak Midwinter, which is the name of a Christina Rossetti poem and also a Protestant hymn.

Dorothy Lyman: And the play about the feminist and the girl is called A Rage in Tenure. And then I did an adaptation of Ibsen's Enemy of the People called Enemy, which, is set in desert hot springs in modern day desert hot springs. And I made the two brothers two sisters instead.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Interesting.

Dorothy Lyman: Even Ibsen is, has not been spared. that's Right. The Lyman treatment.

Susan Lambert Hatem: The Lyman treatment. Well, I'm excited for those plays so very much. I hope I get a chance to see them. Are you doing something with the one woman show next?

Dorothy Lyman: Oh, I've got to do it once in November. I'm part of a group called the League of Professional Theater Women. it's a New York group, but there's a Connecticut chapter that I'm a member of since I live here in Connecticut and they've asked me to do it in November. And I've had a couple of offers from, well, a college somewhere outside of Chicago and a theater somewhere in Michigan. And you know, if I could make a little tour happen, that would be good.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah, that would be great. Theater's a tough business right now. It always is, but I think a little tougher than usual.

Dorothy Lyman: Yeah, man. Broadway is all revivals of musicals and you know, it costs a million dollars to put a two character play off Broadway.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yes. Yeah.

Dorothy Lyman: I used to be able to afford to produce my plays, but not anymore. Not a. Not like that.

Susan Lambert Hatem: It's a very expensive. And again, it's tough. La, is in a little bit of a crisis moment itself. You know, Center Theater Group basically stopped the Mark Taper season in the middle of the season.

Dorothy Lyman: Yeah, it closed, didn't it?

Susan Lambert Hatem: It closed.

Dorothy Lyman: Wow.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah. But hopefully out of crisis will come opportunity. Oh my God, this has been amazing. Thank you so much.

Dorothy Lyman: Thanks so much for having me and best of luck with your series.

Sharon Johnson: Thank you.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Thank you for joining us and thank you for all your stories. It's been delightful to talk with you. Is there a way that people can find you a, ah, website?

Dorothy Lyman: I have Instagram. I'm on Instagram. You're welcome to click on there. I usually am able to notify about things on Instagram.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Okay.

Dorothy Lyman: It's just Dorothealignment. I think somebody put me on it years ago. But it's not exclusive at all. I mean you can just go get on it.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Okay.

Dorothy Lyman: Thank you for a lovely afternoon.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Thank you so much.

Sharon Johnson: Thank you for joining us.

Dorothy Lyman: My pleasure.

Sharon Johnson: For our audiography today you can watch Mama's Family for free at Pluto TV or it is available for purchase at Apple TV

01:00:00

Sharon Johnson: and Amazon Video.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Follow Dorothy Lyman on instagram@instagram.com Dorothy Lyman.

Sharon Johnson: For native American Heritage Month you can learn which native lands you live on.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Go to Native Land Ca for a really cool interactive map. I highly recommend it.

Sharon Johnson: And did you know that we have 80s TV Ladies merch now on sale at our online store. Go to tinyurl.com 8tv we are currently.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Running a holiday sale on all of our products.

Sharon Johnson: T shirts, mugs, totes and more. For 15% off your whole order, use code Festive80s. That's Festive8 0s. That's 15% off your whole order.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Stay tuned for our next episode will be with Eric Brown, who starred in two seasons of Mama's Family as Buzz Mama's grandson.

Sharon Johnson: As always, we hope 80s TV Ladies brings you joy and laughter and lots of fabulous old and new shows to watch. All of which will bring us closer toward being Amazing Ladies of the 21st century. See you next time.

[Music] [Singing] Amy Englehardt: 80s TV Ladies, So sexy and so pretty. 80s TV Ladies, Steppin’ out into the city. 80s TV Ladies, often treated kind of sh-[wolf whistle]. Working hard for the money in a man’s world. 80s TV Ladies!

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