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EP. 309 - Mama’s Family, Crushing on Stephanie Zimbalist & Private Lessons | Actor Eric Brown
Melissa Roth: Weirding Way media

[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 at female-driven television shows from the 1980s and how that particular pop culture phenomenon shaped our world then and now. Here are your hosts, Sharon Johnson and Susan Lambert Hatem.

Sharon Johnson: Hey everyone, I'm Sharon.
Susan Lambert Hatem: And I'm Susan. Our guest today is by way of serendipity. We ran into a guy who knew a guy at Podcast Movement Evolutions, but also because I think of the 80s as the Kevin Bacon of decades. They are one degree off from everybody.
Sharon Johnson: Everyone knows someone who worked on 80s TV.
Susan Lambert Hatem: So thank you to Muhammad from podcast Movement Evolutions who introduced us to our next guest.
Sharon Johnson: Our next guest is Eric Brown, who starred in two seasons of Mama's Family as Buzz, Mama's grandson. Eric is now the head of Brownbridge Strategies, which does strategy and communications consulting for nonprofits.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Mama's Family was a sitcom spinoff of the Carol Burnett Show.
Sharon Johnson: The sketches spawned the series Mama's Family, which ran on NBC for two seasons from 1983 to 1984.
Susan Lambert Hatem: And then it 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. Hello, Eric Brown. Welcome to 80s TV Ladies.
Eric Brown: Well, thank you for having me. This is going to be fun.
Sharon Johnson: That's the idea.
Susan Lambert Hatem: We're so happy to have you here. How are you doing? You're coming in from the east Coast.
Eric Brown: San Francisco, California.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Our side of town.
Eric Brown: Our side. We're finally seeing the sun. It's been like living in the Bible, waiting for the frogs and the locusts to fall because we've had 40 days of rain. I don't know why I live in San Francisco. I have no blood, so I'm always cold. How did I get here? What happened?
Susan Lambert Hatem: All right, well, we're going to find out today. There you go.
Eric Brown: Saga of what got me to this golden.
Susan Lambert Hatem: I am so excited to hear your story because it sounds very interesting from the outside, so I can't wait to hear the inside.
Eric Brown: There are some twists and turns. It's true.
Sharon Johnson: Well, why don't we start with your time in Hollywood? How did you get started and how did you end up on Mama's Family?
Eric Brown: Okay, I'm going to try and tell this faster than, sometimes happens. I was a very young Child actor. I got my SAG card when I was four.
Sharon Johnson: Wow.
Eric Brown: My grandmother had a friend who was a talent agent, and I was an extrovert even then. And I think my parents said, oh, you know, the kid's cute, and we could use whatever, a new dishwasher, so let's, you know, put him to work. And I went up, for my first audition for Listerine, in which I was meant to blow bubbles through a straw into a glass of milk. I don't know why. I don't remember. I was 4, and, I got the job, and I went in, and it was the middle of the summer. I do remember. It's like some. Maybe it's just a fake memory, but I remember, being hot and kind of sweating, and they were putting whatever that stuff is, sea breeze, on me to keep me cool because they'd have to turn the air conditioner off for sound. And so I sat there all day long, blowing my bubbles through the straw into a glass of milk. And they were like, this kid is a. He's a natural. He's what a trooper.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Put him on Broadway.
Eric Brown: Put him on Broadway. And so, So I did commercials for quite some time. And when I was nine, I auditioned for the first national tour of Pippin, directed by Bob Fosse, whose show was on Broadway at the time. This is 1974, and I didn't get the job. I got number two. But, the kid who did get the job, apparently his parents didn't realize that he was going to have to go out on the road for six months in a bus. And they decided that they didn't want to do that. My mother said, like, fine, send him in the bus. She kissed me on the head and sent me on my way. And I was out on the road for six months in Pippin.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Wait, wait, wait, wait. We may have to do a podcast all about that.
Sharon Johnson: Yeah.
Eric Brown: Uh-huh. So, interestingly enough, I've been interviewing all the people who are still alive from that production just to get their perspective. You know, it's like the blind person who tries to tell you what an elephant is by putting his hand on it. Well, I started asking
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Eric Brown: other people about their perception of that tour, including Barry Williams, who played Pippin. Wow. And the woman who played my mother came to stay with us, last month. We're still in contact. And, it was so interesting. 1974 in a bus. 30 states, 6 months, 1 and 2 night stands. They don't really do tours like that anymore. They called them bus and trucks. And you know Bob Fosse stories.
Susan Lambert Hatem: And Bob Fosse wasn't with you guys?
Eric Brown: No, no, no, no.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Okay.
Eric Brown: He barely directed the show. He was at the time he was editing Lenny. I think he was doing a revival of Damn Yankees with Gwen Verdon or something. I don't know. I had to look it up. But he was very busy. And his dance captain was the choreographer and the producer directed the show. He was basically remounting the Broadway production. But Bob Fosse came in for. For the last run through before you go out on the road, and he gave everybody notes, like, really detailed notes. And Carol, who played my mother, said she got the best note she had ever gotten from anybody ever from him. And what he said was, I don't know if you know the show at all, but she played Catherine, who's this woman who lives on a farm, and she's trying to entice Pippin away from his life of debauchery. But she's kind of tricky, and she has this little boy. And I played the boy, and I was nine. And Bob Fosse says to Carol, said, you're afraid to manipulate him. And she was like, oh, my God. I just figured out this role in one line.
Sharon Johnson: That's fantastic.
Eric Brown: That's one of the 500 million Pippin stories. So I did Pippin. I came home, went back to fifth grade after six months.
Susan Lambert Hatem: I can't get off Pippin for a second. Hold on.
Eric Brown: You have more questions? I'm here.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Do you have an adult with you?
Eric Brown: Yes. the swing dancer. The male swing dance. So the swing dancer is the one who covers all the chorus roles. so he was my chaperone with a very small C and super-duper air quotes. Because he kind of didn't really chaperone me much, but I was a fairly precocious kid, so I was able to put myself to bed and do things.
Susan Lambert Hatem: But you were nine. You were the only kid in the show.
Eric Brown: Yes, I was.
Susan Lambert Hatem: You were the only child on that bus.
Eric Brown: The mama actually has a lot of questions. M. I'm totally on Benjamin Buttoning right now. I'm going backwards. trying to. Trying to have a childhood now, because I didn't have one as a child. So, yeah, that's exactly what happened.
Susan Lambert Hatem: There you go. The seventies. That's the seventies.
Eric Brown: People say, like, oh, in the old days, the kids, we used to play in traffic and never got hit by cars. So it's kind of like that. Who knew? It was an interesting time, a very, very interesting Time to be traveling. And we traveled. I mean, we traveled around the south, and the dancers had to be careful where they went. One time we were in. I think we were in New Orleans or Baton Rouge, one or the other. And, the dancers didn't take their makeup off. Just got on the bus and went. And they still had their wig caps. And they would just go back to the hotel and get out of their makeup there because for whatever reason, it was late or something. And so they're walking down the street, and the couple pulled over for solicitation because they thought they were dressed like sex workers. So that was life on the road.
Susan Lambert Hatem: No, we're just in a Bob Fosse.
Eric Brown: Show with the Jazz Hands.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah.
Eric Brown: so that was. That was vivid.
Susan Lambert Hatem: That is, so crazy. What an incredible experience. And yet, do you, like. Do you have, like, vivid memories?
Eric Brown: I mean, nine is very much so.
Eric Brown: Very. I don't. I don't remember fifth grade or sixth grade, but I remember my six months on the road. Yeah. Yeah. I was sitting there with Carol. Oh, yeah. I remember we were in Davenport. We walked over the bridge to Rock Island, Illinois, and we went to the Read More bookstore. Like, how in the hell did I remember that stuff? It's like, I have no idea what you're talking about, but it was half true. I looked it up.
Sharon Johnson: I don't know if you ever had an opportunity to compare notes with any other kid actors and find out whether your experience was at all similar to theirs and that you were on the road by yourself and really no adult supervision and all the rest of it.
Eric Brown: I do have a friend. We did Peter Pan. We did, what do you call it? A summer stock production of Peter Pan with Tovah Feldshuh and George Rose. George Rose played the Major General on Broadway, in Pirates of Penzance. And Tovah is Tovah. She's done a million things. And it was a very interesting cast. It was me. Ian Ziering was in it. Do you remember Ian Ziering from 90210? Yeah. and Glenn Scarpelli, who was on One Day at a Time.
Eric Brown: And this guy, Willy Morrison, who was a Broadway actor. We all ended up. We were just schmoes. We were Equity, but we were schmoe Equity kids. And we did the show. And Glenn and I have stayed in touch. And he was here for dinner not that long ago. He was in Golda on, Broadway with Anne Bancroft. And so he would hang out with Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft. He was in Richard III with Al Pacino on Broadway. So, ah, he was in They All Left, Directed by
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Eric Brown: Bogdanovich with John Ritter and Dorothy Stratton. Wow. And then he was on One Day at a Time. He knew Valerie Bertinelli really well. And like the whole One Day at A Time ladies of the 80s.
Susan Lambert Hatem: All right, well, you know what? He and I are going to get a couple phone numbers from you.
Eric Brown: And he's great with very similar kind of unchaperoned experiences as young people.
Susan Lambert Hatem: That is just so amazing when you think, like now what it is to cast a child on stage, and put them on a show. I mean, you just. You don't do that without three adults in a room.
Eric Brown: It's crazy. I mean, I understand it. I don't. It makes sense. The fact that Glenn and I, we ended up upright is a great thing, but probably fair amount of good fortune involved. I'll go through the really fast version. I did a bunch of other theater and then I ended up understudied on Broadway, On Golden Pond. Then I got this movie called Private Lessons. I was cast as the sidekick in Private Lessons. I was a Mr. Bridesmaid and the lead got fired and I stepped into the role of the lead. I did that, came back to New York.
Susan Lambert Hatem: And we're going to talk about that from a Mama's perspective. We'll come back to that.
Eric Brown: That one's a. That's a tricky bit right now. But, then I went on the national tour of On Golden Pond. And then, my, senior year of high school, I got an audition from Mama's Family. I went in and I did one, like, one short scene in New York on tape. And they called me the next day and said, can you come out to la, Ah, and meet with Brandon Tartikoff? And, oh, I knew who he was, and auditioned for him. And I went in there and I went back out into the room, and they say, you got the part. Can you. We start shooting in two weeks or three weeks or something like that. So I moved to. Moved, to LA. I lived at the Sheraton Universal for six weeks.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Were you by yourself on this tour, too?
Eric Brown: And then I rented a room in someone's house at Woodman and Oxnard out in Van Nuys, and eventually got an apartment down in Hermosa beach, which was a bad mistake because nobody comes to Hermosa Beach. and I did the show for two years and it was really fun. I didn't have a very big part because who are you going to take lines away from Betty White, Rue McClanahan, Harvey Korman, or those kids, Lawrence? Let's give, like, let's give the lines to Eric instead. So, I used to joke that I was the highest paid performer in Hollywood, if you were counting by the word.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Oh, my God. All right, so where did you guys shoot Mama's Family?
Eric Brown: At CBS Television City, which was weird because it was an NBC show, but Carol had such a relationship with CBS that they let her use her stage, which was the same stage that Price is Right was, and I think maybe even still is taped on. And so we would. Monday through Thursday, Wednesday it would be Price is Right, and then we'd move in on Thursday and then shoot on Friday or whatever it was. And that was. Yeah. So we were in. At CBS Television City, right At Beverly in Fairfax.
Sharon Johnson: Can you talk about your first day walking on the set or the first table read where you are now meeting all these folks, these legends of television? I don't know how else to describe them.
Eric Brown: I used to, like, Used to say, or I still say that it was like being a bat boy on the 1927 Yankees. We're like, there's Babe Ruth and there's Lou Gehrig. And I'm like, here's your bat, sir. it was really cool. I was probably too stupid to be intimidated, but because I had fancied myself a real actor and had come out of theater and all this other stuff, I also considered myself a professional. And so I went in there to do my thing, and it was scary because I had so few lines. And I will tell you, the first time we taped might have been the first run through. Like, you do two shows in front of an audience, and the first one is considered the dress rehearsal, but they'll use things if it's good, and they'll have something to cut with and all that stuff.
So the first time. So I go in, I've got one or two lines in this scene. And if you're in a scene and you only have one or two lines, you're not in it. It's not like you're reacting. You're just. You're sitting there waiting to say your words. So I'm listening for my cue, and I'm listening, right? And the cue comes and I go. Nothing came out of my head. Like, stop tape, stop. Like, oh, my God, what did I just do? I'm fired. So that was kind of what it was like a lot of the time. Just listening for my cue because I'M really not. I'm going to come like, hey, Grandma, how you doing? Great, thanks. Bye. I'm going to go to school now. Bye. And that's that. I'm going like, why am I in stuff? But being with them was extraordinary. And sitting there watching them rehearse was honestly like being a fly on the wall in comedian's heaven. They were really funny. They were incredible kibitzers. They were always futzing about. They were always trying new things. They would write as they went. They'd ad lib all the time in the rehearsal room, and then the writers would go scrambling
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Eric Brown: back to try and put things in and characters of the highest order. Rue McClanahan was a quirky, kooky lady from Oklahoma. When she'd make mistakes, she'd go, eddie Rue. Because her full name's Eddie Rue. Like, Eddie. Oh, Eddie Rue. What did you do there?
Susan Lambert Hatem: She would talk about herself.
Eric Brown: Yeah, she talked. She. She talked to herself in the third person using her.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Her real name.
Sharon Johnson: Anywho, that's awesome.
Eric Brown: Betty was, As you know, the rumors that Betty White was. Had a kind of a dirty streak. Yeah, like a blue. A blue streak. They are true.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Okay, but you've been on the Pippin bus.
Eric Brown: So was it really then I couldn't handle. But still, she had a. Just a kind of a, you know, she was the whatever, Sue Ellen's opposite yang or yin or whatever. And so she and the crew would take advantage of that and they would do practical jokes that kind of steered towards her blue side. And, you couldn't. You couldn't or wouldn't do that today on a television set. I will just say, and I won't get into detail, but it was cheesy. It was.
Susan Lambert Hatem: It was body. It was a body time.
Eric Brown: They were like constantly futzing. It was hilarious and wonderful because they just knew what was funny. And if something wasn't funny, they would fix it or make it better. And because they were all generous and they all knew each other so well, it's not like, oh, you know, like adding lines for yourself. Huh? Korman.
Eric Brown: You know, none of that. They were just. It was like great, great jazz and funny. You're just always laughing. So we spent a lot of time laughing. And, Harvey Korman was the director.
Susan Lambert Hatem: And there were two directors. How did that work?
Eric Brown: Well, we had a camera director. Harvey didn't care about where the camera was. He just cared about the performances. So we had two directors. Harvey was there in the room. The camera director's in the room there too, because he's trying to figure out how to shoot it. But Harvey didn't have to worry about that stuff. He would just direct the actors and direct the comedy.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Like it was a theater piece.
Eric Brown: Exactly. And then Friday you do two shows, like in the theater.
Susan Lambert Hatem: With an audience.
Eric Brown: With an audience, yeah. You bring the audience. There's a standup comic or somebody who's supposed to warm them up and get them excited. And you do one and then you take a break and then you do another and then that's that. And it takes a week and they do it. It's kind of crazy.
Susan Lambert Hatem: That's so crazy. And then you would take your 18 year old self and drive to the.
Eric Brown: Back to Hermosa Beach.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Back to Hermosa Beach.
Eric Brown: That's what I did.
Sharon Johnson: So since you spent so much time in New York working in theater on the road, how much television were you able to watch as you were growing up? I guess I'm wondering how you might have known who these folks were. The adult cast of Mama's Family before you started working on it.
Eric Brown: Oh, I mean, everybody watched the Carol Burnett Show. It wasn't out all that often, but I was a huge fan of the Carol Burnett show. And I sure as heck knew who all those people were. I knew Betty White, Dorothy Lyman, who was on the show. She was on All My Children and I knew that.
Sharon Johnson: Right.
Eric Brown: She was Opal Gardner. Wow, that's crazy. And she was doing both shows at the same time. I don't know how she did it.
Sharon Johnson: That's amazing.
Eric Brown: Yeah.
Sharon Johnson: And it's also amazing that both shows were able to work together to accommodate that since they were on different networks, I believe. wow.
Eric Brown: I think so. Yeah. No, it was. Who knows why or how. But it was super cool. And Dorothy was very funny. Very, very, very funny. And great. Smart and great. I ended up stage managing a play that she directed. that Oh, Yeardley Smith was in this play that we did called Living on Salvation Street. It was an equity waiver.
Susan Lambert Hatem: When was this? This was this. This is 84 in the 80s. So right around the same time.
Eric Brown: 86, something like that. I don't know. I think I was probably off the show by then. I was. Okay, so it was 86 or 87. But Yeardley was discovered by the casting director for The Simpsons who was watching that play, according to some story I read. So.
Susan Lambert Hatem: So it's really. You're responsible. You should get a little percentage.
Sharon Johnson: That's true.
Eric Brown: I'm only responsible if it went wrong. I'm guilty, but never responsible.
Susan Lambert Hatem: All right, so one of the episodes that I watched that you're in is, Mama's birthday and you got actually this great scene. It's rare that you had a whole scene. Right. It is true. The kids were pretty shoved to the side.
Eric Brown: Yeah.
Susan Lambert Hatem: But you had this lovely scene in the attic, where she's gonna tell the story.
Eric Brown: Yeah.
Susan Lambert Hatem: You know, the show starts off pretty sketchy. Like sketch based, not sketchy.
Eric Brown: It was also sketchy. I went back and watched a couple episodes, like, whoa, some of this stuff is out there for network television. It was pretty on the edge.
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Eric Brown: But anyway, continue.
Susan Lambert Hatem: No, that's what I'm saying. Like it definitely starts off edgy because there's lots of sort of alluded to sleeping around. But it got warmer. The show got warmer. Like it started off being everybody pretty awful to each other. Like the sketch.
Eric Brown: Yes. Yeah.
Susan Lambert Hatem: And then end of season one and then season two, you had those sort of kind of sad and sweet moments.
Eric Brown: You're right. I think early on we didn't know what we were doing. I mean, I don't say that in a bad way. I mean like we just didn't know what the show was. And as it happens, memory serves me, we did two or three episodes and we went on hiatus to fix it. because I think the network said this isn't really landing. We were a mid season replacement hoping to get on at some point. And I think we ended up on in January of 83. I think we had 13 episode by for the first season. But the first couple of episodes were, I think they were a little clunky or something, wasn't quite clicking. And I think that's perhaps what you were sensing there is that the show doesn't know what it is yet. And then it kind of found its feet a little bit. And after we went back to the drawing board a little bit and I think they just rewrote some of the scripts and spent a little more time thinking about it. And so I went home, I went back to New York after two or three weeks and we thought maybe we would get canceled or we didn't know what was going to happen. Then they brought us back out and we resumed operations. And, the first season went pretty well. I mean, I think it did fairly well.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Vicki Lawrence was what, 25, 30?
Eric Brown: Let's do the math. She knows she was older than 30. Let's see, 95.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Vicki Lawrence was 18 when she started the Carol Burnett Show.
Sharon Johnson: Yeah. Which would have been in the late 60s when she started on the show, I believe.
Eric Brown: So she was 30 and Reek was 33.
Susan Lambert Hatem: And she's playing someone who's 63.
Eric Brown: Yeah. At least. Or something. Whatever she is.
Susan Lambert Hatem: According to, either IMDb or somebody on mama's birthday, she's turning 63.
Eric Brown: Okay.
Susan Lambert Hatem: According to some Internet thing.
Eric Brown: Oh, interesting. Yeah. These, numbers don't make any sense anymore because Rob Lowe is 63, so, you know.
Susan Lambert Hatem: I know it doesn't. People's.
Sharon Johnson: Is he really?
Susan Lambert Hatem: But she was playing that character of Mama since she was in her 20s.
Eric Brown: Right, right, exactly. Yes. And. Which is kind of the joke. Anyway. It's not meant to be an accurate depiction of a person of a certain age. It's just a. You know, it's some crazy thing, and it's so insane.
Susan Lambert Hatem: That entire show was built around that concept.
Eric Brown: Yes.
Sharon Johnson: But it worked. It worked on the Carol Burnett Show. That's.
Eric Brown: It did.
Sharon Johnson: That's what it was.
Eric Brown: Yeah, it did. It's,
Susan Lambert Hatem: And then people who are older than her are playing her daughters.
Eric Brown: Children.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah, her children.
Eric Brown: It's a big goof.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Like, there is the moment when Betty White is hooking up with a younger man.
Eric Brown: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Susan Lambert Hatem: There's big conflict. I'm blanking on the name of that episode. But, you know, Mama is upset that Betty White, who's in her 50s at that point, at least.
Eric Brown: Yeah.
Susan Lambert Hatem: As an actress, is hooking up with someone in their 30s who is actually the same age as Vicki Lawrence, who's playing someone in her 60s who couldn't possibly have a daughter that age. But, that's fine, because it's the magic of television.
Eric Brown: You know what? We invented the television metaverse. We just didn't know it.
Susan Lambert Hatem: It was like WandaVision. Early WandaVision.
Eric Brown: There was a fair amount of suspension of disbelief. It's true. Yes.
Susan Lambert Hatem: All right, well, what were some of your favorite episodes?
Eric Brown: Definitely doing the 50s dance thing.
Sharon Johnson: Yes. Yes.
Eric Brown: Super-duper fun.
Sharon Johnson: That looked like it must have been a real hoot.
Eric Brown: It was really, actually. All right. Ah, we're on video here. I have something really cool that's, So this.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Oh, my God.
Eric Brown: Is the character. And so Rhett, who is our. You know, he's Bob Mackie's assistant, and he was our costume designer. And then here's a picture of Karen and me.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Oh, my God.
Eric Brown: In our costumes.
Sharon Johnson: Oh, that's awesome.
Eric Brown: Anyway, that's.
Susan Lambert Hatem: That is amazing.
Eric Brown: That was really fun. I. You know, as. As it happens, I was a tap dancer as A kid.
Sharon Johnson: Oh, my goodness.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Well, this is why you were in Pippin.
Eric Brown: There’s no tap in Pippin. I don't think I know.
Susan Lambert Hatem: But the fact that you could meant I could.
Eric Brown: I could have. And I always wanted them to let us do a show where Ken and I dance because Kenny's a great. Was a great tap dancer. And they said no. I was like, wouldn't it be great if Buzz's dad had entered the talent show or something and did a tap thing? And who cares whether it makes any sense or not, because for all the reasons we already discussed, but it didn't go. That would have been my favorite episode.
Susan Lambert Hatem: So the episode that didn't happen but should have happened. I'm in. That sounds great.
Eric Brown: I think it would have been so much fun. there was another one where we're going to the prom and. And, curfew makes two. Yeah, the curfew one makes two different curfews. That was fun. I had stuff to do and I got some laughs and things like
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Eric Brown: that, but it was hard. I didn't have much to do on that show.
Susan Lambert Hatem: The curfew one stands out for me because, you know, Sharon has a similar story. I think that one would resonate with her emotionally because she had a brother.
Eric Brown: I think it was called Double Standard. Double Standard. That was the name of the episode. Double Standard. Did that happen to you, Sharon?
Sharon Johnson: Oh, that was just sort of my life. My older brother, who I love dearly, by the way, was a year older and shout out to Michael. Yes. Had a lot more freedom as a male child than I did as a female child. So, just the way it was. But, you know, I've gotten over it.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Until you reminded my mama's Family episodes.
Eric Brown: Oh, yeah, that's right. Which triggered you.
Susan Lambert Hatem: But that's the interesting thing about the show is the character and the family have a little, you know, all in the family like, element to them. Mama seems very traditional for the 80s. She seems like a 50s mama in many ways. And yet her son moves back in with his kids because his wife has left him. She also lives with her sister, played by Bryn McClanahan. And then, you know, chaos ensues, right? Like, so there's lots of sex jokes because then Ken Berry's character starts dating the next door neighbor. And then they get married and, are, in theory, constantly having sex. And then they slip in something like, well, you know, women shouldn't have a less curfew than guys. Suddenly they're, like, standing up for girl power, right?
Eric Brown: They did whatever they wanted. I think that was the short version. Where can we find comedy? And they didn't care whether it was battle of sexes, whether it was generation gap, whether it was. They were certainly mining class issues.
Eric Brown: Where can we find funny things? Because their first love or their first responsibility was to the joke.
Susan Lambert Hatem: What was funny?
Eric Brown: Yeah. What's funny?
Susan Lambert Hatem: What was going to be funny?
Eric Brown: Where can we find some funny? And Carol, you know, Carol could find funny anywhere. Wherever she went, she found funny. There was this one episode we did. This is one of my favorites. I don't even think I was in it or if I was. I was in it for a minute. But, where they did a community theater, and there's this. He was very. Waiting for Guffman.
Eric Brown: And. And I'm sure that they, you know, looked at that episode. I would be surprised if they hadn't when they made a movie. But the director is, of course, this failed whatever. And he's. And he's got this very funny hairpiece. But we never talked about the hairpiece. The actor who is playing this character. And then when we did this show for the second time. Not the first time, the second time, Harold reaches over and pulls the hairpiece off, and he's got like. His guy is totally bald. And I to this day do not know if she was planning. I mean, she was planning it. Whether she told anybody, she told him. we never rehearsed it. She just did it in the final. On, the final tape air show. And to my mind, she's like, oh, my God, this is going to be very funny. I'm going there. And like I said, we never rehearsed that. We never rehearsed that moment. So part of me thinks that he just did it.
Susan Lambert Hatem: He just did it.
Sharon Johnson: How did the rest of the cast react when it happened?
Eric Brown: I think we all just melted.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Did you break a lot? I mean, was it hard not to break?
Eric Brown: yeah. Yeah.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Watch Carol Burnett play Eunice, which is insane.
Eric Brown: She was great.
Susan Lambert Hatem: I'm thinking of RashaMama.
Eric Brown: Yes.
Susan Lambert Hatem: In which they, you know, tell the story of how mama ended up in the hospital from each of their points of view. And, oh, my God, that is a lot of humor. And each time is pretty amazing. But in particular, Carol. It's a Carol Burnett. I mean, although Betty, like, they're all. They all have, you know, Dorothy, Betty White. They all are spectacular.
Eric Brown: And because they're so strong in sketch, they were so grounded, they could do whatever they wanted. It's like being a great jazz Improviser. Like, you knew what key you were in. You knew the time signature was. As long as you stayed on beat and stayed in key, you could go wherever you wanted. And they. As long as they hit their mark and, found their light, they could do what they wanted to do. And they did. That's why they break is because they just couldn't stand not acknowledging the genius of the thing that that person standing in front of them just did, you know, so you had to. I mean, you'd be crazy hard to imagine a human being not be moved by that. So that's why they. And they were having fun. And if you ever go see improv, the funniest moments are when the cast starts laughing.
00:30:00
Eric Brown: Because now you were all in on the same joke, right? Yeah, right. And I think there was. There was a kind of a flavor of that in this show because it was absurd. All the premises were absurd. So we know what we're looking at. It's not like we're looking at real life. We're looking at something different. And so that gave them flexibility to do different things. And because they were so talented and so incredibly well schooled at this stuff, they could do things that mere mortals couldn't. Mere mortals, like myself.
Susan Lambert Hatem: And did you and Karen, bond a little bit. Who played your sister? Because you were like, okay, we're just the flute section here, so with the furniture.
Eric Brown: Yes, we did. We were friends, actually. Dorothy and Karen and I were friends and we would hang out and do things and stuff like that. Dorothy, of course, had lots to do, but Karen was great and we were pals and we'd hang out, do things and.
Susan Lambert Hatem: So any, special guest stars? I have one that in particular I want to ask you about, but is there any, special guest stars that you, worked with that you're like, oh, that was super fun?
Eric Brown: Oh, no, actually, the ones that I was not in the show were, Jack Guilford and Imogene Coca came on. But because they were there, and I did know they were, I just went and spent the week sitting in the rehearsal room anyway, even though I was not in that episode. I mean, these. Yeah, like, they are the masters of, of. Of the live television era and, you know, the Sid Caesar show and all that other stuff, like, extraordinary. So that. Those are big, but there are so many. We had so many fun people who would come through. Jerry Reed was great.
Susan Lambert Hatem: That's who I want to ask you about.
Eric Brown: He was amazing.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Was he great in person?
Eric Brown: He was. He was great.
Susan Lambert Hatem: I'm a huge Smokey and the Bandit fan. Secret.
Eric Brown: Great.
Susan Lambert Hatem: And I love Jerry Reed.
Eric Brown: There were a few others who were really fun and cool. Fred Willard was.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Fred Willard.
Eric Brown: Fred Willard.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Yes, you're right.
Eric Brown: Fred Willard. Fred Willard was. Oh, my God, he was amazing. Just again, he plays Fred Willard. Fred Willard is, ah, Fred Willard is Fred Willard. And so he has that very dry, deadpany thing 24 hours a day. It's not like when they turned up the camera, he goes, he was just, fun. Oh, Bill Wyndham. Yes. Yes, Bill Wyndham. That guy was incredible also. I mean, a terrific actor.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah. Really spectacular. I was like sitting there going, who is that? Who is that? I thought it was Hal Holbrook for the longest time, right?
Eric Brown: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Susan Lambert Hatem: there was real pathos often, surprisingly, particularly in the second season.
Eric Brown: Again, the, other thing is once you know something's going to be funny, then you get to butts around with it, which is, I think, to your point. And maybe it's the network is saying we need to make them nicer or whatever, but I wasn't privy to those conversations.
Susan Lambert Hatem: You weren't into network conversations? Eric knows a thing or two. He's been on the Pippin bus.
Eric Brown: I was just trying to keep my job.
Susan Lambert Hatem: I was going to say, so what are you thinking? What are you feeling when you're, on this show and you're like, I'm not being used enough, but I'm in a successful sitcom.
Eric Brown: Funny, because my agent was Wilt Melnick, and I'm not making that up. He's like the most agency name Hollywood Wilt, who's a great guy. And as soon as I got on the show, he's, I gotta get you off the show. You don't have enough to do. I gotta get you something better. Which, you know, it wasn't his fault that he failed, but. And I'm thinking to myself, I'm learning, I'm here, I'm happy to. I got to go to the network affiliates conventions, which is what the upfronts used to be called, and. And they send a limousine to your house and they give you a voucher for a tuxedo rental, and you hobnob with Morgan Fairchild and those people. And I'm on television. And, so far, so good.
Eric Brown: So I was not complaining, put it that way. I wanted more to do, but I also understood why I was doing what I was doing. And I just wanted the chance to be funny and the normal person in a scene full of crazies can be really important and valuable, and they didn't use me that way. so if you think about Marilyn and the Munsters, or in any improv or sketch comedy, there's always one person who represents the audience who goes, like, that's crazy. And so they become the proxy for the audience. That's the normal person who's reacting to the madness around them. And, I could have played that role if they had wanted to. But, like, I don't blame them. Why give me any lines when you got all these other people there? So when the show went off the air, which is disappointing. Let's just say it was disappointing. And then when they brought it back, and they didn't bring me back.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah. So how do you find out in the 80s that your shows got canceled? Yeah.
Eric Brown: The producer calls you up like, we got canceled, and then we're off. And then reading things in the trade that they may bring us back, which was exciting. We were going to go back in original syndication, which was exciting. And then they announced that it's back. And I got the same call from the same producer saying, like, hey, good news, bad news. Good news is we're back. The bad news is not you. And they made the boy character, big, like, dumb guy. So
00:35:00
Eric Brown: he was funny. He was more. It was more of the. He was of the group. So they didn't have a normal person who was. I think they just decided that from a comic perspective, it didn't work. So whether they're right or not, I couldn't say. But, I mean, Alan Kaiser was great. He was very funny. The show was funny. I don't blame anybody. That's how it goes.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah. All right. So how did Vicki Lawrence and Carol Burnett get along?
Eric Brown: They seem to really work well together.
Susan Lambert Hatem: I know that later. I think it had to do with the pickup for syndication, from what I've read.
Eric Brown: Oh. That they didn't get along and then.
Susan Lambert Hatem: They later made up.
Eric Brown: Interesting. I. I didn't spend time reading about it, to be honest with you. But. But. And maybe had something to do with the fact that Carolyn. Joe Hamilton had divorced by that point or so. There may have been. And it was Joe's show. He owned it. But she must have had a part.
Susan Lambert Hatem: I think it had to do with that. Yeah.
Eric Brown: It probably got complicated.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Yes. When your personal lives and your professional life are entwined.
Eric Brown: Yeah. And, like, Joe Hamilton is funny because he was the opposite. My recollection is very Serious guy.
Susan Lambert Hatem: And he was married to Carol Burnett and produced the Carol Burnett, Carol Burnett show and Mama's Family.
Eric Brown: Yeah. Just a very serious dude. And I always found that to be interesting. You know, you never know.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Well, it's the anchor that lets somebody, you know.
Eric Brown: Yeah. The business guy and Vicky's husband, Al, similar.
Eric Brown: Al was a. Her makeup man on the Cal Burnett show. And he looks like a truck driver. He's like a big, strapping, macho dude. And he's a makeup man who's not what you think of when you think about, a makeup person. and he became Vicky's manager, and he was, I think, very protective of her image and her work, and he kind of managed that. And it's possible that he was also kind of her interlocutor between her and Joe or her and Carol. So who knows what that was all about? But he was also just not the person you would think to be married to someone who is funny and creative. Because Joe just looked. He just looked like a football player. Vicki have us out there. And she lived out in the Valley, wherever, Thousand Oaks or something like that. It's a fabulous house and she'd invite people to cast over for her parties, things like that. And, it was fun. I'll tell you.
Susan Lambert Hatem: It sounds fun. And, you know, like. So Vicki Lawrence is still wearing. She does a show that she calls a two woman show about her and Mama. Have you seen the show?
Eric Brown: My mother's seen it in Las Vegas.
Susan Lambert Hatem: I want to go see the.
Eric Brown: My mother lives in Las Vegas, bless her.
Eric Brown: I would love to go see it. I did see Carol do her show here in San Francisco. I think people still watch the show. Yes, it's still popular. This is 40 years ago.
Susan Lambert Hatem: It was such an iconic, character. Her and Eunice, like, you know, they built something great.
Eric Brown: I mean, it's really cool.
Susan Lambert Hatem: The absurd version of what was reflective of a lot of what was happening in female relationships in the 80s, I think, for, I would say my parents and the generation. And there was something about Mama and the Eunice relationship that while it was funny, it also hit. You knew it. You knew people that were that close to that.
Eric Brown: Yeah, mothers and daughters.
Susan Lambert Hatem: It was mothers and daughters.
Eric Brown: But it was easy relationships.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah, yeah.
Eric Brown: But they're challenging. And so if you can find the humor in that and still tell the truth, people. But they want to see that, you.
Sharon Johnson: Know, but that's what builds the comedy, too, because whether your relationship with your mother as a woman is as extreme as Eunice and her mother's is, there's a kernel of. I see that situation, or I've seen it elsewhere. There's a level of groundedness in it that makes it funny. And hopefully you don't have the kind of.
Susan Lambert Hatem: And you're like, well, at least we're not that.
Sharon Johnson: Exactly.
Eric Brown: It also makes you feel better about your own.
Eric Brown: Existence. What do they say comedy is? Tragedy plus time.
Eric Brown: So, you know, and.
Susan Lambert Hatem: All right, so there was some singing on the show. Did anybody ever sing? Because I want. I want Shack.
Eric Brown: Yeah, we were up in the, in the attic. She sang Little. Little Grass Shack. Little grass Shack finds the ukulele and, you know, in her classic way, she picks it up and she plinks it. But, like, by picking it up, she makes a noise with it. She looks at it, you know, finds the. Sees the moment and starts to play. So she did do that as Mama?
Susan Lambert Hatem: Of course, as Mama.
Eric Brown: Kind of funny. Was that a different one?
Sharon Johnson: Yeah. On the first episode of season two.
Eric Brown: I can't, you know, the show a lot better night.
Sharon Johnson: Well, no, we've just been spending some time. Refreshing.
Eric Brown: Because maybe you're right.
Susan Lambert Hatem: No.
Sharon Johnson: Cause it was part of the story. She was looking forward to performing and
00:40:00
Sharon Johnson: everything. And with you guys at the dance as that. And then she's plunking on the ukulele and you guys. Anyway, you guys walk in and tell her that, oh, they've decided to do something else. She's so disappointed. But I can't remember what song it was. And I just watched it the other day.
Eric Brown: But I did get the jitterbug with Vicki Lawrence. That was probably one of the highlights of being on that show. All right.
Susan Lambert Hatem: And in my imagination, sometime backstage, she sang, the Night the Lights Went out in Georgia too.
Eric Brown: Maybe M. It was on the episode where Imogene Coco, and Jack wasn't in it.
Susan Lambert Hatem: All right, so let's take a break, and then we'll, come back. We have to talk about Remington Steele.
Eric Brown: Oh, yeah, can't wait.
Susan Lambert Hatem: You know, and some other things and. And what you're up to now. So, we'll take a break. All right, we're back. We get to talk about Remington Steele and other things. And I want to hear more about your podcast and where you are now. But let's go to Remington Steele.
Eric Brown: Okay. What do you want to know?
Susan Lambert Hatem: All right, so you were in Blood Is Thicker than Steel.
Eric Brown: Yes.
Susan Lambert Hatem: And you were playing. You were about 18?
Eric Brown: Yeah, I think I was 18. 17 or 18.
Sharon Johnson: Is this something you did before Mama's Family then?
Eric Brown: No, it was during a, ah, hiatus.
Sharon Johnson: Okay.
Susan Lambert Hatem: In the show Remington and Laura have been hired to sort of protect a billionaire who's gonna testify against other bad billionaires, but he wants his kids protected, and so he hires Remington and Laura to protect his two kids.
You play the son who's 15, 16, and then there's a, daughter that's like nine, eight or nine, something like that. Yeah, yeah. And so they have to go take you away and then ultimately get you to Arizona from la. And then there's bad guys after you the whole time.
Eric Brown: Of course, hijinks ensue.
Susan Lambert Hatem: HiJinks ensue.
Sharon Johnson: And you have a big crush on, Laura Holt.
Eric Brown: Right. Which was easy.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Okay, so what was it like working with Stephanie Zimbalist and Pierce Brosnan?
Eric Brown: They were still at the beginning of their careers. Pierce Brosnan was a long way from James Bond.
Eric Brown: And the character I play. So I play this kind of arrogant, rich kid who has a, ah, crush on Laura. And I had played, not a version, sort of kind of a version of that in private lessons, where actually I was a innocent, naive, kind of stumbling rich kid who has this relationship with his older woman in her plot to extort money from him, and hijinks would also ensue. You can never make that movie today, that's for sure. I'm surprised that they even allow anyone to watch it. And my wife is mad at my mother for letting me be in it, but I landed on my feet, and so that's how that goes. Anyway.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Oh, you think you're getting out of more questions about that?
Eric Brown: We're kind of going to circle back.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Around, but thank you for starting it.
Eric Brown: I wasn't able to close the door in that conversation. I'm more than happy to talk about it. But, so I'm in this kind of playing a little slightly typecast character in. And I have to tell you, I was head over heels in love with Stephanie Zimbalist. She was fabulous and funny and nice, and we taught each other to juggle on the set.
And Pierce Brosnan was a gentleman and humble. He was like the Hugh Grant without all the terrible stuff. he was, like, really nice. He used to make jokes about his hair, how it was just a piece that he would put on the hat rack when he walked into the office. he was his wife. We come by. This is his wife who passed away. I think she passed away in the 90s. He was utterly devoted to her, and he was like, oh, my wife is coming. I'm so excited. it was really fun and basically did Most of the show inside an RV that was on this soundstage, and they would rock, shake and bake the rv. So it was kind of the RV show. But it was so much fun. It was so much fun. I can't begin to tell you how much fun it was.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Well, and you had really great scenes with them. Like, you had scenes with Laura that were really meaningful. Then you had this scene where you stop being kind of a jerky kid and become like, hey, what's it really like to, you know, you trying to get some guy advice about Girls from Pierce Brosnan from Remington Steele. And that scene is so neat.
Eric Brown: Well, the other thing is that, okay, I'm kind of blocked on this other show where I don't get to do much. And if you're the lead guest, it's called top of the show, and they pay you the most money that they make available. So I was at the top of the show, lead guest on this show. Like, wow, this is fun. Kind of.
00:45:00
Eric Brown: I see how this could go if I play my cards right. And, got to work with these great people. I knew the show, and Pierce Brosnan was. He was already kind of very popular. He was a big star at the time. and Stephanie, also. Barbara Peters directed, and she was like a great director. No nonsense. She knew what she wanted. But there were very few women directors in television at the time. And that was fun to work with her. And she just was great, especially with television, which goes so fast. The crew was, It was a good crew as kind of a, They'd been doing the show together as a unit for a time, for quite some time or a year. And so. And it wasn't kind of heavy turnover, so everybody knew exactly what to do. And they just plug you into their machine and, you know, say your lines, hit your light, you know, hit your mark, find your life moving on. Like, you get to. You get two takes and we're going. So you have to be on your toes. They don't have time to mess around.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Well, Barbara Peters was. So was that the first female, director that you worked with, or did you work with others?
Eric Brown: Good question. well, I worked. I don't think I had done the play with Dorothy yet. I, ended up understudying in that play, and then I took over the role at some point. So I did work with her.
Susan Lambert Hatem: I think.
Eric Brown: Probably not. I think she. I think you're right. I think Barbara was probably my first female director. It was a great experience. Like I said, I had such a Crush on Stephanie. And we ended up doing a couple of celebrity event type things. I used to do the golf tournaments and the skiing things and whatever. There was this promoter in Hollywood named David Mirish, who was, I think a cousin or something of Walter Mirish, the great famous producer who just passed away. And David, I was on his celebrity softball team. I did a lot of golf. I was a golfer. I did tennis. I think I was in a celebrity paddleboard thing. I once did a bowling event in Rochester. Denzel Washington was on our basketball team. Wow. When he was on St. Elsewhere.
Sharon Johnson: St.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Elsewhere.
Eric Brown: Yep. Some really fun. Jack Coleman, who was on Dynasty.
Sharon Johnson: Dynasty.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Was this, like, the time of, like, the night of the network stars or.
Sharon Johnson: The battle of the network stars?
Susan Lambert Hatem: Of the network stars.
Eric Brown: Except it wasn't televised. We'd just go around and do things. But I met some of the super cool. Lauren Green was there. Susie Chaffee was that one. Mary Hart and Dean. Dean. What was Mary Hart's boyfriend? Dean. Guy from Little House on the Prairie.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Oh, oh, oh, I know who you're talking about. I had the biggest crush on him. Dean Butler.
Eric Brown: Dean Butler, yes.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Dean Butler, yeah, Dean Butler.
Eric Brown: Golf tournament in Dallas, Fort Worth. He was in Fort Worth. And Mickey Mantle and Billy Barty were at this golf tournament.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Wow.
Eric Brown: I got pool with Billy Barty.
Susan Lambert Hatem: okay.
Eric Brown: Weird life I had. And so Billy Barty, he said, you know, I have a handicap or I get to have an advantage over you. And. And I. What's the advantage? And he would reach, and you'd be. You'd be about to line up shot, and he would reach up behind you and grab you between your legs. And that was his advantage.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Now, hold on.
Eric Brown: He reserved the right to do that at any time. It was very hard to beat him in school. With social media, you feel like you have a relationship with people that you don't know. And back in those days, folks were behind the curtain. You didn't have a relationship, and you got to see them up close. And it was a different kind of experience. It was also kind of sweet. People were, you know, polite. They didn't know anyone yelled at you.
Susan Lambert Hatem: But they were actually nice.
Sharon Johnson: Well, because it was such a treat. Yeah. And it was such a treat. It was. It was special. And so people tended to treat it that way, I would think.
Eric Brown: And now, I mean, they have that crazy big, what do you call it? Autograph thingy in Hollywood once a year. But it's expensive. There's a big long line of celebrity signing autographs and I don't know, it just seems a little. It seems a little different than back then where you got to play like you play golf. If you signed up, you could play in a celebrity golf tournament.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Were you a good golfer?
Eric Brown: Yeah, I was a good golfer as a kid. I am not anymore a good golfer. I grew up in Queensland and on a public course in Queens, where The course is 1970s,'80s in New York, was not a good time to be in New York, and using any of its public services. So they didn't really water them. Of course, you take a hammer and a nail to get the, to get the, to get the tea in the ground.
Susan Lambert Hatem: The tea in the ground.
Eric Brown: But, but yeah. And so when I came out to California and I had nothing else to do, I'd quake off.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Since you brought up Queens, do you want to tell us about your time in Queens and how you were first famous? Although I guess you were first famous being a 4 year old.
00:50:00
Susan Lambert Hatem: I was below in bubbles in milk.
Eric Brown: It was funny as a child actor where I kind of had no childhood as you might have imagined. Someone's like, how you doing? Horrible. You know, I'm seven years old, I'm in second grade. Like, how you doing? Horrible. I haven't worked in months. You know, it's like some old vaudevillian or something like that.
Susan Lambert Hatem: You're smacking a cigarette smoke. Come on.
Eric Brown: Let me tell you, it's tough out there, kid.
Susan Lambert Hatem: I mean, were you enjoying yourself as a child actor?
Eric Brown: Yes.
Susan Lambert Hatem: I mean, because it was, it was burning an energy for you, right?
Eric Brown: I was good. I was good at it. It was, you know, you get when you get good feedback from people about things that you're good at, makes you happy.
Eric Brown: So I was okay with that. You're referring to my famous chicken story when I was a kid. I was walking down the street with a bunch of my friends and we saw this white flash coming out of this bush and we looked at it and there was a chicken in the bush. And, you know, this is 1979 or something like that. And it's not like there's, you know, candle bar, mustache waxing, home chicken, grow your own chickens and make your eggs thing in Queens. That was not. Like, there was no chickens in Queens. You didn't. So it was weird.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Do people now have a handlebar to grow your chicken? Hey, kids, we're growing the chickens over here.
Eric Brown: Hipsters and their backyard chickens. There's a big thing. We didn't have that. I, grabbed the chicken, carried it Home with my friends. And the first thing I did was I called the New York Post and I said, hey, I found a chicken in Queens. Send a, photographer. And they did. And so I was. How old are you? I was like 12, I think. And so I always, I tell the story, because you would think that this is like, I'm the idiot savant, PR genius. But the problem was I. I didn't tell the photographer that we were looking for a good home for the chicken. And so this, the caption on the photograph is, it's the good deed for the day. Like these. Look at these wonderful boys who, who found this chicken and, and so.
Susan Lambert Hatem: And are adopting it, you know, spend.
Eric Brown: It, spent the winter in our garage where we would normally park a car. And, because I do communications strategy for nonprofits and foundations and others, I always tell these people, this is my first story of abject failure as a communication strategist because I didn't have a goal. But, definitely a weird story about life in Queens, that's for sure.
Sharon Johnson: Well, dare I ask what ultimately happened to the chicken?
Eric Brown: Well, another good story. One good story gives you another. My mother was on the lookout for a good home for the chicken, and, nice lady and saw some story on the news about this farm in New Jersey that took in wayward farm animals and things like that. So she called them up, said, we have this chicken. We'd be delighted to take your chicken. And we promised we were not going to eat it. It's just going to live on its life. Live out its life on the farm. Meet us at the Broadway theater where the Wiz is playing. Because, Art, we have a dog in the show. So our doggy is Toto in the Wiz. So we met at the Broadway theater. I think we watched. Well, we couldn't because we had the chicken. So we, like, we uploaded the chicken chicken transfer at the Broadway theater where it could now be friends with a Broadway star, Toto. And they took the chicken off to New Jersey and, it lived its life.
Sharon Johnson: Oh, that's fantastic.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Eric, I don't know what your life is.
Eric Brown: When you figure it out, please let me know. I say all these stories have the added benefit of truth. I've always. I don't know, I've always zagged.
Sharon Johnson: Well, I think it makes perfect sense after a few years in show business that, that you would think, yeah, let's call the Post.
Eric Brown: That seems newsworthy to me. I was an avid newspaper reader even from a very, very early age. I always had a paper under my arm. Usually the Daily News. And then sometimes it wasn't until I was much older that I figured out to read the Times. But I always kind of fashioned myself as a kind of a blue collar kind of New Yorker, as a Mets fan. And, I had an English teacher in high school who said that you'd make a great. Who handed me what I hoped was not a backhanded compliment by saying, I think you'd make a great writer for the Daily News.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Okay, so let's go to Private Lessons.
Eric Brown: Okay, fine. I'm not afraid.
Susan Lambert Hatem: You get cast as the best friend. You're 15 years old.
Eric Brown: Yes.
Susan Lambert Hatem: And then you guys start shooting.
Eric Brown: Yeah, I'm a sophomore at St. Francis Prep in Queens. A, Franciscan high school. Work that out.
Susan Lambert Hatem: They shoot this movie in Arizona. Based on Wikipedia.
Eric Brown: Yes. So far so good.
Susan Lambert Hatem: And they shoot it in Arizona because there's like fewer
00:55:00
Susan Lambert Hatem: child labor laws, correct?
Eric Brown: That is also correct.
Susan Lambert Hatem: And basically the story is a 15 year old is seduced by a 30 year old made to your family.
Eric Brown: Governess.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Governess. She's an immigrant and she and the chauffeur played by Howard Hessman.
Eric Brown: Yes.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Have basically come up with a plan to ultimately blackmail you, Right?
Eric Brown: Correct. Yes, that's the story.
Susan Lambert Hatem: But then the two of you fall in love.
Eric Brown: Ish. Ish. I'm not sure that that character was ever really in love with my character, but still.
Susan Lambert Hatem: So it may have started the genre of 30 year old women seducing 15 year old boys and that being a really cool 80s thing to do in movies.
Eric Brown: Well, the Graduate was the obviously Dustin Hoffman. He wasn't 15, but it was the May December. And that of course was a high brow movie. So that was different. This was a low budget film. But the funniest thing about that movie, it was it was based on a novel, a black comedy by Dan Greenberg, who was a very accomplished author and had essays in the New Yorker and that kind of thing. You wouldn't think that it would be fodder for a low brow sex comedy. And what ended up happening was when the film was shot, it was shot as a black comedy, very dark. And they tested it and it tested not well. They don't like seeing this kid being manipulated and all that other stuff. So they lightened it up considerably and reshot a bunch of scenes and turned it into a kind of a very Corky's like sex comedy or what was perceived like that. And then it did kind of set that genre in motion. There was the one with Matt Lattanzi and somebody.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Class. And then there were several Private School.
Eric Brown: There were more Privates.
Susan Lambert Hatem: There were more Privates.
Eric Brown: The producer was trying to. You know, he was mining that. That franchise. There was my tutor. I think that's the one with. With Matt Lattanzi. There was a couple others. So, you know, it did kind of set that thing into motion.
Susan Lambert Hatem: And, And. And were you just like, I'm happy to have a job, and then I'm happy to get promoted in my job.
Eric Brown: I was happy to get a job, happy to be in a movie, definitely happy to get promoted. And so I've gone back and watched it, and it was. It was a really fun part to play. So I played this a real. A naive kid, which I was not by that point. I was quite the. I fancied myself. I had been on Broadway, I had done all this stuff. So it was a chance to play comedy. I did a lot of physical comedy. I walked into walls, I banged my head, I fell off bicycles. I did all my own stunts. that was fun working with Howard Hessman, who I had loved on WK in Cincinnati, and Ed Begley. And it was directed by Gunny Mallon Myerson, who used to direct the committee, which was a sketch company. Howard and Ed and another guy, Dan Barrows. All these guys did sketch comedy together. So in a sense, these were also great comedians, and they were trying to make a black comedy, and it didn't work out, and they ended up kind of changing its focus, and it made a lot of money. But these were all really good professionals who were doing. And Jan De Bont was the cinematographer.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Was the cinematographer, which is crazy, who went on to, you know, direct Speed and shoot Die Hard before he directed Speed.
Eric Brown: Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right. He shot Die Hard. So, you know, these were not. These were no schmoes that we were working with. So when we were on the set, it was a real movie, and people were like, oh, you're in this crappy sex comedy. It's like. Actually, it wasn't. It was a real movie with really terrific folks. I learned a lot. and I was in almost every shot in the movie.
Susan Lambert Hatem: And it starred Sylvia Crystal as the main.
Eric Brown: The Governor's Sylvia Cristel was Emmanuel, this Dutch actress who played Emmanuel, which was one of the famous softcore porn movies, or whatever you want to call it these days. It was. You, like, wouldn't qualify for, like, a decent Netflix, I was going to say.
Susan Lambert Hatem: It might not even, you know, be cool enough for hbo.
Eric Brown: Exactly. Anyway, it was, it was hard work. When we were, we were shooting 16 hour days, six days a week. You have one day off. And I was in every shot almost. And it was, I was, it was exhausting fun. I learned a lot. I learned a lot about film acting. it was kind of cool.
Susan Lambert Hatem: I mean, did you feel like you were 15 or did you feel like you were an adult?
Eric Brown: I'm starting to feel like I'm 15. But then no, I felt like I was again. I was. How you doing? Horrible. I haven't worked in a week. so I, I took it very seriously and I just, I had work to do and I needed to make sure that I knew my lines and hit my, my mark and found my light and was played the moment.
Susan Lambert Hatem: But like I would not send my 15 year old off to Arizona. Now I have a very different 15 year old.
Eric Brown: Doesn't matter. I wouldn't send any 15 year old. Like I said, my wife is still mad at my mother. How could you let him do that movie? And because, I mean there were nude scenes. It was, you know, it was inappropriate.
Susan Lambert Hatem: By the standards of today.
Eric Brown: Downhill with a tailwind. It was inappropriate. I mean, it was inappropriate. you should not do that. They should cast an 18 year old.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Yes.
Eric Brown: Someone who's. Yeah. as it happens, I don't think it did any lasting damage to me, but could have. Yeah.
Susan Lambert Hatem: And did anybody acknowledge that on the set? I'm just so curious. No, it was just. Okay, stand there, do this. We do care. We do not care that we are putting a underage person in the position to work 16 hours a BE. in a position to do basically sex scenes with a 30 year old person?
Eric Brown: No one seemed to notice.
Sharon Johnson: Do you think the fact that you had been working since you were four helped you with. In terms of getting through that experience or working with that subject matter?
Eric Brown: Yeah. Oh yeah. I was just acting in a scene.
Eric Brown: And I was a little professional, so it never occurred to me. I mean there's this one scene, I don't think I've told this story lately, where I'm in a bathtub and I don't have anything on and I have to get out and I'm with Sylvia. We're in this bathtub together and I'm naked and in the scene she starts to soap me up and I get scared and I jump out of the bathtub and I have to back to the camera at exactly the right angle, if you understand the meaning. And Jan, the dp, he Would scream, God, I saw something I'm not supposed to see. I was not backing out at the right angle. And he would just go, God, I saw it again.
Susan Lambert Hatem: So they had nothing on you?
Eric Brown: No. Oh, my goodness, no.
Sharon Johnson: But for you, it was just.
Eric Brown: Okay, well, okay, I must have not gotten the angle right. I was too busy trying to do my job to notice that that was not the thing.
Susan Lambert Hatem: I mean, you were on the Pippin.
Eric Brown: Bus and backstage during quick changes and things like that. Yeah. So it was. There's nothing I hadn't done or anything. And anyway.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Okay. All right, well, that's. No wonder they got you to hit on Stephanie's embalist three years later.
Eric Brown: That was so innocent.
Susan Lambert Hatem: And it was so sweet and sweet. That's. That's so interesting.
Eric Brown: I think about that. I go, I can't believe that. That's crazy. Now I look, no, no, no, no, no. You can't do that.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Literally, the poster says, what happened to him should happen to you.
Eric Brown: Right. Who do you think the audience for that marketing campaign was?
Sharon Johnson: Yeah, exactly.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Not the 80s TV ladies audience, I'll tell you that right now.
Eric Brown: Perhaps not, but great people.
Susan Lambert Hatem: So who were some other amazing people that you worked with, like Jerry Reid and Howard Hesman? I'm still not over the Jerry Reed of it all.
Eric Brown: Gary Reid. Who's the guy that. Who was the dad in. In My Big Fat Greek Wedding? Michael Constantine, Mama's Family. That's right. That's right.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Harper versus Harper.
Eric Brown: I assume he played the judge.
Susan Lambert Hatem: He played the judge.
Eric Brown: Of course. He was great. He was such a sweet man. I think he also recently just passed. He was. Yeah. They got the good, stalwart, great TV people. They did whoever they wanted would come.
Sharon Johnson: Oh, yeah. I can't imagine they had.
Susan Lambert Hatem: You can't say no to Carol Burnett.
Eric Brown: No. Nor should you. No. And we haven't talked much about Harvey Korman, but Harvey Korman was really one of the most hilarious, crazy, neurotic, fun, goofy people I ever met. I'll tell you a funny Harvey Korman story.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Please do.
Eric Brown: so there was this one point where he was convinced he had cancer in real life. Yeah. I'm going into the doctor. I have this thing on my finger or whatever it was. I'm, convinced I have cancer. And he's really nervous about it.
01:05:00
Eric Brown: A lot of anxiety. And he, He said this reminds me of my. When I had divorced my wife and she moved out, and I was living in this house in Hancock park, this great big house in Hancock park. And I was all alone. It was at a moment when they were. There was a slasher who was slashing middle M aged men. And I was convinced that I was going to be the victim of the slasher. And so I would spend hours and hours locking the windows and the doors. And he was in group therapy at the time. He. He told this story to his group therapy. And. And, he said that his therapist, who's this Viennese, actual Viennese therapist, said the VANDER to me, Mr. Korman, is that you are not the slasher. So, you know, there's Harvey, who is absolutely convinced he has cancer. And he's talking about his most, you know, his previous moment.
Susan Lambert Hatem: yes.
Eric Brown: Terrifying moment of neuroses and pick poking fun at himself by revealing his. His group therapy therapist had thought he was a slasher. I mean, there's so many layers to Harvey's wonderfulness and his kind of ability to laugh at himself. And, at the same time, he was genuinely concerned. And. And that was also a way of him being kind of honest and open to people. Like, I'm really concerned. I'm worried. And here's when the last time I was worried and somebody made fun of in group therapy. So that was. That was like a quintessential Harvey story because he was. He was so genuine and so kind of dear. And, that's marvelous.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Oh, my God. And now I want the television show of Harvey Korman in group therapy in 1984.
Eric Brown: That would be hilarious. Yeah. Ah. He was, what if you walk into.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Your group therapy and it's Harvey Korman? You're like, okay, well, I have to stay. But really, this is never going to be about me.
Eric Brown: I may not get my needs met, but at least I'll be entertained. Wow.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Okay. So Dick Claire and Jenna McMahon created the show.
Eric Brown: Ah. there we go. Okay. And then there was a Liz and Rick who were the head writers. Yes, Liz.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Liz Sage.
Eric Brown: Sage, thank you. And Rick Hawkins.
Susan Lambert Hatem: And Rick Hawkins.
Eric Brown: Hawkins. Okay. All right.
Susan Lambert Hatem: You're right. Yes.
Eric Brown: 40 years I'm pulling this stuff.
Sharon Johnson: Very good.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Very impressed. Rick Hawkins and Liz Sage wrote together.
Eric Brown: Right. And they were basically the head writers.
Eric Brown: And they were in the room with us all the time. And I think that, Dick and Jenna, it was important that because Jenna was one of the creators, that there were women writers involved. And having Rick and Liz as a partnership, it feels to me like they kind of mirrored those. That relationship.
Susan Lambert Hatem: And Dick and Jenna were on the Carol Burnett Show. It was sort of like the whole machine kind of moved over Exactly. To turn these sketches into sitcom. And then they went on to create Facts of Life.
Eric Brown: Right? That's right.
Susan Lambert Hatem: So I was like, I know that name. And it's from kind of looking at Facts of Life. Again, very strong in the female numbers, Mama's Family, both in front of and behind the camera. particularly, on the writing. So what happens next for you after Mama's Family?
Eric Brown: So Mom's Family gets canceled and then they ring it back and they don't bring me. Everybody on Mama's Family. Stand up. Not so fast. Eric. So. Or Karen.
Susan Lambert Hatem: They didn't bring Karen.
Eric Brown: Karen. It's life. I was sad because I liked the job. and so I started, auditioning for things and I got close to a million on a million things. I auditioned for Karate Kid and with John Hamilton working his video camera and he didn't have a windscreen, so he used a spongebob. I was. I met Coppola for the Outsiders in his apartment at the Sherry Netherland Hotel. I was called on a Sunday morning saying, can you come to the Sherry Netherlands at 06:00 to meet with Francis Ford Coppola? Just, Pretty in Pink. Matthew Broderick always beat me out for everything. He still stole my life, but that's okay because still have a good life. And, at some point I'm like, okay, this isn't something I gotta shake things up. I gotta make things happen. So I started doing production work and I did every job on a movie set that you can think of. I was a sound man. I was actually. I'd never worked in the camera department. I always wanted to, but I did first AD on a lot of things. I was a production sound mixer, boom operator. I was a grip electric, all that other stuff, with an eye towards writing and directing. And I wrote a bunch of scripts. I was commissioned to write a couple of scripts from some of my.
01:10:00
Eric Brown: Producing, some of the producers I'd worked with. I was supposed to direct a movie that got canceled right before we started shooting. And that was like, I'm had it, I'm done. I finally, I had to get out. And so my then girlfriend, still wife, we, we packed up our bags and we moved to Monterey, California, because it was the nicest place we could think of to be depressed in. And I. First thing I did when I got to Monterey, I got a job in a video store renting movies to people that I was in. So that's. That.
Susan Lambert Hatem: That's its own sitcom.
Eric Brown: That's its own sitcom or its own tragedy. Depending on how you think about it. But it was okay. It was fine. And then I went to community college and, studied political science and transferred to Berkeley. Went to Berkeley. I worked on the Clinton campaign in 92 as a volunteer coordinator, and I did campaign advance. And then, after college, we went, moved to Japan and taught English for a couple years, had a baby, and then we moved to D.C. and I got a job as a press secretary for Congresswoman Nydia Velasquez of Queens in Brooklyn, and she's still there. Then I got a job as a communications director for an environmental nonprofit whose motto was more fun, less stuff, which seemed cool to me. And then from there, I got hired as the communications director for the William and Flora Hewlett foundation, which is a $15 billion charitable foundation in Silicon Valley, and moved back to the bay area in 2003 for 11 years. And after that, we quit our jobs and sold our house and traveled around the world for a year because we could. We shipped our kid off to college and figured we'd, you know, we'd take the. What do we call it? The nest. Like the family nest, and we would burn it, and we would eat the ashes, and that's what we did. So, I mean, not really, but we did the thing that we wanted to do when we could do it, and it was fantastic.
Sharon Johnson: Yeah, it's great.
Eric Brown: We came back to the city, and I've been consulting for foundations and nonprofits for the last nine years, and my clients are the ones you would think of. The. Whatever, the MacArthur foundation and the. The big foundations.
Susan Lambert Hatem: And you consult in communication strategy.
Eric Brown: Yeah.
Susan Lambert Hatem: how to make sure that when you call up the New York Post about your chicken found in Queens.
Eric Brown: Totally.
Susan Lambert Hatem: You also mention that you're looking for what you're looking for a, home for the leave.
Eric Brown: That's really all I did.
Susan Lambert Hatem: And 3 million for your fund.
Eric Brown: Exactly.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Hey, now that you've enjoyed the chicken.
Eric Brown: Story, I go, well, you know, I'm proud of. I'm proud of my failures. You need to be transparent what you.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Learn at, 12.
Eric Brown: At 12, you should tell them about.
Susan Lambert Hatem: What you learned at 9.
Eric Brown: They don't want to know. It's funny. I did have a. The other side of the world is going to catch up with me on this one, but I had a client who saw my IMDb page, which, with the, has not a great picture with me and Sylvia Crystal, like, oh, my God, I can't believe that.
Susan Lambert Hatem: That'S my evil twin.
Eric Brown: Every so often, the worlds collide, but not really? But the funniest thing is that it's nice. I work with these really great organizations doing wonderful work and things like that. And we'll be in a conversation about whatever we're doing, the environment or something, and then someone will say, oh, did you know Eric was on Mama's Family? And then someone's like, are you. Wow. That, like, okay, great. The most interesting thing about me happened 40 years ago. How do you feel?
Susan Lambert Hatem: No, just the most Hollywood thing about you. The showbiz element is very attractive, to people. Saving the world is good, too.
Eric Brown: I was just a schmo a minute ago. Now I'm interesting. Oh, and the other thing is that, as it happens, I'm sure you've never heard of this, but I also have a podcast, which is called let's Hear It. You can find it at let's Hear it cast dot com. and it is a. It is a very specialized thing, which is. The nice thing about podcasting is you can pick a little thing and have fun with it. And we interview people in philanthropy who. Mostly who are doing communications and messaging and that sort of thing. And it's a, found. It's. It's a thing for people who do my job, who are communications support for foundations and nonprofits in philanthropy is. We are all, I think, right now trying to figure out how do we solve or address some of these huge challenges. You can't walk down the street or pick up a newspaper without seeing that there's so much to be done. And philanthropy is one way to address it. It's only one way to address it. But I work with large foundations and small nonprofits who are working on the environment or education or, health, those sorts of things. And to be able to help those organizations spend their money more wisely to help more people is a good reason to get up
01:15:00
Eric Brown: in the morning. And I've been very, very lucky that I've had this bizarre, winding road of a career and that it has led me to this interesting place. And it's fun. And I've. I had. It's been cool. I. When I was at the Hewlett Foundation, I traveled around the world, spent a lot of time in Africa and China and Europe working on these kinds of things, particularly on climate change, but also on women's health and other things. So it's been like, I'm luckiest guy on earth, you know, Matthew Barracks had a good career, but, you know, what.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Has he done for women? Seriously, in the environment?
Eric Brown: Telling you, they're great. Oh, I went to. Actually, by the way, I went to. I went to high school with Sarah Jessica Parker, and she's fabulous, so.
Sharon Johnson: Oh, okay.
Eric Brown: I went to the professional children's school for a senior after they kicked me out of St. Francis Prep for doing that movie.
Sharon Johnson: Did they really?
Eric Brown: Yeah, they did.
Sharon Johnson: Oh, my goodness.
Susan Lambert Hatem: They kicked you out of school for doing the movie?
Eric Brown: Well, they said that we, we think you'd do better in a school that is more aligned with the things that you're doing professionally. So that's a very Franciscan way of saying, please get out of our school. But I. And I got to go. I went to high school with Sarah Jessica Parker and, Who else? Trini Alvarado. If you know Trini, she was in Little Women.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Eric Brown: Diane Lane was. I'd never met her. She never showed up. But she was, she was there. She was busing. She was with me and a bunch of other people. So that was high school. Was. Those years were great.
Susan Lambert Hatem: I was gonna say with those years where everybody's sitting around going, having been kind of close.
Eric Brown: God, we had so much fun. High school is great.
Susan Lambert Hatem: High school with a bunch of children, adults.
Eric Brown: Was it. Remember Bugsy Malone, that movie with, Yes, it was. That's what it was. It was like, Bugsy. We're all sitting in the, in this saloon, you know, these 12 year olds sitting in a saloon, you know, shooting things.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Pugsy Malone. God, that's so funny. All right, so I have a question that you may not be able to answer, but being as you work with these very large nonprofits that are doing and small nonprofits that are doing work of trying to better, the world and save the world and help people. What can a person do?
Eric Brown: Huh? Huh?
Susan Lambert Hatem: Because I think people want to know what's impactful now. What can they do? There's so many problems and so many things that feel urgent. What can one person do? What might be your advice to someone who's like, I want to do something, but I don't know what to do or where to start.
Eric Brown: I always tell people, pick a thing. This is in particular, when people come to me looking for a job. They'll say, what do I do with my career? I say, pick the thing you're most passionate about, then just do that thing and don't. It's not your responsibility to solve every problem in the world. Apply the things that you're good at to the issues that you care about, and you'll be, you'll be fulfilled and you'll also do the greatest amount of good with your. With your skills and your. Your wherewithal. And, I, think that's important because we all want to live meaningful lives. There's no shortage of causes, and it would be crazy to think that you could do them all. Just pick the thing that you care about and do that. If it's animal protection, that's important. There's also environmental things in which the beneficiaries are so far beyond anything you'll ever know. But I think that's great. And I think those are lives well lived. And I see a lot of people who are working really hard at, a very narrow thing, but they really believe in it, and they're doing meaningful work. And we need that. We need much more of that. And so if you have a skill or you have something interesting in an organization you care about, volunteer your time, call them up, say, I'd like to help. And, you'll see the kind of response you get from people. They're craving it. They're really hungry for that kind of connection with other folks who are going to help them advance their work. So that's. That's my advice.
Susan Lambert Hatem: All right. Okay. Where can people find you?
Eric Brown: My firm is called Brownbridge Strategies. I'm@brownbridgestrategies.com and, listen to the podcast, if you're interested in that sort of thing.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Podcasts are fun. And I think that niche of finding your audience and addressing the needs of that audience or the desires of that audience. I'm not sure how many people need the 80s TV ladies, except for me, maybe Sharon.
Eric Brown: I need it.
Sharon Johnson: Definitely. Me too.
Eric Brown: Well, we want to be connected to the things that matter to us. And, during our childhood, if those were shows that we watched when they first came on, there's something valuable in that. Or people are now discovering these. These great characters and these great shows that is bringing joy into people's lives.
01:20:00
Eric Brown: That's good too. I mean, you know, these are, these are trying times. You know, if you can find something lovely in it or meaningful, then you're doing a great thing. So I. I love that.
Susan Lambert Hatem: I think joy is a big part of being able to sort of keep going, right? Like, being able to laugh at yourself and being able to also go, where did. This is kind of like my own group therapy with Harvey Korman and Mama.
Eric Brown: M. The mother to me is that you are not the slasher.
Susan Lambert Hatem: You are not the slasher.
Eric Brown: Okay. I love the story. I've told it 500.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Oh, my God. This has been so wonderful. Thank you for sharing all these stories with us and these memories.
Eric Brown: Thanks for having me. It's it's always fun to to reminisce.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Thank you. The audioography for today includes Mama's Family. You can find viewing on Roku, Amazon and many more links which will be on our website.
Sharon Johnson: You can also check out Eric's company at Brownbridgestrategies.Com his podcast can be found at letshearitcast.com and the blog about the amazing trip around the world he and his wife took can be found at eatbickerLove.com that link will also be on our website.
Susan Lambert Hatem: Thank you so much for listening to 80s TV ladies. Please look for us at all your favorite social media sites at 80sTVLadies like follow and tell your friends.
Sharon Johnson: As always, we hope 80s TV ladies bring brings you joy and laughter and lots of fabulous new and old shows to watch. All of which will lead us forward toward being amazing ladies of the 21st century.
[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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Episode 309: “Mama’s Family & Private Lessons | Actor Eric Brown”

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