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Easter: Keep Hope Alive!

Saturday, April 3rd, 2010

Happy Easter!

I don’t know about you, but I am so ready for a financial and occupational resurrection this spring. Like millions of other Americans, I got laid off last year. Early last year. And for the remaining nine months of 2009, the Recession slapped me around like it was Jack Nicholson and I was Faye Dunaway in the last 20 minutes of CHINATOWN.

In times as tough as these, you have to keep hope alive. You must, as the song Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire introduced says, “Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again.” I definitely got a refresher course in that lesson last year. This year, this season, there’s hope. I’m working on a TV project with some fabulous folks at Biscardi Creative Media. The opportunity to work on-camera, which I got, is like a drop of rain in a long, long drought. Hopefully, this April TV pilot shoot is a sign that I made it out of an extended, soul-tattering winter caused by a troubled economy and a grueling stretch of unemployment. It’s a beginning. And isn’t that what the essence of Easter is, a new beginning? I’ll give you details on the television project later. It will have me busy most of this week. Thank Heaven.

Wish me luck. The same to you. I’ve attached a website link for the cool company that’s putting me on camera this week after Easter Sunday. What a perfect time to feel rejuvenated.

biscardicreative.com

Posted in TV, Work | No Comments »

The Oscars: Black, White & Hollywood Gold

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

It’s been a while since I’ve been on here. I don’t know about you, but I am so thankful to Heaven that I made it through February. That month was a bitch! If you don’t believe me, just as Tiger Woods. Did you see his nationally televised apology? President Nixon didn’t take that long to apologize to the country when he resigned from office back in the 1970s. HE owed me an apology. Tiger Woods didn’t. But that’s just my opinion. Halfway through Tiger’s mea culpa, I was hoping that Kanye West would stagger on and interrupt: “Tiger, I’m happy for you getting some help with your sexual addiction but former Senator John Edwards was the mack baby daddy of the year!”

Now we’re into one of my favorite seasons of the year — Oscar season. Movies are my passion. This year’s Oscar race coverage has shown me two things: 1) Entertainment reporters nowadays are lazy and do very little homework and 2) The field of national entertainment reporters and film critics seen on TV sorely cries out for racial diversity in this, the 21st Century. This is crystallized in how Tom O’Neil columnist for The Los Angeles Times has been covering Best Actress Academy Award nominee, Mo’Nique. I’m not accusing the Caucasian O’Neil of racism. I am charging a national journalist with laziness. O’Neil, in his column, expressed that Mo’Nique was being uncooperative by refusing to “campaign” for her Oscar. Not granting interviews following her nomination and focusing on her talk show duties. Screen legend Katharine Hepburn never campaigned after her Oscar nominations. She steadfastly refused to attend any ceremony when she was nominated. Yet, she won four Oscars® for Best Actress. To Vanity Fair magazine, O’Neil said that no one knew who Mo’Nique was before Precious. He marginalized her to being solely a comedienne and a talk show host who slammed across one of the most galvanizing dramatic performances of the year out of nowhere. He pretty much said the same thing last night in a prime time Oscar-related special hosted by Deborah Roberts on ABC. Again, O’Neil was lazy, uninformed and unimaginative on a national platform.

Cloris Leachman, Sally Field, Tom Hanks, Robin Williams and Ron Howard all have something in common in Mo’Nique. We got to know them every week on TV sitcoms. They went on to earn Oscar nominations for big screen dramatic work. Ron Howard’s was for directing A BEAUTIFUL MIND. All those performers won Oscars. I hope, come tomorrow, that Mo’Nique — who starred in the sitcom “The Parkers” for five seasons — will be a winner too. Mr. O’Neil should’ve keyed into the history of actors who gained sitcom popularity then got Oscar nominations for dramatic acting chops. Mary Tyler Moore did. So did Will Smith. Jamie Foxx had his own sitcom.

When I experienced PRECIOUS for the first time, I was not surprised at Mo’Nique’s performance. I marvelled at it but I was not surprised. Sounding like Addison DeWitt in All About Eve, I felt it was “nothing more than a promise fulfilled.” That’s because of what I saw Mo’Nique do in 2005’s Shadowboxer. The drama stars Helen Mirren as a terminally ill hit woman in a torrid love affair with a younger hit man, played by Cuba Gooding, Jr. Mo’Nique is a revelation as the working class crack addict who has an unrequited love for her young doctor. Her character’s name is “Precious” and the movie was directed by Lee Daniels. I have yet to hear one national reporter ask the actress about or mention that prior dramatic outing with Daniels. She was profiled today on CBS Sunday Morning. No mention.

This, to me, underscores the need for racial diversity in the field of film reviewers/commentators on TV and also underscores the need for the established critics in the somewhat “Whites Only” boys club to pay more attention to the outsiders, shall we say. Last night, O’Neil said on ABC that Mo’Nique has appeared in comedy films that critics really didn’t care about. Can’t we say that same about David Spade and Pauley Shore? When Hustle & Flow, was released and brought Terrence Howard a Best Actor Oscar nomination for 2005, I heard David Edelstein review him on National Public Radio and in his movie critic spot on CBS Sunday Morning. Edelstein raved about this “new” actor who has the intensity of a “young Samuel L. Jackson.” I thought ..”wrong!” He has the intensity of a middle-aged Terrence Howard. Before playing a pimp in HUSTLE & FLOW, Howard had played three historical characters in TV biopics — Jackie Jackson of the Jackson 5, boxer Muhammad Ali and civil rights advocate Ralph Albernathy in a bio mini-series about Dr. Martin Luther King. He had an important supporting role as a no-rhythm high school student in 1995’s Mr. Holland’s Opus, starring Richard Dreyfuss, and he was a key character in the box office hit Big Momma’s House. This body of work dates back to 1992. But to Mr. Edelstein he was “new.”

OK. Enough about race. Do I have predictions for tonight? I’ve not seen Sandra Bullock in THE BLIND SIDE. I hear she’s terrific in it. I’d love to see Meryl Streep win for a brilliant job in a comedy/drama. My big wish is to see Kathryn Bigelow win for Best Director and for her film, THE HURT LOCKER, to get the gold for Best Picture. Will you be watching Hollywood Prom Night? What are your predictions? Who did your dress? Leave me some comments.

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Posted in Big Screen, TV | 3 Comments »

come saturday morning

Saturday, December 12th, 2009

What a week! We got two different versions of the Black/Norwegian experience. If Tiger Woods was going to be a guest programmer on Turner Classic Movies tonight with Robert Osborne and introduce one of his favorite old movies, it would have to be GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES. More fair-haired women claimed to have had affairs with the superstar golfer, taxing his marriage to his Norwegian wife even more. If Tiger had been married to one of the women on my block when I was a kid growing up in South Central Los Angeles, his proctologist would still be working to remove the nine iron. You do not make a woman sit through that much golf and then cheat on her. You just don’t. On the other hand, a very happy President Barack Obama and Mrs. Obama travelled to Norway where Mr. President received the Nobel Peace Prize just a couple of weeks after announcing that he’s sending more troops into war.

As for Tiger, I logged onto his website and saw his post that he’s taking “an indefinite break from professional golf.” If you’re really into the game, check out the left side for Tiger Tips. A few are:

–Fix, finish and swing
–Maintain a quiet head
–Face up in the rough
–Staying connected
–What’s changed in my swing?

Details are on www.TigerWoods.com.

For your Saturday night entertainment at home, CBS is repeating the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer classic claymation special. That’s the one with Hermie, the elf that looks like a little version of “Good Morning America” weatherman Sam Champion. NBC airs Frank Capra’s now-revered holiday noir, It’s A Wonderful Life. When we babyboomers were kids, we could –and often did — see that movie in the middle of summer on any local independent TV station. It was a public domain film, not in mint condition. The license had not been renewed. Capra’s movie could have found a home on The Island of Misfit Toys visited by Hermie and Rudolph. My generation embraced that tale of an unemployed, middle-aged family man who is so broke that he considers suicide so his family can live on the insurance money. When Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey glimpses the possible future thanks to Clarence the Angel and overcomes the local Scrooge, that film (along with LOST HORIZON and MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON) prove that Capra indeed was the Charles Dickens of Old Hollywood. I’m so glad that film preservationists restored and remastered the 1946 feature to the pearly state you can see on the network tonight. And how relevant it’s become again in these unfortunate financial times. One last thing about IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE. To me, film is literature and many telling things about character are visual, not verbalized. For instance, when Lionel Barrymore as the spiritually and physically crippled Mr. Potter is out to heartlessly seize corporate control of Bedford Falls, notice that he’s photographed near a bust of Napolean. George Bailey is framed near a portrait of a beloved American president. When George gets the psychic gift of seeing what the town would’ve been like had he never lived, notice that there’s not one single Black person in Pottersville. Compare that to the racial diversity in the scene where all the neighbors and friends come to the Bailey home at the end. Very cool, Mr. Capra.

I returned Wednesday from a 2-day trip to Atlanta for the good fortune to shoot an audition for a possible new TV vehicle. This year, I’ve repeatedly had to pick myself up off the mat from the longest stretch of unemployment in my entire life. To get that audition and to work with the excellent crew was a blessing. I came back, continued the job hunt here in Manhattan and took yesterday off from the job hunt to attend a screening of James Cameron’s new sci-fi thriller, Avatar. More about it later. But I will tell you this: It has a character called Sully and some aircraft is brought down by birds. Go figure. Enjoy your weekend.

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The White House Party Crashers

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

By now, most of us have seen Mr. and Mrs. Salahi. They’re the man and wife hungry for reality show celebrityhood. So hungry that they sneaked into the recent White House State Dinner, causing a big mess for all involved with White House security. When is America going to put its national foot down about grown people behaving like irresponsible children in order to get on national television? Look at all the wasted network news time and local money because a greedy, self-absorbed, controlling dad claimed that his little boy was carried into the air in a runaway balloon? I was watching Wolf Blitzer lob cottonball questions at that slappable dad in a live interview and my gut told me that the dad was flat out lying. For one thing, he dodged Blitzer’s questions and gave vague answers.

There’s something fishy of The Salahis too. And I wonder if that fishy odor comes from a peacock. The NBC peacock.

As the husband and wife prepared to crash the private White House party, they were filmed by a Bravo TV crew. Mrs. Salahi had dreams of being a member of Bravo’s popular “Real Housewives of…” franchise. Bravo is a cable branch of the NBC family tree. The party crashing couple gave its first interview about its security breach exclusively on NBC’s Today show. Matt Lauer conducted the interview this morning. A clip was posted on the show’s website.

NBC is, shall we say, very GOP friendly. Although he had no television experience whatsoever, local NBC New York hired a local rock morning radio show DJ named Billy Bush out of Washington, DC. He did local morning news lifestyles reports for WNBC. Four months later, he was booted up to network and became a contributor for the “Today” show. Within a year, he was added to “Access: Hollywood,” the show he now hosts. During that time, he was profiled in The New York Times and he talked about his uncle, then-President George W. Bush. Billy has another member of the family in the NBC spotlight. Former President Geo. W. Bush’s daughter, Jenna, is now a “Today” show contributor. During W’s presidency, Tom Brokaw wasn’t the only NBC talent granted admission into the Oval Office for an exclusive chat. So was Matt Lauer. And Al Roker.

Years ago when there was speculation that former action movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger would, like Ronald Reagan, leave movies and throw his hat in the Republican ring of politics, news outlets reported that Schwarzenegger was holding a press conference. At it, the wires reported, he’d probably make the official statement that he wanted to be the Republican Governor of California. At the last minute, came the news report that the press conference had been cancelled. That ended speculation of his political ambitions. Wrong! He was throwing his hat into the political ring. But, instead of holding a press conference, he decided to make the big announcement on a late night entertainment talk show — NBC’s Tonight show with Jay Leno. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you that Mrs. Schwarzenegger is Kennedy clan member Maria Shriver of NBC News.

If I was a TV reporter talking to The Salahis, I would need them to tell me that their crashing of our Democrat President’s White House state dinner was not partly aided by some mischief from a GOPeacock. Feel free to leave some comments.

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respond, if you please

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

Often, the folks that you love the most are the very ones who can drive you the craziest. Yes, I’m referring to family. Last weekend, I called my mother. I called my sister, who responds to every single email and phone message as soon as she can. I got a call from my cousin, who also responds to every single email and phone message as soon as he can. I emailed my brother in California on Sunday.

I’ve yet to get a reply. It’s Wednesday. I’m not surprised. In our family history, it’s taken my brother anywhere from two weeks to two months to answer an email and a “snail mail” — the term for the old-fashioned letter or card that was stamped and put in the mailbox. In fact, one day I emailed my brother and a journalist friend of mine who lives in Hong Kong on the same morning. I got a reply from my pal in Hong Kong on the same day. I think my brother in Northern California answered a week later. True, he is a family man. Having a fulltime job and raising a couple of youngsters keeps one busy. But, come on! An email, for Pete’s sake?!?!? It’s gotten to the point now that, when I do hear back from him, I say to myself “Thank goodness he’s not an operator on a suicide prevention hotline. He’d put callers on hold and go to the lunchroom.”

It does ruffle my older brother feathers because, when our parents divorced, our father was in the category of “deadbeat dad.” There wasn’t much, if any, child support. As a result, I was in my 20s and working three jobs. I had my first professional broadcast job on a morning radio show and I two part-time jobs that helped me make money to pay my brother’s Catholic high school tuition. That was one less bill for our single working mother to pay. When those tuition bills came in, I didn’t put them aside for a couple of months. I paid them. I don’t think my brother is being mean. I do think his opinion is “He’s always emailing me about family stuff. I’ll get to him when I feel like it. He can wait.”

We’ve all done that at some point to someone we know.

Monday, I woke up to get the news from an actor friend I know that a buddy of ours had died. That buddy was Ken Ober, the comedian who hosted MTV’s “Remote Control” game show in the late 80s. Ken was only 52 and, apparently, died of a sudden heart attack in his Santa Monica apartment. My friend wrote in his email message, “We’re not promised tomorrow.” I had reconnected with Ken earlier this year via Facebook. I was on the VH1 side of the building when he was working on MTV. As employees of MTV Networks we both attended company functions. I met and would see Ken at such functions. In later years, I’d see him at auditions. Ken Ober was one of the kindest, warmest, funniest and most charismatic people I encountered in my three years of working at VH1. I read the many condolences on his Facebook page from others who were shocked and saddened by the news of his unexpected death. Just about each one also mentioned how kind he was. When Ken and I reconnected on the social networking site, I wrote how glad I was to be back in touch with him again.

I’m glad I did that. It took less that a minute to write and send that email.

We’re quickly approaching the holiday season. It’s going to be a tough holiday season. Let’s face it — many folks who had houses last year for Thanksgiving and Christmas lost those houses this year. Millions of us won’t be able to travel and see relatives or be able to shop for Christmas presents to send. That Grinch called “Unemployment” has so many of us in his clutches. But we can, in this age of multiple modes of communication, let the people we care about know that we care. We can take a minute to make them feel like a priority instead of an option. We can call. We can write. We can respond. We can embrace. Remember…we’re not promised tomorrow.

Thanks for your attention. Leave a comment, if you’d like. I wish the best for you today.

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A St. Patrick’s Day Ball

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

In that latter day, applejack brandy voice of hers, she said over the phone “Why don’t you come over for drinks around 6:00. Can you do that?”

Could I?!?!? When TV legend Lucille Ball asked if I could come over to her home for drinks, the answer would be “yes” even if I had to walk barefooted through the streets of Beverly Hills to get there.

Lucille Ball invited me to her home on St. Patrick’s Day in 1989. I was working on VH1 then. She’d seen some of my work, liked it and sent word to me that she liked it via a relative who worked here in New York City for an advertising firm. He and I had met at a party. That St. Patrick’s Day he and I were both in L.A. doing work for our respective companies. He was staying with Lucy. I was at a small hotel in West Hollywood.

It seemed surreal to be walking up to her door to ring the bell. I felt like I was outside of my body watching me do that. Inside, her home was so comfortable. She was extremely gracious — aware that she was a TV icon yet still with a working class sensibility and a working class appreciation for the fans that made her a star. I had an encounter earlier that day with Bruce Springsteen, then called the Balladeer of Blue Collar America or something like that. He was disappointingly high tone. Here was a woman who was a movie star before Bruce and I were both born and she was treating me like an old acquaintance. We chatted, laughed and had cocktails for about one hour. During that time, her second husband, Gary Morton came downstairs to meet me.

She had publicity photos out. She’d been autographing them for fans who continued to write to her. As I was about to leave, places for dinner were being set at the table and the TV was playing. Gary, in a royal blue jogging suit, was watching. Lucy said, “I’d invite you to stay, Bob, but we’ve only got two pork chops.” The old married couple was about to eat and watch “Wheel of Fortune.”

“I just love Pat Sajak,” Lucy said.

I get a big thrill entertaining on television. As probably happens with most kids when they’re growing up, convincing a parent for both parents that you are serious about a certain career — a career not of their choosing — can cause conflict. My mother intended for me to be a serious writer like F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Baldwin or Toni Morrison. I wanted to be on television and entertain like Steve Allen or Jack Paar. Through the years, I’ve been asked frequently what I want to do on television. I want to entertain and, in that entertainment, also inform. Paar did. David Frost did. Johnny Carson did. Oprah does. For a long time I didn’t think wanting to be an entertainer was a lofty ambition. Did that add anything to the world?

When Lucille Ball, an international superstar, raved about Pat Sajak and had his game show as part of his must-see TV viewing list, I thought differently. Weeks after the attacks of Sept. 11th, I formed a new appreciation for “Wheel of Fortune.” It helped me mentally recover from the non-stop devastating daily news updates. That entertainment provided my heart a little relief. Back in late 2001, regaining the ability to chuckle again thanks to his game show host skills, I recalled Lucy watching him the same way I watched her as Lucy Ricardo when I was a kid home from school.

If I got the chance to host something like “Wheel of Fortune,” I’d take it in a heartbeat and consider myself the luckiest guy in the country. In these hard times, I think there’s something to be said for the ability to put a few smiles on a few faces. What do you think?

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true story: when news doesn’t get it

Friday, October 30th, 2009

In my long broadcast career, I have found that the entertainment side of the industry is far more sharper, open-minded, informed and liberal than the news side of it was. Odd, isn’t it? I went into this business thinking just the opposite would be true, that the folks involved with news, the facts, would be the smart ones. The ones who didn’t have blinders on when reporting about the world around them. In my personal case, the folks who really didn’t get it were usually in the news division. Not all, mind you. Just a few. Case in point: I am not nor have I ever been a chef. Go into my bio section and read it. I was never a Bobby Flay, Paula Deen, Chef Boyardee, Martha Stewart, Emeril or Betty Crocker. When I hosted Top 5 on Food Network, I never did that show from a kitchen or near a stove. I was usually in a fancy cocktail lounge in Manhattan that we used as a set. I just introduced the video packages and did the voiceovers for them. In 100 episodes, I never so much as toasted a piece of bread. However, by the second month after the premiere of the once-a-week show, most newspeople — local and network — assumed I’d become the next Uncle Ben. As an on-air host for Food Network, I had to do publicity for the show. The press kit never stated that I was a cook. It did mention my years as a national talk show host on VH1 plus years of covering entertainment news. Few reporters read the presskit. I did a live appearance on a local ABC weekend morning news program. The anchor kicked off the segment by asking me about the nutrients in seafood. An anchor on a live CNN news show asked me about Asian cheese and then asked me for a cooking tip on a particular dish she wanted to make. I just made shit up.

Then I had to call-in as the guest on a weekday FM rock radio show with a funny morning team. The show was in the Midwest and the couple, who’d watched me on VH1, opened with “Your bio has you doing years of national celebrity interviews, reviews and talk shows. So how did you wind up on Food Network?” Yes! That’s exactly what the news people should’ve asked but didn’t. The entertainment couple in the non-cosmopolitan city got it.

I talked my way into a New York City job in 1985. I was hired by WPIX/Channel 11 news. There was a weekday morning show. I got to do celebrity interviews on it. One of my guests was famed Revlon model-turned-actress Lauren Hutton. She was promoting a goofy vampire comedy she’d made. While chatting in the make-up room before we went on the set, she asked me if she could bring her unknown leading man from the film on with her. “He’s really funny and I think he should be seen,” said Hutton, the star of the film. He was tagging along with her for her round of interviews. He was a young fellow, polite, slim and sharp as a jackknife. Very charismatic. I said to myself, “Why not?”

The rather aggravating producer of the show balked but I talked her into it. Lauren Hutton came on, accompanied by her new buddy. During our on-camera conversation, his face seemed to be made of elastic, his eyes were shining and his wisecracks broke up the cameramen. He was more cartoon character than human. I was so glad Hutton brought him along. He was delightful and he scored with the folks on the floor crew, including the host. Even those in the control room were still laughing and talking about him after the show. We all dug him. Except for the producer who said to me with a slight sneer, “He’ll never get anyplace. He’s silly.”

ONCE BITTEN, Hutton’s movie, didn’t do well at the box office. But I saw her co-star from it today on “Good Morning America” promoting his upcoming Disney film. He’ll play Ebenezer Scrooge. I never saw that producer again when I left the show in 1987 to go over to VH1. But I did see a lot more of Jim Carrey on the entertainment scene. We all did. We made him a star. I guess we all just needed a little silliness in our lives. The news producer just didn’t get it.

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On Agents: Ten Percenters I’ve Survived

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

“YOU WERE A TOMATO! A tomato doesn’t have logic. A tomato can’t sit.”

That is one of my favorite lines from Tootsie, delivered perfectly by its director, the late Sydney Pollack, as the harried agent and friend of actor Michael Dorsey, played by Dustin Hoffman. I loved the relationship between client and agent in that comedy classic. I had a commercial agent for a little over ten years. Our relationship was, in a word, sublime. The work that she got me in local and national commercials enabled me to keep the bills paid. Linda McIntosh passed away a few years ago and I miss her a lot. She always wanted me to get a good broadcast agent to help me get more TV host and contributor work. I wanted to get one too. Unfortunately, I never quite hooked up with a broadcast agent who had her wit, imagination, common sense and heart.

If you’re a member of the major entertainment unions — like SAG and AFTRA — you can be an actor in New York City, Oklahoma City, Seattle or Santa Monica and find an agency to service your needs. But, for most of the 20 years I’ve been working in New York City, if you were basically a broadcaster — a TV host like a Tom Bergeron or a Mary Hart or a news, entertainment or sports contributor — there were only a few shops in the country that specifically could help you. Not every agency had a Broadcast Host department. Even though I’m a veteran TV performer with over 10 years of national work to my credit, I still do not have a broadcast agent — and I have met with agents in some of the top agencies of New York City. That means, I have had to work harder to get auditions and book national jobs like the one I had on Food Network and, in 2000, on Lifetime Television.

First meetings with agents are like blind dates that you pray will work out. Sometimes, they don’t. I won’t mention this particular agency, but I met with a sprightly young blonde rep in the commercial department who opened our meeting with “We do really well with black people.” I thought to myself, “Are black performers in the special needs category like autistic kids? Do you make us wear helmets and watch ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’?” I didn’t sign with that agency. Fortunately, Linda came along.

But back to the few broadcast departments and agents I’ve survived. I was with the very powerful and established N.S. Bienstock Agency here in New York for a year. I doubt that my agent ever logged on to this very website, read my bio or any of my reviews in the Press section. I’m not sure he even viewed my demo reels. We were in the last month of our one year contract and he’d not gotten me one meeting or audition for new broadcast work. This was after my VH1 stint when I’d become a very visible and, if I say so myself, popular member of a weekday morning show team on Fox’s “Good Day New York.” I’d broken entertainment stories that were later picked up by Liz Smith in her syndicated column and by Entertainment Tonight. Three weeks before our contract ended, he called with a possible new gig. He couldn’t tell me exactly where the job was because the news show position wasn’t yet available. All he could tell me was that the local newscast spot was (and I hope you’re sitting down) “…a sports anchor job somewhere in the Deep South.”

Could he possibly have been less aware of my work? That’s exactly what they’d want to see below the Mason Dixon Line — me festively saying, “Guess what, sportsfans?!?! Excitement’s coming to town and I can tell it to you in two words — Ice Capades!” I did not renew our contract.

The broadcast agent after that one was with Abrams Artists here in Manhattan, with offices conveniently located ten blocks from my apartment. I went to the agent in their Broadcast Dept when I’d just booked myself a network gig. I was the entertainment editor and weekly movie critic on an ABC News/Lifetime TV joint production called “Lifetime Live.” This live weekday afternoon magazine show aired on Lifetime TV. I had a Friday segment of about 6-8 minutes that I did without TelePrompTer — reviewing two new films, new DVD releases and highlighting a classic film that had strong images of women for the Lifetime audience. I loved that job. I was one of the few Black broadcasters in the 20th Century or this current one to have a weekly segment on a network show as a film critic. I got $500.00 a week for that job. The Abrams agent said, “You should be getting at least $1500.00 a week for that. It’s a network spot!” He called the producers. He could not get me one penny more. However, he took 10% of my $500 a week after he called unsuccessfully to negotiate. He had to that 10% per the union contract rules. Linda, my commercial agent, said that she’d wouldn’t have taken the 10% of that low salary. He did. So, there I was, breaking through a broadcast color barrier every Friday for the year that ABC News show aired, and I was taking home less than a counter clerk at Burger King.

I made excellent money when I auditioned for and booked the co host spot a free preview network cable weekend. I was asked back for another weekend at the same juicy salary. But don’t think those two bookings kept that broadcast agent from unexpectedly dropping me two days after he asked me for more demo reels. “If can’t get you work,” he said. “You’re getting older and you’re not a celebrity — like Kevin Nealon.” Kevin Nealon?!?!? I wanted to pull out a cartoon sledgehammer like in a Tex Avery feature and hammer him into the ground like the spike to a circus tent. Two months after Abrams dropped me, I was contacted to audition to be host of a new show on Food Network called “Top Five.” I booked it. The show aired from 2002 to 2008. When I got the news that I was the host, I called Linda and asked her to negotiate the contract. The Food Network reps loved dealing with her. We lost her to breast cancer the following year.

In early 2008, I was on national TV every week thanks to repeats of “Top 5″ on Food Network. I was also on national radio every week, as I was working with Whoopi Goldberg as a regular on-air member of her Wake Up With Whoopi morning show. I was invited to meet with the middle-aged head of the commercial department at…Abrams Artists, the same agency whose Broadcast Dept. head had kicked me to the curb in 2002. That’s show biz. I went in with a new attitude. The week before our meeting, I sent over the usual headshot/resumé along with info about this website plus a demo reel. I felt very good about that meeting. The agent graciously opened with, “So what are you doing?” I proudly and succinctly told her that I was doing national morning radio with Whoopi Goldberg — covering entertainment and adding laughs — and also still seen hosting a show every week on Food Network. The agent was holding my headshot/resumé in her hand when she asked, “How long has that been going on?”

I answered, “Top 5 premiered in 2002. We shoot 100 episodes. So it’s been on for about six years now.”

She replied, “No. Since when have you been doing TV host work?”

My eyes became the size of silver dollar pancakes as I waited for her to please say, “Joking! Just joking!” She wasn’t. I pointed to my resumé in her hand and said, “Nationally, I started in 1987/1988 when I had my own prime time talk show on VH1.”

I’m not making this up, you know.

That’s show biz. It’s a gamble. And a journey. If it’s meant to be, I’ll attract a broadcast agent who believes in me as much as I believe in myself.

www.youtube.com/BobbyRiversTV

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“Late Night” Drama

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

Can you believe this David Letterman scandal? A network news producer for CBS has been charged with that extortion plot!

I hear that CBS is now going to the change the name of “48 Hours” and start calling it “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”

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Cronkite in Person

Saturday, August 1st, 2009

I saw the late Walter Cronkite in person twice in my life. The last time was here in New York City, at a gala for the Museum of Broadcasting. I was an arm’s length away from the legendary newsroom as I smiled and said “Hello,” noticing the unfancy but very comfortable shoes he wore with his very classy tuxedo. Instantly, I remembered something one of my all-time favorite TV cameramen told me: “You can always tell a serious reporter by the shoes.” He was referring to a young woman who was in a tasteful dress suit. The shoes, however, were like shoes a lady cop would wear on the beat. That was his point. From the knees up, she’d look pretty on the air doing her TV report from the field. Off the air, if she needed to run after some executive and make him stop for a statement to the press, she could. She was not in fancy heels. She was prepared to do the work.

Walter Cronkite’s shoes matched the tuxedo. They weren’t fancy. They were practical. The practical shoes of a serious reporter.

The first time I saw him in person was in Milwaukee, early in my broadcast career. I subjected myself to a jolt of cultural shock when I, close to graduating from a Catholic high school in South Central Los Angeles, my home turf, decided to attend yet another parochial institution and study at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In my freshman year, I saw things I’d never ever seen before — snow, a Gimbel’s department store and Nazis in front of a Gimbel’s department store. For real.

When I started working in television, there was still a marked division between news and entertainment. In fact, there was something of a caste system. News anchors could have a touch of the pomposity that we came to associate with Ted Baxter on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” Also, if you were a black man on a newscast, you were doing sports. There was no such thing as black folks covering entertainment or legal features back then. That’s why, in the early episodes of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” Gordy (played by John Amos) being mistaken for a sportscaster when he was new got a laugh. That’s the way it was.

That classic sitcom aired on CBS. WITI was the CBS affiliate in Milwaukee. You turned to that channel for the weekly adventures of Mary Richards and the weeknight news from Walter Cronkite. WITI had a very popular newscast anchored by a silver-haired elder statesman of local news named Carl Zimmerman. That newscast also had weatherman Ward Allen and his puppet sidekick, Albert the Alleycat. Personally, I couldn’t stand Albert the Alleycat. I just wanted to set the annoying rag doll on fire.

Walter Cronkite came to Milwaukee to appear with the symphony orchestra in our Performing Arts Center. He’d make such appearances reading “Peter and the Wolf” with musical accompaniment. The avuncular held a most gracious meet-and-greet with local press in the lobby one morning, promoting his appearance and taking questions. Faces from the highly-rated local CBS news team were in the crowd. This was in the late 70s, I believe.

Cronkite had just arrived the previous night. The silver-haired Mr. Zimmerman, with his deep anchorman voice, raised his hand and had a question for “Walter,” as he called him. “How do you feel about our local news?” he asked, with a beaming buddy-to-buddy smile. His crew’s camera focused on him, then panning over to the network anchor for an answer that possibly could be used in the local evening newscast. Mr. Cronkite politely replied, “I haven’t had much time to watch since I just got in last night.” But he said that the little he did see was pretty commendable.

“Except for one newscast,” he added. “There was a weatherman…and a puppet. Puppets do not belong on the news,” Cronkite stressed. The faces on the local CBS news team in the press conference crowd fell like the numbers of employed Americans in 2008. It was moment that would have drawn a huge laugh had it been on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” but this was not a sitcom. It was real life.

Cronkite pulled no punches. Cronkite was cool. He was practical. And he went on to work longer than Albert the Alleycat did.
albert

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