Eighty Is Not Enough: One Actor's Journey Through American Entertainment Read online

  I enjoyed my dealings with Bobby Riggs, and not just because my son got the best of him. The truth is we shared an appetite for putting it on the line. He was a real character. Vincent also stayed friendly with him and years later worked with him in a movie starring Ron Silver titled When Billy Beat Bobby. I also respected Riggs. In his youth, he had been a great champion, the best player in the world. But he also showed that a guy could still get out and play and enjoy athletics into his old age. I played tennis nearly every day of life into my late 70s—right up until my first stroke. There was more to Riggs’s message than just the overly-publicized battle of the sexes. And in the end, he also became close to Billy Jean. She spoke to him right before he died in 1995, and the last thing she said to him was “I love you.” I give her a lot of credit. In the end, Bobby Riggs, despite his sometimes controversial antics, was a class act.

  43

  FARRAH

  Each generation has its feminine icon. There’s no way to fully understand the phenomenon, but the world—and particularly the world of men—seem to regularly come together like a wolf pack to elevate some woman to a status above all others. The women they choose are the women who have “it.” What exactly “it” is remains a mystery, but of all the women I’ve seen through the years, Marilyn Monroe had it; so did Jean Harlow, Betty Grable, Sophia Loren, Liz Taylor and Raquel Welch. In the 1970s Farrah had “it.”

  One thing these women have in common is, of course, beauty—in fact, stunning beauty. But that doesn’t tell the half of it. They also have that special something, a charisma that eludes precise definition. And yet despite its elusive character, we all know exactly who they are; we all know because each one of them projects a self-image that somehow manages to ignite the imagination of entire generations.

  I first met Farrah Fawcett while my son Vincent was doing a show, Apples Way, with my good friend and longtime neighbor, Ronnie Cox. One day this beautiful young woman did a guest appearance on the show.

  In the meantime, Farrah and my wife Pat, who was sitting with Vincent on the set, were also becoming very friendly. In time Pat would choreograph some of the dance skits on Charlie’s Angels, and she and Farrah remained the very best of friends up until Farrah’s death.

  I remember early on telling Bill Sheppard of Disney that I knew a young actress who might be good to have in one of their movies. They met with Farrah, and I recall his humorous and prescient response when he said to me, “Dick, we’re trying to promote a wholesome look over here. This girl’s a knockout.”

  That was, of course, true. In fact, it was around this time that Farrah made that transition into something bigger than life with her historic poster, which within months was the biggest seller in the world, eventually smashing all records for poster sales. It was even shot into outer space as part of a time capsule launched in a NASA space probe in 1977. At around the same time of the poster’s release, September of 1976, Farrah debuted on Charlie’s Angels. And with the new role, the poster and her own marvelous charisma, Farrah transformed into the biggest sex icon of her generation. It was amazing for us to watch this fun-loving, witty young woman, who had none of that self-destructive craving for stardom too common among Hollywood celebrities, transform unexpectedly into this giant iconic figure.

  In the meantime, Farrah remained a close friend of our family, especially to Pat. In recent years she had been a model of dignity and courage as she fought her battle with cancer. Pat was by her side throughout much of her struggle, even visiting her in Germany while she received treatment. One of our most treasured possessions is a beautiful picture of Farrah in her famous red bathing suit in which she signed: “For my second family, I love you, Farrah.”

  I always believed that if anyone could win that fight it would be Farrah. Survival involves the will to live, to persevere against the odds. Farrah had those qualities and more and became a wonderful role model for those afflicted with this terrible disease. Before her death, she made headlines again with her television special, Farrah’s Story, about her struggle with cancer. Many have expressed different views on whether she should have done it. I don’t have an easy answer for that, but I do know that it took guts. And if that show makes it easier for even one person to face this terrible scourge of cancer, then it was certainly worth it. In the end, Pat and I believe that Farrah’s courage and dignity throughout her long ordeal will be her greatest legacy.

  Upon hearing of her death, Farrah’s millions of friends and fans poured out their words celebrating her life and expressing sadness at her leaving. Of them all, Pat and I were especially moved by the beautiful tribute of her former Charlie’s Angels co-star, Jaclyn Smith, who simply said: “Farrah had courage, she had strength, and she had faith. And now she has peace as she rests with the real angels.”

  44

  GOODBYE

  When my mother became seriously ill, also with cancer, she had been living nearby in Los Angeles for the past few years. In the spring of 1976, her cancer had spread, and soon she was in the end-stage and had to be hospitalized.

  Hearing the prognosis, my father came to California to see Jo for the last time. When he arrived, Casey took him to see her at the Brotman Memorial Hospital in Culver City. To alleviate the pain, Mom was receiving injections of morphine every three hours and was not always lucid. When Casey and Dad entered her room, she was asleep. Dad knelt down by her bedside and went to kiss her hand. At just that moment her eyes opened, and she saw my father for the first time in many years. “Dick, what are you doing here?” she said. He lied and told her he just happened to be out visiting his family and heard she was not feeling well. Casey listened as they spoke for a few minutes about old times, and I was so happy later when I heard this.

  Yet, even at the end, Mom just couldn’t leave well enough alone.

  “When did you arrive?” she began interrogating Dad.

  “Just yesterday.”

  “How was your flight?”

  “Oh, I didn’t fly, I took the train.”

  Mom paused for a moment.

  “Why would you take the train, Dick?”

  “Well, it’s so interesting, you meet people; you get to see the country….”

  With that, Mom looked over at Casey with a look of disdain: “I just can’t believe it. After all these years, he’s still so cheap!”

  That was Jo—a straight talker, right to the end.

  In truth, Dad really was the kind of man who would enjoy the adventure of a cross-country train ride. But this time, seeing the countryside and meeting an assortment of characters along the way, was, no doubt, a bittersweet experience as he journeyed to see the girl he first loved for the last time.

  When Jo died, on May 17, 1976, my father felt there was something that needed saying—some acknowledgment of all she had done for us. He wrote to Joyce and me: “I feel that it is not enough to have lived selflessly all those years, as she did, and then just die and that’s the end of it.”

  But that wasn’t “the end of it.” Together my parents left an extraordinary legacy. They gave to their children and grandchildren a genuine love of entertainment—a love sparked that magical night in 1928 when Mom and Dad were stagestruck by Edna Ferber’s Showboat. They went on to create not only young children with stage careers, but an entire family of entertainers. They watched as their grandchildren grew into accomplished actors. Vincent even became a child star. They saw Jimmy and Nels, as well as Joyce’s children, Casey and Talia Balsam in numerous shows, plays and films. And my Dad watched his son, Tim Van Patten—my half-brother, although a contemporary of my children—become a teenage star in The White Shadow and go on to be recognized as one of the finest directors in television. The legacy my parents left behind was one to be tremendously proud of. Jo didn’t just die and, as my father feared, that was “the end of it.”

  Dad, of course, fully understood Jo’s legacy, but he wanted to make sure that we also understood—that Joyce and I fully appreciated the fact that Mom, while flawed like
everyone, really had sacrificed so much for us and for all her family. For such a woman, Dad wrote to us, “something more enduring must be stated.” To find the right words, he turned again to his trusted muse, ending his letter with Portia’s judgment that even a small light of goodness shines bright amidst the troubles and turbulence we make for ourselves. Borrowing from the Bard, he wrote of my mother: “her life will stand out as ‘a good deed in a naughty world.’” Dad got it just right.

  Since Mom’s death, there is one thing that has always bothered me: she never got to see my success in Eight Is Enough. She worked her whole life to make that happen. Within a year after her death, I had the lead in one of the most popular television shows of the decade. It would have meant a great deal to her. It might have been a final confirmation that all her sacrifices had been worth it. In fact, my sister Joyce recently commented on what a great shame it was that Jo didn’t live just a little longer to watch Eight Is Enough take off. Life rarely works out exactly as we plan, but I’ve never forgotten the role my mother played in preparing me for that success. Nor has a day gone by when I haven’t thought of her. She was one of a kind, and saying goodbye to her was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.

  45

  EIGHT IS ENOUGH

  Eight Is Enough was a family show at a time in America when family life had been challenged by a series of social changes, some of which were positive and others less so. When the pilot aired in 1977, Americans were just coming out of the rebellions of the 1960s and early 1970s. The Vietnam War had ended only a few years earlier, and the Watergate scandal had shaken confidence in public officials and institutions. Everyone living through that period knew that many of the values we cherished as Americans had been put to a severe test. As a result, I think there was a genuine desire among many people to restore a semblance of normalcy and stability in American life. That desire was reflected in the kind of television people chose to watch.

  The enormous popularity of Eight Is Enough was, I suspect, connected to a feeling of comfort people experienced in watching the exploits—often harebrained exploits—of this big, loving and goofy family. The Bradfords were not wrapped up in war, economic crisis or the battle over America’s culture that had preoccupied the country for so long. For many people, the Bradfords represented a reaffirmation of the primacy of family life in a world that had long seemed consumed with other things.

  But that’s not to say the show turned a blind eye to the world. I’ve always believed the writers of Eight Is Enough, particularly the creator and head-writer Bill Blinn, found just the right mix of that idyllic world inside the Bradford household with events outside the home that were not so idyllic. Bill had no desire to create just another family comedy with cardboard characters who lived uncomplicated lives. In an interview, Blinn noted that one appealing aspect of the book, Eight Is Enough is that Tom Braden had put up no pretenses: “Braden was flawed,” Blinn recalled. “His family was flawed. His kids were flawed. As we all are. And [Braden] acknowledged it.” That honesty caused the reader not only to recognize the family as realistic, but also to identify emotionally with the issues they confronted and the often less than perfect way they resolved them.

  Being a family television show, Eight Is Enough episodes usually had happy endings. Yet in the process we managed to touch on a good number of themes carrying real lessons about the difficulties we all confront in life—especially in the years in which our children are coming of age—and how to better manage them in this rapidly changing world. There were episodes dealing with drug abuse, interracial dating, premarital sex, single parenthood and a great number of related topics that would have been considered off-limits for prime-time television just a few years earlier.

  We were not the only show addressing such topics. Nor did we address them as strongly as others. All in the Family was a truly groundbreaking show, far more stark in raising such issues as bigotry than Eight Is Enough. There were others as well. But we did it in the context of a family that was not dysfunctional. If we dealt with divorce, it may have been a softer version, but it was represented in a world that was not angry or hostile toward marriage.

  The most important recurring theme involved the difficulties of coming of age. There comes a time when children realize that life is not always what it seems. We began with eight different children, both boys and girls, so the writers could imagine the problems confronted by children at all different stages of development, and they did this with great success.

  * * *

  The casting of Eight Is Enough had been a difficult process. As Bill Blinn described it, the auditions were about more than just finding talented young actors. Bill recalls kids who were terrific standing alone, but less believable when matched with others. The key was getting the “chemistry” right. And even the final selections for the pilot episode turned out to be less than final. In fact, four of the eight original Bradford kids were replaced by the time the first season aired.

  My head was also on the chopping block. It turns out Bill Blinn was opposed to my getting the part. He preferred an unknown actor, someone the public would see as a fresh face. And by this time, with my career now revived, that wasn’t me.

  Through the years I came to greatly admire Bill’s work in writing and overseeing the development of the show. More than anyone, in my view, Bill was responsible for the great success of Eight Is Enough. But I’ll take the liberty of saying that on this one point, and with the benefit of hindsight, Bill may have gotten it wrong. Fortunately—and without my knowing it—I had friends in high places. Actually there was one friend, and he was in the very highest place—Fred Silverman, the President of ABC.

  As I heard the story, after working with another actor for a few days, Fred thought the performances needed to be a little more upbeat and comical. Fred, an old fan of I Remember Mama, told the producers: “Dick Van Patten has a funny bone.” And that was that. As Bill Blinn commented in very good nature: “Silverman, one, Blinn, zero.” It certainly made me happy. In fact, I’ve never hesitated in saying that I owe everything to Fred Silverman. His decision propelled my career back to a place I hadn’t known since Mama closed down over twenty years earlier.

  Like I Remember Mama, Eight Is Enough was designed to be a show with two parents sharing the task of raising their children. I had learned from Mama, as well as The Goldbergs, the importance of the mother’s character in the center of family life. Peggy Wood’s ability to fill that role had been central to Mama’s success. It was critical that the producers find someone equally gifted to play Tom Bradford’s wife, Joan.

  I could not have been more pleased to learn that my friend, Diana Hyland, was in the running. Diana was a marvelous actress whom I had worked with in New York on Young Doctor Malone. I was delighted the day she called to say she landed the role. She seemed so happy at the time, and, once my own position was secured, we looked forward to working together for as long as the show lasted—hopefully for years.

  Diana had just finished filming a television movie, The Boy in the Plastic Bubble. She was the mother of a child whose immune system had been so completely destroyed that he was forced to live in a sterile environment. She played that maternal role so beautifully that I have no doubt the producers of Eight Is Enough were hoping Diana would bring those same qualities to our show. Diana won an Emmy for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in The Boy in the Plastic Bubble. Sadly she would not live long enough to accept the award.

  John Travolta played Diana’s son in the film. A talented young actor and dancer from Brooklyn, New York, John had not yet exploded into the American consciousness as the principal image of the new disco dance craze and a cultural icon of the 1970s. Although a good deal younger than Diana, the two fell in love on the set of The Boy in the Plastic Bubble. At the time there were some skeptics because of the age difference, but I can say from my own observations that John and Diana were deeply in love.

  No one connected to Eight Is Enough knew Diana was
dying of cancer. On every television series, the actors are required to obtain medical clearance from a studio doctor. Obviously it’s important for the producers to know if someone is ill. Continuity of characters in a series is critical, and the studios are investing tremendous sums of money, relying on the ability of the actors to continue playing their parts. It’s a mystery to me how the doctors could have missed diagnosing Diana’s cancer, which must have already advanced to a critical stage. But somehow they didn’t see it, and we were all extremely happy that Diana would be playing Joan Bradford.

  As expected, Diana was wonderful in the pilot and the three following episodes. I still remember John Travolta picking her up at the studio. They seemed so genuinely happy together, it would have been hard to imagine that she was carrying a terrible burden. But the truth was that her cancer was rapidly progressing.

  In retrospect, Diana’s final episode, Turnabout, held a really ironic twist. In it David, played by Grant Goodeve, began dating an older woman—David was nineteen and his new girlfriend, Jennifer, thirty. Tom was upset by the age difference and raised the issue to Joan at bedtime. He told her: “I just don’t understand how a mature, healthy woman can be attracted to someone David’s age.” Diana, as Joan, took David’s side: “Well, men can appreciate a firm young body, why should women be any different?”

  I wonder if Diana was thinking of her own relationship with John Travolta during this discussion. In fact, there is a kind of eerie moment when the possibility is suggested in the show that this is some kind of Freudian fixation and that David is really in love with his mother. What makes it stranger, still, is that Grant Goodeve bore a bit of a resemblance to John, and the scenes between Grant and Diana took on an added component in light of all of this. I never asked him, but it’s hard to believe that Bill Blinn in writing the episode wasn’t in some way influenced by the real-life relationship between John and Diana—if not consciously, then perhaps at some deeper level. In any event, it was another example of Eight Is Enough taking on the somewhat controversial topic of age differences in relationships, while still continuing to present an image of family wholesomeness.