WOMEN WITH BIG IDEAS

If you’re a woman with big ideas, you know what it feels like to be ignored. When I worked at a production company for ABC iN New York , I had big ideas. The bosses claimed they wanted us to come up with ideas for new shows. I believed them. So I went into overdrive. I had to get ahead because I had no safety net.

My only hope was my job, and Jerry’s approval. So I amplified the shameless self-promotion. I made my suggestions more attractive. “I have some ideas even the network might like.”

Jerry perked up. “The network?”

“A guy I went to college with.”

Liar!

Everybody wanted to get out of cable and do a network show in Primetime. Jerry nodded. “Let’s talk about it after work,” he said, and suggested a nearby restaurant.

That evening, after we ordered margaritas, I told Jerry about the shows I’d designed in college, and my work on shows in New York. How I was a reader for the New York Shakespeare Festival. I could produce. I could write. I could direct. Once I stopped talking about myself, he smiled.

He was thinking it over.

This was my big chance. This was everything I’d worked for. Maybe now I could help Mom out. Get the broken window fixed. Screens for the windows. I could get a better place for me and my sister Maureen in New York.

“Jerry? What do you think?”

He took a few minutes, seeming to mull over what I’d said.

Jerry smiled. “I think—“

Our drinks came. The waiter asked if we’d like to order some appetizers. Jerry said we’d think about it. When the waiter left, Jerry said, “I think we should have sex with each other. It could be good—for both of us.”

I choked on my chip. Reached for my drink. What in the world made him think I, a married woman (only technically, but still), would sleep with him, a married man? Could it be my fault? Did I send the wrong signal?

Oh my God.

All those days I put on high heels because Frank was coming in. The eyeliner. The Gloria Vanderbilt black velvet jeans.

I was asking for it.

Jerry put his hand on mine. “What do you think?”

I didn’t answer him, but I felt the blood drain from my face. “No.”

Jerry blanched. He pulled his hand away. “Okay,” he said. “Please don’t tell Kara.”

Tell Kara? Tell Kara?

“Please.”

Of course I won’t tell Kara. She cooked for me in their home. She gave me her Lamb-With-Forty-Cloves-of-Garlic recipe. Why would I ruin her day? Besides, Jerry was a liar and a cheat. He’d deny it anyway. And I’d lose my job. The best thing to do now is pretend it never happened. Put one foot in front of the other.

I doubled my efforts to escape from the desk-typewriter-phone holding me back. I had another idea for a new show. I wouldn’t bring it to Jerry, of course. I zeroed in on Leo, an older producer down the hall. He’d brought his wife and teen-aged daughters to the office from time to time, introducing them around and bragging about them to all of us. A real family man. He’d like this idea.

I called this show “Write Your Own Happy Ending” and based it on the work I did with young people. A heartwarming account of kids in the inner city who learn to write their own life stories. The camera could follow a half-dozen children and track how the experience might change their lives. Maybe we could even get funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. We could help them finish their stories and publish a book.

“We could develop it into a network series,” I said. “A Broadway show or even a feature film. Anything is possible.”

Leo listened. He nodded. “Interesting,” he said. He got up from his chair. He shut the door to his office. He perched on his desk and put his hands on my shoulders. “Let’s go over to the Warwick,” he said. “We’ll have a drink in the bar. Then get a room.” Leo, the Family Man. The one with the nice wife and daughters. These guys are mental.

Things will be better in L.A.

Some years later I sit in the conference room at the new Frank Gehry Building in Burbank. Just outside the window, one of the seven dwarfs perches on the ledge. My partner, Bonnie, and I wait for the director and the executives to come in with their copies of the script and their identical notecards with their names on them. We all did back then. You would sit down and display your notecard, indicating you were ready to do business.

But I have a two-year-old boy at home. He has an appointment with the pediatrician. I’m anxious to get home.

The men come in. There’s a vice president, a creative executive, the director-writer, his writing partner, a line producer in charge of all the physical activity on the set, the budget, and so forth. All men. In a few months we’ll have a movie. This little film was on a fast track. When it was my turn to speak, I brought up a scene by the original writer that had been cut. The director jumped out of his chair, lunged across the table, and reached for my throat as if to choke me.

“No old drafts! No old drafts!”

Writer-directors get paid by the credits, and the credits are decided by the Writers Guild. So this director, like so many, did not want any of the original material. He wanted to keep all the credit to himself and therefore he could keep all the money to himself. He wanted to choke me to death to keep more moolah, and I believe he would have if the line producer hadn’t tackled him and thrown him back into his seat.

The Disney Vice President on duty that day told him to apologize. He wouldn’t. The meeting continued. Just another day in show business, where the strong survive.

“I can’t believe you didn’t cry,” Bonnie said.

That’s what I accomplished that day. I didn’t cry. But I had another Big Idea, I withdrew from production. I still got my money and my credit.

I spent the summer in our backyard pool with my litte boy.