“I was the highest paid actor in Hollywood -- if you were counting by the word.”
          - actor Eric Brown

THE CONVERSATION

• TAKING THE PIPPIN BUS: Nine-year-old Eric played the lead in the original touring company of Bob Fosse’s Pippin! “It was 1974. I was the only child in a cast of adults. One-and-two-night stands. In a bus. Thirty states. Six months.”
• PRIVATE LESSONS: The lead got fired -- so Eric was promoted to star!
• 15 GOING ON 30: In Private Lessons, Fifteen year-old Eric Brown, played a fifteen-year-old -- being seduced by a thirty-year-old woman! “My wife is still mad at my mother for letting me play that role!”
• KICKED OUT OF SCHOOL: Eric was kicked out of St. Francis Prep School for being in Private Lessons: “They said, “We think you’d do better at another school considering your career goals.” It was a very Franciscan way of saying, “Get out”.”
• MAMA’S FAMILY: “You know the rumors that Betty White had a dirty streak? All true.”
• On working with Carol Burnett, Vicki Lawrence, Dorothy Lyman, Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Harvey Korman: “Everyone was so funny -- you were always laughing. They were constantly futzing, because they knew what was funny -- and if it wasn’t, they would fix it."
• DIRECTOR SPLIT: Mama’s Family had TWO directors: Harvey Korman worked with the actors, while someone else blocked out the camera moves (Roger Beatty).
• THE METAVERSE OF MAMA'S FAMILY: Vicki Lawrence started playing the at least 63-year-old “Mama” when she was in her late 20’s!
• THE EPISODE THAT NEVER WAS: Eric pitched an episode where he and Ken Barry -- both tap dancers -- could dance together in a talent show.  But it never happened.
• TAKE THE TOUPEE: Carol Burnett would do anything for a laugh -- including pulling the hairpiece off a certain co-star during taping -- when no one was expecting it!
• BAD NEWS, GOOD NEWS, WORSE NEWS -- Mama’s Family gets cancelled.  Then it comes back!  But not with Eric.
• LOVING LAURA HOLT: After Private Lessons, Eric did a replay on Remington Steele -- playing a kid with a crush on an “older woman”: “I was head over heels in love with Stephanie Zimbalist. In real life!”
• BE KIND, REWIND: After jobs dried up in Hollywood, Eric moved to Monterey and got a job in a video store: “I was renting movies to people that I WAS IN.”
• FIRST RULE OF COMMUNICATION: For the MacArthur Foundation or a lost chicken in Queens: Know your goal.
• WHAT CAN ONE PERSON DO TO HELP THE WORLD? Find what you love and offer that.

So, join Susan and Sharon -- and Eric -- as they talk Listerine commercials, the Clinton campaign, Jon de Bont, Sarah Jessica Parker, Howard Hessman, Barry Williams, On Golden Pond, Ian Ziering, curfew “double standards”, working with women directors, Jerry Reed, Emmanuelle, Fred Willard -- and evil twins!  

AUDIO-OGRAPHY
Watch Mama’s Family for free on Pluto TV.
Listen to Eric Brown’s podcast about philanthropy, Let’s Hear it. Or on Apple. 
Check out what Eric Brown is doing now at Brownbridgestrategies.com.
Enjoy Eric’s blog about traveling the world with his wife at Eat, Bicker, Love.

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Get 15% off on all merch at 80s TV Ladies Shop on Fourthwall.
Make sure to use promo code “Festive80s”!  

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This year is the 45th anniversary of President Carter's Crisis of Confidence speech. Get Susan’s new play about it: Confidence (and the Speech) at Broadway Licensing. 

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