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Gary Goldberg was a producer and writer for television and film. His TV sitcoms included the 1982 hit show Family Ties, starring Michael Fox, as well as Brooklyn Bridge and Spin City. Gary was the author of the memoir Sit Ubu Sit. Ubu Productions, founded in 1981, was named after his black labrador retriever Ubu. Gary spoke with Jessica Harris about how he launched his writing career, from scratch. He died shortly after this recording in June, 2013. Listen to the interview Interview Transcript Host, Jessica Harris: 00:06 I’m Jessica Harris. This is from scratch. My guest is Gary Goldberg, a producer and writer for television and film. His TV sitcoms include the 1982 show Family Ties starring Michael Fox as well as Brooklyn Bridge and Spin City. Gary has written a memoir called Sit, Ubu, Sit. Ubu was the name of his production company, which he founded in 1981 named after his black Labrador retriever, Ubu. Welcome. Guest, Gary Goldberg: 00:34 Thank you. It is really a pleasure to be here. Jessica Harris: 00:36 You fell into a career in writing accidentally and you didn’t know that you wanted to become a writer until you were in your 30s. How did that discovery happen? Gary Goldberg: 00:47 It really was based on the fact that I had been this giant failure in the eyes of the world from the time I was, I would say 20 to 31 I was actually 31 at the time and I had, so I had never graduated college. I, I had been asked to leave more than one, but less than four, uh, universities. And my wife, who was a super student of all time, was going on to get like a triple master’s degree on the way to her PhD. And I was just tagging along at San Diego state, uh, university and just taking care of the baby and the Labrador, you know, Ubu. So that was really it. So I needed credits everywhere. I needed a thousand credits. And so I took a beginning writing class and it happened that the writer was a gentleman name of Nate Monaster, who was a past president of the Writers Guild. The assignment was to write a television commercial, and I was older and I just hadn’t really no interest in that, but I thought, well, I’m in this class and I, maybe I should try to write something. So I went up to Nate. Uh, I said, you know, I, I’m not trying to get out of the assignment, but I don’t want to do a commercial. Can I just try to write something? And he said, great. So I started to write about when I was a waiter at the village gate in New York during the sixties, late sixties which was kind of a turning point in my life. And it was interesting to me as I sat down to write, I could transport myself back to the village gate, I could hear dialogue, I could hear individual voices, I could hear, you know, silverware, you know, drinks being poured. And it was startling. Gary Goldberg: 02:16 And I wrote, and I had a good time, so I hand in these pages and we were not economically solvent at this point, so we couldn’t afford a telephone. Our phone was in our neighbor’s apartment. So he came over and he said, Hey Gary, there’s a guy from the college wants to talk to you. And I walk across the yard and it’s Nate Monaster. And he said, um, “Okay. You have to come in and see me. You have to come in now.” It was a Sunday. And so I go to see a Nate Monaster and I walk in, he’s got my script there and he looks up at me and he goes, “You can’t be in this class.” He said, um, “You’re a writer. You’re a writer. I have nothing to teach you. I don’t want to get in the way. You have an individual voice. It’s unique. I, I just, I don’t want to be involved here and trying to change it or even comment on it other than say it’s very compelling.” And you know, I was saying, whoa, you know, uh, what are you saying here? And he said, “Well, you can definitely make a living here, you know, at this. What are your favorite television shows?” Well, we didn’t even have a TV, you know, so I said, I don’t know. So he said, “Well, you should look at TV.” Jessica Harris: 03:13 There was a motel liquidating its furniture and that’s where you bought your television. Gary Goldberg: 03:19 Yes, we got this big black and white set and we plugged it in and Diana was standing over my right shoulder, I remember. And we watched this show comes on called Get Christie Love. And I watched about 10 minutes of it and then I turned to Diana and I said, well, I can do this. I think I can do this. Jessica Harris: 03:36 Before this epiphany moment, you had been meandering professionally. You had been a waiter in Greenwich Village. You dabbled in acting, you were a postal worker temporarily. Gary Goldberg: 03:46 Right. I was the worst actor, one of the worst actors ever. I was actually just trying to meet girls then. It was before I met my wife. I wasn’t actually a great postal worker either. I, I was not a good worker. I just had trouble focusing. Um, I remember my dad would always say, “What’s going to become of you?”. Jessica Harris: 04:02 Yet, despite the difficulty that you had in focusing, it seemed like your parents had this unconditional acceptance of you. You grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, and from your book it seems like you, you grew up in a very loving, accepting household. Gary Goldberg: 04:17 Yeah. I think the most accepting person was my father. His love was unconditional. Mom’s love was conditional on good grades and she liked it when you fit into that pattern of moving forward, you know, and yeah, we were over-loved as kids. Whatever craziness existed in our family, it was clear to my brother, Stanley, and myself that it really came from this just enormous love, this, this well of love. Jessica Harris: 04:44 Incidentally, you said before you are a failure in the eyes of the world. Were you a failure in your eyes? Gary Goldberg: 04:50 I wasn’t, you know, because I had this great love. I was involved in this romance that I’m still involved in with my now wife, Diana Meehan. So I could see interpersonally how happy we were and how we were exploring and discovering things together and putting things in place. And what I was learning from her, she was much more daring, uh, physically than I was. You know, I remember one time she had come in and she said, “You know, uh, we, we have to go up the Alaskan highway because it’s going to be paved soon.” And I was thinking, well, shouldn’t we wait until they pave it and then we’ll go? I would say any good thing that’s happened, really, has come from Diana and my relationship with her and just the way she saw me as a person. I was just really lucky Jessica Harris: 05:39 You met Diana at a party in Brooklyn in 1969. She, at the time, was playing the guitar and she was a Pan Am stewardess, and in your book you said, “I was always and am always writing for an audience of one.” And it’s, it’s, um, it’s just lovely to see. Gary Goldberg: 05:58 Thank you. I remember there’s something in the book–and this is really true–I went for a psychic reading, you know, and the woman said, um, “Never leave the woman you are with, you’re nothing without her.” And I said, could I take my coat off? You know what I mean? I get, I know that! Jessica Harris: 06:13 During the time when you were in the desert professionally, before you found your writing career, one of the jobs you had was opening a daycare center in California after your first daughter was born. Gary Goldberg: 06:26 It was an interesting time for us to, Diana and I had been together for about five years roughly at this point, and we had spent 24 hours a day together, uh, every day. And we had hitchhiked around the world. And I was, again, fortunate with Diana, because Diana didn’t want furniture or a house. I mean, when we first met, I said to her, look, if you’re looking for a guy who’s gonna make a living, it’s not me. Okay. There’s nothing I want to own. I don’t, I don’t want furniture. I don’t want a house. I don’t want a car. So all of a sudden we’re pregnant. And, um, we knew some friends who had run a daycare center and it was, we could do the math. It was $100 a month, I think. They had 12 kids, $1,200 a month. Diana and I sat down and tried to figure out how to spend $1,200 a month. We could not spend all 1200, no matter how many times we went to the movies, you know. So we just thought, we want to be together and I want to be with the baby every day. And, um, so we came up with this idea of getting a big old house. And then we would run the daycare center in the bottom part. We were in Berkeley and it was called the Organic Daycare Center and–you have to know your audience–our motto was “We take your kid on a trip every day.” There was no structure. There was just, there seemed to be, you know, dogs running everywhere. Uh, you know, it was chaotic. But what people liked is there was a man and a woman and we had our own baby and it worked really well. Jessica Harris: 07:49 I’m Jessica Harris, you’re listening to From Scratch. My guest is the award winning writer and producer Gary Goldberg. In 1981 he created Ubu Productions, after his dog, and in 1982 he created the family sitcom Family Ties starring Michael J. Fox, which ran for seven seasons and launched Michael’s acting career. His other shows include Brooklyn Bridge and Spin City. How did not having an ambition early on to be a TV writer almost help your TV writing, if at all? Gary Goldberg: 08:18 When I started to write, and I think this was my secret weapon coming up to LA also to do it, which was I wanted to do it a certain way or I didn’t want to do it, which comes from it never actually having been a dream of mine, you know, so it wasn’t like I have to do this, uh, at all costs. I thought, well, I’d like to do this if I can do it a certain way. And Diana was always the one who would read what I wrote. And her opinion of it mattered to me more than anyone else’s. And so the fact that–with Family Ties and shows that we did–that Diana was on board with that and really a big fan, was very important to me. Had she not liked that work, I don’t think I would have continued with it no matter what. Jessica Harris: 08:58 Yeah. Well, it seems that there are a handful of people who impact the course of your life and it seems that Nate Monaster was that for you professionally. And of course Diana was that personally. Gary Goldberg: 09:10 And, and the third person in that, a holy triangle for me is Michael Fox who is, uh, you know, another angel who came down to, uh, to be in my life. You know, Jessica Harris: 09:22 Speaking of Michael Fox and switching to Family Ties, Michael Fox wasn’t the original, uh, actor who was going to be Alex P Keaton. It was Matthew Broderick and the deal fell through. Gary Goldberg: 09:35 Yeah, Matthew was, um, one of the, maybe the first person I saw for the, for the part. And then I think Matthew, uh, his dad was not well. And I think he also had a clear picture that his New York theatrical life was going to take off. And, and he chose to not go forward and, and then, you know, because I’m from Brooklyn and we have these attachments, you know, I, I, it took me so long to get over that. And Mike Fox came in. I saw him way too soon after losing Matthew and I wasn’t available to his charms, you know? Jessica Harris: 10:09 Hmm. And actually, Judith Weiner, the casting director, begged you to look at him. Not just once, but twice. Could you tell us that story? Gary Goldberg: 10:17 Yeah. Well, Judith was, who’s no longer on this plane, was an extraordinary person and an extraordinary talent as a casting director. We were very much like a married couple, you know, it was very, we could say anything to each [inaudible] Judith said “You have made a terrible mistake.” I said, Judith, I think I know the character. It’s not this boy. She said, “this is the boy”. And I said, can we just move on? And we saw a lot of other people and we weren’t getting close and Judith would always say to me, it’s Michael Fox. See Michael Fox again. And meanwhile we did another project which was very well reviewed. And so we’re down in Washington DC where the premier was for some reason the press tour. And I’d called Judith and I had been drinking heavily at the party, had many Margarita’s, and I said to Judith, I just want you to know you’re getting rave reviews for the casting and thank you very much. And uh, she said, you’re in a good mood. I said, I’m a great mood. She said, would you do me a favor? And I said, anything Senorita, you know, and, and she said, see Michael Fox again? Just see him again. I said, I’ll do it, but only because I love you because I know he’s not the guy. So Mike came in the second time and he was Mike and I was available to see it. And after he left the office, I turned to Judith and I said, why didn’t you tell me about him? This is the guy. Jessica Harris: 11:32 When you finally did hire Michael Fox before the show started, you had trouble sealing that deal because you couldn’t find him. Could you tell us about that? Gary Goldberg: 11:41 Well, one of the great things, you know how moments occur, you know, Michael Fox said later to me, if I didn’t get family ties, I was giving up. I had been pushed around and overlooked and I just, I just couldn’t do it anymore. So he had no money. He was selling off furniture to stay alive. So he didn’t have a phone. Something I could certainly relate to. So, um, he was using this Pioneer Chicken outlet up on Highland Avenue as his office. So I called Bob Gersh, his agent. I said, Bob, we want to make the deal. And he said, I have to wait till he checks in. And I go, what do you mean? He goes, he’s going to go to the chicken place and call me. Jessica Harris: 12:18 Finally, you convinced yourself that Michael Fox was the right person, but Brandon Tartikoff, who was the president of NBC, green-lighted the show and said, yes, Gary, we’re going to do Family Ties. But on one condition: we use someone other than Michael Fox. Uh, and you fought for Michael. Gary Goldberg: 12:35 Well, Brandon was a genius, you know, and so he was trying to help, you know, it certainly didn’t seem like it at the time. His suggestion was that we replaced Michael and I said, you, you can’t, that’s crazy. I mean, he’s the guy and I couldn’t do it. I mean, I would rather there not be a show. It wasn’t a hard fight with Brandon, you know? And they basically said fairly quickly, basically if, okay, if you feel that strongly about it, let’s just go with Michael. Jessica Harris: 13:01 In your book, you say that Michael Fox delivered Brandon–after the show was a success–a lunchbox with Michael’s face on the cover of it and inside was crow. And there’s this idiom to eat crow. What does eat crow mean? Gary Goldberg: 13:15 Well, it means to admit your mistake and eat [inaudible] I’ll eat my hat. Well this is it. Eat your hat. Because Brandon had said about why, so why don’t you want Michael Fox? And they said, well, is this the kind of face that’ll be on a lunchbox? And I said, well, I don’t know a thermos maybe. I mean, how can you cast like that? But what was so great about Brandon is Brandon had that lunchbox on his desk. So it was the first thing you saw when you walked into his office. Jessica Harris: 13:39 Also, there was a little bit of a pivot in the show. You initially thought the show would be centered around parents, uh, you know, echoing your life with Diana. But it ended up being more about the kids. Gary Goldberg: 13:51 That really is just testament to the power of Michael Fox. You know, it’s like you draft Michael Jordan, you change your offense. I don’t care what your offense was the week before or if you have Joe Montana, you all of a sudden go into the West coast offense cause that works for Joe Montana. Well we had Michael Jordan and Joe Montana. We had Michael Fox. He was, it was something that could not be denied. Jessica Harris: 14:14 NBC aired all seven seasons of family ties, but this is after CBS turned you down. What’s the story there? Gary Goldberg: 14:21 It was, you know,…
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