Bill Idelson, R.I.P.
A learned a few days ago of the death on New Year’s eve of Bill Idelson but didn’t figure I’d blog about it until the Los Angeles Times ran an obit. Now they have, and you canĀ click here to read it.
To most people reading this, Bill will be known for either or both of two credits: a recurring role as Rose Marie’s boyfriend Herman Gilmscher on “The Dick van Dyke Show,” and for having written the “Long Distance Call” episode of “The Twilight Zone,” wherein a toy telephone provides the link between a boy (Billy Mumy) and his dead grandmother. Bill also wrote and acted in many other television shows, and for years ran a writing workshop from his house that at least a few of my friends signed up for.
He was also one of my professors in graduate school at USC, where he made an indelible impression. Ostensibly, Bill was teaching sitcom writing. In actuality, Bill was teaching Thinking For Yourself 101. He wasn’t interested in seemingly clever puns — I remember him ripping a fellow student apart for writing a scene about a gorilla in a cage in a suburban household that included the very bad line of dialogue, “But there’s a gorilla in our midst!” (This was around the time of the release of the film “Gorillas in the Mist.”) He was interested in the reality of the situation and your take on it. Both elements were important: There’s a reason that good sitcoms reflect the word blend they arise from — situation, and comedy.
On the last day of class, at the height of the reign of Bush the First, Bill decided to go for broke. He stripped away the outer shell of the lesson — the “writing” part — and left only the cold hard center of the “thinking” part. Bill let us know how he saw the world, in terms of the powerful and the powerless. This went over about as well as one would imagine with a much younger generation succored (or suckered) by Reagan/Bush, and in particular with a group of 12 or so who wanted to write junky pun-laden television with creamy caramel centers. Bill didn’t even expect them to agree with him — he wanted them to argue, to defend their positions, to think for themselves in the way he thought writers should — but they turned cold and a pall fell over the room. At the end of class, two of us hung around to console him. I didn’t come of age during McCarthyism, and I wasn’t writing the nakedly enlightened humanism evidenced by “The Twilight Zone,” but I liked to think I thought for myself, and I could surely see the dynamics of the room, and I generally side with the underdog, and in this case that was the aging writer who hadn’t had any reason to risk his self-image in such a personal campaign with disinterested students — except of course he had to.
I will never forget Bill for that lesson. Or for another.
When my play “Guest for Dinner” was produced in the USC MPW one-act festival — a festival that oddly enough I now find myself executive producing — Bill came to see it at my urging. He brought his wife, the actress-producer Seemah Wilder whom, through further odd circumstance, I would wind up producing in a play about 10 years later and whom I hadn’t remembered as Bill’s wife until reading these obits the past week. “Guest for Dinner” had been produced at Stockton College when I was an undergrad and it had been a sensation, with extra chairs required for every performance and big laughs and a sense of minor celebrity in the making. If anything, the USC production had better acting and better direction, and was clearly working better than at least two of the other plays in the festival. (The fourth play, by a fellow grad student named Peter Chase, was very strong.) On opening night, as people streamed outside filled with what to me seemed like excitement, I asked Bill what he thought. He said something short, friendly, and noncommittal like “Congratulations.” But I wanted to hear more, and said, “No, what did you really think?” And then he told me. Within the space of about two minutes, he ripped the play to shreds. I guess my face betrayed my shock and disappointment, because when it was over, Seemah gripped my arm warmly and said, “Well, I liked it.” I thanked him for his honesty and walked away, licking my wounds. As I thought about this later, I grew to agree with Bill that the play didn’t really work: The writing is self-conscious, the motivations at times weak, the conflict muted. These are mistakes I like to think I haven’t repeated, and as for the play, I allowed one further production and haven’t sent it out since.
People who teach writing aren’t there to be your friend — at least, the good ones aren’t. They also aren’t there to feed their own ego by destroying yours. They are there to teach you something about writing. It’s not always an enjoyable process, either for the provider of advice or the recipient. Given my personal experience with him, I have to think that Bill really cared about what he did, and I’m in his debt.
February 21st, 2008 at 11:54 pm
[…] just got in from the memorial service for my writing teacher, Bill Idelson, whom I talked about here. The service was held at the Writer’s Guild Theatre, and let me say that even in death Bill […]
August 29th, 2012 at 7:03 pm
[…] of television and who I really liked and admired, told me what he thought of my play when I asked: He ripped it to shreds. And so, 23 years later, I still wonder if I did win because of Ron […]