When the lights came up, Scherick got to his feet, glared at me, and said, “I don’t give a damn which one you put on first.” He and his entourage stormed out of the room.
I sat there, deflated. Maybe Todd had been right.
Our opening night premiere was upon us and we had to make a decision. Asher now worked day and night to complete the two shows. Since the network no longer cared about our show, we had to decide which episode to air first.
Things were so chaotic that on the opening night of The Patty Duke Show, “The French Teacher” played in the western half of the United States and “House Guest” played in the eastern half.
The Wednesday morning that the show was to air, I was walking through the studio lobby when Eddie Applegate came running in. He hurried over to the pay phone, felt in his pockets, and turned to me, in a panic.
“Do you have a dime?”
“Sure.” I took one out of my pocket. “What’s wrong?”
“I have to call the president of ABC.”
“The president of— Why, Eddie?”
“I just found out that the show I’m in is playing in the east and my folks are in the west.”
It took a moment for me to digest this. “You’re going to ask the president of ABC to switch the shows around, so that your folks can see you?”
“Yes.”
I put the dime back in my pocket. “Eddie, he may be busy with other things today. I would forget it.”
The reviews the following morning were generally favorable. Typical of those reviews was the Hollywood Reporter’s.
It read: “This could be it—the TV fun the teens and their parents have been waiting for . . . a captivating click.”
More importantly, the ratings were even stronger than we had hoped for. We were all thrilled.
The following day, Daily Variety carried a two-page ad from ABC. It read: “Nice girls finish first. We always knew that Patty Duke was going to be a hit.”
Right.
The shooting of The Patty Duke Show the first year was uneventful. I decided it would be fun to use some guest stars. The idea worked well. I wrote scripts around Frankie Avalon, Troy Donahue, Sal Mineo, and others.
During our hiatus, Jorja and I decided to take Mary on a cruise. As a rule, when I am working on a project and I travel, I take all the scripts with me, in case there’s a problem. But in this instance I did not feel it was necessary. All the shows for the first year had already been shot.
My mistake.
One morning, onboard ship, I received a cable to call the studio immediately. I could not imagine what the problem was.
When someone in production at the studio answered, I asked, “What’s going on?”
“We’re a minute short on ‘The Green-Eyed Monster,’ three minutes short on ‘Practice Makes Perfect,’ two minutes short on ‘Simon Says,’ and a minute and a half short on ‘Patty, the Organizer.’ We need you to expand those scenes and we need it done fast.”
I knew the problem now, but I had no solution. When I write a script, I concentrate on it. But when I finish it and move on to the next project, I have pretty well forgotten the first one. As a result, I had no idea what any of those scripts were even about.
I went back to our cabin and told Jorja what had happened. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I said. “I’ll probably have to go back to New York and take a look at those scripts, to refresh my memory.”
Mary, our eight-year-old genius, spoke up. “No, you won’t, Papa. I remember those plots.” And she proceeded to recite them, scene by scene.
That evening, I was able to cable the new pages back to the studio.
Near the end of the first year of The Patty Duke Show, I received a call from Hollywood. “Screen Gems wants you to create a television series for them.”
Screen Gems was a subsidiary of Columbia Pictures.
“Are you interested?”
“Certainly.” My attitude about television had completely changed.