A letter from (television producer) Aaron Spelling (”Charlie`s Angels,” ”Starsky and Hutch,” ”Dynasty”) a couple years ago had a lot to do with my decision to go back to work again. I`ve known Aaron since he was a young boy and used to come and rehearse in my pool room with my daughter when they were both studying acting. Neither one of them could get a job.
He`s still the same sweet boy he always was, only now he`s a multi-billionaire. Anyway, he sent this script that was terrible, but the letter was charming. I called my agent and said it was a possibility if they changed the script. But I couldn`t agree artistically with the other people involved, and I didn`t do it.
That kind of opened a little valve because I was disappointed that the script didn`t turn out better. Apparently I wanted to work. Two other things came my way, and the producers and I agreed to do both of them, but they didn`t work out.
The script for ”Christmas Eve” arrived on a Friday afternoon and I read it immediately and on Saturday morning met with the producers. We went right ahead and did it. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. I liked the character I play. She`s good, nice, attractive. It`s positive. It`s a story about relationships between people. There are no car chases in it. No violence.
I was not at all nervous to go back before the cameras after such a long absence. After the first two or three takes, it was as if I`d been there the day before. It`s probably like riding a bicycle. Fortunately, I never have had any problem memorizing dialogue. I think that`s the only thing that people were afraid of, that I might forget my dialogue.
I found it all a lot more mechanical than I remembered. I was doing a scene, and all of a sudden a man walked up and said, ”Miss Young, I want to put a microphone on you, under the brim of your hat.” I asked, ”Where are you going to put the cord?” He put the cord under the hat, and I put the hat over my hair. It worked.
I used to do all the cutting (editing) on my own show. We used film. You could go to a little room and cut out frames that you didn`t want. These people cut on tape, and they push buttons instead.
Although I didn`t have my name on the screen (credits), it was always understood that I was the executive producer of ”The Loretta Young Show.”
I was probably the first established motion-picture star to go into television. Our house had the first television in Beverly Hills when television was considered the enemy of the motion picture industry.
I saw on our television in our living room a murder on the screen. My children and a couple of the young maids in the house at the time and a cook and I were all watching together one of those suspense shows they did then. You saw a girl in close-up, and then two hands come around and strangle her, and she drops out of the picture. The kids burst out crying, and everyone was very upset.
After everyone else went to bed, my husband and I talked for a long time about how they shouldn`t do that in somebody`s house. And I said, ”I`m going to get into the television business. At least I won`t do that.”
I called my agent, and he told me it was a good idea but there was no money in it. He stalled me for two years. I think I was 40 when I finally went into it. He was right. There was no money in it, but at least I had the most productive nine years of my life. I enjoyed it more than I enjoyed making movies.
I answered to nobody. NBC gave me a certain amount of money each week, and at the end of the week I gave them the show. It was such a pitiful little amount I`m almost ashamed to tell it.
We started out at $30,000 a week. That was everything–above the line, below the line, my salary, the cast. I never took more than $5,800 a week for my salary. I did own the shows, though.
If a show has your name on it, then it has to have your mark on it. It was my idea to make a grand entrance to introduce the show. I have always loved clothes and have been known at times as a clotheshorse. I knew it was going to be an anthology and I had to play a lot of different characters.
I wanted to always look pretty for the audience even if I was playing an ugly part. I did the introduction as myself and then went into character because then I didn`t have to explain that I didn`t really look that way. If you`ve got a big wart on your nose, you don`t want people to think you really have it.
It worked. I never had anyone say to me, ”I loved that particular show where you played the Japanese fisherman`s wife.”
No. They said, ”I loved seeing you come through the door in those beautiful clothes.”
The key to aging gracefully? Well, I`ll tell you one thing: I get an awful lot of sleep. I eat properly. I don`t drink too much liquor. I don`t use any kind of stimulants. I don`t even drink coffee or tea. I don`t do that because I have a slight hearing problem in my left ear and the caffeine is just murder on it. I`m very fortunate in that I don`t gain weight. I just stay the same.
I stopped smoking about 10 years ago in order to gain 10 pounds and I did. That`s where I am now, about 123, 124 pounds. I`m 5 feet 6, without shoes. My own hair has not gone gray.
The main thing is that years ago I decided to give up worrying. That doesn`t mean you give up planning, and you do the best you can about everything.
But then after you`ve done all that, you put all that dumb worry aside. Worrying gives you ulcers–and it gives you a very sour expression. I think a person`s expressions have more to do with their attractiveness than anything. I didn`t intend to retire. I thought I was going to take a couple of years to rest and travel a little bit and relax after these nine years on television and having worked since I was 4 years old (as an extra in silent films). I was having fun, and what was submitted to me was kind of silly. If you have been able to choose for nine years what you want to play, you get spoiled. I did almost everything that I wanted to. True, in a half-hour version. But it satisfied the artistic desire in me, and the majority were good little shows.
If anyone had told me when I was 50 that I was going to be retired and never work again until I was 73, I would have dropped dead. That wasn`t my intent, but many things happen in life that may not be your intent. It`s God`s intent.
I believe in Providence. I don`t believe in luck or coincidence. If you`re smart, you`ll wake up each day and say, ”Okay, what have you got in mind today?” And whatever comes that day, do it the best you can. You have to plan and work as if everything depends on you, but then you pray as if everything depended on God.
He doesn`t do it unless you do your share. This is apparently what happened with this show (”Christmas Eve”) I`ve just done, because I had backed out of other projects at the last minute. This one just sailed on through. I think it was meant to be.
My mother was a convert to Catholicism and (my philosophy is) all based on Catholic theology. I`m just grateful because I don`t really know what I would have done in my lifetime without this formalized religion to lean all over. I think God intends you to lean all over Him. He does work it out. He doesn`t work it out your way all the time. Thank God! Ooh, when I think of the things I prayed for and didn`t get, I`m grateful.
