You have to see Betty Thomas to believe her.
”Every day on the set is a damn event,” she announces in a conversation centering on her directing assignments for HBO`s ”Dream On” and ABC`s
”Arresting Behavior.”
The former Second City player who made a hit with TV audiences as officer Lucy Bates on ”Hill Street Blues” is knee-deep in the directing career she launched when the award-winning series went off the air in 1987.
She punctuates her proclamations about that career with an amazing flailing of arms in the air, her favored and frequent physical gesture. One moment those long limbs wave like giant sails catching the winds of her thoughts; the next they test the atmosphere, like an insect`s antennae, sifting through a swirl of ideas up for grabs.
It`s easy to understand why a pal once christened her ”Harpo Marx on stilts.” It all adds up: the 6-foot-1 frame topped by a mop of wavy blond hair, the face draped with a mischievous smile, the baggy pants that could pass for a clown`s, the actions that speak so much louder than words.
It`s a side of Betty Thomas we got only a glimpse of in ”Hill Street Blues.”
As Bates, Thomas could stifle a criminal intent with one withering glance. The role of the working-class heroine that brought her seven Emmy nominations and a gold statuette was Thomas` singular foray into drama, sandwiched between long stints in comedy.
Her first break came in 1973 at Chicago`s Second City, where she performed alongside Bill Murray and John Candy in an improvisational career that began as a lark. Moonlighting as a waitress at Second City and substitute teaching during the day, she joined an improvisational workshop on a dare. It was up to producer Joyce Sloane-affectionately referred to as the Mother of Second City by its players-to push and pull her into an audition.
Thomas remembers her resistance: ”I went very reluctantly, but I got a part.”
Fifteen years later, she returned to the site of her performance debut for her maiden voyage in directing. In 1988 Thomas became the first woman to direct the main stage at Second City when she took the helm of ”Bright Lights, Night Baseball or Kuwait Until Dark.”
Like playing on home field, returning to Chicago to take that first tenuous step in directing gave Thomas a distinct advantage.
”It is always home to be there,” Thomas says. ”To be able to direct for the first time in Chicago was truly a gift.”
She was advised by Steven Bochco, executive producer of ”Hill Street Blues,” that experience as a stage director would open the door to episodic directing in TV.
He was right. Thomas returned to Los Angeles to direct episodes of
”Doogie Howser, M.D.,” ”Midnight Caller,” ”Hooperman” and ”Shannon`s Deal.”
She picked up an ACE Award nomination for her work on HBO`s ”Dream On.” Thomas counts 13 episodes of the innovative show among her credits, including ”Here Comes the Bribe,” airing July 22, and the 50th episode of the series, airing in the fall.
Kevin Bright, executive producer of ”Dream On,” warms to the subject of her uniqueness as a director:
”It`s all summed up in one thing. Betty commands respect and Betty gives respect. She appreciates what everybody does on the set, whether it`s the guy that brings coffee or the cinematographer. She treats them with equal regard.”
ABC`s ”Arresting Behavior,” a new half-hour comedy series shot in the style of police reality programs, offered the director a chance to draw on her ”Hill Street” experience.
Thomas used a hand-held camera for all but one shot of the pilot, which airs in mid-August.
” `Hill Street` contributed in a major way to my ability to direct the show,” she said. ”Seven years of watching the style evolve from Robert Butler`s extraordinary pilot, my relationship with cops and my insight into their world-it all helped.”
The crushing time limits of TV production were good practice for ”Only You,” Thomas` first feature film, due out on video Sept. 16.
She shot the romantic comedy starring Andrew McCarthy, Helen Hunt and Kelly Preston in 28 days, in Cinemascope, for $7 million-limitations sufficient to daunt lesser spirits, but not Thomas.
”I thrived on it,” she insists, then launches into a description of how her years as a painter help her to direct. Typically, the diatribe is one part serious, two parts comic abandon.
”It`s very helpful to me in terms of composition and design,” she says. Then, smiling, she runs full throttle into a Second City-style routine spoofing film buffs obsessing on the mystique of the right and the left sides of the silver screen.
This unrestrained humor is the bedrock of Thomas` style. Any talk of her with colleagues begins with the word ”funny.” It frequently ends with a gender-related compliment.
”She creates such a happy set,” says Larry Levin, creator of
”Arresting Behavior.” ”She brings the perfect balance. There`s nothing better than a woman director who can take charge and yet remain sensitive to everyone around them.”
Morrie Eisenman, producer of ”Only You,” wanted a female director for the film because he feared the subject matter could ”become chauvinistic in the wrong hands.” He got that and something more. ”She has a great sense of humor. She can be tough when it`s appropriate. But she keeps it in her back pocket; she does not abuse it. She gets more flies with honey.”
Some see Thomas as a female figurehead on the directing frontier. Leery of self-importance, Thomas speaks cautiously to this image. ”When I directed an episode of `Midnight Caller,` a young female production assistant approached me. `Excuse me, you probably don`t remember my name. But you`re the first woman director I`ve ever seen, and I just want you to know that I look at a director as a different person now. I never believed in role models; I didn`t even know what the words meant. But I look at you, and I see me making the decisions that you`re making.`
”I never thought about it,” Thomas muses. ”But she definitely opened my eyes to something.”
