INT: We've talked about some pretty good writers, PERCY and DENOFF, CARL REINER, DANNY ARNOLD, they were all giants in that field, JIMMY KOMACK? COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S FATHER?
HC: Underrated writer he was. Marvelous writer. People know him as a producer, director, and as an actor but he was a marvelous writer and editor. There were some good writers on COURTSHIP, STAN CUTLER, a lot of good writers, but JIMMY'S touch was always there.

INT: BILL BIXBY AND BRANDON CRUZ.
HC: It was a wonderful experience. On a personal note, my wife PAT was ill and died 35 years ago and on the set of COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S FATHER, I came a week early to meet people after JIMMY hired me to do some episodes and I walked into the bedroom set, and they were lighting a set up, and there, on her knees, was this gorgeous lady. I said how do you do, and she said I'm down here because I'm EDDIE's stand in. Her name was MARTA, my present wife. JIMMY had given her a summer job, he met her on GET SMART where she was BARBARA FELDON's stand in. She was going to school and he gave her a job for the summer. We met there on that set. Fell in love, got married, lived happily ever after. Anyway, that was a real joy, COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S FATHER, because JIMMY allowed for any kind of input, flowering. EMMETT BERGHOLTZ cinematography was marvelous. You could not challenge him. He would have these great rolling shots that would come out one bedroom, go into the kitchen then into the bedroom, pull all around the place. He would light it and have it ready in no time. BILL became interested in directing during that series and would follow me around and ask me why I was doing certain things. BILL contributed tremendously, and JIMMY who was the producer also acted on the show as Uncle Norman. They both adopted BRANDON who had not the best home life in the world. They became surrogate parents to him. Then one day they were doing a restaurant that they go to lunch at and I became a head waiter on the show. I'd great them and seat them and maybe had one joke or a line. Then one day JIMMY wrote a show about the head waiter. I said, let's all three direct it. There were very few scenes with the three of us. I directed the scenes between JIMMY and BILL, BILL would direct the scenes between JIMMY and I and JIMMY would direct the scenes between BILL and I. I went to the GUILD and got special permission. I explained the situation and they gave us all permission to all three get credit. We put the three names revolving. It was a great deal of fun. A great show. We put MARTA in as a hostess who showed people to the table. It was a big family thing and we had a great time.

INT: That was a wonderful show...
HC: It was a marvelous show. [INT: BIXBY, one of the most enduring stars on television had come from MY FAVORITE MARTIAN to do that show]. Which I almost directed. I was hired, because they had a falling out with another director, they said we'll call you next week, then they called and said they made up. So the job was gone.

INT: Did you alternate with another director or did you do all the shows?
HC: No I didn't do all the shows, I alternated, I only did a chunk of shows, four or five at a time. [INT: That was single camera? How many days?] Yes, it was the same, a reading day and four days. [INT: And short days, long days, easy days?] Standard days. We punched in on time, punched out on time. [INT: JIMMY's orange office?] Yes, he loved orange, orange was his favorite color.

INT: From there you went to the GOOD GUYS?
HC: I just did a couple of episodes of that, BOB DENVER, HERB EDELMAN and LENNY STERN. LENNY STERN was the producer. BOB was in his stranger days at that point. He had adopted us his sixth child chimpanzee and it was always a problem around the set.

INT: That was when the show went to single camera?
HC: It was single camera. [INT: Because the first year it was multi-camera?] Was it? I directed single camera. I'm not sure. It was out on the CBS lot where we did GILLIGAN.

INT: I think it was, because I was LEONARD STERN's assistant in those day.
HC: Were you? [INT: Absolutely] You mean we worked together and I didn't remember it? [INT: I sat there and watched you work.] I didn't know that. That's lovely. [INT: On GOOD GUYS] Hal: It was a funny show. HERB was a rock. He kept BOB in line to a great extent. [INT: He was a terrific guy HERB].

INT: ROOM 222 was a great show…
HC: I did that for GENE REYNOLDS. I just did one of those out of 20TH. I floated around. I couldn't keep a job.

INT: DORIS DAY, back at the CBS lot...
HC: Yeah, that was one of the two times in my career I said I don't want to do it. God bless her, it wasn't her fault. She had burned I guess a lot. I was signed on for the season, I did four of them. And of course you had to be careful, you could only photograph her on one side, you couldn’t photograph her on the other side. She would not like for other people to have funny stuff. It was an insecurity on her part. I made the mistake of saying, 'Doris don't move on that line because he's got a joke and if you move it will distract'. That didn't sit too well. We'd go to dailies and I'd sit with my editor and DORIS would be on the other side, and I'd say, 'When she comes in we'll cut away and then we'll come back to a close up.' She would say, I want my close ups as soon as I go into the room. And I never went to dailies again. So that was that kind of thing. I was feeling my oats. I was fairly successful and I wanted to be in charge and she wanted to be in charge and she had every right to be in charge, I didn't. It was her show, her face was out there. And she was good. She was a marvelous actress. The only problem with DORIS, she loved to have her dogs on the set and hide them under desks and things. In the middle of a scene sometimes there would be a little yip or a movement and you'd have to cut and start again.

INT: Working in television, I don't think it's any secret that she required some attention from the cinematographer, lets put it that way…
HC: Absolutely. [INT: I forgot who the camera man was on that show … I wanna say it was RAWLINGS SENIOR but I'm not sure that's true] I think it was RAWLINGS, DICK RAWLINGS. The thing is, the writers on the show, one of whom was, I can't remember his name, they would do things to please her which would be impossible to do on a schedule. They wrote for example on the fourth show, after which I said I can't do anymore, they wrote a fashion show in which DORIS had to substitute for the models, and came out in seven different outfits. There was nothing to shoot. She was in every scene. You could shoot a door knob, you could shoot a sign, but it was an hour and a half to two hours between costumes. So there was no way to shoot, and then they would complain what's taking so long. I realized I couldn't get in the middle of that. I wish we'd edit this out.

INT: No, no, that's good stuff. We always run into these things.
HC: The thing is for any director that looks at this, there comes a point where you have to realize that whatever talents you have, good or bad, that you cannot utilize them, there are too many obstacles. You have a choice, either do everything that's told to you and be a bad director, and come in over schedule, out of time and everything else, and get all that heaped on you, or you say, you have to get somebody else and I'm not qualified to do this. JOHN RICH did that many times and I did it a few times. [INT: I think that's a tremendously important point] People have to recognize, of course you want the paycheck but in the long range run of things, you get enough bad results as a result of trying to fit in where you don't fit, and you're reputation in the long range is gone and so your paycheck's gone too [INT: To know when it's time to go] Oh yeah, when it's just not right.

INT: MY WORLD AND WELCOME TO IT.
HC: Oh that was a joy, short lived. DANNY ARNOLD created it, JAMES THURBER. I did two or three of those, BILL WINDOM was a delight. It was just not in the popular genre, could never get a good rating because it was too, I don't want to use this word sophisticated... It was bright, very New Yorker kind of show, true to THURBER. [INT: Subtle and wonderful] Right, it could just never appeal to a big audience.

INT: Audiences in comedy in those days were used to bigger laughs bigger problems. A great show here, THE ODD COUPLE...
HC: That's one of the joys of my life. Those two guys, and GARRY of course too were just marvelous to work with. TONY RANDALL was a great human being. People don't realize it because of his demeanor. The TONY RANDALL that he plays. He forced JACK, when he lost his voice box to cancer, to study with this guy and forced JACK to come back on stage and act. He himself. Great man.

INT: He's an amazing fellow. I worked with TONY after THE ODD COUPLE on the show he had at MTM when he played a judge.
HC: I remember the show. He right now optioned my ex-partner ROD PARKER'S play for his theater in New York maybe to be done next fall. [INT: Tony's no spring chicken] Tony's 83. Two wonderful kids and a lovely wife. A marvelous guy. [INT: Terrific, and you're right, very underrated. He played all those ROCK HUDSON's best friend...] Pompous ass kind of funny man. His persona is terrific. He falls in and out of that persona even in private.

INT: Directing TONY RANDALL, directing JACK KLUGMAN, WILLIAM WINDOM, and difference in the approach to any of these fellows. does one like to talk about a scene more, one like to talk about a scene less?
HC: It's hard for me to say, you picked three people who... BILL worked pretty much the same way TONY and JACK did. The analysis of what worked because they were so good was worked happened long before you got on stage. By the time you got on stage... TONY especially liked a little challenges. In ODD COUPLE he was searching for something in a dark kitchen and he was clearing his sinuses {demonstration} and I said TONY could you do a question mark with one of those, and he said of course, he did and it became one of the big laughs. Things like that. He would love little challenges. DICK VAN DYKE loved little challenges. He'd cross a room, and you'd say DICK it's a long cross. He'd motion say no more. there'd be a trip over the foot stool in the opening, it was always different. It was always supportive of the scene. ARTE JULIAN a wonderful comedy writer once said to a director, one of the great pearls of wisdom that a comedy director must know... they were doing the KEN BERRY show, the F TROOP, there was a joke, don't remember the joke, they rehearsed it, the director had given the actor, some comedy business and ARTE said, one rule, no comedy business on the way to the joke. It's absolutely right. Its destructive rather than supportive no matter how funny it is. No comedy business on the way to the punch line.

INT: BRADY BUNCH?
HC: THE BRADY BUNCH back with SHERWOOD, [INT: Fun?] Oh yeah, the kids were great. It was a formula kind of show and it was made specifically for a specific audience. But it's one of the shows that when I occasionally lecture at college or go for an interview and they're a bunch of kids there, or now adults, they will quote dialogue and business that I have long forgotten. There's one episode where one of the kids puts too much detergent in a washer and we had the foam filling the room. They all remember that. Strange. [INT: Yeah, it's always interesting to see what people come back to you with] Yeah they'll come back with dialogue with shows I've long forgotten.

INT: PLUMBUM was a pilot. Do you remember?
HC: I don't remember. [INT: And also FUNNY FACE with SANDY DUNCAN] Oh yeah that ran for a while. That was a cute show. A good show. SANDY's very talented, TOM BOSLEY was on it. I guess it only ran one season. Just one of those shows that didn't make it for god knows what reason. Could have been scheduling. [INT: She got sick I think?] She got an eye removed. A tumor on the eye or something. She's a great girl, very talented, marvelous kid. [INT: There is some great stuff here, LOVE AMERICAN STYLE] I did a few of those. They were episodic and fun. [INT: In this period you were moving around from show to show?] HC: Yes, just booking a season. In effect my agent was just filling gaps and booked a season.

INT: Back to the MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW.
HC: That was a delight. That was one of the big tears/pulls in my career. JAY had gone to, just like with JOHN, to direct a film, JAY SANDRICH, and they asked me to do a couple of shows, and I came in and fell in love with that cast with ED and MARY and everybody and we had a good time. And GRANT came to me and said, JAY may be busy, think about it, I kind of knew what he meant, and I was delighted, but right after that I got call from NORMAN LEAR, from JOHN'S suggestion who was directing ALL IN THE FAMILY and MAUDE had just started and they'd gone through four directors in six shows or something. I got a call to do a couple of shows, and I came in and did one show and that show is probably the love of my life, MAUDE, that cast and NORMAN. I had directed a couple of ALL IN THE FAMILY and NORMAN after the second show said, you got to stay, BEA will kill me if you don't stay and I thought of MARY TYLER MOORE and they had started talking to my agent, and I decided to stay with MAUDE. It was a little freer because JIM was very strong as a producer. Didn't offer as much freedom as I liked to change lines or put in a piece of business. ALLAN the other producer was okay with it and NORMAN loved being surprised NORMAN and ROD PARKER who was the producer's attitude was do what you want on stage, we don't want to see it until the run -through, surprise us. You felt free. If there was trouble, you were free to call them to look at a piece, if it needed a rewrite. But lots of times things would occur to you, business, actors, stuff, maybe a change of a line. We'd always look for a couple of surprises for the run through. They were always laughing at the contribution that the rest of the team had made. JIM was a little more rigid about what of his script had been tampered with his attitude.

INT: How had MARY changed, grown between VAN DYKE and her show?
HC: Just that, she hadn't changed really, she had grown. By the end of DICK VAN DYKE show she was absolutely sure. By last year of DICK VAN DYKE and first show of MARY TYLER MOORE not much change, she was set during the first season of DICK VAN DYKE, she knew who she was, she could call in her comedic sense. But, she was fun to work with because I had a kind of instinct with her, if she was on the couch sitting with Rhoda and they had a three or four lines of dialogue and I'd sense a stiffening spine and so I'd say on that line why don't you get up and get some coffee. I sensed her wanting to move, we had a good rapport.

INT: It was quite an outfit. I was doing both shows, MARY TYLER MOORE and BOB NEWHART as associate producer when you were there.
HC: Well BOB's show must have been a joy, BILL DAILY was on that. [INT: I remember JIM was the dominating force of the writing staff. Is that similar with NORMAN on MAUDE?] HC: NORMAN had a velvet glove, very strong but so malleable. He could be approached on anything. He came up with concepts for episodes. When we were doing MAUDE NORMAN had on air something like five or six show in top ten. He had ALL IN THE FAMILY, MAUDE, SANFORD AND SON, ONE DAY AT A TIME and maybe something else. All in top ten, he went to the run-through of every show and you could ask NORMAN about anything on any script on any show and he'd know where you were and give you an answer, he was on top of everything, but everybody felt free to change or move or do something else with it. You'd get notes from him. You got time for an anecdote about NORMAN? [INT: Please] This is why you'd lay yourself down in front of a truck for this man. We did a show on MAUDE and in the middle of one of the scenes, I can't remember piece of business that BEA did, and we fell down we could not go to rehearsal it was so funny. That was our surprise for this week. Comes the run-through, the third day, on Friday, for staff, no network. Network didn't come to any of the dry run-throughs. they would come to the show is all. Scene comes up and it's flat, no laugh, nothing, the piece of business that we all laughed at. So we're sitting around making notes and NORMAN says of course we can cut this, and I said wait a second NORMAN, that piece of business is hilarious, it didn't go well today but leave it in it's fine, and he said okay. Ok so now Monday, camera blocking and after we do a run-through for NORMAN and everybody on camera we go through with the piece of business, but not a snicker from anybody. And we get to notes, and I said NORMAN I can always lift it in editing if it doesn't work, but I BILL walked away and moved on that line and that's why it didn't work and he said okay. Now we do two shows the next day and in both of them it falls flat. it does not work the way it did that one time. It's one of those you were too close to the forest to see the trees. Not supportive of the show, it was just hilarious to that moment to everybody. This was maybe my fifth or sixth show, I was still new. We were taping at Channel 11 KTTV. NORMAN doesn't say a word and he wasn't there after the show. The offices at Channel 11 were on the second floor. There was an entrance up one staircase on one side and a staircase going up to the second floor on the other side. There was a long hallway. on one end of the hallway was NORMAN's complex of offices at the other end of the hallway was our complex of offices. As luck would have it, as I arrive at the top of the stairs, think I'd just done my last show, NORMAN arrives at the other end of the hall and he turns to me, and {HC makes funny gesture, hand on nose} and walks into his office. There was such support in that gesture. Everybody can make a mistake, I told you so, but so what. Instead of saying, you dumbass I told you it wouldn't work, and that was the kind of atmosphere we had that was so great to work under, and we did lift and nobody ever knew it was there. [INT: That kind of support and that kind of creative freedom] Norman was wonderful that way. Anybody could try anything. he always said you have a right to be bad. Go be bad and try something. Be bad. We can always get rid of it.

INT: Again a tremendous cast…
HC: BEA ARTHUR, aside from JACK BENNY had the slowest most wonderful daring ability to stop and turn and stare and the audience… We did one show where I was very daring, and she was very daring, without any word between us. There was an episode in which RUE MCCLANAHAN character was married to CONRAD BAIN, the next door neighbors, and she was trying to sexually re-arouse her husband and she read in a book or heard some place, she was going to wrap herself in Saran Wrap and greet him at the door. Which the audience knew. BILL MACY and BEA ARTHUR walk up to the door and ring the bell, and she has a rain coat on, and she says, 'There he is, there he is,' and we cut to the outside. She flings the door open and says hello darling, and opens her rain coat open. Now we're on their backs, not their faces. We're across their backs staring at RUE MCCLANAHAN's face, screaming and slamming the door in her face. They stood there. I didn't move the camera, they didn't move a muscle. It must have been 30 seconds of laughter. I had to lift some of it because we couldn't sit that long, we didn't have that time, but after laughing and restarting, BEA just shifted her weight from one hip to the other and started the laughter all over again. It was amazing how long it lasted. Finally she said, 'Walter maybe we ought to go'. Those moments, to be free to try that and do that wonderful work.

INT: Tell me two or three of your favorite episodes of the series.
HC: One of the greatest performances, greatest episodes in in comedy television, was BEA ARTHUR, Maude, visiting the psychiatrist. [INT: I remember that show] The psychiatrist had two grunts in the entire show, the rest of the entire show was BEA ARTHUR talking to the psychiatrist. I staged it so that she walked in the door, she came to the psychiatrist's desk, we were over his shoulder and she did the dialogue reviewing her life and her life with Walter, then she got up, walked over to a mirror, I carried her over to a mirror shot, she looked in the mirror and she said, 'the clean clear look, the set of the jaw of GEORGE C. SCOTT', that was the line, something like that, and then she came over to the couch and lied down on the couch and I cut out an overhead camera on a dolly and slowly moved in as she was moved to tears telling about her father and her life. In the entire half hour show I had 11 camera cuts in a half hour of comedy, where usually there were hundreds. Because it was just her I was able to stage it so I only cut when it was absolutely necessary, when she turned her back and picked her up on another camera to take her across. It was a brilliant performance.[INT: I remember that show. That's was one of the great pieces of modern American television] I think so.