DQ: In ’77 [1977], I’m still working YOUNG AND RESTLESS [THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS], and so forth. Then, and so there were so many talented people that are soap Actors. You have no idea, they sing, and dance, and quality of voice is… When I used to do screen tests, I used to direct screen tests, I eventually worked into, I could tell an Actor off the bat, just when, with talking and beginning to, you know, get into their character a little bit that they were a singer, ‘cause they have such good voice control, and you could tell there’s a discipline there that’s more than just the average person, or, average person… the, just Actor, who’s coming in that hasn’t had, perhaps, voice lessons, in singing, and natural, you could tell right away. And those by the way, I think are some of our finer Actors today, that really have a wonderful voice. So we’re doing daytime specials, so we’ll be on in the afternoon. So we’d have a star from YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS, and ONE LIFE TO LIVE, or you know, all the soaps out of New York, and we put together this cast, the whole show would be written and we’d do, you know, a daytime special that aired on CBS. We did two or three of them. [INT: Any recollection of these, I was probably in school and not watching, I had no idea. Wow.] Yeah, and John McCook, who was on THE YOUNG AND RESTLESS, has been on THE BOLD AND BEAUTIFUL [THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL] for years, is one of my close, you know, friends, if I may say, who is a Composer. Sit down to start playing the piano, just unbelievable. And he’s got a whole wonderful life with… he became a Composer and traveled for years with a beautiful dancer and married, they married, and… oh my gosh, what’s her name? I keep wanting to say Cyd Charisse. So sorry. So my friend John McCook, who was on THE YOUNG AND RESTLESS, and THE BOLD AND BEAUTIFUL is an accomplished Composer, pianist, songwriter and so forth, met Juliet Prowse on the road. Became her conductor, and eventually, those guys got married, down the road, had kids, so John has this huge background, singing, dancing, so he was a good part of these specials that I used to do. [INT: How often were these done?] They did two or three. Not a lot, because soaps were coming in. We still had some time during the day, soaps were a half-hour, then when they went to the hour, it started now filling up the daytime schedule a bit more so there wasn’t as many opportunities to throw in an hour special. But we did those in ’77 [1977].

DQ: So leading up to THE MIKE DOUGLAS SHOW that is coming up, I’m doing a sitcom called CO-ED FEVER for a while, did the pilot, and it was the take after ANIMAL HOUSE. So it had a young crazy cast, you know, fraternity kind of, you know, craziness. That was going on, and still filling in on MATCH GAME 73, and THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS and so forth. And then a Lawrence Welk show started taping at CBS. Well Lawrence Welk was quite the character. [INT: So they did it on one of those CBS stages, with the orchestra and the dance floor, and I didn’t know that.] With the bubble machine. “Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, there’s the champagne and the bubbles.” And so he being foreign, I’m not quite sure where he was from… [INT: Is he Polish, I think he’s Polish.] Yeah. I always twisted this language up, and he’d be serious. He’d tell the Director, “Right at this point, I want a close up of the whole band, okay.” He’d be talking to a band member and he’d say, “You know, I never noticed how close your hair is to your head.” You know, and “Here’s Maria been on the show for a year now, and never been laid.” “You mean late, don’t you, never been late, late.” So one of the quotes was, “We’ll pee in your part of the country soon.” Or, “Boys be on your toes. Here’s Myron [Myron Floren] to play an up tempo to tune, Myron be on your toes, otherwise we have to jerk you off, and a one, and a two…” He would say, “Myron’s gonna go over here,” and he said, “I’ll be over here and beat off the band.” You know all these, so now it’s Christmas, one of his specials, and he’s got his daughter-in-law there. So he goes, “Oh, this is my daughter-in-law, so giving us two wonderful children. The first one is Lawrence Welk the turd, and the other one.” And the other one. That’s an actual quote. “Lawrence Welk the turd, and the other one.”

DQ: Anyway, so Lawrence Welk was a trip. Now, to do the show [THE LAWRENCE WELK SHOW], you know, there’s lots of orchestra, he’s pretty much a genius when it came to music, he’d be in, you know, the dressing room, we’d have a live feed while we were rehearsing. He’d come flying out of that dressing room, “Stop, stop, stop, I want you to go to the retard here, and the boom there, and bring that up over here, and the orchestra, and the band, and the bass and the,” you know, he knew how he wanted his music. Bobby [Bobby Burgess] and Cissy [Cissy King] were dancing, Bobby was from THE MICKEY MOUSE CLUB for a long time, Cissy, the Lennon… [INT: The lovely Lennon Sisters.] Lennon Sisters were on the show. The Lennon sisters, and Bobby and Cissy and a lot of, all those that worked on the show for years, when summertime came, they’d play the fairs across the country. “From THE LAWRENCE WELK SHOW, you know, the Lennon Sisters, and Bobby and Sissy,” that’s the way they could continue to make a living. ‘Cause there wasn’t, you know, we weren’t being paid that much during those old days. Anyway, so I’m doing the show and I go, wait a minute, how do I wrangle Lawrence, because, you know, there’s the, there was that old curtain, okay, and lit from either side, and cue cards, and he’d do, like a live commercial into the show. You know, and hold up, and said, “Now a little word from Geritol…” [INT: I knew it was going to be Geritol. That’s right.] You know, “And here’s the great old standard from World War I.” “You mean, World War One.” “Yeah, World War I. Thank you boys.” You know, he was always doing… So we start the show, and I remember the first time doing it, I look up, Lawrence is working the audience while there’s a whole production going down, but very quiet and very respectful, all the old ladies loved Lawrence. At the end of the show, you know, they all came out on the stage, and he would dance with, you know, this one and this one, and the next one, and the next one. So he’d be up in the audience flirting. So I’d think, you know, how long is it gonna take him, when I say, “I need you Lawrence, we’re coming up to the end of this piece,” how long is it gonna take him to get in front of that to say, “Now a word from Geritol.” How long is that gonna take, so you know, now I’m kinda worried about it, so finally, you know, you have to go up and I kinda tap him on the shoulder, and he left just like that, came right down the stairs, stood by. Just a few seconds later, gave him a cue on the camera, and right into whatever, “Now a little world from Rose Milk.” You know, he was just a total pro when it came to all of that sort of stuff, wonderful.

INT: Was the show [THE LAWRENCE WELK SHOW] done weekly? 

DQ: Yes. Yes. [INT: Over how many years?] Two, three. [INT: Two, three, at CBS.] Two, three. And we as Stage Managers kind of filled in. It wasn’t like any of our shows, like you know, ARCHIE BUNKER’S PLACE became my show and you know, MIKE DOUGLAS SHOW [THE MIKE DOUGLAS SHOW] was my show, or, ALL IN THE FAMILY was Jimmy Rice’s [Jim Rice], CAROL BURNETT [THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW] was Willie Dahl’s, you know. It was one of those where we could all sort of fill in, and that was the, that was, that’s why we were there, we were staff. So you could go from a show like that to a sitcom, to network news, to sports, to sitcoms, to variety shows, to any form of television at the time, that’s why they had a staff. They knew us, everybody knew our characteristics, and we all knew personalities, so that everybody could fill in, and go from one genre to the next. I used to get a call in at the last minute, and fly to San Francisco to be with Dan Rather to do the news in San Francisco. You know that’s a whole different network jargon, I mean you know, you’re really listening to oh, okay this is not the normal talk show, game show, variety show talk, this is a whole different… You know and it’s live, you know. It’s a whole stressful focus thing, trust me. It is a focus situation. So, yeah, started filling in on LAWRENCE WELK, which was “wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.” [INT: You were a champagne music maker is what you were.] I was. [INT: You wanna go back to the Y & R, or you got some more stuff on here? Mike Douglas, did you wanna say more about Mike Douglas?] I’ll go right into that after this, okay, so..

DQ: One little Lou Horvitz [Louis J. Horvitz] story. So as I’m working, and beginning to sort of get out of the Y & R thing, so I’m more available, I ran into Redd Foxx, you know. Redd Foxx had a variety show, and you know, Redd and I got to be quite close as a Stage Manager, and you know, those kinds of relationships, you don’t call each other all the time, but when you see each other it’s fantastic. And he’s got a variety show, you know, that I couldn’t do, that early on, he had asked me to do, I think we talked about that. [INT: Yeah, we talked about that. Yeah.] You know, so he’s there. I’m doing pilots, we’ve got, then TIC TAC DOUGH [THE NEW TIC TAC DOUGH] comes in, which was with Wink Martindale, you know, out of Tennessee, used to know Elvis [Elvis Presley], was the DJ [Disc Jockey]. By the way, you know that buckle, that buckle that says Doug? [INT: Yeah.] Wink gave me that oh so long ago, I still have that buckle. Which is an extra belt you hang your headset on, so it’s not on your dress belt, on your slacks. We all have those.

DQ: So TIC TAC DOUGH was beginning. So Dan Enright is the Producer [of THE NEW TIC TAC DOUGH], who was part of Barry & Enright [Barry & Enright Productions], who, QUIZ SHOW, was you know, made about the history of Barry [Jack Barry] and Enright, you know, that Robert Redford directed, and was a big part of. You know that history of, you can’t give contestants the answers, and their fight of course was, that it was part of entertainment. You know, you got a star, and, you know, you know… [INT: Star contestant was on a roll, and people wanna see them hang in there. Yeah, that was the whole thing.] Yeah. Who was it, Ralph Fiennes, I think was his name. Starred in, was the first time I saw… [INT: Oh yeah, the feature quiz show about that scandal, yeah.] Absolutely. And out of that came a department that we put compliance and practices, you know, that still exists in all the networks today, that they make sure that there’s no cheating and no rules. And I remember when I did FAMILY FEUD, or any show that has a large number of contestants that are there to do the show, as, you know, contestants move out, they’re all sequestered. You are not allowed to talk, somebody actually walks to the restroom with them, you know, while they go to the restroom, so that nobody can be giving them any answers, okay. There’s the whole nudity thing, there’s the cussing thing, they watch over all this, so that it’s not too suggestive. Granted, it’s totally relaxed now, compared to… I, you know, back when I was on Y & R [THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS], we used to count the “damns” and the “hells,” ‘cause we could only say two or three a week. So we would actually keep a, you know, ‘cause sometimes, it’d get to something and they’d say, “Damn.” “Oh, sorry, you can’t say that, we already have two ‘damns’ this week.” “Oh, hell.” “Nope, we don’t have enough, you can say ‘hell’ then.” “Okay, aw, hell.” You know, “But that’s a little bit too much punch, they want you to tone that down,” “Aw, hell.” You know what I mean, it was, we would do this stuff all the time, and then of course it was daytime soaps, and so there’s a lot of romance going, and you know, we had to shoot those without being too suggestive all the time. I mean there was always that presence of compliance and practices, which came out of this Barry and Enright show. So I’m working with… So Dan’s behind, Wink is across the way, Lou Shore [Louis Shore] was on camera shooting Wink. And so Dan now says, “I’ve gotta have,” you know, “I need a platform built, so I can be above the Cameraman here, and I need a big wax pencil type of, I need to be able to write…” you know, some ad-libs, maybe for Wink, or whatever, he needs to write. Well, he’d have his stopwatch on, you know… So now, rather than asking me to help get Wink’s attention back over here, it’s a Q and A show, TIC-TAC-DOUGH, you know, where do you wanna put your X, okay, next question is, then we put your O. You know, it’s a Q and A. So Dan would be behind Lou, who’d be going, “A-ch, ch, ch, ch,” trying to get Wink’s attention, “Ch, ch,” spitting into this, and he’s moving, and he’s, stopwatch is hitting Lou in the back of the head on camera. And Lou’s going, “Dammit Dan, Dammit!” And he tried to punch him, all during the show. “Dammit, you’re hitting me in the head with a stop watch,” and he’s going, “Ch, ch, ch,” oh my god it was hilarity. [INT: This went on all the time? Pretty much?] Well, you know, maybe once or twice during the show. But not necessarily always hitting him, but, “Ch, ch, ch,” you know, trying to get their attention. Oh my gosh. So Richard [Richard S. Kline] would scream and yell for the first two shows, and then we’d take a meal break when we came back to shoot the next three shows, which you know, you shoot at least five shows a day, back for a half-hour show, and it was eventually as much as 10 shows in a day when I did $100,000 PYRAMID [THE (NEW) $25,000 PYRAMID]. [INT: PYRAMID, exactly.] So, we’d take that break and he’d come back and they’d be as calm as can be for the next three shows. I don’t know why. I don’t know. So anyway it was, you know, that was, kind of TIC TAC DOUGH. Ran for years, ran for years. Okay now, oh, and then another show..

DQ: TIC TAC DOUGH [THE NEW TIC TAC DOUGH] ran for years, then another show comes in called EVERYDAY. EVERYDAY, I think Stephanie Edwards hosted it and another gentleman [John Bennett Perry]. It was kind of a talk variety show during the day, Murray Langston, who used to be the unknown comic. [INT: Oh, right. Sure.] Remember, wore the sack over his head with is, “Woo, woo, woo, woo.” He was, you know, hilarious. Live music, singing, the cast was talented. There was several members of the cast, and I think it’s Lou Horvitz’s [Louis J. Horvitz] first show he’s directing. So now, I remember, just a quick story about the show… You know, you’re gonna introduce the cast, every day before it starts you introduce the cast to the audience, so they’re all kinda familiar. I’m running around, there trying to get everybody. I’ve got everybody but the unknown comic, Murray. I can’t find Murray. I’m looking all over, “Murray, Murray, Murray, introductions on stage, right away.” You know, you had a paging system. An awful lot of people know, we have a microphone, a paging system that goes to the dressing rooms and to the hallway. So when you need your cast member, it goes to the dressing rooms, or goes to the hallway, and, “Murray, Murray, I need you on stage.” I can’t find him, I’m looking all over. It’s getting down to his, and there’s a guy up stage with a mop. Back and forth. I said, “Of course, he’s a comedian.” You know, he’s get back, and he’s timing it. He knows he’s getting close, he’s all by himself, he’s just working this big old stage 30 feet across. Back and forth, and back and forth. Then it starts getting up close. Then he starts running the mop up the boom, across the Boom Operator, across the boom up above, Murray Langston. You know, and he’d do his thing, it’s like, oh that’s him. We always see him with a sack over his face. So that was the craziness that’s going on, on top of all these other shows that are getting their start at CBS.

DQ: And now comes, I get the opportunity to stage manage THE MIKE DOUGLAS SHOW. Which is still a pretty big show, but shot out of Philadelphia. 5th [5th Street] and Market [Market Street] I think it was. And so, you know, I kinda get interviewed, well the Stage Manager that was doing the show back in Philadelphia, I think this is what they told me, he was a little older, and so when Mike came out he wanted a younger Stage Manager, you know, blah blah blah... So I, of course, you know… Not only did I want the show, I get the show. And fun, he was terrific, the staff was terrific. And back in those days, as you know, it was an hour-and-a-half talk show. Johnny [Johnny Carson for THE TONIGHT SHOW STARRING JOHNNY CARSON] was an hour-and-a-half, Merv’s [Merv Griffin for THE MERV GRIFFIN SHOW] an hour-and-a-half, Dinah [Dinah Shore for DINAH!] was an hour-and-a-half, Mike’s an hour-and-a-half. There’s, you know... and you do two of those a day, you feel it. You’re pooped, ‘cause you’ve been intent, focused, and you know, running people and getting anybody that’s arriving late into makeup and da, da, da... So Mike was fabulous.

DQ: I remember Robert who was our cue card guy [on THE MIKE DOUGLAS SHOW], who became a Stage Manager as well. Shoot, what’s Robert’s name, Farley. Robert Farley [Robert Ferkle] I think is his name. And Mike, you know, as Mike is looking down, he needs to be able to see the next question. You know, we’ve all had a meeting, production meeting, each person that’s interviewed the celebrity that’s coming on, or the person who wrote the book, or a sports celebrity, or whoever’s coming on, you know, we’ve done a pre-interview, and we go through the all, let’s say there’s 10 questions, we’re gonna pick seven we’re gonna use during the show. Well sometimes as it’s getting down, you know, you know, Mike needs to be able to look over here and see his question. Okay, well Robert, by Robert, Robert would be holding a question up, checking out all the chicks in the audience, which wasn’t too far away. I go, “Robert, Robert,” I move him down, ‘cause Mike’s going, trying to look down to see his cue cards with the next question. So Robert became a Stage Manager, I think he was doing, I think he did a little HOLLYWOOD SQUARES, and then ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT I think. So, and I, you know, spent, had my time to be able to train him, and you know, there’s several guys that I, Andy Lee [Andrew Lee] I got on the Mike Douglas show. [INT: You’re not talking about Robert Ferkle?] Ferkle. [INT: Oh, as soon as you said ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT, I knew who you were talking about. Cause I met him when I first moved out in ’83 [1983].] Yeah, Robert Ferkle. Sorry, Robert. [INT: I didn’t realize he was a cue card guy. So many of us, I started out as a cue card guy. Peter Margolis, Jeff Margolis, actually, great Director, cue cards. Naturally, Valdez Flagg, Doug Neal.] Neal. I worked with Valdez when he was YOUNG AND RESTLESS [THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS]. [INT: And Spencer Emmons.] I worked with Valdez, I worked with Doug Neal. [INT: Sure you did.] I work now with Spencer, absolutely. [INT: No, as soon as you said ENTERTAINMENT, I knew you were talking about…] I think Willie Dahl started in cue cards as well. [INT: Yeah I think you’re right. He and, who started the cue card company, Bob Hope’s guy…] Barney McNulty. [INT: Barney. Barney McNulty and his family, yeah. They were both pages at the same time. I think they were both NBC pages back, pre-Korean War, and then Willie went Korean War, came back, so that’s that vintage, but anyway. So Robert Ferkle.] So now I start on THE MIKE DOUGLAS SHOW, and fun. I went through several Seconds, you know, Stage Managers, Second Stage Managers, ‘cause there’s rotation at CBS, and once you’re, you know, you know your show so well, that you can educate a Second to, you know, that’s gonna run your people, make sure they’re ready, you know, get them back, you know, getting ready to be cued out, and make sure they’re all set, and you know, communicating with them. Whatever props, you know, often you have the cook’s cooking segment. You know, you’re getting that ready and so forth. And Mike, the great thing about Mike Douglas is that about five weeks of the year, we’re on the road some place. Sometimes we go to people’s houses and shoot a segment or two, up in the Hollywood Hills. I recall Johnny Mathis, one time, we were at Johnny Mathis’s house, who had a great indoor, enclosed swimming pool. We went to Vegas [Las Vegas, Nevada] a lot. You know, we were in Vegas a lot, openings, big stars, it was fantastic. The beautiful thing about Mike was, and why I think he had his popularity, other than who he was. Remember he had a co-host, and that co-host would be with him for five days of the week. So when we had Jimmy Stewart [James Stewart] on, you know, or Bob Hope on, or any of the great stars of the day, you really got to know them. So that first segment after the introduction, you know, we’d carry on another area of that person’s life, you know, ‘cause we had to get that in, it was five days, you know what I’m saying, so it was a lot of the great stars who were on that show.

DQ: So I did THE MIKE DOUGLAS SHOW, now that was three days a week. So we did I think, six shows, you know, in a week, and then, of course, there’s gonna be a hiatus time, ‘cause you are banking so many shows. I continued to do pilots, I continued to do MATCH GAME [MATCH GAME 73], TIC TAC DOUGH [THE NEW TIC TAC DOUGH], PRICE IS RIGHT [THE PRICE IS RIGHT], YOUNG AND RESTLESS [THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS]. Continued to do those shows, and then September of ’78 [1978], you know, I’m the first on the PRIMETIME EMMYS [30TH PRIMETIME EMMY AWARDS]. And we’ll see that picture a little bit later on with, you know, the staff, crew that I worked with… [INT: I think they were in the habit then more, on a very regular cycle of rotating that show among the three networks at the time.] Absolutely, yeah, right. And we started doing, I remember back in the day, when PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARDS started, it was a small little thing. You know, and I mean, I think we had, I think we did it upstairs in 42 [Studio 42], where Pat Sajak was done, I think the very first time, I think it was done up there, and it wasn’t a live, big type of show, I think it was a pre-taped show with, you know, here’s the results that came in, and so forth, and probably nowhere near the show that it is today, but I saw it on the history of CBS, it was there. So, busy, busy, busy now, going from THE MIKE DOUGLAS SHOW, it’s eventually canceled, sadly. I, in this case, became quite close to Mike [Mike Douglas], and I actually had his home phone number in Palm Beach. So we used to speak two or three times a year, say hello, talk. It was a wonderful thing. [INT: Nice.] Wonderful to stay in touch with him.

INT: You talked about the way Y&R was done in continuity, when it was a half-hour show. I know a lot of changes over the years, it’s an hour show, and shot and produced very differently, and I think it would be worthwhile to talk about that change. 

DQ: Right. Okay, my day, my shortest day on THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS, back when it was an hour show, was 13-and-a-half hours. And that’s if we got out by six o’ clock, okay? Started at five, I’d be in at five, of course we open up all the dressing room doors, the Stage Managers do. But then I’d sit down, and I’d go through my entire script. Okay, not only the cues am I looking… And by the way, the change has come now, for economically, we need to shoot out of sequence, like everything is, basically, features, and episodics, and so forth. We now have to go out of sequence, so all the shows in this restaurant, or all the scenes in this restaurant are shot. All the scenes with Victor have to be shot here, all these scenes. So, you know, they’re gonna be edited into different parts of the show. [INT: Are you still doing a show a day? It’s a one hour show but you’re shooting all the scenes that are, as you say… Okay, okay, okay.] Right. From set to set to set, and now, not only are we doing that, the size of that scope has expanded, and now we’re on two stages instead of one, ‘cause it’s an hour show, we’ve got more story to tell. I don’t know, 20, 30 cast members, lots of storylines going. And between the stage, they actually had to cut a big door, wide enough to truck the cameras through to go to the next stage. Booms would have to stay, we’d just have two more booms picking it up, but yeah, cameras had to be threaded around to go into the next stage, when the stage was done. So, start in the morning, and then by seven o’ clock, actors are rolling in, in the dressing room, and then we’re going to start with the director, the AD and myself, the blocking for the cast.

INT: No rehearsal hall anymore [on production of THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS]. 

DQ: No. No, we’re on stage, on set, stage is lit, all ready to go. I’m already conversing with my Prop Man [Prop Master]. I already have, you know, I know the blocking, and so forth. And by the way, in the early days here, there were no camera shots in my script. Okay, today it’s a common thing to have the Director’s script, copy of that, so you’ve got all the camera shots. So early on, we hadn’t quite gotten to that state. So, you know, you really had to study your script. You had to make notes ahead of time, and you know, here comes this big, you know, cue that’s gotta happen, you know, and that person has to be on stage. I mean you’re really into total detail in your script, and marking your script in the morning. So, and then whatever changes are gonna go throughout the rehearsal, and so forth. So camera, or excuse me, Actors blocking. Cross on this line, you turn back on this line, blah blah blah. All that sort of stuff. And then they go away and go into makeup, and you call out the rest of the cast, as it’s going to take place, for that first stage. The Actors on the second stage are gonna get a much later call. They’re gonna come in at 11, or 12, or whatever. Or if they’re last in the afternoon, still gotta be there to get their blocking, even though there’s gonna be several hours to wait until their scene is up. So and then sometimes we’re rotating dressing rooms. You know, I’m getting somebody to clean, so you know, so and so has just left, I know the next thing, I mean, you know, there’s so many things that have to happen here in the course of the day, that by the time you start to get into your focus, not only do you have to run the stage, and the crew, and the Actors, and cuing of action and all of that that takes place, you know, you’re thinking, “Okay, she’s gone,” or you have to say, “Hey good job today, I hate to rush, but I’m gonna need your dressing room a little bit later,” so that person, you want that person to grab their stuff up… And you know, wardrobe to get in and get their wardrobe, so they can get cleaned and pressed, and, you know, janitorial crew to come in and give it a, you know, quick once over and fresh towels and, you know, everything to get the next Actors coming in in an hour. Or maybe earlier, you know what I mean, so it’s, there’s so many things to be aware of here, that you really have to take care of. So then we’d start, at eight o’ clock, we would start our camera blocking. Okay? So you call the first group out, and they’re in wardrobe, it might not be the tie zipped up and so forth, but they’re in. They’re the first group, so they’ve been through makeup, or if we were calling on your microphone, just like, “Where are they?”, and you have to make a trip up to makeup, or send the Second [Second Stage Manager] up if he’s even in at this… you know, find out what’s, “Why isn’t so an so coming down?” “Well, they’re finishing makeup, it’ll be another five minutes.” Well, it depends on the Director. Are they a little upset with us, why the heck can’t they do it? Well beauty makeup on an Actor, Actress, is gonna take a little longer. So you know, they’re in, that’s why, remember, I’m in at five, dressing rooms are open, they can roll in at six, ‘cause makeup is… you know, they’re all here, even though I’m pulling them out of, I’ll pull them out of makeup just to get their camera blocking, their acting blocking notes and then back up to finish, so eight o’ clock, you know, we call at five, but eight o’ clock, five after, I got five minutes I want them on the set. You’re first up. So anyway, to get the day going is always a push, as you know.

DQ: So now we start with the camera rehearsal, if the Actor, you know, needs another run at it, and it’s a nice big scene, okay, good, fine [on production of THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS]. We go another, say, “Rehearsal.” Call it out, five, four, three, two, cue action. We do a complete other rehearsal. All right, makeup, touch up, so here comes, you know, wardrobe and everybody, making our… getting our Actors ready, ‘cause we’re gonna take, we’re gonna shoot now. So you know, they’re doing the last little study of their lines, and getting all ready and so forth. “Okay, this is gonna be a take.” I’d yell across the stage, so everybody knows it’s no longer a rehearsal. “We’re gonna shoot this now,” whatever I’m, you know, yelling out. “Quiet, rolling.” You know, so the whole stage knows that now it’s time to be quiet. You know, and then getting into the scene cuing now, if we want another pass at it, not a problem. Take another pass at it, do it again. Sometimes we could do it three times. Boom got it, done, moving. Now, they’re into the next scene in that set. Okay, so this, in the editing of the show it’ll be picked up here, and then we’ll do this scene, and then it’ll come back to it a little further in the show, all editing. [INT: So it is more film style, in that you are doing everything for that show, in that set, as you said, but unlike film, multi-camera, each scene plays itself out in there, with multi-camera and with the blocking.] Right, nonstop. [INT: Right. But by nine o’ clock, well, see, we start rolling on this…] At eight. [INT: At eight, okay, so you got stuff in the can, and that’s the way the day goes then, set by set.] Right.

INT: Something just, I want to say, ‘cause I know this always impresses people who work in film, because they always go by, when you’re shooting a feature, an episodic, number of pages shot in the day. 

DQ: Right 85, 85 a day. [INT: Yeah. Say that again please, very clearly so they hear how many…] 85 a day, 78, 79… [INT: Exactly.] Oh yeah. We got an hour show here. And back in the day, you know, we didn’t have the commercial time that’s put into these shows now, which has doubled and tripled since the early days. I remember when I started, it was only six minutes of commercial per half-hour. Now try to put a watch on that. You know, you’re crossing over 12 to 15 minutes of commercial time, you know, and even more… [INT: So there are fewer pages but still. Yeah.] Right. But still, it’s ‘cause, network has to pay for this, because viewership, you know, we’ve put in a little more commercial time. I remember when all that started. Went from six minutes to, you know, seven, seven-and-a-half, and eight, and inched its way up. Some shows I think are 18 minutes of commercial, for an hour show.

INT: It’s still a jam-packed day [regarding stage managing live shows]. You mentioned earlier about whether you’d have another Stage Manager with you or not. [DQ: Right.] You talk about the change again, and I know it’s all budget driven, and… 

DQ: Well, one of the things that began to occur was, first of all, you know, once we noticed the need to have the Director’s script in the shots, because, you know, a scene could run from top to bottom, but also there might be a thumper, or might be a little… you know, and we wanna pick that up. You know, so my day was, you know, you’ve seen my Director’s chair. You know, I have my Director’s chair that’s, medium, fits me, so I got my feet on the ground. You know, once I cue action, I’m one script on that monitor, I’m watching every shot, and you know, as it’s coming up. If that Actor, okay, is properly here, and then makes a switch or a move, and it’s blocking this shot, and it’s not on the proper angle, I know I gotta pick that up. I mean, I know, Director and Producer wanna pick it up too, but I’m marking it as it’s happening, so everybody can be on the proper angle and not block each other… Or there’s, you know, you’ve made a, during the scene, you make a little move, and oh, there’s a shadow that the Actor has now put on, you know, their face that you might not want. Well, they’ve crossed down stage maybe just a little bit too far. Making those little notes, ‘cause that, when we, back in the day, we were perfectionists on that show, that would be a pick up. Today, let that stuff slide. I mean, not that a face could be blocked, but you know, a shadow, no it’s okay, as long as the boom’s not in the shot, you know, they’re gonna buy that, but a shadow and so forth… I remember somebody saying on time, “Oh, there are shadows in life.” [Laughs] Yes, Ok.

DQ: Once we got our script, okay, and we could see that there maybe was a shadow, we were gonna pick it up, I know exactly, that’s shot 242, or that’s shot 79. You know, I’m already marking. So I know that when we’re gonna lead into that, to pick that up clean, right after the set. Sometimes when it was a pick up it’s like, “Don’t anybody move. Okay, we’re cut, but don’t anybody move, we’re just gonna pick up a couple of lines here.” You know, and it’s coordination with the Director of course, so say we wanna back it up two lines, but the line we wanna get is gone forever, okay, blah blah blah, whatever that line was. So that’s the line we’re gonna go, so Tom you’re gonna lead them in with, blah blah blah, and blah blah blah. Okay. Tom’s gonna be off camera, the other person’s on camera. So to lead them in, boom, good, nice and clean, da, da, da, you know, you stop them, right, because sometimes, you know when you say cut, you know, everybody breaks. You know, they’re breaking their character, breaking their focus, breaking their thought. So the first words out, and you learn all of the ways to handle all the different members of your cast. You know, a lot of them can all be kinda fall into this category, some of them need a little bit more attention over here. Some are more particular about this, and some might speak a little softer too, and so forth. Then cues, I remember I had a lot of guys on CBS would do impressions of me, “Who’s this, who’s this.” You know fade up, and a cue to camera, you know, that’s Doug doing his cue, oh he’s, you know, fading up, or you know what I mean, or, you know, anyway. So they used to do impressions of me. But I felt it, it was the moment, you know, you dissolve to this camera. So now that we go for, you know, several scenes, you know, as much as we could. Now we’re coming up to a meal break, which can be not mandatory, okay, because you know, once you get to six hours it’s mandatory. But you know, so we’re in that five to six hours, sort of, you know, time, where we definitely wanna try to finish all that are, you know, we’re scheduled to, but often we never did. You know, there were many days we went over, all the time back in the day. So we’d try to finish this, well, that, the Second Stage Manager would come in who’s gonna kick off the second stage, so I would go to lunch, and he would get the blocking, and take all the notes for the second stage, and I would become his Second. Or he would come in on my stage, and roll in after I’m already going, giving him a little bit later call, ‘cause toward the end of the day, you know, I’m gonna be pretty burned. You know, we would have to be out by six, and we didn’t, for years we never, we’d make six a night or two, but you know, it’d be nine o’ clock. Oh there’s, there were 15-hour days, back in at five, all the time, 16 hours. Something special going on. There wasn’t as much attention to the money then, because we were all so successful, the show was so successful. You know, there was money to burn here, okay. We went late, we went past six a lot, so that’s a mandatory meal break, and hour and 15, by the time we register cameras again, and we, you know to try to get everybody back into the, “All right, back to business here, it’s, you know, we’re gearing everybody up getting the energy back and here we go again.” So that went on for a few years, and then as they start to whittle that time down, for budget and timing, well that Second Stage Manager would get a later call, so you know, the first set or two, you don’t have your backup yet. And now I’ve got a cue that’s up stage, I’ve gotta cue action down stage, and I’ve gotta cue up stage.

DQ: So you kind of have to make it work, so how do you do that [regarding managing cues on live shows]? You know, I remember I used to find a nail. I’d put it in my script. By the time I’d get to that page, I know that I have to cue somebody in a door, when dialogue’s been taking place down here. and I’d be off to the side and I’d find my hole over the set, without a light, can’t miss. Gotta go over the set, and it’ll fall in the back and go cling a ling a ling a ling, in the door they’d come. You know, so I’d try to time it, you know, the dialogue, come in the dialogue, come in, ding a ling a ling a ling, boom. In the door they’d come. Or I’d get a long string down on the outside, and you know, shake the bush, we didn’t have a cue light back in the day, we had to do it. Or I’d anticipate it off the side of the set when they’d have to come in, so I’d cue them, like a line or two early before they’d come in to try to time it, so I’ve had some blocking to time it, because they have to lean out to see me. Okay, and cue them, that’s a step or two before they get to the door and they could come in. I mean, there was always that, sometimes we couldn’t make it, it had to be just a direct pickup. Or we’ll hold it right here, I said, I can’t make that, I can’t make this. You know, we’d have to just stop and do a quick little hiccup, and you know, continue with the scene. But keep everybody quiet, keep it right into the moment, repo a camera, blah blah blah, do this, or I’d run up stage, and call, “And action.” Their dialogue would start and I could cue somebody in. You know, so as time goes on, budgets constrict, you know. There’s less and less of time to rehearse. So the comparison today would be… is that we don’t get there as early, you don’t get as much prep, and you start your blocking with your cast, sometimes it’s right on the set, and Directors will set up a no, you know, if it’s a sitting scene, no rehearsal, we’re rolling tape. Okay, if there’s a little bit of a complicated blocking, where somebody has to cross over here, and take something, and then pours, and you know, somebody else comes, whatever it is, a little blocking, sometimes we just show it to cameras, and then take it back from the top of that scene and shoot it. Sometimes we’re shooting stuff right off the bat and buying it in one take. And not having the luxury of the Actors going, “Ooh, I’d love another one. Can we do another one real quick, real quick, I’d love to do another one,” “Okay, let’s go, quiet please, here we go.” Gotta try to get that in. You know, especially if it’s a short quick scene, so that’s out, and sometimes it is absolutely mandatory to be out by six o’ clock. I mean that is like, so as that pressure began to rear its ugly head for years, you know, you’d be in the hallway, and someone’d say, “Hey Doug, how’s it going, you working hard?” And I said, “Eh, just between four and six.” I’m working hard, everything. You are thinking, you would do this anyway, but, while I’ve got a scene going, I’m in the next set, making sure that prop’s here, that prop’s here, this is there, and you know, I’ve got my list. You know, even though you’ve given it to your Prop Man [Prop Master] and you have all of that prepped ahead of time, you absolutely have to have it there. To not have it there and start a scene is just so, it’s unprofessional, you don’t forgive yourself, it’s, you know, you hold it up and god forbid that mistake costs you going to a meal. You can’t allow that, so you’re two scenes ahead, maybe, two sets ahead, maybe four scenes. You know, by the time that afternoon comes in, and you know you’re behind, you’re totally focused. So, both Stage Managers working like crazy at that point, I mean we’re backing up, and we’re trying to give clues to the, you know, the next set of Actors. “We’re about 10 minutes away. We’re on item 16,” you know, blah blah blah, in the such and such a set, “we’re about 15 minutes away.” You know you’re constantly getting, you know, letting them know now. Whereas before, they followed along, and professionally there wasn’t as much pressure to come down and be ready to shoot. You had to be ready to shoot. Wasn’t gonna be a rehearsal and a relaxed opportunity to get into it. They’re coming down to shoot.

DQ: And if it’s a bigger scene, they’ll plan out a little bit more rehearsal, there’s no doubt about it, but the day is now so constricted. As a matter of fact, and I don’t work on YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS [THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS] anymore, I call it “The Old and the Rest of Us.” So I don’t work on it. But the guys that do, they’re working four days a week now, doing five shows in four days. So there’s a constant scheduling of, well this is this Director’s show, so he has to come in to wrap up this segment, because we’re still in that same set for today’s show, but yesterday’s show, economically, this set wasn’t set up on the stage, so now he comes in and shoots his little two scenes, and his out. The Director of the day comes back in, and he starts picking up the rest of his scenes and his shows. I mean, they all have to overlap, because, four days shooting five hour shows. So a lot of pressure. [INT: Doesn’t sound nearly as satisfying for anybody. Actors, Directors, but that’s like…] Stage Managers. You know, makeup still gets a little rushing, wardrobe. I see them in the hallway, wardrobe running to go upstairs for, you know, I know that person works for YOUNG AND RESTLESS, that something, somehow, some way isn’t working, so there’s, that’s a constant pressure, because it is a new day. Because it’s very, very price, budget oriented, in the shoots today, because, as we know, you know, what, 10 years ago there were 10 soaps? What are we down to four, you know? Television is changing. The audience of course is changing, which is causing, of course, production to change, and whatever we’re gonna give that audience. So, and it’s much less expensive to do a talk show in that place, or a food show, than it would be to have a cast and all these sets. So it becomes very, very, very expensive to have storylines that have big sets, that work for that storyline. And I mean you may be in that set for two or three days, I mean economically they write those scenes so that, those sets get the maximum use before, you know, they’re struck. So just to go back to, so we’re in the first stage, YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS, okay, we’re finished there, finally when we finish that, and the cameras move over, you know, we’re calling sometimes the next cast is part of, you know, our hour, so they may have a scene or two there. Now it’s a wrap on this stage. Here comes all the stagehands, stage crew, and they start breaking it down. Whatever set’s staying, you know, you run hot set, you know, across it, tape, and so forth, and the rest of the stuff now, you’re breaking down, you’re flying lights out, you’re breaking down the set, props are being pulled down, put on their gurney that says, you know, “Newman House,” or you know, whatever, “Jonah’s,” you know, whatever particular set that is so all those props are always together on that cart before it’s all hauled out to a warehouse. The walls are put on the big A frames the same way, marked on the back, you know, have been for years, so we know all the pieces of the set, and those guys know how to put it on in order, so when they get ready to take it off, to set up the next one, it’s in a proper order to be able to do it, it goes under pipe number 17, that’s where this wall has to sit, and then the walls play off of it for lighting. I mean, you know we go by the lighting pipes, you know, that are all numbered. You know, there’s three of them, short, long, and you know, medium, or one in the middle, center.

DQ: It’s all... everybody’s very, very well-educated, they have their hours to do that, so that’s out. You know, once that’s struck, they’re bringing in tomorrow morning’s sets. So those have to be set up. Then the Lighting Director’s called up, 'cause he’s had a little break. Now once those sets are in, now they have to be lit. Can’t put the props in, gotta be able to get on ladders, to be able to adjust all the lights. Well, the Director has the architectural schematic drawing that the Director has marked, saying where his Actors are going, his or her, Actors are going to be. You know, special symbols, so they’re gonna turn this way, you know they’re facing this way, so that Lighting Director gets the plot of the set, so he knows what he has to do, lighting wise. [INT: Was it always done this way, or is this again, part of the economics of now, that that prepped script with symbols has to go to the LD [Lighting Director], because there’s no time to rehearse, and for the LD to see to light it actually.] It actually had been done, years before, yeah. [INT: Okay, so it’s been for a while.] And the reason why it can be done is, 'cause we have a rotating three Directors, maybe four. So they have three or four days to prep for their day to shoot. So by the time they get their blocking, okay, and then covered by the camera shots, you know, they’ll draw a little schematic, quick little thing of the set, you know on their page opposite the dialogue page, and just a quick little set, but then they get the schematics, and they, you know, that Lighting Director comes in, and he’s got it, absolutely. But, doesn’t mean that after a little rehearsal, during a show you gotta hit some barn doors, and lift some things up, and hide a boom shadow from there and so forth. There’s always a little bit of a lighting touch up, as you know. Sometimes not. Sometimes we’re sitting and well lit like I am, there’s, just roll, there’s no rehearsal gonna go on this, everybody looks good, boom, camera, okay. Set for a take. So yeah, all that prep is going on, and then we are now next door, shooting. And so, you know, it’s a beautiful, you know, sound stage, no not quite, so one of us would have to run next door, cause big, you know, weights or whatever is hitting the deck and that shoots right across that cement floor, into the next stage, and we’re picking up noise, and you know, we’d always kinda have to run back and ask the guys, “Sorry guys, I know you’ve got a strike, but I need 10 minutes here, if we can just hold, don’t drop anything on the floor, that’s the key thing where that sound’ll travel. As a matter of fact, BOLD AND BEAUTIFUL [THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL] had to come out and ask us on PRICE IS RIGHT to hold it down, I said, this is a first. But their scene was right on the other side of our wall. And as we began to strike, you know, things are metals hitting the ground, ground rows are being hit. Pipes are, you know, hitting the ground. So it travels.

INT: Are both B&B [THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL], and Y&R [THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS], done pretty much this same way then, two stages working… 

DQ: No, Y & R’s still a half-hour show, or excuse me, B & B is a half-hour show, so they stay on the one stage. So it’s YOUNG AND RESTLESS has two, PRICE IS RIGHT has one, and next door to us is BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL. So that’s what it’s come down to, those, our core studios, that’s what CBS started out with, and you know, in the late ‘50s [1950s] I think. You know, 36 [Stage 36] and 46 [Stage 46] are built outside, which are huge nice big wonderful stages, where we shoot DANCING WITH THE STARS for ABC, we do AMERICAN IDOL, or THE X FACTOR, or, up until this season we did AMERICA’S GOT TALENT out there. [INT: That’s right, there’s only the four stages in the old building and then, of course, there’s upstairs.] Yeah, so the, where those stages came from up stage, those are old rehearsal halls. Okay, that ceiling is not that high, it’s maybe a 14-foot ceiling before you start hanging pipes and lights on it, now it’s getting a little bit lower. Yeah, those were rehearsal halls converted into stages, where Kilborn [Craig Kilborn on THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH CRAIG KILBORN] used to be, Ferguson [Craig Ferguson on THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH CRAIG FERGUSON] is now, and then 42 [Stage 42] where we used to do a lot of other shows. Sajak, Pat Sajak [on WHEEL OF FORTUNE] was done up there. [INT: Yeah, I think that was the first one, I think that was converted up there, that was scenic storage, that I think they converted in 1989, ’88 [1988] for ’89 [1989].] It became scenic storage, only because we weren’t in rehearsal halls anymore. THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW was no longer there. Those variety shows were no longer up there for two days rehearsing before we’d come to the set. [INT: So that was all rehearsal hall space over there, even where Sajak now…] Yes, I used to be there with ARCHIE BUNKER’S PLACE. As a matter of fact early on, THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL had a rehearsal hall. Cause economically, rather than we’d let that set get finished on their schedule early in the morning, and we’d rehearse with the Actors there, break them down to makeup and hair. I would have the dressing room number on the telephone. So I’d call, and, “Katherine [Katherine Kelly Lang] we need you now. Ronn [Ronn Moss], we need you up, and they’d have to trek all the way up the stairs, while we’re still working.