Spinning off from the MeTV+ thread and the discussion of the uber-cuntery of Joan Davis, I found Jim Backus' autobiography online. He dishes:
[quote]On our show the billing -- which was the lifeblood of every actor -- should have been "Starring Joan Davis and Jim Backus." But when the credits came on, they said, "Starring Joan Davis WITH Jim Backus." It meant Joan was the star and I was an indentured servant.
[quote]"I Married Joan" was set somewhere in lobotomy land. Joan had literally never read anything other than comedy scripts, so all writers of any sort were "boys" to her. When I told her I was spending my summer hiatus by going back to the theater to star in "The Man Who Came to Dinner," she said, "Oh, yes, that was written by those two Broadway boys. When I informed her that one of those boys was George S. Kaufman, who had won the Pulitzer Prize, she said, "That's shit compared to an Emmy!"
[quote]Professionally she was a joy. Off camera it was a different story. I find it difficult to write about her with any continuity. Because she had no continuity.
[quote]One day she read in the Hollywood Reporter that Lucy was going to a film called "The Long Long Trailer." The next day a trailer longer than Lucy's arrived on the lot to serve as Joan's portable dressing room. To get this ten-wheeled behemoth on the soundstage necessitated knocking out a wall and using part of another stage. Then the wall had to be rebuilt around the trailer. This monster had a wet bar AND a septic tank bidet -- a first in mobile hygiene!
Jim was a funny writer! Looking forward to the chapter on "Gilligan's Island."