My Days Read online

  As we began shooting the first episodes of Happy Days, if I ever felt as if my role was small, I would just look at poor Henry. Although he would go on to become the breakout icon of the show, during that first season, he hardly had any lines. They would just have him strut into the bathroom at Arnold’s Drive-In, take a look at himself in the mirror, see that his hair was perfect, put his comb away, and walk out. That was about it.

  As is the case with most television series, especially ones that are fortunate to be successful and live on for many seasons, Happy Days began with a basic premise and then grew in different directions as the years went by and the characters developed. Just like in real life, television characters are organic creatures that find themselves growing and maturing—doing things, saying things, experiencing situations, and going in directions that had never been thought of by the producers, writers or actors when the show was first created.

  Our show had a lot of young writers, guys in their late twenties who were, to a large extent, street kids out of New York, just like Garry. They were a very lively bunch who, like most television writers, looked out for themselves and were highly protective of the ideas, character developments, plotlines, and especially the sight gags and laugh lines they brought to the table. In the production of a television sitcom, it’s very rare that the producers and actors don’t know exactly which writer brought this or that idea to the table, especially if something is successful, works well, gets a big laugh, or takes the show or a character in a new direction. The reason for that is simple: the writers themselves never miss an opportunity to remind everyone over and over that it was their idea.

  Every week we would get our new scripts, do a table read with the full cast, all the writers and the producers, and then begin a week of rehearsals in our home—Paramount’s Stage Nineteen—which would take us up to taping the show in front of a live studio audience on Friday evenings. (Our first two seasons were filmed without an audience, using a single-camera setup and a laugh track. From the third season on, we used a three-camera production and shot in front of a live audience.) As soon as we got our scripts, I would do what every actor in every television show has ever done and will ever do when they first get their hands on a freshly written script: quickly go through it to see how many scenes I was in, how many lines I had, what they had me doing, and, most importantly, to make sure what I was doing didn’t involve my planning a long trip away from home, accepting a job in a new town, getting ill, or having some sort of a mishap that involved a bus, a cliff, an explosion or anything else that may indicate a search for new work may be looming.

  As soon as I had each new script in my hand, right after making sure Mrs. C was safe, I would then highlight my lines, rev myself up, and just read the bejesus out of each word from our first table read to our final run-through. I felt that to keep my job, I was constantly auditioning before Garry, the other producers, the directors, the writers. Hell, I was consumed with proving myself to everyone, including the technical crew, production assistants and craft services people. I was really rather shy and reserved, especially during the early seasons of the show. I was also one of only two females in the principal cast (the other being a girl barely in her teens), and let’s just say, at times, the testosterone was pretty thick on Stage Nineteen, what with Tom running the show and taking weekly, if not daily, umbrage with the writers and even the producers.

  Whenever things would get a bit tense, Garry would usually do something to break the tension, which, typically, was caused by Tom. I quickly learned four things during our first season: one, that there is an interesting and multifaceted dynamic going on within the creative team of a television show; two, that in order to compete and survive that dynamic, you had better learn how to hold your own; three, that our boss, Garry, was a true sweetheart; and last but not at all least, that working with Tom was very difficult.

  When we first started, none of us knew one another well, but I’m sure it was clear that I wasn’t a big Tom Bosley fan. Other than an eye roll here or there when he was being his most contentious, I did try to keep my feelings below the radar screen, but I think it would have taken the combined acting skills of the Lunts, Gielguds, Oliviers, Hepburns and Brandos of the world to have concealed that fact.

  The man who was our script supervisor, perhaps, knew this best. He was always very close to us when we were on the set, listening to our every word, making notes, or prompting us with a line, and so he was on the front line when it came to noticing what I thought were my subtle facial expressions in response to Tom’s behavior. Whenever Tom would really blow up over something, which would result in his huddling up with the director, the producers and the writers, I would just stand there while they worked it out, and the script supervisor would sidle up to me and whisper in my ear. “You know you really love him,” he would say. That would always break the tension I was feeling, and I usually employed no acting techniques whatsoever to conceal a laugh.

  If I had reservations about Tom (and I certainly did), I felt that he was not keen on me at all. I began to wonder if he had wanted someone other than me cast in the role of Marion and if he resented me because he hadn’t gotten his way. I really had no idea why he was cold and distant toward me and, God knows, I tried to get him to warm up to me. Sometimes between takes when we were doing a scene together, I would put my hand on his arm or shoulder.

  “Don’t touch me!” he would say in a way that let me know he wasn’t kidding.

  To this day, whenever I see an episode of Happy Days from the beginning of the first season, and we are sitting on a couch together, looking all warm and cuddly, I laugh to myself and think, That is really some great acting you did there, old gal!

  Along with his aversion to my making any sort of physical contact with him, Tom also seemed to be irritated by just about anything I did or said. I remember times during rehearsals when the cast and some of the technical crew would all be sitting around telling stories and laughing. It seemed that whenever I told a story, Tom would grunt and say, “Who gives a shit, Marion?”

  Well, I may have spent a lot more time in Hollywood than I had in Albert Lea, but I still possessed those deeply engrained Minnesota values and Midwestern manners that I had been raised with, and when he would say that, I would sort of laugh it off, clam up, and then just sit there looking at him, while thinking, Yes, I’m nice, but you have no idea what I’m really thinking about you. I know that my upbeat, optimistic and, perhaps, sometimes Pollyannaish personality got to him so much that at times he seemed to want to kick me to the moon. But I couldn’t change my style—who I was—and I certainly wasn’t going to change anything for him.

  During that time, I was still seeing a shrink but had made a marked improvement, as the depression from my failed marriage had dissipated and my financial situation had at least stabilized. I would have a session and get high marks for my improvement from the doctor, only to return for my next visit and have her ask me why I had seemed to take a few steps back.

  “You were doing so well when you were last here,” she would say. “What happened to cause this setback?”

  It was due to the stress at work, much of which I felt was being caused by Tom and the writers. It was a hard-hitting, rough-and-tumble atmosphere, and not, by any means, the tea party people may have thought working on such a wholesome and fun show would be. There was what I perceived to be a crudeness to the environment, and a lot of complaining and questioning. At least, that was how I saw it. What I really didn’t understand was that this dynamic is very common with a weekly show. Up until that point, my work had been periodic: it had entailed working on a show for a few days or weeks, doing a series in which I had only a day or two of work each week, or doing a film for a few months. Happy Days was different. It was a weekly grind of long hours, during which tension and stress levels got high.

  While my shrink had been extremely helpful to me in so many ways, the thing that finally snapped me out of the feelings of inadequacy and di
scomfort I was experiencing on the set of Happy Days was something I worked out on my own. It happened on this one day when a loud argument broke out among the writers. It escalated to the point that it was close to being a downright brawl, and I retreated to a side of the stage, where I tried to calm my frayed nerves.

  But then, just as quickly as it had all started, it settled down, we did our scene, and these guys, who had earlier been at one another’s throats, were all laughing, had their arms around one another, and were happily heading off to lunch. It had taken me a while to get it, but something went off in my head when I saw that. Okay, I thought to myself. Now I get it. The pressure on them is high to do a really good job, and at times it just gets to a boiling point, erupts, and then quickly passes. I get it! I get it! It wasn’t personal. It was just the working style of these young testosterone-raging New Yorker writers and, of course, also of Tom.

  While I had had my issues with Tom at first, as the months went by and I got to know him better, I actually began to feel myself warming up to him and, surprisingly, I also began to see some cracks start to form in his hard shell. I slowly began to realize he possessed a warmth that could be just wonderful. Yes, he was, by all means, this peppery and feisty little guy who could get on your nerves, but he also had another side to him, and he could be this very dear sweetheart.

  Realizing that Tom could be such a great guy, I began to let my guard down around him and feel more comfortable. The problem with that was all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he would get irritated over something, slam something down, start swearing, and jolt me back into thinking, My God, how can he be so nice and then turn around and be so damn difficult? I didn’t understand it. I didn’t understand him. And, most importantly, I didn’t understand what he was going through in his personal life.

  Unbeknownst to me at the time, and seemingly to everyone else associated with the show, with the possible exception of Garry, Tom’s wife, Jean Eliot, who had been a dancer, was ill—very ill. She had been experiencing excruciating headaches, and as time went by, she began displaying erratic behavior that made it difficult, if not impossible, for her to care for herself or their young daughter, Amy. As Jean’s pain increased, she became more and more depressed. This, obviously, caused a tremendous amount of anxiety and stress for Tom. He was angry about what was happening to his wife and extremely frustrated that the cause of her illness seemed to be a mystery. At first, her doctors believed she had epilepsy, but as things got worse, they learned she was suffering from an inoperable brain tumor.

  Tom was dealing with all those issues at home and then, somehow, managed to get to work and appear to Happy Days viewers from coast to coast as this cuddly little father figure with a touch of cantankerous charm. Yes, we who worked with him knew that the cantankerous streak of Howard Cunningham was nothing compared to the one of Tom Bosley, but when I think about what he was going through, I have no idea how he conducted himself as well as he did.

  I would later learn that as Jean’s illness progressed, Tom himself began experiencing the dark depths of depression. I remember him once saying, many years later, that as his wife faded, his depression grew. Of course, that made sense. How could someone not become severely depressed when they had to work at a demanding job all day and then return home to care for a very sick spouse and a young daughter? Tom did just that until Jean died during the fourth season of Happy Days. In the wake of Jean’s death, Tom’s depression continued as he coped with raising Amy, who was only eleven years old when her mother died.

  In today’s world, Tom may have been more open with his friends or coworkers about what he was going through and may have gone for treatment, but back in those days, men kept that sort of thing to themselves. They were supposed to be these strong and macho tough guys who could deal with anything and who certainly weren’t supposed to give in to sadness or depression. And so, like so many other men of that era, he suffered in silence and did all he could to hide his travails from as many people as possible. I can’t even imagine what it was like for Tom to be this role model for American husbands and fathers, when in real life he was falling into an ever-deepening depression.

  Many years later, long after Happy Days was over, he opened up about what he had been going through while doing the show, and often credited his work, the interaction he had with his cast mates, and the love of his daughter as the things that helped him get through that difficult time, recover, and go on to become an advocate for depression education and awareness. As he got older, he participated in various campaigns to educate people on the signs and symptoms of depression and on its treatment. One was called “Happier Days in Mature America,” and I know it helped a lot of people by explaining that depression is not a natural part of aging, and that if people become depressed as they age, they should not keep it to themselves, as he did for so long, but rather should discuss their symptoms with loved ones and seek help from medical professionals.

  Because Tom had been extremely private about what he was going through while we were doing Happy Days, he received very little understanding from those he was working with when he would become difficult and demanding. But as time went by and we all began to know one another better, we did learn about what he was going through.

  I may have once had mixed feelings about him, but I really did come to love him, and he and I—both as Tom Bosley and Marion Ross and as Howard and Marion Cunningham—became a wonderful pair. We worked well with one another and off one another. It became a perfect match, one in which we truly harmonized with one another, me playing my sweet little piccolo to his boisterous tuba.

  The more I got to know Tom, the more I learned that he possessed a great intelligence. The writers, who may have been leery of his interference at first, also came to terms with him and realized that if they were ever stuck when trying to come up with a good punch line to end a scene, Tom was the go-to guy for coming up with something.

  As the seasons of Happy Days passed by and I came to understand him better, my relationship with Tom evolved into one of great love and care for one another. One time when we were all honoring him for something, I remember how after I had delivered my tribute to him, he got up, looked over at me, and said, “You know, Marion, I have a little secret to share with you. I do give a shit about you and what you have to say!”

  After Happy Days ended, Tom and I always kept in touch, and he and his second wife, Pat, invited me to many parties at their home. I was always honored to call him my friend and was very proud of the way he raised Amy, who went on to become a highly successful studio executive and to own her own entertainment development, production and consulting company.

  When Tom died on October 19, 2010, Pat asked me if I would say a few words at his funeral. I was honored, and while I did tell a few stories of our times together, there was really only one thing I wanted to say: that he was a lovely and kind man whom I loved very much.... And one thing I thought privately: that he really did give a shit about me.

  Chapter 15

  My Happy Days

  By the evening of January 15, 1974, the night Happy Days debuted, I was a forty-six-year-old divorced woman who was the mother of an eleven-year-old girl and a teenage son. My father had been gone for ten years, and in 1971 I had lost my mother. I have been asked on occasion if it bothers me that neither of my parents lived to see my dream come true. Well, it would have been nice, but it was not to be, and being the type of person I have always been when it comes to dealing with death, I have never really given it any thought.

  I was thrilled that Happy Days had been picked up, and more than grateful that they had decided to stay with me for the role of Marion. I had given my character a lot of thought from the moment I heard we would be doing the show, and on the night of our debut, as I sat watching it, I couldn’t help but think that while I may have looked the part, there was a world of difference between Marion Cunningham and Marion Ross. Marion Cunningham didn’t have a career outside of the home, didn’t drive, and always
made sure her hair was perfect and that she had on a clean and freshly pressed dress as she cared for her children, her home, and her husband, who ran his own small business. I knew women like that from when I was a child growing up in Albert Lea, but that had never been me.

  At first, she was rather ditzy, but as time went by, she would grow into a more grounded character. But as I sat and watched that first broadcast of the show, I had no idea I would ever get the chance to see her evolve. I never allowed myself to think the show would become a big hit; none of us did. It just wasn’t the kind of dream any of us would allow ourselves to dream. I think we all knew that the timing was right for a show like Happy Days, that the cast was really good, and that the writing was very solid, but we just could not let ourselves become convinced the show would become a success, since we would then have to live with the crushing disappointment if it didn’t.

  I loved having steady work, and while my salary was nothing to brag about, it covered all the bills, left me with a little for some very simple luxuries for myself and the children, and allowed me for the first time to stash away a little to tide me over if things didn’t work out.

  When we first started, we did the show like a film, shooting with one camera and no studio audience. It was kind of a scattered mess at times, with scripts still being worked on as we went into rehearsal and Tom being difficult. But things would soon change.

  I remember we were about six months into our first season and none of us really knew how we were being received by the viewing public. And then one day, we were all summoned into a room by one of our producers, Bill Bickley, who, after doing Happy Days, would go on to produce such successful shows as Family Matters, Perfect Strangers and Step by Step. None of us knew why we were being called together, and while no one said it, I can’t imagine I was the only one who was worried that we were about to get word that we had been canceled. I recall all of us sitting around with these wide-eyed looks as Bill took his place in the middle of us.