Script-Writing Hopefuls Find Happy Endings--Years Later

Each spring, Norm Gunzenhauser felt sick when he pictured another class graduating at UCLA. There he was, a frustrated screenwriter selling boots in Santa Monica, visualizing new graduates with connections in Hollywood snaring the jobs that might have been his.

It took six years for Gunzenhauser, the son of an upstate New York cattle breeder, to land a full-time job writing for television. But when he and partner Tom Seeley joined five other staff writers at “Newhart” this summer, they discovered that none of their colleagues had UCLA degrees or Hollywood relatives.

None of the writers is even a Californian.

“Offhand, I only know of one writer who has a famous relative. I don’t and neither do any of my friends,” wrote producer-writer Sheldon Bull in 1984, in a tough-minded but encouraging letter to David Tyron King, then graduating from the University of Texas.

Today, King holds one of the coveted staff spots on “Newhart,” with an annual income exceeding $100,000. He’s only 27.

Who breaks in, and how do they do it? And what’s the job like, once they join the staff of a prime-time television series?

At “Newhart,” a half-hour sitcom now in its fifth season, the writers’ average age is 33. For three of the seven full-time writers, it is their first staff job.

Each has a college degree, but their majors ranged from electrical engineering, business administration, English, sociology and government to television and film.

Nearly every writer held at least one low-paying job, if not several, before selling a script. Some of the jobs were more memorable than others:

Gunzenhauser sold boots for 3 1/2 years.

Seeley spent a year in the federal VISTA program, working in an Atlanta reform school.

King typed mailing labels for 7 cents per address.

Arnie Kogen sold stories to Mad magazine after his father fired him twice from his children’s wear business.

Michael Loman taught junior high school in Manhattan, but also appeared on Broadway as an actor.

Doug Wyman worked as a scheduling supervisor at Cable Health Network.

David Mirkin worked first as an electrical engineer, then as a stand-up comic.

Miriam Trogdon waited on tables, then worked at the post office. (A former full-time writer for “Newhart,” she now works just one day a week on the show.)

Of the eight, only Kogen and Loman had television writing credits before moving to Los Angeles. The other six knew only that they had to write a “spec” script for an existing TV show and somehow submit it to powerful agents or producers.

“Spec” scripts serve as writing samples; writers concoct the story on their own, hoping to prove that they can write for television. For a half-hour comedy, the script might run about 41 pages of double-spaced, wide-margin typing.

Most of the staff writers did not succeed quickly. Doug Wyman and David Mirkin, accomplished writers who also serve as the show’s executive producers, each say they endured a four-year stretch in Los Angeles without selling a script.

Four other “Newhart” writers note that they succeeded only after setting a tough deadline for themselves: in at least two instances, the impending birth of a child. They vowed either to find work as a writer or consider a new career.

Talent, perseverance, ingenuity and luck finally squeezed them through the door.

Although writers can make a living by free-lancing, selling scripts to any number of shows, Mirkin explained that “the best living is on staff. The vast majority of working writers are on staff. Good free-lancers eventually get a staff job. That’s generally the goal in today’s television.”

The staff writers’ primary task is to write several scripts and help rewrite others for the 22-episode season. Each staff member typically writes two or three during the year and is paid additionally for each one. For a half-hour network prime-time show, the Writers Guild of America mandates a minimum fee of $10,940.

About 6,340 people belong to the Writers Guild, which claims bargaining jurisdiction in screen, television and radio. Only 389 individuals joined the guild in the past 12 months. To be eligible, those new members had to sell one or two scripts (depending on the format) or secure writing assignments from companies that are signatory to the guild’s collective bargaining agreement. Each paid an initiation fee of $1,500.

Judging from data collected by the guild, fewer than half its members might be working at a given time. Only 41% of the membership reported earnings for television writing during the first three months of 1986. A scant 15% declared earnings during that period for feature film writing.

Arnie Kogen, the most seasoned “Newhart” writer, contends that even fewer writers enjoy their work. Low-brow material, a bullying producer or a star’s peccadilloes can make the 10- to 14-hour days miserable.

“Most of the shows I do I don’t enjoy,” said Kogen, a 22-year veteran who considers himself easier-going than most writers, and luckier. He has won three Emmy awards but says that 60% of his television writing career has not been enjoyable. “Newhart,” the Carol Burnett shows and the “Tonight Show” are among the happy exceptions.

But he hasn’t quit.

“I like writing,” Kogen said. A writer can become a producer or studio executive, taking on more of the administrative headaches, but “there’s always somebody who has more control than you,” he said.

For many writers, television is more lucrative and satisfying than motion picture work.

In the motion picture business, major studios release just 15 to 22 films a year. Even if a script is sold, the odds are against the film getting made.

But in television, which has a voracious need to fill the prime-time hours, “you almost always get to see a version of your work produced,” said Mirkin, who got his first break writing a pilot for Home Box Office and then wrote for “Three’s Company” before joining “Newhart” three years ago.

“Most executive producers are writers. In television, the writer is king,” said Wyman, who, like Mirkin, serves as an executive producer of the show.

Comedy writers, in particular, are in demand. Half-hour sitcoms are less expensive to produce than adventure shows, so cost-conscious networks have increased their orders. The producers are equally anxious to meet the demand, because comedies usually command high prices when reruns are sold in the syndication market.

Mirkin and Wyman say they’ve heard that as many as 61 comedies will air this year on network, independent and cable TV.

So if you’re in Des Moines and convinced you have talent, here’s some advice from this year’s crop of “Newhart” writers.

Kogen said the worst thing you could do is “to stay in Des Moines.” The next-worst decision would be “not to write.”

Kogen and Wyman urge aspiring writers to watch the shows they like.

If you live in Los Angeles, Wyman recommends joining the studio audience as often as possible. Admission is free. Recalling his early years in Los Angeles, Wyman said, “If (a show) was great, I would be inspired. If it was fair, I’d say, ‘I can do that.’ ”

Wyman also recorded the dialogue of shows he admired on audio tape. “So much of writing is listening,” he said. To study the characters’ speech, he often played a tape at night just before drifting to sleep.

Or you can study old scripts. Both UCLA and the Writers Guild have script libraries, and some Hollywood stores actually sell old scripts. Wyman and Mirkin note, however, that the sales may be illegal because of potential copyright law infractions.

Trogdon did not have ready access to the Hollywood Boulevard stores when she wrote her first “spec” scripts in her hometown of Charlottesville, Va. But she said there is another way to obtain samples. “I never knew you could call up a show and ask, ‘Could I have an old script just to look at?’ ”

The “Newhart” writers all agree that for the talented novice, writing a good “spec” script is far, far easier than getting it read. Some shows won’t accept unsolicited scripts. Others might read your script only if you waive your right to sue if they later produce a show that resembles your work.

Aspiring writers are also cautioned not to submit a “Cheers” script to “Cheers” or a “Family Ties” script to “Family Ties,” because producers are apt to be more critical of an outsider’s writing for their show.

The “Newhart” writers say it’s best to have an agent submit your script. But hiring the right agent is the toughest trick of all. In their initial struggle, five said they were unsuccessful in hiring an agent or believe now that they hired the wrong one.

Mirkin recalls buying a Writers Guild one-page listing of agencies. He regrets choosing an agency marked by an asterisk, which indicated that the agency would consider new writers. Despite good intentions, most of those agents probably don’t have the contacts required to help a fledgling writer, he contended.

“The agents have to have a relationship with the people on the show you’re interested in,” he said.

There are various ways of determining which agents have clout. One way is simply to call the Writers Guild and ask which agent represents a writer you particularly admire.

King did his homework and wrote 20 different agencies. But he received answers from just two and wound up with an agent who disappointed him. King says now that he stayed too long with the wrong agent. He switched and “two weeks later (my new agent) had me on staff here.”

You want an agent with “some track record for new writers,” King said.

But some “Newhart” writers had no agent at all.

Gunzenhauser had no agent when he teamed with Seeley to write a “Cheers” script on spec, so they decided to submit it directly to a producer. They chose Ed. Weinberger (now president of Carson Productions) after Seeley read an announcement in Variety of the birth of Weinberger’s child and also read that Weinberger had begun a new job developing shows at Taft Entertainment. “A new job, a new father; he’s got to be in a good mood!” Seeley recalled saying.

Weinberger read the script, called them and eventually hired the pair for his development staff. A year later, with credentials established, they were able to hire the agent of their choice. The agent helped land the “Newhart” job.

“You’ve really got to aim for the top guy,” Seeley said, looking back.

Perhaps the most unusual story belongs to Miriam Trogdon, who had spent her entire life in Virginia until she left in July, 1983, to try her luck in Los Angeles for one month.

For three weeks, she drove fruitlessly around the city, just “trying to get on the (studio) lots.” Finally, in her fourth and final week, she called Karen Hall, a graduate school classmate and friend who had left the University of Virginia for considerable success in Hollywood (currently, she’s a “Moonlighting” producer). The two women had not stayed in close touch and Trogdon was reluctant to appear presumptuous.

But Hall offered to read her script and gave it to her husband, Sheldon Bull, then a producer of “Newhart.”

Within two months, Trogdon and her husband had moved to Los Angeles. Trogdon sold a script to “Newhart,” then joined the staff after producers read her outline of a proposed second script.

Trogdon didn’t bother to hire an agent until the end of her first year.