Time for New ‘Playhouse’

It is shocking and simply unacceptable that Hollywood’s PBS station KCET cannot afford to produce even one periodic dramatic program like the now dead “American Playhouse,” one that utilizes the enormous creative talent and business acumen that exists here in the undisputed world center of film and entertainment.

I call upon the companies and individuals that make up Hollywood’s entertainment business to step up, seize the day and create new funding for a “New American Playhouse” series.

Retired KCET chief Bill Kobin spoke candidly to Calendar for the Jan. 4 article “Looking Back Before Signing Off.” Kobin allowed that while KCET viewership has doubled to nearly 3 million households, subscriptions are up 60% to more than 320,000 contributors, and the annual budget has tripled to about $43 million, the station could not afford to be even one of four former producing partners of the now dark “American Playhouse.”

Today film distribution companies recognize no limit to the worldwide gross of motion pictures. Studio and production company chiefs, stars, directors, producers and writers demand and get more money now than ever before. We read almost daily of the multimillion-dollar fees that go to superstars such as Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, etc. and their female counterparts, and to the people who make the films they star in.

“Forrest Gump” is on its way to a worldwide gross of nearly $1 billion. Michael Eisner’s salary is one of the highest in America. Joe Eszterhas receives millions for a script. But there is no money for “American Playhouse.”

Speaking of the defunct program “Actors on Acting,” a relatively inexpensive show offering performers sitting around talking about their profession and careers, utilizing film clips from past movies, Kobin said simply that “we couldn’t find a funder.” He also said he wishes he had been able to work more closely with “the creative community of Los Angeles.”

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Where was the creative community when KCET and Bill Kobin needed it? Same old place. Much of it a few miles away, making huge executive salaries and fees, earning ever greater stock options, pushing the compensation envelope further and further out. But apparently light-years away in terms of interest and concern for, hands down, the best television station in Southern California.

Well, let’s hear from Hollywood’s creative community now. All of them: studio and production companies, stars, producers, directors, writers, agents, managers, lawyers, accountants and publicists.

The Hollywood super-lawyers, Jake Bloom, Bert Fields, Bruce Ramer, Ken Ziffren and Skip Brittenham, etc., and the largely unpublicized and unknown accountants and managers, who are themselves in fact super players and handlers to the super-paid major performers, can figure out, with the aid of KCET management, how much is needed and how much can come from whom and where.

The chairmen of CAA, ICM, William Morris and UTA can help by soliciting their clients’ participation at every level. It can be an opportunity for a star to perform in the play he or she has always wanted to do, the chance for a writer to have produced the drama or comedy that never seems to have “fit the studios’ production needs at this time,” a venue for a director to be more daring, a showcase for some of the best and the brightest that Hollywood has to offer.

To make this a reality will require the efforts of many, and there are many who could lead the effort. But I suggest that there is a man who could be at the point, Lew R. Wasserman--chairman emeritus of MCA Inc.--arguably the best theatrical agent ever, highly respected at every level of business, giant fund-raiser, a caring leader. I know that he liked to keep his desk free of papers, but just maybe his desk is a bit too clean these days. Why don’t we ask him?

Much is still written and spoken of “The Golden Age of Television.” “Playhouse 90,” “Studio One,” “Philco Playhouse” and others are not forgotten. Let us bring back that superb era in the “New American Playhouse,” and make it available to America and the world through public broadcasting and KCET.