Going Against the Usual Wisdom

It’s late afternoon in the living room of Morrie Schwartz, a terminally ill sociology professor played by Jack Lemmon in tonight’s ABC movie, “Tuesdays With Morrie.” Morrie is listening to an aria while being rubbed down by a burly masseuse. The camera sweeps across his bare back--the 74-year-old is emaciated, pale. Watched over by his former student Mitch Albom (Hank Azaria), the masseuse’s hands fold Morrie’s dimpled skin and press down on his knobby spine--working to loosen the congestion in his lungs that so often leaves him gasping for breath.

Getting up from the table, Morrie sits with Mitch to ponder the power of touch and the memory of his mother. As his bloodshot eyes swell with tears, he notices Mitch look away. “All this makes you uncomfortable,” Morrie says. “The crying, the touching.”

Mitch isn’t the only one--it’s the kind of scene that would send television executives into fits of discomfort. It’s just one moment in a film filled with scenes that run counter to the conventional wisdom about what works, and who watches, network television. The drawn-out and painful death of an elderly academic and his musings on life aren’t exactly a natural companion to shows like ABC’s recent ratings phenom “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” Neither are the film’s wistful tears, awkward silences or pop philosophy an easy fit in a prime-time world that favors “Dawson’s Creek” teen-angst series aimed at the viewers advertisers covet most.

But then “Tuesdays With Morrie” has already made mincemeat of conventional wisdom with the remarkable success of the book on which the film is based. A slim volume of homespun homilies written by Detroit sportswriter Albom about the weekly discussions he had with his dying professor, the book has become a publishing sensation, selling more than 2 million copies and occupying a spot on the New York Times’ bestseller list for 110 weeks and counting.

TV, of course, is something else entirely. Which is why, in addition to including some of the book’s raw, ponderous material, producers have given “Morrie” a make-over, adding a romantic subplot built around Albom and a series of quick-cut, high-adrenaline sequences straight out of a big-budget thriller. Tonight the producers will find out how audiences respond to this odd mix of television do’s and don’ts. Tonight audiences around the country will determine whether the Morrie magic survives the translation to television.

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It’s a summer afternoon in the hills of Santa Clarita, and the real Mitch Albom is squinting in the hot glare as he heads toward a sound stage where production of “Tuesdays With Morrie” is underway. Albom is fresh off a plane from his hometown Detroit, and he’s not feeling his personal best. Rumpled and disoriented, he isn’t quite ready to face what’s behind those heavy swinging doors.

Walking inside, Albom steps back four years and across 2,500 miles. As his eyes adjust to the dim light, he sees a wood-paneled house, split down the middle and set against a tarp painted with Japanese maples, suburban streets and a big Massachusetts sky. The scene hits him with a jolt--it’s Morrie’s house. Morrie Schwartz was the beloved Brandeis professor who reserved Tuesday afternoons in the last few months of his life to give Albom one last class. The subject--nothing less than “the meaning of life.”

Now, four years after Morrie died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)--also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease--a tottering man with familiar features steps off the porch and approaches Albom. Albom shakes the wrinkled hand and steps back to catch his breath.

“ ‘Surreal’ doesn’t begin to describe it,” Albom says with a shudder of first seeing Lemmon, who, with the help of a prosthetic nose and a partially shaved scalp, looks for all the world like the professor Albom fondly knew as “Coach.” “I know that’s Jack Lemmon, but at first blush all I can think is: Oh Morrie, you’re back.”

Which is precisely the reaction producers hope to trigger in audiences, some of whom first met Morrie during a series of “Nightline” interviews Schwartz did during the last months of his life with Ted Koppel. The “Nightline” series, coupled with the success of the book, managed to turn the anonymous sociology professor from West Newton, Mass., into an icon--a wise elder, a lost teacher, an adored mentor--for millions of Americans.

But translating Morrie’s story to TV hasn’t been easy, says co-executive producer Kate Forte. “Reading the book, you don’t instantly think of a movie,” she says. “It’s about ideas more than it is about plot.”

Indeed, Albom says he doubted the movie would ever get made. “My first reaction was, ‘How?’ ” he says. “There are no car crashes, no explosions, no intricate terrorist plots. It’s just two people talking. What producer in their right mind would want to take that on?”

Oprah Winfrey, that’s who. The high priestess of talk read the book in galleys and became an instant fan, peddling copies on her program and lobbying hard for the film rights, Albom says. “She showed me her copy of the manuscript--it was dogeared and covered in yellow highlighter.”

With rights in hand, Winfrey’s Harpo Productions assembled a cast and crew including screenwriter Tom Rickman, who was brought in to fashion the story into two hours of prime-time television. From the beginning, producers worried that a strict adaptation would end up limp and static, a sort of self-help “My Dinner With Andre.”

To break up the monotony--or in Forte’s words, “widen the scope”--the story was tweaked, laying in more of Mitch and a bit less of Morrie. A romance for Albom was accentuated. A workplace power struggle with Albom’s editor was added. And the plot was peppered with scenes from his life at home as a hard-charging sportswriter.

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Admirers of the book may be surprised to see the quiet moments of introspection interrupted by races through airports, arguments in sports bars and press conference confrontations. Forte says director Mick Jackson (“The Bodyguard,” “L.A. Story”) was inspired by the German action film “Run Lola Run” in turning a small set piece into something that would warm the heart and quicken the pulse.

For his part, Albom says he doesn’t mind the jazzier take. “They’re not going to capture some of the subtleties and the quieter moments,” he says. “But hopefully the same main points will be made.”

Besides, the filmmakers showed admirable restraint in other ways. For one thing, producers had a juicy opportunity to plug ABC’s “Nightline” segments on the elderly teacher. But other than a brief re-creation of one Koppel segment--a critical inclusion because it was only after Albom saw the segment that he reconnected with his professor--the ABC movie is free of corporate cross-marketing.

For his part, Lemmon says he jumped at the chance to play Morrie on TV. “The way Morrie lived affects people very deeply,” he says, sitting in his trailer on the set with his poodle Chloe at his feet. “I loved the fact that with all the things he had to say philosophically, he never hesitated to talk about his faults.”

Nor did Lemmon hesitate to play a man facing the indignities of a disease that Morrie said “melts you like a candle.” To play Morrie at his weakest, Lemmon shed 20 pounds and consulted with ALS survivors. Lemmon says he didn’t worry about showing some of the more raw aspects of dying--the coughing, the wheezing, the crying, the assistance “going to the commode.”

“I’m not overly concerned with looking good,” he says. “To hell with that. That kind of thing has nothing to do with me. I’ve never played a dying man--this is an actor’s heyday.”

And not just for Lemmon. Azaria, whose role requires the actor to go from hard-bitten to touchy-feely, says everyone was touched by the book’s sensitivity. “This is honest, emotional work,” he says. “If you’re doing a big action movie, the air can get filled with testosterone. But this is a beautiful and sweet story, and it’s a lot nicer on the set.”

Azaria’s real-life counterpart hopes that the sweetness of the story survives the translation to the screen. Wandering around the set, through crowds of production people and towers of equipment, Albom seems wary that it will.

“I have a hard time believing the book was successful, let alone turning into something like this,” he says. “This wasn’t supposed to be a big book or an event book or a TV movie. I was hoping to sell 25,000 copies, help pay for Morrie’s medical bills and that’s it.”

As he walks through the set, examining the pictures on the walls and the contents of the shelves--finding a packet of Depend undergarments, Albom says, “They sure got that right”--Albom considers what Morrie would have thought of all this. On one hand, Morrie was a passionate teacher who would have loved to lecture the whole world. But he also didn’t think much of TV. In one passage in the book, Albom describes Morrie’s typical routine: “He took more time eating and looking at nature and wasted no time in front of TV sitcoms or movies of the week.”

But the TV movie will be the only “Morrie” outgrowth; Albom says he’s rejected all sorts of so-called “branding opportunities.”

“I’ve been approached with a ton of spin-off ideas, but this is it,” he says. “There will be no Morrie dolls, no ‘Tuesdays With Morrie’ refrigerator magnets, no ‘Tuesdays With Morrie’ day planners, no ‘Wednesdays With Morrie.’ I get really upset with people who believe you can turn the meaning of life into a franchise--as if you can repackage the meaning of life every few years. The movie is as far as this goes, and that’s far enough.”

Near the end of Morrie’s life, Albom asked his professor to describe what he would do if he had one day of perfect health. Immobile in bed with oxygen tubes threaded up his nostrils, Morrie described such a day. He would eat a breakfast of sweet rolls and tea, go for a swim, visit with friends, take a walk in a garden and go out for a big meal of pasta and duck. After dinner, Morrie would return to a dance hall near campus to tango and twirl and gyrate as he had done until ALS ended his dancing days.

That vision is re-created in the movie’s powerful closing sequence. Grinning and alone under a spinning mirror ball, Morrie dances an ecstatic tango. In this one moment, the film captures the essence of the Morrie magic. He is free from disease, free from pain and brimming with uncomplicated joy.

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“Tuesdays With Morrie” will be shown tonight at 9 p.m. on ABC.