She Set the Course for Those Who Followed

Young women in TV searching for a role model need look no further than Ethel Winant, an industry trailblazer being featured in tonight’s “The 14th Annual TV Academy Hall of Fame Awards” on UPN.

The 76-year-old producer, who began her career more than 50 years ago in theater, is being honored along with fellow inductees Carl Reiner, Lorne Michaels, Fred Silverman, Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer, Fred Rogers and the late Herb Brodkin.

Early on in Winant’s eclectic career, which has earned her several Emmys and a George Foster Peabody Award among others, she worked with director Elia Kazan on “A Streetcar Named Desire.” She soon moved into live TV with “Studio One.” Winant came to Hollywood in 1956 to cast and eventually help produce CBS’ “Playhouse 90.”

Moving into programming and development at CBS, she had a hand in such hits as “Hogan’s Heroes” and “The Wild, Wild West.” Winant was also responsible for casting such classic series as “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”

Winant, whose son is writer-producer Scott Winant of “My So-Called Life” and “Cupid,” discussed her colorful history a few days before last month’s ceremony.

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Question: Congratulations on the Television Hall of Fame honor.

Answer: Never in my wildest dreams did it occur to me that I would have been inducted into the Hall of Fame. I never had a particular career. Fred Silverman was an executive and he’s always been an executive. I kid about my omnibus contract at CBS. I could have been a janitor. The contract said I could do anything. I did casting for a lot of years and producing, and associate producing. I was an executive for a while. So I never had this big career of being “the director” or “producer,” but I had this great seat at the table. I was so lucky. From the day I walked into a television studio, I thought, “This is where I want to be more than anyplace in the world.”

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Q: Why?

A: I walked into this rehearsal [of “Studio One”] and it was just breathtaking. They were doing theater with such intensity and such energy, and they did it every week. It was a Saturday and “Studio One” aired on Monday, so the technical people were there. I thought, “This is so exciting. It is like theater, but with a different kind of energy. I hope this goes on forever.” I was heartsick when the rehearsal was over. They said, “You can come back tomorrow.” So I went the next day and thought, “I just want to stay here forever.” I sort of did. I just hung around. I knew eventually someone would want a cup of coffee and I would get it for them.

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Q: Are young people today as willing and eager as you were to break into the business?

A: Everybody seems to make it harder than it is. I would say, “Just go do anything. Just get into the room.” Today, I think because it is much more of a business, everybody knows what they are doing and everybody has a job. When I started in television, nobody sort of knew what the job was. It would be anything. We were making it up as we went along. People were more likely to step in and do something. Now, people want to know what the job is exactly, how do you define it and does it have a title. Also, everyone wants to get paid now, which I think is probably sensible. We didn’t seem to care much about getting paid. It was new and exciting.

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Q: Were you surprised that there were so few women in the early years?

A: Women did everything in the theater. Women were very, very active in the theater, particularly in the literary world and very good with acting talent. So it never occurred to me that women couldn’t do everything. It was quite different when I went to television, it was quite different.

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Q: How were you treated by men once you got to television?

A: I wish I could say I was treated badly. I felt I was always treated well. A lot of people called me “Honey” or “Sweetie.” I didn’t find that offensive; I thought they didn’t know my name. But it was lonely because there was nobody else there. You would look around and say, “I am the only woman in this room. I am the only woman in this whole place. I have no place to go to the bathroom.”

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Q: Isn’t it true you put your shoes outside the bathroom to let the men know you were in there?

A: It was in the executive dining room at CBS. They had a bathroom there which didn’t have a lock. Every time I had to go to the bathroom, I would go outside, take the elevator and go downstairs to the women’s bathroom. One day I thought, “This is so silly. I am spending half of my life in the elevator, so I’ll just take off my shoes, and that ought to give them a clue I am inside.”

* “The 14th Annual TV Academy Hall of Fame Awards” airs tonight at 8 on UPN.