by Nell Scovell
Unrequited Crush (2003)
I was back on the market. My agent asked me to come to the office so we could look at the shows that were hiring. As we went down a list, several times the agent noted, “They’ve already got two women on staff, so they won’t be looking to hire another.”
There was no sense that this remark dismissed my skills and reduced me to my gender. It also suggested there was a quota system that limited the number of female writers on staffs. I first encountered this casual attitude toward restricting the numbers of women in 1987 when The Wilton North Report was cancelled and some of the writers gathered to discuss our futures.
“Well, you’re lucky,” one of the writers said, jerking his head in my direction.
“Why am I lucky?” I asked.
“Because every show is looking for a woman,” he said.
“A woman . . . and nine guys. How does that make me lucky?”
Thirty years later, there are still too many shows looking for “a” female writer and “a” minority writer. Some don’t even do that.
24 premiered in the fall of 2001 and I watched every second of the first season. The second season was even more exciting. Creators Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran had found a new way to tell a story on TV with fresh characters like Mary Lynn Rajskub’s darkly-funny Chloe.
Before the start of the third season, I had a general meeting at 20th Century FOX, which produced the show.
“We’re big fans of yours,” the executive said. “Are there any shows you’d like to work on?”
“Yes,” I said. “24. It’s the best show—not just on FOX but on any network.”
“24 won’t hire a woman,” he replied matter-of-factly. “They had one and it didn’t work out. Any other shows?”
Yes, an officer of a publicly traded company said I couldn’t even get an interview for a job because of my gender. And since I’m not sitting on piles of money, I obviously let the comment slide. Every year after that, I asked my agent to check with 24 to see if I could meet about working on the show. The answer every year was no.
A friend who worked on the show insisted it was for the best.
“You’d be miserable in that room,” he told me. “Really, you’re lucky.”
Opposites Attract (2006)
On my first day as a Consulting Producer on NCIS, I was walking to my office when I heard a voice boom down the hall.
“Since when do we have pretty little girls working on this show?”
“What an odd thing to say,” I thought, and kept walking.
The voice boomed out again. This time louder.
“Since when do we have pretty little girls working on this show.”
Ohmigod, I realized. He’s talking to me.
I turned and saw NCIS showrunner Don Bellisario. I waved and smiled. He smiled back.
Don is a TV legend. He created (or co-created) a long list of brograms including Magnum P.I., Airwolf, Quantum Leap, JAG, and NCIS. In his seventies, Don was gruff, volatile, and had a twisted sense of humor. We hit it off during my interview and he added me to the small NCIS staff for the show’s fourth season.
The military-based forensics show wasn’t an obvious fit. The day after I turned in the first draft of my first script, Don called me into his office. He was furious. He’d only read up to page fifteen, but he had a major problem with a line I’d given to the lead character, Gibbs, played by Mark Harmon. Don shook his script at me.
“You have Gibbs say, ‘I want to see the gun,’ ” Don shouted. “How did you get it so wrong?”
I was baffled.
“What did I get wrong?”
“Don’t you know anything?” he bellowed. “Gibbs would never say ‘I want to see the gun.’ No military man would. He’d say ‘weapon’ not ‘gun.’ And you should know that!”
Don was intimidating, but for some reason, his rage struck me as comical. I opened my arms in bewilderment.
“What made you think I would?”
Whatever Don expected my reaction would be—apologies, cowering, tears—he did not expect me to throw it back at him. His anger dissipated.
“Just don’t do it again,” he warned.
I assured him I wouldn’t. And believe me, I didn’t.
Don taught me a lot. When hearing a story pitch, his first question was always, “Who do I care about in this story? And it can’t be the victim!” This advice still rings in my ears whenever I brainstorm ideas for dramas.
After finishing a draft of my second NCIS, I asked my coworker Shane Brennan to go over the dialogue with me. Seeking out a mentor paid off. The day after I turned in “Dead Man Walking,” I got called into Don’s office again. It was a relief to walk in and see he wasn’t scowling.
“Good job,” he said. “I love everything in the teaser, and acts one, two, and three. But I don’t like act four. Give me a new one.”
Again, I was confused. I had carefully plotted the story with setups that paid off in act four.
“So you want me to re-break the story?” I asked.
“No,” he said, annoyed. “Don’t change anything in the first three acts. Just give me a different killer.”
“Okay, I can do that, Don,” I said. “But all the clues are gonna point to someone else.”
He dismissed me with a wave.
I had my marching orders and came up with a new ending. After the episode aired, I read the fan boards. Viewers liked that the ending was completely unexpected.
“I didn’t see it coming,” wrote one fan.
“That’s because it came out of nowhere,” I thought.
Don’s secret formula for keeping a whodunit unpredictable was to change “who done it” at the last minute. “Dead Man Walking” taught me a lesson. As a writer, I want all the plot points to add up, but most viewers don’t want to do the math. They’re along for the ride and happy wherever it takes them.
On my last day at the show, Don pulled me aside in the hall.
“I want to tell you something,” he said. “ ‘Dead Man Walking’ was the best episode we made this year.”
I admit, I did not see that ending coming.
My One-Night Stand with a Movie Star (2009)
The 81st Annual Academy Awards Red Carpet preshow reunited me with Gabe Doppelt, my Vogue editor in the late eighties. Gabe brought me on board to help write intros and questions for the hosts while she produced the fashion segments. It was a short, low-paying gig with great perks like sitting in the third row of a near-empty theater while Hugh Jackman and Beyoncé rehearsed the opening number directed by Baz Luhrmann.
On show night, I got to stand on the red carpet right where it bends to head into the Kodak Theatre. My duties were to stay close to host Robin Roberts and help her if she needed it. (She didn’t.) Mostly I gawked. I watched Sean Penn (Milk) sneak a cigarette. I saw Meryl Streep (Doubt) wrestling with the train of her dress. I sighed as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie passed by, in love and glowing.
I had one other task that afternoon. In a production meeting, I’d thrown out an idea for how to kick off the half-hour special.
“Since there are so many stars on the red carpet, why not recruit a couple of them to be announcers?” I pitched. “The show could start with ‘I’m Brad Pitt and this is the Oscars!’ ”
“That’s a terrible idea,” Executive Producer Robert “Morty” Morton said. “It adds a level of complication and who knows if the stars will agree to do it.”
He had a point. The Red Carpet special is taped live and begins airing while the end of the special is still being edited in a van. I was ready to drop the idea when the show’s veteran stage manager John Stewart spoke up.
“I can get them to do it,” John said.
John is a renowned stage manager—the guy who stays calm in the middle of a tornado. He’s also actress Kristen Stewart’s father, which gave him access to the younger crowd.
“If you think they’ll do it, give it a try,” said Morty.
The plan got off t
o a great start when Taraji P. Henson, nominated for Best Supporting Actress in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, agreed to play along. She looked stunning and delivered the line with gusto: “Hi. This is Taraji P. Henson and this is the Oscars.”
From the Academy Awards show photographs collections of the Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
One star wasn’t enough. We needed to build a package, except publicist after publicist torpedoed the idea. I started to think the Executive Producer’s first reaction had been correct. Suddenly, through a swirl of tuxes, I saw John beckoning to me.
“Come. Mickey Rourke says he’ll do it. He’s in!”
This was a coup. Mickey Rourke was the comeback story of the year with his nomination for Best Actor (The Wrestler). I followed John to where Mickey stood in a small clearing, holding a mic. The cameras were rolling and John gave him a hand signal: “And action.”
Mickey smiled broadly.
“I’m Mickey Rourke,” he said. “And THIS is the fuckin’ Oscars.”
John and I exchanged a look of panic.
“Mickey, it’s for TV,” John said. “You can’t swear.”
Mickey nodded. “Oh, right, right, right. Let’s go again.”
John gave him a hand signal. “And action.”
“I’m Mickey Rourke and THIS is the Oscars . . . motherfuckers!”
Laughing, Mickey handed the mic back to John and walked off. He’d been messing with us. I ran to the editing van and asked if they could trim off the word “motherfuckers.” An editor tried but the cut was too abrupt and there was no time to massage the frames. I headed back to the Red Carpet, feeling disheartened that my idea had flopped.
Amazingly, as promised, John Stewart came through.
The 2009 Oscar Red Carpet preshow opened with one of Hollywood’s most glamorous couples welcoming the audience with an enthusiastic “This is the Oscars!” It wasn’t Brad and Angelina, but Vanessa Hudgens and Zac Efron looked adorable. Taraji P. Henson followed and sold the bit.
Later that night, Mickey lost the Best Actor award to Sean Penn. Sorry about that . . . motherfucker.
Finding Mr. Right (2009)
With my forty-ninth birthday approaching, I started to think “Old TV writers never die: they just FADE OUT.” I started to think I might never staff again. Once my agent called to say there was a high-level opening on a kids’ sitcom. The money was low, but the creators were eager to have a female writer on staff.
“Do you think they’d let me direct?” I said.
“You can ask,” said my agent.
The creators and I grabbed lunch. They were smart and nice and I left thinking they’d be fun to work with. They seemed to want to work with me, too, but an offer never materialized. Instead, they hired a male with less experience. Years later, I reached out to one and, out of curiosity, asked why they’d passed.
“I loved your writing and you were an absolute delight,” he wrote back. “But my partner was put off that you wanted to direct.” At the end of his note, he added: “P.S. When I say he was ‘put off’ I meant he thought that your request to direct meant your heart wasn’t really in writing for a kids’ show.”
Do men get hired based on their hearts or their abilities?
I didn’t realize it at the time but female executives kept me afloat during my forties. Nina Tassler and Susanne Daniels continued to hire me when so many men were “put off.” Chris Sanagustin, my favorite Sabrina executive, also came through. She reached out to me in 2009.
“Hey, Nell. There’s a show I think you’d be good for,” she said on the phone. “You probably won’t want to work on it, but I thought I’d ask.”
Was she kidding? I was desperate to work on any show. I tried to keep it cool.
“What show?”
“Warehouse 13. Have you seen it?”
“Nope.”
“Well, you know at the end of Raiders when they put the Ark of the Covenant into a government warehouse? This is a show about the agents who work in that warehouse and collect powerful artifacts.”
That sounded fantastic.
Chris arranged for me to meet with showrunner Jack Kenny. He was hilarious and full of great ideas. Everything fell into place the way it does when you find the right partner. The show combined all the genres I loved—mystery, science fiction, and character comedy. I made a two-year deal to become one of Warehouse 13’s Co-Executive Producers.
Warehouse 13 was the Syfy channel’s highest-rated show. No one would confuse its viewership with NCIS, but I didn’t care. I was thrilled to be working with smart funny people on a clever show with decent hours.
And just when I made peace with settling down and drifting into obscurity, I decided to step into the spotlight. (Musical sting.)
Stage Four
Who Is Nell Scovell?
Chapter 15
“Fame Whore”
Staffer? I didn’t even know her!
—the obvious joke
ON OCTOBER 2, 2009, DAVID LETTERMAN SAT AT HIS desk and informed his TV audience that he’d been the victim of a blackmail attempt. The crowd thought it was a joke and laughed. Dave continued, dead serious. He explained that “a guy” had threatened to expose him for doing “terrible, terrible things” and also “some creepy stuff.”
“And the creepy stuff,” Dave elaborated, “was that I have had sex with women who work for me on this show. My response to that is yes, I have.”
The audience applauded wildly.
No one who worked on the show was surprised by this news, although we were shocked that Dave publicly admitted what we’d been whispering about for decades.
The details of the blackmail attempt trickled out. A package containing a letter and a synopsis of a screenplay had been left in Dave’s limo by news producer Robert “Joe” Halderman. The two men were connected through Halderman’s live-in girlfriend Stephanie Birkitt who worked as Dave’s assistant. Actually, Dave had about five assistants and each had a function. One made his meals. One operated his charity. One answered the phone. Stephanie, a law school graduate, ran miscellaneous errands and shopped for Dave’s entertainment, selecting books and films that she thought he might enjoy. Stephanie also kept a journal that revealed part of the entertainment she provided to Dave involved them getting naked. Halderman found his girlfriend’s journal and threatened to write a screenplay that exposed the illicit relationship unless Dave paid him two million dollars.
Now this plan had a couple of problems. First, unless Halderman surrounded Dave with X-Men, he probably couldn’t get that screenplay read. Second, Dave had access to a brilliant crisis management and legal team. Under the auspices of the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, Dave’s lawyer met with Halderman and handed him a phony check. When Halderman deposited the money, he was arrested and later pled guilty to attempted grand larceny in the second degree. Halderman received a six-month jail sentence.
Dave’s openness about the plot earned him lots of sympathy and it should have. Blackmail is such an ugly word and Halderman committed a criminal act. At the same time, Dave pretty much got a pass for his own underlying misconduct. No one seemed to think that the “terrible things” he’d done were terrible at all. On The View, fellow TV host Barbara Walters staunchly defended Dave’s decision to have sex with staffers.
“He’s a very attractive man,” Walters said on October 5, 2009. “Where do you meet people? In the workplace.”
Cohost Joy Behar took a tougher stance, arguing that Dave’s behavior might have created an uncomfortable workplace, especially “if you’re one of the girls who works there and you’re just doing your job and suddenly this other chick is getting the airtime and the AFTRA checks . . .” (Starting in 1996, Birkitt appeared on the show over 250 times. Around then, union (AFTRA) minimum for an appearance on Late Show was about $700.)
Walters brushed off Joy’s point. “Well, maybe you’re annoyed today, but that’s not necessarily sexual harassment. It i
sn’t sexual harassment,” she repeated for good measure.
“That’s not necessarily true,” countered Joy. “I think the definition also includes creating an atmosphere that’s uncomfortable.”
Joy was right. You don’t have to be touched or propositioned to be a victim of sexual harassment. Sensing a teachable moment, the National Organization of Women (NOW) put out a statement: “As the boss, [Letterman] is responsible for setting the tone for his entire workplace—and he did that with sex. In any work environment, this places all employees—including employees who happen to be women—in an awkward, confusing and demoralizing situation.”
I stared at the sentence. An “awkward, confusing and demoralizing situation” perfectly summed up my stint at Late Night. When I’d quit nineteen years earlier, I couldn’t pinpoint what bothered me so much about the place. Now I realized my discomfort had a name: “Sexual Favoritism.”
Sexual favoritism acknowledges that when employees get special favors by giving special favors, it affects more than just those involved. At work, most of us want to be judged by our professional performance, so when colleagues receive power and perks for satisfying their managers in ways that are not part of the job description, it’s an affront. Women can end up feeling demeaned and both men and women can experience a “hostile work environment.”
Awkward, Confusing, or Demoralizing?
Can You Match the Situation with the Employee Reaction?
Awkward
Confusing
Demoralizing
While playing first base at a company softball game, Dave leans over to a young, male Production Assistant (PA) as a buxom batter steps to the plate. “I hope she gets a hit,” Dave says. “I like to watch her run.”
The list of Worldwide Pants Inc.’s “Prohibited Conduct of a Sexual Nature” includes: “Making unwelcome comments about the appearance or anatomy of another.” Now, Dave didn’t make the comment to the woman directly and he’s from a generation that thinks nothing of a little “locker room talk.” The PA tenses but isn’t about to call out his boss for being inappropriate. Instead, the PA forces a laugh.
