When I applied to my first "straight" job, after 12 years in radio and TV production, the personnel director had a problem with my resume.
"Why have you had so many jobs?" she asked.
I had to explain to her how it is in entertainment -- that work is seasonal, that jobs you think of as worthy of listing (i.e, "permanent") may not last as long as the ones designated as "temporary." That the fact that you keep getting hired means you're good, not flakey (although being flakey isn't necessarily a bad thing in Hollywood -- as long as you get your job done).
Even if you are lucky enough to find yourself on a hit show that lasts more than a six-week run, you will inevitably go on "hiatus." A show's stars, producers and directors (the folks whose names flash by in the opening credits) earn enough money to enjoy these periods with lavish vacations -- or even just getting to know their families again at home.
The rest of the production staff - the assistants, runners and crew - need to plan for this period of several weeks (or even months) when they are off work with no pay. If you are not good at planning your finances (like me), a hiatus can be a stressful time. And if your show abruptly ends without a pickup, you have the additional stress of trying to line up your next gig.
The Tonight Show didn't go on hiatus. Johnny may have taken many deserved vacations, but his staff continued to report to work, day after day. The exception was when NBC ran the Summer Olympics and we got two weeks off... with pay. This was in addition to our regular paid vacation. We also had health insurance and a pension plan and annual raises. Ask any non-union worker in Hollywood -- even 20 years ago, this was unusual. And it's one of the reasons I admired Johnny Carson.
When the WGA held its five month long strike, a work stoppage that pretty much shut down everything in the business, the entire Tonight Show staff (except the writers) continued to report to work. By that time, I had sold my own first sitcom script -- but as I was not contributing writing services to the show, the Guild allowed me to continue working, too. On days I was needed for picket duty, I would run over to Disney or Universal or CBS, carry my sign for a couple of hours and then go to work. (The one exception was the day we picketed NBC; I thought it might be tacky to return to my office right after I'd been marching below it.)
The Tonight Show was dark for the first month, after which it was announced that Carson Tonight was negotiating an interim agreement with the WGA so we could get back on the air. And we did go back shortly before that deal was in place; Johnny wrote the first monologue all by himself and it was good.
It's no wonder that people who were fortunate enough to be on the Tonight Show staff stayed on for years -- lifers. In fact, the only real turnaround was with the junior writers... and the writers' assistant.
It was a comfortable, but not satisfactory for someone with ambitions of her own. It was three years before I sold another script, and I attributed that partly to the security of that weekly paycheck. I figured that if I was a little bit less secure, I might be more motivated to write. So with the promise of a new script assignment and the acquisition of a major league agent representing my partner and me, I quit.
My last day on the job, Fred de Cordova said goodbye to me in his own inimitable manner:
"Hurry up and fail so you can come back to us."
There are days when I wish I could...
