{"id":7623,"date":"2025-05-02T05:14:29","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T05:14:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=7623"},"modified":"2025-09-07T19:54:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T19:54:13","slug":"bernard-slade-from-bewitched-to-broadway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=7623","title":{"rendered":"Bernard Slade: From ‘Bewitched’ to Broadway"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"bewitched<\/a><\/p>\n

By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n

LONDON \u2013 Bernard Slade, who was born on this day in 1930, created TV shows such as \u201cThe Flying Nun\u201d and \u201cThe Partridge Family\u201d but he had his greatest success with the smash hit Broadway play \u201cSame Time, Next Year\u201d.<\/p>\n

When I interviewed him, he had funny tales about his time as a Hollywood television writer and my favourite was from when he was story editor on \u201cBewitched\u201d. He told me that in a script session, one of the studio suits queried a line of dialogue. Slade said he wanted to know: \u201cWould a witch say that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"bsladex<\/a>The Canadian writer was nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay of the 1978 movie version of \u201cSame Time, Next Year\u201d, which was directed by Robert Mulligan and starred Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn (pictured below), who had won a Tony Award for the stage version and was nominated for an Osca as best actress for the movie.<\/p>\n

I interviewed Slade in 1976 for The Windsor Star when the play was on tour even though it continued to run on Broadway for three-and-a-half years. He told me: \u201cYou know, it\u2019s odd. I wrote television comedy for the money. I wrote the play for myself because I wanted to. And yet, it\u2019s the play that\u2019s made me the most money. There\u2019s a lesson in that somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Slade had no illusions about his work in TV in the 1960s: \u201cWhen you\u2019re working in television, you can\u2019t think, well this is crap. You\u2019ve got to do the best you can. But you have no control; you are controlled. The networks have approval at all levels of production from casting down to individual lines.\u201d<\/p>\n

His tolerance level became lower and lower, he says: \u201cThese people with a background in sales and their mechanical testing techniques. I got into a row over a pilot I\u2019d written and in a huff I got on a plane to Hawaii.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"same<\/a><\/p>\n

On the plane, he began to write his play: \u201cI write well on planes; there\u2019s nothing else to do. By September 1974, the completed play was in the hands of a producter. It was cast, a director chosen and rehearsals began the following January. Within weeks it was previewed in Boston. In the spring, Bernard Slade was the toast of Broadway and his play, \u201cSame Time, Next Year\u201d was the biggest comedy hit in years.<\/p>\n

He told me, \u201cThe main difference between writing plays and writing for television is that in the theatre you have control. I annoy my friends in television by saying that in the theatre you know you\u2019d have to do it again next week. Television is a producer\u2019s medium. A director is simply a traffic director. It\u2019s not how good he is; it\u2019s will he be done by Tuesday?\u201d<\/p>\n

In television, you write to order, he said: \u201cIn the theatre, you put something in and you get something back. Now, with the success of \u2018Same Time, Next Year\u2019, I have the freedom to write what I want. It\u2019s a validation of your point of view of life when audiences will sit still for three hours for something you\u2019ve written. It gives you confidence to go on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Slade went on to write more plays, notably \u201cTribute\u201d, which starred Jack Lemmon on Broadway and in the 1980 Bob Clark movie version for which he was nominated for an Oscar as best actor, and \u201cRomantic Comedy\u201d, which starred Anthony Perkins and Mia Farrow on Broadway with Dudley Moore and Mary Steenburgen in the 1983 Arthur Miller film version.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ray Bennett LONDON \u2013 Bernard Slade, who was born on this day in 1930, created TV shows such as \u201cThe Flying Nun\u201d and \u201cThe Partridge Family\u201d but he had his greatest success with the smash hit Broadway play \u201cSame … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,1263,2257,15,16],"tags":[3751,3749,3752,3753,3748,3750],"class_list":["post-7623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-interviews","category-memory-lane","category-recalling","category-television","category-theatre","tag-bewitched","tag-same-time","tag-the-flying-nun","tag-the-partridge-family","tag-bernard-slade","tag-next-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7623"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11519,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7623\/revisions\/11519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}