The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd

Before Seinfeld, before Friends, before Sex and the City, before all those shows in the 1990s and today about single people in NYC, there was this, The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, the best of them all.

It was about a chronically underemployed woman in late 1980's New York who has a crazy family, flaky friends, and, eventually, a baby out of wedlock.

The great, GREAT Blair Brown played Molly Dodd, an absolutely believable, recognizable, and dimensional character. Throughout the course of the show you meet her crazy ex-husband, her impossible mother, her two very different boyfriends (a shlubby bookstore owner and a black police officer) and her unlikely best friend, the friendly old elevator operator in her building.

At first you might think this was a "chick" show but it really wasn't. It was a show about a woman and her problems yet, ironically enough, most of the other characters on the show were men and the problems she faced felt universal and understandable, even to a then teenage boy.

Molly Dodd was brilliantly written and beautifully acted. It first aired on NBC in 1987, then moved over to Lifetime until 1991. As a single camera dramedy about a single urban woman, it was way, way ahead of its time. Darren Starr, one of the producers of Sex and the City, said he owed a big debt to Molly Dodd's influence.

Here's the intro. It perfectly capture the feeling of last 1980s New York.

Molly Dodd Lives!

On YouTube that is.

You can now find all of the episodes of the classic NYC show The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd that ran from 1987 to 1991 right here. I've blogged about this show before -- it really is one of the best shows ever and was a forerunner to so many of the "Golden Age of Television" shows of today. 

If you're stuck in quarantine and looking for something different to watch, I highly, highly, highly recommend this show.

Classic Mr NYC

A couple of years ago I blogged about the last 1980s/early 1990s show The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, a great NYC if there ever was one. If there was ever a show about New Yorkers that managed to both magical and realistic at the same time, this was it. The incredible Blair Brown played Molly with such skill, I think it ranks with the greatest female TV performances of all time (she was nominated for several Emmys for this part but kept losing to Candice Bergen for Murphy Brown).

When I blogged about it this show two years ago there weren't any clips of the show available except for the intro. Well now there are some clips you can see, like the one above.

Let's Talk About Failure, Baby

Happy New Year! This is when we make resolutions and forge plans to achieve great success in the coming twelve months. That's why, contrarian that I am, this first post of 2021 will be about failure.

After the 2020 we all had, can you blame me?

I love stories about failure. They prove that the universe is a random, weird, mostly cruel, sometimes kind, totally unpredictable place. I'm a connoiseur of the genre. 

Let's paraphrase Leo Tolstoy who wrote that all happy families are basically the same while all unhappy families are unhappy in unique and different ways. So it is with success and failure: all roads to success are basically the same and straightforward (the idea, the struggle, the setback, the breakthrough, the triumph) but the roads to failure are much more bizarre and interesting.

I've chronicles my share of failure stories on here over the years -- this blog being perhaps a prime example of failure.

So here's another one: the story of a musical version of Frankenstein that premiered exactly 40 years ago today -- and closed after one night. Hopes were high that this show, the most expensive musical of all time at the time, would start 1981 on Broadway with a creative and financial bang. Instead, it failed -- the reviews were terrible, there was no advance box office sales, it was a disaster by every metric. The producers saw that this show had no future except red ink and empty seats so they killed it that night. Interestingly, this show had a notable cast (some of whom were fired before the show actually played its one offiicial show) including future Oscar-winner Dianne Wiest, the late great David Dukes (not to be confused with the white supremicist), and a guy named William Converse-Roberts who would go on to be the ex-husband on The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd. The creators would go on to have decent careers but no big Broadways triumphs. But on the night of January 4, 1981, a month after John Lennon's murder and Ronald Reagan's inaugeration, the future for everyone on the show looked dark.

But even though this showed was a bad flop, it makes for a great -- and successful -- story.

P.S. The whole horror genre has had a lousy history on Broadway. Whereasa it's a staple of the movies, theater audiences aren't interested. Fascinating how a whole genre can work in one medium but not in another. 

Interview: Jean-Pierre Dorleac, International Costume Designer, on His Career and "Quantum Leap"

“Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime … "

In the early 1990s, when I was a youngster, the Golden Age of Television had yet to arrive. There were no streaming shows and cable television didn't have many original (or good) shows then. The big networks still ruled absolutely. Hit shows were watched by twenty to thirty million people each week, and even lesser-rated shows got around ten million or so viewers. The audience sizes back then are unimaginable today. This was the era of LA Law, Doogie Howser, thirtysomething, Cheers, The Cosby Show, Growing Pains, Dallas, etc. -- shows about lawyers, doctors, cops, families, etc. which were mostly boring to me and my fellow adolescents. But there was one show that was a huge exception, standing out and shining brightly like a star, a show that my friends and I were utterly obsessed with – Quantum Leap.

Quantum Leap was one part science fiction, one part history lesson of the second half of the twentieth-century, and one part buddy comedy. It’s about a brilliant scientist named Sam Beckett who, in the late 1990s, builds a time machine called Project Quantum Leap and finds himself “leaping” into the bodies and lives of different people at different places in the past. Sam is accompanied on his leaps by his friend from the future, Al – a cigar-chomping, quip-a-minute retired Navy man who appears as a hologram (Al steps into something called an imaging chamber at Project Quantum Leap linked to Sam’s brain, and only Sam can see and hear him – except for, as we learn, small children and the mentally disabled). In each episode, Al tells Sam what history he must change, what he needs to “make right that once went wrong” so that Sam can then “leap out” and into a new adventure or – as is always teased – back home to the future.

And for a show about time-travel, it’s fair to say that Quantum Leap was way ahead of its time. When Sam landed in a new place and time each week, the episode would hook the viewers in with the music and clothes and scenery – and that would brilliantly set the stage to introduce the characters and, more deeply, force us to confront much that was uncomfortable in our recent past. Years before #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, Quantum Leap made Americans reckon with their county’s ingrained racism and sexism. While the stories and characters might be sentimental, it was always brutally honest: yes, the South in the 1950s was racist as hell; yes, the New York City corporate world of the 1960s was sexist as hell (this was more than 25 years before Mad Men felt the need to remind us week after week); yes, the military was deeply homophobic; yes, the Cuban Missile Crises and Kennedy Assassination made everyone nuts; and yes, the Vietnam war was a tragedy that haunts our country, even to this day. Yes, the second half of the twentieth century in America was a wild, crazy place -- and Quantum Leap dramatized it so well and so originally.

Quantum Leap ran from 1989 until 1993 and each week was a masterclass in writing, acting, and production Along with shows like Twin Peaks, Larry Sanders and The Days and Night of Molly Dodd, it paved the way for the Golden Age of Television that we enjoy today.

As I mentioned, for a show that jumped around several decades between the 1950s and 1980s, the costumes were extremely important. And the costumes on Quantum Leap were brilliant – they accentuated the characters, gave them a dimensionality beyond the story and script, rooted them not only in the time and place they were living in but also were extensions of who these particular people were – and helped us understand what was going wrong with them so that Sam could set their lives to right.

Almost all the costumes on Quantum Leap were the work of one man, Jean-Pierre Dorleac, a name that popped out every week in the opening credits. Jean-Pierre has had a truly legendary career in show business, designing costumes for the original Battlestar Gallactica in the late 1970s and other classic shows like Max Headroom, Airwolf, and Jake and the Fatman as well as movies like The Blue Lagoon and The Only Thrill. He’s won an Emmy and worked in theater and opera as well, all over the world. His long and successful career is a tribute to his great talent and eye for how the costume can help make the character.

Jean-Pierre has a lively Twitter presence and, while he had a long and varied career in many mediums, it’s clear that his time on Quantum Leap was very special to him. He was the costume designer for almost every episode (except the last five) and he probably had the biggest, most challenging, and most enjoyable costume design job in all of television history. That’s why it was AWESOME that Jean-Pierre was kind enough to answer some of Mr NYC’s fanboy questions about his career, his work on Quantum Leap (especially some of the NYC episodes), and what he thinks the legacy of the show is in the 21st century, almost 30 years since it went off the air.

Thank you so much for doing this interview Jean-Pierre. 

First, I would like to say thank you very much for your interest in my work, especially “QUANTUM LEAP.”

Tell us a little bit about your background and how you became a costume designer.

I have been in show business since I was 10 years old, when I was featured in a review in England (where I received my formative education) singing and dancing to a popular song of the era. “Keep Your Sunny Side Up.” My performance, which turned out to be quiet entertaining and captivating, launched me on the road of entertainment.

I went on to perform in stage productions, radio and eventually television and film as an actor. Sometimes, due to restricted budget, I made my own costumes from scratch. In the sixties when I was studying for a degree in Historic Apparel, I went to work for various designers in Paris as a workroom assistant, shopping textiles, making patterns, and helping in fitting (by handing the designer pins at first). Dior, Cardin, and Givenchy were amongst the notable designers I worked for. I was still doing theater at the time, which at times, required my participation in the costumes I wore. One of the plays I did, “Oh, Dad, Poor Dad, Mama’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m feeling So Sad,” lost its costume designer to illness, and I volunteered to take over. My work created such sensational reviews, I thereafter concentrated more on the designing aspect of entertainment than on being a performer. Soon, because of my special knowledge in 18th Century apparel, I was asked to be the historical consultant to the costume designer for the Royal Shakespeare’s production of Peter Weiss’ bizarre play, “Marat/Sade” concerning the aftermath of the French revolution as performed by the inmates of a mental institution outside Paris. It won many awards and brought me to New York when it opened there, and consequently to Los Angles where the east coast world premiere was staged. I won the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle award for the costume designs in 1973.

Fate had a very funny, supplementary hand in its success, which is fully explained in my book, “The Naked Truth” available at Amazon.com, eBay, and at my website www.jean-pierredorleac.com.

In time, I realized through my experiences in the making of costumes for the theater, and the expertise I have developed in couture creations, it had culminated in an ability to create costumes that had an underlying, subliminal message, placing them apart from just being attractive and in sync with the narrative.

Within three years I did another two dozen well-known plays in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, New York, Paris, Berlin, London, and Hawaii. And through them, I caught the attention of Edith Head, who then mentored me. Before long, renowned actress, Nancy Walker, requested me to do her costumes alone for her new series in 1977, “Blansky’s Beauties.” Through this, I was inducted into the entertainment’s union, The Costume Designers Guild, that opened more doors to other venues, like my first feature with Henry Fonda, Susan Sarandon and Eileen Brennan, “The Great Smokey Road Block” (a terrible title on a badly shot film with a sensational cast, that bombed).

Although I had become pigeon-holed as mostly a period costume designer, Universal recognized my special talents in fantasy and I was offered Battlestar Galactica in 1978, for which I went on to win an Emmy. I, of course, jumped at the chance to do the show, mainly because it would offer a different aspect of my abilities to the industry as well as the public.

You worked on lots of TV shows and movies over the decades but, on Twitter, it seems like your work on Quantum Leap remains close to your heart. How did you end up working on the show?

One of the associate producers on Battlestar Galactica was Don Bellisario. Matter of fact, he wrote the script for which I won my Emmy. Following the series demise, Don produced a wonderful show entitled The Tales of the Gold Monkey. During its run, he asked me to do a spinoff series from Magnum P.I, that never was aired, but I did become his favorite designer. So, years later, when Quantum Leap was done, he called me in after they shot the pilot episode, to redo a lot of the scenes in it, specifically an entirely new wardrobe for Dean Stockwell, playing a very sybaritic fellow named “Al.” I stayed and did EVERY show in all the season thereafter, except for the last five when I left the production to do Heart and Souls in San Francisco with Robert Downey, Jr., Kyra Sedgwick, Elizabeth Shue, Charles Grodin, and Alfre Woodard.

For nearly every episode you had to design costumes for a different decade between the 1950s and 1980s, as well as for a different part of the country. It must have been a both big creative joy and challenge. How did you approach creating costumes for not only a specific era but also for totally new characters each time?

By the time Quantum Leap came along, I had developed a knowledge of the 20th Century that surpassed all the other earlier periods. I don’t think you could fill half-a-page of what I DON’T KNOW regarding the trends in fashion for the last hundred and fifty years. Therefore, QL came easy to me. I didn’t have to do much research for any of the episodes unless I was looking for something that was out of the ordinary. The one thing that comes to mind immediately was the 18th Century stylization for the wedding dress in “Sea Bride”. I wanted to design something lovely, because it was a wedding dress, yet something comical at the same time, so that Beverly Leech has to struggle with it in the opening scene when she has to hide in the ship’s small stateroom closet. I remember combing old 1957 magazines to find that Dior had used a pannier for some of his gowns at that time, and that gave me the idea for the design I needed. Everything else in that show, including the drop-dead red tango dress, and all the shows, thereafter, just came off the top of my head.

Character costume ideas come from the script. They are born when I begin to read it and then grow into a full figure by the end. Having learned from past endeavors, I want the character to blend with the other actors so there is continuity within their scenes yet have some unique characteristic that sets them apart. It requires imagination, especially with men, as they aren’t as bedecked as women.

There is an adage that goes, “If it ain’t on the page, it ain’t on the stage.”

I saw on Twitter that in one episode you had to create KKK outfits and that it was a hard and painful thing to do. What were some of the hardest costumes you had to create as well as some of the most fun?

Having lived and worked on five continents in the same number of decades, I have tried to learn as much as I can about people. One, it helps me incorporate character in my design, and two, I learn about diversity and how it brings individuality to everyone. Each person has something wonderful to express in how they dress, no matter how much someone else thinks differently. Everyone’s ideas and concepts matter. The two things I abhor are bigots and fabulist. I have a hard time with titles as well, as I have always felt they cover a lot of sins. I’ve met as many people with an academic, medical, engineering, theatrical, artistic, and other degrees, as I have met people who know more by experiencing life and learning the hard way through vocational training. I believe the value of someone’s abilities lie in the merit of their work, not how much they can attract the public’s fancy by being a flash in the pan with a glorified handle.

Having to generate a faction of history by making KKK robes, as there were none from the 50’s in existence, mainly due to changes in design, I was faced with having to create the actual monstrosities, including The Grand Dragon in red. It upset me very much, just in knowing how abhorrent the sight of them would be to many people that were my friends, especially in the south, where the episode occurred. In other episodes of QL, over the years, I had to come up with Nazi and Russian uniforms, but they were ordered from costume houses. They were not of my creation. But the KKK robes that I watched being constructed, really left me sick.

On the other hand, there were many fun things I did for the show that left me elated. There was “Play It Again Sam,” (with the widow who couldn’t help it, if she looked good in black), “Sea Bride,” “One Strobe Over the Line” (glamor, glamor, glamor)“A Single Drop of Rain,” “Glitter Rock,” (Rock the Redhead), “Miss Deep South” (especially the silly Carmen Miranda get-up for ‘Quanta La Gusta’), “What Price Gloria” (Sam’s dinner ensemble with the quivering feather hat), “Private Dancer,” “Southern Comfort” (all those wanton women in lingerie) and “It’s a Wonderful Leap,” among many.

Okay, let’s get to the NYC part. You designed the costumes for the brilliant episode “What Price Gloria” where Sam becomes a secretary dealing with sexual harassment. What are your memories about that episode and the challenges of making Scott Bakula an attractive, dignified professional woman in 1961 NYC?

It didn’t start with Sam. Nothing ever did. It started with Gloria, who you are supposed to be seeing. She was a gorgeous woman. It’s always easy to dress gorgeous women as everyone looks at their faces, not what they’re wearing. And if she were curvy and appealing, it was even easier. I choose simple sheaths that weren’t revealing in anyway at the office, with smart but subtle jewelry. As the story progressed, I selected more feminine styles when we realized that it wasn’t how Gloria presented herself that was making the wolf howl, it was his vain glorious believe in himself. I tried to choose designs that were very reminiscent of the early 60’s and especially chic because it took place in New York City’s business world. I was helped in keeping the look light by the fact that it took place in October of 1961, in the Big Apple. Having lived there at the time, I knew what the weather could be like.

One of the best episodes of Quantum Leap, as well as maybe the best NYC episode, is “Private Dancer” where Sam becomes a Chippendales’ dancer in 1979 and saves a deaf lady from a horrible fate. That episode is both one of the most hilarious and poignant episodes of TV I’ve ever seen on any show (the beginning of the episode, where Sam leaps into the dancer mid-jump, with screaming women all around, Kool and Gang’s “Ladies Night” blaring in the background is one of the funniest things ever). Also, it was probably the most realistic portrayal of late 1970s NYC I’ve ever seen, the costumes are clearly from the 1970s but don’t have a “paper-dollish” look and seem to capture how these struggling dancers at that time would have really dressed. What do you remember about working on that episode?

Well, it wasn’t about putting Sam in next to nothing as the Zorro dressed dancer! That was fun. What was a lot of work, were the dresses to be used in the dance sequences. I had seen Debbie Allen’s choreography in other films and knew I was going to have to have outfits that twirled, floated, and looked seductive, yet classy. They also couldn’t look expensive as these dancers had no money and when they bought things, they tended to stay with styles similar to workout/rehearsal garments.

Debbie Allen’s white gown, at the disco, was little more than four panels of triangular shaped wedges of white matte jersey with self-string straps, belt, and a self-wrapped turban. And the red handkerchief dress worn for the final audition by the young girl was silk jersey with a minimal scattering of sequins at the V-neckline and at the edges of the numerous skirt panels. I wanted simplicity at its best for these scenes as the dance was supposed to be the center of attention and where your mind should linger.

The last NYC episode I’ll ask about is “It’s a Wonderful Leap” that takes place in 1958. In that episode you had to turn Scott Bakula into a Jewish cab driver. His costume and look in that episode, especially the glasses, is quite memorable (so much so that Stephen Colbert referenced that episode in 2015 because, sadly, it includes a child Donald Trump). I also remember all the costumes had a vibrant, 1950’s feel about them. Was that a fun episode to work on (Trump excluded)?

Funny, but I have blanked out tRump being in it! God knows why…ha ha ha ha!

Yes, “It’s a Wonderful Leap” was a wonderful show. After the various times I had spent in NYC, I was quite knowledgeable regarding Hell’s Kitchen, so Sam’s costume was quite easy to put together. I think I only bought one hat to the fitting as I knew it was perfect with the turtlenecks, scarf and beaten jacket of a cabdriver. The glasses were something I picked out from a selection that Props had, as they are a prop item on a shoot.

Most of my time was spent with my old, dear friend Liz Torres. I had known her since 1975 when she had appeared at the Backlot Room of Studio One, in Hollywood.

Liz is one of the most talented actresses in the world who can sing like a bird, dance like a ballerina, and realistically act the hell out a scene. I knew I didn’t have to create much of a character for her as it would all come from her. So, I went for a magical look in whites and grays that didn’t grab your attention, giving away the fact that she was ghost from the 20’s. We made everything, including her hat, shoes, coat, and dress that was beaded. I found old garters and we rolled her stockings down to just below her knees and rouged them…very de rigueur for a flapper of that period.

Longshots on television are rare, so when Liz found out there was going to be one on the street, she spoke with the director first, and then improvised the Charleston dance step so the audience could see our efforts with the stockings and garters. She was definitely one of my favorite actresses of all the ones that I’ve ever worked with.

The rapport between Sam (Scott Bakula) and Al (Dean Stockwell) was amazing, they worked brilliantly together. Did you ever get to watch them work and create that magic?

Yes, many times. I went to the set every day when they were on the lot, and many times when they were on location as well. A major part of my job as a costume designer for film or television, is being on the set to establish a new costume that has never seen before, not even by Dean. Having been in the business for so many years, Dean didn’t like to deal with fittings. So, he and I established a look for him at the beginning. I also had the studio tailor take all his sizes. After a month, we were so in sync, I simple designed his outfits without anyone’s input, and took them to the set the day they worked. He would put them on in his motor home, and then come out with his cigar and parade around the set where all the grips, lighting technicians, sound, camera men and props would ooh and ah about how crazy they were. He loved showing them off as much as he did acting in them.

He and Scott worked together in tandem as they were both extremely professional and didn’t mess around; it was always a business, that they made appear like fun. But they always knew their lines and hit their marks right on time. No one had to wait for either of them.

Finally, even though the show’s been off the air for almost 30 years, my friends and my wife still love it. What do you think is Quantum Leap’s legacy? Was it one of the shows that paved the way for the later Golden Age of TV?

I think its legacy was the great scripts. I don’t remember too many that didn’t hold my interest all the way though. I loved the fact that they also taught some moral responsibility amidst all the foolery. Plus, even though it was achieved though writer manipulation, there was usually a pretty rewarding and uplifting ending that sometime was quite nostalgic.

I’m very rewarded by the followers on Twitter, who, for the most part, didn’t see the show when it was first released, but have becomes fans over the decades from the many times it has aired. That is very unusual for a TV series; it hasn’t been that way with the many other shows I’ve done. But I’m forever getting a residual check for the episode I appeared in, “Shock Theater,” so I know the show is always airing somewhere in the world.

And I’m grateful after all these years that it has become the phenomenal cult hit it is. Between it, “Somewhere in Time,” and “Battlestar Galactica” my costumes have been exhibited all over the world and I have lectured as much as I have done. Examples of my creations have been exhibited worldwide. Benefits for AIDS Project Los Angeles have celebrated my work, as have The Mannequins Auxiliary of the Assistance League of Southern California where an hour long, dazzling fashion show paraded my creations. The Los Angeles County Museum of Arts showcased my costumes and sketches in their exhibition and book, HOLLYWOOD AND HISTORY: COSTUME DESIGN IN FILM, as well as exhibitions at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; La Palais de la Civilization, Montreal, Canada; and La Place Vendôme, Paris, France. Recently, ATAS exhibited thirteen examples at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles, in a presentation of award-winning television costumes. 

What a career! What a legacy! Thank you so much Jean-Pierre!

Make sure to visit Jean-Pierre’s website and check out his book at the links above. Also, delve into Mr. NYC’s QL fandom here.

The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd Episode 24

Blair Brown Introduces "Into the Woods" for American Playhouse -- March 15, 1991

Currently on Broadway there is a massively successful revival of Stephen Sondheim's 1980s musical Into the Woods, a brilliant integration and revisionist takes on the Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Rapunzel fairy tales. It's a very funny, fast-moving show, the songs and music are incredible, and it's one of Sondheim's last great musicals, a master at the top of his game.

In the decades since, Into the Woods has been revived a few times on Broadway and elsewhere, and even become a hit 2014 movie. Apparently this latest revival is the best yet, and a whole new generation is discovering this brilliant work. 

In 1991, a few years after the original Broadway run, a taped version of Into the Woods was show on the now sadly defunct PBS series "American Playhouse." Back then, there was no streaming, no YouTube, you couldn't just search and dial up a recording of a Broadway show. So if you hadn't seen the actual production on Broadway, there was nowhere else to see it -- except if you tuned in for this special presentation on March 15, 1991.

March of 1991 was an interesting time -- in what was one of the first viral videos, motorist Rodney King was recorded getting beaten by the LAPD, the first Gulf War had just ended, and the now classic movie The Silence of the Lambs was burning up the box office.

Blair Brown was a television star at the time, her show The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd was still running (although about to go off the air). In an odd way, she and this show were both quintessential NYC cultural landmarks of the time, so it was appropriate that she would introduce this special airing of it -- which also includes an interview with Sondheim itself. 

So here's a look at a special moment in time more than 30 years ago -- for something that has proven to be truly timeless.