Karyl Miller (Lily Tomlin, Mary Tyler Moore Show, Kate & Allie)

Karyl Miller joined me and talked about growing up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the late 1950's; being a loner; listening to radio and begging her father to buy a TV; going to Cal Arts for a summer program; not going to college; going to night fashion school; mom wanting her to marry a nice Jewish man; being inspired by Lily Tomlin; wrote spec scripts while designing dresses; met Garry Marshall; got a job writing interstitials for Love, American Style; wrote for a dress designer sitcom called Needles and Pins; her spec script got her hired for Lily Tomlin specials and season 3 of the Mary Tyler Moore Show; writing Lily Tomlin's monologues; turning down Lorne Michaels' offer for SNL; writing for Cher's 1975 variety show; her first MTM "Rhoda's Sisters Wedding" and the famous letter sequence; her other episode "WJM Tries Harder"; writing for Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice; writing a freelance episode of Karen; writing a Maude and being afraid of Bea Arthur; being brought into Diff'rent Strokes when Charlotte Rae wants a female writer and being fired after 9 days; teaming up with Richard Pryor to write a Sanford & Son that didn't get filmed; finishing writing a pilot Richard started; working on the Erma Bombeck sitcom Maggie; being picketed while going in to write Love, Sidney; writing an episode of the Bea Arthur sitcom Amandas; being a TV snob and not writing for "bad" shows; the nightmare that was The Cosby Show; Madeline Kahn; Kate & Allie; Foley Square; being on staff on My Sister Sam and fighting with Dianne English over an episode where Pam Dawber has an affair; writing an episode of David Rules; her career being hurt by turning down shows she didn't like and the shows she dd not hiring women; turning down The Love Boat; how doodling on scripts led to cartooning and creating her own font; becoming a political cartoonist and being the President of the Southern California Cartoonist Society