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EP. 235 - A Different World: From Showrunner, Writer | Susan Fales-Hill

We continue our look at the groundbreaking sitcom that premiered September 24, 1987

Melissa Roth: Weirding Way Media

Susan Fales Hill: An important theme to underscore is none of us are here on our own. I benefited greatly from extraordinary mentors of all hues and all genders, and they helped shape me and support me in my efforts.

[Music][Singing] Amy Englehardt: 80s TV Ladies, So sexy and so pretty. 80s TV Ladies, Steppin’ out into the city. 80s TV Ladies, often treated kind of sh-[wolf whistle]. Working hard for the money in a man’s world. 80s TV Ladies!

Susan Fales Hill: Welcome to eighties tv ladies, with your fabulous hosts, Sharon Johnson and Susan Lambert Hatem.

Sharon Johnson: Hello, I'm Sharon.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And I'm Susan. We are continuing our look at the groundbreaking sitcom A Different World that premiered September 24, 1987 and ran for six seasons through 1993. It was a spinoff of the Cosby show, originally centered on daughter Denise Huxtable, played by Lisa Bonet, about the life of students at Hillman College, a fictional, historically black college.

Sharon Johnson: Today's guest is an award-winning television writer, producer, author, and passionate and dedicated arts advocate.

Susan Fales Hill began her career on the original Cosby show

Susan Fales Hill was born in Rome, Italy, and raised in New York City. She is the daughter of the renowned black Broadway actress Josephine Premise and Timothy Fales, a white stockbroker.

Susan Lambert Hatem: She began her career as a writer's apprentice and warm up person on the original Cosby show. After two years on Cosby, she transferred to the spinoff a different world, ultimately working her way up from story editor to Showrunner, making her at the time one of Hollywood's few female and youngest showrunners.

Sharon Johnson: Susan has also worked on Can't Hurry Love, Suddenly Susan with Brooke Shields, and co-created Showtime's Link. She currently serves as executive producer writer on HBO's And Just Like That.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Susan is also the author of four books, including a memoir, Always Wear Joy, and her Vogue article about growing up biracial is pretty spectacular.

Sharon Johnson: Welcome, Susan Fales Hill to eighties tv ladies.

Susan Fales Hill: Thank you for having me. This is so much fun.

Susan Lambert Hatem: You went from basically story editor to showrunner of a different world.

Susan Fales Hill: Yes.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And that's a pretty amazing trajectory, both for the time.

Susan Fales Hill: Yes.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And just in general, like, for anybody.

Susan Fales Hill: Yes. So before people compare themselves unfairly, don't compare your insides to other people's outsides, as they say in Alcoholics Anonymous. I skipped a lot of years of fetching people's coffee because, as I mentioned, I, am, a bit of a Nepo baby. I got my job as an apprentice on the Cosby show by submitting a piece of writing directly to Mister Cosby. And I started my career as a writer's apprentice on the Cosby show and then was made a, staff writer the following year and then became a story editor. And then it was pure kismet that my voice and the subject matter of a different world, which is about life in college, and I was pretty fresh out of college, a very different college. I didn't go to an HBCU, but I understood the experiences, for better or worse. I was Whitley Gilbert's alter ego, where she was my alter ego. She said the things I might want to say but won't, because I'm polite. And I had the support of Tom Warner and Marcy Carsey, and I was very, very focused on my work at that point. I was story editor, then producer, and then the following year, I was co-executive producer, showrunner. So with a lot of support, with Debbie Allen as our non-writing executive producer and a woman named Deborah, all as a non-writing executive producer, so I was supported. I was set up for success, I will say, and receive the proper training.

Susan Lambert Hatem: But took advantage and did the work.

Susan Fales Hill: No, I took the ball and ran with it. And, it was pointed out to me by the gentleman who wrote the Cosby show after I left that I was the only person. They had several subsequent writers’ apprentices, and none of them ever really became writers. So you have to have the stick-to-itiveness, you have to have the discipline, you have to have the drive and the desire and sometimes the thick skin that was necessary, but it paid.

Sharon Johnson: Off, and the talent as well.

Susan Fales Hill: Thank you. I appreciate that. And I will not deny that I'm talented, but I will say, Sharon, I grew up around so many people who

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Susan Fales Hill: were so extraordinarily talented and never really got their due, that I'm always cognizant that out there somewhere is somebody who could probably write rings around me and who isn't in the position to exercise their talents. So I think one has to acknowledge the great role of good fortune and being in the right place at the right time. So it's a combination. It's not, Aren't I just fabulous?

Susan Lambert Hatem: It could be both. We do a lot of both. And looking at the eighties is so interesting because it was a time where opportunity clashed with pushback, similar to now in infuriating ways.

But I'm just really curious, were you involved with a different world early on? Like, were you in the room?

Susan Fales Hill: Yeah, I was. So what happened was the three head writers of the Cosby show were tasked with writing the pilot. So that was Matt Williams, Carmen Fenestra, and John Marcus. They wrote the pilot with all the directives that Bill Cosby was giving them because he was so enamored with HBCUs and had begun a big partnership with Morehouse and Spelman. And then the show was greenlit, and they were spinning off, Lisa Bonet beautiful. Lisa Bonet, the, natural evolution. And it was the middle of my season on the Cosby show as a staff writer, and they said, you must go west. And I actually didn't want to do it because I love New York, and I was very seriously involved with a man. And my m mother looked at me and said, you're far too young to pass up an extraordinary opportunity for a man. You're going. I always did what my mother said, and I knew she was right. And also I realized a, prophet has never respected its own country. These men had trained me. I was, their little baby apprentice. I had won them over in various ways, but they did not see me as a big, strong voice because I was very intimidated and partially because they could sometimes shoot down ideas in not necessarily the most diplomatic ways. Lines like, yeah, that joke, you'll have to sell it door to door with an instruction booklet to, go with it, or maybe that's funny at Harvard or anyway, so I'm actually somebody who talks a lot, but I'd been cowed into silence, and in some ways for good, because when you don't know much, you should be sitting there and learning. And I would keep the book. This was before PCs, so had to, I had to write down. I was a scribe. I was practically writing on papyrus. Anyway, when the opportunity came up, they said to the gentleman who was running the show, she is fantastic. She's super smart. She's a really hard worker. Don't expect too much from her in the room. I learned this later. And so I went out, and the first time I pitched something, this gentleman said, oh, that's a wonderful idea. And I thought, really, I don't have to sell it door to door. So from then on, I never shut up. And then he took me aside and quietly told me, this is what I'd heard about you. I don't know where they got that impression. I said, well, that's who I was in that room. So sometimes you have to re-pot, to become a different person. And by the way, I do not denigrate them because it was like boot camp. They taught me so much. And they also were so kind and supportive of me, when I took over the show. And, at least two of them have remained my very dear friends.

Susan Lambert Hatem: That re-pot, that's a very interesting symbolism. I like that because it's true. You sometimes have to be in.

Susan Fales Hill: You fall in a new world. Yeah. I mean, that happens to us in our families. You're the baby sister. You're this or you're that. And everyone has you frozen in amber as this. She's Sharon is our thinker and it's sort of maybe Sharon wants to be the juggler and the clown sometimes. And you've got to put yourself in a new environment to do that. And it's hard for the people who trained you to see you as anything other than their baby, basically.

Why did the show shoot in Los Angeles instead of New York

Sharon Johnson: So do you happen to know why they wanted to make this show in LA as opposed to New York where the Cosby show was shot?

Susan Fales Hill: probably. I don't know the mechanics of that decision. I can only assume that some of it had to do with economics because at the time there were not that many studios in New York. So.

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Susan Fales Hill: And probably Tom, and Marcy wanted to spend more time on the west coast because many of them, they all had homes there and family there. So I think it was economic and probably driven by the non-writing executive producers and owners of the company because their offices were headquartered there. So.

The Cosby show never had racial discussions.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And so what lot were you guys on?

Susan Fales Hill: We were on CBS/MTM and I had to return there a couple of years ago when I was doing twenties and they require now identification. And I hadn't brought my id with me, I had a photo of it and this young guard who, who was young enough to be my son said, no, I can't let you on with that. And I want to say, look, I built this lot. You wouldn't have a job. What do you mean I can't come onto this lot? This was my home for 18 hours a day for seven years anyway. But yes, CBS/MTM, which, it's mushroomed a bit, but it was a small lot. And Roseanne was also done. It was very much dominated by the Carsey-Werner company.

Susan Lambert Hatem: It's my favorite lot because it's so great, it's so cute, like it really is.

Susan Fales Hill: And it's intimate and you don't feel like you're on this huge campus where you're dwarfed by the other things that are going on.

Sharon Johnson: The CBS Radford lot, is that the one?

Susan Fales Hill: Okay.

Sharon Johnson: Okay.

Susan Fales Hill: Exactly.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Now, was a different world originally.

Susan Fales Hill: So it was. Lisa Bonet was the center of it, who was Denise, the daughter. There was, Jaleesa, who was 26 and had been married and divorced because they wanted to show that older person who's reclaiming her life and that Marisa Tomei, the brilliant Marisa Tomei played Maggie. Now the straight jacket in which we found ourselves was part of the formula on the Cosby show was to never really mention race overtly. And I think that was wise. And one of the reasons everyone related to the show, whatever their ethnicity was, it was never overtly stated, which works very much in a family context. You're not walking around all day long saying, as, you know, we are African American. Of course, you talk about your history, which they did. They had them all watching I have a dream speech beach. They actually did an episode where they went to church. They had the artwork all around. I mean, black culture was very alive in the show, but they never had racial discussions on a college campus. Even then, it was all about identity. So to have this white girl there with no explanation, and there are actually Caucasians who choose to go to HBCUs, as we were told very indignantly by a lot of the students at HBCUs that we would talk to for our research, sometimes they're there to kind of correct their ignorance and because they feel like they've never been around people of color and they want to be there, but they all have a specific reason for being there, and we were never allowed to discuss why. Then when she went to date somebody, the network wanted us to hire a white person. She was indignant because she felt I would be dating a Black fellow, and they just didn't want the, what would have been backlash at that point. And it was really doing no good service to this extraordinary actress. So for the second season, that character, was let go along with the Denise character because Lisa Bonet was pregnant and married to, Lenny Kravitz. And we discussed, do we include the pregnancy? And then that felt, at the time, rates of teen pregnancy, adolescent pregnancy were extremely high. And we felt, this is not the message that you want to send, and how do we have fun with her in college if she's pregnant and by whom? And it was just too messy, and she wanted to go back to The Cosby Show anyway. So we lost those two characters. And then the very next year, Marisa Tomei won the Oscar. So things worked out for her. I think that it all worked out for her. But the roster of people who were, in contention for that role, Meg Ryan came in, I remember one day, and, she chose. She was not interested in it. Ultimately, she took the meeting and was just about to be on her upward, trajectory. So, yes, that's the backstory there.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And so at what point, like, in that season, like, you're on this show, it's coming off The Cosby Show. They're like, leave the most successful show ever and go start this new thing that may or may not work.

Susan Fales Hill: Right.

Susan Lambert Hatem: how are you feeling you've moved back out to California?

Susan Fales Hill: Well, it was kind of exhilarating because I was being

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Susan Fales Hill: allowed to come into my own as a voice, as I said, and becoming far more confident in my abilities in that regard. So that was really, really quite thrilling. it was discouraging because we were very much resented and reviled because people felt we were merely a time slot hit creatively. It was a blast because I loved college, and to be able to capture some of those experiences was fun. I also adored being able to portray such a range of African American experiences and people that was beyond thrilling. to have Princess Whitley, we don't see a lot of black bourgeois princesses, and they're a reality. So it was exhausting. And that first year was turbulent because the initial head writer was asked to leave. And then, God rest her soul, and beats was brought in, and she had absolutely no sensitivity to racial issues whatsoever. and we had a very strange cavalcade of people she brought into the room. it was insane. And then she left, and Debbie Allen was brought in, and Thad Mumford, God rest his soul, became our head writer. I think it's actually to be noted that Anne Beatts, who was for all of her, what should I say, oddities. I had a good relationship with her, and we had a really beautiful, honest conversation years later about what was good and what was bad in what she had done. And she was very open and received it all. But it's very telling that this gifted woman who was a pioneer in TV, she created Square Pegs. She was one of the few women writers on Saturday Night Live. I mean, talk about a real pioneer who made it before women were really in those rooms. And, it was just a bloodbath to be a woman in those rooms. It's no accident that she passed away before her time, really, and leaving behind a daughter. And Thad Mumford, who was one of the first African American writer producers, he worked on M*A*S*H and Alf and a bunch of other things. A very distinguished person that he also, passed away early. And there are other African American writers, Judi Ann Mason and Eunetta Boone. And that's just a part of the roll call of people who I think were so marginalized by the business and went through such complete extremes of feast and famine, more so than their white counterparts, at that time, that, it took an extraordinary toll on their mental and their physical health. And so that's also, something not to be depressing. We'll get off this topic in a little bit. It's like, wow, an afternoon of depression with Susan Fales Hill. But I know. I think it's important to call these names and to acknowledge, again, how much more difficult it was for the Eunetta’s and for the Beatts, back then. And these women, and in the case of bad men, really paved the way and made it a better universe for the rest of us.

Sharon Johnson: Yeah, there's no question. But if not for them, things would not have moved forward, so.

Susan Fales Hill: Exactly, exactly.

Sharon Johnson: It's sad that it cost them as much as it did, but nevertheless, without them, we're not. Some of the things we've seen don't exist.

Susan Fales Hill: Absolutely. Absolutely. And they all had their own individual stories and health issues, et cetera, that predated their careers. However, I think the kind of exclusion and marginalization that they all suffered contributed greatly to their early deaths, in my opinion.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah, we know that that has an impact when you are constantly in that source of stress. Stress. And I have to protect myself and I have to move forward. I certainly felt it in the eighties and even nineties when I was starting out, because you're like, I have to be careful. Somebody's gonna come down on me hard.

Susan Fales Hill: No, because people are gunning for you or telling you to your face you don't belong here, and you never will. Or completely denying you work based on your genitalia or your melanin. And it's very debilitating.

Sharon Johnson: So there was something you said earlier about the feeling that a different world was a time slot success. Can you expand on that a little bit?

Susan Fales Hill: Well, obviously, we had the dream time slot because we were right after the Cosby show, the highest rated show in the nation and possibly

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Susan Fales Hill: in the history of television. And so. And certainly, Mr. Cosby had earned the right to have his, spinoff placed right afterwards. But we were not respected at all while we were on the air as a show doing intelligent work. And I will grant you that the first season was our least intelligent. And I contributed to that lack of intelligence with my fabulous episode, Porky de Bergerac, which was everyone running around in pig noses. And I honestly, I've never done a drug in my life, so it would make me blush to read this script. But at any rate, certainly from the second season on, we really challenged ourselves to take on the issues of the time. And there was always an intellectual integrity to the show, and we never got the credit for being smart. And I think that's where I do see the role of race, quite frankly, because people would speak of friends as such a smart show. And I thought, last time I checked, they're not talking about the Amistad. They're not doing shows about date rape. They're not doing shows about, the end of apartheid in South Africa. There were so many things that we were touching on that really cut to the core of international events and who we are as a country and our history and our references. I mean, we had to battle the network, sometimes open one show with a discussion about the Amistad. And the first note was, can't Whitley and Dwayne just be flirting? And we said, no, they're on a college campus. And, yes, sometimes they flirt and carry on, but at other points, they're going to be having actual discussions, and where else is this discussion going to happen? So, for the entire time we were on, no one, no one acknowledged other than we were nominated for a Peabody, which is a very prestigious award for our mammy episode. we did get, a Nancy Susan Reynolds award from Planned Parenthood for our AIDS episode. So there were organizations that recognized us, and the public certainly was very appreciative. But critically and within the industry, there was this perception of it, oh, it's those black people, doing silly things.

Sharon Johnson: I don't know why I'm surprised, but I am, because this is not the first, nor has it been the last show that has been a spinoff of another successful show. It's just. It happens all the time.

Susan Fales Hill: I know, but I do think there was a great resentment of its source, and there's just no question that race played a role in the resentment, and certainly race played a role in the complete, ignoring of the content and the quality of the content and the dismissal of it as, oh, it's just another one of those urban shows. and I was very gratified, I think it was in 2005. There's a woman named Emily Nussbaum who writes for the New Yorker, and she wrote this absolutely glowing reappraisal of the show in the New Yorker, and it looked literally like my mother had written it. The only reason I knew she hadn't was she'd already gone on to glory and acknowledging the intellectual substance and the provocative social, commentary. We did a show about the elections, and it was based on a nightmare. And the men were all the first gentlemen, and the women were all the candidates, and, it still holds up today. So it was really gratifying to see. And she actually, in 2016, said, if this election period is driving you mad, watch this episode of a different world. and most importantly, there isn't a week that passes when I don't hear from somebody that they went to college because they watched the show, and I've heard it from black people and white people. So I know what the show did, whether or not we ever got an award. I mean, we certainly were pretty much ignored by the Emmys, except for Diahann Carroll got a nomination for best guest performance. But other than that, they didn't even look at us.

Susan Lambert Hatem: But such incredible talent, like you, Debbie Allen, but also, like, just those young Jasmine Guy.

Susan Fales Hill: And who else had an actors who could sing, dance? I mean, these women were all triple threats. Jasmine had trained at Ailey. She was a magnificent dancer. She could sing. Cree Summer Frank, also great dancer, also magnificent singer.

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Susan Fales Hill: singer. Dawnn Lewis, she co wrote. She's been on Broadway. She co-wrote that theme song. So composer, singer. She just did a turn on Broadway in the Tina Turner musical. So the talent was extraordinary, and that's the way the ball bounces.

Debbie Allen helped shape the show's tone and direction

Susan Lambert Hatem: Okay, so can we, talk about when Debbie Allen came on the show?

Susan Fales Hill: Yes.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And how the show sort of changed direction and what that meant to you?

Susan Fales Hill: Yes. So Bill brought her in, and realizing she had been to Howard, she and her sister had both gone to Howard. They were legacies at Howard. She knew that world extremely well. She was a director. She'd done such a brilliant job with the, series Fame. And I remember we were all having a meeting with Mr. Cosby, and she's the one who said, this show has to be topical. These kids are in college. They got to be talking about what's going on in the world, otherwise, why are we doing this? And Mr. Cosby said, you're right. And I almost fell off my chair because that had not been the way. But I think he recognized it's not working. And also hearing this coming from, an eminence like Debbie and someone who knew that world so intimately, he agreed. So it was a great partnership because she would bounce ideas off of us, and she has a very good eye for comedy, and it was a very symbiotic relationship. And she also gave a lot of dignity and cohesion to the cast, who had not necessarily been embraced by prior leadership and had, A lot of writers are very cruel to actors, which always horrified me, having grown up around a lot of actors, but they would say denigrating things behind their backs, and, no, they're just stupid and just tell them to say it as written. And she, having been an actor herself and still being an actor and coming from the world of theater, gave them all of this freedom to imagine their characters backstories and really work on why they were saying what they were saying. And, of course, it was so much fun to be able to include elements of dance and performance because we had our own built-in choreographer. So I love dance. And I remember running one episode where Whitley does something with, Alvin Ailey, and that she could absolutely recreate the Wade in the Water sequence of Revelations.

Susan Fales Hill: Right there on stage. It was just magical.

Susan Lambert Hatem: That's amazing. And that the talent just kind of from guest star to your regulars, so incredible. And the age range, too. I love that you brought in existing legends like Diahann Carroll and Patti Labelle. So what was that? And was that you by that point?

Susan Fales Hill: So Diahann Carroll was, I'm going to own it. That was me, because she was my mother's best friend and my mother's Josephine Pramiese, and she played Dean Abernathy, whom you may remember. At any rate, we had decided we wanted to meet Willy's mother, and we decided we wanted Diahann. and Debbie said, child, you. She's. You're close to her. You know, go see her. So I literally drove up the hill to Truesdale and said, you have to come and do this. And she had very mixed feelings about tv because she always felt like tv is not, an artistic opportunity. As she said, it's an opportunity to make money. But I said, it's actually really important that you do this, and this will expose you to a whole new audience and generation, some of who may not have seen your prior work. And you'll bring so much to the show, and I promise you're gonna have a good time. one of the most moving moments for us on the show was when she came and did it. And of course, she had a ball. She loved all those kids. And she got a gerbome of champagne, and she gathered them at the end of her first episode. And she said, when I was making Julia, I was the only person of color on the lot. And it was very lonely. It was very debilitating. And she said, now all of you are driving on your lot in your lovely, beautiful cars and walking around here like you own it. And you have a black director, executive producer, a black writer, showrunner, black people in the writing staff, black crew members. And it wasn't always like this. And I want you to understand the world that you're inhabiting

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Susan Fales Hill: and this moment, and none of them ever forgot it. They still talk about it. And again, it's back to why this podcast. Not to say I walked through the snow, you've never walked through the snow and make people feel guilty and, like they're overprivileged. But more to say, we have to look back, not in anger, but in amazement and in hope over how much had changed for her a generation before. It had been a completely different experience. So it was just a joy. And, having grown up around her and my mother, obviously, and Lena Horne, to actually be able to write for these women and work with them and also have everyone else, because in the case of Diahann, nobody knew. Diahann's naughty. Everyone thought of her as just this beautiful, over glamorous ice queen. They had no idea how funny she was and what a team player and how game she was. So to have someone, I love work with all of these people I was working with Daihann was just beyond joyous.

Sharon Johnson: The Thanksgiving episode with her and Patti Labelle,  

Susan Fales Hill: I wrote that one.

Sharon Johnson: So funny. Oh my gosh, no.

Susan Fales Hill: And they had such a good time. And Diahann adlib: There will be no oysters in black people stuffing today. I mean, they were, the two of them just, they had a ball, and we had a ball. And I just had so much fun writing it. And it's just memories for a lifetime and things that people still quote and still enjoy. And I'm thrilled to have been able to show that side of Diahann, who truly was one of the funniest women. She was Lucille ball, but drop dead gorgeous, and Lucille Ball was drop dead gorgeous and funny.

Sharon Johnson: How did Patti Labelle end up being?

Susan Fales Hill: We just decided we came, I think Debbie came up with the idea of casting her and she was such a joy to work with. And acting is not her main pursuit, obviously, but she was just terrific and she completely owned the part of Adele. And, just the two of them, I mean, what better contrast? And also two titans.

Sharon Johnson: In a perfect world. They should have had their own show together.

Susan Fales Hill: No, they should have had their own show. Someone just send me, people are always sending me clips and there's a clip of the two of them and I'd totally forgotten we did this where they got drunk together. And, I mean, it is hilarious. So it was just really a lot of fun. But, you'll appreciate this. When I had written that episode and she, of course, Adele was a very overbearing mother. A good mother, but overbearing. And one of our white writers said, I just want Dwayne to say, shut up. To his mother, thank you. And I said, that wouldn't happen. Or if he did, he wouldn't have teeth left. And he's like, Susan, he's not like you.

He's, you know, they're from Brooklyn there. I said, it does not matter if his father works for the MTA. There is a line that a child of color does not cross with their parents. And I said, you know what? Don't take my word for it. Let's take a poll in the room. And there was only one person of color who had said shut up to their mother, and their mother was white. I rest my case. There will be no Dwayne saying shut up to Adele. It just doesn't happen.

Sharon Johnson: that's amazing.

Susan Lambert Hatem: I mean, I love the mother daughter stuff so much in this show.

Susan Fales Hill: Yeah.

Susan Lambert Hatem: It was just really. I love those scenes between Whitley and Marian.

Susan Fales Hill: And Marian. Yeah.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And, I don't know, I just felt like that was some of my favorite.

Susan Fales Hill: Parts of the show, and I loved writing it. I loved how flawed Marion was, and that in her own way, she meant well, but she was a prisoner of her own value system. And also to see Whitley, who was basically the little reigning bitch, absolutely cowering in the presence of this woman, whose expectations were impossible to meet. And then I'd taken many elements from my own life, but one of them was when her father leaves her mother for a much younger woman, which

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Susan Fales Hill: had happened in my family a few years before. And just the pain of that and what that does to everybody. but also how it made her reconsider what she was looking for in somebody. So it was just a joy to write. And then also, both of them were both such great comedians and also unbelievable actors, and so they could infuse it with all the humor. But then there were moments of extraordinary pathos and pain. And that, to me, is what makes really great comedy or television.

Sharon Johnson: In watching episodes, I was really struck by even in the middle of some of those moments with the pathos and the emotion, that there was still the funny there always.

Susan Fales Hill: Yeah, no, no. And that. Because, I mean, also, that's so true to Diahann. she would. I mean, in the worst moment, she'd be there, but then she'd say something funny. And my mother was the same way, so literally could be at death's door, and then something funny would come out. And that, to me, is a very specific resilience that people of oppression have. There's a reason that I'm just going to say it. A lot of comedy writers come out of the jewish diaspora. And certainly there's a lot of humor in communities of color, because there has to be, because you have literally dealt with catastrophe and the only way forward. And not to denigrate, not to say that other groups have not, I mean, everyone has had it, but often the best comedy comes out of a, place of pain and deflection of pain.

Sharon Johnson: We've been watching a lot of eighties tv shows for the podcast, and we've both been somewhat surprised and really pleased at how well the shows hold up, and this one is no exception.

Susan Fales Hill: Well, thank you for that.

Sharon Johnson: Yeah, it's really great. And I was amazed again in rewatching some of the episodes, in the discussions amongst the students, and about the issues of the day and how balanced some of the discussions. It's so. And the funny, again, so really, really funny. So.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And such great characters. And I just have to say, I grew up outside of Atlanta, Georgia, in Decatur.

Susan Fales Hill: Oh, my goodness.

Susan Lambert Hatem: In the seventies and eighties. But to my shame, I did not know about historically black colleges until I watched a different world. I grew up in the shadow of Spelman and Morehouse.

Susan Fales Hill: But, Susan, you're underscoring something so important. We have grown up in a segregated country long after the laws went off the books, people grew up in very separate communities. And so there wasn't a reason for you to know outside of people in your family being curious or someone hiring someone from one of those institutions. Now, of course, I'm sorry, anybody who grew up there and doesn't know, where have you been? There's no excuse now, but it is. And, I'm working on it just like that now. And I realize it's the first time I'm working on a show that reflects my lived experience. I've either been on all white shows or all black shows. I have never been on a show that was a complete combination of everything. And in fact, when a different world went off the air, my agents were looking around for what's the next move? They literally said to me, we can't get you a job writing a white show because you're not white. You're not white. And you ran a black show. And I said, well, I ran a top ten show that had 20 million viewers a week. There were only 12 million black people in the country. So even if every last one was glued to their tv set, there are 8 million other people who are not black watching and liking it. It was a show. It was a popular show. And not to put too fine a point on it, those of us who are of color grew up knowing a whole lot about the quote unquote majority culture because it's what we live in. So we know you. You may not know us, but we know you. And in my own case, I had my own examples, right? In my home. My father's white, so. And I'm very close to him and his family. So what are you saying? And so I switched agencies, and the subsequent agents said. I said, do you see a problem getting me a job running a white show? And they said, no, you're a woman. You ran a top ten show. Let's go. And within a week, they had a job for me. But again, just to remind people today, if an agent from a top agency said to a client, Susan, I can't get you a

00:40:00

Susan Fales Hill: job running a show cause you're a woman. Or, Sharon, I can't get you a job running a show cause you're black and a woman, they'd be fired.

Susan Lambert Hatem: As they should be. All right, we have to take a little break. We'll take, like, five minutes and, come back.

Susan Fales Hill: Okay.

Sharon Johnson: We're back. Let's jump right in.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Okay. But back to a different world and you and comedy, but also changing the world. I do want to talk about, having your mom on the show and what that meant for you and your relationship with your mom and who she was.

Susan Fales Hill: Well, my, mother was Josephine Premise, and she was also a triple threat. She began her career as a dancer, and her first performance was at Carnegie Hall when she was 17 in front of the then first lady Eleanor Roosevelt and her good friend, Mary McLeod Bethune. And then she went on to be a, nightclub singer, performing all over the world, and then, began to do Broadway shows. She did the first straight play on Broadway. She was basically in the vanguard of all these big artistic movements. So innovations in dance, the explosion of black female cabaret singers who became international sensations and sang in multiple languages. And she worked with Joseph Papp when he was starting to do non-traditional casting and doing Shakespeare in the park. An extraordinary human being, and one who put at a certain point when she married my father when she was 33, 34, she put, her family ahead of her career, which cost her quite a bit. So all of her. She was on the cusp of becoming a household name and got off the track, and all of her friends went on to become household names. So I always felt, I won't say a sense of guilt, but a sense of sorrow over what I felt was her extraordinary possibility. It must also be said she was a very dark-skinned woman at a time when there was complete blatant and open discrimination, against that. She did a musical with Lena Horne, and when she first auditioned for it, the producer, David Merrick, said, you're not pretty enough to be Lena Horne's best friend. By which he meant she was too dark to be Lena Horn's best friend. And she said, I find you can audition every other actress in New York, and by the time you're done, I'll be the prettiest girl you've ever seen. And that's actually what happened. and Lena very much wanted her in the part. So a lot of blows to her career from all sorts of sources, and really just a woman ahead of her time. And so any opportunity I had to give her work or work with her was a joy. She also was not in good health by the time she came into the show, she had emphysema. So I knew we were on borrowed time at that point, so it was extraordinarily meaningful to have her there. And I think, actually it was Debbie who said, we're going to cast her, because I was always careful about nepotism. And Debbie said, no, your mom has to come and do this. And the cast just loved her, and she was a very nurturing person and talked to everybody. And after she died, so many people said to me, your mother gave me a sense of myself. Your mother reminded me of who I could be. Your mother told me I was beautiful when I thought of myself as ugly. And so just this incredible spirit on the set. And then, of course, to have her interact with Diahann, who was her actual best friend, and kind of her baby sister, again, just these are the experiences no one can ever take away. I wish I could have done more of it, but it was, I'm so. I feel so blessed that we had those opportunities. And she absolutely loved seeing the set. And, of course, as a mother and someone who she always used to say to me, you can be anything you want in this world, darling, but if you become an actress or a nun, I'll kill myself. She very much pushed me to be behind the scenes, which, because she also believed acting was a calling. It was not something that you just decided on a lark. Oh, I think I want to try acting because it was far too difficult to road and for anybody, certainly for women, and then quintuple that for women of color, and, so to have pushed me to be behind the scenes and then see me succeed, she was just overjoyed.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Any other moments or highlights or episodes that are incredibly special to you

00:45:00

Susan Lambert Hatem: from that time.

Susan Fales Hill: Well, so, the mammy episode, for lack of a. Which I should explain quickly before people start writing you angry messages on x, saying, why is this woman talking about mammys in quotation marks? Ladies and gentlemen, our very wonderful writer producer, Glenn Berenbeim, came up with the idea of Whitley collecting this black memorabilia in the spirit of reclaiming the symbols of the oppressor. So, obviously, the mammy is a symbol that has been used to denigrate black women and reduce them to the smiling, happy negro whose tending to your children and firing up the griddle. So, I suggested, because she wants to do this exhibit of these pieces, and, the character of Kim is very offended by it, as are other people. And I said, well, what if she discovers that she actually comes from one of the. There was a small coterie of families in the south, black families that owned slaves. And he loved that idea and ran with it. We did our first table reading, and everyone was upset. Every actor was upset. It was kryptonite. It was just, they were in tears. And then. And everyone was offering up a story of either colorism that they'd suffered or ways in which they'd been told by their family to underplay their blackness. There was one actor who was not allowed to ever, ever eat watermelon. And so many personal stories were pouring out that I realized, we've hit the mother load. When people are that upset, that's when you know you have to do it, because it's gonna be hard, but you're gonna really uncover some magnificent truths. And so we rewrote it. And again, Glenn Bermond did a magnificent job. And Debbie came up with this idea of doing a performance in which the mammy, who was embodied by Kim, becomes an african queen. And I think she recites a Nikki Giovanni poem. So it became an episode about black history and colorism. And, of course, with Whitley, she had this extraordinary shame about coming. She makes this discovery because somebody goes to the Hillman archives and discovers this about her family, that she didn't know that they own slaves and they were black anyway. It just was a very powerful way to examine all of the ways in which our community has been cleaved. And it's one of the episodes I'm absolutely proudest of, because no one else was doing that. No one else to the date has done that. But I love history. And then, in a completely bizarre life, imitates art. I discovered just seven, years ago that my white anglo saxon protestant relatives traded slaves. So I had my own Whitley moment of, oh, because I, like Whitley, was saying, we have to embrace our history. Embrace our history. And then I made this discovery, quite by accident, that, yeah, they weren't just in shipping, they were shipping humans. And so I'm in the process of writing about that and processing that. But, you know, these are american stories, and we were there telling them in what is supposed to be a frivolous, light hearted medium. And, of course, anytime we had Diahann completely special regret, I don't think that our episodes about the Los Angeles uprisings were successful, in my opinion. And I wrote them, but. Or, co wrote them. If I had to do that over, I would say, no, let's not do this.

Sharon Johnson: It's the kind of thing that I would imagine is hard to get right, or the way maybe you would long term like for it to be or have been when it's so close.

Susan Fales Hill: It was so close. It was so raw. It had just happened. And there was a big push from all of us in the writers room to, well, we need to address this, because everybody looks to us, but in hindsight, I feel like we should have addressed it in a more tangential way as opposed to trying to put Whitley in the middle of it. There was no way for it to.

00:50:00

Susan Fales Hill: To me, those are my least, favorite episodes, and others may disagree with me, and it's no denigration of anybody's work on it. Everyone brought their all, in terms of acting and everything, but it just didn't. And that is when that signed our death warrant with the network, I was.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Going to say, really?

Susan Fales Hill: Yeah. They were adamantly opposed to our doing them, which was why we dug in even more. And at one point, they said they who had not liked, by the way, the mammy episode, suddenly were invoking the mammy episode, which had been nominated for a Peabody, and all these things that they held that up as an example of this is the kind of that, you know, we're not afraid of issues. Look at this. And we pointed out to them, which I think was true, you're not uncomfortable with black on, black animosity, but you're very uncomfortable with our addressing the big white, black racial divide in our country.

Sharon Johnson: Were you getting a lot of pushback from the network over the years?

Susan Fales Hill: Oh, God. yes. They almost pulled our licensing fee for the AIDS episode. Oh, wow. And as I mentioned, when we did a whole opening that dealt with the Amistad, it was, can't we do something funnier? But most of the time they would relent, and then, to their credit, they would come around and say, actually, that was really good. We didn't see it, but now we see it. But this one, they were adamant. And, not necessarily for the correct reasons, but I think that was an example of, I always say to younger people, lose the battle and win the war, you're not going to compromise your ideals, but sometimes you're dying on the wrong hill. And when I look back at that, that was the wrong hill because I think it created such tension with the network. And I think if not for that episode, we might have run another season or two. and there was more. There were more stories to tell. So anyway, hindsight is 2020, and we'll never know for sure. These are my conjectures. I'm not stating this as fact. what is fact is that they were not pleased. From where I sit, when I look at the product, it's, to my mind, not the best that we did, but it's done.

Sharon Johnson: So did the network give you a, heads up in advance that this show was going to be ending at the end of, end of the season?

Susan Fales Hill: No, because we were even doing, a kind of backdoor pilot. We had, Billy Dee Williams and Leslie Uggams in an episode as deans. We had a whole game plan because we had younger students for how to continue. And, we didn't find out, as I recall, till the very end, we thought it was still possible that we would return. And again, it's not just because of that episode, but I don't think that episode helped. And fresh Prince of Bel Air was going to college, so there was a little bit of overlap, and I think that also was a factor. But I don't think our riot episodes help. Well.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And about the HIV AIDS episode. If I should die before I wake.

Susan Fales Hill: Yes.

Susan Lambert Hatem: What was the reaction once you aired? Was there a particular reaction to that episode or any other episode?

Susan Fales Hill: There was a huge. Well, as I said, we won the Nancy Susan Reynolds Award. We got calls and letters from Planned Parenthood saying, thank you for that episode. After it aired, 200 people came into the clinic to be tested. It was an overwhelmingly positive response. And Whoopi Goldberg was in the episode, which was fantastic. So it became one of our most famous and well received episodes. We also had an episode written by Margie Peters, who was the former executive producer of facts of life. Extraordinary woman. She wrote the date rape episode. It was her idea. And a year after that aired, we got a call from the district attorney of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Wanting to know details, what it had aired. He was representing a little girl who had been raped by her neighbor while selling Girl Scout cookies, and she didn't understand what had happened to her until she saw the episode. And it was after she saw the episode that she told her parents, and then they were going to go and prosecute this man. So when you're a comedy writer, as you probably know well, Susan, there are moments where you say, what am I doing with my life? There are wars raging. Children are dying. There's poverty everywhere. What am I doing for mankind? And then you get moments like this where, oh, our show actually gave a child the language to understand how she had been

00:55:00

Susan Fales Hill: violated. And I do think the images that people saw on the show shifted the way they perceived people of color. I had a Caucasian woman approach me at a conference and say she'd grown up in a very liberal household, and her parents were always telling her that black people were their equals. She said, I don't have to have that conversation with my children because they watch the show, and they aspire to be as smart as Duane and as smart as Whitley and as accomplished as these and that. Again, we live in de facto segregation. And for people to just, if it's now scientifically proven by studies, seeing you can go to traffic school for 2 hours and have a black female teacher, and it will shift how you see black people in authority or the potential for black people being in authority. So that effect, I would call it the Cosby different world effect, is gratifying.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yeah. And certainly, like, I was watching an interview with Debbie Allen, and the rates of people going to college went up. Black and white went up after this show in significant ways.

Susan Fales Hill: When we were being canceled, we got dozens of letters from, public school teachers saying, you can't go off the air. I have a classroom full of kids who now understand that college is for them because they watch this show. So it's what Edward R. Murrow said, that television can be a force for good. It's a kind of a neutral medium, and it depends on what our intention is in terms of the ways we shift it and use it about,

Susan Lambert Hatem: Sex and the City and what you're doing now.

Susan Fales Hill: So I'm very excited to be. I'm an executive producer writer this year. I joined last season. I was not involved in the first season. I joined last season as a writer and consulting producer. And strikes over. We're in the zoom room and having a lot of fun with these delicious ladies. And again, it's delightful to write about the quote unquote unseen. I mean, no one, I don't see a lot of women our age on the big screen and on television. As a wonderful line in the first Wives club put it, you're either babe or district attorney. There are two ages for women in Hollywood. So it's exciting to be part of the movement that's saying, wait a minute, these women are interesting and attractive and have rich lives. And as I said earlier, it's incredibly exciting to represent the world as I knew it, which is very multicultural and where we are more united by what we have in common than we are divided by the differences of ethnicity. And of course, you come to the issues in your life with a slightly different approach depending on your background and that that comes out. But women are women, and we face many of the same challenges, so it's a lot of fun. I feel like I'm able to play all the keys on my piano. And also, the last show I ran was twenties for Lena Waithe, which was a joy, but I literally had to do time travel because it was about women in their mid twenties. And I thought, Lena, I am so far out of that war. Don't want to go back. and the central character was a masculine presenting queer woman. So I said, sweetie, I'm smart, but this is not my lived experience. Want to get this right? So I filled the room. I was literally like the nana of the room. Everybody else was. No one was named Susan, let's just.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Put it that way.

Susan Fales Hill: I was the only Susan in the room. I think we can embrace Susan as like a benevolent Karen. Yeah, that older person, the, benevolent Susan.

Susan Lambert Hatem: The benevolent Karen.

Susan Fales Hill: I like that. May not always be. Get it?

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yep, that's right. A little out of step.

Susan Fales Hill: Not calling for the manager, but trying.

Susan Lambert Hatem: To figure it out.

Susan Fales Hill: Listen. Trying to figure it out. Just trying to get it all straight.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Yes. My oldest was saying, cause we're doing a thing tonight. And they were like, you're not prepared. And I was like, no, I'm not. And then they were making fun that I was gonna take a while to be ready for our game tonight. And I was like, you know what? I want you to be on top of it when you're my age.

Susan Fales Hill: Thank you very much. Stop with the shade and call me in 40 years if I'm still alive. I know. The nerve.

Sharon Johnson: This has been an extraordinary conversation. When we started this podcast, I think we were not expecting or certainly not thinking that it would go in the trajectory it has. And you are like, all of our other guests just, this has been extraordinary experience and speaking with you and learning more about your career. And we cannot thank you enough for agreeing to join us today.

Susan Fales Hill: Thank you so much for having me and asking such great questions.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Well, we're huge fans of these shows, but also of the people that made them and broke this ground. It was such a groundbreaking show, and it is so hard to explain that there was nothing there.

Susan Lambert Hatem: No.

Susan Fales Hill: That people don't realize.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And then there was, but it was made by you and the people that were doing it.

Susan Fales Hill: And Glenn Berenbeim and Margie Peters and Thad Mumford. And so. Yeah.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And that groundbreaking is physically and emotionally exhausting as you.

Susan Fales Hill: No, I mean, I walked away from it at one point because, in, 2000, my mother was dying, and I was gearing up to hitch stuff, and I literally felt like a hooker who was, you know, getting ready for the next john, because it was sort of, what do I even. You're trying to figure out, what do they want? Not what do I have to say? And I had just done a pilot script with Whoopi Goldberg that was for Jennifer Lewis, pre blackish Jennifer Lewis, but she was already a genius. and it was about a black Broadway diva who'd fallen on hard times and became a decorator. And the network started lecturing us on what a black diva was. And I thought, oh, God, I've literally died and gone to hell. This, is my punishment for all eternity. Are you kidding me? If this were a cop show, I'd take all your notes, but I have a PhD in this, guys. And they couldn't see it. They couldn't hear it. Anyway, very, very interesting. So I was like, I'm done. I can't deal with this. And reality tv was on the rise, and so it was. I walk away. I walk away. and anyway, it's nice to see the landscape has changed.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And now they pull you back in.

Susan Fales Hill: Exactly. I got pulled back in and realized, oh, oh, my God. While Rip Van Wink-lena was, napping, the whole universe changed. Yeah. I mean, I started writing books. Cause I thought, I can't say the things I want to say in this medium. I was never gonna happen. And that's not true anymore.

Susan Lambert Hatem: So, yeah. Progress.

Sharon Johnson: Yes, indeed.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And I'm just delighted we got to speak with you. So thank you very much. Great to speak. Have a great evening.

Susan Fales Hill: Thanks. You too. Thank you.

Sharon Johnson: Bye.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Sharon. That was another, I mean, we're just so lucky to get to talk to these amazing people.

Sharon Johnson: Every episode was never anything I expected.

Susan Lambert Hatem: No, I thought it'd just be you and me.

Sharon Johnson: Yeah. Which would have been great.

Susan Lambert Hatem: Also bouncing around like pinballs.

Sharon Johnson: That's right. But this is so much better and so much more interesting, especially for somebody like me, who really didn't think a lot about anything beyond what was flashing on my tv screen.

Susan Lambert Hatem: And for me, who was very interested beyond what was flashing on the screen and how it got there. and I think for Melissa, who would have to just sit here and listen to you and I the whole time, which is fun. Lots of fun.

Susan Fales Hill: Yeah.

Susan Lambert Hatem: But not performative.

Sharon Johnson: No, no.

Susan Lambert Hatem: We would have been singing show tunes or something. Well, that should be fun for everybody. We'll have to have that.

AUDIOOGRAPHY

Okay. For our audiography today, you can find a different world streaming. It's available on Macs, so you have to have a subscription. The first two seasons, Sharon has said, are available on Hoopla via, the library. Streaming or for sale on Amazon prime.

Sharon Johnson: We definitely recommend that you watch the Thanksgiving episode of a different world that we were discussing. It is so funny. And to get to see Diahann Carroll and Patti LaBelle together in this show is a treat you will be thanking us for later.

Susan Lambert Hatem: It's called faith, hope, and charity, and we will have a link in our description. And we'll also have a link to the Met Museum video of Susan talking about her life in the in between.

Sharon Johnson: Please join us for our next episode. The incredible director Neema Barnett will be joining us for an amazing conversation. Neema was the first black woman to direct a sitcom, and she's got some fabulous stories from her life. Her time directing in the eighties and her time as producer director for Ava Duvernay's Queen Sugar.

Susan Lambert Hatem: So stay tuned.

01:05:00

Sharon Johnson: We hope eighties tv ladies brings you joy and laughter and lots of fabulous new and old shows to watch, all of which will lead us forward toward being amazing ladies of the 21st century.

Susan Lambert Hatem: [Singing] It's a different world, from where you come from!

[Music][Singing] Amy Englehardt: 80s TV Ladies, So sexy and so pretty. 80s TV Ladies, Steppin’ out into the city. 80s TV Ladies, often treated kind of sh-[wolf whistle]. Working hard for the money in a man’s world. 80s TV Ladies!

01:05:35

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