THE SENSITIVE GUYS
ABC's 'Once and Again' is the latest product of the twenty-year friendship
between the creators of 'thirtysomething'

by Burt Prelutsky -- Zwick and Herskovitz are back, and they're more sensitive than ever!

That's the sort of news that will send certain male viewers channel-flipping over to wrestling or an old John Wayne movie for a testosterone fix.

For just as there will always be solid critical acclaim for whatever Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz do, there will be those who will never forgive them for all those touchy-feely yuppies who populated their 'thirtysomething' series. The mere mention of Michael Steadman and Elliot Weston - those Alan Alda clones who never stopped talking about themselves from '87 to '91 - is enough to make some guys break out in shingles.

In keeping with their sensitive image, they've even named their production outfit after Bedford Falls, setting of the holiday classic 'It's A Wonderful Life.' "It was our all-time favorite movie," Herskovitz explains, "and when it came time to form a company, we wanted to take something from it."

In the years since 'thirtysomething,' they've given the world a couple of series, 'My So-Called Life' and 'Relativity,' which garnered raves but no ratings. They are back with 'Once and Again.' It is a show about two terriby attractive, fairly affluent, honorable people - played by Sela Ward and Billy Campbell - who are trying to deal with life after divorce. Yes, it could have been called 'fortysomething.'

For several years now, ever since they busted through with their first TV movie, the 1983 multi-award-winning 'Special Bulletin,' Zwick and Herskovitz have enjoyed near-legendary status in a town where such status usually lasts for about seventeen minutes, not seventeen years. Not only do each of them write, produce and direct, but they move between movies and TV without missing a beat, and they seem to do at least as many things separately as they do in tandem.

Although their Bedford Falls Company is located in Santa Monica, these days they're more often found at the production offices in a nondescript building in Culver City.

Zwick is the shorter, bearded, more kinetic of the two. Herskovitz sports fashionable stubble and gives the appearance that he would just as soon be off somewhere reading a book. And when asked what each brings to the mix, he promptly replies, "I don't want to work and Ed makes me work," and it sounds like kidding on the square.

Even though Zwick claims they met through the back-page personals of 'L.A. Weekly,' they actually found each other while they were directing fellows at the American Film Institute.

According to Herskovitz, "We recognized a similar hubris in each other." Zwick gleefully acknowledges, "We were pretty full of ourselves."

It should be stated that, aside from a court reporter, nobody could possibly hope to faithfully reproduce an interview with the guys. Rare is the sentence that either one begins that isn't finished by the other. They are constantly completing one another's thoughts. It is done so respectfully that no umbrage is ever taken. They function like jazz musicians who, only occasionally, allow the other his solo. In person, they make perfect sense; in print, it would drive you nuts. So, in the following, understand that attribution is based solely on which of them began the sentence.

Zwick claims, "Marshall first suggested calling our production company The Bailey Brothers Savings and Loan, but we settled on Bedford Falls."

"Shortly after naming our company," Herskovitz recalls, "we heard from Rob Reiner. He had wanted to name his production company Bedford Falls, but he was too late."

Too bad. Had Reiner but known that the Bailey Brothers Savings and Loan was available, maybe he wouldn't have settled on the rather prosaic Castle Rock.

Inasmuch as both partners write, produce and direct, why do they need each other? According to Zwick, "It really helps that there are two of us. Sometimes one of us has to drive carpool or one of us has to be home to cook dinner."

A quick peek at Herskovitz confirms that one's leg is not being yanked out of its socket. He nods and adds, "Family always comes first. We don't want our lives destroyed because of work."

"Our partnership allows us tremendous freedom," Zwick contends. "Midway through our second season of 'thirtysomething,' I was able to run off and make the movie 'Glory.' When I came back, he went off and made his own movie."

Asked to compare TV and motion pictures, Zwick says, "They're really not comparable. It's thrilling to have a hit movie, but it's nerve-wracking to have a year's worth of work measured by its Friday night grosses. On TV, with a series, there's a growth process. People are born, people fall in love, people die. You're constantly learning more about your own creations."

Herskovitz recalls, "It was a surreal moment when ABC green-lighted 'thirtysomething.' At the time Ed and I only wanted to make movies. We felt like we'd been trapped. But, as it turned out, it was wonderful. Besides, when you're making a movie, you live in a hotel room far away from your family. It's awful. In TV, you go home at night."

Who came up with the concept for 'Once and Again'? According to Herskovitz, "The truth is, we've had an ongoing conversation for the twenty-five years we've been friends, and out of it emerges everything we do."

How do they deal with the occasional bad review? Herskovitz says, "If you're a sensitive person, you have to arm yourself against the slings and arrows of outrageous criticism. Zwick admits, "Obviously you want absolute adoration in every moment of your life." Herskovitz laughs: "But once you have kids, you quickly outgrow that fantasy."

About their own TV viewing habits, Zwick admits he watches little besides sports. Herskovitz watches sports and the History Channel. "Being a supplier of product," he confesses, "affects enjoyment of TV. But, strangely, it doesn't affect my love of movies."

Comparing doing a series today to doing one in 1987, Zwick says, "Back then we had no habits and we preferred working with people who had none. Now we want to work with people we've worked with before. I want our habits to mesh.

In Herskovitz's opinion, "TV is very different now. I'm very aware that the viewing audience is far more fragmented and that our share of it is much smaller."

Asked to describe the theme of their new series, Herskovitz offers, "It has something to do with self-discovery, that human growth comes out of relationships."

After a quarter century of friendship and collaboration, what does each think he's gotten from the other?

Zwick: "Go, girl!"

Herskovitz: "Well, in a creative sense, we each had specific strengths going in, and I think we've helped each other overcome our weaknesses. Ed had an uncanny sense of structure, and I came in with a sense of what people sound like. As a result, I'd create a story that had no plot. Ed would create a plot that spun like a top but had no texture."

Zwick: "After twenty-five years, a relationship becomes a touchstone. It allows you to reach out because you have an absolute faith in this thing that grounds you."

Each of the men has two children. Zwick has a son, thirteen, and a daughter, six. Herskovitz has two daughters, sixteen and twelve. But, like Rick Sammler, Billy Campbell's character on 'Once and Again,' Herskovitz is a divorced father. It seemed safe to assume that he had more input than his partner in creating the role. "I suppose, but it's definitely not autobiographical. I set out to created this character who really isn't Jewish."

Good try, but I, for one, certainly identified when, after cutting his finger slightly in one episode, Rick went to the emergency ward to be patched up and then, armed with a supply of pain pills, took to his bed for an entire day.

How do they collaborate in the actual writing? Zwick contends, "There's some role playing, some improvisation, but we write every single line together." "Mainly," Herskovitz adds, setting the record straight, "One person sits at the keyboard and the other one screams at him."

As if they weren't already joned at the hip, both men are or were married to writers. Zwick, in fact, has directed three movies written by his partner's ex, Susan Shilliday, and Zwick's wife, Liberty Godshall, is one of the staff writers turning out scripts for 'Once and Again.'

Asked to describe the special place that 'It's A Wonderful Life' holds in their hearts, Herskovitz replies, "I saw the movie for the first time on TV in 1972, when I was twenty-one. I felt it was a great movie, but a part of me disliked it because the whole thing seemed to be an excuse for George Bailey's not running off in pursuit of his dreams. But by the time I saw it again, when I was thirty-five, I had a far better understanding of how profoundly true the story was."

By now it's four-thirty and, for Zwick, the end of a workday. The thing is, like one of their own characters, he has to run off to coach his six-year old daughter's soccer team.

Where Zwick and Herskovitz are concerned, it's just one more case of life imitating art. And, clearly, theirs is a wonderful life.__EMMY (January/February, 2000)