PLEASE

July 28, 2016

Coincidence?  Today is Sally Struthers' birthday. Right this minute, she is a guest on the Dick Cavett Show forty four years ago in 1972.  All In The Family was a big deal at this time and Sally, in a flowered pants suit is gorgeous.  

A few years later she appeared on a TV game show called Showoffs, produced by Goodson/Todman hosted by Bobby Van.  I was fortunate to have been in on developing the show and was 'rewarded' by being asked to be a contestant. The pilot had been made with Larry Blyden as the host, but unfortunately, Larry had been killed in an auto accident in Mexico. It was during the search for a new host that I played the game in the office with Bobby Van's audition.  After Bobby's audition, I was waiting for the elevator there at Cahuenga and Sunset where the GT offices were at that time.  He was quite cordial and asked me how he did!  He got the job! 

The game was basically Charades with celebrities and 'civilian contestants' playing the game.   When I appeared as a contestant on Showoffs,  I met Sally.   I'd done The Dating Game a couple of times and was wondering like anything how I could join the Screen Actors Guild and become a working actor.  Thanks to Sally and Ron Masak and Dick Gautier and Joyce Bullifant, I won enough cash on the show to survive for a year!   The next year or so, I finally got my first voice over job that led  to SAG membership and the beginnings of a wonderful time of my life.  More serendipity of whom you meet and when.  Another story for another time.

I was really attracted to Sally and after I'd been bumped from the show,  sent her a heartfelt letter c/o Goodson/Todman.  She actually responded with a brief handwritten note explaining the 'caste' system in Hollywood and that my postion in the community was not concurrent to where she currently resided, crushing my hopes of a date with the cute little blonde whom I'd first seen tapping away like anything in her Shirley Temple curls on The Smothers Brothers Show.  

The last time I spoke to Sally, she was still very cute and has enjoyed a productive career. She had known Andy and Garret Parks' mom, Betty Garrett, from her days on All In The Family. We both attended Betty's memorial at the Mark Taper Forum.  I didn't ask her out that time. Interestingly, Betty died on my birthday just five years ago.  And, my birth date coincides with Sally's daughter's.  Apropos nothing, really.  

Oh my! The coincidences of our lives that lead us to where we are today.   Windows open and close and most of the time we only realize in retrospect how we may have dodged a bullet or  fallen into the lap of good fortune!  Another story of which was that after I had done the voice of Bamm Bamm (following Jay North who had originated the teen Bamm Bamm voice with Sally as the voice of Pebbles), Hanna Barbera was in the process of reviving The Flintstones again and I was called back to read.  I read with Sally!  Neither of us made the cut. 

If you know Sally.. please tell her I said Hello and that I wish her a very Happy Birthday.

July 28, 2016 

michaelsheehan