Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Lee Grant in Fay (1975)

Fay Stewart has just divorced her husband, Jack and gone out on her own. She has a new job and has begun dating. This sea change has created some turbulence in her life with her daughter and herself as well. Being 40-something and starting over is never easy, doing it in the sexy seventies is a real challenge.

This short-lived series for NBC was smart, funny, and canceled after only 10 episodes were made, which is a shame, because there were so few examples of strong, funny women over 40 on TV back then. Below is a promo for the series which will give you the gist of what it was all about.

This hasn't been released on DVD, and there's very little online video of it available. It was somewhat notorious because of Grant's rant on The Tonight Show after the show was canceled. The video above was uploaded to YouTube by MattTheSaiyan.

Obscurity factor: 10 (not on DVD, hard to find, relatively unknown)

10 comments:

  1. I remember this being on, but never saw it. The previews look very good. I have a cousin who worked at Paramount at the time. She told me that the day the show was canceled she walked by Lee Grant's dressing room and saw her sitting there with her head in her hands, crying.

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  2. It's a shame. It looked like such a great show and she really was good in it.

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  3. I don't remember this. I was probably watching Chico and the Man in 1975 :p

    I did notice Audra Lindley. I always liked her :)

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  4. It was easy to miss - only 10 episodes in total...

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  5. This was shown at 8:30, after another comedy called "The Montefuscos" at 8:00. "The Montefuscos" looked as bad as "Fay" looked good. I saw a preview clip for "The Montefuscos" on YouTube, and it was abysmal. It was nothing but broad Italian stereotypes (including a son who was a priest) shouting their punchlines.

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  6. Yes, I watched that too. It did look questionable. It didn't help "Fay" to have such a weak lead in.

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  7. hi, this was on NBC

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  8. Created by Susan Harris who went on to create Soap and The Golden Girls, actually Susan applied several of the characters from Fay to the Golden Girls and I believe Lee Grant turned down the role of Dorothy who was played by the legendary Bea Arthur.

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