had an impressive television pedigree (including a stint working with Steve Allen’s comedy troupe) when he was hired to play the role of apartment building superintendent Dwayne Schneider. THE ACTOR WHO PLAYED SCHNEIDER ADDED HIS EVER-PRESENT TOOL BELT. Like Masur, she pleaded her case to Lear and was released from her contract at the end of season two. She and Bonnie Franklin never saw eye-to-eye (pun intended: in her 2015 autobiography, Wilson described Franklin as constantly giving her a glassy, semi-cross-eyed gaze as she critiqued Wilson’s performance), and she never got comfortable with the four-camera filming process. Wilson accepted the job based on Lear’s track record, but she quickly decided that One Day at a Time was no All in the Family. Wilson had been appearing on and off Broadway since 1962, and it was while she was appearing in a revival of Gypsy that Lear offered her the role of Ginny. Write me off the show.’ He says, ‘Okay.’”Īnother character who seemingly disappeared without explanation was neighbor Ginny Wroblicki, a brassy cocktail waitress played by Mary Louise Wilson. “He said, ‘Well, I don’t really want …’ I said, ‘Yes, you do, Norman. “I said, ‘Write me off the show,’” Masur recalled of his conversation with Lear. He was becoming a one-note character, and the actor became even further frustrated when Lear insisted that David and Ann’s romance be chaste it was made very clear via the scripts that they had done nothing more than hold hands and occasionally kiss. Club, the noted character actor explained that David seemed to be constantly proposing marriage to Ann and she refused him every time. ![]() However, the actor realized after half a dozen episodes that his character was being “painted into a corner.” In a 2016 interview with The A.V. Richard Masur played attorney David Kane, a love interest for the newly-divorced Ann Romano in the first season. Now called One Day at a Time, the series got a green light from CBS and debuted in December 1975. He also decided that Marcia Rodd wasn’t the right fit for the neighbor and hired Mary Louise Wilson instead. That particular pilot didn’t sell, but Lear retooled it to ditch the hospital setting and added a second daughter. as Schneider, the apartment building superintendent, and Marcia Rodd as Romano’s neighbor and friend. The proposed series was called Three to Get Ready and also featured Pat Harrington Jr. The original pilot Lear filmed starred Franklin as a divorced nurse raising a teenaged daughter (played by Mackenzie Phillips). THERE WAS ONLY ONE DAUGHTER IN THE ORIGINAL PILOT. Though Vivian Vance’s character on The Lucy Show was the first divorced mom character, many considered Romano to be the “first realistic portrayal of a divorced mother struggling to raise her teenage daughters.” 3. Yes, it sounds ever-so-benign today, but in 1975 (when the series debuted), Bonnie Franklin’s Ann Romano was only the second-ever divorced mother to feature on a TV sitcom. ![]() Lear, who was known for pushing the TV envelope on such series as All in the Family and Maude, agreed that a divorcée with children might attract viewers who were in a similar situation but also press enough controversy buttons in Middle America to make another hit. Manings worked on the TV sitcom Good Times, so he had a direct pipeline to Norman Lear when he pitched Blake’s divorced single mom idea. Whitney Blake married TV producer Allan Manings in 1968. IT WAS ONLY THE SECOND SITCOM TO FEATURE A DIVORCED MOM. In her 2011 memoir, Meredith Baxter described her upbringing as unconventional-she and her siblings, for example, were forbidden to refer to their mother as “Mom” and were instructed to always address her as “Whitney”- but Blake decided that her devotion to her career while being a single mom was the perfect premise for a TV series. Blake was also the mother of three children-one of whom is actress Meredith Baxter-who left her husband after 10 years of marriage and worked several day jobs at age 26 while taking drama classes at night in an effort to achieve her long-time dream of becoming a professional actress. Whitney Blake was an actress probably best known for her role as Dorothy Baxter on the 1960s sitcom Hazel. ![]() Here are 10 surprising facts about the show that started it all. While this updated go-round tackles some current issues facing such families, such as diversity and equity, it seems like the perfect time to take a look back at the original series, which was groundbreaking for featuring such then-controversial topics as suicide, premarital sex, and teen pregnancy. ![]() Netflix is now producing its own version of the 1970s sitcom One Day a Time, featuring three generations of a Cuban-American family living together.
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