Written Interview: Stephen J. Cannell

In honor of Stephen J. Cannell, veteran TV writer, producer, screenwriter, and novelist, who died yesterday, I am featuring interviews with him today and tomorrow. Cannell’s TV credits span from episodes of Ironside in 1971 to Silk Stalkings in 1999. He produced, created, or co-created 43 TV shows and wrote over 350 episodes. Here are a few excerpts from an interview conducted with Cannell back in 1998 with WritersWrite.com:

What was your first big break?

Five years I did this. And I wrote all day on Saturday and a half day on Sunday. I mean I was really committed to it. It was so much more important to me than my job. After five years I finally got an agent. Her name was Polly Conell, and I still had never really been able to succeed by getting in to meet anybody or selling anything to anybody, but she believed in me. Then I finally sold an episode of It Takes a Thief at Universal starring Robert Wagner. I wrote the script, but it was never shot because before they could make that movie the producers of the show were fired, and a new producer came in and threw out all the material the old producers had been developing. But at least I made $7,000 for that screenplay, which is about what I was making driving the furniture truck. So, I thought I’m just going to quit the job with my Dad; this is a year’s worth of being able to be a writer full time. So I did. I love my Dad — he’s my best friend — and he didn’t quite understand why I was doing it, but he did support me. And my wife supported me and let me quit this family business that I would have inherited to take this flyer on being a writer. So for a year, I wrote every day for eight hours a day, Saturday and Sunday included. And I started to sell. I got two Ironsides and then an Adam 12. When I wrote the Adam 12, I was given the assignment on a Thursday night and the producer called me and he said, “The network threw out our last script of the season and we don’t have a show and we have to start prepping on Monday morning. I need it over the weekend — can you do it?” And I said, “Absolutely!” There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that I could do it because for five or six years I had been writing for about five hours a day. I knew I could blow out a fifteen or twenty-five page script in two days, without a problem. The producer was a friend of mine I’d met at a party. But I’d never hit him up for a job. I was very careful about not using my friendships. I would let people know I was a writer and could use the work, but I wasn’t one of those guys who was all over him about a job. I think that style really paid off for me because he called and it was a great break.

What kept you going during all those years?

The love of doing it. I just loved it. When I was writing stuff that I liked it just felt so good. I would read it over and think, “God this is really good — I really did this.” And then sometimes I would write stuff that wasn’t very good — I’m very tough on my material — and I would read it again and say, “God, I missed this — it’s just horrible.” And I would try to figure out how to fix it and not to make the mistake again. I was self-taught, but I also was using a lot of rules that I developed myself for plotting and for character construction. When I’d come across something that was valid I would make sure that I never forgot it. It just was for me such an exciting thing, and still, I do it strictly for fun.

Note the incredible passion Cannell had for writing. How else could he sustain his degree of perseverance and professionalism in getting the job done, time and time again.

For more of the interview, go here.

Comment Archive