Renegade Women in Film and TV by Elizabeth Weitzman & Austen Claire Clements

Author:Elizabeth Weitzman & Austen Claire Clements
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale
Published: 2019-02-04T16:00:00+00:00

ACTOR | CREATOR | PRODUCER

4 EMMYS, 5 ADDITIONAL NOMINATIONS

MARLO THOMAS

B. 1937

It was boys who first inspired That Girl. The Boys, specifically: comics who hung out with Marlo Thomas’s actor-comedian dad, Danny. In addition to her own famous father, Thomas grew up watching Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, and George Burns delight in their careers.

She wanted that, too. But when Thomas became an actor herself, the offers were pretty disappointing: she was always expected to support the leading men. What if, she suggested to ABC executives, they flipped the script?

The network was highly dubious. In mid-1960s TV, the idea of a young woman living alone and making her way in the world seemed impossible.

But as soon as That Girl premiered in 1966, it was clear there were women across the country who related to Ann Marie, Thomas’s independent, aspiring actress. The show, which Thomas also produced, stayed on the air until 1971—by which time Mary Tyler Moore was pushing the concept even further. (In contrast to Moore’s Mary Richards, Ann was engaged, youthfully adorable, and forever getting into silly scrapes.)

The network intended to wrap their popular sitcom with a splashy wedding. But Thomas—who also produced the show—wanted to challenge the notion that marriage was every woman’s ultimate goal. Instead of walking down the aisle, Ann took her skeptical fiancé to a women’s liberation meeting.

Soon after the show ended, Thomas felt ready to rewrite the book on gender norms—literally. Thus was born the pop-culture phenomenon of Free to Be…You and Me. She and her celebrity cast taught their young audience that boys could play with dolls, and girls could climb trees. Mommies could be ranchers, while daddies could do dusting.

A dedicated feminist long before many were ready to embrace the word, Thomas went on to cofound the Ms. Foundation with Gloria Steinem and champion the Equal Rights Amendment.

And it felt exquisitely perfect when she turned up on Friends, playing mom to Jennifer Aniston’s Rachel Green: a woman whose fairy tale began when she escaped a wedding, looking for the freedom to define her own future.

“WE OPENED UP THE WINDOW FOR YOUNG WOMEN. YOU DID NOT HAVE TO BE THE WIFE OR THE DAUGHTER OF SOMEBODY, OR THE SECRETARY OF SOMEBODY, BUT YOU COULD BE THE SOMEBODY.”

MARLO THOMAS

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