It's a Living

"Life's not... the French Riviera!"

When the second season aired in 1981, it was titled "Making a Living". The title was changed back to "It's a Living" in 1985 for the third season. The second season episode reruns now have this title.

Filmed on the same stage at Sunset Gower studios as The Facts of Life and Silver Spoons

[quote]"It's a Living" starring Ann Jillian, Barrie Youngfellow, Gail Edwards and Crystal Bernard...

What am I? Chopped liver??

Loved this show

I really liked this show too. I especially liked the sleezy piano player. He was really funny in that role.

This show reminds me of other languid syndicated Sunday twilight shows "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" and 'At the Movies with Siskel and Ebert"

The theme song was the best part. The show wasn't good. Though it's interesting to watch some of the episodes they basically remade on The Golden Girls when the It's a Living writers took over TGG for the final three seasons, which just to show how strong the TGG characters were and how comparatively weak the It's a Living characters were. "The Case of the Libertine Belle" is one of the funniest Golden Girls episode; IAL's "Farewell My Sonny" shares the same writer and the same basic plot--a murder mystery dinner that starts with the characters playing out a murder with multiple killers, which turns into a "real" murder that one of the regulars is accused of, that then turns out to be fake as well--and several of the same lines. But the It's a Living characters just aren't strong or funny enough to make the episode work.

Opening theme for all six seasons, including the "Making a Living" second season intro at 1:00

A few months ago, it was playing on one of the cozi or metv stations, but seems to have disappeared. I couldn't find it the other night.

For some reason I loved Dot! And nobody is better than Marian Mercer as Nancy Beebe. She was brilliant.

I’m loving how they stereotype Sheryl Lee Ralph into the only one of the girls using a pay phone. Like she couldn’t have afforded a proper cellphone at the time.

This show made going to restaurants as an adult seem sexy

R12, The season 3 opener had Ann Jillian using the pay phone at the end. They all used that pay phone since that was the only phone they were allowed to used during their breaks.

Vaguely remember this show- they were waitresses at a restaurant in LA? But also kind of whores?

[quote]But also kind of whores?

Especially Cassie!

The opening credits alone contain multitudes. There’s an “and” and then several more—diluting the whole point—before multi-platform star…Barry Youngfellow…receives top billing. Hello?

This show also taught me how glamorous spiral staircases are.

R15, it’s slowly revealed throughout the series that Mercer’s character killed their parents and trafficked them as children to be waitresses/sex workers/spies/operatives to help her maintain her control of the LA food scene. The series finale is Jillian and Sullivan’s characters, by then primetime’s first cia lesbian/transfemme lesbian couples, murdering Mercer’s character and blowing up the restaurant.

[quote]I’m loving how they stereotype Sheryl Lee Ralph into the only one of the girls using a pay phone. Like she couldn’t have afforded a proper cellphone at the time.

There were actual cellphones in the 1980s? Perhaps you are mistaking cordless phones with cell phones.

According to Google: "Motorola released the first “mobile phone” in 1973 but it wasn't until 1983 that the company's first proper mobile phone hit markets."

"Cell phones became popular during the cellular revolution that started in the 90s. In 1990, the number of mobile users was around 11 million, and by 2020, that number had risen to a whopping 2.5 billion."

One assumes even if mobile phones were available when this series was filmed, a waitress sure couldn't afford one.

Cassie charged $20 for head.

Dot...$10

Maggie....$5

Prices are NOT negotiable!

Jan was the worse of the main characters a completely smug and unlikeable bitch.

The funniest scene was in one of the worse episodes of the entire series starting at 14:05 in this link . It makes me laugh every single time I watch it. Crystal Bernard was really great.

Barrie Youngfellow is the most masculine name for a woman ever

A terrible show.

Marian Mercer was such a great talent.

Who would have guessed that Wendy Schaal would have had such a long-lasting career?

I watched this every week with my grandmother, but danged if I can remember a single moment of it. Just Ann Jillian's hair and the set is all I can recall.

As a gayling, I tried to duplicate the Barrie Youngfellow pivot. She fascinated me.

Barrie Youngfellow is a DL icon

For a lot of people, life IS the French Riviera and a charity ball

I woke up with this theme song in my head and thought about Ann and Barrie for a second before finally getting up.

Crystal Bernard is an under-the-radar lesbian

I always thought Louise Lasser was an odd choice for this show.

This was in heavy rotation on LOGO a year or so ago and tried watching but it’s not that good. As a kid I loved the theme song and thought it seemed so glamorous to work at a restaurant at the top of a skyscraper. I made it through the Ann Jillian seasons but didn’t get past the first year with Sheryl Lee Ralph.

I still cat h it occasionally Antennae I think idk. Anyway I feel like I heard the name Ann Jillian a lot in the 89s and she seemed like a big deal but I'm not sure I ever knew who she was then.

In the 80s your average person didn't have a cell phone.

Hated it!

Damn, it was on for 9 years? I must have been to busy out partying to notice it. I vaguely remember the opening.

Does everyone remember watching this early Sunday evenings?

Ann Jillian got all the good dick in Hollywood in the 70s and 80s when the men didn't look like hairless automatons with weird bloated filler face and eyebrows like Greta Garbo

r22, I'd never seen that one, but it's mentioned in the Golden Girls Forever book as one of the ones they redid on TGG--as "Dateline: Miami" (though they ultimately made it about more than just jerks to dates in general).

Another that was redone, from Whedon again. When the cast of a grade school musical production (of Red Riding Hood) comes down with chicken pox, the regular cast steps into the roles.

Also, a dream-sequence episode, complete with guest appearance by Lyle Waggoner.

Was Susan Sullivan fired, or did she leave to join Falcon Crest?

r44, she was fired. I found an interview with her from the Boston Globe, December 27, 1983. The relevant quotes:

"I was on the series It's A Living' and they replaced me with Louise Lasser. I accepted that. Actually, it was not a part I particularly wanted to do. But on another level, I was not ready to be replaced. I was fired. And, once again, I was devastated."

R44 Her character was pretty useless and too similar to the Jan character.

Reading some other articles (if you have access to ProQuest) from around that time, she was pretty matter-of-fact about being reluctant to sign on to the show in the first place. She turned it down three times, and there's a lot of talk about how "sexually exploitative" the show was considered at the time (granted, the skimpy uniforms they wore in the first few episodes were ridiculous) and how they rewrote it so it was just sex jokes before she signed on. She's honest, but diplomatic and doesn't outright bad-mouth the show (in one of the articles she compares it to Taxi in that it's a workplace sitcom).

But it worked out. The original Chase and Maggie from Falcon Crest also needed to be replaced, so Sullivan was freed just in time, and it worked out. At least until they gave her that terrible death on that show.

Oops, that should be "they rewrote it so it was MORE THAN just sex jokes before she signed on."

I've been to the Bonaventure hotel a few times for meetings (no I'm not a whore) and it's like taking a time warp back to the 70s - very dated. It's not in a great part of LA either. There's not much there.

Were Witt/Thomas/Harris involved with the "9 to 5" film? It seems the film and their shows used several of the same character actors like Marian Mercer and Peggy Pope. I'm sure there were others.

Renaissance Center in Detroit inspired the very similar looking Bonaventure Hotel in LA and had the same architect designer

Antenna TV shows a Carson episode that guests both Susan Sullivan and Sheryl Lee Ralph. But there's no mention of Sullivan ever having done IAL, despite Sheryl talking about how she can do the show three weeks out of the month and use the last week for guest shots on LA Law.

The costumes changed after Ann Jillian's double mastectomy (excuse me, "top surgery").

Ann as Cassie, the brassy one.

Surely the only theme song that rhymed "show biz" with "BUTTHEMAINTHINGISUPPOSEIS"!

Yes, Susan Sullivan was trotted out as the main publicity hook for the show (since she was the only actress who was truly known).

And all the articles around the debut were Susan saying she turned down the show three times, didn't want to play a waitress, hated the costumes, and was Julie Farr, MD just two years ago, so what did this mean for her career?

Then she was "shocked and devastated" when the producers canned her. Whatever, Susan!

But the Falcon Crest producers saw she could hit some cunt notes, so they snapped her up.

The best thing about this show was the piano player. The theme song is truly terrible.

The Barrie Youngfellow pivot is iconic. Susan stole it for her Falcon Crest opening shot.

It's a Living killed Soap, and Witt-Thomas (-Harris) cannibalized themselves..

ABC gave Soap's time slot behind Barney Miller to IAL and sent Soap to Wednesdays, where it came in third against Facts of Life and was yanked midseason.

How did Jillian deal with that fried blond mop of her's?

She was much cuter with her natural red do in Mr. Mom.

There werent cell phones per say in the eighties

R58, Hmpph! I perfected the pivot.

Perfection!

R49 Did you enter arm in arm with your colleagues and have a chat and laugh in the lift?

R62 A true inspiration for Tyra Banks and her “models”.

Who was the biggest star of the show?

[quote](since she was the only actress who was truly known).

Ann Jillian was also very well known from Broadway and as a child star. Her Twilight Zone episode "The Mute" Ilse Ilse was classic.

And Barrie Youngfellow was on every other ABC being forced upon viewers.

[quote]I always thought Louise Lasser was an odd choice for this show.

She was hysterical in the show, her season was easily the best.

Susan Sullivan and Wendy Schaal's characters were redundant so they were written out.

The costumes actually changed midway through the first season, after reviewers like the show but hated the "jiggle" aspect of it. So they alternated the skimpy costumes with the other ones and gave the waitresses lines like

Lois) First these uniforms, now you're weighing us? If this wasn't the best paying waitress job in the city, I wouldn't stand for it.

Nancy) But it is, so you will.

Did Ann Jillian get fired?

The IAL's theme song would have been DL perfection had they used the same singers as in this snappy number. Amirite?

R69 she got fat.

[quote] she got fat.

The ultimate SIN

Worse than murder, rape and abortion combined.

Jillian looks like a cross between Michelle Phillips and Debbie Harry with a dash of Celia Weston.

Ann Jillian only agreed to do one syndicated season because she was still recovering from Breast cancer and didn't want to deal with the grind of a weekly show.

And who can forget Ann Jillian as Mae West?

When LL and Marian Mercer were both on 'Mary Hartman', LL was the star. Then, several years later, MM was the star. I wonder if there was bad blood.

[quote]The best thing about this show was the piano player.

Sonny creeped me out, but I was too young to really get that he was just playing the sleazy piano player trope. Bert Remsen also creeped me out, and he still does.

Paul Kreppel seems to be having a bit of a comeback, he's been in a couple things this year including The Bitch Who Stole Christmas.

Paul Kreppel and Barrie Youngfellow's husband Sam Freed were apart of a group called The Proposition which also included Jane Curtin.

Sam and Jane worked together on Kate and Allie while Barrie was in LA working on It's a Living.

Still don’t get how BY got final billing in the credits. Who the fuck was she?

R79 BY was good at BJ.

I remember first learning about titty cancer from Ann Jillian. It seemed so traumatic for both her and I! Surely she’s been able to get sum okay replacements by now? The bitch has lived, so her treatment a success…

[quote]Ann Jillian was also very well known from Broadway and as a child star. Her Twilight Zone episode "The Mute" Ilse Ilse was classic.

R67, she didn't compare to Susan Sullivan, who was on Another World for five years, then Rich Man Poor Man Book II, then had been nominated for a Best Actress Emmy for Julie Farr, MD.

Ann had made a splash in Sugar Babies on Bway the year before (then Ann Miller had her part reduced), but she wasn't nearly as well known as Susan. Most Middle Americans didn't know dick about Broadway.

[quote]Surely she’s been able to get sum okay replacements by now?

Ann said she didn't get her cancertits replaced—she's been stuffing for 30 years.

[quote]When LL and Marian Mercer were both on 'Mary Hartman', LL was the star. Then, several years later, MM was the star. I wonder if there was bad blood.

Louise Lasser was brought on as the new star of IAL, to what passed for fanfare in a very dismal TV era.

Marian Mercer was strictly supporting for the entire run of the show.

Lasser was hilarious in this. She brought the weaker actresses ... not up to her level, but closer. Except for Barrie Youngfellow; there was no rope strong enough to pull up that no-talent.

She got the only applause after a line of dialogue I remember in the show. It was in this very funny episode.

R39 I remember watching the first season on ABC on Fri nights. I think it moved to Sunday in syndication?

Ann Jillian was named by Walt Disney.

The older I get the more I realize I didn't watch as much TV growing up as I once thought ...

Was this show in the same universe as "Angie"?

r89, no. Angie was from the Garry Marshall factory. It's a Living was from the Witt-Thomas(-Harris) factory.

Donna Pescow as Angie was playing against type.

"Why don't you come on up and see me sometime...."

R16 Jillian does look more whorish in this early pic.

R93 Then she gained 30 pounds, and was still playing the vixen.

r94

And that is minus the weight of two breasts.

r93

She really is playing the whore here, with the "fake" Mr B.

R90 it was actually the Garry Marshall/Miller/Boyett factory

So Angie might be in the same universe as Full House

"Seminal?"

RIP Barrie Youngfellow

Susan Sullivan has been a regular on countless tv shows, she must be quite wealthy. I remember her from Another World.

I vaguely remember it, and when I watched it, it was for Marian Mercer.

Barrie Youngfellow passed away last week in upstate NY.

RIP Barrie

she really gave early Ellen vibes in IAL🤔

Asking as a Millennial who’s never seen or heard of this show before—why were these women dressed in what look like meidokissa/maid-café fetish outfits, for their work in 1980s America?

Maybe the maid-café fetish outfits were inspired by It's a Living, R104!

In real life, all the straight guys would request to sit in Ann Jillian's section, especially during the busy lunchtime rush, and the others would resent her for it

Wait, R106, was It's a Living a reality show?

Susan Sullivan was fired after the first season. In a spiteful move, she ripped off Barrie's "and" credit and pivot" on Falcon Crest.

There’re a lot of rumors that Barry died a while back and to keep the public tumult to a minimum her team carefully the planned the announcement.

Are any other DLers going to see her body when she lays in state in NYC and LA?

Has Wendy Schaal or Gail Edwards issued a statement yet?

Before Faye Dunaway or Jessica Lange, Barrie Youngfellow was the first actress to portray Joan Crawford. She played La Crawford in "Moviola: The Scarlett O'Hara Wars", a 1980 TV-movie.

The demise of the show revolved around misogyny in Hollywood. They were on a show that became a hit and their reps asked for more money after the first season (which was standard) and the producers called their bluff and recast the show with new waitresses. Barrie Youngfellow didn't ask for more money so she rose to the top as the "lead" actress in season 2. Originally, the show was built around Ann Jillian as the lead. Her Reps' demands ruined her career. (This was the same era as Susanne Sommers demanding equal pay as John Ritter-- which got her fired!)

It was weird that just four years after the demise of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (where she played a slim and relatively youthful mother of a ten-year-old), Louise Lasser showed up on IAL as a middle-aged widow with grown children.

She was good on the show, though! Although she did not fit in at all; they made the right decision to dump her for the syndicated years.

R112 That's not exactly true about Somers, that's the story as she wanted to present it. She not only wanted a raise, but a 10% ownership of the shows profits, which not even Ritter or other top male stars got at that time. She deserved a raise (as did DeWitt) but she got greedy. She also faked illness and no showed a few episodes which forced them to re-write those particular episodes.

r112 seems to be confused. The show wasn't a hit and wasn't originally built around Ann Jillian. In the first season it was built around Susan Sullivan, it didn't do well in the ratings, ABC pulled it after 11 episodes and burned off two more over the summer. (If anyone or their reps had asked for a raise after that, they would have been insane.) ABC retooled it before bringing it back for a second season, this time with Lasser in the lead (so...one new waitress), it did no better--was pulled again after 12 episodes, with two more burned off over the summer.

When they brought it back for a third season, Jillian rose to the lead, because by then she'd already been the star of her own sitcom--the short-lived Jennifer Slept Here. It did become a hit in syndication, but a syndicated hit was still less prestigious than a network hit. The idea that she left to continue treatments for her cancer, as the story goes, (or the idea that she wanted to get on a network show) seems much more believable than the idea that she would expect any kind of payday for IAL.

It was season 4 when Youngfellow rose to the top (and they brought in a single waitress, Ralph, to replace Jillian, not "new waitresses.)

This should be rebooted with Parker Posey, Molly Shannon, Jennifer Coolidge, Holland Taylor, Miriam Shor and Leslie Jordan

[quote]In real life, all the straight guys would request to sit in Ann Jillian's section, especially during the busy lunchtime rush

The restaurant wasn't open for lunch. They would come in and work like 2pm - 11pm

[quote]It was season 4 when Youngfellow rose to the top

If by "rose" you mean "backstabbed and connived" her way to the top, then yes.

And Marian Mercer and Paul Kreppel were the only funny ones. Gail Edwards could once a season pull of a laugh. And Ralph what's-her-face was just awful. She ruined "Designing Women" as well.

R116, any reboot today would need at least two black people. Probably the Mercer and Kreppel parts.

r118, no, I meant the words that I actually wrote. Speak for yourself, thanks.

Barrie Youngfellow was basically Joyce DeWitt but with red hair and a better rack.

r120

Then you don't know what you're talking about

Niecy Nash would be great for the reboot

I am watching REW TV channel and they’re showing this.

I didn’t know Sheryl Lee Ralph was on it.

R89 no it was in the same universe as Nakatomi Plaza.

I liked Cassie Cranston (Ann Jillian) but her hairstyle always put me off.

I loved that the restaurant was called “At The Top”. The real LA Prime rotates.

[quote]And Marian Mercer and Paul Kreppel were the only funny ones. Gail Edwards could once a season pull of a laugh. And Ralph what's-her-face was just awful. She ruined "Designing Women" as well.

You mean EMMY WINNER (for "Abbott Elementary" Sheryl Lee Ralph?

[quote]This should be rebooted with Parker Posey, Molly Shannon, Jennifer Coolidge, Holland Taylor, Miriam Shor and Leslie Jordan

There's an idea that didn't age well.

[quote]Susanne Sommers

Wow. Two words and you misspelled both of them. Brava!

After watching Its A Living I’ll watch Benson.

[quote] I’m loving how they stereotype Sheryl Lee Ralph into the only one of the girls using a pay phone. Like she couldn’t have afforded a proper cellphone at the time.

The cell phones at the time were practically non-existent. only the wealthiest people could afford them then. None of the people who worked at the restaurant could have afforded a cellphone.

Try to be less of a presentist and realize the whole world was not exactly like it is in your teeny-tiny little universe is now throughout history,

I’m a fan of a seminal discharge. This show…meh.

Did Sheryl Lee trash this cast too?

Was that ultra-bleached blonde fried hair popular at the time?

[Quote] I am watching REW TV channel and they’re showing this.

I misread this as "and they're showing tits."

Ann Jillian had brown hair in Mr. Mom

Why would any young woman agree to that mumsy 'do?

Seasons 1, 3 and 4 now on FreeVee