Murder, She Wrote gossip

When Wayne Bennett opened a hot new fitness club in Cabot Cove in 1990, all the local ladies bought into the idea of "personal training" with the man in charge. Little did they know, Jessica's nephew Grady was servicing Wayne through a back alley gloryhole.

Grady was a loathsome, irritating dweeb.

Forget Windom and Bosley. Enquiring minds want to know what happened to Jessica's best bud (fuck bud?) Captain Ethan Cragg, as played by Claude Akins. Did Jessica quietly dispose of him? Did he flee Cabot Cove when she got too serious?

Ethan Cragg drank himself to death behind Hill House after a bender with Amos Tupper's bipolar brother-in-law.

I'm in love with William Windom and his gruff, bulbous bod.

Eve Simpson was no frump! And I'm the dude to prove it!

I wouldn't mind tapping that nice, young deputy... I hear he's hung.

I love William Windom's mid-Atlantic voice.

Jessica really killed them all and was just good at pointing her finger.

WHY was Amos Tuppah from KY!! Also WHY did Jessica have no lovahs

Of course Jessica had lovers -she was just old-school discreet about it. Truth be told, she had a thing for cops, and seduced every one she came across. In fact, she later took to murdering people herself, just to satisfy her lustful urges toward men (and women) with badges. But she never slept with Amos Tupper. No one knows why.

"Grady was a loathsome, irritating dweeb."

But he was hung like the proverbial horse. 14 inches, I swear to god!

Grady was sweet! He and his wife were more memorable than Jessica's niece - the one married to cross dresser Howard - I can't even remember her name.

r13, wow--I don't think I've ever come across someone else who didn't hate Grady either! (I didn't hate Donna, but did think she was annoying.)

I recall reading somewhere that Angela had the Ethan character replaced because she found him coarse and unappealing and didn't understand why Jessica would hang around him. So they replaced him with Seth, who was a more intelligent character (or at least more educated, since he was obviously a doctor). It was part of the disagreement between her and the creator, who initially pictured Jessica as more of a folksy, small-town type (whose best friend would be a fisherman) while Angela wanted her to be a bit more sophisticated. So I always imagine that (in universe) Jessica just outgrew Ethan. Or else he died in a fishing accident.

It's kind of like how, when Peter Fischer left and she took more control behind-the-scenes in season 8, she had Will Nye as Deputy Floyd (a pretty broad character) replaced with Louis Herthum as Deputy Andy.

Interesting. I read that Claude Akins quit because he had thought he'd be more at the center of the show (did he not notice that the show wasn't titled "Murder, They Wrote"?).

I love Angela Lansbury as a performer, but I also think her continual push to make Jessica more sophisticated and eventually to leave Cabot Cove for NYC negatively impacted the show. I enjoyed the original folksiness and all of the town characters. It was unique among detective shows at the time and in my opinion, it was a mistake to gradually move away from that.

Some of the New York scenes were great, and Jessica hanging out in rarefied circles gave her the opportunity to solve murders where folksy Jessica would never have got a look-in. However, I do prefer the atmosphere of the Cabot Cove episodes and the locals.

R14, yes, I agree - Donna was a bit irritating, but I did like her and Grady as couple.

I was looking for the article with her comment about Ethan (or the interview where someone said that). Instead came across this fun article from 1987 about the making of "Night of the Headless Horseman." This part is fun:

"Lansbury keeps a sensible distance from all of this. She is cordial to everyone on the set, but most days she has lunch in her trailer with her husband, former talent agent Peter Shaw. During breaks, she retreats there to read or make telephone calls. She is not aloof so much as she is, well, English. After lunch on location one day, she settles into a camp chair and chats about marriage, children, and the plight of modern women with Lange, whom she considers an old friend. It is intimate, intelligent talk. When Lansbury is there, she is all there."

Found it! It's from this NYT article from 1984. Angela really hated the Ethan character.

"The weekly arguments between Mr. Fischer and Miss Lansbury come because she wants to expand the character. When the series began, Jessica Fletcher was a substitute schoolteacher riding her bicycle in Cabot Cove, Me., who had written one detective novel. Now, as the famous author of a half-dozen best-sellers, 'She must avoid at all costs being sophisticated or jaded or superior,' says Mr. Fischer.

'She must consort with people of a certain intellectual level,' says Miss Lansbury, who fought 'tooth and nail' against Jessica's relationship with the owner of a Cabot Cove fishing boat who also served as her handyman, a recurring character last season. 'There's something wrong with Jessica if she enjoys spending more than 15 minutes a week with that man,' says Miss Lansbury.

The character has been dropped and replaced by a doctor (played by William Windom) with whom Jessica plays chess. Miss Lansbury has also 'fought and won a battle' against the network, which wanted to supply her with a sidekick. 'The whole basis of the show is that Jessica is a middle-aged woman alone,' says Miss Lansbury, 'and the network wanted to have a character joined at the hip who drove a car for me.' She has also resisted a serious romance, though, for a while last season, it seemed as though a different murderer was falling in love with her every week. 'I said no to those slight romantic liaisons. It makes her seem as though she has round heels,' says Miss Lansbury, using a British expression that describes a woman who tumbles quickly into bed."

***Sorry--1985.

Thanks to R18 and R19 for the real-deal gossip! I side with Lansbury on this one. She's an intelligent woman who, thanks to her writing, finds herself in the more moneyed classes. Why would she stay in small-town Maine all the time? Of course she would travel -visit old friends and see the world. And the more cosmopolitan she becomes, the more attractive city life can be. I think she achieved a great compromise. She was neither a snob nor a rube. She could fit in with anyone, anywhere, and maintain a gracious, polite, open, and friendly persona. She kept her roots and values while enlarging her wardrobe. For me, one of the show's strengths was that Jessica was allowed to grow older and mature -and remain single and independent. Thank god they didn't throw a dumb sidekick at her!

Writing whodunits may be a nice way to make a living, but they do not mean entry into literary circles...certainly not membership at the Mortimer Club.

No one could chew a piece of bacon more hammily than William Windom on "Murder She Wrote."

Donna was basically an off-brand Georgette from the Mary Tyler Moore Show. I didn't mind Grady or Donna, and am always surprised most MSW fans have such hostility toward them. To be fair, I cannot abide Len Cariou's IRA character and his terrible 'brogue.' And all I can think of when I see Seth is the strain he must put on the plumbing after dinner at Jess' house, because you just know he TORE that bathroom up!

Maybe she became sophisticated enough to succeed in NYC. But I liked Jessica best when she stayed her ass in Cabbot Cove. Going to the Big City just made the show appear too close to the likes of Hotel or Love Boat. Stories in Cabbot Cove had a uniqueness that only MSW could tell.

Wasn't MSW originally supposed to be a Jean Stapleton vehicle? I could say a Stapleton as a more folksy, less sophisticated Jessica. I would imagine Lansbury attempting to shape the character more in line with where she was comfortable as an actor. Add to that, it's one thing to play a character for a short period of time, but I think as an actor you need to like the character you're playing when you're doing it for 11 years.

She never had any specific conflict with anyone but she grew in confidence to tell the writers of they put something in that Jessica wouldn't do. I don't think she had the Ethan character replaced. She got along well with Windom and Bosley.

While I agree that the later seasons weren't as good Angela was just trying to move with the times. There was no fewer Cabot Cove episodes in the later seasons than the first, they just became more modern.

There was one actress she got annoyed with as she was giving an awful performance and giving away the fact she was the killer

R27, that was Priscilla Barnes...and I can tell you right now, Suzanne Somers would NEVER have given away that she was the killer...that woman can lie like nobody's business

R28 thanks!

r27, she's quoted in the New York Times at r19 saying she hated the character and 'fought tooth and nail' against her character being involved with him. But you don't think she had him replaced? What other way is there to read that?

[quote]Grady was a loathsome, irritating dweeb

And a child molester

On the other hand, Cabot Cove must have had the highest mortality rate of any small town in the country. People were being killed off right and left in the most outlandish ways in that old-fashioned, cozy New England fishing town.

Also, Jessica Fletcher had so many nieces and nephews and college friends, etc. who were inviting her places and ALWAYS, ALWAYS somebody was knocked off. I mean eventually you would just think - "Don't invite Aunt Jessica - we don't want a murder on our hands - it just FOLLOWS HER AROUND". She was like the kiss of death.

Having Jessica move to NYC made sense for her to be encountering so many homicides.

Some details for r32.

Was there an episode where Jessica outright states, 'I was barren' or 'Frank shot blanks'. They should have written the character to have had adult children, they wouldn't have had to appear on the regular, but it would have saved the writers a lot of time and not pushed suspension of disbelief so far in terms of all the family members.

To me, it made sense to give Cabot Cove a short break now and then from people getting murdered there. IMO it kept the show "fresh" by giving Jessica new places to solve murders.

r34, and they could have been played by different actors every time they appeared, a la the "Vacation" movies or "The Golden Girls."