This a true story about a talented man named David Sheehan, how he led his life and how he changed mine. But we've got to first have the lay of the land.
After getting a job right out of college as an on-air director at a small UHF station, WKID-TV, in Pembroke, Florida, run as a tax loss by a Florida bank, and being the last vestige of 1950s style television broadcasting in America with daily back-to-back live programming that included locally produced variety shows, talk shows, and live rip-and-read news (and those are other stories for another time), I had the audacity to think that a couple of years in that TV station would provide everything I needed to become instantly successful in Hollywood, California. Many others have had the same plan, seeking fortune there, young and full of piss and vinegar.
I left Florida in an a burnt orange Dodge B-200 van who's interior I built from scratch, replete with paneled insulated walls, electricity, CB radio, a bed, a closet, and storage. Accompanying me on the months long trek through dozens of states was a lovely lady named Laurie Freitag. We both worked at the station, Laurie on camera, and me in her headset, barking out camera directions from the control room, and we established a relationship there. We lived together on and off for a time and she is now a close friend and confidant, godmother to my son and very much part of the family. She is also, at present, an internationally known, multiple award-winning photographer.
You should check out her work.
Knowing absolutely nobody in the Hollywood production business, I couldn't get arrested, as the saying goes. Well I actually did get arrested but, again, that's entirely another story.
Within a few months of arriving in Los Angeles and finding an apartment in Canoga Park, with Laurie, I wound up selling and renting video equipment for a company named Video International. Laurie got a job at KHJ- TV in the graphics department and worked there for many years. I called her at the station one evening when there was a movie playing, and asked her, "If you love me, shake the film chain on the air." She did. I was watching the movie and suddenly there was an apparent earthquake that was only felt at the KHJ graphics department that night.
Eventually, working at a larger more professional broadcast sales company, Video Systems Network, I demonstrated an editing system to a gentleman named David Sheehan, a local on-air movie reviewer turned celebrity. David, an accomplished writer, producer and on-air personality, passed away the last month of the year 2020, at the age of 82.
After being impressed by how I demonstrated the editing system, David offered me a job as an editor. This, after 5 years of trying, was my big break into the Biz. Persistence, luck.
At the time, I never really thought of editing as my career choice. Like many who enter Hollywood with dreams, I wanted to be a Guild director, which I eventually became, and I'm still a member in good standing of the director's Guild of America, albeit retired. It wasn't a quest for fame and fortune. It was simply what I wanted to do, and this was the obvious place to do it, at the time.
David's house was off of Mulholland drive atop Hollywood. His long driveway went down the west side of the mountain, passed his house, the pool house, and finally to what used to be a large garage, now an editing bay, with the editing system I sold him and a tape library. It was just a cuts-only system because we were just doing offline edits. We did our online assembly at Compact Video in Burbank.
David was producing and starring in two versions of the same cable TV show, one for On TV, "David Sheehan's Hollywood", and one for Showtime, "Showtime in Hollywood". The theme song for both was, what else, "Hooray for Hollywood", and that specific musical phrase was always used for between segment bumpers.
His very smart, capable and talented show runner was a producer/director/writer named Susan Haymer, whom I later worked with at Entertainment Tonight and who I still value as a dear friend.
David did all his on-camera standups aside his large swimming pool, because from where the pool was, the property to the side of the garage extended to a sloped hill where he erected an ersatz Hollywood sign which would shine over his shoulder during his standups. He would appear to be doing a standup just under the actual, famous Hollywood sign without having to leave his property. Brilliant.
He very much enjoyed editing with me and I, with him.
To a point.
David could be a bully. He used his height and strong build, his charisma, and an announcer's voice effectively, and was used to getting his way. What he was not used to was sitting next to someone taking issue with his creative decisions and making suggestions. Traditionally, videotape editors were button pushers, unlike film editors. They did what they were told. They provided little or no creative input. They were there to technically put the show together.
But he soon learned that I had a lot to offer and was part of a new breed of creative videotape editors taking hold in Hollywood. Still, I was just his editor. An employee.
David quite literally taught me the fine art of editing. He had that learned instinct, which I learned from him, where you just knew exactly how many frames that needed to be trimmed or added, or what phrase of an interviewee's answer to use as an in or out point to make the piece perfect, and have an equally instinctual feel of what visual should come next, and how the transition should be accomplished. After a time we didn't even preview edits, they were just continuously made as we put the shows together, sometimes simultaneously pointing out what shot should come next that satisfied the narration, but sometimes having a spirited argument about what should come next. He was usually willing to discuss it and he usually maintained a good sense of humor about it. At least most of the time.
I would play back a section looking for a new in or out point. I would hit the endpoint keycap on the editing system at the same time his finger hit the desk. We became really attuned to each other and the material. Of course, the final decision was always his and I learned a lot from his rejections of my suggestions.
Now, the next part may seem disparaging but it's really not. This was the 1970s. Cocaine was rampant through Hollywood. Cheap and easy to get. The industry was awash in it. Still is.
David had a habit of drinking massive amounts of caffeinated coffee, while doing considerable amounts of cocaine. I was always allowed to walk into the main house, go to the kitchen and make myself a cup of coffee and walk it back to the edit bay. Sometimes the point was not drinking the coffee but just getting it and taking a break that way.
The vast majority of time, David and I sat in the edit room, totally straight but drinking lots of coffee, and we did a reasonably good job of putting together his shows. His scratch tracks of narration were actually his final voice-overs which we recorded right there in his garage studio. In the beginning, David was always there watching how I put his pre-selected B-roll in. Eventually, he would leave me alone as he developed trust in my judgment. That didn't mean he didn't correct me later on, but I would say that 80% or more of my work was left intact. That was a huge compliment.
Another huge compliment was a letter from director and choreographer Bob Fosse writing to David how impressed he was with the editing of a segment about him that we did and where I was given a lot of leeway to re-edit some of Fosse's recent movie. David brought the letter back and gave it to me because he knew I worked very hard on essentially re-editing and pulling up parts of "All That Jazz" which we inserted into the piece. We had actually wondered how Fosse was going to react to what we did with his own editing. We just had to pull stuff up for time and keep the same intended flow. Letter in hand, I was strutting like a peacock for a bit and it was a high point in my career.
This brings me to the object of this story. I have many, many stories regarding David, but some involve some other good people I have known, and respect, and should not be let loose in the wild. Buy me lunch and I'll might tell you some others.
David worked like we were always under pressure. Time pressure, creative pressure, and just random pressure. David tended to leave everything to the last minute. There was always lots to do, except when David disappeared, which he would, frequently, talking to people on the phone or meeting with them at his desk in the office that was part of the pool house. Yes there was a pool and yes we were allowed to swim in it to cool off on hot California days. I don't remember having an air conditioner in the edit bay. Often, I was working while there was a party going on in the backyard around the pool, and David always encouraged me to come take a break and join the fun for a bit. For a bit.
A few years in, David decided to make a pilot for a new show called "Fast Lane Living". He traveled to Europe, rented a convertible sports car, had a crew follow him, and was doing stories about the lives of the rich and famous and how to be flashy and how to spend lots of money. He was having the time of his life.
He brought back lots of tapes and had a vague concept of what to do with them. But being the creative, stream-of-consciousness type he was, he wrote most of the script on the fly and we proceeded to create a pilot. My apologies to Susan Haymer as I do not know how involved she was with the script, but know that she was and is capable of writing just about anything.
David was very, very nervous about this pilot. He really wanted to get a series on the air. His nervousness was an impediment to the process. He was always in a hurry. And he was doing a lot of coffee and a lot of cocaine.
One day we're in the edit bay putting a segment together and things took a turn for the worse. I began recording one of his voiceovers, which I did directly on the 3/4-inch offline master cassette tape. There was no backup, and the majority of the time, there was no separate voice-over reel. We just recorded it right on the offline edited master. Always very, very carefully. We recorded a lengthy one, the kind that needed to be done in one take. I checked it to make sure it was good and then we were ready for the next voice-over. I set up an inpoint for the next voiceover and said we were ready to go. I pressed record. The pre-roll was 5 seconds so David got to hear the tail end of the previous voiceover or other audio and thereby needed no cue from me on when to start the next line.
That's where it all fell apart.
I upcut his previous voiceover by a few frames, making it useless. Never did that before. It was an accident. Under any other conditions, I would profusely apologize, and/or I would have had the voice-over saved on another tape, and could fix the error so he didn't have to re-record the entire thing. The way we worked, there was no way I could fix what I did. Even though this never happened before with David, he became livid. You did not want to do it twice if it was great the first time and he loathed pickups. He would rather just do one good take. He took each voice over very seriously.
He rose sharply from his seat, ripped his headset off and smashed it on the editing controller board and started screaming. Several keycaps went flying. One hit me just above my right eye. He was really pissed, and his face turned red. He was out of control. Looking back, I have a feeling there were other events happening, unknown to me, that affected his disposition.
Now I'M angry! How dare he! This is b*******. Certainly, getting blinded by a foreign object is not part of the videotape editing process.
I was obviously pretty upset. Was not happy about being hit with that keycap close to my eye. At that point we were both standing, facing each other and screaming at each other. We were about the same height and strong build, but I knew he could take me if he wanted to, as he was more athletic than I.
I composed myself and told him to f****** never do that again. I'm out of here. Left the edit Bay, got in my van and went home intending to never go back. Got home and the phone rang. It was David. He asked me when I was coming back (!).
I wasn't quite sure what to say. I wasn't prepared to go back, and that certainly didn't sound like an apology to me. It wasn't that I was scared of him, it was simply I did not want to work in that environment. He was now calm and measured. I told him he couldn't ever do that again. He sincerely apologized and promised as much. Not sure if I went back that day or if I came back the next day.
When I did return, I discovered there was an entirely new relationship between David and me. New respect. David was a bully and few people stood up to him. I strongly hate bullies, because I was a fat ugly little kid whose nickname was Blubbarino and was bullied as a youngster. That's why.
From that time on we had an entirely new relationship. We continued working together up until he began working on the Canadian production of Pippin, with Ben Vereen, William Katt, Chita Rivera, and Martha Raye.
Working with David all that time I had assumed that I was going to come up with him into Canada for the live tapings, and then come back to Hollywood and help to edit it all together. All the cameras were ISO'd a.k.a. isolated to their own videotape machine so the edited master could be fixed in case of switching errors or some such. I assumed I do the fixing. David had a different idea. David left without me. After 5 years working with him, I was very upset.
When he came back from Canada he gave me a call. Norm, come work on Pippin with me. I declined. I was upset. I told him I wasn't going to edit Pippin and that I was just angry that I was left out of the mix. After all, I had solid production experience. I was not just an editor. I wished him luck. We hung up. He called me again the next day. Come work on Pippin with me. I again declined. But David is a very persuasive person and was as tenacious as I am. It was embarrassing how nice he was being to me. He offered me a raise. He worked on me for about a week until I agreed to at least edit together his promotional material. I relented, came back, and worked on his promos.
The Pippin release party was at the Beverly Hills Hotel months later. I had already begun working at Entertainment Tonight. Bunnie and I got all dressed up to the nines and went to the party. I met and spoke with Martha Raye that night, and that was a thrill.
An Entertainment Tonight crew was actually covering the party, so Bunnie and I ironically became part of the B-roll.
David was his usual hyper-self. Don't know what chemicals were involved, if any. The audience settled down, the lights dimmed, a video player rolled and a projector lit up Pippin onto a portable screen. Soon after the program began, David pulled the plug on the feed. Some chaos ensued. There was something amiss and he couldn't stand it. I believe it was an audio problem and he perhaps wanted a much larger screen. He obviously wanted the picture and the sound to be perfect for the reviewers in the room that could make this or break this.
Folks are trying to calm him down which he eventually did and Pippin resumed on the screen.
I don't remember where David went at that point, but sometime afterwards, I took Bunnie's hand in mine, led her out of the room to a door leading out to the large grassy section behind the main building of the Beverly Hills Hotel, between it and the private cottages, drew a large heart in the soggy grass with my feet, brought her into the center, got down on one knee, and proposed. It was quite an eventful night.
Since I now worked for Entertainment Tonight, I no longer did anything with David except to call him from time to time and see how he was.
We put together quite a few shows for On TV and Showtime, as well as the pilot for Fast Lane Living, which to the best of my knowledge never saw the light of day.
Pippin was fairly well received because, well, Ben Vereen. I believe it remains as the last video production of the famous musical.
Adding to the profound effect that David had on my life, a lady who worked for him invited me to a small dinner party at her home with her and her husband. That was the night I was introduced to my wife, Marcie - a.k.a Bunnie - Hiltzik, formerly the youngest commercial agent in New York City, and then a talent manager based in Los Angeles. From that night, we were not apart for 8 months before we married. Now it's been almost 44 years.
We are all imperfect human beings. But we find a way to work with each other. We find a way to live with each other. We find a way through bad times. We can have our differences, but we must always remember what makes us good and what has made us better, and we must always forgive.
As I have done in person to him years ago, I say, again, thank you David. You were my mentor and a friend when I needed one, you changed every aspect of my life, and I could not have had a career without you. Stay resting, in peace. Your memory is a blessing to those you left behind.