Bonus Clip: Behind The Wicker Couch, Designing The Golden Girls Set [0:00-4:46]

Welcome to the Television Academy Foundations, the Interviews podcast. In a segment we're calling Golden Nuggets, we share bite-sized stories from the archive that didn't quite make it into a full episode. Before serving as Chairman and CEO of the Television Academy, production designer John Schaffner built a career creating some of television's most recognizable sets from the apartments of friends to the stages of star search. He got his start under legendary NBC designer Ed Stevenson, who shaped a generation of set designers. It was Stevenson, who handed him the script for a new show. That show turned out to be the Golden Girls. Here, he shares the story of designing the pilot and the decision behind the orange sofa that stayed with the show long after he left. John was interviewed by Steven J. Abramson in 2013. Of course, the years go by and I was working for Ed. Ed just recently passed away at a very ripe old age. But he was a major influence on how I looked at design because he would look at me and say, oh, John, that table just looks like spider legs to me. You got to bring it in. It's going to be on TV. Give it something. Muscle. We got to see some muscle out there. But Ed was great. But the last thing I did for Ed was he called me into his office. He said, I just got the script. And he had really gotten very confident in my decorating ability. He said, I want you to do it. And this is going to be a hit. So we got to do a good job. So he handed me the script. I went in the other room and I read it and I came back. And I said, yep, it sounds like a hit. Who's in it? He said, oh, Betty White, B. Arthur, and McClan. Oh, my God. And it was the Golden Girls. Ed and I had a lot of fun decorating the pilot because he conceived it as being, you know, the Florida House, very comfortable, spacious, his white washed woods and things in there. And he gave me free rain. I said, well, I'm going to stick with the light colored woods. So I said, we got to think that there's these ladies. They've all brought something to the room. But then they've agreed on one thing to gather perhaps. So I had some little French furniture, but I kept the palette very tight. And then I said, but I really wanted to use this big bamboo sofa with the big, kind of winged arms on it. And then I went shopping for fabric to cover it with. And I came back. I said, do you think this orange fabric is too wild? And Ed and I said, no, that's good. That makes a statement. I said, well, okay. Because, you know, I think it'll be okay. So we got the whole show decorated and obviously it got picked up. And to this day, the wardrobe department, I don't think they ever really liked that sofa. So there was an ever after, even though I left the pilot, they kept the sofa. And after after the pilot, I left. And, but there would always be throw pillows and throws over the sofa, depending on who was wearing what. Because dressing for women is like really hard for a costume designer. And then they went off and I'll be sitting on that sofa. So they would figure, how do I get rid of that orange? So there's lots of throw pillows on that sofa. So that's my story there. But it did introduce me to be Arthur. And I had actually decorated another pilot for Ed that B starred in. Later on, Be Arthur's son, Daniel Sacks worked for Ed. And then Daniel worked for me for years. And my Be Arthur story is going to Daniel's wedding on a far end of Long Island. Shelter Island. And Be says to me at the wedding reception, John, how are you guys getting back to the airport? And I said, well, we've rented a car and we're going to drive back. But we're taking the light flight so that we could kind of do a little Long Island sightseeing on the way back. She said, great, pick me up at 10 o'clock. I'll buy lunch. So we, okay, so we went over and we picked up Be Arthur, spent the day going to antique stores and stuff on Long Island. And, you know, she's, she wore flip-flops and sort of baggy black pants and an old t-shirt with food on the front of it. And we'd walk into these places and you'd see that people behind us going, that's that, Arthur, she's, she's from Golden Girls. So that was, that was a fun day with Be. And there you have it, a sofa, that the wardrobe department spent seven seasons trying to hide, and that fans have never forgotten. You can find John Schaffner's complete interview at televisionacademy.com slash interviews. And keep listening for more stories from the archive this season on the Television Academy Foundations, The Interviews Podcast.