Cactus Flower (1969)

Pamela's Nite
Pork Chops, Baked Tomatoes, Apple Crisp, Ice Cream

Abe Burrows: "Writer Abe Burrows penned many scripts for radio shows and for Broadway. Among his better known plays are How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and Cactus Flower. He also wrote the screenplay for Solid Gold Cadillac in 1956."

More on Burrows: "After studying to be a doctor and an accountant, Abe Burrows had a career in sales before becoming a successful radio script writer and writer/performer of musical parody numbers. His first Broadway libretto was Guys and Dolls, co-written with Jo Swerling, with a score by Frank Loesser. Among the musicals for which he provided librettos are Make A Wish, Can-Can and Silk Stockings (both with scores by Cole Porter), Say, Darling, and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (which he also directed; score by Frank Loesser). His non-musical plays include Cactus Flower (wrote and directed) and Forty Carats (directed)."

Jim Burrows, Abe's son, is a massively successful television director: "I get the work ethic from my father," he says, alluding to Abe Burrows, the late Broadway writer-director known for How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying and Guys and Dolls. For more than half a century, directing has been part of the Burrows DNA. For Jim Burrows--or Jimmy, as most friends and co-workers call him--that deeply embedded code has helped turn shows such as Taxi, Cheers, Friends, Frasier, Caroline in the City, and Will & Grace into mega-hits and earned him nine Emmy Awards. Former NBC Entertainment President Warren Littlefield once said certain programs became known as "Jimmy Shows." He joked that network executives would eagerly mark pilots he was handling with the letters "JS."

"As my wife will tell you, I'm no good hanging around the house," Burrows says. "I could go play golf, I could go to the track, I could go to Vegas. But I choose to come here, where I have a good time."

By "here," Burrows means the Los Angeles studio where Will & Grace is about to close its third successful season. The sun-drenched San Fernando Valley setting seems a long way from overcast Oberlin, but the tight circles and sharp intellect of his Hollywood milieu--not to mention the political tinges of Will--often recall his college experience. During an hour-long interview, it didn't take much prodding to get the memories to tumble out--starting with the seed planted by his famous father.

"I would often meet all of my father's actor friends and the literati and the cognoscenti," Burrows says. "He was an intellectual who spoke with a mug-like voice--'der, duh'--but he was very smart. He asked me what school I wanted to go to, and I said Cornell, Brown, maybe NYU. He did some investigation and found Oberlin.

"I said, 'What's that school?' He said it was a small liberal-arts school in the Midwest, co-educational. He was smart enough to know that I grew up in the city and I should maybe go away to college."

New York Times Review: "And it comes as a pleasing jolt to find the youngster, Goldie Hawn, at the apex of the triangle, not only beautifully holding her own with the two veteran stars but also enhancing the content and flavor of the movie.
This is the movie debut of the young actress, plucked from the "Laugh-In" television show. The role has been wisely and considerably fattened from the original play. And it is mainly the emerging sweetness and perception of this girl's character, as an inquisitive Greenwich Village kook, that gives the picture its persuasive luster and substance."