INT: We were going to discuss difficult actors and how you handle it?
FB: That makes me remember when I first started, we had an actor on the set. I was very young in the business, untried. He was very rough. He just said it like it was. He got me into tears one day. And he walked away and he realized I was crying, he came back and said, "Are you crying?" I said, "You have to understand something, you come in once a week, and yell at me because you are here once a week and feel like yelling at me. But I am here five days a week with many other people like you yelling at me. And it gets to a point sometime where I can't take it anymore. I usually try to hide it, but you were the straw that broke the camel's back this week." He said, "I never thought of that, you're right. I'm not the only person working here." I said, "Yes, I have to face different people every day of the week, all their problems, and you just tipped the scale." I apologized for crying, it was too much for me. He was upset. But that has never happened again. I never allowed that to happen. I've been careful, if I get upset I try to go into a dressing room and pull myself together. You have to. I remember one of the actors spoke rudely to me one day. I went out to the hallway and the producer said, "Why did you take that, why didn't you answer back?" and I said, "I can't. I can't have a fight with an actor, I have to keep him happy. I have to take anything they want to do out. If we have a fight that ruins our relationship forever." He says, "Alright I'll yell at him." That's the one thing over all these years that I've tried to control. Take it and move on, if I get upset jump up and down in a dressing room all by myself.

INT: That's a difficult actor where they are doing something to you, there are probably some who are more challenging in getting a performance out. You address that the director deals with them, but in ramping up a scene and getting other mechanics on the sets, do you have any directors who are more difficult to get together?
FB: Of course. What I try to do is take the actors aside and say what I think is apropos the situation. And either build up their security, cause they're all so insecure, some of them have forty pages of dialogue, it's nuts. You try to make them as comfortable as possible, not taking too much time. You have to watch the situation, and figure out what to say to make them say I can do this. "You look gorgeous, everything is fine, you were perfect but just one more time." Or, "Are you really upset, I will tell him you don't want to say the line." You have to address the situation as it happens. I think I do it right 90% of the time I hope.

INT: In making people comfortable, there is probably a lot of uncomfortable scenes an actor has to do, one of intimacy, or one where the actors experience a love scene, or older actor is doing one, could you discuss your role as a stage manager in making the talent comfortable as well as getting the scene out?
FB: Well, I don't know if we discuss this before but I know one interesting thing happened a while back where I had an older actress with a younger one doing the scene. I didn't think about it, I was doing my thing. She took me aside and said, "Fanny watch for me, I'm up against a young one here. I don't know how good I will look." I said, "You are crazy." I watched and I said, "Tip your head, get into the light," even if it didn't make a bit of difference it made her feel better because she knew somebody cared and was taking care of her. Which is what I try to do with nude scenes. They aren't totally nude, but wardrobe watches to make sure the body stocking isn't visible. But I always say "I will watch, I will take care of you." Then they relax and do their thing. If it doesn't work I will stop it. Or the director will say it. Gary [Gary Tomlin] is very aware. He will say, "I didn't like that, go fix it." So yes you try, the main part of your job is to make people comfortable, whether they are clothed or not. And it's funny because sometimes you will have people who don't care for each other that much. You have to smooth that out, so they know everything is working well. It's a total ego trip in many areas. Then they will say, "Franny can you ask the director," sometimes I will or won't, it depends what it will apply to. You just have to wing it a lot of times.

INT: Sometimes I believe we will talk about this off camera, but it’s a good illustration of what you are good at. You will be protecting your talent as you explain, you want them to look good and feel comfortable, but perhaps someone in the booth who should be watching out for certain things isn't. I'm sure they appreciate your insistence and others who might not. Have you been in situations with challenging producers or directors who for whatever reason wasn't as appreciative of your protecting a talent?
FB: That's a perfect example of when I feel you are a directing team and everyone is working to make this baby, our show is our baby. Everyone should have as much input as they can and be allowed to give it. If you don't want it throw it away. On one particular occasion and it hasn't happened since, but for a while there one producer asked me not to give any suggestions to the actresses as to how they looked. The directors felt I was stepping on their toes. I should have been smart enough to say if I was a director I would be happy the stage manager is watching for me. This director didn't feel that way, I was told to back off which I did for awhile. When the actresses started complaining why aren't you watching me, I said, "I was told not to." They were furious, so we set up a little, I hope nobody is watching this tape. We set up a little signal as to watch this or that. And I stayed out of camera range and did my little charade. They fixed whatever needed to be fixed. That fortunately went by the wayside. I thought that was wrong. Usually I go along with everything. But the director should have been happy I was helping as opposed to stepping on his toes. He has so much to watch. He is not watching a lady's wrinkle. He is doing cameras and lighting and shots. Let me do what I do.

INT: Sticking with the director's team, again the team in live and tape is a little different than film and features. Sticking with soaps, the team works differently. Can you explain how you interface on your shows with the associate director, how they have been helpful to you or you to them, how does that relationship work?
FB: The associate director is in the booth with the director. Everything again is changing with the digital situation and the editing. And now instead of one AD working all week or working two or three days in a row, we have only two ADs and they do two days and then two days, the other two they are in the editing room. They give you the script changes as do the PA. On the headset is the most I come into contact with them, telling them I am ready on the floor, telling them go ahead and roll tape. Telling them check and make sure the water bottle is sitting here, her scarf was on, whatever. He checks for pickups, I can't remember if I had all the extras so it matches. That's really most of it. [INT: On your show, the associate director and you don't do that much?] He is doing timings with a PA, all on a computer, it's a whole other world and I don't want to learn. I guess is should but that's why I don't want to be an AD. Numbers and all that mechanical thing is not what I want to do. I want to be out with the people. [INT: So at least on the team on daytime drama at NBC it's more you and the director and producer working together, and the associate director and editor working together at that studio.]

INT: Regarding the rest of the team, you mentioned earlier that you often have more than one stage manager, do you work as a first and a second, one is an assistant, or can you explain how you divide the work up at DAYS OF OUR LIVES or other soaps?
FB: Actually over on B AND B [THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL] I finally asked for help. I was the only one brought in and then Laura [Laura Yale] came in. I said you, Barbara Roche came, it was a half-hour soap, they thought they only needed one, I said "You have to have two." But there is no first or second, we work equally. I divide the script, if there is a hundred and thirty-six pages, he does sixty-two, we split it as close to half and half. I try to do it no more than an hour at airtime. One person is working, the other is not. The microphone calling people to hair, doing all the other work. You both are working. One is on the stage, one is outside. Then you switch. When we use to go seventeen hours a day you had to have a break. When I first did the show we had two stage managers. One did the show, the other did the calling. And you did it a week. For one whole week you were half dead and the other guy was sitting there reading, then you would switch. After you call and get all the people you have dead time. It was so unfair. I said we have to do something. Then Shelley Curtis came in from ABC or somewhere and she said, "Why is the same person on the set everyday?" I said, "That's how it's set up." She said, "No, no, no, no, no." That's when we started flipping back and forth. With the hours we put in that's why no one wanted to work the soap. They called it Devil's Island on Studio 9. Everyone was so thrilled I volunteered to do the soap. Carl McCarthy, Ted Baker, Jerry Masterson, Rick Oxford who worked it all the time, they had it up to here. Carl did sports, Teddy and Jerry did variety shows and specials. Rick didn't care, he did freelance. But they liked that one week to sit in the back and do nothing if the week before they did a variety show. They didn't care. I came in after two or three months and it was killing us. Now we flip back and forth and try to keep it equal.

INT: Going back to the stage managing team, in the heyday of the daytime dramas when the budgets were bigger, every wedding was huge. Your show had the local location of Salem Place where you had a lot of people. Could you discuss a little bit about how you worked with your stage manager team, being shot from many angles?
FB: Well usually we begged for and got a third. The third would be responsible for getting everyone out there. Then I would split the floor, he would take stage right, I take stage left. Then depending on how many actors you had I would take the actors or he would take the extras, you try to mix it up. But you needed help because there was no way to corral, keep track of, and tell them what to do. Now they cut our hours. I work a 60 and then 40, then he is vice versa. Which is strange that they would take the person who runs the show home early and leave the other to do the show. It's backfired a couple of times. And they have said to me, "If you feel you need the other person to stay you can keep them." But in those days you could ask for help and get it, no way to do it by yourself.

INT: When you have to bring new people in, which I know from past experiences the show does not bring in new people, which is a godsend to the show because you have a continuity of work. But are there times where you had to train people to work with you as opposed to having a trained person come in?
FB: You mean stage managers, what they used to do and it hasn't happened lately in any years, they would have someone come in to train and follow you around for the day. And I would explain what I was doing to them. "You watch, but this is why I am doing this, if you work this show you have to do this." But usually the people who come in are pros. I don't know if I had anybody that didn't know, who was that new. There have been people who have been hired, you train them to a degree, on the spot so to speak. There are two I can think of.

INT: When you are in a situation where you are asked to train someone in your already busy day as opposed to mentoring someone or having someone come in of their own volition, have you done that easily or have you been able to create someone to work well with you?
FB: That's a strange question, there are only two or three of us who worked the soap. If you have to train someone, I don't know how to answer that. If you watch someone they see what you do, you show them how to set up a script. You show them the dressing room set up, how you call people. Although I went away for a vacation, came back, some girl had been brought in, I don't know who she was. I'm always being accused of having too loud a voice on the microphone when I call people. And I walk into the makeup room and six actors turned around and said, "Thank God you are back." They said they had a girl and "we couldn't hear her it was a mess. We know you are loud but we love you." That was the best thing anybody could have said to me.

INT: Before our next little break, let's go back into the larger budget days. You spoke earlier about going on real location, outside of the studio to another whole area. Could you explain how that is different and how you approach the real location days on a beach or a city?
FB: It's been a while but the last one we threw on a beach somewhere. And the producer that we had then, the assistant producer made up a list of the scenes and the shots, wardrobe and makeup and hair. What was needed. I went out by myself and did all the call times. But you got everyone out there, made sure wardrobe and makeup and props were there. I remember I had a bullhorn, I couldn't make it work, it was frustrating, but it's the same thing we did inside but we were outside. Only doing one section. I don't know, I guess being out in sports as much as we did you are used to working on the fly. If you are organized and everything you need is there then you are home free. [INT: When you go on location, we haven't addressed at all prep with production meetings, but on a larger location with traffic or cars or animals involved, can you tell us a little bit about the prep and how you had to work on those locations?] Don't even go there, it never happened. [INT: Production meetings?] We never had a location. Ours were very simple because of money. They went to London, I happened to be there on vacation but you got your permits and they had no traffic problems. They did small little things. Simple is good. I can tell you when I was a PA in film which I did do a couple of films, I cant remember where I did that but we did GRAVY TRAIN [THE GRAVY TRAIN] in Youngstown, Pennsylvania and also in Washington. And as the PA on that with the unit manager, we had to go the White House. We had to get a permit to fly over the White House because they don't want anyone in the airspace. But we had to a lot to deal with cars and everything, but that was a different area. The soap never got that complicated. We didn't do production meetings. It was do this and we did it. [INT: DAYS [DAYS OF OUR LIVES] was more self-contained, that's the interesting thing about the genre and you did work on BOLD AND BEAUTIFUL [THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL]. A whole other thing, they have fashion shows and they do large locations. Basically DAYS was more self contained in the big years.] Yes.

INT: When they cast new people in the show, they have screen tests or talent tests. Can you tell us a little bit about if you had involvement in those and what it has been?
FB: You bring the people in, I give them dressing rooms, get them into makeup and hair. Usually while we are finishing the actual show up on the other studio, we work in two studios. In the one we are not shooting the director who will do the scenes will come down and run through the scene with each aspiring actor or actress. Then they go away and do whatever. I call them out. You have your slate. They give them a dress rehearsal and they tape it. You wish them well, give them water, then next. That is all there is to it. But the ones who are really considered do a film audition. [INT: You are more mechanical and expediting them?] Yes the director works with them as far as the script goes and what they want to do.

INT: To wind up the soap area, back in the heyday when budgets were bigger, they often had guest stars for an arc. They had concerts, people who were well known. Are there any things like that that come to mind, that were a challenge but fun to make that person comfortable? They were the guest and not comfortable to the routine, and also the fact that if you did something out of the ordinary it wasn't a regular day?
FB: It's interesting that you say that because anybody that comes onto that show, a big star or a working actor that comes in to do an under five or a small part all need that special treatment, they don't know what hit them. Most of them come in from film where as I recall when I did if we got eight pages we were thrilled. They come in and see 130 pages and one rehearsal, they freak. "What have I gotten myself into?" They are not used to the pace. You are coddling, taking care of everyone that's new like they are a new star. They don't know what's hit them. We had a couple of main people who have come in. You make them comfortable and throw them to the wolves.

INT: Now with your really extensive career in a lot of areas I'm sure there are people who showed up on the show that you knew from another point, has that ever happened, and has it been a good experience?
FB: The last really big name on the show was Donald Trump. He came in, a big, tall man. couldn't have been nicer. He had to make an entrance and do a scene. I explained it, ran through the script. He turned to me and said, "How long have you been doing this?" I said thirty years. He said, "I could tell you know what you are doing." "Oh, you're not going to fire me, huh?" He was so cute, he signed my script and took pictures and everything. Absolutely different than I thought he would be. Now he has this show where he fires people and is mean, but he is really a pussycat. It was fun. We don't really, well now that the money is short they don't cater to the big bucks to get people on. [INT: Think of the old days.] I can't think of anyone, can you? [INT: Well yeah, I'm getting into the Shirley Jones thing, are you still getting guest stars?] Well that's funny you bring that up. My first movie was CAROUSEL when I was 18 or 19. Shirley Jones was the lead with Gordon MacRae. Sinatra [Frank Sinatra] was signed for the role, and 20th Century Fox was bringing into being Cinemascope. At that time you had to do everything twice. They took the take, and there was what they called 'a hair in the aperture,' and if it wasn't a Lily they would do it again. Frank signed on, and found out everything needed to be done twice. Anyway. He quit. He said "I signed for one movie, I didn't sign for two." He walked. They rushed us to do the dance numbers because they were searching for a new Billy, they got Gordon, and they flew him in and was learning the songs, anyways there is Shirley. We were both teenagers, kind of young doing the movie. We were on it for two or three months. All of a sudden someone says, "Guess who is on the show? Shirley Jones. She won an Academy Award for ELMER GANTRY." I said, "I worked with her." It turns out, I said "Shirley," she said "Francesca," I said, "You remember me?" She says, "Of course. What are you doing?" I said, "I have been the stage manager here for thirty years." We had a ball. I have a picture of the two of us together. Can you believe that fifty years later we end up on a soap opera? She was a dear, did a beautiful job. She kept saying, "This is so fast I'll never be able to do it." She did beautifully.

INT: Very often the job of the stage manager has been compared to an assistant director and there are overlaps. Having worked on the other side of the camera with ADs, and as the technology changes and as we are doing a lot more, do you see the job of the stage manager differently than an assistant director? Can you address the comparison between the two jobs and the skills you need?
FB: I think, I will tell you they are practically the same. You have paperwork, dealing with extras and actors. You have time frames. We make sure the extras sign in now. I think they run parallel, the only difference is time frame. We are doing in eight hours what would take an AD a week. Their job is the same but they have plenty of time. We are doing it in this much space, they have this much space. That's the difference. [INT: And with a smaller team it sounds?] Oh, absolutely.

INT: In the soaps you have very stringent schedules. Time is money. As a stage manager have you had to suddenly rearrange or advise a change if for example an actor is late, or have a problem in hair or wardrobe. Are you able to adjust?
FB: If the sets are ready, absolutely. We have a lot of times with children, they only have two hours to be shot in. If they are cranky, we move things around to get it done first. Everyone is accommodating. Sometimes you move ahead, there is a big rush, they are crazy, but yes you have to rearrange things occasionally. [INT: Let's talk about minors on the set. You had fifteen-day-old newborns to toddlers who think they have scripted lines but don't, to teenagers and their moods. Could you discuss the children and the situations you have been in?] Do I have to? [INT: No.] It makes me crazy with a teeny baby. Makes me insane. We tie everything to the floor but I always stand there waiting to fall out of whatever they are in. But we have a storyline about switched babies. We have two sets of twins. One mother was unhappy, the kids were cranky because we didn't get to them in time. Or the call was at a time they should be napping, so she pulled them. We now have a new set. They are wonderful. These last six babies we had have been perfect. They sit there and smile, don't scream. The two- and three-year-olds are the worst. They are going through the "don't want to be separated from my mother" routine. It makes me crazy. Our young kids are good. Our young teenagers come in, I don't know where they are getting them from, what their backgrounds are, but they are very well prepared. Very pleasant, respectful, they are a pleasure to work with. I'm happy. It's different than they used to be. I don't know why.

INT: Some of the soaps like DAYS [DAYS OF OUR LIVES], which is on for more than twenty years, there aren't just characters that change but I believe you have actors who started as minors and continued?
FB: Alison Sweeney for one. She came in at eighteen, she has two babies of her own later. Kristian Alfonso came in at eighteen, went away for a while but she is back now. Peter Reckell has come and gone. Most of our actors have lasted. They recast Mickey because John [John Clarke] wanted to retire. Now we have no Mickey at all. We had one other and that was the end. Our show kept the same people pretty much straight through. [INT: And in the area of minors, have you had any where they came in as toddlers and got into the speaking stages where you dealt with little kids and lines?] No. We had a little boy, I think he is four, had a child playing an autistic child. He is wonderful. The four-year-old would say his line, then continue talking. He would say, "Yes daddy, and you know I had a dream about dragons and waterfalls." He will go on. You say cut. Everybody can't believe what comes out of the mouth. He was a amazing. But you got to say don't say anything. Usually you want them to talk. This one you want them to be quiet. But none that were that small and grew up. They all came in around sixteen or eighteen and stayed.

INT: In soaps we have dealt with children and people, directors and producers. One thing we haven't covered are animals.
FB: We had a tiger on. I think we were on an island. We had to close all the doors, not allow anyone in the whole studio. And the trainer walked the animal around. Big tiger. Walked him around so he would get used to it. The cameraman came in and shot what he needed. I stood very far away in the back to count down and all that. That was scary. He was loose. Wandering around loose. We had basic dogs and poodles. We had a jaguar once who had to sit on a couch. That was weird. Not that much. It was all interesting, an education. [INT: Any of them destroy the sets?] No, I did have one when I stage managed THE MIKE DOUGLAS SHOW. We had an elephant, had to bring an elephant in. I think it was four, we had to bring him through the thing that raises up the back, he was too heavy for the ramp. When Mike Douglas died they called me from publicity and said, "No one can remember what studio he did the show in" and they said, "You could because you have been here longer than anyone else." In a way I was complimented and in a way I was put off because I thought, "Am I the oldest person at NBC?" I had a monkey on Johnny Carson's show, THE TONIGHT SHOW, he gave me a nice love bite on the neck. I thought I was going to die of something but I didn't. He grabbed onto me and gave me a bite. Didn't make me too happy. That's the extent of the animals I think.

INT: Let's talk a little bit about variety. You’ve done so many different genres. Through the years, variety isn't as prevalent as it was. Can you take us through the shows and then the personalities?
FB: An interesting one was Rona Barrett. I started on her little show. She did a show which I also did with Rock Hudson. He was an amazing, tall, gorgeous man. Everybody thought she was a bitch. We would go into the studio, we were in studio five and we were wrapped in blankets because it was so cold in there. You know how you keep it. She would come out and say, "Move that light, fix that, let me see the monitor." She would set herself up, everybody said what does she know. She knew what she wanted, they gave it to her and that made her happy. Everybody thought she was a control freak but she was taking care of herself because she knew what made her look good as opposed to some guy who didn't care, give her some light. I help the actresses a little better, she knew what made her look better and that's all she wanted. But because she was a woman she was hard to handle. I loved her, we got along great. I thought she was a funny, nice lady. I did a Neil Sedaka special, I was nominated for an Emmy. Didn't win it, I still need to win an Emmy. Won two DGA Awards. That was an interesting one, one of the dancers got hurt so I had to go in and do a deposition, there was a lawyer thing involved as to why she fell. That was another area you can be involved in. You run the set, you are responsible, so if something happens you have to have a reason why. I did, another funny story. I did THE TONIGHT SHOW for a couple months, and just when I was really comfortable they brought in a young man and asked me to train him. I showed him how to do everything, he watched me. Then I go get my schedule and I'm not on THE TONIGHT SHOW. I said, "Why aren't I doing it?" The scheduler said, "That kid you were showing, that was Bobby Quinn's son, the director's son." They kept it in the family. I had my shot at it, that was fine and I went on to something else. I wanted to say something but I lost my train of thought. Here is another interesting thing. I did a pilot, like a sitcom. The lead woman got sick. They were going to tape the dress rehearsal. Then tape the show for an audience. But they had to tape it for some reason. Because I knew the script and knew the thing, they took me off the stage manager, made me the actress, I did the show as the actress. Then they signed me out of that, put me back into the stage manager gig, then they brought her back. You never know what you are going to end up doing. The variety, it was only one week. You got your run down and your script. I got a lot of BOB HOPE SHOWs [THE BOB HOPE SHOW], DANNY THOMAS SHOWs [THE DANNY THOMAS SHOW]. It was fun because you were dealing with stars. There was that aura. Bob, I loved. We got along great. I don't think Linda [Linda Hope] was too happy because he didn't hear well and I would have to go up and yell at him. But he trusted me. When I first met him I was dancing on one of his shows. I danced a lot, and then I would turn up as a stage manager. And he said, "What are you doing?" "I'm a stage manager." "Oh, okay." Anyway, we would do his monologue or his little scene or whatever it was. I would come out and he would say, "How did it look?" I said, "I think you should do it again." He said, "Really?" I said, "Yeah, that didn't look that good." Then he said, "Let's do it again." He trusted me to tell him. They wanted to go on. I went back east with him to the Kennedy Center. I remember one run, I had a fight in Reno. We flew down for a game in LA, then San Diego to do golf tournament, then I flew - this is all continuous - then I flew to Texas to do another tournament but they sandwiched in the middle a Bob Hope special. I remember I woke up that Monday before and I just stayed in bed all day. They had me all by myself at the University of Texas with Bob and Reba McEntire and some others in the special. And I remembered Sil [Silvio Caranchini] said, "Bring this in in an hour, hour fifteen." I said, "Okay Sil." "Now warm up the audience." I did everything. I had a college kid that brought the people out, I'd ID prop moves, skit stuff, it was insane. I was doing the warm-up. It was fascinating. The next night we went to a dinner and people came up and asked me for my autograph. Then I go to the golf tournament, and they recognized me. It was kind of fun. I did the tournament and got home. That was the longest shuffle I had in awhile, but that's the way it used to be.

INT: This is also during a time where women were not so common as stage managers. They weren't common in theater, definitely not that much in live television. And also in sports. How could your experience as a stage manager on a variety show in a studio, experience on the road with Hope [Bob Hope], and then on sporting event, it had to be different. How did you separate your job skills?
FB: A lot of packing and unpacking. A lot of cards and scripts. Here I need cards. Here I need scripts. Each one was quite different. Then I started on days of our lives, I as working with Carl McCarthy who was a big sporting event kind of guy. And Ted Baker who I had spoke of earlier. And Jerry Masterson. We were the four who were on staff. Carl was always leaving to do a sporting event. I went up to the scheduling office one day and said, "How do I get to do sports?" Two years it took me of asking and questioning. On my own I drove to San Diego to watch a football game from the booth. I had played basketball as a kid. I loved golf and baseball, I thought, "Why can't I do that?" Finally I asked a unit, "Why can't I do the boxing match?" And he said, "It's too bloody you wouldn't like it." Then football came along and I said to another unit manager, "Can I do the football game?" "No that would be a sixth day, we can't do that on sports." I went to my boss Harry [Harry Coyle] and said, "They say it's too bloody, someone says it's sixth days, but Carl gets six days and I'm not afraid of blood. Why can't I do some sports?" Looking at it from my simple level, he said, "That sounds to me like discrimination." I said, "What does that mean?" I did no lawsuits, we didn't think like that in those days. I said, "Really?" He said, "Let me look into this." A few weeks later they sent me to San Diego for a football game. I must say the producer Bob Finkel called me up and said, "I know this is your first game. I want to go over a few things." He laid out what he wanted, I told him, "That's wonderful." Driving down I overshot, ended up in Tijuana. I was early. I did my football game, and my report card said, "She talked too much." I would say on the headset, "Are your ready?" I would back myself up instead of just doing it. I wanted to make sure I was doing the right thing. From then on I never said a word. I think they let me in because I was an oddity. I knew what I was talking about, I knew the players, the game, first down, I was interested enough to not just count. I knew what I was involved in. The worst, you can't shut me up, can you? I will never forget this. I was doing a Rose Bowl game. You always start on the field, I was second on the field. I'm out and here is my job. I have to get Frank Sinatra and his wife on a float, run to the other entrance and send the team out, then run to the other entrance and send the other team out. Then run to the fifty yard line to cue the umpire to start. Anyway I am getting all ready. I have a headset, Frank is sitting there. There is a fellow I now work with, we laugh about this once in a while. And I had to get out of the way for the float. I said to the fellow, I won't say the name. I said, "Can you give me the cable, cut the line so I have more cable?" He didn't cut the tie line, he cut the cable. All of a sudden I say to the cameraman, "Mike [Mike Caruso], I can't hear anything. Do you hear it?" I see the end, he cut my cable. I'm ready to start the Rose Bowl, I can't get a cue. She says she lost her headset give me the cue. I get Frank out, get another headset at the entrance, run back, get to the fifty, I have another headset. It's not an easy job. Fortunately I never got knocked over. You have to stand on the sideline and cue the commercials. Wait for the downs, we are getting close, get the referee ready. Never did anyone knock me down. I always sidestepped. Then finally I got into the booth which is easier. Two men and a little lighting set-up for their camera. Preparing them for that and the game. I think the worst thing of all was that many a time on the break I would have to run into the men's room to go to the ladies room. Other than that it was fun. The guys accepted me.