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    ‘Terms of Endearment’ at 40 and How It Helped One Writer

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    A writer remembers bonding with her mother over the film’s unusual mix of sorrow and laughter, a blend that helped immeasurably through painful loss.Anyone who remembers the heft of a phone book or the twist of a landline cord probably has some memory of watching Aurora Greenway (Shirley MacLaine) climb into her baby’s crib to make sure her peacefully sleeping daughter is still alive. Or maybe your mind goes to the scene in which the pearl-clutching Aurora and her Lothario-with-a-heart-of-gold neighbor, Garrett Breedlove (Jack Nicholson), speed down a Texas beach in his convertible, hair tousled and libidos charged.I’m not sure if there is such a thing as a perfect film, since one person’s “Jaws” is another’s “Rules of the Game,” but I would argue that 40 years after its release, “Terms of Endearment,” directed by James L. Brooks and based on a Larry McMurtry novel, comes pretty close.McMurtry’s 1975 book received mixed reviews, although a Times critic wrote that he “can write up a mess and still win you over with it.” The story, available on most major platforms, hinges on the relationship between Aurora, a wealthy Houston widow, and her rebellious daughter, Emma (Debra Winger). It moves swiftly from that now iconic crib scene to Emma’s troubled marriage to the pretentious, adulterous Flap Horton (Jeff Daniels). Thanks to his job (and his ego), Emma is forced to leave her beloved Texas for Iowa and then Nebraska. Flap is a guy who uses words like “quisling” and blames “pregnancy paranoia” for his wife’s cheating accusations. Those two things alone should explain why Aurora despises her son-in-law.Jack Nicholson said he signed on to play the retired astronaut Garrett Breedlove in part because the script made him cry.Paramount PicturesThen there’s the unexpected turn after the halfway mark. I first watched “Terms of Endearment” as a teenager in Houston sitting at home with my cinema-loving mom. I had never seen a movie with scenes about a lump in a woman’s armpit, or a cancer diagnosis, or a desperate, grief-stricken mother crying out for medication for her child. As wrenching as those moments were, the comedy and the tears blended in a way I had never experienced as a viewer. Even years before deep loss came into my own life, that delicate balance of pain and humor seemed right. It felt true.We watched the movie together repeatedly over the years, and each time my mom and I bonded over our love of Aurora’s hilarious brand of cantankerous Southern belle (even though the character had originated in New England). We related to the mother-daughter dynamic of wanting to murder each other one moment, and cuddling in bed giggling the next. Since we knew the neighborhood Aurora lived in, the affluent River Oaks, we felt a kinship with the characters, as if they existed within our universe. We also agreed that you would never drive along a Texas beach from River Oaks to go eat at Brennan’s since they’re about five miles apart and the only nearby water was a bayou, but we let that cinematic cheat slide.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please  More

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      Allan Burns, a Creator of ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show,’ Dies at 85

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAllan Burns, a Creator of ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show,’ Dies at 85He won Emmys for his work on that show and helped create the spinoffs “Rhoda” and “Lou Grant.” Among his other creations was the cereal mascot Cap’n Crunch.Allan Burns in 2016. He was involved in the creation of TV shows ranging from the acclaimed “Mary Tyler Moore Show” to the much-mocked “My Mother the Car.”Credit…Frederick M. Brown/Getty ImagesFeb. 3, 2021Updated 4:52 p.m. ETAllan Burns, a leading television writer in the 1970s and ’80s who helped create the groundbreaking hit sitcom “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and its dramatic spinoff, “Lou Grant,” died on Saturday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 85.His son Matthew said the causes were Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia.“Allan’s range was like nobody’s,” James L. Brooks, his partner in creating Ms. Moore’s series, said in a phone interview. “I don’t think you ever get an absurdist, a legitimate humorist and a feeling person in one package.”In 1969, Mr. Burns and Mr. Brooks were working on “Room 222,” a comedy-drama series set in a Los Angeles high school, when Grant Tinker, Ms. Moore’s husband, asked them to create a series for her. Their first concept was that she play a divorced woman who worked as a reporter for a gossip columnist.“We ran it past Mary and Grant and they absolutely loved it,” Mr. Burns said in an interview for the Television Academy in 2004.But Mr. Burns said that during a meeting he and Mr. Brooks attended at CBS headquarters in Manhattan, a research executive told them there were four things American audiences “won’t tolerate”: New Yorkers, Jews, divorced people and men with mustaches.“What do you do with that?” Mr. Burns said in the interview. “We were dismissed.”Mr. Burns and Mr. Brooks quickly turned the series’ setting into a TV newsroom and Ms. Moore’s character, Mary Richards, into a woman who had never been married and had just ended a long-term relationship.Ed Asner and Mary Tyler Moore in the first episode of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” which Mr. Burns created with James L. Brooks. They later developed the spinoff series “Lou Grant” for Mr. Asner.Credit…CBS, via Getty Images“The Mary Tyler Moore Show” — set largely at WJM-TV in Minneapolis and in Mary Richards’s apartment — was praised for Ms. Moore’s portrayal of a single working woman, and for its writing. The series ran from 1970 to 1977 and won 29 Emmy Awards; Mr. Burns shared in five of them.“Allan could channel the character of Mary Richards,” Mr. Brooks said. “He gave us a sense of her by the way he talked about her.”Mr. Burns and Mr. Brooks twice spun off shows from “Mary Tyler Moore” for MTM Enterprises, Ms. Moore and Mr. Tinker’s production company. “Rhoda” followed the ups and downs of Mary’s best friend after she moved back to New York. In “Lou Grant,” which began in 1977, Mary Richards’s tough-yet-comedic newsroom boss, played by Ed Asner, became the determined city editor of a Los Angeles newspaper.In the late 1970s, Mr. Burns started branching out into films. He wrote the screenplay for “A Little Romance” (1979), starring Laurence Olivier and Diane Lane, which was nominated for an Academy Award, and for “Butch and Sundance: The Early Days” (1979), a prequel to “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1969). He also wrote and directed “Just Between Friends” (1986), with Ms. Moore, Ted Danson and Christine Lahti. It was his only film as a director.Mr. Burns directing Christine Lahti in “Just Between Friends” (1986), which he wrote and directed. It was his only film as a director.Credit…Orion, via Everett CollectionAnd he continued to develop sitcoms. In the 1980s, he created or helped create three short-lived comedy series: “The Duck Factory,” which starred Jim Carrey as an animator; “Eisenhower and Lutz” about a shiftless lawyer played by Scott Bakula, and “FM,” set in a public radio station.In his review of “Eisenhower and Lutz,” John O’Connor of The New York Times wrote of Mr. Burns, “He cannot only whip up generous batches of clever dialogue but is also extremely clever with staging bits of comic business.”Allan Pennington Burns was born on May 18, 1935, in Baltimore. His father, Donald, was a lawyer. His mother, Paulene (Dobbling) Burns, was a homemaker who became a secretary after her husband died when Allan was 9. Three years after that, she and Allan moved to Hawaii, where his older brother, Donald Jr., was stationed at Pearl Harbor.While attending Punahou School in Honolulu, Allan contributed cartoons to The Honolulu Star-Advertiser. He used his drawing talent while studying architecture at the University of Oregon. He dropped out during his sophomore year in 1956 and moved to Los Angeles, where he was hired as a page at NBC and later became a story analyst. After being laid off, he began writing and illustrating greeting cards while trying to find work at an animation studio.He found a job at Jay Ward Productions, which produced “Rocky and His Friends,” the satirical cartoon series about the adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (more formally, Rocket J. Squirrel and Bullwinkle J. Moose). Mr. Burns appeared unannounced at Mr. Ward’s office on Sunset Boulevard, toting his portfolio of greeting cards. Mr. Ward leafed through the cards, chuckled and quickly hired him.Mr. Burns wrote for the moose, the squirrel and other characters on “The Bullwinkle Show.” He also developed the character Cap’n Crunch for Quaker Oats, which had hired Mr. Ward’s company to create a mascot for a new cereal. After he and his colleague Chris Hayward left Mr. Ward in 1963, they created “My Mother the Car,” a sitcom that starred Jerry Van Dyke, with Ann Sothern as the voice of his mother, who has been reincarnated as a vintage Porter automobile and speaks only to him. A notable flop considered by some to be one of TV’s worst shows, it was canceled after one season.In 1967 and 1968, Mr. Burns and Mr. Hayward worked on the only season of the sitcom “He & She,” in which the married couple Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss played a comic book artist and his wife, a social worker. Mr. Burns shared his first Emmy with Mr. Hayward for one episode.After “He & She” was canceled, its producer, Leonard Stern, brought them to the espionage parody, “Get Smart,” another series he produced, then in its fourth season. “Room 222” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” soon followed.In addition to his son Matthew, Mr. Burns is survived by his wife, Joan (Bailey) Burns; another son, Eric; and five grandchildren.Mr. Asner, who worked for Mr. Burns on both “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Lou Grant,” recalled him in an interview as a gentlemanly boss.“He was a guide and mentor, and I loved him,” he said. “Jim Brooks was the bouncing-off-the-walls part of the team, and Allan was the stabilizer.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More