I bought this at Book Outlet earlier this year (or late last year? what is time) and didn’t feel any particular rush to get to it. Then James Burrows died in June, and now just felt like the right time.
This is a career-focused memoir told by James Burrows to Eddy Friedfield, who compiled it all into a book. You can definitely tell that Burrows is not a writer (a fact that he opines at least four times throughout the book—is this irony or what?) But he does have a sense for story and comic timing, otherwise his fifty almost unbelievably successful years directing sitcom television would make no sense whatsoever. The amount of great television this man is partly responsible for is astounding. Just take a look at his filmography if you don’t believe me. He especially enjoyed directing pilots, getting in on the ground of a new show and forming it into something better. He directed seventy-five pilots that went to series over the course of his career, which is wild.
The book is told in chronological order, following mostly his time on the big hits: The Mary Tyler Moore Show (which gave him his break), Taxi, Cheers (which he co-created with the Charles brothers, and of which he directed 237 episodes), Frasier, Friends (which he shepherded throughout the first season*), and Will & Grace (where he directed every single episode!).
*He infamously took the six cast members to Las Vegas for a last hurrah of not being famous, gave them each $200 to gamble (except Matt LeBlanc, who got $400 because he immediately lost his first $200). He is also the one who advised the six of them to negotiate as a group so that they were all paid the same, which changed the way the industry dealt with ensemble casts going forward.
For a book that was ghostwritten (sort of) this was a very fun read, but I will tell you now that I have no idea if this will be a good read for other people whose special interest isn’t the history of television. There are lots and lots of fun tidbits thrown in everywhere in addition to covering his time on the above shows. The man knew everyone, and everyone seems to have loved him. The title of the Epilogue is “Die With Your Boots On,” and he did, working up until the age of 85, loving what he did until the last. (This book was written in 2021, five years before his death.)
He is pretty humble about his contributions to all this television, but I am pretty firmly convinced that many of our favorite TV programs would not have been if not for his talents.
CBR BINGO: Friends (Aside from the fact that James Burrows helped shepherd Friends into existence and directed many key episodes, all of the shows he’s famous for involve groups of friends who are as close as a family, a subject he says he gravitates toward.)
