When I wrote Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of 'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,' I thought the story of Tom and Dick Smothers, and their clashes with CBS over the content of their groundbreaking TV variety series, had a lot to say that was pertinent to these times, as well as illuminating about the Sixties.
I'm very, very proud to say that George Clooney thinks so, too:
He and his Smokehouse Pictures partner Grant Heslov have optioned my 2009 book, signing on as producers and teaming with Sony with plans to produce and release a movie version.
For several reasons, which I'm about to enumerate, I couldn't be more thrilled...
First, I'm thrilled on behalf of Tom and Dick, whose story deserves to be told and retold, and whose efforts to inject topicality into scripted TV comedy in the 1960s led very directly to the sort of thing Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher are doing today. (If you think of the book, as I do, as the perfect parental holiday gift, click HERE to buy it!)
But I'm also thrilled because, when the book was still in galleys and I was asked by the film-division agent at my literacy agency to name my dream filmmaker for a Smothers Brothers movie, I said two words.
One was George.
The other was Clooney.
Official word on the deal was broken Friday night by Nikki Finke's Deadline website, by New York editor Mike Fleming, in a story you can read HERE.
But back in 2009, Laurie Fox, my long-time agent from the Linda Chester Literary Agency (who had been waiting for me to stop researching and start writing Dangerously Funny for more than a decade), took me to lunch with Steve Fisher, the agency's specialist in film adaptations of literary properties. It was he who asked me to play pretend, and think best-case-scenario -- which, as anyone who knows me will attest, is the exact opposite of my regular mindset.
(Thanks, Laurie. Thanks, Steve. Thanks, Linda. And thanks, once again, Tom and Dick.)
Why were George Clooney and Grant Heslov at Smokehouse my dream team?
Easy:
Clooney and Heslov had co-written 2005's Good Night and Good Luck, and Clooney had directed it, as well as played a supporting role on-screen. That movie starred David Strathairn as broadcast news pioneer Edward R. Murrow, at the pivotal time in TV history when, as anchor of the CBS newsmagazine See It Now, he had the bravery to stand up against out-of-control Communist "hunter" Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
As an associate professor at New Jersey's Rowan University, I now teach courses on TV history -- and comparing Clooney and Heslov's movie version to the actual 1954 See It Now telecast is one of the highlights each term. I teach, and my students tend to agree, that Good Night and Good Luck is an amazingly faithful version not only of the original program, but of its intent, as well as its importance.
One student, while raving about Strathairn's cinematic performance as Murrow, said he thought the real Murrow's See It Now performance was even better -- because it was live, with no retakes possible, and with so much at stake career-wise.
"Murrow," that student said admiringly, using a phrase I'll never forget, "was a smooth-ass pimp."
Clooney and Heslov knew exactly why the Murrow-McCarthy clash was so meaningful, and also knew exactly how to make it both narratively dramatic and historically accurate. And since Clooney and Heslov did so well with one of the biggest CBS controversies of the Fifties, why shouldn't they be trusted with one of the biggest CBS TV controversies of the Sixties?
And in classes, I've shown other Clooney TV work as well, including his fascinating, successful attempt to emulate the Golden Age live television dramas by mounting a live CBS version of Fail Safe in 2000.
But having me choose Clooney and Heslov, and have them choose my book, are two different things entirely.
And now they've both happened.
Brian Hecker and Craig Sherman are attached as screenwriters, and now the project is, as they say, in the pipeline.
And since my first best-case scenario wish came true, how about another round, with one piece of dream casting? As Tommy Smothers, a role that requires comic timing, a good singing voice and a lot of dramatic range, as well as the right look: Neil Patrick Harris.
Thousands of things can happen, or not happen, from this point forward -- but just to get this far, with these people, is an achievement of which I'm very proud.
George Clooney, like Edward R. Murrow, is a smooth-ass pimp.