Season 2, Episode 15
SOUND OF TYPEWRITER
SOUND OF DOOR OPENING
SOUND OF POUNDING FOOTSTEPS
JACK
(angry) What do you mean by demanding that I come down here at 10:00?
SAMANTHA
I see you've come storming into my office as usual, Jack.
JACK
Well what did you expect me to do-- here you're delivering ultimatums to me, and ..
SAMANTHA
Look, Jack, you know perfectly well what the law is in California. The burden is on you to maintain your property in safe condition. Susan has a perfect right to sue you for her injuries.
JACK
She was trespassing! Why should she have any right at all in this matter? I am perfectly within my rights to sue her for damage to the property.
SAMANTHA
This just confirms my worst suspicions of you, Jack. When someone gets hurt-- you want to turn around and sue the injured party!
JACK
Look, Samantha, Susan Winslow is an adult, and she was walking around a construction site. How can a construction site be safe for someone who has no idea what she's doing, and what in the world was she doing there anyway, especially at dusk!
SAMANTHA
Susan arrived at the property in daylight, Jack, and was certainly not expecting the site to be deserted. It was still working hours, and yet all the workmen were gone. I'm sure your client would love to hear about that.
JACK
You leave Mr. Clarke out of this.
SAMANTHA
Well Mr. Clarke, whoever he is, can't possibly be left out of this if Susan decides to sue. It's his property, isn't it?
JACK
Of course it's his property, but you can't hold a man accountable for a house that isn't yet built.
SAMANTHA
Fine, then we'll hold you accountable.
JACK
And I'll hold you accountable for damage to the aluminum duct work, which Susan crushed when she fell.
With this scene, which gets louder line by line, we tested the theory that everyone likes a good fight, now and again. This was a humdinger, and goes right to the heart of a core Milford-Haven issue: Build v. No Build, or Environment v. Jobs. Think this controversy is new? Well it was a mighty hot topic in the 1979s, and again in the 1990s, when I wrote this show.
Samantha Hugo, head of the Environmental Planning Commission (there was no such thing anywhere in the country at the time, so I invented a somewhat futuristic job) is always at odds with Jack Sawyer, the head honcho of Sawyer Construction. Both of these strong characters are very good at their jobs, which means they knock heads quite often.
This scene has more nuance than a straight ahead argument over building codes or environmental compliance, because it also involved Samantha’s somewhat troublesome employee Susan Winslow. Susan, often at odds with her boss, in this instance is completely in the right, so Sam jumps in eagerly to support her. Jack is, as usual, unwilling to accept any blame or responsibility.
When Milford-Haven began, half of our cast lived in Cambria, the real California coastal town upon which Milford-Haven is based. Cambria is a town full of artists—painters and sculptors, writers and actors, singers and musicians. The role of Jack Sawyer was originally written for Jim Buckley, a veritable institution in Cambria as founder of the Pewter Plough Playhouse, where I spent a summer performing the year before creating Milford-Haven. Jim was a colorful character in his own right, and could muster a gravelly discontent like no one else. For the BBC show, when Jim chose not to commute to L.A. for recording sessions, the role of Jack Sawyer was taken over by Lloyd Battista, not only an accomplished film actor, but also quite well known for his radio drama work in Hyman Brown’s CBS Mystery Theatre. We were so fortunate to have Lloyd! He was far more experienced in radio than the rest of us, and he became a mentor to everyone in the show.
Meanwhile the role of Samantha Hugo was originally for Elaine Traxel Evans, a statuesque red-haired beauty who’d recently retired from a long film career in Hollywood. (Her late husband Mel Traxel was an award-winning, well-known still photographer for Warner Brothers.) Her deep, luscious voice, sense of both authority and delight rang out over the air and made her a force to be reckoned and a role model. She, too, elected not to resume that long commute to L.A., so “Samantha” was taken over by Sally Rainer. I’d met Sally when both of were doing background voice work, in which she had a huge career, and she was also a singer and band member.
More synchronicity: I had worked with the marvelous MacDonald Carey in Days of Our Lives. After a career as the “black hat” in scores of films, Mac became the patriarch of Days, the first major movie star to take a soap opera role, forever eliminating the stigma that soaps once had. Mac, then in his 80s, still took voice lessons, and one of his younger classmates was Sally Rainer. One day Sally mentioned she was now working in a new radio drama, and Mac demanded to have the contact information for the producer. Next day, I received a call, and knew in a few seconds exactly whose voice was on the other end of the line. “I’ve done a little radio,” he said modestly. Oh my word! Had he ever! “Mac,” I tried to interrupt. “It’s me. It’s Mara.” At last, he realized to whom he was speaking – an old friend from the set. “Come to my house right now.” He lived nearby, and I did drive over. We laughed and shared stories over tall glasses of iced tea, and I promised to write him into the cast of Milford-Haven. He wouldn’t have let me leave unless I agreed! Sadly, Mac passed on before we could begin recording his character. This was one of the favorite stories shared at his memorial service.
What Sally brought to Samantha was a crisp awareness of how the times were changing, and of how important it was for a small coastal town like Milford-Haven to take the lead in environmental policy. Issues like forest fires, coastal erosion, and water rights had already become issues in parts of California, where many things seem to happen first. Sally also brought a vulnerability to “Samantha”, who was burdened with a personal secret, and wrestled with how to re-balance her life.
I can’t leave this episode without mentioning how vital mentors are in the arts. Working with great professionals who’d been in the business decades longer than I had truly blessed us all with their work ethics, proficiency, and marvelous sense of embracing the work of a young producer like me, just getting started. I appreciate them so very much.
Meanwhile, do the issues in the story sound up-to-the-minute right now? When we were creating these episodes, we had the sense that we had our fingers on the pulse of trending change. Now with 20/20 hindsight, we see how right we were.
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