March 10, 2015

BUMMED – LA Indie Awards

Bummed Cast Pic
Bummed won the Audience Award at the LA Indie Film Festival!
And a huge congrats to Joe Wengert for winning Best Actor!

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March 3, 2015

BUMMED – LA Indie Film Festival

Bummed Official Poster JPG
My directorial debut, BUMMED, a dark comedy written by me and the fantastic Darin Henry has been officially selected into the LA Indie Film Festival.
It stars Joe Wengert, Jon Dore, Eddie Pepitone, Sarah Chalke, Echo Kellum, Betsy Sodaro, Steve Agee, Gerry Bednob, Becky Thyre and Gary Shapiro.
Very excited for our SOLD OUT screening at the Let Live Theater in West Hollywood this Friday at 7 PM.

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March 2, 2015

FRESH YARN PRESENTS: “West Side Story” By Claudia Lonow

http://www.freshyarn.com/45/essays/lonow_westside1.htm
There are times when two completely different parts of one’s life come together in unexpected ways, causing chaos and destruction. This happened to me in junior high, when the show business world I’d grown up in collided with my membership in a gang.

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September 16, 2014

Huffington Post – How to Write a Show About Living With Your Parents (for the Rest of Your Life, Possibly)

Sixteen years ago my 18-month-old daughter and I moved in with my parents. Suffice to say, this wasn’t a high point in my life. I was a former child actress (Diana Fairgate on Knots Landing). I had spent my twenties recovering from being on television. I hadn’t gone to college, my marriage was over, and I was in the latter section of my early 30’s. So, my daughter and I slept on a piece of foam in my parents’ weight room while I tried to figure out what the — there’s no other word than “fuck” — I was going to do. I don’t know why this has so much meaning for me, but I was so broke I kept my money in a coffee can. (Café La LLave, the coffee can slash piggy bank of giants). Surprisingly, the solution was me writing a spec script which turned into a Showtime show making light of my humiliations — Rude Awakening. It was eighteen years after I’d been cast on Knots Landing, so my joke at the time was: “every eighteen years, something unbelievable happens to me.”
At that point, most people would’ve moved out of their parents’ house. I doubled down and bought a house with them. I was still a single mom, and even though my ex-husband was a great dad and very much a part of our daughter’s life, the struggle of my early adulthood was like an incurable mental virus — I couldn’t shake the idea that everything could fall apart again. I mean, of course it could. I grew up in show business — one month you ate caviar and lobster on Thanksgiving, (a real thing my parents and I really did), and the next your stepfather yelled at you for using too much toilet paper. (I must confess I use a ridiculous amount, like a toilet paper mitten). Could I make it on my own? Maybe I’d moved out of my parents’ house too early in the first place.
After Rude Awakening, I worked on other shows. My living situation usually elicited the response, “You should pitch a show about that,” from my peers. The first time I tried selling it, about ten years ago, the network executive said, “How are we not going to think the lead character is pathetic?” “Do you think I’m pathetic?” I responded. There was a long beat.
Every time I had an opportunity to write a pilot, my real life would come up. Well, I’d bring it up. “Why can’t I do a show about this?” I’d ask and launch into another story. (They were easy to launch into since they were always happening). For instance: My parents throw this huge Oscars party every year. During the Halle Berry year, we were all gathered around the TV watching as Sidney Poitier walked out to accept his lifetime achievement award. I was on one side of the room, my mom was on the other. I looked at her, misty eyed, as if to say, “Isn’t this a great moment?” My mom, a former actress and stand up comedian, mouthed back to me, “I fucked him.” I looked at her like, “What?” She nodded her head, proudly. I thought, “Wow, my mom had sex with Sidney Poitier… what great timing for her to wait for this moment to tell me.”
As for my stepfather (Mark Lonow, co-owner of the Improv), his hobbies include building things and hurting himself in the process. (He sliced off the top of his finger constructing a shed.) He enjoys currency trading — his home office has four gigantic computer screens on which he trades; it looks like the lair of a low budget super villain. Oh, and of course he wrote a mercifully unpublished crime novel with major S&M undertones (dungeons, nipple clamps) that is super uncomfortable to hear about. A health nut who goes for runs in his jeans and sweater, he has many health problems (heart murmur, testicular cancer, high cholesterol), and the fact that my mom drinks and sneak-smokes and never gets sick drives him nuts. If you were with me in my home office right now, you could look through my window and see my stepfather, in his t-shirt and underwear, pumping away on his recumbent bike. And now he’s grunting.
I couldn’t sell the pitch, but I continued developing the material in spoken word shows. My Greenwich Village childhood crept into the narrative. I was the original latchkey kid. My afterschool program was me hanging out with an old hot dog vendor known as “John the hot dog man.” That sounds ominous enough, but he was also missing several key teeth and his hot dog cart was plastered with pictures of children. So basically, your classic first suspect on Law and Order: SVU. And then there was my parents’ nontraditional approach to childhood fears. To get me over my fear of dogs, my mom and stepfather got me a dog. The dog turned out to have hereditary insanity, but we didn’t know it, because how exactly does one diagnose that? I named him Pow Wow. Pow Wow had the temperament of a speed freak… he couldn’t handle doorbells, he was a biter and he felt very possessive of the garbage. Eventually I couldn’t be alone with him unless he was tied to the radiator. We didn’t want to get rid of the dog, because that would mean we’d failed as a family. So, at night, while my parents did improv around Manhattan, I’d sit on the couch, watching TV, Pow Wow pulling at his leash, going, “grrrrr.” All this exploration started to sound like the actual reasons I still needed my parents. I hadn’t had their attention when I was younger, so I sort of demanded it as an adult.
But every time I pitched it there were reasons it couldn’t be done: it had a female lead, my life was so show business-y, and, my favorite, it sounded fake because there are already so many pilots with that premise. I’d argue: “But I’m the only television writer who actually lives with her parents.”
I’ve always been ahead of the curve… a trendsetter. I was one of the first teenage television actors to develop a coke addiction, I was into Blondie way before “Heart of Glass,” and I moved in with my parents when the economy was great. Suddenly, the economy caught up with me. For the first time in my life, my story was relatable. Also, it took so long to sell, by the time I pitched it again last year, my daughter was on her way to college. The story had a happy ending. It wasn’t tinged with panic and dread anymore. Maybe I really did come off as pathetic when I first pitched it. Maybe I was. But who cares? Apparently, my parents, my ex and I comprise one functioning adult and we did a great, nontraditional job of raising my daughter. And Sarah Chalke, Elizabeth Perkins, Brad Garrett, Jon Dore, Stephanie Hunt, Rachel Eggleston and Joe Wengert did an awesome job acting it all out in How To Live With Your Parents (For The Rest Of Your Life). So check it out — most of it really happened — when it premieres on April 3 at 9:30 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.
——-
Originally posted on:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/claudia-lonow/how-to-live-with-your-parents-for-the-rest-of-your-life_b_2993150.html

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September 16, 2014

Huffington Post – The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills: Could I Be One Too?

I have a confession: I’m fascinated with The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. I think it’s because of all the housewives programs in all the land this is the first incarnation that made me wonder: “Could I be on this show?” While I don’t actually live in Beverly Hills, it is close, especially if I take Sunset. And once upon a time, (the 80’s), I was a child actress. I played Diana Fairgate, Michele Lee’s chubby, loud-mouthed teenage daughter on Knots Landing — a domestic-themed nighttime soap opera set in a cul-de-sac, (French for dead end). I mean, RHOBH cast member Kim Richards was a child star and while I wasn’t exactly a child star, I was successful enough to have developed a pretty impressive cocaine addiction. (We all have our accomplishments).
My first impediment to being on the show, besides not having auditioned or been asked, is that I’m not a housewife. Also, not a wife. But then again, neither is Kim Richards, so yay, I’m in! Anyway, that shouldn’t matter. Bravo’s usage of the word “housewife” is so deconstructed in this series that it loses all meaning. Though an unpaid position, being a housewife traditionally implies housework, of which the housewives do none. Seriously, they might as well call it The Real Desk Lamps of Beverly Hills. I have yet to see cast member Lisa Vanderpump so much as heat a cup ‘a’ soup in her microwave. On Knots Landing Michele Lee pantomimed cooking a chicken now and then and Joan Van Ark forgot her many troubles by pretend gardening. In fact, I think Russell would be nicer to Taylor if she fake loaded the dishwasher once or twice. Maybe my role in RHOBH could be making useful suggestions like that. I’d be the friend who says, “let’s share secrets while we vacuum.”
My second roadblock is my lack of plastic surgery. The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills ladies’ faces have been lasered down to the nubbin, after which those nubbins have been expanded. (Again, except for Kim Richards, who I’m kind of hoping doesn’t want dermatological procedures as opposed to the other option — she can’t afford it). My resistance to surgery is two fold. First, my aging goal is to stay recognizable so that when I bump into people I haven’t seen in a long time, they say, “Hi, Claudia,” as opposed to, “And you are…?” And when I was on Knots, back in the schmeighties, all the women looked very gorgeous even though it was pre-collagen and botox old timey days. Instead, the cameramen used lenses labeled in ascending gauziness: “A through D.” (One of the Dallas cameramen told me he called the “D” lens the “Barbara Bel Geddes.” Is there anyone alive who knows what I’m talking about?) But maybe Kim Richards and me could be the two former child stars on RHOBH who go au naturale. Like, that’d be our hook. I’d be like, “Oh Kim, let’s you and me move our faces while we polish wood furniture.”
I think I’d be most helpful though with the RHOBH villain du jour: Camille Grammer. This is where my Knots Landing analogy picks up steam because Camille is pure Donna “Abby Cunningham” Mills. In real life, Donna was an extremely sweet, ridiculously beautiful woman whose character would never “wear the same outfit twice.” (Though mine would, according to our costumer designer). Donna’s character, Abby, was pure blond evil. Criticize-your-haircut evil. Make-snide-remarks-about-your-kitchen-remodel evil. Fuck-your-husband-in-your-own-hot tub-evil. By the timeKnots got into our fourth season, she’d slept with so many husbands; they needed to rehabilitate her character. So they gave my character, Diana Fairgate, kidney failure. (This was a big arc for me, by the way. I even hired an acting coach to prepare. Oh well). My TV mom’s kidney didn’t match. Neither did my two fake brothers’. But my Aunt Abby, Donna Mills, tested compatible, and in a tearful scene, she told me: “Anything I have is yours. Even my kidney.” Since Camille is possibly coming back toRHOBH next season, but is sick of being a villain, maybe she should give me a kidney. I’m very good at getting a kidney. Although now we couldn’t do it because it’s out there and again, I have not been asked to be on the show.
Next week is the reunion. According to the coming attractions, everyone is going to confront Kim about her drinking problem. Man, let me tell you, I’ve been there and it is a drag even when it’s not being filmed. I wish I could hold Kim’s hand and tell her it’s going to be all right. That I know what it’s like to be a former child star, or at least former child star adjacent, having grown out of whatever it was that made you bankable. That one day you learn how to actually vacuum instead of just pretend, and you’re grateful that your friends can still recognize you. On second thought, I don’t think I could be on this show. After all, Sunset is iffy during rush hour.
——-
Originally posted on:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/claudia-lonow/the-real-housewives-of-be_b_812577.html

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September 16, 2014

Huffington Post – Christmas in New York With My Ex: It’s On

My daughter, my ex-husband, my ex-but-not-really-stepdaughter, her mother (my ex-husband’s first wife) and I had decided on a traditional Christmas in NYC. Before we even left Los Angeles, my ex-husband gashed his head open on the cab door. Great. We hadn’t left my driveway and already someone was bleeding. I was reminded of a time when my ex and I were still together… I believe it was in 1993… and we were woken up by an earthquake. We ran to the front door, naked, the apartment shaking, and I thought: “Now what has he done?”
Because of the storm, our flight from Burbank was delayed. On the bright side, the rains weren’t as bad as the last bad rains, which had been so bad a house on Laurel Canyon imploded. (An urban legend I made up is that said house was a porno movie shooting house, and it actually collapsed under the weight of sadness).) My daughter is scared of flying, because it takes place in a compact, shaking vessel 37,000 feet above the ground. Also, before boarding, JetBlue announced they needed to perform a maintenance check on the plane because on it’s previous flight, it got hit by lightning. Lightning. I did not know that happens. Lightning strikes airplanes, did you know? I mean, of course, but still, really? Much like the porno house, my daughter imploded. Thanks, JetBlue. I’m not sure how we can help in the lightning situation; but, thanks for telling us.
My ex-husband’s first ex-wife and I are both Jewish, and our collective ex is a non-observant Gentile “something.” Both our daughters wanted a gooey, kitschy, family winter wonderland type deal, so Christmas day started out at Radio City Music Hall. I grew up in Manhattan, so I’d seen the show, but I didn’t remember it being so Jesus-y. I don’t know what Bill O’Reilly is bitching about in his “War On Christmas” spiels, but they don’t skimp on the Jesus at Radio City. Although, Jesus is really the B story. The A story revolves around two brothers who don’t have enough money to get their sister a Christmas present. That’s where Santa, who’s, like, just hanging around on the corner, comes in. The younger boy believes it’s the real Santa right away; his 14-year-old brother, who’s clearly seen some shit go down, is more circumspect: “Yeah, right. Let’ trust strange, old men in the street who want to give us presents.” So, Santa whisks the two boys away to the North Pole — (on Law and Order this is where Benson and Stabler would come in) — where they’re greeted by elves, (played by little people. Hey, it’s a living). A bastardized version of The Nutcracker ensues for no reason except to see people in bear suits do comedic ballet. Our heroes, the brothers, pick out a toy, (or a toy picks out them because Santa said it’s all magic and blah blah blah), after which Santa takes them flying. The teenage boy finally decides he believes. And I’m thinking, “Of course you believe. You just got proof.” After that we saw, Little Fockers.
My ex-stepdaughter spent that night with me and my daughter, (her sister), in our hotel room. Just us three girls. We ate the leftover cookies from Milk, plus the fancy good night chocolates on the bed, plus the roasted pistachios nuts I’d bought earlier. We fell asleep watching Minority Report. The next day — snow. So much snow. We took pictures in it, threw snow balls of it, planned our outfits around it. At one point my daughter said, “No one can understand how happy I am right now.” And at that moment, I knew what my ex-husband had done — he’d given me these two great daughters. And I believed this crazy family thing could work.
——-
Originally posted on:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/claudia-lonow/christmas-in-new-york-wit_b_801346.html

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September 16, 2014

Huffington Post – Christmas Past With My Ex, French Edition

It began with my mother and stepfather wanting to take my daughter and stepdaughter to Italy. My mom’s a planner, so she brought this up years ahead of time. I am not a planner, so I don’t remember what year that was.
Over time, the trip evolved to include France. My ex’s sister and niece live in France, because they are fancy. I was writing on a Very Stressful Television Show, and my ex was being extremely fantastic with our daughter, so I said he should also go to France to see his sister and niece… with my daughter, stepdaughter and my mother and stepfather.
As the trip grew closer, it dawned on me that it was weird for my ex to go on a trip with my parents without… me. (It had already dawned on everyone else. I’m a late dawner). Also, the trip started to look like it was taking place around Christmas; surely I’d be free for that. And then the writer’s strike happened, so yeah… not only was I free… I was compelled to be free. Forced to be free by a vote that I was almost positive I’d remembered to mail in.
We arrive in Paris. It dawns on me that our family has never taken a trip with each other, even when my ex and I were together, so I start feeling anxious. (I’ve got to do something about this “after the fact” dawning problem). My ex is jovial and excited. He can speak French, as can my daughter and stepdaughter because they’re smarter than I am. (I took Spanish in high school and can only remember that “el periodico es en la biblioteca.” Don’t you miss bibliotecas? I know I do. And don’t get me started on the shakiness of el periodico business). The elevator in the hotel is tiny… aggressively tiny, as if it’s tininess were a hostile gesture towards me.
We go to the first of many cafes. The coffee is stronger than coke and I can say that with authority. When you tip French people, they look at you with their big Audrey Tatou eyes and sigh. “What eez theez?” I explain, “I’m trawying to tip you!” but my New York accent sounds so exaggerated to me, it’s like I’m Renee Taylor. When I tell this to my stepfather, he scoffs and says it’s all in my head, as if that makes it better. Fine. Let’s stipulate everything is in my head. Can you get it out of my head?
Everyone is having fun, but I’m constantly checking Nikki Finke for information about the strike, believing if I were home I’d be able to sort this whole thing out. I start feeling homesick. Oh, for the gigantic elevators and weak coffee of Los Angeles.
After Paris we’re supposed to take a train to Montpelier where my ex’s sister and niece and her family live. But there’s a train strike. I feel unified with my French train-working brethren as I am in the midst of my own writing union struggle. Viva la revolucion, except now we have to fly to Montpelier. Since the trains are down,everyone has to fly to Montpelier.
We wait on line to check in for our entire lives. A French airport official tells us someone has to go ahead of us, as he is disabled. He has tourettes. He has French tourettes, and he is on our plane to Montpelier. French tourettes is just like American tourettes except you can’t understand the curse words, because you took Spanish.
Montpelier is beautiful, with cute shops, and crepes filled with Nutella and a little trolley going through it like the trolley at the Grove. (The elevators at the Grove? Enormous). Everything is several different kinds of old all crammed together — “70’s era telephones old” plus “I’m fighting you with a sword” old. I buy a fantastic velvet coat in an aggressively tiny shop… sort of hyperventilating as I put it on my Amex, what with my Nikki Finke updates. We hook up with my ex’s sister and niece for brunch — my family is like a Neil Simon play, while my ex’s is glamorous and takes very long walks through the woods with their dogs. The wine at brunch flows like wine. At some point, my mom launches into her hilarious “I got a back alley abortion by a German dwarf” story. My stepfather corrects her: “She wasn’t a dwarf. She was a perfect midget.” (It’s a funny story for which the words, “you had to be there,” have never been more confusing). My ex’s sister tells us her abortion story, and then also a story about her dog having a miscarriage and dying. In the woods.
My daughter and stepdaughter eventually went on to Italy with my parents… my ex spent Christmas with his sister and niece and niece’s family, but I just wanted to go to a movie. That’s what my people do on Christmas. I bought myself crepes filled with Nutella, and took the adorable trolley to see Elizabeth: The Golden Age in French with English subtitles. It dawns on me that my anxiety about the trip is related to my anxiety about the strike.
Both things eventually ended, but that velvet coat? Totally worth it.
——
Originally posted on:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/claudia-lonow/christmas-past-with-my-ex_b_797354.html

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September 16, 2014

Huffington Post – Christmas With My Ex

Christmas (Hanukkah, whatever, I don’t care) is upon us, and I’m going to celebrate the season the way most people do: I’m taking a trip to NYC with my daughter, my mother, my stepfather, my ex-husband, and my ex-husband’s first wife, to visit my ex-stepdaughter (though they’re never really “ex”… why should they be? What did they ever do?). Plans include: “Pee Wee’s Playhouse”, Christmas dinner in Chinatown, the abstract expressionist painting and sculpture-athon at MOMA and pretending I don’t have a boyfriend.
Some people think my practically-as-enmeshed-as-when-we-were-married relationship with my ex is bizarre; but my ex and I are friends. Friends who avoid topics. One of the most important lessons I learned from marriage is that avoiding topics is, like, so fantastic, it’s better than a jar of Nutella… inside a larger jar of Nutella. Avoiding topics is the “little black dress” of conversation — it goes with anything and makes you look skinny and chic. I swear, in any relationship I am in for the rest of time, I will never say the words, “Are you mad at me?” (My least favorite topic). These are the five stupidest words to think, string together, and then speak aloud. There is no good answer. If the answer is, “No, I’m not mad at you,” then the only possible next question is: “Then why are you acting like such a douche?” At which point the answerer will probably launch into an endless spiel about some life disappointment, or a problem they’re having with their dry cleaner, or perhaps a diatribe about how America is “over” and we’re all going to be living in caves. If the answer is “Yes, I am mad at you”, then you’ve opened the door for the other person to go on endlessly about whatever you did, (made a bitchy comment), or who you are, (a bitch).
There are some great pros about traveling with my ex: I don’t have to worry about what to pack because I don’t care what I look like around him. Finally, I can just be myself — schlep, schlep, schleppy 24 hours a day. I can even look aggressively bad if I want to. “Oh, you don’t like this jacket? Well, we don’t sleep together anymore.” (Of course I don’t say this out loud because of the topic-avoiding). Also, I bet I won’t be as constipated as I was when I traveled recently with my boyfriend. Nothing ruins a holiday as much as not pooping for a week. I bet constipation would ruin even a complimentary trip to Par-ee.
I think the reason my divorce is working out so well is because I never actually got one. That’s right. Every time a lawyer would talk to me about actually doing the whole “legal” thing, I’d start realizing: “Oh, this person’s job is to make this much worse.” They’d act like the most gleefully destructive frenemy in the world, the kind who tells you to cut your hair or that you have the kind of body that could totally pull off high-waisted jeans. (No you shouldn’t, and no you don’t). These lawyers would start confirming my worst fears: “He did what? That’s abuse! Well, I think the next step is to send him an injunction subpoena delivered by a live bear. And, from now on, don’t talk to him anymore. I’ll talk to him.” Oh yeah, Mr. Schartzfeinbernstein, that sounds like a great idea.
So this holiday season, if you see a woman at Radio City Music Hall, wearing a gigantic vintage army jacket, no make-up and frizzy hair… surrounded by her overly extended family… talking about Nutella… don’t pity her. Instead, rejoice! Because one thing is for certain — her bowels are regular. Merry Christmas!
——–
Originally posted on:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/claudia-lonow/christmas-with-my-ex_b_793719.html

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