Culp the writer

Becca;

Let me give you a few examples regarding Bob's attitude about tampering with his words: in the "Cain's Hundred" episode, "The Swinger", in which Bob plays a Rat Pack type Vegas crooner named Hank Shannon, probably my favorite guest spot he ever did (in which Bob's voice was dubbed by Sammy Davis, Jr., who also appears in a cameo) there is a scene when Hank recounts that Nick Cain (Mark Richman) saved Hank's butt in the writing of his first contract and adds, "Fee, one glass of beer, right?" and Mark Richman, the show's star replies, "Right -- one glass of beer. But it was expensive beer! ha ha ha..." Bob would always say, "I didn't write that," thinking the addition of "It was expensive beer!" was cheap. So clearly, he didn't like it, but in that case, he didn't make a stink out of it, presumably because Richman was the star of the show.

In "Vanity Said the Preacher", however, he allowed Bill Katt to improvise -- in fact he always tried to get Katt to improvise, just to loosen him up and Katt was happy to do this. At one point for instance, Connie Selleca says "El Caballo Rojo" and Katt says, "You say that one more time I'm gonna Rojo your face!" Bob thought it was an idiotic ad-lib but he let it go because he was trying to get them to be more playful with each other. So the upshot is, while he probably didn't like it, he saw the value of it from an acting point of view, and didn't make too much of a fuss.

I should ammend my earlier thoughts about scripted banter, because a scene in 'The Loser', where Kelly and Scott are finally together, handcuffed in a locked room, it contained the prototype for the banter (I'm gonna punch you right in the mouth; Go ahead, take your best shot; That did it, untie my hands; I'll untie your hands if you untie mine first ....) and in 'Court Of The Lion' (the scene where the japanese girl is speaking to Kelly and Kelly tries to get Scott to translate) that was all written down -- so he did manage to get it on paper on occasion... it's just that no one else did successfully, except possibly Michael Zagor (Mainly On The Plains, etc.)

Bob was a veteran of dozens of made for TV movies, where the writing was mediocre at best, also, he learned about writing from two of the great masters, Richard Brooks and Sam Peckinpah, so he had in his mind an idea of what constituted good writing versus not so good writing.

I think in regards to "Home to J" as we always called it, that was, as you adroitly observed, a more personal episode, so you'll see less banter, since the episode was probably one of the most dramatic of all in the series. I too always get a chill when Will Geer, in his broken, high pitched voice says "Kelly...?"