How I Got to Be Whoever It Is I Am by Charles Grodin

politely, took my leave. To this day, that woman resents me. I understand, but since,
     as I’ve said, I believe marriage must follow a pregnancy, I had no choice. I also believe in a woman’s right to choose simply
     because, as many have said, if a woman wants an abortion somehow she will get one, and if
Roe v. Wade
is ever repealed, abortions obviously would be done under less than safe circumstances.

Candid Camera
    I n the sixties I was hired by Allen Funt to be a writer and director for
Candid Camera
. I’m still not sure exactly why he hired me. I know he had liked me in a Broadway show he had seen, but I had played a nerdy
     Wharton Business School graduate, nothing that would suggest I’d be good for
Candid Camera.
    A young agent, Owen Laster, who went on to become a major literary agent, set up a meeting with Mr. Funt. I don’t remember
     anything that transpired at the meeting. All I know is I was hired and given my own film unit.
    There was a slight hitch, though. I had been asked to go to Hollywood to be on a soap opera,
The Young Marrieds
. I had no interest in doing that, having worked for a short time in New York on a soap opera called
Love of Life
, which was the most difficult thing I’d ever done. It really was a challenge to memorize so many lines each day. I felt if
     I read the teleprompter it would look like I was reading a teleprompter—not exactly a good career move. I couldn’t get anywhere
     near the level of acting I was capable of, because there simply wasn’t enough time to be confident enough with the lines,
     so it would be next to impossible to embody the character. I don’t watch soaps or much of anything on television besides news
     and sports, but I’m sure there are some actors and actresses on soap operas who, after playing their character for years,
     do it a lot better than I did.
    I accepted the job on
The Young Marrieds
because I had a six-year-old daughter and bills to pay. I said I’d only do it for six months and was surprised when they
     accepted that. It was there I met Ted Knight, who later played Ted Baxter on
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
.
    Ted played my boss on
The Young Marrieds
, and it was almost impossible for us to act the soap opera story together as it was a variation of the same scene over and
     over, which reduced us both to helpless laughter throughout rehearsal, much to the chagrin of the people in charge. I loved
     Ted. Once I was driving down a steep hill in Los Angeles with him and the car’s brakes failed. In order not to go over a cliff,
     I crashed the car into a brick wall of a garage. Amazingly, neither one of us was hurt. Ted passed away years later after
     refusing chemotherapy for what I assume was incurable cancer.
    It was at his house at a gathering after he passed that I met Dabney Coleman. Dabney and I are close to this day, decades
     later. I wish I could have spent time with Dabney and Ted together, if even for one night. Sadly, it never happened.
    After my six months were up, I headed back to New York and
Candid Camera
and immediately ran into an unforeseen obstacle in the person of an executive who worked under Allen who seemed to openly
     resent that I had been hired without her knowledge.
    She met with me alone in an office and wanted to hear my ideas. I’d had six months to think about it, so I had about twenty-five
     I presented to her. She responded to each with variations of, “I don’t like it. That won’t work. We’ve done something like
     that. No. No. No,” and more noes. Then she sat back in her chair and looked at me, I guess to see if I would just leave the
     building. She obviously had no idea she was dealing with a thirty-one-year-old who had overcome being impeached at ten.
    I said, “I know I can be wrong, but I don’t believe I can be wrong twenty-five times in a row.” It was decided we should go
     see Allen Funt,
after
she had expressed her feelings about me to him. Allen had just emerged from a Jacuzzi or a