In this deeply personal memoir, Janet Davidson lays out her circuitous path from her early years in theatre in New York to her success as one of the few female ADs and Directors of a major television series in the 80s. Young and naïve, Janet began to understand racial discrimination while touring in Snow White. Her passion lay in film and as a young woman, she faced failure, recognizing that teenage acne had pitted her face, every scar a painful memory.
Her passion for film lands her in Hollywood and shifts to options behind the camera, where every job was a battle of wills and egos that, as one of the few women on set, she was not likely to win. Hollywood power and control were deep in established patterns of gender bias and sexism long before the #MeToo movement. She does not recognize that the volatile family chaos of her father's rages groomed her with enough of her own anger to take on an industry not ready for any woman to succeed -until she does by sheer grit and tenacity.
Behind the machinations of television production in the 1980s and 1990s lies the context of an industry still dominated by white male executives ready to refer to any woman who dares attempt entry as either a 'girlie' or 'That #$%& woman.' Her work took her from one freelance contract to the next for over thirty years, with unpredictable financial security and periods of crippling doubt. She kept fighting, earning the respect of crews and execs. She names names for both kudos and complaints.
Shares what it takes to create a TV show, from weather, locations, long hours, and god forbid, actor's egos, including local politics and safety on the set, are all responsibilities and workarounds Janet had to manage as Assistant Director. Along the way, through successes with shows like Remington Steele and Cagney & Lacey, she begins to discover the sources of her constant need to prove herself, damage from the striving to earn the respect of a father who belittled and criticized her.
Her unflinching examination of the darker side of inherited trauma led her to uncover her father's secrets and the keys to her own fragilities. After years of burying her demons under hard work, she is finally coming of age, albeit in her 70s, to understand her own heart.
Janet Davidson was a trailblazer in an industry she loves but will rarely give love back. A one-woman demonstration of Jeff Melvoin's Running The Show: Television From The Inside, Her story is part tell-all, and part a journey of transformation, and all fascinating.
