Interview with Patricia Resnick

Photo credit: Ryan Miller/Getty Images

In 1979, a 26-year-old lesbian screenwriter named Patricia Resnick began working on a story about three pink-collar office workers who kidnap their "sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot" boss, and secretly take over running their department.

The result was the feature film comedy, Nine to Five ­– starring Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, and in her film debut, Dolly Parton – which went on to earn over 103 million dollars in the US alone, making it the second top-grossing film of 1980. Not bad for a film starring three women.

The movie has since become a beloved, iconic example of female solidarity and workplace injustice, with a huge lesbian fan base.

Now, it's making its way to Broadway, as the play, 9 to 5: The Musical, starring Allison Janney, Megan Hilty, and Stephanie Block.

Resnick talked to AfterEllen about writing the film Nine to Five, bringing it to the stage, working with Dolly Parton – and how slow-dancing with Nancy Reagan changed her life.

AfterEllen: What was the inspiration for the film?
Patricia Resnick: I read in the trades that Jane Fonda wanted to make a movie about secretaries with Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton. Lily had given me my first writing job, and I had done a piece for Dolly on a Cher special. I decided it was right up my alley and called up my agent. I found out they didn't have a writer attached, so, I sent in my stuff and went in and met [with Fonda].

She had a lot of statistics about clerical workers and things that she wanted to say politically, and she wanted it to be couched in terms of a comedy. She felt that would make it more palatable. So I went off to try and come up with a story and we just proceeded from there.

AE: Did you have office job experiences of your own to draw from?
PR: I never worked in an office. I was a waitress for quite a long time. But no, I never worked in an office. Fox [Studios] got me into their insurance company, which is a huge, downtown LA company with offices and secretarial pools, and all of that. I went in every day for two weeks and had everybody tell me their secrets. I also applied to get a job as a secretary, just to see what that was like. But my typing skills weren't good enough.

AE: Being a writer doesn't guarantee any kind of decent typing skills.
PR: I know. I type with four fingers and I'm not that fast. I make a lot of mistakes.

AE: Me, too. I'm working off of one seventh grade typing class.
PR: That's more than I ever got!

AE: Did you want to be a screenwriter right out of college?
PR: Yeah. I went to USC film school. I had to do a paper on an American director and I decided it would be more helpful if it were a living American director, because I thought maybe I could parlay that into something.

I happened to be driving down Wilshire Boulevard and I saw they were shooting and I got out to see what it was. It was a Robert Altman movie called California Split. I waited around until he came out, told him I was going to write a paper on him, and he let me come interview him. [Later] when I was done, I dropped it off and he called me and said he wanted to hire me.

AE: You got your break into the movie business by doing a drive-by?
PR: Yeah, I did! I don't know what I would have done if that hadn't happened.

AE: How long was it between that fateful day and starting the script for Nine to Five?
PR: Well, let's see. I went to work for Altman right after I graduated, so I was 22. And when I started working on Nine to Five, I was 26.

AE: Twenty-six year old screenwriters – any writers for that matter – don't always have a lot of creative control with big studios. Did the film turn out the way you wanted it to?
PR: It's funny; it didn't turn out the way I wanted to, although at some point, you have to stop arguing with success. So, I let go of that.