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Interview with Patricia Resnick

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.

AE: What did you write that didn’t make it into the movie?

PR: It was originally a darker comedy. In place of the fantasies, I had them actually trying to kill the boss. It was much blacker.

We were having trouble finding a director who could come in [during] the very small window of time we could get Lily, Jane and Dolly. They finally found a director who was a writer-director. He came in and said, “OK, I want do it, but I’m going to re-write it, and I don’t really work with other people, so I’m going to do it myself.”

AE: Figures. So, you’re credited with the story and have a co-writing credit on the screenplay.

PR: And over the years, it’s become so beloved, that when I became involved in doing the musical, I didn’t really look back at my old scripts because the movie is so iconic now, that we certainly needed to start there.

AE: If the play were a big departure from what people know of the movie, it would be confusing to some and maybe disappointing to others.

PR: Absolutely. No question. It is different, because it’s a musical, and it is a theater piece and I wrote it in 1979 about ’79, and now we’re doing it in 2008 about 1979. So, that in itself, it gives you a different perspective. And I’m definitely able to mine some of the humor out of that fact that we’re looking back at that time.

AE: Do you think the story still resonates in 2008?

PR: We’re 51% of the population, but we’re unbelievably underrepresented: Eight female CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies. And yes, women make 71 cents on the dollar. Sexual harassment still exists, it’s just not as blatant. I think Nine to Five still has a lot to say.

When we first started talking about doing this, doing some workshops in New York, doing the first interviews, everyone would say to me, “Well, how is it relevant now?” I was like, “What world do you live in?”

AE: Did you want the play to be a musical?

PR: Yeah, absolutely. I love musicals. I always say that I’m a gay man in a lesbian’s body. I grew up going to the theater. I can sing every word to every song ever written. I was thrilled at the idea of it being a musical.

AE: Dolly Parton had a huge hit with the title song. Have you ever seen her perform?

PR: I’ve sat in her apartment and had her play the guitar in front of me.

AE: What did she sing for you?

PR: She sang “I Will Always Love You.” It was one of the best moments I’ve ever had.

AE: No kidding.

PR: Yeah, to sit alone with Dolly Parton and have her sing that?

AE: That’s an interesting song to choose. Maybe she had a crush on you.

PR: When we were rehearsing, I was on the cover of Lesbian News. We were in the back of the theater and I said, “If I don’t get a date from this, I just give up.” And she said, “No, now that we’re doing this, everyone’s going to think that you’re my girlfriend.”

AE: What does that mean? She’s not…

PR: No. But she told me that if she was, she would marry me, which I took as a very big compliment. Unfortunately, she’s not [gay]. She’s happily married.

AE: Dolly has a few rumors, but I think it’s more wishful thinking.

PR: That’s what she was joking about because everybody’s always said her best friend and assistant, Judy, and she are together. And she said now she can retire that rumor and start [a new] one.

AE: No, I think they’ve moved on to the other BFF’s, Oprah and Gayle.

PR: Right, right.

AE: Have Lily Tomlin or Jane Fonda seen the play yet?

PR: Lily, and Jane, and Dabney Coleman all came to opening night. It was great, wonderful. Jane cried; they all got kind of teary afterwards. They said wonderful things and seemed to really like it.

AE: Get ready to be famous all over again, Pat.

PR: This is the first time this has ever happened to me: I started coming out the stage door and people would recognize me and ask for my autograph. And it was the weirdest … The first thing I thought was, “Do they have a check under there and is it going to bleed through?”

AE: That’s the reach of the internet: There are more images, more access to interviews you may have done. And now, they come to the show and say, “There she is.” That didn’t happen in 1979.

PR: No, absolutely not. I finally got used to it in the last couple of months. But the first couple of times, it was very strange.

AE: Enjoy it. You deserve it.

PR: Well, thank you.

AE: When we blogged about the play going to Broadway, a few readers commented they plan on making a trip to New York, just to see it.

PR: And just so you know, we have a publicist of some sort for the show that gets internet clips of everything that mentions the show, so your blog went out to the entire cast and crew, as will this interview.

AE: Really? Did I mention that I love Allison Janney and she should call me?

PR: Everybody’s totally in love with Allison Janney on the show.

AE: And Stephanie Block and Megan Hilty are tremendous musical theater talents. The show is so lucky to have them.

PR: I love our whole cast. And we’re keeping everybody. We’re all going to Broadway together.

AE: You have an incredible story about being at a wedding reception with then First Lady, Nancy Reagan. Can you tell it?

PR: Well, I got very drunk. At the reception, [a friend] was wondering if anyone would cut in on the First Lady — she was dancing with the groom — and offered five hundred bucks to anyone who would cut in. I thought it would be an easy five hundred, so I went over and I tapped [the groom’s] shoulder and asked if I could cut in. And Nancy put her arms up, and off we went to “Embraceable You.” And we slow danced until the song ended.

And the next morning — and this was pre-internet — [the groom] called me from his honeymoon and said, “I guess your dancing with Nancy Reagan made it into Liz Smith[‘s gossip column.]”

In those days, it was not easy to get a hold of news; you had to actually physically find somebody in New York to [get the newspaper and] read it to you. I didn’t know what it said!

It took me a couple of hours to track it down, which gave me time to sit there and think: “Oh my God, what is it going to say? Is it going to ruin my career?” I didn’t know how people were going to take it. I really scared myself.

We tracked down [the newspaper], only to find out it was all good humored. Everybody thought it was hilarious. It didn’t say, “Drunken Dyke Attacks First Lady.”

This was my alcoholic bottom. I thought that maybe I shouldn’t really drink in public. And I decided, about a month after that, maybe I shouldn’t drink at all.

AE: Just say “No.”

PR: And I did.

AE: Was being gay in the 70s and 80s a problem? Were you out, then?

PR: I never came out, because I was never “in.” It was just a fact of my life and it’s funny, but it didn’t really come up that much. I didn’t go into this and say, “And by the way, I’m gay,” but it was pretty much common knowledge. I certainly never hid it.

And I had girlfriends at the time and they’d go to parties and business things with me. But because I had never written anything with gay themes, particularly — even though Nine to Five has a big gay following — I was never really identified [as gay.] So, they’re always honoring lesbians in the business and I’m like…

AE: You mean all eight of them?

PR: [laughs] I’ve been here a really long time! No one ever associates that with me.

AE: Where have you been, Pat?

PR: I’ve been right here.

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