The doc notes in passing that Gilda Radner was briefly considered as Tomlin’s replacement, and that Fox wanted a “movie star” like Steve Martin instead of Dabney Coleman - then deemed too much of a “TV actor” - to play the boss. And yet, she admits in one of the newly filmed interviews, she continued to question key bits of comic dialogue - until she discovered, during preview screenings, that those lines were audience favorites. She changed her mind, at the very strong encouragement of her partner, Jane Wagner. Parton had never acted before and hesitated to accept Fonda’s offer of a starring role only because she worried how her country-music fans might react to her appearing opposite “such a radical girl.” After the script finally was completed, Tomlin thought too many scenes were too “silly,” and briefly bailed from the production.
performance of Tomlin’s “Appearing Nitely” one-woman stage show.
But the script for “9 to 5” was still being written when Fonda corralled her two co-stars - Lily Tomlin, whom she long admired, and Dolly Parton, whose recording of “Two Doors Down” Fonda fortuitously heard on her car radio while driving from an L.A.
It wasn’t, of course, and reminding us of just how dicey a proposition it really was back in the day is just one of the enlightening and amusing elements of “ Still Working 9 to 5.”ĭocumentarians Camille Hardman and Gary Lane do a splendidly entertaining job of showing how the comedy came together, with Jane Fonda - then at the height of her star power with two Oscars under her belt - and producing partner Bruce Gilbert serving as the driving forces for a film originally envisioned as a socially conscious drama (not unlike Fonda’s “The China Syndrome”), then a jet-black comedy, and finally a lighter and brighter piece of work that nonetheless hit all the right notes while underscoring injustices in the workplace.įonda was inspired to tell a story about three undervalued and incredibly underpaid secretaries by her interactions with Karen Nussbaum and Ellen Cassedy, who founded the 9to5 National Association of Working Women in 1973, and appear here among the many talking-head interviewees. 2 spot (just behind “The Empire Strikes Back”) on the list of top-grossing 1980 movies, green-lighting “9 to 5” might now appear to be one of those surefire, no-brainer decisions made by Hollywood brass with absolute certainty of striking box-office gold.
More than four decades after it defied skeptics, entertained millions, and hit the No. Viewed with 20/20 hindsight, all of history appears inevitable simply because it went to the trouble of happening.
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