http://erinthill.wordpress.com/
although, quite disappointingly at the end, she ends up giving weight to the idea that I was an out of control maniac, which is not true at all, by the way. I was a feminist with very strong principles, and quite a clear vision of what I wanted. I had not attended harvard, nor years of training in hack writing circles, and i was resented because i had my finger on the pulse of reality at the time. Hollywood writers considered the female viewer just a little above a speaking cow in intelligence. They always said women were against a strong feminist message, and only wanted bouncy hair and all the rest of that boring load of shit assumed by elitist swine who never sat in a room with a woman who did not defer to their ‘supremacy’–in some way.
A quick way to get close to the network deal makers was to tell them that I was being “handled”, or calmed, or appeased, as if i had not one once of professionalism. One writer whom I caught bad mouthing me to the network in order to make himself look important was secretly taped, and backed down when the tape was produced that exposed him as a liar regarding my behavior on set. I had secretaries and cleaning women on my side, and that is how I won. I had lady spies everywhere.
They often talked of “putting me in my place’ within their secret covens, which my friends (writers and writer’s assistants) on the inside would relate to me. When Tom Arnold found out that it was ABC radio itself that authored most of the stories that called me ‘difficult’, he called them and threatened to sue, and we received an apology from them for this terribly upsetting and unfair treatment, which was stopped, but by then it was all too late.
They could not stand that a working class woman with no middle class veneer could get through the gauntlet, but I did.