Boobs Askew

The production formula for It Is Written was pretty straight-forward. The show opened with a 90 second intro that, ideally, contained a verbal teaser of the topic with some illustrative footage. This segued into the animated graphics that include flying logos and titles (state of the art at the time) and then a dissolve to George on the huge set that stretched from one side of the 90+ ft square sound stage to the other.

The next 8-10 minutes would involve George telling a story, often backed up with B-roll footage to illustrate the story. Then began a carefully choreographed sermon journey across the stage, including walking down a small flight of stairs, past a series of floor-to-ceiling "windows" that displayed a blue cyclorama with projected clouds giving it the appearance of sky and finally landing at his beautiful curved office desk. He would sit there until the end of the show and end with his trademark, “It is written: 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God'" then we'd dissolve to a long shot of the set and the credits would begin to roll.

This process involved multiple cameras on dollies, George turning from camera to camera based on arrows drawn on the teleprompter paper (yeah, the teleprompter used long computer paper strips) directing him from one to the other. Often this journey would be interrupted by retakes required by everything from George making a verbal error, to lighting equipment failing or Dave (David Jones was the Producer/Director of the show and my boss) deciding that he needed a different tone from George. A given day in the studio would involve at least 12 hours of this process broken by occasional breaks for lunch and re-sets for new shows. The process would regularly mean shooting three or more shows in a day for two six day weeks in a row.To put it mildly, it was an exhausting process for everyone and George was no exception. 

Included near the end, in many of the shows, was a musical number. Previously, these had been recorded in an audio recording studio and then the "talent" would lip sync the music on the stage. These numbers would be edited into the show during the post-production process.

For this particular set of shows, however, we had gone to San Bernardino, to record Marilyn Cotton, a soprano whom George had known for many years. Marilyn and her husband, Dan, were quite well off and lived on a beautiful estate with all the best flora on the grounds of their home that Southern California could offer. We took our new portable camera to their home, along with a professional audio tape deck for playback and recorded Marilyn lip-synicing a half a dozen songs for the shows being taped in the studio. Despite the size and complicated nature of the setup, Dave and I got it done. And Marilyn was at her best!

At the end of the two exhausting weeks of studio taping, Dave and I were sitting in Dave's office with Royce Williams, director of field services for IIW, reviewing the raw footage of Marilyn on a monitor while we debriefed the taping marathon that had concluded an hour or so before.

As Marilyn sauntered gracefully through her orange grove lip-syncing a song, Royce announced, "You can't use THAT footage!" in a tone that startled both Dave and I from our post-shoot reverie.

"Why not?" Dave asked as he looked closely at a medium shot of Marilyn as she glided past an orange tree in bloom.

The answer stopped us cold. "Well, one of her breasts is higher than the other!"

I looked at Dave, he looked at me, both of us completely baffled! At that moment, George, on leaving his office on his way home for a well-deserved rest, stuck his head in the door.

George was out of his make-up but still carried himself like the speaker/director of a nationally syndicated TV show and was planning to give us his rather formal version of an "atta boy" before he headed for home.

Dave said, "George, can you take a look at this footage for a minute? Royce doesn't think we can use it." He rewound the tape and George watched carefully, despite his obvious fatigue. When Dave stopped the tape, he said, "Royce thinks Marilyn's breasts are a problem."

A boyish grin, unlike any I'd ever seen on this always proper gentleman, spread across his face and without hesitation he replied, "They look fine to me," and he just walked away, still grinning.

For the first time, I think, I saw the real George Vandeman. My respect for him ratcheted up several notches! The man had a wicked sense of humor that the staff, sadly, rarely saw.