25 years ago Peter Lefcourt & the late great Brandon Tartikoff created “Beggars and Choosers,” a satire of network tv, which ran for two seasons on Showtime. Cast by Joel Thurm, directed by Michael Richie (The Bad News Bears, Fletch), Brian Kerwin was our star and is still the guy I go to for advice. Comedy icons like Bea Arthur, Charlie Callas, and Carl Reiner made appearances. Bruce Campbell and I made out a couple of times. Jonathan Silverman passed on the part, so I got to play “Malcolm Laffley,” Head of Talent at the fictional LGT network. My character was a closeted television executive. Today the fear/need/pressure to stay closeted is largely a part of our collective past. In that regard “Beggars and Choosers” is now a period piece. Thankfully. But if the axiom “Tragedy + Time = Comedy” holds true then “Beggars and Choosers” is even funnier today than it was when we made it a quarter-century ago. It was Hollywood unfiltered: racy, backstabbing, unscrupulously cunning...but with a heart of [fool’s] gold. I loved working with all of these guys up in Vancouver (where we shot real snow for fake snow for real snow 😳). If you were a fan of this show consider leaving a note. If you appeared on this show definitely leave a note. Or to Peter Lefcourt (on Fb). And if you were the network executive who declined to release this show on DVD, you have likely been promoted for this and other poor decisions you’ve made over the years. 😆 Episodes now streaming. Link bio. Partial cast list alphabetically: Mitchell Anderson, Anne Archer, Alexis Arquette, Bea Arthur, Randy Becker, Ben Bass, Jim Belushi, Eric Bogosian, JR Bourne, Beau Bridges, Bruce Campbell, Maria Canals, Justin Carroll, Colin Cunningham, Lolita Davidovitch, Wil DeVry, Patricia Drake, Kevin Durand, Kaj Erik-Eriksen, Samantha Ferris, Terri Hanauer, Valerie Harper, Christina Hendricks, Isabella Hoffman, Kato Kaelin, Carol Kane, Christopher Kennedy, Joanna Kerns, Brian Kerwin, Shelley Long, Stuart Margolin, Claude Knowlton, Rudolf Martin, William McNamara, Paul Provenza, Carl Reiner, Charlotte Ross, Sherri Saum, Harry Shearer, Keegan Connor Tracy, Gregor Trpin, Noah Wylie, Alex Zahara