Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1475547
a letter to Moore, whose husband and business partner, Grant Tinker, summoned him to Hollywood to participate in MTM Productions' apprenticeship program. Burrows is forthright about how much he had to learn during h i s t i m e at M T M ( w h o s e s h ow s also included "The Bob Newhart Show," "Rhoda," and "Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers"). Although his theater experience left him well equipped to work with actors and map out blocking, Burrows relied on mentors, including veteran "Mary Tyler Moore" director Jay Sandrich, for practical advice. "To cover the work I needed to do, I had to quickly learn how cameras operated," he writes. "I also went into the editing room and asked what the team needed to capture on camera to put together a final cut of an episode." B u t , a s G re g g To l a n d i s p u r p o r te d to have told Orson Welles, the technical aspects of filmmaking can be learned quickly. What Burrows brought to the table was a vision. In these pages, Burrows rattles off the basics of sitcom style as surely as Alfred Hitchcock could describe the ingredients that went into a successful suspense scene. Here, he emphasizes the importance of a "center" in a series: "a character that the audience is going to like, trust, respect, and enjoy, despite any flaws or neuroses." CHILDHOOD DREAMS: Young Jimmy (circled) sang in the Metropolitan Opera Children's Chorus in New York. Bottom photo: Jimmy with his father Abe and sister Laurie at Camp Walt Whitman in 1957. P H O T O S : B A L L A N T I N E B O O K S 48 C I N E M O N T A G E B O O K R E V I E W