Mary Tyler Moore and company know they've
got something in Georgia Engel--but they're not sure what"I think of her," says Mary Tyler Moore, "as a cross between Stan Laurel and Marylin Monroe." Ted Knight sees her as a throwback to ZaSu Pitts, the fluttery, wispy-voiced comedienne of the '30's--"but with a tough inner fiber." A journalist confidently describes her as "a female Gomer Pyle." Someone else suggests that she belongs "somewhere in between Goldie Hawn and Carol Channing, with a touch of Judy Holliday."
The subject of the foregoing diverse views is a slender, blue-eyed blonde ("I'm a blonde with a little help") named Georgia Engel, whose portrayal of Georgette on The Mary Tyler Moore Show offers a curious reversal of form in this age of easily stirred feminist sensitivity. Georgette, as written and played, is a featherbrain in the old My Friend Irma tradition, a saucer-eyed innocent who not only plainly worships Ted Baxter, the show's peacock of an anchor man, but even confessed in one episode that she--are you listening, Gloria Steinem?--washes his socks.
And yet, according to the show's co-executive producers, Jim Brooks and Allan Burns, the women's liberation forces have yet to issue a peep of protest. "We've had our share of letters on other aspects of the show," says Brooks, "but apparently they see Georgette for her strengths as well as her naivete. And it undoubtedly helped that in one show her 'consciousness' was 'raised', as they say, and after that she refused to wash Ted's socks anymore."
"Georgia simply defies pigeon-holing," says Burns. "Kooky? Vacuous? They come close, but not close enough. You have to make up a whole new word to describe her and the way she comes off as Georgette. But it's obvious that Georgia has some kind of odd natural genius as a comedy actress and she truly touches an audience."
Burns and Brooks first became aware of Miss Engel's singular talents when they saw her on the stage of Hollywood's Huntington Hartford Theatre, playing a deaf starlet in the bizarre comedy "The House of Blue Leaves." Earlier, Mary Tyler Moore and her husband, Grant Tinker, who heads the company that produces the series, had seen the play and been intrigued by Georgia's performance. "We knew she was a fine actress, so real and believable," Miss Moore says. "But we weren't sure at the start where she could fit into the show."
By the end of the play's run, Georgia had returned to New York. Soon, she was summoned back to Hollywood and given a four-line part on the show, in a cocktail-party scene. Jay Sandrich, who directed the episode, recalls: "We wondered how the studio audience would take to her. We found out in a hurry when she started getting laughs on her straight lines." The romance with Ted Baxter, according to Sandrich, evolved from an accident of staging. "At rehearsal," Sandrich says, "and for no particular reason other than to position the actors, we asked Ted to look at Georgia. The way she looked back, her total response, set up a warm situation which struck everybody as inevitable and delightful."
After that first rehearsal, there was general agreement among the people associated with the series. Says Valerie Harper, who plays the tart-tongued Rhoda: "We could sense right off that Georgia added a new musical voicing to the orchestration. A flute maybe. Whatever, she made it complete." Producer Ed. Weinberger remembers: "Our biggest fear was that she'd do one show and we'd lose her. So we called her manager and immediately got her signed to a two-year contract. We all knew she had somehting special, this girl, but what it was we weren't quite sure."
Away from the cameras, the elusive qualitites remain, along with the little-girl voice, soft and weightless and eager to please. "I've always been pipey-voiced," Georgia says. "In school, teachers tried to change my voice, to make it lower. But this is how I talk. This is how I am." On the set, she is quiet, withdrawn, solitary: always pleasant, with an easy laugh, but she rarely initiates a conversation and she is never a part of the usual banter. She settles in a corner, silently knitting or reading biographies of famous dancers or religious tomes. She is a devout Christian Scientist, currently on leave from her duties as a Sunday School teacher teacher at the Third Church of Christ Scientist in New York.
"People have always wanted to take care of me," says Georgia, who is single, "but with God's help I can take care of myself. If trusting in God is a sign of innocence, then I am innocent, but I'm not naive. Drinking, smoking and taking pot don't interest me, and the people who do these things aren't interested in me."
"Her total sincerity and lack of guile is something that takes a while getting used to," says Ed. Weinberger. "Last fall she sent Thanksgiving cards to the cast and crew. Who's ever heard of anyone sending Thanksgiving cards? When she first came out here, she was staying at a little motel about a mile from the studio. She always walked home alone. It would never have occurred to her to impose on anyone for a ride. I just don't know anyone like her."
Comedienne Alice Ghostley, who worked with Georgia in "The House of Blue Leaves", refers to her as "one of a kind, a true original, a remarkably sweet girl and a dazzling actress." Georgia sees herself as an actress playing a role that happens to include some of her own personality traits. "Of course, they tailored the part around me, the way I talk and act," she says. "But Georgette isn't me, only a part of me. They've written a kind of delicate character for me. Among other things, she's silly. She's also gentle, loving and funny. People ask me how can I justify playing a 'dumb blonde'? Well, Georgette is no moron. She's just a very simple person who loves people and happens to be crazy about Ted Baxter. She sees something in him not readily apparent to others, nice things instead of his silliness and pomposity."
Ted Knight, who plays Ted Baxter, admits that Georgia is a puzzle. "She's a professional, a joy to work with," he says, "and her playing of Georgette makes the romantic scenes such an interesting blend of opposites--Ted is all ego, Georgette has none. But I keep wondering what's behind Georgia's shell of vulnerability (sic). The way she functions as an actress, there has to be more depth to that girl than she is willing to reveal."
Georgia Bright Engel was born 25 years ago in Washington, D.C., the youngest of three daughters of a Coast Guard Officer, Benjamin Franklin Engel, who has since attained the rank of vice admiral. "We were always moving," Georgia recalls, "but wherever we went, Mom would always make a nice home for the family. We always felt warm and protected. But as one got older, it did get harder, always being the new girl."
As a child, Georgia focused her energies on dancing and later received her high school diploma from The Academy of the Washington Ballet. Afterward, she moved with her family to Hawaii, where she lived at the Diamond Head lighthouse and majored in drama at the University of Hawaii, picking up a degree in three years. She returned to Washington, where she joined the American Light Opera community theater, dancing and acting in satirical revues.
In 1969, she hit New York and landed a role in an Equity Library Theatre production of "Lend an Ear." She was spotted by a casting agent for producer David Merrick and moved into the role of Minnie Fay in Merrick's "Hello, Dolly!", where she remained for a year.
Every night around midnight, after the show, she would ride the subway alone and then walk several blocks to her apartment. Typically, with an airy diffidence, she says, "I'm not unaware of danger. I'm always alert but never afraid. Not once, in those 52 weeks, was I ever approached either in the subway or on the streets of New York."
Her next major assignment came in the off-Broadway production of "The House of Blue Leaves". Then came the Los Angeles stand that led directly to her role of Georgette. As she contemplates her career, Georgia says: "Maybe I've been spoiled and given things, but I never sloughed off. I always worked hard and I enjoyed a series of escalating plateaus. I have my goals--some day I'd like to star in a big musical comedy on Broadway. It's contradictory to say I'm not ambitious, because I do want success, but I know that God good is supreme. It's all in His hands."
Georgia lives alone in a small apartment a short distance midway between her two major absorptions, a Christian Science church and the dance studio where she studies regularly. She is a good cook, with fancy desserts her specialty. The social aspects of women's liberation she shrugs off with: "I must say I appreciate a gentlemanly attitude on the part of men and I like to think that men want women to be feminie."
An observer close to the show ponders her aura of childlike ingenuousness. "You wonder how she has ever survived in this hard, cruel world and come out so untouched," he says. "She makes Mary Poppins look like a sophisticate. She has this other-worldly tone about her, an indescribable kind of innocence that has to be genuine. And she's obviously intelligent, but--well, there's just a strange mystery to her that nobody's been able to crack."
Her ability before the cameras, however, is beyond question. "It's pure magic, the way she has of zeroing in on a line or an attitude," says Jim Brooks. "She gives us readings that we never imagined were in the script." Allan Burns adds: "She makes no demands. She's very secure. Very secure."
Georgia's own summation of her role might well apply to herself. "Georgette," she says, "is a nice contrast to ultraindependent females. She complements the others. She's no threat. There's nothing plastic about her. In her own way, she's very real."
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