Throughout his legendary, 50-year career, James Burrows, who died on Friday at the age of 85, has worked on many iconic shows, from Taxi to Friends and Frasier to The Big Bang Theory.
But he is most closely associated with two Emmy-winning multi-camera comedies, Cheers, which he co-created, executive produced and directed 236 episodes of, and Will & Grace, which he executive produced and directed every episode of — a total of 246 over the series’ original run and 2017 revival.
Will & Grace creators Max Mutchnick and David Kohan were among the speakers at Burrows’ funeral, held today. In their witty eulogy, delivered as a dialogue between the two longtime writing partners, they recalled how scared and intimidated they were ahead of meeting Burrows for the first time.
Mutchnick and Kohan were relative novices when NBC was gearing up to pick up their Will & Grace script to pilot in 1997. They had staffed on a couple of comedies and had recently created their first series, Boston Common.
NBC Entertainment President Warren Littlefield and the network’s senior development executive David Nevins developed the script. Littlefield handed it to Burrows to read it and told the duo that the top multi-camera director in television was willing to meet with them.
“The first time we met James Burrows, the man who would become our show business father, was at a breakfast meeting 30 years ago at Walter’s Coffee Shop on Canon Drive in Beverly Hills. We were there to discuss whether or not he was going to direct the pilot of Will & Grace,” Mutchnick and Kohan said in their eulogy. “On the way over we had come up with a brilliant plan to counterbalance the experience and power disparity between us and Mr. Burrows. The plan…was to say, ‘Thank you, but we do not need your services, Mr. Burrows.’ After all, this wasn’t our first rodeo. It was our second rodeo. And damned if we were going to let some legendary director who was loved and revered by everyone who worked with him and who was responsible for some of the greatest comedies in the history of television tinker with our A Scene!”
The “second rodeo” remark is a reference to the duo being second-time creators. Their Boston Common comedy had been canceled by NBC earlier that year after two seasons.
Below is the rest of Mutchnick and Kohan’s recollection of their fateful first meeting with Burrows, the decades of collaboration and friendship that followed and the large void the director’s passing is leaving in their lives and the world of TV comedy.
That was part two of the plan: mask fear with arrogance. Because we were scared. Scared that his stature would overwhelm us, and scared that maybe we wouldn’t be able to meet his standards.And then Jimmy walked in. Baseball cap. Satchel full ‘o scripts. Hair like he wasn’t married to someone who did hair. He starts heading over to our table, and as he approaches us we get a good look at him.And there was just something about that face of his that made us…still scared. Because he had that “resting Jimmy face.” You know, that kind of dour, impassive, “I’ve worked with all the greats and THEY DON’T LOOK LIKE YOU” FACE.But we introduced ourselves and he sat down and after a beat he said, “So boys, you wrote a nice script. I think I want to do it.” But we had a plan. So… we looked at each other, nodded knowingly, mustered up all the courage and resolve we possibly could, looked Jimmy right in the eye and said… “It would be an honor, sir!”Yeah, it’s Jimmy freaking Burrows. We’re not idiots. Thinking back on that day, what’s striking is how wrong our initial assumptions were about Jimmy.We thought he might be mean, but he was so deeply kind. We thought he might try to diminish us, but nobody has ever done more to empower us, to challenge us to be better, and to give us ALL the credit when we met the standard he set for us.We thought he might be unhappy, but my G-d was he full of joy. You could see it when he laughed, and he laughed a lot. There’s not an actor or writer in here who doesn’t know the joy of making Jimmy laugh.We were looking for his approval. Not because he was so stingy with it, but because if you got it, you knew it was earned. But here’s the other thing: We were also looking to share the fun. Because for Jimmy, it was fun. Every minute of it. He loved doing it, he loved being with writers, with actors, and with his crew. He loved it all.Maybe that’s why we cared if he laughed or not. Because if he was having fun, it meant we could have fun, too. Isn’t that why we all went into this business in the first place?We are going to miss Jimmy more than we can say. He wasn’t just our creative partner, he was our dear friend, and a father figure. In fact, he used to call us the sons he never had. Which begs the question: “Why aren’t we in the will?” But that’s for another time.We’ve always felt he called us that because at the heart of it, Jimmy was about family. He created families: on the screen and on the stage and in the writers’ rooms, he made everyone feel like mishpacha.The world of television comedy is changing by the day. But with this, the loss of Jim Burrows, the change is seismic. It doesn’t mean we won’t keep trying, we just hope it will be half as much fun.
Mutchnick and Kohan further reflected on their 30-year partnership with Burrows in a statement to Deadline.
“It’s impossible for us to overstate how rare it is that a Jimmy Burrows even existed in the first place. That someone so accomplished and powerful was also so supportive, gentle and fun. He was a once in a generation phenomenon,” they said. “We feel fortunate and honored to have loved him so well for so long. Wish it could have been longer…”
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