Marcia Strassman, who played Julie Kotter on the TV series, Welcome Back, Kotter, has died at the age of 66. Before that series, she had a recurring role on M*A*S*H and before that, a couple of popular records as a vocalist. Later on, she had some pretty good roles on TV shows and movies, including Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. I thought she was a really good actress with a great on-screen presence.
Okay, this next part is tricky…
Since I was a writer on Kotter, I have a number of e-mails from folks who are expecting a personal remembrance of this fine lady. I'm afraid I don't have much of one. During the time I was there, Marcia was extremely unhappy with her role as the wife on the series, feeling — understandably, if you saw some episodes — that she had nothing to do on it but sit around for a few minutes per week and laugh at Gabe Kaplan's jokes. As a result, during my entire stint on that show, she wasn't around much and never spoke to me except to complain about her lines or lack, thereof.
Oddly enough, I agreed with her. My then-partner Dennis Palumbo and I had almost no power on that show so we couldn't do anything about it but we both agreed with her. It's a not uncommon thing that happens on a TV series. As a show develops, the characters grow and the audience makes its preferences known. The producers realize that the "gold" is in focusing on Fonzie and not Ralph Malph or on Hawkeye and not Trapper John or just on the star's job instead of his home life. Concurrently on ABC, Barney Miller's wife was becoming a missing person on Barney Miller.
Actors have been known to leave hit shows — McLean Stevenson will do as an example — because they feel they're being wasted and that better roles await them elsewhere. Marcia, at one point, made it known that she wanted out of Kotter. Dennis and I were involved in discussions about what should be done about this. I recall one semi-serious meeting with the producers about having Mrs. Kotter die. That seemed too heavy for that series so instead, the decision was made (Evanier and Palumbo did not get a vote) to have Julie Kotter get pregnant. That way, someone figured, there'd be stories involving her.
I don't recall Marcia being too happy with that, either. She had some offers of juicier acting parts (we heard) and would have preferred to be killed off so she could go do one of them. She knew that even with a Kotter baby on the way — Julie eventually had twins — the series would still be 95% about John Travolta's character and the other Sweathogs…and at the time I left the show, it still was.
So I can't really tell you much about Marcia Strassman because I never really talked to her except when she was mad at the writing staff. If I'd had the chance, I would have told her that I thought she was a terrific actress who deserved better than you get when you're on a series and other actors get hot. I was glad to see that later on, she got to show the world she could do more than feign giggles at old jokes.