This one's tough. I worked for Sid and Marty Krofft off and on from early 1978 until…well, I wrote and sometimes produced shows for the company that got on the air until 1985 or '86 but after that, there were a number of developments and pilot scripts that never went anyplace. Every so often after that, I'd see Marty and he'd always have a new project…and the Kroffts ran the kind of operation that worked like this: If the first time you worked with them, things didn't go great, that was the last time you worked for them. If things went well, you were adopted into the family and they tried to bring you on board on every new project.
Two months ago on September 21, I took a lady friend to the Musso & Frank Grill in Hollywood for her birthday. The host seated us at our table…and at the next table, seated with some of his associates, was Marty. We hugged. We talked. He insisted I come to his office soon after where we discussed upcoming projects. Marty always had upcoming projects. And his assistant told me that Marty had tried to pay for our dinners that evening at Musso & Frank's but I'd unknowingly beaten him to the check.
Marty died earlier today due to kidney failure. He was 86. This obit is about as good an overview of his amazing career as you're going to find.
What I think I'd like you to know this evening and forever is that Marty was the kind of guy I wish every producer in show business was. He was fierce about doing a good show and doing right by his people. The Kroffts paid me well…or if they didn't on one project, they made it up on the next. Money was sometimes tight because they didn't hesitate to spend it if it would make a show better. From where I could see, Sid had the wildest, most creative ideas but it was Marty who had to deal with the network, deal with the budgets, deal with the schedules.
Photo by Bruce Guthrie
Marty had a great life. He knew everyone in show business and they knew him. He was married to one of the most beautiful women in the world and they had equally-beautiful daughters. And he and his brother became a lot more famous than the kind of producers who produce the kinds of things they produced.
I have an awful lot of stories about the two of them but here's the one that feels like a good ending for this piece. This happened in 1973, several years before I went to work with them and was subsequently adopted. They were doing the TV show, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters and it was shot partly on the beach and partly on soundstages at Goldwyn Studios in Hollywood. Most of the sets on that stage were underground caverns because that's where Sigmund and his friends lived.
Something electrical sparked. Something some of the sets were made of caught fire. Pretty soon, the stage was ablaze.
Like I said, I wasn't around then but an Associate Producer I worked with later for the Kroffts was. I asked him once about that day. As the fire engulfed a large portion of Goldwyn Studios, this A.P. ran up to near where Marty was and yelled, "We may be able to save some of the sets!" Marty, he told me, instantly yelled, "Fuck the sets! Make sure nobody gets hurt!" And nobody got hurt.
If I was ever in charge in a situation like that, I hope that would be the first thing out of my mouth. I've worked for some producers who would have had different priorities.