Style and Substance (lost unaired Kathleen Turner pilot; 1996)

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Style and Substance is a 1996 workplace comedy pilot produced by Disney's Touchstone Television, created by Peter Tolan, directed by Robby Benson, and starring Kathleen Turner as Chelsea Stevens. Loosely patterned after Martha Stewart, Chelsea is an abrasive homemaker who heads a media empire. The pilot costars Melinda McGraw as her office manager, Lisa Rieffel as her daughter, Danny Zorn as her secretary, plus Anthony Mangano, Scott Stevens, and JoNell Kennedy. Andrew Bilgore had originally been cast as the secretary, but despite the fact that he was beloved by Turner, the network wanted someone chubbier in the role so they gave the part to Zorn on the day of the taping. Michael Eisner and network executives loved the pilot and penciled the show in on the ABC fall schedule, but things fell apart in test screenings. This pilot was never broadcast.

The script was reworked, it was shopped around to other actresses and reshot the following year with Jean Smart and Nancy McKeon. That version managed to get on the air at CBS in January 1998, but they ran afoul of Stewart, who'd made a home for herself on CBS, so it was pulled off the schedule at the end of the month and quietly canceled. Copies of that series' 13 episodes are easily found online. Over two decades later, Smart reprised the role of Chelsea in a 2019 episode of "Mad About You."

External Links

• Wikipedia