If you happen to have been born around 1950, the odds are fairly great—almost 90 percent—that your parents never got divorced. By 1960, however, d

Treva Silverman, Joke Whisperer

submited by

Style Pass

2024-09-29 16:30:06

If you happen to have been born around 1950, the odds are fairly great—almost 90 percent—that your parents never got divorced. By 1960, however, divorce rates started to climb, doubling within two decades, and children born in the 1970s stood a whopping 50 percent chance of living through the end of their parents’ marriage.

As divorce skyrocketed, the once-taboo subject started to transform television comedy. Out went Ward and June Cleaver , a blandly perfect married couple, and in came Felix Unger and Oscar Madison , miserable divorced men forced to share an apartment. Sitcoms started to take on a darker edge in keeping current with American culture.

In 1973, right in the middle of that seismic shift, The Mary Tyler Moore Show aired a milestone episode called “ The Lou and Edie Story ,” in which Lou Grant—a gruff-but-wise newsman played by the late Ed Asner—gets separated from his wife. Grant’s poignant anguish was so powerfully scripted that it earned that episode’s writer an Emmy Award: the first such award, in fact, ever given to a woman for solo comedy writing.

Fifty years and one sparkling career later, Treva Silverman—now 88 years old—is widely adored and admired by fellow comedy writers and actors alike. David Pollock—who worked alongside Silverman on the staff of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and later earned Emmy recognition himself for his work on Frasier and The Carol Burnett Show —calls her “unfailingly friendly, a genuine person, and an intensive listener.” Actor and comedian Ruth Buzzi, who performed in comedy revues scripted by Silverman, declares her “a sweet, beautiful lady.” And Ken Levine, a two-time Emmy winner for Cheers and Frasier, heaps praise on the brilliance and compassion of her work: “Her comedy is grounded firmly in humanity,” he says . “All her laughs come out of character.” Buzzi acknowledges a debt to her sparkling comedy, too: “With Treva Silverman, how could I not come off as a funny lady?”