Stu West sent the following…
When Diane Keaton died recently, I learned about an unaired HBO pilot from around 2010 that featured Keaton as a Hollywood blogger who definitely wasn't a thinly-fictionalized Nikki Finke, honest. And another unaired HBO pilot from around the same time, The Miraculous Year, which featured Frank Langella as a Broadway composer who for legal reasons was absolutely not Stephen Sondheim.
I'd like to see both of those. Now that you've been able to watch the Some Like It Hot pilot, do you have any remaining white whales among the unaired tv episodes that you'd still like to track down?
The first one that comes to mind is that around 1971, give or take a year, Phil Silvers starred in a pilot that was called either Bel Air Patrol or Eddie. Phil, when I brunched him the one time, called it the latter. Larry Gelbart, who wrote the pilot, called it by the former title. Both said it was a terrific pilot that would have yielded a terrific series had the folks at CBS been wise enough to buy it.
What I know about it is that Silvers played Eddie Skinner, a retired cop who's now running a private security service in the wealthy gated community of Bel Air. He's loved by all the servants who work there and the cooks and maids feed him and his squad when the homeowners for whom they work are away. In return, Eddie uses his Bilkoesque fast-talking skills to aid these servants when they get into trouble. The cast included Fred Clark, Frank Faylen, Edward Andrews, Joanna Barnes, Patricia Barry, Guy Raymond and Nathaniel Frey. And the pilot was directed by Hy Averback.
It apparently was run — once and only once — on one of those the networks used to have where they'd burn off unsold pilots. I never saw it and when Gelbart told me about it, he said, "I'll dig out the script for it and send you a copy" and I never saw that, either. So I dunno if it was as wonderful as either man said but I have to think a pilot starring Phil Silvers and written by Larry Gelbart must have some redeeming qualities. If anyone has a copy, you know where to reach me.
