Tony Randall and Swoosie Kurtz star in this warm, half-hour comedy-drama series about a lonely, middle-aged man whose life brightens after he invites a single mother and her little girl (Kaleena Kiff) to live with him. It aired on NBC from 1981 to 1983, and was based on a 1981 TV-movie, Sidney Shorr: A Girl's Best Friend.Though Sidney was morally conservative to the point of prudishness, the show was considered controversial in its day because Sidney's oft-alluded-to past lover was Martin, a man. The scripts soft-pedaled Sidney's homosexuality, particularly once right-wing organizations threatened to boycott the show's sponsors. But his sexual orientation was alluded to in coy, indirect ways in almost every episode.
Finding concrete information about the show has been uphill work. Below is what I've been able to piece together so far.
NOTE: These summaries are my own and are not copied from TV Guide or any other source. This document is (c)2000 by Steven Capsuto.
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| October 5, 1981 |
A Girl's Best Friend" (2-hour TV-movie) |
At a movie theater to see Camille, morose, lonely Sidney meets a perky 19-year-old actress, Laurie. She convinces him to let her move into his huge, rent-controlled apartment, bringing new life to his routine, empty existence. When she becomes pregnant during a short-lived fling with a married man, Sidney convinces her not to have an abortion. He raises the child, Patti, while Laurie works, acting in a daytime soap opera. (Laurie, played by Swoosie Kurtz in the series, is played by Lorna Patterson in the original film.) |
| October 28, 1981 |
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Laurie's marriage has fallen apart, so she and Patti move back to New York and back into Sidney's apartment. |
| November 4, 1981? | The apartment building goes condo, and a new rule limits occupancy in each unit to one family. Judge Harris tries to have Sidney, Laurie and Patti thrown out of the building. | |
| December 2, 1981 |
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Laurie's parents, whom she has not seen since Patti's birth, come to visit. Laurie learns that the reason her mother never answered her letters is that her father never showed them to her. |
| December 9, 1981 | Sidney outwits a slick, cutthroat advertising executive. | |
| December 16, 1981 |
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Patti starts taking violin lessons, and her amateur scratchings grate on the grown-ups' nerves. Itzhak Perlman guest stars as himself, playing Patti's violin teacher. |
| December 30, 1981 |
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Skeptical Sidney sits in on a seance run by friends of Laurie's. He asks them to try and contact the spirit of his late, overbearing mother, Yetta. |
| January 13, 1982 |
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Laurie's boss, the writer and creator of the soap opera As Thus We Are (guest star Betty White), is determined to bed Sidney. |
| pr. ca. late January 1982 |
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| pr. ca. February 1982 |
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| pr. ca. February 1982 |
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Laurie may marry her new beau, Greg. |
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Laurie tries to help Patti and Sidney get past their fear of dogs. |
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There's a major fire in the apartment. |
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Sidney and Laurie quarrel on the ninth anniversary of their first meeting. |
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This may be the episode of October 9, in which Patti goes into a coma after falling off a homemade swing that Sidney hung in the apartment. |
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Sidney tries to help a teenage prostitute. |
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Conclusion of a story in which Sidney lets a young runaway stay in his home and tries to bring some stability into her life. |
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Sidney's beloved "Uncle" Mort (guest star Lou Jacobi) visits and isn't the virtuous man whom Sidney once idolized. |
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Sidney is furious about the grueling demands that Patti's ballet teacher (guest star Suzanne Farrell, a ballerina) puts on her young students. |
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First new episode as the series returns from being on hiatus. Feeling a bit old on her birthday, Laurie goes on a date with a 21-year-old (guest star Eric Stoltz). |
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Laurie's character on As Thus We Are, the femme fatale Gloria, has a sex change and becomes George. Laurie patterns the new character after Sidney, who begins demanding editorial rights. |
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Patti tries out for a TV commercial. |
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A quarrel while trying to fix Patti's dollhouse leads to an accident, leaving Sidney and Patti temporarily blind. |
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A rabbi friend is shocked to learn that Sidney never had a bar mitzvah. Some very grim humor in this one! |
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April 25, 1983 but may have aired:
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Sidney saves the life of a lonely man (guest star Howard Hesseman) who is contemplating suicide because he is gay and fears that no one will ever accept him. Once Sidney talks him out of ending it all, the man becomes a social leech, determined to become friends with Sidney. |
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Patti and Laurie wish Sidney weren't so determined to repeat his pathetic clown act at Patti's next birthday. Shortly before the party, the trio meets a famous opera star, who agrees to perform his own brand of clown act at the party. |
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Laurie finds Sidney's old paintings and enters them in an art exhibit. |
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Laurie is engaged to a dissident Latin American filmmaker who illegally fled his homeland for the U.S. | |
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A "very special" one-hour episode. Sidney, the celibate homosexual, finally gets a romance -- and it's with a woman coworker. Of course, it doesn't work out because of -- well, you know -- that thing that he isn't allowed to mention outright on the show. |
Rev. July 31, 2000E-mail suggestions or corrections to stevecap@dca.net. I will acknowledge others' contributions in the bottom part of the document.
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