MEL HARRIS: EPISODE LINK

INSTAGRAM: @MELHARRIS56

TRANSCRIPT:

Colleen: Welcome back to Hot Flashes and Cool Topics podcast today. We are so excited to welcome

actress writer, producer Mel Harris to the show. Welcome.

Mel Harris: Thank you. I’m delighted to

be here. Delighted.

Colleen:  Well, we’re so happy to talk to you because, I mean,

beyond the 30 -something adoration, I just think you are representing the 50 plus

woman was such a positive perspective. And that means whether you’re gardening or

you’re chasing your, are they, you call that? (chickens)

Bridgett: – Silky, silky. – Silky.

Mel Harris: – They’re silky, they are chickens, but they are silky. They’re Chinese, I believe the origin

is Chinese.

Bridgett: – Yeah, I just saw some. – Which I ended up with by a strange story,

but yeah. – I saw some this weekend. I was in Fredericksburg, Texas with my daughter

and the place I stayed had silkies.

Mel Harris: – Oh, that’s so funny.

Bridgett: – Yeah, little coop,

yeah.

Mel Harris: – I call them powder puff chickens. I have like little powder puffs on their

heads.

Colleen: – They’re so cute.

Mel Harris: – You know, they are cute, they’re actually really lovely,

friendly chickens, not all chickens are, but these are really lovely, so. – Well, I

guess– – I got a coop in my backyard.

Colleen: – I was also saying, like, I guess my point

is if you’re not following her on IG, you need to follow her on Instagram, but

you’re just living your happy self. Has it been that way for you for a while or

has this been a journey?

Mel Harris: – Oh, I think everybody’s life is a journey. And I think anybody who represents it

differently is fooling themselves. You know, I hope that’s true for some people, but

I find it really hard to believe. I mean, I’m a middle -class girl from New Jersey.

Spent my summers down at the Jersey Shore. Um, you know, I was going to be a lawyer. I wasn’t going to be, there’s no, there’s none of

this show business stuff in my family and my nickname in my family is Hollywood,

which is like, okay. Can we all have nicknames? But, um, yeah, I mean,

I never would have imagined that, when I got on that bus from New Brunswick

and went into the city to model, to make money, to go to college, I never imagined

this is what it would then become. So you don’t know where those

forks are gonna take you, but there’s a lot of them in those roads.

Bridgett: – That is amazing. You got on a bus by yourself?

Mel Harris: OH, God, yes, of course. Oh, no, I’m a very (independent), and my mother raised all of us to be

independent people who could take care of themselves and do things and who said,

no matter, you could do anything you want as long as you’re willing to, you know

work for it and go after it. She was incredibly supportive of everything and she

was not around for my acting career Which she would have been gobsmacked by but she

would have been. I mean she has everything modeling job I ever did in portfolios,

and I you know, I still have them even the ugliest of the ugly pictures and she

was incredibly proud of us as her children.

Bridgett:  That is amazing. That’s

great that you had a mother like that. I mean, because we don’t hear that a lot, I

think and it’s not that a mother didn’t love their children they did, but I think

they had fears and things like that and that your mother just was sounds like she

was really progressive.

Mel Harris:  My mom, my mother was very progressive. She was, you know,

five feet tall little tiny thing and she taught high school in New Brunswick Senior

High School, which is a racially mixed high school during the riots and all that

kind of stuff. But she was tough, but she was really, really smart. She worked on

a Manhattan project during the war. And yeah, she was just,

you know, she’d run a company today if she were here, but she taught school, which

is a very admirable thing. And I’m glad that she did.

Colleen:  – And harder.

Mel Harris: – I think so.

Bridgett:  – I’m a former teacher. It is hard.

Mel Harris:  – Oh, well, There you go. I

mean, she was incredibly fair, but she didn’t take anything off of anybody.

Collen:  So you had been accepted to Barnard College, correct?

Mel Harris:  I did. I did, yeah.

Colleen: But you didn’t go because you were actually making money as a model, which is, you know, making

money.

Mel Harris: Yeah, it wasn’t even so much the money, but I was also traveling around the

world. I was living in London and Paris and later in Milan and just doing all

these amazing things, which was great. So I deferred for a couple of years and then

I just kind of really got much more into the career and the modeling and that was

working really well. And, you know, it’s just kind of going along blindly. I must

admit, I didn’t have a master plan and, you know, making incredible money at that

time. I mean, I remember other girls would complain about it. And I’m like, I think

you should take your high school degree and go walk down Fifth Avenue and see what

kind of job you could get. You’re gonna get a job at McDonald’s for two dollars and

fifty cents an hour, this is in the late 70s, and you know, I really appreciated the

gift that I was given by having that ability to go and do that. It was a total fluke,

just happened by accident.

Bridgett:  And then then how did the acting career come in to play

after that?

Mel Harris:  You know, I did, and you may not remember this, but the store I did a Woolworth’s wool coat ad,  which is a dime store at

that time. It would be like the Walmart or Kmart of today kind of in a

way, not as big, and I worked one day and this is like probably in the

early 80s I think I made $5 ,000 just to start and then it was a network

commercial where you could really make big, big money. And I thought, now this is

the way to go. I’m going to have a very logical kind of business mind. And

then I did another one for a floor cleaner. And they didn’t like the way I said

floor, you know, from New Jersey. And they dubbed me and I was incensed.

And I said, that is never going to happen to me again. So I started taking voice

lessons. And I started studying acting with Lee Strasberg and realizing that

commercials, you could make a lot of money, but if you could look a certain way

and walk and talk how they wanted you to, you could really make a nice living. And

that’s what I was doing. And it also freed up the modeling thing whereas I would

only take jobs that went to fabulous places or that I worked with people that I

knew that were absolutely fabulous. So it made it a really fun time in that

particular career.

Colleen: – And your first role was in an Alfred Hitchcock show?

Mel Harris: – My first teeny, tiny, tiny role is in a film, I mean, it’s this big, in an

Alfred Hitchcock piece that was written or directed by Tom Rickman, the writer,

director, and I was a friend of Tom’s. So I wanted to come in and audition for

this little part and I got it. But my big, big break was, I was auditioning and I don’t know anybody in this thing. I just go in, I’m

auditioning, I’m not of the community. And I ended up getting the part and it was

a pilot TV /TV movie, which is what they were doing at the time. If your pilot

didn’t go, it was a TV movie. For ABC, Aaron Spelling starring David Soul shooting

in Hong Kong. How can you go wrong? And I went and I did and it was it was

fabulous and I was with all these people who were very experienced and I was

very green. It was my first real, real big job and they were all looking for houses

for when the series went and they live over that. I asked, How do you know? How do you

know? It’s gonna go. I said well now this is gonna go. It’s got a pedigree It’s a great show, which it was. And it didn’t go, it didn’t get

picked up. So it was a really good lesson early on about that. So that was my

first big job.

Colleen:  – And that was Hutch, right? That was Hutch. –

Mel Harris:  I don’t know which

one he was. I don’t know if he’s Starsky or Hutch.

Oh, which one was he, I don’t

know. – They’re like peanut butter and jelly.

Bridgett: – I can’t remember which one was which

either. Yeah. I don’t remember which one.

Colleen:  – So – When it came time to audition for Thirtysomething, your expectations weren’t high because you were just coming off that

experience, right?

Mel Harris: – Well, that was a year later. That was when they did pilot

seasons where every spring you would go out and audition for things. And I had an

agent and they were sending me out and it was honestly, I don’t want to say it

was just another script in a denigrating way ’cause it wasn’t just another script.

It was a fabulous script written by Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick. But I was also

auditioning for other things. There was a show, I think it was CBS called Zoobotz

that I was in the running for one of the leads on. And this was before I’d gone

in on the Thirtysomething. And I got an audition. I walked into the room.

And I remember to this day, I said to Ed Marshall, I need to know this first

Thing, I said hi and then I said I need to know how long you’ve been

living with me and I didn’t know it, because I was a young mother. My kid

was how old, was he then three and you know it was like my life was on these

pages but yet, who were these guys, and it went from there. I came back and

auditioned again and did network and all that kind of stuff and I got the job.

Bridgett:  was the plan for Patricia Wettig’s character to always

not be Hope or to always be Nancy, because of the whole dynamic of Ken Olin being

married to her, but they didn’t play spouses on the show.

Mel Harris: Yeah. Yeah I can’t answer

for Ed Marshall, but I’m happy to surmise what I think they thought. You know some

of (the people) like Peter and Ed were friends, Peter Horton and Ed were friends, and some

people kind of knew each other. I didn’t know anybody, but Ed and Marshall brought

them in knowing they were married. They knew they were married. And I don’t think

that they wanted people who were married to play a married couple. I’m just guessing

that because I know they did not tell the network till after we had all gotten our

jobs that they were actually married, even though they weren’t playing a married

couple, in case the network didn’t really want to deal with whatever dynamic that

would be.

Bridgett: Was that awkward at all to know that I’m playing this one,

his wife’s right over there, and I’m playing his wife?

Mel Harris: It wasn’t awkward for me.

I don’t know if it was awkward for Ken and Patty, you’d have to ask them. But no,

I mean, that’s what I do. I mean, that’s what we do, we pretend that we’re in

love with someone. We pretend we’re married with someone. We pretend we hate someone.

We pretend we’re gonna shoot someone. You know, it’s all an illusion. I hate to

tell everybody it’s an illusion.

Collee:- Please, we’re pressing for the reboot.

I know that we’ll talk about that in a little bit, but we want that, ’cause we

were right there watching.

Bridgett: – That was every week. I can just remember,

I lived in an apartment, it was my last year of college and my roommate was in,

or my apartment mate, she was in her room and when something would happen, we’d

watch it in our own individual rooms and something would happen and I’d come down

the stairs and she would be meeting me to discuss, oh my gosh, can you believe

that happened? Can you believe this or that? It’s like we had to watch it on our

own and then have a meeting about it together.

Mel Harris: – That’s pretty funny. There – There’s

a lot of water cooler talk the next morning.

Colleen: – Yes, oh, definitely. – Do you feel when the seven of you were cast,

was there a table read in the beginning? How did you feel like everything kind of

clicked into place?

Mel Harris: – There were table reads. I mean, there’s certainly a table read for the network and

all of that kind of thing. And as the seasons went on, we had a table read every

day before the next episode would shoot. Not every day, but once a week, we would

read the next– the entire four years we did that. And it was great. It was good

for the writers. You get to hear it. It’s really wonderful. But we were seven

relatively green people. I was among the greenest. I think maybe Ken had the most

experience, but nobody was coming off of being the star of a series or anything

like that. Nobody was totally a meshed in that. And that includes Marshall and Ed

as well. I mean, although they had experience, nothing to the magnitude that this

show brought to all of us.

you know I can’t do anything but credit Marshall and Ed putting together a tribe

of seven that meshed. And you know, yes, you can match. I can act a scene with

anybody even if I hate them even if I’m supposed to pretend I’m loving them. That’s my

job, but you always knew that whoever you were in a scene with was there for you

had your back as well as their ability to bring what they need to bring for their

role to the screen. You know, that’s such a gift to know that your

butt is covered that way. It just, it lets you be free, it lets you experiment. And

we were all very supportive of the show,

supportive of people who came into the show. You know, we had a lot of guest stars

who went on to have shows of their own and that kind of thing.

It only exponentially multiplied upon itself. And to this day, we’re all still,

you probably know this, but we’re all still friends. We all still stay in touch. I

talked to Peter Horton the other day. And, you know, I could call any of them and

say, listen, I could really use this. Could you help me with this? Whatever it is,

I don’t know. And vice versa.

Bridgett:  Yeah, I was going to ask that because it seems like

you are, I mean, in all, it seems like everybody from that cast goes on and does

different things. I can remember my daughter was a big Naked Brother’s Band fan,

and I remember seeing video of all of you with Polly Draper, just kind of

supporting.

Mel Harris:  Polly asked us to come and do that. And we did.

Bridgett: Yeah. I mean, I just,

I loved. We’ve had Melissa Gilbert on and she’s married to Timothy Busfield. And

she was telling us, gosh, how long ago was that Colleen? A couple of years ago.

I think she started to mention there was talk of a Thirtysomething, you know, reunion.

And she said, but COVID like you’ve also shared on your Instagram COVID shut it

down. And I know can you share that?

Colleen: Yeah, I was gonna say can you share

that story?

Mel Harris: Well about being shut down. Yes. Yeah, so we were we were yeah

Thick in production, wardrobe. We were going to shoot it in Jersey and I mean it was

just going, it was gangbusters. They had sets and you know make up artists, I mean,

just the whole gang, pre -production. I mean, we were probably three days away from

shooting, from starting filming, and we had a network reading all of the big brass,

ABC. They were all into a big fancy hotel in Manhattan, and we had the reading,

and it went great, it was terrific, and we were supposed to have dinner with the

network that night. It was gonna be a big dinner, everybody was there. And between

the reading and the network, they paused, the network paused everything, as did the

world. I mean, the world just went into, as you know, a cocoon at that point. And,

you know, when they came up for air, I mean, they made, I think one pilot, I

think one David Kelly pilot that was, you know, an automatic, you have to make

it or pay me a kind of deal thing. I don’t really know, but I do

know they made a David Kelly pilot, as opposed to 20 other pilots of which we

were one. And they just, and you know, the business took a good couple of years to

get back on his feet at a minimum, I mean, and it’s changed the whole streaming

thing, got some fuel in that fire during COVID and so it never,

it never came back in terms of for ABC.

Colleen: That’s just wrong.

It’s wrong.

Bridgett And I know you’re sharing, you have your Thursday, Thirtysomething

Thursday,

Mel Harris: Thirtysomething Thursday, please watch my Thirtysomething Thursday and send me your questions. I want to answer your questions. I love Instagram.

Colleen: Again, follow her on Instagram.

Bridgett: And there’s a hashtag too. Isn’t there where people can put a hashtag?

Mel Harris: Yeah, #whereisthirtysomething

Bridgett: #whereisthirtysomething, so put that up there, everybody. We got to

know. We got it. I just hit my desk. I’m so excited! I hit my desk!

Mel Harris: It’s not dead yet though.

Colleen: That’s right. So what can listeners do to help?

Mel Harris: Well, I don’t have anything concrete that I can tell them to do. If it gets there

at some point, I will ask.

Yeah, but it’s I have to be very careful because there’s things. There’s

what I know and what I can share. And I it is progressing. And this is a

sequel. A sequel is progressing. And we are waiting to hear about it. It is taking

a very, very long time, but it has been a really good foundational progression.

So people are interested, as well as the streaming. And MGM owns the streaming. So

I imagine that if a sequel were to be made, that they would be a part of that. I

mean, what a treasure trove to meld the two shows.

Colleen: – Oh, wow. – And you can do all

sorts of flashbacks and all sorts of stuff.

Mel Harris: Because the new, I assume that if we

were to do a sequel, it would be similar to what we were supposed to do before

COVID, but it entails the lives of us, the original characters, and their children

who are now 30 something.

Colleen: – Oh my God. – Yeah, yeah. – Wow, and Gary the ghost.

Mel Harris: – Gary the ghost. Well, my idea for Gary is that he should come back as the ghost and sit on Michael’s shoulder 24 /7 in bugle. I like that.

Bridgett: Oh that was that Gary episode. Oh my gosh, that took me a while. It was shocking.

Yeah and I you said four years, so that was it only on for four years?

Mel Harris: Four years, yeah and then I believe Ed and Marshall decided they wanted to go and do other things You know, they’d been working on films and stuff in between and, um,

and Bob Iger agreed with them. But then he subsequently has said, I don’t know if

it was in his book or in an interview. He said, I know that was not a good

decision. I should have left them on.

Colleen: But yeah, because they definitely left when

it was on a high.

Mel Harris:  We were, we were a very successful show and

you know, we were a top 10 show occasionally, but our demographics for what the

advertisers like were bonkers, bonkers. You want to sell soap and diapers?

Colleen: – Yes, that’s a really good point. – Yes, yeah. – And you were even pregnant on one

of the, what was it, season three? I think you were pregnant. – Season three?

Mel Harris: Yes, I was pregnant.

Colleen: – What was that like?

– Well, trying to hide it.

Bridgett:  Well, you included it.

Mel Harris: We didn’t hide it. We didn’t hide it. That’s baby Leo in there that you see. I

was a walking walrus.

Colleen: I totally forgot that.

Mel Harris: No, I worked up to the basically the

day I was due.

Colleen: Didn’t your water break like the night when you were supposed to

come in and shoot that day or something like that?

Mel Harris: Yeah. So the real story, you

could read Ed’s book, he has a slightly different story than I have, but I was

there, so I think my story’s better. So, no, but I worked and I was

supposed to shoot on, it was April 3rd, I remember the day, and about 4:30 in the

morning my water broke and I was in serious labor already. I don’t have very long

labors, so I woke my husband up and I said, “We need to get ready.

We’re gonna go to the hospital and have a baby.” And the next person I called was

our second assistant director who’s in charge of getting everybody there on time or

whatever. And I said I’m in labor, I’m on my way to the hospital, so have a great

day.

And I actually even have a call sheet from that day, which is our schedule for the

day of how we would shoot. I even have a schedule from the day that said the B

schedule, because Mel’s gone into labor. So it’s a wonderful little memento in my

child’s graph book. But I found out recently, ’cause , thank you, Instagram. I

was conversing with the assistant director and he told me that the second call he

made was to Timmy Busfield, who was up in Sacramento where he had a children’s

theater and a place. And he said, you need to get your butt down here ’cause

you’re the B Schedule and Mel’s on the way to the hospital.

That’s the story of my water break. And I was, but I was at work three days later

shooting a scene they needed and doing Um, dubbing and stuff like that. It just

took my baby with me.

Bridgett: Oh my goodness. Three days? Ooh, back in the day, back in

the day, you were in the hospital like five days, like way back.

Mel Harris: I know with my first, I was in the hospital like three days. And the second I was like, can I go

now? I’m done. This is not a place to rest. Hospitals are not a place to rest,

unfortunately. No, no, no, no. Yeah, that’s my birthing story.

Colleen: And hence baby Leo was was born, right? Yeah, totally blank.

Bridgett: But it just followed

the lives. And I think at the time I was in my 20s. So I was like, Oh, this is

what life might be like. It kind of, you know, was kind of hectic,

just like it was for the people on the show. And I felt like my 30s were like

the craziest time of my life. Like I felt like I had more 20s.

Mel Harris: See, I think the 20s are insane.

Bridgett: Oh, you think the 20s?

Mel Harris: Oh, I was so happy to be

30. I know that sounds weird. I was so happy to be 30.

Bridgett: I was happy to be 40.

Mel Harris: And I’m actually really the same kind of feeling that you pick that marker to go

into.

Colleen: And we’re excited to turn 60 like that. Yeah.

Mel Harris: Yeah. I’m excited for every

birthday because that’s what your choice first of all, you might as will embrace

them and be what they are. And hey, you’re here. You’re up above this side of the

grass. So enjoy it.

Bridgett: Right. And we hear from so many of our guests that when they

turn 60, that it’s like this really great time. Like,

I don’t know if it is something that, and I find this with every decade that you

get to know yourself a little better, and you get to know what you truly like. And

we’ve heard that from so many of our guests but when I hit 60, it’s like something

happened. Some went back and got a PhD. You know, some fell into some hobby that

they absolutely adored that they never tried in their life. Do you find that to be

the same thing?

Mel Harris: – It’s interesting ’cause I think that, I don’t know that I would pick a particular

decade like 60s,

none of the ages scare me. And I, first of well, I’m not old, I’m older.

And there’s a vast difference in that. And I think there’s a lot about your mental

thing. But what I find is that life is such a journey. It’s such a journey.

You know, when you’re a teenager, you’re so worried about getting away from your

parents and who are you and where do you fit in and all of this stuff that we go

along and we carry the judgmental of the outside world on us. And you know what, I

think one of the freedoms of getting older is that you just don’t care if you

don’t like me or you don’t like my choices are or whatever just as I’m living life

um okay that’s you know you’re missing out babe you should be my friend because I’m

great! 

Colleen: that leads me to friendships. How have

your friendships evolved as you’ve gotten a little bit older? Are they more important

in your life?

Mel Harris:  um I am a person who’s very self -entertaining.

I’m rarely bored. But I have had friendships all my life.

I don’t have tons of friendships. I have a lot of acquaintances. But I haven’t had tons

of friendship. I’m still very, very good friends with my childhood best friend from

fourth grade, and we live in different parts of the world and we’ve gone through

different things, but it’s really amazing. And my friends from LA,

people I met early on, a friend I met doing Harry’s Hong Kong, which was the Aaron

Spelling pilot, was the wife at the time of the director of the set of the first

AD, and we’re still great friends. So It kind of goes along with that. The other

blessing that I have in my life is I have two sisters. And we, the three of us

are thick as thieves. And that’s really, really nice. And they lived on the East

Coast. And now that I’ve moved back to the East Coast, I get to see them even

more. So that’s lovely.

So I guess they’ve always been important to me.

And I don’t know, but I’m always open to new friendships. You never know. That is

true.

Bridgett: where you’re living now, and I’ve seen on your Instagram, your flowers, your

chickens, how did, did you, were you always interested in that or did that just

evolve from something else?

Mel Harris: It all, They all sort of evolved from something else.

I mean, there are many things I’ve always been into. I’ve always been a baker. I

love to cook. I fell into house remodeling when I bought my first apartment in New

York City that was studs and drywall and just kind of designed a kitchen. I’ve no

experience whatsoever in it. Nothing. And I designed a kitchen because I didn’t like

the one the contractor was doing, and the bathrooms and kind of fell into that. And

subsequently from there, I continued to buy houses or apartment buildings and fix

them up and live in them, sell them, you know, move on. And that’s what I’ve done

up here. But now this is my 13th project of some sort up here. Yeah. But like the

chickens, they just happened because they have a store up here called

Tractor Supply, which is like a farm store. And every spring, they would have little

baby chickens. Well, we were never here long enough, never in one place, we traveled

a lot back and forth to LA to have them. Well, COVID solved that problem. We were

gonna be here. I said, we’re going to Tractor Supply and gonna get some chickens.

So we went and got chickens and that’s kind of how that started. And then we

started traveling again. So I sent those chickens to my friends and now I have

chickens again, Silky chickens, little powder puff head ones.

And my son’s friend kind of wanted them and they were gonna come in house sit and

they asked if they could have the chickens. I said, yeah, and then they would get

kind of home for them. I was like, well, you can leave them for the summer. So

no, I have Silks for the summer. I have Summer Silks.

Colleen: That’s a good one that is

Summer Silks. Cause I see how much attention it is when they have to be bathe

those.

Bridgett:  Oh, I saw that Instagram that you have to make sure they’re dry.

Mel Harris: And, You know, you have to watch out for poopy butts.

– Where all that stuff comes out, it’s not just poop. You know, out of their vent.

So, but you know what? I’ve had kids. I mean, so it’s like—

Bridgett:  – Oh yeah, I love,

yeah. You had baby wipes. You’re like, these are baby wipes. And I’m like, oh, I

mean, it’s funny.

Mel Harris:  – The blow -dry was a little extreme, but. – You know what? It

worked.

Colleen: – It’s cute. – It worked, it worked. It’s funny.

Bridgett: I have a lot of sisters.

And you were talking about, I have nine sisters.

Mel Harris: Holy Kamoli.

Bridgett: Yeah. I have two brothers.

Mel Harris: Are you Irish?

Bridgett: No. Oh, well, you would think everybody thinks Bridgett

and Colleen that were Irish, Italian, but, um, but grew up in Kentucky.

Mel Harris; They ran

out of names. They ran out of names.

Bridgett: They had to go to another country.

Mel Harris: Got any

boys?

Bridgett: Two boys, two boys. Yeah. 10 girls, two boys, but it’s,

it’s funny. Some of them are so good. Like I have a sister that has an organic

flower farm in Kentucky, where I’m from.

Mel Harris:  – Bless her soul.

Bridgett: – I mean, she is all

about it. She’s my hippie sister. And then she does have chickens, and then I have

another sister with chickens, two nieces with chickens. And I don’t know what

happened to me if I was asleep when they were learning all this stuff. But I can’t

do any of it. Like I do remember having calves when I was younger and having to

feed them bottles, but I don’t know how to do any of that.

Mel Harris:  – But you could teach

yourself. You say that. – I could teach myself. – Okay, so here’s one thing about

getting older. – Yes. – It’s the self -limiters start to fade away.

– You could go right now and ask chat GPT. – That’s true.

– What chicken should I buy that are easiest to start? What do I have to do to

maintain them? It’s not really hard or bad. And you know what? once you eat those

eggs.

Bridgett: – Yeah, they’re so much better. They’re so much better.

Colleen: What drew you back to the East Coast? Was it family

or just wanting to go?

Mel Harris:  – Well, I’m a Jersey girl. My husband is a Jersey boy,

actually.

Colleen:  – Oh, okay.

Mel Harris: – And we both separately started, excuse me,

we both separately lived in LA temporarily for 30 years. So, and then we have four

kids between us and they were living all over the place. One travels the world and

one in Chicago and a couple in Oregon. So, and we had three sisters back here and

a brother at that time. And we thought, well, why don’t we come back maybe explore

living in New York, which we liked. We both liked New York. And we came back one

time to look at apartments, it was February, it was a blizzard in New York, and we

were walking up to see an apartment, we walked through Central Park and we saw

someone with a violin case and a cello and a bass and a,

what’s the other little one, viola or something, and yeah, yeah, yeah, walking

through Central Park, where do you see that? You’re not gonna see that in LA, you

know, and we thought this is just so cool and we love the park. So we moved back,

you know, we rented a place first and the first year, first couple of years we

were here, we lived here, but we spent seven months a year in LA working, so yeah,

that’s how we ended up here. That’s great.

Colleen: – Do you want to continue with acting or

are you kind of happy where you’re at right now? If an opportunity came?

Mel Harris:  – No, no,

no, no, no. I’m still, yeah, I’m still doing it, but I get to be really picky.

I don’t know, that’s, you know, I’ve got this lovely life, worked really hard. And

I’m, you know, it comes along some things I’m interested in.

And some things definitely was like, no past, not really interested in that.

Bridgett: I think I saw Queen of Knives, King and

Queen of knives. I thought it was really funny.  I thought it just had some really interesting, just comedic parts in

it.

Mel Harris:  Oh, they’re funny movies. Yes, yeah, yeah, we did. I had a ball doing another

wonderful group of people in the film and films. And so I love it.

It’s great. They shot it in New York. It’s super.

Colleen: Oh, that’s nice. I mean, it’s

nice to be close. Yeah, there could be a Thirtysomething Else.

Bridgett: So that’s right. I

know it could be a Thirtysomething Else. I mean, we need people. Let’s come out

there. Let’s come together. We can do it. Look what we’ve done. Recently, like

people’s voices getting together and saying what they want. It’s important.

Mel Harris:  It’s important to do whatever the topic is for sure.  And every time I talk

about an update on my Instagram, it gets, you know, over a quarter of a million

hits. I mean, it’s just like insane.

Colleen: People want it and they can’t, they can’t

stream it anywhere, can they?

Mel Harris: Well, no, it’s, it’s never been streamable in the true

sense of the word. I mean, it ran on some reruns for a while at Lifetime and

then ION and, and those sorts of things. People write to me and tell me that they

see them they can see some of them on YouTube and I’m assuming that’s without the

original music but I don’t really know that or what the quality of it is so it’s

not technically streaming anywhere,

Bridgett:  right you can catch some scenes and things like

that because it keeps popping up all over my YouTube so must

know my demographic. yeah

It does pop up a lot.

Colleen: We often ask our guests about their menopause experience.

So if you are comfortable talking about that, what was yours like?

Mel Harris:- I don’t care.

Colleen: – That’s usually the response we get.

Mel Harris: – I got nothing to hide. Hey, you know, once

you have two babies, go through labor, delivery.

Colleen:  – So true. – So true. – Yeah, yeah.

Mel Harris: Well, do you have specific questions or?

Colleen: – was it

early for you, was it later?

Mel Harris:  I was 56.

Colleen: – Wow, it’s right

around the same place.

Bridgett: – Yeah, yeah. – And did you have a long perimenopause, like

where your hormones were going everywhere or was it pretty smooth?

Mel Harris: – No, I mean, I’m

not gonna have any really terrible tale to tell about menopause. And mine was

actually pretty, I don’t know if it’s great, but it was fine. It’s just another

process that I went through. I didn’t have terrible swings. I didn’t have nights.

I didn’t have sweats. I didn’t I didn’t have any of that kind of stuff I mean, I

knew it was happening and eventually my period stopped, but I felt very lucky and

very blessed, My older sister had a terrible menopause just classic bad story kind of.

Colleen: so you were kind of expecting (the same)?

Mel Harris:  Well, I sort of did but I you know,

but then when it happened, it didn’t really happen that way. Then I was done and it

was, it was good. So, um, yeah, I, for me, it wasn’t, it was a non -event,

even though it was an event. I mean, how could it not be an event?

Bridgett:  But, yeah. Oh,

that’s good to hear. That’s good to hear. I mean, there are people that go through

it super easy. And like Colleen, you didn’t have really the vasomotor symptoms.

Colleen: Yeah, I had nights I had some brain fog

Bridgett:  and I had the worst and my oldest sister

she was 17 when I was born. So I just thought what she’s just turning

that thermostat down to get attention. Like, well, that came back to get me. It

really did. Karma just saw me acting like that and came and got me.

So I guess I got what I deserved, But, but, you know, it’s, it’s good to hear

that people, uh, some people do have it smooth and it is so different for

everybody.

Mel Harris: It’s so different for everybody. Just like labor and that kind of, I

mean, we’re three sisters from the same parents with three different kinds of labors.

Colleen: Right. So, yeah. I have three sisters. Well, there’s four of us and, and all

different in all the journeys. And do you, do you find, because I have found this

and Bridgett, you’ve been close with your siblings forever. But you find that as

you get older, there’s kind of a connection that you make with your siblings that

when you’re going through the raising the kids, doing the business, doing whatever,

you don’t have that time to really connect. And as we get a little older, like

we’re the only ones who lived through that journey. Like we’re the only ones who

know what it was like to live in our home and our relationships, do you find

getting closer to your siblings as you get older?

Mel Harris: – Is that for me?

Colleen: – Yes.

I know Bridgett’s close to her

siblings.

Mel Harris:  I’m sorry.

Colleen:  – No, no, no, it’s okay. Well, um,

it– well, now we’re geographically closer, so that that that lends itself to it,

but I’ve always we’ve always been a pretty close-knit family and I had a brother

who I wasn’t as close with but at times but there were times when I was and we

just kind of drifted apart for certain reasons but yeah I mean we’re just family

but I don’t know that I think it gets I think one of the interesting things that

does happen is you get older with people that you care about in love whether

they’re your sisters or your brothers your friends, your girlfriends, boyfriends,

whatever they are.

I think things happen in life experiences that they need us for,

to be there to support them. Whether it’s an illness or an event or something’s

going on with one of their children or who are now adults. So I think that there’s

a support system that comes and that we’re all able to give now because we have a

little more free time because our children are grown and we’re able to do that but

at the same time when you’re having kids, when you’re doing all those things when

you’re running around and you’re doing it my family was always there. My family I

remember, my husband at the time, flew my sisters out to California for a surprise

party the night I was before I was leaving for Hong Kong to do my first

Aaron Spelling pilot and we had a huge fight at whatever dinner.

He took me out to dinner to come back so that I would did but we had a huge

fight I came in I was crying and then they were and I was crying some more

and it was crazy. So, you know, they flew all the way across the country to do

that. So I feel very supported by it. I feel very blessed by it.

Bridgett:  Yeah Yeah, but I do agree Colleen, you know as well as knowing. I feel like when I’m older I do have more time with them. I live really close to one of my

sisters and Colleen knows her. But we do like sister trips now, like we’re getting

ready to go to Charleston, South Carolina just for, not all of us are going.

Mel Harris: We’ve started to do that too.

Colleen:  seaside, right?

Mel Harris: That has a big family one, but

we’re talking about, you know, coming up with another one where we do the sisters.

It just seems like, I don’t know, and I’m speaking for myself too, because of my

some things that there’s just some connection to a history there that when you’re

creating your own life, having the children working, trying to, you know, married and

all that stuff, it’s not that it’s not important, but you can’t devote as much

time, maybe is what I’m saying too. – Right, which is true. But I think also, I

mean, I’m just assuming here from our conversation, we’re three people who are

relatively close with their siblings, no matter what that is. I don’t think everybody

feels that way about their siblings.

Colleen:- True.

Mel Harris:  – You know, I have people who don’t

really have much of a relationship with their siblings.

Bridgett:  – Yeah, I’ve seen that as

well.

Mel Harris: whatever those reasons are, maybe because they have those memories. You know

what I mean? It’s just right. That’s true. You don’t always know how they were

raised.  And what they are in each other and where they’ve

gone and where they’re, you know, we all go to college or whatever it is that we

do as we move through our adult life. And you know, your 20s, as I said before, I

was so glad to be out of my 20s are incredibly formative for those things. You

know, you’re very often meeting someone you’ll be with or making new friends that

will be with you for life, finding a career or a career journey that you might

take. And it might be very different than what your family is. And you know, it

just might not be an experience. So I wouldn’t want, I think that, I think it’s

really important for people to feel however they’ve made that journey in life,

whether they’re still close with their family or they’re not, and it’s for whatever

reason they needed that to be in their life. And there’s places you can get to

film and also with this, whether it’s friends or spouses or work, but less work.

Colleen: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s interesting because if hopefully fingers crossed Thirtysomething Else does come back, it’s going to, you know, that spotlight is going to be there

and are you looking forward to that or is that something that you’re like, hmm, I,

you know, don’t really want to have to be attending all these events and doing all

these things again?

Mel Harris: Well that is a part of my job and that’s what I do. So that’s business, that’s a

different thing. But it’s really interesting. My husband wrote The Wonder Years, he

did The Wonder Years for, the initial creators left after six episodes or whatever

they did and he finished, he did the next five years. So we both have been on hit

shows, but yet, there was no social media. There were no phones, there were no

things. And we all feel, we feel really grateful for that.

But, you know, it’s just a part, it’s just a part of what it is. I mean, I

still, if I go out in public, and most often I have no makeup on and a baseball

cap and whatever else it is. And people recognize me and I’m gobsmacked by that.

That all these years, And I’ve done other things, but still, you know, you’re

standing in the grocery store, you’re at the airport, you’re middle in the middle of

the Prado Museum in Spain, and I’m just like really So it always surprises me the

intensity with which people are

kind of following you by the celebrity and it’s only it’s only compounded now,

so I it’s just a part of the job. It’s what you do if you want to do

that. It’s just I don’t know, you’re putting yourself out there. It’s a part of it.

Colleen:- And you’re right, because now it would be even more so because social media and

the way the press is different now and it would be a very unique experience,

but we hope our fingers are crossed.

Bridgett: – We hope hHope. – We are all hopeful.

Colleen: – Yes, yes, play on words there, but thank you so much for coming on the show. We

appreciate it.

Mel Harris:  Oh my goodness. Thank you. I appreciate you being here. It’s fun. It

is. Yes.

Thank you so much.

Colleen:  Absolutely. And I will update people on my Instagram so

follow soon as I know. And we will have that link in the show notes. It’ll be

easy for people to follow.