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One Day at a Time alum Mackenzie Phillips had a rocky relationship with one of her castmates on the 1970s sitcom.
“Richard Masur wasn’t very nice,” Phillips, 66, told former costar Valerie Bertinelli on the Monday, September 7, episode of her “Getting Naked” podcast.
Phillips and Bertinelli, 66, starred in One Day at a Time as the teenage daughters of Ann Romano-Royer (Bonnie Franklin), who must adapt to single motherhood following her divorce. Masur, 77, played David Kane, Ann’s divorce lawyer-turned-fiancé. He left the show after the characters’ season 1 split.
Despite not initially getting along with Masur, Phillips said she and her former costar later “made peace.”
“I saw him and he said, ‘I don’t even remember what it was. I don’t even remember what I said, but whatever I said, I’m really sorry. And I’ve always thought you were so incredibly talented and we were all so young,’” she recalled.
One Day at a Time, developed by legendary producer Norman Lear, aired for nine seasons on CBS from 1975 to 1984. The series spawned a 2017 remake developed by Gloria Calderon Kellett and Mike Royce. The Netflix show starred Justina Machado, Rita Moreno, Stephen Tobolowsky, Isabella Gomez, Marcel Ruiz and Todd Grinnell.
During Monday’s podcast episode, Bertinelli recalled her own fears about working with Lear, who wrote and produced other hit shows including All in the Family, Sanford and Son and The Jeffersons before his December 2023 death at age 101.
“I always was in awe of him and afraid of him a little bit, always afraid I was going to be reprimanded by Norman,” she said, adding that Lear was “so loving.”
“Both of us are incredibly lucky to have such a mentor, and someone who wasn’t what you think Hollywood is, because young girls in Hollywood are eaten up and [spit] out, and we were not, under Norman’s tutelage,” Bertinelli shared. “I felt very, very protected and I always was in awe of him and afraid of him a little bit.”
The Hot in Cleveland alum recalled Lear’s help during a particularly difficult moment when she struggled to make herself cry in the season 1 finale of One Day at a Time.
“He was the one that took me aside when I had to cry in the finale of the first season,” she shared. “And I couldn’t do it. I was too embarrassed because I wasn’t an actor. I was just learning how to do this. Now I can, but I’ve also have 50 years experience behind me.”
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