Latest / She Said It Out Loud with Emma Young / Two-time Emmy Award winning writer for Murphy Brown and long time LA resident Korby Siamis

Transcript

Two-time Emmy Award winning writer for Murphy Brown and long time LA resident Korby Siamis · She Said It Out Loud with Emma Young

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: You're listening to She Said It Out Loud, where real women share real stories without sugarcoating a thing.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Emma Young, and I'll bring you on filtered conversations with ambitious women who faced challenges, made bold moves, and learned a lot along the way.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: You'll get real takeaways, honest lessons, and stories that you're gonna relate to.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Right oh, let's get started.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Hey there and welcome to the podcast.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: This is She Said It Out Loud, and I'm your host, Emma Young.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Today's episode is proudly sponsored by Matsos Brewery in Broome.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Matsos is an iconic destination in Broome.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: It is a brewery, it is a restaurant, and it is certainly the place that you need to take your friends and family if they are visiting this dry season.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Their beer gardens are spectacular.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: I do love their low sugar ginger beer.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: And not only that, the vibe on a Sunday session is fantastic.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: On to today's episode, I have Corby Cyanus.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: She is a LA writer who has lived in Los Angeles her entire life, which for me is incredible.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: We do go into how old she is, and she is 71 and just the stuff that she has done is absolutely spectacular.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Not only is she incredibly intelligent and articulate, the things that she has seen, done, and experienced while living in Los Angeles for that entire time of her life is something that is truly remarkable.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: So when I was in Los Angeles recently staying with my American sister Molly Miller, this is her mother-in-law.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I had the opportunity to kind of ask her if she wanted to be on the podcast, and she agreed, and I was very grateful for.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: You would have also heard if you downloaded today's other episode that I dropped, that is with her daughter Casey.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: So yes, it's a bit of a full circle moment where I'm just interviewing pretty much all the family members, but these two are incredible women, so it only made sense for me to interview Corby as well.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Right, here's our conversation.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the podcast Corby.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: For my listeners out there that are thinking, How do you know an Emmy award-winning writer?
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I didn't just stumble across Corby in the LA streets.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone knows my American sister Molly Miller and her husband Wiley, who is funny as his mum is Corby.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so I recently interviewed her daughter, Casey, who is the fishing influencer, and we talked so much in the lead up to this episode, and I was like, I have to get your mum on.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: She is an incredible woman.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: She's a pioneer, really, for the writers and female writers in general in the 80s, 90s, 2000s, and even now.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so I had to get her on, and she's sitting right across from me.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome, Corby, to the podcast.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much, Emma.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Can you just start off the podcast, our episode today, by just explaining a little bit about yourself to my listeners?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's see.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up in Los Angeles.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very happily married and have been.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: We just had our 47th anniversary.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: I have two great kids.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: I found a way to get my dream job when I thought it was something that other people did and not something I could do.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it was fulfilling beyond belief.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I was able to balance that with being a mom.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then I moved on to the next chapter, and now I'm a grandma who gets to watch my two granddaughters four days a week along with my husband.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, okay, next chapter keeps coming.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And each one as good as the last.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's so special too that you mentioned that because it's not often that you get to be in such close proximity to your grandchildren or be able to take care of them as often as what you do.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: So they're very lucky girls.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: They're lucky.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: We feel we're lucky.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of our friends, their kids have moved away.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And they're not uh nearby.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I can see both my kids and families within five minutes of deciding I want to see them.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a dream.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: It is.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: I want to know.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: You grew up, like you mentioned at the very start, you grew up in LA pretty well, you were were you born here?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so you were born in LA.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't really want to give away age, but we're gonna kinda have to.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I don't care.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: You were just recently turned 71.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: And what is that like?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: I wanna know.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like, so you've obviously seen LA change so much in the past 70 years.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: What was that like growing up?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my parents bought a dirt lot and built the house themselves.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: They were school teachers.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: But it was like a barn raising where on weekends friends and family would come and I have pictures of my mom pregnant with my sister up on the roof hammering in nails.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they built a house that my sister and I grew up in.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh houses then it was in an area called Westchester, part of LA.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh houses slowly were built around them and it became a neighborhood.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: The backyard was just extended forever into bean fields.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: And when I was in second grade, they built the San Diego Freeway.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And uh my parents' lot was a third of an acre, so it was pretty far away.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like all of a sudden there's a freeway right in your backyard.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the deed for the land when they bought it said you could own two horses, so we had a Shetland pony growing up.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: So people driving by on the freeway would see the pony, and we were like, Yeah, we're the house with the pony.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: We rode our bikes on the freeway before it was open to cars.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so it was very different LA than it is now.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's hard to imagine.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Knowing how busy it is now, and then just picturing that.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's a massive lot too.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: It just was a great way to grow up because you you're in a city, but it's like the best parts of being out in the rural areas.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: My parents were young when their parents moved to LA.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: So we had grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we just grew up with family everywhere, and that's just what we were used to.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then now you've pretty much carried that on for you.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that all makes sense.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: It would have been hard to see it go differently.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's like, no, family stays put.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, okay, you lived abroad though, in Europe, and plenty of countries, not just one country, when you were younger.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: Or is this when you were a kid?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: My dad with being a school teacher, took a sabbatical, which I don't I don't know that teachers can do that anymore.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it's offered, even if that is, I don't know if they could afford it.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: So is that is that a break from teaching or to teach it?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if he got partial salary or not, but your job is there when you come back.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And they liked it because you're getting, as a teacher, other experiences.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: It just it doesn't exist anymore, I don't think.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: No, I don't I've haven't heard of it.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: That was a school year.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it was the last half of kindergarten and the first half of first grade.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't th the schools didn't expect us to make it up because having parents that were teachers, they figured we'll be getting an education, which we did.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: My dad taught elementary school, my mom was an artist and she taught adult school art.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: So we traveled, we took a week on a steamer to get over there to England, bought a car there, and then spent over nine months just driving around.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: We went to England, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was called then Germany, Belgium, Sweden.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: It was an amazing experience.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're five and six years old, nothing really amazes you.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, this is what we're doing now.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: But the things that I learned carried me through high school, even into college.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Anything that we studied, I had first hand experience of being there.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And definitely.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I saw that in person.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I have pictures in front of the Coliseum.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, you know, it was an education that just couldn't be equaled.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yes.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they talk about this a lot even now, where if there's a chance to take your kids in elementary school overseas, it just does such wonders for their education.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you said, it's life experience, something that they can then put forward into their knowledge going on in life.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: For you, I want to talk more about your Emmy Award-winning career.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: This is not often that you get to sit across and talk to an Emmy Award-winning writer.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: So you've done a lot of shows from the 80s, 90s, and 2000s.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna rattle off a couple here.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: My sister Sam, Suddenly Susan, I love that one.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: Murphy Brown, which everybody knows Murphy Brown, that was the one that you won the two Emmy Awards for.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then the show The Middle, which I'm assuming that's the one in the 2000s, all of which they had long runs and they were wildly successful TV shows.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: I want to know what was it like being a writer during those decades, but also the fact that you were probably one of the only women in those rooms being a writer.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: What was that like for you?
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, in the beginning, and when you're a new writer, you're just trying to learn how everything is done.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was extremely shy.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: I went into it.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: I got I was always gonna be a teacher.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: My parents were teachers.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: I got a master's degree.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: I loved history, so I got a master's degree in history.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, whoa.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then it was like I got sure that I wanted just go into teaching, so now what?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: I was so miserable in grad school getting my master's that I wrote what's called a spec script, and that's where a show that's on TV and you just write like a sample.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: But I didn't have anyone to show it to or didn't know what to do.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: There was the American Film Institute was having an open house where so we went up there and my mom started chatting up an act and said, My daughter wrote a script, she doesn't know what to do with it.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: And the woman said, Give it to me.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's cool.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's really cool.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so she got it to somebody, but it sat on somebody's desk for a year.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: I finished school, I got my master's, moved up where my husband was getting his PhD in Stanford, and uh That's a big deal.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then we we got a job in LA and we were back, and it's like, okay, seriously, what am I gonna do with my life?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because I didn't feel prepared really to do anything.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when whose ever desk the script had sat on for a year called and said, I gave this to my agent.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: The agent called and he said, I need one more sample.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: So the first one I had written was for a show called Rhoda with Valerie Harper.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: It was a spin off from Mary Tyler Moore show.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the show everybody my age grew up watching and was inspired into the business.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote a MASH spec script as a second sample, and I wrote it in a week and I gave it to this agent, and he said, Get ready to work.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Whoa.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then I worked pretty much as often as I wanted to for the next over thirty years or so.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: As a writer.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: In Hollywood.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: So in the beginning, my agent was very smart, and he knew that I was very green and new and shy at this and had a lot to learn.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And he placed me with somebody who was to look out for new writers and and helped them along, a guy named Rod Parker.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: So it was on a show that never it was just scripts.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't go to filming.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was the start of learning.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was a little tricky.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Went on to another show that he was doing, and again, you know, you're trying to learn.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: There's days you're thinking I shouldn't have gone into this.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what I'm doing.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was writing with another woman at the time, and she had a connection.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: So we did a script for the Cosby show.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: And they were scrambling for staff.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: They were filming it in New York, and they said, just for 13 weeks, just come back and be on staff.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And they threw a crazy amount of money on it and thought, well, okay, we'll go do that.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: It all of a sudden it was a number one show.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody was amazed at the end of 13 weeks that we wanted to leave.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't want to extend our contract, even though it was a number one show, because I I didn't I wanted to be back with my husband.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to be living in New York.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't a writer's show.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Bill knew what came out of his mouth.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: It was hard to write words for him.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was crazy hours.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: It was just really hard.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: But the script that we did on that got us uh attention by a woman named Diane English who created uh Murphy Brown.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: So she really liked The Cosby and hired us on My Sister Sam.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, something called Foley Square First, that was a short order of 12 episodes, maybe.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: From that, a couple seasons on my sister Sam, and then from that I started writing on my own and on to Murphy Brown.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty early on, I had a female boss, and we were very like-minded and the sensibility was there.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I rose up to her right hand uh pretty quickly.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I became kind of and then she left after four seasons on Murphy.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I sort of became uh boss level.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so being the only woman, if you're the one with the power, it it sort of So you were the only woman?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: There was a season where I might have been.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: I have to think back to it because I'm so still so close to those guys that were on the staff.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we're all really tight.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: That you didn't sit there thinking about male or female.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you you're just your friends.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's good.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it was more my shyness in the beginning, more that than being the only woman or one of the few women in the room, and then working with Diane so soon where the boss is female.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: So And so what did they think though, when you wrote that episode that at the time it was such a big deal?
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: You wrote the episode about Murphy Brown um becoming a single mum at a time when, you know, women just weren't raising children on their own.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's funny.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: We were prepared for some backlash, uh kind of like a moral outrage.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: There wasn't Facebook and all of that, so you're not getting immediate feedback, which is good.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're getting people who took the time to hand write letters, but we didn't get any of the pushback.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: What we did get was uh a fair amount of pushback from women who felt a little bit betrayed that as if we were saying you had to have a baby to be fulfilled.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: That hurt because that's wasn't our intent.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we didn't want anyone, it wasn't a lot, but we didn't want anyone to end up feeling that way.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: We had been expecting one kind of pushback, and we were surprised then by that pushback.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then it wasn't until the baby was born that the vice president Dan Quayle made his comments and the whole morality issue of single woman or not came out.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: By then, you know, we were already pretty well established on that.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: We had a big fan base, he helped our ratings shoot us to number one.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like what made Murphy Brown finish?
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because I felt like when it the last season it was still so incredibly popular.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um was that considered kind of like a natural end?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a long time.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: I had left after this I retired seven times in my life.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: Seven times?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: I retired after the sixth season.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: I w that was it.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna be with my kids who were one and three.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: My husband had spent a year away from his work to be the only caretaker, no help, no nannies, nothing.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so we said, Yeah, we'll do it for a year.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then I went back, friends and people I had hired got shows on the air.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: And in this case, a couple of them were running Murphy.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: In the eighth season, I came back and consulted.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: In the tenth season, I came back and I consulted because the everybody said this is going to be the last year, and I said, Well, I'll come for the last year.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: And and Diane came back for that year too.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: So then what made you get onto the middle then?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: You clearly were in this time of retiring or not retiring.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: You just couldn't you had to keep going.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, so uh between that and the middle, first I consulted on Suddenly Susan with the two guys who I had been showrunner with on the sixth season of Murphy.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: They took that on when they left.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: At that point, I worked for people I knew or people I had hired.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, look, this is how it's gonna be.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: If my kid has a volleyball game or something, I'm gonna go to it.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'll come in a day a week, I'll do script notes.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna write a script.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't, I didn't write any, but I had done mostly rewriting and stuff.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: So to put notes in scripts for the head writer to do the rewrite was, you know, pretty easy.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: I was still able to be as much of a mom as I wanted to be.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: That was that came first always.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like that's something that I want to touch on because that's such a big deal, as in to balance, and I feel like especially because this would have been in the 90s or early 2000s.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh my son was born in 91, my daughter in 93.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because your role, I feel being a writer and being such a successful one, to then also have this fine balance of also being a mum, that's pretty incredible.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you found the sweet spot.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was pregnant during the third season and the fifth season.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was pregnant both times that we won the Emmy.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: I shifted my focus from not being at run-throughs as much and then just doing a rewrite on every script.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: So when you talk about obviously retiring, you know, seven times, is this the same reason why your husband because he's a rocket scientist.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: Which to me just blows my mind.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I was talking to your daughter about it, where it's like memes and jokes.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: We're like, what does your dad do?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, he's a rocket scientist.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Joking, and obviously they weren't joking.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm picturing in my mind growing up and having that, you know, being able to say that your dad is a rocket scientist is pretty impressive.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: But you're married to one.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: We had the advantage of my parents living nearby.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I would be home two days a week with Wiley and try to work during his nap.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Bruce would go into the office, and then two days a week he would be home and I would go into the office.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then the fifth day, uh, my parents would watch him and we would both be in our offices.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: So we were working, but sometimes we were doing remote working before it was a thing.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's pretty cool.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: You were part of the the Pacific Palisades fires that happened last year in January.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in the fact that you live up in that area and it was all over the news for weeks when it happened in Australia.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think some of the things that were sort of brought to again Australians' attentions were because it is such a nice area and it it's a very well-known area of Los Angeles, I think a lot of Australians were like, how can this go on for so long?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: It was like a perfect storm with the winds and the temperature and the way that that those canyons are.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: How did you come together as a community and what was that like during that time?
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's still surreal to this day.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: About 10 years ago, my husband said, you know, we don't really know our neighbors, and if there was an emergency, we wouldn't know who to reach out to or anything.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: So he put notes in mailboxes and started the neighborhood emergency contact list.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's cool.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people responded, and he just kind of wanted the ones right close to us.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh with time, people said, Oh, my neighbor wants in, and we kind of expanded.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that there's close to 50 houses.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Before the fire, there was probably about 30 or 25, and then everybody just kind of wanted in.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: We started a WhatsApp, and it really built a sense of community.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: We had had a couple neighborhood gatherings before the fire, so you could put a name and a face together.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's one thing I think that has changed about LA is like you don't have a neighborhood feeling with your closest neighbors.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's not sidewalks on the street we live on.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's not kids playing out in the street.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's just there's organized sports and people go to different schools.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: This was really helpful after the fire to have this list and the WhatsApp.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: People were sharing information about remediation companies, who's good to come and clean up, about insurance problems.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody was having issues with their insurance.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: In the very beginning, for 17 days, you couldn't drive up there or get up there.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: And a couple, you know, tended to be kids, friends of our kids, made their way up through back routes and electric scooters, and they would video your house is okay, your house has a little bit of damage, your house is gone.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yes.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um we thought, based on a neighbor's doorbell camera and the flames going that our house was gone for sure, and we didn't know for a couple weeks that it was actually still standing.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like when it was all happening, did you evacuate straight away?
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it had been windy.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Bruce woke up about four in the morning hearing the wind, and he said, you know, we had years before made a list of what to take in an emergency buy room with a one, two, or three priority.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: And Wiley was dropping off our granddaughter Juniper for us to watch.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we had Bruce said, you know, I think we should just look at the list and pack the cars.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: So we packed Wiley's car and our two cars, and I looked out about 10 30 in the morning as I smoke in the distance.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: I said, We gotta get going.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: So we were among the first to get out.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's good.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because on the news I remember seeing it just going, This is insane.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: Just the long lines.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: The the fact that it looked like some people wanted to stay when it was clearly not safe to stay.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so when we only just traveled up a couple of days ago to do a little drive around, and I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of houses that are being rebuilt.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that entire area.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's good to see.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like you can still see some quite obvious signs of where a fire has completely destroyed a business.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it seems like people are coming together, they're rallying together to build this community again, which is really special.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of spirit and resilience, and it's it's very good to see.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, that day we threw photo albums in the cars, you know, keepsake items.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't pack a toothbrush, didn't pack underwear, change of clothes, anything.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: We thought we'll be back tonight.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: And we went to our daughter's house, and over the next couple days, she went and bought us underwear and clothes.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: We were in shock.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Toothbrushes, everything.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm assuming that that group is still going.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: Bruce's group that he created.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: We did we were doing WhatsApp about uh there's a coyote on the streets or you got small pets.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we use it for everything.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: I love that because it's like you're bringing that community spirit back to an area where I could see how that would be a case, where people are very reserved.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: They probably have their gated homes and they don't want to come out.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: And sort of mingle like how they used to back in the day.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: We had a get together about a month ago and we just try to get together a couple times a year and just touch base and how are you doing?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it's uh it's that's really special.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: It it makes all the difference getting through this.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: So and I guess like you know, you and I were discussing the other day that one thing that's come out of it is that you've had to or you've chosen to live a little bit closer to your grandchildren and now you get to see them a lot more.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's less of a drive, I should say.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: Going on the freeway and the LA traffic.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's the silver lining for us.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: We still love the house and the palisades and we get up there during the week, but then we're here and nearby.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: I know you said you retired seven times.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: Are you officially retired now?
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: The last one was for good.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that was we did uh nine seasons of the middle.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the uh every show I came out of retirement for it's because people that I had hired said, hey, come consult, pick your hours, you pick your deal.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: And uh Well, that's because obviously you're so good at it.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: But it's it's a credit to them too, because they're bringing their former boss in.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember Helene and Heisler who did the middle, they're they're brilliant.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the first time Deanne Helene and I disagreed on something, she she was like kind of joking and kind of serious.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: She said, uh I don't want to say no to Corby, but she's the boss.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's her call.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: And she was right.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the intimidation of because I was apparently feared as a boss, everybody said.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: They've all stayed friends with me, but they said, Yeah, we were afraid of you.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: Is this because you meant business?
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: Were you one of these?
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was pretty I wasn't harsh.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: I tried to be complimentary, but I think that everything was about we've only got so much time and we got to get the perfect line.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: And there wasn't a lot of time for goofing around.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now I learned from Helene and Heisler that family comes first.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, oh, you know, if I had worked for them, I would have been a better boss.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: But they still liked me and they brought me in, and so I guess I did okay.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so how is retirement treating you now then?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Spent about a year traveling.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: We went to Iceland and we went to Portugal and we went to Hawaii and then COVID hit.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yes.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: So there was a couple years of that, and then my dad passed away, and we had to deal with the house and all the belongings of over seventy years of stuff.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, so he was in the same house for that month?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: He passed away in the house he built.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: So then you had to go through all his stuff.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, and that was months and months.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then in that period, Juni was born.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: And when she was about six months is when we started helping to watch her.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't have a second to get bored in retirement or think, what should I do?
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we got our travel in and then uh just went on to the next chapter where we are now.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I love that, and that's so special.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I couldn't do it without my husband.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: It takes two of us, and when we had kids, it was co-parenting, and that's how it was just always gonna be.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: And interestingly enough, he worked uh at the time that that Wiley was born, it was almost all men th since then there's a lot of women scientists working with him.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, he he mentors new hires and uh predominantly women, and it's great to see talk about women and science change.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: It just did not exist in 1991.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: And when he said he was gonna take a year off to be home with babies, but he got ribbed about it, and some guys said, Oh, your breast hurt from nursing.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh and I guess that would have been the mentality.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: He got more of the sexist garbage than I ever did.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I didn't even think about that.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: But I guess I I mean it makes sense.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: In 1991, nobody understood it.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: That a guy would want to take a year off to do to work at home.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then it it just he just worked a day a week for a very, very long time.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: When and then he went up to, I think maybe two and a half or three days a week before he retired when I did.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the kids were always like, oh, is it a daddy work day?
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it's one day a week.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: You don't understand.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Your friends, their dads are coming home after they're asleep.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I know.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel like his skill set must have been pretty impeccable for him to only work the one day a week and even during the retirement, like You have to be wanted.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: And because when I did it, it was sort of unheard of.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: So listen, towards the end of the episodes, I always do rapid fire questions.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: My ones for you are, well, the very first one is this is gonna be really hard.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking of this question and now I'm thinking it might be a bit tricky.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: But the question is, what's your favorite memory in life?
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now you've lived an incredible life and you've got plenty more life in you to live.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, people are living longer, and I'm sure I'm gonna be talking to you again and when you turn a hundred.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: But so far, is there something that you can just think of off the top of your head that's like a favorite memory, something that you can just remember where you're like, I don't know, reminiscing.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: One thing that was very surreal was the first time we won the Emmy, going up on stage thinking, I used to be at home watching people do this on TV, and now I'm going up these stairs.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: Take it in, don't rush it.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, best memories is just holding your babies.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's just there's nothing like it, and you're looking at these little faces and Oh, I know.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: It there's nothing tough that.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: I agree with you on that one.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: I I mean, I was talking to Molly about this the other day, where you know, someday she'll talk about being exhausted, and then because she's got such a a job where she's got to be on and present and people rely on her, but then she's also got these two little girls.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: I get it, but then I'm like, these days go so quick.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think of my own daughters, and I remember when Ava was six months old and now she's 19.
• 27:53
  unknown: Yeah.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I agree with you.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: One minute they're this chubby little baby, and then the next minute they're asking for rent money.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: So And everyone tells you when you're sitting there with a baby, everyone tells you it goes so fast, it goes so fast.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: You could be told that a million times and you're still not prepared.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: My mum used to do that to me.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, next question.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: If I was to get Corby's friends together, I love asking this question because everyone gives such different answers.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: But if I was to say to Corby's friends, give me three words to describe Corby.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think they're gonna say?
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: Oh gosh.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: Funny, opinionated, I hope kind.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I love that.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: I asked Casey, so as in Corby's daughter Casey, this question, and her first one was funny.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: But then she said, not as funny as my mum.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I love that you said that.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for that.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: I do a shout out at the end of the episode.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: So it can be to anyone, but it's it's a chance for you to use this platform to do a shout-out to whatever women that's in your life that's inspired you, that continues to inspire you, that you just want to use this chance to give a shout-out to.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: Now it can be a couple of women.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't just have to be one person.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Casey did do four people, but it's completely up to you.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, my mom leads every list.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: She's there was no one like her.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: The thing I love is that in my two kids and my two nephews, I s each one has a different trait of hers, and I just see it continued.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Who she was, I get to still be around that.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: The most remarkable person, and anybody you talk to who kn knew her would say the same thing.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very impressed by my kids and how they navigate life.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: D did you say women?
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, women.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: A shout-out to women.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't care if Wiley gets a shout out, because he's a great guy too.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: He's totally fine.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: He'll be listening to this going, I'm not a woman, but he's totally fine.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: She said to Wiley too.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: I told him that uh when he was pretty young, I said I always joked that I wanted to raise him to be gay because I thought that I would do better with a son-in-law than a daughter-in-law.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, really?
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I mean you're doing so good.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, then then I'm with Molly.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: No, this was the right way to go.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's good.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's good.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: That was just our standing joke.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I uh and then just the I was not the first wave of women writing sitcoms, but I think I was kind of the second wave.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: And just anyone whose credit I saw that it was a woman's name, because I always thought, oh yeah, that's a job other people do.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: But seeing a woman's name in the credits, even if I never met them and ever worked with them.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: Listen, thank you.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: I've had the best fun today interviewing you and listening to your story and listening to the history.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you so much for sitting with me today, Corey.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening to She Said It Out Loud.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: If you took something away from today's episode, I would love to hear from you.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: Come find me on Instagram at officially EmmaYoung.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: And hit follow so new episodes land straight in your feed.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: See you next time for more real and honest stories from legendary women.