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SISTER,
SISTER Pittsburgh
Tribune-Review
Or, as one of them puts it, total rebels. But it's a different world for the Lapiduss sisters these days. The former Pittsburghers have made their way to Los Angeles, where they broke into the world of TV script writing. Their writing prowess has helped propel hits such as "The Nanny," "Roseanne" and "Mad About You." And, of course "Family Matter," the sitcom that tormented us with Urkel, the pushiest geek of all time. For Sally, 42, who helped mold the character during its first year on the air, it isn't hard to admit there are urkelian traits in her own personality. She argues she never ahs been as smart, but she's had as many allergies. "Oh, please don't put in the paper that I'm like Urkel -- my mother would kill me!" Sally cracks in a telephone interview from her Los Angeles office. "Say something else. Oh, I guess you can say we were two funny girls who didn't fit in. … We just weren't wild about high school." Lucky for them, their years at Taylor Allderdice were not completely a vast, empty hole-even though Sally is quick to 'fess up that she missed more than half of her senior year. The sisters concede Taylor Allderdice gave them the freedom to be who they wanted to be. "We were allowed to be individual in that school, " Sally says. "At that school it was OK to be who you were." Still, the sisters were shocked when they found out Taylor Allderdice wanted to honor their roster of achievements. "It seemed insane to me. … Me and Sally what?" says Maxine, 37. "I mean, there are doctors and people who cure diseases, and people who make real contributions. We try to make people laugh and try to, I guess, contribute in our teeny, tiny way. School officials will honor the sisters-and eight other outstanding Taylor Allderdice alumni-at an awards banquet today. "We wanted to honor people who not only have done wonderfully but that have also given back to the community or their particular fields," says Terri Tanner, the awards co-chairperson. "Its nice for the community to see that the people move on, but they are not forgotten." It is the second year the awards will be presented, according to Sid Feiler, a Taylor Allderdice vice principal. Although their jobs come across as glamorous and filled with glitter, the sisters don't hide the fact that it can be a frustrating field. "I look at how many people want to do this and I think we've been very lucky," Sally says. "It's very competitive. Everybody's got a screenplay or a spec script. If you make it, the rewards are certainly great. But most people go through long periods of not working." Sally and Maxine roughed it for a few years before they made it big. Maxine dabbled in stand-up comedy circles, while Sally worked as a stage manager for a Katharine Hepburn play and later snatched a job as Hepburn's assistant. Together with a close friend, Pamela Eells, they wrote a "spec script," a script written on speculation, for "The Golden Girls," the NBC hit show. That script got them an agent. They landed their first big job with "Family Matters," a job they kept for about a year. "I think if we would've written on that show for more than that, I would've gone crazy," says Sally, a graduate of Lake forest college outside Chicago, where she majored in English. The sisters went their separate ways, and sally wrote for a host of shows, including stints on the writing staffs of "Mad About You," "the Nanny," and "Ellen" before Ellen "came out." These days, Sally is helping to script a comedy titled "Titus," scheduled to air on Fox this spring. The show-based on the life of a California stand-up comic, Christopher titus-will go heavy on the flashbacks and fantasy sequences, Sally says. Meanwhile, Maxine, a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University's drama department, has written for the riotous "Tracey Ullman Show," Judd Hirsh's "Dear John," "Roseanne" and "Home Improvement." Her favorite? "Roseanne." "That was the most fun and most trying work," Maxine says of the fourth and fifth seasons of "Roseanne." "It was a couple of seasons of real crazy behavior on the part of Roseanne and Tom Arnold. It was also a time the show did its best work, when it was the No. 1 show on television." Just recently, she landed a deal with Columbia Tristar, where she is developing new series. The sisters occasionally work together, most recently on a play they titled "Situation Tragedy…Observations on 10 years in Hollywood with Bongos." The sisters produced the show in Los Angeles last year and raked in about a dozen prestigious drama awards. If the Lapiduss sisters have made it to the top of their game, Maxine says it's because of her big sister. "Sally is one of the strongest people I've even known in my life. She's been unusual in her approach and had a very good, ironic take on life. And I'd like to think I'm reflective of that, too," she says. "I think we both have been appreciative of the process of our success and also the not-so-much successes." But give a little credit to Mother Lapiduss, too. Esther Lapiduss says her daughters grew up in a house where comedy always took center stage. "They were sort of brought up in that environment," says Esther, a local entertainer who lists as some of her credits performances with Joe Negri and the civic Light Opera. She says laughter always was important in their household-it enabled them to dispel anger and make things better. "Your attitude, your sense of humor can get you through all kinds of situations," she says. "When I was bringing up my girls, that was the most important think. … To be able to survive, you have to laugh things through… there's nothing more important than that."
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Like
the oddball TV character Urkel they helped to create, Sally and
Maxine Lapiduss joke that they were total misfits during their high
school days at Taylor Allderdice.