Amy Ephron

You had a, a successful career in TV and film before you got into writing.

What motivated that, that step for you?

I was published in The Realist.

I was published in the National Lampoon.

I had done magazine pieces.

I think that I was on my own, and I wanted to support myself, and I wanted to be on my own.

It was a completely different time.

You didn't have to be an assistant for three years before you became an executive.

And so I had enough self-knowledge and literature.

I'd gone to a couple of very exceptional schools.

I'd had a couple of exceptional teachers, and I was able to successfully-- I was like an assistant at the Parks Department in the Public Relations division.

I was a receptionist at a magazine that was called Scanlan's.

Do you remember Scanlan's?

I don't remember that, no.

Warren Hinkle and Sidney Zion.

It was right after Ramparts.

It's where Hunter Thompson published his first pieces.

And then I was able to transition from that to Sesame Street.

Don't ask me how that happened.

I can't quite explain it.

And then I was an executive there doing books and records and toys and games and writing for the electric company.

So I'd written before.

Then I kind of fell into-- It was a big time for books to film, and I knew a lot of people in New York.

I was living in New York, and I was working for a couple of producers, significantly Marty Bregman, who was doing Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon and had a bunch of clients.

But he was a very on-set producer, and somehow a job came open, and I got it.