Today I’m presenting to you the interview that Michael Russnow has granted exclusively to "Santa Barbara Blog". He started in the business with a plea to Earl Hamner, creator of The Waltons, figuring any show whose main character longs to be a writer would take heart. And he was right. After doing a number of episodes, he continued his career with major credits such as Streets of San Francisco and Little House On the Prairie, before moving into comedy and Barney Miller. He has been a story editor on sitcoms three times, interspersed with episodes for Family Ties, Dynasty, Knots Landing, and Diff’rent Strokes, numerous other series, as well as a stint on Santa Barbara. He has also sold material in Latin America and Germany, and in 1998 spent almost 6 months in Europe helping to set up a new soap in Budapest. Politically, he was involved in major political campaigns as a teenager in New York, working as a volunteer on presidential, mayoralty and gubernatorial /senatorial campaigns. After moving to California and while going to school at UCLA, he worked in the press office for the senatorial campaign of Alan Cranston, wrote his Master's Thesis on the broadcast elements of that campaign and later served on Cranston's staff in Washington. Currently he write for The Huffington Post.
How you came to Santa Barbara?
I was on Santa Barbara briefly, doing breakdowns -- extended story outlines -- but didn't stay with the show very long. Jerry Dobson was fine. We had our weekly meetings at his Bel-Air mansion, where his household staff served us breakfast, lunch and snacks -- albeit the same ones week after week.
Why SB was different from other shows?
Santa Barbara was different in that it went forward from scene to scene, unlike other soap operas, which when it left one set of characters to show two or three other story lines, returned almost freeze frame to the previous characters we left ten minutes earlier. In Santa Barbara when you returned to the first set of characters you had progressed in time to another location or set of circumstances, and for me that made the stories move faster.
What do you do now?
I am still writing and also acting and also contribute to The Huffington Post about various subjects on a regular basis. I just (Tuesday night) had a staged reading of my new play, "The Royal Intruder" at the Writers Guild of America, west and it was received outstandingly by a packed house. I am also continuing my pursuits as an actor and am also now a member of SAG-AFTRA, in addition to the WGAW.
Why you choose to work on SB?
As to why I joined Santa Barbara, it's obvious. It was a job and it paid $$$$.
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