Another take on Freddie

[croiter]

Found this on a web site about Della Reese:

Della's first regular network series assignment when she joined the cast of the NBC hit comedy Chico and the Man
(Sept. 1974 - July 78).

The series starred Freddie Prinze, a relative unknown when
he was cast as 'Chico' - opposite 'The Man', vaudeville veteran
Jack Albertson (as irascible mechanic Ed Brown).

Prinze was a fluid standup comic, with an ethnic sense of self that
ripped through the television screen. With coaching from
Albertson, Prinze quickly made the transition to sitcom actor,
playing the requisite broad situations with virtuosity. The director
of 'Chico' was Jack Donohue, formerly director of 'The Lucy Show'
and the producer was James Komack of 'Welcome Back, Kotter'
fame, so this was standard Seventies sitcom fare.

The series made Prinze an overnight superstar, sex symbol
and millionaire - but fame weighed heavily on this young
man's shoulders and in just a couple of years his life was
spinning out of control.

'Chico and the Man' was the
number-three show in 1974,
but Freddie Prinze' drunk driving and drug
possession arrest in 1975 sent ratings falling to the
mid-twenties. Today, a network star like Kelsey
Grammer can get caught driving drunk and
possessing drugs and his ratings go up, but not 25
years ago.

Prinze was more and more
frequently drunk, stoned and
belligerent, missing gigs in
Vegas and causing a lot of
concern on the set. He was
reportedly drinking wine, snorting
Cocaine and gulping up to one hundred Quaaludes a
day. A hundred Quaaludes a day! Party on, dude!

Ratings continued to fall. To take some of the pressure (and
screen time) away from Prinze, Della Reese surfaced as the
garage's new owner (Della Rogers) at the start of the 1976
season.

Rogers was an outspoken
community activist who argued with Ed Brown on
every subject possible and provided sufficient
distraction so that you hopefully wouldn't notice that
Chico was too messed-up to argue with anybody
anymore.

It seemed like a dream job for the singer/actress -
ratings leveled off when Della joined the cast and a
long run seemed assured - provided Prinze could
just show up and participate in some meaningful
way.

But on January 28, 1977, at four in the morning, Freddie Prinze
shot himself while drunk and on Quaaludes, trying to make his
manager freak out by putting a gun to his head and threatening to
pull the trigger.

After the gun accidentally went off, Prinze
lingered in a coma for 37 hours before
dying. 'Chico and the Man' was still in
production, episodes were rewritten giving Della Reese a
more prominent role. Chico, viewers were told, was visiting
friends in Mexico.

When the series returned in the fall of 1977, it was
explained that Chico left to start his own business, with
the help of his wealthy father (Cesar Romero). There
was a new Chico - Gabriel Melgar as Raul Garcia, found
stowed away in Ed's car trunk after a trip to Tijuana. Ed
reluctantly takes the kid in, calling him Chico because
'all of you people are chico to me'.

Ratings floundered as the
production desparately looked for a focus. Della's 'son' (who
looked a lot like J.J. from 'Good Times') and 'grandchild' were
added and Charo joined the cast later in the season as Raul's
Aunt Charo.

Despite the bright new cast, 'Chico and
the Man' was canceled at the end of
the fourth season and Della's hope for
a long-running series vanished.

NBC scheduled re-runs of 'Chico and
the Man' featuring Freddie Prinze
during the daytime in 1977 to capitalize
on the tabloid headlines surrounding
his death, so overexposure also
hastened the show's demise.

In 1978, Della Reese was brought in
as the 'substitute teacher' for Gabe
Kaplan when he left Welcome Back
Kotter over a salary dispute. The show
was on its last legs anyway, John
Travolta ended his sporadic
appearances a year earlier and took most of the show's ratings (and charm) with him.
Della's character was left to fend for herself against a class of aging sweathogs. The
show died at the end of the season with Gabe Kaplan and the individual sweathog's
careers withering soon after.

The Eighties weren't kind to Della Reese, she was largely ignored by television during
the new-wave decade. In the fall of 1982, Della played Judge Caroline Phillips in the
critically acclaimed sitcom It Takes Two starring Richard Crenna, Patty Duke Astin
and Helen Hunt. It was the story of the tumultuous life of a surgeon and his 'liberated'
District Attorney wife. That series only lasted one season.

In 1986, Della was cast as argumentative Aunt Mabel in a mid-season attempt to save
the floundering Charlie and Company, a rip-off of the 'Cosby Show' starring Flip
Wilson and Gladys Knight (and a very young Jaleel 'Eurkel' White). Nothing could have
helped this misguided production, the quality of the scripts was dismal and the show
died a few months after Della joined the cast.

[EdBrownJr]

That was good an interesting read.

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GET OUT OF MY GARAGE!!!

[Cheryl Harrell]

I saw that site before & it was interesting. Not too favorable on Freddie tho.