Marcy Carsey

Networks continued to consider their touch golden well into the nineties. "Grace Under Fire" (ABC) starred comic Brett Butler as a single mother working in an oil refinery and helped propel ABC to ratings supremacy during the 1994-1995 season. Also in 1995, CBS premiered "Cybill," starring Cybill Shepherd as a sometime working actress coping with two ex-husbands, two daughters, and a lush divorcee friend portrayed by Christine Baranski, who could twirl a riposte with an aplomb not seen on TV since Eve Arden. The same year, Carsey-Werner signed an agreement with Bill Cosby to produce a new sitcom starring Cosby, this time for CBS. The project was based on the British sitcom "One Foot in the Grave." In 1996, Carsey-Werner teamed Jane Curtin and John Lithgow for NBC's "3rd Rock From the Sun," a sitcom about aliens living in Chicago and researching the habits of earthlings. For the 1996-997 season, in addition to "Cosby," Carsey-Werner placed two other series: "Men Behaving Badly" (NBC), about a two couples (Anna Gunn, Ron Eldard, Justine Bateman and Rob Schneider) and "Townies" (ABC), which marked the series debut of Molly Ringwald, although neither really enjoyed breakout success. Reuniting with the creative team behind "3rd Rock" (Bonnie and Terry Turner), Carsey-Werner returned to the winner's column with the highly-praised "That '70s Show" (Fox, 1998-2006), a nostalgic look at life in the Midwest set in the days of disco. Carsey-Werner established its own syndication division in the mid-90s and announced plans to produce a new version of "What's My Line?" but the plans fell through when it turned out that All-American TV and not the company from which Carsey-Werner had bought the rights controlled the property. But the embarrassment of the latter hardly mattered. Thanks to lucrative (and ground-breaking) syndication revenues, Carsey was said to be worth well in excess of $200 million. Despite owning several homes, she was not one to let fame and fortune go to her head. At one Emmy ceremony, the nervous nominee queried a TV reporter if he thought she was going to win. The reporter respectively said "No." "Good," replied Carsey. "I'm wearing the same dress I wore to the ceremony last year."