My Favorite Year
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My Favorite Year is a 1982 comedy film which tells the story of the early days of television, and a flamboyant film actor who is shepherded by a young intern through a day of overdrinking. It stars Peter O'Toole, Mark Linn-Baker, Jessica Harper, Joseph Bologna, Bill Macy, Lainie Kazan, Selma Diamond, Cameron Mitchell and Gloria Stuart.
The movie was written by Dennis Palumbo and Norman Steinberg and directed by Richard Benjamin.
It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor (Peter O'Toole).
The movie's background was based on the Sid Caesar show Your Show of Shows and its love story is about how a Mel Brooks-like comedy writer Benjy Stone woos and wins an upper class young lady K. C. Downing as his Anne Bancroft, with the assistance of the drunk yet aware Alan Swann as an Errol Flynn-ish charmer. Joseph Bologna's character, "King Kaiser," invokes the charm of Sid Caesar. The characters learn they are as brave as they need to be.
The movie was the basis of a Tony Award winning play. The original premise for the film took place at the turn of the century in New York and Wyatt Earp was the celebrity that had to be watched. The concept was changed to New York in the 1950's because it was cheaper to film.