Harvey Brownstone Interviews Joel Thurm, Casting Director, Author, “Sex, Drugs and Pilot Season: Confessions of a Casting Director”

Harvey Brownstone conducts an in-depth interview with Joel Thurm, Casting Director, Author, “Sex, Drugs and Pilot Season: Confessions of a Casting Director”

About Harvey's guest:

Today’s guest, Joel Thurm, is a show business veteran whose name you may not know, but whose work you have most definitely seen and loved.  

For over 40 years, he was one of the most sought-after, powerful and respected casting directors in Hollywood.  Starting in the early 70’s, as a casting director at CBS, then casting TV shows for superstar producer Aaron Spelling, then becoming Senior Vice President of Talent and Casting at NBC for 10 years, and also serving as Vice President of Television Talent at Paramount Studios, our guest helped create entertainment that has brought countless hours of joy to millions of people around the world.  

On the big screen, he was responsible for casting 3 mega-hit movies:  “Grease”, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and “Airplane”.  And in the world of television, he cast dozens of hugely popular TV series including “Taxi”, “Fantasy Island”, “The Bob Newhart Show”, “Starsky & Hutch”, “Charlie’s Angels”, “Cheers”, “Miami Vice”, “The Golden Girls”, “Seinfeld”, “L.A. Law”, “Hill Street Blues”, “Night Court” and believe me, I’m just scratching the surface.  He produced and cast the Emmy award winning TV movie, “The Boy in the Plastic Bubble” starring John Travolta, as well as the 5-time Emmy award winning miniseries, “The Lives of Benjamin Franklin”, starring Melvyn Douglas and Michael Learned, and the Emmy award winning TV movie “The Gathering” starring Ed Asner and Maureen Stapleton, as well as the 1988 TV remake of “Inherit the Wind” starring Kirk Douglas and Jason Robards, which won 3 Emmy awards.   And my favourite of all his TV movies is “An Early Frost”, starring Gena Rowlands and Ben Gazzara, which was the first movie about AIDS, winning 4 Emmy awards.  

He was responsible for launching the careers of countless stars including Nick Nolte, John Ritter, David Hasselhoff, Amy Irving, James Woods, Lorenzo Lamas, Danny DeVito, Christina Hendricks and dozens more.  And get this: HE was the one who cast Ted Danson in “Cheers”, and he was the one who cast the wonderful Georgia Engel to play Ted Baxter’s wife in “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”.  

And now, he’s written a fascinating, entertaining and insightful memoir entitled, “Sex, Drugs and Pilot Season: Confessions of a Casting Director”.

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To see more about Joel Thurm, go to:

https://www.joelthurm.com/

https://www.instagram.com/joelthurmphotos/

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