Cast of ‘One Day at a Time’ reunites on TODAY
The edgy ’70s sitcom brought the feminist movement into America's homes
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23350209/By Mike Celizic
TODAYShow.com contributor
updated 8:36 a.m. PT, Tues., Feb. 26, 2008
Looking at Bonnie Franklin, Mackenzie Phillips, Valerie Bertinelli and Pat Harrington today, it’s hard to picture them as the revolutionaries they once were. They look more like four folks from the suburbs than the cast of a television show that introduced prime-time audiences to the modern reality of single moms.
The year was 1975 and the show was “One Day at a Time.” And right from the beginning, the cast knew they had touched a chord, Franklin, who played single mom Ann Romano, told TODAY co-host Matt Lauer on Tuesday.
“As soon as we went on the air we started receiving a lot of letters,” she said. “The letters were saying, ‘This is my life. This is what I’m going through. This is what my mother is like.’ And so we pretty quickly got the idea that we were touching something.”
Phillips and Bertinelli were just six months apart in real life and 14 years old when the show started, but they played daughters Julie, 17, and Barbara, 15.