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One ABC vice president remembers attending an affiliates' meeting in Hawaii with Silverman. While everyone else was playing golf or tennis, Silverman was found under a blanket on the beach, his eyes transfixed by a small, battery-powered TV. Once, in a state of great excitement, he called CBS Executive Perry Lafferty into his office to watch a scene in a soap opera. "It was a routine hospital bed scene, with the man standing beside the bed of the woman he loves," remembers Lafferty. "But I looked over at Freddie, and tears were rolling down his cheeks."
As head of programming, Silverman does not just schedule shows the way a train dispatcher schedules runs into Grand Central Station. Often—to the dismay of producers, directors and writers —he becomes producer, director and writer. He reads the script of every new show, pilots of shows, and potential pilots of shows. "I never worked so hard in my life as when Freddie was working for me at CBS," says Bob Wood. "He'd give me scripts to take home at night, and then call a half-hour after I got home to ask how I liked them. He knows what goes into every pot, just like a chef."
Some program execs look for plot.
Others look for action. Silverman looks for strong personality. Says he: "I think the thing that makes a successful show an enduring show is well-delineated, attractive, appealing characters. Whether you're talking about I Love Lucy or Amos and Andy on the radio, it's the characters that determine whether the show is going to be a success."
At Silverman's order, a scene from Charlie's Angels was rewritten to make each angel not only look but also sound different. "You must know that one character will say a line one way and another would say it differently," Silverman told the producers. "You must define these characters better." Originally, Writer Abby Mann wanted Kojak to be more human and more fallible. But Silverman wanted him tailored to fit the style of Star Telly Savalas. Now, complains Mann, who is no longer involved in the Kojak series, "Kojak is imperturbable. He's always right. He has become exactly the reverse of what I intended."
Silverman lavishes care and energy on casting his characters. Watching tests, he will say, "I hate her, she's terrible. Roll —next, next!" Or he will leap from his chair and shout, "That's her!" In his eyes, characters do not even have to be human. He will spend just as much time listening to a shark's voice for a children's cartoon as he will in discussing stars for a big-budget show in prime time.