All language subtitles for perry_mason_s09e2_interview_with_anne_nelson

This lady has been working at CBS since
1945.

62 years of continuous employment.

Check out the diamond CBS eye around her
neck.

It's one of a kind, as is Ann Nelson.

My name is Ann Nelson.

I am Vice President of Business Affairs
for CBS Entertainment.

I handled the contract negotiation and
other business affairs on the Perry

Show on behalf of CBS.

Gail Patrick, who is the executive
producer, was my adversary in business,

but my friend in life.

Gail Patrick was...

the only female executive producer of a
hit show, or actually of a non -hit

show, in prime time in the years of
Perry Mason.

Women today won't believe that things
were that tough, but Gail was alone in

bailiwick, and I was the only female
executive not in personnel at CBS at the

time.

Perry Mason got to CBS through the
friendship of Earl Stanley Gardner.

Cornwell Jackson, who was Gail Patrick's
husband at the time, and Gail Patrick.

Mr. Jackson was the head of the radio
and television department

of the J. Walter Thompson Advertising
Agency, and in a prior time, I believe,

had been the agent for Earl Stanley
Garner.

Anyway, they were all friends, as the
name of the company implies.

Paisano is the name of the company.

Gail and Corny decided they would take
the show to CBS with Earl's permission.

And suddenly Gail, who had graduated
from Howard University in Birmingham,

Alabama, with some law courses, wrote up
the contract that she told me years

later was so wild and so favorable to
them that they had no clue that they

possibly get it by CBS.

But we bought it, and it has been a very
big...

financial success not only for CBS but
for the Paisano Partners over this many

years.

Well, the books had been very successful
and then CBS radio show with Barry

Mason for 12 years was also very
successful.

Mr. Paley, who was founder and head of
our company and a very smart man, had

always looked to the programming
situation

as radio shows that would convert to
television.

That's why he bought Jack Benny, Red
Skelton, Burns and Allen, Edgar Bergen,

etc. So I think that he saw the
possibility of the radio show

turning into a very successful
television show.

Oh, he was very involved in it always.

When I was very young and first in the
company, And there weren't so many vice

presidents and people running around.

Mr. Paley would come out and we'd have
meetings, six or eight of us with him,

discuss programming.

He made many, many decisions. Mr.

Paley made the deal that brought Jack
Benny and all those people to CBS in

They had all been at NBC.

My first connection to Perry Mason was
handling contract negotiation.

I used to...

make the deals for the writers and
directors and producers when they

Marks or somebody else.

Actually, Artside and Art Marks were
there for a long, long time.

And so my connection was to handle the
business of yours.

It was not a part of the deal as such,
but just by the nature of it, he did.

Because they respected his creative
judgment.

Well, it was well -written, well
-produced, and well -directed.

I mean, what other answer is there?

The one thing that I found a lot of fun
is the very last episode.

Gail and Corny and everybody decided
that everybody that had worked on the

that they could get hold of should be in
the show.

So we were all in the show. Corny, her
husband, was a bartender, and I was a

barmaid.

And I don't know what anybody else was.
I don't remember, but I do remember

working in that bar.

And it was just a lot of fun. Everybody
that was associated with the show was on

it. And actually, it was a pretty good
show, I think.