Entnitabunent

Zimmerman
and Bill Prady
on the"Gilmore
Girls" set

From Southfield To

HOLLYWOOD

Old friends reunite on set of "Gilmore Girls."

NORMAN PRADY

Special to the Jewish News

im

.

ow far is it from a basement playroom in
suburban Detroit to Luke's Diner in Stars
Hollow, Conn.?
Just ask my son, Bill Prady, and his childhood
friend Stan Zimmerman, both 44, who recently
arrived there at the same time following separate
circuitous journeys of 20-some years.
They've renewed their friendship, now as writers
on the WB's Gilmore Girls, the inventive television
show whose fictional town of Stars Hollow, includ-
ing the diner, exists on the streets, stages and back
lot of Warner Bros. studios in Burbank, Calif.
Bill and Stan last worked together in the early
1970s during their days at Southfield's Kennedy
Elementary School. Along with another school
friend, they were the writers, producers and per-
formers in their Five-Star Marionette Theater.
"Right," Bill said. "Three boys, five stars."
"Stan wrote the plays we did," Bill said. "Fairly
involved fairy tales. We had very complicated pup-

pets that we made, and the stories all came from
Stan's imagination. We'd talk over the outline and
then we improvised.
"We had a couple of birthday parties come to
the basement for the entertainment."
That basement was in our four-bedroom colonial
on Pierce Street. "Stan lived on Harden Circle, the
street east of us," Bill said.
The boys' childhood friendship is forever docu-
mented in the "Bill's Bar Mitzvah" photo album
that shows Stan in the lineup of pals at the celebra-
tion.
From Kennedy school, down Pierce at Mt.
Vernon, Bill and Stan went to Thompson Middle
School. After a year there, Bill transferred to
Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook and the boys lost daily
contact with each other. But both Bill and Stan
attended .Cranbrook's summer theater camp, where
together they further fueled their creative interests.
"Now we're doing puppet shows on a grander
scale," Stan said, comparing his work at Five Star
Theater to his current work in movies and televi-
sion.

"I had a vivid imagination but never thought of
myself as a writer because I didn't read much as a
child. But I had these crazy ideas. I'd drag Bill and
others into these shows.
"We never wrote anything down. Had the scripts
in our heads. We'd record sound effects."

Drawn To Show Biz

After graduating from Cranbrook, Bill's adventures
took him to New York, where a chance meeting
with Muppets staff members was followed by an
invitation from Jim Henson to work on some mate-
rial for Kermit and Miss Piggy.
Then, as a full-time Henson Associates writer, Bill
worked on the Jim Henson Hour and, among other
projects, wrote MuppetVision 3-D, the Muppets
movie for Walt Disney World.
His other writing credits include "Presidential
Inaugural Celebration for Children," a project pro-
posed by then President-elect Bill and Hillary

FROM SOUTHFIELD

on page 33

7/28
2005

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