Two original Golden Girls writers have created a pilot for a new series that features four older gay men living in a retirement village in Palm Springs.
Stan Zimmerman and James Berg—who have also written episodes of Roseanne and Gilmore Girls— have been shopping the script around but say “ageism and homophobia” in the industry is preventing TV networks from buying the series.
“Unfortunately, we cannot get one network executive to read it,” Zimmerman told . “Or even a producer to pass it to them.
“We have found ageism and homophobia alive and well in Hollywood. Hopefully, a groundswell of support from the viewing public will get an outlet like Hulu or Amazon to make it.”
A private table read of the show—entitled Silver Foxes—took place in Zimmerman’s living room last year with actors George Takei, Leslie Jordan, Bruce Vilanch and Todd Sherry as the main characters.
It also featured former Saturday Night Live cast member Cheri Oteri and comic actor Daniele Gaither as a lesbian couple who live next door.
Zimmerman and Berg were nominated for Writers Guild of America awards for their Golden Girls episode, ‘Rose’s Mother’as well as a Roseanne episode that featured a gay bar and a same-sex kiss, ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’.
Zimmerman recently posted a photo of Estelle Getty—who played Sophia in Golden Girls— to commemorate her death nine years ago.
“She took me & my writing partner Jim Berg under her wing on the first season of The Golden Girls. We were very young, very scared and very much in the closet (you had to be back then),” Zimmerman wrote.
