Akron native Rachel Sweet savors writer-producer role on 'Hot in Cleveland'
Published: Tuesday, June 14, 2011, 12:20 PM Updated: Tuesday, June 14, 2011, 12:52 PM
You can reinvent your life. It might be a wild and unpredictable ride. You might hit a few gaping potholes along the way. But, yes, you can reinvent your life.
That notion has been the source of many a laugh since "Hot in Cleveland" premiered last June. And it brings us to one of the many reasons Akron native Rachel Sweet is an ideal writer and co-executive producer for the TV Land sitcom, which resumes its second season at 10 p.m. Wednesday.
"I am the queen of reinvention," Sweet said during a telephone interview. "Looking back over my life, yeah, you could say I've been through a few metamorphoses."
If you remember her as a rock star from the late '70s and early '80s, you might be thinking, "Hold on, is this that Rachel Sweet?" It sure is, and when she gave up the grind of music tours at the tender age of 20, she already was no stranger to reinvention.
Sweet began her singing career at the age of (ready?) 3. She won an electric garage-door opener at a local talent contest.
"I sang 'I'm a Little Dutch Girl,' which clearly wasn't true," Sweet said. "But it was good enough to win an electric garage-door opener."
It also was good enough to open up a career path. She was singing commercial jingles at 6, later touring with Mickey Rooney. She was an opening act for Bill Cosby at 12, when she began recording country music.
That was 1974. She switched to rock 'n' roll and released her first album, "Fool Around," in 1978.
"It does seem like 100 years ago," said Sweet, 48. "I have two kids now, 11 and 8, and they Google me all the time and watch these old videos on YouTube, and it just shocks me. I'm not only shocked by how I look but by how nascent the video business was. The videos are so literal and horrible."
Her 1981 duet with Rex Smith, "Everlasting Love," was a hit, but, a year later, she was ready for another round of reinvention.
"I just accepted it for what was happening at the time," Sweet said. "It was fun, and I didn't think of it as weird. But I was very impressionable, and I certainly quit music because I think I was a little too impressionable."
Too impressionable? Care to elaborate on that?
"Well, I still had a record deal at Sony and I had done this duet with Rex Smith," Sweet said. "And at that point I was drinking and doing a lot of things I shouldn't have been doing, and I realized I just wasn't happy being on the road anymore. I wanted to quit. I'd been on the road eight or nine months a year for five years. I was burnt, definitely."
Time to get off the road and seek another path.
"It was a big realization," she said. "I really didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew that I didn't want to do that anymore."
Sweet decided to give college a try. There was a slight roadblock there. She never got her diploma from Firestone High School. She had been too busy touring and making music.
She was living with her sister in New York at the time, so the 20-year-old made an appointment with a dean at Columbia University.
"I kind of talked my way in," Sweet said. "I went to the dean of Columbia and told him about my life experience, and he put me on probation for a semester. If I did 3.5 or better, I could stay, and if not I had to leave."
Four years later, she had earned her degree in French and English literature. She was going to be a writer, until director John Waters recruited her to co-author and record the title track for his 1988 film, "Hairspray."
"John told me I should go into acting," said Sweet, who also contributed songs to Waters' "Cry-Baby" (1990). "He thought my voice was so strange, he told me I should act. I wasn't all that flattered. I said, 'No, I'm a singer.' And he said, 'No, you should meet my agent.' "
Why not? So the former country singer, rock star and college student tried acting.
"And I didn't really want to do that, either, but I ended up acting for about five or six years," Sweet said. "It was such a lark. I was not really an actor, but people kept hiring me to be their sarcastic best friend."
In 1989, she became the host and star of "The Sweet Life," a series on the Comedy Channel, the forerunner to Comedy Central.
"I did write for that, but I had a staff of writers, including Jon Stewart," she said. "You've heard of him. It was kind of a trial by fire."
In 1992, she landed the role of George Costanza's cousin on "Seinfeld." Yet another realization was waiting around the Hollywood corner.
"I love writing, and all of my friends were writers," Sweet said. "So I finally got the hint and sat down and wrote a spec script around 1996. Then the writing and producing jobs started coming my way. And producing means you're just moving up in the ranks as a writer."
She was a writer-producer on "Sports Night," "Dharma & Greg," "George Lopez" and other half-hour comedies. Her agent suggested she would be perfect for "Hot in Cleveland," a sitcom starring Valerie Bertinelli as Melanie, a novelist in her 40s forsaking youth-obsessed Los Angeles and trying to convince her two best friends that, for them, Cleveland is the best location in the nation.
"The Internet can help make you an instant expert on anything, like what it's like to live in Cleveland, but having someone in the writers' room who has actually done it is invaluable," said Suzanne Martin, the creator and executive producer of "Hot in Cleveland." "She gives us the insider's perspective on how the locals might perceive what our ladies are doing, as well as local terms and sites and things they might do."
Sweet had plenty of sitcom experience. She was in her 40s. She was from Northeast Ohio. And then there was that whole reinvention thing.
"It certainly didn't hurt that I was from the area," said Sweet, who is married to Tom Palmer, a writer whose credits include AMC's "Mad Men."
Sweet isn't the only "Hot in Cleveland" producer from Northeast Ohio. Steve Skrovan, a graduate of Gilmour Academy in Gates Mills, is a writer and co-executive producer. And Robert Heath, also from Akron, is the show's line producer.
"Rachel and I know both Cleveland and Los Angeles, and it's helpful to have people who know both towns, both sensibilities," Skrovan said. "We can make casting suggestions. We can recommend locations and names. We can say if something seems too Los Angeles or not quite Cleveland."
And they do, helping, with Heath, to keep the "Hot in Cleveland" world seem more like Cleveland.
"I landed in a nice place," Sweet said. "I've got a wonderful husband who goes over my scripts and changes them for the better. I have two terrific, well-rounded kids. I get to go to a great place with really fun, experienced writers. So life is good."
And there is absolutely no temptation to slip in front of the camera.
"Not at all," she said. "I'd rather sit in a room with the writers. I was a stage performer from the age of 6. I was on stage enough. If I never sit in another makeup chair, that will be fine with me. I was able to shut off the spotlight without a regret."
