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Joe Bologna and Renée Taylor: Made for Each Other
The stage and screen couple of Joe Bologna (1934-2017) and Renée Taylor (Renée Adorée Wexler, b. 1933) are top of mind at the moment, as they were in the movie Tango Shalom (2021) with my friend Bob Greenberg (posthumously released in Joe’s case). It was directed by their son Gabriel Bologna. (Is he named after Gabe Dell? I bet he’s named after Gabe Dell. Either that, or the heavenly horn player).
The couple are probably better known separately, Taylor played Fran Drescher’s mom on The Nanny among other things; Bologna was a familiar character actor for years whose most beloved turn is probably as the Sid Caesar character in My Favorite Year. But in New York and Hollywood they were known as a team, for several Broadway plays, movies and TV projects they cooked up together. Their body of work as a team is actually kind of astonishing and deserves greater recognition.
December 30 was Bologna’s birthday, but the story sort of starts with his wife. Renée Taylor was destined for show business from the beginning. She’s obviously named after the silent movie actress. After studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, she began performing with improv comedy groups in the ’50s. By the early ’60s she had her own nightclub act at the Bon Soir, with a pre-Broadway Barbra Streisand as an opening act. During this period you could see her on TV programs like Kraft Music Hall, The Tonight Show with Jack Paar, and The Les Crane Show. She also cracked movies. In 1961 she had a small part in Jerry Lewis’sThe Errand Boy. In the middle of the decade she met Gene Wilder when both went into the Broadway cast of Murray Schisgal’s hit Luv, and this was how she got cast as Eva Braun in Mel Brooks’ The Producers (1967).
Meanwhile, in 1965 she married Joe Bologna, with whom she had already been cohabitating for a couple of years (which was much more unusual at the time). Bologna was an Italian from Brooklyn who’d served in the marines and majored in art history at Brown. At the time they met, he worked primarily directing and producing TV commercials.
The couple co-wrote a play about the chaotic experience of organizing their wedding and the culture clash between both of their families, as well as the tension between their more modern values and the traditional ones of their families. Called Lovers and Other Strangers, it was directed by Charles Grodin on Broadway in 1968. (Grodin directed several of the team’s comedies in years to come). The original stage production featured Taylor, Candice Azzara,Ron Carey, Richard Castellano, Zora Lampert,Dick Van Patten, Bobby Alto (who would be featured in many subsequent Bologna-Taylor productions) et al. The movie version was one of the top box office hits of 1970, with a cast that included Gig Young,Cloris Leachman, Anne Jackson (whom Taylor had replaced in the cast of Luv), Bea Arthur,Bonnie Bedelia (aunt of the Culkins), Michael Brandon, Harry Guardino, Anne Meara, and BobDishy. It was Diane Keaton’s first movie, and Sylvester Stallone had a bit part. Later, in 1983 they shot a sitcom pilot based on the play, but it was not picked up.
The pair followed up Lovers and Other Strangers with the movie Made for Each Other (1971), which they co-wrote and starred in. It’s about a couple who meet in group therapy and fall in love. The supporting cast included Azzara (from the Broadway cast of Lovers) and early performances by Paul Sorvino,Olympia Dukakis, and Peggy Pope.
And the juggernaut continued throughout the decades. In 1973 they co-created the TV sitcom Calucci’s Department starring James Coco, Azzara, and Pope. It went head to head with Sanford and Son, quickly lost the battle, and was cancelled. But that same year they did the TV movie Acts of Love and Other Comedies (1973) Bologna, Wilder, Pope, Carey, Marlo Thomas, Jean Stapleton, Art Garfunkel, et al. Several TV movies followed: Paradise (1974) with Bologna, Taylor, Luther Adler,Ruth Buzzi, Broderick Crawford, and Ted Knight; Three for Two (1975); cowritten with James Eppy, with Lucille Ball and Jackie Gleason; Woman of the Year (1976), an update of the old Garson Kanin classic with Bologna and Taylor in the Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn roles ; Good Penny (1977) with Taylor, Alto, Roger Bowen, and Scott Brady (Lawrence Tierney’s brother); and A Cry For Love (1980) with Susan Blakely, Powers Boothe,Herb Edelman, Edie Adams,Lainie Kazan, Gene Barry (with real life wife Patricia) and in bit role Robert Hegyes from Welcome Back, Kotter.
The couple returned to Broadway in It Had to Be You in 1981. It later became a 1989 tv movie) with the pair and their son Gabe, as well as Eileen Brennan, Donna Dixon,Fran Drescher, William Hickey, and Tony Randall. Then came the TV movie Bedrooms (1984) an anthology of four sketches which they hosted, featuring Jane Curtin, Louise Lasser,Rudy de Luca, Demi Moore, et al. In 1996 came the TV movie Love is All There Is (1996) cowritten with Gabe and Shakespeare! (It’s a riff on Romeo and Juliet). It features the couple though the leads are Paul Sorvino and Lainie Kazan, with a supporting cast that includes Angelina Jolie, Barbara Carrera, William Hickey, Dick Van Patten, Abe Vigoda, Joy Behar, and Connie Stevens.
Their last Broadway show was If You Ever Leave Me…I’m Going With You (2001), which had the extraordinary bad luck of opening a couple of weeks prior to September 11. In 2002 they co-starred in the movie Returning Mickey Stern with old friends Tom Bosley and Connie Stevens. They’re also both in Susan Seidelman’s Boynton Beach Club (2005) with Dyan Cannon, Sally Kellerman et al. They played themselves in the odd experiment Beverly Hills Broke (2013). And course Tango Shalom.
As for their solo careers as actors, we’ll lead with Bologna on account of his birthday, and he proved to be the bigger star, or quasi-star. His films include Cops and Robbers (1973) with Cliff Gorman; Mel Shavelson’s Mixed Company (1974) with Barbara Harris; the all-star The Big Bus (1976); What Now, Catherine Curtis? (1976) with Lucille Ball;Neil Simon’sChapter Two (1979); the aforementioned My Favorite Year (1982); Blame it On Rio (1984) with Michael Caine; The Woman in Red (1984) with Wilder, Grodin, Gilda Radner, and Kelly LeBrock; the all-star Transylvania 6-500 (1985); and Copacabanna (1985) with Barry Manilow. 1987-88 he starred in the innovative musical TV series Rags to Riches. Interesting later stuff includes Citizen Cohn (1992) with James Woods, in which he played Walter Winchell; and Big Daddy (1999) with Adam Sandler.
Meanwhile Taylor was in Elaine May’s A New Leaf(1971); Neil Simon’sLast of the Red Hot Lovers (1972) with Alan Arkin; Marshall Brickman’sLovesick (1983) with Dudley Moore; Dyan Cannon’s The End of Innocence (1990); White Palace (1990); and Delirious (1990) with John Candy. In 1993 she was a regular on Daddy Dearest with Don Rickles and Richard Lewis, and began playing Fran’s mother on The Nanny. It’s very plausible casting! More recently, she was in The Do-Over (2017) with Adam Sandler and David Spade.
They both have scores of credits of course. These are just some high points. Taylor’s most recent credit was a 2021 episode of Debris!
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