Grace Under Fire

Premise of show

Grace Under Fire, produced by Carsey-Werner International, was part of a wave of shows in the late 1980s and 1990s that were built around a comedian (and in some cases, closely based on his or her comedy routine). As for Carsey-Werner, many of their shows were based on non-traditional, non-nuclear families.

Grace Under Fire followed a similar formula; set in a small Missouri town, Butler starred as Grace Kelly, a divorced single mother and recovering alcoholic. The show begins after the main character divorces her abusive alcoholic husband of eight years in an attempt to start life anew and prevent her children from making the same mistakes she did. The show revolved around Grace; her children, mischievous Quentin (Noah Segan, pilot; Jon Paul Steuer, seasons 1-3; Sam Horrigan, seasons 4-5), happy-go-lucky Libby (Kaitlin Cullum), and infant Patrick (Dylan and Cole Sprouse); her happily married best friends and neighbors, Nadine and Wade Swoboda (Julie White and Casey Sander); and the town's bachelor pharmacist, Russell Norton (Dave Thomas). All of them helped Grace keep whatever shreds of sanity she had left.

In the first three seasons, the show had a very blue-collar appeal due to Grace's chosen line of work, post-divorce; she operated pipelines at the local oil refinery, and had a second family of fellow crew workers down at the plant. Among them were heavy-set Dougie Boudreau (Walter Olkewicz), friendly Vic (Dave Florek), and Carl (Louis Mandylor). Their gruff boss was Bill Davis (Charles Hallahan). Both Bill and Carl were dropped after the first season; while Carl hadn't a permanent on-screen replacement, the crew's new boss was John Shirley (Paul Dooley) starting in the second season.

Russell's friendship with Grace, and their on-and-off dating rituals, became a running theme in the series. Throughout their friendship they often dated other people; for a time in 1994, Grace dated Ryan Sparks (William Fichtner), a quirky chemist who worked in the oil refinery's labs. In season three, Grace entered into a relationship with suave plant executive Rick Bradshaw (Alan Autry). As with Ryan, the affair between Grace and Rick occurred despite their radically different places in the company ladder. When the fourth season opened, Grace moved on from the oil refinery and took an entry-level position with an ad agency, working her way up to being a white-collar professional. That job only lasted a month, but she then took on similar business work for a construction company owned by D.C. (Don "D.C." Curry). In the final season, Russell found some romantic interest in Dottie (Lauren Tom), a gossiping makeup artist.

Throughout the entire five-year run, Grace's ex-husband Jimmy Kelly (Geoff Pierson) showed up, sometimes causing problems and at others miraculously clean and sober, trying to win Grace back. A reconciliation never quite happened, but the two did settle on a good friendship for the sake of the kids. In the midst of Jimmy's attempts to get straight, his father Emmett (guest star Matt Clark) died. In the aftermath of his death, it was revealed that Emmett was gay. At this time, Jimmy's mother Jean (Peggy Rea), Grace's disapproving and moralizing former mother-in-law, offered to move in and help Grace raise the kids (Rea had previously guest starred as Jean a few times since the series premiered). Russell eventually reconciled with his estranged dad, Floyd (Tom Poston), who ended up moving in with him and working with him in the pharmacy. As far as Grace's own kin and past life went, she had a regular source of support from her sister Faith (Valri Bromfield) in the first two seasons. Another development came when Grace was contacted by her first child, Matthew (guest star Tom Everett Scott), whom she gave up for adoption before meeting Jimmy. Matthew had questions about his ancestry and ended up meeting his biological father.

In early 1998, Grace's old friend Bev Henderson (Julia Duffy) came back to town and ended up moving in with the Kellys. In the intervening years, Bev had become quite successful and wealthy. She briefly moved in with Grace to get in touch with her working-class roots. Grace and Bev's personal reunion was unexpectedly the last major storyline of the series. Although she was joining the cast full-time, Duffy only appeared in two network-aired episodes of Grace Under Fire before the series was abruptly canceled in mid-February.

Cast

Viva Las Vegas

The episode "Vega$" is part of a crossover with Coach, The Drew Carey Show and Ellen set in Las Vegas. It features Drew Carey as Drew Carey, Joely Fisher as Paige Clark, Jeremy Piven as Spence Kovak and Jerry Van Dyke as Luther Van Damme.

Ratings

The show was the highest rated new show in its first season. In the month before Grace Under Fire first aired, Showtime broadcast the Carsey Werner-produced Brett Butler Special, a half-hour comedy performance by Butler.

Awards and nominations

Grace Under Fire was nominated for three Golden Globe awards: Best Performance by an Actress in a TV Series Comedy/Musical in 1995 and 1997 and Best TV Series Comedy/Musical in 1995.

Jean Stapleton was nominated for the 1995 Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy series Emmy Award for playing Aunt Vivian in the episode "The Road to Paris Texas." Diane Ladd was nominated for the same award the previous year for playing Louise Burdett in the episode entitled "Things Left Undone" written by Brett Butler and Wayne Lemon.

Controversy and cancellation

As the third season concluded in the spring of 1996, Jon Paul Steuer left the series. Sources have speculated that Steuer's mother pulled him out of the show after an incident with Butler, who allegedly flashed her breasts at the 12-year-old actor. At the start of Season 4, Sam Horrigan became the third actor to play Quentin Kelly, and with him in the role, the character's age advanced to 16.

In the fourth and fifth seasons of the show, Butler was fighting a painkiller addiction, for which she eventually sought medical help. Cast member Julie White left the show after Season 4, also citing Butler's behavior as the reason. The show, which had been a Top 20 series for its first three seasons, began to take a significant drop in the ratings during season four, from 13th place to 45th.

Butler's first round of treatment and rehab delayed the start of the 1997–98 season until November. After Grace Under Fire resumed production on season five, a newly clean Butler struggled to stay that way; the morale on the set was little better than in the previous season, due to the star's erratic behavior. Around the holidays, Butler relapsed again, and although the producers were as committed as ever to continuing the show, ABC was becoming concerned about Butler's overall health, and was less patient with her accelerated amount of missed tapings.

The show's ratings continued to fall dramatically, which may have well been attributed to Butler's reputation in the press, the longer-than-usual hiatus the series took between seasons four and five, and the fact that the character of Grace Kelly no longer went through the kinds of struggles that had made the show successful earlier on. The addition of Julia Duffy several episodes into the fifth season was a last-ditch attempt to improve the ratings, but with Butler in her current state, the network was not inspired to continue on. Rather abruptly, with the February 17, 1998 telecast, ABC canceled the series. The three-month-long final season averaged at #68 in the 1997-98 Nielsen rankings.

Syndication

The series aired in syndication on the Oxygen Network in the United States, and TVtropolis in Canada. In the United Kingdom, the series was picked up by BBC2 where it aired from 1994 to 1999. The show was added to Hulu on March 1, 2014. The series is currently running on the Laff digital broadcast network that went on the air on April 15, 2015.

Home video release

On May 4, 2015, it was announced that Visual Entertainment (VEI) had acquired the rights to the series in Region 1.

It was subsequently announced that they will release Grace Under Fire: Complete Collection on DVD on October 6, 2015.

International remakes

The show was remade in Russia as Lyuba, Children and the Factory in 2005. A Polish adaptation, Hela w opałach (Hela Under Fire; Hela is short form from Helen), aired on TVN in September 2006.