Mackenzie Phillips said she did not get along with Richard Masur, a first-season co-star on the classic sitcom “One Day at a Time,” during an appearance on former castmate Valerie Bertinelli’s podcast “Getting Naked.”
“Richard Masur wasn’t very nice,” Phillips said on Monday’s episode. When Bertinelli noted that Masur was only on the show for its first season, Phillips repeated the assessment: “He wasn’t very nice.”
Phillips, 66, said the two later made peace at an event years afterward. She recalled Masur, 77, telling her: “I don’t even remember what it was. I don’t even remember what I said, but whatever I said, I’m really sorry. And I’ve always thought you were so incredibly talented and we were all so young.”
Page Six said it reached out to Masur’s representative for comment.
Masur played divorce lawyer David Kane on “One Day at a Time” for one season. His character left the show after ending his relationship with Bonnie Franklin’s Ann Romano and departing town.
The sitcom, created by the late Norman Lear, ran on CBS from 1975 to 1984 across nine seasons, with a cast that included Phillips, Bertinelli, Franklin, Pat Harrington Jr. and Mary Louise Wilson.
Bertinelli on Working With Norman Lear
Elsewhere in the podcast conversation, Bertinelli, 66, said she was “always afraid” of “being reprimanded” by Lear early in her career.
“He was the one that immediately took me aside when I had to cry in the finale of the first season and I couldn’t do it,” she said. “And I couldn’t do it. I was too embarrassed. I wasn’t an actor. I was just learning how to do this.”
Still, Bertinelli said she “felt very protected and was in awe” of Lear, who died in 2023 at age 101. “Both of us are incredibly lucky to have such a mentor, and someone who wasn’t what you think Hollywood is, because young girls in Hollywood are eaten up and spit out, and we were not, under Norman’s tutelage,” she told Phillips.
Phillips agreed that she had a positive relationship with Lear. “I pedestalized him,” she said. “I always adored Norman. I loved Norman. I trusted Norman.”
