TV Talk at TCA: Pittsburgh native who won equal rights for flight attendants featured in PBS’s ‘Fly with Me’

PASADENA, Calif. — Growing up in Swissvale, Mary Pat Laffey Inman was familiar with the work of unions, but she had no idea just how important they would be to her career as a flight attendant.

Her efforts to gain pay and benefit equality with men changed the airline industry’s status quo as explained in PBS’s excellent new “American Experience” documentary, “Fly with Me” (9-11 p.m. Feb. 20, WQED-TV).

A 1955 graduate of Swissvale High School, Laffey Inman, now 86, managed a home care program study on congestive heart failure out of Montefiore Hospital before she pursued her aviation career. She contacted multiple airlines, but Northwest Airlines responded quickest.

She was trained in Minneapolis in May 1958 and met two young women from Montana who told her there were no mosquitoes in Seattle, so she put in to transfer there.

Aside from two brief stints in Washington, D.C., in 1962 and 1968, Laffey Inman has lived in the Pacific Northwest ever since but maintains her Pittsburgh ties through nieces, nephews and her sisters, Janet Nelson and Annette Barbarino, who each have a patio apartment in Murrysville.

Laffey Inman said, in the early days of flight attendant unions, the women didn’t have a lot of say. Airline rules required female flight attendants be unmarried, childless, meet height/weight guidelines and face mandatory retirement at age 32, unlike their male counterparts.

“We were going to have to retire if we married, so therefore (the men) ran for office and controlled the union,” she said.

Laffey Inman fought to become the first female purser at Northwest. After her salary was cut and she was paid less than her male counterparts, Laffey Inman filed a class-action lawsuit in 1970, which she won in 1974. The ruling in her favor included back salary with interest, as well as a ruling that struck down rules targeting only women against wearing glasses and weight limitations. Northwest appealed. It took until the mid-1980s, when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ruling in favor of the women, awarding them more than $60 million.

Laffey Inman retired in 2000, nine years before Delta acquired Northwest. Her lawsuit was in the news in the 1970s and 1980s, and, more recently, it became the subject of a theater production. “Stewardess,” by playwright Kira Obolensky, is about Laffey Inman standing up to a corporate giant and debuted in 2019 at History Theatre in St. Paul, Minn.

About that ‘Flashdance’ ad

At an NBC Television Critics Association winter 2024 press tour party last week, Donald Faison, who stars in NBC’s “Extended Family” (8:30 p.m. Tuesday, WPXI-TV), said he’s enjoyed the creative opportunities he’s gotten making T-Mobile ads with best friend Zach Braff, including the “Flashdance”-themed Super Bowl ad that featured Jason Momoa and Jennifer Beals.

“I’ve never had this opportunity in my life to be a creative on anything,” Faison said. “We created a pitch with Momoa in it and sent it to his agent. He saw it and was like, ‘Yes, I’m in.’”

Faison said he and Braff and another creative partner were in Miami for AdWeek when Braff asked Faison to come down to the hotel pool, where he pitched the line, “What a feeling … I have WiFi now!” to the song “Flashdance … What a Feeling.”

“I was like, ‘Oh my God,’” Faison said. “So that’s how it starts.”

If NBC renews “Extended Family” for a second season, Faison wants to bring Braff onto the show in a recurring role.

The CW news

The feeling I got at The CW’s presentation on the last day of the Television Critics Association winter 2024 press tour on Feb. 15 – the network’s first TCA appearance under its new ownership — is that the bull is finally out of the china shop.

After canceling a slew of shows last year, the CW is done breaking and has started a rebuilding phase as it transitions from a network aimed at young viewers to a more general broadcaster with the addition of sports and more unscripted shows. Am I convinced it will survive? No, but at least the network seems to be moving in a positive direction.

CW entertainment president Brad Schwartz said his goal is to change references to “the Big Four” broadcast channels (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox) to “the Big Five.”

“We couldn’t operate as a niche cable brand anymore targeting an audience that maybe isn’t watching as much TV as they used to,” he said.

Schwartz said the CW will aim for the “blue sky” programming once favored by USA Network.

“To be a broadcast business we have to get bigger and we have to broaden out,” Schwartz said.

Regarding “Everyone Else Burns,” fall’s best broadcast comedy that the CW renewed for a second season shortly before the first season was pulled off linear TV and streamed its remaining episodes online, Schwartz said “It’s more our fault than the show’s fault.

“It probably came on at the wrong time without the support it needed,” he said. “Season two is coming along, and we’ll see how that turns out. Then we’ll have 12 episodes, and we’ll rethink how to launch that show.”

The CW’s “All American” returns for its sixth season at 8 p.m. April 1 with “Walker” back 8 p.m. April 3. “FBoy Island” spin-off “FGirl Island” has been renamed “Lovers and Liars” and will premiere at 9 p.m. April 1.

New drama “Sight Unseen” (9 p.m. April 3), about a clinically blind homicide detective (Dolly Lewis), will be joined in the spring by dating show “Patti Stanger: The Matchmaker” (8 p.m. April 11), new unscripted crime shows “Police 24/7” (8 p.m. April 30) and “Hostage Rescue” (9 p.m. April 30) and the return of “100 Days to Indy” (9 p.m. April 26).

The CW, which gained a new Pittsburgh affiliate last year when it moved to WPNT, Channel 22, ordered game shows based on Trivial Pursuit and Scrabble and a new scripted drama, “Sherlock Daughter” starring David Thewlis (“Fargo”) as Sherlock.

The final season of “Superman and Lois” will be held for fall and likely will be paired with a reboot of “The Librarians.” A new season of “All American: Homecoming” will likely air in the summer.