“She’s the type of person most people don’t believe is still alive and working in Hollywood,” says Andy Hill, president of CBS. She has enormous intelligence, an equal amount of integrity, and something magical and spiritual about her at the same time.”
It is appropriate, then, that Martha Williamson is writer and executive producer of the CBS television series Touched by an Angel, now in its second season.
The show, starring Roma Downey and Della Reese as angels come to earth to help humans see truth, had shaky beginnings at CBS. The original pilot, created by another producer, did not meet the network’s expectations. But CBS gave the idea a second chance and brought in Williamson as writer and executive producer. She looked at the show and saw what was missing: the presence of God. “Instead, he was the butt of some jokes,” she says.
Under Williamson’s wing, the show has come to life with the message that God exists and loves us and wants to be part of our lives. “If you can get that simple, but absolute truth across every single week, you have changed television,” she says.
What Williamson writes comes out of her own life experience. “Every difficult time I went through, every bad decision I made, every really dumb relationship I had has brought me to a point where I can write stories for Touched by an Angel that are ringing true in a lot of other hearts.” Viewers have written to tell how an episode prompted them to write to a friend asking forgiveness or to reconcile with an estranged relative. One woman decided not to commit suicide after viewing an episode.
Last fall CBS was leaning toward canceling the show after its first season despite good ratings. When word got out, the network received more than 30,000 calls and letters asking for it to continue, convincing CBS executives to keep it into 1996.
TRUTH AT THE CENTER
Unlike an angel in her drama, Williamson did not appear out of nowhere onto the television scene. She worked her way through the ranks, writing and producing sitcoms. Her first job after college was as a production assistant to a comedy writer and producer for Carol Burnett. There she learned the secret that may be the basis for her success that followed: “I was committed to being the very best assistant I could be. You keep your eyes open and your ears open, and you don’t minimize or withhold from your job just because it’s not what you want to be when you grow up,” she says.
“Before I committed my life to Christ, God was outside the circle waiting to come in,” says Williamson. “I kept saying, ‘Your time will come; someday I’ll get to You.’
It was almost as if I was going to live this great life and then become a nun. But I was not a happy person.
I did not have a clue where my priorities lay.” No change came for Williamson until she was in her midtwenties. Then she realized that God was not outside of the circle, nor was he at the center. Rather, she thought of him as “the circle that holds it all together.”
It is a concept Williamson has held to tightly in the cutthroat world of television. “It’s very hard to be in a business where winning is really what matters,” she says. “I have worked very hard to make truth more and more the deciding factor in my actions.” Furthermore, it is easy to ignore the truth or deny it, or to work around it in order to achieve what one wants. “You may win, but you don’t feel good,” she says. “So what have you truly won? For me, seeking what’s true at the moment has become the greatest goal God has given me.”
Touched by an Angel can be seen Saturdays on CBS at 9 p.m. Eastern/Pacific time, 8 p.m. Central/Mountain time.
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