Gilmore Girls fans who are always looking for more insight into their favorite show should grab a cup of coffee and start reading Kelly Bishop’s new book, The Third Gilmore Girl.
“I sat down to read the script, and it was love at first sight. I’d never read anything like it. Its writer, Amy Sherman-Palladino, was obviously brilliant. The dialogue was smart, razor-sharp, and unpredictable,” Bishop writes in her memoir, out Tuesday, September 17, from Simon & Schuster’s Gallery Books imprint.
Bishop starred as Emily Gilmore, the mother of Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and grandmother of Rory (Alexis Bledel), for all seven seasons of the WB-turned-CW’s Gilmore Girls, which ran from 2000 to 2007. Bishop returned for the Netflix revival in 2016.
“The humor was a delight, and utterly unique. Maybe most of all, the more I studied it, the more amazed I was at how closely I identified with the relationship dynamics of the Gilmore girls themselves,” she writes.
In the book, Bishop recalls her childhood, which included a sometimes-estranged relationship with her mother who often disapproved of her choices like living with a boyfriend outside of marriage. (Yes, it’s giving Emily and Lorelai!)
“I was always convinced, though, and I’m sure Amy was, that Emily loved Lorelai as much as she loved Rory, she just didn’t have a clue how to connect with her, and her frustration over that only added to her icy disapproval,” she adds.
Bishop immediately bonded with Graham and onscreen husband Edward Herrmann, who played Richard Gilmore on the series’ original run. (He died in 2014 at age 71 following a battle with brain cancer.)
“You know those rare people you’re introduced to for the first time and instead of saying, ‘Nice to meet you,’ you’re tempted to say, ‘Oh, there you are!’? It’s as if you’re not new to each other, you’re actually old friends who’ve just been waiting for a chance to reconnect. That’s how I felt with Lauren Graham, who was playing my daughter, Lorelai, and Ed Herrmann, who was playing my husband, Richard,” Bishop writes. “From the moment we started rehearsing, we ‘got’ each other, and we trusted each other.”
Of meeting Bledel, who was 18 and new to the business at the time, Bishop writes, “I still remember the first moment I saw her, and it instantly occurred to me that Mom would have called her a ‘China doll’ — maybe not politically correct today, but Mom would have meant it as a compliment on how pristinely, delicately beautiful she was.”
Bishop’s memoir, available now, tackles her whole career from Broadway to Dirty Dancing to Bunheads (and how her personal life changed in between). Scroll through to keep reading the biggest Gilmore Girls takeaways:
Dynamics on Set
Bishop notes that Graham and Bledel had their own trailers on set of the show, while she and Herrmann shared, something she called “great fun.”
“He was smart and funny and a real professional, and we quickly discovered that we had a lot in common. We were both happily married, with homes on the East Coast,” she writes. “We were even mutually addicted to the New York Times crossword puzzles, which we did together every day we worked.”
Favorite Moments Include Emily and Richard’s Separation
Edward Herrmann and Kelly Bishop. L. Cohen/WireImage
Bishop included several of her favorite story lines and quotes from Emily, including Emily and Lorelai’s season 2 trip to the spa and Emily’s season 6 confrontation with Logan’s mother, Shira. It might come as a surprise to fans, however, to know that Bishop and Hermann were both “especially delighted” by Emily and Richard’s separation in season 5.
“It opened up a front-burner storyline for us, with new levels for us to play, and Amy built to it slowly and beautifully,” she writes. Bishop notes that fans love Emily’s reply when Richard says that “only prostitutes have two glasses of wine with lunch,” in which she quips: “Well then, buy me a boa and drive me to Reno, because I am open for business.” A friend even bought Bishop custom-printed dinner tumblers with the quote, which she didn’t immediately recognize.
“As much fun as Ed and I had shooting Emily and Richard’s separation, we were both especially touched by the episode Amy had been building to our one hundredth episode, actually — in which Richard and Emily, after reconciling, held a vow renewal surrounded by family and close friends at a beautiful party,” she writes of the 100th episode of the series, “Wedding Bell Blues.”
Season 7
Fans know that Sherman-Palladino and husband Dan Palladino didn’t return for season 7 of the series after negotiations with the network fell apart.
“A new writing team was brought in for the seventh season, and I know they tried their best, but there’s no such thing as trying to be Amy Sherman-Palladino. We actors were contractually obligated for that seventh season, and we did the best we could too,” Bishop writes. “It just seemed to get kind of sleepy and tired from one week to the next, as if the air was being slowly let out of a big, sparkly balloon, and we could sense that the party might be ending, even though no one wanted to say it out loud.”
Bishop recalls being upset when the show was ending despite the lackluster season 7.
“Alexis and I rarely hung out during our off-hours, but I thought the world of her; and Lauren and I hung out a lot and had even started referring to each other as ‘TVM’ (TV Mom) and ‘TVD’ (TV Daughter,” she writes.
Ed Hermann’s Death
Bishop learned that Hermann had cancer via a story Page Six weeks before he died in December 2014. She called Graham and Sherman-Palladino immediately, and they were also shocked. Hermann’s wife, Star, later called Bishop and asked if she wanted to say goodbye at Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan, where Hermann was on life support in a coma.
“Whether he’d actually be able to hear me or not, of course I wanted to talk to him. In the end, I kept it short and sweet, which I’ll bet surprised him. I walked over to stand beside his bed, took his surprisingly hot hand, and told him that Lauren, Amy, and Alexis sent their love,” Bishop writes. “Then Star said, ‘You can kiss him goodbye.’ So I simply kissed him on the forehead, left a lip print, and whispered, ‘Tell them that’s from me.’”
Reboot Frustrations
With the exception of Hermann who had died two years prior, the full cast (and the Palladinos) returned for Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, the four mini movies released by Netflix in 2016. Bishop acknowledges that some fans were “frustrated” by the ending — Rory telling Lorelai she was pregnant (but not revealing who the father is).
“I prefer to think that those ‘loose ends’ were simply left to the fans ‘imagination’ to tie up,” adding that the final four words “struck me as more interesting than infuriating, since it opened debates among viewers to decide who Rory was pregnant by, and what the repercussions would be.”
Bishop added that she was team Logan (Matt Czuchry) for Rory and always Team Luke (Scott Patterson) for Lorelai.
