Barbara Corday

Corday is a founding member of the Hollywood Womens' Political Committee and a member of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. She began her entertainment career with a small theatrical agency in New York and later worked there as a publicist. In 1967, she moved to Los Angeles and joined Mann Scharf Associates. In 1972 she met Barbara Avedon, who had been a television writer for several years, at a political activist group. As free-lance writers they wrote numerous episodes for television series and a few pilots from 1972 to 1979. Their best known television creation -- Cagney and Lacey. Produced by Barney Rosenzweig, Cagney and Lacey first appeared as a TV movie in 1981 and then scheduled as a CBS series beginning in 1982. She was appointed president of Columbia Pictures Television in 1984, and in March 1987 took on the additional duties of overseeing another Coca Cola television subsidiary, Embassy Communications. She became president and chief operating officer of Columbia/Embassy Television, overseeing production and development at both units. In October of that same year she resigned as president. In July 1988 Barbara Corday was named vice president of prime time programs at CBS. By December of 1989 Kim LeMasters resigned after CBS failed to climb out of the third place position in the rating and Corday left shortly thereafter.