Gilmore Girls’ Kelly Bishop Says Edward Herrmann’s Unexpected Death Changed Emily Gilmore’s ‘Entire Trajectory’ (Exclusive)

The ‘Gilmore Girls’ actress looks back on her bond with her late costar in her new memoir ‘The Third Gilmore Girl’

In her new memoir The Third Gilmore Girl, out this month from Gallery Books, acclaimed actress Kelly Bishop is taking a look back on her career.

She started her career as a Broadway dancer, originating the role of Sheila in A Chorus Line, before she transitioned to acting. In the years to come, she’d play a number of memorable women, including Jennifer Grey’s mother in 1987’s Dirty Dancing and Benedetta in Prime Video series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Bishop, however, credits her role as matriarch Emily Gilmore, on the CW and WB series Gilmore Girls, as the character that challenged and taught her the most as an actress — and her bond with her costar, late actor Edward Herrmann, was something special too.

“We were just so comfortable with each other,” Bishop tells PEOPLE for this week’s print issue. “I might’ve done one or two episodes that he wasn’t in … but it was when I went back, I’d have the script before I even got there and [I’d] know that I was working with him again. We were just so very comfortable with one another and just got each other.”

Bishop and Herrmann, who played Emily’s husband Richard on the show, had actually met years before Gilmore Girls began shooting. The two actors both won Tony Awards on the same night in 1976 — Bishop for Best Featured Actress in a Musical in A Chorus Line and Herrmann for Best Featured Actor in a Play in Mrs. Warren’s Profession.

“It’s all kind of serendipity when I look at that picture of the Tony night, and there we are, standing together, didn’t know each other,” Bishop says. “Twenty-some odd years later, we’re working as husband and wife, which is just delightful.”

Herrmann died from brain cancer in 2014, and members of the Gilmore Girls team recalled being surprised by the news; Bishop was invited by Herrmann’s family to say goodbye to him before his death. Hermann’s death was even incorporated into the 2016 Netflix reboot of the series, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. Emily, who’s a widow after Richard’s passing, navigates her own grief.

“Because Ed died, it changed my whole story,” Bishop says. “I think if he was with it, and had been during that reboot as they called it, we probably would’ve just been keeping on with some variation of the life that we’ve had. Because of the fact that he was no longer with us, that changed my character’s entire trajectory, everything about her. Actually, the storyline for Emily and those four extra episodes was probably one of the most interesting ones because she had so much to go through.”

Bishop always says that perhaps because of Emily’s new character arc, she might also be utilizing her newfound independence in different ways in 2024.

“I don’t know if she’d still be working at that whaling museum,” Bishop says. “I kind of [wonder] if she wouldn’t be traveling as an independent woman, maybe even with a companion. Not necessarily a man, I don’t think, but having a companion and doing tours of Europe, that sort of thing. It just seems like that’s something that would appeal to Emily.”

“She’s kind of unstoppable though,” Bishop adds. “She’s not a woman who’s just going to suddenly curl up with a book and stop answering the phone. That wouldn’t be her.”

Bishop had her own real-life love story, too. She was married to CNN and ESPN host Lee Leonard from 1981 until Leonard’s death from cancer in 2018. Despite two careers in the entertainment industry, Bishop says that their long marriage succeeded due to their understanding of one another.

“The beautiful thing about him, he was incredibly honest,” Bishop says. “He didn’t lie. He just told you the truth. So I think it was mutual respect and a tremendous amount of love on both sides. We just really loved each other, so we were blessed.”