Speaker 1: So he talked like a he had the lingo was
Speaker 1: a rough and ready truck driver. Not so much in
Speaker 1: today's Japanese but at that time, the differentiation between classes
Speaker 1: and sexes and age and all that was very different.
Speaker 1: So for me, for instance, as a five year old girl,
Speaker 1: appropriate way for me to refer to myself would be
Speaker 1: what actually want it? And then Tanaka San would have said,
Speaker 1: vocal us up. So I talked. I learned largely from
Speaker 1: Tanaka San. I talked like a foul mouth middle aged
Speaker 1: truck driver. Raised a lot of eyebrows. I'm Linda Pearl.
Speaker 1: I'm thrilled to be on Brian's show. I'm an actress
Speaker 1: and a mom and a singer I like to say
Speaker 1: not necessarily in that order. Got to play Helene on
Speaker 1: the Office, which was one of the best gigs ever. Hello, Hello,
Speaker 1: gentle listeners. I am so glad you've joined me today
Speaker 1: for a brand spanking new episode of Off the Beat.
Speaker 1: I am your host, Brian Baumgartner. Some might call today
Speaker 1: a happy day, but more on that in a moment.
Speaker 1: I have a strong hunch a lot of you are
Speaker 1: going to know my guest today, the amazing Linda Pearl
Speaker 1: from her time on the office playing Michael Scott's love interest,
Speaker 1: I mean Pam Beasley's mom, Helene Beasley. But if you
Speaker 1: were around and paying any attention to pop culture at
Speaker 1: all in the seventies or eighties, you would definitely know
Speaker 1: her as the fonds Is girlfriend Ashley Fister on Happy Days,
Speaker 1: or maybe as Charlene on Mattlock, or from her multitude
Speaker 1: of roles on an Off Broadway over the years. I
Speaker 1: love Linda. She comes from the Pearl family tradition of theater.
Speaker 1: She sure lives up to it. Her whole family was
Speaker 1: involved in theater growing up. She grew up in Japan.
Speaker 1: But on top of that, now she has found the
Speaker 1: time to start a sour dough starter kit business with
Speaker 1: her partner Patrick Duffy, to climb mountains, and to have
Speaker 1: a full on jazz career. I was so happy to
Speaker 1: bring her onto the podcast so that all of you
Speaker 1: could get to know Linda just a little bit better.
Speaker 1: And now is the time to do that, all right.
Speaker 1: Let the waiting stop, Let the conversation commence. Here she
Speaker 1: has everybody, Linda, Pearl, Bubble and Squeak. I love Bubble, Queak,
Speaker 1: Bubble and Quaker cooking every month left from the nut people.
Speaker 1: You are such a doll. Can I tell you the
Speaker 1: look on Max's face when not only look jumping Jackson
Speaker 1: was over the moon to get your photograph. Oh that's
Speaker 1: so great. I'm so glad I last saw you there
Speaker 1: at the under cont How was that for you? It
Speaker 1: was great? Oh my gosh. Well, the fun I mean
Speaker 1: I've done other I'm sure we all have, you know,
Speaker 1: autograph events like that, however, not never one that was
Speaker 1: dedicated to one show. And the Office fans are a
Speaker 1: breed unto themselves. They were so much fun. They were
Speaker 1: so festive, so in the spirit of the show. They
Speaker 1: were so well versed in the show. Um, I mean,
Speaker 1: the costumes were to die for, crazy right, really, And
Speaker 1: it was an education because I mean, you know far
Speaker 1: better than I for all your wonderful years on this show,
Speaker 1: that the ability for the Office to tap into to
Speaker 1: an audience and to ignite that sort of silly fun
Speaker 1: in all of us. Uh, you don't get to see
Speaker 1: that when you're doing the work, but boy, we got
Speaker 1: to experience it there. It was. It was really cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's always amazing to me. I'm wondering if you had
Speaker 1: any experiences where the fans feel as though they're not
Speaker 1: telling you because they want to. They're almost telling you
Speaker 1: because they feel a need to let you know how
Speaker 1: much the show has meant to them, or you know,
Speaker 1: helped them through a difficult time. You bet. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's done into me coming out of the coming out
Speaker 1: of the pandemic. It's like people missed the experience of
Speaker 1: being in an office. They missed their friends and their
Speaker 1: enemies and their freenemies, and just the dynamic of being together.
Speaker 1: Uh not you know, sealed up in your home. So
Speaker 1: that was cool. Just this kind of bonus uh factor
Speaker 1: of a different kind of resurgence or a different kind
Speaker 1: of locking into the show because of the pandemic. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: I think that's true as well. And obviously we we
Speaker 1: learned a lot of people were watching it for the
Speaker 1: first time. We're rewatching it, uh during that time that
Speaker 1: they were away. Um, well, I want to start back
Speaker 1: ways for you. Um, you grew up in a family
Speaker 1: a long line of performers. Your mom was an actress,
Speaker 1: dad was a director, your grandmother was a stage actress. Um,
Speaker 1: what what kind of influence do you think that that
Speaker 1: had for you? As a as a child, huge, absolutely huge.
Speaker 1: My mother had been an actress but also ballerina. Dad
Speaker 1: an actor and a director, and Dad grew up on
Speaker 1: the road. His parents were touring actors through the through
Speaker 1: the Midwest, so that was his joy and family glue.
Speaker 1: He had a career as an engineer, but he never
Speaker 1: in his heart left the theater. And that was my
Speaker 1: parents family glues, what they did together. Dad had his
Speaker 1: career in Japan, so they were away from family, halfway
Speaker 1: around the world for family, and in those days, getting
Speaker 1: there just wasn't that just wasn't that easy. And also
Speaker 1: Japan was a much more foreign place than it is today.
Speaker 1: And in that moment that I was growing up in
Speaker 1: the late fifties through the sixties, early seventies, Japan was
Speaker 1: in a moment of huge inhale. Cultural inhale. They were very,
Speaker 1: very curious to know about the West. All over the West,
Speaker 1: I mean if that includes the then Soviet Union and
Speaker 1: um so there was a constant influx of of culture.
Speaker 1: The Bullshoy and the Kirov people, you know, artists from
Speaker 1: behind the Iron Curtain were coming through. We had a
Speaker 1: fairly big house, just not because we were wealthy, it's
Speaker 1: just what the company gave them. So some guest rooms
Speaker 1: and so there was really only one or two hotels,
Speaker 1: so you never knew who was gonna show up at breakfast.
Speaker 1: We'd have members of the Royal Shakespeare Company or the
Speaker 1: kid Off Ballet just hanging out at the house. Was
Speaker 1: like who are you? And so so that was sort
Speaker 1: of the culture in in our home. There were painters
Speaker 1: and writers and Harold Clamence Tennessee Williams over this for
Speaker 1: a period of time. So wait what, Tennessee Williams lived
Speaker 1: with you in Japan for a time. I mean I
Speaker 1: say that, I didn't. He was there for a couple
Speaker 1: of months, so it wasn't like he moved in for
Speaker 1: five years or anything. But still that was yes, he
Speaker 1: was that They were very interested in his work in Japan,
Speaker 1: and so he came over to oversee a couple of
Speaker 1: productions of his of his play, and he came with
Speaker 1: a dog. There were very strict quarantine regulations at that time,
Speaker 1: so they said, you're going to have to leave the
Speaker 1: country if you, you know, if you insist on being
Speaker 1: here with your dog. But they also recognized that he
Speaker 1: was a cultural icon and we had dogs and caged
Speaker 1: in area, so they it was funny. They Mr Williams
Speaker 1: came with his dog, and the cultural attache and the
Speaker 1: quarantine people came to the house and uh, and they said, okay,
Speaker 1: well Mr and Mrs Pearrel, if you sign your life
Speaker 1: away and promise that this dog, who was this big
Speaker 1: by the way, does not leave, you know, the boundary
Speaker 1: will make this lone exception. And Tennessee said, well, that's fine,
Speaker 1: but where my dog's days. I stayed too, and my
Speaker 1: parents are like, well, okay, go ahead there. And it
Speaker 1: was hysterical, but those kinds of things. So yeah, all
Speaker 1: of that had a tremendous influence. My parents weren't atheists
Speaker 1: or agnostics necessarily, but we didn't go to church. So
Speaker 1: the theater and the arts was our family glue, our
Speaker 1: family church and our our community. You grew up in Japan,
Speaker 1: was this difficult as a child for you? There was
Speaker 1: this just a blessing. It was such a gift for
Speaker 1: any child growing up anywhere. We think that's the world, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just accepted as normal. So there were
Speaker 1: things of privilege that we had. Again not because we
Speaker 1: were wealthy, It was just an accident of the times
Speaker 1: that I look back now on and just the education,
Speaker 1: the global exposure. I mean in my school we had
Speaker 1: thirty three different nationalities, every possible religion, and we just
Speaker 1: got along because we were in it together. And so
Speaker 1: to have that as a as a child, to be,
Speaker 1: you know, in a diverse um environment, I think was
Speaker 1: again I just took it for granted. I didn't. It
Speaker 1: never occurred to me that that we were different anything.
Speaker 1: We were in different classes or you know, different parents,
Speaker 1: but that was it. Those were the lines of demarcation
Speaker 1: and beyond that, everyone was in it together, right you.
Speaker 1: So I read here that you had your own TV
Speaker 1: show on Japan's Educational Network ages seven to fourteen. I
Speaker 1: mean you say, as a as a kid, your world
Speaker 1: is the world, Like that's how you see things. Was
Speaker 1: your early experience a part of who your family was, like,
Speaker 1: that's just what you do. You just perform, you go
Speaker 1: into into acting or or was this a particular interest
Speaker 1: to you? Uh? No, it was probably both. I mean
Speaker 1: my my parents, it's what they did. I they had
Speaker 1: so much joy and so many friendships out of it
Speaker 1: that we we would see at the dinner table, we
Speaker 1: would see the rehearsing plays, you know, in the living room.
Speaker 1: And yes it was in the DNA or sort of
Speaker 1: spoon fed to me, but also I took to it.
Speaker 1: And my parents were those kind of people that had,
Speaker 1: you know, I had my sister and I wanted to
Speaker 1: go into the sciences or medicine. Them think they would
Speaker 1: have been equally thrilled, maybe with some dismay they thought,
Speaker 1: oh no, another generation shot to help, but you know,
Speaker 1: very supportive. Now it was not my own TV show.
Speaker 1: There was this yen for learning English, and so n
Speaker 1: h K, the educational the sort of the MPR of
Speaker 1: still ongoing in Japan, had several programs geared for teaching
Speaker 1: English at different levels, and the basic format was that
Speaker 1: would have a skit uh that would be performed by
Speaker 1: an English speaking person, and then they would sit around
Speaker 1: and sort of a chat show kind of format on
Speaker 1: sofas and they would explain to the viewer that these
Speaker 1: the professors were the new vocabulary words, the grammatical structure,
Speaker 1: and they would have me in this case, sitting on
Speaker 1: the sofa and they would kind of poke me because
Speaker 1: I could say the word in perfect American accent oddly enough,
Speaker 1: so that was my lone donation to the show, but
Speaker 1: I would be involved in the skit which were you know,
Speaker 1: what is the name of your dog? Or please might
Speaker 1: have some carrots from the supermarket, you know. So it's
Speaker 1: a very elementary teaching English program. But it did put
Speaker 1: me in a TV studio with the cameras and with
Speaker 1: the crew and other people, and I suppose there was
Speaker 1: a bit of makeup here and there, and the occasional
Speaker 1: line to learn. So it was a lovely sort of
Speaker 1: easy s early on apprenticeship into what it's like to
Speaker 1: be on a set. Right, did you speak fluent Japanese?
Speaker 1: I did my dad again, that came with the with
Speaker 1: the company. We had a wonderful driver for my dad,
Speaker 1: but he was at the house a lot Tanaka San
Speaker 1: and Tanagason had been a rough and ready truck driver
Speaker 1: and he had swapped out that career now to be
Speaker 1: in a suit and driving a car for you know,
Speaker 1: this this particular executive. So he talked like a he
Speaker 1: had the lingo was a rough and ready truck driver,
Speaker 1: not so much in today's Japanese, but at that time
Speaker 1: the differentiation between classes and sexes and age and all
Speaker 1: that was very different. So for me, for instance, as
Speaker 1: a five year old girl, appropriate way for me to
Speaker 1: refer to myself would be what actually want it? And
Speaker 1: then Tanaka san would have said vocal usa. So I talked.
Speaker 1: I learned largely from tanakasan. I talked like a foul mouth,
Speaker 1: middle aged truck driver girl. Raised a lot of eyebrows,
Speaker 1: but yes, and I never really studied the language. Oh
Speaker 1: a little bit of writing, but I had that gift
Speaker 1: of I just got to pick it up on this street.
Speaker 1: So I admire the people who struggle and steady hard
Speaker 1: to learn it. I didn't have to uh to get
Speaker 1: it that way. That said, it never advanced after I
Speaker 1: more or less moved away. So you know, that's kind
Speaker 1: of the level. It's a it's a conversational level, and
Speaker 1: it's very old fashioned in the way that I have
Speaker 1: Japanese friends who had gone to university in the States
Speaker 1: and the seventies. I tease them because they'll say, oh, man,
Speaker 1: that's groovy, or you know, I got to get back
Speaker 1: to my pad. It's like, we can't really say that anymore.
Speaker 1: People were talking about that's kind of my Japanese sounds.
Speaker 1: You were at the time, uh, the only foreigner to
Speaker 1: train at that. Now, my Japanese is not like yours.
Speaker 1: Toho game Noo. Yeah, perfect academy film studio that was
Speaker 1: behind Godzilla by the way, So I mean this is
Speaker 1: a significant thing. Why were you allowed to train there
Speaker 1: or what did they see in you or or how
Speaker 1: did that transpire? Well? I did a couple of plays
Speaker 1: with them, and so, and Toho was a is a
Speaker 1: large theatrical corporation along the lines of the old studio
Speaker 1: system in Hollywood. Okay, you know, they would have their
Speaker 1: they're sort of coterie of actors, performers, directors, whatnot. And
Speaker 1: they would also train them. And uniformity is a is
Speaker 1: a big thing um for many island nations, and I
Speaker 1: mean they're having to get along in a small space,
Speaker 1: so uniformity helps a lot. In Japan is no exception,
Speaker 1: and that bleeds into all aspects of education and business
Speaker 1: and the arts. So their academy was very strong and
Speaker 1: really wanting everybody to be working from the same place,
Speaker 1: using the same disciplines. And so because I was able
Speaker 1: to work with them every once in a while and
Speaker 1: do a couple of their TV shows, it was important.
Speaker 1: I guess that I uh that I take some classes there,
Speaker 1: and I studied dance, ballet and jazz and acting and
Speaker 1: maybe some singing along the way too. But again it
Speaker 1: was just an accident of timing and life. Uh. There
Speaker 1: were not in Tokyo any other little girls who were
Speaker 1: who spoke the language, whose families were living there for
Speaker 1: as long as we did. My folks were there for
Speaker 1: about thirty years altogether. Usually folks come through for two
Speaker 1: and three years and their company would move them on,
Speaker 1: or the diplomatic core would move them on to the
Speaker 1: next post in some other country that was not doing
Speaker 1: My dad's career, uh, you know, worked he was there,
Speaker 1: and so there were we. So between the longevity of
Speaker 1: living there and speaking the language and having an interest
Speaker 1: in it, I was the only one. I was kind
Speaker 1: of a freak, kind of weird thing. But it was
Speaker 1: fun for me because then I got to I got
Speaker 1: to study there, and they're the jazz and certainly the
Speaker 1: acting was curious because it wasn't their organic art form.
Speaker 1: Their organic art forms would be kabuki and no and bundaku,
Speaker 1: none of which I studied at all. I mean, they're
Speaker 1: all men discipline, so I couldn't really. So they were
Speaker 1: doing there in order to do modern pieces, which is
Speaker 1: all I was involved with or being trained for. They
Speaker 1: were teaching their version of American acting, so they would
Speaker 1: have watched or perhaps even studied my professors American artists,
Speaker 1: and then through their Japanese lens, which had more to
Speaker 1: do with mimicking than actually having it be an organic
Speaker 1: part form. And then so that's what I was taught,
Speaker 1: which wasn't like later on I went to the at
Speaker 1: least Drosperg Institute stuff, It's like, oh they meant so
Speaker 1: it was. It was a curious I mean, I'm sure,
Speaker 1: as things do, their training has evolved tremendously, but at
Speaker 1: that time, I mean, the concept of free emotion and
Speaker 1: free music breaking the classical line was just mind blowing
Speaker 1: for Japan. It was just not the way things were
Speaker 1: done at all. So again I took it for granted
Speaker 1: at the time, And now I think what a curious
Speaker 1: moment I got to be exposed to as those tectonic
Speaker 1: plate shifts were happening within the culture. Yes, that's so
Speaker 1: fascinating to me. I mean, first off, you talked about
Speaker 1: uniformity and how important that is. I mean that you know,
Speaker 1: in a way feels an athetical to at least what
Speaker 1: we think of as as art and free expression. But
Speaker 1: you know the idea that well, it wasn't really it
Speaker 1: wasn't really something that they did. So they were trying
Speaker 1: to imitate what they were seeing happening, which I think,
Speaker 1: by nature, does make it much more uniform. If it's
Speaker 1: not organic, it's something you're putting on. Absolutely, that's fascinating
Speaker 1: to me. In fact, one one time there's some show
Speaker 1: and I there was a moment in the in the musical,
Speaker 1: and I there's a pop up separation. Anyway, it's a
Speaker 1: sad moment. It's a musical, but it's a sad moment.
Speaker 1: And I cried real tears on stage that evening, and
Speaker 1: I was so pleased with myself. I was about eleven,
Speaker 1: and I got back to my dressing room and I
Speaker 1: had a notification that I was supposed to go see
Speaker 1: the director, and I thought, oh, I know he's gonna
Speaker 1: be so pleased with my work, because I was especially
Speaker 1: pleased with myself. And I walked in and there he
Speaker 1: was behind his desk and he gave me a talking to.
Speaker 1: He was furious, he said, to cry real tears was
Speaker 1: just not on. And I thought, wow, that's but he
Speaker 1: was right because I was doing a different acting method
Speaker 1: than anybody else on it wasn't right. So it was
Speaker 1: very curious and he caught it. You know, he saw
Speaker 1: it. It It was a big house. It was a fifty
Speaker 1: hundred seat house, and he saw it. And boy, I
Speaker 1: never did that again. Well, I mean, I guess, I
Speaker 1: guess you could say I had. I haven't thought about this.
Speaker 1: I haven't talked about this, Linda, and so long the
Speaker 1: same experience in reverse. I played in the theater one time,
Speaker 1: a role in kabuki. I played the old evil grandmother
Speaker 1: in a production with full kabuky makeup that I did myself.
Speaker 1: By the way, I have one somewhere. Yes, But the
Speaker 1: reason I bring it up is it wasn't real kabuki, right,
Speaker 1: it was. It was an American actually French director interpretation
Speaker 1: of what kabuki was, with a comedic slant on it,
Speaker 1: I'll be honest. So it was, uh yeah, But I played, Yes,
Speaker 1: I played the evil the archetype of the evil h
Speaker 1: grandmother in full, in full kabuki. So there you go.
Speaker 1: I don't think. I don't think i'd be allowed in
Speaker 1: Japan now that I'm thinking, Um, so your family stayed,
Speaker 1: but you left Japan to come back to the States.
Speaker 1: Was that for education or what was that decision? It
Speaker 1: was hormones, you know, time to get my folks right,
Speaker 1: I mean that pop of separation. But also I was
Speaker 1: interested in the theater, and I felt like a gimmick
Speaker 1: over there, you know, so grateful for all of the
Speaker 1: experiences and training and stuff. But at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, if they the only reason they would hire
Speaker 1: me is if they needed, you know, a blondie who
Speaker 1: spoke Japanese. I mean it was I was a gimmick,
Speaker 1: and I was curious to know how I would fare
Speaker 1: in America or in the West anyway. So there was
Speaker 1: that it was sort of a popular thing to go
Speaker 1: to boarding school and all that. So it was a
Speaker 1: confluence of things and I I came back and it's funny,
Speaker 1: next week I'm getting together if we we have a
Speaker 1: biennial reunion with some Tokyo childhood girlfriends, and you know,
Speaker 1: we're very closest kids. And then we had our lives
Speaker 1: and raised our kids and careers and whatnot, and now
Speaker 1: we get together and a constant a topic of our
Speaker 1: discussion is it's the culture shock that we each experienced,
Speaker 1: and we were from we were not necessarily from the
Speaker 1: same native countries. But when we returned to our native countries,
Speaker 1: it was hard because at that point you don't belong
Speaker 1: in Japan and you don't belong in your native country.
Speaker 1: Your all third cultured kids. So it's a price to pay,
Speaker 1: you know, whenever you're in one place, there's a part
Speaker 1: of you that's left behind. Um and we all have that.
Speaker 1: I mean, if anybody's moved from the city to the
Speaker 1: country or vice versa. So it's a price, but it's
Speaker 1: it's it's worth it. So yeah, I mean when I
Speaker 1: moved to the States in the seventies, I mean pan
Speaker 1: was a drug free nation. Not so much in the
Speaker 1: seventies in the States, right what people are doing what?
Speaker 1: Uh so? And and lots of things, lots of freedoms,
Speaker 1: and it was sort of the beginning of the women's movement.
Speaker 1: So that was very antithetical really to the things I saw,
Speaker 1: the influences that I was raised around. Gosh, that's so interesting.
Speaker 1: You eventually study at some very significant in terms of
Speaker 1: the theater world in the United States. Uh, the Neighborhood
Speaker 1: Playhouse Lee Strasburg Institute, which the basis of that was
Speaker 1: my background as well. Um was theater what you were
Speaker 1: most interested in at that point? Oh? Yes, yes, I
Speaker 1: didn't really think about the other. Um, I mean I've
Speaker 1: done a couple of films, but I love that you
Speaker 1: just called it the other. By the way, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: use that as well. I'm gonna use that from now
Speaker 1: on the other. Uh yes, yeah, I felt that was,
Speaker 1: you know, the basis for everything. It was the foundation
Speaker 1: and from there sort of like ballet. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you have ballet, then you can move into jazz or modern.
Speaker 1: If you know what the line is, then you can
Speaker 1: break it, but you have to sort of know what
Speaker 1: the line is. And and theater being the actor's medium,
Speaker 1: it was what was most Uh well, it was what
Speaker 1: I was were raised in. Right, You were based primarily
Speaker 1: in New York at this time, I was. I was,
Speaker 1: And then I had gone out to actually Donnie Most Darling.
Speaker 1: Donnie Most was a friend and he moved out to
Speaker 1: l A. And Donnie had mentioned, oh there's this, you know,
Speaker 1: a part that you might be right for. Unhappy days Anyway,
Speaker 1: auditioned and so I started working more in in l A.
Speaker 1: In television rather than in New York. So it took
Speaker 1: about five years to leave New York altogether. But that
Speaker 1: was sort of the beginning of starting my career in television. Yeah,
Speaker 1: transitioning to the other you played Gloria dating uh the
Speaker 1: main character Ron Howard at the time. Now, you just
Speaker 1: audition for this role. Do you have any any stories
Speaker 1: that you remember from auditioning for that. There was a
Speaker 1: wonderful casting director, Bobby Hoffman, and his office was like
Speaker 1: no others. He just loved actors and especially young actors.
Speaker 1: He just was for you in the room and it
Speaker 1: didn't matter if you did a horrible audition orgre, he
Speaker 1: was just that's great, go for it. He was just
Speaker 1: this force of encouragement for so many young actors, and
Speaker 1: everyone who was on Happy Days came through Bobby's office.
Speaker 1: I guess the main you know, the prominent story for
Speaker 1: me is certainly as relates to Happy Days was so
Speaker 1: I did the character of Gloria as just as a
Speaker 1: recurring as a supporting character around Ron Howard's character because
Speaker 1: it was his show. But his Happy Days progressed. It
Speaker 1: was the Fonzie character that took off, and Ron was
Speaker 1: thinking about going into directing. It's such a shame that
Speaker 1: didn't work out for him. He left the show, which
Speaker 1: meant that I was out of a job. I mean,
Speaker 1: they didn't need those satellite characters anymore, and I was
Speaker 1: audios and fade out, fade in. However, many years later,
Speaker 1: now there's a casting notification that went out for a
Speaker 1: fiance for Fonzie and they wanted to have a Linda
Speaker 1: Pearl type. That's actually what the breakdown said. Sob agent
Speaker 1: called and said, oh please, oh please, could Linda audition?
Speaker 1: And I did and I ended up getting the role.
Speaker 1: So and Gary Marshall, who I adored, I mean, but
Speaker 1: a remarkable human being, he very kindly let me come
Speaker 1: back years later as an entirely different character. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: you start to Richie Cuttingham's love interest and then yes,
Speaker 1: as you said, I mean, it's hard to even imagine
Speaker 1: the happening today, but coming back years later, um, a
Speaker 1: totally different character. Were you concerned or I mean, Gary
Speaker 1: marshalln't didn't seem concerned that fans would pick up on
Speaker 1: this or that you were the same person. Was there
Speaker 1: a discussion about it? If there was, I don't, I
Speaker 1: don't recall it. I mean, it was just you know,
Speaker 1: Gary was a very single minded person and if he
Speaker 1: made a decision, that was how it was going to go.
Speaker 1: And uh, I'm not I'm not sure he was ever wrong.
Speaker 1: I'm surely grateful that that's how he decided in this
Speaker 1: in this case, right. How was it like working with
Speaker 1: those guys on that show, I mean, at the time,
Speaker 1: the biggest show in television. Yeah, it was. It was great,
Speaker 1: very similar in feel to the set on The Office,
Speaker 1: I think because well, first of all, because I'd met
Speaker 1: all of them early on, that was the downbeat of
Speaker 1: for friendships that lasted, many of them for my life.
Speaker 1: I mean, Tom Bosley was a a friend, Marian remains
Speaker 1: and so that was fun. And to see them now
Speaker 1: from a distance because I wasn't on the show, he
Speaker 1: had this meteoric rise so many ways, it felt like
Speaker 1: coming home when I got to come back to the show.
Speaker 1: But Gary was interesting. He had a softball team and
Speaker 1: you had to play, no matter how poorly you play,
Speaker 1: no matter Andry would be the first to say, no
Speaker 1: matter how stupid he looked in those silly little shorts,
Speaker 1: We're gonna play. And as we know, you get on
Speaker 1: a sports field and the and it's leveled. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just there's no chance for diva or nonsense or nothing.
Speaker 1: So that was great. And the other thing, which I'd
Speaker 1: like to tell, but it's it is kind of gross.
Speaker 1: It was the success of Happy Days rebuilt, the Paramount
Speaker 1: Lot rebuilt, paved the roads, new landscaping, new great Commissary,
Speaker 1: new buildings. Gary never allowed them to put in a
Speaker 1: second bathroom on the sound stage, which had its own
Speaker 1: sort of leveling effect. So that meant that everyone, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, so it was just the human ness on
Speaker 1: that set. There were these gentle reminders where it just
Speaker 1: got real. You know, it wasn't there wasn't an opportunity
Speaker 1: for things to kind of get get fancy in the
Speaker 1: way that they could when you're exverence in that kind
Speaker 1: of success. And so Jerry Paris, who directed so many
Speaker 1: of the episodes, rest ass all. He just insisted that, uh, well,
Speaker 1: the humor Unhappy Days was kind of fun and light
Speaker 1: and and silly, which was its genius. And so that's
Speaker 1: the atmosphere on the set. And you when you opened
Speaker 1: the door to that sound stage, people dropped their earth weights.
Speaker 1: They just didn't come onto the set and people went
Speaker 1: through a lot of stuff as happens in life. People
Speaker 1: went through deaths in their families, marriages, divorces, you know,
Speaker 1: unbelievable situations and all of that. All of that got
Speaker 1: dropped at the door, and so you came into this
Speaker 1: atmosphere that was sweet and supportive and fun and light
Speaker 1: and loving. That never changed. And there was a sense
Speaker 1: of sort of astonished gratitude really that the privilege that
Speaker 1: this was ongoing. People worked really hard, The writers worked
Speaker 1: so hard on that show, and so um cohesively, so holistically.
Speaker 1: You know, there was the joke meister, there was the
Speaker 1: guy that would no we got to stick to the character.
Speaker 1: There was the giant story arc guy, and just that meld,
Speaker 1: you know, was brilliant. And again, I coming into the
Speaker 1: office and that beautiful success. As late as I did,
Speaker 1: I thought, oh gosh, what's it going to be like?
Speaker 1: But I felt that just coming on the set right away,
Speaker 1: there was a sense of first day of school. Each
Speaker 1: one of you could so have easily got one more,
Speaker 1: taking it for granted, but boy, that was not the sense.
Speaker 1: People worked hard, they cared, they were grateful, and that's
Speaker 1: a that's a beautiful thing. I mean, it's a kind
Speaker 1: of work atmosphere you hope anyone gets to experience in
Speaker 1: their lifelime. Right, I have to ask you about this.
Speaker 1: I did not know this. At the same time you
Speaker 1: married Desi Arnez Jr. Son of Lucille ball and Desi Arnez.
Speaker 1: You're now part of the ball Arnaz family and you
Speaker 1: guys are what having Thanksgiving together? Or I mean, Linda,
Speaker 1: this is unbelievable. Well, yeah it was. They were remarkable people,
Speaker 1: brilliant Desi Senior, you know, he he was I don't
Speaker 1: know that he was were tested, but he was a genius.
Speaker 1: I think he was a genius. His thinking was so
Speaker 1: sparkly and so so original all through his life. Now
Speaker 1: mind you, I came in very late in in both
Speaker 1: of their lives. But in his conversation, you go through
Speaker 1: along the normal route, not daisy. He would go, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but what about and he would take a look at
Speaker 1: it from here, from like another angle, you go. You know,
Speaker 1: he didn't see walls. He saw ways under and around
Speaker 1: and above and through that were unusual. He was responsible
Speaker 1: for when he was running Paramount for Mission Impossible and
Speaker 1: Star Trek. Those were shows that he liked and he championed,
Speaker 1: and that's why they were even seen. He did that serially,
Speaker 1: I mean he with my understanding. When this is from
Speaker 1: his book Brilliant Autobiography, Thrilling Autobiography. You know, they came
Speaker 1: from Cuba and his father was nothing, and they were
Speaker 1: living in a sub basement with a pile of broken tiles,
Speaker 1: and they had to make a living. And so they
Speaker 1: scooped up a bunch of tiles and got some glue,
Speaker 1: and they went around the neighborhood and said, we're mosaic artists, okay, whatever. Anyway,
Speaker 1: you know, they saw where other people would see limitation
Speaker 1: or fear or something, he saw opportunity and possibilities on
Speaker 1: a regular basis. And of course, you know, brilliant musician
Speaker 1: and all that. But when they had seen he and
Speaker 1: Lucy perform in New York and and he said, yeah,
Speaker 1: but we have to have an audience. Well there had
Speaker 1: never been a live audience in a sound stage before,
Speaker 1: he said, but we can't do it. So he just
Speaker 1: kept figuring out ways to do this. One of the
Speaker 1: things which I loved was that so there would be
Speaker 1: the performance area, then the cameras, then the audience and
Speaker 1: they said, but you know, the audience can't see. So
Speaker 1: Das he said, well raise the audience on bleachers, you know.
Speaker 1: So he just would figure it out. He had rational
Speaker 1: thought and creativity went hand in hand powerfully with him.
Speaker 1: So just to be you know, around that kind of
Speaker 1: brilliance into um experience a mind that thinks like that
Speaker 1: in all aspects of life was really was thrilling, right um.
Speaker 1: Not long after happy days and you were cast on
Speaker 1: matlock and then again your life is so fascinating. Then
Speaker 1: shortly after that your life takes yet another turn and
Speaker 1: you you decide, oh, I'm just going to launch a
Speaker 1: jazz career. What was it that drew you specifically to jazz?
Speaker 1: That's a really that's a very cool question. Thanks for that. Well,
Speaker 1: growing up, we didn't have air conditioning, and the summers
Speaker 1: in Japan, in Tokyo were brutal. I mean they were muggy.
Speaker 1: It was monsoon season, big bugs, big heat, and so
Speaker 1: my mother kept Guardinia in the house. So there was
Speaker 1: this wafting of you know, this love of roma and jazz,
Speaker 1: I know, just they were just intermingled and it somehow
Speaker 1: seemed to bring the temperature down somehow. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it would just make you feel kind of chill. So
Speaker 1: that was the music of a large part of my
Speaker 1: of my childhood. That and musicals, you know, lots of musicals.
Speaker 1: And it was a way, I suppose of them maybe
Speaker 1: staying connected to the part of America that they had missed,
Speaker 1: you know, being far away. So that was an influence.
Speaker 1: And I had done musicals as a kid, and but
Speaker 1: once I was living in l A, I music was
Speaker 1: no longer a part of my life and I really
Speaker 1: missed it. I sorely missed it, and I wanted somehow
Speaker 1: to get music back in my life. And so I
Speaker 1: would have been introduced to a couple of friends and
Speaker 1: the music director and a director and a club owner
Speaker 1: in l A. And I realized that you could get
Speaker 1: your team together, create a show call club and go
Speaker 1: out and perform. And it was certainly making a living
Speaker 1: at this, or you know, making but it was a
Speaker 1: way of getting music back into my life. So I
Speaker 1: had one music director for twenty two years, were unable
Speaker 1: and adored, and he held my hand and those terrifying things,
Speaker 1: because in a concert it's not a character. Then you're
Speaker 1: not talking to your fellow actors you're talking to the audience.
Speaker 1: That which horrifying. And when when you I mean, there's
Speaker 1: no one else, it's just it's you've finished singing the
Speaker 1: song and it's still up to you to move the
Speaker 1: show forward. So lots of fun things to learn there.
Speaker 1: And but jazz was always an area that I had
Speaker 1: wanted to lean to and Ron to be the first
Speaker 1: person to say, he's much more show tune and you know,
Speaker 1: more of Broadway, big kind of sound. About fourteen years ago,
Speaker 1: I was invited to do a show, just a concert
Speaker 1: with a whole bunch of people in about gers Win
Speaker 1: and they said do your music director is going to
Speaker 1: be Ted Firth. It's like, well, who's this? My guys
Speaker 1: run and Ron, who worked with all kinds. In fact,
Speaker 1: one of his main stayss he works with Lucy Arnez.
Speaker 1: They have worked together for such a long time wonderfully Anyway,
Speaker 1: So I go into this rehearsal, I'm not so sure
Speaker 1: about this Ted guy. And he put the piano and
Speaker 1: I tell you what, I was gone. This was this
Speaker 1: was the sound. This was the guy. And so we've
Speaker 1: musically been together for fourteen years now. We've done three
Speaker 1: CDs and coming up on a fourth and again he
Speaker 1: works with so many, many, many people, but there's not
Speaker 1: a time there's the same true for Ron. I get
Speaker 1: to work with him and do a concert, you know,
Speaker 1: create some arrangement. I don't learn it, just you just
Speaker 1: feel your soul being moved forward. You know, it's not
Speaker 1: like that. I mean, you know this for yourself. You
Speaker 1: know that one of the joys of acting is that
Speaker 1: you'll you'll never get it right. Oh maybe every wanted all.
Speaker 1: I feel like that was okay, But the learning curve
Speaker 1: never ever ends. I mean, that's the that's the thrill
Speaker 1: of it. There's always something more to experience yours, some
Speaker 1: other depths to find, or some other whatever it is.
Speaker 1: Certainly the same is true with music. That's awesome. And
Speaker 1: it's interesting that, you know, you have your first musical
Speaker 1: experiences obviously in Japan, and at the same time there's
Speaker 1: nothing less uniform as a musical art form that I
Speaker 1: can think of as jazz, and yet that is where
Speaker 1: you ended up. Yes, yeah, that's interesting. I never really
Speaker 1: thought of it in those terms, but oh oh yes,
Speaker 1: and gosh, the people that you get to work with,
Speaker 1: the musicians and their and their legacies and It's a
Speaker 1: wonderful thing. And I've been able to do cabaret in
Speaker 1: a few different countries now and and I only do
Speaker 1: the Great American Songbook. Can't sing pop to save my life.
Speaker 1: But you know, when you get to perform in I
Speaker 1: don't know, Azerbai John or something like that, and they
Speaker 1: know the tunes, they know the tune. Realized that the
Speaker 1: Great American Songbook all through the Cold War was making
Speaker 1: subtle in roads. It's like it was water that just
Speaker 1: seeped under those walls. They came across an X rays
Speaker 1: because they could put the musical grooves into X rays
Speaker 1: and they could send those and they would pass the
Speaker 1: customs or the borders or whatever would know. And then
Speaker 1: however that happened, I don't know. If you take them
Speaker 1: some kind of a wax imprint of the X ray
Speaker 1: and then you get the record ergo, the songs were
Speaker 1: being played in behind the Iron curtain and this appetite
Speaker 1: for America. But to your point, that freedom of thought
Speaker 1: that you experienced viscerally in American jazz in the Great
Speaker 1: American Song Book clearly was igniting and supporting and nurturing
Speaker 1: some sense of freedom of thought. Yeah. Absolutely, it's fascinating.
Speaker 1: I have to talk to you about the office a
Speaker 1: little bit more. Yeah, you get cast as Pam's mom.
Speaker 1: This occurred to me. So in Happy Days you played
Speaker 1: two different roles, two different names, with no acknowledgment. In
Speaker 1: the Office, Pam's mom first played by someone else for
Speaker 1: one episode. Again, any thought when you were taking that
Speaker 1: over that the part had been played by someone else? Oh? Absolutely, absolutely,
Speaker 1: of course I'm to this, damn convinced. She was much
Speaker 1: better than I was, and better everything. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean grateful for who knows. I mean, it's a gypsy life,
Speaker 1: as we know, and so when the phone rings, you're
Speaker 1: either available or not. Apparently she wasn't, so I to
Speaker 1: my good fortune when I got to do the show.
Speaker 1: My son was, however old he was, and to the
Speaker 1: point that the bargaining chips of Santa Claus and Easter
Speaker 1: Bunny were not useful anymore. And however, being Pam's mom
Speaker 1: was very useful because I was cool again, I was
Speaker 1: my son's so thank you for that. Um. Again, you
Speaker 1: had gone into definitely the biggest show that was on
Speaker 1: at the time, Happy Days. Did you have any feelings
Speaker 1: about coming in and joining the office. I was terrified.
Speaker 1: First of all was that I got the role. Thrilled,
Speaker 1: and then of course I had seen once I knew
Speaker 1: it was going to be I had watched some of
Speaker 1: the episodes I okay, and the level of talent mind boggling.
Speaker 1: So that's where the terror came in. It's like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, they're gonna find me out, They're gonna get
Speaker 1: a fire anyway. Terrible. But the biggest surprise I think
Speaker 1: was the lack of improvisation that was going on. I
Speaker 1: mean there was, but but the honoring of the word
Speaker 1: and then the ability to mask all of that skill
Speaker 1: and technique and just to make it seem have it
Speaker 1: be so organic from all of the actors was something.
Speaker 1: And then also the way that it was that it
Speaker 1: was shot. I had never shot with steadicams so present
Speaker 1: in the scene, and I loved that sort of that
Speaker 1: almost improvisor is that a word improvisitorial something like that,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, feel of make way for
Speaker 1: the camera because he feels that he has to be
Speaker 1: here for the moment. So that was lovely. That was
Speaker 1: really fun and impressive to be a part of. But
Speaker 1: also just to see how smooth all of that language
Speaker 1: was between the permanent members of the cast. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: level of want was I mean between the musicianship and
Speaker 1: the actors who were writers and the writers who were actors.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it was very heady and at the same
Speaker 1: time very grounded set. Yeah, it's interesting. I never really
Speaker 1: had thought about that before, because obviously we get asked
Speaker 1: the question all the time about how much is improvised,
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of that comes from, now,
Speaker 1: you know, people knowing that there are so many great
Speaker 1: improv improvisers. Now I can't say it, people who can
Speaker 1: who can improvise, you know, who are on the show.
Speaker 1: But yeah, actually that never sort of occurred to me
Speaker 1: that that that that ability, that that so many had
Speaker 1: to make it appear as though they were coming up
Speaker 1: with it, that gave it that sort of organic feeling
Speaker 1: further rooted in reality, etcetera. Yeah, Um, when did you
Speaker 1: find out that you were going to have this this
Speaker 1: story arc with Michael and to become Michael's love interest? Uh? Well,
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know. When when did I come on?
Speaker 1: This is the problem with this age. I honest to god,
Speaker 1: I can't tell the difference anymore between two years and
Speaker 1: eight I mean not long after I was on the
Speaker 1: show than This than This arc will say that one
Speaker 1: of the scenes they talk about I talked about myself
Speaker 1: being fifty four years old, and I wasn't fifty four yet,
Speaker 1: and I my insane vanity was so it was like,
Speaker 1: I can't say fifty four. And then one of you know,
Speaker 1: the changes came in and they lowered my age to
Speaker 1: fifty two, and I was greatly relieved. It's like ridiculous
Speaker 1: trying to make an issue of age in the script,
Speaker 1: and I was having a much bigger issue myself. Uh,
Speaker 1: how did you find working with Steve So? He's so fastile,
Speaker 1: I mean, he can do anything. He can do anything
Speaker 1: as an actor, he's so smart. Um. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: we had a chance to talk. He was so gracious
Speaker 1: and so so lovely and um so it was interesting
Speaker 1: just to get a little bit of a glimpse into
Speaker 1: his personal life and how what it devoted. Family man
Speaker 1: he is and lovely wife and great dad. So that
Speaker 1: was just cool. You just feel okay, and with a
Speaker 1: really terrific human being here. Um and the capacity which
Speaker 1: he gives back to various communities is also impressive and
Speaker 1: not something he touts it's just something he does. And
Speaker 1: you know the other thing, I don't I'm going to
Speaker 1: get this wrong. But at some point he had had
Speaker 1: uh well, his future film career was starting to take off,
Speaker 1: and he was at a point contractually whatever that he
Speaker 1: could have he could have left the show, but he didn't,
Speaker 1: and he put his film career on pause, which, as
Speaker 1: we know, in this business, you put it on pause
Speaker 1: and they'll just say, okay, never mind, and they'll move on.
Speaker 1: And that could be your only shot to have a big,
Speaker 1: you know, move in your career. And instead he keeps
Speaker 1: said to the office, now, I'm gonna I will leave
Speaker 1: in a year, but I'm giving you a year. So
Speaker 1: I've I've never seen that happen in Hollywood. I don't
Speaker 1: think many people any kind of business have seen that
Speaker 1: someone makes it was the right thing to do, and
Speaker 1: it meant that everybody had a year to plan. Okay,
Speaker 1: this means I might not the show is gonna last
Speaker 1: a year at me and right not last after that,
Speaker 1: and so I'll plan financially to you know, my kids
Speaker 1: college or my mortgage where it is. And writers could
Speaker 1: make a transition. And but I mean that's a remarkable,
Speaker 1: grace note to give and most unusual. Yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: the reality is is that he has forty year old
Speaker 1: virgin that comes out, you know, basically at the beginning
Speaker 1: of season two, and he stays till he stays seven years. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you're right. I always it's interesting to me, Jenna,
Speaker 1: you're your pretend daughter. She actually made this comment. It
Speaker 1: always sticks with me. I don't know if I've ever
Speaker 1: said it on here or not, but that Steve Carrell
Speaker 1: and Will Ferrell have this unspoken competition in Hollywood for
Speaker 1: like who's the nicest person? They're just so talented but
Speaker 1: also just so kind and generous. Um. You came back
Speaker 1: several times over a few seasons. Did you notice things
Speaker 1: change when you kept coming back or did you feel
Speaker 1: just as welcome? Oh all the time, just as welcome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just as welcome and so just so grateful. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Jenna's there was a full scene of the office that
Speaker 1: came up when I had gone down the dark hole
Speaker 1: of the internet, as when Ken and it was Jenna,
Speaker 1: and as an actress, I marveled at at the tone
Speaker 1: at which she hit the scene. I know. It was
Speaker 1: a scene where she's railing at Steve because you know,
Speaker 1: you hurt my mother's feelings, right, And I just sat
Speaker 1: there watching it like as acting student as I. How
Speaker 1: did she do that? How did she figure out to
Speaker 1: hit that note of absolute truth and real anger and
Speaker 1: yet have it been comedic without without playing the funny
Speaker 1: in it? Just the tone was pitch perfect. Hard to
Speaker 1: do anyway. She's a she's a wonderful actress. Yes, well,
Speaker 1: I'm so glad that you came to that UNDERCN event
Speaker 1: in New Jersey. I think people enjoyed it so much.
Speaker 1: And yeah, really a celebration of the show and and
Speaker 1: and everyone who was a part of it. So that
Speaker 1: was awesome. Yes, I was happy to be there. Thank you.
Speaker 1: It was really really cool. You've been acting in the Other,
Speaker 1: which is Linda and my new term for film and
Speaker 1: television since the seventies. Too many shows to mention. How
Speaker 1: have you seen the landscape of television specifically change over
Speaker 1: that time? Well, I think it's I think it's better,
Speaker 1: I really do. I think the whole art form there
Speaker 1: has has risen. I think it's relevant in ways that
Speaker 1: it that it wasn't. I think it's truth telling in
Speaker 1: ways that it didn't have to be or you know,
Speaker 1: it didn't have to be. The range of topics that
Speaker 1: it covers is remarkable. I mean it used to be
Speaker 1: more about differences of eras, but now it encompasses different
Speaker 1: kinds of humor and different kind of politics and different
Speaker 1: living conditions, and so there really is something for everyone.
Speaker 1: And I think the acting is better. I think the
Speaker 1: writing is better. Mm hmm. Then what it was? I
Speaker 1: do miss some of the cinematic art. I think that's
Speaker 1: a lot of that has been has been law again.
Speaker 1: This is probably vanity speaking again, but the way that
Speaker 1: many of the cinematographers I had a chance to work
Speaker 1: with would craft light, the care and the attention from
Speaker 1: all members of behind the behind the lens, we're given
Speaker 1: a chance to to really put that into into film,
Speaker 1: and I think we've I think we've lost that. That's
Speaker 1: just a personal preference. The time doesn't really exist anymore
Speaker 1: for that, and I dare say, to a large extent,
Speaker 1: this skill doesn't exist. There's more interest in the overall
Speaker 1: physicality than right here. And I missed that. I missed
Speaker 1: that as an audience member going to see film, I mean,
Speaker 1: film is so is such an intimate art form, and
Speaker 1: as we get into you know, black shadows cut across
Speaker 1: actors faces. Um, I feel like we're we've lost something
Speaker 1: in the you know, in the art form. But that's
Speaker 1: old school. That's very interesting. Yeah. Also not as a
Speaker 1: person of color now seeing that change in television, I'm
Speaker 1: astonished at my level of ignorance. I would not have
Speaker 1: the career today that I had starting out in the
Speaker 1: seventies in American television. And I think now what it
Speaker 1: must have been like to open a magazine, turn on
Speaker 1: a television channel for a young girl my age of
Speaker 1: color growing and not see themselves. They were invisible. They
Speaker 1: they didn't exist. So that's something I think, you know
Speaker 1: has changed, is changing and had to change, and it's
Speaker 1: an egregious wrong two those people of our ages and
Speaker 1: younger who had to grow up, people of color who
Speaker 1: did not see themselves just they were invisible. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: said it's so insane now to the diversity, as you
Speaker 1: talked about, but just the variety and the a number
Speaker 1: of projects and platforms that are available now that I
Speaker 1: think are what you said, doing a much better job
Speaker 1: of storytelling, writing becoming important. Diversity. It's fun, it's fun
Speaker 1: to enjoy and to be working in this art form
Speaker 1: now for sure. I think The Office was probably one
Speaker 1: of the first shows to delve into that. I mean,
Speaker 1: it didn't champion whatever the norm was, whatever the you know,
Speaker 1: and it exposed brought to life tremendous diversity of of eccentrics,
Speaker 1: you know, and there's an eccentric in all of us.
Speaker 1: And so I think it helped many people feel valid dated,
Speaker 1: that needed to be validated, that should be validated. And
Speaker 1: The Office did that with such a note of truth,
Speaker 1: I mean, without forcing it that real people come in
Speaker 1: many different ways and and somehow we bump up against
Speaker 1: each other, but we'll get along. By God, we'll get
Speaker 1: a product made at the end of the day. Right.
Speaker 1: The Office was a very pioneering force in those possibilities. Yeah,
Speaker 1: celebrating ordinary people and the beauty of that. Um, you're
Speaker 1: a jazz musician, uh, an actor. Now, you're a you're
Speaker 1: a baker, You're you're just recently started Duffy's Dough with
Speaker 1: your partner Patrick Duffy, a sour dough starter kit business.
Speaker 1: I need to get on the mailing list here. What
Speaker 1: is what is your interest? Was this a pandemic born
Speaker 1: thing or was is this something. No it's not. And
Speaker 1: I I'm going to take you on a little tour.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna we'll talk a little bit. So, yeah, Patrick
Speaker 1: um family went to Alaska when he was two years old,
Speaker 1: and some kind of woman up there took pity on
Speaker 1: Mrs Duffy and said, Henny, you're never going to make
Speaker 1: through the Alaska winter without this, and gave her a
Speaker 1: starter that apparently it had been handed down from the
Speaker 1: gold rush minor people. So and they have kept it alive, unadulterated,
Speaker 1: in their family for seventy two years, and Patrick stop it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's a very very hearty strain. It's a very
Speaker 1: sort of it's a very's a very robust, you know,
Speaker 1: flavor in it. And well it's clearly it's hardy. It's
Speaker 1: seventy two years old. So Patrick bakes with it. He'd
Speaker 1: you know, pancakes and all this. So and I have
Speaker 1: never been a baker, but Um hard for me to
Speaker 1: pass up one of these cinnamon rolls or the pancakes
Speaker 1: or the general role. So then we would see him,
Speaker 1: you know, we'd take them, make them for friends, if
Speaker 1: they'd come over for dinner, if we were going someplace
Speaker 1: take the cinnamon rolls and people respond to them because
Speaker 1: they're wonderful. And Patrick said, well, maybe I should turn
Speaker 1: it into a into a business. It's like, of course
Speaker 1: you should. And yes, it's the dough and the experience
Speaker 1: of activating your starter and baking all that, but it's
Speaker 1: so much fun. I had never been a baker, but
Speaker 1: the meditative quality of needing the dough and seeing something
Speaker 1: that's been dormant come to life, to see that yeast
Speaker 1: and off and all that come to life, there's something
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's very grounding. It's fun. It's fun
Speaker 1: to do by yourself. It's fun to do with your
Speaker 1: friends and family. Lord knows, it's fun to eat. But
Speaker 1: we didn't know. I talked to my son's godfather, Lance Stewart,
Speaker 1: who's an entrepreneuris at Lance, which you know, is this
Speaker 1: an idea? And he said, sure, you're crazy to do it.
Speaker 1: Do it anyway, And here's what you do. You do it.
Speaker 1: You get all your kits, everything you need in one box,
Speaker 1: and you sell it online and you start with maybe
Speaker 1: two see if you like it, if it sells, and
Speaker 1: then then move on from there. And I thought, what
Speaker 1: could be so hard to get a little box. You
Speaker 1: throw a few things. Oh my god, I didn't know
Speaker 1: you have to you know legal this f d A
Speaker 1: that you know we are now because Patrick and I
Speaker 1: are doing all the packing ourselves. We are we are Coloradoe,
Speaker 1: we live in Colorado. We are we are food handlers
Speaker 1: for the next two years in the state of Colorado.
Speaker 1: Past the test, I mean, it's just the learning curve
Speaker 1: is so so steep. What kind of box does it
Speaker 1: lift this way? Does it go down? Is it three quarters?
Speaker 1: Is it Matt? Is it? I mean, I'm frossing at
Speaker 1: the mouth telling this because it's so prescient in my mind.
Speaker 1: You have you build your site and then you know,
Speaker 1: in the old days, Mr Smith would come to the
Speaker 1: store and he pays your thing. At the end of
Speaker 1: the week, you take your paper sack of money and
Speaker 1: you take it to the bank and you give it
Speaker 1: to Jane and you're done. Now they pay the credit
Speaker 1: cards goes into the site. Then you have to link
Speaker 1: and e commerce. There's this thing called eke cards, it's
Speaker 1: wool commerce. Then that goes they take the money, then
Speaker 1: it goes to plug in, then it goes to the
Speaker 1: I mean, the stuff is just it's unbelievable. So we
Speaker 1: have a darling tech man in India, so I pull
Speaker 1: all nighters on a regular basis to get the e
Speaker 1: commerce thing going. How is this going for you? Well,
Speaker 1: we launched two weeks ago, worried if we would be
Speaker 1: able to sell two hundred boxes. The two hundred were
Speaker 1: sold out in less than twenty for ours like, yeah,
Speaker 1: oh no, because now so we we have We've ordered
Speaker 1: another eight hundred supplies and we've promised to get a
Speaker 1: thousand kids. Lord help us under people's trees by Christmas.
Speaker 1: We've sold I think six d and twenty of this morning.
Speaker 1: So but I had to reorder supplies. So that's I
Speaker 1: have eight hundred pounds of flour coming in, three seventy
Speaker 1: pounds of sugar. And then the you know, because their
Speaker 1: cups and aprons and things, and they said, no problem,
Speaker 1: it will be here, just the flour in the sugar alone.
Speaker 1: It will be coming in an eighteen wheeler. At eighteen wheeler.
Speaker 1: We can't get it eight d wheeler up the driveway
Speaker 1: because we'll give it at the bottom of the driveway. No,
Speaker 1: you won't. The kinds of challenges you know that were
Speaker 1: and the other day tragically. We had we had ordered
Speaker 1: potholders from Florida. They were all set to come, and
Speaker 1: then we had that email from the company saying, your
Speaker 1: pot holders are scattered across Greater Florida because they lost
Speaker 1: the whole warehouse. So unbelievable. They're safe, but nobody died.
Speaker 1: But so I will show just madness. I used to
Speaker 1: have a house, Now I have a factory. There's the
Speaker 1: part of the assembly table. Can you see that? My word,
Speaker 1: this is what you get when you get your little
Speaker 1: kit let's see. And the logo I made myself started
Speaker 1: with crans And then there's some boxes. You see their boxes.
Speaker 1: I mean your guys her house is it's a factory.
Speaker 1: It's just it's absurd. But we're learning, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean we we are learning. They're the next. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's some more boxes. So we are making it up
Speaker 1: as we go along. And uh, you know, you know what,
Speaker 1: what sour dough goes really well with what chili? Oh
Speaker 1: that's a great idea. Yeah, okay, all right, so I
Speaker 1: can get some of the sour doughs sold for sure. Okay,
Speaker 1: I see a strategic partnership in our future idea. Oh
Speaker 1: bless your heart. Oh well, I can't tell you how
Speaker 1: nice it was to chat with you. Congratulations on the
Speaker 1: success of of Duffy Stope. Good luck than you, better
Speaker 1: you than me there and uh I wish I wish
Speaker 1: you all of the best. Thank you continued a good
Speaker 1: things for you, Brian, and thank you again, so kind
Speaker 1: of you'd have had me on No, thank you, Linda,
Speaker 1: You're a joy. Thank you so much for stopping by
Speaker 1: and talking to me. I absolutely loved hearing about your
Speaker 1: time growing up in Japan. Not everyone can say that
Speaker 1: they broke bread in Japan with Tennessee Williams. This is
Speaker 1: amazing to me and to those of you out there listening.
Speaker 1: Thanks for spending another Tuesday with me, or maybe you're
Speaker 1: listening on a Wednesday, Thursday Happy days. Well I'm getting distracted. Sorry,
Speaker 1: whatever day you're listening to this, I'm glad you're here.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be back next week with another conversation you
Speaker 1: are not gonna want to miss. Oh. I promise you
Speaker 1: you're gonna want to hear that one. Until then, have
Speaker 1: a fantastic week. Off the Beat is hosted an executive
Speaker 1: produced by me Brian Baumgartner alongside our executive producer Langley.
Speaker 1: Our producers are Diego Tapia, Liz Hayes, Hannah Harris and
Speaker 1: Emily Carr. Our talent producer is Ryan Poppa Zachary and
Speaker 1: our intern is Sammy kts. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak,
Speaker 1: performed by my great friend Creed Bratton,