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Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing,

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Speaker 1: My chance to talk with artists, writers, policy makers, and performers,

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Speaker 1: to hear their stories. What inspired their creations, what decisions

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Speaker 1: change their careers, what relationships influenced their work. There are

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Speaker 1: perhaps a handful of performers who, through talent and circumstance,

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Speaker 1: transcend the expected limits of their medium. Both of my

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Speaker 1: guests today have done just that. Michael Douglas has played

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Speaker 1: some of the most iconic roles in film over the

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Speaker 1: past thirty years. He's challenged the way we think about

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Speaker 1: power and sex, family and relationships. I don't know what

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Speaker 1: you're up to, but I'm gonna tell you it's going

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Speaker 1: to stop right now now. It's not going to stop.

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Speaker 1: It's going to go on and on until you face

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Speaker 1: up to your responsibility. Responsibility. I'm pregnant. I'm going to

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Speaker 1: have our child, Alex. That's your choice. How it has

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Speaker 1: behing to do with me? And as Douglas has reigned

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Speaker 1: as one of the kings of the movie screen over

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Speaker 1: the past thirty years, my first guest is considered one

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Speaker 1: of the kings of the smaller screen. It's when David

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Speaker 1: Letterman started Late Night. In The New York Times said

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Speaker 1: he was quote more of an acquired taste than most

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Speaker 1: comedians unquote. Now it's time, ladies and gentlemen for a

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Speaker 1: segment of this program. But we like to call stupid

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Speaker 1: pet tricks. We grew up on Johnny, a true gentleman

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Speaker 1: who could deliver a smooth set up and punchline, occasionally

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Speaker 1: helped by a wink. But suddenly, with Late Night, the

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Speaker 1: ultimate punchline was the fact that some gap toothed, unknown

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Speaker 1: smartass even had a show. His pet tricks were stupid

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Speaker 1: on purpose, and so was he. Tune in and you

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Speaker 1: might catch him lowering himself into a water tank wearing

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Speaker 1: a suit made from thirty four hundred alcas El taples.

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Speaker 1: We have the oxygen here, and I have been asked

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Speaker 1: about twelve times by various members of the staff to

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Speaker 1: remind you don't try this at home. I know you

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Speaker 1: have the nine hundred gallon tank. I know you have

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Speaker 1: the oxygen. I know you have the suit of oxy

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Speaker 1: cell sers and a staff of a hundred people. Today,

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Speaker 1: David Letterman is an institution. His show has changed American comedy,

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Speaker 1: and after thirty years, he's changed as well. I do

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Speaker 1: a lot less work than I used to do. I

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Speaker 1: just got to a point where I have no patience

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Speaker 1: for meetings, so I don't go to any meetings. I

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Speaker 1: can't make decisions anymore. I don't like making decisions. You know,

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Speaker 1: we have a dozen producers. They can have the meetings

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Speaker 1: and they can make the decisions, and I'll just come

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Speaker 1: down and somebody tell me what to do and we go.

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Speaker 1: And it was different before. Yeah, I used to be

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Speaker 1: involved in everything big and large. I don't think that

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Speaker 1: was necessarily good, but at the time I thought it

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Speaker 1: was what was required. When you had your own show.

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Speaker 1: You had to had to have everything you know in

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Speaker 1: your view and certainly influence each little choice the guests

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Speaker 1: that are on the show. Do you still help select

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Speaker 1: the guests or someone else takes the people who select them.

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Speaker 1: Occasionally I will think of, Oh, I heard about somebody

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Speaker 1: that did so and so. Could we look into that

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Speaker 1: and this and that? Very little, very little, I mean,

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Speaker 1: these people do that. We've have the good luck of

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Speaker 1: these people who haven't been together for a long, long, long,

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Speaker 1: long time. They all know what the expectation is. Of course,

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Speaker 1: when you're in that situation, the bad version of it is,

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Speaker 1: Oh God, it's the same thing. It's the assembly line.

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Speaker 1: We're just building the same car over and over and

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Speaker 1: over again. You feel that way sometimes Sometimes I'm the

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Speaker 1: biggest defender of that. I'm sixty five. I don't have

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Speaker 1: the energy I had when I was thirty five. There

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Speaker 1: are certain things I like about the show now that

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Speaker 1: I like more than before. As I like talking to

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Speaker 1: people and the opportunity to learn something, or if I

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Speaker 1: have a natural curiosity about somebody, I really look forward

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Speaker 1: to that. If I have something that I know is

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Speaker 1: going to be silly and stupid, and I want my

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Speaker 1: authorship out there on this something silly and stupid, then

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Speaker 1: I get eager about that. But in the old days,

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Speaker 1: we just were going twenty hours a day. We'd be

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Speaker 1: out on the streets, We'd be going to New Jersey,

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Speaker 1: would be up all night shooting, and there would be contests.

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Speaker 1: And I can't do that show anymore. The more successful

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Speaker 1: the show has become, and the more successful you would become,

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Speaker 1: do you find that in terms of programming the show

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Speaker 1: you have to rely more on stars. Is there a

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Speaker 1: kind of person It's it's completely different. In the beginning,

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Speaker 1: when we started the late night show at NBC. We

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Speaker 1: had a liaison between Johnny Carson and ourselves named Dave Tabbot.

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Speaker 1: He had worked at NBC and then had become close

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Speaker 1: with Johnny, and so Johnny hired him, and he was

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Speaker 1: a guy who, honest to God, talked like this. Dave

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Speaker 1: came in to make sure there were no conflicts between

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Speaker 1: our show and the tonight show. He says, for example,

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Speaker 1: let's just say that Bob Hope is arrested for using drugs,

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Speaker 1: and we just all just just like, really, in what

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Speaker 1: universe is that all likelihood? And he says, you can't

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Speaker 1: then do chokes about Bob Hope And I said, okay,

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Speaker 1: all right, We'll got that. We were not allowed to

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Speaker 1: use do a monologue, and we were not allowed to

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Speaker 1: have an orchestra. And we also felt that a way

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Speaker 1: to distinguish ourselves, since Johnny had the big stars that

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Speaker 1: people really wanted, we would then kind of have French people.

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Speaker 1: That's exactly right, and so we sort of mind that

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Speaker 1: vain as much as we could. It was sort of

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Speaker 1: a fortunate coincidence that we were prohibited in that sense,

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Speaker 1: because we weren't really interested in having mainstream people on two.

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Speaker 1: You started in radio. Yeah, my first job was at

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Speaker 1: a radio station. You went to college. You went to

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Speaker 1: Ball State University has studied radio and TV. Why did

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Speaker 1: you study radio and TV academically? Um? You know, I

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Speaker 1: went to Ball State no language requirement and no math requirement.

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Speaker 1: I mean it really saved me because I was academically

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Speaker 1: I was not very good early on. I was very

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Speaker 1: lucky that I knew how to save myself. Sophomore in

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Speaker 1: high school and I had saw end up for a

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Speaker 1: public speaking course and the first day you were supposed

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Speaker 1: to get up and extemporaneously speak for five minutes. You know,

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Speaker 1: everybody's twitchy and sweaty and worried about this, as was I.

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Speaker 1: And then I got up there, the nervousness and the

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Speaker 1: twitchiness and everything dissipated. I loved it, and I thought,

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Speaker 1: oh my god, maybe this is a way I can

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Speaker 1: distinguish myself. And I did you know, but had you

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Speaker 1: been the entertainer as a child in the household, yeah,

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Speaker 1: sure to what except and my parents wouldn't put up

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Speaker 1: with it much. There was a fine line between being

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Speaker 1: oh isn't the amusing and being just and being a

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Speaker 1: wise ass and we don't like that. I can remember

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Speaker 1: my father was big and loud and noisy and always

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Speaker 1: had stuff going on, and my mother completely nondemonstrative. And

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Speaker 1: I can remember every Sunday night after dinner, my dad

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Speaker 1: would make popcorn and we would sit in front of

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Speaker 1: the TV and watch Ed Sullivan. And Ed used to

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Speaker 1: have this habit of, well, come on, now, let's really

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Speaker 1: hear it for him, and my mom used to say,

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Speaker 1: I don't like the way Ed begs the audience for applause.

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Speaker 1: She was a connoisseur of television house and then she

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Speaker 1: was not a connoisseur. She resented the fact that somebody

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Speaker 1: had to be encouraged to support what they had, just

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Speaker 1: that Sullivan was whoring himself. And that's exactly right. That's

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Speaker 1: so you got to ball stating, you get this degree,

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Speaker 1: what do you do after that? Well, through a friend

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Speaker 1: of mine at a the ABC affiliate in Indianapolis where

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Speaker 1: I lived, which was sixty miles away from where I

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Speaker 1: went to school and still is just about sixty miles,

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Speaker 1: I heard that they were auditioning for they wanted a

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Speaker 1: summer announcer. So I went down there an audition. Never

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Speaker 1: having been in a television studio in my life and

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Speaker 1: got the job. I mean it was a fixed fight

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Speaker 1: because I had no business getting the job. I wasn't

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Speaker 1: very good, I didn't know what I was doing, I

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Speaker 1: had no experience, and they gave me the job. And

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Speaker 1: suddenly the bulb that was turned on my sophomore year

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Speaker 1: in high school now is burning white hot because it's

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Speaker 1: are you kid me? I'm nineteen and I'm going to

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Speaker 1: be on TV. I mean, it's preposterous. That was the

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Speaker 1: booth announcer. So I can't believe you said that back

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Speaker 1: when they had booth announcers on That's right, That's what

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Speaker 1: I did. These guys defined my childhood by the way.

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Speaker 1: These were the guys. Uh. The principal responsibility was to

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Speaker 1: keep the program log. There used to be a lot

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Speaker 1: of technical glitches in television. Who had booth announcers who

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Speaker 1: would pick up the slack when something went Wrong's with

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Speaker 1: tape to tape, That's exactly right. A station break was

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Speaker 1: a huge process because you had a control room, you

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Speaker 1: had a director, you had two or three sixteen millimeter projectors,

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Speaker 1: you had a slide chain, and you had the big

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Speaker 1: two and a half inch Ampex tape. Let's say you

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Speaker 1: had four commercials in a station break, then you'd have

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Speaker 1: to roll the tape. Then you'd have to count down

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Speaker 1: and roll the film. Then you'd have to go live

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Speaker 1: to the booth to read copy over a slide, and

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Speaker 1: then back to the film. And it was an enormous thing.

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Speaker 1: Summer job in in nineteen sixties sixty and I was

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Speaker 1: making a hundred fifty bucks a week. I got to

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Speaker 1: be the weekend weather man. I've never done that before.

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Speaker 1: I got to read the news on on the morning

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Speaker 1: kiddie show. None of this would happen today. So I

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Speaker 1: go back to school now to my radio and TV studies,

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Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, it's hey, there's duck Lips.

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Speaker 1: We've seen him on TV, And oh my god, what

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Speaker 1: a progression that was for me. Now that was what

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Speaker 1: year I think I started there in sixty eight and

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Speaker 1: I stayed. And you avoid draft, and you avoid in

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Speaker 1: those days, you get the student deferment. And ball State

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Speaker 1: was prinsipally a teacher's college in those days, and so

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Speaker 1: it wanted teachers. It was chock full of guys who

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Speaker 1: wanted that student deferment, and also the teaching deferment. I

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Speaker 1: was not studying teaching. So the minute I graduated, I

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Speaker 1: was reclassified one A. Went from my pre draft physical

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Speaker 1: in April. They said, okay, we'll call you. And then

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Speaker 1: in the meantime before I was called, Nixon announced the

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Speaker 1: National Lottery. They were going to end the draft. They

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Speaker 1: were trying to step down the Vietnamese War. My birthday

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Speaker 1: was three forty two or something like that, at A

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Speaker 1: three hundred fifty six, So that meant even though I

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Speaker 1: was one A and had my pre induction physical and

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Speaker 1: was ready to go, it was over for me. At

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Speaker 1: the time, I didn't know how lucky I was. I

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Speaker 1: felt guilty because I had friends who had gone, and

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Speaker 1: I had friends who had been in the Marine Corps,

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Speaker 1: and I just felt like, these guys went, why shouldn't

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Speaker 1: I go? And then it dawned on me pretty quickly.

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Speaker 1: I had been among the really, really lucky. Yeah. What

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Speaker 1: was the political landscape like at Ballston when he went there, Well,

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Speaker 1: it was just starting to Uh. I used to make

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Speaker 1: jokes that they would have student protests, but it was

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Speaker 1: to get the cafeteria cooks to wear hairnets. Uh. It

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Speaker 1: was not a hot bed. It was not Madison, Wisconsin.

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Speaker 1: It was Muncie, Indiana, but it was starting and there

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Speaker 1: were sit ins and demonstrations, and you know, Bobby Kennedy

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Speaker 1: had spoken on campus, so it was starting. You mentioned

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Speaker 1: booth announcers, and I remember I did a YouTube search.

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Speaker 1: I wanted to find this guy that was literally the

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Speaker 1: voice of my childhood w R and he come on

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Speaker 1: and say, you know, uh next on Million Dollar Movie

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Speaker 1: Barbara Stan McTell's Gary Cooper where He Can Go and

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Speaker 1: Ball of Fire, and he just had this voice. It

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Speaker 1: was just it just haunted me. Well, that's interesting. You

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Speaker 1: mentioned that guy I had the little kid voice from Indiana.

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Speaker 1: I wasn't that guy, but I still had to do

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Speaker 1: the job. And I can't impress upon you enough how

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Speaker 1: tedious it is to sit there for eight hours watching

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Speaker 1: programming and logging everything that happens. If you lose audio,

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Speaker 1: you have to log that. If you lose video you

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Speaker 1: have to log that. You have to log sign on,

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Speaker 1: sign off, every commercial, every station break. And at first

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Speaker 1: I was scared, silly, but then, like everything else, you

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Speaker 1: get accustomed to it and you become blase, and so

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Speaker 1: I would just start wandering the building. You know, it

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Speaker 1: was so embarrassing. They would will the booth announcer please

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Speaker 1: report to the announced booth, and oh my god, I've

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Speaker 1: missed the so and so. The main announcer was a

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Speaker 1: guy named Rob Stone, tremendous voice and a hopeless alcoholic,

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Speaker 1: I mean a real alcoholic. I go hand in hand, yeah,

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Speaker 1: kind of. Certainly. In those days it was not uncommon.

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Speaker 1: He would come in and he would bring a point

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Speaker 1: with him, and so in the spirit of this, we

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Speaker 1: who were working the sign off shift, we would always

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Speaker 1: send somebody out for beer. Oh my, with this fun.

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Speaker 1: In those days, you would do a five minute new

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Speaker 1: summary before sign off nightcap news, and then you would

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Speaker 1: do the the broadcast statement. You'd read that over the

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Speaker 1: slide of the station, and then they would go to

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Speaker 1: the national anthem with the waving fly. One night, a

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Speaker 1: guy in the props department, so I can reconstruct exactly

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Speaker 1: the station has pictured on the slide. We can make

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Speaker 1: it blow up. So as you're as you're reading the

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Speaker 1: thank you and good night and why not tune in

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Speaker 1: w LW overnight and blah blah this and so until tomorrow,

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Speaker 1: goodnight and good luck. I have the thing. Come on.

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Speaker 1: Oh god, we were proud of ourselves. You know, we

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Speaker 1: really thought we had done something. Geez. Nobody ever said anything. No,

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Speaker 1: it was bizarre. Nobody got fired, nobody asked a question

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Speaker 1: about it. Nobody said anything. But but what's interesting is

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Speaker 1: from school and then doing the job and so forth.

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Speaker 1: In the booth thing the comedy Gland is secreting through

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Speaker 1: the entire time. What are you doing for that? Meaning

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Speaker 1: other than blowing up the studio and in the sign

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Speaker 1: off we're writing or yes. I was looking for any outlet,

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Speaker 1: and it came for me doing the weather. I knew

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Speaker 1: nothing about whether you'd go downstairs and I'd have the

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Speaker 1: ap machine and the map would come over, the national map,

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Speaker 1: and you would go to the big magnetic board in

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Speaker 1: the studio and you put the low system, and you

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Speaker 1: put the high system, and you put the occluded front,

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Speaker 1: and you put the rain showers, and so it told

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Speaker 1: you everything any time, but all that I could monkey

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Speaker 1: with that. I was very happy. I can remember two episodes.

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Speaker 1: One I was had forecast sunny and dryet and we

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Speaker 1: we go off the air and blah blah, and I

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Speaker 1: go outside this this is horrible thundershower. The rain is

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Speaker 1: coming down in sheets and I was just twenty ft away,

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Speaker 1: just oblivious of this, this uh, dangerous yes coming through,

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Speaker 1: this one of these violent Midwestern summer thunderstorms coming through

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Speaker 1: attacking the station. I got to be well known because

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Speaker 1: this Sunday Night show was on after the ABC Sunday

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Speaker 1: Night Movie. That was big programming. We got a bunch

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Speaker 1: of complaints, and this was when people were wearing a

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Speaker 1: bell bottom pants. I don't think he could buy regular pants.

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Speaker 1: Got a lot of calls about he's either not wearing

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Speaker 1: underpants or he needs to wear underpants. That's how I

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Speaker 1: distinguished myself. Do you want to clear that up? Now?

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Speaker 1: Were you wearing underpants? I was wearing DP. It was Indianapolis.

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Speaker 1: We were not talked to go out without our under

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Speaker 1: It's whatever problem was perceived was not mine. I sure you.

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Speaker 1: And then where do you go from there in terms

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Speaker 1: of underpants and well, if you wish. I got tired

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Speaker 1: of sitting in the booth and tired of working weekends.

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Speaker 1: And also they didn't they didn't want me there. They

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Speaker 1: would keep bringing in auditions for my job. That really

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Speaker 1: hurt my feelings. But I couldn't argue with them because

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Speaker 1: I didn't know what I was doing but the cumulative

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Speaker 1: effect of being on TV a lot. There, we get

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Speaker 1: this memo once from the search department, and of all

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Speaker 1: of the people, the the anchor team and whoever else,

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Speaker 1: I had the highest queue rating of anybody there, and

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Speaker 1: it was only by accident. Really, So I started looking

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Speaker 1: for a job. Some people I knew were coming in

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Speaker 1: to start up a talk radio station. So I went

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Speaker 1: to work at the new talk radio station with the

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Speaker 1: format it was News Talks Force w NTS. When I

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Speaker 1: resigned to quit give my notice to the general manage,

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Speaker 1: the guy sad and it chilled me at the time.

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Speaker 1: He said, really, you're leaving this TV station to go

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Speaker 1: work for a brand new radio station. And I said yeah,

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Speaker 1: and he said you will never be heard of again.

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Speaker 1: So I went to the station, worked there for a year,

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Speaker 1: realized that I had to make a move. Nobody would

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Speaker 1: would listen. It was a daytime station. This was tremendous.

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Speaker 1: They had a daytime license, which meant the radio station

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Speaker 1: come on when the sun came up and went off

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Speaker 1: when the sun went down. Literally yeah. And then the

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Speaker 1: winter we were off at three in the afternoon. I

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Speaker 1: had the midday shift and I come in at noon

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Speaker 1: and two hours later I'd be going home. It was

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Speaker 1: it was joy afternoon. And then in the summer. Conversely,

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Speaker 1: you were on the like nine thirty or ten, it

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Speaker 1: was awful. It was Watergate, and and people assume, well,

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Speaker 1: the guy's got a talk show on the radio, but

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Speaker 1: he knows everything there is to know about Watergate, and

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Speaker 1: I knew nothing. I'd have to read endless pages of

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Speaker 1: wire copy. I remember reading it sorry about Gordon Stratching

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Speaker 1: str A C H A N. And his name kept

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Speaker 1: coming up, a special counsel, so and so, Gordon Stratch

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Speaker 1: and adviser of the White House, Gordon Stratch. And finally

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Speaker 1: the phones line up, and I, thank god, did I

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Speaker 1: say yes? He says, it's not Stratching, it's Strang. You're

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Speaker 1: mispronouncing the guy's name. I said, okay, thanks you everything,

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Speaker 1: no click buzz, So there you go. Were you ambitious

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Speaker 1: during this time? Did you have an ambition? Yeah? I

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Speaker 1: wanted to. I really thought, um, I really thought I

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Speaker 1: could write half hours situation comedies. I thought I could.

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Speaker 1: What did you watch? Well? In my childhood it was

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Speaker 1: completely different. It would have been stuff like Saturday Morning nonsense.

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Speaker 1: Then as I grew older, you'd get to Mayberry, the

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Speaker 1: Andy Griffis Show, Ozzie and Harriett Nelson, the Nelson's and

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Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. And then later on and in

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Speaker 1: those days, it was all the Mary Tyler Moore things,

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Speaker 1: the Bob Newhart Show, on the Mary Tyler Moore Show,

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Speaker 1: and I really thought, oh, I can write one of

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Speaker 1: those Mary Tyler Moore shows. And it turned out I couldn't.

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Speaker 1: As you know, there's a template for writing those things.

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Speaker 1: They use the template because it's successful. And if you

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Speaker 1: don't know the template and you think you can make

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Speaker 1: a better version of it, it's a very foreign object

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Speaker 1: to them. To you, you think, look, I've improved on

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Speaker 1: the template, but they don't want them. They want something. Yes,

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Speaker 1: that's right. I mean we're talking about Mary Tyler Moore.

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Speaker 1: That's pretty good stuff. Smart and you're in l A

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Speaker 1: at that time. Now I'm still in Indianapolis and I

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Speaker 1: would be sending scripts and looking for an agent. Finally

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Speaker 1: a guy said, yeah, if you come to Los Angeles,

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Speaker 1: he said, I'll be your agent. So with that encouragement,

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Speaker 1: I just left. And I don't know about you, but

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Speaker 1: you know, your friends say, Okay, here you can meet

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Speaker 1: with so and so and and you can meet mel

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Speaker 1: Blank's son, you can meet with him, and and I

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Speaker 1: know this one, and I know that one. And so

355
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Speaker 1: you go out there with high hopes. I guess it's

356
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Speaker 1: like the Pioneers and the kind of stoga wagon and

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Speaker 1: they run out of beans. So within the first week

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Speaker 1: you run through all of your appointments and then you've

359
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Speaker 1: got nothing. Then your Shanghai. That's right on the show there.

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Speaker 1: I'm remember when I went to l A. I did

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Speaker 1: a soap opera at thirty Rock. The show was about

362
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Speaker 1: to go off the air, and I'll never forget this

363
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Speaker 1: guy that was the producer. He were in the hallway

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Speaker 1: and they asked me to extend my contract for a

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Speaker 1: few months. And he says that line to me. He says,

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Speaker 1: what do you think you're gonna do? Go out the Hollywood,

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Speaker 1: become a star in the movies. I'm walking down the

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Speaker 1: Hollies going, dude, listen to me, come back here. You

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Speaker 1: you don't walk away from me? And I walk away

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Speaker 1: from the guy and I go to l A. Now,

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Speaker 1: were you ever haunted by that? Did you? Honestly? Did you?

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Speaker 1: Did you? Because of my case? I thought the guy

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Speaker 1: was I said, oh yeah, I haven't considered that. Well,

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Speaker 1: of course you do. You've been an enormously successful man.

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Speaker 1: Did you ever dream you would be as successful as

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Speaker 1: you are? No? Never, No, And I'll tell you the

377
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Speaker 1: same for you, same for most people in this uh

378
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Speaker 1: in show business. You're just lucky enough to get to

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Speaker 1: do exactly what you want to do all your life.

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Speaker 1: So that's the success coming up. David Letterman's own personal

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Speaker 1: Cinderella story. I drove in a pickup truck with my

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Speaker 1: wife to l A and three years later I'm sitting

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Speaker 1: next to Johnny Carson. That's not supposed to happen, you know,

384
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Speaker 1: it's just not supposed to happen, but it did. This

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Speaker 1: is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.

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Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the Thing.

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Speaker 1: While other comedians struggled to find their way in Hollywood,

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Speaker 1: David Letterman clearly saw the path in front of him.

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Speaker 1: For me, the road map to pursue was handed to

390
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Speaker 1: you via Johnny Carson and the Tonight Show. They would

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Speaker 1: have comics on. It would be David Brenner and they

392
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Speaker 1: would say, and there will be appearing at the Comedy Store,

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Speaker 1: that seemed to be that the connection between the Comedy

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Speaker 1: Store and the Tonight Show was pretty close. So even

395
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Speaker 1: though you mind that facility that particularly, it was the

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Speaker 1: farm system for the Comedy Store, and great guys were

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Speaker 1: coming out and getting on and Steve Landsberg and on

398
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Speaker 1: and on. I say on and on because I can't

399
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Speaker 1: remember the name. So I just yeah, even though I

400
00:20:00,920 --> 00:20:02,440
Speaker 1: wanted to be a writer, because I didn't have the

401
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Speaker 1: courage to tell my family and friends that what I

402
00:20:04,640 --> 00:20:07,560
Speaker 1: really want to do is, you know, somehow get famous

403
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Speaker 1: and beyond TV. So when when I went out there

404
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Speaker 1: the first monday I was in California when I moved

405
00:20:13,320 --> 00:20:16,440
Speaker 1: in seventy, I wrote down some stuff and went to

406
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Speaker 1: the Comedy Store and got on stage. It was it

407
00:20:19,720 --> 00:20:21,720
Speaker 1: was awful. I've never been in a darkened room with

408
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Speaker 1: the spotlight and it was just like a train coming

409
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Speaker 1: at me. So I did my little five minutes from

410
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Speaker 1: route left and and uh, the owner of the place, yeah,

411
00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:34,560
Speaker 1: you should come back and do some more. So I thought,

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Speaker 1: are you kidding me? And she's no, you can MC.

413
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Speaker 1: So I came back and I was the MC fantastic Yeah, Derek.

414
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Speaker 1: So that was three years later I was on the

415
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Speaker 1: Tonight Show that worked so much better than it should have.

416
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Speaker 1: I think it must be harder now, Becau wasn't three

417
00:20:55,160 --> 00:20:57,480
Speaker 1: years of just working that room and working the mic

418
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Speaker 1: and working stand up. But it was. I mean it

419
00:21:00,080 --> 00:21:02,480
Speaker 1: was fun because every night you go there and you

420
00:21:02,480 --> 00:21:05,760
Speaker 1: were hanging around guys Jay Leno and Robin Williams and

421
00:21:05,800 --> 00:21:09,760
Speaker 1: George Miller and Tom Reason and anybody now who's you're

422
00:21:09,800 --> 00:21:12,520
Speaker 1: aware of you would see every night and it was

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Speaker 1: great fun. I mean, my god, it was great fun.

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Speaker 1: Him didn't make any difference what you did during the day.

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00:21:17,520 --> 00:21:19,320
Speaker 1: You knew that when it got dark you'd be on

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Speaker 1: Sunset Boulevard. The place would be packed. So you say, yeah,

427
00:21:22,840 --> 00:21:24,840
Speaker 1: night after night. But still, in all how could that

428
00:21:24,880 --> 00:21:27,600
Speaker 1: not be fun? So did Carson find you there? Well,

429
00:21:27,640 --> 00:21:29,400
Speaker 1: they had a guy, you know, they had a team

430
00:21:29,400 --> 00:21:31,760
Speaker 1: of guys when I was there that would come in uh.

431
00:21:31,800 --> 00:21:33,800
Speaker 1: And in the meantime I got on this Mary Tyler

432
00:21:33,880 --> 00:21:38,560
Speaker 1: Moore show UH to write and perform and that was

433
00:21:38,600 --> 00:21:41,800
Speaker 1: it was me and Michael Keaton, Jim Hampton and Dick

434
00:21:41,840 --> 00:21:47,000
Speaker 1: Shawn and Susie Kurtz and Uh, Julie con Judy Can

435
00:21:47,200 --> 00:21:52,080
Speaker 1: Judy con thank you very much. So from that show, uh,

436
00:21:52,119 --> 00:21:54,360
Speaker 1: they said, oh, well we'll put you on because you're

437
00:21:54,359 --> 00:21:56,320
Speaker 1: on that show. You can come out and do stand

438
00:21:56,400 --> 00:21:58,720
Speaker 1: up and then you go sit down and talk to Johnny.

439
00:21:58,840 --> 00:22:01,520
Speaker 1: And without that, you never know what the formula is.

440
00:22:01,520 --> 00:22:03,119
Speaker 1: You could be on nine times and never get sit

441
00:22:03,200 --> 00:22:05,480
Speaker 1: on with Johnny. You could be on for six years

442
00:22:05,480 --> 00:22:08,160
Speaker 1: and every or you could be bumped forty times and never.

443
00:22:08,560 --> 00:22:10,760
Speaker 1: But because of this, oh and he's appearing on the

444
00:22:10,800 --> 00:22:13,560
Speaker 1: so and so show, the Mary Tyler Moore Show, I

445
00:22:13,560 --> 00:22:15,800
Speaker 1: got to sit down with Johnny and and that was again,

446
00:22:15,840 --> 00:22:18,000
Speaker 1: that was craziness. That was That was another one of

447
00:22:18,040 --> 00:22:22,760
Speaker 1: those you know what, Oh yeah, it's such a jolt.

448
00:22:23,440 --> 00:22:26,679
Speaker 1: The material is so committed. You don't have to think

449
00:22:26,720 --> 00:22:28,760
Speaker 1: about anything. You just have to start talking and it

450
00:22:28,800 --> 00:22:32,080
Speaker 1: all comes out. The adrenaline takes days to burn out

451
00:22:32,080 --> 00:22:35,199
Speaker 1: of you. Holy God, you're sitting next to Johnny Carson.

452
00:22:35,960 --> 00:22:38,520
Speaker 1: I mean, you just can't believe it. I mean to me,

453
00:22:39,440 --> 00:22:41,320
Speaker 1: and I think most guys my age who were out

454
00:22:41,320 --> 00:22:44,560
Speaker 1: there doing that one. The fact that it worked, you know, really,

455
00:22:44,600 --> 00:22:47,080
Speaker 1: I drove in a pickup truck with my wife to

456
00:22:47,240 --> 00:22:48,840
Speaker 1: l A and three years later I'm sitting next to

457
00:22:48,920 --> 00:22:51,440
Speaker 1: Johnny Carson. That's not supposed to happen, you know, it's

458
00:22:51,440 --> 00:22:53,960
Speaker 1: just not supposed to happen, but it did. Do you

459
00:22:53,960 --> 00:22:56,280
Speaker 1: think that Carson was someone who do you think he

460
00:22:56,320 --> 00:22:58,000
Speaker 1: saw himself? And you do you think he saw the

461
00:22:58,000 --> 00:23:00,600
Speaker 1: midwestern boy? I don't know, Jean, and I don't know.

462
00:23:00,680 --> 00:23:02,480
Speaker 1: I mean, it was so easy for other people to

463
00:23:02,560 --> 00:23:05,920
Speaker 1: make that comparison. Uh, and that seemed to be the formula.

464
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:07,439
Speaker 1: But I don't. I don't know if he felt that

465
00:23:07,440 --> 00:23:12,359
Speaker 1: way or not. Um, I don't. I can't answer that.

466
00:23:12,440 --> 00:23:15,919
Speaker 1: And then what happened after that, Well, your life changed immediately.

467
00:23:16,080 --> 00:23:17,960
Speaker 1: Suddenly you weren't just a guy who was at the

468
00:23:18,000 --> 00:23:20,359
Speaker 1: comedy store. You were the guy that had been on

469
00:23:20,400 --> 00:23:24,240
Speaker 1: with Carson. And then I was on I think two

470
00:23:24,320 --> 00:23:26,440
Speaker 1: or three more times, and then I started hosting the show.

471
00:23:27,160 --> 00:23:29,440
Speaker 1: And again that was another you know, you just feel

472
00:23:29,480 --> 00:23:32,000
Speaker 1: like it's like it's like winning the World Series or

473
00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:34,200
Speaker 1: your rookie season. What's the gap of time between when

474
00:23:34,200 --> 00:23:35,960
Speaker 1: you first sat down with him when you started hosting.

475
00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:39,400
Speaker 1: The first time I was on was November of seventy eight,

476
00:23:39,440 --> 00:23:42,320
Speaker 1: and I think I hosted. Uh, it was Monday Night,

477
00:23:42,320 --> 00:23:46,120
Speaker 1: opposite the Academy Awards, so it was the good Spring Yeah,

478
00:23:46,119 --> 00:23:47,879
Speaker 1: and April I should have in April of March April

479
00:23:50,440 --> 00:23:55,440
Speaker 1: part yeah, and it was I was just frozen. I

480
00:23:55,600 --> 00:23:58,080
Speaker 1: was as fro as I can remember Peter Losally coming

481
00:23:58,160 --> 00:23:59,920
Speaker 1: up to me during the commercial break and he said,

482
00:24:00,119 --> 00:24:02,600
Speaker 1: got to loosen up. You've got to loosen up. And

483
00:24:04,760 --> 00:24:08,639
Speaker 1: thanks to that tip, I remember the first night I

484
00:24:08,680 --> 00:24:11,080
Speaker 1: was saw on the Tonight Show and I'm I'm telling

485
00:24:11,119 --> 00:24:13,280
Speaker 1: you four guys at the Comedy Store. This was it

486
00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:17,240
Speaker 1: fighting in competition and backstabbing in bad mouth to get

487
00:24:17,240 --> 00:24:19,920
Speaker 1: to the Tonight Show. If if you don't do well,

488
00:24:19,960 --> 00:24:21,760
Speaker 1: you'll never be heard of again. There's there's no such

489
00:24:21,760 --> 00:24:23,600
Speaker 1: thing as a guy bombings first time on the Tonight

490
00:24:23,640 --> 00:24:26,560
Speaker 1: Show and then having a delightful career that just doesn't happen.

491
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:30,880
Speaker 1: You're gone. So there's a lot of pressure. So I

492
00:24:30,880 --> 00:24:34,119
Speaker 1: I am getting ready to go out there just behind

493
00:24:34,160 --> 00:24:36,200
Speaker 1: the curtain. And my manager at the time, Buddy Mora,

494
00:24:36,280 --> 00:24:40,320
Speaker 1: who was with Jack Rollins and John Charles Joffee. They

495
00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:43,119
Speaker 1: handled Robin Williams and Woody Allen and Dick Cabint and

496
00:24:43,160 --> 00:24:45,439
Speaker 1: some other guys. So that was a big deal for

497
00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:47,439
Speaker 1: me to be with these people. And Buddy and I

498
00:24:47,960 --> 00:24:51,520
Speaker 1: nice enough guy, but we never I never saw I'd

499
00:24:51,560 --> 00:24:53,359
Speaker 1: eye on much. And I think a lot of it

500
00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:57,880
Speaker 1: was my immaturity about show business or just ignorance, not immaturity.

501
00:24:57,920 --> 00:25:00,440
Speaker 1: I you know, I had no time to be immature.

502
00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:03,760
Speaker 1: I was ignorant. So we're standing there and Johnny saying,

503
00:25:03,760 --> 00:25:05,960
Speaker 1: our next guest is a young blah blah blah blah,

504
00:25:06,320 --> 00:25:09,119
Speaker 1: and Buddy says to me, and Buddy always whispered. Everything

505
00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:13,359
Speaker 1: was a whisper. And Buddy, he says, Robin got popeye,

506
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:17,280
Speaker 1: And I said, what are you talking about? His final

507
00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:19,080
Speaker 1: words to me is, I'm going on the tonight show

508
00:25:19,119 --> 00:25:22,160
Speaker 1: from the first time telling me about a booking for

509
00:25:22,200 --> 00:25:24,280
Speaker 1: one of his other clients, you know. And I just

510
00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:27,280
Speaker 1: never got over that. You know, you're a lot mellower

511
00:25:27,359 --> 00:25:29,800
Speaker 1: now than you were. Yes, absolutely, And you'd say that

512
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:32,720
Speaker 1: when you did the show, no matter how crazy or

513
00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:35,040
Speaker 1: how wired you and the whole experience was of the

514
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:36,760
Speaker 1: early show, and you said running around and doing all

515
00:25:36,800 --> 00:25:38,280
Speaker 1: the taking and all the other bits and stuff forth

516
00:25:38,280 --> 00:25:40,480
Speaker 1: in contests and everything, but I mean, just your own

517
00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:43,080
Speaker 1: nature seems like there was a kind of an edge

518
00:25:43,119 --> 00:25:46,040
Speaker 1: to it that that you've lost, but you seem like

519
00:25:46,040 --> 00:25:49,520
Speaker 1: you really just become like so much more. What's the

520
00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:53,240
Speaker 1: word charming? Well, I don't know, but I know exactly

521
00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:55,520
Speaker 1: what you're talking about. And the fact that it's noticeable

522
00:25:55,560 --> 00:25:58,320
Speaker 1: by others is an indication that maybe I'm on the

523
00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:01,720
Speaker 1: right track. Because two, to the exclusion of every other

524
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:04,520
Speaker 1: thing in my life, it was the success of this show.

525
00:26:05,040 --> 00:26:08,000
Speaker 1: As a result, I waited to have a child twenty

526
00:26:08,080 --> 00:26:12,040
Speaker 1: years too long. I just didn't do anything else. It

527
00:26:12,160 --> 00:26:14,120
Speaker 1: was the show and it had to be the show.

528
00:26:14,119 --> 00:26:15,760
Speaker 1: And if it wasn't the show, then find out a

529
00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:17,119
Speaker 1: way to make it the show. And did you come

530
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:19,159
Speaker 1: from that world? Like Lauren, for example, says to me,

531
00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:22,080
Speaker 1: he's he lives a life where his creative was work

532
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:24,919
Speaker 1: is playing, Like, we have some interesting jobs. You know,

533
00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:27,479
Speaker 1: you don't stop working, That's part of it. And uh,

534
00:26:27,640 --> 00:26:30,119
Speaker 1: that is one of the great residuals of of you know,

535
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:32,080
Speaker 1: you're around all these funny people, and you have silly

536
00:26:32,080 --> 00:26:34,920
Speaker 1: ideas and you have silly conversations a life yourself sick.

537
00:26:35,320 --> 00:26:38,080
Speaker 1: But for me, it was like, oh my god, if

538
00:26:38,119 --> 00:26:40,119
Speaker 1: I fail at this, it's all gone away. You know,

539
00:26:40,160 --> 00:26:41,480
Speaker 1: if you fail at this, you get to get at

540
00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:43,480
Speaker 1: the end of the line, and the line keeps getting longer,

541
00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:47,520
Speaker 1: so to the exclusion of other important things, other aspects

542
00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:51,120
Speaker 1: of life. I pursued the show, and then that changed,

543
00:26:51,400 --> 00:26:54,880
Speaker 1: finally changed. Did you wanted to change? No. At the time,

544
00:26:54,960 --> 00:26:57,040
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't know there was another way to

545
00:26:57,040 --> 00:26:59,520
Speaker 1: live your life. I thought you had to keep banging

546
00:26:59,560 --> 00:27:01,320
Speaker 1: your head and banging your head and banging your head.

547
00:27:01,520 --> 00:27:03,640
Speaker 1: And I kept saying to myself, this is what they say,

548
00:27:03,640 --> 00:27:05,560
Speaker 1: It's like pushing a rock up hill. It's like pushing

549
00:27:05,560 --> 00:27:08,440
Speaker 1: a rock up hill, and one day everything will change,

550
00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:11,000
Speaker 1: everything will be great, you'll succeed, and everything will well.

551
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 1: It never it never quite worked that way for me.

552
00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:17,480
Speaker 1: I think, well, not too difficult to assume that. This

553
00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 1: is one of the reasons I had the quin tumble

554
00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:23,320
Speaker 1: bypass surgery. And then my doctor he said, you know,

555
00:27:23,359 --> 00:27:26,680
Speaker 1: he says, you don't have to be this way yourself. Yeah,

556
00:27:26,720 --> 00:27:29,880
Speaker 1: he said, you can, yeah, or you you can. He says,

557
00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:34,680
Speaker 1: there are they made pharmaceutical advancements here, you can help yourself.

558
00:27:35,320 --> 00:27:37,720
Speaker 1: And I said, no, no, no, no, I can't because

559
00:27:37,720 --> 00:27:39,800
Speaker 1: that would ruin this, and that would ruin that, and uh.

560
00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:44,280
Speaker 1: And then Regina got we were able to get pregnant.

561
00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:50,240
Speaker 1: I went into this stark, raving anxious depression. Why well,

562
00:27:50,359 --> 00:27:52,440
Speaker 1: I was fine with it. I thought, if not now

563
00:27:52,560 --> 00:27:54,440
Speaker 1: when you know, and she had wanted to have kids,

564
00:27:54,520 --> 00:27:58,120
Speaker 1: like I said, fifteen twenty years earlier, and so I, uh,

565
00:27:58,440 --> 00:28:02,359
Speaker 1: this is a very complicated, un interesting story, and it

566
00:28:02,400 --> 00:28:05,320
Speaker 1: has it has to do with having shingles and being

567
00:28:05,359 --> 00:28:08,480
Speaker 1: on exotic pain medication for the shingles and getting fed

568
00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:11,119
Speaker 1: up with the exotic pain medication and saying to the

569
00:28:11,160 --> 00:28:13,919
Speaker 1: pain doctor I'm done. I'm not taking it anymore. And

570
00:28:13,920 --> 00:28:15,200
Speaker 1: he said, well, you know a lot of those things

571
00:28:15,200 --> 00:28:17,720
Speaker 1: you can't just I said, forget it. Click and I

572
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:20,720
Speaker 1: stopped taking these things, and within a couple of days

573
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:26,800
Speaker 1: I just turned into this twitching unit cell altered states. Yeah.

574
00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:29,359
Speaker 1: It was very odd. Uh. And the guy said, well,

575
00:28:29,560 --> 00:28:32,919
Speaker 1: you're in an anxious depression and lucid. You know there

576
00:28:32,920 --> 00:28:35,359
Speaker 1: are things we can do here to help you out.

577
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:38,040
Speaker 1: And I said, I'll try anything because I can't go

578
00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:40,440
Speaker 1: on like this. And so it's a small dose of

579
00:28:40,520 --> 00:28:43,600
Speaker 1: an s s R. I suddenly I realized I can

580
00:28:43,680 --> 00:28:47,200
Speaker 1: have myself, my personality of the person that I've known,

581
00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:52,600
Speaker 1: and then lose what was detracting, what was hurting, what

582
00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:56,280
Speaker 1: was actually an impediment, groom out the things that you

583
00:28:56,320 --> 00:28:58,680
Speaker 1: wanted to groom out. Yeah, And when I came to

584
00:28:58,720 --> 00:29:00,360
Speaker 1: this show business and I was in the law angels

585
00:29:00,360 --> 00:29:02,600
Speaker 1: sleeping and I was like Gomer Pyle, I mean, I

586
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:04,840
Speaker 1: swear to God. I came to work and they said, really,

587
00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:08,200
Speaker 1: I have trouble that you were really, but I don't

588
00:29:08,200 --> 00:29:11,600
Speaker 1: mean in terms of of lacking any sophistication. But I'll

589
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:13,680
Speaker 1: never forget the first job I got. I go to

590
00:29:13,320 --> 00:29:16,080
Speaker 1: an audition. I've done that the soap in New York

591
00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:17,800
Speaker 1: and they paid you, you know, a very small amount

592
00:29:17,800 --> 00:29:19,080
Speaker 1: of money. And I thought I was Rockefell and they

593
00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:20,840
Speaker 1: paid you four undred and fifty bucks a day. I was.

594
00:29:20,920 --> 00:29:23,720
Speaker 1: I was the richest member of my family. My dad

595
00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:25,400
Speaker 1: was a school teacher with six kids. He didn't make

596
00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:27,360
Speaker 1: any money. And I go out to l A and

597
00:29:27,440 --> 00:29:29,840
Speaker 1: I'll never forget when I go to the old Lauramar

598
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:32,520
Speaker 1: which is now Sony, and I go to the gate

599
00:29:32,680 --> 00:29:35,600
Speaker 1: at Lauramar, I say, Alec Baldwin. He's like, you know, uh,

600
00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:40,480
Speaker 1: here's your map. You're parking and building sixty seven ninth

601
00:29:40,480 --> 00:29:44,600
Speaker 1: floor slot read twelve and they and they sent me

602
00:29:44,640 --> 00:29:46,840
Speaker 1: to like, you know, the Ukraine, And I go, now,

603
00:29:46,840 --> 00:29:48,480
Speaker 1: where's the office I'm going to for the me and

604
00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:51,200
Speaker 1: he goes right over there, right next to me. So

605
00:29:51,240 --> 00:29:53,400
Speaker 1: I go, I parked the car trot all the way down,

606
00:29:53,480 --> 00:29:56,880
Speaker 1: do an audition for the show, nots landing. I get

607
00:29:56,920 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 1: done and I leave the thing and no cell phones.

608
00:29:59,360 --> 00:30:02,239
Speaker 1: Then this is nine three and so I pull up

609
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:04,440
Speaker 1: to a phone booth. I called my agent. It's late

610
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:06,480
Speaker 1: in the afternoon. They're still in the office. He goes,

611
00:30:06,520 --> 00:30:08,600
Speaker 1: how did it go? I go, how did it go?

612
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:10,840
Speaker 1: I think it went pretty well? Pretty well, you moron?

613
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:13,480
Speaker 1: They want to hire you? And I go, you're kidding me,

614
00:30:13,520 --> 00:30:14,760
Speaker 1: he goes. He goes, yeah, of course he was. We're

615
00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:16,479
Speaker 1: making a deal right now, or closing the deal. Why

616
00:30:16,520 --> 00:30:18,560
Speaker 1: now you're gonna get twenty five for the pilot and

617
00:30:18,600 --> 00:30:20,720
Speaker 1: twelve five an episode. And I swear to God, coming

618
00:30:20,720 --> 00:30:24,280
Speaker 1: from my background, I went go, wait, y'all won't pay

619
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:27,960
Speaker 1: me dollars for the pilot and twelve hundred and fifty

620
00:30:27,960 --> 00:30:31,240
Speaker 1: dollars per episode every week? And he's like, no, you morow,

621
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:33,640
Speaker 1: they're gonna pay you twenty five thousand for the pilot

622
00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:36,320
Speaker 1: and twelve thousand, five hundred an episode, and I literally

623
00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:39,640
Speaker 1: urinated on my trousers. I'm standing at a phone booth

624
00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:42,280
Speaker 1: on the corner of like you know, Walker and Washington

625
00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:44,560
Speaker 1: and Culver City, and the guy tells me this, and

626
00:30:44,560 --> 00:30:47,560
Speaker 1: that's when my life changed for me. It was always

627
00:30:47,560 --> 00:30:50,360
Speaker 1: you were competing against yourself. We didn't go out and

628
00:30:50,360 --> 00:30:52,800
Speaker 1: do a lot of reading, you know some sometimes I

629
00:30:52,800 --> 00:30:56,360
Speaker 1: remember there was a the Jackson five had a summer show,

630
00:30:56,760 --> 00:30:59,240
Speaker 1: so they would say, we need comics, and so they'd

631
00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:01,760
Speaker 1: call the comedies door, and you know, if Mitzi liked

632
00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:04,480
Speaker 1: you'd get to go beyond the Jackson five show. There

633
00:31:04,560 --> 00:31:06,920
Speaker 1: was plenty of work, and it wasn't I think as

634
00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:10,000
Speaker 1: in acting as you describe guys elbowing each other out

635
00:31:10,040 --> 00:31:12,560
Speaker 1: and and higher ups wanting to step on their hands

636
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:14,680
Speaker 1: and hurt their feelings. But when you when you've done

637
00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:17,160
Speaker 1: the show back from the NBC days and now through

638
00:31:17,160 --> 00:31:20,880
Speaker 1: the many years at CBS, it's a very hermetic situation

639
00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:23,600
Speaker 1: for you, and nobody bothers you, and there's different questions

640
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:26,320
Speaker 1: about your budget, and there's every question, but nobody calls

641
00:31:26,360 --> 00:31:27,640
Speaker 1: you don't have to deal with them or do you

642
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:29,800
Speaker 1: have to fight with the network about things like other shows.

643
00:31:29,840 --> 00:31:32,800
Speaker 1: To us, never a fight, it's a negotiation. But we

644
00:31:32,840 --> 00:31:34,360
Speaker 1: don't have the fight. You know. If if we want

645
00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:36,640
Speaker 1: to do something, we can pretty much do it. And again,

646
00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:38,480
Speaker 1: what we want to do now is far different level

647
00:31:38,520 --> 00:31:40,440
Speaker 1: in scopeling we wanted to do when we're because when

648
00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:44,320
Speaker 1: we came into this show, we just thought, oh, Americas

649
00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:47,160
Speaker 1: has been waiting for us. We're going to change the

650
00:31:47,200 --> 00:31:50,800
Speaker 1: face of television for America. And what didn't happen that way?

651
00:31:50,880 --> 00:31:52,520
Speaker 1: You know, it just didn't happen that way at all.

652
00:31:53,440 --> 00:31:56,120
Speaker 1: We did a sketch on the old Late Night Show

653
00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:58,440
Speaker 1: and it was with one of the writers, Tom Gamble,

654
00:31:58,520 --> 00:32:02,400
Speaker 1: and it was Dale the Icotic Page. We had to

655
00:32:02,440 --> 00:32:05,120
Speaker 1: set up nine holes of a miniature golf course. He

656
00:32:05,160 --> 00:32:08,640
Speaker 1: would come in with a NBC page blazer and he

657
00:32:08,680 --> 00:32:13,000
Speaker 1: would play miniature golf and with each failing attempt on

658
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:15,640
Speaker 1: the whole, he would become more and more psychotic. There's

659
00:32:15,640 --> 00:32:18,440
Speaker 1: your comedy, America. This is what you've been waiting for you,

660
00:32:18,640 --> 00:32:21,880
Speaker 1: aren't you glad we're here? Bro? I love on your show.

661
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:23,240
Speaker 1: I haven't done this in a while. I miss it

662
00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:25,320
Speaker 1: when because because everything, I guess they can't do this

663
00:32:25,360 --> 00:32:27,360
Speaker 1: stuff all the time, and maybe this bit is a

664
00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:29,239
Speaker 1: victim of global warming. But I get there one time

665
00:32:29,280 --> 00:32:30,720
Speaker 1: and they want me to ride the snowmobile on the

666
00:32:30,800 --> 00:32:34,040
Speaker 1: roof of the building. Years ago. They're all very droll,

667
00:32:34,280 --> 00:32:36,520
Speaker 1: you know, and Iff always calls me Alex. I love

668
00:32:36,600 --> 00:32:39,320
Speaker 1: that you're on the roof and snowing, and we're on

669
00:32:39,360 --> 00:32:42,240
Speaker 1: the roof of your building at snowing. Like, okay, now, Alex,

670
00:32:43,080 --> 00:32:46,360
Speaker 1: You're gonna ride the snowmobile around the roof a few

671
00:32:46,360 --> 00:32:48,600
Speaker 1: times and gonna mean, man, I've never called it to

672
00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:50,240
Speaker 1: catch you, to keep you from going over the side.

673
00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:54,880
Speaker 1: Is that all right? I'm like, great, let me go danger.

674
00:32:55,200 --> 00:33:00,480
Speaker 1: You know it elements. What's a good show for you? Now? Well,

675
00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:02,600
Speaker 1: it defines a good show for like, you know the

676
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:05,320
Speaker 1: I think the last time you were on I say this,

677
00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:07,959
Speaker 1: of course, you know, suck up good idea. It was

678
00:33:08,040 --> 00:33:12,360
Speaker 1: a very pleasant, easy give and take an exchange. I

679
00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:15,280
Speaker 1: love it when a good, smart, funny guy just comes

680
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:17,840
Speaker 1: right back at me, you know, in the beginning, when

681
00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:21,120
Speaker 1: he so mean, why does he mean to everybody? And

682
00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:22,800
Speaker 1: I never thought I was being mean. I just thought

683
00:33:22,840 --> 00:33:25,720
Speaker 1: I was, you know, goofing around. Yeah, so when you

684
00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:28,240
Speaker 1: were coming on and you were going after me, that

685
00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:31,000
Speaker 1: was delightful. I love that for those segment producers who

686
00:33:31,080 --> 00:33:32,440
Speaker 1: you work with him. And it took me a while

687
00:33:32,560 --> 00:33:33,800
Speaker 1: to be able to. I mean I would do the

688
00:33:33,800 --> 00:33:35,960
Speaker 1: show with you a number of times and the segment

689
00:33:35,960 --> 00:33:37,680
Speaker 1: producers would they would say that to you. They'd say

690
00:33:37,680 --> 00:33:39,760
Speaker 1: to you know, no, get it back to it that

691
00:33:40,520 --> 00:33:43,040
Speaker 1: So many people I think that runs against their nature.

692
00:33:43,320 --> 00:33:46,120
Speaker 1: Other people are ill equipped to do that. You live

693
00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:50,120
Speaker 1: a pretty under the radar lifestyle. Do you do that

694
00:33:50,200 --> 00:33:54,200
Speaker 1: by choice? Well, a very quiet private life. First of all,

695
00:33:54,480 --> 00:33:57,840
Speaker 1: I don't get invited many places. Secondly, I just would

696
00:33:57,880 --> 00:34:00,320
Speaker 1: you know, you do the show and all of that

697
00:34:00,360 --> 00:34:02,440
Speaker 1: comes to you during the day. You know, you have

698
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:04,760
Speaker 1: the same people at the gala, of the same people

699
00:34:04,760 --> 00:34:07,280
Speaker 1: at the opening, the same people benefit will be there

700
00:34:07,320 --> 00:34:09,080
Speaker 1: with that expression of all that for us. So I

701
00:34:09,120 --> 00:34:11,320
Speaker 1: don't feel the need to go seek that. And secondly,

702
00:34:11,560 --> 00:34:15,480
Speaker 1: like so many people, I'm uncomfortable with large groups of strangers.

703
00:34:15,520 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 1: I mean I think people are And what is your

704
00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:20,480
Speaker 1: downtime like? Now, what do you like to do? Uh? Well,

705
00:34:20,520 --> 00:34:23,880
Speaker 1: sleep is as a precious commodity. There's virtually no sleep

706
00:34:23,920 --> 00:34:27,279
Speaker 1: between my eight year old son and my two year

707
00:34:27,320 --> 00:34:29,759
Speaker 1: old dog and my wife. My wife, honest to god,

708
00:34:29,760 --> 00:34:32,359
Speaker 1: has not slept eight hours in eight years. I mean

709
00:34:32,480 --> 00:34:34,279
Speaker 1: she she'll go to bed at midnight, get up at six,

710
00:34:34,320 --> 00:34:36,520
Speaker 1: so that's six hours. You can do that once or twice,

711
00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:38,560
Speaker 1: you know, like when you're eighteen and you're in the Marines,

712
00:34:38,760 --> 00:34:43,719
Speaker 1: I if I have terminals. So when you're not fighting insomnia,

713
00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:46,080
Speaker 1: what is do you like to travel? Travel? Well, you

714
00:34:46,120 --> 00:34:47,600
Speaker 1: do things when you have an eight year old, as

715
00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:49,120
Speaker 1: you know, when you have a child, you do things

716
00:34:49,120 --> 00:34:51,600
Speaker 1: you never thought you would do, and it's fun. We

717
00:34:51,640 --> 00:34:54,360
Speaker 1: went to Alaska a few weeks ago because it was

718
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:57,840
Speaker 1: my birthday, and I was talking to my son and

719
00:34:57,840 --> 00:34:59,680
Speaker 1: and I said, well, you know, we're thinking of u

720
00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:03,440
Speaker 1: about maybe going up to Alaska. This guy tells me

721
00:35:03,480 --> 00:35:06,040
Speaker 1: there's a place to ski up there. Let's go to Alaska.

722
00:35:06,400 --> 00:35:08,040
Speaker 1: And so I said, well, you know, we're still thinking

723
00:35:08,080 --> 00:35:10,000
Speaker 1: about it and still thinking about it. And then I

724
00:35:10,040 --> 00:35:12,640
Speaker 1: hear from Regina that now Harry is going to school

725
00:35:12,719 --> 00:35:16,160
Speaker 1: and told everybody that daddy and me and mom we're

726
00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:18,640
Speaker 1: going to Alaska. And I thought, holy, that's how he

727
00:35:18,680 --> 00:35:20,719
Speaker 1: gets you're going to Alaska. So a lot of that

728
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:23,719
Speaker 1: stuff is kid driven. And you know, I'm all for

729
00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:27,680
Speaker 1: no tennis, no golf, No no tennis, no golf, no movies.

730
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:30,920
Speaker 1: I see plenty of movies all the Oh no, not

731
00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:33,480
Speaker 1: at home so much. It's all it's all with the kid.

732
00:35:33,640 --> 00:35:35,800
Speaker 1: Do you find that your son, because this is very common.

733
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:38,480
Speaker 1: He pulls you into the world, into his world, and

734
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:40,120
Speaker 1: you have to show up at things and show up

735
00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:43,920
Speaker 1: at places, and everybody treats you very respectfully. People are

736
00:35:43,920 --> 00:35:46,960
Speaker 1: there as a dad. Yeah. The last time anything untoward

737
00:35:47,040 --> 00:35:51,360
Speaker 1: happened was a Christmas party. My wife has his friends

738
00:35:51,360 --> 00:35:54,440
Speaker 1: with a very famous couple, and I have great admiration

739
00:35:54,520 --> 00:35:57,480
Speaker 1: for the couple. More people should be like these people

740
00:35:57,719 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 1: and and as a result, I'm afraid to be around

741
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:04,040
Speaker 1: them us I'm duck lips. Yeah, oh, I make myself

742
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:07,200
Speaker 1: look back. I went to a Christmas party and it

743
00:36:07,280 --> 00:36:10,280
Speaker 1: was so packed that you couldn't move. It was all vertical.

744
00:36:10,440 --> 00:36:14,400
Speaker 1: Nothing happened horizontally, and as people kind of from their

745
00:36:14,440 --> 00:36:17,960
Speaker 1: positions about the apartment, spotted me, it was it was

746
00:36:18,040 --> 00:36:22,960
Speaker 1: as though there was methane gas leaking in the apartment.

747
00:36:23,400 --> 00:36:29,200
Speaker 1: It was oh no, and it's the holidays, and why

748
00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:34,560
Speaker 1: is he here? Yeah, true story. People. You people don't

749
00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:38,319
Speaker 1: love people. People love you. No, no, no, no people people.

750
00:36:38,719 --> 00:36:40,920
Speaker 1: But the thing is that you you get a lot

751
00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:43,279
Speaker 1: of that qution on the job, and then when the

752
00:36:43,360 --> 00:36:45,560
Speaker 1: job's over, you want to go home. That's right, That's

753
00:36:45,560 --> 00:36:48,080
Speaker 1: exactly right. And and especially now with with the eight

754
00:36:48,120 --> 00:36:51,160
Speaker 1: year old, because you know, and I feel stupid talking

755
00:36:51,160 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 1: about it because I'm like the billion person who have

756
00:36:55,040 --> 00:36:57,239
Speaker 1: a child, so I have I have no I have

757
00:36:57,280 --> 00:37:02,080
Speaker 1: no insights. He might claim he has no insights. But

758
00:37:02,080 --> 00:37:04,960
Speaker 1: if David Letterman ever writes a book on parenting, it's

759
00:37:05,040 --> 00:37:10,359
Speaker 1: guaranteed to be a bestseller. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're

760
00:37:10,400 --> 00:37:14,640
Speaker 1: listening to Here's the Thing, Real conversations with artists, writers,

761
00:37:14,640 --> 00:37:18,360
Speaker 1: policymakers and performers. That's where I find out why people

762
00:37:18,440 --> 00:37:21,600
Speaker 1: do what they do. It has been such a great

763
00:37:21,719 --> 00:37:27,720
Speaker 1: rewarding and satisfying experience. I always say that anything Alec

764
00:37:27,880 --> 00:37:30,560
Speaker 1: Baldwin asked me to do, I do. You've come through.

765
00:37:31,960 --> 00:37:34,759
Speaker 1: You can listen to other episodes at Here's the Thing

766
00:37:34,840 --> 00:37:42,560
Speaker 1: dot Org. I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the

767
00:37:42,560 --> 00:37:47,000
Speaker 1: Thing Mr Douglas. Michael Douglas has lived on Central Park

768
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:50,600
Speaker 1: West for decades. The son of Kirk Douglas, he's American

769
00:37:50,680 --> 00:37:53,600
Speaker 1: acting royalty, but he's earned his own place at the

770
00:37:53,719 --> 00:37:58,080
Speaker 1: round table with powerful performances throughout his career. Gordon Gecko

771
00:37:58,160 --> 00:38:01,120
Speaker 1: in Wall Street, Dan Gallagher and Fay of Attraction. Then

772
00:38:01,160 --> 00:38:05,000
Speaker 1: there's Romancing The Stone, Basic Instinct, The Game Traffic and

773
00:38:05,040 --> 00:38:09,200
Speaker 1: Wonder Boys. He has two Academy Awards, one as an actor,

774
00:38:09,239 --> 00:38:12,160
Speaker 1: another as a producer, and he's worked with everyone from

775
00:38:12,160 --> 00:38:17,520
Speaker 1: Oliver Stone to Curtis Hanson, Hello Seven. He worked with

776
00:38:17,520 --> 00:38:21,480
Speaker 1: the British director Adrian Lyme on Fatal Attraction. He was

777
00:38:21,560 --> 00:38:24,279
Speaker 1: great and he has a great knack and talent for that.

778
00:38:24,360 --> 00:38:26,640
Speaker 1: And I remember, you know when Glenn and I when

779
00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:28,719
Speaker 1: were doing Fatal Attraction and we have the scene in

780
00:38:28,719 --> 00:38:30,759
Speaker 1: the kitchen the first time when we were kind of

781
00:38:30,760 --> 00:38:33,200
Speaker 1: going at it, got her up on the kitchen sink,

782
00:38:33,320 --> 00:38:35,359
Speaker 1: and so he did a take on that and said,

783
00:38:35,360 --> 00:38:36,799
Speaker 1: well that was that was one of the love That

784
00:38:36,880 --> 00:38:38,880
Speaker 1: was just great. What could we do? I think? And

785
00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:41,440
Speaker 1: Glam said, well, maybe I can take the water and

786
00:38:41,640 --> 00:38:45,200
Speaker 1: I can stick by wet fingers in his mouth lovely, lovely, lovely, lovely?

787
00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:47,920
Speaker 1: How many of your fingers can be? Could you get

788
00:38:47,960 --> 00:38:52,000
Speaker 1: all of your fingers into his mouth? Taling exactly? He

789
00:38:52,080 --> 00:38:54,440
Speaker 1: was great, he was, I love his films and a

790
00:38:54,440 --> 00:38:56,840
Speaker 1: lot of fun every other day. He said, well you

791
00:38:56,840 --> 00:38:59,040
Speaker 1: on me? I said, I should get Bill and shape

792
00:38:59,080 --> 00:39:01,759
Speaker 1: this picture. No, no, no, Eloy a new employa. She

793
00:39:01,840 --> 00:39:05,719
Speaker 1: look just the way you are in about three weeks. Jeez, Michael, Mike,

794
00:39:05,800 --> 00:39:09,600
Speaker 1: you look like ross and well, but that's a favor.

795
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:12,040
Speaker 1: They love to shoot that down angle, you know, and

796
00:39:12,080 --> 00:39:17,520
Speaker 1: we all look better with the camera above our eyeline.

797
00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:21,320
Speaker 1: Don't you drop that camera? Yeah? When you work, Now,

798
00:39:22,280 --> 00:39:23,840
Speaker 1: what's it been like for you now in terms of

799
00:39:24,640 --> 00:39:28,839
Speaker 1: you show up and you're pretty fastile at getting there emotionally,

800
00:39:28,920 --> 00:39:30,480
Speaker 1: in terms of how you want to play it and

801
00:39:30,600 --> 00:39:35,080
Speaker 1: is it more technical for you? Yeah, Someone early on

802
00:39:35,560 --> 00:39:38,040
Speaker 1: in my career told me, you know, the camera can

803
00:39:38,160 --> 00:39:42,400
Speaker 1: always tell when you're lying. Oh. I was like, the

804
00:39:42,520 --> 00:39:44,880
Speaker 1: camera can tell what I'm lying? Well, I used to

805
00:39:44,920 --> 00:39:48,600
Speaker 1: method it up. I gotta be truthful. One day I said,

806
00:39:49,480 --> 00:39:53,960
Speaker 1: wait a minute, I lie every day, I said, but camera,

807
00:39:54,719 --> 00:39:58,439
Speaker 1: if you're lie, not me. I'm different. I'm talented, right,

808
00:39:58,600 --> 00:40:02,839
Speaker 1: exactly what's acting about except Lyne. That freed me up

809
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:06,920
Speaker 1: a whole lot when I realized that. But the last

810
00:40:06,960 --> 00:40:12,840
Speaker 1: ten years the business changed dramatically. The technical part is

811
00:40:13,239 --> 00:40:16,640
Speaker 1: definitely to me now it's all, you know, where's my life,

812
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:20,040
Speaker 1: where's the camera? Raise that camera. I used to say, well,

813
00:40:20,160 --> 00:40:22,759
Speaker 1: we gotta have a clean take when I gotta burn

814
00:40:22,880 --> 00:40:27,400
Speaker 1: one great connected master. Now I'm like into four pickups

815
00:40:27,400 --> 00:40:29,759
Speaker 1: of this line, and it's so technical to me now,

816
00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:31,920
Speaker 1: it's unbelievable. I learned that a lot from actually from

817
00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:35,799
Speaker 1: Jack Nicholson on Cuckoo's Nest. I was watching you know,

818
00:40:35,880 --> 00:40:39,320
Speaker 1: the it's editing. You do someone's take after take it,

819
00:40:39,360 --> 00:40:40,920
Speaker 1: then you go someone look at the dailies and you

820
00:40:40,960 --> 00:40:45,160
Speaker 1: see how my new the differences are, and then they

821
00:40:45,160 --> 00:40:48,000
Speaker 1: can judiciously edit. I mean, I was working with some

822
00:40:48,040 --> 00:40:49,719
Speaker 1: people early on, or I didn't know better, and I

823
00:40:49,719 --> 00:40:51,520
Speaker 1: was looking at people and I say, my god, when

824
00:40:51,520 --> 00:40:53,680
Speaker 1: they watched the dailies of this, they're going to really

825
00:40:53,680 --> 00:40:56,440
Speaker 1: be unhappy because this person is as boring as you

826
00:40:56,480 --> 00:40:59,080
Speaker 1: could possibly mean. They're not doing anything. And that was

827
00:40:59,160 --> 00:41:01,160
Speaker 1: my sin was I thought I always had to be acting.

828
00:41:01,840 --> 00:41:04,360
Speaker 1: And I guess my question is sometimes you go to

829
00:41:04,400 --> 00:41:08,320
Speaker 1: work and you gotta you know what you want to do.

830
00:41:09,280 --> 00:41:10,880
Speaker 1: What do you do when you go to a movie

831
00:41:11,320 --> 00:41:13,279
Speaker 1: and the director has nothing to offer you, He's really

832
00:41:13,320 --> 00:41:17,760
Speaker 1: just a traffic cop point in the camera. My feeling

833
00:41:17,960 --> 00:41:20,400
Speaker 1: is with movies. I mean, first of all, if you

834
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:23,360
Speaker 1: get a good part and the get go is a

835
00:41:23,400 --> 00:41:25,879
Speaker 1: great part, you know, And sometimes you get a good

836
00:41:25,920 --> 00:41:28,279
Speaker 1: part and a lot of a lot of pictures I've

837
00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:30,840
Speaker 1: done where I'm in every single scene and I'm carrying

838
00:41:30,880 --> 00:41:34,600
Speaker 1: the plot line, somebody else has got the colorful, good part.

839
00:41:35,080 --> 00:41:37,520
Speaker 1: But I always think that if you if the pictures

840
00:41:37,600 --> 00:41:41,240
Speaker 1: cast properly, or if you're cast right, I never expect

841
00:41:41,239 --> 00:41:44,319
Speaker 1: to hear much from a director. You don't know. The

842
00:41:44,400 --> 00:41:48,040
Speaker 1: world is so different now. I've got people welcome to

843
00:41:48,040 --> 00:41:50,160
Speaker 1: me all the time quoting some of the most corrosive

844
00:41:50,200 --> 00:41:53,279
Speaker 1: lines from Glen Garry Glenn Ross. I think it's good

845
00:41:54,200 --> 00:41:57,800
Speaker 1: to talk about the kind of funckishness of the sales industry.

846
00:41:57,840 --> 00:42:00,040
Speaker 1: When I say, you know, coffee is for closers, and

847
00:42:00,160 --> 00:42:03,440
Speaker 1: you say greed is good. Do you think in our

848
00:42:03,600 --> 00:42:06,839
Speaker 1: lifetime that that line has changed Greed is good? Where

849
00:42:06,840 --> 00:42:10,640
Speaker 1: people really believe that's true. Well, the affirmation that I

850
00:42:10,800 --> 00:42:14,920
Speaker 1: got from that villain, from that community, from that from

851
00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:17,240
Speaker 1: that community. You know, if I get one more drunken

852
00:42:17,280 --> 00:42:20,839
Speaker 1: guy from the street, hey man, greed is good. You're

853
00:42:20,880 --> 00:42:23,360
Speaker 1: the man. You're why I got into this business and

854
00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:25,840
Speaker 1: everything I go it. Hey, you know that's what I

855
00:42:25,920 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 1: was a villain. What is your relationship to go into

856
00:42:28,680 --> 00:42:32,040
Speaker 1: the movies? Now? Yeah, I'm really embarrassed to say this,

857
00:42:32,080 --> 00:42:34,920
Speaker 1: but I'm not a movie goer. I don't see many movies.

858
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:39,719
Speaker 1: I waste so much time watching news and sports. I

859
00:42:39,760 --> 00:42:41,759
Speaker 1: love watching sports because you know, I can't tell you

860
00:42:41,760 --> 00:42:44,080
Speaker 1: how it's gonna end. My problem with movies. You know,

861
00:42:44,080 --> 00:42:47,200
Speaker 1: as you get halfway through a movie, and you see

862
00:42:47,200 --> 00:42:51,080
Speaker 1: I was right. I love making movies, but I'm really

863
00:42:51,120 --> 00:42:55,600
Speaker 1: bad Alex when it comes to seeing them. When you

864
00:42:55,760 --> 00:42:59,600
Speaker 1: were younger, did you always since you were headed in

865
00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:02,399
Speaker 1: this direct in some way? I never. I never thought

866
00:43:02,400 --> 00:43:04,560
Speaker 1: I was. I mean probably a loud of it was

867
00:43:04,640 --> 00:43:07,239
Speaker 1: resentment as a young kids, my folks getting divorced and

868
00:43:07,280 --> 00:43:09,319
Speaker 1: both the me actors. But I never even thought about

869
00:43:09,320 --> 00:43:11,440
Speaker 1: the doing this at all. And I said I was

870
00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:14,839
Speaker 1: like a junior in college. He took me into the

871
00:43:15,160 --> 00:43:18,440
Speaker 1: Vice Chance's office and your college and you're not in

872
00:43:18,640 --> 00:43:21,600
Speaker 1: a major al right, So I guess you know drama

873
00:43:21,800 --> 00:43:24,200
Speaker 1: should be easy. You know, I had well parents. I

874
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:26,360
Speaker 1: hung around. My mother was in did a lot of theater,

875
00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:28,960
Speaker 1: and so it hung around there. But it's not something

876
00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:33,080
Speaker 1: I dreamed about. But the success you have now came

877
00:43:33,840 --> 00:43:37,960
Speaker 1: in stages. When you were younger and you did your

878
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:41,480
Speaker 1: early films, you were the gentle young man. But I

879
00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:45,880
Speaker 1: wonder in your case because you eventually played a very tough,

880
00:43:46,200 --> 00:43:49,680
Speaker 1: very powerful actor on film. So do you think when

881
00:43:49,680 --> 00:43:51,799
Speaker 1: you were younger you pulled your punches because you didn't

882
00:43:51,800 --> 00:43:54,120
Speaker 1: want to step on what you thought was your dad's territory.

883
00:43:54,719 --> 00:43:56,920
Speaker 1: You don't want to be compared to him. First of all,

884
00:43:56,960 --> 00:43:59,399
Speaker 1: you look at his career. He played the sensitive young

885
00:43:59,440 --> 00:44:03,040
Speaker 1: man for his first six or seven pictures until he

886
00:44:03,080 --> 00:44:06,640
Speaker 1: had a movie called The Champion. I just think I

887
00:44:06,680 --> 00:44:08,600
Speaker 1: was just trying to define who I am, because the

888
00:44:08,680 --> 00:44:11,279
Speaker 1: one problem about being second generation is, you know you

889
00:44:11,400 --> 00:44:13,360
Speaker 1: half of me is made up with my father's jeans.

890
00:44:13,360 --> 00:44:16,319
Speaker 1: My mother, Diana, is an actress too, but not as

891
00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:20,600
Speaker 1: well known. So when you see behavioral or mannerisms that

892
00:44:20,680 --> 00:44:23,839
Speaker 1: are like your father, I feel like it takes away

893
00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:27,640
Speaker 1: from your individuality, right, And it's sort of like earlier on,

894
00:44:27,719 --> 00:44:30,160
Speaker 1: I just was trying to find out who I was,

895
00:44:30,360 --> 00:44:34,160
Speaker 1: and being a nice guy was a way of pleasing everybody.

896
00:44:34,239 --> 00:44:36,600
Speaker 1: But the truth be told in a villain is the

897
00:44:36,640 --> 00:44:41,400
Speaker 1: best way to go. Playing a bad guy better lines,

898
00:44:41,520 --> 00:44:46,239
Speaker 1: it's more colorful. Audiences vicariously love you because a lot

899
00:44:46,280 --> 00:44:47,759
Speaker 1: of time is everything that they want to do in

900
00:44:47,760 --> 00:44:49,880
Speaker 1: real life, but they can't do what you can do

901
00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:53,879
Speaker 1: in the movies. Contrary, women is taking them so much

902
00:44:53,920 --> 00:44:58,480
Speaker 1: longer to be comfortable in playing the villains. And I

903
00:44:58,480 --> 00:45:01,319
Speaker 1: look back to us produced in Cuckoo's Nest and all

904
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:04,400
Speaker 1: the actresses that turned down the part of Nurse Ratchet

905
00:45:04,640 --> 00:45:07,440
Speaker 1: because they didn't want to play a villain. Louise Flesh

906
00:45:07,480 --> 00:45:10,359
Speaker 1: of us Oscar, Yeah, you know, for playing out well.

907
00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:13,799
Speaker 1: When I went to Strasbourg the acting school, we did

908
00:45:13,800 --> 00:45:17,600
Speaker 1: a gender reversed production of Cuckoo's Nest and the girl

909
00:45:17,680 --> 00:45:20,719
Speaker 1: was McMurphy and all the inmates were females, and I

910
00:45:20,760 --> 00:45:23,560
Speaker 1: was Nurse Ratchet as a man. That's a great idea.

911
00:45:24,320 --> 00:45:28,000
Speaker 1: Is your relationship with your dad more father son now?

912
00:45:28,160 --> 00:45:34,000
Speaker 1: Or is it more two great colleagues? In motion picture history. No,

913
00:45:34,160 --> 00:45:36,719
Speaker 1: it's more father's son. It's more fun. I mean, he's

914
00:45:36,800 --> 00:45:40,520
Speaker 1: ninety four years old. I'm just so proud of him.

915
00:45:40,560 --> 00:45:44,719
Speaker 1: And you know, he wasn't a great dad is in

916
00:45:44,800 --> 00:45:46,719
Speaker 1: the prime as an actor. He was, like a lot

917
00:45:46,800 --> 00:45:50,759
Speaker 1: of us, were consumed with his career. For him, it

918
00:45:50,840 --> 00:45:55,040
Speaker 1: really started when he had his helicopter accident. He was

919
00:45:55,120 --> 00:45:58,919
Speaker 1: seventy with a friend of helicopter and they hit a

920
00:45:58,920 --> 00:46:01,880
Speaker 1: aerobatic plane and the when they were taking off, and

921
00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:06,200
Speaker 1: the people near about plane crashed and died instantly, and

922
00:46:06,239 --> 00:46:09,480
Speaker 1: he just was black and blue. Started him on this

923
00:46:09,600 --> 00:46:11,839
Speaker 1: you know, why am I alive and this eighteen year

924
00:46:11,880 --> 00:46:15,920
Speaker 1: old student pilot and the instructor dead. So he started

925
00:46:16,040 --> 00:46:18,479
Speaker 1: getting back into his religious reading the town mood, reading

926
00:46:18,480 --> 00:46:23,000
Speaker 1: the Old Testament, working with a rabbi, and has become

927
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:27,640
Speaker 1: a much more spiritual person. I am in so all

928
00:46:27,680 --> 00:46:30,200
Speaker 1: of him in the third act of his life, what

929
00:46:30,320 --> 00:46:34,160
Speaker 1: he's accomplished between seventy and ninety four, which is about

930
00:46:34,280 --> 00:46:38,560
Speaker 1: nine books. Called him last week. The housekeeper said, he's

931
00:46:38,560 --> 00:46:41,200
Speaker 1: down at the office. What the hell you doing down

932
00:46:41,200 --> 00:46:43,320
Speaker 1: to the office. You know, he's well, I'm just finishing

933
00:46:43,320 --> 00:46:46,799
Speaker 1: the editor of my last book. You've got another book,

934
00:46:46,840 --> 00:46:50,480
Speaker 1: there's yeah, yeah, yeah, what what else? Because well, I

935
00:46:50,520 --> 00:46:54,439
Speaker 1: got a book on sculptures. He said, well that's that's

936
00:46:54,800 --> 00:46:58,200
Speaker 1: that's crete. It's really good. I look at him much

937
00:46:58,239 --> 00:47:02,680
Speaker 1: more um as a father now because I'm you know,

938
00:47:03,080 --> 00:47:08,239
Speaker 1: much less competitive with him. What did he do to

939
00:47:08,520 --> 00:47:11,799
Speaker 1: you or not do for you? The positive or the

940
00:47:11,840 --> 00:47:15,840
Speaker 1: negative that you've passed on to your children. The negative

941
00:47:16,000 --> 00:47:18,200
Speaker 1: is you got to watch your quick temper. You think

942
00:47:18,200 --> 00:47:20,520
Speaker 1: you had a temper like your dead No, no, I

943
00:47:20,560 --> 00:47:26,200
Speaker 1: didn't have people people did. It was the reason why

944
00:47:26,239 --> 00:47:31,200
Speaker 1: you saw, right, I think I realized now because he's

945
00:47:31,239 --> 00:47:34,560
Speaker 1: a white Russian Jew, you know, Belarus and all of that,

946
00:47:35,120 --> 00:47:39,640
Speaker 1: and well that and also he saw how much any

947
00:47:39,680 --> 00:47:42,239
Speaker 1: Semitism there wasn't the world because people would talk to

948
00:47:42,280 --> 00:47:44,160
Speaker 1: him as didn't know it was a Jew, how much

949
00:47:44,160 --> 00:47:47,120
Speaker 1: she should not please come sit down, whether none of

950
00:47:47,120 --> 00:47:51,560
Speaker 1: those people exactly would see that exactly exactly because he

951
00:47:51,680 --> 00:47:56,760
Speaker 1: changed his name is not no longer Danielovitch. Not not

952
00:47:57,000 --> 00:47:59,680
Speaker 1: as bad. I mean, I've I've learned to monitor it,

953
00:47:59,760 --> 00:48:01,759
Speaker 1: or mean, to be aware of it. You used to

954
00:48:01,840 --> 00:48:05,280
Speaker 1: have a short handle. I'm a lot better now. Yeah,

955
00:48:05,400 --> 00:48:08,160
Speaker 1: because I don't care as much. That was there's things

956
00:48:08,280 --> 00:48:10,840
Speaker 1: that you can control. Is that God grabbed me the

957
00:48:10,920 --> 00:48:13,960
Speaker 1: serenity to accept the things that cannot change, and the

958
00:48:13,960 --> 00:48:15,960
Speaker 1: courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom

959
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:18,279
Speaker 1: and all the difference. It's true. Mine was even worse.

960
00:48:18,320 --> 00:48:20,760
Speaker 1: It was even more narcissistant. I was just angry because

961
00:48:21,000 --> 00:48:23,839
Speaker 1: nobody else cared about it whenever it was as much

962
00:48:23,880 --> 00:48:27,600
Speaker 1: as I did. I wonder what was your relationship like

963
00:48:27,680 --> 00:48:29,560
Speaker 1: with your mom in terms of your career. What would

964
00:48:29,640 --> 00:48:33,200
Speaker 1: you and she talk about? Well, my mother's English background,

965
00:48:33,280 --> 00:48:36,359
Speaker 1: she was not so much the business she's She's very

966
00:48:36,400 --> 00:48:43,280
Speaker 1: bright and it's probably more politely critical. Mia as an actor,

967
00:48:44,480 --> 00:48:46,239
Speaker 1: that was that bad, not bad? What did you get

968
00:48:46,280 --> 00:48:52,080
Speaker 1: from your mother? Your mother is in you diplomacy, the

969
00:48:52,160 --> 00:48:55,120
Speaker 1: guy that could produce films. I think Jack Lemon said

970
00:48:55,120 --> 00:48:58,400
Speaker 1: it when we were doing China Syndrome. He said, Michael,

971
00:48:58,400 --> 00:49:01,000
Speaker 1: he said, it hits you with a thousand and powder puffs.

972
00:49:01,120 --> 00:49:04,160
Speaker 1: You know, it takes that to produce, to be able

973
00:49:04,160 --> 00:49:06,839
Speaker 1: to massage people and work with them and get people

974
00:49:07,040 --> 00:49:09,840
Speaker 1: than confrontational in that way. And I think she has that.

975
00:49:10,000 --> 00:49:13,040
Speaker 1: I think my father has made it more difficult for

976
00:49:13,120 --> 00:49:16,440
Speaker 1: himself and his confrontational and this anger you know in

977
00:49:16,560 --> 00:49:19,720
Speaker 1: his career. The positive side of Kirk is a sense

978
00:49:19,719 --> 00:49:25,080
Speaker 1: of tenacity and stamina. My son is a cross country runner.

979
00:49:25,160 --> 00:49:30,160
Speaker 1: Now your son's my ten year old son, Dylan ten

980
00:49:30,239 --> 00:49:35,319
Speaker 1: years old, he's already starting a track stuff and your

981
00:49:35,360 --> 00:49:38,520
Speaker 1: older son has had his problems. What's been your relationship

982
00:49:38,560 --> 00:49:42,919
Speaker 1: with your son's alcoholism and drug addiction? UM? I think

983
00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:46,920
Speaker 1: there's a certain genetic part, and I think as far

984
00:49:47,000 --> 00:49:50,239
Speaker 1: as drug addiction, you know, your peer group plays a

985
00:49:50,320 --> 00:49:53,239
Speaker 1: huge part of that. I'm of the belief that you know,

986
00:49:54,239 --> 00:49:57,799
Speaker 1: fourteen years old, as a parent, you've lost a lot

987
00:49:57,880 --> 00:50:02,960
Speaker 1: of your influence other people and by their peer group

988
00:50:03,520 --> 00:50:07,120
Speaker 1: that triggers and starts it off. And then in my

989
00:50:07,160 --> 00:50:11,200
Speaker 1: oldest son's case, there was no end until he was incarcerated. UM.

990
00:50:11,920 --> 00:50:15,200
Speaker 1: I think secrets play a part in this, and the

991
00:50:15,280 --> 00:50:20,080
Speaker 1: fact that whether it's a bad marital relationship that you're

992
00:50:20,080 --> 00:50:23,880
Speaker 1: trying to keep from your children and the tension is

993
00:50:23,960 --> 00:50:26,879
Speaker 1: there and you're not really kind of upfront, I mean

994
00:50:27,120 --> 00:50:30,000
Speaker 1: this go route. I'm finding myself much more honest with

995
00:50:30,080 --> 00:50:32,759
Speaker 1: my seven year old daughter than I ever thought I

996
00:50:32,760 --> 00:50:36,440
Speaker 1: would be. Also, just because of what they have access to.

997
00:50:36,920 --> 00:50:40,840
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just watching Glee. It was, which is

998
00:50:40,840 --> 00:50:42,960
Speaker 1: our family night. You know, I don't know why I'm

999
00:50:43,000 --> 00:50:45,560
Speaker 1: so surprised. I am. I'm looking at it and and

1000
00:50:45,600 --> 00:50:48,279
Speaker 1: they're watching you right or wrong without without any kind

1001
00:50:48,280 --> 00:50:51,399
Speaker 1: of ratings on it. You know, two boys kissing each

1002
00:50:51,440 --> 00:50:54,560
Speaker 1: other and all that, besides the gay actually physically seeing

1003
00:50:54,680 --> 00:50:59,160
Speaker 1: things free for all. So I think in that way

1004
00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:03,080
Speaker 1: not keeping as many secrets. Isn't it funny how people

1005
00:51:03,640 --> 00:51:05,879
Speaker 1: men in particular who have I don't want to put

1006
00:51:05,920 --> 00:51:10,120
Speaker 1: the stellically who have played near the third rail sexually

1007
00:51:11,719 --> 00:51:14,319
Speaker 1: or very sensitive about them when the children are growing up,

1008
00:51:14,320 --> 00:51:16,800
Speaker 1: they're like, no, no, I don't need to watch that. Yeah,

1009
00:51:16,840 --> 00:51:19,200
Speaker 1: I mean your dad has that great line. My son

1010
00:51:19,840 --> 00:51:26,879
Speaker 1: was sent to rehab for sex edition problem. How much

1011
00:51:26,880 --> 00:51:28,759
Speaker 1: did you inherit that? Which is this is what men

1012
00:51:28,760 --> 00:51:36,160
Speaker 1: are supposed to do? Um? Probably probably, I'm sure you know,

1013
00:51:36,239 --> 00:51:38,440
Speaker 1: I mean I'm watching. I mean my father has been

1014
00:51:38,520 --> 00:51:42,319
Speaker 1: very fortunate, second wife and his French and they've been

1015
00:51:42,320 --> 00:51:46,600
Speaker 1: married fifty six years, I think, and has a different

1016
00:51:47,160 --> 00:51:50,280
Speaker 1: had a different attitude earlier on he was a rascal.

1017
00:51:52,080 --> 00:51:57,440
Speaker 1: So you've been sick. What was your relationship to cancer

1018
00:51:57,520 --> 00:52:01,320
Speaker 1: before you had cancer, how was it in your life? Family? Friends?

1019
00:52:02,440 --> 00:52:06,840
Speaker 1: Never really nothing in my my my father remember had

1020
00:52:06,880 --> 00:52:10,400
Speaker 1: a little skin thing. My mother had again a slight

1021
00:52:11,320 --> 00:52:17,480
Speaker 1: skin issue, but no real history and out. I actually

1022
00:52:17,600 --> 00:52:20,920
Speaker 1: was right after I finished The Wall Street Money Never Sleeps.

1023
00:52:21,760 --> 00:52:25,680
Speaker 1: My throat was a little sore, and I thought maybe

1024
00:52:25,680 --> 00:52:28,880
Speaker 1: it was from you know, like from tension, from the

1025
00:52:28,920 --> 00:52:31,759
Speaker 1: part where you haven't placed your voice, where you're swallowing

1026
00:52:31,760 --> 00:52:34,040
Speaker 1: your words and your your speak from the back of

1027
00:52:34,080 --> 00:52:37,560
Speaker 1: your throat. So I saw doctors. I thought it was

1028
00:52:37,600 --> 00:52:40,279
Speaker 1: some sort of sore, and I had antibiotics, this and that,

1029
00:52:41,239 --> 00:52:43,360
Speaker 1: and then you know, I said, it went on for

1030
00:52:43,600 --> 00:52:47,319
Speaker 1: another couple of months. Your your general practitioner then sent

1031
00:52:47,400 --> 00:52:49,680
Speaker 1: you an experts. I go to your nosing throat guy

1032
00:52:49,880 --> 00:52:54,480
Speaker 1: the periodontis and this and that and another round of antibiotics.

1033
00:52:54,520 --> 00:52:57,840
Speaker 1: And then I went away for the summer and I

1034
00:52:57,880 --> 00:53:01,719
Speaker 1: was in Canada, and I called and said, something's going

1035
00:53:01,800 --> 00:53:04,759
Speaker 1: on here. How much time has passed? She first Now

1036
00:53:04,800 --> 00:53:07,200
Speaker 1: we're in August. And I first went to him in January.

1037
00:53:07,320 --> 00:53:09,160
Speaker 1: It was almost more than half a year. Half a

1038
00:53:09,239 --> 00:53:12,160
Speaker 1: year finding an ear nose and throat doctor at the

1039
00:53:12,560 --> 00:53:17,400
Speaker 1: Jewish Hospital in Montreal, Quebec, and he literally opened my

1040
00:53:17,400 --> 00:53:20,200
Speaker 1: mouth and he took a tongue to press it. And

1041
00:53:20,200 --> 00:53:23,719
Speaker 1: I'll never forget that moment when he looked up at

1042
00:53:23,719 --> 00:53:29,359
Speaker 1: me and looked back down, I knew and he said, well,

1043
00:53:29,400 --> 00:53:33,200
Speaker 1: I guess we're gonna have to take a biopsy biopsy

1044
00:53:33,280 --> 00:53:38,960
Speaker 1: of He said, well, there's a polyt here and it

1045
00:53:39,040 --> 00:53:41,640
Speaker 1: was on my tongue. Two days later he called me

1046
00:53:41,680 --> 00:53:46,359
Speaker 1: back in and said, you got cancer. For for head

1047
00:53:46,400 --> 00:53:51,120
Speaker 1: neck cancer, the best place was Sloan Cattering and I

1048
00:53:51,160 --> 00:53:55,239
Speaker 1: went down and within a week and found out that

1049
00:53:55,280 --> 00:54:02,479
Speaker 1: it was stage four, which is the maximum, so seven

1050
00:54:02,520 --> 00:54:06,279
Speaker 1: weeks of radiation and chemo. The reality is, with all

1051
00:54:06,360 --> 00:54:08,479
Speaker 1: the doctors that I could have here in New York,

1052
00:54:09,040 --> 00:54:12,720
Speaker 1: if I had been checked back in January for heading

1053
00:54:12,719 --> 00:54:15,800
Speaker 1: that cancer, this could have all happened a lot early.

1054
00:54:16,360 --> 00:54:19,240
Speaker 1: And the thing with cancers, you want to get it

1055
00:54:19,280 --> 00:54:21,720
Speaker 1: as early as you can. Because I want to mention

1056
00:54:22,560 --> 00:54:24,880
Speaker 1: that I came to this door, to your home here

1057
00:54:24,920 --> 00:54:29,120
Speaker 1: in New York, fully expecting you to look I'm gonna

1058
00:54:29,120 --> 00:54:31,359
Speaker 1: be very honest with you, not as great as you're

1059
00:54:31,360 --> 00:54:35,440
Speaker 1: looking at you look pretty damn good. I really, I

1060
00:54:35,480 --> 00:54:37,800
Speaker 1: got to go to Cross three. You're working your normal stuff.

1061
00:54:37,800 --> 00:54:39,719
Speaker 1: You look fantastic thing. I lost a little bit of

1062
00:54:39,719 --> 00:54:41,520
Speaker 1: way to help out, but you gotta you got a job.

1063
00:54:41,600 --> 00:54:45,440
Speaker 1: I don't know one the one advantage of this is

1064
00:54:46,160 --> 00:54:48,719
Speaker 1: you'm deciding I'm taking the rest of this year easy,

1065
00:54:49,120 --> 00:54:54,320
Speaker 1: enjoying my family and just take her easy. Now you

1066
00:54:54,400 --> 00:54:56,239
Speaker 1: had kids. So you had your son when you were

1067
00:54:56,239 --> 00:55:02,960
Speaker 1: how old? Should I have more kids? Yes. At that

1068
00:55:03,120 --> 00:55:06,560
Speaker 1: very moment, the doorbell rang, I think, I think here's

1069
00:55:06,600 --> 00:55:12,200
Speaker 1: my daughter. Wait a minute, wait a minute, this is Carris. Hello.

1070
00:55:14,719 --> 00:55:18,200
Speaker 1: Harris was coming home from school and she jumped into

1071
00:55:18,239 --> 00:55:21,120
Speaker 1: the chair next to her dad. Has she seen a

1072
00:55:21,160 --> 00:55:24,200
Speaker 1: couple of your films? At least I have hardly any

1073
00:55:24,239 --> 00:55:28,040
Speaker 1: movies that she can see. Julie and I and the

1074
00:55:28,040 --> 00:55:32,960
Speaker 1: other one The Stone. Don't really like my favorite movie

1075
00:55:33,280 --> 00:55:40,319
Speaker 1: about I Love You Well because a long time she

1076
00:55:40,360 --> 00:55:42,759
Speaker 1: didn't really know what I did. You know, she knew

1077
00:55:42,920 --> 00:55:46,120
Speaker 1: mommy because Chicago and all that. Mommy was an actress.

1078
00:55:46,560 --> 00:55:49,799
Speaker 1: The longest time. He didn't know it, said, tonight, my

1079
00:55:49,880 --> 00:55:52,040
Speaker 1: friend said, what did your dad do for a living

1080
00:55:52,080 --> 00:55:56,200
Speaker 1: in I said, he makes pancakes. And they were like,

1081
00:55:56,600 --> 00:55:58,719
Speaker 1: I'm going to go to a house I love. Thank you.

1082
00:56:00,360 --> 00:56:03,960
Speaker 1: Michael Douglas has temporarily turned in his spatula to play

1083
00:56:04,000 --> 00:56:09,040
Speaker 1: the lead role in Behind the Candelabra biopic on Liberace

1084
00:56:09,520 --> 00:56:14,319
Speaker 1: for HBO out in two thousand thirteen. Liberracci was a

1085
00:56:14,400 --> 00:56:17,160
Speaker 1: lovely guy. I mean the truth. I haven't played a

1086
00:56:17,200 --> 00:56:26,120
Speaker 1: lot of nice guys. This is Alec Baldwin. Here's the

1087
00:56:26,160 --> 00:56:29,359
Speaker 1: Thing is produced by Emily Botine and Kathy Russo, with

1088
00:56:29,480 --> 00:56:33,800
Speaker 1: support from Jim Briggs, ed Herbstman, Melanie Hoops and Monica Hopkins.

1089
00:56:34,280 --> 00:56:37,920
Speaker 1: Thanks to Trey k lu Okowski and Larry Josephson and

1090
00:56:38,000 --> 00:56:42,320
Speaker 1: the Radio Foundation. This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening

1091
00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:43,319
Speaker 1: to Here's the Thing.