Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Talking to people who talk to other people for a
Speaker 1: living can be challenging, especially if that person is David Letterman,
Speaker 1: a legendary comedian and late night talk show host, is
Speaker 1: always somewhat guarded and never assuming the faux familiarity that
Speaker 1: some of his contemporaries do, so when he sat down
Speaker 1: with me to do my show, I wasn't sure what
Speaker 1: to expect. However, early in our talk, Letterman discussed his
Speaker 1: college years in the nineteen sixties and now once the
Speaker 1: draft was changed, Letterman avoided going off to Vietnam. In
Speaker 1: those days, you get the student deferment, and Balsa was
Speaker 1: prinsipally a teacher's college in those days, and so they
Speaker 1: wanted teachers. He was chock full of guys who wanted
Speaker 1: that student deferment and also the teaching deferment. I was
Speaker 1: not studying teaching, so the minute I graduated was reclassified
Speaker 1: one A went for my pre draft physical in April
Speaker 1: and they said, okay, we'll call you. And then in
Speaker 1: the meantime before I was called, Nixon announced the National
Speaker 1: Lottery they were going to end the draft. They were
Speaker 1: trying to step down the Vietnamese War. My birthday was
Speaker 1: three forty two or something like that, at A three
Speaker 1: undred fifty six, So that meant even though I was
Speaker 1: one A and had my pre induction physical and was
Speaker 1: ready to go, it was over for me. At the time,
Speaker 1: I didn't know how lucky I was. I felt guilty
Speaker 1: because I had friends who had gone, and I had
Speaker 1: friends who had been in the Marine Corps, and I
Speaker 1: just felt like, well, why met these guys went, Why
Speaker 1: shouldn't I go? And then it dawned on me pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: I had been among the really really lucky. Yeah, what
Speaker 1: was the political landscape like at Ballston when you went there? Well,
Speaker 1: it was just starting to Uh. I used to make
Speaker 1: jokes that they would have student protests, but it was
Speaker 1: to get the cafeteria cooks to wear hairnets. But it was.
Speaker 1: It was creeping in. It was not a hot bed.
Speaker 1: It was not Madison, Wisconsin. It was Muncie, Indiana. But
Speaker 1: it was starting and there were sit ins and demonstrations,
Speaker 1: and you know, Bobby Kennedy had spoken on campus, so
Speaker 1: it was starting, but I wouldn't say it was. It
Speaker 1: wasn't quite lit up the way it might have been
Speaker 1: in other regions. You mentioned booth announcers, and I remember
Speaker 1: I did a YouTube search. I wanted to find this
Speaker 1: guy that was literally the voice of my childhood w
Speaker 1: r Andy come on and say, you know, uh next
Speaker 1: on Million Dollar Movie, Barbara stan mctells Gary Cooper where
Speaker 1: he Can Go? And Ball of Fire and he just
Speaker 1: said this voice, it was just it just haunted me. Well,
Speaker 1: that's interesting. You mentioned that guy I had the little
Speaker 1: kid voice from Indiana. I wasn't that guy, but I
Speaker 1: still had to do the job. And I can't impress
Speaker 1: upon you enough how tedious it is to sit there
Speaker 1: for eight hours watching programming and logging everything that happens.
Speaker 1: If you lose audio, you have to log that. If
Speaker 1: you lose video, you have to log that. You have
Speaker 1: to log sign on, sign off, every commercial, every station break.
Speaker 1: And at first I was scared, silly, but then, like
Speaker 1: everything else, you get accustomed to it and you become blase.
Speaker 1: And so I would just start wandering the building. You know,
Speaker 1: it was so embarrassing. They would will the booth announcer
Speaker 1: please report to the announced booth, and oh my god,
Speaker 1: I've missed the so and so. The main announcer was
Speaker 1: a guy named Rob Stone. Tremendous voice and hopeless alcoholic,
Speaker 1: I mean a real alcoholic, go hand in hand, yeah,
Speaker 1: kind of. Certainly in those days it was not uncommon.
Speaker 1: He would come in and he would bring a point
Speaker 1: with him. And so in the spirit of this, we
Speaker 1: who were working the sign off shift, we would always
Speaker 1: send somebody out for beer, and we would be at
Speaker 1: the station late at night signing off, and myself and
Speaker 1: the director and whomever else was there, we'd be drinking beer.
Speaker 1: Oh my, with this fun. In those days, you would
Speaker 1: do a five minute new summary before sign off nightcap news,
Speaker 1: and then you would do the the broadcast statement. You'd
Speaker 1: read that over the slide of the station, and then
Speaker 1: they would go to the national anthem with the waving flag.
Speaker 1: One night, a guy in the props department said, I
Speaker 1: can reconstruct exactly the station is pictured on the slide.
Speaker 1: We can make it blow up. So as you're as
Speaker 1: you're reading the thank you and good night and why
Speaker 1: not tune in w LW overnight and blah blah this
Speaker 1: and so until tomorrow, good night and good luck, I
Speaker 1: have the thing come home. And so we did. Oh god,
Speaker 1: we were proud of ourselves. You know, we really thought
Speaker 1: we had done something. Geez. Nobody ever said anything. No,
Speaker 1: it was bizarre. Nobody got fired. Nobody asked a question
Speaker 1: about it. You know. It was this cult of four
Speaker 1: or five guys who had pulled this off, and we
Speaker 1: just thought, well, this is one. It was fun, but
Speaker 1: too you wanted but no, nobody nobody said anything. But
Speaker 1: but what's interesting is from school and then doing the
Speaker 1: job and so forth in the booth thing the comedy
Speaker 1: gland is secreting through the entire time. What are you
Speaker 1: doing for that? Meaning? Other than blowing up the studio
Speaker 1: and in the sign off or yes, I was looking
Speaker 1: for any outlet, and it came for me doing the weather.
Speaker 1: I knew nothing about whether you'd go downstairs and I'd
Speaker 1: have the A P machine and the map would come over,
Speaker 1: the national map, and you would go to the big
Speaker 1: magnetic board in the studio and you put the low system,
Speaker 1: and you put the high system, and you put the
Speaker 1: occluded front, and you put the rain showers, and so
Speaker 1: it told you everything any time at all that I
Speaker 1: could monkey with that, I was very happy. I can
Speaker 1: remember two episodes. One I was had forecast sunny and
Speaker 1: dryet and we we go off the air and blah blah,
Speaker 1: and I go outside this this is horrible thundershower. The
Speaker 1: rain is coming down in sheets, and I was just
Speaker 1: twenty ft away, just oblivious of this. This uh dangerous
Speaker 1: is coming through this one of these violent Midwestern summer
Speaker 1: thunderstorms coming attacking the station. I got to be well
Speaker 1: known because this Sunday Night show was on after the
Speaker 1: ABC Sunday Night Movie, and in those days that was
Speaker 1: big programming. Yeah, we got a bunch of complaints. And
Speaker 1: this was when people were wearing a bell bottom pants.
Speaker 1: I don't think he could buy regular pants. Got a
Speaker 1: lot of calls about he's either not wearing underpants or
Speaker 1: he needs to wear underpants. That's how I distinguished myself.
Speaker 1: Do you want to clear that up now? Were you
Speaker 1: wearing a pan? Of course I was where it was Indianapolis.
Speaker 1: We were not talked to go out without our It's
Speaker 1: whatever problem was perceived was not mine, I assure you.
Speaker 1: And then where do you go from there in terms
Speaker 1: of underpants, and well, if you wish. I got tired
Speaker 1: of sitting in the booth and tired of working weekends.
Speaker 1: And also they didn't. They didn't want me there. They
Speaker 1: would keep bringing in auditions for my job. That really
Speaker 1: hurt my feelings, but I couldn't argue with them because
Speaker 1: I didn't know what I was doing. But the cumulative
Speaker 1: effect of being on TV a lot there, we get
Speaker 1: this memo once from the search department and of all
Speaker 1: of the people, the the anchor team and whomever else,
Speaker 1: I had the highest queue rating of anybody there, and
Speaker 1: it was only by accident, really, So I started looking
Speaker 1: for a job, couldn't get hired out of the market.
Speaker 1: Some people I knew were coming in to start up
Speaker 1: a talk radio station, so I went to work at
Speaker 1: the new talk radio station in that format. It was
Speaker 1: news talks for us w NTS. When I resigned to quit,
Speaker 1: give my notice to the general manage, the guys ad
Speaker 1: and it chilled me at the time. He said, really,
Speaker 1: you're leaving this TV station to go work for a
Speaker 1: brand new radio station. And I said yeah, and he
Speaker 1: said you will never be heard of again. So I
Speaker 1: went to the station, worked there for a year, realized
Speaker 1: that I had to make a move. Nobody would would listen.
Speaker 1: It was a daytime station. This was tremendous. They had
Speaker 1: a daytime license, which meant the radio station come on
Speaker 1: when the sun came up and went off when the
Speaker 1: sun went down. Literally. Yeah. And then the winter we
Speaker 1: were off at three in the afternoon. I had the
Speaker 1: midday shift, and I come in at noon and two
Speaker 1: hours later I'd be going home. It was it was afternoon.
Speaker 1: And then in the summer. Conversely, you were on the
Speaker 1: like nine thirty or ten. It was awful. It was Watergate,
Speaker 1: and and people assumed, well, the guy's got a talk
Speaker 1: show on the radio, but he knows everything there is
Speaker 1: to know about Watergate, and I knew nothing, and people
Speaker 1: wouldn't call in, and I'd have to read endless pages
Speaker 1: of wire copy. I remember reading it sorry about Gordon
Speaker 1: strachan str A c h A N. His name kept
Speaker 1: I'm going up a special counsel, so and so Gordon
Speaker 1: Stratch and adviser of the White House, Gordon Stratch. And
Speaker 1: finally the phones light up and I, thank god, did
Speaker 1: I say yes, He says, it's not Stratching, it's Strang
Speaker 1: You're mispronouncing the guy's name. I said, okay, thanks you everything,
Speaker 1: no click buzz, So there you go. Were you ambitious
Speaker 1: during this time? Did you have an ambition. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: wanted to. I really thought, Um, I really thought I
Speaker 1: could write half hours situation comedies. I thought I could.
Speaker 1: What did you watch one? In my childhood it was
Speaker 1: completely different. It would have been stuff like Saturday Morning Nonsense.
Speaker 1: Then as I grew older, you get Mayberry, the Andy
Speaker 1: Griffs Show, Ozzie and Harriet, Nelson and Nelson's and that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. And then later on and in those days,
Speaker 1: it was all the Mary Tyler More things, the Bob
Speaker 1: Newhart Show, on the Mary Tyler More Show. And I
Speaker 1: really thought, oh, I can write one of those Mary
Speaker 1: Tyler Moore shows. And it turned out I couldn't. As
Speaker 1: you know, there's a template for writing those things. They
Speaker 1: used the template because it's successful. And if you don't
Speaker 1: know the template and you think you can make a
Speaker 1: or version of it, it's a very foreign object to them.
Speaker 1: To you, you think, look, I've improved on the template,
Speaker 1: but they don't want that. They want something to Yes,
Speaker 1: that's right. I mean we're talking about Mary Tyler Moore.
Speaker 1: That's pretty good stuff. Smart and you're in l A
Speaker 1: at that time. No, I'm still in Indianapolis, and I
Speaker 1: would be sending scripts and looking for an agent. Finally
Speaker 1: a guy said, yeah, if you come to Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: he said, I'll be your agent. So with that encouragement,
Speaker 1: I just left. And I don't know about you, but
Speaker 1: you know your friends say, okay, here you can meet
Speaker 1: with so and so, and and you can meet mel
Speaker 1: Blank's son, you can meet with him and and I
Speaker 1: know this one, and I know that one, and so
Speaker 1: you go out there with high hopes. I guess it's
Speaker 1: like the Pioneers and the kind of Stoga wagon and
Speaker 1: they run out of beans. You know, they're in Salt
Speaker 1: Lake and they got nothing need. So within the first
Speaker 1: week you run through all of your appointments and then
Speaker 1: you've got nothing. Then your Shanghai. That's right on the
Speaker 1: show was there in l A. Remember when I went
Speaker 1: to l A. I did a soap opera at thirty Rock.
Speaker 1: The show is about to go off the air and
Speaker 1: on every forget this guy that was the producer. Here,
Speaker 1: we're in the hallway and they asked me to extend
Speaker 1: my contract for a few months, and he says that
Speaker 1: line to me. He says, what do you think you're
Speaker 1: gonna do? Go out the Hollywood, become a star in
Speaker 1: the movies. I'm walking down the hollies going do listen
Speaker 1: to me? Come back here? You you don't walk away
Speaker 1: from me? And I walk away from the guy and
Speaker 1: I go to l A. Now, were you ever haunted
Speaker 1: by that? Did you? Honestly? Did you? Did you? Because
Speaker 1: in my case, I thought the guy was. I said, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I haven't considered that. Of course you do. Did you
Speaker 1: ever think you were going to be? I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't want to get you know, crass about it, but
Speaker 1: you live a very very good life. You've been an
Speaker 1: enormously successful man. Did you ever dream you would be
Speaker 1: as successful as you are? Never? No, And I'll tell
Speaker 1: you the same for you, same for most people in
Speaker 1: this uh in show business. You're just lucky enough to
Speaker 1: get to do exactly what you want to do all
Speaker 1: your life. So that's the success, you know. I always
Speaker 1: thought there was some commission that was going to come
Speaker 1: to my door of my apartment I was living in
Speaker 1: and West Hollywood, and there were not. They're going where
Speaker 1: the Motion Picture Acting Commission? And we've got the reports,
Speaker 1: Mr Bob. We're gonna take it to the airport. By
Speaker 1: the way back to me. I think you're not gonna
Speaker 1: get into. I know the origin of this is is
Speaker 1: your personal fear, But I think that commission is not
Speaker 1: a bad idea long overdue, honest to God. Can we
Speaker 1: get that up and on its feet? Can we get
Speaker 1: a bill? I remember there was a guy, a writer
Speaker 1: for the Old Tonight Show, somebody calling his His listing
Speaker 1: in the white pages was it's Marty Cohen. It was
Speaker 1: not Marty Cohon, Marty Cohen, president of show Business. Just
Speaker 1: oh that's lovely. So were you? Were you doing stand
Speaker 1: up every in Indiana? Uh? No, never did. In fact,
Speaker 1: one of the things that I didn't like doing was
Speaker 1: when I was at the radio station. Part of the
Speaker 1: deal was we just sold a thing to Kroger grocery stores.
Speaker 1: But part of the deal is we want you to
Speaker 1: go out there and m see the song songs. And
Speaker 1: I hated it, and I finally told the guys that
Speaker 1: I can't do this. So one of my big built
Speaker 1: in fears was getting up in front of people that
Speaker 1: I didn't know and trying to, you know, hold their attention.
Speaker 1: Let alone be funny, But for me, the road map
Speaker 1: to pursue was handed to you via Johnny Carson and
Speaker 1: The Tonight Show. They would have comics on it would
Speaker 1: be David Brenner and they would say, and there will
Speaker 1: be appearing at the Comedy Store. And it seemed to
Speaker 1: be that the connection between the Comedy Store and the
Speaker 1: Tonight Show was pretty close. So even though I mind
Speaker 1: that facility that particularly, it was the farm system for
Speaker 1: the Comedy Store, and great guys were coming out and
Speaker 1: getting on and Steve Landisberg and on and on. I
Speaker 1: say on and on because I can't remember the name,
Speaker 1: so I just yeah, even though I wanted to be
Speaker 1: a writer, because I didn't have the courage to tell
Speaker 1: my family and friends that what I really want to
Speaker 1: do is, you know, somehow get famous and beyond TV.
Speaker 1: So when when I went out there the first monday
Speaker 1: I was in California when I moved in, I wrote
Speaker 1: down some stuff and went to the Comedy Store and
Speaker 1: got on stage. It was it was awful. I've never
Speaker 1: been in a darkened room with the spotlight and it
Speaker 1: was just like a train coming at me. So I
Speaker 1: did my little five minutes from route left and then
Speaker 1: the owner of the place, yeah, you should come back
Speaker 1: and do some more. So I thought, are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: And she's no, you can mc so I came back
Speaker 1: and I was the fantastic Yeah, Derek. So that was
Speaker 1: nine seventy eight. Three years later I was on the
Speaker 1: Tonight Show. That worked so much better than it should have.
Speaker 1: I think it must be harder now, Beau wasn't three
Speaker 1: years of just work in that room and work in
Speaker 1: the mic and working stand up. But it was. I
Speaker 1: mean it was fun because every night you go there
Speaker 1: and you were hanging around guys Jay Leno and Robin
Speaker 1: Williams and George Miller and Tom Greson and Jeff Altman
Speaker 1: and anybody now who's you're aware of you would see
Speaker 1: every night. And it was great fun. I mean, my god,
Speaker 1: it was great fun. Didn't make any difference what you
Speaker 1: did during the day. You knew that when it got dark,
Speaker 1: you'd be on Sunset Boulevard. The place would be packed.
Speaker 1: And in those days, the only room she had was
Speaker 1: this tiny, little original room and it was next door
Speaker 1: to U Art Labelle's. He would have a fifties dance
Speaker 1: party in the next room on the weekends and you
Speaker 1: would get a lot of gang guys going to Art Label's.
Speaker 1: Guys non U barrio. Um is that all right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Low Riders. Yeah, and uh, one night, a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: Johnny Dark, is on stage and a guy comes up
Speaker 1: and he's got a gun and he's standing next to
Speaker 1: Johnny while Johnny is doing his little singing impressions of whomever,
Speaker 1: and and he had to quietly, you know, talk his
Speaker 1: way out of the guy using the gun. And it
Speaker 1: was exciting. Sivan Richard Pryor would come in, and Freddie
Speaker 1: Prince would come in, So you say, yeah, night after night.
Speaker 1: But still in all, how could that not be fun?
Speaker 1: So did Carson find you there? Well, they had a guy,
Speaker 1: you know, they had a team of guys when I
Speaker 1: was there that would come in. Uh. And in the meantime,
Speaker 1: I got on this Mary Tyler Moore show, uh to
Speaker 1: write and perform and that was it was me and
Speaker 1: Michael Keaton, Jim Hampton and Dick Shawn and Susy Kurtz
Speaker 1: and uh, Julie con Judy con Judy con thank you
Speaker 1: very much. So from that show, uh, they said, oh,
Speaker 1: well we'll put you on because you're on that show.
Speaker 1: You can come out and do stand up and then
Speaker 1: you go sit down and talk to Johnny. And without
Speaker 1: that you never know what the formula is. You could
Speaker 1: be on nine times and never get to sit on
Speaker 1: with Johnny. You could be on for six years and
Speaker 1: every or you could be bumped forty times never But
Speaker 1: because of this, Oh and he's appearing on the so
Speaker 1: and so Show, the Mary Tyler Moore Show, I got
Speaker 1: to sit down with Johnny and and that was again,
Speaker 1: that was craziness. That was That was another one of
Speaker 1: those you know what. Oh yeah, it's such a jolt.
Speaker 1: The material is so committed. You don't have to think
Speaker 1: about anything, You just have to start talking and it
Speaker 1: all comes out. The adrenaline takes days to burn out
Speaker 1: of you. Holy God, you're sitting next to Johnny Carson.
Speaker 1: I mean, you just can't believe it. I mean to me,
Speaker 1: and I think most guys my age who were out
Speaker 1: there doing that one. The fact that it worked. You know, really,
Speaker 1: I drove in a pickup truck with my wife to
Speaker 1: l A and three years later I'm sitting next to
Speaker 1: Johnny Carson. That's not supposed to happen, you know, it's
Speaker 1: just not supposed to happen, but it did. Do you
Speaker 1: think that Carson was someone who do you think he
Speaker 1: saw himself? And you do you think he saw the
Speaker 1: midwestern boy. I don't know, Jean and you, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was so easy for other people to
Speaker 1: make that comparison. Uh, and that seemed to be the formula.
Speaker 1: But I don't I don't know if he felt that
Speaker 1: way or not. Um, I don't. I can't answer that.
Speaker 1: And then what happened after that, Well, your life changed immediately.
Speaker 1: Suddenly you weren't just a guy who was at the
Speaker 1: comedy store. You were the guy that had been on
Speaker 1: with Carson. And then I was on I think two
Speaker 1: or three more times, and then I started hosting the show,
Speaker 1: and again that was another you know, you just feel
Speaker 1: like it's like it's like winning the World Series or
Speaker 1: your rookie season. What's the gap of time between when
Speaker 1: you first sat down with him when you started hosting.
Speaker 1: The first time I was on was November of seventy eight,
Speaker 1: and I think I hosted. Uh. It was Monday night
Speaker 1: opposite the Academy Awards. It was the Good Spring, Yeah,
Speaker 1: in April, I have in April of March April, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it was I was frozen. I was as frozen
Speaker 1: as I can remember. Peter Losally coming up to me
Speaker 1: during the commercial break and he said, you've got to
Speaker 1: loosen up. You've got to loosen up. Thanks that tip page.
Speaker 1: I remember the first night I was saw on the
Speaker 1: Tonight Show and I'm I'm telling you, four guys at
Speaker 1: the comedy store, this was it. This was like people
Speaker 1: lining up to squeeze through a funnel, you know. This
Speaker 1: was it the Tonight Show. Fighting in competition and backstabbing
Speaker 1: in bad mouthing to get to the Tonight Show. It
Speaker 1: is gonna make or break you if if you don't
Speaker 1: do well, you'll never be heard of again. There's there's
Speaker 1: no such thing as a guy bombings first time on
Speaker 1: the Tonight Show and then having a delightful career that
Speaker 1: just doesn't happen. You're gone. So there's a lot of pressures.
Speaker 1: So I am getting ready to go out there just
Speaker 1: behind the curtain. And my manager at the time, Buddy Mora,
Speaker 1: who was with Jack Rollins and uh Charles Joffey. They
Speaker 1: handled Robin Williams and Woody Allen and Dick Cabint and
Speaker 1: some other guys. So that was a big deal for
Speaker 1: me to be with these people. And Buddy and I
Speaker 1: nice enough guy, but we never I never saw Ey'd
Speaker 1: eye on much. And I think a lot of it
Speaker 1: was my immaturity about show business or just ignorance. Not immaturity.
Speaker 1: I you know, I had no time to be immature.
Speaker 1: I was ignorant. So we're standing there and Johnny saying,
Speaker 1: our next guest as a young blah blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: and Buddy says to me, and any Buddy always whispered.
Speaker 1: Everything was a whisper it. But he says, Robin got popeye,
Speaker 1: and I said, what are you talking about? His final
Speaker 1: words to me, as I'm going on the tonight show
Speaker 1: from the first time, telling me about a booking for
Speaker 1: one of his other clients, you know, And I just
Speaker 1: never got over that. My thanks to David Letterman for
Speaker 1: giving me some of his valuable time. Some talk show
Speaker 1: guests arrived with a predetermined almost Arthur Murray asked pattern
Speaker 1: of stories and anecdotes, and many shows in fact encourage
Speaker 1: that on. Here's the thing. Some of my guests showed
Speaker 1: up to have a genuine conversation and during that time
Speaker 1: discussed very personal, even raw moments in their careers and lives.
Speaker 1: Such was the case with Audre McDonald, who spoke movingly
Speaker 1: about the difficulties she found as an artist studying and
Speaker 1: then launching her career in New York. This was my
Speaker 1: third year and it had been just yet another year
Speaker 1: of floundering and doing poorly in all my classes, and
Speaker 1: teachers just saying, you know, you've got to get give
Speaker 1: over to your operatic sound, and me not wanting to,
Speaker 1: not knowing what that was. Um. And when I would
Speaker 1: get close to an operatic sound, I'd say, I don't
Speaker 1: want to sound like that. So I felt like I
Speaker 1: was just being pushed and they were doing their job rightfully.
Speaker 1: So this is like, this is your Juilliard to study.
Speaker 1: This is what you're gonna do to push me into
Speaker 1: a place that just wasn't me artistically. So that coupled
Speaker 1: with being one by yourself in New York and being
Speaker 1: treated poorly by um whatever his name was, what's his name?
Speaker 1: I were so good to say that no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: he's he's fine. He's a great guy now, but in
Speaker 1: any rate, um. So all of that combined with me
Speaker 1: being sort of like the great hope from my my
Speaker 1: hometown too. You know, Ordre is gonna make it if
Speaker 1: anybody's gonna make it on Broadway it's gonna be Audre.
Speaker 1: I the boy was the catalyst. That's sort of like
Speaker 1: sort of broke that. It was the straw that broke
Speaker 1: the camel's back. But it was three years of I'm
Speaker 1: in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing. I'm failing miserably,
Speaker 1: but I'm here in Disneyland where I'm supposed to be,
Speaker 1: where I said I wanted to be. So I I
Speaker 1: I slit my wrists one night. What happened? And you
Speaker 1: write about this? Have you written about this? I haven't.
Speaker 1: I guess I should. I speak about it all the time,
Speaker 1: but maybe one day I'll write about it. And found you. Um.
Speaker 1: I slit my wrists and then realized what I had
Speaker 1: done and called the student affairs director who I had
Speaker 1: become close with, and said, I helped me. Someone came
Speaker 1: and helped you, and they helped me, and they took
Speaker 1: me to a mental hospital. Um. It's interesting this mental
Speaker 1: hospital still there. Um Gracie Square Hospital. It's next door
Speaker 1: to um my uh my O B G y N
Speaker 1: who delivered my six month old. Uh what a circuit.
Speaker 1: So I almost didn't make it, and now I made
Speaker 1: it and I had to pass it. You know, every
Speaker 1: week to go to my O. B. G. Y N appointment,
Speaker 1: I had to pass Gracie Square Hospital and every time
Speaker 1: I passed it, there was a part of me just
Speaker 1: you know, waddling down the street. Pregnatives can be some
Speaker 1: twenty nine years later, I would, um, I would. I
Speaker 1: felt such relief and joy and you know, a sense
Speaker 1: of yes, I I get I get the big picture. Now,
Speaker 1: one month in the school year was that that that happened.
Speaker 1: It was January or February, So it's at the midpoint.
Speaker 1: Let's say, and you take off oficusly and you come
Speaker 1: back when you come back the following fall, you don't.
Speaker 1: I came back, um the following fall for a little bit,
Speaker 1: and then I got an opportunity to audition for something
Speaker 1: that ended up being the Secret Garden actually, and I
Speaker 1: asked the you know, administration office and my the dean,
Speaker 1: what I should do, and they said, you know, go
Speaker 1: do that. It's okay, take the time off to go
Speaker 1: do that. It seems like that's where you want to be.
Speaker 1: So and they they probably didn't want to disappoint you
Speaker 1: at that point. At that point, you want to go,
Speaker 1: sing on, bro, go do it. Yeah, we don't ever
Speaker 1: want to get your way. You know. The thing is
Speaker 1: there was actually a lot, not a lot, but they
Speaker 1: had a special arrangement with Gracie Square Hospital. They were
Speaker 1: a couple of other Juilliard students there that I had
Speaker 1: wondered what had happened to I was there. I was
Speaker 1: at the hospital for I mean Gray Square, I think
Speaker 1: is private hospital. I was there for a month. Um.
Speaker 1: They evaluated me and said, you you're not going anytime soon? Um,
Speaker 1: And did that change you? I was so heavily medicated.
Speaker 1: They I was heavily medicated. And when you say that,
Speaker 1: it's so compelling to me because when I see you,
Speaker 1: I think of you. I think of you like you know,
Speaker 1: you're so strong your personality and perform I view you
Speaker 1: as a person that's going to go. I'm going back
Speaker 1: into the burning building to save the baby. Well that
Speaker 1: is me now, But I think maybe that experience helped
Speaker 1: make me that now. I mean, look, I'm still a met.
Speaker 1: I mean everybody's a mess, always a mess. I you know,
Speaker 1: and I what I understood at going on, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I realized, you know, I'm someone who suffers from depression.
Speaker 1: And but I've learned in the years a how to
Speaker 1: deal with it, be to find, you know, find my
Speaker 1: joy and see you to realize that, like alcoholism, it's
Speaker 1: something that you wake up every day and you say, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's still something that I have to deal with, as
Speaker 1: opposed to saying oh I'm just not depressed anymore. Just
Speaker 1: but to learn how to cope with that and my
Speaker 1: my art gives me a lot of joy and keeps me,
Speaker 1: keeps me strong. So what's the first job you do?
Speaker 1: This is a tired question, but I can't help back
Speaker 1: asking upposedly something like you, what's the first job when
Speaker 1: you do? When you sit there and go, I got this.
Speaker 1: I think I got this, Like I'm over the no
Speaker 1: no meaning you know that the sky is the limit
Speaker 1: for you. You're out there and you're doing it and
Speaker 1: you're connecting to that material you know, and you go,
Speaker 1: I think I really really have a shot at my
Speaker 1: dream coming true. Here it was Sally Murphy and I
Speaker 1: she was she was Julie Jordan, and I played Carrie Pippridge.
Speaker 1: And who was the guy Michael Hayden was Yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: Nicker Lincoln Center, which is also crazy for me to
Speaker 1: then open in in Carousel at Lincoln Center, where at
Speaker 1: Vivian Momont Theater where you can look up and I
Speaker 1: can see the school that I, you know, had a
Speaker 1: hard time in and and I remember standing in those
Speaker 1: in those windows at Juniyard, looking at Vivian Beaumont, seeing
Speaker 1: Patti Lapone performing there, and going why am I not
Speaker 1: doing that? And then how do you feel? Um like
Speaker 1: luckier survivor in the world. I mean, and I felt
Speaker 1: a sense of gratitude, a sense of relief, and a
Speaker 1: sense of Okay, I get it, I now get that
Speaker 1: I was on my paths you greet. That was certainly
Speaker 1: one of the most moving conversations I've had during my
Speaker 1: run on Here's the Thing, Thank you, Ordre McDonald. Some
Speaker 1: artists have come on my show, and although I am
Speaker 1: a fan and thrilled to meet them, there aren't necessarily
Speaker 1: any surprises. There were, however, some wonderful surprises. When I
Speaker 1: sat down with Carly Simon, one of the greatest singer
Speaker 1: songwriters in history. Carly revealed her wide ranging knowledge of
Speaker 1: all types of music and music history, and also identified
Speaker 1: the man who may be the most important man in
Speaker 1: her life. And no it's not who you think. I
Speaker 1: met Jake at summer Camp. We were both counselors at
Speaker 1: Indian Hill Camp in the Berkshires, and Jake was the
Speaker 1: swimming counselor and he also taught literature. These were very
Speaker 1: arty kids, and I was the guitar teacher. All all
Speaker 1: the kids met me for the first time. They had
Speaker 1: known each other from them before. Jake wasn't there yet
Speaker 1: because he had hepatitis and was in the hospital. But
Speaker 1: they said, oh wait till you meet Jake, you'll be
Speaker 1: You'll just fall in love with each other or be
Speaker 1: friends for the rest of your life. I don't think
Speaker 1: anybody had ever ever quite introduced me to somebody before
Speaker 1: I actually met them with those terms that they would
Speaker 1: be lifelong friends. And the day that he got there,
Speaker 1: they prepared to cook out. The campers did, and they said,
Speaker 1: now we want you to come down to the cookout,
Speaker 1: and Jake will come down to the cookout, and you'll
Speaker 1: stand opposite each other, but with with your backs to
Speaker 1: each other, and at the kind of three, you'll turn
Speaker 1: toward each other and light and you'll see what we
Speaker 1: mean about that, your two halves of one person. And
Speaker 1: so it was one to three. We turned across this
Speaker 1: fire which was raging between us and we both smiled
Speaker 1: and we recognized each other in ourselves and vice versa,
Speaker 1: and it was quite amazing. And Jake just dropped me
Speaker 1: off here today. What was it about him? Was he
Speaker 1: writing songs? And was he he was a musician and
Speaker 1: into songwriting, And no, Jake was at that point he
Speaker 1: had just graduated from Harvard. He was the editor of
Speaker 1: The Crimson and he went in he was writing for
Speaker 1: Newsweek magazine, he was writing for Talk of the Town,
Speaker 1: and he was he was the young writer on the scene.
Speaker 1: He was the young prose writer on the scene when
Speaker 1: we started writing songs together. He then also got into
Speaker 1: to working with Terence Malock and he worked on Days
Speaker 1: of Heaven and on bad Lands, and he wrote King
Speaker 1: of Marvin Gardens with Jack with Jack Nicholson in that.
Speaker 1: And so he's he's a man of all words, most
Speaker 1: of them quite quite funny. He's an unusual beyond journalism
Speaker 1: and screenwriting. He was a lyrict as he was writing lyrics. Well,
Speaker 1: he had never written lyrics before. But I had this
Speaker 1: melody da da da da Da Da Da Da da
Speaker 1: da and the whole song because I've written that for
Speaker 1: an NBC special called Who Killed eerie. That was the
Speaker 1: background music for that. So when I was going to
Speaker 1: make this demo, I couldn't get lyrics for it, because
Speaker 1: if I write a melody first, I can't seem to
Speaker 1: find lyrics to it. It's got to be the other
Speaker 1: way around. I write lyrics first. And so I had
Speaker 1: this melody, and Jake was by then my best friend,
Speaker 1: and I said, do you want to try to write
Speaker 1: a lyric? So I gave him on a little cassette.
Speaker 1: I gave him that melody and he came back a
Speaker 1: day or two later with with a full lyric, except
Speaker 1: for one verse, which we edited out. My friends from college,
Speaker 1: they're all they have their houses and there they have
Speaker 1: their silent news tea for saying readin and hate them
Speaker 1: for the things. They hate themselves, Oh what they and
Speaker 1: yet they drink they laugh. Close the wound hid the
Speaker 1: lyrics because there's very pungent lyrics in that song. They
Speaker 1: hate themselves for what they are. Who is he talking about? Well,
Speaker 1: his girlfriend was just about to move in with him.
Speaker 1: Jake and I lived apart, lived one block away from
Speaker 1: each other, but we shared each other's lives and our
Speaker 1: friends were each other's friends. And I met most of
Speaker 1: the people that I know today through through Jake or
Speaker 1: vice versa. So, his girlfriend Rickie was just about to
Speaker 1: move in with him, and he realized that she was
Speaker 1: going to be moving into his rooms. And that's an
Speaker 1: invasion of territory for certain people, And I mean it
Speaker 1: means a whole lot. It means not only are you
Speaker 1: going to be in my rooms, but you're I'm not
Speaker 1: going to be able to get you out of my
Speaker 1: rooms if you're living with me. So, from Jake's point
Speaker 1: of view, that that song was, you know, are we
Speaker 1: going to marry? Are we not going to marry? And
Speaker 1: we had talked a lot about marriage and a lot
Speaker 1: about the fact that being in love with somebody, living
Speaker 1: with somebody didn't necessarily indicate that you had to get married,
Speaker 1: as it had a situation for our years. We're different.
Speaker 1: Um what what what? What? What situation of yours? Were
Speaker 1: you referring the men in your life? Every man that
Speaker 1: I was that I was with, I felt I had
Speaker 1: to marry if I was going to sleep with them,
Speaker 1: or if I was going to have sex with him.
Speaker 1: In any way, I felt as if I as if
Speaker 1: I had to marry them and have children yeah, and
Speaker 1: so times were changing, and this was this was a
Speaker 1: very different era that Kennedy years were upon us and
Speaker 1: the hippie doom, the Woodstock era. The times were hugely changing.
Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't didn't necessarily have to marry the
Speaker 1: person that you were living with and raise the family
Speaker 1: of our own, you and me. Um, that's the way
Speaker 1: they I've always heard it should be you want to
Speaker 1: marry me, and then oh, will marry you, but with
Speaker 1: resignation exactly. And so that's how the song really came
Speaker 1: to life. Was about the disillusionment of my parents marriage,
Speaker 1: which was about walking home at night and tiptoeing by
Speaker 1: my mother's bedroom and she she calls out, sweet dreams,
Speaker 1: but I forget how to dream, and my father sitting
Speaker 1: in the living room with his cigarette cigarette glows in
Speaker 1: the dark, and so it's it's it's all about the
Speaker 1: separation of the people who are supposed to be married
Speaker 1: or supposed to live in one happy house together for
Speaker 1: really not happy and live being in that house, and
Speaker 1: how that affects you when you see them. You wrote
Speaker 1: a book, and a lot of it includes some of
Speaker 1: your childhood and your marriage and everything you know. You're
Speaker 1: both your marriages, and you I think your book only
Speaker 1: goes up through your first marriage. But the idea being
Speaker 1: that you know, what do you leave in and what
Speaker 1: do you leave out? Well, you know, this was very important.
Speaker 1: When I first got asked to write my memoir was
Speaker 1: six and I was and I was called on the
Speaker 1: phone by Jacqueline Onassis and she said, Carley Carling, you
Speaker 1: would make a wonderful writer of a memoir. And so
Speaker 1: that's how I started, and I wrote about sixty pages
Speaker 1: at that point, and realizing that I was leaving out
Speaker 1: the very nucleus of the story, which was about my
Speaker 1: parents and their marriage and the the thing that happened
Speaker 1: to their marriage, which was that which was the great
Speaker 1: divide of having my brother's tutor come to live with us,
Speaker 1: and he and my mother fell in love, and that
Speaker 1: was a separate relationship which existed in the same house
Speaker 1: that she lived in with my father and us and
Speaker 1: and all and all of the kids. So trying to
Speaker 1: leave that out was almost impossible when that formed the
Speaker 1: very essence of me that I was trying to write
Speaker 1: about in the first place. Everything was a lie. Everything
Speaker 1: that I saw as the truth, I was denied the
Speaker 1: veracity of And so when I said, well, Mom and
Speaker 1: Dad are still in love, aren't they, to my older
Speaker 1: sisters that say, yes, they are. They're very much in love.
Speaker 1: And then I would ask my mother and father, you
Speaker 1: know you don't ever kiss? Can I see you kiss?
Speaker 1: And my father would bend my mother down in a
Speaker 1: theatrical kind of bogus bogus kiss bous and u. And
Speaker 1: it looked strange to me. There was something very awfu
Speaker 1: about it. But I was supposed to believe that they
Speaker 1: were in love. Perform for you, tend to mollify you
Speaker 1: well once and then she was off with what was
Speaker 1: what was her name, Ronnie? Where was Ronnie from? Ronnie
Speaker 1: was um a teacher or he was going to teaching
Speaker 1: school at Columbia at the time. He was nineteen and
Speaker 1: she was forty two. Where he was from Pittsburgh, Ronnie
Speaker 1: from Pittsburgh, and they were they were in love for
Speaker 1: many years. It killed my father a combination of that
Speaker 1: relationship that she had with Ronnie and the fact of
Speaker 1: his relationship at Simon and Schuster, where he he started
Speaker 1: to do things in a in a way that the
Speaker 1: accountant who they had brought on board in the company,
Speaker 1: this guy named Leon Schuster didn't want him to do
Speaker 1: and said, therefore, my father. At the same time, as
Speaker 1: as he became sort of sick with grief over his
Speaker 1: relationship with my mother, he got more and more out
Speaker 1: of the loop at Simon and Schuster, and they sort
Speaker 1: of tried to move him up or out of the
Speaker 1: mainstream with Max and Leon and and that kind of
Speaker 1: killed him all further. And then he drank too much,
Speaker 1: too much, he ate too much ice cream and smoked
Speaker 1: too many cigarettes, and that made him ill. And so
Speaker 1: it was a perfect storm and he got and he
Speaker 1: died at the age of sixty. No sign from people
Speaker 1: who don't know the Simon and Simon and Schuster was
Speaker 1: your father. And yes, at the met Max Schuster, his
Speaker 1: old college friend from Colombia. They met. They were both
Speaker 1: selling pianos Steinway, I guess at steinwan Son. And they said,
Speaker 1: let's let's go out to lunch and let's let's go
Speaker 1: into business together. Oh what shall we do? What about books?
Speaker 1: And so they made a little sign which they put
Speaker 1: on the office at the office space that they had rented,
Speaker 1: saying Simon and Schuster publisher What books? And the first
Speaker 1: book that they published was the Crossrood Puzzle Book, which
Speaker 1: made them a fortune and which started them off with
Speaker 1: great footing. With good footing, great speed, opportunities galore, and
Speaker 1: they were the very center of the publishing world. And yes, yes,
Speaker 1: and your mother where My mother was from Germantown, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: Her mother, she by, was Cuban and came to the
Speaker 1: United States on a banana boat. She was Cuban, but
Speaker 1: she was from Africa, but her grandmother had spent some
Speaker 1: time in Cuba. I have the whole lineup, or your
Speaker 1: part black or you part of Cuban or both. I'm black.
Speaker 1: She's an African Africa, Yes, your maternal grandmother. Yes, and
Speaker 1: she was African and went to Cuba. That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1: And then she was schooled in England, and so she
Speaker 1: spoke with an English accent, and she was ashamed of
Speaker 1: what she probably didn't even know she was, but she
Speaker 1: bleached her skin her whole life, and so she passed
Speaker 1: as white. But she spoke with an English accent. And
Speaker 1: we used to always ask her about what her background was,
Speaker 1: and she would say, when I die, will find nothing
Speaker 1: but nothing. And I never talked about the past. So
Speaker 1: we weren't able to get very much out of mother. Yes,
Speaker 1: we weren't able to get anything out of her, but
Speaker 1: she was such a character. Did your mother have a career?
Speaker 1: My mother did not have an official career. Now, she
Speaker 1: was a singer, but she and she was a wonderful singer,
Speaker 1: but she her career was raising her four kids. In
Speaker 1: your home and your father, from a young age becomes
Speaker 1: a very successful uh publisher in the name is really
Speaker 1: a pianist. In fact, when he when he had a
Speaker 1: bunch of heart attacks and strokes towards the end of
Speaker 1: his life and he didn't have his mind and he
Speaker 1: didn't have the capacity of the full fullness of his mind,
Speaker 1: he always thought he was going to Carney Hall, when
Speaker 1: in fact he was just going downtown to dinner with
Speaker 1: my mother, and he said, Sissy, you forgot to get
Speaker 1: off at st I'm going to be late. Because he
Speaker 1: always thought he was going to be playing it. He
Speaker 1: didn't always think, but once in a while he had
Speaker 1: the fantasy that he was going to be playing at
Speaker 1: Carney Hall. He was a great piano. Classical. Yes, so
Speaker 1: music in your home is classical music. Santastical on the
Speaker 1: part of my father and the circle of people coming
Speaker 1: in and out of your home who were celebrities. And
Speaker 1: I have two uncles, one on my father's side and
Speaker 1: one on my mother's side, started jazz magazines, one Downbeat
Speaker 1: and the other Metronome. So they were very good friends
Speaker 1: and they and they had all the drummers and the
Speaker 1: jazz players in this house that we lived on the
Speaker 1: eleventh Street, so there was music from from the jazz era,
Speaker 1: and then my mother always sang the show tunes because
Speaker 1: this was the great era of of Oklahoma and Carousal
Speaker 1: and show and Porgy and Bess was actually performed for
Speaker 1: my mother and father first by George and Ira Gersh
Speaker 1: when they came over to our house, and my mother
Speaker 1: was asked to sing summertime since she had a beautiful
Speaker 1: soprano voice, for them to see how it would sound
Speaker 1: in the soprano voice, or to see what it's it's.
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly what they went over there for,
Speaker 1: but my mother ended up singing soprano and on summertime,
Speaker 1: and my father ended up ended up correcting a couple
Speaker 1: of her notes, and that embarrassed her tremendously, and she
Speaker 1: always used that as the excuses to why she had
Speaker 1: an affair and cuckolded him. No one of them. Yes,
Speaker 1: that was from my interview with the brilliant, the beguiling
Speaker 1: Carly Simon. One of the most enjoyable times in my
Speaker 1: career was when the late Robert Osborne invited me to
Speaker 1: join him on Turner Classic Movies for the Essentials, a
Speaker 1: program we ended up doing a few times together. Beyond
Speaker 1: his abundant knowledge about and passion for movies, Osborne was
Speaker 1: one of the most elegant and gracious men I've ever
Speaker 1: met in show business, so it comes as no surprise
Speaker 1: that I did him on. Here's the thing, this is
Speaker 1: Robert Osborne. I grew up in a small town where
Speaker 1: I went to the movies a lot and fell in
Speaker 1: love with all these people also fell in love with
Speaker 1: the movie business. So all I saw were actors on
Speaker 1: the screen. So I thought, well, that's what I have
Speaker 1: to be if I want to be a part of
Speaker 1: the movie business. Nobody then was talking about film editors.
Speaker 1: There were no film schools talking about directing, you know,
Speaker 1: any of that kind of stuff. I decidedn't want to
Speaker 1: be an actor, and so I was doing Did your
Speaker 1: parents say about that? That was fine? As long as
Speaker 1: I got an education. People yeah, they were, they were,
Speaker 1: They were not. People had said, you know, be practical,
Speaker 1: get an education and something you can make a living at.
Speaker 1: But do what you want to do. At least try it,
Speaker 1: and then if it doesn't work out, move to something else.
Speaker 1: So I started doing a little theater work in Seattle,
Speaker 1: and one of the plays I did was a play
Speaker 1: called knightmas Fall with Jane Darwell. Jane Darwell and is
Speaker 1: the lady you would know this who played Henry Fond
Speaker 1: his mother in the Grapes of Wraps and won the
Speaker 1: Oscar for it. And she's the one that said, you know,
Speaker 1: when you finished with this, what are you gonna do
Speaker 1: when you finish your She came up to Washington to
Speaker 1: a regional theater. Yes, And so I said, well, I'm
Speaker 1: going to go to New York and she said, no,
Speaker 1: you have more of a California. Look, you should come
Speaker 1: to California. And she said, you can stay at my house.
Speaker 1: She had a staff and all of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: They lived down in the valley and she said, you
Speaker 1: can at least get your feet on the ground there.
Speaker 1: I'll introduce you to an agent. She said, I think
Speaker 1: you do very well. So I did Dad with Jane
Speaker 1: Darwell and her family at her house on Ethel Avenue
Speaker 1: in the San Fernando Valley. Yes introduced me to an
Speaker 1: agent with m c A. In those days, if you
Speaker 1: could really walk and talk at the same time, you
Speaker 1: could get a contract of the studio. That first one.
Speaker 1: He took me to his Fox and they said, we
Speaker 1: want you to be under contract. So I was there
Speaker 1: for like six months. And during that period of time,
Speaker 1: I did a television show which was a Western. That
Speaker 1: of all, I was doing a little theater group. This
Speaker 1: is a convoluted story, but I'm going to get to
Speaker 1: where I'm going. And it was a theater group run
Speaker 1: by an actor named Francis Lederer. So I was doing
Speaker 1: some impros in the class and one of his friends
Speaker 1: came to it and I was Paul Henry, you know
Speaker 1: with the two cigarettes with Navis. So Paul Henriid was saying, well,
Speaker 1: I'm directing a western, got a part coming up. I
Speaker 1: think you'd be right for I want you to come
Speaker 1: over and read for it next week. So, you know,
Speaker 1: I was kind of new to all of this, and
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, I went to California and I
Speaker 1: got a contract right away and got a part in
Speaker 1: a TV thing right way. I thought, this is kind
Speaker 1: of easy. So anyway, I did the TV show and
Speaker 1: I had the lead in it for this one episode.
Speaker 1: The stage we shot an outdoor sequence for this Western
Speaker 1: on was where Paul Henry made the Spanish main which
Speaker 1: meant there was also the sound stage where Fred and
Speaker 1: jinjured at all their big dance numbers. So that was
Speaker 1: kind of thrilling to me. Didn't mean anything to anybody
Speaker 1: else in the day, Fred who So anyway, I went
Speaker 1: back the next day to thank the casting man and
Speaker 1: the people that put me in this thing for the Californians.
Speaker 1: There was this wonderful man, Milt Lewis, who had used
Speaker 1: to be a talent scout of Paramount Studios. He was
Speaker 1: in the office and I thanked him, and he said, well,
Speaker 1: do you have an appointment for the Lucy Ball auditions?
Speaker 1: And I said, no, I don't know about any Lucier
Speaker 1: Ball auditions. And he said, well, yeah, she's putting a
Speaker 1: contract group together and so she's going to have these
Speaker 1: auditions and I think there next week, but I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: But let me call up to her office and find
Speaker 1: out instead of a secretary answering Lucy answer, and he said,
Speaker 1: I got this guy down here, and I thought he
Speaker 1: might be a good bet for your contract people. So
Speaker 1: she obviously said, well, I'm not doing anything, send him
Speaker 1: up right now. So I went up to this office.
Speaker 1: There she was. Now, I have to tell you, I
Speaker 1: was impressed by her, but I didn't see a lot
Speaker 1: of I Love Lucy because when that was really hitting
Speaker 1: its peak, I was in college and I was studying.
Speaker 1: I had to study hall. I wasn't didn't watch TV,
Speaker 1: and I loved the movies. If it had been a
Speaker 1: Loana Turner had met her somebody, I wouldn't been able
Speaker 1: to talk. But it was Lucille Ball, and she was
Speaker 1: impressed that I'm into college because she hadn't any finished
Speaker 1: high school. This I got to know about her later.
Speaker 1: But also she was impressed by the fact I was
Speaker 1: living at Jane Darwell's house because I had asked her
Speaker 1: in our conversation who some of her favorite leading men were,
Speaker 1: and she said, leading him in didn't mean that much
Speaker 1: to me. I like working with talented people, but it
Speaker 1: was the character actors I love. She said, I loved
Speaker 1: like Edward Everett Horton and I loved Harpo Marx and
Speaker 1: I love Donald Meek. Well I knew all those people were.
Speaker 1: And she was impressed by that because at that time,
Speaker 1: nobody knew who those people were. There was no nostalgia,
Speaker 1: nobody cared. So it's interesting how at that point in
Speaker 1: your life, the passion you had, that curiosity you had
Speaker 1: that you've turned into a career. Yeah, the roots of
Speaker 1: it were you were just impressing a smaller circle of
Speaker 1: people that knowledge when you're there in and and Lucia
Speaker 1: is going, God, I love Jane Darnward. Yeah. Yes. So
Speaker 1: she had said, is there any film on you? And
Speaker 1: I said, well, I just did this thing with Paul
Speaker 1: Henry and I've also done a test with Anne Baker.
Speaker 1: And so she called over to Fox. Can I see
Speaker 1: the Diane Baker test, Lucille Ball, how soon can you
Speaker 1: send it over? Lucy was somebody that the minute she
Speaker 1: wanted something, she did it. She hung up the phone.
Speaker 1: She said, they're going to send it over. It'll be
Speaker 1: here in about a half an hour. So we kept talking.
Speaker 1: The test was made for Diane, not for me, so
Speaker 1: there was a lot of the back of me. So
Speaker 1: when it was over. Lucy didn't really say anything. She's
Speaker 1: just thanked me for coming by, and I thought, well,
Speaker 1: she wasn't that impressed, but at least I got to
Speaker 1: spend some time with Lucille Ball. Like a week later,
Speaker 1: a message comes on my voice. Uh, you're answering service.
Speaker 1: Absolutely answering service called Lucille Ball's office right away. Here's
Speaker 1: the number. Hello Lebray and nine and calling answer phone. Yes,
Speaker 1: I called the number, and the second he said, well,
Speaker 1: Lucille Ball wants you to come to dinner on Friday
Speaker 1: night if you're available, and meet DESI. I thought, well
Speaker 1: that's interesting. So I go to Lucy's house at Friday night.
Speaker 1: There's no Desi, but there's Lucy. There's Janet Gayner, there's
Speaker 1: Joseph Cotton, there's Kay Thompson, Chuck Walters, Charles Walters, the
Speaker 1: director Roger Eden's, and a couple of other people, and
Speaker 1: her sister Cleo, who was actually her cousin but raised
Speaker 1: as her sister, and me. After the dinner, and they
Speaker 1: were all chatting and laughing and all of that drink drinking.
Speaker 1: Not Lucy. Lucy wasn't no drinker at that point. She
Speaker 1: she learned how to drink a little bit later on,
Speaker 1: but not at that point. So we went in the
Speaker 1: living room and on Roxbury, right next door to Jack
Speaker 1: Benny exactly and just down the street from Ira Gershwin
Speaker 1: and around the corner from So anyway, after dinner we
Speaker 1: went in the living room. She pushes the button and
Speaker 1: the painting goes up. Putting another button, the screen comes down,
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, did you ever believe that you would
Speaker 1: ever be? And then I thought, no, way, I always
Speaker 1: knew I was going to be here. I remember that thought.
Speaker 1: I first started to say automatically, did you ever think
Speaker 1: God and that was the beginning for you? Yeah? And
Speaker 1: I thought, no, I always knew I was going to
Speaker 1: be with people like this, and I relaxed. Then I
Speaker 1: really relaxed as I thought, No, this is where you're
Speaker 1: supposed to yeah, and when you love this is where
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to be. Where do you remember Funny Face,
Speaker 1: which was which was about three years old that no,
Speaker 1: But what was great about it was there's a part
Speaker 1: in Funny Face when Kate Thompson and Andrew Heppurn get
Speaker 1: up and do a number called on how to Be
Speaker 1: Lovely Together. Kay Thompson got up by the screen. I
Speaker 1: did the number so and it was, you know, fun
Speaker 1: watch the movie. The movie was over, everybody starts to go,
Speaker 1: so I think, well, I'm supposed to go to I
Speaker 1: still don't know quite why I'm here, And it certainly
Speaker 1: wasn't Lucy was saying, you know, stay around a little
Speaker 1: boy or anything like. It wasn't that. So we got
Speaker 1: to the front door, spanking Lucy for the evening. She said, well,
Speaker 1: have you signed a paper yet? And I said, put papers.
Speaker 1: I want you another contract. And I said, well, nobody
Speaker 1: said we're doing business, yes, you idiot. Nobody's ever mentioned
Speaker 1: anything about a contract or anything. And she said give
Speaker 1: them an address tomorrow and signed the papers anyone. So
Speaker 1: I was under contract then to Desilu and so that
Speaker 1: was for two years. The great thing about it was
Speaker 1: is that filming television. It didn't pay us much money
Speaker 1: at all, but it was like a masterclass for me
Speaker 1: because there were about twelve of us on the contract,
Speaker 1: but there were three of us who were really interested
Speaker 1: in the business, and she kind of recognized that right
Speaker 1: away and took us under her wing. That's when I
Speaker 1: first met Bettie Davis. Bettie Davis came to l A
Speaker 1: in a play called the World of Carl Sandberg. So
Speaker 1: she took us to the play and then took us
Speaker 1: backstage afterwards to meet Betty Davis and Vivian Lee. Came
Speaker 1: a duel of angels, and so she went backstage and
Speaker 1: settled it vivianly. It took us with her. Anytime there
Speaker 1: was somebody like that, Noel Coward or MARLENEA. Dietrich, she
Speaker 1: would take us there pick up the tabs because again
Speaker 1: she knew she wasn't paying enough money to keep for
Speaker 1: us to be able to do that. So we got
Speaker 1: this terrific education. And she also now Desi at this
Speaker 1: point was womanizing. He wasn't around much. So she would
Speaker 1: get movies that we wanted to see or hadn't seen
Speaker 1: because they weren't that accessible in those days and run
Speaker 1: them at her house. Or she would show us I
Speaker 1: love Lucy's show. She'd done bad ones and show us
Speaker 1: why they didn't work, then show us a good one
Speaker 1: and why it did work. Yes, she also the first
Speaker 1: day any of us were in a contract there and
Speaker 1: we first met she arrived. She'd just gone to a
Speaker 1: bank which was right around the corner from Desilu and
Speaker 1: she got twelve savings accounts that she opened, put like
Speaker 1: fifty dollars in, and she gave us in each of
Speaker 1: our name, gave us to the books. And she said,
Speaker 1: every week you have to put something away. And we were,
Speaker 1: as I say, making very little money, and say, Lucy,
Speaker 1: you know we don't barely enough to to live on.
Speaker 1: She said, it can be only five dollars, but every
Speaker 1: week put something away. You won't miss it. It'll add up.
Speaker 1: Very maternal and she said, no matter what, the thing
Speaker 1: you must do is have enough money that you don't
Speaker 1: have to make decisions based on money. For a kid
Speaker 1: from Colfax, Washington, this was just invaluable. I've been to college,
Speaker 1: but I never had these kind of life lessons. In
Speaker 1: the course of it, she meant, my folks, and she
Speaker 1: got to know me. She said to me early on,
Speaker 1: you can do this as an actor. But she said,
Speaker 1: and I think you could do well, but it's not
Speaker 1: gonna make you happy. This is not the right line
Speaker 1: of work for you. And she said, you love old films,
Speaker 1: you love history, you love everything about the business. And
Speaker 1: you're a journalist and major in college. We have enough
Speaker 1: actors you should write about movies. And the first thing
Speaker 1: you should do is write a book. Who said this
Speaker 1: to you, Lucy? She said, it doesn't even have to
Speaker 1: be a good book. But find a subject about the
Speaker 1: movies that nobody's done and write a book about it.
Speaker 1: And I said why. She said, if you write a book,
Speaker 1: it shows you have to discipline to sit down and
Speaker 1: do that. Yes, I did. What book? It was a
Speaker 1: book about the Oscars? Is this the book right here? Oh?
Speaker 1: My god, yeah, Academy words. I want our listeners to
Speaker 1: know that stunned expression. I show a copy of the
Speaker 1: book that he is amazing. Yes, there he was. I
Speaker 1: know that his fans a turn of classic movies, Miss
Speaker 1: Robert Osborne. I know that because I'm one of them.
Speaker 1: I saved a very special guest for last. John Robin
Speaker 1: Bates or Robbie to his friends, is a great writer
Speaker 1: and an intoxicating racontour. This is, without a doubt, one
Speaker 1: of my all time favorite. It's the details he shares
Speaker 1: and the insights into his work and life are so
Speaker 1: beautifully crafted. His story is so smart and funny. He
Speaker 1: should have his own show. I found myself very much
Speaker 1: like the character in my play played by Beth Marvel
Speaker 1: and Rachel Griffith at various points a writer who is
Speaker 1: a dangerous creature. And I had a note to myself
Speaker 1: play about daughter of a famous family who writes a
Speaker 1: book about her growing up in this family, something like that,
Speaker 1: the danger of telling the truth that turns out to
Speaker 1: be a lie. And at that moment, this lady of
Speaker 1: a certain age walked by me, and she looked to
Speaker 1: me like um Pat Buckley, the old Diane of New
Speaker 1: York conservative politics, the wife of Bill Buckley. Bill Buckley
Speaker 1: and I had had lunch with her once and found
Speaker 1: her to be charming and engaged. And this woman walked
Speaker 1: by me on this beach with her hat and in
Speaker 1: a one piece bathing suit. I immediately felt the mother
Speaker 1: in that play. And I suddenly remembered old California the
Speaker 1: way it was when I was a kid, and we
Speaker 1: were just in the throes of an election at the time,
Speaker 1: too were about to be and the Republicans of certainly
Speaker 1: of that period and even more so today, we're very
Speaker 1: confusing to me because deem recognizable to me as having
Speaker 1: a coherent, cohesive coach and argument for their principal positions,
Speaker 1: which had to be principled in some way. The play
Speaker 1: just came together in one fell swoop, old California conservatives,
Speaker 1: the old Hollywood system, Reagan nights. I even remembered I'd
Speaker 1: gone to high school with I think, the daughter of
Speaker 1: John Gavin, and I thought, you know, because I love
Speaker 1: Touch of Evil, and I think, isn't John Gavin. No,
Speaker 1: he's not in Touch of Evil. He's in Psycho case
Speaker 1: in all these movies. And I thought about he was
Speaker 1: the ambassador to Mexica. That's right, as is the Stacy
Speaker 1: Keach character in my play. And I thought about your
Speaker 1: characters based on John Gavin to some extent, they're all
Speaker 1: these archetypes. At the back of all this, of course,
Speaker 1: there's also Joe Mentello, who you know, we're no longer
Speaker 1: a couple, but he's my family, my best friend, and
Speaker 1: you see, being a couple of one year, two thousand
Speaker 1: and two. So it was a while and he kept
Speaker 1: saying to me, with all possible respect, nobody's waiting for
Speaker 1: the next Robbie Bates play. And you know, these are
Speaker 1: chilling words because I have so much to say and
Speaker 1: it's not coming out. My equivalent of that, as my
Speaker 1: agent said to me, he goes, It's not that these
Speaker 1: people don't want to hire you because they don't like you.
Speaker 1: He says, they don't want to hire you because they
Speaker 1: don't think of you at all all. Jesus, Well, it's terrible,
Speaker 1: because the worst thing that can happen to an artist,
Speaker 1: I'm invisible. I no longer matter for me. Writing plays
Speaker 1: has always been very tricky. I don't know a lot.
Speaker 1: I don't have a lot to say. I reached things
Speaker 1: very slowly, and I I sometimes it seems facile and easy,
Speaker 1: and to me some of the times my thoughts and
Speaker 1: my sort of expressed opinions in place seem hollow or naive,
Speaker 1: even because I know they're deeper truths always to be
Speaker 1: found and that I'm But don't you think that seeking
Speaker 1: them and being aware of that makes you more likely
Speaker 1: to find it than anybody? You didn't go to college?
Speaker 1: Did you know why you wanted educating yourself? I wish
Speaker 1: I had gone to college. It was a depressed and
Speaker 1: unsettled kid. And why I don't. I think I wasn't
Speaker 1: at peace with probably any element of who I was,
Speaker 1: whether it was a sort of nascent intellectual or sort
Speaker 1: of pre expressive homosexual, kid or grew up where variously
Speaker 1: l A from you were born Where in l A
Speaker 1: and you lived seven then Brazil for three years in Rio,
Speaker 1: and then South Africa for six and a half years
Speaker 1: until I was eighteen. And your father was in the
Speaker 1: condensed milk business. My father worked for a giant multinational
Speaker 1: carnation milk. Yeah, it was a condensed milk business. So
Speaker 1: l A, Brazil, South Africa, and then back to LA.
Speaker 1: When you finally get back to l A. How old
Speaker 1: are you? So high school is over? I just finished
Speaker 1: high school. I sort of lost time through all the
Speaker 1: travels high school in South Africa, like I couldn't get
Speaker 1: used to things like cricket and corporal punishment, you know,
Speaker 1: you'd get cane for, like not doing well on a
Speaker 1: spelling test literally came and I think I was so
Speaker 1: busy trying to be sly and charming that I forgot
Speaker 1: how to be me. That I think led me to
Speaker 1: rebel against learning itself. So I was sort of interested
Speaker 1: in the few things. I was interested in literature history,
Speaker 1: but I wouldn't apply myself to anything except escape, and
Speaker 1: part of escape meant not going to college. I was
Speaker 1: really lonely, and I I kind of became a depressed
Speaker 1: kid and that manifests it stuff. If you can say
Speaker 1: I think I did you know you were gay? Then yes,
Speaker 1: I definitely knew that. I knew that add to your
Speaker 1: depression didn't make you feel more isolated. It wasn't proactive
Speaker 1: the gay community there in talk about getting caned. Yeah, well, um,
Speaker 1: I think my parents, who loved me very much, were
Speaker 1: distracted by their own terrors. There are certain families that
Speaker 1: are born in terror and live in terror. Um, conceived
Speaker 1: in terror? I need you to write a player for me.
Speaker 1: I want to be called conceived in terror? Go ahead, well, no,
Speaker 1: I mean death of a salesman is is a family
Speaker 1: that lives in terror? You were how old when you
Speaker 1: arrived in Durban? Ten to the eight years? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: was there almost eight years critical time, ten years or
Speaker 1: so all of your real back half of your childhood,
Speaker 1: your teenage years, especially you are in Durban. I guess
Speaker 1: it was seventeen or something when we left. But you
Speaker 1: had finished the high school program. No, no, I finished
Speaker 1: it in l A. You did? Where? What was that? Like? I?
Speaker 1: You know, was the only kid I knew who rode
Speaker 1: their bike to school? Because everybody else's parents had given
Speaker 1: them a fiad literally yeah or something. Who were your
Speaker 1: friends then? Who did you become friends with? Anyone? Oh? Yeah?
Speaker 1: In fact, Jenny Livingston went on to make Paris Is Burning,
Speaker 1: great documentary, Tina Landau great theater director. Gina Gershawn my
Speaker 1: oldest friend from high school. We were in place together
Speaker 1: in the drama department. So I became friends with and
Speaker 1: I say this with real respect and love with fellow freaks.
Speaker 1: How are you feeling about yourself and about life that
Speaker 1: last year in Beverly Hills. I think I was scared
Speaker 1: to death still. I mean, it was just a new
Speaker 1: form of foreignness, but it had the pattern of something
Speaker 1: very familiar to me. But you know, I remember being
Speaker 1: taken to a party really early on, and I had
Speaker 1: developed a kind of weird eye beforehand for art. I
Speaker 1: thought maybe I was going to be a painter or
Speaker 1: an artist storian. And I walked into this house and
Speaker 1: there is a giant David Hackney and next to it
Speaker 1: is a giant Mother. Well, I'm ending in front of
Speaker 1: this giant painting that's famous that I've looked at in
Speaker 1: books Thames and huts and art books. While I was
Speaker 1: in Durban at the Art Library of the University. I know,
Speaker 1: the world was just very real and different, and it
Speaker 1: was easier to like have sex, and it was easier
Speaker 1: to to function. Were you writing? I guess I was
Speaker 1: sort of writing, Yeah, what were you writing? I was
Speaker 1: writing really bad short stories about alienated Paul Bull's kids
Speaker 1: adrift in foreign countries, which is basically tell you that truth.
Speaker 1: Still what I'm doing. It just looks slightly the wallpapers prettier. Now,
Speaker 1: where were you living at that? I was living um
Speaker 1: on friends sofas, like the parents of children I went
Speaker 1: to high school with. I was. I was just this freak,
Speaker 1: you know. And I was at it with my family
Speaker 1: at the time, you know, and I had escaped and
Speaker 1: it was just a nightmare. How do we get from
Speaker 1: there to fair Country? Gordon Davidson, you know in Pinocchio
Speaker 1: where he falls in with actors. I'm walking around. I
Speaker 1: ran into this girl I knew from high school. She said,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? And I'm sort of looking for
Speaker 1: a job. I think I'm starving to death. I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: she said to me, And I should have known. She said, well,
Speaker 1: my father just fired me. He needs to he needs
Speaker 1: a new assistant and I was like, well, what does
Speaker 1: he do and she said, oh, he's a film producer.
Speaker 1: Who was the film producer. This is great guy, and
Speaker 1: he was. He a working producer. I'm only asking for
Speaker 1: a name. My first day at the office, he says
Speaker 1: to me, whatever you do, answer the phones, but never
Speaker 1: pick up the phone. And I was like, I don't
Speaker 1: even know what that means. And he said, you'll do fine.
Speaker 1: And he had a gang of cronies, all of whom
Speaker 1: had contempt for the studio system and had worked around
Speaker 1: the edges of it, or in it, had done well,
Speaker 1: fallen out of favor, usually had destroyed themselves through my
Speaker 1: favorite thing, their own ambivalence. I found myself at home
Speaker 1: for the first time in my life win the nest
Speaker 1: of scorpions. Yes I did, I found myself. I said this,
Speaker 1: I know, yeah, because nobody is trying to pass. It's
Speaker 1: a den of thieves here. It was still the days
Speaker 1: of speaker phone and they would have fights. They had
Speaker 1: a tower on Sunset Boulevard. They had a nest of
Speaker 1: rooms in a tower and they would be fighting with
Speaker 1: each other and then they would suddenly be a pause.
Speaker 1: Someone would say, geez, if you could see what I
Speaker 1: see right now, that girl walking on sunset. She is
Speaker 1: so beautiful. The fight was over. Yeah, nothing meant any
Speaker 1: codic of sex. That's right. One of the masks for
Speaker 1: a glass of waters. My first few weeks there two
Speaker 1: what do I know. I would go to the sink,
Speaker 1: bring a glass of waters, spit it out like practically
Speaker 1: on me and say this isn't water, and I would say, yes,
Speaker 1: it's water. What are you talking about? That's water. It's
Speaker 1: I want professional water. And the whole time became about
Speaker 1: professional water. Robbie Bates. I could listen to you talk
Speaker 1: all day long. Well that's it. We started in the
Speaker 1: fall of two thousand eleven and we've conducted over two
Speaker 1: hundred interviews since then. Thank you all for listening, and
Speaker 1: again my thanks to w n y C. But we're
Speaker 1: not done. I'm excited to announce that the podcast is
Speaker 1: moving to the I Heart podcast Network. We're going to
Speaker 1: take a few weeks off, and we will be back
Speaker 1: on January twelve with new episodes. If you're already a subscriber,
Speaker 1: you don't have to do anything different to get the
Speaker 1: new episodes. You'll still be subscribed and the show will
Speaker 1: still be available wherever you listen to podcasts, whether that's
Speaker 1: the I heart app, Apple podcast, or anywhere you listen
Speaker 1: to podcasts. That's all for now. We'll be back soon
Speaker 1: on iHeart with more. Here's the thing.