Speaker 1: Rolled Dall. He's twenty three years old.
Speaker 2: As he soars through the sky, the cockpit of the
Speaker 2: RAF fighter he's sitting in has no roof. He's six
Speaker 2: foot six, so his head juts well up above the windshield,
Speaker 2: completely exposed. His goggles offer zero protection at this speed.
Speaker 2: Wind and sand and debris wire just assaulting his face.
Speaker 2: He's basically blind, and every single breath is a battle.
Speaker 2: He thinks he may have veered off course, has no
Speaker 2: idea where he is, somewhere over the Libyan desert. Maybe
Speaker 2: he can't get his bearings. Blind and a chaos, just
Speaker 2: desperately trying to navigate while enemy fire.
Speaker 1: Tears through the air around him.
Speaker 2: He can feel the vibrations of bullets wheezing past his head. Oh,
Speaker 2: and Doll got inside a plane for the very first
Speaker 2: time less than six months earlier. Writer Matthew Denison tells
Speaker 2: us the Doll had taken off from northern Egypt this
Speaker 2: evening in his pocket, classified documents pinpointing his entire squadron's location.
Speaker 2: Within the hour, the desert sunset gives way the absolute
Speaker 2: darkness his fuel gauge dropping, Doll realizes with growing dread
Speaker 2: that he has strayed hopelessly off course, then catastrophe. The
Speaker 2: underbelly of his aircraft catches a boulder hiding in the darkness.
Speaker 2: Metal shrieks as the plane's nose pitches forward and crashes
Speaker 2: to the ground. Crumpling like paper, Doll is catapulted against
Speaker 2: the instrument panel. The impact drives his nose backward through
Speaker 2: his face, His skull fractures, blood runs hot and.
Speaker 1: Thick down his skin.
Speaker 2: Denison writes, the doll can no longer feel where his
Speaker 2: teeth should be. Disoriented, he does feel the approaching heat
Speaker 2: of flames that threaten to consume both him and his aircraft.
Speaker 2: His overall's already burning. Doll drags himself away from the
Speaker 2: twisted wreckage as fast as he can. Each inch across
Speaker 2: the sand is agony behind him. The inferno reaches the planes' ammunition.
Speaker 2: Its machine guns begin firing wildly, bullets kicking up sands
Speaker 2: in all directions.
Speaker 1: By some miracle of chance or fate, Doll.
Speaker 2: Has crawled just far enough the bullets don't find him.
Speaker 2: As shock overtakes his battered body, sleep finally claims him.
Speaker 2: Let's now travel back to a year before that devastating crash.
Speaker 2: This is before Doll was sent to Washington, before he
Speaker 2: was recruited into the Irregulars, before he spent weekends mixing
Speaker 2: Martiniz with the President. Doll's just a guy in a
Speaker 2: room in his early twenties, trying to figure out what
Speaker 2: to do with his life. All Doll knows for sure
Speaker 2: is that right now he needs to escape his family's
Speaker 2: home in Buckinghamshire, which feels like a damn prison. He's
Speaker 2: desperate for some adventure. Dall is someone who's always always
Speaker 2: looking for adventure. It's impossible to say for certain where
Speaker 2: this spirit comes from, but the tragedy of his youth
Speaker 2: offers a pretty good clue. When Dall was three, his
Speaker 2: seven year old sister, Astrey, died of appendicitis. The family
Speaker 2: had barely processed this loss when just three weeks later,
Speaker 2: Dall's father died. Technically, Doll's father died of pneumonia, but
Speaker 2: he basically chose not to fight the illness because of
Speaker 2: his depression over Astrey. The two deaths in a row
Speaker 2: like that were an earthquake for young Doll. Buckingham Shure,
Speaker 2: despite its beauty, is stained by these memories for him.
Speaker 2: If you can remember the forbidden forest scenes in the
Speaker 2: Harry Potter movies.
Speaker 1: You've glimpsed these woods, but.
Speaker 2: What appears magical on screen is suffocating to Doll. He
Speaker 2: understood that if he didn't break free soon, he'd be trapped,
Speaker 2: bogged down here, forced into the tedious business that his father,
Speaker 2: a shipbroker, have been so successful in. Dall's desire for
Speaker 2: adventure is something he shares in common with a lot
Speaker 2: of great writers, desperate to experience everything in order to
Speaker 2: have something to write about a plot, a character, a situation,
Speaker 2: and emotion. Writers in Dolls era are expected to be
Speaker 2: deeply physically engaged with the world, not just observers but participants,
Speaker 2: which feels different from today right Today's writers often prioritize
Speaker 2: things like activism and family and intellectual engagement over physical
Speaker 2: risk taking. But physicality aside, there's no substitute for adventure
Speaker 2: and new experiences in a writer's life. My creative writing
Speaker 2: students at Yale always asks me how to make it
Speaker 2: as screenwriters. I encourage them to go live their lives
Speaker 2: a little get engaged with the world in some fashion.
Speaker 2: Because young writers who just move right to la after
Speaker 2: graduation and start work in an agency's mailroom all end
Speaker 2: up writing scripts that feel less like real life and
Speaker 2: more like echoes of TV shows they've seen. When Dahl
Speaker 2: graduates school, he sets out on his first grade adventure
Speaker 2: and applies to Shell Oil. I know, I know, becoming
Speaker 2: a trainee at an oil company does not sound like
Speaker 2: a cutting edge prospect, but back in the late thirties,
Speaker 2: it is as exciting as it gets. Shell Oil is
Speaker 2: one of the hottest companies in the world. Here's Tony
Speaker 2: Curtis trying to woo Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It
Speaker 2: Hot by masquerading as the heir to guess what company
Speaker 2: I want you. Yes, so did my father and my grandfather.
Speaker 2: You might say we had a passion for shows. That's
Speaker 2: why we name the oil company after it. Here are you.
Speaker 2: There's massive demand for oil, for butting car companies and aviation.
Speaker 2: Joining Shells like joining an AI company today. And the
Speaker 2: most attractive part for Doll is that you're guaranteed to
Speaker 2: be said somewhere across the globe. Adventure served up in
Speaker 2: a silver platter. Doll gets posted in East Africa, fully
Speaker 2: aware what a commitment this is, As he points out
Speaker 2: in an interview by Peter Wallace and thrill Maker from
Speaker 2: Night five.
Speaker 3: You see, in those days they didn't have airplanes, so
Speaker 3: we're talking about nineteen thirty five. To go to someone
Speaker 3: like Africa, it was a long way. It was a
Speaker 3: two and a half week trip in the boat. When
Speaker 3: you went, you went for three years.
Speaker 1: But it's all totally thrilling.
Speaker 2: Doll immerses himself in the local culture, learning Swahili and
Speaker 2: enjoying the adventure of it all. He doesn't realize it,
Speaker 2: but he's setting himself up for a lifetime's worth of
Speaker 2: characters too. When Daal invents Charlie Bucket of chocolate factory fame,
Speaker 2: he actually models him on one of the young African
Speaker 2: boys he befriends in Tanzania. It's only on later drafts,
Speaker 2: under pressure from his British publishers, that Charlie becomes white.
Speaker 2: But it's fascinating to think how groundbreaking the book might
Speaker 2: have been. Charlie's family represents extreme poverty. Remember those four
Speaker 2: grandparents all sharing that one giant bed. Making them black
Speaker 2: would have transformed the story into a powerful statement about
Speaker 2: racial inequality, and when Charlie has his triumph at the end,
Speaker 2: it could have served as a broader metaphor for overcomings
Speaker 2: the stomach prejudice. Anyway, Doll's work for Shell eventually.
Speaker 1: Grows tedious for him.
Speaker 2: He's basically selling oil to farmers across the vastness of Tanzania.
Speaker 2: Not a great deal of intelligence or imagination was required.
Speaker 2: He later admits the idea of rising through the ranks
Speaker 2: to become an executive someday sounds like death to him.
Speaker 2: He feels the itch to keep moving. But here's what
Speaker 2: I think is really driving Doll. He's trying to figure
Speaker 2: out not only what kind of man he is, but
Speaker 2: what it means to be a man. After Dall lost
Speaker 2: his father, he was brought up by his mother and
Speaker 2: his many many sisters. There were never any adult men
Speaker 2: in his life. Why this is so relevant is that
Speaker 2: the different worlds Doll goes into in his twenties are
Speaker 2: like the most basic fantasies of what a child thinks
Speaker 2: it means to be a man in the mid twentieth century.
Speaker 2: First he'll tried business with Shell oil, then head to
Speaker 2: war to become a fighter pilot. Then he becomes a spy,
Speaker 2: a serial playboy, and seducer of women. He's trying on
Speaker 2: all these different macho exteriors, seeing what fits, and I mean,
Speaker 2: I get it, though we're living in very different times.
Speaker 2: I struggle with this too. Am I a man not
Speaker 2: in the way my grandfather would recognize? I have a
Speaker 2: wife and kids and a career. But with a gun
Speaker 2: to my head, I could maybe tell you what pliers
Speaker 2: are for. Maybe for Dahl in the late nineteen thirties,
Speaker 2: World War Two is knocking some of his heroes, like
Speaker 2: Hemingway and Tolkien fought in the First World War. Now
Speaker 2: history is offering his chance. He hears about British forces
Speaker 2: and Tanzania needing help, and he jumps at it. He
Speaker 2: abandoned shell oil and enlists as a Special Constable with
Speaker 2: the King's African Rifles. His assignment is to arrest any
Speaker 2: German attempting to escape across the border into neutral East Africa.
Speaker 2: Dahl helps detain a couple hundred Germans whose only crime
Speaker 2: is being German. He moves these innocent people into a
Speaker 2: camp of barbed wire to be held for who knows
Speaker 2: how long. It Shakestall's conscience. This may not be the
Speaker 2: adventure he's after. During the long days patrolling the border
Speaker 2: and the vicious sun. Dall watches warplanes fly overhead. Now
Speaker 2: that looks like freedom to him. He gets an idea.
Speaker 2: He'll volunteer for the Royal Air Force, though he's never
Speaker 2: even been inside a plane before.
Speaker 1: He buys a car and drives six.
Speaker 2: Hundred miles to Nairobi to enroll in flight training school.
Speaker 2: He quickly realizes he's not a great fit. Literally, Doll
Speaker 2: crams himself into Gloucester Gladiators, Tiger Boths and Hawker Hurricanes.
Speaker 2: Picture the plane from Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade
Speaker 2: when Harrison Ford and Sean Connery escape from German fighters.
Speaker 2: These are open air cockpits designed for pilots who are
Speaker 2: five foot seven to five ten.
Speaker 1: At six six, Doll's head sticks way up.
Speaker 2: Above the windshield like an NBA player squeezed into a
Speaker 2: tiny convertible with the top down, his knees pulled up
Speaker 2: to his chest, and his face constantly battered by rushing wind.
Speaker 2: Despite all that, soaring up in the air, something magical happens.
Speaker 2: Falls in love with flying. This passion will re emerge
Speaker 2: later in his writing. Several of his young characters escape
Speaker 2: their earth bound troubles by literally flying away.
Speaker 1: Most famously in James and the Giant Peach.
Speaker 2: The British Air Force is in such dire need of
Speaker 2: fighters that Dolls quickly sent to the front lines before
Speaker 2: he even completes combat training. Sixteen other newly minted pilots
Speaker 2: go with him, but by war's end, only three of
Speaker 2: the sixteen will survive, including Dol. That's how close we
Speaker 2: were to never having heard of Willy, Wonka or Matilda.
Speaker 2: According to writer Nadia Cohen, Doll's first kill comes quickly.
Speaker 2: He shoots down a German plane and returns to base
Speaker 2: with the sobering realization that he's probably just ended another
Speaker 2: man's life. His conscience is rattled again, just like during
Speaker 2: those border patrol arrests. Is he built for this. He's
Speaker 2: in his early twenties, He's sensitive, thoughtful, and he knows
Speaker 2: what it feels like to lose a father and sister
Speaker 2: well before their time. Now he's taken the life of
Speaker 2: a young stranger, someone who probably has his own father, sister, brother.
Speaker 2: Dahl knows precisely what that family will endure. The next day,
Speaker 2: Doll finds himself in another air battle. He shoots down
Speaker 2: a second German plane, killing another pilot. He's affected, but
Speaker 2: he finds it gets a bit easier to compartmentalize.
Speaker 1: Two days later, in the.
Speaker 2: Battle of Athens, Doll and the squadron are vastly outnumbered.
Speaker 2: It'll be a miracle if any of them survive. Dahl
Speaker 2: describes it as a long dog fight in which fifteen
Speaker 2: hurricanes fought for half an hour with between one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty and two hundred German bombers. Four of Doll's
Speaker 2: fellow pilots are shot down right before his eyes. Doll
Speaker 2: spends every last bit of ammunition he carries. When he
Speaker 2: finally lands back a base, his plane is riddled with
Speaker 2: bullet holes. Dall ends up needing a full month to recuperate.
Speaker 2: Then he hears the decimated remnants of his squadron are
Speaker 2: reassembling in Haifa. More adventure awaits, Doll finds another car
Speaker 2: and drives to Israel. He flies over French airbases every
Speaker 2: day for the next month, according to Cohen, shooting down
Speaker 2: at least two more aircraft. Doll keeps crashing his own planes,
Speaker 2: but always somehow walks away until the crash that open
Speaker 2: this episode, When Dol eventually writes that horrific crash into
Speaker 2: his memoirs, he conspicuously excludes the fact that there was
Speaker 2: another pilot with him that day in the Libyan desert.
Speaker 2: Maybe dolphinks having company made the whole thing less heroic
Speaker 2: even more curious, official RAF records showed Doll crash landed
Speaker 2: due to low fuel after getting lost, but Dallin says
Speaker 2: he was shot down.
Speaker 1: Hmm.
Speaker 2: In both of Doll's memoirs about his childhood, he perpetuates
Speaker 2: myths like this about himself. Now, to be fair, the
Speaker 2: memoirs are written in the style we associate with his fiction,
Speaker 2: so it's almost like a wink. Don't believe everything I'm
Speaker 2: telling you, folks. Dahl has the same habit of mythmaking
Speaker 2: in interviews throughout his life. Now, with some celebrities, we
Speaker 2: just call this straight up lying, but with Dol, I'm
Speaker 2: not sure i'd use that word.
Speaker 1: It's as if he's acknowledging that people expect him.
Speaker 2: To be Willy Wonka or the BFG, so they shouldn't
Speaker 2: take what he says at face value. But of course
Speaker 2: this makes his later problematic remarks and interviews more complicated.
Speaker 1: To deal with.
Speaker 2: We'll grapple with how to reconcile Doll's dedication to defeating
Speaker 2: the Nazis as a young man, which is at least
Speaker 2: somewhat inextricable from helping save the Jews of Europe, with
Speaker 2: the charges of anti Semitism against him as a much
Speaker 2: older man. For weeks after Doll's crash in the Libyan desert,
Speaker 2: he lies in a military hospital, unable to even open
Speaker 2: his eyes. Doctors are sure he'll be blind, He'll spend
Speaker 2: the rest of his life in darkness. Here's Dol, many
Speaker 2: years later, reflecting on the toll of all these crashes.
Speaker 3: I've had so many operations. I'm tied to you with
Speaker 3: bits of stream. I've had two hip replacements, my spines
Speaker 3: be not praised on many times from an airplane crash,
Speaker 3: and this year I had three massive operations on my tummy.
Speaker 3: But I'm all right there. But I'm a bit of
Speaker 3: a wreck physically.
Speaker 2: I always laugh when I hear him say tummy. There
Speaker 2: Doll speaks the way he writes, there's this childlike quality
Speaker 2: of someone who never fully grew up, an old man
Speaker 2: who still says tummy with a completely straight face. Woven
Speaker 2: inside a much more gruesome, sobering account of horrible pain
Speaker 2: and The mixture of those elements are kind of the
Speaker 2: hallmarks of his books, too, right, the juxtaposition of childlike
Speaker 2: wonder alongside genuine darkness. It's the bfg's gentle dream catching
Speaker 2: coexisting with child gobbling giants and the whimsy of Willy
Speaker 2: Wonka alongside children facing horrific if comical fates. Dall ends
Speaker 2: up spending six long months in that hospital. Slowly and
Speaker 2: almost moraulously, he regains his vision. He emerges with the
Speaker 2: knowledge that he's cheated death, which encourages him to take
Speaker 2: even more risks going forward. He now knows he can
Speaker 2: survive a fall. Doll isn't alone among great artists who
Speaker 2: spent significant time recovering from catastrophic injuries. Free to Callo
Speaker 2: had devastating trauma from a bus crash when she was
Speaker 2: slightly younger than daul spending months in a cast. That's
Speaker 2: when she began to think about those haunting portraits. Similarly,
Speaker 2: Stephen King was hit by a van and nearly killed,
Speaker 2: leading to months of painful recovery. He was older than
Speaker 2: Doll or Callo, but he had not yet written some
Speaker 2: of his best work. In these long recoveries, not only
Speaker 2: do you learn to endure the solitude and loneliness of
Speaker 2: the creative life.
Speaker 1: But you also have so much time to reflect on
Speaker 1: your ideas.
Speaker 2: And maybe you also gain insight into suffering or pain
Speaker 2: or healing.
Speaker 1: Like Kllo and King, the lifelong.
Speaker 2: Chronic pain that Dahl deals with after the crash majorly
Speaker 2: infiltrates his work and reshapes his personality. Just recently, the
Speaker 2: US Navy published a confidential report Odin's Eye, suggesting the
Speaker 2: extreme conditions faced by fighter pilots HIGI maneuvers and repeated
Speaker 2: physical trauma like dollhad, can lead to long term effects
Speaker 2: on memory, mood, and behavior. Could lingering brain trauma from
Speaker 2: his pilot days have contributed to Doll's sharp temper. Could
Speaker 2: the injuries account for what some people very much, including
Speaker 2: his first wife, describe as his prickly personality. His wife's
Speaker 2: nickname for him, after all, was rolled the Rotten And
Speaker 2: might the brain trauma also account for his vivid, dark imagination.
Speaker 2: His headaches from the crash becomes so intense that he
Speaker 2: blacks out regularly, which is not what you want to
Speaker 2: hear if you're his commanding officer. Setting him up in
Speaker 2: the air, Dall is desperate to keep flying to keep
Speaker 2: the adventure going, but the RAF grounds him.
Speaker 1: His flying days are over.
Speaker 2: Dolls a mess, Terrified, he'll have no choice but to
Speaker 2: go back to Buckinghamshire, back to that landscape haunted by
Speaker 2: childhood loss, back to a conventional life that seems to
Speaker 2: him worse than death. Luckily, that's when Dolls recruited to
Speaker 2: Washington for an avenger so strange that even his imagination
Speaker 2: couldn't have conjured it.
Speaker 1: In our last episode, I talked about.
Speaker 2: Doll's life in the Shadowy Spy game in Washington with
Speaker 2: the Irregulars. He quickly makes friends there with other spies who,
Speaker 2: like him, go on to create some of the most
Speaker 2: iconic cultural touchstones of the twentieth century, like Ian Fleming,
Speaker 2: the creator of a spy as famous for how he
Speaker 2: likes as Martinis as anything else.
Speaker 1: A Martini shaken nutstud and.
Speaker 2: Doll's Georgetown roommate David Ogilvy, who later revolutionizes modern advertising
Speaker 2: and serves as an inspiration for Don Draper on mad Men.
Speaker 1: You never say thank you, That's what the money is for.
Speaker 2: Plus Noel Coward, the British playwright and wit who redefined theater,
Speaker 2: interviewed here by Dick Cavott.
Speaker 1: You're what is the word for? Win Warne has terrific
Speaker 1: prolific qualities.
Speaker 2: Ellen Yeah, or of the most influential storytellers and fabulous
Speaker 2: of the century, all hanging out together playing spy verse spy. Predictably,
Speaker 2: as these charismatic operatives carry out their spy work, they
Speaker 2: increasingly find themselves under the FBI's suspicious gaze. Jag Or Hoover,
Speaker 2: the authoritarian head of the Bureau, has very rigid rules
Speaker 2: for his agents, identical suits, military short haircuts, and absolutely
Speaker 2: no facial hair, so imagine how he feels about these
Speaker 2: arrogant playboys of British intelligence operating on his turf. The
Speaker 2: FBI turned a blind eye to the Irregulars when they started,
Speaker 2: but at this point it's like, are we really just
Speaker 2: going to let these British secret agents do whatever the
Speaker 2: hell they want on American soil? The Bureau attempts to
Speaker 2: get a bill through Congress putting the irregulars, including Doll,
Speaker 2: under its supervision.
Speaker 1: They open up secret.
Speaker 2: Files on Doll and every other irregular. The noose is tightening. Finally,
Speaker 2: William Stevenson, the head of the Irregulars, has no choice
Speaker 2: but to agree that all one hundred and thirty seven
Speaker 2: British intelligence agents in the US will run all their
Speaker 2: missions by Jagger Hoover. But no one thinks Stevenson will
Speaker 2: actually honor this agreement. According to writer Jenet Conan, stevenson
Speaker 2: superiors in England dispatch emissaries to him to verify his
Speaker 2: compliants spies infiltrating spies.
Speaker 1: One in particular, who will.
Speaker 2: Call Agent X, keeps feeding damaging reports about the irregulars
Speaker 2: back to London. Stevenson is furious and turns to his
Speaker 2: most resourceful agent for help, Roll Doll. Dall devises an
Speaker 2: elegant trap. He invites Agent X to his George shown
Speaker 2: apartment for drinks, a seemingly innocent social call between colleagues,
Speaker 2: But hidden within Dall's living room is a microphone capturing
Speaker 2: every word. As the evening progresses and booze flows, Dall
Speaker 2: skillfully steers the conversation, encouraging X to disparage his employers
Speaker 2: back in Britain. The secretly recorded conversation is promptly dispatched
Speaker 2: to London. Agent X is recalled immediately, the threat to
Speaker 2: Stephenson neutralized for now through Doll's cunning years later. This
Speaker 2: real life espionage operation will resurface in Doll's fiction, transformed
Speaker 2: into a chilling short story about a wealthy husband and
Speaker 2: wife who invite a younger couple to their home. The
Speaker 2: hosts secretly install a microphone in the guest bedroom, eavesdropping
Speaker 2: on their visitors most intimate conversations. The threat of the
Speaker 2: FBI has rattled Doll, making him very aware that the
Speaker 2: Irregular's days are numbered and therefore so are his. He's
Speaker 2: desperate not to go back home to England, to his
Speaker 2: mother's house. But what's next? What's he really trained for?
Speaker 2: He sees his pals Fleming and Ogilvy and Coward setting
Speaker 2: themselves up for future career success in other fields. They
Speaker 2: all have mentors who seem to be guiding them, so
Speaker 2: Doll begins looking for his own mentor.
Speaker 1: One way I.
Speaker 2: Could have structured this podcast, by the way, is to
Speaker 2: tell Doll's story by following the hero's journey. Joseph Campbell's
Speaker 2: outline for great adventurers from Odysseus to Luke Skywalker, which
Speaker 2: Doll fits to a tea. All heroes, according to Campbell,
Speaker 2: both fictional and real, go through a series of distinct stages.
Speaker 2: First is a call to adventure when the hero gets
Speaker 2: pulled out of their ordinary world by a quest for Dall.
Speaker 2: This is being recruited to Washington to join the Irregulars.
Speaker 2: Among the many stages that follow, there's one particularly relevant here,
Speaker 2: meeting the mentor. Once the hero commits to their quest,
Speaker 2: a guide or magical helper appears. Think Obi Wan Kenobi
Speaker 2: and Star Wars or Morpheus. In the Matrix for Dall,
Speaker 2: it's Charles Marsh, an arrogant, well connected, obscenely wealthy newspaper tycoon.
Speaker 2: Marsh started out as a journalist, rising up to become
Speaker 2: managing editor of the Cincinnati Post, but his hunger for
Speaker 2: wealth and status led him to buy every newspaper he
Speaker 2: could get his hands on. By the time he meets Dahl,
Speaker 2: Marsh is filthy rich and has grown bored of the
Speaker 2: newspaper game. He's putting all his energy and resources into
Speaker 2: his passion the war effort. Here's how Robert Carrow, the
Speaker 2: Extraordinary author of the Years of Lyndon Johnson series, describes Marsh.
Speaker 1: Having made money. He liked to play the patron with it.
Speaker 2: A tall man six foot three, he had the broad,
Speaker 2: high forehead and the beaked nose of a Roman emperor
Speaker 2: and a manner to match tips to head waiters were
Speaker 2: dispensed with a gesture reminiscent of a king tossing coins
Speaker 2: to subjects. Marsh traffics and power. If you're in his orbit,
Speaker 2: you're introduced to the right people, and you're in a
Speaker 2: position to know and be known. Marsh own's a grand
Speaker 2: mansion on our street and joy shown in which he's
Speaker 2: always playing host. DC insiders, artists, politicians, and powerbrokers of
Speaker 2: all sorts can just come on in, have a drink, talk,
Speaker 2: or more often negotiate to give you a sense of
Speaker 2: the house and the man. Marsh commissions a large oil
Speaker 2: portrait of himself and hangs it over the mantle in
Speaker 2: the main sitting room. I love that detail. It says
Speaker 2: so much about the guy, doesn't it. I'm imagining my
Speaker 2: wife's reaction if I brought home a big old painting
Speaker 2: of my life and announced we were hanging it over
Speaker 2: the couch. Should be into it, right. Vice President Henry
Speaker 2: Wallace is a constant presence at Marsh's mansion. Cabinet members, media, titans,
Speaker 2: and diplomats circulate through the rooms, and so does young
Speaker 2: Roll Doll, Marsh's oldest daughter, Antoinette says, of Doll, we
Speaker 2: all just adored him, especially my father. We sort of
Speaker 2: adopted him. Rold was a real charmer when he wanted
Speaker 2: to be. He was great fun to be around. Adopted
Speaker 2: is the right word. This is the family that Doll wants,
Speaker 2: not the one colored by tragedy in Buckingham Shure. He
Speaker 2: wants the one that offers the key to success in Washington,
Speaker 2: and having access to all the visitors at our Street
Speaker 2: is a gold mine for a young spy. One night,
Speaker 2: at a game of high stakes poker, Doll is in
Speaker 2: a funk, losing hand after hand, drinking too much, growing frustrated.
Speaker 2: He doesn't have much money, so every dollar.
Speaker 1: He loses is giant.
Speaker 2: But he likes his next hand, so he goes all in,
Speaker 2: not realizing or maybe not yet savvy enough to appreciate,
Speaker 2: that he's playing against Washington powerbrokers, the ultimate bluffers and hustlers.
Speaker 2: Doll loses his entire paycheck on this one hand, which
Speaker 2: is devastating for him the player he loses it to,
Speaker 2: though Harry Truman Dall may be getting cleaned out, but
Speaker 2: the information intel and connections he's making are priceless. Charles
Speaker 2: Marsh at this moment, is in his fifties, he's married,
Speaker 2: and he also has a much, much younger girlfriend. Did
Speaker 2: you not see that coming from a guy who hangs
Speaker 2: a giant painting of himself in his living room. This
Speaker 2: younger woman happens to have a very whimsical dolli in
Speaker 2: name Alice Glass. She's six feet tall, with movie star
Speaker 2: good looks and long blonde hair. According to Conit, the
Speaker 2: first time Marsh sees Alice, she's stark naked, a pale,
Speaker 2: shimmering goddess rising unexpectedly from his swimming pool. This was
Speaker 2: when Marsh was in his forties, one of the most
Speaker 2: powerful newspaper magnets in the country. Alice was nineteen. During
Speaker 2: their relationship, Alice carries on her own affairs with several
Speaker 2: other men, most of whom are in Marsha's social circle.
Speaker 2: According to Marsh's daughter Antoinette, again, Alice has a crush
Speaker 2: on Doll, but Doll wisely rejects her.
Speaker 1: He has so much to lose. Doll knows what.
Speaker 2: Happened when Lancelot slept with King Arthur's wife, namely the
Speaker 2: fall of camelot. Alice is furious at Doll's rejection. Men
Speaker 2: do not turn her down. She's cold to Doll whenever
Speaker 2: she sees him from then on. By the way, one
Speaker 2: man who did not turn Alice down was Lyndon Johnson.
Speaker 2: LBJ was POWs with Marsh. Marsh put the weight of
Speaker 2: his newspaper editorials behind LBJ and helped him win his
Speaker 2: first race. LBJ paid Marsh back by having an affair
Speaker 2: with Alice.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 2: Marsh was apoplectic when he discovered it. He got LBJ elected,
Speaker 2: but Alice in lbj's affair was much more than a fling.
Speaker 2: It continued for twenty five years. What eventually broke them
Speaker 2: up was Alice's passionate opposition to the Vietnam War. In
Speaker 2: all his time with Marsh, Doll has always presented himself
Speaker 2: as a simple employee of the British Embassy. So how
Speaker 2: does Marsh feel when he discovers that young Doll is
Speaker 2: actually a spy? Will he be even more annoyed with
Speaker 2: Doll than he was with his other lying, backstabbing, lanky protege.
Speaker 2: Will he cast him into the wilderness? This young man
Speaker 2: he's been so generous with has been infiltrating his home,
Speaker 2: reporting back to the Brits on all his fancy guests.
Speaker 2: It's just the opposite. Marsh has the same goal as
Speaker 2: Doll to defeat the Nazis, so he's tickled when he
Speaker 2: discovers Doll has been keeping the secret Antoinette, Marsh remembers,
Speaker 2: my father said, gluck, here, we're on the same team.
Speaker 1: We can help each other.
Speaker 2: Marsh quickly becomes essential to Doll's spy work, introducing him
Speaker 2: to influential people and tutoring him on cultivating secret sources
Speaker 2: which he picked up in his newspaper days. By this time,
Speaker 2: Doll is already well versed in the art of seduction.
Speaker 2: He plays to Marsha's ego by asking the older man
Speaker 2: advice about his future and tantalizing him with a pique
Speaker 2: at his orders from the Irregulars whenever he can just
Speaker 2: enough to whet Marsh's appetite. When Doll spends a weekend
Speaker 2: with the Roosevelts and Hyde Park, for instance, he makes
Speaker 2: a private copy of his report and surreptitiously gives it
Speaker 2: to Marsh, which the older man hungrily consumes. In their
Speaker 2: private talks. Doll even adds a few details he observed
Speaker 2: about FDR that are too scandalous to put in his
Speaker 2: official report. Isaiah Berlin, who works in the British Embassy
Speaker 2: and later becomes one of the most influential philosophers of
Speaker 2: the century, is also summoned on occasion to the R
Speaker 2: Street Mansion to see how Marsh can help the war effort.
Speaker 2: Berlin's take on Marsh is that there's a screw faintly
Speaker 2: loose somewhere.
Speaker 1: I felt frightened of him.
Speaker 2: Berlin says, as if in the presence of someone slightly unbalanced.
Speaker 2: If Doll feels the same, he keeps it to himself.
Speaker 2: Marsh is a man who can deliver him the war,
Speaker 2: screw loose or not. Continuing his work for the Irregulars.
Speaker 2: Part of Doll's assignment is to romance his way through
Speaker 2: a bevy of older, powerful, influential women. His dance card
Speaker 2: is a who's who of American wealth and privilege. Elizabeth Arden,
Speaker 2: the cosmetic superstar, Milicent Rogers, the standard oil Heiress, and
Speaker 2: Evelyn Walks Maclin, the gold Mine Heiress. Doll's looks and confidence,
Speaker 2: plus his background as a fighter pilot, help explain why
Speaker 2: he's so attractive. To women, but he also just seems
Speaker 2: to understand women in a way the most men, especially
Speaker 2: men of that time, aren't capable of or don't care to.
Speaker 2: Proof lives in his fiction, some of his most memorable
Speaker 2: characters are female Sophie from the BFG Verrukos Salt and
Speaker 2: Violet Beauregard from a certain chocolate factory, and of course
Speaker 2: Matilda Wormwood.
Speaker 1: These characters aren't just.
Speaker 2: Unique and inventive, they've a Vonne ability and a truth
Speaker 2: that his male characters often lack. Dahl also finds time
Speaker 2: for affairs that have nothing to do with espionage. One
Speaker 2: of his most significant relationships is with the beautiful French
Speaker 2: movie star Annabella.
Speaker 1: She's deeply affected by the war.
Speaker 2: Her brother had been shot and killed trying to escape
Speaker 2: the Nazis, which may well have been what.
Speaker 1: Bonded her in Dall.
Speaker 2: When they meet, she's already married to someone rich and successful.
Speaker 2: Like so many of Dahl's other girlfriends, Annabella's husband is
Speaker 2: movie star Tyrone Power Power was one of Hollywood's first
Speaker 2: action heroes. It's unclear how Dahl feels about cuckholding this
Speaker 2: giant star, though honestly its possible Power doesn't even care
Speaker 2: since the rumor is that he's having his own affair
Speaker 2: with Judy Garland.
Speaker 1: But as we'll see later, Dall.
Speaker 2: Is drawn to women who are, were, or had recently
Speaker 2: been in long term relationships with handsome movie stars.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's an ego trip.
Speaker 2: When a woman who's within Adonna celebrity chooses to be
Speaker 2: with Doll instead. Dall credits Annabella with teaching him about sex.
Speaker 2: Like Charles Marsh, she becomes a mentor. Dall stays in
Speaker 2: touch with her for decades, often seeking her advice during
Speaker 2: turbulent years and his future marriages. By a certain point,
Speaker 2: it feels like Doll has dated or seduced every available
Speaker 2: and unavailable woman in Washington. He's pooped, but British Intelligence
Speaker 2: is not done with him. They agree, at least to
Speaker 2: transfer him out of DC. For someone always seeking adventure
Speaker 2: and looking for glamorous, beautiful women to spend time with,
Speaker 2: Dall is sent to what will be his personal xanad
Speaker 2: Manhattan of the nineteen forties.
Speaker 1: The Irregulars have their New York offices on.
Speaker 2: The thirty fifth and thirty six floors of thirty Rockefeller Center,
Speaker 2: the same iconic Art deco skyscraper that will later house
Speaker 2: this Tonight Show, Late Night and Saturday Night Live, which
Speaker 2: seems like a super weird place to stash an organization
Speaker 2: devoted to conducting spy work. Maybe operating out of thirty
Speaker 2: Rock is partly a way to convince the book that
Speaker 2: they're not doing anything too shady. After all, their public
Speaker 2: goal is simply to promote British interests in America. Fascinating
Speaker 2: side note, Doll is mesmerized by the incredible speed of
Speaker 2: the elevator at thirty Rock, which is unlike anything he's
Speaker 2: ever experienced and becomes an inspiration for his Chocolate Factory sequel,
Speaker 2: Charlie and the Glass Elevator. Dall instantly takes to the
Speaker 2: glamorous scene. Despite the challenges of the war, the city
Speaker 2: is still a hub of fashion and arts and nightlife.
Speaker 2: This is the era of the Stork Club, with regulars
Speaker 2: like Sinatra and Hemingway, the Copacabana, the Cotton Club, and
Speaker 2: the twenty one Club. Doll dives in headfirst, ringing out
Speaker 2: every last job of it that he possibly can. Amid
Speaker 2: the champagne and midnight conversations, he finds himself even more
Speaker 2: in his element than he'd been in Washington. Working even
Speaker 2: more in his favor. The war has led to a
Speaker 2: significant shortage of eligible men in the city, although my
Speaker 2: wife would say there's always a shortage of eligible men
Speaker 2: in the city, which I think is an insult to me,
Speaker 2: like if there were more eligible men that I wouldn't
Speaker 2: have gotten so lucky.
Speaker 1: I digress.
Speaker 2: The point is Dall is even more in demand as
Speaker 2: a romantic partner in New York than he'd been in DC,
Speaker 2: which is saying something again. According to Marsh's daughter Antoinette,
Speaker 2: Doll was very arrogant with his women, but he got
Speaker 2: away with it. The uniform didn't hurt one bit, and
Speaker 2: he was an ace. Girls just fell at Rolled's feet.
Speaker 2: Dalla is still obsessed with figuring out what he's going
Speaker 2: to do when the war ends. Going back to Buckingham
Speaker 2: Shure is out of the question. His ambitions are coalescing
Speaker 2: around storytelling. Keep in mind this is before he writes
Speaker 2: the Gremlin story that gets him invited to FDR's White House.
Speaker 2: Right now, Dolla is mostly writing short autobiographical stories, and
Speaker 2: they're all rejected for publication. He grows incredibly frustrated, which
Speaker 2: is mirrored in some of his later protagonists like Matilda
Speaker 2: or James from the Giant who will themselves to greatness
Speaker 2: despite being cruelly underestimated. Dall's first break as a writer
Speaker 2: is one of those amazing stories of luck meeting talent
Speaker 2: at just.
Speaker 1: The right moment.
Speaker 2: I truly love this origin story. Here's Dahl telling you
Speaker 2: years later in Thrill Maker, a nineteen eighty five documentary
Speaker 2: where he's interviewed during a visit back to Norway.
Speaker 3: They wanted people who had been in combat to publish
Speaker 3: stories in the American papers to give Britain a boost,
Speaker 3: and a man was sent to me, a famous writer
Speaker 3: called CS Forrester, who wrote Captain horn Blur stories. And
Speaker 3: he can't see me, and he said, I will take
Speaker 3: you out to lunch and you will tell me almost
Speaker 3: exciting adventure in the RAF and I will write it
Speaker 3: and it'll be published because I can always get them published,
Speaker 3: and it'll be good for Britain. So I said, lovely.
Speaker 3: I was terribly excited to go out to this famous writer.
Speaker 3: I'd read everything you'd written.
Speaker 2: CS Fourster isn't as much today, but the guy is
Speaker 2: a giant in Doll's era. It's the equivalent of Aaron Sorkin.
Speaker 2: Just swinging by my office and asking me to lunch.
Speaker 2: As we've seen, Doll does not lack confidence, so he's
Speaker 2: not as petrified going into that meeting as I would
Speaker 2: have been.
Speaker 1: He continues.
Speaker 3: We had lunch, and halfway through lunch we had roast
Speaker 3: duck and he was trying to eat his, and I
Speaker 3: was trying to tell him the story, and he was
Speaker 3: trying to take notes. And I said, look, I'll go
Speaker 3: home tonight and scribble this down roughly and send it
Speaker 3: to you, and you couldn't put it right, and that'll
Speaker 3: be it too, that'll save you and you can eat
Speaker 3: your roast duck in a piece.
Speaker 1: And he said, our super So I did it.
Speaker 2: You know what I love thinking about here? What if
Speaker 2: Forrester hadn't ordered the duck. What if he'd had a
Speaker 2: ham sandwich, and therefore a free hand to write notes.
Speaker 2: What's about to happen might never have happened, and this
Speaker 2: podcast would be about some other writer. It's these tiny
Speaker 2: moments of chance, a roast duck rather than a ham sandwich,
Speaker 2: but sometimes alter the entire trajectory of a life.
Speaker 3: Doc continues, and it's funny to think when I got
Speaker 3: home in the evening, and started writing it. It sort
Speaker 3: of went very nicely, and I felt the story growing
Speaker 3: under me, and so I wrote it and I sent
Speaker 3: it to him. Didn't expect me hear anymore, And a
Speaker 3: week later I got a letter from him saying, I
Speaker 3: was expecting you to send me notes. You've sent me
Speaker 3: a complete story. Did you know that you were a writer?
Speaker 2: Did you know that you were a writer? When you're
Speaker 2: starting out, hearing that you actually have talent and might
Speaker 2: be able to do the crazy thing you dream of
Speaker 2: doing from someone who's already made it is everything in
Speaker 2: a completely different field. Jerry Seinfeld talks about doing one
Speaker 2: of his first ever stand up sets when a much
Speaker 2: more established comic, Jackie Mason, calls him over, telling Jerry
Speaker 2: how jealousy is because Jerry is clearly going to be
Speaker 2: a huge star. Seinfeld talks about that quick interaction with
Speaker 2: Mason being enough to live off of for years. It's
Speaker 2: a stamp of approval, and Forrester is true to his
Speaker 2: word about getting the story published under Doll's name. His
Speaker 2: agent secures it a slot in the Saturday Evening Post,
Speaker 2: which has a circulation of about three million at the time.
Speaker 2: Dolls paid one hundred and eighty seven dollars for the story,
Speaker 2: which is like three thousand dollars today. It's printed over
Speaker 2: two pages in the August first, nineteen forty two edition.
Speaker 2: But all of that is frosting. Did you know you
Speaker 2: were a writer? Is what will carry Doll for years.
Speaker 2: Doll is now a published writer. He's twenty six years old.
Speaker 2: In many ways, his life has just begun. The elation
Speaker 2: of being published is soon tempered by a major change
Speaker 2: in circumstance for Dol. As the war ends, Dolls informed
Speaker 2: that his services in America are no longer required. He
Speaker 2: hasn't seen his mother or sister in years. He takes
Speaker 2: a deep breath and goes back to Buckinghamshire. The ghosts
Speaker 2: of his father and sister hang over the place. He's
Speaker 2: been going from adventure to adventure, avoiding his home for years.
Speaker 2: His mother, who can guilt trip with the best of them,
Speaker 2: insists that her beloved only son move in with her
Speaker 2: while he's in town, and for a time, it's not
Speaker 2: as bad as Doll imagined.
Speaker 1: According to Conint.
Speaker 2: Again, Doll loses himself in the comforting rhythms of rural life.
Speaker 2: He manages his mother's farm, tends to the livestock and
Speaker 2: loafs now. I can't stress enough what a bunker's transition
Speaker 2: this must have been. From international man of mystery seducing
Speaker 2: his way across DC in New York on a Monday,
Speaker 2: to a small town farmer living at home with mom
Speaker 2: that Friday. Writer Martha Gellhorn, Hemingway's wife, visits Stall around
Speaker 2: this time and says she perceives a suffocating atmosphere of
Speaker 2: adoration by his mother. Doll soon begins gambling again, but
Speaker 2: it's not Harry Truman sitting across the table anymore. He
Speaker 2: gets into dog racing, which I mean has that ever
Speaker 2: led to good things for anyone? He even breeds his
Speaker 2: own greyhounds to compete, and shockingly loses a ton of
Speaker 2: the family's money at the track. Doll is spiraling, his
Speaker 2: sisters start worrying. Will Dahl become one of those people
Speaker 2: who is electric as a young man with the light
Speaker 2: in his eyes and a world of potential. Then returns
Speaker 2: from his adventures to drink, gamble, lose his hair, gain
Speaker 2: a belly, and live at a ho hum existence in
Speaker 2: his mother's basement, squandering all that youthful promise. Luckily for Doll,
Speaker 2: his great mentor his obi one is watching. Charles Marsh
Speaker 2: decides to intervene. He practically kidnaps Doll away from Buckinghamshire,
Speaker 2: brings him to New York and puts him up in
Speaker 2: his lavish townhouse on ninety second Street. If Dall had
Speaker 2: been paying his own way, he'd more likely be in
Speaker 2: a studio apartment with roommates on the Lower East Side.
Speaker 2: Marsh insists on underwriting all of Doll's expenses until Dol
Speaker 2: can start making his own money as a writer. That's
Speaker 2: how strongly Marsh believes in him. I'm blown away by this,
Speaker 2: and I think Doll is too. He basically puts it
Speaker 2: all in a book later on. It's Willy Wonka handing
Speaker 2: over his factory to Charlie is an act of extraordinary
Speaker 2: patronage from a mysterious older man of means to a
Speaker 2: young man in whom he sees great promise. Marsh believes
Speaker 2: in Doll's talent every bit as much as C. S.
Speaker 2: Forrester did, and Lake Forrester Marsh has connections. Once Marsh
Speaker 2: has got Doll in New York, he introduces the young
Speaker 2: writer to the most powerful magazine editor in town.
Speaker 1: Harold Ross, the.
Speaker 2: Eccentric, meticulous founding editor of The New Yorker. The New
Speaker 2: Yorker then as it is now, is the ultimate destination
Speaker 2: for short fiction. Despite his often brusque personality, Ross is
Speaker 2: deeply committed to the writers he works with, nurturing household
Speaker 2: names like Dorothy Parker, James Thurberr, and J. D.
Speaker 1: Salinger.
Speaker 2: Ross takes an instant liking to Doll's stories. This is
Speaker 2: huge for Doll. The New Yorker buys several of dolls
Speaker 2: stories in a row, including his now classic Skin, which
Speaker 2: follows an old destitute man on whose back of famous
Speaker 2: artist wants tattooed to painting. When art collectors realize it's worth,
Speaker 2: they offered the destitute man huge amounts of money for
Speaker 2: his tattoo. The story then takes a really dark turn,
Speaker 2: implying that the collectors intend to claim the artwork off
Speaker 2: the man's back by any means necessary. The story explores
Speaker 2: the intersection of art and commerce, exploitation, and the high
Speaker 2: personal cost of other people's greed, three themes that Doll
Speaker 2: will return to in his work and in his private
Speaker 2: life for decades. All of Doll's stories in this period
Speaker 2: are dark twisty, witty, somewhat gruesome, and totally unique. And
Speaker 2: this includes his gremlin story, which we discussed Eleanor Roosevelt
Speaker 2: loving so much. But all sorts of readers are going
Speaker 2: crazy for the stories. The New York Harold Tribune writes
Speaker 2: the Dolls developing something like a cult of fans. Doll
Speaker 2: can't believe it's all happening. His old pal from the Irregulars,
Speaker 2: Noel Coward, is also a little surprised, but for a
Speaker 2: different reason, saying about Doll, the stories are brilliant and
Speaker 2: his imagination is fabulous. Unfortunately, there is in all of
Speaker 2: them an underlying streak of cruelty and macabre unpleasantness and
Speaker 2: a crudely adolescent emphasis on sex. Coward continues, this is
Speaker 2: strange because rold is a sensitive and gentle creature. Mixing
Speaker 2: his gentle, sensitive side with his attraction to cruelty and
Speaker 2: unpleasantness is, of course, what will make Dall more successful
Speaker 2: and more widely read than Coward or any other living writer.
Speaker 2: That is, if he can buckle down and focus on
Speaker 2: his work. Because while we've heard Dahl spend his twenties spying, seducing,
Speaker 2: and manipulating his way across DC in New York. He's
Speaker 2: about to fall prey to the seduction of something with
Speaker 2: almost infinite alert. Doll, the master manipulator, is about to
Speaker 2: discover for what it means to be manipulated by something
Speaker 2: far more cunning than himself, something that will whisper promises
Speaker 2: of glory while slowly invisibly tightening its grip around his throat,
Speaker 2: and right now he's walking straight into its embrace. The
Speaker 2: Secret World of Roald Dahl is produced by Imagine Audio
Speaker 2: and Parallax Studios for iHeart Podcasts. Created and written by
Speaker 2: me Aaron Tracy, produced by Matt Schrader, post production by
Speaker 2: wind Hill Studios, with editing, scoring, and sound design by
Speaker 2: Mark Henry Phillips. Editing by Ryan Seaton, Music by eight PM.
Speaker 2: Executive producers Nathan Cloke, Karl Welker, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard,
Speaker 2: and Aaron Tracy. Additional voice performances and recreation by Mark
Speaker 2: Henry Phillips and Eleven Laps. If you enjoyed this episode,
Speaker 2: be sure to rate and review The Secret World of
Speaker 2: Roll Doll on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: Copyright twenty twenty six Imagine Entertainment, iHeartMedia and Parallax