Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, thanks for pulling up a chair. Today on
Speaker 1: Table for two.
Speaker 2: We're at the Sunset Tower in Hollywood, my favorite joint,
Speaker 2: and this is Bruce Bosi.
Speaker 1: Today.
Speaker 2: Those are super glamorous, very special day because we're having
Speaker 2: lunch with an icon, with someone who's been in the
Speaker 2: business since literally the nineteen forties.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna have the chop salad with the exactly.
Speaker 1: The way you're DoD He's tan, he's charming, he has
Speaker 1: so much charisma. He has started movies, television, Broadway. He's
Speaker 1: published books, produced movies. He's been an entrepreneur.
Speaker 3: I wish I could eat more of this, but I've
Speaker 3: talked too much.
Speaker 1: He is a very debonair, very funny, extremely charismatic George Hamilton.
Speaker 2: So let me tell you, pull up a chair, grab
Speaker 2: yourself a glass of rose, because we are gonna have
Speaker 2: some good times today and hear some epic stories from
Speaker 2: years gone by, and you'll be surprised. There's a future
Speaker 2: for this eighty four year old. So stay with us
Speaker 2: and we'll be right back. I'm Bruce Bosi and this
Speaker 2: is my podcast Table for two. So mister Hamilton, thank
Speaker 2: you for George, thank you for pulling up a chair
Speaker 2: today on table for two. It's a big deal, and
Speaker 2: I just wanted to sort of say so, you know,
Speaker 2: many of my lunch dates are legends in the making,
Speaker 2: legends to be if they're lucky enough to have the
Speaker 2: fortitude to stick around. And we're sitting if you pulled
Speaker 2: up a chair today with a gentleman who is an
Speaker 2: iconic man, a true Hollywood superstar, your royalty in Hollywood.
Speaker 2: You are what the definition of a movie star is.
Speaker 2: You've had incredible career. Georgia started in movies, television. You've
Speaker 2: hosted your own successful daytime talk show. You start on Broadway.
Speaker 2: You've published two very successful books. You're a successful producer.
Speaker 2: You're an entrepreneur, the skincare line, the tanning salons. You've
Speaker 2: been the Grand Marshal of a parade. You've been a
Speaker 2: reality television host.
Speaker 1: You've been a.
Speaker 2: Reality television star. You've had cigars named after you. You've
Speaker 2: been a lover. You've married your father, a brother, a son,
Speaker 2: and you in two thousand and nine were awarded the
Speaker 2: two thousand, three hundred and eighty eighth Star on Hollywood
Speaker 2: Boulevard Walker Fame. I am sitting with today a legend
Speaker 2: mister George Hamilton, thank you for joining me today.
Speaker 4: And I was married and divorced only one time you've
Speaker 4: been record that is yeah, and remained a friend over
Speaker 4: the years. And you know, I got I got a
Speaker 4: star in Palm Springs, and I was, yeah, I thought,
Speaker 4: that's a pretty amazing to get a star in Palm
Speaker 4: spring And then I got a it's been there with
Speaker 4: thirty forty years and now I got a note of
Speaker 4: about it and needed repair. And they asked me, yeah,
Speaker 4: ask me what I wanted to do about it? Maybe
Speaker 4: running a repair service for stars literally and Bom Springs.
Speaker 3: You gotta go down and fix it? Why not? You know,
Speaker 3: you just don't want to. You don't want to leave
Speaker 3: your star.
Speaker 2: No, you have to keep that. So you are from Memphis, right,
Speaker 2: born of Memphis. So you're younger than Elvis Presley. Did
Speaker 2: you ever did you know him growing up? Did you
Speaker 2: ever meet Elvis?
Speaker 4: Never met him in Memphis in the in the beginning
Speaker 4: when he started. I had already left Memphis and was
Speaker 4: in Hollywood when he started. And I met the colonel,
Speaker 4: and the colonel was the most extraordinary guy. I became
Speaker 4: some of my best friend and under contract to MGM.
Speaker 4: He had a sort of cook house. He liked it
Speaker 4: because then the carnival, it was where all the people
Speaker 4: met and he made his best deals. And he had
Speaker 4: all the guys from Elvis's group, Sonny and Red and
Speaker 4: Lamar and all the guys would come in and see
Speaker 4: the colonel, and Elvis would come and go. But the
Speaker 4: Colonel and Elvis were very much in a kind of
Speaker 4: low key conversation all the time, and there would be
Speaker 4: like a continuing of it. He would check in with
Speaker 4: him and it would be kind of private conversations. I
Speaker 4: would hear, and I would see the boys hanging out
Speaker 4: with each other and with Elvis. The minute they were
Speaker 4: walking in or they were leaving, they'd start a song,
Speaker 4: a gospel song in tight harmony. And I think Elvis
Speaker 4: in love that kind of it was kind of like
Speaker 4: a grounding where.
Speaker 3: His world was.
Speaker 4: All the rest of it was kind of you know,
Speaker 4: this is happening, but and he wasn't making a big
Speaker 4: deal of it.
Speaker 3: I was a very low key.
Speaker 4: Guy, and I didn't I certainly knew him and talk
Speaker 4: to him many times, but I don't think I ever
Speaker 4: was close with Elvis. When I was going out with
Speaker 4: Lyndon Johnson's daughter Linda, Elvis and him Priscilla, and in
Speaker 4: different times we were all together, and I have some
Speaker 4: pictures with Elvis were very interesting, but it was Elvis
Speaker 4: was a totally gentleman, very considerate, very kind person.
Speaker 2: That's the definite, Like if someone's describing you, that's how
Speaker 2: one would describe you.
Speaker 1: I feel. And do you think it has to do
Speaker 1: with being a Southern Yeah.
Speaker 4: I do think I've read something about you once you
Speaker 4: said you the most important thing to use someone who's kind.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's to me too. I was brought up that way.
Speaker 3: I don't I'm not. I can.
Speaker 4: I can have a funny line and it could be cutting,
Speaker 4: but it's never unkind. I don't know how to be unkind.
Speaker 4: And people will say, well, you know that shows weakness,
Speaker 4: when you know it doesn't shows great strength.
Speaker 3: Especially in this town.
Speaker 4: I see people in the streets, you know, all messed
Speaker 4: up all across this country now on all the drugs
Speaker 4: that are just awful now, and just to be kind
Speaker 4: helps so much in their world, just to acknowledge people.
Speaker 2: When I see people you know who unfortunately are living
Speaker 2: on the streets, they just want to be acknowledged these
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, we're just all on this planet
Speaker 2: together for this short period of time.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: It's so true, And how we look at life determines
Speaker 4: our success. And a lot of people think you have
Speaker 4: to be tough and killing and crushing.
Speaker 3: To get ahead.
Speaker 4: I always resent that, and I always resist it. The
Speaker 4: minute I realize I've got a plan, I hand it
Speaker 4: over and let the universe head it.
Speaker 3: It always finds a better way for me, and it
Speaker 3: gives it to me in a way in which I
Speaker 3: would least expect it. But it comes in perfect form
Speaker 3: when it comes, may come three years later than my timing.
Speaker 3: But I've let go of that all my life.
Speaker 4: I never did in my mind something cheap or hurtful
Speaker 4: to get ahead and a cost to someone else.
Speaker 1: So if we kind of flip from Memphis, what brought
Speaker 1: you to Hollywood.
Speaker 4: Well, they were separate by years. My mother and brother
Speaker 4: were the end of the war, come the Second World War.
Speaker 4: The forties in this country were amazing. People were all
Speaker 4: of a sudden seeing they were getting houses for the
Speaker 4: first time under the gi Bill of Rights. People were
Speaker 4: actually able to have something for a change. And I
Speaker 4: don't know, I guess it was Rosevelt that brought that along.
Speaker 4: And people were starting to settle down in these different
Speaker 4: towns and countries and places, and America was becoming a
Speaker 4: place to go and venture into and see now that
Speaker 4: the war was over. And my mother and brother lived
Speaker 4: in a little town called Blifeul, Arkansas. My grandfather was
Speaker 4: the town doctor. My grandmother was a Christian science practitioner.
Speaker 4: They were married and for years my grandfather had done
Speaker 4: all these medical things in a small town, and my
Speaker 4: grandmother has done all of this kind of Christian science
Speaker 4: metaphysical thinking, and at the end of his life he
Speaker 4: said that she had healed more than he had. My
Speaker 4: mother decided that she had been in love with one
Speaker 4: guy who was in a movie and his name was
Speaker 4: Buddy Rogers, Butty Rogers and wings, and my mother just
Speaker 4: this was the end all. And he arrived in his
Speaker 4: plane in this little town where they had a huge
Speaker 4: army base, air force base, and it was all wrapping
Speaker 4: up and the war was over. My mother knew she
Speaker 4: had to get out of this little town. But until then,
Speaker 4: the best looking men on earth arrived in airplanes day
Speaker 4: in this air force base. So my mother said, I'm
Speaker 4: going to leave this place, and I'm going to go
Speaker 4: to Hollywood because I have Betty Grabel's legs.
Speaker 3: And my brother, my gay brother, said, I have Betty Gables.
Speaker 3: I had a gay brother, and Bill was the most
Speaker 3: amazing human being.
Speaker 4: He taught me so much. He had the best taste
Speaker 4: of anybody I ever knew. He was had an outrageous
Speaker 4: sense of humor. And my mother and brother were joined together,
Speaker 4: and he actually created this fatal my mother by dressing her,
Speaker 4: and he had such amazing taste that he gave her
Speaker 4: all of the little my mother great southern bell quality,
Speaker 4: but she didn't have that killer, that look of fatale.
Speaker 1: My brother just did that, and he knew what he dresses,
Speaker 1: he styled.
Speaker 3: He created her, He absolutely created He then said to
Speaker 3: me at that.
Speaker 4: Age, she said, we're going to California, and I'm taking
Speaker 4: you and your other brother. We're going across country and
Speaker 4: you get to see all of America.
Speaker 3: That was perfect.
Speaker 4: My little brother didn't know where he'd come from. Is
Speaker 4: not like anybody else in the family. He's a person,
Speaker 4: so so he said it in his own words. He's
Speaker 4: so meticulous and so worried about what's going to happen.
Speaker 4: That he'll read the label of an aspirin bottle for
Speaker 4: all side effects, and we will leave for another country
Speaker 4: with twelve dollars in our pocket.
Speaker 3: We just don't. We just know that the universe is going.
Speaker 4: To provide right exactly. So my mother and brother set out.
Speaker 4: We bought a Lincoln Continental convertible. Yeah it was pea
Speaker 4: green but had beige leather and beige top, and Lincolnenttal
Speaker 4: convertible forty seven.
Speaker 3: Them were apset doning, yes, dunning, and we you know,
Speaker 3: they didn't drive all the well over they were you know,
Speaker 3: four engines in them.
Speaker 4: But we drove across country and we broke down somewhere
Speaker 4: in Mexico, and in the mountains of Mexico. My mother
Speaker 4: decided to take us short through Mexico. Yeah, if you
Speaker 4: can believe that one, and we ended up in Acapusto,
Speaker 4: but not before death almost because we brakes went out
Speaker 4: of the mountains and ten thousand feet and my brother
Speaker 4: was hyperventilating, and my mother was there saying, oh, we've
Speaker 4: got to do something, and she.
Speaker 3: Looked back at me and she said, well, you're all
Speaker 3: I've got get out and find help.
Speaker 4: That was now at that time, I was a little
Speaker 4: like this is a little later I was I was
Speaker 4: not seven, I was about ten, okay, and so at
Speaker 4: and I had a field commission and I went out
Speaker 4: and found I found another wrecker, actually was a garbage truck.
Speaker 3: And I went and I put my mother and my
Speaker 3: brother and my little brother in the garbage truck and
Speaker 3: we drove to a Capulco, which was a hell of
Speaker 3: a arrival in.
Speaker 2: The garbage truck. Thank you that this is a movie.
Speaker 2: The story you're talking about, like, what an adventure.
Speaker 4: My brother was really a lovely human being and taught
Speaker 4: me a lot, but he was always behind the scenes,
Speaker 4: plotting and planning. My mother had all these different boyfriends
Speaker 4: that all had fallen in love with her, and so
Speaker 4: every town we go to, she said, oh.
Speaker 3: He's divine, you know.
Speaker 4: He went to Princeton and just gonna love him, and
Speaker 4: we're gonna have dinner with him, and I were going
Speaker 4: to find a father for all of us.
Speaker 3: It's just gonna work beautifully. And I'd say, oh great.
Speaker 4: We'd sit down and the guy would walk and he
Speaker 4: was a complete alcoholic, a mess, and she said, oh
Speaker 4: my god, he's let himself go.
Speaker 3: We move on to the next town, right.
Speaker 4: She was just outrageous, you know. And Bill would say, well,
Speaker 4: you know, it's just not the thing to do the
Speaker 4: way he did. He don't wear brown shoes after six o'clock.
Speaker 1: Georgia.
Speaker 2: Now we understand, like how you got such incredible style
Speaker 2: and charisma.
Speaker 1: I mean, this was to have a mom like that,
Speaker 1: well it was.
Speaker 4: It was a bizarre thing because Bill and Mom wanted
Speaker 4: to entertain and know all the and they did because
Speaker 4: you know, this swans that whole thing with Truman.
Speaker 3: Capodi was at our.
Speaker 4: House every night, really at Beriakman Place in New York,
Speaker 4: and my brother when they ran out quite often they'd
Speaker 4: run out of money and they wouldn't have any more
Speaker 4: cabar in anymore cannopages. My brother would go back in
Speaker 4: the kitchen and put together dog food on little ritz
Speaker 4: crackers with an olive and people would eat.
Speaker 3: And I said, Bill, you can't do it. He said,
Speaker 3: they'd love it.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Table for two.
Speaker 5: Our guest, George Hamilton has been a Hollywood fixture since
Speaker 5: the nineteen fifties, but you might not know that being
Speaker 5: a movie star was not his first choice for.
Speaker 3: A career Hollywood. When we got to Hollywood.
Speaker 1: Yeah, tell me like, you got to Hollywood and you're
Speaker 1: how old?
Speaker 3: Now, Well, I was about twelve.
Speaker 4: Then it's your twelve, I guess in ten, eleven, twelve
Speaker 4: in that time, and sometimes it seemed forever, but we
Speaker 4: stopped in all these different towns. My mother thought that
Speaker 4: Hollywood was where they were going to make it, and
Speaker 4: then I realized something.
Speaker 3: They were here.
Speaker 4: We had houses all over, they'd had a little money
Speaker 4: from they'd inherited with the death of my grandmother and grandfather,
Speaker 4: and they were living the life they thought movie stars lived.
Speaker 4: And they were I mean my mother there was nothing
Speaker 4: to see Clark Gable at dinner with my mother. I mean,
Speaker 4: these were things that, oh yeah, all the time. And
Speaker 4: my mother knew all the movies stars.
Speaker 1: Now was she pursuing the career or she just was
Speaker 1: sort of.
Speaker 4: So they were enamored from the first day they saw
Speaker 4: a movie in her movie house and they saw themselves
Speaker 4: in it, both of them. And my brother was pushing
Speaker 4: my mother because he wanted it too, and neither one.
Speaker 3: He was incredibly good looking, and I.
Speaker 4: Wasn't fashionable to be gay in those days, and very
Speaker 4: hard right and Bill and I I laughed a lot
Speaker 4: of Bill's outrageous.
Speaker 3: It's his sense of humor was so outrageous. And my
Speaker 3: mother was this. She got a screen test and she
Speaker 3: used Bill's lane, which was just a foolish thing.
Speaker 4: She went and she had this screen test where one
Speaker 4: of these guys was supposed to be like a Clark gay.
Speaker 4: She was supposed to say she supposed to seduce him
Speaker 4: on camera, and she was all right with that, except
Speaker 4: she did say exactly what.
Speaker 3: Billy told her. A gentleman doesn't wear brown shoes after
Speaker 3: six o'clock. And that was the end of her career.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you. It's very kind. But we're moving on.
Speaker 1: We're moving on.
Speaker 2: So when you get to Hollywood, you're going into your teens,
Speaker 2: did you have a influence that you looked at like
Speaker 2: a leading man that you were like, oh, and did
Speaker 2: you have the itch you wanted to become an actor?
Speaker 3: Brusle? You know what what got it for me? I
Speaker 3: really wanted to be a doctor because my grandmother and
Speaker 3: grandfather was and I thought there's a lot to this
Speaker 3: medicine that doesn't people don't understand the mind. The power
Speaker 3: of the mind is huge, and I thought I would
Speaker 3: try to be an actor, but.
Speaker 4: I thought, it's not possible the way they're doing it,
Speaker 4: you know, just they're failing left and right, and yet
Speaker 4: they're the darlings of the tomb. So years later I
Speaker 4: decided I was getting out of school. I was seventeen,
Speaker 4: and I thought, why don't I try that, just to
Speaker 4: see if my idea is right. They wanted it too much,
Speaker 4: and I figured out the way to handle Hollywood is
Speaker 4: let them think you don't need them. So when I
Speaker 4: went to MGM, an agent brought me in with ten guys,
Speaker 4: and they were all kind of like a yellow dog
Speaker 4: casting kanya. So I decided I'd rent a Rolls Royce
Speaker 4: and get a chauffeur. And I got an old one
Speaker 4: that was in nineteen thirty nine, Snack of Deville, built
Speaker 4: for the King and Queen of England, and I rented
Speaker 4: it for the day and got a dorman from a
Speaker 4: restaurant with some braid on his shoulder and made him
Speaker 4: drive it, and I said park it under the window
Speaker 4: of Altrasconi, who was the casting director of MGM. And
Speaker 4: so while I was standing with these ten guys and
Speaker 4: then this agent was doing a bad job trying to
Speaker 4: sell us, I kept going to the window, and I'd
Speaker 4: look at my watch and I'd look out the window
Speaker 4: and said, be right down, be right And I said,
Speaker 4: what are you doing? I said, these cars downstairs and
Speaker 4: I have to go.
Speaker 3: This is what do you have to go for?
Speaker 4: I said, well, mommy and I this is not for me.
Speaker 4: I don't want to be an actor. I said, God,
Speaker 4: I can make much more money in the family, but
Speaker 4: I don't want to do this. And they said, well,
Speaker 4: hold on a minute. I said, I'm sorry, must go,
Speaker 4: shook hands with each boy and walked out. I was
Speaker 4: called back an hour later and say, they want you back.
Speaker 4: They want to talk to you again. I said, I'm
Speaker 4: not working for any three hundred dollars a week. I
Speaker 4: better trust about it than that. Anyway, I got my
Speaker 4: first contract up to one thousand dollars and they were
Speaker 4: not hired, no one else. And I said to my
Speaker 4: mother and brother, the trick is you wanted it too much.
Speaker 4: I pretended I didn't want it. I went under contract
Speaker 4: the first day, you asked me. The first person I
Speaker 4: saw walking on the lot was carry Grant.
Speaker 1: Get out and I walked.
Speaker 4: I said, mister Grant, how what do I do to
Speaker 4: be like you. He said, why didn't you get a
Speaker 4: good haircut.
Speaker 3: That? And then I saw I saw fred as stair dancing,
Speaker 3: and I thought, my god.
Speaker 4: He said and I waited finish and I said, mister Stare,
Speaker 4: can you give me any tips because I'm trying to
Speaker 4: learn about acting and on. And he said, well, they
Speaker 4: have a good tailor here, but there's a better one
Speaker 4: in London that you might one day get. Told me
Speaker 4: the name of the taylor. I thought, so far, I've
Speaker 4: got a haircut in the tailor. And my first movie
Speaker 4: at MGM was with Robert Mitchell. Now mitcham was just
Speaker 4: sort of leisurely standing against the wall, I thought, But
Speaker 4: then I realized that there's something else going on. He said,
Speaker 4: say the lines that I men met the guy and
Speaker 4: we were in a scene and they said, Mitch, say
Speaker 4: the lines. Vincent Minelli said, say the lines, bitch, and
Speaker 4: he said, I know the lines. I'm just too drunk
Speaker 4: to say.
Speaker 3: This is just Hollywood. So now he and I work
Speaker 3: all day. He never misses the line. We finished around
Speaker 3: seven o'clock and he said, we're going to the Sportsman's Love.
Speaker 3: We're going to have a drink. I thought, okay. Four
Speaker 3: o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 4: I'm still drinking with Robert Mitchum and I said, mister Mitchell,
Speaker 4: I've got to be on the set at seven o'clock
Speaker 4: in the morning. He said, you know, you worry about
Speaker 4: makeup and being in a wardrobe, he said, tell him
Speaker 4: me put the wardrobe in a dressing room and get
Speaker 4: a tan. Well for days, that was it. I had
Speaker 4: a haircut, a suit, and a ten That's all I knew.
Speaker 4: And that advice was that I never learned anything about acting.
Speaker 4: That was another stuff they said to me at the studio.
Speaker 4: This is the best part of okay, They said to
Speaker 4: me at the studio. We want you to date only
Speaker 4: the girls at MGM because we put a lot of
Speaker 4: money in publicity for you people. And don't go to
Speaker 4: Warner Brothers and ask what there's some beautiful girls. Don't
Speaker 4: go to Warner Brothers.
Speaker 1: Just stay with the MGM women.
Speaker 3: So I found a list of them. They were about
Speaker 3: seventy and I thought I could get through that in
Speaker 3: a month ago.
Speaker 4: So the next thing I would take, you know, sometimes
Speaker 4: three a day, I'd make breakfast, lunch.
Speaker 3: I was doing what the studio wanted.
Speaker 4: So as it went on, I found out something that
Speaker 4: was extraordinary. First of all, there were lots of parts,
Speaker 4: but they weren't telling and the agents didn't have the knowledge.
Speaker 4: They had no breakdowns. So the agents, I'm working on
Speaker 4: something for you, Because it was always bullshit. You just
Speaker 4: knew that the agent weren't going to come up with anything.
Speaker 4: So I took it in my own hands, and I
Speaker 4: found that there were script analysis and script breakdowns and
Speaker 4: actual scripts in the memual cage, and that they made
Speaker 4: them and they left them there and they didn't.
Speaker 3: Go to the offices.
Speaker 4: So for maybe several weeks sometimes nobody knew what they
Speaker 4: were doing. I every week climbed the script cage on
Speaker 4: the weekend and spent the weekend reading every script. I
Speaker 4: knew every part that was in the movies at MGM.
Speaker 4: So finally they'd say to me. The agent said, well,
Speaker 4: you know there's nothing right now. Oh yes, there's one
Speaker 4: in this is this wonderful movie called Light in the Piazza.
Speaker 4: It's a movie of you know, well, you're not Italian,
Speaker 4: I said, I'm an actor. Well we will find out
Speaker 4: about that. We're not sure, but nonetheless, we don't see
Speaker 4: you playing this role. I see me playing this role
Speaker 4: I'm saying. So I found out the biggest secret. There
Speaker 4: were about of those seventy girls in the contract, there
Speaker 4: were at least two. Each major head of the studio
Speaker 4: had maybe eight that were really not actresses. They were
Speaker 4: there for certain other things, if you get my drift.
Speaker 4: And they came in at lunchtime and serviced the gentleman.
Speaker 4: The gentleman in question here. So I found out what
Speaker 4: time they came because they came at the same time,
Speaker 4: because the secretaries gave them time by taking up long lunches.
Speaker 1: These the executives on the lot exactly.
Speaker 3: So I would arrive in their offices, knock on the door.
Speaker 3: Who is it. It's George Hewmen, can you come back?
Speaker 3: Who is it? Can I just speak to him and
Speaker 3: what is it?
Speaker 4: And I would open the door and I would catch
Speaker 4: them sometimes in FLAGRANTI.
Speaker 3: He got to be He said, what are you doing?
Speaker 3: What are you doing here?
Speaker 4: I said, I'm just coming from an appointment we had
Speaker 4: in the point, I didn't make any appointment with you,
Speaker 4: I said, but but I have an appointment.
Speaker 3: Well, come back.
Speaker 4: And then he came out and say, you didn't see
Speaker 4: anything you I said a little bit. I didn't something
Speaker 4: I saw something.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you, George very cunning well.
Speaker 4: I was running the studio in my own way. You
Speaker 4: were because I knew the parts. I could tell the
Speaker 4: other actors. Not only could tell the other pipes, I
Speaker 4: could sell them. So I was makingside money.
Speaker 2: Because you would tell your cronies on the did you wow?
Speaker 2: I mean how times have changed? I mean this was
Speaker 2: you know, this was a small the studio system, and
Speaker 2: you had to learn the system. I figured, acting is
Speaker 2: the last thing I need. I need to know how
Speaker 2: they work the system. Yes, was the studio system, which
Speaker 2: eventually came to an end. And you should have probably
Speaker 2: one of the last people in. You know, you were
Speaker 2: such a young buck and you had to learn everything,
Speaker 2: the dance classes and like you said, you know, you
Speaker 2: had access to all this stuff.
Speaker 1: Looking back, was it a fun time or was it
Speaker 1: a good time? Or how does it settle with you?
Speaker 4: It's interesting because I felt that my mother and brother failed.
Speaker 4: I took the position that no matter what happened, I
Speaker 4: was going to try it and pretend I didn't need it,
Speaker 4: and pretend it wasn't that important. It was important to me.
Speaker 4: Once I got in, I thought, I don't want to fail.
Speaker 4: But the minute I started showing I cared about it,
Speaker 4: it was not as often it as it was. It's
Speaker 4: a strange thing. You think the things you care about
Speaker 4: and you willing to do everything for to get are
Speaker 4: the things you get. It's not the way it works.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry to say it, but you know, I remember Manelli,
Speaker 3: I proposed nothing. But Monelli, I was going to tell
Speaker 3: you this before, was saying to George. Prepared.
Speaker 4: He came over and George proparved this young intense actor
Speaker 4: who was getting big movies like Breakfast at Tiffany. He
Speaker 4: said to George, he said, George, I know you are
Speaker 4: a seething volcano inside and you were about to explode it,
Speaker 4: but I have to tell you there is nothing happening
Speaker 4: on your face. Well George was just crushed right. And
Speaker 4: and this guy on the news guy was there and
Speaker 4: he he you know, journalist, Harrison Carrol. And he said
Speaker 4: to him, he said, George, are you becoming a movie
Speaker 4: stars at what you're doing?
Speaker 3: He said, I'm an actor. And he turned to me,
Speaker 3: said you're an actor. I said, no, I'm a movie.
Speaker 1: I would have been said the same thing.
Speaker 3: It was just the fun of it. I loved. I
Speaker 3: always loved the joke of all of it. Even if
Speaker 3: I was it, I liked it.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us on Table for two.
Speaker 5: Few people have better stories than George Hamilton, from his
Speaker 5: time dating President Lyndon Johnson's daughter to his life from
Speaker 5: Palm Beach. I feel lucky that George has sat down
Speaker 5: with me today to share some of his incredible tales.
Speaker 3: People will say, what are you doing next week?
Speaker 4: And they say, you know it's going to be bad weather,
Speaker 4: and we're thinking about going to such and such or somewhere,
Speaker 4: And I'd say, I don't know, but I'll figure it out.
Speaker 3: And then I'd get five or.
Speaker 4: Six invitations, sometimes to different towns and countries.
Speaker 3: Or my favorite is to go out to the airport.
Speaker 1: Yea three or four You got to really listen to this,
Speaker 1: the three or four.
Speaker 3: Aviation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, out there at the airport and I walk in
Speaker 4: with my two suitcases and newspaper, and I don't know
Speaker 4: how long I'm going to be because first of all,
Speaker 4: I don't have a flight. I just go out there
Speaker 4: to see if any of the people I know or
Speaker 4: know of are going somewhere I might be invited, So
Speaker 4: I take along newspaper put my feet up invariably, and
Speaker 4: I could tell you the names of maybe five of
Speaker 4: the most important businessmen in the world come through that
Speaker 4: airport every day. So I'm always sitting there having a coffee.
Speaker 4: They have a very expensive coffee machine. I've never seen
Speaker 4: the equal up. It's phenomen It's anything you like and
Speaker 4: give you a massage at the same time.
Speaker 3: So I'm always drinking coffee.
Speaker 4: I'm so wired by the time I'm ready to go,
Speaker 4: and I'm just hopeful someone and I'll say, where are
Speaker 4: you going there? So we're going to Paris. We have
Speaker 4: to stop in London for a couple of hours and
Speaker 4: we're going to Paris. Oh god, I'm trying to get there.
Speaker 4: I'm actually trying to get to London and Paris. And
Speaker 4: you're going where London Paris? Well, why don't you come
Speaker 4: with us. I'm waiting for my plane. It's too but
Speaker 4: there late where that I don't know. I think they're
Speaker 4: in Gander. In Gander, Yeah, they had some sort of
Speaker 4: a problem, some kind of weather problem.
Speaker 3: Well, come on to snow problem. We've got it. We
Speaker 3: got extra stuff for him. You know, you've got the
Speaker 3: food he brought the caviar and all that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I go right on the plane,
Speaker 4: sit down and and people, I mean practically have my.
Speaker 3: Massage and I do it all the time. This is
Speaker 3: brilliant it for myself. You know you are going to
Speaker 3: run it.
Speaker 1: Nobody on this planet could do that.
Speaker 3: But oh, I think it's sick great.
Speaker 1: Was there ever a time that you put yourself in
Speaker 1: a situation that you're like, Okay.
Speaker 4: I'm in over my head here right this is I
Speaker 4: was over my head from the day and went most
Speaker 4: of its bend over my head. I don't think it's
Speaker 4: fun to swim and shallow water. Yeah, I've always liked
Speaker 4: to be figuring it out as I go.
Speaker 1: What was the most exciting moment in the deep end
Speaker 1: of the pool?
Speaker 4: There's too many things. There's so many things that people listen.
Speaker 4: There was a rumor for a while that I was
Speaker 4: in the CIA. This was all over town, people saying,
Speaker 4: we know you're in the CIA. Why and well, I'd
Speaker 4: gone out with the daughter of the president.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you.
Speaker 3: And Johnson was an extraordinary man. He did not like
Speaker 3: the idea. He was all right initially, but he didn't
Speaker 3: like the idea.
Speaker 4: When he found out that I was sole support for
Speaker 4: my family and I was deferred from the draft. Now
Speaker 4: this is Vietnam, and I got it very clear it's
Speaker 4: about time for him to join up. And I thought,
Speaker 4: why should I be bullied into going when I am
Speaker 4: sole support for my family.
Speaker 3: I'm taking care of him.
Speaker 4: But this went on, and it got to a point
Speaker 4: where I got a call from Linda Johnson's office the
Speaker 4: White House said.
Speaker 3: He'd like to see me at the LBJ ranch and
Speaker 3: I flew down.
Speaker 4: We were arriving in King Air, his King Air, and
Speaker 4: below was Lincoln Continental convertible going about stall speed of
Speaker 4: the airplane.
Speaker 3: But it must have been ninety miles an hour down
Speaker 3: the road right beneath us.
Speaker 4: And we we land and Lindon Johnson says, Linda's with me,
Speaker 4: and he says, get in, Georgie. I get in, and
Speaker 4: I get into a Lincolnonmental convertible but the top down
Speaker 4: and he hands me a thirty o six and he's
Speaker 4: got a twenty twenty at Winchester, and I'm thinking to myself,
Speaker 4: I'm six inches from the head of the President of
Speaker 4: the United States with a gun.
Speaker 3: This is where I get it. They'll find me all over,
Speaker 3: paint all over the car.
Speaker 4: And we went riding in the in the in the
Speaker 4: car for a little while, hunting, and all of a
Speaker 4: sudden he says, there's one, get him, get him. I'm
Speaker 4: looking there's a deer, and I don't know what to do.
Speaker 4: I last thing I want to do is fire a
Speaker 4: gun in the car. So I jumped out and shot
Speaker 4: and I think I hit it, and then it ran
Speaker 4: over here, and ran over there and ran back. Finally
Speaker 4: it fell a secret Service. Get up, they pick him up.
Speaker 4: They put him on the truck. We go again, get in, George,
Speaker 4: go again, another one and he turns to me and
Speaker 4: I get it. And he turns to me and he says, damn,
Speaker 4: you're regular Daniel Boone. Now, all of a sudden I
Speaker 4: see him turning around talking to me, and he's relieving himself. Now,
Speaker 4: where do you look right when you got the President
Speaker 4: of the United States relieving himself with may I say,
Speaker 4: I didn't see, but I hear the rumor.
Speaker 1: This is next level. I mean I would have looked.
Speaker 4: Well, you can't, you just can't. I'm very patriotic. My
Speaker 4: mother and brother. As things went on, time went on.
Speaker 4: My brother wanted more than life to give me, and
Speaker 4: I didn't understand this. He wanted to give me a
Speaker 4: house in Beverly Hills, and I never understood why a particularly,
Speaker 4: I ended up buying a house that was thirty nine rooms.
Speaker 4: It's one of the largest house. Second house built in
Speaker 4: Beverly Hills still there.
Speaker 3: It was a house that the mayor built Sylvie's Faulding,
Speaker 3: and it had a tunnel. And I found out the
Speaker 3: tunnel ran from that.
Speaker 4: House to Pickfair, which was the house that Mary Pickford
Speaker 4: and Buddy Rogers learned together. So when my mother thought
Speaker 4: she was going to marry Buddy Rogers from this little town,
Speaker 4: all that trip across country for them to be movie
Speaker 4: stars and didn't work. Then my going out to Hollywood
Speaker 4: and connecting, they figured they were going to at least
Speaker 4: let Mary Pickford know that they were there.
Speaker 3: They had arrived.
Speaker 4: Because Buddy was going to marry my mother and he
Speaker 4: married Mary Pickford, America's sweetheart instead.
Speaker 3: It broke her heart.
Speaker 4: Wow, every man she ever went out with, most of
Speaker 4: the motivations, all the guys that she went were for
Speaker 4: one reason. That was to get us father, get us
Speaker 4: someone to be ahead of the family. But her heart
Speaker 4: was broken because Buddy Rogers. So when we got out
Speaker 4: there California and I looking for her house, my brother
Speaker 4: and mother maneuvered me into buying this particular house and
Speaker 4: it was Douglas Fairbanks house and Mary Pickford. They wanted
Speaker 4: Mary Pickford to know they were in town.
Speaker 3: I bought the house.
Speaker 4: My brother decorated incordibles, Savonnerie carpets and goldblas and seb
Speaker 4: vases never seen. All my money was going to this
Speaker 4: day and we had an invitation for Mary Pickford to
Speaker 4: have dinner and she came in drinking Scotch and milk,
Speaker 4: and she had little gold ringlets and a little close hat,
Speaker 4: drunk out of her head with Buddy Rogers. And Mary
Speaker 4: Pickford says, Tom, your mother and my husband have been
Speaker 4: in love for years. They're probably and they had gone
Speaker 4: into the kitchen. They're probably in there having their way
Speaker 4: with each other. Now, she says to me, And you
Speaker 4: want to be an actor? I said, well, I'm just starting.
Speaker 4: She said, well, we're going to do a improvisation. I'm
Speaker 4: going to have a heart attack and I'm going to
Speaker 4: fall in your arms and you're going to give me
Speaker 4: mouth to mouth or suscitation, And I thought, is.
Speaker 3: This am I having out of body kids?
Speaker 4: It's one hundred years old, and she's I've got her
Speaker 4: in my arms and she wants to have mouth and
Speaker 4: mouth resuscitation, just as I have her in my arms,
Speaker 4: and she collapses. Buddy and my mother walk out of
Speaker 4: the kitchen and he says, Oh, for Christ's sake, Mary,
Speaker 4: you do this all the time.
Speaker 3: Not get off.
Speaker 2: Oh, Like the personalities are I mean, you're talking silent
Speaker 2: film starts.
Speaker 3: We weren't so silent.
Speaker 1: They were not so silent.
Speaker 2: So I mean, here you are. You've experienced Hollywood in
Speaker 2: the fifties and the sixties and the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 3: I mean, and the forties and the forties.
Speaker 1: Is there a period of time that you look back?
Speaker 2: So that was in your world the golden time, the
Speaker 2: best time, because to me always the seventies seems so.
Speaker 4: I would have thought so, because that's when I had
Speaker 4: some sort of Hollywood fame in movies. It came to
Speaker 4: a point where the studios were pushing you and you.
Speaker 3: Were getting lots of work and you're making money, and
Speaker 3: it was very glamorous, But it was never as glamorous
Speaker 3: as the forties. Really that was those were real movie stars.
Speaker 4: Yeah, people like Glorias Swanson used to come and stay
Speaker 4: at the house with me. She knew the house because
Speaker 4: she'd been in it many times. She felt comfortable in
Speaker 4: the house. But she would come in her roles and
Speaker 4: immediately once she was there, she took all of that off.
Speaker 4: She just became part of our family. She brought her
Speaker 4: She loved health food, so she always was doing health
Speaker 4: food and she would stay for weeks. And to hear
Speaker 4: Gloria Swanson tell about silent movies and stuff, it was extraordinary.
Speaker 4: So I had all of that input, and in a
Speaker 4: strange way, I didn't really want to be in the
Speaker 4: period that I entered. I wanted to be in the
Speaker 4: one before. So I played that character. And then then
Speaker 4: all of a sudden, I found myself enormously out of
Speaker 4: date because not even the James Dean was in it
Speaker 4: more was in anymore. But then I found myself in
Speaker 4: a movie with dressing in a very kind of well
Speaker 4: like al Pacino and al and I became the best
Speaker 4: of friends. I just love how and we were I
Speaker 4: played the lawyer and God followed the three and what
Speaker 4: did I do? I dressed like they did in the
Speaker 4: twenties and thirty hours movie that would have thought have
Speaker 4: been street violent and everything in its own way. But
Speaker 4: Francis knew how to marry those cultures together.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: He was an amazing when they call me.
Speaker 4: I got a call one day and they said the
Speaker 4: Francis Coppler would like you to come in and meet
Speaker 4: with him for a Godfather three. And I took a
Speaker 4: deep breath and I said, now you tell Bob Evans
Speaker 4: to stop trying to play jokes on the other time.
Speaker 3: It's not funny. And I hung out. They called me back.
Speaker 4: I said, this is not Bob Evans's office, this is
Speaker 4: France's office, and he'd like to see you. And I said,
Speaker 4: what are they going to do? Why would they want
Speaker 4: me and the Godfather? I said, they want to make
Speaker 4: a musical. He said, well, it's the part that Bobby
Speaker 4: Devau was playing and he's not coming back. And it's
Speaker 4: a different kind of lawyer. I said, what kind of lawyer?
Speaker 4: And they said it was kind of like a palm beach.
Speaker 4: I heard that word, mister fix that. I said, I'm
Speaker 4: your man.
Speaker 2: I mean, I remember very elegant in Godfather three, you
Speaker 2: know it was perfectly guys.
Speaker 4: Well, that's why I wanted to do that, because I
Speaker 4: saw the different eras up against each other, just in
Speaker 4: a certain way. It was a very interesting. I asked France, said,
Speaker 4: what am I doing, Francis, are you writing lines?
Speaker 3: Very?
Speaker 4: What are you doing?
Speaker 3: He said, never be further than three feet from now?
Speaker 3: I said why?
Speaker 4: He said, You're a protector. You hang on every word
Speaker 4: he's saying. You wonder what he's saying. You go correct it,
Speaker 4: you know. I said, okay, And I said, well what
Speaker 4: I do? Just look very intense, look at his hair,
Speaker 4: count the strands of hair. So finally he's lying in
Speaker 4: the street. He's been shot, and I got it his
Speaker 4: head in my hands, and I say, I think you're going.
Speaker 3: Bauld drove out racing.
Speaker 1: Holly was a tough town. You don't sustain like you
Speaker 1: have what like what is the magic?
Speaker 4: But I think by the very nature of knowing at
Speaker 4: least what those different eras were, yeah, I also learned
Speaker 4: about them and realized that I wasn't particularly up to date.
Speaker 4: And in a strange way, Hollywood always loops back and
Speaker 4: brings an actor or an era up to date, incorporates
Speaker 4: it by making it by an out of date thing
Speaker 4: becoming in date again and it's a great history maker.
Speaker 4: And once you visit, I mean you look at even
Speaker 4: the movie that you know just won you have you
Speaker 4: have an amazing era of history there. That was frightening,
Speaker 4: one of the biggest decisions ever made. But that period
Speaker 4: has become very interesting to this world again. But we
Speaker 4: often do that because that has the power to do that,
Speaker 4: and sometimes they just collect you along the way.
Speaker 3: I'd wear Gane just as much as.
Speaker 4: I'd wear a suit made by Paulo Matron or my
Speaker 4: guys in England, Madison Shepard. But I kind of always
Speaker 4: studied all that stuff because I think it's not enough
Speaker 4: to be important in one ear. You got to go
Speaker 4: the distance across all.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, one of the things the sustainability
Speaker 2: of someone in an industry, certainly like Hollywood, is you
Speaker 2: have to have the interests like you do, lean into
Speaker 2: understanding it, like the curiosity.
Speaker 4: Well maybe that maybe I just couldn't. Maybe it took
Speaker 4: me all this time to learn the act. Maybe I
Speaker 4: didn't know how to act into no right. But you know,
Speaker 4: I think one of the things in life is I
Speaker 4: have never been able to take myself seriously. I take
Speaker 4: the job, I take the situation, I kind of get
Speaker 4: the joke, and I try my best.
Speaker 3: To always lighten up.
Speaker 4: I don't like giant ego, and I will find a
Speaker 4: way to be self deprecating if I can. And people
Speaker 4: didn't think it's because you're not good. They buy your
Speaker 4: act even better. When you do that, you can hurt yourself.
Speaker 3: A lot of people said you should get more serious.
Speaker 3: I hate serious actors.
Speaker 1: Because you can hurt yourself because if they start to
Speaker 1: not take you as seriously. You know.
Speaker 2: I relate to that comment because one of the things
Speaker 2: I always tried to have when I was at work
Speaker 2: was have fun. People who work with you look at
Speaker 2: you having fun, think you're not really working, and you're like, no,
Speaker 2: I'm working.
Speaker 1: I'm here, I'm doing. But I'm also going to choose
Speaker 1: to have fun.
Speaker 2: And so therefore, and I think not being self deprecating
Speaker 2: is again a way to survive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all the Michigoth that's around us, I agree.
Speaker 4: And I think that they think you're not good because
Speaker 4: of that. Yeah, And I don't care as long as
Speaker 4: I'm having fun at this. Yeah, it's a very very
Speaker 4: it's a very short lived The odds are for me
Speaker 4: to have been in this now to being eighty four
Speaker 4: years old, it's crazy. I don't think anyone would given
Speaker 4: me odds.
Speaker 1: I wish you could see. Your head of hair is
Speaker 1: beautiful and you're smart.
Speaker 2: I mean everything about your radiates. So if anyone is doubting,
Speaker 2: but the resident, they're good.
Speaker 1: They're really good.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 4: But you know it's strange because Vincent Camby just went
Speaker 4: on about me one time. He said, Georgian has always
Speaker 4: been too much. His hair has been so black that
Speaker 4: oil even looks spills.
Speaker 3: Off of it. That goes on and just just rip me.
Speaker 3: And I'm reading it at the top. I'm going to
Speaker 3: do a one man show. You all decided to do that. God,
Speaker 3: this is news and Michael Einstein and are working together. Wow,
Speaker 3: So that should be fine. You'll do it in New York,
Speaker 3: you'll do it in different places. We've written already the
Speaker 3: first draft of this and and I'm going from here
Speaker 3: to go into a rehearsal on it. So it's very
Speaker 3: it's very interesting.
Speaker 2: It's a huge news at table on table for two
Speaker 2: because I was one of the questions that I was
Speaker 2: going to ask you, is like, with such an iconic
Speaker 2: career and you've done so many things, what's up next?
Speaker 2: That that is like hitting right on the nose. It's
Speaker 2: like what I think we all would love to see
Speaker 2: and clearly what you should do well.
Speaker 4: I think the first thing would be to do a
Speaker 4: Soto documentary sort maybe about what we talked about today
Speaker 4: in your life and that kind of stuff, and be
Speaker 4: able to bring all this new stuff into it so
Speaker 4: it's old fashioned and yet it's up to day.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I like that.
Speaker 2: I like that you are such an elegant man, and
Speaker 2: you are so you've had such a life, and I
Speaker 2: love that it ain't nearly wrapping up.
Speaker 1: You're not an eighty four year old. That's like done.
Speaker 3: But there's an old thing. You finally get your head
Speaker 3: together and your ass is falling apart. That's true. Why
Speaker 3: it sounds, but you really can the things that you
Speaker 3: find the most difficult in your old age are the
Speaker 3: very things that keep you the youngest.
Speaker 2: That's very insightful. So just to sort of dig a
Speaker 2: little Deepersue give me an example, Well.
Speaker 4: Talking about you're in an amazing shape, you go to
Speaker 4: the gym. The last thing in the world to do
Speaker 4: is to give it up when you're older.
Speaker 3: Right, you do that more. Right.
Speaker 1: You make very very important point.
Speaker 2: I think the thing that I have done, as I've
Speaker 2: committed to, let's say, the exercise piece of my life,
Speaker 2: it has changed. I don't live the heavy weights anymore,
Speaker 2: incorporated pilates or some wellness things. But you have to
Speaker 2: keep you lean in more as you age because like
Speaker 2: you know, and look, there are things that hurt, like
Speaker 2: my knee hurts. I'm a niscus surgery on my lower back.
Speaker 2: But you figure out how to manage that well.
Speaker 3: But you can constantly look it over. For instance, if
Speaker 3: you knee hurts, there's the reason the knee hurts.
Speaker 4: But.
Speaker 3: Generally protected by a muscle, So you build that muscle
Speaker 3: specific above it if it's your If for instance, your
Speaker 3: back is hurting quite often, it's the core. Yeah, you
Speaker 3: start working on the core wor right, and then you
Speaker 3: decide where it's the lower or the upper quadrants. And
Speaker 3: you can do that in a chair while you're sitting. Yeah,
Speaker 3: people think you have to be in a gym.
Speaker 1: Right, No, you don't know.
Speaker 4: I'm just walking and you can have walking is great,
Speaker 4: but people are trying to overdo these eight thousand steps
Speaker 4: a day or.
Speaker 2: Whatever, constantly looking at their wrists monitor like, oh okay.
Speaker 3: They get lost in those things.
Speaker 4: It's the all around in movement. My just keep saying
Speaker 4: stand all the time. I'll be in bed and it says.
Speaker 2: Three in the morning, Stan, you get out, No, I do. George,
Speaker 2: it is amazing to see you if you look amazing.
Speaker 2: Thank you for taking the time to have lunch with me,
Speaker 2: and I hope all of you have enjoyed this lunch
Speaker 2: that George and I have had here and do it again.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us. Table for two with Bruce Bosi
Speaker 1: is produced by iHeartRadio seven three seven Park and Airmail.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Bruce Bosi and Nathan King. Our
Speaker 1: supervising producer and editor is Dylan Fagan. Table for two
Speaker 1: is researched and written by Jack Sullivan. Our sound engineers
Speaker 1: are Meil B. Klein, Jess Crainich, Evan Taylor, and Jesse Funk.
Speaker 1: Our music supervisor is Randall Poster. Our talent booking is
Speaker 1: done by Jane Sarkin. To social media manager is Gracie Wiener.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to Amy Sugarman, Uni Scherer, Kevin Yuvane, Bobby Bauer, Alison,
Speaker 2: Kanter Graber, Barbara Jen, Jeff Klein, and the staff at
Speaker 2: the Tower Bar in the world famous Sunset Tower Hotel
Speaker 2: in Hollywood.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.