Speaker 1: Welcome back to She Pivots. I'm Fran Drescher.
Speaker 2: Welcome to She Pivots, the podcast where we talk with
Speaker 2: women who dared to pivot out of one career and
Speaker 2: into something new and explore how their personal lives impacted
Speaker 2: these decisions. I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman. Today I'm
Speaker 2: delighted to share my interview with Fran Dresher, recorded live
Speaker 2: at Lincoln Center. Yes, Lincoln Center, Yes, Fran Dresher. I
Speaker 2: grew up near Lincoln Center on the Upper West Side
Speaker 2: of New York and always attended the events, but I
Speaker 2: never dreamed that I would someday be hosting a live
Speaker 2: podcast recording there. And fun fact, the venue where the
Speaker 2: live recording was held is where I used to vote.
Speaker 2: A very full circle moment. For anyone who doesn't follow
Speaker 2: us on Instagram or read our newsletter, which, by the way,
Speaker 2: subscribe to our newsletter, it's amazing and missed me gushing
Speaker 2: about Fran, I'll give you a little refresh. Fran was
Speaker 2: best known for her role as Fran Fine in The Nanny,
Speaker 2: which she created, produced, and earned multiple Emmy and Golden
Speaker 2: Globe nominations for After success with the show, Her life
Speaker 2: took a turn when she was diagnosed with uterine cancer
Speaker 2: and altered both her trajectory and her perspective on life.
Speaker 2: She went on to found Cancer Schmancer, turning pain into purpose.
Speaker 2: As she famously says, she didn't stop pivoting there. She
Speaker 2: became the president of the Screen Actors Guild and American
Speaker 2: Federation of Television and Radio Artists sag AFTRA, which came
Speaker 2: full circle after her parents instilled in appreciation and passion
Speaker 2: for unions in her at an early age. Like so
Speaker 2: many of our guests, her life and experiences built upon
Speaker 2: each other, bringing her to perhaps one of the most
Speaker 2: important moments in sag after history, the strike of twenty two.
Speaker 2: She led the union in negotiating a historic deal, utilizing
Speaker 2: every skill and lesson she had learned over the years.
Speaker 2: So if you're a friend fan, you already know this
Speaker 2: conversation was an absolute delight. She is unapologetically herself and
Speaker 2: unequivocally brilliant.
Speaker 3: Enjoy good evening, everyone, Good evening, So nice to have
Speaker 3: you here at the David Rubinstein Atriam. My name is Jordana,
Speaker 3: I'm the vice president of Programming here and we are
Speaker 3: so thrilled to have you out for tonight's event.
Speaker 1: So we're really.
Speaker 3: Excited to be part of this podcast series that we're
Speaker 3: doing and to have she Pivots here tonight. I'm going
Speaker 3: to actually introduce us now to our host. Emily Tish Susman,
Speaker 3: is the woman who created she Pivots, and so I'm
Speaker 3: very excited to share a little bit about her. She
Speaker 3: has interviewed and uplifted the stories of so many amazing women,
Speaker 3: from Vice President Kamala Harris to Misty Copeland to Stacy London.
Speaker 3: She Pivots highlights the personal aspects of our pivots, and
Speaker 3: we are so excited to be part of this furthering
Speaker 3: important conversations and exciting stories. Please help me welcome Emily
Speaker 3: Tish Susman to the stage.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for that incredible introduction.
Speaker 4: I could not be more excited to be at Lincoln Center.
Speaker 4: As you guys heard, I'm Emily Tish Susman, the founder, creator,
Speaker 4: and host of she Pivots, the podcast where we have
Speaker 4: conversations about how the personal impacts the professional, and it
Speaker 4: really could not feel more natural, more comfortable, and honestly
Speaker 4: more flattering to be here at Lincoln Center.
Speaker 2: I grew up in this neighborhood. This is where I voted.
Speaker 2: So I think that basically really rings in full circle.
Speaker 2: And tonight we have I mean, talk about iconic New
Speaker 2: York Right tonight we have the most iconic New Yorker
Speaker 2: we know and love her as Fran Fine, the lead
Speaker 2: character of The Nanny. Do we also know that she
Speaker 2: created it? She wrote it. She was nominated for Emmy's
Speaker 2: for Golden Globes for Best Actress. And she didn't stop there.
Speaker 2: She started cancer Schmancer, having an impact on wellness, and
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one she became the president of Sagastrodom.
Speaker 2: It makes me want to cry. Guys, I'm so improved
Speaker 2: by fran Fine. She negotiated a moment that we all
Speaker 2: needed hope and we all needed a future for the arts.
Speaker 2: She was our leader. So I'm so incredibly honored to
Speaker 2: welcome the real Fran Fine. And maybe she'll even laugh
Speaker 2: for us. Fran Dresser, she.
Speaker 1: Rush to push, so st thank you, thank you, what
Speaker 1: a warm welcome. Thank you all, thank you.
Speaker 2: Okay, this is going to sound like a silly question
Speaker 2: after that introduction, but this is for the people at home.
Speaker 2: What is your name and what do you do?
Speaker 1: My name is Fran Dresher, And what don't I do?
Speaker 1: That's the real question.
Speaker 5: But I'm best known for the role of the Nanny
Speaker 5: on television. It's still playing after thirty years and stronger
Speaker 5: than ever, quite honestly, and currently I'm the president of SEGA,
Speaker 5: after the largest entertainment union in the world.
Speaker 2: Okay, so take us back, young Fran New Yorker, but
Speaker 2: paint us a little picture, like what was it like?
Speaker 2: Did you actually grow up in Flush and Queens.
Speaker 5: Yes, there's a lot about the show that's based off
Speaker 5: of my real story, and growing up in Flushing, Queens
Speaker 5: is accurate. And those characters that we wrote about for
Speaker 5: friend Fine were based off of all the joyful and
Speaker 5: colorful characters that I grew up with. And I have
Speaker 5: to say that it was a wonderful place to come from,
Speaker 5: and back then it was really a charming, little provincial town.
Speaker 5: And Simon and Garfunkle grew up in my neighborhood, and
Speaker 5: that song in My Little Town was based off of
Speaker 5: where I grew up.
Speaker 2: Oh, have you ever gotten to talk to them about it?
Speaker 1: No, not about that specifically, but.
Speaker 5: Paul Simon's mom was Peter Jacobson, my ex husband's first
Speaker 5: grade teacher, and then she came to our wedding. So
Speaker 5: all those years later, and Jerry Steinfeld came from the neighborhood,
Speaker 5: and we all went to Queen's College and Ray Romano
Speaker 5: was in my graduating class at Hill Christ Tie.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, your high school like dominated pop culture
Speaker 2: for a period.
Speaker 5: Of time, I now, and a lot of people actually
Speaker 5: came out of Queen Cyndy Lauper.
Speaker 2: Well, so you mentioned Peter, Yeah, very night. So you
Speaker 2: guys were high school sweethearts and married at twenty one,
Speaker 2: which seems young to me, Like did it feel normal
Speaker 2: to you guys?
Speaker 5: It felt normal at the time, but now it seems
Speaker 5: way too young and crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I.
Speaker 5: Wouldn't rarely recommend it, But you know, back then, and
Speaker 5: we're going way back, I think that we came from
Speaker 5: a very traditional kind of background and people did get
Speaker 5: married when they met their one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you two moved to Hollywood together to take
Speaker 2: it on. Did it feel like you kind of were
Speaker 2: like partners in this joint venture like taken on Entertainment?
Speaker 1: Yes, always.
Speaker 5: I mean we were written up about in the eighties
Speaker 5: as the next Lucy and Deisi so, and we really
Speaker 5: hadn't accomplished anything then. It was just like a quirk
Speaker 5: of faith that the writer met us and thought we
Speaker 5: were adorable and sold the idea to New York Magazine.
Speaker 5: But it was really a decade later that we really
Speaker 5: did start functioning like Lucy and Deisi did by having
Speaker 5: our own show and going to the studio and producing
Speaker 5: it and starring in it.
Speaker 2: All of that well, so set the scene for us,
Speaker 2: like the early Hollywood.
Speaker 1: You've moved you.
Speaker 2: You're getting situated. I mean, did you work other jobs?
Speaker 2: Did you start working with an actor?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Did give us.
Speaker 5: I didn't work other jobs. I mean I did. I
Speaker 5: did go to beauty culture school. I put in my
Speaker 5: thousand hours in case the acting didn't work out, but
Speaker 5: fortunately it did. But I used to cut my friend's
Speaker 5: hair for like five bucks or something, and some of them,
Speaker 5: the struggling actors, I cut for free. And back then
Speaker 5: it was you know, David Caruso and Dennis Quaid, and
Speaker 5: I knew where everybody's.
Speaker 1: Ball swat was.
Speaker 5: But you know, I think that those were really wonderful years.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think we all felt like we were
Speaker 5: going to make it. Yeah, and we sort of gravitated
Speaker 5: towards each other and it was just some I don't know,
Speaker 5: I think that from my point of view, I.
Speaker 1: Always felt like I should get.
Speaker 5: The job, and if I don't get it, they made
Speaker 5: a mistake. I always entered the room with a great
Speaker 5: deal of com confidence and self assurance. And it was
Speaker 5: at a time when the popular shows on TV was
Speaker 5: Welcome Back, Cotterer and Laverne and Shirley and Happy Days.
Speaker 5: So there were those characters that were like urban, kind
Speaker 5: of New York, flatbush, fungo type characters, and so I
Speaker 5: sort of fit right into that sweet spot.
Speaker 1: And I started working almost immediately.
Speaker 5: I mean I went out there to shoot American Hot Wax,
Speaker 5: playing opposite Jay Leno, who was then an unknown, young
Speaker 5: up and coming comic, and that was a big rock
Speaker 5: and roll movie that we did together.
Speaker 1: And that was kind of the beginning.
Speaker 5: I went out there to do the movie for ten weeks,
Speaker 5: but that turned into a permanent residence.
Speaker 2: Were there some of those relationships from like the earliest
Speaker 2: days that ended up becoming really fruitful for you later on?
Speaker 5: Well, you know, I worked for CBS quite a bit.
Speaker 5: I did this pilot that didn't get picked up that
Speaker 5: pilot this guest role, a short lived series that went
Speaker 5: nowhere up to four episodes, and you were thinking, oh,
Speaker 5: those idiots, And I was thinking, you know, I'm done
Speaker 5: playing the nutty neighbor. I'm done being now like the
Speaker 5: hooker with the heart of gold. And I really want
Speaker 5: to get myself on the inside and develop my own
Speaker 5: brand of comedy and be in a star vehicle for me,
Speaker 5: or I was going to get out of the business. Oh,
Speaker 5: and I gave myself five years to get on the
Speaker 5: inside in a big way, because you.
Speaker 1: Know, struggling is not my gym.
Speaker 5: I really had my heart set on success and if
Speaker 5: I wasn't going to get it here, I would go
Speaker 5: find it somewhere else.
Speaker 1: But once I, you.
Speaker 5: Know, manifested that I was going to create my own
Speaker 5: show and actually become like Lucie Ball in those you know,
Speaker 5: in that way, you begin to see the opportunities presenting themselves.
Speaker 5: And I happened to be on a plane going to
Speaker 5: visit a girlfriend by myself, which was the first trip
Speaker 5: I'd ever taken to Europe all by myself without Peter,
Speaker 5: and on the plane was the president of CBS, Jeff Siganski.
Speaker 5: So Jeff was somebody that was the president of CBS,
Speaker 5: and he kept popping in to my radar because I
Speaker 5: kept doing all these little, you know, like performances, these
Speaker 5: smaller parts.
Speaker 1: It's third bananas, we call them.
Speaker 5: And he said to me, you know, I said, Jeff,
Speaker 5: and he said Fran and I thought, thank you, Lord,
Speaker 5: and I ran into the bathroom for some makeup on
Speaker 5: and when I came out, I started talking to him
Speaker 5: and I, you know, he said, oh this, we're doing
Speaker 5: a ton of pilots.
Speaker 1: Something will come down the pike for you. I'm sure
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 5: And I said, you know, you're never going to find
Speaker 5: anything that fits me hands in glove because I'm too unique.
Speaker 5: And you should really listen to some of the pitches
Speaker 5: that Peter and I have for me, because we know
Speaker 5: my brand of comedy better than anyone. And nine and
Speaker 5: a half hours later, he said, Okay, when we get
Speaker 5: back to Los Angeles, call my office and I'll set
Speaker 5: you up with our head of comedy development. And on
Speaker 5: that trip, even though we had already been dabbling and developing.
Speaker 1: I did is.
Speaker 5: It wasn't a nanny, but on the trip I was
Speaker 5: spending time with Twiggy, the one and only who was
Speaker 5: in that short lived series with me and Julie Agony,
Speaker 5: and I was staying with her and her husband and
Speaker 5: her daughter, Carly, who was like twelve ath time, and
Speaker 5: Twiggy and her husband Lee were working, so Carly was
Speaker 5: free and I slept her.
Speaker 1: All over London, you know.
Speaker 5: All of a sudden, the kids says, oh, friend, my
Speaker 5: new shoes are hurting me.
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking, what the hell is she telling me for?
Speaker 5: And then I thought, oh, God, don't tell me she
Speaker 5: wants to go home, because we.
Speaker 1: Just got here.
Speaker 5: So I said to Honey, step on the backs of him,
Speaker 5: and she says, innocently, won't that break them?
Speaker 1: And I said break them in?
Speaker 5: And I thought to myself, Wow, this is a very
Speaker 5: funny relationship because I'm not telling that what's good for her.
Speaker 5: I'm telling that what's good for me. Oh, it's a
Speaker 5: very unconventional caregiver. And I called Peter in the middle
Speaker 5: of the night because I couldn't get the idea out
Speaker 5: of my head. And I said, then, what do you
Speaker 5: think about a spin on the sound of music? Only
Speaker 5: he said at Julian Andres I come to the door
Speaker 5: and he thought for a brief moment, but he has
Speaker 5: a very good sense for these things, and he said,
Speaker 5: that's it. That's the one we'll pitch the CBS. When
Speaker 5: you come back, we'll develop it a little bit more
Speaker 5: and we'll go in with it.
Speaker 1: And that was the line that we.
Speaker 5: Pitched to them, and they basically greenlighted the idea the
Speaker 5: day we pitched it.
Speaker 2: I feel we've given a round of applause, like that's unbelievable.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's just you know, when it's right, it's right
Speaker 5: when it comes together, but you have to copy dim,
Speaker 5: you know, right, And that's what's the most important thing
Speaker 5: in life, is recognizing when opportunity knocks and then pushing
Speaker 5: yourself into the situation and not getting in your way.
Speaker 5: You know, that's a big lifeless and I learned very
Speaker 5: early in my career, don't get in your way. Just
Speaker 5: dive in headfirst, give one hundred and fifty percent so
Speaker 5: you walk away without any regrets, and if you don't
Speaker 5: get it, you know, it's their loss.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I love that. But just for good measure, what
Speaker 2: were some of the other concepts, just so we know.
Speaker 1: Well we were kind of doing.
Speaker 5: We came up with an idea about all of these
Speaker 5: couples based off of.
Speaker 1: Our friends and us.
Speaker 5: And there was an older couple who was our manager
Speaker 5: and her husband, and then there were a couple of
Speaker 5: friends and they were all different and they were all
Speaker 5: based off of our real life friends. But what we
Speaker 5: didn't know was that CBS was really searching for an
Speaker 5: eight o'clock family show, and everybody was trying to get
Speaker 5: into that nine o'clock nine thirty time slot that Seinfeld
Speaker 5: had really established and made very c it for writers
Speaker 5: to want to write in the Window because it was
Speaker 5: able to be more adult. But when we pitched the Nanny,
Speaker 5: they were thinking, oh my god, this is like eight
Speaker 5: o'clock written all over it. It's got kids in it
Speaker 5: and you know friend dresser. So it just was meant
Speaker 5: to be.
Speaker 2: But you did get some pushback from the studio. It
Speaker 2: was meant to be, but you did get some pushback
Speaker 2: from the studio about having your character be Jewish.
Speaker 5: Well, it wasn't really the studio. We actually picked the studio.
Speaker 5: They didn't sell it. We went straight to Network because
Speaker 5: I met you know, Jeff on the plane. But Jeff
Speaker 5: had called and called me and said we have the
Speaker 5: While we were writing the pilot that we have an
Speaker 5: opportunity to sell the show outright to Procter and Gamble,
Speaker 5: which is a great thing because then you know that
Speaker 5: show's getting picked up because all the airtime is already
Speaker 5: brought up by a major sponsor. And they would do
Speaker 5: that if the character was written Italian and not Jewish.
Speaker 5: And we knew that we had to write the character
Speaker 5: Jewish because it's a very fast medium, and so it
Speaker 5: was very important that I'm able to place something that's
Speaker 5: riches specificity, which is my brand of comedy, not try
Speaker 5: to be something that isn't really fit, you know, like
Speaker 5: suits me hand in glove that I know without even
Speaker 5: thinking about it, without even trying to decide how I'm
Speaker 5: going to do this or how I'm going to say that,
Speaker 5: and then writing it too. You know, we can write
Speaker 5: our mother's voice with our eyes closed in our sleep,
Speaker 5: but an Italian mom maybe not the same. So even
Speaker 5: though this was our big opportunity to do it our way,
Speaker 5: and we knew that otherwise if it failed, we would
Speaker 5: have that horrible feeling of regret. Why did we listen
Speaker 5: to them? We should have followed our instincts. So I
Speaker 5: said that you know, fran Fine has to be Jewish,
Speaker 5: and by the grace of God, they said okay. And
Speaker 5: actually that character was the first openly Jewish lead in
Speaker 5: prime time played by a Jewish actor in nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 5: since Molly Goldberg did it in nineteen forty eight. And
Speaker 5: for all those years, they were feeling like it was
Speaker 5: gilding the lily and let's write it Italian or let's
Speaker 5: get you know, a gentile woman or man to play
Speaker 5: a Jewish character, which he saw a lot of and
Speaker 5: Valerie Harper, you know, wasn't Jewish, and it just you
Speaker 5: saw it over and over again throughout television. But this
Speaker 5: was definitely the turning point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you and Peter worked together, you were married. Then
Speaker 2: did it create I mean, what did you do to
Speaker 2: your personal dynamic? You know, I'm going to keep bringing
Speaker 2: it back to that. Yeah, what did the success of
Speaker 2: the show due to your personal dynamic? I mean, you
Speaker 2: were the star? Was that the relationship you had always had?
Speaker 2: Did it change your dynamic?
Speaker 5: I know because he's you know, was always a producer
Speaker 5: and the head writer and executive producer, and he he
Speaker 5: helped make me a star.
Speaker 1: He knows what.
Speaker 5: My strengths are and he works towards that. Yeah, so
Speaker 5: I think that it was definitely a combined effort that
Speaker 5: took too Yeah, and so not to say that we
Speaker 5: didn't have some marital problems before the show began, and
Speaker 5: then when the show happened, that kind of went onto
Speaker 5: a back burner because it was so big and.
Speaker 1: Exciting and it was such a shift for us.
Speaker 5: But over the years that the show was on the air,
Speaker 5: the problems began to rear their ugly head, and eventually,
Speaker 5: by towards the end of the series, we had separated,
Speaker 5: which made working together very difficult.
Speaker 1: But we didn't want to throw.
Speaker 5: The baby out with the bath water, and the show
Speaker 5: was our baby, and so we tried to keep it
Speaker 5: healthy in spite of ourselves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you think I mean, it's very clear that
Speaker 2: so much of your personal life and your family impacted
Speaker 2: your professional life in creating the show and was reflected
Speaker 2: in the show. Do you think that it kind of
Speaker 2: worked in the inverse as well? Like, do you think
Speaker 2: that your personal life ended up being impacted by the show?
Speaker 5: I mean, look, when you have a huge hit and
Speaker 5: you become so famous so quickly, it's going to impact
Speaker 5: every part of your life.
Speaker 1: But we had a lot of famous friends.
Speaker 5: Even dan Ackroight had said to us when the series
Speaker 5: got picked up, and he said, you know, your lives
Speaker 5: are going to change, and you're going to put a
Speaker 5: lot of effort into protecting your privacy and your safety,
Speaker 5: and just be aware of that and otherwise, you know,
Speaker 5: it can be a very fun ride, but you just
Speaker 5: have to be able to find those times when it
Speaker 5: can be quiet and be private.
Speaker 2: The Nanny went on to become one of the most
Speaker 2: popular sitcoms of all time, but behind it all, Rand
Speaker 2: dealt with a series of extremely difficult experiences. Before the
Speaker 2: show even aired. Fran was the victim of a horrible
Speaker 2: and violent attack in her own home in nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 2: It was an experience that created emotional ripples throughout her life,
Speaker 2: and when we come back, Fran talks through how that
Speaker 2: experience and others shaped her perspective on life and ultimately
Speaker 2: led her to pivot. Now back to the show.
Speaker 5: You know, I was a victim of violent crime in
Speaker 5: my own home by a man who is on parole,
Speaker 5: and my girlfriend was there at the time, and Peter
Speaker 5: was there at the time, and there was a horrible
Speaker 5: situation that really left us emotionally traumatized for a long time.
Speaker 1: But that happened before The Nanny.
Speaker 5: It was during the Nanny that somehow that story was
Speaker 5: exploited on some of those magazine shows on television, and
Speaker 5: at that point people were watching it thinking that it
Speaker 5: just happened instead of like ten years earlier.
Speaker 1: And so I had a.
Speaker 5: Very visceral response to that, and almost I think I
Speaker 5: had a bit of a nervous breakdown because I think
Speaker 5: there was a lot about that experience I hadn't really
Speaker 5: fully dealt with.
Speaker 1: And so.
Speaker 5: It was around that time that I had started therapy
Speaker 5: because the marriage was beginning to fail, and then I
Speaker 5: was fortunately already in therapy where I could really discuss
Speaker 5: what went down and try and identify how it's impacted.
Speaker 1: My life now. And even years after that.
Speaker 5: I realized that I don't do a lot of things
Speaker 5: by myself, and I never had connected it to that,
Speaker 5: but once I did, I started making modifications. I have
Speaker 5: a big service animal, and you know, I just I
Speaker 5: want to live my life. And you know, once you
Speaker 5: wake up and smell the coffee, it's hard to go
Speaker 5: back to sleep. So I am living my life as
Speaker 5: fully as I can, and no one.
Speaker 1: Leaves this planet unscathed.
Speaker 5: It's what we do with it, how we grow through it,
Speaker 5: and what becomes of us as a result, that makes
Speaker 5: all the difference. And for me, turning pain into purpose
Speaker 5: is extremely healing.
Speaker 2: So you were diagnosed with cancer, you had a hysterectomy,
Speaker 2: and then you launched your organization Cancer Schmanzer, right, So
Speaker 2: what pushed you not just to launch it, but also
Speaker 2: to focus it the way that you do well?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 5: I always said, even through this strike, I'm a systems
Speaker 5: analyst's daughter. So even though we started, the cornerstone of
Speaker 5: the organization was.
Speaker 1: Early detection because I was very lucky.
Speaker 5: Even after two years and eight doctors of misdiagnosis, I
Speaker 5: was still in stage one catching on arrival in ninety
Speaker 5: five percent survival. So I wanted to empower patients to
Speaker 5: become medical consumers, to learn what the early warning whispers
Speaker 5: are of cancers and what tests are available so you
Speaker 5: can become better partners with your doctor, because all too
Speaker 5: often doctors are very busy people their bludgeoned by big
Speaker 5: business health insurance to go to the least expensive route
Speaker 5: of diagnostic testing and many of them seem to subscribe
Speaker 5: to this philosophy. If you hear who's galloping, don't look
Speaker 5: for zebra. It's probably a horse. But I was a
Speaker 5: zebra because I was really too young and too thin
Speaker 5: to have uterine cancer. Although one out of four women,
Speaker 5: or twenty five percent, are young in thin, so to me,
Speaker 5: that seemed like I should have been tested for that.
Speaker 5: But doctor number one said I was too young, and
Speaker 5: I'm like an idiot. I didn't ask her, well, what
Speaker 5: would it prove a disproof taking an endometrio biopsy?
Speaker 1: I just was glad to be too young for anything.
Speaker 5: But in reality, if I were a medical consumer, which
Speaker 5: I was starting to train other people to be, motivate
Speaker 5: activate educate patients into medical consumers, I would have known
Speaker 5: to ask that question. I wouldn't have been so easily flattered,
Speaker 5: and I would have said, no, let's do it, even
Speaker 5: if I have to pay for it myself. And I
Speaker 5: tell people you use your Christmas Club account for tests
Speaker 5: your insurance won't pay for, because the best gift you
Speaker 5: can give your friends and family is a long and
Speaker 5: healthy life. But that was only the beginning for kancer schmanca,
Speaker 5: because as time went on and I did get a
Speaker 5: bill passed by unanimous consent in Washington, which means all
Speaker 5: one hundred senators said yes.
Speaker 1: Fran and.
Speaker 5: That was written up twice in the Congressional record. And
Speaker 5: from there I was appointed a Public Diplomacy Envoy for
Speaker 5: the US State Department, which is a vetted position to
Speaker 5: speak to our allied nations on taking control of your
Speaker 5: body and becoming a medical consumer. And I also spoke
Speaker 5: to our military basis around the world well, and so
Speaker 5: you know, this is really turning my pain into purpose
Speaker 5: and helping people to realize that education and knowledge is power,
Speaker 5: and it's really important that we take control of our bodies,
Speaker 5: that we are the ones in charge. Because you know,
Speaker 5: when the doctor calls and tells you have cancer, at
Speaker 5: the end of the day, he goes home and eats
Speaker 5: dinner with his family. You go home and eat your
Speaker 5: heart out with yours. So it's your life to charge.
Speaker 5: And just when you feel like I'm too scared and
Speaker 5: you become infantile, that's exactly when you have to pull
Speaker 5: yourself up by your bootsteps and really pay attention to
Speaker 5: what's going on. So that was the beginning of it,
Speaker 5: But then I started asking why are we getting cancer
Speaker 5: in the first place?
Speaker 1: What's this about?
Speaker 5: I mean, rather than be symptomatic and reductionist in how
Speaker 5: we treat the end stage, which is cancer or a
Speaker 5: long history of inflammation, why don't we catch it at
Speaker 5: the inflammation stage and understand what's causing the inflammation.
Speaker 1: Let's not get cancer in the first place. How's that
Speaker 1: for a cure?
Speaker 5: Right, So, Cancer Schmancer pivoted and became very focused on causation,
Speaker 5: and nobody really in the health space was doing that,
Speaker 5: and they're still not doing it. Quite frankly, I'm not
Speaker 5: asking people for money to find a cure. We've been
Speaker 5: looking for a cue since Nixon waged the war in cancer.
Speaker 1: Where's the cure? Well, you can't put out a fire.
Speaker 5: By throwing water on it from one side. If you
Speaker 5: continue to throw kerosene on it from the other side,
Speaker 5: you have to stop throwing the kerosene on it. And
Speaker 5: we live in extremely toxic times. So at Cancer Schmancer
Speaker 5: we developed a very progressive program called Detox Your Home
Speaker 5: because the home is the most toxic place we spend
Speaker 5: the most time and ironically have the most control over.
Speaker 1: And what we do now.
Speaker 5: Is take mindless consumerism and convert it into mindful consumerism.
Speaker 5: So you use your hard earned dollars to support companies
Speaker 5: that are not going to make you sick because you
Speaker 5: know better because you follow the cancers man supplan. So
Speaker 5: these are Once you learn these systems in your body,
Speaker 5: you're not going to just stay with THEE and symptom.
Speaker 5: It's silly to do that. You got to track that train.
Speaker 5: You got to get to the beginning. You got to
Speaker 5: see what you may be doing that's hurting you and
Speaker 5: pay attention because your body is screaming at you. And
Speaker 5: instead of muzzling it with a symptom suppressor, which is
Speaker 5: very common in today's Western medicine and very profitable, by
Speaker 5: the way, and filled with side effects, start looking at
Speaker 5: what the causation is.
Speaker 1: Track the train, get to.
Speaker 5: The root of the problem, and cut it out of
Speaker 5: your life. I don't drink alcohol anymore. It causes too
Speaker 5: much inflammation in me. It's not that I had a
Speaker 5: drinking problem. It's not that I didn't enjoy an expensive
Speaker 5: glass of wine now and then, but I don't like
Speaker 5: the way I feel the next day. I have to
Speaker 5: listen to my body. You know, when something if I
Speaker 5: get the inflammation. I could take an anti inflammatory, but
Speaker 5: then I'm just muzzling the symptom and I'm not really
Speaker 5: helping my body heal. The body is trying to heal itself.
Speaker 5: The inflammation, as annoying as it may be, is actually
Speaker 5: going to the source that has a problem. So we
Speaker 5: have to start working with our body instead of working
Speaker 5: against it. And I find all too often, thanks to
Speaker 5: the twentieth century, we tend to work against nature, and
Speaker 5: we have to stop doing that. We have to work
Speaker 5: with nature and embrace it and listen to it and
Speaker 5: not make what you think the most important deciding factor,
Speaker 5: because the brain is the worst roommate in the body,
Speaker 5: and everything else, you know, like takes a back seat,
Speaker 5: but it shouldn't. You got to listen very closely and
Speaker 5: be ingratitude to every part of your body and honor it.
Speaker 1: Honor your body.
Speaker 2: But you almost had a totally different pivot. There were
Speaker 2: conversations for you to run for senate here in New York,
Speaker 2: which I think right now we're all in favor of
Speaker 2: ha ha. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I have to tell you, you know, even when I became
Speaker 5: president of sag Aftra, I knew I would be good
Speaker 5: at it. My whole life led up to having the
Speaker 5: qualifications to lead in that way, and I am good
Speaker 5: at it. But it's not a joyful experience. It's empowering,
Speaker 5: it's a lot of stress. It's you know, exactly as
Speaker 5: Lincoln said, you can play some of the people all
Speaker 5: of the time and all of the people some of
Speaker 5: the time, but you can't please all of the people
Speaker 5: all of the time.
Speaker 1: And you know, it just.
Speaker 5: Depends on how much aggravation and stress you can really take.
Speaker 5: And I feel like I'm at a stage in my
Speaker 5: life where I would like to have it easier and
Speaker 5: more joyful. I wasn't even planning on running a second time.
Speaker 1: And everybody knew it.
Speaker 5: But when this negotiation started and it looked like we
Speaker 5: were probably going to end up striking, there was no
Speaker 5: way that another president could step in, you know, right
Speaker 5: in the middle of this major event in our nation's history,
Speaker 5: and I was leading it.
Speaker 1: I was the one that, you know.
Speaker 5: Really decided this was going to be a seminal negotiation.
Speaker 5: I was the one that decided we needed to get
Speaker 5: our hooks into a new stream of revenue because it
Speaker 5: was such a new business model. Again, being the daughter
Speaker 5: of a systems analyst. I saw the system and where
Speaker 5: it was weak and where it was broken, and I
Speaker 5: had to convince my own you know, members and negotiating
Speaker 5: staff to really push themselves. I was not going to
Speaker 5: accept incremental changes, not this time, and so I had
Speaker 5: to remain president. And for the first time in the
Speaker 5: Union's history, you know, they didn't run anybody against me
Speaker 5: from the opposition party. That both parties came together and
Speaker 5: started a unity ticket just to keep me in office.
Speaker 5: And so I just slid back in without you know,
Speaker 5: much that I would have to do, like campaign or
Speaker 5: debate or anything, and need to do that.
Speaker 2: Well, you had a quote much like you just said
Speaker 2: that sag after a leading sag after was a defining
Speaker 2: moment and the amalgam of my life experience, everything good, bad,
Speaker 2: the worst of it, the best of it, my ego
Speaker 2: as a star, all of it. Everything went into this
Speaker 2: one moment of truth and thank god it paid.
Speaker 1: Off, otherwise woe is me.
Speaker 2: But could you be a little specific, like what were
Speaker 2: those experiences that you felt like prepared you for this moment?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I've been a boss for decades.
Speaker 5: You know, when you're an executive producer, you run things,
Speaker 5: and I liked to do that, so I know how
Speaker 5: to lead. I started my own organization. You know, people
Speaker 5: get cancer, they don't turn it into a cottage industry,
Speaker 5: but I did that. I wanted to exemplify what survival
Speaker 5: could look like, and I wanted to help people to
Speaker 5: look at their health and their body through a different lens.
Speaker 5: So I organized. And what are we at a union
Speaker 5: but an organization of members who come together to make
Speaker 5: a difference. And I'm a best selling author, I have
Speaker 5: to do a lot of writing. And you know, they
Speaker 5: at the union were always writing things for me, and
Speaker 5: I said, no, no, I write my own speeches, I
Speaker 5: write my own articles. I'm a one man band and
Speaker 5: I'm a public speaker, so that comes in very handy.
Speaker 5: I'm a household name and I'm highly recognizable around the world.
Speaker 5: So that elevated the union exponentially because suddenly we were
Speaker 5: getting invited to things that the union was never invited to.
Speaker 5: And that was because of my celebrity. But then after
Speaker 5: the strike and the historic billion dollar deal, now I
Speaker 5: get invited because I'm the president of a labor union
Speaker 5: and I led a strike that awakened labor around the world,
Speaker 5: and my strike speech got over twelve billion impressions. So
Speaker 5: it started what became the hot labor Summer. There were
Speaker 5: strikes everywhere around the world. That strike speech woke everybody
Speaker 5: up like the emper new clothes, and they went from
Speaker 5: feeling oppressed and living a quiet desperation to becoming empowered
Speaker 5: and feeling like we could do this too. And that
Speaker 5: was a strategy that I chose to take when we
Speaker 5: went on strike, that it wasn't just us. We were
Speaker 5: in the forefront of a labor battle that with millions
Speaker 5: of people.
Speaker 1: Behind us and all around the world.
Speaker 5: Because you know, we have to be very careful that
Speaker 5: corporations and Wall Street never dismiss workers, never disrespect workers,
Speaker 5: and never feel like they are replaceable by machines, rendering them,
Speaker 5: you know, out of business, out of work. So that's
Speaker 5: the things that we were fighting for, and it with
Speaker 5: a lot of different people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you said right before this, when we were backstage,
Speaker 2: you said this was the right hill to die on. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 2: Can you tell us more about that and how you
Speaker 2: took the weight of the industry in your head and
Speaker 2: behind you at those negotiating conversations.
Speaker 1: Well, it was in.
Speaker 5: Nineteen sixty, when Ronald Reagan was president of SEG that
Speaker 5: they went to the map to get actors for the
Speaker 5: first time in history. Pension, health coverage over time, you know,
Speaker 5: and residuals. None of that existed before nineteen sixty and
Speaker 5: between nineteen sixty and twenty twenty three, that was the
Speaker 5: contract that we were using. Jess always trying to incrementally
Speaker 5: improve it. But something different happened along the way, and
Speaker 5: that was AI and streaming, and the introduction of those
Speaker 5: two elements changed the conversation so significantly that there was
Speaker 5: no way that I was going to go into this
Speaker 5: negotiation talking about a contract that was forged in nineteen sixty.
Speaker 5: That world has changed so much, Entertainment has changed so much,
Speaker 5: communication has changed so much, and it demanded a new contract,
Speaker 5: and I commanded it of our opposition, and you know,
Speaker 5: at first they were aggressive in their resistance, but at
Speaker 5: some point they realized that either they were going to
Speaker 5: lean in or they were going to lose very big
Speaker 5: because they knew that I wasn't kidding around.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I believe that I was on the right side
Speaker 6: of history, and they understood that the jig was up
Speaker 6: for them.
Speaker 2: Fran rallied actors around the world, negotiating a historic deal
Speaker 2: for sag Astra, valued at more than one billion dollars
Speaker 2: over three years. When we come back, Fran talks about
Speaker 2: how different the public pressure was compared to when The
Speaker 2: Nanny was airing. We're back with Fran talking about her
Speaker 2: experience dealing with the public pressure of the sag after negotiations,
Speaker 2: she felt the gravity of her role. After a video
Speaker 2: of her speech went viral.
Speaker 5: This amplified it onto another level because when you say
Speaker 5: a speech that gets twelve billion impressions, now suddenly people
Speaker 5: aren't just stopping me and saying, oh, I love you
Speaker 5: on the Nanny or even how are you feeling these days,
Speaker 5: but thanking me, whether it be a nurse or a trucker,
Speaker 5: a hospitality worker.
Speaker 1: Everywhere I go people saw.
Speaker 5: That and said thank you, thank you for sticking up
Speaker 5: for labor, for sticking up for workers. So that's like
Speaker 5: a whole new thing. It's even bigger than the Nanny.
Speaker 5: I never thought I could really tap the Nanny, but
Speaker 5: somehow this really has because it just you know, put
Speaker 5: it in a whole new stratosphere. Yeah, and I'm very
Speaker 5: proud of that. Because I'm always defending the underdog. I'm
Speaker 5: always going to the match for those that are marginalized.
Speaker 5: So that was another thing that kind of supported me
Speaker 5: doing this is what I do. And even in The Nanny,
Speaker 5: you know, it kept coming up some of the episodes
Speaker 5: that we did us that friend wouldn't cross a picket
Speaker 5: line and you know, things like that, because we always
Speaker 5: In The Beautician and the Beast, you know, she like
Speaker 5: couldn't believe that this country that she was working as
Speaker 5: a teacher didn't have unions and people didn't get over time.
Speaker 5: And so I think that this character that I've become
Speaker 5: known for has always been infused with something that my
Speaker 5: father instilled in me, which is being sensitive to people's
Speaker 5: needs and not being impressed by people who have money,
Speaker 5: but by people who have character.
Speaker 2: Thank you for reminding me about The Beaudition and The Beast.
Speaker 2: I really loved that movie. You talk a lot about
Speaker 2: your purpose through this piece. How did your purpose change?
Speaker 2: We understand where there's where it was the same, like
Speaker 2: you've always been yourself, And it turns out it's very
Speaker 2: convenient when you're true to your own values. People can
Speaker 2: pull up those episodes and it's not only not embarrassing,
Speaker 2: it feels great. But how has your north star, like
Speaker 2: your purpose changed as you've gone through these different phases
Speaker 2: of your life.
Speaker 5: Well, I think that you know, when you go through
Speaker 5: troubled waters, you become more empathic to other people's pain.
Speaker 5: And I'm very much an EmPATH now in a way
Speaker 5: that I'm not sure I was. I was a fighter
Speaker 5: on the side of good, but now I really feel
Speaker 5: the pay other people's pain and that it's hard to
Speaker 5: be an EmPATH. It's not something I chose to be,
Speaker 5: but I morphed into that through my own life experience,
Speaker 5: and so my ability to shape whatever I'm doing is
Speaker 5: sifted through that lens of other people's pain. So it's
Speaker 5: interesting and I think that it deepens you as a
Speaker 5: human being.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, a.
Speaker 2: Core part of the conversations that we have in this
Speaker 2: show is that how everything builds upon itself, Like we're
Speaker 2: not just sort of born these successes, but that we
Speaker 2: have to have gone through these different phases to then
Speaker 2: be the piece that everybody sees this success. Do you
Speaker 2: think you could walk us through some of those steps
Speaker 2: for you to be the success that you are today.
Speaker 5: Well, I think it would have to begin with my parents,
Speaker 5: because they were very nurturing, loving people. I got to
Speaker 5: witness a beautiful marriage in them. My bedroom wall was
Speaker 5: shared with their bedroom wall, and I remember a lot
Speaker 5: of laughing and giggling on the other side of that wall,
Speaker 5: And it makes a kid feel warm and fuzzy inside
Speaker 5: when that's the music that you hear as you're drifting
Speaker 5: off to sleep. And my mom was the one that
Speaker 5: said to me, you don't need to take typing because
Speaker 5: you're going to have a secretary. And I still can't
Speaker 5: type because I never did take it, and I do
Speaker 5: have a secretary. So you know, that kind of belief
Speaker 5: in a child is as I get older and I
Speaker 5: get to know my friend's personal stories, it's very rare
Speaker 5: and I can really appreciate how blessed I was to
Speaker 5: have that foundation and to have people that really hung
Speaker 5: on every word and really thought that I could do
Speaker 5: anything and did not dissuade me from wanting to become
Speaker 5: an actress, but truly believe that I had star quality
Speaker 5: and if anybody could make it, friend could.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's an interesting.
Speaker 5: Beginning. And I've heard other people say once in a
Speaker 5: while that the parents would always say, you're such a genius,
Speaker 5: is such a genius, and they said, I felt like
Speaker 5: I had to be I didn't want to disappoint them.
Speaker 1: I had to be a success.
Speaker 5: I had to be a genius because they believed in
Speaker 5: me so so believing in your kid and making them
Speaker 5: feel like everything that they do has value and nurture
Speaker 5: what their you know, what their's things are is really important.
Speaker 1: And that really was the beginning.
Speaker 5: But then once I got older and I moved to California,
Speaker 5: I met a fantastic woman that I was very blessed
Speaker 5: to meet, Elaine Rich, who became my manager. And she
Speaker 5: wouldn't have been as good a parent as my parents were,
Speaker 5: but she was an excellent manager and dear friend once
Speaker 5: I was already formed, and I bless her. And she's
Speaker 5: since passed away and I miss her. But she always
Speaker 5: said to me, even when I couldn't afford a headshot,
Speaker 5: she said, I'll pay for your pictures and I said, no,
Speaker 5: I don't want you to do that. And she said, honey,
Speaker 5: you're like a blue chip stock. I ain't going to
Speaker 5: lose on my investment with you. And you know she
Speaker 5: was right.
Speaker 1: I mean, we.
Speaker 5: Made her a lot of money, and she believed in
Speaker 5: me when I wasn't making a lot of money. So
Speaker 5: you know, people like that along the way do make
Speaker 5: a difference for you, and the more people that believe
Speaker 5: in you, they become like your She always described yourself
Speaker 5: as my prime minister. And then you know, the agents
Speaker 5: were kind of the generals the army, and you need.
Speaker 1: It really does take a.
Speaker 5: Village, and so I have to say that I was
Speaker 5: lucky that and continue to be so that there are
Speaker 5: people that believe in me and believe in what I
Speaker 5: have to say and allow me to be me and
Speaker 5: not try and put me into a box because I
Speaker 5: don't fit in a box and I don't want to
Speaker 5: be in a box. I just want to be me.
Speaker 5: And even with the strike, I realized that I had
Speaker 5: a bigger responsibility, which was to show women and girls
Speaker 5: what female leadership could look like. And that became very
Speaker 5: important to me because I wanted to be me and
Speaker 5: not emulate masculine energy, be vulnerable.
Speaker 1: I would quote Buddhist wisdom.
Speaker 5: I had a little heart shaped plushy toy that a
Speaker 5: little girl who loves me gave me for support, and
Speaker 5: I always sat it down in front of me at
Speaker 5: the negotiating table. And there was a point when the
Speaker 5: opposition had hired a big DCPR firm who does crisis
Speaker 5: management for bad guys with a lot of money, and
Speaker 5: right away they went for the lowest hanging fruit. Let's
Speaker 5: discredit the female, the woman leader, and you know, and
Speaker 5: they tried to I was too domineering or obstinate because
Speaker 5: I stood my ground. I was too frivolous because I
Speaker 5: quoted Buddhist wisdom. I was unprofessional because I had a
Speaker 5: little plushy toy in the room with me. And my
Speaker 5: advisors at the union said let's just say no comment,
Speaker 5: and I said no to that. I'm going to meet
Speaker 5: this head one armed only with my authenticity and my
Speaker 5: unabashed honesty. And I did a self taped video of
Speaker 5: me putting my makeup on, as so many women do
Speaker 5: before while getting ready for work, and I said, you know,
Speaker 5: I don't have to emulate mail energy to lead. I
Speaker 5: can lead with intellect and wisdom and empathy. I can
Speaker 5: lead and still rock a red lip. I can lead
Speaker 5: and be me and still have a little heart shape
Speaker 5: plushy toy on my negotiating table. And that went viral
Speaker 5: and stop the opposition's tactics dead in their tracks because
Speaker 5: it rendered it ineffective.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I asked this question of all of my guests,
Speaker 2: what is one thing that at the time you really
Speaker 2: felt like was a negative? Like you're like, I'm not
Speaker 2: sure how many get out of this, And now, in hindsight,
Speaker 2: you see it as having maybe launched you, or at
Speaker 2: least set you up for the success that you are now.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 5: I think that there was a passage in my career
Speaker 5: early on when I was getting convinced that I would
Speaker 5: work more if I can fit into more of an
Speaker 5: assortment of parts, and I would have to, you know,
Speaker 5: not sound like this. And I actually tried to learn.
Speaker 1: How to speak and what my dialect.
Speaker 5: Coach called low slow flow. And I went on an
Speaker 5: audition for back Then The Winds of War, And when
Speaker 5: my manager called to see how I did, they said,
Speaker 5: you know, she sounded okay, but she talked very slow,
Speaker 5: and it's only an eighteen hour miniseries a Lane, So
Speaker 5: of course I didn't get the part. I was so
Speaker 5: focused on something that wasn't natural or organic to me
Speaker 5: that I lost my whole personality. And then I realized,
Speaker 5: you know, I'm going to figure out how to monetize
Speaker 5: this because it's unique and it's my own and I
Speaker 5: don't care if every character I play comes from New York.
Speaker 5: As long as I can explore different emotions and different
Speaker 5: life experiences and challenges, I'm.
Speaker 1: Good with that.
Speaker 5: I don't have to be Meryl Streep, though, God bless her,
Speaker 5: it would be nice, but that's not my jam. You know,
Speaker 5: I'm not Meryl Streep. I'm Frien.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yes, we're so glad you are.
Speaker 5: But you know, honestly, I needed to wear a lot
Speaker 5: of different hats anyway. I wouldn't be happy only being
Speaker 5: an actor. It's not enough. I need to do other things.
Speaker 5: I want to write, I want to produce, I want
Speaker 5: to direct, you know. I like to wear a lot
Speaker 5: of different hats. I like to try new things. I
Speaker 5: like to fly.
Speaker 1: Without a net.
Speaker 5: But I don't need to stay in it forever. I
Speaker 5: want to master it. I want to succeed in it,
Speaker 5: and then bye bye. I don't need to make it
Speaker 5: my life's mission. And so you know, I find life
Speaker 5: a lot of fun in that way if I can
Speaker 5: do a lot of different things. And I think that's
Speaker 5: why I went into show business in the first place,
Speaker 5: because the idea for me of doing like a nine
Speaker 5: to five job going to the same place, I don't
Speaker 5: think I couldn't do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a perfect segue into our final question. Oh, I know,
Speaker 2: I've had so much fun. Do you think you'll piv again?
Speaker 1: Undoubtedly I will, you know.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's what the joy of my life is
Speaker 5: is to fly through new windows and learn new things.
Speaker 5: I love learning things and I like challenging myself or
Speaker 5: I start to get bored. So I definitely definitely will.
Speaker 5: And what it will be, I'm not sure, but I
Speaker 5: know I'm going to start putting pen to paper and
Speaker 5: writing another book. And there's a big story to share
Speaker 5: subsequent to the last book, which was Cancer Schmancer, and
Speaker 5: it's time that I shared it.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, thank you, thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 2: Thank you Live she Pivots and Lincoln Center. Thank you
Speaker 2: so much.
Speaker 1: Friend appreciated, thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of
Speaker 2: She Pivots. Fran continues to serve as the president of
Speaker 2: sag Aftra and is heavily involved in her nonprofit, Cancer Schmancer,
Speaker 2: and she somehow still has time to write a book
Speaker 2: on the side. Be sure to follow Frin on Instagram
Speaker 2: at official fran Dresser and visit our website to donate
Speaker 2: to Cancer Schmancer and learn all about the good work
Speaker 2: they're doing. Thanks for listening to this episode of She Pivots.
Speaker 2: If you made it this far, you're a true pivoter,
Speaker 2: so thanks for being part of this community. I hope
Speaker 2: you enjoyed this episode, and if you did leave us
Speaker 2: a rating, please be nice. Tell your friends about us.
Speaker 2: To learn more about our guests, follow us on Instagram
Speaker 2: at she Pivots the Podcast, or sign up for our
Speaker 2: newsletter where you can get exclusive behind the scenes content,
Speaker 2: or on our website she Pivots the Podcast Talk to
Speaker 2: You Next Week special thanks to the she Pivots team,
Speaker 2: Executive producer Emily eda Velosk, Associate producer and social media
Speaker 2: connoisseur Hannah Cousins, Research director Christine Dickinson, Events and logistics
Speaker 2: coordinator Madeline Sonoviak, and audio editor and mixer Nina pollock
Speaker 2: I endorse Cheap Pivots