Speaker 1: Why media productions? What does it take to change the world?
Speaker 1: A forceful personality, the right moment, and a good wig.
Speaker 1: Vladimir Lenin was a brooding scholar and political theorist. He
Speaker 1: had been living in exile for years. In nineteen seventeen,
Speaker 1: he watched from overseas as the Russians are abdicated the
Speaker 1: throne and a new government took power. The time was
Speaker 1: right for revolution. Lenin made his move. He disguised himself
Speaker 1: as a clergyman and snuck into Petrograd modern day St. Petersburg.
Speaker 1: He wore a wig and a fake bandage and shaved
Speaker 1: his trademark beard and mustache. Incognito, he made his way
Speaker 1: to a secret meeting held by his fellow rebels, the Bolsheviks.
Speaker 1: The Bolsheviks wavered on whether to stage a coup or
Speaker 1: to wait and pursue power through political means. Lenin was
Speaker 1: fed up. He threw off his wig and demanded an
Speaker 1: armed overthrow of the Russian government. His passionate argument carried
Speaker 1: the vote that night. It spurred the revolution. It changed history.
Speaker 1: It's set into motion a series of events that led
Speaker 1: to the death of another Lenin sixty three years later.
Speaker 1: I'm Sean Braswell and This is The Threat, a podcast
Speaker 1: from Ozzy Media. This season of The Threat, we dove
Speaker 1: into the connected lives of John Lennon, J. D. Salinger,
Speaker 1: Una O'Neill, Chaplin, Eugene O'Neill, and Louise Bryant. We discovered
Speaker 1: how their stories overlap, influence, and inspire each other. They
Speaker 1: led us back in time from one Lenin's death to
Speaker 1: another Lenin's revolution. But there's much more connecting our cast
Speaker 1: of characters. This is the final episode of this season
Speaker 1: and we're going to shake things up. We'll explore some
Speaker 1: of the other surprising strands to our story. Sometimes you
Speaker 1: need to look at history from a different angle to
Speaker 1: get a new perspective, so we structured this episode differently
Speaker 1: from the rest of the season. Today, we'll focus on
Speaker 1: three main themes, chance encounters, communism, and suffering. If you're
Speaker 1: joining us for the first time, please go back to
Speaker 1: episode one and start our interconnected story from the beginning.
Speaker 1: First off, Chance encounters John Lennon's killer Mark David Chapman
Speaker 1: believed in destiny. He was convinced he was meant to
Speaker 1: kill the rock star. For Chapman, the world was filled
Speaker 1: with little serendipities, meaningful moments, encounters, and omens. He called
Speaker 1: them synchronicities, and in the days leading up to John
Speaker 1: Lennon's murder, Chapman saw them everywhere. A prostitute in a
Speaker 1: green dress, a passage from the Catcher in the Rye
Speaker 1: mentioning a Monday in December, and the synchronicities grew stronger
Speaker 1: the morning of that fateful day as Chapman strolled towards
Speaker 1: Lennon's home at the Dakota. Yes, I knew that morning. Oddly,
Speaker 1: when I left the hotel, this is Chapman again in
Speaker 1: his interview with CNN's Larry King, some type of premonition
Speaker 1: that this was the last time I was going to
Speaker 1: leave my hotel room. I hadn't seen him up to
Speaker 1: that point. That's what makes it interesting. I wasn't even
Speaker 1: sure he was in the building. Despite his premonition, though,
Speaker 1: Chapman was starting to have major doubts about his mission.
Speaker 1: He thought about going home. As he paced back and
Speaker 1: forth on the sidewalk in front of the Dakota that morning,
Speaker 1: he prayed, please give me the strength the phonies have
Speaker 1: to know. Looking up at the Dakota, he had a
Speaker 1: sudden flash of it as the backdrop of the famous
Speaker 1: psychological thriller Rosemary's Baby. The film, directed by Roman Polanski,
Speaker 1: starred Mia Pharaoh as a pregnant woman who gives birth
Speaker 1: to a child of Satan. Chapman remembered how Polanski's own
Speaker 1: pregnant wife had been murdered by Charles Manson not long
Speaker 1: after he made the film. Manson blamed the killing on
Speaker 1: commands he received inside songs like Helter Skelp her By,
Speaker 1: You Guessed It, John Lennon and the Beatles. Then as
Speaker 1: Chapman pondered the significance of the connection between Rosemary's Baby,
Speaker 1: Charles Manson and John Lennon, he received another sign, the
Speaker 1: biggest synchronicity yet. A short, pale woman strolled by him
Speaker 1: on the sidewalk with a group of children. They crossed
Speaker 1: the street in front of the Dakota and went into
Speaker 1: Central Park. It was Rosemary herself, the actress Mia fair Mark.
Speaker 1: David Chapman smiled at the sign. This has to be
Speaker 1: the day, he assured himself. He remained on the sidewalk
Speaker 1: and history took its course. Paramount Pictures presents Mia Farrow
Speaker 1: in a William Castle production Rosemary's Baby suggested for mature audiences.
Speaker 1: Una O'Neill Chaplin was the fulcrum of our tail, the
Speaker 1: hinge at its center. But there's someone else who could
Speaker 1: have been the subject of episode three and whose story
Speaker 1: could have sent us in a very different direction, Ernest Hemingway.
Speaker 1: In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield criticizes Hemingway's
Speaker 1: classic war novel A Farewell to Arms. J. D. Salinger,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, admired the world renowned writer. Hemingway
Speaker 1: was a war correspondent for Collier's Magazine during World War Two,
Speaker 1: and he played a key role in Salinger's wartime experience
Speaker 1: and writing. Here's Ken Slowinski, the biographer who told us
Speaker 1: about Salinger's life in episode two, talking about Salinger's PTSD
Speaker 1: or battle fatigue. We know of Salinger's um stay in
Speaker 1: the hospital. We know of his battle fatigue because of
Speaker 1: a letter that he wrote of old people to Ernest,
Speaker 1: telling what whom he had before into during the war.
Speaker 1: Salinger confessed the Hemingway that he was quote in an
Speaker 1: almost constant state of despondency. The talks I had with
Speaker 1: you here, he said, we're the only hopeful minutes of
Speaker 1: the whole business. The talks with Himingway that Salinger alludes
Speaker 1: to form a remarkable subplot in the writer's harrowing war story.
Speaker 1: It begins with the liberation of Paris in August, another
Speaker 1: landmark event that Salinger experienced firsthand. The heart of European
Speaker 1: civilization is beating strong again. Harris is free, and a
Speaker 1: flood tide of jubilation has burst. For it was one
Speaker 1: of the few positive memories he would carry with him
Speaker 1: from the war. Jubilant crowds mob Salinger and his fellow soldiers.
Speaker 1: Salinger's assignment was defined and arrest Nazi collaborators, but there
Speaker 1: was one American in Paris that he wanted to find
Speaker 1: as well. Salinger sought out Himingway at the Hotel Ritz.
Speaker 1: Hemingway greeted the younger writer graciously, and the two talk
Speaker 1: shop over drinks. Hemingway was even familiar with some of
Speaker 1: Salinger's short stories. Just imagine how that would have made
Speaker 1: a young Rider feel, especially one that had just survived
Speaker 1: the blood bath at d Day. The two American icons
Speaker 1: would meet again that winter. Remember the disastrous campaign at Hikin.
Speaker 1: Salinger and Himingway ended up only a mile apart. In
Speaker 1: that cold, dark forest, Salingder made his way to Hemingway's
Speaker 1: camp During a lull in the fighting one night, the
Speaker 1: two drank champagne from canteen cups and Hemingway's tent. It
Speaker 1: was a brief distraction from death and destruction that Salinger
Speaker 1: would never forget. Salinger found his true therapy and writing.
Speaker 1: And so you know, O'Neil Chaplin might have helped inspire
Speaker 1: the subject matter for The Catcher in the Rye the
Speaker 1: Upper crests phonies of New York City, but Ernest Hemingway
Speaker 1: helped inspire and rebuild its war weary author, giving Salinger
Speaker 1: chance to write the novel at all. And now the
Speaker 1: next theme, Communism. Our story begins with John Lennon's death
Speaker 1: on the doorstep of the Dakota, and it ends at
Speaker 1: the doorstep of another Lenin, the Communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin.
Speaker 1: Louise Bryant and Jack Reid got to know Lenin quite
Speaker 1: well during their time in Russia. They became friends, and
Speaker 1: the writers visited him often. Lennon even wrote the introduction
Speaker 1: to Read's book Ten Days That Shook the World just
Speaker 1: before Reid died from Typhus, Bryant had an exclusive interview
Speaker 1: with the Bolshevik leader. This interview was a major source
Speaker 1: for scholars interested in Lennon's views of America. In it,
Speaker 1: Lennon called for opening up commercial and political relations between
Speaker 1: the two nations. America and its allies had refused to
Speaker 1: recognize Soviet Russia and had instituted a blockade that was
Speaker 1: choking off much needed goods from entering the country. The
Speaker 1: previous year, Russia and the US had failed to come
Speaker 1: to an agreement to lift the blockade. And guess who
Speaker 1: was the American diplomat in charge of those negotiations, William Bullet,
Speaker 1: Bryant's future husband. If the blockade had been lifted, then
Speaker 1: Jack Reid might have lived. The blockade was the reason
Speaker 1: that the Moscow hospital didn't have any medicine to give
Speaker 1: to Read and the other Typhus victims. America's antagonistic relationship
Speaker 1: with communist Russia continued for decades and impacted the lives
Speaker 1: of several of our characters. Charlie Chaplin became a target
Speaker 1: of the communist witch hunt led by U S Senator
Speaker 1: Joseph McCarthy in the early nineteen fifties. Thank you. Let's
Speaker 1: lads and gentlemen of the press. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: waste your time, I should say, proceed with a berlad.
Speaker 1: Could you ask a direct question? Are you a communist?
Speaker 1: I another communist? Chaplain was neither a communist nor a sympathizer,
Speaker 1: but the allegations turned Chaplin from a legend to an
Speaker 1: outcast in Hollywood. As a result, Charlie and Una uprooted
Speaker 1: their family and moved to Europe. Twenty years later, John
Speaker 1: Lennon and Yoko Ono were caught in a similar net,
Speaker 1: but they chose to stay and fight. Lennon wasn't a
Speaker 1: communist either, but his outspoken criticism of the Vietnam War
Speaker 1: made him a target for the US government. The Nixon
Speaker 1: administration spent years trying to deport the rock star, and
Speaker 1: a lengthy court battle ensued after Because we we talked
Speaker 1: about peace, you know, I mean because we we won't
Speaker 1: we we won't peace. You know, We've said the same
Speaker 1: thing for two years, different way, one way or another,
Speaker 1: and we believe in it. Lennon was even called rock
Speaker 1: and Rolls Charlie Chaplin. He eventually won and was able
Speaker 1: to continue living at the Dakota U S authorities also
Speaker 1: investigated the playwright Eugene O'Neil for potential Communist ties. They
Speaker 1: wondered why his play is touched on the plight of
Speaker 1: the poor or the suffering and the unfortunate, But eventually
Speaker 1: O'Neil was also cleared of all suspicions. Up next Suffering.
Speaker 1: It infuses the characters in O'Neill's plays and also forms
Speaker 1: another common thread running through the lives of our characters.
Speaker 1: The characters in our story suffered setbacks, traumas, and neglect
Speaker 1: in their lives. Troubled childhood script almost everyone. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: the more you know about Um Lennin and where he
Speaker 1: comes from, the more a lot of his songs make sense.
Speaker 1: This is Tim Riley, who we met in episode one.
Speaker 1: He's talking about Lennon's childhood and his parents separation. There
Speaker 1: was this one scene when he was five where his
Speaker 1: dad came home and actually wished him off to Blackpool,
Speaker 1: which was a vacation resort up the coast a little bit.
Speaker 1: But Lennon's dad hadn't told his mom and she came
Speaker 1: looking for John and apparently there was a confrontation there
Speaker 1: in in Blackpool where it said you have to choose
Speaker 1: which parent you want to go with. Can you imagine
Speaker 1: having to choose between your parents right there on the spot,
Speaker 1: Lennon chose his father, then ran back to his mother
Speaker 1: as she started to leave. Ultimately, he was raised by
Speaker 1: his aunt Mimi. Why did't he used to call you? Mimi?
Speaker 1: When was the last time he phoned you? Night before
Speaker 1: he was murdered two hours and he was saying that
Speaker 1: I'll be seeing you soon. Maybe I can't wait to
Speaker 1: see you. And then of course at fabitok. The next
Speaker 1: morning it came over the overseas news. We know Una
Speaker 1: O'Neill Chaplin was influenced by her father's abandonment, but Eugene
Speaker 1: O'Neill's own childhood was no walk in the park. His
Speaker 1: mother once attempted suicide right in front of him. She
Speaker 1: ran screaming out of their house to New London, Connecticut,
Speaker 1: and jumped in the Thames River as Eugene and his
Speaker 1: brothers watched in shock, And he and Jim and James
Speaker 1: we're all standing there sort of a gape watching this.
Speaker 1: This is Robert Dowling who told us about O'Neill an
Speaker 1: episode four. She had run out of morphine um, and
Speaker 1: O'Neill didn't really know what he was looking at. He
Speaker 1: had to be explained that his mother was a morphine addict.
Speaker 1: At fourteen years old, O'Neill believed in the transformative power
Speaker 1: of suffering. In his play Beyond the Horizon, he wrote
Speaker 1: the line, only with contact with suffering, will you awaken
Speaker 1: the suffering of combat awakened J. D. Salinger. War may
Speaker 1: have destroyed Salinger the person, but it created Salinger the artist.
Speaker 1: His iconic character Holding Caulfield comes off very differently in
Speaker 1: the pre war short story A Slight Rebellion off Madison.
Speaker 1: First of well, it's in the third person um. The
Speaker 1: niration is called. The character is aloof and he's not
Speaker 1: very likable. This is Kenselinski again. By the time he
Speaker 1: writes the same passages and incorporated into the Catch on
Speaker 1: the Rye, it has taken on a different dimension. It's
Speaker 1: taken on his sensitivity. The intimacy is so powerful that
Speaker 1: people I feel that they are holding, that Holding is
Speaker 1: speaking for them, and that is completely missing from the
Speaker 1: pre war Holding Corville. Great art often comes in the
Speaker 1: wake of great suffering. That's only if you're able to
Speaker 1: take advantage of it. John Lennon, Eugene O'Neill, and J. D.
Speaker 1: Salinger all had outlets for their talents and time to
Speaker 1: cultivate them. Una didn't have that option as a woman
Speaker 1: in the nineteen forties and fifties. She had to marry
Speaker 1: a great man and surrender her own ambitions. She had
Speaker 1: to find purpose in her devotion to Charlie Chaplin. Take
Speaker 1: this one scene in a cafe again back in Paris.
Speaker 1: After the Chaplain's left America, Una was in the middle
Speaker 1: of life with her good friends Carol Marcus and Truman Capodi,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, Una looked at her watch
Speaker 1: and said, oh my god. She said, I gotta run, Charlie,
Speaker 1: You'll be back at the hotel now. And Capodi said,
Speaker 1: how can you live like this? He said, don't you
Speaker 1: have any time for yourself? And Carol butted in and said, Truman,
Speaker 1: don't you realize that every woman in the world wants
Speaker 1: a man to need her like that. Louise Bryant wanted
Speaker 1: to be needed by the men in her life as well,
Speaker 1: but she also wanted to be respected. As an independent journalist.
Speaker 1: She resented the attention showered on her husband Jack Reid's
Speaker 1: writing When the two journalists returned from the Russian Revolution,
Speaker 1: they were the talk of the town in Greenwich Village,
Speaker 1: Read for his reporting and Bryant for her Russian attire.
Speaker 1: Louise married Dearborn rights in her biography of Bryant had
Speaker 1: won the approval and friendship of no less than Lenin
Speaker 1: the Sun, god of the radical left, and yet these
Speaker 1: people talked about her clothes. She was very much aware
Speaker 1: that women were second class citizens. This is Mary Dearborn.
Speaker 1: She was a realist. I mean, this is someone who
Speaker 1: really worked hard to get out of a little town
Speaker 1: in Nevada to be on a kind of world stage.
Speaker 1: And however she could get there, that was fine with her. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Louise Bryant stopped writing in order to be a wife
Speaker 1: and mother. There was a sacrifice that would have been
Speaker 1: unimaginable for most of the male artists in our threat.
Speaker 1: There may be no better reason for all of the
Speaker 1: suffering in this story than bad parenting, and many of
Speaker 1: our characters were bad parents themselves. As you probably noticed,
Speaker 1: a couple attempted to redeem themselves, though Eugene O'Neill tried
Speaker 1: to reconnect with his daughter near the end of his life,
Speaker 1: but there was someone standing in his way. O'Neil left
Speaker 1: Agnes Bolton for the actress Carlotta Monterey. Carlotta fiercely guarded
Speaker 1: the piece and quiet O'Neill needed to write, and so
Speaker 1: UNA's letters to her father often didn't make it pass Carlotta.
Speaker 1: But in nineteen fifty one, Eugene and Carlotta were briefly estranged.
Speaker 1: Robert Dowling explains, during that break in their relationship, O'Neill
Speaker 1: rewrote his will and Una was right back in there.
Speaker 1: And he actually told a friend around that time that
Speaker 1: he really respected Una for actually having made a life
Speaker 1: for herself in the way that she did, and he
Speaker 1: really appreciated that. When Carlotta and Eugene patched things up,
Speaker 1: she made him cut Una out of his will again.
Speaker 1: None of the parents in our story made more of
Speaker 1: an attempt at redemption than the man we began with,
Speaker 1: John Lennon. Lennon had abandoned his son from his first marriage,
Speaker 1: but he was determined to do things differently when he
Speaker 1: and Yoko had their son, Sean in nineteen seventy. I
Speaker 1: think he has this idea that he's gotten a second
Speaker 1: chance here, and he really needs to figure this one out.
Speaker 1: Tim Riley again, so he stays home to be a
Speaker 1: house husband. But he was one of the very first
Speaker 1: celebrities to say I embraced this feminist notion fully, so
Speaker 1: fully that I'm gonna take a break from my career
Speaker 1: and actually devote my life to my kid. In a
Speaker 1: New York Times profile published a month before he was killed,
Speaker 1: Lennon said, when I look at the relative importance of
Speaker 1: what life is about, I can't quite convince myself that
Speaker 1: making a record or having a career is more important
Speaker 1: or even as important as my child or any child.
Speaker 1: But I don't buy that. You know, my career is
Speaker 1: so important that I'll deal with the kids later, which
Speaker 1: I already did with my first night as my first child,
Speaker 1: and I kind of regret it. JD. Salinger had a
Speaker 1: redemption tale of his own. Like Eugene O'Neil, Salinger was
Speaker 1: a neglectful father, at least at the start. Not long
Speaker 1: after his daughter Margaret was born, Salinger walled himself off
Speaker 1: from his family. Literally. He built a bunker in the
Speaker 1: woods where he could write undisturbed, sometimes for up to
Speaker 1: sixteen hours a day. It got so bad that Salinger's
Speaker 1: wife fled with the baby. She gave him an ultimatum,
Speaker 1: and Salinger's parenting improved, which brings us the Central Park,
Speaker 1: right across the street from the Dakota where our story began.
Speaker 1: At the ends of the Catch on the Rye, Olden
Speaker 1: Cofield watches his ten year old sister ride the Central
Speaker 1: Park carousel Ken Slowinski again that is the climax of
Speaker 1: the book. Holden watches her go around and around on
Speaker 1: her carousel horse in the rain. I felt so damn
Speaker 1: happy all of a sudden, the way old Phoebe kept
Speaker 1: going around and around. It was damn near bawling. I
Speaker 1: felt so damn happy, if you want to know the truth,
Speaker 1: I don't know why. It was just that she looked
Speaker 1: so damn nice, the way she kept going around and
Speaker 1: around in her blue cotin all God, I wish you
Speaker 1: could have been there. JD. Salinger had a similar experience
Speaker 1: long after The Scene and Catcher was published. He took
Speaker 1: his eight year old daughter, Margaret, to Manhattan and they
Speaker 1: went you guessed it, to the carousel in Central Park.
Speaker 1: The Salinger put his daughter on one of the horses
Speaker 1: and watched in the same spot where he has holding Couldfield,
Speaker 1: watching his sister, his daughter ride that carousel, taking the
Speaker 1: part of his own character after so many years. It
Speaker 1: it's one of the most moving images that I can
Speaker 1: think of. It is almost too beautiful to imagine Salinger
Speaker 1: at the carousel watching his own daughter go around. They
Speaker 1: would have a rocky relationship in the years ahead, but
Speaker 1: for one moment at least, there was a real synchronicity
Speaker 1: between life and art. Mark David Chapman may have called
Speaker 1: himself the Cher in the Rye after he killed John Lennon,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't. Chapman was a phony, being a catcher
Speaker 1: in the Rise about putting others first, something all of
Speaker 1: our characters had to learn, some the hard way. In
Speaker 1: the end, the power of their art could not insulate
Speaker 1: them from the pain of living or the hand of death.
Speaker 1: What mattered was how they treated others, their instant karma,
Speaker 1: their connections. We're all connected. Each moment, our interactions and
Speaker 1: choices shaped the course of our lives and impact the
Speaker 1: lives of others. What we call history is the accumulation
Speaker 1: of these actions and reactions, of chance, encounters and contingencies
Speaker 1: of causes in their effects, every outcome is a thread
Speaker 1: that gets woven into histories, ever expanding tapestry, a sprawling
Speaker 1: masterpiece composed of our own lives entwined with the lives
Speaker 1: of all those who came before us. M The Thread
Speaker 1: is produced by Meredith Hotman, Libby Coleman, and me Sean braswell.
Speaker 1: Our editors are Carlos Watson and Samir Rao. Meredith Hotknot
Speaker 1: engineered our show with mixing and sound design from James Rowlands.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Cindy Carpian, David Boyer, Tracy Moran, Sean Colligan,
Speaker 1: Sun Jeeves Tandon, Cameo, George and k A. L. W.
Speaker 1: Check us out at ausy dot com, That's o z
Speaker 1: y dot com or on Twitter and Facebook. To learn
Speaker 1: more about The Thread, visit ausy dot com, slash the
Speaker 1: Thread all one word, and make sure to subscribe to
Speaker 1: The Thread on Apple Podcasts. If you love surprising, engaging
Speaker 1: stories from history like this one, look no further than
Speaker 1: the flashback section of AZZI. Thanks for listening, and stay
Speaker 1: tuned for more interconnected stories from history, with Season two
Speaker 1: of The Thread coming soon. Two