Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hi Elizabeth, Hi, my name is Elizabeth and yours Aaron.
Speaker 3: You can call me Dizzy and LISZ.
Speaker 2: How you have to ask you a question?
Speaker 3: Sure, I got time, and that.
Speaker 2: Question is you know what's ridiculous I do?
Speaker 3: And this one is in honor of our recently lost
Speaker 3: great one, Ozzy Osbourne. Now, a lot of people been
Speaker 3: sharing different things that Ozzy did over the years, you know,
Speaker 3: a lot of focus on some of the well known things. Well,
Speaker 3: I found one from some eyewitnesses who would know some Ozzy.
Speaker 3: The members of Motley Crue, Oh boy yeah, and they're
Speaker 3: in the dirt a memoir. The members of Motley Crue
Speaker 3: shared a bunch of stories from the road and as
Speaker 3: aka the world's most notorious rock band, which they take
Speaker 3: pride in. Nicky six tells the story of Ozzy Osbourne.
Speaker 3: It dates back to nineteen eighty four and NICKI six,
Speaker 3: I will just turn it over to him. Quote. I
Speaker 3: handed Ozzy the straw and he walked over to a
Speaker 3: crack in the sidewalk and bent over it. I saw
Speaker 3: a long column of ants marching to a little dugout
Speaker 3: built where the pavement met the dirt, and I thought
Speaker 3: to myself, no, he wouldn't. He did. He put the
Speaker 3: straw to his nose, and with his bare white peeking
Speaker 3: out from under the dress he was wearing like a
Speaker 3: sliced honeydew, he sent the entire line of ants tickling
Speaker 3: up his nose with a single monstrous snort.
Speaker 2: Ozzie didn't they like sequence his jeans?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, the sequences whole genome right. And they found
Speaker 3: that Ozzie had numerous genes they had never seen before,
Speaker 3: and they theorized this is how he was able to
Speaker 3: do all the drugs he did and survived what he did.
Speaker 3: So he was a literal genetic mutant from Keith Richards totally,
Speaker 3: and I want one for myself, just to test a
Speaker 3: couple of things. Yes, No, I think Keith Richards definitely
Speaker 3: would be interesting. And then I'd like to see his
Speaker 3: and compare some notes on my own, because I'm like,
Speaker 3: how am I still alive? And I'm like, I'm not.
Speaker 3: I'm not Keith. I'm not saying that, but I just
Speaker 3: want to see if, like, Okay, here's where it is.
Speaker 3: Because he he's the hero, he is, He is ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Elis that's ridiculous. Do you want to know what else
Speaker 2: is ridiculous?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I love ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Stealing from your own kid. No, no, this is Ridiculous Crime,
Speaker 2: A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons.
Speaker 2: It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred
Speaker 2: percent ridiculous. Damn right, that's right. You studied film, right, Sarah.
Speaker 3: I went to film school technically.
Speaker 2: Well, see, you know all about the history of film.
Speaker 3: I would say all about it, but I know a
Speaker 3: lot more than the average bearer.
Speaker 2: You're a cinophile, Yes, I think that's fading. And I
Speaker 2: know you love old Hollywood stories.
Speaker 3: I do love old Hollywood stories. I love old Hollywood.
Speaker 2: What's the beginning of an industry? This is going to
Speaker 2: change the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally. I mean it's really the synthesis of all
Speaker 3: of the art forms up to that day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's going to change how we see things, how
Speaker 2: we understand things, we see ourselves.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a think of how many criminals we know
Speaker 3: about change.
Speaker 2: It's going to change crime. It's going to inspire generations
Speaker 2: of would be bank robbers.
Speaker 3: It's good stuff, powerful stuff, powerful magic.
Speaker 2: Powerful magic. So if you want to go early early Hollywood.
Speaker 2: That's the silent film era. Yeah, and so before the
Speaker 2: talkies roughly eighteen nineties to the late nineteen twenties.
Speaker 3: Yes, so they get jazzing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So it was during the twenties they produced about
Speaker 2: eight hundred feature films each year, and then, like you said,
Speaker 2: the Jazz Singer comes out in twenty seven, the silent
Speaker 2: era fades away. The Jazz Singer was the first feature
Speaker 2: length film was synchronized silog, but until then it was,
Speaker 2: you know, a sensation. These silent films.
Speaker 3: Totally, they're very powerful because as I said, they gave
Speaker 3: good face. People could really project onto them. You know,
Speaker 3: it changes obviously with sound, but then it was like
Speaker 3: myths come alive.
Speaker 2: It's very distilled that the dialogue was conveyed through inner titles,
Speaker 2: text cards. There was live music, so it wasn't totally silent.
Speaker 2: In the theater. Sometimes there would be full orchestras and
Speaker 2: like large staters, smaller venues. Ers be like a dude
Speaker 2: at a piano and like, like you were saying, he
Speaker 2: had to have this face. So performers they use these
Speaker 2: exaggerated expressions and the gestures to convey emotion and the plot.
Speaker 2: The exaggerated gestures weren't just like a stylistic choices that
Speaker 2: the early cameras had really poor resolution, very true subtlety
Speaker 2: didn't register exactly. So it's kind of like an.
Speaker 3: A there's no denros, no no.
Speaker 2: And it's kind of like an ancient Greek theater where
Speaker 2: you're up in like the top of the amphitheater, you
Speaker 2: can't see a face down. And that's why they would
Speaker 2: wear these giant masks and have outsized.
Speaker 3: A lot of the poses to represent things. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of that in the early films, so.
Speaker 2: They would take that theatrical grounding of it, and that
Speaker 2: help them do this to like convey plot without sound. Sure,
Speaker 2: so early black and white film stock was really sensitive
Speaker 2: to red light, and that made red lipstick look black. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so actresses would wear blue or green lipsticks so that
Speaker 2: it would look natural on screen. And we think of
Speaker 2: silent films as being in black and white, but that
Speaker 2: wasn't always the case.
Speaker 3: Have you ever seen the makeup photos they either have
Speaker 3: been colorized or if at some points they actually are
Speaker 3: like early color examples where you take like the same
Speaker 3: picture with three different shots and then you could give
Speaker 3: blend them into one shot so it's colorized. You'd see
Speaker 3: these actresses when they're actually painted up with their all
Speaker 3: green face makeup, and it's like on their cheeks, what's
Speaker 3: on their lips, It's everywhere you would think red would be,
Speaker 3: and it looks insane.
Speaker 2: Crazy, it looks super crazy. But like, so they would
Speaker 2: have the film in black and white, right, but sometimes
Speaker 2: they would hand tint framed by frame, they use stencils,
Speaker 2: they'd use like the early color processing total. The nineteen
Speaker 2: fourteen film The Life of Moses had color sequence.
Speaker 3: Oh, I can see that fourteen.
Speaker 2: So those early films were also shot on nitrate, highly flammable,
Speaker 2: chemically unstable.
Speaker 3: In the Tarantino film, you see that moment where the
Speaker 3: character they burn the theater, that's the nitrate film that
Speaker 3: you're using, because she's able to burn the whole theater
Speaker 3: down to kill everybody.
Speaker 2: Glorious.
Speaker 3: I forgot to mention the.
Speaker 2: Film that, But what it means a lot of the
Speaker 2: classics have been lost forever through dcom About eighty percent
Speaker 2: of original silent films have been destroyed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so crazy.
Speaker 2: This is big business though, Like it's this sensation, so
Speaker 2: a good weekly salary for early Hollywood film executives was
Speaker 2: fifty bucks. Wow, that's like eight hundred dollars. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: you know, we look at it, eight hundred bucks a week,
Speaker 2: that's not a lot of money. Extras made about a
Speaker 2: dollar fifty a day and that's like twenty five dollars today.
Speaker 2: This is basically the same. But stars stars, that was
Speaker 2: a different story. So by the twenties, big stars were
Speaker 2: earning the equivalent of millions today, So they were raking
Speaker 2: it in. We hadn't switched it over to where the
Speaker 2: executives were getting a lot of them. Yes, yeah, there
Speaker 2: were no stuntmen.
Speaker 3: Yeah. A lot of the early stars, like Harold Lloyd,
Speaker 3: they did their own stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, so like they would want to do it
Speaker 2: because the executives didn't want to spend money on an
Speaker 2: extra person.
Speaker 3: That's why you get a lot of old cowboys like Calm,
Speaker 3: Mixed and Bush and a comedy version obviously Charliechaplan.
Speaker 2: No safety nets, no cgi Buster Keaton. Actually, in Steamboat
Speaker 2: Bill Junior nineteen twenty eight, a full building facade falls
Speaker 2: around him, missing his body by inches because they had
Speaker 2: like very precisely measured the open window totally, and then
Speaker 2: he was like, you know what, if I had stood
Speaker 2: like an inch off my mark, I'd be dead.
Speaker 3: Completely crushed, completely, no chance of Yeah. Film, and also
Speaker 3: those true of a lot of his stunts. He does
Speaker 3: ones where the car falls apart underneath him, or he's
Speaker 3: there's like a ton of stuff with ladders and all
Speaker 3: sorts of stuff where if anything went wrong, he would
Speaker 3: probably not walk again or be dead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. There were times when it didn't go so well,
Speaker 2: so like while filming just a publicity photo not the
Speaker 2: film itself in nineteen nineteen Harold Lloyd, he picked up
Speaker 2: what he thought was a fake prop bomb, but it
Speaker 2: blew up. Yeah, it took off his thumb index finger.
Speaker 3: Dear God, and he just continued doing.
Speaker 2: His stunts afterwards. He would wear gloves or prosthetics. In
Speaker 2: the film's lawn cheney. He was known as Man of.
Speaker 3: A thousand faces total.
Speaker 2: He made like homemade prosthetics to get these crazy, terrifying looks.
Speaker 3: They still use a lot of his techniques.
Speaker 2: Yah Phantom of the Opera nineteen twenty five, he pulled
Speaker 2: his nose back with wires and he wore these like
Speaker 2: crazy dentures, painful to get that phantom's face. And he
Speaker 2: was so secretive about his techniques that he would lock
Speaker 2: his dressing room. Yes, he didn't want anyone snooping around
Speaker 2: because he was like it when it came to that.
Speaker 2: The first movie fan magazines emerged in this era.
Speaker 3: That's right, of course, like the Rudy Valentino.
Speaker 2: And Photoplay Motion Picture Magazine. They created Hollywood celebrity culture totally,
Speaker 2: and they gave fans gossip, behind the scenes stories. Then
Speaker 2: you got like directors, right d W. Griffith directed Birth
Speaker 2: of a Nation intolerance, of course, there was Cecil B.
Speaker 2: De Mille.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Fritz Lang, expression is coming.
Speaker 2: Over the boundaries right of storytelling, cinematograph. This the industry
Speaker 2: was wild and it was larger than life, and there
Speaker 2: were so many publicity stunts, so like for the nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty film Way Down East, d W. Griffith arranged for
Speaker 2: airplanes to drop free tickets over Manhattan Wow, and this
Speaker 2: caused an absolute frenzy and the crowds were like scrambling
Speaker 2: in the streets the studios, like if they had jungle
Speaker 2: themed films, they would bring exotic animals down the street.
Speaker 2: For the Adventures of Tarzan, in nineteen twenty one, they
Speaker 2: walked a real elephant down through downtown La Buster Keaton's
Speaker 2: The General. In nineteen twenty six, a real train engine
Speaker 2: was sent across a burning bridge and it collapsed dramatically
Speaker 2: into a river.
Speaker 3: It was one of the most amazing things ever done.
Speaker 2: Yeah the time, well, it was filmed for the movie.
Speaker 2: It was also hyped as a live event. So like
Speaker 2: they've invited all the public to come watch them film this.
Speaker 3: Everyone wanted to expensive. They had to get it right.
Speaker 2: And the wreckage, Yeah, because you only get one take.
Speaker 2: The wreckage remained in the river for decades and it
Speaker 2: became a tourist attraction. Harold Lloyd. As you mentioned safety
Speaker 2: last oh, nineteen twenty three, Yeah, hang off hanging from
Speaker 2: the clock high above the street. So in order to
Speaker 2: promote the film, stunt performers they staged similar but safer
Speaker 2: hangs from actual buildings to like thrill the onlookers get
Speaker 2: newspaper inches.
Speaker 3: Oh and then there's like Chaplin who would fake it
Speaker 3: with like mirrors and forced perspective where he's not actually
Speaker 3: dangling over the edge on his roller skates. He just
Speaker 3: made it look like.
Speaker 2: It looked like it so they were playing with all
Speaker 2: these these like the technology of it stuff like the
Speaker 2: Fire Brigade nineteen twenty six MGM staged a controlled fire
Speaker 2: outside of theaters and so like local fire departments would participate.
Speaker 2: It turned into this huge spectacle and like everyone's like,
Speaker 2: I want to see a movie about this. And then
Speaker 2: the stars saren give me the star. I've mentioned some
Speaker 2: of them already, Buster Keaton, Mary Pickford, Oh yeah, Douglas Fairbanks,
Speaker 2: Rudolph Valentino, Lillian Gish, Harold Lloyd, those are like the
Speaker 2: famous ones. And then the guy who's made an appearance
Speaker 2: on here before your man, Charlie Chaplin. Oh yes, yeah,
Speaker 2: there was another star. He's what I want to tell
Speaker 2: you about today. He wound up changing Hollywood forever, but
Speaker 2: in an unexpected way, and it was a change that
Speaker 2: came from a crime. Trying to guess who could be Well,
Speaker 2: I'll tell you please, I'm talking about Jackie Cougan. Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm glad to Cougan, John, because there's some other choices.
Speaker 3: It would not be as much fun.
Speaker 2: No, No, John Leslie Coogan born October twenty eighth, nineteen fourteen,
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: I was born in La yeah.
Speaker 2: It's the son of John Henry Coogan, junior of vaudeville performer.
Speaker 3: Okay, a lot of vaudeville performers.
Speaker 2: Case, oh yeah, and then Lillian Dolliver Coogan, who was
Speaker 2: a dancer. So from infancy he was exposed to show business.
Speaker 2: He was on stage with his dad as a toddler.
Speaker 3: It's likely hearrd Lloyd. He was a Bodville kid. He
Speaker 3: used to get thrown around on stage by his dad.
Speaker 3: That's what he's so good. It's stune.
Speaker 2: They're so comfortable.
Speaker 3: They basically yeah, babies raised in suitcases, you.
Speaker 2: Know, exactly. So like Jackie Coogan, he had this absolutely
Speaker 2: cherubic face.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, big saucer eyes.
Speaker 2: Natural expressiveness, and so he was an instant draw baby. Yes, yes,
Speaker 2: And in the audience was someone important who caught notice
Speaker 2: of Jackie. The most famous filmmaker of the Silent era
Speaker 2: Charlie Chaplin.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 2: One of Charlie Chaplin's most famous films is The Kid
Speaker 2: in Chaplain. He began work on The Kid not too
Speaker 2: long after the death of his infant son, which obviously
Speaker 2: weakly affected him. So the emotional theme of parental loss
Speaker 2: and connection is often attributed to that personal tragedy. So
Speaker 2: he's preparing to make the movie. He needs to cast
Speaker 2: the kid. He discovered Jackie Coogan at age four, performing
Speaker 2: on stage in La with his dad. Sure, Chaplin struck
Speaker 2: by Cougan's expressive face, his mimicry. He later called him,
Speaker 2: quote the most wonderful child actor I've ever seen. He
Speaker 2: had present completely So Cougan he could mimic emotions with
Speaker 2: like uncanny precision, but he couldn't read yet four years old.
Speaker 3: Totally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So Chaplain used live demonstrations and physical acting rather
Speaker 2: than scripts to show him what he wanted to do
Speaker 2: in each scene. Oh, he kind of had to act
Speaker 2: it out. So filming started in nineteen nineteen went through
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty. Chaplin had a contract with First National Pictures,
Speaker 2: and that was going to let him produce his films
Speaker 2: without a set release schedule.
Speaker 3: Oh cool, pretty good.
Speaker 2: But the production of a Kid ran long. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: he was very long. He was a perfection, he was exactly,
Speaker 2: and so First National they start to make a fuss.
Speaker 2: To avoid First National from interfering with his vision, Chaplin
Speaker 2: smuggled the original film Negatives from California to a hotel
Speaker 2: in Salt Lake City.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, I love that.
Speaker 2: And he edited the film in secret using a makeshift
Speaker 2: editing setup. Oh yes, and that's how he was able
Speaker 2: to keep full creative control. You don't even know where
Speaker 2: I am working. He goes a little movie and he's
Speaker 2: in Yeah, in a Salt Lake City hotel room. So
Speaker 2: the movie The Kid comes out January twenty first, nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty one. It's fifty three minutes long thereabouts, written, directed,
Speaker 2: produced by Charlie Chaplin. He plays the tramp. Jackie Coogan
Speaker 2: plays the kid John.
Speaker 5: So.
Speaker 2: The film tells the story of this vagabond Chaplain who
Speaker 2: finds an abandoned infant and raises him, and over the
Speaker 2: years the bond between them deep in the story's humorous
Speaker 2: and heartbreaking. It represents Chaplain's signature blend of pathos and
Speaker 2: slapstick the best, absolutely perfect, make.
Speaker 3: Them laugh, make them cry, yes's.
Speaker 2: And that's that's the most like the Catharsis.
Speaker 3: You created, dating back to the Greek theater.
Speaker 2: Right, So Chaplain he'd grown up in extreme poverty in
Speaker 2: Victorian London. He'd been separated from his mother and brother
Speaker 2: due to her mental illness, and his character's care for
Speaker 2: this orphan child was drawn from his own experiences in
Speaker 2: the workhouse and on the streets totally. So the movie
Speaker 2: had a budget of about two hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 2: dollars a lot, but it ultimately grossed over five million dollars,
Speaker 2: making it one of the highest grossing films of the
Speaker 2: nineteen twenties. And it was the first feature length film
Speaker 2: by Chaplain. So before The Kid, he'd only made short.
Speaker 3: Fut comedic twenty two minute long reels.
Speaker 2: Right, and it was one of the earliest films to
Speaker 2: effectively mix comedy and drama that influenced decades of filmmaking
Speaker 2: still I mean yes here like also in that era.
Speaker 2: It's highlighting the themes of poverty and child welfare, class
Speaker 2: inequality coming out of World War One. Critics, audiences, everybody
Speaker 2: loves the film. In fact, nineteen seventy two, Chaplin created
Speaker 2: a re edited version of it with a new musical
Speaker 2: scory termed A Few Sees Really. In twenty eleven, the
Speaker 2: Library of Congress selected The Kid for the National Film Registry,
Speaker 2: saying it was culturally, historically, and esthetically significant, definoid and
Speaker 2: it's on a ton of lists of like the greatest
Speaker 2: silent films of all oh. I So while this was
Speaker 2: a huge film for Chaplain, it was mega huge for
Speaker 2: Jackie Coogan.
Speaker 3: I even thought about that suddenly everywhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, let's take a break. When we come back,
Speaker 2: we'll learn more about Jackie Coogan.
Speaker 6: Nice, Okay, al right, here we are Jackie Coogan.
Speaker 2: Yes, Jackie, he's the first child star.
Speaker 3: I didn't thought about that.
Speaker 2: So he had his debut, his breakout hit the Kid, just.
Speaker 3: Like before Little Rascals and like you know, Spanky and Alfalfa.
Speaker 3: I mean, he is the child.
Speaker 2: Everyone loves me. He's instantly famous, and with fame came merchandising.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, it's the twenties. It's hyper commercialism. At
Speaker 3: the beginning of that.
Speaker 2: Jackie Coogan dolls, whistles, figurines. There was a Jackie Cougan
Speaker 2: comic strip. And here's my favorite. There was even Jackie
Speaker 2: Coogan peanut butter what Yeah, like an O G mash.
Speaker 2: You can buy tens like on eBay and like other
Speaker 2: you know, uh novelty sites or whatever antiques things they have.
Speaker 2: You can get there in these metal tins.
Speaker 3: Jackie Coogan pet.
Speaker 2: So by age seven. He's an international sensation. He starred
Speaker 2: in films like Oliver, Twist Daddy, Long Live the King.
Speaker 2: He was commanding salaries of up to twenty two thousand
Speaker 2: dollars a week. That's the equivalent of over four hundred
Speaker 2: thousand dollars a week today. Can you imagine as an adult?
Speaker 2: Can you imagine making four hundred thousand dollars a week?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: I cannot.
Speaker 2: Like, I know they say, mo money, MO problems, but
Speaker 2: I think I would have very few problems.
Speaker 3: You want to handle those problems with the money you have.
Speaker 2: Many of my problems will go far, far away. I
Speaker 2: would wave them, oh bye and move. Jackie Coogan, though right,
Speaker 2: he's raking in the dough, adored by the public, But
Speaker 2: he wasn't a freewheeling kid. So his life off screen
Speaker 2: was really tightly controlled. His parents, particularly his mother.
Speaker 3: Are they doing like Judy Garland level or that he
Speaker 3: has controlling what he eats and all that kind of everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so his mom and then his stepdad, who
Speaker 2: was also his business manager, Arthur Bernstein, they oversaw his
Speaker 2: affairs and so his earnings estimated to be around four
Speaker 2: million dollars through his whole childhood. That's the equivalent of
Speaker 2: seventy five million dollars today. They held them in accounts
Speaker 2: that Jackie didn't have access to. But that makes sense.
Speaker 2: He's a little kid.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 2: In public, his life is like storybook perfect. Here's the
Speaker 2: sweet little kid, and he's doing all.
Speaker 3: This stuff, and he's like Shirley Temple. Everyone loves him.
Speaker 2: Everyone's and his mom loves talking to the press and
Speaker 2: like shares all sorts of anecdotes. Yes, in private, though
Speaker 2: he was worked relentlessly. They didn't care about his education.
Speaker 2: They didn't care about his you know, emotional development.
Speaker 3: Of course does He didn't even get to play with
Speaker 3: other kids.
Speaker 2: No, here's what his mother said once quote. He wasn't
Speaker 2: a child. He was an actor.
Speaker 3: Thanks mom, Thanks Ma.
Speaker 2: Like when I was little, maybe round four, a casting
Speaker 2: agent came up to my mom and tried to picture
Speaker 2: on the idea of me doing like TV or movie.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, yeah good.
Speaker 2: We were like at a restaurant. I feel like I
Speaker 2: was cute as hell. Now I peaked at age five
Speaker 2: and it's been all downhill since. But my mom told
Speaker 2: the agent to kick rocks, which I guess it is smart.
Speaker 2: Is good because like child, stardom messes people up.
Speaker 3: Completely when we lived in LA when my sister had
Speaker 3: a kid, a little blonde haired kid who is like,
Speaker 3: you know, super cute and he's like five, same thing,
Speaker 3: and people try to come up and Megan was like,
Speaker 3: we should take him auditions. I said, absolutely, absolute, kid.
Speaker 2: Yes, we like we talk a big game in our
Speaker 2: society about how much we love and value and protect kids,
Speaker 2: but it's all talk. We don't So when you have
Speaker 2: an opportunity to love and value and protect kids, we
Speaker 2: like to cherish them in theory, in theory exactly. So
Speaker 2: Jackie Kugan, he's everywhere until he wasn't because he aged
Speaker 2: as people do if they're like.
Speaker 3: Oh it was pubrety hard on.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, if you're lucky, you get old. But
Speaker 2: like his angel faded and then his market a bill,
Speaker 2: he faded, like a lot of.
Speaker 3: The qualities adult teeth grow in you look weird.
Speaker 2: Well that's the thing. A lot of the qualities that
Speaker 2: make someone super cute as a kid just don't translate
Speaker 2: to an adult face totally.
Speaker 3: I mean a lot of the younger the kid stars,
Speaker 3: even to this day, you look at him and you're like, oh,
Speaker 3: that's down, that's.
Speaker 2: The yeah, And like for child celebrities. We get used
Speaker 2: to seeing them a certain way, and then when that changes,
Speaker 2: we don't like it. By the late twenties, he was
Speaker 2: no longer box office gold and he tried to revive
Speaker 2: his career. That didn't take, so he enrolled at Santa
Speaker 2: Clara University, but he didn't stay there long. He went
Speaker 2: back to Hollywood. He's like, look, I'm going to land
Speaker 2: adult roles, not like in adult films, but like I'm
Speaker 2: going to be a grown up in the movies. The
Speaker 2: transition was rocky for him, and because the public, they
Speaker 2: just couldn't see the kid as a grown man totally.
Speaker 2: So money troubles they start to mount because like, he
Speaker 2: has all this money, but he doesn't have access to it,
Speaker 2: not until he's twenty one.
Speaker 3: His parents twenty one.
Speaker 2: Not even eighteen twenty.
Speaker 3: It's the way his parents, his business manager use it.
Speaker 3: Think it would be good to do with your money.
Speaker 2: And he's been he like, there's he's got this on
Speaker 2: the horizon. He's saying, I just got it when I'm
Speaker 2: twenty one, you know everything. But he's like all those
Speaker 2: con artists we have, we're like, look, when I turned
Speaker 2: twenty one, I come into this and here he really does,
Speaker 2: but can you spot me? And here's poor Jackie Coogan,
Speaker 2: can you spot me? And they're like, I don't know.
Speaker 2: So then in nineteen thirty five, something horrible happened. It
Speaker 2: was May fourth, nineteen thirty five, a Sunday afternoon. Jackie's twenty.
Speaker 2: He's traveling in a car with his close friend Junior Durkin,
Speaker 2: who was his co star is Huck Finn in the
Speaker 2: film Tom Sweart totally. Also in the car was Jackie's dad,
Speaker 2: John Cougan Senior, and then there was Charles Jones, a
Speaker 2: business associate and he managed the ranch that the Cougan Zone.
Speaker 2: And then there was a film producer, Robert Horner. So
Speaker 2: there's five people in the car. They're near Pine Valley
Speaker 2: in the Cuyamaca Mountains, southeast of San Diego. And so
Speaker 2: they're on the San Diego Imperial Valley Highway, this winding
Speaker 2: mountain pass, narrow road, you know, steep gravel surface. A
Speaker 2: group of guys on a weekend hunting trip. So they're
Speaker 2: in a Hudson roadster. They're on their way back to
Speaker 2: La Jackie's dad's driving. Jackie and Junior Dirk and are
Speaker 2: riding in the rumble seat.
Speaker 3: Those are the way back fold out seat essentially.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so there an oncoming car came at them
Speaker 2: too tight and they were forced off the road. They swerved,
Speaker 2: lost traction, plunged over a one hundred foot embankment. Dear god,
Speaker 2: car rolls multiple times before landing in this rocky ravine.
Speaker 2: Jackie Cougan, there's.
Speaker 3: Like probably no seat belts in that car seat inventedge.
Speaker 2: Jackie Cougan was the sole survivor.
Speaker 3: The survivor thrown early.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's the thing. And some of the reports
Speaker 2: said he was thrown, others said that everyone else was,
Speaker 2: but that he hung on And there was one interview
Speaker 2: where he said he kind of curled up and like
Speaker 2: held onto the bottom of the rumble seat. Tumble three,
Speaker 2: four tumbles down. But either way he survived with minor injuries,
Speaker 2: just like cuts and bruises. He broke some ribs. Sure
Speaker 2: everyone the four other documents were killed instantly or died
Speaker 2: shortly after. It was horrific, and it was this huge
Speaker 2: news story totally, so it's front page news across the
Speaker 2: United States. Here's Jackie Coogan, who'd been a beloved figure
Speaker 2: for nearly a decade he's young. Like, the tragedy really
Speaker 2: shook people, and it must be it must be so
Speaker 2: hard to be in the public spotlight and experience a
Speaker 2: tragedy like this and then like see it splashed all
Speaker 2: over newspapers and magazines. Never mind today when you also
Speaker 2: have to contend with all the booger eaters online get
Speaker 2: their jolly is from like saying crass and hurtful things
Speaker 2: at a time like that. We're just like, you know,
Speaker 2: really like distasteful thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's horrific, Like do you have a soul?
Speaker 2: Comments exactly, And so I can't imagine having your your
Speaker 2: private tragedies in public like that. So there are headlines
Speaker 2: like Jackie Coogan orphaned in tragic car wreck, like his
Speaker 2: mom wasn't in the car, but whatever, And so thousands
Speaker 2: of telegrams of indolence get sent to the Cougan house.
Speaker 3: So they had parasocial relationships then.
Speaker 2: Too, very much so, And like the thing is is
Speaker 2: that Jackie's dad was his greatest advocate, He managed his
Speaker 2: early career, he protected him from like the worst of
Speaker 2: the exploitations, and so his sudden death left Jackie really
Speaker 2: vulnerable emotionally, financially, Cougan would later say that the crash
Speaker 2: marked the end of his childhood. That's it. So afterwards,
Speaker 2: like his relationship with his mom and his stepfather becomes strained.
Speaker 2: And it was in that same year.
Speaker 3: Wait, the mother was already divorced and had the stepfather.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, mother was already divorced, had the stepfather. Same
Speaker 2: year of the crash, nineteen thirty five, Jackie was going
Speaker 2: to turn twenty one, okay, and that was when he
Speaker 2: was scheduled to take full control of the fortune. So
Speaker 2: there are all these newspaper articles marking the approach of
Speaker 2: this major milestone. Wow, there was speculation as to the
Speaker 2: magnitude of his fortune, like.
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, because they don't know, they don't know his.
Speaker 2: Money had servedved the stock market of nineteen twenty nine
Speaker 2: because apparently, like his dad was a really smart investor
Speaker 2: in crafty showfolk.
Speaker 3: I don't think they trust things like the stock market
Speaker 3: like that, right.
Speaker 2: And there were guesses about like real estate holdings at
Speaker 2: that time. So here's this young man who at the
Speaker 2: time was dating Betty Grable, what actress and famous pin
Speaker 2: up mode. Yeah, the legs platonic ideal of Hubba Hubbo
Speaker 2: he'd go on to marry her.
Speaker 3: By the way, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, Betty Grabl's pin up photo is like
Speaker 2: in every cockpit of a plane on.
Speaker 3: The wane, literally painted on the side of the plane.
Speaker 2: She motivated men in World War Two, nobody else.
Speaker 3: By the way, I have that poster like where she's
Speaker 3: she's looking over her shoulder. I have that somewhere from
Speaker 3: like my Hollywood at times.
Speaker 2: Look at that. Look here we are full circle. I
Speaker 2: get it, you get it. So he's got Betty Grabil
Speaker 2: on his arm. He's about to come into a massive fortune.
Speaker 2: He just got through an absolutely unspeakable tragedy. He's a survivor.
Speaker 2: The public loves this, so they love all the stories
Speaker 2: of speculation and oh my gosh, what's going to happen
Speaker 2: when he turns twenty one. So when he turned twenty one,
Speaker 2: he asked for access to this fortune he'd earned as
Speaker 2: a child, and then he found out that it was gone.
Speaker 3: What do you mean gone?
Speaker 2: Virtually all of it was gone. They'd spent it on
Speaker 2: fur coats, diamonds.
Speaker 3: Cars, something million, seventy five million essentially in our money
Speaker 3: on our fur coats.
Speaker 2: His mother and stepfather refused to relinquish any remaining money.
Speaker 2: They said that Jackie had been well cared for and
Speaker 2: that the money was quote ours, not his.
Speaker 3: What the absolute after going on? I would dad, I
Speaker 3: was Jackie.
Speaker 2: Coo stepdad made the argument that Jackie was just a
Speaker 2: performer in a family business as their stepdad, and therefore
Speaker 2: had no exclusive rights to the earnings.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: So Jackie, he's betrayed and he's infuriated as this, he
Speaker 2: filed suit. He sued his mother and his stepfather May twelfth,
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty eight. Jackie Coogan, he's twenty three years old,
Speaker 2: filed a civil lawsuit against his mom and his stepfather.
Speaker 3: He alleged scum back.
Speaker 2: He alleged a bunch of things. Number one, breach of
Speaker 2: fiduciary duty that's obvious, theft of personal property, constructive trust violation,
Speaker 2: violation of verbal and implied contracts. He wanted a full
Speaker 2: accounting of his earnings and return of any remaining assets
Speaker 2: or property.
Speaker 3: I want to everything.
Speaker 2: He tabulated up they should give him around three million
Speaker 2: dollars three, which is the equivalent of more than sixty
Speaker 2: eight million dollars too. So three millions, yeah, so it's
Speaker 2: like if today he's like, you owe me sixty eight
Speaker 2: million dollars, I gotcha, yes, he said, quote I dread
Speaker 2: going to court, but I see no alternative. If my
Speaker 2: father were alive, I wouldn't have to sue. He intended
Speaker 2: that the money I earned would be kept in trust
Speaker 2: for me until I was of age. He often told
Speaker 2: me so. And it is a bond, this fact that
Speaker 2: I am basing my suit. Oh yeah, so Lilian the mom,
Speaker 2: she's quoted as saying that her son was suffering from
Speaker 2: a hallucination. What yeah? And then she like, she just
Speaker 2: holed up in her mansion and van eyes and she
Speaker 2: only had that because Jackie the house, the Jackie Bill.
Speaker 2: She tried to keep the process servers locked outside, but
Speaker 2: they finally broke down the gate, rushed into the house
Speaker 2: and handed her the service papers. She didn't say anything
Speaker 2: to them, and then she made this now infamous public
Speaker 2: statement to the press, quote, Jackie will not get a
Speaker 2: cent of his earnings. Every dollar a kid earns before
Speaker 2: he's twenty one belongs to his parents.
Speaker 3: Oh my head is boiling.
Speaker 2: I know so the trust me. So the assertion was
Speaker 2: legally true at the time, though I know protections the.
Speaker 3: Children, children were working in factories and losing their fingers.
Speaker 3: Nobody gave no.
Speaker 2: One gave a damn. Arthur Burnstein. He echoed the sentiment Stepdad.
Speaker 2: He said that any money they'd spent was to maintain
Speaker 2: Jackie's lifestyle and that no trust fund had ever existed.
Speaker 2: So you guys keep talking about this trust fund.
Speaker 7: I know.
Speaker 2: His dearly departed father said there was no there's not.
Speaker 2: So they said that most of his earnings were used
Speaker 2: to buy a large house in la and that was
Speaker 2: put in Lilian's name. It had to cover travel, private tutoring,
Speaker 2: and servants. That they invested in bad stock market ventures,
Speaker 2: and then the depression wiped it out. But that contradicted
Speaker 2: the evidence that his late father had done well by him.
Speaker 2: So investigations later revealed that Coogan's contracts were signed by
Speaker 2: his parents and not him. His earning yeah, yeah, he's
Speaker 2: a minor, His earnings had been deposited into accounts held
Speaker 2: solely in his parents' names, and that no structured trust
Speaker 2: or fiduciary safeguards had been created. So at the time,
Speaker 2: California law did not require parents to preserve a child's earnings. Legally,
Speaker 2: parents owned any income earned by their minor children unless
Speaker 2: otherwise specified those regulations requiring trust accounts oversight of the earnings.
Speaker 2: So it means that Jackie's lawsuit had to argue not
Speaker 2: just on legal precedent, but on moral grounds and implied contracts.
Speaker 2: So the case got underway. Jackie's lawyers they were able
Speaker 2: to show that his film contracts reported multi million dollar earnings.
Speaker 2: There were all those endorsement deals for the themed products,
Speaker 2: and then tax records showed these huge incomes for a decade.
Speaker 3: Like one of the few times that like studio math
Speaker 3: is on your side, right.
Speaker 2: Exactly, And so Jackie was like, look, I earned this
Speaker 2: money through my labor and performance. The funds had been mismanaged,
Speaker 2: depleted without my consent. I didn't know about any of
Speaker 2: this kind of spending like his parents, like I said,
Speaker 2: luxury items, furs, you know, gems, and they denied him
Speaker 2: financial independence. And then he testified, and this he had
Speaker 2: all these witnesses. It seemed like a solid case. But
Speaker 2: his mom and stepdad's defense went back to common law
Speaker 2: that parents had a legal right to control the minor
Speaker 2: child's earning. They said that they provided for him, they
Speaker 2: owed him nothing now absolutely nothing, and that it was
Speaker 2: all a family enterprise.
Speaker 3: Had wanted free work.
Speaker 2: They're like, you know what, Jackie really enjoyed himself. He
Speaker 2: didn't think of it as work. He thought it was play,
Speaker 2: of course, and his mom said, quote no promises were
Speaker 2: ever made to give Jackie anything, and then she said
Speaker 2: he was quote a bad boy on top of it all.
Speaker 2: So the lawsuit used up all the money that Jackie
Speaker 2: did have, and in fact, he pretty much went broke
Speaker 2: during the trial paying lawyers and whatnot. He needed cash badly,
Speaker 2: so he reached out to the only person he really
Speaker 2: felt he could trust, the person who saw the talent
Speaker 2: in him in the first place, Charlie cha Oh. Yes,
Speaker 2: Charlie Chaplin immediately spotted him one thousand dollars, no questions asked.
Speaker 3: Because the one person is going to relate.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's twenty three thousand dollars a day like here, Yes, but.
Speaker 3: It has the power to actually do something.
Speaker 2: It kept Jackie going, both financially and in spirits like
Speaker 2: you can do that.
Speaker 3: And in the press that's an important place still that But.
Speaker 2: This wasn't made public. It was all later in like
Speaker 2: a book about Chaplain's life that that came out so
Speaker 2: Chaplain wasn't like blowing his trumpet about it, like look
Speaker 2: at me.
Speaker 3: Yeah no, I didn't think that, But I mean it
Speaker 3: would be like I'm going to help fight go into
Speaker 3: or whatever.
Speaker 2: This is wrong, this take care of yourself. Yeah good,
Speaker 2: let's stop here. When we get back from these ads,
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you how the lawsuit went.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, it's finally the first breath of fresh
Speaker 3: air I had.
Speaker 2: Jackie Coogan.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, Jackie his story. Man, it's a heartbreaker,
Speaker 3: and thank you for that Charlie Chaplin moment, because we
Speaker 3: needed to put the fire out on my skin that
Speaker 3: he build it.
Speaker 2: We needed that that Catharsis, Yes, is what we needed.
Speaker 2: So Jaggie Coogan sues his parents because they stole his
Speaker 2: money that he made as a child star. He wants millions,
Speaker 2: but there weren't millions left. He figured there should have
Speaker 2: been at least three million left of his earnings and
Speaker 2: that would be more than sixty eight million today. Remember,
Speaker 2: But it turns out that his parents, mom and stepdad,
Speaker 2: had burned through everything except for two hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars I know. So they wound up settling out
Speaker 2: of court. With him for one hundred and twenty six
Speaker 2: thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: They split what they had isn't yeah.
Speaker 2: Which is the equivalent of like two point eight million today,
Speaker 2: And that was all that was left of what he'd earned,
Speaker 2: So basically he gets half. He also got some personal
Speaker 2: property like cars and jewelry, but like and some of
Speaker 2: the money was tied up in real estate. But either way,
Speaker 2: it was only part.
Speaker 3: Of his own. He got the thousand van eye I
Speaker 3: hope so too. Kick her out of it. Come on,
Speaker 3: and that stepfather, Oh my goodness, you weren't even there.
Speaker 2: And you weren't there, dude. It was only part of
Speaker 2: his earnings, but it was the best result possible given
Speaker 2: the legal framework.
Speaker 3: Sure, I understand that, I mean yeah.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, so Lillian Coogan and Arthur Bernstein they never admitted wrongdoing.
Speaker 2: They kept ownership of the Coogan family home and other assets,
Speaker 2: and they were never criminally charged. So that was it.
Speaker 2: The public appalled. They were as disgusted as we were.
Speaker 2: Hollywood was sold the image of this lovable, precocious boy
Speaker 2: only to have this reveal that he's been like drained
Speaker 2: by these vampas.
Speaker 3: And they were familiar with her because she was always
Speaker 3: doing the press.
Speaker 2: She was all over the place. She was like, you know,
Speaker 2: when he was hanging around with Betty Grable at first
Speaker 2: she would say, Oh, he's too young to get married,
Speaker 2: and making all these comments like it was really weird anyway,
Speaker 2: So they're supposed to be protecting him. Instead they're taking everything.
Speaker 2: The public was like, someone has to do something about this,
Speaker 2: Someone has to make this right now. They couldn't go
Speaker 2: back in time and change things, but they could make
Speaker 2: it better for the next batch of child actors.
Speaker 3: Did the mafia come in? Gosh?
Speaker 2: California State Assemblyman Charles H. Reel to faction. He introduced
Speaker 2: a piece of legislation in nineteen thirty nine, the California
Speaker 2: Child Actor's Bill, and that became known as Cougan's Law.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, So.
Speaker 2: The law requires a few things. One, a portion of
Speaker 2: a child actor's earnings originally fifteen percent but now higher
Speaker 2: has to be placed in a court administered trust called
Speaker 2: a Cougan account.
Speaker 5: Totally.
Speaker 3: I was familiar with the Cougan's Law. They mentioned it
Speaker 3: in Hollywood. You often hear it mentioned about the child actors.
Speaker 3: I always thought it was the studios who had screwed him,
Speaker 3: I didn't realize it was his own parents.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so then it also requires a judge's oversight on
Speaker 2: contracts that involve miners in entertainment. A parent or guardian
Speaker 2: has to manage funds transparently and in the child's interest.
Speaker 2: And they've updated the law multiple times, like nine in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty twelve to tighten requirements and close any loopholes.
Speaker 2: That of course, like these these bad parents are going
Speaker 2: to figure out a loophole exploit it, then they have
Speaker 2: to like rewrite a part of the law. That so,
Speaker 2: while it didn't retroactively restore Cougan's millions, it became a
Speaker 2: foundational legal protection for child performers across the United.
Speaker 3: States protect a Hirley Temple.
Speaker 2: Yes, this wouldn't save other child stars completely from being
Speaker 2: exploited by their parents. Like Shirley Temple right she did.
Speaker 2: She also saw most of her earnings go to her parents.
Speaker 2: It while not as publicly acrimonious as Cougan's case, she
Speaker 2: acknowledged that poor financial management left her with a very
Speaker 2: small fraction of her wealth. So like it kept by
Speaker 2: the Cougan's low stuff, but the much getting right right.
Speaker 2: Gary Coleman, the star of the TV show Different Strokes.
Speaker 2: He sued his parents, then a former business advisor in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine for misappropriating He.
Speaker 3: Mentioned that to me while he was cooking Korean barbecue.
Speaker 3: I once worked with him. Okay, yeah, so when I
Speaker 3: was in Hollywood and I was doing cartoons, and uh,
Speaker 3: he was a star of one of the cartoons we
Speaker 3: were working on. There was this pilot and we went
Speaker 3: out to dinner and he was I always remember this.
Speaker 3: He's like on the table cooking the Korean barbecue. You know,
Speaker 3: Korean barbecue they have like the yeah, like the whatever
Speaker 3: the fires on the barbecue was at the table, like
Speaker 3: on the tabletop. So he's like standing on his chair
Speaker 3: and like putting the mcmeat on my plate. And I
Speaker 3: was like, I love this guy. This is one of
Speaker 3: the craziest moments in my life. And he mentioned the
Speaker 3: Cougins law. That's why I thought it was the studio.
Speaker 2: He won a one point three million dollar judgment against
Speaker 2: his parents and former business advisor, but he still struggled totally,
Speaker 2: you know, throughout his oa.
Speaker 3: That's why he was doing cartoons for us. I mean
Speaker 3: like he needed to work. He always had to work.
Speaker 2: There's Macaulay Culkin.
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, he got screw by s.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 2: In the nineties, he was the highest paid child actor
Speaker 2: in HollyHood. He wanted emancipation from his parents during their
Speaker 2: divorce because he said that they were mismanaging the seventeen
Speaker 2: million dollar fortune he had. Corey Feldman, he has spoken
Speaker 2: openly about the financial and emotional abuse during his youth.
Speaker 2: He said that when he was fifth, by the time
Speaker 2: he was fifteen, he had quote virtually no money left
Speaker 2: due to parental exploitation. And you know, he was also
Speaker 2: shoveled off to Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch, as was Macaulay Culkin,
Speaker 2: which is a whole other crime scenario that we don't
Speaker 2: touch with a ten foot pole around these parts. That's
Speaker 2: zero percent, but it's just a pattern of exploitation. Drew Barrymore.
Speaker 2: She became legally emancipated from her parents when she was
Speaker 2: fourteen after she had this like chaotic upbringing.
Speaker 3: With all the drugs and.
Speaker 2: Her mismanagement, Like you know, her mom blew through it,
Speaker 2: and yeah, she was like carted around a nightclub studio
Speaker 2: fifty four. She did coke as a tween. If you
Speaker 2: read Little Girl Lost Her book wild anyway, So what
Speaker 2: of Jackie Coogan?
Speaker 3: What happened to Jackie Cook'll tell you Saron.
Speaker 2: World War two off him a second act of sorts.
Speaker 2: He enlisted in the US Army in nineteen forty one.
Speaker 2: He had had some pre war training as a pilot,
Speaker 2: and so he joined the Air Force. Served as a
Speaker 2: glider pilot in the China Burma, India theater.
Speaker 3: Interesting.
Speaker 2: Wow, his service was like courageous. He got respected, he
Speaker 2: got a medal. Everyone loved him for this. And then
Speaker 2: after the war he came back and he returned to
Speaker 2: acting as a character actor, and he worked steadily in
Speaker 2: films and on television throughout the fifties and the sixties.
Speaker 2: But he never regained a list status like he'd had.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but he was able to work.
Speaker 2: But he had a strong work ethics, really well liked
Speaker 2: in the industry.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah. And then one day, I imagine.
Speaker 2: One day something special happened. Sarin, close your eyes.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I told him. He stuck that one
Speaker 3: on me, Elizabeth, right, like sliding into home.
Speaker 2: Here, I want you to picture it. It's spring of
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty four. You are a young production assistant at
Speaker 2: film Ways Incorporated. It's a studio that makes a lot
Speaker 2: of hit sitcoms. You've been assigned as a driver and
Speaker 2: sort of assistant for a new show that's filming at
Speaker 2: General Services Studios in Hollywood. This is exciting. You've only
Speaker 2: been on the job for a couple of months, but
Speaker 2: you've met so many stars. George Burns has an office
Speaker 2: at General Service Studios and you walk by it every day.
Speaker 2: He kind of recognizes you now and greets you with
Speaker 2: hey kid when you pass each other on the lot.
Speaker 2: You've been sent out to pick up one of the
Speaker 2: actors on this new show. It's sort of an ensemble cast.
Speaker 2: He's a really nice guy. You weren't familiar with him,
Speaker 2: but he's just so pleasant and happy. You're driving down
Speaker 2: Santa Monica Boulevard. It's very early in the morning and
Speaker 2: traff of his light. You pass Highland Avenue and then
Speaker 2: you turn right onto north West Palmas. As you glide
Speaker 2: the nineteen sixty two Fairlane five hundred into the studio lot,
Speaker 2: you nod at the security guard at the gate. You
Speaker 2: park the car and walk to the soundstage with this actor,
Speaker 2: Jackie Coogan. That's the guy. It seems a little nervous.
Speaker 2: His friendly face and big smile are contradicted by the
Speaker 2: sweat beating on his balding head. His eyes dart around,
Speaker 2: taking in the last minute set construction and scatter of
Speaker 2: conversations and people walking quickly around you finishing up last
Speaker 2: minute tasks. He sees that you've clocked this. He turns
Speaker 2: to you and says, quietly, the first day of a
Speaker 2: shoot always makes me a little anxious. I never know
Speaker 2: what people will think of me, what they'll remember of me,
Speaker 2: what they expect of me. You tell him you're sure
Speaker 2: he'll knock him dead. He laughs, pats your back, his
Speaker 2: eyes sparkle. You point the way to costume and makeup.
Speaker 2: Then you head over to the production manager to see
Speaker 2: if there's any other projects for you to complete. They
Speaker 2: call for the cast to come to the soundstage. A
Speaker 2: bell rings. You're looking at the set with its weird
Speaker 2: baroque piano, giant taxidermy, bear oddities, knickknacks, lush oriental rugs
Speaker 2: or taxidermy, and for some reason, a noose hanging from
Speaker 2: the ceiling. It's all reds and pinks and yellows. You
Speaker 2: know it'll be filmed in black and white, and you
Speaker 2: wonder how that's gonna look. You feel a tap on
Speaker 2: your shoulder. You turn and it looks like death himself
Speaker 2: is standing there. It's a man, completely bald, sunken, almost
Speaker 2: bruised eyes. He wears a heavy black tunic with some
Speaker 2: sort of fur mock turtleneck to it. He looms over
Speaker 2: you and gives you a manic grin. Wait, you know
Speaker 2: that smile, mister Coogan. You ask, what do you think? Kid?
Speaker 2: He responds, you are blown away. You can't believe the transformation.
Speaker 2: He heads to the stage and takes his mark. The
Speaker 2: director calls action. You hear Jackie Coogan deliver his lines
Speaker 2: and it doesn't even sound like him. He's so deadpan.
Speaker 2: He's fantastic, he's hilarious. He's Uncle Fester, and this is
Speaker 2: the new show that will debut in the fall, The
Speaker 2: Adams Family. You may be new to the biz, but
Speaker 2: you know a hit when you see one.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I love this so much made. Oh
Speaker 3: my god, I love that.
Speaker 2: So Jackie is back to accolades a whole new generation
Speaker 2: of fans. Uncle Fester became an icon, and kids who
Speaker 2: had never heard of the kid now absolutely adored his
Speaker 2: like eccentric, bald headed uncle can character.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I've never known that's who it was.
Speaker 2: That's who it is.
Speaker 3: Too happy right now.
Speaker 2: He kept acting into the seventies. He was on Like
Speaker 2: the Brady Bunch Hawaii five. Oh. He played Genie's uncle,
Speaker 2: Suleiman Maharaja of Basenjia on My Dream of Genie. In
Speaker 2: true Hollywood fashion, Jackie was married four times. He had
Speaker 2: three shorty marriages, all the actresses. Betty Grable in nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty seven. They divorced in thirty nine. In nineteen forty one,
Speaker 2: he married a woman named Flower Perry. They divorced in
Speaker 2: forty three. Then he married his third wife, Anne McCormick
Speaker 2: in forty six. They divorced in fifty one. And then
Speaker 2: there was Dorothea Odetta Hanson also known as Dorothea Lamfir
Speaker 2: but best known as Dodie. Was a dancer.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: They married in nineteen fifty two and they were together
Speaker 2: for more than thirty years.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So.
Speaker 2: His grandson, Keith Coogan started acting in nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 2: His roles include the Oldest Son in Adventures in Babysitting
Speaker 2: and Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Jackie Coogan. He lived to be sixty nine
Speaker 2: years old. He died in March of nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 2: He wanted his funeral to be open to the public,
Speaker 2: and so a bunch of fans showed up and John Aston,
Speaker 2: who played.
Speaker 3: Gomez but his son Sean Aston was a child actor
Speaker 3: and imagine that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, John Aston delivered the eulogy at the funeral.
Speaker 3: Great guy, what a class act.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 2: His star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is at
Speaker 2: sixteen fifty four Vine just south of Hollywood Boulevard.
Speaker 3: Yeah right.
Speaker 2: So though Coogan's Law, like as I said, it had
Speaker 2: been updated and expanded, exploitation in the entertainment industry remains
Speaker 2: a concern. But you know, his name indoors not just
Speaker 2: in the credits for the Kid or Adam's family, but
Speaker 2: in every miner's paycheck safeguarded by a trust fund.
Speaker 5: Totally wow.
Speaker 2: So he lost his fortune, but he protected generations of
Speaker 2: performers to come and he like nailed a legacy on
Speaker 2: that one. So Zarin, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3: I don't know how you made me feel so good
Speaker 3: after being literally like blood boiling angry. You are quite
Speaker 3: a good storyteller. That's my ridiculous takeaway on this one.
Speaker 2: What yours, Elizabeth, Well, I'm just I'm relieved that I
Speaker 2: didn't have to do the car crashes the picture. Yeah, totally,
Speaker 2: but you know, I really my takeaway is that, you know,
Speaker 2: we enjoy watching kids perform, and you know, we think about, oh,
Speaker 2: some of them are so fantastic. Others, you know, there's
Speaker 2: like you see a kid kind of pushed out there
Speaker 2: to play a part on a TV show and they're
Speaker 2: so wooden, and then everyone criticized them. It's a kid,
Speaker 2: you know, but the the notion that they're like our
Speaker 2: little performing monkeys that the parents then a lot of
Speaker 2: times they don't have. That's their job is raking in
Speaker 2: the kids money.
Speaker 3: And there's a lot of lesser than not quite stars
Speaker 3: out there where you have these parents, like if you
Speaker 3: just see them like working their children, it's not quite extras,
Speaker 3: but you know, like mid commercials and mid tier players. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and those stage parents are pretty horrendous to this day.
Speaker 3: I mean I used to not like seeing them. I
Speaker 3: won't get into another story by the time in Hollywood,
Speaker 3: but I've known a couple who've gone on to be
Speaker 3: like big stars, and I saw them before they were
Speaker 3: big stars, and I always remember this one one they
Speaker 3: became Disney kids. They're twins. You could probably figure out
Speaker 3: who I'm talking about if you know the Disney kids.
Speaker 3: And their stepfather was a stunt man and he made
Speaker 3: sure to look out for them, and I was so
Speaker 3: happy that they had them. And you can see the
Speaker 3: difference in their careers versus some of the other kids.
Speaker 2: When you have to have such a sick skin to
Speaker 2: be in Hollywood in the first place, and to like
Speaker 2: put that on a kid, Yeah, to have that tough
Speaker 2: up and like, you know what it does to them
Speaker 2: and everything.
Speaker 3: They're barely able to make sense to the world of
Speaker 3: adults and you throw and all the people are lying
Speaker 3: to them, trying to take advantage of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's what it was a relief to find
Speaker 2: that Jackie Coogan made it out okay.
Speaker 3: Totally and he got a hook up and look out
Speaker 3: for Wednesday Adams, you know. And I love this, that's.
Speaker 2: Right, h you know what, I think I need a
Speaker 2: talk hell.
Speaker 5: Yeah, oh god, I went cheap.
Speaker 7: Good Morning, Elizabeth and Zaron just finished listening to the
Speaker 7: Sea Monkey episode and it brought back wonderful memories of
Speaker 7: six year old me who really wanted a joy buzzer.
Speaker 7: Mom wouldn't support that, so I snuck some dimes and
Speaker 7: nickels out of my allowance, put them in an envelope,
Speaker 7: snuck a stamp, put it in the mail, send it off.
Speaker 7: Never got my joy buzzer.
Speaker 3: What a shock.
Speaker 7: Mom felt bad that I was so disappointed in a
Speaker 7: victim of ridiculous crime. So she wrote an actual, real check,
Speaker 7: put it in envelope, send it off, and I got
Speaker 7: my joy buzzer. Life is wonderful. Thanks for them A
Speaker 7: great day.
Speaker 3: Yes, I love that story. I had a joy buzzer.
Speaker 3: Those are the best as being a kid, being able
Speaker 3: to do the handshakes and you're like waiting for the
Speaker 3: look of surprise. Helly, you got robbed by them.
Speaker 2: That's good for sharing that. That's it for today. You
Speaker 2: can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com. We're
Speaker 2: also Ridiculous Crime on Blue Sky Instagram. We're on YouTube
Speaker 2: a Ridiculous Crime pod. You can email us Ridiculous Crime
Speaker 2: at gmail dot com, leave a talk back on the
Speaker 2: iHeart app. Oh zerin I don't know if you did.
Speaker 2: You see the message on the board outside that we
Speaker 2: won another.
Speaker 3: Award what we did in the website. One for what it's.
Speaker 2: Pipe Smoker of the Year, which is given out by
Speaker 2: the British Pipe Smoker's Council.
Speaker 3: Heck, yeah, I know you are so.
Speaker 2: Anyway, I thought you would enjoy that. I'm just taking
Speaker 2: care of little housekeeping over here. Pipe Smoker of a Year.
Speaker 2: Whatever you do, just reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted
Speaker 2: by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by
Speaker 2: Hollywood's First Child director Dave Cousten, starring Annals Rutger as Judith.
Speaker 2: Research is by America's Sweetheart Mursa Brown. The theme song
Speaker 2: is by Silent Film legends Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton.
Speaker 2: Host wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred guests hair
Speaker 2: and makeup by Sparkleshot and Mister Andre. Executive producers are
Speaker 2: financial advisors for the Famous and Under ten set, Ben
Speaker 2: Boleen and Noel.
Speaker 4: Brown Disquime Say It One More Times Crime.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts.
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.