Speaker 1: Do you remember the day that Fara fass had died.
Speaker 2: I do not, and I'm ashamed, but you.
Speaker 1: Know it was the same day as Michael Jackson.
Speaker 2: Was it.
Speaker 1: I'm chatting with CNN anchor and sixty minutes correspondent Anderson
Speaker 1: Cooper about one of the biggest days in the modern
Speaker 1: history of obituaries, June twenty fifth, twenty oh nine.
Speaker 2: I mean, now that you say it, I vague I
Speaker 2: do recall did she die in the morning? And then
Speaker 2: morning it was announced that Michael Jackson died a little
Speaker 2: later that.
Speaker 1: Day, Michael Jackson was confirmed dead right before the evening
Speaker 1: news broadcast on the East Coast, so she had the
Speaker 1: full first half of the day.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, as she should. I mean, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's fast. I didn't realize that that's a strange pairing.
Speaker 1: I asked Anderson to join me today because he not
Speaker 1: only has a real understanding of the news cycle, but
Speaker 1: he also hosts a podcast about death and green called
Speaker 1: All There Is. Anderson started working on the podcast when
Speaker 1: he was packing up the apartment of his late mother,
Speaker 1: the well known designer, artist and heiress Gloria Vanderbilt.
Speaker 3: I've lived, lost a lot, had dreams of love and
Speaker 3: faithful encounters.
Speaker 1: I wanted his take on why Michael Jackson's death so
Speaker 1: completely overshadowed Farah Fawcett's.
Speaker 2: I think it's a combination of her just I'm not
Speaker 2: saying it's fair, but from a news standpoint, her career
Speaker 2: had probably peaud I guess she was not in the
Speaker 2: forefront of pop culture and the public consciousness in the
Speaker 2: way that Michael Jackson still was.
Speaker 1: Now. Pharaoh wasn't entirely out of the headlines in twenty
Speaker 1: oh nine. She'd been very public about her three year
Speaker 1: battle with cancer, but Michael Jackson's death was a shock,
Speaker 1: a suspicious drug overdose. The King of Pop had even
Speaker 1: been staging a comeback tour, and so as the afternoon progressed,
Speaker 1: the special bulletins came fast and furious. Pop superstar Michael
Speaker 1: Jackson rushed to a hospital in Los Angeles to day that.
Speaker 2: When they arrived on scene, he was not breathing.
Speaker 1: At three point fifteen Pacific time, Michael Jackson, the King
Speaker 1: of Pop, was pronounced dead. Michael Jackson had an extraordinary
Speaker 1: career and a troubled life, mark by incredible highs and
Speaker 1: terrible lows.
Speaker 2: Just from on a global scale and the ups and
Speaker 2: downs and the controversies. I mean, look now, Michael Jackson
Speaker 2: is still more talked about than Farah Fosterite.
Speaker 1: There's no Fara Foss musical on Broadway. There should be.
Speaker 1: But yes, you know, in a friend of mine from
Speaker 1: the New York Times, I remember at the time he said,
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson is a story about music, about business, about fashion,
Speaker 1: about race, about celebrity justice, like every section of the paper.
Speaker 2: Also, I mean there's his children, there's the family, there's
Speaker 2: the siblings. There's the question of possible medical malpractice. And
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson grew up before the cameras in a way
Speaker 2: that Farah Fawcett did not.
Speaker 1: The day after both of these pop culture icons passed away,
Speaker 1: CBS's Early Show mentioned Jackson's name more than one hundred times.
Speaker 1: Farah Fawcett was mentioned just six times.
Speaker 4: And of course we're also going to remember Farah Fawcett.
Speaker 4: Somebody put it this way, this is the moment when
Speaker 4: Generation X realizes they're grown up, when we lose two
Speaker 4: icons that really defined our generation. These people were on
Speaker 4: our lunchbox, isn't it right?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: It was the ultimate one two Punch yesterday speaking which
Speaker 1: Ed McMahon died two days before Michael Jackson and Farah
Speaker 1: fawcet Oh really interesting, totally ignored. Now when it comes
Speaker 1: to obituaries, I've always been fascinated with the phenomenon surrounding
Speaker 1: public figures who share the same death day, Who gets
Speaker 1: top billing and why? So in this episode, I'm going
Speaker 1: to do something a little different instead of focusing on
Speaker 1: just one person, and and I, along with some other
Speaker 1: special guests, will look at a series of noteworthy people
Speaker 1: who happen to have died on the very same day
Speaker 1: as other noteworthy people. There are, of course more cases
Speaker 1: like Farah's where news of one person's death gets well
Speaker 1: buried by the death of someone else more well known.
Speaker 2: Of course, you're going to tell me that Charles Mansk
Speaker 2: got all the coverage, then.
Speaker 1: He got all the coverage. Some coincidences seem too perfect,
Speaker 1: almost divinely engineered. I mean, what are the chances Thomas
Speaker 1: Jefferson would die on the same day as John Adams
Speaker 1: on July fourth, no less, not just any July fourth,
Speaker 1: but the exact fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the
Speaker 1: Declaration of Independence. There are cases of singular showbiz talents
Speaker 1: turned co stars in death.
Speaker 5: Sammy Davis Junior died after an eight month battle with
Speaker 5: throat cancer, and Jim Henson Lee, creator of the Muppets,
Speaker 5: died suddenly of what the hospital called a massive bacterial infection.
Speaker 1: And then you have what I call the odd death fellows,
Speaker 1: those with seemingly nothing in common. For example, Prime Minister
Speaker 1: Margaret Thatcher and Mouseketeer and Nette Funicello. Can you imagine
Speaker 1: the conversation those two had upon arrival in the afterlife.
Speaker 2: I don't think Margaret Thatcher would have it much to
Speaker 2: say to a net Fonicello.
Speaker 1: I mean each blanked bingo from CBS Sunday Morning, and
Speaker 1: iHeart I'm Morocca, and this is mobituaries, this mobit died
Speaker 1: on the same day.
Speaker 2: I mean Pharah Faws. I had her poster, her famous
Speaker 2: poster of course, up in my room as a kid,
Speaker 2: even though I wasn't really that interested in her in
Speaker 2: the way that most of my friends were interested in her.
Speaker 1: So that poster sold twelve million copies. And the thing
Speaker 1: that I love about it, and I think this is
Speaker 1: probably well at least why I loved Farah is that
Speaker 1: Apparently she rushed through the shoot because she wanted to
Speaker 1: go play tennis. But she was like a real person.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's so of the time, it's so seventies, it's
Speaker 2: so and she's just she Yeah, she looks real.
Speaker 1: Now, we've got a bunch of died on the same
Speaker 1: day pairings to get to. But because Farah got such
Speaker 1: a raw deal on the day she died, we're going
Speaker 1: to take some time now to give her some extra love.
Speaker 1: When Farah posed for that nineteen seventy six photograph wearing
Speaker 1: a red one piece swimsuit, she became instantly iconic. The hair,
Speaker 1: the smile, those teeth. I mean. Tony Manero, John Tripolta's
Speaker 1: character in Saturday Night Fever had her poster up on
Speaker 1: his wall. Of course he did. By the way, Farah's
Speaker 1: feathered flip was a TikTok fashion trend in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 6: Once upon a time, there were three little girls who
Speaker 6: went to the police Academy.
Speaker 1: Anderson Cooper and I were just kids. When Charlie's Angels
Speaker 1: premiered in the fall of nineteen seventy six, it was
Speaker 1: a total sensation. It was sexy and preposterous. Three beautiful
Speaker 1: women who fought crime at the behest of a man
Speaker 1: they never saw but only heard via speakerphone.
Speaker 7: You heard that, Charlie, everything, Sabrina, and I've already made
Speaker 7: arrangements for you three to go to prison.
Speaker 3: Prison.
Speaker 4: You've got to be kidding, Charlie.
Speaker 1: Angels can say that again. I loved all the angels,
Speaker 1: including kay Jackson's Sabrina, today known as the stem Angel,
Speaker 1: But Pharaoh was in a class all her own. She
Speaker 1: radiated friendliness, big dreams, and a great American can do spirit. Jill,
Speaker 1: thanks for everything.
Speaker 2: You're an angel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what.
Speaker 3: They tell me.
Speaker 1: Sarah Lenny Fawcett was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, in
Speaker 1: nineteen forty seven. Farah was voted most beautiful by her
Speaker 1: high school classmates every year. But, and this is crucial,
Speaker 1: she was the kind of popular girl who was nice
Speaker 1: to everyone. I have no proof of this. I just
Speaker 1: know this instinctually. Don't challenge me. Sarah went to the
Speaker 1: University of Texas at Austin to study microbiology before switching
Speaker 1: to art. At twenty one. With her parents' permission, she
Speaker 1: moved to Hollywood to try her luck in the entertainment industry.
Speaker 1: She soon appeared on The Dating Game.
Speaker 2: And number two.
Speaker 8: Being from Texas, I'm used to having things done in
Speaker 8: a big way, So how would you make a little
Speaker 8: thing like sending me flowers really big?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 2: The Dating Game always fascinated me because even as a
Speaker 2: kid watching it, I couldn't tell if it was real
Speaker 2: or not. Did she appear as Farah Fawce's.
Speaker 1: She appeared as Fara Faucet. She chose bachelor number two,
Speaker 1: who was definitely the best looking one. I'm glad she
Speaker 1: chose him, and he seemed like the most normal.
Speaker 2: There's no way that date happened if she was Farah
Speaker 2: Fawcett at the time, I don't believe that that date happened.
Speaker 1: Not surprisingly, Farah began popping up in all sorts of commercials.
Speaker 1: It must be said that there still has never been
Speaker 1: an advertisement as sexy as the TV commercial for Noxima's
Speaker 1: shaving cream that ran during the Super Bowl in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three. While singing, Farah lathers the product on the
Speaker 1: face of superstar quarterback Joe Nimath. Farah left Charlie's Angels
Speaker 1: after only one sea. For a while, she struggled to
Speaker 1: show that she had talent after co starring in the
Speaker 1: comedy mystery film Somebody Killed Her Husband. One critic wrote,
Speaker 1: somebody killed her career, but she didn't give up, and
Speaker 1: by the mid nineteen eighties, Farah proved the naysayers wrong.
Speaker 2: You know, she had done The Burning Bed, so there
Speaker 2: had been a revival of her and reappreciation of her,
Speaker 2: And so she'd already gone through the cycle of sort
Speaker 2: of rediscovery and reappreciation.
Speaker 1: Anderson's referring to the nineteen eighty four TV movie The
Speaker 1: Burning Bed, based on a true story, Farah played a
Speaker 1: woman who fought back against an abusive husband. TV critic
Speaker 1: Matt Zeller Sites has called the film a landmark, depicting
Speaker 1: domestic violence as an unambiguous horror and a human rights violation,
Speaker 1: and Farah's performance one of the finest in the history
Speaker 1: of TV movies.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm come and go as much as I want.
Speaker 1: Just leave Mickey. On the personal front, her short lived
Speaker 1: marriage to six million dollar man star Lee Majors and
Speaker 1: long term relationship with heartthrob Ryan O'Neil were continuous tabloid fodder,
Speaker 1: but when Pharah was diagnosed with anal cancer in twenty
Speaker 1: oh six, it was her illness that made headlines. She
Speaker 1: was suffering from anal cancer, which no everyone wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about euphemistically. They would just say she had cancer,
Speaker 1: but she insisted on putting that out there because it
Speaker 1: was sort of like an unspeakable kind of cancer. Supposedly, Oh,
Speaker 1: that's interesting, good for her. Many of her fans last
Speaker 1: saw her appear in the NBC documentary Farah Story, which
Speaker 1: intimately chronicled her decline. It premiered on May fifteenth, twenty
Speaker 1: oh nine, the month before she died.
Speaker 8: Sometimes this disease makes me feel like a stranger to myself,
Speaker 8: like ablon nothingness, alone inside a body that once was mine,
Speaker 8: but that has been damaged by radiation, chemo and all
Speaker 8: those drugs necessary.
Speaker 1: For me to live. Now in twenty oh nine, Michael
Speaker 1: Jackson was bound to overshadow anybody who might have died
Speaker 1: on the same day. But forty six years earlier, there
Speaker 1: was a day when the world all but stopped spinning.
Speaker 6: There is a bulletin from CBS News in Dallas, Texas.
Speaker 6: Three shots were fired at President Kennedy's motorcade in downtown Dallas.
Speaker 6: The first reports say that President Kennedy has been seriously
Speaker 6: wounded by this shooting from Dallas, Texas. The flash apparently
Speaker 6: official President Kennedy died at one pm Central Standard Time.
Speaker 1: If you're of a certain age, you will never forget
Speaker 1: where you were on November twenty second, nineteen sixty three,
Speaker 1: day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, which means,
Speaker 1: though you may not realize it, you will never forget
Speaker 1: the day theologian C. S. Lewis, author of the Chronicles
Speaker 1: of Narnia, met his maker.
Speaker 9: Every stick and stone you see every icicle is Narnia.
Speaker 1: Or the day writer and philosopher Aldus Huxley gave up
Speaker 1: the ghost.
Speaker 6: As searing social critic.
Speaker 5: Mister Huxley wrote Brave New World, a novel that predicted
Speaker 5: that someday the entire world would live under a frightful dictatorship.
Speaker 1: Yes, all three men, John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis,
Speaker 1: and Aldus Huxley died on the very same day.
Speaker 2: That's so interesting. I just was trying to read an
Speaker 2: Aldus hux lady small book about his experiences taking I
Speaker 2: want to say it's peyote, but I don't think it's paoti.
Speaker 2: It's mescaline. Mescaline yes, and I tried. I was really
Speaker 2: excited to read it, and I started it, and I
Speaker 2: just found it so dull.
Speaker 1: That I thought you were going to say, found it
Speaker 1: so trippy.
Speaker 2: No, I just found it so dull. And that's interesting
Speaker 2: because I just read C. S. Lewis his book about
Speaker 2: the death of his wife, and it's really it's an
Speaker 2: incredibly touching book.
Speaker 1: I wonder there are people, probably fans of those authors
Speaker 1: who never realized they died.
Speaker 2: That's I'm sure that's true, or certainly you know it
Speaker 2: took them a year to find out that they had died.
Speaker 2: Even globally, I mean, there's no way the assassination of
Speaker 2: President Kennedy on that day, there's no way anybody else
Speaker 2: would get any airtime.
Speaker 1: Well, Huxley's obit showed up two days later in the
Speaker 1: paper on the twenty fourth of November, and then it
Speaker 1: took yet another day for C. S. Lewis, who had
Speaker 1: actually been the first of the three to die that day.
Speaker 1: His death was reported on November twenty fifth. That same day,
Speaker 1: though the headline was the death of Oswalt the murder
Speaker 1: of him by Jack Rubin. He sort of got double
Speaker 1: a clipse.
Speaker 2: Wow. I mean It's extraordinary when you think about the
Speaker 2: impact that C. S. Lewis had with all his books,
Speaker 2: and beloved he was, and yet it's the vagary of
Speaker 2: the day. I mean, it makes no you know. I've
Speaker 2: been on airplanes with a couple of famous people, and
Speaker 2: I remember one time thinking, if this plane goes down,
Speaker 2: the headline is going to be that person was on
Speaker 2: the plane and four others, and I would be one
Speaker 2: of the four others.
Speaker 1: I think that you'd either get below the fold on
Speaker 1: a one, or you'd at least get the little reefer,
Speaker 1: the little go to box.
Speaker 2: First of all, thank you for having thought of this. Well, no,
Speaker 2: I just you know, I think you have to. You're
Speaker 2: plotting my death as I came in here today. Where
Speaker 2: would I stack up. You're talking about a front page.
Speaker 2: I would not be on the front page.
Speaker 1: Oh we go on a plane with the queen.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to say.
Speaker 1: As a member of the storied Vanderbilt family, Anderson is
Speaker 1: aware of the role that social class used to play
Speaker 1: on the Obitz page.
Speaker 2: When my great uncle Alfred Vanderbilt died on the Lusitania,
Speaker 2: which was sunk by the Germans prior to the US
Speaker 2: involvement in World War One. His name was in the
Speaker 2: headlines of the announcement of the Lusitania being torpedoed. You know,
Speaker 2: Alfred Vanderbilt doesn't survive, which is interesting given the number
Speaker 2: of people on board that ship. And I don't think
Speaker 2: I don't think that would happen today. Well, and this
Speaker 2: was in the New York Times, right, New York Times. Well, okay,
Speaker 2: And because the New York Times, especially then and for
Speaker 2: a long time, sort of deferred very much to establishment families. Well,
Speaker 2: I should also say I'm working a book about the
Speaker 2: Asters and Jack Aster when he died on the Titanic,
Speaker 2: the Astor name was very prominent in the headline.
Speaker 1: Well, speaking of which, February fourth, nineteen fifty nine, on
Speaker 1: page sixty six, way back in the paper, the headline
Speaker 1: reads three singers who died in crash of chartered plane,
Speaker 1: and there are pictures here. They are Buddy Holly, Big
Speaker 1: Bopper and Richie Vallence. This is the so called day
Speaker 1: the music died.
Speaker 3: The three singers that appeared at the Surf.
Speaker 6: Ballroom in clear Like Iowa last night, and.
Speaker 5: We're on the way to Fargo, North Dakota.
Speaker 1: This is page sixty six.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: However, there is another death on page A one that day,
Speaker 1: and it is if you can see right there.
Speaker 2: Wow, it was at Vincent Astor dies in his home
Speaker 2: at sixty seventy. I had dropped out of a heart
Speaker 2: attack in his home.
Speaker 10: Wow.
Speaker 2: I mean Vincent Astro had been one of the richest
Speaker 2: men in America since he inherited the money from Jack
Speaker 2: Astro when Jack Astro died on the Titanic. But I
Speaker 2: don't think today that person would be on the front page.
Speaker 2: I think the Buddy Holly, the Richie Vallens, and the
Speaker 2: big Bopper would be right.
Speaker 1: I think that's right. I think the criteria has changed,
Speaker 1: has changed.
Speaker 3: Love like yours will silly come by.
Speaker 1: We're going to do a quiz now. On November nineteenth,
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, two very different figures died on the same day.
Speaker 1: The first became best known for her television roles, but
Speaker 1: began her career as a jazz and gospel singer, releasing
Speaker 1: her biggest hit, Don't You Know in nineteen fifty nine.
Speaker 1: Here's a little bit.
Speaker 7: Of a.
Speaker 2: I have fallen in love with these.
Speaker 1: Right, did a little hard So I'm going to give
Speaker 1: you a couple of other clues. She became very big
Speaker 1: in the nineteen nineties on a Sunday night inspirational CBS
Speaker 1: hour long drama. She had been big in the nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties and then in the seventies she was on the
Speaker 1: sitcom Chico and the Man.
Speaker 11: If you don't come to that meeting, somebody is just
Speaker 11: liable to report this greasy old.
Speaker 6: Garage as a fire hazard.
Speaker 3: Why this is some kind of black mail.
Speaker 8: Well, it ain't.
Speaker 1: White male baby. That's Dela Reice. Touched by an Angel?
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 1: So she died on November nineteenth, twenty seventeen, and she
Speaker 1: had a really interesting life. She toured with Mahelia Jackson
Speaker 1: when she was thirteen years old, so she had its
Speaker 1: great career as a singer before she was on the
Speaker 1: sitcom and then Untouched by an Angel. By the way,
Speaker 1: Untouched my Angel, I never understood, like Roma Downey was
Speaker 1: this angel that would go around and I think Delice
Speaker 1: was like her supervisor or something.
Speaker 2: Don't you raise your voice to me, miss Wings, you.
Speaker 9: Got a little pride thing going on yourself.
Speaker 2: I watched a lot of TV, but like Touched by
Speaker 2: Angel probably was not something Every morning I was looking
Speaker 2: a little darker, Yeah, a little mer dystopian.
Speaker 1: Murder. She wrote, Well, I mean, I mean, every every
Speaker 1: week someone dies in this tiny town in Maine. That's
Speaker 1: pretty dark. Anyway. On that same day, November nineteenth, twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: another person who was decidedly not touched by an angel died.
Speaker 1: He also began his career in music.
Speaker 9: Ah, those real look at your game, Look at your game.
Speaker 12: What a mad delusion.
Speaker 1: Let's stop that now and then, because there's no way,
Speaker 1: there's no way you're gonna get this. I'll just give
Speaker 1: you a clue. He was a psychopathic killer.
Speaker 2: And well, I was gonna say, is he a serial
Speaker 2: that's so funny. I was going to say, just from
Speaker 2: that thing, I was like, is that like a recording
Speaker 2: made in prison by a serial killer?
Speaker 1: It was a recording made before this killer went to prison,
Speaker 1: and he was in charge of a family.
Speaker 2: That Charles Manson.
Speaker 1: Yes, Oh my gosh, Charles Manson delay. This just got
Speaker 1: really dark, really dark. And I understand the fascination or
Speaker 1: that there was a fascination with Charles Manson.
Speaker 2: Of course you're going to tell me that Charles Manson
Speaker 2: got all the coverage, He.
Speaker 1: Got all the covers in New York Times. He was
Speaker 1: on a one. Delriice was on a nineteen. The Chicago
Speaker 1: Tribune put Charles Manson on the front page. They gave
Speaker 1: nothing to Dela Resee. The La Times made Dela Reice
Speaker 1: wait a day.
Speaker 2: I was probably on the air that day, And if
Speaker 2: I don't recall what I did, but I would imagine
Speaker 2: faced with those two, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, go with God, go with the Angel.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think you have to go with Charles Manson,
Speaker 2: maybe like a reader of like, you know, del Reice died,
Speaker 2: but to at least give her some props, yes, but
Speaker 2: you know, and maybe play a clip from I mean again,
Speaker 2: it's unfair, but just in terms of like foremost in
Speaker 2: people's consciousness and the nightmares of generations of people and
Speaker 2: knowing that this person is no longer out there.
Speaker 1: How would you do that transition?
Speaker 12: Though?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm not going to do them close together, not
Speaker 2: going to do a four minute piece on Charles Manson.
Speaker 2: Then be like, oh, in Dela Reste, well.
Speaker 1: Or would you say we lost Ella Reese today and
Speaker 1: in much darker.
Speaker 2: Us No, or you would not at all link them together.
Speaker 1: Well, if you say somebody that we're actually sorry, we lost.
Speaker 2: Why no, why are you insisting on putting these two together?
Speaker 2: What is your vendetta against Dela Reo?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 1: No, no, I actually have her greatest hits. I really do.
Speaker 1: But I'm just thinking if you want the broadcast to
Speaker 1: have some cohesion and so, no, and then and then
Speaker 1: later on we'll all be touched by an angel. No,
Speaker 1: we don't do that. We wait.
Speaker 2: I would not also make a you've made now to
Speaker 2: touch by an angel sort of puns. I would not
Speaker 2: do a touch by an angel pun either. You said
Speaker 2: someone who is definitely not touched by an angel? Right,
Speaker 2: was not a which was a clever transition, but not
Speaker 2: when I wouldn't get but I would That's not what
Speaker 2: I would have used in a broadcast, like coming up.
Speaker 1: Or something subtler, a passing that is touched all of us.
Speaker 1: You could do that and then people won't know and
Speaker 1: then afterwards. It was a very popular show. And she
Speaker 1: sang the theme song as well.
Speaker 2: Oh I didn't know that.
Speaker 3: I need all the time.
Speaker 1: I January seventeenth, twenty eight chess master Bobby Fisher, who
Speaker 1: then became a paranoid anti Semmi, and Alan Melvin Alvin
Speaker 1: Melvin Sam the Butcher from The Rady Bunch.
Speaker 2: Oh, Sam Alice's boyfriend.
Speaker 3: Sam.
Speaker 2: It's me Alice.
Speaker 3: That's what I said, Sam.
Speaker 1: Alice's boyfriend. And what happened to Butcher's like there there.
Speaker 2: You don't you don't see the you don't see Butcher's
Speaker 2: It's true.
Speaker 1: Bobby Fisher in The New York Times A one at
Speaker 1: the Bottom, nothing on Alan Melvin. Alan Melvin was on
Speaker 1: be sick in the Washington Post four days after he died.
Speaker 2: Okay, I mean, I don't know what to say.
Speaker 1: July eighth, nineteen ninety four. Dick Sergeant, the second actor
Speaker 1: to play Darren in the nineteen sixties sitcom Bewitched, Good
Speaker 1: Morning in Dora, How Nice You Dropped In? And North
Speaker 1: Korea's founding dictator Kim Il sung die on the same day.
Speaker 5: North Korea Tonight announced a nine day period of mourning
Speaker 5: for the only leader it's ever had, Dictator Kim El
Speaker 5: Sung dead at eighty two.
Speaker 2: That was a tough one for us of who do we?
Speaker 2: Who do we? Who we cover?
Speaker 1: But you know, here's the thing. I feel so bad
Speaker 1: for Dick Sergeant because it's tough enough being the second Darren.
Speaker 1: Because everyone knows the first Daron dick Yorick was a
Speaker 1: better Darren, although Dick Sargent later came out and became
Speaker 1: a gay rights advocate and was apparently a lovely, lovely guy.
Speaker 1: But to be overshadowed on that though that one day
Speaker 1: you expect all the attention, right A that's genocidal maniac.
Speaker 2: Takes it from you, takes it from you. Don't try
Speaker 2: to spare my feelings.
Speaker 1: There's one thing I can't stand at someone feeling sorry
Speaker 1: for me. Fun fact. Dick Sargent's first film role was
Speaker 1: a bit part in nineteen fifty four's Prisoner of War
Speaker 1: about Americans in a North Korean pow camp who knew
Speaker 1: coming up after the break some downright spooky coincidences and
Speaker 1: some very odd death fellows.
Speaker 10: Fifty years to the day after the declaration of Independence,
Speaker 10: having said all he had to say to us, which
Speaker 10: was enough, Thomas Jefferson died on this bed a freeman
Speaker 10: on that same day.
Speaker 7: A few hours later, away to the north in Massachusetts,
Speaker 7: John Adams, also old and weak, also satisfied to have
Speaker 7: lived until the fourth also died. His last words were,
Speaker 7: Thomas Jefferson still lives.
Speaker 2: That's so crazy that they died in the same day.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm talking with Anders and Cooper about famous
Speaker 1: people dying on the same day. It doesn't get much
Speaker 1: eerier than two founding fathers meeting their creator on the
Speaker 1: very day the nation they had helped birth turned fifty.
Speaker 2: And wasn't Adams's son, the president.
Speaker 1: John Quincy Adams.
Speaker 2: So I wonder had I been on the air that day, hypothetically,
Speaker 2: like the coverage, what would you do, Like if television
Speaker 2: had been around, both would probably get equal. But because
Speaker 2: his son is the current president, his son would come
Speaker 2: out and make like some sort of blick statement and stuff,
Speaker 2: So Adams might that might push Adams up above Jefferson.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: I think that's absolutely right.
Speaker 2: Because he would hold maybe a live press event and
Speaker 2: you would take the whole thing. You have to say,
Speaker 2: the whole thing, and he would give I mean, he
Speaker 2: would do a lot about his dad. He would definitely
Speaker 2: do a head nod to Jefferson and a lot about Jefferson.
Speaker 2: But John Quincy Adams is going to speak live in
Speaker 2: a minute, We're obviously going to take this live. That
Speaker 2: would be twenty minutes, and then.
Speaker 1: Van Jones, what do you think and we're back with
Speaker 1: the panel. But you know, this was considered a big
Speaker 1: deal the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration
Speaker 1: of Independence. It's not something we just looked back at.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: Do you think that a person can hold on to
Speaker 1: die on a day like that?
Speaker 2: I do think that. Yeah. I mean, I don't know,
Speaker 2: I don't have any actual evidence for that, but yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean it seems first of all, too coincidental in
Speaker 2: that way. But but yeah, I do believe people can
Speaker 2: hold on or decide like I'm ready. And maybe maybe
Speaker 2: they did, one of them, or maybe just one of
Speaker 2: them did the other. It just happened to be that day.
Speaker 2: That one seems particularly too coincidental. I mean, what are
Speaker 2: the chances of that?
Speaker 3: Do you know?
Speaker 1: What's so cute is that James Monroe died five years
Speaker 1: later to the day, So he died on the fifty
Speaker 1: fifth anniversary. Yeah, on July fourth, eighteen thirty one. And
Speaker 1: it just is I wonder if he was like, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: I want to be me too. I want to be
Speaker 1: in the club. But not really another historic coincidence. November tenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two, Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Lillian Cross,
Speaker 1: the woman who decades earlier foiled an assassination attempt on
Speaker 1: Frank Lindelano Roosevelt, are buried on the same day, a.
Speaker 6: Final tribute to Eleanor Roosevelt, distinguished Lady of our times.
Speaker 1: Back in nineteen thirty three, the five foot four, one
Speaker 1: hundred pound Missus Cross was watching the then President elect
Speaker 1: deliver a speech in Miami. When she noticed the even
Speaker 1: shorter Giuseppe Zanngara aiming a gun at Roosevelt. She grabbed
Speaker 1: him by the arm.
Speaker 8: I knew he was shooting at the President, so my
Speaker 8: first thought was to get the foot club in the
Speaker 8: as so it wouldn't hurt any.
Speaker 1: Of the bastin. Because of her heroics, FDR was spared
Speaker 1: and the bullet instead killed Chicago Mayor Anton Sermak. So
Speaker 1: we've talked about pairings that sort of seemed to go together,
Speaker 1: but what about pairs that don't seem to have anything
Speaker 1: in common, like Pope Benedict the sixteenth and Pointer sister
Speaker 1: Anita Pointer. Then there's Whitewater Prosecute, Ken Starr and French
Speaker 1: New Wave director Jean Luc Cadard, who were both left
Speaker 1: breathless on the same day. Ditto character actor Rip Torn
Speaker 1: and third party presidential candidate Ross Perot, who was himself
Speaker 1: a pretty great character.
Speaker 3: Now whose fault is there?
Speaker 12: Not the Democrats, not Republicans.
Speaker 1: Somewhere out there, there's an extraterrestrial that's doing this to us.
Speaker 1: I guess these kinds of pairings are what I call
Speaker 1: odd death fellows. For this special category, I turned to
Speaker 1: two veteran obituary writers whom I met at twenty nineteen's
Speaker 1: Obit Khan. Yes, Obit Khan think comic con but for
Speaker 1: obituary writers. Ka Powell spent fifteen years at the Atlanta
Speaker 1: Journal Constitution and is known in the biz as the
Speaker 1: Doyenne of Death. John Pope is a fifty year veteran
Speaker 1: of the business, penning obits, most notably for the New
Speaker 1: Orleans Times Picayune. Both are fluent in the euphemisms used
Speaker 1: to eulogize the dead.
Speaker 3: Passed on, join God's Heaven, require or my favorite, the
Speaker 3: lights went out.
Speaker 13: Lady fran means well or prostitute or raconteur is a
Speaker 13: boring storyteller.
Speaker 1: A racontry, a boring storyteller in an obituary, Yes, racus.
Speaker 3: Racus means loud drunk.
Speaker 1: Naturally, I thought they'd be the perfect duo to talk
Speaker 1: about this next combination of famous figures. April eighth, twenty thirteen,
Speaker 1: Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher dies on the very
Speaker 1: same day as former mouseketeer and star of Beach Blanket
Speaker 1: Bingo A net Funaicello age age brag. Now, can either
Speaker 1: of you give our listeners a sense of how big
Speaker 1: a deal a net Funaicello was.
Speaker 3: Any boy who grew up in the nineteen fifties much
Speaker 3: Mickey Mouse Club was just head over heels in love
Speaker 3: with Annette.
Speaker 11: Pine too twift our MOCKI dial to the right and
Speaker 11: left were the great big smile. This is the way
Speaker 11: we get to see a mouse cartoon.
Speaker 14: For you and me, well, as a woman of that era,
Speaker 14: the most influential was Beach Blanket Bingo and her two
Speaker 14: piece bathing suit. Really couldn't call it a bikini. It
Speaker 14: was a two piece bathing suit, which I did have osa.
Speaker 3: Well, you didn't mention this detail about an that footagellow swimsuit.
Speaker 3: She didn't show her navel because Walt Disney didn't want to.
Speaker 14: And I wouldn't either because we were ladies. John, she
Speaker 14: didn't have to be told that.
Speaker 1: For people who are familiar with Vanessa Dudgeons right from
Speaker 1: high school musical or Selena Gomez, you know, Anette Funicello
Speaker 1: was probably orders of magnitude bigger than those. She became
Speaker 1: even more beloved after struggling for years with MS and
Speaker 1: really advocating for others. Now, as for the obituary coverage,
Speaker 1: Margaret Thatcher got more attention. I wonder if news organizations
Speaker 1: struggled to balance who they thought they should prioritize versus
Speaker 1: who the audience wanted to hear more about. What do
Speaker 1: you all think?
Speaker 14: No, they knew it would be Margaret Thatcher.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Thatcher had been out on a limelight, but she
Speaker 3: did lead a nation for better or worse.
Speaker 1: In the aftermath of Thatcher's death, protesters in the UK
Speaker 1: began an online campaign to propel the song Ding Dong
Speaker 1: the Witch Is Dead from The Wizard of Oz to
Speaker 1: the number one position on British iTunes. I wonder how
Speaker 1: do you handle the situation as an obit writer when
Speaker 1: the figure you're writing about has a complicated legacy, a
Speaker 1: legacy that polarizes people you.
Speaker 3: Write it, you tell the story, you.
Speaker 14: Tell the truth. Yeah, it's a news story and that's
Speaker 14: part of the news.
Speaker 1: January thirtieth, nineteen forty eight, The New.
Speaker 5: Delhi, India Radio has just been heard reporting that Mohandas
Speaker 5: Gandhi has been fatally shot.
Speaker 1: Mahatma Gandhi, the great Liberator of India, is slain on
Speaker 1: the same day that Orville Wright, the co inventor of
Speaker 1: the airplane, dies here at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
Speaker 2: This primitive kite made aviation history.
Speaker 1: Now, obviously Gandhi dominated that day banner headline, but Orville
Speaker 1: Wright was also on the front page below the fold
Speaker 1: of most major newspapers. This makes sense, right.
Speaker 14: I I think if I look at it over the
Speaker 14: long haul, to me, we're looking at two people whose
Speaker 14: contributions are equal and affecting the entire world forever.
Speaker 1: Now, it had been forty four years since that first
Speaker 1: flight at Kitty Hawk when Orville Wright died, and it
Speaker 1: had been thirty six years since his older brother Wilbur
Speaker 1: had died. I suppose that accounts for how much less
Speaker 1: coverage Orvill Wright got on that day. But you do
Speaker 1: make the point that flying, I mean, it's an unimaginable legacy.
Speaker 3: Gandhi, I mean, Gandhi founded a nation, and there was
Speaker 3: also the drama of his death orvil Wright was thought
Speaker 3: of as more of a part of a pair. I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry that he died, but he was old and
Speaker 3: he didn't die as dramatically as Gandhi.
Speaker 1: And being part of a pair, maybe the power of
Speaker 1: his passing is diminished, like by a fraction of half.
Speaker 3: Oh easily. Absolutely. I wasn't around when either Lewis or
Speaker 3: Clark died, so I can't vouch for the coverage their
Speaker 3: death's got like that.
Speaker 1: September twenty eighth, twenty oh three, tennis pioneer ALTHEA. Gibson
Speaker 1: and director Elia Kazan both died now. Kazan was one
Speaker 1: of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway in
Speaker 1: Hollywood history. He was most famous for his Broadway productions
Speaker 1: A Street Car Named Desire and Death of a Salesman,
Speaker 1: and for his movies On the Waterfront and East of Eden. Personally,
Speaker 1: I love tree grows in Brooklyn.
Speaker 14: They didn't have any right to kill it, did they, Papa?
Speaker 2: Oh No, wait a minute, they didn't kill it.
Speaker 1: Why they couldn't kill that three. He was controversial. In
Speaker 1: his nineteen fifty two testimony before the House on American
Speaker 1: Activities Committee, Kazan named the names of eight others who
Speaker 1: had been members of the Communist Party with him. Althea
Speaker 1: Gibson was a legendary tennis player who broke color barriers
Speaker 1: in the sport as a young woman. She was the
Speaker 1: first africa An American tennis player, female or male, to
Speaker 1: win a Grand Slam title.
Speaker 7: After Wimbledon, New York or Native City welcome to her
Speaker 7: hall with a ticker tape parade up Broadway.
Speaker 9: I would have never thought that, coming from the streets
Speaker 9: of New York playing paddle tennis, that I would be
Speaker 9: one who would have the opportunity to shake the hand
Speaker 9: of Queen Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: She was the first black tennis player to compete in
Speaker 1: the US National Championships, the precursor to the US Open,
Speaker 1: and then in golf, she became the first black woman
Speaker 1: on the LPGA Tour. They both had a lot of coverage.
Speaker 1: Kazanne got more coverage, so in the New York Times,
Speaker 1: Kazan edged out Althea Gibson in the Chicago Tribune. In
Speaker 1: the LA Times, they were fairly equal. You know, Kazan
Speaker 1: was a heavyweight, but Gibson was a major. First. Did
Speaker 1: newspapers get this one right?
Speaker 3: Well, if you go by recent fame slash notoriety, Kazan
Speaker 3: had gotten back into the spotlight a couple of years
Speaker 3: earlier when he was given an honorary Oscar and people
Speaker 3: were furious because this man who had named names was
Speaker 3: getting an award.
Speaker 14: I would have probably given her more coverage for the
Speaker 14: groundbreaking things that she did and the variety of accomplishments
Speaker 14: she had.
Speaker 1: October third, nineteen sixty seven, Two very different cultural figures
Speaker 1: left us that very day. Here is the first.
Speaker 10: This land is your land, and this land is my land.
Speaker 15: From California to the New York.
Speaker 14: Island, from the Redwood Forest and the Gulf Stream waters.
Speaker 15: This land was made for you and me.
Speaker 1: Okay. That's American folk singer Woody Guthrie. Of course, he
Speaker 1: died from Huntington's disease at fifty five. It wasn't front
Speaker 1: page news, but it was the leading obituary in most
Speaker 1: major papers. Now here's the voice of the other big
Speaker 1: entertainer who died that day.
Speaker 6: Does follow me?
Speaker 14: Bozo the Clown and I'll take you Dousey Kurt's home.
Speaker 1: This is indeed the original Bozo the Clown, played by
Speaker 1: the actor Pinto Colvig. Ultimately, there were many different Bosos
Speaker 1: depending on where you lived, but the very first was
Speaker 1: Pinto Colvig. Any thoughts on the contrast between Woody Guthrie
Speaker 1: and Boso.
Speaker 3: Couldn't be more different. I mean, Woody Guthrie was of
Speaker 3: the people and Boso performed his whole career in clown makeup.
Speaker 3: No one I couldn't tell you what he looked like.
Speaker 1: Let me also add that Colvig Pinto Colvig, was the
Speaker 1: original voice of Disney's Goofy and Pluto the Dog. Colvig
Speaker 1: a also voiced the bearded muscleman, Blue Doo and Popeye.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because I used to always confuse Pluto
Speaker 1: and Blueto, even though they are very different characters.
Speaker 6: Oh that I am, okay, have it my way.
Speaker 14: I would think that John sort of hit on it
Speaker 14: with the anonymity of who is Boso? He had an
Speaker 14: appeal on one level. Would he go through who was
Speaker 14: kind of more political? The themes of his songs could
Speaker 14: be divisive, but clowns are rarely divisive unless you're afraid
Speaker 14: they're going to eat you, so you don't sleep right.
Speaker 3: There's that you're talking with someone who dated the first
Speaker 3: female graduate of Ringling's Clown College.
Speaker 1: Is that true?
Speaker 3: Yes, her name is Peggy Williams. She is in the
Speaker 3: Clown Hall of Fame.
Speaker 1: That's really exciting. Was dating her a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: She had this habit because of her training. Whenever we'd
Speaker 3: go to dinner, I would say something kind of a
Speaker 3: music and she would react. She was playing to the
Speaker 3: second balcony. So it's kind of scary.
Speaker 1: When we've crossed over to the other side of the
Speaker 1: break more with Anderson Cooper. We're back with Anderson Cooper
Speaker 1: and a game I call above the fold. Below the
Speaker 1: fold New York Times edition. For those of you who
Speaker 1: still remember what a newspaper looks like. The top half
Speaker 1: of the front page is above the fold, where the
Speaker 1: really big news goes. The bottom half of a one
Speaker 1: is below the fold, where the still big, just not
Speaker 1: quite as big news goes. Okay, I'm obsessed with this,
Speaker 1: even though no one under the age of fifty notes
Speaker 1: that this means, right.
Speaker 2: I actually still get a newspaper. Dillar.
Speaker 1: Okay, right, so above the fault, below the fault. These
Speaker 1: are all a one.
Speaker 2: O bets, oh, these were all a one.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I think my mom was below the fold. She was, yeah,
Speaker 2: she was blow the full she was yeah, but she
Speaker 2: was a one. She was a one.
Speaker 1: Yeh yeah, which is great. I mean, it's great to
Speaker 1: have a mom who's on a one. It's cool, Babe
Speaker 1: Ruth above the vault or below the fault, above the fault.
Speaker 1: He's above Jackie Robinson above the fault, below the fault.
Speaker 1: And that I think is the most egregious error here. Incredible,
Speaker 1: that's pretty bad. Yeah, that they put in below the fault.
Speaker 2: What year was that?
Speaker 1: That was in nineteen seventy two, October twenty fifth.
Speaker 2: I'm sure it was still a pretty all white news room. Maybe,
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's more sensitivity I would, I would think now,
Speaker 1: and that Jackie Robinson, who was such a Titanic figure,
Speaker 1: would be above the fault, okay, Judy Garland.
Speaker 2: Above the fault, below the fault. Really no, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: June twenty third, nineteen sixty nine. She obviously died the
Speaker 1: day before.
Speaker 2: I cannot believe that she was well. Where was Stone World?
Speaker 1: Wasn't mentioned now the New York Times, I mean a
Speaker 1: different days. I thank you, but she's below the fault,
Speaker 1: luci O ball.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, if they messed up with Judy Garland,
Speaker 2: I'd say, below the fold.
Speaker 1: You're absolutely right about that. Richard Rogers, great composer, below
Speaker 1: the fault, above the fold. Wow, Oscar Hammerstein, the lyricist
Speaker 1: below the fold, below the fold, which is really this
Speaker 1: is like part of of what I think. It's like
Speaker 1: the New York Times, long running anti lyricist bias's.
Speaker 2: Always there, always identify that it's true, and I'm that's
Speaker 2: going to be my cause.
Speaker 1: I inherited my love of obituaries from my father. He
Speaker 1: always said that the obits were his favorite part of
Speaker 1: the newspaper. It's probably because my father had a deep
Speaker 1: appreciation for the romance of life. I know that sounds strange,
Speaker 1: but a good O bit captures that the highs and
Speaker 1: lows of a person's life in just a few inches.
Speaker 1: To put it another way, a good oh bit has
Speaker 1: the dramatic sweep of a movie trailer for an Oscar
Speaker 1: winning biopeck, the kind of movie that Golden Age director
Speaker 1: Cecil B. De Mill would make all.
Speaker 8: Right, mister demil, I'm ready for my close up.
Speaker 1: Incidentally, Cecil B. De Mill died on the same day
Speaker 1: as Carl Switzer aka Alfalfa from The Little Rascals.
Speaker 3: How do you ask that warrior?
Speaker 13: Thank you very much. You're not so bad yourself.
Speaker 2: I would like to watch The Little Rascals again to
Speaker 2: see if it holds up, because I still don't remember
Speaker 2: what the whole concept was. Who were these little rascals
Speaker 2: and where they how do they get that way?
Speaker 1: A great question Anderson and One will hopefully address on
Speaker 1: a future episode. But for now, let's talk about a
Speaker 1: pair of Hollywood royalty who both departed this realm on
Speaker 1: October tenth, nineteen eighty five. Yule Brenner, famous as the
Speaker 1: King and the King and.
Speaker 15: I, when I shall said, you shall sit, and I
Speaker 15: shall neil, you shall nil at sea.
Speaker 1: And Orson Wells, the director and star of Citizen Kane.
Speaker 12: Orson Wells, died of natural causes at his home in Hollywood.
Speaker 7: He was seventy.
Speaker 12: And El Brenner died here in New York after a
Speaker 12: long battle with lung cancer.
Speaker 7: He was sixty five.
Speaker 2: I met Eul Brenner as a kid. I loved the
Speaker 2: King and I and I loved Eel Brenner and being
Speaker 2: in his dressing room and him going like etcetera, etcetera,
Speaker 2: and the whole thing. He was Yule Brenner like. It
Speaker 2: was exactly what you would want eul Brenner to do, right,
Speaker 2: he was the King on stage and off, on stage
Speaker 2: and off. Incredible. But I think my I mean, my
Speaker 2: mom went out to Hollywood when she was like sixteen
Speaker 2: seven and Shenner. She absolutely would have known that you'l Brenner.
Speaker 1: Yes, did she know Orson Wells?
Speaker 2: So there is a rumor that my mom had an
Speaker 2: affair with Orson Wells, which I just read online.
Speaker 1: Can I ask, if your mother did have an affair
Speaker 1: with Orson Wells, was it Citizen Kane, Orson Wells or
Speaker 1: Paul Mason Wine.
Speaker 2: Outweels It would have been Citizen Kane. I mean, please,
Speaker 2: My mom had an affair with Marlon Brando, and it
Speaker 2: was like on the waterfront of Marlon Brando, wasn't It
Speaker 2: wasn't apocalypse now, Marlon. I mean, give my mom some credit.
Speaker 2: So Orson Wells and Yuel Brenner died on the same day.
Speaker 1: Yes, Now there's a split on TV. Yule Brenner got
Speaker 1: top billing. Okay, in print, and this sort of makes
Speaker 1: sense to me. Orson Wells very much got top billing
Speaker 1: there because I think in print they were honoring sort
Speaker 1: of the importance of Orson Wells, even though it had
Speaker 1: been decades, I think forty five years since Citizen Kane.
Speaker 1: They felt it was important to honor that. But yul
Speaker 1: Brenner had been touring very recently. I brought my grandmother
Speaker 1: actually to see his very last tour in the King
Speaker 1: and I in Washington, DC, and he'd had a sixty
Speaker 1: minutes profile and I don't know if you remember this.
Speaker 1: He didn't add that aired posthumously.
Speaker 2: First about cancer ladies and gentlemen, the late Yule Brenner.
Speaker 15: I really wanted to make a commercial when I discovered
Speaker 15: that I was that sick and my time was so limited,
Speaker 15: I wanted to make that commercials it says simply Now
Speaker 15: that I'm gone, I tell you don't smoke.
Speaker 1: Do you remember that.
Speaker 2: I do remember that. I do remember that.
Speaker 1: That was a big deal.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: This is what's interesting to me. The people alive would
Speaker 2: have remembered, probably foremost in their minds about Orson welles
Speaker 2: at that time. The pal Masan wine add.
Speaker 15: The taste is smooth, flavorful, delicious. Porma San wines taste
Speaker 15: so good because they made with such care.
Speaker 2: What Farmasan said nearly a century ago.
Speaker 10: Is still true today.
Speaker 15: We will sell wine the first time.
Speaker 1: We will sell no wine before its time. Always annoyed
Speaker 1: me because it's a false rhyme. Wine and time.
Speaker 2: Do not rhyme.
Speaker 16: That's what bothered you about it. Kind of did well,
Speaker 16: that's what bothered okay. As a childer child, I loved
Speaker 16: Paumas on wine. May sixteenth, nineteen ninety Sammy Davis Junior
Speaker 16: and Jim Henson.
Speaker 2: Wow, see that's that's big.
Speaker 12: The memories of Sammy Davis Junior and Jim Henson topped
Speaker 12: the news this morning. The head of Henson's production company
Speaker 12: says Henson took our breath away as a talent and
Speaker 12: provided laughter and love as a friend. Frank Sinatra calls
Speaker 12: Sammy Davis Junior a class act and the best friend
Speaker 12: the man could have.
Speaker 1: They're like the Adage and Jefferson of entertainment.
Speaker 2: That is big. Sammy Davis Junior had been sick for
Speaker 2: a while, hadn't.
Speaker 1: He had been sick, and they'd had this really amazing
Speaker 1: special on television where all these stars paid tribute to him,
Speaker 1: and Gregory Hines got up and tap dance with him
Speaker 1: at the end. He wasn't expected to because he was
Speaker 1: so sick. And then Jim Henson was a shocker.
Speaker 2: I don't I don't remember him. I mean I remember
Speaker 2: his death. I don't remember what it was.
Speaker 1: It was a pneumonia. I think for a time people thought, oh,
Speaker 1: it was just a euphemism for AIDS. No, he died
Speaker 1: in pneumonia.
Speaker 2: Wow. I mean, what incredible contributions, both.
Speaker 1: Really amazing, really amazing, and they were given I think
Speaker 1: appropriately side by side.
Speaker 2: That makes total sense just their creative output. And Jim
Speaker 2: Henson obviously the Muppets some.
Speaker 1: They will find Lorraine convection, the lovers, but dreamers and me,
Speaker 1: you know, it's amazing to me that Sammy Davis Junior
Speaker 1: never guest starred on the Muppets.
Speaker 2: Really is that amazing?
Speaker 12: Wow?
Speaker 1: I mean he was builders for the Muppets.
Speaker 9: Black and Birred with our very red, the basic hand
Speaker 9: black of luck.
Speaker 14: Whitney animals talk, Britney.
Speaker 2: Animals, grunt squeak.
Speaker 1: This one writty animals, and they did not. At the
Speaker 1: top of this episode, we mentioned Anderson's podcast All There
Speaker 1: Is On it, he explores the importance of grieving. We've
Speaker 1: been having some fun chatting about the coverage of bold
Speaker 1: faced names when they pass on, but Anderson knows all
Speaker 1: too well what it's like to be part of the story.
Speaker 1: When he was twenty one, his older brother Carter took
Speaker 1: his own life.
Speaker 2: When my brother died, I do recall there being I
Speaker 2: think it was a front page with somebody else's photo
Speaker 2: on it as him. I don't know if it was
Speaker 2: the hoster the daily news.
Speaker 1: And could you could you all even absorb that? Could
Speaker 1: you absorb it and not be outraged?
Speaker 2: Or I mean I didn't. We didn't have any you know,
Speaker 2: we were sort of you know, there were like reporters
Speaker 2: camped outside the house. And obviously my brother's death was
Speaker 2: very public because he jumped off the balcony of our apartment,
Speaker 2: but we weren't looking at newspapers. Somebody who was coming
Speaker 2: to visit had, I mean stupidly, had brought in a
Speaker 2: paper and I just happened to see it, like sitting
Speaker 2: out in the foyer. But uh, yeah, I just remember
Speaker 2: I just remember they had there was the wrong picture.
Speaker 1: You know, it's in the constellation of terribleness, you know,
Speaker 1: associated with this. That's one terrible thing that the wrong
Speaker 1: picture does.
Speaker 2: That have any meaning, that has no meaning, has no meaning.
Speaker 2: I mean, those were all very obviously dramatic, silicious headlines
Speaker 2: about you know, my brother or about his death. So
Speaker 2: it's not something like an obituary that you would want
Speaker 2: to read. And you know that also, he was so
Speaker 2: young that there wasn't a track record for you know,
Speaker 2: anybody to write kind of an obituary of you know,
Speaker 2: it was unpleasant to have to feel like you're sort
Speaker 2: of in this cocoon and somewhat under siege. And then
Speaker 2: and then we went to the funeral home, my mom
Speaker 2: and I to view his body, and there were photography
Speaker 2: were camera people camped outside with of course Frankie Campbell
Speaker 2: funeral home, and we were trying to go on a
Speaker 2: side entrance and they followed us, and I remember the
Speaker 2: time hating the camera people, just feeling very protective on
Speaker 2: my mom. And the weird thing is, I don't know
Speaker 2: I've mentioned of this ever, there was a viewing my
Speaker 2: brother's body at the Campbell funeral home, and we had
Speaker 2: really no way. I mean, we were all, you know,
Speaker 2: just like shell shocked, and there was a line of
Speaker 2: I don't know, hundreds of people and we really had
Speaker 2: no way to police it. Anybody could have gotten that line,
Speaker 2: and my mom greeted each person, but I realized there's
Speaker 2: just random people on this line. So I spent the
Speaker 2: entire time going through the line like pre greeting people
Speaker 2: and weeding people out. And there was one guy who
Speaker 2: got within like three people at my mom with a
Speaker 2: cover that he wanted her to sign the front page.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, and what did you do? You remember today?
Speaker 2: I escorted him out, I ushered him away, and you.
Speaker 1: Kind of ushered him away. This is perhaps a little
Speaker 1: too logical, but do you think part of it was
Speaker 1: you just lost your brother, you weren't going to lose
Speaker 1: your mother because some lunatic was in the line, or yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean I was always very protected my mom, and
Speaker 2: certainly in that situation, you know, I felt very much
Speaker 2: like we are under siege, and this is what I
Speaker 2: need to do, and there's really no one else who
Speaker 2: can do it because there's nobody else who kind of
Speaker 2: knows everybody that my mom knows, and I always been
Speaker 2: like my mom's gatekeeper. So I did a study in
Speaker 2: my mom. From the time I was very little, I
Speaker 2: used to read our journals like I would listen in
Speaker 2: on phone calls. I wanted to know what was happening.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I policed the line.
Speaker 1: So it's I mean, it's almost as there was literally
Speaker 1: no one else who could do that job.
Speaker 2: Who was yeah or nobody. I mean, there was nobody
Speaker 2: doing it, and I didn't feel like there was anybody
Speaker 2: who could really Yeah. I just didn't feel there's anybody
Speaker 2: could really do it.
Speaker 1: Anderson says that terrible chapter of his own life fundamentally
Speaker 1: shaped the way he approaches his work.
Speaker 2: It always stuck with me because I know what it's
Speaker 2: like to be on the other end of the camera
Speaker 2: lens in those situations, and it's really impacted the way
Speaker 2: I interact with you know, if there's been a school
Speaker 2: shooting and I'm talking to or approaching somebody, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm very sensitive about I know what it's like to
Speaker 2: feel too, you know, in the lowest moment of your life,
Speaker 2: to have cameras in your face. I would rather not
Speaker 2: get the shot than do something that is intrusive, inappropriate.
Speaker 2: I don't ask people how they feel when you know,
Speaker 2: which is always an awful question. And so it's yeah,
Speaker 2: it's impacted the way I interact with people in those moments.
Speaker 1: So, Anderson, on this episode, you and I have been
Speaker 1: talking about famous people who died on the same day.
Speaker 1: I have to tell you, whenever I bring up this
Speaker 1: particular subject to people, and it happens occasionally, they almost
Speaker 1: always find it interesting, I mean even fascinating, and they're
Speaker 1: sort of tickled by it. Why is this interesting?
Speaker 2: I mean, why does anyone read obituaries? We all have
Speaker 2: associations with these people, and so I mean not with
Speaker 2: some of the historical figures, but you know, we all
Speaker 2: have our own memories of Charles Manson or who are
Speaker 2: Della Reese? Who you know, however it may be, who
Speaker 2: whatever it may be, and we feel connected to them.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the interesting thing about celebrity. You feel
Speaker 2: you have a relationship with these people, and so there
Speaker 2: is this sadness when somebody you you know, when Sam
Speaker 2: the Butcher dies, you know, it brings back all those
Speaker 2: memories of your kid, and you're watching it and Alice
Speaker 2: and Sam and the stupid jokes and the whole family
Speaker 2: and those experiences. You're married and right, and who you're
Speaker 2: watching it with?
Speaker 12: Sam, Are you.
Speaker 14: Going to kiss me under those stars?
Speaker 10: I'm sure i'mna try.
Speaker 2: And this is one of the things that that fascinates
Speaker 2: me is, you know, the rituals of mourning and the
Speaker 2: rituals of grief. We don't have communal rituals really anymore,
Speaker 2: and so there's a privacy to grieving now, and it's
Speaker 2: done behind closed doors.
Speaker 1: And so and when more than one notable person dies
Speaker 1: on the same day, it almost makes you think about
Speaker 1: why people are remembered and how they're remembered.
Speaker 2: And also just how how mysterious all of this is,
Speaker 2: you know, how life and death and you know, no
Speaker 2: matter how high and mighty somebody is, in the end,
Speaker 2: we are all, you know, we all become dust, and
Speaker 2: everybody we know will die, and we will die. We
Speaker 2: all think we're the first ones to like face the
Speaker 2: troubles that we face and to you know, have the
Speaker 2: issues that we have, But there have been generations of
Speaker 2: people before us who have had the exact same problems
Speaker 2: and the exact same worries and sleepless nights and all
Speaker 2: that and I take great comfort in that and to
Speaker 2: know that no problem I face hasn't already been faced
Speaker 2: by generations of people before me, And whatever sadness I
Speaker 2: feel has been felt by generations of people who have
Speaker 2: experienced far worse than I will ever experience and survived it.
Speaker 1: By the way, did you ever meet Michael Jackson or
Speaker 1: Faara Faucet?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did meet Michael Jackson. I went to the
Speaker 2: premiere of The Whiz with my mom and my brother.
Speaker 2: And remember if I met him at the theater or
Speaker 2: if it was afterwards at Studio fifty four, where my
Speaker 2: mom took me at age eleven, But it was very
Speaker 2: distinct to me because I didn't really know who Michael
Speaker 2: Jackson was other than the guy in The Wiz. I
Speaker 2: wasn't really much of a music listener as a kid,
Speaker 2: but I remember being a Studio fifty four and watching
Speaker 2: him dance, and I turned to the person next to me.
Speaker 2: I mean, I said, he's really good at that. He
Speaker 2: should pursue it.
Speaker 1: You know how to pick him.
Speaker 2: I like to take some credit for you know, he
Speaker 2: chose to pursue it.
Speaker 1: He needed that extra encourage that A.
Speaker 2: Little question from eleven year old me.
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Speaker 1: produced by Aaron Schrank. Our team of producers also includes
Speaker 1: Hazel Brian and me Bo Raka, with engineering by Josh Hahn.
Speaker 1: Our theme music is written by Daniel Hart. Our archival
Speaker 1: producer is Jamie Benson. Mobituary's production company is meon Hum Media.
Speaker 1: Indispensable support from Alan Pang and everyone at CBS News
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Speaker 12: H