Speaker 1: Hello, This is Craig Ferguson, letting y'all know that I
Speaker 1: am still out on the road with my Fancy Rascal
Speaker 1: tour this week in the following beautiful places. October tenth
Speaker 1: at the Magoffin Auditorium in El Paso, Texas. October the
Speaker 1: eleventh at the Wagner Noelle Performing Arts Center in Midland, Texas.
Speaker 1: And October thirteenth to the fifteenth at the Houston Improv
Speaker 1: Comedy Club in Houston, Texas. I promise I will not
Speaker 1: mess with Texas, or I might. I can't make a
Speaker 1: commitment at this point. For a fullest of dates, please
Speaker 1: go to my website, the Craig Fergusons Show dot com
Speaker 1: slash tour. My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of
Speaker 1: this podcast is Joy. I talk to interest in people
Speaker 1: about what brings them happiness. Welcome to Kathy Lee Gifford
Speaker 1: Part two. Kathy Lee Gifford is so bonkers and so
Speaker 1: interesting that we had to give her a two parts.
Speaker 1: The second bit, yeah, are you up and running?
Speaker 2: Okay? Noise with this, so that's all right. Look, if
Speaker 2: people know that you.
Speaker 1: Sometimes have a beverage, yes that has ice in it.
Speaker 1: And a little straw, which I think is that it's
Speaker 1: not the most European way of drinking wine.
Speaker 2: I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: But I think that you're not European. It's okay, I am.
Speaker 3: I was born in France. That's born in Paris, France.
Speaker 1: You're a French Messianic Jew. Yes, I think you're it.
Speaker 2: I think I'm maybe the only one. Wow.
Speaker 3: Yes, And so I now have been up since I
Speaker 3: literally got up this morning at twelve forty five, and
Speaker 3: I said, even for me, that's early that it is
Speaker 3: now one o'clock in the afternoon here, and so I'm
Speaker 3: having a little glass of white wine.
Speaker 2: I'm not judging. You can't.
Speaker 3: No, you never have, but so people know, with a
Speaker 3: little bit of ice in it. I usually have episoda
Speaker 3: with it too, you know, so that I can spritzer.
Speaker 2: Spritzer a spritzer.
Speaker 3: It's just fine.
Speaker 2: Listen.
Speaker 1: When we talked before, yes, we talked a lot about religion.
Speaker 1: And I know you can talk a lot about that
Speaker 1: and look to be honest, I love you, but you
Speaker 1: can talk a lot about pretty much anathing. So we
Speaker 1: talked a lot about religion. I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you a little bit about when I first met you
Speaker 1: and where you were. I remember the first meeting I
Speaker 1: ever had with you, and I don't know if you remember.
Speaker 3: That was it the Drew Carey Show.
Speaker 1: Was at the Drew Carey Show. And I was eighth
Speaker 1: banana on that show. My first child had just been born.
Speaker 2: So that was twenty two years ago. Twenty two years ago,
Speaker 2: and you I was just doing a guest starring. You
Speaker 2: were guest starring. It was right, you were still doing.
Speaker 1: Regious Is it regu It would still be reading it
Speaker 1: was mid nineties, No.
Speaker 3: It was I left Regis in two thousand.
Speaker 2: Right, so we hadn't just been born.
Speaker 1: He was about to be born, okay, because it was
Speaker 1: mid nineties or late nineties or two thousand, even he
Speaker 1: was born in two thousand.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's the year I did leave Regis, all right,
Speaker 3: not personally, you know.
Speaker 2: It remained my dear, dear, dear friend thirty more years. Yes,
Speaker 2: I love you. Yeah, I just left the show, right,
Speaker 2: But you were so kind to me.
Speaker 1: You were a big, big, this big star coming in
Speaker 1: and do a spot on the on the show, and
Speaker 1: I was eighth banana on the show, and you gave
Speaker 1: me some kids books for my.
Speaker 3: Who was not born.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for your like, here's so you get them, Marrily,
Speaker 1: You're like coca cola.
Speaker 3: You get Coca cola is not necessarily good for you.
Speaker 3: What I got, what I've got good for you.
Speaker 1: You said that before, and I just I remember thinking
Speaker 1: at the time, Wow, that.
Speaker 2: Is a class act. That is a class act.
Speaker 1: And I haven't changed my opinion one iota since then
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 3: We've been in bed together for for for entertainment, for entertainment.
Speaker 3: That's right, It's available on Netflix.
Speaker 2: Then came you, everybody.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I'm plugging it. I don't get
Speaker 1: resid juels. You get them, No, I don't. All right, Okay,
Speaker 1: So here's the thing though. But you were at that
Speaker 1: time with Regis, yes, professionally, and you were with Frank
Speaker 1: matrimonially yes at the time. Yes, And I want to
Speaker 1: talk to you a little bit about the man because.
Speaker 2: Regis, Regis and Frank.
Speaker 1: But let's talk a little because you are and I
Speaker 1: mean this in a very complimentary and in no way
Speaker 1: the judgmental or anything, but you are a very heterosexual woman.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, and you're a vibrant, funny, sexy woman.
Speaker 3: Now, yeah, tell me, well, it's the truth.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: So I think to myself, well, professionally, you're working with
Speaker 1: Regis and you're with this.
Speaker 2: God of an athlete Frank.
Speaker 3: Yes, as well.
Speaker 2: How did you meet Frank?
Speaker 3: I met Frank early, early, early in nineteen eighty two
Speaker 3: when I just signed for a year long that was
Speaker 3: it stint on the Good Morning America and they were
Speaker 3: grooming me to take over for John London. But I
Speaker 3: would certainly not aournalists. But they said, we're not interested
Speaker 3: in a journalist. We want somebody. Then it was under
Speaker 3: the auspices of ABC Entertainment, not News, so they weren't
Speaker 3: necessarily looking for a journalist. They were looking for somebody
Speaker 3: that would be comfortable on camera and could talk to
Speaker 3: a rock and make the rock laugh in some instances,
Speaker 3: you know, And that's I don't know that you can
Speaker 3: learn that. That's something that's sort of innate. Comes from
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, Every good and perfect gift scripture says comes
Speaker 3: from above, from the Father of the heavenly realms, who
Speaker 3: does not change like shifting shadows.
Speaker 2: Right, So.
Speaker 3: Again, yes, everything goes back to him.
Speaker 2: So where to come from?
Speaker 3: I went to Bora Roberts University to be a drama
Speaker 3: what is I don't it's been so many year. It
Speaker 3: was a drama measure with a music minor and it
Speaker 3: was just it was a it was a waste of time, yes,
Speaker 3: but I was the only Jew there and the only
Speaker 3: one who didn't speak in tongues, so it was it
Speaker 3: was problematic for me. Yeah, and back then, back then, yeah,
Speaker 3: I was the only one with the maiden name of Epstein.
Speaker 3: Let's put it that way. And it was what they
Speaker 3: call a charismatic Pentecostal university. No, it wasn't that kind.
Speaker 3: It wasn't that extreme, but it was you know, gifts
Speaker 3: of the Holy Spirit, which I do believe in, is
Speaker 3: just not one that I have. I've prayed for the
Speaker 3: gifts of the spirit to speak in tongues, and God
Speaker 3: said that the tongue I've given you is enough.
Speaker 2: It's doing fine. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't think the world can take many more languages
Speaker 3: that I see. Anyway, I learned to to sort of
Speaker 3: just accept things like that along the way. I didn't
Speaker 3: want to feel less then because I didn't have that gift.
Speaker 3: God said, concentrate on the ones I've given you. You know,
Speaker 3: so many people in our world are miserable because well,
Speaker 3: why didn't I don't have what they have?
Speaker 2: How come you didn't give me that? Lord?
Speaker 3: How come I don't My thighs don't look like whatever?
Speaker 3: It is? The pault In Philippi, all of his books
Speaker 3: in the New Testament, talks so much about the fact
Speaker 3: that we The whole idea of walking with Jesus is
Speaker 3: learning to be content in the moment.
Speaker 2: I totally agree with that. Gratitude is a silver bullet.
Speaker 1: Gratitude is the way every time, and you can militate,
Speaker 1: you can find some That gratitude is wait.
Speaker 3: Exactly, instead of bitching and moaning about what you don't
Speaker 3: have and missing out on all the blessing that's.
Speaker 2: Sitting right there. I tricked, you're going to talk to
Speaker 2: me about how you met Frank. Yes, thank you.
Speaker 3: So anyway, back then I was doing commercials too, like
Speaker 3: they used to do on the Today Show with the
Speaker 3: David Garrison was that his name, early early days where
Speaker 3: they stopped the show and then they do a dog
Speaker 3: commercial or really I don't remember that. Yeah, the early
Speaker 3: days of the Today Show were like that. So they
Speaker 3: were still doing that. So I had to do a
Speaker 3: basset hound a commercial with a basset hound at four
Speaker 3: in the morning, right, And it was for Alpo. So
Speaker 3: I came in, got my hair and makeup. Yes, it's
Speaker 3: a very glamorous business.
Speaker 2: You're a tireless per.
Speaker 3: It was four o'clock and I already had full hair
Speaker 3: and makeup and I'm ready to shoot with a Mellie
Speaker 3: Bassett hound and do an Apple commercial. So I'm walking
Speaker 3: down along very lonely stairwell, not a stairwell, but at
Speaker 3: hall because nobody's there hardly, right, And I look over
Speaker 3: to the left of me, and there's the greatest set
Speaker 3: of buns I have ever seen in my life, leaning
Speaker 3: over a sink, obviously putting in contact lenses. I have
Speaker 3: no idea who the buns belonged to, but they got
Speaker 3: my attention.
Speaker 1: So you're saying to me that it was Frank Gifford's
Speaker 1: ass was the first thing that you went this is
Speaker 1: very interesting.
Speaker 3: To It was beautiful. I am a beauty lover, you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, I can appreciate. Can I tell you the
Speaker 3: last day of his life? The man said the same ass.
Speaker 3: It's unbelievable. Wow, that's why he was one of the
Speaker 3: great tight ends of all time.
Speaker 1: Okay, So frankly contact lenses in with his great ass,
Speaker 1: and what happens?
Speaker 2: You're like, hey, sailor, got a cigarette for a girl?
Speaker 3: No, No, I just immediately said what comes to my mind,
Speaker 3: usually without any filter at all, and I said, have
Speaker 3: I got an operation for you? Because I had just
Speaker 3: had an operation called radial caratotomy, which was a precursor
Speaker 3: to lasik.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's when they cut the surface of your cornea
Speaker 3: with a razor blade.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I got that done, yes, before it was lasik.
Speaker 3: No, only a thousand people in all of America had
Speaker 3: it done at that time, right, But I knew six
Speaker 3: of them, and they had perfect eyesight, and went, I'm
Speaker 3: doing that. So I just had that operation and I
Speaker 3: went from twenty four hundred in each eye. I was
Speaker 3: I was legally blind, So I got it, and I
Speaker 3: went to twenty twenty in both eyes. It was just
Speaker 3: and so I said, have I got an operation for you?
Speaker 3: And from the face that's in the sink, I hear yeah,
Speaker 3: with a fool on either end, an operation with a
Speaker 3: fool on either end. And I went, well, well, well
Speaker 3: aren't we see this earlier?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I didn't recognize the voice at first, and he had
Speaker 3: such an iconic.
Speaker 2: Voice as well, from the wide white world.
Speaker 3: Yes, and from well wide white world sports at that
Speaker 3: time and Monday night football.
Speaker 2: It was very big. Oh yeah, still pretty I think
Speaker 2: he's still pretty big. He was. He was on it
Speaker 2: for third twenty eight years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he had two unbelievable careers in football and then
Speaker 3: in broadcasting.
Speaker 1: He was.
Speaker 3: He blazed a trail for everything. He's got an amazing
Speaker 3: book called The Glory Game, and he wrote quite a
Speaker 3: few books about his start in the you know when
Speaker 3: he used dog food and his father was an itinerant oil,
Speaker 3: and how grateful he was for everything in.
Speaker 2: Football, basically football at the time.
Speaker 3: My family was I had a father and a brother
Speaker 3: who were big Baltimore, Baltimore Colts fans because I grew
Speaker 3: up in Annapolis, Maryland, and we hated the Giants, so
Speaker 3: they did. I didn't hate them, but they were then
Speaker 3: that game, that Glory Game, that the nineteen fifty eight
Speaker 3: I think championship game was between the Baltimore Colts and
Speaker 3: the New York Giants. Right, So I was aware of football,
Speaker 3: of course, but I was I've never been a maniac
Speaker 3: about it, right, And I like sports, but I don't
Speaker 3: live for them, all right, so you know who Frank
Speaker 3: has because everybody in the whole world knew who Frank
Speaker 3: Gifford was. And I'd heard scuttle butt around the studio
Speaker 3: that he was, you know, in a very unhappy marriage
Speaker 3: and everybody adored him. But she was, you know, not
Speaker 3: a very nice lady. And why in the world did
Speaker 3: he marry her a kind of thing. And it was
Speaker 3: his second wife, and you know, there's who's already had
Speaker 3: children and everything. He's twenty three years older than me, right,
Speaker 3: so and so there was there was Later I started
Speaker 3: working as host whenever John London wasn't there, and he
Speaker 3: would be there whenever David Hartman wasn't there. So we
Speaker 3: started to work actually together a little bit on the
Speaker 3: days when nobody else wanted to be there. Nobody was
Speaker 3: watching at home, so we were the b team and
Speaker 3: we just became friends. And he you know, you were
Speaker 3: friends first, oh, for four years, really four years we
Speaker 3: were friends. His marriage eventually was on the rocks, and
Speaker 3: he was in the process of divorce to his second wife,
Speaker 3: and and and he just he was like my champion.
Speaker 3: He would call the producers and say I'm watching the show.
Speaker 3: Why is Kathy's seat down so low? Why change?
Speaker 2: I know? Joan?
Speaker 3: Joan was taller than I was, and so her seat
Speaker 3: was set at a perfect at a certain and I'd
Speaker 3: sit down next to David Hartman, I'd look like a muppet,
Speaker 3: you know. And so he cared about things like that.
Speaker 2: Right, it sounds patty, but actually matters in that world.
Speaker 3: Oh it does. It's it's it's perception. What is that
Speaker 3: little person? It takes your your mind off what you
Speaker 3: should You should be listening to what somebody's saying, you know.
Speaker 3: And so we just started having lunch together, started having
Speaker 3: dinner together. Every time there was something that happened in
Speaker 3: his life that was really traumatic, he would call me
Speaker 3: and he'd said, Kath, can I take you to lunch?
Speaker 3: Can I will you go to dinner with me? My
Speaker 3: brother's dying of you know whatever.
Speaker 2: This just happened.
Speaker 3: I just saved a guy's life on a private plane
Speaker 3: and was going down and the pilot had had a
Speaker 3: heart attack. Tell me, yeah, well he back then he
Speaker 3: was private planes all the time. He was working for
Speaker 3: an Abisco and NBC ABC, and so they flew privately
Speaker 3: lots of places to games and things like that. One
Speaker 3: day he was on the Nabisco plane I believe it was.
Speaker 3: And it was just a you know, a small jet
Speaker 3: with maybe seat six people and had a pilot and
Speaker 3: a co pilot right and all of a sudden it
Speaker 3: was going along and all of a sudden co pilot
Speaker 3: comes back. They felt a jerk co pilot because Frank, Frank, hurry,
Speaker 3: come up, come in front, helped me out, helped me out.
Speaker 3: Frank just got out of his seat. It's a coach,
Speaker 3: put me in. He goes up there and the very
Speaker 3: very overweight captain had had a massive heart attack and
Speaker 3: his girth was on all the all the He's leaning
Speaker 3: on the leaning on everything, leaning on everything. And so
Speaker 3: Frank frantically tries to get the man back off the
Speaker 3: controls and save his life if he can. Right back then,
Speaker 3: back then we thought that that could help with you
Speaker 3: do the mouth's mouth and no, then it's really just
Speaker 3: the compression. Apparently they don't do that anymore. I don't
Speaker 3: know why. That's if you're choking, But I don't know.
Speaker 3: I'm not a doctor. Don't believe anything I say.
Speaker 2: I'm not expecting you to the people. I'm talking to
Speaker 2: the listeners at all. I know you don't believe anything.
Speaker 1: I believe a lot of things you said, but I
Speaker 1: don't take medical advice from you. It's okay you drink
Speaker 1: waning with ice cubes and a straw.
Speaker 2: It's not there, believe you.
Speaker 3: So that straw, by the way, So I don't leave
Speaker 3: lip marks like I did before on the on the beautiful.
Speaker 1: I've told you before. You do not need to get
Speaker 1: defensive about it. It's I think it's totally fine.
Speaker 2: So listen.
Speaker 3: So it happened the plane and his mouth was bloodied
Speaker 3: from trying to save this man's life. That's the man
Speaker 3: that comes home traumatized and calls me and goes, Kathy,
Speaker 3: can we can?
Speaker 2: But I need to know that the pilot he died.
Speaker 1: He died, he died, And so the co pilot lands
Speaker 1: a plane with this dead guy next to him.
Speaker 3: And then and the two days later, Frank speaks at
Speaker 3: his funeral and he called you.
Speaker 2: When he landed.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I guess that's there's your answer.
Speaker 3: I was his best friend, Yeah, his best female friend.
Speaker 3: He had a lot of real good you know.
Speaker 2: I can imagine Frank get her that good mail buddies.
Speaker 3: Oh he had great good mailk brud, but he had
Speaker 3: everybody loved Frank. Frank didn't love everybody else. He could
Speaker 3: not tolerate assholes. Pardon my French, but that was his
Speaker 3: word for it. Yeah, he knew that his days were
Speaker 3: coming to an end at a certain point. And he goes, Kath,
Speaker 3: I don't want a funeral. I don't want to be
Speaker 3: in a box. I want to be cremated. I said,
Speaker 3: they're still in a box. He goes, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I just don't like him kind of rotting in a
Speaker 3: box me either. I want to be cremated too, because
Speaker 3: I'm not going to be there.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to I want to be in a
Speaker 2: Viking loan ship. Yeah, sand out to sea and then
Speaker 2: say it on fire.
Speaker 3: That's a lot sexier than just so you do eventually
Speaker 3: want to be cremated.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but in a Viking long ship with arrows fired
Speaker 1: by my sons.
Speaker 2: Is that what they used to do?
Speaker 1: That was so my sons are on the shore and
Speaker 1: they've got flaming arrows, and I get pushed out to
Speaker 1: the sea and then the fire, the fire. I'm on
Speaker 1: this thing on the Viking long ship, and the flaming
Speaker 1: arrows hit the hit the boat and then I, you know,
Speaker 1: I burn up and go into the ether and the
Speaker 1: boat goes there.
Speaker 3: Not probably good for the environment, but the sexiest hell
Speaker 3: bye bye.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes you just gotta carbon footprint your way
Speaker 1: out of here.
Speaker 2: So can I give your eulogy? Yeah? Yeah, he was
Speaker 2: the greatest of us.
Speaker 3: I would talk about the time my thood dropped.
Speaker 2: Say that word. That is such a naughty word to me.
Speaker 3: We're not in Scotland to play in Scotland, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't think they love me very much over there.
Speaker 3: But then they're foolish. Oh god, I'll go over and
Speaker 3: I'll I'll I tell them what to say and what
Speaker 3: to think.
Speaker 1: This is an official invitation to the Fancy Vascal stand
Speaker 1: up Show. I Craig Ferguson will be performing this fall
Speaker 1: in your region. You can buy tickets and check out
Speaker 1: the full list of dates at the Craig Ferguson show
Speaker 1: dot com slash sure see you.
Speaker 2: There or not.
Speaker 1: We're talking about you and Frank. So you and Frank
Speaker 1: are friends for four years. So when did you realize
Speaker 1: you're falling in love with him?
Speaker 3: Then you know what it was around June. It was
Speaker 3: before the US Open maybe end of May, and I
Speaker 3: had broken up with this guy I'd been going with
Speaker 3: for a couple of years. Frank couldn't stand him because
Speaker 3: Frank said, Kathy, that guy's not.
Speaker 2: In love with you.
Speaker 3: He's in love with him, so he's working the room.
Speaker 2: He's not he's not in love with you.
Speaker 3: And he said, please tell me you're not going to
Speaker 3: marry this guy, Like, well, I might, you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: come on, you don't.
Speaker 2: I don't tell you who to marry. And he was.
Speaker 2: He was by then. His divorce was like almost final.
Speaker 2: I love that. This is all the makings of like
Speaker 2: Nora Efron comedy. And it was amazing.
Speaker 3: And the life we had together was because our worlds
Speaker 3: collided and yet meshed perfectly. He was sports, he was politics.
Speaker 3: His daughter was married to Kennedy.
Speaker 2: He knew all of them.
Speaker 3: He knew that am G and Conna, he knew everybody.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's not really politics, Kathy, that's no what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: The other world.
Speaker 3: It was a mafia. It was politics, it was it
Speaker 3: was everything.
Speaker 2: Because that's scary.
Speaker 3: No, his daughter was married to Bobby and Ethel's son
Speaker 3: Michael who died tragically in that aspens Ski accident. So
Speaker 3: I mean, that's a whole other discussion for it. Is
Speaker 3: there more wine?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're going to talk about the Kennedy's. We're going
Speaker 2: to need a couple of bottles.
Speaker 3: Anyway.
Speaker 1: So, right, the joy of your marriage to Frank, because
Speaker 1: that's really what I'm going to zero and then on
Speaker 1: because I.
Speaker 3: Wanted to know when I knew.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: What happened is that I broke up with this guy
Speaker 3: and he says, you know what, you I'm sick of this.
Speaker 3: So this is the eleventh time or ninth time or something.
Speaker 3: He said, You're going to hang out with me until
Speaker 3: you're over this guy, Kathy, because you keep going back
Speaker 3: to him and it's bad news and it's just a
Speaker 3: bad habit. I'm going to help you break a bad habit.
Speaker 2: It supposed to be like Frank you then.
Speaker 3: Well, Frank was had been in love with me, home
Speaker 3: me for a long time. Yeah, but he because literally
Speaker 3: we're twenty three years apart by the same birthday.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, August sixteenth, right, Yes, because my wife's
Speaker 1: birthday too.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right.
Speaker 2: A Madonna Yep. And Hitler too is Hitler? No, Okay,
Speaker 2: I just threw that in.
Speaker 3: Mangola.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay. So so anyway he did.
Speaker 3: He started taking We were just we were already friends,
Speaker 3: and we were every time there was a party or
Speaker 3: there was something that we were invited to as in
Speaker 3: the company, and he'd take me. One day, they were
Speaker 3: having a big, big party for the guy out in
Speaker 3: Los Angeles I forget his last name, big, big, big billionaire,
Speaker 3: and it was a party we were all invited to.
Speaker 3: And we were on the phone and I.
Speaker 2: Said, are we going to go? Can? Are you going
Speaker 2: to take me?
Speaker 3: He says, no, I'm gonna I'm going to be out.
Speaker 3: I've got got to be in Florida, got to be
Speaker 3: in Santa Fe. Well that's where he was seeing two
Speaker 3: different women at the time. Yeah, not that he was.
Speaker 3: It was just that's was his world. Don Meredith lived
Speaker 3: in Santa Fe and he was went out to see him,
Speaker 3: and then there was and that It doesn't matter. The
Speaker 3: point is I said, okay, well then I'm going to
Speaker 3: go with somebody, somebody tall, dark and handsome. Then okay,
Speaker 3: call me when you get home.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: About fifteen minutes later, the phone rings, he goes, I'm
Speaker 3: going to take it to the party, and I said,
Speaker 3: oh great, because there was literally I'd never let myself
Speaker 3: my mind go there, because first of all, I didn't
Speaker 3: know that he loved me, and he was always such
Speaker 3: a gentleman. It was never oh that's not true. One time, okay,
Speaker 3: one time after we had a he called me because
Speaker 3: something horrendous had happened to his life. We went to
Speaker 3: a place called Santa Fe in New York. It was
Speaker 3: not near where we lived. It's a Mexican restaurant, and
Speaker 3: we had a lot of Margarita's and chips, and it
Speaker 3: was just, you know, he just was telling me everything
Speaker 3: and was just in a dry He walks me back
Speaker 3: to my brownstone, now I remember, and at my door,
Speaker 3: like a gentleman, he gives me a kiss. Well, I swooned.
Speaker 3: I had that it was that great of a kiss,
Speaker 3: and I later threw up. So I don't really know.
Speaker 1: This is Margharita's. You're kissing the love of your life,
Speaker 1: the love.
Speaker 3: Of my life. But that was a year later that
Speaker 3: we started to see each other. That was just one
Speaker 3: of those things that happened, and we laughed about it everywhere.
Speaker 1: Oh, really so like you made a kind of a
Speaker 1: little bit that kiss, a good night, friendly smooch that
Speaker 1: went away, a rogue kiss. Listen, God, I love you,
Speaker 1: but I don't think this will stand up in core.
Speaker 1: I think you made with no I swear.
Speaker 3: Are you sure I made up for this?
Speaker 2: Trust me? But no.
Speaker 3: It was one kiss, one kiss at the door and
Speaker 3: I and I literally it took my breath away and
Speaker 3: I got in my door, and maybe an hour or
Speaker 3: so later I did because I didn't eat. I just
Speaker 3: was drinking Margarita's. And I've only thrown up three times
Speaker 3: in my life that I can remember. That was one
Speaker 3: of them. That's why I'm remember this now.
Speaker 2: I feel like I have to ask what the other two?
Speaker 2: I don't know. Why do you want to talk about it?
Speaker 2: I can't even remember the other two.
Speaker 3: But it's not I'm not one of those people that
Speaker 3: has a bad stomach, right, you know. And I don't
Speaker 3: get migrains or stuff like that. I just don't any who,
Speaker 3: it's not me, Thank you Jesus. Anyway, stop it. You're
Speaker 3: throwing me off.
Speaker 2: Sorry, I'm so frank.
Speaker 3: That night at the party, right he shows up at
Speaker 3: my sing alleged Brownstone, aforementioned Dstone. And he gives me
Speaker 3: this box and I go, what's that? And I open
Speaker 3: it up and it's this watch.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, that's fancy.
Speaker 3: It's a rolexe for people who can't see it is
Speaker 3: And as you can see, it's a very a unique
Speaker 3: one because that has a brown face, right, you know,
Speaker 3: usually they're they're not that color right. And I looked
Speaker 3: at him.
Speaker 2: I don't know much about your fancy watches.
Speaker 3: No me either, And I said, why here are you
Speaker 3: giving me this is I think it was seven thousand
Speaker 3: dollars at the time. And the man who's been my
Speaker 3: friend for four years and there's nothing between us except
Speaker 3: we're going to a party. I said why and he goes,
Speaker 3: because it's the color of your eyes.
Speaker 2: Wow. Okay, so that's it. Then from there on.
Speaker 3: You know what. That night I was just I couldn't
Speaker 3: wear it because it was so big on me. I've
Speaker 3: got the I've got the scrawniest.
Speaker 1: Little you know I got to be to take a
Speaker 1: look at mine. I have the you have small. I
Speaker 1: have girlish wrists too. It's the curse of the Ferguson man.
Speaker 1: That's why we were never I heard further south. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: that you're getting all wrong. It's made up for further suck.
Speaker 1: That's why all all the grizzle and blood is out
Speaker 1: of the the veins around the wrist and it goes elsewhere.
Speaker 1: This is very rude and it's not at all what
Speaker 1: I was looking for, is what I was hoping for.
Speaker 3: So so that night we we we slow danced at
Speaker 3: this party and it was like a real real slow dance, right,
Speaker 3: you know, And I was I've never been that so
Speaker 3: close to him, like really in his arms and looking
Speaker 3: into his eyes and I but still it wasn't I
Speaker 3: was an love. I was just thinking, what is this,
Speaker 3: what's going on? And he's still kept coming taking me out,
Speaker 3: and so I wouldn't go back to the other guy
Speaker 3: and all of that. And then one night I had
Speaker 3: just bought a little place in the Hamptons and he
Speaker 3: used to come out every weekend to visit his his
Speaker 3: attorney had a home out there, and he'd just stay
Speaker 3: there and just go to all the parties. It was
Speaker 3: during the US Open, I remember that, and he said,
Speaker 3: let's let me you drop me off. He used to
Speaker 3: pick to drive up to the studio a West sixty
Speaker 3: seventh Street, ABC, where I'd finish the show with Regis
Speaker 3: and he'd have this burgundy Jaguar and he'd be waiting
Speaker 3: for me. I'd get in the burgundy Jaguar and he'd
Speaker 3: drive me to the Hampton's. We'd have lunch at my
Speaker 3: little house in the woods, and he'd go to the
Speaker 3: attorney's house and then whatever parties, whatever was going on,
Speaker 3: he would come and pick me up when we go,
Speaker 3: and it was just lovely because I wasn't going to
Speaker 3: go all these places, and he knows everybody. You can
Speaker 3: imagine the whole golf world, it's right, right, I mean,
Speaker 3: it's hard for anybody to understand.
Speaker 2: What he was.
Speaker 3: He would be huge the rad pit today, or he
Speaker 3: would be Kevin Coustner today, or who's Tom Brady?
Speaker 2: Okay, because yeah, right, right right. So you were as Joselle.
Speaker 3: Then hardly no, but I was. I was starting to
Speaker 3: become very by that time.
Speaker 2: Was pretty no.
Speaker 3: I was just started with Regis in ninety five.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, eighty.
Speaker 3: Five, you've been doing for eighty five, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: So anyway, long story short.
Speaker 2: Just ten years off.
Speaker 3: I get now, I get, I just I can remember
Speaker 3: everything with my children what year it was and what
Speaker 3: you know. But with my own life, I just have
Speaker 3: to go Now where was I?
Speaker 2: Who was I with?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: So that night there's a big party in Southampton and
Speaker 3: he picks me up and and as usual, and we
Speaker 3: get to the door and it's full of people, and
Speaker 3: he goes, listen, there's a few people I need to
Speaker 3: say hello to and I'll.
Speaker 2: Be right back.
Speaker 3: I said, okay, we're not dating, we're not going, you know.
Speaker 3: And five minutes later he's back and he stands there.
Speaker 3: He goes, Okay, now I've done I've done my duty
Speaker 3: and now.
Speaker 2: I've come home.
Speaker 3: Oh, and I went what So a little bit later,
Speaker 3: they had something that was a precursor This is how
Speaker 3: long ago. This was a precursor to karaoke, with something
Speaker 3: called the music box.
Speaker 1: Okay, and so a guy comes around with an orchestra.
Speaker 3: No, it's a little machine that is like a cassette
Speaker 3: player and it'll play a song for you and you
Speaker 3: get to sing to the song.
Speaker 2: It's an orchestration. I can begin to see where you
Speaker 2: fit in here.
Speaker 3: This is a funny this I have actually in my
Speaker 3: safe at home in Connecticut. Still the moment I knew,
Speaker 3: and it was yes, And because it would record you
Speaker 3: singing the song together, so you would have it for infamy,
Speaker 3: right right, Yeah. So we sang a couple of songs,
Speaker 3: and the song that we kept doing over and over
Speaker 3: and over again was you don't bring me flowers, you
Speaker 3: don't sing me love songs. And I've been a singer
Speaker 3: all my life, so I sang it better even that.
Speaker 3: But Frank, I'd never met it anybody in my life
Speaker 3: who could sing in tune but not in rhythm. So
Speaker 3: I'd sing you don't fine love songs. He'd goes you
Speaker 3: hard to talk to me and louren to come to
Speaker 3: the door at the end of the day. And I
Speaker 3: thought it was a joke. I said, what what is that?
Speaker 3: He goes that's I said, can we try this again?
Speaker 3: And I go, you don't.
Speaker 2: You hard to talk to me? And Moore, you come
Speaker 2: to the door at the end of the day.
Speaker 3: If you could hear this, Craig, I will play it
Speaker 3: for you one time when you come to my house
Speaker 3: in Connecticut. I fell off the sofa, laughing my ass off.
Speaker 3: That's the best he could do. They really could not
Speaker 3: do it.
Speaker 2: He can't do him. I remember laughing so.
Speaker 3: Hard and falling off and laughing and looking up at
Speaker 3: him and he's pulling me up, and I remember thinking,
Speaker 3: I never want to have one day of my life
Speaker 3: when that man's not in it with me.
Speaker 2: That's great. And that was it.
Speaker 3: We were together from that moment on until I found him,
Speaker 3: you know, with a smile on his face, like we
Speaker 3: talked about the first time we were talking on your podcast.
Speaker 3: You know, I found him gone to a better.
Speaker 2: Place, and you truly and you you believe that. I
Speaker 2: don't believe it, I know it. That's great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let me talk to about another man in your
Speaker 1: life that I did know. I didn't know Frank sadly,
Speaker 1: but I did know Regius very well.
Speaker 2: Uh huh. And he was to me, well how.
Speaker 1: He was to me, we'll talk about it in a bit,
Speaker 1: but how he was to you because he was a
Speaker 1: remarkable talent.
Speaker 2: Regis, wasn't he.
Speaker 3: I've never known you come closest, You come closest to
Speaker 3: every man that that except you. I love him dearly,
Speaker 3: But he was he was not this. It wasn't my type, Regis. No,
Speaker 3: well no, it was definitely chemistry there, but it.
Speaker 2: Was, Yes, it was. We laughed about it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it wasn't like somebody I lust it after, like
Speaker 3: you you know, let's be honest, me and the rest
Speaker 3: of the world. But I know my place, Magan. But anyway,
Speaker 3: I don't know what you're doing with that. He knows
Speaker 3: it's playtime. So anyway, I was a huge fan of
Speaker 3: his before I met.
Speaker 1: Him, right, So yeah, it's an interesting thing, readers, because
Speaker 1: he was different to the way he was on TV.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm thinking about.
Speaker 3: Oh see, I knew him from being living out in
Speaker 3: Los Angeles and watching him on AM Los Angeles, right,
Speaker 3: And I used to I use every time I turn as,
Speaker 3: I love that guy. He's he's a goofball, but he's
Speaker 3: really sharp and anything he could tell, and he he
Speaker 3: was willing to be a fool to get the laugh.
Speaker 3: And so when I went to Good Morning America a
Speaker 3: few years later, Regis had left the LA and was
Speaker 3: living in New York by this time doing something called
Speaker 3: The Morning Show. And I was not happy at Good
Speaker 3: Morning America. It was way too scripted, it was way
Speaker 3: too corporate. It was not a place for someone like myself.
Speaker 2: Who I'm familiar with that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: Yes, you know, I just couldn't play the corporate game.
Speaker 3: I couldn't be told what to say and and how
Speaker 3: to say it.
Speaker 2: I mean I was.
Speaker 3: I was already an a polished entertainer from fifteen years
Speaker 3: as a singer and an actress before I went to
Speaker 3: New York. And so you know, to tell me now, yeah,
Speaker 3: maybe tell me help me.
Speaker 2: Read a que card.
Speaker 3: No, not a cute card, but yeah, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was the car I remember when I started
Speaker 2: in Late Night. He used to give him the rot
Speaker 2: me to.
Speaker 3: Commercials and all that inner stuff. You got it, you
Speaker 3: got to. But you learn that if you're smart in
Speaker 3: five minutes. I'm sorry, you just do. But it's the
Speaker 3: essence of who you are when you're on the air
Speaker 3: and what you bring to it. And it's such a
Speaker 3: such an interesting medium because it's there'd never been anything
Speaker 3: like it before there was television, the movies were bigger
Speaker 3: in life, and and all of a sudden, there's an
Speaker 3: intimacy about television and everything else. Nobody talked to the
Speaker 3: camera and talk to the people at home and connected
Speaker 3: with them as well as Regis did, and tell a story.
Speaker 3: And he could go back and forth from the person
Speaker 3: he's supposedly telling the story, but then he'd make it
Speaker 3: a fourth wall thing and he'd break the fourth wall
Speaker 3: and say, you know, I'm you could believe this story.
Speaker 3: And I he was brilliant, brilliant at it. And I
Speaker 3: remember thinking, oh my gosh, that guy has so much fun.
Speaker 3: I wasn't having any fun in Good Morning America.
Speaker 2: I was. I dreaded it? Were you? Was that in
Speaker 2: La Good Morning in America?
Speaker 3: No, that was New York. That's where I met Frank.
Speaker 3: When I moved to New York to do Good Morning America,
Speaker 3: That's when I met the Buns. Yes, yes, the famous buns.
Speaker 3: So anyway, yeah, so his her name was Anne Abernathy,
Speaker 3: I'm remembering now. She was his co host and she
Speaker 3: was leaving to get married, and she was leaving the show,
Speaker 3: and I called up my agent and I said, I
Speaker 3: want to try out for that show with Regis.
Speaker 2: And he goes, but.
Speaker 3: It's it's a it's a why He said, it's it's
Speaker 3: a local show, And I said, because it has fun
Speaker 3: every time, and I respect. I think if I could
Speaker 3: just be with him, I would love my life again.
Speaker 3: I don't care about being an international show I'd already
Speaker 3: done name that tune, I'd already done a sitcom. You know,
Speaker 3: I just wanted my personal life was always very important
Speaker 3: to me.
Speaker 2: I feel it was more important than my career. Yeah, life,
Speaker 2: right then, Your career is just it's final.
Speaker 3: Take care of it, exactly, exactly. So I my everybody
Speaker 3: said no, no, no, no, no, one day you'll love
Speaker 3: this story. I was sitting at La Cirque, Remember that
Speaker 3: restaurant in New York. Yeah, fancy, fancy schmancy. And so
Speaker 3: there's Barbara Walters and it's in the newspapers now because
Speaker 3: I did a couple of tryouts on it, and there
Speaker 3: was a lot of a lot of inner inner business
Speaker 3: biz buzz about me maybe becoming the new.
Speaker 2: Coast of that.
Speaker 3: Well with Barbara no view, it would be me and
Speaker 3: me just on the on the on the morning show.
Speaker 3: I was going to leave the national show for the
Speaker 3: local one, which is not the way most people, you know,
Speaker 3: think is a step up. So I was sitting in
Speaker 3: La Cirque and I get this, this is the finger
Speaker 3: the finger, well it's not the middle one, but it's
Speaker 3: the index fingers gum hither more than a come hither.
Speaker 3: It was a get over by one and only Barbara Walters.
Speaker 3: So I we all obeyed the queen at that time,
Speaker 3: and so I walk over to her, and she's been
Speaker 3: very nice to me, very very respectful. It's just Kathy,
Speaker 3: what is this I'm hearing about you joining Regis on
Speaker 3: the Morning Show? And I said, I don't know, Barbara,
Speaker 3: everybody's telling me I shouldn't because it's a local show.
Speaker 3: And she looked at me, and this truly made a
Speaker 3: difference in my life. She looked at me and she said, sweetheart,
Speaker 3: Toledo is local.
Speaker 2: This is New York.
Speaker 3: Ye. She said, you join Regis and the magic of
Speaker 3: the two of you together, if it works, you will
Speaker 3: not be a local show long.
Speaker 1: That's amazingly. Yeah, she's a woman, a great vision. She
Speaker 1: was even then. I mean, like, right at the beginning.
Speaker 2: Of her career, is she or are there mentors for you?
Speaker 3: That?
Speaker 2: Was she one of them?
Speaker 3: Or not?
Speaker 2: Really?
Speaker 3: I didn't have a mentor. I had examples of what
Speaker 3: I wanted to be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say, because you're not someone who,
Speaker 1: with the exception of Jesus, I don't see you following
Speaker 1: people that much.
Speaker 2: It's not kind of in you.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, it isn't.
Speaker 3: I've had people that have impressed me so much with
Speaker 3: the where they live their life and and there and
Speaker 3: other people their artistry. That's the kind of stuff that's
Speaker 3: always impacted me. I mean, I heard Barbara Streisand saying
Speaker 3: the first time, and I was gone. I said, that's
Speaker 3: what I want to do. I want I'll never have
Speaker 3: a voice like hers, but I want to I want
Speaker 3: to impact people the way she just did.
Speaker 2: So Regius.
Speaker 1: When I started in Late Night, there were three guys
Speaker 1: that I.
Speaker 2: Wanted to study. One was light, one was Howard Stern.
Speaker 1: We talk about because Howard can talk to anyone, it's
Speaker 1: just unbelievable.
Speaker 2: And the other one was Regis. Yes.
Speaker 1: Now, Regis was friends with Peter Lesally, who was the
Speaker 1: man who gave me the.
Speaker 3: Job from the Today Show, from the Tonight Show.
Speaker 1: Tonight Show like Johnny Carson's producer and Regis Uh. I said,
Speaker 1: do you think I could have lunch with Regis? And
Speaker 1: peterre said yeah, but you'll have to pay.
Speaker 3: Through the nose. Did he add through the news?
Speaker 2: I had no idea.
Speaker 3: Did he say for all time? Because that's exactly right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just because regis as generous as a human being
Speaker 1: as he was, and he was, Yes, he had give
Speaker 1: you everything.
Speaker 2: By he really hated to pack up the check.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you.
Speaker 2: You know why.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you why. He had an Italian mother, yeah,
Speaker 3: and an Irish father. And his mother used to say
Speaker 3: to him, Listen, mister spotting like a nine candidate to
Speaker 3: do Italian. Listen, mister spar smart pants, that poor house
Speaker 3: is right around the corner. Now, don't write into me
Speaker 3: about my lousy Italian. Yeah, but she had a very
Speaker 3: thick Italian. Listen, mister smarty pants, that the poor house
Speaker 3: is right around the corner. And Richard, not Richard, that's
Speaker 3: another person in my life. And Regius Richard doesn't like
Speaker 3: it when I call him Regis.
Speaker 2: I don't think any man in your life would like
Speaker 2: to be called He just laughs.
Speaker 3: I said, old habits hard, right, and anyway, so he, uh,
Speaker 3: Regis was if somebody else was going to pick it up,
Speaker 3: he'd be happy to have you do it. I think
Speaker 3: he picked up the check maybe three times in the
Speaker 3: thirty years we were friends.
Speaker 2: I you know what, Frank wouldn't let anybody pick up them, right, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I kind of gah a bit like
Speaker 1: that as well. I mean, I'll put myself in the
Speaker 1: poor house picking up the check exactly. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: I think that. You know, it's the funny thing about
Speaker 1: when you mentioned it. But the private plane thing. Yeah, right.
Speaker 1: The first time I went on a private plane was
Speaker 1: coming back I had just done Letterman and his lawyer
Speaker 1: Fred and I grew up, was going, uh Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: and he said, we're taking a company plane. You didn't
Speaker 1: come with us because I was working for how many
Speaker 1: So I get on this private plane.
Speaker 2: There's nothing like it. I'm sorry, fantastic. I mean, I
Speaker 2: know it's bad for the environment, but boy.
Speaker 3: Tell that to Leonardo DiCaprio and John Kerry. Yeah, but
Speaker 3: bump drop the mic. Go ahead, so I said to Regis.
Speaker 1: A couple of months later, Regis was in in Los
Speaker 1: Angeles and he was doing my late night show and
Speaker 1: I said to him during the commercial.
Speaker 2: Break, he was like, I'm so tired. I got to
Speaker 2: get on the plane. I got to go to lax
Speaker 2: and get on the plane. I was like, reageous. You
Speaker 2: got money. I didn't know at the time.
Speaker 1: Regis like, just you got money, where are we gonna wait?
Speaker 2: You rent a plane? Just ren a god. Then it
Speaker 2: really was expensive and not like it is now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's always been expensive, but it was like,
Speaker 1: but we just said money. I said, we just you
Speaker 1: could get a plane. You could probably do that. And
Speaker 1: he said, first of all, the colored dreamed from his boy,
Speaker 1: the idea I was spending amount of money. And then
Speaker 1: and then he said, he said, but how is everyone going.
Speaker 2: To get to see Regis christ?
Speaker 1: Right? He loved people and he would walk through the
Speaker 1: airport and everyone would say Hi, Regious.
Speaker 2: He loved it. He lived for it.
Speaker 3: And I really do think he died from a broken heart.
Speaker 2: Oh really was this show? Yes?
Speaker 3: Because I saw him two weeks before he died. He
Speaker 3: came to my house for lunch. By that time, he
Speaker 3: enjoyed had moved to California. I still had my home.
Speaker 3: We'd we'd been neighbors in Greenwich for quite a few years,
Speaker 3: so we'd played tennis all the time together. We'd play,
Speaker 3: have lunch, you know, and go out to all our
Speaker 3: favorite restaurants here and Regius, even if you thought you
Speaker 3: were going to have a quiet little lunch with him
Speaker 3: or dinner or something like that, he'd walk in and
Speaker 3: he go, that's right, Regius is here. I'd say, look
Speaker 3: and look who I want. The woman can't live without me,
Speaker 3: And then he dragged me to every table with him too.
Speaker 3: I always ate something before I went to lunch or
Speaker 3: dinner with Regis because I knew that I would by
Speaker 3: the time we'd sit down and I could order something,
Speaker 3: I would be, you know, starved.
Speaker 1: Right, because he's done twenty five minutes, half an hour
Speaker 1: with every table, every table.
Speaker 3: And that's that's what was his magic. That's why he
Speaker 3: was beloved. That there are people that that respect you,
Speaker 3: that that he was beloved because that was truly truly him,
Speaker 3: and some people, I guess found that obnoxious. Nobody I
Speaker 3: ever met did. So anyway, he comes to my house
Speaker 3: two weeks before he passes, and I knew when I
Speaker 3: saw him I have a courtyard there. And when I
Speaker 3: saw him get out of they're bringing a wedding present
Speaker 3: to cast. So it's like two and a half years ago,
Speaker 3: and the minute he got out of the car, I said, oh,
Speaker 3: this is.
Speaker 2: Gonna be the last time I see it.
Speaker 3: Really, I knew I hadn't seen him since he'd given
Speaker 3: me an award after something.
Speaker 2: I remember that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, his hair and white This was in August, and
Speaker 3: he'd given me award in January at in Los Angeles,
Speaker 3: and he had he was supposed to call me up
Speaker 3: to get my award. I'll never this is when I
Speaker 3: knew that things were not going well. We left about
Speaker 3: it for the longest time, but he said, and so
Speaker 3: let's just bring her up now. And I could tell
Speaker 3: he was searching.
Speaker 2: Here she is.
Speaker 3: Kathy Lee Griffin, okay, And I stood up and just went,
Speaker 3: it's Gifford And it was hysterically funny and it was
Speaker 3: vintage US, you know. But that was the next time
Speaker 3: I'd seen it was almost eight months later because we
Speaker 3: lived part So he came in and we just picked
Speaker 3: up right where like you and I, Yeah, we just
Speaker 3: pick up right where we are.
Speaker 2: Then it's still gone.
Speaker 3: And if you needed me, you know, I would get
Speaker 3: on a plane to start it in a second.
Speaker 2: I just don't.
Speaker 3: Those are the greatest those You're not required to do anything.
Speaker 3: Just love me, be there if I really need you.
Speaker 3: That's it. So anyway, he's got to the point that
Speaker 3: night everything was like right right, Joy, when was it?
Speaker 2: When was it?
Speaker 3: And we started laughing about some stuff and and then
Speaker 3: Joy says Regis, Tell Kathy, Tell Kathy what you said
Speaker 3: to me this morning? What I say, Joy? And he goes,
Speaker 3: you know, you know about because I said to Regis,
Speaker 3: you still got the greatest head of hair. I a
Speaker 3: would say that to you too. I just admire men
Speaker 3: with hair. You can be bald and I can still
Speaker 3: like you, but I love a good head of hair.
Speaker 2: I'll take it.
Speaker 3: Yes, So I said, we just.
Speaker 2: Still look at you. Your hair is beautiful.
Speaker 3: He goes, it is. He just lit up, and she goes,
Speaker 3: tell her what you just said this morning? He'd said
Speaker 3: to her that morning, Joy, we're going over to South
Speaker 3: this morning, right, we're gonna we're gonna see Kath. And
Speaker 3: Joy said, yes, we're gonna have lunch, honey. And he goes, okay,
Speaker 3: well I don't like my hair. You gotta wash my
Speaker 3: hair for you. Gotta do my hair. I got to
Speaker 3: look good for Kat.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: And so the first thing I say is look at
Speaker 3: your hair, you know. So you know, it was just
Speaker 3: that's the people that't you just know each other. You've
Speaker 3: come to love and respect and just enjoy each other's
Speaker 3: company so much. So we left our asses off. And
Speaker 3: two two weeks later he's gone, and I went to
Speaker 3: their house close by, and they were joy and the
Speaker 3: daughters were going through a lot of his memorabilia and
Speaker 3: stuff like that had.
Speaker 2: Everything. It was a museum. You have that standee of
Speaker 2: Dean Martin.
Speaker 3: Everybody Dean Martin. And she said, Kathy, I just want
Speaker 3: you to know, as I was leader, she said, the
Speaker 3: last time I heard Regis laugh was with you.
Speaker 2: That's nice.
Speaker 3: And I just thought, I'm gonna cherish. I'm going to
Speaker 3: cherish that because we My goal every single morning for
Speaker 3: fifteen years on the air with him, and I never
Speaker 3: had a sick day once. I never missed a day vacation,
Speaker 3: but I'm you know, I never in fifteen years. My
Speaker 3: goal was to get him to laugh within five seconds. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and I rarely didn't.
Speaker 2: He was very satisfying man to make laugh.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, you would just enjoy any you know.
Speaker 3: He I cherished the fifteen years we had together. They
Speaker 3: were golden years. Television's not.
Speaker 2: They were amazing. I was so blessed.
Speaker 3: And then and I went on to do good television
Speaker 3: again also a little bit. We had some fun. We
Speaker 3: we created a whole different genre too. But nobody in
Speaker 3: my entire career. Have I been more explosive with on
Speaker 3: the air than with mister Craig Fergus.
Speaker 2: Oh that's a heck of a thing, that is the truth.
Speaker 3: We had to have a little delay, as I recall
Speaker 3: our in our broadcast, because we could be doing we
Speaker 3: could be naughty.
Speaker 1: I think that's more to do with my unprofessionalism than no.
Speaker 3: We just were comfortable around each other and we would
Speaker 3: forget that there were cameras rolling up.
Speaker 2: Do you, Regis introduce me to Don Rerickles.
Speaker 3: Oh, one of the great comic geniuses ever.
Speaker 2: Unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Yes, So I'm on this I Regis is in Peter
Speaker 1: le Sally's office.
Speaker 2: I've just started.
Speaker 3: Everybody was hanging out.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Sally was let's whear it where show business
Speaker 1: is central, That's where it all went. So I'm in
Speaker 1: Peter le Sally's office. I can't believe I'm I'm with Sally.
Speaker 1: He's you know, he's a legendary. Oh, he's just amazing person.
Speaker 1: And everything I got in late night was from this guy.
Speaker 1: And so I'm in Peter's office and Regis is here,
Speaker 1: and he said, you know, I'm on the phone with Rickles.
Speaker 1: You should talk to Wrickles. I'm like, Don Rickles is
Speaker 1: going to talk to me on the phone. I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you. Gotta you gotta show on TV. He'll talk
Speaker 1: to you. So I get on the phone Wrecks and
Speaker 1: I don't know what to say. So I say to
Speaker 1: Don Reckles and mister Rickles, would you come on my show?
Speaker 1: And he said, he went, well, let's wait to see
Speaker 1: if you're head first.
Speaker 2: If you're a hit, I'll coming on the show. But
Speaker 2: I'm not coming on some loser.
Speaker 3: I waste my time.
Speaker 1: Like we became friends. My wife and I, Megan and
Speaker 1: I became friends with him and Barbara. He can't he
Speaker 1: comes to a party in my house, Rackles, I can't believe,
Speaker 1: Like I'm having this Christmas party.
Speaker 2: You're in New York, so you're not at the party.
Speaker 2: We weren't great friends.
Speaker 1: So he turns up at the party with Barbara everybody
Speaker 1: that you know. There's this pack full of la people
Speaker 1: that you are hit by. Then by then I'm a hit.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He comes over to me.
Speaker 1: He gives me a bunch of single dollars and he says, here,
Speaker 1: get a better house. I was in the hills, but
Speaker 1: it was he didn't like the fact that he had
Speaker 1: to walk all through from this car and it was
Speaker 1: too much, too many.
Speaker 2: Stairs, there was too much effort.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he was not sure it was worth it,
Speaker 3: but it was brilliant to me.
Speaker 1: Is you know we're meant to be talking about joy,
Speaker 1: the joy of not just joy, Philbin, but also the
Speaker 1: joy of show business.
Speaker 2: Essence of joy. You know.
Speaker 1: The joy of show business, I think is the idea
Speaker 1: that you can go from watching someone like Recles when
Speaker 1: you were a kid, or seeing Kathy and Regius or
Speaker 1: Regis and Kathy as it.
Speaker 2: Was I believe on TV, and then you meet these people.
Speaker 1: This happened to me with Robin Williams, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's like you meet people and they become friends.
Speaker 2: And they're real.
Speaker 3: You pinch yourself at first, and then you just realize, no,
Speaker 3: they're They're so human and I'm loving And the times
Speaker 3: that are hard are not like what you and I
Speaker 3: are discussing is when the person that you really admire
Speaker 3: turns out to be not a very nice p Yeah,
Speaker 3: that that happens, you know, that that happens once. I
Speaker 3: look for the best in everybody, but that once in
Speaker 3: a while, every now and again, so I've always thought
Speaker 3: every time my guy go out and said, if this
Speaker 3: is the first time only time anybody's going to meet me,
Speaker 3: I want it to be a good experience for them.
Speaker 3: I want to be kind, I want to ask their name.
Speaker 2: I want to are very good at I've seen you
Speaker 2: do it. Yeah, it's just.
Speaker 3: Really important that you that you see people and value
Speaker 3: them as individuals, because.
Speaker 2: They I'm tried, but most of the time I'm certain
Speaker 2: that's not true.
Speaker 3: You are not. And you know what, we wouldn't have
Speaker 3: the lives we have without them. They bought my records,
Speaker 3: all three of them. Oh no, I had thirty some records,
Speaker 3: sixteen records, but thirty people they bought. They bought everything
Speaker 3: I was putting out there. They watched the show. You know,
Speaker 3: I don't like the word, but religiously, and that's they were.
Speaker 3: They were glued to it. I have the same fans.
Speaker 3: I must say, a lot of them have died, but
Speaker 3: some of my critics. So anyway, everybody goes, everybody goes.
Speaker 3: It's just a matter aware. Yeah, where do you think
Speaker 3: we go at the end?
Speaker 2: You know, I don't think. I don't think there is
Speaker 2: a nand I agree with you. I don't think there's
Speaker 2: I mean, the end of this realm. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 2: think there's a beginning, and I don't think there's a nan.
Speaker 3: Are we real right now? Because some people think that
Speaker 3: we're illusion it's almost like a matrix thing we are.
Speaker 1: That's a that's a little too hashish for me. Here's
Speaker 1: to here's what I think. I think that everything is
Speaker 1: everywhere all the time.
Speaker 3: That would be God.
Speaker 1: I'm beginning to get a smell of that. But I
Speaker 1: feel like that whatever it is. Have you heard of
Speaker 1: a guy called Shakespeare?
Speaker 2: M of course, Okay, I love Shakepeare. Yeah. So there's
Speaker 2: this guy Shakespeare, right, and he writes this play about
Speaker 2: a guy. If he really wrote it could have been Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's true.
Speaker 1: I think it was probably written by Yeah, Chris Christopher
Speaker 1: Marlow died in a knife fight I didn't know, in South.
Speaker 2: London, fighting over his copyright. I think he's just like
Speaker 2: he liked to get drunk and fight. And that's when
Speaker 2: playwrights were play rights. They were never sitting around wearing glasses.
Speaker 2: They were like out stabbing each other. Yeah.
Speaker 3: It didn't look like Neil Simon.
Speaker 1: No no, no, no, no, they were they were out they
Speaker 1: wore big puffy trousers, and they went out and they well.
Speaker 2: There's the story. Occasionally I wear poofy trousers.
Speaker 1: But Shakespeare wrote in that play Hamlet, he wrote, there
Speaker 1: are more things in heaven and Earth than are dreamt
Speaker 1: of in your philosophy's ratio. Yes, and I think that that.
Speaker 1: I think that's the right quote. And if it's not.
Speaker 3: Herotia, I remember the quote is just like it's so true.
Speaker 3: I mean, in your peon finite mind, who can box
Speaker 3: up God?
Speaker 1: Saying Augustine of Hippo said, trying to understand the mind
Speaker 1: of God is like trying to pour the ocean into
Speaker 1: a cup.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: And a wee woman that I heard in a twelve
Speaker 1: step meeting in Glasgow said something very similar about God.
Speaker 1: She said, Son, if God was small enough for me
Speaker 1: to understand, it wouldn't be big enough to do me
Speaker 1: any good now.
Speaker 2: And that that's I think that's something in in that year. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's where I am. I think, yes.
Speaker 3: And and you know what, I also remember you saying
Speaker 3: to me, and forgive me if it's not, I've already
Speaker 3: written about it in the book. I sent you the book.
Speaker 3: So again I got your permission. So yeah, I just
Speaker 3: remind you can say on your life. You said that
Speaker 3: time that we talked about you and why do you
Speaker 3: love me and all of that. The other thing you said, Kath,
Speaker 3: you know, you know I'm still We were closing, we
Speaker 3: were rapping soon, and you said, you know, I'm still
Speaker 3: not to your guy. I don't believe in your guy.
Speaker 3: That's what it was, Kath. You know, I still don't
Speaker 3: believe in your guy. And I said, I know, and
Speaker 3: I said, no, I don't, But I said, I know
Speaker 3: you don't. But you know what I do know about
Speaker 3: you at this point, I know that you. I'm gonna
Speaker 3: say this properly. The life that Jesus lived. You said
Speaker 3: something about the life, but the life that Jesus lived.
Speaker 3: If every single person on this earth lived the way
Speaker 3: Jesus lived his life, the world would be a very
Speaker 3: different place. And you said that I believe one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I do. Yeah, and I do believe that.
Speaker 1: And I also here's something else I'm going to say
Speaker 1: about you before we funny show, because apparently you need two.
Speaker 2: Full episodes of this podcast.
Speaker 3: One I'm not going anywhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, okay, we'll see for season five. But you
Speaker 1: I believe this. I've said this about you before. You
Speaker 1: are a Joi and here's why. Because you would never
Speaker 1: ever let anything you believe stand in the way of
Speaker 1: you helping another human being.
Speaker 2: And I've seen you do it.
Speaker 1: And that is I know this is not a word
Speaker 1: to use, but that, to me is what Christian should
Speaker 1: look like.
Speaker 2: Well, that's what Jesus looked like. Then well done, you're
Speaker 2: doing funny money.
Speaker 3: Well you know, it's so interesting because the first people
Speaker 3: who believed in Jesus were obviously Jews, and I didn't.
Speaker 3: There was no word of Christian then, because that's a
Speaker 3: that was a Greek word. Later that came far later.
Speaker 3: They were called followers of the way. Jesus was a Jew,
Speaker 3: and the Jews who were his disciples, and there were
Speaker 3: thousands of them. Then that's why they had to crucify him.
Speaker 3: He was getting way too much power and he was
Speaker 3: too much of a too much of a threat to
Speaker 3: the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the religious guys who controlled everything.
Speaker 3: Jesus was getting them to understand that your tithes are
Speaker 3: not what God wants. He wants your heart. Well, wait
Speaker 3: a minute, the ties, the ties that that's how we
Speaker 3: make our living around here, you know that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: That's why he took a whip too. The only time
Speaker 3: Jesus was sort of violent, people will say he wasn't
Speaker 3: violent at all. He was righteously angered. He picked up
Speaker 3: the whip, and he didn't take out on the money changers.
Speaker 3: He upset the tables, all the tables where the money was,
Speaker 3: and he said, you have made my father's house of
Speaker 3: prayer into a den of thieves. And they had to
Speaker 3: crucify him. Then you go after the money. Now we're now,
Speaker 3: now we're in trouble.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what, I think, that's still a bit
Speaker 1: of a problem.
Speaker 3: If good, it doesn't happen anymore, Thank goodness.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everybody's fine now, and money is not important.
Speaker 3: The man is stretching his arms like, thank God. I'm
Speaker 3: done with other believe in God.
Speaker 2: Thank whatever. I'm not sure about that.
Speaker 1: I'm done with this woman who is sure about it?
Speaker 2: For no, who loves you, I love you right back.
Speaker 2: Get out of here. I'm going