1
00:00:02,680 --> 00:00:06,360
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.

2
00:00:07,760 --> 00:00:12,080
Speaker 1: My podcast Here's the Thing is moving from public Radio

3
00:00:12,280 --> 00:00:16,080
Speaker 1: w n y C, in particular to I Heart Radio,

4
00:00:16,800 --> 00:00:19,960
Speaker 1: so please keep your eyes and ears open for a

5
00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:24,400
Speaker 1: formal announcement as to our exact launch date on My Heart.

6
00:00:25,079 --> 00:00:28,440
Speaker 1: The show will still be called Here's the Thing. For

7
00:00:28,720 --> 00:00:32,800
Speaker 1: our final two programs on w n y C, we've

8
00:00:32,840 --> 00:00:35,760
Speaker 1: cut together a compilation of some of my favorite interviews

9
00:00:35,840 --> 00:00:39,040
Speaker 1: from the past several years. But before we get to that,

10
00:00:39,080 --> 00:00:41,880
Speaker 1: I would like to take a moment to thank Emily

11
00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:45,960
Speaker 1: Boutine and Adam tie Schultz, my producers for the past

12
00:00:46,080 --> 00:00:49,600
Speaker 1: several seasons, as well as everyone at w n y

13
00:00:49,720 --> 00:00:54,000
Speaker 1: C for the opportunity to explore my curiosity with you

14
00:00:54,600 --> 00:00:59,840
Speaker 1: and speak to some of the greatest artists, musicians, actors, writers, thinkers,

15
00:01:00,200 --> 00:01:05,560
Speaker 1: public policymakers, sports figures, you name it. Our roster of

16
00:01:05,720 --> 00:01:09,040
Speaker 1: guests is really quite something, and I encourage you to

17
00:01:09,160 --> 00:01:12,880
Speaker 1: visit our archives and download some of our older shows.

18
00:01:13,800 --> 00:01:17,479
Speaker 1: And of course a special thanks to you the listeners

19
00:01:17,720 --> 00:01:21,200
Speaker 1: for joining me. This has been the experience of a lifetime,

20
00:01:21,400 --> 00:01:26,319
Speaker 1: and thank you. They say that casting is everything, and

21
00:01:26,400 --> 00:01:29,959
Speaker 1: that is no doubt true for an interview show, and

22
00:01:30,080 --> 00:01:33,200
Speaker 1: we've been quite lucky on Here's the Thing, sitting down

23
00:01:33,200 --> 00:01:38,000
Speaker 1: with some rather accomplished guests. My first clip is from

24
00:01:38,040 --> 00:01:42,240
Speaker 1: my interview with the legendary Barbra Streisand who talks here

25
00:01:42,319 --> 00:01:45,520
Speaker 1: about how she wanted control of her films in a

26
00:01:45,560 --> 00:01:47,920
Speaker 1: way that may not have been available to an actress,

27
00:01:47,960 --> 00:01:51,480
Speaker 1: even one of her stature, so she decided to direct.

28
00:01:52,120 --> 00:01:54,400
Speaker 1: It was something that happened during the way we were

29
00:01:55,480 --> 00:02:00,200
Speaker 1: where two scenes were cut out that were intrinsic to

30
00:02:00,440 --> 00:02:05,520
Speaker 1: the value of the story. And it made me so

31
00:02:05,640 --> 00:02:11,920
Speaker 1: crazy that they couldn't see that that that propelled me

32
00:02:11,960 --> 00:02:14,519
Speaker 1: into it. I couldn't understand it. And it's hard to

33
00:02:14,600 --> 00:02:18,000
Speaker 1: quarrel with a you know, a hit movie. I don't

34
00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:19,679
Speaker 1: know if it was a hit at the time. Tell

35
00:02:19,720 --> 00:02:21,480
Speaker 1: you the truth, it's grown to me say it was.

36
00:02:23,880 --> 00:02:26,600
Speaker 1: Warren Beatty said to me once, is it. Until you

37
00:02:26,639 --> 00:02:29,239
Speaker 1: take ultimate responsibility and you're willing to direct the movie,

38
00:02:29,240 --> 00:02:31,440
Speaker 1: you're gonna be constantly frustrated. And he said, you must

39
00:02:31,960 --> 00:02:36,399
Speaker 1: consider that if it was so delicious, And it's like,

40
00:02:36,760 --> 00:02:41,600
Speaker 1: you know, when you finally have the power to control

41
00:02:41,680 --> 00:02:46,880
Speaker 1: your work, you you get very humble in a sense,

42
00:02:47,080 --> 00:02:50,399
Speaker 1: it's like I wanted to give power away to other

43
00:02:50,440 --> 00:02:52,880
Speaker 1: people as well. You know, I would say to my standing,

44
00:02:53,520 --> 00:02:58,320
Speaker 1: you run that course with the cameraman, this is the shot,

45
00:02:58,440 --> 00:03:00,040
Speaker 1: but I want you to be able to tell on

46
00:03:00,200 --> 00:03:03,920
Speaker 1: me where to stand. In other words, it's a feeling

47
00:03:03,960 --> 00:03:08,960
Speaker 1: of such gratitude where you you never have to raise

48
00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:14,960
Speaker 1: your voice because everybody's finally listening. You don't have to

49
00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:19,040
Speaker 1: get angry about anything they weren't listening before. Sometimes well,

50
00:03:19,120 --> 00:03:21,720
Speaker 1: sometimes when I would say things as just an actress,

51
00:03:21,800 --> 00:03:24,720
Speaker 1: like this is what I'm telling you, this story the

52
00:03:24,760 --> 00:03:29,200
Speaker 1: way we were it went on deaf ears. You know,

53
00:03:29,360 --> 00:03:32,560
Speaker 1: they didn't agree with me whatever, But when you see

54
00:03:32,639 --> 00:03:38,280
Speaker 1: something so clearly, um, that's wrong to me or what

55
00:03:38,400 --> 00:03:41,880
Speaker 1: could be right? Or see. I had such a great

56
00:03:41,920 --> 00:03:44,840
Speaker 1: time directing Yental because I did it in England and

57
00:03:44,880 --> 00:03:51,920
Speaker 1: in Czechoslovakia. In England they're not afraid of women, powerful women,

58
00:03:52,040 --> 00:03:55,400
Speaker 1: strong women, because they had a queen. They have a

59
00:03:55,480 --> 00:03:58,520
Speaker 1: queen and at the time they had the Prime Minister

60
00:03:58,960 --> 00:04:04,120
Speaker 1: who was Margaret sure So I was shocked at the

61
00:04:04,200 --> 00:04:07,840
Speaker 1: respect that I had as a first time director. I

62
00:04:07,840 --> 00:04:13,800
Speaker 1: couldn't believe it. Um and the crew was so kind

63
00:04:14,120 --> 00:04:19,320
Speaker 1: and just. It was the most wonderful experience, I must say.

64
00:04:21,520 --> 00:04:25,520
Speaker 1: And even the Czechoslovakian government was wonderful to me because

65
00:04:25,560 --> 00:04:29,640
Speaker 1: I needed Jews to be in the synagogue and pray

66
00:04:29,720 --> 00:04:34,040
Speaker 1: and so for then you know, it was during communist times,

67
00:04:34,360 --> 00:04:37,479
Speaker 1: and they went to the Jewish community, thank God, and

68
00:04:37,680 --> 00:04:39,520
Speaker 1: had them come so I didn't have to teach them

69
00:04:39,520 --> 00:04:42,680
Speaker 1: how to be Jewish, you know, how did some real

70
00:04:42,760 --> 00:04:46,440
Speaker 1: Jews Jews was an Italian dressed as Jews, like in

71
00:04:46,480 --> 00:04:48,719
Speaker 1: New York where they have to say, well how do

72
00:04:48,760 --> 00:04:50,680
Speaker 1: you stand in a synagogue and how do you pray?

73
00:04:50,760 --> 00:04:56,080
Speaker 1: And it was it was wonderful. And also well you

74
00:04:56,120 --> 00:05:00,000
Speaker 1: know when you have extras in Czechoslovakia, then they didn't

75
00:05:00,040 --> 00:05:02,880
Speaker 1: give them lunch. So the people would come with like

76
00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:07,919
Speaker 1: bags of their lunch, which broke my heart. So I would,

77
00:05:08,560 --> 00:05:12,000
Speaker 1: you know, give them our food, which we never had vegetables.

78
00:05:12,040 --> 00:05:14,960
Speaker 1: We had a cent to London or France or Italy

79
00:05:15,040 --> 00:05:18,320
Speaker 1: to get vegetables, because you know, their food diet was

80
00:05:18,400 --> 00:05:20,839
Speaker 1: like hot chalk. I loved it, of course, bread and

81
00:05:20,880 --> 00:05:25,760
Speaker 1: butter and hot chocolate in the morning with whipped creamers,

82
00:05:23,839 --> 00:05:28,480
Speaker 1: and I was on heaven and I wanted to be thinner,

83
00:05:28,520 --> 00:05:31,720
Speaker 1: but well, and every day I would not every day,

84
00:05:31,760 --> 00:05:34,479
Speaker 1: but every few days I would bring in pasties, you know,

85
00:05:35,320 --> 00:05:38,320
Speaker 1: with that delicious dough in the meat inside, and I

86
00:05:38,400 --> 00:05:40,920
Speaker 1: we'd always have the most delicious teas that I'd bring

87
00:05:40,920 --> 00:05:45,160
Speaker 1: in those cream like doughnuts shaped like a hot dog

88
00:05:45,240 --> 00:05:49,200
Speaker 1: from Whimpis and you know, eat this delicious cream with

89
00:05:49,240 --> 00:05:53,520
Speaker 1: the doughnuts. Oh my god, it was so good, and

90
00:05:53,560 --> 00:05:56,920
Speaker 1: they it was very sweet. Because the whole crew wrote

91
00:05:56,960 --> 00:06:00,800
Speaker 1: a letter that's one of my prized possession, I must say.

92
00:06:01,600 --> 00:06:05,840
Speaker 1: And they wrote this letter to the newspapers and it

93
00:06:06,000 --> 00:06:08,520
Speaker 1: said that you know, Ms try said something like Mrs

94
00:06:08,560 --> 00:06:13,080
Speaker 1: try Sand never raises her voice and has a smile

95
00:06:13,120 --> 00:06:15,920
Speaker 1: for us every day. And it's like not the stories

96
00:06:16,000 --> 00:06:20,200
Speaker 1: we've heard about her, and no newspaper would publish it,

97
00:06:22,839 --> 00:06:25,760
Speaker 1: but it figures it's like Hillary Clinton, as you said,

98
00:06:25,839 --> 00:06:28,640
Speaker 1: the upside of that experience where the yentle was working

99
00:06:28,640 --> 00:06:31,600
Speaker 1: in a culture where the power of women was just accepted.

100
00:06:31,680 --> 00:06:34,120
Speaker 1: And I'm crestfall and to say the least about what

101
00:06:34,200 --> 00:06:36,200
Speaker 1: happened here, not just because this guy won, but I

102
00:06:36,240 --> 00:06:41,640
Speaker 1: really do think misogyny and well before I did get

103
00:06:41,720 --> 00:06:46,840
Speaker 1: some sort of Award from Women in film directing yental

104
00:06:47,120 --> 00:06:52,400
Speaker 1: And a lot of my speech was about women against women,

105
00:06:54,320 --> 00:07:01,280
Speaker 1: because the reviews of Yentel from women were vicious, you know,

106
00:07:01,400 --> 00:07:05,200
Speaker 1: in other words, they didn't even talk about this celebration

107
00:07:05,480 --> 00:07:09,880
Speaker 1: of womanhood, that a woman could not only you know,

108
00:07:10,200 --> 00:07:15,200
Speaker 1: make dinner and have babies, but she could have an intellect,

109
00:07:15,840 --> 00:07:21,240
Speaker 1: she could want to study, be something more do do it?

110
00:07:21,280 --> 00:07:25,840
Speaker 1: Men do? Just equality, you know. So to read a

111
00:07:25,880 --> 00:07:30,240
Speaker 1: review that said her she wore a design in the

112
00:07:30,280 --> 00:07:33,600
Speaker 1: New York Times, she wore a designer yamaka. Now everything,

113
00:07:34,160 --> 00:07:38,080
Speaker 1: every piece of clothing in that movie was authentic. That

114
00:07:38,280 --> 00:07:41,520
Speaker 1: same year there was the film directed Buying Mark Bergmann

115
00:07:41,520 --> 00:07:44,920
Speaker 1: Fanny and Alexander. They wore the same yamica, but nobody

116
00:07:44,960 --> 00:07:50,120
Speaker 1: attacked that film. I love detail, so I would, you know,

117
00:07:50,160 --> 00:07:54,240
Speaker 1: for years, I would do research about Polish Jews, about

118
00:07:54,520 --> 00:07:58,320
Speaker 1: these Jews, that Jews everything, the Evil Institute in New

119
00:07:58,400 --> 00:08:05,160
Speaker 1: York um talking to scholars studying Talmud, just to bring that,

120
00:08:05,560 --> 00:08:08,800
Speaker 1: because I do believe that when you study like that

121
00:08:08,880 --> 00:08:11,920
Speaker 1: and do the research, you don't have to act that

122
00:08:12,680 --> 00:08:16,960
Speaker 1: It's like the camera picks up the truth, even just

123
00:08:17,080 --> 00:08:20,320
Speaker 1: behind your eyes. In the sound of your voice, whatever

124
00:08:20,360 --> 00:08:25,200
Speaker 1: it is mine. You know. I had this wonderful shot,

125
00:08:25,360 --> 00:08:28,320
Speaker 1: I thought, as it cuts from a chicken coop to

126
00:08:28,440 --> 00:08:31,560
Speaker 1: me sitting behind the bars up separated from the men

127
00:08:31,600 --> 00:08:35,559
Speaker 1: in the shool. And that shot was attacked by this

128
00:08:35,640 --> 00:08:40,840
Speaker 1: woman critic, Janet Maslin. Her name was now she could

129
00:08:40,840 --> 00:08:44,640
Speaker 1: attack my lips incer. That's true. I'm a terrible lip sinker.

130
00:08:44,920 --> 00:08:48,280
Speaker 1: I can't do it because when I did movies like

131
00:08:48,280 --> 00:08:50,600
Speaker 1: Funny Girl or Hello Dolly, you know, they record the

132
00:08:50,679 --> 00:08:54,360
Speaker 1: soundtrack three months before you shoot, and I have to

133
00:08:54,440 --> 00:08:57,120
Speaker 1: be in the moment as an actor. I don't know

134
00:08:57,160 --> 00:08:59,720
Speaker 1: how I'm going to feel when I actually perform it.

135
00:09:00,320 --> 00:09:03,320
Speaker 1: So that's why when I did the movie Star Is Born,

136
00:09:03,960 --> 00:09:07,960
Speaker 1: it's all real, it's all um I had. I did

137
00:09:07,960 --> 00:09:10,920
Speaker 1: not want. I needed to be free, to be in

138
00:09:10,960 --> 00:09:13,560
Speaker 1: the moment, So we recorded on the spot. What do

139
00:09:13,600 --> 00:09:16,800
Speaker 1: you call that live? It was all live. And then

140
00:09:16,840 --> 00:09:20,840
Speaker 1: what I would do is um because I had final

141
00:09:20,880 --> 00:09:25,559
Speaker 1: cut on that movie, I could control those things. UM.

142
00:09:25,600 --> 00:09:28,240
Speaker 1: We would shoot the close ups first, so where the

143
00:09:28,240 --> 00:09:31,360
Speaker 1: performance really counted, and then I would just choose it

144
00:09:31,440 --> 00:09:33,560
Speaker 1: right on the spot, okay, I think, And I would

145
00:09:33,600 --> 00:09:36,720
Speaker 1: do about one to four takes. You know, all these

146
00:09:36,760 --> 00:09:39,480
Speaker 1: stories about me like I do millions of takes, most

147
00:09:39,520 --> 00:09:42,480
Speaker 1: of them are false. And so let's say I would

148
00:09:42,480 --> 00:09:47,079
Speaker 1: take take three, you know, and then move the cameras

149
00:09:47,120 --> 00:09:50,280
Speaker 1: back to do the wider shot because you didn't have

150
00:09:50,360 --> 00:09:54,160
Speaker 1: to see me close, you know, not doing the lip sync. Good.

151
00:09:54,360 --> 00:09:58,559
Speaker 1: I did a documentary film about can It's ostensibly about

152
00:09:58,640 --> 00:10:02,439
Speaker 1: Ken and Ryan got thing. We corner him at an hotel. Yeah,

153
00:10:02,440 --> 00:10:04,480
Speaker 1: I think I saw it. Jimmy Toback and I did

154
00:10:04,480 --> 00:10:08,440
Speaker 1: this thing called Seduced and Abandoned and we get Gosling

155
00:10:08,440 --> 00:10:11,439
Speaker 1: at the Beverly Hills Hotel or the bel Air Hotel.

156
00:10:11,559 --> 00:10:14,120
Speaker 1: I should say, any long story short is he has

157
00:10:14,160 --> 00:10:17,400
Speaker 1: this beautiful explication of how agonizing it is to shoot films,

158
00:10:17,480 --> 00:10:20,640
Speaker 1: and just in that kind of Arthur Murray by numbers way,

159
00:10:20,679 --> 00:10:22,600
Speaker 1: we have to shoot a match to this and to this.

160
00:10:23,559 --> 00:10:26,040
Speaker 1: It can't be fresh and it's painful. No, And that's

161
00:10:26,040 --> 00:10:28,920
Speaker 1: why I love long takes, because I think I'm from

162
00:10:28,920 --> 00:10:31,320
Speaker 1: the theater and we had to do a whole show, right,

163
00:10:32,200 --> 00:10:34,960
Speaker 1: So I don't like pieces. I mean, you I the

164
00:10:35,040 --> 00:10:39,600
Speaker 1: fun of directing to me is designing the shot, the

165
00:10:39,679 --> 00:10:44,800
Speaker 1: camera accommodating the actors. So the actors. There's a lot

166
00:10:44,800 --> 00:10:46,840
Speaker 1: of scenes in Yentle that you can see like this.

167
00:10:46,960 --> 00:10:51,600
Speaker 1: They're all in one move practically. In other words, we

168
00:10:51,720 --> 00:10:56,239
Speaker 1: come in through a door and I'm in the foreground,

169
00:10:56,320 --> 00:10:59,839
Speaker 1: let's say. But he who's following me, the my leader

170
00:11:01,440 --> 00:11:04,280
Speaker 1: who was Mandy Patinkin at the time, and he still

171
00:11:04,360 --> 00:11:08,920
Speaker 1: is but um, you know, we see him standing there,

172
00:11:08,960 --> 00:11:12,400
Speaker 1: and then he comes forward and I sit down. He

173
00:11:12,559 --> 00:11:15,840
Speaker 1: becomes he's standing up, but the camera never moved, but

174
00:11:16,000 --> 00:11:19,760
Speaker 1: you see everything. Then the camera moves as we're together,

175
00:11:19,800 --> 00:11:22,720
Speaker 1: but it doesn't cut. And then he has you know,

176
00:11:22,720 --> 00:11:25,680
Speaker 1: when when he leaves me, you see him go out

177
00:11:25,720 --> 00:11:28,480
Speaker 1: the door. He slams the door and the camera moves

178
00:11:28,480 --> 00:11:31,680
Speaker 1: in a little bit. As I'm thinking about it, that's

179
00:11:31,720 --> 00:11:35,880
Speaker 1: the scene. But it's what's fun about that is that

180
00:11:36,120 --> 00:11:38,960
Speaker 1: we're all on our toes. You can't make a mistake.

181
00:11:40,640 --> 00:11:42,520
Speaker 1: And most of these shots that I do that there's

182
00:11:42,559 --> 00:11:48,440
Speaker 1: no coverage. That the greatest on the very little coverage

183
00:11:49,120 --> 00:11:52,160
Speaker 1: the actors played the scene in the frame. That's right

184
00:11:52,640 --> 00:11:56,439
Speaker 1: now now, in the time that you made films, the

185
00:11:56,520 --> 00:12:01,920
Speaker 1: many years you've made films, the success for acting and

186
00:12:02,160 --> 00:12:04,920
Speaker 1: not directing, successful as a director and producer and all

187
00:12:04,960 --> 00:12:07,880
Speaker 1: those things. Were there are people that you wanted to

188
00:12:07,920 --> 00:12:09,600
Speaker 1: work with, whether people you sat there as a guy,

189
00:12:09,640 --> 00:12:11,240
Speaker 1: I'd love to make a film with that person because

190
00:12:11,240 --> 00:12:14,640
Speaker 1: you've been in such a privileged place and I had

191
00:12:14,679 --> 00:12:16,840
Speaker 1: all these people available to Was there a director that

192
00:12:16,880 --> 00:12:19,800
Speaker 1: you dreamed of working with you didn't get to work with? Well,

193
00:12:19,840 --> 00:12:24,040
Speaker 1: I Mark Bergman is a person that contacted me to

194
00:12:24,120 --> 00:12:26,920
Speaker 1: do a remake of The Merry Widow and I was

195
00:12:27,000 --> 00:12:31,800
Speaker 1: so excited, you know, and I came to um Sweden

196
00:12:33,160 --> 00:12:37,680
Speaker 1: and we embraced and it was this wonderful embrace, you know.

197
00:12:37,880 --> 00:12:42,760
Speaker 1: I mean he I can't explain what that what that's like.

198
00:12:43,080 --> 00:12:48,079
Speaker 1: It's was just he sort of understood me, and I

199
00:12:48,160 --> 00:12:53,320
Speaker 1: understood him without any words. And the first act of

200
00:12:53,320 --> 00:12:58,600
Speaker 1: that screenplay was fantastic, I mean, very body uh kind

201
00:12:58,640 --> 00:13:04,400
Speaker 1: of shocking. I loved it, you know. So then and

202
00:13:04,440 --> 00:13:07,560
Speaker 1: when I have letters now, I forget things until I

203
00:13:07,600 --> 00:13:10,080
Speaker 1: have to go into my archives and look at this stuff,

204
00:13:10,400 --> 00:13:13,520
Speaker 1: letters from him and notes that I wrote back to

205
00:13:13,600 --> 00:13:21,400
Speaker 1: him talking about this film. What happened the second act?

206
00:13:21,800 --> 00:13:26,480
Speaker 1: You know, he says we're going to be collaborators, and

207
00:13:26,520 --> 00:13:31,280
Speaker 1: the second act was not very good. I thought it

208
00:13:31,440 --> 00:13:36,160
Speaker 1: was like like Jevas Amadeus. I'm sure the first act

209
00:13:36,240 --> 00:13:38,800
Speaker 1: was extraordinary to me in the movie, and the second

210
00:13:38,840 --> 00:13:45,959
Speaker 1: act was I don't know, just somehow repetitious. It It

211
00:13:46,000 --> 00:13:51,040
Speaker 1: didn't go far enough in the story, you know. And

212
00:13:51,120 --> 00:13:52,880
Speaker 1: that's the way I felt about this. And all of

213
00:13:52,960 --> 00:13:58,400
Speaker 1: a sudden it was gone. The collaboration was over. We

214
00:13:58,520 --> 00:14:01,679
Speaker 1: never made the film, and I couldn't quite believe it.

215
00:14:01,800 --> 00:14:06,960
Speaker 1: I mean, the fact that I didn't like certain things

216
00:14:06,960 --> 00:14:11,160
Speaker 1: in the second act did he liked? Well, he never

217
00:14:11,200 --> 00:14:14,400
Speaker 1: defended it. It was like, you know, I think that's

218
00:14:14,480 --> 00:14:17,520
Speaker 1: right and so. But I would have loved to work

219
00:14:17,559 --> 00:14:21,480
Speaker 1: with Berto Lucci and Schris you know what I did.

220
00:14:21,520 --> 00:14:24,240
Speaker 1: I realized this now and looking back at my life.

221
00:14:24,880 --> 00:14:27,880
Speaker 1: I turned down Alice doesn't live here anymore. I turned

222
00:14:27,880 --> 00:14:31,800
Speaker 1: down a lot of films actually because I was lazy.

223
00:14:31,960 --> 00:14:40,960
Speaker 1: I'm basically I'm a dichotomy here, a dichotomy lazy and um,

224
00:14:41,040 --> 00:14:44,680
Speaker 1: I don't know what the word is, restless, restless maybe? Yeah,

225
00:14:45,200 --> 00:14:49,200
Speaker 1: like wanting to create about you, it would be called

226
00:14:49,240 --> 00:14:53,360
Speaker 1: the lazy and the restless. Oh no, that's a very

227
00:14:53,400 --> 00:15:00,320
Speaker 1: good time. Yeah, exactly, exactly I love to take a

228
00:15:00,360 --> 00:15:05,280
Speaker 1: vacation and do nothing. I like to have no appointments.

229
00:15:07,360 --> 00:15:10,200
Speaker 1: And I think that's a condition in my mind of

230
00:15:10,280 --> 00:15:14,240
Speaker 1: people who have tremendous not so much financial success, but

231
00:15:14,360 --> 00:15:16,880
Speaker 1: creative success. I mean, there's a famous actress who I

232
00:15:16,920 --> 00:15:20,200
Speaker 1: won't name you. Wait, you know what? Do you want

233
00:15:20,240 --> 00:15:23,160
Speaker 1: to take a sip of soup on your Do you

234
00:15:23,200 --> 00:15:25,880
Speaker 1: want soup to I'll have a soup. I mean we

235
00:15:26,080 --> 00:15:28,320
Speaker 1: kind of say no. Well, I mean this is a

236
00:15:28,440 --> 00:15:30,840
Speaker 1: I'm irish. It's bad luck to say no to soup?

237
00:15:31,120 --> 00:15:35,320
Speaker 1: Is that in Ireland? I just made that up. Oh

238
00:15:35,600 --> 00:15:38,000
Speaker 1: just put that over here? Oh see, I just brought

239
00:15:38,040 --> 00:15:42,080
Speaker 1: this table from the back and we need another table

240
00:15:42,120 --> 00:15:45,119
Speaker 1: maybe over here because this is me so soup, don't

241
00:15:45,240 --> 00:15:49,360
Speaker 1: I mean? In other words, people know we eat, right,

242
00:15:49,400 --> 00:15:54,200
Speaker 1: so if they hear it's okay, good, good, good good,

243
00:15:54,240 --> 00:15:57,520
Speaker 1: because I always like to eat. Oh really know you

244
00:15:57,520 --> 00:16:01,640
Speaker 1: know you won't mm hmm. That is delicious, isn't it.

245
00:16:07,080 --> 00:16:11,680
Speaker 1: That was my interview with Barbara Streisand sometimes the task

246
00:16:11,880 --> 00:16:15,320
Speaker 1: is to convince some of our iconic guests to sit

247
00:16:15,360 --> 00:16:18,880
Speaker 1: down with me. Other times the task is simply to

248
00:16:19,040 --> 00:16:22,520
Speaker 1: find them. In the case of my next clip. Joe

249
00:16:22,560 --> 00:16:27,080
Speaker 1: Delessandro proved to be more than a little elusive, but

250
00:16:27,200 --> 00:16:30,680
Speaker 1: once we got the star of many of Warhol's early

251
00:16:30,840 --> 00:16:34,920
Speaker 1: films and photography to join us, he was gracious, forthcoming

252
00:16:35,240 --> 00:16:38,040
Speaker 1: and funny, like when he talked here about his early

253
00:16:38,120 --> 00:16:41,320
Speaker 1: days as a male model. The criminal guy who's the

254
00:16:41,360 --> 00:16:45,920
Speaker 1: modeling agency. How did that play out? Well? He introduces

255
00:16:45,960 --> 00:16:48,960
Speaker 1: me to this version at once that does these, uh,

256
00:16:49,560 --> 00:16:53,920
Speaker 1: these photographs, and they said, you know, look, Joe rubbed

257
00:16:53,920 --> 00:16:57,280
Speaker 1: his oil on you. And it starts out real, you know,

258
00:16:58,720 --> 00:17:02,560
Speaker 1: really easy. You know, it's nothing, nothing that's too frightening

259
00:17:02,640 --> 00:17:06,120
Speaker 1: to a person that's you know, being first introduced to it.

260
00:17:06,119 --> 00:17:08,760
Speaker 1: It's just, you know, take your clothes off and stand

261
00:17:08,800 --> 00:17:12,119
Speaker 1: over there and nude. Yeah, and for you, did you

262
00:17:12,119 --> 00:17:13,879
Speaker 1: feel it in that world you want to nose for

263
00:17:13,920 --> 00:17:17,720
Speaker 1: people you could trust and not trust. Yeah, So the

264
00:17:17,720 --> 00:17:19,760
Speaker 1: guy says, oil up and stand over there naked. You

265
00:17:19,840 --> 00:17:24,240
Speaker 1: knew you were cool? Yeah, nothing, nothing was gonna happen there. Yeah.

266
00:17:24,480 --> 00:17:26,960
Speaker 1: Did you find it weird? Yeah? I thought it was

267
00:17:27,000 --> 00:17:29,480
Speaker 1: real weird, But I was gonna get fifty dollars, a

268
00:17:29,520 --> 00:17:32,840
Speaker 1: whole fifty dollars. That was a lot of money back then.

269
00:17:33,160 --> 00:17:36,680
Speaker 1: You know, and I thought, wow, fifty dollars was standing,

270
00:17:37,400 --> 00:17:41,240
Speaker 1: So yeah, Joe making put them up like like you're

271
00:17:41,240 --> 00:17:44,919
Speaker 1: making a muscle Joe, you know. And shortly after that,

272
00:17:45,040 --> 00:17:48,119
Speaker 1: I have a fight with the guy that introduced me

273
00:17:48,200 --> 00:17:51,000
Speaker 1: to this modeling people because he had this scam that

274
00:17:51,040 --> 00:17:54,679
Speaker 1: he wanted to do. He wanted to blackmail somebody. You

275
00:17:54,720 --> 00:17:57,760
Speaker 1: wanted me to do something and I ain't doing that.

276
00:17:57,920 --> 00:18:01,320
Speaker 1: And also it's a stupid ship, you know. So I

277
00:18:01,359 --> 00:18:05,159
Speaker 1: got angry and he got he got violent. He was

278
00:18:05,720 --> 00:18:08,640
Speaker 1: an ex con that was, you know, gonna show his toughness,

279
00:18:10,320 --> 00:18:15,080
Speaker 1: not to me. Anyway. He broke a bottle to come

280
00:18:15,160 --> 00:18:16,919
Speaker 1: at me, and I knocked the bottle out of his

281
00:18:17,000 --> 00:18:21,240
Speaker 1: hand and went on the ground and broke and uh

282
00:18:21,520 --> 00:18:25,000
Speaker 1: he uh he did a little dance with him. Yeah.

283
00:18:25,040 --> 00:18:27,119
Speaker 1: He fell on the glass and got all cut up.

284
00:18:27,440 --> 00:18:30,159
Speaker 1: You know. Well actually I threw him on the glass

285
00:18:31,040 --> 00:18:33,120
Speaker 1: and he got all cut up. No, No, he fell

286
00:18:33,119 --> 00:18:35,399
Speaker 1: on the glass. Yeah, and we hold him down. You

287
00:18:35,440 --> 00:18:37,600
Speaker 1: were trying to help him. He tried to press charges

288
00:18:37,640 --> 00:18:40,280
Speaker 1: against you. Yeah, he tried to do all listen on sense. Anyway,

289
00:18:40,320 --> 00:18:43,960
Speaker 1: we went to court and they reached my father and say,

290
00:18:44,920 --> 00:18:47,879
Speaker 1: you know your your son's out here, and oh, you

291
00:18:47,920 --> 00:18:50,159
Speaker 1: need to send them back, you know, put him on

292
00:18:50,200 --> 00:18:53,639
Speaker 1: a plane and I'll send you the money. Where'd you

293
00:18:53,680 --> 00:18:55,960
Speaker 1: live them? And he got to New York. I stayed

294
00:18:56,000 --> 00:18:58,320
Speaker 1: with him for a week and then went out on

295
00:18:58,359 --> 00:19:01,760
Speaker 1: my own again. There was the plan when you were

296
00:19:01,760 --> 00:19:04,280
Speaker 1: back in New York, Well, the modeling thing again? Did

297
00:19:04,280 --> 00:19:06,719
Speaker 1: you think this is good money? I never thought about it,

298
00:19:06,920 --> 00:19:09,840
Speaker 1: about the modeling thing, you know, it wasn't something that

299
00:19:09,920 --> 00:19:12,720
Speaker 1: I knew anybody. I had a couple of friends in

300
00:19:12,760 --> 00:19:16,720
Speaker 1: New York that introduced me to other people. And and

301
00:19:16,760 --> 00:19:20,480
Speaker 1: then one day one of these friends, uh said, Hey,

302
00:19:20,840 --> 00:19:25,000
Speaker 1: I know this person that's uh making these Campbell soup

303
00:19:25,080 --> 00:19:27,560
Speaker 1: can you know makes the Cambell soup? And I was

304
00:19:27,640 --> 00:19:30,879
Speaker 1: thinking we were going to eat some soup, which I

305
00:19:31,000 --> 00:19:35,600
Speaker 1: was all for. You're gonna go to the Campbell soup factory? Yeah, whatever, Pennsylvania.

306
00:19:36,000 --> 00:19:38,159
Speaker 1: I had no idea where it was. You could take

307
00:19:38,200 --> 00:19:41,560
Speaker 1: a picture of you oiled up, said there's somebody sitting

308
00:19:41,600 --> 00:19:45,520
Speaker 1: behind a camera reading a newspaper, so I couldn't see

309
00:19:45,520 --> 00:19:47,760
Speaker 1: who it was or what it was, you know, but

310
00:19:47,880 --> 00:19:50,879
Speaker 1: they wanted to introduce me that this Campbell soup. Andy

311
00:19:50,920 --> 00:19:54,040
Speaker 1: Warho guy that I had. You know, I didn't know

312
00:19:54,080 --> 00:19:58,040
Speaker 1: who Andy Warho was or you know, before I met them.

313
00:19:58,080 --> 00:20:03,000
Speaker 1: Mine I had married, uh young lady, my first my

314
00:20:03,080 --> 00:20:09,560
Speaker 1: first wife. Ah No, I had to be eighteen then.

315
00:20:09,880 --> 00:20:13,159
Speaker 1: So but it was why did you get married when

316
00:20:13,200 --> 00:20:16,040
Speaker 1: you're right there? Freedom is a premium for you? Why

317
00:20:16,080 --> 00:20:18,359
Speaker 1: did you get married? My father was dating her mother,

318
00:20:18,800 --> 00:20:24,879
Speaker 1: and my father wanted to she got herself pregnant. My

319
00:20:25,000 --> 00:20:27,760
Speaker 1: father said, you know, you should take we should take

320
00:20:27,800 --> 00:20:31,880
Speaker 1: this person and he should own up to his responsibility

321
00:20:31,920 --> 00:20:35,320
Speaker 1: of his kids. Were father. I was also got pregnant

322
00:20:35,320 --> 00:20:39,080
Speaker 1: with somebody else. My father said, we'll take him to court,

323
00:20:39,160 --> 00:20:42,440
Speaker 1: you know. And and I kept telling my father, you

324
00:20:42,440 --> 00:20:45,000
Speaker 1: shouldn't do that, and you shouldn't push you to do that,

325
00:20:45,080 --> 00:20:47,880
Speaker 1: because he's gonna come in with a bunch. This is Brooklyn,

326
00:20:47,920 --> 00:20:50,120
Speaker 1: you know, he can come a bunch of guys saying

327
00:20:50,119 --> 00:20:52,680
Speaker 1: we all slept with her and nothing's going to ever

328
00:20:52,760 --> 00:20:54,920
Speaker 1: come from which one of us is the father. Yeah,

329
00:20:55,000 --> 00:20:59,520
Speaker 1: that's back before DNA and all that other ship. Thank

330
00:20:59,560 --> 00:21:05,639
Speaker 1: god for yet. Yeah, anyway, so you decided to marry her.

331
00:21:05,680 --> 00:21:08,640
Speaker 1: I decided to marry her and give the kid my name,

332
00:21:08,880 --> 00:21:11,040
Speaker 1: you know, what kind of work did you do? Then?

333
00:21:12,160 --> 00:21:15,560
Speaker 1: I was a book binder, I went to Actually I

334
00:21:15,640 --> 00:21:21,080
Speaker 1: was assembly line. I didn't do anything except in the city,

335
00:21:19,800 --> 00:21:24,399
Speaker 1: yea Manhattan. Who wouldn't know why that job? Because my

336
00:21:24,480 --> 00:21:27,200
Speaker 1: uncle ran the ran the show was his business. Yeah,

337
00:21:27,320 --> 00:21:28,800
Speaker 1: well I don't know if it was his business, but

338
00:21:28,960 --> 00:21:31,959
Speaker 1: he ran the shop. So was there a part of

339
00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:36,040
Speaker 1: you when you're in Jersey and your book binding and

340
00:21:36,080 --> 00:21:38,480
Speaker 1: you got a sixteen year old bride has got a kid,

341
00:21:38,520 --> 00:21:40,960
Speaker 1: and we're not quite sure who in the Brooklyn gang

342
00:21:41,040 --> 00:21:43,040
Speaker 1: is really the father? Do you sit there and go

343
00:21:43,280 --> 00:21:46,000
Speaker 1: I missed standing They're oiled up in a room naked

344
00:21:46,040 --> 00:21:47,840
Speaker 1: getting the fifty bucks from these guys. I don't know,

345
00:21:47,880 --> 00:21:50,879
Speaker 1: did you miss that? Yeah? And then you and then

346
00:21:50,920 --> 00:21:53,040
Speaker 1: you go meet the guy who's behind the newspaper, who

347
00:21:53,040 --> 00:21:55,000
Speaker 1: makes the soup, who's gonna make you soup for lunch?

348
00:21:55,400 --> 00:21:58,920
Speaker 1: What happened there? He drops the newspaper. What happens? Obviously

349
00:21:58,920 --> 00:22:01,840
Speaker 1: he became very fond of you, very quickly. Well, it

350
00:22:01,920 --> 00:22:03,960
Speaker 1: wasn't him. It was the guy that was standing to

351
00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:06,720
Speaker 1: the side of the camera and giving all the instructions

352
00:22:06,760 --> 00:22:12,159
Speaker 1: to everybody, And that was Paul Marcy. So He's the

353
00:22:12,160 --> 00:22:14,520
Speaker 1: one that suggested that I'd be in the film because

354
00:22:15,359 --> 00:22:19,159
Speaker 1: he ow, he was this character that asked everything about

355
00:22:19,200 --> 00:22:22,280
Speaker 1: your life and I had told him, you know, in

356
00:22:22,440 --> 00:22:27,280
Speaker 1: junior high had played on the wrestling team. He says, Oh,

357
00:22:27,320 --> 00:22:30,160
Speaker 1: that's a good idea. We'll have you do that with Undine.

358
00:22:30,240 --> 00:22:33,680
Speaker 1: You'll you teach him wrestling, so let film that. We'll

359
00:22:33,720 --> 00:22:38,840
Speaker 1: film that. What do you described? Morrissey then Marcy real smart,

360
00:22:38,920 --> 00:22:44,960
Speaker 1: real educated he had. He was a Fordham graduate. He

361
00:22:45,080 --> 00:22:50,040
Speaker 1: was a social worker before in New York City where

362
00:22:51,280 --> 00:22:55,000
Speaker 1: he really saw these uh strange people that he had,

363
00:22:55,320 --> 00:23:00,480
Speaker 1: you know, work with. Uh. So he had plenty of

364
00:23:00,520 --> 00:23:06,640
Speaker 1: great stories and he shot. Uh these films that was shot.

365
00:23:06,720 --> 00:23:09,240
Speaker 1: There were silent films I saw. I watched a couple

366
00:23:09,280 --> 00:23:12,239
Speaker 1: of them. They were pretty good films. Uh you're a

367
00:23:12,240 --> 00:23:15,760
Speaker 1: movie goer them, you're like, yeah, I was. I loved

368
00:23:15,760 --> 00:23:18,639
Speaker 1: the movies. I didn't want to be in them. I

369
00:23:18,760 --> 00:23:21,000
Speaker 1: just liked watching them. But when you watch the movies

370
00:23:21,040 --> 00:23:23,960
Speaker 1: at Morrissey and or warhol Man, they weren't like movies

371
00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:26,480
Speaker 1: you saw in the theater when I yeah, I thought

372
00:23:26,480 --> 00:23:29,120
Speaker 1: they were a joke. I thought that. Well, when we

373
00:23:29,119 --> 00:23:32,439
Speaker 1: were shooting this one thing the soup day they were shifting.

374
00:23:32,480 --> 00:23:33,800
Speaker 1: They asked me to be in the thing, and I

375
00:23:33,880 --> 00:23:36,640
Speaker 1: shot this most scene and they came over to me

376
00:23:36,680 --> 00:23:41,240
Speaker 1: after we were done, and uh, they asked me to

377
00:23:41,280 --> 00:23:45,560
Speaker 1: sign a release. I said, you're not gonna this is

378
00:23:45,640 --> 00:23:48,520
Speaker 1: just for fun. Nobody's gonna ever see this. This is

379
00:23:49,160 --> 00:23:51,639
Speaker 1: it's just I thought, just like a whole movie. I

380
00:23:51,640 --> 00:23:54,640
Speaker 1: didn't think they were gonna, you know, ever show this anywhere,

381
00:23:54,680 --> 00:23:57,640
Speaker 1: and thought it was a joke because what was happening

382
00:23:57,680 --> 00:24:00,840
Speaker 1: there was you know, pretty silly. You know, wasn't you know,

383
00:24:01,040 --> 00:24:06,119
Speaker 1: anything I ever saw in the theater. It was unfamiliar. Yeah, really,

384
00:24:06,720 --> 00:24:09,760
Speaker 1: I signed the release thinking it would never be released.

385
00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:14,200
Speaker 1: And and then later on they called me and asked

386
00:24:14,240 --> 00:24:19,920
Speaker 1: if I would them to photograph me for the advertising

387
00:24:19,960 --> 00:24:22,679
Speaker 1: of this film that they you know, they shot with

388
00:24:22,800 --> 00:24:27,000
Speaker 1: me first before this movie that was supposed to be

389
00:24:27,040 --> 00:24:29,800
Speaker 1: a twenty four hour movie that turned into Loves of Undine.

390
00:24:29,840 --> 00:24:33,080
Speaker 1: They cut it into a smoom. That was your first movie,

391
00:24:33,160 --> 00:24:35,760
Speaker 1: and that was my first movie with him. But before

392
00:24:35,800 --> 00:24:39,399
Speaker 1: that was ever released, they had called me up and

393
00:24:39,640 --> 00:24:42,959
Speaker 1: he did to ask me to be in another movie.

394
00:24:43,840 --> 00:24:47,640
Speaker 1: And then he put Paul on the phone who told me, Yeah, Joe,

395
00:24:47,720 --> 00:24:52,320
Speaker 1: we're going out to Arizona to shoot a Western. Would

396
00:24:52,320 --> 00:24:54,560
Speaker 1: you like to be in the West end? I said, sure,

397
00:24:55,359 --> 00:24:58,040
Speaker 1: that'd be great, but you gotta pay me what I

398
00:24:58,160 --> 00:25:00,320
Speaker 1: would I make at the book binding place, as I

399
00:25:00,359 --> 00:25:03,119
Speaker 1: can't take off. I'm married now, I gotta take care

400
00:25:03,160 --> 00:25:08,800
Speaker 1: of my all his bullshit, Yeah about what I was making.

401
00:25:09,080 --> 00:25:13,680
Speaker 1: They paid you exactly what you made. The probably they

402
00:25:13,680 --> 00:25:16,320
Speaker 1: were cheap. They were always cheap. They didn't want to

403
00:25:16,320 --> 00:25:18,960
Speaker 1: pay somebody too much, and then somebody else asked for

404
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:21,800
Speaker 1: the same thing. You know, is it amazing you sit

405
00:25:22,560 --> 00:25:26,199
Speaker 1: in a room back in nineteen sixty seven with a

406
00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:29,400
Speaker 1: bunch of people who later on the soup can guy

407
00:25:29,480 --> 00:25:33,920
Speaker 1: would sell his paintings for tens of millions of dollars. Yeah,

408
00:25:33,960 --> 00:25:37,720
Speaker 1: he becomes one of the richest artists in history. Did

409
00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:40,720
Speaker 1: you have an artistic sensibility but you thought that these

410
00:25:40,760 --> 00:25:42,200
Speaker 1: guys were or you? Just as you said, it was

411
00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:45,679
Speaker 1: just unfamiliar and silly. Well in the beginning, and you

412
00:25:45,680 --> 00:25:50,359
Speaker 1: know it all, it wasn't for me and and Andy's art.

413
00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:54,720
Speaker 1: You know, we all participated in making the Andy art.

414
00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:57,280
Speaker 1: They had said, you know, after we had shot the

415
00:25:57,280 --> 00:26:00,080
Speaker 1: Cowboy movie and we came back. I thought that was it.

416
00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:03,080
Speaker 1: Go back to book binding. And you know, I called

417
00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 1: Paul ask him about the Western and he had told

418
00:26:10,080 --> 00:26:11,879
Speaker 1: me that he had a job for me at the

419
00:26:11,920 --> 00:26:15,800
Speaker 1: factory and I said, okay, you know, and he happy

420
00:26:15,840 --> 00:26:18,040
Speaker 1: to give up what I was doing, you know, doing

421
00:26:18,119 --> 00:26:22,520
Speaker 1: something there, and I went down to the factory and

422
00:26:22,520 --> 00:26:24,879
Speaker 1: that was the day. Then Andy was shot when I

423
00:26:24,920 --> 00:26:30,720
Speaker 1: showed up to the factory to work there. Sometimes at

424
00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:34,280
Speaker 1: the onset, I wonder where the conversation might go, and

425
00:26:34,320 --> 00:26:36,399
Speaker 1: by the end I realized I could have talked with

426
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:40,440
Speaker 1: my guest for hours. Such is the case with Joe Delessandro.

427
00:26:41,119 --> 00:26:52,160
Speaker 1: Thank you, Joe. My next clip is from my interview

428
00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:56,200
Speaker 1: with Elaine Stretch. Elaine had quite a career. Towards the

429
00:26:56,280 --> 00:26:59,240
Speaker 1: end of it, she played my mother, Colleen Donaghye, on

430
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:02,880
Speaker 1: the television series thirty Rock. When the show was over,

431
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:06,040
Speaker 1: Elaine announced she was leaving New York and we were

432
00:27:06,119 --> 00:27:08,560
Speaker 1: lucky enough to catch up with her before she relocated

433
00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:12,200
Speaker 1: home to Michigan. And if you know Elaine, it comes

434
00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:15,800
Speaker 1: as no surprise that the interview could just stop at

435
00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:20,560
Speaker 1: any given moment. Where is my black bag? Alec Hunter?

436
00:27:20,880 --> 00:27:25,080
Speaker 1: I need. I need orange juice. Hunter, come in plays?

437
00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:28,840
Speaker 1: Can we send Hunter in here? Plays with the provisions? Hunter.

438
00:27:29,119 --> 00:27:32,760
Speaker 1: Ryan Herdlika, who accompanied Elaine to the studio, came through

439
00:27:32,760 --> 00:27:37,720
Speaker 1: the door juice in hand. I need some orange juice.

440
00:27:37,760 --> 00:27:44,919
Speaker 1: Beanies is kicking up, Hunter, my good man, hunters right

441
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:49,359
Speaker 1: with the world. Okay, we'll how about a glass. Yes,

442
00:27:49,440 --> 00:27:53,040
Speaker 1: that's a clean water. We'll get him a clean we'll go,

443
00:27:53,160 --> 00:27:55,040
Speaker 1: we'll go get her clean. All right, it's all right

444
00:27:55,080 --> 00:27:58,720
Speaker 1: if you just empty that glass, it's heaven. I need

445
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:02,399
Speaker 1: some orange juice. You know that I'm diabetic, Yes, of course,

446
00:28:02,520 --> 00:28:07,520
Speaker 1: I mean the world knows by now, the world. It's okay.

447
00:28:08,640 --> 00:28:10,800
Speaker 1: You know what I quoted the other day, the line

448
00:28:10,840 --> 00:28:14,600
Speaker 1: of my father's that really is so naughty and just

449
00:28:14,680 --> 00:28:19,200
Speaker 1: so much fun. Here's looking up your old address. Isn't

450
00:28:19,200 --> 00:28:22,399
Speaker 1: that a great line? And he said it with no

451
00:28:23,040 --> 00:28:26,399
Speaker 1: he used that was it. That's right? All right, I'm

452
00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:28,200
Speaker 1: gonna drink this and bring the orangese now so we

453
00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:33,280
Speaker 1: don't have some event here. That's cool. Alright. So now

454
00:28:33,359 --> 00:28:36,280
Speaker 1: that you've had your orange juice and your brain freezes over,

455
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:40,120
Speaker 1: Kirk Douglas, what was the show? Do you remember now? Woman?

456
00:28:40,200 --> 00:28:46,440
Speaker 1: Bites dog. That orange juice. It's a miracle. Elcksir. I

457
00:28:46,440 --> 00:28:49,640
Speaker 1: want to be a case of that orange juice dog,

458
00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:53,000
Speaker 1: woman bites dog. What do you play in that? If

459
00:28:52,560 --> 00:28:57,480
Speaker 1: you girlfriend? He lived with I didn't even know what

460
00:28:57,920 --> 00:29:02,400
Speaker 1: that phrase meant. You were a floozy? Well no, I wasn't.

461
00:29:02,720 --> 00:29:05,520
Speaker 1: I just but I lived with him and I wasn't

462
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:08,280
Speaker 1: married to him. I didn't know what that meant. What

463
00:29:08,320 --> 00:29:11,200
Speaker 1: do you remember about Kirk Douglas. Oh my god, I

464
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:14,840
Speaker 1: loved him. Oh god, I loved him. And what an

465
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:17,720
Speaker 1: actor he was. And he's one of the few men

466
00:29:18,280 --> 00:29:20,600
Speaker 1: who was as great an actor as he was a star.

467
00:29:22,040 --> 00:29:24,480
Speaker 1: He was a great actor. He was a great actor.

468
00:29:24,600 --> 00:29:26,600
Speaker 1: He was a great actor. I loved him, and he

469
00:29:26,840 --> 00:29:31,560
Speaker 1: loved me. He flipped over me. I've known him for years,

470
00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:35,320
Speaker 1: and he took me halfway away for the weekend, and

471
00:29:35,320 --> 00:29:39,360
Speaker 1: then I discovered that I shouldn't go. He took you

472
00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:42,640
Speaker 1: half way away to Palm Springs, and then I said

473
00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:44,680
Speaker 1: I shouldn't be going. So what did do you hit? Like?

474
00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:51,280
Speaker 1: What helds? I do know? We were halfway to Palm Beach,

475
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:56,280
Speaker 1: Palm Springs things. So you're driving east. We were driving

476
00:29:56,360 --> 00:29:59,480
Speaker 1: for the weekend and you decided you didn't want to. Well,

477
00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:02,880
Speaker 1: I said, I'm getting nervous, because what do you want

478
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:07,000
Speaker 1: me to do when we get up here? Oh, Elaine,

479
00:30:07,520 --> 00:30:09,960
Speaker 1: you knew I was a virgin, so he was dealing

480
00:30:10,040 --> 00:30:13,120
Speaker 1: with that. So what was the first leading role you

481
00:30:13,160 --> 00:30:17,560
Speaker 1: had on Broadway? Big roll? Take more horors, you see

482
00:30:17,560 --> 00:30:27,720
Speaker 1: you can remember of the big part, big big part

483
00:30:27,760 --> 00:30:30,920
Speaker 1: I had was Angel and the Wings, which was a review,

484
00:30:31,600 --> 00:30:35,400
Speaker 1: hardest thing in the world to do a review, and

485
00:30:35,520 --> 00:30:37,640
Speaker 1: the kind of review like New Faces, was like Leonard

486
00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:43,800
Speaker 1: Sulman's sketches. And I was the big busted you know,

487
00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:47,920
Speaker 1: girl in the in the bedroom. I was the I

488
00:30:48,120 --> 00:30:52,840
Speaker 1: was the piece on the side. Yeah, where are you?

489
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:56,120
Speaker 1: Isn't amazing? You were this virginal You went to suck

490
00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:58,760
Speaker 1: or cur and you went to finishing school and I

491
00:30:58,920 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 1: played as soon as you're out, God is just tempting you.

492
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:05,000
Speaker 1: He's taking Marlon Brando on one side of you, and

493
00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:07,520
Speaker 1: Kirk Douglas has reving up the convertible to take you

494
00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:10,600
Speaker 1: to Palm Springs, and you're the fluzi here and you're

495
00:31:10,640 --> 00:31:13,560
Speaker 1: the piece on the side, the bust defend fatalel But

496
00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:19,680
Speaker 1: what I was really doing is learning my lines to

497
00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:25,320
Speaker 1: the play or to the television or to the I

498
00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:31,040
Speaker 1: was really loving acting. I loved it. I loved pretending.

499
00:31:31,200 --> 00:31:36,240
Speaker 1: I just loved it. Was being somebody other than I

500
00:31:36,280 --> 00:31:39,560
Speaker 1: was was my idea of a good time? Was part

501
00:31:39,560 --> 00:31:42,120
Speaker 1: of that process for you? Learning from people you work with,

502
00:31:42,160 --> 00:31:44,360
Speaker 1: it you admire. Did you look at other people and say,

503
00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:46,280
Speaker 1: because I've had that. I mean, I'm not going to

504
00:31:46,360 --> 00:31:49,240
Speaker 1: say I had it well like Merman? When you worked

505
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 1: with Merman? Did you learn from Merman? Did you did

506
00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:55,440
Speaker 1: you know you didn't? I did her part right. I

507
00:31:55,480 --> 00:31:59,840
Speaker 1: did her There's no question, so she would not. Some

508
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:03,720
Speaker 1: loved her, everybody loved everybody. But I know how to

509
00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:08,760
Speaker 1: do that. And I was so frightened and so terrified,

510
00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:12,000
Speaker 1: and I was so good in it. Did you feel

511
00:32:12,000 --> 00:32:14,440
Speaker 1: that she was of that type where just Mermin as Mermaid,

512
00:32:14,840 --> 00:32:18,160
Speaker 1: she goes out into study. She made, you know, so long.

513
00:32:18,520 --> 00:32:21,800
Speaker 1: She'd say goodbye to me from the wings on my

514
00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:24,320
Speaker 1: opening night and then go sit in the first row.

515
00:32:25,680 --> 00:32:29,280
Speaker 1: She scared me to death when I got to the

516
00:32:29,400 --> 00:32:33,320
Speaker 1: end of call Me Madam, it was mine? You felt

517
00:32:33,360 --> 00:32:38,040
Speaker 1: that way? When do you think you became you? The

518
00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:42,680
Speaker 1: moment I started to rehearse Mermaid's part. I was doing

519
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:48,440
Speaker 1: the New Mermaid, the New Everything. That's when you became you. Yeah,

520
00:32:48,800 --> 00:32:52,120
Speaker 1: So doing the piece doing call Me Madam is when

521
00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:54,920
Speaker 1: you felt things changed for you. You felt you were

522
00:32:55,480 --> 00:32:59,920
Speaker 1: were not necessarily now everything I did, everything I did

523
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:06,080
Speaker 1: was you know. But when you do a show Elaine

524
00:33:06,280 --> 00:33:09,800
Speaker 1: Stretch at Liberty, when you do a show that is

525
00:33:09,840 --> 00:33:13,720
Speaker 1: a memoir of your career, oh yeah, and it is

526
00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:17,680
Speaker 1: enormously successful, when did you think in your life? When

527
00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:20,000
Speaker 1: did you reach a point in your life that you

528
00:33:20,120 --> 00:33:22,920
Speaker 1: felt you were someone who could write a memoir about

529
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:25,360
Speaker 1: your life, that you thought it was interesting enough. When

530
00:33:25,360 --> 00:33:28,600
Speaker 1: did you cross the line and say, yeah, I was

531
00:33:28,680 --> 00:33:33,560
Speaker 1: convinced by this producer who said, who saw me perform

532
00:33:33,600 --> 00:33:39,000
Speaker 1: at a Judy Garland special at Carnegie Hall? And what

533
00:33:39,080 --> 00:33:42,520
Speaker 1: I did was tells Judy Garland stories And I told

534
00:33:42,520 --> 00:33:46,440
Speaker 1: her it was a tribute to Judy. She's gone by this, yeah,

535
00:33:47,560 --> 00:33:51,480
Speaker 1: and oh boy, I really did know her very well.

536
00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:55,200
Speaker 1: From where did your first meet her? Party? At a

537
00:33:55,320 --> 00:33:59,000
Speaker 1: party someplace I don't know. And I loved her. So

538
00:34:00,480 --> 00:34:03,720
Speaker 1: when I tried out one of my stories on Judy Garland,

539
00:34:03,760 --> 00:34:07,520
Speaker 1: I mean she tried out one of hers. I said, Judy,

540
00:34:07,600 --> 00:34:10,600
Speaker 1: I've got an idea, and I sincerely did. I said,

541
00:34:10,680 --> 00:34:16,600
Speaker 1: I've got a great idea. Why don't we tour Maime?

542
00:34:18,480 --> 00:34:23,400
Speaker 1: I said to Judy Garan And she says divine. She

543
00:34:23,560 --> 00:34:29,360
Speaker 1: said that sounds great. I said, but here's the good idea, Judy.

544
00:34:30,400 --> 00:34:36,320
Speaker 1: When I do Mame, I go to bed early, and

545
00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:39,680
Speaker 1: when you do me, you go to bed early. And

546
00:34:39,719 --> 00:34:45,040
Speaker 1: then the other one does vera she want a switch

547
00:34:45,080 --> 00:34:49,719
Speaker 1: on and off. Yeah, she bought you. She's listening now

548
00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:57,080
Speaker 1: and she's saying okay, okay, okay, and she's counting up

549
00:34:57,120 --> 00:35:02,600
Speaker 1: the songs. What songs she has? What? And after this

550
00:35:02,800 --> 00:35:06,360
Speaker 1: long pause, she looks at me and says, what about Matene's?

551
00:35:08,719 --> 00:35:10,359
Speaker 1: And I thought it was one of the funniest things

552
00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:14,160
Speaker 1: I've ever heard in my whole life, that Judy Garland

553
00:35:14,160 --> 00:35:18,920
Speaker 1: wanted to know what about Mattenees. That's how she carefully.

554
00:35:18,960 --> 00:35:23,520
Speaker 1: She wanted her her career planned so she could be

555
00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:26,840
Speaker 1: able to get loaded when she wanted to. And you know,

556
00:35:27,640 --> 00:35:32,120
Speaker 1: it was her way of treating a very serious discussion.

557
00:35:32,160 --> 00:35:34,240
Speaker 1: So you did a tribute thing where you told stories

558
00:35:34,280 --> 00:35:37,400
Speaker 1: about her, and that's when someone pitched the idea to

559
00:35:37,440 --> 00:35:39,759
Speaker 1: you of doing a memoir of your career. That's right.

560
00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:43,040
Speaker 1: What vaguely and said, you tell a story to an

561
00:35:43,040 --> 00:35:45,880
Speaker 1: audience the like of which I have never heard. That's true.

562
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:48,480
Speaker 1: I was that the opening night at the Public, when

563
00:35:48,480 --> 00:35:51,520
Speaker 1: that Liberty opened at the Public, and everyone who was

564
00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:54,200
Speaker 1: had a pulse in New York. Everyone who was alive

565
00:35:54,280 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 1: that night came to that opening at the Public. Everybody

566
00:35:57,160 --> 00:35:59,920
Speaker 1: in the theater came. They went crazy, They went crazy.

567
00:36:00,200 --> 00:36:04,520
Speaker 1: It's lovely, God, it's lovely. Success is lovely. It's so hard,

568
00:36:04,600 --> 00:36:08,600
Speaker 1: and it's such hard work, but it's so gratifying. What's

569
00:36:08,600 --> 00:36:10,239
Speaker 1: the hardest thing about it for you? What's been the

570
00:36:10,239 --> 00:36:14,440
Speaker 1: hardest thing? Do you find it hard? To have? The

571
00:36:14,440 --> 00:36:16,080
Speaker 1: fear of what that you won't be able to perform,

572
00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:19,000
Speaker 1: the fear that I'm just going to forget, and I'm

573
00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:23,200
Speaker 1: going to not not so much forget, but it's the fear.

574
00:36:23,520 --> 00:36:27,359
Speaker 1: It's the fear. And that was when I was not

575
00:36:27,480 --> 00:36:31,120
Speaker 1: drinking at all, and I didn't drink anything to get

576
00:36:31,160 --> 00:36:34,920
Speaker 1: my talent on, but all my life I had. Have

577
00:36:35,040 --> 00:36:37,960
Speaker 1: you ever done a show? I'm sure you've done countless shows.

578
00:36:37,960 --> 00:36:39,800
Speaker 1: You ever done a show where you're sitting backstage thinking

579
00:36:39,840 --> 00:36:42,160
Speaker 1: what am I doing here? How did I get myself

580
00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:44,600
Speaker 1: into this? Or? Were you always engaged by what you

581
00:36:44,640 --> 00:36:49,120
Speaker 1: were doing? I was always engaged with always. You never

582
00:36:49,160 --> 00:36:52,399
Speaker 1: took I was leading up to it or coming down,

583
00:36:52,440 --> 00:36:56,120
Speaker 1: you know, I I was trying to get it behind.

584
00:36:56,200 --> 00:37:01,840
Speaker 1: You never regretted doing anything? Never? No, that's incredible. No,

585
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:06,719
Speaker 1: I never never regretted doing anything on the stage. Never.

586
00:37:07,880 --> 00:37:11,359
Speaker 1: How was that possible because I just one every time

587
00:37:11,400 --> 00:37:15,640
Speaker 1: I walked out there. You know that old expression about

588
00:37:15,719 --> 00:37:23,000
Speaker 1: I own the stage. That was from my interview with

589
00:37:23,080 --> 00:37:29,520
Speaker 1: the incomparable Elaine Stretch. Some of the musicians I've interviewed

590
00:37:29,560 --> 00:37:33,040
Speaker 1: have had tough lives, during which they created some of

591
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:37,000
Speaker 1: the greatest music the world has ever heard. The next

592
00:37:37,040 --> 00:37:40,520
Speaker 1: clip is from my interview with David Crosby, the self

593
00:37:40,560 --> 00:37:44,840
Speaker 1: described mischievous kid who started singing folk songs at age

594
00:37:44,880 --> 00:37:48,880
Speaker 1: six on his way to his remarkable career. And you

595
00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:51,840
Speaker 1: go to boarding school? I did, Yeah, Kate? What was

596
00:37:51,880 --> 00:37:58,480
Speaker 1: that block? What were you like? Were you always mischievous?

597
00:37:58,600 --> 00:38:02,960
Speaker 1: And it get load of trouble Why I don't know,

598
00:38:03,080 --> 00:38:06,480
Speaker 1: but it's definitely true. I got thrown out of almost

599
00:38:06,480 --> 00:38:09,759
Speaker 1: every school I was ever in, including Kate, What was

600
00:38:09,920 --> 00:38:14,040
Speaker 1: music in your life? Then? Music came early, and well, uh,

601
00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:19,200
Speaker 1: my mom sang in choirs. My dad liked music. He

602
00:38:19,440 --> 00:38:21,880
Speaker 1: could play a mantle in. My brother played guitar. We

603
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:25,560
Speaker 1: used to Here's an interesting thing when when we were

604
00:38:25,600 --> 00:38:29,400
Speaker 1: growing up in the fifties, when TV started to really happen,

605
00:38:30,160 --> 00:38:34,440
Speaker 1: we didn't have a TV, so we sang folk songs

606
00:38:34,440 --> 00:38:37,120
Speaker 1: out of the fireside Book of Folks Songs, and that

607
00:38:37,239 --> 00:38:39,520
Speaker 1: was where it started. Did anybody tell you then you

608
00:38:39,520 --> 00:38:41,359
Speaker 1: could sing that? They say you're a good singer. They

609
00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:43,520
Speaker 1: did notice that I was singing harmony when I was six,

610
00:38:44,840 --> 00:38:48,680
Speaker 1: And huh, what's the first instrument you played? Guitar? My

611
00:38:48,719 --> 00:38:50,719
Speaker 1: brother turned me onto guitar when you were how old?

612
00:38:51,600 --> 00:38:55,000
Speaker 1: I guess maybe can what's the best time you think that.

613
00:38:55,440 --> 00:38:57,319
Speaker 1: My son is two and a half years, so it's

614
00:38:57,320 --> 00:39:01,120
Speaker 1: gonna be three in June. He's obsessed with simulating playing

615
00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:04,080
Speaker 1: the guitar. He actually has a band with my wife.

616
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:08,520
Speaker 1: He calls her Trista, and he's Mr Pants. Mr Pants.

617
00:39:08,600 --> 00:39:10,120
Speaker 1: He'll turn to my wife a little I've got it

618
00:39:10,120 --> 00:39:12,120
Speaker 1: on video. He'll turn to my wife and Trista, what

619
00:39:12,200 --> 00:39:14,759
Speaker 1: are we gonna play now? He's two and a half.

620
00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:17,439
Speaker 1: Don't let him be a musician. We wanted to. It's

621
00:39:17,640 --> 00:39:21,759
Speaker 1: terrible idea. He'll never have a job. Actually let him.

622
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:23,360
Speaker 1: Do you think that if you didn't? But when you

623
00:39:23,400 --> 00:39:25,440
Speaker 1: say that, do you think if you hadn't made it

624
00:39:25,840 --> 00:39:28,040
Speaker 1: as big as you made it, you wouldn't have stuck

625
00:39:28,040 --> 00:39:29,520
Speaker 1: with it, or you would have stayed with it because

626
00:39:29,520 --> 00:39:31,640
Speaker 1: you loved it. I would because I love it. I

627
00:39:31,719 --> 00:39:33,959
Speaker 1: love it so much, like I can't tell you I

628
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:36,440
Speaker 1: love seeing it. I'm good at it. But that's not

629
00:39:36,520 --> 00:39:39,920
Speaker 1: really it. It's there's a joy to singing in and

630
00:39:40,040 --> 00:39:45,800
Speaker 1: of itself, and it's it's an elevating thing. It's totally

631
00:39:45,880 --> 00:39:48,479
Speaker 1: freaking wonderful. It's very tough for me now, man, because

632
00:39:48,520 --> 00:39:52,799
Speaker 1: I'm really old and getting on the road exhausting. Yeah,

633
00:39:52,880 --> 00:39:54,439
Speaker 1: well it beats the crap out of me. Yeah, because

634
00:39:54,440 --> 00:39:56,319
Speaker 1: you'll never get more than four hours sleep in a row.

635
00:39:56,600 --> 00:39:58,520
Speaker 1: And then in the middle of that, you had an

636
00:39:58,520 --> 00:40:02,719
Speaker 1: expansion joint and playing. You're away again and you know,

637
00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:06,279
Speaker 1: and you're eating terrible food and restaurants. When when did

638
00:40:06,320 --> 00:40:09,560
Speaker 1: you when you left home, you didn't go to college. No,

639
00:40:09,680 --> 00:40:13,520
Speaker 1: I went one year and you went to uh City

640
00:40:13,520 --> 00:40:16,280
Speaker 1: College in Santa Barbara, which is now, oddly enough, the

641
00:40:16,480 --> 00:40:19,520
Speaker 1: highest rated city college in the country. It was interesting

642
00:40:19,560 --> 00:40:22,440
Speaker 1: and good, and I had one really good teacher hooked

643
00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:25,200
Speaker 1: me up about some really interesting things about semantics and

644
00:40:25,200 --> 00:40:30,279
Speaker 1: the language. And no, you weren't sending music then, then, no,

645
00:40:30,320 --> 00:40:33,160
Speaker 1: not yet. I was. I was bussing tables at the

646
00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:38,120
Speaker 1: local coffeehouse because as a bus boy they would let

647
00:40:38,120 --> 00:40:40,560
Speaker 1: me sing harmony with the guy who was being paid

648
00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:43,640
Speaker 1: to sing. And what was the first band you were in?

649
00:40:44,320 --> 00:40:48,640
Speaker 1: Less Baxter's Balladeers. Let's Baxter, you know, a band leader guy.

650
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:54,520
Speaker 1: He had seen the Christie Mittrels, which that guy who

651
00:40:54,880 --> 00:40:57,279
Speaker 1: sparks were he was he had I think he had

652
00:40:57,320 --> 00:40:59,440
Speaker 1: three of them out their bands like that in your

653
00:40:59,520 --> 00:41:01,279
Speaker 1: old name the same you know. It just it was

654
00:41:01,320 --> 00:41:05,719
Speaker 1: a commercial operation and was really lame. But we was

655
00:41:06,000 --> 00:41:08,120
Speaker 1: put food on the table. My brother and I were

656
00:41:08,280 --> 00:41:11,200
Speaker 1: in that. And then I ran into Roger mcgwinn and

657
00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:16,080
Speaker 1: Gean Clark and where a tributor bar it's a tributary

658
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:19,680
Speaker 1: and they were singing and it was good and these

659
00:41:19,760 --> 00:41:24,640
Speaker 1: songs were you know, James pretty good writer. And so

660
00:41:24,640 --> 00:41:27,120
Speaker 1: when those two haven't they had an act called they

661
00:41:27,280 --> 00:41:29,160
Speaker 1: have an act, we're just playing. They were just in

662
00:41:29,200 --> 00:41:31,520
Speaker 1: the bar. You know, Roger has been a musician for

663
00:41:31,600 --> 00:41:35,040
Speaker 1: a while and successful and played with other bands, Lime Letters,

664
00:41:35,120 --> 00:41:37,759
Speaker 1: Chad Mitchell Three, a bunch of different people, so he

665
00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:40,399
Speaker 1: knew what he was doing when he knew that Jean

666
00:41:40,520 --> 00:41:43,200
Speaker 1: was talented and that this stuff had value because it

667
00:41:43,239 --> 00:41:46,320
Speaker 1: sounded a lot like Beatles songs, and uh, so I

668
00:41:46,320 --> 00:41:48,439
Speaker 1: started singing harmony to them. They said, what's your name?

669
00:41:49,400 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 1: And uh that worked out really well. It was a

670
00:41:54,200 --> 00:41:59,399
Speaker 1: good band, simple good. Roger's extremely Good had taken Bob

671
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:02,080
Speaker 1: Dylan so and turning them into pop records. And you

672
00:42:02,160 --> 00:42:04,959
Speaker 1: covered Tambourine Man. Yeah, that was our first hit. Well,

673
00:42:05,000 --> 00:42:07,279
Speaker 1: what did you learn about bands in your first band?

674
00:42:07,560 --> 00:42:11,279
Speaker 1: What that experienced like? I learned that that I had

675
00:42:11,320 --> 00:42:14,320
Speaker 1: a lot to learn. I was just a young punk

676
00:42:14,840 --> 00:42:17,600
Speaker 1: and I really had no idea how to actually work

677
00:42:17,719 --> 00:42:21,640
Speaker 1: with the people and accomplished the aim that I wanted to.

678
00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:24,200
Speaker 1: I had an experience early on when I was young.

679
00:42:24,480 --> 00:42:26,600
Speaker 1: My mom took me to see a symphony orchestra in

680
00:42:26,600 --> 00:42:29,799
Speaker 1: a park free show there in that way, and they

681
00:42:29,840 --> 00:42:32,080
Speaker 1: tuned up and they got ready, and then he started

682
00:42:32,120 --> 00:42:36,000
Speaker 1: the piece and it was this huge, beautiful wave that

683
00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:39,040
Speaker 1: hit me. I didn't know anything was like that. You know,

684
00:42:39,200 --> 00:42:43,600
Speaker 1: symphony orchestra a hugely powerful thing. And it freaked me out.

685
00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:47,200
Speaker 1: And the thing I've realized even as a kid, the

686
00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:50,239
Speaker 1: power came from they were alding me together. I can't

687
00:42:50,239 --> 00:42:53,040
Speaker 1: believe you just said that. It's the truth, and it

688
00:42:53,120 --> 00:42:55,520
Speaker 1: really and it penetrated. So I've always wanted to be

689
00:42:55,520 --> 00:43:00,320
Speaker 1: in a band always. I love cooperative effort. Competitive effort

690
00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:04,200
Speaker 1: winds up at war, cooperative effort winds up. I'm I'm

691
00:43:04,239 --> 00:43:07,320
Speaker 1: watching Tom Petty's band playing a benefit, and Offend was

692
00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:09,080
Speaker 1: with me. I turned him and I said, do you

693
00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:12,520
Speaker 1: see what I'm seeing? Reference said what? And I said,

694
00:43:12,520 --> 00:43:14,880
Speaker 1: they're all doing the same thing at the same time.

695
00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:19,440
Speaker 1: I said, they're all in service to and feeding. You know,

696
00:43:19,520 --> 00:43:21,600
Speaker 1: in my business, not everybody's doing the same thing that

697
00:43:21,640 --> 00:43:23,360
Speaker 1: they're kind of doing their own thing, kind of jerking

698
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:25,279
Speaker 1: off in the corner there, you know, Patty's band was

699
00:43:25,320 --> 00:43:27,399
Speaker 1: doing the same thing. Yeah, it was really really, very

700
00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:30,120
Speaker 1: very cool. Do you find in a band does somebody

701
00:43:30,120 --> 00:43:32,120
Speaker 1: always need to be in charge? Does somebody need to

702
00:43:32,120 --> 00:43:34,600
Speaker 1: be the boss? It can go both ways, and the

703
00:43:34,680 --> 00:43:38,000
Speaker 1: birds Roger was definitely the leader of the band, and

704
00:43:38,040 --> 00:43:40,480
Speaker 1: that worked well. Yeah, he knew a lot more than

705
00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:44,279
Speaker 1: we did. And he's also an extremely talented guy and

706
00:43:44,320 --> 00:43:47,360
Speaker 1: a good singer. And uh so it wouldn't you know,

707
00:43:47,480 --> 00:43:50,200
Speaker 1: I challenged it at every turn, but he was the

708
00:43:50,280 --> 00:43:53,239
Speaker 1: leader of the band, uh c s And why none

709
00:43:53,239 --> 00:43:56,000
Speaker 1: of us was willing to admit anybody else was the leader.

710
00:43:56,520 --> 00:44:00,560
Speaker 1: Where it was and probably still is one of the

711
00:44:00,600 --> 00:44:06,040
Speaker 1: most competitive situations in the history. Uh And he goes

712
00:44:06,960 --> 00:44:10,279
Speaker 1: really just that simple, And in spite of all the

713
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:14,279
Speaker 1: incredible success you've had. I mean, who's when you think

714
00:44:14,320 --> 00:44:17,759
Speaker 1: of people, when you think of men harmonizing in a group,

715
00:44:18,120 --> 00:44:20,040
Speaker 1: the first people that come to mind of the three

716
00:44:20,120 --> 00:44:21,880
Speaker 1: of you, why do you think that that didn't bring

717
00:44:21,960 --> 00:44:25,319
Speaker 1: them any comforts? I don't think that's what they went

718
00:44:25,400 --> 00:44:29,200
Speaker 1: in for. And I don't think they realized exactly how

719
00:44:29,280 --> 00:44:31,839
Speaker 1: good it was. We did really like each other when

720
00:44:31,920 --> 00:44:35,719
Speaker 1: we started, and we were thrilled, you know, by each

721
00:44:35,760 --> 00:44:38,440
Speaker 1: other's songs. So you leave the birds and and and

722
00:44:38,600 --> 00:44:41,360
Speaker 1: and Stills leaves Buffalo Springfield and they bring you with

723
00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:45,680
Speaker 1: them Springfield Sorrow fell Apart Left, which is kind of

724
00:44:45,800 --> 00:44:50,640
Speaker 1: his m O. Uh Stephen was very appealing guitar player

725
00:44:50,680 --> 00:44:53,000
Speaker 1: and singer. I mean, it's really good. Remember how well

726
00:44:53,080 --> 00:44:56,080
Speaker 1: he played acoustic guitar back down beautiful, pretty stunning, And

727
00:44:56,239 --> 00:44:59,200
Speaker 1: so I started hanging out with him, and then Cass

728
00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:02,880
Speaker 1: introduced mut the Ground. But when Nash leaves the Hollies,

729
00:45:02,960 --> 00:45:05,480
Speaker 1: the Hollies are doing very well, aren't they very successful?

730
00:45:05,800 --> 00:45:08,200
Speaker 1: Why does he leave? The Hollies told him you did.

731
00:45:08,960 --> 00:45:10,799
Speaker 1: I went to work, I went to London. I told

732
00:45:10,840 --> 00:45:13,120
Speaker 1: me she quit? And how did you do that? We

733
00:45:13,200 --> 00:45:17,160
Speaker 1: dil you quit? Why? Because he could join us? He

734
00:45:17,280 --> 00:45:19,400
Speaker 1: was at a very crux point with the Hollies. They

735
00:45:19,480 --> 00:45:23,000
Speaker 1: wanted to do an album of Dylan covers. Now there

736
00:45:23,040 --> 00:45:25,160
Speaker 1: are bands that should do Dylan covers and there are

737
00:45:25,239 --> 00:45:29,560
Speaker 1: bands that should not do Dylon covers. That was one

738
00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:31,840
Speaker 1: of the bands that should not do Dealing covers. And

739
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:34,759
Speaker 1: they were ignoring his songs. He had already written a

740
00:45:34,840 --> 00:45:39,920
Speaker 1: Lady at the Island and they didn't get it, beautiful song.

741
00:45:40,520 --> 00:45:42,359
Speaker 1: He had already been right between the eyes. They didn't

742
00:45:42,400 --> 00:45:47,000
Speaker 1: get it. He he was already outgrowing them. So I

743
00:45:47,080 --> 00:45:51,360
Speaker 1: walked in and I said, hm, hmm, this is pretty ordinary.

744
00:45:53,160 --> 00:45:55,640
Speaker 1: And I was funnier than they were, and I knew

745
00:45:55,680 --> 00:45:57,320
Speaker 1: more than they did, and I did it on purpose,

746
00:45:57,360 --> 00:45:59,759
Speaker 1: and they'll probably never forgive me. But it made a

747
00:45:59,800 --> 00:46:01,799
Speaker 1: great sound. We the three of us, when we heard

748
00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:05,360
Speaker 1: each other saying it was it was spectacular. But bands

749
00:46:06,120 --> 00:46:07,640
Speaker 1: get together and you're in love with each other and

750
00:46:07,760 --> 00:46:13,279
Speaker 1: so wonderful and exciting, and then it devolves and forty

751
00:46:13,400 --> 00:46:16,399
Speaker 1: years later it's turned on a small machine and play

752
00:46:16,400 --> 00:46:19,640
Speaker 1: your heads and you don't even like each other. You

753
00:46:19,680 --> 00:46:22,279
Speaker 1: don't write the same bus, you do not hang out,

754
00:46:22,560 --> 00:46:25,560
Speaker 1: and you are competing with the other guys. So it's

755
00:46:25,600 --> 00:46:28,759
Speaker 1: easier to do the touring and get on stage and

756
00:46:28,800 --> 00:46:30,279
Speaker 1: get that on and get that of what than it

757
00:46:30,400 --> 00:46:31,920
Speaker 1: is to be. You don't go into a studio anymore

758
00:46:31,920 --> 00:46:35,480
Speaker 1: because that's more intimate that died quicker. Yeah, the money

759
00:46:35,560 --> 00:46:37,320
Speaker 1: is so good on the road in a band like that,

760
00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:41,239
Speaker 1: you know that you you won't stay there. It means

761
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:44,000
Speaker 1: big crowds, big places, big deal you can get. Yeah,

762
00:46:44,280 --> 00:46:45,840
Speaker 1: but it got to pomer is no fun? Is it

763
00:46:45,920 --> 00:46:48,640
Speaker 1: about when it starts to crack, when it starts to shift?

764
00:46:49,080 --> 00:46:52,000
Speaker 1: Is it because of songwriting? No one's getting that too.

765
00:46:53,520 --> 00:46:55,400
Speaker 1: Wants to see my songs. I want my songs on

766
00:46:55,480 --> 00:47:00,560
Speaker 1: that album. Who's the decider? Did you guys acquiesced to producers? No? Uh,

767
00:47:01,160 --> 00:47:03,960
Speaker 1: we always produced our records and uh and are we

768
00:47:04,080 --> 00:47:06,480
Speaker 1: had what we call the reality rule. You come into

769
00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:10,839
Speaker 1: the room, you know, just us, nobody else and seeing

770
00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:14,400
Speaker 1: each other song and they either liked it didn't and uh,

771
00:47:15,320 --> 00:47:17,560
Speaker 1: if they liked it, you know, then we start figuring

772
00:47:17,600 --> 00:47:21,400
Speaker 1: out how to sing it. And these are hugely talented guys. Man,

773
00:47:21,600 --> 00:47:23,640
Speaker 1: they came with a lot of stuff. So before it

774
00:47:23,719 --> 00:47:25,279
Speaker 1: was the four of you, the three of you was

775
00:47:25,360 --> 00:47:28,680
Speaker 1: basically pretty good. Yeah, it was okay, you know. Uh.

776
00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:35,319
Speaker 1: Neil's nickname is sometimes it's CSN sometimes why you know, uh,

777
00:47:35,840 --> 00:47:37,560
Speaker 1: and when it would be C. S and Y, it

778
00:47:37,640 --> 00:47:39,960
Speaker 1: was a lot bigger that You've got to know that

779
00:47:40,239 --> 00:47:43,520
Speaker 1: that's the reason to see us and has always Neil's decision,

780
00:47:44,480 --> 00:47:46,719
Speaker 1: because if there's twenty thousand people in the stadium, Neil

781
00:47:46,760 --> 00:47:50,440
Speaker 1: put ten of them there. That's the truth. And so

782
00:47:51,080 --> 00:47:55,480
Speaker 1: he's he's the one that's that's said, that's it's done.

783
00:47:55,600 --> 00:47:57,600
Speaker 1: He doesn't want to do that anymore. And I don't

784
00:47:57,600 --> 00:47:59,960
Speaker 1: think he needs to to see us someone. I don't

785
00:48:00,000 --> 00:48:01,960
Speaker 1: think you'll ever see it again. When you say he's

786
00:48:02,000 --> 00:48:04,320
Speaker 1: sometimes and he comes and goes. Is that his nature

787
00:48:04,360 --> 00:48:06,120
Speaker 1: in all things? He just has to tough time committing

788
00:48:06,160 --> 00:48:10,440
Speaker 1: to anything. No, he's on his own path and he

789
00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:17,160
Speaker 1: does not relinquish that ever, under any circumstances. And uh,

790
00:48:17,920 --> 00:48:20,040
Speaker 1: he does not want to be dependent on anybody else

791
00:48:20,480 --> 00:48:24,279
Speaker 1: and probably doesn't want to explain the money. I don't know.

792
00:48:24,520 --> 00:48:28,200
Speaker 1: I've never asked him, but I know he I think

793
00:48:29,320 --> 00:48:30,879
Speaker 1: you know I had to come to this decision. It's

794
00:48:30,880 --> 00:48:32,560
Speaker 1: a very hard decision, man, This is a very hard

795
00:48:32,640 --> 00:48:34,640
Speaker 1: time for us. I don't know if you know this,

796
00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:40,200
Speaker 1: but streaming pretty much destroyed our earning power. It took half,

797
00:48:40,560 --> 00:48:43,120
Speaker 1: at least half of our earning power away from us

798
00:48:43,120 --> 00:48:46,280
Speaker 1: because they folks, they don't pay us for records anymore.

799
00:48:46,920 --> 00:48:50,800
Speaker 1: And that's really sad. Uh, they got that deal passes

800
00:48:50,920 --> 00:48:53,000
Speaker 1: and they it's sort of this if you worked your

801
00:48:53,080 --> 00:48:55,799
Speaker 1: job and they paid you a nickel for every two weeks.

802
00:48:56,960 --> 00:49:02,640
Speaker 1: It's the proportion is drastically tiny. So with Neil gone

803
00:49:04,120 --> 00:49:09,040
Speaker 1: and cs N still earning but really frozen in place

804
00:49:09,920 --> 00:49:14,120
Speaker 1: and really unpleasant I mean incidents that I will not

805
00:49:14,280 --> 00:49:40,279
Speaker 1: tell you about, but violently bad, carefully chosen more my

806
00:49:40,480 --> 00:49:45,680
Speaker 1: thanks again to David Crosby. We presented several of our

807
00:49:45,800 --> 00:49:49,120
Speaker 1: shows live, and one of my favorites was with director

808
00:49:49,200 --> 00:49:52,839
Speaker 1: William Freakin. Thank you very much, good evening, recorded at

809
00:49:52,880 --> 00:49:56,440
Speaker 1: the Turner Classic Movie Film Festival. Freakin is one of

810
00:49:56,520 --> 00:50:00,200
Speaker 1: the most entertaining storytellers I've ever sat down with. Here

811
00:50:00,280 --> 00:50:03,600
Speaker 1: he is following a screening of The French Connection. We

812
00:50:03,760 --> 00:50:07,200
Speaker 1: then sent it to Jane Fonda, who sent us all

813
00:50:07,360 --> 00:50:11,680
Speaker 1: the same telegram that said, why would I want to

814
00:50:11,760 --> 00:50:15,279
Speaker 1: be in a piece of capitalist rip off bullshit like this?

815
00:50:17,280 --> 00:50:20,080
Speaker 1: Now I've seen her since and she doesn't remember having

816
00:50:20,239 --> 00:50:26,920
Speaker 1: sent that, but I haven't. That was her response, that

817
00:50:27,320 --> 00:50:29,520
Speaker 1: I don't know how she really felt, but that was

818
00:50:30,200 --> 00:50:35,040
Speaker 1: her response. He was honest. Yeah. Meanwhile, Ellen Burston was

819
00:50:35,160 --> 00:50:39,399
Speaker 1: hockeing me all the time. I had seen the Last

820
00:50:39,520 --> 00:50:44,920
Speaker 1: Picture Show, but I didn't know Ellen Burston from Claris Leachman.

821
00:50:45,000 --> 00:50:48,480
Speaker 1: I didn't know which was which. But Ellen said to me,

822
00:50:49,480 --> 00:50:53,520
Speaker 1: do you believe in destiny? Has anyone ever asked you

823
00:50:53,640 --> 00:50:58,400
Speaker 1: that before? Uh? No, Well, she was the only one

824
00:50:58,440 --> 00:51:01,120
Speaker 1: who ever asked me that. And I said, well, I

825
00:51:01,200 --> 00:51:03,960
Speaker 1: guess I believe, And she said, I'm destined to play

826
00:51:04,080 --> 00:51:07,479
Speaker 1: this part. I said, look, with the studio wants Jane

827
00:51:07,520 --> 00:51:11,239
Speaker 1: Fonda and Bancroft or Audrey Hepburn. This was all going on.

828
00:51:12,000 --> 00:51:14,759
Speaker 1: She said, I don't care. I'm destined to play this part.

829
00:51:15,360 --> 00:51:19,400
Speaker 1: And it came about that she was the last person standing,

830
00:51:20,160 --> 00:51:25,280
Speaker 1: and so we cast her against the wishes of the studio.

831
00:51:25,960 --> 00:51:30,480
Speaker 1: They did not They wanted a big star for that um.

832
00:51:31,360 --> 00:51:37,040
Speaker 1: Then we cast Stacy Keach to play Father Carris. He

833
00:51:37,239 --> 00:51:40,480
Speaker 1: was a great is a great actor. He was the

834
00:51:40,560 --> 00:51:45,200
Speaker 1: go to Eugene O'Neill actor on Broadway. And what happened.

835
00:51:46,719 --> 00:51:52,080
Speaker 1: I went to New York and maybe it was that no,

836
00:51:52,320 --> 00:51:55,600
Speaker 1: but no, we cast her. I went to New York

837
00:51:56,400 --> 00:51:59,839
Speaker 1: and I saw the opening night of a play call

838
00:52:00,360 --> 00:52:04,680
Speaker 1: that Championship Season, and it was written by a man

839
00:52:04,840 --> 00:52:08,279
Speaker 1: named Jason Miller. Never heard of him. Uh. I thought

840
00:52:08,320 --> 00:52:13,000
Speaker 1: the play was great. It was it really reeked of

841
00:52:13,440 --> 00:52:17,000
Speaker 1: lapsed Catholicism. It was a play about a group of

842
00:52:17,120 --> 00:52:20,880
Speaker 1: high school guys who won a championship under their coach,

843
00:52:22,080 --> 00:52:25,560
Speaker 1: but cheated to win and they were suffering this guilt

844
00:52:25,800 --> 00:52:33,360
Speaker 1: and the stage was just filled with Catholic guild. I felt. So,

845
00:52:33,600 --> 00:52:36,400
Speaker 1: I I said to my casting director, who was this

846
00:52:36,560 --> 00:52:38,719
Speaker 1: guy that wrote this. I'd love to talk to him,

847
00:52:38,960 --> 00:52:41,680
Speaker 1: just to talk to him. It turned out that he

848
00:52:42,360 --> 00:52:47,000
Speaker 1: had studied for the Priesthood three years at Catholic University

849
00:52:47,120 --> 00:52:50,719
Speaker 1: in Georgetown. He came up to meet me in in

850
00:52:51,480 --> 00:52:54,520
Speaker 1: I was staying at the Sherry Netherlands Hotel and I

851
00:52:54,600 --> 00:52:57,280
Speaker 1: had the flu and I had a lot of pills.

852
00:52:57,640 --> 00:53:01,440
Speaker 1: He thought I was a pill freak, and uh, I

853
00:53:01,560 --> 00:53:04,440
Speaker 1: thought he was a drunk. And he didn't know what

854
00:53:04,640 --> 00:53:07,399
Speaker 1: the hell he was doing up there. And I asked

855
00:53:07,480 --> 00:53:10,200
Speaker 1: him a lot of questions about studying for the Priesthood

856
00:53:10,280 --> 00:53:13,960
Speaker 1: and stuff, and it was a horrible meeting. And I

857
00:53:14,040 --> 00:53:18,399
Speaker 1: went back to Los Angeles and about two weeks later,

858
00:53:18,560 --> 00:53:22,360
Speaker 1: as we're starting to prepare the picture, he called me

859
00:53:22,680 --> 00:53:25,320
Speaker 1: at Warner Brothers and he said, hey, you know that

860
00:53:25,920 --> 00:53:27,799
Speaker 1: that book you were telling me about that You're going

861
00:53:27,840 --> 00:53:31,560
Speaker 1: to film that Exorcist? He said, I said yeah. He said,

862
00:53:31,680 --> 00:53:35,360
Speaker 1: I am that guy. He said, I am that character.

863
00:53:35,880 --> 00:53:40,799
Speaker 1: I said, well, you're not Stacy Keach is that he's

864
00:53:40,840 --> 00:53:43,680
Speaker 1: going to play the part. He said, I'm telling you, man,

865
00:53:44,120 --> 00:53:47,560
Speaker 1: I am this guy. And he said, have you ever

866
00:53:47,760 --> 00:53:50,719
Speaker 1: done anything like a screen test? And I said no,

867
00:53:50,960 --> 00:53:53,840
Speaker 1: I've never shot a screen test. And what's the point.

868
00:53:54,360 --> 00:53:57,000
Speaker 1: I told you, we've cast this. He had never made

869
00:53:57,040 --> 00:54:00,040
Speaker 1: a film, never been in a movie, only play a

870
00:54:00,600 --> 00:54:05,239
Speaker 1: very small acting roles in a road road companies. He

871
00:54:05,400 --> 00:54:09,680
Speaker 1: was delivering milk in Flushing, New York when he wrote

872
00:54:10,280 --> 00:54:15,480
Speaker 1: Championship Season, and so he said, you gotta test me.

873
00:54:15,920 --> 00:54:19,359
Speaker 1: You have to give me a screen test. I said, why,

874
00:54:19,960 --> 00:54:23,320
Speaker 1: what a waste of time? He said, Man, I'm telling

875
00:54:23,400 --> 00:54:26,399
Speaker 1: you so. I had great respect for him as a writer.

876
00:54:27,000 --> 00:54:29,400
Speaker 1: I said, you want to shoot a screen test? Okay,

877
00:54:29,840 --> 00:54:33,000
Speaker 1: you come out here on your own. You get out here.

878
00:54:33,280 --> 00:54:37,120
Speaker 1: It was like, let's say it was a Tuesday. I

879
00:54:37,200 --> 00:54:40,920
Speaker 1: said him, get out here by Thursday, and I'll shoot

880
00:54:41,239 --> 00:54:44,160
Speaker 1: a screen test with you, and i'll take it out

881
00:54:44,200 --> 00:54:46,239
Speaker 1: of the camera and give it to you so you

882
00:54:46,280 --> 00:54:50,920
Speaker 1: can show it to your kids. And uh, he said, oh,

883
00:54:51,000 --> 00:54:53,560
Speaker 1: I can't get out there Thursday. I said, what do

884
00:54:53,640 --> 00:54:56,560
Speaker 1: you mean. He said, I don't fly. He said, I'll

885
00:54:56,600 --> 00:54:58,439
Speaker 1: take the train. I'll be out there in a week,

886
00:54:59,719 --> 00:55:06,480
Speaker 1: all right. So I set up an empty stage with

887
00:55:06,640 --> 00:55:13,280
Speaker 1: a great cinematographer named Bill Freaker, and I had cast

888
00:55:13,520 --> 00:55:16,920
Speaker 1: Burston and I said, look, we're gonna do a test

889
00:55:17,000 --> 00:55:20,680
Speaker 1: to this guy, and let's do the scene where you

890
00:55:20,920 --> 00:55:25,200
Speaker 1: first meet him in a little park in Georgetown and

891
00:55:25,320 --> 00:55:28,040
Speaker 1: you tell him that you think your daughter is possessed.

892
00:55:29,200 --> 00:55:31,279
Speaker 1: And she said, what, why are we doing this? You've

893
00:55:31,320 --> 00:55:33,359
Speaker 1: got a great actor. I said, I don't know why

894
00:55:33,400 --> 00:55:36,400
Speaker 1: we're doing this. And I swear to God, I didn't

895
00:55:37,760 --> 00:55:42,280
Speaker 1: We shoot the test, no sets, just Bill Freaker lighting

896
00:55:42,800 --> 00:55:48,120
Speaker 1: in an empty studio, and they did that scene one take.

897
00:55:48,880 --> 00:55:53,360
Speaker 1: And then I had Ellen Uh interview Jason with the

898
00:55:53,520 --> 00:55:57,160
Speaker 1: camera over her shoulder on him, where she just asked

899
00:55:57,239 --> 00:56:01,160
Speaker 1: him questions about his life, who he was, what his

900
00:56:01,280 --> 00:56:06,480
Speaker 1: background was, his family, everything, And then I shot a

901
00:56:06,680 --> 00:56:10,640
Speaker 1: very tight close up of him saying the Mass, but

902
00:56:10,840 --> 00:56:14,000
Speaker 1: not saying it the way you used to hear it.

903
00:56:14,280 --> 00:56:16,960
Speaker 1: Maybe you still do in church where the priest just

904
00:56:17,200 --> 00:56:19,680
Speaker 1: rattles that off, you know, the name of the Fathers

905
00:56:20,080 --> 00:56:23,040
Speaker 1: a little book. I said, I would say the words

906
00:56:23,160 --> 00:56:27,359
Speaker 1: of the Mass as though you really mean them, and well,

907
00:56:27,440 --> 00:56:31,520
Speaker 1: you mean every word, and and say it, Uh with

908
00:56:31,640 --> 00:56:35,120
Speaker 1: as much conviction as you can, and take your time,

909
00:56:35,600 --> 00:56:37,680
Speaker 1: and I shot that in the close up, and we

910
00:56:37,840 --> 00:56:43,640
Speaker 1: did that and I wasn't sure about anything, but Burston

911
00:56:43,840 --> 00:56:46,320
Speaker 1: came over to me and said, you're not going to

912
00:56:46,440 --> 00:56:49,400
Speaker 1: hire this guy, are you? And I said, well why not?

913
00:56:50,000 --> 00:56:53,640
Speaker 1: She said he can't act. He said he's not an actor,

914
00:56:53,960 --> 00:56:59,919
Speaker 1: he can't act. And she said, when I tell father

915
00:57:00,000 --> 00:57:03,680
Speaker 1: there caress this story about my daughter, I have to

916
00:57:03,840 --> 00:57:07,000
Speaker 1: break down and collapse in his arms, and I need

917
00:57:07,120 --> 00:57:11,120
Speaker 1: a big strong man to do that. It happened that

918
00:57:11,239 --> 00:57:13,839
Speaker 1: she had was going with a big strong man at

919
00:57:13,880 --> 00:57:16,440
Speaker 1: that time who was an actor that she wanted me

920
00:57:16,520 --> 00:57:20,520
Speaker 1: to consider. But uh, she said, this guy is about

921
00:57:20,760 --> 00:57:26,040
Speaker 1: five six. I said, you're probably right. And the next

922
00:57:26,520 --> 00:57:30,880
Speaker 1: morning I saw the dailies and the camera just loved

923
00:57:30,920 --> 00:57:35,160
Speaker 1: this guy. The camera just loved him. He looked great,

924
00:57:35,400 --> 00:57:38,320
Speaker 1: he was real. And I went to Warner Brothers and

925
00:57:38,440 --> 00:57:42,160
Speaker 1: I said, we're gonna pay off Stacy Keach and hire

926
00:57:42,280 --> 00:57:45,720
Speaker 1: this guy. And they said, you're out of your mind.

927
00:57:46,200 --> 00:57:51,479
Speaker 1: What is wrong with you? You're crazy, but you're possessed, Yes,

928
00:57:52,640 --> 00:57:54,800
Speaker 1: something like that. I didn't want to do it, the

929
00:57:54,920 --> 00:57:58,480
Speaker 1: writer didn't want to do it. Uh, nobody wanted to

930
00:57:58,560 --> 00:58:00,560
Speaker 1: do it. But I said, this is what we're gonna do,

931
00:58:01,160 --> 00:58:05,280
Speaker 1: and that's what we did. And he was brilliant, incredible.

932
00:58:05,800 --> 00:58:08,640
Speaker 1: You said that, Nichols said, no twelve year old could

933
00:58:08,680 --> 00:58:11,280
Speaker 1: carry that film. How did you solve that problem? You

934
00:58:11,440 --> 00:58:18,360
Speaker 1: yourself with Linda Blair. H Nichols was wrong because he

935
00:58:18,760 --> 00:58:22,080
Speaker 1: had not met Linda Blair. We we had cat We

936
00:58:22,200 --> 00:58:27,200
Speaker 1: had auditioned several thousand girls. They were put on tape

937
00:58:27,280 --> 00:58:31,960
Speaker 1: from all across the country by casting directors, and I

938
00:58:32,120 --> 00:58:35,480
Speaker 1: must have looked at five hundred of them myself, just

939
00:58:35,720 --> 00:58:39,560
Speaker 1: a minute or two and then out, and it appeared

940
00:58:39,640 --> 00:58:43,960
Speaker 1: that there was nobody who could play this part who

941
00:58:44,120 --> 00:58:47,240
Speaker 1: was twelve years old. And I had reached a point

942
00:58:47,320 --> 00:58:49,800
Speaker 1: where I felt like that we couldn't make the picture.

943
00:58:50,240 --> 00:58:53,040
Speaker 1: You could not find a twelve year old girl who

944
00:58:53,240 --> 00:58:57,200
Speaker 1: a would understand all this stuff or be not be

945
00:58:57,480 --> 00:59:00,800
Speaker 1: scarred by it, maybe for the rest of her life.

946
00:59:01,600 --> 00:59:05,680
Speaker 1: And I didn't see that possibility in any of the

947
00:59:06,360 --> 00:59:11,040
Speaker 1: audition tapes. We started to look at sixteen year olds

948
00:59:11,640 --> 00:59:15,240
Speaker 1: who looked younger, and fifteen year olds, and one day

949
00:59:16,160 --> 00:59:19,600
Speaker 1: my assistant in New York said, there's a woman out

950
00:59:19,680 --> 00:59:23,200
Speaker 1: here who has brought her daughter. Her name is Eleanor Blair,

951
00:59:23,680 --> 00:59:27,160
Speaker 1: and she doesn't have an appointment. Would you see her?

952
00:59:28,040 --> 00:59:31,200
Speaker 1: And I said, okay, why not? Because we were striking

953
00:59:31,280 --> 00:59:34,400
Speaker 1: out all over the place. In came this little girl

954
00:59:34,560 --> 00:59:40,480
Speaker 1: with her mother. She was twelve, and I knew immediately

955
00:59:40,640 --> 00:59:44,520
Speaker 1: that she was the girl instantly she sat down. She

956
00:59:44,680 --> 00:59:48,600
Speaker 1: had never acted. She had done those things that you

957
00:59:48,760 --> 00:59:51,400
Speaker 1: see like in the New York Daily News, in these

958
00:59:51,480 --> 00:59:56,880
Speaker 1: newspapers with girls model coats and little dresses or shoes

959
00:59:57,040 --> 01:00:00,440
Speaker 1: or something. She had done that, but no acting. So

960
01:00:00,640 --> 01:00:03,720
Speaker 1: she sat down with her mother and I am she

961
01:00:03,920 --> 01:00:08,800
Speaker 1: was a straight A student in Westport, Connecticut, and she

962
01:00:08,960 --> 01:00:13,720
Speaker 1: was had one blue ribbons showing horses at Madison Square Garden.

963
01:00:14,520 --> 01:00:18,240
Speaker 1: But had never acted. But I said to her, Linda,

964
01:00:18,280 --> 01:00:20,440
Speaker 1: do you know anything about this story? Do you know

965
01:00:20,520 --> 01:00:24,560
Speaker 1: anything about the the Exorcist story? And she said, oh yes,

966
01:00:24,720 --> 01:00:27,960
Speaker 1: I read the book as she did. She said yes,

967
01:00:28,080 --> 01:00:31,280
Speaker 1: and I looked at her mother. Mother nodded, and I said,

968
01:00:31,320 --> 01:00:34,400
Speaker 1: what what is it about? And she said, well, it's

969
01:00:34,400 --> 01:00:37,600
Speaker 1: about a little girl who gets possessed by a devil

970
01:00:37,920 --> 01:00:40,720
Speaker 1: and she does a whole bunch of bad things. I said, well,

971
01:00:40,800 --> 01:00:44,720
Speaker 1: like what and she said, well, she hits her mother

972
01:00:44,840 --> 01:00:48,720
Speaker 1: across the face, and she pushes a man out of

973
01:00:48,760 --> 01:00:54,000
Speaker 1: her bedroom window, and she masturbates with a crucifix. And

974
01:00:54,160 --> 01:00:57,480
Speaker 1: I said, uh. I looked at her. Mother was smiling

975
01:00:59,280 --> 01:01:01,840
Speaker 1: and I said, you know what that means. She said

976
01:01:01,880 --> 01:01:05,200
Speaker 1: what I said to to to masturbate? And she said

977
01:01:05,640 --> 01:01:10,080
Speaker 1: it was like jerking off, isn't it? And I said yes.

978
01:01:11,000 --> 01:01:15,840
Speaker 1: Mother was still smiling, and I said to her, have

979
01:01:16,040 --> 01:01:20,120
Speaker 1: you ever done that? Have you ever done what you

980
01:01:20,280 --> 01:01:25,200
Speaker 1: just said? She said, sure, haven't you? And so I

981
01:01:25,360 --> 01:01:34,600
Speaker 1: hired her. My thanks again to William Friedkin. I think

982
01:01:34,640 --> 01:01:37,320
Speaker 1: you can understand why that's one of my favorite shows.

983
01:01:38,240 --> 01:01:41,400
Speaker 1: Tune in next time for part two of my farewell

984
01:01:41,520 --> 01:01:45,760
Speaker 1: compilation show. Again, my thanks to Barbara Streisan, Joe Delessandro,

985
01:01:45,920 --> 01:01:49,840
Speaker 1: Elaine Stretch, David Crosby and William Friedkin join us next time.

986
01:01:50,080 --> 01:01:50,360
Speaker 1: Thank you,