WEBVTT - Lady MacRobert's Reply 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:03.640 Before we start the episode. One production note. In this episode, 0:00:03.680 --> 0:00:05.680 we have a lot of quotes from Roald Dahl from 0:00:05.680 --> 0:00:08.479 his interviews with Barry Ferrell. Rather than just have me 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:11.000 read them in my terrible British accent, we decided to 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:14.200 bring them to life, so we use an actor's performance 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:18.400 and some custom software to create a doll like voice. Okay, 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:25.160 now onto the episode. We've heard a lot about Roll 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:28.000 Dall so far. His days is a fighter pilot, his 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:31.440 work as a spy with The Irregulars, his screenwriting in Hollywood. 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:33.640 What if I told you that on his way to 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:37.000 becoming the most successful children's author ever, Dahl took a 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:41.839 quick little detour to become a world class neuroscientist. At 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:43.640 this point in the season, I feel like you might 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:47.320 actually believe me as you should. Here's Tom Solomon, a 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:49.760 doctor who knew Dall, speaking on Liverpool TV. 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:53.320 In his life he did some amazing medical things. He 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:58.320 actually invented a neurosurgical device to treat watch on the 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:00.920 brain to treat hydroch for us, and the treatments leant 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:04.000 very good, so he invented a new one and it 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:05.080 was used around the world. 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:07.120 Thousands of children benefited. 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:13.560 Okay, then roll Doll the neuroscience engineer. I promise it's 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:16.080 an even crazier story than that doctor just alluded to. 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:19.240 But in order to really understand why it was necessary 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:21.360 for him to become an expert in the brain, I 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:23.880 got to tell you about Doll's kids. Of all the 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:26.320 masks that Doll tries on, this is going to be 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:34.880 his most challenging doting father. For my hard podcast Imagine 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:39.080 Entertainment and Parallax, I'm Marrion Tracy and this is the 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:49.480 Secret world of Role Dall Episode five. I didn't become 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:51.720 a father until after my career had sort of found 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:54.560 its footing, until I had some stability, which took a while, 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:57.639 because you know, I'm a writer. But when Dahl becomes 0:01:57.640 --> 0:01:59.720 a dad, he's still trying to figure out his career, 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:02.000 to figure out what kind of writer he is. He 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:05.000 hasn't found his voice yet. He's still attempting adult fiction 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:07.520 in the vein of his heroes like Hemingway, Graham Green, 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:11.240 and C. S. Forrester. In other words, he's writing this muscular, 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:14.679 macho prose focused on action. His stories at this time 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:17.400 are also filled with the pretty explicit sexual adventures of 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:20.160 his heroes. If you've never read these stories and only 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:22.400 no Doll from his kids books, you will be shocked. 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:28.840 Start with my Uncle Oswald. It is raunchy, but here's 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:31.160 what I'm getting at. It takes Doll going on the 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:33.639 insane journey with his family that you're about to hear 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:36.360 for him to figure out who his natural audience is 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:40.680 and what kind of writer he is. In nineteen sixty, 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:44.399 Doll and Neil welcome their third child, Theo, their only son. 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:48.280 With two daughters already at home, Olivia and Tessa, Doll 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:52.000 is thrilled to finally have a boy. According to writer 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:55.400 Nadia Cohen, Doll writes pretty graphically about his excitement over 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:58.720 the babies boy parts that I'm not going to subject 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:01.160 you to here. I'll just say he compares it to 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:04.480 an exotic flower glowing with promise and leave it at that. 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:09.600 Dall immediately feels a special kinship with Theo, the only 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:12.280 boy in a family of sisters, just like Dahl had been. 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:15.400 Six weeks after Theo's birth, the family moves to New 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:19.000 York for the winter. Dahl explains what happens next to 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:21.519 Barry Ferrell, a journalist, to welcome back to a bunch 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:24.080 because he practically moves in with the family. During this period, 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:28.000 Farrell writes an entire book about what he witnesses. I 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:30.320 think Farrell was originally just hoping to write a cozy 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:33.720 Sunday profile, but ended up becoming embedded with the dolls, 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:38.320 like a war correspondent in a combat zone. So the 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:40.680 family is living in New York. Dall is struggling to 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:43.560 write his short stories while his wife pat Neil, is 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:47.720 on a break from shooting breakfast to Tiffany's. Dall tells 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:48.920 Ferrell what happens next. 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:55.200 It was December fifth, nineteen sixty. We had a nurse 0:03:55.280 --> 0:04:01.480 then Susan and Susan had THEO in his pram on 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:04.440 their way to pick up Olivia from her nursery school 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:09.000 two blocks from home, and a cab shot passed and 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:13.240 took the pram right out of Susan's hands. Susan dashed 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:18.080 across after it. The plan had flown forty feet through 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:20.320 the air and into the side of a boss. 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:25.359 THEO was just four months old. 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:29.520 Tessa, three years old, is left standing alone on the 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:32.800 sidewalk as Susan rushes into the street. The police are 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:35.400 there within minutes and they rush them all to the hospital. 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:39.560 Neil is only a few blocks away when the accident happens. 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:42.320 She hears the sirens pass, but she has no idea 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:45.480 they're for her infant son. When she walks into their apartment, 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:48.520 the telephone is already ringing. As soon as she receives 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:51.240 the news, she hangs up and calls Doll at his office. 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:54.479 She doesn't have the full story, yet doesn't sound overly alarmed. 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:57.560 THEO has been hurt, she tells him. They say, not 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:00.800 too seriously, we have to go to the hospital. Dohl 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:03.039 throws on a coat and gets ready to leave, but 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:05.760 before he can get out the door, Susan calls from 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:10.800 the hospital, hysterical, saying, hurry, hurry, So then I knew 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:14.320 it was bad, Doll says, THEO is an emergency. When 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:17.159 we get there, Doll continues, they x ray him and 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:21.680 find lots of fractures, very critical shape, they say. In 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:24.480 her memoir, Neil goes even further, writing that the doctor 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:27.760 pulled them aside after examining THEO. He told them we 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:32.919 are doing everything we can, but he is going to die. 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:35.800 From that moment on, Neil essentially moves into the hospital, 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:38.600 living off stale coffee, sleeping in a chair beside her 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:41.520 son's bed, obsessed with the rhythms of his labored breathing 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:44.080 when he sleeps, which is a lot of the time. 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:47.120 Neil climbs two flights of stairs on unsteady legs to 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:50.120 another kind of visial. In an upstairs room at this 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:53.880 very same hospital is her old friend, the playwright Lillian Hellman, 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:57.280 who's keeping watch over Dashiell Hammett, the famous detective novelist 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:01.719 and her longtime romantic partner. He's dying lung cancer. It's 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:05.760 a really cruel symmetry. You might remember Hellman played matchmaker 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:08.600 for Doll o' neil by throwing that dinner party years ago. 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:11.040 That was the bright beginning of something in a beautiful 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:14.760 setting filled with brilliant writers and celebrities. Now the two 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:18.600 women are together again in the opposite of that glamorous setting, 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:22.599 no more fancy dresses, no makeup, just trapped in a 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:28.560 sterile Manhattan tower, terrified and grieving. But back to Dol. 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:31.920 He tells Ferrell about the dreadful special nurses that kept 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:34.800 getting called in to theo's room. One of these nurses 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:37.520 walks right in and before even attending to THEO. She 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:40.520 shows dollan Neil in newspaper clipping about the accident and says, 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:44.000 how thrilled she is to be assigned this case. This 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:45.640 is something Doll and Neil are going to have to 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:49.159 get used to. Unfortunately, Neil is a world famous movie star. 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:51.680 Her son being in an accident like this is huge 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:54.640 international news, and some of the nurses seem much more 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:57.279 interested in getting Neil's autograph than in paying attention to 0:06:57.320 --> 0:07:01.920 her son. They seem downright distracted. One afternoon, Doll observes 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:04.480 a nurse giving THEO a dose of an anti convulsant, 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:06.880 and she's giving him a ton of it. Doll says, 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:10.960 isn't that rather a lot? Yeah, sir, no half an 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:14.320 ounce like it's supposed to be. She replies, calmly, well, 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:16.680 it was supposed to be a tenth of a gram. 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:20.760 Doll later explains, a hell of a lot less. Doctors 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:23.120 rush in and start to pump the stomach of this 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:27.840 poor four month old baby after the nurse's mistake. Despite 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:30.520 the comfort of having helmet and ham it right upstairs, 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:32.880 the Dolls decide to get the hell out of this hospital, 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:35.240 so they wrap THEO and blankets, pick him up in 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:38.280 their arms and just carry him out. All the doctors 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:41.520 are standing around, looking very worried and protesting, Doll says, 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:45.040 but their minds are made up to make matters worse. 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:47.880 It's a crazy snow day in New York. But then 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:52.200 Niel's longtime agent, Harvey Orkin, suddenly materializes with a car. 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:56.600 Doll continues, It was snowing like hell, and we were desperate. 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:00.880 But then Harvey suddenly materialized with a car, and he 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:05.120 drove very fast and very skillfully through the blizzard, with 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:08.720 cars skidding at odd angles all around us. I'd not 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:13.720 forgotten my ride, because here was Harvey, an unhappyish chap, 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:17.800 a wise, cracky fellow, a person I wasn't so keen on, 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:21.600 and who doubtlessly wasn't so fond of me. Yet there 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:24.880 was Harvey, still the sort of friend who would drive 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:27.720 through the snow for you in an emergency. 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:33.880 I love this, Dezel. Loyalty is such an important theme 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:37.240 in Doll's work. Think of Matilda and Miss Honey, Sophie 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:40.200 and the BFG Charlie and Grandpa Joe. You can just 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:42.360 feel how much it means to Doll that this guy, 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:45.319 this agent, who's not even a close friend, has nevertheless 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:49.160 shown up in a snowstorm to save them. Harvey drives 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:51.960 them to Presbyterian Hospital. I know it well, It's where 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:55.040 I had both of my kids. Here. The doctors evaluate 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:58.080 THEO and operate on him for a subdermal hematoma, which 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:00.320 is a kind of swelling cause by bleeding into the brain. 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:06.680 And they put it right, Dahl says, a huge, huge relief. Still, 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:09.520 THEO will stay in the hospital inside an oxygen tent 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:12.880 for the next two weeks. It's a terrible period. THEO 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:17.120 goes temporarily blind from cerebro spinal fluid accumulating around his brain, 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:21.200 which requires another operation. Remember he's only four months old. 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:25.920 Each operation is incredibly dangerous. Neil somehow stays relatively calm 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:28.200 through it all. She has a kind of strength you 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:31.320 could only step back from and admire. Doll later gushes 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:45.320 about his wife. THEO finally gets released from the hospital 0:09:45.440 --> 0:09:48.080 right before Christmas. He goes home, but he's a bunch 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:51.320 of terrifying stepbacks, according to Dennison, including a build up 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:54.280 of cerebro spinal fluid pressing on the brain that renders 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:58.320 him silent, unseen, unmoving. Every time there's this build up 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:00.040 of food, they have to hurry him back to the 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:02.520 hospital for the fluid to be drained, and of course 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:05.840 this puts THEO at risk of blindness, brain damage, and death. 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:10.319 Doctors try to prevent further fluid build up with a 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:13.800 drainage tube, but the tube keeps getting blocked, making another 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:17.400 operation necessary, and with every operation the stakes are raised 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:21.000 and the chances lesson of restoring theo's sight and brain function. 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:24.840 Neil says, whenever they take THEO back in for surgery, 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:27.920 he looks up at us with those huge, desolate, bewildered 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:30.360 eyes that ask, why are you doing this to me again? 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:37.679 THEO has eight operations in thirty months, all before he's 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:40.360 three years old, and it's almost all due to the 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:46.600 inability of this tube to work. I think in a 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:49.760 lot of partnerships, when one person becomes pessimistic or feels 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:52.800 defeated about something, the other person just naturally becomes more 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:56.600 optimistic and upbeat. I've definitely experienced this over the years 0:10:56.600 --> 0:10:59.480 in writing partnerships. While Neil may be showing a ton 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:02.560 of strength, THEO, she's genuinely not sure if he's going 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:05.040 to make it through all this so Dall takes the 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:09.319 opposite outlook. According to Dennison, Again, Dall sets aside any 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:11.760 assumption that THEO will die. He just puts it out 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:13.880 of his mind and sets out to find a way 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:17.480 to save him. Doll's sole focus becomes this tube that 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:21.040 keeps failing. He writes, I couldn't believe that with everything 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:24.000 science had come up with, they couldn't produce one little 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:29.000 clogproof tube. That little clogproof tube becomes his life's mission. 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:34.200 But what the hell does a writer know about medical tubes? 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:38.040 Without any medical expertise, a drawn Dall relies on his 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:45.320 creativity instead. But where to begin. His first call is 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:48.599 to doctor Kenneth Till, a pediatric neurosurgeon who's been in 0:11:48.679 --> 0:11:51.160 charge of THEO at the hospital. Till can help with 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:53.800 the science, but they need someone else, to someone who 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:57.120 can help with the design. In a very inspired, very creative, 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:00.400 very dolly in move, Doll decides to call a toy maker. 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:04.480 He knows Stanley Wade. Doll had once bought model airplanes 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:07.120 from Wade for his nephew, and he remembers how ingenious 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:12.360 Wade was with tiny instruments. Together the three of them, 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:15.840 Doll Till and Wade spend hours in Doll's living room 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:19.199 brainstorming ideas. It's not that different from the writer's room 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:21.640 in la where Walt Disney first taught Doll how to 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:25.040 collaborate years ago. They throw ideas on the board, rejecting 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:27.200 ones that don't work and building on those that do. 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:30.640 They take breaks to play pool, They snack, they laugh, 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:34.520 They pour coffee down their throats by the gallon. In hindsight, 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:36.680 what they come up with seem so obvious, but no 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:39.600 one had done it before. For instance, until that moment, 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:42.200 all of these tubes were made of plastic, which was 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:45.440 expensive and hard to sterilize. Doll and his two partners 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:48.360 swapped out the plastic for stainless steel, which made the 0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:51.560 device more durable and also way easier to disinfect and 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:55.360 prevent infections. They also changed the designs slightly to give 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:58.280 the tube a bigger surface area, which prevented fluid from 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:02.920 flowing back into the brain and eating blackage. Again, sounds obvious, 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:04.960 but no one had ever come up with a design 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:07.599 that reduced the risk of blockage before. I don't know 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:10.080 if it's the special alchemy of these three specific men 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:12.600 with their very different skill sets or the urgency. Doll 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:14.480 feels to get this done quickly to save his son. 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:18.000 But together, Doll, Till and Wade come up with a 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:23.760 better tube than has ever existed. Can I just stop 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:26.600 for a second here to say, Oh my God? With 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:29.680 absolutely no training, Doll wills himself to come up with 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:33.000 this breakthrough device in order to save theo his only son. 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:35.560 Is that not the greatest thing you've ever heard? His 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:38.920 poor infant son is dying. Nothing is working, and instead 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:42.360 of just throwing his hands up, he literally invents the solution. 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:45.120 It takes two years for them to build it, which 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:47.320 is roughly forty thousand years fewer than it would have 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:53.120 taken me. The Wade Doll Till valve name for its 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:57.240 three innovators, is so successful that it soon gets manufactured globally. 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:00.040 Dall insists they not make a profit on it in 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:03.040 order to be able to distribute it cheaply. According to 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:06.280 the National Library of Medicine at NIH, the device is 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:09.120 estimated to have been used in two to three thousand 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:11.880 children worldwide in the two years after they came up 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:15.640 with it. It's especially useful in developing nations, where medical 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:18.120 devices like this mean the difference between life and death. 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:23.400 Not to take us off topic, but a quick aside 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:24.960 just to say that I did a bunch of research 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:27.480 around this, and the only similar example I've found of 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:30.760 anything like this ever happening a breakthrough medical device getting 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:34.240 created by someone without medical training is exactly one year later, 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:37.720 a guy named Paul Winchell, a TV actor who appeared 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:39.640 in lots of sitcoms like The Brady Bunch and The 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:42.160 Beverly Hillbillies and was the original voice of Tigger and 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:45.280 Winnie the Pooh. He co creates the first artificial heart. 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:49.200 I have nothing more to say about that except what 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:54.760 the hell was happening in the sixties for Dahl. Creating 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:57.120 the tube is another incredible feat in a life full 0:14:57.120 --> 0:14:59.600 of them. I think each of these accomplishments was only 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:02.400 possible because of the one that came before. They all 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:05.120 built on each other. When Doll was recruited into the 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:08.520 Irregulars in his twenties without any espionage training, he didn't 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:10.240 know what he was doing, but in a matter of 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:13.280 months he was hanging out with Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:16.440 When he decided to write movies, he was completely clueless, 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:19.040 but soon he was on top of Hollywood, working with 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:22.160 Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock. When you go through life 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:25.040 like that with no apparent ceiling to what's possible, with 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:28.960 life constantly reinforcing your crazy ambitions, you must start to 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:31.360 feel like nothing is out of reach. So when no 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:34.440 device exists to help cure your infant son, you don't 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:37.000 go to church and pray. You call a doctor and 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:42.960 a toymaker you know, and say let's get to work. Doll, 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:45.200 of course, later puts all of this into his writing. 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:48.240 The lead character in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is partly 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:51.600 based on the toymaker Wade, and Willy Wonka has parts 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:54.920 of all three men, an innovating scientist, a creative genius, 0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:58.200 a toy making savant. But instead of torturing children like 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:00.960 Wonka does, Doll and his buddies build a device to 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:01.600 save them. 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:05.560 Invention, my dear friends, is ninety three percent per aspiration, 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:11.400 six percent electricity, four percent evaporation, and two percent. 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:15.120 But a Scotch ripple that's one hundred and five percent. That's, 0:16:15.120 --> 0:16:17.400 of course, the line from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:20.240 But Doll isn't yet ready to write that he's still 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:22.840 a few years away from dreaming wanka up. He's still 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:26.800 writing for the wrong audience, namely adults, and it's not 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:30.920 going well. Doll's creative frustration start bleeding into his home life, 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:34.600 adding strain to a family already fractured by theo's accident. 0:16:37.400 --> 0:16:39.440 But if he thinks the pressures are intense right now, 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:42.360 they're nothing compared to what's lying right around the corner. 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:47.520 Doll o'niel's second oldest daughter, Tessa, sums up what's about 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:49.640 to happen well when she says, theirs was a family 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:53.160 that quote toppled unwittingly over the edge of a jagged 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:56.160 cliff face into a canyon of darkness, which was filled 0:16:56.160 --> 0:17:01.440 with such sadness, such total devastation, that we would never recover. Yeah, 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:15.000 get ready. Olivia is Dall o'nil's first born. It's now 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:18.840 November nineteen sixty two, a little less than two years 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:22.080 after Theo's accident. The family has left New York and 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:26.040 is living in England. Now, Olivia comes home with a 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:28.760 note from the headmistress of her elementary school warning of 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:34.359 a measles outbreak. She's seven years old. Doll Emil's first thought, 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:37.119 of course, is about THEO. After what he's been through, 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:40.040 they can't risk him getting the virus under any circumstances. 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:43.480 Vaccines against the disease are still pretty uncommon in this era, 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:47.920 and doses are unlimited supply. But pulling some strings, Meal 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:50.760 is able to obtain the vaccine for THEO, which means Olivia, 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:56.359 who's perfectly healthy, doesn't get any protection. And of course 0:17:57.200 --> 0:18:01.000 Olivia contracts measles. It does seem like a terrible case 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:05.240 at first, but here's doll on what happens next. 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:10.560 One morning, when Olivia was well on the road to recovery, 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:14.159 I was sitting on her bed showing her how to 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:18.800 fashion little animals out of colored pipe cleaners, And when 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:21.399 it came to her turn to make one herself, I 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:24.880 noticed that her fingers in her mind were not working together, 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:26.640 and she couldn't do anything. 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:30.919 How are you feeling all right, I asked her. I 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:35.720 feel all sleepy, she said. In an hour she was unconscious, 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:39.399 and in twelve hours she was dead. 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:45.720 In such a cruel mirror to his own childhood, Olivia 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:48.760 is seven when she dies, the same age Doll's older sister, 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:53.680 Astri was when she died. The defining moment of Doll's childhood, 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:59.080 repeated again in his adulthood. In Doll's memoir Boy, he 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:02.480 writes about Astri she was far and away my father's favorite. 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:05.760 He says he adored her beyond measure, and her sudden 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:11.480 death left him literally speechless for days afterwards. Dall's father 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:14.280 was so overwhelmed with grief that when he himself went 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:17.040 down in pneumonia a few weeks after Astrey died, he 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:20.119 didn't care whether or not he survived. Doll writes, a 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:24.920 patient had to fight to survive. My father refused to fight. 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:28.399 He was thinking, I am quite sure of his beloved daughter, 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:32.040 and he was wanting to join her in heaven. So 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:35.480 he died too. He was fifty seven years old. My 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:38.520 mother had now lost a daughter and a husband, all 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:40.960 in the space of a few weeks. Heaven knows what 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:42.480 it must have felt like to be hit with a 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:46.159 double catastrophe like this, Doll finishes, which is such a 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:48.760 strange turn of phrase, because, of course Dall was hit 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:54.560 with it too. He was three years old. So the 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:57.320 big question right now for Doll can he be stronger 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:00.919 than his father? Was? He genuine he doesn't know the answer. 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:04.160 He becomes lost. He begins drinking more and taking more 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:07.280 painkillers for his old back injury from the plane crash. 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:10.040 It happened so swiftly that one didn't have time to 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:12.719 prepare for it. Doll writes, I was in a kind 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:15.720 of daze, I suppose, and morbid thoughts kept after me. 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:18.280 That kind of thought can run you down, you know, 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:21.399 worrying about fate and the meaning of things. I couldn't 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:24.240 do any writing, and that went on for about a 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:30.360 year and a half. According to Dennison, Doll's only recourse 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:32.880 is to try to figure out exactly what happened to Olivia. 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:35.639 Maybe he can invent something that will help others in 0:20:35.680 --> 0:20:38.639 the same situation, like the medical tube he made for THEO. 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:41.720 He remembers that Olivia strangely hadn't had a reaction to 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:46.160 her smallpox vaccinations years before, meaning she seemed naturally immune 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:49.760 to that disease. Huh, maybe there was a connection between 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:52.840 that and her measle's reaction. He begins writing letters to 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:57.640 specialists around the globe. He is desperate for answers. Dall 0:20:57.720 --> 0:20:58.960 tells Barry Ferrell. 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:01.040 I got the idea that the must be some way 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:03.919 of finding out in advance if a child is susceptible 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:06.880 to this. I wanted to set up a careful investigation, 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:09.200 and I was prepared to get in touch with every 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:11.800 parent of every child in this country who had had 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:15.480 severe complications from measles. I thought of drawing up a 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:19.040 questionnaire and correlating the answers. But by then the inoculation 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:21.800 against measles had become more common in England, so the 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:23.760 problem had been very largely erased. 0:21:24.960 --> 0:21:28.720 Still, Dahl seems hell banned on blaming himself for Olivia's death. 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:32.359 After Theo's accident on the Upper East Side, Dal O'Neil 0:21:32.600 --> 0:21:34.399 had decided to get the hell out of Manhattan. 0:21:34.880 --> 0:21:37.800 Normally we would have been in New York in November, 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:41.399 but after the accident we said, let's get out of 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:45.080 this place where children are hit by taxi cabs, and 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:49.320 we moved our permanent household to England. Of course, Olivia 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:51.560 wouldn't have died if we had stayed in New York. 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:56.320 They had the inoculations there, but here in England they 0:21:56.359 --> 0:21:58.760 weren't available them. 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:01.400 Meal's strategy to deal with all this grief is through religion, 0:22:01.600 --> 0:22:05.000 finding solace in her Southern Protestant upbringing. But Doll is 0:22:05.000 --> 0:22:08.600 dismissive of nearly all religious beliefs, comparing them to superstition. 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:11.360 I don't have those feelings at all, he writes, though 0:22:11.359 --> 0:22:13.760 he does confess to having moments of wondering how so 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:17.280 much misfortune could befall one family. But Doll doesn't see 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:19.399 it as a curse or, as he puts it, a 0:22:19.440 --> 0:22:22.760 doom coming down on us. He just thought, how odd. 0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:25.119 I don't think I'm capable of taking it beyond that, 0:22:25.680 --> 0:22:28.600 Superstition is something one grows out of. You try avoiding 0:22:28.640 --> 0:22:30.600 all the cracks in the pavement, or you touch all 0:22:30.600 --> 0:22:32.480 the posts in the fence, but then you find out 0:22:32.520 --> 0:22:34.920 later that it doesn't help. You find out that it's 0:22:34.960 --> 0:22:36.439 not going to make a bit of difference if you 0:22:36.480 --> 0:22:38.520 step on the cracks or not. I think I just 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:41.440 realized subconsciously that if you start thinking about bad luck, 0:22:41.600 --> 0:22:44.639 you're starting to weaken. The great thing is to keep going. 0:22:44.880 --> 0:22:51.280 Whatever happens, Doll finishes, so unlike his father, Doll decides 0:22:51.320 --> 0:22:54.600 to live. He becomes the embodiment of that famous Samuel 0:22:54.640 --> 0:22:58.040 Beckett phrase, you must go on. I can't go on. 0:22:58.880 --> 0:23:04.639