WEBVTT - The Oscars Series, Day 1: Barbra Streisand 0:00:00.800 --> 0:00:04.080 I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. 0:00:04.960 --> 0:00:09.399 In recognition of the upcoming Academy Awards ceremony, we offer 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:13.280 you a special week of conversations from our archives with 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:17.480 guests who have actually won an Oscar and one guest 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:21.520 who was a current Oscar nominee. We begin with Barbara 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:31.680 streisand Don't tell Me not to Live just sitting cut up. 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:36.720 There really are no words to describe the talent, the career, 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:42.920 the woman that is Barbara streisand Don't streisand first on 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:46.600 the scene in nineteen sixty four with Funny Girl on Broadway, 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:50.600 Right when it felt like the suburbs and McCarthy ism 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:53.479 might go on forever, the Beatles show up on the 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:57.520 Ed Sullivan Show, and on Broadway along comes this phenomenon, 0:00:57.720 --> 0:01:02.880 this totally new, unusual, gorgeous, nakedly ambitious Jewish girl from 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:07.360 Brooklyn in close, so wildly bright they blow out your 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:16.479 new color TV affection. She kept her name, she kept 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:20.240 her nose, she kept that accent. She could not be 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:24.280 more different from what wasp culture told women they should be. 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:27.800 New York is just full of unusual and interesting girls. 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:29.640 Who was starting out in the show business, but few 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:33.720 of them have the style as early as this young lady. 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:37.039 She's nineteen years old. Her name is Barbara Streisand and 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:42.920 then she gets on stage. She's grounded, she's powerful, and 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:53.760 she's got the greatest voice America has ever heard than 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:59.520 a male. Over the following years, we also learned she's 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:02.800 a great dress Here she is trying to win Redford's 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:06.440 love in the way we were sure. I make waves. 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:08.120 I mean, you have to, and I'll keep making them 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:10.800 until your every wonderful thing you should be and will be. 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:13.240 You'll never find anyone as good for you as I am. 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:14.840 To believe in you as much as I do, I 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:20.160 love you as much. Well not why Streisand develops a 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:23.520 reputation for being difficult and for being a bit of 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:27.359 a recluse. She gets married, divorced, has a kid, but 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:31.400 all the while she just keeps getting better and more famous, 0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:36.440 until she's this unique character in American culture, a megastar 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:39.920 on her own terms. Since we first met in ninet, 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:46.760 we become friends. We talked at her home in southern California. 0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:52.320 By the way, still to do me a favor, take 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:56.600 the clock and make sure it works like it needs 0:02:56.639 --> 0:03:02.920 batteries or wounder. Okay, thank you so much. You walk 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:06.280 around the house and you have you just that just goes. 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:10.680 How is this not taken care of? You? See, to 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:13.880 work for somebody like you or me, you have to 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:18.840 understand the artist's temperament. People don't see that. The time 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:21.640 is wrong. I wasn't going to start with this, but 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:26.200 I'll ask you. But I'll ask you because that instinctive 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:29.560 I for detail and just thinking all the time about 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:31.520 I want this, I want this, I want this. Is 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:35.760 that what naturally propelled you into directing films? Yes? That, 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:39.200 and also it was something that happened during the way 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:43.280 we were where two scenes were cut out that were 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:50.320 intrinsic to the value of the story. And it made 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:55.920 me so crazy that they couldn't see that that propelled 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:58.360 you went to that propelled me into it. I couldn't 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:00.600 understand it. And it's hard to call all with a 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:03.520 you know, a hit movie. I don't know if it 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:05.440 was a hit at the time. Tell you the truth, 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:10.840 it's grown to me. It was Warren Beatty said to me, once, 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:13.680 is it until you take ultimate responsibility and you're willing 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:15.920 to direct the movie you're gonna be constantly frustrated. And 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:19.800 he said, you must consider that if it was so delicious. 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:24.719 And it's like, you know, when you finally have the 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:31.280 power to control your work, you you get very humble 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:34.920 in a sense. It's like I wanted to give power 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:37.320 away to other people as well. You know, I would say, 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:42.640 to my standing, you run that course with the cameraman, 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:44.640 this is the shot, but I want you to be 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:48.440 able to tell me where to stand. In other words, 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:53.400 it's a feeling of such gratitude where you you never 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:59.680 have to raise your voice because everybody's finally listening. You 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:02.920 don't have to get angry about anything they weren't listening before. 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:06.240 Sometimes well sometimes when I would say things as just 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:08.640 an actress, like this is what I'm telling you, this 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:14.080 story the way we were, it went um on deaf ears. 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:17.240 You know, they didn't agree with me whatever. But when 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:22.280 you see something so clearly, um, that's wrong to me 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:26.719 or what could be right? Or see I had such 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:29.400 a great time directing Yental because I did it in 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:35.640 England and in Czechoslovakia. In England, they're not afraid of women, 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:40.279 powerful women, strong women because they had a queen. They 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:43.000 have a queen and at the time they had the 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:48.600 Prime Minister who was Margaret Thatcher. So I was shocked 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:52.680 at the respect that I had as a first time director. 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:58.279 I couldn't believe it. Um and the crew was so 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:03.960 kind and just. It was the most wonderful experience, I 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:10.359 must say. And even the Czechoslovakian government was wonderful to 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:13.760 me because I needed Jews to be in the synagogue 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:17.839 and pray and so for then, you know, it was 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:21.839 during communist times, and they went to the Jewish community, 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:24.200 thank God, and had them come so I didn't have 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:26.240 to teach them how to be Jewish, you know, how 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:31.800 to Jews. Jews was an Italian dresses Jews in New 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:34.000 York where they have to say, well, how do you 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:36.040 stand in a synagogue and how do you pray? And 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:41.360 it was it was wonderful. And also well you know, 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:45.400 when you have extras in Czechoslovakia, then they didn't give 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:48.000 them lunch, so that the people would come with like 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:53.080 bags of their lunch, which broke my heart. So I would, 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:57.200 you know, give them our food, which we never had vegetables. 0:06:57.240 --> 0:06:59.840 We had a cent to London or France or it 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:03.480 to get vegetables. Because you know, their food diet was 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:06.000 like hot trunk. I loved it, of course, bread and 0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:09.040 butter and hot chocolate in the morning with whipped creamers. 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:13.640 I was one heaven and I wanted to be thinner 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:16.880 but well, and every day I would not every day, 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:19.360 but every few days I would bring in past these, 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:22.800 you know, with that delicious dough in the meat inside. 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:25.840 And we'd always have the most delicious teas that I'd 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:30.040 bring in those cream like doughnuts shaped like a hot 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:34.280 dog from Whimpys, and you know, eat this delicious cream 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:36.800 with the doughnuts. Oh my god, it was so good, 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:41.680 and they it was very sweet. Because the whole crew 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:45.320 wrote a letter that's one of my prized possessions, I 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:49.280 must say. And they wrote this letter to the newspapers 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:53.240 and it said that you know, Ms try said something 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:57.720 like Ms try Sand never raises her voice and has 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:00.280 a smile for us every day, and it's like not 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:04.880 the stories we've heard about her, and no newspaper would 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:10.560 publish it, but it figures it's like Hillary Clinton, as 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:12.720 you said, the upside of that experience where the Yente 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:15.600 was working in a culture where the power of women 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:18.720 was just accepted and I'm crestfall and to say the 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:21.080 least about what happened here, not just because this guy won, 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:26.080 but I really do think misogyny and well, in four 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:28.800 I did get some sort of award from women in 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:35.319 film directing Yental, and a lot of my speech was 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:42.240 about women against women, because the reviews of Yente from 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:48.160 women were vicious, you know, in other words, they didn't 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:53.199 even talk about this celebration of womanhood, that a woman 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:57.160 could not only you know, make dinner and have babies, 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:02.160 but she could have an select she could want to study, 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:07.800 be something more. What do it men do? Just equality? 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:13.880 You know. So to read a review that said her 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:16.360 she wore a design in the New York Times, she 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:20.520 wore a designer yamaka. Now everything, every piece of clothing 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:24.480 in that movie was authentic. That same year there was 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:28.400 the film directed by Ingmar Bergmann Fanny and Alexander. They 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:32.240 wore the same yamica, but nobody attacked that film. I 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:36.040 love detail, so I would, you know, for years, I 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:40.520 would do research about Polish Jews, about these Jews that 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:46.240 Jews everything, the Evil Institute in New York um talking 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:51.120 to scholars studying Talmud, just to bring that because I 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:54.280 do believe that when you study like that and do 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:58.199 the research, you don't have to act that It's like 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:03.120 the camera picks up the truth, even just behind your eyes, 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:07.360 in the sound of your voice, whatever it is mine. 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:11.800 You know. I had this wonderful shot, I thought, as 0:10:11.840 --> 0:10:14.520 it cuts from a chicken coop to me sitting behind 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:17.360 the bars up separated from the men in the shool, 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:24.439 and that shot was attacked by this woman critic, Janet Maslin. 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:27.160 Her name was now she could attack my lip sincer. 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:30.599 That's true. I'm a terrible lip sinker. I can't do 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:34.120 it because when I did movies like Funny Girl or 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:37.160 Hello Dolly, you know, they record the soundtrack three months 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:40.040 before you shoot, and I have to be in the 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:42.720 moment as an actor. I don't know how I'm going 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:46.040 to feel when I actually perform it. So that's why 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:49.960 when I did the movie Star Is Born, It's all real, 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:53.880 it's all um, I had a relic I did not want. 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:56.600 I needed to be free, to be in the moment, 0:10:56.800 --> 0:10:59.040 so we recorded on the spot. What do you call 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:02.280 that live? It is all live? And then what I 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:06.400 would do is um. Because I had final cut on 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:11.120 that movie, I could control those things. Um, we would 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:14.880 shoot the close ups first, so where the performance really counted, 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:17.760 and then I would just choose it right on the spot, okay, 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:20.720 I think, And I would do about one to four takes. 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:23.199 You know, all these stories about me like I do 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:26.839 millions of takes, most of them are false. And so 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:30.719 let's say I would take take three, you know, and 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:33.560 then move the cameras back to do the wider shot 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:37.199 because you didn't have to see me close, you know, 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:40.600 not doing the lip sync. Good. I did a documentary 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:45.400 film about Can. It's ostensibly about Can and Ryan Gosling. 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:47.920 We corner him at at an hotel. I think I 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:50.120 saw it. Jimmy Toback and I did this thing called 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:54.160 Seduced and Abandoned, and we get Gosling at the Beverly 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:57.280 Hills Hotel or the bel Air Hotel. I should say, 0:11:57.679 --> 0:12:00.559 any long story short, as he has this beautiful explication 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:02.880 of how agonizing it is to shoot films, and just 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:05.920 in that kind of Arthur Murray by numbers way, we 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:08.800 have to shoot a match to this, to this. It 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:11.559 can't be fresh and it's painful. And that's why I 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:14.600 love long takes, because I think I'm from the theater 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:17.439 and we had to do a whole show, right, So 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:20.440 I don't like pieces. I mean, you I the fun 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:25.240 of directing to me is designing the shot, the camera 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:30.040 accommodating the actors. So the actors. There's a lot of 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:32.400 scenes in Gentle that you can see like this. They're 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:37.120 all in one move practically. In other words, we come 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:41.920 in through a door and I'm in the foreground, let's say, 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:46.760 But he who's following me, the my lead actor who 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:49.640 was Mandy Pattinken at a time, and he still is 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:54.199 but um, you know, we see him standing there, and 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:58.120 then he comes forward and I sit down. He becomes 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:01.240 he's standing up with the camera never moved, but you 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:05.040 see everything. Then the camera moves as we're together, but 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:08.040 it doesn't cut. And then he has you know, when 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:11.199 when he leaves me, you see him go out the door. 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:13.839 He slams the door and the camera moves in a 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:17.320 little bit. As I'm thinking about it, that's the scene. 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:21.800 But it's what's fun about that is that we're all 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:26.200 on our toes. You can't make a mistake. And most 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:28.440 of these shots that I do that there's no coverage. 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:34.360 That the greatest one of the very little coverage the 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:38.760 actors played the scene in the frame. That's right now now, 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:42.280 in the time that you made films, the many years 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:48.920 you've made films, successful acting and not directing, successful as 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:51.240 a director and producer, and all those things. Where there 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:54.040 are people that you wanted to work with, whether people 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:55.720 you sat there, guy, I'd love to make a film 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:57.560 with that person because you've been in such a privileged 0:13:57.640 --> 0:14:01.439 place and had these people available to Was there a 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:03.480 director that you dreamed of working with you didn't get 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:07.600 to work with. Well Ing Ma Bergman is a person 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:11.200 that contacted me to do a remake of The Merry Widow. 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:14.720 And I was so excited, you know, and I came 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:20.560 to um Sweden and we embraced and it was this 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:25.880 wonderful embrace, you know. I mean he, I can't explain 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:30.680 what that what that's like. It's was just he he 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:35.120 sort of understood me, and I understood him without any words. 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:40.520 And the first act of that screenplay was fantastic, I mean, 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:45.640 very body uh kind of shocking. I loved it, you know. 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:51.720 So then and when I have letters now, I forget 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:54.240 things until I have to go into my archives and 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:57.840 look at this stuff. Letters from him and notes that 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:00.840 I wrote back to him talking about this film and 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:07.880 what happened the second act. You know, he says we're 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:15.040 going to be collaborators, and the second act was not 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:19.520 very good. I thought it was like like Jevas Amadeus. 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:22.720 I'm sure the first act was extraordinary to me in 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:26.440 the movie, and the second act was, I don't know, 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:33.320 just somehow repetitious. It It didn't go far enough in 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:37.080 the story, you know. And that's the way I felt 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:40.760 about this. And all of a sudden it was gone. 0:15:40.840 --> 0:15:45.640 The collaboration was over. We never made the film, and 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:49.080 I couldn't quite believe it. I mean, the fact that 0:15:49.240 --> 0:15:53.840 I didn't like certain things in the second act did 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:57.600 he liked? Well, he never defended it. It was like, 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:01.560 you know, I think that's right and so but I 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:05.920 would have loved to work with Berto Lucci. And you 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:08.320 know what I did. I realized this now and looking 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:11.920 back at my life, I turned down Alice doesn't live 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:14.400 here anymore. I turned down a lot of films actually 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:20.560 because I was lazy. I'm basically I'm a dichotomy here, 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:26.840 a dichotomy lazy and um, I don't know what the 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:31.600 word is, restless, restless maybe, yeah, like wanting to create 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:35.840 about you. It would be called the lazy and the restless. 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:44.160 Oh no, that's a very good time, exactly exactly. I 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:49.120 love to take a vacation and do nothing. I like 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:53.880 to have no appointments. And I think that's a condition 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:57.800 in my mind of people who have tremendous not so 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:01.080 much financial success, but create of success. I mean there's 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:04.159 a famous actress who I won't name you. Wait, you 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:06.080 know what do you want to take a sip of 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:09.600 soup on your Do you want soup to I'll have 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:12.480 a soup. I mean we kind of say no. Well, 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:15.000 I mean this is a I'm irish. It's bad luck 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:17.800 to say no to soup? Is that in Ireland? I 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:21.800 just made that up? Oh just put that over here. 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:24.960 Oh see, I just brought this table from the back 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:28.720 and we need another table maybe over here because this 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:31.040 is me, so soup, don't rebout me. I'm great. I mean, 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:34.879 in other words, people know we eat, right, so if 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:39.760 they hear it's okay, good good, good good, because I 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:42.920 always like to eat. Oh really know you know you 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:49.159 won't mm hmm. That is delicious, isn't it unhealthy? Um? 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:53.879 What were we talking about restless and lazy. When I 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:55.960 would talk to McCartney about the Beatles, he said to me, 0:17:56.359 --> 0:18:00.359 is it was hard work. Later on when they gain 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:03.760 creative control of their material and it's like anybody, then 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:05.600 they take a year to do another album. But in 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:08.920 the beginning they really worked like dogs, you know. And 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:12.679 for you, I'm wondering in the beginning when you do Broadway, 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:15.639 are you out there and you're just so pumped and 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:19.680 excited and you're young, and everyone's glorifying you and loving 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:21.360 what you're putting out there, and you really love you said, 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:22.560 they're going, I don't want to do this show eight 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:24.760 times a week, like what happened to you in the beginning, 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:28.800 where you excited and game in the In the beginning, 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:32.240 I wanted to prove myself. I wanted to prove to 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:35.040 my mother that I could be a success. You know. 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:38.520 It comes from that. It's like really deep. It's deep 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:42.200 and quiet. It's not loud, by the way. It's not 0:18:42.480 --> 0:18:46.840 what makes Sammy run. It's quiet. It really is um. 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:52.879 But again, you can feel that passion, you can feel 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:57.440 that need to be seen somehow. Because I wasn't seen 0:18:57.600 --> 0:19:00.919 much by my I didn't I love my father. How 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:04.920 your dad passed away fifteen months but my mother said 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:08.760 that after he died, I would climb up on the 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:13.200 window waiting for him to come home, because I used 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:16.080 to do that, I guess as a baby, and wait 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:19.400 for him and he would come home. And in a sense, 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:24.159 I've idolized my father because he was a PhD. He 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:30.399 was a teacher, which I so respect teachers, and he 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:36.040 wrote poems, and he was artistic, and he was an 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:40.480 athlete as well as a debater, you know, and he 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:44.639 was in part of French dramatics and English literature. And 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:50.040 I didn't read his thesis until many years later because 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:53.200 as an actress when I was sixteen, I was fascinated 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:58.400 by Eleanora Dusa and Sarah Bernhardt, wanting to be an actress, 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:01.480 and my father's book bos were tied up in the 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:06.280 basement of our Brooklyn apartment, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, all 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:10.000 the great novels. I read, uh, what do you call it? 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:15.720 Nancy Drew Mysteries. I read movie magazines, you know, and 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:20.960 dream that someday maybe I could be famous. Did you 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:24.280 have that dream? Then? When you were here, I would 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:28.360 have my pint of coffee ice cream, briers and sit 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:31.680 in my bed and dream, go to the movies sometimes 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:34.920 on a Saturday afternoon. The Lowise Kings. We had the 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:41.520 greatest ice cream, and we also well, yeah, you're you're, 0:20:41.560 --> 0:20:43.520 you're like me. Somebody'll say, what was the best part 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:45.480 of the summer, I'd say, what is this restaurant that 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:48.400 has the best coffee ice cream with chocolate covered handelnuts? 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:52.600 Watching who in the on screen? If to the extent 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:54.359 you want to say, or we call somebody you watched 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:56.800 with Visio, Yeah, that's it. I want to do something 0:20:56.960 --> 0:21:01.920 like that. Not dar Day. I mean, really it was well. 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:07.399 I loved Marjorie Morning Star because I knew the summer 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:11.320 places in where I was sent to camp in the Catskills, 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:15.720 or my mother and stepfather when they came to visit me. 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:19.880 I didn't know my mother was married, and I said, 0:21:19.920 --> 0:21:22.240 I'm going home from here. What do you mean you 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:25.119 didn't know your mother got married. She never told me 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:28.280 because he was a boyfriend for a while, I guess 0:21:28.400 --> 0:21:31.720 he was around. No, I never met him before, but 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:34.600 when I insisted, see I was as I was a 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:37.639 strong kid. So my mother came to visit me with 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:41.600 the stranger, and I said, I'm going home. I'm not 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:44.600 staying here another day longer, so we have to pack 0:21:44.720 --> 0:21:48.440 me up. I think I was seven and a half maybe, 0:21:48.680 --> 0:21:50.480 so for a long time of your youth you were 0:21:50.560 --> 0:21:53.760 raised by him. He was on the scene when homes 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:57.119 in your life, he's in my life, the stranger. How 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:00.520 did he handle you? Didn't like me, he didn't like you. Why, 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:07.919 it's exactly right. Was the connection with him such as 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:11.440 it was, because the connection with your mother also was 0:22:11.520 --> 0:22:14.000 a bit thinner than you might have liked compared to 0:22:14.080 --> 0:22:16.119 your feelings for your father. I grew up in a 0:22:16.200 --> 0:22:19.960 house where my dad was my idol. I idolized my 0:22:20.080 --> 0:22:22.760 dad and my mom. My older sister and I, we 0:22:22.920 --> 0:22:28.120 were her lieutenants, chores, chores, And your mom didn't push 0:22:28.240 --> 0:22:30.159 him or cajole him, or try to get him to 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:33.760 never your Your relationship with your mom was a little 0:22:33.840 --> 0:22:37.520 less than it wasn't your feeling towards your father well, 0:22:38.520 --> 0:22:41.159 or your head over heels in love with your mother? No, no, no, no. 0:22:41.400 --> 0:22:46.960 I I felt that she didn't know me, She didn't 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:51.840 know could she. I don't think my mother knows me either, 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:54.359 But I've seen now in my life. She couldn't she 0:22:54.520 --> 0:22:57.879 wasn't capable. My mother never said to me, my mother's alive. 0:22:57.920 --> 0:22:59.760 And I wrote this in my book. She never once 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:02.800 to me, what's it like to be you? When you 0:23:02.880 --> 0:23:05.159 get up there and do that? What do you enjoy it? 0:23:05.240 --> 0:23:08.640 To understand me? And I'm her son and her oldest son. 0:23:09.119 --> 0:23:11.480 And where was the conversation about when I go through 0:23:11.560 --> 0:23:14.280 in my life and my career. My mother never nothing 0:23:14.359 --> 0:23:20.840 about that. My mother's love was shown through food she 0:23:20.920 --> 0:23:23.119 would bring me when I was a young actress, you know. 0:23:23.240 --> 0:23:25.440 And I moved away from home when I was sixteen, 0:23:25.600 --> 0:23:29.800 from Brooklyn to New York. Got an apartment right next 0:23:29.840 --> 0:23:38.800 to me. I graduated high school at uh sixteen erasmus, Yeah, 0:23:39.160 --> 0:23:42.360 I graduated in three and a half years so I could. 0:23:43.320 --> 0:23:45.760 I doubled my science and math, which I loved. I 0:23:45.840 --> 0:23:48.040 love those subjects. You were desperate to get out of Brooklyn. 0:23:48.320 --> 0:23:52.160 I was desperate to be an actress, to get away 0:23:52.200 --> 0:23:55.160 from real life. Not a singer and actress, an actress, 0:23:55.200 --> 0:23:59.840 Oh yeah. And my my singing was when I was 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:03.560 five and six and seven on the stoop in Brooklyn 0:24:03.720 --> 0:24:06.680 with the girls, you know, singing and harmonizing that was 0:24:06.760 --> 0:24:10.280 my singing, but my love was wanting to be an actress. 0:24:11.200 --> 0:24:14.200 And so that's when I went to the library Street 0:24:14.240 --> 0:24:17.720 Library and read the plays of these great actresses, you know, 0:24:17.840 --> 0:24:21.240 and I wanted to be a classical actress. So part 0:24:21.280 --> 0:24:24.040 of me still feels like a failure. You know. When 0:24:24.119 --> 0:24:26.879 I wanted to do I wanted to play after I 0:24:27.040 --> 0:24:30.640 was well known. I wanted to play the two Cleopatra's, 0:24:30.720 --> 0:24:39.119 the one uh Caesar and Cleopatra and Anthony and Cleopatrick. Right, 0:24:39.200 --> 0:24:42.520 so one is a child fourteen years old who I 0:24:42.640 --> 0:24:46.160 thought it should be Orson Wells or Marlon Brando, fat, 0:24:47.000 --> 0:24:49.760 you know, and then I would be even little well 0:24:49.880 --> 0:24:57.040 fed um and hiding, you know from this man, and 0:24:57.160 --> 0:25:01.680 then play the woman Cleopatra. And the television stations I 0:25:01.760 --> 0:25:03.720 wanted to do it on TV, they said, well, is 0:25:03.760 --> 0:25:06.760 it going to be a musical. I mean, you're gonna 0:25:06.760 --> 0:25:11.240 add music. It's like they can't see that you could 0:25:11.280 --> 0:25:13.240 do both. I mean, though you have to do the 0:25:13.400 --> 0:25:20.800 music with the you know, absolutely awful feeling. I wanted 0:25:20.840 --> 0:25:23.080 to play Romeo and Juliet and I got to do 0:25:23.240 --> 0:25:29.040 it finally for Lee Strassburg at the studio, and it's 0:25:29.080 --> 0:25:31.320 one of my I can't find the letter that they 0:25:31.359 --> 0:25:35.239 wrote me too. Well, that's a whole long story, but uh, 0:25:35.480 --> 0:25:38.439 to invite you to join the studio. Yeah. But when 0:25:38.520 --> 0:25:41.240 I first auditioned for the studio, I was fifteen and 0:25:41.320 --> 0:25:43.320 I was doing it with another guy who asked me 0:25:43.400 --> 0:25:44.800 to just be in it. But they wrote me a 0:25:44.920 --> 0:25:48.440 letter to say, do your own audition, And then when 0:25:48.480 --> 0:25:51.439 I did, they found out I was fifteen and they 0:25:51.480 --> 0:25:55.920 said come back when you're you know, eighteen. It's probably 0:25:55.960 --> 0:26:00.160 a nice way of saying no, but um. So that's 0:26:00.160 --> 0:26:02.480 why it was terrible. When I was in on Broadway, 0:26:03.520 --> 0:26:06.520