Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome back to Behind the Bastards. This
Speaker 2: is a podcast about the worst people in all of history.
Speaker 2: And I'm Robert Evans doing my best n PR voice.
Speaker 2: That's good work. That work. It made me uncomfortable. Make
Speaker 2: you uncomfortable, it makes me uncomfortable. Yeah, I liked it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: speaking of NPR, you know who's better than n PR.
Speaker 3: I mean lots of folks.
Speaker 2: Well, Anders Anderson and our guest today, Andrew t YEH.
Speaker 2: I don't know a particular problem with NPR.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't really listen to n PR, but I assume
Speaker 2: they're they they're valuable, right, They're still good.
Speaker 1: I don't think we have beef with NPR.
Speaker 2: They do something horrible. I don't know.
Speaker 3: They are.
Speaker 4: They are valuable relative to the media landscape in America,
Speaker 4: but they are not like a net value.
Speaker 3: To the world.
Speaker 4: Probably, they're like all things that are that are good
Speaker 4: in America quote unquote good.
Speaker 3: They're kind of like center right Namby Pambyism. But what
Speaker 3: are you gonna do.
Speaker 2: They've got I'm sure, I'm sure they've got their problems.
Speaker 2: I think they're like basically the only thing that equivocates
Speaker 2: to local news in a lot of ways, right, Like
Speaker 2: that that still exists that isn't like owned by Sinclair.
Speaker 2: So it's one of those things where like there should
Speaker 2: be better things than NPR performing the similar role. But
Speaker 2: we are where we are, right So I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: shit on for that. What I am gonna shit on
Speaker 2: is our topic for today's episode, Frank Fay, the man
Speaker 2: who invented stand up comedy. And before I get into that,
Speaker 2: I want to plug a fundraiser that we are we
Speaker 2: are doing here at behind the Bastards to help out
Speaker 2: the Portland Defense Fund. This is a bail fund. It
Speaker 2: started out, I mean it's earlier iterations, started out to
Speaker 2: help people who had been arrested in the twenty twenty protests.
Speaker 2: They still do help protesters, but their primary job is
Speaker 2: people get arrested. They're usually homeless and indigent. They are
Speaker 2: usually people with no resources, and the Defense Fund doesn't
Speaker 2: just help them get bailed out. And often this is
Speaker 2: people like literally like one hundred bucks that they just
Speaker 2: don't have. Number One, when people are accused of crimes,
Speaker 2: if they're out of jail while they are fighting the charges,
Speaker 2: their odds of not going to prison are vastly higher.
Speaker 2: The Defense Fund helps basically everybody. They do not provide
Speaker 2: bail funds to people who are accused of domestic violence
Speaker 2: for you know, some reasons that should we are probably
Speaker 2: obvious to people. But they help a lot of people
Speaker 2: who like literally no one else is looking out for.
Speaker 2: That's what the Portland Defense Fund is, and we're trying
Speaker 2: to raise money for them because they are out of it.
Speaker 2: If you go to if you just type in a
Speaker 2: donor box Defense Fund PDX into Google, it will take
Speaker 2: you to the Defense Fund fundraiser. That's donor box Defense
Speaker 2: Fund PDX. And another way you can help is you
Speaker 2: can mow them at at Defense Fund PDX. So you know,
Speaker 2: please send some money, help them out. I donate every year.
Speaker 2: They're a five oh one c so it's like attacks.
Speaker 2: You can, you know, write it off too, like it's
Speaker 2: an actual charitable organization.
Speaker 3: They're legit.
Speaker 2: I know the people who run it. Please help them out.
Speaker 2: All right, let's talk about a real piece of shit.
Speaker 2: You gotta to talk about a piece of shit, Andrew.
Speaker 3: We talk about a good thing for ten fifteen seconds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, fifteen seconds of a good thing that helps
Speaker 2: a lot of people who literally no one else is
Speaker 2: looking out for in the entire world, because the homeless
Speaker 2: are again the vast majority people who get arrested, and
Speaker 2: not Frank Fay, although he is he's like a rich
Speaker 2: homeless person.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: One of the things about Frank is that he refuses
Speaker 2: to have a house or an apartment. For most of
Speaker 2: his life, he only lives in nice hotels. So like, right,
Speaker 2: really a homeless but like literally he doesn't have a home, right,
Speaker 2: He's just he's just staying in nice hotels because that's
Speaker 2: the kind of life he prefers to live. And it
Speaker 2: makes sense based on his backshirt, right, Like he never
Speaker 2: has a stable place, right, Like he and his family
Speaker 2: are like living on the road. Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, in the late nineteen teens, when Frank Fay is
Speaker 2: establishing himself as the biggest name in vaudeville and the
Speaker 2: biggest name in like live performing in New York City,
Speaker 2: another person exists. There's two people in the world at
Speaker 2: this point in time, and one of them is a
Speaker 2: young girl named Ruby Stephens. And while Frank is kind
Speaker 2: of making his name for himself, Ruby is living through
Speaker 2: one of the worst childhoods I have ever read about. Right,
Speaker 2: Ruby had been born in nineteen oh seven, so she's
Speaker 2: quite a bit younger than Frank Fay, and she was
Speaker 2: the fifth child of Catherine Anne and Byron Stevens. Both
Speaker 2: families seem to have come from some degree of like privilege.
Speaker 2: It's uncle to me how if they were like rich
Speaker 2: or it's just because they've been in a Marria from
Speaker 2: like almost Mayflower days or right around then. Right, so
Speaker 2: they're like old America and they know their pedigree, but
Speaker 2: I don't think I don't know how much money they
Speaker 2: actually have. It's a little that part's a little unclear
Speaker 2: to me. It may have been that like they used
Speaker 2: to be more blue bloody and they just they just
Speaker 2: kind of ran out of money. That happens a lot.
Speaker 2: But it seemed like she was on track for a
Speaker 2: more normal life until in nineteen eleven, when she is four,
Speaker 2: a drunk passenger falls off the street car she's on
Speaker 2: with her pregnant mother, and he like pulls her mother
Speaker 2: down basically, and she goes into early labor after falling
Speaker 2: off the street car and dies from sepsis. Right, so,
Speaker 2: just a horrible freak street car accident, like really pretty
Speaker 2: fucked up. So that's traumatic, right, you know, watching this
Speaker 2: happen as a four year old and then being without
Speaker 2: your mom and her dad. This is nineteen oh seven
Speaker 2: or eleven. Her dad had been a drinker, and having
Speaker 2: your wife an unborn kid die in a street car
Speaker 2: accident does not make you slow down the drinking in
Speaker 2: nineteen eleven. So he takes what I think we can
Speaker 2: all agree is an understandable, healthy reaction and becomes a
Speaker 2: destructive alcoholic and abandons his family to dig the Panama Canal. Right,
Speaker 2: tale as old as time. We've all been there once
Speaker 2: or twice, right, you know, Yeah, that's where you and
Speaker 2: I met Andrew digging the Panama Canal, and they kept
Speaker 2: yelling at us, there's already a canal. Stop digging holes.
Speaker 2: But we said, fuck you. You know, I won't do
Speaker 2: what you tell me.
Speaker 4: I read you were really you had your You had
Speaker 4: your mindset on Canal two.
Speaker 2: Canal too.
Speaker 3: Electric boogle is very admirable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're gonna make it even bigger, and we're gonna
Speaker 2: kill even more guys from.
Speaker 3: Fucking malaria malaria two.
Speaker 2: So he goes to the Panama Canal and, like everyone
Speaker 2: who goes to dig in the Panama Canal. He dies
Speaker 2: horribly almost immediately. Right, That's that's what digging the Anama
Speaker 2: Canal is, as you are signing up to die from
Speaker 2: a mosquito or get drowned in fucking like wet concrete.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: If you want to learn more about that sort of thing,
Speaker 2: listen to Wait, is it the Panama Canal or was
Speaker 2: the Hoover damn and the song the Highwayman one of
Speaker 2: the two? Either way? Listen to the song the Highwaymen
Speaker 2: by the Highwayman A.
Speaker 3: Just think of any major work.
Speaker 2: Oh, he was a damn builder, He was a damn bilder.
Speaker 4: Yeah, sorry, okay, including modern times though. Yeah, it's made
Speaker 4: by a crime against humanity. There's no way to do
Speaker 4: it without committing a criming A.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're gonna have to kill a certain number shitload
Speaker 2: of people, right, yeah. So yeah, he leaves Ruby and
Speaker 2: her siblings orphaned, but he abandons them before he orphans them,
Speaker 2: so it's fine. So she grows up in a series
Speaker 2: of foster situations. She is separated from her siblings right away.
Speaker 2: She is bullied horribly as a little girl because she's
Speaker 2: an orphan and little kids are fucking psychopaths. To quote
Speaker 2: another great stand up comedian, Donald Glover, they're little hitlers, right,
Speaker 2: They're like, oh, look a little girly lost her whole family.
Speaker 2: Let's kick her.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So Ruby comes to hate school, not surprising. The one
Speaker 2: thing she has going for her is that one of
Speaker 2: her older sisters, who's a young adult or I think
Speaker 2: she's actually think she's probably sixteen or seventeen, But that's
Speaker 2: as good as being an adult in this day and age,
Speaker 2: was a vaudeville dancer, right, And so Ruby gets really
Speaker 2: interested in entertainment and her sister helps her kind of
Speaker 2: get into theater. She drops out of school at age
Speaker 2: fourteen and starts working. And again, you're basically an adult
Speaker 2: at fourteen at this socioeconomic level, right, This is not
Speaker 2: just the US. You're legally an adult in a lot
Speaker 2: of Europe at this point in time. And by age
Speaker 2: sixteen she is a chorus girl in a nightclub. So
Speaker 2: there's you have to assume some like people taking physical
Speaker 2: advantage of her. We would we call this pedophilia to day.
Speaker 2: I think that's fair to call it then, but also
Speaker 2: that's not what people would have seen it as, right.
Speaker 2: They would see her as an adult right, not to
Speaker 2: say that that's not still fucked up. That's just the
Speaker 2: way things were back then. This is nineteen twenty three
Speaker 2: when she starts working as a chorus girl in a nightclub,
Speaker 2: So she is getting started in her showbiz career, while
Speaker 2: Frank Fay is kind of like he is like near
Speaker 2: the peak of his fame and prestige right, like he
Speaker 2: is selling out that This is right before he has
Speaker 2: his ten week run at the Palace, so he hasn't
Speaker 2: like he hasn't quite hit his peak yet, but he's
Speaker 2: rising to his peak, right. And so at the time
Speaker 2: she is starting as a chorus girl, she would see
Speaker 2: him as like one of the big this is one
Speaker 2: of the major stars right in her feet, the guy.
Speaker 2: This is the guy. He's got a lot of power.
Speaker 2: He's you know, she doesn't want to be exactly doing
Speaker 2: what he's doing, right, but like she would see him
Speaker 2: as someone to look up to because of the level
Speaker 2: of success that he's had. He can do something for
Speaker 2: he can make her career right obviously. So you know,
Speaker 2: there's a number of things that are potentially we can
Speaker 2: see unhealthy about the dynamic that's going to form. Although
Speaker 2: it's not going to go where you'd expect it to.
Speaker 2: For a while, Ruby was stuck at the middle rung
Speaker 2: of her field. She makes she's a good dancer, She's
Speaker 2: constantly working right, and in order to make extra cash,
Speaker 2: she moonlights as a dance instructor for gay and lesbian speakeasies,
Speaker 2: which is pretty cool. Like what this is. By the way,
Speaker 2: Ruby becomes Barbara Stanwick. This is her initial name.
Speaker 3: She's cool with the.
Speaker 2: Gays, which is nice, you know, given this period of time.
Speaker 2: She initially becomes acquainted with Frank Fay in the mid
Speaker 2: nineteen twenties, probably right around the time he has that
Speaker 2: big ten week stand at the Palace, thanks to her
Speaker 2: friendship with a guy named Oscar Levant, and Oscar Levant
Speaker 2: is a pianist who had performed many times with Faye
Speaker 2: and become one of his friends. In the mid and
Speaker 2: late twenties, she starts doing better and better. Right, she
Speaker 2: gets recognized, she starts getting acting gigs, and by kind
Speaker 2: of like the mid twenties, she is performing in Broadway shows.
Speaker 2: And because she is now becoming a star in her
Speaker 2: own right, she's kind of a small star now while
Speaker 2: Frank's a big one. But you need a better name
Speaker 2: than Ruby whatever the fuck her last name was, because
Speaker 2: it's forgettable, right, So she picks the stage name Barbara Stanwick. Now,
Speaker 2: she falls in love first with one of her co stars,
Speaker 2: a man with the incredible name Rex Cherryman. The two
Speaker 2: break up in early nineteen twenty eight, and there's kind
Speaker 2: of a will they won't they thing going on for
Speaker 2: a while, maybe they'll get back together, but then he
Speaker 2: dies of sepsis during a sea trip to Europe to perform,
Speaker 2: because that's just how people died back there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, that's just what went down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, sepsis. I hardly know sis. So he's dead
Speaker 2: as shit. She's sad as shit, and then levant tries
Speaker 2: to cheer his friend up by introducing her to his
Speaker 2: other friend, Frank Fay, thinking the two would hit it off.
Speaker 2: They did not. In fact, they seem to hate each
Speaker 2: other at first, and in Ruby's case at least, this
Speaker 2: is with good reason, because Frank is immediately attracted to
Speaker 2: Barbara Stanwick, who she's like young at this point, right,
Speaker 2: like she's just barely twenty something like that.
Speaker 3: What the fuck? What is this.
Speaker 2: Nineteen twenty eight? She was born in nineteen oh seven,
Speaker 2: so she's twenty one years old, right, and he's in
Speaker 2: he's almost forty, so there's quite a bit of an
Speaker 2: age gap between the two of them, but it's also
Speaker 2: less weird at this period of time and in this
Speaker 2: industry anyway. Like he immediately has a crush on her, right,
Speaker 2: but he doesn't want to admit that and flirt with her,
Speaker 2: and she thinks he's attractive, but he starts by negging her, right,
Speaker 2: Like he's an early practitioner of negging. And I'm going
Speaker 2: to quote from Victoria Williams's book here. After Fay's show
Speaker 2: at the Palladium, Levant brought Barbara and Walda, which is
Speaker 2: one of her friends and colleagues, backstage. They entered phase
Speaker 2: dressing room. As he was removing his makeup, he was
Speaker 2: charming and beguiling. He announced he was hungry and that
Speaker 2: as soon as he finished taking off his makeup he
Speaker 2: was going to arrest Drut, where he said they serve
Speaker 2: the best food in town. They really know how to
Speaker 2: serve food in this place. Fay went on a little
Speaker 2: table in a quiet corner, soft music, and it's like
Speaker 2: he's kind of setting her up. Barbara was ready to
Speaker 2: accept the invitation. When the dressing room door opened and
Speaker 2: in walked a beautiful woman who said, are you ready
Speaker 2: for dinner? Frank be with you right away, Fay said.
Speaker 2: As he put on his coat, he turned to his
Speaker 2: guests and said, you must try this place. The food
Speaker 2: is really delicious. And he like sets this up. He's
Speaker 2: like really making her think that they're going to go
Speaker 2: out together. He's talking about it like that. And he
Speaker 2: has set it up with this other lady ahead of time,
Speaker 2: knowing he was going to meet her, and knowing that
Speaker 2: levant is trying to hook them up. He'd probably he'd
Speaker 2: seen her on stage, so he knew that he was
Speaker 2: into her. He sets this up specifically to pull the
Speaker 2: rug out from onto her because he's an asshole, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: he's such a dick. And in fact, as he leaves
Speaker 2: with this other lady, he stops and turns back to
Speaker 2: Barbara and says, you should come back and see me
Speaker 2: again sometime, and then goes off on a date with
Speaker 2: this other woman. Now this is a transparent ployee. He's
Speaker 2: trying to make her like desperate. He's trying to, like,
Speaker 2: you know, it's obvious what he's trying to do, right,
Speaker 2: And Barbara doesn't bite, right. In fact, she doesn't do anything.
Speaker 2: She doesn't call him, she doesn't like approach him again,
Speaker 2: although she doesn't do anything to avoid future contact with
Speaker 2: him either, right, Like, she doesn't do either of those things.
Speaker 2: So you know she's she's not like falling for it,
Speaker 2: but she's also not being like fuck this guy entirely, right.
Speaker 3: It's not working, but it's not not working.
Speaker 2: Right, And I think this is part of what attracts Frank,
Speaker 2: is that she doesn't fall for the bait, and so
Speaker 2: he calls her directly a few days later and is like, hey,
Speaker 2: do you want to meet me for dinner?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: So she kind of wins, and this is I love
Speaker 2: Barbara Stanwick. She says, thank you, Yes, absolutely, that sounds great.
Speaker 2: I'll meet you at you know whatever restaurant at whatever time, right,
Speaker 2: And they set up a date and she stands his
Speaker 2: ass up so you can see there, you know, which
Speaker 2: it sounds like these two might be kind of made
Speaker 2: for each other.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, that's pretty good.
Speaker 2: Actually, So she expects him to call her after this
Speaker 2: and be like pissed off, right, that's kind of what
Speaker 2: she had been hoping. But Faye, again, he takes things
Speaker 2: in stride and he maintains radio silence, so neither calls
Speaker 2: the other for two weeks, and then Barbara talks to
Speaker 2: their mutual friend Levant and is like, hey, could you
Speaker 2: call Frank and invite him to dinner? And I'm going
Speaker 2: to show up at the dinner, but don't you know
Speaker 2: you don't need to tell him that. So Frank asks
Speaker 2: his friend who else is going to be there, and
Speaker 2: Lavatte doesn't lie, and he's like, well, Barbara, Stanwick's going
Speaker 2: to be there, And so as soon as Frank here's that,
Speaker 2: he hatches places, yeah, I'll be there. We'll all have
Speaker 2: a dinner together. And then he no shows again. So
Speaker 2: at this point Barbara might have been it seems to
Speaker 2: be like kind of veering towards fuck this guy. But
Speaker 2: then for the next two weeks, wherever she shows up
Speaker 2: for dinner or lunch or at like a bar or whatever,
Speaker 2: whenever she shows up to like watch a performance, he's there.
Speaker 2: He's always there, everywhere she winds up going, and he's
Speaker 2: always there with a different beautiful woman. Right no matter
Speaker 2: where she goes, there's Frank Fay and he's always on
Speaker 2: a date. And she doesn't learn this until later but Frank,
Speaker 2: he's got a lot of connections, and he's a lot
Speaker 2: of money. He's been both I think probably paying people
Speaker 2: to stalk her and also just like using talking to
Speaker 2: other people he knows to like figure out where she's
Speaker 2: going and scheduling dates with random women for the sole
Speaker 2: purpose of like making her watch him make out with
Speaker 2: other people. So they're not in a relationship, and this
Speaker 2: is already one of the most toxic relationships I've ever
Speaker 2: heard of.
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess this is juicy. It's so bonkers, it's.
Speaker 2: So nuts, and like Barbara is the good guy in this,
Speaker 2: but she's definitely there's some toxicity coming from her too. Right, So,
Speaker 2: after a couple of weeks, he shows up at a
Speaker 2: fancy restaurant when Stanleyck and Lavaunt are about to have
Speaker 2: dinner think with a couple of mutual friends, and he
Speaker 2: sits down at the table and he and Barbara immediately
Speaker 2: start insulting each other. Right, they just start going to
Speaker 2: town at each other, you know, like letting out all
Speaker 2: of this like frustration over this last couple of weeks
Speaker 2: of fucking around, and eventually their friend Levant, who has
Speaker 2: judged the vibe properly stops them. It's like, you too
Speaker 2: obviously want to fuck. Will you just do it already
Speaker 2: and stop with this bullshit, Like I know you both,
Speaker 2: like you're clearly into each other and you're just both
Speaker 2: toxic psychos. Stop it. Just get laid, you know, and
Speaker 2: it works. Levant's like he called it. They're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know what, fuck it. And so they start dating, right,
Speaker 2: they start going out. They start you know, uh, banging
Speaker 2: the nasties, you know, bumping uglies, twiddling the what Sophie, Sophie,
Speaker 2: you can't say sex or fucked on a podcast, We'll
Speaker 2: get arrested.
Speaker 3: That's true. That is true.
Speaker 2: The code, there's a haze code called yeah yeah. So
Speaker 2: they start noodling the whirlpool, so to speak. They start dating,
Speaker 2: and she falls head over heels in love with Frank
Speaker 2: right very very quickly, you know, once they're actually they
Speaker 2: drop the pretense to start seeing each other, and he
Speaker 2: seems to fall in love as well. They are both
Speaker 2: obsessed with each other, and in Barbara's case, she's obsessed
Speaker 2: with him enough to the point that, like she is
Speaker 2: willing to give up her career and she at this
Speaker 2: point is fairly big, right, like she is now a
Speaker 2: major name on a marquee. She's getting some pretty juicy
Speaker 2: she's not quite a leading lady yet, but she's getting
Speaker 2: some really juicy like Broadway roles, right. And she's tells
Speaker 2: openly like, I'm willing to kind of give up my
Speaker 2: career in order to be like a full time wife, right,
Speaker 2: And that made out because she's obviously very good, she's
Speaker 2: very dedicated to her career. You have to think in
Speaker 2: terms of making sense of this, this is a girl
Speaker 2: who lost her entire family very young and has never
Speaker 2: had one, has never had that kind of emotional stability. Yes,
Speaker 2: so she I think, and that's what That's what her
Speaker 2: biographer rights. It's basically she is desperate for that kind
Speaker 2: of stability At this point. It matters more to her
Speaker 2: than this career.
Speaker 3: That she's got.
Speaker 2: Now, Frank is an alcoholic. This should not be surprising
Speaker 2: to anyone. It's not an uncommon situation for a major
Speaker 2: performer today and it certainly was not back then. They
Speaker 2: start their relationship when he's sober, right he had I
Speaker 2: mean he's an alcoholic because he had been. He had
Speaker 2: gone sober because it was causing him problems, right, even
Speaker 2: during the height of his time at the palace. He
Speaker 2: misses shows semi regularly, left to cancel suddenly because he's
Speaker 2: like too sick from getting fucked up. So during one
Speaker 2: of their initial dates, like no one at the table
Speaker 2: is allowed to drink whenever they show up with a
Speaker 2: group because Frank isn't drinking, right, And that's the kind
Speaker 2: of you know guy he is, is like, no one
Speaker 2: else at the table can be drinking if I'm not drinking,
Speaker 2: And you know, this is one of those things. Also,
Speaker 2: he's got an entourage, so whenever they're like hanging out
Speaker 2: or traveling around, it's never just Frank or Frank and Barbara.
Speaker 2: It's Frank and Barbara and his personal barber and his manicurist,
Speaker 2: and his songwriter and his pianist and his composer and
Speaker 2: his tailor and his secretary. Like he literally travels with
Speaker 2: these people most of the places that he goes. Now
Speaker 2: he's sober initially, but he periodically will fall off the wagon,
Speaker 2: and when he does, he will go on days long
Speaker 2: binges hours or days and hours long is a short one.
Speaker 2: Sometimes he'll be drinking for days, but all of his
Speaker 2: binges in the same way with him staggering to Saint
Speaker 2: Patrick's Cathedral to confess his sins. For an idea of
Speaker 2: how committed a drunk this guy was when he was drinking,
Speaker 2: I want to read you the text of a poem
Speaker 2: that he kept on him at all times while traveling.
Speaker 2: The wonderful love of a beautiful maid, and the staunch
Speaker 2: true love of a man, the love of a baby unafraid,
Speaker 2: which hath exist since life began. But the greatest love,
Speaker 2: the love of love, transcending even that of a mother,
Speaker 2: is the tender, the passionate, the infinite love of one
Speaker 2: drunken bum for another.
Speaker 3: Pretty good poem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it kind of hit, so Barbara would would have
Speaker 2: been aware. Number One, there's stories about this guy's drinking.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: He's been arrested a bunch of times, He's been in
Speaker 2: tons of fights. He is a fame. He is famous
Speaker 2: in the twenties for being an out.
Speaker 3: Of control alcoholic.
Speaker 2: That's not easy, right, Like you could buy cocaine at
Speaker 2: the store. Yeah, yeah, you can buy cocaine at the store,
Speaker 2: and this guy's a famous alcoholic. That's like being a
Speaker 2: famous beer lover in Wisconsin, right, Yeah, you know, like
Speaker 2: we don't have the technology to be an alcoholic the
Speaker 2: way this man is now, this guy is a quint
Speaker 2: from Jaws level drinker.
Speaker 3: So it's like having a coke problem at Studio fifty four.
Speaker 2: It's like right, right, yeah, It's like it's like the
Speaker 2: fucking bathroom attendant at CBGB's being I came in, I
Speaker 2: think you might be doing.
Speaker 3: Too much blow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, It's like John Dolorean sitting you down about your
Speaker 2: coke problem. So Barbara would have been aware that this
Speaker 2: thirty seven year old man she'd started seeing it twenty
Speaker 2: one had a checkered past. For one thing, he'd already
Speaker 2: been divorced three times. His first marriage was to a
Speaker 2: fellow vaudeville star, and it seems to have ended two
Speaker 2: years after the marriage due to infidelity because he cheats
Speaker 2: on her a bunch. Probably one of the people he
Speaker 2: cheats on her with is his second wife, who divorces
Speaker 2: him after two months. That's a bad marriage due to
Speaker 2: again rampant infidelity. Within three months of their divorce being
Speaker 2: made official, Frank is jailed for refusing to pay alimony.
Speaker 2: So his third marriage is his first wife, who he
Speaker 2: marries again, and he makes her quit her because she's
Speaker 2: also like a performer he makes her quit her career
Speaker 2: in entertainment after they get married for the second time,
Speaker 2: and then the two up again immediately because again he
Speaker 2: cheats on air constantly, so not a good husband. And
Speaker 2: it's not just the cheating. He also has a tendency
Speaker 2: to get crazy, drunk, fly off the handle, and beat
Speaker 2: the shit out of his partners. He is very physically abusive.
Speaker 2: He is again noted as being a wife beater in
Speaker 2: the twenties when like, as long as you're just like
Speaker 2: slapping ry, that's not even considered spousal abuse back then, right,
Speaker 2: Like he is abusive for the era, Like guys who
Speaker 2: are putting their wives in the hospital are sitting him
Speaker 2: down and being like, man, you gotta cooling, you know,
Speaker 2: Like that's the level of bad husband.
Speaker 3: This man is the time the time really puts a yes.
Speaker 3: It's just like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Like the Jonathan wife beater, the man who
Speaker 2: coined the wife beater shirt, is sitting this guy down
Speaker 2: and talking to him damn like he's a shitty husband.
Speaker 2: And even outside him. And again, he's not just beating women.
Speaker 2: He assaults every He loves assaulting people. He particularly is
Speaker 2: abusive to women. But this is just also generally a
Speaker 2: physically violent man, right, Like, I think we've established that now.
Speaker 2: He's not a stable guy. He's been arrested. He's one
Speaker 2: of the first drunk drivers. He's gonna it's not even
Speaker 2: illegal to have a drink. You can have a cocktail
Speaker 2: in your hand drinking in the twenties, and he's getting
Speaker 2: arrested for drunk driving. It's nuts. How drunk a driver
Speaker 2: this guy is. He had also already again at the
Speaker 2: height of right, at this period of time, there's weeks
Speaker 2: where he's making three hundred grand in a week in
Speaker 2: modern money. He's already declared bankruptcy several times. You know,
Speaker 2: some of that alimony, right, Some of that's because he
Speaker 2: refuses to buy a home or live anywhere but luxury hotels. Right,
Speaker 2: Barbara knows all of this. That is important to note. Right,
Speaker 2: I'm not again the abuse that he is going to
Speaker 2: do over the course of the relationship. I'm not saying
Speaker 2: that that's I'm not mitigating that at all. But she
Speaker 2: is aware of all of this when she starts the relationship, right, Like,
Speaker 2: she does go into this with her eyes open. Obviously
Speaker 2: she's very young. You know, there's a power and balance here,
Speaker 2: but she's heard of him, right, none of this is
Speaker 2: a mystery. She also knows that he gambles uncontrollably when
Speaker 2: he's on a bender, which is another reason for all
Speaker 2: of the bankruptcies. For whatever reason, in spite of all
Speaker 2: of this, Barbara Stanwick really does fall for this guy.
Speaker 2: And I think again a lot of it is that
Speaker 2: he does give her this sense of emotional stability, that
Speaker 2: she's got a center to her world.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: She's never had a home in the sense of another
Speaker 2: person that she belongs with before, and that's just I mean,
Speaker 2: that's the most intoxicating thing in the world, really, right.
Speaker 2: I think we can all understand that, especially if you're
Speaker 2: someone who's never had that, like she will do anything
Speaker 2: to keep this in her life. So they get engaged,
Speaker 2: and then they almost immediately get unengaged. And I'm going
Speaker 2: to quote from an article on Standwith published by Meredith
Speaker 2: Grau here when the duo argued they are argued tooth
Speaker 2: and nail and hammer. It was during one of their
Speaker 2: many pointless but explosive arguments that they temporarily broke up.
Speaker 2: Faye took a trip to Saint Louis on a two
Speaker 2: month engagement and Barbara devoted herself to burlesque, evaded friends,
Speaker 2: and became a near ghost. Burlesquwood in end that burlesque
Speaker 2: is a show, right, Like it's not burles day, that's
Speaker 2: like an actual play. Burlestwood end its Broadway run as
Speaker 2: a local triumph on July fourteenth, but not before Faye
Speaker 2: would fake a breakdown just to drag Barbara to his
Speaker 2: feigned bedside and pop the question. So that's a summary
Speaker 2: of what happened. It actually makes things sound up less
Speaker 2: fucked up than they were. So here's the whole story.
Speaker 2: So they break up, right, she goes off and is
Speaker 2: a huge success. This is like it's a book of
Speaker 2: Mormon level hit. This is the biggest thing on Broadway.
Speaker 2: She's on Broadway for months, then she's touring around the country.
Speaker 2: She's the leading lady in this show. This is a
Speaker 2: huge fucking deal. Right, And Fay has continued to perform,
Speaker 2: but like he is there separated, and he just starts
Speaker 2: calling her almost every night talking about how he's filled
Speaker 2: with grief, he can't stand it. He thinks he's going
Speaker 2: to kill himself, and he always is drunk. He's fallen
Speaker 2: off the wagon. He's telling her like I can't stop drinking.
Speaker 2: I'm destroying myself because you're not here anymore, right, Like
Speaker 2: I can't stand to be without you. And one night,
Speaker 2: one of Frank's, one of their mutual friends, calls Barbara
Speaker 2: and he's like, hey, man, Frank is I've never even
Speaker 2: seen him like this? Like he is so drunk right
Speaker 2: and in such a bad way. He can't work, he
Speaker 2: can't even sleep anymore, right, Like we got to do something.
Speaker 2: He's going to die, you know, like like this guy friends,
Speaker 2: it is like this is deathly serious. You got to
Speaker 2: help me do something to say Frank. So she's like,
Speaker 2: is he on the phone? Like can he come to
Speaker 2: the phone now? And their friend puts Frank on the phone,
Speaker 2: and Frank gets on the phone and he just sounds
Speaker 2: ruined right, just absolutely like barely can talk drunk. He
Speaker 2: tells her his heart's broken, that like he's just ready
Speaker 2: to die because he can't live without her, And Barbara's
Speaker 2: resolve crumbles and she tells him, if you can sober up,
Speaker 2: I'll get engaged to you again. The next moment, as
Speaker 2: soon as she says this, his voice changes. He sounds
Speaker 2: sober because he hasn't been drunk at all this whole time,
Speaker 2: all been fake, every one of these calls. He's been
Speaker 2: faking it, right, He never fell off the wagon, at
Speaker 2: least as far as we know. And he's immediately just
Speaker 2: sobers his voice up and says, all right, well, in
Speaker 2: that case, why don't you get on a train tomorrow
Speaker 2: and we'll get engaged, you know, take a train to
Speaker 2: meet and we'll get engaged and we'll get married right away.
Speaker 3: This christ oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, just the mmm. That's the good toxic,
Speaker 2: abusive relationship stuff. We love to see it. We don't
Speaker 2: love to see it. And you know, what a what
Speaker 2: a performance it is a great I mean, look, man,
Speaker 2: he's not a bad actor.
Speaker 3: Just the swil god that's so fucked up.
Speaker 2: Bad husband, bad fiance, bad person, sure, but not a
Speaker 2: bad actor. You know who else will lie about destroying
Speaker 2: themselves with alcohol in order to get married to Barbara Stanwick?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Probably Blue Apron. I doubt Lasik would, but Blue Apron might.
Speaker 2: Here's ads Ah, we're back. Which sponsor do you think
Speaker 2: would lie about destroying their body and brain with alcohol
Speaker 2: in order to keep Barbara Stanwick in love with them?
Speaker 3: I think? I mean, obviously, any of the mattress ones.
Speaker 2: Any of the mattresses. Oh my god, Casper, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: saw Casper actually would kill themselves drinking in order to
Speaker 2: make Barbara stand with regret dumping them.
Speaker 3: That's right, It's not a lie, it's a way of life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just how Casper rolls, you know. That's why
Speaker 2: they're a ghost. They already did it, so he's just
Speaker 2: lied to her the way it was. It's written in
Speaker 2: the biography, Williams wrote, Barbara is kind of aware that
Speaker 2: he must have been lying, But I don't know if
Speaker 2: she is or isn't. I don't know if she gets
Speaker 2: fooled by this initially, whatever is the case, She takes
Speaker 2: a train to him, they get engaged again, and they
Speaker 2: get married. Right, maybe she was aware, but it just
Speaker 2: she just was in love with this guy and she
Speaker 2: just needed this in her life, right. I think that's
Speaker 2: probably what's going on here, you know.
Speaker 4: I mean I think from the outside of a lot
Speaker 4: of like toxic relationships too, it is just like this
Speaker 4: thing where it's like a little bit yes, little bit no,
Speaker 4: Like you feel like it feels like people kind of
Speaker 4: know but like can't bring themselves to really confront it.
Speaker 3: And that's how it is.
Speaker 2: No, And like, also with all of these toxic relationships
Speaker 2: and with all of these celebrity relationships and shit that
Speaker 2: are so seems so poisonous, there's gotta be good stuff
Speaker 2: here too, right, There's something she's getting that she loves
Speaker 2: and there are good times, right, And there's aspects of
Speaker 2: him again, there's a reason why he's so charming and beloved, right,
Speaker 2: like he is. She's getting something out of this. And
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that to like blame her on it
Speaker 2: or something, but like you have to assume this is
Speaker 2: not We're not like, it's not just bad stuff, right,
Speaker 2: It never is. Otherwise why why would she be so
Speaker 2: committed to this? Right? Yeah, that's the way abusive relation
Speaker 2: and just toxic. Even when it's not abusive, and it's
Speaker 2: just like codependent or stuff, there is, there's always something
Speaker 2: there that keeps one or both people coming back.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So she finishes the current run of her touring show,
Speaker 2: and then she retires, Well, she actually gets sick right
Speaker 2: at the end of it, but either way, she finishes
Speaker 2: burlesque and she retires. Now this is not a full retirement, right,
Speaker 2: it means that she no longer has an independent career.
Speaker 2: Fay is touring on his own, like he's doing you know,
Speaker 2: the Frank Fay Show basically, and she starts performing as
Speaker 2: part of his shows. Right now, Oh, she makes a
Speaker 2: lot of money doing this. She is independently getting paid,
Speaker 2: and she is getting paid very well, the equivalent of
Speaker 2: probably probably a million or more a year, right or
Speaker 2: somewhere in that, like at least high six figures. She's
Speaker 2: she's making very good money, right, But what she's also
Speaker 2: doing is she is clearly I think I don't know
Speaker 2: if it's that he asked her to play second fiddle
Speaker 2: to his ambition or she was just immediately willing to.
Speaker 2: It's probably a little bit of both, right, that he
Speaker 2: wanted her, but also I don't think it's entirely that,
Speaker 2: because he is actually really supportive of her having a career.
Speaker 2: I do think her attempting to quit is largely just
Speaker 2: her really wanting to commit to the relationship. I think
Speaker 2: that's a big part of it because of some of
Speaker 2: the stuff that's going to happen next. So this is
Speaker 2: a little more complicated, right, I don't want to It's
Speaker 2: not just him being like I can't stand to have
Speaker 2: her be a big star or I can't stand to
Speaker 2: have her have a life outside of me. She is
Speaker 2: really motivated by the idea of dedicating herself for to
Speaker 2: this relationship. That is part of what's happening here. As
Speaker 2: the twenties are kind of starting to come to an end,
Speaker 2: Frank is looking out at the entertainment landscape, and he's
Speaker 2: a smart guy, and he's an innovative guy. He understands
Speaker 2: he's got good instincts, right, and he sees that Vaudeville's
Speaker 2: days are numbered, right, this is not going to be
Speaker 2: is already starting to fade. He can kind of see
Speaker 2: there's not as much money coming in, there's not as
Speaker 2: much audience. There's more entertainment out there, right, Like Vaudeville's
Speaker 2: days are kind of over. And he can see that
Speaker 2: the traveling variety acts and these big stage productions that
Speaker 2: you know, cost a lot of money and involve a
Speaker 2: lot of people that have dominated entertainment all his life
Speaker 2: are not going to be around forever. You know, the
Speaker 2: radio is a bigger thing, moving pictures are increasingly significant,
Speaker 2: and you know, we're coming to the end of the
Speaker 2: Roaring twenties, so the bottom is about to fall. Out
Speaker 2: of the economy, which is going to make those big productions,
Speaker 2: those big, huge touring shows and these big elaborate stage
Speaker 2: shows a lot harder to afford, both of the people
Speaker 2: putting them on and for people to buy tickets to. Right,
Speaker 2: So he makes a bold decision right before the depression
Speaker 2: hits to break up with his production company. He like
Speaker 2: breaks a contract to leave them. And this is the
Speaker 2: number one vaudeville production company. They have the ability to
Speaker 2: blacklist him from like the industry almost right, they don't
Speaker 2: do this, but that's the thing he's risking. He takes
Speaker 2: a major risk to leave them because he sees that
Speaker 2: like the bottom's about to fall out, and he wants
Speaker 2: to get into something that he can make work in
Speaker 2: this new era. So he starts performing totally independently with
Speaker 2: a skeleton crew of you know, some stage hands and
Speaker 2: a couple other you know, entertainers and his wife, and
Speaker 2: they're doing longer and longer sets. And now he is
Speaker 2: being up there for something that is like a Netflix,
Speaker 2: you know, especially like a full hour type deal. Like
Speaker 2: he's doing full stand up routines effectively, you know, in
Speaker 2: something that's very close to a modern sense and he's
Speaker 2: again he's a major pioneer. He starts doing something that's
Speaker 2: kind of weird owl adjacent or like Tom Larrr adjacent.
Speaker 2: Tom lair who just died, the greatest musical comedian of
Speaker 2: all time, one of also one of the greatest men
Speaker 2: mathematicians of all time, also invented the jello shot. Incredible man,
Speaker 2: Tom Lairr. Yes, inventor of the jello shot so that
Speaker 2: he could smuggle alcohol into like army gatherings. Amazing man,
Speaker 2: just sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, and he's not the only there's another musical comedian
Speaker 2: right around the same time who's also an influence on
Speaker 2: like Tom Lairr and and you know later guys. But
Speaker 2: he is one of the first like musical parody artists.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: And it's interesting. The way he does this is a
Speaker 2: little is it's not the same as what like Lara
Speaker 2: and al are doing. It's really interesting. He'll start with
Speaker 2: a popular song and he'll get his musicians to start
Speaker 2: playing like Tea for two. That's one of his big bits,
Speaker 2: which is like you've heard of ta for two At
Speaker 2: this point, it's like a hit song. It's like the
Speaker 2: call Me maybe of its Day or the Wet ass
Speaker 2: Pussy of its day. Right, those are the two songs,
Speaker 2: the only two I've heard of. And what it is
Speaker 2: kind of like wet ass pussy because it's smutty, right,
Speaker 2: like it is about it's smutty for the day, right,
Speaker 2: because it's like about a date.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So every couple of lines, he'll start playing the song
Speaker 2: and he'll start singing it, and then he'll stop after
Speaker 2: like a line, and he'll break down what doesn't make
Speaker 2: sense or is secretly absurd in the song? Right, here's
Speaker 2: a reason's cinema sensing it? Yes, exactly exactly. Tea for
Speaker 2: two and two for tea, ain't that rich? Here's a
Speaker 2: guy that has enough tea for two, so he's gonna
Speaker 2: have tea for two. I notice he doesn't say a
Speaker 2: word about sugar comedy. This is easy to anyway whatever.
Speaker 2: I'd assume lots of it's in the delivery. But you
Speaker 2: see what he's doing. He's going through the lyrics of
Speaker 2: this song and then he's like riffing on it, right,
Speaker 2: he's like making fun of bits about it. And I
Speaker 2: think that's interesting because it's the type of bitthesiss is
Speaker 2: so modern. You brought up cinema sins because like initially
Speaker 2: it was like, oh, he's like kind of a proto
Speaker 2: Tom Lair or weird al but honestly, because they're actually
Speaker 2: doing full pair of these songs. A better comparison is
Speaker 2: like modern YouTube videos where like not just songs, but
Speaker 2: like like the Red Letter stuff red Letter Media got fans,
Speaker 2: you're like break down a movie. You're like going through
Speaker 2: like a whole movie or old and you're like breaking
Speaker 2: it down piece by piece and talking in granular to
Speaker 2: tale about like what of this movie or video game
Speaker 2: or whatever doesn't make sense? Like is like the analog
Speaker 2: version of like most of YouTube's big creators are doing now, right,
Speaker 2: I think that's such so interesting to me, right, Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: he is just like reflexively a very innovative entertainer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's sounds genuinely so odd.
Speaker 4: But also it is like I don't like because the
Speaker 4: source material is so old, it's so funny to hear
Speaker 4: how corny even the like jab is.
Speaker 2: Tea for two, Like how many jokes can you make
Speaker 2: about that shit? Man? Yeaeah Yeah, that's his like fucking
Speaker 2: hour and a half long video breaking down why the
Speaker 2: Phantom Menace sucks is tea for two, So no sugar, eh, yeah,
Speaker 2: no sugar huh. So yeah, that's a very creative idea.
Speaker 2: And again, you gotta think of how weird it would
Speaker 2: be in the nineteen twenty nine to hear like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: this guy's gonna come on stage and sing a popular
Speaker 2: song and instead he's like making fun of the song.
Speaker 2: Like idi, like you want to hear this guy make
Speaker 2: fun of a song slowly Like that's a that's a
Speaker 2: weird ask in this period of time, but it works.
Speaker 2: This is like one of his most popular bits. And again,
Speaker 2: like he's just he's just moving from success to success
Speaker 2: at this point up to kind of like the start
Speaker 2: of the Great Depression, and right really right before the
Speaker 2: Great where I think we're like in twenty nine here,
Speaker 2: like right before things really fall off a cliff. Hollywood
Speaker 2: starts calling his wife right because Barbara, she's made a
Speaker 2: big name for herself, even though she's technically quote unquote retired.
Speaker 2: Everyone knows who Barbara Stanwick is, and these you know,
Speaker 2: we're now in the talkie era. Hollywood is looking for
Speaker 2: new leading ladies and people. You know, there's talent scouts
Speaker 2: that go out to Broadway. They've seen her a lot
Speaker 2: of studios are calling and she turns them all down.
Speaker 2: Like she's getting like we will make you a movie star,
Speaker 2: like we want to give you like picture deals, like
Speaker 2: like there's money for you here, and she's like, nah,
Speaker 2: my husband likes it over here. He doesn't want to
Speaker 2: live in California, and my marriage comes first. And she
Speaker 2: just says no, over and over again to all of
Speaker 2: these major studio agents, Like fucking studio heads are trying
Speaker 2: to beat down her door and she won't do it.
Speaker 2: She's not at all tempted because that's not what her
Speaker 2: husband wants to do right now. Eventually, the head of
Speaker 2: a major studio or an agent for a major studio
Speaker 2: figures out how to wear her down, which is they
Speaker 2: go to Frank and they're like, hey, we want to
Speaker 2: sign you and your wife. You know, you each get
Speaker 2: a one picture deal basically, right, we want to try
Speaker 2: you both out, and to be fair, it's kind of
Speaker 2: a no brainer. I'm sure they're not not interested in
Speaker 2: Frank because he's the one of the biggest performers of
Speaker 2: the day. It's it's pretty obvious from like a student
Speaker 2: a position, Well, these are two of the most famous
Speaker 2: popular people on the stage. Let's see if they could
Speaker 2: be movie stars. Right, invite them both, and they agree, Right,
Speaker 2: I think it's just a matter of the money is
Speaker 2: so good, and you know, Vaudeville's kind of falling apart,
Speaker 2: and yeah, they both decide, all right, let's give it
Speaker 2: a try. And it's when they moved to Hollywood that
Speaker 2: the problems really start. And they start with Barbara because
Speaker 2: she is a horrible auditioner. She's terrible at auditioning. She
Speaker 2: doesn't know how to really like do it, and so
Speaker 2: she is supposed to be in this Frank Capra film
Speaker 2: and she goes in for the audition and she bombs it,
Speaker 2: and Capra's like, Frank Capra calls her a porcupine, which
Speaker 2: I is some weird ass twenty sexism. I don't fully
Speaker 2: understand what that's supposed to earn. But it's like an
Speaker 2: insult for a woman. I don't understand why, but he
Speaker 2: calls her a porcupine. And this is actually one of
Speaker 2: Frank's very few good moments and very few, like really
Speaker 2: actually surprisingly supportive partner moments. So the student video that
Speaker 2: Caepra was working with, that that she has this deal
Speaker 2: with and she's bombed this audition. He calls Frank Capra,
Speaker 2: like he gets him on the phone personally because he's
Speaker 2: a star and he can do that, and he's like, look,
Speaker 2: I know you saw my wife. I know you didn't
Speaker 2: like the live performance. I need to show you a
Speaker 2: test screening of her, and I think it was her
Speaker 2: doing some lines from burlesque or something like that, because like,
Speaker 2: if you didn't think she'd she must have just bombed
Speaker 2: the audition because she's great, Like, trust me, she's great.
Speaker 2: And Frank is such a big name that Capra's like, okay,
Speaker 2: I'll do it, and he watches this test. Frank Faye
Speaker 2: brings over this test screening and as soon as Capra
Speaker 2: actually sees her performing on stage, he's like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: I'm a fucking idiot. This woman is one of the
Speaker 2: most talented actors of her generation, of any generation, and
Speaker 2: he casts her immediately, and that's actually like a really
Speaker 2: good like Frank, That's why I'm saying, like he's not
Speaker 2: anti her having a career. Weirdly enough, this is going
Speaker 2: to cause problems for them later, but like he is
Speaker 2: really supportive at the start she gets her movie career
Speaker 2: started because he goes to the mat after she bombs
Speaker 2: an audition and make sure she gets the job. So
Speaker 2: that's one good thing that Frank Faye ever did in
Speaker 2: his fucking life.
Speaker 3: There you go.
Speaker 2: Now, this is not a Barbara Standwick podcast, and I'm
Speaker 2: not going to do but I'm not going to talk
Speaker 2: in detail.
Speaker 4: About Eve a comment or write it if you want
Speaker 4: Robert's Barbara Standwick podcast.
Speaker 2: Well, she did murder those children, but in her defense,
Speaker 2: those kids were coming right for her. You know who
Speaker 2: did it? Who amongst just hasn't killed a couple of kids, right?
Speaker 2: You know, it happens. It happens. So by the mid thirties,
Speaker 2: Barbara Standwick, as soon as she gets this movie, she's
Speaker 2: in this, she's a huge hit. She just immediately a
Speaker 2: massive star. Her career is skyrockets from from there on up.
Speaker 2: By the mid thirties, she's one of the leading ladies
Speaker 2: in pre war Hollywood. She is just massive. She's fucking great.
Speaker 2: She's really good at this. It becomes clear to everybody,
Speaker 2: and she is just like on a rocket ship to
Speaker 2: success from here on out right. That's that's the Barbara
Speaker 2: Stanwick story. Things go less well for Frank Fay after
Speaker 2: this point in time, his first movie, because they get
Speaker 2: this one picture dealer each get a picture. His first
Speaker 2: movie does pretty well, it's a modest success, but afterwards
Speaker 2: he just doesn't catch on as an actor. He's just
Speaker 2: not for whatever reason. I don't know why. Maybe he's
Speaker 2: picking bad scripts or whatever. It just doesn't work out
Speaker 2: for him right and the start, it doesn't help. At
Speaker 2: the start of his career, trying to be an actor
Speaker 2: coincides with the Great Depression really hitting, which wipes out
Speaker 2: a lot of the money that had made his old
Speaker 2: career possible. So there's not as much money in touring
Speaker 2: or doing the kind of shows he'd been doing. And movies,
Speaker 2: you know, are more economical, they make more because you
Speaker 2: pay to put him on once and then you keep
Speaker 2: making money from him, right, So, like you know, it's
Speaker 2: it's better a business to be in. But he's just
Speaker 2: not doing well in it, and eventually the offer is
Speaker 2: kind of slow to a trickle and stop coming in.
Speaker 2: While Barbara Stanwick becomes a fucking household name. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: quote from an article by in the New York Times.
Speaker 2: As her star began to shine, fase dimmed, he drank,
Speaker 2: was relentlessly abusive towards her and the child Dion they'd adopted. However,
Speaker 2: not only did she stick by Faye, but she also
Speaker 2: put his faltering career first. She insisted on introducing herself
Speaker 2: as Missus Frank Fay. We have to wonder what in
Speaker 2: her needed to stick by Faye way past the obvious
Speaker 2: expiration date of the marriage. A determination to rebut the
Speaker 2: Hollywood gossip's prophesying divorce, a stick to your man philosophy,
Speaker 2: her fear of going out in society, an inability to
Speaker 2: have sustained friendships with other women. Yes, yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 2: and also gratitude to Frank for having supported her career
Speaker 2: at a crucial time. But still, her life was actually
Speaker 2: in danger because of his violent nature, as was that
Speaker 2: of little Dion, about whom it must be said she
Speaker 2: didn't seem much concerned. So he's getting increasingly. He had
Speaker 2: kind of kept himself on a leash. He is off
Speaker 2: the chain. He's drinking more, he is beating the shit out,
Speaker 2: he's beating their kid too, to the extent that, like again,
Speaker 2: her life is in danger being with this man. That's
Speaker 2: how out of control he is. Kind of at his worst,
Speaker 2: this isn't consistent, but when he hits rock bottom, that's
Speaker 2: how bad this is. Right now, Again, as the New
Speaker 2: York Times this is her obituary noted, she's not a
Speaker 2: great mom. She's not like she's not necessarily putting the
Speaker 2: kid first. So she's not a hero here. But Frank
Speaker 2: is definitely the villain. And his physical abuse of Barbara
Speaker 2: did escalate to the point where again she could have
Speaker 2: could have killed her, and she does eventually dump his
Speaker 2: ass in nineteen thirty five, and at this point when
Speaker 2: she leaves him, it seems like he's probably heading towards
Speaker 2: an early grave, right. He is increasingly you know, he's
Speaker 2: not making money, he's not getting work. He's able to
Speaker 2: tour some he can do, but it's like not the
Speaker 2: way he had been living, and he can't, Like he
Speaker 2: hasn't been raining in his expenses. So he is broke,
Speaker 2: Like he's constantly going broke. He's gambling what he makes.
Speaker 2: And yeah, it looks like this is kind of the end,
Speaker 2: right And again, if this had been the end, we
Speaker 2: wouldn't do it. Behind the bastards on this guy, because
Speaker 2: like he's a dick, he's an abusive husband, but like
Speaker 2: that's just not not really the bastard story yet, like's
Speaker 2: not me yea if we did an episode on every
Speaker 2: famous person who was like abusive to their spouse, Yeah,
Speaker 2: like that's just a different show. Not to minimize that,
Speaker 2: but it's a different show. We're getting to like the
Speaker 2: wild act of bastardury here, Like that's what's coming next.
Speaker 2: So it gets worse than this, folks, it gets a
Speaker 2: lot worse. So a big part of why Frank had
Speaker 2: failed in Hollywood. You know, I said, it's not entirely
Speaker 2: clear to me why I forgot I had written this
Speaker 2: part because there is one really clear reason, which is
Speaker 2: that he's super anti Semitic. And the heads of most
Speaker 2: of the major Hollywood studios this point are Jewish guys, right,
Speaker 2: And it's the kind of thing if his movies had
Speaker 2: been runaway hits, they probably would have ignored that because
Speaker 2: they do for other guys, right, because that's Hollywood. All
Speaker 2: do we all know about mel Gibson, right, But again,
Speaker 2: the fact that he's a famous anti semi and that
Speaker 2: his movies aren't doing great like is a big part
Speaker 2: of what destroys him in Hollywood. And it's very funny
Speaker 2: to be that there's a quote from one of his peers,
Speaker 2: Milt Joseph Berg, who is you know, a Jewish comedian,
Speaker 2: who said of him quote in a business known for
Speaker 2: its lack of bigotry, he was a bigot. This was
Speaker 2: no secret, but widely known and well substantiated. Right, So
Speaker 2: he is just like that's a big part of like
Speaker 2: why he can't get shit working for him in Hollywood.
Speaker 2: And then the FDR years kickoff, right, and Frank starts
Speaker 2: getting increasingly political. He hates FDR. He calls him a communist.
Speaker 2: He starts going on these loud rants about the Jewish
Speaker 2: bankers that he believes are behind all of the country's
Speaker 2: problems and behind It's weird, like, so the Jewish bankers
Speaker 2: caused the depression and also are behind FDR. Who's yeah,
Speaker 2: got pulled us out of it? What's going on? Anyway?
Speaker 2: He's losing his mind on alcohol here too, as his
Speaker 2: old famous friends increasingly step away from him because he
Speaker 2: is just he's made himself into a pariah. It's bad
Speaker 2: for your career to be associated with Frank. At this point,
Speaker 2: he finds a new friend with someone who understands him,
Speaker 2: father Charles Kaughlin. Now We've talked about this guy before
Speaker 2: on the podcast. Coughlin is a Catholic priest with a
Speaker 2: far right radio show. Who is he is a fascist.
Speaker 2: He is a proto Nazi. He is one of the
Speaker 2: guys who's trying to get the US to go fascist, right.
Speaker 2: He's probably the most He is the fucking He's like
Speaker 2: Bill O'Reilly mixed with Tucker Carlson, you know, like he
Speaker 2: is super influential as a fascist media figure. Coughlin also
Speaker 2: believed that Jewish bankers were behind every evil in the country.
Speaker 2: He referred to the New Deal as the jew Deal,
Speaker 2: and as a result, he and Frank get along famously. Yeah, like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, it's a match made in heaven right here.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Now you know who else gets along famously with Father
Speaker 2: Charles Coughlin. I probably shouldn't say that. Here's ads ah
Speaker 2: and we're back. I don't know why I make that
Speaker 2: like that like sound every day. I just you know,
Speaker 2: I'm vamping. It's the it's the post. You know, you
Speaker 2: just got yourself out of the ad. We just all
Speaker 2: diligently listened to the ads, bought the thing and now
Speaker 2: you're decompressing.
Speaker 3: Got to do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and now we're decompressing, and we're hearing about his
Speaker 2: friendship with Charles Coughlin, right, and just kind of his
Speaker 2: this is him, this is him spinning out right in
Speaker 2: the late thirties, Cliff nester Off writes, quote Face struggled
Speaker 2: in film and radio for the next ten years after
Speaker 2: his divorce from from Barbara. His appearances were spotty and
Speaker 2: mostly unsuccessful. He had made too many enemies and few
Speaker 2: cared to help him out. Maurice Zolotow wrote that the
Speaker 2: self destructive pattern has hampered his career at various times.
Speaker 2: He has been a vaudeville MC nightclub, comic, radio star,
Speaker 2: in motion picture hero. Fay has been successful in all
Speaker 2: of these. He has also been a failure in all
Speaker 2: of these. Fay has been washed up more times than
Speaker 2: any other big time star, you know, And that's that's
Speaker 2: kind of like the state of his career at this point. Yeah,
Speaker 2: for an idea of like what a famous dick this
Speaker 2: guy is at this point, I probably should have put
Speaker 2: this up earlier, but it's very funny people at a
Speaker 2: Hollywood start telling a joke. This is kind of like
Speaker 2: while he's still married to Barbara Stanwick, which Hollywood actor
Speaker 2: has the biggest prick and the answer is Barbara Stanwick, right,
Speaker 2: like that, that's how people are talking about him. Right,
Speaker 2: his career is over. So by the start of the
Speaker 2: World War Two he is in particularly bad odor because
Speaker 2: you know, he's basically a Nazi and we're going to
Speaker 2: war with those people.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: He is on the side of the America First yars
Speaker 2: who lived Charles Lindberg and Father Coughlin. So this is
Speaker 2: not nothing's it just seems like he's completely fucking doomed.
Speaker 2: But just as all seems lost and he is as
Speaker 2: washed up as washed up can get, in nineteen forty
Speaker 2: four he gets thrown a fucking life preserver, right, and
Speaker 2: it's thrown by the most esteemed director in Broadway history,
Speaker 2: Antoinette Perry, who is looking to put together the cast
Speaker 2: for a new play, Harvey. Have you ever seen the
Speaker 2: movie Harvey with Jimmy Stewart.
Speaker 3: YEP, I have not.
Speaker 2: Actually it's a great film, holds on Weirdly enough, it
Speaker 2: was filmed in like the fifties. It's written before then, right,
Speaker 2: he's doing the stage version in the forties about like
Speaker 2: mental health. Like the plot is like the guy played
Speaker 2: by Jimmy Staff. Forget what his fucking name is the character,
Speaker 2: but the main character is this like rich kid. He's
Speaker 2: like the oldest son of like a wealthy family, and
Speaker 2: he sees a giant talking rabbit and he's constantly talking
Speaker 2: with it. It follows him around. They're always at the
Speaker 2: bar drinking together. Elwood, by the way, Elwood, Ellwood, You're right, Elwood.
Speaker 2: El would doubt I think something like that. And his
Speaker 2: high society family and friends are trying trying to have
Speaker 2: him institutionalized, right, because he's clearly crazy, right, so they're
Speaker 2: trying to like get him in a mental asylum basically
Speaker 2: for being crazy and seeing this rabbit. And weirdly enough,
Speaker 2: it still holds up as a good depiction of mental
Speaker 2: illness because like the message of it ultimately is that like,
Speaker 2: actually Elwood's fine, and like everyone just needs to understand
Speaker 2: that he's just different from other people.
Speaker 3: But he's happy.
Speaker 2: He's not hurting anybody, he's not in any danger. He
Speaker 2: just sees a rabbit and that's okay.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Like it's actually got like a really modern message about
Speaker 2: like neurodiversity, and just like like the Jimmy Stewart version
Speaker 2: of this movie holds the fuck up. It's a great
Speaker 2: fucking film. You should watch Harvey, and I mean he's
Speaker 2: fucking Jimmy Stewart, great actor, weirdly enough, great bomber pilot,
Speaker 2: retired as a general in the Air Force. Flew like
Speaker 2: fifty missions in World War Two. Jimmy Stewart, quite a life.
Speaker 2: I'm surprised you didn't know that. I don't think I did,
Speaker 2: George Bailey, Jimmy Stewart during World War Two was a
Speaker 2: bomber pilot, flew missions over Western Europe, did the most
Speaker 2: dangerous job that existed in the American Army. Like he
Speaker 2: flew way more missions than he needed to.
Speaker 4: It's crazy, as you just said that, I must have
Speaker 4: asked the same question on a previous episode of Behind
Speaker 4: the Bastards, because that just flootered me with Deshavu.
Speaker 2: Yeah, weirdly enough, Jimmy Stewart, great actor. Killed thousands, like
Speaker 2: like literally killed thousands of people. Fun guy. Anyway, So
Speaker 2: this is before the Jimmy Stewart vers This is like
Speaker 2: the play. It starts off as a play. The screenplay
Speaker 2: actually wins a Pulitzer Prize, right, So this is a
Speaker 2: great screenplay and Antoinette Perry is casting the very first
Speaker 2: time this is going to be on Broadway, and she
Speaker 2: decides that not only is Frank Fay a good fit
Speaker 2: for the play, but she wants him to play the star.
Speaker 2: He's going to be Elwood. Right, And this is a
Speaker 2: huge deal. I had said, Antoinette Perry is like the
Speaker 2: most famous director in Broadway history. Antoinette. The shortened version
Speaker 2: of Antoinette is Tony. The Tony Awards are named for
Speaker 2: this woman. That's that's who this is. Right. So if
Speaker 2: she decides this washed up anti Semite is who I
Speaker 2: want as my leading man, that's who's going to be
Speaker 2: her leading man, right. And she's very good at what
Speaker 2: she does. You know, he's a piece of shit. I'm
Speaker 2: not happy that he gets this job that reinvigorates his career,
Speaker 2: but he's really good. Like he headlines eighteen hundred performances.
Speaker 2: That's like for years this show is on Broadway and
Speaker 2: then touring. It's a massive fucking hit and it makes
Speaker 2: him rich again, and it turns him into a star again.
Speaker 2: And so by the very end of World War Two
Speaker 2: he has gotten a second chance stardom, like the kind
Speaker 2: of second chance that nobody gets when you are as
Speaker 2: down and out as he is, to wind up being
Speaker 2: the biggest name on Broadway again after a fall like that,
Speaker 2: it's nuts. Yeah, Now, what would you do if you
Speaker 2: were disgraced for being a massive bigot and an abusive
Speaker 2: spouse and went broke and had your career destroyed and
Speaker 2: then suddenly become rich and famous again. You know, you'd
Speaker 2: think probably just kind of try to enjoy it, you know,
Speaker 2: rebuild your career, keep quiet, chill.
Speaker 3: Out, maybe learn something about yourself growth.
Speaker 2: You learn something a better person.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, of course that's what anyone would do.
Speaker 2: He takes a slightly different tactic. He understands now that
Speaker 2: he's famous again, he's got influence and prestige and people
Speaker 2: listen to him. He needs to speak up for the downtrodden,
Speaker 2: you know, the people that no one else is going
Speaker 2: to bat for, right, you know, the people that just
Speaker 2: have no one else looking out for them, that that
Speaker 2: only he can really, you know, defend and protect. And
Speaker 2: obviously this is in nineteen forty five, yeah, forty six,
Speaker 2: there's no one who needs protecting more than Francisco Franco,
Speaker 2: the fascist dictator of Spain. Now Franco isn't in any
Speaker 2: real danger as World War two ends. Obviously he's fine.
Speaker 2: Anti communism immediately is how the US pivots. So he's
Speaker 2: not no, no, it's common for Franco. But what makes
Speaker 2: Faye angry, what makes him want to speak out in
Speaker 2: defense of Francisco Franco, is that So the Union for
Speaker 2: Theater Workers for actors, and I think basically everybody who's
Speaker 2: working in the theater at this point is called Actors Equity.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's just actors. Maybe I'm wrong about that,
Speaker 2: but anyway, the SAG for theater workers, it may still be.
Speaker 2: I don't know a lot about the theater. Whatever it
Speaker 2: is to actors Equity is the Union for Theater actors, right,
Speaker 2: And so a number of members of Actors Equity. This
Speaker 2: isn't an official Actors Equity thing, but a lot of
Speaker 2: people with Actors Equity. In late nineteen forty five held
Speaker 2: a rally to raise money for a group called Spanish
Speaker 2: Refugee Appeal. Now, the Spanish Civil War had ended long ago, right,
Speaker 2: Franco is well in charge, and what the refuge Appeal is?
Speaker 2: Number one, they're raising money to support leftists and political
Speaker 2: dissidents who have had to flee Spain, and they are
Speaker 2: also begging publicly and trying to get other governments to
Speaker 2: pressure FRANCO to stop arresting, torturing and murdering leftists. Right,
Speaker 2: They're specifically a big part of it is they are
Speaker 2: attacking the Catholic Church and trying to shame them because
Speaker 2: the Catholic Church is actively hunting down and helping to
Speaker 2: murder leftists, right anarchists and the like, So they're unhappy
Speaker 2: about that and trying to stop it. Nesterhoff writes, quote
Speaker 2: Fay was furious. He said their criticism was an attack
Speaker 2: on Catholicism as a whole. Fay demanded Actors Equity investigate
Speaker 2: each anti FRANCO member for Unamerican activity. The House Committee
Speaker 2: on American Activities acted on face suggestion, and the Actors
Speaker 2: were vetted. The New York Times reported that Fay held
Speaker 2: no brief against any member of Actors Equity for political beliefs.
Speaker 2: He resented, however, that EQUITY members should be party to
Speaker 2: rallies that condemn religious groups. Equity president Bert Lyttel objected
Speaker 2: to the political investigation. Equity members have a wide latitude
Speaker 2: of interests and beliefs that they may practice and advocate
Speaker 2: as private citizens. Actors Equities stood by Brooks, Darling, Molina
Speaker 2: and Osato. Those are the people organizing this rally. Rather
Speaker 2: than expel them from his union, lytel cinsured Frank Fay
Speaker 2: for conduct prejudicial to the association or its membership. So
Speaker 2: he gets Congress to investigate these people for trying to
Speaker 2: raise money for fucking refugees and beg Franco in the
Speaker 2: church to stop having people murdered. And it gets them
Speaker 2: fucking investigated, and to the credit of Actors Equity in
Speaker 2: the Union head they go after Frank and they're like, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: you're the one being it. They're allowed to do this
Speaker 2: privately on their own. You are trying to destroy their
Speaker 2: Fuck you man, so this, you know, he gets in
Speaker 2: trouble over this, and it's a bad look, especially in
Speaker 2: nineteen forty five. But the fact that the Union refuses
Speaker 2: to back Frank's play doesn't mean no one supported him.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of right wing and fat just outright
Speaker 2: fascist Americans who have been kind of biting their tongues
Speaker 2: all of World War two and are really they're frustrated
Speaker 2: that we're allied with the USS are. They're frustrated that
Speaker 2: we're fighting the fascists. You know, they're real bummed about
Speaker 2: all of this stuff. And by the end of the war,
Speaker 2: they've been having to keep quiet for so long that
Speaker 2: they just are filled to the brim with anger at
Speaker 2: what side the US picked in this. There's also a
Speaker 2: lot of American francoists who love, you know, what Frank
Speaker 2: is saying about their favorite dictator who's still alive, and
Speaker 2: these guys start, fascists being the same in every era,
Speaker 2: immediately mass mailing death threats to Actors Equity and to
Speaker 2: the guys at Actors Equity, like to the people who
Speaker 2: had done this rally that Frank had called out right,
Speaker 2: it's a very modern thing. This right wing celebrity starts
Speaker 2: complaining about a thing he doesn't like, and his fans
Speaker 2: start threatening to murder people on his behalf right, same
Speaker 2: as it ever was. Yeah, pretty standard standard stuff, right.
Speaker 2: One journalist at the time wrote, under the guys of
Speaker 2: being deeply pained over the comments about the Catholic Church.
Speaker 2: These organs of native fascism have been blowing the familiar
Speaker 2: tunes in all their repulsive cacophony. They say, that the
Speaker 2: issue is religion, but they are no more concerned with
Speaker 2: religion than were their political masters. The cutthroats of Berlin
Speaker 2: consider Frank Fay himself the main attraction in the current
Speaker 2: whoopie do. His anti Semitism is well known, and his
Speaker 2: numerous brawls on that account are common gossip. Yeah, pretty good, Yeah,
Speaker 2: well written.
Speaker 4: Yeah, God, imagine imagine a contemporary Oh yeah, like journalist
Speaker 4: being that good.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's unfortunately are due. Yeah, so we can
Speaker 2: look back on this and say, obviously, like that's what's happening, right,
Speaker 2: Like obviously this is like a fair description of what
Speaker 2: he's doing. But like a lot of fascists, Frank was
Speaker 2: convinced that he was right and that the rest of
Speaker 2: the world secretly agreed with him. So, drunk on his
Speaker 2: newfound fame and enraged with frustration at how World War
Speaker 2: Two it ended, he decided to hold a rally in
Speaker 2: January of nineteen forty six, celebrating fascism in all of
Speaker 2: its guises. Now that's a bold move in January nineteen
Speaker 2: forty six, But Frank had that special kind of brain
Speaker 2: damage that God only gives to men who get too
Speaker 2: famous for standing in front of a crowd and telling jokes.
Speaker 2: So he figured, there's no way this is going to
Speaker 2: backfire on me. Right, my career collapsed once because I'm
Speaker 2: an abusive, bigoted asshole, But it won't happen again.
Speaker 3: How could it? It never does. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, if you're a fascist looking to hold a rally
Speaker 2: in New York City, there's only one group of assholes
Speaker 2: who suck hard enough to say yes, especially in January
Speaker 2: of nineteen forty six, and those assholes are Madison Square Garden.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I mean also also, you know that's a
Speaker 2: tried and true place for a we Nazi rally.
Speaker 3: We love it there.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, this is this is this is this
Speaker 2: is completely yeah, God, please don't sue us again. Can
Speaker 2: we make that joke, Sophie? Are we allowed to?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Maybe we'll bleep it. So Madison Square Garden agrees to
Speaker 2: host the event, which he calls the friends of Frank Fay.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about who those friends are, shall we. Organizing
Speaker 2: work is handled by the Ku Klux Klan and the
Speaker 2: American Nazi Party, which is nice to see their work
Speaker 2: in hand in hand, you know, yeah, like it's it's
Speaker 2: one of those it's been so bummed when they had
Speaker 2: their out. It's just good to see, you know, the
Speaker 2: two long term hooden hand hood in hand, right, this
Speaker 2: is like some ship. This is like from that fucking
Speaker 2: Wolfenstein games. Yes, it's fucking crazy like the KKK and
Speaker 2: the American Nazi Party are like your stage hands and
Speaker 2: I handling like advertising and ship.
Speaker 3: Who's speaking? Who's speaking?
Speaker 2: Tell me? Oh, who's speak, Sophie. So many assholes.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I should note here that the last big Nazi rally
Speaker 2: in American history, right before World War Two, had been
Speaker 2: held by the German American boond in Madison Square Garden,
Speaker 2: you know, and involved a bunch of Nazis. Uh doing
Speaker 2: a big rally again. Madison Square Garden loves hosting Nazi events,
Speaker 2: or at least did back then. I'm sure everything's fine
Speaker 2: in the company now. Prominent speakers at this event included
Speaker 2: Nazi propagandist Laura Ingles and no, I want to be clear,
Speaker 2: I'm not talking about Laura Ingles. Wild different person, but
Speaker 2: she's also very right wing, but she's not speaking at
Speaker 2: this event. They just have very similar names. Laura Ingles
Speaker 2: was an award winning female pilot. She's like one of
Speaker 2: the first like great female pilots. She is very groundbreaking
Speaker 2: in that. And then she winds up serving two years
Speaker 2: in prison because she worked as an unpaid agent of
Speaker 2: the Nazi government while speaking at America First Gatherings and
Speaker 2: didn't disclose that she was a paid agent of a
Speaker 2: foreign power. That's what happens to her prior to this.
Speaker 2: So anyway, I should also know it as a fun
Speaker 2: fact because I was like, I just saw Laura Ingles
Speaker 2: because I'm reading like old contemporary news artiles like Laura Ingless,
Speaker 2: is this the little aus on the Prairie? And so
Speaker 2: I like, I type into Google as I do sometimes,
Speaker 2: was Laura Ingles a Nazi? And obviously now when you Google,
Speaker 2: the first thing you get is their fucking AI summary.
Speaker 2: This is what the AI summary says. No, Laura Ingles,
Speaker 2: the aviator, not the author, was not a Nazi. However,
Speaker 2: she was a Nazi sympathizer. Was convicted of acting as
Speaker 2: a paid agent for Nazi Germany, And like, yeah, so
Speaker 2: why you're saying she's not she was paid for acting.
Speaker 3: She was.
Speaker 2: She went to prison for failing to register as an
Speaker 2: agent for the German government for speaking at Nazi rallies.
Speaker 2: We can't call her a Nazi, really, but you wont Gemini.
Speaker 2: But the AI said, so, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna call
Speaker 2: her a Nazi.
Speaker 3: She's a Nazi.
Speaker 2: If you go to jail for advocating for the Nazi
Speaker 2: government secretly without like and taking their money, I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: I'm not.
Speaker 3: A Nazi's fucking Nazi.
Speaker 2: She's a fucking Nazi. These tech bros think this is
Speaker 2: the sum of the picle of intelligence. This is what's
Speaker 2: going to take us to the stars. Fucking AI bullshit.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Another guest at this event was KKK member Joseph Camp
Speaker 2: and of course Camps fell with a k uh. Camp,
Speaker 2: if you haven't heard of him, was one of the
Speaker 2: chief all authors of anti Semitic propaganda in the United
Speaker 2: States at this period of time.
Speaker 1: He is a.
Speaker 2: Massive, like Jewish World conspiracy author.
Speaker 3: Guy.
Speaker 2: There's a picture Sophie's going to show you from contemporary
Speaker 2: reporting on the event. Who introduces us to another guy
Speaker 2: at this event who happened to look just like Walt
Speaker 2: Like a lot of these guys look exactly like Walt Disney,
Speaker 2: Like literally, this Walt Disney looking motherfucker. This pencil mustache
Speaker 2: like legit wild all Walt Disney looking motherfuckers and the
Speaker 2: caption from this I think this is from the Post
Speaker 2: article another friend of Faye John Geist, notorious anti Semite
Speaker 2: and distributor of Wrathskellar pamphlets back in the Yorktown Day.
Speaker 2: I like that friend quotes friendly. Yeah. Now, here's quite
Speaker 2: a lot of reporting wrath Skeller, you know what. I
Speaker 2: should have looked that up. Let's look that up right now.
Speaker 2: Let's do it right now.
Speaker 4: I will say I forgot what punk venu is called
Speaker 4: the wrath Skeller, but I hope they're not.
Speaker 3: I hope it wasn't that kind of punk.
Speaker 2: Well, Wikipedia is telling me that it's a name for
Speaker 2: a kind of restaurant in German speaking countries. Uh oh oh,
Speaker 2: maybe it was that kind of punk bar. Yeah, maybe
Speaker 2: it is that guy that that Yeah, maybe it's just
Speaker 2: like a name for a beer garden. Yeah. Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: that's that's my guess, my best guess. Uh yikes, all right, yeah, cool,
Speaker 2: cool guy, most importantly cool.
Speaker 3: And moving on.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of reporting left to read through
Speaker 2: from this event. You can find a lot of articles
Speaker 2: written about it at the time, and much of it
Speaker 2: is quite funny. The New York Daily News, who is
Speaker 2: pretty positive about this event, titles they're covering nineteen thousand
Speaker 2: Fay friends jam garden to cheer anti red speeches. First off,
Speaker 2: the actual numbers more like eleven thousand, and a lot
Speaker 2: of those are protesters who are there to like Jeer
Speaker 2: and try to disrupt the event too. The Daily News
Speaker 2: was happy to carry water for Fay and included a
Speaker 2: segment in their review titled deny rac Bias. Doctor Emmanuel Josephson,
Speaker 2: who said he was of Jewish extraction, brought down the
Speaker 2: house with his attack on communism, labor unions, Karl Marx,
Speaker 2: Harold Lasky, the New Deal, the State Department, the OPA,
Speaker 2: and the more deadly of the Roosevelt species. So it's
Speaker 2: not anti semitic. They've got a Jewish guy. Great now.
Speaker 2: The New York Post not my favorite publication today, but
Speaker 2: was a much better publication back then. Right, And their
Speaker 2: reporting on this is actually pretty good.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: They are unsparing about how racist this was. Quote after
Speaker 2: praising Equity as the finest organization ever put together, Fay said,
Speaker 2: there is a certain little group coming into Equity, coming
Speaker 2: not through the stage door, but through the and hear
Speaker 2: his words slurred, and he may have said either south
Speaker 2: or back door. They have nothing to offer you but
Speaker 2: the bad breath of Marx. They put on some plays
Speaker 2: to capture your youth, and for God's sake, watch your children.
Speaker 2: We didn't have that when we were kids, but we've
Speaker 2: got it now. A Post reporter later asked Faye what
Speaker 2: plays he was referring to, and he didn't and he
Speaker 2: had made the statement quoted. Later, coming upon the Post
Speaker 2: reporter again, he warned him to be careful about the
Speaker 2: quotation because his address had been recorded. It's very much
Speaker 2: much modered, like I didn't say that.
Speaker 3: What do you mean?
Speaker 2: I said that there are plays trying to reach out
Speaker 2: to w I didn't say that at all when we
Speaker 2: recorded it. So don't you dare lie to continue? As
Speaker 2: Fay went along, the clock silently slid past the one
Speaker 2: am mark, and spectators, by the score literally were sleeping
Speaker 2: in their chairs. Mcnabo too, who's one of the other hosts, too,
Speaker 2: constantly reminded the audience that every word uttered at the
Speaker 2: meeting was being recorded, and that woewen libel suits so
Speaker 2: waited those newspapers that printed stories written with smear dripping pins.
Speaker 2: They don't see anybody, right like, because again all of
Speaker 2: the racism is there. This is just a horrible it's
Speaker 2: a Nazi rally. He holds a Nazi rally in nineteen
Speaker 2: forty six, and this backfires in every way possible. Right,
Speaker 2: this does finally destroy his.
Speaker 1: Career, finally doesn't work again.
Speaker 2: No, he never works again. There are like one of
Speaker 2: the jokes, I forget exactly who says this, but it's
Speaker 2: another famous comedian who is like I saw him walking
Speaker 2: like holding his own hand down lover's lane. That's how
Speaker 2: lonely he is at the end of his life. He
Speaker 2: dies in Santa Monica in nineteen sixty one at the
Speaker 2: age of sixty nine and is ostensibly unloved or unwarned. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: that he gets to live in a nice part of
Speaker 2: the world and longer, although not that long for hardcore
Speaker 2: alcoholic it's not doing bad now. I read a lot
Speaker 2: of George Burns, who's a famous comedian, like talking about
Speaker 2: the Fay for this column, and Burns is a guy
Speaker 2: who talks a lot about like Fay's talents and what
Speaker 2: he was good at. But Burns also talks about like
Speaker 2: all the things that sucked about him, right, And so
Speaker 2: here's here in this episode, here's a quote from George
Speaker 2: Burns on Faye at late in life. Fay hated Jews,
Speaker 2: but he was very religious. He used to eat at
Speaker 2: the Brown Derby and I used to watch just before
Speaker 2: his food came, I would sit down and start to
Speaker 2: mention people that are dead. I'd say Tom Fitzpatrick isn't
Speaker 2: with us anymore. He'd bless him and say a prayer.
Speaker 2: I'd mentioned five or six more people, and when his
Speaker 2: food got cold, I'd leave. And so that's that's how
Speaker 2: Burns gets some revenge on him, is he'll just like
Speaker 2: hang out whatever he's eating and like sit down and
Speaker 2: talk about all the people who have died recently. So
Speaker 2: that because he knows he's got to like do a
Speaker 2: little just to ruin his meal. It's a kind of
Speaker 2: petty we should all seek to embody. But it's also
Speaker 2: like such a bizarre interaction because it's like, you hate
Speaker 2: this guy because he is an unreformed anti semi.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, you're still doing banter with him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you're doing to his day, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no,
Speaker 2: I know. But but it's just like a thing where
Speaker 2: they still have the type of relationship where there's banter, right,
Speaker 2: I find that. I mean, listen, I guess, I guess
Speaker 2: we're just too polarized now.
Speaker 3: But it's very weird.
Speaker 4: It's been a minute since I've just had a little
Speaker 4: joke with a Nazi, is what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Well, and that's, you know, one of the many things
Speaker 2: we like about you, Andrew tu And that is my
Speaker 2: general best practices is don't don't joke around with the Nazis,
Speaker 2: don't socialize with Nazis, don't argue with Nazis, don't debate them.
Speaker 2: There are some things you should do to Nazis, but
Speaker 2: we can't talk about that on the podcast in the
Speaker 2: political climate.
Speaker 4: So yeah, nothing is being advocated.
Speaker 2: You know. Anyway, how do you feel about this guy
Speaker 2: coming in?
Speaker 4: Oh my god, I I it's this is this is
Speaker 4: interesting because it is like I mean, as I said
Speaker 4: in part one, it is like shocking to me because
Speaker 4: you know what it is is because I was born
Speaker 4: in a time, you know, like you, I think we're
Speaker 4: talking about this where we had come out of perceiving
Speaker 4: the stand up that the seventies, the like, you know,
Speaker 4: the Carlin's and Kaufman's of the world had kind of
Speaker 4: left left our doorstep. Yeah, made stand Up seem to
Speaker 4: the extent that it was political, did not seem like
Speaker 4: like I guess what I mean is like to me
Speaker 4: from my perception, stand Up has taken a big right
Speaker 4: wing like turn in my lifetime. Yeah, and it is
Speaker 4: interesting to learn that this may simply be reverting to
Speaker 4: the mean.
Speaker 2: Well, like it's at least I think it's more accurate
Speaker 2: to say there have always been those kinds of guys
Speaker 2: in comedy because Milton Borough, we're talking about how a
Speaker 2: lot of people hated him, he was not personally super
Speaker 2: well loved, and you know, his career is destroyed in
Speaker 2: large part due to how much of a bigot he is.
Speaker 2: But this has always been there, and it's always been
Speaker 2: like significant, Yeah, I think, yeah, right, I think what
Speaker 2: it is is that there has always been a sign
Speaker 2: an audience that craves this type of guy, and we
Speaker 2: see it now, this is this is the you know, well,
Speaker 2: there's honestly probably all of the top podcasts besides you
Speaker 2: have that audience. Not direly true, but it's not like
Speaker 2: as far off as it would be. Nice if it were, right. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's just like like there was a massive audience for
Speaker 2: I mean even just like speaking comedic terms, as we've
Speaker 2: talked a couple of times for punching down, Like there
Speaker 2: is a huge idea, but there's an appetite for it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and although of course, you know, if you're really
Speaker 4: going to strike down, you want to you want to.
Speaker 3: Do an elbow down.
Speaker 2: I think, right people, right, people, punching is is not
Speaker 2: as efficient, no, no, no, and just you know, try
Speaker 2: to find someone shorter than you. That's always the easiest
Speaker 2: person to hit.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm saying this constantly.
Speaker 3: But like like so, so I think that's it.
Speaker 4: It's just that that there's always been this audience and
Speaker 4: the perception that like comedy spoke truth to power, as
Speaker 4: it were, is like really just the fabrication.
Speaker 3: It's it's capable of, but it doesn't do it. You know.
Speaker 4: Inherently, comedy is more about just making fun of the
Speaker 4: people you hate. Sometimes those people deserve.
Speaker 2: It, Yeah, Frank Fae being a great example, righteah exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, but yeah, yeah, yeah, anyway, yes, fucking illuminating.
Speaker 2: Fucking illuminating and illuminated fucking wait no, it doesn't work anyway.
Speaker 2: Uh podcast, do you get anything to plug?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 3: You know, I do a podcast called Josi's Racist. We
Speaker 3: have a premium show that's.
Speaker 4: Much more fun called yoak when we live where we
Speaker 4: don't talk about racism. Yeah, yeah, that's it. I don't know, right, Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's I don't know.
Speaker 2: Ever killed anyboddy.
Speaker 3: Uh you know what not that I know?
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, I've never done it. We always asked that
Speaker 2: at the Enity episodes. Yea, we ask actually every single guest.
Speaker 2: We've just had to edit out all the other time
Speaker 2: we've done it because every other person who's guested on
Speaker 2: the show has has admitted to a murder. That's a
Speaker 2: fun behind the bastards fact, folks. Sometimes there's sometimes there's
Speaker 2: just a long pause, and even that's incriminating.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you gotta be able to say
Speaker 3: no right away. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Anyway, Prosecutors, please arrest and prosecute all of our
Speaker 2: former guests for murder except for Andrew T. You know, innocent,
Speaker 2: Andrew innocent.
Speaker 3: Andrew T innocent.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, Sophie's not speaking up, so this must be
Speaker 2: okay for me to say anyway. That's about it. For
Speaker 2: us here today at Behind the Bastards. Ladies, gentlemen, them's,
Speaker 2: and other pronouns types of people. Go have a good
Speaker 2: weekend or have a bad weekend. It's pretty bad times
Speaker 2: right now. But I hope your weekend's good unless you're bad. No, Sophie,
Speaker 2: why why why? In the podcast, podcasts don't need to end.
Speaker 2: We can just keep going, we can keep vent.
Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.
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Speaker 1: dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
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Speaker 1: at Behind the Bastards.