WEBVTT - In Memoriam: Patricia Bosworth 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:07.640 I'm Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to Here's the Thing. 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:12.280 Today we're going to repost my conversation with the late 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:16.079 Patricia Bosworth, my friend and colleague who died on April 0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:21.279 two of this year of complications from the coronavirus. Bosworth 0:00:21.360 --> 0:00:24.080 and I served together on the board of the Actor's Studio, 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:26.800 where she can always be relied upon to share her 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:31.360 passion for all things literary, theatrical, and artistic. From April 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:36.040 two thousand seventeen. Here's my conversation with the late Patricia Bosworth. 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:47.080 Mark Twain once likened biographies to what he called quote 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:50.800 the clothes and buttons of the man. He said, quote 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:54.440 the biography of the man himself cannot be written. The 0:00:54.560 --> 0:00:58.000 quote is a favorite of Patricia Bosworth, in nineteen fifties 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:02.120 Broadway star turned by bographer, who for forty years has 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:06.759 been proving Twain's words wrong. In her books, Bosworth has 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:12.040 captured the essence of elusive artists like Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando, 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:15.960 and New York Underworld photographer Diane Arbus. These men and 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:20.120 women were revered but broken, larger than life characters doomed 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:23.600 to self destruct. It's a type of Patricia Bosworth knows 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:28.479 firsthand her own father, Bartley Crumb, was a famous left 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:32.920 wing lawyer who, after an illustrious career that included defending 0:01:33.000 --> 0:01:37.559 members of the Hollywood Ten, ended his own life. It's 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:41.600 her father's suicide and that of her brother years earlier, 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:46.520 that gave Bosworth a thirst to understand tormented souls. Her 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:50.280 new book, The Men in My Life turns that examination inward, 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:54.280 exploring how those deaths shaped her and were linked to 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:58.040 the fear and repression of that era. The third man 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:01.960 in her life during that period was her abusive first husband, 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:07.480 her frustrated artist she eloped with at age nineteen, HarperCollins. 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:10.040 Did not want me to name him since he tried 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:12.960 to kill me, you know, they felt that he might object. 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:15.160 And he was a painter, wanted to be a painter, 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:17.720 but he never painted anything except painting, which but he 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:20.079 seemed to be blaming everyone around him that he couldn't 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:22.920 get me painting done. That's right, yes, right, I make 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:25.480 jokes about it, but it actually was a horrible situation. Right, 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:28.919 How old were you? I was nineteen. My husband was 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:31.520 literally beating me up in a cab and I kept 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:33.240 telling him to stop, and finally I said to the 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:36.280 cab driver, please help me, and the guy just said 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:39.400 he's the boss lady, and he went right on, allowing 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:42.600 my husband to beat at me. So I jumped out 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:45.119 of the cab and ran to the traffic and got 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:47.360 on a bus and went up to see my therapist 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:49.919 in New Hampshire because she had said, if I really 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:52.640 get into trouble, call me, I will be there for you. 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:54.840 So I get it there. She's your New York therapy. 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:56.560 She's my New York and she said if you ever 0:02:56.600 --> 0:02:59.800 need me, call me. And now she's up in Vermont, Vermont. 0:02:59.880 --> 0:03:03.320 That right on a bus because she had said, if 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:06.000 I really get into trouble, call me, I will be 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:07.919 there for you. So I get it there. I went 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:10.720 to the Quarta Thority bus terminal, got on the bus, 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:14.160 got up to notice no I didn't. I showed up 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:16.760 Ding Dong, opened the door and there she is in 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:19.000 a Kimona and I see sort of a man in 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:22.760 the background, and I say I needed help of therapy 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:25.440 right secondly, and I said I please, I need to help. 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:28.360 My husband's beating me up. This is my vacation. We 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:30.680 will talk when I returned to New York into September, 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:33.160 and she closed the door in my face, and I 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:35.760 was totally I didn't know where I was. I didn't 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:38.480 know where to go. She literally shut the door in 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:41.400 my face. I'm in a dusty, you know, little town, 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:45.800 wandering down the street east. Yeah, exactly. But I see 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:49.280 this in up ahead, and they're all these cars and there, 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:53.640 I think people, and and there are filmmakers and cameras 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:56.240 being pulled in and out of the places. And I 0:03:56.320 --> 0:03:59.920 go inside and I'm crying. And this middle aged man 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:02.560 comes over to me, said what's the matter. And I said, 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:05.960 my husband left me. I didn't even know what to say. 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:08.720 He said, I'm going to take care of you. He said, 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:12.040 I am doing a movie on Robert Frost this afternoon, 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:13.920 a documentary, and you're going to come out with me. 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:17.000 And talked to Mr Frost and it's gonna make you 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:20.760 feel better. And I spent the entire afternoon with Robert 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:25.800 Frost talking poetry. And this actually happened Bella Kornitzer, who 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:29.840 is a well known documentarian who done movies on Truman 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:32.720 and Eisenhower, and he was doing this documentary on Frost. 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:36.200 He took I'd never seen me before in his life. 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:39.880 He was wonderful and it really did. It really sort 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:42.840 of was a very important experience in my life because 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:45.000 at that point I was so depressed and so I 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:47.240 didn't didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:49.400 where I was going, and here was this man who 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:52.440 literally saved my life that day and showed me that 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:55.920 there was beauty and wonder and fabulousness in life, which 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:58.719 of course I knew, but i'd forgotten, you know, it 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:01.000 was it was really an incredib At that point in 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:03.480 your life. You weren't writing then, were you. I mean, 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:06.479 I was keeping a journal. I kept a journal since 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:09.800 I was a teen. I was modeling and acting, and 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:12.920 I started to act. Yes, I did that, And your 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:15.760 career as a writer doesn't really take off, so to speak, 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:18.839 until when well I was I was an actress on 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:22.040 Broadway and off and movies for ten years for ten years. 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:24.800 But I always wanted to write. I had these dual 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:27.800 ambitions of wanting to be both an actress and a writer, 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:30.400 like call that. But you walked away from acting? Why? 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:35.360 Because I really enjoyed writing more. Uh. And also I 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:38.520 hated the rejections out and I was not moving as 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:41.040 fast as I wanted to. I didn't get the parts 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:45.920 I wanted. I uh, but I really I really enjoyed 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:50.360 writing more. And you're more self reliant when you're where everybody. 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:51.960 I didn't have to I didn't have to wait for 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:54.800 people to agree, you know, tell me what I was, 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:57.280 get it right? The part? What are the first things 0:05:57.360 --> 0:06:00.880 you start to write and submit? But magazine pieces or 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:03.520 books or whatever they were, they were they were magazine pieces. 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:07.040 Actually what happened was I took a writing course at Columbia, 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:10.520 and uh, I started writing little pieces, sort of memory pieces. 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:13.960 I actually started writing a memoir about my father and 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:17.440 my brother. When I was backstage in Mary Mary. Remember 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:19.760 I was doing that too. I was in a Broadway show. 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:23.640 I was understudying a double understudy Barbara ball Gettys and 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:26.040 Betsy on Furstenburg, and I went on for both parts 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:28.159 where you can imagine it was. It was rough, because 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:31.400 of course I wanted to play both parts. But but 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:34.920 when I wasn't going on for these two actresses, I 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:37.920 was in my dressing room starting to write. And I 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:41.760 did start to write this story of my family, but 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:43.880 I wrote it as a novel. And of course was terrible. 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:47.240 But then I was writing little pieces. I started talking 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:49.720 to my actor friends. I thought, god, they're sort of interesting, 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:54.600 and I began interviewing Sandy Dennis and Liz Ashley and 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:58.080 Marian Seldi's all the actors I knew on Broadway at 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:00.480 the time, and they created a sensation because they were 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:03.640 very honest, frank interviews. Because nobody thought I'd get my 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:07.880 stuff published. My friends babble to me without realizing that 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:11.360 I was taking everything down, and actually Sandy and Liz 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:15.239 both tried to sue me. They stopped being my friends. 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:18.600 It was horrible. I got sick to my stomach. It's 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:21.160 like it's like answered prayers. No, but I really felt 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:23.720 that I had betrayed them. And if I remember them correctly, 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:28.800 they're two rather delicate women. Yeah, what's the first book 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:31.880 you attempt? Oh. I didn't start writing a book for 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:35.360 ten years. I had a long apprenticeship at various magazines, 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:39.160 including a place called Magazine Management, a schlock house where 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:43.600 Mario Puzzo was writing The Godfather. No, he was writing 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:45.600 The Godfather. Well he was on staff at the magazine, 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:51.440 Yes he was. He wrote sex action pieces and sex 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:56.080 action Well, that's what they're called sex action. I want 0:07:56.120 --> 0:07:58.560 you and I to you and I are going to 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:01.960 start an online side we are. We're gonna call it 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:05.320 sex action. We're gonna I never dreamed it would be you, 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:08.760 Patty Bobsworth, You and I are going to do sex action. 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:10.280 And I can't even tell you how which money we're 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:12.120 gonna make. I don't even know what it is. It 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:18.440 doesn't even matter. Sex slash action, I figured. And then 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:20.240 when they come home, they have a lot of sex. 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:25.080 They do have their mind. Huh. Yes. But Mario wrote 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:29.600 incredible stories. He ground them out. And on the side, 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:32.319 he was writing this book called The Godfather, and people 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:34.720 kept saying when are you going to finish? And it 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:37.720 took him nine years, and if you can believe it, 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:40.880 one of the staff people said to him, Mario, the 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:45.000 Godfather is not a good title, right, yeah, come on. 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:48.600 But but I became one of his like proteges in 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:52.360 a way. Really was like he was just a wonderful 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:54.559 man and he really knew how to write. He knew 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:58.760 how to write dan narrative characters. He was terrific. He 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:01.120 was a wonderful But the thing that bothered him was 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:04.920 he was not considered a serious writer. After he had 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:07.360 so much success with The Godfather. He wanted to be 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:10.480 of Philip Roth Hemingway. He wanted people to think of 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:12.920 him in these terms. But he wanted to be considered. 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:15.120 He wanted to be reviewed in New York Review of Books. 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:19.040 He wasn't. Was he married a family yes, oh yeah, 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:22.199 very much a family man while he was writing sex action. 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:24.000 He was a family man, yes he was. He was 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:26.200 also a gambler. That was the other reason that he 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:29.360 stayed there so long. At this place called Magazine Management, 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:36.880 which also produced Marvel Comics. Okay Stanley of Marvel Comics 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:39.680 and guests who came to visit one day at the 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:46.600 office Felini what Felini came to see stan Lee because 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:50.440 he had created you know whoever spider Man and God knows. 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:54.199 And Felini came to the office in the black cape 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:57.040 and the hat, and Mario was out in the lobby 0:09:57.120 --> 0:10:00.480 and he saw this guy speaking in Italian to the reception. 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:03.600 She didn't know who he Felini, so he said, oh 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:06.800 my god, you are Felini, and they spoke in Italian. 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:10.600 He brought Felini into the bullpen. We were all, you know, 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:14.679 sitting there and he introduced us, and Felini told us 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:19.560 in Italian Mario translating, I too began in schlock, I too, 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:22.760 I was in the magazine management of I two wrote 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:27.840 sex action. No, but he used to. But but Felini 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:30.360 was a cartoonist, you know, I didn't know, Oh yeah, 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:32.240 and that. And so he was talking to us about 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:35.280 how you two can be great, you know, artists, but 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:38.440 you do begin sometimes in a different way. You draw 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:41.640 cartoons or you write sex action, and then you go 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:44.160 beyond that. But he was like, very inspiring to us. 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:48.080 Were the influences of your family, your brother, your father, 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:51.360 your childhood? Were they revealing themselves in the work you 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:53.760 did then? Or did that all pile up later into No, 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:55.840 it didn't. It didn't reveal itself at all. In fact, 0:10:55.840 --> 0:10:59.360 nobody knew anything about my I never talked about my stuff. 0:10:59.440 --> 0:11:03.319 That yeah, I did. I just totally swallowed it and 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:06.120 and and hit it. And I didn't talk about anything 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:08.000 that had happened to me. Ever, when I wrote this, 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:10.120 these last two books, nobody had known anything about my 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:16.760 father or the suicide of my my brother or my father. Um, 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:20.160 I was you were in college, Yes, you were going 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:23.079 where again, Sarah Lawrence, Yeah, do you care to talk 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:25.680 about that? Would prefer I could talk about whatever you 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:28.360 What do you think was going on with your brother? Well, 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:32.080 it's a long story. He had gone to Deerfield Academy, 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:34.600 very happy to be there. He was a brilliant kid. Uh, 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:37.640 the closest person to me in my life. Really. I 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:40.040 really looked up to him and we were just very 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:43.360 close for every closest twins really, i'd say. But anyway, 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:47.000 he was at Deerfield and he he really fell in 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:50.480 love with another boy. Uh. And in those days, that 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:53.360 kind of thing didn't happen. It was inconvenient to put 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:56.440 it mildly. He was discovered with his arms around this 0:11:56.480 --> 0:11:59.560 boy in a gym in the gym in the Deerfield 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:04.160 gym by somebody, and uh, they realized they'd been caught 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:08.040 hugging each other, embracing. Perhaps because I never really found 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:11.080 out exactly what was going on. But the following day, 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:14.520 my brother's friend was found hanging from a tree, and 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:17.040 my brother was expelled from school and he was blamed 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:21.880 for it really uh, and he never ever recovered from it. 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:24.200 He went into a deep depression. He was sent to 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:28.160 many analysts nobody ever talked he stopped going to school. No, 0:12:28.360 --> 0:12:30.120 he continued to go to school. He went to different 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:33.360 schools after that. But but soon after that boy died. 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:38.240 Three years my brother shot himself on the head when 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:41.360 he was eighteen. Uh, he was fifteen when when his 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:44.840 friend hung himself. And by the way, Deerfield refused to 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:47.880 ever talk about the suicides, that it never happened. I 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:50.199 tried to research it. I went up there and they 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:53.040 said my brother had never gone to Deerfield. So I 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:55.480 pulled out the year book which had my brother's name 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:58.840 in it. I said, he did go to school. This boy, 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:03.040 this other boy did himself. They never ever would would 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:06.599 admit that there had been a suicide at Deerfield. H 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:15.000 m um. So there's a period of this writing McCall's 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:17.160 and Harper's Bizarre and so forth. And then your first 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:21.480 book is Montgomery Cliff. You homed in on him first? Why, well, well, 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:25.040 my husband, my second husband, Melregi, who was my great 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:28.520 one of my great loves of my life. Uh and 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:33.520 smortunately not here now anyway, Mel said right about Montgomery Cliff, 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:36.480 because you knew him, you remember him, you saw him 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:38.440 when you were a little girl. Blah blah blah, start 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:41.720 with and and and so I did. Uh. And I 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:43.680 met him when I was fifteen because my father was 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:46.880 his lawyer. My father was his lawyer for what when 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:49.240 when Monty this was a long long time ago, like 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:52.200 in forty eight, when Montgomery Cliff was just starting and 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:56.920 becoming the star. My father advised him on on on 0:13:56.920 --> 0:14:01.160 on his politics. Oddly enough, Monty was very involved politically involved, 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:02.840 I mean in that he had a conscience and he 0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:05.000 knew what was going on in the Blacklist was about 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:07.960 to start. And my father had come off working for 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:11.840 Truman and was known politically as a you know, radical lawyer. Anyway, 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:15.000 money Uh came to him and talked to him, and 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:17.800 that's when I first saw him, and fella sort of 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:20.960 got a crush on him. Uh. I didn't know anything 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:23.120 about his problems at that time. It was only later 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:26.560 you didn't know anything about it. I didn't, but all 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:29.680 the other people that I gravitated to, like Jane Fonda, 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:33.160 whose mother had committed suicide, and so we became like 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:37.800 suicide survivors together at the studio and uh Arbists who 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:41.320 did commit suicide, and Arbist the photographer, and then Brando 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:44.480 who was also very committed suicide and slow motion in 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:48.040 a way, yeah, by eating too much. Is it safe 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:53.000 to say that there's a link between your childhood your 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:56.840 dad had a very kind of uh tough period in 0:14:56.840 --> 0:14:59.880 his career with the House and American Activities Committee, to 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:03.480 ending people there, your brother and the kinds of people 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:06.200 you wrote about in your books. Do you kind of 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:11.280 gravitate towards complicated, troubled people. Absolutely always. And I didn't 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:13.480 know that. I mean when I began, I just you know, 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:17.200 the first book I wrote was about Montgomery Clift. Your 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:20.960 your book about Cliff was entitled Montgomery Cliff, And there 0:15:20.960 --> 0:15:24.960 was another book, Monty someone else wrote about him. Did 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:27.560 they both come out at around the same time. No, 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:30.160 they didn't. My mind came out later the other book 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:34.480 Bob LaGuardia. What happened was I had been contracted to 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:38.000 do a biography but Montgomery Clift and I began got 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:42.440 this incredible research from his about his family, and then 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:44.360 my mother got very sick and I had to stop 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:47.720 writing it to take care of her, and the publishers 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:50.640 sued me and got Bob LaGuardia to write a quickie 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:54.640 book called Monty. He used my even the picture, my 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:57.760 cover picture. He also sued me for ten tho dollars 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:00.560 because he said he promoted me in my book. Monty 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:03.240 came out. When Monty came out about almost a year 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:05.680 and a half before my my book came out. But 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:09.600 then my book was considered the good book. Your book 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:13.240 came out, and I was living in Washington at the time, 0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:16.640 going to school, and I read the Washington Post review 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:20.040 of your book. A big piece of the article was 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:23.280 an interview with his brother who lived in the DC suburbs. 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:26.320 I guess in Maryland or Virginia. Mae and Eleanor Clift 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:28.680 was his wife. There you go. And the thing that 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:32.160 was so amazing was that Brooks gave me everything. He 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:35.240 decided he would trust me because he had all of 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:37.760 his brother's stuff, including a phone book, and my name 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:39.720 was in the phone book and my father's name was, 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:41.720 so he knew that I had known him, and he 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:44.120 liked that. He liked that idea. I found him in 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:46.560 the in the phone book, and I called him up 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:49.640 because I was so intrigued by Clift and the kind 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:53.040 of predator natural beauty, and he was so beautiful, gorgeous, 0:16:53.280 --> 0:16:55.560 he was incredible. But when but when you did, when 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:58.760 you did his story, you had met him. I had 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:00.440 met him when I was fifteen year years old and 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:04.320 died in nineteen sixty five, I believe. But I met 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:07.159 him in nineteen I hate to say it. I mean, 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:09.040 I think I met him in forty eight or forty nine. 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:12.560 It was when he did the Search and Red River. Uh. 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:15.000 And then he did Place in the Sun in nineteen fifty. 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:17.719 I guess it was. I met him literally at the 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:21.200 height of his fame, and he was absolutely, ravishingly beautiful. 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:25.080 What wasn't that that d him? What was it that 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:27.320 ated him? Oh? I think I think the fact that 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:30.760 he was homosexual and he was very conflicted about his sexuality. 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:34.119 He was supposed to pretend to be straight. Was that 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:36.080 Was that the conflict that he had to pretend in public? 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:39.840 Or was he conflicted about being gay? He apparently, according 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:42.960 to his analyst, he was conflicted about being a You know, 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:45.920 he did have these relationships with women. Apparently he did 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:49.560 go to bed with one woman, Judy Balaban, Remember Judy 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:54.119 Judy Barney Balaban's daughter who was the head of Paramount. 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:56.720 Women were crazy about him. When women want to do 0:17:56.760 --> 0:17:58.879 it in bed with him. He was androgynous. He was 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:00.960 like Brando in a way. They were both. It was 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:05.280 so complicated sexually, so so sensual and so oh boy, 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:09.840 I mean, he's so gorgeous. Number one, Yes, it was. 0:18:11.400 --> 0:18:14.120 He did go both ways, as did Brando. They were 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:18.600 both bisexual to begin with, but Cliff then ultimately turned 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:21.560 totally gay and had many male lovers. You hear these stories, 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:24.199 but the one I heard was that Brando said to 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:28.280 Edward Dimitric didn't Demitric direct that the alliance, and Brando 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:30.080 said to Dimitric that he was going to get shot 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:31.960 in the end his big death scene and rolled down 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:34.280 the side of this hill. He was gonna land, and 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:37.480 he wanted to land in the christ like low and 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:40.240 he wanted the last minute for a bush to fall 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:44.760 and a crown of thorns, kind of formal and apparently 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:47.879 Cliff said. Apparently Cliff turned to Demitric and said, if 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:50.520 he does that, I'm going home. I think that may 0:18:50.560 --> 0:18:54.359 be a true story, could be, but but but Cliff, 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:58.440 I can't help but speak about this in the most basic, 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:03.000 even eroticized fandom. You know what I mean, which is 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:07.040 everybody knows that him and Elizabeth Taylor in Place in 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:09.760 the Sun. I mean, there's just no more beautiful couple 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:13.280 in the history, not not even carry granted me. They 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:16.119 like to stand in front of the mirror together to 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:23.239 look at their reflections. They knew they were gorgeous coming up. 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:26.840 Patricia Bosworth relives the day she's sent to facts to 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:36.720 Marlon Brando's dog and got a response. Patricia Bosworth has 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:40.359 a thousand stories from her days amongst the greats of 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:43.080 stage and screen. But if anyone can give her a 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:46.399 run for her money, it's the late Robert Osborne, host 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:50.080 of Turner Classic Movies and once a working actor himself 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:53.760 in NT His luck and charm got him a screen 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:58.560 test with Lucille Ball. So when it was over, Lucy 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:00.960 didn't really say anything. She's just thank me for coming by, 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:03.199 And I thought, well, she wasn't that impressed, but at 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:05.080 least I got to spend some time with Lucia Ball. 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:10.080 Like a week later, a message comes on my voice, Uh, 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:13.920 you're answering service. Hello Lebray and nine and two thousand. 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:16.000 I called the number and the second he said, well, 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:18.200 Lucy A Ball wants you to come to dinner on 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:21.880 Friday night. So I go to Lucy's house at Friday Night. 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:29.040 There's Janet Gayner, there's Joseph Cotton, there's Kay Thompson, and 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:31.720 I'm thinking, did you ever believe that you would ever be? 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:33.200 And then I thought, no, wait a minute, I always 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:37.080 knew I was going to be here. Listen to my 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:41.600 entire interview with Robert Osborne at Here's the Thing, Dot Org. 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:53.040 This is Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to Here's 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:57.239 the Thing. Patricia Bosworth had a successful career as an 0:20:57.280 --> 0:21:00.280 actress in the nineteen fifties, rubbing elbows with the likes 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:03.960 of Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe, but it was the 0:21:04.000 --> 0:21:08.000 stories behind the scenes that interested her most. After releasing 0:21:08.040 --> 0:21:11.560 her first book in Night, She's gone on to write 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:14.840 six more, one of which, on Diane Arbus, was turned 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:18.000 into a movie. New York Magazine called the book a 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:22.440 spell binding portrait my research on arbas is all original. 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:25.479 It was. It was amazing. It took me seven years 0:21:25.480 --> 0:21:28.240 almost to write the book, and I I didn't know 0:21:28.280 --> 0:21:30.280 how incredible it was going to be. I really didn't. 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:33.120 Is that what happens? You're doing the research and going, oh, 0:21:33.920 --> 0:21:38.359 it's it's like solving, like solving a mystery. 're always 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:43.360 looking for cluescing a well, not really, but in terms 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:45.800 of a lot of research, very research heavy. I interviewed 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:49.040 dozens and dozens of people from every part of her life, 0:21:49.640 --> 0:21:52.560 and of course I created the worlds that she inhabited, 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:56.040 the world of fashion, the world, the dark world, and 0:21:56.080 --> 0:21:58.879 I wanted to do that. Oddly enough, every single one 0:21:58.920 --> 0:22:01.399 of the people I've written out I've known personally, and 0:22:01.480 --> 0:22:03.440 in a way it makes it, It makes it for 0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:07.080 me more. I don't know immediate and I can since 0:22:07.160 --> 0:22:09.080 I know them, I can see them and I know 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:11.480 a little bit about them, and it's mainly I'm so curious. 0:22:11.520 --> 0:22:14.520 I'm very nosy. That's the way most higraphers. And you 0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:16.280 thought that her story would make something that was worth 0:22:17.240 --> 0:22:19.880 I didn't know I had. I'd modeled for her when 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:22.280 I was a kid, when I was a teenager, you 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:25.080