Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Mark Twain once likened biographies to what he called quote
Speaker 1: the clothes and buttons of the man. He said, quote
Speaker 1: the biography of the man himself cannot be written. The
Speaker 1: quote is a favorite of Patricia Bosworth, in nineteen fifties
Speaker 1: Broadway star turned biographer, who for forty years has been
Speaker 1: proving Twain's words wrong. In her books, Bosworth has captured
Speaker 1: the essence of elusive artists like Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando,
Speaker 1: and New York Underworld photographer Diane Arbus. These men and
Speaker 1: women were revered but broken, larger than life characters doomed
Speaker 1: to self destruct. It's a type of Patricia Bosworth knows firsthand.
Speaker 1: Her own father, Bartley Crumb, was a famous left wing
Speaker 1: lawyer who, after an illustrious career that included defending members
Speaker 1: of the Hollywood Ten, ended his own life. It's her
Speaker 1: father's suicide and that of her brother years earlier, that
Speaker 1: gave Bosworth a thirst to understand tormented souls. Her new book,
Speaker 1: The Men in My Life turns that examination inward, exploring
Speaker 1: how those deaths shaped her and were linked to the
Speaker 1: fear and repression of that era. The third man in
Speaker 1: her life during that period was her abusive first husband,
Speaker 1: a frustrated artist she eloped with at age nineteen. HarperCollins
Speaker 1: did not want me to name him since he tried
Speaker 1: to kill me, you know, they felt that he might object.
Speaker 1: And he was a painter, wanted to be a painter,
Speaker 1: but he never painted anything except corn painting, which but
Speaker 1: he seemed to be blaming everyone around him that he
Speaker 1: couldn't get me painting done. Right, that's right. I make
Speaker 1: jokes about it, but it actually was a horrible situation. Right,
Speaker 1: How old were you? I was nine. My husband was
Speaker 1: literally beating me up in a cab and I kept
Speaker 1: telling him to stop, and finally, AS said to the
Speaker 1: cab driver, please help me, and the guy just said
Speaker 1: he's the boss, lady, and he went right on allowing
Speaker 1: my husband to beat at me. So I jumped out
Speaker 1: of the cab and ran to the traffic and got
Speaker 1: on a bus and went up to see my therapist
Speaker 1: in New Hampshire because she had said if I really
Speaker 1: get into trouble, call me. I will be there for you.
Speaker 1: So I get it. There's your New York therapy she's
Speaker 1: my New York and said if you ever need me,
Speaker 1: call me. And now she's up in Vermont, Vermont. That's
Speaker 1: right on a bus because she has said if I
Speaker 1: really get into trouble, call me. I will be there
Speaker 1: for you. So I get there. I went to the
Speaker 1: quart Thority bus terminal, got on the bus, got up
Speaker 1: to Vere. No I didn't. I showed up ding Dong,
Speaker 1: opened the door and there she is in a Kimona
Speaker 1: and I see sort of a man in the background,
Speaker 1: and I say, I need help. Therapy right secondly, and
Speaker 1: I said, I please, I need to help. My husband's
Speaker 1: beating me up. This is my vacation. We will talk
Speaker 1: when I returned to New York in September. And she
Speaker 1: closed the door in my face, and I was totally
Speaker 1: I didn't know where I was. I didn't know where
Speaker 1: to go. She literally shut the door in my face.
Speaker 1: I'm in a dusty, you know, little town, wandering down
Speaker 1: the street. He's nor yeah, exactly. But I see this
Speaker 1: in up ahead, and they're all these cars and there,
Speaker 1: I think people, and and there are filmmakers and cameras
Speaker 1: being pulled in and out of places. And I go
Speaker 1: inside and I'm crying, and this middle aged man comes
Speaker 1: over to me, what's the matter, And I said, my
Speaker 1: husband left me. I didn't even know what to say.
Speaker 1: He said, I'm going to take care of you. He said,
Speaker 1: I am doing a movie on Robert Frost this afternoon,
Speaker 1: a documentary, and you're going to come out with me.
Speaker 1: And talked to Mr Frost and it's gonna make you
Speaker 1: feel better. And I spent the entire afternoon with Robert
Speaker 1: Frost talking poetry. And this actually happened Bella Kornetzer, who
Speaker 1: is a well known documentarian who done movies on Truman
Speaker 1: and Eisenhower, and he was doing this documentary on Frost.
Speaker 1: He took I'd never seen me before in his life.
Speaker 1: He was he was wonderful, and it really did. It
Speaker 1: really sort of was a very important experience in my
Speaker 1: life because at that point I was so depressed and
Speaker 1: so I didn't didn't know what I was doing, I
Speaker 1: didn't know where I was going, and here was this
Speaker 1: man who literally saved my life that day and showed
Speaker 1: me that there was beauty and wonder and fabulousness in life,
Speaker 1: which of course I knew, but I'd forgotten, you know.
Speaker 1: It was It was really an incredible expert. At that
Speaker 1: point in your life. You weren't writing then, were you?
Speaker 1: And I was keeping a journal. I kept a journal
Speaker 1: since I was a I was modeling and acting, and
Speaker 1: I started to act. Yes, I did that, And your
Speaker 1: career as a writer doesn't really take off, so to speak,
Speaker 1: until when well, I I was. I was an actress
Speaker 1: on Broadway and off and movies for ten years. For
Speaker 1: ten years, but I always wanted to write. I had
Speaker 1: these dual ambitions of wanting to be both an actress
Speaker 1: and a writer. Like call that. But you walked away
Speaker 1: from acting? Why? Because I really ended waid writing more? Uh?
Speaker 1: And also I hated the rejections out like and I
Speaker 1: was not moving as fast as I wanted to. I
Speaker 1: didn't get the parts I wanted. I uh, but I
Speaker 1: really I really enjoyed writing more. And you're self reliant, everybody.
Speaker 1: I didn't have to I didn't have to wait for
Speaker 1: people to agree. You know, tell me what that I
Speaker 1: was right? The part. What are the first things you
Speaker 1: start to write and submit, whether magazine pieces or books
Speaker 1: or whatever you they were? They were they were magazine pieces.
Speaker 1: Actually what happened was I took a writing course at
Speaker 1: Columbia and uh. I started writing little pieces, sort of
Speaker 1: memory pieces. I actually started writing a memoir about my
Speaker 1: father and my brother when I was backstage in Mary Mary.
Speaker 1: Remember I was doing that too. I was in a
Speaker 1: Broadway show. I was understudying a double understudy, Barbara balle
Speaker 1: Getty's and betsyv on Furstenburg, and I went on for
Speaker 1: both parts, where you can imagine it was. It was
Speaker 1: rough because first I wanted to play both parts. But
Speaker 1: but when I wasn't going on for these two actresses,
Speaker 1: I was in my dressing room starting to write. And
Speaker 1: I did start to write this story of my family,
Speaker 1: but I wrote it as a novel, and of course
Speaker 1: was terrible. But then I was writing little pieces. I
Speaker 1: started talking to my actor friends. I thought, god, they're
Speaker 1: sort of interesting, and I began interviewing Sandy Dennis and
Speaker 1: Liz Ashley and Marion Seldie's all the actors I knew
Speaker 1: on Broadway at the time, and they created a sensation
Speaker 1: because they were very honest, frank interviews. Because nobody thought
Speaker 1: I'd get my stuff published. My friends babble to me
Speaker 1: without realizing that I was taking everything down, and actually
Speaker 1: Sandy and Liz both tried to sue me. They stopped
Speaker 1: being my friends. It was horrible. I got sick to
Speaker 1: my stomach. It's like answered prayers. No, but I really
Speaker 1: felt that I had betrayed them. And if I remember
Speaker 1: them correctly, they're two rather delicate women. Yeah, what's the
Speaker 1: first book you attempt? Oh? I didn't start writing a
Speaker 1: book for ten years. I had a long apprenticeship at
Speaker 1: various magazines, including a place called Magazine Management of Schlockhouse,
Speaker 1: where Mario Puzzo was writing The Godfather. No, he was
Speaker 1: writing The Godfather. Well he was on staff at the magazine,
Speaker 1: Yes he was. Did he write? He wrote sex action
Speaker 1: pieces and sex action. Well, that's what they're called sex action.
Speaker 1: I want you and I to you and I are
Speaker 1: going to start an online site. We are we're going
Speaker 1: to call it sex action. We're gonna I never dreamed
Speaker 1: it would be you, Patty Bosworth, You and I are
Speaker 1: going to do sex action. And I can't even tell
Speaker 1: you how much money we're gonna make. I don't even
Speaker 1: know what it is. It doesn't even matter. Sex slash action,
Speaker 1: I figured. And then when they come home, they have
Speaker 1: a lot of sex. They do they have in their
Speaker 1: mind huh. Yes, But Mario wrote incredible stories. He ground
Speaker 1: them out. And on the side, he was writing this
Speaker 1: book called The Godfather, and people kept saying when are
Speaker 1: you going to finish? And it took him nine years,
Speaker 1: and if you can believe it, one of the staff
Speaker 1: people said to him, Mario, the Godfather is not a
Speaker 1: good title, right, come on. But but I became one
Speaker 1: of his like proteges in a way, like he was
Speaker 1: just a wonderful man and he really knew how to write.
Speaker 1: He knew how to write dan narrative characters. He was terrific.
Speaker 1: He was a wonderful But the thing that bothered him
Speaker 1: was he was not considered a serious writer after he
Speaker 1: had so much success with The Godbouther. He wanted to
Speaker 1: be of Philip Roth hemingway. He wanted people to think
Speaker 1: of him in these terms. But he wanted to be considered.
Speaker 1: He wanted to be reviewed in New York Review of Books.
Speaker 1: He wasn't was he married, had a family, yes, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: very much a family man. While he was writing sex
Speaker 1: action he was a family man, yes he was. He
Speaker 1: was also a gambler. That was the other reason that
Speaker 1: he stayed there so long at this place, called Magazine Management,
Speaker 1: which also produced Marvel Comics. Okay Stanley of Marvel Comics
Speaker 1: and guests who came to visit us one day at
Speaker 1: the office. Fellini what Felini came to see stan Lee
Speaker 1: because he created you know whoever spider Man and God knows.
Speaker 1: And Felini came to the office in the black cape
Speaker 1: and the hat, and Mario was out in the lobby
Speaker 1: and he saw this guy speaking in Italian to the receptions.
Speaker 1: She had knew who he Felini, so he said, oh
Speaker 1: my god, you are Felini, and they spoke in Italian.
Speaker 1: He brought Felini into the bullpen. We were all, you know,
Speaker 1: sitting there, and he introduced us, and Felini told us
Speaker 1: in Italian, Mario translating, I too began in schlock. I too,
Speaker 1: I was in the magazine management of I two wrote
Speaker 1: sex action. No, but he used to. But but Felini
Speaker 1: was a cartoonist, you know, I didn't know. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: And and so he was talking to us about how
Speaker 1: you two can be great, you know, artists, but you
Speaker 1: do begin sometimes in a different way. You draw cartoons
Speaker 1: or you write sex action, and then you go beyond that.
Speaker 1: But he was like very inspiring to us. Were the
Speaker 1: influences of your family, your brother, or your father, your childhood?
Speaker 1: Were they revealing themselves in the work you did then
Speaker 1: or did that all pile up later into No, it didn't.
Speaker 1: It didn't reveal itself at all. In fact, nobody knew
Speaker 1: anything about my I never talked about my Yeah I did.
Speaker 1: I just totally swallowed it and and hit it, and
Speaker 1: I didn't talk about anything that had happened to me. Ever,
Speaker 1: when I wrote this, these last two books, nobody had
Speaker 1: known anything about my father or the suicide of my
Speaker 1: my brother or my father. Um, I just died when
Speaker 1: you were how old I was? You were in college? Yes?
Speaker 1: You were going where again, Sarah Lawrence? Yeah? Do you
Speaker 1: care to talk about that? Would prefer I can talk
Speaker 1: about whatever you What do you think was going on
Speaker 1: with your brother? Well, it's a long story. He had
Speaker 1: gone to Deerfield Academy, very happy to be there. He
Speaker 1: was a brilliant kid, the closest person to me in
Speaker 1: my life. Really, I really looked up to him, and
Speaker 1: we were just very close for very closest twins really,
Speaker 1: i'd say. But anyway, he was at Deerfield and he
Speaker 1: he really fell in love with another boy. Uh. And
Speaker 1: in those days, that kind of thing didn't happen. It
Speaker 1: was inconvenient to put it mildly. He was discovered with
Speaker 1: his arms around this boy in a gym in the gym,
Speaker 1: in the Deerfield gym, by somebody, and uh, they realized
Speaker 1: they'd been caught hugging each other, embracing. Perhaps because I
Speaker 1: never really found out exactly what was going on. But
Speaker 1: the following day, my brother's friend was found hanging from
Speaker 1: a tree, and my brother was expelled from school and
Speaker 1: he was blamed for it, really uh, and he never
Speaker 1: ever recovered from it. He went into a deep depression.
Speaker 1: He was sent to many analysts. Nobody ever talked. He
Speaker 1: stopped going to school. No, he continued to go to school.
Speaker 1: He went to different schools after that. But but soon
Speaker 1: after boy died, did your brother die three years? My
Speaker 1: brother shot himself on the head when he was eighteen. Uh.
Speaker 1: He was fifteen when when his friend hung himself. And
Speaker 1: by the way, Deerfield refused to ever talk about the suicides,
Speaker 1: that it never happened. I tried to research it. I
Speaker 1: went up there and they said my brother had never
Speaker 1: gone to Deerfield. So I pulled out the year book
Speaker 1: which had my brother's name in it. I said, he
Speaker 1: did go to school, this boy, this other boy did
Speaker 1: kill himself. They never ever would would admit that there
Speaker 1: had been a suicide at Deerfield. Oh, oh my god. Um.
Speaker 1: So there's a period of this writing McCall's and Harper's
Speaker 1: Bizarre and so forth. And then your first book is
Speaker 1: Montgomery Cliffe. You homed him on him first? Why? Well, well,
Speaker 1: my husband, my second husband, Mel Regie, who was my
Speaker 1: great one of my great loves of my life, and
Speaker 1: smortunately not here now. Anyway, Mel said right about Montgomery Cliff,
Speaker 1: because you knew him, You remember him, you saw him
Speaker 1: when you were a little girl. Blah blah blah, start
Speaker 1: and and and so I did. Uh. And I met
Speaker 1: him when I was fifteen because my father was his lawyer.
Speaker 1: My father was his lawyer for Wood. When when Monty
Speaker 1: this was a long long time ago, like in forty eight,
Speaker 1: when Montgomery Cliff was just starting and becoming the star,
Speaker 1: my father advised him on on on on his politics.
Speaker 1: Oddly enough, Monty was very involved politically involved, I mean
Speaker 1: in that he had a conscience and he knew what
Speaker 1: was going on in the Blacklist was about to start,
Speaker 1: and my father had come off working for Truman and
Speaker 1: was known politically as a you know, radical lawyer. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Monty uh uh came to him and talked to him,
Speaker 1: and that's when I first saw him, and Fellow sort
Speaker 1: of got a crush on him. Uh. I didn't know
Speaker 1: anything about his problems at that time. It was only
Speaker 1: later you didn't know anything about I didn't, but all
Speaker 1: the other people that I gravitated to, like Jane Fonda,
Speaker 1: whose mother had committed suicide, and so we'd be came
Speaker 1: like suicide survivors together at the studio and h Arbists
Speaker 1: who did commit Suici Idea Arbist, the photographer, and then
Speaker 1: Brando who was also very committed suicide and slow motion
Speaker 1: in a way, yeah, by eating too much. Is it
Speaker 1: safe to say that there's a link between your childhood
Speaker 1: Your dad had a very kind of uh tough period
Speaker 1: in his career with the House on American Activities Committee,
Speaker 1: defending people there, your brother and the kinds of people
Speaker 1: you wrote about in your books. Do you kind of
Speaker 1: gravitate towards complicated, troubled people? Absolutely always, And I didn't
Speaker 1: know that I mean when I began, I just you know.
Speaker 1: The first book I wrote was about Montgomery Clift. Your
Speaker 1: your book about Cliff was entitled Montgomery Clip And there
Speaker 1: was another book, Monty, someone else wrote about him. Did
Speaker 1: they both come out at around the same time. No,
Speaker 1: they didn't. My Mind came out later, the other book,
Speaker 1: Bob LaGuardia. What happened was I had been contracted to
Speaker 1: do a biography but Montgomery Clift and I began got
Speaker 1: this incredible research from his about his family. And then
Speaker 1: my mother got very sick and I had to stop
Speaker 1: writing it to take care of her, and the publisher
Speaker 1: sued me and got Bob LaGuardia to write a quickie
Speaker 1: book called Monty. He used my even the picture my
Speaker 1: cover picture. He also sued me for ten thousand dollars
Speaker 1: because he said he promoted me in my book. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Monty came out. When Monty came out about almost a
Speaker 1: year and a half before my my book came out.
Speaker 1: But then my book was considered that the good book.
Speaker 1: Your book came out, and I was living in Washington
Speaker 1: at the time, going to school, and I read the
Speaker 1: Washington Post review of your book. A big piece of
Speaker 1: The article was an interview with his brother who lived
Speaker 1: in the DC suburbs, I guess in Maryland or Virginia,
Speaker 1: and Eleanor Clift was his wife. And the thing that
Speaker 1: was so amazing was that Brooks gave me everything. He
Speaker 1: decided he would trust me because he had all of
Speaker 1: his brother's stuff, including a phone book, and my name
Speaker 1: was in the phone book and my father's name was
Speaker 1: so he knew that I had known him, and he
Speaker 1: liked that. He liked that idea. I found him in
Speaker 1: the in the phone book, and I called him up
Speaker 1: because I was so intrigued by Cliff and the kind
Speaker 1: of predator, natural beauty, and he was so beautiful, gorgeous,
Speaker 1: he was incredible. But when but when you did, when
Speaker 1: you did his story, you had met him. I had
Speaker 1: met him when I was fifteen years old, and he
Speaker 1: died one year in nineteen sixty five, I believe, but
Speaker 1: I met him in nineteen I hate to say it.
Speaker 1: I mean I think I met him in forty eight
Speaker 1: or forty nine. It was when he did the search
Speaker 1: and Red River, Uh, and then he did Place in
Speaker 1: the Sun in nineteen fifty. I guess it was. I
Speaker 1: met him literally at the height of his fame, and
Speaker 1: he was absolutely ravishingly beautiful. What wasn't that that ate him?
Speaker 1: What was it that ated him? Oh? I think I
Speaker 1: think the fact that he was homosexual and he was
Speaker 1: very conflicted about his sexuality. He was supposed to pretend
Speaker 1: to be stray eight Was that? Was that the conflict
Speaker 1: that he had to pretend in public? Or was he
Speaker 1: conflicted about being gay? He apparently, according to his analyst,
Speaker 1: he was conflicted about being a You know, he did
Speaker 1: have these relationships with women. Apparently he did go to
Speaker 1: bed with one woman, Judy Balaban, Remember Judy, you know
Speaker 1: Judy Barney Balaban's daughter, who was the head of Paramount.
Speaker 1: Women were crazy about him when women wanted to do
Speaker 1: it to bed with him. He was androgynous. He was
Speaker 1: like Brando in a way. They were both so complicated sexually,
Speaker 1: so so sensual and so oh boy, I mean he
Speaker 1: was so gorgeous. Number one, it was Yes, it was
Speaker 1: the Dean. He did go both ways, as did Brando.
Speaker 1: They were both bisexual to begin with, but Cliff then
Speaker 1: ultimately turned totally gay and had many male lovers. You
Speaker 1: hear these stories, but the one I heard was that
Speaker 1: Brando said to Edward Dimitric, didn't Demitric direct that alliance.
Speaker 1: And Brando said to Dimitric that he was going to
Speaker 1: get shot in the end his big death scene and
Speaker 1: rolled down the side of the hill. He was gonna land,
Speaker 1: and he wanted to land in a christ like tableau,
Speaker 1: and he wanted the last minute for a bush to
Speaker 1: fall and a crown of thorns kind of former. And apparently,
Speaker 1: Cliff said, Apparently Cliff turned to Demitric and said, if
Speaker 1: he does that, I'm going home. I think that may
Speaker 1: be a true story, could be. But but but Cliff,
Speaker 1: I can't help but speak about this in the most basic,
Speaker 1: even eroticized fandom, you know what I mean, which is
Speaker 1: everybody knows that him and Elizabeth Taylor in place in
Speaker 1: the sun. I mean, there's just no more beautiful couple
Speaker 1: in the history, not not even carry granted me. You know,
Speaker 1: they liked they liked to stand in front of the
Speaker 1: mirror together to look at their reflections. They knew they
Speaker 1: were gorgeous coming up. Patricia Bosworth relives the day she
Speaker 1: sent to facts to Marlon Brando's dog and got a response.
Speaker 1: Patricia Bosworth has a thousand stories from her days amongst
Speaker 1: the greats of stage and screen. But if anyone can
Speaker 1: give her a run for her money, it's the late
Speaker 1: Robert Osborne, host of Turner Classic Movies, had once a
Speaker 1: working actor himself in n His luck and charm got
Speaker 1: him a screen test with Lucille Ball. So when it
Speaker 1: was over, Lucy didn't really say anything. She's just thanked
Speaker 1: me for coming by, and I thought, well, she wasn't
Speaker 1: that impressed, but at least I got to spend some
Speaker 1: time with Lucille Ball. Like a week later, a message
Speaker 1: comes on my voice, Uh, you're answering service, Hello Lebray
Speaker 1: and nine and two. I called the number and the
Speaker 1: second he said, well, Lucille Ball wants you to come
Speaker 1: to dinner on Friday night. So I go to Lucy's
Speaker 1: house at Friday night. There's Janet Gayner, there's Joseph Cotton,
Speaker 1: there's Kay Thompson. And I'm thinking, did you ever believe
Speaker 1: that you would ever be And then I thought, no,
Speaker 1: wait a minut I always knew I was going to
Speaker 1: be here. Listen to my entire interview with Robert Osborne
Speaker 1: at here's the thing dot Org. This is Alec Baldwin
Speaker 1: and you were listening to Here's the thing. Patricia Bosworth
Speaker 1: had a successful career as an actress in the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: rubbing elbows with the likes of Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe,
Speaker 1: but it was the stories behind the scenes that interested
Speaker 1: her most. After releasing her first book in ninety eight,
Speaker 1: she's gone on to write six more, one of which,
Speaker 1: on Diane Arbus, was turned into a movie. New York
Speaker 1: Magazine called the book a spell binding portrait. My research
Speaker 1: on Arba's is all original. It was. It was amazing.
Speaker 1: It took me seven years almost to write the book,
Speaker 1: and I I didn't know how incredible it was going
Speaker 1: to be. I really didn't see what happens. You're doing
Speaker 1: the research and it's like it's like solving it's like
Speaker 1: solving a mystery. You're always looking for clear Well, not really,
Speaker 1: but in terms of a lot of research, very research heavy.
Speaker 1: I interviewed dozens and dozens of people from every part
Speaker 1: of her life, and of course I created the worlds
Speaker 1: that she inhabited, the world of fashion, the world, the
Speaker 1: dark world, and I wanted to do that. Oddly enough,
Speaker 1: every single one of the people I've written about I've
Speaker 1: known personally, and in a way it makes it, It
Speaker 1: makes it for me more. I don't know immediate and
Speaker 1: I can since I know them, I can see them
Speaker 1: and I know a little bit about them. And it's
Speaker 1: mainly I'm so curious. I'm very nosy, that's the way most.
Speaker 1: And you thought that her story would make something that
Speaker 1: was worth I didn't know I had. I had modeled
Speaker 1: for her when I was a kid, when I was
Speaker 1: a teenager, you know, and I needed money and I
Speaker 1: became a model and I modeled for her, and she
Speaker 1: hired me because I didn't really look like a model
Speaker 1: I was, you know. She was then in fashion and
Speaker 1: she was a fashion photograph for with her husband. And
Speaker 1: she was intrigued by me because I had gotten married
Speaker 1: when I was seventeen loped. She had too, and I
Speaker 1: hadn't realized that. So this kind of interested her, intrigued her,
Speaker 1: and I found her probably one of the strangest, kind
Speaker 1: of most eerie personalities I've ever well. She spoke in
Speaker 1: a very tiny voice. She wore the same dress every
Speaker 1: single day. Uniform was always barefoot. She wore the same
Speaker 1: dress because she said, I don't want to think about
Speaker 1: what I wear, and literally the thing that was falling apart.
Speaker 1: It was ragged and dirty. But she was very, very smart,
Speaker 1: and she asked me all sorts of interesting questions. She
Speaker 1: lived in the studio with her with her husband and
Speaker 1: child in New York. Yeah. It was an old artist
Speaker 1: loft studio on East seventy two Street off Second Avenue,
Speaker 1: and had a tree in the live in in part
Speaker 1: of the studio. But I never forgot her because she
Speaker 1: was so she was. She actually took an interest in me.
Speaker 1: I was, I didn't know what the hell I was doing.
Speaker 1: I was very unhappy. I remember at one point a
Speaker 1: photographer molested me, a male photographer before one of my
Speaker 1: sessions with with a was a catalog house I guess
Speaker 1: I was working for. And I remember telling her about
Speaker 1: this in tears and saying, now I'll never be able
Speaker 1: to work with this man again. She well, of course
Speaker 1: you won't. You shouldn't, ye, you're getting it all wrong.
Speaker 1: Won't have me back exactly, And she said, remember who
Speaker 1: you are. You know you can't, you don't shouldn't tolerate
Speaker 1: this kind of behavior. Nobody had ever talked to me
Speaker 1: like this. Of course, in those days, women were very passive,
Speaker 1: very until you were by and large. Why did Arbis
Speaker 1: kill herself? Well, there were many reasons for that. You know,
Speaker 1: she was deeply depressed to her lover was uh not
Speaker 1: faithful to her. That was one thing that upset her.
Speaker 1: But she also was suffering from deep depression and didn't
Speaker 1: could not take any kind of antidepressants. They made they
Speaker 1: made her feel sick. That's what her mother told me.
Speaker 1: She was never on any any drugs from she was
Speaker 1: right from New York City. Her her family were a
Speaker 1: mercantile family. They owned Russex Department store of her ears.
Speaker 1: She was very rich. Came from a very rich family.
Speaker 1: I was raised by nanny's and and chauffeurs jog U
Speaker 1: S S I C. K apostrophe, Yes, and the Russex
Speaker 1: building is still Remember that her mother was always depressed.
Speaker 1: The entire family it was, was depressed. Her. Her brother
Speaker 1: was Howard Nemeroff, the poet, and he was the one
Speaker 1: who was my source, my major source. And he said,
Speaker 1: we were always depressed. Uh the money in the world,
Speaker 1: but money was didn't it didn't matter. I mean she
Speaker 1: she fought her depression by by photograph, by going into
Speaker 1: this other world or this other reality, this dark reality
Speaker 1: she always wanted to explore because she felt she was
Speaker 1: in a reality. She didn't like, this reality of the
Speaker 1: department store and the money and and the thinking of
Speaker 1: possessions all the time she was. She wanted to decree
Speaker 1: that was betraying her. Marvin Israel, who was Richard Avedon's
Speaker 1: right hand and his work and he was He was
Speaker 1: also a brilliant painter and photographer. He was an assistant
Speaker 1: to Avidon No he designed, he shows and he was
Speaker 1: also art director of Harper's Bazaar. He was a graphics
Speaker 1: designer and painter, a very strange man who who only
Speaker 1: painted dogs chewing it at each other. Well, we're going
Speaker 1: to leave that out of sex action. Um, your book
Speaker 1: about Cliff comes out in seventy eight, and your book
Speaker 1: on artists comes out in eighty four, and then you
Speaker 1: take a very long time until you write your next book.
Speaker 1: You don't do the book about Branda until seventeen years later.
Speaker 1: Two one, Well, that's right. In the meantime I did
Speaker 1: were anything your little heart desires in y how does
Speaker 1: that jest state? Well, as I say, I jest stated
Speaker 1: for like forty years. In other words, I started writing
Speaker 1: it in my dressing room at the Hellena's Theater when
Speaker 1: I was in Mary Mary. I started writing the story
Speaker 1: of my father, of his beginnings of his political career,
Speaker 1: my brother's suicide. I actually started as a novel. I
Speaker 1: fictionalized it, which was ridiculous, and then I stopped. I
Speaker 1: didn't actually write it as a real book, as I
Speaker 1: didn't get a contract for it for thirty some thirty
Speaker 1: odd years. But I was thinking about her all the time.
Speaker 1: This story of my father, story of my brother, my
Speaker 1: mother me uh took about thirty forty years. No, I
Speaker 1: didn't because by the time I wrote it, everybody was dead,
Speaker 1: you know, and I was felt free enough to for example,
Speaker 1: my mother and her lovers. This lover that she had
Speaker 1: was our gardener, which is an incredible story in the book.
Speaker 1: I never could have told that when she was alive,
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't have. But but no, I really did.
Speaker 1: I think I told almost everything, not freething out. You know.
Speaker 1: I almost would rather write a novel because I can
Speaker 1: do whatever I want to do, and say whatever I
Speaker 1: want to say, and just make up the people and
Speaker 1: if they overlap with real people, who gives a ship?
Speaker 1: Have you ever want to do the same thing. Yes
Speaker 1: I have, I haven't. I haven't though, but but I
Speaker 1: still feel I may may yet write another memoir. But yes,
Speaker 1: of course I have. Uh, I just haven't yet. Now
Speaker 1: we obviously when you did the first memoir, anything your
Speaker 1: little heart desires an American family story, it stops when
Speaker 1: the cut off is it stops after after my father
Speaker 1: committed suicide. What actually I just on this movie called
Speaker 1: Anne Story with Audrey Hedburn. It was my biggest credit.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh, yeah I was. I was doing quite well.
Speaker 1: But after my father committed suicide, I seemed to lose
Speaker 1: all ambitious vision and I I kind of became numbed
Speaker 1: all over again because my brother had already committed suicide.
Speaker 1: So this for me was a very traumatic, huge change
Speaker 1: in my life. His suicide. I'd also wanted to prove
Speaker 1: myself to him, you know, be successful. He was gone.
Speaker 1: There were all these things that that that made me
Speaker 1: pull back and for a while I just didn't want
Speaker 1: to do anything I did. I worked, but I didn't
Speaker 1: have an ambition. I want to talk quickly about Brandon. Um,
Speaker 1: my feelings about Brandon have altered quite a bit over
Speaker 1: the last ten years. When when you put all the
Speaker 1: pieces together psychologically, intelligence, sexuality, sensitivity. Most stars have two,
Speaker 1: almost none have all three, and Brando of course had
Speaker 1: all three. But very quickly he becomes you know, this
Speaker 1: extended middle finger, of this extended fuck you to the business.
Speaker 1: It's exhausting. What do you think that was about? When
Speaker 1: did that start for him? Was it fuck you? Even
Speaker 1: with street Car with Kazan and no? No, it was
Speaker 1: his mother, the death of his mother. I think, well,
Speaker 1: go back, I'll backtrack. Okay. His mother was an alcoholic,
Speaker 1: and Brando spent his childhood and adolescence taking care of her,
Speaker 1: getting her out of bars, carrying her home, even beating
Speaker 1: his father up when his father was beating her up.
Speaker 1: And of course, you know, she was an actress, ran
Speaker 1: that little playhouse in where was this Nebraska? For example,
Speaker 1: when he did Julius Caesar, he went home and he
Speaker 1: recited Shakespeare in the corn Fields with her listening, that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. But what happened was she decided to
Speaker 1: go into a and this meant that Brando no longer
Speaker 1: could take care of her. She was taking care of herself.
Speaker 1: He almost had a nervous breakdown, and he even Stella
Speaker 1: Adler even talked to him about it. So, uh, Harold
Speaker 1: Kleman talked to me about this, this whole aspect to
Speaker 1: speak the book. No, I didn't speak to him at all.
Speaker 1: I only I only met him once at the actor's studio.
Speaker 1: I called him on the phone. He wanted to talk
Speaker 1: to me originally because he wanted to talk about Kazan,
Speaker 1: and he actually wrote me a letter that he would
Speaker 1: talk to me, but then he decided out to and
Speaker 1: I really became so frustrated. I kept calling him and calling,
Speaker 1: and finally somebody said, why don't you call his dog Alec.
Speaker 1: I did listen to this. I facts, dear Fido, I
Speaker 1: want to speak to your master. Within seconds, the facts
Speaker 1: came back vac saying my master does not want to
Speaker 1: talk to you, and signed with two paw prints. This
Speaker 1: was Brando answering mate with people incessantly. I was going
Speaker 1: to do because I had done street Car for TV,
Speaker 1: which was a huge miss, was one of the biggest
Speaker 1: mistakes of my career and the biggest waste of time
Speaker 1: of my career, and we all just did it for
Speaker 1: a paycheck. And then I get an offer from CBS.
Speaker 1: Was doing that stuff back then, They said would you
Speaker 1: do katonahun tin roof with my ex wife with Kim
Speaker 1: would play h Maggie. I mean, we're all a little
Speaker 1: long in the tooth for these parts, by the way.
Speaker 1: But then they said would we do? And when Branda
Speaker 1: would be big daddy? And I've got to call Brando
Speaker 1: And you know, you call the number and leave the
Speaker 1: message and the woman calls you back, and they're very
Speaker 1: prompt and very formal, and she said, what time, what
Speaker 1: number he will call you. And sure enough, I'm sitting
Speaker 1: in my house and my phone rings, and of course
Speaker 1: I trip over myself and he must break brand neck
Speaker 1: tripping over a stool in the kitchen to get to
Speaker 1: the phone. Maybe he's gonna let it ring three times
Speaker 1: and hang up, you know, he's maybe he's just sick
Speaker 1: of this. And I picked up the phone and she says,
Speaker 1: here he is. And he gets on the phone and
Speaker 1: he said, why don't you come by a Thursday? And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god. And I go to
Speaker 1: his house and I had lunch with him for four hours.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, are you kidding me? And I had
Speaker 1: lunch with him for four hours, and you could tell
Speaker 1: he was sad. He was sad. What was the thing
Speaker 1: that you learned about him that was among the thousands
Speaker 1: of things I'm sure was Brando's bisexuality. That's that's not
Speaker 1: that widely known though. Oh yes among his friends. Yes,
Speaker 1: he was totally free about it. He didn't give a damn.
Speaker 1: He didn't care at all. Any port in a storm
Speaker 1: for absolutely, absolutely, who's wild. It was Wally Cox's dear
Speaker 1: friend or was he his boyfriend? That I don't know.
Speaker 1: I do know that Wally Cox absolutely and Brando livered
Speaker 1: Wally Cox. And when Wally Cox died, Brando went went
Speaker 1: to the funeral, but he wouldn't go to the funeral.
Speaker 1: He climbed up a tree and looked down at the
Speaker 1: ceremony and then fought to get the ashes. Oh I
Speaker 1: thought that they roomed together. They did in the fifties,
Speaker 1: and Shelley Winters tells this funny story about being Brando's
Speaker 1: date one night and Wally Cox was there and they
Speaker 1: had they had something like roasted grapefruit for dinner. That's it, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's it, And it was Brando cooking. It's just crazy craziness.
Speaker 1: He used to climb out windows, used to go into
Speaker 1: people's apartments. He would like be like a burglar and
Speaker 1: climb into windows and poke his head and say hello
Speaker 1: and then leave it. It was crazy. Now. Jane Fonda
Speaker 1: as someone who is always intrigued me to the end
Speaker 1: because she's had these multiple stages of her career, her
Speaker 1: you know, tabloid e marriages and Tom Hayden, who I worship.
Speaker 1: I love Tom. But for me, what will never die
Speaker 1: is looking back at her as one of the great
Speaker 1: not just beauties and movies started with film actresses. I mean,
Speaker 1: she's such a great act she is great forget include
Speaker 1: It's heartbreaking to me this woman is still not grinding
Speaker 1: out as many movies as possible, even forget about age,
Speaker 1: because she's so mesterrizing the what was the experience like
Speaker 1: writing about her? She had a comparable loss that the band.
Speaker 1: Which loss is her mother slitting her throat when Jane
Speaker 1: was twelve years old, and and her father who never
Speaker 1: showed his love for her. Henry Fonda never said I
Speaker 1: love you. He was always cold to her. Does she
Speaker 1: ever understand why did she venture? He was a very
Speaker 1: strange man. I think he actually was obsessed with her myself.
Speaker 1: But what happened was Jane and I had met at
Speaker 1: the actor's studio, and she decided she wanted a woman
Speaker 1: to write her biography. She'd had nine biographies written by men,
Speaker 1: and they'd all been threatened by her. She wanted a
Speaker 1: woman to write about her life totallyphy. She didn't want
Speaker 1: to call it authorized because she didn't read it. She
Speaker 1: refused to read it. She said, oh, I'm only looking
Speaker 1: at the pictures. But she heard from other people it
Speaker 1: was okay. It was very difficult for me to do that.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was difficult because I knew her, she
Speaker 1: trusted me totally, and there were a lot of things
Speaker 1: in her life that she'd done that we're not that great,
Speaker 1: you know, So how do I handle that one? I mean?
Speaker 1: She stole her routines for the workout from her trainer.
Speaker 1: And should I tell this? You know? So I called Gilda,
Speaker 1: who is her trainer, and gil said, yeah, she did
Speaker 1: steal him as fond about yes, I did, she say,
Speaker 1: She said, well, you know, I you she she hedged
Speaker 1: and him to odd. I didn't want it to be
Speaker 1: a puff piece because she had given me so much.
Speaker 1: It was difficult and there were certain things I did
Speaker 1: leave out. She decided she wanted to be taken care of,
Speaker 1: even though Ted Turner himself said I couldn't take care
Speaker 1: of her. She wouldn't even let me pay for her
Speaker 1: plane tickets, she said. But I think also they were
Speaker 1: They're very much alike in a way. I mean, they're
Speaker 1: both totally self involved, very smart. Uh. They love they
Speaker 1: loved the fame, they love the power that comes with that.
Speaker 1: Um So I think for a while it worked, except
Speaker 1: he was always unfaithful to her, always, and and and
Speaker 1: she couldn't take that he was unfaithful. Like the second week,
Speaker 1: third week they were married, she found out he was
Speaker 1: screwing somebody you were. The latest book entitled The Men
Speaker 1: in My Life, A Memoir of Love and Art in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties Manhattan is very sad and funny, but really
Speaker 1: really sad. But but the thing is, when you write
Speaker 1: a book, what are you supposed to write? You cannot
Speaker 1: be indifferent to your own history. You know you can't.
Speaker 1: And I was very involved, and yes, I guess I
Speaker 1: did get sad at times. Well, what I love about
Speaker 1: when I read Cliff as you as you as you read,
Speaker 1: and you think, is anybody happy in this business? Is
Speaker 1: anybody ultimately happy. I don't know. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: think they are. You know, was Paul Newman happy? Now?
Speaker 1: Maybe he wasn't. I think Paul, I think one was
Speaker 1: very happy towards the end. I think Newman for Newman
Speaker 1: the great you know, horrible thing. I want to assume
Speaker 1: as when his sons Scott killed himself, it changed him too.
Speaker 1: I think it was completely changed, changed him totally. I
Speaker 1: think that that really affected him. Your last book, your
Speaker 1: a memoir that's out now. There really is a kind
Speaker 1: of an energy of what's the word I'm thinking of? Forgiveness?
Speaker 1: Is that is that right to say that you're not
Speaker 1: mean to these people in this book? Well, you really
Speaker 1: put the gloves on with the ex husband of yours.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's not mean to him. No, I know,
Speaker 1: I'm not. I don't I I was. I was just
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just I wanted. I wanted to
Speaker 1: tell these stories. It's really, you know, the book really
Speaker 1: is about my brother. It's it's an a tribute to
Speaker 1: my brother. What's the next memoir for you, M I
Speaker 1: don't know that. I think I would like to write
Speaker 1: about Actually, I'd like to write about the next ten years,
Speaker 1: meaning the six the sixties into seventies where I get
Speaker 1: into feminism and I work in pornography, which I did
Speaker 1: for a while with Bob Guccioni and did I edited
Speaker 1: a female porn magazine called Viva for two years until
Speaker 1: he fired me. What was he like? He was a
Speaker 1: complicated man. I mean he wanted to be a painter
Speaker 1: or another one. Uh. He felt he was doing good.
Speaker 1: He was an accidental pornographer. What he was he was
Speaker 1: he was very smart and he actually published some wonderful
Speaker 1: articles in Penthouse. I remember, I remember reading about Barry
Speaker 1: Seals from the whole Mina Arkansas Conspiracy right now. He
Speaker 1: did a lot of pla, a lot of and and
Speaker 1: and Viva had great writing in it too. He did well.
Speaker 1: I think that when you're done with that memoir, or
Speaker 1: maybe while you're writing that memoir, I want you to
Speaker 1: remember to allow time for you and I for sex action.
Speaker 1: It's a winner. I love it. Launch date to be determined.
Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the
Speaker 1: thing