0:03

I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening

0:05

to Here's the thing. Talking

0:08

to people who talk to other people for

0:10

a living can be challenging, especially

0:13

if that person is David Letterman, a

0:16

legendary comedian and late night

0:18

talk show host, is always somewhat guarded

0:21

and never assuming the faux familiarity

0:23

that some of his contemporaries do, so

0:26

when he sat down with me to do my show, I

0:29

wasn't sure what to expect. However,

0:31

early in our talk, Letterman discussed

0:33

his college years in the nineteen sixties

0:36

and now once the draft was changed, Letterman

0:39

avoided going off to Vietnam.

0:41

In those days, you get the student deferment,

0:44

and Balsa was prinsipally a teacher's college

0:46

in those days, and so they

0:49

wanted teachers. He was chock full of

0:51

guys who wanted that student deferment

0:53

and also the teaching deferment. I

0:56

was not studying teaching, so the

0:58

minute I graduated was reclassified

1:00

one A went for my pre draft physical

1:03

in April and they said, okay, we'll call you.

1:05

And then in the meantime before I was called,

1:08

Nixon announced the National Lottery

1:11

they were going to end the draft. They were trying

1:13

to step down the Vietnamese War.

1:16

My birthday was three forty two or something like

1:18

that, at A three undred fifty six, So that

1:20

meant even though I was one A and had my pre

1:22

induction physical and was ready to go, it was over

1:24

for me. At the time, I didn't know how lucky

1:27

I was. I felt guilty because I had friends

1:29

who had gone, and I had friends who had been in

1:31

the Marine Corps, and I just felt

1:33

like, well, why met these guys went, Why shouldn't

1:35

I go? And then it dawned

1:37

on me pretty quickly. I had been

1:39

among the really really lucky. Yeah,

1:42

what was the political landscape like at Ballston when

1:44

you went there? Well, it was just starting to Uh.

1:46

I used to make jokes that they would have student

1:48

protests, but it was to get the cafeteria

1:50

cooks to wear hairnets. But it

1:53

was. It was creeping in. It was not a

1:55

hot bed. It was not Madison, Wisconsin. It was

1:57

Muncie, Indiana. But it was starting and

1:59

there were sit ins and demonstrations,

2:01

and you know, Bobby Kennedy had spoken

2:03

on campus, so it was starting, but I

2:06

wouldn't say it was. It wasn't

2:08

quite lit up the way it might have been in other

2:10

regions. You mentioned

2:12

booth announcers, and I remember I did a YouTube search.

2:15

I wanted to find this guy that was literally the voice

2:17

of my childhood w r Andy

2:20

come on and say, you know, uh next

2:22

on Million Dollar Movie, Barbara

2:24

stan mctells Gary Cooper where he Can Go?

2:27

And Ball of Fire and

2:29

he just said this voice, it was just it just haunted

2:31

me. Well, that's interesting. You mentioned that

2:33

guy I had the little kid

2:36

voice from Indiana. I wasn't that guy,

2:38

but I still had to do the job. And I can't impress

2:41

upon you enough how tedious it is to sit there for

2:43

eight hours watching programming

2:45

and logging everything that happens. If

2:47

you lose audio, you have to log that. If you lose video,

2:49

you have to log that. You have to log sign

2:52

on, sign off, every commercial, every

2:54

station break. And at first I was scared,

2:56

silly, but then, like everything else, you get accustomed

2:58

to it and you become blase. And so I would just start

3:00

wandering the building. You know, it

3:02

was so embarrassing. They would will the booth announcer

3:04

please report to the announced booth, and

3:07

oh my god, I've missed the so and so.

3:09

The main announcer was a guy named Rob

3:11

Stone. Tremendous voice and

3:14

hopeless alcoholic, I mean a real alcoholic,

3:17

go hand in hand, yeah, kind of. Certainly

3:19

in those days it was not uncommon. He would

3:22

come in and he would bring a point with him.

3:24

And so in the spirit of this, we who

3:27

were working the sign off shift, we would

3:29

always send somebody out for beer, and we would

3:31

be at the station late at night signing

3:33

off, and myself and the director and whomever

3:35

else was there, we'd be drinking beer.

3:37

Oh my, with this fun. In those

3:40

days, you would do a five minute new summary before

3:42

sign off nightcap news, and

3:44

then you would do the

3:46

the broadcast statement. You'd read

3:48

that over the slide of the station, and then

3:50

they would go to the national anthem with the

3:52

waving flag. One night, a

3:55

guy in the props department said, I can reconstruct

3:57

exactly the station is

4:00

pictured on the slide. We can make

4:02

it blow up. So as you're as you're

4:04

reading the thank you and good night

4:06

and why not tune in w LW

4:09

overnight and blah blah this and so until tomorrow,

4:11

good night and good luck, I have the thing come

4:13

home. And so we did. Oh god,

4:15

we were proud of ourselves. You know, we really thought we had

4:17

done something. Geez. Nobody ever

4:19

said anything. No, it was bizarre.

4:22

Nobody got fired. Nobody asked a question about

4:24

it. You know. It was this cult of four or five guys

4:26

who had pulled this off, and

4:28

we just thought, well, this is one. It

4:30

was fun, but too you wanted but no, nobody

4:33

nobody said anything. But but what's interesting is

4:35

from school and then doing the job

4:37

and so forth in the booth thing the comedy

4:39

gland is secreting through the entire

4:42

time. What are you doing for that? Meaning? Other than

4:44

blowing up the studio and in the sign off

4:48

or yes, I was looking for any outlet,

4:50

and it came for me doing the weather. I

4:52

knew nothing about whether you'd go downstairs

4:54

and I'd have the A P machine and the map would come

4:56

over, the national map, and you would go to the

4:58

big magnetic board in the studio and you put the

5:00

low system, and you put the high system, and

5:02

you put the occluded front, and you put the rain

5:04

showers, and so it told you everything any

5:07

time at all that I could monkey with that, I was

5:09

very happy. I can remember two episodes.

5:11

One I was had

5:14

forecast sunny and dryet and we we

5:17

go off the air and blah blah, and I go outside

5:19

this this is horrible thundershower.

5:21

The rain is coming down in sheets, and I

5:23

was just twenty ft away, just oblivious

5:26

of this. This uh dangerous

5:29

is coming through this one of these violent Midwestern

5:31

summer thunderstorms coming attacking

5:34

the station. I got to be well known because

5:36

this Sunday Night show was on after

5:38

the ABC Sunday Night Movie, and in those

5:40

days that was big programming. Yeah,

5:43

we got a bunch of complaints. And

5:45

this was when people were wearing a bell bottom

5:48

pants. I don't think he could buy regular

5:50

pants. Got a lot of calls about he's

5:53

either not wearing underpants or he needs

5:55

to wear underpants. That's how I distinguished

5:57

myself. Do you want to clear that up now? Were you

5:59

wearing a pan? Of course I was where it

6:01

was Indianapolis. We were not talked to

6:04

go out without our It's

6:06

whatever problem was perceived was not mine,

6:08

I assure you. And then where do you go from

6:10

there in terms of underpants,

6:13

and well, if you wish. I got tired

6:15

of sitting in the booth and tired of working

6:17

weekends. And also they didn't. They

6:19

didn't want me there. They would keep bringing

6:22

in auditions for my job. That

6:24

really hurt my feelings, but I couldn't argue

6:26

with them because I didn't know what I was doing. But

6:29

the cumulative effect of being on TV a

6:31

lot there, we get this memo once from

6:33

the search department and of all of the people, the

6:35

the anchor team and whomever else, I had the highest

6:38

queue rating of anybody there, and it was only

6:40

by accident, really, So I started

6:42

looking for a job, couldn't get hired out of

6:45

the market. Some people I knew were

6:47

coming in to start up a talk radio station,

6:49

so I went to work at the new talk radio station

6:52

in that format. It was news talks for

6:54

us w NTS. When I resigned

6:56

to quit, give my notice to the

6:58

general manage, the guys ad and it chilled

7:00

me at the time. He said, really, you're

7:02

leaving this TV station to go work for a brand

7:05

new radio station. And I said yeah, and he said

7:07

you will never be heard of again. So

7:09

I went to the station, worked there for a year, realized

7:12

that I had to make a move. Nobody would

7:14

would listen. It was a daytime station. This was tremendous.

7:17

They had a daytime license, which meant

7:20

the radio station come on when the sun came up and

7:22

went off when the sun went down. Literally. Yeah.

7:24

And then the winter we were off at three in

7:27

the afternoon. I

7:29

had the midday shift, and I come in at noon and two hours

7:31

later I'd be going home. It was it was afternoon.

7:35

And then in the summer. Conversely, you were

7:37

on the like nine thirty or ten. It

7:40

was awful. It was Watergate,

7:42

and and people assumed, well, the guy's got a talk show

7:44

on the radio, but he knows everything there

7:47

is to know about Watergate, and I knew nothing, and

7:49

people wouldn't call in, and I'd have to

7:51

read endless pages of wire copy.

7:54

I remember reading it sorry about Gordon strachan

7:57

str A c h A N. His

7:59

name kept I'm going up a special counsel, so and

8:01

so Gordon Stratch and adviser of the White House,

8:03

Gordon Stratch. And finally the phones light

8:05

up and I, thank god, did I say

8:08

yes, He says, it's not Stratching, it's

8:10

Strang You're mispronouncing the guy's name.

8:12

I said, okay, thanks you everything, no

8:15

click buzz, So there you go. Were you ambitious

8:17

during this time? Did you have an ambition. Yeah, I

8:19

wanted to. I really thought, Um,

8:22

I really thought I could write half hours

8:24

situation comedies. I thought I could. What did

8:26

you watch one? In my childhood it was completely

8:29

different. It would have been stuff like Saturday

8:31

Morning Nonsense. Then as I grew

8:33

older, you get Mayberry, the

8:36

Andy Griffs Show, Ozzie and Harriet,

8:38

Nelson and Nelson's and that kind of stuff.

8:40

And then later on and in those days, it was all

8:42

the Mary Tyler More things, the Bob Newhart Show, on

8:44

the Mary Tyler More Show. And I really thought, oh,

8:47

I can write one of those Mary Tyler Moore

8:49

shows. And it turned out I couldn't.

8:51

As you know, there's a template for

8:53

writing those things. They used the template

8:56

because it's successful. And if you don't know the template

8:58

and you think you can make a or version

9:00

of it, it's a very

9:02

foreign object to them. To you, you

9:04

think, look, I've improved on the template, but

9:07

they don't want that. They want something to Yes,

9:10

that's right. I mean we're talking about Mary Tyler Moore.

9:12

That's pretty good stuff. Smart and

9:14

you're in l A at that time. No, I'm still in Indianapolis,

9:16

and I would be sending scripts and looking

9:18

for an agent. Finally a guy said, yeah, if you come

9:20

to Los Angeles, he said, I'll be your

9:23

agent. So with that encouragement,

9:25

I just left. And I don't know about you, but you

9:27

know your friends say, okay, here you can meet with so and

9:29

so, and and you can meet mel Blank's

9:32

son, you can meet with him and and I know

9:34

this one, and I know that one, and so you go out there

9:36

with high hopes. I guess it's like the Pioneers

9:38

and the kind of Stoga wagon and they run out

9:40

of beans. You know, they're

9:42

in Salt Lake and they got nothing need. So

9:45

within the first week you run through all of your appointments

9:48

and then you've got nothing. Then your Shanghai.

9:50

That's right on the show was

9:52

there in l A. Remember when

9:54

I went to l A. I did a soap opera at

9:57

thirty Rock. The show is about to

9:59

go off the air and on every forget this guy that was the producer.

10:02

Here, we're in the hallway and they asked me to extend my contract

10:04

for a few months, and he says that line

10:07

to me. He says, what do you think you're gonna do? Go out the Hollywood,

10:09

become a star in the movies. I'm

10:11

walking down the hollies going do listen to me?

10:14

Come back here? You you don't

10:16

walk away from me? And I walk away

10:18

from the guy and I go to l A. Now, were you ever haunted

10:20

by that? Did you? Honestly?

10:22

Did you? Did you? Because in my case, I thought the guy

10:25

was. I said, oh, yeah, I haven't considered

10:27

that. Of course you do. Did

10:29

you ever think you were going to be? I mean, I don't want to

10:31

get you know, crass about it, but you

10:34

live a very very good life.

10:37

You've been an enormously successful man. Did

10:39

you ever dream you would be as successful as you are?

10:41

Never? No, And I'll tell you the same

10:43

for you, same for most people in this uh

10:46

in show business. You're just lucky enough

10:48

to get to do exactly what you want to

10:50

do all your life. So that's the success,

10:53

you know. I always thought there was some commission

10:56

that was going to come to my door of my apartment I was living

10:58

in and West Hollywood, and there were not. They're going where

11:00

the Motion Picture Acting Commission? And

11:02

we've got the reports, Mr Bob. We're gonna take it

11:04

to the airport. By the way back to me. I think you're not gonna

11:06

get into. I know the origin of this is

11:08

is your personal fear, But I think that commission

11:11

is not a bad idea long overdue,

11:13

honest to God. Can we get that up

11:15

and on its feet? Can we get a bill? I remember there

11:17

was a guy, a writer for

11:20

the Old Tonight Show, somebody

11:22

calling his His listing in the white pages

11:24

was it's Marty Cohen. It

11:26

was not Marty Cohon, Marty Cohen, president

11:29

of show Business. Just oh

11:32

that's lovely. So were you?

11:34

Were you doing stand up every in Indiana? Uh?

11:37

No, never did. In fact, one of the things that I

11:39

didn't like doing was when

11:41

I was at the radio station. Part of the deal was we

11:43

just sold a thing to Kroger grocery stores.

11:46

But part of the deal is we want you to go out there and

11:48

m see the song songs. And I hated it, and

11:50

I finally told the guys that I can't do this. So

11:52

one of my big built in fears was getting

11:54

up in front of people that I didn't know and trying

11:57

to, you know, hold their attention. Let alone be

11:59

funny, But for me, the

12:01

road map to pursue

12:03

was handed to you via Johnny

12:06

Carson and The Tonight Show. They would have comics

12:08

on it would be David Brenner and they

12:10

would say, and there will be appearing at the Comedy

12:13

Store. And it seemed to be that the connection

12:15

between the Comedy Store and the Tonight Show was

12:17

pretty close. So even

12:19

though I mind that facility that particularly, it

12:22

was the farm system for the Comedy

12:24

Store, and great guys were coming

12:26

out and getting on and Steve Landisberg and

12:28

on and on. I say on and on because

12:31

I can't remember the name, so I just yeah,

12:33

even though I wanted to be a writer, because I didn't have the courage

12:36

to tell my family and friends that what I really

12:38

want to do is, you know, somehow get

12:40

famous and beyond TV. So when when

12:42

I went out there the first monday I

12:44

was in California when I moved in, I

12:48

wrote down some stuff and went to the Comedy Store and got on

12:50

stage. It

12:53

was it was awful. I've never been in a darkened room

12:55

with the spotlight and it was just like a train

12:57

coming at me. So I did my little

13:00

five minutes from route left and then the

13:02

owner of the place, yeah, you should

13:05

come back and do some more. So

13:07

I thought, are you kidding me? And she's no,

13:10

you can mc so I

13:12

came back and I was the fantastic

13:14

Yeah, Derek. So

13:18

that was nine seventy eight.

13:21

Three years later I was on the Tonight Show. That

13:24

worked so much better

13:26

than it should have. I think it must be harder

13:28

now, Beau wasn't three years of just work

13:30

in that room and work in the mic and working

13:33

stand up. But it was. I mean it was fun

13:35

because every night you go there and you

13:37

were hanging around guys Jay Leno and

13:39

Robin Williams and George Miller and Tom Greson

13:42

and Jeff Altman and anybody now

13:44

who's you're aware of you

13:46

would see every night. And it was great fun. I

13:49

mean, my god, it was great fun. Didn't make any

13:51

difference what you did during the day. You

13:53

knew that when it got dark, you'd be on Sunset

13:55

Boulevard. The place would be packed. And

13:57

in those days, the only room she had was this

14:00

tiny, little original room and it was

14:02

next door to U Art Labelle's.

14:05

He would have a fifties dance party in

14:07

the next room on the weekends and you would

14:09

get a lot of gang guys

14:12

going to Art Label's. Guys non

14:17

U barrio. Um

14:21

is that all right? Yeah? Low Riders. Yeah,

14:24

and uh, one night, a friend of mine,

14:26

Johnny Dark, is on stage and a guy comes up

14:29

and he's got a gun and he's standing

14:31

next to Johnny while Johnny is doing his little

14:34

singing impressions of whomever,

14:37

and and he had to quietly, you know, talk

14:39

his way out of the guy using the gun. And

14:41

it was exciting. Sivan Richard Pryor would

14:43

come in, and Freddie Prince would come in, So

14:46

you say, yeah, night after night. But still in all,

14:48

how could that not be fun? So did Carson find

14:50

you there? Well, they had a guy, you know,

14:52

they had a team of guys when I was there that would

14:54

come in. Uh. And in the meantime, I

14:56

got on this Mary Tyler Moore show, uh

15:00

to write and perform and that was

15:02

it was me and Michael Keaton, Jim Hampton

15:05

and Dick Shawn and Susy Kurtz

15:07

and uh, Julie con

15:10

Judy con Judy con thank you very

15:12

much. So from

15:14

that show, uh, they said, oh, well

15:16

we'll put you on because you're on that show.

15:19

You can come out and do stand up and then you go sit down

15:21

and talk to Johnny. And without that

15:23

you never know what the formula is. You could be on nine

15:26

times and never get to sit on with Johnny. You

15:28

could be on for six years and every or

15:30

you could be bumped forty times never But

15:32

because of this, Oh and he's appearing on the so

15:34

and so Show, the Mary Tyler Moore Show, I

15:37

got to sit down with Johnny and and that was again,

15:39

that was craziness. That was That was another one

15:41

of those you

15:44

know what. Oh yeah, it's such

15:46

a jolt. The material is

15:48

so committed. You don't have to

15:50

think about anything, You just have to start talking and

15:52

it all comes out. The adrenaline

15:54

takes days to burn out of you. Holy

15:57

God, you're sitting next to Johnny Carson. I

16:00

mean, you just can't believe it. I mean

16:02

to me, and I think most guys

16:04

my age who were out there doing that one.

16:06

The fact that it worked. You know, really, I drove

16:09

in a pickup truck with my wife to l A and

16:11

three years later I'm sitting next to Johnny Carson. That's

16:13

not supposed to happen, you know, it's just not supposed

16:15

to happen, but it did. Do you think

16:18

that Carson was someone who do you think

16:20

he saw himself? And you do you think he saw the midwestern

16:22

boy. I don't know, Jean and you, I don't know. I mean,

16:24

it was so easy for other people to make that comparison.

16:28

Uh, and that seemed to be the formula. But I don't

16:30

I don't know if he felt that way or not. Um,

16:35

I don't. I can't answer that. And then what happened after

16:37

that, Well, your life changed immediately.

16:39

Suddenly you weren't just a guy who was at the comedy

16:42

store. You were the guy that had been on with

16:44

Carson. And then I was on

16:47

I think two or three more times, and then I started

16:49

hosting the show, and again that

16:51

was another you know, you just feel like it's

16:54

like it's like winning the World Series or your rookie

16:56

season. What's the gap of time between when you first

16:58

sat down with him when you started hosting. The

17:00

first time I was on was November of seventy

17:03

eight, and I think I hosted. Uh. It

17:05

was Monday night opposite the Academy Awards.

17:08

It was the Good Spring, Yeah, in April,

17:10

I have in April of March April, yeah,

17:16

and it was I was frozen.

17:19

I was as frozen as I can remember. Peter Losally coming

17:22

up to me during the commercial break and he said, you've

17:24

got to loosen up. You've got to loosen

17:26

up. Thanks

17:29

that tip page. I remember

17:31

the first night I was saw on the Tonight

17:33

Show and I'm I'm telling you, four

17:35

guys at the comedy store, this was it. This

17:37

was like people lining up to squeeze through

17:39

a funnel, you know. This was it the Tonight Show.

17:42

Fighting in competition and backstabbing

17:44

in bad mouthing to get to the Tonight Show.

17:47

It is gonna make or break you if if you don't do well,

17:50

you'll never be heard of again. There's there's no such thing as

17:52

a guy bombings first time on the Tonight Show and then

17:54

having a delightful career that just doesn't

17:56

happen. You're gone. So

17:58

there's a lot of pressures. So I am

18:01

getting ready to go out there just

18:03

behind the curtain. And my manager at the time, Buddy

18:06

Mora, who was with Jack Rollins and uh

18:08

Charles Joffey. They handled Robin

18:11

Williams and Woody Allen and Dick Cabint and

18:13

some other guys. So that was a big deal

18:15

for me to be with these people. And Buddy and

18:17

I nice enough guy, but we never

18:20

I never saw Ey'd eye on much. And I

18:22

think a lot of it was my immaturity about

18:24

show business or just ignorance.

18:27

Not immaturity. I you know, I had

18:29

no time to be immature. I was ignorant.

18:32

So we're standing there and Johnny saying, our next

18:34

guest as a young blah blah blah blah, and

18:36

Buddy says to me, and any Buddy always whispered.

18:38

Everything was a whisper it. But he says, Robin

18:42

got popeye, and I said,

18:44

what are you talking about? His

18:46

final words to me, as I'm going on the tonight show

18:49

from the first time, telling me about

18:51

a booking for one of his other clients, you

18:53

know, And I just never got over that. My

19:01

thanks to David Letterman for giving me

19:03

some of his valuable time. Some

19:07

talk show guests arrived with

19:09

a predetermined almost Arthur

19:12

Murray asked pattern of stories

19:14

and anecdotes, and many shows

19:16

in fact encourage that on.

19:19

Here's the thing. Some of my guests

19:21

showed up to have a genuine conversation

19:24

and during that time discussed very personal,

19:27

even raw moments in their careers

19:29

and lives. Such was the

19:32

case with Audre McDonald, who

19:34

spoke movingly about the difficulties

19:37

she found as an artist studying

19:39

and then launching her career in

19:41

New York. This was my third

19:44

year and it had been

19:46

just yet another year of floundering and

19:49

doing poorly in all my classes, and

19:51

teachers just saying, you know, you've got to get give

19:54

over to your operatic sound, and me not

19:56

wanting to, not knowing what that was.

19:59

Um. And when I would get close to an

20:01

operatic sound, I'd say, I don't want to sound

20:03

like that. So I felt like I was just being

20:06

pushed and they were doing their job

20:08

rightfully. So this is like, this is your Juilliard to

20:10

study. This is what you're gonna do to push

20:12

me into a place that just wasn't me artistically.

20:16

So that coupled with being one

20:19

by yourself in New York and being

20:21

treated poorly by um

20:23

whatever his name was, what's his name? I

20:29

were so good to say that no, no, no, no, no,

20:31

he's he's fine. He's a great guy

20:33

now, but in any rate, um. So

20:37

all of that combined with me being

20:39

sort of like the great hope from my

20:41

my hometown too. You know, Ordre is gonna

20:43

make it if anybody's gonna make it on Broadway it's gonna be Audre.

20:46

I the boy

20:48

was the catalyst. That's sort of like sort of broke

20:51

that. It was the straw that broke the camel's back. But it

20:53

was three years of I'm

20:55

in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing. I'm failing

20:57

miserably, but I'm here in

21:00

Disneyland where I'm supposed to be, where I said

21:02

I wanted to be. So I I

21:06

I slit my wrists one

21:08

night. What happened? And

21:11

you write about this? Have you written about this? I haven't.

21:13

I guess I should. I speak about it all the time,

21:16

but maybe one day I'll write about it. And found you.

21:18

Um. I slit my

21:20

wrists and then realized what I had

21:22

done and called the student affairs

21:25

director who I had become close with, and

21:27

said, I helped me. Someone

21:30

came and helped you, and they helped me, and they took me to a

21:33

mental hospital. Um.

21:35

It's interesting this mental hospital still there.

21:38

Um Gracie Square Hospital.

21:40

It's next door to um

21:44

my uh my O B G y N who delivered

21:46

my six month old. Uh

21:49

what a circuit. So I almost

21:51

didn't make it, and now I made it

21:53

and I

21:55

had to pass it. You know, every week to go to my O. B.

21:57

G. Y N appointment, I had to pass Gracie Square Hospital

22:00

and every time I passed it, there was a part

22:02

of me just you know, waddling down the street. Pregnatives

22:04

can be some twenty nine years

22:06

later, I would, um,

22:08

I would. I felt such relief

22:11

and joy and you

22:14

know, a sense of yes, I I get I

22:16

get the big picture. Now, one month in the school year

22:18

was that that that happened. It was January

22:20

or February, So it's at the midpoint.

22:22

Let's say, and you take off oficusly and you come back

22:25

when you come back the following fall, you don't. I

22:27

came back, um the following

22:29

fall for a little bit, and then

22:31

I got an opportunity to audition

22:34

for something that ended up being

22:38

the Secret Garden actually, and

22:40

I asked the you know, administration

22:43

office and my the dean, what I should

22:45

do, and they said, you know, go do that.

22:48

It's okay, take the time off to go do that. It

22:50

seems like that's where you want to be. So

22:52

and they they probably didn't want to disappoint

22:55

you at that point. At that point, you

22:59

want to go, sing on, bro, go do it.

23:01

Yeah, we don't ever want to get your way. You know.

23:03

The thing is there was actually a lot, not

23:05

a lot, but they had a

23:07

special arrangement with Gracie Square Hospital.

23:09

They were a couple of other Juilliard students there

23:12

that I had wondered what had happened

23:14

to I was there. I was at the hospital for

23:16

I mean Gray Square, I think is private hospital. I was there

23:18

for a month. Um. They evaluated me and

23:20

said, you you're not going anytime

23:22

soon? Um, And did that

23:25

change you? I was

23:27

so heavily medicated. They

23:29

I was heavily medicated. And when you

23:31

say that, it's so compelling

23:33

to me because when I see you, I think of you.

23:35

I think of you like you know, you're

23:37

so strong your personality and perform I

23:40

view you as a person that's going to go. I'm going

23:42

back into the burning building to save

23:44

the baby. Well that is me now, But

23:46

I think maybe that experience helped

23:49

make me that now. I mean,

23:51

look, I'm still a met. I mean everybody's a mess,

23:53

always a mess. I you know, and I what I understood

23:56

at going on, Yeah, and I realized, you know, I'm someone who

23:58

suffers from depression. And but

24:01

I've learned in the years a how to

24:03

deal with it, be to find, you know, find my joy

24:05

and see you to realize that, like alcoholism,

24:07

it's something that you wake up every day and you say, yeah,

24:09

that's still something that I have to deal with, as

24:12

opposed to saying oh I'm just not depressed anymore. Just

24:14

but to learn how to cope with that and

24:18

my my art gives me a

24:20

lot of joy and keeps me, keeps

24:22

me strong. So what's the first job

24:24

you do? This is a tired question, but I can't help

24:26

back asking upposedly something like you, what's the

24:28

first job when you do? When

24:30

you sit there and go, I got this. I think I

24:32

got this, Like I'm over the

24:35

no no meaning you know that the

24:37

sky is the limit for you. You're out there and

24:39

you're doing it and you're connecting to that material

24:42

you know, and you go, I think I really really have a

24:44

shot at my dream coming true. Here it

24:47

was Sally Murphy and I she was she was

24:49

Julie Jordan, and I played Carrie Pippridge. And who

24:51

was the guy Michael Hayden was Yes,

24:54

yes, yes, Nicker Lincoln

24:56

Center, which is also crazy for me to

24:58

then open in

25:00

in Carousel at Lincoln Center, where

25:04

at Vivian Momont Theater where you can

25:06

look up and I can see the school

25:08

that I, you know, had a hard time

25:10

in and and I remember standing

25:12

in those in those windows at Juniyard,

25:15

looking at Vivian Beaumont, seeing Patti

25:18

Lapone performing there, and going why am I not doing

25:20

that? And then how do you feel? Um

25:28

like luckier survivor

25:31

in the world. I mean,

25:33

and I felt a sense of gratitude, a sense

25:36

of relief, and a

25:38

sense of Okay, I get

25:40

it, I now get that I

25:42

was on my paths

25:54

you greet. That

25:58

was certainly one of the most moving

26:00

conversations I've had during

26:03

my run on Here's the Thing, Thank

26:05

you, Ordre McDonald.

26:09

Some artists have come on my show,

26:11

and although I am a fan and

26:14

thrilled to meet them, there aren't necessarily

26:16

any surprises. There were,

26:18

however, some wonderful surprises.

26:21

When I sat down with Carly Simon, one

26:23

of the greatest singer songwriters in

26:25

history. Carly revealed

26:28

her wide ranging knowledge of all types

26:30

of music and music history, and

26:32

also identified the man who

26:35

may be the most important man in her

26:37

life. And no it's

26:39

not who you think. I met Jake

26:41

at summer Camp. We were

26:44

both counselors at Indian

26:46

Hill Camp in the Berkshires, and

26:48

Jake was the swimming

26:50

counselor and he also taught literature.

26:53

These were very arty kids, and

26:55

I was the guitar teacher. All all the kids

26:57

met me for the first time. They had known each other from

26:59

them before. Jake wasn't there yet

27:01

because he had hepatitis and was in the hospital.

27:04

But they said, oh wait till you meet Jake, you'll

27:07

be You'll just fall in love with each other

27:09

or be friends for the rest of your life. I

27:11

don't think anybody had ever ever quite

27:13

introduced me to somebody before I

27:16

actually met them with those terms that they

27:18

would be lifelong friends. And

27:20

the day that he got there, they prepared to cook out.

27:22

The campers did, and they said, now we want

27:24

you to come down to the cookout, and Jake

27:27

will come down to the cookout, and you'll stand opposite

27:29

each other, but with with your backs to each

27:31

other, and at the kind of three, you'll

27:34

turn toward each other and light

27:37

and you'll see what we mean about

27:39

that, your two halves of one person. And

27:43

so it was one to three. We

27:45

turned across this fire which was raging

27:48

between us and we both smiled

27:50

and we recognized each other in

27:52

ourselves and vice versa, and it was quite

27:55

amazing. And Jake just dropped me off here

27:57

today. What was it about him?

28:00

Was he writing songs? And was he he was a

28:02

musician and into songwriting, And no, Jake

28:05

was at that point he had just graduated

28:07

from Harvard. He was the editor

28:09

of The Crimson and he went in he was

28:11

writing for Newsweek magazine, he was writing for

28:14

Talk of the Town, and he

28:16

was he was the young writer on the

28:18

scene. He was the young prose writer on

28:20

the scene when we started writing

28:22

songs together. He then also got into to

28:25

working with Terence Malock and

28:27

he worked on Days of Heaven

28:29

and on bad Lands, and

28:32

he wrote King of Marvin Gardens with

28:34

Jack with Jack Nicholson in that.

28:37

And so he's he's a man of all

28:39

words, most of them quite

28:41

quite funny. He's an unusual

28:44

beyond journalism and screenwriting. He was a lyrict

28:46

as he was writing lyrics. Well, he had never written lyrics

28:49

before. But I had this melody da

28:51

da da da Da Da Da Da da da

28:54

and the whole song because I've written

28:56

that for an NBC special

28:59

called Who Killed eerie. That

29:01

was the background music for that. So

29:04

when I was going to make this demo, I

29:06

couldn't get lyrics for it, because if I write a melody

29:09

first, I can't seem to find lyrics

29:11

to it. It's got to be the other way around. I write lyrics

29:13

first. And so I

29:16

had this melody, and Jake was by then

29:18

my best friend, and I said, do you want

29:20

to try to write a lyric? So I

29:22

gave him on a little cassette. I gave him

29:24

that melody and he came back a

29:27

day or two later with with a full lyric,

29:29

except for one verse, which we edited out. My

29:31

friends from college, they're

29:34

all they

29:38

have their houses and

29:41

there they

29:46

have their silent news

29:48

tea for saying

29:51

readin

30:00

and hate them for the

30:02

things. They hate

30:06

themselves, Oh what they

30:13

and yet they drink they laugh. Close

30:17

the wound hid the

30:24

lyrics because there's very pungent

30:26

lyrics in that song. They hate themselves

30:29

for what they are. Who

30:31

is he talking about? Well, his girlfriend

30:33

was just about to move in with him. Jake

30:36

and I lived apart, lived one block away

30:38

from each other, but we shared each

30:40

other's lives and our friends were each other's

30:42

friends. And I met most of the people

30:44

that I know today through through Jake or vice

30:47

versa. So, his girlfriend

30:49

Rickie was just about to move in with him, and

30:51

he realized that she was going to be moving into his

30:54

rooms. And that's

30:57

an invasion of territory for certain

30:59

people, And I mean it means a whole

31:01

lot. It means not only are you going to be in my rooms,

31:04

but you're I'm not going to be able to get you out

31:06

of my rooms if you're living with me. So,

31:09

from Jake's point of view, that that

31:11

song was, you know, are

31:14

we going to marry? Are we not going to marry?

31:17

And we had talked a lot about marriage and

31:19

a lot about the fact that being

31:21

in love with somebody, living with somebody didn't necessarily

31:25

indicate that you had to get married, as

31:28

it had a situation for our

31:30

years. We're different.

31:33

Um what what what? What? What situation

31:35

of yours? Were you referring the

31:37

men in your life? Every man that I was

31:40

that I was with, I felt I

31:42

had to marry if I was going to sleep

31:44

with them, or if I was going to have sex with him. In any

31:46

way, I felt as if I as if I had to marry

31:48

them and have children yeah,

31:53

and so times were changing, and

31:55

this was this was a very different era that Kennedy

31:58

years were upon us and the hippie

32:01

doom, the Woodstock

32:03

era. The times were hugely

32:05

changing. I mean, I didn't didn't necessarily

32:08

have to marry the person that you were living with

32:10

and raise the family of our own,

32:12

you and me. Um, that's

32:15

the way they I've always heard it should

32:17

be you want to marry me, and then oh,

32:19

will marry you, but

32:23

with resignation exactly. And

32:25

so that's how the song really came

32:27

to life. Was about the disillusionment

32:30

of my parents marriage, which

32:32

was about walking home

32:34

at night and tiptoeing by my

32:37

mother's bedroom and she

32:39

she calls out, sweet dreams, but I forget

32:41

how to dream, and my father

32:43

sitting in the living room with his cigarette

32:46

cigarette glows in the dark, and

32:48

so it's it's it's all about the

32:51

separation of the people who are

32:54

supposed to be married or supposed to live

32:56

in one happy house together for

32:58

really not happy and live being in that

33:00

house, and how that affects you when you see them.

33:03

You wrote a book, and a lot of it includes some

33:05

of your childhood and your marriage and everything you

33:08

know. You're both your marriages, and you I

33:10

think your book only goes up through your first marriage. But

33:12

the idea being that you know, what do you

33:14

leave in and what do you leave out? Well,

33:17

you know, this was very

33:19

important. When I first got asked to write

33:22

my memoir was six

33:25

and I was and I was called on the phone by

33:27

Jacqueline Onassis and she said,

33:29

Carley Carling, you

33:32

would make a wonderful writer

33:34

of a memoir. And so that's

33:36

how I started, and I wrote about sixty

33:39

pages at that point, and realizing

33:41

that I was leaving out the very nucleus

33:43

of the story, which was about my parents and

33:45

their marriage and the

33:48

the thing that happened to their marriage, which was

33:50

that which was the great divide of having

33:53

my brother's tutor come to

33:55

live with us, and he and my

33:57

mother fell in love, and that was a separate relationship

33:59

which existed in the same house that

34:02

she lived in with my father and us and

34:04

and all and all of the kids. So

34:07

trying to leave that out was almost

34:09

impossible when that formed the very essence

34:11

of me that I was trying to write about in

34:14

the first place. Everything was a lie. Everything

34:17

that I saw as the truth, I

34:20

was denied the veracity

34:22

of And so when I

34:24

said, well, Mom and Dad are still in love,

34:26

aren't they, to my older sisters that say, yes,

34:28

they are. They're very much in love. And then I would ask

34:31

my mother and father, you know you

34:33

don't ever kiss? Can I see you kiss? And

34:36

my father would bend my mother down in a

34:39

theatrical kind of bogus bogus

34:42

kiss bous and

34:44

u. And it looked strange to me. There was

34:46

something very awfu about it. But I

34:48

was supposed to believe that they were in love. Perform

34:51

for you, tend to mollify

34:53

you well once and then she

34:56

was off with what was

34:59

what was her name, Ronnie? Where was Ronnie from?

35:01

Ronnie was um a teacher

35:04

or he was going to teaching school at Columbia

35:06

at the time. He was nineteen

35:09

and she was forty two. Where he

35:11

was from Pittsburgh, Ronnie from Pittsburgh,

35:14

and they were they were

35:16

in love for many years. It killed

35:19

my father a combination of that relationship

35:22

that she had with Ronnie and

35:24

the fact of his relationship

35:26

at Simon and Schuster, where he

35:29

he started to do things in

35:31

a in a way that the accountant

35:34

who they had brought on board in the company, this

35:36

guy named Leon Schuster didn't want

35:38

him to do and said, therefore, my father. At

35:41

the same time, as as he became sort

35:43

of sick with grief over his relationship

35:45

with my mother, he got more and more

35:48

out of the loop at Simon and Schuster, and they sort

35:50

of tried to move him up or out

35:52

of the mainstream with Max

35:54

and Leon and and that

35:57

kind of killed him all further. And then

35:59

he drank too much, too much, he

36:01

ate too much ice cream and smoked too many

36:03

cigarettes, and that made him ill. And so it

36:06

was a perfect storm and he got and he died at the age

36:08

of sixty. No

36:10

sign from people who don't know the

36:12

Simon and Simon and Schuster was your father. And yes,

36:16

at the met Max

36:19

Schuster, his old college friend from

36:21

Colombia. They met. They were both

36:23

selling pianos Steinway,

36:26

I guess at steinwan Son. And they said,

36:28

let's let's go out to lunch and let's let's

36:31

go into business together. Oh what shall we

36:33

do? What about books? And

36:36

so they made a little sign

36:38

which they put on the office at the office

36:40

space that they had rented, saying Simon and

36:42

Schuster publisher What

36:44

books? And the first book that they published

36:47

was the Crossrood Puzzle Book, which

36:49

made them a fortune and which started them

36:51

off with great footing. With good

36:53

footing, great speed, opportunities

36:56

galore, and they were the

36:59

very center of the

37:01

publishing world. And yes,

37:04

yes, and your mother where My mother was

37:06

from Germantown, Pennsylvania.

37:09

Her mother, she by, was Cuban

37:12

and came to the United States on a banana

37:15

boat. She was Cuban,

37:17

but she was from Africa, but her

37:20

grandmother had spent some time in Cuba. I

37:22

have the whole lineup, or your part black or you

37:24

part of Cuban or both. I'm black.

37:30

She's an African Africa, Yes, your

37:33

maternal grandmother. Yes,

37:36

and she was African and went to Cuba.

37:38

That's right, that's right. And

37:40

then she was schooled in England, and so she

37:42

spoke with an English accent, and she was ashamed

37:45

of what she probably didn't even

37:47

know she was, but she bleached her skin

37:50

her whole life, and so she passed as white.

37:52

But she spoke with an English accent. And we

37:55

used to always ask her about what her

37:57

background was, and she would say, when

37:59

I die, will find nothing but

38:01

nothing. And I never talked about the

38:03

past. So we weren't able to get

38:06

very much out of mother. Yes, we weren't

38:08

able to get anything out of her, but she was such

38:10

a character. Did your mother have a career? My

38:13

mother did not have an official career.

38:15

Now, she was a singer, but she and she was

38:17

a wonderful singer, but she her career

38:20

was raising her four kids.

38:23

In your home and your father, from a young age

38:25

becomes a very successful uh

38:27

publisher in the name is really

38:30

a pianist. In fact, when he when

38:32

he had a bunch of heart attacks

38:34

and strokes towards the end of his life and he didn't

38:37

have his mind and he didn't have the capacity

38:39

of the full fullness of his mind, he

38:41

always thought he was going to Carney Hall, when

38:43

in fact he was just going downtown to

38:46

dinner with my mother, and he said, Sissy,

38:48

you forgot to get off at st I'm

38:50

going to be late. Because he always thought

38:53

he was going to be playing it. He didn't always think,

38:55

but once in a while he had the fantasy that he

38:57

was going to be playing at Carney Hall. He was

38:59

a great piano. Classical. Yes,

39:02

so music in your home is classical

39:04

music. Santastical on

39:07

the part of my father and the circle of people

39:09

coming in and out of your home who were celebrities.

39:11

And I have two uncles,

39:13

one on my father's side and one on my mother's

39:15

side, started jazz magazines, one

39:18

Downbeat and the other Metronome.

39:21

So they were very good friends and they and they

39:23

had all the drummers and the jazz

39:26

players in this house that we lived

39:28

on the eleventh Street, so

39:31

there was music from from the jazz

39:34

era, and then my mother always sang

39:37

the show tunes because this was the great era

39:39

of of Oklahoma and Carousal

39:41

and show and Porgy

39:43

and Bess was actually performed for my mother

39:46

and father first by George

39:48

and Ira Gersh when they came over to our

39:50

house, and my mother was asked to sing summertime

39:52

since she had a beautiful soprano voice, for them

39:54

to see how it would sound in the

39:57

soprano voice, or to see what it's it's. I don't

39:59

know exactly what they went over there for, but my mother

40:01

ended up singing soprano and on summertime,

40:04

and my father ended up ended up correcting

40:06

a couple of her notes, and that embarrassed

40:09

her tremendously, and she always used

40:11

that as the excuses to why she had an affair

40:13

and cuckolded him. No one

40:16

of them. Yes, that

40:19

was from my interview with the brilliant,

40:21

the beguiling Carly Simon.

40:34

One of the most enjoyable times in my

40:36

career was when the late Robert

40:38

Osborne invited me to join him on Turner

40:40

Classic Movies for the Essentials,

40:43

a program we ended up doing a few times

40:46

together. Beyond his

40:48

abundant knowledge about and passion

40:50

for movies, Osborne

40:53

was one of the most elegant and gracious

40:55

men I've ever met in show business,

40:57

so it comes as no surprise that I did

41:00

him on. Here's the thing, this

41:02

is Robert Osborne. I grew

41:05

up in a small town where I went to the movies

41:07

a lot and fell in love with all these people also

41:10

fell in love with the movie business. So all I

41:12

saw were actors on the screen. So I thought, well,

41:14

that's what I have to be if I want to be a part of the

41:16

movie business. Nobody then was talking about

41:18

film editors. There were no film schools talking

41:21

about directing, you know, any of that

41:23

kind of stuff. I decidedn't want to be an actor,

41:25

and so I was doing Did your parents say about

41:27

that? That was fine? As long as I got an education.

41:31

People yeah, they were, they

41:33

were, They were not. People had said, you know, be

41:35

practical, get an education and something you can

41:37

make a living at. But do what you want to do.

41:39

At least try it, and then if it doesn't

41:41

work out, move to something else. So

41:44

I started doing a little theater work in Seattle,

41:46

and one of the plays I did was a play called knightmas

41:48

Fall with Jane Darwell. Jane

41:51

Darwell and is the lady you would know

41:53

this who played Henry Fond his mother in the Grapes

41:55

of Wraps and won the Oscar for it. And

41:57

she's the one that said, you know, when you finished

42:00

with this, what are you gonna do when you finish your She

42:02

came up to Washington to a regional theater. Yes,

42:06

And so I said, well, I'm going to go

42:08

to New York and she said, no, you have

42:10

more of a California. Look, you should come to California.

42:13

And she said, you can stay at my house.

42:15

She had a staff and all of that kind

42:17

of stuff. They lived down in the valley and she said,

42:20

you can at least get your feet on the ground there.

42:22

I'll introduce you to an agent. She said, I

42:24

think you do very well. So I did

42:26

Dad with Jane Darwell and her family at her house

42:29

on Ethel Avenue in the San Fernando Valley.

42:32

Yes introduced me to an agent with m c

42:34

A. In those days, if

42:37

you could really walk and talk at the same time,

42:39

you could get a contract of the studio.

42:42

That first one. He took me to his Fox and they said,

42:44

we want you to be under contract. So I was there

42:46

for like six months. And during that period of time,

42:49

I did a television show which

42:51

was a Western. That of all,

42:53

I was doing a little theater group. This

42:55

is a convoluted story, but I'm going to get

42:57

to where I'm going. And it was a theater group

43:00

run by an actor named Francis Lederer.

43:02

So I was doing some impros in the class

43:05

and one of his friends came to it and

43:07

I was Paul Henry, you know with the two

43:09

cigarettes with Navis. So Paul

43:11

Henriid was saying, well,

43:13

I'm directing a western, got

43:15

a part coming up. I think you'd be right for I want

43:17

you to come over and read for it next week. So,

43:20

you know, I was kind of new to all of this, and I

43:22

thought, you know, I went to California

43:24

and I got a contract right away and got

43:27

a part in a TV thing right way. I thought, this

43:29

is kind of easy.

43:31

So anyway, I did the TV show and

43:34

I had the lead in it for this one episode.

43:37

The stage we shot an

43:39

outdoor sequence for this

43:41

Western on was where Paul

43:43

Henry made the Spanish main which

43:45

meant there was also the sound stage where

43:47

Fred and jinjured at all their big dance numbers.

43:49

So that was kind of thrilling to me. Didn't

43:52

mean anything to anybody else in the day,

43:55

Fred who So anyway,

43:57

I went back the next day to thank the casting man

43:59

and the people that put me in this thing

44:01

for the Californians.

44:04

There was this wonderful man, Milt Lewis, who had used

44:06

to be a talent scout of Paramount Studios.

44:09

He was in the office and I thanked him, and

44:11

he said, well, do you have an appointment for

44:14

the Lucy Ball auditions?

44:16

And I said, no, I don't know about any Lucier

44:18

Ball auditions. And he said, well, yeah,

44:20

she's putting a contract group together

44:23

and so she's going to have these auditions and

44:25

I think there next week, but I'm not sure.

44:27

But let me call up to her office and find out instead

44:29

of a secretary answering Lucy answer,

44:32

and he said, I got this

44:34

guy down here, and I thought he might be a

44:36

good bet for your contract people. So

44:38

she obviously said, well, I'm not doing anything, send him

44:40

up right now. So I went up to this office.

44:43

There she was. Now, I have to tell you,

44:46

I was impressed by her, but I didn't

44:48

see a lot of I Love Lucy because when that was really

44:50

hitting its peak, I was in college

44:53

and I was studying. I had to study hall. I

44:55

wasn't didn't watch TV, and I loved the movies.

44:58

If it had been a Loana Turner had met her somebody, I wouldn't

45:00

been able to talk. But it was Lucille Ball, and

45:03

she was impressed that I'm into college because she hadn't

45:05

any finished high school. This I got

45:07

to know about her later. But also she was

45:09

impressed by the fact I was living at Jane Darwell's

45:11

house because I had asked her in our conversation

45:15

who some of her favorite leading men were, and

45:17

she said, leading him in didn't mean that much to me. I like working

45:19

with talented people, but it was the character

45:21

actors I love. She said, I loved like Edward Everett

45:24

Horton and I loved Harpo Marx and

45:26

I love Donald Meek. Well I knew all those people

45:28

were. And she was impressed by that because

45:30

at that time, nobody knew who those people

45:32

were. There was no nostalgia, nobody cared.

45:34

So it's interesting how at that point in your

45:37

life, the passion you had, that curiosity

45:40

you had that you've turned into a career.

45:42

Yeah, the roots of it were you

45:44

were just impressing a smaller circle of

45:46

people that knowledge when you're there in and

45:48

and Lucia is going, God, I love Jane Darnward.

45:51

Yeah. Yes. So she

45:54

had said, is there any film on you? And I said, well, I just

45:56

did this thing with Paul Henry and I've

45:58

also done a test with Anne Baker.

46:01

And so she called over to Fox. Can

46:03

I see the Diane Baker test, Lucille

46:06

Ball, how soon can you send it over?

46:08

Lucy was somebody that the minute she

46:10

wanted something, she did it. She hung

46:12

up the phone. She said, they're going to send it over. It'll be here

46:14

in about a half an hour. So we kept talking. The

46:17

test was made for Diane, not

46:19

for me, so there was a lot

46:21

of the back of me. So when

46:23

it was over. Lucy didn't

46:26

really say anything. She's just thanked me for coming by,

46:28

and I thought, well, she wasn't that impressed,

46:30

but at least I got to spend some time with Lucille Ball.

46:32

Like a week later, a message comes

46:35

on my voice. Uh,

46:37

you're answering service. Absolutely

46:39

answering service called Lucille Ball's

46:41

office right away. Here's the number. Hello

46:44

Lebray and nine and calling

46:47

answer phone. Yes, I called the number,

46:49

and the second he said, well, Lucille Ball wants you to

46:51

come to dinner on Friday night if

46:53

you're available, and meet DESI. I thought,

46:55

well that's interesting. So I

46:57

go to Lucy's house at Friday night.

47:00

There's no Desi, but there's Lucy.

47:03

There's Janet Gayner, there's

47:05

Joseph Cotton, there's Kay

47:07

Thompson, Chuck Walters,

47:10

Charles Walters, the director Roger Eden's,

47:12

and a couple of other people, and her sister Cleo,

47:15

who was actually her cousin but raised as her

47:17

sister, and me. After

47:20

the dinner, and they were all chatting

47:22

and laughing and all of that drink drinking.

47:24

Not Lucy. Lucy wasn't no drinker at that point.

47:27

She she learned how to drink a little bit later

47:29

on, but not at that point. So we went

47:32

in the living room and on

47:35

Roxbury, right next door to Jack Benny

47:39

exactly and just down the street from Ira

47:42

Gershwin and around the corner from

47:48

So anyway, after dinner we went

47:50

in the living room. She pushes the button

47:52

and the painting goes up. Putting

47:54

another button, the screen comes down, and

47:56

I'm thinking, did you ever believe that

47:58

you would ever be? And then I thought, no, way, I always knew

48:00

I was going to be here. I remember

48:04

that thought. I first started to say automatically,

48:07

did you ever think God and that was

48:09

the beginning for you? Yeah? And I thought, no,

48:11

I always knew I was going to be with people like this,

48:14

and I relaxed. Then I really relaxed

48:16

as I thought, No, this is where you're supposed

48:19

to yeah, and when you

48:21

love this is where I'm supposed to be. Where

48:24

do you remember Funny Face, which was which

48:26

was about three years old

48:28

that no,

48:31

But what was great about it was there's

48:33

a part in Funny Face when Kate Thompson

48:35

and Andrew Heppurn get up and do a number called on

48:37

how to Be Lovely Together.

48:40

Kay Thompson got up by the screen. I did the number

48:42

so and it was, you know, fun watch

48:44

the movie. The movie was over, everybody

48:46

starts to go, so I think, well,

48:49

I'm supposed to go to I still don't know

48:51

quite why I'm here, And it certainly

48:53

wasn't Lucy was saying, you know, stay around

48:55

a little boy or anything like. It wasn't

48:57

that. So we got to the front door,

49:00

spanking Lucy for the evening. She said, well, have you signed

49:02

a paper yet? And I said, put papers. I

49:05

want you another contract. And I said,

49:07

well, nobody

49:08

said we're

49:10

doing business,

49:12

yes, you idiot. Nobody's ever mentioned

49:15

anything about a contract or anything. And she

49:17

said give them an address tomorrow

49:19

and signed the papers anyone.

49:24

So I was under contract then to Desilu and

49:26

so that was for two years. The great thing about

49:28

it was is that filming

49:32

television. It didn't pay us much

49:34

money at all, but it was like

49:36

a masterclass for me because there

49:39

were about twelve of us on the contract, but there were three

49:41

of us who were really interested in

49:44

the business, and she kind of recognized

49:46

that right away and took us under her wing. That's

49:48

when I first met Bettie Davis. Bettie Davis

49:50

came to l A in a play called the World

49:52

of Carl Sandberg. So she took

49:54

us to the play and then took us backstage afterwards

49:56

to meet Betty Davis and Vivian Lee.

49:58

Came a duel of angels, and so she went

50:00

backstage and settled it vivianly.

50:03

It took us with her. Anytime there was somebody

50:05

like that, Noel Coward or MARLENEA.

50:07

Dietrich, she would take us there

50:10

pick up the tabs because again she knew

50:12

she wasn't paying enough money to

50:14

keep for us to be able to do that. So

50:16

we got this terrific education. And she also

50:19

now Desi at this point was womanizing.

50:21

He wasn't around much. So she

50:24

would get movies that

50:26

we wanted to see or hadn't seen because they weren't

50:29

that accessible in those days and run them

50:31

at her house. Or she would

50:33

show us I love Lucy's show. She'd

50:35

done bad ones and show us

50:37

why they didn't work, then show us a

50:39

good one and why it did work. Yes,

50:42

she also the first day any of us were

50:44

in a contract there and we first met

50:46

she arrived. She'd just gone to a bank which was

50:49

right around the corner from Desilu

50:52

and she got twelve savings

50:54

accounts that she opened, put

50:56

like fifty dollars in, and she gave

50:58

us in each of our name, gave us to the books. And

51:01

she said, every week you have to

51:03

put something away. And we were, as

51:05

I say, making very little money, and say, Lucy,

51:08

you know we don't barely enough to

51:10

to live on. She said, it can be only

51:12

five dollars, but every week put

51:14

something away. You won't miss it.

51:16

It'll add up. Very maternal and

51:18

she said, no matter what, the

51:20

thing you must do is have enough

51:23

money that you don't have to make decisions based

51:25

on money. For a kid

51:27

from Colfax, Washington, this was just

51:29

invaluable. I've been to college, but I never

51:32

had these kind of life lessons. In

51:34

the course of it, she meant, my folks, and she

51:36

got to know me. She said to me early

51:39

on, you can do this as an actor.

51:41

But she said, and I think

51:43

you could do well, but it's not gonna make you happy.

51:46

This is not the right line of work

51:48

for you. And she said, you love old

51:51

films, you love history, you love

51:53

everything about the business. And you're a journalist

51:55

and major in college. We have enough

51:57

actors you should write about movies. And

52:00

the first thing you should do is write a book. Who said this

52:02

to you, Lucy? She said, it doesn't even

52:04

have to be a good book. But find a subject about

52:06

the movies that nobody's done and

52:08

write a book about it. And I said why.

52:11

She said, if you write a book, it shows

52:13

you have to discipline to sit down and do that. Yes,

52:16

I did. What book? It was a book about the Oscars?

52:18

Is this the book right here? Oh? My god, yeah,

52:20

Academy words. I

52:23

want our listeners to know that

52:26

stunned expression. I

52:29

show a copy of the book that he is

52:32

amazing. Yes, there he was.

52:37

I know that his fans a turn of classic

52:39

movies, Miss Robert Osborne.

52:42

I know that because I'm one of them.

52:46

I saved a very special guest for

52:48

last. John Robin

52:50

Bates or Robbie to his friends, is a

52:53

great writer and an intoxicating

52:55

racontour. This is,

52:58

without a doubt, one of my all time favorite.

53:00

It's the details he shares

53:02

and the insights into his work

53:04

and life are so beautifully crafted.

53:07

His story is so smart and funny.

53:10

He should have his own show. I found

53:12

myself very much like the

53:14

character in my play played by

53:17

Beth Marvel and Rachel Griffith

53:19

at various points a writer

53:21

who is a dangerous

53:23

creature. And I had a note to myself

53:27

play about daughter

53:29

of a famous family who writes a book

53:33

about her growing

53:36

up in this family, something like that, the

53:39

danger of telling the truth

53:41

that turns out to be a lie. And

53:43

at that moment, this lady

53:46

of a certain age walked by me, and

53:48

she looked to me like um

53:51

Pat Buckley, the old Diane

53:54

of New York conservative politics, the

53:57

wife of Bill Buckley. Bill

53:59

Buckley and I had had lunch

54:01

with her once and found her to be charming and engaged.

54:04

And this woman walked by

54:06

me on this beach with her hat

54:08

and in a one piece bathing suit.

54:11

I immediately felt the mother in that

54:13

play. And I suddenly remembered

54:16

old California the way it was when

54:18

I was a kid, and we

54:20

were just in the throes of an election at the

54:22

time, too were about to be and

54:25

the Republicans of certainly

54:28

of that period and even

54:30

more so today, we're very

54:33

confusing to me because deem

54:35

recognizable to me as having a coherent,

54:37

cohesive coach and

54:40

argument for their principal positions,

54:42

which had to be principled in some way. The

54:45

play just came together in one fell

54:47

swoop, old California

54:49

conservatives, the

54:52

old Hollywood system, Reagan nights. I

54:55

even remembered I'd gone to high school with I

54:57

think, the daughter of John Gavin, and

55:00

I thought, you know, because I love Touch of Evil,

55:02

and I think, isn't John Gavin. No, he's

55:04

not in Touch of Evil. He's in Psycho case

55:07

in all these movies. And I thought about he was the ambassador

55:09

to Mexica. That's right, as is the

55:12

Stacy Keach character in my play.

55:14

And I thought about your

55:17

characters based on John Gavin to

55:20

some extent, they're all these archetypes. At

55:24

the back of all this, of course, there's also Joe

55:27

Mentello, who you know, we're no longer

55:29

a couple, but he's my family, my best

55:31

friend, and you see, being a couple of one year, two

55:34

thousand and two. So it was a while and

55:37

he kept saying to me, with

55:39

all possible respect, nobody's waiting

55:41

for the next Robbie Bates play.

55:44

And you know, these are chilling words

55:47

because I have so much to say and it's

55:49

not coming out. My equivalent of that,

55:51

as my agent said to me, he goes, It's not that these

55:53

people don't want to hire you because they don't like you.

55:56

He says, they don't want to hire you because

55:58

they don't think of you at all all. Jesus,

56:02

Well, it's terrible, because the worst thing that

56:04

can happen to an artist, I'm invisible.

56:07

I no longer matter for

56:10

me. Writing plays has always been

56:12

very tricky.

56:15

I don't know a lot. I don't have a lot to

56:17

say. I reached things very slowly,

56:20

and I I sometimes it seems

56:22

facile and easy,

56:24

and to me some of the times my

56:27

thoughts and my sort of expressed

56:30

opinions in place seem hollow

56:32

or naive, even because

56:35

I know they're deeper truths always to be found

56:37

and that I'm But don't you think that seeking

56:40

them and being aware of that makes you more

56:42

likely to find it than anybody? You didn't go to college?

56:45

Did you know why you wanted educating

56:47

yourself? I wish I had gone

56:49

to college. It was a

56:52

depressed and unsettled kid. And

56:55

why I don't. I

56:58

think I wasn't at peace with probably

57:03

any element of who I was, whether

57:06

it was a sort of nascent intellectual or

57:08

sort of pre expressive

57:10

homosexual, kid or

57:13

grew up where variously

57:16

l A from you were born Where

57:18

in l A and you lived seven

57:21

then Brazil for three years in Rio,

57:23

and then South Africa for

57:26

six and a half years until I was eighteen.

57:29

And your father was in the condensed milk business.

57:31

My father worked for a giant

57:33

multinational carnation

57:35

milk. Yeah, it was a condensed milk business.

57:38

So l A, Brazil, South

57:40

Africa, and then back to LA. When

57:42

you finally get back to l A. How old are you? So

57:45

high school is over? I just finished high

57:47

school. I sort of lost time through all the

57:49

travels high school in South Africa, like

57:52

I couldn't get used to things like cricket and

57:54

corporal punishment, you

57:56

know, you'd get cane for, like not doing

57:58

well on a spelling test literally

58:00

came and I think I

58:03

was so busy trying to be sly and

58:05

charming that I forgot

58:08

how to be me. That

58:11

I think led me to rebel against

58:13

learning itself. So

58:16

I was sort of interested in the few

58:18

things. I was interested in literature history,

58:21

but I wouldn't apply myself to anything except

58:23

escape, and part of escape

58:25

meant not going to college. I

58:28

was really lonely, and I

58:30

I kind of became a

58:33

depressed kid and

58:35

that manifests it stuff. If you can say

58:39

I think I did you know you were

58:41

gay? Then yes,

58:43

I definitely knew that. I knew

58:45

that add to your depression didn't make you feel more

58:47

isolated. It

58:50

wasn't proactive the gay community there

58:52

in talk

58:56

about getting caned. Yeah, well,

58:59

um, I think my parents,

59:01

who loved me very much, were

59:04

distracted by their own terrors.

59:08

There are certain families that are

59:10

born in terror and

59:12

live in terror. Um,

59:15

conceived in terror? I need you to

59:17

write a player for me. I want to be called conceived

59:20

in terror? Go ahead, well,

59:22

no, I mean death of a salesman is

59:24

is a family that lives in terror? You

59:27

were how old when you arrived in Durban? Ten

59:30

to the eight years? Yeah?

59:32

I was there almost eight years critical time,

59:34

ten years or so all of your real back

59:36

half of your childhood, your teenage years, especially

59:39

you are in Durban. I guess it was

59:41

seventeen or something when we left. But

59:43

you had finished the high school program. No, no, I

59:45

finished it in l A. You did? Where? What

59:49

was that? Like? I? You know, was

59:51

the only kid I knew who rode their bike

59:53

to school? Because everybody else's

59:55

parents had given them a fiad literally

59:58

yeah or something. Who were your friends

1:00:01

then? Who did you become friends with? Anyone? Oh?

1:00:03

Yeah? In fact, Jenny

1:00:05

Livingston went on to make Paris

1:00:08

Is Burning, great documentary, Tina

1:00:10

Landau great theater director. Gina

1:00:13

Gershawn my oldest friend from high

1:00:15

school. We were in place together in the drama

1:00:17

department. So I became friends

1:00:19

with and I say this with real respect

1:00:22

and love with fellow freaks.

1:00:24

How are you feeling about yourself and about life

1:00:27

that last year in Beverly Hills. I

1:00:29

think I was scared to death still.

1:00:31

I mean, it was just a new form of foreignness,

1:00:34

but it had the pattern of something very familiar

1:00:36

to me. But you know, I remember being taken

1:00:39

to a party really early on, and

1:00:42

I had developed a kind of weird

1:00:44

eye beforehand for art. I thought maybe

1:00:46

I was going to be a painter or an artist storian. And

1:00:49

I walked into this house and

1:00:52

there is a giant David

1:00:55

Hackney and next to it

1:00:57

is a giant Mother. Well, I'm

1:01:00

ending in front of this giant painting that's

1:01:02

famous that I've looked at in books Thames

1:01:04

and huts and art books. While I was in

1:01:07

Durban at the Art Library of the

1:01:09

University. I know, the world was just

1:01:12

very real and different, and it

1:01:14

was easier to like have sex,

1:01:16

and it was easier to to function.

1:01:19

Were you writing? I guess

1:01:22

I was sort of writing, Yeah, what

1:01:24

were you writing? I

1:01:27

was writing really bad

1:01:29

short stories about alienated

1:01:33

Paul Bull's kids adrift

1:01:36

in foreign countries, which is basically

1:01:39

tell you that truth. Still what I'm doing. It just looks

1:01:41

slightly the wallpapers prettier.

1:01:44

Now, where were you living at that? I

1:01:47

was living um

1:01:49

on friends sofas, like

1:01:51

the parents of children I went to high

1:01:53

school with. I

1:01:56

was. I was just this freak, you know.

1:01:58

And I was at it with

1:02:00

my family at the time, you know, and

1:02:02

I had escaped and it was just a

1:02:05

nightmare. How do we get

1:02:07

from there to fair Country?

1:02:10

Gordon Davidson, you know

1:02:12

in Pinocchio where he falls in with actors.

1:02:16

I'm walking around.

1:02:19

I ran into this girl I knew

1:02:21

from high school. She said, what are

1:02:23

you doing? And I'm sort of looking for a job.

1:02:25

I think I'm starving to death. I'm not sure,

1:02:28

she said to me, And I should have known. She

1:02:31

said, well, my father just fired me. He needs

1:02:33

to he

1:02:36

needs a new assistant and I was like,

1:02:39

well, what does he do and she said, oh, he's a film producer.

1:02:42

Who was the film producer. This

1:02:45

is great guy, and he

1:02:49

was. He a working producer. I'm only asking for a name.

1:02:53

My first day at the office, he

1:02:55

says to me, whatever you

1:02:57

do, answer the phones, but

1:03:00

never pick up the phone. And I

1:03:02

was like, I don't even know what that means. And

1:03:05

he said, you'll do fine. And

1:03:07

he had a gang of cronies,

1:03:10

all of whom had contempt

1:03:12

for the studio system

1:03:15

and had worked around the edges of it, or in

1:03:17

it, had done well, fallen out

1:03:19

of favor, usually had

1:03:21

destroyed themselves through my

1:03:23

favorite thing, their own ambivalence.

1:03:26

I found myself at home for the first time in my

1:03:29

life win the nest

1:03:31

of scorpions. Yes I did, I found

1:03:33

myself. I said this, I know, yeah,

1:03:35

because nobody is trying

1:03:37

to pass. It's a den

1:03:39

of thieves here. It was still

1:03:41

the days of speaker phone and

1:03:44

they would have fights. They had a tower

1:03:46

on Sunset Boulevard. They had a nest

1:03:48

of rooms in a tower and they

1:03:50

would be fighting with each other and then they would suddenly

1:03:52

be a pause. Someone would

1:03:54

say, geez, if

1:03:57

you could see what I see right now, that

1:03:59

girl walking on sunset. She

1:04:01

is so beautiful. The fight

1:04:03

was over. Yeah, nothing

1:04:06

meant any codic of sex. That's

1:04:08

right. One of the masks for a glass of waters.

1:04:11

My first few weeks there two

1:04:14

what do I know. I

1:04:16

would go to the sink, bring

1:04:19

a glass of waters, spit it out like

1:04:21

practically on me and say this isn't

1:04:23

water, and I would say, yes, it's water.

1:04:26

What are you talking about? That's water. It's I

1:04:28

want professional water. And

1:04:31

the whole time became about professional water.

1:04:35

Robbie Bates. I could listen to you talk

1:04:37

all day long. Well

1:04:40

that's it. We started in the

1:04:42

fall of two thousand eleven and

1:04:44

we've conducted over two hundred interviews

1:04:47

since then. Thank you all

1:04:49

for listening, and again my thanks

1:04:51

to w n y C. But

1:04:53

we're not done. I'm excited

1:04:55

to announce that the podcast is moving

1:04:57

to the I Heart podcast Network.

1:05:00

We're going to take a few weeks off, and

1:05:02

we will be back on January twelve

1:05:04

with new episodes. If you're already

1:05:07

a subscriber, you don't have to do anything

1:05:09

different to get the new episodes. You'll

1:05:12

still be subscribed and the show will still be

1:05:14

available wherever you listen to podcasts,

1:05:16

whether that's the I heart app, Apple

1:05:18

podcast, or anywhere you listen

1:05:21

to podcasts. That's

1:05:23

all for now. We'll be back soon on

1:05:25

iHeart with more. Here's

1:05:27

the thing.