0:04

Muhammad Ali and Joe Frasier

0:07

for the first time.

0:08

In Heavyweight Champions Tip Fiftray, we

0:10

have two undefeated.

0:11

Fighters and they are Jimmy Connors

0:13

and Bjorn boor Or.

0:15

Gets broken serve once again and leads

0:17

four to two in the final set.

0:20

The Steelers versus the Raiders,

0:23

good love

0:27

It. The nineteen seventies

0:29

saw some ferocious rivalries.

0:32

But I know what I'd pick as the fiercest

0:35

of them all.

0:36

Oh, Fred, please help us. My church

0:38

is raising monify our youth program.

0:41

We want to buy ween.

0:43

We'll let him have one of yours. Bet what

0:48

it's something.

0:53

The show was sandford AND's son, and

0:56

when junkyard dealer Fred Sandford

0:59

played by Red Fox and aunt Esther,

1:01

his Bible toting sister in law, began

1:04

trash talking, it got ugly

1:07

and hilarious.

1:11

If we were alone on a raft in the

1:13

middle of the.

1:13

Ocean, I'd rather kiss the octopus

1:16

in the knock.

1:19

I wouldn't want you to kiss me. I'd

1:22

rather be kissed by Snaggertude Jagga.

1:26

The character of aunt Esther joined the

1:28

series at the end of season two, and

1:30

for many in the audience, the actress playing

1:33

her Lawanda Page was

1:35

a new face, an overnight sensation,

1:40

but both Red Fox and Lawanda

1:42

Page were veteran comics with

1:45

big followings.

1:46

We'd bring to the floor the young lady that recalled

1:48

the record that was so dirty.

1:49

So rough, built in black nightclubs

1:52

and through adults only party records.

1:54

This record is so rough that you wouldn't even let your own mother in law

1:56

listen to it.

1:57

And let's just say aunt esther would

2:00

not have approved of this material.

2:03

You know what he said to Adam in the gardener

2:05

eaton one day.

2:06

She looked at all his in his hand. She said,

2:09

you got the whole world

2:12

in yon.

2:13

Man saying

2:20

things that weren't said would

2:23

be even more shocked than coming from

2:25

a woman. Lewanda Page wasn't

2:27

seen as a woman comet. You know,

2:29

she was a star. She was funny.

2:31

In her fifties, she became one of the

2:33

most popular people on TV.

2:35

I've come a long ways.

2:37

If it hadn't been for Red, I wouldn't

2:39

be in position that I'm in now. I

2:41

wouldn't have a maid, I wouldn't have a chauffeur,

2:44

I wouldn't have a gardener because

2:46

I couldn't afford it.

2:48

I thought the still he.

2:49

Wasn't in a nightclub, a celebrity

2:51

roasting other celebrities.

2:53

Now, let's see which one is.

2:55

Betty White. Get

3:00

a bunch of you albinos on one days

3:02

and you all look alike.

3:05

She was funny as hell.

3:07

And black women, they will tear you up.

3:10

They will tear you up, they will tell you about yourself.

3:12

But I had one confirmation. I finally

3:15

got.

3:15

That sucker to go to church within and

3:18

child. It was a beautiful tu.

3:23

But if Lawanda Page's life is a

3:25

book, mainstream America only

3:27

knows the last chapter.

3:29

If you went to clubs, you would

3:32

know who she was. And let's just call

3:34

it what it was.

3:35

If you weren't black, you didn't know who she was.

3:37

I can't test.

3:38

I can attest from CBS

3:41

Sunday Morning and iHeart. I'm

3:43

Morocca and this is mobituaries,

3:52

This mobid Lwanda Page.

3:55

Ladies and gentlemen. Here she is the Queen of

3:57

comedy.

3:58

Lorwanda September

4:01

fourteenth, two thousand and two. Death

4:05

of a comedy queen.

4:07

Thank you, thank you.

4:28

I noticed on the platform formerly

4:30

known as Twitter, a picture of

4:33

this beautiful woman in a swimsuit

4:36

and somebody said, does anybody know who this is? And

4:38

I scrolled down because I thought she looked familiar,

4:40

and somebody said, it's it's an estor

4:42

from Sanford, and so I went Hodie smoked.

4:44

Oh yeah, no, that listen. Lwanda

4:47

Page is stunningly beautiful.

4:50

And what ends up happening often,

4:54

particularly with women of color, no

4:57

one knows anything about us because we

4:59

weren't really part of the regular

5:01

world because unless you knew about

5:03

black performers, you didn't know about.

5:05

A lot of folks. I'm talking with comedian

5:08

and actress and Egot winner

5:10

Whoopy Goldberg, and it's true

5:13

Lawanda Page had a long and surprising

5:16

career in showbiz before Sandford

5:18

and Son that white audiences knew

5:20

little about.

5:21

We're a lot better now about

5:24

it, but in the fifties, unless

5:27

you were in the know, you

5:30

were not hanging out in the clubs where Lewanda

5:33

was.

5:33

People didn't know.

5:34

You know, she's like blackfire or something.

5:37

It's just you know, and she was hot.

5:39

Once upon a time, there

5:42

was a little black girl in

5:44

the Brewster projects of Detroit,

5:47

Michigan. At fifteen,

5:50

she was spighted by an ebony fashion

5:52

fair talent scout, and her

5:54

modeling career took on You

5:57

Better work.

6:00

That's Luwanda Page in the intro to

6:02

Rue Paul's nineteen ninety three seminal

6:05

dance hit Supermodel turns

6:07

out Rue Paul is a Lawanda Page

6:09

super fan. Now, Lawanda

6:12

was not born in the Brewster projects

6:14

of Detroit. In fact, she wasn't

6:16

even born Lawanda Page. Her

6:20

name was Alberta Richmond when

6:22

she came into the world in Cleveland,

6:24

Ohio, in nineteen twenty. As

6:26

a kid during the Great Depression, she'd

6:29

dance on street corners for spare change.

6:32

I would dream about being in show business,

6:34

Lawanda would later tell the Black Entertainment

6:37

magazine Roots, like I was

6:39

Cinderella in a storybook. I thought

6:41

I'd reach it through dancing. When

6:45

her family moved to Saint Louis, Lawanda

6:47

went to Banneker Elementary School,

6:50

where she became friends with her future co

6:52

star, Red Fox. He was

6:54

two grades below her. Lawanda

6:57

grew up fast, pregnant,

6:59

and married at fourteen. Her son

7:01

died in infancy.

7:03

At sixteen.

7:04

She had a daughter. By nineteen Lawanda

7:07

was widowed. By then, she was

7:09

already working the clubs as

7:11

she later told one reporter she made

7:14

thirty six dollars a week as a shake

7:16

dancer. The shaking part had to

7:18

do with the fringe she wore. I

7:20

shook the fringe, she said, My did

7:23

I shake that fringe. By

7:25

this time, she'd taken the name Lawanda,

7:28

perhaps to keep her religious mother from

7:30

finding out what she was doing. When

7:35

the club owner decided that Lawanda

7:37

needed to shake up her act, she had

7:40

a flash, so to speak. I

7:42

was sitting in the dressing room and my lighter

7:44

fluid spilled on my hand, she recalled.

7:47

When she proceeded to light a cigarette,

7:50

her hand caught fire, so

7:52

did her imagination. Lawanda

7:55

was going to do a fire act at

7:57

a club in East Saint Louis called the

8:00

Blue Flame. Yes, the Blue

8:02

Flame. A drag queen named

8:04

Taboo showed her the ropes. It's

8:07

in the breathing. Lawanda remembered

8:09

being taught, when you put the torch in

8:11

your mouth, breathe out. If

8:13

you don't, you're done like a roast.

8:16

And always keep moving. As long

8:18

as you keep moving, the flames don't

8:20

burn you. That's how I became

8:22

the Bronze Goddess of fire,

8:26

swallowing flames walking on

8:28

hot coals. She even brought a snake

8:30

into her act. It was perilous

8:33

work. She burned herself and

8:35

merely burned down a few clubs, but

8:37

the act was good enough to take on the road.

8:40

There's this quote from a drummer who worked with

8:42

her at the New Deli Cabaret

8:44

in Vancouver. She'd light her finger

8:47

and go around lighting guy cigarettes in the

8:49

club. Then the lights would go off and she'd

8:51

light up the tassels on her pasties

8:53

and spin them like propellers

8:55

in opposite directions.

8:56

It was wonderful.

8:58

You gotta have a give.

9:02

It got ave a gammick.

9:04

Now.

9:05

Lawanda never wrote a memoir, but

9:07

in her later stand up work she talked

9:09

about her early days. Here she

9:11

is from her nineteen seventy nine album

9:14

Sane Advice, talking about

9:16

the first time she saw a certain pioneering

9:19

black star of the silver screen.

9:22

All the pretty women in the movies in magazine

9:24

were white, and when

9:26

a pretty girl came on the screen, the

9:28

white men they were allowed to pap and

9:31

whistle, but the black food

9:33

sat tight and kept quiet.

9:35

Had to hunt it.

9:36

They had to do it.

9:38

Then came nineteen forty three, nineteen

9:41

forty three. Baby, I remember the day

9:44

the movie was Kevin in the Sky and

9:47

the pretty woman was Lena Home

9:53

and Honey, when Lena came on the screen, all

9:56

them black southerns Honda they screen, they

9:58

whistle. How they taught tell

10:00

the buffet the popcorn machine.

10:02

Oh man, they throw down to ricks.

10:04

The theater in Saint Louis. They

10:06

say, we don't want to sit down, we want

10:09

to get down.

10:16

And I don't blame him, honey, because Leedom

10:19

was bright light and damn

10:21

near white.

10:28

She was a black beauty.

10:30

And right then I made up my mind

10:32

I was going into show business. I

10:34

went straight down town and got me a job

10:36

dancing. Yes

10:39

did.

10:43

Born in Cleveland, growing up in Saint Louis.

10:45

And she wants to be a star. She wanted

10:47

to be a Hollywood star. Can you just

10:49

even relate or imagine like what

10:52

that burning desire is or

10:54

yeah.

10:55

Because you're watching these movies and

10:57

it doesn't occur to you that

11:00

that's not going to be you.

11:02

It doesn't occur.

11:03

To you because I mean, I

11:06

loved all those movies that they made

11:08

in the thirties and the forties and the fifties.

11:10

I had no idea you know. I'm thinking

11:12

of the letter in.

11:13

Particularly Danny Davis.

11:14

Where she comes down and says,

11:18

shooting the guy.

11:21

But all I hut, I still love

11:23

the lad I killed.

11:25

And I'm thinking that's what I want to do. And

11:27

no one ever said, no, You're never

11:30

going to be Benny Davis. My mother

11:32

said, yes, of course, sure,

11:34

just don't shoot anybody.

11:35

But you could do that.

11:37

God bless your mother.

11:38

But that's such an interesting point because that's what dreaming

11:40

is, right, a suspension of disbelief, right,

11:43

Yes.

11:43

And so I'm sure it never

11:45

occurred to Lawanda that

11:48

she wasn't going to be one of those women.

11:51

Never ocurred to her, and never

11:53

occurred to me either, till someone said.

11:56

Oh, you know you're black, don't

11:58

you.

11:59

It's like, yeah, of course, I know.

12:02

Was that I have to do with this, with wanting

12:04

to be the starter And what my mother would say

12:07

is it has nothing to do with it. They

12:09

might not understand everything, but they'll get it.

12:12

Somebody will get it if you're good

12:14

enough.

12:16

Of course, Lawanda's path was limited

12:19

by legalized segregation. She

12:21

worked at the informal network of black

12:23

nightclubs and theaters known as the Chitlin

12:26

Circuit. Here she is again from

12:28

Saint Advice.

12:30

I was one and excited girl,

12:32

but I had no idea what was ahead of me.

12:36

It was August child and hot hot

12:38

hop hop hop, hunted

12:40

forty people, best costumes.

12:43

All it was riding and living in the same

12:45

booth. Before

12:47

we got out of Saint Louis, my sixth day, daughter,

12:50

my pet had died.

12:58

Time traveling on a show is

13:00

like no trip you ever took the cover.

13:03

Maybe if you hear loud noise in the back,

13:05

it's the luggage trying to get.

13:07

Out and

13:10

child.

13:11

I open my window and the fumes

13:13

from that bus till the whole proper meat

13:15

in camp.

13:19

You know, visually, in my mind, I could

13:21

see her on the bus with you know, nine

13:23

thousand people, all performers,

13:26

playing cards, smoking cigarettes, just

13:28

because they could only stop at specific

13:30

places and they could only stay in

13:33

specific places.

13:34

That's of a time. That's

13:36

of a time.

13:38

You of course know what this is like.

13:40

It's not easy to get up there and

13:42

hold an audience like that and

13:45

not rush it.

13:46

Yeah, well, you know, she is breathing,

13:49

do you know what I mean? She's up there and she's breathing.

13:52

She's like and then this habit. Can

13:55

you believe it?

13:56

Oh?

13:56

Wait a minute, and then this happened.

13:59

It's a stop of patter that

14:01

you don't hear often,

14:04

but you hear with black

14:08

comics, particularly

14:11

female black comics. You have

14:13

a little bit of the South, and you just telling

14:16

what happened.

14:16

And I love that you said just breathing, because

14:19

that's a big deal because people who don't

14:21

know what they're doing, they're not breathing, they're

14:23

just going right through.

14:24

They're nervous.

14:25

She's in no rush.

14:26

She'd tell the story the stage of hers who

14:29

she is, and it's kind of fabulous.

14:34

But Lawanda hadn't even tried to

14:36

stand up comedy until the mid

14:38

nineteen fifties, when she was in

14:40

her mid thirties and had settled

14:42

in South Los Angeles. She was

14:44

still the Bronze Goddess of fire dancing

14:47

at a club called the Brass Rail when

14:49

some of her fellow performers noticed

14:52

how funny she was. As she later

14:54

told Jet Magazine, when I got

14:56

too old to dance, I turned to

14:58

comedy. She started working

15:00

with comedic duo Skillett and Leroy

15:03

Records.

15:04

But that's the very fabulous

15:06

Lerii skillet and Lwanda.

15:10

Many of Lawanda's bits were drawn from

15:12

her own life. She'd been widowed

15:15

three times before she even started

15:17

doing comedy.

15:18

I should have known it never work out for old John

15:20

and me honey, because it was written in the stones.

15:23

I was a Burgo and that sucker

15:26

was a line of honey,

15:28

can take no kind of John. That's the

15:30

only man I know that ever went to the unemployment

15:33

office and lost his place in land.

15:38

Lawanda would work black comedy clubs

15:40

for the next two decades. Her

15:43

humor was as fiery as her

15:45

dancing had been. Coming up

15:47

after the break Lwanda Page

15:50

Red Fox and The Age of

15:52

the Party Record. Well,

15:54

now, some of those albums, especially

15:57

Lawanda's earlier ones, they're

15:59

really blue. I don't think I'm a shrinking

16:01

violet, but they're blue even for today.

16:03

They are dirty as hell.

16:06

Yes, yes, our

16:19

next guest is dubbed the King of

16:21

the Party Records. Basically that means

16:23

they're intended for laughs in the living

16:26

room. He's made thirty four albums and they

16:28

have sold in the millions. He's

16:30

kind of a stranger to television and a stranger

16:32

to me, frankly, but I'm very anxious

16:34

to meet him. He's got an enormous cult

16:37

of admirers. Here is Red Fox.

16:42

In nineteen sixty six, talk show

16:44

host MERV Griffin. Welcome to

16:46

comedian Red Fox. We're

16:48

all party records.

16:50

You're playing in a party. You have never been a party.

16:51

Put the records on when it's kind of dull, and

16:54

then wait, yeah, are

16:56

the body starts naughty?

16:59

Yes.

17:01

In this act, we're going to talk about party

17:04

records and the role they played,

17:06

not just in Lawanda Page's career,

17:09

but in the careers of many major

17:11

black comics. Now, these records

17:14

were not for kids, as Red Box

17:16

all but said in that clip we just heard. In

17:18

fact, many of the albums came

17:20

wrapped in brown paper.

17:22

It's so funny now to look back,

17:25

because we're not talking that long ago. But America

17:27

has always had this kind of false morality,

17:30

like, oh, we don't do that. You know, it's like

17:32

porn. It's like, oh, there's a fifty

17:34

billion dollar business that no one buys.

17:39

That's what these records were.

17:42

I'm talking to my friend, comedian Alonso

17:44

Boden.

17:45

Got a new iPhone. Got a new iPhone

17:48

costs somewhere between twelve hundred

17:50

and fifteen thousand dollars.

17:52

I don't

17:54

know how much it costs because Siri body.

17:58

Alonso broke through after winning

18:01

NBC's Last Comic Standing.

18:03

I've had the great pleasure of being a panelist

18:06

on NPR's comedy quiz show Wait

18:09

Wait, Don't Tell Me with Alonso for

18:11

over a decade. Alonzo

18:13

has faint but fond memories

18:15

of the Party record era.

18:17

Everybody knew about them, and people

18:19

loved them, and it was really the only

18:21

way you heard these comics. Right, we

18:23

didn't have the internet. Someone got

18:25

the record. They told you about

18:27

the record, You told someone else about the

18:29

record.

18:30

As the name would suggest, these records

18:33

became big at parties.

18:35

My father had a bar in the

18:37

basement, and this is how they socialized,

18:39

you know. They had bars in the house

18:41

or pool table or something like that, and

18:43

they put the kids to bed, and this.

18:45

Is part of what came out at

18:48

that later night party.

18:49

Okay, I need you now, of course, to set

18:51

the scene. This is the Alonso Boden biopic.

18:54

You're a kid. I mean, set

18:56

the scene. Your dad's bar is downstairs.

19:00

What's going on?

19:04

So my dad's bar is downstairs.

19:06

He has friends over.

19:09

They might be a couple from the neighborhood,

19:11

and then some probably from work. We

19:14

had to go to bed. Of course, the funny

19:16

thing about me and my brother's room. It was

19:18

also in the basement, so we weren't

19:20

too far away.

19:24

You could hear the laughter, you could hear the glasses

19:26

tinkling. You know, you

19:29

know it was a party, really,

19:32

I know.

19:33

I said, you ought to be careful at night time and

19:35

pull your shades down. I said, because last night I saw

19:37

you and your wife making love.

19:39

He said, you kidding all I went to You'm home.

19:42

How important is Red Fox to

19:45

this whole party record scene?

19:47

He was the man. He was probably

19:49

the biggest star in that genre.

19:53

Red Fox's stand up was almost

19:56

all on these party records.

19:58

The party started in eighteen fifty

20:00

five when Los Angeles doo wop

20:03

producer Dootsey Williams visited

20:05

the Oasis nightclub and saw

20:08

Red Fox's set. Williams

20:10

ran a tiny label called Duto

20:12

Records, known for recording Earth

20:15

Angel by the Penguins.

20:17

Earthing Joo, Earthingjoo.

20:22

Will You Be Minde?

20:25

But the label had recently started

20:27

releasing novelty records. About

20:30

Red Fox. Williams said he

20:32

was so outrageous in such

20:34

a way that nobody would ever think of putting

20:37

him on a record. But I thought this

20:39

guy can sell. There

20:42

was no doubt that Fox was funny.

20:45

In his late teens, he had worked in a New

20:47

York City restaurant alongside

20:49

a future civil rights leader. Years

20:52

later, in his autobiography, Malcolm

20:54

X would refer to Fox as Chicago

20:57

Red, the funniest dishwasher

20:59

on Earth. Red Fox

21:01

would go on to become one of the first

21:04

black comedians to headline Vegas.

21:06

He would open his own La nightclub.

21:09

But back in fifty five, Red was

21:11

skeptical about this whole party record

21:13

idea. He later recalled it

21:16

was a black thing in a sense. So

21:18

I said I'd go ahead and record for

21:20

my black brother because nobody

21:22

else had offered me anything. For

21:25

the first album, Dootsey Williams

21:27

sat in the club with a tape recorder

21:30

and recorded Red's raunchy act.

21:32

In nineteen fifty six, Laugh of the

21:34

Party Volume one came out.

21:37

The Good Housekeeping Bureau has just released

21:39

some vital statistics very important

21:41

to all smokers. Do you know

21:43

that out of four hundred and forty six

21:46

doctors that switched to camels only two

21:48

of them went back to women.

21:52

The Low Fi recording was a big

21:54

fat hit. Box was the first

21:57

stand up comedian black or white

21:59

to release album, and according

22:01

to comedy historian Cliff Nesteroff,

22:04

after Fox, it became abnormal

22:06

if a comic didn't put out records.

22:09

Bob Newhart, Mort Sahl, Jonathan

22:12

Winters, they all came after

22:14

Red Fox. Over the next

22:16

six years, Dudo released approximately

22:19

twenty five Red Fox party records.

22:22

In just the first two years they

22:24

sold more than a million units.

22:27

They did a record with Red Fox and

22:29

they sold a ton of records, and they

22:32

said, wait a minute, we're on

22:34

to something. Who else you got, you

22:36

know? And they started recording these

22:38

other comedians.

22:40

Black comedians like George Kirby,

22:42

Sloppy Daniels, even a ventriloquist

22:45

and dummy act known as Richard

22:47

and Willie.

22:48

Huggin Yeah, Peason, Yeah, Kiss

22:51

in sixth All Candoise, Yeah, good gouda

22:53

man who are going to be there?

22:54

Yes, you and me?

23:00

And then in the late nineteen sixties,

23:02

Laugh Records entered and soon

23:04

dominated the party record scene.

23:07

One of the biggest names in comedy ever

23:10

would find his voice on the new label

23:13

A lot.

23:13

Of people don't know this that Prior

23:16

initially was a clean comic

23:18

and he was following in Cosby's

23:21

footsteps.

23:22

Yes, prior to the nineteen seventies,

23:25

Richard Pryor was g rated. Here

23:27

he is on the Murph Griffin Show in nineteen

23:30

sixty six.

23:31

People worry about everything about offending with the breath.

23:33

You worry about it, right.

23:34

You can tell when somebody's worried about because they talked

23:36

through their fingers.

23:41

But then Pryor had a kind of awakening.

23:45

And he basically had a breakdown.

23:47

He basically kind of snapped, and

23:50

he came out talking and cussing

23:53

and being who he really was, and

23:56

the audience immediately grasped.

23:58

The audience immediately loved

24:01

the honesty and how raw

24:03

he was and who he really was. And

24:06

from there, you know, he never looked back and

24:09

he became Richard Pryor.

24:11

It was on nineteen seventy one's Craps,

24:13

a blockbuster for Prior and for

24:16

laugh Records, that audiences heard

24:18

the real raw Richard Pryor

24:22

started starting Cocaine.

24:25

Had goodness too, because I.

24:26

Wake up in the middle of night state.

24:27

Whoy Is

24:32

it fair to say then that his party record

24:34

phase helped Richard Pryor

24:36

become Richard Pryor.

24:38

Well, yeah, because where else were you going to

24:40

hear it. The only place you were going to hear Richard

24:43

Pryor was on the records. But

24:45

the records became so insanely

24:48

popular through word of mouth, one

24:50

hundred percent word of mouth. There was no there

24:53

were no TV commercials for Richard

24:55

Pryor records.

24:56

You know.

24:57

Now, it wasn't just the content that raw.

25:00

It was also the sound quality. And

25:03

some of these albums the sound

25:06

quality is not great.

25:08

Is that fair?

25:09

Yeah, sound quality was horrible, But.

25:11

I'm wondering if that added to the experience

25:13

of listening at home when you've got friends

25:15

over.

25:16

Absolutely, absolutely,

25:18

there's a raw element to it. Also, it's

25:21

the inside stuff, right. These

25:26

records weren't Red Fox

25:28

in Las Vegas, you know what I mean?

25:31

And these were Lawanda

25:33

Page before she was famous, when she

25:35

was just in the club. So

25:38

the feel of being an insider

25:41

definitely added to it.

25:43

Lawanda Page recorded five solo

25:45

albums with Laugh Records. The material

25:48

is funny and especially

25:51

on those early records, downright

25:53

filthy. We'd have to bleep so much

25:55

of it for this podcast. We can't

25:57

do it justice. Let me put it

25:59

this way. Bands of the late Bob

26:02

Sagett know how different his stand up

26:04

material was from the character he played

26:06

on Full House. Well the Lawanda

26:09

you hear on her nineteen seventy seven

26:11

album Watch It Sucker is so

26:13

blue it would turn aunt esther

26:16

every shade of red. Do not miss

26:18

her bit about the nurse and the woman in the mental

26:21

ward who demands a certain remedy.

26:24

My goodness. Here's one

26:26

bit from her first album, nineteen seventy

26:28

one's mother is half a word, where

26:30

a their dwell husband has tried to cover

26:33

up his drinking by eating sardines.

26:36

And you can guess where this is headed.

26:38

So she says, you've been dragging?

26:41

No, may I swear damn I ain't been dragging

26:43

night, Blow your breath to the keyhole, blows

26:46

the bread to the keyhole. First, thank she smells

26:48

them sartines. She said, you know good

26:50

and asking mother fuck?

26:52

She says, though out breaking in one headed,

26:54

you go and pick up a mother.

27:00

Sidebar. Laugh Records didn't only

27:02

produce black comedy acts. In

27:04

nineteen seventy eight, a young Allison

27:07

Arngrem, best known as Nelly,

27:09

on Little House in the Prairie impersonated

27:12

first daughter Amy Carter on a Laugh

27:14

Records album, Dad, Where

27:16

did I come from?

27:18

Plains? Georgia Hunne?

27:19

You know that, No, Daddy, I

27:21

mean, where do babies come from? I

27:24

asked Uncle Billy.

27:25

He said, babies come nine months after you've

27:28

had too much bear.

27:30

Alison Armgrim's mother, voice

27:32

actress Norma McMillan had

27:34

played Caroline Kennedy on the hit First

27:37

Family Comedy album back in nineteen

27:39

sixty two. That's the album that starred

27:42

von Meter as JFK. Check

27:45

out the von Meter obituary for more

27:47

on his story. One

27:50

of Laugh's last records was a song

27:52

full of fish ponds called Wet

27:54

Dream by white comedian Kip Adatta.

27:57

I walked over to a place called the Oyster Bar

28:00

a real time, but I knew

28:02

the owner who used to play for the Dolphins.

28:05

I said, I Gil, you

28:07

have to yell.

28:08

He's hard at herring.

28:10

But the label will always be best known

28:13

for releasing black and blue

28:15

material. Any thought on

28:17

the legacy of these party records.

28:20

I think the legacy of these party records

28:23

now is I would

28:25

say more YouTube than Netflix,

28:28

because it's more the self

28:30

produced it's the clips from the

28:33

comedy club versus the polished

28:36

production show. And we've seen comics

28:38

get famous. We've seen it happen where

28:41

people go viral on YouTube

28:43

or some other platform and become

28:45

famous. I think that's the legacy

28:48

of the party record.

28:51

Coming up next, the King and Queen

28:54

of underground party records land

28:57

squarely in the mainstream.

29:02

Oh you call me the.

29:04

How did not call you?

29:05

Dear?

29:05

It is like Bambi's father.

29:10

You Oh we the lad he the door.

29:27

In the early nineteen seventies, Lawanda

29:29

Page was caring for her ailing

29:32

mother in South Los Angeles when

29:34

she got an offer that would take her career

29:37

to a whole new level. NBC's

29:40

Sanford and Son was the first network

29:43

TV show with a predominantly black

29:45

cast since Amos and Andy in

29:47

the early nineteen fifties. In

29:49

its second season, the show was already

29:52

a hit, starring Red Fox

29:54

as junk dealer and widower Fred

29:57

Sandford. In real life, Red Fox's

29:59

bo Thurs name was actually Fred

30:01

Sandford. Lawanda

30:04

was being called in to read for the role

30:06

of Fred's Holier than Thou sister

30:08

in law aunt esther. Here's

30:11

Lawanda herself explaining what

30:13

happened to interviewer Bobby Wygant.

30:16

Well, what actually happened. I

30:18

was working in a nightclub in Los Angeles

30:21

with a comedy team Skirt and Leroy

30:23

that we've been together for twenty years, and

30:27

Aaron Rubin, the producer, he

30:29

happened to be in the club that night.

30:31

The producer was impressed by Lawanda

30:33

and unaware of her shared history

30:36

with Fox.

30:36

So he goes back and he tells Red. He says, that

30:39

girl that you

30:41

know I saw with Skirterton Leroy.

30:43

He says, I think she'll be the girlfriend

30:46

esther.

30:47

So radas, oh, that's Lawanda.

30:48

I know. Well, I know Redd all my life

30:50

because we went to school together.

30:54

Red Fox wasn't just bringing the comedy

30:56

he'd honed on the Chitlin circuit to network

30:59

television. He brought many of his

31:01

fellow comics along with him too. Aaron

31:04

Ruben, the Sanford and Son producer

31:06

who'd seen Lawanda in the club, said,

31:08

quote, Fox comes up with names

31:11

like Tangerine, Sublet and Leroy

31:13

and Skillett, consummate performers

31:16

he worked with in the twenty five dollars a week

31:18

nightclub days. The names

31:20

befuddle the NBC casting department

31:23

where they are totally unknown.

31:25

Yeah.

31:26

Yeah, that is somebody who

31:29

understands that

31:31

if he doesn't do it, it's not going to get done.

31:34

I'm sure Red said I need this character.

31:36

I know exactly who can do it. This is

31:38

what be Goldberg again, because he knew.

31:41

No one was going to call her unless he did. And

31:44

that's kind of how it's always been. You

31:46

call the folks, you know, and if

31:48

somebody's having a hard time, you do the best. That's

31:50

sort of bring them along.

31:53

TV was a change of pace for Lwanda

31:55

Page, who was fifty two. Once

31:58

she showed up on set. She was nervous

32:00

the first week on the job, as she later

32:02

told Sally Jesse Raphael, I.

32:05

Had never read a script before.

32:07

That's my first parent and I was reading

32:09

the directions along with the lions.

32:15

Yeah, that's right for you to say. I

32:17

say, watch it, Trucker, if you walk out the

32:19

door.

32:26

The producers were planning to fire and

32:28

replace Lawanda, but Red

32:31

intervened. He reportedly said,

32:33

if she goes, I.

32:35

Go well, because he knew

32:37

what she could do, and it

32:39

was meaningful if he said

32:41

he was gonna leave you, because he would.

32:43

Leave about Lawanda Page. Red

32:46

Fox reportedly said, you never

32:48

heard of the lady, But the night that first

32:50

show goes on the air, there'll be dancing

32:53

in the streets of every ghetto

32:55

in the United States.

32:57

Down not again, Hufrey, you

32:59

would I beat today.

33:00

My sister married you, and you still

33:03

a dead beat today. This

33:05

nest now you know good and will today I married

33:07

your sister. I was loaded, Yeah, you was

33:09

loaded, all right. You were so drunk you fell

33:11

on the preacher.

33:14

The sanctimonious aunt Estor quickly

33:17

became a fan favorite at the height

33:19

of her fame on Sanford and Son, though Lawanda

33:22

Page was still living in South

33:24

LA. The money is nice,

33:26

she told reporters. It goes

33:29

to mama, and.

33:30

I'm gonna take care of mama, and I don't

33:32

care what happens. I'm taking care of mama. And

33:35

God just fixed it. So he just opened the door for

33:37

me for Safin's son. You know how to walk

33:39

right in, and Red put my feet in the door. So it's

33:41

up to me to keep it there.

33:43

In nineteen seventy six, Lawanda's

33:45

mother died. The next year, the

33:47

Sanford and Son series ended with

33:50

the departure of Red Fox, but

33:52

by then, Lawanda Page was a regular

33:55

face on TV.

33:56

A lovely lady, one

33:58

of them moms.

34:04

I loved her on the Dean Martin celebrity

34:07

roasts. These roasts were

34:09

like the Variety pack of entertainment

34:12

comedians like Don Rickles, Ruth

34:14

Buzzy and Nipsey Russell sharing

34:17

a dais with Frank Sinatra,

34:19

Jaja Kahboorr, Senator Barry

34:21

Goldwater. Here is Lewanda

34:24

roasting Red Fox.

34:26

Been after me since I was a kid, back

34:28

in Saint Louis.

34:29

Honey, he was there the night I want a beauty

34:32

contest.

34:33

Remember that red They gave me

34:35

a silver cup.

34:37

Yeah, they gave you a silver cup. All right,

34:39

give your teeth in.

34:51

You just keep quiet.

34:52

Your old fish had food. You

34:55

ain't going to beauty. You

34:58

should have seen his first wife, hon That

35:01

woman was herdly.

35:05

Musy.

35:08

Honey. She was thought early if her picture was on a

35:11

stamp, nobody.

35:11

Would live her.

35:19

The thing that I think about those

35:22

roasts, those roasts were

35:24

done with love.

35:25

You know, she was there roasting her buddy,

35:27

her childhood friend.

35:29

But she also took shots at celebrities

35:32

she didn't grow up with, like George

35:34

Burns and Milton Burrell.

35:37

Hey, what you say at Milton burh.

35:40

Yeah, you lift the television. If

35:43

you can steal her caps like you do jokes,

35:46

you'd be a star in my neighborhood.

35:50

I asked Alonso Bowden if he thought

35:53

Lawanda might have been intimidated in

35:55

that company.

35:56

She came from clubs where you had to talk

35:58

smack to the audience, where you had Heckler's,

36:01

where you had trust me. She was fine,

36:04

She had no problem.

36:06

She let them have it. They weren't ready for her.

36:09

She was battle tested like nobody

36:11

else.

36:12

Yeah.

36:12

Absolutely, you think she's going to be afraid

36:15

of a Beverly Hills ballroom.

36:21

This is a woman who had literally eaten

36:23

fire for a stretch of her career.

36:25

Exactly exactly.

36:28

And it wasn't just that, it was also, you know,

36:30

riding the bus from city to city

36:33

and you can't stay at this hotel

36:35

and all of that. She lived

36:38

through and worked through and dealt with

36:41

all of that. And now she's in a ballroom

36:43

in Beverly Hills and she gets to make

36:45

fun of Don Rickles and Milton

36:47

Burrel and you know, Sinatra.

36:50

I don't know, I don't know if anyone was brave enough. Other

36:52

than Rickles, I don't know if anyone was brave enough to

36:54

make fun of Sinatra.

36:55

But outside of that, in

36:58

nineteen seventy nine, age fifty

37:00

nine, Lawanda released her final

37:03

album, Sane Advice. It

37:05

was the cleanest of her party records and

37:08

the most transparently autobiographical.

37:11

On that album cover, she's wearing a

37:14

gown, She's in front of a fancy car.

37:16

She's made it. But now she's got even

37:19

more to say about that experience.

37:21

But Honey Page was alive today,

37:24

he'd be sorry he ever cheated on me,

37:26

Because here I am, Honey, famous,

37:30

famous, Honey, a star. Honey,

37:34

Honey got a wax figure of me on the

37:36

East Coast and the West.

37:37

Coat in the Stars Hall of Fame.

37:43

And I got my foot prints on Hollywood

37:45

Boulevard. At Grumman's Chinese Theater.

37:47

I was sitting on the bus bench in a park.

37:49

This truck ran over my feet.

38:02

Show did her.

38:08

How I made it?

38:09

Baby? A side last,

38:12

A side last, Thank

38:15

God, Almighty.

38:17

I'm a start lest.

38:24

She had become a big star. She was one of the most popular

38:26

people on television at that point. But

38:28

she's still making a joke at her own expense

38:30

there.

38:31

Yeah.

38:32

Yeah, because you want people to know you haven't

38:34

become too big for your bridges.

38:36

And she wouldn't leave Watts.

38:38

She at one point she had a bit where she said people

38:40

thought it said I moved to Beverly Hill. She said, I wasn't

38:42

going to leave Watts and if she made all sorts of jokes

38:44

about.

38:45

Living in Watts, but she wasn't going to leave there.

38:47

No, I ain't even wanted time.

38:49

I know it's the Lost Asses ghetto, and

38:52

I know we got criming watch. Honey

38:54

is so bad. If you ain't home by nine

38:56

o'clock, you can be declared legally dead.

39:02

Listen.

39:03

You stick with what you know and

39:05

you make it work. And nobody

39:08

did that better than she did. I wish

39:10

I had known her, Do you know

39:12

what I mean? I wish I had known her.

39:15

In the nineteen nineties, Lawanda appeared

39:18

on popular TV shows like Family

39:20

Matters in Living Color and

39:22

Martin, I'm.

39:23

The fourth person that's been hit in

39:26

the past two weeks.

39:27

Go dang, well, what did the police say?

39:29

Move.

39:31

She spoofed her church lady image in

39:33

films like Friday, where she played

39:35

at Jehovah's witness. Meanwhile, lines

39:38

from Lawanda's party records began being

39:40

sampled by hip hop legends like

39:42

Chupac Shakur and Wa

39:45

and Two Live Crew. In

39:48

nineteen ninety one, Lawanda Page's

39:51

childhood friend, Red Fox died.

39:54

At his funeral, Lawanda said, Red

39:57

made me the star that I am. If

40:00

it hadn't been for him, I'd probably be

40:02

in the poorhouse. Read lived

40:04

the life he loved, and loved

40:07

the life he lived. By

40:09

this time, Lawanda had been ordained as

40:11

an evangelist in the Holiness Church.

40:14

She was following in the footsteps of her brother,

40:16

a Baptist minister, and her daughter,

40:19

also a preacher. On

40:22

September fourteenth, twenty oh two,

40:24

Lawanda Page died of complications

40:27

from diabetes. She was

40:29

eighty one. Lawanda

40:35

Page was many things. The

40:38

bronze goddess, a fire a

40:40

queen of comedy, and let me repeat,

40:42

you must go listen to some of those party

40:44

records. She was a wife three

40:47

times over, a mother, a devoted

40:49

daughter, a person of deep faith,

40:52

and as RuPaul knew, she was

40:55

fabulous.

40:58

Naoma Christie.

41:04

But I want to end with another musical clip

41:06

of Lawanda. It's Fred Sandford

41:08

and aunt esther enjoying a rare

41:11

moment of warmth. Sort

41:13

of imagine us bringing together

41:16

again after all of these years.

41:18

Seems like only yesterday. Oh

41:21

I remember, where

41:24

was it?

41:27

Down by the old.

41:30

New stream.

41:33

It wasn't a stream, it was a lagoon

41:36

goon.

41:38

Two legends of comedy who

41:41

had come so far, enjoying

41:43

the spotlight together.

41:45

It was.

41:49

New.

41:50

You don't know nothing that

41:53

I loved you

41:56

true.

41:57

I got to throw it. I

42:01

was sixteen.

42:03

Al your shoes, I your

42:08

really is queen Queen

42:11

cong down

42:14

bineyreat.

42:36

Thank you for listening to Season four of

42:38

Mobituaries. We're a very

42:41

small and dedicated team that puts

42:43

this show together. I am grateful

42:46

to work with such smart, creative,

42:48

hard working people, and we're grateful

42:50

to you for sticking with us. It

42:53

would be wonderful if you would spread the word

42:55

about Mobituaries to your friends and family,

42:58

and reading and reviewing our podcasts

43:00

really does help. You can also

43:02

follow Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram,

43:05

and you can follow me on the social media platform

43:08

formerly known as Twitter at morocca

43:11

and check out Mobituaries. Great Lives

43:13

Worth Reliving, the New York Times best

43:16

selling book now available in paperback

43:18

and audiobook. It includes plenty

43:20

of stories not available on the podcast.

43:25

This episode of Mobituaries was

43:27

produced by Aaron Schrank. Our

43:29

team of producers also includes Hazel

43:32

Brian and me Moroka, with

43:34

engineering by Josh Han. Our

43:36

theme music is written by Daniel Hart.

43:39

Our archival producer is Jamie

43:41

Benson. Mobituary's production

43:43

company is Neon Hummedia. Indispensable

43:47

support from Reginald Bazil and

43:49

everyone at CBS News Radio special

43:52

thanks to Steve Razi's Rand

43:54

Morrison and Alberto Rabina.

43:57

Executive producers for Mobituaries

44:00

include Megan Marcus, Jonathan

44:02

Hirsch, and Morocca. The series

44:04

is created by Yours truly

44:07

and again thank you for

44:09

listening.