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- [00:01]
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- [00:18]
Sam Brigger
In Philadelphia, this is FRESH AIR Weekend. I'm Sam Brigger. Lucy I'm Home Playing Ricky Ricardo on I Love Lucy made Desi Arnaz a star behind the scenes. He created what became standard procedures for producing, shooting, lighting and broadcasting TV sitcoms. Today, author Todd Purdom talks about his new book Desi the Man who Invented Television. Also, we hear from Mark Hamill. He's in the new movie the Life of Chuck and is known for playing the iconic hero Luke Skywalker in the Star wars movies. When George Lucas cast him for the first movie, Hamill wasn't sure what to make of the script, so he turned to his co star for help.
- [00:58]
Harrison Ford
I said, harrison, you worked with George on American Graffiti. Is this like a parody of flashcard? Hey, kid, let's just get it done, all right? So he was no help whatsoever.
- [01:12]
Sam Brigger
Plus, TV critic David Biancooli reviews the new HBO documentary Pee Wee as himself. That's coming up on FRESH AIR Weekend.
- [01:28]
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This message comes from Capital One. Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.combank for details. Capital One NA Member FDIC this message.
- [01:44]
Terry Gross
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- [02:13]
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- [02:40]
Sam Brigger
This is FRESH AIR Weekend. I'm Sam Brigger. Our first interview today is with Terry Gross and Todd Purdom, author of the new book Desi Arnaz, the Man who Invented Television.
- [02:50]
Desi Arnaz
Lucy, I'm home.
- [02:51]
Lucille Ball
That's a phrase Desi Arnaz was known for in the sitcom I Love Lucy.
- [02:55]
Paul Reubens
Baba Liu.
- [02:59]
Lucille Ball
Ba Ba Lu that was one of his signature songs. The conga was the rhythm he helped popularize in the U.S. beating out on his conga drum as people danced to the beat of 1, 2, 3, kick. Arnaz's movie career didn't go far, but playing Ricky Ricardo, husband of Lucille Ball's character Lucy Ricardo, made him a star. Just getting a major TV role was quite a feat because networks and sponsors were skeptical that a Cuban refugee with an accent would be accepted by American viewers. I Love Lucy premiered in 1951 when TV was young and ended its run of new shows in 1957. It became the first show in TV history to reach 10 million people. For years, it was the most popular show on tv. A lot of that is credited to Ball's comedic talent and to the work Arnaz did in front of the camera and behind the scenes, creating what became standard procedures for producing, shooting, lighting and broadcasting TV sitcoms and led to the possibility of reruns and syndication. He also founded Desilu Productions, which kept expanding and for a while was the largest creator of TV content in the world. Our Ms. Brooks December bride, the Andy Griffith show, the Untouchables and the Dick Van Dyke show were among the programs produced by Desilu and or filmed in its studios. The new book Desi Arnaz, the Man who Invented Television by my guest Todd Purdham, is about Arnaz, I Love Lucy, the early days of tv, the seminal role he played in shaping it, his marriage to Lucille Ball and the excesses that did him in. Purdham spent 23 years at the New York Times, where he covered the White House, was diplomatic correspondent and LA bureau chief. He's the author of the previous books, Something Rogers and Hammerstein's Broadway Revolution and and An Idea Whose Time Has Come, Two Presidents, Two Parties and the Battle for the Civil Rights act of 1964. I love Lucy is still part of current pop culture. It continues to play in reruns on tv. Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem starred as Lucille Ball and Desi arnaz in the 2021 film Being the Ricardos. In 2022, Amy Poehler directed the documentary Lucy and Desi. Todd Purdom, welcome back to FRESH air. I really enjoyed the book. It has so much interesting TV history in it. Networks and sponsors were not enthusiastic about the idea of a Latino man starring in a sitcom. What were their problems?
- [05:34]
Terry Gross
Well, no, Terry, they weren't. First of all, they were very concerned that he was different, that he had a thick accent. And they just did not believe that widespread American audiences would believe him as the husband of an all American girl like Lucille Ball. Of course, the irony is they had been an all American couple for 10 already in real life.
- [05:54]
Lucille Ball
How had he been typed in his earlier years in the movies?
- [05:57]
Terry Gross
He said at one point his ambition was to be the Cuban Mickey Rooney. And he really was a little bit like Mickey Rooney. He could do comedy, he could do music, he could play the drum, he could sing. And he struggled to find a workable niche in Hollywood. He was always a little bit off. He never quite fit into Hollywood's stereotype of what a Latin performer should be.
- [06:19]
Lucille Ball
He'd been a successful bandleader.
- [06:21]
Terry Gross
Yes. And he was apparently in person a very, very compelling entertainer, a wonderful showman who had a. Could hold the audience in the palm of his hand. He wasn't a classically great musician, he was self taught. He never learned how to read music. He wasn't a spectacular drummer. His Latin music, his Cuban music was by the lights of authentic Cuban music fans, not the most pure version. It was a kind of popularized American version that brought those Cuban musical form to American mass audiences. But apparently the whole package was pretty overwhelming. When you saw him in the flesh.
- [06:58]
Lucille Ball
He wasn't a great singer either, I'll add that. And a lot of his songs were novelty songs.
- [07:02]
Terry Gross
Yes, he was an adequate singer, but he was, you know, he was not a, an incredible vocalist. There's no doubt about that.
- [07:09]
Lucille Ball
Meanwhile, Lucille Ball wasn't getting like the traction that she wanted in movies either.
- [07:14]
Terry Gross
No, she'd been working steadily in movies since 1933. This is 1950, 51, when they're trying to get the show on the air. She was approaching the age of 40, which as now was a very dangerous age for a female actress in Hollywood. She had worked steadily, but she'd never really broken through as a major A list star. And she was beginning to be known as the queen of the B's, the second tier movies that rounded out double features.
- [07:37]
Lucille Ball
So at the point that I Love Lucy is about to begin, she was starring in a radio sitcom called My Favorite Husband. Now that TV was beginning to catch on, the network thought we should transfer it to TV and make it a TV sitcom. And that's not what she really wanted to do. She wanted herself and Desi, who was her husband by then, to have their own sitcom. So talk about how they made the deal to co star in a new TV series.
- [08:08]
Terry Gross
Yes. What happened Was she was in the last gasp of really big network radio. It was a sitcom about a zany wife and her fifth vice president of a bank husband called My Favorite Husband. And CBS realized that television was catching on and the Lucy show had been successful. So they wanted to transfer to tv. And the only way she was willing to do it is if Dessi played her husband. But he himself realized he could not plausibly be the fifth vice president of a bank. Richard Denning, who was the actor who played her husband on the air, was a blonde, waspy jut jawed kind of actor. So they were struggling to have a different concept and one that cbs, which was running My Favorite Husband, would accept. Finally, Desi said, I have an idea. We'll go on a vaudeville tour. We'll take my band on a tour of movie houses around the country in big cities. And you can perform comedy. And we'll perform comedy and music together and prove to the suits at the network that the public will accept us as a team. And in the summer of 1950, that's what they did. And it was a spectacular success all over the country. And finally CBS and the sponsor Philip Morris, agreed.
- [09:19]
Lucille Ball
And Philip Morris, of course, was a very big cigarette manufacturer. And the sponsors were so influential at that time, their name was even in the title of some shows. What I love is, and I didn't know this till reading your book, that the opening credits in the original broadcast, not the reruns, not in syndication, but in the original broadcast. Why don't you describe what the opening was like? It wasn't the hart logo with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, I Love Lucy. It was completely different.
- [09:48]
Terry Gross
No, they were these charming little animated stick figures drawn by the Hanna Barbera animation team. The people who created Tom and Jerry, the cat and mouse and Lucy and Desi were frolicking on top of a package of cigarettes and dancing around as the. As the show began. And the velvety looking heart logo only came later in reruns.
- [10:06]
Lucille Ball
So at the time, TV shows were mostly live or on kinescopes. Why don't you explain what a kinescope is?
- [10:14]
Terry Gross
Well, in 1950, 51, television was almost completely a live medium. And it was centered almost completely in New York because it was dominated by the advertising agencies who were there. The challenge for broadcasting across the whole country was it wasn't yet possible to beam a television signal all the way from New York to California. So if a show was produced in New York, it was seen live in the eastern 2/3 or so of the country to around maybe St. Louis, Kansas, something like that. And then in order to broadcast it in the west coast, they had to film using 16 millimeter film off a television monitor. And they produced a very poor duplicate called a kinescope. That videotape had not yet been invented. So the problem was shows that were produced in one place and shown in another had a very poor visual quality. One of the challenges that you can't even now, you'll notice probably sometimes if you watch a movie and a television screen appears in the background, it vibrates and has a kind of a jiggly moire quality because the speed of film is different from the speed of the video image. Digital has changed some of this. But in any case, Lucy and Dessi, the whole goal of the show was to work together live in Los Angeles, where they were about ready to have their first child, their daughter, Lucy Desiree Arnaz. And the sponsor and CBS wanted them to come and do it in New York. And they said, no, no, no, we don't want to do that. And that's when CBS said, well, we're certainly not going to have you do it live in Los Angeles and make the most important markets in the country watch a blurry kinescope. So you'll have to film it and that will cost more.
- [11:51]
Lucille Ball
So what was Desi Arnaz's solution to getting around the fact that you couldn't really broadcast from coast to coast and kinescopes looked really terrible?
- [12:03]
Terry Gross
His basic idea was, let's film it on 35 millimeter film stock, just like a movie. But because CBS and the sponsor also realized that Lucy performed best in front of a live audience, as her radio show had demonstrated, they wanted to film this television program also in front of a live audience. Well, as you probably know, a movie is filmed most of the time with a single camera set up over and over again for each shot, every close up, every reaction, it involves a separate camera setup. And to try to film a half hour situation comedy like that would have been in those days, very cumbersome. It would have also wrecked the spontaneity. It would have been complicated to capture the laugh and reaction. So they came up with this notion of using three cameras at once in synchronicity, filming the show like a play. And while a game show, the Ralph Edwards Truth or Consequences had been experimenting with that technique, no one had ever really done it for a play, you know, like a sitcom. So Dessi went around talking to various cinematographers, including the Academy Award winning cameraman Karl Freund, who had started out in German expressionist cinema in the 20s and 30s and come to Hollywood like so many emigres from Europe. And he said, you can't do it. And Dessi said, why? He said, because you have to light separately for the close ups, for the medium shots, for the long shots. And then as a sheer intellectual challenge, Freund said, but let me see if we can figure something out. So he devised an innovative system of so called flat overhead lighting that would light the set adequately for all three camera angles at once. And then because a motion picture studio is a working factory floor with all kinds of dangerous cables and electricity and fire hazards, they had to figure out a way to get an audience in there to watch it. So they built a set of wooden and metal bleachers, had about 300 people come into this soundstage. They had to cut a special door in the street side of the soundstage so that people could have adequate fire exit. And that became the method that, with you know, a few changes, is still used today, was used for shows like Friends, the Big Bang Theory. Most sitcoms today are still shot using this same basic technique.
- [14:12]
Sam Brigger
We're listening to Terry's interview with Todd Purdom. His new book is Desi Arnaz, the Man who Invented Television. We'll hear more of their conversation after a short break. I'm Sam Brigger and this is FRESH AIR weekend.
- [14:25]
Lucille Ball
Decades ago, Brazilian women made a discovery they could have an abortion without a doctor thanks to a tiny pill. That pill spawned a global movement helping millions of women have safe abortions regardless of the law. Hear that story on the network from NPR's Embedded and Futuro Media, wherever you get your podcasts.
- [14:50]
Terry Gross
I'm Tanya Moseley, co host of FRESH air. At a time of sound bites and short attention sp our show is all about the deep dive. We do long form interviews with people behind the best in film, books, tv, music and journalism. Here our guests open up about their process and their lives in ways you've never heard before. Listen to the FRESH AIR podcast from NPR and whyy.
- [15:17]
Sam Brigger
This is FRESH AIR weekend. I'm Sam Brigger. Let's get back to Terry Gross's interview with Todd Purdom. His new book, Desi the Man who Invented Television is about Arnaz, his on and off screen wife Lucille Ball, their show I Love Lucy and how Arnaz's innovations and his studio helped shape the early days of television.
- [15:38]
Lucille Ball
So when Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz shot the pilot, which was basically an audition for them. She was pregnant and wore baggy clothes to cover it up because she couldn't look pregnant on tv. And then later in the series, she was actually pregnant again with their son. And the writers and Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz wanted to write that into the story of Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, but the network was against it. Why was showing a pregnant woman so taboo, like a pregnant actress playing a pregnant character? Why was that so taboo?
- [16:16]
Terry Gross
Well, because television in those days was a bland, sponsor driven, mass medium that to some degree the way it does now, except it depended on the most innocuous fare to offend the fewest number of people. And if you had a pregnant woman on the air, especially a really pregnant actress, it would betray the way that you get pregnant, which is by having sex. And sex did not really appear on television in those days. So Lucy and Dessi fought hard with CBS to do this. And they thought, Desi particularly thought there could be a whole series. And the head writer and producer, Jess Oppenheimer, thought there could be a series of very tasteful, very charming episodes that would show what happens when people have a baby. And finally, ultimately, Desi only found out a couple years later. He'd gone over the heads of the network executives to the chairman of Philip Morris and written him a letter saying, we've given you the number one show on television. If you don't want us to be responsible for writing it anymore, then you'll have to figure out how to get the number one show on television and we can't be responsible anymore. And he later learned that the chairman of the company had sent a memo to his staff, basically saying in very pungent terms that I'm not going to say on the radio, don't mess around with the Cuban. So they were allowed to do the episodes and they were so concerned about doing it in good taste that they hired a tripartite panel of a priest, a rabbi and a Protestant minister to vet the scripts and be on the set when they were filming to make sure that everything was done in taste.
- [17:46]
Lucille Ball
It's so ridiculous.
- [17:48]
Terry Gross
It's incredible. It's incredible.
- [17:50]
Lucille Ball
And also sitcom families. I mean, the idea was they're typically supposed to have children and be like an average, quote, normal nuclear family, husband and wife and kids. And so like, you can't have kids without being pregnant. It's just so absurd.
- [18:07]
Terry Gross
Anyhow, well, in future years. Dessi recalled in a years later interview with David Letterman how you couldn't say the word pregnant on television.
- [18:16]
Lucille Ball
You couldn't say Pregnant?
- [18:18]
Terry Gross
No. So he said in his wonderful accent, had to say spectin. And the audience in David Letterman's show laughed out loud, of course, and Dessi took a beat in a classic deadpan, you know, and then said, spectin was better anyway. And Letterman's like, it still is, because you can't get a laugh with the word pregnant. Whereas, you know, spectin is pretty funny.
- [18:38]
Lucille Ball
I want to skip ahead to an episode of I Love Lucy in which she's just found out she's pregnant because she's really wanted to have a baby. She is just glowing. And Ricky is about to come home. So she's always imagined what it was going to be like to tell her husband, we're going to have a baby. She's going to make him a nice meal, put her arms around him and deliver the news. It's going to be romantic and perfect. So she makes him a great lunch, puts it on the table in the living room. He comes in, he's had a terrible day, he's in a really foul mood and he's very, very hungry and all he wants to do. So I want to play that scene. Ricky, do you have to eat now?
- [19:23]
Desi Arnaz
Oh, honey's lunchtime. You fixed me a beautiful lunch.
- [19:27]
Lucille Ball
Well, stop for a minute. Now swallow that.
- [19:32]
Desi Arnaz
My stomach is going to think I lost my teeth. All right, honey, now what is it?
- [19:39]
Lucille Ball
Ricky, darling.
- [19:44]
Desi Arnaz
Honey, the phone is ringing.
- [19:45]
Harrison Ford
I know it.
- [19:46]
Desi Arnaz
Well, honey, one of us has to get up and answer it.
- [19:49]
Lucille Ball
No, you see.
- [19:51]
Harrison Ford
Let it ring.
- [19:51]
Desi Arnaz
Oh, honey, come on. It might be important.
- [19:53]
Lucille Ball
Honey, come on, sit down.
- [19:58]
Desi Arnaz
Hello? Oh, hello, Marco. What? What do you mean they can't have the costumes there tonight? Now look, you tell that guy that he has to have those costumes there by 2 o' clock this afternoon or I'm gonna sue them. That's what I said. I'm gonna sue him. Thanks. Goodbye. Oh, what a business. Sometimes I think I go back to Q and work in a sugar plantation. Just the two of us.
- [20:28]
Lucille Ball
Just the two of us?
- [20:30]
Desi Arnaz
Yeah. I don't mind to get you all involved in my affairs, honey, but you should be happy you're a woman.
- [20:36]
Harrison Ford
Oh, I am, I am.
- [20:39]
Lucille Ball
Well, you.
- [20:39]
Desi Arnaz
You think that. You know how tough my job is, but believe me, if you traded places with me, you'd be surprised.
- [20:47]
Lucille Ball
Believe me, if I traded places with you, you'd be surprised. One of the things I like about this scene is the difference between the fantasy you imagine and the reality that you get. But Lucille, Beau, I think, was very pregnant at the time because she's wearing what really looks like maternity clothes. Do you know how pregnant she was, how expectant she was when they shot that?
- [21:11]
Terry Gross
She probably would have been approaching, like five months or something. And one of the things, apparently about her pregnancies, she showed early and large in her pregnancy. She tended to balloon up, which is why they couldn't hide the pregnancy. They would have had to stop producing the show if they couldn't have pregnancy be part of the plot. And so, of course, the episode then continues from that wonderful scene you just played. She finally goes down to the nightclub and devises a ruse to tell him there in public. And it's a charming scene when he realizes that he's going to have. He's going to be the father.
- [21:45]
Lucille Ball
And this is set at a nightclub where he's the bandleader. And he gets a note saying, there's a couple here who is going to have a baby. And he asks like, well, who is it? And nobody raises their hand or stands up. So he goes from table to table, basically saying, is it you? Is it you? And then he realizes Lucy is there, and he realizes they're going to have a baby. And then he sings this song.
- [22:09]
Desi Arnaz
We're having a baby, My baby and me. You'll rid it in, Winchell, that we're adding a limb to our family tree While pushing that carriage. How proud I will be. There's nothing like marriage as your father and mother. And they'll agree. He'll have toys, baby clothes. He'll know he's come to the right house by and by. When he grows, maybe he'll live in the White House.
- [22:54]
Lucille Ball
So that's an example too, of how they work. The fact that Ricky Ricardo was a bandleader in a nightclub into the story, the show.
- [23:02]
Terry Gross
And they were meta before Meta was meta, you know, and the synergy of their real life relationship, the relationship on the show, it all played into each other. And the episode in which the baby was born on television had been filmed weeks before the baby was born in real life. And then, because Lucy had had a C section with her first child in those days, if you'd ever had a cesarean section, you had Caesarean section for all subsequent children. So her surgeon happened to do his operations on a Monday. So she pre scheduled the birth of the real life Dessi Jr for Monday morning. So Desi Jr was born on Monday morning in real life at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles. And that night on the air, millions of Americans saw little Ricky born on the air, but they weren't actually happening in real time.
- [23:47]
Lucille Ball
Did they send out press releases explaining that both happened on the same day?
- [23:53]
Terry Gross
Yes. Well, Jim Bacon, the Associated Press reporter, was sitting with Jesse outside the delivery room. And within seconds of the word that the baby, the real life baby, had been born, the news was flashing all over the world and was worldwide. Headlines in Japan and Europe and every place in the world.
- [24:08]
Lucille Ball
And that's really important because they were so afraid to have a pregnant character on tv, even though the actress was pregnant too. And it turned out to be a real boon for the show.
- [24:18]
Terry Gross
Absolutely. And I think it's also another proof, Terry, that the public is so often ahead of the leadership in these kinds of questions. People prove totally capable of accepting the fact that these people had a baby without being horrified.
- [24:32]
Lucille Ball
What was Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz's relationship like on and off the set? It seemed pretty tumultuous both on and off the set.
- [24:42]
Terry Gross
I think it was from the moment they met each other. It was a classic case of love at first sight or, you know, very powerful attraction. They got married within six months of meeting each other. They were each pretty seriously involved with other people when they met, and they promptly dumped those other people and saw only each other. The problem was from the very beginning that Dessi had idea that he could stray sexually and it shouldn't matter to his wife because his wife was his wife, and that's all that mattered.
- [25:09]
Lucille Ball
Can I stop you there? I mean, he learned that from his father and grandfather in Cuba, who both had mistresses. And he was introduced to what was then called a prostitute and is now called a sex worker when he was 15, to initiate him.
- [25:24]
Terry Gross
Yes. His uncle took him to the fanciest bordello in Santiago de Cuba, his hometown, and introduced him to sex in a bordello. And when he came to New York as a young performer, he frequented Polly Adler's bordello, which was the most elegant whorehouse in New York, basically, that had the cream of Bordeaux entertainment and society clientele. And Dessi, I think he would clearly be what we now would think of as a sex addict. He didn't have affairs with people, as his daughter once said to me, with people who had last names. He just had endless dalliances with prostitutes, sometimes more than one at a time. And when this was semi private, it bothered Lucy, but she could tolerate it when it became increasingly public and he ultimately got arrested. Weaving down the street in Hollywood in a neighborhood of notorious bordellos, it became. Became humiliating for Lucy, and she really just couldn't take it anymore. And that's ultimately what that and his drinking is what led to their divorce in 1960.
- [26:21]
Lucille Ball
Todd Purdom, it's been a pleasure to have you back on the show.
- [26:25]
Terry Gross
Thank you, Terry. It's a pleasure to be here.
- [26:27]
Sam Brigger
Todd Purdom is the author of the new book Desi the Man who Invented Television. Paul Rubens, the actor best known for his alter ego Pee Wee Herman, died in 2023 after a private six year battle with cancer. Near the end of his life, Rubens collaborated on a documentary sitting for 40 hours of intimate interviews with director Matt Wolf. The result of that effort is the two part HBO documentary Pee Wee as Himself. TV critic David Biancooli has this review.
- [27:01]
Paul Reubens
When Paul Reubens speaks directly to the camera in Pee Wee as himself, framed tightly by the lens and looking frail but still feisty, it's as though he's delivering his last will and testament. And he says as much.
- [27:14]
Mark Hamill
This is such a dumb thing to say, but you know, death is just so final, you know, that to be able to like get your message in at the last minute or at some point is incredible.
- [27:34]
Paul Reubens
So what is his message in this new documentary? On one level, Rubin sets out to explain his artistic process and the inspirations and motivations behind the character of Pee Wee Herman. On another level, he explores what he gained and lost by refusing to be seen or interviewed as himself. For the whole time Pee Wee was starring in movies or television. And most delicately and intriguingly, Paul Rubens provides his point of view about things that rarely were discussed by him during his lifetime, from his private life and sexuality to his infamous arrest on charges of public indecency. In covering all this ground, Reubens opens up his pack rat archive of personal photos and home movies. Director Matt Wolf interviews other people as well, such as Lorraine Newman, who worked with Rubens in the LA improv group the Groundlings, and directors Tim Burton and Judd Apatow and several actors who appeared in the long running CBS children's series Pee Wee's Playhouse, including Laurence Fishburne, Natasha Lyon and S. Apatha Merkerson. By the time Rubens took his Pee Wee character to Saturday morning TV in 1986, he says he knew exactly what he wanted to do. And Merkerson says she appreciated it.
- [28:53]
Mark Hamill
I just felt right from the get go, something that I could do that could be very important and very subliminal would be to just make the show very inclusive and not comment on it in any way.
- [29:10]
Lucille Ball
Captain Kangaroo, Soupy Sails, Howdy Doody, you.
- [29:15]
Harrison Ford
Know, none of those Shows did I.
- [29:17]
Lucille Ball
See myself reflected so that I had the opportunity to be a part of a show that young black kids would see and go, oh, there's an image of me here that means a lot to me.
- [29:33]
Paul Reubens
The road to Pee Wee's Playhouse, an utterly brilliant TV show, is relayed by Pee Wee's alter ego in bursts of quick but clear developmental insights. The shows he watched as a kid.
- [29:47]
Mark Hamill
I was absolutely transformed in such a strong way by so many things in early television. I wanted to jump into my TV and live in that world.
- [30:00]
Desi Arnaz
Fake kids, what time is it?
- [30:06]
Mark Hamill
My favorite kid shows were absolutely like Howdy Doody, Captain Kangaroo and the Mickey Mouse Club.
- [30:16]
Paul Reubens
His inspirations for the name Pee Wee Herman.
- [30:19]
Mark Hamill
I had a little harmonica, a little tiny harmonica this big that said Pee Wee on it. And I thought, Pee Wee. And I knew this kid when I was little who was like this crazy, like, really loud, nutty kid. And his last name was Herman. And I thought Pee Wee Herman sounds so weird that it sounds real. It just didn't sound like a made up name at all. Like Cary Grant or like Rock Hudson or like a made up name. It sounded Pee Wee Herman. Like, if you were making up a name, wouldn't you make up a better name than that?
- [30:56]
Paul Reubens
And noting the meteoric rise of Pee Wee from an improv bit at the Groundlings to the star of his own stage show, movie and TV series, his view of the effects of stardom on his own carefully cultivated privacy.
- [31:10]
Mark Hamill
If I was conflicted about sexuality, fame was so much more complicated. By the time I realized that you trade in anonymity and privacy for success, the ink had dried on my pact with the devil.
- [31:31]
Paul Reubens
All of that imploded in 1991 after an event reported by CBS anchor Dan Rather in Sarasota, Florida.
- [31:38]
Terry Gross
Actor Paul Rubins, better known as TDs.
- [31:41]
Harrison Ford
Pee Wee Herman, is free on bail.
- [31:44]
Paul Reubens
After being charged with indecent exposure in.
- [31:46]
Terry Gross
An adult movie theater.
- [31:48]
Harrison Ford
CBS announced today that under the circumstances.
- [31:51]
Terry Gross
The network is dropping scheduled reruns of.
- [31:53]
Harrison Ford
The program Pee Wee's Playhouse.
- [31:56]
Paul Reubens
Paul Reubens addresses all of this, frankly taking great pains to explain his point of view. Yet that's not the most compelling or illuminating part of this documentary. The part that reveals the most, especially about Paul Reubens as an artist and a person, is his constant tug of war with the documentary's director, Matt Wolfe. At times, Rubens is goofing around during the interviews and being coy. Other times, he tells Wolf he doesn't trust him and would rather get his message out himself without Wolf's editorial interference, Pee Wee as himself makes clear that Paul Rubens was a control freak of sorts. And at the end, Rubens finally gets in the last word unfiltered. It's worth hearing. And for this HBO documentary, it's just the right coda.
- [32:47]
Sam Brigger
David Biancooli is a professor of television studies at Rowan University. He reviewed the new HBO documentary Pee Wee as himself. Coming up, we hear from actor Mark Hamill, best known for playing Luke Skywalker. He's in the new movie the Life of Chuck, which was adapted from a Stephen King story. I'm Sam Brigger, and this is FRESH AIR Weekend.
- [33:08]
Lucille Ball
Hey, it's Sarah Gonzalez. The economy has been in the news a lot lately.
- [33:12]
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It's kind of always in the news.
- [33:13]
Lucille Ball
And Planet Money is always here to explain it. Each episode we tell a sometimes quirky, sometimes surprising, always interesting story that helps you better understand the economy. So when you hear something about cryptocurrency or where exactly your taxes go, Yas Abes, listen to the Planet Money podcast from npr. Do you ever look at political headlines and go, huh? Well, that's exactly why the NPR Politics podcast exists. Exists. We're experts not just on politics, but in making politics make sense. Every episode, we decode everything that happened in Washington and help you figure out what it all means. Give politics a chance with the NPR Politics podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts.
- [33:57]
Sam Brigger
Our next guest today is actor Mark Hamill. He's in the new movie the Life of Chuck by director Mike Flanagan, who adapted the movie from a Stephen King story. You might be surprised to hear that the film is not a horror movie. Flanagan's best known for horror films and Stephen King is, well, Stephen King, if it is horror. The Life of Chuck is of the existential kind, asking questions like, are the length of our lives predetermined by supernatural forces? Does fate control us? Are we actually the product of someone else's imagination? Mark Hamill plays Chuck's grandfather Alby, a hard drinking accountant, a kind man but haunted by his secrets. When you hear Mark Hamill's name, it's hard not to think of an epic story that took place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. As Hamill played one of the most iconic heroes in movie, Luke Skywalker in the 1977 film Star Wars, a movie that changed Hollywood and the larger culture. Hamill was Luke in the original trilogy and reprised the role in the last trilogy that began in 2015. Hamill's other big recurring role, one that he had for three decades was as a villain. He was the Joker in the animated series, part of his long career as a voice actor. He said he would stop doing the voice of the Joker, though, when the actor who played Batman, Kevin Conroy, died in 2022. This is not the first time Hamill has worked with the director of the Life of Chuck. He also appeared in Mike Flanagan's Netflix horror series the Fall of the House of Usher as a lawyer and fixer named Arthur Pym. Let's start with a clip from the Life of Chuck. Here, Alby is going over his grandson Chuck's math homework. Chuck lives with him since his parents died in a car accident. Chuck's good at math, but his passion is dancing. And Alby's about to give him some.
- [35:44]
Harrison Ford
Tough love, some math. It's called statistics or probability. It can tell you stuff about your future. I could tell you, for example, you're more likely to be drafted by a major league sports team than to make a real living as a dancer. The world loves dancers, it truly does. But it needs accountants. So there's much more demand. So there's much more opportunity. I know that might hurt, but it's the truth. Math is truth. It won't lie to you. It doesn't factor in your preferences. It's pure that way. Math can do a lot of things. Math can be art, but it can't lie. So take another run at those two because Chuckle, you are good. You have art in you.
- [36:59]
Tanya Moseley
That's a scene with Mark Hamill, our guest in the new movie the Life of Chuck. Mark Hamill, welcome to FRESH air.
- [37:04]
Harrison Ford
Thank you, Sam.
- [37:06]
Tanya Moseley
So you've worked with Mike Flanagan before. Did he come to you asking you to play this role? What did he tell you about it?
- [37:13]
Harrison Ford
Well, I don't know whether it was a phone call or an email saying I'm doing a movie based on a Stephen King novella and I think there's something that would be good for you. So I immediately ordered it on Amazon. It's in a collection called if It Bleeds. There's three stories. I was expecting some sort of epic supernatural, you know, horror epic. And I was just astonished at how atypical it was for Stephen King and how Mike had never done anything quite like this. So, you know, I mean, Stephen King has done Green Mile and the Body and Shawshank.
- [38:01]
Tanya Moseley
He's pretty versatile.
- [38:02]
Harrison Ford
But nonetheless, they're both very versatile. But you would just assume that, you know, the two of them together, that's what they would come up with. But, I mean, I was delighted. I Started reading this thing, and it's told in reverse order, as you say. And I had to tell the producers, I said, you know, I don't know how well I'm going to do when I'm supposed to go out and promote this thing, because how do you describe the indescribable? My advice to people is to just go. Go unprepared. Don't read reviews, because there are elements that you recognize from Stephen King, you know, apocalyptic themes, a haunted room. Ooh. But that's not the focus of the picture. It's about the impact on one person's life and, I don't know, just the nature of living.
- [39:01]
Tanya Moseley
The movie itself might be indescribable, but one thing that that is describable is the mustache you have in this movie, which is like a Wilford Brimley soup, straining walrus kind of mustache. So is that yours? Did you grow that thing?
- [39:16]
Harrison Ford
Yes, yes, I grew that thing. And when I found out I was gonna do it, I just stopped trimming it. And when I sat down. Now, makeup and hair are critical collaborators. Makeup, hair, and wardrobe. And I said, just take all the color out of my hair. I want to have white hair. And they whitened out the mustache. And when I selected the rimless glasses and put them on, I looked in the mirror and went, oh, my God, I'm Geppetto. I look just like the Disney version of Geppetto in Pinocchio. But that's okay.
- [39:57]
Tanya Moseley
We just listened to this clip, and what the listeners aren't seeing is how the speech is going over with the young Chuck and is his eyes are as big as saucers. I mean, it's a nice speech you're making, but you are basically kind of crushing his dreams. You're like, don't be a dancer, be an accountant.
- [40:14]
Harrison Ford
I can relate to that.
- [40:15]
Tanya Moseley
Well, I was wondering, did you ever get that version of that speech when you were young and full of acting ambitions?
- [40:20]
Harrison Ford
Are you kidding? Yeah. I'm the middle of seven children, career naval officer, and they thought I was nuts. They said, you can't be in show business. We don't know anybody's show business. We don't know anybody who knows anybody. It's just ridiculous. You gotta get your degree. So, you know, you could be a teacher. You know, you could teach drama. No, I wasn't encouraged at all until my senior year in high school. My father got transferred to Japan. I went to Yokohama high school, and the drama teacher recognized my passion because I had, for the first time, gone to Broadway. And seen several Broadway shows. I tagged along with my father on a business trip. We were living in Virginia when he went to New York twice. I went and saw Broadway shows. And see, the thing is, I knew in my soul very early on, I mean, like grade school, that I wanted to be in this business. I didn't know if I was going to be an actor. But the two examples I always remember are seeing the original black and white King Kong and just being blown away not knowing how they made dinosaurs come to life. I just thought, somebody goes to work and makes these things happen. I want a job where I bring a gorilla and dinosaurs to life. If I can't do it myself, I could certainly be an assistant. So I was really into that. And there was a Walt Disney program that had Clarence Nash, this distinguished gentleman with white hair, step up to the microphone, and he was the voice of Donald Duck. Now, I was probably either in kindergarten or first grade when I saw that. It never occurred to me, well, of course, there's gotta be people doing the voices of Daffy Duck and Bullwinkle and all of that. And it really motivated me. I mean, I went to the. When I go to record stores, I go to the children's album section and look on the back of, say, a Rocky and Bullwinkle album. I go, oh, Paul, Freeze, June, Ferre, Dawes, Butler. You know that.
- [42:36]
Tanya Moseley
So you were doing research on the people?
- [42:38]
Harrison Ford
Yes, yes, because I thought, wow, I would love to be in that business. Now, the Walt Disney program was the only one on television that showed you behind scenes, how movies were made. So it made it much more real to me. You saw the camera crew and the construction work and the wardrobe and the caterers. So, I mean, as much as I was discouraged, I thought, you know, well, I'm not a bad cook. If I can't be a director or an actor, I could always cater to.
- [43:12]
Tanya Moseley
Get there some way.
- [43:12]
Harrison Ford
Yeah, I'll get there somewhere. Because I don't have to be in the show, but I want to be near the show. Now, mind you, this is all kept to myself because I had four sisters and two brothers that would have ridiculed me endlessly if I had been forthcoming about my intentions. But I was always that kind of drawn that way. I love. I put on puppet shows. I had a Jerry Mahoney ventriloquist dummy. Oh, yes. But that was instructional in and of itself. I hosted a talent show in the sixth grade with my dummy. And as most people realize, you don't have to take responsibility for anything. The dummy says so you could be highly critical of teachers and the cafeteria food, or you just say outrageous things and blame it on the dummy. And it was very empowering to get laughter. I realized this is what I want to do. I like being up in front of people, and I love getting laughter.
- [44:17]
Tanya Moseley
Mark, I thought we would start this part of the conversation with a cameo you did on the Simpsons. You're appearing. I think it's a comic convention. You come out of a spaceship dressed like Luke Skywalker and with a lightsaber, you knock over a bunch of cardboard cutouts of stormtroopers and also Wonder Woman for some reason. Let's hear the clip.
- [44:39]
Lucille Ball
Welcome futurists, cyberphiles, and the rest of you, Dan Weightless wonders. And now to push this convention into.
- [44:47]
Terry Gross
Hyperspace, the man who put the star.
- [44:49]
Paul Reubens
In Star Wars, a real bur on.
- [44:51]
Desi Arnaz
The Darth Vader saddle, Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill.
- [45:06]
Harrison Ford
Hey, thanks, everybody.
- [45:07]
Terry Gross
You know, I'm here today as Luke. Luke Skywalker, but I'm also here to talk about Sprint. As you can see, you stand to save up to 17 cents a month over the more dependable providers.
- [45:18]
Lucille Ball
Talk about Star Wars.
- [45:22]
Desi Arnaz
Stupid nerds. He's trying to save you money and long distance.
- [45:28]
Tanya Moseley
That's my.
- [45:29]
Harrison Ford
Now, I got a call from my agent because I've got good news and bad news. The good news is they want you on the Simpsons, which I adored at the time and was dying to get on. The bad news is you're playing yourself. No, because that's the rub. You know, I've done things like, you know, they asked me to be on Big Bang Theory, and I thought, oh, good, I could play like, I don't know, Leonard's father or, you know, somebody integrated into the series that you hadn't seen. And they said, no, they want you to play yourself, which is hard because you have to then think, well, wait a minute. Who am I? I mean, when you're playing a character, you don't have to take responsibility for anything that you say or do. Here you'd have to say, would I really say that? Would I do. Anyway, it's not as much fun, but at least on Simpsons, I said, guys, you gotta let me do something else besides myself. And so they let me play. I think his name was Lavelle.
- [46:32]
Terry Gross
The.
- [46:33]
Harrison Ford
You lot are the lousiest bunch of recruits I've ever seen. I was playing a Southern police officer guy that was training these guys, you know, I loved it. I mean, it was so much fun.
- [46:49]
Tanya Moseley
Well, let's use this as a segue to talk about being Luke Skywalker a little bit. I think when you auditioned for Star wars, you came in and didn't know what you were auditioning for. And you auditioned both for Carrie and Star wars at the same time. Is that true?
- [47:04]
Harrison Ford
Yes. The cattle call I eventually went to were actors from the ages of like 16 through 35, because they were looking at both Luke and Han Solo. There was no script. You just met with Brian DePalma, was casting Carrie, and sitting right next to him was George, who was casting Star Wars. And there was no information. I mean, and they just said, tell us a little bit about yourself. And I did. And after a few minutes, they said, okay, thank you. I mean, it's what they call a cattle call, where there are hundreds of people there and you don't read for them. They don't talk about Carrie, they don't talk about Star Wars. They're just getting a feel for whether you're right for something. So I didn't get called back on Carrie, but I did get called back on Star wars and eventually did a videotape. Scre. Harrison played Han Solo, and we only got about eight pages. I didn't read the whole script until I was given the part. And that's something I'll never forget sitting down and reading that script and knowing that I had been cast. And even without John Williams music or the special effects or anything, it read like a dream. But it was hell at the audition. Cause I'm trying to figure out. I said, harrison, you worked with, with George on American Graffiti, is this like a send up? Is this like a parody of flat skirting? Hey, kid, let's just get it done. All right? So he was no help whatsoever. Same with George. George, I asked him the same questions. Are we. Is this like a Mel Brooks version, like a send up? And he went, well, let's just do it and we'll talk about later. Translation is let's just do it and we'll never talk about it later. George doesn't want to talk about backstory or motivation or all that. I mean, he's a real movie maker in the sense that he only really comes alive in the editing room. He just wants to get on film, whatever it is you're working on that particular day. He doesn't want to hear about backstory and all that stuff, that actory stuff.
- [49:23]
Tanya Moseley
So, you know, I imagine as an actor that an important part of your job and something that helps you do your job is like the feedback you receive from other actors in a scene like from their energy, from their expressions. Like, you probably work off of each other. But for you, some of your most famous dramatic scenes in these Star wars movies, you're acting opposite a puppet. And even though it's Frank Oz, great puppet master, like, was that difficult? Was it difficult to, like, stay in the moment when you're expressing yourself to Yoda, who is not a real person? Of course.
- [50:01]
Harrison Ford
Look, Frank Oz is so good that when I looked at Yoda and he was manipulating him, I totally believed he was real. I mean, a lot of times they would bury him out of sight, underground. You know, he had an earpiece and, and I had an earpiece so I could hear what he was saying. But I just loved everything about Yoda, the talking backwards thing and just all of it. And it was kind of lonely because I think the most just pure out fun I had working on the original trilogy was when Harrison, Carrie and I were all on the Death Star running around. It was all three of us together. It was so much fun. And, and we enjoyed each other's company. And then in Empire, I go away. I mean, I don't even get to keep C3PO. I keep our two. But I go off to Dagobah and, you know, there would be separate call sheets. You know, on the main call sheet was Carrie and Harrison, Peter Cushing, whoever it might be. And then on my call sheet, I was the only human being. It was actor Mark Hamill. Roll Luke. And then it was puppets, lizards, snakes. It was all props.
- [51:24]
Tanya Moseley
Well, Mark Hamill, thank you so much for coming on Fresh air.
- [51:27]
Sam Brigger
Of course, actor Mark Hamill. He's in the new movie the Life of Chuck, which is adapted from a Stephen King. Fresh Air Weekend is produced by Teresa Mavin. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer today is Charlie Kyre. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Roberta Shorrock, Amory Valdonado, Lauren Krenzel, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly CV Nesper. Our consulting video producer is Hope Wilson. For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm Sam Brigger.
- [52:29]
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