← Let's Not Talk About The Husband
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- [00:01]
Lisa Rinna
The following podcast is a Dear Media Production. Hi, I'm Lisa Rinna.
- [00:08]
Harry Hamlin
And I'm Harry Hamlin.
- [00:09]
Lisa Rinna
And this is let's not Talk about the Husband.
- [00:12]
Harry Hamlin
We've been together for over 30 years and we've been working in this industry a lot longer.
- [00:17]
Lisa Rinna
Well, you know, we have some crazy stories to tell, and on this podcast, we're gonna own it, baby.
- [00:22]
Harry Hamlin
Buckle up. Let's get into today's episode. Hi, everybody. Thanks for checking in once again to let's not talk about the Husband. I am the husband. And unfortunately, there's no wife here today to talk about the husband because Lisa is indisposed, whatever the heck that means. So today, since Lisa is indisposed, I don't have a wifely co host, but I do have Chita Rivera. Cheetah. Hi, Cheetah. You're going to be my co host today. Yep. We're going to talk about all things canine, all things dog, all things human. We're going to discuss what it's like to be a dog. What it's like to be a human. I've got a lot of questions for you about what's going on in your mind when I'm looking at you and you're looking at me and you're thinking about something, but I have no clue what it is. And when I talk to you, I say, hey, come here, Cheetah. What you're hearing is you can't figure out what I'm saying because you don't speak English, but maybe there's some kind of communication we can come up with that'll give us a little clue about who we are. But I, as you can see, am not a dog. Though I'm not sure whether dogs can really tell the difference between humans and dogs, because they seem to think they're human. They think I'm not. Who knows? Do they know that we're a different species? Do they know that we're not like them? I don't know. They seem to think that we know what they're up to and what they're thinking about and what they need at any given time. But I don't know. It's kind of a mystery to me. So, Cheetah, let's have at it. What's it like to be a dog, Cheetah? Cheetah, what's it like to be a dog? She's very quiet today. You know, normally she's yapping a lot, but today she's quite quiet. Cheetah, what is the one true thing that you want more than Anything else? Cheetah, what is your one true heart's desire? She just will not answer me. But I think I know what her heart's desire is, because Cheetah is a dog. She's got four legs and a mouth. That's pretty much all a dog is. Four legs and a mouth. They don't have any other way to communicate other than to, like, go or bark or go, yap, yap, yap, or whatever. But I do know that the mouth plays a really big part in being a dog. Since they're just four legs and a mouth, the mouth is the only thing they can really use to have any kind of experience other than just breathing. So dogs are hungry all the time. I once was in Mexico for Easter, in fact, years and years ago. You might like this story because you're a dog, and this is kind of a dog story. Cheetah, pay attention. There you go, Cheetah. Cheetah. To pay attention. All right, so years and years ago, a friend of mine asked me to go with him and his family for an Easter celebration in Mexico to a hacienda out in the middle of the desert for Easter. And There were about 10 or 15 people who caravanned to this hacienda, like, really in the middle of the desert. I mean, there wasn't another house or a pueblo around for miles. It was some rich person's place in the middle of the desert. And we rented it for the weekend and we went and we. It had no electricity, so we took all of our food in big coolers with ice and all of that. So we had enough food to have for a feast, and we were going to. What we're going to do is roast a pig for Easter. That should get you excited. Cheetah. We were going to roast a pig. Cheetah. We were going to roast a pig. Well, she's sort of excited. Anyway, so we get to this hacienda on a Saturday. We're going to have a big celebration on Sunday, Easter Sunday. And we're starving because the only food we brought was really for the big feast on Sunday. And we didn't have any refrigeration. We just had these coolers with all the stuff in it. And we had a spit outside in a big patio that somebody had hooked up an electric motor with a car battery so that they could make this pig go around and around like that for hours to cook it. I'd never cooked a pig before. I never had pig on a spit before. But it seemed like a really interesting thing to do for An Easter it the middle of nowhere in Mexico. So we get there and we set up in the morning. Now, we didn't really eat anything tonight. We had a little toast the night before because we're gonna have this huge feast on Easter Sunday. So we put the pig on the spit, and the pig was about this big, about 2ft long. And they put the pig on the spit and then they put all the food out because we brought it frozen, they needed to thaw out. So they put it out in the patio along with the pig roasting like that. And we waited and we waited and we waited. And now we were starving. We could our stomachs growling, and we watched the pig going around in the spit, and we were just absolutely famished. And we could not wait for this meal, but it was going to take another hour, so we decided to take a walk. And it was springtime, and all the flowers were blooming out in the desert. So we thought we'd go out and look at the desert wildflowers. So off we went, we trekked out into the desert, leaving this pig on the spit to keep cooking. All the humans left, and we took a nice long walk for about 45 minutes. When we get back, we come back and we get close to the hacienda, and I see this dog running out from the patio, and then I see another dog running out from the patio, and then another one, and then another one and another one. And all of a sudden there's like 20 dogs running out of the patio. When they see us coming and we get in there, a pack of wild dogs has come in and eaten everything they've eaten. They've taken the pig off the spit, they've gone into the coolers, they've taken all the food out of the coolers. And right in the middle of the this patio, there's a dead dog about the size of a beagle. And its stomach is bloated out, looks like the size of a basketball. But the dog is stone cold dead. And the dog had eaten itself to death on this pig. And there was nothing left of the pig. There was nothing left of any of the food. We were starving, and all the dogs run off with everything. So we got in the car and went to Denny's for dinner, for Easter dinner. And we had to drive for hours to get to the American border to go for dinner. But anyway, I thought that was a cute dog story, because you're not really interested, though, are you? No, she's bored by that story. I might have to ask for help from our producer today, Eve. Yes, because look how bored she is. I think we had some questions that came in for me. Did we not save the help?
- [06:44]
Eve
We do. I'm here to help. Okay, so we got some questions specifically for you, Harry, from your listeners. So first up, what is your favorite memory from filming Clash of the Titans? And any interesting behind the scenes information from that you could share?
- [06:59]
Harry Hamlin
Oh, well, Clash of the Titans, that was a long time ago, but there's still a lot of people who come up to me on a weekly basis and say how much that movie meant to them as kids. Usually they're starting to get some gray hair, so that fan base is aging out as I am. Anyway, it was an amazing shoot. We shot in London, we shot in Italy, near Rome, we shot in Spain, we shot in Malta. And yes, there were some interesting moments. The interesting moments actually kind of combined together to create a situation where the producers, Ray Harryhausen and the main producer, Charles Schneer of the movie and the director, Desmond Davis, didn't ever talk to me again. We finished that movie and that was it. They were not happy with me at all after filming that movie. Are you getting this, Cheetah? Guess not. Anyway, so I remember for those of you who have seen this movie, Clash of the Titans, it's a classic mythological adventure story. And in it Perseus, whom I played, rides around on the back of Pegasus, which actually never happened in the myth. We kind of took some artistic license with that and I have to get the head of Medusa. And if you remember from your myth, and I guess it's the sixth grade, when people start learning about Greek myths from your sixth grade class, you might remember that Medusa, when she looks at anything, turns it to stone. So if Medusa's eyes hit any living creature, they immediately turned to stone. So I had to get Medusa's head in order to turn the Kraken into stone to save Argos, the place that we were all from. So the. The main part of the myth is me cutting off the head of Medusa with the magic sword that Zeus has given me. And were it not for the magic sword, were it not for knowing that Medusa would turn everybody into stone if she saw them, I. I would not have been able to get the head. I would not have been able to turn the Kraken into stone and save the day. So we're going to shoot the sequence where I cut off Medusa's head, which is part of the myth, and we're going to shoot it in Malta and we've got a set that's been made in a warehouse in the forest, deep in the forest in Malta, far away from the capital. This is 1979. And I arrive on the set early in the morning and there's a knock on the door. And producer comes in and says, harry, listen, I'm really sorry, but we have gotten a telex from London the night before, and we've been told that you can no longer cut her head off with the sword because it will generate an X rating for violence in England and all the kids under 18 will not be able to see the movie. And the movie is made for kids under 18. So they said, you can't cut her head off with the sword. And I said, well, excuse me, but if I don't cut her head off with the sword, which is the myth, which is why I have the sword, which is why Zeus gave me the sword, how do you expect me to get her head? And they said, oh, we got it all figured out. Well, they even drew it out on a storyboard for me. So I looked at it and they wanted me to take my shield and throw it against the wall and have it bounce off like a Frisbee and inadvertently cut off Medusa's head. And I looked at the producer and I said, well, that's an interesting idea, but you're going to have to find somebody else to do it because I'm not going to do that. I said, I'm going to do what the myth said should happen, which is that Perseus should cut off Medusa's head with the magic sword given to him by Zeus. Then he takes the head and he puts it in a bag and he takes it to the shores of Argos and he turns the Kraken into stone. And they said, no, no, no, you can't do that. You can't cut her head off with a sword. I said, yes, yes, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to cut her half with a sword or I'm not going to cut her head off at all, and you're going to have to find somebody else to finish the movie. So I essentially quit the movie. I mean, I guess looking back on it, I might have been considered somewhat impetuous as a young actor at that time. But I really wanted the myth to be as truthful as possible. And that would have been a complete and absolute destruction of the myth. I mean, it wouldn't have been anything close to just artistic license. It would have been a destruction of the myth. So I locked myself in my trailer and they unplugged the electricity. It was a really hot day, and they unplugged the power. And they kept trying to send people in to convince me to come out and shoot the scene. And every time they sent somebody in, whether it was the director of photography or the line producer or the first ad, they always left convinced that I was right and the producers were wrong. So finally, at 4:00 clock in the afternoon, after they had driven all the way to Valletta, the capital of Malta, because there were no payphones in those days anywhere in the forest and there were no cell phones around, so they had to drive for miles, they finally acquiesced and let me cut her head off with a sword. Had I not, had I gone along with them, I probably wouldn't be sitting here today. The movie would have been a horrible flop, in my opinion. But I honestly believe that. And I probably would have ended up selling real estate somewhere in the Inland Empire of Los Angeles. Thank God that didn't happen. But I did piss off the producers and the director so much that they didn't speak to me for another 25 years. Ray Harryhausen did call me up 25 years later and ask me to go out and tour with him one time. And he acknowledged the fact that we had such a problem on the set. Because it wasn't just that there were a whole lot of things on Clash of the Titans that I disagreed with. I wanted to make it a great, great movie, or as great a movie as it could be since Laurence Olivier was in it. And at the end of the day, I think I did help keep the movie on track. But I really pissed off the producers. And the coup de grace for that was when they came to me after the movie was finished. They came to me and they said, listen, we've got this great thing planned. We're going to do a worldwide tour. We're going to go to, like, 20 cities around the world and promote Clash of the Titans just before the release. We're going to start off in South Africa, in either Johannesburg or another city in South Africa. And they said, it's going to be so exciting. It's so great. We're going to all this great publicity. And I said, well, listen, I'd be happy to do all of the other cities, but I can't do South Africa. And they go, what? Why can't you do South Africa? I said, well, because I'm on the committee of an anti apartheid committee in la and I couldn't possibly go to South Africa with the apartheid situation the way it is and promote this movie. I said, I'm happy to go to all of the other cities, but I just can't do South Africa. And then they said, but South Africa is underwriting the entire tour, so if we don't do South Africa, we can't do the tour at all. And I was stuck with this. In this bind, do I support this movie or do I support anti apartheid movement in South Africa? And I opted for the anti apartheid movement. And they really, they thought they lost millions and millions of dollars because I refused to do that. Which is another reason why they didn't talk to me for a long, long time. Anyway, that was clash of the titans. The experience was amazing. Hanging out with Lawrence Olivier, amazing. Hanging out with Burgess Meredith, amazing for months. It was an extraordinary experience that I will absolutely never forget. And for those of you who still like that movie or remember the days when you used to watch that movie, thank you so much for being fans because it's one of those highlights of my career and for a lot of people out there, it was a highlight of their childhood. So that was a lucky thing that that happened.
- [14:24]
Lisa Rinna
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- [19:13]
Eve
Okay, so next question. Kind of taking it back in time a little bit. What film or piece of art has inspired you the most to get into acting?
- [19:22]
Harry Hamlin
What film or piece of art inspired me to get into acting? Well, you know, I didn't really want to be an actor when I got to college. By the time I got to college, I wanted to be an architect. But I had an experience when I was younger, when my mother, when I was 13, decided that she wanted to teach me manners. I guess I was a pretty unruly kid. I was really obnoxious, really entitled. Not. I mean, I was. I was an asshole, put it that way, when I was a kid. Not sure exactly why, but I know that I was not easy to be around. So my mother thought, oh, she could fix this. And she would take me to New York. We would take the train from LA to Chicago. She would teach me how to deal with the conductor on the train. She would teach me how to order the food. She would teach me how to order her drinks because she was an alcoholic. She would teach me how to do the tip, which at that time was 5%, I do believe, and to anything that a man needed to know how to do. She was teaching me on this train ride. Then we took the plane from Chicago to New York and we stayed at the St. Regis Hotel, which at the time was like this really, really fancy hotel. And she was teaching me how to open doors for women and how to walk on the outside of the sidewalk to protect the women from the filth that got pushed up on the sidewalk by the carriages driving by with the horseshit and all of that. So, I mean, she was teaching me all these things that From, I guess Emily Post was the person at the time who was the big sort of person with manners, teaching you etiquette and all that. There was Emily Post, there was Vanderbilt, there were all these people who were, like, trying to teach people how to be decent human beings. So we go through this whole operation of teaching me manners, and it's really hard. I mean, it was another moment in my life when I did not get along at all with my mother. I mean, imagine for two weeks traveling with a mother who's constantly telling you, you're doing it wrong, you're doing it wrong, you're doing it wrong. So it was not really a fun trip for me. But we got to the very last day, and she said, oh, my goodness, there's one thing we haven't done yet. She said, we must see a Broadway play. She said, would you go down to the concierge and see if they have any tickets for a play on Broadway? I was like, the last thing I wanted to do was to go and sit and watch a Broadway play. I mean, imagine you're 13, it's the 60s, and you want to sit and watch a play. I mean, how boring. I mean, are you sufficiently bored there, Cheetah? This is how I would feel watching him play if I was 13. Anyway, so I go down to the concierge and walk up to the table. Do you have any tickets for a Broadway show? And he said, oh, you got lucky today. We just had two tickets returned to the opening night of a big, big, big Broadway play. And he gave me the tickets, and I ran upstairs to my mom, and she took one look at the ticket, and she said, oh, my God, we got two beautiful seats, Orchestra center, to the opening night of Richard Burton's Hamlet. That. I guess everyone had been talking about this for months, that Richard Burton's gonna do Hamlet on stage. Like, she's so excited. I'm going, What Shakespeare? I'm 13 years old. I gotta go and watch it. Not only not just a play, it's like, it couldn't be, like a musical or something. It couldn't be a comedy. It had to be, like, Shakespeare. Ugh. So I go with her, and I'm really not happy about the whole situation, but it is our last night. I know I'm gonna be heading home the next day. We get to the theater, we sit down, and we've got the best seats in the house. I mean, these are fifth row center seats, so you can see everything, you hear everything, and Richard Burton comes out, and the whole thing was done in rehearsal clothes. So he was just wearing black jeans and a black T shirt. There was no staging, there was just little rehearsal furniture on the stage. So the whole thing was about the language and the performance. And Richard Burton comes out and he starts making the audience laugh. And I'm thinking, wait a minute, this is supposed to be the greatest tragedy of all time. I did kind of know that it was something about Hamlet. I knew it was a tragedy. I think I'd heard something about the to be or not to be speech. But he comes out and in the middle of this tragedy, he's got the audience laughing uproariously. So I'm really inspired by that. And there was one moment when he came out and I've Hamlet. And I say, I've. Because I played Hamlet and I stole most of Richard Burton's performance when I did Hamlet, which was very successful many, many, many, many years later. There's one scene where after Hamlet has killed Polonius and stuffed his body in a corner, he walks into the gallery with the people and he says, he puts his hand on his nose and he said, if you find him not within this month, you will nose him as you head into the gallery or whatever he says. But he puts his finger up to his nose like that, and the whole audience goes crazy with laughter. And. And I thought, you know, if it's possible to make a Broadway play that's supposed to be a huge tragedy into a comedy, then that's real genius right there. But that's not what got me. No, that's not what got me. What got me was after the play, my mother said as we were walking out, now, we must go around to the back of the theater to the stage door and see if we can catch a glimpse of the star. Because that's what you do after a Broadway play. And it was in Shubert Alley, and we walked around to the alley and there was a gaggle of people out there standing around, waiting to see if they could see Richard Burton come out. And we're standing there, we're standing there and all of a sudden I look down to the end of the alley and this huge black limousine comes down the alley slowly, and it stops right at the stage door. And at the moment that it stops, the stage door opened and Richard Burton comes out and he throws his scarf around his neck, walks down the stairs. The door to the limousine opens and he slides in next to 36 long stem red roses and Elizabeth Taylor and their arms embrace. The roses envelop them, the door closes the car drives off, and I said, that's what I want. So that's how I became interested in the idea of acting. Not for the acting, but for the limo and the pretty girl. And I got it. I got the limo, and I got the pretty girl. Cheetah. Would you call that a success? I think so. I mean, I like it. I like the limousines, and I like the pretty girls. I got to marry one, too. So I'm very happy about how that all turned out, even though it was kind of a problem for me and my mom for many years after that. But that sort of handles that question, I think, Eve.
- [25:50]
Eve
I think so. Okay, next question. Do you realize the impact you've made culturally with the film Making Love?
- [25:58]
Harry Hamlin
Oh, Making Love. Okay. For audience members who don't know what Making Love is, It was a 20th Century Fox film. We filmed it in 1980, came out in 1981. I do believe it was the very first studio film done by a major studio that involved a gay love story, which was not something where a lot of wicked things were going on. It was just basically a love story about a married man who discovers his sexuality after marrying his wife, and he falls in love with a writer who happens to be gay. And I played the writer, and Michael Onkein played the doctor who I met when I went in to have him check on what turned out to be an ingrown hair under my neck. And we filmed it before hiv, before aids. I mean, certainly the virus had been going around by the early 80s, but no one knew what it was. It hadn't been revealed yet what it was. And so, oddly enough, I walk into this doctor's office, and I go up to the doctor, who's Michael on Keane, and I say, hey, Doc, I got this thing under my neck. I just was curious what it was. Well, it turns out to be an ingrown hair. But today, if we had known about HIV and AIDS at the time, we never would have had that be the thing that I went to the doctor for. Because. Because, oh, my God, that's. You know, that, you know, you get these tumors and stuff from hiv. So it would have been kind of horrific if. If we had done that and we'd known about it. But anyway, I. I did this movie in 1981 against the advice of my friends. My agent wanted me to do it. I read the script, and I had been offered a lot of kind of stupid movies at that point, studio movies. But there was one movie, for example, I think it was called, like, Nightwing or something, or I forget exactly. But they came in, they were pitching the movie to me about. It was about native tribes being oppressed by white settlers and small towns in the Midwest and the South. But it wasn't about that. It was about vampire bats that had gotten loose and somehow were terrorizing this little town. I'm going to. I don't want to do a movie about vampire bats. You know, that's not my thing. But I get this script about this love affair between these two men, and it's what's going on right now in the world, but no one wants to talk about it. In 1980, 1981. It still is a subject that no one would dare discuss out in public. No one wanted to reveal that they were gay in those days. It was still one of those things where people were closeting themselves. But I thought it was a real story, a story that involved real people in a real situation. And it wasn't about vampire bats invading a small town. So I. I signed on to do the picture. And Arthur Hiller was a great, great director, directed the movie. And I'll never forget meeting Michael on King for our first day of rehearsal. And in the movie, there's a kiss. And it's the first time that a. A kiss between two men had ever been seen on screen in. In a studio type movie. I'm sure there had been independence before, but this was a big, big studio movie and, you know, had the entire studio behind it. And there was this kiss between me and this man, and I'd never kissed a man before. And I'll never forget the first day of rehearsal. We got there and I'm talking to Michael and he said, you know, we've got to do this kiss. I said, yeah, how about that? And he goes, let's rehearse it a lot. And I go, well, actually, do we really need to rehearse this kiss? I mean, have you kissed before? He goes, yeah. I said, I've kissed before. I've never kissed a man before. But this is going to be the first time in the film that you've ever kissed a man. So let's let it be the first time that you've ever kissed a man. And he was not happy about that. He wanted to rehearse that kiss, but I won the day. But he got back at me on the day we did the kiss. Okay, so we're going to do this. We've shot most of the movie. We're on a soundstage at 20th Century Fox. They've got my house They've built inside the soundstage. They've got a bedroom, they've got a foyer. And it's the scene where I'm going to be kissing Michael Onkine. The first big studio picture kiss in history. So the brass all come over from the main office at 20th Century Fox. Sherry Lansing, who ran the studio, Dan Melnick, who was one of the producers, all the big guys came over to watch this thing that had no one had ever seen before, the kiss. So we get ready to do it, and I walked up to Michael and I said, michael, I appreciate the fact that we never rehearsed a kiss, but let's just talk about it. I said, how about since it's the first time you've ever kissed a man, and since we're nervous, and since we're also. It's very romantic moment and the lights are low, I said, why don't we just have our lips barely touched for the first kiss and we'll sort of explore each other's faces with our hands and our lips and. And make it a very kind of soft, romantic moment. I said, you know, without open mouths and we don't really have to do tongues and all that. And he goes, yeah. He said, yeah, I get that. That's. I'm good with that. And so we walk onto the set and they light it up and they roll the camera. And the director says, action. And Michael walks into the scene, and in the first take, he put his hand behind my neck so that I couldn't move my head. And he comes in and he gave me like this huge open mouth kiss. And suddenly I felt this tongue, this male tongue go deep into my mouth. And I was thinking, oh, my God, don't flinch. Don't flinch, Harry. Just accept it. Just go with it. Because you don't want to do take two if you can avoid it, you know? And I'm thinking this the whole time, and his tongue is like, tickling my uvula. And I'm just doing everything I can to not react, to make it look like I'm really enjoying this, right? So the kiss ends and we go arm in arm. We walk around into my bedroom and the director yells, cut. And I go, oh, my God. I said, no tongues. At which point I could hear them screaming next to the camera. And I come out and there's Sherry Lansing. She's down holding her belly, and so is Dan Melnick. And they're all just like, laughing hysterically because of what has just happened. I mean, this man has just put his tongue down My throat. I mean, I had no idea. And it's all caught on film. But we did have to do it a second time. And we did it a second time. That's the one that shows up in the film. The second. The second take. But I have tremendous empathy for all of you girls, Eve and Lisa and Cheetah, because I had, like, really bad whisker burn after it. I mean, seriously. I mean, you never think about that when you're a guy.
- [32:52]
Eve
Oh, it's a real struggle.
- [32:53]
Harry Hamlin
It's a real struggle. Right. Okay, so I get it now. I mean, anyway, so that was my. That was my making love thing. And it did have a huge impact culturally. And to this day, not a week goes by when someone doesn't come up to me and thank me for making that movie. Thank me. They tell me stories about how they took their dad to see the movie and it was the only way they could tell their parents that they were gay because they saw the movie and then they would have a discussion about it. I mean, I've heard that story over and over and over again from people in little small towns, like in Georgia, little small towns in Louisiana where, you know, I. Even to this day, there are people who ostracize their children when they come out. I mean, there's a guy who works on Mayfair Witches, and I was talking to him. He said his parents, when he came out, completely ostracized him. And his whole community did. His church did. And he can't even go back to his town in Louisiana because he can't show his face there. This is today. This is 2025. Crazy, right? Anyway, that was my making love experience, and there's a few more things about it, but I'm going to let it go at that. What do you think about that, Cheetah? Really enthralling, right? I can see you are really into it.
- [33:59]
Eve
Yeah. She's engaged.
- [34:06]
Lisa Rinna
This episode of of let's not Talk about the Husband is brought to you by booking dot com. Booking. Yeah. All right. Imagine if you're traveling with three toddlers, two grandparents, and one nap. Schedule that rules them all. Might need blackout curtains in separate rooms. Okay. Imagine you're a coach with 12 middle schoolers, each with their own snack preferences. You might need a place to store and buy the snacks. Imagine if you're a foodie family. You might need a big kitchen or. Or to be closest to the best restaurants. From vacation rentals to hotels across the U.S. booking.com has the ideal summer stay for absolutely everyone, even those who might seem impossible to please. Whether you're booking for yourself, your partner, your picky teens, or your sleep light rise early, Mom. You can find exactly what you're Booking for on booking.com I love to use booking.com because in my family everybody has very specific needs. They want to go to a specific place. They want it to be comfortable. They want it to have a big tv. They want a big kitchen, nice cozy rooms with blackout curtains. I mean, it changes every time we travel, but that's something that we're looking for right now. And with booking.com I can get it. I can find the place we want. I can find separate rooms wherever my heart desires. I can find it on booking.com find exactly what you're booking for booking.com booking yeah. Book today on the site or in the app hey everyone, let's take a moment to appreciate our liver. A true champion when it comes to cleansing toxins and supporting overall health. You know those times when you overindulge a little bit in food and drink and it leaves you feeling not so great. Your liver's working overtime to help you bounce back. That's where one MD Nutrition's Liver MD comes in. This is an award winning formula developed by a GI doctor featuring patented, clinically studied forms of milk thistle and vitamin E to support your liver with top notch ingredients. Imagine feeling refreshed and ready to face the day knowing that your body is getting the care that it needs. It's not just about detoxifying LiverMD helps maintain your overall well being even when life throws you those delicious temptations. Picture a life with more energy and less daily fatigue. And get this 90% of users rate LiverMD better than any competitor. And get this 80% of LiverMD users saw significant improvements in their liver test results plus better energy, mental clarity and and less bloating. Want to give your liver some love? Head over to onemd.org and use code husband for a 15% discount on your first order. With One MD Nutrition, you're not just supporting your liver, you're investing in a healthier, happier version of you. Start transforming your liver health today with LiverMD. Better energy, mental clarity and digestion await, backed by an ironclad 90 day money back guarantee. I'm Alex. And I'm John and we're your gracious, gracious, gracious hosts of Give It To Me Straight. We're a husband and wife duo and your new best friends who unapologetically call.
- [37:24]
Harry Hamlin
It all your red flags.
- [37:25]
Lisa Rinna
Every Tuesday we answer your burning questions about dating problems Marriage issues, family drama. Basically any disaster that's happening in your life that you want our opinion on, it's a new form of therapy that.
- [37:36]
Harry Hamlin
You didn't know you needed.
- [37:37]
Lisa Rinna
Well, whether you're single, cuffed up, or just here for the drama, we're always here to give it to you straight.
- [37:51]
Eve
Okay, let's move on to some questions about Lisa.
- [37:54]
Harry Hamlin
Okay.
- [37:54]
Eve
Okay. If you could pick one thing about Lisa that sold you, what would it be?
- [37:59]
Harry Hamlin
Oh, one thing. There's so many things about Lisa that sold me. I was coming out of a bad relationship, and I couldn't. I couldn't allow myself to go there. But about a year later, we actually started to date. And about three or four weeks into our. We started to really date, really hang out together. I said, let's go to Hawaii for the weekend. She had a weekend off from Days of Our Lives, and I must have had some miles or something. And there was this little hotel that we liked. I like to go to anyway, in Maui. It's right on the beach, and it was cheap. It was called the Stouffer Hotel. We get there and I said, you know, I'm a big scuba diver. Why don't we learn to scuba dive while we're here? She goes, okay, so it's totally game. And so, great. So we go down the pool, and she puts on a tank, and we do an hour of a class in the pool. Great. Let's go scuba diving. Great. She says she's totally game. So we get in the water and we walk out and we get to, like, 60ft, which is all you're allowed to do when you do a resort dive. That's when you learn in the pool at a hotel or something. But we're. We're 50ft below the. Below the surface, you know, and we're with a dive instructor. And I'm thinking, this girl, you know, she's so game, I mean, to. To learn how to scuba dive in the pool and then go out to 50ft. I mean, you're under the water. We could hear the humpback whales screaming in the distance. And it was really spooky. And then the guy that we're diving with reaches his hand down between these two rocks and pulls out an octopus with tentacles about. About two feet long. And he puts the octopus on the ma. His mask, and the tentacles go all around his neck. And I'm thinking, this guy's out of his mind. He's putting an octopus on his mask, and he's allowing the tentacles to go around his neck. And I've been diving since 1962. I would never do that. I mean, it's just like, what? I mean, kind of a crazy thing. And so he takes the octopus off of his own mask, and he goes like this to Lisa, like, hey, try it. And she goes, yeah. And he puts the octopus on her mask. This is a woman who's only been scuba diving for 15 minutes, and she's putting an octopus on her mask and the. And the tentacles are twirling around her neck. And I'm thinking this girl's gonna panic instantly, right? Because, I mean, anybody would panic like that underwater. But no, she was cool as a cucumber. She was smiling. I guess she just didn't know that it was like, I mean, kind of a dangerous thing. I mean, this. If the octopus had pulled the mask or the regulator out of her mouth, she could drown. I mean, it was like, what? But no, she was like, okay. It was really that moment, if you want to know the moment. It was that moment when she put that octopus on her mask. I said, I'm going to ask this girl to marry me. Does that answer your question?
- [40:45]
Eve
I love that story. That is amazing. Lisa is sp. Fearless. I would be freaking out in that situation.
- [40:52]
Harry Hamlin
I know, I know. She's an amazing creature.
- [40:54]
Eve
I love that.
- [40:55]
Harry Hamlin
Who are you, by the way? Cheetah. Cheetah, come. Cheetah. She is out like a light. Okay. I'm really boring you, aren't I?
- [41:03]
Eve
She's just very comfortable here. She's very comfortable as a podcaster. Okay, okay. Shall we move on?
- [41:09]
Harry Hamlin
Yes, let's move on.
- [41:10]
Eve
Okay. How do you and Lisa work through your issues? Do you ever argue or do you sit and discuss?
- [41:16]
Harry Hamlin
What couple doesn't argue? Show me that couple. Yeah, I'd love to go there. We don't argue a lot, but we do. I mean, it's pretty hard to go through 30 some odd years with someone without having your differences from time to time. But one of the things that Lisa and I did early, early, early on was get into therapy because I was coming out of a really bad situation romantically. She was coming off of a. A three year abusive relationship with her boyfriend. We were trying to work it out and figure out how to, you know, how to hang together and enjoy each other and at the same time accept each other's foibles and idiosyncrasies. And it takes patience and it takes, you know, you've got to really be compassionate and try to understand and listen to your partner to understand what they're feeling where they're coming from. With me and Lisa, we had some pretty intense arguments out of the gate at the beginning, trying to figure out how to live together. And I don't remember what they had to do with exactly, but I do remember that we immediately found therapists to talk to, and the therapist gave us tools. So we had a toolkit, a toolbox going into the marriage that we could rely on to whenever we could intercept a problem when it was happening, rather than let it fester and grow into something where we were, like, not talking to each other and giving each other the silent treatment and all that, which is kind of standard fare in a relationship. People start screaming at each other, and then they can't deal with that anymore, so they walk out of the room and then don't talk to each other for a couple days. And that doesn't ever work. And we learned that early on. So we don't like to allow an argument to go overnight. It's happened a couple of times. But I would say the really good advice would be to make sure that before you turn the lights out at night and go to sleep that you resolve whatever differences you have before you go to sleep. Doesn't always happen, but we try to make that happen. You know, I think therapy is a really, really good thing for couples. I know for us, it's probably been the saving grace for us. And you got to find the right therapist, of course. But, you know, there are a lot of other tricks that we have for getting out of scrapes, like arguments that we have. But usually we end up walking into a room after we haven't talked to each other for hours. We look at each other and just start laughing and just. We realize how stupid it was that we were so angry at each other, because we're soulmates, you know, and at the end of the day, that's what counts, not the arguments and all that. And we always realize that we always just look at each other and just break out laughing. I don't know. Seems to work for us. That answer your question?
- [43:53]
Eve
I love that. That's great advice. Okay, next question.
- [43:57]
Harry Hamlin
Okay.
- [43:58]
Eve
Were you a pot smoker back in the day?
- [44:03]
Harry Hamlin
Was I a pot smoker back in the day? Interesting question. No, but even though I wasn't a pot smoker, every time I was around pot, and I've never bought, like, weed, but I've been around it because I went to Berkeley in 1970, and there was a lot of weed in Berkeley in 1970, every time I've been anywhere near Pot. I've been arrested. So I was arrested first in Redwood City at the airport in San Francisco with a little tiny bit of pot. I mean, not more than a finger's worth of pot, but I was. It was 1970, and in those days, if you were caught with any marijuana at all, everybody thought you were like a drug addict. And, you know, so I was actually. I was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana, and I was also charged with possession of narcotics for sale because someone had an upperclassman in my fraternity house had given me 25 pills to take to USC to give to another frat house down there because it was Thanksgiving and exam times and they wanted these speed for exams. So people, we used to take these little things called white crosses, and we could stay up all night, you could study hard for exam and hopefully get a good grade. So I had these little pills with me. And then as I was leaving, the upperclassman throws a little baggie of pot on my bed and says, here, this is for your troubles. Now, I didn't say, look, I don't smoke pot. I just took it. And it was enough for two or three joints maybe. But I was a little paranoid about how this was all going to go. And so I put the pot and the pills, the 25 little pills in a sock and I put them in my guitar case and I locked my guitar case because I was going to take my guitar to Southern California for Thanksgiving, get on the plane, go down to la, then I've got to take these pills over to USC and sell them. He wanted a hundred bucks for these 25 pills for exams. I take them over, I get to the house, knock on the door, I've got these pills. The guy comes to the door. I said, here are these pills. Your friend Steve up there in Berkeley wanted me to give these to you for $100. He takes them. He comes back a couple months later, he says, we don't want them. Ah, okay, you don't want them. Okay, so I gotta take them back. So when I get back home, I gotta leave the next day to go back up to San Francisco. And I put the pills and the pot back in the sock, put the sock back in my guitar case, lock it, and fly back up to San Francisco. And when I get there, I get my bag from PSA with the Pacific Southwest Airlines, which was the airline that went between San Francisco and LA at the time. And they came up to me and they said, oh, we're so sorry, but your guitar went on to Seattle by mistake. But you can come back tomorrow and pick it up anytime, because it'll come back tonight. I go, oh, shucks. My guitar went on to Seattle, all right, So I go home, go back to Berkeley. And then I asked this girl who was living in the house, oddly enough, if she would drive with me to the airport, accompany me to get my guitar. And she happened to be the girlfriend of the guy who gave me the pills in the first place. And I kind of had the hots for her. And I thought, maybe this is a chance for me to get in there a little bit. And she drives with me to the airport. We get there and we drive into the three minute zone. And I said, I'll just be a second. I run in, I run into where the carousels are, and the bags are coming down. The place is completely jammed with people. Bags coming down the carousel, totally crowded. I walk up to the window where the guy is with, with the bag tags. I handed him my tag and I said, my guitar went to Seattle. I think you've got it back. And he goes, oh, yeah, this is in storage. You have to come back in five minutes. And I said, well, I'm just parked in the three minutes. And he said, well, just go around one more time. By the time you come back, it'll be here. So I go back out, we get in the car, we drive around the airport one time, we come back, park in the three minute zone. I walk in, and now there's not a soul in the baggage claim area. Completely empty, and no sound. And I'm thinking, that's weird. This place was just full of people a minute ago, and now there's no one here. And the guy is still standing behind the counter. And I get about halfway across the room and the back of my neck starts to get really hot. And I go, oh, this doesn't seem good at all. And suddenly four men in black suits come from the four corners of the room with guns drawn. And they're telling me to get down on the ground. And down I go. On the ground. They. They come up and they put me in handcuffs. They yank me up and put me against the wall and search me, and I'm screwed, right? I'm being, like, majorly arrested in the middle of the airport in San Francisco with guns drawn. And I'm going, what the fuck? And so they take me. And now, by the way, I'm a freshman at Berkeley. I was at a boarding school where I wore a coat and tie every day. This is the third month I've been There. I still have short hair. I'm still wearing an oxford cloth shirt and seersucker pants and loafers. I mean, I don't look at all like a drug dealer. I mean, and I'm a kid. I'm 18 years old, right? But nevertheless, they've got their man, right? And I'm dragged down into the center of the airport, and I'm sat down next to this guy who's clearly a detective of some kind. I'm in handcuffs, and I look at his name plate, and his name is Sergeant Just Ng. I'd never seen that before. Clearly he was Asian, but I'd never seen a name to this day. How do you pronounce? Just Ng. It was his name, but he looked at me and he said, so. And he opens a drawer, and in the drawer is the black sock that had the drugs and the pot in it. And he pulls the sock out and he said, is this yours? And I said, and I'm thinking, well, I'm in trouble here. Am I going to lie or am I going to tell the truth? I mean, if I say, no, it's not mine, because it really wasn't mine. Not anything I'd bought anyway. It wasn't anything I was intending to use. I said, no, it's not mine, man. I don't know how I got into Berkeley, and I certainly don't know how I got into Yale after that, because he says, oh, really? This is not yours. And he unrolls the sock and there's my name that my mother. My mother has sewn a little name tag into it that says Harry Hamlin on the sock. So I go, okay, yeah, okay, that's me. And I tried to explain to him what was going on, but he was gonna have none of it. I was just arrested. So I was then taken in a bus to the San Francisco Redwood City Jail, where I was booked in. Anyway, it's a long story. I ended up spending 18 days in jail some months later after being convicted. But that's a really good story, but I can't tell it right now. But I'm going to go back to the pot thing. And was I a pot smoker? No, I was not a pot smoker. But the next time I had the opportunity to be near some pot was when we went to East Hampton. My roommate and I and another kid and our girlfriends all went to East Hampton one night weekend, and we were going to sleep on the beach because there wasn't enough room in my roommate's house for us all to Sleep. So we had sleeping bags and we out on the beach, and my roommate was a big pot smoker, and we sat around and kind of played guitar and had a Kumbaya moment. And then we all got naked and got in our sleeping bags and did whatever we were going to do before we went to sleep. And then we went to sleep. Then unceremoniously, at 5am in the morning, all of a sudden, I find myself being dumped out naked onto the sand of the beach in East Hampton. And my girlfriend naked on the sand and all. There's like six cops are just dumping us out of our sleeping bags, naked onto the beach. We're squirming around in the sand, and they're telling us that we were being arrested for sleeping on the beach, which is illegal in East Hampton. And I'm thinking back to myself, like, I'm on probation still because I was arrested for this other thing in Berkeley, like the year. A couple years before. And they better not find out about that. It was a bit of a problem, but I'm thinking, we're just sleeping on the beach. No big deal, right? So then one of the cops says, hmm, what's that? And he points down in the sand, and there's a little roach about that long, a little expended joint, a little expended marijuana spliff. And he says, who's that? Who belongs to that? And we all looked at each other like, not me, not me, not me, not me. And he said, well, in that case, I'm gonna have to arrest all of you. And he arrested all of us. We were put in a paddy wagon and taken to the East Hampton jail, where we spent the day waiting to be arraigned. And about halfway through the day, we were bailed out. My roommate's mother bailed us all out. So out went my roommate, my other friend, and the three girlfriends. But they said to me, no, I'm sorry, Hamlin, you're staying. You can't go anywhere. And they were really mean to me. And I go, oh, they must have found out about my arrest in San Francisco. I'm screwed. I'm on probation. This is a problem. And my friends left. I said, well, wait, don't leave me here. And they just left and went out to have fun in East Hampton. I'm sitting there in jail, and he's tamped in jail. Meanwhile, the cops come by every once in a while. They just look at me. And then other cops will come in and just look at me. And they'll walk over and just look at me. And I'm going. I felt like a zoo animal. These people were coming over and just looking at me, right? And I kept saying, well, why are you keeping me here? What's going on? And they were so mean to me. And I was like, couldn't figure it out. And then about 5 o' clock in the afternoon, one of them comes over with a key and unlocks the door and lets me out and says, so sorry, Mr. Hamlin, but we got a telex when we sent it out over the wires that you'd been arrested, that you, Harry Hamlin, had killed a policeman in New Orleans.
- [54:07]
Eve
What?
- [54:08]
Harry Hamlin
And they thought they had a cop killer. They thought they had. You know, they thought the little East Hampton jail had somehow managed to catch one of the most wanted people in America, whose name was Harry Hamlin. I didn't know there were other famous people named Harry Hamlin, but apparently there are, at least for killing cops. And he said, well, on closer inspection, we were looking at the rap sheet, and then one of the officers happened to notice that this Harry Hamlin was African American. So they realized that they had the wrong guy. But I spent a few hours wondering whether I was going to spend the rest of my life in jail.
- [54:41]
Eve
Oh, my God.
- [54:42]
Harry Hamlin
Anyway, so that was number two. And number three was when we were on tour in Hawaii, when I was at act, we were. We were doing awilderness in Hawaii, and two of my friends said, let's go walk on the beach. And they were smoking a joint. I didn't smoke. I was. I was down by the water and this guy in a Hawaiian shirt walked up and. And said, hey, guys. Hey, can I have a hit? And they gave him a hit, and it turned out he was a plainclothes cop. And they were arrested immediately. But because I was within close proximity, I was arrested, too. So every time I've been anywhere near pot, I got arrested. So we're in Hawaii, I've been arrested. I'm with my two friends, and they've never been arrested before. It's their first time dealing with the law. And we're sitting in jail. We're going to be arraigned the next day. And while we're in jail, I say, listen, guys, whatever you do, plead not guilty. Because the chances are. And I said, I've learned this because I've been through the system once. The chances are that the cop was going to screw up. There'll be some screw up, and you're going to get off because the cops got to show up and it's got to be all. Everything's got to be just right. But the chances are, if you plead not guilty, that you're going to get acquitted. And so we walk out and we're being arraigned, and my first friend walks out, and the judge says, how do you plead? And he says, guilty, your Honor. And I go, what are you doing? I just told you to not plead guilty because they knew they'd been caught, right? But. But I said, just don't do it. And the other guy walks out, and the judge says, and how do you plead? And he goes, guilty, your honor. I go, oh, my God, my friends. What have they done? And so then I walk out, and the judge says, how do you plead? And I said, not guilty, because I wasn't guilty. Right, But I also know you just never plead guilty. So then the judge says, okay, for the two of you who pled guilty, go out and see the cashier in the hallway. It's a $15 fine for each of you. For you, Mr. Hamlin, you'll be back in court in two weeks for your hearing. I go, what? Wait a minute. I gotta fly back to LA tomorrow. And if I stay here for two weeks, it's gonna cost me $1,000. I'm thinking, oh, my God. I said, you, Honor, can I change my plea to guilty? And he goes, what? And I said, can I change my plea to guilty knowing that it's just a $15 fine in Hawaii? I thought I was gonna go to jail. And he goes, no, you can't change your plea unless you're guilty. Are you guilty? And I said, well, no, I'm not guilty, but it's only a $15 fine if I'm guilty. He said, in my courtroom, I will never allow anyone who is not guilty to plead guilty. And I go, but I'm gonna have to stay here in Hawaii. It's gonna cost. I've got to hire a lawyer. And he goes, I don't care if you're not guilty, and you've told me you're not guilty, you cannot plead guilty. And so I had to stay. And it cost me a couple thousand dollars, which I didn't have. I had to call my parents. Parents to get them to wire me money. They stay for two weeks. And I got off. I mean, I go to the hearing, and the cop didn't show up, and I was acquitted right there on the spot, just as they would have been if they had pled not guilty. But anyway, my friends, they laughed at me. They still laugh at me about that, you know, But I had a good time. I stayed in Hawaii and went camping for two weeks so I didn't have to spend time in a hotel. But those are my three times running into the law. Around pot, around weed, which I don't smoke. I never have smoked weed with any regularity. I mean, I've smoked it a couple times in my life, but it's not. I'm not a pot smoker, but every time I've been around pot, so's the law.
- [58:11]
Eve
Well, it feels like the universe is telling you maybe pot is not for you.
- [58:15]
Harry Hamlin
I think the universe has told me, you know, stick clear, stay clear of weed. I guess so anyway, that I'm listening to the universe from now on.
- [58:21]
Eve
Exactly. Lessons learned.
- [58:23]
Harry Hamlin
Hey, Cheetah. Cheetah, thanks for. Thanks for coming and being my co host today. You've been really exciting as a co host. Yeah. And you've been very engaged. I'm so appreciative. Anyway, thanks for watching everybody and checking us out one more time for let's not talk about the Husband.
- [58:42]
Lisa Rinna
Thanks for listening to our show. You can catch new episodes every Friday.
- [58:47]
Harry Hamlin
And don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss anything.
- [58:50]
Lisa Rinna
Yeah. And if you liked what you heard.
- [58:52]
Harry Hamlin
Consider leaving us a rating or review. And make sure to tell all your friends, too. I mean, like, everyone you know and their mother.
- [58:59]
Lisa Rinna
If you have a question for us or you need advice, God help you. Leave a voicemail using the link in our show notes. We might just answer your question in a future episode. Now you can find us on social media, Lisarina on Instagram, and then I'msarinaofficial on TikTok.
- [59:18]
Harry Hamlin
And I'm HarryRhamlin on Instagram.
- [59:21]
Lisa Rinna
That's right.
- [59:22]
Harry Hamlin
So see you next week.
- [59:24]
Lisa Rinna
Until then, let's not talk about the husband.
- [59:33]
Harry Hamlin
Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.