Grace Kessler Overbeke, "First Lady of Laughs: The Forgotten Story of Jean Carroll" (NYU Press, 2024)

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Podcast: New Books Network

Episode: Grace Kessler Overbeke, "First Lady of Laughs: The Forgotten Story of Jean Carroll" (NYU Press, 2024)

Host: Jane Semeka

Guest: Grace Kessler Overbeke

Date: December 5, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the fascinating and underappreciated life and legacy of Jean Carroll, the pioneering standup comedian, through the recent book "First Lady of Laughs," by Grace Kessler Overbeke. Overbeke, an academic specializing in comedy studies, joins host Jane Semeka to discuss Carroll's pivotal yet long-overlooked role in American comedy, her immigrant background, her impact on women in comedy, and the ongoing challenges of recognition for trailblazing women in male-dominated fields.

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Key Discussion Points & Timestamps

1. Who Was Jean Carroll?

[02:44]

• Carroll is described as “arguably the first woman to do standup comedy in the United States, and certainly the first Jewish woman to do standup comedy in the U.S.”
• Began performing at age 11 in vaudeville, pioneering standup before it even had a name.

2. Overbeke’s Interest in Carroll

[03:27]

• Overbeke was inspired by early exposure to vaudeville and the lack of visible women in histories of Jewish comedy.
• Discovery of Carroll came via a live show that showcased early Jewish women comedians—a pivotal moment (“…why is it that I'm writing my undergraduate thesis about women in Jewish comedies and this is a name that I haven't heard before…”).

3. Carroll’s Upbringing & Entry into Show Business

[07:16]

• Carroll’s family immigrated from Eastern Europe, led an itinerant and impoverished life in New England and New York.
• Her early drive was economic: “It was always very much driven by money. She felt like if she could make enough money, then she could get father out of the house…” [11:43]
• Started as a child performer, winning dubious talent shows, and transitioned from dramatic monologues to comedic acts after embracing the audience’s laughter.

4. Breadwinner and Feminist Themes

[12:09]

• Carroll’s insistence on financial independence was lifelong: “Her financial independence was deeply important to her. And she just felt like that's how she could protect herself and how she could protect the people that she loved…”
• Her daughter later remarked, “she was a feminist before there was a name.”
• Example of her feminist stance: deliberately choosing work over the typical roles expected of women.

5. Marriage, Professional Collaboration, and Writing

[12:42]

• Carroll’s husband, Buddy Howe, was first a performance partner, then became her manager, recognizing her as the stronger writer and performer.
• Overbeke emphasizes Carroll’s underacknowledged skill as a comedy writer: “...the clickety clack of the typewriter going and going and going for hours...” [14:52]
• Despite being an accomplished writer, Carroll was excluded from the writing team of her own TV show.

6. Erase from Public Memory & Gender Bias in Comedy History

[16:18], [18:46]

• Overbeke argues Carroll is forgotten due to a combination of entertainment’s short memory and gender bias in history-writing:
  • “Culturally and especially in terms of the entertainment industry, memory is not long. We're sort of goldfish. And especially when it comes to women in any kind of unconventional profession... there’s a frustrating tendency that for every successful woman, people get up in arms and act like this is some kind of anomaly, rather than understanding that... this is a long standing lineage.”
  • Histories of standup and comedy often omit women’s contributions.

7. The Friars Club Tribute & Challenges for Women in Comedy

[19:16], [21:15]

• Carroll was honored at the (then all-male) Friars Club late in life—an irony since she wasn’t allowed membership during her career.
• The episode discusses the sexism of the entertainment industry, including harassment and joke theft:
  • “She talks about men stealing her jokes... She was always very insistent... ‘I'm not against men. I'm not at war with men. Because it has to be... you will be all alone in that whole business.’” [21:56]

8. Glamour and Comic Persona—Subverting Stereotypes

[25:13], [25:41]

• Carroll’s glamorous persona was both an asset and a challenge. Critics obsessed over her appearance, reinforcing the “funny or pretty” dichotomy.
• She broke conventions by being “self confident and... glamorous,” refusing to make her ethnicity or appearance the punchline.

9. Jewish Identity in Carroll’s Comedy

[28:39]

• Carroll’s humor was “double coded”—subtly referencing her Jewish heritage through syntax and phrasing (“This he likes”), resonating as an in-joke to those familiar with Yiddish while remaining accessible to general audiences.

10. Favorite Jean Carroll Jokes

[30:31]

• Overbeke’s current favorite:
  • “Oh, it was one of those love triangles. He and I were both in love with him.”
• Semeka adds:
  • “I love this woman's dress. It was really low cut and really high cut. It was a belt.”

11. Biographical Research & Family Legacy

[31:17]

• Overbeke accessed Carroll’s scrapbook, preserved by her granddaughters, which provided a personal window into Carroll’s life and career.
• The emotional connection to the biographical subject:
  • “I've been working on this for the better part of 20 years... I spend so much time thinking about how to best carry out a legacy of someone that I've never actually met, but who has shaped my life and who I really care about and love.” [32:51]

12. Retirement and Prioritizing Family

[35:04], [35:16]

• Carroll retired from entertainment to care for her ill mother, sister, and daughter. This rarity—in an industry favoring ceaseless devotion—contributed to her subsequent obscurity.
• Overbeke suggests: “...the industry is not kind to people who don't make it their first and only priority.”

13. Contemporary Resonances & Legacy in Popular Culture

[39:18], [39:51]

• Recent shows like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Hacks echo Carroll’s story.
• Rachel Brosnahan studied Carroll's performances to shape Midge Maisel, demonstrating Carroll’s enduring influence.
• Overbeke dreams of a documentary or feature film about Carroll.

14. Influence on Later Comedians

[43:44]

• Joy Behar said at the Friars Club tribute:
  • “Jean Carroll really is the mother of us all.”
• Lily Tomlin grew up watching Carroll, imitating her with childhood friends. Carroll’s confidence and refusal to self-deprecate provided a model for women in comedy and beyond.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Carroll’s Place in History:
  • “She became a stand up comedian before there was even a word for stand up comedian. So she's really kind of a pioneer of stand up comedy.” —Grace Kessler Overbeke [02:44]
• On Recognition and Erasure:
  • “For every successful woman, people get up in arms and act like this is some kind of anomaly, rather than understanding that... this is a long standing lineage.” —Overbeke [16:22]
• On Feminism:
  • “Her financial independence was deeply important to her... that’s why her daughter says she was a feminist before there was a name.” —Overbeke [12:09]
• On Double-Coded Humor:
  • “The way that she would say ‘this he likes’... people who heard it who were Yiddish speakers [would recognize it]... It’s a really, really subtle sort of signal, like, I am one of you.” —Overbeke [28:53]
• On Carroll’s Influence:
  • “Jean Carroll really is the mother of us all.” —Joy Behar, as quoted by Overbeke [43:44]

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Episode Structure with Timestamps

• Jean Carroll’s Biography: [02:44 – 07:09]
• Motivation and Early Career: [07:16 – 09:20]
• Writing and Professional Partnerships: [12:42 – 14:52]
• Legacy, Erasure, and Gender Bias: [16:18 – 18:53]
• Friars Club, Sexism in Comedy: [19:16 – 21:56]
• Glamour as Comic Persona/Stereotypes: [25:13 – 27:46]
• Jewish Identity and Style: [28:39 – 30:18]
• Favorite Jokes: [30:31 – 31:07]
• Research and Family Collaboration: [31:17 – 34:41]
• Retirement and Family Priorities: [35:04 – 38:00]
• Contemporary Echoes and Media: [39:18 – 42:39]
• Carroll’s Living Legacy: [43:44 – 45:01]

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Conclusion

Grace Kessler Overbeke’s work shines a spotlight on Jean Carroll’s vital, if too-long overlooked, legacy as a pathbreaking woman in comedy—one whose artistry, resilience, and humor helped pave the way for generations of women in entertainment and beyond. Through archival research, family interviews, and expert analysis, Overbeke restores Carroll’s rightful place as a foundational figure in American standup and a cultural icon whose wit and independence remain relevant.

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Transcript

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

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[New Books Network Host]

Welcome to the New Books Network.

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

Welcome to.

[Jane Semeka]

New Books in Women's History, a podcast channel on the New Books Network. I'm Jane Semeka, a professor of history at Brookdale Community College. Today we'll be discussing a new book by Grace Kessler Overbeck called First lady of the Forgotten Story of Jean Carroll, published by New York University Press. Grace Kessler Overbeck is an assistant professor in the theater department of Columbia College with a focus on comedy studies. Previously, she served as the Perelman Postdoctoral Fellow in Jewish Studies at Duke University. Her scholarship appears in Shofar, an Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, Theater Topics, and Theater Annual. Other publications appear in the New York the New England Theater Journal, Theater Survey, Studies in American Humor, and the Jewish Forward. She was the recipient of the Mark and Ruth Luckins International Prize in Jewish Thought and Culture and the Northwestern Crown Center Fellowship for Jewish and Israel Studies. Grace, welcome to the show.

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

Thanks for having me.

[Jane Semeka]

So who is Jean Carroll, and why is she the first lady of Laughs?

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

Well, Jean Carroll is arguably the first woman to do standup comedy in the United States, and certainly the first Jewish woman to do standup comedy in the U.S. she was born in 1911 and she immigrated in 1913, and she was really a New Yorker from the Time that she arrived, she moved around New England a little bit, but by the time she was 11 years old, she was on vaudeville, she was performing, and she became a stand up comedian before there was even a word for stand up comedian. So she's really kind of a pioneer of stand up comedy.

[Jane Semeka]

So what drew you to Jean Carroll's story?

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

There's a lot, there's a lot to draw person. I, I think that I really kind of blame my parents for this one because from the time I was born, I was really interested in comedians. My name is Bracelet, but I was named after Gracie, Gracie Allen, who was a vaudeville stud. And my parents used to read me her biography when I was a kid. They would play these old Burns and Allen tapes from the radio show that would air in the 1930s. They were really, really quite rabid fans of Burns and Allen. And so I grew up idolizing this particular period of, you know, vaudeville company.

So I loved it and I really attached myself to that. Even when I was sort of unsure about what my Jewish identity was, what that meant, I felt really connected to Jewish comedy. But most of the books that I read about Jewish comedy had very, very strong gender bias. They were all about meth and they were wonderful stories. But as a woman, I kind of wanted to see myself in some of the stories and that just wasn't happening. So when I was in college, I decided, okay, well, I'm going to write about Jewish women in coffee. And that is, I. I remember I was going to school in Connecticut, but I saw this ad for a show in New York at something called the Actors Synagogue. It was called the. And I'm sorry, this is a polarizing word. It was called the Jack Show. It's for Jewish American Princess. And I got a bus ticket and I went to New York and saw the show and it really, really rocked my, my world. It was. It had contemporary Jewish women comedians doing stand up from, you know, the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s. So this was like way before they were Netflix specials. This is like Jessica Pearson, Corey Haney.

Jackie Hoffman was in it. And they were doing these old bits from Val Barth and Tony Fields and Gene Carroll. And so I had read about Val Bark and Tony Fields, but Gene Carroll was a new name to, to me. And I thought was, why is it that I'm writing my undergraduate thesis about women in Jewish comedies and this is a name that I haven't heard before and that continued to draw me and fascinate me? You know, it's been almost two decades.

[Jane Semeka]

Wow. Yeah. Two Decades. You really spent a lot of time with, with her. And so then it eventually evolved into this project?

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when I was at college, it was like, you know, it was like a college thesis. So it was maybe like 100 pages altogether. It was like 10 pages on 10 different media. But then I can't like go like. I was fascinated by these women. And so later when I went to graduate school, I thought, like, I need this to be my dissertation. I want to write the book will on these women. And Jean Carroll was going to be chapter one. And then I think it was around like at 67 of chapter one that I realized like, no, no, no, no, this is not chapter one. This is, this is the book to itself. She is much for one chapter.

[Jane Semeka]

So can you talk a little bit about her early life and how she got into show business?

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

Yeah, her early life is fascinating. It's really sort of that archetypical rags to riches, immigrant American story. As I mentioned, she. She came to this country when she was just about 2 years old. She was, you know, a baby basically.

And she and her mother and her siblings moved around a lot. They were sort of chasing the, the father, Max, he was a baker, but he would sort of go wherever there was employment. They also moved around a lot because they had no money. So they would, they would find these deals where it was like you could get the first few months free and they would just live there for first few months and then they would leave when the, you know, to start paying rent. So it made for a very itinerant lifestyle. Um, the other problem of course, is that her, her father was struggling with alcoholism and so he raised abusive to her mother. And so she had a really unstable home life. And so from a very young age she had this view that it was about economics. If she could just make enough money, then that's what would get stability. That's. She could, she could take over control of the family from her father. She could take care of her mom, she could take care of her brothers and sisters. She could be a breadwinner and the caregiver that everyone really needed. And you know, the job market for nine year olds is not fast, so she was really limited in her options. But she, she came across these talent shows and they were like no kids talent shows that she started winning prize money at. And some of them, actually, most of them were fixed. So it was more of a scheme where the, the winner was decided beforehand. And she was, you know, they were child performers, but she found a real, well Paying gig in these talent shows.

[Jane Semeka]

So did she. Was she singing, dancing, doing comedy? Was she. What was. How did she kind of, you know, she had a lot of talent.

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

Yes, she was, you know, she was singing and dancing as.

As well as doing dramatic monologues. The, the story that she tells. And she's a brilliant sort of repertoire, so you, you have to take her stories with a grain of salt. But the story that she tells is that she started when she did her first talent show doing a dramatic monologue and she was trying to do this really, really tragic monologue about a man who found his daughter dead. She's tearfully confessing to, you know, or, or confronting I killed my daughter. But she was a nine year old girl, so just all the incongruity of that choice. And then she, as she tells it, she saw a boy in the audience who was heckling her and she said, oh, I recognize you. You're that boy that dated my sister. And so she started heckling him right back. And the crowd was laughing. And so what was started out as this like, would be tragic monologue became really funny. And she kind of got a taste for making people laugh. So she started leaning into that. And it was, at first, it was. They called it a lemon act. A lemon act is like, like the, the Will Huang on American Idol or like the, the act that people just love to mock because it's so deliciously bad. But she got stable employment from being that lemon act and she got funnier and really honed her skills and became quite a proficient stage performer, both in, you know, being doing comedic bits and also in her singing and dancing. She tells another story about going to play auditions at school and she really only auditions to show her sister that she wasn't a coward. But when she auditioned, the drama teacher was so impressed by her audition that the drama teacher really supported her. I think, story goes, even financially supported her taking all of these dancing and singing lessons. So as she was doing these tarant shows, she was also studying.

[Jane Semeka]

Yeah. And she wanted to earn enough money so that she could take care of her mother and get her father out of the home.

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

Exactly, yeah. And she, so it wasn't like she was. She had stars in her eyes about show business. It was always very much driven by money. She felt like if she could make enough money, then she could get father out of the house and she could be the person to take care of her mother's.

[Jane Semeka]

And does that become a lifelong practice for her, being the breadwinner?

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

Very much. I mean, I think that her. Her financial independence was deeply important to her. And she just felt like that's how she could protect herself and how she could protect the people that she loved. Remember, being in someone's power is if she could just pay the bills, then she would never have her autonomy threatened to play again. And that's why her daughter says she was a feminist before there was a mayor.

[Jane Semeka]

And she seemed like she was even she does marry, but it doesn't seem like she was initially that interested in marrying.

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

The story, as she tells it, is that her husband kind of tricked her into getting married. They were going on, so they started working together as a. As a duo, double act. She. She had worked, you know, she worked the vaudeville circuit quite a lot. And then she met the man who would eventually become her husband on vaudeville. He was a dancer, Buddy Howe. And they struck up a romantic relationship and then wrote a double act so that they could be together. And also she working, and she was very supportive of her work. He really was just dazzled by her talent as a performer, but also as a writer. And I think that meant so much to her that she had a partner who appreciated her not just as, you know, someone who was beautiful, but she was, and a talented performer, but also a really smart, witty comedy writer. And so he really took a step back and he said, I will write. I'll deliver the material just as you write it. You know, you can be in the driver's seat. You do all the punchlines. I'll just, you know, dance around and say the lines you've written.

And that was really the dynamic of their career. Even after he left the act, he discovered that she was a much stronger performer, and so she was more successful without him, and he became her manager. So he was. I mean, he was both supportive of her as a husband, but also professionally supportive of her as a manager. Right.

[Jane Semeka]

And it's interesting. It was very interesting to me how much she was also a writer. You know, she really is. I was thinking of, like, that film, my favorite year, where they talk about the writer's room on my show of shows and how, like, she could have been, like, in the writer's room within those, you know, early 1950s comedy shows, because she was really good at writing jokes.

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

She. Yes. And she, you know, she talks a little bit about. Well, her daughter talks a little bit about all of those nights, like, with her ear leaned up against her mom's door and just hearing the clickety clack of the typewriter going and going and going for hours. And, like, Those nights at the dinner table where her mom would be like, okay, timey, how many punch lines can I do in a minute? And she was really just a brilliant writer and it's, it's traveling and I talk much more about this in the book. But as brilliant a writer as she was, she was always given short shrift creatively in terms of like when she actually got her own TV show. She was not one of the head writers for that show. She was not really in the writers for it. There were some other writers who she respected very deeply, but she wasn't included. And so I think that that was one of the reasons why her TV show didn't last very long. Maybe three or four episodes.

[Jane Semeka]

Yeah, it. That maybe it lacked her authentic. Her voice.

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

Yes, absolutely. That's so.

[Jane Semeka]

And she appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. Everybody's heard of the Ed Sullivan Show. Ed Sullivan's show. She was on 29 times. She had her own sitcom briefly for a season. So why do you think her name has faded from public memory?

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

I think that part of it is because.

Culturally and especially in terms of the entertainment industry, memory is not long. We're sort of goldfish. And especially when it comes to women in any kind of unconventional profession, women in finance, women in comedy, women in stem, like there. There's a frustrating tendency that for every successful woman, people get up in arms and act like this is some kind of anomaly, rather than understanding that, no, no, this is not. This is not an anomaly. This is a long standing lineage. This has been going on since the beginning of the field. And just as someone does not linger in the legacy, it doesn't mean that they did not have major contributions. So in the same way, you know, people are very eager to get excited about firsts, and that can be great, but for one thing, it's inaccurate. And for another, every time people get excited about the first woman comic, you're erasing so many other people who did come.

So I think that in, in possibly the media's well intentioned enthusiasm to celebrate later women in comedy, like, like John Rivers, like Sarah Silverman, like, you know, you could insert name here. It's had the unintentional but detrimental effects of erasing women like G. Yeah.

[Jane Semeka]

And she had a long career. It's not like she was a flash in the pan.

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

Right, right. But she had a long career at a time when she was the only one. And so maybe there wasn't enough of a critical mass for people to.

Record her contributions also. I mean, let's be realistic. Mostly the people who are writing the history of comedy, generally, the people who are writing the standoff histories are met. And I think there's not as much of an incentive for men to seek out the women performers as there was for, say, someone like me to seek them out. Right. There are exceptions I want to shout out like, like Jared Nachman, who wrote Stories of Vaudeville and the Ed Sullivan show, did a really beautiful job documenting Jean Carroll's work.

But I read a lot of books about standoff, and she's really not mentioned in very many at all.

[Jane Semeka]

Right. I was shocked how little I knew about her. And I really love theater, love comedy, love Joan Rivers, love all the comedians who come before. And you know what was interesting too is that she lives to be 98, Jean Carroll lives to be 98 years old, and she is celebrated at the Friars Club, of all things. Can you talk a little bit about that?

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

Oh, that's fascinating. So she, her husband actually became the leader of the Friars Club despite the fact that he was not a comedian. And the Friars Club is supposed to be an organization of comedians. He managed comedians, but he was not a comedian leading this sort of comedy legend group.

She, you know, the Fires Club. He's an all male love. She was not allowed to be a member, and yet that is the organization that wound up creating a tribute to her. And it was connected to this project called, this like, beautiful project that was never came to fruition.

It was this documentary called she Made It Standing Up. And it was going to be a documentary all about Chief Carol work, legacy for life. And to, to gather footage for the documentary. They had this magnificent event at the Buyers Club. Lily Tomlin was there, Freddy Roman was there, the mayor. They had performances by really, really extraordinary artists. And she was there speaking about her memories and reminiscing about her work. And it's just that how the book opens is with vignettes of this really magical night at a place that she had never been allowed to be present in her lifetime for most of her lifetime.

[Jane Semeka]

Yeah, it's very fitting that this all boys club of comedians, and you can just imagine the Don Rickles of that whole brotherhood of men who perform comedy. And you know, they, they, they're a rough group to, I bet, to have spent your career alongside. I'll bet you that must have been challenging at times.

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

Tremendously. I mean, she really doesn't talk a great deal about the themier side of show business, but there are, there are stories where she'll just make the slightest reference to, like, oh, you know, I was backstage and I got roped by this guy. And it's just an offhand comment, but the way that she is so cavalier about it, it almost speaks more to how commonplace that was. And you know, she talks about men stealing her joke act and she was always very insistent. I'm saying, you know, I'm not, I'm not against men. I'm not at war with men.

Because it has to be. I mean, you can't make an enemy or you will be all alone in that whole business. Yeah.

[Jane Semeka]

You know, if you want to perform at the Copacabana and all those grossingers and you know, all the, the big places, you know, you got to get along, get along, get along to go along. Right. The, the whole idea of this is the if you want to be in this world, you gotta wear, put your big boy pants on. I guess, you know, you gotta toughen up and, and make it work. And she really does. I was so impressed.

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

Pants on, evening gown in an evening gown.

[Jane Semeka]

That's what I wanted to talk about next.

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[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

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[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

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[Jane Semeka]

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[Jane Semeka]

The COVID of your book is so beautiful. It's a picture, beautiful color picture of her in an evening gown and long elbow length gloves on. She was very glamorous and sophisticated in her, her act. And so she really kind of breaks the stereotype of funny or pretty, you know, the choice, the either or of funny or pretty in women in comedy. For women in comedy. So how do you think that choice affected her career?

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

I think in one side it made her kind of a novelty. And you can read like one of the ways that I did research for this book was just going through digitized newspapers of this period, like thousands of newspapers. And I would make note of any patterns that left out because when you've read, you know, thousands upon thousands of reviews, you start to notice there are patterns. And the most pronounced was the way that critics would talk about her appearance. There were, I mean, I would say like 90%, and this is a very armchair estimate. But the vast, I would say almost entirety of the reviews were like, not only is she funny, she's beautiful. They would tell you in minute detail all about what she was wearing, all about what her makeup looks like. How was her hair done in a way that like when you read reviews of Jack Benny, they're never going into, like, his. But her appearance was so much a part of her Persona. The fact that she was glamorous, the fact that she was sophisticated. And that was really important because she would. There were some stereotypes that were chasing her. I mean, she was. She was a Jewish woman. And so that sense, she was standing on the shoulders of other Jewish women. Comedy, like, like Fanny Brice, like Richard Ferg, like Sophie Tucker, all of whom really kind of used their, like, dowdiness or frumpiness as a way to generate comedy. And she was saying, no, no, no, that is not the only way to do it. I need people to know that there are different ways to be a funny Jewish woman. And one of those ways is to be self confident and hoist and glamorous. And it was a matter of dignity. It was a matter of making sure that she was not making her ethnicity a punchline.

[Jane Semeka]

Right. And also Phyllis Diller, who was. Phyllis Diller is more 60s, right.

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

She's late, but Phyllis Diller, she really.

[Jane Semeka]

Made her act all about wearing outrageous clothes and hair and the, the cigarette holder with the long.

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

Yes. Pillow. Stiller and Joan Rivers are both like really big proponents of the sort of. You have to choose. Phyllis Stiller deeply believed that if she were to reveal her attractiveness, then nobody would. Would. It's nice to take her seriously as a comedian, but, you know, nobody would find her funny if she were beautiful. And Joan Rivers has that famous Dodd divide that you neither receive smart or you can be beautiful. She, Carol, just by her wardrobe, her look, her whole aesthetic was disproving. She got Carol notion. Yeah.

[Jane Semeka]

So can you talk a little bit more about how she played Jewish without saying Jewish? Like how. How her ethnicity, her humor and her ethnicity were so effective for her?

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

Well, I think I do this somewhat with, in somewhat painstaking detail in the book. But a few examples are like, the syntax that she uses often uses like, Yiddish grammatical structures. So the way that she says in some of her jokes, like, oh, you know, my. My husband loved our old place. You couldn't hear anything at night. It was very quiet. Just a few cries for help. This he likes. And the way that she would say this he likes. Like, that is not a phrase that sounds quite normal in English. It's this he likes. It's. It's not that it's grammatically incorrect. It's just unusual. And so people hearing it would be like, oh, that's an unusual way of saying that. But people who heard it, who were Yiddish speakers Be like, oh, of course. That's. She's one of us. It's a really, really subtle sort of signal, like, I am one of you. I am coming from an Ashkenazi Jewish background and, you know, presumably a Yiddish speaker. So it's the way. And as far as there's a great term called double quoting from Henry Bile. And he talks about how the exact same performance can be read totally differently by. By different people handing on where they are, who they are, what they know. So I think that her. Her comedy is very much double coated, to borrow that term.

[Jane Semeka]

Right. But she, so. But she, she. Yeah, I. I just loved it. I just really love the analysis. It's really fantastic. Do you have a favorite Jean Carol joke?

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

Thank you. I, you know, I think they change daily, but at the moment, I kind of love one here. She says, oh, it was one of those love triangles. He and I were both in love with him.

[Jane Semeka]

One of the ones I liked was. She says something like.

I love this woman's dress. It was really low cut and really high cut. It was a belt.

I thought that was really, really, really great observational, situational humor. Really great. Yes.

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

She says there were so many different mink coats. There was white mink, red mink, bald mink, gold mink.

[Jane Semeka]

How can you talk a little bit about the research you did with her family?

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

It was extraordinary. That was. I just happened to be on Facebook and.

Discovered that I had a mutual connection with granddaughter. I mean, you know, peach. Grandchildren are often named in obituaries. And so I knew the names of her grandchildren. And just on a whim, I saw, do we have any mutual friends? And my. My uncle Eric was. Was friends with her. And so through. This is probably the strongest recommendation I can think of for social media through Facebook, of all things. I got to meet her and she's just. She's extraordinary. Name is Susan. And she and her sister Andrea are so kind, generous, and they bring. There's so much. And they kept. They kept her scrapbook. And so that scrapbook really became like the centerpiece of the book. And looking at Jean Carroll's own records, you know, what did she put in her scrapbook? What was her sense of the Detroit as of her life that meandered and meant something. And so getting to. Getting to talk with Susan, Andrea, and these records that Jean had made for them was just a huge gift.

[Jane Semeka]

It's great. And, you know, you feel like they're reaching out to you from the past.

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

Yes. And it is, I mean, such a strange thing, writing a Biography of somebody, because I, you know, I've been working on this for the better part of 20 years, and I spend so much time thinking about how to best carry out a legacy of some that I've never actually met, but who has shaped my life and who I really care about and love. So. And, you know, like, when you lose someone, you kind of want to be with other people who love them. It feels like that. But this is a person I've never met. But whenever I find someone who, like Rosa Jean, Carol, fat or loves her work, I feel this kinship, like, oh, we both are united in our. In our dedication and love for this person. And it is really bonkers that this is a person who, you know, has no familial tie or even social tie to.

[Jane Semeka]

I think that's what it is to be a biographer. You know, I think you have these.

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

You. They.

[Jane Semeka]

They sort of live with you, and they become part of your life, too. It's really amazing. It's an amazing experience.

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

Well, it reminds me, I was talking to a friend of mine, is a playwright, and she was saying, you know, she was writing this play years, and she said she was so in. In the depths of this play that, like, people she loved were getting upset, and they're like, you are too into this. Like, I need you to pay more attention to me than these characters.

But she felt like she owed her time, our labor, to these people who never existed. I mean, my subject existed, but I don't know her. But.

[Jane Semeka]

Yeah, no, I totally understand.

So, you know, you spoke about her granddaughters and having they shared this scrapbook with you. And so her personal life and her responsibilities to her mother, her sister, her daughter, and her granddaughters is.

A really important part of her story. So can you talk about her retirement and how she also is such a family. Devoted matriarch of her family.

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

Yeah, I mean, in the same way that she got into show business to take care of her family, her family at that time being mother and siblings. That is, she sort of got out of show business also in a way that was very motivated by her family. And she. She tried to get out of show business for many years before it. Actually, you know, there are so many. So many farewell articles that, like, so many farewell interviews where she would say, all right, I'm. This is my last hurrah. And she would perform for, you know, 17 more years. But what. What ultimately sort of clinched it was this, um. It's like a double whammy of her. Her mother got sick, her sister. Her sister Got sick and her daughter was sick, and so she really wanted to be there for them. And she tells really, really heartbreaking stories about, you know, she said I would be backstage in tears over Can't Leave. And so, like, my eyes would look like onions, and they were red and blotchy, and I had to go on stage and make everybody laugh. And she just didn't feel it. She. She wasn't. She didn't need bloody anymore. She wanted to use the nipples that she loved. So she walked away. Which is something that is sort of unheard of for entertainers. The more biographies of showbiz people you read, the more you hear this language of, like, it's a. It's a bride you can never divorce. It's a love you never give up. Like, you are going to be doing shows until the day you die, because it's. It's the most important thing. And for her, it actually wasn't the most important thing. Did it beautifully, and she did it very well, but it wasn't the most important. And so she did be unheard of and walked away. And I think that, to go back to your earlier question, why is her name erased? I think that might be part of why the, the industry is not kind to people who don't make it their first and only priority.

[Jane Semeka]

Yes. And, you know, I think it's. It's a real statement about her and her morality that she has, you know, she has her priorities and she. She sticks to them. She didn't let anybody or any, you know, she's made a decision. And I think it. I thought it was really interesting how she has this great career. She's brilliant at it. And she also has these family responsibilities. She really does do both very well.

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

Does. Yes. And I'm sure a tremendous personal call.

[Jane Semeka]

Yeah. And that's interesting in terms of, you know, in terms of the. Of her story as a women's history story, too.

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

Yeah, yeah. And it's. And again, this is in the book as well. But when you talk to women who do, probably any profession that come in a lot of travel, but standup comedy is certainly very. There's a lot of language about this. It's still, it's still an issue, like, I think about, you know, the comedian Mike Verbiglia is so brilliant and thought provoking that he did this tour called the New One, shortly after his daughter was 4. And nobody said, why are you out here talking about your adjustments to fatherhood instead of being at home with your baby? Whereas when Ali Wong was doing her special Seven months pregnant. There was a huge amount of backlash and rhetoric and what are you doing? Why are you out out here working? So it's like, you know, Wolf's changed, but these, these expectations haven't gone away, especially not in heavy gendered professions such as, but not limited to stand up poverty.

[Jane Semeka]

Yeah, you know, there's all these great new shows, one hacks and the other the marvelous Mrs. Maisel. And they both center women stand up comedians. And I wonder what you thought about that. You have these two shows that have been very highly acclaimed and it's sort of bringing this story back. And both shows kind of are inspired by Jean Carroll's story. Isn't that true?

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

Well, you have so much. I mean, so Jean Carroll's connection to the Marvelous and Basil is more. In Rachel Brosnan's performance she watched, you know, so Rachel Brosnan did not identify as a standup comedian by any stretch, but she was a very talented actress and she does her homework. So part of her process for preparing to play Midge was watching these, you know, these archival videos. And so she watched a lot of Jean Carroll videos. And so that's where you can see Jean Carroll. And it's really fun to. If you watch a lot of Jean Carroll and then you watch the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, you can see little notes. It's just like the intonation, the rhythm of speech, some mannerisms. And it's really fun to see how the actress picked up on that. But it wasn't like the plot impacted the narrative of the Marvel's Mrs. Maisel. And certainly hacks. It doesn't have much in common, you know, plot wise with Jean Carroll's life. But it, it's so encouraging to see the enthusiasm and the acceptance and the celebration with which these shows have been met because it's, it's heartening. It's like, okay, people are excited about learning the women in this field and, and it, I mean, my, my three dreams would be that there would be a movie made of about Gene Carol, whether it's like the documentary that never quite happened or like a feature film. But it's just exciting to find the way that, you know, maybe the Mars Maisel hacks are paving the way for a gender.

[Jane Semeka]

Yeah. And that's how things happen in Hollywood too, you know, that something kind of catches onto something and there's. There becomes a vocabulary around that type of story. And so I think it's great that people are interested in seeing shows and following shows about women comedians and that centering that and talking about That, I mean, because I remember seeing a Jerry Lewis interview a number of years ago where he says, women aren't funny.

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

Oh, of course, there's also that silly Hitchens.

[Jane Semeka]

And I was just like, you're a jerk. I, I, you know, I, I just, you know, it's nice to see that, that, that there's enthusiasm for these stories. And so I think that would be great. And, you know, we didn't get to mention this, but that there was this documentary, we didn't delve into it too much, but that there was a documentary supposed to be made, but it doesn't get made. Can you talk about that a little bit?

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

Yeah, well, this was in the early 2000s, so the recession hits and unfortunately the film lost their funding. So it was just they had all this footage that they had taken that was sitting in Stephen M. Silverman's that. And actually that became my other major source. So it was. Yeah, again, Hayden Silverman is another person like, like Jim Carroll's my daughters who made this story happen. And he passed just like a few months before the book came out. But I really wish that he could have seen it.

[Jane Semeka]

Yeah. And so, you know, what do you think about the influence of Jean Carroll on women like Joy Behar and Lily Tomlin and Joan Rivers? You know, can you comment a little bit about her, the Jean Carroll influence on these other very famous, funny women?

[Grace Kessler Overbeck]

I cannot put it any better than Joy Behar did. She said, and this was that breyerstulp event. She took the mic and she said, jean Carroll really is the mother of us all. And, you know, whether or not you're familiar with her work, she, she paved this way and in a very direct way. I mean, Lily Tomlin used to grow up seeing Jean Carroll on the show, and she told wonderful stories about putting on her mother's neck, ech. And pretending that they were evening gowns and doing Jean Carroll jokes. And it was like she just felt like she had seen a whole new type of woman, someone who was confident and funny and opinionated and strong. And so I think that that is such an important legacy to hold onto because it's very easy to be self deprecating and to sort of try to fit in by making yourself small or making fun of yourself, but she never did that. She was always standing tall and being self possessed and poised and even glamorous. And I think that presence at a microphone inspired women in comedy and women in professions well beyond comedy.

[Jane Semeka]

Yeah, I totally agree. That's wonderful. But I want to thank you, Grace, for joining me on the show today to discuss first lady of Laughs, the Forgotten Story of Jean Carroll, published by New York University Press, written by Grace Kessler Overbeck. Until next time on new books in women's history, this is Jane Semeka. Keep reading and keep laughing.

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