← The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan
The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan
Marilu Henner | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan
01:25:22
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- [00:00]
A
Took measurements, 300 measurements of my brain, and found nine areas 10 times larger than the normal brain.
- [00:06]
B
What's unfortunate is in watching some recent interviews with you, I feel that they're not really getting at your story as much as they're getting at sort of your gift.
- [00:14]
A
One of the theories I have is always that you don't become a success in this business until someone champions you or falls in love with you. And I don't mean romantic love, just believes in you.
- [00:23]
B
Yeah.
- [00:24]
A
And like Jim Jacobs, he's the one who pushed me in the direction of Greece and 112 parties. We taxi party every single Friday. We were the cool kids on the Paramount campus.
- [00:38]
B
You're talking like a rock star. This is how we talk. So here we are. Here we are both Chicago.
- [00:46]
A
Amazing.
- [00:47]
B
In the land of dreams.
- [00:48]
A
I know you don't get to meet that many Chicago people.
- [00:51]
B
Well, not many people get out of Chicago, but we'll get to that. And there's a reason why most people don't get out of Chicago, and we'll get to that, too. But. Okay, so. April 6, 1952.
- [01:01]
A
Yes.
- [01:03]
B
Babies born in the Year of the Dragon are considered to be the luckiest and destined for the most success in life and are ambitious, confident, and have a strong sense of justice and fairness.
- [01:13]
A
Well, that describes me to a T. Does it? You know, I don't know.
- [01:17]
B
I'm. I'm asking.
- [01:18]
A
You know, it's funny. It's. My uncle lived. I lived in Logan Square in Chicago, right on Logan Boulevard. And we had a dancing school in our backyard and a beauty shop in our kitchen. And my uncle was the neighborhood. Not only astrologist, but he also taught art at the Catholic grammar school next door. So we were big on astrology. So I didn't even know about the dragon. I just knew that I was in Aries and all my rising sign and everything else.
- [01:40]
B
Well, I thought that was interesting. Yeah, it's cool because, you know, when you're interviewing somebody that you're familiar with through the public sphere, you have an impression of their public character. And then in researching you, I thought, well, there's this other person. And I'm not saying they're different. There's just, well, we'll see, but we'll get there. We'll get there. But I can't wait.
- [02:02]
A
But so many things to get to.
- [02:03]
B
But in digging around for different information, I saw that and I thought. It seemed to me to describe my sense of you as who you really are. Does that make sense? I feel like. And I don't know, because I don't know you, but I felt that it's sort of because your spirit always struck out to me. I've seen you on television I don't know how many times, but. And in movies, but you always stuck out differently than most people.
- [02:29]
A
Oh, it's.
- [02:31]
B
Do you have that impression?
- [02:32]
A
Well, I always had a lot of energy, even as a little girl. And my mother used to say, I go run around the block a couple of times, get rid of some of that energy. And I was just always the most energetic of the family. So I think maybe that's what.
- [02:48]
B
But I think it's. I don't know. I'm not trying to put something on you. That's why we're here to talk. But, like, your sense of spirit has. Seems to run through your whole life in a consistent way. Does that make sense?
- [02:58]
A
It does. I think you're right. I think.
- [03:00]
B
Is it a sense of self or is it a sense of spirit? Does that make sense?
- [03:03]
A
It's maybe a sense of both. It's, you know, I think being one of six kids, you look for things that maybe make you a little bit different. And so my sister always says that, you know, there were. Among the family members, there were 10 confidence coupons. And she said, and you took nine of them. Right. And my response to her was there was a tenth, you know, But I think it wasn't even that. It was like. I always felt like, I don't know, I had something to prove to myself, not even to my parents. I knew I had a lot of energy. I knew I was smart in school. I knew I had this crazy memory from the time I was six. I was. I have. There's four girls in my family and two boys growing up. And do. My sisters are gorgeous. They're all beautiful. And so I always felt like the, you know, the personality kid and the one with the. That I'll figure it out, you know, that kind of thing. And then I chose show business, too, so.
- [04:04]
B
Right.
- [04:05]
A
You know, but I think. I think there was always a strong sense of purpose. Maybe more than self or spirit. It was a sense of purpose.
- [04:13]
B
I always had a purpose. I have these, you know, these are all kind of ephemeral memories, but I have memories of seeing you on David Letterman.
- [04:20]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [04:20]
B
And whenever you would be on, he was always kind of a bit flirty with the female guests, but with you, it was like he was almost kind of awestruck by you. He kind of. He seemed to fumble around. Around you.
- [04:32]
A
Well, he used to rip up the cards. He's like, well, let's not talk about this. You know, I mean, we. I love Dave. I did his show many, many times and we always had like such a great kind of chemistry, as you said. So, you know, from the first time I did it and he was the host on the Tonight show, you know, we just. That was it.
- [04:51]
B
So let's jump in here.
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A
Okay.
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B
Parents Loretta and Joseph. I know you mentioned Polish and Greek.
- [04:57]
A
They were both first generation.
- [04:59]
B
Yeah.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Well, having grown up in Chicago, you know, back then, very neighborhood, Very neighborhood. So.
- [05:05]
A
Yeah.
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B
Having lived in the Polish neighborhood and of course in Chicago, we all went to the Greek diners.
- [05:10]
A
Yes.
- [05:11]
B
You know, and there was a strong sense of the Greek community in Chicago, especially Greek town. I'm not trying to be touristy about. I'm saying is the fat. No, but the fabric of those things are, I think is a Chicagoan.
- [05:22]
A
Those things are very strong, very real and very connected. I mean my neighborhood was. We were six kids, but we were kind of a mid sized family.
- [05:30]
B
I was gonna say that would be mid sized family back then.
- [05:32]
A
Yeah, for sure. Because people had 11, 13, 8, 9, things like that. It was very Polish, very German. Probably more Polish and German than Greece, but there were some Greek families and. And because we had the dancing school, we work at the cultural center of the neighborhood. So everybody came and hung out at our house.
- [05:51]
B
What did your father do for you?
- [05:52]
A
My father was in the automobile business. So I know you're a big Cubs fan. I've heard you talk about it. And he used to go from. He was kind of a troubleshooter for Chevrolet and for Ford. So he'd go to different. Different dealerships and he was a general manager. He used to go to different dealerships and build them up and then move to the next one. So he worked at Z Frank and Nikki Chevrolet.
- [06:14]
B
Oh yeah, there's still there, some of those.
- [06:16]
A
I know. I think Steve Radio still is maybe. I don't know. Yeah. And so he even had his own places downtown. Henner Ford and Loretta Motors.
- [06:23]
B
Named my mother. I didn't know that because I. Poking around, I didn't seem to find much information on your father.
- [06:29]
A
Yeah, but he was in the automobile business. So he was a real salesman. I mean like had a real big personality and very charming.
- [06:38]
B
But mom running the dance school, is that. Did she have a background in dance that she wanted to be a professional or. I, I don't. There's not much information there.
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A
She did. She always loved dancing, but she was also a beautician which is why we had the beauty shop in the kitchen with about 25 women from the neighborhood, used to come and get hairs done, you know, but, you know, Chicago people are very entrepreneurial.
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B
Yeah.
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A
You know, and so a lot of mothers did other things, but my mother was really involved.
- [07:03]
B
I feel lucky in trying to get to know you a little bit, because I remember that world that you grew up in. Does that make sense?
- [07:11]
A
Yeah, for sure.
- [07:11]
B
I really remember that world. It was very ethnic. It was very prideful. It was very focused on generational advancement, like, how do we get away from the old country and become American?
- [07:23]
A
And I could not believe it when the first time. One of the first times we visited my grandfather and my father started speaking fluent Polish. It was like, what? I didn't even know he could speak that. My mother. Both of their mothers died when they were 7 and 8. So my father was raised in an orphanage for a while, and then his father remarried, and he remarried a woman with four kids. So then they were all raised together. My mother's father went through five wives, and she was really more raised by her stepmother in a lot of ways, you know, and so, yeah, so they. They got away from the old country in a way that, you know, I mean, it's so funny because my brother went to Methone, Greece, which is where our people are from. We went there a couple years ago and took pictures in front of where my grandparents had gotten married. But he went there years ago and brought back the most beautiful pictures, Sunkissed pictures of these beautiful people on the beach and running around and drinking and eating. And I went, wait, let me get this story straight.
- [08:15]
B
Why did we leave?
- [08:16]
A
Exactly. Why did we leave?
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B
We're all working.
- [08:19]
A
Yeah.
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B
Yeah.
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A
But they came to Chicago through Ellis island and then came to Chicago.
- [08:24]
B
Yeah. So I really resonate with that because that's my family story. Even though obviously it's different families. Right.
- [08:28]
A
Yeah. Were you. What. What's your nationality?
- [08:31]
B
Grandmother was Italian, grandfather on the mother's side was Gypsy and Belgian.
- [08:39]
A
Flemish anymore, but. Yeah.
- [08:41]
B
Yeah. And then the other side was Irish and, you know, crazy Irish. So, you know, when you deal with that, at that time, it was different. You know, people talk about these things now as a sort of like a, you know, where's your family from? But back then, the ethnic identity in Chicago, I can't speak for anywhere else in America, but I see. I feel like it was that way in Cleveland, in Pittsburgh.
- [09:01]
A
Yes. Those Rust belts, I think, especially. Yeah. And the, you know, kind of the Great Lakes cities. You know, because that was very strong.
- [09:12]
B
Why the hell would we live in this crazy, horrible, cold place if it wasn't for work and some sense that the family was community. Yes.
- [09:20]
A
Yeah, for sure.
- [09:22]
B
Now, this is my opinion.
- [09:24]
A
Okay, it's your show.
- [09:27]
B
Not yet. I feel like people have gotten kind of lazy with interviewing you because they just want to go into the memory thing. So it's not that I don't want to talk about it, because it's certainly fascinating and maybe for people who wouldn't know, maybe give your sort of thumbnail a thumbnail. I'm, I'm sure I'm asking the, one of the five questions that people always ask you, but, but it, it, because it is such a rare thing that you have, you know, and I, I, I, I don't want to call it an affliction, but it's interesting only for
- [09:56]
A
my husband's, which is why I'm on my third and final. I always say, yeah, yes, no, it's a gift. It's really a gift. But what it, it's called hsam. Highly superior autobiographical memory. People used to call it hyperthymesia, but they don't anymore. And, and because that sounded like a disease. But basically what it is is that people who have this remember virtually every day of their lives. Most people remember 8 to 11 events within any given year. And in order to be considered having hsam, you have to be tested. And it's discovered that it's between 200 and 365, 366 events with any given year, but minimum 200. And they test you and test you
- [10:37]
B
and test you, and you put yourself through that testing.
- [10:39]
A
I did. Well, I was on 60 Minutes because my friend Leslie Stahl knew I had this memory and she wanted me to be tested. And I was like, okay. But I loved it. I answered over 500 questions in a day. They wired me, put me through an MRI, saw how the neural pathways fired up, took measurements. 300 measurements of my brain, and found nine areas 10 times larger than the normal brain. And basically the five questions I get asked is, oh, is it good for lines, for remembering lines as an actress? And I always say, well, that's two dimensional. I'll read a script and know not only how I relate to the character and how I connect to her from my own life, but also where I was, what the weather was like, what I was wearing, you know, things like that. And people always say, oh, is it a blessing or curse? I would say, it's always a blessing, just a curse for My husband, which is probably why I'm on my third and final. They always say, well, what about bad memories? And I would say, well, because memories are tied to adrenaline, you're going to remember the highs and the lows. I'm just able to bring back all those, like, middle of the road things, you know? And then they say, how old were you when you discovered it? And I knew from six years old on I had something very unusual. Yeah.
- [11:45]
B
So back to my take.
- [11:47]
A
Yes.
- [11:48]
B
So I feel like the lazy take is people want you to almost do, like, parlor tricks.
- [11:51]
A
You know what I mean?
- [11:52]
B
Like, let me throw.
- [11:53]
A
But I want to help other people.
- [11:54]
B
No, I get that. And it's an amazing gift. But I think what's unfortunate is in watching some recent interviews with you, I feel they're not really getting at your story as much as they're getting at sort of your gift, which is fine.
- [12:07]
A
Yeah.
- [12:08]
B
But your. Your life, it. I'm shocked, you know, because I've been working in music for over 30 years. You've worked for 50 years straight.
- [12:17]
A
Yeah. Non stop.
- [12:19]
B
Non stop. Yeah. So, I mean, to me, that's the real accomplishment.
- [12:23]
A
Thank you.
- [12:23]
B
God gave you the gift. Like God gave me to say the gift of music. But the real accomplishment is what you've done with it, which is what I'm interested in talking about. So I hope that makes sense.
- [12:32]
A
Sure. Thank.
- [12:35]
B
So using your beautiful memory, take me at least to what teen life was like for you in. Were you still in Logan Square in your teens?
- [12:44]
A
Oh, Logan Square. Yeah. Well, as soon as you were 14,
- [12:47]
B
don't skip past Catholicism because that's. Well, the young Catholic girl here. I need to hear that.
- [12:53]
A
Oh, my gosh. Well, first of all, you know, in Chicago, you are probably aware of this, the better education was Catholic school.
- [13:00]
B
Absolutely.
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A
Yeah. I mean, and so the public school in our neighborhood, it was just very.
- [13:06]
B
Remember these stories, you know, the kids would complain about being beaten by the nuns.
- [13:10]
A
Yeah.
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B
And then the family would say, yeah, but you got a good education. It was like a Chicago joke, right?
- [13:15]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [13:16]
B
But the nun hit me with the ruler. Yeah, but you got a good education.
- [13:18]
A
Over my head and caused 11 stitches.
- [13:20]
B
Yeah.
- [13:21]
A
Which did happen to one kid, you know, and we gave. Oh, the nuns were brutal. But my mother not only taught them. Gave them stretch classes, and she taught them non stretches.
- [13:31]
B
What are stretch classes?
- [13:32]
A
You know, she taught them how to stretch, you know, so she got to see them without their habits on over at the.
- [13:37]
B
So nuns doing yoga, basically.
- [13:39]
A
Nuns doing. Yeah, well, dance stretches.
- [13:41]
B
Okay.
- [13:42]
A
She also Cut their hair. And she also took them bra shopping at Vasserette, which was not far from our house. And on Sundays, my father, when he didn't have to go to work, he would drive the nuns to the different parishes around town. And I'd be the little girl in the car singing my heart out. Because I had a captive audience. So I'd sing like Julie Andrews or Ethel Merman or somebody like that. And so, you know, we had backstage passist of Catholicism. So we weren't brutalized as much as maybe some of the other. Because although my brother Tommy has stories. Stories, definitely. But I loved. I loved the neighborhood, I loved the nuns. I used to, you know, take over for the woman who worked at the rectory when she'd go on vacation. I was 14 and filing things or answering the phones. And we were very involved in parish life, you know, so it was a whole thing.
- [14:35]
B
Illustrate that what that life was like for you. I mean, I'm asking the same question twice, which is inopportune. But what I'm trying to get at is, you know, what struck me about you and your gift is most of us have a memory that's, you know, it's like. It's like a ghost, you know, and we remember what we want to remember. And we selectively kind of edit our stories and we puff them up over
- [14:59]
A
time or they become like snowball swimming.
- [15:02]
B
But you live with the actual as much as anybody on the planet. The holographic memory of what it was actually like to stand on that street on that day. It's not a picture postcard, like a Hallmark card. It's actually in your mind.
- [15:15]
A
Yes.
- [15:16]
B
So is it as romantic looking back for you as it is? It's probably maybe for what you would. Because obviously I'm not asking you to help others perceive memory.
- [15:25]
A
Right.
- [15:26]
B
Like I have a romantic vision of what should. Like I said, I was born in 67.
- [15:30]
A
Right.
- [15:31]
B
You know when you're shopping for antiques and you see like the Formica kitchen. I remember being in the Formica kitchen. And I know you were in those kitchens too, right? The mid modern kind of. And then in the basements in Chicago, they'd have the old oven from the 30s. Cause you'd cook in the.
- [15:46]
A
Well, we didn't have that. We had a dancing school in our basement.
- [15:48]
B
Right. But you know how a lot of families would have the kitchen in the basement in the summer because they had no ac. And all my memories of those things are very.
- [15:56]
A
There's a texture and a smell.
- [15:57]
B
As an artist, I like to go back and reclaim those things. But it's always. It's. I always feel like I'm chasing it. Like it's just out of my reach.
- [16:05]
A
Not the specificity of.
- [16:07]
B
Yeah. So I'm fascinated by your ability to, in a very real way, actually put yourself back in that moment. Well, like you said, when you said, I remember sitting at the back of the car singing to the nuns. I mean, you remember sitting in the back of the car, and I remember
- [16:24]
A
my little body looking out.
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B
That's what I'm saying.
- [16:26]
A
And all the nuns who were sitting there and where they were sitting. And the one who had a crush on my dad, so she'd sit in the front seat, you know, and it's like everything is real. And it comes in almost like a photograph that you're developing. So it's like you either get it right away or it takes time, or it's like, deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper. Like the. You know, the specifics of it.
- [16:45]
B
Right.
- [16:45]
A
You know, and it's like. So it's so rich to be able to do that.
- [16:51]
B
It seems so beautiful to me.
- [16:53]
A
Thank you. Yeah.
- [16:54]
B
Because in song, I'm trying to stitch together these things into a cohesive message. But it's.
- [17:01]
A
I loved your song, 1979.
- [17:02]
B
Oh, thank you.
- [17:03]
A
Because it's like that. And I can tell you, the first day I ever heard it was February 18th of 1996.
- [17:09]
B
Amazing.
- [17:10]
A
It was. It was.
- [17:11]
B
Do you know the story about how I wrote that song?
- [17:14]
A
Well, I looked it up a long time ago.
- [17:16]
B
Yeah.
- [17:16]
A
And it was. Because you felt like there was a turning point in your life when you were 12.
- [17:20]
B
Right. But there is a memory component to that.
- [17:22]
A
Oh.
- [17:22]
B
So I was writing the song somewhere, probably in 1994, and for some reason, I remembered this day in my life where I was. I was 17 or 18 years old, and I was stuck at a light on North Avenue heading into the city, and it was raining. It was one of those dreary Chicago days where it's cold and it's just raining gray. And I'm watching the. The wipers go like this, and I'm at a red light. And that's the memory I wrote the song from.
- [17:50]
A
Wow.
- [17:51]
B
It was such a specific moment in my life emotionally, which is what I normally try to recall.
- [17:56]
A
Oh, well, that's. It's such an emotional song.
- [17:58]
B
Okay, good. So you understand. So. So it was this feeling of I'm leaving one life and I'm going towards this other life. And it's just that 60 seconds of my life right. I felt that in this like a. Like a cleaving of energies, right? One is receding and one is coming. And I felt, not to make this about me, but I felt my life. There was a life for me that I had to get to.
- [18:23]
A
Right.
- [18:24]
B
But nobody believed in that. So as I'm sitting there.
- [18:27]
A
But you believed it.
- [18:28]
B
That's the most important thing I did. But what's interesting, I think about it from an energetic point of view is, and I think a lot of people experience this as, you know, you sit with the doubt of that.
- [18:39]
A
Sure.
- [18:40]
B
You know what I mean? There's no guarantee.
- [18:42]
A
But that's good because then you pull that. See, I think one of the great things about having a great memory is that you're open to all of it. You're open to the positive, the negative, the things that you remember that were painful, the things that you remember that were wonderful. All the little middle of the road things. So you let the floodgates open and it's like nothing is wasted. So you didn't waste anything. You know, everything.
- [19:06]
B
But isn't that strange, just for me, that this, in your case, you could recall it? Because it's in there for me.
- [19:12]
A
Oh, no, it's in there. It's in everything you've been through is on your emotional hard drive. You just don't have the same recall retrieval system.
- [19:20]
B
Okay, I like that. I like that better than. I didn't. I don't remember.
- [19:23]
A
No, no, no, Everybody remembers. And when I work with people, they remember more and more. And I have a couple theories about memory. One of them is that it's like everyone has a primary track on which they've embedded their memories. It's like in the jigsaw puzzle of your life, what are the hard edged pieces by which you can interlock other memories too? And so yours is probably music. Probably you'll remember musical thing, maybe.
- [19:48]
B
As we're having this kind of. On a more of a theoretical or scientific end, my memories seem to be holographically connected to emotion.
- [19:57]
A
The feeling of it.
- [19:58]
B
Yeah, the feeling. I'm able to recall feelings in a really intense way. And then the other memory system that I have is I can recall music in a holographic way. So for example, if I'm working on a song, I'll say to somebody, there's this one minute on this one record where the guy plays a solo and it's a certain feeling and I want to get that feeling. And producers look at me like, I don't know what the hell you're talking about.
- [20:27]
A
Because most people live and think, and then other people live in double think. And then some people live in triple think. So they pull it in on so many different levels. And you're a triple thinker, obviously.
- [20:39]
B
Quadruple, you know.
- [20:41]
A
Yeah, I gotta be better.
- [20:42]
B
I gotta be better. Just.
- [20:43]
A
But it's funny you're saying that about emotions and about music, because I believe that the primary track. But then I also believe that everybody has a dominant sense. Everyone is a sight, sound, touch, taste or smell person. And you've got like a feeling thing.
- [20:57]
B
So what's your dominant sense?
- [20:58]
A
Oh, definitely smell.
- [21:00]
B
Really?
- [21:01]
A
Yeah, really strong smell. Sense of smell. Sense of smell. It drives everybody crazy. Sense of smell. And also probably hearing. Auditory. I'm very auditory, so I'll, like, hear something and then I'll just. It gets recorded, but I'm kind of firing. When you have this kind of memory, you kind of fire on also.
- [21:16]
B
That's a lot of information on the hard drive.
- [21:18]
A
Yes. Okay.
- [21:21]
B
Kingston Minds, who I know from my time in Chicago.
- [21:24]
A
Did you perform there?
- [21:25]
B
Never performed there. Because in our time in the 80s coming up, it was more of a reggae bar.
- [21:30]
A
Oh, they had a huge place, but
- [21:33]
B
at that point it was more reggae. So I can't say I've ever been in there because I.
- [21:37]
A
You didn't go to the Trolley Barn part of it?
- [21:39]
B
No, because to me, that. The touristy part of Chicago blues and all that just. It always turned me off.
- [21:46]
A
So where did you hang out? Not on Lincoln Avenue.
- [21:48]
B
We were more by Wrigley Field at the time. Wrigley Field's neighborhood in the 80s was very poor, so a lot of artists were living there.
- [21:55]
A
My sister lived on Aldean, but. She lived on Aldean and Sheridan, but. Yeah, the Chicago Diner. Did you ever go there?
- [22:01]
B
Yeah, of course.
- [22:01]
A
Okay. Mickey and everybody. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [22:04]
B
So take me back with your beautiful memory. 1971. There you are. 19.
- [22:10]
A
I had not even turned 19.
- [22:12]
B
Okay.
- [22:12]
A
Yeah, I was 18.
- [22:13]
B
So you're in this.
- [22:14]
A
February 5th. It was Friday. We open in Greece. Well, what had happened was years ago.
- [22:20]
B
Wait, don't skip past this because it's the original version of Greece ever.
- [22:23]
A
Yeah.
- [22:24]
B
You were in this. I was in this thing because Marty is your.
- [22:27]
A
Was my character. Because Jim Jacobs, with whom I had worked with when I was 15 and actually came to my 16th birthday, which was a surprise party. The only time I've been surprised twice in my life, and that was one of them. He came to my surprise party, but we were working together at Hull House. Did you ever go to Hull House in Chicago? That's a real Chicago.
- [22:46]
B
When we were kids, they took us the great legacy of Jane. Jane. Jane Addams. Sorry.
- [22:52]
A
Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah.
- [22:54]
B
So, you know, it was like a field trip spot, right.
- [22:56]
A
So I did a play there that became a big Chicago hit. And two years later, it was the Boyfriend.
- [23:02]
B
Okay.
- [23:02]
A
And so then with Bob Sickinger. Did you know Bob Sickinger?
- [23:05]
B
This is.
- [23:06]
A
As a teen.
- [23:06]
B
You did this or 15. Okay.
- [23:08]
A
Wow. 15 years old. And so I was always, like, doing things with, like.
- [23:12]
B
Let me tell you real quick. How did your parents feel about you going to showbiz?
- [23:16]
A
Well, my family had a dancing school,
- [23:18]
B
but were they behind it? Were they cool? They trust you? You know, because kids going into entertainment, you know, it brings up a lot of fear, sometime in the family.
- [23:25]
A
Well, my oldest sister was the lead in all the school plays at Loyola University. She was 10 years ahead of me in school and stuff. And so I was the little girl carrying her script around. And I wanted to be an actress. And my father felt like I should use my. You know, I had four scholarships to go to University of Chicago and all this other stuff. So I was like one of those kids. Everybody in my family's very smart. But he got to see me in my senior in high school play, which I thought was gonna be like Sweet Charity or It's gonna be this or that. No, it was an original musical written about the woman who founded the order of nuns at Madonna High School. And it was called Somebody Somewhere.
- [24:01]
B
Were you a nun?
- [24:02]
A
Of course I played a nun.
- [24:03]
B
You must have been a pretty hot nun.
- [24:04]
A
It was whatever. But my father did get to see it. Cause usually there was a school play that was in the spring.
- [24:12]
B
Right.
- [24:12]
A
But this one was in December. He went to see it in December. And the only time he ever really came to see me in anything. And we had this huge party afterwards in my house, and I saw him in the kitchen in the dining room, and I said, what are you doing? You don't want to go out to the dance studio and the party? He said, I want to talk to you. He said, your mom really wants you to do this. And I didn't until I saw you in the play tonight. And he said, you should do this. You should do. You're really good. And he was like. And I couldn't cry thinking about this, because two weeks later he died. And if it had been the senior play in the spring, he never would have seen it.
- [24:48]
B
It's so crazy and beautiful.
- [24:50]
A
I know. I know. So how did they feel about it? My mother would have been disappointed if I had been a doctor, which might have been my default.
- [24:59]
B
Sorry. It just comes to me now.
- [25:00]
A
That's okay.
- [25:01]
B
Was your mom a bit of a stage mom or. She had let go of that part of it.
- [25:05]
A
No, she didn't have to be because we had the dancing school. So she was always teaching everybody how to dance. And as soon as you were 14 in my family, you had to start teaching. So that's how I made money all through high school, either babysitting or teaching dancing. So I helped her run the studio.
- [25:20]
B
That's the dancer's body, right?
- [25:22]
A
Yeah, I guess so.
- [25:23]
B
But, I mean, dancers have a very specific kind of carriage. Sure.
- [25:25]
A
And posture. And posture was always very important to me. And it serves you well if you have good posture. I heard you talking about it earlier.
- [25:33]
B
Terrible posture.
- [25:33]
A
No, you got to work on. Think of it this way. There's this imaginary plumb line down the center of your body. The bigger the front, the bigger the back. So everything, if you have hunched shoulders, going to have a pot belly, because that's the imaginary plum line. But just think, ears over shoulders. Think of it as a bowling ball on a stack of plates. And that bowling ball could fall. So, you know, because it's not just this. It's about. It's aligning each other.
- [25:56]
B
Sure.
- [25:57]
A
We'll do a little demo after we finish.
- [25:59]
B
I thank you. I want my own private lesson, because I need help.
- [26:03]
A
Anytime.
- [26:03]
B
Thank you. So you're in this play, which, of course, is a total classic now.
- [26:10]
A
Oh, it's okay. So Jim calls me. Yeah, great. He calls me. He says, hannah, I've written the show. It may never get off the ground. I wrote it about the kids I went to high school with. I want you to play one of the girls. You're a lot younger than I am by 10 years, he said, but I think you really have that Chicago thing. And it's called Grease. So we walk into the first rehearsal for it, and there's two stacks of papers. One of them is scenes. And it's like, here's the book report scene, the polio shot scene, the lunchroom scene, the tattoo scene, the rumble scene, the, you know, everything, the pajama party, everything. And then there's a stack of songs. There were 37 songs in the first act alone, but of course, we didn't sing those. But everybody had a song. Two songs, whatever. But the very first song that was ever written for Grease was Freddie My Love. And it was my character's song at the pajama party. And so he was like, here, you know, Hannah, sing. This is in your key. It's gonna be a good song for you. So I was the first person to sing it. And then when the show people from New York saw it, they wanted to take some of and audition. And I was like, I'm not leaving school to do this show. Because I didn't think it was gonna be a hit. Did you know there was a thing called the Body Politic? Oh, yeah. Okay. So they did Warp. There was a show called Warp. You were a kid, but there was a show called Warp that had just gone to New York and it died.
- [27:32]
B
So you were.
- [27:33]
A
So I was like, yeah.
- [27:34]
B
Cause I have that written. Why you chose to be in the touring cast instead of the Broadway version?
- [27:40]
A
Well, I could have been in the Broadway version, probably, but I wanted to get a little more school under my belt. But then Jim called me and was like, hannah, the First National Company rehearsals start tomorrow. I've saved your part for you, but you have to come to New York today. I was like, I'm on my way to the library. I have two papers due. But then I got to the library, and my car was parked in front of the library. So I looked at the library, my car, library, car, library car, threw my books in the car, went to o' Hare field, flew student standby audition, and I got the part. So I had to call my mom and tell her I'm not. That I'm going to do the First National.
- [28:15]
B
Were you in college at this point?
- [28:16]
A
Yeah, I was in the beginning of my third year. Yeah, I was going to do school in three years because I'd play what
- [28:20]
B
was going to be your major.
- [28:22]
A
Yeah, they didn't have a theater. They didn't really have a theater department where you could have a major. They had the theater department where you could be in plays. But it was political science.
- [28:33]
B
I was recruited for political science.
- [28:34]
A
You what?
- [28:35]
B
I was recruited out of high school for political science for some unreasonable.
- [28:38]
A
We are like, yeah, connected.
- [28:42]
B
Thank you.
- [28:43]
A
It's because of your song. I conjured you up because of that song. 1989.
- [28:47]
B
Maybe. John Travolta was in the original touring cast with you.
- [28:53]
A
He was. He played Judy. Jeff Conaway, who I.
- [28:57]
B
With whom I worked.
- [28:58]
A
Taxi. Jeff Conaway. I mean, Jerry Zaks, big Broadway director, just directed Hugh Jackman and Music man. And he did. I mean, he's won, like, seven Tonys. Who did hello, Dolly with Bette Midler.
- [29:11]
B
Who?
- [29:11]
A
He played Kinicki. Michael Lembeck who directed a million Friends episodes, as well as Everybody Loves Raymond,
- [29:18]
B
kind of a watershed moment. And, you know, it's like a lot of talent in one place at a certain time.
- [29:24]
A
A lot. And Judy Kay, who's one of two Tonys. So everybody was there. Johnny was. He played Duty because He was only 18 at the time. Yeah.
- [29:32]
B
Did you know he was going to be a star? Did that occur to you?
- [29:35]
A
Yeah, you know, but when you're in that kind of company. And also rehearsing with us for the London Company was Richard Gere, who was gonna play Danny in the London company. They were all older than Johnny and I were, but you just felt like, oh, we're all gonna be stars. You know, that kind of feeling.
- [29:50]
B
A lot of people turned out to be stars out of that period.
- [29:53]
A
I know.
- [29:53]
B
It's interesting.
- [29:54]
A
Well, you know why? Because. And I never really said this before, we were kids on a white contract. We weren't chorus kids on a pink contract. The kids in Greece, it was the first time you had an entire company of characters on a white principal contract,
- [30:14]
B
you know, so it was very guaranteed different rights.
- [30:16]
A
Different rights, different. Totally different pay. And it wasn't like you were just lumped together to do. You know, you had a specific character, so you had specific wardrobe and you had a specific look and lines. And I think as a result, the people who cast it had to be very careful how they cast. They had to find people who would jump off that stage, not just blend into a chorus.
- [30:38]
B
Yeah. So you end up touring how long in Greece?
- [30:45]
A
Well, I toured six months on the road road, three months in la, and then I made it back to my hometown, and I was like, oh, you know, in the show, in the theater where I'd seen, you know, Florence Henderson, Here I am, I've arrived. Articles and stuff like that. And one weekend we're switching over theaters. So I go to New York to visit a friend of mine who had done Grease with me. She was playing Frenchie, now on Broadway, Ellen March. And so she said, oh, I have singing lesson. Meet me at the theater. I walk into the theater and they're auditioning for Over Here, a new Broadway show to be with the Andrew Sisters. And so I auditioned.
- [31:20]
B
They beat me to my questions.
- [31:21]
A
So I. I walked in and they went, sing a song. And I did. And then they called me a week later in Chicago, where I was doing Grease, and they said, fly today. So I flew. In the morning, I left. When my little brother left for school, I came back just as he was coming Home from school, I flew, auditioned, came back, did the show that night, Grease in Chicago. And then the next day, the matinee. I could throw dates around like crazy the next day, the matinee. They told me at the matinee at intermission that I'd gotten the parson.
- [31:49]
B
Must have been really.
- [31:50]
A
And I'd be leaving that weekend.
- [31:51]
B
Intoxicating.
- [31:52]
A
No, it was incredible. It was incredible. It just.
- [31:55]
B
And you're how old?
- [31:56]
A
At this one, I was. This one, I was 20. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [32:01]
B
Did you have a sense then, like, okay, this is where I'm supposed to be, and this is great, or. You know what I'm saying?
- [32:08]
A
Like, this was. Yeah, this was. Felt like it was all part of a plan, part of a process, part of a mission, part of what we were talking about earlier, our purpose there was, like. This was, like, falling into place the way it should.
- [32:22]
B
Yeah. You know, it strikes me as beautiful. That's what I mean. It's like.
- [32:27]
A
Thank you.
- [32:27]
B
We could talk about memory all we want, but that part of your journey is really fascinating to me because, well, you're there, you know, and it. And by the way, real quick over there, what's the name of Sherman over here? Over here. Sherman Brothers were writing the music. Who, of course, everybody knows, wrote all these great Disney classics.
- [32:46]
A
Mary Poppins.
- [32:46]
B
Mary Poppins.
- [32:47]
A
It's a Small World.
- [32:49]
B
Yeah.
- [32:49]
A
Disneyland.
- [32:50]
B
Exactly.
- [32:50]
A
Oh, yeah, yeah. There was a picture of. Chuck sent me a picture of you and your kids in Disneyland.
- [32:54]
B
Yes. But when you said. See, we're talking about memory. When you said It's a Small World, I remember being stuck on It's a small worldwide. Tripping on LSD. Oh. And was stuck in one spot for 45 minutes.
- [33:05]
A
Oh, my gosh. Did it feel like 45 minutes or.
- [33:07]
B
It felt like about 450 minutes.
- [33:09]
A
I know. I was so not a drug.
- [33:12]
B
You know how, as you go through It's a Small World, it's, like, different vibes. So I was, like, stuck in, like, eskimo land for 45 minutes, tripping on LSD. Oh, my God.
- [33:19]
A
Did you want to get out and, like, dance with.
- [33:21]
B
Well, you know, it's one of those. It's one of those kind of weird, karmic moments where you're like, this is what I get for taking lsd. And I'm going to really lean into it right now.
- [33:29]
A
Oh, well, that's good.
- [33:31]
B
I. I sort of deserve this.
- [33:32]
A
Well, you know, I mean, I always say, you know, because I work with a lot of people through health, because I've written All these health books and stuff.
- [33:37]
B
9 books.
- [33:38]
A
10. 10 books.
- [33:40]
B
See Wikipedia, like, see that?
- [33:42]
A
Don't follow Wikipedia there.
- [33:43]
B
Somebody get that tattooed on my chest.
- [33:46]
A
Yes. Forget wikipedia. Yeah. No, 10 books. 10 books. God, that must be the last time it was updated anyway. Yeah. And so because of it, I'm always helping people with, you know, health and things like that. Sure. And so.
- [34:01]
B
So you're in that integrative community and.
- [34:04]
A
Very much so. Yeah.
- [34:07]
B
I gotta know because I, I, I do love the Andrew Sisters.
- [34:10]
A
Oh, they were a blast.
- [34:12]
B
But you only work with the 22 because they had the heat, as we say, in wrestling with Laverne.
- [34:18]
A
She died.
- [34:19]
B
Oh, she died.
- [34:20]
A
She had already died.
- [34:21]
B
Okay. I didn't know that.
- [34:21]
A
Oh, that would have been nice with her. Oh, no. They were fighting the whole time. But they both really liked me. I connected with both of them.
- [34:27]
B
But was. Laverne was the.
- [34:29]
A
The third.
- [34:30]
B
But wasn't she the original lead? Like, she.
- [34:32]
A
No, no, no. Patty was always the.
- [34:33]
B
Patty was the lead. Okay, so I'm getting my Andrew Sisters.
- [34:35]
A
The third. Yeah. Patty's the one that you always see in, like, all the buck privates and the Bing cross I always got.
- [34:42]
B
So you worked with Patty then?
- [34:43]
A
Both.
- [34:43]
B
Okay, great, because this is helpful, because to me, Patti always struck me from a musical side. She was the savant of the thing.
- [34:49]
A
She was. She was unbelievable.
- [34:51]
B
She's, like, complete alpha.
- [34:53]
A
No, I don't even think the others would have been involved in it had it not been for Patti. She was the third.
- [34:58]
B
Okay. I don't know much about their story, but when you listen to their musics talking about holographic memory, you can just tell she's a savant. The stuff they're doing is so out there, it's crazy. The rhythms and the personality. And she must have rehearsed them to death.
- [35:14]
A
She was a force of nature.
- [35:16]
B
Did you get to know her?
- [35:17]
A
Oh, very well. And hung out with her and her husband and went to dinners.
- [35:20]
B
The stories must have been unbelievable.
- [35:22]
A
Well, I'm the third girl in my family and kind of the noisy, sort of pushy one.
- [35:29]
B
So you guys.
- [35:30]
A
And so she really felt connected.
- [35:32]
B
But her stories must have been unbelievable.
- [35:33]
A
Unbelievable. But just about the experiences and all
- [35:37]
B
the singing, Crosby, and just all of it.
- [35:40]
A
I think my favorite part of Over Here was we'd be taking our. I was Annie Reinking's dressing roommate. And the two of us, it was good. We didn't have solo songs. Cause we just made each other laugh all the time. And we never had any kind of voice. But you Know, from laughing so hard. But we'd be taking off our makeup, listening to the 20 minutes that the Andrews Sisters would do their little medley after the curtain call. And the whole audience stayed, and they just loved them. Just loved them. And they'd do everything from Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy to Hold Tight to, you know, just everything. Rum and Coca Cola.
- [36:13]
B
This is a personal aside, but that's one of the things that drives me crazy about American culture, is Andrew Sisters represents, like, you know, the apotheosis of accomplishment is sort of a vocal group, but because it's sort of not trendy, they kind of get kind of pushed aside. And to me, as a musician, it's like they were incredible.
- [36:31]
A
The harmonies are so tight, and it's gotta be. You know, it's because of the.
- [36:37]
B
Being Psychic Sisters. Well, you see, with the Bee Gees and.
- [36:40]
A
Yeah.
- [36:41]
B
Other Beach Boys, you know, there's something about Kin. See, I have a whole thing here about the.
- [36:47]
A
About the Andrews.
- [36:48]
B
Well, I just think it's fascinating because, you know, and it gets a little bit into. When you go into movies, you know, you're at that sort of transitional phase in Hollywood where the old guard was still around. You know what I mean?
- [37:01]
A
Yeah. And it was unheard of to have a film and television career.
- [37:05]
B
Well, you're beating me again to my questions.
- [37:08]
A
Oh, wow.
- [37:08]
B
This is your prescience here now because, you know, you have enough success as a Broadway star that now you start doing movies. Did somebody at some point call you, like, hey, kid, we want you in the pictures? Like, how did that work?
- [37:20]
A
No, no, you auditioned, you know, I mean, I was doing a lot of commercials. I was doing, you know, and the very first thing I auditioned for, the first movie that I did was a film called between the Lines that Joan Silver was directing. And I was so flattered that she thought I could play a stripper because it was like, oh, I went to University of Chicago on Forest College. Sure, I'll play a bimbo. And I thought, I'm not going to make her a bimbo. So I went and interviewed all these strippers and found out, like, one of the girls had a husband who was there taking notes all the time. Another girl, her mother made the costumes, and they were sometimes girls who were going to college and stuff. So that's what my stripper character, as a backstory and as a. You know, and I. And Joan Silver. Joan Nicklin Silver, let me use some of the things that I'd learned as ad libs.
- [38:09]
B
Sure.
- [38:09]
A
And so she put them in A movie.
- [38:10]
B
So. But, you know, that started, you know, when I look at your. Your start in movies, I mean, you're. They've got you. This is my perception on this kind of that path where they're like, this person has a big upside in movies. You know, they're grooming you, for lack of a better word. Did you feel that or no?
- [38:27]
A
No, I didn't feel like a studio.
- [38:29]
B
That's what it looks like from out. From the outside.
- [38:30]
A
Oh, really? No, it wasn't like that. I was auditioning and I had an agent who really believed in me, and I got cast in something. I was flown out here for a screen test for the movie Blood Brothers, right. And Richard wasn't in it. Richard Gere wasn't in it yet, but it was Robert Mulligan, who had already had incredible success with Love with the Perfect Strange Love With a Proper Stranger and Inside Daisy Clover and a bunch of other movies. And so I get on the set and they'd sent me through, like, hair and makeup at Warner Brothers, and it was like, oh, I'm at the studio. This is the studio.
- [39:04]
B
The studio.
- [39:05]
A
The studio for my screen test. And I get on stage and he goes, go to the bathroom and wash all your makeup off. I want you to put your own makeup on. I want you to look like the girl I auditioned. This is not because the guy was like, so old school that I had the red dots here, you know, and I was that type of.
- [39:23]
B
The red dots.
- [39:24]
A
Oh, they used to do that for the Greeks and in, like, Shakespeare and, you know, the old theater to make your eyes kind of like pop and stuff like that. But he did. He had red dot. So. So anyway, so then. But I. Then I screen test and I got the part. And then Richard screen test. Because the guy I was originally with didn't get the job, but I got it. And then Richard Gere, but at this
- [39:45]
B
moment, because, you know, it's a feeling only a few people on the planet have, right? You're successful in one endeavor, Broadway. You're making this transition to possibly going to film, right? You're at Warner Brothers, like. And I've had those meetings where you're like, what am I doing here? Right? And here I am, you know.
- [40:06]
A
Yeah.
- [40:07]
B
Do you want a deeper career in films or.
- [40:10]
A
I wanted anything that was going to get. Get me good material. And I didn't have a manager at the time. I got one a little bit later. And then he kind of, I don't want to say ruined things for me a little bit. Wouldn't let me do Saturday Night Live. Which I had been asked.
- [40:27]
B
Oh, I didn't know that.
- [40:27]
A
Yeah. Which was like, how can I not.
- [40:30]
B
Oh, that's a jaw dropper.
- [40:31]
A
That was asked a few times, as a matter of fact, when I was on Taxi. And he was like, no, he was grooming me for a film career, and I was doing films in between Taxi things.
- [40:43]
B
Sure.
- [40:44]
A
And especially during Evening Shade, but. And I had already dropped him as a manager. But, you know, you get bad advice sometimes early on in your career.
- [40:53]
B
That's kind of what I'm after is.
- [40:54]
A
Yeah.
- [40:54]
B
You know, you're on that because I think it's worth pointing out. There was that thing in. I remember it very pointedly in the 70s that people were either TV actors or they were movie actors.
- [41:06]
A
Right. But Johnny Travolta really broke that.
- [41:09]
B
Well, but that was like 78, 77.
- [41:11]
A
78, sure. Yeah.
- [41:13]
B
Okay.
- [41:13]
A
That's what we're talking about that time.
- [41:15]
B
Right. But there was still that stigma. Right?
- [41:17]
A
Yeah. Very few people could do that.
- [41:20]
B
Right. You know, so I'm just asking your perception of, like, in your mind, did you want to be. You just want to be an actor that works, or you want, like, say, good material, or do you want to be a movie star?
- [41:31]
A
Oh, truthfully, this is the truth gun. And it blows your brains out if you don't tell the truth. Truthfully, I thought I would always be in Broadway musicals like that. That was gonna be my destiny.
- [41:41]
B
Is that where your heart was, or that was your destiny? Does that make sense, the difference?
- [41:45]
A
Yeah. No, I think that's how I originally, you know, with the dancing school and singing and dancing and the Broadway and all the musical and Grease and blah, blah, blah. I think that that's where I thought I would always end up. And going to Los Angeles was kind of a fluke. How long will I stay? And then I got Taxi, and that material was so extraordinary. Plus, my mother was dying in the hospital at the time I was auditioning, so it just became this best of times, worst of times, you know? And so. And you just. I think what happens is, as an actor, especially you. You take whatever path is next for you on the game board of Life.
- [42:21]
B
Right.
- [42:21]
A
And Taxi was so extraordinary. How could I ever pass that up, you know?
- [42:27]
B
Okay. But just to hang on the point one more time, so. Because obviously, in. In the. In the lens of hindsight, Taxi is one of the greatest television shows of all time. And I watched it at the time, so I remember. I remember looking forward to it. I remember seeing you I remember the whole thing. We'll get there in a second. But did you have that pause where it's like, hey, I've done Broadway. And you said your heart was in Broadway. But I've done some movies, did television at that moment, feel like maybe I'm going backwards or this might typecast me? Cause that was always the fear, right?
- [43:03]
A
That was the fear. But I, you know, I watched what was happening with John Travolta, and we were dating at that time, and my mother was dying, and that's a pretty
- [43:15]
B
intense combination of things.
- [43:17]
A
It's pretty intense. It was very intense, you know, and so it was.
- [43:23]
B
Were you torn between work and.
- [43:25]
A
No. Because she. No, no, no. I mean, what was funny is that, you know, I was consistently working, and then all of a sudden it was like, huh, I'm not getting. I don't have my next job. What's happening? And then, next thing I knew, I was in Chicago with my mother. And while I was in Chicago, I read that there was this new series coming up called Taxi. And I remember seeing those words in the Chicago Sun Times about the Mary Tyler Moore guys are about to do a new show. And there was something about that name that just jumped off the Patreon. I went, I'm going to do this show.
- [43:55]
B
How old was your mom when she was.
- [43:57]
A
She was 58. I was 25. She was 58. My father had died when I was 17. He was 52 of a heart attack. And she just changed, like, overnight. I saw what stress can do to a body and a psyche and, like, just losing the love of her life and, you know, just having to, like, go to work, not teaching dancing, but working in a bank. And so many things changed for me.
- [44:23]
B
Is it like a brokenhearted thing you think?
- [44:25]
A
It was brokenhearted, but it was also, my mom was a survivor, but she wasn't. I think it was just such a shock. And the way my father died was such a shock. I don't know if you want to get into that, but.
- [44:37]
B
Lisa.
- [44:38]
A
Well, as I told you, we were this big, very popular family in the neighborhood. And we always had this big Christmas party the Saturday between Christmas and New Year's. And My brother was 16, I was 17. My brother Tommy was 16. My sister was Crystal, 15, Lauren, 12. My two older sisters were 23 and 27. And Tommy got into some liquor that my father had been given as a present, started mouthing off to one of the guests, my sister. He was in the. My father was, like, in the house. Took him in the house. My sister. Next thing I know, my sister ran out to the studio to get my mom. I followed her, and when we came in, my father was on top of my brother because my brother had, like, pulled up like this, and so he was shaking him. My mother separated them. My father slumped into a chair, and that's how he died.
- [45:27]
B
So I think I read that. But hearing it from you, I see it.
- [45:32]
A
Yeah. And my mother and I went in the ambulance with him, and I just thought, there's no way they're gonna save him.
- [45:40]
B
So was this, like, a massive coronary or.
- [45:42]
A
Yeah, massive coronary. 52. And it upended our life. Yeah. And my brother and everything.
- [45:52]
B
All of it. All of it. Is your brother still alive?
- [45:55]
A
Yes, all the siblings are still alive.
- [45:57]
B
How did your brother sort of process all this?
- [45:59]
A
He's been through a lot, and in and out of rehabs and all kinds of stuff. But he's. I mean, I always joke. Tommy isn't. Doesn't just have nine lives because he's had so many near. He doesn't just. He's a whole litter of cats with nine lives each. He's got, like, 81, so. Yeah.
- [46:18]
B
Well, thank you for sharing that. It's intense.
- [46:21]
A
Yeah.
- [46:22]
B
Every family has its. Has its wrinkles, right? It's like.
- [46:26]
A
And there's a Fredo in every family.
- [46:30]
B
Well said.
- [46:31]
A
It's true.
- [46:32]
B
Okay. Taxi.
- [46:34]
A
Yeah.
- [46:34]
B
It's almost hard to talk about. Not because there's so much to talk about that we could just sit here and talk about taxis. Forget about it for hours.
- [46:42]
A
Yeah.
- [46:44]
B
And so let me see where I want to jump in on that. Here's the thing. So here's the cast, and this isn't everybody, but these are the names that jump out. Judd Hirsch, Jeff Conway. Conway. Is it Conaway. Tony Danza, Christopher Lloyd, Danny DeVito, Andy Kaufman, Rio Perlman. And Carol Kane, who I think I still have a crush on.
- [47:04]
A
No, she's adorable.
- [47:05]
B
So beautiful.
- [47:06]
A
So beautiful. Her.
- [47:07]
B
What a cool, so group.
- [47:09]
A
And they were guest stars. Carol didn't.
- [47:12]
B
But I remember seeing Carol on there because I had such a crush on her when I was a kid.
- [47:15]
A
Oh.
- [47:16]
B
I'm a goth, you know, so. Yeah, she's like a goth goddess. Right. If that makes sense to you. But, gosh, where do we even jump in? Like, you said, Mary Tyler Moore's people were involved, so you knew it was a. It had an esteem going in.
- [47:32]
A
I knew. And they. We didn't even do a pilot. We knew was picked up.
- [47:36]
B
Wow.
- [47:36]
A
So if you got the job, you. You were doing 13 episodes, the original 13. And I was, okay, I'll back up a story. Well, maybe I won't go into this part of the story, but anyway, I get the job even though I'm totally wrong for the part they wanted.
- [47:51]
B
Why were you wrong for the part?
- [47:51]
A
Because they wanted a 35 year old Italian New Yorker and they wanted me to have a 16 year old daughter. And I was 25. I turned 26 right before I got married.
- [48:01]
B
The character was like a mother of two.
- [48:03]
A
Mother of two. Well, they made a mother of two. It was supposed to be a 16 year old daughter.
- [48:06]
B
It was like a divorced mother of
- [48:08]
A
two and a divorced mom who had aspirations to work at, who worked in an art gallery and had aspirations to own her own gallery someday. And so she was moonlighting as a cab driver too, and putting. And so that when I was too young, you know, one of the theories I have is always that you don't become a success in this business until someone champions you or falls in love with you. And I don't mean romantic love, just believes in you. And like Jim Jacobs, he's the one who pushed me in the direction of Grease. And Joel Thurm, the casting director of Taxi, he's the one who kept saying, trust me, this is the girl. This is Elaine, she can hold her own. With Judd Hurst, you believe her as somebody who can like be one of the guys. You believe her aspirations in the art gallery and everybody else they were singing seeing, you know, he just felt like, no, it's Mary Lou. So he believed in me. And my final audition, which was right after my mother died, they paired us up. I wasn't with anybody that ended up getting the part, but because they paired me up and I sort of gave a hard time to the guy who was auditioning for Alex, Barry Newman. And it was really kind of funny. I think that's what got me the part. But they liked me. They felt like I could hold my own with the guys.
- [49:21]
B
Yeah, my memory of it is. And you know, because when you deal with cast ensembles like Cheers is a perfect example. It's like, you know, it was all around the bar and with Taxi was all around the garage. The garage. Yeah. My, my thing was the show spun around you in a particular way because it's not that you were the love interest, but you were the hottie that didn't belong there. But that's my memory of it.
- [49:43]
A
Thank you.
- [49:44]
B
Oh, well, but no, but I'm saying it gave a certain sort of snap to it.
- [49:48]
A
Yeah.
- [49:49]
B
You know, it animates things. You know, it's. I'm not saying it's as simple as sex sells, but it's like, you know, it's funny.
- [49:55]
A
I always felt, you know, with all due respect to the Cheers cast, I always thought the Taxi cast was a hotter cast. I mean, we have an expression in my family called pf, Right. And it's like bde, only it's not sizest and sexist like bde.
- [50:10]
B
What does PF stand for?
- [50:11]
A
PF stands for. And it measures the sexual quotient of people or things like. Okay, man, there was so much PF in that movie last night. Or. God, I went to this new restaurant.
- [50:18]
B
Do the letters PF stand for something?
- [50:20]
A
Yeah. Pussy factor and penis factor. Because every. Okay. So.
- [50:24]
B
Yeah, now we're back to Chicago.
- [50:25]
A
Now we're back to Chicago. Right there, baby. We are right there.
- [50:28]
B
Yeah, I'm with you in Chicago.
- [50:30]
A
Yeah. So pf. I always felt like the Taxi cast has had more PF than most other casts. Forget about Cheers.
- [50:37]
B
Yeah, no, that's. That's what I said.
- [50:39]
A
Except for maybe friends.
- [50:40]
B
So, like. Okay, dealing with the sexual dynamics, it's like, it made sense that Tony Dan's character would be into you, Jeff Conawys. You know what I'm saying?
- [50:48]
A
Yeah.
- [50:49]
B
Having. Having a woman of your looks, somehow it. It balanced something.
- [50:54]
A
Yeah, yeah. You believe.
- [50:56]
B
You would think on paper it would be like, let's get the. You know, the. The soccer mom from Chicago.
- [51:01]
A
Right.
- [51:01]
B
Had a rough go and a little rough around the edges, but she's got a heart of gold.
- [51:05]
A
Yeah.
- [51:05]
B
Something about you there kind of classed it up or something.
- [51:08]
A
Oh, man, I didn't realize.
- [51:09]
B
That's just my. Now you remember. I'm sitting in a basement.
- [51:11]
A
I know. You're sitting 11 years old in a
- [51:13]
B
Chicago basement, freezing my. But I did love the show, and I just remember thinking it was so fresh.
- [51:22]
A
It was different. And you must have loved being the musician that you are, innately. The Bob James song.
- [51:29]
B
Okay. I hope I don't shock you. I always found that theme song creepy.
- [51:33]
A
Oh, really? Yes, Interesting creepy because it went the
- [51:37]
B
way it starts the flutes. It creeped me out. I don't know why, but don't. And I swear to God, I'm gonna show you. I got a Bob James note because I was gonna tell you that the song creeped me out.
- [51:52]
A
Creeped you out.
- [51:53]
B
So you jumped. You jumped me there on that.
- [51:55]
A
That's so funny because. Yeah.
- [51:58]
B
I mean, but here we're talking about the theme song, so, you know, it's a good theme song. It's a good theme song because we're talking about it, because it registers as a singular moment.
- [52:08]
A
And it was so different from Schlemiel. Schlamazel.
- [52:11]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [52:11]
A
And Happy, you know, the happy days. And also come and knock on our door. You know, it's so different from all of those other shows.
- [52:18]
B
And every time I hear those
- [52:21]
A
creeping out. Maybe. Maybe because you knew it was time to go to bed or do your homework.
- [52:24]
B
I was sitting there doing my research on you, and I thought, I remember this song creeping me out. So I went and listened to it to see if it still creeped me out. And it does.
- [52:32]
A
And it does.
- [52:33]
B
So that's so funny.
- [52:35]
A
No flutes in your music. Like that.
- [52:38]
B
Okay, Now I am going to test your memory here because I think this is valuable. First, Taxi, according to my notes, aired September 12, 1978.
- [52:48]
A
It was on a Tuesday, right? I was in London with Travolta opening Greece the night before. So I didn't get to go to, you know.
- [52:56]
B
So you didn't get to sort of celebrate in the American sort of moment?
- [52:59]
A
No, I didn't. But a couple days later, and people asked me, like, when did you know you were going to be famous? Or when did. When was the Taxi. When did you know Taxi was a hit? Three days later after Taxi premiered, September 15. In fact, I did this on Sirius not too long ago. We were at the Ollie Spinks fight. Johnny and I had flown from London to. To New Orleans for the Ollie Spinks fight. And all the guys went to this fight. The fight was over very quickly. And then Johnny went back to the hotel. So I hung out with the Taxi guys. And we're walking down the street and all of a sudden people are honking like, hey, Nardo. Hey, Louie.
- [53:37]
B
And this is just after the premiere.
- [53:40]
A
So we thought, oh, wow. Lives. Our lives have changed.
- [53:43]
B
114 episodes you posted.
- [53:45]
A
Well, no, it's 112. We did a retrospective. Wikipedia, okay? Wikipedia, they're never right. Wikipedia says 114. But two of them were like retrospectives where somebody says, oh, this. And the fake episodes. Yeah, it was 100. So 112 episodes and 112 parties. We had a Taxi party every single Friday. We were the cool kids on the Paramount campus because we had a party every.
- [54:11]
B
You guys had a blast.
- [54:12]
A
We had a blast. It was a great time.
- [54:14]
B
This is cocaine. LA Times.
- [54:16]
A
Well, I was not you. Tony used to say. He'd say, mayor, we all have to do drugs to feel like you do. Naturally, you know, so.
- [54:27]
B
Okay, correct me again.
- [54:29]
A
Okay.
- [54:29]
B
Because there were. There was different information on this show was nominated for 31 Emmys, but I've seen where it's at 34.
- [54:36]
A
Okay. I don't know.
- [54:36]
B
I show 1 18.
- [54:39]
A
Won a lot.
- [54:40]
B
Won best comedy series three years in a row. And you were nominated for five Golden Globes.
- [54:46]
A
Five freelance.
- [54:49]
B
So I always like to focus on this part because when you're at the zeitgeist of American culture and only a few people really experience that. Yeah, it's very, very different. It's different than anybody can imagine it. Like, there was a point in my life where I don't care. Whatever restaurant I walked into, the kids knew me and grandma knew me.
- [55:15]
A
Oh, wow.
- [55:17]
B
So I know you know what that feels like.
- [55:19]
A
Yeah. Yes. And I think also because of that time and the different people I was dating during that time, whether it was Johnny or one of my cast members, you know, there was, like, that element
- [55:34]
B
to it, but there was the People magazine part of it also.
- [55:36]
A
Yeah, People magazine, Us magazine, you know, stuff like that. Yeah, so there was that part of it. But the work was so extraordinary. And somebody like Jim Brooks, who is of every single human being I've met in show business, he is a true genius. He is the smartest, most extraordinary human being I've ever met in my entire life. And we're still friends to this day. I mean, we are such good friends. He came to all my weddings. I mean, no, he's one of my best, best, best, best friends. And I see him. So because of him, I would say that there was a patina about Jaxie.
- [56:13]
B
It's endured, which is, I think, how we know where. I would argue, like, a show like mash, which was huge in its time, it seems to have lost.
- [56:22]
A
Do you think it wasn't some of
- [56:24]
B
its shine over time?
- [56:24]
A
Yeah, maybe.
- [56:25]
B
You want my opinion on why?
- [56:26]
A
Sure.
- [56:27]
B
Is that what you're asking?
- [56:28]
A
Yeah, I'm curious.
- [56:29]
B
I think it was too self indulgent. There's a lot of. Got a lot of lefty tropes in there and a lot of like. Like big speeches that just haven't aged very well. But at the time, it felt super important. I love the show. Yeah, but you. You couldn't get me to sit down and watch a MASH episode if you paid me. But if you said, hey, let's sit down and watch an episode.
- [56:51]
A
What if you get a guest from mash?
- [56:53]
B
Well, I would say the same thing, but I. I don't. What's interesting about Zeitgeist moments. And we can. Because this gets into your memory as well, is there are zeitgeist moments that really endure, and there are other zeitgeist moments that do not endure. And they almost become a reflection of the times. More so than, let's call it the greater arc of the human story or something. Does it make sense? Yeah, it's the difference between a cultural moment, like, why is everybody wearing that bad shoe? And you look and go, God, what were we thinking in 74?
- [57:29]
A
The collective agreement.
- [57:30]
B
Yes, it's a collective agreement, but it's not always.
- [57:32]
A
Right, right, right.
- [57:33]
B
And that's. That's borne out by racial politics and horrible things like women not being able to vote. You know, like, we all look back and go, what were we thinking? So silly. But there are other things. You go, no, there was a. There was a truthfulness in that that endures. And there's a truthfulness in Taxi that endures.
- [57:51]
A
I. I think if I had to, like, pinpoint what it was, I think it was. You got into our personal lives, but what you really got into was that kind of collective agreement to create a family outside of your own personal families. And the chemistry of the cast really jumped off the screen. The writing was extraordinary.
- [58:14]
B
Did you feel that your personal relationships infused back into the.
- [58:18]
A
Oh, as an actor, you use everything all the time. Sure. I think it made. I mean, plenty of times you can watch Tony Danza, he was really playing cards. And I'd have to kick him under the table to say his next line, you know what I mean? Or we'd, like, hold back on an ad lib. Cause maybe Jeff Conaway would steal our ad lib during the week. So we'd wait until, like, shooting night. You know, there were so many things. I mean, and we were really playing cards. Even when we were shooting, we were playing cards. So people would, you know, take me
- [58:49]
B
through like a week on that because I'm fascinated by the sort of the production part of it all. Like, so.
- [58:54]
A
Oh, sure.
- [58:54]
B
You could do a cold read.
- [58:56]
A
Well, Friday night we would do the show. So I'll go back to a Friday night. And you'd finish the show before you pop the champagne, have a party in the. Party in the. Up.
- [59:07]
B
In the front of a live crowd.
- [59:09]
A
Oh, the show was always in front of.
- [59:10]
B
Did you only film once or did you do the rehearsal?
- [59:12]
A
Just once.
- [59:12]
B
Okay. Because, like, you know, in snl, they filmed the rehearsal and the live. You know what I mean? But they did that one run through in front of a crowd.
- [59:20]
A
Right.
- [59:20]
B
Because Even when you're playing as an artist, you know, you play like, just like you would be on tv, you know.
- [59:25]
A
Yeah, no, Jimmy Burrows was mostly our director, especially the first three and a half years. And so he, you know, was 7:30 we'd have a band playing and then we'd go into, you know, the shooting of it. And then what would happen was we would finish and have the party. But when you took off your costume from the show, there'd be a new script. So you got the script Friday night.
- [59:48]
B
Oh, okay.
- [59:49]
A
So now you had the script Friday night and then Monday we came in at 11 o' clock and did our table read. And usually they would send us off. If it needed a lot of work, we wouldn't start putting it on its feet that day. They'd listen to it and we'd get a new script on Tuesday when we came in. But usually what would happen is there was enough to get us started. But the cast would go to Lucy Zell Adobe across the street, knock back a few margaritas and chips and salsa, guacamole, and then come back in the afternoon and get like part of act one on its feet. And then Tuesday we'd start right at 10, do a table read of the new changes, get it on its feet. And Tuesday afternoon at 4:30 we would have a run through now a run through in front of the network and the writers. Now here's the thing, because the whole thing was that Jim Brooks was running it. Any suggestion was open. You could bring 10 of your family members to watch that run through and he'll say, oh, we need a good line here. Does anybody, what do you think here? And people would be totally open. My brother once suggested. Very rare. I never had that again. Totally rare. And so then we do the run through and then Wednesday they'd stay up all night with the extra writers who would come in beside the six of them and they would have a fresh hot little.
- [61:04]
B
They'd bring in extra writers to like punch up the scripts.
- [61:06]
A
Tuesday night there would be like a, you know, an all nighter kind of thing depending on where the script was. So then Wednesday we'd put the new version of the script on his feet, do another 4:30 run through, and that was Wednesday. And then Thursday, 9:00 clock in the morning we would start camera blocking. And then Friday we'd come in at noon and do like a run through with camera blocking. 4:30, a dress rehearsal to make sure all the wardrobe stuff worked. And then a show starting at 7:30
- [61:35]
B
and that would Go how, Like, how many times, how many weeks would you do that in a row?
- [61:38]
A
Three or four in a row. And then take a week off. Golf. Sometimes we do five. Yeah, it was intense, but it was great. We loved it. Everybody loved. And then the cast would get together to watch the show on Tuesdays. The cast would get together to go roller disco on Mondays. The cast would get together on, you know, Saturdays to play softball. So we socialized a lot. A lot, a lot. And we still do. We've done 23 zooms since the pandemic started. We just did our 23rd last. Last couple weeks ago.
- [62:07]
B
That's crazy. A lot's been made of, obviously, Andy Kaufman's time. You know, I work. You know, I own a professional wrestling company, if you don't know that about me. So I hear all the inside stories from wrestling people that worked with Andy in Memphis. So I always hear about it from the other side. I know. And correct. Again, correct me. But my. My understanding is that he only worked kind of a partial schedule, and he did.
- [62:34]
A
He was that, like.
- [62:37]
B
Was that because he was a big star?
- [62:39]
A
No, I think he didn't want the. He didn't want the responsibility. And because Latke's character, first of all, he only had seven out of 13, so he didn't have to come to every show anyway. And they would write his dialogue just as what the intention was. And then he'd make up his own language. I always said that Andy made up a country I wanted to visit because it was so original. But. So he came Tuesday afternoon for the run through. He'd come after lunch and work from like 1 until the 4:30 run through. And then he came in Friday all day. So he only had to do.
- [63:10]
B
Did that create any kind of resentment with the cast?
- [63:11]
A
You know, first of all, I hated man on the Moon. I felt like it was. Did not do any kind of justice whatsoever. I had the funniest thing that ever happened to me on a movie set with Milos Forman, whose work I love and I love Jim Carrey. I just think the movie didn't. But Mila Schwarman said to me, and I'm in my original clothes from Taxi, and I'm saying the things that came out of my mouth.
- [63:33]
B
Did they actually find your original clothes?
- [63:34]
A
I had them. Oh, yeah. So he said. He said something about, no, don't do it like that. She wouldn't do that. I went, what do you mean, she wouldn't do that? I'm the she. This is who I am. I thought that was kind of funny. But it just. It seemed like. And after I saw the. After I saw the documentary about Jim and Andy, I realized those were his demons. I felt like. Like Jim never captured the fun, the essence, the friend, the kind of quirky, very appealing side to Andy. I adored Andy. He wanted to be a song and dance man. So we were always dancing. There's a.
- [64:08]
B
He must have loved. You were on Broadway, right?
- [64:09]
A
He loved. And with the Andrew Sisters. Because when we had a show that was about a costume party and Judd, Tony and Andy all dressed like the Andrew Sisters, so I taught them a little dance with the music and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. He was deer. And you never got to see that in the movie, did you?
- [64:30]
B
Last question. Did you. Did you have a sense. Because I saw some stuff where Tony Danza was talking about. Didn't really understand what he was after. But now in hindsight, it makes more sense that he was a visionary. But did you have any sense of that at the time? Did you think he was an important comedian? I mean, you guys are working at the national level, so obviously he's somebody. But even. Even in the professional ranks, people have their opinions.
- [64:55]
A
Okay. A year and a half before Taxi started, I was still living in New York, and I saw him dressed as foreign man reading from the Great Gatsby at Catch a Rising Star. And I thought, who is this guy? And by chapter two of the Great Gatsby, people are, like, shooting straws at him, pelting dinner rolls. My boyfriend at the time, he's like, get off the stage. And all this other stuff. And pretty soon, little Andy Kaufman in his little foreign man suit, in his little accent with his book, turns and just breaks down on stage, just sobs, sobbing, sobbing.
- [65:31]
B
Was he really crying or was he.
- [65:32]
A
Hush. Who knows? But he was convincing enough that you thought, like, he felt bad. Oh, my God, you felt terrible. And then he turns upstage and in one fell swoop, rips tape, black tape.
- [65:46]
B
He was a great Elvis.
- [65:47]
A
He was a great Elvis. And there he was. So I already knew Andy Kaufman going in and was a fan. And then when he created this crazy character with the language, and he was so funny.
- [65:57]
B
But did you have a sense, like, you know, every artist in the entertainment game either has a legacy or doesn't. And some they endure and they take on a mythological. Like, there's a movie about. You know, there's a movie about anti.
- [66:10]
A
Right.
- [66:11]
B
There's a reason there's a movie about Andy. He becomes fascinating as sort of a cultural figure that rises above his moment. Like, we were talking about zeitgeist times. Right.
- [66:20]
A
Right.
- [66:20]
B
But did you have a sense that he had the zeitgeist in him at the time, or did you just.
- [66:24]
A
I knew. Well, I. You know, I knew that he was taking busloads of people out for milk and cookies after a performance, and I knew that he was putting people on the Staten island ferry and taking them across.
- [66:36]
B
Right. But in terms of.
- [66:37]
A
So it's like. So I felt like, did I think he was going to die? Not.
- [66:40]
B
No, no, no, no.
- [66:41]
A
But did I?
- [66:42]
B
It's a more nuanced question because maybe. Because I'm a student of history, I have very clear memories of people in my generation that were important. Because I remember thinking to myself, okay, this one, you're going to want to remember this because there's something about this. Even if I don't like it.
- [67:02]
A
Right.
- [67:02]
B
It's gonna end.
- [67:03]
A
Give me an example.
- [67:04]
B
Kurt Cobain was from Nirvana. I saw them play in 1990 or so on their first album. They were an independent band. And you just could tell this guy has got some other gear that is impossible to explain.
- [67:21]
A
Right.
- [67:22]
B
You know, the band was good at that point. Not great. He was obviously talented, but so were a lot of other people. But I thought, no, this one, there's something. And when you would be around people talking about him, it was like they were talking about the high school quarterback.
- [67:37]
A
Yeah.
- [67:37]
B
They couldn't find enough superlatives to describe this guy in just some band.
- [67:43]
A
It's so weird because we're talking about two people who died very young, you know, and maybe there's that part of them and what they emit that we.
- [67:52]
B
Well, I have a theory on that, and I don't know if you would agree with it, which is. I think some people know that they're not destined to be here long, so they have a different incandescence. They burn a little bit brighter.
- [68:03]
A
Alexander Hamilton, like, you and I are
- [68:05]
B
going to be here for a long time. So we're like. We're regulating the flame. We don't want to burn too bright.
- [68:10]
A
We're Chicago. We got a Chicago burn.
- [68:14]
B
Okay, so again, maybe. Maybe sometime you and I, if we do this again, we can. We can go deeper on Taxi because it's.
- [68:22]
A
Oh, it's so great.
- [68:23]
B
There's so much there.
- [68:24]
A
So much so, so much so.
- [68:26]
B
I don't want to jump past, but I'm really here more to talk about you. But obviously it's a huge part of your history, definitely, so. Okay.
- [68:33]
A
And continues to be.
- [68:34]
B
Is it because of the success of Taxi that you start doing movie stuff again or do the opportunities change there?
- [68:40]
A
Yes and no. I mean, I started doing TV movies. I. It was always, you know, oh, here's a script, here's a this, here's that. And so my agents would put me up for things. And if I got the job or if I didn't get the job.
- [68:51]
B
Did you feel you're being typecast at all or. You know, this town loves a proven winner, you know?
- [69:00]
A
Yes. Oh, definitely. No, I call it casting by calendar. Like, who can we get from Calendar? The calendar section of the LA Times, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah. And I knew that there were times when I was so disappointed because somebody would write a part for me and then I was like two on the nose. It was like, we'll change the character. That happened with like Blake Edwards and he wrote a part for me and then they said, well, no, she's too. You know, things like that. I mean, but I have so many stories.
- [69:29]
B
But look at the names you. 82 Vim vendors is one of the great artistic directors.
- [69:35]
A
Actually, it was 80 and 82 because there was Hammett. They pulled the plug.
- [69:39]
B
Okay.
- [69:40]
A
Hammett started. I met my first soon to be ex husband, my first husband, Frederick Forest, at a school.
- [69:46]
B
You're talking like a rock star now. This is how we talk, right?
- [69:49]
A
Yeah, yeah. So I met him at a screen test.
- [69:54]
B
Right.
- [69:55]
A
And yeah. And so we ended up. I ended up getting cast and then we ended up getting. They pulled the plug. Cause the movie was a mess. And then the strike happened and then we got married and then the strike ended and I went back to Taxi and thought, who is this guy? You know I'm kidding. But. But then he did another movie. I did Taxi. I did another movie.
- [70:19]
B
Cause that husband number one, Right, that's husband number one. He was a very successful actress.
- [70:23]
A
Yes. And in Academy. Brilliant. Yeah, brilliant. Brilliant.
- [70:26]
B
Yeah. I looked him up and I was like, oh, I know this guy. Like it, you know, you know, it's like snaps right to you. Like, oh, well.
- [70:31]
A
And he was totally unrecognizable with each of his characters. You know, I mean, he played Dashiell Hammett when I met him. Then he gained 25 pounds because he played Hank in One from the Heart.
- [70:44]
B
What was it like being married to another actor?
- [70:48]
A
Well, with Freddie, it was like being married to like six actors. I mean, he also played Lee Harvey Oswald and one time he having a fight. And I went, I expected to end up with John Kennedy and I ended up with Lee Harvey Oswald, you know, because he was so. But he was so. He would. He was an unbelievable actor. He was so into meth. He was such a method. Method actor. He would write out his entire script in longhand. The entire script. And in between his lines, he would create a whole life of his character. So his script was like this big. Because there was. It was like very Rosen Transom Gilman's film, because he wanted to know, even though you never might not have seen it. So when he did the movie, Tucker, this was after we got divorced, when we had the. He told transpo transportation that they were not allowed to drive him faster than 35 miles per hour because his character would never have experienced that kind of speed. And that's what happens to his character in the movie. So he didn't want to be driven faster than faster. And then one day he left his script behind, and he didn't want the script to be driven faster. And they were like, no, the script is.
- [71:56]
B
Am I guessing wrong? And that this is not a good formula for a successful relationship. This. This level of detail. Your memory and his level of detail. Right.
- [72:05]
A
No, but his. His. His just. He. We were very other to each other, but we adored one another, and we stayed friends till he passed away only a year and a half ago.
- [72:14]
B
Not even a year and a half ago.
- [72:16]
A
Yeah. And we always stayed first.
- [72:18]
B
God bless.
- [72:18]
A
Yeah.
- [72:21]
B
So you're working with the art director over here, and then here comes Burt Reynolds, which is like, talk about American cultural zeitgeist, right?
- [72:29]
A
Oh, my gosh.
- [72:29]
B
Blake Edwards, like, you're right in the middle of the.
- [72:33]
A
And auditioning just as Taxi is kind of, you know, waning. I literally finished Taxi on a Friday and started man who Loved Women on the following Monday.
- [72:43]
B
Well, that leads you to. I mean, I just have to go to Cannonball Run. I mean, we're talking. If Taxi is a cultural high point, Cannonball two is. I don't know what it is.
- [72:53]
A
Okay, this is what Cannonball 2 is. The first night I worked with Burt Reynolds, he and I instantly had chemistry. We started ad libbing. We, like, loved each other, like, instantly. He called me that night. He said, I want you to come down to Burt Reynolds dinner theater and do. They're playing our song. Because I know you sing and dance. And I'm doing another Cannonball. We're going to do Cannonball Run movie, but it needs. It needs a script rewrite. Do you know any good script writers? I was like, oh, Harvey Miller from. From Taxi. He's really good at that. So I read the script, and it's about Dom DeLuise and Bert. They. An heiress has been shut away in kind of an asylum, and she wants to get away from her family. So they go in, they meet her, they go and they take her. And it's Cannonball Run and. And on the Cannonball Run, too. And I end up with Burt Reynolds. So now I give it to Harvey, and Harvey, Burt gives it to Harvey, and he turns it into. Two would be actresses dressed as nuns. They ditch a production of Sound of
- [73:55]
B
Music back to the nuns.
- [73:57]
A
And now there's two female characters. So, of course, Shirley, they got Shirley MacLaine. And she wanted to be with Bert, so she was with Bert, I was with Dom. All because of Harvey's new script.
- [74:08]
B
But I disrespected Dom. You deserve better.
- [74:11]
A
No, but let me tell you something. Well, poor little Dom. I mean, it was 117 degrees in July in Tucson. So Shirley and I had. Our makeup call was 2am so we could get makeup on because the drive out to the desert took four and we pulled the plug at one. So everybody was hanging out at the. In Tucson. The famous the Tucson? No, not Tucson. And I'll think of it. Anyway, it's like a great old hotel. And it was Shirley MacLaine, Sammy Davis Jr. Dean Martin, Joey Bishop, Telly Savalas, all of them.
- [74:48]
B
Everybody was there. Ricardo Montalban, Jim Nabors, Charles Nelson Riley.
- [74:53]
A
And we were all at that hotel and then would, like, hang out at the pool in the afternoon to cool off and then everybody drinking.
- [74:59]
B
It was like a Hollywood dream to me.
- [75:01]
A
It was, well, here's. I'm a little girl whose mother made her take naps after school so I could step and watch the late show with her. And I had this unbelievably colorful uncle who thought he knew all the movie stars personally. And so this was like. I can't believe Shelly MacLaine and Dom, you know, Burt and all these people, especially the Rat Pack.
- [75:22]
B
I'm fascinated by old Hollywood. And that moment right there is pretty much the end of old Hollywood. Yeah, you know, it was the end of the Rat Pack kind of together. And, you know, Frank's in the movie for 60 seconds and all that stuff. Did you have a sense on a Saturday, did you. Do you have a sense of that time ending? Because, you know, Bert and, you know, you know, Dustin Hoffman. There was this whole crowd of actors and stuff that came in late 60s, early 70s, kind of changed the game.
- [75:50]
A
Yes.
- [75:51]
B
Some would say for better. Some would say for worse, more independent spirit.
- [75:54]
A
Right. Less. Although Burke sort of kept this old Hollywood.
- [75:58]
B
That's what I sort of like about it because you can see he's paying some fealty to the things he loves.
- [76:04]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's. He was, he was incredible. I mean, I felt like, you know, you just go to a party at his house and it was like old Hollywood. You were always, you know, Johnny and I would sometimes.
- [76:16]
B
Can he date somebody like a famous.
- [76:19]
A
Well, he was with Dinah Shore for a while.
- [76:20]
B
That's it. I knew he had some romance with some older. Yeah. Ingenue of the past.
- [76:26]
A
Yes. Yeah. Dinah Shore.
- [76:29]
B
Yeah.
- [76:29]
A
And she was great. But he was with Lonnie most of the time that I knew him and then, you know, other people. But. Yeah, but he was, he was always. He loved those Hollywood parties and he was like a kid who loved old Hollywood as well. But, But Cannonball Run 2 was so crazy because it was, you know, 23 honey wagons in a circle for the, the movie. And, you know, it was just like you. I met so many people on that film.
- [76:55]
B
Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's like, you know, it's a mad, mad, mad world. There's like 800 stars and. Yeah, it reminds me of that.
- [77:02]
A
Yeah.
- [77:03]
B
So not to belabor the point about the movie thing, you know, but you know, Johnny Dangerously with Mike Keaton, Perfect. With John Travolta, L.A. story with Steve Martin, you've done 68 films. But people, because of Taxi, I think they think of you more as a TV actress. Yeah, you think that's. How is it again, I'm not trying to put words, but is it like, hey, I worked and I had success in everything, including Broadway. Like, do you look at it that way?
- [77:33]
A
Like, hey, truthfully, right now people think of me from memory.
- [77:39]
B
Truth.
- [77:39]
A
Gun. Truth. Gun. Truth. Gone is that. I think it's more the memory thing than anything.
- [77:44]
B
Well, that's why I think people interviewing me lately, they're doing the lazy too take. They always go towards the lowest hanging fruit. So right now the lowest hanging fruit for you is the memory thing because it's fascinating to people. But when I go through your actual working life, I mean, like I said, you've worked non stop for 50.
- [78:01]
A
50 some years.
- [78:02]
B
Yeah, no, it's very impressive.
- [78:04]
A
Thank you. 52 years. I just did three plays, one right after the next. I did Noises off again at Bucks County, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. And you know, Bucks County Theater, where I'm on the board there because I Love that theater. It's like my summer home. I just love much. So I did Noises off, and I played the same part that I played in the movie 31 years ago, 32 years ago. And I was like, are you sure? And they were like, can you still fit the costume? And I said, well, yeah. Well, yeah, I wore something.
- [78:29]
B
I mean, look at me.
- [78:30]
A
Thank you. I didn't say it like that. I did wear a different costume. But no, I. You know what? After my parents died, I really discovered health. And as a result of discovering health and working. Working so hard to make their deaths, not in vain, just trying to figure out what is it that killed them. What can I do? If I've been dealt this genetic hand and my. My siblings, I mean, I lost, you know, 54 pounds and lowered my cholesterol over 100 points and have worked really hard, and I saved my third and final husband's life with good health and information. And it's. It's probably of everything that I've done besides having my two sons, which is. There's nothing like being a parent probably helping people with their health is probably right up there, you know, so. Yeah. So I think I take all of it in. I take all of it in. And it's also. When you sit with somebody, what do they want to talk about? You know, because anybody could say anything. And I'll pick up from there.
- [79:29]
B
Sure. That's kind of where I wanted to end on the health and wellness. Because, you know, there's a lot of ghosts in this town. And what I mean by that is you'll see this person who's had their moment. Moment. But they can't let it go.
- [79:43]
A
Oh.
- [79:44]
B
You know what I mean? And I feel like somehow you've successfully navigated. And I'm not saying there's not sorrow there at times where.
- [79:52]
A
Sure.
- [79:52]
B
You know, I certainly have dealt with it where they think, like, oh, you can't do that anymore. And you think, what are you talking about? I'm still here.
- [79:59]
A
I'm from Chicago, baby.
- [80:00]
B
Yeah. Like, sometimes I'll tell fans, like, you know, I'm still the guy that wrote the song. You know, they'll talk to me as if I could you talk to the guy who wrote that song.
- [80:08]
A
Right.
- [80:08]
B
And I'm like, I'm still here, you know?
- [80:10]
A
Yeah.
- [80:12]
B
So I guess I'm asking something that's not really a question. More so it's like a. It's like a tone poem of, like, how do you put all that together? Because it seems consistent through your whole Journey. And again, it's like a spirit question. Maybe, but you know what I mean? Like you're, it's, it's in your work, your spirit. Like there's a certain, there's a fresh optimism. Are you, are you optimistic person?
- [80:37]
A
Very.
- [80:38]
B
Okay. Yeah. So the idea that you would then take this part of your life and make it more about others is very interesting. Right. Because you've had a life where it's been very much about you.
- [80:51]
A
Yes, but it's. For me, you know, it's like, I think everybody has a filter through which they see their lives. Everyone has kind of an essence. And mine has always been family. And I don't know whether it's because I'm the middle child and those film, the family historian and the girl on Taxi and this, I've always been that swizzle stick person, that one who like stirs things up or gets people like, you know, the way my family was eating before I discovered health and plant based and all the things, no dairy, no gluten, all those things.
- [81:22]
B
Are you saying the Polish diet is not conducive to a long life?
- [81:25]
A
Forget it. Oh my gosh. And I think, I don't know, I think I'm somebody who loves to share information, obviously. I love to talk, obviously. And so if I learn something, I don't want to be the only one who has it. I right away want to share it with people. And so I think, because I've been doing the books for a long time, 25 years, so it's not, it's not, you know, and having kids changes your life so much. And I wanted to, you know, my kids came with me everywhere. We did everything together. And so, so, you know, I was never precious about stuff. And so, I don't know. I mean, I, it, I, I don't feel like everything was focused on me ever. I was, I was always like.
- [82:09]
B
But isn't that egoism at least somewhat required in the, in the, in the acting game?
- [82:14]
A
It, it is.
- [82:15]
B
You got to have enough of a. Because you got to deal with it.
- [82:17]
A
You have to have 9 confidence. Yeah, but, but I think that, but it's not, not, I mean, like people who meet my friends, they go, we always thought you'd be the talker, but they're the talker. And I go, no, I'm just the talk show host who asks the question and gets people together. You know, so I, I don't know, I never thought that. I think I, I pulled it out when I needed to have the focus on me I knew how to pull it out, but I was always very good at remembering things to, like, pull other things and.
- [82:47]
B
Last question.
- [82:48]
A
Okay.
- [82:48]
B
It's not a fair question, though.
- [82:50]
A
Okay. Have any of them been fair? Okay.
- [82:52]
B
Yeah.
- [82:53]
A
It's like, no, I love talking to you. Let me just say that. You're a blast.
- [82:56]
B
It's like people say to me, I hate to ask you this question. I'm like, well, then don't. Is there a spot of retirement or are you just going to work till you're done?
- [83:07]
A
I'm going to work till I'm done.
- [83:08]
B
It's a Chicago thing. Right. I'm with you all the way to the end.
- [83:11]
A
All the way to the end. Why? Why give it up? I'm constantly reinventing things. You know that I have two documentary filmmakers. I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about it yet, so I won't say their name. They're going to start following me around about my memory because they think it's not just about my memory, but the idea that memory is. So. It's an exploration of humanity, you know, that's how they're describing it. And so, you know, and then you
- [83:33]
B
have to work, you see.
- [83:34]
A
Yeah, well, no, but I. I also just sold a movie to Hallmark. I'm in a big Hallmark series and all kinds of stuff. I'm constantly working. I just did three. Three shows. So, you know, I like to work.
- [83:46]
B
Yeah.
- [83:46]
A
And I have the energy for it, so why not?
- [83:48]
B
Yeah, because I think this last point I'm. I'm after, you know, there's an obsession with youthfulness and aging and, and obviously the, and you know this from your sort of scientific forays, you know, the anti aging sort of aspect of science that's coming. That's going to be a huge business. It's already is. It is a life extension, maybe is a better way to put, Put it. But. And maybe this is a question. It's like to me, long life is. Is being useful.
- [84:19]
A
Very.
- [84:20]
B
Looking good is. Is nice. I'm all about it. Right.
- [84:23]
A
And it gives you, you know, I always say, purpose. If you, if you wear out your body, where are you going to live? So. Exactly. Being able to not wear out your body too much. You can live and maneuver and walk and, you know.
- [84:35]
B
Yeah. So that's the point I'm trying to make is to me, you're a parable for happy. Life is purposeful. Life is looking and feeling good, like it's. That's the loop. Does that, does that resonate?
- [84:46]
A
Well, it gives you. Yes. And it's. Well, it just gives you the mobility, you know, it gives you the brain cells. It gives you the life force in you because you're not spending all of your time digesting your food or feeling sorry for yourself self or hiding in your bed.
- [85:07]
B
That's what I'm saying. I think it's very admirable in you.
- [85:10]
A
Yeah. Well, thank you. Thanks. Something. I couldn't go out like my parents should.
- [85:15]
B
Chicago.
- [85:16]
A
Chicago.
- [85:17]
B
All right. Thank you.
- [85:18]
A
You're the.