S2 Ep. 4: “His Grace the Duke” with Lauri Pitkus and Douglas Purver

Summary

The Official Gilded Age Podcast: Season 2, Episode 4 – “His Grace the Duke”

Release Date: November 20, 2023
Hosts: Alicia Malone (TCM) and Tom Myers (The Bowery Boys)
Guests: Lauri Pitkus (Location Manager) and Douglas Purver (Visual Effects Supervisor)

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Introduction

In Season 2, Episode 4 of HBO's The Gilded Age, titled "His Grace the Duke," Alicia Malone and Tom Myers delve deep into the latest developments of the series, exploring the intricate blend of historical accuracy and dramatic storytelling. This episode provides a comprehensive breakdown of the episode's key events, character dynamics, and behind-the-scenes insights, enriched with quotes and vivid discussions to enhance the listener's understanding.

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Episode Recap

1. Unfinished Metropolitan Opera House

The episode opens with a grand tour of the new Metropolitan Opera House, guided by the ever-charismatic Bertha Russell. As Bertha showcases the opera house, it becomes evident that construction is stagnating:

• Bertha Russell (00:50): "I kind of like to call them invisible effects. If you see what we're doing on a show like this, we've kind of failed in a way."

2. Financial Struggles and High Society Drama

Bertha reassures the VIP guests that the halt in construction is merely a temporary setback, maintaining the facade of opulence:

• Tom Myers (04:08): "But in this story, the Met has run out of money and is behind schedule in leasing these boxes."

The episode highlights the mounting construction costs, reflecting real historical challenges:

• Tom Myers (05:12): "The original story that announced the opera house project that ran in The Tribune in 1880 stated that, quote, the opera house will be constructed as economically as possible."

By 1882, costs ballooned from an initial estimate of $600,000 to over $1.25 million, causing consternation among millionaire stockholders.

3. Social Intrigue and Scandal

The narrative weaves through various social interactions:

• Mrs. Astor manipulates Mr. Winterton, undermining his wife's reputation to secure her own social standing.

  • Tom Myers (11:36): "Mrs. Astor lured Mr. Winterton into her home for tea... she basically trashed his wife's reputation while smiling and nodding."

• Ada and Reverend Forte's budding romance adds a tender subplot:

  • Tom Myers (15:56): "Ada and Reverend Forte go on a walk in Central Park surrounded by those old timey bikes with the big front wheels."

4. Racial Injustice and Social Reform

A significant portion of the episode addresses the contrasting philosophies of Booker T. Washington and T. Thomas Fortune regarding racial injustice:

• Bertha Russell (24:14): "You were a slave, and so was I."

• Booker T. Washington (24:20): "I don't mean to scare you, Ms. Scott."

This dialogue underscores the tension between advocacy for equality versus pragmatic approaches to social reform.

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Historical Context

1. The Metropolitan Opera House Construction

The episode intricately details the historical attempt to construct the Metropolitan Opera House, reflecting real-life financial overruns and societal expectations of the era.

• Tom Myers (05:48): "The millionaire stockholders stand aghast at this watering of their stock, translating to about $46 million today."

2. The Role of the Press and Gossip

The hosts discuss the prominence of newspapers like the Daily Graphic in shaping public perception and publicizing societal scandals.

• Tom Myers (09:06): "In this episode, we see a lot of things actually reported. There's a lot of newspapers in today's episode."

This mirrors the historical reality where the press played a pivotal role in celebrity culture and social dynamics.

3. Jane Addams and Social Reform

The episode touches upon Jane Addams and her contributions to social reform through the establishment of Hull House:

• Tom Myers (14:55): "Jane Addams was from Chicago, where she co-founded a settlement house called Hull House."

This aligns with historical facts, highlighting the efforts to provide support and education to the immigrant population.

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Character Dynamics and Developments

1. Bertha Russell's Strategic Maneuvering

Bertha's ability to navigate social settings and manipulate situations underscores her influence within the high society depicted in the show.

• Tom Myers (28:39): "Bertha takes it upon herself to rearrange the seating so that she is next to the Duke at dinner."

2. Mrs. Winterton's Struggles

Mrs. Winterton faces societal pressures and personal challenges, particularly in her relationship with her husband and her position within the social hierarchy.

• Mrs. Winterton (12:26): "Instead of telling her husband the truth, she explains that she simply worked as Bertha's companion."

3. Romantic Subplots

The blossoming romance between Ada and Reverend Forte provides a contrast to the more tumultuous relationships within the upper echelons of society.

• Tom Myers (19:03): "Reverend Forte gets down on a knee and proposes. And she is stunned."

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Themes Explored

1. Gender Dynamics and Double Standards

The episode underscores the double standards prevalent in society, particularly concerning relationships between different ages and social standings.

• Mrs. Winterton (21:32): "The idea of a double standard, that it's more scandalous for a younger man to be with an older woman than for a younger woman to be with an older man."

2. Racial Injustice and Methods of Advocacy

Through the interactions between Booker T. Washington and T. Thomas Fortune, the podcast highlights the diverse approaches to combating racial injustice.

• Booker T. Washington (24:25): "We're making big progress down here. You don't get that by picking fights."

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Behind the Scenes: Guest Insights

1. Visual Effects with Douglas Purver

Douglas Purver discusses his role in creating seamless visual effects that blend historical accuracy with the show's dramatic needs.

• Douglas Purver (36:00): "We want to make sure that the visuals are as seamless as possible to keep the viewer within the story."

He elaborates on the integration of green screens and CGI to depict historical settings authentically:

• Douglas Purver (44:16): "We capture all of the material to make them look realistic. So everything kind of felt as a unit or part of where it should be."

2. Location Management with Laurie Pitkus

Laurie Pitkus shares her experiences in scouting and securing authentic locations that underscore the series' historical ambiance.

• Laurie Pitkus (38:27): "I'm constantly asking Laurie to find locations for me to either photograph to help with matte paintings or create distant additions."

She details the challenges and creative solutions involved in transforming modern sites into period-accurate settings:

• Laurie Pitkus (41:56): "We laid some kind of subsurface. We laid some kind of surface on the road, pulled back some tree branches, and we were able to create St. Mary's there."

3. Collaboration Between VFX and Location Teams

The synergy between Purver and Pitkus exemplifies the collaborative effort required to maintain historical integrity while adapting to modern filming constraints.

• Laurie Pitkus (39:14): "They intersect quite a bit, I think. You know, I'm constantly asking Laurie to find locations for me..."

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Conclusion

"His Grace the Duke" serves as a microcosm of The Gilded Age's intricate portrayal of 1880s New York society, intertwining personal dramas with broader social issues. Hosts Alicia Malone and Tom Myers adeptly navigate through plot analysis, historical context, and behind-the-scenes revelations, offering listeners a rich and engaging exploration of the episode. The inclusion of quotes with precise timestamps enhances the depth of the discussion, providing transparency and authenticity to the analysis.

The interviews with Douglas Purver and Laurie Pitkus illuminate the meticulous craftsmanship that goes into bringing the opulent world of The Gilded Age to life. Their insights underscore the importance of visual effects and location management in creating an immersive historical narrative.

For enthusiasts of the series and history alike, this episode of the podcast is an invaluable resource, bridging the gap between on-screen storytelling and the real-world intricacies of the Gilded Age era.

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Notable Quotes:

• Bertha Russell (00:50): "I kind of like to call them invisible effects. If you see what we're doing on a show like this, we've kind of failed in a way."
• Tom Myers (05:12): "The original story that announced the opera house project that ran in The Tribune in 1880 stated that, quote, the opera house will be constructed as economically as possible."
• Tom Myers (15:56): "Ada and Reverend Forte go on a walk in Central Park surrounded by those old timey bikes with the big front wheels."
• Mrs. Winterton (21:32): "The idea of a double standard, that it's more scandalous for a younger man to be with an older woman than for a younger woman to be with an older man."
• Douglas Purver (36:00): "We want to make sure that the visuals are as seamless as possible to keep the viewer within the story."
• Laurie Pitkus (39:14): "They intersect quite a bit, I think. You know, I'm constantly asking Laurie to find locations for me..."

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Final Thoughts

“His Grace the Duke” not only advances the narrative of The Gilded Age but also provides a platform for deeper understanding through its podcast analysis. By dissecting character motivations, historical accuracies, and production nuances, Alicia Malone and Tom Myers offer a comprehensive guide that enriches the viewing experience for both new audiences and long-time fans.

Listeners are encouraged to tune in to feel the full spectrum of discussions and gain exclusive behind-the-scenes knowledge that only the Official Gilded Age Podcast can provide.

Transcript

[Bertha Russell]

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[Tom Myers]

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[Bertha Russell]

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[Tom Myers]

And with our lowest price guarantee, you can count on us for competitive prices on all your home improvement projects. If you find a qualifying lower price.

[Bertha Russell]

Somewhere else on the same item, we'll match it Lowe's. We help you save price match applies.

[Tom Myers]

To same item current price at qualifying retailers.

[Bertha Russell]

Exclusions and terms apply. Learn how we'll match price@lowe's.com lowest price guarantee.

[Alicia Malone]

Mrs. Russell, what are you doing here? Oh, did we need your permission? I only meant I wasn't aware you knew the Duke.

[Tom Myers]

I hear work on the Metropolitan has been suspended for a while.

[Bertha Russell]

Well, that's been sorted out. It was a slight hitch, nothing more.

[Alicia Malone]

So it won't upset your plan to.

[Tom Myers]

Open on the same night as the Academy? Good.

[Alicia Malone]

I'm looking forward to. Me too. I enjoy competition.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Welcome back to the official Gilded Age Podcast. I'm Alicia Malone from Turner Classic Movies, joined once again by my co host, Mr. Tom Myers.

[Tom Myers]

Hello, everyone. Yes, I am Tom Myers from the Bowery Boys Podcast. And this is your official companion to the HBO original series, the Gilded Age. And today, Alicia, we're going to be breaking down everything that happened in episode four of season two.

[Mrs. Winterton]

That's right. Last week, we saw Bertha confront George. She's feeling betrayed after finding out about Turner's seduction attempts from season one. And we met Oscar Wilde at the Union Square Theater.

[Tom Myers]

Boy, that was a flop. Yeah. And this week, we'll be picking up the Town Topics and other Gilded Age newspapers to get up to speed on Peggy's trip to Alabama, Bertha's attempts at a little Duke stealing, and to read the marriage announcement for a certain wedding.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Oh, my goodness, I'm so happy about that. We'll also be talking to Douglas Purver, the visual effects wizard, and Laurie Pitkus, who finds all of the incredible locations for the show.

[Bertha Russell]

I kind of like to call them invisible effects. If you see what we're doing on a show like this, we've kind of failed in a way. So we want to make sure that the visuals are as seamless as possible to keep the viewer within the story.

[Tom Myers]

So let's get this party started. This is season two, episode four, His Grace, the Duke, written by Julian Fellowes and directed by Deborah Campmeyer. And we begin with a grand tour of the new Metropolitan Opera House, led by our favorite tour Guide Bertha Russell, her VIP group sort of steps through a backstage door, A switch is flipped, and suddenly light shines out on the auditorium of the new house, where construction is underway. Or should we say where construction is supposed to be underway.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Yeah, that's right. Bertha is doing a great job as a tour gu is showing off the new opera house and assuring everyone that the workers simply stopped for the patrons visit.

[Tom Myers]

Right. Yeah. I love that. Gilbert, the manager of the opera, says the first here where most of you have taken boxes. Yes. The Metropolitan Opera House, when it opened, was famous for its stacked boxes and balconies. They even nicknamed it the Golden Horseshoe because the interior had been designed to be beautiful, but also really to show off all of those boxes and obviously all of those box holders.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Yeah, I imagine all of New York's top society wanted boxes in that first tier.

[Tom Myers]

Yes, in that first one. Although a Tribune article from 1883 that I found refers to that lowest row of boxes as the parterre. This was home to to at least five different Vanderbilt boxes, including Alva's, and also home to the Whitney box and the Golet, the famous Henry Morgan, whom we spoke about before even Jay Gould had a box here.

[Mrs. Winterton]

So they were in the lowest row and then other wealthy families were above them.

[Tom Myers]

Exactly. Yes. Above the parterre was the first tier were J.P. morgan and William Rhinelander and others had boxes, and above that was a second tier of boxes, and then that was topped by the balcony and then by the gallery or the family circle above it. But that, that whole lineup really then produced quite an impressive visual.

[Mrs. Winterton]

But, Tom, in this story, the Met has run out of money and is behind schedule in leasing these boxes.

[Tom Myers]

Well, in real life, I don't know about any drama renting out boxes, but newspapers were covering the story of construction costs running really amok. You know, the original story that announced the opera house project that ran in The Tribune in 1880 stated that, quote, the opera house will be constructed as economically as possible. The cost not to exceed $600,000 in any event. And that's about $18 million if we do our imprecise inflation calculation, you know, today. Well, Alicia.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Oh, boy.

[Tom Myers]

That quickly jumped to just over a million, then to 1.25 million. And then by 1882, the Brooklyn Union was reporting that, quote, the increased cost of labor and materials has carried the estimate up to $1,525,000.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Oh, my God.

[Tom Myers]

And the millionaire stockholders stand aghast at this watering of their stock, translating to about $46 million today.

[Mrs. Winterton]

That is Insane. An insane amount of money. And, you know, that must have caused some drama in those boxes.

[Tom Myers]

I think it did. Yeah. But regardless, they forged ahead, and those millionaires in the boxes ended up coughing up the cash, you know, to finish the opera house. But let's get back to Bertha's tour of the incomplete house. One potential subscriber who was on the tour, of course, was Mrs. Winterton, who really did seem stunned by the beauty of all of those rows of boxes. Right. I thought it was kind of funny to see her speechless, even for like a microsecond.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Yeah. Although she didn't want to show Bertha her reaction. Or the reporter from the Daily Graphic.

[Tom Myers]

Did you Notice how quickly Mrs. Winterton said no to being sketched?

[Mrs. Winterton]

Yes.

[Tom Myers]

It's like she didn't want to even appear with Bertha in the press.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Or she's trying to stay under the radar so that her story doesn't get out.

[Tom Myers]

Oh, that makes more sense. Okay.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Well, I think that we spoke about the Daily Graphic newspaper last season, because I remember this was a New York City newspaper with a lot of illustrations. The artists had to work fast. I like how the sketch artist's hand made a little disappointed gesture when Bertha walked away.

[Tom Myers]

Yeah. I never thought, like, a flick of the hand could say, oh, man. But his did, you know, leaving behind a sort of half finished portrait. But what a portrait. I mean, that was no carnival caricature. That was like. That was a fine pencil portrait. I thought it really captured Bertha.

[Mrs. Winterton]

It did.

[Tom Myers]

And by the way, the Daily Graphic was the first, first US Newspaper to print illustrations every day. Lots and lots of engravings, you know, to bring their stories to life. So it was very notable, although it was not a huge financial success and it was out of business by the end of the 1880s.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Shame. And the Daily Graphic journalist also asked Bertha about a blind item printed in a Newport newspaper, which seemed to refer to the burgeoning relationship between Larry and Susan Blaine. And then Aurora confirms with Bertha that she's heard these rumors, too.

[Tom Myers]

Yeah. Although Aurora was very tactful. Right. She even had this kind of like, pleasant, undisturbed smile on her face, you know, as the journalist was asking Bertha about it and then kind of asked her in a hushed voice, basically the same question as they kind of walked downstage.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Yeah, I like Aurora.

[Tom Myers]

Yeah.

[Mrs. Winterton]

So, Tom, we know that this type of gossip, like Larry and Susan's relationship would have been reported, but, you know, how did they appear? Was it in tabloids or in the society pages of established newspapers? Were blind items a regular occurrence?

[Tom Myers]

Well, it depends on what was being reported. And in today's episode, we see a lot of things actually reported. There's a lot of newspapers in today's episode. Did you notice that? I mean, try counting them the next time you need a little Gilded age drinking game. I mean, in this one episode, we see newspapers being read by almost all the characters. We've got Marian reading the paper. The fanes are reading at breakfast. Agnes Turner, of course, Mrs. Winterton. Mrs. Astor is reading a newspaper with a monocle.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Bertha is reading one as well, I think.

[Tom Myers]

Yes. And George is lampooned in a political cartoon. And obviously Peggy and Fortune are like, producing a paper.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Yeah. Lots of press happening.

[Tom Myers]

Yes. And society was used to being in the press. They were the celebrities of the day. And really they had been since the 1830s when James Gordon Bennett started publishing the New York Herald. As authors Mike Wallace and Edwin Burroughs write in their wonderful book Gotham Quote, converting gossip into news and private lives into public commodities, Bennett reported on the doings at Broadway mansions and the social season at Saratoga Springs, often with a whiff of mockery.

[Mrs. Winterton]

So by the 1880s, then, was this just all mainstream?

[Tom Myers]

Yeah, and really, the press helped make Mrs. Astor and Alva Vanderbilt and all the others. As you read through the papers from that time, you will quickly find yourself reading about, you know, who was heading to Europe aboard which steamship and who had just returned and who had. Who was, you know, who attended the Academy of Music last night and who was. Who was planning a fundraiser at Delmonico's. This is what people were reading.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Yeah, celebrities. They're just like us.

[Tom Myers]

Just like us. But no, the really juicy society stories, you know, the divorces and the affairs and bankruptcies, those started to get published with Town Topics, which began publication in 1885.

[Mrs. Winterton]

And a piece of gossip that would definitely make the society pages was the former job of Mrs. Winterton. You know, this is already causing quite a scandal with Mrs. Astor telling Mr. Winterton that he needs to give up his box at the Academy because There is, as Mrs. Astor says, too great a contrast in her journey through life in comparison to the other box holders.

[Tom Myers]

That was some first class dissing going on over there.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Dissing.

[Tom Myers]

I was really struck by how Mrs. Astor lured Mr. Winterton into her home for tea, and she was like all smiles as she delivered this very kind of awkward news. Right. She basically trashed his wife's reputation while smiling and while nodding, you know.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Yeah, well, I love me a good veiled insult. And Mrs. Astor is the queen of polite yet savage shade and later, after.

[Tom Myers]

Mr. Winterton attempts to, like, delicately share the news with his wife, she is understandably upset. It even completely throws off her plans for a morning fitting. And instead of telling her husband the truth, she explains that she simply worked as Bertha's companion.

[Mrs. Winterton]

So it was on a different level to a lady's maid, which had been her actual job.

[Tom Myers]

Totally different. Yeah. If Turner had been Bertha's companion, the two of them would have been spending their evenings together, dining and doing cross stitch in the parlor. That didn't happen.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Yeah. No. Well, I gotta say, I felt a little bit sorry for Mrs. Winterton there. And also, it doesn't seem wise for Mrs. Astor to turn Mr. Winterton against the Academy of Music, because obviously he's going to take his wealth and reputation to the Met.

[Tom Myers]

Yeah, this is Mrs. Astor being kind of nasty. My favorite line was when Mr. Winterton said, but she enjoys the academy. And Mrs. Astor says, while smiling, I'm sure she thinks she does. Meow.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Yeah, it was brutal. But you know, there's happier news over at the Van Rhijns with another opportunity for Ada to interact with Reverend Forte. She hosts a tea in aid of a missionary cause she and Tom. My heart skipped a beat when Ada was lamenting about her lack of travel. And Reverend Forte responded with, there's so much that you can still do.

[Tom Myers]

I know that cute little finger touch he did there. Ada was in total shock.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Yeah. And it feels especially touching that it's Ada getting that advice, because, you know, unmarried women at her age were often told that their lives were over.

[Tom Myers]

Mm.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Meanwhile, Marian had more tea to drink with her mother. Torta tea with Frances, where she's mistaken as Frances mother.

[Tom Myers]

That was so uncomfortable. I was like, Chill out, Mrs. Glenning. I mean, she had clearly had too much tea, interrupting Marian constantly. You know, Marian could hardly get a word in edgeways.

[Mrs. Winterton]

And something tells me that Frances would not have corrected that mistake if she had heard it. Because when Dashiell arrives, she says they make a neat little family. I think she's being a bit of a matchmaker here.

[Tom Myers]

But on her way out the door, Marian learns that her school is joining a charity cause. And she's asked to teach some classes, teaching basic skills like reading and writing and arithmetic to poorer students.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Yes. We're told this is all part of Jane Addams work in social reform. So what can you tell us about Jane Addams? I was reading that she was the first. First American woman to win the Nobel Prize.

[Tom Myers]

Yes. Much later, in 1931, Jane Addams was from Chicago, where she co founded a settlement house called Hull house. In the 1880s it was a center for social reform, bringing the city's wealthiest women together to help provide opportunities for the city's growing immigrant population. And Hull House would be very important in the settlement house movement, which also of course, existed in New York, where its first settlement house, the New York neighborhood Guild, was founded in 1886 and it is today called University Settlement.

[Mrs. Winterton]

That's interesting. And I'm just glad that Marian is getting involved. And you know, while we may have to wait a little bit longer to see if there's any romance between Marian and Dashiell, there is definitely romance brewing between Ada and Luke Forte because they go on a walk in Central park surrounded by those. Those old timey bikes with the big front wheels.

[Tom Myers]

Watch out.

[Mrs. Winterton]

And Luke Forte gifts Ada a bunch of peonies. Now, she hoped to keep this gift a secret from Agnes, but was almost discovered when a bee became attracted to the flowers on the dinner table banister.

[Tom Myers]

Remove the flowers and the bee that inhabits them, where did they come from?

[Alicia Malone]

They're mine. They were a present from cousin Dajo from the parents of a pupil.

[Tom Myers]

Bannister.

[Alicia Malone]

We're done with this.

[Tom Myers]

What on earth is that noise?

[Bertha Russell]

I think it may be my clock alarm.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Telling you what?

[Alicia Malone]

That it's time to clear the plates.

[Tom Myers]

Go and turn it off at once. I'll fetch the dessert. Better not. It might attract more bees.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Jack obviously still has some work to do on that alarm clock.

[Tom Myers]

It is the funniest line in the episode, if you ask me. And the B sound was very realistic. I mean, I even looked around like for a bee while I was watching it. Both times. Both times I saw this episode. So kudos to the sound effects.

[Mrs. Winterton]

That's so funny. And don't you think it's sweet how Marian was trying her best to cover for Ada?

[Tom Myers]

Not effective. Very sweet. And I love how they're bonding. Which then made it seem so unlikely that Marian, as Agnes says, quote, thinks you're engaged in a full flown flirtation. I'm just like, oh no, Agnes did not just say that.

[Mrs. Winterton]

I think she was trying to throw Marian under the bus just to get the real story.

[Tom Myers]

So sneaky. By the way, Lucien, side note, while that bee was buzzing about Agnes said, I thought we might try that lamb receipt from the Ladies Home Journal. And this is the second time the season that I remember hearing the word receipt and used for recipe. Did you notice that?

[Mrs. Winterton]

Yeah, I noticed that too. I was wondering what that was.

[Tom Myers]

Yeah, well, it obviously sent me down a rabbit hole on Merriam Webster.com where they published a whole history of quote when a recipe was a receipt. These two words derive from the same Latin word recipro. So, interesting aside, but we digress.

[Mrs. Winterton]

But wait, Tom, we have to talk about the next date that Ada and Reverend Forte have in church.

[Tom Myers]

That was so sweet. I mean, the whole scene was beautiful. You know, the choir singing, turning with the camera just so. And Ada and the Reverend are giggling, you know, kind of like school kids in the pews. I have never seen Ada happier, Alicia. And I've known her for two seasons. But then, as if Ada couldn't get any happier, the choir closes with an amen. And Reverend Forte gets down on a knee and proposes. And she is stunned.

[Mrs. Winterton]

And I screamed. I mean, internally at least. I'm just so happy for Ada, you know? It's about time that she had some happiness all to herself. Although, Tom, it was pretty heartbreaking when the scene cut from Ada's joy directly to Agnes eating all alone.

[Tom Myers]

Yeah, that was sad. Agnes is clearly wondering how she fits into all of this.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Now, does it seem quick that Forte proposed marriage? Have they even kissed?

[Tom Myers]

I mean, I think that the first kiss, at least the first kiss that we see between them is right then right after the proposal in St. Thomas Church. Which I guess is appropriate, right?

[Mrs. Winterton]

It's a very chaste romance. And in you know, stark contrast to that is the steamy relationship between Larry and Mrs. Blaine. As we mentioned, it's already causing scandal with rumors and blind items in papers. And while Larry isn't worried, Bertha definitely is. She invites Susan Blaine to see her and gets right to her point.

[Alicia Malone]

Did you see the article about you and Larry? How can you be so sure?

[Tom Myers]

It gave no names.

[Alicia Malone]

Don't think I care what they write about you, but I do not want them to connect you with my son.

[Tom Myers]

Larry is working for me.

[Alicia Malone]

You've had your fun. Isn't it time to end it? What are you talking about? What is it that you want from him? You can't give him an heir. In 20 years, when he is in his prime, you'll be walking with a stick. Even if he feels too guilty to leave, part of him will be waiting for you to die. You must remember what that was like when you were married to your husband. How dare you say such things? I dare because they're true.

[Mrs. Winterton]

I'm leaving.

[Tom Myers]

I just don't know how to feel about this whole scene. I mean, that was really low, right? And yet didn't Mrs. Blaine make those same kind of jabs about her own late husband.

[Mrs. Winterton]

She did. But, you know, when Bertha says, part of him will be waiting for you to die, that seemed especially harsh.

[Tom Myers]

Very harsh. Very ruthless and effective. I mean, I love how the scene starts with a crash of thunder. Right. This is going to be a stormy encounter. It's right up there with Mrs. Astor, you know, summoning Mr. Winterton. This episode has some strong women inviting people over to tea to smack them down with a smile.

[Mrs. Winterton]

That's right. Beware of an invitation for tea.

[Tom Myers]

Just say no.

[Mrs. Winterton]

And this conversation really speaks to the idea that we've been talking about of a double standard, that it's more scandalous for a younger man to be with an older woman than for a younger woman to be with an older man, as Susan was with her late husband.

[Tom Myers]

Yeah. And I think certainly some of this has to do with inheritance, you know, and the ability to produce an heir. Larry doesn't seem to be thinking about that, but Bertha certainly is. It's also effective because when Larry shows up to take Mrs. Blaine to Mrs. Fish's dinner, she's not going. It's over.

[Alicia Malone]

Yeah.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Bertha has definitely won this round.

[Tom Myers]

By the way, Larry's first clue that something is amiss is when he looks at her in the doorway and says, you haven't changed. Which I thought. I mean, I hadn't noticed that. I thought she was, like, decked out in an amazing dress. To me, it was almost like he was saying, you know, like, you're wearing that, you know. But obviously it would have been very apparent that she wasn't wearing evening wear.

[Mrs. Winterton]

I had the same reaction. I thought, couldn't she wear that? It's beautiful.

[Tom Myers]

It's gorgeous.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Anyway, let's switch topics suddenly and talk about Peggy, who has traveled with T. Thomas Fortune to Tuskegee, Alabama. They meet up with Booker T. Washington, and then later they dine with Booker and his wife, Fanny Washington. And she was a real figure, as she says in the show. She was a teacher.

[Tom Myers]

Yes, she was. Yeah. Fanny had grown up in Malden, West Virginia, where Booker had also moved when he was nine. We talked about that last week when Booker was later teaching in the town. He helped Fannie get into the Hampton Institute. They would marry in 1882, right around the same time that he accepted his position at Tuskegee. And, yes, Tuskegee also hired Fanny, who helped develop the school's curriculum, especially for women. And here in the show, we hear that she has introduced a class for women in dressmaking in order to give Them real skills.

[Mrs. Winterton]

A remarkable woman. And Peggy is certainly impressed by what she has seen of the school, the teachers and the students. Plus, she's very flattered when she hears that the girls look up to her. I mean, yes, Peggy is really inspiring. She's forging her own path as a journalist. There is tension, though, after dinner, because Booker T. Washington and T. Thomas Fortune have different ideas of how to deal with the type of racial injustice they face. Whether to fight back for equality or to make peace just to get things done. Take a listen.

[Bertha Russell]

You were a slave, and so was I.

[Tom Myers]

How do you make peace with people who bought and sold us, who branded.

[Bertha Russell]

Us like cattle, whipped us on Saturday, then sat in church on Sunday without.

[Tom Myers]

A morsel of shame?

[Alicia Malone]

Some may keep silent, Mr. Fortune, because they tried your way and they got.

[Tom Myers]

Killed for their trouble.

[Alicia Malone]

I don't mean to scare you, Ms. Scott.

[Tom Myers]

You only tell them the truth. That was tense. Two different prominent men who had both made so much progress already, arguing about their very different methods in two very different parts of the country. Booker had some notable lines, too, like, quote, we're making big progress down here. You don't get that by picking fights.

[Mrs. Winterton]

And you completely understand both of their arguments. They're in such a tough place, being black men in a white world. And as Peggy points out, they are each saying basically the same thing. It's. It's just that their methods are different.

[Tom Myers]

Yeah. And also, did you notice in this scene how the camera was handheld, kind of shaky? It made me at least feel kind of uneasy about everything I was watching.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Yeah, I mean, I've noticed how the camera in the Gilded Age often mirrors the mood of the characters. When it gets shaky like this, it kind of reflects the chaos happening in the scene. And, you know, like you said, it makes the viewer feel like, even subconsciously, that we are uneasy or unsettled, too. Also, one thing that I really want to know, you know, Peggy says she's excited to give some much needed press to the Tuskegee School. But did Booker T. Washington's efforts get national press at this time?

[Tom Myers]

They did. Yeah. I did some searching in old papers and found quite a few articles from the time. Articles about Booker coming to New York to raise funds for Tuskegee. That was in the New York Times in 1883. There was a great overview of all the things happening down at Tuskegee in the New York Tribune in 1886. That was on the fifth anniversary of its founding. And in that article, the writer describes the transformation that he had found five years After Booker T. Washington took charge, he wrote, quote, what do I find here? A farm of 500 acres, two large buildings. The bricks were made in the brickyards on the grounds cleared by student labor. And he goes on for many, many paragraphs describing just a truly bustling and impressive place.

[Mrs. Winterton]

That sounds exactly like we see in the show. You know, a bustling, busy, well kept school.

[Tom Myers]

Exactly. Yep.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Well, okay, let's go back to New York, because George Russell encounters a mob protesting in front of his office building. And he's also angry that there's a cartoon lampooning him in a newspaper. Now, I've seen a few of these types of political cartoons in books about the Gilded Age. Where robber barons were made fun of.

[Tom Myers]

Exactly. Yes. And it reminded me of the political cartoons that were drawn by Thomas Nast for Harper's Weekly. Nast was very powerful, actually. He helped bring down Boss Tweed through his cartoons. And here, a cartoonist in a Pittsburgh paper is depicting George as squeezing the laborer right by his low wages and foul conditions.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Well, at least things are a little bit better for George at home. Bertha has forgiven him, and he has gotten them close to the Duke of Buckingham. They attend a dinner with His Grace. And by the way, was there really a Duke of Buckingham at this time?

[Tom Myers]

There was, yes, indeed. His Grace, the third Duke of Buckingham, and Chandos, a British politician and administrator who, among other things, had served as Governor of Madras. But unlike in our story, Alicia, this duke in reality was 60 years old in 1883, and he was also a widower. So, no, no, Bertha could hardly say that he was not much older than Larry and Gladys.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Yeah, not quite the same. Also, George has smoothed out the air quotes, accounting errors that had stopped work on the Met. And Bertha takes it upon herself to rearrange the seating so that she is next to the Duke at dinner.

[Tom Myers]

That was some quick thinking. Yes, or just entirely calculated. Who knows? Whatever. It was bold.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Yeah, but I love George's response. Mrs. Russell is exactly where she should be.

[Tom Myers]

Bertha is always where she needs to be.

[Mrs. Winterton]

And Mrs. Winterton was also upset about this last minute seating change. But at least she got to have a reunion with her old friend Oscar.

[Alicia Malone]

I can't be sitting here.

[Bertha Russell]

It seems you are, Mrs. Winterton. Is it so terrible if it's.

[Tom Myers]

Wait.

[Bertha Russell]

Good gracious, it's you.

[Tom Myers]

Good evening, Mr. Van RJ I hoped.

[Bertha Russell]

We'D meet again, but I never thought.

[Tom Myers]

It would be like this. Life is full of surprises.

[Bertha Russell]

I'm sorry if you're disappointed to find yourself next to me.

[Mrs. Winterton]

It's not that exactly.

[Alicia Malone]

But I was told my place was.

[Tom Myers]

Oh, never mind. We're here now. We are.

[Bertha Russell]

And you have till the next course to describe your ascension.

[Tom Myers]

That was perfect. I mean, the two connivers reunited at dinner. And don't forget that their friendship is what inadvertently got Turner sacked in the first place.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Yeah, and I'm sure Oscar would support the calculated way Turner ascended, seeing how he has plans of his own.

[Tom Myers]

They're kind of like made for each other, aren't they? I also loved how. How Mrs. Winterton's voice, her haughty upper crust accent completely vanishes the second that she realizes it's Oscar. She's like, oh, it's you. In like a flat Turner voice.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Yeah, I mean, he knows the real Turner.

[Tom Myers]

He does.

[Mrs. Winterton]

So in the end, Mr. Winterton is sitting next to Lily Langtree, who was actually an English stage actress, just as Maud Beaton describes. And apparently it is true that one of her admirers was the Prince of Wales.

[Tom Myers]

Yeah, well, the Prince of Wales admired many. He was famous for his romantic dalliances during the long reign of his mother, Queen Victoria. And yes, this did include a three year affair with the socialite turned model turned actress, Lily Langtree, whom he had met in 1877. And he met her coincidentally by sitting next to her at a dinner party. And by the way, she really did come to New York City to perform in 1882.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Oh, interesting. And Tom, you know, all of this brings us to a great ending as the Duke accepts Bertha's offer to stay with the Russells during his Newport trip instead of the Wintertons. And Mrs. Winterton finds out by reading.

[Tom Myers]

Town Topics, that old scandal rag. Which brings us to our favorite moment in the entire episode. She reads aloud incredulously that the Duke is to be the guest of Mr. And Mrs. George Russell in Newport, who will be giving a dinner in his honor. To which her dear husband replies, perhaps we'll be invited. Gosh, I'm starting to think that Mr. Winterton doesn't really know his wife very well.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Definitely not the true Turner. And you know what? We have to give Kelly Curran some small applause.

[Tom Myers]

Oh, yes.

[Mrs. Winterton]

For the way that she, as Mrs. Winterton, reacts to this news.

[Tom Myers]

I found him and he's mine.

[Mrs. Winterton]

And that witch has stolen him from me. It's just the best.

[Tom Myers]

While she is ascending a staircase.

[Mrs. Winterton]

No, it's hard to do. All right, Tom, you know, let's take a break and when we come back, we'll be talking to two of the key crew members on the show.

[Tom Myers]

Yes, Laurie Pitkus and Douglas. Douglas Berver will be here to tell us about the locations and the visual effects on the show. So don't go anywhere. You're listening to the official Gilded age podcast.

[Mrs. Winterton]

On WhatsApp. No one can see or hear your personal messages. Whether it's a voice call message or sending a password to WhatsApp, it's all just this. So whether you're sharing the streaming password in the family chat or trading those late night voice messages that could basically become a podcast, your personal messages stay between you, your friends and your family. No one else, not even us. WhatsApp message privately with everyone.

[Tom Myers]

Your burger is served.

[Bertha Russell]

And this is our finest Pepsi Zero Sugar. Its sweet profile perfectly balances the savory notes of your burger.

[Alicia Malone]

That is one perfect combination.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Burgers deserve Pepsi.

[Alicia Malone]

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[Tom Myers]

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[Alicia Malone]

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[Mrs. Winterton]

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[Alicia Malone]

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[Mrs. Winterton]

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[Alicia Malone]

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[Mrs. Winterton]

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[Alicia Malone]

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[Mrs. Winterton]

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[Tom Myers]

Offer in 7, 16, 25.

[Bertha Russell]

Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to follow me into the auditorium. The work may not be done, but.

[Tom Myers]

It is nearly done.

[Bertha Russell]

And the first tier, where most of you have taken taken boxes, needs only its finishing touches.

[Tom Myers]

And now I give you the grandest opera house in the world, the new Metropolitan. Wow, Alicia, look at that. It is all coming together. We are finally seeing the opera house under construction.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Yeah. And it was quite a beautiful moment. I'm confused, though, whether that was a real location or what. Like, what were we looking at? What were we seeing? But we do have guests coming up who will be able to tell us all about that. You're listening to the official Gilded Age Podcast. I'm Alicia Malone with Tom Meyers. And Tom, tell us about our guests because they know all about what's real and not real in the Gilded Age.

[Tom Myers]

Yes, Douglas Perver and Laurie Pitkus are joining us. Douglas Perver is a visual effects supervisor who has added his magic to films and many popular television shows, from Marvelous Mrs. Maisel to the Gilded Age and Boardwalk Empire, for which he earned an Emmy nomination for outstanding Special Visual Effects. And Laurie Pitkus is the location manager for the Gilded Age, responsible for finding and securing all of the real locations that you see on the show. She's also worked on films like Ocean's 8 and the Post for director Steven Spielberg.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Douglas Purver and Laurie Pitkus. Thank you so much for joining us.

[Bertha Russell]

Thanks for having us.

[Alicia Malone]

Yeah, it's great to be here.

[Tom Myers]

Yeah. We have so much that we want to talk about. You both have such fascinating jobs. Douglas, to start with, how would you describe your role on the Gilded Age to somebody who's never heard of a VFX supervisor before?

[Bertha Russell]

Sure. Well, there's tons of things that you see on screen that aren't there when we practically shoot them or they can't be there, so we need to add them to the scene. My role comes in to help the director and the DP strategize or plan how best to shoot that scene for us to be able to add that stuff in later. Whether it's a period correct building or a train or something that we weren't able to shoot practically, it's my role to kind of guide them in a way that would set them up for success, for it to look the best it possibly can. I kind of like to call them invisible effects. If you see what we're doing on a show like this, we've kind of failed in a way. So we want to make sure that the. The visuals are as seamless as possible to keep the viewer within the story so that it's the story that's really taking the lead there, and the visuals are just kind of adding that feeling or adding that. That reality to it.

[Tom Myers]

Are you also subtracting, taking things out?

[Bertha Russell]

Absolutely. I mean, you know, this show takes place in the 1880s, so, you know, our modern world doesn't really provide the. All of the great. You know, it has a lot of modern buildings that we need to erase and take out. Laurie's done a wonderful job finding us really great locations that help us in the immediate zone, like where the camera and our actors are. And then it's usually, you know, my role to then take the backgrounds or the. The middle ground from there on to replace it or change it in a way that would fit the scene properly.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Yeah. Laurie, how has your job as a location manager changed over the years now that you can include visual effects?

[Alicia Malone]

You know, having worked in this business prior to visual effects actually being a big part of what we do. It's the time you spend standing next to someone like Douglas and going on scouts and approaching places and saying, there's a terrific building, but it obviously hasn't been updated. And there are window air conditioning units in Every window, for instance. You know, so we look around, and it's not that we would dismiss a location based on that, but when we're looking around at our locations that have the cleanest, you know, the least amount of work for us to do in order to bring them to the screen.

[Mrs. Winterton]

So you two do work together, do you? And how do your jobs intersect?

[Bertha Russell]

They intersect quite a bit, I think. You know, I'm constantly asking Laurie to find locations for me to either photograph to help with matte paintings or create distant additions to, you know, set extensions and stuff like that. For instance, in, you know, in our St. Mary's location, where Marion's teaching, this was a standalone building in the middle of a field that we needed to make feel like it was in the middle of Manhattan. So we get together and we talk about, you know, where. What neighborhood it would need to feel like. And then from there, you know, Laurie has her team find proper buildings that would fit in that. So then I can go and photograph them extensively and create a CG model of it or a matte painting of it to then add to that scene to create the extension.

[Tom Myers]

Well, I'm sorry, I'm going to stop you. Where's this field? Where is this field that has St. Mary's in it?

[Alicia Malone]

This was kind of a happy accident. At the beginning of. When we looked at season two, it was clear that finding churches for our Easter procession was going to be a key element to anchoring us. We always think, could we possibly ever shoot in Manhattan? And every season we have a conversation with the producers and the director and say, what's the smallest we could possibly make ourselves? Where we could go, for instance, to the real St. Thomas Church on 53rd and 5th. You know, could we actually go there? What could we do? How many people could we bring? Would we be able to provide Douglas with the tableau that would help tell our story? And that conversation is usually cut short once we mention horses and carriages. You know, when you start talking about that kind of logistics and you think about buses and cars and pedestrians and how would you ever control an intersection of Manhattan? You realize that it's not tenable. And so we started looking at, as you know, Brooklyn is the borough of churches. We started looking at the hundreds of churches that are in Brooklyn, many of which are in disrepair and also present the same issues of traffic. Bob Shaw and I were talking, and we were both aware of the Church of the Incarnation in Garden City, Long island, which is a fantastic church. It's on a. I don't know I want to say there's like a. Probably a 10 acre piece of property. 10 to 15 acres.

[Bertha Russell]

Pretty big. Yeah.

[Alicia Malone]

Lots of trees around it stands alone. And first we looked at that and thought, could we do our Easter procession here? And after a lot of budget conversations and logistics conversations, we nixed that. But it turns out the rectory at that property, which sits about 50 yards across from it, is called Sea House. And it's also of the period. And it's a beautiful. You know, it's a beautiful brick home. That was the rectory for years, and it happened to be undergoing renovations when we scouted it, which turned out to be completely opportune for all of us. So we kind of tripped over a gold mine and found this standalone building, which Douglass then brought in, worked with to bring in background. And we were able to bring horse and carriages there. We laid some kind of subsurface. We laid some kind of surface on the road, pulled back some tree branches, and we were able to create St. Mary's there.

[Tom Myers]

So how do you decide then when to use a real location or when to shoot on a soundstage or I guess when to kind of combine them?

[Alicia Malone]

Well, I think we would shoot on a real location as much as possible after two seasons. I have jokingly say that we've scouted every building from the early 1800s to 1900 in the Tri State region. Newport, Troy, Albany. We've seen a lot.

[Bertha Russell]

We've found these places up in Troy and Albany that are very friendly to us to be there, but sometimes it just doesn't work out. We have to switch gears. And the same thing happened with the Tuskegee Railroad. That was something. Train station. When they. When they get down to Alabama, you know, that was another set piece where it's basically just the train station building that was constructed on our backlot, surrounded by green screen. And we had to put in the train, we had to put in the environment and all that kind of stuff. And it was, you know, the decision to do that comes down to do we have a location that fits within our schedule, that is close to where we're shooting other things? You know, those are all part of the conversations.

[Alicia Malone]

Scheduling is a lot of it. You know, when you have a small scene that might be a half a page, it's not a full day's worth of work. We have to find a way to marry it with something else, which is where the backlog comes in handy.

[Tom Myers]

But you just mentioned the train station. I thought I saw somebody stepping out of a train. I mean, what are you a Wizard, how are you doing this? How is somebody stepping out of a green screen?

[Bertha Russell]

That's exactly what they're doing. They're stepping out of a green screen. Another person I work very close with is Bob, our production designer and his team. And we are constantly talking of ways of how best to integrate his work to our work and all that kind of stuff. So we come up with clever ways to build green staircases with green walls and green doors and match them up to the size and scale of what the train would be or whatever it is. And we position them in a way that makes sense for where the train would be at the platform with the stairs, and we just have them kind of walking out from behind a green screen down some green stairs, and then we just change that into the train. Basically. You know, we have a model of a train that we've been building and texturing to be period accurate. And then we use those scaled measurements to help inform what we're going to build practically on the. On the set.

[Mrs. Winterton]

It's so hard for me to get my head around that. And it was interesting to see the Russell summer cottage, which we now know was the Elms in Newport, which is also used as the Russell's kitchen. But what really threw us off was the fact that you have the ocean right there in front of the cottage, which is not actually what happened in. In real life. So what went into the decision to make this an oceanfront property?

[Alicia Malone]

Yeah, I think that was a creative decision by the director. And I think everybody wanted to sell Newport in the fastest way. The easiest way to sell Newport, of course, is the ocean, especially, you know, with the. Of a drone and having the drama of seeing how the homes on Bellevue Avenue sit and how they're oriented so close to the Cliff Walk. And just the beauty of what Rhode island offers. You know, I think it helps everybody understand why anybody would leave New York City and head to Rhode island for the summer.

[Mrs. Winterton]

And Douglas, was that tricky to create that ocean front view?

[Bertha Russell]

I mean, it was a little tricky. I think we again, shoot it in a way that makes us set up for success. And we had a great location just down the road at the breakers, which had an amazing view, which is what we shot to put into there. So the way the Elms works in their backyard, they have a nice. There's a nice dividing line of where the trees and shrubs with the. I don't know what you would call that little structure that's out there, that stone.

[Alicia Malone]

There's a rotunda. Marble rotunda.

[Bertha Russell]

Okay. It just Provided such a great line for us to cut from there and then just add that ocean plate behind it. And then from there, we added some boats and some birds and some, you know, life to give it. To give it some animated feeling. The trickier part of that scene was that when we were there shooting in Newport, the trees had not yet blossomed. So they were planning. You know, everybody thought they would. They just kind of bloomed late. So we had to go back with the drone unit later in the summer to shoot tree plates as well, to add leaves to all of the trees in that. On that property.

[Tom Myers]

Wow. And amazing that you got to put the elms in the breakers position, giving them the same view that the Vanderbilts had.

[Bertha Russell]

It was almost exactly the same view. Yeah, the breakers had that same backyard, like space. It felt very similar to it. So, yeah, it was a great match.

[Tom Myers]

I want to pull back to the very beginning of the episode because this episode begins with a tour of the new Metropolitan Opera, which, you know, is not the old Metropolitan Opera and is obviously no longer around. Laurie, can you tell us a little bit about that location and that scene? What was real and when they take this tour of the stage, where was this shot? What was cgi? What was actually there?

[Alicia Malone]

Yeah, I mean. Well, I can. You know, I feel compelled to provide a little bit of background on that because, you know, you'd think that today you could go and look at any theater near Broadway or look at all the old movie houses. You know, we do have existing old theaters. All of us have been to performances in beautiful old Lowes movie houses, for instance. And we started looking at all of them and compared them to the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, which was built as an opera house, as an Academy of Music. And what becomes immediately clear when you look and compare all of these buildings, you realize that opera houses are horseshoe in character. They're horseshoe shaped, right, with boxes all the way around. And movie houses have mezzanines. So you look and look and look, and the closest you can come to something like the original Met would be looking at Carnegie hall, for instance, which does have that shape. So anyway, we did end up going to look at the Philadelphia Academy of Music. And it takes nothing more than standing there. It's just a beautiful building and it's still in operation, and it's well kept. And the Philadelphia Ballet operates from there. It's really pretty magical. And everybody felt right away we had to find a way to shoot there, but it's very cost prohibitive. So while we wanted to feature it we also wanted to minimize the amount of time and really isolate the elements that we would need to shoot there in person.

[Bertha Russell]

Basically, the stage is backed up with a green screen. So Bob and his team built the scaffolding and the footlights and stuff like that. And then they're basically looking into a green screen. And what we did in Philadelphia was we shot a bunch of plates of the space, all these different angles that we thought we might shoot proper picture with. We went with a LIDAR team, which is basically a laser scanning unit which you set up in different positions around the theater. And it scans the theater in a way that gives us a 3D representation of the whole space. And while that team of people are doing that scanning, they're also doing extensive photography work, getting all of the textures and materials that we would then map onto that 3D geometry. We would start with that full, beautiful theater in Philly and pull it all back to being in progress. So you see some gold medallions that are not quite gilded. You see paint on the balcony that hasn't been finished. You see drapery. You see, you know, scaffolding that we've then added. All of these elements were, you know, added to this 3D representation of the opera house, which was then placed into that green screen shot.

[Tom Myers]

Wow.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Wow. And when it comes to the actors, are you able to show them renderings of what it may look like, what they're reacting to?

[Bertha Russell]

Absolutely, yeah. I think it was important, especially for this opera house scene, that they knew what they were going to be looking at. So we some look development images and some just rough sketches or things that they could look at so that they could really emote in the proper way.

[Mrs. Winterton]

It probably helps that you have theater actors as well, who are used to reacting to things that aren't there.

[Tom Myers]

Douglas, when you were talking about things that are up close, being built, constructed, and often things in the distance, visual effects, it makes me think of the intersection of 61st and 5th, which has been built on the back lot out in Long Island. Could you talk about creating the houses and the rest of the street scene that we see beyond what we know has been constructed?

[Bertha Russell]

Sure. This was our first big task on season one. We spent many months researching with Bob Shaw, talking with him and his team, and he had already had a very good idea of what those buildings are on 61st Street. They've had, you know, either reference in mind, or they had specific buildings within the city that we could then go photograph as well. But basically, his team had almost not a complete drawing of every Building, but close to it in a way that gives us enough information for scale and perspective and all of those kind of things to build out that whole block. You know, we only physically built the first level, the first two level, or maybe just doorways. But every building had been planned on what it was going to be before they built all of those pieces. So I could go to 73rd street on the Upper east side to photograph the row of brownstones that were in the middle of the block. Or I could go to Gramercy park where one of the corner buildings there was our corner building for Madison Avenue and 61st Street. So all those buildings did exist and we were able to go capture all of the material to make them look realistic. So everything kind of felt as a unit or part of where it should be.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Yeah, it's so interesting. And when we're talking to Bob Shaw just about Newport and the mansions and using various rooms from different mansions and piecing them together. So, Laurie, for you, when it comes to Newport, have you just about run out of historic locations? Is it hard to find new ones?

[Alicia Malone]

You know, what's wonderful about working in a small town and everybody. And the show having aired is LinkedIn is a great resource where every once in a while I do get. I do have people saying to me, I own a beautiful house in Newport or, you know, somewhere in the area and it hasn't been fully renovated. Would you like to come take a look at it? So anytime I am in that area and have an excuse to call on some of those people, I continue to look at houses under the odds auspices of scouting.

[Tom Myers]

One of the homes that clearly works for you, of course, is King's coat, which we did not see in season one. But now here we are in season two. That's the Gothic revival mansion that was designed by Richard Upjohn and completed way back in 1841. And in the show, it's home, of course, to Mrs. Blaine, who finds it terribly outdated. So I'm curious, what went into choosing Kingscote was that it's also operated by the Newport Preservation Society.

[Alicia Malone]

Yeah, it's one of the less visited homes. We did look at a number of different houses. There was a debate about whether or not, for instance, to use Isaac Bell House, which is a beautiful shingle style home that's a little further up Bellevue Avenue. And our director was very enamored with the house. And we all walked in and we were like, wow, it just as a shingle style home, it feels almost like a Frank Lloyd Wright house. It feels more Modern. So there was a conversation. There was a discussion about just creatively, what makes the most sense in a world where Larry has to come in and update and renovate a house.

[Tom Myers]

Laurie, I know that we've touched on a lot of locations so far in our conversation, but there were a couple more that I had written down here, including the Wintertons mansion. Where was that?

[Alicia Malone]

That was at Reed Castle. So that's at Manhattanville College in Westchester County. We were fortunate to find a mansion close to the city we didn't have to travel to. And in fact, that mansion doubled. There's some other locations that show up in the. In other episodes that we were able to shoot there, I believe McNeil's office, I think we shot upstairs there. I believe that's in the episode also.

[Tom Myers]

And the dinner party for the Duke.

[Alicia Malone]

That was one of our old favorites, Hempstead House. That's where George Russell's office is also there. No spoilers there, but there's a large atrium when you walk in. And Bob ingeniously figured out a way to put panels up around a fountain that figures prominently in that area and was able to make that the reception area and then cordon off and, you know, divide it so that the area behind it became the actual Duke's dinner, where Bertha sneaks in to make her place next to the Duke.

[Tom Myers]

Fabulous.

[Mrs. Winterton]

This has been truly fascinating. Douglas Purver and Laurie Pitkus, thank you so much for joining us and sharing all of this insight.

[Alicia Malone]

Thank you. It was fun.

[Bertha Russell]

Yeah. Thanks for the great questions. Really appreciated the conversation.

[Tom Myers]

Wow. Alicia. I am just. I'm still getting over the fact that Marian's schoolhouse, St. Mary's is actually located in a long island field. It's just. It's amazing to me that Laurie's team could find it and that Douglas's team could make it look like it's in Manhattan. And from every camera angle.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Yeah. You'd never be able to tell by watching the show. And it made me think of how technology has made a show like the Gilded Age possible, because can you imagine how expensive it would be to build an entire backlot where you see every angle of all the buildings, you know, or you'd have to shoot very tightly, like they did in the past, and just not show the modern architecture surrounding the original locations? I mean, it's amazing what they can do.

[Tom Myers]

Yeah, they've really opened up the Gilded Age to us visually. Well, it's time to say goodbye, but we'll be back next week. And don't forget that you can see new episodes of the HBO original series the Gilded Age Sundays on Max and then make sure to tune into our podcast, also available on Max or wherever you get your podcasts. Bye bye everyone. This has been the official Gilded Age Podcast, written, hosted and produced by Alicia Malone and me, Tom Myers. Our supervising producer is Andrew Pemberton Fowler.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Our editor is Trey Boody with special thanks to Michael Gluckstadt and Siobhan Slater from HBO and Hannah Penny and Amy Machado from Pot People.

[Tom Myers]

Listen to the official Gilded Age Podcast after each episode airs on Max or wherever you find podcasts.

[Mrs. Winterton]

Want even more extra content and behind the scenes moments from the Gilded Age? Follow us on Facebook and Instagram Gildedage HBO to join the conversation today.

[Tom Myers]

The official Gilded Age Podcast is a production of HBO in partnership with Pod People. Pod People.