June 5, 2024

Lucille Ball in Space: Tony Shares Tales of Lucy & Hollywood, Both Old & New

Lucille Ball in Space: Tony Shares Tales of Lucy & Hollywood, Both Old & New
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Going Hollywood
Lucille Ball in Space: Tony Shares Tales of Lucy & Hollywood, Both Old & New
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Season 1

S01 E09 Do you know actors such as William Shatner, Chris Pine, Leonard Nimoy, Kate Mulgrew, George Takei, and others may have Lucille Ball to thank for advancing their careers? Without her, Star Trek may never have happened.  And that's a small part of what Tony shares of Lucy's intricate life: a showgirl turned comedic genius turned Hollywood studio president, a feat few could even dream of achieving. 

Tony and Brad's conversation also includes Tony's passionate and insightful tales of Tinseltown's golden era. From his personal journey to LA in the 90s, with nothing more than dreams of an Emmy, to his intimate knowledge of Hollywood's transformation over the years, Tony enlightens us about the evolution of the film industry, the fading era of relationship-focused films, and the impact of CGI. Tony paints a vivid picture of yesteryear's Hollywood, contrasting it with today's ever-evolving landscape. Through his eyes, we see the intersection of glamour and grit, the migration of film studios, and the transformation of classic locations, invoking nostalgia for a bygone era.

Text us your opinion or comment

You can find transcripts, a link to Tony's website, and a link to Brad's website at www.goinghollywoodpodcast.com

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Facebook: /goinghollywoodpod

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Transcript
WEBVTT

00:00:05.750 --> 00:00:08.255
Hello, I'm film historian Tony Maietta.

00:00:08.961 --> 00:00:11.650
And I'm Brad Shreve, who's just a guy who likes movies.

00:00:12.259 --> 00:00:15.230
We discuss movies and television from Hollywood's golden age.

00:00:15.230 --> 00:00:17.989
We go behind the scenes and share our opinions too.

00:00:18.879 --> 00:00:22.390
And, of course, being the average guy, my opinions are the ones that matter.

00:00:24.060 --> 00:00:25.265
As does your self-delusion.

00:00:25.265 --> 00:00:27.672
Welcome to Going Hollywood.

00:00:29.120 --> 00:00:47.723
Hi, this is Brad and for just a moment I'm without a co-host because Tony, being the good man that he is and I will deny ever saying that he is somewhere in the middle of Central California participating in AIDS Life Cycle, which is, for those who don't know, a seven-day charity bike event from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

00:00:47.723 --> 00:00:54.143
Tony and I met in July of 2023 when I interviewed him for my other podcast, queer we Are.

00:00:54.143 --> 00:01:04.590
We discussed a number of Hollywood topics but, being Tony, we ended up spending much of the time, and maybe even most of the time of the episode focused on Lucille Ball.

00:01:04.590 --> 00:01:10.228
Needless to say, we had a lot of fun, being that we both enjoyed our conversation.

00:01:10.228 --> 00:01:17.153
We've discussed running as an episode here and, with Tony going off on AIDS lifecycle, we decided this is the perfect time.

00:01:17.939 --> 00:01:26.873
Tony and I will be back next week for a brand new episode of Going Hollywood, but for now, I hope you enjoy this special presentation of the Way we Met on Queer we Are.

00:01:26.873 --> 00:01:47.561
Tony Maietta, you are an author, actor and a host, and, as a host, am I correct that they have been nearly entirely shows about TV and movie history?

00:01:48.503 --> 00:01:49.364
Yeah, pretty much.

00:01:49.364 --> 00:01:54.813
I mean, I don't really talk on politics, it's all pretty much TV and film.

00:01:54.813 --> 00:02:00.293
Yes, some theater, a little bit of theater I am an actor after all, so but yeah, mostly TV and film.

00:02:00.881 --> 00:02:05.831
And you don't have film historian on your headline, on your website or in your bios.

00:02:05.831 --> 00:02:07.444
But that seems like a big part of you.

00:02:07.704 --> 00:02:09.570
Well it is, but I go back and forth about that.

00:02:09.570 --> 00:02:11.063
What is a film historian?

00:02:11.063 --> 00:02:19.771
I always think of some guy in some musty library somewhere looking over some old film book, and the first time someone mentioned that to me I was like what?

00:02:19.771 --> 00:02:20.341
That's not me.

00:02:20.341 --> 00:02:22.747
I'm a guy who loves movies, so that's all.

00:02:22.747 --> 00:02:26.304
But since I was an actor, I learned how to play a film historian.

00:02:27.066 --> 00:02:32.743
So I, you know, it is something that I wear, it's a mantle that I'm very proud to wear, but I just don't.

00:02:32.743 --> 00:02:35.028
To me it just sounds a little too academic.

00:02:35.028 --> 00:02:36.412
For for what?

00:02:36.412 --> 00:02:53.330
What I love about what I do and what I try to do when I talk about movies and when I talk about TV is pretend like I'm having a cup of coffee with you or another kind of libation, if you're you know, a glass of wine or something, and we're talking about this movie we just saw, or, we're you know, we're talking about this TV show we just saw.

00:02:53.330 --> 00:03:13.170
I try to make it that casual, so that's always my goal, for anything is like two buddies sitting around talking about this movie they just saw Kevin Brownlee, who's an incredible, incredible source of knowledge, who's just one of my idols and I've had the fortune to meet once or twice he's a film historian People who I never studied film, I didn't go to NYU film school.

00:03:13.211 --> 00:03:14.140
I'm an actor, you know.

00:03:14.140 --> 00:03:15.042
I studied theater.

00:03:15.042 --> 00:03:28.508
I just always loved movies and I'm kind of like Robert Osborne in that way if I may be so bold as to make that comparison in the fact that this was something he did his whole life, you know, and it was just a hobby of his.

00:03:28.508 --> 00:03:31.322
He would go to, he had these index cards he would keep.

00:03:31.322 --> 00:03:36.405
He told me one time that he would keep of films he had seen or films he was researching, and he had these boxes.

00:03:36.826 --> 00:03:47.123
I would go to the library at my home in Meadville, Pennsylvania, where I grew up in my hometown, and go through the microfiche, remember those things when you'd go through.

00:03:47.123 --> 00:03:52.145
You'd like pick a newspaper, like I put the New York Times up and I go to July 1964.

00:03:52.145 --> 00:03:56.200
So I could see what was playing in the theaters, what was playing on Broadway.

00:03:56.200 --> 00:04:04.729
That's what I did, or I would get every book I could and that for me that was just fun, it wasn't a scholarly endeavor, it was just what I loved.

00:04:04.729 --> 00:04:09.485
So that's kind of the approach I take as far as film goes.

00:04:09.485 --> 00:04:12.312
If I'm a historian, okay, whatever, so be it.

00:04:12.312 --> 00:04:13.580
I think of myself as a film buff.

00:04:14.242 --> 00:04:18.271
I don't know if you have to have training to be a film historian.

00:04:18.391 --> 00:04:19.403
I will just say this.

00:04:19.543 --> 00:04:27.649
I hate to put a moniker on somebody else, but based on the work that you've done and just our casual conversation before we had this started, I'm going to call you a film historian.

00:04:28.891 --> 00:04:29.834
Okay, you can do that.

00:04:31.283 --> 00:04:33.108
You got that label and you're stuck with it now.

00:04:33.108 --> 00:04:47.620
Now your bio says Tony Maieti arrived in Los Angeles in the 1990s as a fresh-faced 20-something eager to discover the classic Hollywood that he fell in love with as a child.

00:04:47.620 --> 00:04:52.690
We know tons of people that come out here to reach their dreams.

00:04:52.690 --> 00:04:54.074
What was your goal?

00:04:54.074 --> 00:04:55.865
What was your dream when you came to LA?

00:04:56.627 --> 00:04:59.802
Oh God, to be a movie star, absolutely, Actually, to be a TV star.

00:04:59.802 --> 00:05:03.819
I love the movies, obviously Duh, we're sitting here talking about them.

00:05:03.819 --> 00:05:06.983
But I always saw myself as more of a sitcom person.

00:05:06.983 --> 00:05:12.367
In fact I remember saying to my friend Brad, as we were driving, his name's not Brad, brad.

00:05:12.367 --> 00:05:18.232
I remember saying to this friend of mine as we were driving out here you know, I'll have a sitcom in a year, yeah, maybe an Emmy in a couple.

00:05:18.291 --> 00:05:24.858
I mean, it's just so silly, but you have to have that kind of insane ambition, otherwise why bother leaving your hometown?

00:05:24.858 --> 00:05:27.882
That kind of insane ambition, otherwise why bother leaving your hometown?

00:05:27.882 --> 00:05:38.413
But I came out specifically with the desire to be an actor, loving film, but absolutely wanting to be an actor, but also wanting to be an actor in an era which was sadly gone.

00:05:38.413 --> 00:05:47.833
I remember I always say that I wanted to go to the Brown Derby and see William Holden, like Lucy did, or meet Rock Hudson, you know, at the Beverly Palms Hotel, like Lucy did.

00:05:47.833 --> 00:05:49.055
None of that happened.

00:05:49.055 --> 00:05:52.490
It was a sad time in Hollywood when I first came out here.

00:05:52.959 --> 00:05:56.728
It was not a good time, like the early 90s, not a good time.

00:05:57.339 --> 00:06:09.790
You got here, I think, right about the time I did, maybe a little bit earlier, and the Brown Derby was still still around, but it wasn't a thing it was, but wow, is it on its last legs and the one on wilshire was gone.

00:06:10.250 --> 00:06:18.845
Yeah, yeah, the one in hollywood and vine was was still there, but the one on wilshire, which is the one that lucy went to allegedly, was long gone, as you know.

00:06:18.845 --> 00:06:33.372
What was still there too was, uh, the ambassador hotel, which, god, I wish I had had the awareness then I knew what the Ambassador was, but I didn't really know Coconut Grove and Bobby Kennedy and all that.

00:06:33.372 --> 00:06:36.730
I mean, I knew it but I didn't click until it was gone.

00:06:37.339 --> 00:06:39.225
And listen if you're not familiar with the Ambassador Hotel.

00:06:39.225 --> 00:06:49.932
There's a whole lot of history there and unfortunately the LA Unified School District leveled it and I don't know if they have offices there or a school there, but it's gone.

00:06:50.233 --> 00:06:51.761
It's a school, there's a school there.

00:06:51.761 --> 00:06:53.404
I mean it's gone, it's gone.

00:06:53.985 --> 00:07:05.189
As you just alluded to your bio, does go on to say that you were disappointed, and you realized that the only way to get that magic would be travel back in time and to become a film historian.

00:07:05.189 --> 00:07:07.423
So, you set out to live in the past.

00:07:07.423 --> 00:07:09.449
Can you elaborate a little more on that?

00:07:09.449 --> 00:07:10.600
What's your sure?

00:07:10.600 --> 00:07:12.045
What's your disappointment was and what?

00:07:12.045 --> 00:07:13.810
What wasn't there when you arrived?

00:07:14.399 --> 00:07:15.463
I wanted that golden era.

00:07:15.463 --> 00:07:28.031
I wanted to see Hepburn and Tracy in woman of the year, and I got Burt Reynolds and Liza Minnelli and rent a cop these awful early 90s movies.

00:07:28.031 --> 00:07:41.052
That there was just no glamour, there was no mystique, and that's what I wanted, and I think that's what most people, anybody who watches classic movie channels or rents DVDs we want that glamour.

00:07:41.052 --> 00:08:00.285
We want that wonderful, the whole mystery of it, the whole mystique of it, which sadly left us sometime in the 1970s, when the new Turks came over in the 70s and made incredible films like the Godfather, and when that whole new era came in with Bonnie and Clyde and New Hollywood, as you will.

00:08:00.285 --> 00:08:03.401
There was a certain amount of mystique that went out with the studio system.

00:08:03.461 --> 00:08:06.687
Now I'm not saying that that's necessarily.

00:08:06.687 --> 00:08:07.848
It's an illusion.

00:08:07.848 --> 00:08:24.223
The studio system was gone for a lot of good reasons, but there was also a certain mystique and a certain glamour that went with it and people like me, and maybe you, Brad, who grew up watching these films, just wanted to be a part of that era.

00:08:24.223 --> 00:08:27.904
It's nowhere to be found anymore and it's really nowhere to be found now.

00:08:27.904 --> 00:08:38.571
I mean, the good thing about the films of the seventies is at least they were films about people and relationships, and now it's all you know, superheroes and computer animated stuff and I'm like, who cares?

00:08:38.571 --> 00:08:39.374
That's one.

00:08:39.374 --> 00:08:46.789
One great thing about television now is that you find those stories on television on television that you don't find in the movies anymore, or very rarely find in the movies.

00:08:47.551 --> 00:08:53.870
Yeah, I'm a big Paul Rudd fan, and so therefore, of the Marvel movies, I love Ant-Man, but I don't know if you saw Quantumania.

00:08:54.379 --> 00:08:55.101
I didn't see any of them.

00:08:55.101 --> 00:08:56.384
I'm terrible.

00:08:57.226 --> 00:08:59.032
The entire film had to have been done in a green screen.

00:08:59.032 --> 00:09:07.225
I'm sure it was entirely CGI, except for their faces, and I was impressed by wow, this must have been difficult to do, but it actually.

00:09:07.225 --> 00:09:08.289
It was depressing to me.

00:09:08.772 --> 00:09:09.212
Well it is.

00:09:09.212 --> 00:09:12.043
I can't imagine being an actor doing that.

00:09:12.043 --> 00:09:26.908
I just I can't imagine that Film acting is difficult enough when you have another person in front of you and you're trying to do all the technical things you have to do when you're acting on film, but to act with nothing, I just, I don't know.

00:09:26.908 --> 00:09:28.149
It doesn't interest me.

00:09:28.149 --> 00:09:29.913
I'm impressed, anybody can do it.

00:09:29.913 --> 00:09:34.100
I am too.

00:09:34.100 --> 00:09:34.462
I'm stunned by it.

00:09:34.462 --> 00:09:34.825
I'm stunned by it.

00:09:34.825 --> 00:09:35.227
I can't believe it.

00:09:35.248 --> 00:09:36.192
I would be pretty bored as an actor.

00:09:36.192 --> 00:09:37.440
Somebody covered up in green, or you know.

00:09:37.799 --> 00:09:41.865
Yeah, well, they do these movies and then they, so they make enough money so they can go do what they love.

00:09:41.865 --> 00:09:44.149
That's the whole story behind it.

00:09:44.149 --> 00:09:50.221
I mean, Paul Rudd's a great actor, very talented actor, very funny actor and ageless, which is kind of crazy.

00:09:50.923 --> 00:09:53.809
I think he's hysterical, he's charming, he's sexy as hell.

00:09:53.809 --> 00:09:57.445
I have a huge crush on him, but I don't know his agent.

00:09:57.445 --> 00:10:00.131
He needs to fire his agent because he really does make some bad movies.

00:10:06.659 --> 00:10:07.523
Yes, well, you know him and Jason Bateman.

00:10:07.523 --> 00:10:07.945
So there you go.

00:10:07.945 --> 00:10:09.490
I love Jason Bateman too, but I love Jason Bateman on television.

00:10:09.490 --> 00:10:16.460
I mean, he's incredible on Ozark, he's incredible in Arrested Development, but I can't remember the last time I went to the movies to see anything he did.

00:10:17.201 --> 00:10:21.125
He was pretty good in the Sweetest Thing, but I don't think many people saw the Sweetest Thing.

00:10:21.907 --> 00:10:23.609
No, and that was a while ago too, wasn't it?

00:10:23.869 --> 00:10:24.830
That was quite a while ago.

00:10:24.830 --> 00:10:27.994
Yeah, tony, I'm stopping our conversation real quick.

00:10:28.173 --> 00:10:28.413
Why?

00:10:28.413 --> 00:10:31.081
Why we're in the middle of a podcast.

00:10:31.501 --> 00:10:34.028
But this is about the podcast and it's very important.

00:10:34.248 --> 00:10:34.769
Okay.

00:10:35.230 --> 00:10:35.610
Listener.

00:10:35.610 --> 00:10:41.441
Whatever app you're listening on, whether it's on the computer or on the phone, reach your finger or your mouse over.

00:10:41.441 --> 00:10:43.125
It usually says follow.

00:10:43.125 --> 00:10:45.611
Some still say subscribe and click that.

00:10:45.611 --> 00:10:47.687
And what's going to happen when they do that, Tony?

00:10:47.980 --> 00:10:52.951
They're going to get notified when a new episode is available, and they can listen to us again.

00:10:52.951 --> 00:10:54.625
You know I don't want to miss that.

00:10:54.885 --> 00:10:55.067
No.

00:10:55.340 --> 00:10:57.426
Can we get back to the episode that we were recording?

00:10:57.426 --> 00:10:58.349
Of course, please.

00:10:58.349 --> 00:10:59.821
Of course, all right, thank you.

00:10:59.821 --> 00:11:02.423
Don't forget to subscribe and follow there you go.

00:11:05.345 --> 00:11:09.447
As far as you mentioned Katherine Hepburn, you said you think she was still alive.

00:11:09.447 --> 00:11:16.594
She actually died right around the early 2000s and I only know this because I was going to the gay and lesbian.

00:11:16.594 --> 00:11:19.696
It used to be called the Gay and Lesbian Center, I think it's now the LGBTQ Center.

00:11:19.975 --> 00:11:21.136
Yeah, the LGBTQ and

00:11:23.240 --> 00:11:23.802
Oh, yes, you do actually.

00:11:23.802 --> 00:11:34.770
So I was walking down Hollywood Boulevard to get there and I knew that she had died, which upset me because she was one of my favorites and I saw this massive pile of flowers and I thought, oh, who died now?

00:11:34.770 --> 00:11:36.365
And it was right on her star.

00:11:36.365 --> 00:11:37.565
So I cried a little bit.

00:11:37.565 --> 00:11:41.669
So that's the only reason why I specifically remember when she died.

00:11:42.100 --> 00:11:43.625
I remember exactly where I was.

00:11:43.625 --> 00:11:49.020
You do I was when she died.

00:11:49.020 --> 00:11:50.125
You do I was one of those people.

00:11:50.125 --> 00:11:50.807
Oh yeah, I'm always with that.

00:11:50.807 --> 00:11:52.773
Oh yeah, I remember sitting in my friend's driveway and I got a phone call.

00:11:52.773 --> 00:11:59.870
Before texts, I got a phone call that said Hepburn died and I was just like wow, that's big, that's major.

00:11:59.870 --> 00:12:01.272
It was a big moment.

00:12:02.840 --> 00:12:04.446
And talk about old days of Hollywood.

00:12:04.446 --> 00:12:19.250
I've joked a lot with many guests on this show about Hollywood Boulevard and because every friend or family member that has come out to LA always wants to go to Hollywood Boulevard and they're always so broken hearted it's depressing.

00:12:19.610 --> 00:12:20.251
Depressing, isn't it?

00:12:20.251 --> 00:12:21.413
Yeah, so depressing.

00:12:21.413 --> 00:12:31.018
I live two blocks from it, so, yeah, I'm there every day because my gym is right there and it's the most depressing walk I can tell you right now.

00:12:31.018 --> 00:12:32.341
Yeah, yeah, it is very depressing.

00:12:32.602 --> 00:12:35.029
Yeah, I used to live near there and recently went back.

00:12:35.029 --> 00:12:49.075
I live up in the desert now, some couple hours outside of LA, and recently went and my husband and I stayed in a hotel down there and walked around my old haunts and it was weird in the sense that it was depressing, and some things had not changed at all.

00:12:49.559 --> 00:13:07.783
I mean, when you think about Hollywood Boulevard, especially back in the quote unquote golden era, the Hollywood Hotel, right where Hollywood and Highland is, was this place called Hollywood Hotel, and this was mostly in the 20s and this is where many of the silent screen stars of the time this was in Hollywood was a very insular place.

00:13:07.783 --> 00:13:15.120
That's where they socialized, that's where some of them lived, I mean right at Hollywood and Highland, you know, and they would have parties there and they would have dances there.

00:13:15.120 --> 00:13:28.302
It's a really fascinating idea All along Hollywood Boulevard, orange groves and pepper trees, and boy, you see none of that now well, that's back when they were actually studios in hollywood.

00:13:28.363 --> 00:13:31.971
I mean now I think, yeah, there's Gower, which used to be Desilu.

00:13:31.971 --> 00:13:32.981
I think that's still there.

00:13:32.981 --> 00:13:43.312
Jim Henson's like our, yeah, yeah uh, the Jim Henson studio is still there which was Charlie Chaplin yeah, the old Charlie Chaplin, and then there's one more.

00:13:43.312 --> 00:13:46.748
I think that's kind of small, and the rest are all out in the Valley.

00:13:47.208 --> 00:13:51.587
Yeah Well, yeah Well, warner Brothers was always in the Valley, but there's one that's called.

00:13:51.587 --> 00:13:53.684
It used to be Renmar.

00:13:53.684 --> 00:13:55.109
Right now it's called something else.

00:13:55.109 --> 00:14:04.452
I can't think of what it's called, but it was Desilu Cahuenga and it's right down there on Cahuenga near Melrose, and Sunset Gower is still there, and you're right.

00:14:04.452 --> 00:14:05.595
And what's the other one?

00:14:05.595 --> 00:14:12.666
Oh, Hollywood, it's called The Lot now, or it was called the Lot, but that was a bunch of different studios.

00:14:12.666 --> 00:14:13.808
It was originally, originally, way, way back.

00:14:13.808 --> 00:14:16.197
It was the Fairbanks Pickford studio.

00:14:16.197 --> 00:14:18.567
It's right on Santa Monica and Formosa.

00:14:18.567 --> 00:14:29.105
It was where Pickford and Fairbanks made all of their films in the twenties together, and then it became the Samuel Goldwyn Studios and then it became Warner Brothers and now it's the Lot.

00:14:29.105 --> 00:14:30.846
So, I mean, it's still there.

00:14:30.846 --> 00:14:37.272
But you're right, the majority of the studios in Hollywood are not in Hollywood.

00:14:37.272 --> 00:14:42.940
It's always funny, I think we say Hollywood but everything's you know out of Hollywood.

00:14:43.160 --> 00:14:51.230
You know they're in Burbank, Studio City, Culver City, yeah, yeah, exactly, and listen, I'm going to go off on a tangent, please forgive me.

00:14:51.230 --> 00:14:55.625
I heard some really depressing news the other day and it has me so upset.

00:14:55.625 --> 00:15:11.328
The Warner Ranch is being torn down and they're going to put in sound stages which means the Bewitched House, the Partridge Family House, the pretty much name all those old sitcoms that were actually filmed outside the Friends.

00:15:11.749 --> 00:15:13.049
Fountain is there.

00:15:13.049 --> 00:15:15.111
The Friends Fountain is at the Warner, is it?

00:15:15.111 --> 00:15:16.293
How would they do that?

00:15:16.332 --> 00:15:17.333
They're tearing it all down.

00:15:17.333 --> 00:15:19.936
There's a YouTube video where a guy is given a tour.

00:15:19.936 --> 00:15:20.797
He's driving around.

00:15:20.797 --> 00:15:24.322
It pretty much looks like a ghost town.

00:15:24.322 --> 00:15:26.835
Right now, he's driving around because he says it's going to be the last time he'll be able to see it.

00:15:28.845 --> 00:15:28.985
Oh my.

00:15:29.559 --> 00:15:31.027
Because my dream has always been to go.

00:15:31.027 --> 00:15:32.726
You have to get tickets to go tour the ranch.

00:15:32.726 --> 00:15:37.907
It's not as popular as Universal Studios, but for me, I always wanted to see the Bewitched House.

00:15:38.990 --> 00:15:45.520
Yeah, you know it's funny, you have to.

00:15:45.520 --> 00:15:46.686
Yeah, you're absolutely right, you have to be invited.

00:15:46.686 --> 00:15:47.389
Um, I've been on a couple times.

00:15:47.408 --> 00:16:12.592
I don't know why I was invited, or I had an audition or something, and I remember walking down mockingbird lane and mockingbird Morning Glory Circle, whatever, whatever street that Samantha and Darren lived and seeing the house and you know it's always a depressing experience to see these sets because, first of all, it's old, so it's been weathered and and time has done what it does to it, but it's just so much smaller than you imagine and it's just not.

00:16:12.592 --> 00:16:13.763
It's never.

00:16:13.763 --> 00:16:14.684
It is what is in your head.

00:16:14.684 --> 00:16:20.126
Yeah it's like what I say about going back in time in my head, because hollywood never existed anymore.

00:16:20.126 --> 00:16:21.831
Let's Hollywood it, really did.

00:16:21.831 --> 00:16:25.947
Yeah, exist in the way we think of it in our mind.

00:16:26.659 --> 00:16:33.010
I think the thing that surprises me about the whole Warner Ranch thing is the very first Lethal Weapon movie.

00:16:33.010 --> 00:16:39.208
There's a scene where police were raiding the house and the house blows up and pretty much kills half the cast.

00:16:39.208 --> 00:16:42.971
That was actually the old Kravitz house, which I think was also.

00:16:42.971 --> 00:16:45.216
I think that was also the Partridge family house.

00:16:45.899 --> 00:16:47.586
Yeah, they reused those a lot.

00:16:47.586 --> 00:16:49.225
I think it was on Dream of Jeannie too.

00:16:49.287 --> 00:16:52.769
Yeah, the Nelson's house was a little bit different, but maybe, yeah.

00:16:52.769 --> 00:16:57.961
But anyway they blew it up for that scene and people were outraged that they had the nerve to blow up that house.

00:16:57.961 --> 00:17:03.671
That's terrible, the fact that there was so much blowback from that, and now they're just tearing it all down.

00:17:03.671 --> 00:17:08.500
I'm like, anyway, anyway, enough of the depressing stuff let's get out of here.

00:17:08.500 --> 00:17:10.083
That's not what this show is about.

00:17:10.083 --> 00:17:12.426
You just hit me in the heart there.

00:17:12.686 --> 00:17:12.866
Yeah.

00:17:13.208 --> 00:17:18.394
You have 65 videos on YouTube and I think most of those were from when you were on

00:17:21.242 --> 00:17:21.242
Yeah, I counted them for a reason.

00:17:21.242 --> 00:17:23.565
Most of those I think were from when you were on here TV.

00:17:23.565 --> 00:17:24.105
Is that right?

00:17:24.787 --> 00:17:27.609
Oh, there's only no, there's only four that were from here TV.

00:17:27.609 --> 00:17:28.691
I think there's only four or five.

00:17:28.691 --> 00:17:30.192
The majority of them are.

00:17:30.192 --> 00:17:39.262
I mean, my Lucy Show stuff is up there because nobody buys DVDs anymore, so it's like you know who can see these anymore.

00:17:39.262 --> 00:17:40.907
A majority of those are actually documentaries that I'm working on.

00:17:40.907 --> 00:17:44.557
Currently I work with a wonderful French production company called Wichita.

00:17:44.557 --> 00:17:51.292
Ironically enough, wichita Films and we do they do a lot of the stuff that I post up there.

00:17:51.292 --> 00:17:56.088
They're two incredible French producers who we did the Barrymore stuff together.

00:17:56.088 --> 00:18:01.998
The Jack Lemmon stuff, the William Holden stuff where we talked about network, most of my stuff up there.

00:18:01.998 --> 00:18:03.557
The gossip the Hollywood gossip stuff is a lot.

00:18:03.557 --> 00:18:04.732
That's a lot of it, and some of my other stuff stuff up there.

00:18:04.732 --> 00:18:06.967
The gossip the Hollywood gossip stuff that's a lot of it, and some of my other stuff here and there.

00:18:06.967 --> 00:18:10.130
Some of the stuff I did with TCM is up there too, until they take it down.

00:18:11.342 --> 00:18:13.308
I have a very close Facebook friend.

00:18:13.308 --> 00:18:14.884
We have to clarify those now.

00:18:14.884 --> 00:18:16.148
He's a great friend.

00:18:16.148 --> 00:18:17.807
I may never see him in my life.

00:18:17.807 --> 00:18:22.760
He has a huge old school movie buff and TV buff and I sent him the link to your.

00:18:22.760 --> 00:18:25.984
Youtube page and movie buff and TV buff and I sent him the link to your YouTube page and he was like in heaven.

00:18:26.085 --> 00:18:27.145
Oh, that's nice to hear.

00:18:27.145 --> 00:18:29.147
Sometimes you wonder if anybody sees anything?

00:18:29.167 --> 00:18:31.770
Oh, he demanded I let him know that when you're going to be on the show.

00:18:32.230 --> 00:18:32.971
Oh, that's so nice.

00:18:32.971 --> 00:18:34.373
I appreciate that.

00:18:34.653 --> 00:18:37.656
There's a reason why I counted, why there's 65 videos there.

00:18:37.656 --> 00:18:41.166
Yeah, because I wanted to know 30% of those videos.

00:18:41.166 --> 00:18:43.913
19 of them are focused on Lucille Ball.

00:18:43.913 --> 00:18:47.203
What is it about Lucy?

00:18:48.627 --> 00:18:49.771
Wow, Well, hello.

00:18:49.771 --> 00:18:52.409
I mean, there's the question of the century, isn't it?

00:18:52.409 --> 00:18:53.505
What is it about Lucy?

00:18:53.505 --> 00:18:55.627
I mean, we're still fascinated with Lucy.

00:18:55.627 --> 00:19:06.406
I mean, just last year, you know, that hideous movie with Nicole Kidman came out, but there was an incredible Amy Poehler documentary I don't know if you saw that Lucy and Desi.

00:19:06.406 --> 00:19:07.726
That was fantastic.

00:19:07.726 --> 00:19:11.770
It was on Amazon and there was a TCM and a Lucy podcast.

00:19:11.770 --> 00:19:15.279
What is it about Lucy you mean for me personally, or what do I think about Lucy for everybody?

00:19:15.662 --> 00:19:16.646
Yeah, you personally.

00:19:17.019 --> 00:19:21.403
Well, I think for me, for me I can only, you know well, I can speak for me personally.

00:19:21.403 --> 00:19:30.147
You know I was like many people, like many, I'm sure many of your listeners, you know I was a lonely gay boy.

00:19:30.147 --> 00:19:33.611
I wasn't good at sports, I didn't have a lot of friends.

00:19:33.611 --> 00:19:56.321
I had a couple close friends, but I had two really great friends that I saw every day after school and their names were Lucy and Ethel, or sometimes they were Lucy and Viv, and Mr Mooney was there occasionally, or Ricky and Fred were there.

00:19:56.321 --> 00:19:58.028
So to me Lucy was a real lifeline or a real comfort in a sometimes not always.

00:19:58.028 --> 00:20:03.483
I mean, my childhood was fine, it was not a grim childhood at all, but for many people she brought joy to my life.

00:20:03.483 --> 00:20:05.951
She was like there was just something childlike.

00:20:05.951 --> 00:20:15.951
You know there's something childlike and wondrous about her and when you're with her and when you're watching her, you're kind of a participant in the joy of her being.

00:20:16.471 --> 00:20:21.419
You know, now I'm not talking about Lucille Ball the actress, I'm talking about the character Lucy.

00:20:21.419 --> 00:20:23.281
I mean, we all know they're in one.

00:20:23.281 --> 00:20:25.385
You know two different entities.

00:20:25.385 --> 00:20:32.175
Yeah, lucille Ball the actress was a very, very, very driven woman.

00:20:32.175 --> 00:20:36.912
She could not have achieved what she achieved if she had been Lucy Ricardo.

00:20:36.912 --> 00:20:38.404
I mean, that's just the way it is.

00:20:38.404 --> 00:20:40.507
Lucy Ricardo is the lovable clown.

00:20:40.507 --> 00:20:47.554
Lucille Ball is the incredible technician and actress and genius that allowed her to come into creation.

00:20:48.161 --> 00:20:49.724
You may be able to clarify this.

00:20:49.724 --> 00:20:55.069
I've heard she was unpleasant to work with, not because she was a nasty person, but because she was such a perfectionist.

00:20:55.500 --> 00:20:57.226
Well, I think a lot of people talk about it.

00:20:57.226 --> 00:20:59.855
I think that she was driven.

00:20:59.855 --> 00:21:01.621
I mean, I didn't work with her so I don't know.

00:21:01.621 --> 00:21:10.587
But obviously, from what I've read and I've read a lot and I've talked to a lot of people I prefer not to think of her as in negative terms.

00:21:10.587 --> 00:21:16.092
She was an achiever and you can't get around it.

00:21:16.092 --> 00:21:20.394
There's a certain misogynistic bent to this idea.

00:21:20.394 --> 00:21:47.414
If she was a man, they'd think of her differently and they think of her differently.

00:21:47.414 --> 00:21:47.138
She was a woman who knew what she wanted.

00:21:47.138 --> 00:21:47.220
Was she tough?

00:21:47.220 --> 00:21:47.583
Yeah, she had to be tough.

00:21:47.583 --> 00:21:48.444
You know, people who aren't tough don't get things done in this town, particularly in that era.

00:21:48.311 --> 00:21:49.396
This was a woman who went through the studio system.

00:21:49.396 --> 00:21:52.903
She started as a showgirl and became the first woman president after Mary Pickford got to put that in there the first woman president of a major Hollywood studio.

00:21:52.903 --> 00:21:55.492
How do you travel that path if you're going to be some cutesy pie everybody gets along with?

00:21:55.492 --> 00:21:56.814
No, you got to be a tough broad.

00:21:56.814 --> 00:21:58.915
I admire that about her.

00:21:58.915 --> 00:22:01.201
I admire the fact that she was tough.

00:22:01.201 --> 00:22:02.425
I don't think she was.

00:22:02.425 --> 00:22:05.602
From everything I've read and everyone I've talked to, she wasn't unfair.

00:22:05.602 --> 00:22:08.627
I think she called it like it was.

00:22:08.627 --> 00:22:12.320
I wish I could be more that way in my dealings with people.

00:22:12.320 --> 00:22:14.568
You know, did she lack a little bit of tact?

00:22:14.568 --> 00:22:18.141
Maybe I've heard that before, but she got things done.

00:22:18.141 --> 00:22:19.023
It was her show.

00:22:19.023 --> 00:22:26.707
She knew what she was doing Clearly, she called the shots and she didn't waste time, maybe sometimes worrying about people's feelings, unfortunately.

00:22:26.707 --> 00:22:28.709
So that's the way I can look at her.

00:22:28.829 --> 00:22:32.935
That is why I clarified that I never heard that she was a nasty person, but that she was just hard to work with.

00:22:32.935 --> 00:22:34.405
There are two very different things.

00:22:34.405 --> 00:22:36.265
She knew what she wanted.

00:22:36.566 --> 00:22:37.269
She was right.

00:22:37.269 --> 00:22:50.286
Her daughter said to me and her daughter's a great resource, you know what I mean she was a taskmaster, but she was always right, and if you're going to have somebody be a taskmaster, make sure they're right.

00:22:50.286 --> 00:22:51.188
And she was.

00:22:51.188 --> 00:22:53.073
That's what's amazing about her.

00:22:53.073 --> 00:22:59.002
So she cut through all the bullshit and she said no, this is the way it has to be done and this is the way it was done.

00:22:59.244 --> 00:23:08.594
Now, the fact that you could create a beloved character like Lucy Ricardo that touches people still to this day is just part of her acting genius.

00:23:08.594 --> 00:23:11.307
I think it's important to point out, and I try to point out.

00:23:11.307 --> 00:23:19.363
When I talk about Lucy the brilliant actress here, People think, yes, she was a clown and she was funny, but this was an actress.

00:23:19.363 --> 00:23:21.548
This was a woman who played gangsters malls.

00:23:21.548 --> 00:23:23.743
This is a woman who played showgirls.

00:23:23.743 --> 00:23:27.393
This is a woman who played the gamut through her entire career.

00:23:27.393 --> 00:23:33.425
She just hit upon this persona, which was gold, and so everybody thinks that's who she is.

00:23:33.425 --> 00:23:38.660
She was a brilliant actress and she doesn't give enough credit for that brilliance, in my opinion.

00:23:38.901 --> 00:23:44.105
Something that really endears me to Lucy and I don't know if there's many people that know this Barbara Pepper.

00:23:44.105 --> 00:23:46.592
Not many people remember the name Barbara Pepper.

00:23:46.592 --> 00:23:49.428
She played Doris Ziffel on Green Acres.

00:23:49.428 --> 00:23:52.683
She and Lucy were dance partners together, if you can believe.

00:23:52.683 --> 00:23:59.528
Doris Ziffel was a dancer she was and then Lucy, I guess, hurt her legs or whatever and she couldn't dance anymore, or something of that nature.

00:24:00.521 --> 00:24:02.780
Well, she and Lucy came out to Hollywood together.

00:24:02.780 --> 00:24:05.905
They were both Goldwyn Girls oh, I did yeah, they came out.

00:24:05.945 --> 00:24:08.210
I think lucy came out in 32 spur of the moment.

00:24:08.210 --> 00:24:09.971
Was was spotted on the street.

00:24:09.971 --> 00:24:15.147
She was a Chester field girl said we have these girls who are going to be in the Sam Goldwyn film.

00:24:15.147 --> 00:24:16.070
One of the girls dropped out.

00:24:16.070 --> 00:24:16.721
We need somebody.

00:24:16.721 --> 00:24:17.423
You want to do it.

00:24:17.423 --> 00:24:18.586
This agent center.

00:24:18.786 --> 00:24:19.729
So it was by chance.

00:24:19.729 --> 00:24:21.320
If you will, Barbara Pepper is one of those women.

00:24:21.320 --> 00:24:31.932
Here's the amazing thing about barbara pepper and this is the amazing thing about Barbara Pepper and this is the amazing thing about Lucy the loyalty she used Barbara Pepper her entire career.

00:24:31.932 --> 00:24:33.405
She gave Barbara Pepper work.

00:24:33.405 --> 00:24:34.863
Barbara Pepper will be in.

00:24:34.863 --> 00:24:35.525
I Love Lucy.

00:24:35.525 --> 00:24:36.186
She'll pop up.

00:24:36.186 --> 00:24:37.451
You know what I mean?

00:24:37.451 --> 00:24:38.945
She was no longer looking like a showgirl.

00:24:38.945 --> 00:24:42.109
Yep, you know, she was a zaftig kind of character.

00:24:42.109 --> 00:24:45.348
Lucy was so loyal to these people.

00:24:45.348 --> 00:25:00.721
Yeah, if you were in Lucy's orbit and Lucy trusted you and I talked about this with Carol Cook actually when I interviewed Carol Cook if Lucy liked you and she trusted you, you had a job for life because she used you again and again and again.

00:25:00.721 --> 00:25:10.814
She was so loyal to people who she felt were you know, to her friends, to people she felt indebted to, were people she felt close to, and it's a good example.

00:25:10.934 --> 00:25:19.588
And I don't want to get too much into Barbara, other than to say she had a troubled life, she had some issues and the fact that Lucy continued to help her and support her.

00:25:19.588 --> 00:25:21.675
That's what I was going to allude to.

00:25:21.675 --> 00:25:23.701
That says a lot to me about Lucy.

00:25:24.684 --> 00:25:28.036
Lucy did that with so many people.

00:25:28.036 --> 00:25:32.468
You can watch an I Love Lucy and then watch a here's Lucy and you'll see the same actor.

00:25:33.210 --> 00:25:34.092
You'd be like wait a minute.

00:25:34.440 --> 00:25:37.971
I just saw him 20 years ago and I love Lucy because that's who Lucille Ball was.

00:25:37.971 --> 00:25:44.492
And so when people say, yeah, difficult to work with a hard-edged woman, okay, but hello.

00:25:44.492 --> 00:25:51.520
Okay but hello.

00:25:51.520 --> 00:25:52.843
Incredibly loyal, incredibly trustworthy, incredibly.

00:25:52.843 --> 00:25:54.988
I mean this woman greenlit Star Trek, she greenlit Mission Impossible.

00:25:54.988 --> 00:26:00.847
I mean, come on, she was running the show when these things were developed and she said, yeah, let's keep that on.

00:26:00.847 --> 00:26:03.042
Okay, what a genius really.

00:26:03.042 --> 00:26:03.785
In so many ways.

00:26:04.146 --> 00:26:11.087
I was actually just going to touch on Star Trek, because I don't know if many people know that Star Trek was not going to happen and Lucy's the one that kind of made it happen.

00:26:11.528 --> 00:26:12.912
Not at all Too expensive.

00:26:13.172 --> 00:26:15.585
Yeah, If you guys want to look it up, if you Star Trek fans.

00:26:15.585 --> 00:26:16.548
Thank Lucy.

00:26:17.650 --> 00:26:18.873
Absolutely, Absolutely.

00:26:18.873 --> 00:26:20.926
Lucy was yeah, it was too expensive.

00:26:20.926 --> 00:26:25.630
They didn't want to do anything after the pilot and she said I think there's something there, let's go ahead and do it.

00:26:25.630 --> 00:26:27.480
Gene Roddenberry, go ahead.

00:26:28.102 --> 00:26:29.404
We know there was I Love Lucy.

00:26:29.404 --> 00:26:36.891
Everybody knows I Love Lucy but her other two shows, the Lucy Show and here's Lucy all three of those shows ran for six seasons.

00:26:36.891 --> 00:26:42.978
Why I talk to people they don't even know the Lucy Show or here's Lucy exists.

00:26:42.978 --> 00:26:44.702
I remember watching them with my mom.

00:26:45.285 --> 00:26:46.910
It's a knife in my heart, Brad.

00:26:47.800 --> 00:26:52.089
And you really have obviously a deep love for the Lucy Show.

00:26:52.089 --> 00:26:53.532
What is it about the Lucy Show?

00:26:54.180 --> 00:26:57.288
I have a deep love for the first three seasons.

00:26:57.548 --> 00:26:58.511
Yeah, I know, it changed.

00:26:58.700 --> 00:26:59.623
Of the Lucy Show.

00:26:59.623 --> 00:27:13.713
I think that if you talk to practically any Lucy fan, as we're called, our affinity is for the first three seasons because of Vivian Vance, because the Lucy show is, in essence, particularly in its first year.

00:27:13.713 --> 00:27:22.804
Particularly in its first year is like Lucy and Ethel distilled to a fine wine Because there's no Ricky and Fred to get in the way.

00:27:22.804 --> 00:27:25.030
Now I love Lucy, love Lucy.

00:27:25.231 --> 00:27:36.688
I am a huge I Love Lucy aficionado, but there are times when I would rather watch the first season of the Lucy Show because you're getting that relationship distilled to its purest form.

00:27:36.688 --> 00:27:43.449
These two women were as much a comedy team as Laurel and Hardy, you know, as Abbott and Costello I mean.

00:27:43.449 --> 00:27:56.326
These women worked so brilliantly together and in the Lucy show in particular, you find that because there's no distractions of husbands or anything else, you know it's them together.

00:27:56.326 --> 00:27:58.672
Here's Lucy, not so much.

00:27:58.672 --> 00:28:01.685
The thing is, is that the unfortunate thing about Lucy is?

00:28:01.685 --> 00:28:06.951
And the unfortunate thing that happens with a lot of people, I think, who are successful is she didn't want to stray from the formula.

00:28:07.660 --> 00:28:16.414
You know she, even though times were changing, it was more and more difficult as the years went on for her to change with the times.

00:28:16.414 --> 00:28:23.673
And the big thing is is she lost a very crucial element in that whole thing, which was Desi Arnaz.

00:28:23.673 --> 00:28:26.488
Desi Arnaz created.

00:28:26.488 --> 00:28:29.801
There would be no Lucy without Desi.

00:28:30.323 --> 00:28:36.222
I mean, he was the mastermind, the genius behind I Love Lucy, as we all know, along with Jess Oppenheimer.

00:28:36.222 --> 00:28:44.471
But when the Lucy show came about, even though they were divorced and Lucy was remarried to Gary Morton, he was still the executive producer.

00:28:44.471 --> 00:28:48.643
He was still very much in his mind because he still ran Desilu.

00:28:48.643 --> 00:28:50.328
They were still working, running the studio.

00:28:50.328 --> 00:28:58.800
It was very much in his mind that this new series, without him being Ricky, without him on air, would be launched in the proper way.

00:28:58.800 --> 00:29:03.345
And then he left after a few weeks and sold Desilu to Lucy.

00:29:03.345 --> 00:29:04.787
She bought him out weeks and sold Desilu to Lucy.

00:29:04.787 --> 00:29:05.446
She bought him out.

00:29:05.446 --> 00:29:15.076
So when she lost Desi as a executive producer, that's when the series really started to go downhill, but it's still there in its essence.

00:29:15.076 --> 00:29:21.003
So I don't know if I answered your question.

00:29:21.023 --> 00:29:22.549
I went off on a Desi Arnaz tangent, but that's how I feel about it.

00:29:22.549 --> 00:29:23.714
No, no, it actually does answer the question.

00:29:23.714 --> 00:29:25.342
And for those unfamiliar Lucy, I Love Lucy.

00:29:25.342 --> 00:29:28.289
I think ended around 1958 or so 57.

00:29:28.470 --> 00:29:29.152
57.

00:29:29.152 --> 00:29:31.387
And then there were three years of specials.

00:29:31.539 --> 00:29:35.184
Yeah, they ran those one hour specials they divorced in 60.

00:29:35.184 --> 00:29:37.025
Yeah, and then the Lucy show ran in.

00:29:37.025 --> 00:29:38.410
62 is when it started.

00:29:38.660 --> 00:29:40.202
Right 62 to 68.

00:29:40.202 --> 00:29:41.744
And then here's Lucy.

00:29:41.744 --> 00:29:45.592
The only reason that you say six seasons, it just kind of worked out that way.

00:29:45.592 --> 00:29:51.945
The reason that the Lucy show stopped at six seasons and then became here's Lucy is because Lucille Ball sold Desilu.

00:29:51.945 --> 00:30:03.006
So because Lucille Ball sold Desilu, she no longer owned the product, so she had to create a new series in order to own it, otherwise Paramount would have owned it.

00:30:03.359 --> 00:30:05.828
And the series was still a pretty big hit when that happened too.

00:30:06.119 --> 00:30:08.489
Oh, it was the tie rated in this last year.

00:30:08.489 --> 00:30:11.026
The last season of the Lucy show was its highest.

00:30:11.026 --> 00:30:16.931
It was like number two Doesn't mean it was quality-wise, it was necessarily but it was its highest rating.

00:30:16.931 --> 00:30:19.987
And she also wanted to work with her kids.

00:30:19.987 --> 00:30:21.925
You know she wanted a new format.

00:30:21.925 --> 00:30:22.901
She wanted to work with her kids.

00:30:22.901 --> 00:30:28.470
She had these two kids who were clearly very talented and you know, she wanted to keep them busy.

00:30:28.470 --> 00:30:32.035
And so that's how here's Lucy came about and she worked with the kids.

00:30:32.200 --> 00:30:35.205
And I always heard that that's the whole reason why she stopped the Lucy show.

00:30:35.205 --> 00:30:35.566
I didn't know.

00:30:35.566 --> 00:30:36.327
I had to do with selling.

00:30:36.347 --> 00:30:38.491
The studio was she wanted to work with the kids.

00:30:38.491 --> 00:31:05.590
She wanted to work for the kids.

00:31:05.590 --> 00:31:10.630
They're very talented kids and, let's face it, the format pretty much had run out of steam.

00:31:10.630 --> 00:31:20.586
But if you watch the early here's Lucy's it's still pretty much Lucy Carmichael and Mr Mooney, except their names are now Lucy Carter and Harrison Carter.

00:31:20.586 --> 00:31:28.803
It's the same format, it's just different names, and now there's two adult kids as opposed to two teenage kids, or teenage-ish.

00:31:28.823 --> 00:31:32.611
Yeah, and to catch some of you up on, Here's Lucy Desi Arnaz jr.

00:31:32.611 --> 00:31:36.385
And Lucy Arnaz played her children on the show.

00:31:36.385 --> 00:31:38.089
Her real children played her children on the show.

00:31:38.089 --> 00:31:43.991
Desi arnaz jr was on for a few seasons and then he left, and I think they only referred to him now and again.

00:31:43.991 --> 00:31:50.111
Lucy Arnaz stayed through the whole thing, though they did do a pilot for her own show lucy jr.

00:31:50.131 --> 00:31:54.186
Yeah, yeah, they did and they did what's called a backdoor pilot, where you do one episode of the show.

00:31:54.186 --> 00:31:55.470
That's really kind of a pilot.

00:31:55.470 --> 00:31:56.601
It was awful right.

00:31:56.821 --> 00:32:04.445
I don't know if you saw it it was awful, and then lucy broke her leg, so that there's, you know, there's, the backstory to that was the pilot was how it's.

00:32:04.445 --> 00:32:05.047
You know what?

00:32:05.047 --> 00:32:05.929
It's Lucille Ball.

00:32:05.929 --> 00:32:07.873
If she wants to do a pilot, it'll happen.

00:32:07.873 --> 00:32:10.817
You know what I mean, even if it wasn't a great pilot.

00:32:10.817 --> 00:32:13.262
If she's behind it, cbs is going to put it on.

00:32:13.262 --> 00:32:26.674
But Lucy broke her leg, so suddenly Lucy Arnaz was needed very much to be back in Here's Lucy and that's why one of the real reasons that pilot never happened was because Lucy broke her leg.

00:32:26.674 --> 00:32:32.672
So Lucy Arnaz had to kind of step up and be a guiding force in the here's Lucy show.

00:32:32.692 --> 00:32:36.405
Ah, that's why, Because I didn't even know when I first read that there was this pilot.

00:32:36.405 --> 00:32:40.204
I had to look it up on YouTube and I'm like, oh, I see why that didn't make it.

00:32:41.127 --> 00:32:41.930
Yeah, it's not a good pilot.

00:32:41.930 --> 00:32:42.692
It's not a good pilot.

00:32:42.692 --> 00:32:51.762
She's amazing, she's always amazing.

00:32:51.762 --> 00:32:54.250
She's one of the most talented people and sadly well, not maybe sadly underused, but I love.

00:32:54.250 --> 00:33:01.692
You know, she's an incredible woman, she's a force, I'll tell you, to interview her is something, but, as I imagine her mother was, she knows what she wants and she, you know, she's not afraid to tell you.

00:33:01.692 --> 00:33:04.005
She's very kind and a very lovely woman.

00:33:04.005 --> 00:33:11.883
But she's so funny and I mean just talking with her in normal conversation, you get this humor and you're like why aren't you?

00:33:11.883 --> 00:33:13.670
Where was your sitcom?

00:33:13.670 --> 00:33:14.603
Where was your?

00:33:14.603 --> 00:33:15.023
You know?

00:33:15.023 --> 00:33:19.167
But she liked the stage, she did some amazing stuff on stage and she still does.

00:33:19.167 --> 00:33:22.105
You know, in Palm Springs, in your area, she does a lot of great stuff.

00:33:22.800 --> 00:33:25.794
You have like a 20 minute documentary with her, don't you?

00:33:26.576 --> 00:33:27.279
Well, we have an interview.

00:33:27.279 --> 00:33:42.501
When I did, uh, the Lucy show, when CBS decided to release the Lucy show on DVD, I was hired to be the host by a wonderful man named Tom Watson, who was the producer of them, and we'd never met before.

00:33:42.501 --> 00:33:57.023
He'd seen some of my stuff, but ironically he was the president of the we Love Lucy fan club back in the 70s and I was a charter member, so I knew who he was and so we formed this great partnership.

00:33:57.023 --> 00:34:02.799
He's an incredible producer and he produced these DVDs of the Lucy show and season one.

00:34:02.799 --> 00:34:10.943
I interviewed Lucy Arnaz and I interviewed Jimmy Garrett, who played Lucy's son, jerry, in the Lucy show.

00:34:10.943 --> 00:34:12.226
And season two.

00:34:12.226 --> 00:34:23.668
I interviewed Carol Cook and Barry Livingston, and then we started to run out of people because there weren't a lot of people around by this point to talk to, you know, which is unfortunate.

00:34:23.668 --> 00:34:25.594
So we only did three seasons of that.

00:34:25.594 --> 00:34:26.918
But yeah, that was an incredible interview.

00:34:26.918 --> 00:34:32.802
The woman's insight into her mother and her frankness and her honesty were really wonderful.

00:34:33.364 --> 00:34:50.364
Well, I want to make sure we talk about the book that you co-wrote with Jerry Torrey, but I do have to say one more thing Gail Gordon, who played TJ Theodore J Mooney in the um the Lucy show and later went on to hear Lucy as a different character, a different name, not a different character.

00:34:50.614 --> 00:34:52.021
A different name, same character, different name.

00:34:52.021 --> 00:34:53.340
A little more bombastic.

00:34:53.894 --> 00:34:55.922
But yes, he and Lucy were friends.

00:34:55.922 --> 00:34:58.181
They were back in radio together, were they not Right?

00:34:58.181 --> 00:34:59.043
They were friends for years.

00:34:59.164 --> 00:35:01.280
Oh yeah, he was supposed to be Fred Mertz.

00:35:06.755 --> 00:35:10.188
She wanted him to be Fred Mertz, but he wasn't available and also Desi was very insistent William Frawley, as I understand.

00:35:10.208 --> 00:35:11.351
Yeah, well, Desi loved William Frawley.

00:35:11.351 --> 00:35:12.695
He thought William Frawley was perfect.

00:35:12.695 --> 00:35:14.519
But Lucy wanted Gail Gordon.

00:35:14.519 --> 00:35:19.655
Again, if Lucy liked you, you were with her forever.

00:35:19.655 --> 00:35:24.244
Yeah, if she respected you, she wanted you with her and she loved Gail Gordon.

00:35:24.244 --> 00:35:25.827
They were friends and they did radio together.

00:35:25.827 --> 00:35:28.471
But he couldn't do, he couldn't play Fred Mertz.

00:35:28.471 --> 00:35:31.858
So they got William Frawley, who Lucy had worked with at MGM.

00:35:31.858 --> 00:35:33.222
So she knew Bill Frawley.

00:35:33.222 --> 00:35:36.817
But Bill Frawley was an alcoholic, it was well known and he was irascible.

00:35:36.817 --> 00:35:38.398
He was exactly like Fred Mertz.

00:35:38.398 --> 00:35:47.030
And Desi said to him look, amigo, you know, if you miss more than you know a few episodes because you're drunk, you're out of here.

00:35:47.030 --> 00:35:53.197
And he never missed an episode.

00:35:53.197 --> 00:35:54.141
He was I mean letter perfect always.

00:35:54.141 --> 00:35:55.206
And that was a real friendship those two.

00:35:55.226 --> 00:35:55.989
I thought that was very touching.

00:35:55.989 --> 00:36:00.224
It was a classic cast, so I will admit Fred was way too old to be Ricky's friend, but that's a whole different story.

00:36:01.076 --> 00:36:08.402
And also too old, and Vivian Vance would have agreed with you, because you were way too old to be Vivian Vance's husband, and she wasn't too happy about that either.

00:36:08.574 --> 00:36:10.663
Yeah, I know she wasn't too thrilled with that whole situation.

00:36:10.663 --> 00:36:14.505
But the only reason I wanted to bring up Gale Gordon is I liked him so much as an actor.

00:36:14.505 --> 00:36:16.842
My second novel I write mysteries.

00:36:16.842 --> 00:36:38.938
One of the main characters is a producer, a big Hollywood producer, and I originally wrote him as being kind of a gruff, rumbling individual and I named him TJ Moody and his deceased ex-wife was named Lucille and only one person caught it.

00:36:38.938 --> 00:36:43.577
Only one person wrote this is the TJ Mooney and Lucy and I'm like, yeah, but anyway, in the end the guy was not bumbling, he's still gruff, but I took out the bumbling part.

00:36:44.199 --> 00:36:45.603
He was wonderful as Mr Mooney.

00:36:45.603 --> 00:36:47.907
I loved him as Mr Mooney in the early seasons.

00:36:48.135 --> 00:36:48.817
He was awesome.

00:36:48.817 --> 00:36:51.085
They played off each other really well.

00:36:51.514 --> 00:36:53.000
They played out for each other really really well.

00:36:53.000 --> 00:36:54.505
Yes, they were a dream team.

00:36:55.155 --> 00:36:56.260
So let's talk about your book.

00:36:56.260 --> 00:36:58.722
Okay, what do you want to know?

00:36:58.722 --> 00:37:00.358
The Marble Fawn of Grey Gardens.

00:37:00.958 --> 00:37:06.869
Right, right, the Marble Fawn of Grey Gardens, which I co-wrote with Jerry Torrey, who is the Marble Fawn, the one and only.

00:37:06.869 --> 00:37:19.045
And those unfamiliar with the Grey Gardens give us a run, because I know there's been a play and I believe at least two movies have been written about the Grey Gardens.

00:37:19.045 --> 00:37:19.407
Yeah, there's been.

00:37:19.407 --> 00:37:19.947
Yeah, grey Gardens.

00:37:19.947 --> 00:37:20.489
Okay, Grey Gardens.

00:37:20.489 --> 00:37:34.208
For the few people out there who don't know about Grey Gardens, 1975 documentary by David and Albert Maysles, that is basically one of those fly-on-the-wall documentaries about Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, Edie, also named Edie.

00:37:34.208 --> 00:37:47.847
So one is Big Edie, one is Little Edie and they are the cousins of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and they live in absolute degradation and squalor in this dilapidated mansion in East Hampton.

00:37:47.847 --> 00:38:02.068
So it's kind of a mind-blowing look into the private lives of these two iconoclastic women who speak like they're Tennessee Williams heroines whose command of the language is beyond anything.

00:38:02.068 --> 00:38:08.166
But meanwhile cats are going to the bathroom around them and there's cat food cans piled up and there's raccoons running around.

00:38:08.166 --> 00:38:10.489
I mean it's absolutely mind-blowing.

00:38:10.775 --> 00:38:13.782
It's a documentary and it has inspired a documentary sequel.

00:38:13.782 --> 00:38:16.617
There's the Drew Barrymore Jessica Lange film.

00:38:16.617 --> 00:38:18.262
There was a Broadway musical.

00:38:18.262 --> 00:38:23.722
There's hopefully going to be a TV show of our book which we're pitching right now.

00:38:23.722 --> 00:38:29.440
So yeah, they're very much iconoclasts and touchstones for a lot of gay men too.

00:38:29.440 --> 00:38:31.925
The gay men love Lilitle Edie very much.

00:38:31.925 --> 00:38:34.356
She's an icon and your core author.

00:38:34.498 --> 00:38:36.463
Jerry, he's the fun.

00:38:36.463 --> 00:38:38.315
He actually worked in the gardens there, Is that correct?

00:38:38.615 --> 00:38:41.862
For anyone who's seen the documentary or the musical.

00:38:41.862 --> 00:38:44.105
Jerry is the handyman.

00:38:44.105 --> 00:38:45.887
Jerry is the caretaker of the house.

00:38:45.887 --> 00:38:52.766
He's this young, adorable 16-year-old runaway, basically, who helps the women out of the house.

00:38:52.766 --> 00:38:54.856
Edie calls him the Marble Fawn.

00:38:54.856 --> 00:39:04.527
She comes up with this nickname which is a Nathaniel Hawthorne book about, and in this book there's actually a real statue of the Marble Fawn and it looks like Jerry.

00:39:04.527 --> 00:39:12.157
So he gets that nickname because he resembles him and Jerry's just kind of like an adjunct to these two women and their story.

00:39:12.197 --> 00:39:17.597
So in our book Jerry has an entire story about his life before and his life during.

00:39:17.597 --> 00:39:23.697
I like to say there's so much that happened before the camera showed up, what we see at Grey Gardens, there's a whole backstory to everything.

00:39:23.697 --> 00:39:35.190
So in our story, in the book, in the story it's about his dealings with these women, but it's about his entire life and it's kind of like a universal story in my opinion, because Jerry's an out and proud gay man.

00:39:35.190 --> 00:39:42.998
He was closeted during that time when he was a young boy, but it's about reclaiming your identity.

00:39:42.998 --> 00:39:43.780
It's about accepting yourself.

00:39:43.780 --> 00:39:46.623
It's about the family you create versus the family that you're born into.

00:39:46.623 --> 00:39:47.744
It hits on all these subjects.

00:39:47.744 --> 00:39:50.949
He also dealt with the AIDS crisis in the 80s.

00:39:50.949 --> 00:40:01.277
He's HIV positive, he deals with that every day and he also has his issues with substance abuse.

00:40:01.277 --> 00:40:03.380
So it hits all these things, this little book, and he's a remarkable guy.

00:40:03.380 --> 00:40:06.545
He's a remarkable human being and a remarkable character.

00:40:06.545 --> 00:40:09.070
As Edie said, an extraordinary character.

00:40:09.715 --> 00:40:15.431
So the TV show that you're proposing, or I don't know if you're talking about a movie or a TV series?

00:40:15.592 --> 00:40:16.434
We were talking about a series.

00:40:16.434 --> 00:40:17.737
A series, are you looking at?

00:40:18.257 --> 00:40:20.443
it being more focused from his perspective.

00:40:26.059 --> 00:40:26.579
Right, it's his story.

00:40:26.579 --> 00:40:32.226
So basically it's his story with Grey Gardens as the centerpiece, because his story, as in the book, like I said, encompasses so much more than just Grey Gardens.

00:40:32.226 --> 00:40:43.197
Yeah, it's kind of got this cool background on these two iconic women that everybody and most gay men know.

00:40:43.197 --> 00:40:44.945
But it's his life with them and his life up to that point in his life.

00:40:44.945 --> 00:40:46.494
Afterwards he also had incredible happenings in his life.

00:40:46.494 --> 00:40:48.664
He had an affair with Waylon Flowers and Madam.

00:40:48.704 --> 00:40:50.976
I don't know if you you probably know who Waylon Flowers was.

00:40:50.976 --> 00:40:52.298
He was this crazy.

00:40:52.298 --> 00:41:02.768
I hate to call him a ventriloquist because he was so much more, but he had this puppet named Madam who was kind of this foul-mouthed hand puppet which he would.

00:41:02.768 --> 00:41:03.777
He was on Hollywood Squares.

00:41:03.777 --> 00:41:04.818
He had his own TV show.

00:41:04.818 --> 00:41:05.920
You know he had dealings with them.

00:41:05.920 --> 00:41:18.865
But it's really about it's really a personal story of his acceptance of who he is that we all go through as gay men, we all go through as people, I think, accepting who we are, as opposed to running away from it.

00:41:18.865 --> 00:41:36.938
And for many years he ran away from his identity in his connection to Grey Gardens, and then he began to embrace it when he realized what it meant to people, when he realized the joy that these two crazy individualistic women have for a lot of people.

00:41:36.938 --> 00:41:42.777
Their story could have gotten a lot of people down, but they never say die.

00:41:42.777 --> 00:41:49.663
The Beals are survivors in the most ludicrous of circumstances, and I think that's what makes people so drawn to them.

00:41:50.275 --> 00:41:54.376
Well, I like the whole idea of it from being a different perspective than has already been betrayed.

00:41:54.376 --> 00:42:00.197
If you will come back as my guest, I'd love to have you back, but there is because I could go on forever.

00:42:00.197 --> 00:42:15.789
This could be a mini series, but I do have one question for you of the many that I want to ask, based on LGBTQ actors and portrayals from the not-too-distant past to today, where do you see things have gone?

00:42:16.855 --> 00:42:29.170
Oh, I think we've made huge steps, huge I don't know about leaps, I would say big steps forward in movies and certainly in television.

00:42:29.170 --> 00:42:33.965
When I started acting, I couldn't be an out gay actor and expect to work.

00:42:33.965 --> 00:42:43.155
You know, I had agents, managers who told me no, no, no, no, no, you can't, you have to play the game, and that's unfortunate, but that's the way it was.

00:42:43.155 --> 00:42:45.518
There were no very few.

00:42:45.518 --> 00:42:51.202
I rack my brain to try to think of an out gay actor in the early 90s.

00:42:51.202 --> 00:42:58.766
I mean, ian McKellen came out, but that was later and that was because he was urged to by Armistead Maupin, his friend who wrote Tales of the City, he Bomer.

00:42:58.766 --> 00:43:00.688
You have people like Neil Patrick Harris.

00:43:00.688 --> 00:43:11.813
You have people like Jonathan Bailey who are out proud, and I'm missing some Tuck.

00:43:11.833 --> 00:43:18.818
Watkins some really wonderful, wonderful actors who are absolutely out proud gay actors, but they can play everything.

00:43:18.818 --> 00:43:24.539
That was the thing I always heard was that a gay actor can't play a straight person.

00:43:24.539 --> 00:43:29.235
Why, if I can play anything, I can play a straight person.

00:43:29.416 --> 00:43:31.382
We've been doing it for millennia.

00:43:31.422 --> 00:43:32.244
I did it for a long time.

00:43:32.244 --> 00:43:40.628
I did it for a long time and it's funny because why they say that and that they cast straight men to play gay.

00:43:40.628 --> 00:43:44.242
So if a straight man can play a gay man, why can't a gay man play a straight man?

00:43:44.242 --> 00:43:44.943
It doesn't make any sense.

00:43:44.943 --> 00:43:47.369
If a straight man can play a gay man, why can't a gay man play a straight man?

00:43:47.389 --> 00:43:48.471
It doesn't make any sense.

00:43:48.471 --> 00:43:48.871
You know we had Tom.

00:43:48.931 --> 00:43:49.893
Hanks, we had Robin Williams.

00:43:51.014 --> 00:43:52.173
They've all done it Too long for the whole cast.

00:43:52.474 --> 00:43:54.583
They've won Oscars for it.

00:43:54.583 --> 00:43:56.862
You know, Sean Penn won an Oscar for playing Harvey Milk.

00:43:56.862 --> 00:44:00.224
It was wonderful, but I would have loved to have seen a gay actor do it Okay.

00:44:00.224 --> 00:44:08.326
So explain to me that whole double standard about a gay actor can't play a straight actor.

00:44:08.326 --> 00:44:08.969
You know, it's just, it's insane.

00:44:08.969 --> 00:44:11.902
But we're doing better, it's getting better despite everything.

00:44:12.175 --> 00:44:16.621
I kind of agree with the Harvey Milk thing, except I think he did it brilliantly so I couldn't even imagine somebody else doing it.

00:44:16.621 --> 00:44:19.302
You know Rupert Everett did.

00:44:19.302 --> 00:44:23.951
He's most known for my Best Friend's Wedding, which was 1997.

00:44:23.951 --> 00:44:25.253
And he said coming out was the worst thing he ever did.

00:44:25.253 --> 00:44:29.440
It killed his career and I don't know if that's true, but that's what he said.

00:44:29.440 --> 00:44:32.666
It's like he was just a few years too early, if that's correct.

00:44:33.226 --> 00:44:35.170
Yeah, I heard that too and that's unfortunate.

00:44:35.170 --> 00:44:37.697
You know that is, but I don't know if that's true.

00:44:37.697 --> 00:44:43.885
I mean, don't you think the movie he did with Madonna was more detrimental to his career than coming out was?

00:44:43.885 --> 00:44:48.579
I mean, come on, he also did my Best Friend's Wedding and that was a huge hit.

00:44:48.840 --> 00:44:49.483
It was a huge hit.

00:44:49.855 --> 00:44:54.347
He was a gay in that, so I don't know that I necessarily agree with that.

00:44:54.675 --> 00:44:55.599
I don't know that I do either.

00:44:55.599 --> 00:44:56.762
I'm going to put it in a category.

00:44:56.762 --> 00:45:00.579
I'm going to really step on the line here because a lot of people aren't going to be happy with me.

00:45:00.579 --> 00:45:11.668
To me, I think of it similar to Ellen when Ellen came out on the Ellen show I don't know what went on behind the scenes, but she likes to blame the show being canceled because of her coming out.

00:45:12.217 --> 00:45:24.840
Anybody that's watched the show after she came out, the show got really boring yeah, it was 100 focused on her exploring being lesbian, which definitely should be a part of the show, but it wasn't funny right, right.

00:45:24.920 --> 00:45:27.907
No, it wasn't funny, so I so I mean, what's the real culprit here?

00:45:27.907 --> 00:45:29.717
Yeah, you know, is it a bad show?

00:45:29.717 --> 00:45:31.342
Or is it because you came out?

00:45:31.342 --> 00:45:33.186
I don't think I wasn't there.

00:45:33.635 --> 00:45:36.652
I loved the show till then, so to me that's the reason.

00:45:36.652 --> 00:45:40.097
But again, I don't know what went on behind the scenes, so I can't say for sure.

00:45:40.538 --> 00:45:43.460
I mean, Will and Grace ran how many years and it was a?

00:45:43.460 --> 00:45:47.045
It was a until it got bad, yes, Until it ran its course.

00:45:47.045 --> 00:45:50.047
It was a brilliant show, so I don't know that had anything to do with it.

00:45:50.047 --> 00:45:51.228
I think that that's an easy.

00:45:51.228 --> 00:45:52.690
It's an easy scapegoat.

00:45:52.690 --> 00:46:02.099
It's a scary thing, you know it's a scary thing, to come out in this business and expect to work.

00:46:02.099 --> 00:46:05.887
You probably will lose jobs, but you probably will also be more authentic to who you are and those jobs will be more.

00:46:05.887 --> 00:46:10.505
You know, I never booked anything that wasn't gay related, which is so astounding to me.

00:46:10.505 --> 00:46:15.481
I think about that Because I did a lot of plays, I did indie movies, and they were always gay related.

00:46:15.481 --> 00:46:24.266
But if I ever got to the point where I was up against a role against someone who identified as straight as far as I knew and it was a straight role I didn't get it.

00:46:24.266 --> 00:46:32.139
Now, was that because I was gay or because I was a lousy?

00:46:32.159 --> 00:46:32.260
actor.

00:46:32.260 --> 00:46:33.025
I don't know, but that's the way it is.

00:46:33.025 --> 00:46:33.708
I don't think I was a lousy actor.

00:46:33.708 --> 00:46:35.255
As long as Ryan Murphy around, people like Matt Bomer will always have a job.

00:46:35.255 --> 00:46:37.016
Yes, well, thank you.

00:46:37.016 --> 00:46:37.818
I hope so.

00:46:38.599 --> 00:46:40.543
I hope so.

00:46:40.543 --> 00:46:45.813
I'm not really acting anymore, but I'm always willing to take the call if it happens.

00:46:45.813 --> 00:46:47.237
I got a lot of other things happening.

00:46:47.539 --> 00:46:51.476
So I have some links in the show notes to your website and some of your social media.

00:46:51.476 --> 00:46:51.876
What is?

00:46:51.936 --> 00:46:53.159
the best place to reach you.

00:46:53.521 --> 00:46:59.619
The best place is through my website, which is my name, which is tony-miettacom.

00:46:59.619 --> 00:47:06.596
You have to have the dash in there, otherwise you go to my cousin's website and that's perfectly well and good, but you know he's going to.

00:47:06.596 --> 00:47:08.141
He's going to say hey, email this person.

00:47:08.141 --> 00:47:09.224
So that's the best way to do it.

00:47:09.224 --> 00:47:12.682
I have my YouTube channel, which is just my name Tony Maeda.

00:47:12.682 --> 00:47:14.648
You can IMDB me, tony Maeda.

00:47:14.648 --> 00:47:21.422
Everything's pretty much out there as Tony Maeda and I'll hear from you If you send me a message.

00:47:21.422 --> 00:47:23.045
You know, keep it clean, absolutely.

00:47:23.606 --> 00:47:32.867
Keep it nice, keep it nice, keep it nice, and I'll have all of that in the show notes and I'll have more about Tony and other things that we talked about on the website where we arecom.

00:47:32.867 --> 00:47:34.800
Tony, it's been a pleasure.

00:47:34.800 --> 00:47:36.860
I really appreciate you being on the show.

00:47:36.860 --> 00:47:37.422
It's been fun.

00:47:37.704 --> 00:47:38.264
Oh, brad, thank you.

00:47:38.264 --> 00:47:39.755
I've really had a great time.

00:47:39.755 --> 00:47:40.617
It's been great.

00:47:40.617 --> 00:47:41.458
I appreciate it.

00:47:41.458 --> 00:47:42.119
Yeah, absolutely.

00:47:42.119 --> 00:47:42.960
I'll come back sometime.

00:47:42.960 --> 00:47:46.264
Whenever you want to talk about old Hollywood, I'm here, I'm your man.

00:47:47.103 --> 00:47:50.889
You've done documentaries on many shows that I want to talk about, so, yeah, I'll probably have you back.

00:47:51.369 --> 00:47:56.498
Great, thank you, thank you, thanks everybody.

00:47:59.905 --> 00:48:01.248
Do you enjoy going to Hollywood?

00:48:01.248 --> 00:48:09.342
Well, of course you do, and Tony and I would like you to do something for us and, more important, for other podcast listeners out there.

00:48:09.342 --> 00:48:17.465
Go to Apple Podcasts, itunes, spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts, and rate and review this show.

00:48:17.465 --> 00:48:19.916
A five star would be especially nice.

00:48:19.916 --> 00:48:28.880
That way, when others are looking for a new show, they'll see ours and see those reviews and they will stop and listen and boy, that will make their day.

00:48:28.880 --> 00:48:30.684
It will be much appreciated.

00:48:30.684 --> 00:48:32.487
Thank you for being with us.