[00:16] Meg: Welcome to Desperately Seeking the 80s. I am Meg.

[00:19] Jessica: And I am Jessica. And Meg and I have been friends since 1982. We got through middle school and high school together here in New York City,

[00:27] Meg: where we still live and where we podcast about New York city in the 80s. I do ripped from the headlines, and

[00:34] Jessica: I do pop culture.

[00:36] Meg: First. I just want to say that we're back to our regular format. Yay. It was really fun to do a watch party.

[00:45] Jessica: I know how much you hated it. I'm sorry that you didn't like the movie, but. But it was interesting talking about it.

[00:51] Meg: Interesting. And other people like it just as much as you do, so I'm on the outs on that one.

[00:57] Jessica: Well, that's the nature of a cult film, isn't it?

[01:00] Meg: Right. True.

[01:01] Jessica: Divisive.

[01:02] Meg: Yeah. But I am just happy to get back to our regular format because I am so excited about the story I have for you.

[01:10] Jessica: When you are that excited, I have no choice but to be positively giddy. Okay, bring it.

[01:17] Meg: Let's do it.

[01:18] Jessica: Okay.

[01:29] Meg: Jessica, Meg, did you write a lot of letters?

[01:34] Jessica: Yes, I definitely did.

[01:36] Meg: Did you keep them? The ones that you received?

[01:40] Jessica: Yes.

[01:41] Meg: So you've got a bundle somewhere.

[01:43] Jessica: I do. I have. You know what I have in the storage for my unit in the building? I have a giant white box. It's like the size that a wedding dress comes in.

[01:56] Meg: Oh, my Lord.

[01:57] Jessica: Filled with papers from camp, from high school. Like, notes that were passed in class. I have a note from Regina saying that we should meet at, like, the Double Duck Deli after.

[02:11] Meg: Whatever. I love that.

[02:13] Jessica: Every scrap of paper that was, like, in a pocket or whatever, I always just had this feeling, like, just hang on to it. So it's in this coffin, basically, of

[02:25] Meg: my youth, waiting for your memoir.

[02:28] Jessica: My memoir.

[02:30] Meg: It's interesting because people now have emails and texts, and you think, okay, there's just going to be this record forever and ever of what people, how people corresponded. But we also have that to a certain degree with the letter situation, which.

[02:47] Jessica: Yes. Well, what I think is interesting about ephemera versus digital is that it even matters what the note was written on. Like, the paper itself. Like, I have letters from friends who are traveling, and it's on the hotel letterhead, or it's a postcard or it's a scrap of binder paper. And, like, oh, that binder paper was from that place around the corner.

[03:12] Meg: And I'll tell you the best example of that. Amanda and I started writing notes to each other on a roll of toilet paper that we pass back and forth to each other in class. So somewhere un. My mother has thrown it away, and that's kind of likely, but you never know. I held onto it for a really long time, but it was a full roll of toilet paper that we had written notes on each other and we just pass it back and forth and we would hand it off to each other because we weren't in the same class.

[03:42] Jessica: So you were scrolling it like a Torah because you had one side that was getting rolled while the other one was unscrolling. Very, very excellent. And you know what I got? You just reminded me my friend Gerard in college. He worked during the summer at his dad's law firm. And I don't know why they had it, but they had a printer that could print, you know, like a foot and a half, two feet across, and it was on a continuous roll. So downstairs I have a, like a poster roll that is filled with this letter from him that he did at his father's law firm, you know, on this wild printer.

[04:24] Meg: How did he mail it?

[04:24] Jessica: He must have been in the poster hole. In the poster roll? Yeah, he was in Kentucky for the summer at home and I was in New York and I got this blue poster roll in the mail and I

[04:35] Meg: was like, bring back letters.

[04:38] Jessica: I agree. Although, you know, I think that they like kids are still being sent. You, you would know more than I. But kids are still being sent to camp with like pre addressed, pre stamped postcards for their parents.

[04:50] Meg: Yeah.

[04:50] Jessica: So, you know, that's. Let's just keep them on that track.

[04:54] Meg: Last time I got a missive in the mail. I mean, I get thank you notes,

[04:59] Jessica: I guess, but rarely it's become like a text, like T, H, X, exclamation point. Great dinner.

[05:06] Meg: And actually I do get really, really lovely notes from friends. I do, like because of shows or because of birthdays or just because they're thinking of me. So cards are a thing rather than letters, I think.

[05:19] Jessica: Yes, I think cards, yes. The number of birthday cards that I even in this office is kind of shocking.

[05:27] Meg: My sources are Mommy Dearest, the book and film, the New York Times, the Guardian, and People magazine. You are like in suspended animation right now.

[05:42] Jessica: I'm just so happy. And you're gonna know why. But this is. This is miraculous.

[05:49] Meg: On September 16, 1981, Mommy Dearest, the film based on the Tell all book, Christina Crawford exposing her mother Joan Crawford's abusive behavior, opened exclusively in New York at a number of theaters, including the Orpheum on 86th and 3rd.

[06:08] Jessica: Nice.

[06:09] Meg: A favorite place of Ours in the neighborhood. The reviews were scathing. Quote, I can't imagine who would want to subject themselves to this movie. It's unremittingly depressing, not to any purpose of drama or entertainment, but just to depress it left me feeling creepy, said Roger Ebert. Vincent Canby of the New York Times said, it was an extremely strange movie, yet a peculiarly engaging film, one that can go from the ridiculous to the sublime and back again within a single scene, sometimes within a single speech. Variety said Dunaway does not choose scenery. Dunaway starts neatly at each corner of the set in every scene and swallows it whole, co stars and all. Pauline Kael had a more nuanced response, describing Faye Dunaway's performance as startling, ferocious. She brings off these camp horror scenes, howling no wire hangers and weeping while inflecting Tina, bring me the axe with the beyond the crypt chest tones of a basso profundo. But she also invests the part with so much power and suffering that these scenes transcend camp.

[07:34] Jessica: Damn. That's the review you want to get.

[07:37] Meg: This reaction was not what Paramount expected, but they saw an opportunity and grabbed it. A month after its release, they retooled their marketing campaign, leaning into the camp of it all. Ads proclaimed meet the biggest mother of them all.

[07:55] Jessica: Oh my God. I remember that. That was fantastic.

[08:00] Meg: Some featured wire hangers. Subtle, referencing the scene when Joan beats her 8 year old child with wire hangers. This was a step too far and the producers sued Paramount for $10 million to have the ads removed. Mommy dearest. The book was the first of a series of memoirs written by children of celebrities who had an axe to grind. Jessica, Meg. I have read the entire friggin book and it is massive, it is unrelenting, it is outrageous. The woman did not throw out one piece of paper and it's chapter after chapter after chapter of her mother's letter to her and her response and her mother's response. It is crazy. She also kept diaries, so it's just verbatim entries from her diaries.

[09:03] Jessica: Oh my God, she's a little. Anyway, wait. Might we say. Wait for it. Scarred.

[09:10] Meg: Yes, for sure, scarred.

[09:12] Jessica: And maybe something else too. It will drive you crazy being with Joan Crawford.

[09:18] Meg: All right. To the public. Joan Crawford was a glamorous film actress whose career spanned five decades, who was known for her style, her Oscar, her philanthropy, and for adopting four children. She was an unapologetic perfectionist in her professional life and the ultimate survivor. She was born into poverty, moved to New York to be a showgirl, made a name for herself in silent films and then got rid of her Southwest accent to be in talkies. Life magazine proclaimed her queen of the movies in 1937, but just a couple years later, she was box office poison. But Joan wasn't done. One writer said she had the dark diligence of a ditch digger. She won her Oscar for Mildred Pierce in 1945, dabbled in TV when most screen stars thought it beneath them, and laid her vanity aside to star and promote Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. And then she became the unofficial face of Pepsi Cola when she married Alfred Steele, the chairman of the board. And movie stars then would never put their face to a product that was not done done. But she was like, I do what needs to be done. I mean, there's something wrong.

[10:39] Jessica: I mean, to quote the film Don't Fuck with Me, Boys. So, yes, well done, crazy pants.

[10:47] Meg: Yeah. She was the first female on the board of directors. But that intrepid spirit and survival instinct did not make her a doting mother. According to Christina, she was sadistic, alcoholic, temperamental, violent, and exacting to the point of lunacy. Christopher, her second adopted child, agreed and recalled when Joan held his hand over a fire as punishment for playing with matches. The last two adopted children who do not appear in the film, by the way, twins Cindy and Kathy, had very different experiences of their mother.

[11:28] Jessica: This is a quote.

[11:29] Meg: Christina says Joan was rotten, and I say she was a good person. She was tough on us. Sure, you'd get a swat once in a while, but none of the physical beatings, the coat hangers. I just can't feel for anybody who would do that to their own mother. It's very immoral. I think Christina was jealous. She wanted to be the one person she couldn't be. Mother. I think she'll use Joan until she can't get any more good out of it. Then she'll dump her.

[11:58] Jessica: Wow.

[11:59] Meg: Christina's book was published in 1978, a year after Joan Crawford's death, which, incidentally, she died of a heart attack in 1977 in her apartment at 158 East 68th street, and her funeral was held at Frank E. Campbell, as one does. Christina sold the film rights to Paramount and at first was hired to write the screenplay. Franco Zeffirelli was slated to direct, and Anne Bancroft was to play Joan. That actually is great casting, I know, and probably a very different film indeed. But by 1980, both were replaced. Now Frank Perry was at the helm and Faye Dunaway in the title role. Christina worried that Faye was going to play Joan. As sympathetic and to avoid friction, the producers removed Christina from the production. So no more screenwriting credit for Christina. In the meantime, no one in charge seemed to know how to handle the physical abuse in the film. It is extreme to the point of being grotesque and without an artful hand. It makes sense that the movie audience was searching for a genre to contextualize

[13:21] Jessica: what they were seeing.

[13:23] Meg: This is what I'm imagining. Like, having also seen the movie this week. Is this like the CBS Evening News? Is it a horror movie? Is it an ABC movie of the week? What the fuck am I seeing here? Right? At the 40th anniversary screening, Guy Lodge of the Guardian described his experience. Quote, each time I've seen Mommie Dearest, its most violent scenes startle me anew. I find the harsh physical vigor of Dunaway's performance, combined with the piercing, uncontrolled sounding pitch of young actor Mara Hobel's screams, profoundly uncomfortable to watch and hear. Can I be alone in this discomfort? Or have audiences over the years collectively decided to override the film's gaze, making a joke of these scenes so as to make them easier to endure? Do you have any thoughts about that?

[14:26] Jessica: I do, actually, and I never thought that I would have thoughts about this. But from what you are reading and my memories of the movie, I think that. Who wrote that for the Guardian? Did you say who it was or was it just the Guardian? The journalist, Guy Lodge? Guy Lodge. I think that is one of the most astute observations I've ever heard. Because Mommie Dearest, in my understanding, has really slipped into. It's almost like, so you know how Charles Bush did all those characters that were based on Faye Dunaway, on Faye Dunaway's version of Mommie Dearest, of. What's her name?

[15:08] Meg: Joan Crawford.

[15:09] Jessica: Joan Crawford. I feel like in the 40 years since the movie came out, our pop culture has embraced camp of these 19. The campiness of these 1940s movies side by side with this film. And that looking at it and translating it into camp and silliness and is sort of inevitable. Like, I'm thinking about movies like, but I'm a cheerleader, you know, like these really over the top kind of social commentary. But that's using references from movies like this. But I think that the film at its core is almost unmanageable because it's talking about one of the worst things that a child can endure. Like, at the core of the film, it's horrifying abuse to an uncomprehending child. And the way that they dressed Mara Hubble for that scene also is. She looks like a baby. She looks younger than she actually is, the character. And so it's monstrous. And I think it succeeds so much in making Christina Crawford's point that it's unbearable and had to be recast.

[16:43] Meg: What do you mean, recast?

[16:45] Jessica: I don't mean recast with people. I mean it had to be reinterpreted. And Joan. Not Joan. Jesus. Faye Dunaway was legit scary. Like, there were scenes where you're like, oh, finally a screw came loose. Like, she's doing some method acting that has gone into some dark time, dark,

[17:03] Meg: dark place, and the camera stays on her way too long. The way that it is filmed is incredibly uncomfortable. And I don't think it was intentional. It is bizarro. And it's like, you know, I've watched American Horror Story. This in some ways is worse because it's real.

[17:21] Jessica: It's not Ryan Murphy. Murphy's blatantly camp candy colored, usually, you know, like Extravaganza of Doom.

[17:32] Meg: Rutania Alda, who plays Joan Crawford's loyal assistant Carol Ann, claimed Faye Dunaway was horrible to work with on set. Quote, people despised Faye because she was rude to people. Everyone was on pins and needles when she worked and relaxed when she didn't. Apparently, Faye deprived the other actors of screen time and insisted the cast turn their backs when not in the shot so she wouldn't have an audience. Honestly, that doesn't sound so bad to me. Like, she's. She's got a really hard job. Like, give her a little bit of grace here. I don't know. That doesn't. There are worse things than, like, trying to hold a film on your shoulders and going, can people not stare at me while I do this very emotional thing? Thanks.

[18:20] Jessica: You know, it has become so common, this idea of I'm going to live in the role until the role is done and that actor becomes, like, abhorrent on set. But who knows if that's what it really was like? Who knows? She could have just been griping because Faye Dunaway didn't get her a coffee.

[18:38] Meg: I mean, honestly, if she was abhorrent, I needed more abhorrent examples. I didn't feel like those examples were all that abhorrent.

[18:45] Jessica: Fair.

[18:46] Meg: For her part, Faye has declined to discuss the film. She has said briefly that she wished Frank Perry had been more experienced to know when actors needed to rein in their performances. And, quote, I think it turned my career in a direction where people would irretrievably have the wrong impression of me. And that's an awful hard thing to beat. I should have known better. But sometimes you're vulnerable and you don't realize what you're getting into. Christina Crawford called the film grotesque.

[19:19] Jessica: Interesting.

[19:20] Meg: It's not a very good movie. It switched the whole story from being the story of the child suffering the abuse and trying to live through it and survive, and to a woman of Hollywood who just wasn't obeyed and flew off the handle and had great makeup. I'm like, I don't know, Christina. I don't know if that's true. I mean, we saw it when we were kids, and it had its desired effect. Like, we were traumatized by it.

[19:50] Jessica: What I.

[19:51] Meg: The. The scenes that I remember are about the child abuse, not about.

[19:55] Jessica: Right.

[19:55] Meg: There's.

[19:56] Jessica: There's no one who walks away from mommy dearest being like, that's not a movie about child abuse. Like, it clearly is. The only thing that I can think of which may or may not be true, is that, you know, when people write their memoirs and, you know, I do this work with them, it's so, you know, every word, every nuance is me. Everything is a reflection of me. And it's that point of view exclusively. So the fact that that movie was not through a child's eyes might have been why she was so put out.

[20:32] Meg: Yeah, I think you're right that Joan Crawford was a character, that Joan Crawford's perspective was seen in any way. But I have to say, if we didn't see anything of Joan Crawford's perspective, it would be like the book, which, I'm telling you, is a slog.

[20:51] Jessica: It is.

[20:53] Meg: It's unreal. I know the girl was abused, all right? There's no question about it. But the way that she talks about it, I'm like, you gotta get it together, babe. Like, you sound like a brat. Like, it's. I'm on Joan Crawford's side. The book has the film. I was on Christina's side, the book, I'm on Joan's side.

[21:15] Jessica: Okay, that is pure comedy.

[21:19] Meg: It's chapter after chapter of, My mother didn't give me enough of an allowance.

[21:25] Jessica: What? Yeah, well, you know, that's.

[21:28] Meg: Her mother had to work for herself. She has a different perspective. She was like, when was she born? She. Okay, so Christina Crawford is a boomer, I believe, or maybe a little bit older. She's 84 now.

[21:43] Jessica: Oh, she's older than a boomer.

[21:45] Meg: Right, But. Okay, but. So her mother was a depression kid.

[21:49] Jessica: No, much, much older than that. Her mother lived through the depression as an Adult.

[21:53] Meg: Yes. So my point is that person raising that person, like they're gonna have very, very different attitudes about money.

[22:05] Jessica: Well, I mean, if nothing else, you started the segment by saying Joan Crawford was born into wild poverty and went to New York to hustle her ass to see if she could make a dime.

[22:18] Meg: So that to keep reinventing herself, I mean, that is not easy. No, I mean, and then her adopted daughter is just like, well, I don't want to get a job because I'm in school. I'm sorry. It's. Maybe if the memoir had been edited, it would have been more powerful, but right now, unedited, I just feel like she just had free rein in the 40s. I'm reading the 40th anniversary edition. So she put in extra chapters of how she didn't get a car for her birthday. I mean, it's so entitled. It's crazy.

[22:57] Jessica: Wow, that is so interesting because, I mean, and I don't doubt you for a second that that's never discussed. And maybe it's because no one reads the book. Maybe after the movie came out, the book was just like, not interested. The interesting. What is also interesting, just from a publishing perspective, is that she was the first to do this.

[23:19] Meg: I want to get into that.

[23:20] Jessica: Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

[23:21] Meg: So the popularity of this book and movie led to a string of tell all books in the 80s by celebrities. Kids, notably children of Bing Crosby, Bette Davis and Ronald Reagan.

[23:35] Jessica: Oh, oh my God. Ron Reagan Jr's book.

[23:38] Meg: Oh, boy. Privileged boomers. I'm using that as a loose term. And did not have picture perfect childhoods and had a lot to say about the alcoholism, physical abuse and emotional distance of their famous parents. Joan did not live long enough to read Mommie Dearest, but she may have heard rumors of it being written as she left Christina and Christopher out of her will. When asked in her lifetime about rumors of her being a strict parent, Joan said, quote, I've tried to provide my children with what I didn't have.

[24:22] Jessica: Beatings. Come on.

[24:28] Meg: Constructive discipline, a sense of security, a sense of sharing. Sloppiness has never been tolerated in our home, nor has rudeness. They're going into a world that isn't easy. A world where unless you are self sufficient and strong, you can be destroyed. I let Joan have the last word because Christina famously in the movie said she got the last word. Look, is she mother of the year new? Not by a long shot. But it. I have a more nuanced impression of the whole situation.

[25:09] Jessica: I just think it's fabulous that you have gone pro, Joan, in a mommy dearest segment. Like, it's so unexpected. It's, it's a bold choice. I think, you know, kudos for, for that.

[25:24] Meg: I mean, don't beat your children.

[25:26] Jessica: Oh, well, that's helpful. That's a good perspective. Yeah, yeah. You know, let's do a psa. Don't beat your kids. Don't be a Joan. See Joan. See Joan beat her kids. Don't be a Joan.

[25:38] Meg: Also, she was very emotionally distant. And I do think that that might have been somewhat of a generational thing. I'm just giving her a little bit of context for that.

[25:48] Jessica: Well, what I think, because I've been. You'll know why I have this comment in mere moments. But I think that these people who became stars at the dawn of Hollywood, who were from nothing, had nothing and were manipulated and controlled to the last bobby pin that went into their hair by the studios and the Judy Garlands of the world, they were. My impression is that these were basically children who arrived and were then systematically abused themselves by the system. And so by the time they're parents, it's like they're all fucked up anyway. They're already on the sauce because that's a. Hello, most common coping mechanism in America. And so you've got this, this group of, you know, hyper success. And it's also a certain personality to say, I'm gonna be a star. Like, there's a maniacal self focused drive that goes with that. That's a survival instinct. Right. And so what is that person as a parent like? Let's just ask that question. So you've got these kids who, who are this, you know, don't talk about what's going on. Like it's a. There was no therapy for these kids. There was no. I'm just gonna tell my teacher I need help. There was nothing, nothing, nothing. And so they had no recourse. And they had parents who were, if we're being super generous, struggling with their own PTSD after being made into commodities. They were no different than a bottle of Pepsi Cola. So that must be a fricking weird experience for everybody involved. So I think that's the warmest I can get for Joan.

[27:55] Meg: Yeah, I think she was a hot mess. I think she was temperamental and violent and alcoholic. No question about that. That is very well documented. I also think she was trying to do her best. And I've got, I've got some sympathy for her.

[28:13] Jessica: I just thought of something else about celebrities adopting children, which continues into the current day. It always sort of the question arises, why are you collecting so many children? Why are you adopting? Like, is this scenery? Like are you creating more of your image? And if the child gets out of line, it's like, oh, that, you know, the carpet needs to be thrown away cause there's a stain on it or whatever. Like the child is treated in the same way that the parent is by the studio or even as like a set piece.

[28:56] Meg: Well, certainly Christina accused Joan of adopting her just to get publicity. I think it's a more complicated situation than that. Absolutely. I don't think she just, I think she wanted love and she hadn't received love and she wanted love. I mean, you know, no one does

[29:17] Jessica: anything for just one reason. Human beings are not wired that way. I'm just putting into the mix that, you know, you have these four children and they have to look a certain way and they have to like the control.

[29:33] Meg: And we now know that that's not healthy. And we now know that that's not the best way to raise somebody with any kind of self esteem. But I'm also looking at the generation and going, did they really know that then? How were they supposed to know that if they hadn't been mothered themselves?

[29:51] Jessica: Well, that's the thing is that these aren't normal people.

[29:55] Meg: But also they're not normal people.

[29:57] Jessica: I mean, I mean they, they came into not because they weren't parent. It's like everything about them isn't normal.

[30:03] Meg: These people who became stars in that particular time period, children were supposed to be seen and not heard. That there was also child culture that is radically different from what we have now and what we grew up in.

[30:19] Jessica: Even certainly it was seen and not heard. I, I would imagine that there is a wide gulf of, between these very Victorian standards of the child is let downstairs to say goodbye, good night to the, you know, like, what's that sound of music? Like, you know, good night, sing a song, do a dance, get the hell out of here. Nannies taking you upstairs and you know, punching bag.

[30:48] Meg: So absolutely, I'm not a proponent.

[30:51] Jessica: I don't think you are. I don't think you are. I'm not saying that, I'm just saying that there's, it's really interesting, you know, that it's sort of like what are the social mores? I think it's that everyone knows, don't beat your children. I think it's more when you do. No one's gonna say nothing. No one wants to interfere, no one wants to get Involved. That's that family's problem. You know, it's like, what are you gonna do? Roll up to Joan's mansion and be like, christina has the black guy. I don't think that's so good. Where's that gonna go? Nowhere, Right?

[31:27] Meg: And she Also, in the 40th anniversary, she has some people write in and say, yes, indeed. I did notice this, and I noticed that, and I didn't feel comfortable saying anything. And I was being paid because I, you know, worked for the family and yada, yada, Just as a funny little side note. So you remember seeing it?

[31:48] Jessica: Definitely, yes.

[31:49] Meg: Okay, me too. I mean, I. I don't.

[31:51] Jessica: I mean, I remember cringing. I remember looking at it and being like, whoa, that's kind of fucked up.

[31:56] Meg: I don't think I have seen the movie more than I'm gonna say maybe twice, and certainly not for many, many, many, many years. I remembered every frame. I knew exactly what was coming up next. I knew the color of the tile of the bathroom before they were shot. The scene in the bathroom, it was, like, seriously branded itself on my brain. And my mom, when I was growing up, and she still does it sometimes. She signs cards. Mommie Dearest.

[32:28] Jessica: No, as a joke.

[32:29] Meg: It's funny.

[32:30] Jessica: Okay.

[32:33] Meg: I mean, and it was always our cute little, like, ha, ha, Mommy Dearest.

[32:39] Jessica: How revealing.

[32:41] Meg: But, like, now I want to ask her what she thought of the movie when she saw it as a mother of a small child. When it came out, like, what was it like to see it from. I don't know. From, like, another.

[32:57] Jessica: Wait, what year did it come out? The film?

[32:59] Meg: 1981.

[33:01] Jessica: So we were. So that's the other thing. Just about, like, kids going to the movies. We were not even teenagers yet when that came out. And there we were sitting in the theater, like, going to the move at what? Yeah, so that. That was crazy.

[33:22] Meg: Crazy. Crazy.

[33:23] Jessica: Cuckoo. Could chew. Joan.

[33:25] Meg: Highly recommended, though. Absolutely not.

[33:41] Jessica: At the end of every podcast, we talk about, like, what's the tie in? And sometimes we really have to work.

[33:48] Meg: True.

[33:49] Jessica: Today we don't.

[33:50] Meg: Okay. I had a feeling, the way you kept sort of, like, nodding and chuckling.

[33:55] Jessica: It's not about Joan Crawford. Do not worry. In 1981, on November 4th.

[34:02] Meg: Yeah.

[34:04] Jessica: Star of the silent films and star of theater, but not tv, Gloria Swanson held court at the New School to talk about her new memoir, Swanson on Swanson.

[34:21] Meg: Swanson on Swanson.

[34:23] Jessica: Yes. So this segment today took me on a rabbit hole of. Here's this. Now I've gotta look up this oh, my God. That was the. Oh, my God. Hold on. So we have a cavalcade of stars and of interesting tidbits about New York institutions. So Anna Quindlen wrote this article. It wasn't really a review. It was sort of a going on

[34:51] Meg: about town in 1981.

[34:54] Jessica: On November 4, 1981, this was in the Times. I'm going to start just by reading a little bit of what Anna Quindlen wrote. Because her piece was so fantastic. She looked good. That was what they had come for, really. Not to hear about how Cecil B. DeMille had called her young fellow or how Rudolph Valentino got to be her leading man, but to see how time which had passed over all of them, just as surely had treated her. The women who came to the New school to hear Ms. Swanson's lecture wanted to see her face. Meaning, and this is a reference to in Sunset Boulevard, she says, we had faces then. They wanted to see her face. And there are a lot of people there who wanted to know, has it been lifted? They were dying to see if it had been lifted, said Anna Quindlen. Quote, I've seen her on Merv and she looks pretty good for a woman of that age who hasn't had a little help, said Myrna Cohen, who at age 78 is only four years younger than Ms. Swanson.

[35:59] Meg: Okay, so they're trying to see what an 82 year old woman looks like in real life.

[36:05] Jessica: Yes, okay, but these. And what I loved about this piece, though, is that every woman who was there who was interviewed had been a young person, even a kid. Some of them whose first film was a silent movie. Cause think of the era, right? A silent film where Gloria Swanson was queen of the movies. So this was a huge, like going back into their own childhoods. But, you know, Gloria didn't have. She was amazing and she had all of her marbles. But you might not think it if you listen to some of the things that she said at the New School. So she says, I find actors looking an awful lot alike these days. She told the members of a class called Backstage on Broadway, which meets in the school auditorium. Especially the men with their black curly hair and their dark eyes. I don't know. I don't know one from another.

[37:03] Meg: Who is she talking about?

[37:04] Jessica: Christopher Reeve? I don't know. Some of the ladies applauded. They felt just the same. I know Robert Redford because he's blonde, Ms. Swanson added. And there was scattered applause. So I don't know who these dusky men are with Their curling black hair and black eyes like Gloria. You might want to keep that under wraps. Good Lord. And talking about the new school, Anna Quindlen said, there's a certain kind of adult education in New York City that has less to do with illumination and more with entertainment, which we know. The 92nd Street Y is a perfect example of this. The Learning Annex.

[37:47] Meg: Oh, my Lord.

[37:48] Jessica: My favorite is the Learning Annex. Remember when on Sex and the City, Carrie did a Learning Annex?

[37:53] Meg: We should do a story on the Learning Annex. Did it start in the 80s or was it in 90s?

[37:57] Jessica: It was. No, it was in the 80s. Let's do it. And so these women who came to see her had already seen Helen Hayes doing this, and their comment was lovely, but she dressed like a grandmother. And they saw Tony Randall not as nasty as on tv.

[38:18] Meg: How do they think Tony Randall's nasty?

[38:20] Jessica: Who knows? Says Louise Palazzo of Old Westbury, who was there with Nettie Stein. It was a fun night out for us. We drive in, we have dinner in the city. It's a ladies night out. Mrs. Palazzo and Mrs. Stein were not enamored of Ms. Swanson. For many of the women who came to hear her reminisce, her appearance was a cut above their other classes. It was not simply that there she was in person. When I'm here, I really feel like I'm in the audience on Merv, said Ms. Cohen. But that somehow Ms. Swanson meant something special to them. The first time I ever went to the movies, she was the one I saw, said Ann weber. It was 1927 and I was 10. Oh, maybe you shouldn't put that in. Everyone will know how old I am. Well, if she doesn't care, I don't. No one had the nerve to ask her about her plastic surgery, but she was well known for being almost vegan, for being a yogi and generally advocating a very healthy lifestyle. She's brought it all back to me, said Dee Besser, who had driven in from Long Island. I saw her in manhandled in 1924, never mind how old I was then. They just don't make movies like that anymore. Now the girls have their hair in their face or they're undressed. There's no style. Did you see how she had on the black gloves? But she only wore one and carried the other. That's what we all used to do, that style. So Gloria Swanson. Yeah. So Gloria Swanson was at the new school to flog her new book. And these women, I just fell in love with them because they Were like, we love you, but it was so New York. I was like, nettie Cohen has a lot of things to say, and she is very happy to share them with Anna Quindlen and anyone else. So settle in. Here we go.

[40:16] Meg: And they're, like, treating it like it's a class. Like they went to a seminar because

[40:20] Jessica: it's at a school. Precisely. And Gloria Swanson's like, yeah, I don't like the look of that guy. And I'm not going to talk about Rudolph Valentino, so fuck you. It was just. It built this picture that was so phenomenal. But reading this, I was like, okay, well, now I have to do a few deep dives for people who don't know what some of these people were talking about. So we're gonna start with what the hell does it mean to say I saw her on Merv?

[40:52] Meg: All right.

[40:53] Jessica: Okay. So Merv Griffin had his talk show on CBS and NBC from 1962 to 1986. If there was a talk show to end all talk shows, it was Merv Griffin. And he wound up producing tons and tons of shows, mostly game shows. He was the king of daytime television.

[41:19] Meg: A more affable person you could not find impossible.

[41:25] Jessica: But also a little. A bit of a suck up. Sure. And so being on Merv, yeah, everyone wanted to be. It was the biggest softball.

[41:35] Meg: Yeah, this is not hard hitting ever.

[41:38] Jessica: And he also had comedians, he had musical acts. Interestingly speaking of, you know, his proximity to entertainers. You know how Johnny CARSON Had Ed McMahon?

[41:51] Meg: Yes.

[41:52] Jessica: Well, the announcer for Merv Griffin, you may not know, was Arthur Treacher. Arthur Treacher Fish and chips. Wait for it. Yes. The English actor who in the 20s and 30s was well known for playing butlers. He even played Jeeves in 1936 in that film. Thank you, Jeeves. He was Constable Jones in Mary Poppins. And in the 1970s, he lent his name to the chain of restaurants, Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips. And it was so popular, there were 900 outlets across America. The last one standing as of 2020 in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.

[42:40] Meg: I mean, there is a period of time where I felt like there were more of those than there were Kentucky Fried Chicken.

[42:45] Jessica: Everyone was on the fish train. There was the Filet O Fish. There was Long John Silver's. There was Arthur Treacher's.

[42:54] Meg: And then, like, the lobster. You know, the lobster restaurant.

[42:58] Jessica: Oh, Red Lobster. Red Lobster. By the way, I wish that we had a little video here, because you doing lobster claws was absolute beauty. That was a Thing of beauty. Now, interestingly, in August of 1981. So just a few months before Gloria took the stage. Speaking of Merv, who is on Merv, but Jerry Seinfeld. And he later spoofed his time on the Merv Griffin Show. Cause he appeared more than once in season nine, episode six of Seinfeld, where Kramer finds the set of the Merv Griffin show and sets it up in his apartment and starts doing the show in his apartment. So that is the Jerry Seinfeld. Jerry.

[43:48] Meg: Love it.

[43:48] Jessica: The tribute. So then I started thinking about, like, you know, I went to Cardozo for law school, and the New School was right around the Corner, right on 12th Street. And I never really. I don't know why. I never gave the New School any thought. And if I did, I'm going to admit that I was like, huh? What the fuck is that bullshit? Like, I sort of became Cartman. I was like, hey, that's guys, I'm out of here. So I was like, that's nonsense. Well, guess what?

[44:19] Meg: What?

[44:20] Jessica: Boy, was I wrong. The New School is fucking fascinating. At the same time, originally the New

[44:27] Meg: School for Social Research.

[44:28] Jessica: It was. And then it returned to that. It changed names a few times.

[44:32] Meg: Was it socialist?

[44:34] Jessica: Get ready. Okay, okay. So at the same time that Gloria Swanson was gracing screens left and right. Cause in fact, Gloria Swanson. I'll get to this. I'll come back around to it. But she started in the movies in 1914. She was 15 years old. So that was like a movie, was like, stand in this bright light and I'll expose you to a negative. And now, well, we're gonna run it really fast in each direction. It's a movie. The way that it began was because in 1919 at Columbia University, two professors were chastised and one of them was actually thrown out. The other one resigned because they were criticizing Woodrow Wilson's involvement in World War I. And they were criticizing that Columbia was going along with suppressing criticism of Woodrow Wilson. So these two guys, you know, buggered off and started the New School.

[45:38] Meg: Oh.

[45:39] Jessica: And so that's how it began. It's these malcontents.

[45:43] Meg: But they were free speech advocates.

[45:46] Jessica: That too, but they. They were historians, social scientists. Like that was their thing. And that trundled along. They were building, you know, getting students. And the school was going great. In 1933, the university in Exile was created. It was aligned with the New School

[46:07] Meg: it was part of, and it was called that. University in Exile.

[46:11] Jessica: Yes. And it was created as a place of study and research for Jewish scholars thrown out of teaching positions in Germany and across Europe. As a response to Germany's antisemitic laws, in 1934, New York State chartered the University in Exile and began bringing over the University in exile teachers and students to New York. Their motto, the school's motto, to the Living Spirit, came from a plaque that was taken down by the Nazis at the University of Heidelberg. The plaque said, be the living spirit. In 1937, author Thomas Mann suggested the motto for the New School, and the school president adopted it. So from its inception, it's been focused on to your question, social research, the arts, economics, history, social science, design and more. The Stella Adler School of acting. Back to Ms. Swanson and her ilk is part of the New School. And Marlon Brando. And so many that, you know, you can look it up in like five seconds came out of that. And they loved it and it is revered. Back to Gloria Swanson. Now, here's a fun fact about her. She was born on my birthday. I was born on her birthday. But she's a March 27, 1899. She starred in the movies in 1914. What I didn't know about her. And you think about Sunset Boulevard, right? Like, how majestic she looks. Do you know how tall that woman was?

[47:53] Meg: I'm going to guess, go for it. I'm going to say 4 foot 9, 4 11.

[47:59] Jessica: Very good.

[47:59] Meg: She came short those days.

[48:01] Jessica: Microscopic, tiny, interestingly. And I didn't realize this, she was huge in the teens, the twenties, and the early thirties. She was the queen of pre Code movies. So do you know pre Code? The Hays Code? So the Hays Code was a decency code that the movie studios had to abide by. So if you see any movies prior to, like 1932, lots of sex and nudity and homosexuality and drugs, drinking, like, they are off the fucking chain. They're real, they're gritty. And then the Hays Code was like, nah, nah. And like, women were in charge, like, all kinds of stuff. And the Hays Code was like, we don't think so. And that's when everything began. Like Gloria Swanson noted, you couldn't even knit booties because it would imply that you had had sex and that you were having a baby because you had sex.

[48:59] Meg: Oh, my God.

[49:00] Jessica: Like, that's how completely bananas that was. And because she was a genius, she befriended Hayes. I forgot his first name of the code. And when she started her own production company, she made sure that he was on her side. And she would coax him and coach him through the scripts. So that she got away with more than other people did once he was doing his thing.

[49:26] Meg: What you gotta do.

[49:27] Jessica: Back to Joan Crawford.

[49:29] Meg: Yeah, I know.

[49:30] Jessica: You gotta suck some dick. You're gonna do it. So after the 30s, Gloria really didn't do much. And by the way, she was the top earner in Hollywood by far. This woman had more money than she knew it to do with. Fantastic. So then she's not really doing much, but. Da, da, da. In 1950. Actually, that was when it was released, so I guess 1949. The script for Sunset Boulevard comes knocking. So this movie comes out in 1950. Okay. It's filmed in 49. So the monster that is the ancient Norma Desmond is 50. Think about. Let's just. Let's just bring that in.

[50:16] Meg: I know. Whatever.

[50:17] Jessica: I'm not over it. You can be over it all you like.

[50:21] Meg: Did I say I was over it?

[50:22] Jessica: It'd be like, whatever. I'm like, you know, like, think about how things. Like how a woman at 50 is now like, you know, the golden girls, they're 50. Well, maybe 55, But. But they were not portrayed cruelly.

[50:43] Meg: True.

[50:44] Jessica: So I'm just.

[50:45] Meg: They were just poorly coiffed and dressed.

[50:48] Jessica: They had a grandma heir, not unlike Helen Hayes, as per Nettie Cohen.

[50:55] Meg: It's all on the styling.

[50:57] Jessica: So it was in 1925 that she started her own production company, Gloria Swanson Productions. She was married four times. The first marriage, she was 17 years old to Wallis Beery, who was so awful to her that that was not annulled, but that was one year and she was pregnant. And twice she had husbands who made her drink something horrible and aborted. So not good. She wound up having the final husband, being a peach. That was William Dufty. And William Dufty was a writer and he was a ghostwriter. And he was the ghostwriter who did Billie Holiday's Lady Sings the Blues.

[51:40] Meg: Ooh, wonderful.

[51:41] Jessica: He also was the ghostwriter for Swanson on Swanson, which is a book you can buy. It is still available, first editions on Abe Books, only. $37. You might wanna pick one up. So Gloria died of heart disease two years after she made this appearance in 1983. And she was interned at the Church of the Heavenly Rest on Fifth Avenue.

[52:06] Meg: So she died in New York.

[52:08] Jessica: Yeah.

[52:08] Meg: It's so interesting, these Hollywood women coming to New York.

[52:11] Jessica: Yeah, they're like, fuck these people. I wanna just like, have no one talk to me on the street. Ten years after her death, Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard premiered in London and came to Broadway in 1994, with sassy, brassy Patti LuPone originating the role in London. Also of interest to me as a publishing person. How did this book come about? So I found another article in the Times about the book. I kept on trying to find a review, and all I could find were these puff pieces. And she has a business partner at this time, the end of her life, named Brian Degas, who masterminded the entire book. Without telling her that he was gonna do this. He came up with a proposal. He went to Random House. He did like a 45 minute dog and pony show, and they agreed to it. In the description of him in the Times in 1981, it is so clear that he's also her walker. And it's just like. He just is like. And he calls her madam. And I was like, oh, Brian, that's nice. So he's the one who got the.

[53:19] Meg: That sounds nice.

[53:20] Jessica: Yes. Oh, and he also did the unspeakable. He got Random House not to look at the drafts because, and I quote, madam couldn't possibly write her story chronologically. So it was only after her husband and Brian and a team of whoever whipped it into shape that it was allowed to be seen. But Joan gets. Not Joan. See, this is how close Gloria gets the Last Laugh In 1980, November 1980, 130,000 copies are printed and sold, and it's a Book of the Month club selection, goes to paperback and stays in print for a very long time. So as a quick overview, just for funsies, because I kept a score starting with Nettie Cohen and complaining that she couldn't tell if Gloria had his facelift. The stars, the celebs who are mentioned in this are Gloria Swanson, Merv Griffin, Arthur Treacher, Jerry Seinfeld, Woodrow Wilson. Not a star, but notable. Patti LuPone, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Marlon Brando. So there you go. Thank you, new school.

[54:34] Meg: So the tie ins wrote themselves memoirs, Hollywood star memoirs.

[54:41] Jessica: Hollywood of the golden age of Hollywood memoirs.

[54:45] Meg: And that these women came to New York, that they wanted to live out their last decades in this magnificent city. Of course they did.

[54:54] Jessica: Wallowing in the anonymity. Ugh. Feh.

[54:58] Meg: You go to the 21 Club?

[54:59] Jessica: Yeah. You want to go to. You want to go to 21 and not give your daughter a dollar? That's. That's living. That's the high life. But isn't. Wasn't Pepsi New York based headquarters. Was that partly why Joan was.

[55:13] Meg: I know that she moved here for her husband, who was the CEO or co director or whatever of Pepsi. But they actually traveled a lot because Pepsi was distributing then, so New York was their home base. But really their job was to be on the road, like, selling the stuff. Like, he presented her to people in different countries to get them to, like, do Pepsi instead of Coke.

[55:41] Jessica: Fascinating. Yeah.

[55:42] Meg: No, she was like an ambassador. Truly an ambassador for Pepsi Cola.

[55:47] Jessica: Interesting. Yeah, Gloria was an ambassador for Gloria.

[55:51] Meg: I mean, I love that she has a husband and a walker.

[55:54] Jessica: I have two photos.

[55:55] Meg: That is the dream.

[55:56] Jessica: Yeah, it is the dream. Exactly. And they're both doing things for her for her book. One's writing it, the other one's selling it.

[56:04] Meg: My mind is blown.

[56:06] Jessica: Like, that woman knew what time it was. I'm just saying she had to go

[56:10] Meg: through a couple of duds before she realized who was a good person. It happens. It happens.

[56:17] Jessica: God willing. God willing. For every woman who has a dud or a series of duds that you get the prints. I also. I just want you to know that I have a photograph for the Instagram of the original hardcover book cover, the jacket, but also a photo of Gloria from late 70s. She is wearing an orange velour tracksuit. She's thin as a rail, and she has gold chains around her neck that makes her look like an OG rapper that are so. And one of them is like a really thick gold chain that has a giant G on it. And I was like, go, Gloria. And so much concealer under her eyes that it's white. And I'm like, yeah, you just. You just. You just serve it, sister. And she's so affable looking. And you're like, that doesn't look like normal Desmond. Oh. Oh. That was another thing about her performance as Norma Desmond. Someone affiliated with the film as a producer or something said that she had problems getting roles afterwards because people. She did such a good job. People thought that that's who she was.

[57:22] Meg: Well, that's what Faye Dunaway said.

[57:23] Jessica: That's another talent. That's why when you said it, I was like, so say, don't be too good at your job. I don't know. Is that the. Is that the note to end on? Probably not. Be good at your job up.