[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.

[00:23] We've gotten through middle school and high school together here in New York City, where we still live and where we.

[00:29] Meg: Podcast about New York city in the 80s 80s. I do ripped from the headlines and.

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

[00:36] Meg: Are we going to be so boring as to discuss the flies in the room just laughing?

[00:41] Jessica: Because the sidelong glance you just gave that asshole fly that only.

[00:47] So these two flies. I don't know if it's the same two flies because they should be. Isn't their life cycle really short?

[00:54] Meg: I don't know, but how could it be?

[00:57] Jessica: I was like so. So I was like, maybe they.

[00:59] They're like new flies.

[01:02] But since exactly two, it's been, well, it feels like years. Let's be honest,

[01:09] it might be like three days.

[01:11] But I'm just like these assholes.

[01:14] And I.

[01:15] As you just noted, I. I almost killed one of them with my satisflop.

[01:21] Oh, the jerk.

[01:23] Anyway, yes, I'm sorry that you walked into a trash heap that has fly. I'm like, well, I was thinking to.

[01:28] Meg: Myself when you ment. I was like, I'm fine with flies, whatever. And then I realized, no, they are a little annoying.

[01:35] Jessica: They're really.

[01:37] Meg: Especially when they're doing like drive bys like right in my face.

[01:41] Jessica: It's. They're not unlike the helicopters that have been circling around New York City for the last week.

[01:47] Meg: Why is that, do you think?

[01:48] Jessica: Well, it's more than a week the day didn't I. We talked about this the day before we went into Iran. We're not going to talk about it. That there were two huge military helicopters that just very blatant, blithely and hugely went right past my window.

[02:05] Like they were so close that it was weird. The kind that are people movers.

[02:11] Meg: I know what you're talking about.

[02:12] Jessica: Big green military. Cannot miss it. During the summer I tend to work in my living room instead of in my office. And so I've been sitting looking out the window and I've become obsessed with helicopter watching because it gives me a sense of control which I clearly do not have at all over anything ever,

[02:32] as is the human condition.

[02:34] Yet I'm like, if I can just see them, I'll know what's happening in the world. No, no,

[02:40] I do know there are a lot of helicopters.

[02:52] Meg: Jessica, you like a good mystery?

[02:55] Jessica: Why yes, Yes, I do.

[02:57] Meg: What is your favorite mystery? Literary detective. Oh, and try and go back to Your childhood. Let's keep it in the 80s for fun.

[03:09] Jessica: Well, Harriet the Spy.

[03:11] Meg: Ooh, good one. What about Agatha Christie?

[03:16] Jessica: Oh, I mean, the minute that, who was it Geraldine McEwan got on PBS as Ms. Marple, you know, that was.

[03:25] Meg: I love the Ms. Marple more than Hercule Poirot, except he's associated with such amazing actual stories.

[03:34] Jessica: But I just like her.

[03:36] Meg: I love her.

[03:36] Jessica: But I have to admit, and this is occasionally you and I have these wonderful moments of like,

[03:42] here's how we're different people.

[03:44] I love how fussy and irritable Hercule Varo is. He really speaks to me.

[03:52] And I love that it's London in the 30s. So the set design and the clothing and the hair and even the makeup is so great. The production quality is fantastic.

[04:06] So I love the coziness. And who doesn't love Miss Marple but David Suchet as Hercule Poirot.

[04:14] Meg: The waxed mustache.

[04:16] Jessica: So waxed. He looks so waxed that it looks like Mr. Potato Head.

[04:21] Meg: Any affinity towards Sherlock Holmes?

[04:24] Jessica: Massive.

[04:25] Massive. I read all of them and in fact, I may have told you this.

[04:31] My God, this is easily like 20 years ago, I think it was University of California,

[04:38] Berkeley,

[04:39] they published and printed and mailed out a serialization of the one or two Sherlock Holmes stories simulating the Strand newspaper as they were originally done. So of course I have those.

[04:56] Meg: Love that.

[04:57] Jessica: I love all of them. I just love a mystery.

[05:00] Meg: Excellent. Well, buckle your seatbelt.

[05:03] Jessica: Oh, I'm buckling up.

[05:05] Meg: All right. My sources are Psychology Today and mind Hunter.

[05:20] For two weeks in 1981, John Douglas and his colleague in the FBI, Bob Ressler,

[05:28] gathered a hundred NYPD detectives for a two week homicide school.

[05:35] What we now know is criminal profiling was in its nascency. And John and Bob were in New York to give a crash course on its concepts. I mean, can you believe, like something that.

[05:47] Now, how many shows do we see on CBS that are all about profiling?

[05:54] Jessica: Isn't it funny that it is?

[05:55] Meg: It's all on cbs.

[05:57] Jessica: It's so weird. It's like. Like who pitched something and then like really got their talons in?

[06:05] Meg: I mean, now is just second nature. I mean, everybody thinks of themselves as a profiler.

[06:10] But then in 1981,

[06:14] that was just not the case. It was unheard of. It was just not even a concept.

[06:19] Jessica: Did you know, I'm sure you did know this. That one of. God, I forgot what movie it is, but one of Ryan Gosling's early movies, it was him and Michael.

[06:30] Oh, fuck. He Played the rock star in Hedwig, the movie.

[06:36] They were serial killers being profiled by Sandra Bullock, I think. Okay, I think. But that sounds good. We'll check on that. But that was, like, I think,

[06:45] really early aughts. Who knows? I don't know how old Ryan Gosling is. Anyway, worth seeing. It's fun.

[06:50] Meg: Okay. The basic goal in profiling is to translate psychiatric terminology in the DSM 3. Because it was only 3 back in 1981.

[07:01] Jessica: Ah, so much more madness to find.

[07:04] Meg: Yes. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is the dsm. And do you know what we're up to now?

[07:13] Jessica: Six.

[07:14] Meg: We're at five. Six is going to be released this year.

[07:17] Jessica: Oh, I've been very excited about it. I've been following it. Any day now. We'll get six. I can't wait.

[07:25] Meg: So, yes, you have to translate. If you're profiling, you're translating the psychiatric terminology into recognizable crime scene indicators, if that makes sense. I think so.

[07:37] Jessica: Could you give an example?

[07:39] Meg: I'm about to. John and Bob and the rest of their behavioral science unit believed you could tell all kinds of things about a perpetrator from the crime scene,

[07:50] including his age,

[07:53] race, profession, even the color and make of his car.

[07:57] Whether he had a dog and what breed it was just from the crime scene.

[08:03] Jessica: That puts Sherlock Holmes to shame.

[08:06] Meg: But it's very Holmesy, isn't it?

[08:08] Jessica: It is quite Holmesian indeed. Actually, no, it doesn't put him to shame.

[08:12] Interesting,

[08:13] huh? Please continue. No, I'm. My.

[08:16] I'm, like, now going through the catalog of, like, all of the Holmesian stuff.

[08:21] Meg: Right.

[08:21] Jessica: Conan Doyle was ahead of his time.

[08:23] Meg: Yeah.

[08:25] So most local detectives and other FBI agents were skeptical and thought of profiling like fortune telling,

[08:33] an educated guess at best.

[08:36] But John insisted it was both an art and a science,

[08:41] and his track record backed him up. The most effective use of profiling was narrowing down a suspect list.

[08:50] Right.

[08:51] Or suggesting a suspect pool that otherwise would be overlooked.

[08:57] All right, Interesting things.

[09:00] One of the first lessons they taught was the distinction between organized and disorganized criminals.

[09:07] And the case study they used was a brutal murder in the Bronx that had just been solved a couple months earlier in December 1980.

[09:18] Jessica: Ooh.

[09:19] Meg: Now, this is going to be interactive. Jessica, I'm going to present to you the case and some profiling tools, and we'll see what you think happened. Okay.

[09:28] Jessica: Oh, this is such a gift.

[09:30] Meg: It's so fun.

[09:31] Jessica: Thank you.

[09:32] Meg: Now, before I give you the details of the crime scene, I'm going to give you A brief overview of organized killers versus disorganized killers. So this is.

[09:41] I mean, if John Douglas is listening to this podcast, he's going to be.

[09:44] Jessica: Like, ah, this is a two week course. What are you doing saying it in 15 seconds? I was in distillation.

[09:53] Meg: All right,

[09:54] in brief, organized killers tend to be educated,

[09:58] aware of law enforcement,

[10:01] controlled and prepared.

[10:03] They generally leave a clean crime scene, but may take a trophy to relive the pleasure.

[10:11] All right,

[10:12] they know what they are doing is awful, and that's what they like about it.

[10:17] Jessica: Ooh.

[10:18] Meg: The disorganized killer may be psychotic. Like he may think he's a wolf or whatever,

[10:26] or be criminally inexperienced. He might have never done something before in his life, just it happened.

[10:33] He will use a weapon found at the scene because it wasn't planned, right?

[10:39] Jessica: Yep.

[10:40] Meg: He's impulsive. He may feel badly about the crime later.

[10:45] Jessica: So he'll revisit the scene, lurk around it. Sorry, go ahead. I got excited.

[10:51] Meg: No. Okay, so we're gonna start there. So you understand those two, just those two words.

[10:55] Jessica: Organized, disorganized.

[10:57] Meg: So back on October 12, 1979, and I should warn you, this is really gruesome. I'm warning you, I'm warning our listeners.

[11:07] Jessica: Ooh. Thank you. Okay.

[11:09] Meg: Gruesome.

[11:09] Jessica: Okay. I'm steeling myself.

[11:12] Meg: You have been warned.

[11:14] Back on October 12, 1979, 26 year old Francine Elvison,

[11:20] who lived with her parents in the Pelham Parkway House apartments in the Bronx,

[11:24] left for work at 6:30 in the morning.

[11:27] She was 4 foot 11 and 90 pounds.

[11:31] She taught disabled children at a daycare center.

[11:35] At 8:30 in the morning,

[11:36] her 15 year old neighbor found her wallet in the stairwell between the third and fourth floors.

[11:44] But the kid was late for school,

[11:46] so he didn't tell anybody about it until he came home for lunch.

[11:51] And that's when he gave the wallet to his father.

[11:54] The father returned the wallet to their neighbor and it was Francine's mother was at home.

[12:01] And Francine's mother called the daycare and the daycare said Francine hadn't come to work that day.

[12:07] Mother freaks out, of course. And she and another neighbor and Francine's sister began the search for Francine.

[12:16] And they found her.

[12:19] Her body was on the roof landing at the top of the stairwell at the top of the building.

[12:25] She was nude and had been severely beaten in her face.

[12:30] So now I'm describing the crime scene.

[12:33] The cause of death was strangulation with her purse strap.

[12:37] Jessica: Mm.

[12:38] Meg: After death, she had been tied after death, she had been tied with her stockings and belt. Her nipples.

[12:48] Jessica: Oh, no.

[12:49] Meg: Had been cut off.

[12:50] Jessica: I felt it coming.

[12:52] Meg: And placed on her chest.

[12:54] Jessica: Oh, my God.

[12:55] Meg: Her underpants were pulled over her head and covered her face. Wait, they put her underwear over her?

[13:03] Jessica: Over her face? Okay.

[13:05] Meg: There were bite marks on her thighs. Brace yourself. Her umbrella.

[13:10] Jessica: No, no, no.

[13:11] Meg: Yeah.

[13:12] Jessica: No.

[13:13] Meg: And her pen.

[13:14] Jessica: No.

[13:15] Meg: Were put in her vagina.

[13:16] Jessica: I can't put this.

[13:18] Meg: Her earring. That's the worst of it. We're done with the worst of it.

[13:21] Her earrings were placed on either sides of her head.

[13:25] So he took her earrings off and placed them on either sides of her head.

[13:29] On her thigh.

[13:30] The killer wrote, you can't stop me.

[13:34] And on her stomach. Fuck you with her pen.

[13:38] He also shat near the body and covered the poop with her clothes.

[13:46] A gold pendant of the Hebrew letter chai.

[13:50] Am I saying that right?

[13:52] Was missing.

[13:54] The detectives believed her body had been positioned in the shape of.

[13:59] Hi.

[14:01] There was semen.

[14:04] Jessica: Sorry, just the way you said it, like semen.

[14:09] Meg: Again, she had not been raped. If you don't count the umbrella.

[14:14] Jessica: Well, she had not been raped.

[14:16] Meg: You see what I'm saying?

[14:16] Jessica: Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[14:18] Meg: You see what I'm saying?

[14:18] Jessica: I totally am with you.

[14:19] Meg: Okay. There were no defensive wounds.

[14:23] There was a single African American hair discovered during the autopsy. You're making a face about defensive wounds like she didn't have defensive wounds.

[14:33] Jessica: No, I know what you mean. I'm just like. I was thinking about what that would mean.

[14:37] Meg: So she didn't fight back.

[14:38] Jessica: Right? I got it.

[14:39] Meg: She didn't scratch.

[14:40] Police determined she was attacked as she walked down the stairs, where the wallet was found, was what they were figuring, and then was carried to the landing.

[14:51] Now, put on your Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes, John Douglas hat. What do you think about the perpetrator,

[14:58] if you were to.

[14:59] Jessica: Well, he's a mix, isn't he? Because he used what was handy,

[15:06] so that's disorganized. True. But he took a trophy, we think, which is organized.

[15:13] Wait. Tell me what the qualifications. Well, the qualities of organized are again.

[15:18] Meg: Educated, aware of law enforcement. Controlled, prepared,

[15:22] clean crime scene.

[15:24] Take a trophy,

[15:26] they know they're doing a bad thing.

[15:28] They enjoy that part of it.

[15:30] Disorganized,

[15:33] Might not understand that he is actually human. Might be literally out of his mind.

[15:39] Criminally inexperienced. Weapon found at the scene. Impulsive. May feel guilty.

[15:46] Jessica: I think it's a mix.

[15:48] But the taking, the high.

[15:51] Let's assume that. I'm assuming that that's. That he took it and awareness of the police.

[15:57] So the message to the police,

[16:00] I think you know, is you can't get me. And the writing on her stomach.

[16:04] And what did you say that was like about anger or knowing you did something wrong and being happy about it?

[16:12] The pooping and then covering it with the clothes is another kind of fuck you.

[16:18] So I think he's both because of the opportun.

[16:21] But I can't tell like it leans.

[16:24] But there's only one hair on her.

[16:27] Maybe it leans more to.

[16:30] It's organized masquerading as disorganized.

[16:33] I don't know.

[16:34] Meg: I know. Well, thank you for that considered response. Where would you start looking for the perpetrator in the building?

[16:43] Jessica: Because he was in. I mean, I don't know what the security system in the building was, but he was lurking and waiting for her in the building and.

[16:51] And if he had been in there and other people had seen him, they wouldn't have noticed him. He wouldn't have been remarkable.

[16:56] So I would look for someone who lived or worked in the building.

[17:00] Meg: You're a clever person.

[17:03] John Douglas presented the police with a profile of a white man between 25 and 35,

[17:10] disheveled, unemployed,

[17:13] nocturnal and living within half a mile of the crime scene.

[17:18] He would live with his parents,

[17:20] have no relationships with women and no close friends.

[17:24] He would be a dropout with no military experience,

[17:27] have low self esteem, no car,

[17:30] a history of mental illness, no drug or alcohol issues, and own a large collection of S and M pornography.

[17:38] This was his first murder, but wouldn't be his last if they didn't catch him.

[17:44] Now, how did John Douglas determine these details?

[17:49] Let's go through it. It was a crime of opportunity, as you said.

[17:53] Francine didn't have a set schedule and sometimes took the elevator,

[17:56] so it wasn't like she was being stalked.

[17:59] Wrong place, wrong time.

[18:01] Also, all his weapons were items Francine had on her.

[18:07] So why was he there at 6:30am? This is what you were just saying? He must live or work there and know the building well.

[18:15] Also, no one noticed him, so that means he didn't stand out because of the sexual nature of the crime. John believed he would be about her age and race.

[18:25] But what about that African American hair?

[18:28] John couldn't account for that,

[18:31] but was still confident in his assessment because it was a high risk crime. I mean, what if somebody else is going to work at 6:30 in the morning? Right?

[18:41] And a low risk victim.

[18:43] This woman did not live a life where this was supposed to happen to her. Not at all. She didn't put herself in situations where this should happen. John believed the killer was disorganized.

[18:56] There was no rape,

[18:58] but sexual mutilation, masturbation and sexual substitution with the umbrella and pen. So the killer was insecure and sexually immature.

[19:09] Couldn't go through with it.

[19:11] Jessica: That's creepy and makes so much sense.

[19:15] Meg: He tied her up after death,

[19:18] so that was about kink,

[19:20] not restraint.

[19:22] That's where we get into the Asta. He killed her before he did all those things to her body.

[19:28] So he was scared of interaction with women.

[19:32] He did all this in the morning.

[19:34] So he didn't have a regular 9 to 5 job.

[19:37] Maybe a part time one or a night job. Those jobs don't pay a lot, so he must live with people.

[19:44] John Douglas figured he was too weird to have friends or roommates, so he probably lived with his parents.

[19:52] The positioning of the body and earrings and nipples pointed to someone who couldn't hide their psychiatric problems.

[20:00] Which would mean the military wouldn't take him, right?

[20:04] Jessica: Oh, interesting.

[20:05] Meg: Right?

[20:05] Jessica: That is really fascinating.

[20:07] Meg: The crime was at 6:30am which for John ruled out alcohol or drug issues. Was the underwear over her face a sign of guilt? Because sometimes.

[20:19] Jessica: Right. You don't. They don't want to have them looking at them.

[20:21] Meg: Right? Right.

[20:23] No.

[20:23] John thought it was a sign of degradation because of how he positioned the body.

[20:29] So he was just like rubbing her face in her underwear.

[20:33] What about the poop?

[20:35] John thought he was embarrassed about that and that's why he covered it with her clothing. What was available.

[20:43] He couldn't help himself because of either nerves or medication.

[20:50] Jessica: Ooh, good one.

[20:52] Meg: The police trusted this profile,

[20:55] especially because one of their suspects fit the bill so well.

[21:00] Carmine Calabro was a 30 year old white, unemployed actor who lived with his father on the fourth floor. He was a high school dropout with no military experience who couldn't maintain relationships with women.

[21:14] He owned a lot of S M porn. He'd been ruled out because he had an alibi. He was an inpatient in a mental hospital.

[21:23] Do you remember that story we did about the security at mental hospitals in the late 80s?

[21:29] Jessica: Pretty bad.

[21:31] Meg: Ridiculously bad at this hospital. It was a joke. He just walked out.

[21:36] Three separate forensic dentists determined the bite marks were his.

[21:41] And he was convicted of murder and sentenced to 25 years to life.

[21:45] When John Douglas eventually interviewed him for his study,

[21:50] Carmine had had all his teeth removed while he attempted to get a retrial.

[21:58] Can you imagine? He goes in to interview him and the guy goes, hi, nice to meet You.

[22:03] Jessica: And he doesn't have your teeth. Holy shit. Holy shit. I love that. I'm like, that's crazy. Okay. You think? Oh, my God.

[22:16] Meg: New York Police Lt. D' Amico told Psychology Today at the time,

[22:21] quote, the profilers had him so right that I asked the FBI why they hadn't given us his phone number, too.

[22:29] And what about that African American hair?

[22:33] Jessica: What was it?

[22:34] Meg: It turns out it had been left over in the body bag they used to transport Francine.

[22:39] Jessica: Oh, my God. What? Guys, come on. Jesus.

[22:48] Meg: Somewhat recently, Malcolm Gladwell, who I used to love, but now when he's trying to make an argument, he's very selective with his evidence.

[22:59] Jessica: He is the classic, classic. I've come to a conclusion. Let me back into the evidence.

[23:04] Meg: Right? Which I think he would kind of admit. But it also just. I don't know. It's just sort of annoying.

[23:10] Jessica: It's bad research.

[23:11] Meg: It's not research I used to love. I was like, oh, my God, that's so fascinating and profound. And now I take it with a grain of salt.

[23:18] Jessica: But I think, just as a quick side note, I think that as a.

[23:22] If you'll excuse the expression, thinker slash philosopher,

[23:25] I think he's really interesting, and he comes up with really interesting ideas that he should then research and not fill in the gaps.

[23:37] But I do think that,

[23:38] well, he.

[23:39] Meg: Wrote a very long article about John Douglass.

[23:46] Jessica: Are we now? Am I going to be like, I hate Malcolm Gladwell?

[23:50] Meg: No, no, no. I mean, both of them are rather pompous, so we shouldn't take everything that they say as gospel.

[23:58] Either of them.

[23:59] Malcolm Gladwell analyzed John Douglas's profile of the rooftop killer sentence by sentence. So he got his hand on the original profile.

[24:10] And he argues in this 2007 article for the New Yorker called Dangerous Minds,

[24:16] which is very interesting. I recommend it that it was, quote, so full of unverifiable and contradictory and ambiguous language that it could support virtually any interpretation.

[24:30] He believes this kind of criminal profiling is riddled with the same tactics fortune tellers use.

[24:38] And about John Douglas's profile on Francine's killer, Gladwell writes, quote, how useful is that profile, really? The police already had Calabro on their list of suspects. If you're looking for the person who killed and mutilated someone on the roof, you don't really need a profiler to tell you to check the disheveled,

[24:57] mentally ill guy living with his father on the fourth floor.

[25:02] Jessica: You know, I think that's a really facile argument. And I say Malcolm Malcolm, you might. You might have a little ax to grind.

[25:11] Meg: But it is interesting reading Mindhunter, which I'm obviously doing right now,

[25:16] and reading this article that Malcolm Gladwell wrote, because they are both so cocksure,

[25:24] and yet it really is a mixture of an art and a science. I mean, that you.

[25:29] Jessica: That's what John Douglas said. He said it's an art and a science.

[25:34] Meg: But he also says, like, obviously he drives a blue VW bug.

[25:39] And you're like,

[25:41] obviously. I mean, if he didn't, would you tell me about it? I just. I wonder if he didn't, would he tell me about it? You know what I mean? Like, I have a feeling he's a little selective because all his stories are like, I got absolutely everything right.

[25:55] I'm like,

[25:56] well,

[25:57] always.

[25:58] Jessica: Yeah. Although I will say this, this just occurred to me as you were saying this, because I was about to get on my high horse of, like, these motherfuckers,

[26:07] pompous men.

[26:09] But I think that when you're establishing a new way of thinking,

[26:14] if you go in soft,

[26:16] you're not going to change anything.

[26:18] So if he went in, like, I have an idea, guys.

[26:22] You think maybe you want to entertain it?

[26:25] What? The NYPD,

[26:28] the NYPD of 1980, 81 is going to be like, oh, sure, we'd like to hear how you feel.

[26:36] Like, no, he's got to go in. Like, look,

[26:39] I know who it's going to be. It's going to be like this.

[26:42] Meg: Can I tell you such a funny story about him? So at that, the school, the two week school, the homicide school that he did for the.

[26:50] These detectives, these New York detectives,

[26:52] he had a VCR because he had some video that he wanted to show as part of the presentation.

[27:00] And he tells a story about how one of the detectives came up to him at the beginning of the class and was just like, yeah,

[27:08] hey,

[27:09] profile me.

[27:11] Can you read me?

[27:12] And John Douglas was like,

[27:15] all right,

[27:16] I'll profile you. Put your hand in this machine.

[27:19] And the guy put his hand in the vcr.

[27:23] And then John Douglas was like, yeah, now I know everything about you. Now go sit down and I'll tell you all the tricks of the trade. And the guy had put his hand in a vcr.

[27:35] I mean, ridiculous, right? So he's just, like, mocking people for being hard to convince.

[27:41] Jessica: I think that if someone comes up to me and I'm about to teach a class because I want to help the citizens of New York City, and this guy's like, hey,

[27:50] oh,

[27:51] you got some big fancy ideas. Book Learning guy, you know, like, what are you gonna do? Be like, oh, hello,

[27:58] you know.

[27:59] Meg: No, you're gonna humiliate him.

[28:01] Jessica: Yeah, I. I mean, is it. Is there any other choice? Because you can't be like, excuse me, sir, please sit down. Because then he's gonna sit there and be like, hey, Vinnie, can you believe this bullshit?

[28:12] Meg: The entire time, many stories like that, he's like, if they don't. If he goes to give a profile and the guy isn'.

[28:19] Detective, isn't taking notes, he's just like,

[28:21] I'm out. Call me if you need me. I mean, he's just like, fuck you.

[28:25] Jessica: I'm not saying I would want to hang out with John Douglas.

[28:28] Meg: I don't think you would want. No, I don't think you'd want to hang out with John Douglas.

[28:30] Jessica: No. I don't think he's my kind of guy. However, if you're breaking ground, I just think, you know, you gotta. You gotta be kind of a ball buster.

[28:40] Meg: And don't you think it just feels like. I mean, we talked a little bit about fortune tellers last week. I mean, fortune tellers, they're not lying, they're insightful.

[28:50] Jessica: Their entire job is to observe, right?

[28:54] And they trick you by observing. And if you read,

[28:59] there's so many reports about, you know, Houdini going to seances or fortune telling or even, you know, like stage shows where people are,

[29:10] you know, saying, oh, there's someone in the audience who. Blah, blah, blah.

[29:14] It's all broken down,

[29:16] like how you can see it and how they do it. And it's not even just what they're looking at. It's. If I say the word blank,

[29:27] you're going to react in a very probably small number of ways, you know, and I now I know because I fed you something to react to who you are, what you're going to do.

[29:39] So, yeah, I think, I think of like, if all of this is related, anything that has to do with examining how human beings think and react.

[29:48] Meg: And can you imagine it's all the same thing, interviewing a suspect in a crime. I mean, all of the things that you just mentioned would be incredibly useful.

[29:57] Jessica: Nipples?

[29:59] No,

[30:00] that's my trigger.

[30:02] I can't.

[30:03] And like running amok in the interview room.

[30:08] That is totally fascinating. And, And I very sad to hear about what happened to Francine. That's very affecting.

[30:16] Meg: They also knew that he was like,

[30:18] the perpetrator must have been an inadequate person.

[30:22] That's how they describe those kinds of people.

[30:25] Because he blitz attacked her and she was Such a small person to begin with,

[30:32] you know, all of it is just like he just had such low self esteem and he didn't trust himself to.

[30:39] Jessica: You know, how much of life really boils down to self esteem, really everything. Don't you think? It really does.

[30:47] I mean,

[30:49] I've said a few things that my mom has said over the years,

[30:52] said over the years on this podcast, some of which were really insane and some of which were really on target. And it used to super annoy me that she was so reductive.

[31:04] Any person who she met or she thought was,

[31:07] you know, lacking in some way, she'd sort of knowingly nod her head and go,

[31:14] low self esteem.

[31:17] Meg: And.

[31:17] Jessica: And I would be like, what are you? How do you even. She's like, everything boils down to self esteem. And the older I get, the more I'm like,

[31:29] word.

[31:30] Meg: It does not bring out the best in people.

[31:32] Jessica: Well,

[31:46] so I have read a few theater reviews on this podcast, and they're generally things that make me laugh so hard. I'm fearful of incontinence.

[31:58] And we've talked about how Frank Rich was the butcher of Broadway and wrote so many scathing reviews that even if they weren't funny, they were notable for being like.

[32:09] Like dipping the reader in an acid bath.

[32:12] I was looking around for a little bit of, you know,

[32:15] some Rich nuggets and ran across something that I remembered. And it is such a link to a piece of my personal childhood memories.

[32:27] So I'm gonna start with my childhood memory and then go from there.

[32:32] Meg: Fun.

[32:32] Jessica: In 1980, I bought my very first album with my own money.

[32:37] Meg: Ooh.

[32:38] Jessica: And that was Glass Houses. Bill, Joel, and my friend Nina and I went and got it together.

[32:44] Meg: Where did you go? Do you remember 86th Street?

[32:47] Jessica: It had to have been 86. Like, was there a Sam Goody there or something like that?

[32:51] Meg: I mean, there was Crazy Eddie. Did they maybe had albums there?

[32:55] Jessica: Look, the fact that I remember what album it was is a triumph in and of itself.

[32:59] So.

[33:01] But my parents would get me a lot of records,

[33:04] and so I still have a whole bunch of my childhood records. And I went through them recently because I moved them from my dad's apartment to mine. And I was leafing.

[33:13] I was like, oh, there's Carole King's really rosy Russian Folk Tales.

[33:19] Bye Bye Birdie, the original,

[33:21] original Broadway cast for Grease.

[33:24] Meg: Amazing.

[33:25] Jessica: And I had been taking tap dancing classes.

[33:30] Boy, did I love 42nd Street. I'm sure that my downstairs neighbors did not,

[33:36] but I knew every song,

[33:38] every song. And I had A vague awareness that these were really old songs from the 30s,

[33:45] thus imprinting me for life.

[33:47] But I loved it.

[33:51] And I never saw it on Broadway.

[33:54] Meg: I saw it.

[33:55] Jessica: I was too busy. I told the story on this podcast, but I was too busy watching A Chorus Line with my grandparents and dying of embarrassment over the sexual stuff.

[34:03] Meg: No, I absolutely saw 42nd Street.

[34:06] Jessica: Well, I'll bet you weren't there opening night because you would have remembered why, what happened? And that's what we're going to talk about today.

[34:16] Meg: Jerry Orbach was in the original 42nd Street.

[34:18] Jessica: He was funny that we'd be talking about cops and profiling.

[34:24] Meg: He's our tie in already. Yes.

[34:26] Jessica: Jerry Orbach the Magnificent. Did I tell you, Speaking of Jerry Orbach, did I tell you that my last night in London, I guess it was jan.

[34:35] It was June 1st. Night of June 1st, we were hanging around my hotel room, trying to figure out what to do with ourselves and all. And, like, we'd seen every SVU already,

[34:46] and what popped up was Dirty Dancing.

[34:50] And we wound up watching the whole thing. Him for the first time. And I was like,

[34:54] oh, Jerry Orbach.

[34:56] And he was like, why is he so mad at her? I'm like, you leave him alone. That's Jerry Orbach.

[35:01] He was in the Fantastics. What's that? Shut up. You don't know anything.

[35:07] So.

[35:08] So something very bizarre happened.

[35:12] And Frank Rich wrote a review that I'm going to read a little bit from in just a moment. But the basic story is this.

[35:19] There was a major collection of talent that got 42nd street onto Broadway.

[35:26] People are very critical of jukebox musicals now. That's really what this was.

[35:32] The idea for this musical was to take the original 42nd street movie from 1933, and which didn't really have a lot of music in it. It's the original.

[35:43] Hey, kids, the show must go on. And, you know,

[35:47] the difficult star turns her ankle and the peppy ingenue's Ruby Keeler. Like, I can do it.

[35:56] And the director sends her in, and there's like a secondary love story. The director falls in love with Ruby Keeler.

[36:03] Very sweet.

[36:05] All of the music was popular music from the 30s.

[36:10] And I'll say, who the composer. No one's gonna know who the composers were, but it was basically a jukebox musical of these composers.

[36:21] Fascinating indeed.

[36:23] The music was phenomenal, and the show did so well because of the choreography. Gower Champion, who was an incredibly famous director and choreographer,

[36:36] directed and choreographed this show.

[36:39] He had been sort of on the Outs a little bit in the 70s, but in the 60s, he was huge with, like, Bye Bye Birdie and Carnival and these big, big shows.

[36:47] But this was like. He came back hard,

[36:51] 1980.

[36:53] He was bringing in, like, Busby Berkeley stuff and he was filling the stage with dancers.

[36:59] Meg: That's what I remember. The dancing on the huge dimension.

[37:03] Jessica: Yes.

[37:03] Yeah, we're in the money.

[37:06] So it like, he just made the most astonishing spectacle that was in keeping with these 30s musicals, which the original movie was not. Anyway,

[37:17] phenomenal. As you will hear momentarily,

[37:20] the producer, the very famous David Merrick, who had worked with Gower Champion on a bunch of other things.

[37:27] He wasn't really happy with the book.

[37:30] And you know what? The writers did and made it known. Because if you still have your playbill and you strike me as someone who might keep these kinds of things.

[37:40] Meg: I do not.

[37:41] Jessica: Well, you'll see that it doesn't say book by.

[37:45] He was so displeased with what they wrote that he credited them with something like intermittent dialogue,

[37:53] like something really terrible. True. And David Merritt,

[37:56] very successful producer, but kind of known to be a bit of a dick. There wasn't a lot of warmth towards him. But Gower Champion,

[38:05] enormously so. This is an anticipated show.

[38:11] There are celebrities in the audience like you wouldn't believe.

[38:15] All showbiz people, like, everyone's there.

[38:19] Ruth Gordon,

[38:21] Ethel Merman is there.

[38:24] Bob Fosse,

[38:25] Jerome Robbins.

[38:27] Woof. Every. Yeah, woof.

[38:30] Everybody.

[38:31] It opens. People are screaming. They're on their feet. Jerry Orbach is amazing.

[38:37] There are many, many curtain calls.

[38:40] David Merrick comes out.

[38:42] Everyone's excited because he's so reclusive. He never likes to be in the spotlight. Everyone is expecting him to say something extraordinary.

[38:50] He comes out and announces that Gower Champion had died.

[38:55] What? On opening night.

[38:57] Meg: What?

[38:58] Jessica: And here's what happened.

[38:59] Meg: Oh, my God.

[39:00] Jessica: Yes. As Frank Risch says in his review, which I will give you a little bit more of in just a moment, essentially,

[39:07] Gower Champion wrote his own obituary by having 42nd street launch the day that he died.

[39:15] Wow. Here's what Frank Rich had to say.

[39:18] August 26th of 1980.

[39:21] If anyone wonders why Gower Champion's death is a bitter loss for the American theater, I suggest that he head immediately to the Winter Garden, where 42nd street opened last night.

[39:32] This brilliant showman's final musical is, if nothing else, a perfect monument to his glorious career.

[39:39] Indeed, 42nd street has more dancing and for that matter, more dancers than Mr. Champion has. Has ever given us before.

[39:46] As it fortunately happens, the show not only features his best choreography, but it also serves as a strangely ironic tribute to all the other musicals he has staged over the past two decades.

[39:58] Here and there in 42nd street, one happily finds witty homages to such memorable past Champion showstoppers as the opening telephone number from Bye Bye Birdie,

[40:08] Put on your Sunday clothes from hello Dolly,

[40:11] and when Mabel comes into the room from Mack and Mabel.

[40:15] See Mr. Champion's work in 42nd street and try not to weep.

[40:20] That doesn't sound very Frank Rich like, does it Wild.

[40:25] But then he reverts to type.

[40:27] Meg: Okay, was he at the theater that night?

[40:31] Jessica: Yes, he was at the theater.

[40:33] Meg: Was he in the audience?

[40:34] Jessica: Yes. Was he not? He was there to review it.

[40:36] Meg: No, not Frank Rich.

[40:38] Jessica: Oh, no, no. I'm about to tell you.

[40:39] Meg: Okay, okay.

[40:40] Jessica: You know, he goes on and on and he says, unfortunately,

[40:44] because I was waiting for it. I was like, come on, Frank. Let the other shoe drop. Come on.

[40:50] Unfortunately, as has frequently been the case for Mr. Champion in recent seasons, nothing else in his latest show comes close to matching the style and sheen of his handiwork. In adapting the film script to the stage, Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble have written a curious non book.

[41:07] It's not for nothing that the playbill describes the libretto simply as lead ins and crossovers. Oh, even more withering than what I said.

[41:15] Meg: Yeah.

[41:16] Jessica: The gritty slam bang rhythm that gave the movie the original its charm is almost completely lost.

[41:24] An even greater difficulty has to do with the simple matter of tone.

[41:27] Mr. Stewart and Mr. Bramble have not really spoofed the old Warner musicals in the winning manner of such latter day parodies as the off Broadway hit Dame is at Sea, which I was in at camp.

[41:39] Or the recent film. Movie Movie,

[41:42] by the way, great movie.

[41:44] Must see.

[41:44] Meg: Never seen it. It's called movie.

[41:46] Jessica: It's called Movie Movie. I've never even heard of it worth seeing,

[41:51] he says. For the most part, we simply grin and bear the forced gaiety of the plot, advancing scenes while waiting for Mr. Champion to get his dancers tapping once more.

[42:02] He does give raves to Jerry Orbach. He says,

[42:05] the flaws of 42nd Street.

[42:07] This is so, like, ridiculous.

[42:09] The flaws of 42nd street are undeniably real and damaging.

[42:14] Ooh, lighten up, Frank.

[42:16] But for now, at least, they are nothing next to Gower Champion's final display of blazing theatrical fireworks.

[42:24] So what happened, you ask?

[42:27] Meg: Howdy Die.

[42:28] Jessica: So Gower Champion,

[42:30] very quietly was diagnosed with not leukemia, but a rare blood disorder that was a kind of cancer. And he died hours before the show went on at Memorial Sloan Kettering.

[42:47] All that David Merrick said, by the way, when he went on stage was,

[42:51] this is tragic.

[42:53] Gower Champion died today.

[42:55] That was it.

[42:57] He had Waldenstern's macroglobulinemia.

[43:02] That was a lot.

[43:03] A rare cancer of the blood.

[43:06] When Mr. Merrick came on stage, and this is what I was just saying, this is from the times. People were so elated from the musical that they were laughing and clapping and excited about his sudden and unexpected appearance.

[43:20] After his announcement, Jerry Orbach was the first person to get his wits about him and said very loudly,

[43:29] bring it down.

[43:31] The curtain came down.

[43:33] There was a stunned silence in the audience,

[43:35] and they could hear the cast sobbing backstage. Oh, my goodness.

[43:40] Meg: It's a very odd. I don't feel like he did the right thing there for anyone involved with Bring it Down. No, not Jerry Orbach.

[43:50] Jessica: Oh, Merrick.

[43:51] Meg: I think to stun the audience and to blindside the actors.

[43:56] Jessica: Well, he waited until the show was over, but still,

[44:00] I think that was my opinion, is that it was a no win situation. Because if he didn't acknowledge what had happened,

[44:06] in my mind, that's worse. It's like, you're not gonna honor the person who did everything. And all of his friends were there. In fact, his wife and kids were there.

[44:16] It was sort of like,

[44:18] what am I gonna do? Not deal with this?

[44:21] Very difficult.

[44:22] Oh, and just to make sure that I had the people in the audience right, because this is when the audience started sobbing.

[44:28] It was Joshua Logan, Ethel Merman, Joseph Papp, Bob Fosse, Ruth Gordon, Joan Fontaine and Neil Simon,

[44:36] among others.

[44:38] Once they had the after party, which was at the Waldorf Astoria.

[44:43] Mr. Merrick sat by himself,

[44:45] drinking several glasses of wine.

[44:49] Members of the cast drifted in, slowly at first,

[44:52] and then in groups.

[44:54] Many members of the cast, like you, Meg, were critical of Mr. Merrick, but not for saying anything, for withholding the news of the death.

[45:03] But when Mr. Herman's band played some old Glenn Miller songs at the party,

[45:08] members of the cast, as well as people who had been in the performance,

[45:11] got up and started dancing.

[45:14] Now, here's what's sort of interesting. This is just. Now, again, like, how we. This is like notes from the 70s and 80s.

[45:20] So this struck me. Gower Champion started off as a dancer and doing a dance team with his sister and then with his wife. And they were extraordinarily successful. And they did like, TV shows and, like, talk about Dirty dancing, like those exhibition dances.

[45:37] That's what they were doing.

[45:38] And they were on the Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca television show and the Admiral Revue.

[45:45] And then he got invited to choreograph for Broadway and he won a Tony for Bye Bye Birdie and the New York Critics Circle Award for Carnival. But anyway, when they started dancing, you know where they danced?

[45:58] What hotel? The Statler.

[46:00] And I was like, oh, my God. They had the party at the Waldorf and he used to dance at the Statler.

[46:07] So, yes, for anyone who's not aware of the fact that the two old guys in the balcony in the Muppets, Statler and Waldorf,

[46:15] like all Muppets jokes, it comes from something and that's what it is. They were the two biggest and most famous and fanciest hotels in New York City.

[46:26] So that's the story of the most incredible show opening and the way to kick off the 80s on Broadway. And the saddest, most unexpected show opening at the same time.

[46:40] Meg: I know he must have been at the dress rehearsal.

[46:43] Jessica: Yeah, he only went into the hospital a few days before he died.

[46:48] Meg: So that means he wasn't at the dress rehearsal.

[46:50] Jessica: I mean, who knows?

[46:52] I mean, he wasn't there the day before,

[46:54] but people knew that he had been looking.

[46:57] He had told the cast that he had a virus,

[47:00] but he had even done some dancing.

[47:03] And some of the young dancers were like, wow, he's so spry for an old guy. Amazing. So there was nothing that was tip off for anybody.

[47:11] Meg: Oh, that's so unsettling. I don't like that.

[47:14] Jessica: But it's fascinating, right? What a piece of Broadway history.

[47:17] Meg: How dramatic.

[47:18] Jessica: Well, indeed.

[47:31] Meg: So when you first started talking about how he died suddenly and it was a rare form of cancer, I was like, is it possibly aids?

[47:41] But I like it.

[47:43] Jessica: I like that you just just like did a weird Harry Potter Dobby situation. Like, Dobby wants a better ending. But we're recording. And a sock.

[48:01] Meg: But we're recording this. Today is July 3rd, and in 1981, July 3rd was the first article in the Times saying,

[48:12] rare cancer found in homosexual men in New York and San Francisco.

[48:19] Jessica: So 44 years ago today.

[48:22] Meg: Weird.

[48:23] Jessica: Very strange.

[48:25] Meg: Okay, and our tie in is.

[48:27] Jessica: We have so many tie inside this one.

[48:29] Meg: Jerry Orbach playing a detective in the original Law and Order and also being on stage in 42nd street is a pretty good tie in.

[48:40] Jessica: I think it's an excellent tie in. And of course, just going back to my all time favorite ridiculous statement of mine, like,

[48:49] what's in common? It's the 80s in New York City. No, Jessica, go home.

[48:55] You're done.

[48:56] I think that your story and mine both took place in 1980 specifically.

[49:01] Meg: Yeah.

[49:02] Jessica: So we have that year, and, yes.

[49:05] Meg: We have that specific year.

[49:07] Jessica: Yes, specific year. But, yes, we have a singular individual. Stop it. This singular individual who brings together New York crime and New York dance.

[49:20] Meg: Awesome. Hey, guys, recommend us to your friends.

[49:24] Jessica: Yes, please.

[49:27] Meg: And let us know you have. And then we'll like. Thank you and love you.

[49:32] Jessica: We'll give you a shout out on the show.