60 Minutes - Princess Alice: First Daughter, First Influencer | 60 Minutes: A Second Look

Episode Date: November 19, 2024

In the early 20th Century, there was no bigger celebrity than first daughter, Alice Roosevelt, daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt. She captured the attention of the nation with care-free, hard-partying ways and eccentricities, like her habit of carrying around a pet snake. Songs were written about her and a color was even named in her honor. On top of that, she married a future Speaker of the House and had an enduring affair with another influential member of Congress. It was a big deal when 60 Minutes landed an interview with Alice in her later years -- and she didn't hold back when dishing about some other famous individuals, including her famous cousins Eleanor and Franklin. For more episodes like this one, search for "60 Minutes: A Second Look" and follow the show, wherever you get your podcasts. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Grocer $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. She has, at 85, lost none of the wit and high spirits that made her such a popular figure during the presidency of her father, Theodore Roosevelt. Just like Beyonce or Madonna today,

Americans knew her by a single name, Alice, or Miss Alice, even Princess Alice. I mean, babies were named after her, there was a color named after her, songs were written about her. Wait a second, a color? A color, Alice Blue. She was one of the first first daughters of the 20th century.

Her father, Theodore Roosevelt, became president in 1901. But was she also one of the first ever influencers? She was very much the personification of the zeitgeist of the new century. Young Americans in particular loved this. And they copied her and they followed her. And after a while, when she appeared in public, crowds gathered around her. She was both famously opinionated and famously private. So it was a big deal when 60 Minutes broadcast an interview with Alice Roosevelt Longworth in 1969.

It was quite a coup to get Alice Roosevelt Longworth on television like that. Her every move was chronicled by the tabloids, generating press like a member of the royal family would, which gets us back to that nickname, Princess Alice. To us, apparently, we long in this country. I think we don't admit it, but I think they long. Princess Alice. She regularly shocked, provoked, and made headlines. And in the interview, even at 85 years old, Alice did not disappoint, dishing about almost every major politician of the 20th century. What about the Kennedy years in Washington? Were you captivated by their style?

It was just fun, not... Yes, I enjoyed it enormously. Didn't you once have a famous row with Bobby? Oh, we had a marvelous time, yes. Tell me about that. We had a wonderful row. Her father once said to a friend, I can be President of the United States States or I can attend to Alice,

but I cannot possibly do both. She carried in her purse a copy of the Constitution and a green garter snake called Emily Spinach. She carried a snake around? When the dinner parties got boring, she would open her purse and let Emily Spinach out to slither along the table and liven things up. Long before social media allowed us to follow the every move of pop stars,

influencers, and random people you cannot quite believe you know so much about, well, the American public was enthralled with President Roosevelt's teenage daughter. But despite decades in the spotlight, Alice had never appeared on television in the U.S., that is, until 60 Minutes. Now, you were in the room for Alice's first television interview. You were in your 20s. Do you remember that? I do. I certainly do. I was trying to keep a lid on things. I'm Seth Doan, and this is 60 Minutes, A Second Look, the podcast that peers into the archives of nearly 60 years of this famed TV news broadcast, looking for footage that was never made public

and interviews that still delight and are even more compelling with the context of time. Today, Princess Alice. It's nice to be invited to the White House, but the real social coup in Washington is to be invited to tea at Alice Roosevelt Longworth. That was Harry Reisner, one of the original 60 Minutes correspondents, introducing the story to viewers, even if Alice Roosevelt Longworth did not need much of an introduction to Americans in 1969. Her candid and sometimes outrageous footnotes to the American presidency have livened up otherwise dull Washington dinner parties.

In fact, since the public knew her as just Alice, we'll be calling her that too. The interview you are about to watch ran earlier this year in Great Britain. This big get was actually snagged by a British reporter, Jonathan Aiken. Aiken was a young aristocrat who ran in the same circles Alice did. That may be why she granted the interview to him for British TV. Two weeks ago, we persuaded this remarkable lady that the interview should be shared with her own countrymen. 60 Minutes scooped other American television news programs

by broadcasting the conversation for U.S. audiences, 12 million tuned in. Well, Mrs. Longworth, you've known the White House longer than anyone else alive, probably. I think so. I think that I've been at the White House for the first time that I went to the press in about 1890. The president at that time was Harrison, and he was a little squat man with a beard in this hideous White House. Benjamin Harrison, the president Alice called a little squat man with a beard in a hideous White House, started his term in 1889 and was the first president Alice knew. Gerald Ford, who served until 1977, was the last, and she was not afraid to speak candidly about any of them. She is brutally honest from the very beginning of that

interview. She is. She was always brutally honest. That was part of her stock and trade. Stacey Cordery wrote the book on Alice. I am the author of a biography of Alice Roosevelt Longworth entitled Alice, Alice Roosevelt Longworth from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker. White House Princess to Washington Power Broker. She was both. She was both. She was quite a woman. She lived 96 years. She had many phases of being quite a woman, indeed. We talked on the phone and listened to some of the interviews together. Corderie was at Iowa State University where she's a history professor. She includes bits about Alice in her American history lectures

and watched the 60 Minutes interviews, there were two, as part of her research. And if this is the first time she's been on TV, and it was, then many Americans who knew her or thought they knew her very well got to see her again. What a treat. What a great delight. One of the first things you notice is her voice, that accent. What is that accent? It's a sort of a family voice that we all have. And it's a rather, it makes almost anything seem rather important. That accent is upper class East Coast. We don't tend to hear people speaking with that same accent anymore. Can we start with a sort of family tree?

Who was Alice Roosevelt Longworth? Alice Roosevelt Longworth was the daughter of Theodore Roosevelt and his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee, who was a Boston socialite. And she's the cousin of Eleanor Roosevelt, the first lady, of course, married to FDR. Right. First cousin of Eleanor Roosevelt. Exactly right. And Eleanor and Franklin were distant cousins. And that way, Alice and Franklin were distant cousins as well. Alice and Theodore Roosevelt did not have a close father-daughter relationship. Alice's mother died just two days after Alice was born,

and she was shipped off to an aunt's to be raised, while her father focused on his political aspirations. Theodore Roosevelt would remarry and have five more kids. Alice told 60 Minutes the president was not exactly thrilled with her antics. She was seen as a scarlet woman who smoked and bet. In those days, nobody smoked. Also, I went to races and bet. A scarlet woman who smoked and bet. Absolutely horrifying. So then I was in great disgrace.

Alice bought a bright red speedster car and drove it at high speeds around Washington, D.C. She smoked cigarettes at a time when women weren't supposed to smoke cigarettes. And as for that snake, Emily Spinach, that she carried to dinner parties? She would open her purse and let Emily Spinach out to slither along the table and liven things up. And she was still invited back to other dinner parties? What fun was that? That was terrific fun. She also used to carry little bottles of alcohol in her long white gloves and take them out and hand them to the men on either side of her when she went to dry dinner parties. Wow. That would be a character today. Yeah, absolutely. She ate asparagus with

her gloved fingers. She jumped fully clad into a swimming pool. Alice forged her own path at a time when more and more women were beginning to do the same, and people loved her for that. When she went to the St. Louis World's Fair, there were crowds of 5,000 people who gathered around Alice, and so she was very, very famous. This celebrity

hood came with a cost, of course. She was not always pleased to have her every move shadowed, and she was covered by the newspapers at a time when a woman's name was supposed to be in the newspapers at her marriage and at her death, period, full stop. Alice was just 17 when her dad became president in 1901. He is the youngest president in our history, age just 43. Theodore Roosevelt had been vice president until William McKinley was assassinated.

And while others may have mourned, well, Alice had her own take. Sheer rapture. Absolute rapture. I felt a darling father had apparently hated to become vice president, which he did. He wanted to run again for governor, and they showed him by putting him in the vice presidency. So I spent a great deal of time putting my finger on calendars and engagement books and seeing which day would finish off McKinley. Very natural reactions, but not things that perhaps I should be talking about. No, no. You think I should? No, I think it's perfectly right. You think it's all right? It's rather ghoulish. So even though we're talking about the assassination of an American president, Alice is pleased.

Ah, well, she was young and solipsistic. Alice was a teenager at the time. And so it was a great adventure to consider the next step of her life would be going off to the White House. But notably, she does not say sheer rapture as a teenager. She says it when she's 85 years old. Because she was politically astute and Alice very seldom put a foot out of line in politics. But that doesn't sound astute. It sounds like something you'd never say today. McKinley was long dead. McKinley family is long dead. Didn't matter in the past. As we've noted, Alice's candor could be shocking even by today's standards. The 1969 interview showcased Alice's witticisms and her insider's look at White House personalities.

Take William Howard Taft's wife, Helen. Alice tees up an impression asking, shall I look like her? Should I look like her? Then she contorts her head to make her neck disappear in the most unflattering of imitations. But before she starts her impression, she turns and looks off camera. At one point a Joanna. What do you feel about that? At one point, Alice gestures to you and says, Joanna, what do you feel about that? She probably wondered if I thought something was inappropriate or she was about to veer off in some unhealthy direction.

That's Joanna Sturm. She was often in the room with the woman America knew as Alice. What do you call her? Grammy. I had actually two grandmothers. I called them both Grammy. I'm not very imaginative. After the break, Alice at home as Grammy. What was it like to live with her? She stayed up extremely late because if she went out to dinner, she went out at eight, came back at around 11. And then I would hear noises until three. So what are we looking at here?

Andy Ethel gave this to Grammy. That's 60 Minutes podcast producer Julie Holstein getting a tour of Joanna Sturm's home in Washington, D.C. It's just about a mile from the house where Sturm's grandmother, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, once lived. This is Grammy. She's in a palanquin carried by four tortoises, or a chair, which is how people at Grammy were carried around Beijing. Sturm's home is filled with memorabilia that once belonged to Alice. This is my favorite possession.

It's an Arwell tusk. The person who did her did not discover the North Pole. I mean, I think there's some question about whether gave it to Grammy for her wedding present. And hanging above the fireplace is a portrait of her grandmother adorned in a white taffeta pleated dress painted by Frenchman Theobald Chartrand.

She was 18 and Chartrand painted it. Not far away is the oak dining table that Alice used to entertain. Everybody was seated in a traditional fashion. You know, man, woman, man, woman, that kind of thing. Assigned seats spend the same meal.

Vichyssoise in the summer, some crab soup in the winter, always filet mignon, probably some green vegetable salad after the main course, and then creme brulee. And that's what everybody expected, and that is what they got. Alice was always surrounded by power. She was married to Speaker of the House Nicholas Longworth, but had a long-term love affair with a senator, William Borah. If her husband knew, I can't prove it.

Stacey Cordery, you'll remember, is Alice's biographer. It seemed to be a deeply held commitment between Bill Borah and Alice Longworth. They seemed really to love one another. And I know this having read love letters from Senator Borah to Alice Longworth. Alice had married Ohio Congressman Nicholas Longworth in 1906. She was 22. Connoisseurs say her wedding was probably the biggest and most impressive of all White House weddings. The marriage was fraught from the start.

I just don't think he was the best choice. Her stepmother told her that he drank, but she just thought, well, everybody drinks. Well, he really drank. And I think on the wedding trip, he fell and hit his head on something. And she looked at him with loathing and thought, oh, dear. Alice had one daughter, Paulina, but not with her husband, Speaker Longworth. Rather, Paulina's father was Senator Borah. Paulina Longworth did not know who her father was until much, much later in her life,

long after Nick Longworth was dead. And then Paulina learned because she overheard a conversation between Alice and a maid. Joanna Sturm was just 10 years old when her mother, Paulina, died, and Sturm was sent to Alice's house. I went to live with Grandma, yeah. And I stayed there for 25 years or so. Alice did many things wrong raising her daughter, Paulina, and just about everything right raising her granddaughter, Joanna. Joanna Sturm was with Alice for the 60 Minutes interview

and is one of the only people still alive to have known her so well. I remember saying to my mother when I was eight, before I lived with her, I said, I don't like politics. And my mother said, well, don't tell your grandmother. I mean, she used to go up to the hill, I think, and listen to people orate. So I guess it was fun for her. If you think of your grandmother, what comes to mind? She had many characteristics that are gone forever.

Nobody has that same accent. Nobody knows any poetry anymore. It's the perfect rhyme for old age. I'm growing old and my lungs are far from strong. I stoop and shuffle like a chimpanzee. My stories are interminably long. I laugh at myself consumedly. I talk about my mother's pedigree.

I note a tendency to avarice. These are thy wages, old debauchery. Sturm shares her grandmother's love of poetry and, evidently, a bit of her attitude. I'd love to hear a little poetry. No, you wouldn't. I mean, she had a wit, but I wouldn't call it stinging, exactly. The trouble is, there's nobody else around that knows her anymore.

So, I'm all you have. Sturm also has a pillow of Alice's, a gag gift from a friend, she says, and embroidered onto it a bit of her signature wit. If you haven't gotten anything good to say about anyone, come and sit by me. I think the pillow suggests not meanness, but a sort of an acerbic quality, which she definitely had. That acerbic quality, which she definitely had. That acerbic quality was on full display in the 1969 60 Minutes story, especially when it came to another famous Roosevelt. My cousin Eleanor, we were very unalike, I think, because she was very serious, and I don't think I was.

Born months apart, the cousins could not have been more different. Eleanor and Alice have a very complicated relationship. Maybe today we would call them frenemies. Let's listen to her imitating her cousin, Eleanor Roosevelt. Yes, it's pretty awful, really. And Eleanor had that voice, really, to an extreme. If the women are willing to do things because it's going to help their

neighbors, I think we'll win out. And she would say, I know Alice, that you don't mean to be disagreeable, but you do somehow don't seem very nice about someone.

And in the ultimate insult to Eleanor Roosevelt, in the interview, Alice admitted she actually cheered on her distant cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, for having an affair with his longtime mistress, Lucy Mercer. I was delighted he was having a good time. He deserved a good time because he was married to Eleanor, which could be to wear out. There were people I interviewed who knew her very well who said,

Alice never made fun of someone who was weak or vulnerable or unable to protect themselves. She called that hitting a blind lamb on the nose, and she wouldn't do it. Evidently, she did not consider her cousin Eleanor Roosevelt a blind lamb. I think Alice found Eleanor to be rather boring, and that was Eleanor's first sin in Alice's life. Perhaps Mrs. Longworth will let us visit her on her 90th birthday for some more of her wonderful Washington anecdotes. Sure enough, five years later in 1974, 60 Minutes landed a second TV interview with Alice. Why do you find politicians so interesting? You've had thousands of them through this house.

It amuses me. I like to see what they do and how they behave and how they regard one another. After the break, that interview, which reveals a hidden side of Alice, and, by the way, almost did not happen. When 60 Minutes arrived, Alice told them that she wasn't going to do the interview and to get out. Oh, really? She must not have been in a good mood. You've had quite a week. Every paper I pick up's got a story about you. The year was 1974,

and the occasion for this 60 Minutes interview was Alice Roosevelt Longworth's 90th birthday. The lady known to Washington society as Mrs. L, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, celebrated her 90th birthday today, an event she had anticipated as, quote, a marvelous and horrible scene. She'd worn a black gown patterned with crouching gold leopards to her party, a not-to-be-missed event. Even President Richard Nixon, in the throes of Watergate, made time to personally wish Alice happy birthday. Mrs. Al's birthday was celebrated at a late afternoon tea party, and one of the gift-bearing guests was President Nixon. Correspondent Morley Safer introduced the interview in a very Morley Safer way. She's hardly your idea of the kindly old lady. She may look like a butterfly, but she stings like a bee. No, a description of Grammy? She didn't look like a butterfly.

That, you'll remember, is Joanna Sturm, Alice Roosevelt Longworth's granddaughter. You were also in the room when she did that second interview with 60 Minutes. How long after the first one was it? Five years. Yeah, I don't remember that one very clearly. The founding executive producer of 60 Minutes, Don Hewitt, later wrote just how keen the broadcast was to secure the interview. He personally traveled from New York to Washington, D.C. to meet Alice for the shoot. When 60 Minutes arrived, Alice told him that she wasn't going to do the interview and to get out.

Oh, really? She must not have been in a good mood. Don Hewitt wrote in a book that he was reminded of Alice's famous pillow and threw a bit of that trademark personality right back at her. He says to Alice, you scared the hell out of me, and then writes that Alice's eyes twinkled and she seemed to be quite delighted. Oh, no, that's definitely the right approach, if she was cranky. CBS's Eric Severide, who did the interview for Alice's 90th birthday, asked about an issue relevant today, age. This country's about the only one in the world I know of

where people have made it almost a sin to grow old. Old people should be shut at the side. Now there's a new movement. This is to liberate the old. Isn't it really? That is fun. No, really. Del new movement. This is to liberate the old. That is fun. Really? To liberate the old. To liberate the old.

To make people understand that they have feelings, that they even have sexual passion, all the rest. Something like the women's movement. Are you all for that? Well, as long as they don't do it in the street. So to speak, I'm all for it, yes. Is there anything about the women's lib movement that bothers you particularly? No, albeit.

I think they're doing an excellent job. She was open-minded. One gay rights group made her an honorary homosexual. She loved that, yes. She was very open-minded, iconoclastic in a way. That's historian Stacey Cordery. It's a fascinating thing to be her biographer and to meet her through her letters. When Alice Roosevelt Longworth died in 1980,

she left her diaries and thousands of personal letters to Joanna Sturm. Sturm was frustrated by the absence of any serious scholarship about her grandmother, so she gave Corderie an enormous cache of Alice's love letters, calendars, and correspondence with friends. She was witty, and she was knowledgeable, and she knew something about everything. This is a woman who taught herself Greek in her 80s. She knew so much about nuclear fission that she used to hang out with Hyman Rickover, the father of the nuclear navy. She spent a night once with Hubble, and she spent it in a telescope with him in California. And he was entranced by her knowledge of the stars.

What listeners can't quite tell is that my jaw is dropped, I'm also smiling, and my eyes are raised. That's a really good response to Alice in my book. As Corderie got more and more into Alice's biography, she learned that in addition to Alice's wit and intelligence, there was another side to this former first daughter, Alice the power broker. Her position as an insider in Washington, D.C. was wholly unique. She has friends in every department and every office. These are Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes and Supreme Court Justice Frankfurter.

And this is Secretary of State Dean Acheson and so forth. These are astoundingly powerful people. And they come to her regularly. After the death of Alice's husband, Speaker of the House Nicholas Longworth, Alice was encouraged to run for his seat. Alice also had a newspaper column, and her readers suggested she could one day become the first female vice president or president. But she opted to wield her political power behind the scenes. Why do you find politicians so interesting?

You've had thousands of them through this house. Just the musicians. I like to see what they do and how they behave and how they regard one another, regard everything. It's a fascination of power, I suppose. Yeah, and see what they have to. Do you think they improve over the years? No. Really, not at all? I don't see what they have to. Do you think they improve over the years? No.

Really, not at all? I don't think so. Her parties really remained a destination of choice. They were a destination of choice for six decades. That's incredible. Yes, that's a lot of power behind the scenes. Lyndon Johnson quite liked Mrs. Longworth. Richard Nixon said that Mrs. Longworth was his favorite dinner partner. But Jack Kennedy also said the same thing. She has an ability to amuse these men, but also to sort of pick their brains. And more than once, it was suggested that what she did was get them to her house so that she could tell them exactly what she thought ought to be done. At the time of the second interview on 60 Minutes, the country was embroiled in Watergate

and President Nixon was just months away from resigning. Alice stood by Nixon while acknowledging divisiveness in the country. He apparently arouses real hate and he also seems to be aroused. He has that same thing he hates. Why do you think he arouses hatred in people? God knows. I have the faintest idea. What do you think your grandmother would think of the political situation today? I cannot even imagine. She could not, I think, conceptualize somebody like Trump.

I mean, I think he is so beyond anything she could imagine. I just can't even imagine it. We might have called her a celebrity or an influencer today. Eric Severide, that CBS correspondent, suggested a different name for it. You know, years ago, Gertrude Stein described to me something she called a publicity saint. Now, that was a person who didn't have to do anything to get publicity. They just had to exist. Now, aren't you a kind of a publicity saint?

I think I'm a kind of a publicity saint, but I also think that I am a showman, too. So, a self-described showman, but really so much more. Alice Roosevelt Longworth, who taught herself Greek in her 80s, was fascinated by nuclear fission and by space and black holes and telescopes, all sort of puts today's social media influencer set to shame. Alice never looked over your shoulder for someone more important to meet. When she was with you, she was with you. She focused on you. I mean, politicians, royalty, everyday people beat a path to her door, in part because she was such a fascinating conversationalist. And she may just put today's Washington to shame, too.

Well, you have deflated an awful lot of stuffed shirts in this town for many years. And so some people claim that you're malicious about it, that you kind of enjoy hurting people. I never felt that way. I don't enjoy hurting people. I can't help laughing. I laugh at myself, too. You see how funny we all are here in Washington. Alice brought people to her house because they amused her and she was interested in them.

And it did not matter to her whether they were Democrats or Republicans or nothing. She liked to see the sparks fly, she once said. And in the 30s and 40s and 50s, she brought people to her dinner table so that they would talk to one another. I submit to you that one of the difficult things we have going on in the United States of America today is the fact that our legislators

don't talk to one another. And there is no one like Alice Roosevelt Longworth anymore, who invites them to her dining room, where they must sit next to one another, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and out of sheer politeness say, so how's your mother doing? So how's your kids softball team, you know, doing this year? And in that way, recognize each other's essential humanity and the commonalities that we share. That doesn't happen anymore. There is no more Alice Roosevelt Longworth to bridge those divides.

I'm thinking we need an Alice today. We do. Yes, we need an Alice today. Alice, where art thou going? Where can we spend the day? This episode of 60 Minutes, A Second Look was produced by Julie Holstein. Additional producing from Hazel May Bryan. Maura Walls is the story editor and Jamie Benson is our senior producer and engineer. Our fact checker is Annie Cronenberg. Recording assistance from Alan Pang and Marlon Polycarp.

Bill Owens is the executive producer of 60 Minutes, Tanya Simon is the executive editor, and Matthew Polivoy is the senior producer. Invaluable support from Megan Marcus and Steve Rases of Paramount Audio. Thanks to the crew and editors of both original 60 Minutes stories, 1969's That Roosevelt Girl and 1974's Princess Alice is 90. Special thanks to Jonathan Aiken. And as always, a very, very big thank you to the incredible team at CBS News Archives who helped make this podcast possible.

I'm Seth Doan. We'll be back next week with another episode of 60 Minutes, A Second Look. In the meantime, if you liked us, please leave us a rating and review. It helps more people discover our show, and we're grateful. Thanks for listening.