Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Mini-Ep #72: The Golden Girls, Part 2 (with writer Jim Colucci)

Episode Date: August 11, 2016

Each week, comedian Gilbert Gottfried and comedy writer Frank Santopadre share their appreciation of lesser-known films, underrated TV shows and hopelessly obscure character actors -- discussing, diss...ecting and (occasionally) defending their handpicked guilty pleasures and buried treasures. This week: Stalking Dorthy Zbornak! "Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?"! The late, great Andrew Gold! And an appreciation of Herb Edelman!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:32 of unaged whiskey transforming into Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey in Lynchburg, Tennessee. Around 1860, Nearest Green taught Jack Daniel
Starting point is 00:00:42 how to filter whiskey through charcoal for a smoother taste one drop at a time. This is one of many sounds in Tennessee with a story to tell. To hear them in person, plan your trip at tnvacation.com. Tennessee sounds perfect. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter and subscribe on iTunes so you don't miss a single episode. And if you like the show and think we deserve a five-star rating, and obviously we do, rate us and post a review.
Starting point is 00:01:19 Also, although our main purpose in life is to entertain you, producing this show costs actual money. So please help out by going to patreon.com slash Gilbert Gottfried and pledging your support to receive old sorts of goodies, merchandise, personalized roast, and shout-outs, advanced access to episodes, or personal messages from me, Gilbert Gottfried. And if we raise enough, maybe I can finally get a new co-host. I'm thinking of the Scarlett Johansson robot. What can you tell us about the theme song, which was first a... Because we love pop music on the show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We love one-hit wonders. Okay, Andrew Gold. And before it was the theme for Golden Girls, it was a one-hit wonder for a guy named Andrew Gold.
Starting point is 00:02:42 Yeah. Thank you for being a friend. Oh, wow. Who came from a showbiz family Andrew Gold. Yeah. Thank you for being a friend. Oh, wow. Who came from a showbiz family. Right. Yeah. Marnie Nixon, right? The son of Marnie Nixon. Who looped Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady. Yeah. Didn't she also do
Starting point is 00:02:54 West Side Story? She did Natalie Wood. And she's in Sound of Music. Like physically in Sound of Music as well. Correct. A little good trivia. Yeah. The late Andrew Gold. The late Andrew Gold. He passed away young, you know, probably about the time that I was doing this research. He was one of the people I had on my list.
Starting point is 00:03:10 And of course I thought I had some time to get to him. I didn't. Yeah. It was his hit in the seventies and it wasn't a chart topping hit, but it charted. And when they were looking for a theme song for this, for this show, remember the back in the days when sitcoms had theme songs,
Starting point is 00:03:24 so they could actually spare a few seconds to have words? Oh, yes. We've talked about them and the ones that used to tell the story. Exactly. Now we don't have time for that. We have to sell more commercials.
Starting point is 00:03:32 But they were looking for a theme song and really they had their heart set on You Gotta Have Friends, the Bette Midler song, but they couldn't afford it. So they were like, all right, it was another pitch session.
Starting point is 00:03:41 Like, all right, what do we do now? And somebody thought of the Andrew Gold song. They brought in, the funny thing about this, they brought in the session singer, Cindy Fee, and she tells it, you know, back in the day when there were more commercial jingles
Starting point is 00:03:55 and when there were theme songs, if you were a session singer, you'd knock out three or four of these things in a day. You'd have an hour-long session booked here. You'd drive across town, do another one. She didn't think twice about this thing. She walks in, they hand her the word. She says, oh, that do another one. She didn't think twice about this thing. She walks in, they hand her the word.
Starting point is 00:04:06 She says, oh, that's the Andrew Gold song. Thank you for being a friend. Okay. She improvised, you know, a couple of different licks
Starting point is 00:04:11 at the end and whatever. Did it in 20 minutes. Really did it in one take, but they asked her to do it again just for safety. She did it twice, walked out. No thought about it,
Starting point is 00:04:19 whatever. It's put her kids through college. People still come up to her on the street and they're like, can you sing that for her? I mean, she tours and she doesn't do it as part of her tour,
Starting point is 00:04:26 but people are always asking her to. She's like something I did on a random Tuesday morning. Yeah, they didn't use Andrew Gold's. They wanted a woman. I see. Makes sense. I also remember, I mean, I've lost track of the billions of shows, particularly sitcoms, where it was like the premise of the song is, although bad things can happen to us, as long as we love each other.
Starting point is 00:04:52 As long as we're together. Yes. Everything will turn out right. Yeah. We've talked about this. All those gooey family sitcoms of the 80s. Yeah. Interestingly, go ahead, Gil.
Starting point is 00:05:01 Oh, no. All of those, oh, God. I'm forgetting everything. Growing Pains and who's the boss. Yes. There's so many of them. When there were those two that used to put out everything, they put out- You mean Boyette and Miller?
Starting point is 00:05:15 Boyette and Miller. I guess Miller-Boyette. I got it backwards. Meaning, yeah. Just step by step. Step by step. Problems come our way, but we love each other. Listen, that was a moneymaker for those guys.
Starting point is 00:05:27 God, yes. It's interesting, too, when the choice is not to use the hit record, because I think of my life, Billy Joel's My Life, as the theme for Bosom Buddies. They must have paid through the nose for that. Yeah, but I guess it costs more if you're using Billy Joel. It costs more to use the actual artist. I'm not singing on a sitcom. Right.
Starting point is 00:05:46 So tell us what the experience has been with the book so far. I mean, what's happening? You're touring with it. I'm touring with it. You were at Barnes & Noble. Yeah, you know, I did. You did a signing at 30 Rock. I did a signing at 30 Rock.
Starting point is 00:05:58 That was fun because- The NBC store. At the NBC store, I had a panel with some of the producers, the two of the original producers, and then a guy from the later years, Richard Vaxey, the one I was talking about with that story, making me cry.
Starting point is 00:06:10 So it's fun because I get to keep interviewing people and stuff keeps coming up. There's like, every once in a while, a new little factoid will come out that I'm like,
Starting point is 00:06:16 why didn't you tell me that before? But it's great. I've been touring LA, New York, New Jersey. I'll be going other places but it hit the New York Times bestseller list. Congratulations. I'm happy about that. It's a labor of love, huh? You know, New Jersey. I'll be going other places. But it hit the New York Times bestseller list. Congratulations.
Starting point is 00:06:25 I've got to be happy about that. It's a labor of love, huh? You know, that's what I said. It's like, who else but a crazy schmuck like me would spend 10 years interviewing old ladies? I've known you at least 10 years. Yes. And you've been working on this book since we met. Literally, I started in February 2006.
Starting point is 00:06:41 So just over 10 years this book took. Congratulations. And it's a great book. Full-color pictures. Lots of great pictures. It's really a beautifully put together book. Thank you. I can't take credit for the look of it because I'm no designer, but there are visual treasures in there because I think this is probably true of a lot of great shows and people just don't save the stuff. of the stuff. I'm really lucky that a lot of the people who worked on the show just knew, maybe afterward, but they knew enough to just keep everything they could for someday somebody's going to want this. And so the costume designer who lives now in Oregon and she makes pots, but she has all her sketches on boards and stuff. And she's gave me all like her original sketches for those crazy outfits that Dorothy and Blanche wore. And the production designer of the show who designed all these sets.
Starting point is 00:07:26 And what I always say about the show, about the sets, is that most sitcoms you can think of the standing sets, what they look like. But when they would go to a location once, most of the time, we don't remember what that looks like. On Cheers, we know what the bar looks like. Do you even remember what Sam's apartment versus Rebecca's look like or whatever? Golden Girls, they can go somewhere once and it's iconic. The Rusty Anchor Bar where Blanche sang on the piano
Starting point is 00:07:49 or the dockside restaurant where Sophia opened her pizza and knish stand. We can picture those things. And so the production designer had taken all these stills of all these sets that he had built, sometimes with the actors rehearsing on them, and they were his own Polaroids just for his own files, and they were thrown into file boxes. And when he passed away, they were donated to the Art Directors Guild, but nobody had rehearsing on them. And they were his own Polaroids just for his own files. And they were like thrown into file boxes. And when he passed away, they were donated to the Art Directors Guild.
Starting point is 00:08:08 But nobody had ever gone through them. And so I just – I have all these visuals in there that it's like I feel like I was able to go like a kid in a candy store and just pick through stuff. It's a good-looking book. Thank you. And we were just talking before about Herb Edelman. Yes. Now – because he was a frequent guest. Yeah, the most frequent, yeah.
Starting point is 00:08:26 Yeah, he was hysterical. Do you have any stories about Herb? Well, everybody loved him, and he was really, I mean, as I said, the cast liked each other, but even the writers just, he was kind of like the Stan character. Not that he was a schlub,
Starting point is 00:08:39 but he was a salt of the earth. Oh, yes. He was a very down-to-earth guy. People loved him. He was very chummy with the writers and stuff. It was really key that Bea would like whoever got cast to play Stan because it turned out that he came back so many times.
Starting point is 00:08:54 I don't even think they planned that when they first cast the character. Who knows how long your show's even going to go when you're starting. But they wanted somebody who could go head-to-head with Bea that she would like and somebody who'd be tall because Bea couldn't be the taller one.
Starting point is 00:09:07 And so it narrowed down the list of men of a certain age who could do that kind of comedy, who Bea would like, and who would be tall. And they liked Bald. Bald was a good idea. Yeah. So Bea had a hand in casting him. I mean, she had worked with him before. Yeah. Did you talk to Leslie Nielsen?
Starting point is 00:09:23 No, he had passed away as well. He passed away too. Yeah. And what other to Leslie Nielsen? No, he had passed away as well. He passed away too. Yeah, yeah. And what other guest stars did you get? Oh, I got like 250 guest stars. It's crazy. I mean, some of them I talked to now have passed away, like Lois Nettleton, who played Dorothy's lesbian friend, Jean.
Starting point is 00:09:36 Famous Twilight episode with a melting painting. Oh, my gosh. Yes, yes. And now, what other guest stars stand out well you know there was a lot of stunt casting
Starting point is 00:09:48 where they had people like Bob Hope and Don Amici and I'm trying to think Howard Duff Geraldine Fitzgerald
Starting point is 00:09:55 it was almost Murder She Wrote in that they got a lot of these people from the silver screen who were on their way out of career and of life
Starting point is 00:10:01 but then they had some people that were memorable like they had George Clooney when he couldn't get arrested then they had some people that were memorable. They had George Clooney when he couldn't get arrested. Oh, wow. And they had him playing a cop who comes to do a stakeout
Starting point is 00:10:10 at their house because that happens a lot. Yes. When you're four old ladies, you host cops on a stakeout because it happens. So, I mean, they had amazing guest stars
Starting point is 00:10:18 on that show between the people who were already legends and the people who were up and coming. I got a quick Betty White story. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is where,
Starting point is 00:10:24 just since we brought up Betty White, when I was, when, were you at the Friars Club roast of Betty? Of Betty, no. When was that? Do you remember? Oh, my gosh. Gil, were you there? You must have been there. Which one?
Starting point is 00:10:35 Barbara Walters was the roast master. I don't think so. We're talking about seven years ago. Okay. And I wrote a joke for Joy, which was, Betty White's vagina is so dry there are still Jews wandering in it. She was such a sport about it. And then Joy went to her house and interviewed her later for the Behar show that she did for Current. And she said, Betty, can I bring back a joke?
Starting point is 00:10:57 And Betty didn't have any memory of the joke. And when Joy told the joke, it's on YouTube. You can see it. She laughed hysterically. I love that. There's that moment where you think, gee, I was cringing a little bit, but she loved it more than anybody. She's a secure woman. She has a body sense of humor. Oh, she's really bawdy. They all were. I mean, B, as I said, what her favorite word was, they all had mouths like sailors, which is, I
Starting point is 00:11:16 mean, these are old broads who had been coming up through this business for four decades. They certainly were not going to be prim about it. Well, she became, and speaking of get me a Jessica Walter type, in the Mary Tyler Moore book, I think she became the happy homemaker because they said Betty White type. Betty White type, they did. And then they said, I mean, she even tells that story that she was like so glad that somebody said, well, why don't you just ask Betty? Yeah. Great stuff. Now, I remember that Twilight Zone episode.
Starting point is 00:11:40 With Lois Nettleton. Yes. Sure, it's famous. Was it during the heat wave. What I remember is it's one of those episodes that you watch and then you start questioning. Like at one point, number one, the doctor makes a house visit. We do tangents here. I love tangents. The world is coming to an end.
Starting point is 00:12:00 I think let these people freeze to death. You're not going to help them. And so that already. He's making a house call at the end of the world. Paul, what is the name of that episode? Can you look it up? Lois Nettleton on the Twilight Zone. And then he says to them, well, now I have to get on a plane. Because, of course, when there's new ice age, it's very safe to get on a plane.
Starting point is 00:12:20 flying. I see. It's very safe to get on a plane. And he goes, I'm going to be going to Florida because the heat will last a little longer there. And I go, what? You remember this. Yes. It's so many things. He wanted to prolong the misery.
Starting point is 00:12:37 This was a very masochistic doctor. The book is terrific, Jim. Thank you. Before we go, tell us that Gilbert would find this interesting. Oh, wait. Here comes Paul, our researcher. Twilight Zone. What do you got, buddy?
Starting point is 00:12:50 Grab a mic. It was called The Midnight Sun. Yes, The Midnight Sun. With Lois Nettleton. Yes. And who else? We got to dig Ann Serling up and do a Twilight Zone episode. Yes, absolutely.
Starting point is 00:13:03 She's out there. Yeah, she tours Rod Serling's daughter. Baseball is finally back. Get in on Major League action and swing for the fences with BetMGM, the king of sportsbooks. Log in or sign up to play along as BetMGM brings the real-time action.
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Starting point is 00:14:29 The internet is too slow for our show. That's okay. Tell us real quick, because I'm going to take this out. Or maybe we can get Forrest Whitaker from his version when he was the Rod Serling in one of those. Oh, gosh. We should do an episode about all those Twilight Zones that were not connected with Rod Serling. Right. That would be sad. This cast is so obscure in this episode that most of them don't even have pictures on IMVP.
Starting point is 00:14:54 Okay. Lois Nettleton. Lois Nettleton. Tom Reese was the intruder. The immortal. Jason Wynn-Green. Oh, Jason Wynn-Green was the bartender on Archie Bunker's place. Oh!
Starting point is 00:15:04 The doctor was William Keene. That doesn'tunker's place. Oh. Died recently. The doctor was William Keene. That doesn't do anything for me. I don't know that. And that's about it. Betty Gard was Mrs. Bronson. Betty Gard. I love a good Betty Gard vehicle. Tell us about Estelle Getty's death phobia, which I found very interesting.
Starting point is 00:15:21 I didn't really know she had a death phobia, but she was freaked out. It makes sense. She was freaked out. It makes sense. She was freaked out by episodes about death. That's what I mean. And they thought that, I mean, I think this is true.
Starting point is 00:15:31 She was really being respectful of the character and of situations. Like, there's the episode that I, one of my favorites, where her son dies.
Starting point is 00:15:40 But the off-screen son we'd never seen in the cross-dresser. And the way it was originally written, as you do on a comedy, you're making jokes about everything. They had Sophia and whatever other characters standing over the casket,
Starting point is 00:15:53 cracking jokes. And they did keep in that he was buried in a teddy. And they talk about, oh, he looks so good in a teddy, whatever. But they had Estelle standing there, and that was one of the moments where Estelle, who was not normally like this, but she called the producers and said, I really am having trouble with this. I don't know if I can do it. I can't imagine being a mother standing over her son's coffin and cracking jokes about it.
Starting point is 00:16:15 Bizarre. And so they were actually happy for that input. They were like, all right, you're right. Good point. And they rewrote it, and it still worked. I want to tell you my Bea Arthur story. Go for it. But it's a long one. That's okay.
Starting point is 00:16:24 I told the rude Bea Arthur story. We can trim the episode up. Okay. So when I – Frank is looking at me because he's like – he was waiting for this story. Frank DiCaro is here. Frank DiCaro. Formerly of The Daily Show. So when I set out to do the interviews for the book, I was living in New York, but I was going to be spending an entire spring in LA for Frank DiCaro to be doing.
Starting point is 00:16:45 I've got a secret in LA and they were going to be taping over the course of three months. So I knew I had a hotel room and a car and what I was going to track down all these golden girls interviews. So of course, Rue lived in New York and Estelle, I already heard wasn't well enough to do the interview. So of course, my three big gets that I had to do to know that I had a book were Betty B and Susan Harris. And so of course I put in the phone
Starting point is 00:17:06 calls the first day I'm there and I put in a phone call to Betty's agent and I get, you know, told that Betty has an hour in April. This was like February 1st. It was like on April 27th, Betty has an hour at 3 PM. She was 84 and booked tight. So I was like, I'll take it. So I knew I had Betty on the books, Susan Harris, same thing. I got her on the books. With B, you know, this is in the days before IMDB Pro.
Starting point is 00:17:29 So the way I would find these actors was just call the Screen Actors Guild referral line and have them give me the agent info. With B,
Starting point is 00:17:36 they give you this thing that they called a reference number and I didn't know what that was. Well, I learned the hard way what a reference number means.
Starting point is 00:17:41 It just means it's their home number. And so, you called her a home number. I call this number thinking I'm going to get an agent, and I get the answering machine, hello, I can't come to the phone right now. And I start freaking out. What am I going to say to this woman?
Starting point is 00:17:58 And so I left a stammering message of, you know, B, my name is Jim, I'm doing a book on the Golden Girls. I have no idea what I said. She didn't call back. But, you know, okay, I'm racing against the clock. I have to get this interview. So how many times can I call her before I'm stalking an old lady? And it's going to be a problem. So I keep calling Bea. And luckily, I'm driving down. I put her number in my phone. So I'm driving down Santa Monica Boulevard right after they passed the law that you can't use the handset while you're driving. And my phone rings and it says Bea Arthur. and i'm like holy shit wow so i'm trying to drive in la and talk and she's saying to me it wasn't a happy time in my
Starting point is 00:18:31 life i feel like i've talked about the golden girls enough i really don't want to do this i'm very sorry it's nothing personal but with all the no i for some reason i don't know why this is i always felt like there was a glimmer of yes in there that maybe if I kept at it and she was also a softy, which I could also tell she felt bad about saying no, I could keep putting pressure on her. So I was like, at the end of that first call, she was like, you know, we can talk about this again. So that started the whole phone stalkings thing again, where I had to call her four or five times before she'd call me back. And every time we'd finally have a conversation is she'd say, no, but, no, but.
Starting point is 00:19:05 At one point, I was shrewd enough to say, I'm going to be talking to Betty. So I knew that would get her. And there was one moment where she called me back, and I was in the Beverly Hills Public Library because they had free Wi-Fi. And she calls, and I'm in the middle of this giant complex. I can't run outside. And so I take the call, and everybody's yelling at me, get off your fucking phone. This is a library. And I'm like,
Starting point is 00:19:26 fuck you, it's Bea Arthur. So I'm talking to her in full voice in the library and she's saying to me, I'm going to Chicago this weekend. I can't talk until after then. Call me after that
Starting point is 00:19:35 and I'll talk to you again. So again, I call her, whatever. Another time I call, she says, this happened to be when the Paley Center,
Starting point is 00:19:41 which does this Paley Fest every spring, they used to, they don't do it anymore too much, do a class. In addition to doing panels about current TV shows with all their cast and crew, they used to do a classic show. And I was lucky that that year they were doing Golden Girls. So perfect for me, free interviews. So she said to me, come to the Paley Center that night.
Starting point is 00:19:58 Come in the green room beforehand. Meet me in person and we'll talk. Well, I'd already met her a couple times through Frank, but whatever. I didn't have to tell her that. Yes, I'll come meet you in the green room. When I went that night to the green room, there's Betty, there's Rue, no B. And Betty is going around to everybody, like table to table
Starting point is 00:20:16 saying, B's doctor said, you are so sick, don't you dare get out of bed. And I was thinking to myself, even at the time, Betty's full of shit. But okay, Betty's putting of shit. But okay, Betty's putting a happy face on it. That's what she does. She wanted to make everybody feel good.
Starting point is 00:20:30 So when I finally get Bea to agree to an interview, which was a miracle, I go to what I thought was going to be her house and it turned out it was a rental house her kids had gotten for her
Starting point is 00:20:39 because they were renovating her kitchen in Pacific Palisades. That house that just sold for like 19 million, that was the one they were renovating because Bea was a big cookades. That house that just sold for like 19 million, that was the one they were renovating because Bea was a big cook, loved to entertain, had like a big couch in her kitchen for people to sit while she cooked.
Starting point is 00:20:51 So it was in this rental house and I show up and she's in her trademark bare feet. And I set up in the living room with my recorder and my computer and stuff. And for the first hour, she's giving me like monosyllabic answers that are not helpful at all. You know, what did you think of that? Yes.
Starting point is 00:21:07 No. I don't remember. I'm thinking, oh my God, it took months to get in this woman's living room. I had to stalk her. And she did say over the course of the time that Maud was a happier time for her. If I were interviewing her about Maud, she'd have stories. But why did it have to be Golden Girls? At quarter to four, you can hear her say on my recording,
Starting point is 00:21:26 under her breath, Judge Judy's on in 15 minutes. And I was like, I ignored that because there's no way I'm going to leave your house so you can fricking watch Judge Judy after all this has taken to get here. Then at about 10 minutes after four, you can hear her say in the middle of an answer
Starting point is 00:21:41 to something else, I guess I can miss Judge Judy for one day. So she did open up and eventually give me some stories obviously because they're in the book and by the time we wrap it's about five o'clock and i had stupidly rented this car and i was leaving town so i had to get it back to hertz before they close at six and where she's in brentwood like three doors down from betty by the way and neither of them knew it because it's a rental house she hadn't been there that long and I had to get this car back to West Hollywood. But the condition of the interview was that I would stay with her and have a drink after. And by a drink, she means a bottle of something. And so I'm putting away my stuff and I hear her
Starting point is 00:22:17 in the kitchen going, you who? And it didn't dawn on me until a couple of times that she said that, oh, right. i'm the only person in the house she doesn't remember my name that's for me i'm yoohoo so i go in the kitchen which is you know it's rental furniture there's nothing there except for it's a very fully stocked pantry pantry full of liquor and she says you know what do you want let's have something so i'm like what's the least offensive thing i can have and then get on the road like a crazy person i hurt here i am with your car so uh i pick a bottle of white wine, and she pulls out this bottle of white wine,
Starting point is 00:22:49 and she's like, let's have this. The guy who shops for me, a gay guy who came in two or three times a week who shopped for her, the guy who shops for me knows I love this. And I go to open it, looking around like, where am I going to find a corkscrew?
Starting point is 00:22:59 No, not that one. She takes it back, grabs another bottle of exactly the same wine. This one. Okay. Does it again. No, not that one. This one. back, grabs another bottle of exactly the same wine. This one. Okay. Does it again. No, not that one. This one.
Starting point is 00:23:06 It's the same wine every time. So I'm rummaging around in her drawers looking for a corkscrew. And that's when you have that surreal moment in your mind that I'm rummaging through Bea Arthur's kitchen drawers looking for a corkscrew. Just got to keep note of that. And I realize it's screw type wine anyway. So she pulls out the two biggest balloon goblets I've ever seen and empties the entire bottle into the two, so much so that I have to slurp it before I can even move it.
Starting point is 00:23:29 And then we go sit in the living room, and she has her bare feet up on the coffee table. And now it's time to make small talk with her. But we've just been talking Golden Girls for like two and a half hours and Maud and all that. So I'm like, what am I going to talk about with this woman? I really don't remember. It didn't matter because she just wanted to have a drink. But I do remember one thing she said was that she was really into, they call them hag movies, right? Like whatever happened to Baby Jane, where the really great actresses of the silver screen are completely humiliated in 60s and 70s movies. Yes. Where they're made to be like horrible monsters and matrons and they... Well, that one with Shelley Winters. Oh, right. Who slew Annie Rue. Who slew Annie Rue with Debbie Reynolds, too, right?
Starting point is 00:24:05 Yes, yeah. Yeah, so that genre, that genre was a favorite of B's, it turns out. Wow. So I told her... The ugly actress. Right, yes.
Starting point is 00:24:13 She liked to see her contemporaries humiliated, it turns out. Lady in a Cage. Right, Lady in a Cage, Lady in a Haviland. But that wasn't as humiliating as some of them.
Starting point is 00:24:21 Right. Although she was also in the other one, Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte. Right. So yeah, so Olivia has done her share of them. Right. Although she was also in the other one, Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte. Right. So, yeah. So, Olivia has done her share of those. Still alive at 100.
Starting point is 00:24:29 And was on the love boat. I'm looking for her. I'm looking for her in Paris. So, I'm talking with Bea about these movies. And I remember that when I was in college in Philadelphia, I had been up late one night. And of the two channels I got on my rabbit ears, there was one station that was showing this obscure British movie with Lana Turner. And I didn't know at the time, but it was called Persecution from the early 70s. And the plot was basically that Lana was this rich bitch in England, American heiress, who
Starting point is 00:24:55 loved her Persian cats more than she loved her poor son. And her son grew up kind of psycho, but still was trying to get out from under her clutches, got married, had a baby. And then one night, one of the cats kills the baby and he goes totally off the rails and by the end of the movie he has lana at gunpoint and he makes her drink a bowl of milk off the floor like a cat oh and the moment i said that sentence to be she sat up and came to life grabbed my arm and said i must have that movie you must get it for me so she loved camp so she loved camp
Starting point is 00:25:27 and she loved the hag movies so I did actually our friend Dennis Dermody who was on Frank's my husband Frank's radio show on Sirius XM is the king of those movies
Starting point is 00:25:37 and so the moment I started describing it to him no one else has ever heard of this movie I was like Lana Turner saucer of milk he goes persecution 1974
Starting point is 00:25:43 so he found me a VHS copy which I I sent to Bea, and I hope she watched. So then we're wrapping up. It's now like 10 to 6. There's no way I'm going to make it in time. I don't know what I'm going to do. And I thought, you know, I'm going to test her on something, because now that we've gotten to know each other a little. So I said to her and looked at her out of the corner of my eye, Bea, I'm so sorry I didn't get to meet you that night at the Paley Center, but I heard you were so sick. And I look and she's got this guilty look on her face like a little kid. I'm like, oh, well, that tells me everything I need to know. So I'm packing up and whatever.
Starting point is 00:26:14 And I didn't do this with anybody else, including Betty. But I felt like I had broken through to her because the thing about B that I learned that other people probably would have said is that, you know, again, people thought the way to interact with her was to be mean with her and play rough because she was imposing and she was mawed and she was tough. The thing is, on the inside, she was anything but tough. She was so easily hurt. And so she had this guarded exterior
Starting point is 00:26:35 and only if you spend enough time with her did you really kind of get to see through that. And I felt like in that day, I finally did get to see through it. So I said to her, can I give you a hug? I gave her a hug and she kind of melted a little, like it took her off guard and then she kind of relaxed. And so we
Starting point is 00:26:48 walked to the door and she's standing in the doorway, perfectly framed, like it's a perfect shot. And I'm walking out and she goes, I'm halfway down the line. And she calls back to me and goes, Hey. And I look and she goes, I wasn't sick that day either. And then looked off and slammed the door. So it was like a perfect day with Bea. I got the sass. And then, of course, I called Hertz and said, I was just with Bea Arthur. You have to let me return the car late.
Starting point is 00:27:12 And they did. Just because you were with Bea Arthur. I'm like, I think I also said I've been drinking and I was with Bea Arthur. It was the worst thing to say, but they were like, great. Nice. We'll keep the doors open until 6.15. The book is called Golden Girls Forever,
Starting point is 00:27:26 an unauthorized look behind the lanai, Jim Colucci. Thank you guys so much. Terrific book. Gil? Yes. And it was written by some guinea. Not some guinea. Not just any guinea.
Starting point is 00:27:39 The guinea. Yes. Before we turned the mics on, I was referencing Colucci's department. Yes. Just for our listeners. Yes. James Coco. But spelled differently. They spelled it with an A. For the referencing Colucci's department. Yes. Just for our listeners. Yes. James Coco. Spelled differently.
Starting point is 00:27:46 They spelled it with an A. For the six people who remember that. Yes, that's right. And this has been Gilbert and Frank's Amazing Colossal Obsessions. Where can they get the book? Amazon, Barnes & Noble, your local bookstore. It's a great read. Fun.
Starting point is 00:27:58 Thank you. Thanks for doing this, buddy. Thank you, guys. Colossal Obsessions Colossal Obsessions

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