Page 7 - Pop History: Steel Magnolias

Episode Date: February 25, 2020

We explore the story behind our favorite tear jerker, "Steel Magnolias".If you can't say anything nice about anybody then come sit by us. Our hottest goss is over on our Patreon page! Get access to weekly bonus content and extra goodies today. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Page 7 ad-free.Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Lord, I hope you got your tissue boxes and I hope that you have pulled over to the side of the road. We got ourselves a tearjerker episode. I'm going to go ahead and say in advance that there might be at least five cry breaks while discussing my personal favorite movie steel magnolias and how it became the movie that it is. From the play to the Broadway show to the movie, it is one of my favorite things, especially as a as a, woman actress that I've done every single monologue that there is to do. I've done almost every single scene in this movie. I never actually had to do a full production. I'm going to sob.

I've been crying for days. You know, I think that it really is after such a long, intensive study of Prince that took so long, I think it's a great move to go to something that makes Jackie cry for an hour straight. Just cry and cry and cry and cry. I mean, yeah, I would say there's two things. I watched the movie last night and I was like slow crying through the whole thing, which is a new experience for me. I guess we'll jump into the gush a little bit.

Hi, by the way, Holden here, accompanied by Jackie and Natalie. Hi, I'm sorry. I just get so excited. I just wanted to warn everybody that if you guys love the movie too, and if you haven't seen the movie, watch it right after you listen to this because it is, it is enlightening. Wait, Holden, did you say you were slow crying? Yeah, it was like kind of just all throughout because this is the thing. I feel like if you were from the south especially,

steel magnolias and you grew up around the time. Jackie and I grew up like, steel magnolias is inherent in your upbringing for most southern families, right? I don't know, Natalie, I know you're a North, a union folk. I don't know. We're the good ones.

You are, yes, you are the good ones. I'm a Northie. I did not ever see this movie before. Wow. It was not when you guys saw it in your home like you said. My mom never, it was not in her rotation. So as a kid, I had never had any other cause to see it. I get it.

So I also never learned what slow crying means. And I'm really curious about that. Oh, just sort of tears just dropping throughout. Like no big sobbing moment per se, but literally just watching with just tears generally sort of slowly running down. Like a beautiful day in the neighborhood. That's how I watched. beautiful day in the neighborhood the entire time where it's no like it's just more of just that's the sound of the tears burning my skin yeah it wasn't like a there was no you know

even though it is get it is a little cathartic there at the end with the monologue but there was no cathartic sob fest it was literally just watching it with a slow and the reason is this growing up it was inherent in you know in my family this film it was just one of those movies that you know and it was one of those movies if it was on tv i would just kind of have it on the background or stop and watch i think for me when i was younger i really appreciated the comedy in it and really enjoyed it. It's a very funny play and movie. It is very funny.

Oh, yeah. It was surprisingly for me. And resonant and very resonant. But the comedy is key, and we'll get into that. The comedy is so important to this work, both in play and screenplay form. It is like the way, it is literally, it's grieving through comedy and, you know, and all that sort of stuff. I just can't believe you didn't have a hard cry when she says, I'd rather have 30 minutes a wonderful. Been a lifetime of nothing special.

No, it's too early. Stop. You got to give it at least five minutes. But it was so much more resonant this time. And that's why it really hit me so much harder this time. Because A, I now understand what it's like to lose someone to young and understand what grieving with a funny community, specifically a funny community of people. Funny community.

Yeah. And so that is like now so much more in my body and my emotion set. and everything. I would say we would dedicate this to Barnett, but I think he would really hate it if we dedicate to steal my goals, which means we're going to dedicate this episode to give it Barnett. And the other reason is because now I know the real story. I had no idea this was based on a true story.

I had no idea how this helped that family go through their own grief in the real world. And that is so, and that's what we're going to get into. And that's what is difficult. I literally told Jackie Natalie before this, Like, I, there's some quotes in here. I will no way be able to get through as evidenced by my inability to even just get through the Joan Rivers stuff at the end of that. I will say, you can say whatever or do whatever you want because I got to throw it out there, Holden, your little cry face, you can tell Holden's been crying a lot. And your little cry face is very cute.

And I feel like likes you, and you can get away with anything. She loves when I cry. She loves that I'm so emotional. So she can take care of you like a little baby. Yeah. Little Holden, Baby. A little old and baby need a wipe, all that good stuff. So, and baby does need a wipe because baby's got a dirty ass.

This is not the episode for a while. I just want someone online to complain about me making it. Oh, is it because you get uncomfortable. It's because we get uncomfortable with our feelings sometimes, and especially this movie that is so, it is put into the corner. They put Steele Magnolia's Baby in the corner. Right. Because they're always saying that so many people,

I remember when Jeff first watched it with me, is a right of passage for being my partner is the sit down to watch Theo Magnolia because he also had never seen it. And he was like, I always thought this was like, it's always been billed as like, oh, that's a girl's movie.

Oh, you would, no one likes that movie. It is just, it's just a movie for Southern women and no one understands. And then he watched, he's like, this is a great movie. Yes. Yes.

It is filled with powerhouse actresses. The play is so fucking well written. it's like we were talking about it's funny and it's got great moments and it's got Olympia Dukakis and Shirley Baclaine you fuck kidding me I have been wanting to be I the one thing is I can't wait until I get older

because one day I'm gonna play Weezer on stage and I can't wait because I'm still you know I'm too young for it someday though some fucking day I'm putting it out into the universe right now everybody hear it humble brag you're too young for it yeah I'm just humble brag to young for it

and surprisingly they never want to cast me as Shelby. I know I'm usually the fragile one. You know something about they're like, oh, you just don't, you look like you enjoy life too much to be on the verge of death. And I like the term enjoy life instead of, I eat a lot.

It is, it is. I do find it really, from watching it this first time, it was really a standout point that even though it is all women, it's not a chick flick, whatever the fuck that means anyway. But it's like really fun. But I really find it moving that the male characters are all sort of side characters. And because that doesn't happen very often. And I don't think that should always be the case.

But I think it really means a lot to display like female characters in this way. And it was not done a lot. Still isn't. But the closest one I could think of as bridesmaids that came out in like 2012. Yeah. It was again, the guys were just like kind of tertiary like side characters. They barely had lines. Even when Steel Magnolias came out as the movie,

there was a lot of reviews against it because it had no big male characters. Interesting. And that the men were treated with insignificance. And I think that that's pretty hilarious. Of a go fuck yourself. There was one specific LA Times review that I was reading that I just got really upset about.

I was like, oh, cry me a fucking river. And this comes from a play where there's no men. I was about to say, there's no men in the play. And also, we're talking about Tom Scarrott here. Oh, man, Tom Scarrett here. Oh, man, Tom Scarrett's. And, oh, God, what's Dali Parton's husband's name? Sam Shepard.

And Sam Shepard is it? It's like, these are powerhouse men to also stand by the side and be the support beam for these powerhouse women. Oh, my God, the sense of female community is. just insane and it makes me it does it makes me want to like cuddle up with my girls and be like let's touch breasts Natalie wow

I think that might cross some wires because of me being married to your brother my brother yeah no that's a whole other thing so I guess maybe we'll just talk about I guess we'll start talking about the playwright I mean I'll touch breast with you Jackie I think you breasts are beautiful now you said no I don't want to force anyone to touch breast it doesn't want to touch press no I do Jackie I'm sorry I take it back Only consent for the breast touching.

So let's get into it. You have to start here with Robert Harling, our playwright, even our adapter, and his story of loss. But before we get to his loss, let's get to his gains. Sure. Yeah, he's pumping iron. And man, he was bulking. He does play, by the way, he plays the priest in the film, I believe.

He does. Yes. So if you want to see him, he is the priest. So he was born in 1951 in Dothan, Alabama as one of three children, a younger brother named Johnny and a younger sister named Susan. Oh, right. Can we not? Can we just get here in sister name? She's, um, uh, he graduated from Northwestern State University in Natchitosh, Louisiana.

Nope, it is called Nacadish. We should have probably talked about this before. It's Nacadish. And that is, it doesn't the, this little town, which we will talk about a lot because it's where the, film was shot as well. It does not look like it is pronounced Nakadish. I looked it up. It's an indigenous people's

title. Yes. Interesting. Yeah, I thank you for that correction because we were going to hear it at some point. Oh, lots. Because in looking at it was like, there's no way that it's natchatotious, is it? So that's in Louisiana. He gets a law degree from Tulane University Law School in New Orleans.

And it just made me think, man, I would not have done well in college in New Orleans. Well, you know what? didn't either, so it's really fine. Yeah, he at Tulane, he sings in a big band and performs in community theater and ends up foregoing the bar

exam and moving to NYC to be an actor with two months of support from his parents. And that's when he learned, yeah, that he said he had never, when he was asked if he had ever practiced law, he said, no, I had a choice of taking the bar or learning to tap in a summer stock production.

So I learned that a tap in a summer stock production, which that just is like, It's like, of course, why would you want to be a lawyer if you can go tap in a suburb stock production? I'm with you on that one. Also, this really, really messed with me. I've definitely felt this specific feeling. Harling said, I cried for an afternoon and then I got the list of auditions on his first day in NYC. And it just immediately transported me back to the holy shit moment when I first arrived in New York City and like lost my mind right after college.

So he does okay for about eight years He's doing regional theater He's getting steady commercial work All of this, you know, nothing huge or splashy But he's a working actor All the way up until Jackie Oh my God His sister Susan is diagnosed

With diabetes at the age of 12 And when Susan learned that she was diabetic So what you need to know Obviously we're going down the territory That Shelby is based on Susan and Susan in their, like their relationship, they were very close. And when Susan learned that she was diabetic, she looked at her mother and her response was that this illness is not going to get in the way of anything.

Robert Harling said they grew up moving. And as he described from southern town to southern town to southern town, eventually ending up in Louisiana. This nomadic childhood meant that it was hard to make friends from place to place. His best friend was his sister, Susan. We've come to know her as Shelby. He says she was the only person that had been with me for forever. So there you go. There's the first one.

Oh, no, Jackie. They're best friends. They're best friends. Yeah. And then they grow old and they are best friends for life, right? Yeah. Is it feel like it's hitting home to you, Jackie? Yeah.

No, it's, this is. That's why this has been so rough. And then I asked. You wanted this. You wanted to do this. I knew that it was based. in reality, I knew in some way, but I didn't realize that it was his sister

and that he was so close to his sister. Right. And then I asked Henry yesterday, I was like, Henry, if I died suddenly, would you write a play about me? And he goes, fuck, no. I was like, thank you. You know that he would.

No, he would. He said, he's like, no, no, he's like, I'd do something more grandiose. He's like, I'd build you a yacht and set it on fire. I was like, thank you. That's great. That's comparable to a play.

You know, we were drinking wine. that makes your legacy live on forever. Totally the same thing. We were drinking a lot of wine, you know? Harling said, not every diabetic is the same, but because of her particular condition, the doctors were concerned that carrying a child would affect her. But she wanted a child.

She went ahead and had a child, and then, sure enough, her metabolism started to fail, circulatory system, kidneys, the whole thing. It was much grimmer than I portrayed in the play. Nobody could sit through the actual health dilemmas that my sister went through. It was so powerful to me. because there was this incredibly strong woman, my mother, who had really fought Susan when she said she was going to try to have a baby.

And now here was Susan having to turn back to her and say, Mama, you need to help me now. When she needed a kidney, we were all tested to see if we were matches, but my mom basically said the buck stops here and that's how it was. So obviously what he's saying in that quote is, her own mother is the one who donates a kidney to her. And everything works out after that. She gets the kidney. She totally comes back to great health. And also, she had a very close relationship with her mother, Margaret, as well, who was a nurse. And so then Susan graduated from Northwestern and became a pediatric nurse, which is also just like Shelby.

This movie is in, and the play is almost to AT everything that actually happened. But it's, you know, spruced up so that the really ugly parts are not. not in it because that's not entertaining, I guess. And also I think that it was just that it was the sense, honestly, I think that it was the southern, this respect of the southern culture as well, where it's like we don't need to see that, we just need to see how people are affected by it.

You know, where it's like it's not about the, like I think then it makes it not emotional torture porn, even though it kind of is just in sense of like, family connections and friend connections. But there's so much choice. in it. There's so much. There is. And that's what I love about it. And there's so much women supporting other women. And it's just this beautiful. Like there's really, I don't think there's even ever a time when any of, you feel like any of them are like competing against each other or anything like that. It's just this beautiful support group. It almost makes me jealous, even though I have a great friend group. I'm just like, man, like, I love these ladies. And it's not the same. Did you, do you guys grow up around? I know as Sothe's, did you guys have like this kind of. of women group, was this real around you? Like, especially Holden.

Jackie, I know Florida's a little different. My mother, I mean, for sure, my mother had her little group. They don't, I feel like some of them have grown apart over the years. And she still has her, I've talked about it on page seven. She still has her Peggy, you know, the kids, like everyone needs a Peggy. Her Peggy is like Jackie. Her, his mom said that I'm just like Peggy. The one that makes her have fun.

Yeah, it's that, as I put it, it's that friend who's, you know, when you go out to lunch on a Thursday, She says, get that margarita. You deserve, you earned it, and you'll have a margarita at lunch. She's the Claree. That's why I love Claree so much. Yeah, Clary is the best. And I, oh, I loved so much her in this film. But we'll get to that.

I also, what I enjoyed, too, is that in the anniversary edition, Robert Harling had said that, so Shelby in the movie that she makes it very clear that I want to have a child, but I want to keep working, and I want to do all of these things. And he's like, I wasn't trying to make a statement. honestly about women as a whole, although I think that all women have the right to choose whether they want to have a family or what. And like she was not,

I just chose because Susan did that. That Susan was the one that wanted all of it and no one was pressuring her to do anything. She did exactly what she wanted to do. And unfortunately, that was her downfall. And I like that even though it is such a booster for a woman to watch her, someone take the reins of her life like that, that I appreciate too that Robert Harling,

as a man, wasn't trying to like shove it down people's throat and it's like, do you see, a woman wanted to do that? It wasn't about that. It was about the character. It was about the person instead. Right. So Harling said, the last time I talked to Susan was on her birthday, October 7th, 1985. She was on dialysis and they were going to put in some stunts, some shunts to facilitate it. And that required some minor surgery. I actually had to get off the call because I was going to an audition. She said, good luck, and they rolled her down to the operating room. She never woke up, and I told her story.

Ah, I hate that. I got through that one, though. You did good. So not too long after Susan's death, her widower remarries and to Harling's despair. His nephew even begins calling his stepmother, Mama. So Harling refuses to let his sister be forgotten. And I love it. It's actually the, it's kind of a similar premise to Dear Zachary, actually.

You're Zachary, and I never thought about that because he was so distraught that his two-year-old nephew would never know his mother that he said, yeah, how's that feel, Natalie? I'm mugging myself. I got six pages here. We're only halfway through page one. All he wanted to do was have somebody remember her. But it's, okay, what I get, I get why you're trying to give the kid a mother figure, but she literally fucking Jesused herself for this kid. She didn't know that it was definitely going to happen.

Yeah, I mean, she thought she was going to pull through. She kind of knew. She'd rather have 30 minutes of wonderful than a lifetime and nothing special. All I'm learning from this movie is don't have a baby. No? I think for her, looking at the character at least that Harling paints for us, she was the type of person that I think really did believe that she would live through this and that this was, that she could essentially with just her own vivacious spirit

and her own just like will would get through this and be able to, you know, pull this having a kid thing off. But what I like is that they never forced the nephew, is nephew to watch it or be a part of it. Nice. He, Harling said, my mother said, you don't want to saddle him with anything. It's out there.

He will discover it. We never made him go and see steal magnolias. It's unfair to make a four-year-old think, my mom died because of me, which fair. And I appreciate that they never, Because then there is the other side of that where it is, like you said, watching your mother being like, no, I'd rather have you and die than not.

And that's got to be a lifetime of guilt. That apparently though he is a grown man now, he is married, he's doing just fine, and the whole family is still very close. So Robert Harling, of course, is a disaster after this happens. And he's going through it in New York City. and a couple of friends are witnessing what this guy's dealing with. And one of them is a playwright. Who is specifically Michael Weller.

Yeah, Michael Weller. Is the name of this playwright. And they suggest that he just writes something about it. And so he starts writing a short story about what happened, but was not happy with how he had the women in this story talking. So he's like, maybe I should just write dialogue. And once you're doing just dialogue, you're essentially writing a play. Because this is a Robert Harling had never written a play before. he had never written a screenplay before.

He was just a dude that got a law degree that became an actor and was just like, I'm so upset. And what he had said is that he had all this stuff raging inside of him. He said, my sister was my best friend and I had to find some way to confront all these demons. I also needed to tell myself that everything was going to be all right,

that life was going to go on. Some of my friends urged me to write down my feelings, which I did in 10 days. It's also a good thing to note to people if you want to go after a dream you have, you don't have to have some sort of pedigree or credentials. If you want to write something, write it. You never know.

You never know. And he was just writing his feelings and writing what he saw through this grieving process. And that's why when we get into the characters later on, he was writing the people that he knew. He was writing specifically his family. It is to the T things that people around him have said, which is why I love this quote. Holden.

The one I'm about to throw out there. And real quick, I want to say to that note, Natalie, or also just, even if it has nothing to do with a dream or anything, writing your stuff down can be very useful. And like, in almost a diary sort of way, I went back when I was doing the artist's way, which I really, yeah, doing morning pages every day, just writing stream of consciousness for three pages a day. I should get back to it. I miss it. And it was so good when I was in the practice habit of doing that.

When I did it, it actually sent me into a nervous breakdown in the best way. Because it was like, it was shit that I had been burying, burying for years into the point where I had to go to therapy and get medicated and stuff. But it was what I needed. Right. To be able to, like, write all that shit down. It needs to come out of you. It's like a fucking, like a cyst or something that needs pop.

And you just got to do it. So Harling said, when I was a kid, the mystique of the beauty parlor was that guys were never allowed. You didn't know what went on in there, and they all came back different somehow. I realized this hermetically sealed environment would be the best place to have these women express their true feelings. After my sister's funeral, everybody came over to the house, and there was all this food. I was watching the men in the din, and they were a mess. My dad couldn't talk about anything.

None of them knew what to do. And I could see into the kitchen, and there were all these women, and they were laughing and telling stories and ditching things out. They were saying things like, you know this would be a lot better if she had just put a little white pepper in it. And I thought, this is very interesting. The women are getting it done and the guys cannot function. And then one of the men walked into the kitchen. I saw how the women's body language completely changed. They weren't leaning against the counter anymore.

The dish towel that was slung over his shoulder was all of a sudden being folded and hung up on the rack. They sound terrified of men. They sound scared. Yeah. Later, I thought, this play needs to be somewhere there can be no men, which was, of course, the beauty parlor. And I started putting the characters together. So that is, so in the play, it is all set in Truvys hair salon. Yes.

The play is amazing. I love the way that he transitions time. I love, like everything about it, all the little choices that he makes. And the hermetically sealed environment that he explains, it makes it feel like, and it is true. When you're with a gaggle, honestly, it doesn't really, nowadays, like as we've grown older and the generations have changed. It's just close friends, but being with close friends like when Barnett passed and being altogether is just, it's something completely different of being just with people that know you so truly that you can be completely yourself and he gets that. And it just the play is absolutely amazing because it is seeing people strip off the cover that they have and they have. the rapping that you usually put on yourself when you leave your house every day and let it all shed and what's left.

And usually it's just emotions. It's just saying what you really feel and how often in a day do you get to just sit and talk about how you really feel. Jackie, I think you have something like in your eye. Am I? But that's what you need. You need that laughter too and it's so cathartic. Like that moment at the end of the play, you know, where it is like this like this gut-wrenching monologue. but it's all broken up by grabbing Weezer, you know, and being like, header, header.

And, you know, and that whole, that's like every, that's what the play is getting to is like, but we're going to get through it. I have a t-shirt made that says, I slapped Weezer Boudreau. I still have always wanted that t-shirt. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great shirt. And now, fuck you, by the way, just a shout out to fuck you guys for bringing up Kevin throughout this. I didn't know that was going to happen.

I didn't know either. I didn't know either, but I was supposed to be the one. He made the connection pretty quickly. Yeah, myself. All right, let's get back into the play and his process. So he's opting not to use real names here. So Harling's close friend from college's mother was called Malin. So that's what he used for.

These are some southern-ass names that I've never heard before. Yeah, I love Malin. I love the name Shelby, though. Shelby has always been one of my favorite names. It was one of his own mother's cousins, a quote, Southern thing, as he calls it, of having a family name be your first name. name. And another quote Southern thing is just to toss two names together, which I completely get that. And that's where he got Anel from. And then the name Claree was taken from a quote

fabulous aunt, which I love from South Carolina. His sister's best friend was named Weezer, but apparently that's all the real life person and the character have in common. Weezer is such a strange name. I've never heard that name before. I believe that it's a short name. What I love is that so everybody thought that they were Weezer. Everybody in the town thought that the character of Weezer was based on them, except, and this is what Harlington, except the woman who was Weiser. She never got it. She never got it.

She came to see the play and she said, I know Claree is Ruth Caldwell. And I know your mom's your mom. And your sister is your sister. And I know Liz Landrum is Truvie, but who's Weezer? And she's flicking ashes just all down her fur coat from her cigarette. So I thought, mission accomplished. I got away with that one.

It's kind of crazy that the character I thought everyone would hate, everyone wanted to be. Weezer also, it's spelled like the French form of, like, yes. So we with S-E-R. It's not Weezer like the band. Yeah. If anybody's, I think it's like Louisa and then it's just short to Wisa. I think it's like that kind of thing like Wiesa. Oh, okay.

So it comes out with like Wieser because there's more of a southern twang. Yeah, yeah. It is such a perfect name for a Southern curmudgeon. Like it's just, you can't write a better name that. Also, the part of Truvie, he wrote the part of Truvie for an actress out of Jacksonville, Texas, named Margot Martindale. And the thing is that you guys haven't seen BoJack Horseman. Yeah, she's in BoJack. It's a love is that Margo Martindale is a huge through line through Bojack Horseman.

And I was just like, character actress Margo Martindale, which is how they say her name every single time. And I love that not only did he write Truvie for Margo Martindale, but she would play Trueville. in the original production of it as well. She would actually take Truvie all the way through the national, the first national tour. She was the only actor that started at the very beginning and made it as far as she did, which was all the way through that first national tour.

I would love to see her do it. I would pay so much fucking money to see that original cast. Oh, my God. And we'll get into it. We'll get into more about that. But I was just reading the play and trying to visualize. it in my head. And honestly, after reading the play, because I had not done that yet, until this research. And the, I think I like the play better.

It is, it's amazing. Yeah. It is, it is, it is very well done. And it's the dialogue in the way that he really captured, which is insane for a young man to watch it and capture exactly how women do talk to each other, specifically southern women. And you, but, but Natalie, you, It is very like the comedy, a lot of the punchlines, a lot of the jokes you see in the film are all in that play. And there's so much stuff that both have. Well, yeah, I imagine that those all came from him because all the jokes.

It was very foreign to me watching it. It was almost like a different land that I've never been to. How do you feel about the land? Like, would you want to? How do you think that you would thrive in the land? I fucking love the South. It's hard because all of this beauty came from all of this horribleness in the beginning of our country. Yeah.

Right. And it's hard to just look at it purely in that way. But it's so it's sort of the way that I like fundamentalist reality shows. It's sort of I like seeing the, the, a window into another identity. And the very structured kind of calm world. There's also a hierarchy as well. Oh yeah, there's all kinds of horrible shit in it. There is the respect that even though Wisa is a curmudgeon,

she can say whatever the fuck she wants because she's made it as long and also because she's got more money than God, which I love that she's just a rich old bitch and she can do whatever the fuck she wants because she is an elder in the community. Yeah, and it's like there's so many things I would disagree with morally in that world, but I do also appreciate the side of it. where it does seem nice that you don't have to care about anything. And that they're all,

and they're there for each other and that's a good part of it. That is a kind of loving. But I love the hen peck and peck, pick, pick, pick, pick, pick a little, when they are just, always. If you have nothing good to say, sit next to me. Come sit by me.

Is the best. I love that. Which I still say all the time. Yeah, I want to hear, I'm this, I'm awful with that shit. I love. I mean, Holden and I think that's how our, our friendship has remained a friendship

is because, man, we will just sit and dish. Dish. Yeah, completely. Just dish it out. What are you saying about me? Oh, we're always dishing. Holden wants to shave your head and put the hair on his head and just be like, I can do a stunt too. And he can't do the stunt and that's the best part. I like to think about you guys fanning yourselves

as you do this. Oh yeah, we're always sweating. Yes, completely. So after the 10 days, I saw some of those a quote where he was like he literally didn't even know what he had he handed it to friends and was just like is this even a play? Is it a play? I don't even know what this. This is just my vomiting of this stuff. But he he ends up, you know, taking it to a receptionist at a literary agency who gave it to an agent who said, the agent said, it's not commercial because it's a bunch of women and it takes place in a beauty parlor and we'll, but we'll send it out. One of my favorite things too is that

it wasn't written as a comedy. Yeah. And at this point in time, he was looking at this as a straight-up drama. And he had said it wasn't until audiences came in and started responding to the way the women talked and how wonderful the actresses were that we realized, I guess this is funny. Yeah. I mean, until it's not, is what Hartling said. Yeah, exactly. So it turns out a bunch of theaters are interested in it.

And they do a reading at a small off-Broadway theater that was notable for being where Little Shop of Horrors started out at the WPA theater. And a director named Pamela Berlin really takes to it at the reading. She came out of Virginia and originally went for a medical career, but switched to focus on the arts in college, getting an MFA and directing from Southern Methodist University in 1977 before moving to NYC. Two years later, so very similar to Harling's upbringing or Harling's start. Two years later, she goes to NYC and starts off as a stage manager at the Ensemble Studio Theater,

where she would move up the ranks to eventually direct plays for the company. Harling said she would tell me things like, you've only allowed a minute and 15 seconds to wash and set a woman's hair. We have to move the dialogue around so we have time to do these things. So getting really into the details and the timing of everything. Well, because while they're doing this, what I love about it as well as someone that has done scenes from it many times, is that they are doing each other's hair while all of these scenes are happening.

So you have to be doing it. At the end, you have to have a done hairstyle. So I'm assuming that all these women had to go through some sort, like Margo Martindale, I'm assuming, had to go through training to know how to do hair because she had to do it on stage every single night. And so did Annel. Yeah.

Also, he would have Margo Martindale just say the lines to him in her own Southern voice, just to figure out if he needed to revise anything and make it tighter. Just he needed to hear that Southern lady voice. He said, though, also I had the voices of the women, and I grew up with. It takes your breath away how quick they are. It's the kind of humor

that would sear through treacle. Is that how you say it? Tricle. Tricle. I think that's like caramel. Yeah, it's like, yeah, it's like a mol. I believe it was molasses based caramel, something like that. Tricle. All your fucking southern shit. Well, I also worked at a bakery. Tricle. The default

was not to break down. The default was to change the conversation or lift it somehow. Here's another quote from Harling. It's like the line, there is no such thing as natural beauty. That was something somebody, this is going back to how they were playing it straight. That was something somebody said who sold makeup in Nacadish. Nachichi?

Okay, Nacadish. That was a statement, not a joke. But when you put it in a theatrical situation, people respond to the honesty of it. What I love to is this quote that he says the way, or the way Harling sees it, he just happened to know a lot of hilarious ladies. They all love one-liners and they talk in bumper stickers, he told Huffington Post. and they're sharp funny women in reference to southern women. I love that they talk in bumper stickers

because the thing is that if you were around old southern women, they do talk in bumper stickers. A house isn't a home without a cat. I've heard that so many times when I'm petting a cat in another old woman's home of one of my mom's circle, like a sewing circle friends. I'm just like, you are right. At this time, I do want to bring up the idea of what a steel, Magnolia is. Oh, sure, yeah. I mean, I kind of get it. Right. And so it's just that Harling had said that the metaphor

of steel magnolia, it's not ever expounded upon in the play or in the film, but he had said, my mother would always say to handle magnolia blossoms carefully because they bruise so easily. You think of this flower that is so delicate and has to be handled with care, but it's actually made of stronger stuff. My extraordinary life experiences with my sister and mother showed me that the women I've known are indeed gorgeous, but their lives can be fragile. But if you look underneath, you realize they possess a tensile strength stronger than anything I could ever muster.

I wrote of their strength, joy, and laughter that rang out no matter what life threw with them. It's similar wordplay to a really similar story, a clockwork orange. Oh, yeah, when they cut off, cut the breasts out of the jumper?

Yeah. The droogies are sort of like a beauty, salon and they share their feelings in that movie. Yeah, the droogie beauties. Yeah, and then when they hold open his eyes and as he transforms, it's like getting your hair done by the end.

You come in like a little rat and then you come out looking like a dolphin mistress. Yep. And being force-fed, orange juice is very similar in that sense as well. So Natalie, here is where I'm going to need you to read the quotes because I'll just start choking up and then I won't be able to get through them.

So Harling purposely did not tell his own parents about the play and Kathy Weller who along with her husband Michael who we mentioned before convinced him to write the about his family tragedy choose him out for this and this is what she said you weren't there through all that pain you didn't watch your child die if there's one moment of joy to be gained out of this experience you cannot deny them that if you don't tell them I will so he had them come into town to see it after after that he she convinces him and his mother asked to read it before seeing the play. Natalie, take it away.

This is what Arlington said about that. When Mama asked me if she could read it, I said, You don't want to. It's about you and Susan and the whole thing. But she's a steel magnolia. She was going to read it. I gave her the script, and I'd walk past, and she'd be sobbing, and I felt terrible.

Afterwards, I said, Mom, we'll just kill it. I can't put you through this. And she said, it's wonderful because it's true. she just closed it and that was it end of topic. Just so rough and I was thinking about that specifically when watching it last night and that was a lot of the slow drip crying was just like unbelievable

especially when we get into the fact that when they make the movie and when Jackie how to go out over there then when we find out later on when they make the movie and they're shooting in this home down that their parents became very good friends with the cast, and the cast became such members of the community,

that this also comes into play later on that his parents were involved and had to watch this entire process over and over and over again. And this was their grieving. This was a huge part of their family being able to move on. And isn't that, like, what a gift that he gave them?

I can't use it. I can't. This is so hard to do with you. Just like sobbing. This is so rough. I may have a hard time with this quote as well. We'll see if I can get through it. Harling said what people don't understand is that it's honest even below what they see as a story.

It's honest all the way down. The play really did work miracles. And I don't use that term lightly. It helped us grieve. We were basically grieving with the world. Oh, no. That is so rough. And so honestly, it connects to me hugely at this point in my life.

Yeah. So the play runs for only four weeks at the WPA, but the cast is so passionate about it, that Margot Martindale and Connie Schulman, who played Annell, but their own money into it, along with Robert Harling's family, even neighbors and people were putting money into it to keep the play going. So it got moved to the Lucille Lortel, which is another off-Broadway playhouse in the West Village. It's on Christopher Street. That was a converted movie theater from the 20s and had its first big success way back in the mid-fodeled. 50s with the three-penny opera starring B. Arthur, among many others.

Sorry, I'm laughing at Natalie taking a picture of Jackie's cry face. So after they move it, this play really picks up steam after that. All the stars come out to watch at Joan Rivers, Lucille Ball, Cher, Betty Davis, all of the Golden Girls. I love that. They love it. And Elizabeth Taylor. which of course you have that line.

Harling said when word got out that she was coming, they had to shut the street. I was thinking at the time, Elizabeth Taylor's going to sit here and sit there and hear the line. When it comes to suffering, she's right up there with Elizabeth Taylor. No one laughed harder than she did.

It made the nightly news. That is so awesome. That's pretty rad. So it runs at the, did I say Lortel? I believe it's Littrell, right? It runs at the Littrell from 1987 to early 1990, and they do a,

1,126 performances, which is so insane to me. And even earlier on, I had said that to the Broadway show to the movie, but it's not. This is all off-Broadway. This comes from off-Broadway, which that's nuts. It is. Especially when you get to the cast of this movie, it is crazy. Yes, totally. It makes me a little sad, though, that this original cast didn't, you know, I think, I can't

imagine it without Dolly Parton, but I do want to see Margot's take on it. Margo Martindale though, but Dolly Parton just gave it. I mean, what I love to is that I'm assuming she just put her own spin on it. I mean, you have to. You can't be Margo Martindale who is such an acclaimed actress. And then also we'll see later on, it's like, Dolly Parton isn't that huge? Like, she's a great, she's fun to watch, but she's not the powerhouse actress that Margo Martindale is.

And that's got to be difficult to try and talk. Well, also, yeah, I mean, Dolly, that character is snarky and it's funny to watch her be snarky because Dolly Parton is one. of the fucking nicest human beings that's ever existed. And she kills it too. She's great. So good. So the play will also get the National Tour treatment in 1989, which is the year the movie came out, right?

As well with only Marga Martindale, as I said, before staying in the cast all the way up through that point. So let's get into the movie. Let's talk about the transition to film. Obviously, people are going to see how successful this play is, an attempt to move it over. But it's so good. Everybody came out of the woodworks, too. I love that so many people came out of the woodwork. Immediately, they were like,

we need to make this into a movie. And who went out? It was Hollywood producer Ray Stark, who had done Funny Girl, he had done Smokey and the Bandit. And he saw the play and approached Harling about a potential movie. Now, Stark wasn't the only one, but he was the only one that offered to shoot in Harling's hometown

and guaranteed that he'd get the greatest cast you can imagine. So the deals were made. in the fall of 1987, which is not that long after the play came out, which is insane. And the cool thing about this is Stark has this history of actual Broadway work and play adaptation. And the director he gets, Herbert Ross, who they had a close working relationship together. Herbert Ross, he started out as a dancer on Broadway after dropping out of high school and did shows like something for the boys and followed the girls. And then a couple years after that, he did kill the girls. and then he did sticking with the boys

and then a couple years after that he did find the girls who lost the girl. Oh, it's a bit. I am not. Did you do kiss the girls? Remember that? Thriller from the 90s? I just feel like everything in the like 60s that was on Broadway was like,

where are the boys? And more boys, less girls. Same with the movies. It's all like about people on the beach. Which is also kind of fun because the movies that producer Ray Stark and the director Herbert Ross worked together, some of them that they worked on were funny girl

funny lady, the sunshine boys, the goodbye girl, and the secret of my... Which is exactly the joke. Also, they made something called the owl and the pussycat, and I think that's kind of fun. That's tawdry. He actually really started out more in choreography.

He did stuff for the American Ballet Theater based in NYC. His first work being a musical adaptation, his first directorial work, rather, being a musical adaptation of a tree grows in Brooklyn in 1951, which led to work in this field for various television productions as well as Broadway.

I'm sorry, that was actually all choreography. I mean, the American Ballet Theater is the absolute top ballet company in the country, nay, the world. So that's like a big thing for him to choreograph for them. Of course, of course. He then goes on to do choreography for the film. Funny Girl, which you already mentioned. And that is when he starts working with Ray Stark.

And they end up doing eight film productions together leading up to steal Magnolias. His directorial debut actually, actually, but actually, was with the musical film Goodbye, Mr. Chips. Oh, man, I hate to see him go, but I guess they're going in my belly. Mr. Chips, you so yummy, Mr. Chips in my tummy. That's one of the songs. I'm Mr. Chip and I'm broken on the floor. I can't be eating anymore. I hate everything.

And so he ends up doing a bunch of directorials. work on several musical and play adaptations, many times involving either Barbara Streisand or Neil Simon plays. So I love it. This is perfect. These guys, they know theater, they know film, they know adapting theater to film. These are the ones you really want to be working on a project like this. And the deal Harling makes with Stark and Ross includes giving him a first crack at the screenplay.

Harling said, Herbert gave me the greatest simplest advice. Always remember who the important person is here, meaning my sister. Go back and ask what would amuse her. how she would edit, what would be too vulgar, where she would put her foot down. So we got to draft the script together and Ray was happy. And he even says when he was trying to figure out what to do to break the tension from that monologue at the end, he actually thought about... Take a whack of wheezer. He thought of Susan, what would Susan do here? And she would always do something like out of the box and kind of inappropriate and really brash. And that's where he came up with the hit

Weezer moment, which I love. So let's talk about this stupid ridiculous cast, this just undeniable. And of course, some of these people are going to get through an episode. You know what I mean? So I'm not going to spend too much time on their backgrounds and whatnot. But I do want to give a small background for everybody just to put it in context. And especially in the fact that people, like the biggest stars in Hollywood came out that wanted to be a part of this movie.

When they heard that they could be a part of it, people were coming out like Betty Davis who wanted to play Wiza. And that she called up Harling and asked him to have. have a tea with her. At the tea, she said to Harling, you may give the role to Wiesa to someone else, but you and they will have to hear from Betty Davis because she was essentially threatening him. Yeah, that's terrifying. I want to play Wiza, but Betty Davis couldn't be cast, Harling says, because of her advanced age, made producer Ray Stark doubtful of her ability to withstand the extreme heat and humidity of a Louisiana summer, which is fair because

when we talk about the actual shooting of the film, it was... Rough, rough, rough. So, yes, instead, Shirley Maclean. Herbert Ross calls Shirley Maclean on the phone and literally offers her any part she wants except for Malin or Shelby. So Shirley MacLean grew up in Virginia and in junior high school she played baseball

on an all-boys team holding the record for most home runs, which got her the nickname Powerhouse. I cannot wait to do a Shirley Maclean episode, by the way. I love her. I love this. So she started out on Broadway after high school and made her film debut in Alfred Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry in 1955. She has been nominated six times for an Academy Award and won for Terms of Endearment.

Oh my God, have you guys seen Terms of Endearment? I haven't. Wow. I don't think I have either. It is another one of these where it is not only a sob fest, but an amazing fucking movie. Is that one of the ones where she's screaming something? Probably. Go and like, don't take them my baby.

No, no. Well, I mean, well, probably. It is about her relationship with her daughter, I will say. And it's an amazing cast. And I mean, Jack Nicholson plays an astronaut. You should watch it. Well, I'm sold. McLean said after she read the screenplay,

I said, I want to play the really bitchy one. I think I was rehearsing for my old age. I was seeing if I could get away with saying what I negatively felt and still be funny. And it's kind of turned out that way, actually. I mean, it has. I do really want, I can't wait to become. that woman. I love what she's just, all gay men have track lighting and all gay men are named Mark, Rick, or Steve. And then she goes, Weezer, how's your nephew doing? She goes, oh, Steve's fine.

Henry got me his shirt a really long time ago and I'm sad that I lost it that had track lighting on the top and it just said Mark Rick or Steve underneath. And I think only two other people in my life understood what the shit. That's so funny. It's a deep cut. That's so funny. So, Harling then said about the casting of Sally Field and Dolly Parton, Herbert was from Brooklyn and started out as a chorus boy, Herbert being Herbert Ross, the director. But he became this acclaimed director and managed to talk like British gentry. So I'll try to do this impression right now.

So over dinner one night, he said, Robert, how would you feel about Sally Field playing your mother? I couldn't speak. Then he said, I was thinking that I'd love. love to see Do Truvi. And I almost choked on my pizza bread. So a California native, I feel like Sally Field could get her own episode easily. Sally Hill got her start at the age of 19 on the Surfer Girl sitcom Gidgett and became

a household name in the 70s with films like Smokey and the Bandit and Hooper alongside Bert Reynolds. Going through her at the beginning of her film history, I remember that she was on that show The Flying Nun. Yes. Oh, yeah, baby. I never saw it, but I just know of it. And I was watching clips of it before that we recorded.

And that shit is weird. It's weird. Oh, it's weird. She's, the plot of the entire show is that she goes to a new, she leaves America to go to some, I think, Mexican convent. And she's so skinny and small that the, her flappies on the top of her nun's helmet. Her nun's helmet. It shoots her up into the air and she flies. Yeah, baby.

She's a fly nut. That's it. That's the whole premise of the show. I feel like it was the butt of so many jokes back for like a decade after it came out. And now it's like I feel like it was such a go-to joke reference. You know what I mean? What are you saying? Are you saying it's hacky for me to talk about it?

I think it's fun. I think it's bringing us back. It's such a weird. Like I remember it was in, didn't they do a nod to it in Peewee's Big Adventure? I'm pretty, one of them. I remember that. They're definitely dressed like her. Like they have those weird flaps on the things.

Now, Sally Field was actually, when they were talking about casting her, because Sally Field was gunning for Millen. She really wanted it. And they were worried that she was too young to play the mother of a woman in her mid-20s. And she's like, my son is that age. I had my son young. I can be the mother of, she wanted it. So bad.

And I think that they did. But also she's such a powerhouse actress. that she was able to play. And if you have kids that young and you've got three kids. Especially in the South, like, that's a pretty common thing to start having kids in your 19 or 20. Truvie even talks about how she was a child bride. Speaking to Truvie, Dolly Parton, grew up in the great Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee as the fourth of 12 children, a family that was, quote, dirt poor, as she described it.

Co to many colors. Oh, yeah, baby. She got her start in country music back in the late 50s, early 60s, singing on the radio and at the grand old Opry performing live, having early success more so as a songwriter. Her career exploded all through the 60s and 70s with many television appearances and hit songs. But her first feature film was not until 1980 with 9 to 5,

a musical with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, and then she did the best little whorehouse in Texas, which I need to watch. I've never seen it in 1982. You love it. But really hadn't done a lot of, I forgot what the name of the movie was, but she had a clunker after that movie

before Steele Magnolias. And then Steele Magnolias, and then I feel like looking at her performance, I'm like, I feel like she could be like an Egot person if she kept acting. I don't think she was super interested in it. It doesn't seem like that. Yeah, I just don't think she was as into it.

And isn't that amazing that she dabbled? She tried it. Yeah. And was great. Yeah. She does make a cameo in the 90s version of the Beverly Hillbilly. Nice.

So she does. She does continue her acting. career. Olympia Dukakis, which I just love her so much in this. She's just coming off of a big Oscar win for Moonstruck. And Ray Start Castors Claree. Olympia Dukakis grew up in the northeast. She did a ton of theater acting in NYC on Broadway and even co-founded a theater company with her husband and did not really become a household name until her role in Moonstruck later in life. And they were actually worried that she wouldn't be southern enough to fit in with the rest of the cast, but found her to have the most accurate accent when the...

they all got together, which I love. And she, her warmth and just her relationship with, uh, with Weezer, with, um, uh, Shirley McLean is just so wonderful. I want to be clear. I want to be clear. So badly. And then you have Daryl Hannah. She as the shy and now, you know, she really was huge at the time.

When, when her name was brought up, Harling actually thought that she, he was going to say her for Shelby. She's coming off of, um, what, slash, right? Flash, Roxanne. But what I love. love too is that Daryl Hannah was originally thought to be too attractive to be Anel. They wanted someone a little more of a character look about her. So Daryl Hannah showed up for her audition and the casting directors didn't even recognize her. She had completely put all, like she dressed

as Anel would have dressed to show that she could be this and she got the role. And I will say too. She plays the nerd part great, but she looks to me much more beautiful in that than whenever she goes into like the southern bomb shell. Yes, very much so. Yeah, I love the shy girl. Because it's not her natural look like for the character, but I like that they did that in the movie though because the character was not a flashy broad. She was trying it out. And I like that she did. She looked almost uncomfortable in trying to be that role. Honestly, One of my first reactions to it was I was absolutely gobsmacked by the beauty of the actresses in the movie. Oh, yeah.

They are truly, like, between Julia Roberts, Daryl Hannah, Dolly Parton, Sally Fields, they are otherworldly beautiful. And your clothes. Oh, my God. I love. I love. It's just looking back at that 80s pre-Botoxin, I'm not downing anybody who gets worked on at all, but it's just so stunningly, naturally beautiful. It was...

Yeah, because Dolly Barton is definitely, I mean, especially even at the time. Oh, yeah, totally. But, I mean, she's gorgeous. There's no such thing as natural beauty. That's right. It's just really breathtaking. And as much as people viewed Daryl Hannah a smoke show

at the time from those other movies, really, she grew up super shy. She was later diagnosed with autism, and she became obsessed with movies in early age because she had insomnia and would stay up all night, like watching stuff. So I think she gets Anel. Just FYI, she has a celebrity ghost story.

Awesome. I think the celebrity ghost story is actually her life now because she's married to Neil Young. Whoa. So let's talk about Shelby. This is, what's funny is at this time, Julia Roberts, not the household name that we all know and love now.

She was actually kind of almost a risk. They first offered the part up to Meg Ryan, who turned it down for when Harry met Sally, which she actually had taken it and then went to them and had to be like actually no they're offering me a lead alongside Billy Crystal and they're like go take it we have not signed any contracts yet you can you're free to go I'm glad she didn't get it honestly yeah because Julie Roberts was only known

for Mystic Pizza at this point and she was brand new and they took a shot and she was and then she got Oscar nominated I was genuinely shocked that this was all before pretty woman because I kind of thought pretty woman was her first was her big brain thing she already had to a few movies under her belt at that point. Uh-huh. And yeah, they were considering other people like Laura Dern, who was like a big name at the time.

Yes. Which I would have loved to see Laura Dern. They ended up going with Julia Roberts, whose parents were theater folks, but she grew up in Georgia in a rough household to an abusive stepfather, and after college she moved to NYC to pursue acting. Of course, she gets a couple roles

leading up to Mystic Pizza, which was her first slight break, but still, that's not like, that didn't set the world on fire. That was just well, well-received in general in 1988. Harling said, Ray said, you know what, we've got a lot of Oscar winners and stars. Let's open it up. The casting director said, there's this girl.

She hasn't been able to audition because she's been off making some movie about pizza. Jesus Christ. Julia came in and it was like somebody bumped up the lights. She smiled that smile. She was the essence of the great Southern gal, spicy, witty, smart, with a layer of compassion underneath. What I love to is that it's, I love that they keep referencing her smile. And her smile was Susan Harling's smile. And that is what got her.

She ripped it off of her face and taped it onto hers. And that's like, you know, you just got to, sometimes she's got to dig up a corpse and then you can get a part in a movie. This quote showed me up a little bit too. Lee Radzwell, who had just started dating Herbert, said, she's it. She's Shelby. I thought, this is Harling saying this. I thought, okay, I can breathe now.

My sister's in good hands, which I just think is so sweet. And Julie Roberts was so sweet during the shooting of this, which we're about to get into, to the family, just being there with them. It's like amazing. And I really, I had no idea of what the premise of this movie was. And when she starts to have the diabetic episode. Trick the juice, Shelby, trick the juice. I had no idea what was going on. I thought maybe.

Oh, wow, you knew. So you didn't know anything about it. No, I thought she was having like a mental breakdown or something. Did you know that she died in it? No. Wow. I don't know anything about it. That's nuts.

That's great. I mean, is also, is that a true portray? I guess it is of what happens during diabetic shock, because that's terrifying. I've never seen someone go through that exact thing. So if you guys know, please let us know if they got it accurately. I am assuming with how down to the T they were and Robert Harley having seen it,

I'm assuming that it's probably close to a real-life portrayal. Which is tough. It's like, it's so scary that it seems like she's sabotaging herself in every way in that moment too and that everybody's trying to break past that just to like make sure she doesn't die. So Ray Stark wants, this is unheard of at the time, he wants

to shoot the film on location in Natta... Nattachatish. Natchish. Louisiana, which was a rare move at the time. The oldest town or this, Natch, Nchutu...

Nacatish. Wow, you guys sound like you're trying to give directions to your Uber driver at 3 in a water. It's just don't you get touched. It is so there. Nedatatitish. It is the oldest town in the Louisiana purchased. Shooting started in June of 1988.

June in Louisiana, by the way. June. Rough. Very humid. I was there. Was I there in June? I was there during a very hot time when I went to New Orleans last year. And it was, oh, pretty.

I literally had to keep, like, extra sweat rags on me. It was so bad. It's not as hot and humid as Florida, though, is it? Yeah. Yeah. Really? It's swamp, swamp, swamp. It's swamp, baby.

I think it might be more, actually. No way. I was, no. I think what it is is that in certain, depending on where you are in Louisiana, I think it's like, it's more like central Florida where there's not as much wind because you don't get the sea breeze and stuff like that. So it's more of a stagnant. Yes, that's exactly.

When I toured with Warp Tour in the middle of Florida, I had never experienced anything like that. It was like walking in air water. Yeah. You're swimming everywhere. Yeah. It's crazy. So they got to, what Ray Stark had said about Nacketish said, it helped that Nackadish is gorgeous. Anywhere you point the camera, you're going to frame a good shot.

But bringing in the hordes of equipment required for a massive shoot, plus finding rentals for the big-name stars to stay in, turn the production into an extravaganza. As Harling put it, the circus had come to town. I'm sure they completely took the town over. They did, but at the same time, they brought it to the mat. they increase the tourism of this town to this day that so many people go to Nacchadish to see the Seale Magnolia's house that's been turned into an Airbnb

like they've got memorial parks to Susan Harling Yeah I would love to go. Let's go there and then let's go to Dollywood because I've never been there. Okay. Okay. I love that. Yeah, it kind of reminds me that movie State and Maine.

Like the whole town is just a buzz with this just massive operation coming through. And these huge stars that show up in their small town. Yeah. And it's also so surreal. For example, the Harling talks about how his real father was living just down the street from his movie father.

And he, like, went out on a Saturday and they were both doing, like, yard work. Which is nuts because it's Tom Scarrett. Like, who is, in a brilliant actress. Wait, you mean Poultergeist Three's Tom Scarrett? And I love to, which, I mean, I think that you've put together by now, that the play had no men in it. But the movie does because, you know, for life. for life's sake. And I love too that they all just lived in this town that, yeah, Tom Scarlett just hung out

with his dad. By the way. And Julie Roberts would go have dinner with his parents. By the way, that seems terrifying to me that in the South it's a quirky habit for the husband to have where he just shoots random fire shot guns into the air. You got to get the crows out of the trees. I mean, for the first 20 minutes of the movie, it's like a fun bit of them trying to hide bullets. Right.

and hide the gun because he's just firing into the air. You know, he's got to get the crows gone. I will say, maybe they don't mention, I don't think they mention the movie in the play they do reference that those are blanks. They're blanks, yeah. Yeah, they see it in the movie. So, yeah, Harling said, Julia was so eager to have the stamp of approval from Mama and Daddy to play their daughter.

She'd come over and Daddy would cook hamburgers and they'd talk and she'd write poetry and she'd read us the poetry and Dolly would come over and sit on the sofa and play her guitar. It was just beyond surreal. What I love to is that Harling had said neither Sally nor Julia tried to imitate my mom and sister. But Sally was very inspired by my mom's story and Julia has this incredible

spirit that my sister also had. It's easy to watch Julia and see that same tenacity about life. Isn't it weird that it was only a year and a half later that she was playing Tinkerbell and Hook? Oh wow. Oh, that's crazy. Isn't that weird? She just, I mean, Julia Roberts

exploded. Yeah, she just, this movie kind of started it, but yeah, she just was everywhere. And I love to. So they all moved in. They're having dinners together as as families. You can see Sally Field with her baby at the grocery store at night. Dolly Parton would go and sing with the Northwestern band at halftime of a football game. What I love to is that the community came together and this is such a southern community of support and that they had just leaned into. So at the time, Olympia Dukakis's cousin, and Michael Dukakis was the Democratic presidential nominee. Right.

And even though it was a very Republican area, a lot of the neighbors put out Dukakis signs in support of Olympia Dukakis. Yeah, just to be a good neighbor. To be a good neighbor. Oh, that's nice. It's just like this town just welcomed them in. And the only person that seemed had a lot of problems

was Dali Parton because she wanted to sunbathe nude. And people kept taking pictures of her. So she moved into Shirley, McLean's house so she and Shirley McLean were living together throughout the rest of the shooting so that Shirley McLean would like make sure to keep paparazzi at bay wild

Dolly Parton nude sundaes love Dolly. She's sort of a buttoned up religious woman but she's a little naughty minks. Yeah she is. So here's a couple of quotes about how badass Dolly Parton is. Child McLean said it was really hot. There was Dolly with a waist cincture no more than 16 inches around and heels about two feet high in a wig that must have weighed 23 pounds. And she's the only one who didn't sweat.

She never complained about anything, never. The rest of us were always complaining. And here's another little nod towards her. What I love to it too is that she was just excited to be acting. So she didn't want to complain because she wanted to keep acting and she was so excited to be there. So, yeah, so they're shooting those Christmas scenes at that fair and everything. Those are shot in August.

and it's brutally hot, and everyone's having a hard time, and Robert Harling had this to say. We were waiting, and there was a lot of stop and start. The women were dressed for Christmas, and Dolly was sitting on a swing, on the swing. She had on that white cashmere sweater with the maribou around the neck, and she was just swinging cool as a cucumber. Julia said, Dolly, we're dying, and you never say a word. Why don't you let loose? Dolly very serenely smiled and said,

When I was young and had nothing, I wanted to be rich and famous, and now I am. So I'm not gonna complain about anything. That's the quote. Oh my God. I love her so much. And this is like throughout this entire thing where it's like they, you know, they were being so good. They're having all this community.

And on top of it, Julia Roberts fell in love with co-star Dylan McDermott. So their love in it was actually real. And because she was dating Liam Neeson at the time. From her last movie. Oh, from the last movie. Jesus. Right. And she hopped on over and fell in love with Dylan McDermyn.

Because she also, it's like, she's a young actress. It was the rock band one. It was seren. It's like, it's not serenity, but it starts with an ass. I know it's one of those. Justine Bateman. It looked kind of fun. It was like about a girl rock band.

I've never seen it. Oh, really? Yeah. But she started dating Dylan McDermann which also, why wouldn't you? Okay. Whoa. Okay. How hot is Jackson?

I wanted a lawyer from Mississippi. Was he from? He is from Louisiana, right? I forget. I'm looking at you like you've seen the movie 100,000 times. I don't know. Satisfaction is the name of the film that she was in. Justine Bateman rocks out as the leader of an all-girl band

that struggles with men and drugs during a summer resort gig. And Debbie Harry's in it. I got to watch that. I want to watch it. Yeah, I want to watch that too. And on top of it being done with such reality in his neighborhood with his parents on the set and everyone is involved. in this. On top of everything, Herbert Ross hired Susan's actual doctors to play the doctors in the

movie. The nurse who turned off her life support, and she did so on camera as well. Having grown close with Julia Roberts during the shoot, Harling's mom chose to be present on set for the scene. Uh-oh. Cry alert. I said, this is what Harling said. I said, I can't believe you put yourself through that, he recalled of the shoot. She said, no, I wanted to see Julia again. get up and walk away. Harling said it added a sense of real gravity and reality to it all. Can you imagine using the actual nurses that put, that shut off the breathing machines of your daughter in the scene?

And watching it happen, and this is not that long after, and she'd created such a relationship with Julia Roberts that having to watch that, I can't. I can't imagine. I feel like a piece of me dies just knowing this. That's just,

that is soul crushing. She wanted to see Julie. get up and walk away at the end. Yeah, that's so rough. And I have a quote that I can't read out loud because I will start crying and I literally can't talk when I start crying essentially. But do you want to give us that quote,

Natalie, carrying the one ring this week, the burden of these sad quotes. Thank you so much for that by Frodo. I'm still working out the ramifications of this whole insane journey that only art can let you move through because what is art other than taking the pieces around you and reforming them into some vision that satisfies you and enriches others? My mom and dad had their own kind of come to Jesus moments with all this.

But you know, my sister died and I wrote about it and people look at it and think it's all limos and glamour and sitting next to Princess Die at the Royal Premier. My sister had to die for all of that to happen. So almost daily I think about what my life would be if she had lived. It can take you to an uncompromisingly dark place sometimes. Then I just have to go back to the honesty of the first impulse that I just wanted somebody to remember her. I remember her. Her name is Susan Harling. She was a real person.

And now, she's taking pictures. She's making mockeries of my upset. The paparazzi's, the paparazzi's. What I feel we need to discuss, which I think brings such a sense of community again to this movie, is that Herbert Ross, unfortunately, was a piece of shit this entire time towards these young women. Oh. And Harling had said, the women as a unit were completely impenetrable. They were so exactly what this movie was about.

They were totally, totally supportive of each other. And yes, Herbert had some strong moments, and there were some disagreements. It happens on every set. But what I take away from that is that the other women coming to Julia's defense. So he was at Julia Roberts because he was essentially like, you really shouldn't even be here because he had wanted Meg Ryan. Oh, and weirdly a jerk to Dolly Parton? Do you know why?

And a jerk to Dolly Parton, which will, yeah, I do know. Unfortunately, I do know why. So he said that was a movie thing to me. He said there were some clashes. is it was Herbert pushing everybody. Herbert pushed. He pushed really hard. It was really hard when you're working with Sally Field or Dolly Parton. They'd been around for a while and they know how to deal with that. That's what happens in the business. Julia was new. And I just thought it was incredibly moving the way they all rallied around Julia. And hey, she was the one who was nominated

for an Oscar. So she wins. So he also, he was very hard on Dolly Parton and he told me I couldn't act. That was not news to me. This is Dolly Parton. And I told him so. I'm not an actress. I'm Dolly Parton. I'm a personality who has been hired to do this movie. You're the director. It's your job to make me look like I'm acting. But by the end of the film, we'd all made peace and become friends. And what had happened and why it turns out he was being so rude is what it seems like. And Shirley McLean fucking called him out for it on set is because his wife had just died. Oh, God. His first wife, Nora Kay, had died in 1987. And his harsh treatment of the actors led Shirley MacLean to tell him that he'd been behaving badly since

Nora's death and it wasn't respectful to her or to them and then he stopped. Shirley MacLean said one day I basically told him to go fuck himself and everybody and everybody heard it and things got better. Though she did vouch for him as a good director and all that good stuff and she also said that they all became quote friends for life, especially that cast of wonderful talented ladies. And now the movie premiere, it premiered, it had premieres in Los Angeles, Atlanta, New York, and Nacottish. And Harling said that was a surreal week. The New York premiere was amazing.

Ray wanted the biggest premiere party since the Godfather, and he got it. It was at the Hilton. They recreated the wedding set from the movie. I remember watching my dad in deep conversation with people like Walter Cronkite. I pinched myself a lot those days. Having fun on the bayou. I'm going to have some phone on the bayou. I love that.

that dancing. Oh yeah, the sloppy feet one. Slappy feet. Yeah, I miss that like two pigs fatten under a blanket. In a darker way but I loved like how deer hunter just opens with this big long wedding celebration and that wedding. Same with Godfather. That well, and the godfather

and that wedding felt so similar where it's like yeah just show some people like having fun and dancing for like longer than one would think they would do that because I'm just it's making me happy to watch a bunch of people dancing at a wedding. Also I do want to say that I forgot to bring this up earlier and it's one of my favorite parts and if I ever get married I'm definitely

going to have an armadillo grooms cake. Oh my God. And the armadillo grooms cake was real at his sister's wedding. He said that the red velvet part was his riderly creation. But the New York Times credited Robert Harling with the red discovery and revival of red velvet cake because of the blood red. People go be hacking into this poor animal. Well that was a very funny scene with the armadillo cake. Hey, he's a piece of ass. When you cut into it in the movie, it looks like it's like a bloody

armadillo. Henry said that he was thinking about doing that as a groom's cake. I was like, why didn't you do it? I had no idea. That would have been amazing. I would have been angry, though. I think he knows I would have been angry. Maybe he knew he would face her wrath. I just remember how funny my parents found that whole armadillo cake

scene to be, and it's just such a son. Like, I don't know, they were just so tickled by it. So, do you have any Anything else on the movie before we wrap up with a couple more things? No, I just, I mean, we can talk about the 2012 remake for sure. I just want to give it a nod. I want to give it a little acknowledgement. It's directed by Kenny Leon, who directed a lot for the Broadway stage.

He won a Tony. Yeah, we're talking about the Lifetime television movie remake of Steel Magnolius. 2012, right? Mm-hmm. 2012. I mean, again, a really good cast. It's an all-black cast, including Queen Latifah, Jill Scott, and Felicia Rashad, just to name a few.

Yeah, premiered on the Lifetime Network. I think general consists maybe not quite as good as the original, but still a pretty strong. Felicia Rashad crushes. She does. But I will say that Robert Harling said about it. The Lifetime version had remarkable actresses,

Harling said, but he wasn't fond of the hacked up copy and paste job the script received. Right. It's the story of my sister, he said. It did not need to be cut up so the commercials can fit. I have stronger words for that,

but I just thought it was exploitation. Thank you for that question because I like going on record saying it does not have my blessing. Oh, wow. Yeah. It really was not the actress's fault in any way. And I like that he says that. That it's like they kill it. Right.

It's just, it's a lifetime movie. It's never going to stand up to that feature film. And it's just hard because the performances and the production value of the original one is so vast and so accomplished. And to then put it like into a TV movie is. pretty difficult to do. So now I'm going to talk about a thing I love. So one day during downtime on set of Steel Magnolias,

Harling asked the actors to name the role they'd most want to play. Which I love that that as just a great time filler. They were just hanging out and were like, what role would you love to play? So Sally Field commented that she's always played, quote, really noble, earnest women that wear crummy clothes. For once I'd like to play a bitch that gets to wear nice clothes. I love this.

And with this information, Harlan came up with Field as an aging soap opera actress whose off-screen persona is conniving and angry, even though she acts so amazing. Her character in the soap opera is like this wonderful giving whatever person. Well, we are talking about the movie Soap Dish that Robert Harling wrote. I was so happy to learn this. I love Soap Dish. I had no idea he was the right of it. That's actually a movie that, even though it is like, I guess one would look at it is more of like, a movie for the ladies.

My dad and I loved watching this movie together. It's the same with the fact that Robert Harling wrote the First Wives Club, which is another one of those movies that's like, oh, that's a girl's movie. No, it's not. No, it's not. I didn't realize that he went on to do so many movies. I thought this was one of his only. No.

And not that many more, but some successes. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's cool. Soap dish for anyone listening, if you haven't seen it, it is so funny. And listen to this cast. It stars Sally Field, Kevin Klein, Robert Downey Jr., Kathy Moriarty, Whoopi Goldberg, and Elizabeth's shoe. And it is like a joke a second. Also as someone growing up, I was in love with Kevin Klein from a very young age.

He's so good in this. And between this and the big chill, I would just watch over and over and over again. And Soap Dish is great. I would do a whole other episode of Soap Dish. Whoopi Goldberg, like the timing of Whoopi Goldberg, Robert Downey June, it is all this like really fast. It kind of almost reminds me of stuff like, like, what's his face made? Like West Wing or whatever. There's like a lot of walk and talking kind of happening.

And there is just literally just like, and they're constantly just shitting on each other. And everyone is just like awful, but in the most hilarious way and just watch it. It is so damn funny. He is so good at dialogue. Robert curling really nails. Really good at it. Actual dialogue. I mean, you know, funny.

repartee, but yes, it's great. Yeah, and going back to, actually, to say the opposite of dialogue, I wanted to actually read just the very, very end of the play, because there's no dialogue here, and I felt this stage action perfectly exemplifies how to tell a story with no words. So, Melin smiles and tells the group on her exit,

there, that's better. Ensemble reaction. After Malin's exit, Clarie takes Weezer's hand in friendship. noticing Weezer's need for a manicure. Anel offers a silent prayer, which Weezer exasperatedly acknowledges, but respectfully does not interrupt. Truvie, who has been watching Malin out the window, returns to working on Clarie's hair. The action in the shop continues as the lights fade and the music swells. It just perfectly paints the picture of all of these women's friendship, and I just fucking love it.

So that's it. It's just good chills. I know. I'm going to go and say, break. out of myself, I didn't cry as much as I thought I was going to. Yeah, I mean, either. Well, I had Natalie read my cry quotes. You still cried a lot. I did cry a lot, and I've been crying for days. I really, I... Maybe you got some of it out squeezed already.

Even Jeff had said, he's like, you know, the print stuff, I was getting to a point where I didn't want to hear about Prince anymore, but you crying for days, I'd really like that. Well, that's a good, that's a good thing for him to say. Yes, but then he doesn't like to see you cry. No, and that's kind of nice, right? I guess I'm in an okay relationship. So checkmark for me, and I hope that you go back. and rewatch. I watched it again yesterday in finally knowing all of these

solid details and it really like it changes. Jackie, you have to talk about where you got a lot of the reference material. Yes. Oh my God, yes.

So we have to give big ups to this one specific article in Garden and Gunn magazine. Wait, what? Jackie, what was that? You talking about Garden and Gun magazine? Oh, we talk about Garden and Gunn. Garden and Gun magazine because

it is a big Southern Girls magazine and I, my best friend was a subscriber of garden and gun for years. So I used to look through it all the time and had a lot of pink camo. There's a lot of great recipes. So it is actually about gardening and... Garden and gun and gun shooting. Yeah, it is.

You know, it's really just taking the strength back for the, not even just the Southern woman, for the woman. And I think it's delightful. You know what? I'm going to get a subscription. I just don't normally put those two things together. I guess I'm a Northie. Well, you know what?

Steel magnolia. Steele magnolia has done put those together. You know? And our life is fragile, but we are stronger than we think. And I'm not going to do the Malin monologue because I'm going to save that. One day I'm going to do the Malin monologue on stage because, I mean, you can never top Sally Field. Because that monologue in the graveyard is one of the best monologues I've ever seen. Yeah, it's so good.

And can you, I just, you imagine its mom watching that? Ugh, brutal. And it's just, hey, I can't. All right, we got to get out of this. I'm dying. I'm not going to cry again. We love you guys. Thank you guys so much.

Can we do a not cry episode next time? I think that we are doing it. No, I was going to make the joke. What do we do it next week? Ordinary people or Sophie's choice? Oh my God, I would love to do ordinary people. Chinler's list. Let's do a four-parter on Shinler's list.

Oh, that's kind of fun. We love you guys. Thank you so much for joining us. and crying with us this week. And, you know, I hope that you guys love Steel Magnolias now. Do you feel that maybe you're on the level, Natalie? Are you, do you love Seale Magnolius? It was super entertaining.

It was beautiful. I actually would like to go back and watch it again without analyzing it so much for the show. But yeah, no, of course I would watch it. I'm not crazy, Natalie. I've just been in a very bad mood for 40 years. That's a line from Wiza. Are you going to say that on your 40th birthday?

Yeah, I will. I love that. You can check me out Twitch.tv.tv forward slash hold nater so, but more importantly, check us out on patreon.com forward slash page seven podcast.

We do weekly episodes, bonus for just $5 a month. And Natalie, where can they find you? They can find me at the Natty Jean on everything. We're getting our TikTok

started up again. So be prepared for that. And also you can find us at page seven LPN. And I'm Jackie Zerowski. Do you following me at Jack that worm on all your bullshit? We love you guys, and we will talk to you next week. Have a good one.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. That was fun. This show is made possible by listeners like you. Thanks to our ad sponsors. You can support our shows by supporting them.

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