Significant Others - Bonus Episode: Mo Rocca on the Art of the Obituary

Episode Date: March 30, 2023

Significant Others is bringing you another bonus episode! This time Liza is joined by Mo Rocca, the host of the popular podcast Mobituaries, to discuss how people are remembered through their obituaries. Mo and Liza dive into memorable obituaries, what makes a powerful obit, and who maybe didn’t get their proper due. We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts, and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at [e-mail]!

Welcome to Significant Others. I'm Liza Powell O'Brien. And right now, while we put together season two, we're bringing you a series of conversations around our theme. We've talked about royal spouses, presidential marriages, and now dead people. Okay, a lot of the people we talk about are long gone. But today, we're talking with humorist Mo Rocca about his great podcast, Mobituaries and the Art of the Obit. Mo, it's so cool to get to talk to you like this. Thank you so much for being here. Of course. Thank you for inviting me. It's very nice. I think our podcasts have a lot of similarities in that we delve into people and events that may not always have been remembered the way they should be.

So first, for anyone who might not already be familiar with your podcast, Mobituaries, could you give us a little overview? Mobituaries is my way of paying tribute to people and things and concepts that didn't get the send-off they deserved the first time or maybe any send-off at all. So they're not necessarily obscure. This last season, John Denver was the premiere episode of season three. Many of them are people you haven't heard of. We did a whole, those second place finishers are important because the second place finishers are the ones that make the pioneers, the first place finishers,

the start of something big rather than just a one-off or even an oddity. I think that's such a great point. Yeah, without the second and the third, then Jackie Robinson is still incredibly important, but not in the same way. That's right. Didn't forge change so much as just bucking a system. Yeah, yeah. inspired by your father's love of obituaries.

I'm wondering also, though, if there was a particular obituary that stood out to you at some point as having been particularly lacking. Ooh, one that was particularly lacking. Gee whiz, I'm trying to think of, I mean, I definitely have noticed obituaries where that crucial first line feels lacking, where if a major historic figure dies, I'm sometimes let down. And actually, the first one that springs to mind is actually

President Ronald Reagan. I thought it was a really sort of uncreative first line, his New York Times obituary. I think it was something like Ronald Wilson Reagan, the longest living president in that little closet. And I thought there's so much you can put there. And, you know, I mean, because that's where that's where, you know, that's the big teaser for the Obed. Sure. That clause right there. And then it's, you know, comma, who blank, blank, blank, blank, blank, blank, blank, comma, died today.

He was and then whatever or she was and then whatever years old. mama died today. He was, and then whatever, or she was, and then whatever years old. But I'm sure there are other obituaries that I've read that I thought, I need to get in here. Change that, yeah, change that record. Do you think that that Reagan example

belies any kind of editorializing on the part of the writer of the obituary? I think that maybe what they were trying to do is remain neutral. I think maybe they thought, ooh, we've got to be really careful since we're the first draft of history, we're the New York Times, so we've got to be really careful about what we do here. Instead, they sort of, it was maybe like a first do no harm kind of thing. I don't know. But I like an obit writer

who really goes for it. Sure. Yeah. Like, do you have a good example off the top of your head of one of those? Well, you know, what I can tell you is one of the obits that I remember. And if a listener checks me on this, I'm sure I'm misremembering it to a point. Sure, I'm misremembering it to a point, but I love when obituaries have village in which he grew up in, that the local jailer in sort of an early 20th century version of a scared straight program at the behest of Hitchcock's father, took him to the jail, threw him into a cell, slammed the door behind him and said, that's what happens to bad little boys. And that clanging sound, I mean, this obit should have come with sound effects, right? And, you know, so much of Hitchcock's work was about mistaken identity, crime and punishment and things like that.

And so, in a way, that traumatic experience did us all a great favor. We ended up with a great body of work. Right. Because his father had a really screwed up idea. That's such a great, I mean, that's exactly when my ears prick up is, ooh, if Hitchcock's father had not done that, where would the world of filmmaking be? You know, like, we've talked a little bit about him in terms of his wife, who was a huge factor in his career and, you know, obviously much less sung than maybe she deserves to be. But that detail I almost find more interesting as a truly formative kind of a moment. I've been feeling guilty of late because I think about, in terms of parenting of people who became

great, that it's terrible that Judy Garland and Sammy Davis Jr. never went to school like normal kids, but they were such great entertainers. I know. And so, and for Sammy, it was different because he claimed the rest of his life that he was okay with it, that going to the movies with his father and Will Mastin was his education. For Judy, it was really bad, but I just don't know if they'd had normal childhoods and had been parented responsibly if they would have been such great performers in the end. We talk about that a lot, actually, in our house in terms of, you know, feeling like Conan actually has this thing that he says that I think other people, I actually heard Kevin Hart

saying the same thing on a different podcast, that fame is a drug that is more powerful than any drug that has been discovered to date, possibly. I mean, some of us have more limited experience than others, but point being, it really changes the molecules in the brain in a way. And in a way that it's illegal for developing brains to be exposed to illicit drugs, there's an argument to be made that it's a form of abuse almost to be exposing people whose brains aren't fully developed to the experience of massive fame. And yet who is profiting, you know, it's easy to say like, oh, the family profits from that. But clearly, to your point, we all do. We all get to enjoy the experience of a truly talented young person. No, it's a really, one of those really tricky kind of societal bargains that we make without even thinking about it. Right. thinking about it. So I asked about if there was a particular obituary that struck you as lacking.

And I'm just wondering if there are others that come to mind who feel to you, and maybe this is just sort of refer to the list of your podcast episodes, but are there figures who you generally feel get short shrift in terms of their historical wrap up? There certainly are historical figures that have. You know, it's, this doesn't exactly answer that question. That's fine.

Oh my goodness. Completely fine. Probably for the better, in fact. Okay. There was a great, there was a great documentary about

the Obit team at, I think it was called Obit, at the New York Times. That's good to know. That was released around the time that I started the podcast. It's not why I started the podcast, but I certainly watched it. And Margalit Fox, who has since left that post, but was a great Obit writer, said, you know, the reason that the Obits are dominated, the obit pages at the Times had been dominated by white men, her explanation, which is a fairly, I think, a conventional one. And I believe certainly that she believes it.

And it seems as legitimate as any is that that's who had had the power. And, you know, and that hopefully in 30 years time or even sooner, the pages will look much more different. I can't think of people, you know, they have an overlooked section. I mean, it's certainly interesting for me to find people, to explore the lives of people that I think haven't gotten the send-off they deserved or maybe even any send-off at all. There is a really weird phenomenon of people who live so long that even the audience for that obit has begun to die off. Madame Chiang Kai-shek lived, I think, until about 106. And she had long since been a newsmaker,

but her obit was so long and just so gripping. And I think I was one of 12 people who read till the end because I think nobody remembered who she was at that point. And it had so many great details. It had a detail of her during World War II having dinner at the White House because, you know, the Chinese nationalists were allied with us in that Eleanor Roosevelt across the table said to her, how do they handle dissent in your country? And that Madame Tchenkashik, they described her taking her index finger and drawing a line across her own throat. And that's one where I really wanted that like a sound effect there. And I mean, just when an obit writer brings that kind of color. But that was an example of somebody where I thought, well, I'm glad they gave her this many inches and they didn't take it away, even though I'm not sure how popular, you know, that obit was as a read. That's making me think about, I don't know if it's bad luck to invoke someone's name before it's their time to be in the obituary column.

But, for example, Henry Kissinger, who is still not good for him at 98, you know, lifting weights. And, I mean, I think he's 98. He's around there. And still writing, you know, op-ed pieces and still mucking around in international politics. and still mucking around in international politics. And so I went, and I do wonder, you know, I talk to people all the time who are younger than I am, whose frame of reference is so radically different than I would expect it to be,

who don't know, you know, I don't know if there's going to be an audience for his entire list of activities. But that's going to be an impossible one to pull punches on too. Well, right. And I mean, where at this point does Jill St. John fall in the obit, right?

Because they dated at one point. And is that moving down and down and down to a lower paragraph? That's the whole thing, the evolution of the first paragraph. Like, where is the Bill Clinton impeachment in the Bill Clinton, you know, obit now? Is it going to distinguished post-presidency. Where does the evaluation of his actual presidency fall? And that's also changed anyway. How often, I'm going

to go watch this documentary so I can answer these questions myself, but in the meantime, how often do they revisit their prepared remarks on people? Do you know? Is it like if you're on the obit desk and you're, are you pre-assigned like you're doing the background for whoever, Jimmy Carter, and then you have to kind of brush it up every six months or, you know what I mean? I don't know. I know at CBS News where my, you know, my day job, my normal job is, I was sitting across from the obit people, which was great, which was I mean, I felt like I wanted to be in a sitcom, a character in a sitcom about this scenario. Not a bad idea. who was sort of one of the people involved in this would be, I would just hear outside my door,

Carol, marry Tyler Moore. And it was, and I knew what that meant. Oh my God. That is so, by the way, I really want to watch this sitcom now. I implore you to pitch it, sell it, make it, and deliver it to whatever streaming service you prefer. I am there for that.

What a great, talk about a detail. Oh, absolutely. Carol, we've got to refresh the Lady Bird Johnson obit. Because that would be like if they heard word that she was ailing. And it was true. Sometimes these things are, you know, budgets being what they are. Sometimes the things are really out of date. Poor Carol.

She's busy. Carol, it was so busy. And the other thing that was really lousy for Carol is that sometimes they would finish the roll-ins. Like, that's like a really big deal, right? If you get an obit that's a roll-in on CBS, that means, you know, they're going to interrupt Young and the Restless

or The Price is Right. And an anchor will be there and say, and now we remember the life of whomever. They'll definitely break in for a president, like, unless the NFL is on, then, like, you don't break in unless there's an asteroid coming, okay? That's going to destroy the planet. But, you know, sometimes the roll-ins don't make it because it was like during the Big Bang Theory, you know, then it's like, really? You have to really weigh this. You have to really weigh this. Was she that beloved?

Oh, man. You know, whoever it was. This is— But if I were in charge of the network for Mary Tyler Moore, everything would stop. Oh, for sure. Absolutely. I mean, for any of that cast. The whole cast.

Any of that cast. Exactly, exactly. All of them warrant a stoppage immediately of everything that's happening. Planes should be grounded. We need to talk about it. That's the only thing that makes sense. Okay.

God, that is such a great... Man, I wish I lived in the world where that was happening. Where planes were grounded for Valerie Harper and for, why am I suddenly forgetting Phyllis? My God, what's wrong with me? Oscar winner, last picture show. Cloris Leachman. Okay.

Cloris Leachman. Thank God. Sorry. Oh my God, Cloris Leachman. For sure. I mean, I feel we should still annually ground some planes in her honor. Okay. So if my podcast were like a subdivision of your podcast, I feel like it would be called the Survived By column.

Yes. Because I think that's part of what I'm most interested in. You look at Nabokov's obit in The Times, and it's really long, as it should be. And his wife has one mention. She's basically the conduit for the information that he passed. And her life, thanks to Stacey Schiff's incredible reporting, we've now discovered was so enmeshed with his and her. She was so integral to his work. And they share a gravestone marker. I mean, they share the title writer together, not that she wrote any of his actual words, but she was not to be dismissed, to put it lightly. And I had a similar feeling in a

slightly different way when I saw, this is now very well known, but there was a mention in the New York Times one day that Stalin's daughter had died. This was like, you know, what, 15 years ago, or it was very recent. Svetlana? Yes. And I was like, wait, what? Stalin had a daughter who grew up and lived in the United States? And I felt the same way when I saw your coverage of Chang and Eng's, you know, the conjoined twins' descendants and thinking about, my God, they had wives and they had children. It's just a completely different view of that historical figure.

So I'm wondering if there are other sort of surprising survived by encounters that you've come across. Well, and by the way, I want to tell you that in particular, the Jane Cheney Spock episode, I thought was very compelling. Thank you. I couldn't believe what a fascinating story. I mean, that, by the way, Dr. Spock falls into that category of someone who, I mean, I think you could probably predict someone's age, depending on how they answer the question, do you know who Dr. Spock was? It's just like a hard line after, I don't know what, 1976? Like people just don't know who he is anymore.

But I found their story to be so tragic. And she was so fascinating. She was so fascinating. And the woman who played Mildred Spock, that's pretty great. Oh, Jessica Chaffin. Oh, well, she's fantastic. No, she's fantastic. By the way, she has a great podcast called Ask Rana. Oh, well, she's fantastic. Of course. No, she's fantastic. By the way, she has a great podcast called Ask Rana.

Oh. Oh, yeah. If you need just a little, you know, I don't know what you would call it, diversion, entertainment, she solves. Rana Glickman is her character, and she solves people's, you know, sort of ethical dilemmas or questions or, you know, it's an advice show. Anyway, it's delightful. Well, I hope she does at least one episode as Mildred. Ben, don't be stupid. Oh, I know. Disgusting. She was such a piece of work. You know, the first person that pops to mind, at least that I've really looked into, The first person that pops to mind, at least that I've really looked into, is Billy Carter. Billy Carter obviously became very, very famous in his own right. But he was more important, I think, than people realized at the time to his brother, Jimmy Carter's electoral success because billy carter really sort of showed he was i mean jimmy carter literally as a candidate was somebody that you could not have a beer with because he did not drink um and billy

carter in fact had his own beer and uh um so he he did the the president said as much um that billy carter helped fill out a whole picture that made Jimmy Carter much more approachable to a lot of Americans. And he was just he was also a great character. And yeah, so I think that's that's a case where somebody was acknowledged but not given the credit that they may have deserved. That's a good one. A lot of people will have to write an obituary at some point in their life, and it can be really tough. Do you have any advice for folks who are trying to nail the obituary form? for folks who are trying to nail the obituary form?

Well, the advice I have, and it's something I think about personally a lot, is to talk to the family members that are on in years, the parents, parent, other people, and use your smartphone and just record them talking so that you can begin to think about what you'll want to include. Because it does feel like it should be more part and parcel of the things to do when someone leaves us. So that you're not entirely scrambling, so that you've actually thought about it. Obituaries, in my understanding of them, are so defined by print media

that it's all about the column inch. And as you said, like, how much space someone gets allotted is such a crucial question. It has to be weighed really carefully. Oh, my God, the day they die, what else is happening? Because you know that Audrey Hepburn was pushed off the front page because of Bill Clinton's first inaugural. Oh, I did not know that. Yeah.

That is a good one. And then I went and I interviewed Bill Clinton and I asked the president, I said, did you know? That wasn't the subject of the interview. I threw it in at the end. I said, were you aware that Audrey Hepburn died the day you were inaugurated? And he said, oh, my God, I had no idea. I was busy that day. But he didn't know.

And he was a big fan of hers. But yeah, or if you die on the same day as another famous person. Well, I'm sure you've been in groups where this line has been floated, which is if you are ever in an airplane with more than one person who is known, it's who's going to be in the headline if this plane goes down. Right. with more than one person who is known.

It's who's going to be in the headline if this plane goes down. Right. And that is always delivered with like complete disinterest in any of the people who are clearly never going to be named in that headline, which always strikes me every single time because I really do think it's a calculation

in the minds of these people. You mean the person who raises it? This hypothetical. And they're all thinking it, even if they don't raise it. They're all thinking, okay, right. Yeah, like, am I in the headline? Oh, shit, Tom Hanks just got on. Yeah, that's, I'm not going to be mentioned, you know.

Very interesting calculation. Very interesting calculation. So the question is, in this era that's moving away from print media at whatever rate it's happening, where space is not at a premium, do you think that it's going to change the form? Also, will there be more interactive obituaries or sound effects, as you mentioned before? Do you think that the form of it might evolve a little bit to match our technology? Yes. And it's funny. I mean, there are, I have heard of sort of obituary entrepreneurs. Now, they're dealing primarily in print. There's a few different things happening with the travails that print media is going through. Paid death notices and obituary writers are very sensitive about being confused

with paid death notices. But paid death notices where you write something in yourself are actually a big source of revenue for especially smaller newspapers. But also the obit department in big newspapers is no longer, it's hard to avoid some dopey pun here,

but it's no longer the graveyard it used to be. People actually want to write there because if you're writing for the obits, and I've heard this from a lot of people, because I went to ObitCon, which is the big convention of obituary writers. As one does, yes. And it was great.

Sounds like a blast. Well, I also prefer it to Comic-Con because I always think Comic-Con is so communicable. It feels very sticky. And ObitCon, it wasn't that way. But the writers there said, no, some of them had been on really sort of hot desks and beats before. And they said, if you're in obituaries, you're basically writing about everything.

You're writing sports stories, you're writing business stories, you're writing entertainment stories. the idea of what you're describing, something online, which would be a place where people could come and hire someone out to do something multimedia for a loved one that's either about to pass away or already has. So, yeah, and I see so many creative things online already. So I do think it's going to develop. I mean, it's kind of one of them. It's, you know, it comes, the narrative's already there. So. Right. It is such a fascinating portal to history and historical storytelling. Did you ever aspire to be an actual straight up obit writer or no? It's hard to be funny in that job. And you're quite funny. So I imagine it would waste your talents.

Well, that's nice. I also don't know how I would be squeamish about calling people and asking sometimes really difficult, tough questions. I would be squeamish about that. So I think that part would be hard. But I certainly, if I were a print journalist, that's probably what I'd do. You know, one thing, by the way, I was told by an obit writer, and this is just amazing, that there are public figures. There are, one Times obit writer told me that there are public figures that cold call the Times and will say a version of, hi, I'm calling to talk about my obit. Like, can you imagine being that presumptuous? And if I were a writer there, I'd be so tempted to be like, you know, we're kind of on the fence a little bit. We haven't decided. We're just, but let us just give us a little time. It really depends on what else is happening that day. Totally.

You know, Bill Clinton might be getting inaugurated. No, I mean, it's, but can you imagine that? Like, and he, I mean, major people will call up and say, I am calling to talk about my obit and just thought we could hash some stuff out now and give you some ideas. Is it better if they call themselves or if they have an assistant call for them? Like, which is worse?

Well, I think the assistant is worse. That would just irritate me. I think if you did it yourself, I would actually be kind of, in a weird way, way not charmed but i'd certainly be really intrigued and it would also give me i mean i would already write in brash and bombastic as adjectives for the person um the overly confident died today by the way this is definitely a running gag on your show that I really do want to watch where you're, you know, in the obit desk. And it could be like a sort of, you know, Frasier guest's call-in thing where every episode or a Murphy Brown assistant motif where like every episode, there's some other famous person that's calling in to discuss the details of their obituary. And I actually love your idea of the assistant because the assistant is under incredible duress to secure a birth in the New York Times.

Slash also possibly hoping this comes as soon as possible. Yes. Yes. Let's make a deal. If your boss dies in a spectacular way, he is definitely making the A section. There we have it. Now we've got a movie plot. This I love.

If you could be an obit writer and you could pick your beat, what would it be? Like your area. Of the section? Yeah. Of the area? Or is there not one?

There's not one. I wonder if it would be, I don't think I'm just trying to be surprising here. I wonder if it would be, I know that I'd have the most comfort with entertainment, I think. But business could actually be interesting. It's not going to be oversaturated.

Innovators, I think that could be interesting. I's not going to be oversaturated innovators. I think that could be interesting. I don't know about politics because people being so single-minded, I don't know that that makes for something as interesting, but you know. But yeah, well, we'll leave it to Robert Caro then. He's writing like the longest obit in history. Oh my God, can you imagine? With all due respect, Jim, if he was an obit writer, I mean, he would still be working on the same obit. Exactly, exactly. And in our next installment of the obituary section,

Lyndon Johnson goes to the bathroom. Robert Vic Tabak died 30 years ago. I'm getting to it. How much can you write on Mel and Alice? Getting there. Don't rush me. You mentioned in an interview with NPR that we don't,

there are like, you know, places and things and ideas that we don't memorialize. And I'm just wondering if anything in particular springs to mind for you in terms of like, I just thought that was a fascinating idea

to do more in the passage of a place that no longer exists. Yeah. Well, one that I thought of doing is Texas as a country. I think that sort of would be interesting to do a mobituary on Texas as on the Republic of Texas because I think, and this is one of the reasons I'd want to do it,

because I don't know much, all that much about it. But I wonder how Texas being its own country at one point connects, if at all, to kind of a Texas attitude and kind of a, we'll do it our way,

which has its good and its bad. You know, there's a lot of great, I lived in Texas for a while in my first TV job, and there's much I love about Texas. And then, you know, and then there's much that Texans themselves would say. Many of them would say that they don't love about Texas. I think it's a great idea. I'm looking forward to that episode. I hope you make it.

And then my final question is, in your life's work, is there a person or an event that you would consider the significant other of your storyline? Oh, boy. I think the significant other, in terms of, geez, what I do, is my father. Yeah, I think it's my father because my father had such a romance for life and, um, and for obituaries. I mean, I think he, it's among obit writers, it's axiomatic that a good obit is about a person's life, not their death. But I think I knew that before, not in those words, through watching my father growing up in the D.C. area, reading the Washington Post and before that, the Washington Star and saying, oh, boy, the obits are my favorite section of the paper and reading them. And saying, oh boy, the obits are my favorite section of the paper and reading them. And I think he liked, he loved in life and certainly in obits sort of a sense of sweep and drama and romance. And that really infected me. It's the best kind of infection.

Your father sounds like a wonderful person. Yeah. My father late in life took up the trumpet and he was in his late 40s and he didn't think that he was going to be playing at the blue note. He wasn't crazy. He wasn't deluded, but it's something he had wanted to do. He had tried it as a boy and life interfered getting married, you know, starting a small business, raising a family. And this is something he really wanted. And my mother went to a pawn shop. Suddenly it's like, wait, did you grow up in the 1930s? But she went to a pawn shop

and got him in the 1970s a trumpet. And he became so religiously devoted to it. Every morning, playing the scales for a half an hour in the cellar. We could hear it all through the house. And working on his embouchure. And then at night for an hour after work, no matter what, playing Dixieland jazz, like going through his numbers on the yellow legal pad and written out in longhand the song list.

And then he and some buddies started a band and they played in assisted living, nursing homes, sometimes in restaurants. And I would roller skate on the cement floor, right? Pretending I was at Salzburg in 1976, right? That's so funny. You had me up till Salzburg. My father's also a Dixieland jazz musician.

And when his band would come over and practice at our house, which didn't happen very often, I have a distinct memory of doing laps in our basement on the concrete in my roller skates. But I think I wish that I was at Skate King. I wish that I was at the Tacoma, Seattle Tacoma version of Studio 5. But are you serious that you would roller skate to your father playing Dixieland jazz? Yeah. I mean, I did everything to my father playing Dixieland jazz because it was constant. He was just constantly on his guitar.

But yeah. And is my father with the metronome? Mine didn't do, that was me because I practiced piano that way. But he was, it was more, he's a guitarist. So it was the strum, strum, strum, strum, strum. And the, you know, those chords that are so distinctively that era of jazz. I don't know what augmented ninth, I don't know what they are. But anyway, that, and then the noodling, doing his little runs on the neck of the guitar.

That is the soundtrack to my childhood. And did your cellar, our cellar had a pole, I guess a support beam in the middle. Yes. And so if I skated up to it fast enough and grabbed it, it was almost like I was doing like a triple salchow on skates. Totally. Also, I think our cellar had, unless I'm making this up, but I really don't think I am. I think it was not an even floor. Like there may have even been like a little, you know, crack somewhere that you had to just anticipate and get over. I'm amazed that I never hit it and went flying the wrong way. That's wild. Yeah, we had cracks too. And for a while, the dryer, my mother will be so upset that I'm telling this, but the dryer was busted. And so we were line drying like sheets

and towels. And so it was really fun to skate through those. Because that became very Xanadu. Like reveals, like going through sheets and towels. Exactly. Yep. Oh, the 70s. Yeah, they don't have encyclopedias anymore. And they don't skate through sheets on cement floors with cracks.

Whatever happened. It's all gone to shit. Well, those are all my questions for you. Do you have anything else that you want to ask or add? No, I hope this was... Oh my God, it was so great. It was so great and so much fun. I could talk to you all day.

Thank you, Liza. This was a lot of fun. Thank you for doing it. Of course. This is a blast. Thank you, Liza. This was a lot of fun. Thank you for doing it. Of course. This is a blast.

Mo Rocca's podcast, Mobituaries, is currently available wherever you get your podcasts. Go check it out. It's really great. And we'll continue releasing bonus episodes right up until season two comes out. So be sure to hit the subscribe button. And as always, we welcome any and all suggestions for upcoming episodes. You can email us at significantpod at gmail.com. Thanks so much for listening.