The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan - Marilu Henner | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

Chicago meets Chicago as Billy Corgan sits down with Marilu Henner to unpack her highly superior autobiographical memory (H.S.A.M.) that can turn a Tuesday from 1972 into a living scene and why her story is bigger than a party trick. From her Logan Square roots (beauty shop in the kitchen, dance school in the backyard), the champions who changed her path, Taxi’s 112 episodes, 112 Friday parties, open-door table reads, and Andy Kaufman’s singular orbit. The pair connect feeling to art including the rain-slick Chicago moment that helped spark “1979.” Old Hollywood drifts through, the Andrews Sisters’ precision harmonies and Burt Reynolds’ desert circus in Cannonball Run II before the conversation lands on health, longevity, and service. Subscribe to the Magnificent Others YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BillyCorganTMO?sub_confirmation=1 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Took measurements, 300 measurements of my brain and found nine areas ten times larger than the normal brain. What's unfortunate is in watching some recent interviews with you, I feel like they're not really getting at your story as much as they're getting it's sort of your gift. One of the theories I have is always that you don't become a success in this business until someone champions you or falls in love with you. And I don't mean romantic love, just believes in you. And like Jim Jacobs, he's the one who pushed me in the direction of threes. That little.

Wow. And 112 parties. We had a taxi party every single Friday. We were the cool kids on the Paramount campus. You're talking like a rockster. This is how we talk. So, here we are. Here we are.

Both Chicago. Amazing. In the land of dreams here in Los Angeles. You don't get to meet that many Chicago people. Well, not many people get out of Chicago, but we'll get to that. And there's a reason why most people don't get out of Chicago. We'll get to that, too. but okay so april 6th nineteen fifty two yes babies born in the year of the dragon are considered to be the

luckiest and destined for the most success in life and are ambitious confident and have a strong sense of justice and fairness well that describes me to a tea does it you know i don't know i'm asking you know it's funny it's my uncle lived i lived in logan square in chicago right on logan boulevard and we had a dancing school in our backyard and a beauty shop in our kitchen and my uncle was the neighborhood not only astrologist, but he also taught art at the Catholic grammar school next door. So we were big on astrology. So I didn't even know about the dragon.

I just knew that I was in Ares and all my rising sign and everything else. Well, I thought it was interesting. Yeah, it's cool. Because, you know, when you're interviewing somebody that you're familiar with through the public sphere, you have an impression of their public character. Yeah.

And then in researching you, I thought, well, there's this other person. And I'm not saying they're different. There's a... Well, we'll see, but we'll get there. We'll get there. But... I can't wait.

You need so many things to get to. But in digging around for different information, I saw that and I thought, it seemed to me to describe my sense of you as who you really are. Does that make sense? I feel like... And I don't know, because I don't know you, but I felt that it's sort of... Because your spirit always struck out to me, and I've seen you on television. I don't know how many times, but...

And in movies, but you always... stuck out differently than most people? Oh. Do you have an impression? Well, I always had a lot of energy, even as a little girl. And my mother used to say, like, run around the block a couple of times, get rid of some of that energy. And I was just always the most energetic of the family. So I think maybe that's what...

But I think it's just... I don't know. I'm not trying to put something on you. That's why we're going to talk. But your sense of spirit has seemed to run through your whole life. consistent way. Does that make sense? It does. I think you're right. I think... Is it a sense of self or is it a sense of spirit? Does that make sense?

It's maybe a sense of both. It's, you know, I think being one of six kids, you look for things that maybe make you a little bit different. And so my sister always says that, you know, among the family members, there were 10 confidence coupons. And she said, and you took nine of them. And my response to her was, there was a tenth, you know. But I think it wasn't even that. It was like I always felt like, I don't know, I had something to prove to myself, not even to my parents. I knew I had a lot of energy. I knew I was smart in school.

I knew I had this crazy memory from the time I was six. There were four girls in my family and two boys growing up. And my sisters are gorgeous. They're all beautiful. And so I always felt like the personality kid and the one with the, I'll figure it out, you know, that kind of thing. And then I chose show business too. So, you know. But I think, I think there was always a strong sense of purpose, maybe more than self or spirit.

Right. A sense of purpose. Like I always had a purpose. I have these, you know, these are all kind of ephemeral memories, but I have memories of seeing you on David Letterman. Oh, yeah. And whenever you would be on, he was always kind of a bit flirty with the female guest, but with you. it was like he was almost kind of awestruck by you. He seemed to fumble around around you.

Well, he used to rip up the cards. He's like, well, let's not talk about this, you know. I mean, we, I love Dave. I did his show many, many times, and we always had, like, such a great kind of chemistry, as you said. Sure. You know, from the first time I did it, and he was the host on the Tonight Show, you know, we just, that was it. So let's jump in here.

Okay. Parents, Loretta and Joseph. I know you mentioned... Polish and Greek. They were both first generation. Yeah. Well, having grown up in Chicago, you know, back then, very neighborhood. Very neighborhood. So having lived in the Polish neighborhood, and of course in Chicago, we all went to the Greek diners.

Yes, of course. And there was a strong sense of the Greek community in Chicago, especially Greek town. I'm not trying to be touristy about. I'm saying is the fabric of those things are, I think, as a Chicagoan, those things are very strong. Very real. and very connected. I mean, my neighborhood was, we were six kids, but we were kind of a mid-sized family. I was going to say that would be mid-sized family back then. Yeah, for sure, because people had 11, 13, 8, 9, things like that. It was very Polish, very German, probably more Polish and German than Greece. But there were some Greek families. And because we had the dancing school, we worked at the cultural center of the neighborhood. So everybody came and hung out at our house. What did your father do for a living?

My father was in the automobile business. So I know you're a big cubs fan. I've heard you talk about it. And he used to go from, he was kind of a troubleshooter for Chevrolet and for Ford. So he'd go to different dealerships. And he was a general manager. He used to go to different dealerships and build them up and then move to the next one. So he worked at Z. Frank, Nikki Chevrolet.

Oh, yeah. There's still there some of those. I know. I think Z. Frank still is maybe. I don't know. Yeah. And so he even had his own places downtown Hennarford and Loretta Motors. name after my mother.

Oh, okay. I didn't know that because you're poking around. I didn't seem to find much information on your father. Yeah. But he was in the automobile business. So he was a real salesman. I mean, like I had a real big personality and very charming. But mom run in the dance school is that did she have a background in dance that she wanted to be a professional? I don't know. There's not much information there. She did. She always loved dancing. But she was also a beautician, which is why we had the beauty shop in the kitchen with about 25 women from the neighborhood. You used to come out and pick their hair stunt, you know. But, you know, Chicago, people are very entrepreneurial. Yeah. You know, and so a lot of mothers did other things, but my mother was really involved.

I feel lucky in trying to get to know you a little bit because I remember that world that you grow up in. Does that make sense? Yeah, for sure. I really remember that world. It was very ethnic. It was very prideful. It was very focused on generational advancement. Like, how do we get away from the old country and,

become American and... I could not believe it when the first time, one of the first times we visited my grandfather, and my father started speaking fluent Polish. It was like, what? Yeah. I didn't even know he could speak that. My mother, both of their mothers died when they were seven and eight.

So my father was raised in an orphanage for a while, and then his father remarried, and he remarried a woman with four kids, so then they were all raised together. My mother's father went through five wives, and she was really more raised by her stepmother in a lot of ways, you know. And so, yeah. So they got away from the old country in a way that, you know, I mean, it's so funny because my brother went to Mathony, Greece, which is where our people are from.

We went there a couple years ago and took pictures in front of where my grandparents had gotten married. But he went there years ago and brought back the most beautiful pictures, sun-kiss pictures of these beautiful people on the beach and running around and drinking and eating. And I went, wait, let me get this story straight. Why did we leave? Why did we leave? We're all working hard. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. But they came to Chicago, through Ellis Island and then came to Chicago. Yeah, so I really resonate with that because that's my family story, even though obviously it's different families, right? Yeah. Were you, what's your nationality? Grandmother was Italian. Grandfather on the mother's side was gypsy and Belgian, Flemish.

I don't say that anymore, but yeah. Yeah, and then the other side was Irish and, you know, crazy Irish. So, you know, when you deal with that, at that time, it was different. Yeah. You know, people talk about these things now is just sort of like a, you know, where's your family from? But back then, the ethnic identity in Chicago, I can't speak for anywhere else in America, but I feel like it was that way in Cleveland, in Pittsburgh. Yes, those.

I think especially, yeah, and the, you know, kind of the, the, the, um, the Great Lakes cities, you know, because that was very strong. Why the hell would we live in this crazy, horrible, cold place if it wasn't for work and some sense that the family was going to. Community. Yes. Yeah, for sure. Now, this is my opinion. Okay. It's your show. Not yet. I feel like people have gotten kind of lazy with interviewing you because they just want to go into the memory thing. So it's not that I don't want to talk about it because it's certainly fascinating. And maybe for people who wouldn't know, maybe give your sort of thumbnail. I'm sure I'm asking the one of the five questions that people always ask you. But it. But it's, you Because it is such a rare thing that you have, you know, and I don't want to call it an affliction, but it's interesting. No, only for my husbands, which is why I'm on my third and final, I always say, yeah.

Yes. No, it's a gift. It's really a gift. But what it, it's called H-SAM, highly superior autobiographical memory. People used to call it hyperthinesia, but they don't anymore because that sounded like a disease. But basically what it is is that people who have this remember virtually every day of their lives. Most people remember eight to 11 events within any given year. And in order to be considered having exam, you have to be tested. And it's discovered that it's between 200 and 365, 365, 366

events with any given year, but minimum 200. And they test you and test you and test you. And you put yourself through that testing? I did. Well, I was on 60 minutes because my friend Leslie Stall knew I had this memory and she wanted me to be tested. And I was like, okay. But I loved it. I answered over 500 questions in a day. They wired me, put me through an MRI, saw how the neural pathways fired up, took measurements, 300 measurements of my brain, and found nine areas 10 times larger

than the normal brain. And basically, the five questions I get asked is always good for lines, for remembering lines as an actress, and I always say, well, that's two-dimensional. I'll read a script and know not only how I relate to the character and how I connect to her from my own life,

but also where I was, what the weather was like, but I was wearing, you know, things like that. And people always say, oh, is it a blessing or curse? I would say, it's always a blessing, just a curse for my husband, which is probably why I'm on my third and final. They always say, well, what about bad memories? And I would say, well, because memories are tied to adrenaline,

you're going to remember the highs and the lows. I'm just able to bring back all those, like, middle of the road things, you know? And then they say, how old were you when you discovered it? And I knew from six years old on, it's something very unusual. Wow. Yeah. So back to my take. Yes.

So I feel like the lazy take is people want you to almost do like parlor tricks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, let me throw out. But I want to help other people. No, I get that. And it's an amazing gift. But I think what's unfortunate is in watching some recent interviews with you, I feel like they're not really getting at your story as much as they're getting it's sort of your gift, which is fine. Yeah.

But your life, I'm shocked, you know, because I've been working in music for over 30 years. You've worked for 50 years straight. Yeah. Nonstop. Nonstop. Yeah. So, I mean, to me, that's the real accomplishment. Thank you.

God gave you the gift, like God gave me to say the gift of music. But the real accomplishment is what you've done with it, which is what I'm interested in talking about. So I hope that makes sense. Sure. Thank you. So using your beautiful memory, take me at least to what teen life was like for you. Were you still in Logan Square in your teens? Logan Square. Well, as soon as you were 14.

Don't get past Catholicism, because that's... Well... The young Catholic girl here, I need to hear that, too. Oh, my gosh. Well, first of all, you know, in Chicago, you are probably aware of this. The better education was Catholic school. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, and so the public school in our neighborhood, it was just very different. Remember these stories? You know, the kids would complain about being beaten by the nuns.

Yeah. And then the family would say, yeah, but you got a good education. It was like a Chicago joke, right? Oh, yeah. But the nun hit me with the ruler. Yeah, but you got a good education. The nun cracked a bell over my head and caused 11 stitches, which did happen to one kid, you know, and give, oh, the nuns were brutal. But my mother not only taught them, gave them stretch classes and she taught the nuns.

What are stretch classes? You know, she talked to not a stretch. Oh, okay. You know, so she got to see them without their habits on over at the. So nuns doing yoga, basically. Nuns doing, yeah, well, dance stretches. Okay. She also cut their hair.

And she also took them bra shopping at Vassarret, which was not far from our house. And on Sundays, my father, when he didn't have to go to work, he would drive the nuns to the different parishes around town. And I'd be the little girl in the car singing my heart out because I had a captive audience. So I'd sing like Julie Andrews or Ethel Merman or somebody like that. And so, you know, we had backstage passes to Catholicism. So we weren't brutalized as much as maybe some of the... all my brother Tommy has stories, the stories, definitely.

But I loved, I loved the neighborhood. I loved the nuns. I used to take over for the woman who worked at the rectory when she'd go on vacation. I was 14 and filing things or answering the phones. We were

very involved in parish life, you know, so it was a whole thing. Illustrate what that life was like for you. I mean, I'm asking the same question twice, which is inopportune. But what I'm trying to get at is, you know, what struck me about you and your gift is most of us have a memory that's, you know, it's like a ghost, you know, and we remember what we want to remember and we selectively kind of edit our stories and we puffed them up over time.

Or they become like snowballs. Sure. But you live with the actual, as much as anybody on the planet, the holographic memory of what it was actually like to stand on that street on that day. It's It's not a picture postcard, like a Hallmark card. It's actually in your mind. Yes. So is it as romantic looking back for you as it is maybe for what you would, because obviously I'm not asking you to have others perceived memory. Right. Like I have a romantic vision of what, like I said, I was born in 67. Right. You know, when you're shopping for antiques and you see like the Formica kitchen, I remember being in the Formica kitchen. And I know you were in those kitchens too, right? The midmodern kind of space. And then in the basements in Chicago, they'd have the old oven from the 30s because you'd cook in the...

Well, we didn't have that. We had a dancing school in our basement. Right. But you know how a lot of families would have the kitchen in the basement in the summer because they had no AC? And all my memories of those things are very... There's a texture and a smell. Yes. As an artist, I like to go back and reclaim those things. But it's always... I always feel like I'm chasing it. Like, it's just out of my reach. Not the specificity of the particular day. Yeah. So I'm fascinated by your ability to... In... in a very real way, actually put yourself back in that moment.

Well. Like you said, when you said, I remember sitting in the back of the car, singing to the nuns, I mean, you remember sitting in the back of the car. And I'm in my little body looking out. That's what I'm saying. And all the nuns who were sitting there and where they were sitting, and the one who had a crush on my dad, so she'd sit in the front seat, you know. And it's like everything is real.

And it comes in almost like a photograph that you're developing. So it's like you either get it right away or it takes time. Or it's like deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper, like the specifics of it. Right. You know, and it's like so, it's so rich to be able to do that. It seems so beautiful to me. Thank you.

Because in song, I'm trying to stitch together these things into a cohesive message. Mm-hmm. But it's all... I loved your song, 1979. Oh, thank you. Because it's like that, and I could tell you, the first day I ever heard it was February the 18th of 1996. It was.

Do you know the story about how I wrote that song? Well, I looked it up a long time ago. Yeah. And it was because you felt like there was a turning point in your life when you were 12. Right, but there is a memory component to that. Oh. So I was writing this song somewhere probably in 1994. And for some reason, I remembered this day in my life where I was 17 or 18 years old.

And I was stuck at a light on North Avenue heading into the city. and it was raining. It was one of those dreary Chicago days where it's cold and it's just raining. Gray. And I'm watching the wipers go like this and I'm at a red light and that's the memory

I wrote the song from. Wow. It was such a specific moment in my life. Emotionally, which is what I normally try to recall. Oh, that's such an emotional song. Okay, good. So you understand. So it was this feeling of

I'm leaving one life and I'm going towards this other life. And it's just that 60 seconds of my life where I felt that in this like a cleaving of energies right one is receding and one is coming and I felt not to make this about me but I felt my life there was a life for me that I had to get to right but nobody believed in that so as I'm sitting there but you believed it I did I did but what's interesting I think about it from an energetic point of view is is and I think a lot of people experience this is you know you sit

with the doubt of that. Sure. You know what I mean? There's no guarantee. But that's good because then you pull that. See, I think one of the great things about having a great memory is that you're open to all of it. You're open to the positive, the negative, the things that you remember that were painful, the things that you remember that were wonderful, all a little middle of the road things.

So you let the floodgates open and it's like nothing is wasted. So you didn't waste anything, you know, everything. But isn't that strange just for me? In your case, you could recall it because it's in there. Yeah. Oh, no, it's in there. It's in everything you've been through is on your emotional hard drive. You just don't have the same retrieval system that I do.

I like that. I like that better than I didn't, I don't remember. No, no, no. Everybody remembers and when I work with people, they remember more and more. And I have a couple theories about memory. One of them is that it's like everyone, it has a primary track on which they've embedded their memories. It's like in the jigsaw puzzle of your memory. life, what are the hard-edged pieces by which you can interlock other memories to? And so yours is probably music.

Probably you'll remember musical things. Maybe. Since we're having this kind of on a more of a theoretical or scientific. And my memories seem to be holographically connected to emotion. The feeling of it, yeah. The feeling. I'm able to recall feelings in a really intense way. And then the other memory system that I have is I can recall music in a holographic way.

So, for example, if I'm working on a song, I'll say to somebody, there's this one minute on this one record where the guy plays a solo and it's a certain feeling and I want to get that feeling. And producers look at me like, I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Sure. Because most people live in think and then other people live in double think and then some people live in triple think. So they pull it in on so many different levels. And you're a triple thinker, obviously. A droop. I'm a good for sure.

I got to be better. I got to be better just like you. But it's funny you're saying that about emotions and about music because I believe that the primary track, but then I also believe that everybody has a dominant sense. Everyone is a sight, sound, touch, taste, or smell person. Okay. And you've got like a feeling thing. So what's your dominant sense? Oh, definitely smell.

Really? Yeah, really strong sense of smell. Sense of smell. It drives everybody crazy. easy. Sense of smell and also probably hearing. Auditory. I'm very auditory. So I'll like hear something and then it gets recorded. But I'm kind of firing. When you have this kind of memory, you kind of fire on all. That's a lot of information on the hard drive. Yes. Okay. Kingston Mines, who I know from my time in Chicago, was, did you perform there? Never performed there because in our time

in the 80s coming up. It was more of a reggae bar. Oh, they had blues. But at that point, it was more reggae. So I can't say I've ever been in there because I, you didn't go to the trolley barn part of it. No, because to me, the touristy part of Chicago blues and all that just, it always turned me off. So where did you hang out? Not on Lincoln Avenue? We were, we were more by Wrigley Field at the time. Wrigley Field's neighborhood in the 80s was very poor. Yeah. So a lot of artists were living there. My sister lived on Aldeen, but she lived on Aldean and Chardon. But yeah, the Chicago Diner. Did you ever go there? Yeah, of course. Sheen. Okay. Mickey and everybody. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So take me back with your beautiful memory.

1971, there you are, 19. I had not even turned 19. Okay. Yeah, I was 18. February 5th, it was Friday. We opened in Greece. Well, what had happened was years before. Don't get past this because it's the original version of Greece.

Ever. Yes. You were in this. I was in this thing. Marty is your... It was my character. Yeah. Because Jim Jacobs, with whom I had worked with when I was 15,

and actually came to my 16th birthday. which was a surprise part. The only time, I've been surprised twice in my life, and that was one of them. He came to my surprise party. But we were working together at Hull House. Did you ever go to Hull House in Chicago? That's a real Chicago.

When we were kids, they took us there because the great legacy of Jane Hull. Jane Adams. Jane Adams, sorry, yeah. Right. Yeah. So, you know, it was like a field trip spot. Right.

So I did a play there that became a big Chicago hit. And two years later, it was the boyfriend. Okay. And so then with Bob Sickie. Did you know Bob Secondger? He was a Chicago person. Did this? 15. Okay.

Yeah, 15 years old. And so I was always like doing things with like, grownups. How did your parents feel about you going to showbiz? Well, my family had a dancing school on their beauty. But were they behind it? Were they, well? They trust you, you know, because kids going in entertainment, you know, it brings up a lot of fear sometime in the family.

Well, my oldest sister was the lead in all the school plays at Loyola University. She was 10 years ahead of me in school and stuff. And so I was the little girl carrying her script around, and I wanted to be an actress. And my father felt like I should use my, you know, I had four scholarships to go to the University of Chicago and all this other stuff. So I was like one of those kids. Everybody in my family is very smart. But he got to see me in my senior in high school play, which I thought was going to be like, sweet charity, or it's going to be this or that. No, it was an original musical written about the woman who founded the Order of Nuns at Madonna High School.

And it was called Somebody Somewhere. Were you a nun? Of course, I played a nun. You must have been a pretty hot nun. It was whatever. But my father did get to see it because usually there was a school play that was in the spring. Right. But this one was in December.

He went to see it in December. And it was the only time he ever really came to see me in anything. And we had this huge party afterwards in my house. And I saw him in the kitchen, in the dining room. And I said, what are you doing? You don't want to go out to the dance studio and the party? He said, I want to talk to you. He said, your mom really wants you to do this.

And I didn't until I saw you in the play tonight. And he said, you should do this. You should do you. You're really good. And I couldn't cry thinking about this because two weeks later, he died. And if it had been the senior play in the spring, he never would have seen me. That's so crazy and beautiful. I know, I know.

So how did they feel about it? My mother would have been disappointed if I had been a doctor, which might have been my default thing. Sorry, it just comes to me now. That's okay. Did your, was your mom a bit of a stage mom or she had let go of that part of it? She didn't have to be, because we had the dancing school, so she was always teaching everybody how to dance. And as soon as you were 14 in my family, you had to start teaching. So that's how I made money all through high school, either babysitting or teaching dancing.

So I helped her run the studio. Hence the dancer's body, right? Oh, yeah, I guess so. But I mean, dancers have a very specific kind of care. Sure. And posture. And posture was always very important to me. And it serves you well if you have good positive.

I heard you talking about it earlier. Not a terrible posture. No, you got to work on. Think of this way. There's this imaginary plum line down the center of your body. The bigger the front, the bigger the back. So everything, if you have hunched shoulders, you're going to have a pot belly, because that's the imaginary plum line.

But just think, ears over shoulders, think of it as a bowling ball on a stack of plates, and that bowling ball could fall. So, you know, because it's not just this, it's about, it's a lining. Sure. We'll do a little demo after we finish. I thank you. I want my own private lesson because I need help. Anytime.

Thank you. So you're in this play, which of course is a total classic now. Oh, it, okay, so Jim calls me, yeah, Greece. He calls me, he says, Hannah, I've written the show, it may never get off the ground. I wrote it about the kids I went to high school with. I want you to play one of the girls. You're younger than I'm by 10 years, he said, but I think you really have that Chicago thing, and it's called Greece. So we walk into the first rehearsal for it, and there's two stacks of papers.

One of them is scenes. And it's like, here's the book report scene, the polio shot scene, the lunchroom scene, the tattoo scene, the rumble scene, the, you know, everything, the pajama party, everything. And then there's a stack of songs. There were 37 songs in the first act alone. But of course, we didn't sing those. But everybody had a song, two songs, whatever. But the very first song that was ever written for Greece was Freddie, my love. And it was my character's song at the Pajama Party.

And so he was like, here, you know, Hannah sing this is in your key. It's going to be a good song for you. So I was the first person to sing it. And then when the show, people from New York saw it, they wanted to take some of us with them and audition. And I was like, I'm not leaving school to do this show because I didn't think it was going to be a hit. Did you know there was a thing called The Body Politics? Yes. Oh, yeah.

Okay. So they did Warp. There was a show called War. You were a kid. But there was a show called Warp that had just gone to New York. Okay. And it died. So I was like, yeah, because I have that written why you chose to be in the touring cast instead of the Broadway version.

Well, I could have been in the Broadway version, probably. But I wanted to get him a little more school under my belt. But then Jim called me and was like, Hanner, the first national company rehearsals start tomorrow. I've saved your party for you, but you have to come to New York today. I was like, I'm on my way to the library of two papers to, you know, but then I got to the library and my car was parked in front of the library. So I looked at the library, my car, library car,

threw my books in the car, went to O'Harefield, flew students standby audition, and I got the part. So I had to call my mom and tell her I'm not, that I'm going to do the first national school. Were you in college at this point? Yeah, it was in beginning of my third year. Yeah. I was going to do school in three years because I'd play stuff.

What was going to be your major? Yeah. They didn't have a theater. They didn't really have a theater department where you could have a major. They had the theater department where you could be in place. But it was political science. I was recruited for political science. You what?

I was recruited out of high school for political science for some. We are like, yeah, connected. Thank you. It's because of your song. I conjured you up because of that song, 1979. Maybe. John Travolta was in the original touring cast with you. He was.

He played Judy. Jeff Conaway, who I was in taxi, Jeff Conaway, I mean, Jerry Zax, big Broadway director, just directed Hugh Jackman and Music Man, and he did, I mean, he's one like seven Tonys, who did Hello Dolly with Bett Midler, who he played Kincky,

Michael Lembeck, who directed a million friends episodes as well as everybody loves Rainey. I have a watershed moment, and, you know, it's like a lot of talent in one place at a certain time. And Judy Kay, he was one, two Tonys. So everybody was there. Johnny was, he played duty because he was only 18 at the time.

Yeah. Did you know he was going to be a star? Did it occur to you? Yeah, you know, but when you're in that kind of company and also rehearsing with us for the London company was Richard Gere, was going to play Danny in the London company. They were all older than Johnny and I were, but you just felt like, oh, we're all going to be stars, you know, that kind of feeling.

A lot of people turned out to be stars out of that period. I know. It's interesting. Well, you know what. Why? Because, and I never really said this before, we were kids on a white contract. We weren't chorus kids on a pink contract. The kids in Greece, it was the first time you had an entire company of characters on a white principal contract. You know, so it was very different. Guarantee different rights. Different rights. Different, totally different pay. And it wasn't like you were just lumped together to do, you know, you had a specific character. So you had a specific character. So you had a different rights. So you had. had specific wardrobe and you had a specific look and lines. And I think as a result, the people who cast it had to be very careful how they cast. They had to find people who would jump off that stage, not just blend into a chorus.

Yeah. So you end up touring how long in Greece? Well, I toured six months on the road road, three months in L.A., and then I made it back to my hometown. And I was like, oh, you know, in the show, in the theater where I'd seen, you know, Florence Henderson. Here I have arrived. I've arrived. Articles and stuff like that. And one weekend, we're switching over theaters.

So I go to New York to visit a friend of mine who had done Greece with me. She was playing Frenching now on Broadway, Ellen March. And so she said, oh, I have singing lesson. Meet me at the theater. I walk into the theater and they're auditioning for over here, a new Broadway show to be with the Andrews sisters. And so I audition. You beat me to my question. So I walked in and they went, sing a song, and I did.

And then they called me a week later in Chicago where I was doing Greece. And they said, fly today. So I flew in the morning. I left when my little brother left for school. I came back just as he was coming home from school. I flew, audition, came back, did the show that night, Greece in Chicago. And then the next day, the matinee, I could throw dates around like crazy. The next day of the matinee, they told me at the matinee at the intermission that I'd gotten the park.

And I'd be leaving that weekend. Intoxicating, no? It was incredible. It was incredible. And you're how old at this one? I was, this one, I was 20. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Did you have a sense then like, okay, this is where I'm supposed to be and this is great or, you know what I'm saying? This was, yeah, this felt like it was all part of a plan, part of a process, part of a mission, part of what we were talking about earlier. Yeah. Purpose. Yeah. There was like, this was like falling into place the way it should. Yeah.

You know. It strikes me as beautiful. That's what I mean. It's like, we can talk about memory all we want, but that part of your journey is really fascinating to me because you're there, you know. And by way, it's real quick. Over there. What's the name of show? Over here.

Sherman Brothers were writing the music who, of course, everybody knows, read all these great Disney classics. Mary Poppins. It's a small world. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there was a picture of, Chuck sent me a picture of you and your kids in Disneyland. Yes. Well, when you said, see, we're talking about memory. When you said it's a small world, I remember being stuck on, it's a small world by tripping on LSD. Oh.

And it was stuck in one spot for 45 minutes. Oh, my gosh. Did it feel like 45 minutes? It felt like about 450 minutes. See, I know. I was so not a drug. You know how as you go through it's a small world, like different vibes. So I was like stuck in like Eskimo Land for 45 minutes tripping on L.

Did you want to get out and, like, dance with the characters? Well, you know, it's one of those kind of weird, carmic moments where you like, this is what I get for taking LSD, and I'm going to really lean into it right now. Oh, well, that's good. I sort of deserve this. Well, you know, I mean, I always say, you know, because I work with a lot of people through health because I've written all these health books and stuff.

Nine books? Ten. Ten books. See Wikipedia light. See that? Don't follow Wikipedia there. Somebody's got updated. I'm going to get that tattooed on my chest now after I talk to you.

Forget Wikipedia. Yeah, no, 10 books. God, that must be the last time it was just updated. Anyway, yeah, and so because of it, I'm always helping people with, you know, health and things like that. Sure. And so. So you're in that integrative community. Right.

Very much so. Yeah. I got to know because I do love the Andrews sisters. Oh, they were a blast. But you only work with the two because they had the heat, as we say in wrestling with Lever. She died. Oh, she died. She had already died.

Okay. Oh, they would have been nice with her. Oh, no, they were fighting the whole time. But they both really liked me. I connected with both of them. But was Leuern was the third? Wasn't she the original lead? No, no, no.

Patty was always the lead. Patty was the lead. Okay, so I'm getting my Andrews sisters. The third. Yeah, Patty's the one that you always see in like all the privates and the Bing Crosby. I always worked with Patty then. Both of all. Okay, great, because this is helpful because to me, Patty always struck me from a musical site.

She was the savant of the thing. She was. She was unbelievable. She's like a complete alpha. No, I don't even think the others would have been involved in it had it not been for Patty. She was the third. Okay. I don't know much about their story, but when you listen to their music, talking about holographic memory, you can just tell she's a savant.

She's stuff they're doing is so out there. It's crazy. The rhythms and the. Everything. The personality. And she must have rehearsed them to death. She was a force of nature. Did you get to know her?

Oh, very well. and hung out with her and her husband and went to dinner. The stories must have been unbelievable. Well, I'm the third girl in my family and kind of the noisy sort of pushy one. And so she really felt connected to me. But her stories must have been unbelievable. Unbelievable. But just about all the experiences and all the singing.

And Crosby and all of it. I think my favorite part of over here was we'd be taking our, I was Annie Rankin's dressing roommate. And the two of us, it was good we didn't have solo. because we just made each other laugh all the time, and we never had any kind of voice. But, you know, from laughing so hard. But we'd be taking off our makeup,

listening to the 20 minutes that the Andrews sisters would do their little medley after the curtain call. And the whole audience stayed, and they just loved them. Just loved them. And they'd do everything on Boogie Boogie Bugle Boy to hold tight to, you know, just everything. This is a personal aside, but that's one of the things that drives me crazy about American culture is

Andrew's sisters represents like, you know, the apotheosis of accomplishment is sort of a vocal group. But because it's sort of not trendy, they kind of get kind of pushed aside. And to me as a musician, it's like they were incredible. The harmonies are so tight. And it's got to be, you know, it's because of the being siblings. Psychic sisters. Well, you see with the Bee Gees and other Beach Boys, you know, there's something about kin. See, I have a whole thing here about that. About the Angie's sister? Well, I just think it's fascinating because, you know, and it gets a little bit into when you go into movies, you know, you're at that sort of transitional phase in Hollywood where the old guard was still around. You know what I mean?

Yeah. And it was unheard of to have a film and television career. Well, you're beating me again in my questions. Oh, well. This is your prescience here. No. Because, you know, you have enough success as a Broadway star that now you start doing movies. Did somebody at some point call you like, hey, kid, we want you in the pictures? Like, how did that work?

No, no, you auditioned, you know. I mean, I was doing a lot of commercials. I was doing, you know, and the very first thing I auditioned for the first movie that I did was a film called Between the Lines that Joan Silver was directing. And I was so flattered that she thought I could play a stripper because it was like, oh, I went to University of Chicago on Forest College. So, sure, I'll play a bimbo. And I thought, I'm not going to make her a bimbo. So I went and interviewed all these stripper. and found out, like, one of the girls had a husband who was there taking notes all the time. Another girl, her mother, made the costumes, you know, and they were sometimes girls who were going to college and stuff. So that's what my stripper character, as a backstory and as a, you know, and Joan Silver, Joan Nicolns Silver, let me use some of the things that I'd learned as ad-libs.

Sure. And so she put them in a movie. So, but, you know, when I look at your starting movies, I mean, you're, they've got to you, They've got you, this is my perception, on this kind of, that path where, like, this person has a big upside in movies. They're grooming you, for lack of a better word. Did you feel that? Or no? No, I didn't feel like a studio thing. That's what it looks like from the outside. Oh, really? No, it wasn't like that. I was auditioning, and I had an agent who really believed in me, and I got cast in something. I was flown out here for a screen test for the movie Blood Brothers.

Right. And Richard wasn't in it. Richard here wasn't in it yet, but it was Robert Mulligan who had already. had incredible success with Love with a Proper Stranger and Inside Daisy Clover and a bunch of other movies. And so I get on the set and they'd sent me through like hair and makeup at Warner Brothers. And it was like, I'm at the studio. This is the studio. The studio. And for my screen test, and I get on stage and he goes, go to the bathroom and wash all your makeup off. I want you to put your own makeup on. I want you to look like the girl I auditioned. This is not, because the guy was like so old school that I had the red dots here. You know, and I think that's how bad was.

Oh, they used to do that for the Greeks and in like Shakespeare and, you know, the old girl theater to make your eyes kind of like pop and stuff like that. But he did. He had red dots. So anyway, so then I screen test and I got the part. And then Richard screen test because the guy I was originally with didn't get the job. But I got it. And then Richard Gere. But at this moment, because, you know, it's a feeling only a few people on the planet have, right?

You're successful in one endeavor, Broadway. You're making this transition to possibly go into film. Right. You're at Warner Brothers. And I've had those meetings where you like, what am I doing here, right? And here I am, you know? Yeah. Did you want a deeper career in films?

I wanted anything that was going to get me good material. and I didn't have a manager at the time. I got one a little bit later, and then he kind of, I don't want to say, ruined things for me a little bit, wouldn't let me do Saturday Night Live, which I'd been asked to do. Oh, I didn't know that.

Yeah, which was like, how can I not... Oh, that's a jaw dropper. That was asked a few times, as a matter of fact, when I was on taxi. And he was like, no, he was grooming me for, you know, a film career. And I was doing films in between taxi things. Sure.

And especially during evening Shay, and I had already dropped him as a manager. But, you know, you get bad advice sometimes early on in your career. That's kind of what I'm after is, you know, you're on that because I think it's worth pointing out there was that thing. And I remember it very pointedly in the 70s that people were either TV actors or they were movie actors. Right. But Johnny Travolta really broke that. Well, but that was like. 78, 77, 78. Sure.

Yeah. And that's what we're talking about that time. Right, but there was still that stigma, right? Yeah. Very few people could do that. Right. You know. So I'm just asking your perception of like, in your mind, did you want to be, you just want to be an actor that works or you want, like, say good material or do you want to be a movie star?

Oh, truthfully. This is the truth gun and it blows your brains out if you don't tell the truth. Truthfully, I thought I would always be in Broadway musicals. Like that, that was going to be my destiny. Is that where your heart was? Or that was your destiny. Does that make sense? The difference? Yeah. No, I think that's how I originally, you know, with the dancing school and singing and dancing and the Broadway and all the musical in Greece and blah, blah, blah, blah. I think that that's where I thought I would always end up. And going to Los Angeles was kind of a fluke. How long will I stay? And then I got taxi. And that material was so extraordinary. Plus, my mother was dying in the hospital at the time I was auditioning. So it just became this best of times, worst of times. You know. And so and you just, I think what happens is as an actor, especially, you take whatever path is next for you on the game board of life. Right.

And Taxi was so extraordinary. How could I ever pass that up, you know? Okay, but just to hang on the point one more time. So because obviously in the lens of hindsight, Taxi is one of the greatest television shows of all time. And I watched it at the time. So I remember. I remember looking forward to it. I remember seeing you. I mean, I remember the whole thing that we'll get there in a second. But did you have that pause where it's like, hey, I've done Broadway? And you said your heart was in Broadway. But I've done some movies. Did television at that moment feel like maybe I'm going backwards or this might tie cast me? Because that was always the fear, right? That was the fear. But I, you know, I watched what was happening with John Travolta. And we were dating at that time. and my mother was dying. And I ended up at the same combination of things.

It was pretty intense. It was very intense, you know. And so it was. Were you torn between work and? No, because she, no, no, no. I mean, what was funny is that, you know, I was consistently working. And then all of a sudden I was like,

huh, I'm not getting, I don't have my next job. What's happening? And then next thing I knew I was in Chicago with my mother. And while I was in Chicago, I read that there was this new series, coming up called Taxi. And I remember seeing those words in the Chicago Sun Times about the Mary Tyler Moore guys are about to do a new show. And there was something about that name that just jumped off the page. And I went, I'm going to do this show. And how old was your mom when she was

sick? She was 58. I was 25. She was 58. My father had died when I was 17. He was 52 of a heart attack. And she just changed like overnight. I saw what stress can do. to a body and a psyche and like just losing the love of her life and, you know, just having to like go to work, not teaching dancing, but working in a bank and so many things changed for the family. Is it like a brokenhearted thing, you think? It was brokenhearted, but it was also, my mom was a survivor, but she wasn't, I think it was just such a shock. And the way my father died was such a shock. I don't know if you want to get into that. Please, yeah.

Well, as I told you, we were this big, very popular family in the family. the neighborhood. And we always had this big Christmas party, the Saturday between Christmas and New years. And my brother was 16. I was 17. My brother Tommy was 16. My sister was 15, Lauren 12. My two older sisters were 23 and 27. And Tommy got into some liquor that my father had been given as a present. Started mottling off to one of the guests. My sister, he was in the, my father was like in the house, took him in the house. My sister, next thing I know, my sister ran out to the studio to get my mom. I followed her.

And when we came in, my father was on top of my brother. Because my brother had like pulled up like this. And so he was shaking him. My mother separated them. My father slumped into a chair. And that's how he died. Wow. So.

I think I read that, but hearing it from you, I see it. Yeah. And my mother and I went in the ambulance with him. And I just thought, there's no way they're going to save him. So you can imagine. Coronary? Yeah, massive coronary. 52. And it upended our entire life. Yeah, and my brother and everything. All of it. All of it. Is your brother still alive? Yes. All the siblings are still alive. How did your brother sort of process all that? He's been through a lot and been and out of rehabs and all kinds of stuff. But he's, I mean, I always joke, Tommy doesn't just have nine lives because he's had so many near. He doesn't just, he's a whole litter of cats with nine lives each. He's got like 81.

So, yeah. Well, thank you for sharing that. It's intense. Yeah. Every family has its wrinkles, right? And there's a Fredo in every family. Well, said. It's true.

Okay. Taxi. Yeah. It's almost hard to talk about, not because there's so much to talk about that we could just sit here and talk about taxi. Oh, forget about it. For hours. Yeah. And so let me see where I want to jump in on that.

Here's the thing. So here's the cast, and this isn't everybody, but these are the names that jump out. Judd Hirsch, Jeff Conway. Conway. Conway. Tony Danza, Christopher Lloyd, Danny DeVito, Andy Coffin, Rio Perlman, and Carol Kane, who I think I still have a crush on. No, she's adorable. So beautiful.

So beautiful. What a cool. So group. And they were guest stars. Yeah. But I remember seeing Carol on there because I had such a crush on her when I was a kid. Oh, I'm a goth, you know, so she's like a goth goddess, right? If that makes sense to you.

But gosh, where do we even jump in? Like you said, Mary Tyler Moore's people were involved. So you knew it was a, it had an esteem going in. I knew and they, we didn't even do a pilot. We knew it was picked up. Wow. So if you got the job, you were doing 13 episodes, the original 13. And I was, okay, I'll back up a story.

Well, maybe I won't go into this part of the story. But anyway, I get the job even though I'm totally wrong for the part. They wanted a 30-year-old. Why were you wrong for the part? Because they wanted a 35-year-old Italian New Yorker. And they wanted me to have a 16-year-old daughter. And I was 25. I turned 26 right before I got.

And what was the character had was like a mother of two? Mother of two. Well, they made a mother of two. It was supposed to be a 16-year-old daughter. It was like a divorced mother-of-to-type. And a divorced mom who had aspirations to work at it. who worked in an art gallery and had aspirations to own her own gallery someday. And so she was moonlighting as a cab driver, too.

And so when I was too young, you know, one of the theories I have is always that you don't become a success in this business until someone champions you or falls in love with you. And I don't mean romantic love, just believes in you. And like Jim Jacobs, he's the one who pushed me in the direction of Greece. And Joel Thurham, the casting director of Taxi, he's the one who kept saying, trust me, this is the girl. This is Elaine. She can hold her own with Judd Hurst.

You believe her as somebody who can be one of the guys. You believe her aspirations in the art gallery. And everybody else, they were singing, sing. You know, he just felt like, no, it's Mary Lou. Wow. So he believed in me. And my final audition, which was right after my mother died, they paired us up.

I wasn't with anybody that ended up getting the part, but because they paired me up, And I sort of gave a hard time to the guy who was auditioning for Alex, Barry Newman. And it was really kind of funny. I think that's what got me the part. But they liked me. They felt like I could hold my own with the guys. Yeah, my memory of it is, you know, because when you deal with cast ensembles, like, Cheers is a perfect example.

It's like, you know, it was all around the bar. And taxi was all around the garage, yeah. My thing was the show spun around you in a particular way because it thought that you were the love interest, but you were the haughty, that didn't belong there. Oh. That's my memory of it. Thank you. Oh, well, but I'm saying it gave a certain sort of snap to it.

Yeah. You know, it animates things, you know? I'm not saying it's as simple as sex selves, but it's like, you know what? Well, it's funny. I always felt, you know, with all due respect to the Cheers cast, I always thought the taxi cast was a hotter cast. I mean, we have an expression in my family called PF. Right. And it's like BDE only.

It's not sizes and sexist like BDE. What does PF stand for? PF stands for. And it measures the sexual quotient of people or things. Like, man, there was so much PF in that movie last night. God, I went to this new restaurant. Did the letters PF stand for something? Yeah, pussy factor and penis factor.

Because every, okay, so yeah. Now we're back to Chicago. Right there, baby. We are right there. Yeah, I'm with you in Chicago. Yeah. So PF, I always felt like the taxi cast has had more PF than most other casts. Forget about cheers.

Yeah, no, that's what I'm saying. Except for maybe friends. So like, okay, dealing with the sexual dynamics, it's like it made sense that Tony Danza's character would be into you, Jeff Connoeys. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Having a woman of your looks, somehow it balanced something. Yeah. Yeah, you believe.

You would think on paper it would be like, let's get the, you know, the soccer mom from Chicago's had a rough go and a little rough around the edges. But she's got a heart of gold. Yeah. Something about you there kind of clasped it up or something. Oh, man. I didn't realize. That's just my, now you remember, I'm sitting in a basement. I know you're sitting in 11 years old.

In a Chicago basement freezing my song. All right. But I did love the show and I just remember thinking it was so fresh. It was different. And you must have loved being the musician that you are innately, the Bob James song. Okay. I hope I don't shock you. I always found that theme song creepy.

Oh, really? Yes. Interesting. Creepy because it went with a tab. hearts, the flutes and... It creeped me out. I don't know why. And I swear to God, I'm going to show you.

I got a Bob James note because I was going to tell you that the song creeped me out. So you jumped me there on that. That's so funny because, yeah, I mean... But here, but we're talking about the theme song, so you know it's a good theme song. It's a good theme song. Because we're talking about it because it registers as a singular. moment. And it was so different from Shlameel, Shalazel. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And, you know, the happy days. And also come and knock on our door. You know, it's so different from all of those other shows. But every time I hear those crees me out. Maybe maybe, because you knew it was time to go to bed or do your homework. I was sitting there doing my research on you and I thought, I remember this song creeping out. So I went and listened to it to see if it still creep me out. And it does.

That's so funny. No flutes in your music. like that. Okay. Now, I am going to test your memory here because I think this is valuable. First taxi, according to my notes, aired September 12th, 1978. It was on a Tuesday. Right. I was in London with Travolta opening Greece the night before. So I didn't get to go to, you know. So you didn't get to sort of celebrate in the American sort of moment? No, I didn't. But a couple days later, and people asked me like, when did you know you were going to be famous? Or when was the taxi? When did you know taxi was a hit? three days later after taxi premiered, September the 15th. In fact, I did this on a series not too long ago. We were at the Ollie Spinks fight. Johnny and I had flown from London to New Orleans for the Ali Spinks fight, and all the guys went to this fight. The fight was over very quickly.

And then Johnny went back to the hotel. So I hung out with the taxi guys, and we're walking down the street, and all of a sudden people are honking, like, hey, Nardo, hey Louie. And this is just after the premiere. Three days. So we thought, oh, wow. Our lives have changed.

114 episodes you wasted. Well, no, it's 112. Okay. On Wikipedia. Okay, Wikipedia. They're never right. Wikipedia says 114, but two of them were like retrospectives where somebody says, oh, this is, they fake episodes. Yeah.

Yeah. So 112 episodes. And 112 parties. We had a taxi party every single Friday. We were the cool kids on the Paramount campus because we had a party every... You guys just had a blast. We had a blast. This is cocaine, L.A. times.

Well, I was never... Tony used to say, had to say, mayor, we all have to do drugs to feel like you do naturally, you know. Okay, correct me again. Okay. Because there was different information on this. Oh. Show was nominated for 31 Emmys, but I've seen where it's at 34.

Okay, I don't know. Show won 18. Won a lot. One best comedy series three years in a row. And you were nominated for five Golden Globes. Five, three-lane. So I always like to focus on this part because when you're at the zeitgeist of American culture, and only a few people really experienced that.

Yeah. It's very, very different. It's different than anybody can imagine. it like there was a point in my life where I don't care whatever restaurant I walked into the kids knew me and grandma knew me oh wow so I know you know what that feels like yeah yes and I think also because of that time and the different people I was dating during that time whether it was Johnny or one of my cast members you know there was like that element too but there was you know the people magazine part of it all too people magazine us man you know stuff like that

that. Yeah. So there was that part of it. But the work was so extraordinary. And somebody like Jim Brooks, who is of every single human being I've met in show business, he is a true genius. He is the smartest, most extraordinary human being I've ever met in my entire life. And we're still friends to this day. I mean, we are such good friends. He came to all my weddings. I mean, No, he's, he is, he's one of my best, best, best, best friends, and I see him all the time. So because of him, I would say that there was a patina about taxi. It's endured, which is, I think, how we know. Where I would argue, like, a show like MASH, which was huge in its time, it seems to have lost.

Do you think it wasn't? Some of its shine over time. Yeah, maybe. You want my opinion on why? Sure. Is that what you're asking? Yeah. I'm curious.

I think it was too self-indulgent. Mm-hmm. is a lot of got a lot of lefty tropes in there and a lot of like big speeches. Oh. That just haven't aged very well. But at the time, it felt super important. I love the show. Yeah.

But you couldn't get me to sit down and watch a MASH episode if you paid me. But if you said, hey, let's sit down and watch an old taxi episode. What if you get a guest from MASH? Well, I would say the same thing. But I don't. What's interesting about Zykeist moments, and we can, because at this. into your memory as well, is there are zeitgeist moments that really endure. And there are other zeitgeist moments that do not endure, and they almost become a reflection

of the times more so than, let's call it, the greater arc of the human story or something. Does it make sense? It's the difference between a cultural moment, like, why is everybody wearing that bad shoe? Right. And you look and go, God, what were we thinking in 74? The collective agreement. Yes, it's a collective agreement, but it's not always right. Right.

And that's borne out by racial politics and horrible things like women not being able to vote. You know, like we all look back and go, what were we thinking? That's so silly. But there are other things you go, no, there was a truthfulness in that that endures. And there's a truthfulness in taxi that indoors. I think if I had to like pinpoint what it was, I think it was you got into our personal lives. but what you really got into was that kind of collective agreement to create a family outside of your own personal families. And the chemistry of the cast really jumped off the screen.

The writing was extraordinary. Did you feel that your personal relationships infused back into the... Oh, as an actor, you use everything all the time. Sure. I think it made... I mean, plenty of times you can watch Tony Danza. He was really playing cards, and I'd have to kick him under the... the table to say his next line. You know what I mean? Or we'd like hold back on an ad lib because maybe

Jeff Connoe would steal our ad lib during the week. So we'd wait until like shooting night. You know, there were so many things. I mean, and we were really playing cards. Even when we were shooting, we were playing cards. So people would, you know. Take me through like a week on that, because I'm fascinated by the sort of the production part of it all. Like so you do a cold read. Well, Friday night we would do the show. So I'll go back to a Friday night. And you'd finish the show before you pop the champagne. Have a party.

In the party. And this is front of a live crowd. Oh, the show is always in front of a live crowd. Did you only film once or did you do the rehearsal? Just once. Okay. Because like, you know, and now they filmed the rehearsal and the live. You know what I mean?

But they did that one run through in front of a crowd. Right. Because even when you're playing as an artist, you know, you play just like you would be on TV, you know? Yeah, no, Jimmy Burroughs was mostly our director, especially the first three and a half years. And so he, you know, was 7.30. We'd have a band playing, and then we'd go into, you know, the shooting of it. And then what would happen was we would finish and have the party.

But when you took off your costume from the show, there'd be a new script. So you got the script Friday night. Oh, okay. So now you had the script Friday night. And then Monday, we came in at 11 o'clock and did our table read. And usually they would send us off if they, if it needed a lot of work, we wouldn't start putting it on its feet that day. They'd listen to it and we'd get a new script on Tuesday when we came in. But usually what would happen is there was enough to get us started.

But the cast would go to Lucy's L. Adobe across the street, knock back a few margaritas and chips and salsa and guacamole, and then come back in the afternoon and get like part of Act 1 on its feet. And then Tuesday we'd start right at 10, do a table read of the new changes, get it. it on its feet and Tuesday afternoon at 4.30, we would have a run-through. Now, a run-through in front of the network and the writers. Now, here's the thing. Because the whole thing was that Jim Brooks was running it. Any suggestion was open. You could bring 10 of your family members to watch that run-through, and he'll say, oh, we need a good line here. Does anybody, what do you think here? And people would be totally open. My brother once suggested a line who's visiting. Very rare.

I never had that again. Totally rare. And so then, we'd do the run-through. And then Wednesday, they'd step all night with the extra riders who would come in beside the six of them. And they would have a fresh, hot little... They'd bring an extra riders to, like, punch up the scripts. Tuesday night. There would be like an all-nighter kind of thing, depending on where the script was. So then Wednesday, we'd put the new version of the script on his feet, do another 4.30 run-through. And that was Wednesday. And then Thursday, 9 o'clock in the morning, we would start camera blocking. And then Friday we'd come in at... noon and do like a run-through with camera blocking, 4.30, a dress rehearsal to make sure all the wardrobe stuff were, and then a show starting at 7.30. And that would go, like, how many times, how many weeks would you do that in a row? Three or four in a row and then take a week off. Sometimes we'd do five. That's intense. Yeah, it was intense. But it was great. We loved it. And then the cast would get together to watch the show on Tuesdays. The cast would get together

to go roller disco on Monday. The cast would get together on, you know, Saturday, to play softball. So we socialized a lot, a lot, a lot. And we still do, we've done 23 Zoom since the pandemic started. We just did our 23rd last couple weeks ago. That's crazy. A lot's been made of obviously Andy Kaufman's time. You know, I work, you know, I own a professional wrestling company if you don't know that about me. So I hear all the inside stories from wrestling people that worked with Andy in Memphis. So I was here about it from the other side. I know, and again, correct me, but my understanding is that he only worked kind of a partial schedule. He did. He, was that like, was that because he was a big star? No, I think he didn't want the, he didn't want

the responsibility. And because Lottka's character, first of all, he only had seven out of 13, so he didn't have to come to every show anyway. And they would write his dialogue just as what the intention was, and then he'd make up his own language. I always said that Andy made up a country I wanted to visit, because it was so original. But so he came Tuesday afternoon for the run-through. He'd come after lunch and work from like one until the 430 run-through, and then he came in Friday all day. Right.

So he only had to do that. Did that create any kind of resentment with the cast? You know, first of all, I hated Man on the Moon. I felt like it did not do any kind of justice whatsoever. I had the funniest thing that ever happened to me on a, movie set with Milo Schormann, whose work I love, and I love Jim Carrey. I just think the movie didn't work. But Milish Forman said to me, and I'm in my original clothes from Taxi, and I'm saying the things that came out of my mouth. Did they actually find your original clothes?

I had them. Oh. Yeah. So he said, he said something about, no, don't do it like that. She wouldn't do that. She wouldn't do that. I'm the she. This is why I thought that was kind of fun. But it just, it seemed like, and after I saw the, after I saw the documentary about Jim and Andy. I realized those were his demons. I felt like Jim never captured the fun, the essence, the friend, the kind of quirky, very appealing side to Andy. I adored Andy. He wanted to be a song and danceman, so we were always dancing. There's a... He must have love you or on Broadway. He loved, and with the Andrews sisters. Because when we had a show that was about a costume party, and Judd, Tony, and Andy, all dressed the...

like the Andrew sisters. So I taught them a little dance with the music and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. He was dear, and you never got to see that in the movie. Did you, last question on him, did you, did you have a sense? Because I saw some stuff where Tony Danza was talking about, didn't really understand what he was after. But now in hindsight, it makes more sense that he was a visionary.

But did you have any sense of that at the time? Yeah, I didn't. Do you think he was an important comedian? I mean, you guys are working at the national level. So obviously he's somebody, but even in the professional ranks, people have their opinions. Okay. A year and a half before taxi started, I was still living in New York, and I saw him dressed as foreign man reading from the Great Gatsby at Catch a Rising Star. And I thought, who is this guy? And by chapter two of the Great Gatsby, people are like shooting straws at him, pelting dinner rolls. My boyfriend at the time, he's like, get off the stage and all this other stuff. And pretty soon, little Andy Kaufman and his little foreign man suit and his little accent with his book turns and just breaks down on stage, just sobs, sobbing, sobbing. Was he really coming or was he hush?

Who knows? But he was convincing enough that you thought like, oh, my God, you felt terrible. And then he turns up stage and in one fell swoop rips tape, black tape. He was a great Elvis. He was a great Elvis. And there he was. So I already knew Andy Kaufman going in and was a fan. And then when he created this crazy character with the language and he was so funny.

But did you have a sense? Like, you know, every artist in the entertainment game either has a legacy or doesn't. And some they endure and they take on a mythological. Right. Like there's a movie about Andy, right? There's a reason there's a movie about Andy. Sure. He becomes fascinating as sort of a cultural figure that rises above his moment, like we were talking about zeitgeist.

Right. Right. But did you have a sense that he had the zeitgeist in him at the time? Or you just... I knew, well, I, you know, I knew that he was taking bust loads of people out from milk and cookies after a performance. And I knew that he was putting people on the Staten Island ferry and taking them across... Right, but in terms of... So it's like, so I felt like, did I think he was going to die? Not none. No, no, no, no. But did I think he endure? It's a more nuanced question because maybe because I'm a student of history.

I have very clear memories of people in my generation that were important because I remember thinking to myself, okay, this one, you're going to want to remember this because there's something about this, even if I don't like it. Right. It's going to endure. Like you give me an example. Kirk Cobain was from Nirvana. I saw them play in 1990 or so on their first album. They were an independent band, and you just could tell this guy has got some other gear. that is impossible to explain.

Right. You know, the band was good at that point, not great. He was obviously talented, but so were a lot of other people. But I thought, no, this one, there's something. And when you would be around people talking about him, it was like they were talking about the high school quarterback. Yeah. They couldn't find enough superlatives to describe this guy in just some band.

It's so weird because we were talking about two people who died very young, you know, and maybe there's that part. of them and what they emit that we. Well, I have a theory on that, and I don't know if you would agree with it, which is, I think some people know that they're not destined to be here long. So they have a different incandescence. Yeah. They burn a little bit brighter.

Like, you and I are going to be here for a long time. So we're like, we're regulating the flame. We don't want to burn too bright. We're Chicago. We got a Chicago and burn your point. Okay. So, again, maybe sometimes you and I, if we do the same, again, we can go deeper on taxi because it's...

Oh, it's so great. There's so much there. So much. So, so much. So I don't want to jump past it, but I'm really here to want to talk about you. But obviously, it's a huge part of your history. Definitely. So, okay.

And continues to be. Is it because of the success of taxi that you start doing movie stuff again or do the opportunities change there? Yes and no. I mean, I started doing TV movies. It was always, you know, oh, here's a script, here's of this, here's of that. And so my agents would put me up for things. and if I got the job or if I didn't get the job.

Did you feel you're being typecast at all? Um, you know, you know, this town loves a proven winner, you know. Yes. Oh, definitely. You know, I call casting by calendar. Like, who can we get from calendar, the calendar section of the LA Times? You know, that kind of thing. Yeah. And I knew that there were times when I was so disappointed because somebody would write

apart for me and then I was like, two on the nose. It was like, well, change the character. You know, that happened with like Blake Edwards. And he wrote a part from me. And then they said, well, no, she's too. You know, things like that. I mean, I have so many stories. But look at the names you.

Yeah, I worked with. 82. Vim Vendors is one of the great artistic direct results. Well, actually, it was 80 and 82 because there was Hammett. They pulled a plug. Oh, okay. Hammett started. I met my first, soon-to-be ex-husband, my first husband,

my first husband, Frederick Forrest at a screen test. You're talking like a rockster. This is how we talk. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So I met him at a screen test. Right.

And yeah. And so we ended up, I ended up getting cast, and then we ended up getting, they pulled the plug because the movie was a mess. And then the strike happened and then we got married and the strike ended and I went back to taxi and thought, who is this guy? You know, I'm kidding. But then he did another movie. taxi. I did another movie.

Because that husband number one, right? That's husband number one. He was a very successful actor. Yes, and an academy, brilliant. Yeah. Brilliant, brilliant actor. Yeah, I looked him up and I was like, oh, I know this guy. Like, you know, it's like snaps right to you.

Well, and he was totally unrecognizable with each of his characters. You know, I mean, he played Dachel Hammett when I met him. Then he gained 25 pounds because he played Hank in one from the heart. What was it like being married to another actor? Well, with Freddie, it was like being married to like six actors. I mean, he also played Lee Harvey Oswald. And one time I, we were having a friend, I went, I expected to end up with John Kennedy. And I ended up with Lee Harvey Oswald, you know, because he was so, but he was so, he was an unbelievable actor.

He was so into, he was such a method, method actor. He would write out his entire script in longhand. the entire script, and in between his lines, he would create a whole life of his character. So his script was like this big because it was like very... He was from Gildencher because he wanted to know, even though you never might have seen it.

So when he did the movie Tucker, this was after we got divorced, when he told Transpo transportation that they were not allowed to drive him faster than 35 miles per hour because his character would never have experienced that kind of speed, and that's what happens to his character

in the movie. So he didn't want to be driven faster. And then one day he left his script behind, and he didn't want the script to be driven faster. And they were like, no, the script is. Am I guessing wrong in that this is not a good formula for a successful relationship? This level of detail? Oh, I made a detail. And his memory and his level of detail, right? No, but his, his, his just, we were very other to each other, but we adored one another. And we stayed friends till, he passed away only a year and a half ago. Yeah, not even a year and a half ago. Yeah.

And we always stayed for us. Yeah. So you're working with the art director over here, and then here comes Bert Reynolds, which is like, talk about American cultural zeitgeist. Right. Oh, my gosh. Like, you're right in the middle of the... And auditioning just as taxi is kind of, you know, waning.

I literally finished taxi on a Friday and started Man Who Loved Women on the following Monday. Well, that leads you to, I mean, I just have to go to Cannonball Run. I mean, if Taxi is a cultural high point, Cannibal 2 is, I don't know what it is. Okay, this is what Cannibal 2 is. The first night I work with Bert Reynolds, he and I instantly had chemistry. We started ad-libbing. We, like, loved each other, like, instantly. He called me that night.

He said, I want you to come down to Burr-Reynolds' Dinner Theater and do their playing our song, because I know you sing and dance. And I'm doing another Cannonball. We're going to do a Cannibal Run movie. but it needs a scriptry write. Do you know any good script writers? I was like, oh,

Harvey Miller from Taxi. He's really good at that. So I read the script and it's about Dom Deloise and Bert. An heiress has been shut away in kind of an asylum

and she wants to get away from her family. So they go in, they meet her, they go, and they take her and it's cannibal run and on the cannibal run too.

And I end up with Burr Reynolds. So now I give it to Harvey and Harvey or Bert gives it to Harvey and he turns it into two would-be actresses dressed as nuns. They ditch a production of sound of music. And now there's two there's two female characters. So of course, Shirley, they got Shirley McLean and she wanted to be with Bird. So she was with Bird. I was with Dom all because of Harvey's new script. But I've disrespected Dom. No, no, no. No. But let me tell you something. thing. Well, poor little Dom. I mean, it was 117 degrees in July in Tucson. So Shirley and I had our makeup call was 2 a.m. so we could get makeup on because the drive out to the desert was

took forever. And we pulled the plug at one. So everybody was hanging out at the, at the, in Tucson, the famous, the Tucson, not no, not Tucson and I'll think of it. Anyway, it's like a great old hotel. And it was Shirley MacLean, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Joey Bishop. Telly Savalas, Sid Caesar, all of them. Tim Conway, Donnottes, Ricardo Montsabon, Jim Neighbors, Charles Nelson Riley. And we were all at that hotel and then would like hang out at the pool in the afternoon to cool up.

And then all of everybody drinking. It sounds like a Hollywood dream to me. Well, here's, I'm a little girl whose mother made her take naps after school so I could step and watch the late show with her. And I had this unbelievably colorful uncle who was thought he, you know, knew all the movie stars personally. Yeah. And so this was like, I can't believe, Charlie McLean and Dom, you know, Bert and all these people, especially with a rat pack. I'm fascinated by Old Hollywood and that moment right there is pretty much the end of Old Hollywood. Yeah. It was the 23. It's the end of the rat pack kind of together and, you know, Frank's in the movie for 60 seconds and that stuff.

Did you have a sense? Did you have a sense of that time ending? Because, you know, Bert and, you know, Dustin Hoffman, there was this whole crowd of actors and stuff that came in late 60s or the 70s. They kind of changed the game. Yes. Some would say for better. Some would say for worse. More independent spirit. Right.

Less old. Although Bert sort of kept this old Hollywood sort of thing. Well, that's what I sort of like about it because you can see he's paying some fealty to the things he loves. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's, he was, he was incredible. I mean, I felt like.

You know, you'd just go to a party at his house, and it was like old Hollywood. You were always, you know, Johnny and I would sometimes go to. Didn't he date somebody like a famous? Well, he was with Dynasur for a while. That's it. I knew he had some romance with some. Older. Yeah, enjuneuf of the past.

Yes. Yeah. Dina Shor. Yeah. And she was great. But he was with Lani most of the time that I knew him. And then, you know, other people. But, yeah.

But he was always, he loved those hobbies. Hollywood parties, and he was like a kid who loved old Hollywood as well. But Cannonball Run, too, was so crazy because it was, you know, 23 honey wagons in a circle for the movie. And, you know, it was just like, you, I met so many people on that film. Yeah. I mean, it's like, you know, it's a mad, mad, mad world. Exactly.

There's like 800 stars. And yeah, it reminds me of that. Yeah. So not to belabor the point about the movie thing, you know, but, you know, you can, uh, Johnny dangerously with Mike Keaton, perfect with John Travolta, LA's story with Steve Martin. You've done 68 films. But people, because of a taxi, I think they think of you more as a TV actress. Yeah. Do you think that's how is, again, I'm not trying to put words, but it like, hey, I worked and I, I had success in everything, including Broadway. Like, do you look at it that way? like.

Hey, truthfully, right now, people think of memories of memory. Truth gun. Truth gun is that I think it's more the memory thing than anything. That's why I think people interviewing me lately are doing the lazy take. They always go towards the lowest hanging fruit. So right now, the lowest hanging fruit for you is the memory thing because it's fascinating to people. But when I go through your actual working life, I mean, like I said, you've worked for 50.

50-some years. Yeah. No, it's very impressive. Thank you. 52 years. I just did three plays, one right after the next. I did noises off. Yeah. Again, at Bucks County, Bucks County, Pennsylvania and, you know, Bucks County Theater, where I'm on the board there because I love that theater.

It's like my summer home. I just love it so much. So I did noises off. And I played the same part that I played in the movie 31 years ago, 32 years ago. And I was like, are you sure? And they were like, can you still fit the costume? And I said, well, yeah. Well, yeah.

I wore something. I mean, look at me. Thank you. I didn't say it like that. I did like a different costume. But, no, you know what? After my parents died, I really discovered health. And as a result of discovering health and working so hard to make their deaths not in vain,

just trying to figure out what is it that killed them, what can I do if I've dealt this genetic hand and my siblings? I mean, I lost, you know, 54 pounds and lowered my cholesterol over 100 points and have worked really hard. And I saved my third and final husband's life with good health and information. And it's probably of everything that I've done besides having my two sons, which is there's nothing like being a parent, probably helping people with their health is probably right up there. Yeah.

You know, so, yeah. So I think I take all of it in. I take all of it in. And it's also when you sit with somebody, what do they want to talk about, you know, because anybody could say anything and I'll pick up from there. Sure. That's kind of where I wanted to end on the health and wellness because, you know, there's a lot of ghosts in this town. And what I mean by that is you'll see this person who's had their moment, but they can't let it go.

Oh. You know what I mean? And I feel like somehow you've successfully navigated. And I'm not saying there's not sorrow there at times where, you know, I certainly have dealt with it where they think like, oh, you can't do that anymore. And you think, what are you talking about? I'm still here. I'm from Chicago, baby. Yeah.

Like sometimes I'll tell fans like, you know, I'm still the guy that wrote the song. You know, they'll talk to me as if I could you talk to the guy who wrote that song? Right. And I'm like, no, I'm still here, you know. Yeah. So I guess I'm asking something that's not really a question more so. It's like a tone poem of like, how have you put all that together because it seems consistent through your whole journey? And again, it's like a spirit question maybe, but you know what I mean?

Like you're, it's, it's in your way. work your spirit like there's a certain there's a fresh optimism are you are you optimistic person very okay so the idea that you would then take uh this part of your life and make it more about others is very interesting right because you've had a life where it's been very much about you yes but it's for me it you know it's like i think everybody has a filter through which they see their lives everyone has kind of an essence, and mine has always been family. And I don't know whether it's because I'm the middle child and the family historian and the girl on taxi. I've always been that swizzle-stick person, that one who like stirs things up or gets people like, you know, the way my family was

eating before I discovered health and plant-based and all the things, no dairy, no gluten, all those are you saying the Polish diet is not conducive to a long life? I get it. Oh, my gosh. And I think, I don't know, I think I'm somebody who loves to share information. Obviously, I love to talk, obviously. And so if I learn something, I don't want to be the only one who has it. I right away want to share it with people. And so I think because I've been doing the books for a long time, 25 years, so it's not, you know, and having kids changes your life so much.

And I wanted to, you know, my kids came with me everywhere. We did everything together. And so, you know, I wasn't ever. precious about stuff. And so I don't know. I mean, I, it, I don't feel like everything was focused on me ever. I was, I was always like, benign neglect. But isn't that egoism, at least somewhat required in the, in the, in the acting game? It, it is. You got to have enough of a, because you got to deal with it. You have to have nine confidence. Yeah. But, but, but I think that, but it's not, I mean, like people who meet my friends, they go, we always

thought you'd be the talker, but they're the talker. And I don't know, no, I'm just, the talk show host who asks the question that gets people together. You know, so I, I don't know. I never thought that, I think I pulled it out. When I needed to have the focus on me, I knew how to pull it out. But I was always very good at remembering things to like pull other things. Okay. Last question.

Okay. It's not a fair question. Okay. Have any of them been fair? Yeah, it's like. No, I love talking to you. Let me just say that. You're a blast.

It's like, we'll keep. people say to me, I hate to ask you this question. I'm like, well, then don't. Is there a spot of retirement? Are you just going to work until you're done? I'm going to work till. It's a Chicago thing, right? I'm with you. All the way to the end. All the way to the end. Why? Why give it up? I'm constantly reinventing things. You know that I have two documentary filmmakers. I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about it yet, so I won't say their name. They're going to start following me around about my memory because they think it's not just about my memory, but the idea that memory is so, it's an exploration,

humanity. You know, that's how they're describing it. And so, you know, and I'm doing it. Then you have to work, you see. Yeah. Well, no, but I also just sold a movie to Hallmark. I'm in a big Hallmark series and all kinds of stuff. I'm constantly working. I just did three shows. So, you know, I like to work. Yeah. And I have the energy for it. So why not? Yeah. Because I think this is the last point I'm after, you know, there's an obsession with youthfulness and aging and obviously the, and you know this from your sort of scientific forays, you know, the anti-aging sort of aspect of science that's coming, that's going to be a huge business. It already is. It is. A life extension maybe is a better way to put it. But, and maybe this is a question. It's like, to me, long life is,

is being useful. Very. Looking good is nice. I'm all about it, right? And it gives you, you know, I always say, if you, if you wear out your body, where are you going to live? So exactly being able to not wear up your body too much, you can live and maneuver and walk and, you know, get through things. So the point I'm trying to make is, to me, you're a parable for happy life is purposeful life is looking and feeling good. Like it's, that's the loop. Does that, is that resonating with you? Well, it gives you, yes, and it's, well, it just gives you the mobility, you know, it gives you the brain cells. It gives you the life. It gives you the, it gives you the, like,

force in you because you're not spending all of your time digesting your food or feeling sorry for yourself or you know hiding in your bed you know with a fifth of vodka and watching tv yeah well thank you thanks i you know something i couldn't go out like my parents should do chicago all right thank you thank you god bless you