The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 132: Harvey's Future Ex-Wife

Episode Date: April 16, 2019

She just said she was going home - but it's the way she said it that we remember.

This is the way I heard it. Harvey sat in front of his big-screen TV, nursing a beer, and wondering if Tom Brady could pull another rabbit out of his hat when a bona fide superstar began to sing the bejesus out of the star-spangled banner. It was an epic performance that immediately transported the 79-year-old Harvey back to a time when he was young and famous and hopelessly in love. Why the sudden sprint down memory lane? because Harvey knew something that most people did not.

Harvey knew that the bona fide superstar belting out the national anthem at Super Bowl 53 wouldn't be up there on his big screen TV, but for the seemingly random influence of his future ex-wife, 47 years earlier, and the randomness of it all was blowing Harvey's 79-year-old mind. Harvey considered the unlikely chain of events, which led to the burst of nostalgia now threatening to overwhelm him. Best he could figure, it began with a phone call from Jim Weatherly, way back in 1972. Like Harvey, Jim had quit football to make a living in L.A. Whereas Harvey had done the TV thing, Jim had done the music thing, with a lot less success.

One day, Jim called the house, and Harvey's future ex-wife answered the phone. She was in the bedroom when he called, packing her suitcase. Hello. Hey, gorgeous. May I speak to the man of the house? Oh, hi, Jim. He's downstairs memorizing lines. Want me to get him?

No, that's all right. I'm just checking in. How's tricks with you? Truth is, tricks weren't so great for Harvey's future ex-wife. Like a million other girls from a thousand other towns, she'd come to L.A. looking for fame and fortune. Thanks to her looks, there was no shortage of modeling jobs. Nogzima scooped her up the minute she landed, then Max Factor, then Ford, then beauty rest.

But modeling jobs weren't the reason Harvey's future ex-wife had come to the city of Angels. She had come to act, and casting agents just weren't taking her seriously. What's the problem? asked Jim. You're gorgeous. You're talented. Harvey's crazy about you. Just sit tight. the parts will come to you. Well, you're awful sweet, she said, but I know myself, and I know if I don't get out of L.A. for a spell, I'm going to lose my mind.

Well, then, said, Jim, where are you going to go? At which point, Harvey's future ex-wife might have said, I'm going to head home to see my parents, or maybe I'm going to take the red eye back to Texas. Both those statements would have been true, but that's not what she said. What she said was, I'm leaving on the midnight plane to Houston. Jim hung up, grabbed his guitar, and wrote a song about a frustrated actress who leaves L.A. and goes back home.

It took him less than a half hour. A few weeks later, he cut a demo. A few weeks after that, Whitney Houston's mother, Sissy, offered to record Jim's song with one condition. We need to change the title, said Sissy. I'm a Houston, but I'm not from Houston. Also, my people don't take planes. We take trains. Jim agreed to the new title, and before long, Whitney Houston's mother's version of Jim Weatherly's newest song,

inspired by Harvey's future ex-wife's desire to leave L.A. as soon as possible, was heard by another recording artist looking for a breakout hit. This artist thought the tune could use a little more groove and a lot more soul. Jim agreed. She also thought the frustrated actress leaving LA should be a frustrated actor instead. Jim agreed to that change as well. In fact, Jim said, change whatever you want, lady, anything but the name of the guy who wrote it. That's how a song called Midnight Plain to Houston became a midnight train to Georgia, a monster hit that went all the way to the top of the charts, won a Grammy, got Jim Wetherly voted into the songwriter's Hall of Fame and completely changed the career trajectory of a young recording artist whose face was now on Harvey's big screen TV. 47 years later,

singing the bejesus out of the star-spangled banner at Super Bowl 53 and giving America something to stand for. And that's the way it was. February 3, 2019, a bona fide superstar, ended the anthem on a high note, thanks to a random phone call 47 years before. Tom Brady pulled another rabbit out of his hat, thanks to a preternatural mix of good luck and stupefying talent,

and a 79-year-old former football player named Harvey Lee Yeary recalled the seemingly random influence of his old girlfriend on the musical career of Gladys Knight and the national anthem at Super Bowl 53. The old girlfriend whose red swimsuit now hangs in the Smithsonian Institution. The same girlfriend who stole his heart and took his name.

Not his real name, the name he adopted when he quit playing football and started playing roles. Maybe now you'll remember the girl, for whom the fall guy fell, as the aspiring actress who took the midnight plane to Houston. The angel who came back to L.A. to work for Charlie and marry the $6 million man, the future ex-wife of Lee Majors named Farah Fawcett. Anyway, that's the way I heard it.