Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - Rue McClanahan: Every Kick's A Boost

Episode Date: April 18, 2026

This week, we're dropping an episode from our sister podcast, "We Regret To Inform You: The Rejection Podcast". In this podcast series, we talk about the mountain of rejections famous and successful people had to overcome and how they did it.In this episode, we talk about the golden piece of advice Rue McClanahan’s mother gave her when she was told she’d never make it in television. We know you want to listen to all the ads in this show. On the off-chance you don’t, subscribe ad-free here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

By subscribing to apostrophe all years, you support not only a Canadian podcast, but a Canadian podcast network. And you get so many goodies in return. Become a fly on the wall for season planning meetings. Here extended episodes, which I'm so enjoying, by the way, because I get to include extra stories. You get early in ad-free listening, book recommendations, a direct line to me and the team. Join us for all that and more at the link in the description. This week, we're dropping an episode from our sister podcast titled We Regret to Inform You. In this podcast series, we talk about the mountain of rejections famous and successful people had to overcome and how they did it.

In this mini episode, we talk about actor Rue McClanahan, who starred in the Golden Girls sitcom. The motto she clung to was, every kicks a boost, meaning that inside every every single, Rejection, there is a silver lining. Here is Rue's story. This is an apostrophe podcast production. This is We Regret to Inform You, the Rejection Podcast. And welcome to another mini-sode. This week I wanted to share something with you that I came across in my travels.

On our show, as you know, we tell a story and then we extract the insight, the nugget. the heart of the story we hope you remember and take with you. Terry and I have many conversations about what that nugget might be, and then Terry encapsulates it beautifully at the end of every show. But sometimes we come across someone who's done all that work for us. They've looked back at their journey, extracted the key insight, and encapsulated it in a perfect, singular, memorable phrase. or in this case, today, four words. Let's travel back to 1987. It was the biggest night in television,

the 39th annual Primetime Emmy Awards. The Golden Girls won Outstanding Comedy Series, Michael J. Fox won outstanding lead actor in a comedy for family ties, Then came Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy. There were three Golden Girls up for the award. The nominees for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series are Be Arthur for the Golden Girls. Blair Brown for the Days and Nights of Molly Dodd.

Jane Curtin for Kate Nally. Lou McCallahan for the Golden Girls. Betty White for the Golden Girls. And the Emmy went to Rue McCallahan, the Golden Girl. The Golden Girl made her way to the stage, was handed her award, and she said, My mother said to me once,

some agents had just turned me down. They said I wasn't photogenic, and that I would never work on television. That was in 1960. And she said to me, Oh, Eddie Roo for heaven's sake, don't you know every, every kicks a boost.

And I've remembered that over the past 27 years. There've been a lot of kicks and there've been a lot of boosts. I'm not going to mention the people who gave me the kicks, but you know who you are and you'll be in the book.

Every kicks a boost. You may have noticed Howie Mandel, who presented the award, called her Rue McCallahan, both when he announced the nominees and the winner. The woman who declared every kick a boost had her name mispronounce not once but twice moments before winning her first Emmy Award. The episode writes itself. But this phrase is such a good one because it's a reframe.

And there are a few different ways one can interpret that reframe. Sometimes on our show, rejection is redirection, like Lisa Kudrow's story. When Lisa Kudrow's groundling's castmate landed the last spot on Saturday Night Live instead of her, then she was cast and subsequently fired off the set of Frazier. She was devastated. Little did she know the very next year she'd land in audition for friends. And thankfully, she was available. Those kicks were boosts.

Kudrow just didn't know it yet. Other times, there's a lot of useful information in a no or a kick, like Brian Grazer's story. When producer Brian Grazer pitched his mermaid movie Splash to studios, they all rejected him, because what adult would watch a movie about mermaids? But it occurred to him one day that they weren't rejecting the story, just its shell. So he took that feedback and reframed his pitch, that underneath the scales and the tale was a human story of feeling different and wanting to be loved. That reframe landed splash at Disney. Sometimes we can turn kicks into boosts by sheer force of will.

When Haley Wickenheiser was cut from her youth hockey team because they just couldn't have a girl on the team, She used that rejection as fuel to score her first goal on the women's national team. And I've told this story countless times, but it's just such an important, comma, hilarious one. Ty Borell was terrified of going to auditions, to the point he attended three colleges to study acting, got a master's in theater, just to avoid, you know, actually acting. Then one day he was told by a New York City agent that his features were too big to ever make it in film or television. So Borell walked out of the agent's office into Times Square and soiled himself out of sheer anxiety. But in that moment, his rejection anxiety lifted.

He'd faced his fears, taken a meeting, been rejected to his face, and he survived. That kick was a boost Borell did not see coming. Every kick's a boost if you're willing to sift through the disappointment, the pain, the humiliation, take what's valuable and leave the rest behind. As Terry put it in the Splash episode, you must drain the rejection of its poison and look for the nugget. Brew McLanahan said in her Emmy's speech that she was told she wasn't phone. Here's the story.

She was in a play called Before Breakfast in 1960, and a pair of agents in the audience were impressed by her performance, so after the show, they told her to bring her headshot and resume to their office on Sunset Strip. The next day, when she dropped them off, they told her they liked what they saw on stage, but needed to see how she'd look on camera. So they arranged for McClanahan to judge, a live, televised dance contest.

But following the show, she never heard from the agents. She called and called, but no response. Eventually, she made her way to their office. And they told her, she didn't look great on camera, and thus would never make it in television. Then they handed her back, her headshots and resume. The 26-year-old was devastated. She stumbled down the stairs out the door into her car where she cried.

Her mother was sitting in the passenger seat, and that's when she told her daughter to remember. Every kicks a boost. McClanahan remembered that phrase. She kept it close when she was fired as a waitress after just one lunch shift, when she was fired from the next restaurant after one fateful dinner shift, when her character was killed off a soap opera, and when she was cast as Aunt Fran in a spin-off of a Carol Burnett show sketch called Mama's Family.

The character was written as a fireball, nemesis of the main character, then was rewritten as a mousy background character, then Aunt Fran choked on a chicken bone. She was killed off again, in perhaps the least dignified manner one can be killed off. McLanahan later said, being killed off a show is just a glorified firing. Suddenly, she was back to languishing in guest spot purgatory. But she wrote in her memoir that it turned out, the chicken bone that killed Aunt Fran must have been a wishbone. Now that she was untethered to another series,

her agent called her to tell her she was about to messenger over a pilot script. Her agent said, I think you'll like it. It's called The Golden Girls. I'll leave you with this clip from an interview Rue McClanahan did with the Television Academy in 2006, just four years before she passed away. When asked her best advice for actors, she said, Perseverance, perseverance, perseverance, you've got to hang in there.

Hang in there, hang in there, because you're going to get returrence. rejected so much and you're going to get disappointed so badly. And you've got, if you really want this career, you've got to fight for it and fight for it. And I don't mean fight other actors. I mean fight the sense of failure that you may be feeling. Fight the, will I ever get hired? I went through a lot of that in the beginning. And then will I ever get the role I want?

And then will anyone ever see me who's really going to matter? You know? Perseverance. The Rejection podcast is an apostrophe podcast production and is recorded in our Airstream mobile recording studio. This series is written by me, Sydney O'Reilly, production and research by Alison Pinch's, director Callie O'Reilly, engineer Jeff Devine,

theme music by James Aiden, Jeremiah Pick, and Casey Pick. Tunes provided by APM music and we're powered by ACAST. Follow us on socials at Apostrophe Pod. And while you're there, let us know of any rejection stories you'd like to hear. This series is executive produced and co-hosted by Terry O'Reilly. See you next time.