Episode 1217 - Sally Struthers
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fucksters what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast welcome to it if you haven't been here for a while welcome back if you've never been here welcome
Marc:interesting time to show up how are you you all right just sit over there and listen all right don't talk this time next time you can talk to me all right is that unfair i don't know you i don't know you you just walking off the street how do i i don't fucking know you man i'm not saying you can't be here but i don't fucking know you so just relax hang out see if you like it if not split if you do just listen
Marc:And then maybe in a couple of weeks when I can, you know, you walk in, I'm like, hey, there's that guy.
Marc:Then maybe you can say hello, talk a little bit.
Marc:And then maybe after a month or so, like you walk in, I'm like, hey, Steve, what's up, Joey?
Marc:Hey, Stacey, how's it going?
Marc:Janine, what's up?
Marc:How have you been?
Marc:Debbie, good to see you.
Marc:Hey, how are you, Melody?
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:Huh?
Marc:What's going on, kid?
Marc:You know what I'm saying?
Marc:I got to get to know you.
Marc:So just hang out.
Marc:It's going to be dicey, you know, for the first few weeks between us.
Marc:It always is.
Marc:Anyone who's ever listened to this show, they're like, I didn't like you at the beginning.
Marc:I didn't like you.
Marc:I was like, why is he talking?
Marc:And then I fast forwarded to, I just said that like Bill Burr.
Marc:Why is he talking?
Marc:Why is he talking?
Marc:Huh?
Marc:How are you?
Marc:welcome nice to have you it is and I hope you're doing all right today on the show Sally Struthers
Marc:And I know some people think like, really, what's she been up to?
Marc:You know, sometimes people are just working.
Marc:I mean, just because you haven't seen somebody or you know them from when you were a kid doesn't mean they don't have a life after that just because you don't see them anymore.
Marc:It's a weird thing about being a public person.
Marc:Everyone assumes that because they don't see you, that guy must have crapped out, must have tanked, must have failed, must have died, must have got sick, must have quit.
Marc:Sometimes that's true.
Marc:Sometimes it's true.
Marc:But not in this case.
Marc:Sally Struthers has been out on the road.
Marc:She does a lot of touring theater.
Marc:She's a big major touring stage actor doing a lot of the big national productions of musicals like Hello, Dolly!
Marc:and Annie.
Marc:She's out there doing the work, going town to town, doing a few weeks here, a few weeks there, singing the songs, being funny.
Marc:She was funny.
Marc:But I've been wanting to talk to her for a long time.
Marc:She actually did an episode or two.
Marc:Was it one or two episodes of my show the last season on Marin?
Marc:And we've always talked about having her on the podcast.
Marc:She doesn't do a lot of interviews.
Marc:She's one of these people that's like, I'm not technological.
Marc:I have a dial phone, you know, that kind of thing.
Marc:But this year is the 50th anniversary of All in the Family.
Marc:So this kind of synced up with that.
Marc:We thought it would be a good time.
Marc:And it's hard to forget what a singular talent Sally Struthers is.
Marc:I mean, the two movies, the two major movies that I remember that she did before All in the Family, that when you see her in it, you're like, oh, my God, is that Sally Struthers?
Marc:She's so fucking good in them, in the parts she has.
Marc:She has a small part in Five Easy Pieces with Nicholson, and she's great.
Marc:And she's got an amazing part in The Getaway with Steve McQueen, where she plays the veterinarian's wife.
Marc:And she's genius in that.
Marc:And obviously, she's great as Gloria.
Marc:But I wanted to talk about Rafelson and Nicholson and Peckinpah and doing those movies and, of course, All in the Family and just talk to her about where she comes from because she is a unique comic talent, Sally Struthers.
Marc:So I talked to her today.
Marc:Vaxxed up.
Marc:I'm all vaxxed up.
Marc:I got my second pop of Moderna.
Marc:I was anticipating some heaviness, some sickness, and I did.
Marc:I felt kind of shitty on Friday.
Marc:I felt it coming on.
Marc:A little chills here and there, just kind of weak, lethargic, sickish, like it's kind of like something's coming or maybe this is it.
Marc:Basically, I felt the nag, the pull, the viral pull on my fucking soul.
Marc:So I was kind of sicky for a day, and then, you know, yesterday it was okay.
Marc:It was all right.
Marc:But that first day, I felt it, and I was knocked out.
Marc:But, you know, I stayed engaged.
Marc:I stayed mobile.
Marc:I ran a bunch of unnecessary errands that I didn't need to do just to stay alive and engaged and act like I wasn't really sick.
Marc:I took it kind of easy, but I did feel something.
Marc:But fortunately, today, I feel okay.
Marc:Sammy the kitten is like getting big.
Marc:He's out and about.
Marc:It seems that Buster is accepting him and everything's cool.
Marc:They're kind of playing.
Marc:Buster has resigned to the fact that, okay, I live with this kitten now and Sammy's very entertaining.
Marc:But now he's just coming into that age where he's got the energy and the stubbornness and the belligerence to destroy everything in my house that means anything to me.
Marc:I just feel it.
Marc:You just got to keep an eye on those kittens.
Marc:It's like, what's he going to ruin?
Marc:My records, my guitars, my rugs, my furniture, my guitar amp.
Marc:Is he going to chew up those photographs that I have on my desk?
Marc:Is he, what's he going to, is he going to eat cords?
Marc:Is he going to do any, is he ever going to play with any of these toys I bought him?
Marc:No.
Marc:Is he going to destroy something I really like?
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:What are those things?
Marc:You'll know when he destroys them.
Marc:So that's where I'm at with the cat.
Marc:But this weird compulsive behavior based on like, it's not even a panic, but it happened with the plumber too, man.
Marc:I was like, I put things off and then I like in a flurry, I got to get them done.
Marc:I want to get them done.
Marc:And sometimes they happen immediately.
Marc:Like I was overcome with the need to make briskets.
Marc:So that become life and essential.
Marc:And then I'm in the shower, and I realize I'm standing in about two inches of water.
Marc:So that's a problem.
Marc:And then I couldn't remember the name of the plumber I had.
Marc:I had a guy come over, do the rootering, snake it out, snake out a sink.
Marc:I could do it myself, but I can't see where this pipe goes.
Marc:It goes right into the floor.
Marc:So it's out of my pay grade.
Marc:It's out of my plumbing wheelhouse.
Marc:Under the sink, I can handle, but I don't know where this goes.
Marc:Got to bring a professional in with a big snake.
Marc:So I'm fucking trying to figure out what the plumber's name is, and then I'm in my office, and I'm looking out my front window, and I see a truck drive by.
Marc:It says K&D Plumbing, K&D Reuters on it.
Marc:I'm like, that was it, K&D Reuters.
Marc:So I look it up, and I call the number.
Marc:An answering machine picks up.
Marc:I'm like, hey, it's me.
Marc:Hey, what's up, man?
Marc:I think you were here once before.
Marc:I got my showers getting clogged up.
Marc:I need you to come over and snake it.
Marc:You just drove by in the truck.
Marc:I just saw you drive by in the truck.
Marc:I'm over here on Blah Blah Street and I need you to just come when you can.
Marc:Call me back.
Marc:I just need you to snake it.
Marc:You were here once before, man.
Marc:Call me back.
Marc:Here's my number.
Marc:That intensity.
Marc:And then I'm looking online.
Marc:I realize that wasn't the guy.
Marc:I'm thinking of the guy who used to do it at my other house.
Marc:And it was different initials.
Marc:I had nothing to do with K&D Plumbing.
Marc:Zero.
Marc:It's K&D Reuter.
Marc:And I think, well, that's this other place.
Marc:I call that place, and it sounds like some sort of switchboard.
Marc:And I'm like, yeah, you should have my address on record.
Marc:You know, you did the sync.
Marc:She's like, I don't have your address.
Marc:I'm like, is this a change?
Marc:She's like, yeah, it's nationwide.
Marc:I'm like, I don't know you.
Marc:It's the wrong one.
Marc:I'm sorry, lady.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:And then I actually realized, hey, I'm fucking organized.
Marc:Why don't you go look at the receipts in the file marked household stuff?
Marc:So I found it and I called the right guy, made an appointment.
Marc:Then I got to call back the other guy who doesn't pick up.
Marc:And apparently, according to the Yelp reviews, they never pick up their phone.
Marc:So I make the second call.
Marc:Hey, it's me.
Marc:I called you earlier.
Marc:Turns out I don't know you.
Marc:Yeah, you never came to my house.
Marc:Not on you.
Marc:It's not your fault.
Marc:I just got excited.
Marc:I saw the truck, but I don't need you.
Marc:I thought you were somebody else.
Marc:Thanks.
Marc:Sorry.
Marc:Sorry for the trouble.
Marc:Mark, it's Mark.
Marc:At Blah Blah Street.
Marc:Here's my number.
Marc:Don't worry about it, though.
Marc:Sorry, man.
Marc:I went to the guy.
Marc:I found the guy that did it before.
Marc:No harm, no foul.
Marc:No hard feelings.
Marc:Don't fucking be weird.
Marc:I didn't say any of that.
Marc:But that guy does call me back.
Marc:He's like, hello, plumber.
Marc:I'm like, yeah, I don't need you.
Marc:I'm sorry, man.
Marc:It's okay.
Marc:And I'm like, yeah, it's okay, man.
Marc:Do you want me to?
Marc:I'm like, no, no, no.
Marc:I got it covered.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Bye.
Marc:That guy's got my number.
Marc:So Sally Struthers, as I mentioned before, is here because I love her.
Marc:It is the 50th anniversary of All in the Family.
Marc:There's a lot of talk in here about her early movies, as well as some talk about Norman Lear.
Marc:That's a little different than how Katie Segal was talking about him in the last episode.
Marc:So this is me talking to the one-of-a-kind Sally Struthers.
Marc:Sally.
Guest:Yo.
Marc:How are you?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Relax.
Guest:This is so hard.
Guest:I live in about 1968.
Guest:Why?
Marc:Why are you doing that to yourself?
Guest:I would be doing something to myself if I attempted to...
Guest:Learn how to turn on and work a computer or a fax machine or play a movie on TV.
Guest:I can't.
Guest:I'm not good with buttons, but I'm a highly intelligent human being.
Guest:Just don't give me buttons.
Marc:No buttons.
Guest:No buttons, please.
Guest:As you notice, nothing I'm wearing has a button on it.
Marc:This is a real thing.
Marc:Your whole life with the buttons?
No.
Guest:No, who had buttons until?
Guest:I mean, you dialed a phone.
Guest:There weren't there weren't buttons.
Marc:I understand.
Marc:So it's but how are the buttons on your shirt the same as the buttons on a phone?
Guest:Oh, I was just joking.
Guest:Being amusing.
Yeah.
Guest:You know, here's the deal.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I am a linear thinker.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I am great if you go from A to B and B to C. Sure.
Guest:You take me, Mark, to a movie that jumps between present and past.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:15 minutes tops.
Guest:I'm out of there.
Yeah.
Marc:I'm lost.
Marc:It's not linear.
Marc:So is it a condition or something you noticed?
Guest:We should name it.
Guest:Why don't we name it?
Marc:Oh, you've never talked to somebody about it?
Guest:No.
Marc:Oh, so you have a nonlinear sensitivity.
Guest:I like that.
Guest:Linearosis or non-linear sensitivity is good.
Guest:NLS.
Guest:I have NLS.
Marc:Nice.
Marc:You should be the source of it.
Marc:We discovered it, and now it needs to be put in the doctor manual.
Guest:Maybe it'll eventually be in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Marc:Thank God.
Guest:They do put a few new things in every year.
Marc:I hope so.
Marc:How have you been?
Marc:I haven't seen you in a few years.
Guest:I haven't seen you since I licked you from your Adam's apple up under your chin, across over your mouth and up onto your nose.
Guest:And then I had one of your mustache hairs stuck in my teeth.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What a night, huh?
Guest:Hey.
Yeah.
Marc:That was fun.
Marc:It was a fun show.
Guest:It was.
Guest:I was married and I never sat on the toilet in front of my husband.
Guest:And then I had to pull my pants down and go to the bathroom while you were right there in the shower.
Guest:It was so against my nature.
Guest:I mean, I jumped behind a towel when the dog walks into the bathroom.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:We're going to have to get together again.
Marc:I'm going to have to force you to watch a nonlinear movie for the entire movie.
Yeah.
Guest:We have a lot in common, you know.
Marc:We do?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like what?
Guest:We are both the children of doctors.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:What kind of doctor was your dad?
Guest:He was a GP.
Marc:Like a small town GP or a big town GP?
Guest:Well, Portland's not a small town.
Marc:Are you from Portland, Oregon?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And your dad, my dad started out in the military as doctors.
Guest:My doctor was my dad was a doctor on the army base in Spokane, Washington.
Marc:I've worked in Spokane.
Marc:I've been to Spokane.
Marc:Spokane must have been kind of a glorious town at one point.
Guest:I think it must have been, although I don't remember it because I was there when I was a baby.
Guest:By the time I was two, we moved to Portland.
Marc:Because it seems like there was something pretty there and there was like water running through it and some like mills or something there.
Marc:Like what was Portland like when you were a kid?
Marc:I can't imagine.
Marc:That place kind of gives me the creep sometimes.
Guest:Really?
Marc:It's beautiful.
Marc:Listen to me.
Marc:It's beautiful.
Marc:What's creepy about it?
Marc:There's something about there just feels like there's a darkness there.
Marc:I don't know what it is.
Marc:Maybe it wasn't there when you were younger.
Guest:No, there's a lot of Scandinavians there.
Guest:And Scandinavians are by nature dark hearted, even though they talk with a lilt in their voice that makes them sound so happy and so sing songy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But they have I mean, that's why Ingmar Bergman films are always in black and white.
Guest:I mean, very dark people.
Guest:OK.
Guest:And Portland, Oregon has a bridge.
Guest:It doesn't go over a river.
Guest:It goes over a small highway that heads west out of Portland.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Toward the coast.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's I don't know what the real name of it is because it's probably the name of the street.
Guest:It's a huge bridge.
Guest:But it's called Suicide Bridge.
Marc:Oh, so people were jumping when you were younger too?
Guest:You know, it rains in Portland, Oregon for 50% of the year.
Guest:Yeah, that'll do it.
Guest:And people can't handle that emotionally.
Marc:So wait, now, did you, were your parents actually, did they have accents or your grandparents?
Marc:Were they actually?
Guest:My grandparents did.
Guest:They were adorable.
Marc:And they were from where in Scandinavia?
Guest:Norway.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:I've been to Norway.
Marc:Have you?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's pretty, right?
Guest:Very beautiful.
Guest:And, you know, that's why all those Scandinavians settled up in, you know,
Guest:Michigan and Wisconsin and I know why they did.
Marc:They were given a land.
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah, they were.
Marc:It was like I read a book about it, about the Great Plains, and that was very hard country.
Marc:And no one had there was no one around to who knew how to farm it.
Marc:So they they kind of gave a land grant to a lot of people from Scandinavia to come figure out how to grow on that country.
Marc:And they grow the winter wheat and they grew.
Marc:They were able to make something of the land.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That's good to know.
Marc:But you still go up there.
Marc:You still got people there.
Guest:I do.
Guest:I got peeps.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Listen, I have to talk about when I guested on your television show.
Marc:Why is there a problem?
Guest:Well, ever since then, I've had a man crush on you.
Marc:Oh, OK.
Guest:And my publicist said today, you know, don't forget you're talking with Mark Maron.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I said, how could I forget?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he said, so you don't have any headphones, so I'm going to bring you some headphones because the sound will be better.
Guest:And I said, well, I don't want to wear headphones when Mark Maron's looking at me.
Guest:You look great.
Guest:Zoom call.
Guest:You look great, Sally.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Headphones, I thought, were like this.
Marc:Like Mickey Mouse ears.
Marc:1968 headphones.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Didn't have them, yeah.
Marc:The big hi-fi headphones.
Marc:That's what you thought.
Marc:That's what you pictured?
Guest:I thought he was bringing me big old headphones.
Marc:What do you do all day?
Guest:Well, in a pandemic, not a heck of a lot, but I do things.
Guest:But I mean, it's like you.
Guest:I work mostly.
Marc:I work.
Marc:You know, like there's no computer.
Marc:So you're not, what do you FaceTime with friends?
Marc:You don't do, no.
Marc:So would you read books?
Guest:No, I talk to them on the phone or I write them a letter.
Marc:On the dialing phone?
Marc:Does your phone stuff?
Guest:My phone does not dial.
Guest:As a matter of fact, I am right now while we're doing your podcast, I'm looking at you on my brand new cell phone.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:So the cell phone you have.
Marc:But that's like a computer.
Marc:So that's something.
Yeah.
Guest:I know, but it probably, if I knew how to use it, I could probably do a couple of hundred things on it.
Guest:But I know how to receive a call, make a call, send a text, look at my text, hear a voicemail.
Marc:Right.
Right.
Marc:Well, that's enough.
Guest:That's enough.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:As long as you're occupied and you're relatively happy, that makes me happy.
Guest:I am.
Guest:I mean, until the pandemic, all I did was travel.
Guest:For the last 20 years, I've been on the road doing musicals and plays.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I mean, when I talked to you, you were about to go do something.
Marc:I can't remember what it was.
Marc:When you did my show, you had just gotten off something and we were going to do something.
Marc:What's one of the plays that you did a lot?
Guest:I've done probably 30, but I think the ones that I've actually toured with have been the most fun, and one was Hello, Dolly.
Guest:Hello, Dolly, yeah.
Guest:Annie.
Guest:I've done Annie everywhere.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And you love it?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:To play after all of the years of me, Sally, stepping for the hungry and disenfranchised children all over the planet to play a woman that hates children is delicious.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:You were that.
Marc:I forgot.
Marc:How could I forget?
Marc:But you were there on those commercials all over the planet asking people to help the world hunger.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Save the children.
Marc:And that's right.
Marc:Sam Kennison did a very angry joke about you.
Marc:I remember.
Marc:Do you remember?
Guest:I don't.
Guest:I don't want to hear it.
Marc:No, it's OK.
Marc:He's dead.
Marc:So that's what happened to him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's taken a dirt nap and we're still here.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:So do you are you still involved with that charity?
Guest:No.
Guest:No, I did.
Guest:I did that for 35 years of my life.
Guest:And I was in Uganda.
Guest:I flew in with a bush pilot from Kenya, from Nairobi in a four seater plane and landed at the Entebbe airfield where they had had that terrible raid on Entebbe.
Guest:And from there, a Catholic priest picked me up in his little car and drove me to an abandoned hotel on Lake Victoria, which is in Uganda, to meet the child that I've been sponsoring named Damiano.
Guest:And they brought him...
Guest:from his village, which was quite a few hours away.
Guest:He had traveled to come meet his sponsor to meet me.
Guest:And I made some commercials with him and I played with him and I brought him toys and balloons.
Guest:Well, a roving band of guerrilla warfare guys came out of the bushes and asked Damiano where he was from.
Guest:And he named his village, which was far away.
Guest:And they decided that we had kidnapped him and they were going to shoot all of us.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:And luckily, the priest spoke their particular form of speech in Uganda.
Guest:Imagine different tribes, different dialects.
Guest:And he said to me, just keep backing up, back up, back up.
Guest:Don't turn your back to them.
Guest:Just go to the car.
Guest:I'll take care of this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I thought I've been on so many little airplanes that could have crashed.
Guest:And in so many horrible situations, I came back from one of my trips overseas with hepatitis.
Guest:I thought, what am I doing?
Guest:I've got a child, a real life child of my own, and I'm going to make her an orphan.
Guest:I can't do this anymore.
Guest:Besides, everyone in the world is making fun of me.
Yeah.
Guest:I didn't ever, I could never understand that from the first time I found out some comic or another made fun of me.
Guest:And then when a greeting card was on sale somewhere being, making fun of me.
Guest:I mean, I just, it dumbfounded me that if you're trying to help hungry children, you're fodder for horrible, cruel jokes.
Guest:What's wrong with the world?
Marc:There's a lot wrong with it, Sally.
Marc:There's a lot of horrendous people.
Marc:One thing we've learned over the last four years is that it doesn't take much to turn most of this country into assholes.
Guest:It's not the truth.
Guest:Were they already?
Guest:And were they hiding it?
Marc:Yeah, no, I think that when you have a leader who is shamelessly a belligerent pig and a misogynistic, racist, garbage person, and he's the leader of the free world, all the people that were hiding that inside themselves think it's their turn to be that guy.
Marc:So I think that the one testament to the beauty of America is that when it's working, those people behave themselves.
Guest:Yeah, they go back under their rocks, I guess.
Marc:Or they just realize that they have to tolerate things that are different, different points of view.
Marc:If the majority wants it, that's the way this works.
Marc:But if like it was so clear that if they were enabled, who the fuck knows what they were capable of.
Marc:But I think that I think usually the jokes were because that the commercials and the infomercials around what you were doing were so prevalent.
Marc:They were, you know, you could not not see them.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So I think it became part of the cultural goof.
Marc:I don't think it was about the cause or necessarily about you.
Marc:It was just that it was inescapable.
Marc:The the.
Marc:The commercials.
Guest:If you were up at 2 a.m.
Marc:Well, a lot of us were, you know, there was drugs and we were all watching television.
Guest:Listen, let me tell you about the orange butthole.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:The orange butthole.
Marc:Did you know him?
Guest:OK, I had a thing with him.
Guest:Wait, I I was touring.
Guest:Neil Simon rewrote the odd couple for two women.
Marc:I remember that.
Guest:And she who shall not be named because I don't care for her.
Guest:And I were the odd couple.
Marc:We should name her because we can figure it out.
Guest:I hate saying her name.
Guest:Rita Moreno.
Guest:Just a mean, really difficult human being.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I've talked to her.
Guest:Oh, well, I'm sure she was just licking you on your face every second.
Guest:Rita will crawl all over you if you're a man.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:All right.
Guest:But she's not nice to other women, especially when other women are talented.
Marc:Not a good experience.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:Anyway, so we were on tour and we each...
Guest:received an invitation we were in somewhere in florida doing the odd couple the people that invested in the odd couple the female version wanted to make sure they got their money back right if we went straight to broadway and it closed they're out of money right so they made us tour for nine months first we each got an invitation to a a state dinner at the white house honoring the king of saudi arabia okay and
Guest:So I went and my date and I were seated at a table together, whereas my co-star and her husband were at different tables in the room.
Guest:There were about 10 people to a round table and directly across from me was the orange butthole.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And halfway through dinner, I sat across the table in front of everyone at our table.
Guest:Listen, Mr. I hate saying his name.
Guest:You know who I'm talking about?
Guest:I just did.
Guest:Donald Trump.
Guest:Oh, it just makes my skin crawl.
Guest:I said, I just did an art auction in Los Angeles at a very chic art gallery on La Cienega Boulevard.
Guest:And I have children's art from all over the world.
Guest:And we have matted and framed all of it.
Guest:It's gorgeous.
Guest:And we made a pretty penny, but we still have half that art left that's already...
Guest:framed and matted and i said i the the show that i'm touring with is going to open in a couple of months on broadway and i would love to have another event in new york and sell the rest of the children's art to help save the children yeah and i said i think having it in the lobby of your tower you're
Guest:brown butthole tower i would be perfect uh-huh and he said he said oh give me a call when you get to new york here's my card and took it out and people at the table passed around to me call me up and we'll set it up we got to new york we opened up broadway i called him up i some woman answered the phone and she said well i i said mr trump will know what it's about we had we sat at the same table at a
Guest:at the White House for state dinner, tell him I'm on the phone.
Guest:And she she had left me on hold for five minutes, came back on the phone and said he's not interested.
Marc:So he was just putting on a show.
Guest:he put on a show for the people at the table saying that i could have my art auction for children there and then the minute that i actually made the phone call what do you know so you found out like the rest of us did that he's always been an asshole it didn't yeah i i knew it before the rest of yeah let me ask you something so how what is the process so do you have brothers and sisters i have one sister what about you
Marc:I have a little brother.
Guest:Oh, you're the older one.
Guest:I'm the younger one.
Guest:I have a sister, Sue.
Marc:When do you start acting in Portland?
Marc:How does that work?
Marc:How did it happen?
Guest:Really?
Guest:You really want to know that?
Marc:I do kind of because I want to know.
Marc:I want to talk about when you first got to Hollywood.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, my goal in life was to be a doctor like my dad.
Guest:Did you have those feelings about?
Marc:Yeah, but I just I didn't I was not able to apply myself.
Marc:I, you know, I learned, you know, come college, I was like, this ain't going to happen for me.
Marc:I don't know how to study.
Marc:I don't have the discipline.
Marc:And I don't think I really want to do it.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, then that was easy to decide.
Marc:And it took a while.
Guest:But I wanted to.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But in the meantime, just for fun, I was in the drama club.
Guest:I did plays in high school.
Guest:But, I mean, I started out in grade school.
Guest:I have a plaque that's in the entry hall of my home right now.
Guest:The boys in shop class made for me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then they took a wood burning tool and they carved in it.
Guest:Best actress in the seventh grade class place.
Marc:I still have it.
Guest:Yeah, I've got it in my entry hall.
Marc:That's great.
Guest:Makes me laugh.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:So I had a breakdown.
Guest:It was time to start.
Guest:filling out my applications to colleges and I couldn't stop crying.
Guest:My parents divorced when I was seven.
Guest:So it was just my mother, my sister and I in the house.
Guest:And my mother got scared because this crying went on for a couple of days.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she called my father and said,
Guest:you've got to come to the house.
Guest:And he gave me some medicine to make me sleep.
Guest:And when I woke up, I started crying again.
Guest:So my mother sat me on the floor.
Guest:She took my face and she held it in her hands and she said, what is it?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Yes, you have to know.
Guest:Why are you upset?
Guest:I said, because I can't do it.
Guest:She said, do what?
Guest:I said, I can't be a doctor.
Guest:She said,
Guest:Well, who said you have to be a doctor?
Guest:I said, I did.
Guest:But in biology class, when we had to do the cow's eye and the frog, I vomited.
Guest:I said, what am I going to do when I have to carve up a cadaver for a year?
Guest:I can't do it.
Guest:She said, well, then let's do something else.
Guest:I said, like, what?
Guest:She said, why don't you go to a school that has a great theater department?
Guest:You could be an actress.
Guest:And I said, I could.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:she said yeah yeah let's find a school i said well why would they take me i've only done a place in grade school high school that's all anybody's done when they're 18 if they've done more than that they're already in the industry okay so she's looking through her recalls magazine you know yeah and she sees a picture of raymond burr
Guest:Of course.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Pointing out like an Uncle Sam poster.
Guest:You too can become an actor at the Pasadena Playhouse College of Theater Arts.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:My mom says, we're going to apply there.
Guest:And we got an application.
Guest:We filled it out.
Guest:And my grandparents took me to Norway for the summer.
Guest:And when I got back, my mother was on the front porch waving the acceptance letter.
Guest:She says, we got two days to wash, iron and repack your clothes.
Guest:Your uncle, you, me and Walter and I are going to drive you to Pasadena.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And there you go.
Marc:And that was it.
Marc:That was it.
Marc:The Pasadena Playhouse School.
Guest:The Pasadena Playhouse College of Theater Arts.
Marc:Was it good?
Guest:Excellent.
Guest:It was a three-year college.
Guest:I only went two years because at the end of my second year, the IRS padlocked it shut.
Marc:And that was the end of it.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:So my mother drove down to L.A.
Guest:in her Fort Falcon station wagon.
Guest:And she took me from Pasadena to Hollywood.
Guest:And she checked me into the Hollywood Studio Club for Girls run by the YWCA.
Marc:Was that like a hostel or a rooming house?
Guest:A rooming house.
Marc:And she just left you there?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'd already been on my own for two years in Pasadena.
Marc:And what did you do?
Marc:How did you get started?
Guest:I had a roommate named Carol Stanley.
Guest:And she said to me one day, she said, you're going to be an actress.
Guest:And I said, I already am one.
Guest:I've already done lots of plays.
Guest:And I went to the Pasadena Playhouse College.
Guest:And she said, well, you need an agent.
Guest:I said, well, what do I do?
Guest:She says, well, let's get the Yellow Pages.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:yeah she she called up this agency that she saw that i could walk to because i didn't have a car it was about a mile and a half from the studio club nina blanchard agency so i the day of i went and i opened the door yeah and everyone in there saw the door opening and their eyes were up here somewhere and then they came down to me yeah
Guest:And that was weird.
Guest:So I went to the front desk and I said, I have an appointment with Nina Blanchard.
Guest:And she said, you do?
Guest:I said, yeah.
Guest:She said, okay, what's your name?
Guest:I said, Sally Struthers.
Guest:She said, just a minute.
Guest:So she left the room.
Guest:She came back out.
Guest:She said, okay, she'll see you in just a minute.
Guest:So I went into her office and I said, why is everybody acting funny?
Guest:And why am I in the land of tall people in your outer office?
Guest:She says, honey, this is a modeling agency.
Guest:How tall are you?
Guest:I said, five foot tall.
Guest:She said, oh, she said, why did you go?
Guest:I said, well, my roommate at the studio club, Carol Stanley, got me this appointment.
Guest:We didn't know you were a modeling agency.
Guest:She said, well, I'm sorry, dear.
Guest:And I said, oh, OK, well, before I leave, could I do my impressions for you?
Guest:And she said, oh, OK, so.
Guest:I sat down on the floor and I crossed my legs Indian style and I put my head down and my arms in my lap.
Guest:I said, I'm doing now my impression of a clam that turns into an oyster.
Guest:And I did that.
Guest:And then I did that and I pointed and I said, oh, a pearl.
Guest:She said, OK.
Guest:And then I said, and now I'm going to do my impression of a Spanish Mediterranean home.
Guest:And I put my arms out and made a roof and I scored out my legs like the body of the house.
Guest:And then I just quietly said, ole.
Guest:And she said, OK.
Guest:I said, wait, I got one more.
Guest:So I stood on my head in her office and saying I'm sitting on top of the world.
Guest:And I was leaving and she said, wait, down the hall, they're interviewing people today for a Ponds cold cream commercial.
Guest:She said, I don't know why.
Guest:I'm going to send you down there.
Guest:If you should land this commercial, I'll be your agent.
Guest:I said, okay.
Guest:So I went down the hall and I went and I read for it.
Guest:And I went back to her office and she said, what's your phone number?
Guest:I said, well, we have a pay phone in the hall at Studio Club and this is the number.
Guest:And so about four days later, that was ringing and someone answered and said, Struthers, you got a phone call.
Guest:And hello, this is the Nina Blanchard Agency.
Guest:You landed the Ponds Cold Creek commercial.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:So I got all my quarters out.
Guest:I called everybody in Portland.
Guest:I'm the Ponds girl.
Guest:I'm the Ponds girl.
Guest:Because my mother and my aunts had all used Ponce Cold Cream their whole lives.
Guest:I knew they were going to be thrilled.
Guest:About two days later, I had to go to a costume fitting.
Guest:And I walk into Paramount Studios to the costume department.
Guest:And there's this real pretty redhead girl in there.
Guest:And she says, hi, I'm Emily.
Guest:And I said, I'm Sally.
Guest:She said, what are you here for?
Guest:And I said, I'm going to get a costume for a Ponce Cold Cream commercial.
Guest:She said, so am I. I said, I'm doing one about being on the deck of a pirate ship.
Guest:And she said, so am I.
Guest:And she said, I'm the Ponds girl.
Guest:And I said, oh, I guess I play your friend who says your skin is so lovely.
Guest:What do you do to keep your skin so low?
Guest:So I drove out of Ponds.
Guest:I walked out of Paramind and still didn't have a car.
Guest:And I thought to myself, wait a minute.
Guest:In 30 years, Hollywood treats women so crappy.
Guest:She'll be washed up.
Guest:She'll be considered over the hill.
Guest:I am a character actress.
Guest:I will work as long as I want to.
Guest:Like my idol, Ruth Gordon.
Guest:I do not have a problem.
Marc:You said that to yourself then, or did you add that later?
Marc:Oh yeah.
Guest:That day.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you did the commercial.
Guest:I did.
Guest:I did a lot of commercials.
Marc:And is that sort of what started you going?
Guest:I think so.
Guest:I got a lot of those.
Guest:And then I finally got a regular agent as well.
Guest:And I got hired to be a regular on the Smothers Brothers summer show at ABC.
Guest:And everybody thought I made up my last name because it was just too convenient that Sally Struthers was on the Smothers Brothers show.
Marc:How were those guys?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:I love them.
Marc:Was it fun?
Marc:How many how many episodes did you do?
Marc:What were you doing?
Marc:Sketch or it was summer?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sketch.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was a summer show.
Guest:So it was what?
Guest:Eight weeks.
Marc:Uh huh.
Guest:And from that, from my work on that, I went directly after the eighth week of that onto the Tim Conway comedy hour.
Marc:He's kind of a genius, right?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:He's so funny.
Guest:You just your sides hurt the whole time you're with them.
Guest:It's just you can't you feel like Harvey Korman.
Guest:You're trying to hold it in.
Guest:You can't.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And our producers, Sam Bogrick and Ron Clark, had a brilliant idea because it wasn't Tim's, you know, first trip around the block.
Guest:And so they decided that.
Guest:They would make the show look like it had a very poor budget.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that was the whole theme of the comedy for everything.
Guest:And they made his first show on the air that came on in September, his Christmas show, because Tim kept saying, you know, I usually am canceled within 13 weeks.
Guest:My license plate on my car says 13 weeks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm going to do my Christmas show first.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:But I was the Tim Conway dancer, as opposed to the Jackie Gleason show where there were 40 June Taylor dancers.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I was the only dancer.
Guest:And Art Metrano, he was the Tim Conway orchestra, but the show had no money.
Guest:So when the announcer said at the beginning of the show, and now ladies and gentlemen, the Tim Conway show, and now the Tim Conway orchestra, and the camera would pan across an empty stage...
Guest:to to to art metrano at a music stand but the show couldn't afford to give him a a an instrument yeah so he he hummed the opening theme song reading the music and that was the plan for the whole show yes every week and then they would go and after you know 12 bars of him going
Guest:And now the Tim Conway dancer and they would cut to me and I would be in the most god awful costume.
Guest:And there was way too much dance sand on the floor and I would fall down.
Guest:And at one point I was supposed to flop on the floor anyway and open my arms and legs because they had an overhead camera like they had on the June Taylor dancers.
Guest:But with one woman, it's absolutely pathetic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So.
Guest:the suits in new york called sam bobrick and ron clark and said you got to get rid of that girl she makes the show look cheap oh my god and bobrick and clark said that's the point yeah that's the humor yeah they said no let her go oh man and you know what's that saying when
Guest:When someone closes a door, God opens a window or something like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The next week I'm out of a job and my feelings are hurt and I get a phone call that I'm supposed to go read for this man named Norman Lear at his office in Century City for some show that he's going to be putting on the air.
Guest:And so the day I showed up to read for him, I had laryngitis and he handed me a yelling scene to do.
Guest:I was supposed to be yelling at my father and my husband and I didn't have a voice.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was yelling like this.
Guest:And I guess that made him remember me.
Guest:And I don't know how many young ladies he saw, but if it was 300, they narrowed it down to four.
Guest:The final audition at CBS was,
Guest:They had already cast Rob Reiner as Mike Civic, the meatheaded Polak.
Guest:And so we were to go into the room with all the suits, each one of us gals with Rob one at a time and do improvisations.
Guest:They would throw us an idea, a subject matter.
Guest:And we were just in the other three gals were sitting beside me.
Guest:And the last one to come in and sit down was Penny Marshall.
Guest:Rob Reiner was living with her at that time.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I knew that.
Guest:and i thought yeah how are you gonna get he's gonna he's gonna do better with penny yeah not to sabotage the three of us but they have each other's rhythm right yeah i don't stand a chance yeah so that got rid of all my nerves
Guest:So you're like, I just hung around because I didn't want to walk out.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And you know what happened?
Marc:You did great.
Guest:I got it.
Guest:So now the show's on the air.
Guest:It's climbing the number one.
Guest:We're all excited.
Marc:But when you when when you watch them, when you were you in the room when they worked or was everyone in the room or?
Guest:No, no.
Marc:But when you worked with him, when you improvise with Rob the first time, did you know that it was going to be great?
Guest:I would love to tell you yes, but I have to say I didn't know anything.
Guest:Yeah, I didn't know anything about anything.
Guest:I didn't know how to get an agent.
Guest:I didn't know how to navigate the world.
Guest:I didn't know why I got let go from the Tim Conway show.
Guest:I didn't know why I got hired on all the family and none of us knew it was going to be what it was.
Guest:Rob Reiner and I were the third set of kids.
Guest:It had been made as a pilot for ABC two years before with Carol O'Connor Jean Stapleton, but with a different Mike and Gloria.
Guest:And then they shelved it.
Guest:And then the next year they decided they would rewrite it a little, make it again.
Guest:So they kept Carol O'Connor Jean Stapleton, but they got a second set of Mike and Gloria.
Guest:And again, they got frightened and wouldn't put it on the air.
Guest:The Norman Lear took it to the new president of CBS, Robert Woods, and said, if I bring it to you, will you put it on the air?
Guest:And he said, yes.
Guest:And he looked at both pilots and he said, but you need to recast Mike and Gloria.
Guest:So Rob and I were Mike and Gloria number three.
Marc:But haven't you done a couple movies already?
Guest:I had.
Guest:I had done... Five Easy Pieces?
Guest:Five Easy Pieces with Jack Nicholson.
Marc:I love that movie.
Marc:I did too.
Marc:I love your character in it.
Marc:There's something about the way movies were made then where it really seemed that there was a rawness to it, that there was some space to it.
Marc:Did you feel that?
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:Bob Rafelson was the director.
Guest:He and Jack were very laid back.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Some of it, I suppose, chemically induced.
Guest:And I just know that they talked me into doing a scene I never would have done.
Marc:When you got naked?
Yeah.
Guest:I was naked from the waist up, but glued to Jack as he was twirling me around the room, worked his way to a bedroom.
Guest:We flopped on the bed.
Guest:And then he rises up off of me and he's got a T-shirt on that says triumph.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:The motorcycle.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But you see part of my breast in that shot.
Guest:And I kept saying to Bob Rafelson, I can't do this.
Guest:I can't go home to Portland if I do this.
Guest:I will be disowned.
Guest:They got me to do it.
Guest:And I was in Portland visiting my mom when the film came out.
Guest:She said, you're at uni, Tarkelson, and I are going to the movies to see your movie.
Guest:I said, no, no, no, no, you're not going.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, please don't go.
Guest:And she said, don't be silly.
Guest:I said, Mom, you're going to be ashamed of me.
Guest:Please.
Guest:We're going.
Guest:And I said, no.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, it's done.
Guest:It's done a year ago.
Guest:It's now out there.
Guest:I can't do anything to take it back.
Guest:So if you're upset with me, please don't say anything when you come home.
Guest:I can't fix it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So she put on a kerchief and dark glasses and she went to the movies.
Guest:And three hours later, she came home and she opened the front door and she walked through the house past me and walked down the hall to her bedroom and shut the door.
Marc:And that was it?
Guest:And we never talked about it.
Guest:Yeah, we never.
Guest:There was never any discussion.
Marc:Well, that's sad.
Guest:Well, you know, do you feel pretty risque?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But do you do you personally feel that you feel bad about it?
Marc:Do you feel like that you were taking advantage of it in any way?
Marc:Because the character was pretty great.
Marc:And I think you transcended comedically and also the character itself.
Marc:I didn't think of it as like as a compromising role.
Marc:I thought it was great.
Marc:Did you?
Guest:I wish you were my parent.
Guest:You wouldn't have been ashamed of me.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:You know, this is back.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When did it come out?
Guest:We made it in 69.
Guest:It came out in 70.
Guest:I mean, people just didn't have daughters that went and did that.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:My mother was horrified that her marriage broke up with dad, but he left her for the nurse in his office.
Guest:She never got over it.
Guest:She was depressed the rest of my childhood and only forgot she was depressed when she got Alzheimer's.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So the way she raised my sister in me was to say, what will the neighbors think?
Guest:Right.
Right.
Guest:You girls, you can't leave the house dressed that way.
Guest:What will the neighbors think?
Guest:The Struthers girls are good, upright girls.
Guest:And we were.
Guest:But can you imagine?
Guest:Right.
Guest:If that's the way you raised your daughters and then you go see her in a movie and she's in the sex scene with Jack Nicholson.
Guest:She must have been so ashamed of me.
Marc:But it was Jack Nicholson.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:Years later, many years later, like 1987 or something like that.
Guest:Almost 30 years after the film, my Japanese hairdresser, Hakudo Isoda, wanted for Christmas a Tiffany's China box that looks just the same as the way they package gifts with a turquoise box with a white ribbon.
Guest:But this is a little trinket box.
Yeah.
Guest:I don't shop at Tiffany's, but I said to Pamela, my best friend, let's go to Tiffany's and get Hakudo his Christmas present.
Guest:And we're in there and I'm standing at the counter and Pamela elbows me and she says, oh, my God, Jack Nicholson is over there.
Guest:Go say hi to him.
Guest:I said, no.
Guest:Oh, he wouldn't remember me.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:I said, no, I'm not going to bother him.
Guest:And I'm not going to say hello.
Guest:You're so impossible.
Guest:I said, you're impossible.
Guest:So I'm in the business of buying this box.
Guest:And behind me, there's a tap on my shoulder.
Guest:And I turn around.
Guest:I says, hi, Sally.
Guest:It's Jack.
Guest:How are you?
Guest:I went, oh, my God, he came to me.
Guest:How did that happen?
Guest:Jack Nicholson came to say hello to me?
Guest:I'll never get over it.
Marc:What do you mean?
Marc:It was like, how could he forget you?
Guest:I am now 73 years old and I am still Robert and Margaret's daughter from Portland, Oregon.
Guest:If I...
Guest:See someone famous and they know me.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I'm astounded.
Marc:I understand that.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:There's a part of being a fan and there's a part of being it.
Marc:I don't even think it's how you see yourself.
Marc:I mean, you just you know, it just means that you you you like being a fan and famous people are still impressive.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, who knocked your socks off when you actually got to meet them besides Barack Obama?
Guest:Who blew you away?
Marc:It depends.
Marc:I find that most people are sort of human, but there are certain people that I've never really disappointed.
Marc:I got to meet Keith Richards, who was a big hero of mine.
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:How great was that?
Marc:And interview him.
Marc:It was great, but it made the interview ridiculous because I was such a fanboy.
Marc:Even people like William Friedkin.
Marc:I've talked to... Oh, wow, great.
Marc:I grew up in awe of these people, but you talk to people for an hour or two hours, they become very human, but you still sort of marvel at how did it come out of them?
Marc:I remember I interviewed Will Ferrell, who is really one of the more... No one is funnier on purpose than that guy.
Marc:That guy can be...
Marc:So funny.
Marc:He's hysterical.
Marc:Well, the funny thing about him is he's very straight in interviews.
Marc:So, like, I had him in my garage and we were talking.
Marc:And I just sat there for an hour just like, is it going to happen?
Marc:Is he going to make me laugh?
Marc:I know he could do it so easily.
Marc:And then even right when he was just a little funny, I was like, oh, my God, you did.
Marc:You know, it was just so.
Marc:There's been a lot of moments, you know, but I'm still sort of.
Marc:Even though I'm able to talk to just about anybody, there are some people that are just sort of magical people.
Marc:What are you going to do?
Marc:You're a magical person, Sally.
Marc:Nobody's like you.
Marc:You're one of a kind.
Guest:Well, so are you.
Guest:Isn't everybody one of a kind except maybe identical twins?
Marc:I guess.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:But some people, they're just sort of recording devices.
Marc:And other people are the machine.
Marc:Other people are like the original thing.
Marc:Some people's personalities, everyone's different.
Marc:But some people are so themselves.
Guest:I know.
Guest:It's the kind of person that you say they threw away the mold when they made you.
Marc:Just undeniably.
Guest:Original.
Guest:Original.
Marc:Undeniably you, you know.
Marc:But then you went and did The Getaway, which is another movie that was kind of filthy, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Sam Peckinpah.
Guest:That man was a piece of work.
Guest:And Al Letary, who I was playing opposite.
Marc:He was in all those movies then.
Guest:He was scary.
Marc:Al Letary.
Marc:That was his name?
Guest:Yeah, Al Letiri.
Guest:He was in The Godfather.
Marc:I know.
Marc:He was the Turk.
Marc:So what?
Guest:So we were we were shooting this movie in El Paso, Texas, and Al Letiri and Sam Peckinpah would start drinking at seven, eight in the morning.
Guest:And by lunchtime, both of them were blotto.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, we we got to the set one Monday morning and Sam Peckinpah had gone over the border from El Paso into Mexico.
Guest:higher than a kite drunker than skunk yeah married our script girl over the weekend so she was all of a sudden mrs peckinpah on the set he didn't even remember it oh my god and uh in the scene where ala teary the gunman has taken my has has got a bullet in his shoulder and
Guest:he comes to my husband's veterinary clinic out in the country to get the bullet removed.
Guest:And they wanted him laying on that table to have a newborn kitten playing on his chest while he's holding his gun.
Guest:Well, I don't know if you've ever picked up a newborn kitten, but their claws are like fine little hairs and they go in, they're tiny, thin, and they hurt.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And at one point, LaTerry,
Guest:you know, drunk and out of control and very mobbish.
Guest:Anyway, I said, God damn it.
Guest:This kid did somebody.
Guest:And and I said, don't don't hurt it.
Guest:It's a baby.
Guest:Don't hurt it.
Guest:And Peckinpah saw that I was getting scared.
Guest:So he said, the big boy, somebody, somebody take this cat, get some pliers, pull his claws out.
Guest:And I went, no.
Guest:And I grabbed the kitten and I ran off the set and they were all laughing.
Guest:They weren't going to do that.
Guest:They just like to see me react.
Guest:But one night, one day after shooting, he said, Sally, you want to come to see the dailies tonight at the hotel?
Guest:You know, I said, what's what's the dailies?
Guest:He said, oh, well, we send the film off to Hollywood when we shoot it and they process it.
Guest:And then they send it back here for me to look at and start making up my mind about cuts.
Guest:So you want to see what we shot a few days ago?
Guest:Come to the hotel.
Guest:OK.
Guest:Drunk as a skunk and didn't like the way the film had been processed and walked up to the screen in this conference room in the hotel and unsaved his fly and took out his penis and urinated all over the screen.
Guest:Oh, is this what happens at the daily?
Guest:Is this the deal?
Guest:God, the 70s coming back.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was really weird.
Marc:But was he nice to you?
Guest:Yes, he was very nice to me.
Guest:Aletieri was very scary.
Guest:I think he thought I was his boyfriend because we had a week off from filming where he wasn't needed and I wasn't needed.
Guest:And it was Easter weekend in New Jersey.
Guest:He was from Fort Lee, New Jersey.
Guest:And his sister and brother-in-law lived there.
Guest:And he said, hey, you want to come with me to Fort Lee and have Easter with an Italian family?
Guest:He says, my sister's such a great cook.
Guest:And then we're going to go down to Florida.
Guest:Have you ever been to Florida?
Guest:I said, no.
Guest:So I did all that with him.
Yeah.
Guest:Now we come back to the movie.
Guest:And he calls my hotel.
Guest:He wants to come up and see me.
Guest:And I said, no, thank you.
Guest:And he wouldn't hang up.
Guest:And he kept screaming, I'm going to come up there and I'm going to get you.
Guest:And I couldn't hang up to call for help.
Guest:So I put the phone under a pillow so I couldn't hear him.
Guest:But he probably stayed on the phone all night.
Guest:And I was so scared of him that I avoided him on the set the next day.
Guest:And it was a scene where Dub Taylor had to walk us into a hotel room.
Guest:I'm now alone with Al Eteri.
Guest:My husband has hung himself a few motels back in the bathroom.
Guest:And so I'm just with the gunman who he and I are starting to have an affair.
Guest:So Sam Peckinpah says, Dub, you walk in and then Sally, you walk in after Dub and then Al, you walk in carrying the suitcase.
Guest:And as soon as they said, okay, rolling, okay, go.
Guest:And
Guest:Dub walks in saying his lines showing us the hotel room and I'm walking in and Al Letary, it wasn't blocked to do this, but Al Letary grabbed me by my arm and threw me against the wall.
Guest:So I went up to Mr. Peckinpah and I said, Mr. Peckinpah, we're going to shoot this again, aren't we?
Guest:Could I come in behind Mr. Letary?
Guest:I don't want to walk in front of him again.
Guest:He says, that's fine, Sal.
Guest:It was crazy.
Guest:Then we had to do the scene where I'm, I'm pretending like I'm room service and I want Steve McQueen to open the door and he opens the door and I start screaming and he's supposed to slug me in the face and I'm supposed to be knocked out.
Guest:And so they taught me when his fist does it to turn my head the same and then hit the wall and then slide to the floor.
Guest:We did about three takes of that and I was now loopy.
Right.
Guest:And the fourth take, I didn't turn my head and he hit me in my jaw.
Guest:And that's what's in the film.
Marc:You getting really hit by Steve McQueen.
Guest:Yeah, it was a crazy experience.
Guest:And I got to watch Steve McQueen and Ally McGraw fall in love.
Marc:And that was pretty cool.
Marc:Was Steve McQueen a good guy or did you like him?
Guest:What a great guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:A sweetheart.
Guest:I adored him, but he was danger boy.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:I mean, we were shooting in a hotel in El Paso, and right next to it was a dirt mountain that was almost perfectly perpendicular.
Guest:And Steve would go out between takes and hop on his motorcycle and try to ride up that dirt mountain that was like trying to go up the wall of the hotel.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And everybody was yelling, we're not insured.
Guest:If you get broke, we have to shut down.
Guest:We can't finish the movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He didn't care.
Guest:He loved it.
Guest:But he oh, he fell so madly in love with Ali.
Guest:And now it's all these years later and everybody that we worked with on that film is gone.
Guest:And every time I see her, we clutch onto one another like we're on our train on the way to a death camp.
Guest:I mean, we just say we're still here.
Marc:You and Ali.
Guest:Yeah, because everybody we worked with in that movie is gone.
Marc:So when you started doing all in the family, it's been 50 years, huh?
Guest:It's been 50 years.
Guest:January 12th was our 50th anniversary of the first one coming on the air.
Marc:Do you still talk to Norman?
Marc:No.
Marc:Do you talk to any of them?
Marc:Do you talk to Rob?
Guest:There's nobody left except Rob and Norman.
Guest:Everyone else is gone.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And are you friends with Rob?
Guest:I would like to be, but he remarried.
Guest:He and Penny divorced, and he married a younger gal that he met in Hawaii when he was doing a movie there, and she was the photographer on the set.
Guest:And they married, and I think that...
Guest:I'm guessing that he had a wife that didn't want him to be friends with me because we were friends.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He played my husband for eight years.
Guest:We were friends.
Guest:And when the show was over, when he and I were finished with our contracts and we weren't making all the family anymore, at the most random times, my phone would ring in my apartment in Westwood near UCLA.
Yeah.
Guest:Hello?
Guest:And all Rob would say is, French policemen's fart.
Guest:And then he'd hang up on me, and I rolled on the floor laughing.
Guest:And, you know, two months later, hello?
Guest:Jacques Cousteau's fart.
Guest:I mean, he just... Woman farting, wearing tight pantyhose.
He...
Guest:We had a great relationship and then he got remarried.
Guest:And then I went to the opening of the producers at the Pantages Theater on Hollywood Boulevard.
Guest:And it was a big night.
Guest:They had lots of luminaries there to be in attendance to see it.
Guest:And I came out of the theater door with my friend Bunny, who I've known since we were both four years old.
Guest:And there was Rob and his wife, Michelle, and Carl Reiner and Estelle Reiner, his wife.
Guest:And I didn't really know Michelle, but I knew that Rob and his parents.
Guest:And I went running toward him.
Guest:Robbie was where I'm stretched out.
Guest:I was going to jump on him.
Guest:And he put his hand out stiffly in front of himself and took my hand and shook it really stiff and said, hello, Sally.
Guest:It's nice to see you, Sally.
Guest:I thought, why are you acting so weird?
Marc:And that was it?
Guest:That was it.
Guest:No, no, no, no.
Guest:I saw him at a People's Choice Awards or something.
Guest:We were seated together.
Marc:You won a couple of Emmys, right, for Gloria?
Guest:I did.
Guest:I was gifted with two Emmys.
Marc:What a great part.
Marc:I assumed that everybody on that set was pretty close.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:We were all so different.
Guest:Carol O'Connor, devout Irish Catholic, raised in New York City, went to college in Montana, Missoula, at the university there, got a teaching degree, came back to New York, was in the public school system in New York City.
Guest:He taught English to the recalcitrant boys.
Guest:And, you know, hit them with the ruler and God only knows what else he did.
Guest:And then he woke up around 40 and said to his wife, Nancy, who we met in college, I think I want to be an actor.
Guest:She said, okay.
Yeah.
Guest:She said, how are you going to do this?
Guest:He said, I'm going to study.
Guest:She said, where he sits in Ireland.
Guest:We're going to move to Ireland and I'm going to study there and I'm going to come back.
Guest:And that's what he did.
Guest:So that's the man playing my father.
Guest:Jean Stapleton was raised by a single mother in New York City.
Guest:Devout Christian scientist.
Guest:She never said or thought anything.
Guest:a negative thing.
Guest:She was a resident angel and you could easily get her all flustered because certain things just made her uncomfortable.
Guest:And there was one moment only in my eight years with her, where she was Edith in real life, Edith Bunker.
Guest:She, she, cause Jean was very intelligent and,
Guest:And she and her husband, Bill Putsch, ran a theater, the Totem Pole Playhouse in Pennsylvania.
Guest:So she came from the world of theater.
Guest:And she's in the rehearsal hall in CBS, TV City, Fairfax and Beverly Boulevard.
Guest:And we're on a 10-minute coffee break, and people are being handed – you got phone messages then that you had received a phone call, and then you would try to find a phone on your 10-minute break to phone somebody back.
Guest:And she's in a folding chair.
Guest:She's got the LA Times, and she's all by herself over in a corner, and she is flustered, and she's getting red.
Guest:She's looking at the paper.
Guest:She's going, oh, God.
Guest:And I'm looking at her, what is wrong with her?
Guest:So I tiptoe over to her and I said, Jean, is something wrong?
Guest:And she said, would you look at this?
Guest:And she folds the paper and turns it towards me and points and she says, look, look at this car wash.
Guest:It's advertising for Polish men.
Guest:And I said, Jean, that's Polish.
Yeah.
Guest:oh oh oh good good she was she you know and i i sat with her one time in the cbs commissary and i said would you please tell me about being a christian scientist because i'm a doctor's daughter and i believe in science and medicine and i certainly had a lot of things wrong with me growing up and my dad you know did my stitches or put my cast on yeah
Guest:I believe that the humans learn medicine for a reason.
Guest:But tell me about your religion.
Guest:And she did.
Guest:She took me to her church.
Guest:We were so close.
Guest:And then there's Rob Reiner, who was raised a rich Beverly Hills Jewish kid, was very famous father.
Guest:And then I come from Portland, Oregon, from the Norwegians.
Guest:And I have never heard a racial slur or epithet.
Guest:We would read the script around the table and Archie would say some horrendous thing.
Guest:And I would say to Robert, what does that mean?
Guest:I mean, I never heard those words.
Guest:Everyone's laughing.
Guest:I'm just going, why are they laughing?
Guest:I wasn't raised with any kind of bigotry around me.
Yeah.
Guest:But it was fascinating to be with such a disparate group of human beings.
Guest:And then in the fifth year of the show, I went in and read for a famous British director to play the lead in the film Day of the Locusts.
Guest:And
Guest:He chose me.
Guest:And my agent called Norman Lear and said, this would mean Sally would have to, I guess, miss the last four shows of the season.
Guest:And he says, no, I can't let her do it.
Guest:I can't do that.
Guest:And if I do that, he says, I got five, six shows on the air.
Guest:If I set that precedent that I've got to let everybody out and it's screwing with our schedule, I can't.
Guest:it was you know so my agent and i called back and said well how about since i only have three lines per show anyway which are i'll help you set the table ma michael where are you going and oh daddy stop it i mean those are my three lines every week yeah i wasn't getting a lot of satisfaction as an actress for playing that role the first five years yeah so i said well i'm a quick learner um
Guest:Why don't you have somebody stand in for me on camera blocking day on a Thursday?
Guest:And I'll come on a Friday morning and you can teach me where I'm supposed to enter and exit.
Guest:And where I say, I'll help you set the table, Ma, and I'll do the show, which means I can film four days of the week and be on all in family one day of the week.
Guest:And he says, no, I'm not going to do that.
Guest:So I bought it.
Guest:I wasn't happy about it, but I bought it because I really wanted to work for John Schlesinger.
Guest:And the next year, Norman let Rob Reiner out to do a film with Alan Arkin called Fire Sale.
Guest:And I called the lawyer and I said, get me off the show.
Guest:Get me off the show.
Guest:I spent any savings that I had to go to arbitration and I lost and I had to go back.
Marc:That doesn't sound great.
Guest:So I wore a sweatshirt to rehearsal every day that said Prisoner of Rehearsal Hall 3.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:And then we had a brand new director named Paul Bogart.
Guest:And...
Guest:The writers started writing fun things for Mike and Gloria.
Guest:And my last three years of the eight were the most fun.
Guest:But I was furious with Norman Lear for the boys club and the nepotism.
Guest:I was furious.
Guest:I mean, he had this adorable assistant who was Chinese.
Guest:Her name was J.D.
Guest:Joe.
Guest:You just wanted to pick her up and hug her every time you saw her.
Guest:And I went, sometimes on my breaks, I would go to the executive offices.
Guest:I'd like to visit with J.D.
Guest:Joe.
Guest:She had a stack of books on her desks from the bestseller list.
Guest:And I said, J.D.
Guest:Joe, when are you ever going to read these?
Guest:You work like 18 hours a day.
Guest:She said, oh, they're not for me.
Guest:They're for Norman.
Guest:I said, well, when's Norman going to read these books?
Guest:I said, he's got every plate at the circus spinning on a stick.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She says, oh, well, she says he has dinner parties at his house and he likes to talk about the latest books on the New York Times bestseller list.
Guest:And so everybody in the office reads a book for him and gives him cliff notes and then he can discuss it.
Guest:And I said, so he passes himself off as someone that has read these books and he hasn't.
Guest:Long story short, just between you and me and thousands of people that are listening to your podcast.
Guest:I was the only member of the cast never invited to his home for dinner.
Marc:So do you think in those last three years that the writers sort of took charge and decided to work more stories for you because they knew you were mad or do you just.
Guest:No, no, it had nothing to do with me.
Guest:Here's what happened.
Guest:We spun a couple of shows off our show.
Marc:Archie's Place?
Guest:No, no.
Marc:Oh.
Guest:In the beginning, we had Bea Arthur on and she played our cousin Maude.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And we were all sick with the flu and she came to take care of us.
Guest:And they loved her so much, they decided to create a show for her.
Guest:And then we had the Jeffersons on the show and they decided to give them their own show.
Guest:Well, what happened was every time Norman would take our tried and true, well-trained, fine-honed writers that knew specifically how to write for our characters.
Guest:And he would move them away from us and put them on the new show and he would give us new writers who we then had to train.
Hmm.
Guest:And this made Carol O'Connor furious.
Guest:And he started taking this drug called meprobamate.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was popping him right and left because he was so angry all the time.
Guest:And so, you know, we always had new writers.
Guest:But what happened in the sixth year was,
Guest:was they had kind of done so many stories about Archie or Archie and Edith or Mike and Archie that they had to start concentrating on that younger couple there.
Guest:And then they wrote that Gloria and Mike were expecting a baby and Gloria and Mike moved into the Jefferson's house next door.
Guest:And they gave us real stuff to do where I wasn't just setting the table.
Marc:But all in all, despite all the anger and despite what sounds like a very difficult last few years, you still thought it was a great experience for the most part?
Guest:Oh, I had so much fun.
Guest:Paul Bogart made the rehearsal hall.
Guest:Delicious.
Marc:Well, that's good.
Guest:And we all had a really good time.
Marc:And it's like it's it's great that like you really have never stopped working.
Marc:It's like an amazing thing to carry on a career in show business and just keep going and still having fun.
Guest:I just I realize how fortunate I am because.
Guest:One of my best girlfriends, someone I truly admire for her gifts as a performer, and also we just have a wicked relationship together, is the actress Brenda Vaccaro.
Guest:Oh, yeah, sure.
Guest:And she's amazing, and she can act circles around me, and she can't get arrested.
Marc:Well, I think I think that, you know, your I don't know whether it was love or a career decision, but to do, you know, theater to do big theater shows and and and have the ability to do that really can keep you working a long time because you you're a name and people like to come see you.
Marc:You have a following and you do these great shows.
Guest:Yeah, I've been so lucky.
Guest:I've worked at all these wonderful theaters in America and Canada, and some of them are really old and charming, and some of them are brand new state of the art, and I love all of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And each theater has its own staff of people backstage who I fall in love with, all the guys on the crew and all the women in the wardrobe shop.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:My phone book is just full of people all over the country that I have made friends with.
Guest:Jean Stapleton said to me, she said, you know, television and films will come and go in your life.
Guest:But the one arena that will always welcome you back with open arms is theater.
Guest:So don't ever give that up.
Guest:And she's right.
Marc:It's beautiful.
Marc:Well, it was great talking to you.
Guest:You too.
Marc:I'm glad we did it.
Marc:I'm glad it worked out.
Guest:I heard you interviewing Jodie Foster and I thought, what's he going to talk to me about?
Marc:Oh, we talked about a lot of stuff.
Guest:I mean, Jodie Foster's so intelligent and she went to did she go to Harvard?
Marc:Yale.
Guest:Yale.
Guest:And she produces.
Marc:She doesn't have those getaway stories.
Marc:I mean, come on.
Marc:She didn't take she didn't take a punch from Steve McQueen.
Marc:Come on.
Guest:I know that was great.
Guest:I milked that for days.
Marc:I love you.
Marc:It's great seeing you.
Guest:You too.
Guest:Thank you very much, Mark Marin.
Guest:You are a wonder.
Marc:And when this plague ends, maybe we can hang out.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:That would be great.
Guest:And the plague is supposed to be over on October 12th.
Marc:2027.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:We'll be wearing masks until then.
Guest:I'm glad I didn't have to wear a mask while I was talking with you.
Marc:Did you get the vaccine?
Guest:I'm locked and loaded.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Well, good.
Marc:I'm halfway there.
Marc:And I'll call you in May.
Guest:Okay, I'll be here.
Marc:All right, Sally, take it easy.
Marc:Bye, Mark.
Marc:That was Sally Struthers.
Marc:Who else would it be with that voice?
Marc:Go find her.
Marc:Go watch The Getaway.
Marc:Go watch Five Easy Pieces.
Marc:Go watch every episode of All in the Family that she's in.
Marc:Now let's go out with some guitar.
Marc:Guitar.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Guest:Boomer lives.
Guest:Monkey and La Fonda.
Guest:Cat angels everywhere.
Guest:Buster and Sammy are friends.
.