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This is Later with Lee Matthews the
Lee Matthews Podcast More what You Hear Weekday

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Afternoon's on the Drive. Danny Fingeroff
is a biographer and cultural historian comment or

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as well, specializing in the intersection
of Jewish and American cultures. Author of

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such books as Superman on the Couch
and Disguised as Clark Kent, his twenty

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nineteen biography of the late Stan Lee, and his newest focus is on the

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life and times of Jack Ruby,
the Many Faces of Oswald's Assassin. Here

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on the sixtieth anniversary of the assassination. I guess my first question, Danny

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Fingeroff, is Jack Ruby. Was
he a villain or was he a hero?

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Oh? I don't think he was
a hero. Maybe an anti hero.

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Some people did see him as a
hero, but I think history has

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shown that he was an unstable figure, harry out some a series of possible

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agendas. But no, I don't. Uh. Yeah, I think maybe

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after the first week people stopped seeing
him as a possible hero. Ah,

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yes, so, And I guess
he could be a little bit of both.

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At times he had noble impulses.
He wanted, you know, to

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help people when he could, and
he was loyal to his friends. But

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uh, there was a sleazy,
sinister aspect whether or not he was technically

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in quote unquote in the mob.
Uh, he was involved. He was

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certainly mob adjacent and you know,
you too close to too many sort of

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things for him to not have any
association. So he was He might have

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been a hero in his own mind. But I don't Danny finger off this

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with us, the many faces of
Oswald's assassin Jack Ruby. When I look

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at the life of Lee Harvey Oswald
and I look at the life of Jack

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Ruby, I see two fellows who
were complete outcasts in their own societies,

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and it seems like they had a
lot in common in that. Okay,

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Lee Harvey Oswald wasn't even accepted by
the Russians, and it looks like Jack

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Ruby couldn't even get in the mob. Well, look, I think they

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were both you know, quote unquote
nuts. You know, whether they were

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non nuts is the big question that
people have been asking for sixty years.

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You know, I present evidence.
I don't focus so much on Oswald.

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Of course, they're an extricable rate. Yeah, but I try to give

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the case for different scenarios for Jack
Ruby. You know, but my focus

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really is on him as a person. As I spoke to relatives, it

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is I spoke to the children of
his competitors. I spoke to his Rabbi,

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who visited and regularly in prison and
shares his notes with me. So

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I tried to get inside the mind
of this guy and his life and times

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figuring I'm not going to be smarter
than the thousand other people who've tried to

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salvocate for the past sixty years.
Yeah. Yeah, And some have tried

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to romanticize Jack Ruby and make him
out to be this this this behind the

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scenes zealoup, this behind the scenes
patriot. Was he well, he'd had

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to run eantasize himself as well.
Ruby would ask people, he would he

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would go to people and say,
I'm colorful, and I'm a character.

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He was conscious of himself as as
the hero of his own movie, as

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the same those and then certainly after
he had whatever his motivation in killing Oswald,

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from that moment dawn he was the
focus of all this attention and this

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this wild circus trial that was probably
the most bizarre American trial until the Chicago

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seven or Chicago eight trial. It
you know, So I don't know I

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come from a back then. I'm
a writer, you know, so I

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would say Jack Ruby certainly a terrific
protagonist some of Whoself's office story, whether

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you call him a hero, my
dad's Jack Ruby, the many faces of

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Oswald's Assatin assassin Danny Finger office with
us. What was the number one thing

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you learned in researching for the book? I think that I learned, well

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the number one A lot of things. But it was interesting how many different

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kinds of ventures he was involved in. You know that that Ruby was the

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last person to give regular work to
Hank Williams. You know, you know,

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he he ran, He had a
couple of country Western venues and so,

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you know, just to see the
it was interesting how although he was

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small time, how many famous and
the boldface named celebrities he interacted with.

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You know. They included from Welcome
Back Todd to Gate Taplin and on the

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band of Bob Dylan thing by the
way, shout out to the folks at

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the Bob Dylan Center in Tulfa.
I was out there at the Dylan Coplin

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speaking about or assess nation of Bob
Dylan back in the spring. So nice

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to be on the Oklahoma always well
nice to have you. Danny Finger off

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cultural historian, and his newest book
is Jack Ruby The Many Faces of Oswald's

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Assassin. Was there a particular disappointment
you found about Jack Ruby? Maybe something

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you were hoping to find but didn't
well, as I think I might have

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alluded to what he I kind of
had this for a while with sort of

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a romanticized notion. I thought of
him as almost if any of the listeners

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remembered Ralph Krams and the Honeymooners.
Ah, I still have a maybe slightly

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more sinister version of the Jackie Beathan
on that show to the Moon. You

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know, I'd say the disappointment was
all he really was. It wasn't.

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He wasn't a guy who occasionally did
a squeezy thing or too or lost his

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temper. He was like a crazy
guy who were involved with some very unfavorite

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things. Got a fascinating life to
write about it, And I hope to

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read about the fascinating yet frustrating thing
about Jack Ruby and his Many Faces of

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Oswald's Assassin, all put together in
a book by cultural historian Danny Finger.

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Often when when Ruby got into old
age, was he was he granting interviews,

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talking to reporters. Still he didn't
make it the old age. Yeah,

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he was fifty five, you know, he looked much older, and

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he had a lot of Somehow the
people who were watching him in jail didn't

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seem to notice that he had multiple
life threatening conditions. He wouldn't shut up.

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Weirdly, nobody in the Texas and
the Dallas Police Department had a tape

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recorder, so there's no record of
anything elsehold said Ruby. On the other

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hand, he didn't he did not
testify at his own trial. I think

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the boys were afraid he would incriminate
himself, but which you think is weird

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since he did Silvery Guy on TV. But during breaks and in the trial,

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during recesses, he would have press
conferences and just talking, talking,

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talking to talk to anybody who's to
visit him. You know, I have

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these elaborate notes in the Rabbi about
the things that Jack said to him,

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but they conpredicted themselves from day to
day he had. The book is called

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The Many Faces because he had a
lot of different personalities Jack Ruby, The

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Many Faces of Oswald's Assassin available everywhere
you get books. That's written by David

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finger Roth, and I thank you
for joining us to Danny Danny, I'm

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sorry, Danny Danny. Yes.
Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews,

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the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember
to listen to The Drive Live weekday

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afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia
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