It's The Dearly Departed podcast, featuring your host, historian Scott Michaels and filmmaker
Mike Dorsey. It's The Dearly Departed Podcast. And I am Mike Dorsey and
I am Scott Michaels Hi, and today we're doing a film that is certainly
I think close to your heart, Scott Todd Browning's Freaks from nineteen thirty two.
Yes, yeah, it's it's. Um. I think I saw this
the first time in the early eighties that was, you know, so scandalous
and uh and I fell fell in love with this movie because it's just so
bizarre and uh. Yeah, so I'm thrilled, thrilled. Yes, and
several people have recommended that we um that we do this one and are excited
that we're doing it finally, So I'm really excited for this conversation. Um,
Before we get into that, I wanted to get into new news since
we did our last show, News of the Week. First of all,
you can you can buy the crypt that is next to Marilyn Monroe right now,
the one is kind of between her and Hugh Hefner. I guess no,
I think it's I think it's below her below her. Okay yea,
And it is being auctioned off. Starting bid is supposed to be two million
dollars. Yeah, that's what they say. When Hugh Heffner bought next to
Maryland. Uh, he did that like in the nineties, I think,
and or even eighties, you know. And I was doing some research on
that just this week about that the paper. The newspaper articles are vague because
they're saying it's like two spaces over, but there's it's her and Hugh in
a wall. There's no nothing, you know, neck between them. But
I believe it was Jerry Herman, the playwright, the musician, the composer,
playwright, and and he had it below her, but I think it
was two spaces below her. So yeah, but that's the woman above.
I remember a couple of years ago she was trying to sell it Puncher because
he's the one that was supposed to be flipped upside down and facing on top
of Maryland. That did really happen, They really did do that, but
she was asking for some extortionate amount of money. But I don't think that
ever showed up. So who knows what's going to happen. But Jerry Herman
is buried in New York, so he's not using it. Yeah, he
bought it. Um. He's I think most famous he for writing I believe
the score, composing the score for Hello Dolly, one of his bigger musicals.
But he had bought it for seventy five thousand back in nineteen ninety seven
because he tested he was HIV positive and he I believe he was living in
la at the time, so he bought it and then he ended up living
to a ripe old age. I think he lived be like eighty eight and
you know by then, you know, his life had changed or whatever.
So he decided not to use it. He was buried on the East coast,
so um Wild bought it for seventy five grand, you know, twenty
five years ago, twenty four years ago, and now it's two million dollars
and he's not able to enjoy it. And he can't enjoy it exactly.
I wonder who you probably got a boyfriend or a husband or something at that
point. I would imagine who's got whoever the air was, Yeah, and
maybe they'll be buried together something back back east. Um, they a typical
crypt like this in that cemetery. If it was anywhere else is Pierce Brothers
Westwood Village typically would go for about one hundred and eighty grand. Um,
so a huge markup for being you know, next to Maryland for sure.
For sure. Yeah, because as yeah, the cemetery would sell it at
that at that fee, the fair price. But yeah, if you go
off off off the estate, yeah, or off of the private sale,
then you get you know, you can make all that money. Geeze.
Imagine imagine spending two million dollars and then her estate decides to move her,
yeah, somewhere else. That's what happened to Judy Garland. You know,
people people from all over bought graves. A friend of mine bought a grave
in that cemetery because of Judy, and people were you know, spending a
fortune. And then yeah, they took Judy out, and all those people,
um, you know who who are dead and are buried near Judy are
no longer. It's sort of sort of sad, but you know, I
would have a closet like if she moves, you have to move me wherever
she yet if it meant that much to me. Yeah, Um, the
Kurt Cobain death House where he where he committed suicide and uh is back just
sold again. I guess it's changed hands a couple of times since then.
They're Kurt and Courtney's house here in la is for sale right now too.
Oh really, yeah, where is and where is that one? That one's
up by high Tower? You know that crazy old tower right off the Highland
that you have to take the elevator up to. But yeah, we hit
a house way up there and it was I mean, if you go on
YouTube, a lot of people urban explored it. You know it was empty
and it was trash and maybe there were squatters, but uh yeah, so
you could get you in pretty easily. Up until just a few weeks ago,
I think I was only aware of his the apartment that he had rented
for a time in the Fairfax District. They're just a near near Fairfax High
School, in that neighborhood where he wrote part of in Utero, their second
album. He wrote there in that this little it was really just a crash
pad. It wasn't anything fancy. Yeah, I've heard stories. I think
there's pictures available of that, and it was pretty it's pretty trashed. Yeah,
And he used to just wander over to Canters all the time. I
guess for to get food. So it was you know, it's a few
blocks east of there Umu. The Durst trial has started up finally, you
know, because it's why does it think? Why do things take so long?
You know, I don't I don't understand that how, you know,
like the Hollywood Ripper, the one we covered for that E show. You
know, it was over twenty years and he's finally convicted for that. It's
like, what is that? He never even had It wasn't like an appeal.
This is his first trial over twenty years after the murderer. Just so
this Durst thing, I forget what was Susan burmant It was in the nineties,
wasn't it when she was shot in the head. Yeah, but they
didn't but remember they didn't They didn't really have a case until the Jinks came
out. And the Jink's documentary series is the one that kind of captured sort
of a confession, you might argue, Um, plus they found that,
they found that he plus they found that letter. M you know that well,
they had the letter that showed the same handwriting and the same misspelling of
Beverly Hills. And I believe he has now admitted that he wrote the letter
to the Beverly Hills Police Department that, you know, telling them that there
was a body a cadaver I think is the word he used at Burman's house.
So he I think he's admitted that he wrote that, but he's claiming
that he found her already dead. Um, I mean she did. Her
father was big and organized crime wasn't For anyone that doesn't know we're talking about
this is this is a murder that happened in Bennedict Canyon where she was shot
execution style. And this Durst guy, it's called The Jinks. It's an
amazing docuseries. He was cooperating completely and then that one thing. He went
to the bathroom and said, so they'll never catch me on Mike, which
so stupid, but I forget what the quote was. But anyway, he's
finally on trial and yeah, and he's you know, she was an interesting
person. They were friends, but she was involved with organized crime. You
know, she she was documenting or wrote a book about it, about the
mafia, or she was from a Yeah, she was from kind of a
mafia family like her her dad or somebody I believe it was involved in a
yeah, um, and and I believe the suspected motive is that she you
know, his first wife disappeared and was never found. And he's the heir
to this huge real estate fortune in Manhattan that his brother actually operates because dirty,
you know, Derst is considered he's just always had kind of mental issues,
so he was not put in charge of the family business. And his
wife disappeared and has never been found, and of course suspected that he did
something, but it's they've never just liked with all these other ones, they
were never able to build a case on it. And uh, and so
that I believe they think the motive was that this suit that Burman, who
had become a close friend and confident, may have threatened to go public or
to go to the police with what she knew about the wife's disappearance, and
that maybe that was his motive. So but that's you know, that's what
the courts are going to figure out now, so hopefully interesting to the bottom
of it. Yeah, what a kook, really, But I highly recommend
the Jinks if you haven't watched it, it's so good. Okay, So
greenblats the famous Delhi on Sunset Boulevard closed down and it's utra is currently unknown.
Yeah, which is a big bummer. I was never a big Greenblats
person, but what a history it has in this city, going back to
the thirties. You know, they were the green Blacks. Was originally where
the laugh Factory is one door over, and I forgot what year was that
they moved, you know, over to where they are now or where they
were now. Sure that came out of nowhere. I mean that was Alison
Martino, our mutual friend who does vintage Los Angeles. She um, yes,
she's posted I heard that green I've heard that Green Blats is closing and
the boom it was the next day it was. That was the last day.
So you know it's like they notified the workers tomorrow we're closed. That's
it. Yeah, Yeah, it's sad. It really isn't all these businesses.
You know the block where the Viper Room is just going and with a
range over placed down at the far end of Beverly Hills or at the at
the far end of West Hollywood that's being torn down. That was originally the
cock and Bowl where Jim Morrison used to you know, run out into the
st eating wave down. The Standard Sunset is closed down back in January,
and now people are trying to make sure that that building is protected enough.
The Standard. Really I didn't hear that. Yeah, yeah, the Standard,
same thing. They you know, they jacked up the lease and it
just and right in the middle of the pandemic and they were like, we
can't do it. It's already a struggle enough, you know with the hotel
bookings down. This was back in January. And yeah, so they closed
the doors, and the Standard in downtown LA, which is super famous filming
location. Their rooftop pool and bar area has been in a bunch of stuff.
They're also closed right now, but I think that's more temporary, Like
I think they're planning to reopen. But but the Sunset one, they're just
they're out, so I you know, hopefully, you know, whenever,
you hope that just not a precursor to you know, it was just jack
their rant up. So they move out so you can tear the place down
and sell it for whatever it's worth now, you know. Yeah. Yeah,
it's funny about that because that well, they used to be like a
motor lodge. It was like the Sunset Motor Lodge in the fifties. But
across the street from it is that we're the little Cabo Cantina. That little
shack is still there, which has a great history too, I mean the
old Source restaurant. I don't know if he saw that documentary, but the
Source was a vegetarian restaurant but it was a cult and it's a really good
documentary. And it's this role rickety shack of a building that's still there.
All that new building around it, yet that little shack is still there.
And the Annie Hall filmed a whole scene there at the Source and that's where
he There used to be a dirt lotnext door to it. They built over
it a few years ago, but that's what the dirt lot is where he
backs into the cop car when he's trying to leave and uh, and you
can see what is now this, you know, what became the Standard hotels
across the street under a different name at the time, but you can see
it prominently as like the backdrop. So yeah, freak yeah, I don't
know how that place survived. I mean, they have lousy mrgaritas, at
least the ones I had it was. It's a cool plato. It's an
old La place, which is rare anymore, right, right, um,
but on the good news, I mean good news. I think anyways,
this kind of mixed some people. But Tarantino bought the Vista Theater, the
famous Vista, he bought that up, and and you know, I think
some people are concerned. You know, we already have the new Beverley,
you know, is he gonna just have another new Beverley. I think he
said he's planning on just leaving it as you know, as he is.
I don't know, so the first run run house, yeah, that's always
been yeah, yeah, and he's I don't know if he's gonna I think
it's digital. I don't want to know what. He's such a purist about
stuff like that, so I don't know what. But yeah, it doesn't
sound like he's he's not doing a new another new Beverley. And even if
he was, so what you know, people are going to the movie.
At least it's not closing down and getting torn yeah you know, yeah yeah,
And they have that that fantastic um little Walk of Fame out in front
of it with all the cult movie stars. You know, I love that.
It's like the cash from Dark Shadows and Mary Warren off bud Court from
Harold and Maud, A little the Cash from Poltergeist. It was just like
an alternate um uh grummins Chinese theater, Chinese theater. I love it.
I love that place. So for that place, that alone, that should
be a historic marker on that place. I just love it. Just love
it. Um. I wanted to talk about have you watched the Val Kilmer
documentary yet? No? Yeah, I believe it's on I watched I think
on Amazon Prime. I think it's streaming on Amazon if you're a subscriber.
Um, it's really good. I really enjoyed it. You know, he
has not been able to really speak since he had you know, throat cancer
surgery back in twenty fourteen, so he has you know, kind of a
voice box type thing in his throat, so he Um. But it's really
really good. And what he ended up having having done is his son,
who sounds very much like him and as an actor, recorded the vo kind
of as him. So you know, Val wrote the voice over and then
had his son read it as him. It's really and you actually forget that
you're not listening to Val Kilmer while you're watching it. Um. I thought
it was really good. It was very introspective and um, I thought,
pretty honest, which is always important. It didn't feel like a fluff piece.
You know. Obviously it portrays him in mostly positive light, but it's
interesting. He owns up to a lot of his mistakes in it. And
um, he's a deeper person than what I ever thought he was, you
know what I mean. I always thought it was kind of a pretty boy
type actor. Um. Talented, sure, but you know, but he
was very hardcore. He was the youngest at the time, at least the
youngest person ever admitted to Juilliard as an acting student. Interesting. Um.
Yeah. And and coincidentally was there with Kelly McGinnis, who ended up you
know who. They both ended up in Top Gun. So I recommend yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, I don't I wish I
did. She seems cool. Oh, I thought you is the one that
lived in the house, the cool house. I know, Kelly, that's
Kelly Lynch. Yeah, okay, sorry, I know Kelly. Sorry sorry,
Um yeah, val And it's a good documentary. I really recommend it.
Check it out. I was like, there's a lot of buzz about
that, but I'm like, like you said, I thought he was just
a pretty boy actor. He's in the Doors. He's been in a couple
of movies I like, but not enough to I would never buy a big
biography about him or anything. So I don't know. There's a healthy A
healthy, A healthy. Portion of the documentary is about the Door doing the
Doors movie too. It's really interesting and how he prepared for the role and
just listening to you know, Morrison music NonStop and watching lots of footage of
Morrison to try and get his mannerisms down and all that stuff. You mean,
he really you could see, really dove into his part, into the
parts he was in. Um. I can also see how he was a
bit of a difficult actor too, so to work with, so you can
definitely see how he got that reputation. Um, is this something they're doing
while he's still here? You know, like when when they give the lifetime
achievement a war people, you know, it's usually you know what I mean,
Well, it sounds like he kind of produced it, So I don't
know, man, Maybe, I mean, you know, he almost died
from cancer. Maybe he did feel like it's time to do it and his
acting career is sort of over unless he can get his voice back. So
maybe he just felt like he I think he says kind of near the beginning,
he's kept so much stuff from his from his career. I mean,
he even has all those old auditions because he used to tape his auditions and
you know, send them to various directors. He's kept all that stuff.
He's got it all on storage. I think he kind of felt like,
I have all these and he's a very creative person. He does he paints
and does collages and stuff, and I think he just felt like, what
do I do with all this stuff? Like yeah, you know, um,
and so it's kind of like, let's make a film with it.
So that's what he did. So, UM, I liked it. I
thought it was really good, really well done. UM. And I also
did not know he had a brother whom they they Funnily enough, they his
brother was wanted to be a director and they to make little their own little
home movies, and they they would recreate stuff, so like they recreated scenes
from Jaws together using like you know, eight millimeter camera and some other stuff.
And his brother was super He said, his brother was, you know,
more talented than he was. And his brother drowned when he was fifteen
in the family pool. He had an epileptic seizure in the pool and drowned.
Wow, and so that and that's why he I believe he was at
Juilliard val was when that happened. So it was just this devastating obviously,
Yeah, you know, it permanently impacted him. And even his brother's artwork
has appeared in at least one of his early films. They put it in
like the set decorations in the background. So that's kind of cool. But
yeah, I was just gonna say, whenever someone is as talented and successful
as Valez and he says, yeah, you know, my brother was even
better than I was, you wonder what that career could have been like.
You know. Yeah, for sure. He had also a relative that had
murdered a couple of people in West Hollywood stuck him in a trunk. Really
yeah, yeah, that didn't make it into the documentary. I'm trying to
think of what the actual relation was. But that happened in uh what year
was that. It looks like an older newspaper that I'm looking at. I
can't I can't pull up the date, but it looks like sixties or fifties,
but I think it might have to do well, here's let's see.
My friend Shannon Mead did all this leg work on this and she sent the
information to me. It was fifty nine. But yeah, gunshot wound and
stuck in a truck of a car and it has a relation to to Val
Kilmer. I forget exactly what it was and then killers. Yeah anyway,
so yeah, that that's an interesting thing. But anyway, that just stuck
in my mind. I wanted that addressed that because that's a that's a nice
little bit of trivia and a family. Not nice, but you know,
Kilmer barely newer um. One last thing I wanted to talk about in the
kind of News of a week. You made a cool post on Facebook and
I already knew this, but I'd never heard it before. You were a
radio DJ at a country station in central Michigan back in the eight early eighties,
right, and you dug up an old you dug up an old tape
of you doing your job, which is amazing, Like DJ skills for the
very best a new country. Tune into the hit Bound Showdown weeknights at seven
oh five right here on the Big M every night. Will premiere two new
country songs. You tell us which one you like best, and it may
become the hit Bound song of the week the hit Bound Showdown only on your
country music station WMLM. I'm Scott Michaels be with you here till just about
six o'clock. We're gonna take you back now with the Statler Brothers. Yeah,
that's funny. It was funny, you know, I just I put
it up for giggles, and it's funny. I really like country music.
Guess what people are going, Oh my god, my ears, it's awful
and I'm like, I don't know, I like it, but but yeah,
it was an interesting little chapter. And uh and that's you know,
there were like two things I kept from my education. It was typing in
high school and and voice work with with the broadcasting that was Those are the
two things, right, and all of my education that I ever used.
I know. I went to business school and I learned a lot of important
things, but spy, the most important I learned was learning how to use
Microsoft Word and Excel, like actual skills that you know you actually need in
your life. What could have been with your DJ career, Scott, It's
funny now, Troy said last night, because you're you're you, you're old.
Your Michigan accent is really pronounced. You know, he's really pronounced.
And as like, I don't know if I had an accent. Apparently I
did, but I don't know. Apparently it's really obvious in the video,
didn't. I had somebody have to point it out to me. Um and
our our mutual friend Kelly. She went to college near where you were DJ
at that time. She went to Central Michigan. Oh right, Mount Pleasant,
it's like great above us, about about forty minutes of chips. Yeah,
interesting, did Yeah, is there any other news you wanted to No,
I would say August is here, and that's like I always called that
the holiday month and not you know, it's like Maryland. You've got the
Mandison thing, You've got Princess Diana, you've got the Menendez verse, and
and that's you know, it's a it's a pretty magical month as far as
all this all this stuff goes. I'll come and both our birthdays. Yeah,
yeah, when yours? Is this your birthday? Ohay? Is it
okay? So you'd like right before Maryland Day. Yeah, I was born
two weeks after Maryland died. But uh uh and yeah, yeah, and
my birthday is the same birthday as Roman Polanski and Vincent Pouliosi. August eighteenth,
I have, um Barack Obama is the big the biggest one that I
have. Um man, wait what what? What day is yours? Eighteen?
Yeah? Because Elvis died on August sixteenth, and I have now outlived
I'm now older than Elvis was when he died. I have outlived him by
a year. Now. I think I am Humphrey Bogart's age right now that
he died. Oh really you so, do you get any hate mail or
anything? Oh? Heye mail, um, hate mail? This is okay.
Troy saves these six for me because I can't. Oh, you know,
I told him the Patreon video that the Janet Lee story about you know,
my bringing a knife to her her book signing, and one of them,
one of the comments, it's just kind of a funny one, she
goes, and that's funny. What a childish moron. Unsubscribing Immediately, it's
like, well it's childish, no doubt about it. Um, You're like,
you are following the wrong person if you're not amused by that story.
And there was one about Oh here's one. This was interesting. This is
regarding the Anthony Burdaine thing that I had when he when he took the tour,
and it was we recorded it. My friend Jane recorded it and I
uploaded it. So she writes, this is my first time viewing this video.
What disturbs me the most is the man talking saying that what happened to
the black Dahlia was spectacular, which it was. I mean, you know,
they look up the definition. I mean it's like it's it's crazy right.
And you are seriously a creep because what was done to her was absolutely
butcher, absolutely butchery. Men like you have no heart, no soul.
And Anthony Burdain, God rest his soul. He will be missed. This
is the guy who's talking about autoerotic asphyxiation and all the murders. But he's
God rest his soul. He will be missed. But to the creep interviewer
of this video, be careful what you're saying, because you seem to be
a sadist. That truly disturbed me and it should be to others, including
that lady in the van. Must be my friend Jane. Men run the
world and women are preyed on. This creep who think the brutal murder of
a beautiful woman human being was spectacular, You should go to jail for that
period. The Black Jail is infamous, amongst other sad Hollywood celebrity stories are
ip But but I looked at you know, I talked to the about the
Manson murders, and I said that they were fantastic. And if you look
up the definition of fantastic, they were spectacular. I did look this up.
It says, you know, an elaborate show or display pertaining through the
nature of a show or a spectacle marked characterizes a great display. And the
black tellus to whomever did it, you know, that was that was set
up. What they did to her was a creation. And that's what I
meant by that. It was it wasn't like, wow, it was so
cool. It wasn't like that. It wasn't cool. It was spectacular.
It's like, fantastic is not you know, necessarily oh my god, it's
so wonderful. It's like, you know, the word exciting. Bad things
can also be exciting. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it doesn't mean,
you know, it's just kind of funny that all that thought went into
it. Um, it was like, all right, whatever, but Block,
you know, Troy Block shows and he saves me the best, sends
the best for this. But the other the piece of email I got that
was interesting that it should you know, we don't. We talked about Zack
selling the zach Begans sold to La Bianca House and apparently it's slated for demolition
now so uh so that will happen. Yeah, it is so um,
which is what would have likely happened anyways. So you know, him buying
at a guest kept it alive for a couple more years, but you know
it's kind of inevitable. Yeah, yeah, it's la. We got some
nice notes on Patreon. Deborah told us you guys rock keep up all the
good work. Thank you, Deborah, and Jonathan said he'd been a Jonathan
said he's been a fan of the since the website and on to six degrees.
I love what you do and proud to support you. Keep up the
great work. And we also got some nice Patreon notes from Becca and Elaine.
So, um, we do have a Patreon page where you can get
advanced Um, look at these episodes when they come out, Seeing before everybody
else does. And we also do an extra mini show, which are usually
you know, in that forty five minute to an hour range. Um,
so we call mini shows, but they're actually gotten to be pretty long.
And we also post those to Patreon, so those are Paton exclusive. Yeah,
and you can get access to that for as little as two bucks a
month. So check out our Patreon Dearly Departed podcast on Patreon. Go check
it out. We just recorded a new episode for Patreon just before we did
this one, so um, and we really appreciate everybody for supporting us over
there. So main feature, yes, let's talk about it. Yeah,
it's Todd Browning's Freaks. It's time for the main feature. Google gobble,
Google gobble. We accept her one of us. I had never actually watched
this movie. It had been on my list for ever and ever, and
I finally watched it this past week because we wanted to do this episode,
and I freaking loved it. It's so good. It exceeded my expectations.
To be honest, I thought it was really really brilliant filmmaking, and the
story behind it is equally as fascinating as the story was of the film itself,
I thought. But for people who don't know it's about sideshow acts otherwise,
you know, referred to his freaks and it's based on them, you
know, with this a circus or a carnival, right, Yeah, it's
a traveling side show. Yeah. Yeah. Made in nineteen thirty two and
Todd Browning, the director, he actually had originally worked in as he had
actually worked as a carnival He had been a contortionist and was a carnival barker
for years starting when he was a teenager before he began his film career.
So it's interesting he had wanted to do this story, which was adapted from
a short story called Spurs, for years and years. He'd been trying to
get MGM to do it, going back to the twenties during the Silent era,
and finally they finally did it. It's fascinating that MGM produced it.
And there's the stories about the cast of The Wizard of Oz going to the
commissary and everyone, you know, they were so freaked out about how outrageous
their costumes were during the filming of The Wizard of Oz and then the Freaks
thing, they just had to give them their own place because nobody could deal
with being in the room with them, you know, the Siamese twins and
and the half Man and all that stuff. It was just too much.
And it's shocking that MGM made the movie. It really is shocking that they
made this movie because it doesn't seem like something MGM would do. Back then,
they were very prestigious, you know what, more stars than in the
Heavens or whatever their their tagline was at the time. And and what's also
just thing was Todd Browning had just done Dracula for Universal the year before and
which kicked off, you know, Universal's whole monster craze in the thirties,
and I'm really surprised that he didn't just do this there makes I don't know
the whole story about why it went to MGM Universal, but yeah, that's
interesting. And maybe they just gave him say you come here, you come
here, and we will you could do whatever you want, We'll give you
a movie. And he's like, oh, you mentioned Louis Mayer going what
they kept the sideshow acts like in their own the actors in their own tent
on, you know, the lot um to keep from disturbing the other people
on the lot and and they had they had their own commissary and everything,
so they were really kept separate, almost kind of like when you know the
Munchkins being kept down the street in the hotel. Yeah yeah, yeah,
over every day. It was such an interesting movie because they gave everyone at
those side chow performers their own moment to shine. You know. They had
their a little like um, the the half Man half woman, uh you
know, literally not like a trans person was literally down the middle half man
he would just talk and he talk and then to both sides and then uh
you know, Johnny Yak had his thing where he climbed the ladder. This
is the half Man, and uh yeah, they all had a chance.
If Prince Randian, you know, mate full who had no arms and no
legs, would full roll a cigarette in his mouth. You know, they
let him do that, a little spiel, you know, they got to
got to do it. So it's it's also, i mean, despite the
kind of derogatory title, it's gotten a lot of credit over the years for
showing um these circus performance as real people. Yeah yeah, and it was.
It's also it's considered derogatory derogatory nowadays, but that's the term they embraced
themselves so I, you know, be an UNPC for this, I don't
care. You know, they called themselves that, they embraced it and uh
so, and it's still the name of the movie. So I I it's
just it wasn't disrespectful at all to these people. In fact, if anything
else, it was respectful to these people because it showed how loyal they were
to themselves. And uh and I think that that was that that sort of
code of honor that they had. You know, you mess with one,
you mess with all kind of a thing, but the whole one of us,
you know, we accept you. I mean that was a big deal.
When when during the wedding and the uh in the in the film what
a what a sinister movie is fascinating, just sinister. It was such a
controversial film when it came out. It did not do well. It was
you know, it was it was financially a loss. Um. The UK
banned it for like thirty years. You believe that, Yeah, yeah,
I do. That was we talked about this before. They banned A Clockwork
Orange until the nineties. Uh. The extrascist too, they were all they
couldn't you couldn't watch them there, you couldn't you couldn't get them. Freaks
came out in nineteen thirty two, and you couldn't see it in the UK
until the sixties. And and you know it, so Irving Thalberg, who
we've talked about a lot. I've read one of his big biographies. I'm
a big fan of, you know, his life. He was the head
of production for MGM at the time The Boy Wonder and the original running time
was about ninety minutes long, and he's the one that basically took the film
away, which was common at that time. He took it away from Todd
Browning and chopped it up, chopped it down to about I think sixty four
minutes, and the original full length version is considered lost. So um,
and I would love to see the full version because you definitely can feel this
kind of ham fisted intro and ending. It would kind of slapped onto an
otherwise really great film. Did you I noticed I saw on YouTube there's a
couple of alternative endings that were actually filmed. Oh and I've never seen anyone.
I haven't seen this movie yet. I mean, you're these are gonna
be spoilers all over the place, but um, you know, so if
you haven't seen the movie, you should probably stop now and before we where
we talk about it because and then watch it and come back because speaking of
spoilers, that final scene in the rain is so brilliantly done. It's so
good. It's so good, all shot at low level, you know,
kind of under with the wagon wheels, under the wagons, with everybody in
this chase through the mud. It's so so interesting, and it just gets
cut It just gets cut off almost in the middle of it. It feels
like, I guess before they catch up with her an attacker. I guess
that was too shocking maybe for the for audiences. Yeah, just there's a
quick dissolve back to these the scene that would the film opens with, right,
I mean, yeah, to to clarify the stories about the sideshow freaks,
and I meant there's also the strong Man and the trapeze artist woman and
the t and they find out that one of the freaks, one of the
little people, Harry Doll, had money. So the strong Man and the
trapeze artists, uh I, figure out up plan for her to fake being
in love with Harry Dhal and get married to him, and then she tries
to poison him and the other freaks find out about it, and that's the
spectacular ending. So, yeah, the revenge and see especially Prince Randy and
the guy they called the caterpillar man. Uh, you know, crawling through
the mud like a like a like a caterpillar. And it was with a
knife in his hand, in his mouth. You know, I know what
he's going to do with it, either have arms or legs, but uh,
it's just so and you know, just crawling through the mud. And
yeah, it was really really really something to see. And uh, but
that's a code of code of code of honor, you know, for them.
Yeah, and Thalberg was no. One of his innovations was test screenings,
which is common practice now, but you would take at early edited the
film and you would screen it for a test audience, engage their reaction,
and then you would go and make changes if you felt like I needed it.
And apparently at these test screenings, people were running out of the thea
at the site of some of these performers back then. Yeah, for sure,
I can understand that. I remember when about in the nineties I saw
several times the Jim Rose circuside show, I guess, and he sort of
revived it, but it was all geeks. I mean, there's freaks who
are physically different, you know, they were born differently. The Siamese twins,
the man with you know uh, you know, short arms or something
like that. They were physical you know, what they would call deformities.
Geeks are the people that create themselves. You know, the tattooed guy,
the pierced guy, eating animal, eating bugs, you know that kind of
thing. And Jim Rose, Jim ro Circuside show was is all geeks and
there was the one guy called the Plunger and it was just acts. But
people were puking watching this stuff. And this is in the nineties. Mister
Lyfto who who had a pierced nipples and peers penish and he was you know,
picking up like big weights and swinging around on his nipples and you know,
people just couldn't cope with that. So that was a small level of
what what freaks was like for people. I mean they you know, they
reacted very differently back then and and yeah, call it exploitation. So so
what you know, they were born, they found their their their tribe and
uh and they all loved each other and they and it's how they and it's
how they made their living. It's what they weren't doing side shows. They
were performing in you know, what films they could get. So yeah,
yeah, it was interesting to read about how, um some of them were
in different films, you know, you know, portraying Johnny Act the Halfman
and SCHLITZI was in was in a few different films too. It's just interesting
because you just think freaks is all they ever did. But uh, and
what an impact that made. I mean, I remember when I was a
kid, in the back of magazines there were always these ads for uh,
you know, the Three Legs good Man and the very it was called Very
Special People was the first book that was made, probably in the seventies about
these people, and I couldn't I could not stop looking at that. The
Guinness Book of World Records came out, and there was another one that was
that man, it was so big he had to be buried in a piano
case. You know. It was just stuff like that was just so fascinating
to me and and still is. And that's why that's why, you know,
I love all this stuff. When recently Troy and I were in Florida
and we went to Gibsonton and GiB Or GiB towns where all those circus performers
would go on the off season. And it started with Jeannie and Altmany.
Altomani was like eight petal and Geanie TooMany was like eighteen inches. She was
a half lady. And they got married and just decided to create this place
where these carnies could go on the off season and they put they created what
was called the Giants Camp and it was all these little little houses, little
tiny little cabin that they had and they were they had a bait store,
and Gibson was just this vocal point for all of these people place they could
go. And you know they have even the post office, like the counter
of the post office is only like two feet so little people could use it.
I mean, it was really accommodating to UH to to those people because
that's there was a tribe and that's where the UH showed. It was Showtown
Bar, Showman's Bar, where you know these people, well a lot of
them did do pretty hardcore drinking and UH and you know you would just see
these unusual people sitting at the bar and you know, just amongst each other.
It's fascinating. It's not like that anymore. I mean, Gibsonton is
sort of one of those places I described it as a place where people end
up. Uh now, you know before it was, it's not. It's
not a glamorous place like I'd hope they don't embrace nowadays that sort of culture.
Yeah, the Barn of Museums in Sarasota not far away, and it's
still the showman's sort of union and that's there. But there's not much tribute
to to those people that made it well known. It's not really a tourist
destination. Although there was bar one bar there that we went to. It
was called the Alafia Brewing Company, and we went on a Friday night and
they did a proper show inside with the posters like this. They had the
Fiji Mermaid and they had uh, you know, the twenty foot Boa Constrictor
and you know, the little boy came out pressing his face into glass.
That was neat to see because I was a genuine nod to the old Gibsons
in But yeah, it was still a neat place to to visit most definitely.
Um So, do you want to get into the the actors? Sure?
Sure, sure, sure, um. I was going to mention,
uh wallace Ford, who was the kind of one of the main good guys
that was kind of befriended the circus performers in real life. In real life,
he was a World War One veteran, and I thought it was interesting
his background. He was born Samuel Grundy Jones, and where he got the
name wallace Ford is interesting and also a tragic. His childhood friend, I
believe they were kind of riding the rails and you know, hitchhiking around and
whatever, and his childhood friend had an accident with one of the trains and
fell, I think, and was run over or something like or crushed and
died. So when wallace Ford began his showbiz career, he took on that
name of his friend. His friend was named wallace Ford, so he changed
his name from Samuel Jones to wallace Ford as kind of a tribute to his
friend. And that's that's that became his stage name. Wow. Interesting.
He was a really likable, a really likable guy in the movie. I
love that. There's a memorable scene with him in Schlitze. That's so sweet.
Yeah, just a friend to the unusual people. Yeah, and he
had a long Hollywood career in stage career, and he had supporting role also
in The Last Patrol and Shoutow of a Doubt, spell Bound Um. And
he passed away on June eleventh, nineteen sixty six. He was sixty eight.
He had a heart failure. Um. He passed away at what the
Motion Picture Country Home, the kind of retirement community that's in Woodland Hills.
Yeah, okay, well, yeah, a lot of them did die out
there. That was a cool place. And then his kind of and then
his kind of fellow sort of protagonist and friend to to to the sideshow acts,
Leila Hyams. She played Venus Um and she passed away on December fourth,
nineteen seventy seven, at seventy two from also from natural causes. Yeah,
she was my friend. Gary Sweeney did a ton of research on her.
I guess he's he's going to try to get a book off the ground
about her. But she was I mean again, they were the two likable
you know that were quote unquote normal in the movie. And her name was
Venus in the movies. She wasn't owner the Lost Souls too, but that
was like the long ago one. She was in silent movies and stuff.
But but yeah, very and she was she was. Yeah, she died
in seventy seven, was scattered at sea from from helicopter, as I understand.
But uh, but um and then uh Olga back Lanova, who was
the unlikable person in this in this film, Yeah, Cleopatra really the antagonist.
She's the one that schemes uh to to to you know, fake being
in love with this little person so she can get his money. She had
a really interesting life. She was born in Moscow to kind of a showbiz
family there and ultimately immigrated to the US and became a citizen here. Um.
And she passed away on September sixth, nineteen seventy four. She was
eighty one. Um. And I believe she passed away in Switzerland. And
there was a I saw somewhere that she may have had Alzheimer's, but it's
unconfirmed. Yeah, I've heard that she died in some sort of retirement community.
So it makes sense. Uh, she was, you know, there
was I don't know. I was reading something about kudos for her acting.
I was there. She was chewing up the scenery in this movie. I
mean it was just like you know, it was. There was nothing subtle
about that performance. And when she was laughing, it wasn't like ah,
it was like you know, so it was so over the top. So
I love her drunk brooding though in the big you know, the big dinner
scene. Oh and then she starts mocking and yeah, yeah that is um,
yeah she was. But you know, it's it's it's a poor movie.
I think none of those people were except for those two leads were good
actors. You know, they're no one. They're probably the only real actors
in the movie. The uh Lila Haimes and um and Wallace Ford, but
the others are were all not really good actors. The other and the the
side show people were not actors at all. Surprisingly, they carried themselves,
but like Violet and Daisy Hilton, you know, they got they got to
walk by and you know, oh no, and that was the end.
It was like they had twenty minutes of filmmak. You know. But I
really I got to say that the Doll family, Daisy Earls and Harry Earls,
they really grew on me on this film. I thought that that for
being not professional trained actors, I thought they did a really good job.
Um. I don't know if that was Browning getting a good performance out of
them or or what it was, but I liked them in it. Yeah.
It's kind of a love story with a brother and a sister. It's
kind of interesting that kind of creeps some people out right brother and sister in
real life. Yeah. Um, and in you know Schlitzi, who probably
I don't think really had the mental capacity to act, is you know,
really act act Um. It's interesting watching him in these scenes because, um,
it's almost like you're getting his real reactions to what's happening in a way.
Yeah. Yeah, you know what. I loved love performing and loved
being the center of attention and loved affection. Uh. And yeah, it
was clear. I guess Schlitze could they say she could one of her well
to him, Uh, one of her big one of her big tricks,
you say her because Schltzi was billed as a woman. You know, let's
see the female, you know, the Aztec will girl or whatever what the
princess Princess Haja was and uh, but you know, just referred to as
a female because the dresses that they put on her, a little bow in
her hair, but it was actually a male but he was incontinent, which
is why the the war. What what she wore? And um, she
wore dresses born with microcephaly um, which means she she she had a small
cranium basically and so uh, which also meant, you know, a smaller
brain, and so it affected you know, mentally affected if so physically affected
and mentally affected. Um. I was wondering. I was going to ask
you about this. You know. Of course, the Ramolans had their one
of their big hits which was called pinhead um, which was about schlitzy uh.
And they turned you know, google gobble, which was what the freaks
in the show moved we say, they turned that into Gabba Gabba hey,
which I thought was interesting. Was now you, of course we're a big
Ramones fan or the Ramones your entry too, freaks? Was it because of
the song Pinhead? No, not at all. No, In fact,
there wasn't until many years later I realized Gabba Gabba was a play on the
freaks google Gobble. I didn't know it for years. So Pinhead I didn't
get that. I mean, there was Zippy the Pinhead, but I was
never a fan of that comic based on Schletzee and but I, um,
but no, I didn't know about the that I knew the song. But
I was telling story last night. It's like I listened to songs. I
can sing songs, but I don't process what they're about, you know.
So then you got the weeks aptew weeks after one of us, and you
know, I don't want to be a pinhead no more. I just wanted
Yeah, it's just uh, I didn't really process that it was about being
a freak in their own interpretation of it. But uh, but chlet's see.
And it's funny because schlet's See lived at the end of her life on
Santa Monica Boulevard at just a couple of streets m east of Western, right
by the one on one where you know the Tiki theater, that Porno theater.
So I almost right across the street from there. And uh and schlet's
See apparently had a sister. I was watching this guy called Wayne Kaiser on
YouTube and he did a really extensive biography. I didn't know a lot of
the stuff that he had, but he it slically was born with a sister
named Anthelia. And uh, and no one knows really what happened to the
sister, but like most of them, were sold like a lot of these
children at a young age that were born unusual, different shaped and etc.
Were sold off by their parents and to the circus and technically not technically not
legal, but kind of people just turned and looked the other way when it
happened back then, I guess, yeah, yeah, everywhere. Yeah,
So Schlitzy went by the name Simon Metz. Then it was Schlitzee Sertise,
you know, at all to do with with with his guardians, and at
the end of his life, another guy by the name I guess, after
they were dumbish let's see, dropped her off at a hospital because they know
what to do with her and uh, and they were going to give a
psychiatric evaluation and the colors she wouldn't be able to support herself. And then
apparently this person who worked at the hospital recognized let's see and got in touch
with a guy who was running a side show. At this point, Schletsy
was in her sixties and and this guy convinced the hospital to let him adopt
her and put her up in this little apartment and it would take her out
to you know, Hollywood Boulevard or Griffith Park, MacArthur Park and would just
just dance around and perform for people and just a kind Although it's interesting because
Tiny Doll, whom I'll show you, I got some of my freak stuff
out here, but I don't know what's showing. But Tiny Doll was the
youngest of the Doll family. There was Harry, Daisy, Gracie and Tiny
and Tiny autographed this for me. This is her with the cast of Freaks,
but she was actually in the movie. And it's funny because her brother
and sister. There's Daisy. I don't think Harry is in this, but
there's Prince Randian and it's it's almost the entire cast. And there's Todd Browning
back there too. But you should bring that you bring it over to the
camera. Yeah, I can see if I could do it without the reflection
of yeah, there it is. Wow. So if you're watching the video
version of this, we can see this. There's the there's Daisy, Yeah,
there's Daisy Dolls there, the Hilton sisters co joined twins. There's schlit
see Zip and Pip, Johnny eck Hugo will forget his name, but that's
crazy. Wait, that's must be daisy. No, that's tiny right there,
say I'm looking at it backwards, and Todd Browning is um back here,
I think, and um, but yeah, this but the point when
it's tiny doll. When asked about Schlitze, it is the only person I've
ever heard anything say neck and she said that. She said, she said
Schlitzy was ferocious, so they bite people and attack people. Yeah, so
maybe it was when she was provoked or so, I'd look at their schtze
behind me. It kind of looks like me. I'd rather that's funny,
because all the stories I've ever heard was that he was very she was a
very sweet person, and you know, yeah, like you said, like
being the center of attention and like performing and um, couldn't could not speak
very well, could only speak mainly in monosyllabic words, but could form sentences.
But they said they got the sense that she could understand most of what
was being said to her, even if she couldn't verbalize back as well.
Mhmm. Yeah. They said you were one of her big tricks, which
she could count to ten, but she could never say the word seven.
I think it was I don't know it was two syllables. I don't know,
but uh, but I loved I loved Shu. In fact, when
I turned forty, as it was twenty years ago, now, that's when
I realized I was never going to have a legitimate job. So that's when
I got my schlitz Eat tattoo. It's so fun amazing, Yeah, that
was. I was thrilled with that. So so when after Schlitzy died,
you know, she's buried in a grave. It couldn't heaven cemetery out in
Roland Heights and unmarked, and that was I was gonna say. That was.
She passed away on September twenty fourth, nineteen seventy one, seventy years
old, and they think possibly it was pneumonia. Yeah, brochioll Pneumonia is
the cause of death. And she died in a nursing home right on um
Fountain and just off Western. Yeah, it's called a Fountain View, a
nursing home or something, and that's where she ended up passing away and was
buried in an unmarked grave. And my friend Ceci found out about that and
let me know, and I'm like, you know, at that point,
we hadn't been marking people's graves yet we haven't done any of that stuff yet,
so I just let it go. And then they started talking about on
the Finding Death message board. And then Shelley litch Off, another friend of
mine, said well, let's start a fundraiser and she got in touch with
the cemetery and they said, well, the one thing that was wrong is
that they didn't pay the bill for the team stone, So we just raised
whatever Shelley did. The fundraiser raised the money and we're gonna have the ceremony.
This is a funny part funny in a bizarre way that things work out.
So we contacted the cemetery, made the arrangements, the stone was going
to be, the stone was going to be placed, and we decided to
have the ceremony and Verne Langdon was this guy who had a big Carney history
and he came along and did a eulogy. We contacted the cemetery and said,
we want to do this thing, and they said, well we can.
We can give you a priest, but we're gonna have to charge you
three hundred dollars for the priest to come out and do this. So we're
like, no, you know, we just we just Uh, no,
you're not gonna pay for this. I mean, it's a priest. You
should be able to, you know, give me five minutes and do a
blessing, how you know, in a Catholic cemetery. Anyway, we got
our own priest, a gentleman by the name of Brian, stepped up and
said, I'll do it. I'm a minister, and he put together this
lovely eulogy. We took a bus out there, about a dozen of us
and and Brian gave this eulogy that was non denominational, and it was just
a really lovely, touching eulogy. And we unveiled the gravestone, the tombstone,
the grave marker, and I put a pink hat on it with a
big feather, because that's what the line was in Freaks. You know,
we're gonna get your big with a big feather on it. And we put
that on the grave. So then later on we find out that Brian,
who's a buddy of mine, and I got permission to talk about this from
him because I didn't want to be disrespectful to anybody. But it's like like
Brian, who was a minister in the Church of Satan, No, he
never specified. So so we got to talking, I mean night it is
really funny the way we're talk a satanism. You know, there's a lot
of stigma attachment. It's more about atheism really, you know, it's just
about it's just about being your best life to yourself and not worrying about what's
going to happen afterwards. But it goes under this. It's like Anton Lavay,
it's show business. That's what it is. It's just show business is
punk rock. And it's like it was more to free people out than for
a lot of people. But Brian, again I had no idea. It
was a lovely ceremony the Catholic, yeah, and the church wouldn't do it,
so we got another guy. And it's just ironic that the you know,
he's not like a blood, there's none of that. I mean,
Brian's just a decent, funny eye who's an artist and uh and uh.
But it was just you know, a fascinating little twist to the to the
story, which is, uh, it's funny, funny. It's funny how
things work out. But I have a buddy named Steve Bellgard who's been working
on the SCHLITZI documentary for years is called One of Us and I reached out
because the pandemic and everything kind of put a kabash on stuff. And they're
working on the animation staff, which is nice because he's albing to read you
what he wrote me about is said, we're editing it, and I told
and the animation will be finished. Principal photography has done, Andrew Luke Oldham
already did the narration. Uh, Steve's daughter Emma is composing the score and
all they're doing is just have to put it all together, so in twenty
twenty two. But it's interesting is that the young adults who are working on
this are on the autism spectrum and the people doing the animation and his daughter
Emma is also on the autism spectrum. So it's an inclusive documentary about this
lovely character that everyone knows but doesn't really know what Schlitze was all about.
And yeah, it's a it's a funny story. I love that, love
that story and uh and and also Schlitzi is uh a friend, well friend,
an acquaintance. Naomi Grossman portrays Schlitze aka Pepper in American Horror Story and
it's a recurring character or a pinhead. When they did the institutional Um I
forget that was called the one with the really dark season. Everyone loves it,
just really bothered makes it so dark. But Pepper the Pinhead is played
by Naomi Grossman and is based on Schlitzian freak show. Freak Show the whole
season. Did you watch that American horror story season I'm not. I'm not
a big horror fans. No, I have not. I haven't really watched
that show much. It's with the whole season was about Jessica Lang running a
very much like Olga. You know, maybe the character might have been slightly
based on her. Um ran this traveling side show and they used actual you
know people and the who were born with disabilities. And my friend Matt Fraser
who was a friend, was a Philidamite. Uh you know, Matt was
born with short arms, very short like like to hear and uh. And
it was from a drug that was given to people in England for while they
are pregnant. It to um to help with morning sickness and ended up creating
these what they call birth defects. Back then on what the Home, it
was a huge scandal. It's one of the biggest scandals in history of when
it comes to that UM. I can't remember what it was called, but
I remember reading about it years ago and it was a huge hoot. I
think someone had brought me the possibility of doing even doing a documentary about the
whole I'm sure. Yeah. The mad generation had affected almost He was Matt,
Matt Fraser's his name, and I helped him when I was living in
England with his first show called Celo, and it was about Seal the Seal
Boy, who had the same It wasn't through the same cause of of of
the Philidamite drug, but he was also born with that. So Matt's first
show UH was about Celo, and then Matt features quite heavily in this UH.
In that season of American Horror Story, which is really good, they
had the Princess, the little um from East India, she's she's it's the
littlest person in the world, and they had and they made Um the young
lead I forget his name, be like Lobster Boy, who will talk about
in a little bit. So it was fascinating. The whole season was based
on real freak show performers and a lot of them were actually in this movie,
I love that Matt just embraces that. You know, he's like a
black belt. I mean, man, Matt's Matt Rocks and he's awesome.
But he um. And he helped on a show, another show that we
may call freak Out. Uh that that was that was on in England.
There was a eurotrash and another show I worked on, but freak freak Out
was a good show. And Uh, anyway, it's a people out and
about embracing it, you know, just owning it. Uh, you know,
being stared at your whole life and people you know, here's like I
don't know, it kind of got over that a long time ago, where
if I see somebody with you know, and and it's appropriate and I'll say,
so what's up with that? You know what did you you know?
What what? Uh? What's the story instead of pretending it's not there.
Yeah, I was in an elevator not that long ago with a woman with
only one leg and it does that recent that just happened or you know,
it's just it's like it's right there. I think they people would appreciate the
honesty or the you know, just the you want to know ask you know,
they can they can say pissed off. So um, but ninety percent
of the time whenever I've done that, I've never had a problem with it.
So we'll just say one hundred percent of the time I've done that,
people have been really receptive to talking about stuff like that. So rest in
peace, Schlitzy. We love hey. Yeah, at Queen of Heaven Cemetery
and thanks to the nice people that find a death for him, it's done.
She has a gravestone. It's great. It's a good story. And
now you that's a tradition for you. You you guys do fundraisers for various
for unmarked graves of various celebrities and people that have kind of you know,
died in obscurity or or died without money and have been buried in unmarked graves.
I think it's really cool. Yeah, when we were in Gibsonton,
we went to find a couple of people's graves. We found the Tomainies,
Hell and Jeanie, the Little eighty and the Giant and we were in a
cemetery and of course it was closed the gates, I mean, the office
was closed because of COVID, but there were two people in it that.
We spent hours, Troy and I did, going up and down every aisle
to try to find these people. One of them was Gracie Doll, of
the of the Doll sisters, and the other guy was one of the munchkins
too. Well, all the Dolls were were munchkins in the Wizard of Oz.
All four of them were. Uh. And there were three Lollipop kids.
We know who Jerry Marin was who passed away not that long ago,
and uh, and then Harry Doll was the other one of the Doll family
was the other Lollipop kid. And there was one other guy and i'll um
with he was in that cemetery with Gracie Doll. Jackie Gerlick was his name.
But we had no luck. We had no luck finding him. But
a lot of those people, now it was I didn't want to get into
all that yet. Sorry, I'll stop, I gotta stop talking for a
second. Well, we're talking about the Doll family. So they were German
dwarfs who immigrated to the US and then all four of them went on to
act in films and working on you know, various circus acts. Um,
that's how they made their living. And you know, we talked earlier about
how sometimes these performers would take on the name last names of whoever their guardians
were or whatever. And Daisy and Harry went under the names Earls for a
time because that was the name of their manager when they came to the US,
and then I think after their aunt manager died, they then changed it
back again. But for a time. You know two of the dolls where
I had the last name of Earls. Um, so I thought that was
kind of an interesting tradition back then. Um yeah, they changed back to
Doll after their manager died. I think they were they yeah, they were
born Schneider, then Earls. They took the name Earls, and then they
went to the dolls. I don't know if they ever well, their death
certificate says Earls on it, but in parenthesis somebody did write, you know,
Harry Doll Daisy Doll on it. So so yeah, and they went
into the day and Stay and Harry were both they were both three foot three,
that's lit. Yeah, and they had to do well, I mean,
they really had to do some real acting. I mean they had to
do real scenes. They had to carry you know, they had to hold
their own um. They weren't you know in the background. Um and I
don't know. I I liked. I thought they both did really find performances
for not being you know, professionally super professionally trained actors. That's not what
they did for a living generally. You know, Daisy was better than Harry,
I think. But but yeah, coming out of nowhere, coming out
of nowhere to give these guys leads in a movie, Um, yeah,
something they they didn't. In fact, they weren't. I don't think they
did the freak show circuit. I think they were with the circus, so
they were you know, of course accentuated for their height, uh, you
know, riding around him little ponies and stuff like that. And they were
hired by Yeah, they were with Ringling Brothers and Barnum Bailey. But they
never went the of the side show. As far as I know, they
didn't there. That's another interesting thing about these people is that they would you
know, some people just wouldn't do it. You know. Robert Wadlow will
talk about him, the tall guy. You know, he was with the
circus, but he would not go to a side show. He was a
man who was looked at because of his height, took advantage of that and
made a career out of it, but wouldn't go the freak route. And
I think the Dolls were like that too. Yeah, I can see that.
Daisy Earls passed away on March fifteenth, nineteen seventy two, and Harry
Earls or Doll, passed away on May fourth, nineteen eighty five, five
years later, and he was eighty three. And I don't have causes of
death. Yeah they well, I mean natural causes. I'm sure was nothing.
I know that Tiny Dollars was the last of them, died in two
thousand and four. But yeah, and they're all cremated except for Gracie,
who's supposedly in that cemetery. But uh, you know, we had no
luck. But it was like finding a needle in a haystack there. But
yeah, they lived in a little home, all four of them together in
the house. And they all died in that house in Sarasota. And sweet,
sweet, my little oh, I told you my friend Sadie. She
was four foot two. But she would do again. She would do nothing.
She'll do a lot of you know, so go in animal costumes,
but she'll never do a circus. And that was just their their kind of
thing. Yeah, as opposed to dwarves, because the dwarves are a whole
different a whole different thing. Because I saw Willy Wonka this week. It
was a fiftieth anniversary, so I went to the movies to see it,
and I thought it was going to be this like amazing digital print. It
wasn't. It was a nice print, but it was, you know,
obviously it was not remastered visually, but it was interesting to see the Umpa
Loopa's on the big screen again and the famous dwarves, Herve Biliche of course,
um Tattoo Vern Troyer, Tony Cox, who's still alive. I saw
him my CBS lately, the guy that the black guy in um in Bad
Santa and Okay, yeah, yeah, Kenny Baker, Billy Bartie, David
Rappaport, Zelda Rubinstein from Poldergeist, Peter Dinklich from ELF. We talked about
it in the UH in the other podcast. Um Johnny Eck, Johnny Ech,
the half Man who had the half Man he had no no lower half
from the waist down basically are and um uh And I thought this is interesting.
Apparently DiCaprio has been wanting to do a film about his life since the
nineties. Uh. And there's a screenplay written by the screenwriter who wrote Edward
Scissor Hands. Uh And supposedly the screenplay is amazing. And but I mean
trying for probably you know, thirty years now almost to get a film made,
um and for whatever reason hasn't happened yet. But if that that would
be really fascinating. Yeah, he was an interesting man. Um. Yeah,
I did realized he had a twin brother. I didn't know that until
recently. They were they were and they would do that magic act where they
would he saw somebody in half and Johnny would get out and run around.
You know, there's a few people that have been doing that if you've seen
them recent on YouTube, those pranks where there's a couple of other people that
do that on the beach on Venice Beach. Oh my god, it's hilarious
to it. But I mean I read that like people would run screaming from
the tent or wherever it was they were doing that performance that because it was
a saw in half act. And yeah, and the brother would be the
legs and you know, Harry Ech of course would be the top half and
they would start chasing after his legs basically, and people would run screaming from
from the building. Men would abandon women, like just run for their lives.
Look them up on YouTube. There's a couple of prank videos like that
where somebody does that on Venice Beach and it's terrifying because you think somebody's literally
caught half and I he'd run to run faster on his feet, on his
hands, and most people can in their feet, and he would just run
after people. It was just, oh my god, you'd lose your mind.
But apparently he had um. He had he had legs, apparently,
and we had him like tucked up. He didn't want his legs, you
know, he didn't. I mean they were probably not very big. But
he apparently did have legs, and he and uh and uh someono tucked into
his clothing. At least that's what in one of the documentaries I saw mentions
that and uh but they were Yeah, he was born to fraternal twins,
and that he lived and died in the same house and born and died in
the same house. He could run, He could do um tight rope.
He could his trick was like going up on down on the ladder and uh.
And there's a famous picture him and him on a bicycle, a double
bike and Johnny, you know, the half man is on one side and
then the other guy who has no arms is with his peddling and Johnny's stirring.
It's a great picture. Wow, But yeah, he was. It's
interesting because I literally just found this guy. His name was Jeffrey Pratt Gordon,
and I saw he did a little interview about Johnny eck on YouTube,
so I reached out on Facebook and we've been corresponding, and I asked him
about the house he bought, Johnny X house and he's like a Johnny K
historian. There's Johnny I think Johnny K Museum dot com is what it's called
his website, and he sells like Johnny ac t shirts and stuff like that.
But he bought the house that he says. The house was built in
eighteen ninety six. The Eckhart was there in Eckhart as he shortened it to
eck They bought it in nineteen o six. John Senior, Amelia, their
mother, and their older sister Carolyn. Both parents died in the home in
thirty nine, a month apart from each other. They were set up for
viewing in the living room parlor, thus the name parlor for funeral homes.
And uh and he says, yeah, I still owned the house. He
and his brother were born in the second floor on August twenty seventh, nineteen
eleven. Johnny died directly below that room on j New or fifth, nineteen
ninety one. His brother passed away in ninety five at at Church Home Hospital
and was the only This was their only home they ever knew. That's kind
of neat that somebody who had a real respect and an honor for these for
Johnny ex because he was an accomplished he could act. He's a good looking
guy. He uh, he was. He would paint and you know,
there's a thing and I think it's a Baltimore thing where they paint on screens
and there you could see John johnny x artwork on this on this website.
It's He's an interesting man, very interesting man, and a very kind man.
I've heard only nice things about him. We had, you know,
another really fascinating story were the Siamese twins, Violet and Daisy Hilton. You
know, the term Siamese twins came come from the original ones that were Changanang
Bunker, and who were the you know, they were born in what was
then Siam and then it now is Thailand. But they're the ones very famously
you know, fathered twenty one children and they were the original Siamese twins and
that just became the term for co joined twins. So Violet and Daisy Hilton
were actually born in Britain and sold and exploited and uh and they actually escaped
their manager. I guess this woman at bottom was really nasty, beat them
and put them on display. And then when she died, someone else inherited
these two girls and the same abuse. So somehow they came to America.
Somehow they got to an attorney and you gotta help us, you got to
get us out of here, and uh and this guy did and freed them
from from their their their you know, abusive guardians. Legal they were purchased.
You know, it's so sad, but they were both they had a
combined weight of one hundred and sixty six pounds to Hilton sisters. They stood
four foot nine and they you know, they toured with Bob Hope and yeah,
yeah they were legit. I mean they're you know, to to to
to know them. If they were standing next to each other, they had
an odd little angle, but no one knew there. A lot of people
didn't even know they were connected. They would walk very smoothly, get in
and out of cars really easy, you know. So they but they had
to have their dresses specially made or modified because they had to be connected.
And they were connected by um, let's see, their lower spines and hips
were fused. They had the same blood circulation and uh and the same with
the Bunkers. And uh. There was a movie they did on their own
after Freaks called UM Change for Life, about this love affair that they were
having and how they would uh their their respective partners and uh and I think
one was but they represented that one would kiss and the other one would feel
it. So it was just I don't know, I don't think that was
true that get really happened that way. But they retired. They moved to
Charlotte, North Carolina, and they worked in a supermarket together and Violet or
Daisy would run the cash register and the sister who was sitting next to her
obviously because they were connected, would you know, like weigh the produce or
something. And the people that worked in the supermarket and they went theredn't didn't
even know. They were like Siamese twins and they lived a little horse and
uh yeah, it is interesting they were. They were imagine, imagine not
spending a minute by yourself, you know, connected from birth and never having
a moment to yourself. There was another pair of twins, Ronnie and Donnie
gay Galleon, who would you know, brothers that were just they would beat
the ship out of each other, you know, and they were connected.
They couldn't go anywhere, you know. It's like, you know, just
a whole life of compromises is what they'd have to do. You know,
just the ire life is a compromise. It's fascinating. But yeah, so
they were. They had a colorful life, and they ended up, you
know, being out of the picture completely. Didn't want to do any of
that stuff anymore. I think they did show Freaks once at their home in
Charlotte or that. I don't know if they went to it or they asked
them to go. I don't know if they ever did show up on it,
but they passed away in an interesting way. You probably have that too,
because I don't the date. I think, well, one of them
died. They had influenza pneumonia, died of pneumonia, and they say one
of them died and it was several hours later before the other one died,
which has got to be just terrifying. Well, that's what happened to the
Bunkers, you know, the original Siamese twins. They had different lives and
they could I think it was Houdini taught them or was at the Hilton sisters
taught them how to separate their brains, you know, from the other one,
how they could put themselves in some sort of trance to dismiss the other
one completely. So when they want to, you know, have marital relations
and stuff, because what they would like the Bunkers, they were both married,
so they would spend a week at this house and then spend a week
at that house, so they could all have their own you know, their
own deal and h but he was again Chang and ang um. One of
them became a heavy drinker and the other one was one of them had a
stroke and one of their legs was paralyzed. Imagine being connected and they're having
a a you know, a leg that didn't work anymore, and they contracted
bronchitis. And one of them, Uh, they were sitting at because they
want to sleep because they had congestion issues. So they slept in a chair
in front of the fire and one of them died and and so you know,
they found him and the other one says, well, I'm going to
it's like two hours later he died too. But I think they could have
been fairly simple operations to nowadays to separate them. But they didn't want to
do it, you know, so what they knew, and the Hiltons were
that way too, the Hilton sisters, they just didn't want to do it.
And uh, and you have you seen um they're called the Chappelle sisters,
Lorie and Dorry Chappelle. Uh. They're connected by the head. And
they showed up on Mari and they showed up on Jerry and one of them
has spina bifida and you know, it's like on a tray and the other
one can can you know, move pretty well on her own and uh and
then Dorry, who was the one on the tray, um became country singer
called changed her name to rebut so touring on a tray with her sisters all
and her around the whole time as his country singer called rebut and now identifies
as a male goes by George so So and also Lorie. The other one
is a trophy winning bowler, which is something that I find fascinating. But
by Changan Aang Bunker, by the way, when they died, um they
have they still have family reunions of all their ancestors, of all their descendants.
And there's the last one was in two thousand and six, fifteen hundred
descendants of Chang and Yang Bunker and Harry mount Airy, North Carolina Mount.
Yeah mount Airy. So um and that interesting, Well that's wild. And
then just I got in a deep dive for a moment about twins, and
yeah, all these other people were twins. You know Nelson, Ricky Nelson's
kids, Jerry Hall, Linda Hamilton, Mary Lew Henner, Scarlett Johansson,
Corey Kennedy, Liberaci had a twin that died of as an infant. Elvis
had a twin that died as an infant, the Olsen twins, and Aaron
Murphy and Diane Murphy was tabith on be which all these people had a b
Davis was a twin. Isn't it interesting? And but you know they made
on the Brady Bunch Alice sure sure um. Also Aston Kutcher. Oh really,
I didn't know that as interesting. Giovanni Rubisi too is another one.
But it's a fasting. Yeah yeah. And some of them, you know,
it's known because like the like with them the Olsen twins that you know,
we always knew they were twins because they worked as child actors and and
Hollywood productions like working with child actors who have twins because of labor laws,
um and you know, limits with how many hours a day they're allowed to
work. So if you have twins, you can just rotate them in and
out, um without overworking anyone twins. So it's interesting when they when it
a celebrity becomes famous, not as a child actress, so you don't know
that they have a twin because you know they became famous later in life.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, it's very interesting. And I know that
sometimes like one change is appearance quite drastically and they had to you know,
stick with one fax ended. That was the way with the with the Tabitha
Zombie which Aaron and Diane Murphy and uh and they then it just went down
to you know Aaron Murphy as the Tabitha for the rest of it. You
know, it was just the way things ended up. But anyway, so
yeah, famous Twins the co joined twins Violet, Daisy, Chang and Yang.
So um, how about what's different? This is? This is this
is like epic. This thing is a really long podcast. Uh. Robert
Wadlow was another one. He wasn't in Freaks, but he was a very
famous man. He was the tallest man in the world eight foot eleven twenty
two eight and he would he didn't stop growing. There was no sign of
him stopping. Uh. And uh, I forget what why? Why?
They what? They he had an infection or something. Well, actually,
no, I know how he died. He was traveling with a shoe company
and he was like he was like he would show up at shoe stores and
open them or whatever. He was like twenty something, right, yeah,
yeah, And and he had a by all accounts, a really nice guy.
We were when Jordan and I went on that trip recently, we stopped
and in Illinois to go to his museum, which was closed because of COVID,
but going to his grave and went to his house and all that stuff,
and that was pretty cool. But he was in Manistee, Michigan,
doing a shoe store in a shoe store promotion that they had hired him to
do, and he wore ankle braces because he was so big he needed the
support, and one became irritated and infected and they couldn't take him to the
hospital because they couldn't accommodate him. So they stayed in the hotel room for
like ten days, put two or three beds together so he could be comfortable.
But he ended up passing away there in Michigan and Manistee, Michigan,
and shipped back to Illinois twelve Paul bearers and eight assistants. They said the
coffin was ten foot by nine foot and weighed over a thousand pounds. Robert
Wadlow is one of those famous attractions. If you go to Ripley's, believe
it or not, there's almost always a Robert Wadlow statue on the outside of
it, which is which is neat. But I did a lot of research.
I love Robert Wadlow on him and I'm gonna be doing something about that.
We got into his school and it was neat. It was neat to
tell there. I liked him a lot. It was neat. But um,
we can there's a couple of ones that you know, they don't have
much of a history to them as so much as uh, I don't know
much about him. I mean, the Prince Randian was a fascinating one to
look at. We mentioned him earlier, who was armless and legless and would
wear like this wool kind of garment around him. It just looked like a
potato sack really, And and he could His talent was he could roll cigarettes
with his mouth only and he could shave himself too, So that's what he
would do for his entertainment portion of of the side show, for his little
feature. And he was actually born in Guyana, spoke five languages, fathered
five children that I'm really curious about. And he had it was called Tetramelia
where he was born without limbs. But um, yeah, And he died
December nineteenth, nineteen thirty four, New Jersey, was sixty three years old.
A spontaneous rupture of the heart and my heart attack basically. Yeah.
Then up to the Tomaani's Genie and Altomany. We mentioned them a little while
ago. They're the ones to start at Gibsonton where all these lovely, wonderful
people were able to to live and not be bothered by others, and opened
up their Giants fishing camp. They adopted two kids. He was eight foot
four, she was he was worth twenty six shoe and uh and opened up
their little restaurant and Jeannie TooMany stayed there until she passed away. Uh and
uh and their their old giants camp. It's they've kept one of the cottages
and there is a statue of Altomani's boot in front of it. But it's
like on a busy road and if you literally, if you don't look,
you wouldn't you wouldn't see it. And it's it's sad because these people were
important at that for the whole town and for the community. And she said,
she she said, you know, people always looked at this oddly because
she was the half girl. Of course they were going to look at her
oddly. She goes, When I was young, I had a ball,
she said. I loved the attention. And uh so taking these you know,
lemons and making lemonade as it were sure they were the world's strangest married
couple. And uh and uh, Yeah, and they're and they're forever and
Gibsons in two they're buried in the same cemetery, although a little bit further
from each other. But uh, yeah said, but lovely, lovely people
from all account and then, uh, I'll just do a little brief thing
on Grady Styles. I did a YouTube video about him and his murder.
They called him the lobster Boy. He was extraductively was what I think it
was called, where he was born with it with his fingers fused together and
his arms. And he came from a family that did that on purpose to
be in the side show, you know, like they purposely made more lobster
babies so they could carry on this family tradition. There was a book that
was really big in the nineties called Geek Love, and it was about that
sort of that was one of the main parts as his family were creating their
own quote unquote freaks, so to continue that family tradition. It um,
it's fascinating, it's fascinating. And Grady Styles was a nasty drunk, mean
drunk would beat people, strangle people, had butt people, and his wife
basically took a contract out on him. And it's it's it's a fascinating story
because he had a lobster child and as two lobster children and then um,
but the woman, the mother who's beating, the wife who married him twice,
was married to him for a second time, who and her her son
from a different relationship, the human blockhead who would pound nails into his head.
She told her son, I got to get out of this relationship.
So blockhead hired another guy to kill him and uh and did for like fifteen
hundred dollars and uh, they you know, it was done in a minute.
They rolled in a minute when the police are doing the investigations. But
yeah, it's a fascinating story. Greedy Styles and it's on my YouTube channel
if you wanted to, uh to find out more about it. Just h
and Greedy Styles the Third. He's still around there. Remember for a while
there was that freak show in Venice. It just closed like three years ago,
and they had Greedy Styles the Third there and it was it was mostly
geeks, you know, and people shoving nails into their faces and swallowing sword
swallowers and say, there were very few I think, uh, you know,
proper what they would call physical sideshow attractions and um and uh yeah,
but that was that was a freak show. A lot of little people.
And and Grady the Third, I don't know where he is anymore, but
he's still around. I guess he's active on Facebook. I haven't looked.
Huh. There's just one other point I wanted to make is that modern day
freak shows. I think it's on PC and they would never let it happen
now, But have you turned on TLC, you know, the Learning the
Learning Channel, it's my six hundred pound life. It's the world's fattest people,
but it's the hoarders, it's the little families, and it is like
the you know, they're they're going under the under the umbrella of being the
Learning Channel and almost being educational, but they are just doing the freak shows,
you know, and and it's under a different guys. But I just
found that. I found that interesting. It still exists and they're masking it
as this educational television, but it's really exploitation in its own way. Yeah.
But so we wanted to talk about Todd Browning and when you read something,
Yeah, so I had a couple of guys I wanted to talk about
Todd Robbins, who was the author who wrote the short story Spurs that Freaks
was based on. So when Browning wanted to make Freaks, he optioned the
rights or bought the rights to the Spurs short story. And Spurs was based
actually in France and when a French traveling carnival or circus, and most of
the story of course was thrown out. Very little of it survived into the
screenplay. I think the big dinner scene was the main thing that and I
think one other scene were the two main things that stayed. And I believe
the overall the kind of plot of the scheming trapeze artist, you know,
trying to get the guy's money, I think that was taken from that,
you know, the short story. But I think everything else, of course
was changed, and of course was moved from France to the US the setting.
But Todd Robbins was an interesting guy. He was born into a wealthy
family in the northeast US and um, yes, the author of the short
story today. Sorry, So Todd Robbins had an interesting life. He was
born into wealth, he was born, you know, up in the northeast,
and his dad died when he was fairly I think still a young man,
Robbins was so he inherited you know, so much wealth at that age.
He really didn't need to work anymore. Um, And he became an
author and he eventually immigrated to the French riviera and was there when World War
two started, and he had every opportunity to leave. He could have gone
back to the UK, or he could have even gone back to the US
to we're kind of right out the war, but he was kind of like
defiant and he refused to leave France. So he ended up being sent to
a concentration camp that was in France, um you know by that in Germans
when they invaded and it was not um, not that there were any good
concentration camps. It was not like a death camp or something horrible like that,
but it was where um, a lot of them you know, Americans
and Brits that were caught, you know, civilians that were you know,
became part of occupied you know, France. It's where they were sent um.
And so he went through that experience and they don't they don't know which
camp he was in. He never wrote about it, but he was.
But they've kind of guessed at which one he probably was sent to and then
uh, and then he eventually, you know, he survived and he got
through the war and he passed away there in the French Riviera in nineteen forty
nine on May tenth, and he was sixty years old. But he had
a crazy he had a crazy one crazy story that I really liked was he
was when he was in college in America. They went to some he and
some buddies went out for a night out and they ended up in some theater.
Uh. And it was there was a boxing event going on, and
there was this frenchman in the ring who was touting himself as like the champion
boxer of France, and they had they had a fight in the guy won,
and then they challenged anybody in the in the audience that wanted to fight
this guy. If they won, they would be crowned, you know,
the boxing champion of France. They would become the new guy. And so
Todd Robbins friends goaded him into doing it. I guess he was a pretty
athletic guy. And when he got in the ring, the French fighter looked
at him, was like no, and and left and so he so he
unofficially, by default, Todd Robbins became the you know, the unofficial so
called you know, champion boxer of France. Um, he was just be
getting of the ring and it turned out that this this boxer was actually this
Frenchman was actually just an actor and he was just trying to get money to
go home. So it was all, you know, wow set up.
But yeah, it was really a fascinating story. So he probably Spurs that
was The Freaks was based on. It's probably the biggest most famous work he
did, right, I mean, yeah, yeah he had other um he
was published if if he had a few other books published, I believe,
full length novels and stuff. But yeah, I think Spurs is probably what
he's bost best known for because Odd Browning you know, took on Yeah,
and I thought it was interesting since Todd Browning himself had a history with you
know, carnivals and circuses working with them, that he would take on this
film. And it's almost like he was the right person to tell the story
because he showed all these performers as real human beings and showed them with some
compassion, which another director that didn't have that background might not have done or
probably wouldn't have done. So it's almost like, you know, like they
did today, they would call that representation. You know, representation matters.
Having this director that probably, you know, I'm sure had befriended performers like
this when he worked and that circuit himself had a much more sympathetic eye towards
those characters than someone else might have had, I think. Um. But
Todd Browning, uh, he made his became a famous director in the silent
era, and was most famous because he did ten films with Lon Cheney and
when he went on to make Dracula in nineteen thirty one, he wanted Cheney,
but Chaney died and so he got as he kind of put it,
he kind of got stuck with Bella Daghossi was not his first choice, but
of course Bello Legossi, you know, made the role famous, and Todd
Browning's Dracula with Bella Legossi as a major, major milestone in the history of
horror film production and kicked off, as we said earlier, Universal's whole monster
movie horror run in nineteen thirties. It's so famous. Yeah, yeah,
so he had also Browning had also previously done another film, a silent film
about circus carnival performers that he made in nineteen twenty seven called the Show.
So it wasn't even the first time he'd done this subject matter before. But
here's the interesting story that I really wanted to tell. So in nineteen fifteen,
Todd Browning was not yet a famous, established director yet, he was
just kind of in early stages of his career. And he was driving at
night with two other people, both in the show biz and one of them
was Elmer Booth, who at that time had some fame as a silent film
actor. And there's two versions of events. One is that Browning was driving
drunk, and the other one was that it was foggy and visibility was bad.
It may have been a combination of the two. But he ran into
a train, into like a flat car on a train, and it was
carrying rails and it was you know, it instantly killed Elmer Booth from you
know, severe head trauma from running into the rails, and Todd Browning and
the other passenger were seriously seriously injured, broken bones, lacerations to their face,
and it apparently took him quite a long time, quite a few months
to recover from this accident. So here's where it gets interesting. I went
back and read the original stories. You know, in the old stories,
they would actually print the people's addresses in the newspaper. And the address that
they gave for Todd Browning was forty five hundred Sunset Boulevard, which was where
d W. Griffith Studio was based at that time. And d W.
Griffith was getting ready to make Intolerance his big epic, and Elmer Booth was
actually slated he was going to get a role in that film, and Browning
was ended up working as an assistant director on Intolerance. He was one of
the many assistant directors they had working on because it was such a huge production.
So Elmer Booth dies and d W. Griffith feels bad for Booth's family.
And Elmer Booth had a younger sister named Margaret Booth, and d W.
Griffith hired her as what they didn't used to call cutters, which were
now called film editors, and a cutter literally because they would take scissors and
razorblades physically cut the film to edit it all together. So Margaret Booth gets
hired almost kind of out of sympathy for her family by dBW Griffiths, because
you know, they lost their breadwinner and Elmer Booth when her brother died.
So Margaret Booth starts working as a cutter. So fast forward to nineteen thirty
two and Freaks has been made, and as we talked about earlier, Irving
Alberg took the movie away from Browning and chopped almost a third of it off.
Yeah, yeah, and guess who was the supervising editor at MGM by
this point Margaret No kidding, yep, Margaret Booth was the supervising editor at
MGM, and she was made supervising editor in nineteen thirty two. She'd been
an editor there for several years. She had become good friends with Irving Thalberg.
In fact, Irving Thalberg, as the legend goes, coined the term
film editor it never existed before, and bestowed it upon Margaret Booth. She
was disposedly, as legend goes, the first person to be given the film
editor title in the twenties, and so she'd been an editor at MGM for
years by this point, gets made the supervising editor, and she never forgave
Todd Browning for the death of her brother and Irving Thalberg and MGM takes his
movie away from him and edit the hell out of it and cuts in.
I don't know if she ever had anything to do with Freak. She's not
credited on it. But they also said that when she became supervising editor for
the next thirty years, there wasn't a project that came out of MGM that
she didn't have oversight over as an editor. Wow. So it's interesting whether
or not, you know, if she had anything to do with it getting
chopped down over this, you know. And she had no love for the
guy obviously because she for the death of her brother. So I don't know.
And she ended up having one of the most prolific careers. She's a
very, very famous editor in film history, not just because she's, you
know, supposedly the first person to get the title, but she had a
seventy year career in post production in Hollywood. She edited Annie in nineteen eighty
two. She was in her eighties, that's how long her career went.
She also edited A Goodbye Girl. She edited Mutiny on the Bounty back in
the thirties. I mean, she was in the middle of it. What
a what a life and and and in its part because her brother died and
she got offered that job. And at that time, in the early years,
most of the cutters were women. Most of the film editors were female.
Um, in those early years, really, I didn't know that.
And there a story and in one of the seasons of American Horror Story there
was a character named Margaret Booth, which I assume maybe is connect. It
wasn't based on her in any way. I don't think the character was like
her, but it was she was named Margaret Booth. Yeah, yeah,
I'm going to look that up because that's symbolic of something, you know,
it's got to be. So maybe it is the Freak Show season, I
wonder. Hum. And then of course there's a six degrees of Manson connection,
because there always is. Uh. One of her early film credits was
in nineteen twenty three was a film called The Wanters, and this is a
year before MGM got formed, but it was for Louis B. Mayer,
his original production company, and which also featured Norma Shoe, who was Irving
Thalberg's went on to be Irving Thalberg's wife and the queen of MGM in the
thirties. Um and Uh, the writer of the Wanters was Paul Byrne Oh
my gosh, okay, and of course Paul Burne, you know, built
the house that eventually Jay seburn lived in when at the time of the murders,
of the Manson murders, when he became when he was killed. That's
good, that's good. It's like one of the sixty years ago we gotta
do this, he gotta figure it out. You did it. It's really
good. There's got to be a reference in there somewhere. There has to
be, man, I know some people get annoyed. It very very good.
Yeah. I didn't know that until I was reading a little bit about
it that he is an uncredited Todd Brownie was an uncredited writer on um Intolerance
did w griwth movie interest. That's interesting and they it's kind of newsy now
because um, you know, Intolerance was the largest movie show ever if you
look it up, it's insane the amount of extras that were in this thing,
Intolerances of I thought it was kind of a hard movie to sit through,
but uh, but it's a silent movie and epic huge sets that were
actually they said one of the first tourist attractions in Hollywood. People came here
because they didn't tear them down through it. Yeah, that was right.
So we talked about the Vista Theater. We talked about the Vista Theater earlier,
and that's where basically the set was kind of in that block of streets
there, which was right next to where dd Wig Griffith studios were, and
they remained standing of a set. There's a picture of the set being built
and you can still match up the houses that are still there. It's it's
all still there. So um. Margaret Booth died in two thousand and two
at the age of one hundred and four. She lived in three different centuries.
No, kid, I was born in eighteen ninety eight, so she
lived in the eighteen hundreds, the nineteen hundreds and to two thousands' is that
crazy? Um? And then you know Todd rounding his career kind of faded
throughout over the thirties. He did some more films, but by nineteen thirty
nine reportedly he felt like, you know, the industry had kind of passed
him on the sensibilities of the audience as had changed from the types of films
that he made, and so he basically virtually retired by the end of the
nineteen thirties, and then he went in he became a recluse. He had
a home in Malibu and he just disappeared into the home. And his wife
died in nineteen forty four, and he had been become he'd become such a
recluse by then. That apparently that one of the bigger bituaries reported that he
had died then, not not his wife. There was confusion, and then
he you know, he kind of lived in an alcoholic, reclusive lifestyle and
died himself on October sixth, nineteen sixty two, and the cause was unknown,
but he had been treated for cancer over those last few years of his
life, and of course he had years of alcohol abuse, so I know
that he had. Oh there was a story, did you did you see
read that story about the guy showing up at at his grave at his funeral
with a case of Coors Beer. I don't know where I already if I'm
finding that, but yeah, here's the story I got. It was he
was he was embalmed by Gates, Kingsley Gates. They're the people whom they're
in Santa Monica still after visiting hours, a gentleman only known as Lucky sat
with Browning's corpse and polished off a case of Coors beer. He knew nothing
of Browning's life, Hollywood life, but the two were drinking buddies and the
pact was made while Todd was still alive. So, um, that's an
interesting story. There was a thing about Todd Browning had a parrot and the
only thing it knew how to say it was worse Dorothy. Okay, that's
hilarious. Oh yeah, and I forget who he was with, because he
kind of chummed up with a bunch of people. But he's buried in this
little place with his wife Alice, and these other people called Houghton h o
U G h t O N and a little column barry him. Is the
most unassuming little place. Um. Yeah, his wife was probably like,
who the hell is Dorothy? Yeah, the parent saying some other woman's name.
It was the League Wizard of Oz fans here. That must be it
must be it. Um. But um, I think so did we do
freakes? I think we're done with freaks. Um. I wanted to give
a I wanted to give a quick shout out. We talked earlier about you
know, you mentioned some documentaries, Uh, related to some of these characters,
and that reminded me that, um, you know our mutual acquaintance friend,
Jeffrey Schwartz. Uh, he's a documentary filmmaker. He did Divine,
a Divine documentary, and tab Hunter Confidential and Alan Carr really really good showbiz
docs. Um. And he has a new one coming out called Boulevard,
a Hollywoo story that's all about how Glorious Swanson tried to get a Sunset Boulevard
musical off the ground. Um. Maybe you know she was trying to do
it herself. And I did this story, and yeah, it's amazing.
It's a story I knew nothing about, and apparently I m I AMDB it
popped up. I got a special thanks credit for it, which is really
nice. Nice. I don't know, I don't remember what I did,
but I'm I appreciate it always and I'm freaking fascinated by this story just reading
about it, and um, it apparently premiered it out fast this past this
month, and hopefully we'll be out, you know, for people to watch
and rent soon. I don't know what the release plan for it is,
but I'm sure distribution and you know, be out in the next few months
hopefully. So it is fascinating. I mean, Glorious Swanson was a smart
lady and she bought the rights to a musical version of Sunset Boulevard in the
sixties. She was going to get this thing out the ground. I think
she may even got the rights in the fifties, but but she was working
with these guys. She got the permission from Paramount Studios to do this,
and then Paramounts started backing off on it, and they started saying, well,
you know, we can't we don't want it to uh take away from
the actual movie itself. And I know they really jerked her around because she
spent a lot of money on it. She hired these two guys that were
composing the music, and and Paramount really jerked her around on it. It's
it's it's very interesting. Yeah, I'm like, I'm looking forward to this
documentary because she ended up. Yeah, it's probably one of the biggest disappointments
of her life, if there was one, was that this thing didn't get
off the ground, because it was a real passionate project for her. So
I'm excited to see it. I guess Andrew Lloyd Webber got one off the
ground in the nineties, but that's not the same It wasn't the same project
that she was. Correct, Yeah, thank you before we wrap, well
for people watching the video version, what is the big banner behind you?
By the way, that we referenced a couple of times this was I had
this made actually, Uh so I had a customed done for me and uh
it was just grady, But yeah, I had this done. I don't
know. It was the last time I got an income tax refund, so
it had to be in early two thousands. And this is what I this
is what I spent the money on. So it's genuine, like it's a
tart. It's done, you know, it's like a real proper tar carembus,
and it's got the groments that you hanging on Johnny act. These are
my three favorites. And uh and thank you for asking about it, Mike,
because I'm putting this up on eBay because yeah, so after this thing,
after this thing airs, it's not a little commercial. Now I'm putting
this up on eBay, so because I can't use it anymore and it's just
too big. I got no space for it. And I love it.
And I think it's heavy. It's heavy duty. So anyway, you're welcome.
We're now like the home shopping Network suddenly no, yeah, three for
three, low low payments. But yeah, that was fun. Now it
was exhausting. It was a lot of information about a lot of different people.
And the video version is probably going to be you know, a little
bit more. We'll put the images up so people are gonna know who we're
talking about. You know, we can throw pictures up there and of who
these people were in the movie. And yeah, but they are all so
interesting. They're all, like the books, are very special people. And
uh and I agree, I agree that they were, and they're still we're
still talking about them. Yep. Absolutely. Um, all right, well,
thanks everybody. Thanks to everybody for listening. Thanks again to all of
our Patreon supporters and uh and everybody else that listens to our show. We
appreciate everyone, and we have fun and you know, during these times especially,
I listened to podcasts a nice escape, and hopefully you know, we're
doing the same. Oh you know what, somebody, Alison Martino texted me
yesterday, there's a new documentary about that murder house in Los Felish woman put
Yeah, it's like a seven episode podcast about and for those who don't know,
there's this old house up in less Fields neighborhood in La up in the
hills by by Griffith Park. And this house has been sitting here empty for
decades and you look inside and all these old you know, gift of Christmas
gifts and things like that are still there from the fifties because the family that
lived there, the father killed the wife, tried to kill the daughter with
a hammer, uh and uh, and he ended up being he killed himself.
He drank sinaide and in this house and so this but it's always been
kind of a strange story. But this woman actually did put it together.
And apparently there was another death in that house she was being vague about.
Of course, she wants people to watch the Yeah, the home. The
home stayed vacant for decades and decades um. And you could even look in
through the windows and see old Christmas decorations from yeah, you know, from
back of then. It kind of was left untouched and I think kind of
was used as storage basically by the estate over the years a friend of mine,
because it was inherited. Yeah, sorry, I think I think there
it was inherited by their landscaper or something, and then the landscaper died and
the Sun got it, and the Sun is the one who had it.
Now he's dead and that's why I went for sale again. It's called um
los Feeless Murder Mansion podcast and the family. What's interesting now because you talk
about the Christmas presents, the family was perils and their Jews, so it's
it's interesting. So there's it's there's a lot of confusion about that story,
and this podcast is supposed to be addressing that. That's interesting. A friend
of mine who's the producer I has, I believe he has the film rights
to that, to the house and the story. Oh nice, and I
think trying to get something going. So that's really I'm almost positive at the
los Field's Murder House. Yeah, so that's really interesting. I wonder if
he knows that that podcast is coming up, maybe something could happen. Who
knows, Maybe it'd be a good episode of American Horse. Oh actually the
first one is that already The Murder Mansion, right, but um, but
yeah, well thanks freaks, yeah, thanks freak good Google Google Goggle,
Google Google Goggle. One of us will accept you one of us. Yeah,
we accept you. We accept you. So you're one of us listeners
and we'll see you on the next one. Thank you, Take care.
This has been an episode of the Dearly Departed podcast. Dig up more episodes
at Dearly departedpod dot com and on iTunes and Google Play. See you next time.