WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1217 - Sally Struthers

Episode Date: April 12, 2021

Sally Struthers is thinking a lot about the passage of time these days. For one, this year is the 50th anniversary of All In The Family premiering on CBS. She's also thinking that so many people she worked with in movies like Five Easy Pieces and The Getaway are no longer with us. And she's thinking about how all this downtime from the pandemic is keeping her from doing what she loves: touring the country in stage productions. Sally talks with Marc about how time catches up with all of us, but also how she can look back fondly and with gratitude on what has passed.  Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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T's and C's apply. Lock the gates! All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fucking ears? What the fucksters? What's happening?

I'm Mark Maron. This is my podcast. Welcome to it. If you haven't been here for a while, welcome back. fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fucksters what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast welcome to it if you haven't been here for a while welcome back if you've never been here welcome interesting time to show up how are you you're right just sit over there and listen all right don't talk this time next time you can talk to me all right is that unfair i don't know you i don't know you you just walk in off the street how do i i don't fucking know you man i'm not saying you can't be here but i don't fucking know you should just relax hang out see if you like it if not split if you do just listen and

then maybe in a couple weeks when i can you know you walk in i'm like hey there's that guy with then maybe you can say hello talk a little bit And then maybe after a month or so, like you walk in, I'm like, hey, Steve. What's up, Joey? Hey, Stacy. How's it going? Janine, what's up? How have you been? Debbie, good to see you.

Hey, how are you, Melody? How are you? What's happening? Huh? What's going on, kid? You know what I'm saying? I got to get to know you so just hang out it's gonna be dicey you know for the first few weeks between us it always is anyone who's ever listened

to this show they're like i didn't like you at the beginning i don't want i didn't like you i was like why is he talking and then i fast forwarded to i just said that like bill burr why is he talking why is he talking huh how is he talking? Huh? How are you? Welcome. Nice to have you. It is. And I hope you're doing all right. Today on the show, Sally Struthers. And I know some people think like, really? What's she been up to? You know, sometimes people are just working. I mean, just because you haven't seen somebody or

you know them from when you're a kid doesn't mean they don't have a life after that just because you don't see them anymore it's a weird thing about being a public person everyone assumes that because they don't see you that guy must have crapped out must have tanked must have failed must have died must have got sick must have died, must have got sick, must have quit. Sometimes that's true. Sometimes it's true. But not in this case. Sally Struthers has been out on the road. She does a lot of touring theater.

She's a big major touring stage actor doing a lot of the big national productions of musicals like hello dolly and annie she's out there doing the work going town to town doing a few weeks here a few weeks there singing the songs being funny she was funny but i've been wanting to talk to her for a long time she actually did an episode or two was it one or two episodes of my show the last season on Marin? And we've always talked about having her on the podcast. She doesn't do a lot of interviews. She's one of these people that's like, I'm not technological. I have a dial phone, you know, that kind of thing. But this year is the 50th anniversary of All in the Family.

So this kind of synced up with that. We thought it would be a good time. this kind of synced up with that we thought it would be a good time and it's a it's it's hard to forget what a singular talent sally struthers is i mean the two movies the two major movies that i remember that she did before all in the family that when you see her in it you're like oh my god is that sally struthers she's so fucking good in them in the in the part she has she has a small part in five easy pieces with nicholson and she's great and she's got an amazing part in the getaway with steve mcqueen where she plays the veterinarian's wife and she's genius in that and obviously she's great as gloria but i just i wanted to talk about

raffleson you know and nicholson and and uh peckinpah and doing those movies and of course all in the family and just talk to her about where she comes from because she is a unique comic talent sally struthers so i talked to her today vaxxed up i today, vaxxed up. I'm all vaxxed up. I got my second pop of Moderna. I was anticipating some heaviness, some sickness, and I did. I felt kind of shitty on Friday. I felt it coming on. A little chills here and there, just kind of weak, lethargic, sickish, like it's kind of like something's coming or maybe this is it.

sickish like it's kind of like something's coming or maybe this is it basically it felt i felt the nag the pull the viral pull on my fucking soul so i was kind of sicky for a day and then you know yesterday it was okay it was all right but that first day i felt it and i was knocked out but you know i stayed i stayed engaged i stayed mobile i ran a bunch of unnecessary errands that i didn't need to do just to stay alive and engaged and act like i wasn't really sick i took it kind of easy but uh but i did feel something but fortunately today i feel okay sammy the kitten is like getting big he's's out and about. It seems that Buster is accepting him and everything's cool. They're kind of playing. Buster has resigned to the fact that, okay,

I live with this kitten now and Sammy's very entertaining, but now he's just coming into that age where he's got the energy and the stubbornness and the belligerence to destroy everything in my house that means anything to me. I just feel it. He's just got to keep an eye on those kittens. He's like, what's he going to ruin? My records, my guitars, my rugs, my furniture, my guitar amp. Is he going to chew up those photographs that I have on my desk? Is he, what's he going to, is he going to eat cords? Is he going to do any, is he gonna chew up those photographs that i have on my desk is he what's he gonna is he gonna eat cords is he gonna do any is he ever gonna play with any of these toys i bought him no

is he gonna destroy something i really like absolutely what are those things you'll know when he destroys them so that's where i'm at with the cat but this weird compulsive behavior based on like it's not even a panic but it happened with the plumber too man i was like just as like i put things off and then i like in a flurry i gotta get them done i want to get them done. And sometimes they happen immediately. Like I was overcome with the need to make briskets. So that become life and essential. And then I'm in the shower and I realize I'm standing in about two inches of water. So that's a problem. And then I couldn't remember the name of the plumber I had.

Had a guy come over, do the rootering, snake it out, snake out a sink. I could do it myself, but I can't see where this pipe goes. It goes right into the floor, so it's out of my pay grade. It's out of my plumbing wheelhouse. Under the sink, I can handle, but I don't know where this goes. Got to bring a professional in with a big snake. So I'm fucking trying to figure out what the plumber's name is. And then I'm in my office and I'm looking out my front window and I see a truck drive by.

It says K&D Plumbing, K&D Rooters on it. I'm like, that was it. K&D Rooters. So I look it up and I call the number. An answering machine picks up. I'm like, Hey, it's me. Hey, what's up, man? I think you were here once before I got, uh, my shower's getting clogged up. I needed to, you need you to come over and snake it. You just drove by in the truck. I just saw you drive by in the truck. I'm over here on blah, blah street. And I need you to

just come, uh, when you can call me me back i just need you to snake it you were here once before man call me back here's my number that intensity and uh then i'm looking online i'm realized that's not that wasn't the guy it wasn't that i'm thinking of the guy used to do it at my other house and it was different initials i had nothing to do with knd plumbing zero it's knd router and i think, well, that's this other place. I call that place and it sounds like some sort of switchboard. And I'm like, yeah, you should have my address on record. You know, you did the sync.

She's like, I don't have your address. I'm like, is this a chain? She's like, yeah, it's nationwide. I'm like, I don't know you. It's the wrong one. I'm sorry, lady one i'm sorry lady i'm sorry and then i actually realized hey i'm fucking organized why don't you go look at the receipts in the file marked household stuff so i found it and i called the right guy made an appointment

then i got a call back the other guy who doesn't pick up. And apparently, according to the Yelp reviews, they never pick up their phone. So I make the second call. Hey, it's me. I called you earlier. Turns out I don't know you. Yeah, you never came to my house. Not on you. It's not your fault.

I just got excited. I saw the truck, but I don't need you. I thought you were somebody else. Thanks. Sorry for the trouble. Mark, it's Mark at Blah Blah Street. Here's my number. Don't worry about it, though.

Sorry, man. I went to the guy. I found the guy that did it before. No harm, no foul. No hard feelings. Don't fucking be weird. I didn't say any of that. But that guy does call me back.

He's like, hello, Plummer. I'm like, yeah, I don't need you. I'm sorry, man. It's okay. And I'm like, yeah, it's okay, man. Do you want me to? I'm like, no, no, no. I got it covered.

Okay. Okay. Bye. That guy's got my number. So Sally Struthers, as I mentioned before, is here because I love her. It is the 50th anniversary of All in the Family. There's a lot of talk in here about her early movies, as well as some talk about Norman Lear. That's a little different than how Katie Segal was talking about him in the last episode.

So this is me talking to the one of a kind Sally Struthers. The one-of-a-kind Sally Strother. those. Goal tenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual

cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Sally. Yo. How are you? Yeah. Relax. This is so hard. I live in about 1968. Why? Why are you doing that to yourself?

I would be doing something to myself if I attempted to learn how to turn on and work a computer or, or a fax machine or play a movie on TV, I can't, I'm not good with buttons, but I'm a highly intelligent human being. Just don't give me buttons. No buttons. No buttons,

please. As you notice, nothing I'm wearing has a button on it. This is a real thing. Your whole life with the buttons? No. Who had buttons until, I mean, you dialed a phone. There weren't buttons.

I understand. But how are the buttons on your shirt the same as the buttons on a phone? Oh, I was just being amusing. You know, here's the deal. Okay. I am a linear thinker. Okay. I am great if you go from A to B and B to C.

Sure. You take me, Mark, to a movie that jumps between present and past. Yeah. 15 minutes tops, I'm out of there. Is this like... I'm lost. Interesting. It's not linear.

So is it a condition or something you noticed? We should name it. Why don't we name it? Oh, you've never talked to somebody about it? No. Oh. So you have a nonlinear sensitivity. I like that.

Linearosis or linear... Sure. Nonlinear sensitivity is good. NLS. I have NLS. Nice. You should be the source of it. We discovered it, and now it needs to be put in the doctor manual.

Maybe it'll eventually be in the Oxford English Dictionary. Thank God. They do put a few new things in every year. I hope so. How have you been? I haven't seen you in a few years. I haven't seen you since I licked you from your Adam's apple up under your chin, across over your mouth and up onto your nose.

And then I had one of your mustache hairs stuck in my teeth. Yeah. What a night, huh? Hey, that was fun. It was a fun show. It was. I have, I was married and I never sat on the toilet in front of my husband. And then I had to pull my pants down and go to the bathroom while you were right there in the shower. It was so against my nature. I mean, I jumped behind a towel when the dog walks into the bathroom. Wow. We're going to have to get together again. I'm going to have to force

you to watch a nonlinear movie for the entire movie. We have a lot in common, you know. We do? Yeah. Like what? We are both the children of doctors. Oh, yeah. What kind of doctor was your dad? He was a GP. Like a small town GP or big town GP? Well, Portland's not a small town. Are you from Portland, Oregon? Yeah. And your dad, my dad started out in the military as doctors.

My dad was a doctor on the Army base in Spokane, Washington. I've worked in Spokane. I've been to Spokane. Spokane must have been kind of a glorious town at one point. I think it must have been, although I don't remember it because I was there when I was a baby. By the time I was two, we'd moved to Portland. Because it seems like there was something pretty there and there was water running through through it and some like mills or something there. Like what was Portland like when you were a kid?

I can't imagine. That place kind of gives me the creep sometimes. Really? It's beautiful. Listen to me. It's beautiful. What's creepy about it? There's something about there just feels like there's a darkness there.

I don't know what it is. Maybe it wasn't there when you were younger. No, no. No, there's a lot of Scandinavians and scandinavians are by nature dark-hearted even though they talk with a little in their voice that makes them sound so happy and so singing songy yeah but they they have i mean that's why ingmar bergman films are always in black and white i mean very dark people okay and portland oregon has a bridge it doesn't go over a river it goes over a small highway that heads west out of portland right

toward the coast yeah and it's i don't know what the real name of it is because it's probably the name of the street that's a huge bridge but it's's called Suicide Bridge. Oh, so people were jumping when you were younger too? You know, it rains in Portland, Oregon for 50% of the year. Yeah, that'll do it. And people can't handle that emotionally. So wait, now, were your parents actually, did they have accents? Or your grandparents? Were they actually?

My grandparents did. They were adorable. And they were from where in scandinavia norway wow best tomorrow best of our camera for christian son norgeland i've been to norway have you yeah it's pretty right very beautiful and you know that's why all those scandinavians settled up and you know michigan and wisconsin and and i know why they did they were given a land oh really yeah they were it was like i read a a book about it about the great plains and that was very hard country and no one had there was no one around to who knew how to farm it so they they kind of gave a land grant to a lot of people from Scandinavia to come figure out how to grow on that country.

And they grow the winter wheat and they grew. They were able to make something of the land. Yeah. That's good to know. But you still go up there? You still got people there? I do. I got peeps.

Yeah? Listen, I have to talk about when i guessed it on your television show oh why is there a problem well ever since then i've had a man crush on you oh okay and my publicist said today you know don't forget you're talking with mark maron yeah and i said how could i forget yeah and um he said so you don't have any headphones, so I'm going to bring you some headphones because the sound will be better. And I said, well, I don't want to wear headphones when Mark Maron's looking at me. You look great.

On a Zoom call. You look great, Sally. Headphones, I thought, were like this. Oh, right. Like Mickey Mouse ears. Right. 68. I didn't know there was little things to go in here.

1968 headphones. Right. Didn't have them yeah the the big hi-fi stead headphones that's what you thought that's what you pictured i thought he was bringing me big old headphones like when when you do all day well in a pandemic not a heck of a lot, but I do things. But I mean, it's like you. I work mostly. I work. There's no computer, so you're not doing, what are you, FaceTime with friends?

You don't do, no? So would you read books? No, I talk to them on the phone or I write them a letter. On the dialing phone? Does your phone still have a- My phone does not dial. As a matter of fact i am right now while we're doing your podcast i'm looking at you on my brand new cell phone

oh good so you so the cell phone you have but that's but that's like a computer so that's that's something i know but it probably if i knew how to use it i could probably do a couple of hundred things on it but i know how to receive a call, make a call, send a text, look at my texts, hear a voicemail. Right. Well, that's enough. That's enough. Yeah.

As long as you're occupied and you're relatively happy, that makes me happy. I am. I mean, until the pandemic, all I did was travel. For the last 20 years, I've been on the road doing musicals and plays. Right. I mean, when I talked to you, you were about to go do something. I can't remember what it was.

When you did my show, you had just gotten off something and we were going to do something. What's one of the plays that you did a lot? I've done probably 30, but I think the ones that I've actually toured with have been the most fun. And one was Hello, Dolly. Hello, Dolly, yeah. Annie. I've done Annie everywhere. Yes.

And you love it? Oh, my God. After all of the years of me, Sally, stumping for the hungry and disenfranchised children all over the planet, to play a woman that hates children is delicious. That's right. You were that I forgot. How could I forget? But you were there on those commercials

all over the planet asking people to help the world hunger. Yes. Save the children. And that's right. Sam Kennison did a very angry joke about you. I remember. Do you remember? I don't.

I don't want to hear it. No, it's okay. He's dead. So that's what happened to him. Yeah, he's taking a dirt nap and we're still here. Exactly. So are you still involved with that charity? No, no.

I did that for 35 years of my life. That's amazing. And I was in Uganda. And I was in Uganda. I flew in with a bush pilot from Kenya, from Nairobi, in a four-seater plane and landed at the Entebbe airfield where they had that terrible raid on Entebbe. And from there, a Catholic priest picked me up in his little car and drove me to an abandoned hotel on Lake Victoria, which is in Uganda, to meet the child that I'd been sponsoring named Damiano. And they brought him from his village, which was quite a few hours away. He had traveled to come meet his sponsor to meet me. And I made some commercials with him and I played with him and I brought him toys and balloons. Well, a roving band of guerrilla warfare guys came out of the bushes and asked Damiano where he was from. And he named his village, which was far away.

And they decided that we had kidnapped him and they were going to shoot all of us. Oh, my God. And luckily, the priest spoke their particular form of speech in Uganda. I imagine different tribes, different dialects. And he said to me, just keep backing up, back up, back up. Don't turn your back to them. Just go to the car. I'll take care of this. And I thought, I've been on so many little airplanes that could have crashed.

And in so many horrible situations, I came back from one of my trips overseas with hepatitis. I thought, what am I doing? I've got a child, a real life child of my own, and I'm going to make her an orphan. I can't do this anymore. Besides, everyone in the world is making fun of me. I could never understand that from the first time i found out some comic or another made fun of me and then when a greeting card was on sale somewhere being making fun of me i mean i just it dumbfounded me that if you're trying to help hungry children you're fodder for

horrible cruel jokes well yeah what's wrong with the world? There's a lot wrong with it, Sally. There's a lot of horrendous people. One thing we've learned over the last four years is that it doesn't take much to turn most of this country into assholes. It's not the truth. Were they already? And were they hiding it?

Or did something actually happen? Yeah, no, I think that when you have a leader who is shamelessly a belligerent pig and a misogynistic, racist, garbage person, and he's the leader of the free world, all the people that were hiding that inside themselves think it's their turn to be that guy. So I think that the one testament to the beauty of America is that when it's working, those people behave themselves. Yeah, they go back under their rocks, I guess. Or they just realize that they have to tolerate things that are different, different points of view. If the majority wants it, that's the way this works. like it was so clear that if they were enabled who the fuck

knows what they were capable of but i think that i think usually the jokes were because that the commercials and the infomercials around what you were doing were so prevalent they were you know you could not not see them right so i think it became part of the cultural uh goof i don't think it was about the cause or necessarily about you it was just that it was inescapable the the uh the commercials if you were if you were up at 2 a.m well a lot of us were you know there was drugs and we were all watching television listen let me let me tell you about the orange butthole. Yeah. The orange butthole. Did you know him?

Okay. I had a thing with him. Wait. I was touring. Neil Simon rewrote The Odd Couple for two women. I remember that. And she who shall not be named because I don't care for her and I were the odd couple. We should name her because we can figure it out.

I hate saying her name. Rita Moreno. Just a mean, difficult human being. Yeah. I've talked to her. Anyway. Oh, well, I'm sure she was just licking you on your face every second. Rita will crawl all over you if you're a man. Okay.

All right. So, but she not nice to other women, especially when other women are talented, not a good experience. Oh no. Anyway. So we were on tour and we each received an invitation.

We were in somewhere in Florida doing the odd couple, the people that invested in the odd couple the female version wanted to make sure they got their money back right if we went straight to broadway and it closed they're out of money right so they made us tour for nine months first we each got an invitation to a a state dinner at the white house honoring the king of saudi arabia okay so uh i went and my date and i were seated at a table together whereas my co-star and her husband were different tables in the room there were about 10 people to a round table and directly across from me was the orange butthole yeah and halfway through dinner i said across the table in front of everyone at our table

uh listen mister i hate saying his name you know who i'm talking about uh i just did donald trump oh just makes my skin crawl okay i said i just did um an art auction in los angeles at a very chic art gallery on la cienega boulevard and i have children's art from all over the world and we have matted and framed all of it it's gorgeous and we made a pretty penny but we still have half that art left that's already framed and matted and i said i the the show that i'm touring with is going to open in a couple of months on broadway and i would love to have another event in new york and sell the rest of the children's art to help save the

children. And I said, I think having it in the lobby of your tower, your brown butthole tower, would be perfect. And he said, oh, give me a call when you get to New York. Here's my card and took it out. And people at the table passed it around to me. Call me up and we'll set it up. We got to New York. We opened up Broadwayway i called him up i said some woman answered the phone and she said well i i said mr trump will know what it's about we had we sat at the same table at a at the white house for state dinner telling my mom on the phone and she she had left me on hold for five minutes came back on the phone and said he's not interested. So he was just putting on a show.

He put on a show for the people at the table saying that I could have my art auction for children there. And then the minute that I actually made the phone call, he wouldn't get on the phone with me. So you found out, like the rest of us did, that he's always been an asshole. It didn't. Yeah, I knew it before the rest of you. Yeah. Let me ask you something. So how, what is the process? So do you have brothers and sisters?

I have one sister. What about you? I have a little brother. Oh, you're the older one. I'm the younger one. I have a sister, Sue. When do you start acting in Portland? How does that work?

How did it happen? Really? You really want to know that? I do kind of because I want to know, I want to talk about when you first got to Hollywood. All right. Well, uh, my goal in life was to be a doctor like my dad. Did you have those feelings about? Yeah, but I just, I didn't, I was not able to apply myself. I, I, you know, I learned, you know, come college, I was like, this ain't going to happen for me. I don't know how to study i don't have the

discipline and uh i don't think i really want to do it okay yeah well then that was easy to decide but i wanted to yeah but but in the meantime just for fun i was in the drama club i was in the i did plays in high school but i mean i started out in grade school i have a plaque that's in the entry hall of my home right now. The boys in shop class made for me. And then they took a wood burning tool and they carved in it, best actress in the seventh grade class play. And you still have it? Yeah, I've got it in my entry hall. That's great. Makes me laugh. That's great.

So I had a breakdown. It was time to start filling out my applications to colleges. And I couldn't stop crying. My parents divorced when I was seven. So it was just my mother, my sister and I in the house. And he gave me some medicine to make me sleep. And when I woke up, I started crying again. So my mother sat me on the floor and took my face and she held it in her hands and she said, what is it? I don't know. Yes, you have to know. Why are you upset? I said, because I can't do it. She said, do what? I said, I can't be a doctor. She said, well, who said you have to be a doctor? I said, I did. But in biology class, when we had to do the cow's eye, the frog, I vomited. I said, what am I going to do when I have to carve up a cadaver for a year?

I can't do it. She said, well, then let's do something else. I said, like what? She said, why don't you go to a school that has a great theater department? You could be an actress. I said, I could. She said, yeah. Yeah, let's find a school.

I said, well, why would they take me? I've only done plays in grade school, high school. She says, well, that's all anybody's done when they're 18. If they've done more than that, they're already in the industry. I said, okay. So she's looking through her recalls magazine, you know. Yeah. And she sees a picture of Raymond Burr.

Of course, yeah. Pointing out like an Uncle Sam poster. You too can become an actor at the Pasadena Playhouse College of Theater Arts. My mom says we're going to apply there. And we got an application. We filled it out. And my grandparents took me to Norway for the summer. And when I got back, my mother was on the front porch waving the acceptance letter. She says, we got two days to wash, iron, and repack your clothes. Your uncle, you, me, and Walter, and I are going to

drive you to Pasadena. Yeah. And there you go. And that was it. That was it. The Pasadena Playhouse School. The Pasadena Playhouse College of Theater Arts. Was it good? Excellent. It was a three-year college. I only went two years because at the end of my second year, the IRS padlocked it shut. class college of theater arts was it good excellent it was a three-year college i only went two years because at the end of my second year the irs padlocked it shut and that was the end of it that was it so my mother drove down to la and her fort falcon station wagon yeah and she took me from pasadena to hollywood and she checked me into the ho Studio Club for Girls run by the YWCA. Was that like a hostel or a rooming house? A rooming house.

And she just left you there? Yeah. I'd already been on my own for two years in Pasadena. And what did you do? How did you get started? I had a roommate named Carol Stanley. And she said to me one day, she said, you're going to be an actress. And I said, I already am one.

I've already done lots of plays. And I went to the Pasadena playoffs college and she said, well, you need an agent. I said, well, how, what do I do? She says, well, let's get the yellow pages. Come on. Yeah. She, she, she called up this agency that she saw that I could walk to cause I didn't have a car.

It was about a mile and a half from the studio club. Nina Blanchard Agency. So the day of, I went and I opened the door. Yeah. And everyone in there saw the door opening and their eyes were up here somewhere. And then they came down to me. Yeah. And that was weird.

So I went to the front desk and I said, I have an appointment with Nina Blanchard. And she said, you do? I said, yeah. She said, okay, what's your name? I said, Sally Struthers. She said, just a minute. So she left the room.

She came back out. She said, okay, she'll see you in just a minute. So I went into her office and I said, why is everybody acting funny? And why am I in the land of tall people in your outer office? She says, honey, this is a modeling agency. How tall are you? I said, five foot. Oh, she said, why did you go? I said, well, my roommate at the studio club carol stanley got me this appointment we didn't know you were a modeling agency she said well i'm sorry dear and i said

oh okay well before i leave could i do my impressions for you okay. So I sat down on the floor and I crossed my legs Indian style. And I put my head down in my arms, my lap. I said, I'm doing now my impression of a clam that turns into an oyster. And I did that. And then I did that. And I pointed and I said,

Ooh, a pearl. She said, okay. And then I did that and I pointed and I said, oh, a pearl. She said, OK. And then I said, and now I'm going to do my impression of a Spanish Mediterranean home. And I put my arms out and made a roof and I scored out my legs like the body of the house. And then I just quietly said, ole. And she said, OK. I said, wait, I got one more.

So I stood on my head in her office and saying, I'm sitting on top of the world and I was leaving. And she said, wait, down the hall, they're interviewing people today for a Pond's cold cream commercial. She said, I don't know why I'm going to send you down there. If you should land this commercial, I'll be your agent. I said, okay. So I went down the hall and I went and I read for it. And I went back to her office and she said, what's your phone number? I said, well, we have a pay phone in the hall at Studio Club and this is the number. And so about four days later that was ringing and someone answered and said, Struthers, you got a phone call. And hello, Someone answered and said, Struthers, you got a phone call.

And hello, this is the Nina Blanchard Agency. You landed the Pond's Cold Cream commercial. Oh, my God. So I got all my quarters out. I called everybody in Portland. I'm the Pond's girl. I'm the Pond's girl. Because my mother and my aunts had all used Pond's Cold Cream their whole lives.

I knew they were going to be thrilled. About two days later, I had to go to a costume fitting. And I walk into Paramount Studios to the costume department. And there's this real pretty redhead girl in there. And she says, hi, I'm Emily. And I said, I had to go to a costume fitting. And I walk into Paramount Studios to the costume department. And there's this real pretty redhead girl in there. And she says, hi, I'm Emily. And I said, I'm Sally. She said, what are you here for? And I said, I'm going to get a costume for a Ponce cold cream commercial. She said, so am I.

I said, I'm doing one about being on the deck of a pirate ship. And she said, so am I. She said, I'm the ponds girl and i said oh i guess i play your friend who says your skin is so lovely what do you do to keep your skin so long so i i drove out i walked out of paramind and still didn't have a car and i thought to myself wait a minute in 30 years hollywood treats women so crappy. She'll be washed up. She'll be considered over the hill.

I am a character actress. I will work as long as I want to, like my idol, Ruth Gordon. I do not have a problem here. You said that to yourself then, or did you add that later? Then. Oh, yeah. Then, that day. Yeah.

So you did the commercial? I did. I did a lot of commercials. And is that sort of what started you going? I think so. I got a lot of those. And then I finally got a regular agent as well. And I got hired to be a regular on the Smothers Brothers summer show at ABC. And everybody thought I made up my last name because it was just too convenient that Sally Struthers was on the Smothers Brothers show. How were those guys? Oh my God, I love them. Was it fun? How many episodes did you do? What were you doing? Sketch? It was summer. Yeah, sketch. It was a summer show, so it was what, eight weeks? Uh-huh. And from that, from my work on that, I went directly after

the eighth week of that onto the Tim Conway Comedy Hour. He's kind of a genius, right? Oh, my God. He's so funny. Your sides hurt the whole time you're with him. You feel like Harvey Korman. You're trying to hold it in, but you can't. And our producers, Sam Bogrick and Ron Clark, had a brilliant idea because it wasn't Tim's first trip around the block.

And so they decided that they would make the show look like it had a very poor budget. Right. And that was the whole theme of the comedy for everything. And they made his first show on the air that came on in September, his Christmas show. Because Tim kept saying, you know, I usually am canceled within 13 weeks. My license plate on my car says 13 weeks. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm going to do my Christmas show first. Yeah. So but I was the Tim Conway dancer, as opposed to the Jackie Gleason show where there were 40 June Taylor dancers. Right. I was the only dancer. And Art Metrano, he was the only dancer and art metrano

he was the tim conway orchestra but the show had no money so when the announcer said at the beginning of the show and now ladies and gentlemen the tim conway show and now the tim conway orchestra and the camera would pan across an empty stage to to to art metrano at a music stand, but the show couldn't afford to give him an instrument. Yeah. So he hummed the opening theme song, reading the music. And that was the plan for the whole show? Yes, every week.

And then they would go, and after 12 bars of him going, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da- And now the Tim Conway dancer and they would cut to me and I would be in the most god awful costume. And there was way too much dance sand on the floor and I would fall down. And at one point I was supposed to flop on the floor anyway and open my arms and legs because they had an overhead camera like they had on the June Taylor dancers. But with one woman, it's absolutely pathetic yeah so the suits in New York called Sam Boberg and Ron Clark and said you got to get rid of that girl she makes the show look cheap oh my god and Boberg and Clark said that's the point yeah that's the humor yeah they said They said, no, let her go. Oh, man. And, you know, what's that saying?

When someone closes a door, God opens a window or something like that. Yeah. The next week I'm out of a job and my feelings are hurt. And I get a phone call that I'm supposed to go read for this man named Norman Lear at his office in Century City for some show that he's going to be putting on the air. And so the day I showed up to read for him, I had laryngitis and he handed me a yelling scene to do. I was supposed to be yelling at my father and my husband and I didn't have a voice. I was yelling like this. And I guess that made him remember me.

And I don't know how many young ladies he saw, but if it was 300, they narrowed it down to four. The final audition at CBS, they had already cast Rob Reiner as Mike Civic, the meatheaded Polak. And so we were to go into the room with all the suits, each one of us gals with Rob, one at a time, and do improvisations. They would throw us an idea, a subject matter, and we were just, and the other three gals were sitting beside me, and the last one to come in and sit down was Penny Marshall. Rod Reiner was living with her at that time. Yeah. And that and i thought yeah how are you gonna get he's gonna do better with penny yeah not to sabotage the three of us but they have each other's rhythm right i don't stand a chance yeah so that got rid of all my nerves

so you're like so i just hung around because i didn't want to walk out yeah and you know what happened you did great i got it so now the show's on the air it's climbing to number one we're all excited but when you when when you watch them when you were you in the room when they worked or was everyone in the room or no no but when you worked with him when you improvised with rob the first time did you know that it was going to be great? I would love to tell you yes, but I have to say I didn't know anything. Yeah. I didn't know anything about anything. I didn't know how to get an agent. I didn't know how to navigate the world.

I didn't know why I got let go from the Tim Conway show. I didn't know why I got hired on All the Family. And none of us knew it was going to be what it was. Rob Reiner and I were the third set of kids. It had been made as a pilot for ABC two years before with Carol O'Connor, Jean Stapleton, but with a different Mike and Gloria. And then they shelved it. And then the next year they decided they would rewrite it a little, make it again. So they kept Carol Ool o'connor gene stapleton but they got a second set of mike and gloria and again they got frightened and wouldn't put it on the air the norman lear took it to the new president of cbs

robert woods and said if i bring it to you will you put it on the air and he said yes and he looked at both pilots and he said but you need to recast mike and gloria So Rob and I were Mike and Gloria number three. But haven't you done like a couple movies already? I had, I had done five easy pieces, five easy pieces with Jack Nicholson. How was that? I love that movie. And I, and I love your, I love your character in it. And it like, I can't, there's something about the way movies were made then where it really seemed that there was a rawness to it that, you know, there was some space to it. Did you did you did you feel that? Yeah.

Bob Rafelson was the director. He and Jack were very laid back. Yeah. Some of it, I suppose, chemically induced. And I just know that they talked me into doing a scene I never would have done. When you got naked? I was naked from the waist up, but glued to Jack as he was twirling me around the room, worked his way to a bedroom.

We flopped on the bed. And then he rises up off of me and he's got a t-shirt on that says triumph yeah yeah yeah yeah the motorcycle right but you see part of my breast in that shot and i kept saying to bob raffles and i i can't do this i i can't i can't go home to portland if i do this i will be disowned and they got me to do it and i was in portland visiting my mom when the film came out she said i'm you're at your aunt uni tarkelson and i are going to the movies to see your movie i said no no no no you're not going yeah no please don't go and she said don't be silly i said mom you're going to be ashamed of me.

Please. We're going. And I said, all right, well, it's done. It's done a year ago. It's now out there. I can't do anything to take it back. So if you're upset with me, please don't say anything. When you come home, I can't fix it. Yeah.

So she put on a kerchief and dark glasses and she went to the movies and three hours later she came home and she opened the front door and she walked through the house past me and walked down the hall to her bedroom and shut the door and that was it and we never talked about it yeah we never there was never any discussion well that's sad well you know do you feel pretty risque yeah but do you do you personally feel that you feel bad about it do you feel like that you were taken advantage of in any way because the character was pretty great and and i think you transcended comedically and also the character itself. I didn't think of it as like as a compromising role.

I thought it was great. Did you? I wish you were my parent. You wouldn't have been ashamed of me. I don't know. You know, this is back. Yeah. When did it come out? We made it it in 69 it came out in 70 i

mean people just didn't have daughters that went and did that sure my mother my mother was horrified that her marriage broke up with dad but he left her for the nurse in his office. She never got over it. She was depressed the rest of my childhood and only forgot she was depressed when she got Alzheimer's. Yeah. So the way she raised my sister and me was to say, what will the neighbors think? Right. Girls, you can't leave the house dressed that way. what will the neighbors think right you girls you can't leave the house dressed that way what will the neighbors think the struthers girls are good upright girls and we were

but can you imagine right if that's the way you raised your daughters and then you go see her in a movie and she's in a the sex scene with jack nicholson she must have been so ashamed of me but it was jack nicholson you know what years later many years later like 1987 or something like almost 30 years after the film my japanese hairdresser hakudo is soda wanted for christmas a tiffany's china box that's this looks just the same as the way they package gifts with a turquoise box with a white ribbon. But this is a little trinket box. I don't shop at Tiffany's, but I said to Pamela, my best friend, let's go to Tiffany's and get Hakuto, his Christmas present. And we're in there and I'm standing at the counter and Pamela elbows me and she says, oh my God, standing at the counter and Pamela elbows me and she says, Oh my God,

Jack Nicholson is over there. Go say hi to him. I said, no, no, he wouldn't remember me. Of course he would. I said, no, I'm not going to bother him. And I'm not going to say hello. She said, you're so impossible. I said, you're impossible. So I'm in the business of buying this box and behind me, there's a tap on my shoulder and I turn around and says hi sally it's jack how are you i went oh my god he came to me how did that happen jack nicholson came to say hello to me i'll never get over it what do you mean it was like how could he forget you i am now 73 years old and I am still Robert and Margaret's daughter from Portland, Oregon. If I see someone famous and they know me, I'm astounded. I understand that. Yeah.

There's a part of being a fan and there's a part of being, i don't even think it's how you see yourself i mean you just you know it just means that you you you like being a fan and famous people are still impressive well who who knocked your socks off when you actually got to meet them besides barack obama who like who blew you away no it all it depends you know like i find that most people are sort of human but there are certain people that I've never really disappointed. I got to meet Keith Richards, who was a big hero of mine. Oh, God. How great was that?

And interview him. It was great. But it made the interview ridiculous because I was such a fan boy. You know, even people like, you know, William Friedkin. I mean, these big, I've talked to. Oh, wow. Great. You know, and they're all, and I grew up sort

of like in all of these people, but you know, you talk to people for an hour, two hours, they become very human, but you still sort of marvel at like, you know, how did it, how did it come out of them? Like, I remember I interviewed Will Ferrell, who is really one of the more, he, no one is funnier on purpose than that guy. That guy can be so funny well i what the funny thing about him is he's very straight in interview so like i had him in my garage and we're talking and i just sat there for an hour just like is it gonna happen is he gonna make me laugh he could do i know he could do it so easily and then even right when he was just a little funny i was like oh my god you did you know it was just so, there's been a lot of moments, you know,

but I'm still sort of, I, I, even though like I, I'm able to talk to just about anybody, there are some people that are just sort of, you know, magical people. What are you going to do? You're a magical person, Sally. Nobody's like you. You're one of a kind. Well, so are you. Isn't everybody one of a kind, except maybe identical twins i guess i don't know but some people they're you know they're they're just sort of recording

devices and other people are the machine you know they're they're other people are like the original thing you know like some people's personalities everyone's different but some people are so uh themselves i know it's the it's the kind of person that you say they threw away the mold when they made you. You're just undeniably. Original. Undeniably you, you know. But then you went and did The Getaway,

which is another movie that was kind of filthy, right? Yeah. Oh, my God. Sam Peckinpah. That man was a piece of work. And Al Lethierry, who I was playing opposite. That guy, he was in all those movies then he was scary al-atiri that was his name yeah al-atiri he was in the godfather i know he was

the the the turk so what so we were we were shooting this movie in el paso texas and uh al-atiri and sam peckinpah would start drinking at 7, 8 in the morning. And by lunchtime, both of them were blotto. Yeah. I mean, we got to the set one Monday morning, and Sam Peckinpah had gone over the border from El Paso into Mexico, higher than a kite, drunker than a skunk, and married our script girl over the weekend. So she was all of a sudden Mrs. peckinpah on the set he didn't even remember it oh my god and uh in the scene where alatiri the gunman has taken my has has got a bullet in his shoulder and

he comes to my husband's veterinary clinic clinic out in the country to get the bullet removed. And they wanted him laying on that table to have a newborn kitten playing on his chest while he's holding his gun. Well, I don't know if you've ever picked up a newborn kitten, but their claws are like fine little hairs. And they go in, they're tiny, thin, and they go in they're tiny thin and they hurt yeah and at one point latiri you know drunk and out of control and very mobbish anyway said god damn it this kid needs somebody and and i said don't don't hurt it it's a baby don't hurt it and peckinpah saw that i was getting scared so he said the big loud voice somebody somebody take this cat get some pliers pull his claws out i went no and i grabbed the kitten and i ran off the set and they were all laughing they weren't

going to do that they just like to see me react but one night one day after shooting he said sally you want to you want to come to to see the dailies tonight at the hotel? You know, I said, what's what's the dailies? He said, oh, well, we send the film off to Hollywood when we shoot it and they process it. And then they send it back here for me to look at and start making up my mind about cuts. So you want to see what we shot a few days ago? Come to the hotel. so you want to see what we shot a few days ago come to the hotel room okay drunk as a skunk and didn't like the way the film had been processed and walked up to the screen in this

conference room in the hotel and unsatisfied and took out his penis and urinated all over the screen oh is this what happens at the daily is this is this the deal it's not the 70s i'm coming back yeah that was really weird but was he nice to you yes he was very nice to me alatiri was very scary i think he thought i was his boyfriend because we had a week off from filming where he wasn't needed and I wasn't needed. And it was Easter weekend in New Jersey. He was from Fort Lee, New Jersey. Sure. And his sister and brother-in-law lived there.

And he said, hey, you want to come with me to Fort Lee and have Easter with an Italian family? He says, my sister is such a great cook. And then we're going to go down to Florida. Have you ever been to Florida? I said, no. So I did all of that with him. Now we come back to the movie and he calls my hotel. He wants to come up and see me. And I said, no, thank you. And he wouldn't hang up. And he kept screaming, I'm going to come up there and I'm going to get you. And I, and I. And I couldn't hang up to call for help. So I put the phone under a pillow so I couldn't hear him.

But he probably stayed on the phone all night. And I was so scared of him that I avoided him on the set the next day. And it was a scene where Dub Taylor had to walk us into a hotel room where I'm now alone with Alateri. My husband has hung himself a few motels back in the bathroom. alone with Al Atiri. My husband has hung himself a few motels back in the bathroom. And so I'm just with the gunman who he and I are starting to have an affair. So Sam Peckinpah says, Dub, you walk in and then Sally, you walk in after Dub and then Al, you walk in carrying the suitcase. And as soon as they said, okay, rolling, okay, go. And Dub walks in saying his lines showing us the hotel room. And I'm walking in.

And Al Lattery, it wasn't blocked to do this, but Al Lattery grabbed me by my arm and threw me against the wall. So I went up to Mr. Peckinpah and I said, Mr. Peckinpah, we're going to shoot this again, aren't we? Could I come in behind Mr. Letary? I don't want to walk in front of him again. He says, that's fine, Sal. It was crazy. Then we had to do the scene where I'm pretending like I'm room service and I want Steve McQueen to open the door.

And he opens the door and I start screaming and he's supposed to slug me in the face and I'm supposed to be knocked out. And so they taught me when his fist does it to turn my head the same and then hit the wall and then slide to the floor. We did about three takes of that and I was now loopy. And the fourth take, I didn't turn my head and he hit me in my jaw and that's what's in the film you getting really hit by steve mcqueen yeah it was a crazy experience and i got to watch steve mcqueen and ali mcgrath fall in love and that was pretty cool was steve mcqueen a good guy or did you like him what a great guy yeah a sweetheart i adored him but he was danger boy i mean we were

shooting in a hotel in el paso and right next to it was a dirt mountain that was almost perfectly perpendicular and steve would go out between takes and hop on his mike's motorcycle and try to ride up that dirt mountain that was like trying to go up the wall of the hotel oh my god yeah everybody was yelling you're we're not insured if you get broke we have to shut down we can't finish the movie he didn't care he loved it but he oh he fell so madly in love with ali and now it's all these years later and everybody that we worked with on that film is gone and every time i see her we clutch on to one another like we're on our train on the way to a death camp. I mean, we just say we're still here.

You and Allie? Yeah, because everybody we worked with in that movie is gone. So when you started doing All in the Family, it's been 50 years, huh? It's been 50 years. January 12th was our 50th anniversary of the first one coming on the air. Do you still talk to Norman? No. No?

Do you talk to any of them? Do you talk to Rob? There's nobody left except Rob and Norman. Everyone else is gone. Yeah. And are you friends with Rob? I would like to be. But he remarried.

He and Penny divorced and he married a younger gal uh that he met in hawaii when he was doing a movie there and she was the photographer on the set and they married and i think that i'm guessing that he had a wife that didn't want him to be friends with me because we were friends yeah he played my husband for eight years we were friends and he when the show was over when he and I were finished with our contracts and we weren't making all the family anymore, at the most random times, my phone would ring in my apartment in Westwood near UCLA. French policemen's fart. And then he'd hang up on me and I rolled on the floor laughing. And, you know, two months later,

hello, Jacques Cousteau's fart. I mean, he just, woman farting, wearing tight pantyhose. He, we had a great relationship and then he got remarried. And then I went to the opening of the producers at the Pantages Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. And it was a big night. They had lots of luminaries there to be in attendance to see it. And I came out of the theater door with my friend Bunny, who I've known since we were both four see it. And I came out of the theater door with my friend, Bunny,

who I've known since we were both four years old. And there was Rob and his wife, Michelle, and Carl Reiner and Estelle Reiner, his wife. And I didn't really know Michelle, but I knew Rob and his parents. And I went running toward him. Robbie! With my arms stretched out, I was going to jump on him. And he put his hand out

stiffly in front of himself and took my hand and shook it really stiff and said, Hello, Sally. It's nice to see you, Sally. I thought, why are you acting so weird? And that was it? That was it.

No, no, no, no. I saw him at a People's Choice Awards or something we were seated together you won a couple emmys right for for gorya i did i was i was gifted with two emmys what a great part what a great and like how was it i i i assumed that everybody on that set was pretty close. Oh, my God. We were all so different. Carol O'Connor, devout Irish Catholic, raised in New York City, went to college in Montana, Missoula, at the university there, got a teaching degree, came back to New York, was in the public school system in New York

City. He taught English to the recalcitrant boys and hit them with the ruler and God only knows what else he did. And then he woke up around 40 and said to his wife, Nancy, who we met in college, I think I want to be an actor. She said, okay. She said, how are you going to do this? He said, I'm going to study. She said, where? He says, in Ireland. We're going to move to Ireland and I'm going to study there and I'm going to come back. And that's what he did. So that's the man playing my father. Jane Stapleton was raised by a single mother in New York City, devout Christian scientist. She never said or thought a negative thing. She was our resident angel.

And you could easily get her all flustered because certain things just made her uncomfortable. because certain things just made her uncomfortable. And there was one moment only in my eight years with her where she was Edith in real life, Edith Bunker. Because Jean was very intelligent. And she and her husband, Bill Putsch, ran a theater, the Totem Pole Playhouse in Pennsylvania. So she came from the world of theater. And she's in the rehearsal hall in CBS, TV City, Fairfax and Beverly Boulevard. And we're on a 10-minute coffee break and people are being

handed phone. You got phone messages then that you had received a phone call. Then you would try to find a phone on your 10 minute break to phone somebody back. And she's in a folding chair. She's got the LA times and she's all by herself over in a corner and she is flustered and she's getting red. She's looking at the paper. She's going, oh, and I'm looking at her and thinking, what is wrong with her? So I tiptoe over to her and I said, Jean, is something wrong? And she said, would you look at this? And she folds the paper and turns it towards me and points.

And she says, look, look at this car wash. It's advertising for Polish men. And I said, Jean, that's Polish. Come on. Oh, oh, oh, good, good. She was, you know, and I sat with her one time in the CBS commissary, and I said, would you please tell me about being a Christian scientist? Because I'm a doctor's daughter, and I believe in science and medicine. And I certainly had a lot of things wrong with me growing up.

And my dad, you know, did my stitches or put my cast on yeah i believe that the humans learn medicine for a reason and but tell me about your religion and she did she took me to her church we were so close and then there's rob reiner who was raised a rich Beverly Hills Jewish kid with very famous father. And then I come from Portland, Oregon, from the Norwegians. And I have never heard a racial slur or epithet. We would read the script around the table and Archie would say some horrendous thing. And I would say to Robert, what Stapleton, what does that mean? I mean, I never heard those words.

Everyone's laughing. I was going, why are they laughing? I wasn't raised with any kind of bigotry around me. But it was fascinating to be with such a disparate group of human beings. And then in the fifth year of the show, I went in and read for a famous British director to play the lead in the film day of the locusts. And he chose me and my agent called Norman Lear and said,

this would mean Sally would have to, I guess, miss the last four shows of the season. And he says, no, I can't let her do it. I can't do that. And if I do that, he says, I got five, six shows on the air. If I set that precedent that I've got to let everybody out and it's screwing with our schedule, I can't. It was, you know, so my agent and I called back and said, well, how about since I only have three lines per show anyway which are i'll help you set the table ma michael where are you going and oh daddy stop it i mean those are my three lines every week yeah i wasn't getting a lot of satisfaction actress for playing that role the

first five years yeah so i said well i'm a quick learner um why don't you have somebody stand in for me on camera blocking day on a Thursday? And I'll come on a Friday morning and you can teach me where I'm supposed to enter and exit. And where I say, I'll help you set the table, Ma. And I'll do the show, which means I can film four days of the week and be on All in Family one day of the week. And he says, no, I'm not going to do that. So I bought it. I wasn't happy about it, but I bought it because I really wanted to work for John Schlesinger and the next year Norman let Rob Reiner out to do a film with Alan Arkin called

Fire Sale and I called the lawyer and I said get me off this show get me off this show. I spent any savings that I had to go to arbitration and I lost and I had to go back. That doesn't sound great. So I wore a sweatshirt to rehearsal every day that said prisoner of rehearsal hall three. And then we had a brand new director named Paul Bogart. And the writer started writing fun things for Mike and Gloria. And my last three years of The Eight were the most fun. But I was furious with Norman Lear for the Boys Club and the nepotism. I was furious. I mean, he had this adorable assistant who was Chinese. Her name was J.D. Joe. You just wanted to pick her up and hug her every time you saw her. And I went sometimes on my breaks, I would go to the executive offices.

I'd like to visit with J.D. Joe. She had a stack of books on her desks from the bestseller list. And I said, J.D. Joe, when are you ever going to read these? You work like 18 hours a day. And I said, J.D., Joe, when are you ever going to read these? You work like 18 hours a day. She said, oh, they're not for me. They're for Norman. I said, well, when's Norman going to read these books? I said, he's got every plate at the circus spinning on a stick. Yeah.

She says, oh, well, she says he has dinner parties at his house and he likes to talk about the latest books on the New York Times bestseller list. And so everybody in the office reads a book for him and gives him cliff notes and then he can discuss it. And I said, so he passes himself off as someone that has read these books and he hasn't. Long story short, just between you and me and thousands of people that are listening to your podcast. I was the only member of the cast never invited to his home for dinner. So do you think in those last three years that the writers sort of took charge and decided to work more stories for you because they knew you were mad? Or do you just...

No, it had nothing to do with me. Here's what happened. We spun a couple of shows off our show. Archie's Place? No, no had nothing to do with me. Here's what happened. We spun a couple of shows off our show. Archie's Place? No, no. Oh. In the beginning, we had Bea Arthur on, and she played our cousin Maude. Right.

And we were all sick with the flu, and she came to take care of us. And they loved her so much, they decided to create a show for her. And then we had the Jeffersons on the show show and they decided to give them their own show well what happened was every time norman would take our tried and true well-trained fine-honed writers that knew specifically how to write for our characters and he would move them away from us and put them on the new show and he would give us new writers who we then had to train and this made carol o'connor furious and he started taking this drug writers who we then had to train. And this made Carol O'Connor furious. And he started taking this drug called meprobamate.

And he was popping them right and left because he was so angry all the time. And so, you know, we always had new writers. But what happened in the sixth year was they had kind of done so many stories about Archie or Archie and Edith or Mike and Archie that they had to start concentrating on that younger couple there. And then they wrote that Gloria and Mike were expecting a baby and Gloria and Mike moved into the Jefferson's house next door. And they gave us real stuff to do where I wasn't just setting the table. But all in all, despite all the anger and despite you know what sounds like a

very difficult last few years you still thought it was a great experience for the most part oh i had so much fun paul bogart made the rehearsal hall delicious well that's good and we all had a really good time and it's like it's it's great that like you really have never stopped working it's it's like an amazing thing to carry on a career in show business and just keep going and and still having fun i just i realize how fortunate i am because you know one of my best girlfriends someone i truly admire for her gifts as a performer. And also we just have a wicked relationship together is the actress, Brenda Vaccaro. Oh yeah,

sure. And she's amazing and she can act circles around me and she can't get arrested. Well, I think, I think that, you know, your,

I don't know whether it was love or, or a career decision, but to do, you know, theater, to think that your, I don't know whether it was love or a career decision, but to do theater, to do big theater shows and have the ability to do that really can keep you working a long time. Because you're a name and people like to come see you. You have a following and you do these great shows. Yeah, I've been so lucky. and you do these great shows.

Yeah, I've been so lucky. I've worked at all these wonderful theaters in America and Canada, and some of them are really old and charming, and some of them are brand new, state-of-the-art, and I love all of it. Yeah. And each theater has its own staff of people backstage who I fall in love with,

all the guys on the crew and all the women in the wardrobe shop. And yeah, my phone book is just full of people all over the country that I have made friends with. And it's Jean Stapleton said to me, she said, you know,

television and films will come and go in your life. But the, the, the one arena that will always welcome you back with open arms is theater. So don't ever give that up. And she's right. It's beautiful. Well, it's great talking to you.

You too. I'm glad we did it. I'm glad it worked out. I heard you interviewing Jodie Foster and I thought, what's he going to talk to me about? Oh, we talked about a lot of stuff. I mean, Jodie Foster's so intelligent and she went to, did she go to Harvard?

Yale. Yale. And she produces. She doesn't have those getaway stories. I mean, come on. She didn't take a punch from Steve McQueen. Come on. I know.

That was great. I milked that for days. I love you. It's great seeing you. You too. Thank you very much, Mark Marin. You are a wonder. And when this play against, maybe we can hang out. Okay. That would be great. And the plague is supposed to be over on October 12th, 2027. So exactly. We'll be wearing masks until until then I'm glad I didn't have to wear a mask while I was talking with you did you get the vaccine I'm locked and loaded oh good alright

well good I'm halfway there and I'll call you in I'll call you in May okay I'll be here alright Sally take it easy bye Mark that was Sally Struth how who else would it be with that voice go find her go watch uh the getaway go watch uh five easy pieces go watch every episode of all in the family that she's in now let's go out with some guitar. Guitar. Thank you. Thank you. Boomer lives.

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