109 Late Bloomer transcript (Betty Ford)
Michael: [00:00:00] Famous and gravy listeners, Michael Osborne here. I've got two things to say before we start today's episode. First, we could really use your help growing the show and there's a very simple thing you can do. Leave a review for Famous and Gravy on Apple Podcasts. If you're listening on Apple, you just scroll down on our show page, tap the Stars, and write a few words.
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Wiley: This is Famous Eng Gravy biographies from a different point of view. To participate in our opening quiz, email us at [00:01:00] hello@famousenggravy.com. Now here's the quiz to reveal today's dead celebrity.
Michael: This person died 2011, age 93. She spoke often in support of the Equal Rights Amendment, endorsed legalized abortion, and she discussed premarital sex. We know it's not Phyllis Schlafly.
Friend: I mean, I feel like that could be a lot of strong women. Uh, drawing a blank. Margaret Mead,
Michael: not Margaret Meade. Good guess, but not Margaret Meade.
All right. She once said, quote, it's hard to make anyone understand what it's like to have your name on something to be given credit for things you haven't done. I've been at meetings where someone turned and thanked me and I hugged the person and said, don't thank me. Thank yourself. You're the one who did it with God's help.
End quote. I love the quote, but I have no idea.
Friend: Wow. Literally no idea.
Michael: Her dependency on pills began in 1964 with a medical prescription to relieve constant pain from a neck injury and a pinched nerve. Her drinking became troublesome as her husband's career advanced.
Friend: I was gonna say Elizabeth Taylor, but [00:02:00] I think you already did a show on Elizabeth Taylor,
Michael: not Elizabeth Taylor.
Good guess, but not Elizabeth Taylor. All right. When her husband's voice failed him in the morning after he was defeated by Jimmy Carter in 1976, it was she who read the official concession statement with Smiling Grace.
Friend: Oh. Uh, um, yeah. Betty Ford, I.
Michael: Betty Ford
Friend: is that Betty Ford?
Michael: Today's dead celebrity is Betty Ford.
Archival: I told my husband, if we have to go to the White House, okay, I will go, but I'm going as myself and it's too late to change my pattern. And if they don't like it, then they'll just have to throw me out.
Michael: Welcome to Famous and Gravy. I'm Michael Osborne, and my name is Wiley Hodges. And on this show we choose a famous figure who died in the 21st century, and we [00:03:00] take a totally different approach to their biography. What didn't we know? What could we not see clearly? And what does a celebrity's life story teach us about ourselves today?
Betty Ford died 2011, age 93. All right, so today I am so happy to be joined again by my friend Wiley Hodges. Wiley joined me previously on the Kurt Vonne episode, and you and I have been talking about doing another one. Somehow we landed on Betty Ford.
Wiley: Indeed. I, I think it's just, I'm supposed to do people who were really famous in the seventies.
Michael: Honestly, that was my question for you without revealing your age. Uh, do you remember Betty Ford when she was in office? I do. I. Okay, that's, no, let's just leave it at that. That's enough. You're old enough to remember Betty Ford in office, but I couldn't
Wiley: vote for her husband.
Michael: All right. Well then I think people can start to do the math here.
I gotta say, I knew none of this. I was not alive when Betty Ford was First Lady, and the first time I learned about her was when [00:04:00] celebrities were making jokes about rehab. And I have always been curious about this person. Holy cow. Was there a lot to talk about? Maybe let's just get right to it. Category one, grading the first line of their obituary.
Betty Ford, the outspoken and much admired wife of President Gerald R. Ford, who overcame alcoholism and addiction to pills and helped found one of the best known rehabilitation centers in the nation. Died Friday in Rancho Mirage, California. She was 93.
Wiley: It is certainly not the worst opening line of a New York Times obituary.
It's not bad. It clearly covers the high points for Betty Ford. Mm-hmm. The one reservation I have is, I feel like it doesn't quite get to the part. We might not have known as much about Betty Ford right there in the intro, but I'll allow that sometimes. That's what the next few paragraphs are for I Right.
Michael: And I've gotten to a point with grading the first line of the obit where I look for them [00:05:00] to say, here's what you know this person for. And as you say, the rest of the obituary can flush it out, make it more interesting. Talk about things they did not know in terms of what we know her for. It is two things.
Married to President Gerald Ford and. The Betty Ford Center, so I'm with you. Not bad. Let's start with the, the things that leap out. Outspoken and much admired. I love outspoken, way more outspoken than I realized. Like she took stances and public stances. And this is not a first lady who was hiding in the background.
Wiley: She was not as, I think one of her advisors described a certain type of first lady, a podium princess who stood quietly beside her husband.
Michael: Wow, I hadn't heard that term. She's not a podium princess. Much admired. I that I kinda lingered on for a second. I think it's true that I think she is somebody who had high approval rating and I mean, there's even jokes in the 1976 presidential election where people are like, I don't know about Jerry, but I'm ready [00:06:00] to vote for Betty Ford again.
Like she was, she was a, a more popular figure than I realized across the political spectrum and across the country. Much admired. Does that downplay it? Does that capture it?
Wiley: You know, I think she's not just famous. She's someone who actually was and is to some extent today, based on her legacy, widely admired it.
It does get at something that is hard for people today to understand, which is her popularity in her time.
Michael: Yeah. I think that's why it feels a little bit underplayed to me. I mean, she's a little bit of something of a phenom in
Wiley: terms of her fame. She was an unusual and unusually popular first lady.
Michael: Yeah.
Maybe that's it. It's not getting at any of her quirkiness
Wiley: really. Yeah. I think not since really Eleanor Roosevelt, had there been a first lady who was so public in her opinions on issues. Yeah. As well as being a visible figure in the first family and beside the president. Well said.
Michael: Okay. And then one of the best known rehab centers in the nation.
Great. Here's my [00:07:00] major gripe with this, and listeners won't be able to hear this because you have to see the sentence to get this. There's no commas in here. I mean, there's a couple of commas in some key places, but when it goes from the outspoken and much admired wife of President Gerald R. Ford, who overcame addiction and alcoholism pills, and helped found one of the best known rehabilitation centers in the nation, there's no, there's no comm.
There's no
Wiley: break. Well, there is a comma. Comma died Friday in Rancho Mirage, California. Not where there should be. I need a, you needed a breath. I think that's what I'm hearing. I needed an
Michael: Oxford comma. Part of it is overcame. Alcoholism and addiction to pills. That's one idea. But I wanted a comma after that and said comma, and helped found one of the best known rehab centers.
Wiley: You know, I will say the copy editor in me read this the first time and said, where's the comma? And then the second time said, oh, I see you don't need it.
Michael: Maybe that's grammatically true, but I think it is in that zone where it could like, it's subjective.
Wiley: Like you could put it in there. It is. I'll admit, I just suffered trauma from an 11th grade English teacher who loved [00:08:00] delete commas from my essays.
Michael: Well, I'm, I'm sorry that this is triggering, but um,
Wiley: yeah, so
Michael: did you know what I mean though? Like, I feel like. We know her for two really big things. Yeah. And they're related of course. But more than anything, I kind of wanted to bracket out the accomplishment of the rehab center and separate it from the fame of being married
Wiley: to the president.
I had a note in gestation that I then killed off. It really came down to this much admired wife of President Gerald R. Ford, which rankled the first few times I read it. Oh, should have been musta much admired. First lady. First lady, particularly for a woman who was so outspoken on women's issues to sort of be the wife of Gerald Ford in the opening line of her obit.
Felt a little bit of a dismissal, and then I thought really long and hard about it and realized. No, actually I think it's a really important part of her story that in fact, a huge part of her life was being the wife of Gerald Ford. [00:09:00] And so I gave it back. I, I decided it wasn't a problem. I think I agree, and I'm glad you walked me through that.
So do you have your score? I do. I'm giving it an eight. I think there's some room for improvement, but this is a solid effort.
Michael: I give it a nine. I think it's a little bit better than that. I kind of wish there was a little bit more intrigue around her personality, although. The overcoming addiction to alcoholism and pills and being the first lady, kind of should hint at that Anyway, and then I am frustrated that these ideas are all kind of lumped into one big thing, not two separate things.
Awesome. Eight and a nine. Uh, let's move on. Category two, five things I love about you here, Wiley and I will develop a list of five things that offer a different angle on who this person was and how they lived. Wiley kick us off.
Wiley: My thing number one that I love about Betty Ford is she was a healer. She offered a healing hand to so many people who were suffering.
And not by the way, just from these addictions to, you [00:10:00] know, drugs and alcohol, but also from people who suffered other health issues, her work on behalf of people with arthritis and other cancer. Yeah, yeah. Uh, breast cancer being a, an absolutely huge one. But the other element of it, and I think it's a lot more about her role as first lady in the Ford administration, is the way that her.
Openness the way that her authenticity as a person really helped to heal a country that was deeply distrustful of public figures and particularly public officials in the wake of Nixon's scandals and resignation. And I think the role she played in helping to reestablish some measure of trust in the White House is immeasurable.
I don't think that journey was complete with what she did, but I think she was a huge force in helping make that happen.
Michael: Great. Number one, I really like the word healer because it speaks to, uh, benevolence, but it also speaks to like a breath of fresh air. I really like what you, you've had to say. 'cause I.
I, I think she's actually a, a sort of [00:11:00] understated figure in, to your point, the aftermath of Nixon's resignation. She's a real spark. And somebody who's the press was excited to have in the White House. Yes. Because she's interesting.
Wiley: Yes. And, and Gerald Ford was kind of a steady hand on the tiller after some real disasters in the country.
But what she accomplished as First Lady with her personality was huge. She was so popular and so loved by so many different people, not just Republicans. Uh, a lot of people from all sides of the aisle and different walks of life. Loved Betty Ford.
Michael: You know, one thing I really like about this point too, Wiley, and I do not want to get too political, but let's just say when a country goes through a certain sort of traumatic, difficult political moment, it's nice to be able to point to figures in the past that were part of the healing process for a country, right?
It does give
Wiley: one hope.
Michael: It does give one hope. Without saying anything more than that, I mean, I think [00:12:00] this is the way celebrity and fame can work. Certain people emerge in a moment and are the right person for that moment, are the right people for that moment.
Wiley: And she was a woman for the moment.
Archival: Uh, one of you said, uh, how do you like your new house?
And, uh, I think it's a very beautiful house and a very beautiful mansion, and I really don't consider it my house. I consider it. The house of the people of United States.
Michael: Okay, well that dovetails really well into my thing. Number two, I had celebrity spokesperson for public health. One thing that's kind of lost to history is that, uh, her arthritis, the family is very involved in a lot of fundraising for arthritis.
One that people may or may not know is how public she was about her breast cancer and her mastectomy. This actually came up in, when we did the Shirley Temple Black episode. Shirley Temple Black was one of the first women to be reasonably public about their, her struggles with breast cancer, but it, she was more public [00:13:00] after Betty Ford did it.
Betty Ford is really a game changer in terms of saying, I have breast cancer. I've had to have a mastectomy and letting the public know about it in a way that completely de-stigmatized or disease.
Archival: One day I appeared to be fine. And the next day, the very next day, I was in the hospital for a mastectomy.
This made me realize how many women in this country could be in exactly the same situation. That realization made me decide to discuss my breast cancer operation openly because I thought of all of the many lives in jeopardy.
Wiley: It is so hard to. Actually get in today's world, how big a deal it was for someone to [00:14:00] publicly use the word breast.
Yeah. Or the word cancer in a public conversation.
Michael: And I, you know, my, and looking at the story, 'cause you know, I, I knew that eventually we were gonna get to the part of the story where we hear about her alcoholism and addiction. I think that this was a really essential precursor, her experience being public about breast cancer.
Created an opportunity for her to be public with her struggles with addiction. When that came to the fore, had this not happened, I'm not sure if there would've been more effort to hide this truth from the public. The, it actually spoke to a, a kind of related thing for me in this, in terms of her being a celebrity spokesperson for public health, there's some real serendipity in her story.
She had the St. Francis Prayer on her bathroom window. The St. Francis Prayer is an important prayer in recovery rooms. And the fact that this was something that she had a relationship to [00:15:00] before she found her way into recovery is kind of poetic and beautiful. And there's a lot foreshadowing in her biography as if there's destiny.
I saw an upward staircase in her story, but I also almost saw a life story that had more meaning woven in, and that was even more visible when you got to later events in her story, if that makes sense.
Wiley: Absolutely. That would take us to my number three, which is that she was the life of the party. Yeah. She of course, was someone who loved to have a good time.
She had a really bubbly and effervescent personality. People genuinely gravitated to her even from when she was very young. They often commented on her being someone who just had a huge amount of charisma. But another part of that that's really interesting is that she was a dancer at a young age. She began dancing very intently.
By the time she graduated from high school, she actually went to a modern dance program at Bennington College in Vermont, and [00:16:00] then there met and was instructed by Martha Graham and persuaded Martha Graham to take her into. Martha's dance program in New York. So she was really a professional dancer of some note.
She didn't make the touring company, but she had training and a lot of work that she put in as someone who could perform and had a certain poise in the public eye that I think really served her incredibly well. We could go back to number two, her work as a spokesperson, but also that dancing was part of a lifelong love that she then gave to other people.
And when she was First Lady, there were big parties at the White House and you know, there were all these stories of she and President Ford dancing till one 30 in the morning, like just having a great time. She said when she came to the White House that this home has been a grave. I want it to sing. And I think that was an amazing sentiment.
It kind of goes back to the healer point as well that she wanted to bring joy back into the public life there. Am I gonna sound like an idiot if I don't know [00:17:00] who Martha Graham was? You know, let's talk about Martha Graham for 10 seconds. Martha Graham was kind of the. True giant of American modern dance in the early to mid 20th century.
She was an immensely accomplished a woman as a dancer, led a dance troupe, and uh, also had a dance school that really helped to drive forward modern dance in America. I'll just add as a fun fact the Apple Think different campaign. She was one of the people in that campaign, along with people like Martin Luther King Jr.
Ansel Adams, miles Davis. She is that kind of level of American artist.
Michael: This is, this is Ron Burgundy. Kind of a big deal. Yeah, she's
Wiley: kind of a big deal.
Michael: Okay, thanks for the 20 seconds on Martha Graham. You know, I I, one of the things that I enjoyed about her biography is she is kind of a rebellious teenager, right?
Yeah, yeah. And she's, she's always been like her whole life, there's an independent streak. And I also do think that kind of to my point a moment ago about [00:18:00] serendipity in her life, the fact that she pursued dancing the way she did as a performer, kind of gave her some media training before it was clear that she was going to need that.
And I love this life of the party thing. There's also stuff about her, like pushing Gerald forward into the, into the swimming pool and then like throwing the dog in afterwards. Like, I mean, she seems. Like a little bit mischievous.
Wiley: Right after the somewhat controversial 60 minutes interview with Morley Safer, which had a polarizing reaction out there in the American public, and someone had taken a photo of safer interviewing her, and she sent it to him with an inscription that read.
Dear Morley, if there are any questions you forgot to ask. I'm grateful. Sincerely, Betty for it.
Michael: Right? Right. Uh, dude, I'm so glad you brought up the 60 Minutes interview. That is exactly what I was about to talk about. My thing number four is bridging the generation gap. That is evident in that 60 Minutes interview where she says some things that rankled the [00:19:00] White House.
In terms of like how this is going to be perceived. Did you ever have any doubts about your husband and about some of the attractions in this city?
Archival: I have perfect faith in my husband, but I'm always glad to see him enjoy a pretty girl, and when he stops looking, then I'm going to begin to worry.
Michael: When we look at it now, some of what she's speaking to doesn't seem all that racy.
It's sort of to your point earlier of like it used to be unbelievably taboo to use the word breast in public, and she de destigmatizes that in that interview there. There's a couple of moments that I think get at a kind of interesting generational divide moment that as the country is healing post Nixon and even sort of post the tumult of the sixties, she is sort of straddling.
The greatest generation in the boomers in an interesting way. Um, in that interview, for example, she [00:20:00] makes reference to love life with Gerald Ford. Um, I think it's in that one, sleeping
Wiley: with her husband. Oh God, God forbid, God
Michael: forbid, I can't remember if it's that interview or a different one where somebody asks her about drug use and she's like, my kids have probably smoked pot.
And then the White House is like, no, don't say that. But it's like, but that's also true, right? This is kids these days are doing that. She speaks to premarital sex. Uh, she's very aware of the changes going on in the country and seems kind of accepting of it even though she does seem to hail from an earlier time and represent a different, more traditional normative standard for what a housewife is and what family looks like.
Wiley: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think she's a woman who clearly has one foot in each of two worlds here. She clearly chose a path of being a very supportive wife and mother to a husband with a career in politics and to four children who. Created a lot of work for her during their, uh, formative years. At the same time, she's someone who's clearly connected to what's [00:21:00] going on.
Yeah. She has no illusions about what people are doing out there. When asked about things like premarital sex or people living together, she's like, well, they're doing it, aren't they? Yeah. Which is the most practical answer you can give, but also reflects that she is in tune. She gets it.
Michael: I think, like I did not quite understand her before getting ready for this episode.
As a feminist figure, I mean her willingness to talk about reproductive rights and the Equal Rights Amendment,
Archival: my own support of the Equal Rights Amendment has shown what happens when a definition of proper behavior collides with the right of an individual to personal opinions. I do not believe that being First Lady.
Should prevent me from expressing my ideas
Michael: when she goes through her recovery journey, one [00:22:00] of the things she encounters is a very male dominated culture of recovery. And as she's building out the Betty Ford Center, she is thinking about the needs of women and men in, in a way that, that speaks to the reality that she had to, you know, go through her journey into addiction was through prescription pills and was being over-prescribed things in a, in a kind of mother's little helper way.
Archival: So if you have physical pain, you take a pill. If you have emotional pain, you take a little drink. I use the pills and the alcohol to help me cope. How many pills were you taking at that point, do you think? As I recollect, I think it was 25 or 30 pills a day, maybe a night cap before I went to bed and then take, uh, sleeping pills.
Michael: And it was through, you know, I, I suppose well-meaning doctors prescribing too many pills, but also nobody having the cahones to say. To the doctor, you should stop prescribing Mrs. Ford. So many pills. So thing number four, [00:23:00] bridging the generational gap. What did you have for number five?
Wiley: Well, number five, I have candid.
You know, it's a word that you see mentioned a lot when people reflect on the life of Betty Ford. It's actually in the title of one of her biographies. She's someone who really did tell it like she saw it, but not in an unkind or not in a loudmouth way. She had this ability to tell the truth in a way that was charming.
But also felt important and timely.
Michael: I think this comes to be a very big part of our story when it comes to recovery as well. Yeah. That I think that there is this person who is at the upper echelons of society, yet is still relatable and is still able to talk through pain, humiliation, delusion. I really like the word candor
Wiley: because
Michael: she's trustworthy.
Wiley: She is not a person who approaches politics from a perspective of feeling like she is having to spin or deceive. She really wants to genuinely connect with people by telling the truth and really sharing what her story [00:24:00] is about, and that builds a level of trust and admiration for her. That is invaluable.
Then, as she confronts these crises with breast cancer and addiction and alcoholism and Wow, like how much difference it makes to have someone who you can trust tell you, I've been through this and Yeah. You know, here's how I dealt with it. That giving people hope that they can deal with it too. That's just amazing.
Michael: This is my experience. Yeah. Okay, so thing number five, candid. Uh, let's recap real quick. So number one, you said healer? Yeah. Healer. Number two. Celebrity spokesperson for public health. And I tagged on serendipity and serendipitous life story with that. Number three, you said life of the party. Number four.
I went with bridging the generation gap. And number five, candid. Awesome list. All right, let's take a break. Category three, one love. In this category, we each choose one word or a phrase that characterizes Betty Ford's loving [00:25:00] relationships. First, we will review the family life data. So two marriages. She was married to William Warren, 1942.
She was 24. They divorced in 1947. She was 29 years old. She refers to this as her five year mistake. Then she marries Gerald Ford in 1948. Uh, she's 30 years old. She had four children with Gerald, Ford, Michael, John, Steven and Susan. They're all born within seven years. Jerry died in 2006, so they were married for 58 years.
She was 88 years old when Gerald died. She dies five years later, age 93. Wiley. What did you have
Wiley: for one word or phrase here? The one word that I actually came up with, and it's gonna sound a little weird, is do-overs.
Michael: Oh, interesting. Okay.
Wiley: Because I thought about this long and hard. You know, there's a lot of very interesting aspects of her love life and her relationships, but I think at some level, what really.
Is interesting to me about the familiar relationships that she had was this idea that she could kind of press the [00:26:00] reset button and do them again. Hmm. I really see that in a couple of different places. One of them is moving on from the first marriage, the marriage to Bill Warren, which she does describe as the five-year misunderstanding in, in her autobiography is clearly a mistake.
It's clearly something she did because she kind of just felt she needed to be married. It was the thing to do at that point in her life.
Michael: Yeah.
Wiley: And she learned a lot about what she really wanted during that five year misunderstanding. And then after divorcing, bill Warren got a phenomenal opportunity after she met Gerald Ford and mm-hmm.
He proposed to her in the incredibly romantic way. I suppose we should get married or something to that effect. Right,
Michael: right, right, right. And then, and then go to a football game. I mean, yes. Uh, you know, I did not know, by the way, Gerald Ford was drafted by both the Bears and the Packers. I knew he was a football guy.
I,
Wiley: he was in fact a tremendous athlete. He's a national All-star in college. Played basketball when he was in the Navy and won some sort of, uh, fleet championship in that time. So he was drafted into the NFL. But I mean,
Michael: and, and I think, I [00:27:00] think the point here is that he was actually a catch. Yes. Right. And he got very close to another marriage beforehand, but he did when he and Betty finally got hitched, like he was a hot item who, you know, veteran who had his eye on public
Wiley: office, obviously.
And then Yale Law School grad, um, you know, this, this guy was not a schlub. And what's interesting is that that. In and of itself doesn't seem to be the attraction between he and Betty. Yeah. It seems to be much more of a spark that, you know, she's appealing to him and Yeah. You know, she really kind of likes him ultimately.
Totally. Yeah. But he grows on her. It doesn't seem like it's something that happens right away and yet. When you read about their relationship in all of these different biographies, and I've never seen really anything to the contrary. It is tender and loving throughout their married life.
Michael: Totally. The first marriage is sort of interesting because she actually wants out of it like three years in, and her husband has that accident where he's in the hospital for a period of time, goes into a diabetic coma and like [00:28:00] on her way to breaking up with him.
That happens. Yes. And she feels kind of saddled, but then it, it seems like a mutual parting of ways when she requests the divorce, but then they kind of had to cover that up as Jerry Ford is seeking office because oh my God, he's getting married to a divorcee. This was like scandalous, which, and speaks to the whole generation gap.
I, I'd really like the do-over point though too. Yeah. Because I mean, obviously it also speaks to her journey with her family, you
Wiley: know, after she gets sober and, and I think that's what I see is that she. Has a few do-overs during the time that she's married to Jerry. I think she comes in as a congressional wife and is a bit lost and doesn't know what to do, and she kind of has to like screw up her courage and go and face a whole world of people who she finds very intimidating.
Mm-hmm. And yet she knows she needs to kind of go deal with as she's gonna actually successfully navigate this world that she's in. After the intervention with her family, obviously she goes through an immense reset. Has [00:29:00] to really rebuild a relationship, recognizing the way that she's hurt members of her family and the way that members of her family also find they have to reset their relationship with her because they've been enablers or played roles in the family based on her alcoholism and addiction.
And so I, I do think that at the end of the day, what I find notable about her life is that. It's been about points at which she and the people around her were willing to change in order to help nurture these relationships.
Michael: I like the word do over because it speaks to redemption, it speaks to growth. It speaks to, you know, the opportunity.
Yeah. To, to try again. It speaks to amends on some level. Right.
Wiley: I also think, and this is not directly related about her loving relationships, but she wrote two autobiographies within the span of a decade, and one of them is not in print and one of them is, so there's a do over with her, and I do find that that's a doover as well.
Let's do that one again as well. Yeah. It's like we wrote an autobiography. Oh. When you read the second autobiography essentially opens saying that first one. Yeah, [00:30:00] I wasn't totally being honest with myself or with you. And so that ultimately, you know, the 1987 autobiography, A Grateful Awakening, is really the story of her life as I think she wants to tell it after having gone through these immense changes and that set of do-overs,
Michael: I suppose.
And I guess this is just a storytelling point that people should know her journey into recovery happens after the presidency. That's right. So she is in active addiction as First Lady, so that's part of the reason for the timing of the memoir and so forth. Okay. I'll give you my one word or phrase. Have you ever heard the word anagnorisis?
Oh my Lord, no. I cannot say I have. Okay. I was hoping to come up with a word you'd never heard before. Here is what it means. This is an idea introduced by Aristotle. An Norris is the point in the play or novel or story in which a principle character recognizes or discovers another character's true identity or the true nature of their own circumstances.
Ooh, the thing I could not get over as I was thinking [00:31:00] about her loving relationships is the intervention because it is a staged intervention with a doctor who had gone through recovery. All of the family is brought in in this moment. She is presented with the truth of herself and it's painful. It sounds painful.
It sounds awful, and I think that it, it is the critical point in her story where she is revealed to herself where the antagonist of the story is her own disease and is inside, and that it is only shown to her because her family loves her.
Archival: I needed somebody who cared to tell me I was sick, and they weren't telling me I was alcoholic, and they weren't telling me that I was a drug addict.
They were telling me that they loved me and they cared about me and. They couldn't let me go on because I was gonna [00:32:00] die if I did.
Michael: It kind of gets at the thing I was talking about earlier in terms of serendipity. One of the things I really like about Betty Ford, she's a great story. She was a dancer and then a spicy teenager and a divorcee who never meant to go into politics, but then marries a man who has one of the more unlikely pathways to the White House.
I mean, Jerry Ford never exactly sought higher office. He was the speaker of the house when Spiro Agney resigned. And then Nixon says, well, yeah, he was, was, uh,
Wiley: congressional, a minority leader. Minority leader, yeah. Sorry.
Michael: Thank you. Minority leader. But it didn't sound like he had ambitions for the White House.
He didn't, he told ambitious
Wiley: to be speaker of the House. That's actually the job he wanted. That's what he wanted.
Michael: That's the job he wanted, and yet finds himself as president. Like all of this is like a, a train that, that Betty Ford accidentally boards, you know? Yes. This was never by design. And then you know, what is the meaning?
What is the point? Why am I being taken on this path? [00:33:00] Why me, Betty Ford in the White House all of a sudden? And, and then I think it is revealed to her in the intervention when her family says, we love you and we think you can be more. And she can only see that as everybody is coming to her, showing her herself.
So examples of Agnosis in other plays are like, I mean, I went down a rabbit hole. Oedipus, uh, Rex King Lear, the narrator in Fight Club, Neo in the Matrix. It's actually like, there's actually some really, well, like your favorite movies, there's usually a moment where the character is revealed for who they really are, but it's an internal realization.
Wiley: I would even argue that there are many different points in her life when we see that take place for her. Sure. You know, you mentioned it's a great story. It's funny, I was just talking to a, a mutual friend of ours about storytelling recently, Uhhuh, and they noted that, you know, the greatest stories are the ones where something happens that's unlikely.
But completely makes sense.
Michael: Yes.
Wiley: Inevitability coupled with unpredictability. Yes. And
Michael: at some
Wiley: level, that is the absolute [00:34:00] essence of the Betty Ford Life story.
Michael: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So the reason I wanted to use it in this category around one love is that it's only made possible because of everybody who loves her.
Okay, let's move on. Category four, net worth. In this category, Wiley and I will each write down our numbers. We'll then talk a little bit about our reasoning. We will then look up the net worth number in real time to see who's closest. Finally, we will place Betty Ford on the famous and gravy net worth leaderboard.
I know for a fact you have thought way too much about this. Walk me through your reasoning. Wiley Hodges.
Wiley: You know, Betty Ford's net worth is a tough one because the Fords were not rich before he was president. You know, their income. Before he was in the presidency was really just him as a congressman. So really their income was after the presidency, and that was PR principally from book royalties and speakers fees.
Except I was gonna say that it turns out they agreed to donate the proceeds from their book royalties to various charities. And so they [00:35:00] never realized those. So over a million dollars was actually donated and did not go into their pockets. And so then it's like, well, what did they make money doing? Well, Gerald Ford was on the speaker circuit.
Yes. Apparently was making something over half a million dollars a year in the late seventies. And so he definitely had a pretty solid income and they had a very nice life living in Rancho Mirage, which if you don't know, is in the Coachella Valley near Palm Springs. And they also owned a beautiful ski lodge in Beaver Creek, Colorado, which is near Vail.
Yeah. They made some good
Michael: investments,
Wiley: they made some good investments, and they got in early. In both those places. It's worth noting they, they didn't buy at the top of the market, and, and those places today would be worth far more. But back when they were selling those assets, they had a certain value that I could actually look up and find out.
And so I can tell you that their home in Rancho Mirage sold after Betty Ford's death for 1.57 million. And um, actually after Gerald Ford's death, they sold the ski place [00:36:00] in Vail, and that sold for 6.5 million. So quite a bit more. Really interesting note here for me on the net worth front is that Gerald Ford was entitled to a presidential pension after he left office.
In modern terms, it, it's worth over $200,000 a year, somewhere between 200 and 250,000. But what's interesting is that. First ladies as widows are only entitled to $20,000 a year in franking privileges. So once Gerald Ford dies in 2006, she actually is only given $20,000 a year by the federal government and the ability to send all the, all the mail she wants.
Major
Michael: haircut. Off and down. Yeah. So a
Wiley: pretty big haircut. And so I kind of looked at this. I said, well, they had. A six and a half million dollar asset pool. So here's where I land, just to get to that. You're like, is there ever gonna be an answer here? Yeah, exactly. We could, I I could, uh, I could go back and do this simpler if you want.
Michael: I, I looked at how much Bob Dole had, and he was at 40 million, and I said, well, it can't be that much. And I went way lower. [00:37:00] Yeah, it's, it's probably a lot lower
Wiley: than Bob Dole for a variety of reasons. For a variety
Michael: of reasons. All right. So Wiley Hodges wrote down $8 million. All right.
Wiley: Oh, and Michael Osborne, uh, you wrote down $15 million.
Michael: Okay. The actual net worth of Betty Ford 20 million. Oh, Mike, congratulations. That's fantastic. Good for Betty Ford. Well, I mean, one thing you didn't talk about in your reasoning is. Betty Ford Center, which is successful on some level. I think it actually does have a reputation as being more like four celebrities and more expensive than you would think.
She pushes it back against that. I actually don't know how it compares with other rehabilitation centers. It is a profitable enterprise. The Betty Ford Center, Shirley,
Wiley: I don't believe it was actually ever set up as a profitable enterprise.
Michael: Is that right? Okay. And
Wiley: so, uh, that I did not actually account for that in my calculation of her net worth, but I don't
Michael: [00:38:00] know.
Well next time do your homework, Wiley. You know, so, uh, I got, I am so happy to be closer than my guest host for the first time in like eight episodes, and I'm actually. Glad that I'm closer than you in particular.
Wiley: Oh, I, I, um, I'm
Michael: just feeling, I know you're gonna bring more competitiveness next time we do an episode.
I don't know if I could
Wiley: bring more competitiveness to this, but,
Michael: well, okay. So we need to actually place Betty Ford on the net worth leaderboard. So at 20 million, uh, she's in the 56th percentile, so she's just below the median. Also at the, uh, $20 million net worth. Dinner table is James Garner Curly Neal, Maurice Sineck, Gary Sling, Tom Wolf, gene Wilder, Eddie Money, Sidney Poitier, Rodney Dangerfield, and Leslie Nielsen.
Wiley: Oh, that is the dinner party I wanna be at
Michael: then. She's the only gal there. Yeah, there's gonna, there's gonna be some partying. I wonder He'll be the life of the party at this one. All right, let's move on. Category [00:39:00] five, little Lebowski, urban Achievers.
Archival: They're the little Lebowski, urban achievers. So yeah, the achievers, yes.
And proud. We are, of all of them
Michael: in this category, we each choose a trophy and award, a cameo, an impersonation, or some other form of a hat tip that shows a different side of this person. So Wiley, what'd you have for this category?
Wiley: I'm actually gonna go way back in media history to when Betty Ford became the first first lady to appear in a scripted television show and a This was sitcom?
Michael: Yeah,
Wiley: actually a sitcom. Mary Tyler Moore show. So, uh. Mary Tyler Moore, of course. Uh, subject of your episode 47, proud Mary Betty Ford appeared in season six, episode 17, called The Seminar that aired actually on January 10th, 1976. She is having, I believe, a phone conversation with Lou Grant. Mm-hmm. Uh, who is, uh, indicating that Jerry Ford has left his pipe in Lou's hotel room.
Michael: Yeah. Like Lou's like IIII came across this like Lou is telling stories about all these famous [00:40:00] people who he'd been hanging out with and Exactly. Mary Tyler Moore comes in and doesn't believe that Lou has been having these conversations. So Mary Tyler Moore gets on the phone, is like, yeah, Betty Ford, whatever.
Archival: Well, I have to go now. Well, I just wanted to tell you, I'm sorry we missed you. Look, I don't know who you are or how Mr. Grant got you to take part in this childish charade. Please just tell Lou. We'll have the pipe picked up. Yeah. But, uh, it's really very late and I'd like to get to sleep, so I'll say goodbye now.
Oh, and incidentally, your impression of Betty Ford. Really stinks.
Michael: The audience gets to see it is really Betty Ford and she hangs up on her. It's a, it's a charming moment.
Wiley: It's a charming moment. It's definitely maybe not the greatest TV performance ever, but like I said, a milestone in history. Yeah. And a, a really interesting coda to this from my perspective, is that Mary Tyler Moore herself of course struggles with [00:41:00] issues with addiction and, uh, seeks a solution out of all places the Betty Ford Center and apparently gets there and.
Sees the situation where she has to share a room with other women. Yes. Where she has to like empty the trash cans and clean the toilets and be kind of, you know, forced to do a lot of stuff that Mary Tyler Moore Big Star does not have to do when she's at home. So she basically says, screw this, walks out of Betty Ford and goes to a nearby hotel and checks in there not long after she gets a phone call.
From Betty Ford. Right. And you know Mary Tyler Moore says in her 1996 biography that that phone call saved her life. Yeah. That whatever Betty Ford said to her caused Mary Tyler Moore to turn around and go back to Betty Ford Center as she put it on her hands and knees.
Michael: It should be said that Betty Ford herself had a similar experience.
There were not many rehabs available to her when she checked in. And she initially checks in for addiction to prescription pills. She goes to, it's [00:42:00] like a naval, the Long Beach Naval Hospital walks in and sees this sign that says Alcoholic Rehabilitation Center. And she's like, I am an alcoholic. I have a different problem.
What am I doing here? And goes into a room where there are four shared beds and she is not used to sharing a room with other women and. Is immediately humbled by that. So when Betty Ford is telling Mary Tyler Moore, get your ass back into rehab. I assume that's what she said.
Wiley: We can only assume, but, but yeah, to your point, but she's drawing from experience.
They had a very similar experience and I'm really glad this one worked out for both of them.
Michael: Yeah. And, and I don't know how important or interesting it is, but Betty, for talking about initially seeing herself as having a problem with prescription pills, not understanding her own alcoholism, but then coming to that realization is sort of its own interesting journey.
It really is.
Wiley: And I, by the way, I, you know, I guess we should always urge people to read the biographies of these people, but, uh, if you read particularly I believe the Lisa McCubbin [00:43:00] biography, there's a really powerful moment in there where Betty Ford essentially comes to grips with what's going on through, interestingly, the story of another alcoholic in a meeting.
Michael: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And
Wiley: so it's a really great story and very touching, but also, like you said, one that was a struggle, like where she really couldn't initially accept it.
Michael: And Mary Tyler Moore is, I love that you pointed to Proud Mary. Our, uh, our episode on Mary Tyler Moore, there's a couple of other famous and gravy alums, Johnny Cash and Elizabeth Taylor in particular, who apparently were there at the same time, and the Betty Ford Center, so great one.
Okay, well, mine's pretty quick. So in episode one of season nine of The Simpsons, there's a, I don't know if you remember this, the family goes to New York because it's a kind of a long story. Barney was the designated driver one night, and then after he drops everybody off, he goes on a bender and takes Homer's card in New York.
So the family has to go to New York and they're having a tourist experience. There is a [00:44:00] musical that the family goes to see. About the Betty Ford Center.
Wiley: It is entitled, kicking It, a Musical Journey through the Betty Ford Center. And there's a song, uh, called I'm Checking In. Yes, that wins a couple
Michael: of awards, including a primetime Emmy.
Wiley: No more looking pale and thin. No more bugs beneath your skin. Hey, that's just my aspirin. Chop it out.
Archival: Your,
Michael: the reason I chose this as my Lebowski is that I do think that we hear Betty Ford Center and we tend to think celebrities, and this kind of plays that up. That's actually not true. One thing that the center is very clear about is like a very small percentage of people who actually go to Betty Ford are celebrities, but I like the way the Simpsons play with this idea.
Wiley: And I think it does speak to that, that lasting legacy, uh, which as, uh, Susan Ford Betty's daughter put it is her mother is a place I'm [00:45:00] going to Betty Ford,
Michael: which is cool. Okay, let's pause for another break. All right. Category six words to live by and this category, we each choose a quote. These are either words that came out of this person's mouth or was said about them.
Wiley: Wiley, what'd you have for words to live by? There's actually a quote from her that I thought really was kind of a lot of her story in a nutshell. She said, I think it wasn't so much that the White House altered me in any essential way, is that I found the resources with which to respond to a series of challenges.
You never know what you can do until you have to do it. In the beginning it was like going to a party you're terrified of and finding out to your amazement that you're having a good time.
Michael: Huh. Wow. That's good. That applies to a lot of her story.
Wiley: It does, doesn't it?
Michael: Yeah. That's really good. Nice one. Wiley.
All right. I kept it simple. She said, I don't look at what I've lost. I look instead at what I have left. I think that one speaks to gratitude. My experience with sobriety and, and sort of growth [00:46:00] is that I have a real tendency to focus on fear and look at missed opportunities and regrets and look at my past and say, this is all the stuff that I lost, that I screwed up.
And all of that takes attention away from the present and to look at what I have left. One of the things I've experienced is, it's amazing. How much of my attitude doesn't require the world to be rearranged in any meaningful way that I've actually already got everything I need and that all of the things that make life worthwhile are right there in front of me, and yet my attention gets pulled away towards impossibilities.
So there's something about the way this read that spoke to gratitude, but also spoke to like where I have my attention, and am I putting my attention in the right places? If I don't reminisce on what I've lost, but instead look at what I have left, then I'm in a much better mindset. I love [00:47:00] that.
Wiley: That's a great quote.
Michael: Okay, let's go on Category seven, man In the Mirror. This category is fairly simple. Did this person like their reflection? Yes or no? This is not about beauty, but rather a question of self-confidence versus self-judgment. Oh boy, I, I, I didn't struggle too much here, but what's your hot take
Wiley: boy? My hot take is that, yeah, I think she did like who she saw in the mirror.
I did too. I think that's where I came to too. And it's funny 'cause you know, this is a woman who by the way, gets a facelift like six months into recovery, which she think is kind of the ultimate sign of, doesn't like what she sees, but it doesn't feel like that with her.
Michael: Yeah. I, in fact, and I think it's because we, she tells the people about that.
Right. I mean, I don't think it's vanity, but I, but I, I mean, one of the, I think, hallmark symptoms of the disease of addiction and alcoholism is self-loathing and self-judgment. Right? And so when somebody identifies as an alcoholic or an addict, I'm already biased towards saying they don't love the man in the mirror.
But I [00:48:00] also feel like in, in her case. There's too much
Wiley: evidence. To the contrary, she had been a model and a dancer and she loved to dress up and be pretty and you know, it was, she wasn't vain necessarily, but I do think she cared about her appearance and actually thought she looked pretty good. Yeah. And hey, she landed Gerald Ford, who was, I hear quite a catch.
Indeed.
Michael: Indeed. I do think that even in the midst of her addiction, there is
Wiley: a confidence. There is. Although, what's interesting is that I think one of the signs for a lot of people that she really, I. Had begun to like spiral toward the bottom was the fact that she was not caring about her appearance. She was staying in her bathrobe all day.
Yeah. She was, you know, absolutely waking up at one in the afternoon and hour and a half late for appearances. This was not the Betty Ford they knew.
Michael: Yeah. One thing I will say is there is a way in which she looks like a woman of a certain generation who has a certain attitude [00:49:00] around hair, makeup, presentation.
Oh yes. That I'm trying to kinda look beyond when I look at the images of her and the videos of her, where I do think that a lot of that is just the style of the time. I think on balance, she likes her reflection. Yeah. Okay. Alright, we're in agreement. All right. Category eight, cocktail coffee or cannabis.
This is where we ask which one
Wiley: would we most want to do with our dead celebrity. Well, first of all, let me just state for the record, it's incredibly awkward to think about choices other than coffee when we think about Betty Ford's story. Yeah,
Michael: but I mean, this is like you get a hall pass. I understand there's a hall pass, but.
Wiley: I have managed to work around the need for a hall pass. I think I've got a coffee answer for you.
Michael: Okay. Let me hear your coffee
Wiley: answer. Lemme paint you a picture. We're not gonna meet near her house in Rancho Mirage. We're actually going to meet in Little Havana. Oh, in Miami. We're gonna have Cortado really wonderful, uh, sweet Cuban coffee.
And then we hear Tito Puente playing. And, uh, it strikes her that maybe we should get up and dance. [00:50:00]
Michael: And I just
Wiley: think that's the Betty Ford I want to see.
Michael: That's, I like that. I, I don't even know if I've ever, what is the name of that coffee drink again? Cortado Uh,
Wiley: cortado.
Michael: Oh, so describe a cortado for me. I don't think
Wiley: I've ever ordered wine.
It's a short. Really dark coffee with a fair amount of sugar in it.
Michael: Okay. Sounds really good. Are you a dancer? Do you dance?
Wiley: I am not a dancer, but I feel like if anybody could teach me and I would enjoy it, it might be Betty Ford.
Michael: There you go. I mean, so I'm not a dancer either, but dance is something that my wife and I have gotten really interested in lately because we did a couples retreat last fall at Eslan, which was really cool, and every day began with freeform dancing, which I found unbelievably awkward.
But then, you know, you give yourself over to it. I do find that to get into dance for me requires a healthy level of surrender. Yes. Nobody cares what I look like. Nobody cares that I have no rhythm. But if I. Convince myself I can, you know, it, it is liberating, you know? And it is, I, it's, [00:51:00] it's, it's an essential experience.
Alison has started doing dance classes for, for exercise. She's getting a lot out of it. And it's something that I'm now adding onto my life. So when I ask you the question, do you dance? And you say, no, I'm gonna amend that with not yet.
Wiley: Oh. I think that's a great way to put it too. I I, I do actually want to dance more.
Michael: Yeah. I think it's a good thing to be dancing, you know, and I,
Wiley: I think I'll, I'll let Betty Ford, uh, teach me the first dance. There
Michael: you
Wiley: go.
Michael: I also want coffee. I'm going for a very, very different setting. I want gut rot, terrible Folgers Maxwell house, something that you get at an AA meeting with Betty Ford.
And the reason I want that is one, the meetings I've gone to, the coffee is usually terrible, but I also like the idea of sitting in a room. Where the playing field is leveled, that there is something about a 12 step meeting where there is an expectation that nobody is above it. That we don't care if you held political [00:52:00] office or if you have $20 million or $8 million or $8, that there is a flattening.
I saw her actually give a talk, uh, for Hazelton, where she tells her story and it was so, like, it just had all this humility to it. And that's my, that's my thing I love about her is that I really do think for all the Donna hair and all of the extraordinary qualities that go into her story, she's a relatable to your use, your word candid person, and I want to have a crappy cup of coffee with her that costs 50 cents if you drop the coins in.
I love that.
Archival: And helping someone else, you, you do a lot of that helping by being just a role model as a recovering person. All of us having our own imperfections. And it's okay, but we love each other with those little character defects or imperfections. I think one of the richest things for me is to know [00:53:00] that each morning I can get up and know that today I have to live in the now, which gives me a great deal of serenity.
Michael: I think we've arrived category nine, the van der beak named after James Vander Beak, who famously said in varsity blues, I don't want your life in that varsity blues scene, James makes a judgment that he does not want a certain kind of life based on just a few characteristics. So here Wiley and I will form a rebuttal to anyone skeptical of how Betty Ford lived.
I don't know what the case for the counter argument
Wiley: is here. Well, there was a lot of pain, you know? Yeah. I think there was physical pain. I think there was the loss of her father as a young girl. There were a lot of things she went through that were no doubt difficult experiences, but. Let me tell you right now, I'm not gonna try to make a case for the negative because I think this is an amazing life.
Michael: Okay? Every life has some pain. I think just about every life also has some humiliation. The way she handles humiliation is so [00:54:00] graceful. She's such a example. Yeah. I mean, there's a reason her name is now synonymous with recovery. Like it's the perfect name and the perfect person for one of America's most prominent rehab centers.
You know?
Wiley: Yes. It's interesting because I think when I looked at different words back when we went to five things I love about her, you know, I chose candor, but I could have chosen courage. Yeah. Right. And I think the reality is courage is, you know, the old expression goes is not about being fearless, it's about doing it even when you're afraid.
And I think that really did characterize so many episodes in her life when she was clearly intimidated or afraid or really uncertain what to do in a situation. But she kind of like took that breath, stood up a little straighter, let the dancers training in her take over and, uh, faced it head on.
Michael: Yeah.
Wiley: I think the result speaks for itself.
Michael: I agree. And I think we can try and, if possible, whittle down the reasons why we would most want this life. What are the most compelling qualities about it and your point? Courage number [00:55:00] one, to have the experience and to discover courage through candor and through humility and through grace. But I almost like courage as the number one thing because we all have fear no matter what, and that we all have to learn how to move through fear.
And she moved through
Wiley: fear. I also think the family and friend relationships. Totally. The loving relationships throughout her life. Yes. Uh, you know, so few people really get the kinds of relationships that that Betty Ford had in her life and that speaks to her, but also to those people around her. It was an amazing family environment and an amazing set of friends, some of whom were very famous, but also seemed to have been.
Very close and very intimate friends.
Michael: I was gonna say, and ignore this again because it was a word I didn't know, but I wanted to teach you about because you know, I'm here to educate you, Wiley. It's, I appreciate that, Mike. You need to learn how to think through net worth and you need to know about the word ignores.
That's what this episode's ultimately about. Um, and I think I use that as my one word phrase [00:56:00] for love and relationships, to your point number two. But I think, you know, it kind of goes into point number three. Like what a story, what a story like, and that's just what I want outta life, man, is I need to have a good story of my ups and downs and one that is ultimately so clearly turned towards service and giving back.
I mean, I think it, maybe this is around my. Point number two about public health spokesperson. She saved lives, like she saved countless lives after she goes public with her breast cancer. Like there is this flood of women who are now doing self examinations, who are like, you gave me the courage to talk about my experiences.
Like all of a sudden there's an unbelievable amount of awareness, and that's just one of her two diseases. I mean, I think that that, that the number of lies she saved in recovery is incalculable.
Wiley: Maybe that's thing number four. Okay. So the other thing, it's what I find really funny is we're talking about a woman who was [00:57:00] famous, that's why she's on this show, who actually was portrayed twice on screen that I know of.
And we've talked about an amazing life story without talking much about that. She actually was played by Gina Rowlands in a TV movie Yeah. And then later by Michelle Pfeiffer. Yeah. Yeah. Which is, that's cool. Uh, which is pretty good if you get to be played by Michelle Pfeiffer. That is not all you've done.
Okay. Yeah. You've done okay. And, uh, this is my, it's my dream is to, and, and yet. And yet that kind of fame is amazing. But the truth is her legacy in terms of the lives you've saved and the people she's helped heal is so much more important.
Michael: And, and I can't believe how little of this I knew, you know, Jerry Ford is sometimes thought of as like almost this asterisk in the history of presidents because of the, even a punchline.
Yeah, exactly. And I guess like everything that associated with him, I just hadn't thought much about or researched, and I came away with a different point of view on him, but a hundred percent her. I, I, I sort of couldn't believe I didn't know this story. Okay, so let's summarize those points. So [00:58:00] number one, we said courage.
Number two, the family life and a loving family. Number three, an ignore assist, an incredible story. Number four, lifesaver. And with that, James VanDerBeek. I'm Betty Ford and you want my life.
Before we get to the speed round, if you enjoyed this episode and you've got your phone in your hand, share it with a friend. Send it to somebody who you think would enjoy a hopeful message about an overlooked life. Okay. Speed Round Wiley plugs for past shows. If people like this episode, what episode of Famous Eng Gravy from the archives, might they also like, can I do two?
Uh, no.
Wiley: Ah. Then I'm gonna actually mention the other one I haven't already talked about in this show, which is episode 48. What about Bob? About Bob Dole? Yeah, and I know that sounds a little strange, but fun fact that ties into all of this is Bob Dole was actually Gerald Ford's running [00:59:00] mate in 1976 when he ran, ran for President's
Michael: Son of the Prairie, Bob Dole.
What about Bob? Episode 48. All right, I am gonna plug one. We've already mentioned Proud Mary, episode 47, Mary Tyler Moore. I think these are two women that if you wanna understand the 1970s, if you wanna understand recovery, they are essential pop culture figures. So episode 47, proud Mary. Here is a little preview for the next episode of Famous and Granny.
While visiting New York during his advertising days, he hung around the offices of National Lampoon Magazine and was published when he showed a gift for comedy. I.
Archival: Alfred e Newman is a fictional person, correct?
Michael: Not Mad Magazines, Alfred e Newman, but I'll verify his fictional status. Famous and Gravy Listeners, we love hearing from you.
If you wanna reach out with a comment question or to participate in our opening quiz, email us at hello@famousandgravy.com. In our show notes, we include all kinds of links, including to our website and our social channels. Famous Eng Gravy is [01:00:00] created by Amit Kippur and me, Michael Osborne. Thank you so much to Wiley Hodges for guest hosting.
This episode was produced by Evan Scherer, with assistance from Jacob Weiss. Original music by Kevin Strang. Thanks. See you next
time.