[MUSIC] Hi, everyone. If you've been injured in an accident that was not your fault, listen up. We have legal professionals standing by to answer your questions for free. Call now and find out if you have a case and how much it's potentially worth. Call 800-550-7400. I'm here with spokesman John Wolf. So John, tell everyone listening who should call right now. >> Well, Maria, first off, thank you for having me here. It's always nice to answer the listeners' questions. Now, as far as who should call in, anyone who's been injured in an accident and think you deserve compensation, give us a call right now, 800-550-7400. You'll find out if you have a case and how much it's potentially worth. >> Thanks, John. You heard it, folks. Take advantage of this opportunity and call now, 800-550-7400. [MUSIC] >> Advertisements sponsored by Legal Health Center may not be available in all states. [MUSIC] >> This is the John Fuegle saying podcast. [MUSIC] >> This is SiriusXM Progress. I'm John Fuegle saying welcome. Channel 127, we got a great show. As always, Chris Hauselt is our executive producer. She is heroic and stalwart, and he's running this thing out of South Carolina, the iconic Thea Harper, because she puts up with the trifling ways of christening. She's coming at you from Brooklyn. I'm here in Manhattan all night long taking your calls. Today was a really good day. We working nonstop. I got to go to the Howard Stern Tower once again. Marlo Thomas came in to do an interview. She has a new film out, and she's never done the show, and she's been and everything, worked with everybody. It's a really amazing conversation. We have a lot to get to. And I'm thrilled to be here with you. We have a lot of ground to cover. Let's do a show. Jerry Falwell Jr. Was of course the very first evangelical leader to endorse Donald Trump in the Republican presidential primary race of 2016. And that was in many ways the beginning of the end of Jerry Falwell Jr.'s political career, as has been well documented. Giancarlo Grande is the name of a former pool attendant at the Fountain Blow Hotel, who eventually came forward to share personal details of a seven-year relationship with Becky Falwell and her husband, Mr. Falwell Jr. It is a sordid story. It is a controversial story. It's an often very misunderstood story. And most accounts you'll read of it, put the events into any kind of political or historical context. But filmmaker Billy Corbin has done that now with his new movie, God forbid. Mr. Corbin is the director of cocaine cowboys and this new film is an essential viewing. Yes, it is a sex scandal story, but it also touches on white supremacy and segregation, Christian nationalism, corruption and fascism. This is not a documentary about Christians and Christianity. This is about people who exploit Christianity for power and profit. What a pleasure to welcome Billy Corbin to the show. Hello. John, thanks for having me. I feel like I should tap out after that introduction. Well, I really love the film and what I like about it is that I've read some people criticize it that like towards the end, it gets very global and gets into history and politics in January 6th. And I think that's actually one of the best things about it, that it is very appropriate to put this film in a historical context because it starts innocently enough, you know, it's an innocent story. The son of one of America's most famous white supremacist evangelists and his wife seduced a 20-year-old Mammy pool boy and they film the encounters without his consent, and then it gets dark. What was it, Mr. Corbin, that first drew you to this story? Well, first it was the, obviously, the more Miami elements of it, shall we say. Because our home bases in Miami, our genre, has always been Florida fuckery. And we are always drawn to these really butterfly effect kind of stories where what seems like you know, otherwise a benign interaction in Miami seems to change the course of history. You know, whether it was cocaine cowboys or even screwball about the biogenesis steroid scandal and AROD, it always seems that there's always a Miami connection, you know. And unfortunately, I think the Miami of today is the America of tomorrow. And it's always been a sunny place for shady people and people have come here to avail themselves of our amenities, which includes sun, fun, pool boys. And the fall wells were no different and more power to them, by the way, nobody wants to kink shame them, you know, for whatever it is that they're into. I think the dangerous part here, especially where Giancarlo saw the red flags as the relationship progressed, was the holier-than-now hypocrisy, was the idea that they wanted to impose their values and their morals on everybody else while they were down in Miami using the Ten Commandments as a bucket list. Well, yeah. But you know what? If I may, I mean, I don't even think they violated any of the Ten Commandments, I admire how much the film goes out of its way to avoid kink shaming them. And I appreciate that because quite honestly, I find their kink, their particular hobby, to be maybe the most likable, organic, authentic thing about them. I don't care what they do, I'm a big fan of consenting adults doing whatever they want to do as long as no one's being heard or exploited. And I don't think they achieved that. I think this young man was exploited. But to understand the hypocrisy, I think you have to understand something called the Liberty Way, which comes from, of course, Liberty University. And just for full disclosure, I mean, Jerry Falwell was a committed segregationist who built whites-only schools, and he built Liberty University. What is the Liberty Way, Billy, that Falwell Jr. was charged with upholding? The Liberty Way is a very strict code of conduct that applies to students and faculty alike at Liberty University. What they tout is the largest Christian university in the world, which Jerry Falwell Jr. took over the role as president of his wife, Becky, was the known as the First Lady of Liberty. And this code of conduct was no dancing, no R-rated movies, no profanity, no music with profanity, no sex outside of the sanctity of marriage, no cohabitation, no drinking. You have stories of students, their version of Netflix and chill, or in this case Hulu and Chill, is a female student in her first floor dorm, honor couch, watching a movie while her date is outside in a lawn chair, watching through an open window, along with her. And these rules came with very strict penalties, starting with monetary penalties, and then obviously scaling up to academic penalties, such as suspension or expulsion. So you have students and faculty whose economic futures and whose academic futures and careers are being jeopardized for doing exactly what Jerry and Becky were reportedly doing in Miami. Yeah. And again, I want to stress, it's not the sex and the alcohol that made them hypocrites. Jesus, as public authorities go, Jesus didn't have a lot of sex hang ups. We all know if Jesus was at a party, there was going to be wine, but in this case it was this kind of fundamentalist control that led to these people having this empire that they inherited. He didn't work for it. And they're in Miami, they meet this young man, Mr. Grande. He goes upstairs for a one-night stand and pretty soon they're inviting him to family events and meeting their kids. They're helping him buy a multi-million dollar hotel. They're introducing him to Donald Trump and all along they're filming. Or I should say Jerry Falwell Jr. is filming Mr. Grande with his wife, which Mr. Grande claims he didn't know about at the time, "I'm really curious, Billy. How did you go about earning Giancarlo Grande's trust to tell his story on camera?" I should say initially he was not aware they were recording him later. He was made aware of it and he did consent. He was a 20-year-old. He had put himself through Florida International University with this pool attendant job at the luxury fountain blue resort and he went into this as a consenting adult. He didn't see himself as a victim and he also didn't know who the hell these people were. At first it was his older sister who heard the name Jerry Falwell and was like, "I'm sorry. Wait, what?" And told him, told Giancarlo who they were. And I think there was a sense of opportunism there at that part, you know, on his part. I mean, when he understood who they were and they kept offering to help him to set him up in business, to partner with him and this, as you mentioned, this multi-million dollar piece of commercial real estate. And I liken it to the movie Get Out meets the Righteous Gemstones, where he kind of gets Giancarlo gets honey trapped into this world of power and privilege in his rubbing shoulders in this inner circle with the most powerful people in the world. And I think he describes it as intoxicating in the documentary and I think that's true. But I think that, you know, there started to be increasing red flags and larger red flags along the way before he eventually hit that Get Out moment. But this bizarre, you know, cuckled threesome in Miami, you know, in this butterfly effect kind of way may have impacted the outcome of the last two presidential elections. Indeed, and again, they did it for years. It was very discreet, like many people do their things they like and very discreet and no harm done. But the Falwells, if there's a theme to this film, is that they're messy with things. And I think the first sign of an unraveling was when news leaked of this real estate deal. That was the first time that everyone began saying Jerry Falwell and the pool boy long before the more intimate details were revealed. Yeah, and it was interesting because, according to Giancarlo, Becky told him on the first night they hooked up that they had previously gone to a place called Miami Velvet, which is known down here as Roger Stone's favorite Swingers Club in South Florida. And they didn't like the scene. It was just too public and they were looking for a more private arrangement. The problem is is that when they got into this real estate transaction, they wound up in a dispute with some ex-friends of Giancarlo who claimed that they were entitled to a piece of the action. They got screwed over in this deal and basically threatened to file a public lawsuit, which would make the facts of this situation put them in the eyes of the press. And that's in fact what happened. We probably wouldn't know anything about this if not for this dispute where it was claimed that Giancarlo and the Falwells, first of all, he was in this court filing. He was identified as a pool boy that they had met less than a year earlier and then wound up in this bizarre real estate venture with owning this youth hostel, which Politico described as a quote, gay-friendly flop house and quote, "A liquor store was one of their main tenants." Again, all of the seemingly in violation or in contravention with the Liberty Way. But they also claimed that there was more to the relationship between the Falwells and Giancarlo than this business partnership. There was an intimate relationship that they in fact claimed to have incriminating photographs that could prove that relationship and that's when things got a little dicey. Yep. And I don't want to be too judgmental because this show has been described by many as a gay-friendly flop house. But one of the points that's really interesting here, I think, that is a deeper level to the hypocrisy is that Jerry Falwell Jr. wasn't really at all Christian in any way. The legend I always heard was when Jerry Sr. died, the brother who was more Christian got the church and Jerry Jr., who was the business guy, got the school. Yes, Jonathan Falwell, who was the true believer, he seemed to inherit his father's fervor for religion, whereas Jerry Jr., by training and trade, was a real estate attorney. And he was ultimately brought into the university to help salvage it from imminent bankruptcy. I mean, it was deep, deep in debt and floundering at the end. And Jerry Jr. was among the people who helped transform it into the multi-billion dollar endowed university that it is now, along with over a hundred million dollars in new construction capital campaigns, made a lot of people very rich in Lynchburg. And I think one student in a Politico story described it not as a university, but as a real estate hedge fund for Jerry Falwell. Jerry Falwell Jr. My favorite headline was when Falwell Jr. had Ted Cruz speaking, and they made it mandatory attendance. And I'm like, what says liberty more than mandatory attendance? But I have to praise you, Mr. Corbin, because when I first began watching the film, I had a moment where I'm like, oh, no, is this going to be just titillating? Is this going to be, you know, gawking at other people's sexuality? And boy, do you put this film in an historical context and use this sort of little tale to explore what has gone wrong in our country in the last 60 years? I am so glad you went deep into the backstory of Jerry Falwell Sr. Because when I was young and met him and debated him on Bill Maher, he was known then as the big homophobe. But you go even deeper into his long history as a segregationist who built the whites-only schools. Yeah, this was part of the interest. You know, when we first started getting involved in this story, when I got an email from Giancarlo in the summer of 2020, we saw the interest of, we were interested, obviously, in the story of hypocrisy and this abuse of power, and of course, the more, I will say, titillating details as you put it of the story. But then something changed on January 6th of 2021, and we realized that we had a responsibility to kind of take Giancarlo as the eyes into a story that was really about this story of a 50-year multi-generational evangelical dynasty without size influence on presidential politics and domestic and foreign policy alike. And to that end, the best of what we do, we call a Trojan horse, where you tempt the audience with candy and then you feed them a little broccoli when they don't realize it. And that's what we try to do here. And in fact, one of the more stunning revelations for me in interviewing Randall Balmer, the evangelical pastor, theologian, religious historian, was the origins of evangelical political power. And we all had this common misconception that it started with Roe v. Wade, when in fact, there was very little evangelical pushback following the '70s. And I love that. Your good friend Professor Anthea Butler is in your movie. And she points out, "Fallwell never mentioned abortion until more than five years after Roe v. Wade was decided." 1978 was his first sermon on it. And in the interim, Catholics came out very strongly against it. But it was not considered an evangelical issue. In fact, it was quite a lot of dissension at various Southern Baptist conventions. There were conversations that consistent with their conservative small government ideology that the government had no place in this decision. That this was between a woman, her doctor, family, and faith. And it wasn't until they had gone through a series of what Randall Balmer describes as market testing, different culture war issues to see it was literally throwing shit up against the wall to see what would step. And they went after the feminist movement and divorce and pornography, of course, the famous, the people versus Larry Flint's side of this story. They went after LGBTQ+, they went after feminist, you know, women's rights. Defended apartheid, don't leave that out, Jerry Falwell defended apartheid and encouraged Americans to invest in kugurans in the 80s. I mean, the evil knew no bottom. And of course, segregation academies pushed back to Brown v. Board. And so this was a rather sketchy track record. And while they seemed to get some media attention out of it, they weren't really galvanizing evangelical voters, which weren't really a voting block yet. They had kind of, you know, since the scopes monkey trial, despite their success there, they were embarrassed by it. They got clowned about it and they kind of disappeared within themselves for a while. But now Jerry Falwell and some crafty GOP political operatives wanted to harness the power of the pulpit for politics. And they realized the demagoguery of baby killer would be the most effective culture war. And so not pro-life, but pro-power in the most cynical way they descended on this abortion issue, which turned into a 50-year project, multi-generational project that of all people, the black sheep, the one who fell from grace, Jerry Falwell Jr., arguably helped them succeed. Yeah. I mean, it's not really a big surprise that in a story with this much hypocrisy, corruption and trash, Donald Trump shows up, I mean, Falwell, people forget Falwell wasn't just Trump's major evangelical booster. He was, curiously enough, Trump's biggest defender, after we all heard a video, where Trump bragged about committing sexual assault on women, the 'G' even by the 'P' tape. And suddenly the pieces start fitting together in all new ways. And later Charlottesville, he was his most vocal defender, that's right. But as you mentioned at the top, for starters, he was the first evangelical leader to endorse this twice-divorced New York playboy with five children from three different women. And very much not what anyone would have assumed would be the ideal evangelical candidate, particularly in primary with Ted Cruz, who was, in fact, an evangelical whose father was a pastor, who believed that he had the Jerry Falwell Jr. endorsement in the bag. For starters, he announced his presidential campaign at one of those convocation events that you mentioned at Liberty University with compulsory attendance in the Liberty Flames arena that holds 10,000 seats, a captive audience that Jerry Falwell Jr. took full advantage of to groom with whatever demagoguery and ideologues he wanted to invite into the conversation. And it didn't turn out that way, it turned out that Falwell endorsed Donald Trump, which arguably like his father before him, with Ronald Reagan running against a Baptist Sunday school teacher. Again, another divorced B-movie actor turned conservative presidential candidate whose campaign slogan was "Let's Make America Great Again." You had Jr. following in his father's footsteps as a king-maker. And after that, he was just -- I mean, he was untouchable, at least that's how he behaved. Oh, this -- I mean, if nothing else, it's a great film about how shitty American nepotism really can be. Quick break will be right back. This is progress. I'm John Fuegel saying, "This is progress after dark." You know, it's interesting because another friend of our show makes an appearance in your film. And that, of course, is Michael Cohen. I'm very curious, Billy, when you went into this project, what were your expectations about Michael Cohen's involvement between the Falwells and the Trump campaign, and did you discover anything that surprised you? It has been an ever-evolving thing. Michael Cohen is certainly an intriguing character, and I had a chance to talk with him about this off-camera, which helped me fact-check some of the, you know, some of the timeline. And his story, though, has evolved from his autobiography to the kind of tempered version that he tells now. I think that's as a result of, I guess, you know, being a pariah, and I think he found his way to other pariahs now that the Falwells have been excommunicated from their tribe. I think they're probably closer again. And so he's, you know, he is denied, as is Jerry, that there was any quid pro quo in this arrangement, but Michael Cohen was absolutely, by all accounts, called in by Jerry Jr. when they were in this legal dispute over the real estate transaction, where there were also these compromising photos involved. Jerry Jr. called everybody's favorite fixer in Trump world, and true to his brand, he fixed it. And he made some phone calls, Michael Cohen, and he made this problem for at least several years disappear and go away. And those photos never saw the light of day, but what people point out in God forbid in the documentary was that then Michael Cohen was in possession of this compromising material. And that was kind of his position in the Trump organization was to maintain these relationships and ensure that, as he would say, the boss got the benefit of those relationships. Yeah, it is interesting. It's kind of undeniable that Falwell just chose to throw his wife under the bus and be completely morally consistent up until the end. And as far as I know, he has not ever stepped up to defend her honor in any way. This was an affair, no doubt, but it was an affair for his pleasure as much as hers. And yet that was not a priority. And it seems like the perfect way for his public life to end, to just shame his wife in the midst of all of this, to try to save his own skin. It's interesting because he's, especially now he likes to say that he was not the man of God that his father and brother were and are, which is terribly convenient, because he definitely enjoyed the power and privilege and profit of the pulpit. Oh, yeah. I mean, so it's convenient now to say like, oh, well, that was never me. I was never that guy. And it's like, OK, but you just played him on TV then, or, you know, you just played him on on campus then. And I think that the people I feel bad, I feel bad for a lot of people in this story. I feel bad for the Falwells because, you know, they certainly were, you know, came down to Miami, not really knowing what they were going to get themselves into. They wound up, you know, for their head, I think Sean Carlo wound up in over his head. But ultimately, I feel a lot of empathy for those in the Liberty University campus community, you know, students, alumni, faculty, people, you know, whose parents sent them there out of a, you know, pure motives, people who are true believers and not just the gospels, but in the mission of that institution and wound up as collateral damage in this scandal. It was a great source of embarrassment to them. And many of them argued, including, you know, Dustin Wall, who I interviewed in the documentary is kind of representative of the, of that, of that part of the story. They felt that they're, they're, it diminished the value of their degree, you know, and they were embarrassed when they, they told people or had on their CV that they graduated from Liberty University. You are such a better person than I am. It is astonishing. You are such a profoundly more kind and Christian man than I could ever hope to be. Because my take is so much more dramatically cynical, sir, after watching your film. I mean, Falwell was Falwell senior, never a Christian there. I don't know how you can go to that university and read the gospel of Matthew and think that it all works out anyhow. These people were predators. They were never going to help this young man in real estate and, and in watching it, I, and again, I'm, I don't get off on anyone else's pain. I'm sorry people were hurt. I, I don't respect Liberty University degrees myself because I know a lot about the school's history. But over the course of the film, I really felt Giancarlo is the ultimate stand in for a lot of nice, conservative people. I know he had these political figures telling him a lot of nice things. He thought he was being treated special and having a good time. And all along, he was a dupe being exploited by the powerful. In that sense, he reminds me of a lot of conservative voters I know. Well, I, he was one of them. Yeah. Part of the reason Becky kept telling him, Oh, you're perfect. You're perfect. Is he just fit the, the profile? Was this Cuban kendall as, as he's been referred to and he was raised conservative Republican Cuban American in Westchester, Miami, a working class, predominantly Cuban American suburb, where he went to Catholic school, his mother was, was, you know, was a true believer. I think she kind of lost her innocence quite a bit, you know, through this and her, and her faith a little bit. I think through this, through this process as well in learning the truth about these people having grown up watching senior, you know, the, the OG televangelist, you know, you know, growing up in her youth, but I think that Giancarlo at the beginning didn't see himself as a victim. He saw himself as a consenting adult to be furious. I didn't know who these people were, but he also didn't see them as hypocrites initially because he didn't, they didn't proselytize to him. He didn't, he didn't know them as religious figures. He knew them as the party couple from, from Miami Beach, you know, and so it took him a while. It took him going to visiting Liberty quite a few times and visiting the Falwells on their, you know, their beautiful, uh, branch property in Lynchburg where, where he started. I think, like you said, to see, to see himself in those students, you know, and, and kind of feel some compassion that maybe they should know what they've really gotten themselves into because maybe they don't understand who these people really are and who really knows about very senior, you know, if that's a 20 year old kid or that's a kid whose parents are encouraging you to go to Lynchburg to this beautiful school, by the way, and, you know, gorgeous campus, state of the art facilities. I mean, you know, very white, mind you, not a multicultural experience. I mean, I think there's a, there's a lot of, you know, people take advantage a lot of, of, I think, you know, whether, whether you call them gullible or whether, you know, Hitchens certainly would call them, gullible for, for falling for this, but it is interesting. You know, this is sort of the, the other side of me coming through here. I'm channeling my inner John, okay, yeah, because, you know, but I didn't know what the word cuck meant until I was cold one on Twitter in around 2015 2016. That's how culture spreads. Yeah. I didn't know what that was. And so it became, obviously, this kind of, you know, verbal weapon of the right against people who that, you know, against lintard people who have empathy. Yes, it was used to, yeah, for people who, for people who liked watching Russia come in and have its way with America, well, they sat in a dark corner drooling. They calls other people cucks. Yeah. And I thought it was, I mean, well, for one, I'll tell you, I regret googling it, but I had to, because I didn't know, I didn't know what it meant, but I found it quite rich, the ironing that intimately, you know, where the story went and where it went that like, okay, so I'm, I'm not the cuck by definition, which is why we actually present the definition of cuckled pretty early in the documentary, just so we establish our choice. And again, no, no, King shaming, no King shaming in this movie, whatever I, God bless. I keep saying that to me is still the most likable thing I've learned about the Falwells who this whole ordeal. Your film is so important, Billy. Yes, it's fun. Everyone should see it. It's gripping. It's fascinating. It's very sorted. But you really go macro on this and show how Christianity has become systematically warped in this country in service of political power over the last half a century. You also do something amazing. I'm not a fan of reenactments. You do a three way phone call reenactment. That's one of the most compelling goddamn things I've seen in the documentary in such a long time. There's so much creativity here. I can't wait to see what you do next. Billy Corbin is the director of the new documentary God forbid the sex scandal that brought down a dynasty. It is available on Hulu. Mr. Corbin, how can our listeners follow you and keep up with all your doings? Well, I think the algorithms are screwing me, but I'm still on Twitter at Billy Corbin. And I certainly feel it feels throttled down. Doesn't it? A little less little less interaction that algorithms try to chase me out of town. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Chase is my followers away. Yeah. Twitter Twitter and Instagram at Billy Corbin. That's your B.E.N. I am not the lead singer of smashing pumpkins, though I get a lot of a lot of tweets for him. He must have been an early investor. He got at Billy. At Billy. But you got it right about Twitter and it's fitting we we close a film about Jerry Falwell talking about Twitter where a millionaire at birth inherits something he didn't build and his own narcissism wrecks it. So we've come full circle. Billy Corbin. Thank you so much. Again, the film is God forbid. You can see it on Hulu. Come back anytime. Thank you. Thank you, John. Good night and good talk. Oh, he sat on that the whole time waiting and he did it. It worked. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back with the great Marlowe Thomas. You don't want to miss it. We'll be right back after this. I'm John Feigle saying this is SiriusXM progress. I got to say before I even begin the introduction, it's very scary to do an introduction of you. It's well because I mean, how does one contain everything? How do I do like a live clip two or three sentence introduction? Oh, go ahead. Well, I mean, well, I could say I could say she's an award winning. I'm an actor and producer and activist and philanthropist. I could say, what, four Emmys, nine nominations, a Peabody, Golden Globe, Grammys, broadcasting Hall of Fame. I could say someone who was born to a great artist who then decided to work really hard in regional theater on her own until Mike Nichols-Castor and the London production of Barefoot in the Park, which then led to a very revolutionary show that was political without even trying to be that girl, which then led to an incredibly acclaimed acting career. We can talk about the Emmy for Nobody's Child. Of course, we could talk about free to be you and me. I'm Gen X. So you were a big, I was doing that in community theater when I was a kid, free to be a family, which one another Emmy. I think you're the only actor alive who have been on both McHale's Navy and wet hot American summer, 10 years later. I think that's you. And of course, you know, not a big deal, but President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. That was probably a highlight of my life. Thanks. Now. Now. That'd be enough. But no. No, now you have a new film premiering a magical Christmas village, which will be on the Hallmark Channel. Yes. You now have a new holiday collection with William Sonoma. Yes, I do. And of course, of course, always thanks for giving with St. Jude, your father's incredible legacy that has made such a difference in the lives of so many people. Thank you. And next to Melania Trump, you're the hardest-working person in show business. It's Marlo Thomas. So you're a good comedian as well. I try to be. I try to be. Thank you, John. That's lovely. Well, it's so daunting to think about. And I've interviewed before on television, but to get to sit down and talk about, you know, whatever you want with Marlo Thomas is always like, where does one begin? That's so sweet. Well, thank you. You certainly hit the highlights. And I must say, getting the Medal of Freedom from President Obama was a highlight because as a young woman or a young girl, you know, you dream of someday, you know, having your own television series, getting an Emmy, having an Oscar, getting a Grammy, all these things. You dream about those things, but you don't think, well, maybe someday I'll get the Medal of Freedom because, you know, that's completely out of reach. I didn't even think about it. So when I got the call, I was like, really? Wow. Yes, I'll be there. When is it? You know, it's very, very exciting. And he was such a, it is such a beautiful man. But I am, I'm thrilled about the movie this Friday on the Hallmark Channel because it's a really fun part for me. It's really fun for you. Yeah. I play a magical grandma. I play grandmothers now, which is a rude awakening, but there you go. You don't play the kind of grandmas I had, I mean, and you managed to pull off being the grandma who comes off as being pushed, you know, overbearing, yet totally wise, totally with like, you get the comedy line. And she brings magic. She brings magic into the house. You know, I had a great, terrific grandmother. My grandmother was completely wild. In fact, I've always thought that she was my inspiration for free to be you and me. She drove around, I mean, in her 70s, in a white convertible with leopardy-postery. That was my grandmother. She was like, nobody else's grandmother. And she really, you know, she never acted her age, whatever her age was. I have no idea. She could have been 60s. She could have been 90. I don't know how old she was. But she just was fun. Everything she did was fun. In fact, in this movie, I wear a leopard coat. I mean, let's pretend leopard, it's, you know, on cotton printed. But I picked that coat, especially because I thought of my grandmother. She'd love leopard things, you know? And they were all, you know, cheap cloth things and her up-postery. I mean, I've never seen anybody with leopardy-postery but my grandmother. I got to tell you, though, my mother would have adored this movie because she was very into Christmas. My mother's was an ex-none who had worked as a nurse with lepers in Malawi. Oh, my lord. Activist, political, but the one thing my mother loved most in the world was miniature Christmas villages. Oh, really? My house was a shrine to miniature Christmas villages. Wow. I have so many that I inherited in my home. My son thinks it's my thing. And this film, of course, is you move in with your daughter and granddaughter and the miniature Christmas village winds up being magical like they do. It does. It turns out to be magical. And my character believes it is magical. My daughter thinks it doesn't do anything but clean, pick up dust. And, of course, the granddaughter, who's 11 years old. She just adores her grandmother and she makes the magic happen in the movie. It's quite charming. That was really the subtext to me was the bond that often has to skip a generation where grandchildren can find, you know, a best friend with a grandparent when a parent has to be a parent. And the parent, you know, in this movie, Alison Sweeney plays the mom and she's a really terrific actress and was a lot of fun to work with. But she's the working mom. She's a single mom. She's making the money. She's putting the rules up. She's getting her daughter to do her homework, you know, eat good food, all that. That's her job. The grandmother sweeps in and says, oh, none of that's necessary. She doesn't have to do the homework. We should play games and stuff. So it's a struggle between the uptightness of the mom who has to be uptight to get it done. And just the complete wildness of the grandma, you know, it's true. It's happened in my family and it happens in the family in the movie. Yeah, my wife had a magical grandma just like that. It was way more fun than grandmas were supposed to be in the manual. Right. Yeah. What does it take for you at this point in your career, you're about halfway through. What does it take for you to say yes to a project? It says to be good. You know, I read about 20 pages of this and I thought to myself, I'm going to do this. This is good. It's very well-written and it's funny, you know, and I just love comedy. So the fact that it's so well-written and I love the feeling of between the mother and the daughter because they're wary of each other. You know, the daughter says, why don't you come move in with me? And she said, really? Under the same roof, you and me, you know, because they're so different. She says, we'll work it out, mom, because I need a place to stay because I just broke up with a man in my life and he's selling the house, so I have no place to go. And so you know from the start, this is going to be a little bit of a rough ride. And it is. We have a fight, we make up. It's like a love story between the mother and the daughter. And then there's, of course, the wonderful love story between Alice and Sweeney and Luke McFarland, who's such a hunk and such a good actor. So you've got this wonderful love scene between them and then this love scene between the mother and the daughter. So they're two nice love stories. I mean, that's what makes so many Christmas movies really work is that it's about, oh my God, these people make me crazy. I'm stuck with them. Right. But Shucks, I love them. I know, just like the holidays. They're only posing off. The whole holiday season is like that. Oh God, he's coming. Well, I love him. He's my uncle. You know. But in watching it, I realized when I was a kid, I was among those lucky enough to see you in a previous TV Christmas movie. Right. It happened one Christmas. The legendary people always say, are they ever going to have a remake of, it's a wonderful life. And I say, oh, it's been done. Right. Only I play Jimmy Stewart. Yes. But it was almost the same, I remember because it was, I saw that as a kid before I saw the original camera version and watching them back to back and it is hard to find that movie now. I know. But it's almost the same dialogue. It is. We didn't have to change any dialogue from Jimmy Stewart to me. But we had to change everything from Donna Reed to Wayne Rogers, the husband because, you know, Donna Reed was just at home, you know, cleaning up and watching her children play the piano and all the things that's cooking and stuff. And Wayne Rogers was a man who had to have a job, had to have a job and he had to have a dream. And, you know, so there were two people with a dream and jobs and so forth. And that made it really interesting. But I was fascinated to see, you know, that my dialogue didn't change at all. And Wayne's had a whole other story. And that just, I mean, if anything can show you what feminism is about, you know? Well, yeah. I mean, I'm really big on the campaign of, let's get that film back into circulation because I don't think it was ever released on DVD. It's very hard to find. Yes, it is hard to find. But when I was a kid, everybody saw it. Yeah. That's universal. I tried to buy it from them because so many people write me on my Facebook page and on my Instagram, you know, where is that movie? And they're not playing it. So I tried to buy it from them. Of course, they wouldn't sell it. And I said, well, just do it. I mean, if you don't want to give it to me, do it yourself. I think I should go after them again. Put it online. Let people say it. Yeah, exactly. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back with the great Marlowe Thomas. We'll be right back after this. Welcome back, Marlowe. Now is time for the St. Jude Thanks and Giving campaign. Yes. And I have to tell you, like, this is one of those organizations where I just can't believe that the organization is as powerful, as effective, as moral as they claim to be. Yeah. But it's just it keeps growing. I mean, I was just reading that when the foundation was begun, there was a 4% survival rate for pediatric cancer. Leukemia. Leukemia. I'm so sorry. And now that's up to 94% Yeah, we did that for acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which is the most common form of cancer in children, A-L-L. We did come up with that cure over years and years and years. I mean, I remember when my dad was alive, he would say, oh, it's 35%, you know, and then oh, it's 68%. I don't think he lived to see it get to 94%. But it took a lot of work of a lot of scientists and doctors and families who went there and some of the children didn't make it and some of the children obviously did up to 94%. But that still means 6% don't make it. So that 6% is what we're working on now with all the diseases. You want it to be 100%. And what's great about St. Jude because we're a research center as well as a hospital, we are working to find out, well, why does that kid not make it and these 94% children do? So for that child, we customize a new therapy to see if that will work for that child. And if it does, thank God, and hopefully it will, then that means thousands of others who have his kind of markers, they'll also survive. And then we work on the next one and the next one. So that's what we've been doing all along to get it to 94%. But one of the wonderful things is that in neuroblastoma, which has been really a hard, hard one. We doubled it 50% better in the last 10 years to get with neuroblastoma. It's nowhere near 94%. I think it's near something like 70%. But it was very far down there. I mean, it was something that we worried about why we couldn't break it. You have to just keep working at it. I mean, that's what it is with science. It's very exciting. But that's it. But it's not just the science. It's people have to have the will, right? Yes. In 2021, with the Biden White House's package for COVID, for 2021, we achieved the lowest rate of childhood poverty in this country in history, which I look at that, I look at the numbers from St. Jude, and it tells me we really can do it if we have the will. The will and the collaboration, St. Jude also collaborates with other hospitals. When I say St. Jude does, a scientist will collaborate with another scientist or three other scientists, and they get together and put their heads together. And there's no ego. I mean, the most important thing is they don't, at St. Jude, we don't hoard the information. My father made two promises when the hospital opened in 1962. The first one was that no family would ever be asked to pay for anything. And that means treatment, travel, housing, and food, and that children of any race or religion, that was that. And the other one was that we would freely and immediately share our breakthroughs with the scientific community worldwide. Well, when my dad made that promise in '62, you know, it was going along by snail mail. But now with the internet, whatever we discover is out there in the world immediately. And I wish my dad had lived to see that because that's really exciting. I want to ask you about the legend of your dad in St. Jude, because not everyone knows it. And you're identified with St. Jude, but I don't think people know just how incredible its origin story is. This is your birthday month, you're a November baby. Right. And I know that it was when your mother was about to have you, the legend I always heard was that your dad went and prayed because he didn't have the money to pay a $70 hospital bill. Right. Exactly. And he was scared. I mean, he was making no money, he was making $12 a week in a nightclub in those days when you think about it in the thirties when I was born in 1937. And my father said, went to church and on a Sunday, and the sermon was about St. Jude patron of the hopeless cases. Yeah. And my father prayed and he said, "Nobody's more hopeless than I am. I have $10 in my pocket and it's going to cost $70 to get my wife and baby out of the hospital." And he prayed for guidance and he put $7 of his $10 into the collection basket. $7 of the $10 he had left in his pocket with a newborn baby in the hospital, and he can't pay the bill. Right. So what good would the $7 do him, right? So he more believed his faith was such that he believed that St. Jude would help him. He made this contribution in his name. And then Monday, the next day, he got a singing commercial as a toothbrush, a singing toothbrush on the radio for $75. And that was the first sign he had that he and St. Jude were going to partner for life. And my dad could just regale you with story after story of how he would ask for a sign from St. Jude and then he'd get a sign. And he wasn't very religious, my father, but he was a man of great faith. He really believed that there was somebody there listening, and he was very childlike in that way. Yeah. I have a lot of that in my extremely Catholic family as well. And praying to St. Jude is asking St. Jude willing to offer something. Right. And in the case of your dad, 15 years later, he's one of the biggest comics in America. Right. I know. He arguably perfected the spit take. That's what the first thing they teach in a comedy class is that Denny Thomas was the first great artist. It's true. It's true. But over the years, it seems like this is not just your birthright. This is a charge you feel to keep on a spiritual level. Well, you know, John, my father was very adamant about the fact that he didn't expect my sister and brother and me to pick up the torch. In fact, he's told us, he said, look, after I'm gone, I don't want you kids think that this is your burden to carry. It's not. It was my promise. And I've kept it. And you don't, you do not need to burden your life with my own promise. And we were kind of relieved because it looked like a lot of work. My dad was always traveling. It looks like a lot of work missed on us. And so we said, great with great relief. And then after he was gone, each of us sort of found our way to it independently. About three months after he died, and he died suddenly, so it was a big crushing, horrible thing. But about three months later, I decided to just go to St. Jude and see, you know, let them know that I was around if they wanted me to go pick up a check somewhere or make a little speech, that I'd be there for them, which is what I used to do when my dad was alive. He'd call me his bonus kid because I was famous and he'd say, go to Oklahoma and pick up a check from Best Buy or something. Right. So anyway, when I got there, I walked in the door and there were all these little kids running around with party hats and there was a cake and ice cream and confetti and all that, you know, little kid's party. So I said to the nurse, who's birthday is it? And she said it was not a birthday party. It's an off chemo party. And I just, I was just overwhelmed that these children were celebrating another child's children for the better and these moms and dads and grandparents were standing by with tears in their eyes, you know, like if this little kid can make it, maybe my kid will make it too. It was such an enormous moment for me, you know, and I thought, wow, this is, this is what daddy was breathing all the time. This is what he was seeing. This is what pulled him in and it pulled me in little by little. I didn't just go sign up for the rest of my life. I just said, all right, well, maybe I'll do a little more, but the more I met the children and their parents. So I mean, when you meet these moms, I mean, your heart just goes out to them. You will see a mom holding a child on a gurney going into an operator room, you know, because you know, a mom will do anything. She'd have the operation for the kid if she could, you know, but she's, she's calming her little baby down while they're being wheeled into the operating room. And of course, once they put him to sleep, she'll get off the gurney. But it's, you never see that anywhere. Where do you see a parent holding on to a child going in a gurney, you know, that's kept from our view. Yeah. You know, like we are not troubled in our lives with these information until it touches us. Yes. Yeah. But that's even more remarkable because I've always felt that celebrity might be the silliest thing humans have ever invented unless you can find a way to take that capital and repurpose it and use it in service to others. Yeah. You know, I heard that your dad who I don't really think of as an activist, but that he's really one of the reasons that, that you became an activist, which is, I think it's another way of saying a moral person who does stuff. Yeah. Right. Is it true that he used to give you kids money for Christmas with the condition that you had to give it all away? Right. That we give it away. That's right. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. But he said, you know, this money is for you to figure out who you want to help. You know, and of course, you know, we gave it to animal rescues and, you know, the things that we cared about, but we didn't give it to St. Jude. He gave it to St. Jude, right? We gave it to the things that little kids worry about and care about, but it was a good way to teach children that, you know, give while you're getting, give something. And that's kind of our thanks and giving program, you know, give thanks for the healthy kids in your life. Yeah. And give to those who are not. That's a perfect idea of what my father was about. It must have been tough during the lockdown to continue your work with St. Jude. It was very hard. It was very hard for everybody. We first saw that they didn't allow both parents, only one parent and a child could go to St. Jude. No visitors. And we never went. I mean, that was the first time I usually go four or five times a year. We did all of our meetings by Zoom. It was hard. And I mean, it was hard on everybody in this country, everybody in the world, you know, giving up all their personal family and friends, seeing them, their personal passions like St. Jude. It was a difficult time. What I've always admired the most about you, and I was a student at Circle on the Square when you were doing Social Security on Broadway. Oh, yeah. You were someone who achieved celebrity on your own. And then you went to study with Strasburg. I did, yeah. Like, that is such a rare story. You could have coasted. You could have been a famous person, but you wanted to be a really good actor. I did. I received a script called Crackers, and it was a good script, too. And it was about a woman. It was a true story about a woman who was an alcoholic, and her going through her alcoholism and coming out of it. And I read it, and I thought, I don't know how to play this. I don't know how to be an alcoholic. I know how to do a funny drunk, but I don't know how to play an alcoholic. And I called up my friend Chuck Groden, who I adore, and passed away last year. And I said, Chuck, how do I learn how to be an alcoholic? How do I know? He said, you've got to study with Strasburg. So I did. I came to New York, and I was going to study for one year, but I stayed for three. My agents were screaming at me to get back and do a television series. Too close to inspire people to ever hurt as you went into state. My career just finished that girl. But I really wanted to do something more. My father said to me, you're crazy to quit your series, or the heir apparent to Lucille Ball. I said, Daddy, I don't want to be Lucille Ball. There's been a Lucille Ball. I want to do what I want to do. And then that's when I did Nobody's Child. I sure got through with Lee Strasburg. Lee Grant saw me in another film called The Lost Honor of Catherine Beck. And she cast me in Nobody's Child, and that's what I won the Emmy for. But I could never have played that schizophrenic woman. I would have had no idea how to do that. It just wasn't in my character. But I learned how to play a character, and studied people who were in these institutions who were having panic attacks. Exactly. It was a very hard movie to do. And I love Lucille Ball, but I don't think she could have done six degrees of separation. Well, she could have if she studied. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. She's of such a gifted woman. She did do a dramatic TV film about a homeless woman before she died. I didn't see that. I bet she was good. I bet she was good. Yeah, she was. She was a wonderful, talented person, and very generous. My show, we rented space on the Desi Lulat, and she's very, very encouraging to me. Very encouraging. I would be most remiss if I didn't congratulate you and Mr. Donahue on 41 years of... 42. 42 now. Yes. Last year, you put out a book about what makes a marriage last. Yes. I would imagine that's something that people just ask you all the time as if it's a simple answer. Oh, I don't think there is a simple answer. It takes so many things. I mean, I have decided to say this. It's the three elves listening, lust, and love. Very nice. Two. And three very distinct things. Yes, very, very distinct things. Because people don't listen to each other, really. I know. You're talking away and you're not hearing where the person is feeling lost or abandoned or bad about things. You kind of just don't really listen for it. You have to listen for it because we're all children, all children who somewhere feel abandoned, somewhere feel dismissed, somewhere feel lost, somewhere feel sad. And somebody who loves you has to listen for it so they can help you. That's right. What do you want to do next? Oh, I just want to do more better, more better, more better. The new film is a magical Christmas village. You can see it now on Hallmark. And what is the best way for people to learn more about St. Jude or to help directly? Well, for St. Jude, just go to St. Jude.org. And you can see all the stories of the children. You can also see some of the commercials made by Jennifer Aniston or Michael, Michael Strahan and all these wonderful people. It gives you a real education. And it's good because even if you give a dollar at William Sonoma, it's good to know where your money's going. It's important. Marla Thomas, I could talk to you about craft and industry and doing the Lord's work for weeks. Thank you so much for joining us. Please come back any time. Thank you so much, John. Barely got started on my list of thousands of questions. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. (upbeat music)
In this special FLASHBACK episode John interviews documentary film director Billy Corben about his film "God Forbid: The Sex Scandal That Brought Down a Dynasty" which explores the private life of evangelical Christian leader Jerry Falwell Jr and the sex scandal that led to his downfall. Then he interviews legendary actress, producer, author, and social activist Marlo Thomas as she opens up about returning to the screen in the Hallmark holiday movie “A Magical Christmas Village.” She also talks about her history and the projects happening at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
