March 3, 2022 • 52 mins
This week, Jamie speaks with her one of her very best friends, Suzanne Yankovic. She’s the kind of friend who is so close that people regularly ask Jamie how Suzanne’s doing. Tune in to find out all about their friendship and the meaning of their nickname for each other, F.I.A.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
If something I know, I'll get it. I'm a good friend.
Hi everybody, it's Jamie Lee Curtis and you're listening to
the Good Friend Podcast, presented to you by I Heart Radio.
It's a podcast about friendship. We talk about everything, We cry,
(00:24):
we laugh, we think about what it really means to
be a good friend. And I have conversations with some
of my best friends, some people I've never met, and
sort of everything in between. So I hope by the
end of it that you have a really good sense
(00:47):
of what friendship means to me and the people that
I consider friends. And I hope you can take those
same ideas into your own friendship groups, and I hope
you enjoy it. I don't know. I an allative and
a good friend. We're so happy to have you here
(01:10):
on the Good Friend Podcast. Suzanne Yanko vic Oh, I'm
so happy to be here. Thank you for having me. Yes, Well,
duh is the word? You know? It's sort of when
you say the word good friend. You know, when you
know you're a good friend. You know you're a good
friend when your friends say how Suzanne, it's it's I
think I think that the I think the real place
(01:34):
in a friendship is when your other friends ask you
about your best friend, like they you know, people talking
and go hey, how Susanne? Right? Right. It's kind of
like an extended family in a way, you know, and
then people checking in because you've come into that, you know,
(01:55):
you're in a in a place where you're in an
inner circle, you know, in every one kind of checks
in and cares. That's a beautiful thing. I love the
idea of the extended family. Yeah, that friendship as an
extension of family is beautiful. So we're done. Okay, let's
(02:16):
turn it off, Dylan, whether we're gonna go to lunch
or you'll come over and we'll go for a walk. Yeah.
So obviously it is a podcast about friendship, the importance
of friendship, the challenges of friendship, from you know, little
life to adult life and everything in between. I'm going
(02:37):
to start with Fia. I'm going to actually sure start
with it. So, you know, people have pet names for
each other, uh Lisa Burnbach as you know, and I
have this name. We call each other Ling, which came
from Darling and it got shortened to ling. And her
children call me lying, our families call me ling. That
(03:01):
is our name. For each other, and it's the same name,
She'll say. As you know, I'm in a best these group,
which is a big group of both men and women. Yeah,
we they refer to each other as besties. But when
we met and fell in friendship, yeah, we very quickly
(03:25):
realized that we were the friends that we had been
waiting for. Yeah, you know, I was thinking about when
we met. One of the things that was so great
as we continued to meet a bit around town, like
different different moments, and I think that because we we
(03:47):
knew then after sort of testing the waters and getting
to know each other a little bit more and more,
that we made that date and then just really dope
in and you're right after that, it was yeah, you know,
well steam ahead. What we discovered was that what we
were feeling in the relationship, what we were able to do.
(04:10):
At the time. We were both free from certain restrictions.
Your daughter was no longer a little baby, she no
longer needed your twenty four hour supervision. She was going
to school. There was a lot of time where she
was doing other things. I was not working, and therefore
(04:33):
I had free time to be able to dedicate to
a new friendship. And when when we committed ourselves to
a friendship. We decided that what we said to each
other was you are the friend I have always wanted.
And we turned that into FIA, which which is the
(04:58):
friend I've always wanted. And the great thing about Fia
is there are no other fils, right, we made that up.
That is ours in particular, right, And you're right, I mean,
it was such a special time, you know, and we
did we had it was this little bubble of sympatico
kind of timing where we had, as you said, and
(05:21):
also our husbands were busy with projects, and our kids
were you still had a kid in school, so our schedules,
we were busy with some life type things and holding
down the fort. But we had a lot of areas
where we were intersecting and so we were able to
fill you know, a lot of that time with things
(05:43):
that we had both been really wanting to do and
that and I think also a depth that maybe we
had been looking for that we were able to find
in each other, you know, to be open to things
and to go exploring and to you know, go to
muse ms in the city and find new restaurants, and
(06:03):
you know, there was a companionship and just so much
fun in those early days of being able to have
that freedom to go and do all of those things
while at the same time we were you know, very
right away once we made that decision getting into you know,
the real stuff and you know, great conversations just on
(06:26):
this backdrop of you know, that time in our lives
and also this beautiful city in a way that I
hadn't really explored, and it you know, it was it
was a friend I had always wanted to be just
joined in that way. You know, I'm also an only child,
(06:47):
and so friendships are very important to me. And I
was going to go there. I was going to start
I was originally going to start there. But where we
sort of were dancing for me. Yeah, no, listen fee
there that is a that is a great start, because
that says, you know, that that leaves the that is
the cornerstone and the and the touchstone of where we
(07:10):
have grown, where we started and where we took the
risk and had the bravery to dive in a way
at our age. As you know, people who are at
a certain time in our lives where you don't always
begin a new friendship like that. You know, where you're
able to say yes and say you know, I kind
of I touched on it a little bit earlier that
(07:32):
we had seen each other around town a little bit.
I mean you first came into our orbit I think
when you were judging a talent show with Al, So
we sort of didn't really know each other at that time,
but that was, you know, a place where the reference
came in. And then you know, I would see you
(07:52):
at our little favorite store that we loved over in
Culver City, New York. Or both of our children were
in school very near each other, and um, we ended
up going to the hair, same hair, So that's which
was crazy. So all of a sudden there was Sean
and then that led to iPhone ees and then I
(08:12):
got to know you in that creative way through your
photography and mine, and that was a way that we
really kind of kept going like okay, okay, you know,
and then I remember seeing you that we went to that.
You know, we were both supporters and activists in a
way of telling the prop eight play, which was so great,
(08:35):
So there were intersections there where we you know, saw
that and you know, so they were just all of
these things. And then one time again when we ran
into you, I think, oh, and then you should up
with a busload of teenagers one time backstage. So for
the uninitiated listener, yes, because you know, I'm hoping we
have one. I believe we know we have one. Listener.
(08:59):
Suzanne is Mary to Al Yankovic, also known in some
circles um as weird. Al Yankovic and I we actually
met for the first time because Al and I were
judging a talent contest at a girls school that neither
one of our children went to, but somehow to random
(09:23):
somehow thrown together. A third party asked us both to
do it. We met. You know, I write books for
children there at the time, I think your daughter Nina
was five, and you know I write books for kids.
And so I we met blah blah blah. And I
don't think you were there, Susanne, I was, you weren't.
(09:45):
So I stayed home with Nina, right, So I remember
I sent over some books and we made a little
beginning of that. And then as you said, we we
ran into each other at various places, you know, day
to day things, and that there was the beginning of
when I had the opportunity then to come up to
you then and say, oh hi, you know, thanks for
(10:06):
the books like san and and then I would see
you at things you So you guys came to my
child school event, the concert. Yeah. So what what happened
is we we saw each other. We would always see
each other and go oh hi. There was always that
(10:27):
joy when you see someone that you genuinely feel like,
oh I really like her, Hi, oh hi. And it happened.
It started to happen quite a lot. And wherever we were,
we would see each other and say oh hi, Hi,
(10:48):
and then we would immediately pair up and start talking.
Al would be doing this thing or whatever. Nina, we
would run into We ran into you at that market
near our schools and about the cheese you'r Nina at
that cheese shop part. And what ended up happening was
that at some point and I don't really remember who,
(11:12):
I mean, it's hard to ever remember, like who asked
to first? But I was in my fifties. Um, I'm
older than Suzanne, but by about five years, barely seven years,
three years whatever? Are you really that old? Okay? So
we were women over fifty or you were. And what happened,
(11:35):
which was so interesting, is we actually made a friend date.
M How do you remember how that happened? I think
that I think that it was you. I believe we
were at that store and you said, you know what,
let's go and let's actually really go and spend some
time together. And you know, it had just accelerated to
(11:57):
that point where had you not done it, I would have.
I mean, it was just that's where you know, that's
where it was going. And we took that step to say, okay,
let's do it. It's a date. And we made a date.
The way made a date, you make the choice to
say I am willing to stop all of my other
things and I am going to focus on you. You're
(12:20):
going to focus on me, and we are going to
make a friendship date. And we went to a restaurant
and we had a date so that we could really
establish that as a friendship base right, and say, I
like you, like I want to be this is you know,
I've seen you around. We've been doing this for years now,
and let's be friends. You know, we almost that you
(12:44):
do in childhood very much, so, you know, and I
and I remember after lunch, we were walking around, you know,
looking at different stores and stuff and we were crossing
the street, and it was a busy street and cars
were going and coming and going, and we would start
out and would stop, and then you know, we were jaywalking.
(13:05):
Don't tell we were jay And so we started across,
and then a car came very quickly, and I remember
you reached behind and grabbed my hand and we ran
across together to the other side of the street. And
I remember feeling like that was just such a sweet
friendship thing to do. That was that same kind of
(13:28):
feeling like when you are a little kid and someone
saved you a lovely or you know, grabbed your hand
and then we ran off together. And you know, we've
been running ever since writing Going and Going, haven't. As
I said it in the beginning, the sort of preamble,
we met at a time where our kids were in school.
(13:51):
I was not working at the level i'm I thought
I wasn't gonna work at all. I thought it was
over at that point. I really didn't have an imagination.
This was way before the reboot. I don't like the
word of Halloween. It was before screen queens and Right
and Al had just left on tour, and you know,
(14:11):
as you said, was a little older so you know,
certainly I had responsibilities, but I we both had some freedom.
And I guess what I'm saying is we actually did
friend things. I mean, this is called the Good Friend podcast.
We became good friends and fiaz friend I've always wanted.
We went bike riding. We went and did kid things
(14:36):
that are fun to do, hiking, didn't you know, martial
arts like we took some martial arts, you know, toning classes.
We went to museums and explored like I remember, we
went downtown. We would It was fun. It was fun,
and it continues to be fun. It's been harder because
(14:58):
as most people you know, and we've talked obviously too.
I spoke to Amy Klobuchar at one point, and I
was saying, how do you maintain your friendships and basically
run the country like that? Right? How do you do it?
And so I think people are interested in how people
(15:21):
navigate relationships. But before we go there, I'd like to
go backwards a little bit. You you mentioned it already,
and I know your life story, but my my listener
does not m hm. Talk a little bit about um
Kalama's zoo and your your little life a little meaning,
(15:42):
your young life um, and your beginning friendships. That, yeah,
just my early life. I was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
I remember my first best friend was Gino Lee and
another boy, Todd Adams. We used to play Mr potato
Head in the hallway it was now it's just called
(16:05):
potato head. By the way. Now it's just taken away.
That's right, taken away all the genders. It's just potato Sorry,
potato head. We had a lot of fun with potato head. Um.
You know. But in that world, that apartment world, people
would come and go more often and so um. But
I have a lot of very sweet, fond memories of
(16:27):
my early Michigan days. And I lived there until I
was six and we got my dad was transferred to Texas.
So at the very end of first grade, right before
a little bit before I turned seven, we moved to Irving, Texas,
which is a suburb of Dallas. And that was a
you know, that was a big change and a bit
(16:48):
of a culture shock, not necessarily in any kind of
a bad way, but people, I didn't understand a lot
of the slang. You know, there was just there's funny
storys of teachers saying things to me and I didn't
really remember. My first grade teacher told me to go
crack the window. And I was like, who, I'll just
open it, you know, and she was like, no, you
(17:09):
need Suzanne, you need to go crack that window, you know,
and and I I didn't understand, and finally, you know,
I went to go. We went back and forth a
long time, and she thought I was misbehaving, you know,
that I was not listening to her. So I finally
did a litttle soft like hit on the window, like
I was like, I don't know what you want me
to do. I can open it, but if you want
it cracked, like I guess, I'll have, you know. And
(17:31):
then she realized. She was like oh you know when
she came running over and you know, so there were
little things that I just had to learn. But you know,
that was my first time of having to really forge
new friendships and you know, get to know whole you know,
all kinds of new people. But um again, I was
little in it that made it easier. And that was
(17:54):
that was just you know, a fun, a fun kind
of time. And do you still are you still those
to those friends from that period? I am. I am
my oldest friend I met in fifth grade, and I
know a lot of I know a lot of the
kids that were that I started in first grade with
once I got to Texas. The ones in Michigan not
(18:17):
so much, but in Texas, yeah, because I went all
through elementary school and then junior high in high school
with a lot of them, so we were together a
long time. But my oldest friend is from fifth grade
who was a close friend who I still talked to,
who you know, we're we're in closer touch. And were
you and were you friend groups or were you sort
(18:38):
of more I had the individual I wasn't ever really
a big as much of a big friend group person.
I had more individual friendships and I I fit into
a lot of different groups. I went kind of everywhere
in between. I found that I liked a lot of
(18:59):
different kinds of people, and I was I was comfortable
with a lot of different kinds of people. And the
people though that I became closest with, I think we're
the ones that again could be could be a little deep,
you know, and have some real conversations about maybe what
they wanted in life. And I know that talking about
(19:20):
little kids that seems unusual, but my friend Matt that
I'm talking about. I remember that he just showed up
at school one day and his hair was dyed a
different color, and you know, he was acting in a
local play and he was real involved in that and
it was a big interest of his. And I just
thought that was so cool that he had a passion
(19:42):
like that so young, and that he was out doing
these things, you know, and you know, so it was
just a fun thing to to get to know him
and to get to know that world, and to go
with him and see him in his show he was
playing Charlie Brown. Um. And then in junior high and
(20:03):
high school again I had I had a lot of
really you know, good friends at different times kind of
going based on other people than having either other interests
or going to another school. UM. I'm still in touch
with a lot of them. It's interesting my over this
past year, when we've all been so isolated. I talked
(20:24):
to my best friend from from junior high and I
have seen her off and on. She had she came
out to my wedding. My fifth grade friend was also
at my wedding, and some high school you know, some
some college friends as well. There something I don't already.
I know I'll get if I'm a good friend, We'll
(20:45):
be right back with more good friend after this quick break,
so stick around, don't get it. I'm a good friend.
I don't know any well. I know that you came
from Texas and ended up coming to California for a job.
(21:08):
And I know because we are besties. We are Fiaz.
I know your crew. I know your women crew. I
have many of them. Um, when you make a close friend,
you know that they already have their own crew of friends.
And although I would not say that your crew has
(21:32):
become my you know. I mean it's we we cross
pollinate a little bit here and there is the politics stuff,
but you have your crew. I have a crew, and
it was it was it was a special group of women.
And you guys have stayed very close. That was it
five or six of you talk about that. It's about
(21:52):
five or six of us. Yeah. Well, when I moved
to Los Angeles, I didn't know anyone, and so it
was a situation where I was. I had one old
boyfriend and his wife who lived out here, and they
were very sweet when I first moved in and had
me over to dinner a bunch of times and I
remember his wife was pregnant at that time, and later
on that baby, who was her oldest, ended up being
(22:14):
the boy scout on the cover of Owl's Poodle Hat album.
So it was fun that I knew them. But then
through work, I I worked a lot. I had a
really long hours. I worked at twentieth Century Fox. I
was in marketing. Um. It was a demanding job, and
I spent a lot of time there. And after a
little while I had made one really great friend, my
(22:36):
friend Michelle, and she opened me up then too. She
had grown up in Palm Spring, she had lived in
Los Angeles for a long time. So I did then
get to meet a larger group of other professional women.
We were all at the different studios. We were all
in marketing, publicity, the photography area, like production and development,
(22:58):
you know. So it was we were all working a lot,
We were all single, we were all very passionated to
what we did, and we had a lot of fun.
And so again it was a special time where we
did not have we had the responsibilities of work, but
we were young and we were you know, had these
(23:19):
fun jobs and we traveled and for work and spent
time together that way, and It was a wonderful, again,
very special time because it was defined by that same
kind of freedom that you have when you are young
(23:41):
and single and have found a group. And that was
really maybe the first time that I've had a bigger
group like that. That's you know, not I'm not really
a person who traveled. I never pledged a sorority. I
am not a real joiner with things like that. And
you know, I wasn't in a lot of groups sports,
(24:03):
and I'm not opposed to any of that. It just
wasn't my It just wasn't my path. And so it
was fun for me to have all of those girlfriends.
And then we all ended up sort of meeting people
and having children around the same time as well. So
although everyone kind of scattered a different areas of the
city and we're very spread out now, especially when the
(24:25):
kids were really young, we would still get together because
they're all two or three years apart, and our ages
sort of span a bit um. I think I maybe
the oldest, and then they go down, you know, within
five or six years. But even so, strangely, even though
we all got married at different times and everything else,
(24:45):
all of our kids ended up being right around the
same time. So when you know they were very young,
they were a little bit like cousins all running around.
Would get them together for Easter, at Christmas and different times.
But you know, then I think people get into their
lives where they are you know, as I said, we're
pretty spread out, so you know we have that history.
(25:07):
And again they feel like definitely always a part of
me and we're very very tight. But as far as
you know real day to day, some of them are
more in touch with and others I find out through
the other ones that I am more in touch with,
or we'll all get together now and then. But yeah,
I have you know, I have that experience from from
(25:31):
when I was working of a really good group of
work friends that became girlfriends. Because you're a single child, UM,
I've heard a lot from a lot of people about
the closeness of the friendships with their siblings, UM. And
it really did make me understand, Oh right, of course,
(25:54):
you know, it's not just people that you meet randomly
that become your friends. M. There are people who have
very close relationships with their siblings. UM. And when you're
a single child, you don't have that. And I guess
the question is you know what constitutes a good friend
(26:15):
and what do you take to your friends? You know,
people people go to people with issues, like things that
you wouldn't take to your parents, you wouldn't take necessarily
to your spouse or your boyfriend, whoever. Do you know
what I mean like that? Oh? Absolutely, yeah, I mean
I do think that that is one of the things
that I was talking about with people who were able
(26:37):
to go deep and people who have had experiences where
you know, when I went into college, one of the
things that was going on with me is that I
was in a little bit of a different place than
what a lot of college students, you know, entering their
freshman year are going through. And that is that I
had lost a couple of friends to car accidents going
(26:59):
in to that, and also my freshman year, very early on,
I had a friend, a good friend that I had
grown up with, that was murdered and so and I
know that that's very heavy, but what it did is
it it gave me the perspective very young, through those
(27:24):
losses and you know, just other just life, of the
value of friendship, of being able to be grateful but
also to be able to love life and still be
resilient and to understand really how precious it is. And
(27:48):
as I look back at that time for college, you know,
so I wasn't pledging a sorority. I wasn't a real
downer or anything. I mean, I was having fun, and
I was going out, and I was doing all the
things college did, but I was doing it with this
underlying understanding of a lot of pain and a lot
of loss, and a lot of things that other people
(28:10):
had perhaps not yet experienced in their lives. It was
also the beginning, the very beginning of the AIDS time.
I mean, it was a heavy four years just in general.
And on top of it, I had many of the
things that I was working through and and my friends
(28:35):
from that time. It's really interesting because my best friend
Um had lost her brother. My roommate had lost everything
in a flood. And I remember she wasn't my first roommate,
but after the first semester we picked each other to
be roommates because we felt we were compatible when she
loved music and you know, she was a ton of
(28:55):
fun and we were could not have been more different,
and just got along great and lived together all four years.
But I remember when I first was moving in with her.
A lot of her undergarments and things that she would
wear were sort of tie died from the water from
the flood because they lost She lost all her clothes,
you know, and she hadn't been able to replace everything.
(29:15):
And so these were people who were like having a
great time, but they had known, um, they had been
through some stuff, you know. And and I think that
there is just a little bit of an extra vision
into that that you can see. Um maybe it was
a maturity, or maybe it was even a lightness because
they didn't sweat the small stuff. They just like me,
(29:40):
had an understanding of how fragile life can be and
how important it is to be able to bring things
to each other, to lean on each other, to have
people to talk to, and to have trust. I think
that's a really big thing for me because you know,
breaches of trust, when you've made yourself vulnerable, that's something
(30:02):
I have a real hard time with. And that is
something in my friendships that have that has um always
been something that I have to really take to heart
and bring up and if it, if it happens, it's
something that always is a discussion, and that's a time
(30:22):
when you have to decide whether or not that friendship
is one that you can rebuild and continue to go
forward with, or if it's a situation that you feel
has been too much of a betrayal. But I feel
like in most of mine, because friendships, and my friendships
in particular, are long, and people are flawed, and you know,
(30:47):
I'm a good talker and I have a lot of compassions,
so I do understand how things like that can happen.
But it's definitely something that I address and that has
caused you some ripples and some friendships for me over time, um,
but that have always been repaired. But I I just
think in that long time, that's where what's where just
(31:08):
being witnessed to people and understanding where they're at, and
also how forgiveness plays into friendships and understanding, and I
think that's where you get the real maturity their friendship loss.
You know, we don't. I have a woman that I
(31:29):
know very well and i'm very you know, fond of
and has worked for me, and she's almost always happy,
and there were always every picture in her house, there
are fifteen people, their arms are around their shoulders and
they're all laughing every picture, and it's a. It's a
(31:50):
genuine lust for life, super happy group of people, and
I just don't relate. And I'm not saying i'm I'm
I'm only interested in depressives. But I actually think what
you're talking about is profound because you know, I too,
am looking for depth and the sharing of difficult things.
(32:16):
Life is hard. Life is not a kickwalk for anybody.
There's not a person. You know. My favorite quote, as
you know very well, as from The Princess Bride, where
you know the man in Black has Princess Buttercup on
the hill and says that her Wesley died of whatever,
whim for something, and she says, you mock my pain,
(32:39):
and he says, life is pain highness, and anyone who
says differently is selling something. You know what I mean.
Life is pain, Absolutely, life is pain. And therefore I'm
not surprised that you're drawn to people from a commonality.
And I you know, it's interesting. I hadn't thought about
(33:00):
it before, but you brought it up. You know, I
was an professional I became a professional actor my freshman
year of college. By the second semester, I at that
point now had a job. And you know, before the
semester was out. I had an apartment and I was
(33:22):
paying my gas bill, and all of my friends were
in college. All of my high school friends, every single
one of them was in some sort of college, and
I was the only one. So the friends I made
were people I couldn't relate to college. I couldn't relate
to frat parties, and I was I was trying to
(33:45):
balance my checkbook and you know, get a good night's
rest because I had a big day at work the
next day. And I found that the seriousness of life
was what ultimately I was drawn to, and I couldn't relate.
And so what I could relate to was adults, adult life.
(34:07):
And so all of my friends became ten years older
than me, all of them. And that was my experience
for much of my life until I it sort of
settled out and it didn't matter if you were forty
five or fifty or fifty five. We were all old, right, like,
(34:32):
you know, we're just old, and it's there was there
is I really related when you said that you went
to college having lost friends and and a murder and
that sort of reality of life, um is what I
am drawn to, and without even knowing it, when we met,
(34:53):
So I want to go back to Fia for a minute,
because you know the Fia of it all. It was
a declaration. We both said, do you want to be friends?
Shall we have lunch? Shall we go for this? It
was It was it was a conscious understanding that we
were gonna enter a friendship, that it was going to
(35:16):
demand time and resources and experiences, and we couldn't just
have the friendship without now building on it. And it
was a commitment of sorts, it was, And it was
a commitment in addition, know we talked about all of
the fun and and and the fund is and was
(35:37):
always there, but it was also even from that very
first lunch, we got very real, very quickly. And and
you know that that is as important of a part
was being able to actually the honesty and the sharing
and the exchange of ideas and of life and of
struggles and of all of those things are hand in hand.
(35:59):
And I couldn't you know. We also had, in a
weird way, a really adolescent fun girl friendship. Um in
a way we were both grown women, We both had
had professional lives, we are both married for a long time,
we both have children. And yet when we realized we
(36:20):
were going to carve out time. All of a sudden,
the commonality of interests were like, well, do you want
to go for a bike I love riding bikes. Yeah,
me too, let's go for let's go for a bike ride.
I need a new bike. Okay, I'll come with you
and we'll buy a bike. And then and or you know,
your Nina was taking karate classes in at a dojo
(36:45):
and you were always there because you were taking her,
and so I would meet you and we would sit
outside and have our lovely little lunch while she was
in a class. And then it was like, hey, I
I would like to do that. Do you think her
teacher would teach us? And here we were two women
in our fifties in our gear. Yeah yeah, you know,
(37:10):
they going there when it's closed, you know, really trying
to learn the forms. And although it was short lived
and we didn't get to expand that fully, there were
about two years three years there where we were able
to be those girlfriends trying new things and that it
(37:37):
was like a perfect not storm even it was just
a perfect period of time. Oh yeah, it was like
a sacred, cherished, you know, moment, like it just doesn't
usually happen in that way. And riding bikes, you know,
I mean for all of them. I remember sailing down
Eleventh Street. We were just the wind was going. We're like,
(37:58):
oh my gosh. I mean that feeling, you know. For
the listener, you know this is uh, it's an encouragement
from us to you that first of all, you have
to make the commitment to break the pattern of your life.
Because none of us have any free time. We have
to make the free time. You have to say I
(38:19):
am willing to carve out an hour to go do that.
We all have a million things we could be doing,
and you know, you're the host of this show is
like the most prepared person you've ever met. So I
could be doing Christmas shopping in March for the following Christmas.
Easily I could have builed that hour to go bike riding.
(38:41):
But we we had something that was, was, is and
will always be, this most miraculous God given moment where
the universe allowed us to make a fia friendship, the
(39:03):
friend I've always wanted, right and commit to that and
commit to it. We were in. I'm in, you in,
and and you know I will tell the listener that
there has never been a better friend than my friend
Suzann Yankovic, who held my hand and walked me through uh,
(39:28):
couple really difficult moments in my adult life. Everyone has
difficult times. Um, my friend Debbie Oppenheimer was on this
podcast or will be on this podcast, and depending on
what the order is. And I had forgotten because of
course I don't think about that stuff that she showed
(39:49):
up when my mother died. That you know, Chris, Debbie
had called the house. Chris had said that Janet had died,
and that I was at Janet's house and I'm standing
alone in my mother's bedroom with her body mm hmm,
And all of a sudden, Debbie is standing next to
me and just reached out and held my hand. She
(40:12):
didn't say a word. And what I'm saying is that
we all have those friends who have been with us
through hard times. But in our fearedom, there have been
a couple really challenging moments. And you, the depth of
your compassion, your strength makes me cry. But the strength
(40:39):
that you lent me, like you said, you don't have
to be strong, Jamie, I will be strong for you,
and therefore you can allow yourself to feel what you're feeling.
Because I'm safe. I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere.
(41:02):
And that is the exact description of a friend I've
always wanted, Um, And you're an extraordinary friend. And of course,
every single friend, as I said at the beginning of
the conversation, every single friend of mine. Within ten seconds
(41:28):
of talking to me, my children, Annie, if you sa
a thing, I need this thing? Hey, how Susie? Like?
What's going on with them? Where's Nina? If the something
I know, I'll get. If I'm a good friend, We'll
be right back with more good friend after this quick break.
(41:51):
I'm a good friend. So I want to talk before
we finish. I do want to talk about Nina. So,
Nina is my goddess daughter. I was named the goddess
mother of Nina Yankovic Nina Louise yan or Um during
our friendship. And Nina has now grown up, will be
(42:13):
going to college UM in the fall. Yeah, she is
a senior in high school. But it's also been really
lovely to have you. As you know, my friend, Naomi
phoner Is are Maggie and Jake's parents a mother, and
I have a friendship with Maggie and Jake outside of
(42:35):
Naomi um that has been allowed and fostered by her.
And it is her openness to wanting me to be
part of their lives has allowed me to go off
and be part of their lives separate from Naomi. And
although I can't imagine it being much separate from you
(42:56):
and al you've really kind of stood back and said,
I want you to have a relationship with Nina on
your own, not through me, not through the filter of me,
not through the connective tissue of me. I do want
her to know that she exists separately and that you
(43:18):
exist separately, right. And it's been a beautiful thing to
see the two of you having known each other now
for such a long time of her life and to
have grown and matured as she is. As she's grown
and matured, your relationship has deepened in new and different
ways because she's become a young adult now and it's
(43:41):
so it's so special to me, and it was so
important to me, and and and already you had such
a special connection to her even very early on, and
you stepped up and were there for her in ways
that you know that no one us really had stepped
up as far as really being involved you were at
(44:06):
basketball games, you were at soccer games, you were there
watching her do karate, you were celebrating her achievements. You
went to her school for parents and Special Friends day
when my dad was recovering from an illness. You have
a beautiful relationship with her, and it's so important to
(44:28):
me and it's so important to her, and and we
asked you to be her goddess mother because it just worked,
and also because we so respected the way, the true
way that you honored her for who she was and
(44:51):
supported her in all of her different you know, listen,
she's a kid that has so many different interests, and
you know there's a lot of things that she's involved
in and you were always there for all of them.
And it's it's really fun to see her. You know,
she's excited to talk with you. She's you know, going
(45:12):
through this college process now and you know you're right
there in it. And again, she's an only child of
two only children, So for her, you know, you've as
long as since she's met you, you've been family. You're
you know, you loom very large in her life. And
(45:32):
I'm just so honored that you're there to have this
friendship with her and to take I can't wait to
see even as she continues to grow, you know, and
become more and more independent. It's just so fun for
me to see you guys doing your you know, I'd
love to see her. You know you talked to one
time about but well she spent the night with you guys,
like she already is doing that. But you know, it's
(45:54):
just fun. And she even gets older, there will be
so many more things that she can bring to you
to talk about and just thank you for being there
with her and for you know, being that a real
rock in someplace outside of you know, parents and friends
and all of that other kind of stuff that is you.
It's just but I mean, though, what you described, the
(46:17):
suiting up, the showing up, the you know, celebrating accomplishments,
the commiserating the losses is basically friendship. I mean it's
here we are talking about a child or a young
person and an adult, but it's those are the building
blocks of a strong relationship, which we you know, in
(46:40):
our language is the term for friend. That's right. And
so it was so sweet when you were recounting it all.
It was like I want, I kept wanting to go
friend friend, friend, friend, friend, um, and I know I have,
(47:00):
as you know, my god children, uh Lisa burn Box,
three children, Sam, Boco, and Mazie. I'm working with Boco
and Sam, but we're hoping to get Mazie out here.
So it Maggie and Jake are friends of mine, separate
from Naomi and Stephen. So the beauty of friends is
(47:23):
that they can then give birth to people who then
become your friends. And I'm just so you know, I'm
so beyond grateful that at fifty something I found a
Fia and you found a Fia and there will never
(47:44):
be another Fia. And I'm gonna end with this, you guys,
my listener. Sorry you guys, I said clural as if
there were more than one. But it just popped into
my mind, and I think it's going to be a
beautiful way of ending the interview or the versation. Uh listener,
just bear with me. So, as you guys know, I
(48:05):
write books for children, and or as you know, I
write books for one listener. And when I first wrote
the first book for children, which was called When I
Was Little of four year Old's Memoir of her Youth,
it just makes me laugh. The illustrator I picked, and
(48:27):
I picked her, and I went to the publishers that
published her because I wanted her to draw the pictures
for my book. The reason I knew her is that
when my daughter Annie was born, at her shower, my
(48:47):
friend Naomi Phoner, who is Maggie and Jake's mother, through
the shower for Annie, and I was given a book
for her called Annie ben Any and Annie Bananny is
by a fantastic author named Leah Camiko. It was illustrated
(49:08):
by my partner, Laura Cornell. And it's about your story, Suzanne.
It's about a six or seven year old girl whose
best friend moves away. And this is the book. Because
if you don't think I read that book a hundred
(49:28):
and seventy thousand times to my daughter Annie, then you
guys don't know me. And here is the book Annie Bananny,
that is the story of a fia Annie Bananny. My
best friend said we'd be friends till the end, made
(49:49):
me wash my face and mud, sign my name in
cockroach blood, tied my brother to the trees, made me
tickle bumblebees, said that we would always lay. Now Annie
Bananny is going away, Annie Bananni wouldn't be Annie Bananny.
If it weren't for me, she was Anne from outer space.
(50:10):
I scrubbed the freckles off her face, made her grow
a half inch taller, shrunk her ears, made both feet smaller,
brought her out for all to see. Princess Annie Banany,
Annie Bananny, do you think it's good leaving your old neighborhood?
Who will feed your porcupine? Who will swing from your
(50:32):
clothes line? How can you just go away? What about
my sixth birthday? Annie Bananny? Don't you cry? Even best
friends have to say goodbye, Make some new friends, Try
to write. But remember, when you're in bed at night,
you will never ever ever find a friend who's half
(50:52):
as clever. No, you will never ever find someone who's
as sweet and kind. No, you will never, ever, never,
never ever find another friend like me? Will you? Annie Bananni?
By Leahkamiko. That's that's you and me, and be a friend.
(51:20):
I love you too, Fia, so thank you for being
such a good friend. Suzanne YANKOVICI you you know what
we have to rename the podcast. It needs to be
I have to just call Emily King, have her re
record the song and have it be a great friend. Um,
but you are a spectacular friend and my fia friend forever.
(51:44):
I love you and thank you for being here for all.
Thank you for my listener um, Stay safe, God bless you,
and invite a couple of friends to listen because friends
make the world better. Have a good night every one day, whatever, whenever.
Maybe it's the middle of the night, maybe it's the morning.
(52:04):
Who knows, it's the good Friend podcast. Good Friend is
produced by Dylan Fagin and is a production of I
Heart Radio. Our theme song, good Friend is written, produced,
(52:29):
and performed by Emily King. Already unlogative from a good Friend?
Don't already Native from a good Friend. For more podcasts
from my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
(52:50):
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
If something I know, I'll get it. I'm a good friend.
Hi everybody, it's Jamie Lee Curtis and you're listening to
the Good Friend Podcast, presented to you by I Heart Radio.
It's a podcast about friendship. We talk about everything, We cry,
(00:24):
we laugh, we think about what it really means to
be a good friend. And I have conversations with some
of my best friends, some people I've never met, and
sort of everything in between. So I hope by the
end of it that you have a really good sense
(00:47):
of what friendship means to me and the people that
I consider friends. And I hope you can take those
same ideas into your own friendship groups, and I hope
you enjoy it. I don't know. I an allative and
a good friend. We're so happy to have you here
(01:10):
on the Good Friend Podcast. Suzanne Yanko vic Oh, I'm
so happy to be here. Thank you for having me. Yes, Well,
duh is the word? You know? It's sort of when
you say the word good friend. You know, when you
know you're a good friend. You know you're a good
friend when your friends say how Suzanne, it's it's I
think I think that the I think the real place
(01:34):
in a friendship is when your other friends ask you
about your best friend, like they you know, people talking
and go hey, how Susanne? Right? Right. It's kind of
like an extended family in a way, you know, and
then people checking in because you've come into that, you know,
(01:55):
you're in a in a place where you're in an
inner circle, you know, in every one kind of checks
in and cares. That's a beautiful thing. I love the
idea of the extended family. Yeah, that friendship as an
extension of family is beautiful. So we're done. Okay, let's
(02:16):
turn it off, Dylan, whether we're gonna go to lunch
or you'll come over and we'll go for a walk. Yeah.
So obviously it is a podcast about friendship, the importance
of friendship, the challenges of friendship, from you know, little
life to adult life and everything in between. I'm going
(02:37):
to start with Fia. I'm going to actually sure start
with it. So, you know, people have pet names for
each other, uh Lisa Burnbach as you know, and I
have this name. We call each other Ling, which came
from Darling and it got shortened to ling. And her
children call me lying, our families call me ling. That
(03:01):
is our name. For each other, and it's the same name,
She'll say. As you know, I'm in a best these group,
which is a big group of both men and women. Yeah,
we they refer to each other as besties. But when
we met and fell in friendship, yeah, we very quickly
(03:25):
realized that we were the friends that we had been
waiting for. Yeah, you know, I was thinking about when
we met. One of the things that was so great
as we continued to meet a bit around town, like
different different moments, and I think that because we we
(03:47):
knew then after sort of testing the waters and getting
to know each other a little bit more and more,
that we made that date and then just really dope
in and you're right after that, it was yeah, you know,
well steam ahead. What we discovered was that what we
were feeling in the relationship, what we were able to do.
(04:10):
At the time. We were both free from certain restrictions.
Your daughter was no longer a little baby, she no
longer needed your twenty four hour supervision. She was going
to school. There was a lot of time where she
was doing other things. I was not working, and therefore
(04:33):
I had free time to be able to dedicate to
a new friendship. And when when we committed ourselves to
a friendship. We decided that what we said to each
other was you are the friend I have always wanted.
And we turned that into FIA, which which is the
(04:58):
friend I've always wanted. And the great thing about Fia
is there are no other fils, right, we made that up.
That is ours in particular, right, And you're right, I mean,
it was such a special time, you know, and we
did we had it was this little bubble of sympatico
kind of timing where we had, as you said, and
(05:21):
also our husbands were busy with projects, and our kids
were you still had a kid in school, so our schedules,
we were busy with some life type things and holding
down the fort. But we had a lot of areas
where we were intersecting and so we were able to
fill you know, a lot of that time with things
(05:43):
that we had both been really wanting to do and
that and I think also a depth that maybe we
had been looking for that we were able to find
in each other, you know, to be open to things
and to go exploring and to you know, go to
muse ms in the city and find new restaurants, and
(06:03):
you know, there was a companionship and just so much
fun in those early days of being able to have
that freedom to go and do all of those things
while at the same time we were you know, very
right away once we made that decision getting into you know,
the real stuff and you know, great conversations just on
(06:26):
this backdrop of you know, that time in our lives
and also this beautiful city in a way that I
hadn't really explored, and it you know, it was it
was a friend I had always wanted to be just
joined in that way. You know, I'm also an only child,
(06:47):
and so friendships are very important to me. And I
was going to go there. I was going to start
I was originally going to start there. But where we
sort of were dancing for me. Yeah, no, listen fee
there that is a that is a great start, because
that says, you know, that that leaves the that is
the cornerstone and the and the touchstone of where we
(07:10):
have grown, where we started and where we took the
risk and had the bravery to dive in a way
at our age. As you know, people who are at
a certain time in our lives where you don't always
begin a new friendship like that. You know, where you're
able to say yes and say you know, I kind
of I touched on it a little bit earlier that
(07:32):
we had seen each other around town a little bit.
I mean you first came into our orbit I think
when you were judging a talent show with Al, So
we sort of didn't really know each other at that time,
but that was, you know, a place where the reference
came in. And then you know, I would see you
(07:52):
at our little favorite store that we loved over in
Culver City, New York. Or both of our children were
in school very near each other, and um, we ended
up going to the hair, same hair, So that's which
was crazy. So all of a sudden there was Sean
and then that led to iPhone ees and then I
(08:12):
got to know you in that creative way through your
photography and mine, and that was a way that we
really kind of kept going like okay, okay, you know,
and then I remember seeing you that we went to that.
You know, we were both supporters and activists in a
way of telling the prop eight play, which was so great,
(08:35):
So there were intersections there where we you know, saw
that and you know, so they were just all of
these things. And then one time again when we ran
into you, I think, oh, and then you should up
with a busload of teenagers one time backstage. So for
the uninitiated listener, yes, because you know, I'm hoping we
have one. I believe we know we have one. Listener.
(08:59):
Suzanne is Mary to Al Yankovic, also known in some
circles um as weird. Al Yankovic and I we actually
met for the first time because Al and I were
judging a talent contest at a girls school that neither
one of our children went to, but somehow to random
(09:23):
somehow thrown together. A third party asked us both to
do it. We met. You know, I write books for
children there at the time, I think your daughter Nina
was five, and you know I write books for kids.
And so I we met blah blah blah. And I
don't think you were there, Susanne, I was, you weren't.
(09:45):
So I stayed home with Nina, right, So I remember
I sent over some books and we made a little
beginning of that. And then as you said, we we
ran into each other at various places, you know, day
to day things, and that there was the beginning of
when I had the opportunity then to come up to
you then and say, oh hi, you know, thanks for
(10:06):
the books like san and and then I would see
you at things you So you guys came to my
child school event, the concert. Yeah. So what what happened
is we we saw each other. We would always see
each other and go oh hi. There was always that
(10:27):
joy when you see someone that you genuinely feel like,
oh I really like her, Hi, oh hi. And it happened.
It started to happen quite a lot. And wherever we were,
we would see each other and say oh hi, Hi,
(10:48):
and then we would immediately pair up and start talking.
Al would be doing this thing or whatever. Nina, we
would run into We ran into you at that market
near our schools and about the cheese you'r Nina at
that cheese shop part. And what ended up happening was
that at some point and I don't really remember who,
(11:12):
I mean, it's hard to ever remember, like who asked
to first? But I was in my fifties. Um, I'm
older than Suzanne, but by about five years, barely seven years,
three years whatever? Are you really that old? Okay? So
we were women over fifty or you were. And what happened,
(11:35):
which was so interesting, is we actually made a friend date.
M How do you remember how that happened? I think
that I think that it was you. I believe we
were at that store and you said, you know what,
let's go and let's actually really go and spend some
time together. And you know, it had just accelerated to
(11:57):
that point where had you not done it, I would have.
I mean, it was just that's where you know, that's
where it was going. And we took that step to say, okay,
let's do it. It's a date. And we made a date.
The way made a date, you make the choice to
say I am willing to stop all of my other
things and I am going to focus on you. You're
(12:20):
going to focus on me, and we are going to
make a friendship date. And we went to a restaurant
and we had a date so that we could really
establish that as a friendship base right, and say, I
like you, like I want to be this is you know,
I've seen you around. We've been doing this for years now,
and let's be friends. You know, we almost that you
(12:44):
do in childhood very much, so, you know, and I
and I remember after lunch, we were walking around, you know,
looking at different stores and stuff and we were crossing
the street, and it was a busy street and cars
were going and coming and going, and we would start
out and would stop, and then you know, we were jaywalking.
(13:05):
Don't tell we were jay And so we started across,
and then a car came very quickly, and I remember
you reached behind and grabbed my hand and we ran
across together to the other side of the street. And
I remember feeling like that was just such a sweet
friendship thing to do. That was that same kind of
(13:28):
feeling like when you are a little kid and someone
saved you a lovely or you know, grabbed your hand
and then we ran off together. And you know, we've
been running ever since writing Going and Going, haven't. As
I said it in the beginning, the sort of preamble,
we met at a time where our kids were in school.
(13:51):
I was not working at the level i'm I thought
I wasn't gonna work at all. I thought it was
over at that point. I really didn't have an imagination.
This was way before the reboot. I don't like the
word of Halloween. It was before screen queens and Right
and Al had just left on tour, and you know,
(14:11):
as you said, was a little older so you know,
certainly I had responsibilities, but I we both had some freedom.
And I guess what I'm saying is we actually did
friend things. I mean, this is called the Good Friend podcast.
We became good friends and fiaz friend I've always wanted.
We went bike riding. We went and did kid things
(14:36):
that are fun to do, hiking, didn't you know, martial
arts like we took some martial arts, you know, toning classes.
We went to museums and explored like I remember, we
went downtown. We would It was fun. It was fun,
and it continues to be fun. It's been harder because
(14:58):
as most people you know, and we've talked obviously too.
I spoke to Amy Klobuchar at one point, and I
was saying, how do you maintain your friendships and basically
run the country like that? Right? How do you do it?
And so I think people are interested in how people
(15:21):
navigate relationships. But before we go there, I'd like to
go backwards a little bit. You you mentioned it already,
and I know your life story, but my my listener
does not m hm. Talk a little bit about um
Kalama's zoo and your your little life a little meaning,
(15:42):
your young life um, and your beginning friendships. That, yeah,
just my early life. I was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
I remember my first best friend was Gino Lee and
another boy, Todd Adams. We used to play Mr potato
Head in the hallway it was now it's just called
(16:05):
potato head. By the way. Now it's just taken away.
That's right, taken away all the genders. It's just potato Sorry,
potato head. We had a lot of fun with potato head. Um.
You know. But in that world, that apartment world, people
would come and go more often and so um. But
I have a lot of very sweet, fond memories of
(16:27):
my early Michigan days. And I lived there until I
was six and we got my dad was transferred to Texas.
So at the very end of first grade, right before
a little bit before I turned seven, we moved to Irving, Texas,
which is a suburb of Dallas. And that was a
you know, that was a big change and a bit
(16:48):
of a culture shock, not necessarily in any kind of
a bad way, but people, I didn't understand a lot
of the slang. You know, there was just there's funny
storys of teachers saying things to me and I didn't
really remember. My first grade teacher told me to go
crack the window. And I was like, who, I'll just
open it, you know, and she was like, no, you
(17:09):
need Suzanne, you need to go crack that window, you know,
and and I I didn't understand, and finally, you know,
I went to go. We went back and forth a
long time, and she thought I was misbehaving, you know,
that I was not listening to her. So I finally
did a litttle soft like hit on the window, like
I was like, I don't know what you want me
to do. I can open it, but if you want
it cracked, like I guess, I'll have, you know. And
(17:31):
then she realized. She was like oh you know when
she came running over and you know, so there were
little things that I just had to learn. But you know,
that was my first time of having to really forge
new friendships and you know, get to know whole you know,
all kinds of new people. But um again, I was
little in it that made it easier. And that was
(17:54):
that was just you know, a fun, a fun kind
of time. And do you still are you still those
to those friends from that period? I am. I am
my oldest friend I met in fifth grade, and I
know a lot of I know a lot of the
kids that were that I started in first grade with
once I got to Texas. The ones in Michigan not
(18:17):
so much, but in Texas, yeah, because I went all
through elementary school and then junior high in high school
with a lot of them, so we were together a
long time. But my oldest friend is from fifth grade
who was a close friend who I still talked to,
who you know, we're we're in closer touch. And were
you and were you friend groups or were you sort
(18:38):
of more I had the individual I wasn't ever really
a big as much of a big friend group person.
I had more individual friendships and I I fit into
a lot of different groups. I went kind of everywhere
in between. I found that I liked a lot of
(18:59):
different kinds of people, and I was I was comfortable
with a lot of different kinds of people. And the
people though that I became closest with, I think we're
the ones that again could be could be a little deep,
you know, and have some real conversations about maybe what
they wanted in life. And I know that talking about
(19:20):
little kids that seems unusual, but my friend Matt that
I'm talking about. I remember that he just showed up
at school one day and his hair was dyed a
different color, and you know, he was acting in a
local play and he was real involved in that and
it was a big interest of his. And I just
thought that was so cool that he had a passion
(19:42):
like that so young, and that he was out doing
these things, you know, and you know, so it was
just a fun thing to to get to know him
and to get to know that world, and to go
with him and see him in his show he was
playing Charlie Brown. Um. And then in junior high and
(20:03):
high school again I had I had a lot of
really you know, good friends at different times kind of
going based on other people than having either other interests
or going to another school. UM. I'm still in touch
with a lot of them. It's interesting my over this
past year, when we've all been so isolated. I talked
(20:24):
to my best friend from from junior high and I
have seen her off and on. She had she came
out to my wedding. My fifth grade friend was also
at my wedding, and some high school you know, some
some college friends as well. There something I don't already.
I know I'll get if I'm a good friend, We'll
(20:45):
be right back with more good friend after this quick break,
so stick around, don't get it. I'm a good friend.
I don't know any well. I know that you came
from Texas and ended up coming to California for a job.
(21:08):
And I know because we are besties. We are Fiaz.
I know your crew. I know your women crew. I
have many of them. Um, when you make a close friend,
you know that they already have their own crew of friends.
And although I would not say that your crew has
(21:32):
become my you know. I mean it's we we cross
pollinate a little bit here and there is the politics stuff,
but you have your crew. I have a crew, and
it was it was it was a special group of women.
And you guys have stayed very close. That was it
five or six of you talk about that. It's about
(21:52):
five or six of us. Yeah. Well, when I moved
to Los Angeles, I didn't know anyone, and so it
was a situation where I was. I had one old
boyfriend and his wife who lived out here, and they
were very sweet when I first moved in and had
me over to dinner a bunch of times and I
remember his wife was pregnant at that time, and later
on that baby, who was her oldest, ended up being
(22:14):
the boy scout on the cover of Owl's Poodle Hat album.
So it was fun that I knew them. But then
through work, I I worked a lot. I had a
really long hours. I worked at twentieth Century Fox. I
was in marketing. Um. It was a demanding job, and
I spent a lot of time there. And after a
little while I had made one really great friend, my
(22:36):
friend Michelle, and she opened me up then too. She
had grown up in Palm Spring, she had lived in
Los Angeles for a long time. So I did then
get to meet a larger group of other professional women.
We were all at the different studios. We were all
in marketing, publicity, the photography area, like production and development,
(22:58):
you know. So it was we were all working a lot,
We were all single, we were all very passionated to
what we did, and we had a lot of fun.
And so again it was a special time where we
did not have we had the responsibilities of work, but
we were young and we were you know, had these
(23:19):
fun jobs and we traveled and for work and spent
time together that way, and It was a wonderful, again,
very special time because it was defined by that same
kind of freedom that you have when you are young
(23:41):
and single and have found a group. And that was
really maybe the first time that I've had a bigger
group like that. That's you know, not I'm not really
a person who traveled. I never pledged a sorority. I
am not a real joiner with things like that. And
you know, I wasn't in a lot of groups sports,
(24:03):
and I'm not opposed to any of that. It just
wasn't my It just wasn't my path. And so it
was fun for me to have all of those girlfriends.
And then we all ended up sort of meeting people
and having children around the same time as well. So
although everyone kind of scattered a different areas of the
city and we're very spread out now, especially when the
(24:25):
kids were really young, we would still get together because
they're all two or three years apart, and our ages
sort of span a bit um. I think I maybe
the oldest, and then they go down, you know, within
five or six years. But even so, strangely, even though
we all got married at different times and everything else,
(24:45):
all of our kids ended up being right around the
same time. So when you know they were very young,
they were a little bit like cousins all running around.
Would get them together for Easter, at Christmas and different times.
But you know, then I think people get into their
lives where they are you know, as I said, we're
pretty spread out, so you know we have that history.
(25:07):
And again they feel like definitely always a part of
me and we're very very tight. But as far as
you know real day to day, some of them are
more in touch with and others I find out through
the other ones that I am more in touch with,
or we'll all get together now and then. But yeah,
I have you know, I have that experience from from
(25:31):
when I was working of a really good group of
work friends that became girlfriends. Because you're a single child, UM,
I've heard a lot from a lot of people about
the closeness of the friendships with their siblings, UM. And
it really did make me understand, Oh right, of course,
(25:54):
you know, it's not just people that you meet randomly
that become your friends. M. There are people who have
very close relationships with their siblings. UM. And when you're
a single child, you don't have that. And I guess
the question is you know what constitutes a good friend
(26:15):
and what do you take to your friends? You know,
people people go to people with issues, like things that
you wouldn't take to your parents, you wouldn't take necessarily
to your spouse or your boyfriend, whoever. Do you know
what I mean like that? Oh? Absolutely, yeah, I mean
I do think that that is one of the things
that I was talking about with people who were able
(26:37):
to go deep and people who have had experiences where
you know, when I went into college, one of the
things that was going on with me is that I
was in a little bit of a different place than
what a lot of college students, you know, entering their
freshman year are going through. And that is that I
had lost a couple of friends to car accidents going
(26:59):
in to that, and also my freshman year, very early on,
I had a friend, a good friend that I had
grown up with, that was murdered and so and I
know that that's very heavy, but what it did is
it it gave me the perspective very young, through those
(27:24):
losses and you know, just other just life, of the
value of friendship, of being able to be grateful but
also to be able to love life and still be
resilient and to understand really how precious it is. And
(27:48):
as I look back at that time for college, you know,
so I wasn't pledging a sorority. I wasn't a real
downer or anything. I mean, I was having fun, and
I was going out, and I was doing all the
things college did, but I was doing it with this
underlying understanding of a lot of pain and a lot
of loss, and a lot of things that other people
(28:10):
had perhaps not yet experienced in their lives. It was
also the beginning, the very beginning of the AIDS time.
I mean, it was a heavy four years just in general.
And on top of it, I had many of the
things that I was working through and and my friends
(28:35):
from that time. It's really interesting because my best friend
Um had lost her brother. My roommate had lost everything
in a flood. And I remember she wasn't my first roommate,
but after the first semester we picked each other to
be roommates because we felt we were compatible when she
loved music and you know, she was a ton of
(28:55):
fun and we were could not have been more different,
and just got along great and lived together all four years.
But I remember when I first was moving in with her.
A lot of her undergarments and things that she would
wear were sort of tie died from the water from
the flood because they lost She lost all her clothes,
you know, and she hadn't been able to replace everything.
(29:15):
And so these were people who were like having a
great time, but they had known, um, they had been
through some stuff, you know. And and I think that
there is just a little bit of an extra vision
into that that you can see. Um maybe it was
a maturity, or maybe it was even a lightness because
they didn't sweat the small stuff. They just like me,
(29:40):
had an understanding of how fragile life can be and
how important it is to be able to bring things
to each other, to lean on each other, to have
people to talk to, and to have trust. I think
that's a really big thing for me because you know,
breaches of trust, when you've made yourself vulnerable, that's something
(30:02):
I have a real hard time with. And that is
something in my friendships that have that has um always
been something that I have to really take to heart
and bring up and if it, if it happens, it's
something that always is a discussion, and that's a time
(30:22):
when you have to decide whether or not that friendship
is one that you can rebuild and continue to go
forward with, or if it's a situation that you feel
has been too much of a betrayal. But I feel
like in most of mine, because friendships, and my friendships
in particular, are long, and people are flawed, and you know,
(30:47):
I'm a good talker and I have a lot of compassions,
so I do understand how things like that can happen.
But it's definitely something that I address and that has
caused you some ripples and some friendships for me over time, um,
but that have always been repaired. But I I just
think in that long time, that's where what's where just
(31:08):
being witnessed to people and understanding where they're at, and
also how forgiveness plays into friendships and understanding, and I
think that's where you get the real maturity their friendship loss.
You know, we don't. I have a woman that I
(31:29):
know very well and i'm very you know, fond of
and has worked for me, and she's almost always happy,
and there were always every picture in her house, there
are fifteen people, their arms are around their shoulders and
they're all laughing every picture, and it's a. It's a
(31:50):
genuine lust for life, super happy group of people, and
I just don't relate. And I'm not saying i'm I'm
I'm only interested in depressives. But I actually think what
you're talking about is profound because you know, I too,
am looking for depth and the sharing of difficult things.
(32:16):
Life is hard. Life is not a kickwalk for anybody.
There's not a person. You know. My favorite quote, as
you know very well, as from The Princess Bride, where
you know the man in Black has Princess Buttercup on
the hill and says that her Wesley died of whatever,
whim for something, and she says, you mock my pain,
(32:39):
and he says, life is pain highness, and anyone who
says differently is selling something. You know what I mean.
Life is pain, Absolutely, life is pain. And therefore I'm
not surprised that you're drawn to people from a commonality.
And I you know, it's interesting. I hadn't thought about
(33:00):
it before, but you brought it up. You know, I
was an professional I became a professional actor my freshman
year of college. By the second semester, I at that
point now had a job. And you know, before the
semester was out. I had an apartment and I was
(33:22):
paying my gas bill, and all of my friends were
in college. All of my high school friends, every single
one of them was in some sort of college, and
I was the only one. So the friends I made
were people I couldn't relate to college. I couldn't relate
to frat parties, and I was I was trying to
(33:45):
balance my checkbook and you know, get a good night's
rest because I had a big day at work the
next day. And I found that the seriousness of life
was what ultimately I was drawn to, and I couldn't relate.
And so what I could relate to was adults, adult life.
(34:07):
And so all of my friends became ten years older
than me, all of them. And that was my experience
for much of my life until I it sort of
settled out and it didn't matter if you were forty
five or fifty or fifty five. We were all old, right, like,
(34:32):
you know, we're just old, and it's there was there
is I really related when you said that you went
to college having lost friends and and a murder and
that sort of reality of life, um is what I
am drawn to, and without even knowing it, when we met,
(34:53):
So I want to go back to Fia for a minute,
because you know the Fia of it all. It was
a declaration. We both said, do you want to be friends?
Shall we have lunch? Shall we go for this? It
was It was it was a conscious understanding that we
were gonna enter a friendship, that it was going to
(35:16):
demand time and resources and experiences, and we couldn't just
have the friendship without now building on it. And it
was a commitment of sorts, it was, And it was
a commitment in addition, know we talked about all of
the fun and and and the fund is and was
(35:37):
always there, but it was also even from that very
first lunch, we got very real, very quickly. And and
you know that that is as important of a part
was being able to actually the honesty and the sharing
and the exchange of ideas and of life and of
struggles and of all of those things are hand in hand.
(35:59):
And I couldn't you know. We also had, in a
weird way, a really adolescent fun girl friendship. Um in
a way we were both grown women, We both had
had professional lives, we are both married for a long time,
we both have children. And yet when we realized we
(36:20):
were going to carve out time. All of a sudden,
the commonality of interests were like, well, do you want
to go for a bike I love riding bikes. Yeah,
me too, let's go for let's go for a bike ride.
I need a new bike. Okay, I'll come with you
and we'll buy a bike. And then and or you know,
your Nina was taking karate classes in at a dojo
(36:45):
and you were always there because you were taking her,
and so I would meet you and we would sit
outside and have our lovely little lunch while she was
in a class. And then it was like, hey, I
I would like to do that. Do you think her
teacher would teach us? And here we were two women
in our fifties in our gear. Yeah yeah, you know,
(37:10):
they going there when it's closed, you know, really trying
to learn the forms. And although it was short lived
and we didn't get to expand that fully, there were
about two years three years there where we were able
to be those girlfriends trying new things and that it
(37:37):
was like a perfect not storm even it was just
a perfect period of time. Oh yeah, it was like
a sacred, cherished, you know, moment, like it just doesn't
usually happen in that way. And riding bikes, you know,
I mean for all of them. I remember sailing down
Eleventh Street. We were just the wind was going. We're like,
(37:58):
oh my gosh. I mean that feeling, you know. For
the listener, you know this is uh, it's an encouragement
from us to you that first of all, you have
to make the commitment to break the pattern of your life.
Because none of us have any free time. We have
to make the free time. You have to say I
(38:19):
am willing to carve out an hour to go do that.
We all have a million things we could be doing,
and you know, you're the host of this show is
like the most prepared person you've ever met. So I
could be doing Christmas shopping in March for the following Christmas.
Easily I could have builed that hour to go bike riding.
(38:41):
But we we had something that was, was, is and
will always be, this most miraculous God given moment where
the universe allowed us to make a fia friendship, the
(39:03):
friend I've always wanted, right and commit to that and
commit to it. We were in. I'm in, you in,
and and you know I will tell the listener that
there has never been a better friend than my friend
Suzann Yankovic, who held my hand and walked me through uh,
(39:28):
couple really difficult moments in my adult life. Everyone has
difficult times. Um, my friend Debbie Oppenheimer was on this
podcast or will be on this podcast, and depending on
what the order is. And I had forgotten because of
course I don't think about that stuff that she showed
(39:49):
up when my mother died. That you know, Chris, Debbie
had called the house. Chris had said that Janet had died,
and that I was at Janet's house and I'm standing
alone in my mother's bedroom with her body mm hmm,
And all of a sudden, Debbie is standing next to
me and just reached out and held my hand. She
(40:12):
didn't say a word. And what I'm saying is that
we all have those friends who have been with us
through hard times. But in our fearedom, there have been
a couple really challenging moments. And you, the depth of
your compassion, your strength makes me cry. But the strength
(40:39):
that you lent me, like you said, you don't have
to be strong, Jamie, I will be strong for you,
and therefore you can allow yourself to feel what you're feeling.
Because I'm safe. I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere.
(41:02):
And that is the exact description of a friend I've
always wanted, Um, And you're an extraordinary friend. And of course,
every single friend, as I said at the beginning of
the conversation, every single friend of mine. Within ten seconds
(41:28):
of talking to me, my children, Annie, if you sa
a thing, I need this thing? Hey, how Susie? Like?
What's going on with them? Where's Nina? If the something
I know, I'll get. If I'm a good friend, We'll
be right back with more good friend after this quick break.
(41:51):
I'm a good friend. So I want to talk before
we finish. I do want to talk about Nina. So,
Nina is my goddess daughter. I was named the goddess
mother of Nina Yankovic Nina Louise yan or Um during
our friendship. And Nina has now grown up, will be
(42:13):
going to college UM in the fall. Yeah, she is
a senior in high school. But it's also been really
lovely to have you. As you know, my friend, Naomi
phoner Is are Maggie and Jake's parents a mother, and
I have a friendship with Maggie and Jake outside of
(42:35):
Naomi um that has been allowed and fostered by her.
And it is her openness to wanting me to be
part of their lives has allowed me to go off
and be part of their lives separate from Naomi. And
although I can't imagine it being much separate from you
(42:56):
and al you've really kind of stood back and said,
I want you to have a relationship with Nina on
your own, not through me, not through the filter of me,
not through the connective tissue of me. I do want
her to know that she exists separately and that you
(43:18):
exist separately, right. And it's been a beautiful thing to
see the two of you having known each other now
for such a long time of her life and to
have grown and matured as she is. As she's grown
and matured, your relationship has deepened in new and different
ways because she's become a young adult now and it's
(43:41):
so it's so special to me, and it was so
important to me, and and and already you had such
a special connection to her even very early on, and
you stepped up and were there for her in ways
that you know that no one us really had stepped
up as far as really being involved you were at
(44:06):
basketball games, you were at soccer games, you were there
watching her do karate, you were celebrating her achievements. You
went to her school for parents and Special Friends day
when my dad was recovering from an illness. You have
a beautiful relationship with her, and it's so important to
(44:28):
me and it's so important to her, and and we
asked you to be her goddess mother because it just worked,
and also because we so respected the way, the true
way that you honored her for who she was and
(44:51):
supported her in all of her different you know, listen,
she's a kid that has so many different interests, and
you know there's a lot of things that she's involved
in and you were always there for all of them.
And it's it's really fun to see her. You know,
she's excited to talk with you. She's you know, going
(45:12):
through this college process now and you know you're right
there in it. And again, she's an only child of
two only children, So for her, you know, you've as
long as since she's met you, you've been family. You're
you know, you loom very large in her life. And
(45:32):
I'm just so honored that you're there to have this
friendship with her and to take I can't wait to
see even as she continues to grow, you know, and
become more and more independent. It's just so fun for
me to see you guys doing your you know, I'd
love to see her. You know you talked to one
time about but well she spent the night with you guys,
like she already is doing that. But you know, it's
(45:54):
just fun. And she even gets older, there will be
so many more things that she can bring to you
to talk about and just thank you for being there
with her and for you know, being that a real
rock in someplace outside of you know, parents and friends
and all of that other kind of stuff that is you.
It's just but I mean, though, what you described, the
(46:17):
suiting up, the showing up, the you know, celebrating accomplishments,
the commiserating the losses is basically friendship. I mean it's
here we are talking about a child or a young
person and an adult, but it's those are the building
blocks of a strong relationship, which we you know, in
(46:40):
our language is the term for friend. That's right. And
so it was so sweet when you were recounting it all.
It was like I want, I kept wanting to go
friend friend, friend, friend, friend, um, and I know I have,
(47:00):
as you know, my god children, uh Lisa burn Box,
three children, Sam, Boco, and Mazie. I'm working with Boco
and Sam, but we're hoping to get Mazie out here.
So it Maggie and Jake are friends of mine, separate
from Naomi and Stephen. So the beauty of friends is
(47:23):
that they can then give birth to people who then
become your friends. And I'm just so you know, I'm
so beyond grateful that at fifty something I found a
Fia and you found a Fia and there will never
(47:44):
be another Fia. And I'm gonna end with this, you guys,
my listener. Sorry you guys, I said clural as if
there were more than one. But it just popped into
my mind, and I think it's going to be a
beautiful way of ending the interview or the versation. Uh listener,
just bear with me. So, as you guys know, I
(48:05):
write books for children, and or as you know, I
write books for one listener. And when I first wrote
the first book for children, which was called When I
Was Little of four year Old's Memoir of her Youth,
it just makes me laugh. The illustrator I picked, and
(48:27):
I picked her, and I went to the publishers that
published her because I wanted her to draw the pictures
for my book. The reason I knew her is that
when my daughter Annie was born, at her shower, my
(48:47):
friend Naomi Phoner, who is Maggie and Jake's mother, through
the shower for Annie, and I was given a book
for her called Annie ben Any and Annie Bananny is
by a fantastic author named Leah Camiko. It was illustrated
(49:08):
by my partner, Laura Cornell. And it's about your story, Suzanne.
It's about a six or seven year old girl whose
best friend moves away. And this is the book. Because
if you don't think I read that book a hundred
(49:28):
and seventy thousand times to my daughter Annie, then you
guys don't know me. And here is the book Annie Bananny,
that is the story of a fia Annie Bananny. My
best friend said we'd be friends till the end, made
(49:49):
me wash my face and mud, sign my name in
cockroach blood, tied my brother to the trees, made me
tickle bumblebees, said that we would always lay. Now Annie
Bananny is going away, Annie Bananni wouldn't be Annie Bananny.
If it weren't for me, she was Anne from outer space.
(50:10):
I scrubbed the freckles off her face, made her grow
a half inch taller, shrunk her ears, made both feet smaller,
brought her out for all to see. Princess Annie Banany,
Annie Bananny, do you think it's good leaving your old neighborhood?
Who will feed your porcupine? Who will swing from your
(50:32):
clothes line? How can you just go away? What about
my sixth birthday? Annie Bananny? Don't you cry? Even best
friends have to say goodbye, Make some new friends, Try
to write. But remember, when you're in bed at night,
you will never ever ever find a friend who's half
(50:52):
as clever. No, you will never ever find someone who's
as sweet and kind. No, you will never, ever, never,
never ever find another friend like me? Will you? Annie Bananni?
By Leahkamiko. That's that's you and me, and be a friend.
(51:20):
I love you too, Fia, so thank you for being
such a good friend. Suzanne YANKOVICI you you know what
we have to rename the podcast. It needs to be
I have to just call Emily King, have her re
record the song and have it be a great friend. Um,
but you are a spectacular friend and my fia friend forever.
(51:44):
I love you and thank you for being here for all.
Thank you for my listener um, Stay safe, God bless you,
and invite a couple of friends to listen because friends
make the world better. Have a good night every one day, whatever, whenever.
Maybe it's the middle of the night, maybe it's the morning.
(52:04):
Who knows, it's the good Friend podcast. Good Friend is
produced by Dylan Fagin and is a production of I
Heart Radio. Our theme song, good Friend is written, produced,
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