October 31, 2023 • 48 mins
This week, Rosie's guest is the award winning playwright, actress and drag legend, Charles Busch.
One of the funniest broadway shows Rosie ever saw was Charles' The Tale of The Allergist's Wife and when deciding to produce Taboo on Broadway, he was THE only writer she wanted! This pursuit and production began their lifelong friendship filled with drama, laughter, and survival.
Join us as Rosie and Charles sit down to a long overdue chinwag about his fantastically fun and poignant new memoir, Leading Lady; finally embracing their experiences of Taboo; each of their ignored heart attacks; and the undeniable moments when magical thinking somehow appears at life's darkest and most needed moments.
Please send voice memos with your questions, comments or thoughts to OnwardRosie@gmail.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hey, everybody, it's me Rosie O'Donnell and Happy Halloween. Happy Halloween.
I can't resist the candy corn. When I go to
CVS to get my medicine, there's the candy corn always
around this time. And you know, I'm not even a
real fan of candy corn, but I like having it
(00:30):
out in a dish in my house. It makes it
feel like it's Halloween. And you know, when I was
much younger, my first go round as a mom with
my four little ones who are now twenty one to
twenty eight, so they're all big, big kids, but we
used to have the greatest display in our yard. Like
(00:52):
we bought everything that you could buy in terms of
blow up, lit up moving things, you know, and we
used to have beer for the adults and water and
juice for the kids and haystacks to sit on and
it was so amazing. Well, my kiddo, Dakota, who is
(01:14):
now going by Clay but wants me to call them Dakota,
so I know it's confusing, but just so we know,
there's only one kid and they are going to be
eleven in January. Well, they had their first Halloween party
on the weekend and it was thrilling, I have to say,
(01:37):
to see them so excited. It was just a couple kids,
because big crowds don't do so well with their nervous system,
and so we had a small group. But it fun
was had by all, I could tell you that, and
I'm happy to have the distraction of Halloween. Quite honestly,
it's kind of hard to talk about what's going on
(02:01):
in the world, and I haven't really been doing tiktoks.
It's a troubling time for so many PTSD and people
who like me have very thin membranes in the world,
like things seem to permeate inside me in a manner
that is debilitating to me. So I feel completely debilitated
(02:22):
by what's going on in the Mid East. I feel
debilitated by the white male American terrorists who shot up
two towns in Maine, a bowling alley and Billiard's place,
killing so many. The speaker of the house, who's a Trumper.
(02:44):
The problem with having a trumper is that you end
up with someone like bet and Yahoo running your country,
and that doesn't serve its people. So I don't know
what to say. We did this interview a couple days
ago with my really good friend Charles Bush, who is
so wonderful. He is just amazing. He's written a memoir
(03:09):
and he's brought so many people, so much entertainment. He's
how do you explain Charles? You know, Charles is an
author of an out, laugh, out loud memoir called Leading Lady,
A Memoir of a most Unusual Boy. And the title
(03:29):
does not like Charles grew up like the movie and
the play Mame, the musical Mame. You know, he had
an anti Mame and her name was lil and she
went on to adopt him after his mom died when
he was quite young, and he became a theater writer,
award winning a playwright, a theater actress, a drag legend,
(03:54):
way before anyone, including Charles, thought that drag would become legendary,
and his popular as it is today in our culture.
Leading Lady is. It's a wonderful book. It's filled with
big names and Charles drops them eloquently, including mine. There's
a chapter on our time with boy George creating that
(04:15):
monster show called Taboo, and it was the best of times,
it was the worst of times. But I have zero regrets.
I really think everything in your life takes you to
where you are in this moment, and living in the
present is the only way to do it. So we're
going to give you, you know, fifty minutes of very entertaining, intelligent,
(04:36):
kind loving artist named Charles Bush. Sit back and enjoy
a conversation with Charles Bush. Well, Hello, Charles Bush. It's
(05:01):
lovely to see you. Even though it's only virtually.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
It's better than nothing.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
You're damn right, it's better than nothing. How are you.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
I'm doing very well, very well, and I'm so looking
forward to chatting with you. It's been so long. And
Chris hear, I've written this book and there's a big
chapter about you. I hope you hope you approve.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
I approve. I read it. I was like, that was
a crazy time. Whatever anybody's experience was, I'm going to
validate because it was not a great time for me,
you know, getting sued and leaving my show and not
really figuring out what was happening there on the set
of Taboo, you.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Know, and you were just criticized right and left.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
You just couldn't win, exactly couldn't win. But you know,
when I'm proud of that show. I think you did
a great job. I think that George wasn't in the
best shape right then and in his life as a
personal struggles with addiction, and you know, I think we
had a lot, a lot of things against us. But
you know that Steven Sonheim said before he died he
(06:05):
thought it was one of the most underrated musicals of
his lifetime.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Oh yeah, I was, so. You know, I don't know
about you, but I find particularly when something's sick, kind
of fresh disaster, you know, I can't really see anything
good about it right afterwards. You know, Tony Kushner and
Susan Stroman would tell me how much they loved Taboo,
and I thought, well, they're pretty smart people. I better
you know, you know, reevaluate it.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Yeah, I mean, without a doubt, you can't, you know,
in the midst of the tragedy, like it feels so
overwhelming and you think you'll never ever get through it
and survive it. And I love doing it. I loved
getting to be a part of it. I didn't fully
understand what I was getting into. But I'm thankful to
this day that you said yes to me, and I'm
(06:50):
sorry we didn't go on the concord.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
That's how you were seducing me.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
But even that I loved. When you wrote that, I
thought was maybe I was ifinitely wanted you to do it.
When I saw it, I thought, this, there's no book here,
there's no real story, and who would get the humor
and the pathos and the pathos? I guess that's the
word I thought of you, because you know, I know
I've told you this Charles in person, but Tale of
(07:17):
the Eligius Wife was the funniest thing that I ever
saw in a theater in my life. I could not believe. Now,
I've also have to remind you I knew nothing about
it when I went in. I just knew it was
Linda Lavin and I went in and I was completely
blown away. And then I was in my Charles Bush wormhole,
(07:39):
and I've never left. You're an incredibly talented guy, and
I'm so happy that our paths crossed and that you
were generous enough to try to do this impossible thing
with me.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Yeah. At first, you know, I thought it was Kevin
Eddie idea. And then you know, after we spent some
time together. First of all, I was touched by the
It's so rare that somebody goes into a project, like
you did do it. This is such a pure motive
that you really wanted to do something artistic with people
that you respect, and it just and it annoyed me
(08:15):
that after it was over that you weren't given credit
for that. So anyway, yeah, it was.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
It was a very bad time, you know. I think
that when when somebody makes a big move, like you know,
to leave that show was hard for some people. People
were mad, you know, and then I got sued by
the magazine and it was like a year of bad press,
maybe even two. And it was just icky. But but
(08:41):
I have fond memories of it, you know. I put
on the soundtrack the cast album. Yeah, sometimes, yes, And
I love remembering the auditions. I loved remembering like to
tell Brooke to go get a little punked out before
she came back and belted it, you know, like I
felt like, oh my god, this is Judy and Mickey
(09:02):
and I'm doing it, you know.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah. I do remember though, one kind of outrageous thing though,
with you that when we were having auditions for a
part of Big Sue. Yes, We're all sitting there behind
the table, you know, the tribunal and Liz McCartney walked
in and she was fantastic, and before anyone else could
say anything, you said, Hey, welcome to Broadway. Dway show exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Well, I didn't even know. You had to talk to
the other people.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
You know, whispered to the director and said, do we
just cast to leave the show? Yes? Okay. She was great.
I mean she was the best one who auditioned, and.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
That part meant so much to me. That role, you know,
of kind of the fat friend with the gay guy
and wanting to be a part of something but not
knowing how to fit in. And I just felt like
that was a lot that spoke to me, that part.
And we had had such trouble in the auditions. I'm like,
where's the person who's gonna knock this song out of
(09:58):
the out of the park? And she's sure did didn't she?
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (10:01):
And she was pregnant, didn't she stay there?
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (10:04):
She about nine months pregnant.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yeah, she was nine months when we opened or something
like that. Yeah, but fond Memories. I loved your book,
and I can't believe that it took you twelve years
to write it, although you were writing plays in between.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I had about four plays in between
so I took a break and I but I just
didn't know really what form it was going to be.
And I would go to the bookstores and look up
us Leana Dunham. What had she do her book? Oh,
it's all short stories. Oh, maybe it should be that.
And then then I look at somebody else's book and
oh it starts in a chapter one I am born,
or maybe it ought to be that one. But right
(10:37):
right really ended up after all those years, being exactly
where I started out, and I'm very happy with it.
It's got a strange structure, it's it's mostly chronological, but
then I go off on detours, as we would if
we were telling our story, you know, to friends in
our right right. So it's something like I always A
good example, I guess would be that, you know, I
(11:00):
grew up in New York City and my aunt Lilian,
who's really the leading lady of the title leading Lady,
yes Yes, started taking me to Broadway shows when I
was about eight, and so in the book, I'll say
that that one of the shows we saw was Hella
Dolly with Carol Channing, which then reminds me of when
I shared a dressing room with her at a fundraiser
(11:21):
forty years later, So.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Tell everyone that story, please.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Yeah, well, this is kind of what happens to me,
is you know, I've had this career as a I
guess a male actress, and maybe it's I don't know
what to call myself, but but that's.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Perfect a male actress. You won awards for your for
your acting, and you play a grand damn like no
one else does. Charles. It's it's almost like you're channeling somebody.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Well, that's a really good way of putting it. It
just kind of comes out of me. And anyways, but consequently,
often I end up being put in in the women's
dressing room and nobody seems to blink. No, no woman
has ever excuse me, why are you in here? You know,
I'm just kind of accepted as one of them. So
one time it was I think maybe one of the
(12:07):
equity fights aids, things like a Gypsy of the Year
or something like that, or or an Easter Bond competition.
And so my friend Carl and I arrived and we
were sent up to this big communal dressing room and
at the New Amsterdam Theater, and then Mario Cantone is
a friend of all of us are yes, wonderful guy,
(12:28):
and said said, do you know you're in the women's
dressing room. I said, no, I'm not. He goes, yeah, look,
you know I'm downstairs with Brian Stokes, Mitchell and Patrick Stewart.
You're here with Betty Buckley and Audrey mcdonnald. And also
at that point, Carol Channing walks in with her her husband,
Charles Lowe, and they say low to us. Then she
sits down next to me at the dressing table, and
(12:49):
we're putting on our makeup, and and she's doing this
you know, wild stylized, you know, old time Broadway right,
and we're all just fascinated seeing Carol Channing putting on
her her face. And she I'm putting on my false eyelashes,
and she says, she says, I can't wear false eyelashes
anymore because I have a permanent eye in fiction. But
(13:12):
so then she starts taking a black eyebrow pens some
just drawing stripes, black stripes on her eyelids. I'm thinking,
I don't think this is going to work, you know,
but we're just wrapped it, fascinated watching her. And when
she finally finished, she just turned and her face was
maybe three inches to mine, and she said, how do
I look? And I pulled back a bit and I said,
(13:35):
you look like her. And that's what I needed to hear,
because that's what we all want, is just I still
turn the trick and I still be who I was.
And she did and then she got it that was
what she needed to hear. She got up and she
could now just hang out with Carol Burnette so wild.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
She once came into the dressing room of Grease when
I was there, and Bobby Pierce was my dresser, and
he he's a wonderfully talented Tony nominated costume designer. He's
a big guy. We look alike kind of we similar features.
And so I was in the shower when Carol Channing
came in to say hello, and Bobby was there talking
(14:15):
and saying yes, uh huh. And I walked out and
I said, oh, Carol Channing and she said hello, Jarli,
wasn't Rosie wonderful and pointed to Bobby And I didn't
know what to do, so I just went with it.
You know, the thing in your book that I loved is,
of course your anti mame life. You really do have
(14:39):
you have lived a life of anti mame, and I've
always thought of it like that when you've told me
stories about your aunt, and it's and in the book
you get to see some of the twists and the
dark things, Like I was shocked to find out that
your aunt pitted you against your dad.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yeah, well, you know, I think with our parents.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Your mom died when you were ten.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, when when I was seven. Yeah. And the thing is,
I don't I don't think you necessarily have to forgive
apparent everything, but I think if you can try to
understand and put in context to the mistakes they made,
and I'd say, my aunt, really, you know, there was
basically she made every right choice for me. I mean
(15:22):
really it just kind of over everything. But uh, you know,
she was human, and I thought it was important in
the book not just to paint a completely idealized portrait
of her. I don't think she really would have appreciated that.
You know, she was such an honest, honest person, So
I thought, you know, the couple of things that she
(15:42):
you know, did wrong, but out of her own emotions,
you know, she really just hated my father and she
had pretty good reason actually for me, by his irresponsibility
and at one.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Point, but you felt torn between.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah, but it was I don't think you should ever
really try to alienate from another person, and just couldn't
help it. At a certain point, she tries, She really
tried for the first years after my mother died, you know,
even though my father was so irresponsible, she thought it
was important that I had this strong male figure, so
she defended him and all that, and at a certain
(16:17):
points she just couldn't take it anymore. She just couldn't
take it. So suddenly she just dropped this illusion and
my turned my father and says to Kenzie and kind
of villain. And it was kind of hard because he
was so much fun, you know, right, you know, and
he never you know, he never hit us, He was
never drunk. He was you know, my father was just
(16:37):
basically seventeen years old and never you know, never grew
up and fun, affectionate, loved old movies. Yeah, but he
was really just so careless and irresponsible, and I finally,
you know, had to you know, I was so connected
(16:57):
with my aunt, who you know was at this point
had adopted me, so I just felt I had basically
had to choose, and that was very hurtful and but
fortunately at the end of my father's life, I was
able to somehow try to heal myself of this coldness
and expressed feel some kind of affection for him, and
(17:23):
you know, and he he just was so completely uncritical.
He'd accepted whatever you threw at him, right, right, So
I had at the end, you know, the last few years.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Yeah, that's important.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
I think Maria died, I was able to somehow visit
my father in Florida and you know, just embrace him,
and it was good for both of us.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
I think that when you don't have that, which I
didn't get with my dad, I think it always leaves
you somewhat longing, you know, I'm sure before he passed,
but you know, choices we make and where we find
ourself you never would expect when you were a child.
I was very Are you surprised to find out that
as much as she embraced your feminine side, Yeah, she
(18:05):
was a little flipped out that you were gay.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yeah, that was a surprise because she was just a real,
you know, classic liberal democrat.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
You know.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah, again, I have to kind of give her a
little bit of slack, and that it was nineteen seventy three,
and you know, gay imagery was still pretty horrible in
the media. And as much as she was a sophisticated
New York or, she really didn't have gay friends. It's
a pity, you know, she would have had a much
less lonely old age, right. You know, if if she
(18:37):
just had had a group of you know, gay guys
who thought she was fabulous, it would have been very
helpful to her. But now, yeah, it was when she
kind of kind of confronted me in college, it was
sort of obvious what was going on. She said, are
you gay? And I said yeah, and she flipped out.
She just you know, sobbed and was so misinformed. And
(18:58):
you know, but I think in a way she sex
to her was not a big deal, like she right right,
her husband died, you know, she never went on a
date or anything or you know, so I think that
what she couldn't quite get was like, why would you know,
in nineteen seventy three, why would you want to be
(19:19):
you know, gay when you know you're completely shunned by society, Yes,
just because you get you're going to go through all
that just for sex.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Right, right? Yeah, that's a lot of work a lot
to give up. But it's not just the sex as well.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
She just didn't understand. Yeah, yeah, you know later of course,
you know, whenever I would, I would bring boyfriends home
to meet her or whatever she was. Couldn't have been
nicer to them and let one money when he was
in trouble. Really, we just never discussed the romantic or
sexual aspect of the relationship.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yeah, it's so funny, it's so different. Can you imagine
that we have lived this long that we have seen
such a change in the way homosexuality is presented in
mainstream media and in the culture now, which it was
just devoid. We had, like I keep telling people, like
(20:16):
there were no role models. What I remember first is
Billy Jean King denying that she was gay and Martina
denying because I was looking for gay role models and
I thought I saw them in those women. But then
you know, at ten, when I was watching TV in
seventy three, there they were saying that now they had
to At the time, it was terrifying, right, nobody knew
(20:39):
what to do or how to come out.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
And in movies, you know, there are television there were
no role models or anyone you could watch in a
movie that wasn't just like a villain or a killer, right, yeah, yeah,
or a terrible victim. And that's of course what my
aunt was watching and just thinking, oh, I don't want
that for my kid.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Of course. Of course, now I know that you had
two sisters, right, and you were very close to your
older one.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Well, both my sisters are older. I've once I have
sisters was two and a half years older than I have.
A sister's ten years older who it's I don't have
a close relationship with. But my I was extraordinarily close
with my middle sister, who just passed away in July.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
And yeah, I was going to say, that must have
been horrible.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
It's very difficult.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
I don't think I'll ever get over this one. Yeah.
We were so almost like empaths with each other, really
could feel what the other one was feeling from long distances.
I mean it was you know, I'm not that kind
of woo person, but right, so many instances where you know,
where I would be walking down the street and suddenly
feel it's kind of like kind of clutch in my heart.
(21:54):
And then later I'd find out that my sister had fainted.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Oh yeah, it's wow.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
And we never you know, when we became the same age,
basically when I was sixteen and she was nineteen. You know,
we used to fight as kids, you know, but we
became sure age at sixteen and nineteen, and at that
point we never had a single moment of tension between us.
I mean it's odd.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
I mean, you know, yeah, it's almost like you were twins, like.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Twin's just not a moment of disagreement, just total just
trying to protect each other, just love and protection. Yeah.
So I don't know, it's just very difficult. I I
and I just don't know how to how to get
quite over this. I mean, time goes by and you know,
but at the moment, it's still very fresh. And about
five times a day I reached for the phone like,
(22:40):
oh I got everything, Oh I got I mean, I'm
sure in an hour, I'm gonna say, oh I got
told her about what Rosie just said, you know, right right,
I understand an afternoon their at one time.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Yes, I remember, it's so cute, adorable and you guys,
you know, you guys uh really had that tweedl D
and tweedled kind of finishing each other since.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Well, yes, and we spent so much time growing up
in the bathroom mirror, you know, doing faces and impersonations
for each other. And you know, my Betty Davis wasn't
nearly as good as Sir James Gagney.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Your aunt as well has passed away. And that I
read in the book that I didn't know that you
were very close with Joan Rivers, that you like used
her as a surrogate mother kind of.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Well, yes, I mean I don't. I hope I don't
give the impression that you know, I was like the
closest thing in her. No, no, I was going to
I always think I was a second tier friend of her.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
That's okay.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
The second year is very good. Yeah, sat next to
her every year at Thanksgiving. Yeah right, So yeah, I
just adored But I get, you know, throughout my life,
I wonder if this is happens with you, because you know,
since we bonded over the fact that we lost our mother.
So yes, exactly, just get these big crushes on certain
kind of lady.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
So do I.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
I'm maternal and smart, and yeah, I just get big crushes.
And Joan was kind of number one, and you know
with her, I think most of her friends would say
that you felt so safe that if anything should ever
happen to you, you know, she'd step in and fix it.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Yeah, I didn't have her on my show. I think
I had her on once. But we got to know
each other at the end by going, you know, to
theater when I was sort of done with my show
and just in New York, and and so I would
see her at every opening and every art gallery thing,
and so then we started talking. And she'd usually be
with Cindy Adams, who would do nothing but make fun
(24:42):
of my outfit the entire evening. So it was a
lot of stress.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
You know.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
She's like, well, you couldn't find your gardening clothes, Like, okay,
all right, that's a good one.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
I kind of like that. In my book, I'd tell
about how we went to the lgbt H Synagogue. It
was at the Javit Center. Basically there's a cole Ninja's
service and h and so I went with her and
was she's standing up for the entire thing, and uh,
(25:15):
I said, uh, I said. Afterwards, I said, it was
very touching when when that the old, that old lesbian,
the gray hair you know, was with joined the men
and carried the torah down the aisle. I was very
moved by that, and John said it'd be more moving
if she washed her hair.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Well, you know there are people Kathy's like that. Kathy
Griffin has these wonderful salons, like the old time, you know,
dames getting together in Hollywood, and she insists that you
wear dress and makeup.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
What do you do now?
Speaker 1 (25:52):
I did? I wore like some version of a dress,
but it was a dress. I had tights, but it
was a dress, and and I I went, you know,
with lipstick. That was it. But my gosh, she said
that I was banned for two of them for my
dress in the in the one before. So you know,
you got to really watch it. With some of these girls,
they really like the the whole look to be right.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
That reminds me of my friend. Kathy basically has custody
of me. You know. She she's done my wigs for
my whole career, and she was around the corner and
so she just takes care of me. And anyway she's
she's gay, and and it doesn't you know, just always
always in pants and everything. And so we were gonna
I think it was for some event and I've been
(26:37):
my book party or something, and uh, I saw, so
what are you gonna wear?
Speaker 3 (26:42):
You know?
Speaker 2 (26:42):
And and she was like, she's I can't wear a dress.
Last The only time I've wore a dress was when
I borrowed yours. That's true.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
War with Charles right after this, now talking about similarities
(27:19):
between you and I. We both had a heart attack
and you ignored it just like I did?
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Or did you ignore it yet?
Speaker 1 (27:26):
I ignored it.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
I thought I threw my back out, yeah, chiropractor.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Right, yeah, at least you went somewhere. I stayed home
for three days, going, my arm's really hurt, and everyone going,
you look so pale, and me falling asleep and sweating
and every single soign you could google I had. But
I went back to sleep, and you know, the doctor
said you were like ten minutes away from being dead.
What did you do? Tell everybody what you did when
(27:51):
you thought it was a chiropractic injury.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Yeah, I thought, oh, I put my back out, and
once the chiropractor cracked me through places, and and I
told him that this guy, I said, this weird pain
down my arm, and right he does to crack you,
you know. And then months went by and I started
losing all his weight, and I had the good days
and not so good days. And finally, you know, I
(28:17):
always assume I have cancer too. I stubbed my toe.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
It's cancer me too, me too.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Anyway, I finally I called my friend the allergist to
Barry Cone and my plays inspired by and whatever. I
told him. He said, uh uh, he said, a hold,
I'm putting on hold. He called a gas ventrologist at
wild Cornell, who then said he'd see me right away.
And I went there and and this young gas ventrologists said,
you know, so let me just listen to your heart.
(28:44):
And he had there's a weird look on his face.
He said, you know, he said, I think you need
to go to the fourth floor the foe right away cardiology,
so you have an EKG and and echo or whatever.
And so I went down to the fourth floor and
waiting room was filled up with people. And now I
had just been nominated for a Tony Award, you know,
(29:04):
so I thought, I thought, you know, they put they
rushed me through. I thought it was because I'm a celebrity.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
You know, of course you're well known, well known.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Yeah, they thought I was near death right and they
give me the the echo, I mean, the room starts
filling up with people, and I tho, oh God, I
am in trouble. And indeed I'd had aortic aneurysm, which
would kill Jonathan Larson and John Ritter, you know, within
an hour. But I ran around for three months. And
(29:34):
so then they did, you know, the doctors said, you know,
took me in her little room and said you can't
go home. You have to have open heart surgery within
the next forty eight hours and you can't go home.
And this the surgeon was right there, you know, and
the scrubs, and I guess he thought I might get
the hell out of there. And he said, mister Bush,
(29:55):
what you've had kills most people within the hour. You
were lucky ones. You will not be lucky again. That's
I'm with you. I'm coming, I'm go ahead, scrub me
in there, you go, ready to go. And that was
I have to say that. This is that was in
two thousand and one, and it really did divide my
life in half. And in a certain sense, you know,
(30:16):
the feelings I had as a child that were you know,
have been kind of fragile all of a sudden, kind
of came back in a way as I don't know
if I've ever really been quite. I had the same
arrogance of oh my body, you know, nothing's gonna happen exactly.
Another surgery, uh this last December. Another heart one, Yeah,
(30:38):
do you have this time? The already the ortic valve
is gorgeous, but now the micro valve is a problem.
And it wasn't nearly as dramatic, you know, but but
I had, you know, they cracked me open. And and
it was and I said to the when I met
with the surgeon, it was, uh, the head of my
old doctor, old surgeon, doctor Geordi, is now the head
of the whole you know, cardiac you know surgery. Think
(31:01):
it a wild carnell. And I said, now, doctor Jardy,
I said, in my world of showbiz, it's always best
from the director of the original picture directs the sequel.
I will do the next surgery. And then it was
kind of I thought it was a little weird. So
I go in the hospital and then you know, after
I get out of you know, surgery, and I wake up,
(31:22):
you know, the doctors all come in the room and
and doctor Jardy said it it's all went well, we
were able to uh we're able to replace. Were able
to repair the Michel valve. Now replace it. And then
he said, you know, and while I was in there,
I have to tell you my work from two thousand
one really held up. I mean it really looks great.
I'm so happy for you.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Yeah, exactly, and for me. But now do you think
do you spend a lot of time thinking why did
I survive that?
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (31:54):
No, I do.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
I spend a lot time really what is a guilt feeling?
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Well?
Speaker 1 (31:59):
It was days instead of three months for me? But
you know when I got there, like the doctor was like,
why didn't you come in? You had you know, the
pain must have been unbelievable. Wow did you not? You know?
And and I really thought about it, and I thought,
you know, it's so weird, Charles. What was going through
my head is what if the ambulance really needs to
(32:21):
go to an accident and I'm just you know, having
a panic attack. What if, like I kept thinking, I
wasn't deserving of going to get checked. Isn't that weird?
Speaker 2 (32:32):
That's very weird?
Speaker 3 (32:33):
All right?
Speaker 1 (32:33):
But then as I did in a research about women's
heart attacks afterwards, I found it's a commonplace that women
are so kind of subjugated that, you know, men have
a pain in their chest, they're in the er before
they you know, finish their coffee.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Right.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Women have a pain in their chest, they call their friend.
I called Linda Richmond and I said to her, hear
my symptoms. Do you think I'm having a heart attack?
I went to therapy said to my therapist, do you
think I'm having a heart attack? I slept two nights
with full heart attack, with one hundred percent blockage of
my lad And what they told me in the hospital,
(33:10):
Martin Luther King's eldest daughter had the same one that
I had, the widow Maker, and she was dead before
she hit the ground. And they kept saying that to me,
and I was like, yeah, how did I how did
I do it? And was my mom involved? And yeah,
I don't know, Like I kind of have magical thinking
(33:30):
still when it comes to death.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Yes, yes, And I actually I had a kind of
moment interesting moment when uh in the the first time
in two thousand and one where oh, because when I
got when I got back from the hospital after a week,
I was I was home and I was watching TV
and I had this weird episode where suddenly I'd complete
(33:51):
amnesia of the of what had happened. And I was
home a week and I know I looked down my
chest and so these bandages and I said, what the
hell is this? I started pulling them off, and my
friend Carl was there and he said, you had heart surgery.
You know, a week could go and or a couple
of weeks ago. Anyway, after about an hour, it all
(34:12):
came back to me. But I went back into the
hospital and I think it turned out as like some
little bit of anesthesias, something floats through your brain or something.
But anyway, when I was in the hospital again to
check see if I had a stroke or something, they
put me in this kind of MRI machine, and I
really did have this very Spielbergian moment all of someone
because we're It's very out of a character for me,
(34:35):
but I did feel like the goats, some of the
spirits of my mother and my aunts were kind of
floating above and I kind of I was so depressed.
I was just in such a low. I said, I
decided to surrender. I just and I did feel this
incredible feeling of love, and you know, I'm just not
that kind of you know, I'm really not that kind
(34:56):
of person, but I just feel this extraordinary moment.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Yeah, yeah, what what do you think happens after we die?
Do you think we linger to? Think our spirits are
accessible to earthling? Still?
Speaker 2 (35:10):
What do you think I love to I'd love to
feel all this same. I you know, I was raised
no religion at all, absolutely, and yeah, I generally think
nothing happens, but I should like to believe it.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Yeah, me too, I'd like to believe it sometimes I do.
Sometimes I get like carried away in the in the
Magical Mystical. I love the part in the book where
you talked about AIDS and the people you lost and
what it was like living through that must have been
very hard, that part.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Yes, yes, it really for my generation, it's it's a
bit of our World War two and we kind of
talk about it. I think to younger people about you know,
those days, and uh, yeah, it's just it was it
was odd period because so instance, my career had finally
taken off and and uh and it was like the
(36:05):
best of times, the worst of times. And then in
our our you know, I had my own theater company
for seven years and you know, and we had three
of our you know, our family died so terribly and
you know, we just the memorial service really was our
art form. Yeah, we gave completely Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Yeah, and and all you know, the lesbians uh taking
care of their sick brothers. Like Laurie always talks about
making that movie, you know, like where the lesbians were
right on the front line with everyone. You know.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
And this is so true because so so often gay
men and gay women have so little to do with
each other.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
And in the olden days, like when we were kids,
but nowadays it's all gender queer fluid, right, everybody's together.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Yeah. Back in the day, it really was so separated
and rather and both sides were rather critical of each
other exactly.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
I remember that vividly.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Crisis when there's so many instances of gay women coming
I'm getting very choked up talking about it. Yeah, just
gay women coming in and stepping up and a forefriend
of caring for these gay men.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Yeah, that's a story I'd love to be a part
of telling. Well, Charles, you're delightful. I love you very much.
I always have. You're one of the best playwrights around.
You're an amazing actor, You're a wonderful person and performer
and friend, and I just want to thank you for
being in my life and for saying yes to my
(37:37):
crazy desire to produce Taboo. And you know your book
leading Lady. Everyone go get it Charles Bush, and you'll
love it. It's a wonderful, wonderful story of a very
full and interesting life of an artist. And you certainly are.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
Oh, thank you, ro It's so good to see you.
And we have wonderful men memories together. Totally, I've mellowed
and I can really enjoy. I can think, I can
appreciate Taboo, and I can also just yeah, just think
about that extraordinary cast of young people.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
Yes they were. There were wonderful moments, and you know
it was chaos, though, make no mistake.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
We survived.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
We survived, damn it.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Well.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
I love you. Take care of yourself, give my love
to everybody and your MISHBOOKA. I sure will, all right, honey,
take care. We'll be back with questions from you, the
lovely listeners, So don't go away. Charles Bush is really
(38:56):
a unique individual and I love him so much. I
hope you enjoyed that. Now let's hear from you, the listeners.
I hear we got someone from Long Island. Hit it.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
Hi, Rosie, this is Jennifer from Long Island, New York.
I always felt like I connected with you because we're
both from the same area of Long Island. Anyway, I
really enjoyed watching your show in the nineties. Even though
I was in college and grad school at the time
and I didn't have a lot of time to watch TV.
I always made sure I taped your show. I'm aging
(39:29):
myself there, but I always made sure I taped your show,
especially when there was a guest that I really liked,
or someone from daytime TV or a Broadway performance. I
loved watching your show then, and I'm really enjoying reconnecting
with you on your podcast with your authenticity. Anyway, I
(39:52):
had a question about the guide dog experience that you've
been having. I wanted to know more about that. I
have physical issues myself, so I always think about getting
a guide dog in the future. Right now, I have
a little cat that I don't think would appreciate that
very much, but my dentist actually has a therapy dog
(40:17):
in the dentist's office, which is the greatest thing ever.
And I just always thought about getting my own guide
dog or therapy dog in the future. So if you
could talk more about that experience, that would be great. Anyway,
Thanks Rosie, hope you have a good day.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Bye. Thanks Jennifer from Long Island. I'm from Comac Exit
fifty two. I wonder where you were if you were
ever at the flea market at the Long Island Arena,
because I was there often buying all my school clothes. Listen.
I'm in the middle of my experience with Guide Dogs
of America. I was actually visiting someone who was in
(40:59):
prison and I saw the guide dogs. There was like
a little tour and I saw the guide dogs being
trained by the prisoners, and I started to talk to them,
and in the group was the man who is the
president of Guide Dogs of America, a lovely man, and
we talked for a while and I told him that
(41:19):
I had an autistic child, and he said, you know
that we provide dogs for autistic kids for free, and
I was like what. And they're trained to comfort the child,
to apply deep pressure when the child is maybe out
(41:39):
of control or spinning or stimming in a way that's
dangerous for them. They work with children who Elope, although
my child does not Elope, which is you know, running
away without understanding the danger. But they do so much
for autistic kids. They do obviously for people who are blind,
(42:02):
they do for people who suffer from PTSD, especially veterans.
I'm not sure what the qualifications or the rules are
for people who are looking to get one. I only
know for autistic children, and it's a very long application process,
as you would imagine, it's a long waiting period. We
(42:23):
don't know yet if we've been approved. We're going to
wait to find out. And you know, they go by need,
so every child has has different needs, and every kid
with autism is unique to themselves, and so we'll see.
We hope that we get one, but even if we don't,
we're going to continue to support the organization. And they
also have emotional support dogs, which are not as highly
(42:47):
trained obviously as the guide dogs, but Guide Dogs for America.
Look it up on Google. Good luck to you. I
wish you all the best, and thanks for listening to
me when you were in college. Fantastic. We got one
more from Pennsylvania. I hear hit it.
Speaker 4 (43:05):
Hey ro this is Jen forty one living in Pennsylvania,
so listen. When I had just turned eleven, my mom
let my brother, my friend and I go to see
a Leather Own at the discount movie theater Philly called
the Devin. I had been wanting to see it, but
(43:28):
she was a single mom, so she was not trying
to pay those regular movie prices.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
She drove us there, dropped us off, picked us up.
Speaker 4 (43:37):
Was the first time we were able to go to
the movies completely by ourselves, with no adult We thought
we were so cool, fell in love with the movie.
It was really empowering to me as a young female.
I felt very seen. Couldn't really figure it out at
the time, but I now know why. And also I
(43:59):
was softball player and it just made me feel like, yeah,
of course women and girls can do anything and everything.
Why did it take a war for women to be
able to play? But I got the movie on VHS
and then on dbd if. I really do know almost
every word, so been a fan. Obviously watched your show
(44:21):
because I'm of that age. So my question for you is,
my wife and I just purchased a home a few
weeks ago, pretty exciting, and we officially moved in a
few days. We've been at the new house doing work
to get it ready. So my question for you is
what do you like to do when you move into
(44:41):
a new home to make it your own?
Speaker 1 (44:44):
What are your priorities?
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Is it your bedroom?
Speaker 4 (44:47):
I mean obviously it would be right now like Dakota's room,
the kids rooms? But is it your art space? And
also you got a lot of money, so people probably
do all the things for you. But is is there
anything you like to do for yourself? Do you like
to peet a room by yourself? I don't know, go
(45:08):
out and buy some furniture, put it together. So yeah,
what do you like to do to make a home
your own? Appreciate you, Rosie, thanks for being so open
and authentically you.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
Thank you. Jen forty one from Pennsylvania. That's very very sweet.
Eleven years old. Go into the movies by yourself? I
remember that, feeling completely and feeling like such a big kid. Right.
But what do I like to do in a home?
I like to get it to smell good number one,
So I like other people schmutz out of it. So
(45:42):
whether that be sanding and not myself, always people to
do this for me. Standing and staining the floor is
a different way, or putting in hardwood floors everywhere, or
matching make sure the wood matches in the in the house.
And the smell is so vital, you know. I love
(46:03):
candles that are really well made, and they smell like
the fall, and they smell like like you're in a
safe and warm place. It's definitely the smell. I love
really nice comforters and blankets. I now have a weighted
blanket Dakota. We got one for Dakota and they did
(46:28):
not like it at all, and so it was late
at night in the bed and I just pulled it
over on me and now I can't sleep without it.
But I like nice, nice blankets. And you know, I
like my house to be clean. My house as a kid,
you know, motherless, it was not very clean, and I
like it to be clean. I have people come over
(46:49):
go how your whole life of having this many kids?
Can you have white furniture? And first time I ever
went into somebody's house that was really rich was Madonna's
in Florida, and she had all white furniture and it
was gorgeous. And I remember thinking, if I ever get
rich one day, I'm going to have a house like this.
So all of my taste in that, I think comes
(47:12):
from seeing a real live house like that looked like
a magazine, and figuring out as I got older and
more successful, that I could in fact have that. And
so I like to create that for my family, for
my children, for myself, thank you, Jenna. And during my
free time, I like to do art and craft, and
(47:34):
so this wonderful room here where I do my podcast
is also going to become the craft room. That's what
I've decided. Hey, listen, if you want to leave a comment,
send a voice memo, record it and send it to
Onward Rosie at gmail dot com. We look forward to
your thoughts and questions and comments, and next week join
me with award winning director, screenwriter, and groundbreaking filmmaker Cheryldny.
(48:00):
Like many artists, Cheryl could not find within the existing
framework anywhere that she was represented. So she made a
new path that was so necessary, not only for herself
but for so many others. She's a groundbreaking independent filmmaker,
and she's African American, she's gay, she's smart, she's brilliant,
(48:22):
and I loved talking to her. So look for that.
Till then, everyone, do your best, keep your heart bubble wrapped.
Please onward people, Onward
Hey, everybody, it's me Rosie O'Donnell and Happy Halloween. Happy Halloween.
I can't resist the candy corn. When I go to
CVS to get my medicine, there's the candy corn always
around this time. And you know, I'm not even a
real fan of candy corn, but I like having it
(00:30):
out in a dish in my house. It makes it
feel like it's Halloween. And you know, when I was
much younger, my first go round as a mom with
my four little ones who are now twenty one to
twenty eight, so they're all big, big kids, but we
used to have the greatest display in our yard. Like
(00:52):
we bought everything that you could buy in terms of
blow up, lit up moving things, you know, and we
used to have beer for the adults and water and
juice for the kids and haystacks to sit on and
it was so amazing. Well, my kiddo, Dakota, who is
(01:14):
now going by Clay but wants me to call them Dakota,
so I know it's confusing, but just so we know,
there's only one kid and they are going to be
eleven in January. Well, they had their first Halloween party
on the weekend and it was thrilling, I have to say,
(01:37):
to see them so excited. It was just a couple kids,
because big crowds don't do so well with their nervous system,
and so we had a small group. But it fun
was had by all, I could tell you that, and
I'm happy to have the distraction of Halloween. Quite honestly,
it's kind of hard to talk about what's going on
(02:01):
in the world, and I haven't really been doing tiktoks.
It's a troubling time for so many PTSD and people
who like me have very thin membranes in the world,
like things seem to permeate inside me in a manner
that is debilitating to me. So I feel completely debilitated
(02:22):
by what's going on in the Mid East. I feel
debilitated by the white male American terrorists who shot up
two towns in Maine, a bowling alley and Billiard's place,
killing so many. The speaker of the house, who's a Trumper.
(02:44):
The problem with having a trumper is that you end
up with someone like bet and Yahoo running your country,
and that doesn't serve its people. So I don't know
what to say. We did this interview a couple days
ago with my really good friend Charles Bush, who is
so wonderful. He is just amazing. He's written a memoir
(03:09):
and he's brought so many people, so much entertainment. He's
how do you explain Charles? You know, Charles is an
author of an out, laugh, out loud memoir called Leading Lady,
A Memoir of a most Unusual Boy. And the title
(03:29):
does not like Charles grew up like the movie and
the play Mame, the musical Mame. You know, he had
an anti Mame and her name was lil and she
went on to adopt him after his mom died when
he was quite young, and he became a theater writer,
award winning a playwright, a theater actress, a drag legend,
(03:54):
way before anyone, including Charles, thought that drag would become legendary,
and his popular as it is today in our culture.
Leading Lady is. It's a wonderful book. It's filled with
big names and Charles drops them eloquently, including mine. There's
a chapter on our time with boy George creating that
(04:15):
monster show called Taboo, and it was the best of times,
it was the worst of times. But I have zero regrets.
I really think everything in your life takes you to
where you are in this moment, and living in the
present is the only way to do it. So we're
going to give you, you know, fifty minutes of very entertaining, intelligent,
(04:36):
kind loving artist named Charles Bush. Sit back and enjoy
a conversation with Charles Bush. Well, Hello, Charles Bush. It's
(05:01):
lovely to see you. Even though it's only virtually.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
It's better than nothing.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
You're damn right, it's better than nothing. How are you.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
I'm doing very well, very well, and I'm so looking
forward to chatting with you. It's been so long. And
Chris hear, I've written this book and there's a big
chapter about you. I hope you hope you approve.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
I approve. I read it. I was like, that was
a crazy time. Whatever anybody's experience was, I'm going to
validate because it was not a great time for me,
you know, getting sued and leaving my show and not
really figuring out what was happening there on the set
of Taboo, you.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Know, and you were just criticized right and left.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
You just couldn't win, exactly couldn't win. But you know,
when I'm proud of that show. I think you did
a great job. I think that George wasn't in the
best shape right then and in his life as a
personal struggles with addiction, and you know, I think we
had a lot, a lot of things against us. But
you know that Steven Sonheim said before he died he
(06:05):
thought it was one of the most underrated musicals of
his lifetime.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Oh yeah, I was, so. You know, I don't know
about you, but I find particularly when something's sick, kind
of fresh disaster, you know, I can't really see anything
good about it right afterwards. You know, Tony Kushner and
Susan Stroman would tell me how much they loved Taboo,
and I thought, well, they're pretty smart people. I better
you know, you know, reevaluate it.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Yeah, I mean, without a doubt, you can't, you know,
in the midst of the tragedy, like it feels so
overwhelming and you think you'll never ever get through it
and survive it. And I love doing it. I loved
getting to be a part of it. I didn't fully
understand what I was getting into. But I'm thankful to
this day that you said yes to me, and I'm
(06:50):
sorry we didn't go on the concord.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
That's how you were seducing me.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
But even that I loved. When you wrote that, I
thought was maybe I was ifinitely wanted you to do it.
When I saw it, I thought, this, there's no book here,
there's no real story, and who would get the humor
and the pathos and the pathos? I guess that's the
word I thought of you, because you know, I know
I've told you this Charles in person, but Tale of
(07:17):
the Eligius Wife was the funniest thing that I ever
saw in a theater in my life. I could not believe. Now,
I've also have to remind you I knew nothing about
it when I went in. I just knew it was
Linda Lavin and I went in and I was completely
blown away. And then I was in my Charles Bush wormhole,
(07:39):
and I've never left. You're an incredibly talented guy, and
I'm so happy that our paths crossed and that you
were generous enough to try to do this impossible thing
with me.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Yeah. At first, you know, I thought it was Kevin
Eddie idea. And then you know, after we spent some
time together. First of all, I was touched by the
It's so rare that somebody goes into a project, like
you did do it. This is such a pure motive
that you really wanted to do something artistic with people
that you respect, and it just and it annoyed me
(08:15):
that after it was over that you weren't given credit
for that. So anyway, yeah, it was.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
It was a very bad time, you know. I think
that when when somebody makes a big move, like you know,
to leave that show was hard for some people. People
were mad, you know, and then I got sued by
the magazine and it was like a year of bad press,
maybe even two. And it was just icky. But but
(08:41):
I have fond memories of it, you know. I put
on the soundtrack the cast album. Yeah, sometimes, yes, And
I love remembering the auditions. I loved remembering like to
tell Brooke to go get a little punked out before
she came back and belted it, you know, like I
felt like, oh my god, this is Judy and Mickey
(09:02):
and I'm doing it, you know.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah. I do remember though, one kind of outrageous thing though,
with you that when we were having auditions for a
part of Big Sue. Yes, We're all sitting there behind
the table, you know, the tribunal and Liz McCartney walked
in and she was fantastic, and before anyone else could
say anything, you said, Hey, welcome to Broadway. Dway show exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Well, I didn't even know. You had to talk to
the other people.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
You know, whispered to the director and said, do we
just cast to leave the show? Yes? Okay. She was great.
I mean she was the best one who auditioned, and.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
That part meant so much to me. That role, you know,
of kind of the fat friend with the gay guy
and wanting to be a part of something but not
knowing how to fit in. And I just felt like
that was a lot that spoke to me, that part.
And we had had such trouble in the auditions. I'm like,
where's the person who's gonna knock this song out of
(09:58):
the out of the park? And she's sure did didn't she?
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (10:01):
And she was pregnant, didn't she stay there?
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (10:04):
She about nine months pregnant.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Yeah, she was nine months when we opened or something
like that. Yeah, but fond Memories. I loved your book,
and I can't believe that it took you twelve years
to write it, although you were writing plays in between.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I had about four plays in between
so I took a break and I but I just
didn't know really what form it was going to be.
And I would go to the bookstores and look up
us Leana Dunham. What had she do her book? Oh,
it's all short stories. Oh, maybe it should be that.
And then then I look at somebody else's book and
oh it starts in a chapter one I am born,
or maybe it ought to be that one. But right
(10:37):
right really ended up after all those years, being exactly
where I started out, and I'm very happy with it.
It's got a strange structure, it's it's mostly chronological, but
then I go off on detours, as we would if
we were telling our story, you know, to friends in
our right right. So it's something like I always A
good example, I guess would be that, you know, I
(11:00):
grew up in New York City and my aunt Lilian,
who's really the leading lady of the title leading Lady,
yes Yes, started taking me to Broadway shows when I
was about eight, and so in the book, I'll say
that that one of the shows we saw was Hella
Dolly with Carol Channing, which then reminds me of when
I shared a dressing room with her at a fundraiser
(11:21):
forty years later, So.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Tell everyone that story, please.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Yeah, well, this is kind of what happens to me,
is you know, I've had this career as a I
guess a male actress, and maybe it's I don't know
what to call myself, but but that's.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Perfect a male actress. You won awards for your for
your acting, and you play a grand damn like no
one else does. Charles. It's it's almost like you're channeling somebody.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Well, that's a really good way of putting it. It
just kind of comes out of me. And anyways, but consequently,
often I end up being put in in the women's
dressing room and nobody seems to blink. No, no woman
has ever excuse me, why are you in here? You know,
I'm just kind of accepted as one of them. So
one time it was I think maybe one of the
(12:07):
equity fights aids, things like a Gypsy of the Year
or something like that, or or an Easter Bond competition.
And so my friend Carl and I arrived and we
were sent up to this big communal dressing room and
at the New Amsterdam Theater, and then Mario Cantone is
a friend of all of us are yes, wonderful guy,
(12:28):
and said said, do you know you're in the women's
dressing room. I said, no, I'm not. He goes, yeah, look,
you know I'm downstairs with Brian Stokes, Mitchell and Patrick Stewart.
You're here with Betty Buckley and Audrey mcdonnald. And also
at that point, Carol Channing walks in with her her husband,
Charles Lowe, and they say low to us. Then she
sits down next to me at the dressing table, and
(12:49):
we're putting on our makeup, and and she's doing this
you know, wild stylized, you know, old time Broadway right,
and we're all just fascinated seeing Carol Channing putting on
her her face. And she I'm putting on my false eyelashes,
and she says, she says, I can't wear false eyelashes
anymore because I have a permanent eye in fiction. But
(13:12):
so then she starts taking a black eyebrow pens some
just drawing stripes, black stripes on her eyelids. I'm thinking,
I don't think this is going to work, you know,
but we're just wrapped it, fascinated watching her. And when
she finally finished, she just turned and her face was
maybe three inches to mine, and she said, how do
I look? And I pulled back a bit and I said,
(13:35):
you look like her. And that's what I needed to hear,
because that's what we all want, is just I still
turn the trick and I still be who I was.
And she did and then she got it that was
what she needed to hear. She got up and she
could now just hang out with Carol Burnette so wild.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
She once came into the dressing room of Grease when
I was there, and Bobby Pierce was my dresser, and
he he's a wonderfully talented Tony nominated costume designer. He's
a big guy. We look alike kind of we similar features.
And so I was in the shower when Carol Channing
came in to say hello, and Bobby was there talking
(14:15):
and saying yes, uh huh. And I walked out and
I said, oh, Carol Channing and she said hello, Jarli,
wasn't Rosie wonderful and pointed to Bobby And I didn't
know what to do, so I just went with it.
You know, the thing in your book that I loved is,
of course your anti mame life. You really do have
(14:39):
you have lived a life of anti mame, and I've
always thought of it like that when you've told me
stories about your aunt, and it's and in the book
you get to see some of the twists and the
dark things, Like I was shocked to find out that
your aunt pitted you against your dad.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Yeah, well, you know, I think with our parents.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Your mom died when you were ten.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Yeah, when when I was seven. Yeah. And the thing is,
I don't I don't think you necessarily have to forgive
apparent everything, but I think if you can try to
understand and put in context to the mistakes they made,
and I'd say, my aunt, really, you know, there was
basically she made every right choice for me. I mean
(15:22):
really it just kind of over everything. But uh, you know,
she was human, and I thought it was important in
the book not just to paint a completely idealized portrait
of her. I don't think she really would have appreciated that.
You know, she was such an honest, honest person, So
I thought, you know, the couple of things that she
(15:42):
you know, did wrong, but out of her own emotions,
you know, she really just hated my father and she
had pretty good reason actually for me, by his irresponsibility
and at one.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Point, but you felt torn between.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah, but it was I don't think you should ever
really try to alienate from another person, and just couldn't
help it. At a certain point, she tries, She really
tried for the first years after my mother died, you know,
even though my father was so irresponsible, she thought it
was important that I had this strong male figure, so
she defended him and all that, and at a certain
(16:17):
points she just couldn't take it anymore. She just couldn't
take it. So suddenly she just dropped this illusion and
my turned my father and says to Kenzie and kind
of villain. And it was kind of hard because he
was so much fun, you know, right, you know, and
he never you know, he never hit us, He was
never drunk. He was you know, my father was just
(16:37):
basically seventeen years old and never you know, never grew
up and fun, affectionate, loved old movies. Yeah, but he
was really just so careless and irresponsible, and I finally,
you know, had to you know, I was so connected
(16:57):
with my aunt, who you know was at this point
had adopted me, so I just felt I had basically
had to choose, and that was very hurtful and but
fortunately at the end of my father's life, I was
able to somehow try to heal myself of this coldness
and expressed feel some kind of affection for him, and
(17:23):
you know, and he he just was so completely uncritical.
He'd accepted whatever you threw at him, right, right, So
I had at the end, you know, the last few years.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Yeah, that's important.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
I think Maria died, I was able to somehow visit
my father in Florida and you know, just embrace him,
and it was good for both of us.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
I think that when you don't have that, which I
didn't get with my dad, I think it always leaves
you somewhat longing, you know, I'm sure before he passed,
but you know, choices we make and where we find
ourself you never would expect when you were a child.
I was very Are you surprised to find out that
as much as she embraced your feminine side, Yeah, she
(18:05):
was a little flipped out that you were gay.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yeah, that was a surprise because she was just a real,
you know, classic liberal democrat.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
You know.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah, again, I have to kind of give her a
little bit of slack, and that it was nineteen seventy three,
and you know, gay imagery was still pretty horrible in
the media. And as much as she was a sophisticated
New York or, she really didn't have gay friends. It's
a pity, you know, she would have had a much
less lonely old age, right. You know, if if she
(18:37):
just had had a group of you know, gay guys
who thought she was fabulous, it would have been very
helpful to her. But now, yeah, it was when she
kind of kind of confronted me in college, it was
sort of obvious what was going on. She said, are
you gay? And I said yeah, and she flipped out.
She just you know, sobbed and was so misinformed. And
(18:58):
you know, but I think in a way she sex
to her was not a big deal, like she right right,
her husband died, you know, she never went on a
date or anything or you know, so I think that
what she couldn't quite get was like, why would you know,
in nineteen seventy three, why would you want to be
(19:19):
you know, gay when you know you're completely shunned by society, Yes,
just because you get you're going to go through all
that just for sex.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Right, right? Yeah, that's a lot of work a lot
to give up. But it's not just the sex as well.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
She just didn't understand. Yeah, yeah, you know later of course,
you know, whenever I would, I would bring boyfriends home
to meet her or whatever she was. Couldn't have been
nicer to them and let one money when he was
in trouble. Really, we just never discussed the romantic or
sexual aspect of the relationship.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yeah, it's so funny, it's so different. Can you imagine
that we have lived this long that we have seen
such a change in the way homosexuality is presented in
mainstream media and in the culture now, which it was
just devoid. We had, like I keep telling people, like
(20:16):
there were no role models. What I remember first is
Billy Jean King denying that she was gay and Martina
denying because I was looking for gay role models and
I thought I saw them in those women. But then
you know, at ten, when I was watching TV in
seventy three, there they were saying that now they had
to At the time, it was terrifying, right, nobody knew
(20:39):
what to do or how to come out.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
And in movies, you know, there are television there were
no role models or anyone you could watch in a
movie that wasn't just like a villain or a killer, right, yeah, yeah,
or a terrible victim. And that's of course what my
aunt was watching and just thinking, oh, I don't want
that for my kid.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Of course. Of course, now I know that you had
two sisters, right, and you were very close to your
older one.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Well, both my sisters are older. I've once I have
sisters was two and a half years older than I have.
A sister's ten years older who it's I don't have
a close relationship with. But my I was extraordinarily close
with my middle sister, who just passed away in July.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
And yeah, I was going to say, that must have
been horrible.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
It's very difficult.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
I don't think I'll ever get over this one. Yeah.
We were so almost like empaths with each other, really
could feel what the other one was feeling from long distances.
I mean it was you know, I'm not that kind
of woo person, but right, so many instances where you know,
where I would be walking down the street and suddenly
feel it's kind of like kind of clutch in my heart.
(21:54):
And then later I'd find out that my sister had fainted.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Oh yeah, it's wow.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
And we never you know, when we became the same age,
basically when I was sixteen and she was nineteen. You know,
we used to fight as kids, you know, but we
became sure age at sixteen and nineteen, and at that
point we never had a single moment of tension between us.
I mean it's odd.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
I mean, you know, yeah, it's almost like you were twins, like.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Twin's just not a moment of disagreement, just total just
trying to protect each other, just love and protection. Yeah.
So I don't know, it's just very difficult. I I
and I just don't know how to how to get
quite over this. I mean, time goes by and you know,
but at the moment, it's still very fresh. And about
five times a day I reached for the phone like,
(22:40):
oh I got everything, Oh I got I mean, I'm
sure in an hour, I'm gonna say, oh I got
told her about what Rosie just said, you know, right right,
I understand an afternoon their at one time.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Yes, I remember, it's so cute, adorable and you guys,
you know, you guys uh really had that tweedl D
and tweedled kind of finishing each other since.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Well, yes, and we spent so much time growing up
in the bathroom mirror, you know, doing faces and impersonations
for each other. And you know, my Betty Davis wasn't
nearly as good as Sir James Gagney.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Your aunt as well has passed away. And that I
read in the book that I didn't know that you
were very close with Joan Rivers, that you like used
her as a surrogate mother kind of.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Well, yes, I mean I don't. I hope I don't
give the impression that you know, I was like the
closest thing in her. No, no, I was going to
I always think I was a second tier friend of her.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
That's okay.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
The second year is very good. Yeah, sat next to
her every year at Thanksgiving. Yeah right, So yeah, I
just adored But I get, you know, throughout my life,
I wonder if this is happens with you, because you know,
since we bonded over the fact that we lost our mother.
So yes, exactly, just get these big crushes on certain
kind of lady.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
So do I.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
I'm maternal and smart, and yeah, I just get big crushes.
And Joan was kind of number one, and you know
with her, I think most of her friends would say
that you felt so safe that if anything should ever
happen to you, you know, she'd step in and fix it.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Yeah, I didn't have her on my show. I think
I had her on once. But we got to know
each other at the end by going, you know, to
theater when I was sort of done with my show
and just in New York, and and so I would
see her at every opening and every art gallery thing,
and so then we started talking. And she'd usually be
with Cindy Adams, who would do nothing but make fun
(24:42):
of my outfit the entire evening. So it was a
lot of stress.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
You know.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
She's like, well, you couldn't find your gardening clothes, Like, okay,
all right, that's a good one.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
I kind of like that. In my book, I'd tell
about how we went to the lgbt H Synagogue. It
was at the Javit Center. Basically there's a cole Ninja's
service and h and so I went with her and
was she's standing up for the entire thing, and uh,
(25:15):
I said, uh, I said. Afterwards, I said, it was
very touching when when that the old, that old lesbian,
the gray hair you know, was with joined the men
and carried the torah down the aisle. I was very
moved by that, and John said it'd be more moving
if she washed her hair.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Well, you know there are people Kathy's like that. Kathy
Griffin has these wonderful salons, like the old time, you know,
dames getting together in Hollywood, and she insists that you
wear dress and makeup.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
What do you do now?
Speaker 1 (25:52):
I did? I wore like some version of a dress,
but it was a dress. I had tights, but it
was a dress, and and I I went, you know,
with lipstick. That was it. But my gosh, she said
that I was banned for two of them for my
dress in the in the one before. So you know,
you got to really watch it. With some of these girls,
they really like the the whole look to be right.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
That reminds me of my friend. Kathy basically has custody
of me. You know. She she's done my wigs for
my whole career, and she was around the corner and
so she just takes care of me. And anyway she's
she's gay, and and it doesn't you know, just always
always in pants and everything. And so we were gonna
I think it was for some event and I've been
(26:37):
my book party or something, and uh, I saw, so
what are you gonna wear?
Speaker 3 (26:42):
You know?
Speaker 2 (26:42):
And and she was like, she's I can't wear a dress.
Last The only time I've wore a dress was when
I borrowed yours. That's true.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
War with Charles right after this, now talking about similarities
(27:19):
between you and I. We both had a heart attack
and you ignored it just like I did?
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Or did you ignore it yet?
Speaker 1 (27:26):
I ignored it.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
I thought I threw my back out, yeah, chiropractor.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Right, yeah, at least you went somewhere. I stayed home
for three days, going, my arm's really hurt, and everyone going,
you look so pale, and me falling asleep and sweating
and every single soign you could google I had. But
I went back to sleep, and you know, the doctor
said you were like ten minutes away from being dead.
What did you do? Tell everybody what you did when
(27:51):
you thought it was a chiropractic injury.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Yeah, I thought, oh, I put my back out, and
once the chiropractor cracked me through places, and and I
told him that this guy, I said, this weird pain
down my arm, and right he does to crack you,
you know. And then months went by and I started
losing all his weight, and I had the good days
and not so good days. And finally, you know, I
(28:17):
always assume I have cancer too. I stubbed my toe.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
It's cancer me too, me too.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Anyway, I finally I called my friend the allergist to
Barry Cone and my plays inspired by and whatever. I
told him. He said, uh uh, he said, a hold,
I'm putting on hold. He called a gas ventrologist at
wild Cornell, who then said he'd see me right away.
And I went there and and this young gas ventrologists said,
you know, so let me just listen to your heart.
(28:44):
And he had there's a weird look on his face.
He said, you know, he said, I think you need
to go to the fourth floor the foe right away cardiology,
so you have an EKG and and echo or whatever.
And so I went down to the fourth floor and
waiting room was filled up with people. And now I
had just been nominated for a Tony Award, you know,
(29:04):
so I thought, I thought, you know, they put they
rushed me through. I thought it was because I'm a celebrity.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
You know, of course you're well known, well known.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Yeah, they thought I was near death right and they
give me the the echo, I mean, the room starts
filling up with people, and I tho, oh God, I
am in trouble. And indeed I'd had aortic aneurysm, which
would kill Jonathan Larson and John Ritter, you know, within
an hour. But I ran around for three months. And
(29:34):
so then they did, you know, the doctors said, you know,
took me in her little room and said you can't
go home. You have to have open heart surgery within
the next forty eight hours and you can't go home.
And this the surgeon was right there, you know, and
the scrubs, and I guess he thought I might get
the hell out of there. And he said, mister Bush,
(29:55):
what you've had kills most people within the hour. You
were lucky ones. You will not be lucky again. That's
I'm with you. I'm coming, I'm go ahead, scrub me
in there, you go, ready to go. And that was
I have to say that. This is that was in
two thousand and one, and it really did divide my
life in half. And in a certain sense, you know,
(30:16):
the feelings I had as a child that were you know,
have been kind of fragile all of a sudden, kind
of came back in a way as I don't know
if I've ever really been quite. I had the same
arrogance of oh my body, you know, nothing's gonna happen exactly.
Another surgery, uh this last December. Another heart one, Yeah,
(30:38):
do you have this time? The already the ortic valve
is gorgeous, but now the micro valve is a problem.
And it wasn't nearly as dramatic, you know, but but
I had, you know, they cracked me open. And and
it was and I said to the when I met
with the surgeon, it was, uh, the head of my
old doctor, old surgeon, doctor Geordi, is now the head
of the whole you know, cardiac you know surgery. Think
(31:01):
it a wild carnell. And I said, now, doctor Jardy,
I said, in my world of showbiz, it's always best
from the director of the original picture directs the sequel.
I will do the next surgery. And then it was
kind of I thought it was a little weird. So
I go in the hospital and then you know, after
I get out of you know, surgery, and I wake up,
(31:22):
you know, the doctors all come in the room and
and doctor Jardy said it it's all went well, we
were able to uh we're able to replace. Were able
to repair the Michel valve. Now replace it. And then
he said, you know, and while I was in there,
I have to tell you my work from two thousand
one really held up. I mean it really looks great.
I'm so happy for you.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Yeah, exactly, and for me. But now do you think
do you spend a lot of time thinking why did
I survive that?
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (31:54):
No, I do.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
I spend a lot time really what is a guilt feeling?
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Well?
Speaker 1 (31:59):
It was days instead of three months for me? But
you know when I got there, like the doctor was like,
why didn't you come in? You had you know, the
pain must have been unbelievable. Wow did you not? You know?
And and I really thought about it, and I thought,
you know, it's so weird, Charles. What was going through
my head is what if the ambulance really needs to
(32:21):
go to an accident and I'm just you know, having
a panic attack. What if, like I kept thinking, I
wasn't deserving of going to get checked. Isn't that weird?
Speaker 2 (32:32):
That's very weird?
Speaker 3 (32:33):
All right?
Speaker 1 (32:33):
But then as I did in a research about women's
heart attacks afterwards, I found it's a commonplace that women
are so kind of subjugated that, you know, men have
a pain in their chest, they're in the er before
they you know, finish their coffee.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Right.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Women have a pain in their chest, they call their friend.
I called Linda Richmond and I said to her, hear
my symptoms. Do you think I'm having a heart attack?
I went to therapy said to my therapist, do you
think I'm having a heart attack? I slept two nights
with full heart attack, with one hundred percent blockage of
my lad And what they told me in the hospital,
(33:10):
Martin Luther King's eldest daughter had the same one that
I had, the widow Maker, and she was dead before
she hit the ground. And they kept saying that to me,
and I was like, yeah, how did I how did
I do it? And was my mom involved? And yeah,
I don't know, Like I kind of have magical thinking
(33:30):
still when it comes to death.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Yes, yes, And I actually I had a kind of
moment interesting moment when uh in the the first time
in two thousand and one where oh, because when I
got when I got back from the hospital after a week,
I was I was home and I was watching TV
and I had this weird episode where suddenly I'd complete
(33:51):
amnesia of the of what had happened. And I was
home a week and I know I looked down my
chest and so these bandages and I said, what the
hell is this? I started pulling them off, and my
friend Carl was there and he said, you had heart surgery.
You know, a week could go and or a couple
of weeks ago. Anyway, after about an hour, it all
(34:12):
came back to me. But I went back into the
hospital and I think it turned out as like some
little bit of anesthesias, something floats through your brain or something.
But anyway, when I was in the hospital again to
check see if I had a stroke or something, they
put me in this kind of MRI machine, and I
really did have this very Spielbergian moment all of someone
because we're It's very out of a character for me,
(34:35):
but I did feel like the goats, some of the
spirits of my mother and my aunts were kind of
floating above and I kind of I was so depressed.
I was just in such a low. I said, I
decided to surrender. I just and I did feel this
incredible feeling of love, and you know, I'm just not
that kind of you know, I'm really not that kind
(34:56):
of person, but I just feel this extraordinary moment.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Yeah, yeah, what what do you think happens after we die?
Do you think we linger to? Think our spirits are
accessible to earthling? Still?
Speaker 2 (35:10):
What do you think I love to I'd love to
feel all this same. I you know, I was raised
no religion at all, absolutely, and yeah, I generally think
nothing happens, but I should like to believe it.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
Yeah, me too, I'd like to believe it sometimes I do.
Sometimes I get like carried away in the in the
Magical Mystical. I love the part in the book where
you talked about AIDS and the people you lost and
what it was like living through that must have been
very hard, that part.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Yes, yes, it really for my generation, it's it's a
bit of our World War two and we kind of
talk about it. I think to younger people about you know,
those days, and uh, yeah, it's just it was it
was odd period because so instance, my career had finally
taken off and and uh and it was like the
(36:05):
best of times, the worst of times. And then in
our our you know, I had my own theater company
for seven years and you know, and we had three
of our you know, our family died so terribly and
you know, we just the memorial service really was our
art form. Yeah, we gave completely Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Yeah, and and all you know, the lesbians uh taking
care of their sick brothers. Like Laurie always talks about
making that movie, you know, like where the lesbians were
right on the front line with everyone. You know.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
And this is so true because so so often gay
men and gay women have so little to do with
each other.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
And in the olden days, like when we were kids,
but nowadays it's all gender queer fluid, right, everybody's together.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Yeah. Back in the day, it really was so separated
and rather and both sides were rather critical of each
other exactly.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
I remember that vividly.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Crisis when there's so many instances of gay women coming
I'm getting very choked up talking about it. Yeah, just
gay women coming in and stepping up and a forefriend
of caring for these gay men.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Yeah, that's a story I'd love to be a part
of telling. Well, Charles, you're delightful. I love you very much.
I always have. You're one of the best playwrights around.
You're an amazing actor, You're a wonderful person and performer
and friend, and I just want to thank you for
being in my life and for saying yes to my
(37:37):
crazy desire to produce Taboo. And you know your book
leading Lady. Everyone go get it Charles Bush, and you'll
love it. It's a wonderful, wonderful story of a very
full and interesting life of an artist. And you certainly are.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
Oh, thank you, ro It's so good to see you.
And we have wonderful men memories together. Totally, I've mellowed
and I can really enjoy. I can think, I can
appreciate Taboo, and I can also just yeah, just think
about that extraordinary cast of young people.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
Yes they were. There were wonderful moments, and you know
it was chaos, though, make no mistake.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
We survived.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
We survived, damn it.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Well.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
I love you. Take care of yourself, give my love
to everybody and your MISHBOOKA. I sure will, all right, honey,
take care. We'll be back with questions from you, the
lovely listeners, So don't go away. Charles Bush is really
(38:56):
a unique individual and I love him so much. I
hope you enjoyed that. Now let's hear from you, the listeners.
I hear we got someone from Long Island. Hit it.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
Hi, Rosie, this is Jennifer from Long Island, New York.
I always felt like I connected with you because we're
both from the same area of Long Island. Anyway, I
really enjoyed watching your show in the nineties. Even though
I was in college and grad school at the time
and I didn't have a lot of time to watch TV.
I always made sure I taped your show. I'm aging
(39:29):
myself there, but I always made sure I taped your show,
especially when there was a guest that I really liked,
or someone from daytime TV or a Broadway performance. I
loved watching your show then, and I'm really enjoying reconnecting
with you on your podcast with your authenticity. Anyway, I
(39:52):
had a question about the guide dog experience that you've
been having. I wanted to know more about that. I
have physical issues myself, so I always think about getting
a guide dog in the future. Right now, I have
a little cat that I don't think would appreciate that
very much, but my dentist actually has a therapy dog
(40:17):
in the dentist's office, which is the greatest thing ever.
And I just always thought about getting my own guide
dog or therapy dog in the future. So if you
could talk more about that experience, that would be great. Anyway,
Thanks Rosie, hope you have a good day.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Bye. Thanks Jennifer from Long Island. I'm from Comac Exit
fifty two. I wonder where you were if you were
ever at the flea market at the Long Island Arena,
because I was there often buying all my school clothes. Listen.
I'm in the middle of my experience with Guide Dogs
of America. I was actually visiting someone who was in
(40:59):
prison and I saw the guide dogs. There was like
a little tour and I saw the guide dogs being
trained by the prisoners, and I started to talk to them,
and in the group was the man who is the
president of Guide Dogs of America, a lovely man, and
we talked for a while and I told him that
(41:19):
I had an autistic child, and he said, you know
that we provide dogs for autistic kids for free, and
I was like what. And they're trained to comfort the child,
to apply deep pressure when the child is maybe out
(41:39):
of control or spinning or stimming in a way that's
dangerous for them. They work with children who Elope, although
my child does not Elope, which is you know, running
away without understanding the danger. But they do so much
for autistic kids. They do obviously for people who are blind,
(42:02):
they do for people who suffer from PTSD, especially veterans.
I'm not sure what the qualifications or the rules are
for people who are looking to get one. I only
know for autistic children, and it's a very long application process,
as you would imagine, it's a long waiting period. We
(42:23):
don't know yet if we've been approved. We're going to
wait to find out. And you know, they go by need,
so every child has has different needs, and every kid
with autism is unique to themselves, and so we'll see.
We hope that we get one, but even if we don't,
we're going to continue to support the organization. And they
also have emotional support dogs, which are not as highly
(42:47):
trained obviously as the guide dogs, but Guide Dogs for America.
Look it up on Google. Good luck to you. I
wish you all the best, and thanks for listening to
me when you were in college. Fantastic. We got one
more from Pennsylvania. I hear hit it.
Speaker 4 (43:05):
Hey ro this is Jen forty one living in Pennsylvania,
so listen. When I had just turned eleven, my mom
let my brother, my friend and I go to see
a Leather Own at the discount movie theater Philly called
the Devin. I had been wanting to see it, but
(43:28):
she was a single mom, so she was not trying
to pay those regular movie prices.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
She drove us there, dropped us off, picked us up.
Speaker 4 (43:37):
Was the first time we were able to go to
the movies completely by ourselves, with no adult We thought
we were so cool, fell in love with the movie.
It was really empowering to me as a young female.
I felt very seen. Couldn't really figure it out at
the time, but I now know why. And also I
(43:59):
was softball player and it just made me feel like, yeah,
of course women and girls can do anything and everything.
Why did it take a war for women to be
able to play? But I got the movie on VHS
and then on dbd if. I really do know almost
every word, so been a fan. Obviously watched your show
(44:21):
because I'm of that age. So my question for you is,
my wife and I just purchased a home a few
weeks ago, pretty exciting, and we officially moved in a
few days. We've been at the new house doing work
to get it ready. So my question for you is
what do you like to do when you move into
(44:41):
a new home to make it your own?
Speaker 1 (44:44):
What are your priorities?
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Is it your bedroom?
Speaker 4 (44:47):
I mean obviously it would be right now like Dakota's room,
the kids rooms? But is it your art space? And
also you got a lot of money, so people probably
do all the things for you. But is is there
anything you like to do for yourself? Do you like
to peet a room by yourself? I don't know, go
(45:08):
out and buy some furniture, put it together. So yeah,
what do you like to do to make a home
your own? Appreciate you, Rosie, thanks for being so open
and authentically you.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
Thank you. Jen forty one from Pennsylvania. That's very very sweet.
Eleven years old. Go into the movies by yourself? I
remember that, feeling completely and feeling like such a big kid. Right.
But what do I like to do in a home?
I like to get it to smell good number one,
So I like other people schmutz out of it. So
(45:42):
whether that be sanding and not myself, always people to
do this for me. Standing and staining the floor is
a different way, or putting in hardwood floors everywhere, or
matching make sure the wood matches in the in the house.
And the smell is so vital, you know. I love
(46:03):
candles that are really well made, and they smell like
the fall, and they smell like like you're in a
safe and warm place. It's definitely the smell. I love
really nice comforters and blankets. I now have a weighted
blanket Dakota. We got one for Dakota and they did
(46:28):
not like it at all, and so it was late
at night in the bed and I just pulled it
over on me and now I can't sleep without it.
But I like nice, nice blankets. And you know, I
like my house to be clean. My house as a kid,
you know, motherless, it was not very clean, and I
like it to be clean. I have people come over
(46:49):
go how your whole life of having this many kids?
Can you have white furniture? And first time I ever
went into somebody's house that was really rich was Madonna's
in Florida, and she had all white furniture and it
was gorgeous. And I remember thinking, if I ever get
rich one day, I'm going to have a house like this.
So all of my taste in that, I think comes
(47:12):
from seeing a real live house like that looked like
a magazine, and figuring out as I got older and
more successful, that I could in fact have that. And
so I like to create that for my family, for
my children, for myself, thank you, Jenna. And during my
free time, I like to do art and craft, and
(47:34):
so this wonderful room here where I do my podcast
is also going to become the craft room. That's what
I've decided. Hey, listen, if you want to leave a comment,
send a voice memo, record it and send it to
Onward Rosie at gmail dot com. We look forward to
your thoughts and questions and comments, and next week join
me with award winning director, screenwriter, and groundbreaking filmmaker Cheryldny.
(48:00):
Like many artists, Cheryl could not find within the existing
framework anywhere that she was represented. So she made a
new path that was so necessary, not only for herself
but for so many others. She's a groundbreaking independent filmmaker,
and she's African American, she's gay, she's smart, she's brilliant,
(48:22):
and I loved talking to her. So look for that.
Till then, everyone, do your best, keep your heart bubble wrapped.
Please onward people, Onward
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