August 1, 2023 • 47 mins
This week, Rosie has a conversation with dear friend, collaborator and mentor, and documentary empress, Sheila Nevins. Throughout her tenure, Nevins has focused the lens on character-driven stories, allowing real people to do the talking. Lauded by both audiences and critics, Nevins’ unique theatrical style has garnered numerous awards for her and her team throughout her career. A New Yorker through and through, Nevins is famous for speaking her mind in all situations, which is one of the many things that she and Rosie have in common, making them *mishpocha from the day they met. (*Mishpocha is the Yiddish word for family)
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Well, hey, everybody, it is me Rosi o'donald star the Flintstones.
Glad you found me here. On onward with Rosi O'Donnell
your host. That's me. Well, sad news Shenead O'Connor is
no longer with us. Heartbreaking to me. Really such a
wonderful warrior woman she is and was, and I had
(00:35):
tremendous respect and compassion and empathy for her and was
very very saddened to hear that she wasn't with us.
But she was struggling to stay alive, and she talked
about it openly, and she talked about things that other
people weren't ready to face, like the horrible child sex
(00:57):
abuse in the Catholic Church and ripping up the Pope's
picture was about that. And then we caught up about
a decade later and everybody was like, wow, I guess
she was right. But she was ostracized and her records
and CDs burned and bulldozed, and she was bullied, and
you know, she was an angelic presence on earth who
(01:20):
had suffered so much child abuse, and she talked about
that too. That you know, in all of the United
Kingdom that Ireland had the highest levels of child abuse.
And I just loved her, That's all I can say.
And she lost her son. I can't imagine what that
(01:40):
feels like for any parent, and I believe that's hard
to survive. So to everyone who's done that, good for
you for staying around, and for those who couldn't make it,
we wish you peace on your journey onward. Somewhere in
the universe. I believe so are still with us. Energy
(02:03):
can't be created or destroyed, right, isn't that? So you
know what happens to the spark of life of humanity
when someone goes. I believe it lives on. It lives on.
We have a wonderful, wonderful guest today. It's one of
my very close friends. Her name is Sheila Evans and
she is eighty four years old. She doesn't like when
(02:26):
I tell people that, but I think it's pretty astounding
that she is as old as she is, looking as
beautiful as she is, and so on it, man, she
is on it. Who is she? Well, she's the queen
of documentary films in the United States, probably in the
entire world. She has overseen productions of five hundred documentaries.
(02:51):
She's got thirty two Primetime Emmys, nominated for seventy nine
Academy Awards, won twenty six of them, thirty five News
and Documentary Emmys, forty two Peabody Awards for HBO, and
one Personal Peabody awarded to her for Outstanding Achievement and Documentaries.
(03:12):
She also received a News and Documentary Emmy for Lifetime Achievement,
the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Documentary Association Visionary
Leadership Award. The National Board of Review presented her with
a Humanitarian Award for her contribution to the advancement of
social reforms and the promotion of human welfare through film,
(03:36):
as well the New York Women in Film Television Muse
Award for Outstanding Vision and Achievement, and Sheila Nevins was
inducted into the Broadcasting in Cables Hall of Fame. She
is the woman I hope to grow up to be.
I love her so much. I've made a bunch of
documentaries with her, and she's someone I always go to
(03:59):
for an vice in my life and with my kids.
And she's an adoptive mom just like me, and she's fantastic.
It brought me such joy to do it and to
introduce you all who may not know the brilliance of
Sheila Evans. Stick around because you're gonna be wowed. Speaking
(04:21):
of being wowed, I saw the Barbie Movie and just
like Shila, it's a feminist manifesto. I freaking loved it.
It is such an important film to take your daughters
to and your sons to see the brilliance of this movie. Listen.
When I first heard that there was a movie about Barbie,
(04:43):
I had no interest in seeing it. Then I started
reading the reviews and talking to friends. So I took
Dakota a few days ago, and I have to say
I was blown away. I was so empowered. I was
so thinking of all the women heroes in the world
and how much we owe them. Like Sinnado O'Connor, she
(05:05):
was a leader in this world and she fought out
against injustice. And Sheila and Evans, she's a leader in
this world. She finds stories of human nature, she puts
them on film, and she breaks your heart in half
every time she does it. So go see the Barbie movie,
put on a few Shenado O'Connor records, and sit back
(05:28):
and listen to this interview. It was Sheila Evans documentary
Queen Right now on onward Now listen, Sheilan Evans, you
(05:49):
look fantastic, though you're not trying to lose.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Four years old. I'm ready, hy I should be exiting.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
You're eighty four and you're a whipper snapper as sharp
as you're a whipper.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
I don't know about the snapro part. I'm a whipper.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Do you begrudge yourself for getting old or do you
like it? I hate it so much, really, I hated
so much.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
My mother died at fifty seven, and my father I
don't know how old he was because he was an
immigrant and he was just, you know, between two and
six years old when he arrived at elis Ion, so
we don't know how old he was when he died.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
He could have been.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Seventy nine or eighty whatever.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Yeah. Yeah, I hate it. It's not meant to be,
you know. I think all it's pharmaceuticals and botox and
picking the ants and forcing yourself on.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Got it? Well, you are the foremost authority on documentaries
in the country. Would you say that, sheil and Evans.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
I like that you think so?
Speaker 1 (06:51):
I don't think it. I know it now.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
You're very sweet.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
I was there when no one else was there, So
I get credit for creating something that had already existed.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Does that make sense, Yes, it does because HBO. You
were the one who brought the docs to HBO. Right,
you were the first and only one to have that position,
because it wasn't really a position. It was a way
to get shows on fast. And I didn't know much
about docs.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
I thought docs were about like, you know, Hitler's Last
Days and right, you know, Truman, and I thought of
Winston Churchill's. You know, I had no idea that they
could be about people. Yes, I didn't know, because my
background was theater.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
I had no I just didn't know. But I wanted the.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Job, and you got the job, and you did it
brilliantly for so many years.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah, I did, and then I got kicked out.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Yeah. Now I want to talk about that because I
read that article where you talked about it fairly recently,
and what really happened behind the scenes? Well, what do
you think? It was just pure agism and misogyny.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
I think it was agism first. I think it was misogyny,
which is in everything. And I think it was that
I was a top back person Rosie and I think
great had enough of that. Yeah, you know, I didn't
like famous people. I like, you know, ordinary people. If
I was going to do a documentary about with my
(08:18):
minimum wage, I wasn't going to have a star introduce it.
I was going to go to people who were trying
to live on.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
A minimum wage. Of course, right, And.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
That was not the star studded way to approach reality
stories for the new administration there.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
And so I was like a naughty girl.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
You talked back, and you stood up for the things
that you believed in.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yeah, but I was I have a spot of arrogance,
you know that.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah, but I love that about you. I thought, I
call it.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
So, you're not paying my salary.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
But I would, Sheila, I would, Oh, of course I would.
I would hire you to be the documentarian of the nation.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Come on, in this nation that's all fucked up.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
It's so fucked up, I believe it is. How are
we here? How are we here? Again?
Speaker 2 (09:03):
I don't know, I don't know. Back back and back.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Yes, I'm doing a documentary on book banning and the
books that are banned, like the James Baldwin book and
the and Frank graphic novel.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
And I mean It's like unbelievable. What's banned? Mouse is banned?
Speaker 3 (09:23):
I mean, right, kids cannot take out of their libraries
in school, the books that I grew up on that
made me hesty and talk back, Right, what are they
going to do? Read books about nice, happy little children
that are all white all over?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Right?
Speaker 1 (09:38):
No, it's just horrifying, And I think I can't believe.
Like I'm wearing my Row nineteen seventy three shirt, a
Roe V. Wade, you know, I wear it every day,
like I want to walk around and go, screw you
all for doing this, for getting us back here? How
did this happen? We fought so hard. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
You know, when you talk about abortions, my abortion was
probably the most traumatic.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Experience of my entire life so far. I haven't experienced
death just yet, but I mean, of all the things,
from the falls and the mistakes and the hurts, there
was nothing more traumatic than going to an office building
in Washington in nineteen sixty three and having a guy
say three hundred dollars now giving it to him, and
(10:22):
then being thrown on a couch with four other women
who were crying. And he walked in and he said
you killed your babies, ladies, and he walked out.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Isn't he charming?
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (10:31):
It was charming. It was charming. And that's where we
are again.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
I mean, it really is a terrifying experience and why
you would subject women to this experience, It's beyond anything.
And then you've attack the morning after pill in addition
to everything else, you're going to welcome that way too.
I think it all comes from a certain kind of misogyny.
I don't think it has anything to do with God
or anything. It has to do with women can do that,
(10:56):
men can't. What can they do? They can have babies,
they can get pregnant, so let's fuck their womb, you know,
let's go after that. It has nothing to do with
a life and all that, because it's ridiculous, you know,
you're talking about matter.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Yes, I completely agree with you, and the fact that
in twenty twenty three that this is the law of
the land now that you can have people get vetted
for the Supreme Court and have them lie and then
change exactly what they said when they got appointed, and
nobody does anything about it.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
It's just like, well, but discrutiny court. I don't really
understand the foundation of the Supreme Court. But the main
thing I don't understand about it, other than I understand
the selection process, but I understand why it's for life.
Neither oural government job.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Is for life, right, there are terms for everybody else,
And you go on the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
You're basically defying or ratifying the laws of a nation,
and you're there for life.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Yeah, doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
That's horrible.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
It's horrible. We'll be back right after this. What do
(12:23):
you think about Biden? Are you a supporter? What do
you think?
Speaker 3 (12:27):
I think he means well because I'm so subjected to
age discrimination and he and I are pretty much the
same age. I support something about a president being in
his eighties.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Why not? Why not better than a president who wants
to stop you from speaking the truth?
Speaker 2 (12:47):
That's true, that's fifty five. You know, I'll know of it.
And as far as what happens to your brain and aging,
things happen. But not everybody has Alzheimer's right. Not everybody
walls right. Everybody can't think in the name of the
other people. Actually, as I get older, I get a
little more generous about gratitude. I become kinder because I
(13:11):
realize as you know I get older, that one I'm
human and I can't go on at a certain rate.
And two that it's my job to leave behind people
that are stronger than I am.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
And I think I'm more generous. I don't mean financially,
I mean emotionally.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yeah, more accessible. Maybe. Do you think you take more
time with relationships? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (13:35):
And I want the people that I work with to
do well. I want them to be successful. I have
competitions for excellence in the actual work, but I don't
have competition with younger people.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Right.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
I want to succeed if they're good and talented, and
I want to help them. And I mean, I feel
that that's a real change in the last fifteen years
because I wasn't always so generous.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Well found that not to be true. I think you've
been very generous with me. You've been very loving and familial, and.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I loved you.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
I read that book about kids are Panny Remember, and
I went to Radio Street.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
How many years ago was that Rosy?
Speaker 1 (14:14):
My god, it was like ninety six, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
It was like forever ago. I read a review of
it in the New York Times and I thought, oh,
there Rose O'donnald that smart woman that has that talk show.
I'm going to go to Radio City. So I went terrified.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Rosie.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
I took two out of MS.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
I can't believe that that you told me the story was.
But I don't believe that you were nervous for me.
I was so come on.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Art because I was asking you if we could animate
your book. I didn't even know you, I mean, and
nobody really wanted to do it at HBO at the
time because we didn't have children's programming, so I sort
of went on my own.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Well, I was nervous to meet you, Sheila, because I
had not listen. I was I'm a huge documentary fan.
You know this, and I was like, oh, I rolled.
It's hard for you to imagine that, but you are
really revered. You have the most Emmys of anyone in
the world.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
Nobody was doing what I was doing, right, so of
course I most and if I was the only one
in that ballpark, so of course I hit the ball over.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
The You know, most people don't do that, though. Now
do you think you have a favorite one? You have
a favorite dock of all the docks you've done, because
I have one of yours. That's one of my favorites.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Well, my favorite is a very strange one. I saw
a bird. It was actually a pelican. I have no
connection to pelicans at all.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
I saw a pelican on CNN that was covered with
oil after the oil spill.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
In New Orleans.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Yes, and I don't know.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
I got attached to this picture and I thought, what's
going to happen to this bird? And so I called
some rescue group there and they said that they save
oil spills damaged pelicans and they try to teach them
to fly and to eat. And I thought, okay, I
don't know anything about that, you know. So I sent
(16:01):
this wonderful filmmaker, Irene Taylor Brodski. She was like an
a tenth month and was fairly nearby, and I said, I,
you've got to go find an oil bird that's maybe
going to make it and maybe not going to make it.
So we found a pelican. He was number eight, nine
to five. Nobody watched it, got no nothing, but every
(16:23):
maybe every other day, I would call to find out
the fate of the pelican, and every day we would
shoot this pelican. He didn't know how to eat fish,
he didn't know I mean, he was just abandoned.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
On the beach.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Probably his mother died, I don't know. And then one day,
about three weeks after his rehab, and these were all volunteers,
you know that thing could volunteer, and they were young people,
and they were, you know, bathing the pelican and trying
to take the oil off because the oil would harden
on their you know, on their bodies didn't have that
(16:55):
many wings yet, baby pelican, and they would laboriously, you know,
take this off and give the pelican antibiotics. And then
finally they taught him how to fly by watching the
pelicans that they had that had recouped. And then they
took him to the beach one day and we were
this was before cell phones. Okay, no, we didn't get phones,
(17:16):
but we couldn't make pictures. So I was there. Fortunately
our baby was late. She was down by the beach,
and the pelican was like waddling around. He hadn't been
really out of his you know, artificial habitat before. And
the point was was he going to use what he
knew to fly? Was he gonna I get choked up
(17:36):
when I taught about and I'd been watching him for
six weeks and his name was eight nine to five
because they would put a thing around his wrist so
they could somehow find him if.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
He died soon aptuer.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
But anyway, and we watched and the music guy who
was going to do music for the docu said, I
don't know, is it a happy ending?
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Or said, ENDING don't know.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
We've got to patient. We got to watch me be patient.
We got to watch this pelican and see what he does.
So for about thirty minutes, I am not kidding, we
were on the phone saying, what's do you know?
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Is he walking through? What's he doing? What's he doing?
You know, like crazy people, right who are the only
really good people? And then suddenly this pelican started to
lift and flap his wings, and then suddenly he got
off the ground.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
And then he came right back again. And he got
off the ground and came back, and I said, reen, irene,
is he going to go?
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Is he gonna go? And nope, we didn't know.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
And he went and he flew up into the sky.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
And I'm not a spiritual person, but at that moment
I thought, life makes sense. He went up and he
joined a flock of what I guess were in the
family of pelicans, not exactly Pelicans.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
I don't really know Pelican adjacent adjacent Pelicans.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Yeah, and he went up and he he left, he left, Wow, Yeah,
and he went on. I guess to have a good life.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Yeah, but that's my favorite film because I like when
you don't know the ending. Yes, if you're in a
cancer wards, you kind of know the ending, you know, correct,
If a woman living on you know, with the tide
of seven seventy five an hour, she has two jobs
and two kids, you know kind of what's going on,
and you watch it, but you don't there's not going
(19:24):
to be a happy ending there. There's going to be
just a work So you kind of know, right, But
I didn't know about the Pelican at all.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Well, the one that I love so much is Boy Interrupted. Yeah.
I think it was Liz.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
I can see the grandmother's face and the pain in
that family, the generational trauma of suicide and mental illness,
and it was I can still feel what it felt
like to watch it for the first time. What about
your doctors, the ones we did together, All Aboard the crews. Yeah,
(19:59):
Crew one was great, and.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
We called it all Aboard because it was May straight whatever.
Many years ago, and I got more criticisms of that, really,
and I got compliments because people said, we don't care
if gay people are well, we're back.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
There again, right, how many years ago? Yes, we don't
care if gay people go on a cruise. Why are
they putting that on HBO. I'm canceling my subscription. It's
not you know, I mean, you know, give me a break,
so I mean. And then we also did Heartfelt Stand Up. Yes,
he saves a lot of lies on that one.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
I know, people say to me. Still. People stopped me
and said, I was on your cruise. I was on
your ship the first cruise you did, the gay cruise.
I'm in the documentary. I was like, wow, and the
kids are all grown of course, and you know, we're
all got gray hair now. And it had a profound effect.
I think I didn't know it caused you so much strife.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Sorry, it wasn't strife. It was like, I knew people
were watching.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
You know, right exactly really have numbers.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Then, so it was a little hard to find out,
you know, if anyone was watching. But it didn't matter
so much that it was being watched. It mattered who
was watching, right, and that people chose to criticize it
rather than celebrate it, which is I guess easier to.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Do right, sure when people are afraid, and.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Easier to be hanging and to be happy for other people.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
I guess right.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
But I want to have some vicious, vicious letters about it.
But the Heartfelt stand up saved a lot of lives.
It really, really and truly did it because it talked
about women's heart attacks, and it talked about the symptoms
of a heart attack.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Of course, I after that show. Every time I belch,
I think.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
As oh, hot, exhausted, pain, pale, puke exactly, remember that
I got it all? Yes, yes, but who is an hot,
exhausted painted I mean, you know, give me a breaths? Correct.
That's my constant state. Now when I.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Call about nailment, I don't call to say what is it?
Speaker 2 (21:54):
I ask if I'm having a heart attack? Yeah, you know,
why say I have.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
A pain on my right side? You know, I say
the doctor, is that a heart attack? Because you know
I don't know?
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Right forever?
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Yeah, do you ever think about Well, I.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Think about it whenever I have any kind of you know,
in a gestion or when the fireworks were going off
in that loud boom and you feel it in your chest.
I have a moment of a oh, you know it's
it's still scary. It's eleven years since I had my
heart attack and you called me when I was in
the hospital. You're like, we're doing a documentary on this.
It has to be funny. Figure it out. And then
(22:30):
you said gorgeous flowers and an outfit for me to
wear on the way home. Remember that, I go to
your doctor Alison's bat. Yes, she's fantastic, isn't she fantastic.
It's been very good to me.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
I call her on a regular basis, so do I.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
That's what I used to do, Like it would be
a Saturday night at eleven o'clock. I'm like, listen, I
just felt something.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Well, you had a more reason than I.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Although now I guess age equals having aired, but you
know if I work too much. Yeah, First I look
it up online and I got like nine nine reasons
for it, right, I picked the most serious reason for it.
And then I call her so like, if one is
you know you have ascid indigestion, you know, take a MS.
I pass those by and I go to the one
(23:12):
that says you have aesophageal reflex, which could be cancer.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Yeah, and you should call your physician right away.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
So I do what it tells me.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
But I wait till I get to this serious part
of the symptoms.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Do you think your interest in people and your compassion
for people and real stories comes from your childhood and
your mother and your dealing with her illness your whole life.
And you know, you tell me a beautiful story once
about going to a diner with your mom when she
was not well and had lost parts of her body.
And do you remember the story.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
My mother had this disease called Rainoid's disease and scleroderma,
mm hmm, and she would lose appendages from the time
I was very little. You know, my mother had like
four toes on one foot and half of a toe
on the other. Then she lost fingers, and she lost
an arm above the wrist, and she lost it above
the elbow, and then she lost a leg. Well, you know,
I don't mean to go to the details, but I
(24:04):
think that I don't know why I don't want to
go to detail, because they were true. But the thing was,
I watched the way people looked at her. I realized
that difference hurts the person who carries difference with them,
and whether it's about sexuality, or race, or disabilities of
various kinds, that those people need defending, yes, as just
(24:27):
one of us, because we all have our disabilities. They
don't always show, you know. Although I didn't get along
with her very well and I had a tough childhood,
I think I'm very grateful to her for a certain
kind of empathetic look at the outsider, you know, right,
because I had all.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
The reasons to be an insider. Tall, I was pretty,
I was smart, you know all that, But.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
I never felt that way because I would go around
with my mother, or I would drive her car that
had handbrakes. I never get into a car and drive
it without feeling guilty because her car was fixed by
Volvo to have handbrakes, because you'd know, fingers on one
hand and one on the other, so everything was different.
The brakes were different, the thing was different. And when
(25:08):
I get into a car and you just put it
on and you turn it on, you go, I always
think of my mother's car, right, and that mays think
of other people, which is that it's not easy, you know,
to go up a fly to stayers if you don't
have ALA exactly, and it's not easy if there is
an access for those of us who are wounded. But
I also think I learned that everybody's wounded somehow, except
(25:31):
for arrogant or the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
I think everybody wounds, whether they show or not.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
And I think that you know, I'm interested in the
wounded because not anyone else is going to tell their
story right exactly. But that's why I think you're so
great at what you do, Sheila, because you have this
unending well of compassion from all that you've lived. But
I wasn't compassionate to my mother. Rosie was well, that
(26:00):
was a difficult situation, right, He.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Kept me back from everything.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
You know.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
I wanted to go places, and I couldn't go because
you know, I had to take care of my mother.
And one day I came home from school and I
mean it was Ashley College and they were like police
outside the building, and I had mixed feelings about what
I thought might be going on on the third floor.
And when I got upstairs, it was the beginning of
the child proof top.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Yes, and my mother had pain medication in it and
she couldn't open it. So she dialed. I guess it
was nine to one, one then two. I don't know this.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
We're going back thirty years, forty years, maybe even more.
She couldn't get the top wall.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
And her neighbor wasn't there, and I wasn't home on time,
and it was a new bottle of pain stuff, and
so the police came to open the bottle. Wow, you
know those were the.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Days when the police came. Different time, but yeah, very
different time. But I remembered that very strongly because you know,
they don't usually get calls like that, and I've learned
a lot about policemen, but they were very kind to
this woman. And I mean she was very young, you know,
she was in it maybe forties at the time that
(27:09):
that happened. And I, you know, I just remembered my mom.
You know, can't open a bottle and I have to
be there. Those bottles you have to push down, twist. Yeah,
but you can't do that if you don't have fingers, right,
couldn't She couldn't hold the bottle and do it. Yeah,
And she tried and tried and tried, and you know,
the bottle was like squished in different ways. Yeah, I'm
(27:32):
try to hammer it.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
She tried to do all kinds of things you know,
that she could grasp and I never forgot.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
I mean, you know, do you have any happy stories
to tell.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Me about How's David is? David good?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
David is an interesting character.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
David is her beautiful son who I love very much.
He's been very darling. Little boy. He doesn't like me, yes,
he does.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
He loves you, she does, cries No, David.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Loves me, but the little boy because I don't go
that much. You know, every day when you have a
grand chop, your whole life is going to be different.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Yes, yes, you want to look at me. I think
I come on to the straw like your grandma.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Yeah. Yeah. How old is he? How old is the baby?
He's almost a year and a half.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Yeah, and he's into drag queens.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Great, he has all these. One of the books that's
banned is called Little Miss Hot Something, and it's a
children's book like to Read the Eight or something like
that picture book of.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Someone who says, the drag Queen goes Swish Swish Swish
drag Kings Retreat reach. And one day I couldn't find
anything to bring because I try to bring something so
maybe he'll be happy to see me. And so I
bring this little book drag Queens, and he grabs it wrapped.
You know, I wrapped it and you know, whatever paper,
it's fine, and you know, he opens it and he
(28:58):
gives it to his mother and she starts to read it,
and he's captivated by this book.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
The next morning, I call, you know, just call, see
how's it going. She said, I'll never forgive you for
that book. He woke up this morning.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
And he said, instead of saying that, you know, they
wait to say momy, right, you know that the year
it when nobody else years, Oh, they just said momy.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
So he says his first word, which, oh that's so funny.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Come on.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
He goes running the walks, waddling to his sort of
playpen area and he picks up the book and she
said she had to read it six times to him.
He wanted to hear it again and again.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
And he has a special move where he gets on
the couch and he you know, loves his hips back
and forth. So if in twenty years I won't be around,
I guess. But in twenty years, if he becomes a
drag queen, I take full response.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Full credit. There you go, full credit. That's how to
see your son be a dad.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
It's very touching. Yeah, because he's he's an interesting character.
He had certainly an addiction problem. He had Tourettes, which
was also problematic.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Which was a wonderful documentary you did as well, which
was beautiful.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
I have threats, but Touretts doesn't have me. Yeah, but
I think it had him for a while, but he
outgrew it. But the thing is, I see Touretts and
other people, you know, I see people doing things and.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
I, you know, I understand. I don't say anything. I
don't know that they know it. But people have the
wrong conception.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
They think Tourett's is where people say push, you know,
and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
That's not what.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
It's like obesity, it's like alcoholism, it's like anything else.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
It's your brain.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
And the medications that he has taken over the years
have really helped him tremendously not to be made fun
of in school, right, to.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Be very smart, and in this case, to be very loving. Right,
he loves this little boy. That's so great. Yeah, it's nice,
life altering. You're a grandma too, I'm a grandma three times.
In fact, Chelsea's pregnant again. No, yes, she's pregnant with
her fourth at twenty five years old. Did the kids
cry when they see you? No?
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Then they called me a Grandma Rose, which I just
think is so funny. I was like, how about Nana?
And they're like, hello, Grandma Rose?
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Why is grandma bad word? Everybody said, does he.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Call you girl? I don't mind grandma, but I had
a nana, so I wanted to be Nana. Oh yeah,
But I just think it's so funny. Hello Grandma Rose.
I'm like, hello, honey, how are you? My daughter in
law tries to get him to call me she she
mm hmm. But I still don't mind being grandma and
I kind of like it. I mean, you know, what
the hell? Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
I never earned it.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
You earned it. Hey, listen, did you hear about the
Menendez brothers may get out of jail because one of
the boys from the band Minudo, which was managed by
their father, right, said that he was brutally raped by
Jose Menendez as well. He was thirteen, really, so they
have new evidence and they might.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
How do you find out if it's true.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
I know that it's true because I've spoken to Lyle
Menendez and his wife. Pretty fascinating. I thought, this is
a documentary waiting to be had. But aren't there two
there are two brothers, Yes, Lyle and Eric abused. Yes,
only one. One was abused till he was eight and
then it stopped, and unbeknownst to him, he went to
the younger brother and supposedly five days before the incident,
(32:30):
the mother admitted that she knew all along what the
father was doing. Was that in the original trial, Well,
here's the interesting thing. The original trial was a hung
jury six six and they allowed the evidence of sex
abuse to be in the trial. But then Rodney King
and oj Simpson both were done in that time period
(32:51):
between the first trial and the second trial. And the
second trial the judge, same judge said there will be
no evidence of sex abuse in this trial. And that's
when they got well that's not right, correct, And they
tried to do a rid of habeas for that, and
now they have another rid of habeas And I just thought,
you know, I said, this, this is a documentary that
(33:12):
has to be made. You know, thirty years ago, we
weren't willing to even entertain the concept that sometimes fathers
raped their sons as well as their daughters, not just
their daughters.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
You know, sounds interesting. I'm you know, I don't know why.
I'm always suspicious of retrials in some way. You either
did it or you didn't. Does that mean you kill
your father?
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Well? You know if you hear the mother also was
incestuous with the older brother with Lyle as well when
he got to be a teenager. So, I don't know.
I just thought, if anyone's going to do this documentary,
it should be you, you know, you and Rory Kennedy
together again.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
You know, good old Rory.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
I love her so much.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
Wasn't she the best?
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Ever?
Speaker 2 (33:54):
What are we going to do about the brother?
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Though? What are we going to do about the brother? Right?
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (33:58):
God? I was just into the other day and said,
I think he's doing a disservice to everyone I know.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
But it's so amazing.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
I mean when I knew him many many years ago,
he was saving the fish in nuts, right, he was
an involvementalist and he was, you know, this amazing Kennedy.
And then I thought, whoah, you know, yeah, where are
we now? Family?
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Hold on?
Speaker 3 (34:17):
And then this this, I mean, he doesn't only not
believe in the COVID vaccine. He doesn't believe the children
should be vackine. I know he has very dangerous ideas
and theories. I'm not a supporter of his. Listen, Sheilan Evans.
I don't know who's better than you. I don't think
there's anyone.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Well, I don't allow people that are better than me.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
There's you tell me too, Come on, not make give
me two people better than you that we both know,
although we both know I know one. You're gonna say,
Larry Kramer, that's who are your buddy? Rightwing?
Speaker 3 (34:46):
My best friend, I mean still even though he's not
in yourn anymore. Yeah, I know he's dead, But I
when I'm very unsure of something, I remember he always
used to say.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Do it, yeah, do it right.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Well, I hear that boys, and he was you know,
I didn't think that this would be a friend.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
It was the furthest thing from my mind. It was
just to meet someone who we were doing a documentary about.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
And I heard he was just a mean son of
a bitch, and he could be mean, but it was
never mean to me right, never mean to me either.
I enjoyed him as well.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
He liked people who were open about wounds, right. He
didn't like wonders right, and he was but he was difficult.
It was difficult.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
You know.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
I had this one thing with him, which was the
one big laugh we had towards the end, which was
he liked Nova, locks and cream, cheese, everything bagel, right,
and so I would always stop and get him Ova, locks, cream, cheese,
babel at this sort of Jewish towel del testin down
the block. It must have been a Jewish holiday.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
This door was closed, and so I went to local
deli and you know, had a lovely man make me
locks and cream.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
She's singing, I'm damn right.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
He took one bite of it and he said, it's
not Nova. I only want Nova, and he gave me back.
Now it wasn't Nova. He didn't want he wanted the
finest Nova anyway. Yeah, I miss him.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Yeah, Sheila, I love you so much. I think you're
the greatest And okay, I love you. There's nobody i'd
rather hang with.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
You're good hearted star.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
So are you honey?
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Let us start.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Okay, we'll be back with questions from the listeners. Don't
go away, Okay, how fabulous is Sheila? Evans right, she's
(36:58):
too much. I love you so much, Sheila. Here we
go questions from you the listener. Hi, Rosie O'Donnell. I
just like saying your first and last name together. It's
Kim calling from beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
I just want to say how delightful it is to
hear you on the radio again every week. I grew up,
you know, watching your TV show of course, watching you
on the View, watching your movies and listening to your
days on Rosie Radio with Jeannette and the rest of
the great crew that you had there. So I'm just
(37:40):
loving having you on the radio again and listening to
you every week on your podcast. It's been delightful. The
one with bridget Effort was amazing. I know one thing
you mentioned last time, and this kind of leads into
my question is postmen apausal women and you are as
you are one and as someone who is fifty two
(38:02):
right now and going through the change, so to speak,
I'm wondering if you have any tips, tricks or did
you take any specific supplements.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Basically, how was your menopausal journey? Anyway?
Speaker 4 (38:16):
Thanks so much for doing this podcast, loving it so much.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
And love you, take good care. Thank you, Kim. That
is so sweet. I love hearing from the listeners because
you know, I could put a little voice and I
make up a face in my head, and I think
about your lives and what you're doing, and it's very
enjoyable for me. Truthfully, Kim, menopause is horrible. There's no
(38:39):
way around it. When I first went through it, which
was in my early forties, because menopause started for me
at forty, which was shocking, I wanted to punch every
woman I saw on the supermarket right in the face,
because if they were older than me, I wanted to say,
why didn't you write a book about this? Why didn't
you tell someone? It was really, really exhausting for me.
(39:02):
I was sweating through my clothes. I couldn't go to
the mall because by the time I was halfway through,
I looked like I was in the shower. My head
would get wet, so it looked like I had wet
hair all the well, I did have wet hair, but
it looked like that greasy, slicked back. I was so
hot that in the middle of the winter in Nyack,
(39:22):
New York, I opened the door to the outside where
there was snow on the ground, and I stood out
there naked for thirty minutes or two in the morning
because I couldn't bear just how hot I was. Now,
I did go on hormone replacement therapy, the stuff that
you cream that you put on your arms, but I
(39:42):
then had a heart attack, and the doctor from my
heart attack said, you are not doing them anymore. So
I'm not going to try to cause a controversy about
who believes what or what I know. For me, I'm
not doing them. Everybody has to make their own decision,
and you know, being that I had a massive heart attack,
it was something that the doctor was very much against.
(40:03):
So do your own research again and find out. But
I wish you luck. I would say, bring the heavy
duty fan everywhere you go. I would say, know that
it's really hard, and ask your doctor about natural supplements
that you can take that might lessen some of the symptoms.
(40:24):
But for me, honey, it was pure hell, Kim, I
wish you the best. It's not for whimps, I could
tell you that, So good luck to you and all
the other women out there. All right, do we have
another one coming from another listener? Let's see hi Rosie.
Speaker 5 (40:39):
This is Mike from Perry Hall, Maryland. I've been a
longtime fan and really enjoyed your talk show when you
had it back in the nineties. My question for you
is about the movie you made, Riding the Books with
my sister. Can you talk about the prep that it
took in order to get yourself ready for such a
role on it? Very interesting how you were able to
(41:02):
embody such a character. I was a teacher for a
long time and I was in charge of working with
students who had developmental disabilities, and I must say, you
did such a fantastic job embodying somebody with such gifts.
So if you could share some of your experience from that,
that would be greatly appreciated. Much gratitude to you, my friend.
(41:25):
Take good care.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
Thank you, Mike, you said like a great guy, somebody
I'd like to hang out with. Good for you for
the work that you've done with your life. And I
have special place in my heart for all the people
who have spent their life helping people with different challenges.
You know, now that I have a child with autism,
(41:48):
I am so obsessed and surrounded by all the concepts
of inclusion and acceptance and tall rance and the movie
Riding the Bus with my sister is one of my
favorite things I've ever done. Angelica Houston directed it. It
was based on a book, it was made into a movie,
(42:12):
and I was lucky to have a friend named Karen
who had a friend who had nearly the same kind
of obsessive compensation in the bus and subway systems of
New York.
Speaker 6 (42:27):
Now.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
I befriended her and we had dinner a bunch of times,
we were at someone's house and just hanging out and talking.
And what I was doing was really an exact copy
of that woman. And I'm so grateful to her for
allowing me to be so close to kind of absorb
(42:51):
a lot of her essence before I ever got to
do the film. You know, and you wonder and worry
when you do a film like that, how do you
best serve the subject matter? How do you make this
character as real as real can be, as real as
any other character. You have to sink into it and
(43:11):
find a place where it lives inside your body. And
it was a very big challenge, and I was so
grateful that I got the opportunity, and what an amazing
vehicle that movie was, and I think what it says
about about family and about need and fitting in and
(43:35):
feeling that you have a safe place to land is
important for every human being. And that's what I tried
to convey, was to give her Beth Simon, such a
full and colorful interior life and world. And thank you
for the praise for that. I really do appreciate that, Mike,
(43:57):
and again, thank you for all the work that you've
done with your life. Okay, I think we got time
for one more.
Speaker 7 (44:05):
Hey, Rosie, my name is Rory James, and like a
lot of people who call in, I grew up watching
your show and I loved it so much. It meant
so much to me and it still does. You know,
long before I had any idea that I was a
big homeo gay, you and your show just made me
feel understood. It just felt like my people, you know.
Speaker 6 (44:27):
Just the laughs and the silliness and the obsessions and
the fun just the best. These days, I'm a stand
up comic here in LA and I wanted to know
what stand up comedy advice you would give comics like
me who are out there grinding it out and trying
to work our way up in this current era.
Speaker 7 (44:46):
I know you don't do stand up as often these days,
but if you ever need an opening act, I could
do it ty five, I could do it tight, ten,
I could do it tight twenty. Whatever you need, O'Donnell.
I got you. I love you so much, and I
hope you feel the love from all of us who
you've impacted over the years. You're the best, Rosie.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
I really do feel the love I got to tell you,
and it really is very heartwarming every time that I
do an interview and I record someone and then we
take the questions at the end, it's always kind of
my favorite part to get to hear what the listener
thinks and what they're wondering about. And the kindness is overwhelming.
I mean, you'd think from all these that we only
(45:25):
picked ones that are complimentary. We got to find some
that are, you know, not as effusive, but we don't
do that on purpose. It's the majority of people who
leave a message, So thank you all for that. I
really do appreciate it. As for stand up, you know,
the only thing I say to everyone is if you
want to surf, you got to get in the water,
and if you want to be a stand up comic,
(45:47):
you got to get in that stage every single time
you can. I don't care where it is, I don't
care what it is. You accept the gig and you
go and you do it because every single performance you
learn from. And you know, Malcolm Gladwell said you need
ten thousand hours before you become an expert at anything,
and you need ten thousand hours on a stage in
some way. You know, you need to be as familiar
(46:08):
with that stage as you are with your own home,
as you are with your kitchen, that you can walk
around that it's yours, that from the time you step
on that stage, you command the room from that. You
know your control based that little, tiny, ten foot sometimes
smaller stage. And I'm thinking about doing some stand up
(46:30):
around La, and I would love to see you do
some stand up around La. Keep doing it, honey, keep
doing it. The more you serf, the better you get.
So get in the water, mister. Thank you everybody. Wonderful,
wonderful to hear from all of you, and please send
us your voice memo so we can play them here
(46:50):
on our podcast. And next week, my friend Marcy Marie,
who's spent ten years in prison in the Texas prison
system and is now an advocate working to help people
understand just how badly the situation is, especially in the
Texas prison system. She's a wonderful, wonderful woman. I've become
(47:13):
friends with her and her fiance, and I can't wait
to introduce her to all of you. Next week, that's
Marcy Marie and we'll be talking about the women's incarceration
and set up that they have there in Texas. Peace out, everybody,
have a great week. We'll see you next week.
Well, hey, everybody, it is me Rosi o'donald star the Flintstones.
Glad you found me here. On onward with Rosi O'Donnell
your host. That's me. Well, sad news Shenead O'Connor is
no longer with us. Heartbreaking to me. Really such a
wonderful warrior woman she is and was, and I had
(00:35):
tremendous respect and compassion and empathy for her and was
very very saddened to hear that she wasn't with us.
But she was struggling to stay alive, and she talked
about it openly, and she talked about things that other
people weren't ready to face, like the horrible child sex
(00:57):
abuse in the Catholic Church and ripping up the Pope's
picture was about that. And then we caught up about
a decade later and everybody was like, wow, I guess
she was right. But she was ostracized and her records
and CDs burned and bulldozed, and she was bullied, and
you know, she was an angelic presence on earth who
(01:20):
had suffered so much child abuse, and she talked about
that too. That you know, in all of the United
Kingdom that Ireland had the highest levels of child abuse.
And I just loved her, That's all I can say.
And she lost her son. I can't imagine what that
(01:40):
feels like for any parent, and I believe that's hard
to survive. So to everyone who's done that, good for
you for staying around, and for those who couldn't make it,
we wish you peace on your journey onward. Somewhere in
the universe. I believe so are still with us. Energy
(02:03):
can't be created or destroyed, right, isn't that? So you
know what happens to the spark of life of humanity
when someone goes. I believe it lives on. It lives on.
We have a wonderful, wonderful guest today. It's one of
my very close friends. Her name is Sheila Evans and
she is eighty four years old. She doesn't like when
(02:26):
I tell people that, but I think it's pretty astounding
that she is as old as she is, looking as
beautiful as she is, and so on it, man, she
is on it. Who is she? Well, she's the queen
of documentary films in the United States, probably in the
entire world. She has overseen productions of five hundred documentaries.
(02:51):
She's got thirty two Primetime Emmys, nominated for seventy nine
Academy Awards, won twenty six of them, thirty five News
and Documentary Emmys, forty two Peabody Awards for HBO, and
one Personal Peabody awarded to her for Outstanding Achievement and Documentaries.
(03:12):
She also received a News and Documentary Emmy for Lifetime Achievement,
the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Documentary Association Visionary
Leadership Award. The National Board of Review presented her with
a Humanitarian Award for her contribution to the advancement of
social reforms and the promotion of human welfare through film,
(03:36):
as well the New York Women in Film Television Muse
Award for Outstanding Vision and Achievement, and Sheila Nevins was
inducted into the Broadcasting in Cables Hall of Fame. She
is the woman I hope to grow up to be.
I love her so much. I've made a bunch of
documentaries with her, and she's someone I always go to
(03:59):
for an vice in my life and with my kids.
And she's an adoptive mom just like me, and she's fantastic.
It brought me such joy to do it and to
introduce you all who may not know the brilliance of
Sheila Evans. Stick around because you're gonna be wowed. Speaking
(04:21):
of being wowed, I saw the Barbie Movie and just
like Shila, it's a feminist manifesto. I freaking loved it.
It is such an important film to take your daughters
to and your sons to see the brilliance of this movie. Listen.
When I first heard that there was a movie about Barbie,
(04:43):
I had no interest in seeing it. Then I started
reading the reviews and talking to friends. So I took
Dakota a few days ago, and I have to say
I was blown away. I was so empowered. I was
so thinking of all the women heroes in the world
and how much we owe them. Like Sinnado O'Connor, she
(05:05):
was a leader in this world and she fought out
against injustice. And Sheila and Evans, she's a leader in
this world. She finds stories of human nature, she puts
them on film, and she breaks your heart in half
every time she does it. So go see the Barbie movie,
put on a few Shenado O'Connor records, and sit back
(05:28):
and listen to this interview. It was Sheila Evans documentary
Queen Right now on onward Now listen, Sheilan Evans, you
(05:49):
look fantastic, though you're not trying to lose.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Four years old. I'm ready, hy I should be exiting.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
You're eighty four and you're a whipper snapper as sharp
as you're a whipper.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
I don't know about the snapro part. I'm a whipper.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Do you begrudge yourself for getting old or do you
like it? I hate it so much, really, I hated
so much.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
My mother died at fifty seven, and my father I
don't know how old he was because he was an
immigrant and he was just, you know, between two and
six years old when he arrived at elis Ion, so
we don't know how old he was when he died.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
He could have been.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Seventy nine or eighty whatever.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Yeah. Yeah, I hate it. It's not meant to be,
you know. I think all it's pharmaceuticals and botox and
picking the ants and forcing yourself on.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Got it? Well, you are the foremost authority on documentaries
in the country. Would you say that, sheil and Evans.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
I like that you think so?
Speaker 1 (06:51):
I don't think it. I know it now.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
You're very sweet.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
I was there when no one else was there, So
I get credit for creating something that had already existed.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Does that make sense, Yes, it does because HBO. You
were the one who brought the docs to HBO. Right,
you were the first and only one to have that position,
because it wasn't really a position. It was a way
to get shows on fast. And I didn't know much
about docs.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
I thought docs were about like, you know, Hitler's Last
Days and right, you know, Truman, and I thought of
Winston Churchill's. You know, I had no idea that they
could be about people. Yes, I didn't know, because my
background was theater.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
I had no I just didn't know. But I wanted the.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Job, and you got the job, and you did it
brilliantly for so many years.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah, I did, and then I got kicked out.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Yeah. Now I want to talk about that because I
read that article where you talked about it fairly recently,
and what really happened behind the scenes? Well, what do
you think? It was just pure agism and misogyny.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
I think it was agism first. I think it was misogyny,
which is in everything. And I think it was that
I was a top back person Rosie and I think
great had enough of that. Yeah, you know, I didn't
like famous people. I like, you know, ordinary people. If
I was going to do a documentary about with my
(08:18):
minimum wage, I wasn't going to have a star introduce it.
I was going to go to people who were trying
to live on.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
A minimum wage. Of course, right, And.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
That was not the star studded way to approach reality
stories for the new administration there.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
And so I was like a naughty girl.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
You talked back, and you stood up for the things
that you believed in.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yeah, but I was I have a spot of arrogance,
you know that.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah, but I love that about you. I thought, I
call it.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
So, you're not paying my salary.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
But I would, Sheila, I would, Oh, of course I would.
I would hire you to be the documentarian of the nation.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Come on, in this nation that's all fucked up.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
It's so fucked up, I believe it is. How are
we here? How are we here? Again?
Speaker 2 (09:03):
I don't know, I don't know. Back back and back.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Yes, I'm doing a documentary on book banning and the
books that are banned, like the James Baldwin book and
the and Frank graphic novel.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
And I mean It's like unbelievable. What's banned? Mouse is banned?
Speaker 3 (09:23):
I mean, right, kids cannot take out of their libraries
in school, the books that I grew up on that
made me hesty and talk back, Right, what are they
going to do? Read books about nice, happy little children
that are all white all over?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Right?
Speaker 1 (09:38):
No, it's just horrifying, And I think I can't believe.
Like I'm wearing my Row nineteen seventy three shirt, a
Roe V. Wade, you know, I wear it every day,
like I want to walk around and go, screw you
all for doing this, for getting us back here? How
did this happen? We fought so hard. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
You know, when you talk about abortions, my abortion was
probably the most traumatic.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Experience of my entire life so far. I haven't experienced
death just yet, but I mean, of all the things,
from the falls and the mistakes and the hurts, there
was nothing more traumatic than going to an office building
in Washington in nineteen sixty three and having a guy
say three hundred dollars now giving it to him, and
(10:22):
then being thrown on a couch with four other women
who were crying. And he walked in and he said
you killed your babies, ladies, and he walked out.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Isn't he charming?
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (10:31):
It was charming. It was charming. And that's where we
are again.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
I mean, it really is a terrifying experience and why
you would subject women to this experience, It's beyond anything.
And then you've attack the morning after pill in addition
to everything else, you're going to welcome that way too.
I think it all comes from a certain kind of misogyny.
I don't think it has anything to do with God
or anything. It has to do with women can do that,
(10:56):
men can't. What can they do? They can have babies,
they can get pregnant, so let's fuck their womb, you know,
let's go after that. It has nothing to do with
a life and all that, because it's ridiculous, you know,
you're talking about matter.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Yes, I completely agree with you, and the fact that
in twenty twenty three that this is the law of
the land now that you can have people get vetted
for the Supreme Court and have them lie and then
change exactly what they said when they got appointed, and
nobody does anything about it.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
It's just like, well, but discrutiny court. I don't really
understand the foundation of the Supreme Court. But the main
thing I don't understand about it, other than I understand
the selection process, but I understand why it's for life.
Neither oural government job.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Is for life, right, there are terms for everybody else,
And you go on the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
You're basically defying or ratifying the laws of a nation,
and you're there for life.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Yeah, doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
That's horrible.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
It's horrible. We'll be back right after this. What do
(12:23):
you think about Biden? Are you a supporter? What do
you think?
Speaker 3 (12:27):
I think he means well because I'm so subjected to
age discrimination and he and I are pretty much the
same age. I support something about a president being in
his eighties.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Why not? Why not better than a president who wants
to stop you from speaking the truth?
Speaker 2 (12:47):
That's true, that's fifty five. You know, I'll know of it.
And as far as what happens to your brain and aging,
things happen. But not everybody has Alzheimer's right. Not everybody
walls right. Everybody can't think in the name of the
other people. Actually, as I get older, I get a
little more generous about gratitude. I become kinder because I
(13:11):
realize as you know I get older, that one I'm
human and I can't go on at a certain rate.
And two that it's my job to leave behind people
that are stronger than I am.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
And I think I'm more generous. I don't mean financially,
I mean emotionally.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yeah, more accessible. Maybe. Do you think you take more
time with relationships? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (13:35):
And I want the people that I work with to
do well. I want them to be successful. I have
competitions for excellence in the actual work, but I don't
have competition with younger people.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Right.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
I want to succeed if they're good and talented, and
I want to help them. And I mean, I feel
that that's a real change in the last fifteen years
because I wasn't always so generous.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Well found that not to be true. I think you've
been very generous with me. You've been very loving and familial, and.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I loved you.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
I read that book about kids are Panny Remember, and
I went to Radio Street.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
How many years ago was that Rosy?
Speaker 1 (14:14):
My god, it was like ninety six, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
It was like forever ago. I read a review of
it in the New York Times and I thought, oh,
there Rose O'donnald that smart woman that has that talk show.
I'm going to go to Radio City. So I went terrified.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Rosie.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
I took two out of MS.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
I can't believe that that you told me the story was.
But I don't believe that you were nervous for me.
I was so come on.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Art because I was asking you if we could animate
your book. I didn't even know you, I mean, and
nobody really wanted to do it at HBO at the
time because we didn't have children's programming, so I sort
of went on my own.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Well, I was nervous to meet you, Sheila, because I
had not listen. I was I'm a huge documentary fan.
You know this, and I was like, oh, I rolled.
It's hard for you to imagine that, but you are
really revered. You have the most Emmys of anyone in
the world.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
Nobody was doing what I was doing, right, so of
course I most and if I was the only one
in that ballpark, so of course I hit the ball over.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
The You know, most people don't do that, though. Now
do you think you have a favorite one? You have
a favorite dock of all the docks you've done, because
I have one of yours. That's one of my favorites.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Well, my favorite is a very strange one. I saw
a bird. It was actually a pelican. I have no
connection to pelicans at all.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
I saw a pelican on CNN that was covered with
oil after the oil spill.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
In New Orleans.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Yes, and I don't know.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
I got attached to this picture and I thought, what's
going to happen to this bird? And so I called
some rescue group there and they said that they save
oil spills damaged pelicans and they try to teach them
to fly and to eat. And I thought, okay, I
don't know anything about that, you know. So I sent
(16:01):
this wonderful filmmaker, Irene Taylor Brodski. She was like an
a tenth month and was fairly nearby, and I said, I,
you've got to go find an oil bird that's maybe
going to make it and maybe not going to make it.
So we found a pelican. He was number eight, nine
to five. Nobody watched it, got no nothing, but every
(16:23):
maybe every other day, I would call to find out
the fate of the pelican, and every day we would
shoot this pelican. He didn't know how to eat fish,
he didn't know I mean, he was just abandoned.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
On the beach.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Probably his mother died, I don't know. And then one day,
about three weeks after his rehab, and these were all volunteers,
you know that thing could volunteer, and they were young people,
and they were, you know, bathing the pelican and trying
to take the oil off because the oil would harden
on their you know, on their bodies didn't have that
(16:55):
many wings yet, baby pelican, and they would laboriously, you know,
take this off and give the pelican antibiotics. And then
finally they taught him how to fly by watching the
pelicans that they had that had recouped. And then they
took him to the beach one day and we were
this was before cell phones. Okay, no, we didn't get phones,
(17:16):
but we couldn't make pictures. So I was there. Fortunately
our baby was late. She was down by the beach,
and the pelican was like waddling around. He hadn't been
really out of his you know, artificial habitat before. And
the point was was he going to use what he
knew to fly? Was he gonna I get choked up
(17:36):
when I taught about and I'd been watching him for
six weeks and his name was eight nine to five
because they would put a thing around his wrist so
they could somehow find him if.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
He died soon aptuer.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
But anyway, and we watched and the music guy who
was going to do music for the docu said, I
don't know, is it a happy ending?
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Or said, ENDING don't know.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
We've got to patient. We got to watch me be patient.
We got to watch this pelican and see what he does.
So for about thirty minutes, I am not kidding, we
were on the phone saying, what's do you know?
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Is he walking through? What's he doing? What's he doing?
You know, like crazy people, right who are the only
really good people? And then suddenly this pelican started to
lift and flap his wings, and then suddenly he got
off the ground.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
And then he came right back again. And he got
off the ground and came back, and I said, reen, irene,
is he going to go?
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Is he gonna go? And nope, we didn't know.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
And he went and he flew up into the sky.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
And I'm not a spiritual person, but at that moment
I thought, life makes sense. He went up and he
joined a flock of what I guess were in the
family of pelicans, not exactly Pelicans.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
I don't really know Pelican adjacent adjacent Pelicans.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Yeah, and he went up and he he left, he left, Wow, Yeah,
and he went on. I guess to have a good life.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Yeah, but that's my favorite film because I like when
you don't know the ending. Yes, if you're in a
cancer wards, you kind of know the ending, you know, correct,
If a woman living on you know, with the tide
of seven seventy five an hour, she has two jobs
and two kids, you know kind of what's going on,
and you watch it, but you don't there's not going
(19:24):
to be a happy ending there. There's going to be
just a work So you kind of know, right, But
I didn't know about the Pelican at all.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Well, the one that I love so much is Boy Interrupted. Yeah.
I think it was Liz.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
I can see the grandmother's face and the pain in
that family, the generational trauma of suicide and mental illness,
and it was I can still feel what it felt
like to watch it for the first time. What about
your doctors, the ones we did together, All Aboard the crews. Yeah,
(19:59):
Crew one was great, and.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
We called it all Aboard because it was May straight whatever.
Many years ago, and I got more criticisms of that, really,
and I got compliments because people said, we don't care
if gay people are well, we're back.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
There again, right, how many years ago? Yes, we don't
care if gay people go on a cruise. Why are
they putting that on HBO. I'm canceling my subscription. It's
not you know, I mean, you know, give me a break,
so I mean. And then we also did Heartfelt Stand Up. Yes,
he saves a lot of lies on that one.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
I know, people say to me. Still. People stopped me
and said, I was on your cruise. I was on
your ship the first cruise you did, the gay cruise.
I'm in the documentary. I was like, wow, and the
kids are all grown of course, and you know, we're
all got gray hair now. And it had a profound effect.
I think I didn't know it caused you so much strife.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Sorry, it wasn't strife. It was like, I knew people
were watching.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
You know, right exactly really have numbers.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Then, so it was a little hard to find out,
you know, if anyone was watching. But it didn't matter
so much that it was being watched. It mattered who
was watching, right, and that people chose to criticize it
rather than celebrate it, which is I guess easier to.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Do right, sure when people are afraid, and.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Easier to be hanging and to be happy for other people.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
I guess right.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
But I want to have some vicious, vicious letters about it.
But the Heartfelt stand up saved a lot of lives.
It really, really and truly did it because it talked
about women's heart attacks, and it talked about the symptoms
of a heart attack.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Of course, I after that show. Every time I belch,
I think.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
As oh, hot, exhausted, pain, pale, puke exactly, remember that
I got it all? Yes, yes, but who is an hot,
exhausted painted I mean, you know, give me a breaths? Correct.
That's my constant state. Now when I.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Call about nailment, I don't call to say what is it?
Speaker 2 (21:54):
I ask if I'm having a heart attack? Yeah, you know,
why say I have.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
A pain on my right side? You know, I say
the doctor, is that a heart attack? Because you know
I don't know?
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Right forever?
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Yeah, do you ever think about Well, I.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Think about it whenever I have any kind of you know,
in a gestion or when the fireworks were going off
in that loud boom and you feel it in your chest.
I have a moment of a oh, you know it's
it's still scary. It's eleven years since I had my
heart attack and you called me when I was in
the hospital. You're like, we're doing a documentary on this.
It has to be funny. Figure it out. And then
(22:30):
you said gorgeous flowers and an outfit for me to
wear on the way home. Remember that, I go to
your doctor Alison's bat. Yes, she's fantastic, isn't she fantastic.
It's been very good to me.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
I call her on a regular basis, so do I.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
That's what I used to do, Like it would be
a Saturday night at eleven o'clock. I'm like, listen, I
just felt something.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Well, you had a more reason than I.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Although now I guess age equals having aired, but you
know if I work too much. Yeah, First I look
it up online and I got like nine nine reasons
for it, right, I picked the most serious reason for it.
And then I call her so like, if one is
you know you have ascid indigestion, you know, take a MS.
I pass those by and I go to the one
(23:12):
that says you have aesophageal reflex, which could be cancer.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Yeah, and you should call your physician right away.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
So I do what it tells me.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
But I wait till I get to this serious part
of the symptoms.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Do you think your interest in people and your compassion
for people and real stories comes from your childhood and
your mother and your dealing with her illness your whole life.
And you know, you tell me a beautiful story once
about going to a diner with your mom when she
was not well and had lost parts of her body.
And do you remember the story.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
My mother had this disease called Rainoid's disease and scleroderma,
mm hmm, and she would lose appendages from the time
I was very little. You know, my mother had like
four toes on one foot and half of a toe
on the other. Then she lost fingers, and she lost
an arm above the wrist, and she lost it above
the elbow, and then she lost a leg. Well, you know,
I don't mean to go to the details, but I
(24:04):
think that I don't know why I don't want to
go to detail, because they were true. But the thing was,
I watched the way people looked at her. I realized
that difference hurts the person who carries difference with them,
and whether it's about sexuality, or race, or disabilities of
various kinds, that those people need defending, yes, as just
(24:27):
one of us, because we all have our disabilities. They
don't always show, you know. Although I didn't get along
with her very well and I had a tough childhood,
I think I'm very grateful to her for a certain
kind of empathetic look at the outsider, you know, right,
because I had all.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
The reasons to be an insider. Tall, I was pretty,
I was smart, you know all that, But.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
I never felt that way because I would go around
with my mother, or I would drive her car that
had handbrakes. I never get into a car and drive
it without feeling guilty because her car was fixed by
Volvo to have handbrakes, because you'd know, fingers on one
hand and one on the other, so everything was different.
The brakes were different, the thing was different. And when
(25:08):
I get into a car and you just put it
on and you turn it on, you go, I always
think of my mother's car, right, and that mays think
of other people, which is that it's not easy, you know,
to go up a fly to stayers if you don't
have ALA exactly, and it's not easy if there is
an access for those of us who are wounded. But
I also think I learned that everybody's wounded somehow, except
(25:31):
for arrogant or the Supreme Court.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
I think everybody wounds, whether they show or not.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
And I think that you know, I'm interested in the
wounded because not anyone else is going to tell their
story right exactly. But that's why I think you're so
great at what you do, Sheila, because you have this
unending well of compassion from all that you've lived. But
I wasn't compassionate to my mother. Rosie was well, that
(26:00):
was a difficult situation, right, He.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Kept me back from everything.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
You know.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
I wanted to go places, and I couldn't go because
you know, I had to take care of my mother.
And one day I came home from school and I
mean it was Ashley College and they were like police
outside the building, and I had mixed feelings about what
I thought might be going on on the third floor.
And when I got upstairs, it was the beginning of
the child proof top.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Yes, and my mother had pain medication in it and
she couldn't open it. So she dialed. I guess it
was nine to one, one then two. I don't know this.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
We're going back thirty years, forty years, maybe even more.
She couldn't get the top wall.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
And her neighbor wasn't there, and I wasn't home on time,
and it was a new bottle of pain stuff, and
so the police came to open the bottle. Wow, you
know those were the.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Days when the police came. Different time, but yeah, very
different time. But I remembered that very strongly because you know,
they don't usually get calls like that, and I've learned
a lot about policemen, but they were very kind to
this woman. And I mean she was very young, you know,
she was in it maybe forties at the time that
(27:09):
that happened. And I, you know, I just remembered my mom.
You know, can't open a bottle and I have to
be there. Those bottles you have to push down, twist. Yeah,
but you can't do that if you don't have fingers, right,
couldn't She couldn't hold the bottle and do it. Yeah,
And she tried and tried and tried, and you know,
the bottle was like squished in different ways. Yeah, I'm
(27:32):
try to hammer it.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
She tried to do all kinds of things you know,
that she could grasp and I never forgot.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
I mean, you know, do you have any happy stories
to tell.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Me about How's David is? David good?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
David is an interesting character.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
David is her beautiful son who I love very much.
He's been very darling. Little boy. He doesn't like me, yes,
he does.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
He loves you, she does, cries No, David.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Loves me, but the little boy because I don't go
that much. You know, every day when you have a
grand chop, your whole life is going to be different.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Yes, yes, you want to look at me. I think
I come on to the straw like your grandma.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Yeah. Yeah. How old is he? How old is the baby?
He's almost a year and a half.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Yeah, and he's into drag queens.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Great, he has all these. One of the books that's
banned is called Little Miss Hot Something, and it's a
children's book like to Read the Eight or something like
that picture book of.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Someone who says, the drag Queen goes Swish Swish Swish
drag Kings Retreat reach. And one day I couldn't find
anything to bring because I try to bring something so
maybe he'll be happy to see me. And so I
bring this little book drag Queens, and he grabs it wrapped.
You know, I wrapped it and you know, whatever paper,
it's fine, and you know, he opens it and he
(28:58):
gives it to his mother and she starts to read it,
and he's captivated by this book.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
The next morning, I call, you know, just call, see
how's it going. She said, I'll never forgive you for
that book. He woke up this morning.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
And he said, instead of saying that, you know, they
wait to say momy, right, you know that the year
it when nobody else years, Oh, they just said momy.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
So he says his first word, which, oh that's so funny.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Come on.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
He goes running the walks, waddling to his sort of
playpen area and he picks up the book and she
said she had to read it six times to him.
He wanted to hear it again and again.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
And he has a special move where he gets on
the couch and he you know, loves his hips back
and forth. So if in twenty years I won't be around,
I guess. But in twenty years, if he becomes a
drag queen, I take full response.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Full credit. There you go, full credit. That's how to
see your son be a dad.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
It's very touching. Yeah, because he's he's an interesting character.
He had certainly an addiction problem. He had Tourettes, which
was also problematic.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Which was a wonderful documentary you did as well, which
was beautiful.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
I have threats, but Touretts doesn't have me. Yeah, but
I think it had him for a while, but he
outgrew it. But the thing is, I see Touretts and
other people, you know, I see people doing things and.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
I, you know, I understand. I don't say anything. I
don't know that they know it. But people have the
wrong conception.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
They think Tourett's is where people say push, you know,
and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
That's not what.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
It's like obesity, it's like alcoholism, it's like anything else.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
It's your brain.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
And the medications that he has taken over the years
have really helped him tremendously not to be made fun
of in school, right, to.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Be very smart, and in this case, to be very loving. Right,
he loves this little boy. That's so great. Yeah, it's nice,
life altering. You're a grandma too, I'm a grandma three times.
In fact, Chelsea's pregnant again. No, yes, she's pregnant with
her fourth at twenty five years old. Did the kids
cry when they see you? No?
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Then they called me a Grandma Rose, which I just
think is so funny. I was like, how about Nana?
And they're like, hello, Grandma Rose?
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Why is grandma bad word? Everybody said, does he.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Call you girl? I don't mind grandma, but I had
a nana, so I wanted to be Nana. Oh yeah,
But I just think it's so funny. Hello Grandma Rose.
I'm like, hello, honey, how are you? My daughter in
law tries to get him to call me she she
mm hmm. But I still don't mind being grandma and
I kind of like it. I mean, you know, what
the hell? Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
I never earned it.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
You earned it. Hey, listen, did you hear about the
Menendez brothers may get out of jail because one of
the boys from the band Minudo, which was managed by
their father, right, said that he was brutally raped by
Jose Menendez as well. He was thirteen, really, so they
have new evidence and they might.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
How do you find out if it's true.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
I know that it's true because I've spoken to Lyle
Menendez and his wife. Pretty fascinating. I thought, this is
a documentary waiting to be had. But aren't there two
there are two brothers, Yes, Lyle and Eric abused. Yes,
only one. One was abused till he was eight and
then it stopped, and unbeknownst to him, he went to
the younger brother and supposedly five days before the incident,
(32:30):
the mother admitted that she knew all along what the
father was doing. Was that in the original trial, Well,
here's the interesting thing. The original trial was a hung
jury six six and they allowed the evidence of sex
abuse to be in the trial. But then Rodney King
and oj Simpson both were done in that time period
(32:51):
between the first trial and the second trial. And the
second trial the judge, same judge said there will be
no evidence of sex abuse in this trial. And that's
when they got well that's not right, correct, And they
tried to do a rid of habeas for that, and
now they have another rid of habeas And I just thought,
you know, I said, this, this is a documentary that
(33:12):
has to be made. You know, thirty years ago, we
weren't willing to even entertain the concept that sometimes fathers
raped their sons as well as their daughters, not just
their daughters.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
You know, sounds interesting. I'm you know, I don't know why.
I'm always suspicious of retrials in some way. You either
did it or you didn't. Does that mean you kill
your father?
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Well? You know if you hear the mother also was
incestuous with the older brother with Lyle as well when
he got to be a teenager. So, I don't know.
I just thought, if anyone's going to do this documentary,
it should be you, you know, you and Rory Kennedy
together again.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
You know, good old Rory.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
I love her so much.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
Wasn't she the best?
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Ever?
Speaker 2 (33:54):
What are we going to do about the brother?
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Though? What are we going to do about the brother? Right?
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (33:58):
God? I was just into the other day and said,
I think he's doing a disservice to everyone I know.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
But it's so amazing.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
I mean when I knew him many many years ago,
he was saving the fish in nuts, right, he was
an involvementalist and he was, you know, this amazing Kennedy.
And then I thought, whoah, you know, yeah, where are
we now? Family?
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Hold on?
Speaker 3 (34:17):
And then this this, I mean, he doesn't only not
believe in the COVID vaccine. He doesn't believe the children
should be vackine. I know he has very dangerous ideas
and theories. I'm not a supporter of his. Listen, Sheilan Evans.
I don't know who's better than you. I don't think
there's anyone.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Well, I don't allow people that are better than me.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
There's you tell me too, Come on, not make give
me two people better than you that we both know,
although we both know I know one. You're gonna say,
Larry Kramer, that's who are your buddy? Rightwing?
Speaker 3 (34:46):
My best friend, I mean still even though he's not
in yourn anymore. Yeah, I know he's dead, But I
when I'm very unsure of something, I remember he always
used to say.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Do it, yeah, do it right.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Well, I hear that boys, and he was you know,
I didn't think that this would be a friend.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
It was the furthest thing from my mind. It was
just to meet someone who we were doing a documentary about.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
And I heard he was just a mean son of
a bitch, and he could be mean, but it was
never mean to me right, never mean to me either.
I enjoyed him as well.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
He liked people who were open about wounds, right. He
didn't like wonders right, and he was but he was difficult.
It was difficult.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
You know.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
I had this one thing with him, which was the
one big laugh we had towards the end, which was
he liked Nova, locks and cream, cheese, everything bagel, right,
and so I would always stop and get him Ova, locks, cream, cheese,
babel at this sort of Jewish towel del testin down
the block. It must have been a Jewish holiday.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
This door was closed, and so I went to local
deli and you know, had a lovely man make me
locks and cream.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
She's singing, I'm damn right.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
He took one bite of it and he said, it's
not Nova. I only want Nova, and he gave me back.
Now it wasn't Nova. He didn't want he wanted the
finest Nova anyway. Yeah, I miss him.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Yeah, Sheila, I love you so much. I think you're
the greatest And okay, I love you. There's nobody i'd
rather hang with.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
You're good hearted star.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
So are you honey?
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Let us start.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Okay, we'll be back with questions from the listeners. Don't
go away, Okay, how fabulous is Sheila? Evans right, she's
(36:58):
too much. I love you so much, Sheila. Here we
go questions from you the listener. Hi, Rosie O'Donnell. I
just like saying your first and last name together. It's
Kim calling from beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
I just want to say how delightful it is to
hear you on the radio again every week. I grew up,
you know, watching your TV show of course, watching you
on the View, watching your movies and listening to your
days on Rosie Radio with Jeannette and the rest of
the great crew that you had there. So I'm just
(37:40):
loving having you on the radio again and listening to
you every week on your podcast. It's been delightful. The
one with bridget Effort was amazing. I know one thing
you mentioned last time, and this kind of leads into
my question is postmen apausal women and you are as
you are one and as someone who is fifty two
(38:02):
right now and going through the change, so to speak,
I'm wondering if you have any tips, tricks or did
you take any specific supplements.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Basically, how was your menopausal journey? Anyway?
Speaker 4 (38:16):
Thanks so much for doing this podcast, loving it so much.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
And love you, take good care. Thank you, Kim. That
is so sweet. I love hearing from the listeners because
you know, I could put a little voice and I
make up a face in my head, and I think
about your lives and what you're doing, and it's very
enjoyable for me. Truthfully, Kim, menopause is horrible. There's no
(38:39):
way around it. When I first went through it, which
was in my early forties, because menopause started for me
at forty, which was shocking, I wanted to punch every
woman I saw on the supermarket right in the face,
because if they were older than me, I wanted to say,
why didn't you write a book about this? Why didn't
you tell someone? It was really, really exhausting for me.
(39:02):
I was sweating through my clothes. I couldn't go to
the mall because by the time I was halfway through,
I looked like I was in the shower. My head
would get wet, so it looked like I had wet
hair all the well, I did have wet hair, but
it looked like that greasy, slicked back. I was so
hot that in the middle of the winter in Nyack,
(39:22):
New York, I opened the door to the outside where
there was snow on the ground, and I stood out
there naked for thirty minutes or two in the morning
because I couldn't bear just how hot I was. Now,
I did go on hormone replacement therapy, the stuff that
you cream that you put on your arms, but I
(39:42):
then had a heart attack, and the doctor from my
heart attack said, you are not doing them anymore. So
I'm not going to try to cause a controversy about
who believes what or what I know. For me, I'm
not doing them. Everybody has to make their own decision,
and you know, being that I had a massive heart attack,
it was something that the doctor was very much against.
(40:03):
So do your own research again and find out. But
I wish you luck. I would say, bring the heavy
duty fan everywhere you go. I would say, know that
it's really hard, and ask your doctor about natural supplements
that you can take that might lessen some of the symptoms.
(40:24):
But for me, honey, it was pure hell, Kim, I
wish you the best. It's not for whimps, I could
tell you that, So good luck to you and all
the other women out there. All right, do we have
another one coming from another listener? Let's see hi Rosie.
Speaker 5 (40:39):
This is Mike from Perry Hall, Maryland. I've been a
longtime fan and really enjoyed your talk show when you
had it back in the nineties. My question for you
is about the movie you made, Riding the Books with
my sister. Can you talk about the prep that it
took in order to get yourself ready for such a
role on it? Very interesting how you were able to
(41:02):
embody such a character. I was a teacher for a
long time and I was in charge of working with
students who had developmental disabilities, and I must say, you
did such a fantastic job embodying somebody with such gifts.
So if you could share some of your experience from that,
that would be greatly appreciated. Much gratitude to you, my friend.
(41:25):
Take good care.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
Thank you, Mike, you said like a great guy, somebody
I'd like to hang out with. Good for you for
the work that you've done with your life. And I
have special place in my heart for all the people
who have spent their life helping people with different challenges.
You know, now that I have a child with autism,
(41:48):
I am so obsessed and surrounded by all the concepts
of inclusion and acceptance and tall rance and the movie
Riding the Bus with my sister is one of my
favorite things I've ever done. Angelica Houston directed it. It
was based on a book, it was made into a movie,
(42:12):
and I was lucky to have a friend named Karen
who had a friend who had nearly the same kind
of obsessive compensation in the bus and subway systems of
New York.
Speaker 6 (42:27):
Now.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
I befriended her and we had dinner a bunch of times,
we were at someone's house and just hanging out and talking.
And what I was doing was really an exact copy
of that woman. And I'm so grateful to her for
allowing me to be so close to kind of absorb
(42:51):
a lot of her essence before I ever got to
do the film. You know, and you wonder and worry
when you do a film like that, how do you
best serve the subject matter? How do you make this
character as real as real can be, as real as
any other character. You have to sink into it and
(43:11):
find a place where it lives inside your body. And
it was a very big challenge, and I was so
grateful that I got the opportunity, and what an amazing
vehicle that movie was, and I think what it says
about about family and about need and fitting in and
(43:35):
feeling that you have a safe place to land is
important for every human being. And that's what I tried
to convey, was to give her Beth Simon, such a
full and colorful interior life and world. And thank you
for the praise for that. I really do appreciate that, Mike,
(43:57):
and again, thank you for all the work that you've
done with your life. Okay, I think we got time
for one more.
Speaker 7 (44:05):
Hey, Rosie, my name is Rory James, and like a
lot of people who call in, I grew up watching
your show and I loved it so much. It meant
so much to me and it still does. You know,
long before I had any idea that I was a
big homeo gay, you and your show just made me
feel understood. It just felt like my people, you know.
Speaker 6 (44:27):
Just the laughs and the silliness and the obsessions and
the fun just the best. These days, I'm a stand
up comic here in LA and I wanted to know
what stand up comedy advice you would give comics like
me who are out there grinding it out and trying
to work our way up in this current era.
Speaker 7 (44:46):
I know you don't do stand up as often these days,
but if you ever need an opening act, I could
do it ty five, I could do it tight, ten,
I could do it tight twenty. Whatever you need, O'Donnell.
I got you. I love you so much, and I
hope you feel the love from all of us who
you've impacted over the years. You're the best, Rosie.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
I really do feel the love I got to tell you,
and it really is very heartwarming every time that I
do an interview and I record someone and then we
take the questions at the end, it's always kind of
my favorite part to get to hear what the listener
thinks and what they're wondering about. And the kindness is overwhelming.
I mean, you'd think from all these that we only
(45:25):
picked ones that are complimentary. We got to find some
that are, you know, not as effusive, but we don't
do that on purpose. It's the majority of people who
leave a message, So thank you all for that. I
really do appreciate it. As for stand up, you know,
the only thing I say to everyone is if you
want to surf, you got to get in the water,
and if you want to be a stand up comic,
(45:47):
you got to get in that stage every single time
you can. I don't care where it is, I don't
care what it is. You accept the gig and you
go and you do it because every single performance you
learn from. And you know, Malcolm Gladwell said you need
ten thousand hours before you become an expert at anything,
and you need ten thousand hours on a stage in
some way. You know, you need to be as familiar
(46:08):
with that stage as you are with your own home,
as you are with your kitchen, that you can walk
around that it's yours, that from the time you step
on that stage, you command the room from that. You
know your control based that little, tiny, ten foot sometimes
smaller stage. And I'm thinking about doing some stand up
(46:30):
around La, and I would love to see you do
some stand up around La. Keep doing it, honey, keep
doing it. The more you serf, the better you get.
So get in the water, mister. Thank you everybody. Wonderful,
wonderful to hear from all of you, and please send
us your voice memo so we can play them here
(46:50):
on our podcast. And next week, my friend Marcy Marie,
who's spent ten years in prison in the Texas prison
system and is now an advocate working to help people
understand just how badly the situation is, especially in the
Texas prison system. She's a wonderful, wonderful woman. I've become
(47:13):
friends with her and her fiance, and I can't wait
to introduce her to all of you. Next week, that's
Marcy Marie and we'll be talking about the women's incarceration
and set up that they have there in Texas. Peace out, everybody,
have a great week. We'll see you next week.
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