July 11, 2022 • 65 mins
F-f-feeny is here!!!!
The incredible awe-inspiring Emmy Award winning William Daniels!
Danielle, Will and Rider all had one role model in common… William Daniels.
The tears are flowing and there are plenty of laughs as they honor their teacher from Boy Meets World and IRL.
The bond the show created for them is unbreakable for life.
Plus, his wife of over 70 years, the magical Bonnie Bartlett (aka Dean Lila Bolander ) joins in as well.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Writer, where you're you're in Kentucky. I'm in Kentucky and
you're in a very beautiful house and colleges. Yeah, it's gorgeous.
I have friends who moved during the pandemic, you know,
like how everybody's sort of made big life decisions. Yeah,
so some of my some of our closest friends who
like where our neighbors we used to do a nanny
(00:38):
share with our our sons are like best friends. Unfortunately,
they moved all the way to Kentucky UM in the
middle of the pandemic. So every summer now we've made
it a point to get out here and visit them.
So I was visiting Alex in New York UM, and
then on our way back, we decided we'd stop off
in Kentucky for a few days. And gosh, it's so
gorgeous here. It's so green. L A is not a
(00:59):
green news just back in Connecticut, same thing where you're
just like, it's crazy, I just forget, like you know
how much I need that, you know, I mean, I
grew up around trees in northern California, and like, I
you know, I obviously I love l A for so
many reasons, mostly cultural, but like the landscape just doesn't
have trees, and I just don't even think about it
(01:20):
until I get someplace like here, and you know, my
son Indias just like running through the grass and there's
trees everywhere, and I'm just like obsessed with it. I'm
kind of like looking around, going, oh, this feeds my
soul in something like very real way, especially also coming
from New York City, which, of course are you giving
Are you giving India very good tick check every night?
When when he comes in, that's a good call, that's
(01:41):
a great call. Yeah, that's that's the East Coast thing.
It's like, all right, check the socks, check everything, let's
make sure we're good to go here. Another thing we
do not have to think about here, and you know exactly,
you just don't have to think about it at all. Well,
I am really super excited about this episode. First of all,
we had a wonderful talk and and reunion with Rusty
last week. How great is here? I mean, he's incredible
(02:03):
And I thought it was really interesting that last week
in the episode we watched with Rusty, he made the
point that Phoene can give different advice than Alan can
because Phoenie doesn't have kids, and then the next episode
was basically all about and I thought to Rusty, watch
(02:24):
more than one watched this episode. No, I'm sure he
just remembers that. That was like the central tension. You know,
these first couple of episodes, you can tell they're so
rusty heavy first of all, which is interesting, but then yeah,
you can just tell that that, you know, one of
the central pitches of the show was what would it
be like if your teacher lived next door? Yes, which
(02:45):
you know, obviously, because Phoenie became such a legendary character
became such a huge part of our characters lives, we
all kind of forgot that that central pitch. For an
eleven year old boy like Corey, that's huge. And playing
out that tension for its comedy value and it's educational
value is super interested in and that's clearly what they
were doing in the first couple of episodes. I mean,
it really was Rusty, Bill and Ben for the first
(03:08):
you know, a few episodes. It really, I mean huge
and one of the things we should mention. We've but
we talked about the original pilot where Rusty wasn't in
and I wasn't need either. We we went back and
kind of looked. So. While it was called the Untitled
Ben Savage Project, it was also called eleven. Yeah, was
the name of the show originally. I never remember that.
I don't think I ever saw the original pilot. I
(03:30):
was just there when we filmed. I got a copy
for it was a horrible title, how do you maintain
exactly next year? Exactly? So that's what it was. It
was eleven a k that bet the Untitled Ben Savage Project.
So I had forgotten that entirely, which was weird to see. Well,
I don't want to make our guests today wait very long.
We've been waiting long enough. Welcome to pod Meats World.
I'm Daniel Fishel, I'm Wilfredell, and I'm right or Strong
(03:53):
and today we are so incredibly overjoyed to welcome to
the podcast Bonnie Bartlett and Mr Bill Daniels. Is everybody
on their best behavior because Mr Feenie's here? Oh, in
(04:20):
matching colors too? Yeah? Isn't that interesting? That just happened? Really? First,
then he came up and he said, I gotta wear this. Yeah,
you guys look fantastic. Is that is this? What is this?
What happens when you've been married for seventy years? Yes,
and you know what, June thirty, it'll be seventy one years.
(04:43):
Oh my gosh, congratulations. Also, if if I'm I'm not mistaken,
Bonnie was very recently. You just had a birthday yesterday,
yesterday nine birthday? How happy birthday? And I'm nine now
I'm ninety three. Unbelievable. Can I ask you, guys, what
(05:06):
do you think the key to seventy one years of marriages? Billy?
You know the answer to that well, respect, an honest communication. Yeah,
I mean that sounds sounds like a really good foundation
for almost every relationship. You're right, Yes, it doesn't matter
(05:29):
who the person is. If you have those two things,
you could probably make it work well. And you have
to be flexible, I mean you really do. You have
to be willing to change. Yeah, something's not good. You
have to be willing to make the changes both of you.
If one person changes and the other person doesn't, it
doesn't work. But if both people make changes to uh
(05:53):
make it better, well, let me ask you. Let me
ask you about this then, because I'm super fascinated. Do
you mean, but you guys are both actors? Incredibly successful actors?
How did that? I mean, would you have had it
any other way? Uh? You know, in other words, you
mustn't have known actors who married people outside of the industry.
Are you know people who were industry couples like you two?
(06:16):
I mean, how did that? How was that? How did
that happen? Did you work together first and then fall
in love? Or did you just happen to meet? And
I want to hear more about that. We we met
in a classroom at Northwestern. Oh. I didn't know her. Uh.
We were auditioning for a play. And there were people
(06:41):
sitting around, and you know, I've been on Broadway, so
I was a cocky kid, right these kids, And I thought,
oh my god, I'm not sure I want to be
in this bomb. And then I heard somebody in the
back of the room who was an actress, you could
(07:02):
tell you. I looked around and there she was. So
I waited at the door for her, and I said,
how about a cup of coffee? And she said you're
too short, And I said, come on, have a cup
of coffee. She said, okay, coffee. And she's been following
(07:27):
me around the campus. But known to me it was
a good actress. I was a big I was a
big fan or whatever. You got all our fans, you know,
I was one of him. I fought so you were
playing a cool Any celebrity, any celebrity that was in
(07:47):
my site, I would follow, you know. Later on in
New York, I followed Greta Garbo down Fifth Avenue, couple
of Roosevelt. I followed her in New York. So anyway,
I was that kind of person, just a shadow person,
you know. So it never occurred to me that we
would meet. It never occurred to me that we would
(08:08):
become boyfriend girlfriend. Never occurred to me because he was
out of my room, you know what I mean. He
was like, he was like special, and he always had
this little Italian girl with him, so that what who
are we that that was one of the girls in school.
(08:29):
You know. It's cool. When I would see him on
the on the subway or whatever you call out the
hell he was going down to a play, you know,
on Chicago. The whole group. He was always with this
little Italian girl. I'm a big blonde. Oh, I mean,
I've never thought of me with him that way, but
I was impressed. And he had a leather jacket. Also,
(08:52):
I like tradition. That's azing. So anyway, that's and what
I said, you're too short, what I meant was, oh no, no,
I'm I'm too big for you. You know, I'm I'm tall.
Used to these big Swedish boys and the Swedish Swedish, yes,
(09:14):
because Bullin was very Swedish. I know all that. And
so I was dumbfounded that he would be interested in me.
And so after that first cup of coffee, did you
guys just continue Was that just the beginning of a
seventy one year relationship? That's correct, we were we were together,
(09:38):
tied at the hip from then on. Wow. And when
did you guys first actually worked together in that play?
You did that play? Oh my god, we did that play.
It was Buried the Dead, Buried the Dead by I
had a very dramatic party, killable, you know, very dramatic,
(09:59):
and and he was the head of the onion. I think,
oh my gosh, he was ahead of you. Very dark play,
very dark anti war play. Unbelievable. And so did you
guys continue to consciously choose to work together or did
you just kind of happen because people associated with As
a matter of fact, we were both in positions I
(10:22):
on the soap opera. But we never interfered with each
other's We never said, oh I want my husband to
be on this, Oh I want my wife. You never
like demanded a contractor. And elsewhere, it just happened, just happened. Wow.
Elsewhere when it was consciously done was when Michael Jacobs
(10:44):
asked me to come in on that last year. Yes,
well yeah, so for everyone listening, and just in case
you didn't know, obviously, Bill Daniels is Mr Feenie and
Bonnie came on and joined us, joined us for the
last season where she played the Dean and Mr Feeney
and the Dean fell in love and um, it's actually
(11:04):
one of our fans most favorite things when they realize
you guys are married in real life, and they go, wait,
you know, I went to Chicago for a Golden Girl's
convention because I played a villain on an episode of
Golden Girls called Barbara Thorndyke, a real anti semi to
terrible terrible girl terrible, And so I would and I'm finding,
(11:29):
you know, autographs and enjoy things in this little girls
about twelve fourteen maybe, And she came up and she
looked at a picture down here and she looked up
and she said, your Mrs Feenie, Mrs Baby she sight
(11:50):
and I've never had that, it was never called Mrs Treedie.
She connected it, and I thought that was so sweet. Oh, yesterday,
that is so emotional about this show. Yeah, yeah, everybody does. Yeah,
and especially for you, Bill. I imagine people must look
(12:12):
up to you and immediately I feel like you're this
great authority and vast wealth of knowledge that they can
tap into. I don't know, I think, so, yeah, you're
you're you're the teacher for many generations now, I mean
it's it's it's moving from generation to generation of Mr
Feenie was my teacher? Right? And then they asked, they asked.
(12:35):
They say, oh, I want my children to watch, and
then they have their children watched the show. Yes, I
love the show. So Bill, how did Boy Meets World
come to you? Did you have to audition? Was it offered?
Do you what? What was the situation there was? Michael?
I asked for a meeting because I turned it down.
(12:58):
I wanted to know why. I said, Well, that's a
funny name, and I don't really I don't really want
to make fun of teachers. I I respect them, and
they were underpaid and all that, and he said, and
then he told me what my role was based on,
(13:18):
which was a mentor of his when he was in
high school. So a mentor of his. So I realized
that the part would be treated with respect. Right. He
rewrote something too, Yeah, the the he rewrote something, and
the power is that he didn't want it, but he
(13:41):
made them. He made him do it. And that's what
sold you. That first episode we got was a lot
of serious stuff. He gave him a lot of serious stuff.
But Michael was willing to do that and capable of
doing that, and he went against the work see to
do it. Yeah, you know, if I remember correctly, it
(14:03):
was actually after the table read that we we did
have a table read, and and then then Bill was
very upset um and the table read did not go well,
if I remember, and over in general, and Bill was upset,
the network was upset, and Michael was sort of stuck
in between the two impulses and ended up rewriting the
entire script that night, You're right, yeah, yeah, and then
(14:24):
and then Bill was happy, and I remember Bill threatening
to leave, or that's the story I heard at least.
And it's because he didn't feel like Mr Finie was
being like was he was being treated with respect that
it might be Yeah, well that's that's that's very common
(14:44):
in television, is is the teacher is kind of the
buffoon and the kids are the kids are pulling one
over on the teacher every time. And yeah, that that
was just the television trope that you would always see. Um, yeah,
and that's that's didn't want to do. Also after Saint Elsewhere,
uh Uh, everybody wanted, as a matter of fact, both
(15:05):
of us, they wanted us to do comedy. We Bill
turned down one comedy after another because he didn't want
to do it. But that's, you know, that's the natural
thing to do after a serious thing, then you do
a comedy. He didn't want to do a comedy, and
I gosh, I went through a lot of times when
I would like to have done it, but he said no.
(15:26):
And so, uh then when this came up, he really
didn't think it would would work and he didn't really
think that he wanted to do it. Seven years later
and he had a great time and he loved it.
And I think that's due to Michael Jacobs. First of
(15:47):
all and then all of you guys, he really did
you know, respect you well. And it also brought him
to a whole new fandom because I mean, you've got
university seeing elsewhere is one kind of group of fans,
and sev seventy six is one kind of group of fans.
But now to be on a show where the fans
grow up watching you, it's a completely different vibe when
(16:08):
you when you've got somebody raised watching you on television,
it's now so Bill when you when you look back
on the shows that you do, is there one group
of fans that that you tend to get recognized for
something more than than something else? Definitely, not saying else
or interesting, Um I think Mr Fannie, Yeah, definitely. It's
(16:30):
the It's the thing that what do you call it,
popular culture or something became the most iconic right because
sane elsewe would probably be the most critically acclaimed of
all the show followed by night Rider. I was night Rider,
remember in Mayor on the street and a bus came by.
(16:50):
I'm walking along and a bunch of kids got off
the bus and they saw me and they said Mr Feeney,
and they come running and I ran around the blow
Peter from He said to me, sorry, I'll see you later,
and they absolutely terrified him and they me in New
(17:13):
York particularly, Uh when when Bill wrote a book and
we went to a signing, they were voracious, chased us around,
jumped on the car, did all kinds of things. Wow. Yeah,
they were fanatics. I'm calling it hashtags. I don't imagine
fans of the Zoo Story on Broadway we're jumping on. Bill.
(17:39):
What are your memories, What are your memories of meeting
all of us for the first time, and what was
that like to work with basically twelve year olds. Well,
you will alway young and having fun and I was
much more serious. Is so I would hang out in
(18:04):
my dressing room away from you all as you fooled
around qua the camera, and then they said Mr Daniels
were ready for you, and then I go out. You
guys were having a ball, and I taken it very seriously. Frankly,
(18:25):
I wish I were one of you. Yes, he would
like to and one of you guys nevered fun. Did
you enjoy the live studio audience? Oh yes, I much
prefer a live audience. Uh, and that's from my work
on Broadway. Uh. You know when you know, when you
(18:50):
start on something and they're rustling the papers and programs
and so forth, and you stugged, and then when you
can hear a pin drop, you know you were doing okay,
you quite different. I remember, yeah, you. I remember you
(19:12):
would sit in your dressing room and you would play
chess against yourself. And then I asked you one day,
I said, will you will you teach me how to play?
And you went sure, and we did that for for
a couple of weeks. You taught me how to play chess,
and then I think you kind of went, I want
to go back and play against myself again. I'm a
I'm a much better player when I play against myself. Yes,
(19:33):
that is how I recall it. Now, Bill, we've been
we've been doing this Rewatch podcast for This is our
third Rewatch episode, and these first three episodes have been
so incredible and and there's always been at least one,
if not to very Mr Feeney and Corey Matthew's scenes.
(19:56):
This is now the second episode. I'd like to go
on record saying the second episode where I fully welled up,
I thought I was going to start having tears fall
down my face was able to stop them before they
fell down my cheeks. But you and Ben together are
absolute magic in especially in these early episodes. What was
that like working with Ben? Well, it was the same
(20:21):
as working with you. It really was very pleasant. I
I stayed away from being judgmental. I took whatever you
gave me, and I tried to work with it, and
it worked out very well. I didn't want to be
somebody who was older and more knowledgeable and making remarks
(20:48):
criticizing your work was suggesting I did none of that. Yeah,
you did not. I said that too. I said, don't
do you help them? He said, no, they're on my
level there, they're they're the same level. I am, I can't.
I can't help. And we felt that we felt like
we felt so respected in a way. I mean we've
(21:09):
talked about that on on this set. I mean, having
been on other sets as a kid, it wasn't always
like In fact, most of the time it was not that.
So to have that respect from the adults, especially the
ones as as experienced and seasoned as you, was such
an amazing feeling and it made us, I don't know,
it made us all up our game. I think, Well,
you also Bill. You you so you talk about in
(21:31):
your book which is um, there I go again, How
I came to be Mr Feenie, John Adams, Dr Craig
kit and many others, which is a wonderful book that
you wrote. You in the beginning you talk about how
you were a child actor. Did that affect in any way,
shape or form how you dealt with us? Yes, oh yes,
I felt my I haven't mother that put my sister
(21:56):
and I in the business. She was very judgment soul
as an ambitious and she was She was a classic
stage mom in that sense totally. Frankly, I really didn't
have a normal childhood. I was over at NBC with
the horn and heart of Children's Hour for years and
(22:21):
I really kind of resented it, you know, until I realized, uh,
the better aspects of the work, of what it could mean,
uh to do your job as best you could, and
that's there's an audience out there. So she was terrible,
(22:47):
she was, and I think that and I loved her.
She was a great grandma, but she was a terrible mother.
But I think that those early scenes with Ben, I
think that whether he knew it or not, he was
then do you know what I mean Bill was then
this sweet kid, that brand new, you know, as far
(23:10):
as he knew, just starting to act and just using
his instincts, no training or anything, just instinctively acting and
the lovely personality. And I think that's connected Bill to him. Yeah,
then all of you later. But that shows, I mean
it certainly shows. Yeah, it shows. And so Bonnie, what
(23:32):
kind of father? And now what kind of grandfather is Bill?
What has he? We know Bill as as this, you know, um,
we remember him being so incredibly professional on set with us.
I remember him taking his lines very seriously, holding the
script or his cards that he had where he had
his lines written, and not wanting to mess up, being
very hard on himself about being very hard, very hard
(23:55):
on himself. I saw him once to go up one six.
He went up where they gave him a new lyric
and he blew it. He came into the dressing and
went into the bathroom and wouldn't come out. He was
crying in the bathroom. And this was as a grown man,
you know, and everybody else was laughing. Yeah, no one,
It wasn't a big deal to anyone of that. Like
(24:16):
you guys would you'd laugh and somebody he just he
would cry because he was still a little boy, and
his mother saying, can't you get that that's so hard
to get again? Do it again? And then he sit
in the backseat of the card and do it correctly
(24:36):
for her, darting to know what kind of father is he? He?
You know, I was so worried. Well I was Alice
actress anyway, but so I didn't want to have children,
and Bill wanted to have children more than I did.
But I thought, no, this wouldn't work because very frankly,
(24:58):
he was an angry guy, and I thought he would
be tough on kids, you know, I thought you would be.
I was afraid. And then as it turned out, he
was a terrific father. And he both the boys, I
think they were very different, and he adjusted to each
(25:19):
one h two so that they could be who they
wanted to be and who they were. He didn't ever
try to He never tried to make either of our
voice like him or to do anything that special. Just
grow up and they're very different, and they they they've
turned out to be very wonderful men and fathers themselves.
(25:44):
So he was a very good father. Well, that was
one of the things that amazed me. Was what I
like to call the two Bills, and I'm one of
the few people that got to see that. Where you know,
on set, Bill, you were the consummate professional. We just
wanted to earn your approval and have scenes with you.
We were all going to Michael at different times saying
(26:06):
we can we please have a scene with Bill Daniels.
This is all we wanted. And then you both very
nicely invited me to come up to Santa Barbara because you, Bonnie,
we were working with a ballet company and I had
grown up going to the ballet and you said I'd
like you to come up. And I got to to
hang out with Bill off the set a little bit,
and the first thing he did was walk up to
(26:27):
me with a big smile on his face and throw
his arms around me. And I looked around, going like,
what's going on? Who is this guy? But it's because
we weren't on set. It wasn't a professional atmosphere, and
so he was on set. This is about work. This
is what you do. This is your job. You take
it very seriously. And then offset you can go and
be the type of happy, go lucky person you want
(26:48):
to be and That was one of the first times
where I really realized that. That really struck me as, Oh,
you're right, you're yes, we're having fun, and yes we're young,
but this is our job. We've got to take it
very seriously. And we all as young actors have talked
about going to our next job after Boy Meets World
and being on time, knowing our lines, making sure we
(27:09):
had our marks down, being very professional, and looking at
the other kids we were working with, going wow, they
did not have William Daniels on the set with them
when they were learning how to do because we all
took away the professionalism. Um. So that's one of the
things that I think, you know, meant the most to me,
was just kind of oh, that this is how you're
a professional. Um. He's very much more professional than I
(27:33):
am too. I can be. Uh, I don't know. I
love camera, I love to be on camera, I love
all that, but I don't prepare the way he does.
I prepare very differently and I might say a line
differently than it's written or something like that, and he
does not believe in that. And uh, he's not what
(27:57):
can I say, He's never allowed himself to be um
loose like Ed Bagley something like that. You know. He
he doesn't allow that. He doesn't allow and he's really
good at it because he's funny. He has he has
a natural wit. And that's what improvisation needs, is that wit,
and that it is very good in uh say elsewhere
(28:21):
for instance, the wit. It's very important. He's always at that.
He said, a serious play always needs humor, you know,
because you've gotta have it. He will always look for
the funny, the funny bit. And in that play, you
missed the funny part. He says that to me all
the time. Thousand Poles in a thousand comes as a
(28:43):
line of where the guy says, you missed the funny part,
and he uses all those lines today. Very he's very
tough on me. I'm set, but I don't mind it,
do you know what I mean? I just don't know it.
But he's openly tough on me. Yes, And he can
be a tough guy, very tough guy. I remember Bill,
(29:03):
you telling me about opening night of the Zoo Story,
the Great Edward I'll Be play that you started on Broadway,
And I remember you telling me that when the first
line came out, you were you were, I forget the
character's name, but you're the sort of straight man on
the bench, and the guy comes up behind you and says,
I've been to the zoo, and you just looked up,
and just by your look, the audience broken laughs, And
(29:27):
I remember every and then I remember and then you said, Edward,
I'll be freaked out the first night because he was like,
why are they laughing? This isn't funny. This is supposed
to be a very serious play. But you guys kept
finding laughs. And I've always remembered that such a great play.
Hey didn't he didn't know the right you know, even
(29:48):
though he wrote it. And I didn't know it either.
But all I did was look up. But you know,
because that's a funny line. I've been to the zoo,
you know. And we learned to accept it because it
meant that the audience was with you right away. And
(30:09):
I thought I was just this guy sitting on the bench.
He had all the lines right. But they realized after
a while that they saw the play through my eyes
about him, who was a strange fellow, you know. I
realized that wasn't just a sit there part. It was
(30:32):
a very important important part of the play. Yeah, well,
I mean it's in some ways. I mean also what
you did with Mr Feeney, you get so many laughs
without ever having to be very uh animated. You know,
there's not a whole lot of like he didn't know,
You're not comical here, You're you're kind of just a
version of build in both right, just sort of and
(30:54):
yet you are getting so many laughs constantly, you know,
and I feel like the rest of us are hamming
it up for hitting these beats and you never have
to do a thing. You just kind of But that's
exactly why Mr Feeney and Eric worked so well together,
because they were such just opposites when it came to
everything comedically that it did. Were it just worked. It
(31:17):
was that the classic straight man, uh joker clown put together,
and it's that's where you find the comedy. It's it's amazing.
And well, I was one of the greatest compliments I
ever got. We were about season six of Boy Mets
World and Bill, you came up to me and you
put your arm around me, and it said, it looks
like you're my new ed Bagley and you and you
(31:39):
walked away, and it was I remember just thinking, like
that is the coolest thing. And I'm going to go
buy a tesla Um and so yeah, very very neat,
very Bill. You played Mr Braddock in The Grad to
(32:00):
it an absolutely iconic movie and iconic role. What did
you learn from Mike Nichols? Oh, well, Mike was a
performer himself with Elaine Man. He would pick people carefully
(32:20):
and then he would direct them only minimally. He didn't
He let you alone unless he saw something that was wrong.
But uh, he just let you alone. And I don't
remember any actual direction that he gave me. Interesting, let
(32:48):
me do it the way I was going to do it.
It's more about the casting yeast place. And he fired
people when he felt they were wrong, and he always
stood was my mistake. I made the mistake. He fired
a very very famous actor was retired. Now he was
cast and and and he fired him. Oh gosh, he
(33:10):
lives in Santa Fe. Uh, he retired. He was a
great film actor, very big star of He thought that
was the end of this his life. What Gene Ackman
Jen Hackman oterally in The Graduate? No way, he got
(33:31):
fired before they started filming. And uh, he was with Bill.
He said to me, this is the end of my career,
and uh, Bill said oh, and of course he went
on to fame unfortune immediately. But anyway, Mike just said,
I made a mistake. We got the cast together and
the apologized about letting Jane go. He said it was
(33:54):
my mistake. His Yeah, well, this isn't interesting. Something that
I've often wondered about. It seems like because I I
remember you telling us that you had no idea what
the graduate was, that it would become such a big thing,
and I feel like that's often the case as an actor.
You never know, you know, you never was there ever
(34:15):
a time where you were able to look around and say,
oh I am a part of something really special, or
you knew exactly how big something was going to be. Yes,
I think it's a truism that no one knows what's
gonna work and what isn't until they tried it and
(34:38):
the graduate was born with them. You know, we didn't
know this young man, I think Mike him, Yes he did.
Mike Nichols knew. Yeah, he saw him off Broadway and
they wanted Redford the Studio one and Robin, but typical
(35:03):
good hand Mike said, no, I want this guy from
New York and he was in a position to call
all the shots at that point because he had been
very successful and he did. He had already done. He
was afraid of Virginia Woolf. Yeah, so it was an
interesting experience. It was very funny. Mike. Oh god, he
(35:26):
couldn't make anybody laugh at any given time. I remember, Uh,
they were photographing dustin in the in the pool and
he was going over it with the cinematographer because they
had a guy underwater that was going to shoot up
underwater from one point of view. And I came over
(35:49):
to see how it was being done. And he's talking
to his cinematographer and he senses I'm there, and he says,
what to me? What I said, I just wanted to
see how how you were going to shoot this. He
turned to a spot, said why has he attacking me?
(36:14):
He would he would call it if I asked the phone.
He said, Bonnie. And then I said, oh, yes, sir,
He said, did we we we ever married? I remember you?
He said no, no, No, I never met you. He
said yes. He said you were very big in my life.
He said you were Strasburg secretary, and uh, you were
(36:36):
very important. And I paid thirty dollars of them, and I, oh, no,
I don't remember. And finally I said, well, if I
had known you were going to be so famous, I
would have remembered. I was so embarrassed I did not.
How do you forget Mike Nichols? I had? So I
(36:59):
have a question for you, Bill, your your career has
been so prolific. Is there a role that you really
wanted that you didn't get ever that you can remember?
You know what? I can sort of answer that because
he has been quoting Hamlet all of our married lives,
(37:19):
and I think that, although he never expressed it even
to himself, I think he identified with that part very
much and would like to have played that. He was
very good in Shakespeare. He was a Macbeth, very good
Micbel especially in the later part. Uh, that was that
Northwestern But I know, but you were good, and you
(37:42):
were very good at older and you must have done
Lady Macbeth bonny at point right. Yeah, I was good
on a sleepwalking seem not so good in the first part.
That's harder, the hard party, the letter, Yeah, tough to
come on and do that well, and it was I
would have I would have directed it totally differently than
(38:04):
they do. I would have now, yeah, and you know something,
it's maybe it's because it's Shakespeare, but it never is
out of my head, come back all the time, and
he does lines from from Shakespeare all the time, you know,
just quietly sitting there. But I do think a little
bit a terrific Hamlet it would have been. Bill. Do
(38:27):
you remember the feeling you had or was there a
specific moment when you knew that Boy Meets World was
a hit. When did you know Boy Meets World was
a hit? Gosh, I don't remember. I'm guessing it was
before having to run away from all the people in
New York. It was that it was that New York imperience. Yeah,
(38:53):
ye see. I think I think none of us really
quite realized how much of a hit the show was
until after it was killed. But it wasn't like early huh.
It wasn't really a hit. It was on, but we
were never We never got any of the publicity that
every other show got. We just didn't you or anything. No,
just kept going. We were like Wings for kids. It
(39:13):
was a show everyone's like. Wasn't Wings on for a season?
It's like no, we was on for eight years. It
was one of those who would ever have imagine how
this has come back, How they love you all and
they want to see you all and they wanted you know.
It's it's kind of amazing. Okay, I have another question
than Bill. Do you have a Mr. Feenie type in
your life or an educator that you think back to
(39:37):
that really like made such a huge impact on you.
I was in a play on the roadway. Actually I
was an understudy, but it was a play with four
sons called Life with Fallow and I was the understudy
and as the oldest, got to be eighteen and was drafted.
(40:00):
That all move up and then I found myself at
the bottom of the list. And but Mr Lindsay came
back into the play after have him taken a year
off of it Howard to play Howard Lindsay the play
Graham for seven years. Wow, was a huge hit. So
(40:24):
I know that I was going to be drafted. First
of all, you got to rehearse with him, and that
was the thing when he came back into the play,
that's when you got together. Yes, oh yeah, he oh,
he had a he had a moment with me where
uh and we're in rehearsal because he came back to
(40:46):
the play and he had to rehearse to get into it.
The bill was already in it. Yeah, so uh, he said,
at this point there'll be a huge laugh bill. He said,
so just look in my eyes and it will tell
you when to do your line. I thought, man, that's
(41:11):
pretty strange, but it happened. He could release you with
his eyes to say your line. But you had a
way because it was a huge laugh and you know
those laughs go up and then level him and just
start to come down. That's when you come in with
your line. And that's what he wanted from me. But
(41:33):
he released me at that moment with his eyes, and
she was amazing. Man. And then I said. I went
to him in the dressing room and I said to him, um,
Mr lindsay, you know I'm gonna be drafted, and when
I get back, I wanna should I go? I was
(41:54):
thinking of going to the what was it, the the
Academy Acting in New York, very famous. Uh. And he said,
he said, he was at his dressing table. He said
close the door, and I closed the door and he said,
(42:14):
don't go there that this. Yeah, he said, I'm on
the board. Don't go there. He said, what you do
is you write board of education for colleges that have
good speech school and drama sections, which I did. I
(42:38):
wrote the government and I got an board of education.
I got an answer back and it was Yale uh
U c l A Northwestern. And so I was out
with my sister, the one where Walter Kurwest. Yeah, I'm
(43:00):
Catholic University. So um, I was out with my sisters
who were in a play with Walter Houston. My little
sister was I don't know how old she was seven.
She played. It was called Apple of his Eye. Walter Houston.
I think he was a great man. And so I
(43:27):
I went up there and they gave me a thing
to test test and I had no ucation. That was
what That's what Howard Lindsey said. You do that and
(43:48):
you're going to get an education. He said, you you
need to get an education. And that's why he said,
go to college, don't go to the American Actors thing.
And you all right, so in other words, don't just
worry about your acting, worry about educating yourself. Education exactly.
And he was the best. Parents never graduated from high school.
(44:13):
They never even graduate they never went to high school.
I have a funny story about that. I my sisters
were in Chicago in a play with Walter Houston, and
I was out visiting them, and my mother said, I
think one of those schools up there somewhere is one
(44:34):
of the schools that you wrote that was recommended. And
so I went up with our own appointment, and I
see this beautiful school on the on the the lake. Yeah,
and the campus and everything, you know, and I didn't
(44:58):
have much of an education. We were acting as and
you know we didn't. They were poor, poor Brooklyn, Brooklyn,
poor Brooklyn, right, And so I went up there and uh,
I walked around until I found the person who who
would interview me. And you took the test? They said,
(45:21):
you were in uniform and you've been on Broadway. I
took this test and the room was filled with other
people taking the tests, and I'm looking at it and
I'm thinking, could be yes, could be well? And pretty
(45:42):
soon I heard and I look up. It's the teacher
and he said, are you finished? Well? I wasn't even
halfway through it. Yeah, I guess so on paper. And
I got on a train going back down to Chicago,
and I thought, well, I've blew that, but they accepted me,
(46:05):
and I think they accepted me because I've been on
broad Oh yeah. But you know, when he started out,
when I met Bill, his grades were A, B, C D.
He had the two speech courses were A and B,
and then he had the D where political science or
something which he didn't often take a test or something.
(46:28):
You know. By the time we ended, he got a
full scholarship to do for a master's. He was a
straight A plus plus plus plus because he was a natural,
but he never I didn't know how to do it,
and of course I was a professional student, and so
I just helped him to learn how to be a student,
(46:49):
and he was top, top up top. Now, Bill, I've
heard you tell the story before, because you don't have
a Brooklyn accent at all. You have actually a very
refined America standard accent, which when I was a kid
I completely thought was British. I remember asking you, are
you from London and you just kind of sheepishly went, no,
(47:10):
it sounds like that. But so you actually you actually
trained yourself to get your accent from the play that
you mentioned living with father, right, father, Yes, father, Yeah,
I kind of picked it up naturally really from the
other people in the cast, and the Brooklyn accent went
(47:34):
and it was something like a New England accent, so
very close to British accent. Uh, And I picked that
up without realizing it. Uh, when he was It's hard.
I've never understood it because I know his whole family
(47:56):
and when he was a little boy, he didn't want
to be in Brooklyn. He didn't want to go to
the automat. He was like always, always different. He's totally
different from his family, and I don't know, you're just
born that way. I don't know where it comes from.
(48:19):
But he's totally different from his Everything about him is
different from his family, except his father was also a
very angry man, and that the anger he got from
his dad. What does it mean to you when when
(48:43):
people come up to you and tell you that they
themselves have become a teacher because of you and your
role as Mr Feenie. Oh, well, I thank them and
I wish them well. Uh, it doesn't happen that often. Oh,
it happens all the time in the campy os that
you do. And he's very That makes them very happy,
(49:04):
because that's real on Bill's part. Education and teachers and
he just it changed his life and he just loves
people who become teachers. He does. I mean, Bill, if
you don't hear it every single day, it is only
because people end up feeling too shy to tell you,
because we hear it all the time all the time.
(49:29):
You have made such an impact for so many different
reasons over the course of your career, but especially Mr
Finie has made such an impact on generations of children
because of the people who were so inspired by you
that have now gone on to become teachers themselves, and
they're using you and Mr Finnie as an example of
what kind of teacher to be. All those all those
(49:50):
students under those teachers are benefiting from you without even
knowing it. Well, that's true and in all those parts, Yeah,
that has come through and I think that's just Bill. Yeah,
that's just who he is, uh, and and the how
(50:12):
he registers to people. And I don't know what you
call that. You call it the ultimate definition of lead
by example. Yes, is what it seems to be. Because
again with Bill, he never taught us. It was just
we learned by being around him. So it was that
lead by example. This is look at what I can
(50:32):
emulate if I just try a little harder. Um So,
I think it was that as an actor, something comes
through that is I think special. Yeah, absolutely, of course.
Well they they talk about it or the X factor,
those are those are words you hear all the time
that well, how do you describe it? You can't you
You point at it, and I think that's yeah. I
(50:54):
think Bill's got it in spades. Yeah. Yeah. What are
your Marie's of being on boy Meat's World? Well, it
was so fun and easy. I had never been terribly
comfortable on uh sitcom's. I I'm better as a dramatic actress,
(51:15):
very dramatic and um uh so I had been on
Barney Miller and it was very successful funny shows I
did okay, and then I did that Golden Girls. I
didn't think anything of it until much later, and then
that character became the mean belong with Western you know,
(51:39):
behind the scenes terrible lady, um which I knew how
to do. But uh so, when Michael asked me to
do it, I was kind of flattered. And he never
asked me to do the only thing he ever asked
me to do I couldn't do was put my we
(52:00):
spend half an hour trying to get click fingers. Finally said,
I give up. I can be funny in a different way,
but it's not his way. It's it's totally different. But
I don't have that. I don't have that funny bone. Well,
but what you both do? You both you both have
(52:21):
the set. It's just that you have different senses. If
you mean funny you are an Emmy winner, yes, and
very funny. You're also very funny. It's just it's it's
I remember Bill telling me, well, yes, you're sure you are.
It's just a different it comes out. Bill is very
quick when it comes to that kind of kind of
you know. We we will do conventions together and Bill
(52:42):
might only say two or three things on stage, but
they bring the house down. I mean, the timing is perfect,
the line is perfect. Bill. I remember you telling me
one story about a joke on st elsewhere that you
thought was hysterical, where you were playing the piano and
there was a a vase of flowers on the piano.
(53:05):
Do you remember Do you remember this joke? This was
Bruce Paltrow's and the Riders jokes. They always tried to
fool the sensors. Yeah, to put in something very dirty
and the sensors won't get it. Really is such such
a great joke too. That was their big thing. And
(53:27):
what was it? That's true? Two lips on the peatto,
two lips on the organ, two lips on the organ.
Bill was sitting there playing and he said, there's nothing
better than two lips on the organ. He thought it
was crap, he said, so he would say two lips
on the organ, and they said no, no, no, two
(53:48):
lips on the organ. No, no, Kes. It was a
great joke. I remember you telling me that and just
losing it for days. Tulips on the organ. Oh my gosh. Wow.
Well are there any actors you wish you could work
(54:08):
with again? Bill? I mean no pressure to say, us
sitting here, you know, just wondering, like, of all the
amazing actors you've worked with, are there any actors you'd
love to work with again? They're all dead. We can't anybody. Yeah,
(54:30):
process of elimination. I remember our show with just Affection.
I really had a great time on the show and
with your kids when you were kids, and it turned
out very well. Is it as it turned out? So
I remember it very well. We remember it very well too,
(54:55):
and we are very fortunate as well mentioned that we
get to do can meventions with you and we get
to see you regularly. And I know how much that
means to fans too, that they get to tell you
how much you mean to them. You are very special
in so many people's lives, and um, you know, I
can very easily cry thinking about that last scene that
(55:17):
we did with you at the end of our show,
and for all the years we worked together, Um, there
was something so gosh seeing you and being with you
in that last scene in the classroom really nailed home
for me that this was the end of an era.
(55:37):
And it also was very much the end of my childhood.
I had been on Boy Meat's World from twelve until
I was nineteen years old, and knowing the show was
over and saying goodbye to all of these people and
saying goodbye to all of these experiences that had really shaped,
you know, the majority of my life at this point. Um,
(55:59):
you just you are very special to me and I
will love you and appreciate you forever. And I'm so
lucky that I still get to see you and talk
to you regularly. And I went to your book signing
I waited in line outside and um, when they found
out I was outside, Bell was like, what are you
doing waiting in line? You could have told me you
were coming. I was like, I wanted I wanted the experience.
I wanted to do it like everyone else. So just
(56:20):
thank you for everything. You know. I think your show
was one of the healthiest shows, the healthiest comedies. I
think one of the reasons it. And you know, I
say that we need that and people need that now,
that kind of healthy thing that was part of that show.
It really was. Yeah, Yeah, we love you, Bill. I
(56:45):
don't know what else to say. We love you, Bonnie,
thank you both. Thank you so much for everything. I
cherish our memories and conversations. I'm so grateful all the time.
And here's too many, many more of them, because we
want to have you back, because we're just scraping the
surface of Mr Feenie and Bill and Bond. I feel
like you're afraid to cry. Well, but you're you're out
(57:05):
of out of all of us, you are the closest
to Bill and Bond. I don't cry ever, except that
feed the birds when they sing that in Mary Poppins.
Everything else is not sad. At all. Now we we
we've got to know each other very well over the years,
all of us, and it's, uh, it's it's just amazing
(57:25):
that we've been able to share all these experiences. So
thank you for coming, both of you. Thank you. We
really appreciate it. We love you, guys, We love you.
Thank you. Wo oh man. They're so wonderful and so
(57:53):
stories that man has, the life they have lived is
just amazing. Watching their shorthand communication where Bill we'll start
to get like he's telling a story and then he'll
start to get distracted and think what was that? What
was my point? And he'll just look at her and
she'll go and then and she gives him like and
he's like right, and like watching their shorthand together is
just amazing. It's incredible. You know, it's fine. We we've
(58:13):
talked a lot about that, you know, just recognizing how
old everyone like when we were kids, everyone was just
blanket adults. Like by the time they were on that
we met them, I mean, the wealth of acting experience
and like industry experience, Like I just I just can't
believe I didn't take more advantage of it, you know,
because I think in at the time. I mean, this
(58:34):
is just part of being an adolescent. You think you
know everything, and obviously, like I knew Bill had done
a lot, but um, you know, I I just wish
I had a tape recorder. I can go back in
time and ask him about all those things. Just every
dormce in a while he would just open up his
mouth and tell the story like the Zoo story, Broadway
and or working on the Graduate or any of them
in every single one of them are their legendary. Uh
(58:57):
So it's you know, it's it's one of those things
like you you realize almost too late, always like oh,
we should have been writing this now. Yeah, well again though,
when you're a kid, you know your life is gonna
last forever, and you you know, we were taking every
day for granted that we were while we were on
the set of Boy Throw. And you're not thinking about
your craft when you're thirteen fourteen, I mean not at all,
(59:18):
And you also think you also have this weird thing
like I don't know at least I did where Um
I guess, I guess I just didn't. You just don't
think of your career beyond the one. The moment you're issure,
you know, like the idea that like, well, boy, mean's
world is gonna end and and then you might be
(59:39):
on in like fifty other TV shows like Bill Daniels.
That was just impossible to imagine, you know. But like
at that point they had already they had a full
the whole life of of acting and being in the business,
which I just don't think you can recognize as a teenager.
You just think that, like it's always just gonna be
like this forever, not realizing that, like, first of all,
the chances of you being a to continue working are
(01:00:01):
so slim because you have to, you know, just get
the jobs and then just to have the tenacity and
the willpower to stick it out. It's so hard. It's
so hard, and to be positive about to have a
positive attitude. I mean, you know, there's a reason that
most people stop acting in their twenties, especially when you
were a child actor forced into the industry, which he was,
(01:00:21):
I mean, if you read his book, he was there
and he talked about it in the interview, but he,
I mean forced into the industry. And we've talked about
how easy it is to get that love of entertainment
or love of acting, just beating out of you at
at a young age, and for him to then take
his own career by the reins and go, no, now
I'm in charge. I'm gonna learn the craft and I'm
gonna go from there. It's so rare and just amazing
(01:00:44):
to have that longevity in this industry and and hit
every single version of the industry from Broadway to play
to regular players to Broadway to understudying too. I mean
he's hit every possible sitcom drop, you name it, he's
done it. Yeah, I mean voiceover. I mean he was
a kid, a night Rider he was. We didn't even
(01:01:04):
talk about kids. We didn't even get any writer. I mean, well,
that was a question. That's a question I wanted to
ask you guys, what was your knowledge of Bill Daniels
when you met him or what did you know him
from when you when when you met him on set?
I had three very important things to me. Kid from
night Rider was very important to me. Um obviously, UM
the graduate, just as you know a someone who loved
(01:01:26):
film quote unquote, but you know secretly so you already
need a graduate. So I already absolutely need a graduate.
But I also knew, Um it's not called death becomes
or what's it called. There's a the Ferdel family has.
We were big movie fans, but it was always kind
of shlocky movies, like wait, I know which one you're
gonna say, because this was my answer, which yes, yes,
Oh my gosh, that's how That's what I realized because
(01:01:47):
I was sitting here because I I thought of this
question and I was like, what was the name of
that movie? Because it was the only thing I really
knew Bill from. It's a movie with Tom sell He's
like erotic thriller, Tom Selleck. Paulina Poraskova, who's who's a
supermodel and she plays Tom Selleck's girl, like the girlfriend.
And then there's Bill Daniels who's like his his his
(01:02:08):
literary agent. He's a novelist's exactly. I mean it. It's
definitely of that tradition like in the late eighties, early nineties,
those sort of like tight thrillery. You know, it was
a comedic thriller. You guys, this this is nuts. I
didn't know he was in that movie. But that movie
plays a very integral part in my childhood stories really
(01:02:30):
because yes, because my parents had rented it from like
Blockbuster and it was on the kitchen counter, and my
brother walked by and said, what's her alibi? And it
was just one of those moments where like one of
those family jokes where everything was it's her relieb it's
her relieving. And we've told that story a million times
of Oh remember the time christ thott Alm I was
(01:02:52):
a leading We should we should have brought this up
to Bill, because I mean, I was his career, in
his career, I'm so curious where her alibi falls. It
must be so low on one important career, miles seriously,
But for me, that's exactly what I knew him from me.
And then it wasn't until we're filming our third or
fourth episode and we were doing a note session with
(01:03:12):
Michael Jacobs and Bill leaned forward and said, now, Michael, Michael,
and I went, I know that voice. And I hadn't.
I hadn't really grown up with TV, but I did
know night Writer because of course everybody in school would
talk about night Rider, and so I knew his voice
the second I heard. And I remember going to Universal
Studios as a kid, and you could go talk to
kid and they had somebody doing an impersonation of those
(01:03:36):
are the only two things I knew him from everything
else I had to learn while working with him because
he would never talk about stuff either, like you know,
he would never brag. You would never And that's why
getting Bonnie on the show was so fun because she
would come in and in front of him start telling
Bill Daniel stories. Yeah, and she was kind of like
pulling the curtain back and and you could tell she
loved to do that, and you could tell Bill did not,
(01:03:59):
like it's an angry man exactly. I thought it was
a horrible father. She's so honest and I love it.
One of the first moments I can remember actually connecting
with not connecting with Bill, but going up and saying,
I'm going to talk to him, and jes see, I
quoted him to him from her alibi and you went, oh, yeah,
(01:04:21):
like that was it because I I just it was.
It was like okay, because that was what we did
in our family. My family, we are huge movie quote people.
So I was like, I'm gonna go quote it to
the guy. And it didn't go over that. It's like
ed balloon. That's so funny. Anyway, that was amazing. I'm
so glad, I'm so glad they were here. Oh man,
I could talk to him forever. Alright, So up next
(01:04:42):
we are going to talk. Episode number one, oh three,
Father Knows Less. It is directed by David Trainer. Originally
aired October and Yeah, thank you for being here with us.
You can follow us on Instagram at Pod Meets World Show,
and you can also email us your questions or your
thoughts at Pod meets World Show at gmail dot com,
and merch t shirts are available at Pod Meets World
(01:05:07):
Show dot com. They're pretty great. I want a shirt.
I think we can get you one. Can we get
can we get one? Which? Are you interested in a shirt?
I guess he's I don't wear my hair on my shirt.
I don't wear shirts. That's the riders like I don't
wear shirts. He's too much much shirt much shirts. We
love you all, pod dismissed. Pod Beats World is an
(01:05:32):
I heart podcast producing hosted by Daniel Fishel Wilford, l
and right Or Strong. Executive producers Jensen Carpet and Amy Sugarman.
Executive in charge of production, Daniel Romo, producer and editor,
Tara suit Batch, producer, Lorraine Guerez engineer and boy Meats
World super fan Easton Allen Our theme song is by
Kyle Morton of Typhoon. Follow us on Instagram at Pod
meets World Show, or email us at Pod Meets World
(01:05:54):
Show at gmail dot com.
Writer, where you're you're in Kentucky. I'm in Kentucky and
you're in a very beautiful house and colleges. Yeah, it's gorgeous.
I have friends who moved during the pandemic, you know,
like how everybody's sort of made big life decisions. Yeah,
so some of my some of our closest friends who
like where our neighbors we used to do a nanny
(00:38):
share with our our sons are like best friends. Unfortunately,
they moved all the way to Kentucky UM in the
middle of the pandemic. So every summer now we've made
it a point to get out here and visit them.
So I was visiting Alex in New York UM, and
then on our way back, we decided we'd stop off
in Kentucky for a few days. And gosh, it's so
gorgeous here. It's so green. L A is not a
(00:59):
green news just back in Connecticut, same thing where you're
just like, it's crazy, I just forget, like you know
how much I need that, you know, I mean, I
grew up around trees in northern California, and like, I
you know, I obviously I love l A for so
many reasons, mostly cultural, but like the landscape just doesn't
have trees, and I just don't even think about it
(01:20):
until I get someplace like here, and you know, my
son Indias just like running through the grass and there's
trees everywhere, and I'm just like obsessed with it. I'm
kind of like looking around, going, oh, this feeds my
soul in something like very real way, especially also coming
from New York City, which, of course are you giving
Are you giving India very good tick check every night?
When when he comes in, that's a good call, that's
(01:41):
a great call. Yeah, that's that's the East Coast thing.
It's like, all right, check the socks, check everything, let's
make sure we're good to go here. Another thing we
do not have to think about here, and you know exactly,
you just don't have to think about it at all. Well,
I am really super excited about this episode. First of all,
we had a wonderful talk and and reunion with Rusty
last week. How great is here? I mean, he's incredible
(02:03):
And I thought it was really interesting that last week
in the episode we watched with Rusty, he made the
point that Phoene can give different advice than Alan can
because Phoenie doesn't have kids, and then the next episode
was basically all about and I thought to Rusty, watch
(02:24):
more than one watched this episode. No, I'm sure he
just remembers that. That was like the central tension. You know,
these first couple of episodes, you can tell they're so
rusty heavy first of all, which is interesting, but then yeah,
you can just tell that that, you know, one of
the central pitches of the show was what would it
be like if your teacher lived next door? Yes, which
(02:45):
you know, obviously, because Phoenie became such a legendary character
became such a huge part of our characters lives, we
all kind of forgot that that central pitch. For an
eleven year old boy like Corey, that's huge. And playing
out that tension for its comedy value and it's educational
value is super interested in and that's clearly what they
were doing in the first couple of episodes. I mean,
it really was Rusty, Bill and Ben for the first
(03:08):
you know, a few episodes. It really, I mean huge
and one of the things we should mention. We've but
we talked about the original pilot where Rusty wasn't in
and I wasn't need either. We we went back and
kind of looked. So. While it was called the Untitled
Ben Savage Project, it was also called eleven. Yeah, was
the name of the show originally. I never remember that.
I don't think I ever saw the original pilot. I
(03:30):
was just there when we filmed. I got a copy
for it was a horrible title, how do you maintain
exactly next year? Exactly? So that's what it was. It
was eleven a k that bet the Untitled Ben Savage Project.
So I had forgotten that entirely, which was weird to see. Well,
I don't want to make our guests today wait very long.
We've been waiting long enough. Welcome to pod Meats World.
I'm Daniel Fishel, I'm Wilfredell, and I'm right or Strong
(03:53):
and today we are so incredibly overjoyed to welcome to
the podcast Bonnie Bartlett and Mr Bill Daniels. Is everybody
on their best behavior because Mr Feenie's here? Oh, in
(04:20):
matching colors too? Yeah? Isn't that interesting? That just happened? Really? First,
then he came up and he said, I gotta wear this. Yeah,
you guys look fantastic. Is that is this? What is this?
What happens when you've been married for seventy years? Yes,
and you know what, June thirty, it'll be seventy one years.
(04:43):
Oh my gosh, congratulations. Also, if if I'm I'm not mistaken,
Bonnie was very recently. You just had a birthday yesterday,
yesterday nine birthday? How happy birthday? And I'm nine now
I'm ninety three. Unbelievable. Can I ask you, guys, what
(05:06):
do you think the key to seventy one years of marriages? Billy?
You know the answer to that well, respect, an honest communication. Yeah,
I mean that sounds sounds like a really good foundation
for almost every relationship. You're right, Yes, it doesn't matter
(05:29):
who the person is. If you have those two things,
you could probably make it work well. And you have
to be flexible, I mean you really do. You have
to be willing to change. Yeah, something's not good. You
have to be willing to make the changes both of you.
If one person changes and the other person doesn't, it
doesn't work. But if both people make changes to uh
(05:53):
make it better, well, let me ask you. Let me
ask you about this then, because I'm super fascinated. Do
you mean, but you guys are both actors? Incredibly successful actors?
How did that? I mean, would you have had it
any other way? Uh? You know, in other words, you
mustn't have known actors who married people outside of the industry.
Are you know people who were industry couples like you two?
(06:16):
I mean, how did that? How was that? How did
that happen? Did you work together first and then fall
in love? Or did you just happen to meet? And
I want to hear more about that. We we met
in a classroom at Northwestern. Oh. I didn't know her. Uh.
We were auditioning for a play. And there were people
(06:41):
sitting around, and you know, I've been on Broadway, so
I was a cocky kid, right these kids, And I thought,
oh my god, I'm not sure I want to be
in this bomb. And then I heard somebody in the
back of the room who was an actress, you could
(07:02):
tell you. I looked around and there she was. So
I waited at the door for her, and I said,
how about a cup of coffee? And she said you're
too short, And I said, come on, have a cup
of coffee. She said, okay, coffee. And she's been following
(07:27):
me around the campus. But known to me it was
a good actress. I was a big I was a
big fan or whatever. You got all our fans, you know,
I was one of him. I fought so you were
playing a cool Any celebrity, any celebrity that was in
(07:47):
my site, I would follow, you know. Later on in
New York, I followed Greta Garbo down Fifth Avenue, couple
of Roosevelt. I followed her in New York. So anyway,
I was that kind of person, just a shadow person,
you know. So it never occurred to me that we
would meet. It never occurred to me that we would
(08:08):
become boyfriend girlfriend. Never occurred to me because he was
out of my room, you know what I mean. He
was like, he was like special, and he always had
this little Italian girl with him, so that what who
are we that that was one of the girls in school.
(08:29):
You know. It's cool. When I would see him on
the on the subway or whatever you call out the
hell he was going down to a play, you know,
on Chicago. The whole group. He was always with this
little Italian girl. I'm a big blonde. Oh, I mean,
I've never thought of me with him that way, but
I was impressed. And he had a leather jacket. Also,
(08:52):
I like tradition. That's azing. So anyway, that's and what
I said, you're too short, what I meant was, oh no, no,
I'm I'm too big for you. You know, I'm I'm tall.
Used to these big Swedish boys and the Swedish Swedish, yes,
(09:14):
because Bullin was very Swedish. I know all that. And
so I was dumbfounded that he would be interested in me.
And so after that first cup of coffee, did you
guys just continue Was that just the beginning of a
seventy one year relationship? That's correct, we were we were together,
(09:38):
tied at the hip from then on. Wow. And when
did you guys first actually worked together in that play?
You did that play? Oh my god, we did that play.
It was Buried the Dead, Buried the Dead by I
had a very dramatic party, killable, you know, very dramatic,
(09:59):
and and he was the head of the onion. I think,
oh my gosh, he was ahead of you. Very dark play,
very dark anti war play. Unbelievable. And so did you
guys continue to consciously choose to work together or did
you just kind of happen because people associated with As
a matter of fact, we were both in positions I
(10:22):
on the soap opera. But we never interfered with each
other's We never said, oh I want my husband to
be on this, Oh I want my wife. You never
like demanded a contractor. And elsewhere, it just happened, just happened. Wow.
Elsewhere when it was consciously done was when Michael Jacobs
(10:44):
asked me to come in on that last year. Yes,
well yeah, so for everyone listening, and just in case
you didn't know, obviously, Bill Daniels is Mr Feenie and
Bonnie came on and joined us, joined us for the
last season where she played the Dean and Mr Feeney
and the Dean fell in love and um, it's actually
(11:04):
one of our fans most favorite things when they realize
you guys are married in real life, and they go, wait,
you know, I went to Chicago for a Golden Girl's
convention because I played a villain on an episode of
Golden Girls called Barbara Thorndyke, a real anti semi to
terrible terrible girl terrible, And so I would and I'm finding,
(11:29):
you know, autographs and enjoy things in this little girls
about twelve fourteen maybe, And she came up and she
looked at a picture down here and she looked up
and she said, your Mrs Feenie, Mrs Baby she sight
(11:50):
and I've never had that, it was never called Mrs Treedie.
She connected it, and I thought that was so sweet. Oh, yesterday,
that is so emotional about this show. Yeah, yeah, everybody does. Yeah,
and especially for you, Bill. I imagine people must look
(12:12):
up to you and immediately I feel like you're this
great authority and vast wealth of knowledge that they can
tap into. I don't know, I think, so, yeah, you're
you're you're the teacher for many generations now, I mean
it's it's it's moving from generation to generation of Mr
Feenie was my teacher? Right? And then they asked, they asked.
(12:35):
They say, oh, I want my children to watch, and
then they have their children watched the show. Yes, I
love the show. So Bill, how did Boy Meets World
come to you? Did you have to audition? Was it offered?
Do you what? What was the situation there was? Michael?
I asked for a meeting because I turned it down.
(12:58):
I wanted to know why. I said, Well, that's a
funny name, and I don't really I don't really want
to make fun of teachers. I I respect them, and
they were underpaid and all that, and he said, and
then he told me what my role was based on,
(13:18):
which was a mentor of his when he was in
high school. So a mentor of his. So I realized
that the part would be treated with respect. Right. He
rewrote something too, Yeah, the the he rewrote something, and
the power is that he didn't want it, but he
(13:41):
made them. He made him do it. And that's what
sold you. That first episode we got was a lot
of serious stuff. He gave him a lot of serious stuff.
But Michael was willing to do that and capable of
doing that, and he went against the work see to
do it. Yeah, you know, if I remember correctly, it
(14:03):
was actually after the table read that we we did
have a table read, and and then then Bill was
very upset um and the table read did not go well,
if I remember, and over in general, and Bill was upset,
the network was upset, and Michael was sort of stuck
in between the two impulses and ended up rewriting the
entire script that night, You're right, yeah, yeah, and then
(14:24):
and then Bill was happy, and I remember Bill threatening
to leave, or that's the story I heard at least.
And it's because he didn't feel like Mr Finie was
being like was he was being treated with respect that
it might be Yeah, well that's that's that's very common
(14:44):
in television, is is the teacher is kind of the
buffoon and the kids are the kids are pulling one
over on the teacher every time. And yeah, that that
was just the television trope that you would always see. Um, yeah,
and that's that's didn't want to do. Also after Saint Elsewhere,
uh Uh, everybody wanted, as a matter of fact, both
(15:05):
of us, they wanted us to do comedy. We Bill
turned down one comedy after another because he didn't want
to do it. But that's, you know, that's the natural
thing to do after a serious thing, then you do
a comedy. He didn't want to do a comedy, and
I gosh, I went through a lot of times when
I would like to have done it, but he said no.
(15:26):
And so, uh then when this came up, he really
didn't think it would would work and he didn't really
think that he wanted to do it. Seven years later
and he had a great time and he loved it.
And I think that's due to Michael Jacobs. First of
(15:47):
all and then all of you guys, he really did
you know, respect you well. And it also brought him
to a whole new fandom because I mean, you've got
university seeing elsewhere is one kind of group of fans,
and sev seventy six is one kind of group of fans.
But now to be on a show where the fans
grow up watching you, it's a completely different vibe when
(16:08):
you when you've got somebody raised watching you on television,
it's now so Bill when you when you look back
on the shows that you do, is there one group
of fans that that you tend to get recognized for
something more than than something else? Definitely, not saying else
or interesting, Um I think Mr Fannie, Yeah, definitely. It's
(16:30):
the It's the thing that what do you call it,
popular culture or something became the most iconic right because
sane elsewe would probably be the most critically acclaimed of
all the show followed by night Rider. I was night Rider,
remember in Mayor on the street and a bus came by.
(16:50):
I'm walking along and a bunch of kids got off
the bus and they saw me and they said Mr Feeney,
and they come running and I ran around the blow
Peter from He said to me, sorry, I'll see you later,
and they absolutely terrified him and they me in New
(17:13):
York particularly, Uh when when Bill wrote a book and
we went to a signing, they were voracious, chased us around,
jumped on the car, did all kinds of things. Wow. Yeah,
they were fanatics. I'm calling it hashtags. I don't imagine
fans of the Zoo Story on Broadway we're jumping on. Bill.
(17:39):
What are your memories, What are your memories of meeting
all of us for the first time, and what was
that like to work with basically twelve year olds. Well,
you will alway young and having fun and I was
much more serious. Is so I would hang out in
(18:04):
my dressing room away from you all as you fooled
around qua the camera, and then they said Mr Daniels
were ready for you, and then I go out. You
guys were having a ball, and I taken it very seriously. Frankly,
(18:25):
I wish I were one of you. Yes, he would
like to and one of you guys nevered fun. Did
you enjoy the live studio audience? Oh yes, I much
prefer a live audience. Uh, and that's from my work
on Broadway. Uh. You know when you know, when you
(18:50):
start on something and they're rustling the papers and programs
and so forth, and you stugged, and then when you
can hear a pin drop, you know you were doing okay,
you quite different. I remember, yeah, you. I remember you
(19:12):
would sit in your dressing room and you would play
chess against yourself. And then I asked you one day,
I said, will you will you teach me how to play?
And you went sure, and we did that for for
a couple of weeks. You taught me how to play chess,
and then I think you kind of went, I want
to go back and play against myself again. I'm a
I'm a much better player when I play against myself. Yes,
(19:33):
that is how I recall it. Now, Bill, we've been
we've been doing this Rewatch podcast for This is our
third Rewatch episode, and these first three episodes have been
so incredible and and there's always been at least one,
if not to very Mr Feeney and Corey Matthew's scenes.
(19:56):
This is now the second episode. I'd like to go
on record saying the second episode where I fully welled up,
I thought I was going to start having tears fall
down my face was able to stop them before they
fell down my cheeks. But you and Ben together are
absolute magic in especially in these early episodes. What was
that like working with Ben? Well, it was the same
(20:21):
as working with you. It really was very pleasant. I
I stayed away from being judgmental. I took whatever you
gave me, and I tried to work with it, and
it worked out very well. I didn't want to be
somebody who was older and more knowledgeable and making remarks
(20:48):
criticizing your work was suggesting I did none of that. Yeah,
you did not. I said that too. I said, don't
do you help them? He said, no, they're on my
level there, they're they're the same level. I am, I can't.
I can't help. And we felt that we felt like
we felt so respected in a way. I mean we've
(21:09):
talked about that on on this set. I mean, having
been on other sets as a kid, it wasn't always
like In fact, most of the time it was not that.
So to have that respect from the adults, especially the
ones as as experienced and seasoned as you, was such
an amazing feeling and it made us, I don't know,
it made us all up our game. I think, Well,
you also Bill. You you so you talk about in
(21:31):
your book which is um, there I go again, How
I came to be Mr Feenie, John Adams, Dr Craig
kit and many others, which is a wonderful book that
you wrote. You in the beginning you talk about how
you were a child actor. Did that affect in any way,
shape or form how you dealt with us? Yes, oh yes,
I felt my I haven't mother that put my sister
(21:56):
and I in the business. She was very judgment soul
as an ambitious and she was She was a classic
stage mom in that sense totally. Frankly, I really didn't
have a normal childhood. I was over at NBC with
the horn and heart of Children's Hour for years and
(22:21):
I really kind of resented it, you know, until I realized, uh,
the better aspects of the work, of what it could mean,
uh to do your job as best you could, and
that's there's an audience out there. So she was terrible,
(22:47):
she was, and I think that and I loved her.
She was a great grandma, but she was a terrible mother.
But I think that those early scenes with Ben, I
think that whether he knew it or not, he was
then do you know what I mean Bill was then
this sweet kid, that brand new, you know, as far
(23:10):
as he knew, just starting to act and just using
his instincts, no training or anything, just instinctively acting and
the lovely personality. And I think that's connected Bill to him. Yeah,
then all of you later. But that shows, I mean
it certainly shows. Yeah, it shows. And so Bonnie, what
(23:32):
kind of father? And now what kind of grandfather is Bill?
What has he? We know Bill as as this, you know, um,
we remember him being so incredibly professional on set with us.
I remember him taking his lines very seriously, holding the
script or his cards that he had where he had
his lines written, and not wanting to mess up, being
very hard on himself about being very hard, very hard
(23:55):
on himself. I saw him once to go up one six.
He went up where they gave him a new lyric
and he blew it. He came into the dressing and
went into the bathroom and wouldn't come out. He was
crying in the bathroom. And this was as a grown man,
you know, and everybody else was laughing. Yeah, no one,
It wasn't a big deal to anyone of that. Like
(24:16):
you guys would you'd laugh and somebody he just he
would cry because he was still a little boy, and
his mother saying, can't you get that that's so hard
to get again? Do it again? And then he sit
in the backseat of the card and do it correctly
(24:36):
for her, darting to know what kind of father is he? He?
You know, I was so worried. Well I was Alice
actress anyway, but so I didn't want to have children,
and Bill wanted to have children more than I did.
But I thought, no, this wouldn't work because very frankly,
(24:58):
he was an angry guy, and I thought he would
be tough on kids, you know, I thought you would be.
I was afraid. And then as it turned out, he
was a terrific father. And he both the boys, I
think they were very different, and he adjusted to each
(25:19):
one h two so that they could be who they
wanted to be and who they were. He didn't ever
try to He never tried to make either of our
voice like him or to do anything that special. Just
grow up and they're very different, and they they they've
turned out to be very wonderful men and fathers themselves.
(25:44):
So he was a very good father. Well, that was
one of the things that amazed me. Was what I
like to call the two Bills, and I'm one of
the few people that got to see that. Where you know,
on set, Bill, you were the consummate professional. We just
wanted to earn your approval and have scenes with you.
We were all going to Michael at different times saying
(26:06):
we can we please have a scene with Bill Daniels.
This is all we wanted. And then you both very
nicely invited me to come up to Santa Barbara because you, Bonnie,
we were working with a ballet company and I had
grown up going to the ballet and you said I'd
like you to come up. And I got to to
hang out with Bill off the set a little bit,
and the first thing he did was walk up to
(26:27):
me with a big smile on his face and throw
his arms around me. And I looked around, going like,
what's going on? Who is this guy? But it's because
we weren't on set. It wasn't a professional atmosphere, and
so he was on set. This is about work. This
is what you do. This is your job. You take
it very seriously. And then offset you can go and
be the type of happy, go lucky person you want
(26:48):
to be and That was one of the first times
where I really realized that. That really struck me as, Oh,
you're right, you're yes, we're having fun, and yes we're young,
but this is our job. We've got to take it
very seriously. And we all as young actors have talked
about going to our next job after Boy Meets World
and being on time, knowing our lines, making sure we
(27:09):
had our marks down, being very professional, and looking at
the other kids we were working with, going wow, they
did not have William Daniels on the set with them
when they were learning how to do because we all
took away the professionalism. Um. So that's one of the
things that I think, you know, meant the most to me,
was just kind of oh, that this is how you're
a professional. Um. He's very much more professional than I
(27:33):
am too. I can be. Uh, I don't know. I
love camera, I love to be on camera, I love
all that, but I don't prepare the way he does.
I prepare very differently and I might say a line
differently than it's written or something like that, and he
does not believe in that. And uh, he's not what
(27:57):
can I say, He's never allowed himself to be um
loose like Ed Bagley something like that. You know. He
he doesn't allow that. He doesn't allow and he's really
good at it because he's funny. He has he has
a natural wit. And that's what improvisation needs, is that wit,
and that it is very good in uh say elsewhere
(28:21):
for instance, the wit. It's very important. He's always at that.
He said, a serious play always needs humor, you know,
because you've gotta have it. He will always look for
the funny, the funny bit. And in that play, you
missed the funny part. He says that to me all
the time. Thousand Poles in a thousand comes as a
(28:43):
line of where the guy says, you missed the funny part,
and he uses all those lines today. Very he's very
tough on me. I'm set, but I don't mind it,
do you know what I mean? I just don't know it.
But he's openly tough on me. Yes, And he can
be a tough guy, very tough guy. I remember Bill,
(29:03):
you telling me about opening night of the Zoo Story,
the Great Edward I'll Be play that you started on Broadway,
And I remember you telling me that when the first
line came out, you were you were, I forget the
character's name, but you're the sort of straight man on
the bench, and the guy comes up behind you and says,
I've been to the zoo, and you just looked up,
and just by your look, the audience broken laughs, And
(29:27):
I remember every and then I remember and then you said, Edward,
I'll be freaked out the first night because he was like,
why are they laughing? This isn't funny. This is supposed
to be a very serious play. But you guys kept
finding laughs. And I've always remembered that such a great play.
Hey didn't he didn't know the right you know, even
(29:48):
though he wrote it. And I didn't know it either.
But all I did was look up. But you know,
because that's a funny line. I've been to the zoo,
you know. And we learned to accept it because it
meant that the audience was with you right away. And
(30:09):
I thought I was just this guy sitting on the bench.
He had all the lines right. But they realized after
a while that they saw the play through my eyes
about him, who was a strange fellow, you know. I
realized that wasn't just a sit there part. It was
(30:32):
a very important important part of the play. Yeah, well,
I mean it's in some ways. I mean also what
you did with Mr Feeney, you get so many laughs
without ever having to be very uh animated. You know,
there's not a whole lot of like he didn't know,
You're not comical here, You're you're kind of just a
version of build in both right, just sort of and
(30:54):
yet you are getting so many laughs constantly, you know,
and I feel like the rest of us are hamming
it up for hitting these beats and you never have
to do a thing. You just kind of But that's
exactly why Mr Feeney and Eric worked so well together,
because they were such just opposites when it came to
everything comedically that it did. Were it just worked. It
(31:17):
was that the classic straight man, uh joker clown put together,
and it's that's where you find the comedy. It's it's amazing.
And well, I was one of the greatest compliments I
ever got. We were about season six of Boy Mets
World and Bill, you came up to me and you
put your arm around me, and it said, it looks
like you're my new ed Bagley and you and you
(31:39):
walked away, and it was I remember just thinking, like
that is the coolest thing. And I'm going to go
buy a tesla Um and so yeah, very very neat,
very Bill. You played Mr Braddock in The Grad to
(32:00):
it an absolutely iconic movie and iconic role. What did
you learn from Mike Nichols? Oh, well, Mike was a
performer himself with Elaine Man. He would pick people carefully
(32:20):
and then he would direct them only minimally. He didn't
He let you alone unless he saw something that was wrong.
But uh, he just let you alone. And I don't
remember any actual direction that he gave me. Interesting, let
(32:48):
me do it the way I was going to do it.
It's more about the casting yeast place. And he fired
people when he felt they were wrong, and he always
stood was my mistake. I made the mistake. He fired
a very very famous actor was retired. Now he was
cast and and and he fired him. Oh gosh, he
(33:10):
lives in Santa Fe. Uh, he retired. He was a
great film actor, very big star of He thought that
was the end of this his life. What Gene Ackman
Jen Hackman oterally in The Graduate? No way, he got
(33:31):
fired before they started filming. And uh, he was with Bill.
He said to me, this is the end of my career,
and uh, Bill said oh, and of course he went
on to fame unfortune immediately. But anyway, Mike just said,
I made a mistake. We got the cast together and
the apologized about letting Jane go. He said it was
(33:54):
my mistake. His Yeah, well, this isn't interesting. Something that
I've often wondered about. It seems like because I I
remember you telling us that you had no idea what
the graduate was, that it would become such a big thing,
and I feel like that's often the case as an actor.
You never know, you know, you never was there ever
(34:15):
a time where you were able to look around and say,
oh I am a part of something really special, or
you knew exactly how big something was going to be. Yes,
I think it's a truism that no one knows what's
gonna work and what isn't until they tried it and
(34:38):
the graduate was born with them. You know, we didn't
know this young man, I think Mike him, Yes he did.
Mike Nichols knew. Yeah, he saw him off Broadway and
they wanted Redford the Studio one and Robin, but typical
(35:03):
good hand Mike said, no, I want this guy from
New York and he was in a position to call
all the shots at that point because he had been
very successful and he did. He had already done. He
was afraid of Virginia Woolf. Yeah, so it was an
interesting experience. It was very funny. Mike. Oh god, he
(35:26):
couldn't make anybody laugh at any given time. I remember, Uh,
they were photographing dustin in the in the pool and
he was going over it with the cinematographer because they
had a guy underwater that was going to shoot up
underwater from one point of view. And I came over
(35:49):
to see how it was being done. And he's talking
to his cinematographer and he senses I'm there, and he says,
what to me? What I said, I just wanted to
see how how you were going to shoot this. He
turned to a spot, said why has he attacking me?
(36:14):
He would he would call it if I asked the phone.
He said, Bonnie. And then I said, oh, yes, sir,
He said, did we we we ever married? I remember you?
He said no, no, No, I never met you. He
said yes. He said you were very big in my life.
He said you were Strasburg secretary, and uh, you were
(36:36):
very important. And I paid thirty dollars of them, and I, oh, no,
I don't remember. And finally I said, well, if I
had known you were going to be so famous, I
would have remembered. I was so embarrassed I did not.
How do you forget Mike Nichols? I had? So I
(36:59):
have a question for you, Bill, your your career has
been so prolific. Is there a role that you really
wanted that you didn't get ever that you can remember?
You know what? I can sort of answer that because
he has been quoting Hamlet all of our married lives,
(37:19):
and I think that, although he never expressed it even
to himself, I think he identified with that part very
much and would like to have played that. He was
very good in Shakespeare. He was a Macbeth, very good
Micbel especially in the later part. Uh, that was that
Northwestern But I know, but you were good, and you
(37:42):
were very good at older and you must have done
Lady Macbeth bonny at point right. Yeah, I was good
on a sleepwalking seem not so good in the first part.
That's harder, the hard party, the letter, Yeah, tough to
come on and do that well, and it was I
would have I would have directed it totally differently than
(38:04):
they do. I would have now, yeah, and you know something,
it's maybe it's because it's Shakespeare, but it never is
out of my head, come back all the time, and
he does lines from from Shakespeare all the time, you know,
just quietly sitting there. But I do think a little
bit a terrific Hamlet it would have been. Bill. Do
(38:27):
you remember the feeling you had or was there a
specific moment when you knew that Boy Meets World was
a hit. When did you know Boy Meets World was
a hit? Gosh, I don't remember. I'm guessing it was
before having to run away from all the people in
New York. It was that it was that New York imperience. Yeah,
(38:53):
ye see. I think I think none of us really
quite realized how much of a hit the show was
until after it was killed. But it wasn't like early huh.
It wasn't really a hit. It was on, but we
were never We never got any of the publicity that
every other show got. We just didn't you or anything. No,
just kept going. We were like Wings for kids. It
(39:13):
was a show everyone's like. Wasn't Wings on for a season?
It's like no, we was on for eight years. It
was one of those who would ever have imagine how
this has come back, How they love you all and
they want to see you all and they wanted you know.
It's it's kind of amazing. Okay, I have another question
than Bill. Do you have a Mr. Feenie type in
your life or an educator that you think back to
(39:37):
that really like made such a huge impact on you.
I was in a play on the roadway. Actually I
was an understudy, but it was a play with four
sons called Life with Fallow and I was the understudy
and as the oldest, got to be eighteen and was drafted.
(40:00):
That all move up and then I found myself at
the bottom of the list. And but Mr Lindsay came
back into the play after have him taken a year
off of it Howard to play Howard Lindsay the play
Graham for seven years. Wow, was a huge hit. So
(40:24):
I know that I was going to be drafted. First
of all, you got to rehearse with him, and that
was the thing when he came back into the play,
that's when you got together. Yes, oh yeah, he oh,
he had a he had a moment with me where
uh and we're in rehearsal because he came back to
(40:46):
the play and he had to rehearse to get into it.
The bill was already in it. Yeah, so uh, he said,
at this point there'll be a huge laugh bill. He said,
so just look in my eyes and it will tell
you when to do your line. I thought, man, that's
(41:11):
pretty strange, but it happened. He could release you with
his eyes to say your line. But you had a
way because it was a huge laugh and you know
those laughs go up and then level him and just
start to come down. That's when you come in with
your line. And that's what he wanted from me. But
(41:33):
he released me at that moment with his eyes, and
she was amazing. Man. And then I said. I went
to him in the dressing room and I said to him, um,
Mr lindsay, you know I'm gonna be drafted, and when
I get back, I wanna should I go? I was
(41:54):
thinking of going to the what was it, the the
Academy Acting in New York, very famous. Uh. And he said,
he said, he was at his dressing table. He said
close the door, and I closed the door and he said,
(42:14):
don't go there that this. Yeah, he said, I'm on
the board. Don't go there. He said, what you do
is you write board of education for colleges that have
good speech school and drama sections, which I did. I
(42:38):
wrote the government and I got an board of education.
I got an answer back and it was Yale uh
U c l A Northwestern. And so I was out
with my sister, the one where Walter Kurwest. Yeah, I'm
(43:00):
Catholic University. So um, I was out with my sisters
who were in a play with Walter Houston. My little
sister was I don't know how old she was seven.
She played. It was called Apple of his Eye. Walter Houston.
I think he was a great man. And so I
(43:27):
I went up there and they gave me a thing
to test test and I had no ucation. That was
what That's what Howard Lindsey said. You do that and
(43:48):
you're going to get an education. He said, you you
need to get an education. And that's why he said,
go to college, don't go to the American Actors thing.
And you all right, so in other words, don't just
worry about your acting, worry about educating yourself. Education exactly.
And he was the best. Parents never graduated from high school.
(44:13):
They never even graduate they never went to high school.
I have a funny story about that. I my sisters
were in Chicago in a play with Walter Houston, and
I was out visiting them, and my mother said, I
think one of those schools up there somewhere is one
(44:34):
of the schools that you wrote that was recommended. And
so I went up with our own appointment, and I
see this beautiful school on the on the the lake. Yeah,
and the campus and everything, you know, and I didn't
(44:58):
have much of an education. We were acting as and
you know we didn't. They were poor, poor Brooklyn, Brooklyn,
poor Brooklyn, right, And so I went up there and uh,
I walked around until I found the person who who
would interview me. And you took the test? They said,
(45:21):
you were in uniform and you've been on Broadway. I
took this test and the room was filled with other
people taking the tests, and I'm looking at it and
I'm thinking, could be yes, could be well? And pretty
(45:42):
soon I heard and I look up. It's the teacher
and he said, are you finished? Well? I wasn't even
halfway through it. Yeah, I guess so on paper. And
I got on a train going back down to Chicago,
and I thought, well, I've blew that, but they accepted me,
(46:05):
and I think they accepted me because I've been on
broad Oh yeah. But you know, when he started out,
when I met Bill, his grades were A, B, C D.
He had the two speech courses were A and B,
and then he had the D where political science or
something which he didn't often take a test or something.
(46:28):
You know. By the time we ended, he got a
full scholarship to do for a master's. He was a
straight A plus plus plus plus because he was a natural,
but he never I didn't know how to do it,
and of course I was a professional student, and so
I just helped him to learn how to be a student,
(46:49):
and he was top, top up top. Now, Bill, I've
heard you tell the story before, because you don't have
a Brooklyn accent at all. You have actually a very
refined America standard accent, which when I was a kid
I completely thought was British. I remember asking you, are
you from London and you just kind of sheepishly went, no,
(47:10):
it sounds like that. But so you actually you actually
trained yourself to get your accent from the play that
you mentioned living with father, right, father, Yes, father, Yeah,
I kind of picked it up naturally really from the
other people in the cast, and the Brooklyn accent went
(47:34):
and it was something like a New England accent, so
very close to British accent. Uh, And I picked that
up without realizing it. Uh, when he was It's hard.
I've never understood it because I know his whole family
(47:56):
and when he was a little boy, he didn't want
to be in Brooklyn. He didn't want to go to
the automat. He was like always, always different. He's totally
different from his family, and I don't know, you're just
born that way. I don't know where it comes from.
(48:19):
But he's totally different from his Everything about him is
different from his family, except his father was also a
very angry man, and that the anger he got from
his dad. What does it mean to you when when
(48:43):
people come up to you and tell you that they
themselves have become a teacher because of you and your
role as Mr Feenie. Oh, well, I thank them and
I wish them well. Uh, it doesn't happen that often. Oh,
it happens all the time in the campy os that
you do. And he's very That makes them very happy,
(49:04):
because that's real on Bill's part. Education and teachers and
he just it changed his life and he just loves
people who become teachers. He does. I mean, Bill, if
you don't hear it every single day, it is only
because people end up feeling too shy to tell you,
because we hear it all the time all the time.
(49:29):
You have made such an impact for so many different
reasons over the course of your career, but especially Mr
Finie has made such an impact on generations of children
because of the people who were so inspired by you
that have now gone on to become teachers themselves, and
they're using you and Mr Finnie as an example of
what kind of teacher to be. All those all those
(49:50):
students under those teachers are benefiting from you without even
knowing it. Well, that's true and in all those parts, Yeah,
that has come through and I think that's just Bill. Yeah,
that's just who he is, uh, and and the how
(50:12):
he registers to people. And I don't know what you
call that. You call it the ultimate definition of lead
by example. Yes, is what it seems to be. Because
again with Bill, he never taught us. It was just
we learned by being around him. So it was that
lead by example. This is look at what I can
(50:32):
emulate if I just try a little harder. Um So,
I think it was that as an actor, something comes
through that is I think special. Yeah, absolutely, of course.
Well they they talk about it or the X factor,
those are those are words you hear all the time
that well, how do you describe it? You can't you
You point at it, and I think that's yeah. I
(50:54):
think Bill's got it in spades. Yeah. Yeah. What are
your Marie's of being on boy Meat's World? Well, it
was so fun and easy. I had never been terribly
comfortable on uh sitcom's. I I'm better as a dramatic actress,
(51:15):
very dramatic and um uh so I had been on
Barney Miller and it was very successful funny shows I
did okay, and then I did that Golden Girls. I
didn't think anything of it until much later, and then
that character became the mean belong with Western you know,
(51:39):
behind the scenes terrible lady, um which I knew how
to do. But uh so, when Michael asked me to
do it, I was kind of flattered. And he never
asked me to do the only thing he ever asked
me to do I couldn't do was put my we
(52:00):
spend half an hour trying to get click fingers. Finally said,
I give up. I can be funny in a different way,
but it's not his way. It's it's totally different. But
I don't have that. I don't have that funny bone. Well,
but what you both do? You both you both have
(52:21):
the set. It's just that you have different senses. If
you mean funny you are an Emmy winner, yes, and
very funny. You're also very funny. It's just it's it's
I remember Bill telling me, well, yes, you're sure you are.
It's just a different it comes out. Bill is very
quick when it comes to that kind of kind of
you know. We we will do conventions together and Bill
(52:42):
might only say two or three things on stage, but
they bring the house down. I mean, the timing is perfect,
the line is perfect. Bill. I remember you telling me
one story about a joke on st elsewhere that you
thought was hysterical, where you were playing the piano and
there was a a vase of flowers on the piano.
(53:05):
Do you remember Do you remember this joke? This was
Bruce Paltrow's and the Riders jokes. They always tried to
fool the sensors. Yeah, to put in something very dirty
and the sensors won't get it. Really is such such
a great joke too. That was their big thing. And
(53:27):
what was it? That's true? Two lips on the peatto,
two lips on the organ, two lips on the organ.
Bill was sitting there playing and he said, there's nothing
better than two lips on the organ. He thought it
was crap, he said, so he would say two lips
on the organ, and they said no, no, no, two
(53:48):
lips on the organ. No, no, Kes. It was a
great joke. I remember you telling me that and just
losing it for days. Tulips on the organ. Oh my gosh. Wow.
Well are there any actors you wish you could work
(54:08):
with again? Bill? I mean no pressure to say, us
sitting here, you know, just wondering, like, of all the
amazing actors you've worked with, are there any actors you'd
love to work with again? They're all dead. We can't anybody. Yeah,
(54:30):
process of elimination. I remember our show with just Affection.
I really had a great time on the show and
with your kids when you were kids, and it turned
out very well. Is it as it turned out? So
I remember it very well. We remember it very well too,
(54:55):
and we are very fortunate as well mentioned that we
get to do can meventions with you and we get
to see you regularly. And I know how much that
means to fans too, that they get to tell you
how much you mean to them. You are very special
in so many people's lives, and um, you know, I
can very easily cry thinking about that last scene that
(55:17):
we did with you at the end of our show,
and for all the years we worked together, Um, there
was something so gosh seeing you and being with you
in that last scene in the classroom really nailed home
for me that this was the end of an era.
(55:37):
And it also was very much the end of my childhood.
I had been on Boy Meat's World from twelve until
I was nineteen years old, and knowing the show was
over and saying goodbye to all of these people and
saying goodbye to all of these experiences that had really shaped,
you know, the majority of my life at this point. Um,
(55:59):
you just you are very special to me and I
will love you and appreciate you forever. And I'm so
lucky that I still get to see you and talk
to you regularly. And I went to your book signing
I waited in line outside and um, when they found
out I was outside, Bell was like, what are you
doing waiting in line? You could have told me you
were coming. I was like, I wanted I wanted the experience.
I wanted to do it like everyone else. So just
(56:20):
thank you for everything. You know. I think your show
was one of the healthiest shows, the healthiest comedies. I
think one of the reasons it. And you know, I
say that we need that and people need that now,
that kind of healthy thing that was part of that show.
It really was. Yeah, Yeah, we love you, Bill. I
(56:45):
don't know what else to say. We love you, Bonnie,
thank you both. Thank you so much for everything. I
cherish our memories and conversations. I'm so grateful all the time.
And here's too many, many more of them, because we
want to have you back, because we're just scraping the
surface of Mr Feenie and Bill and Bond. I feel
like you're afraid to cry. Well, but you're you're out
(57:05):
of out of all of us, you are the closest
to Bill and Bond. I don't cry ever, except that
feed the birds when they sing that in Mary Poppins.
Everything else is not sad. At all. Now we we
we've got to know each other very well over the years,
all of us, and it's, uh, it's it's just amazing
(57:25):
that we've been able to share all these experiences. So
thank you for coming, both of you. Thank you. We
really appreciate it. We love you, guys, We love you.
Thank you. Wo oh man. They're so wonderful and so
(57:53):
stories that man has, the life they have lived is
just amazing. Watching their shorthand communication where Bill we'll start
to get like he's telling a story and then he'll
start to get distracted and think what was that? What
was my point? And he'll just look at her and
she'll go and then and she gives him like and
he's like right, and like watching their shorthand together is
just amazing. It's incredible. You know, it's fine. We we've
(58:13):
talked a lot about that, you know, just recognizing how
old everyone like when we were kids, everyone was just
blanket adults. Like by the time they were on that
we met them, I mean, the wealth of acting experience
and like industry experience, Like I just I just can't
believe I didn't take more advantage of it, you know,
because I think in at the time. I mean, this
(58:34):
is just part of being an adolescent. You think you
know everything, and obviously, like I knew Bill had done
a lot, but um, you know, I I just wish
I had a tape recorder. I can go back in
time and ask him about all those things. Just every
dormce in a while he would just open up his
mouth and tell the story like the Zoo story, Broadway
and or working on the Graduate or any of them
in every single one of them are their legendary. Uh
(58:57):
So it's you know, it's it's one of those things
like you you realize almost too late, always like oh,
we should have been writing this now. Yeah, well again though,
when you're a kid, you know your life is gonna
last forever, and you you know, we were taking every
day for granted that we were while we were on
the set of Boy Throw. And you're not thinking about
your craft when you're thirteen fourteen, I mean not at all,
(59:18):
And you also think you also have this weird thing
like I don't know at least I did where Um
I guess, I guess I just didn't. You just don't
think of your career beyond the one. The moment you're issure,
you know, like the idea that like, well, boy, mean's
world is gonna end and and then you might be
(59:39):
on in like fifty other TV shows like Bill Daniels.
That was just impossible to imagine, you know. But like
at that point they had already they had a full
the whole life of of acting and being in the business,
which I just don't think you can recognize as a teenager.
You just think that, like it's always just gonna be
like this forever, not realizing that, like, first of all,
the chances of you being a to continue working are
(01:00:01):
so slim because you have to, you know, just get
the jobs and then just to have the tenacity and
the willpower to stick it out. It's so hard. It's
so hard, and to be positive about to have a
positive attitude. I mean, you know, there's a reason that
most people stop acting in their twenties, especially when you
were a child actor forced into the industry, which he was,
(01:00:21):
I mean, if you read his book, he was there
and he talked about it in the interview, but he,
I mean forced into the industry. And we've talked about
how easy it is to get that love of entertainment
or love of acting, just beating out of you at
at a young age, and for him to then take
his own career by the reins and go, no, now
I'm in charge. I'm gonna learn the craft and I'm
gonna go from there. It's so rare and just amazing
(01:00:44):
to have that longevity in this industry and and hit
every single version of the industry from Broadway to play
to regular players to Broadway to understudying too. I mean
he's hit every possible sitcom drop, you name it, he's
done it. Yeah, I mean voiceover. I mean he was
a kid, a night Rider he was. We didn't even
(01:01:04):
talk about kids. We didn't even get any writer. I mean, well,
that was a question. That's a question I wanted to
ask you guys, what was your knowledge of Bill Daniels
when you met him or what did you know him
from when you when when you met him on set?
I had three very important things to me. Kid from
night Rider was very important to me. Um obviously, UM
the graduate, just as you know a someone who loved
(01:01:26):
film quote unquote, but you know secretly so you already
need a graduate. So I already absolutely need a graduate.
But I also knew, Um it's not called death becomes
or what's it called. There's a the Ferdel family has.
We were big movie fans, but it was always kind
of shlocky movies, like wait, I know which one you're
gonna say, because this was my answer, which yes, yes,
Oh my gosh, that's how That's what I realized because
(01:01:47):
I was sitting here because I I thought of this
question and I was like, what was the name of
that movie? Because it was the only thing I really
knew Bill from. It's a movie with Tom sell He's
like erotic thriller, Tom Selleck. Paulina Poraskova, who's who's a
supermodel and she plays Tom Selleck's girl, like the girlfriend.
And then there's Bill Daniels who's like his his his
(01:02:08):
literary agent. He's a novelist's exactly. I mean it. It's
definitely of that tradition like in the late eighties, early nineties,
those sort of like tight thrillery. You know, it was
a comedic thriller. You guys, this this is nuts. I
didn't know he was in that movie. But that movie
plays a very integral part in my childhood stories really
(01:02:30):
because yes, because my parents had rented it from like
Blockbuster and it was on the kitchen counter, and my
brother walked by and said, what's her alibi? And it
was just one of those moments where like one of
those family jokes where everything was it's her relieb it's
her relieving. And we've told that story a million times
of Oh remember the time christ thott Alm I was
(01:02:52):
a leading We should we should have brought this up
to Bill, because I mean, I was his career, in
his career, I'm so curious where her alibi falls. It
must be so low on one important career, miles seriously,
But for me, that's exactly what I knew him from me.
And then it wasn't until we're filming our third or
fourth episode and we were doing a note session with
(01:03:12):
Michael Jacobs and Bill leaned forward and said, now, Michael, Michael,
and I went, I know that voice. And I hadn't.
I hadn't really grown up with TV, but I did
know night Writer because of course everybody in school would
talk about night Rider, and so I knew his voice
the second I heard. And I remember going to Universal
Studios as a kid, and you could go talk to
kid and they had somebody doing an impersonation of those
(01:03:36):
are the only two things I knew him from everything
else I had to learn while working with him because
he would never talk about stuff either, like you know,
he would never brag. You would never And that's why
getting Bonnie on the show was so fun because she
would come in and in front of him start telling
Bill Daniel stories. Yeah, and she was kind of like
pulling the curtain back and and you could tell she
loved to do that, and you could tell Bill did not,
(01:03:59):
like it's an angry man exactly. I thought it was
a horrible father. She's so honest and I love it.
One of the first moments I can remember actually connecting
with not connecting with Bill, but going up and saying,
I'm going to talk to him, and jes see, I
quoted him to him from her alibi and you went, oh, yeah,
(01:04:21):
like that was it because I I just it was.
It was like okay, because that was what we did
in our family. My family, we are huge movie quote people.
So I was like, I'm gonna go quote it to
the guy. And it didn't go over that. It's like
ed balloon. That's so funny. Anyway, that was amazing. I'm
so glad, I'm so glad they were here. Oh man,
I could talk to him forever. Alright, So up next
(01:04:42):
we are going to talk. Episode number one, oh three,
Father Knows Less. It is directed by David Trainer. Originally
aired October and Yeah, thank you for being here with us.
You can follow us on Instagram at Pod Meets World Show,
and you can also email us your questions or your
thoughts at Pod meets World Show at gmail dot com,
and merch t shirts are available at Pod Meets World
(01:05:07):
Show dot com. They're pretty great. I want a shirt.
I think we can get you one. Can we get
can we get one? Which? Are you interested in a shirt?
I guess he's I don't wear my hair on my shirt.
I don't wear shirts. That's the riders like I don't
wear shirts. He's too much much shirt much shirts. We
love you all, pod dismissed. Pod Beats World is an
(01:05:32):
I heart podcast producing hosted by Daniel Fishel Wilford, l
and right Or Strong. Executive producers Jensen Carpet and Amy Sugarman.
Executive in charge of production, Daniel Romo, producer and editor,
Tara suit Batch, producer, Lorraine Guerez engineer and boy Meats
World super fan Easton Allen Our theme song is by
Kyle Morton of Typhoon. Follow us on Instagram at Pod
meets World Show, or email us at Pod Meets World
(01:05:54):
Show at gmail dot com.
Hosts And Creators
Will Friedle
Danielle Fishel
Rider Strong
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