June 13, 2023 • 44 mins
One would have an easier time charting the areas Rita Wilson hasn't excelled in than those in which she has. From early turns on television, on shows such as The Brady Bunch and Bosom Buddies—alongside her future husband, Tom Hanks, on the latter—to starring roles on the silver screen and Broadway stage, to her work as a producer (Mamma Mia!, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and A Man Called Otto), Wilson has left her fingerprints on classics both past and present. And that's to say nothing of her enviable music career, which has now yielded a fifth album, Rita Wilson Now & Forever: Duets. On this week's episode of Table for Two, Wilson joins host Bruce Bozzi to discuss her recent project, growing up in L.A. in the 70s, her friendship with Nora Ephron, and how Bruce Springsteen convinced her to start writing music later in life. Hear a preview of the episode below, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, everybody, it's Bruce and it's such a beautiful day
here in La and as always, I'm really glad you
pulled up a share for Table for two. Today we
went back at the Tower Bar for another great lunch.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
I see the curtain moving, Donadana.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
The seventies were a very specific time for me watching
television and it really influenced my love for California as
a kid living in New York. I'm talking about stuff
like Brady Bunch, Happy Days and Three's Company, And as
it turns out, our guest, Rita Wilson, was on all
those shows.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Hi. Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
She was born and raised in La.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
She's married to one of the biggest movie stores in
the world, a guy named Tom Hanks. And she's an
incredible actress, producer, and a singer with a new album
of duets called Rita Wilson Now and Forever. She also
has some great story worries about California in the seventies.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
I ordered the loudest sology you could possibly order on
the menu.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
So grab a rose because today we're having lunch with
Rita Wilson. I'm Bruce Bosi and this is my podcast
Table for two.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Welcome to table for two.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
You his so nice to see.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
This is super exciting because the last time I saw you,
we were at the Elton John concert.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
In the stadium, Yes, sitting together, rocking out.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Yeah, that was so good. I saw him there. I
guess it was the seventies. I want to talk to that, Yes,
so we'll talk all about the seventies. It's so extraordinary.
I still feel this way that we are living in
a time where our heroes of our youth are still
playing and still out there and we can see them
(02:01):
because so many people aren't doing what they used to do.
But you have people like Elton, you have Paul McCartney,
you have Bruce Springsteen, you have even Madonna now has
been performing for like forty years, you know, but that Chicago,
the Eagles, those people are still out there performing. G
(02:21):
Yeah sometimes, and I don't think it ever gets sold
because you know, I grew up.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
I'm born in Race in Holliday.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
You know. I just what I want you to talk
to me about right now before we get your album.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Which fine, we'll do that too.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
So you grew up. I want to know about growing
up in Hollywood seventies.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
You want some of my favorite shows that got me
to California. FYI, Happy Days, all of them, happy company.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
This is what I thought I was. I thought I
was going to You're going to go live that life, go,
You're going to find some roomings. Well I was.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
I started to say that I'm talking about those people
in music that are are icons, you know, not just mine,
but the worlds. Is that I loved music so much
that I got a job at Universal Studios. Used to
have a venue called the Universal Amphitheater and it's where
the Harry Potter right is now, but it used to
(03:14):
be outdoors and it was just bliss and everybody came
through there. So Elton came through there, Joni Mitchell, Carol King,
Linda Ronstad, the Eagles, Steve Martin, would do comedy, you
name it.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
They were there.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
And so I can't ever quite separate myself from the
reverence that I have for all of those influences in
music and what they felt like when I saw them
the first time. I like, my first concert was led
Zeppelin at the Forum, right, I just want.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
To give your listeners a little visual of that too.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
So I went with two girlfriends of mine who were twins,
and Rose and Carol O'Connell, like, if they're out there listening, hi, guys,
I'd love to see you. And they were identical twins
that were about five eleven and shocks of red hair
and freckles and just you know, fantastic physiques and just
(04:17):
they looked like Gazelle's.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
And my mom used.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
To make my clothes, so she made me an outfit
that was a Hawaiian print fabric with the turquoise background
and like canoes and surfboards and palm trees and you
know those kind of flowers on it, yellows, reds, pinks,
and the pants were draw string bell bottoms and then
(04:44):
full midrif exposed, and then the top was like a
little short sleeved thing, but you would tie the top
like right under your boobs. So that was my outloik
okay with these things called wedgies were my sandals, I'm sorry,
Corky's were my sandals.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Big platform, right big.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
So we were so excited running to the forum to
see led Zeppelin that I fell flat on my face
running with my corkies. And you suffer from beauty, you suffer,
really got right back up.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
And those are those, don't you think?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Those days and having those like that's it's the best
to have.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
And you grew up at a time and like you
reference that in the seventies because.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
You also grew up in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
To me, the sweet magic spot of Los Angeles was
the sixties and the seventies. Sure, anyone says, and we
also know what was happening in music in the seventies. Yeah,
in Los Angeles with Joni Mitchell, with Mama.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Cass, Carol King and Stevie Mitt.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Talk to me about who was like what were you
running around in like that music scene?
Speaker 4 (05:59):
Like, well, okay, let's just take Laurel Canyon for example.
Laurel Canyon for many people was a literal place but
also a metaphorical place. And for me it was the
same thing. I knew that Carol King and Joni Mitchell
and all these people that I loved were living up there.
(06:20):
I have two stories about Laurel Canyon that are particular.
Would you like to hear them? Yes, okay. One is
that in high school, Bobby Carodine, who was David Carodine's
brother and he was an actor, also went to my
high school.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
He was a little bit older than I was.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
I think, and he asked me on a date. And
he had a little Alfa Romeo, like a red sports car.
So he said, let's go for a ride, you know,
just drive around. And I think it was a school night,
so it was pretty early, but we were driving around
and he says, well, let's go up and visit my brother.
Now his brother at the time was David Carodine and
he was doing the series Kung Fu, remember that.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
So I said sure.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
At that time, I had eaten at home. And he
takes us up and David was married to Barbara Hershey,
who at that time was going by the name Barbara
Hershey Seagull because Siegel like Siegel exactly exactly. So they
were like, okay, let's go see what my brother's doing.
(07:27):
So we show up and they had a little baby,
and the baby wasn't even walking, it was just a
crawling baby. But it was Laurel Canyon. They were hippies,
it was not they had a big, huge dog.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
It was not the cleanest of kitchens, let's say.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
But the baby was on the floor and I took
one look around and I was like, I'm not really
like vibing with this whole you know.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Like not really clean vibe.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
So yeah, but the baby is there and so cute,
and she's making some kind of dinner, and you know,
we all sit down to eat, and they asked me
if I wanted to eat, and I said no because
I had just eaten at my parents, right, So I said,
thank you very much. Would you like something to drink?
And I said yes? What could they do to get
(08:15):
something to drink? So she passes over a communal bowl
of water? Amazing, and so I did one of those
fake things where you like pretend you're sipping but you're
really just.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Like your lips are clothes, like you know now during COVID,
that wouldn't fly. So that was one Laurel Canyon story, but.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
It was Laura Canyon.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Yes, it really did.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Communal bowl of water.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
It was.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
But the thing was that people really believed it.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
They believed in this idea of free love and taking
care of each other and everybody shares everything, and so
there was something to it that really was authentic, wasn't fake.
I mean, they were in a private in their moment
at home and that's how they were living. So no judgment,
just my own issues. I kind of the other Laurel
(09:15):
Canyon story that's so great? Is so, this is so fun.
Nobody's ever asked me this stuff before. So do you
talk about those stories?
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Right?
Speaker 4 (09:25):
So, two of my best friends growing up were Catholic
and they went to a Catholic girls school called Corvallis.
It was on Laurel Canyon, just south of Ventura Boulevard.
The building is still there, but it's not a girls
school anymore. And one of their best friends there was
(09:45):
Melanie Griffith. So I met Melanie when I was like
sixteen or seventeen years old, right, And Melanie was dating
Don Johnson at that time already and Don had a
house in Laurel Canyon. Share also had a house up
the street from them, and she had a turquoise blue
Dino Ferrari. And I've never asked her this, but I
(10:06):
will one days that true.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Did you have a turquoise blue Dino Ferrari? I believe
that Share would have had that, I think.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
So Melanie and Don were seeing each other and we
were over there one day, but it was cold.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
It was Don's house, but Melanie was still in high school.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
But it was also kind of random because she was
still dating Don so I don't know.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
She lived at home or she lived with Donna. Very
free love, very free love. So Melanie says to don Donnie,
it's cold. Can you light a fire? And he says, yeah, sure.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
So we girls are outside, were doing something, we're laughing whatever.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
We hear some noise. We don't think much of it.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
We come back in and there's a gorgeous fire roaring
in this Laurel Canyon cottage. And Melanie says.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Where'd you get the fire? Would? He says, I chopped
up one of the chairs.
Speaker 5 (11:09):
What she did?
Speaker 3 (11:11):
He chopped up one of the dining room chairs. What
was happening? I don't know.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
So Melanie says one night, we want to fix you
up with somebody, and I said, okay, who.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
She says, really nice daisi Arnt Junior. I'm like, oh yeah,
he's kind of cute. Yeah that'd be fun, let's do it.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
So I was driving my parents Barracuda because as one does,
and I go pick up Melanie at Tippy's house.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
So Tippy Hendron is melanie mother. She was a big
star for all of you.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
All the Hitchcock movies, she did the Birds, she did
so many Hitchcock films. Marnie I think she was in
there too, and I go pick up Melanie and she says,
you know, like I'll be right there. Somebody lets me
into the house and in the backyard and I'm not
(12:25):
kidding you is a black panther. Because Tippy was an
animal activist and she kept this black panther or puma
or whatever it is. It was all black, right, big,
all in the backyard.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
And I'm looking through the sliding glass like I'm not
going out there, going out there. So we go, Melanie
comes down, we go.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
We go to Desi's house to pick him up, and
that's where Donnie is so and the four of us
go in one car to a restaurant. I mean probably
I was seventeen, yeah, probably twenty, I don't know young,
So no, we couldn't have been that young, because this.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Is part of the story.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
We go to this restaurant in Century City that was
very popular at the time, called Yamato's. It was in
the what is now the Fairmont Saint Regis.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
I guess is that what it's called, But it used
to be.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
The Century Plaza adult So it was a Japanese restaurant
and it was the kind of restaurant where it had
the soji screens so that every i could have private rooms,
and then they would have these soji screens that would
close off the little rooms.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
And there was.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
A sunken seating with Tommy Matt so everybody sat on
the floor and it was very lovely. And we go
in and the matre D meets us at the restaurant
and he says, mister Arnest.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
So nice to see you.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
Miss Manelli has just arrived. Now he dated Liza Minelli
and they had just broken up.
Speaker 6 (14:13):
Oh so if you could see me in his face,
like you're telling the story with the matre D kind
of giving the non verbal we have a problem here.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Who's like, what would you like me to do? Right?
Speaker 5 (14:28):
Right?
Speaker 3 (14:28):
So they put us in one of those private rooms
with the soji squeener.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
It was a big thing that they had broken up, right,
big thing. So we go into this room, we order food,
and every time the waitress comes in and she's in
a kimona with an obi in the whole thing, she
leaves the door open because she's coming back and forth.
And every time that door was opened, Desi would get up.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
And close that door. He was so afraid Liza was
gonna walk by or something. So there was no second
date because obviously there was no There was no.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Chemistry exactly, and it was like drama from exactly. For
the time you grew up here, everyone was sort of accessible.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Lucy Arness told me that she would, she and Desi,
because Lucy lived right in the flats of Beverly Hills
on Roxbury and Lexington, and she said that they would
go outside and they'd have lemonade stands and they would,
you know, sell cookies, and they were the kids of
famous people, Jimmy Stewart right across the street, right across
(15:37):
the street from them.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
It just no.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
She said that Desi would get in the car and
give people tours. Oh here's let me show you strangers people.
That's Lucy suh. I'll show you where everybody else live and.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
You get in the car with them.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
I'm telling you, that's the magic of la in the seventies,
where I was a New York kid watching this on TV,
going wait a minute, I want to go there. You
you did shows Life through Company, Mash, Brady Bunch, Happy Days,
Who's the Boss Bus and Buddies.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Those are the ones that are I mean all classics.
Speaker 6 (16:10):
Come on?
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Was it not just fun?
Speaker 3 (16:12):
It was so much fun? It was amazing.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
What was like the best?
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Right? Well?
Speaker 4 (16:19):
You know I loved auditioning because you would go to
a studio, you'd go to an office and all these
photographs would be on the wall of all the shows
that you loved. Like the people that produced The Brady
Bunch also produced Gilligan's Island, so you love that. When
I did my episode of The Brady Bunch, Pat Conway
for those of you who want to look it up,
the episode I do. It's when Greg had to choose
(16:41):
between his sister and his girlfriend for cheerleader and he
was the deciding vote and shows Pat.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Conway by yours.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
But the day that I was filming, the director Dick Michaels,
he was dating Elizabeth Montgomery who Samantha and Bewitch, So
she came by the set so I got to see
her too. Still, to this day, if I go into
a sound stage, that smell of it's so specific it
puts me right back like you could be in the seventies.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Welcome back to Table for two. Rita has had a
very successful career in television, movies and as a producer,
but she has another passion music. A few years ago
she decided to follow her dreams, and I want to
know what inspired her latest album of duets.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
So, Rita, you have an album out called Reata Wilson
Nowe Forever. So I've been duets. Duets, No, it's duets.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
It's because yes, it's important, because I want to ask
you about the people you sing with, because you sing
with like really cool viva, but you also picked really
great songs over that time.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
So what made you choose these songs? And then I
would would like to kind of go.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Through and like I just want to share who you're singing, Like,
I mean, these are all songs I loved growing up with.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
So we have a very similar.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Vibe in fantastic music in the seventies.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Ye, So for the people like where is the love
you sing with Smokey Robinson, because you chose these artists
to perform with, Like what was like maybe a word
or something about like Keith Urban and Willie Nelson like
all these Jackson Brown, like this.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Is that thing. Everyone needs to download this album?
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Go thank you well. I love the seventies.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
My very first album was cover songs from the sixties
and seventies.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
That album was called MFM.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
And when I had done a number of albums in
between of original music that I wrote, because I started
going down to Nowville and writing with a bunch of
people down there, and I thought, maybe it's time to
revisit some cover songs again. And I started thinking what
would be fun to do, and this idea of doing
(19:13):
duets but of songs that haven't been done as duets
started to really formulate, right only whereas the Love had
been a duet in the seventies with ROBERTA. Flack and
Donnie Hathaway. So my co producer, Matt Rawlings, and I
he's an amazing producer. He's the one Grammy's for Willie
Nelson's Gershwin album and the Sinatra album. I was like,
(19:37):
he knows what I'm he knows what I'm trying to
go for. So we started talking and we started with
a huge grab bag of music, just all different kinds
of songs.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
We love this, we love that, let's put this in,
let's put that in.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
And then we started going through them and saying, Okay,
which ones would actually be like what I was hoping.
Conversations between two people so then that started coming up
with it started narrowing it down even further. And so really,
when I would present songs to artists that I was
(20:13):
looking to work with, I would usually give them three
songs and see which one they responded to the most,
and they usually picked the one that I would have
wanted them to pick. So that worked out great, and
it was just incredible to work with these people that
I so admired, like Willie Nelson. Also on the album
(20:35):
Who we did slip Sliding Away, Paul Simon's song and
that conversation. That song in terms of a conversation took
on a completely different vibe when you think, oh, this
is a couple that's been together a really long time
and they're talking to each other about the other. And
(20:55):
I just loved interpreting it in a new way of
looking at it.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
I love that you're sharing it like that because it
does put a whole new sort of art to the
listening of you singing with them, because a song that
wasn't meant to be a duet, but then it sung
between So just so everyone gets an idea. So this
crazy love with Keith Urban super good. There's where's the
(21:22):
love with Smokey Robinson. There's Slip Side and Away with
Willie Nelson. There's Let It Be Me with Jackson Brown.
I mean, are we getting here? There's Massachusetts with Leslie
Odom Junior. I mean, that's beautiful. I'll be there with
Jimmy Allen without you. Vince Gill I read this to
Brian Lessay. He was like, oh my god, Songbird with
Josh Grobin, How did you choose that list? Were these
(21:43):
men that all you just had a connection with that
you were like, you know, I want to work.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
With I did not know Willie, but Matt did because
you had worked with him on the two previous albums.
And Willy was the first person to sign on, which
was fantastic. And you know, if somebody like Willy signs on,
then it makes the next ask the very You're not
very easy, but a lot easier, you know, like, oh, okay,
(22:11):
we're talking that kind of an albuml right, fine.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
So we just reached out to people. We were kind
of lucky.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Because it was during the second year of the pandemic,
so still people weren't really touring, they weren't out, so
people were home and willing to be creative and we're like, okay, yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
We'll do it.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
What a beautiful album.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
And you know, one of the things that I love
about learning about you and learning about the music side
of you when you wanted to express yourself artistically through
your voice and your music and you thought maybe that
chapter had passed because.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
We all feel like as we get older.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Oh you know, and you, I know you spoke with
Bruce Bringsteen who was like, hey, no, because that takes courage.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
It was so empowering, illuminating, exciting to hear this from
Bruce Springsteen, who I asked once when he was talking
a lot about songwriting, and I was just enraptured by it.
And there was a pause in the conversation and I said,
all right, I had just started writing music, and he said,
(23:28):
I asked him this, what makes me think that I
can start writing now and you've been doing it all
your life. I'm getting a really late start, and he said,
because Read's creativity is time independent, and that hearing that
it just felt so true to me. And I had
(23:49):
never heard anybody put it to me like that. I'd
never heard that concept, but it got me thinking that, Yeah,
who's to say that you're only allowed to be creative
and be valued for that.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
When you're in your twenties or you're in your early thirties.
Speaker 4 (24:04):
Or whatever, who says that there's a clock on creativity
and that, oh, sorry, your time has passed.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
And the clock has run out on you.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
I loved hearing that.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
Oh it's just because I believe where so many people
are creative, and I'm reading that Rick Rubin book right now.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
The creative act.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
A way of being or a way of living, and people,
I think when they're younger, they get different messages about what.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
It means to be creative.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
So you can get the message that you have no talent,
or you can get the message that is you can't
make a living being an artist. That's no, you can't
do that, or you have two left feet, you can't
be a dancer, or whatever it is.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
I've during my touring when I.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
Sign CDs and things for people, I would hear all
sorts of stories like that, and that creative impulse gets
shut down.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
One of the things that Rick Rubin said in.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
His book, which I believe is very accurate, is that
everybody's life is a creative act. Every morning we get
up and we can create the day that we want
to create, how we look at that day, how we
respond to that day, what we do for ourselves during
that day or for others. And I love that philosophy
(25:20):
that everybody does have a creative impulse, but for.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Some reason, society doesn't really.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
Support that in a way they support other ideas.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Of like you've got to make a living, you got
to get an education, you got to know.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
They're right, they don't support it.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
And those early years specifically when people say you can
the people that are sort of shaping you lean in,
lean out, and we do. We live in a culture
that sort of values this is when you can do this,
or youth is when you can do this.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
But you know, as we get older and it's you
know you're talking, did you ever.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Have anything that you wanted to do?
Speaker 4 (26:00):
Like when you look back on your childhood, what did
you love to do and what gave you the most joy?
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Yes, So I would say, looking back, and this is
so specific to the time that we grew up because
we're peers. Is as I put chicken in my mouth,
I'm nervous from this question.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
I'm like, shove my mouth.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
What was it?
Speaker 1 (26:22):
It was dancing? I would love to have been there.
You shoot and been in a ballet class.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
But boys were not not happening.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Tap dance, my sister. I went to herriciles, you know,
but that was not so okay.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
And then you can take a dance class.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Now, know, like, why can't I?
Speaker 3 (26:42):
You should do it?
Speaker 2 (26:43):
You know I should do it.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
I asked John bon Jovi, who sat with me and
at lunch, and I said, you know what a rock
store means to him?
Speaker 4 (27:00):
And not the ones that are already established rock stars
as we know them.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
You're talking about the up and coming.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
They're a rock star today.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
So I can tell you who, he said, bodies what
he felt as a rock star today.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
I think Miley Cyrus is a rock star because she.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
Can sing anything, she can move, She's so uninhibited, she's
so free.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
I can endlessly watch her.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
She is you can't take your eyes off her.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
And I look at rock stars a very different thing
than somebody like Beyonce or Adele, who are full on stars.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
We know that.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
But a rock star is somebody who's got that bit
of an edge right in a weird way, even though
this is not her genre. But I think Cardi b
in an odd way as a rock star because there's
such a.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Rebel just do what everything he wants to do.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
So there's something about inhabiting that rebel, right, it's presentation.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Yes, yeah, that's why when we looked at Jagger that night,
we were like, yeah, come.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
On, here's this guy that just came in.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
And I always look at their shoes like shoes that
they were, and he was wearing like little black tennises.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
I love that. There's a good.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Question like what is a rough star wearing real life?
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Now, would there be shoes that you'd be like, Oh,
I'm surprised.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
If there was a sock with a broken star. Give
me pause.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
I mean you taught me a word.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Oh, I love that word I learned from you.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
Tell everyone, well, you know, everybody knows the word shoden freud,
that is sort of getting pleasure out of somebody's failure.
But I read that there is actually another word called
freuden freud, which is being happy for someone's success. And
(29:07):
I always approached everything that I did that way, even
when I started first started acting and first started auditioning,
and people would say, don't ever tell anybody about your auditions.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Why, well, because they might take the part.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
And I was like, that's ridiculous, Like I'm so different
from that person or that person.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
If they want me, they'll hire me. If they want her,
they're going to hire her.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
So I never felt that somebody else's success diminished my
own or made it less available to me. So I
loved I can't believe everybody talks about Sean and Freud,
but nobody talks about Freuden.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Freud thanks for joining us on Table for two. The
(30:08):
Rita has been in many movies. There's a wonderful filmmaker
in particular that she really bonded with, the incredible nor Efron.
You know, there's a woman that I think I know
was an important person in your life who I was
blessed to know, nor Efron.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Nor clearly loved you, and she clearly knew how to
write for you.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Can you tell me about that relationship and the movies
you made with her and tell.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Us all about it.
Speaker 4 (30:39):
Well, all my life I really longed for a mentor
someone who could say, for example, if I had that
person in music, maybe I would have started music at
a much younger age. But I didn't have anybody who said,
oh you love singing, you love performing, Oh you know
you can do X y Z, or they're singing classes,
(31:01):
or you can go to this community theater and get
in a musical or something. But I didn't have anybody
who directed me. My parents were immigrants, so they weren't
really up with, you know, what kids were doing in
those days. So I met Nora because Tom was doing
(31:22):
Bonfire the Vanities. It was nineteen eighty seven, and we
rented an apartment in the building in New York, the Apthorpe,
where Nora and Nick lived and Max, her son and
Jacob were still little, so they were living there. Right,
the windows would be open and I would hear like
(31:43):
this guitar playing going on, you know, every day, guitar playing,
guitar playing, guitar playing. Well, it turns out it was
Max Bernstein, Nora's son, and he now is.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Taylor Swift's lead guitars. So just saying he did with
those less word right, But.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
I didn't really become friendly with Nora until people probably
don't know this, but Tom was offered when Harry met Sally,
and he turned it down because he was going through
a divorce and he was very happy to be not married,
and so he could not understand that a person going
through a divorce would have anything other than he was like,
(32:25):
I'm so happy.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
But I loved that script. So I read that script when.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
It came in and I just flipped out and I
was like, God, this woman, Nora Efron, she did that movie.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
We really like.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
This Is My Life with Julie Kavner was about a
stand up comedian at the age of fifty.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
Yes, remind me to go back to the age of
fifty and noura okay.
Speaker 4 (32:47):
So I wrote Rob because I had worked with Rob
and I was like, this script is so fantastic.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
I can Rob Ryder the director. I said, this is
just mind boggling.
Speaker 4 (32:59):
So cut to a few years later, Tom Is offered
Sleepless in Seattle, and I loved that script so much
and it was Nora and I ran into her at
a party at Linda Oaps's house. Now, Carrie Fishers, I know,
it's all familiar. Carrie Fisher was in This Is My Life,
(33:23):
and she was in when Harry met Sally, and I
just loved how.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Norah wrote for her.
Speaker 4 (33:29):
So I ran into her the party and I said, Norah,
if nobody, if you're not going to cast Carrie in
the role of the Best Friend, which was the Rosie
O'donnald part. I would love to audition for it. She
calls me in for an audition. It was like, Oh
my gosh, this is incredible. So I go in an
(33:49):
audition and I didn't get the part. They gave it
to Rosie. But Norah offered me the role of Susie,
this other character, and I was.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Like, oh, yeah, that was a really good part of
this I.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
Really liked that character. It's a big monologue in there.
So I ended up doing that monologue from about the
movie An Affair to Remember, and that ended up being
one of the most fun, most wonderful acting experiences I've
ever had. Then soon after that, she offered me a
(34:20):
part in a movie called Mixed Nuts with Steve Martin
and Madeline Kahn and Richard Kine and Gary Shanley, John Stewart,
Isn't it Parker Posey is in it, Adam Sandler, Juliet Lewis.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
It was incredible cast. Yeah, Leev Schreiber's first role.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
So then we did that movie and you know, sadly
it wasn't successful when it came out, but now it's
become this weird cult favorite it's like, so it's a
weird movie, but it's a really good weird movie.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Let me go back to the fifties. Yes, no, so.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
On my fiftieth birthday because Nora actually became like one
of my best friends. And she sat on my fiftieth
birthday as she was toasting with a glass of champagne
because she loved champagne. Here's to turning fifty. Great things
can happen to you after you turned fifty. I didn't
(35:20):
direct my first movie until I was fifty. She died
at seventy one. Look what she did in that twenty
one years.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Wow, it's really important to hear that. Yes, you're Utah.
It's just very and I mean really receiving.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
It because there was no clock on creativity for her.
She was a journalist, don't forget. She was a hardcore journalist.
And then she decided she was going to write scripts.
She wrote Silkwood for Crying out Loud, it's a very
serious movie.
Speaker 5 (35:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine.
He's a Hindu priest, and we were talking about purpose.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
I asked him, well, wait, how.
Speaker 4 (36:12):
Do you how do you know what your purpose is?
Like you can because you know, we were having conversations.
I want to do this, I want to do that.
He goes, You know, purpose is very simple. You ask
yourself this question, what is it that I can still
do on my deathbed.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
That will be my purpose?
Speaker 4 (36:34):
That has nothing to do with engaging and I need
three people to do it or I have to have
a certain you know, environment to do it.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
And when he said that, I knew exactly what.
Speaker 4 (36:49):
My purpose was, and it was it sounds so simple,
but to bring joy and want. I want to be
able to put stuff like that out into the world.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
You know, that's where my head is at.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
That's where my I find the most satisfaction out of
doing stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Well, I love that you said that because when I
was thinking about you, joy was the word that came up.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
And I feel that is so nice thing. No, but
it's the intention.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
You know.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
I do want to know about what it felt like
to be because I think.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
It's so great to your experience when you are playing
Roxy in Chicago, Like, was that a good experience to
be on Broadway?
Speaker 3 (37:29):
Was that a dream?
Speaker 4 (37:31):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Oh? My god? This was a norm moment.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
Also, really yes, because I got offered to do Chicago,
and Nora said, well, you know, you should go into
town and see the show and make sure it's in
good shape. And what she meant was, you know, is
it still good? You know, is it falling apart? It's
been on for so long, how good could it still be?
(37:57):
So I go into town with Tom and my daughter
Elizabeth to see the show and at the it's fantastic,
It's so good. And at the intermission, I turned Tom
to Elizabeth and I'm like, like, there's no way I'm
doing this because terrifying, terrifying. I said, there's no way
(38:21):
I'm doing this or that I can do this. And
they looked at me like I was nuts, Like what
are you kidding? You are so doing this, and I'm like, nope, nope,
I am not Nope, You're doing it. And I was terrified,
but it brought me talk about connecting dots. Honestly, this
(38:44):
is why we have to be brave and do things
that are out of our comfort zone. My dance captain
Greg Butler, who is still a friend today, he taught
me so much about courage. He taught me so much
about patience, about what we do to ourselves in our heads,
that have nothing to do with what we actually can
(39:05):
be doing in real life and real time. And he
was very funny. But after the play was finished, he
introduced me to the woman who changed my life because
she was the one who said offered me the idea
that I could be a songwriter. And her name is
(39:27):
Kara DioGuardi and she was a songwriter and she had
done Chicago because she was a judge on American Idol
and she's fantastic right as a but.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
She was badass. Went to Duke.
Speaker 4 (39:38):
She was a songwriter, had hit songs, was way more
than what she just was as a judge on Idol.
But she ended up doing Roxy and Greg said to me,
you need to meet Kara dio Guardy. I think you
guys are going to hit it off. So after she
did the play, I can't remember how long he introduced us,
(40:01):
we met and in that meeting, the first meeting, she
said to me, well, so what do you want to do?
Speaker 3 (40:06):
I said, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (40:07):
I probably would give anything if I could write a
song like you, but I can.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
She goes, why can't you? I was like, well, because
I don't write music, I don't read music. I'm not
a musician. You know, I'm play an instrument. I don't
do anything. She goes, neither do it. Do you have
something you want to say?
Speaker 4 (40:22):
And when she said that, I was like, literally, I
got like a butterflies in my stomach and kind of
like that pit. I'm like, yeah, I totally have something
I want to say. She goes, I want to write
your songs with you first two songs, and she did,
and that opened the door to songwriting.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
And if I had not done Chicago, I way not
have met Kara.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
I would not have become a songwriter, and I would
not be here sitting here talking to you about my
new album.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
As we finish our lunch, I'm thinking of all the
great things Rita has done in her career and the
courage she found to start a new chapter in music.
And what comes to my mind is the theme song
that used to end the Carol Burnett Show in the
nineteen seventies, and it was I'm so glad we had
this time together just to have a laugh or sing
(41:18):
a song. And today I don't know about you, but
I've had many laughs and we've actually sang songs. So
let's check in one more time with the incredible Rita Wilson.
Speaker 4 (41:32):
I think being a woman, at least in the generation
that I grew up in, was it was very easy
to be visibly invisible. And because I was taught, you know,
don't make waves. You're here to please people, make everybody
feel good, make everybody, you know.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
Not feel threatened. So I think that it takes.
Speaker 4 (41:57):
At least for me, it took a really long time
to sort of, I like to say, find my voice.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
Yeah, and I mean that literally and metaphorically.
Speaker 4 (42:07):
And I do believe, like I said earlier, that people
know who they are at a very young age, but
it gets sort of buried, yep, if you don't have
the right circumstances.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
You know. I still feel that way sometimes, you know,
I still.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Feel don't go away forward, No, And it's.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
So ingrained in your upbringing and everything. But I try
to be aware of it and try not to let
it get out of the way, you know, like to
have to catch it.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Yeah, you catch it. And I think you said and
I say the same thing. It's finding your voice. And
I think what Nora said this is also of coming back.
I think our conversation sort of as we end, it's
like at fifty we found out life begins.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
When do you find your voice? When? Who do you know?
Who you want?
Speaker 1 (42:56):
Because with age and wisdom, and I just want to
thank you, thank you for coming here and having lunch.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
I want everyone to.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
Download Rita Wilson Now and Forever Duets because it really.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
It's just a beautiful album.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
So you're a beautiful person. It's joy.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
I hope everyone who pulled up a chair go have
a great day.
Speaker 4 (43:17):
I wish everyone could have lunch with you because you
have the best questions. It was effortless and so much
fun and you are gifted at this.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
Thank you now. The only thing we need to add
is a couple of dance lessons.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Okay, let's do that, okay. Great.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
Table for two with Bruce Bosi is produced by iHeartRadio
seven three seven Park and Airmail. Our executive producers are
Bruce Bosi and Nathan King. Table for two is researched
and written by Bridget arsenalt. Our sound engineers are Paul
Bowman and Alyssa Midcalf. Table for two is LA production
team is Danielle Romo and Lorraine viz Our. Music supervisor
(44:04):
is Randall poster Our Talent Booking is by James Harkin.
Special thanks to Amy Sugarman, Uni Cher, Kevin Yuvane, Bobby Bauer,
Alison Kant, Graber, barbur and Jen and Jeff Klein, and
the staff at the Tower Bar in the world famous
Sunset Tower Hotel. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
(44:26):
favorite shows.
Hey, everybody, it's Bruce and it's such a beautiful day
here in La and as always, I'm really glad you
pulled up a share for Table for two. Today we
went back at the Tower Bar for another great lunch.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
I see the curtain moving, Donadana.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
The seventies were a very specific time for me watching
television and it really influenced my love for California as
a kid living in New York. I'm talking about stuff
like Brady Bunch, Happy Days and Three's Company, And as
it turns out, our guest, Rita Wilson, was on all
those shows.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Hi. Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
She was born and raised in La.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
She's married to one of the biggest movie stores in
the world, a guy named Tom Hanks. And she's an
incredible actress, producer, and a singer with a new album
of duets called Rita Wilson Now and Forever. She also
has some great story worries about California in the seventies.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
I ordered the loudest sology you could possibly order on
the menu.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
So grab a rose because today we're having lunch with
Rita Wilson. I'm Bruce Bosi and this is my podcast
Table for two.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Welcome to table for two.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
You his so nice to see.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
This is super exciting because the last time I saw you,
we were at the Elton John concert.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
In the stadium, Yes, sitting together, rocking out.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Yeah, that was so good. I saw him there. I
guess it was the seventies. I want to talk to that, Yes,
so we'll talk all about the seventies. It's so extraordinary.
I still feel this way that we are living in
a time where our heroes of our youth are still
playing and still out there and we can see them
(02:01):
because so many people aren't doing what they used to do.
But you have people like Elton, you have Paul McCartney,
you have Bruce Springsteen, you have even Madonna now has
been performing for like forty years, you know, but that Chicago,
the Eagles, those people are still out there performing. G
(02:21):
Yeah sometimes, and I don't think it ever gets sold
because you know, I grew up.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
I'm born in Race in Holliday.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
You know. I just what I want you to talk
to me about right now before we get your album.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Which fine, we'll do that too.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
So you grew up. I want to know about growing
up in Hollywood seventies.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
You want some of my favorite shows that got me
to California. FYI, Happy Days, all of them, happy company.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
This is what I thought I was. I thought I
was going to You're going to go live that life, go,
You're going to find some roomings. Well I was.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
I started to say that I'm talking about those people
in music that are are icons, you know, not just mine,
but the worlds. Is that I loved music so much
that I got a job at Universal Studios. Used to
have a venue called the Universal Amphitheater and it's where
the Harry Potter right is now, but it used to
(03:14):
be outdoors and it was just bliss and everybody came
through there. So Elton came through there, Joni Mitchell, Carol King,
Linda Ronstad, the Eagles, Steve Martin, would do comedy, you
name it.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
They were there.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
And so I can't ever quite separate myself from the
reverence that I have for all of those influences in
music and what they felt like when I saw them
the first time. I like, my first concert was led
Zeppelin at the Forum, right, I just want.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
To give your listeners a little visual of that too.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
So I went with two girlfriends of mine who were twins,
and Rose and Carol O'Connell, like, if they're out there listening, hi, guys,
I'd love to see you. And they were identical twins
that were about five eleven and shocks of red hair
and freckles and just you know, fantastic physiques and just
(04:17):
they looked like Gazelle's.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
And my mom used.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
To make my clothes, so she made me an outfit
that was a Hawaiian print fabric with the turquoise background
and like canoes and surfboards and palm trees and you
know those kind of flowers on it, yellows, reds, pinks,
and the pants were draw string bell bottoms and then
(04:44):
full midrif exposed, and then the top was like a
little short sleeved thing, but you would tie the top
like right under your boobs. So that was my outloik
okay with these things called wedgies were my sandals, I'm sorry,
Corky's were my sandals.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Big platform, right big.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
So we were so excited running to the forum to
see led Zeppelin that I fell flat on my face
running with my corkies. And you suffer from beauty, you suffer,
really got right back up.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
And those are those, don't you think?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Those days and having those like that's it's the best
to have.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
And you grew up at a time and like you
reference that in the seventies because.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
You also grew up in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
To me, the sweet magic spot of Los Angeles was
the sixties and the seventies. Sure, anyone says, and we
also know what was happening in music in the seventies. Yeah,
in Los Angeles with Joni Mitchell, with Mama.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Cass, Carol King and Stevie Mitt.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Talk to me about who was like what were you
running around in like that music scene?
Speaker 4 (05:59):
Like, well, okay, let's just take Laurel Canyon for example.
Laurel Canyon for many people was a literal place but
also a metaphorical place. And for me it was the
same thing. I knew that Carol King and Joni Mitchell
and all these people that I loved were living up there.
(06:20):
I have two stories about Laurel Canyon that are particular.
Would you like to hear them? Yes, okay. One is
that in high school, Bobby Carodine, who was David Carodine's
brother and he was an actor, also went to my
high school.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
He was a little bit older than I was.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
I think, and he asked me on a date. And
he had a little Alfa Romeo, like a red sports car.
So he said, let's go for a ride, you know,
just drive around. And I think it was a school night,
so it was pretty early, but we were driving around
and he says, well, let's go up and visit my brother.
Now his brother at the time was David Carodine and
he was doing the series Kung Fu, remember that.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
So I said sure.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
At that time, I had eaten at home. And he
takes us up and David was married to Barbara Hershey,
who at that time was going by the name Barbara
Hershey Seagull because Siegel like Siegel exactly exactly. So they
were like, okay, let's go see what my brother's doing.
(07:27):
So we show up and they had a little baby,
and the baby wasn't even walking, it was just a
crawling baby. But it was Laurel Canyon. They were hippies,
it was not they had a big, huge dog.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
It was not the cleanest of kitchens, let's say.
Speaker 4 (07:43):
But the baby was on the floor and I took
one look around and I was like, I'm not really
like vibing with this whole you know.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Like not really clean vibe.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
So yeah, but the baby is there and so cute,
and she's making some kind of dinner, and you know,
we all sit down to eat, and they asked me
if I wanted to eat, and I said no because
I had just eaten at my parents, right, So I said,
thank you very much. Would you like something to drink?
And I said yes? What could they do to get
(08:15):
something to drink? So she passes over a communal bowl
of water? Amazing, and so I did one of those
fake things where you like pretend you're sipping but you're
really just.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Like your lips are clothes, like you know now during COVID,
that wouldn't fly. So that was one Laurel Canyon story, but.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
It was Laura Canyon.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Yes, it really did.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Communal bowl of water.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
It was.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
But the thing was that people really believed it.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
They believed in this idea of free love and taking
care of each other and everybody shares everything, and so
there was something to it that really was authentic, wasn't fake.
I mean, they were in a private in their moment
at home and that's how they were living. So no judgment,
just my own issues. I kind of the other Laurel
(09:15):
Canyon story that's so great? Is so, this is so fun.
Nobody's ever asked me this stuff before. So do you
talk about those stories?
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Right?
Speaker 4 (09:25):
So, two of my best friends growing up were Catholic
and they went to a Catholic girls school called Corvallis.
It was on Laurel Canyon, just south of Ventura Boulevard.
The building is still there, but it's not a girls
school anymore. And one of their best friends there was
(09:45):
Melanie Griffith. So I met Melanie when I was like
sixteen or seventeen years old, right, And Melanie was dating
Don Johnson at that time already and Don had a
house in Laurel Canyon. Share also had a house up
the street from them, and she had a turquoise blue
Dino Ferrari. And I've never asked her this, but I
(10:06):
will one days that true.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Did you have a turquoise blue Dino Ferrari? I believe
that Share would have had that, I think.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
So Melanie and Don were seeing each other and we
were over there one day, but it was cold.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
It was Don's house, but Melanie was still in high school.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
But it was also kind of random because she was
still dating Don so I don't know.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
She lived at home or she lived with Donna. Very
free love, very free love. So Melanie says to don Donnie,
it's cold. Can you light a fire? And he says, yeah, sure.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
So we girls are outside, were doing something, we're laughing whatever.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
We hear some noise. We don't think much of it.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
We come back in and there's a gorgeous fire roaring
in this Laurel Canyon cottage. And Melanie says.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Where'd you get the fire? Would? He says, I chopped
up one of the chairs.
Speaker 5 (11:09):
What she did?
Speaker 3 (11:11):
He chopped up one of the dining room chairs. What
was happening? I don't know.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
So Melanie says one night, we want to fix you
up with somebody, and I said, okay, who.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
She says, really nice daisi Arnt Junior. I'm like, oh yeah,
he's kind of cute. Yeah that'd be fun, let's do it.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
So I was driving my parents Barracuda because as one does,
and I go pick up Melanie at Tippy's house.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
So Tippy Hendron is melanie mother. She was a big
star for all of you.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
All the Hitchcock movies, she did the Birds, she did
so many Hitchcock films. Marnie I think she was in
there too, and I go pick up Melanie and she says,
you know, like I'll be right there. Somebody lets me
into the house and in the backyard and I'm not
(12:25):
kidding you is a black panther. Because Tippy was an
animal activist and she kept this black panther or puma
or whatever it is. It was all black, right, big,
all in the backyard.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
And I'm looking through the sliding glass like I'm not
going out there, going out there. So we go, Melanie
comes down, we go.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
We go to Desi's house to pick him up, and
that's where Donnie is so and the four of us
go in one car to a restaurant. I mean probably
I was seventeen, yeah, probably twenty, I don't know young,
So no, we couldn't have been that young, because this.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Is part of the story.
Speaker 4 (13:18):
We go to this restaurant in Century City that was
very popular at the time, called Yamato's. It was in
the what is now the Fairmont Saint Regis.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
I guess is that what it's called, But it used
to be.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
The Century Plaza adult So it was a Japanese restaurant
and it was the kind of restaurant where it had
the soji screens so that every i could have private rooms,
and then they would have these soji screens that would
close off the little rooms.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
And there was.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
A sunken seating with Tommy Matt so everybody sat on
the floor and it was very lovely. And we go
in and the matre D meets us at the restaurant
and he says, mister Arnest.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
So nice to see you.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
Miss Manelli has just arrived. Now he dated Liza Minelli
and they had just broken up.
Speaker 6 (14:13):
Oh so if you could see me in his face,
like you're telling the story with the matre D kind
of giving the non verbal we have a problem here.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Who's like, what would you like me to do? Right?
Speaker 5 (14:28):
Right?
Speaker 3 (14:28):
So they put us in one of those private rooms
with the soji squeener.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
It was a big thing that they had broken up, right,
big thing. So we go into this room, we order food,
and every time the waitress comes in and she's in
a kimona with an obi in the whole thing, she
leaves the door open because she's coming back and forth.
And every time that door was opened, Desi would get up.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
And close that door. He was so afraid Liza was
gonna walk by or something. So there was no second
date because obviously there was no There was no.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Chemistry exactly, and it was like drama from exactly. For
the time you grew up here, everyone was sort of accessible.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Lucy Arness told me that she would, she and Desi,
because Lucy lived right in the flats of Beverly Hills
on Roxbury and Lexington, and she said that they would
go outside and they'd have lemonade stands and they would,
you know, sell cookies, and they were the kids of
famous people, Jimmy Stewart right across the street, right across
(15:37):
the street from them.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
It just no.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
She said that Desi would get in the car and
give people tours. Oh here's let me show you strangers people.
That's Lucy suh. I'll show you where everybody else live and.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
You get in the car with them.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
I'm telling you, that's the magic of la in the seventies,
where I was a New York kid watching this on TV,
going wait a minute, I want to go there. You
you did shows Life through Company, Mash, Brady Bunch, Happy Days,
Who's the Boss Bus and Buddies.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Those are the ones that are I mean all classics.
Speaker 6 (16:10):
Come on?
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Was it not just fun?
Speaker 3 (16:12):
It was so much fun? It was amazing.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
What was like the best?
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Right? Well?
Speaker 4 (16:19):
You know I loved auditioning because you would go to
a studio, you'd go to an office and all these
photographs would be on the wall of all the shows
that you loved. Like the people that produced The Brady
Bunch also produced Gilligan's Island, so you love that. When
I did my episode of The Brady Bunch, Pat Conway
for those of you who want to look it up,
the episode I do. It's when Greg had to choose
(16:41):
between his sister and his girlfriend for cheerleader and he
was the deciding vote and shows Pat.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Conway by yours.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
But the day that I was filming, the director Dick Michaels,
he was dating Elizabeth Montgomery who Samantha and Bewitch, So
she came by the set so I got to see
her too. Still, to this day, if I go into
a sound stage, that smell of it's so specific it
puts me right back like you could be in the seventies.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Welcome back to Table for two. Rita has had a
very successful career in television, movies and as a producer,
but she has another passion music. A few years ago
she decided to follow her dreams, and I want to
know what inspired her latest album of duets.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
So, Rita, you have an album out called Reata Wilson
Nowe Forever. So I've been duets. Duets, No, it's duets.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
It's because yes, it's important, because I want to ask
you about the people you sing with, because you sing
with like really cool viva, but you also picked really
great songs over that time.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
So what made you choose these songs? And then I
would would like to kind of go.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Through and like I just want to share who you're singing, Like,
I mean, these are all songs I loved growing up with.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
So we have a very similar.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Vibe in fantastic music in the seventies.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Ye, So for the people like where is the love
you sing with Smokey Robinson, because you chose these artists
to perform with, Like what was like maybe a word
or something about like Keith Urban and Willie Nelson like
all these Jackson Brown, like this.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Is that thing. Everyone needs to download this album?
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Go thank you well. I love the seventies.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
My very first album was cover songs from the sixties
and seventies.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
That album was called MFM.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
And when I had done a number of albums in
between of original music that I wrote, because I started
going down to Nowville and writing with a bunch of
people down there, and I thought, maybe it's time to
revisit some cover songs again. And I started thinking what
would be fun to do, and this idea of doing
(19:13):
duets but of songs that haven't been done as duets
started to really formulate, right only whereas the Love had
been a duet in the seventies with ROBERTA. Flack and
Donnie Hathaway. So my co producer, Matt Rawlings, and I
he's an amazing producer. He's the one Grammy's for Willie
Nelson's Gershwin album and the Sinatra album. I was like,
(19:37):
he knows what I'm he knows what I'm trying to
go for. So we started talking and we started with
a huge grab bag of music, just all different kinds
of songs.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
We love this, we love that, let's put this in,
let's put that in.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
And then we started going through them and saying, Okay,
which ones would actually be like what I was hoping.
Conversations between two people so then that started coming up
with it started narrowing it down even further. And so really,
when I would present songs to artists that I was
(20:13):
looking to work with, I would usually give them three
songs and see which one they responded to the most,
and they usually picked the one that I would have
wanted them to pick. So that worked out great, and
it was just incredible to work with these people that
I so admired, like Willie Nelson. Also on the album
(20:35):
Who we did slip Sliding Away, Paul Simon's song and
that conversation. That song in terms of a conversation took
on a completely different vibe when you think, oh, this
is a couple that's been together a really long time
and they're talking to each other about the other. And
(20:55):
I just loved interpreting it in a new way of
looking at it.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
I love that you're sharing it like that because it
does put a whole new sort of art to the
listening of you singing with them, because a song that
wasn't meant to be a duet, but then it sung
between So just so everyone gets an idea. So this
crazy love with Keith Urban super good. There's where's the
(21:22):
love with Smokey Robinson. There's Slip Side and Away with
Willie Nelson. There's Let It Be Me with Jackson Brown.
I mean, are we getting here? There's Massachusetts with Leslie
Odom Junior. I mean, that's beautiful. I'll be there with
Jimmy Allen without you. Vince Gill I read this to
Brian Lessay. He was like, oh my god, Songbird with
Josh Grobin, How did you choose that list? Were these
(21:43):
men that all you just had a connection with that
you were like, you know, I want to work.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
With I did not know Willie, but Matt did because
you had worked with him on the two previous albums.
And Willy was the first person to sign on, which
was fantastic. And you know, if somebody like Willy signs on,
then it makes the next ask the very You're not
very easy, but a lot easier, you know, like, oh, okay,
(22:11):
we're talking that kind of an albuml right, fine.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
So we just reached out to people. We were kind
of lucky.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Because it was during the second year of the pandemic,
so still people weren't really touring, they weren't out, so
people were home and willing to be creative and we're like, okay, yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
We'll do it.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
What a beautiful album.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
And you know, one of the things that I love
about learning about you and learning about the music side
of you when you wanted to express yourself artistically through
your voice and your music and you thought maybe that
chapter had passed because.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
We all feel like as we get older.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Oh you know, and you, I know you spoke with
Bruce Bringsteen who was like, hey, no, because that takes courage.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
It was so empowering, illuminating, exciting to hear this from
Bruce Springsteen, who I asked once when he was talking
a lot about songwriting, and I was just enraptured by it.
And there was a pause in the conversation and I said,
all right, I had just started writing music, and he said,
(23:28):
I asked him this, what makes me think that I
can start writing now and you've been doing it all
your life. I'm getting a really late start, and he said,
because Read's creativity is time independent, and that hearing that
it just felt so true to me. And I had
(23:49):
never heard anybody put it to me like that. I'd
never heard that concept, but it got me thinking that, Yeah,
who's to say that you're only allowed to be creative
and be valued for that.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
When you're in your twenties or you're in your early thirties.
Speaker 4 (24:04):
Or whatever, who says that there's a clock on creativity
and that, oh, sorry, your time has passed.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
And the clock has run out on you.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
I loved hearing that.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
Oh it's just because I believe where so many people
are creative, and I'm reading that Rick Rubin book right now.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
The creative act.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
A way of being or a way of living, and people,
I think when they're younger, they get different messages about what.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
It means to be creative.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
So you can get the message that you have no talent,
or you can get the message that is you can't
make a living being an artist. That's no, you can't
do that, or you have two left feet, you can't
be a dancer, or whatever it is.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
I've during my touring when I.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
Sign CDs and things for people, I would hear all
sorts of stories like that, and that creative impulse gets
shut down.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
One of the things that Rick Rubin said in.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
His book, which I believe is very accurate, is that
everybody's life is a creative act. Every morning we get
up and we can create the day that we want
to create, how we look at that day, how we
respond to that day, what we do for ourselves during
that day or for others. And I love that philosophy
(25:20):
that everybody does have a creative impulse, but for.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Some reason, society doesn't really.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
Support that in a way they support other ideas.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Of like you've got to make a living, you got
to get an education, you got to know.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
They're right, they don't support it.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
And those early years specifically when people say you can
the people that are sort of shaping you lean in,
lean out, and we do. We live in a culture
that sort of values this is when you can do this,
or youth is when you can do this.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
But you know, as we get older and it's you
know you're talking, did you ever.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Have anything that you wanted to do?
Speaker 4 (26:00):
Like when you look back on your childhood, what did
you love to do and what gave you the most joy?
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Yes, So I would say, looking back, and this is
so specific to the time that we grew up because
we're peers. Is as I put chicken in my mouth,
I'm nervous from this question.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
I'm like, shove my mouth.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
What was it?
Speaker 1 (26:22):
It was dancing? I would love to have been there.
You shoot and been in a ballet class.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
But boys were not not happening.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Tap dance, my sister. I went to herriciles, you know,
but that was not so okay.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
And then you can take a dance class.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Now, know, like, why can't I?
Speaker 3 (26:42):
You should do it?
Speaker 2 (26:43):
You know I should do it.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
I asked John bon Jovi, who sat with me and
at lunch, and I said, you know what a rock
store means to him?
Speaker 4 (27:00):
And not the ones that are already established rock stars
as we know them.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
You're talking about the up and coming.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
They're a rock star today.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
So I can tell you who, he said, bodies what
he felt as a rock star today.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
I think Miley Cyrus is a rock star because she.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
Can sing anything, she can move, She's so uninhibited, she's
so free.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
I can endlessly watch her.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
She is you can't take your eyes off her.
Speaker 4 (27:31):
And I look at rock stars a very different thing
than somebody like Beyonce or Adele, who are full on stars.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
We know that.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
But a rock star is somebody who's got that bit
of an edge right in a weird way, even though
this is not her genre. But I think Cardi b
in an odd way as a rock star because there's
such a.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Rebel just do what everything he wants to do.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
So there's something about inhabiting that rebel, right, it's presentation.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Yes, yeah, that's why when we looked at Jagger that night,
we were like, yeah, come.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
On, here's this guy that just came in.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
And I always look at their shoes like shoes that
they were, and he was wearing like little black tennises.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
I love that. There's a good.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Question like what is a rough star wearing real life?
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Now, would there be shoes that you'd be like, Oh,
I'm surprised.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
If there was a sock with a broken star. Give
me pause.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
I mean you taught me a word.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Oh, I love that word I learned from you.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
Tell everyone, well, you know, everybody knows the word shoden freud,
that is sort of getting pleasure out of somebody's failure.
But I read that there is actually another word called
freuden freud, which is being happy for someone's success. And
(29:07):
I always approached everything that I did that way, even
when I started first started acting and first started auditioning,
and people would say, don't ever tell anybody about your auditions.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Why, well, because they might take the part.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
And I was like, that's ridiculous, Like I'm so different
from that person or that person.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
If they want me, they'll hire me. If they want her,
they're going to hire her.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
So I never felt that somebody else's success diminished my
own or made it less available to me. So I
loved I can't believe everybody talks about Sean and Freud,
but nobody talks about Freuden.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Freud thanks for joining us on Table for two. The
(30:08):
Rita has been in many movies. There's a wonderful filmmaker
in particular that she really bonded with, the incredible nor Efron.
You know, there's a woman that I think I know
was an important person in your life who I was
blessed to know, nor Efron.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Nor clearly loved you, and she clearly knew how to
write for you.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Can you tell me about that relationship and the movies
you made with her and tell.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Us all about it.
Speaker 4 (30:39):
Well, all my life I really longed for a mentor
someone who could say, for example, if I had that
person in music, maybe I would have started music at
a much younger age. But I didn't have anybody who said,
oh you love singing, you love performing, Oh you know
you can do X y Z, or they're singing classes,
(31:01):
or you can go to this community theater and get
in a musical or something. But I didn't have anybody
who directed me. My parents were immigrants, so they weren't
really up with, you know, what kids were doing in
those days. So I met Nora because Tom was doing
(31:22):
Bonfire the Vanities. It was nineteen eighty seven, and we
rented an apartment in the building in New York, the Apthorpe,
where Nora and Nick lived and Max, her son and
Jacob were still little, so they were living there. Right,
the windows would be open and I would hear like
(31:43):
this guitar playing going on, you know, every day, guitar playing,
guitar playing, guitar playing. Well, it turns out it was
Max Bernstein, Nora's son, and he now is.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Taylor Swift's lead guitars. So just saying he did with
those less word right, But.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
I didn't really become friendly with Nora until people probably
don't know this, but Tom was offered when Harry met Sally,
and he turned it down because he was going through
a divorce and he was very happy to be not married,
and so he could not understand that a person going
through a divorce would have anything other than he was like,
(32:25):
I'm so happy.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
But I loved that script. So I read that script when.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
It came in and I just flipped out and I
was like, God, this woman, Nora Efron, she did that movie.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
We really like.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
This Is My Life with Julie Kavner was about a
stand up comedian at the age of fifty.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
Yes, remind me to go back to the age of
fifty and noura okay.
Speaker 4 (32:47):
So I wrote Rob because I had worked with Rob
and I was like, this script is so fantastic.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
I can Rob Ryder the director. I said, this is
just mind boggling.
Speaker 4 (32:59):
So cut to a few years later, Tom Is offered
Sleepless in Seattle, and I loved that script so much
and it was Nora and I ran into her at
a party at Linda Oaps's house. Now, Carrie Fishers, I know,
it's all familiar. Carrie Fisher was in This Is My Life,
(33:23):
and she was in when Harry met Sally, and I
just loved how.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Norah wrote for her.
Speaker 4 (33:29):
So I ran into her the party and I said, Norah,
if nobody, if you're not going to cast Carrie in
the role of the Best Friend, which was the Rosie
O'donnald part. I would love to audition for it. She
calls me in for an audition. It was like, Oh
my gosh, this is incredible. So I go in an
(33:49):
audition and I didn't get the part. They gave it
to Rosie. But Norah offered me the role of Susie,
this other character, and I was.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Like, oh, yeah, that was a really good part of
this I.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
Really liked that character. It's a big monologue in there.
So I ended up doing that monologue from about the
movie An Affair to Remember, and that ended up being
one of the most fun, most wonderful acting experiences I've
ever had. Then soon after that, she offered me a
(34:20):
part in a movie called Mixed Nuts with Steve Martin
and Madeline Kahn and Richard Kine and Gary Shanley, John Stewart,
Isn't it Parker Posey is in it, Adam Sandler, Juliet Lewis.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
It was incredible cast. Yeah, Leev Schreiber's first role.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
So then we did that movie and you know, sadly
it wasn't successful when it came out, but now it's
become this weird cult favorite it's like, so it's a
weird movie, but it's a really good weird movie.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Let me go back to the fifties. Yes, no, so.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
On my fiftieth birthday because Nora actually became like one
of my best friends. And she sat on my fiftieth
birthday as she was toasting with a glass of champagne
because she loved champagne. Here's to turning fifty. Great things
can happen to you after you turned fifty. I didn't
(35:20):
direct my first movie until I was fifty. She died
at seventy one. Look what she did in that twenty
one years.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Wow, it's really important to hear that. Yes, you're Utah.
It's just very and I mean really receiving.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
It because there was no clock on creativity for her.
She was a journalist, don't forget. She was a hardcore journalist.
And then she decided she was going to write scripts.
She wrote Silkwood for Crying out Loud, it's a very
serious movie.
Speaker 5 (35:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine.
He's a Hindu priest, and we were talking about purpose.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
I asked him, well, wait, how.
Speaker 4 (36:12):
Do you how do you know what your purpose is?
Like you can because you know, we were having conversations.
I want to do this, I want to do that.
He goes, You know, purpose is very simple. You ask
yourself this question, what is it that I can still
do on my deathbed.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
That will be my purpose?
Speaker 4 (36:34):
That has nothing to do with engaging and I need
three people to do it or I have to have
a certain you know, environment to do it.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
And when he said that, I knew exactly what.
Speaker 4 (36:49):
My purpose was, and it was it sounds so simple,
but to bring joy and want. I want to be
able to put stuff like that out into the world.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
You know, that's where my head is at.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
That's where my I find the most satisfaction out of
doing stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Well, I love that you said that because when I
was thinking about you, joy was the word that came up.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
And I feel that is so nice thing. No, but
it's the intention.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
You know.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
I do want to know about what it felt like
to be because I think.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
It's so great to your experience when you are playing
Roxy in Chicago, Like, was that a good experience to
be on Broadway?
Speaker 3 (37:29):
Was that a dream?
Speaker 4 (37:31):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Oh? My god? This was a norm moment.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
Also, really yes, because I got offered to do Chicago,
and Nora said, well, you know, you should go into
town and see the show and make sure it's in
good shape. And what she meant was, you know, is
it still good? You know, is it falling apart? It's
been on for so long, how good could it still be?
(37:57):
So I go into town with Tom and my daughter
Elizabeth to see the show and at the it's fantastic,
It's so good. And at the intermission, I turned Tom
to Elizabeth and I'm like, like, there's no way I'm
doing this because terrifying, terrifying. I said, there's no way
(38:21):
I'm doing this or that I can do this. And
they looked at me like I was nuts, Like what
are you kidding? You are so doing this, and I'm like, nope, nope,
I am not Nope, You're doing it. And I was terrified,
but it brought me talk about connecting dots. Honestly, this
(38:44):
is why we have to be brave and do things
that are out of our comfort zone. My dance captain
Greg Butler, who is still a friend today, he taught
me so much about courage. He taught me so much
about patience, about what we do to ourselves in our heads,
that have nothing to do with what we actually can
(39:05):
be doing in real life and real time. And he
was very funny. But after the play was finished, he
introduced me to the woman who changed my life because
she was the one who said offered me the idea
that I could be a songwriter. And her name is
(39:27):
Kara DioGuardi and she was a songwriter and she had
done Chicago because she was a judge on American Idol
and she's fantastic right as a but.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
She was badass. Went to Duke.
Speaker 4 (39:38):
She was a songwriter, had hit songs, was way more
than what she just was as a judge on Idol.
But she ended up doing Roxy and Greg said to me,
you need to meet Kara dio Guardy. I think you
guys are going to hit it off. So after she
did the play, I can't remember how long he introduced us,
(40:01):
we met and in that meeting, the first meeting, she
said to me, well, so what do you want to do?
Speaker 3 (40:06):
I said, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (40:07):
I probably would give anything if I could write a
song like you, but I can.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
She goes, why can't you? I was like, well, because
I don't write music, I don't read music. I'm not
a musician. You know, I'm play an instrument. I don't
do anything. She goes, neither do it. Do you have
something you want to say?
Speaker 4 (40:22):
And when she said that, I was like, literally, I
got like a butterflies in my stomach and kind of
like that pit. I'm like, yeah, I totally have something
I want to say. She goes, I want to write
your songs with you first two songs, and she did,
and that opened the door to songwriting.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
And if I had not done Chicago, I way not
have met Kara.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
I would not have become a songwriter, and I would
not be here sitting here talking to you about my
new album.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
As we finish our lunch, I'm thinking of all the
great things Rita has done in her career and the
courage she found to start a new chapter in music.
And what comes to my mind is the theme song
that used to end the Carol Burnett Show in the
nineteen seventies, and it was I'm so glad we had
this time together just to have a laugh or sing
(41:18):
a song. And today I don't know about you, but
I've had many laughs and we've actually sang songs. So
let's check in one more time with the incredible Rita Wilson.
Speaker 4 (41:32):
I think being a woman, at least in the generation
that I grew up in, was it was very easy
to be visibly invisible. And because I was taught, you know,
don't make waves. You're here to please people, make everybody
feel good, make everybody, you know.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
Not feel threatened. So I think that it takes.
Speaker 4 (41:57):
At least for me, it took a really long time
to sort of, I like to say, find my voice.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
Yeah, and I mean that literally and metaphorically.
Speaker 4 (42:07):
And I do believe, like I said earlier, that people
know who they are at a very young age, but
it gets sort of buried, yep, if you don't have
the right circumstances.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
You know. I still feel that way sometimes, you know,
I still.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Feel don't go away forward, No, And it's.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
So ingrained in your upbringing and everything. But I try
to be aware of it and try not to let
it get out of the way, you know, like to
have to catch it.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Yeah, you catch it. And I think you said and
I say the same thing. It's finding your voice. And
I think what Nora said this is also of coming back.
I think our conversation sort of as we end, it's
like at fifty we found out life begins.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
When do you find your voice? When? Who do you know?
Who you want?
Speaker 1 (42:56):
Because with age and wisdom, and I just want to
thank you, thank you for coming here and having lunch.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
I want everyone to.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
Download Rita Wilson Now and Forever Duets because it really.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
It's just a beautiful album.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
So you're a beautiful person. It's joy.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
I hope everyone who pulled up a chair go have
a great day.
Speaker 4 (43:17):
I wish everyone could have lunch with you because you
have the best questions. It was effortless and so much
fun and you are gifted at this.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
Thank you now. The only thing we need to add
is a couple of dance lessons.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
Okay, let's do that, okay. Great.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
Table for two with Bruce Bosi is produced by iHeartRadio
seven three seven Park and Airmail. Our executive producers are
Bruce Bosi and Nathan King. Table for two is researched
and written by Bridget arsenalt. Our sound engineers are Paul
Bowman and Alyssa Midcalf. Table for two is LA production
team is Danielle Romo and Lorraine viz Our. Music supervisor
(44:04):
is Randall poster Our Talent Booking is by James Harkin.
Special thanks to Amy Sugarman, Uni Cher, Kevin Yuvane, Bobby Bauer,
Alison Kant, Graber, barbur and Jen and Jeff Klein, and
the staff at the Tower Bar in the world famous
Sunset Tower Hotel. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
(44:26):
favorite shows.
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