December 10, 2024 • 47 mins
Long before Ted Sarandos’s company turned “binge watching” into a national pastime, the co-C.E.O. of Netflix stayed up long past his bedtime in order to catch The Jack Benny Program and I Love Lucy, developing a passion for film and television that has guided him ever since. After spending his early career rising through the ranks of the video distribution industry, Sarandos’s acumen caught the attention of Netflix founder Reed Hastings, who pitched Sarandos on his company: what if renting movies and television shows could be done from the couch? Over the following decades, Netflix evolved into the streaming service we know today. And all the while, Sarandos’s keen eye for potential smash-hits such as House of Cards continues to help deliver unforgettable plotlines to homes around the world. On this week’s episode of Table for Two, Sarandos joins host Bruce Bozzi to discuss his early life in Arizona, meeting his wife, Nicole Avant, and the process of writing the prologue to a new edition of her book, Think You’ll Be Happy.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi everybody, it's Bruce. Thanks for joining us for another
episode of Table for Two. Today we're back at one
of my favorite places, the Tower Bar, for another amazing lunch.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
I mean I usually do the chop with chicken. Yeah,
that's my I'll see.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
I'm going to do the exact same things. It's one
of my favorite things.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
This time around, we're speaking with someone who has helped
changed the landscape of television as the co CEO of Netflix,
but today we're going to be focusing in on something
very important to him.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Family.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Our guest recently wrote a touching forward to the paperback
version of his wife, Nicole Levant's book, Think You'll Be Happy.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Oh actually I can take smigula. Normally it takes sparkling.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
But you know you're not going to say you.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Take sparkling please.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
We're having lunch with Ted Surrandos.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
We're going to talk about.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
His in laws, his own parents, and how his childhood
help shape who he is today. So sit back, grab
a glass of rose, and I hope you enjoy our conversation.
I'm rus Bozzie and this is my podcast Table for two.
(01:32):
So if you've pulled up a chair today, it's your
lucky day. We're having lunch with You've changed what TV is,
how we watch TV. You are a man of such.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Integrity and warmth, and.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I've had such the pleasure of getting to know you
and your wife Nicole.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
We are having lunch today with Ted Sorrandos.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Oh my god, thank you for joining me.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
And you know we're and today is an interesting conversation
that we're going to have because Nicole, your wife, Nicole
was on the show and she wrote her memoir I
think You'll be happy moving through grief with great grace
and gratitude.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
And the second edition has just been dropped.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Right, yeah, yeah, and you wrote the prologue to it,
and I did.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I've never done that before.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yeah, So tell me and I want to talk about
your phrase I will meet you there.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
I think it's so beautiful. But Rick, how did that
come about?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
To ask me to write the foot the road for
the for the book was so important for her because
and for both of us really, because it's how you
process grief, for how you process events in your life
is really up to you. Like you realize pretty quick
that you don't have much control over these things. That happened.
(02:47):
We did not anticipate, you know, months before the you know,
the terrible murder of Nicholl's mother or the you know,
the timely passing of my father, that either one of
those things will be true, that we were planning his
eightieth birthday and we you know, just have Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
It's just it's a yeah, I mean, it's a contextualized
to a listener. Within a week, Ted you lost your
father who was about to be eighty, and a home
break in Jacqueline and she was murdered, and like that's
like life changes like.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
This, just like that. And again neither neither we could
have been planned on or thought about or such a
terrible turn of events. And I think the thing that
you know Nicole as well, But I think what about
the thing about her is that she really is this
kind of EmPATH, and she really is so thinking of
other people so unconsciously. I don't think she wrote the
(03:36):
book thinking she wrote the book for herself, but of
course it's a book that helps millions of people, Yes,
and it's a she knew going into it. What can
I do? How can I turn this terrible thing in
my life into something positive for other people, and that
was the moment because she had been struggling to write
a book for a long time, for a few years,
more of a biography, more was about her, And it
(03:57):
totally makes sense that what she needed to get over
is not making it about her as soon as it
was about somebody else. It was about her mom's that
it flowed out of her just came out of her.
So the process of going with her to some of
the bookstops and hearing seeing the emotional reaction from people
who've read the book, it's very very moving and very
very touching. And it was me watching her journey from
(04:21):
the side and reading around and shearing heron for sure.
And then she's reminded me one night, she said, you
know you're you're inextractable from this story. Is this was
your you know Jackie as she was a mother. I
say she was a mother, my mother in law. But
she was everything you'd hope your mother would be, you know, meaning,
super supportive, incredibly wise, every loving, everything you really want
(04:43):
your mom to be. My you know, Jackie got to
be from my mother passed away several years before, and
so she was great and not just for me, but
for my kids as a grandmother, unbelievably supportive and engaged
and wise, and people look up to her, including my kids,
and so universal.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
When you ever her name is mentioned, it.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
No, she was earned. I mean she's she did more
on this planet in a very short time. I know,
you know, you die in your eighties, you figure, oh
you had a good run. But she jammed a lot
of life into that into there. And I look at
that that she's so inspiring in that way. So and
when Nicole said, you know, the book, the paperback was
coming out and it was an opportunity for the book
(05:21):
to reach an even wider audience, and she asked me
if I would take a run it right in the phone.
It was very very moved that she asked her.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
It's really beautiful. Your words are really beautiful.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
And the picture you paint of not only sort of
the trauma of that night and receiving that phone call,
but also sort of getting the family to the hospital,
and then the emergence of watching your wife take on
this moment where becoming the matriarch in this sort of,
(05:51):
as you said, way that her mother could never have
imagined but had prepared her that way, and then being
with Clarence as he departed the past. Where did that
come from from?
Speaker 3 (06:04):
With? Well, I mean for Jackie preparing Nicole for anything,
the how beautiful it is, it included preparing her for
the very worst thing you can imagine, not intentionally, but
but maybe intentionally, you know. And I think that her
her the way that Nicole just Rice rose to the occasion.
There was no time, there's no time for anything but
(06:25):
for me to step up, right, and she instinctively knew that.
You know, we're in we're in the we're in the
emergency room. We're waiting for the word from the doctor.
So what happened? How was Jackie, which is going to
make it through this surgery after this shooting? And they
did the thing that you see on TV where they
come and ask you to go to a little room,
right and you know, so walking to the room, we knew,
(06:47):
you know, that was not going to be good.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yea.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
And Nicole's brother Alex was there. He was distraught, and
her father was just overcome with griefs and it's almost
as if the entire room melted down and Nicole rose
up because she knew she had to and it was
just it's a beautiful thing to think back on that,
you know, such a horrific night. Yeah, to actually watch
this physical transformation of somebody, somebody you love as much
(07:12):
as I love to call and know that it wasn't
like she didn't that in that moment she didn't need
my help. I knew she would, I knew she would
down the road, and in that moment she did not.
It was very instinctive and very automatic for her. It
was just a reflex.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I really do love I will meet you there. We're
going to revisit that. But so, like, let's just talk
about the actual reel, Like where did.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
You meet n I met Nicoll during the Obama run
for the first one. I was going to a We
went to a big fundraiser here in La. It was
the first one he did after he got the nomination.
And I was the last person to arrive and she
was pissed late. Yeah. So her very first words to
(07:58):
me were, you are late. Words I have heard many times.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Wait, this was the first time you met, the first
time I laid eyes on, first time, you are late.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
And she she's like she again, she's immediately she was
in charge, she was running this event. You take your
pictures and you get to your table. And I remember
just having my breath taken away a little bit when
I walked in the room at her energy and I
and her beauty of course, but also energy. And I'm
looking at her and I found myself watching her work
the room like working around. You go here, you go there.
(08:28):
She was very, very very much in charge of that room.
And a friend of ours, Laurence Bender, who actually introduced
me to Nicole, was hosting a table and that we
were sitting at, and she came over to tell Lawrence
you are not the Senator is not coming to your table.
If you want to meet the Senator, you go to
that table, and she stormed away again. And so I
(08:48):
said to Lawrence to go who is this.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
She's a frire story.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
And he said, how do you not know Nicole Avon?
She's famous in this town. I have no I've never
met her. He goes, oh, you'll meet her tonight. She's great.
And so after the event was over, Laurence hosted a
table at Ago, the former Ago, and said, you guy,
should you should come? So I said great. We go
to the dinner and Nicole comes walking in the room
(09:13):
and Laurence said, switch seats. You should talk to Nicoll.
She's she's great. You should get to know Nicole. And
she sat down next to me and we talked for
three hours with a table of ten, but it was
just the table for two, isn't that we talked for
three hours straight.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
That's when that takes over and like the white light,
everything goes away, but the two of you, like all
the noise in the restaurant was just and from that
point on, So then you asked her out on a date.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Well, we talked that night though by the way, we
talked about everything you're never supposed to talk about on
a date, Like we talked about religion, politics, history, everything
we're not supposed to talk about it, right, And it
really was an unbelievable experience that by the time we
I did ask her for a date if you afterwards,
and she she she had she tells the story, but
that she had been She said kind of like unconscious.
(09:57):
I hope I see him again. And I wrote a
note to her at the bottom, but I said, I
hope I see you again. So and uh.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
So Nicole has that way about her. She yes, she's
a manifestor, Yeah, she's a manifestor she really is.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
But she so that then that we met for a
drink that turned into dinner and after a pretty short time, right,
we not only were together after very sure you were married? Right?
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Well?
Speaker 1 (10:17):
I mean, if I truly believe, like I shouldn't point
in your life too, when you've lived enough life and
you know, you just know, you know, you.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Know, and it's just like, yeah, let's we we gain
our life together. Yeah, we were.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
I think we're about nine months in and I said
to her, I don't know what else I'm going to
know in six months that I don't already know, right,
And I was very sure about it, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
My next question in reading this, when I was thinking
about it, I was like, so, when was the first.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Time you said I will meet you there, like.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
You know, in because there's two ways to be saying yeah,
i'll meet you there, I'll meet you at.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
The tower, or i'll meet you there.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Yeah, I think it's kind of like that you'll be
happy in the way, but it was it was not
a conscious.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Decision, right, so that you'll be happy.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
To also take that right away, think you'll be happy,
but i'll meet you there. Is it actually just kind
of very organically flowed and I sat down to write
at the first draft, and it's a thing that stuck
out to me as kind of an like you said,
it's a string of words, it means very little, or
it could be life changing, and for me it was.
And again, meeting somebody where they are physically or where
(11:27):
they are emotionally, and to recognition that in a life together,
consequences dictate that things change and and you change, and
you're not in the same state that you were in,
and you're not in the same space that you were
in sometimes and you have to meet that person where
they are and try to help them through it and
that they will do the same for you.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
That's very important.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
And it's not always easy, as you know, to meet
someone there, you know, as we evolve, as you have
a shared life, a journey, which is really what you
have with someone when you really choose to spend. Has
there been a time where to meet Nicole or meet
or you know, having Hole meet you there wasn't so
(12:12):
easy where it's like, Okay, I'm gonna get there, but
I don't know how much.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Oh for sure, it's all I mean, I would say
when the first time I consciously remember the meet you there.
Being part of our life was right after we got married,
she became the US ambassador to the rahamas sure and
physically moved to the Bahamas, and I could not physically
move with her at that time, so we were I
was doing two weeks home and one week there for
the first couple of years of our marriage. Okay, so
our whole marriage was I'll meet you there, and then
(12:37):
when I would meet there, I would you know, get
off the plane and get into a suit and be
you know, you had duty duties on top of that,
and then also I had to show up for her
in a way that she was there by herself, you know,
so to be able to make up for lost time
constantly and then still invest in time, invest our time
in each other. We had little bites of getaway time
(12:57):
together that were not part of duty. And then also
we're you know, both that we have kids that were
also needed that attention. And then yeah, and so when
I have a Sarah an TONI and Sarah and Nicole
came into our lives and at a really ruckous time
going into early teens.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Oh so yeah, with me with Brian and Billy's it's
not an easy time.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
To begin a relationship with somebody because what you also
realized that I'm sure the call felt this way and
you they have to love you like you love her
and she loves you, because without that it's not easy.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Yeah, and it's and it's bouncy. And I think about
it the time together and Nicole's willingness to invest and
lean into them and uh and you know sometimes swallow
some pretty hard transactions, yes, and also like to step
into a role and she really did. I mean, I
think some of Sarah and my daughter's favorite times in
our relationship together was times that she was in the
(13:51):
Bahamas without me with Nicole. Yeah, and just really that
spent some real time and saying with san with TONI
told me would have these really almost rituals in the
Bamas that he really loved and enjoyed it. And then
he would show up and have duty. So like he
you know, when he showed up he was the ambassador's
son and they would you know, he would show up
on an aircraft carrier and to meet people.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Yeah. No, And it's funny with when when you were
a kid and you're like because.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
When you're the step which I hate the word, I
never you know, Billy and I we don't really use
step because it's you know, you get past whatever that is.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
But you also have to.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Maintain your sense of like who you are as the like.
So in the room sometimes you know, you respect the parents,
the biological parents, and you might disagree or agree, but
you have to find that thread.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
It's a difficult road. It's a difficult road and not
underappreciated too. Yeah, so I definitely think that that is
something where if you could find that place and people
comment on it a lot about Nicole and the relationship
with the kids, Yeah, it's very special.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Kind of sounds like this could be a good show
on Netflix.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
So I'll meet you there kind of again started with
this dual life we had back and forth. Interesting when
Nicole came back from the Bahamas, it was because my
mother had just passed, and it was this time where
she writes about it in the book What a Difficult
How she looks back with great regret her reaction because
(15:15):
she was so busy in the role that I was
talking to her about the funeral and she was talking
back and forth about work, and then this realization that
she was not in the right place at that moment.
But she came to that conclusion on her own, and
it was led to the chain of events and led
to her coming home, which was, you know, there's a
lot that she was needed for here, and then she
(15:36):
came back and up to work work on Obama's reelection,
but also more importantly, she came home to be with
the family. It's so unlikely, not because she's black and
I'm white. It's because I grew up like very lower
middle class and I find out later that I'm dating
a princess at Beverly Hills.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Thanks for joining us on Table for two.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
We've been speaking with our guest, Ted Crandos about his wife, Nicole.
Levant's parents, Clarence and Jacqueline. Clarence was known as the
Black Godfather at Motown Records. Jacqueline, or Jackie as she
was lovingly known, was a huge influence in both Nicole
and Ted's lives before her tragic murder in twenty twenty one.
(16:38):
People don't experience, you know, knock on wood, hopefully what
you guys experienced within that short period of time. So
how did the light come back in through into your family,
into you and Nicole through the darkest hour of that,
you know, how does how do you dealing with grief?
Speaker 2 (16:55):
As Nicole is written about.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Yeah, it's interesting because I feel like it was very
it also was organic as as as shocking as the
whole incident was and the whole dealing with it, this
whole kind of organic period that kind of started with
the passing of my father and ended with the passing
of Clarence a couple of years later, with this tragedy
in the middle, you know what I mean. So it
wasn't it kind of eased, It almost eased you into
(17:18):
it out of it. And and like my father passed
exactly the way we all hope to, just took a shower,
put on his pajamas, went to sleep and didn't wait God,
bless God. He was about to turn eighty and was
you know, he had lived a life and it was beautiful.
And then you know, Jackie, with that, you know, kind
of horrific and you couldn't have imagine Clarence was kind
(17:40):
of in that, you know, somewhere in between. Yeah, we
didn't really see it coming, but he was sick and
said he was you know, uh, And and then what
we did have is that last week together where he
you know, he was unconscious for you know, for that
period of time because.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
He moved in with you and Nicole.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
Yeah, you have this whole immediately he came, he came
from the hospital to live with Nicole and I and
we and it was like a gift, I say in
the in the forward, it was like a cosmic payback almost,
this incredible experience of.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Having them with us for a couple of years. Uh,
and to tell great stories. And I took that as
like almost like a like a built in mentorship at home.
Have to imagine making deals for a living and having
clear at the house. Yeah, and he and he veryly
never he always had great advice, and it was never
about the deal itself. It was just about people and
how people react to different things. Did you try this,
(18:28):
did you think about this? You should ask to mention
this or that kind of thing. Yes, Yeah, it was
all the things that happened on the edge of a
deal that make the deal open, you know, closer enough.
So really helpful in that way. But we'd have these
meals together. We just talked about music and we talked
about life. And he would tell you know, he hit
a very big repertoire of stories, they kind of got
smaller and smaller every night. And the story. I'm always
(18:50):
endlessly fascinated by what stories stayed with you till the
very very yeah, from childhood or from adult even from
your later adult lives. And so in that way, it
was a very interesting thing to watch, and we would
just spend we got to spend a lot of time together,
which in contrast, when my father passed fairly unexpectedly and
he had lost my father had a stroke several years
(19:10):
before and lost his speech. So for seven or eight
years of end of his life, we didn't really talk,
couldn't talk, and so my father was a I would
say a kind of a long goodbye in that way,
and Clarence said, filled a big, gigantic void for that
time that I wish I had with my dad.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Is there a story that came out of that that
you had never known? That you were like, oh, wow.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
You know, there's funny. He would say these little It
wasn't really out of it, didn't come out of that,
but it's like he planted the seed for it there
then you find I found out about it later. Actually,
he would always say these things because he did so
many enormous things. He would say some things in a
very nonchalant way. You know. I helped Albell sell Stax Records.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Just that that's it.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
And then you see this great Stax Records documentary on
HBO recently, and Clarence changed the face of those artists
and changed the whole fate and future of a certain
kind of music because of that deal. And so you
realized these things later as they come out. He just
did him. It was just like, oh, yeah, help the buddy.
I helped the buddy.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
You know.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
You you talked about the ability just to keep going
forward and not be stuck in the nostalgia of what
was and creating.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
And I love and admire and respect these guys, you know,
these pioneers ahead of us. And I became very good friends.
I've been for a for a long time, very good
friends with Tony Bennett. We did a document before Netflix
streaming even we did a documentary on Tony Bennett with
Clint Eastwood, and somebody knew I was a I was
obsessed with Tony Bennett, and they said, hey, this might
(20:47):
be an interesting thing. Clin Eewood's going to produce it
and his team is directing and an editing, and I'm like,
let's do this, right, So do this. I get to
know Tony. I joined his board for Exploring the Arts,
which is a nonprofit that pays for performing arts programs
in public schools. So after the budget gets cut, the
first thing that gets cut usually is the arts programs.
So we come in and backfill that. We do it
(21:08):
for seventeen schools in New York and LA and and
through that process, and this was Tony's you know, passion,
right and through that and so much so that he
built a performing arts school in Queens in his hometown
of Astoria. And he named it the Frank Sinatra School.
So imagine doing all that work and naming it for
somebody else, right, But that's to me, it's like that
kind of humility. So great. But I knew. So I
(21:29):
got to Tony, and then I got Norman Lear, who's
become a very good friend. And you know, I knew
once I knew all these guys in there who were
in their nineties, I knew that these days were coming,
and have so many of them in the last few years.
It's just it's kind of opened to either a void
or an opportunity in the universe.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
That's a good way to look at the opportunity and also.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
The the the idea that you were able to, you know,
share a journey.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Where does that fit into your work?
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Because now you have all these really great stories, does
that inspire you or motivate your help sort of shape
the work that you've done.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Yeah, I mean, look at the idea that you can have,
that your the work can have a lasting impact is phenomenal.
In a world is full of distraction and full of noise,
something that really stands out or sticks around is pretty special.
We were talking before we started here about how young
people don't really know old things right, and we grew
up on old things right. So the reason I think
one of the things that really influenced my success had
(22:32):
been I grew up watching I couldn't sleep at night.
I was not never a big sleeper, like five hours
a night when I was a kid. So you watch
late night TV. So I watched. I knew every episode
of the Jack Benny Show, the Dye Griffis Show, Thank You,
I Love Lucy, And so for me, I was really
shaped by those early days of comedy and and so
for me and that influences I desire to make things
(22:55):
that people can't wait to see. I remember reading an
article about I Love Lucy was so popular and it's
peak that during the commercial breaks, the water pressure in
New York City would drop because that's what people would wait,
everyone's going to go to the time. And it's like
that impact our custure. And then you know, the other night,
we had a hundred million people around the world watching
the Jake powfight. Yeah you know, I mean yeah, you
so back fifty years to find an audience that big, right,
(23:17):
and especially for you know, for for a boxing match
was back with Muhammad Ali was fighting on ABC to
get a bigger and after that, the next biggest audience
at the same time would have been the Mash finale
over forty years ago, right exactly. So so so a
lot of these things will stick with me about what
to do and and to get to know people who
have done it way before me. That's you know, that's
(23:38):
a gift in life.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
I think, you know, to being raised by her mother.
The sense of when you would speak about Jackie was
all about really making sure how you presented and how
and level of respect and how you spoke to people
like that's a very important thing to pass on to
your children, because the Cole calls it home training.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Home training, right. You know, you were not messing around
with Jackie.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
You know one of our one of the times, one
of the business stories with Jackie and me is she
we were we went to visit one time during We
were bringing food over to the house all the time
during COVID, but we went over to visit one time
and she obviously had this thing planned because she was ready.
So Nicole goes in the other room. She's talking to Clarence.
(24:36):
I'm talking to Jackie, and she says to me, you
should make a show on Netflix about Queen Charlotte. Just
out of the blue, WHOA, And I call Jackie. There
is a show a Netflix abou Quen Charlotte. It's called Bridgerton.
She goes, no, no, no, I've seen that show. It's great Jesus,
but it's you know, the Queen Charlotte's a real person
and she's got an unbelievable history, and you should do
something about Queen Charlotte specifically. And I go. She rolls
(24:59):
her eyes and walks down the hall and she comes
back with a stack of books about Queen Charlotte and letters,
handwritten letters that Queen Charlotte had written that Jackie had
collected at auctions over the years because she was, you know,
she was obsessed with history and history makers, particularly black history,
and you know, Queen Charlotte is this incredible figure and
she's a you know, she's the real deal figure. And
(25:20):
so I almost, like, almost just being nice, I say,
oh yeah, I'll take a look, you know, because Jackie's
never done this before. It never suggested or pitched any
And I get home and start flipping through the material
and it's remarkable. Her life is remarkable. And I called
Shanda and I said, Shonda, my mother in law thinks
(25:42):
you should do this. And I started reading through, and
I think you should. And in fact, I worry now
that Charlotte has become a popular character because of Bridgington
and someone else is going to do it. You should
do that. You should be the one's true And she
sent her We sent the materials. As she dug into it,
she goes, we're doing this right, and it just came
together that quick.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
That's fascinating. She was sitting on that like she knew.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
She had the stack.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
She was just like, okay, you wait for the right now.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Watched Bridgerton then said, wait a minute, you're missing a
character here that needs her story told.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Yea, and Nicole talks about it. But you know they
had her girl indoor and she grew up much did
with Jackie's influence. But they had a wall of power
basically just like a wall of black people first who
did this, that and the other and all like people
who are super accomplished Black people through history, and it
was Nicole knew every one of them and every story
(26:28):
growing up, and that was never lost at that history
was never lost on her. So for Jackie to bring
Queen Charlotte back to life something that she'd done for
Nicole her whole life. So she just did it for
the rest of the world.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Welcome back to Table for two.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
While his wife Nicole had incredible parents, so did Ted Sarantos.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Long before his time.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
As co CEO of Netflix, Ted grew up with his
family in Phoenix, Arizona. What lasting influence did his parents
leave on him? When you lost your dad and I
didn't realize that there was a time where he couldn't speak.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
But a son losing a father's very seminal.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
It's a big moment.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
How did that change you? Do you think?
Speaker 3 (27:30):
How did it impact me? With my dad? Mostly there's
a role reversal that happens eventually where you're taking care
of your parents, right, And my dad was pretty independent
and before he had his stroke, he lived on a boat.
It was funny, he was. My parents were very young
parents in their twenties and four kids together. And then
my younger brother, who passed away also several years ago,
(27:53):
came later, so he had raising five kids. They were
just kids raising kids. And I remember growing up having this,
you know that it's not that they were you didn't
like having young, fun parents. When you're younger, you want, right,
you want your parents to be your parents, and and
he used to be crazy. But I realized as I
got older and became a parent of myself, what was
happening was my parents were just trying to capture the
(28:15):
little the youth that got away from them, right, because
they got to get too young. They started babies too young.
So my dad was in his forties, he was trying
to find his twenties, you know. And I came to
understand that later too late in life actually, And same
with my mom, like you know, and then they didn't
really have like incredible role models in that way. So
that for us growing up, it was I always jokingly
saying I was raised by wolves because we didn't have
(28:38):
a lot of rules in the house when they had
set dinner time. The reason they watch TV all night
is they weren't paying attention. Uh, And part of me
was like mad about that all the time. And I
would argue, and I used to argue with my dad
a lot about all kinds of stuff, right, And then
I realized at some point that the limited time we
had together, but a silly thing to do is waste
(28:58):
that time arguing with them. So he would say something
that I either was wrong or I disagreed with politically
or something, and instead of arguing with them, like oh
that's interesting, and just stop arguing with it. Right, And
we had a beautiful relationship.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
And once you can make a shift, yeah, big shift.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
That's it comes with age, it comes with wisdom, and
it also comes with the.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Real realization that her life and we had this really.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
I mean, as much as I talk about the life
being chaotic and crazy, there's a real beauty to what
was happening there too. My sister, my oldest sister, Kathy.
I mean I think back of like memories and influence
everything else. I read the book Jaws, which was a
very racy book at that time when I was very.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
I never read that really.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
Oh yeah, there's very graphic sex scenes and kind of
and but I got but I took it. I took
it from from her. And she was a dance in
an Arthur Murray dance instructure at some point. She did
this really cool thing when we were growing up. She
would always bring the kind of orphaned people to Thanksgiving
and Christmas dinner at our house, and so being exposed
to a variety of people in the lives and story
(30:00):
he's started very young for me, and in fact, many
of the stories that we did, you know, the folks
who came to that dinner that would likely to be
a gay dancer, who whose parents kicked him out right
and didn't have family to spell celebrate the holidays with
all that kind of stuff I'm talking about in the
late in the mid seventies and eighties in Arizona.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
In Arizona, yeah, yeah, concern, yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
So she so again she kind of exposed me to
this world that was you know, bigger than bigger than me. Uh.
And this the stories that are being told at the
table are not typical of the Arizona Table stories anyway. Uh.
And then my sister Jean is this crazed growing up,
she was this crazy Barbara streisand fan. So I think
she gave me the sense of a fandom, like a
(30:42):
real understanding of fandom, and like she would change her
hairstyle of Barbara did.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
So, and she changed her hairstyle a lot.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Oh yes, yeah, she did the Superman my favorite. This
is my sister trying desperately to coffee that look in
the fact, so much so that her boyfriend at the
time who later became her husband, took me to see
the uh the filming of the Original starsbod they did it.
(31:12):
I was like a ten years older. We did it.
They did at the ASU the opening of the film.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Offer me yeah, because they had the big scene.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Yeah, and they had to fill up the stadium, so
it was the gigantic bill of rock stars. Peter Frampton,
who was like the biggest start at the time with
the liner to fill up the stadium, right, Okay, So
again it's kind of very all these kind of early
influences I always trying to think about. And then my
sister Terry, who's two years older than me. Her she
is like she understood, she understood a relationship with my
(31:40):
dad better than I did. My dad loved cars and mechanics.
He could fix anything, can build anything. And she talk
about meets you where you are. She started doing that
stuff to get bad more quality time with my dad. Yeah,
and she's you know so, and she's so decided I'm
watching her house. She kind of and it managed relationships
in a way by meeting people where they are. It
(32:00):
was a really cool influence. And my brother Joey who
passed away too young, but he incredibly talented designer and
dancer and super gifted guy who just like I just
feel like he just wasn't built for this world. He
had He had a really hard time and for someone
so gifted and talented, he just had a really hard
time getting things together all the time. So and but
(32:22):
his kind of just passion for life and living life
was something that was irew.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
What an interesting I did not know any of this
in regard to you, how you grew up and and
I think having the young parents created this like camp
in a way that.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
You could, you know, become who you are and like
lean into.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
It and maybe you don't ever know what when you're
in the middle of it, you know, really have to
look back at I think my favorite show as a kid,
I used to love that Happy Days of Her usurely.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
I mean that lineup, I forget about it.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
But I also remember watching because my dad. My dad
smoked a lot, so we never went to the movies
because he didn't want to go to I was though smoking.
But if it was about the fifties we're in, that
was that was his thing.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Go two hours? What was the Richard American?
Speaker 3 (33:11):
American American everywhere? All the Americans and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
We saw them all you got drive in?
Speaker 3 (33:17):
We did. We went to the big sky drive in.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Yeah, why don't you bring those back?
Speaker 3 (33:21):
I know it was a great COVID was going to
bring him back and it didn't stick.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
You drive in the cars going up and down window,
you know. Yeah, the kids out of the trunk. People
are running around, little kids in their pajamas.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
So soundestly, I mean we used to go and those
were really special night.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Yeah, it was fun. But also I was thinking about
Happy Days, like the influence of that time period, you know,
because iknew about knew about the fifties, I knew about
old stuff and he but I remember our whole family
watching Love American Style too, watching what became the pilot
for Happiness was.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
On Love Oh that they had a little vignette.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Yeah, so Love America Style was. I mean we were young,
the come on with the.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Heart that was like the red, white and blue and
it was like a vignette to a vignette. I mean
my parents were out, my sister and I were like young.
It was like that was like the ten o'clock sah.
It was like it was like racy, and that's where
kids don't have that they don't have like what we had.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Also, you know the you can only see something once
a week, and you.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Know you were like looking forward to happy days and
line I can tell you the eight is Enough, Charlie's
Angels Vegas lineup on ABC or.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
You know, you just knew what you were into.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
And it was I was saying, I attribute a lot
of my what drew me to television was order, like
schedule and order, and I knew what time things were
on and where I could find them and all that
kind of stuff, and the house was not orderly at all.
And I talk about my brothers and sister and my dad,
but I didn't tell you anything about my mom, who
is the funniest woman you've ever met. The life of
the party.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
My mom.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
My mom was the life of the party at all times. Hysterical,
hysterically funny and irresponsible.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Okay, did she smoke too, She was.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
She was great. She would smoke and then quit, and
then smoke, then quit. She was like she was selectively addictive.
And I think about her personality, but to everything were
smoking driving, We drove across country. We moved from New
Jersey to Arizona. When I was a kid, we drove
across country. I don't think they cracked the window.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Was smoking away. We were just like no.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
Seatbelts, crawling up and down, having them exactly try to
hate you in the back seat when he was especially
with as many.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
So here's my growing up. My parents, my mom, we
were always out of money. I always thought we were poor, poor,
but actually my mom they were just terrible with money.
Because my dad was an electric working union electrician, so
they probably had enough money. But we're always we always
had like the utility some one utility was always off,
so it was called dueling utilities. The electric was on,
the gas was off, the thought, the phone was off.
(36:01):
So it's like all the constantly. Again, they were just
bad managing money. So we did one year for Christmas.
My dad was it was during a layoff period and
we had no money for Christmas and my dad, uh
built so I'm gonna make the kids gifts for Christmas
and he made us. I still have mine. He's like
(36:21):
chests like a treasure Mine was like a treasure chest
a store like the store, yeah, and built up and
they're all different, they're different looking, and uh like I said,
I still have that gift. I know have And my
mom she was on the mission and okay, we're gonna
make gifts this year. Okay, I got it, but she
couldn't take it. So like Christmas, Eves went out and
bounced checks and bought us all crazy toys and everything else.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
So I still have those toys.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
I don't have any of those toys, but I still
have the chest.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
So what's things like that like?
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Again, as you look back, like I can look back
on all the toys, I don't have things like that
that become the most meaningful.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
And we used to go on these vacates. Once a
year we go on a vacation and we usually always
the sad go for a week, okay, And one year
we went and this is per classic my mom and
classic my dad. We go and check in the hotel,
and then the last day we're going to check out,
my mom tells my dad all your money to pay
the bill, to pay the hotel. Boll So of course
(37:16):
you wouldn't cancel the trip. You're just gonna go figure out,
figured it out, and I'll wait till the end, wait
till the exactly so that my dad goes to the
marina and fix his boats until he makes enough money
to pay for the hotel.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
See said, all those stories you said make you you
yeah and bring you to the call telling you it's
like there's like no coincidences in this world. Like it
gives you, like the backbone, It gives you the integrity,
It gives you the ambition, it gives you the heart
because to have dueling utilities to be like in that
situation where like you're like, oh no, like you're kid,
you're taking it in.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
And I really like now I look back and like
I needed like we needed the fun of that vacation,
and we needed to see my dad's work ethic to
pay for it, right, you know what I mean. So
it's that that exposure to it.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Exactly. Did you come Arizona to Los Angeles? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (38:11):
I went. It was a period of time. So I
came up through home and working video stores first and
then through home video distribution, and the distribution business got
dried up. Basically, the Blockbuster Video went direct and just
squeezed out all the distributors, and we were the biggest
distributor at the time, and so we took our billion
dollar private company I was working at called et D
(38:31):
lost like six or seven hundred million dollars in sales
overnight as a Blockbuster. So we started shutting down plants.
It was like it was not a great time professional
and I knew I wanted to be in the business
and I wanted to be in some steer in some
steering capacity. So I'm gonna have to be in California
to do that. I didn't know what, you know what
that in what form that would take. I got recruited
from a company a West Coast video video city that's
(38:54):
their headquarters was in Torrance at the time, uh, in Philadelphia,
and got recruited to co to work for them doing
I was ahead of products, so basically the programming for
the stores, which is a Hollywood video kind of size
video chain. Yeah, uh and marked and marketing and merchandising,
and so I did that for a pretty short time,
about a year. But that's what moved me to LA
(39:16):
And then I got in that year at the at
that chain, I did a deal. It was the big
emergence of DVD and I did a deal with this
with Warner Brothers and Sony Columbia then to do revenue
sharing on DVD, which was unheard of at the time. Yes,
And it got into the trade magazines and read Hastings
read the magazine article and said, I need that guy,
I need that deal wow, And read knew, you know,
(39:38):
he's a brilliant engineer, had a great idea for this,
you know, for Netflix, envisioned it to be exactly what
Netflix is now. And when I talked to him first
in nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
That's crazy. And when you were getting like the DVDs
out of the machine, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
Well for us, it was you know the or this
back then er we're doing a right mail.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
When I first met up, and it was so harsh
for me to wrap my head around.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
But this is rethinking. Like he went to the video
store and got a forty dollars late charge for Apollo thirteen,
and he said, this is toumb this is stupid. I'm
gonna do something about this. And instead of like protesting
the late feet, he built the company. And somebody said,
these things called DVDs are coming, and Read had this idea, like,
why don't we use the mail to send the videos
back and forth? They were the tapes are too heavy,
(40:20):
but DVDs were light.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Enough put the whole thing together.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
He went to Tower Records and about five CDs and
mailed them to himself. He goes, oh, this will work.
That's the genius of Read Hastings. And then when I
met him, he described Netflix pretty much as it sits
right now, full digital media company. That the Internet at
that time was so slow and so expensive that was unfathomable,
and but he said, no, no, the Internet's going to get
twice as fast at half the price every eighteen months.
(40:45):
It's called More's law. And I just nodded, like I
knew what.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
He's talking about. I had no idea what he was
talking about.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
And I can't remember coming back home and thinking, I
don't know if he's crazy or he's a genius or both,
but he's going to do something to change the world, right.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
So I was like, yeah, I just I love how
life works. I love the you know, how you got
you get put into different rooms or people start to say, okay, well.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
That deal put me on Read's radar, which led to
this role at Netflix. But if it was a different
executive than Read, he most it would never allow a
guy like me to exist, you know what I mean.
And he gave me even when you know we did
the deal for House of Cards was our first series
we did the that was the first deal we did.
We first, Lillly Hammer was the first one to get
(41:33):
on our air, but House of Cards was the first
big deal we did. And I remember at the time
He's like it was it was more than the entire
budget we had for streaming at the time, and we
did the deal, and Read afterwards it's like, why did
you do that? When I did in the original cut
that business and and I told him, I said, I read,
I did the risk, risk reward analysis on huh, And
I said, if this works will fundamentally change our business.
If it doesn't, we will have overpaid for a show.
(41:55):
We do it all the time. And he goes, oh, okay,
I'm totally supportive and just set and we're off to
the rasis wow and a different He created a company
and a culture that gave me the running room and
the confidence to do that. And then also, didn't you
know at any time we'll be tripped up anywhere along
the way. He didn't crush you and kill you. And
it's like, which is key.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Yeah, that's the humanity in it, in the humanity in you.
That's what comes across.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
Because when you have those kind of like influences, people
tend to pass that out.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
Yeah, and I look back to it. That is what
struck me about that first meeting with Reading ninety nine
was that he talked about this gigantic company that didn't exist,
and he talked about a company that was going to
be around after him, which is interesting now I think
about at this kind of succession and I look at it.
He was thinking about succession before the company was even built,
(42:44):
you know, if because if you want a company to
be around a long time. It implies there will be
succession exactly so like and even the way he toyed
around with the co CEO models and all these kind
of things, all selfless all ways to make this company
that will last, you know, for generations and generations and
you know, way after you're going to be around. You
have to be able to at your company without yourself, right,
which is hard for especially for a founder.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
One hundred percent believe me, coming from a family business
that lasted ninety four years.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
I think that was one of the.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Things that they stopped thinking about was just to you know,
you know, not only to be innovative during a time
of such great innovation in business, but also how was
it going to look. I will take your line, I
(43:30):
will meet you there, Because I think it's so powerful
in life, from even raising your daughter who's seventeen and
having moments right now where we're sort of at each
other to take a step back to say, okay, where
is she at?
Speaker 2 (43:41):
How do I meet her there?
Speaker 1 (43:43):
And how do I teach her to also understand how
to you know, how do we all meet each other
there at a time where right now it's a very.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
We've been so much energy trying to drag people to
where we are right exactly, intead of saying now I'll
meet you there, and so we can't get there together.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
I mean, it's a it's it's it's it's so beautiful
and I really want people to If you haven't read
Nicole's memoir, think I think You'll be happy, which is
the text, right.
Speaker 3 (44:12):
It is a text that Nicole got from her mother
six hours before she was I think.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
You'll be happy, and you're you're right. It's all like
how do you say it?
Speaker 1 (44:19):
And you know, Norman ly said to me once and
I only met him once and I was sat on
his podcast and he said something, but I think it
is on a moment right here is if I changed
one piece of my life, one piece.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
I would not be sitting here with you right now.
Everything I've done brings us to this moment.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
And then he goes and now it's gone, like it's okay,
like now, and I was like, like, oh my god,
this is Normally I.
Speaker 3 (44:40):
Always think about it in terms of perspective, right, And
Norman had that way of putting everything in perspective before
a meal, looking around the table, just telling everyone, wait,
imagine how many things had to happen just like that
for us to be here right now, and you just
pause and think about it. Right, It's like everything that
went wrong right is now part of this thing that
went so perfectly right. Yeah. And I think that's a
(45:02):
really great lesson for Nicole and for the book and
for her story, which is all these things that went
wrong actually ended up in this gigantic big picture of
where things that are so right exactly and so worth
being grateful for us completely. And it's that kind of
grateful to be grateful in the face of incredible loss
and tragedy. Something medical role models for me, and hopefully
(45:23):
when you read her books you can role model for everybody.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
I think she does.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
If I sort of as we come sort of to
the conclusion of our lunch, and I hope everyone has
enjoyed your your So I could spend hours talking to
if I had to ask you, if you had to,
like say a word about your in laws and your wife,
like to just one word that comes to you to
describe Jackie or or feeling, what would they be?
Speaker 3 (45:50):
Elegant? Yeah, true elegance, True elegance. It's which is, you know,
a way of over you know, captured, you know, encapsuling
grace and dignity and elegance that all comes together like
it was everything put together, everything thought of. You know,
it's just elegance, right, And you're.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
Forward to I will meet you, you know, I will
meet you there for Nicole's book. You say, I try
to keep up. I try to find the same comfort
she does. I love where it takes her and I
love to meet her there. And I think that is
a beautiful sentiment. And thank you Ted for joining me today.
Thank you wonderful good lunch.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Thanks everyone for pulling up a chair. Thank you for
pulling up a chair.
Speaker 5 (46:40):
I love our lunches and never forget the romance of
a meal. If you enjoy the show, please tell a
friend and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Table
for Two with Bruce Bosi is produced by iHeartRadio seven
three seven Park and Airmail. Our executive producers are Bruce
Bossi and Nathan Ca. Our supervising producer is Dylan Fagan.
(47:03):
Our editors are Vincent to Johnny and Cas b Bias.
Table for two is researched and written by Jack Sullivan.
Our sound engineers are mil B Klein, Jess Krainich, Evan Taylor.
Speaker 3 (47:15):
And Jesse Funk.
Speaker 5 (47:17):
Our music supervisor is Randall poster Our talent booking is
done by Jane Sarkin.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Table for two's social media manager is Gracie Wiener.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
Special thanks to Amy Sugarman, Uni Scherer, Kevin Yvane, Bobby Bauer,
Alison Kanter Graber.
Speaker 5 (47:32):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hi everybody, it's Bruce. Thanks for joining us for another
episode of Table for Two. Today we're back at one
of my favorite places, the Tower Bar, for another amazing lunch.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
I mean I usually do the chop with chicken. Yeah,
that's my I'll see.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
I'm going to do the exact same things. It's one
of my favorite things.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
This time around, we're speaking with someone who has helped
changed the landscape of television as the co CEO of Netflix,
but today we're going to be focusing in on something
very important to him.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Family.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Our guest recently wrote a touching forward to the paperback
version of his wife, Nicole Levant's book, Think You'll Be Happy.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Oh actually I can take smigula. Normally it takes sparkling.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
But you know you're not going to say you.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Take sparkling please.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
We're having lunch with Ted Surrandos.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
We're going to talk about.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
His in laws, his own parents, and how his childhood
help shape who he is today. So sit back, grab
a glass of rose, and I hope you enjoy our conversation.
I'm rus Bozzie and this is my podcast Table for two.
(01:32):
So if you've pulled up a chair today, it's your
lucky day. We're having lunch with You've changed what TV is,
how we watch TV. You are a man of such.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Integrity and warmth, and.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I've had such the pleasure of getting to know you
and your wife Nicole.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
We are having lunch today with Ted Sorrandos.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Oh my god, thank you for joining me.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
And you know we're and today is an interesting conversation
that we're going to have because Nicole, your wife, Nicole
was on the show and she wrote her memoir I
think You'll be happy moving through grief with great grace
and gratitude.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
And the second edition has just been dropped.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Right, yeah, yeah, and you wrote the prologue to it,
and I did.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I've never done that before.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yeah, So tell me and I want to talk about
your phrase I will meet you there.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
I think it's so beautiful. But Rick, how did that
come about?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
To ask me to write the foot the road for
the for the book was so important for her because
and for both of us really, because it's how you
process grief, for how you process events in your life
is really up to you. Like you realize pretty quick
that you don't have much control over these things. That happened.
(02:47):
We did not anticipate, you know, months before the you know,
the terrible murder of Nicholl's mother or the you know,
the timely passing of my father, that either one of
those things will be true, that we were planning his
eightieth birthday and we you know, just have Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
It's just it's a yeah, I mean, it's a contextualized
to a listener. Within a week, Ted you lost your
father who was about to be eighty, and a home
break in Jacqueline and she was murdered, and like that's
like life changes like.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
This, just like that. And again neither neither we could
have been planned on or thought about or such a
terrible turn of events. And I think the thing that
you know Nicole as well, But I think what about
the thing about her is that she really is this
kind of EmPATH, and she really is so thinking of
other people so unconsciously. I don't think she wrote the
(03:36):
book thinking she wrote the book for herself, but of
course it's a book that helps millions of people, Yes,
and it's a she knew going into it. What can
I do? How can I turn this terrible thing in
my life into something positive for other people, and that
was the moment because she had been struggling to write
a book for a long time, for a few years,
more of a biography, more was about her, And it
(03:57):
totally makes sense that what she needed to get over
is not making it about her as soon as it
was about somebody else. It was about her mom's that
it flowed out of her just came out of her.
So the process of going with her to some of
the bookstops and hearing seeing the emotional reaction from people
who've read the book, it's very very moving and very
very touching. And it was me watching her journey from
(04:21):
the side and reading around and shearing heron for sure.
And then she's reminded me one night, she said, you
know you're you're inextractable from this story. Is this was
your you know Jackie as she was a mother. I
say she was a mother, my mother in law. But
she was everything you'd hope your mother would be, you know, meaning,
super supportive, incredibly wise, every loving, everything you really want
(04:43):
your mom to be. My you know, Jackie got to
be from my mother passed away several years before, and
so she was great and not just for me, but
for my kids as a grandmother, unbelievably supportive and engaged
and wise, and people look up to her, including my kids,
and so universal.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
When you ever her name is mentioned, it.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
No, she was earned. I mean she's she did more
on this planet in a very short time. I know,
you know, you die in your eighties, you figure, oh
you had a good run. But she jammed a lot
of life into that into there. And I look at
that that she's so inspiring in that way. So and
when Nicole said, you know, the book, the paperback was
coming out and it was an opportunity for the book
(05:21):
to reach an even wider audience, and she asked me
if I would take a run it right in the phone.
It was very very moved that she asked her.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
It's really beautiful. Your words are really beautiful.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
And the picture you paint of not only sort of
the trauma of that night and receiving that phone call,
but also sort of getting the family to the hospital,
and then the emergence of watching your wife take on
this moment where becoming the matriarch in this sort of,
(05:51):
as you said, way that her mother could never have
imagined but had prepared her that way, and then being
with Clarence as he departed the past. Where did that
come from from?
Speaker 3 (06:04):
With? Well, I mean for Jackie preparing Nicole for anything,
the how beautiful it is, it included preparing her for
the very worst thing you can imagine, not intentionally, but
but maybe intentionally, you know. And I think that her
her the way that Nicole just Rice rose to the occasion.
There was no time, there's no time for anything but
(06:25):
for me to step up, right, and she instinctively knew that.
You know, we're in we're in the we're in the
emergency room. We're waiting for the word from the doctor.
So what happened? How was Jackie, which is going to
make it through this surgery after this shooting? And they
did the thing that you see on TV where they
come and ask you to go to a little room,
right and you know, so walking to the room, we knew,
(06:47):
you know, that was not going to be good.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Yea.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
And Nicole's brother Alex was there. He was distraught, and
her father was just overcome with griefs and it's almost
as if the entire room melted down and Nicole rose
up because she knew she had to and it was
just it's a beautiful thing to think back on that,
you know, such a horrific night. Yeah, to actually watch
this physical transformation of somebody, somebody you love as much
(07:12):
as I love to call and know that it wasn't
like she didn't that in that moment she didn't need
my help. I knew she would, I knew she would
down the road, and in that moment she did not.
It was very instinctive and very automatic for her. It
was just a reflex.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I really do love I will meet you there. We're
going to revisit that. But so, like, let's just talk
about the actual reel, Like where did.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
You meet n I met Nicoll during the Obama run
for the first one. I was going to a We
went to a big fundraiser here in La. It was
the first one he did after he got the nomination.
And I was the last person to arrive and she
was pissed late. Yeah. So her very first words to
(07:58):
me were, you are late. Words I have heard many times.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Wait, this was the first time you met, the first
time I laid eyes on, first time, you are late.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
And she she's like she again, she's immediately she was
in charge, she was running this event. You take your
pictures and you get to your table. And I remember
just having my breath taken away a little bit when
I walked in the room at her energy and I
and her beauty of course, but also energy. And I'm
looking at her and I found myself watching her work
the room like working around. You go here, you go there.
(08:28):
She was very, very very much in charge of that room.
And a friend of ours, Laurence Bender, who actually introduced
me to Nicole, was hosting a table and that we
were sitting at, and she came over to tell Lawrence
you are not the Senator is not coming to your table.
If you want to meet the Senator, you go to
that table, and she stormed away again. And so I
(08:48):
said to Lawrence to go who is this.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
She's a frire story.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
And he said, how do you not know Nicole Avon?
She's famous in this town. I have no I've never
met her. He goes, oh, you'll meet her tonight. She's great.
And so after the event was over, Laurence hosted a
table at Ago, the former Ago, and said, you guy,
should you should come? So I said great. We go
to the dinner and Nicole comes walking in the room
(09:13):
and Laurence said, switch seats. You should talk to Nicoll.
She's she's great. You should get to know Nicole. And
she sat down next to me and we talked for
three hours with a table of ten, but it was
just the table for two, isn't that we talked for
three hours straight.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
That's when that takes over and like the white light,
everything goes away, but the two of you, like all
the noise in the restaurant was just and from that
point on, So then you asked her out on a date.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Well, we talked that night though by the way, we
talked about everything you're never supposed to talk about on
a date, Like we talked about religion, politics, history, everything
we're not supposed to talk about it, right, And it
really was an unbelievable experience that by the time we
I did ask her for a date if you afterwards,
and she she she had she tells the story, but
that she had been She said kind of like unconscious.
(09:57):
I hope I see him again. And I wrote a
note to her at the bottom, but I said, I
hope I see you again. So and uh.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
So Nicole has that way about her. She yes, she's
a manifestor, Yeah, she's a manifestor she really is.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
But she so that then that we met for a
drink that turned into dinner and after a pretty short time, right,
we not only were together after very sure you were married? Right?
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Well?
Speaker 1 (10:17):
I mean, if I truly believe, like I shouldn't point
in your life too, when you've lived enough life and
you know, you just know, you know, you.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Know, and it's just like, yeah, let's we we gain
our life together. Yeah, we were.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
I think we're about nine months in and I said
to her, I don't know what else I'm going to
know in six months that I don't already know, right,
And I was very sure about it, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
My next question in reading this, when I was thinking
about it, I was like, so, when was the first.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Time you said I will meet you there, like.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
You know, in because there's two ways to be saying yeah,
i'll meet you there, I'll meet you at.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
The tower, or i'll meet you there.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Yeah, I think it's kind of like that you'll be
happy in the way, but it was it was not
a conscious.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Decision, right, so that you'll be happy.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
To also take that right away, think you'll be happy,
but i'll meet you there. Is it actually just kind
of very organically flowed and I sat down to write
at the first draft, and it's a thing that stuck
out to me as kind of an like you said,
it's a string of words, it means very little, or
it could be life changing, and for me it was.
And again, meeting somebody where they are physically or where
(11:27):
they are emotionally, and to recognition that in a life together,
consequences dictate that things change and and you change, and
you're not in the same state that you were in,
and you're not in the same space that you were
in sometimes and you have to meet that person where
they are and try to help them through it and
that they will do the same for you.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
That's very important.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
And it's not always easy, as you know, to meet
someone there, you know, as we evolve, as you have
a shared life, a journey, which is really what you
have with someone when you really choose to spend. Has
there been a time where to meet Nicole or meet
or you know, having Hole meet you there wasn't so
(12:12):
easy where it's like, Okay, I'm gonna get there, but
I don't know how much.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Oh for sure, it's all I mean, I would say
when the first time I consciously remember the meet you there.
Being part of our life was right after we got married,
she became the US ambassador to the rahamas sure and
physically moved to the Bahamas, and I could not physically
move with her at that time, so we were I
was doing two weeks home and one week there for
the first couple of years of our marriage. Okay, so
our whole marriage was I'll meet you there, and then
(12:37):
when I would meet there, I would you know, get
off the plane and get into a suit and be
you know, you had duty duties on top of that,
and then also I had to show up for her
in a way that she was there by herself, you know,
so to be able to make up for lost time
constantly and then still invest in time, invest our time
in each other. We had little bites of getaway time
(12:57):
together that were not part of duty. And then also
we're you know, both that we have kids that were
also needed that attention. And then yeah, and so when
I have a Sarah an TONI and Sarah and Nicole
came into our lives and at a really ruckous time
going into early teens.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Oh so yeah, with me with Brian and Billy's it's
not an easy time.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
To begin a relationship with somebody because what you also
realized that I'm sure the call felt this way and
you they have to love you like you love her
and she loves you, because without that it's not easy.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Yeah, and it's and it's bouncy. And I think about
it the time together and Nicole's willingness to invest and
lean into them and uh and you know sometimes swallow
some pretty hard transactions, yes, and also like to step
into a role and she really did. I mean, I
think some of Sarah and my daughter's favorite times in
our relationship together was times that she was in the
(13:51):
Bahamas without me with Nicole. Yeah, and just really that
spent some real time and saying with san with TONI
told me would have these really almost rituals in the
Bamas that he really loved and enjoyed it. And then
he would show up and have duty. So like he
you know, when he showed up he was the ambassador's
son and they would you know, he would show up
on an aircraft carrier and to meet people.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Yeah. No, And it's funny with when when you were
a kid and you're like because.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
When you're the step which I hate the word, I
never you know, Billy and I we don't really use
step because it's you know, you get past whatever that is.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
But you also have to.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Maintain your sense of like who you are as the like.
So in the room sometimes you know, you respect the parents,
the biological parents, and you might disagree or agree, but
you have to find that thread.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
It's a difficult road. It's a difficult road and not
underappreciated too. Yeah, so I definitely think that that is
something where if you could find that place and people
comment on it a lot about Nicole and the relationship
with the kids, Yeah, it's very special.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Kind of sounds like this could be a good show
on Netflix.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
So I'll meet you there kind of again started with
this dual life we had back and forth. Interesting when
Nicole came back from the Bahamas, it was because my
mother had just passed, and it was this time where
she writes about it in the book What a Difficult
How she looks back with great regret her reaction because
(15:15):
she was so busy in the role that I was
talking to her about the funeral and she was talking
back and forth about work, and then this realization that
she was not in the right place at that moment.
But she came to that conclusion on her own, and
it was led to the chain of events and led
to her coming home, which was, you know, there's a
lot that she was needed for here, and then she
(15:36):
came back and up to work work on Obama's reelection,
but also more importantly, she came home to be with
the family. It's so unlikely, not because she's black and
I'm white. It's because I grew up like very lower
middle class and I find out later that I'm dating
a princess at Beverly Hills.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Thanks for joining us on Table for two.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
We've been speaking with our guest, Ted Crandos about his wife, Nicole.
Levant's parents, Clarence and Jacqueline. Clarence was known as the
Black Godfather at Motown Records. Jacqueline, or Jackie as she
was lovingly known, was a huge influence in both Nicole
and Ted's lives before her tragic murder in twenty twenty one.
(16:38):
People don't experience, you know, knock on wood, hopefully what
you guys experienced within that short period of time. So
how did the light come back in through into your family,
into you and Nicole through the darkest hour of that,
you know, how does how do you dealing with grief?
Speaker 2 (16:55):
As Nicole is written about.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Yeah, it's interesting because I feel like it was very
it also was organic as as as shocking as the
whole incident was and the whole dealing with it, this
whole kind of organic period that kind of started with
the passing of my father and ended with the passing
of Clarence a couple of years later, with this tragedy
in the middle, you know what I mean. So it
wasn't it kind of eased, It almost eased you into
(17:18):
it out of it. And and like my father passed
exactly the way we all hope to, just took a shower,
put on his pajamas, went to sleep and didn't wait God,
bless God. He was about to turn eighty and was
you know, he had lived a life and it was beautiful.
And then you know, Jackie, with that, you know, kind
of horrific and you couldn't have imagine Clarence was kind
(17:40):
of in that, you know, somewhere in between. Yeah, we
didn't really see it coming, but he was sick and
said he was you know, uh, And and then what
we did have is that last week together where he
you know, he was unconscious for you know, for that
period of time because.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
He moved in with you and Nicole.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
Yeah, you have this whole immediately he came, he came
from the hospital to live with Nicole and I and
we and it was like a gift, I say in
the in the forward, it was like a cosmic payback almost,
this incredible experience of.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Having them with us for a couple of years. Uh,
and to tell great stories. And I took that as
like almost like a like a built in mentorship at home.
Have to imagine making deals for a living and having
clear at the house. Yeah, and he and he veryly
never he always had great advice, and it was never
about the deal itself. It was just about people and
how people react to different things. Did you try this,
(18:28):
did you think about this? You should ask to mention
this or that kind of thing. Yes, Yeah, it was
all the things that happened on the edge of a
deal that make the deal open, you know, closer enough.
So really helpful in that way. But we'd have these
meals together. We just talked about music and we talked
about life. And he would tell you know, he hit
a very big repertoire of stories, they kind of got
smaller and smaller every night. And the story. I'm always
(18:50):
endlessly fascinated by what stories stayed with you till the
very very yeah, from childhood or from adult even from
your later adult lives. And so in that way, it
was a very interesting thing to watch, and we would
just spend we got to spend a lot of time together,
which in contrast, when my father passed fairly unexpectedly and
he had lost my father had a stroke several years
(19:10):
before and lost his speech. So for seven or eight
years of end of his life, we didn't really talk,
couldn't talk, and so my father was a I would
say a kind of a long goodbye in that way,
and Clarence said, filled a big, gigantic void for that
time that I wish I had with my dad.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Is there a story that came out of that that
you had never known? That you were like, oh, wow.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
You know, there's funny. He would say these little It
wasn't really out of it, didn't come out of that,
but it's like he planted the seed for it there
then you find I found out about it later. Actually,
he would always say these things because he did so
many enormous things. He would say some things in a
very nonchalant way. You know. I helped Albell sell Stax Records.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Just that that's it.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
And then you see this great Stax Records documentary on
HBO recently, and Clarence changed the face of those artists
and changed the whole fate and future of a certain
kind of music because of that deal. And so you
realized these things later as they come out. He just
did him. It was just like, oh, yeah, help the buddy.
I helped the buddy.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
You know.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
You you talked about the ability just to keep going
forward and not be stuck in the nostalgia of what
was and creating.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
And I love and admire and respect these guys, you know,
these pioneers ahead of us. And I became very good friends.
I've been for a for a long time, very good
friends with Tony Bennett. We did a document before Netflix
streaming even we did a documentary on Tony Bennett with
Clint Eastwood, and somebody knew I was a I was
obsessed with Tony Bennett, and they said, hey, this might
(20:47):
be an interesting thing. Clin Eewood's going to produce it
and his team is directing and an editing, and I'm like,
let's do this, right, So do this. I get to
know Tony. I joined his board for Exploring the Arts,
which is a nonprofit that pays for performing arts programs
in public schools. So after the budget gets cut, the
first thing that gets cut usually is the arts programs.
So we come in and backfill that. We do it
(21:08):
for seventeen schools in New York and LA and and
through that process, and this was Tony's you know, passion,
right and through that and so much so that he
built a performing arts school in Queens in his hometown
of Astoria. And he named it the Frank Sinatra School.
So imagine doing all that work and naming it for
somebody else, right, But that's to me, it's like that
kind of humility. So great. But I knew. So I
(21:29):
got to Tony, and then I got Norman Lear, who's
become a very good friend. And you know, I knew
once I knew all these guys in there who were
in their nineties, I knew that these days were coming,
and have so many of them in the last few years.
It's just it's kind of opened to either a void
or an opportunity in the universe.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
That's a good way to look at the opportunity and also.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
The the the idea that you were able to, you know,
share a journey.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Where does that fit into your work?
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Because now you have all these really great stories, does
that inspire you or motivate your help sort of shape
the work that you've done.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Yeah, I mean, look at the idea that you can have,
that your the work can have a lasting impact is phenomenal.
In a world is full of distraction and full of noise,
something that really stands out or sticks around is pretty special.
We were talking before we started here about how young
people don't really know old things right, and we grew
up on old things right. So the reason I think
one of the things that really influenced my success had
(22:32):
been I grew up watching I couldn't sleep at night.
I was not never a big sleeper, like five hours
a night when I was a kid. So you watch
late night TV. So I watched. I knew every episode
of the Jack Benny Show, the Dye Griffis Show, Thank You,
I Love Lucy, And so for me, I was really
shaped by those early days of comedy and and so
for me and that influences I desire to make things
(22:55):
that people can't wait to see. I remember reading an
article about I Love Lucy was so popular and it's
peak that during the commercial breaks, the water pressure in
New York City would drop because that's what people would wait,
everyone's going to go to the time. And it's like
that impact our custure. And then you know, the other night,
we had a hundred million people around the world watching
the Jake powfight. Yeah you know, I mean yeah, you
so back fifty years to find an audience that big, right,
(23:17):
and especially for you know, for for a boxing match
was back with Muhammad Ali was fighting on ABC to
get a bigger and after that, the next biggest audience
at the same time would have been the Mash finale
over forty years ago, right exactly. So so so a
lot of these things will stick with me about what
to do and and to get to know people who
have done it way before me. That's you know, that's
(23:38):
a gift in life.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
I think, you know, to being raised by her mother.
The sense of when you would speak about Jackie was
all about really making sure how you presented and how
and level of respect and how you spoke to people
like that's a very important thing to pass on to
your children, because the Cole calls it home training.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Home training, right. You know, you were not messing around
with Jackie.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
You know one of our one of the times, one
of the business stories with Jackie and me is she
we were we went to visit one time during We
were bringing food over to the house all the time
during COVID, but we went over to visit one time
and she obviously had this thing planned because she was ready.
So Nicole goes in the other room. She's talking to Clarence.
(24:36):
I'm talking to Jackie, and she says to me, you
should make a show on Netflix about Queen Charlotte. Just
out of the blue, WHOA, And I call Jackie. There
is a show a Netflix abou Quen Charlotte. It's called Bridgerton.
She goes, no, no, no, I've seen that show. It's great Jesus,
but it's you know, the Queen Charlotte's a real person
and she's got an unbelievable history, and you should do
something about Queen Charlotte specifically. And I go. She rolls
(24:59):
her eyes and walks down the hall and she comes
back with a stack of books about Queen Charlotte and letters,
handwritten letters that Queen Charlotte had written that Jackie had
collected at auctions over the years because she was, you know,
she was obsessed with history and history makers, particularly black history,
and you know, Queen Charlotte is this incredible figure and
she's a you know, she's the real deal figure. And
(25:20):
so I almost, like, almost just being nice, I say,
oh yeah, I'll take a look, you know, because Jackie's
never done this before. It never suggested or pitched any
And I get home and start flipping through the material
and it's remarkable. Her life is remarkable. And I called
Shanda and I said, Shonda, my mother in law thinks
(25:42):
you should do this. And I started reading through, and
I think you should. And in fact, I worry now
that Charlotte has become a popular character because of Bridgington
and someone else is going to do it. You should
do that. You should be the one's true And she
sent her We sent the materials. As she dug into it,
she goes, we're doing this right, and it just came
together that quick.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
That's fascinating. She was sitting on that like she knew.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
She had the stack.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
She was just like, okay, you wait for the right now.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Watched Bridgerton then said, wait a minute, you're missing a
character here that needs her story told.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Yea, and Nicole talks about it. But you know they
had her girl indoor and she grew up much did
with Jackie's influence. But they had a wall of power
basically just like a wall of black people first who
did this, that and the other and all like people
who are super accomplished Black people through history, and it
was Nicole knew every one of them and every story
(26:28):
growing up, and that was never lost at that history
was never lost on her. So for Jackie to bring
Queen Charlotte back to life something that she'd done for
Nicole her whole life. So she just did it for
the rest of the world.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Welcome back to Table for two.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
While his wife Nicole had incredible parents, so did Ted Sarantos.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Long before his time.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
As co CEO of Netflix, Ted grew up with his
family in Phoenix, Arizona. What lasting influence did his parents
leave on him? When you lost your dad and I
didn't realize that there was a time where he couldn't speak.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
But a son losing a father's very seminal.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
It's a big moment.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
How did that change you? Do you think?
Speaker 3 (27:30):
How did it impact me? With my dad? Mostly there's
a role reversal that happens eventually where you're taking care
of your parents, right, And my dad was pretty independent
and before he had his stroke, he lived on a boat.
It was funny, he was. My parents were very young
parents in their twenties and four kids together. And then
my younger brother, who passed away also several years ago,
(27:53):
came later, so he had raising five kids. They were
just kids raising kids. And I remember growing up having this,
you know that it's not that they were you didn't
like having young, fun parents. When you're younger, you want, right,
you want your parents to be your parents, and and
he used to be crazy. But I realized as I
got older and became a parent of myself, what was
happening was my parents were just trying to capture the
(28:15):
little the youth that got away from them, right, because
they got to get too young. They started babies too young.
So my dad was in his forties, he was trying
to find his twenties, you know. And I came to
understand that later too late in life actually, And same
with my mom, like you know, and then they didn't
really have like incredible role models in that way. So
that for us growing up, it was I always jokingly
saying I was raised by wolves because we didn't have
(28:38):
a lot of rules in the house when they had
set dinner time. The reason they watch TV all night
is they weren't paying attention. Uh, And part of me
was like mad about that all the time. And I
would argue, and I used to argue with my dad
a lot about all kinds of stuff, right, And then
I realized at some point that the limited time we
had together, but a silly thing to do is waste
(28:58):
that time arguing with them. So he would say something
that I either was wrong or I disagreed with politically
or something, and instead of arguing with them, like oh
that's interesting, and just stop arguing with it. Right, And
we had a beautiful relationship.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
And once you can make a shift, yeah, big shift.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
That's it comes with age, it comes with wisdom, and
it also comes with the.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Real realization that her life and we had this really.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
I mean, as much as I talk about the life
being chaotic and crazy, there's a real beauty to what
was happening there too. My sister, my oldest sister, Kathy.
I mean I think back of like memories and influence
everything else. I read the book Jaws, which was a
very racy book at that time when I was very.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
I never read that really.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
Oh yeah, there's very graphic sex scenes and kind of
and but I got but I took it. I took
it from from her. And she was a dance in
an Arthur Murray dance instructure at some point. She did
this really cool thing when we were growing up. She
would always bring the kind of orphaned people to Thanksgiving
and Christmas dinner at our house, and so being exposed
to a variety of people in the lives and story
(30:00):
he's started very young for me, and in fact, many
of the stories that we did, you know, the folks
who came to that dinner that would likely to be
a gay dancer, who whose parents kicked him out right
and didn't have family to spell celebrate the holidays with
all that kind of stuff I'm talking about in the
late in the mid seventies and eighties in Arizona.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
In Arizona, yeah, yeah, concern, yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
So she so again she kind of exposed me to
this world that was you know, bigger than bigger than me. Uh.
And this the stories that are being told at the
table are not typical of the Arizona Table stories anyway. Uh.
And then my sister Jean is this crazed growing up,
she was this crazy Barbara streisand fan. So I think
she gave me the sense of a fandom, like a
(30:42):
real understanding of fandom, and like she would change her
hairstyle of Barbara did.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
So, and she changed her hairstyle a lot.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Oh yes, yeah, she did the Superman my favorite. This
is my sister trying desperately to coffee that look in
the fact, so much so that her boyfriend at the
time who later became her husband, took me to see
the uh the filming of the Original starsbod they did it.
(31:12):
I was like a ten years older. We did it.
They did at the ASU the opening of the film.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Offer me yeah, because they had the big scene.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Yeah, and they had to fill up the stadium, so
it was the gigantic bill of rock stars. Peter Frampton,
who was like the biggest start at the time with
the liner to fill up the stadium, right, Okay, So
again it's kind of very all these kind of early
influences I always trying to think about. And then my
sister Terry, who's two years older than me. Her she
is like she understood, she understood a relationship with my
(31:40):
dad better than I did. My dad loved cars and mechanics.
He could fix anything, can build anything. And she talk
about meets you where you are. She started doing that
stuff to get bad more quality time with my dad. Yeah,
and she's you know so, and she's so decided I'm
watching her house. She kind of and it managed relationships
in a way by meeting people where they are. It
(32:00):
was a really cool influence. And my brother Joey who
passed away too young, but he incredibly talented designer and
dancer and super gifted guy who just like I just
feel like he just wasn't built for this world. He
had He had a really hard time and for someone
so gifted and talented, he just had a really hard
time getting things together all the time. So and but
(32:22):
his kind of just passion for life and living life
was something that was irew.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
What an interesting I did not know any of this
in regard to you, how you grew up and and
I think having the young parents created this like camp
in a way that.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
You could, you know, become who you are and like
lean into.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
It and maybe you don't ever know what when you're
in the middle of it, you know, really have to
look back at I think my favorite show as a kid,
I used to love that Happy Days of Her usurely.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
I mean that lineup, I forget about it.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
But I also remember watching because my dad. My dad
smoked a lot, so we never went to the movies
because he didn't want to go to I was though smoking.
But if it was about the fifties we're in, that
was that was his thing.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Go two hours? What was the Richard American?
Speaker 3 (33:11):
American American everywhere? All the Americans and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
We saw them all you got drive in?
Speaker 3 (33:17):
We did. We went to the big sky drive in.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Yeah, why don't you bring those back?
Speaker 3 (33:21):
I know it was a great COVID was going to
bring him back and it didn't stick.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
You drive in the cars going up and down window,
you know. Yeah, the kids out of the trunk. People
are running around, little kids in their pajamas.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
So soundestly, I mean we used to go and those
were really special night.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Yeah, it was fun. But also I was thinking about
Happy Days, like the influence of that time period, you know,
because iknew about knew about the fifties, I knew about
old stuff and he but I remember our whole family
watching Love American Style too, watching what became the pilot
for Happiness was.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
On Love Oh that they had a little vignette.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Yeah, so Love America Style was. I mean we were young,
the come on with the.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Heart that was like the red, white and blue and
it was like a vignette to a vignette. I mean
my parents were out, my sister and I were like young.
It was like that was like the ten o'clock sah.
It was like it was like racy, and that's where
kids don't have that they don't have like what we had.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Also, you know the you can only see something once
a week, and you.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Know you were like looking forward to happy days and
line I can tell you the eight is Enough, Charlie's
Angels Vegas lineup on ABC or.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
You know, you just knew what you were into.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
And it was I was saying, I attribute a lot
of my what drew me to television was order, like
schedule and order, and I knew what time things were
on and where I could find them and all that
kind of stuff, and the house was not orderly at all.
And I talk about my brothers and sister and my dad,
but I didn't tell you anything about my mom, who
is the funniest woman you've ever met. The life of
the party.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
My mom.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
My mom was the life of the party at all times. Hysterical,
hysterically funny and irresponsible.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Okay, did she smoke too, She was.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
She was great. She would smoke and then quit, and
then smoke, then quit. She was like she was selectively addictive.
And I think about her personality, but to everything were
smoking driving, We drove across country. We moved from New
Jersey to Arizona. When I was a kid, we drove
across country. I don't think they cracked the window.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Was smoking away. We were just like no.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
Seatbelts, crawling up and down, having them exactly try to
hate you in the back seat when he was especially
with as many.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
So here's my growing up. My parents, my mom, we
were always out of money. I always thought we were poor, poor,
but actually my mom they were just terrible with money.
Because my dad was an electric working union electrician, so
they probably had enough money. But we're always we always
had like the utility some one utility was always off,
so it was called dueling utilities. The electric was on,
the gas was off, the thought, the phone was off.
(36:01):
So it's like all the constantly. Again, they were just
bad managing money. So we did one year for Christmas.
My dad was it was during a layoff period and
we had no money for Christmas and my dad, uh
built so I'm gonna make the kids gifts for Christmas
and he made us. I still have mine. He's like
(36:21):
chests like a treasure Mine was like a treasure chest
a store like the store, yeah, and built up and
they're all different, they're different looking, and uh like I said,
I still have that gift. I know have And my
mom she was on the mission and okay, we're gonna
make gifts this year. Okay, I got it, but she
couldn't take it. So like Christmas, Eves went out and
bounced checks and bought us all crazy toys and everything else.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
So I still have those toys.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
I don't have any of those toys, but I still
have the chest.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
So what's things like that like?
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Again, as you look back, like I can look back
on all the toys, I don't have things like that
that become the most meaningful.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
And we used to go on these vacates. Once a
year we go on a vacation and we usually always
the sad go for a week, okay, And one year
we went and this is per classic my mom and
classic my dad. We go and check in the hotel,
and then the last day we're going to check out,
my mom tells my dad all your money to pay
the bill, to pay the hotel. Boll So of course
(37:16):
you wouldn't cancel the trip. You're just gonna go figure out,
figured it out, and I'll wait till the end, wait
till the exactly so that my dad goes to the
marina and fix his boats until he makes enough money
to pay for the hotel.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
See said, all those stories you said make you you
yeah and bring you to the call telling you it's
like there's like no coincidences in this world. Like it
gives you, like the backbone, It gives you the integrity,
It gives you the ambition, it gives you the heart
because to have dueling utilities to be like in that
situation where like you're like, oh no, like you're kid,
you're taking it in.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
And I really like now I look back and like
I needed like we needed the fun of that vacation,
and we needed to see my dad's work ethic to
pay for it, right, you know what I mean. So
it's that that exposure to it.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Exactly. Did you come Arizona to Los Angeles? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (38:11):
I went. It was a period of time. So I
came up through home and working video stores first and
then through home video distribution, and the distribution business got
dried up. Basically, the Blockbuster Video went direct and just
squeezed out all the distributors, and we were the biggest
distributor at the time, and so we took our billion
dollar private company I was working at called et D
(38:31):
lost like six or seven hundred million dollars in sales
overnight as a Blockbuster. So we started shutting down plants.
It was like it was not a great time professional
and I knew I wanted to be in the business
and I wanted to be in some steer in some
steering capacity. So I'm gonna have to be in California
to do that. I didn't know what, you know what
that in what form that would take. I got recruited
from a company a West Coast video video city that's
(38:54):
their headquarters was in Torrance at the time, uh, in Philadelphia,
and got recruited to co to work for them doing
I was ahead of products, so basically the programming for
the stores, which is a Hollywood video kind of size
video chain. Yeah, uh and marked and marketing and merchandising,
and so I did that for a pretty short time,
about a year. But that's what moved me to LA
(39:16):
And then I got in that year at the at
that chain, I did a deal. It was the big
emergence of DVD and I did a deal with this
with Warner Brothers and Sony Columbia then to do revenue
sharing on DVD, which was unheard of at the time. Yes,
And it got into the trade magazines and read Hastings
read the magazine article and said, I need that guy,
I need that deal wow, And read knew, you know,
(39:38):
he's a brilliant engineer, had a great idea for this,
you know, for Netflix, envisioned it to be exactly what
Netflix is now. And when I talked to him first
in nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
That's crazy. And when you were getting like the DVDs
out of the machine, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
Well for us, it was you know the or this
back then er we're doing a right mail.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
When I first met up, and it was so harsh
for me to wrap my head around.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
But this is rethinking. Like he went to the video
store and got a forty dollars late charge for Apollo thirteen,
and he said, this is toumb this is stupid. I'm
gonna do something about this. And instead of like protesting
the late feet, he built the company. And somebody said,
these things called DVDs are coming, and Read had this idea, like,
why don't we use the mail to send the videos
back and forth? They were the tapes are too heavy,
(40:20):
but DVDs were light.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Enough put the whole thing together.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
He went to Tower Records and about five CDs and
mailed them to himself. He goes, oh, this will work.
That's the genius of Read Hastings. And then when I
met him, he described Netflix pretty much as it sits
right now, full digital media company. That the Internet at
that time was so slow and so expensive that was unfathomable,
and but he said, no, no, the Internet's going to get
twice as fast at half the price every eighteen months.
(40:45):
It's called More's law. And I just nodded, like I
knew what.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
He's talking about. I had no idea what he was
talking about.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
And I can't remember coming back home and thinking, I
don't know if he's crazy or he's a genius or both,
but he's going to do something to change the world, right.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
So I was like, yeah, I just I love how
life works. I love the you know, how you got
you get put into different rooms or people start to say, okay, well.
Speaker 3 (41:11):
That deal put me on Read's radar, which led to
this role at Netflix. But if it was a different
executive than Read, he most it would never allow a
guy like me to exist, you know what I mean.
And he gave me even when you know we did
the deal for House of Cards was our first series
we did the that was the first deal we did.
We first, Lillly Hammer was the first one to get
(41:33):
on our air, but House of Cards was the first
big deal we did. And I remember at the time
He's like it was it was more than the entire
budget we had for streaming at the time, and we
did the deal, and Read afterwards it's like, why did
you do that? When I did in the original cut
that business and and I told him, I said, I read,
I did the risk, risk reward analysis on huh, And
I said, if this works will fundamentally change our business.
If it doesn't, we will have overpaid for a show.
(41:55):
We do it all the time. And he goes, oh, okay,
I'm totally supportive and just set and we're off to
the rasis wow and a different He created a company
and a culture that gave me the running room and
the confidence to do that. And then also, didn't you
know at any time we'll be tripped up anywhere along
the way. He didn't crush you and kill you. And
it's like, which is key.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Yeah, that's the humanity in it, in the humanity in you.
That's what comes across.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
Because when you have those kind of like influences, people
tend to pass that out.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
Yeah, and I look back to it. That is what
struck me about that first meeting with Reading ninety nine
was that he talked about this gigantic company that didn't exist,
and he talked about a company that was going to
be around after him, which is interesting now I think
about at this kind of succession and I look at it.
He was thinking about succession before the company was even built,
(42:44):
you know, if because if you want a company to
be around a long time. It implies there will be
succession exactly so like and even the way he toyed
around with the co CEO models and all these kind
of things, all selfless all ways to make this company
that will last, you know, for generations and generations and
you know, way after you're going to be around. You
have to be able to at your company without yourself, right,
which is hard for especially for a founder.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
One hundred percent believe me, coming from a family business
that lasted ninety four years.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
I think that was one of the.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Things that they stopped thinking about was just to you know,
you know, not only to be innovative during a time
of such great innovation in business, but also how was
it going to look. I will take your line, I
(43:30):
will meet you there, Because I think it's so powerful
in life, from even raising your daughter who's seventeen and
having moments right now where we're sort of at each
other to take a step back to say, okay, where
is she at?
Speaker 2 (43:41):
How do I meet her there?
Speaker 1 (43:43):
And how do I teach her to also understand how
to you know, how do we all meet each other
there at a time where right now it's a very.
Speaker 3 (43:54):
We've been so much energy trying to drag people to
where we are right exactly, intead of saying now I'll
meet you there, and so we can't get there together.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
I mean, it's a it's it's it's it's so beautiful
and I really want people to If you haven't read
Nicole's memoir, think I think You'll be happy, which is
the text, right.
Speaker 3 (44:12):
It is a text that Nicole got from her mother
six hours before she was I think.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
You'll be happy, and you're you're right. It's all like
how do you say it?
Speaker 1 (44:19):
And you know, Norman ly said to me once and
I only met him once and I was sat on
his podcast and he said something, but I think it
is on a moment right here is if I changed
one piece of my life, one piece.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
I would not be sitting here with you right now.
Everything I've done brings us to this moment.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
And then he goes and now it's gone, like it's okay,
like now, and I was like, like, oh my god,
this is Normally I.
Speaker 3 (44:40):
Always think about it in terms of perspective, right, And
Norman had that way of putting everything in perspective before
a meal, looking around the table, just telling everyone, wait,
imagine how many things had to happen just like that
for us to be here right now, and you just
pause and think about it. Right, It's like everything that
went wrong right is now part of this thing that
went so perfectly right. Yeah. And I think that's a
(45:02):
really great lesson for Nicole and for the book and
for her story, which is all these things that went
wrong actually ended up in this gigantic big picture of
where things that are so right exactly and so worth
being grateful for us completely. And it's that kind of
grateful to be grateful in the face of incredible loss
and tragedy. Something medical role models for me, and hopefully
(45:23):
when you read her books you can role model for everybody.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
I think she does.
Speaker 1 (45:26):
If I sort of as we come sort of to
the conclusion of our lunch, and I hope everyone has
enjoyed your your So I could spend hours talking to
if I had to ask you, if you had to,
like say a word about your in laws and your wife,
like to just one word that comes to you to
describe Jackie or or feeling, what would they be?
Speaker 3 (45:50):
Elegant? Yeah, true elegance, True elegance. It's which is, you know,
a way of over you know, captured, you know, encapsuling
grace and dignity and elegance that all comes together like
it was everything put together, everything thought of. You know,
it's just elegance, right, And you're.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
Forward to I will meet you, you know, I will
meet you there for Nicole's book. You say, I try
to keep up. I try to find the same comfort
she does. I love where it takes her and I
love to meet her there. And I think that is
a beautiful sentiment. And thank you Ted for joining me today.
Thank you wonderful good lunch.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Thanks everyone for pulling up a chair. Thank you for
pulling up a chair.
Speaker 5 (46:40):
I love our lunches and never forget the romance of
a meal. If you enjoy the show, please tell a
friend and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Table
for Two with Bruce Bosi is produced by iHeartRadio seven
three seven Park and Airmail. Our executive producers are Bruce
Bossi and Nathan Ca. Our supervising producer is Dylan Fagan.
(47:03):
Our editors are Vincent to Johnny and Cas b Bias.
Table for two is researched and written by Jack Sullivan.
Our sound engineers are mil B Klein, Jess Krainich, Evan Taylor.
Speaker 3 (47:15):
And Jesse Funk.
Speaker 5 (47:17):
Our music supervisor is Randall poster Our talent booking is
done by Jane Sarkin.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Table for two's social media manager is Gracie Wiener.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
Special thanks to Amy Sugarman, Uni Scherer, Kevin Yvane, Bobby Bauer,
Alison Kanter Graber.
Speaker 5 (47:32):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Bruce Bozzi
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com