Episode 28 - The Towering Inferno

We brave the dangers of The Towering Inferno and the real-life fates of its stars, including Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Fred Astaire, and William Holden!

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
It's the Dearly Departed podcast, featuringyour host, historian Scott Michaels and filmmaker
Mike Dorsey. Okay, Scott,we're doing it. We made it past
the twenty seven club. We're atepisode twenty eight. We did it,

(00:27):
yay, And they said it wouldn'tlast. I probably said that every time
you said that too. And nowwe're gonna die in a towering inferno because
that is the subject of this episodetwenty eight is the Towering Inferno from nineteen
seventy four. I yeah, Iwas. I was a huge fan of

(00:49):
disaster movies. Loved it and andI thought when we were talking about subject
matter because of the I don't knowwhat it's like an inferno out there as
it was one twenty three last week, I just figured out that's actually I'm
in the mood for this. NowI'm in the mood for this, so
so uh yeah, but I hadI was a little while ago. I

(01:14):
was going through some old papers,my old scrap book, and I happen
to find I used to collect movieads. I used to literally cut out
movie ads and pay some of myscrap book. I don't know why.
It was just such a weird thingto do, but I did. And
the movies I really liked, Andof course I liked the disaster movies as
Earthquake, and I like JN.Frankenstein. But there's the Towering Inferno and

(01:36):
h and at one of the readjust the first paragraph of this review that
I clipped. It was a magazinecalled The Scholastic Voice, whatever that means.
And he says, never find yourdelight in another's misfortune, wrote a
wise Roman named Puli pu pu BiliousPublilius Cyrus. But pu Blilius lived before

(01:57):
disaster movies, which delight us byturning catastrophe into entertainment. If he were
alive today, he would probably belining up at the rest of us to
enjoy the latest fun flick with itsall star, all star casting broiled in
some super cataclysm and with good Thispretty much defines my career, really,

(02:20):
I love. Gene Siskel wrote.Our attitude toward the film's cardboard characters is
let him burn. Well, youknow, I'm there on a lot of
cases. You know, there's alot of these people. I would say
that. You know this movie,there's a lot of scenery being shoot up
in this movie. There's a lotof just insane, over the top acting

(02:44):
and and but we'll get into allthose us in a little bit. But
this movie, when he came out, I mean, it was, you
know, your typical ninety minutes wasa movie back then, and this one
was two hours and almost two hoursand forty five minutes of movie. And
that's a hell of a time forsomething. It's like this as action packed

(03:04):
drama that it really appeals to ayounger audience, you know. I mean,
I feel like people in their teensand like me at that point.
And it was just that's a longtime to sit and watch a movie.
It's not a fast paced movie,not a fast paced movie at all.
It's a towering running time. Youmight say, there you are. Yes,

(03:25):
they burned, they burned a lotof film filming it, and and
yes they did. And I thinktwenty five people in the movie died of
burns. Cast members and the castthey staid with the cast of three thousand
people were in this movie, extras, etc. That's what I read.
And they used fifty seven sets.They built fifty seven sets for this movie,

(03:46):
which is insane. I think theyspent eleven million making it. And
uh, and it was an interestingway that that that that he got it
made or when Alan, I meanyou probably did you did you as fasciating
I did? I did, andI'm I'm tempted. I was gonna.
I was. Let's go into newsfirst. Oh sure, getting disolutely,

(04:13):
I get it. We're getting Iforget we do that, I do,
I do. Um. We havenews, and we have we have hate
mail, we have some hate wehave a little bit of hate mail.
Yeah, just let's let's hear thehate mail hate mail, all right.
So the ones that I saved andI saved disappointedly few because once somebody said

(04:38):
about our Jaws podcast, um,dumb and that. But they did point
out that our podcast was longer thanthe movie itself, which is kind of
funny. That's hilarious. This onewas about. This one was about something
we did together, that the uhthat James Dean donald turmised video that we

(05:00):
did that we retraced the steps ofJames Dean's last drive out to the crash.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Andthis guy says, uh, thanks
for the totally completely uninspiring video.Every time every detail I was hoping you
would cover was ignored. How unprofessionalamateurs, How juvenile way to waste the
mic time what I could have beendoing something really stimulating, like watching paint

(05:26):
dry. It's like, all right, you know, I'm going to post
an actual video of paint drying andtag that guy. You know we should
we Actually that'd be a that'd bea good third sort of box on our
on our podcast is simultaneously having havingpaint dry. You have your eye of
an option. That's hilarious. Nowthe other the other ones, you know,

(05:50):
I haven't gotten too many that thelong video one was kind of funny,
and this one was kind of funnytoo. The other ones, you
know, I get people send megifts in the mail. Well, I
got a lot of really odd sortof packages in the mail one and I
save them up and I opened themup on a video and and there's all
kinds of you know, last timeI opened it up, someone sent me
a dress that was owned by AmBancroft and the yeah, it was very

(06:13):
cool. I mean these things,you know, really original autographs people sent
me. I did one the otherday that I'm going to post at some
point this week, stuff that theyhave in their collections that you know,
what am I going to do withthis and they send them to me and
it's so nice and so kind.So I do these on video and what
you see is my hands opening thevideo. Well, somebody wrote, you

(06:34):
should you should lather that beautifully tattedarm with cocoa butter before each use.
It's giving your skin tips, manskincare you know, you know, it's
just lather it up in fact,lather while we're watching. And this one,

(06:56):
I gotta we probably shouldn't even usethis one, but I'm gonna read
this. This is a real postcard. Somebody's at me. I just wanted
to say thank you for all youdo. I love you for your honesty.
You're like the only person that Iwould save in a fire. Umph.
I wish you were here, meaningthis hotel Coronado. I swear to
guard I'd show my appreciation. I'dsuck you off because you mean so much.

(07:25):
Well, all right, there youare. We at that. You're
like the Coronado. How long areyou going to be there? It's just
I just you know, I wouldsave you in a fire, and I'd
suck you off because you mean somuch. There you are and uh and
with that the towering inferno, folks, um is that the end of the

(07:48):
hay mail. Yes it is.I I will be more more careful about
saving them next time. But yeah, yeah, thats um uh. There's
a little bit of news. Newsof the week. My movie Lost aremona

(08:09):
Buchenwald, my documentary that I spentthe Corona times updating, just got released
by Freestyle Digital Media and it isout on iTunes and all the digital download
all the place you can digital rentthings digitally and download them except Amazon unfortunately,
because Amazon has clamped down on documentarydistribution. But it's everywhere and it's

(08:30):
on paid per view, like eightypercent of the cable and satellite carriers.
It's on there. So Lost Aremonof Buchenwald. It's a historical documentary about
my grandfather who was a B twentysix pilot who ended up in Buchenwald concentration
camp. It was very bizarre andunusual story. So it's all about him
and his the group he was with, how they got through all that.
So there's an amazing documentary. Ilove that documentary very much. So no,

(08:56):
it's it's it's a It means alot that people get the attention and
they deserve for the things they didfor us and they, you know,
a lot of people fell by thewayside, and a lot of people that
were involved in wars back then didn'ttalk about it, you know, I
had, I had relatives since Iknow we're in Germany, and they it
was just we don't talk about that, and it just that makes it even

(09:18):
more mysterious, like what do theydo? You know, that is almost
like a universal theme that you alwayshear from the veterans, especially World War
Two, as they do not theydon't talk about or they talk about a
little bit, but not all.You know, you don't get the whole
story kind of a deal. Yeah, if it wasn't for your documentary,
and you wouldn't know the details ofit, and those details shouldn't die with

(09:39):
the people that you know, theyshould people should know what happened. So
I don't. I think it's afascinating documentary. I love it and I'm
glad you did it. Thank you. I think some of several of the
men that were in it, alleight men that are in it have passed
away since I filmed it, becauseI started, you know, first originally
filmed it, like started ten yearsago, all right, So the Towering

(10:01):
Inferno it's time for the main feature. It's time for the main feature.
Uh. Towering Inferno, the nineteenseventy four disaster film by Irwin Allen,
whom we did. His movie hedid two years previously, The Poseidon Adventure,

(10:22):
And I see I see this asbeing like the Poseidon Adventure if the
ship was like vertical basically, right, it's just a similar plot, you
know, so many similar scenario,similar character, similar music. Now it's
it is very uh, it's verylet's go with it. You know,
it's working. Let's go with it, all right. And it's a giant

(10:46):
and ensemble cast of stars and lotsof people die and you know what stars
are going to die and all thatstuff, and um, yeah, the
thing that's really stood out well,first, yeah, there's a there's a
spoil alert. A lot of peopledie. If you haven't seen this movie
yet, there's a lot of peopleto die. But I'm gonna say one

(11:07):
of the most shocking things about thismovie because technically these special effects were good.
There's only a couple of scenes thatwere like, you know, but
I think considering the time they didthis, they really did outstanding work.
And it just seems like the charactershold up for the most part. You

(11:28):
know, there's a lot of overacting, but a lot of scenery chewing.
But one of the things I neverreally understood about this movie is it the
hair. The hair was so bad. I've never seen so many bad two
pays and bad wigs on people.Then in this movie, it's shocking.
It's like a crylic People are wearingacrylic and it's just it's unbelievable. It's

(11:50):
just hairpiece upon hairpiece upon hairpiece.And they there's like three people in the
credits they got credit for hair andthat's what they came up with. I
just feels I just thought it's nineteenseventy four. Yeah, I don't know.
No, that was bad hair piecesthat they was conscribed somebody, those
were those were designed to look thatway. Somebody did screen tests with the

(12:15):
hair and was like, yeah,go with that right, And that would
have burned up in a fire.That surprised, like with the flames they
weren't just like curling up because theyknow it's just because it was just synthetic
and it was so all right.But but that's part of the fun of
it now in retrospect, but verylittle of the movie is is you know,
it's really laughable. There are afew laughable scenes because they're so hokey

(12:35):
and so so long ago and campy, but but a lot of this movie
holds up well. And uh yeah, and I think, well, do
you know the story about how howhow it came to fruition this movie?
Yeah. So they there were twobooks they were coming out about a towering
inferno. They had two different titles, and Warner Brothers and Fox both each

(12:58):
went out and got the rights toeach of them. So they were going
to be two competing movies about highrise buildings on fire. And that's when
Irwin Allen, who was at Fox, convinced Warner Brothers and Fox to combine
forces and just make once and look, let's not cannibalize each other's sales by
putting out two movies at the sametime on the same subject. And and

(13:20):
I didn't realize that's what they did, but I remember in the opening credits
they credit two books as the sourcematerial, and that was my tip off
of like, well, that's veryunusual. It's usually just one book.
And that's that's what it was.And the different studios took different rights to
get their money back and they wentin, you know, even Stevens on
the budget, and there it is. Yeah, I heard that Allen was
bidding on the Tower and the GlassInferno. The other one wasn't published yet,

(13:45):
so Alan lost lost the Tower toWarner, but he bought the Glass
Inferno and brought it to Fox andwent to Warner and said, look,
yeah, let's not this would bestupid. Let's combine. So I just
like the first two studio production.I don't know if that's in history,
but I know their logos don't showup at the beginning of the movie.
You don't see the Warner brothers andthe Fox logos. They don't show up.

(14:07):
So it's interesting. That's a realI don't know if thats how often
that happens in life. That's kindof interesting. And he's basically saying,
look, let's not both up putLet's not put out two movies that will
lose money because they're the same.Also, I hear someone trying to open
my door and I look out andit's just like three year old, Okay,

(14:31):
I'm gonna have to to somebody rightexactly. It's a it's a it's
a setup. Um, it's basicallyIrwin Allen, who was you know,
his nickname was the Master of Disaster. His thing was basically, we can
either both make the same film andthey won't make money. They'll both lose
money because we're gonna eat each other'ssales. Or you can go in on

(14:52):
one film and man, everybody makesmoney. So their first run was a
year on that movie. You know, it ran for a year first and
that's crazy. It's amazing that theyused to do that. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, And it's it's amazing becausethis movie is not like a classic,
you know, it's of the disastermovies. You think earthquake thing,
but Towering Inferno. He doesn't geta whole lot of references. You can't

(15:16):
quote lines. In fact, Icouldn't tell you who was in it except
for the two stars. And there'sa lot of people in this movie.
So um, it's it's a weirdmovie that fell to the wayside. Was
very successful when it came out,but not really not really referred to very
doesn't they have that cult status.It's the other right, and the people
who haven't seen it. The plotline is that this place called Glass Tower

(15:37):
is the tallest building in the worldit's one hundred and thirty eight stories.
It's um, which is funny becauseit's in San Francisco where they have lots
of earthquakes. Um and uh.And it's the the It takes place on
the opening night, the grand openingnight, when they're having this huge opening
night party up on like or oneof the high floors, and it turns
out that the developers, crooked sonin law, who was the electrical subcontractor,

(16:02):
used shoddy materials for the all theelectrical wiring. And so when they
turn all the lights on on thetower for the big opening night to show
off how you know, austin thebuilding looks, it fries all the electric
cables in the building and starts theinferno. Um. Then it spreads,
and it's all about the firefighters andthe people inside trying to survive and get

(16:22):
out of it. Yeah, Imean the the the the party took place
on one hundred and thirty fifth floor, that's the movie. The fire took
was actually started on the eighty firstfloor. So a lot of the movie
was like, oh, it's notgoing to make it up here, and
and and you know, it's interestingbecause a lot of this movie really got

(16:45):
me thinking about you know, theWorld Trade Center. Uh, you know
it was when those explosions happened.It was like, this is weird because
it really was differently instantaneous. Ididn't it was like guttural. It's like,
wow, this is like just likethe World Trade Center, and there's
lots of people falling, a lotof people fall to their death from the
window. Several you know, bigcharacters fall fall off. So yeah,

(17:06):
it's a little bit. And thenalso so I just know something. It's
interesting because at the time they madethis movie, the World Trade Center was
the biggest tallest building in the world. They wrapped filming on September eleventh,
nineteen seventy three, and three monthsafter, there was a fire in the
real World Trade Center where sixteen peoplewere injured, burned, not killed.

(17:29):
But it's just it was like Iwas, I was watching this in a
documentary. It was made back inninety I think it was ninety five or
two thousand and five, must havebeen. There was yeah, well no,
there was no reference to September eleventh, so I think it was I
think it was ninety five that thiscame out. This documentary that I watched
was like, but it was,Yeah, it was really it's even more
bizarre when you think of it thatthat way. One thing stood out to

(17:52):
me too, And I don't knowif this was explained in the plata,
they just didn't put it in there. But even when like entire floors are
on fire, there no alarm goingoff. Was the alarm system Frida?
Did they just not have? OJSimpson was part of that and he said,
they said, why at the beginningwhen it happened, why wasn't the
fire department notified? And I don'tknow was the answer? We don't.

(18:17):
That was it? I mean thatwas why is there a plot? We
don't know? You know, somethingscrewed up because there's one scene, you
know, where the kind of thecouple, the pr man, I think,
and and the women are kind ofhooking up and they don't realize the
whole building is on fire and theydie because of it. And it's like
entire floors are on fire. Howare the alarms not going off? But

(18:37):
I guess, yeah, I maybehas something to do with that canal center
the OJ was in. I don'tknow, because he was going door to
door, knocking on doors. Well, because half of the building wasn't even
occupied yet because remember at the beginningof the movie, the real estate I
was showing, you know, eightyfloor to the top is residential, so
there was probably little occupation. Andsince he was involved with the building of
the place, maybe he was likeone of the only apartment. Maybe,

(19:00):
but I can't remember. Does doesOj make it? Does he survive?
Because he saves the cat, Iremember he and he gives it to fred
Astaire at the end, that's right, when fred Astaire loses his special lady
friend. All the people that diein this movie are the people that deserve
to die. You know. It'sone of those moral movies, like the

(19:22):
people having the affair, the peoplethat cheated, the people that were slimy,
you know, there were most ofthe people that died in this movie
were people that deserved to die inthat in that part, they were not
likable people. Yeah, except forthe woman that um Astaire was trying to
con remember Liza Lett or Lizaette?What were what was her name? And
did you do you watch she?I think she she falls out of the

(19:45):
elevator, right the outdoor elevator,and did he watch like the dummy the
dummy hit the balcony and go likespinning socially bad. Yeah, that's one
of the embarrassing moments. It wasdisturbing. It was a little disturb It
was like, whoa, I can'tbelieve they left it in there. It
was really bad. I mean,it was really so cheesy when they happened.
I mean the originals the built themodel that they built was impressive.

(20:07):
It was like sixty or seventy feettall. So they made a proper good
model. Um. But yeah,that that little dummy doing it was literally
like a pout. That was kindof funny. But that was a surprise.
That was a surprise to me whenthat happened. I guess they had
to make you well, they hadto make the model big because they had

(20:27):
to make the fire look not hokeywhen they're showing the you know, the
floor is on fire. I guessit makes that stood out to me.
I was like, oh, theyused a pretty big model to make the
fire. Yeah, And it waswhen they when they lit it for the
first time and it was like boomboom, every you know, every quarter
of it. That was really cool. They did a good job with that.

(20:48):
Um Oh and again another John williamScore who also scored Earthquake that came
out the same year in Star Warsand Washed in Space and Elie the Doll
and It's just a weird and themorning After song in Posidon Adventure won the
Oscar for Best Original Song, andthen we May Never Love Love Like This

(21:11):
Again in The Towering Inferno won theOscar for that one. So Irwin Allen
had back to back disaster movies whenOscars for Best Original Song, same songwriters,
same singer, and they and she'sat mariey McGovern Yeah, yeah,
So it's it's it's funny because it'slike there's a moment where they're in that

(21:33):
ballroom the promenade room or whatever it'scalled, and uh, and it's very
similar to the to the main ballroomof The Beside Adventure. There's a band
in the same place. There's awoman up there singing a song that sounds
just like there's got to be aMorning After. And then I realized later
on that it was the same songwritersand the same singer, and I had
to look it up what they wereup against for that year when they won,

(21:55):
and it was like it was thetheme from benji uh Blaze Saddles there's
a song in the movie Blazing Saddles, something called the Little Prince, and
there was a movie called Gold andthe song was Wherever Love Takes Me.
So I don't the other songs were. None of the songs are memorable.
So whoever has that Oscar should bevery happy of that. I mean,

(22:18):
look, most Oscar nominated songs arenot the cream of the crop of the
music world. Let's just be honest. That's true. There's usually like one
or two that you've actually heard ofand the rest of your you know,
because they got There was a coupleof very very Star Wars moments in this
movie, and the sound, youknow, when they were at the end,

(22:38):
the really suspenseful end, it waslike, you know, I noticed
it aside from the John Williams connection, I just noticed the similarity to Star
Wars and then I realized, oh, yeah, it's him. So there
was definitely a similarity in styles.And it was only a couple of years
later. So and he did Earthquaketwo. I forgot about that. I
didn't know that, Yeah, whichwas the same year. So he was

(23:03):
busy, busy doing disaster score musicscores. Again. You know, have
you watched Earthquake lately. I havenot watched it since I was a kid,
because there's so many cool Hollywood scenesan Earthquake, the Capitol Records building
and in the Hollywood sign and uhthat's the Hollywood Dam and and that office
building a figure is in quite abit. And there's also very similar scenes

(23:26):
in that movie Earthquake to this movie, because there's a point where they're you
know how in this movie, howthey're they're from one office from the top
of the building and they're propelling themin a chair, uh, you know,
to the other rooftop. You knowwhat I'm talking about. I don't.
In the in the Towering Inferno,when they're trying to rescue the people

(23:47):
and they attach a chair to thetop of that building and they fling them
across to the next office building tosave them. Well, there's a really
long scene in Earthquake where they theyget whim a woman on a desk chair
and fire hose and they wrapped thefire hose on the desk chair and are
lower It's very similar. And alsothe twisting staircase, which also has similarities

(24:07):
to uh to the Poseidon Adventure,when they're crawling up the Christmas Tree.
There's a point where the earthquake hitsand you've got the railings that are dangling
there and he's and he's climbing downthe railings. It's like the Christmas Tree
and it's like earthquake. It's justyou know, they just talk about cannibalizing,
you know, that's what's what hedid in an earthquake. The dam
at the Hollywood Reservoir breaks. Isthat the one that breaks? Yeah,

(24:30):
poor mulhalland man, there's a there'sa plaque there for mulehalland yep. So
the guy that did the Saint FrancisDamn, which is the biggest man made
disaster in California state history, he's't. He's like in the afterlife going really
really he had to be another oneof my damns. He blew up in
the Damn movie, like really can'tget away from it. Oh that's sad.

(24:52):
Wow, that's it's so funny.I'm looking at this earthquake thing.
It's it's it's it's on you know, on screens for the twelfth Trembling Week
because that was sens Around too.That was crazy. Sens Around was amazing
where they you know, they hadthose bass speakers in the camp the in
the old theaters, and the wholeplace shook. They were just popping up
the bass and and they was screwingup the old theaters, like the old

(25:14):
theaters are literally falling apart because theycouldn't handle the vibrations inside. And uh.
And I remember when they broadcasted ontelevision. They did a broadcast on
FM radio, so you crank upyour there would be a little flash to
turn on your your radio loud andit would They're broadcasting basically sense around so
you could watch it on TV.That was That's kind of funny. But

(25:37):
anyway, I love that kind ofshit. I love hockey movies. I
love I love you know the Tinglerwith you know would they rigged the seats?
And I remember seeing a creature featurewhen I was a kid where during
the during the break between the doublefeatures, they were doing the spiral on
the screen and say, look out, look out, You're coming to monsters
and these guys and costumes that I'mrunning out and wearing up and down the
hall, up down the aisles andstuff. And that's all that kind of

(26:00):
stuff that hokey um, who's theguy that the producer William Castle. He
used to do all out of thatkind of stuff. The director love that,
love that. So anyway, notinvolved with The Towering Inferno at all.
I just went off. So SteveMcQueen and Paul Newman were the headlining
stars, which is an interesting combobecause they were always kind of professional,

(26:23):
uh you know, opponents. Iguess they were both huge stars, the
huge stars of their day and umand which is evident in the how they're
in the titles. There was adebate over because they I did not know
this, but apparently Paul Newman originallywanted McQueen for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance
Kid. And the reason McQueen didn'tdo it is because they never got They

(26:48):
never settled a dispute over how thewho would who would be the top build
actor in it? So interesting,so to settle the issue with this one,
and I noticed immediately in the cand then read it, M is
they have McQueen is listed first ifyou're looking left to right, but Newman's
is higher, so they're like diagonallypositioned. So you could argue, on

(27:12):
one hand, McQueen's is the firstname you read reading left to right but
Paul Newman's name is higher on thescreen, so they staggered them that way
so that no one is really thefirst build. Right. Um, it's
kind of funny how they did that. This satisfy. It is interesting.
I didn't know that about the ButchCassidy thing because it would have been odd
too, because they both are theselike, you know, monstrous blue eyes.

(27:33):
I mean, and I don't meanthat negatively. I mean they're very
smoking in my opinion. Yeah,they're similar types of guy. Yeah,
and I guess in this in thecase of a McQueen was offered the role
of the architect first and then wantedto go with the fire chief because the
fire chief had more of a dramaticlines, you know, dramatic, uh,

(27:56):
more of an impression he thought itwould make. Yeah, he also
gets more. He's better. Ithink that I wouldn't. I don't think
I would have liked it as muchif they were flipped because he gets more
action stuff and McQueen for me asmore of an action guys, you know,
even though they're very similar off offscreen they were both race car drivers
and stuff. Steve McQueen was alittle bit more I think rough and ragged.
Uh. He they did. Theyboth did a number of their own

(28:18):
stunts to the sagrine of the studiosbecause they both got injured during this during
the shoot too. But I guessthere was the there was a It didn't
seem like there was an unfriendly rivalrybecause they sho I've seen outtakes and they're
like laughing it up with each other. So I think it was more of
an imagined or created u rivalry.But they were both similar in appearance,

(28:40):
so you could see how that happened. But oddly, because McQueen chose the
chose the role of supposedly as Ias I understand it, chose the role
of the fire chief. But hedoesn't show up until like forty five minutes
into the movie. You know,it's like it's like Newman's movie, but
it's at forty three minutes and McQueenshows up. So but then he still

(29:00):
it's but it's a two hour andforty four minute movies, so he still
gets two hours. Yeah, andthey demanded contractually that they have the same
amount of lines. They have theexact same unbelievable um but they looked,
they said, they looked like tobe had a good time. So with
Paul Newman. Um, I've talkedabout this person in the past, but

(29:22):
uh, Jim Markham, who wasJay Sebrings protege and briefly took over see
Brings business after Sebring was murdered andum and came out to LA and kind
of at least tried to pick upwhere Sebring left left off with the celebrity
clients and stuff. His name isJim Markham, and he became good friends
with Paul Newman, and Paul Newmanchampioned him and used him as his hair

(29:45):
stylist for years. Even he endedup even started getting credits on Paul Newman
movies as the hairstylist on the onset because no one would fly him out.
UM. And he would go toNew York and and give Paul Newman,
you know, haircuts in his hispenthouse or whatever in New York City.
And uh, I think he mayhave even been credited on The Sting.
I think, um, I knowhe did Newman's hair on the Sting.

(30:07):
So and Markham wrote a book,um like a couple of years ago
called Big Lucky about his life andit goes into all of this. It's
a it's a good read, Ithink, um, so I'm plugging it
because it's an interesting read. Um. And Also, Paul Newman's son played
a firefighter in the movie. He'sthe guy that I heard that don't remember
this. He doesn't want to.He's the one that's afraid to repel down

(30:30):
the elevator shaft has apparently Paul Newman'sson. Okay, interesting. Yeah,
Well, you know, Newman,by most accounts, is a really decent
guy. You know, he hecontinues to give to charity with his spaghetti
sauce. He you know, hewilled it completely to charity. When he
died. It was I still buida Newman's own balsamic vineagarette. It's a

(30:53):
very good vineagarette. Who does itbenefit? You know, I don't I
have no idea. I just Iby because I like it. I don't
know. Yeah, but a decentguy, A decent guy. Um.
So Paul Newman. I mean,we could spend hours just talking about his
career. He plays the architect whowho's planning, who somehow apparently doesn't know

(31:15):
that the building he designed was veryshoddily built and you know, goes up
like a Roman candle. But thenyou know, becomes a hero along with
Steve McQueen, because he's like PaulNewman's kind of the cerebral one who knows
how the building is designed, andMcQueen's more of the kind of brash action
hero who comes in and yeah itdoesn't you know, but not over macho.

(31:37):
That's what I liked about it.They weren't overacting, you know,
they was. McQueen wasn't doing that. He wasn't overacting. They were both
really likable, pleasant to watch people. And I don't wasn't There was no
one playing tough guy. There wasno it was. It was really enjoyable
to watch those two. I wassurprised at how enjoyable it was to watch

(32:00):
those two, because some of theothers were unwatchable. But it was down
to you know, I mean,it wasn't his fault. It was Richard
Chamberlain's fault, the builder's son,because the builder son was the electrical engineer.
So it Newman, you know,he that was yeah, yeah,
he was pissed because his plans weren'tyou know, everything's up to code.
He goes, well, this buildingis not code, you know, this

(32:21):
is a different code. And sure, sure, I designed it to be
better than code kind of deal.Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah,
because of the power would have taken. But so, um, it's so
funny. Sorry, so uh so. Paul Newman passed away on September twenty
six, two thousand and eight.He was eighty three, and he he

(32:44):
died from lung cancer. And uhyeah, he seemed like a really likable
guy. There was a great episodeof Iconic Class I think on Sundance TV
with him and Redford kind of gettingback together, and it seems like it
wasn't long before Newman passed away,within a few years of his death that
they shot that. It's really interestingand it shows how Paul Newman had fixed
up an old um playhouse and hejust seemed like a genuinely good dude,

(33:09):
you know, and had one ofthe famously long lasting marriages of Hollywood.
M Yeah, and didn't you know, there's never anything that's been, yeah,
really published about him to being adick. You know, He's just
supposed to be a decent guy thatmost everyone enjoyed working with that worked with
who worked with him. You know. That was the other thing they both

(33:31):
got. They both got a millioneach, equal billing, equal lines and
they both got a percentage of thegross. So I don't know what that
turned out to be, but itcan't have hurt well, I mean,
interestingly, age Steve McQueen the yearthat movie came out, became the highest
paid actor in Hollywood and then disappearedfor like four years and just went and

(33:55):
traveled around the country and raced carsand motorcycles, and um, I almost
wonder if he just was making somuch money. He's like, yeah,
I don't going to do this actingthing for a while. I'm gonna take
my towering Inferno residuals and whatever elsehe got and just go have fun.
Yeah, there was, and thatwas the peak at that scandal with you
know, Aliy McGraw and Robert Evans, and because he was he was married

(34:19):
to Ali McGraw, who left RobertEvans for him, right. Evans was
always you know, we read thesame book or he was like, well,
I don't blame her for leaving mebecause I was too tied up.
I promised her I'd never spent aweek, you know, a night away
from home, and he was awayfrom him all the time. It's a
great section in that movie. Thekid stays in the picture too is his
Yeah, that whole segment about losingAlan McGraw, He's like, I losing
Alan McGraw to like the best lookingguy in the country or in the world

(34:43):
or something like that, you know, the biggest star in the world.
You know, what can I dokind of deal? Yeah, you hear
Evans going that son of a bitch, you know the way he talked,
Yeah, luckiest guy in the world. But he also there's an outtake which
it shout it says Steve McQueen ina in an action sequence, and there

(35:05):
was a cut and he turns tothe camera cutaway and he just says,
if anything happens to me, Aligets my pickup truck. You know.
So there were an odd an interestingreference personal rap. Speaking of speaking of
pickups, I really wanted to talkabout this. Steve McQueen, of course,
was super famous for his cars.He loved a race cars. He
raced motorcycles when he was first tryingto be an actor in New York.

(35:28):
That's how he supported himself in largepart by doing motorcycle races. And so
if you know cars at all,any car that was owned by Steve McQueen
is worth multiples more than it normallywould be on its own. But the
fact that it was a McQueen vehicleis, you know, is pride makes
it prized. And he even hadhe even had I think it was last

(35:51):
year, a nineteen fifty two campertruck, just the most boring, not
a race card thing you can imagine, sold for one hundred hundred thousand dollars
for this, this old fifty twotruck. His four gt race car sold
in twenty twelve, or eleven milliondollars. At the time. It was
the most expensive American car ever sold. Again, I mean, four gts

(36:15):
are worth a lot of money,but the fact that that one was owned
by McQueen made it worth even more. And then the Peterson has what I
consider to be the ultimate sports carever made if you're a collector, They
have his Jaguar x KSS, whichfirst of all, is one of the
rarest cars to begin with, becausethe factory burned down and they built they

(36:37):
only built sixteen of them. Thefactory burned down. Nine of them burned
up in the factory, so therewere only only seven of them made of
the original run. Steve McQueen thenowned one of them, he called it,
I think the Green Rat or theGreen Bastard or something. Anyways,
Steve McQueen owned one, and thePeterson autom Museum now owns it and it's
in their collection and it is worthI would today. I think it's worth

(37:00):
at least twenty five million dollars,no kidding, because of the perfect storm
connection of it being one of therarest sports cars ever because of the factory
fire combined with the fact that SteveMcQueen owned it. Yeah, it's crazy.
Yeah, yeah, wow, thatis interesting because I've seen that.
I probably took pictures of it too, but I didn't know. I didn't
because it wasn't the bullet car.So I was like, all right,

(37:21):
whatever. But because I'm not acar person, I mean, there's no
no, no disrespect intended towards here. But sure, I'm not even this.
You know, I didn't really getSteve McQueen. You know. Everyone
was like, what a sex godhe was or something like that. I
didn't get it, you know,I mean I I just never understood it.
And I'm not saying he was unattractive. But usually someone will catch your

(37:44):
eye, you know, if they'rebeautiful and or a good looking guy.
But it was like I didn't getSteve McQueen at all. You know,
maybe it's because he wasn't a threatto two normal guys, you know,
too regular guys. It's like RonJeremy and porn. You know, you
can watch him and because it's you'renot threatened by it. Maybe that's what
it was. But I thought hewas rather average looking. I didn't think

(38:05):
he was a sex god. Youdidn't get it, but he could right
right, right right, I did. And he said, I believe that
he was supposed to be at thehouse on the night of the murders,
and the murders, the murders,yeah, yeah, but he before he
left he got a call from anattractive blonde, and attractive blonde he decided
to go with her instead, sogood choice. Yeah, but seepa queen,

(38:30):
Yeah, not an ugly guy,not by any stretch. I just
never really, never really got it. But he was a guy's guy.
He was definitely a guy's guy pastcars and beautiful women, and that's I
guess that's what mattered. But itwasn't like a troublemaker because James Bonds were
always like really handsome men, youknow, and and he was more rugged
than handsome. I think, yeah, yeah, Paul Newman was handsome.

(38:54):
He also apparently turned down the leadrole in Close Encounters that Richard Dryfis ended
up take. He was Spielberg wantedhim for it, and McQueen supposedly turned
it down because McQueen couldn't cry oncry on cue And there's that crying scene
where Dreyfus has the meltdown and hishouse and his family freaks out, and

(39:15):
Spielberg said, I'll take the sceneout. I'll take it out, and
McQueen said, it's the best scenein the script. You can't take it
out. So that was it.He ended up not playing that role because
of that. Not wild. Icould totally see him in that part too.
I could totally see him doing that. I can't see him crying,
but I can see the rest ofit. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(39:35):
I'd have to see that movie again. It's been a lot, many many
years. Um So McQueen got ummesothelioma. If you've seen the ads,
it's asbestos related cancer and it's funnybecause he smoked. But apparently the cancer
he got was from asbestos, andsome people claimed that it was from the
asbestos used in the sound stage walls, or that may was from his race

(40:00):
car driving suits which have asbestos inhim. But he blamed it on work
that he had he had to dowhen he was a marine. He was
in the Marines for a few yearsback in the forties, and that's he
he said he got it from.I think he had to clean out old
ducts or pipes or something and theywere wrapped in old asbestos, and he
claimed that's where he got the exposure. So, you know, and time

(40:21):
wid Yeah, I wonder if thethree months of inhaling, you know,
sorts of themes from this movie,uh might have contributed a bit, you
know. I mean it's kind ofironic. He dies from asbestos related cancer
and he played a fire chief whowould have been wearing asbestos protective clothing if
he was wearing the real stuff inthe movie. But yeah, yeah,

(40:44):
it's so interesting asbestos because I mean, we you know, I grew up
in as best as schools, youknow, I mean I remember, I'm
sure I was in eighth grade,and I remember they closed the school for
like a month and gutted it andredid it because of that. But it
was like go up and you know, so, so for seven and a
half years we've been I've been,you know, eating this stuff. Basically.

(41:06):
Wait, the movie theater I workedat was one of those old movie
palaces and we had this massive asbestoscurtain that we used to we used to
lower down because there was a firecurtain. So but the size of a
movie screen, you know, it'slike asbestos is everywhere. So it's interesting
more people didn't die from it,but it's like it's like what saccharin or
something like one person dies and ruinsit for everybody. Apparently, he I

(41:31):
mean, he had cancer bad.Unfortunately it's spread and the doctors in the
US told him we can't we can'tsave you. There's nothing we can do.
And so that's when he turned tothis. There was this quack doctor
that he who had these crazy hewas, I think really an orthodontist in
real life, who had these totallyunproven treatments for cancer. And McQueen had

(41:51):
to go down to Mexico in orderto you know, do it, and
uh, and of course it didn'twork. And then toward the end he
had tumors. He had a bigtumor in his abdomen and another one in
his neck, and he wanted tohave him removed. And again the US
doctor said, your your heart won'tyour heart can't take the surgery. And
he went through with it. Anyways, he went down the warez and and
they were correct and he within Ithink about twelve hours after a surgical procedure,

(42:15):
he had a heart attack in hissleep in the early morning hours,
and that's that's how he died.So I would say, you know,
if you're if you're terminally ill,and somebody says they have a chance,
and whatever the FDA or whomever itis that regulates that here, because there's
so many outrageous kind of you know, hoops that people have to jump through

(42:36):
in a lot of ways. Andand for our protection, they say,
but still it's if there's it's likebuying drugs. You know, you can
you can get you can go downand get ballium in Mexico if you want
to, you know, I mean, it's not that difficult. So if
somebody's gonna offer to do it,it's like people going over the border to
you know, have their pregnancies terminated. Um, you know, I can't
say that I would do anything.I can't say I would do any different

(42:59):
than he did if I was ina situation and yeah, you know,
you're not gonna win anyways, youmight as well go down swing and at
least try, you know, right, didn't Anny Kaufman like go to Yeah
some it was like an African countryand some similar situation. Yeah, and
hard like a heart massage. Theyopened up his chest or something. It's

(43:20):
just it's footage at that I thinksomewhere. But anyway, it's uh so
I kind of don't blame him,but I also I don't know. Yeah,
yeah, um, but he hedid die. He passed away in
the early morning hours of November seventh, nineteen eighty And it's just so weird.
In nineteen seventy four, becomes thehighest paid actor in the world,
disappears, makes nothing for like fouryears, comes back, makes three kind

(43:44):
of minor films in my opinion,and then dies a very strange end.
Um, you know, and lookthe other guy, Dennis Hopper, would
disappear for you know, months oryears at a time and go on tours
of the country and take photos andstuff. It was, you know,
the hippie era. Um, yeah, but I've never but it's very strange.
He did that and then just neverreally recovered because he got sick and

(44:04):
died. Um. And they weregonna do he was under contract with Erwin
Irwin Allen to do another film,and they were gonna do The Inferno,
the Towering Inferno two. Uh,and he apparently was considering being in that.
I think he turned it down andthey scrapped it not long before he
died. So no Towering Inferno twofor all of us. You know,

(44:25):
they could have cut this one inhalf exactly. William Holding, We've talked
about him before, but he playsthe developer, right, the uh,
the the one whose son in lawmesses everything up. Um. He apparently
wanted top building and they were like, no, it's not in Paul's not

(44:49):
in nineteen seventy four. You're notgetting Tought building over those guys. Yeah.
Yeah, it's interesting because we Holdingand we covered him, you know,
ad nauseum. Yeah, and oursons at Bulevard podcasts. But I
forgot how I forgot how young hewas. You know he was he was
he was like sixty three or somethingyeah when he died. Yeah, and
he I mean he was a hewas a he was a heavy drinker and

(45:12):
he could have passed for seventy five. Uh, you know, he looked
pretty old in this movie, andthat would have been you know that he
would have been probably what he wouldhave been in his mid fifties. He
would have been like fifty six orso in this movie. Yeah. Yeah,
and he looked like a lot olderthan that. Yeah, he looks
like he's in his seventies in themovie. Yeah. Um. I mean
for people that haven't gone back andlistened to that episode, just kind of

(45:35):
the cliff Nos version of his deathwas he was living in an apartment on
the beach in Santa Monica and hehad a fall in his bedroom, I
believe, and hit his nightstand tableand gashed his head open, and was
believed to have been like very veryintoxicated and didn't realize how badly he'd damaged.
He'd hurt himself, he'd gashed hishead open, and I guess bloody

(45:59):
kleenexes were found then. They thinkhe was conscious for about half an hour
after it happened, but just didn'tcouldn't comprehend that he was in serious danger
and he ended up he probably wasnot in a Yeah, he I mean,
he hit that table so hard thatthey say it pushed it an inch
into the block, into the drywall. So that's a hell of a fall.

(46:20):
So he probably didn't even know andhe was drunk. I mean that,
I think that's been established that hewas there was. I mean,
the the proof of that was theempty bottle that was on the table next
to him. Kind of a thing. And imagine, I don't know if
you can actually check the toxicology andyou know, when you've been dead for
as long as he was, becausehe was dead for a while I believe

(46:42):
before his body was discovered. Butstill he was a famously you know,
an alcohol abuser and a mean alcoholabuser and uh yeah, that's a really
bitter guy. But I didn't comeoff that way in this movie. He
was very likable, you know,despite the fact that it wasn't even his
fault actually that this whole accident happened. But he kind of was taking the
fall for it in a lot ofways. Uh right, yeah, no,

(47:06):
but ump Bump took the fall forit. La Um. He passed
away on William Holden passed away onNovember twelfth, nineteen eighty one. Um,
And I mean, for me,he's his sunset Boulevard. So it's
kind of hard for me to evenpicture him and anything else, even though
he did so much else. UmFred Astaire, who would have been in

(47:30):
uh well into his seventies and andlooked looked, looked at play as an
old Kahn man who is trying toCohn. Was it Eliza Lette, what
did we settling? Yeah? Imean I joined a Cassum Jennifer Jones,
Yes, Um, and he umplays an old Cohn man. He's there

(47:52):
to kind of rip her off,and he then he decides he's in love
with her and and confesses to herthat he was gonna, you know,
sell her stocks and stuff to dodidn't exist and um, and then and
then she falls off the elevator andspins like a top uh ninety floors at
the bottom. She was very Shedidn't deserve what Scott no, but she

(48:12):
was she was like the Shelley Winter'scharacter. You know when they when they
did that that that stairway scene,and you you just you know, she
was wearing the nice flowing dress andshe had to climb down this thing,
just like Shelley had to climb upthat uh that in the pasiety had to
climb up the Christmas tree. Butshe was like the sacrifice that had to
be done to teach him a lessonbecause he was a con man. So

(48:35):
I think that I think that's whythey they killed her off in the movie.
Kind of a bad deal her man. Yeah, that was sort of
the surprise part of the movie.That was a surprise death in the movie.
I think that's true. That's truebecause usually it's they get people to
get it deserve it, and shedidn't. Yeah. No, but fredist
So this is the crazy thing.Fred Astaire got his own only Oscar nomination

(49:00):
of his entire career from this moviefor a Best Supporting Actor. Isn't that
crazy? He didn't win, butit's the only time he got an honorary
Oscar in nineteen fifty but he hadhe'd never I can't believe he'd never been
nominated for a legit Oscar and TheTowering Inferno in nineteen seventy four is what
he gets it for all the stuffhe did. He did the he was

(49:22):
not an actor. I guess hewas more of a dancer, but he
acted, but he was never everythinghe's star billing in was a dancer,
I guess, sure. Yeah,that's what it was. He didn't get
the Oscar for this, but hedid win a Golden Globe for I think
Best Supporting Actor. So he Imean, he had to have weighed seventy
five pounds, you know, soakingwet he was. He was not.

(49:45):
He was a very like always lookkind of thing. But he's very frail.
Yeah, very very frail. Itwas just kind of funny how at
the beginning of the movie is likehis first scene is taking a taxi to
this this office building and and hegets it's out of the taxi and it's
a ninety ninety five cent fair ina taxi. I know, it's it's

(50:06):
it's very indicative of the time period, and he's counting up pennies. It's
like it was just the funniest thingbecause you know, now they wouldn't even
what it's like immediately at five dollarswhen you walk in get into a taxi
anymore, whoever goes into taxis anymore? But but yeah, it's it was
just kind of funny. He doesn'ttip the guy, all right, he
says, I'll tip you next timeor something like that, right, Yeah,

(50:27):
yeah, so um, but Iguy, Yeah, what an amazing
person. And funny that out ofall those movies, like you said,
never an Oscar nomination except for thismovie. Got a Golden Globe for this
movie. I think a Bapta aswell. And it's just it's just for
this silly movie that's largely forgettable exceptfor the epic nature of it. A
lot of people would even say wouldhe wouldn't even know he was in it

(50:49):
unless you unless you, h,you know, pointed it out. So
he was at the end of hislife. He was married to a woman
who was forty five years younger thanhim, Not that there's anything wrong with
that, but forty five years though, that's impressive, you know, but
h But apparently she loved him verymuch. And now I don't know if

(51:14):
this is true? Can you?Actually they say they had it in his
will. His wife's name was RobinSmith, and they said that he had
it in his will that he can'tbe portrayed in screen. Oh so they
can't like tell his the Fredistair storyor whatever. Yeah, she said that

(51:35):
she would never she promised to neverget permission to portray him in a film.
And in his will he said herequested that no such portrayal ever take
place. It's because it's there,the codicil whatever is there because I have
no particular desire to have my lifemy life misinterpreted, which it would be,
which I know. But you can't. You don't have a control of
that. Can you can make aFredistaire biopick if you wanted to, You

(51:59):
can't really stops without without the estate'spermission. I don't know that you could
do an entire film on him.You could probably get away with having him
be a character in another film,someone else's story. You might be able
to get away with not um goingand getting his you know, life story
rights from his estate. But ifyou wanted to do like the fred Astaire
story, like a biography on him, you could write an authorized biography as

(52:23):
a book. So I that's freakingIt's a legal interesting legal area, and
it continues to be an interesting legalarea. Whether or not you'd be able
to do that, yeah, Imean you would consider it a tribute or
a what was that tournament Molly Shannonused about a send up? It was
anyway, but it was you know, I can't see how as somebody being

(52:45):
a public persona Now, if you'retalking about movie clips. If you're talking
about you know, recreating like MGMmovies, there's a copyright issue. I
can understand that, but him asa as a human being, I don't
know. It's just interesting, butI don't know if it's and I don't
know if it's a thing like copyrightwhere it expires after a certain amount of

(53:06):
years. Like obviously, if they'regonna, you know, they do an
Abraham Lincoln bio biopic, they're notgoing and tracking down his his errors to
see you know what I mean,his descendants is to get permission. So
at a certain point, um,you don't have to. So I do
wonder what point that it's kind ofa gray area and time. I doubt
there's good people knocking down doors forthe Fredis Stare life story either you know,

(53:29):
I mean he was I mean,I don't mean that in the Nasty
Wire Us. And I can tellyou when they do do big you know,
true films, true story films,there are always um extra characters in
those that are portrayed that they didnot go and get the permission from that
person to do it right. Oneof the most famous ones is Jerry Heller,
who was the manager for inwa youknow, when they did them straight

(53:52):
out of Compton film. He's portrayedin that movie and they did not consult
with him. He's played by anactor, and he actually was filing a
lawsuit at the time of his deathagainst him for his portrayal. They thought
his portrayal is defamatory. So soif it's like part of a big ensemble
and it's not the main focus,I think they can kind of get away

(54:12):
with it. But if it's aboutthe person specifically, I don't know how
that works. But anyway, that'ssupposedly in his will, that's what he
had. Now. They kind ofmade me blanche a little bit. Was
that on when he died. He'she died in Um, well, you
probably have the date right there.I don't. I don't have it right
up the top my head. Hedied on June twenty second, nineteen eighty

(54:35):
seven. He was eighty eight yearsold. He died for pneumonia hammonia.
And I think he was born ineighteen ninety nine. Yeah. Yeah,
my grandmother was born in eighteen eightyeight. Yeah, it's bizarre to think
that. I yeah, I grewup with that woman who was born in
the eighteen hundreds. Yeah, shedied in seventy seven and she was eighty

(54:57):
eight years old. So wowing peoplethat lived in I wish I had known
to ask them that, you know, the questions about that, um,
you know, being there, youknow, the first time they saw a
television, or the first time theyheard a telephone, or because they were
old school. I remember they didthe old phones. They liked party lines.
They didn't even have their own phoneline. You know, they would

(55:21):
where where I lived. I spentabout half my childhood in Colorado. When
out in the sticks, I hadfriends that still had party lines. It
still had party lines in the nineties, in nineteen nineties, not the eighteen
nineties. It's crazy to think thatpeople multiple home sharing the same phone.
It's kind of weird. So Iremember when we would leave my grandmother's house

(55:42):
and we would get home. Shewanted to know we got home, but
she didn't want anyone to know whatwe were doing. So we would call
and ring once so no one elsewould pick up the phone. Or either
that she'd say hello and we'd hangup. But that was just so other
people didn't know what was what wasgoing on. But um, but anyway,
back to the first that's what we'retalking about. So he you know,
his widow was forty five years youngerthan him. Now what I find

(56:07):
is, I said, what makesme kind of a blanche a little bit?
Is it? When he died,a gravestone was put on his grave.
He's at Oakwood Memorial Park. It'sthe same place where actor Stephen Boyd
was that Bob Crane was there untilhis wife had had had him exhoomed and
took him to Westwood Cemetery. Hisgravestone says something to the effect I will

(56:29):
always love you, my dear.You know, had nothing. It didn't
say actor dance or extraordinariyor I willalways love you, my dear. It
was just to me. It kindof was like, it's not about you,
love you know, I understand it'sabout you, but it's really about
him. This is forever place,people forever going to come to visit and
pay their respects to him, andthey're gonna go, whose I, Who

(56:51):
is I? You know? Why? Why why is your personal message on
on his tombstone? It's a right. She paid for it, and she's
completely in her you know, inher right to do that. But it
just made me uncomfortable. It's like, well, not about you, really,
but it's weird. We talked inour last show. I think about
a dispute over a headstone. It'sfunny how that happens with Was it with

(57:14):
Sinatra? Oh right? Yeah?Yeah. And it's never never about the
person, it's never about the person'swishes. I just saw a story about
them moving John Barrymore's body. Hisson did it, and the whole thing
about it because his Barrymore wanted tobe buried back I think back East with
the family, the family plot,and he wasn't. He was buried out

(57:35):
here, and the sun finally waslike, screw that. We We're gonna
the son and the grand somewhere,like we're gonna move him. And they
basically I think they were gonna haveto have the whole family signed the paperwork,
and they kind of like, hkind of fudge that a little bit
just because they didn't want to dealwith all the various personalities that they would
have to deal with. They justwanted to they'd never felt it was right
that his his wishes weren't honored mwhere he wanted to be put, and

(58:00):
they moved him. But yeah,I mean, it's about what they wanted
done. I think, I think, I mean, we'll look up when
they ripped off Graham Parson's body andset him on fire. You know,
he in the desert, you know, I mean, he they knew it's
not what he wanted, and theythey they stole his body and lit it
on fire, trying to cremate him, not realizing that it takes a little

(58:22):
bit more than gasoline to uh,to cremate somebody. You know, it's
there's a lot of remains to gothrough. But still it's trying to honor
him the best you way, thebest way you can. But I don't
know. Personal post it's on people'sgraves don't really fly. But that's me.
That's me. It's not it's notfor me to say, I mean

(58:43):
to say, while it is becauseI just said it. It is for
you to say, Scott, youropinion matters. Yes, Um, I
put Jennifer Jones down next. Isthat a good one to go to?
Yeah, that's fine. I mean, she's a she's a a sad individual,
man, I should talk about youknow, she had some breaks,

(59:04):
some bad breaks, and she hada history of psychological problems and she at
one point attempted suicide. She jumpedoff a cliff in Malibu, and I
think her daughter eventually did commit suicidelater. And she was a big advocate
for mental health awareness. That washer big cause. She was nominated for

(59:24):
five Oscars, one of them beingfor The Towering Inferno, which was her
last film before she went into retirement, and she won Best Actress for the
Song of Bernadette. And she wasthe sixth youngest actress to ever win a
Best Actress Oscar. She won iton her twenty fifth birthday. Only Hepburn

(59:46):
beat her by forty days for RomanHolidays, being younger than her. But
she was the sixty youngest actress toever win it. Yep. And there
was something else, Oh, Iwas just gonna say, she should have
won an award for marrying well.She married David Selznick until he died,
and then she married you know,the industrial the wealthy industrialist Norton Simon.

(01:00:07):
After that, of course, whohas an excellent art museum called the Norton
Simon Museum in Pasadena. It's areally good little art museum and apparently,
according to Wikipedia, um some ofthe artwork that appears at The beginning of
this film is from Norton Simon's collection. Really m hmm, interesting, I

(01:00:28):
wonder why. Yeah, I mean, I know they own the Blue Boy
in the Pink Lady. Those arethe ones I know because I am only
familiar with, like the masterpieces.I really like, if you're in southern
California and you need a museum that'snot like a full day like you know,
LACMA or the Getty is Norton Simon'sa really nice, like you know,
one at one or two hour visitto. Yeah, you know,

(01:00:49):
see a nice space with some niceart, but not be overwhelmed by it,
you know, right, yeah,um, what do you think about?
Yeah? It was there. Itwas her daughter with Selznick. I
think they died as she jumped.She jumped too, I mean Jennifer Jones
tried to and well she did andthey found her and they but then the
daughter jumped. She's twenty second floorof a building somewhere downtown. I think,

(01:01:14):
yeah, yeah, but at leastshe embraced it afterwards in the mental
illness thing and was a real advocatefor you know, therapy and things like
that. Exactly. Yeah, gethelp, if you get get help,
um her ashes and her ashes areinterred with Selznick, not Norton Simon over
at Forest Lawn. So interesting.M hmm. Yeah, She's just say

(01:01:38):
she was like the Shelly Winter's characterof this movie. She was likable and
a bit awkward and clearly fish outof water and I ended up but likable
and surprisingly we should put a disclaimer, you know at the beginning, well
you know that there's just all ofthe spoilers in the world in this right,

(01:01:59):
but she was like the surprising deathof all the deaths in the movie.
That was the one I didn't seecomment m yeah. And she passed
away on December seventeenth, two thousandand nine at the age of ninety from
natural causes. Preston Peace. Andthen the last actor that I really wanted
to talk about, and I reallywanted to talk about this for you,

(01:02:22):
Scott, was Robert Vaughan, whois best known for being in The Magnificent
Seven and bullet In Superman three andDelta Force and The Man from Uncle.
But I wanted to talk about thisone because I know how much you love
a good Hollywood paternity dispute, andthere's a really good one with Robert von
there's a really good one with Royson. Yeah so um. The famous producer

(01:02:45):
and director Matthew Vaughan a British directorwho produced Lockstock and Two Smoking Barrels and
Snatch and directed Layer Cake and kickAss and X Men First Class and the
Kingsman movies, and is married toClaudia Schiffer. He for the first like
thirty some years of his life believethat he was Robert Vaughan's son and was

(01:03:07):
named Matthew Vaughn, took on hissurname and came to find out in two
thousand and two that his real fatherwas a British aristocrat and was not.
Yeah, hold on, I'll tellyou it's a name I can't really pronounce
very well, one of these veryaristocratic like ten name names, George de

(01:03:27):
Vera Drummond or de Vere Drumond.So Matthew Vaughan has changed his last name
personally to however you pronounced demand Drummond, de Vere Drummond. But you know,
professionally he's still Matthew Vaughan, becausethat's kind of that's how everybody knows
him. But he does not goby that in his personal life anymore.
And here's the extra drama. Hismother found out that that Robert Vaughan was

(01:03:53):
not the father back in the eightiesand didn't tell her son, so he
didn't find Well that's very British though, it's very British. We just won't
say anything secret and every family hastheir dark secret. We don't discuss.
Yeah, right, I mean shemust have known. I mean well,
I mean, well maybe she didn't, but uh um, that that is

(01:04:15):
that's really interesting. I mean becauseI knew. It's an odd He had
a career in England that I didn'teven know about. I mean, he
was in he was in a Britishsoap opera in two thousands and you know,
in the early two thousands called CoronationStreet, which is like a you
know, it's like a real Britishthing. It's not like you know of
now. It's it is like soBritish it's not even true. And he

(01:04:38):
was in that for a while andit was like that surprised me on his
IMDb page and he did. Hewas in Little Britain. He was in
an episode of the of the comedyshow A Little Britain. So he had
a real connection to England. NowI know why because of his son.
But I didn't I didn't know thatbefore. So that's uh, that's very
interesting. That's that's interesting. Yeah, very And Robert Vaughan lived in the

(01:05:00):
twenty sixteen, so so Robert livedlong enough to know the truth and for
his son to know the truth.And I think UM gave Matthew Vaughn or
permission or urged him to keep thelast surname, or said you can keep,
you know, calling yourself that ifyou want to, and so that
was nice, I guess. Butyeah, so he didn't even know,
I guess. I guess nobody knew, not until the mother supposedly found out

(01:05:27):
in the nineteen eighties. So Iwould imagine Robert Vaughan probably found out also
in the nineteen eighties. Hmm,yeah, crazy, wow. He I
remember when when when this, youknow, we talked about this in the
Jaws podcast. I was a huge, huge fan of Jaws, and I
remember when this movie came out therewas well that would have been after Jaws

(01:05:48):
and Jaws was seventy five. Anyway, Robert Vaughan was going to be on
the Tonight Show and I remember,like I was never a Tonight Show fan,
but I say, that because Ithought it was going to be Murray
Hamilton played Mayor Vaughan and Jaws,so I thought Mark, you know,
it was so stupid as a kid, but I was like, oh my
god, the mayor from Jaws isgoing to be on this night show.
And it was Robert Van I wasso disappointed. Man from Uncle was a

(01:06:13):
great show. I love that show. And uh, and that's that was
one of those tribute questions when peopleask about Man from Uncle. It was
what actually did Uncle stand for?And it's a United Network United Network Command
for Law Enforcement? Oh wow?And uh, but it's also another British
thing because they they're there, youremember get Smart. It was Chaos was

(01:06:36):
the name of their their anti spyyou know there there and this one was
Thrush and Thrush is like, youknow, it's like a East infection,
so and there, you know,it's just kind of funny, you know,
Thrush and there'd be some some laughsome laughs there. And he was
also in Pootie Tang, which Ilove. I love that movie. Pooty

(01:06:57):
Don't forget that. I love that. Have you ever seen Potty than I
have? Very funny movie? SaidI say, it's a very funny movie.
Yeah, that's hilarious. It isgood. It is a good movie.
But anyway, Yeah, so RobertVaughn died. He died November eleventh,
twenty sixteen. He was eighty three, and he had been getting treatment
for leukemia for the year leading upto his death. So my assumption is

(01:07:20):
that that's that was what caused thatare contributed was leukemia. Yeah, yeah,
by all, I mean I knowthat Jeff Man Mentor, who owns
Larry Edmond's Bookstore, he was friendlywith Robert Vaughn. He come in every
once in a while to this oldHollywood bookstore, the last one is left
in Hollywood, and so it wasneat that he was a cool guy that

(01:07:44):
supported you know, the old bookstoreis a neat right. Um, So
Robert Vaughn's the last one I hadon my list. Luck luckily, a
lot of the actors in this filmare still alive. That's nice. Yeah,
Water is still alive and Fay Dunawaysalive, and you know he has
faked unaway. She was a she'sI'm you know, she is not good.

(01:08:08):
She's just she's like a stiff asa board, you know, I
mean, Mommy Diarist I can't seeanything else but that she wanted an Academy
Ward for a network. I gottawatch that one again because it's really good.
She plays kind of a really badass, ball busting career woman who's she's
kick assing that I like her.I just think she's awful in this movie.
And she and she did her typicalface stuff. You know, she

(01:08:32):
showed up late and people were showI said they had like the paperwork they
were showing. Miss Dunaway showed upninety minutes late and people were just leaving
the set, you know, Robert, you know holding In fact, they
say that there was a confrontation betweenyou know, Holden. They say slammed
her against the wall and said,you know, quit messing around. And
after that, she showed up ontime after after that, but but she's

(01:08:57):
famously it was like, you know, I'm half in the bag by noon.
We gotta get this done. Yeah, no doubt, no doubt.
But she is I mean, she'sgot such a terrible reputation. And we've
probably talked about this on before.When there's a great appearance of Betty Davis
on The Tonight Show. She dida movie with Fate Dunaway called The Disappearance
of Sister Amy, which is aboutthe evangelist Amy Semple McPherson, and there

(01:09:20):
was a period of time where shewas unaccounted for and Betty Davis played her
mother. So Betty Davis was askedon the Tonight Show close to her death,
so in the l in the mideighties, MI to late eighties,
is there anyone that you would thatyou did not enjoy working with? And
she said one, hands down,fake Dunaway. And she was never person

(01:09:43):
to name names. Betty Davis wasnever won to trash she, but she
said she was the most unprofessional personI've ever worked with. And people in
the audience were giggling. She's like, this is not funny. I'm not
saying this would be funny. Sheshowed up late, you know, and
I had to you know, there'sa courtroom scene and she wouldn't even show
up and Eddie Davis would, youknow, try to entertain the extras there
because they're sitting there in the heat. And Dunaway shows up late. But

(01:10:06):
Davis goes out in a real terrorabout her. And that's for Betty Davis,
who could not be more professional,to actually throw Fay down like that.
Um, it was very revealing.And there are lots of those stories,
don't you don't you know who Iam, Stories of her stores and
uh, you know, throwing thingsand hitting people with things and throwing things

(01:10:28):
at people and so um, she'snotorious for being that one. It's too
bad because I think my favorite photoof a celebrity ever is the famous one
of her by the pool at theBeverly Hills Hotel the morning after she won
the oscar for Network. I lovethat photo so much. It's such an
interesting with the newspaper pages all spreadout on the ground below her and she's
just chilling by the pool with heroscar sitting there on the table with you

(01:10:51):
know, her tea or whatever,her coffee or whatever it was on the
table. Yeah. I love thatphotos. It's like the second and the
second wave, the peak at thesecond wave of the Hollywood Golden Age,
like Golden Age part two and uhand yeah that's all the Evans business and
Nicholson and all those you know thatwas whoever thought those would be the Golden

(01:11:15):
Age again? You know that's that'sso funny because they're over. So many
of those guys are dead or dyingthat there is. It's like, what's
next. I'm afraid that I'm afraidto even think it. Really, you
know, there's something to be saidfor the studio system. So um.
But yeah, anyway, Faye wasa piece of work. And she and
I you know, she was shewas she was, she was Fay,

(01:11:39):
she was Fay. But the otherpeople that I had, I was just
gonna go on about some of thesome of the moments in the in the
show, in the movie, becausethere's so many interesting. Uh well,
first of all, I thought thisis unrelated but related. I thought The
Besides Adventure was the first disaster film, but it was actually Airport in nineteen

(01:12:01):
seventy that was the first airs ofthe big the first of the big seventies
disaster movies. Disaster kind of Yeah, so I thought, you know,
I thought that The Positon Adventure wasthe groundbreaker there, but no, it
was actually this other one air airplanethat can't be right, no airplanes comedy
Airport is the one airports. Yeah, they did a whole bunch, They

(01:12:23):
did a whole string of airport moviesand make people terrify of flying. Yeah.
In fact that now somebody I hadit written down and that somebody in
this movie was in airport seventy nine. Oh, Susan Blakeley, who played
Richard Chamberlain's wife in the movie,she was in the Concord air airports.
Those were great movies because they,I mean, they have people like you

(01:12:45):
know, Gloria Swanson and Jimmy Stewartwere in these We're in these airplanes.
They were they were cool. Imean, these are people that had a
week to kill, you know,and you go to the studio up the
road and they had the phony airplaneset up and you know, why not,
I'll make fifty grand and no problem. Yeah, right, right right.
But um so, some of themoments that if in the movie that

(01:13:06):
I found were interesting, Well,oh there, we didn't say anything about
Bobby Brady with the headphones. Thatwas he shows up at the beginning of
the movie Mike look on Linda,who was Bobby Brady, who was the
precocious young boy just like Eric Shaywas in The Poseidon Adventure. And he
has these headphones on. They're wireless, but they're like this big and they're

(01:13:27):
with big antennas and something like that. So that was that was another comparison
to the Poseidon Adventure was the precociousyoung boy. The fire started in the
room break in a breaker box onthe eighty first floor. I thought it
was interesting because the breaker box openopens, and when I was a boy
scout, one of the first thingsthey taught you was like, for some
reason oily rags existed, Be carefulof oily rags because they're a fire hazard.

(01:13:53):
And that was like what I wasnever where did where did oily rags
ever happen? But that's what itwas. In the eighty first floor of
this office building is a pile ofoily rags, about six pens, six
cans of spray paint, and thesefive gallon drums that don't say anything except
flammable aim. It's like what thecontents are, we don't know, but

(01:14:14):
it's all in one time, everysingle it's make a nuclear bomb in that
tiny little storage cabinet with everything thatwas in there, and yet it's like
a really long time for it toactually catch on fire. And then there
was a scene where Steve McQueen showsup and he goes to the eighty first
floor and they're trying to get thisthing under control and it's not working.

(01:14:34):
And he has to go to theupper floors to I guess warn people up
there to get ready to go orsomething. But so he literally walks about
twenty feet to an elevator twenty feeton the fire to get onto an elevator
to take it up in the building, which is again the first thing it
happens when there's a fire in abuilding. Elevators get shut down and you

(01:14:55):
use the stairs. Well, here'sthe chief of the fires, you know,
the fire brigade, going and usingthe elevat twenty feet I mean,
I'm not even joking, like rightaround the corner from the flames and he
gets into an elevator, which isit's just funny. There is. There
are a couple of uh there.For some it's an inexplicable thing. On
the bar in the promenade room isa lighted candle. I noticed it about

(01:15:17):
three times. It's nothing, there'sno attention brought to it, and it's
not like it's an atmospheric candle likethose pretty ones that hit as centerpieces.
It is like a single white candleon the bar in the middle of the
scene. Three times in the movie. I don't know why it's there,
but it's a lighted candle on fire, distracting if you catch it. But

(01:15:38):
there must be some kind of symbolismto that, you know, very obvious
symbolism if it is. But Ijust somebody had to be somebody's had to
be somebody's you know, joke orsomething. There are a lot of featured
extras in the movie. There's acouple that, like at the beginning when
Paul Newman walks in, somebody walksby and say hello, there, whatever

(01:16:00):
your name is, and not evennot even facing the camera. And I
would have swore that would have beenlike Irwin Allen's cameo or something like it.
But I googled like crazy, couldn'tfind anything. But it was one
of those weird that's odd you know, here's this this guy that's blocking Paul
Newman's face and saying this weird linethat's oddly focused on. And so there
was, there was. But Ido know that Irwin Allen's wife was in

(01:16:24):
this movie, and his girlfriend wasin this movie. And his girlfriend,
yeah, yeah, yeah, hisgirlfriend played the mayor's wife and the mayor
and she's a featured extra. She'sa she's not a not a not a
slim woman. She's got a pinkdress and the most awful blonde wig on
her head, and and they showher in a ton of scenes. They

(01:16:45):
show her she's one of the peopleon the sceneic elevator, and I didn't
know it until I watched the retrospectivething that she was. She was interviewed
and she was Irwin Allen's girlfriend atthe time, but his real wife was
in the movie, so I don'tknow what their relationship was like. But
this she shows up a lot inthe movie, and she actually looked younger
twenty years after the movie than shedid in the In the actual movie,

(01:17:09):
they say that, well, stevehac Queen, there's one really interesting scene
where I thought it was strange hewas during the movie. I mean,
it's a two hour, forty fiveminute movie. There's a scene where he's
sitting with the other firefighters on thefloor in the lobby. Now how he
goes from way up there down tothe lobby, but he's sitting there,

(01:17:29):
you know, taking a rest withthe other firefighters, which okay, I
was like, all right, I'mit's weird, but I'm on board with
it. But it turns out thathe screwed up his foot in a in
a scene, and he had todo several scenes sitting. So that's why
they had him. That's why theyhad him in the movie. How they
had how they had they had himsitting for which was weird, but that

(01:17:53):
explained it more so than for me. Anyway. Another ridiculous moment was outside
the promenade room where the big eventwas happening, the opening, the launch
of this whole thing, with allthe dignitaries, the senator and the mayor
right outside like two fire doors andone of them on the other side of
cement blocking it, like like awheel barrel of cement, you know,

(01:18:16):
dried on the door this fire doorof this this amazing building. And the
thing is that the platform is onlyabout twenty feet long by five feet,
so how a wheelbarrel of of concreteis up there and tipped over and the
fireman can't get in and he justhappens to have uh, plastic explosive explosive

(01:18:38):
firefighters carry with them in their pockets. Yeah, it's kind of funny.
I love that kind of stuff.And there is a there was another scene
that of the helicopter rescue. Yeah, there's a big part where you know,
they're the helicopter comes, they're gonnalift airlift people off of the roof
of the building. And the helicopterscome military I believe it was the Navy

(01:18:59):
that was that was landing the helicopterthere, and these two women extras run
towards this thing and he flips andsmashes up and explodes. Well, first
of all, you never see anyof the wreckage, like landing on the
road below. It's not it's justthis explosion in the end. But those
two women who ran up to itand cause the accident go right back into
the crowd and everyone's like comforting thembecause like they're scared. It's like I

(01:19:21):
would have thrown him off the roof, you know, it's like you just
screwed this up. You screwed up. Yeah, And and they're like,
oh, come here, oh youpoor thing. It's like, no,
you screwed up because it's founding.You stay back here. And these two
idiots go running for it and theythey So that pissed me off, but
it was interesting. There's so Imean, there's so many weird, little,

(01:19:43):
weird little things, but most ofthe special effects were good. The
weird the worst of it, Ibelieve was the Steve between scenic elevator bit
when they showed him being you know, airlifted like this behind the elevator.
That was that was really bad.That was that was like comic cleat bad.
That was like a Carol Burnett's kitor something like that. But yeah,

(01:20:08):
but that, I mean, Ithink those are all I think all
my notes about about how the pointsI wanted to make. They say that
Paul Newman supposedly developed an allergy tosmoke. While that that's sort of a
silly thing because that sounds like anurban legend. Yeah, it sounds like
something that would happen to anybody onthe set. He's round like that was
like a hot set. I meanliterally a hot set. He was also

(01:20:30):
a heavy smoker, like well intolike I think he quit in like nineteen
eighty six or something like that andultimately died from cancer. So I don't
if he was a heavy smoker,I don't think he became allergic to set
just to fake smoke. That soundscrazy, Yeah, no doubt. One
thing I really like about these olddisaster movies is that they are a little
time capsules, and they show youwhat people were concerned about at the time,

(01:20:53):
right, like you know the airportmovies is I think because commercial flight
started becoming accessible to the masses anda lot more flights, and so air
disasters became like a hot thing inair safety. Right. And then if
you look at the timing, theSeries Tower which is now called the Willis
Tower, was finished the year beforethis movie, or no, it was

(01:21:14):
finished the year this movie was made. And then as you said at the
top, the World Trade Center wasfinished the year before, and so it
gives you the end there's a there'sdefinitely a message that they're trying to wrap
around this film about the safety ofthese super tall buildings that were starting to
get built. It was almost likewe were in like a skyscraper arms race
in the seventies, and people wereconcerned about the ramifications, you know,

(01:21:34):
of the of the engineering and stufflike that. And you know, obviously,
now, first and first and foremostthey're making a disaster movie, but
they also you get the kind ofsocial message that came with it. We
certainly they're playing with with with whatscares people the most. Now, you
know, the pandemic movies and zombiemovies, and you know what we just
lived here for the last ninety yard, you know, a thirteen or fifteen

(01:21:58):
months. You know, it wasliterally like a zombie movie when when this
first, you know, everything waslocked down just you know, you'd see
a few people running around, butit was yeah, and you know what's
funny, there was another scene inmovie this movie they really stood out,
is really scary, and it's whenthat group of people, you know,
everyone's freaking out in panic and theythey say, don't use the elevators,

(01:22:19):
but then the elevator's doors open andeveryone panics and gets on them, and
then the doors shot and they can'tstop it. And then the next thing
you know, the doors open andthey are on a different floor and they
all get burned up. But thatwas it was like it was like Dawn
of the Dead. You know,when you're on an elevator, it's like
your worst fear, what's what's goingto happen when you open it? And
Dawn and the Dead. There wasjust a pile of zombies, right there's

(01:22:39):
the doors open. There's like andthat's that's just what this was too.
It's a it's another one of thoseirrational it's not irrational, it's just a
fear that you know what's going tohappen when you open up that door,
it could go very wrong, rightuh, And they played on that for
sure, But yeah, they theyI guess there was also an issue with
this movie because the um, Idon't know, the Builders Association, whoever

(01:23:02):
they are, were pissed because theywere not it wasn't an accurate portrayal of
how things are really built, ofcourse, right so, but but nobody's
not going up in those buildings,you know, and not having a problem
renting them out. Do you evergo up to the top of the Serious
Tower. I've never even been toChicago except through the airport, so no,

(01:23:23):
oh, that's such a great town. It really is. An architecturally,
I'm not a nerd about architecture.I mean, I don't, I'm
not. It doesn't bother me.I like distinctive buildings like the Transamerica Tower
in San Francisco. I love thatbecause it's a triangle. Well, um,
Chicago has a really distinctive, amazingoffice buildings, and the Serious Tower

(01:23:44):
is I went up to the topof it once, I think, and
it was on one of those daysthat you got to the top of so
cloudy you can even see out,but they have they're trying to make these
things more desirable for tourists to goto them, because people who need more
and more thrills. So they're doingthat thing. Like in the John Hancock
building, they did it's called tiltwhere you're at the top and they you

(01:24:05):
get on this bar and you goI did that. I scared to death
of hikes, but but I diddo that, and it was I'm glad
I did it. But the SeriousTower has a glass they built out like
a you know, I don't know, maybe ten foot extension and it's glass
floor. So you see on ofthose and you're looking straight down. And
this is a couple of years ago. I think there's even video with this.

(01:24:26):
It cracked while these people were onit. You know, it just
like shattered. Now, I meanthey it was. It was you know,
it was protective, protective, protectedfifty times. But you're still on
it and it shatters and you're like, oh my god, that would just
that would just I'd lose it.And that's another rabbit hole I go down
when I'm on YouTube. There's thatone bridge that they had it it was
like a glass bridge and they hadit set up so it did fake cracks

(01:24:46):
like it was. It was broadyou know shows. Oh my god,
I could watch those all night.I love that. I will confess that
I did um the US Bank Towerin downtown La, the one that they
blow up an independent stay. Yeah, they have a glass slide. Yeah,
the past a couple of years Idid go and do that, uh
with with our our mutual friend Kelly. I got I was not down to

(01:25:10):
do it. And then as soonyou had to buy a ticket to get
up there, and so I hadto take it just to go up and
I was going to watch them go, and then as soon as I saw
it, I was like, I'mdoing it. And I was the first
one in the group to go down. It was awesome, but it was
you know, you slide down itreally fast. It's over super quick,
you know what I mean. It'slike second. It's like a three second
thrill as you flush slide down itand then you're you're over. But to

(01:25:30):
actually stand on a glass floor andlook down and dwell on it, no,
I'm not that's a little much.I'm not. I'm not down.
Yeah, it was it was thatthe tilt thing I did. I was
glad I did it, and Idon't I believe I did it, but
I did, and I'm glad Idid it, but I couldn't do it.
Um, yeah, it was.It was weird. It was really
weird. But you know, Iguess somebody said if I do, if

(01:25:54):
I go parachuting once, that I'llget over my fear of heights, because
I have that. There's a termfor it. I just heard the other
day. I can't remember what itis. When you get to the top
of a building, you get theurge to jump. I get that a
lot. Like my stomach flips andI've just like I feel like I want
to go. And that's why I'mlike usually on my hands and knees on
a roof because I can't if Iget too close. I get the urge
to jump. Now, it's nota desire to jump, it's just like

(01:26:15):
it's like a magnetic power that ithas to do that. And uh and
it really I get that a lotwith those you know, with those p
o V videos on YouTube where peopleare jumping around on buildings and stuff like
that. Do you ever watch thosethose kids up in like the Ukraine who
have nothing, nothing to lose,so they're jumping around on these twisting up

(01:26:35):
and down on their bikes and stuff. And I watched those and it's like,
oh, man, I just yeah, it's it's it's something. But
you know, those people die doingfairly regularly too. It's crazy and you
can't really go, yeah, thosepoor people, well no, because you
really they don't call them, youknow, the daredevils for nothing, you

(01:26:58):
know. But so the movie,I guess they exploit, you know,
this horrible thing that happened is disasterand all these people die. But what
I really like is there was amessage that that was that was on the
screen, and it was a dedicationwhich I loved, and it said it
said to those who give their livesso that others might live, to the
firefighters of the world, this pictureis gratefully dedicated, and that that was

(01:27:21):
really you know, I hope itwasn't cartuitous. I thought it was quite
I thought it was you know,I hope it wasn't something, oh,
we gotta do that. But itwas just nice because because they're again people
that don't you know, the peoplethat don't don't get the nods that they
deserve. And although it's a fictionalmovie. And and silly. Could you
imagine though a fire on like theeightieth floor and being on the gun it's

(01:27:45):
just like the World Trade Center tome, you know it just it's that
same thing. What do you dowith that? And they show these guys,
you know, on the eightieth floorhaving a walk to one hundred and
thirty fifth floor to that, youknow, and you could see them they're
like dying. And that's that's whatthose poor guys in New York did,
you know? And and oh justjust oh, I couldn't believe it.
The stamina that they have to have, let alone, you know, the

(01:28:06):
skills that they have to have inthe bravery. It's well, God bless
them, man, God bless him. Yeah, and that is it.
The Towering Inferto has been done again. Sorry we spoiled a you know,
forty five year old movie or whateverit is, forty seven year old movie.

(01:28:27):
Um, but go watch it anywaysbecause it's I think you like to
your point at the beginning, itstill holds up really well and is a
fun little time capsule. It's agood special effect. It's a silly yeah
it is. It's it's the acting. Yeah, it's just yeah, it's
a time capsule. The special effectsare the star of this movie. I
think, I really do. Uhyeah, McQueen and and and Numa were

(01:28:48):
good, they were really good init. But I thought the special effects
by far were the star of thismovie. All right, everybody, well,
thank you very much. This isalways fun to do. And if
you are we just recorded another Patreonepisode for our Patreon subscribers. So if
you go to Patreon and look upDearly Departed Podcast, we do extra like

(01:29:12):
small shorter episodes that we post thereevery month, and um we also give
people there a day or two,um sneak peek look at these this new
episode like this one that we justdid. Um, so they'll get it
a day or two ahead of time. And you can join for as little
as two dollars a month. Andit's very nice and we appreciate it and
it's appreciated. Yeah that we havea lot of fun doing this, but

(01:29:35):
uh yeah yeah, not a buttwe just do. It's nice to be
appreciated too, So thank you.All right, guys, we will see
you on the next one. Thanks, thanks for watching, Thanks for listening.
This has been an episode of theDearly Departed Podcast. Dig up more

(01:29:56):
episodes at Dearly Departed pod dot comand on iTunes and Google Play. See
you next time.