June 5, 2025 • 53 mins
Gabbing with Brenda Vaccaro isn’t so much a conversation as it is a gut-bustingly delicious ride though an extraordinary life and career.
From growing up in an Italian family deep in the heart of Texas, her earliest days in the theater, or her tabloid romance and “Hippie Wedding” with Michael Douglas in the 70s, absolutely nothing is off-limits in this episode.
Brenda discusses highlights from her entire career, including her role in the hit Netflix film, the heartwarming NONNAS, with Vince Vaughn, Susan Sarandon, Loraine Bracco, Linda Cardellini, and Talia Shire. PLUS… just for Tom & Mickey, she discusses her time co-starring with Frank Sinatra in ‘The First Deadly Sin.’
Join us for the latest installment of The Tom & Mickey Show!
You can follow Brenda Vaccaro on Instagram at @officialbrendavaccaro
And if you find yourself in the market for a space with a chef’s kitchen for all the Nonnas in your life, or whatever else makes your house-hunting heart skip a beat, contact us @tomandmickey or tomandmickey.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
From the greatest city on the planet Earth, it's not Tom and Mickey show.
(00:01):
Now everything the show is.
Lights, camera, action. Freeze ending.
Brenda Vaccaro. Life is just flowing and glowing, that's all it is. You're in for a treat.
Brenda Vaccaro.
No holds barred. She talks about...
Everything. She was in an X-rated movie.
Scandal. That X-rated movie happened to be the first and only film to win best picture.
Midnight Cowboy.
She has been a star of stage screen and television for decades. But you're going to hear stories as far as I know have never been told before. We've been getting a lot of cards and letters and... They're asking me to stop talking about Sinatra. It's like I'm obsessed. All right, I'm going to stop. But in this particular episode, Brenda Vaccaro was in a movie opposite Francis Albert. It was called The First Deadly Sin released in 1980. She talks about it in depth. And there is nowhere on the planet Earth or on the planet interwebs where you can go to hear a conversation about this particular movie then right here. I guarantee that's probably true. Oh, it is.
Anyway. Yes. So there it is like sitting there for me a joint, a line of coke and a glass of whiskey. And I'm by myself. They're out there playing their music and I'm fucking at it. I was can't wait for tomorrow to get on that Delta and get home. All of a sudden I hear, you got to pick one.
No.
Well, I thought I was in here alone.
You can't do them all. You got to pick one. And I'm like looking around finally over there in the corner on all these boxes, wooden boxes that you put apples in this guy sitting up there like this with rings on his hands. He looks like he's 102. He's got a little jazz hat on all these wrinkles on his face, you know, and he's like sitting there with his hands and he's going. He's like, you got to pick one. You can't do them all. And by that he meant pick your choose your points you want here. You can't do them all. Meaning the whiskey and the thing. Yeah. Well, he's on. I said, I said, is that so is that just so. And he said, that's right. He said, you're too nervous.
Too nervous.
He says, yeah, you're like a fart in a fry pan.
You're a fart in a blizzard. I knew I knew that something wonderful was happening. I didn't know who he was. He made me laugh. And towards the end of it, he said, you got to remember one thing, baby. Life is just flowing and glowing. That's all it is flowing and glowing. And I said, that's what I said. Low and low and low. That's all it is. Just flow and glow, baby. So you adopted that as your mantra. I said, if I write a book, it's going to be called flowing and glowing. And every single time I say that to somebody, I'll say it like just that. I tell them the story afterwards, but I say, you just need to flow and glow. And I get this. What'd you just say? Well, I was touring with Richie Cole, who was an alto saxophone player who Helen Reddy said to me, you're with the alto saxophone player. I said, yeah, she said, are you crazy? They're crazy. She said, you never, ever have an affair with an alto saxophone player. What about soprano saxophone players? Ten years? Yeah. No. She was just saying they're purists. They're totally pure. Yeah, but their eyes are always closed, too. How can you trust them? I can't. I don't want one in my room anywhere for any reason.
It's too soon. I'm not ready yet. We are flowing and glowing and glowing. We're in Maricaro. Maricaro. So glad to see you guys. Maricaro. This is great. I know these guys. They're my friends. This is, we're not talking strangers here. No, we're talking bitches. So what do you want to know?
We want to know. At this point, our guest told the story so salacious it had to be removed to protect the innocent and the memory of the deceased.
Sorry.
I don't know what kind of lover he was. I think he was a Kookie bird. Kookie bird. We're learning a lot of new things. We should actually pass our Kookie bird tree of our own because we collect them. You've got to find a way if somebody's just too Kookie too gone. Yeah. I don't have the patience anymore. And I don't have the sense of humor to go, yeah, there's just Kookie. No, I just saw him on the Kookie bird tree. I ain't got time. The Kookie bird tree. Isn't it good? We have to find a song like the... But I just learned that if somebody says to me, what about so and so I go Kookie bird. Kookie bird.
I kind of love it. I love that. But I saved myself a lot of time and a lot of energy and a lot of disappointment. You know, now I'm not afraid to make my judgment calls. Very smart. Whether this is worth a walk or not. You're that way. Of course, yeah. We have to do it with clients. Is that a Kookie bird client? Get rid of them. Get a bird on the Kookie bird. No, no, I think there's something to be said. Honey, do like this, Kookie bird tree. Kookie bird tree. Kookie bird tree.
(00:22):
Anyway. No, it's like when you're younger, you know, it's like, you know, as a young actor, as a young real estate broker, you take the Kookie birds because it's all you got. You need something. And Kookie birds buy trees. I mean, they buy houses with trees. They do. Some of them buy big, big trees. That's right. That's right. You can't turn them down. We have the great benefit at this stage in our lives to sniff the Kookie bird. You could smell the Kookie birds coming at you. Yeah. And you're like, no. Not anymore. We have a saying, smell the crazy. That's right. Absolutely. You smell the crazy.
I don't have time anymore. No, nobody does. I can't waste what's become terribly valuable for me, which is time. And as you get older, time means something else. You look at yourself and say, are you wasting your time or should you finish this book? You know, or I mean, I don't know, but I've become so much more respectful of time and also desirous of not wasting it. Yes.
With bullshit. A hundred percent. Do you know what I mean? A hundred percent. A person is sitting opposite me and I know right away, this is going nowhere, you know, cause I don't have any respect for this person or this person isn't healthy enough for me. Whenever it might be that I feel in a position to make a judgment, which is pretty saucy anyway.
Who needs your judgment?
But for myself, for protection for myself, because I'm a giver, I'm a lover. Do you know what I mean? I now withdraw. You are a lover. I've learned to withdraw gracefully. So nobody gets hurt. They don't even know what's happening.
You know what I mean? They don't even know you're gone.
You draw that boundary. Yes.
Without hurting anybody's feelings. You redraw that boundary. I agree. Absolutely. And I think you can, you don't have to hurt anybody's feelings. You don't have to have a discussion on why. Nobody wants to know why. Yeah. That's fine. It's just, it's graciously done. You move on. You don't even know what happened.
Yeah. So, I mean, I believe in being kind and I believe at a certain point in your life, you learn to do all those things. I wish I had learned earlier. I would have saved a lot of time. Valuable time. Yeah. But we have now. Yes. So no, we have a different kind of time. Well, you know, speaking of QTR, we have questions for you. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Go right along. I've been talking a blue street. That's why you're here. I told you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay. Here's, here's a question. Okay. Here's a question. Okay. I hope I can answer it. We know you'll answer it because you. A few years ago, I think we, I don't know, it was four or five years ago. Yeah. You appeared on our favorite show. CBS Sunday morning. We think that's the greatest. Television journalism in the world. It's the best show. Sunday morning. It's to be respected. To be respected.
Yes. And so I think we, we, we, we were. We had a very good time. I think we had a very good time. I'm not going to say anything. But we, we, we, we were together on a show that produced the piece and what we want to know, we, we watched it and loved it in the moment when it appeared. And. We love the fact that those guys, Mo and Jay, they did the, they did a piece with Marilyn may and Angie Dickinson. They have a spade or the right people. All the right people.
What was the impetus for you touring a cemetery in that?
seen such a collection of beautiful, beautiful trees.
Perfect for strolling through Brooklyn's historic Greenwood Cemetery with actress Brenda Vaccaro. Oh, that's a very good question. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm not interested in it. Okay. So when someone said, you were born in Brooklyn and you don't know about the Burroughs, and I went, no, and I don't care. And they said, but you should understand the city. We're born, it's a great city. I said, yeah, my mother and father lived in it. The whole family lived in it. They were Italian. They came, I got the whole thing. I'm not interested in it. Well, why don't we take a drive through Brooklyn on a Sunday? And why don't, and I'm like, uh, why don't we see the different Burroughs? And I went, okay, that's fine. Well, where can we start with? And they said Brooklyn Heights, where all those beautiful houses are. And that famous Truman Capote lives there. And as I passed it, I went, oh, shit. I'm sorry. I hadn't seen this when I had a lot of money. I bought one of these. They're gorgeous. Stunning. It's stunning. And I thought, what an idiot I've been. Where else are we going? I was so excited. How many Burroughs are there? Okay. And I see. So we go past green, what's green wood, green wood. I wanted to make sure. And they said, oh, this is the most amazing cemetery. I went, huh? Don't, don't, don't support this. And they said, no, you will love it. It's gorgeous. I mean, the trees, the actual, it's so expensive. Nobody can get in there. It's like a hundred thousand dollars. I said to die to be in the ground. Well, this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever passed it by. I'm not interested in cemeteries. I'm really not. Let's, let's go to another burrow. I want to see more burrows.
And not the horse.
Anyway, there was this thing left over about Greenwood that I didn't go in it. We saw everything else. I loved it. I fell in love with Brooklyn. I thought, why didn't my parents stay here? You mean my father courted my mother in that gorgeous park? What's it called? Prospect park. Yes. He courted her there and I never took a walk through it. How stupid of me. I wish that I had. I wish that I had had some respect. You know, I should be ashamed of myself. And then I said, what about Greenwood? Do you want to go? I went, no, I don't think so. I don't think so. I can pass on it. I know it's very expensive. You know, who's the guy that conducted who was the genius? Leonard Bernstein. He's there. He's there. I know he's there. A lot of them. Okay. I don't need to see his grave. Did they, did they take you on a No, no, no. I hadn't said yes yet. So my friend said, you know, this is ridiculous. You should really just go and see the environment and how extraordinary the land is. I said, the land, oh my God, it goes on forever. Brenda, you're short stopping yourself. I mean, going to, all right. All right, let's go. So when I got in, I said, stop the car. And I got out. I was already stealing flowers off of the bushes and the leaves off of a tree. And I was saying, this is beautiful. This is really gorgeous here, isn't it? Yes. Let's go on. I saw Bernstein's. Yeah. I saw, I mean, places that cost thousands of dollars and they look like egg, egg, igloos. Oh, they're igloos. The mausoleums. The gentleman who was the manager of the cemetery. Oh, he came. He spoke and you asked him about a mausoleum that he said was at least a million dollars. That's it. You know more than I do. Just for the buildings. And you know what? The second time I went to visit it, because we decided to shoot something there. And when he came up, I said, I said, my back pocket, I took out 2000.
$2000, babe.
Will you save me a little plot like that? Nice little story. He died like this and Brenda, it's yours without the two.
So other than a villa or a mausoleum, do you want to be buried? Well, I mean, you could leave me at a bar if there's a good looking guy. My mother mentioned she wanted to be stuffed at one point and I just thought. There's a really good looking handsome guy.
Dress me up and prop me in the bar.
Amen. I wish he comes in and says, hey, babe, you're looking great. Oh, thousands would. Brenda propped up at the bar. There you go. There's a door now. There's a door. We're going to stuff you. We're going to stuff you. Oh, my God. I just think, you know, everything should be joyous. I really do. And you're absolutely right about that. I think that's why it was great doing this movie because. Oh, tell us more about the one that I was telling you about. I'm going through my mom, I know his recipes and then I realized food is love. So I want to open an Italian restaurant. What are you crazy?
Who are you going to get to come down and cook? Nona's other real life Italian grandmothers. I am from Bologna.
(00:43):
I spit on Bologna.
Spit on Sicily. Okay.
It was about getting old, facing death and and facing being alone or you're losing your partner or, you know, and that it was just better even if he was open a little restaurant and run it yourself. It's beginning again or just never letting go. Right. Never letting go. You know what it means to be alive in this world. Maybe you're going to another one, which is perky and fun, you know, but at the same time, leave this one with joy.
Don't you agree? That's our mantra. We say it all the time on this show and in life. Oh, really fun is the best thing to have. Yeah. And respect comes a lot of respect. Fun and respect. Fun and respect. What's the name of this new movie? Let's plug it. Oh, oh yeah. It's called Nona's. Nona's. It's about it. It's Italian for grandmother. Of course. Nona. It's joyous that we got to do this.
The director is just a darling man and his wife wrote the script. Fantastic. And it's joyous. Can't wait to see the best. It's about beginning again. And there's nothing wrong with thinking that every single day is a new beginning so that it never ends. Yes. Why should it end? You wake up every morning and it's a whole new chapter. It is. Love it. And I really think that that's the only way to stay perky. And to wake up with. Perky and happy. Perky and happy and wake up with gratitude. Right. Here I am. What can I do with this day? And making new friends. Yes. And I don't care what age they are. I don't have any limitations.
Well, a few. But. There's kooki burrows. Saks players. That's so god. I'll do Saks players and kooki burrows. No more alto. No more blue notes.
So you had a lovely tour of the burrows. But I want to know, so you grew up Italian American in Brooklyn. Yeah. No, I didn't grow up in Brooklyn. I grew up in Texas. Well, you were born in Brooklyn. Yeah. How did you get to Dallas? Why? Well, because it was.
Yeah, I heard the story from my mother. It was the depression.
So my father graduated from NYU as a corporate lawyer. And he was amazing young lad because he got a scholarship there. From a teacher who had a name Buell. I think Professor Buell, not something Buell. So he named me Brenda Buell Vaccaro. That's from New York. That guy put into college.
And he graduated with honors. Okay.
The guy that was his roommate on Broom Street.
That my mother told me Broom Street. I said, what? What kind of street is that? In the village.
Anyway, that guy came from a very wealthy family. I forget his name.
But he and my father were best friends and they went through college together as roommates.
When they graduated, my father couldn't get a job.
I mean, it was a depression. Yeah.
So he went to see his friend and his father had built the Frick building. Oh, yeah. We're talking money here. A little bit. A little bit. So he went up to see him. The guy made him wait outside the office for three hours. When he came out, he said, Mario, that was my father's name. He said, I'm sorry. I don't have any more space to hire anybody else. So my father now had a mother who was in bed, bedridden and a wife with a baby. Right. Okay. So it was like, what do you do? Where do you go? And all of a sudden, Benny Messina from Dallas, Texas called him up because some Italians went this away or that away. They didn't stay in Brooklyn. They went different places to start new lives. Benny Messina, he was a cousin. Hey, Mario, don't worry about it, boy. Come on down here to Texas. We'll get you working.
My father said, I think I'd better go for a visit first. He went down in a plane that he said made a lot of noise. Can you imagine the year it was? Sure. I can't even remember.
Anyway, he told me the story. He went down there and he said, no, man, you could practice law down here. We'll get you in those courtrooms. Don't you worry about it. And he went down there and he had a suit and a tie and nobody had a suit and a tie on in the Texas, the Texas courtrooms. They just made up the law as they went along.
My father was like, the hell is this? Who are you people? So that wasn't going to work. So Benny Messina said, Mario, don't you worry about it. We're going to give you a little restaurant here. And he said, you could be back there, cook some hamburgers. Those men will come in there and want a hamburger and a beer. And that's all you have to do. Now we're talking about the forties.
1939, 1940, 41, 40. Okay. FDR was still president.
(01:04):
Okay.
And poor Mario went down there trying to cook. Mother was at the front greeting people. And there was this little bar when you walked in that circle, half a circle. And some guy sat down with boots on, you know, chaps. He said, I want to, I want to stay tater and tea. And my mother went, I'm sorry. I want to stay tater and tea. My mother said, Mario. She couldn't understand the draw.
He's not speaking English. Take her. Potato. Steak, tater and tea. Come on. You can't blame a little girl for mumbling this. So anyway, this is how they got their way through.
And it's an immigrant story to be sure. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. That should be successful. He was near the Dallas state fair. So who do you think stayed open to greet all the stars? Nat King Cole. Do you know what I mean?
So when I was little one night I was there and Jimmy Duran and I said, saying, how could you believe me when I said, I loved you. But he knew I was a liar all the time. Oh my God. I love it. And he had my hand and my father was sitting at a table like this. And he said, Hey, Mario, after we were through, is she going to be in show business? And my father went, so you were putting my father wanted me to go to MIT. My father wanted me to go to Harvard.
You put on a little floor floor show. Yeah. But Jimmy Duran, he would put me up on the table. I would blame Jimmy Duran for all of this. Your whole life.
He lifted me up on the table and I was, how could you believe me when I did it? I did it.
So I mean, my father told me the story. He said, I couldn't believe it. He told me you were going to be in show business. He said, and I thought, well, there goes the college degree. Here's what I want to know.
Benny Messina. I know. He seems to have had a whole thing set up there. Yeah. Oh yeah. And he knew we were going to try that. That's not working. Then you're going to go. He had what was called an Italian.
Italian restaurant down there. Italian restaurant. Italian. And they were, there was a spaschetti. We're talking about guys that were Spaschetti. Spaschetti. Spaschetti. Cowboys. Spaschetti. You know, you had Cowboys and you didn't have paved streets some places, you know, and my father was a young lawyer and he was growing up in New York city in the village. What did he know from steak, tater and tea? What a great movie this would be. In the garage was all these books in barrels. And I opened the top of the barrel and all these books had underlined recipes. He taught himself to be a great chef. Once a scholar, always a scholar. Yeah. Were they, were any of them family recipes or just he started from scratch? He started from scratch. That's terrific. He wanted to be a lawyer. Yeah. And he was sad. I wouldn't go to college. Oh my God. How can you throw away the last four years of freedom you'll ever have? I said freedom. I said, no. I want to go be on the stage. And he went, oh my God.
Why does my prop, my daughter picked the thing that'll mostly probably disappoint her. Well, and I said, I won't be disappointed. Dad, I know where I'm going. And did your parents live long enough to see Brenda Vaccaro? He saw me once doing the flowering peach written by Clifford Odets and directed by Sidney Lumet's father, Baruch Lumet in a teeny tiny little theater across the street from Jesuit high school for Catholic boys. And my father came and afterwards I was backstage and I looked at him as he came and I played the whore. That was not necessarily the favorite thing. He wanted to see. But anyway, he stood there and he looked at me and I had a cigarette in my hand and he said the most wonderful thing. He said, you have a voice that was made to work on one.
Isn't that gorgeous? And so he pointed at the cigarette and he said, don't smoke.
And I said, okay. But he never said anything about my performance. I think he was so, I guess, aware and enlightened and knew that there was nothing he could do to change the fate.
He sent me to New York to see which drama school. He finally accepted that. And I went to all the drama schools, the neighborhood playhouse, the American theater,
and I talked to him and he said, well, which one, which school did you approve of? I said, I like the neighborhood playhouse. And he said, why? And I explained to him that they do plays and I wanted to be able to go through a play.
And he said, well, that's fine. He said, I'm glad you made a good decision for yourself. He sent me to New York to do it. Guess what? He died that night. I was flying back the next day with my aunt Marge, with aunt Marge saying, don't worry, he's waiting to see you. He was dead. Was he sick? She would. Yeah. She was just trying to soothe herself and also to stop me from crying or getting hysterical. We were on a plane going to Dallas. In those days, it took seven hours. Do you know what I mean? It's so interesting, but it's like he faced every single obstacle.
You know, so he was quite a guy. I was once in the hospital. I went to visit him and I was dancing, trying to make him laugh. He said, Brenda, remember one thing when you get married, make sure he's young.
Even if he's younger than you. Okay. And I said, why? He said, because you have this youthful presence, this youthful spirit, you will never be your age. You are so youthful. And he knew it. Of all the people we know. And I was just trying to make a joke and make him dance while he was in bed. You know, I don't know what I was doing. But this begs the question, when you were young and youthful in your hippie-ish days, why didn't you marry Michael Douglas?
Okay. That's interesting. Only that you should ask that out of the blue. I fell in love with somebody else.
I knew it.
I wasn't in love with him anymore. I knew it.
(01:25):
He just wasn't for me. Isn't that liberating?
And so when I met him, it was one thing, as we stayed together, which was seven years. You would think, well, stay on, because maybe it's just change. Right. Change is in every relationship. If we really respected change, we'd never leave anybody. That's right. And sometimes the change is good. Sometimes it ain't so good. You know what I mean? But that's what relationships are. And I just couldn't stay because I was in love. And I wasn't in love with him anymore. And here's the deal. The provocative thing was that the invitations were being printed. And there were 175 people, I think, forgive me if I'm wrong, Michael.
Mike, cut this out.
There were all these people being invited. And we had had a hippie wedding because he was five years younger than me. I like him young. Yeah. Five years younger than me. And we'd had a hippie wedding in our agent's backyard when we decided to be together forever.
And he gave me a leather ring because he was a hippie. Yeah. And we got married just with words and love. And there was no priest. There was nothing. And everybody applauded. And we had this wedding. And so I thought, why are we getting married again? Well, my father, Kirk, wants it. And Anne wants it. And we've got all these people. And they've got people. And it's a celebration. We ought to do. And so I felt the pressure to do it.
Pressure, not love. So in a sense, you were married in a-- Yeah, seven years. Holistically, I mean, you weren't. I was seven years with him. Yeah. And he wasn't there a lot of the times. He was in San Francisco doing streets.
The streets of San Francisco.
I'm 70.
You know, I was out there looking for somebody that I was madly in love with.
Maybe that's just Italian.
I don't know. But you know what I'm saying? I wasn't madly in love with him. It's human. It's human. And help me too with the timeline. Because is this before or after Midnight Cowboy? Oh, way after. Way after. So that's in-- OK. So you're very much established on your own in Hollywood. Now, at 28, I am the youngest editor "Gloss" magazine has ever had. Or any woman's magazine, I think. Ask me if I'm happy.
Are you happy? Deliriously.
Today, that is. Yesterday, I was miserable. And I might be miserable again tomorrow. Who knows? It's crazy. Yeah.
Put him on hold.
And my life was changing down in LA.
It was very provocative.
[MUSIC PLAYING] I got into my Mercedes. I drove out to Malibu and jumped into bed with the guy who was in love with. That's what I did.
Well, it happens.
Don't worry about it. We were gorgeous. Gorgeous. We were absolutely beautiful together. I saw something online yesterday. Gorgeous. Also, don't you have to have a wisdom about when something can't go here, can't go there, can't go there. You have to have that wisdom. To know the difference. Well, it's the three pillars. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Let us-- this is many years of therapy. You can't show this tape.
Trash this. This is down and away. If we go on, I need a fucking drink.
We feel women have reached a position where we can laugh at ourselves.
(01:46):
[MUSIC PLAYING] I mean, like, what have we missed? Well, we've been flowing and glowing. We've been flowing and glowing, but we want to talk about your accolades. Your-- your-- Really? Your Broadway--
Really? Your work with Gene Sacks and Manny Azenberg. And Broadway and How Now Dow Jones. You worked with David Merrick multiple times. Oh, yeah. He was crazy. Yeah, he was fucking crazy. He was fucking crazy. How did you know that?
Because I was a producer in my former life. And I admire him, but understand that he was a fucking-- Crazy.
I think he was incredibly brilliant. Yeah.
You know, brilliant. I'm just finishing up his biography.
Merrick's? Yeah. What did you-- what do you think of him? I think that he's-- he's a mad genius. Yeah, genius. Mad genius. Yeah. The stunts that he pulled for the sake of publicity and promoting his shows, brilliant. Was it really? Oh, yes. Yes, truly brilliant. Do you remember the show, "Subways Are For Sleeping"? Yeah. When he took out an ad with quotes, like, pull quotes from the reviews, and he put little tiny postage stamp grainy photos, black and white photos of the people. And I can't remember which critic was. It could have been Clive Barnes or somebody. But somebody said, Clive Barnes isn't black.
He went through the phone book and found people with the same names as the top critics and called them and asked them, "We'd like to use this quote. Is it OK?" And I'm sure it sent the money. Did you meet him? No, no. But I think-- He got mad at me that I didn't marry Michael Douglas. He took me for lunch on Santa Monica Boulevard in a French restaurant. And when I walked in, he was at the bar. He said, come over here. And I thought, oh, OK, so we're having a drink. And I went over and I sat down to him. He said, what the fuck are you doing? Why aren't you marrying Michael Douglas? Have you lost your mind? Wow.
Wow. What you need is an arranged marriage by David Merrick. Yeah. He was like-- and it floored me. He probably felt it would have been good for one of his shows. He wanted to show him. And then he used that for publicity. I think he was furious I wasn't marrying him. He think he thinks it was a mistake for my career, for me, for every-- he just was like, boom. I said, because I'm not in love with him. And he went, that doesn't matter. That sounds like David Merrick. I think he was a wildly insecure man. I'm sure that was part of it. But really, what you dealt with when you dealt with him, work-wise, money-wise, performance-wise, everything was genius.
Genius. You did How Now, Down Jones with him. Yes. That's the one.
You're taking me back to these shows now. I've got to remember. How Now, Down Jones, Dorothy Fields wrote it. Elmer Bernstein, David Merrick fired Arthur Penn.
He fired Arthur Penn and hired George, the famous one, the old man at all, George. Oh, George Abbott. That's it. George Abbott. He hired George Abbott. You worked with bloody George Abbott. Yeah. And the night that I stopped the show the very first night-- He's here. He's here. Whatever that was, stop the show. And everybody started applauding and screaming.
And all of a sudden, I'm like turning and going,
"Tis nobody's helping me." So I turned to the audience. I went, "Thank you. Thank you. Oh my God. Oh my God. Was I making a mistake?" And so here's what I hear coming down the hallway after the show is over. And it's George Abbott. He banks the door open. He said, "What the hell do you think you were doing? What did you think you were doing?" And I said, "Well, I was so beside myself. I was scared out of my mind because he was so tall. And he was so old, I thought he was going to have a heart attack in front of me." And I didn't know what to do. I was like, "I don't know what to do." He said, "You never, ever thank the audience. In my show, I've never had anybody who was so stupid. How could you possibly do that in my show?" And I was like, "Well, I started to cry and he got pissed off and left." Because I thanked the audience. Oh, you broke the fourth wall. Thank you. You broke the fourth wall. Do you think I know what a fucking fourth wall was? I had no idea. I just sang the song and all of a sudden everybody stopped. And Gwen Verdon told me later on at some party at Sardis that she said, "Listen, don't feel bad because I did an audition and he made me sit backstage for four hours while he went through all the auditions. And then he took me to Roseland and we danced till four in the morning. What can I say that will convince you you were lucky?" It was over like that for you. And I went, "You see that crazy?" Yeah, that's pretty crazy. She said, "Well, he's not crazy. He's George Abbott." Yeah, but that's kind of crazy too. And you do what he says. Was it your first show? Yes. Yeah, maybe the first musical I did. First musical, yeah. Yeah. I think I was all of 20 something and I hardly ever talked to him again. As a matter of fact, it was his birthday. He was 103 or 104. They wanted to fly me back to have me sing that song. I said, "Fuck off." Good for you. Good for you. No.
I mean, be kinder than that for God's sake. It's hound-hound, John. Thanks to the wine, it's delicious. Oh, good.
Sorry you can't have any.
What was your greatest night on the Broadway stage?
Wow, so many.
I guess maybe the first night I was in a Broadway play and I got a lot of applause and I kept bowing unnecessarily.
There she goes again. She's too nice to the audience.
Yeah, that was my, "Everybody Loves Opal."
And Barbara was in, "I Can Get It For You" wholesale. Yes. So that's how we met. That's how you met Barbara for the first time. And we would meet in the middle of the street. She was in one theater. I was in the other one. We'd meet in the middle of the theater with that black hat of hers and that long black skirt. And she'd go, "So we're going to have lunch?" I'd say, "Yeah." So we'd go down to a little Chinese restaurant that was on that street where you go down the stairs. And it was a Chinese food and we'd go in there together and Elliot Gould was always late. He was also in, "I Can Get It For You" wholesale. I knew that we were babies.
(02:07):
Do you still come in touch? With who? Vammel Barbara? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She wrote about me in her book. We're good friends, yeah. You are a terrific person and a great teacher. The truth is, I think I've just reached the point. What point? The point that you know you'll never get married. Married? Yeah. What's marriage anyway? Oh, come on. A ring, a contract, fighting and compromising.
Now it can be more than that. I'd love it if someone knew me.
Really knew me. You're careful about certain things. Health.
Dying.
Certain things are too sensitive for her. I guess that's the one. Do you know what I mean? And as a friend, you're very careful. You don't walk. You don't walk that walk.
She'll look at you like she's very careful about her voice. Sure. And very careful about her health, which I respect. I respect that. I mean, if she doesn't get a rest, she doesn't have her strength. Do you know what I'm saying? I mean, she's a very delicate bird in a way. She's a delicate little bird. She would say that to me, "Brenda, you're so strong." As though it was a terrible thing. You're so strong. You know, I'd go, "Well, I mean, it served me well."
She looks at you.
But I think that's why we love each other because we're so different.
You just walk in and do a scene and know you're right. I said, "I'll hope I'm right, but I'll go in and do it." She goes, "She can't do that." She needs to think about it. She needs to talk to the director about it. She needs to just think and go over it in her head. You know, she's very cautious.
I just run right into the mirror.
You don't make it easy for me. You're supposed to make it easy for me, but you don't. I dare you, Jack. I dare you. All my life, all my life, I've been making it easier for you. Yeah. All my life, do you hear me? No, like, no, you're yelling now. There's been no walk in the park. That's right. There's been no walk in the park. I'm going to tell you something else. Nobody takes care of me. I want to ask you, who do you think takes care of me? I'm going to take care of you. Not you, Jack. Certainly not you. Right now, I'm going to take care of my brother. You do it for yourself, Jack. You're going to do it. How's that for news? You'll do it, Jack. Find by me. Find by me. I'm through with you. I'm through with it. Go ahead. Set the alarm. Who cares? You know, my mother said when I was little, I would crawl up and look in the mirror and do funny things. How old was she? She said too young.
Too young to be doing that, she said. But your grandmother, my mother would say, she's too to this. She's crazy.
She makes my mother would say, why? Because she's in the mirror making faces all the time. Something's wrong with her. She's crazy. No. And that was just me being a little-- Not crazy.
Creative. Speaking of Italy,
where's this good movie? Why don't we go? Let's all go. Let's go to Italy. Oh, to Italy? Should we go? Oh, yeah. We can do that. Great. I would love it. On the road with Brenda Vakar. We'll have a ball. You did a movie with Mr. Sinatra. The first Deadly Sin, 1980. Oh, God, you remember. In the city, there's a man loose who kills.
She's my whole world. You understand that? The first Deadly Sin, starring Frank Sinatra and Faye Dunaway. The first Deadly Sin.
From Filmways Pictures, rated R. It was the first feature movie role for Bruce Willis. He had a-- Bruce Willis wasn't in it. The first Deadly Sin.
Say he was, and I didn't know it, and he wasn't a star yet. Oh. Bruce Willis. That's possible. It's OK. Yeah, no, it was 1980. I feel terrible. It's OK. Sorry, Bruce. But you did the movie with Sinatra and Faye Dunaway. So Frank and Faye were the stars of the movie. But what are your recollections of that? Did you have any interaction with Sinatra at all? Oh, I loved him. I absolutely loved him. Tell us everything. He treated me so royally. He would have loved you. And my mother came to the central vision.
And my mother was crazy about him because she grew up with him, right?
So I had a trailer, and he came over. I don't know whether to talk to me or he saw my mother. I'm not quite clear what caused this togetherness. And so, you know, the trailer has the kitchen and the little window that you go like this, and then there's the sink. And I heard Italian.
So I thought, what is that? I go up to the window, and I'm over the sink, and I see the two of them talking Italian. When did you ever hear Sinatra talking Italian? But never. Yummy.
(02:28):
Never. And my mother, who, my father, they didn't talk Italian to each other. Nobody talked anything like that. She's talking Italian with him, and he's talking Italian with her. And I'm like, sneaking this peak and going, "Am I hearing what I think I'm hearing?"
And he was perfect in Italian. I mean, the accent, everything was perfect. And I thought, what the hell is going on? And he laughed, and he shook her hand and kissed her hand and walked away.
And so I said to my mother, "What were you talking about? None of your business."
I said, "But you were an Italian." Yes, she said, "Yes, why not?" And she said, "He's a very attractive man."
"Okay, Ma."
So I thought that was really kind of touching and sweet. So he told me, he said, "You know what? You get your beauty from your mother."
And this is when I went on the set, and I said, "Really?" I said, "Thank you so much. I'll tell you you said it." He said, "You don't have to."
He told her.
Did he have any enemies that you knew of? Enemies.
Of course he had enemies. He worked hard for a living. He saluted the flag. He loved his children. And after seven years, I think he even still loved me.
What hard-working person in this city doesn't have any enemies.
Sorry. He surprised me a lot, you know? Yeah. And I don't think he liked Faye Dunaway. I think he had a hard time with that. She was sick lying in bed playing like she was dying. I think he wished she would.
I don't think he was that crazy about her at all.
I think it was difficult to work with her for him. Well, she's a tough cookie, isn't she? Yeah. Well, I don't know what was wrong. She was also playing someone who was sick and, you know, and-- Yeah, no, she was dying. Whatever that part was, I think it had to do with her in the hospital. So maybe he just wasn't having a good time, because she's a phenomenal actress. When I worked with her, she was difficult, but she's good.
Oh, I can't really get the hang of this. Was he a gentleman? He was an elegant gentleman. He was a really big gentleman. The only thing that is important to let you know, I had a scene with him at the end of the movie, and he walked off the movie.
And I never got to do my scene with him. Oh, shit. Was another scene. I only had three scenes, and that one he walked off of. And as I walked off the set, I came out of my trailer. He was standing in the door of his. I walked right past him. I didn't look at him. I didn't say anything. I was mad at him.
He's not going to do the scene that I had with him, explaining my reasoning for being sad that my husband was gone, or whatever that scene was. And I thought it was not professional of him. I thought it was disgusting that he would do such a thing without even talking to me about it.
So he just decided that day I'm not doing-- Bye, bye. I'm leaving. I'm done. The car's waiting. That's it. That's that. Who's in the car? Jilly. Jilly. Oh, Jilly. Jilly. Yeah, Jilly. Did you see Sinatra after that?
He invited me to every goddamn concert he did. And one night, he invited me to sit on the stage with his family. So he pursued. And when he met Guy, the guy I was going with at the time, he just gave him dirty looks. But I think he liked me. I think he asked for me to be in the movie.
The director, he treated like shit. Because he walked off the movie before he ended it. But did I love Frank? I loved Frank. Poor Brian Hutton. Can you imagine? He couldn't finish the movie. It's a rough business. It's a rough business. Well, with Frank Sinatra in it, he was. But I still, I could see what Ava Gardner and everybody saw. I mean, a guy was sexy. He was unbelievable.
I liked Frank.
(02:49):
I want to show you something. Oh, show me. Oh, it's him. See these cufflinks? What is it? These are cufflinks. They're clowns painted by Frank Sinatra. Stop it.
Aren't you specific? Yes. Yeah. Any of them slipped into those little gold frames? Yes, he painted. Where did you paint it? You know that he painted, right? And he was, he was. I do know he painted. He was particularly enchanted by clowns. The fact that you go out there to make the people happy and laugh and smile. And then you get off stage and life goes back to being life. Sad clown. Sad clown.
That is magnificent.
Look at it. It's one of my cherished possessions. I can understand. Of course it is. We worry if we drop dead, somebody would come in and do a yard sale and put these in the 25 cent bin. Like these fucking ugly little clowns. No, no, man, 25,000.
So on the topic of Sinatra, Brenda, and we started this conversation with you wandering through Greenwood Cemetery with CBS Sunday Morning and our favorite TV show. And Sinatra was famous. He said he would say that he was an 18 carat manic depressive, the highest highs and the lowest lows. And I want to give you a quote that he was famous for saying, I'm for whatever gets you through the night. Be it prayer, tranquilizers, or a bottle of Jack Daniels. Okay. That sounds like it. What gets you through the night?
Just the right pillow.
I'm going to stop trying to be profound.
And a nice duvet.
Mel and May's answer to that was television. I am just so happy to be able to get into bed and be cozy. We're trying to find a twist on the actor's studio where James Lipton would ask all these profound questions. Oh, God. Yeah. I was bored out with my life. Did you not? Did you not enjoy those questions? You think? No, I didn't. I turned it off and he was so pompous.
I mean, wasn't his.
Whatever energy he put forth was pomposity. And I just thought, oh, give me a break. And that's why Bravo turned into what? But you know what I'm saying? I could be very wrong. It was the energy that he put out. It was kind of like he was above it all. You know, in the historian of it. And I felt like saying, yeah, sure. Give me a break.
What are you doing here? I came to give you this and this. Oh, big ring.
These are true confessions with Brenda Vaccaro. Thank you for tuning in tonight. Brenda, we have to put a button on this podcast so we can go to dinner. Nice to see you. Bye bye. Bye. Thank you. Thank you. Bye bye. My friend Kenny used to do that at the end of the evening. Nice to see you. Bye bye. Last question. One last question. You said something very, very profound that will stay with me for the rest of my life. Oh, stop it. Seriously.
Flowing, glowing. Flowing, glowing is really good. But you said earlier, you're not afraid of dying. No, I'm not. But you're not into it. You're not into it. Those are your exact words. Well, I'm not afraid of it. Why would I be into it? You're not into it. I mean, I don't know if it's going to happen. When I was a kid, when I understood the concept of death at about, I don't know, eight years old or something, my mother tucked me into bed. I finally got the gist of it. And when the lights went out that night and I thought, I'm not going to come back and play with my toys. I'm not going to have my toys and my friends and my... And I understand that. And I had to get out of bed and turn the lights back on. Right. And this haunted me for a long time. I think, well...
Because it was about the end. The end. But you were at the beginning. I was at the beginning at that time. But still you had a perception of the end. That's really interesting. But we talked about earlier, QTR, quality time remaining.
Really making the right choices in our life with who we spend our time with. That's right.
And I value that. Yeah. And I just...
I wondered if there's any last word of wisdom from Brenda Vaccaro.
I think getting older is really a gift. Because I think everything that you didn't understand before now becomes your wisdom.
And it becomes the way you live your life and who you spend your time with. And the choices of who they are in your life becomes one of the major things you have to decide. Is this worthy for me to continue this relationship?
Do you know what I mean? That's one of the gifts that you get as you get older. Is that you truly know who you should spend time with.
From the greatest city on the planet Earth, it's not Tom and Mickey show.
(00:01):
Now everything the show is.
Lights, camera, action. Freeze ending.
Brenda Vaccaro. Life is just flowing and glowing, that's all it is. You're in for a treat.
Brenda Vaccaro.
No holds barred. She talks about...
Everything. She was in an X-rated movie.
Scandal. That X-rated movie happened to be the first and only film to win best picture.
Midnight Cowboy.
She has been a star of stage screen and television for decades. But you're going to hear stories as far as I know have never been told before. We've been getting a lot of cards and letters and... They're asking me to stop talking about Sinatra. It's like I'm obsessed. All right, I'm going to stop. But in this particular episode, Brenda Vaccaro was in a movie opposite Francis Albert. It was called The First Deadly Sin released in 1980. She talks about it in depth. And there is nowhere on the planet Earth or on the planet interwebs where you can go to hear a conversation about this particular movie then right here. I guarantee that's probably true. Oh, it is.
Anyway. Yes. So there it is like sitting there for me a joint, a line of coke and a glass of whiskey. And I'm by myself. They're out there playing their music and I'm fucking at it. I was can't wait for tomorrow to get on that Delta and get home. All of a sudden I hear, you got to pick one.
No.
Well, I thought I was in here alone.
You can't do them all. You got to pick one. And I'm like looking around finally over there in the corner on all these boxes, wooden boxes that you put apples in this guy sitting up there like this with rings on his hands. He looks like he's 102. He's got a little jazz hat on all these wrinkles on his face, you know, and he's like sitting there with his hands and he's going. He's like, you got to pick one. You can't do them all. And by that he meant pick your choose your points you want here. You can't do them all. Meaning the whiskey and the thing. Yeah. Well, he's on. I said, I said, is that so is that just so. And he said, that's right. He said, you're too nervous.
Too nervous.
He says, yeah, you're like a fart in a fry pan.
You're a fart in a blizzard. I knew I knew that something wonderful was happening. I didn't know who he was. He made me laugh. And towards the end of it, he said, you got to remember one thing, baby. Life is just flowing and glowing. That's all it is flowing and glowing. And I said, that's what I said. Low and low and low. That's all it is. Just flow and glow, baby. So you adopted that as your mantra. I said, if I write a book, it's going to be called flowing and glowing. And every single time I say that to somebody, I'll say it like just that. I tell them the story afterwards, but I say, you just need to flow and glow. And I get this. What'd you just say? Well, I was touring with Richie Cole, who was an alto saxophone player who Helen Reddy said to me, you're with the alto saxophone player. I said, yeah, she said, are you crazy? They're crazy. She said, you never, ever have an affair with an alto saxophone player. What about soprano saxophone players? Ten years? Yeah. No. She was just saying they're purists. They're totally pure. Yeah, but their eyes are always closed, too. How can you trust them? I can't. I don't want one in my room anywhere for any reason.
It's too soon. I'm not ready yet. We are flowing and glowing and glowing. We're in Maricaro. Maricaro. So glad to see you guys. Maricaro. This is great. I know these guys. They're my friends. This is, we're not talking strangers here. No, we're talking bitches. So what do you want to know?
We want to know. At this point, our guest told the story so salacious it had to be removed to protect the innocent and the memory of the deceased.
Sorry.
I don't know what kind of lover he was. I think he was a Kookie bird. Kookie bird. We're learning a lot of new things. We should actually pass our Kookie bird tree of our own because we collect them. You've got to find a way if somebody's just too Kookie too gone. Yeah. I don't have the patience anymore. And I don't have the sense of humor to go, yeah, there's just Kookie. No, I just saw him on the Kookie bird tree. I ain't got time. The Kookie bird tree. Isn't it good? We have to find a song like the... But I just learned that if somebody says to me, what about so and so I go Kookie bird. Kookie bird.
I kind of love it. I love that. But I saved myself a lot of time and a lot of energy and a lot of disappointment. You know, now I'm not afraid to make my judgment calls. Very smart. Whether this is worth a walk or not. You're that way. Of course, yeah. We have to do it with clients. Is that a Kookie bird client? Get rid of them. Get a bird on the Kookie bird. No, no, I think there's something to be said. Honey, do like this, Kookie bird tree. Kookie bird tree. Kookie bird tree.
(00:22):
Anyway. No, it's like when you're younger, you know, it's like, you know, as a young actor, as a young real estate broker, you take the Kookie birds because it's all you got. You need something. And Kookie birds buy trees. I mean, they buy houses with trees. They do. Some of them buy big, big trees. That's right. That's right. You can't turn them down. We have the great benefit at this stage in our lives to sniff the Kookie bird. You could smell the Kookie birds coming at you. Yeah. And you're like, no. Not anymore. We have a saying, smell the crazy. That's right. Absolutely. You smell the crazy.
I don't have time anymore. No, nobody does. I can't waste what's become terribly valuable for me, which is time. And as you get older, time means something else. You look at yourself and say, are you wasting your time or should you finish this book? You know, or I mean, I don't know, but I've become so much more respectful of time and also desirous of not wasting it. Yes.
With bullshit. A hundred percent. Do you know what I mean? A hundred percent. A person is sitting opposite me and I know right away, this is going nowhere, you know, cause I don't have any respect for this person or this person isn't healthy enough for me. Whenever it might be that I feel in a position to make a judgment, which is pretty saucy anyway.
Who needs your judgment?
But for myself, for protection for myself, because I'm a giver, I'm a lover. Do you know what I mean? I now withdraw. You are a lover. I've learned to withdraw gracefully. So nobody gets hurt. They don't even know what's happening.
You know what I mean? They don't even know you're gone.
You draw that boundary. Yes.
Without hurting anybody's feelings. You redraw that boundary. I agree. Absolutely. And I think you can, you don't have to hurt anybody's feelings. You don't have to have a discussion on why. Nobody wants to know why. Yeah. That's fine. It's just, it's graciously done. You move on. You don't even know what happened.
Yeah. So, I mean, I believe in being kind and I believe at a certain point in your life, you learn to do all those things. I wish I had learned earlier. I would have saved a lot of time. Valuable time. Yeah. But we have now. Yes. So no, we have a different kind of time. Well, you know, speaking of QTR, we have questions for you. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Go right along. I've been talking a blue street. That's why you're here. I told you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay. Here's, here's a question. Okay. Here's a question. Okay. I hope I can answer it. We know you'll answer it because you. A few years ago, I think we, I don't know, it was four or five years ago. Yeah. You appeared on our favorite show. CBS Sunday morning. We think that's the greatest. Television journalism in the world. It's the best show. Sunday morning. It's to be respected. To be respected.
Yes. And so I think we, we, we, we were. We had a very good time. I think we had a very good time. I'm not going to say anything. But we, we, we, we were together on a show that produced the piece and what we want to know, we, we watched it and loved it in the moment when it appeared. And. We love the fact that those guys, Mo and Jay, they did the, they did a piece with Marilyn may and Angie Dickinson. They have a spade or the right people. All the right people.
What was the impetus for you touring a cemetery in that?
seen such a collection of beautiful, beautiful trees.
Perfect for strolling through Brooklyn's historic Greenwood Cemetery with actress Brenda Vaccaro. Oh, that's a very good question. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm not interested in it. Okay. So when someone said, you were born in Brooklyn and you don't know about the Burroughs, and I went, no, and I don't care. And they said, but you should understand the city. We're born, it's a great city. I said, yeah, my mother and father lived in it. The whole family lived in it. They were Italian. They came, I got the whole thing. I'm not interested in it. Well, why don't we take a drive through Brooklyn on a Sunday? And why don't, and I'm like, uh, why don't we see the different Burroughs? And I went, okay, that's fine. Well, where can we start with? And they said Brooklyn Heights, where all those beautiful houses are. And that famous Truman Capote lives there. And as I passed it, I went, oh, shit. I'm sorry. I hadn't seen this when I had a lot of money. I bought one of these. They're gorgeous. Stunning. It's stunning. And I thought, what an idiot I've been. Where else are we going? I was so excited. How many Burroughs are there? Okay. And I see. So we go past green, what's green wood, green wood. I wanted to make sure. And they said, oh, this is the most amazing cemetery. I went, huh? Don't, don't, don't support this. And they said, no, you will love it. It's gorgeous. I mean, the trees, the actual, it's so expensive. Nobody can get in there. It's like a hundred thousand dollars. I said to die to be in the ground. Well, this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever passed it by. I'm not interested in cemeteries. I'm really not. Let's, let's go to another burrow. I want to see more burrows.
And not the horse.
Anyway, there was this thing left over about Greenwood that I didn't go in it. We saw everything else. I loved it. I fell in love with Brooklyn. I thought, why didn't my parents stay here? You mean my father courted my mother in that gorgeous park? What's it called? Prospect park. Yes. He courted her there and I never took a walk through it. How stupid of me. I wish that I had. I wish that I had had some respect. You know, I should be ashamed of myself. And then I said, what about Greenwood? Do you want to go? I went, no, I don't think so. I don't think so. I can pass on it. I know it's very expensive. You know, who's the guy that conducted who was the genius? Leonard Bernstein. He's there. He's there. I know he's there. A lot of them. Okay. I don't need to see his grave. Did they, did they take you on a No, no, no. I hadn't said yes yet. So my friend said, you know, this is ridiculous. You should really just go and see the environment and how extraordinary the land is. I said, the land, oh my God, it goes on forever. Brenda, you're short stopping yourself. I mean, going to, all right. All right, let's go. So when I got in, I said, stop the car. And I got out. I was already stealing flowers off of the bushes and the leaves off of a tree. And I was saying, this is beautiful. This is really gorgeous here, isn't it? Yes. Let's go on. I saw Bernstein's. Yeah. I saw, I mean, places that cost thousands of dollars and they look like egg, egg, igloos. Oh, they're igloos. The mausoleums. The gentleman who was the manager of the cemetery. Oh, he came. He spoke and you asked him about a mausoleum that he said was at least a million dollars. That's it. You know more than I do. Just for the buildings. And you know what? The second time I went to visit it, because we decided to shoot something there. And when he came up, I said, I said, my back pocket, I took out 2000.
$2000, babe.
Will you save me a little plot like that? Nice little story. He died like this and Brenda, it's yours without the two.
So other than a villa or a mausoleum, do you want to be buried? Well, I mean, you could leave me at a bar if there's a good looking guy. My mother mentioned she wanted to be stuffed at one point and I just thought. There's a really good looking handsome guy.
Dress me up and prop me in the bar.
Amen. I wish he comes in and says, hey, babe, you're looking great. Oh, thousands would. Brenda propped up at the bar. There you go. There's a door now. There's a door. We're going to stuff you. We're going to stuff you. Oh, my God. I just think, you know, everything should be joyous. I really do. And you're absolutely right about that. I think that's why it was great doing this movie because. Oh, tell us more about the one that I was telling you about. I'm going through my mom, I know his recipes and then I realized food is love. So I want to open an Italian restaurant. What are you crazy?
Who are you going to get to come down and cook? Nona's other real life Italian grandmothers. I am from Bologna.
(00:43):
I spit on Bologna.
Spit on Sicily. Okay.
It was about getting old, facing death and and facing being alone or you're losing your partner or, you know, and that it was just better even if he was open a little restaurant and run it yourself. It's beginning again or just never letting go. Right. Never letting go. You know what it means to be alive in this world. Maybe you're going to another one, which is perky and fun, you know, but at the same time, leave this one with joy.
Don't you agree? That's our mantra. We say it all the time on this show and in life. Oh, really fun is the best thing to have. Yeah. And respect comes a lot of respect. Fun and respect. Fun and respect. What's the name of this new movie? Let's plug it. Oh, oh yeah. It's called Nona's. Nona's. It's about it. It's Italian for grandmother. Of course. Nona. It's joyous that we got to do this.
The director is just a darling man and his wife wrote the script. Fantastic. And it's joyous. Can't wait to see the best. It's about beginning again. And there's nothing wrong with thinking that every single day is a new beginning so that it never ends. Yes. Why should it end? You wake up every morning and it's a whole new chapter. It is. Love it. And I really think that that's the only way to stay perky. And to wake up with. Perky and happy. Perky and happy and wake up with gratitude. Right. Here I am. What can I do with this day? And making new friends. Yes. And I don't care what age they are. I don't have any limitations.
Well, a few. But. There's kooki burrows. Saks players. That's so god. I'll do Saks players and kooki burrows. No more alto. No more blue notes.
So you had a lovely tour of the burrows. But I want to know, so you grew up Italian American in Brooklyn. Yeah. No, I didn't grow up in Brooklyn. I grew up in Texas. Well, you were born in Brooklyn. Yeah. How did you get to Dallas? Why? Well, because it was.
Yeah, I heard the story from my mother. It was the depression.
So my father graduated from NYU as a corporate lawyer. And he was amazing young lad because he got a scholarship there. From a teacher who had a name Buell. I think Professor Buell, not something Buell. So he named me Brenda Buell Vaccaro. That's from New York. That guy put into college.
And he graduated with honors. Okay.
The guy that was his roommate on Broom Street.
That my mother told me Broom Street. I said, what? What kind of street is that? In the village.
Anyway, that guy came from a very wealthy family. I forget his name.
But he and my father were best friends and they went through college together as roommates.
When they graduated, my father couldn't get a job.
I mean, it was a depression. Yeah.
So he went to see his friend and his father had built the Frick building. Oh, yeah. We're talking money here. A little bit. A little bit. So he went up to see him. The guy made him wait outside the office for three hours. When he came out, he said, Mario, that was my father's name. He said, I'm sorry. I don't have any more space to hire anybody else. So my father now had a mother who was in bed, bedridden and a wife with a baby. Right. Okay. So it was like, what do you do? Where do you go? And all of a sudden, Benny Messina from Dallas, Texas called him up because some Italians went this away or that away. They didn't stay in Brooklyn. They went different places to start new lives. Benny Messina, he was a cousin. Hey, Mario, don't worry about it, boy. Come on down here to Texas. We'll get you working.
My father said, I think I'd better go for a visit first. He went down in a plane that he said made a lot of noise. Can you imagine the year it was? Sure. I can't even remember.
Anyway, he told me the story. He went down there and he said, no, man, you could practice law down here. We'll get you in those courtrooms. Don't you worry about it. And he went down there and he had a suit and a tie and nobody had a suit and a tie on in the Texas, the Texas courtrooms. They just made up the law as they went along.
My father was like, the hell is this? Who are you people? So that wasn't going to work. So Benny Messina said, Mario, don't you worry about it. We're going to give you a little restaurant here. And he said, you could be back there, cook some hamburgers. Those men will come in there and want a hamburger and a beer. And that's all you have to do. Now we're talking about the forties.
1939, 1940, 41, 40. Okay. FDR was still president.
(01:04):
Okay.
And poor Mario went down there trying to cook. Mother was at the front greeting people. And there was this little bar when you walked in that circle, half a circle. And some guy sat down with boots on, you know, chaps. He said, I want to, I want to stay tater and tea. And my mother went, I'm sorry. I want to stay tater and tea. My mother said, Mario. She couldn't understand the draw.
He's not speaking English. Take her. Potato. Steak, tater and tea. Come on. You can't blame a little girl for mumbling this. So anyway, this is how they got their way through.
And it's an immigrant story to be sure. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. That should be successful. He was near the Dallas state fair. So who do you think stayed open to greet all the stars? Nat King Cole. Do you know what I mean?
So when I was little one night I was there and Jimmy Duran and I said, saying, how could you believe me when I said, I loved you. But he knew I was a liar all the time. Oh my God. I love it. And he had my hand and my father was sitting at a table like this. And he said, Hey, Mario, after we were through, is she going to be in show business? And my father went, so you were putting my father wanted me to go to MIT. My father wanted me to go to Harvard.
You put on a little floor floor show. Yeah. But Jimmy Duran, he would put me up on the table. I would blame Jimmy Duran for all of this. Your whole life.
He lifted me up on the table and I was, how could you believe me when I did it? I did it.
So I mean, my father told me the story. He said, I couldn't believe it. He told me you were going to be in show business. He said, and I thought, well, there goes the college degree. Here's what I want to know.
Benny Messina. I know. He seems to have had a whole thing set up there. Yeah. Oh yeah. And he knew we were going to try that. That's not working. Then you're going to go. He had what was called an Italian.
Italian restaurant down there. Italian restaurant. Italian. And they were, there was a spaschetti. We're talking about guys that were Spaschetti. Spaschetti. Spaschetti. Cowboys. Spaschetti. You know, you had Cowboys and you didn't have paved streets some places, you know, and my father was a young lawyer and he was growing up in New York city in the village. What did he know from steak, tater and tea? What a great movie this would be. In the garage was all these books in barrels. And I opened the top of the barrel and all these books had underlined recipes. He taught himself to be a great chef. Once a scholar, always a scholar. Yeah. Were they, were any of them family recipes or just he started from scratch? He started from scratch. That's terrific. He wanted to be a lawyer. Yeah. And he was sad. I wouldn't go to college. Oh my God. How can you throw away the last four years of freedom you'll ever have? I said freedom. I said, no. I want to go be on the stage. And he went, oh my God.
Why does my prop, my daughter picked the thing that'll mostly probably disappoint her. Well, and I said, I won't be disappointed. Dad, I know where I'm going. And did your parents live long enough to see Brenda Vaccaro? He saw me once doing the flowering peach written by Clifford Odets and directed by Sidney Lumet's father, Baruch Lumet in a teeny tiny little theater across the street from Jesuit high school for Catholic boys. And my father came and afterwards I was backstage and I looked at him as he came and I played the whore. That was not necessarily the favorite thing. He wanted to see. But anyway, he stood there and he looked at me and I had a cigarette in my hand and he said the most wonderful thing. He said, you have a voice that was made to work on one.
Isn't that gorgeous? And so he pointed at the cigarette and he said, don't smoke.
And I said, okay. But he never said anything about my performance. I think he was so, I guess, aware and enlightened and knew that there was nothing he could do to change the fate.
He sent me to New York to see which drama school. He finally accepted that. And I went to all the drama schools, the neighborhood playhouse, the American theater,
and I talked to him and he said, well, which one, which school did you approve of? I said, I like the neighborhood playhouse. And he said, why? And I explained to him that they do plays and I wanted to be able to go through a play.
And he said, well, that's fine. He said, I'm glad you made a good decision for yourself. He sent me to New York to do it. Guess what? He died that night. I was flying back the next day with my aunt Marge, with aunt Marge saying, don't worry, he's waiting to see you. He was dead. Was he sick? She would. Yeah. She was just trying to soothe herself and also to stop me from crying or getting hysterical. We were on a plane going to Dallas. In those days, it took seven hours. Do you know what I mean? It's so interesting, but it's like he faced every single obstacle.
You know, so he was quite a guy. I was once in the hospital. I went to visit him and I was dancing, trying to make him laugh. He said, Brenda, remember one thing when you get married, make sure he's young.
Even if he's younger than you. Okay. And I said, why? He said, because you have this youthful presence, this youthful spirit, you will never be your age. You are so youthful. And he knew it. Of all the people we know. And I was just trying to make a joke and make him dance while he was in bed. You know, I don't know what I was doing. But this begs the question, when you were young and youthful in your hippie-ish days, why didn't you marry Michael Douglas?
Okay. That's interesting. Only that you should ask that out of the blue. I fell in love with somebody else.
I knew it.
I wasn't in love with him anymore. I knew it.
(01:25):
He just wasn't for me. Isn't that liberating?
And so when I met him, it was one thing, as we stayed together, which was seven years. You would think, well, stay on, because maybe it's just change. Right. Change is in every relationship. If we really respected change, we'd never leave anybody. That's right. And sometimes the change is good. Sometimes it ain't so good. You know what I mean? But that's what relationships are. And I just couldn't stay because I was in love. And I wasn't in love with him anymore. And here's the deal. The provocative thing was that the invitations were being printed. And there were 175 people, I think, forgive me if I'm wrong, Michael.
Mike, cut this out.
There were all these people being invited. And we had had a hippie wedding because he was five years younger than me. I like him young. Yeah. Five years younger than me. And we'd had a hippie wedding in our agent's backyard when we decided to be together forever.
And he gave me a leather ring because he was a hippie. Yeah. And we got married just with words and love. And there was no priest. There was nothing. And everybody applauded. And we had this wedding. And so I thought, why are we getting married again? Well, my father, Kirk, wants it. And Anne wants it. And we've got all these people. And they've got people. And it's a celebration. We ought to do. And so I felt the pressure to do it.
Pressure, not love. So in a sense, you were married in a-- Yeah, seven years. Holistically, I mean, you weren't. I was seven years with him. Yeah. And he wasn't there a lot of the times. He was in San Francisco doing streets.
The streets of San Francisco.
I'm 70.
You know, I was out there looking for somebody that I was madly in love with.
Maybe that's just Italian.
I don't know. But you know what I'm saying? I wasn't madly in love with him. It's human. It's human. And help me too with the timeline. Because is this before or after Midnight Cowboy? Oh, way after. Way after. So that's in-- OK. So you're very much established on your own in Hollywood. Now, at 28, I am the youngest editor "Gloss" magazine has ever had. Or any woman's magazine, I think. Ask me if I'm happy.
Are you happy? Deliriously.
Today, that is. Yesterday, I was miserable. And I might be miserable again tomorrow. Who knows? It's crazy. Yeah.
Put him on hold.
And my life was changing down in LA.
It was very provocative.
[MUSIC PLAYING] I got into my Mercedes. I drove out to Malibu and jumped into bed with the guy who was in love with. That's what I did.
Well, it happens.
Don't worry about it. We were gorgeous. Gorgeous. We were absolutely beautiful together. I saw something online yesterday. Gorgeous. Also, don't you have to have a wisdom about when something can't go here, can't go there, can't go there. You have to have that wisdom. To know the difference. Well, it's the three pillars. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Let us-- this is many years of therapy. You can't show this tape.
Trash this. This is down and away. If we go on, I need a fucking drink.
We feel women have reached a position where we can laugh at ourselves.
(01:46):
[MUSIC PLAYING] I mean, like, what have we missed? Well, we've been flowing and glowing. We've been flowing and glowing, but we want to talk about your accolades. Your-- your-- Really? Your Broadway--
Really? Your work with Gene Sacks and Manny Azenberg. And Broadway and How Now Dow Jones. You worked with David Merrick multiple times. Oh, yeah. He was crazy. Yeah, he was fucking crazy. He was fucking crazy. How did you know that?
Because I was a producer in my former life. And I admire him, but understand that he was a fucking-- Crazy.
I think he was incredibly brilliant. Yeah.
You know, brilliant. I'm just finishing up his biography.
Merrick's? Yeah. What did you-- what do you think of him? I think that he's-- he's a mad genius. Yeah, genius. Mad genius. Yeah. The stunts that he pulled for the sake of publicity and promoting his shows, brilliant. Was it really? Oh, yes. Yes, truly brilliant. Do you remember the show, "Subways Are For Sleeping"? Yeah. When he took out an ad with quotes, like, pull quotes from the reviews, and he put little tiny postage stamp grainy photos, black and white photos of the people. And I can't remember which critic was. It could have been Clive Barnes or somebody. But somebody said, Clive Barnes isn't black.
He went through the phone book and found people with the same names as the top critics and called them and asked them, "We'd like to use this quote. Is it OK?" And I'm sure it sent the money. Did you meet him? No, no. But I think-- He got mad at me that I didn't marry Michael Douglas. He took me for lunch on Santa Monica Boulevard in a French restaurant. And when I walked in, he was at the bar. He said, come over here. And I thought, oh, OK, so we're having a drink. And I went over and I sat down to him. He said, what the fuck are you doing? Why aren't you marrying Michael Douglas? Have you lost your mind? Wow.
Wow. What you need is an arranged marriage by David Merrick. Yeah. He was like-- and it floored me. He probably felt it would have been good for one of his shows. He wanted to show him. And then he used that for publicity. I think he was furious I wasn't marrying him. He think he thinks it was a mistake for my career, for me, for every-- he just was like, boom. I said, because I'm not in love with him. And he went, that doesn't matter. That sounds like David Merrick. I think he was a wildly insecure man. I'm sure that was part of it. But really, what you dealt with when you dealt with him, work-wise, money-wise, performance-wise, everything was genius.
Genius. You did How Now, Down Jones with him. Yes. That's the one.
You're taking me back to these shows now. I've got to remember. How Now, Down Jones, Dorothy Fields wrote it. Elmer Bernstein, David Merrick fired Arthur Penn.
He fired Arthur Penn and hired George, the famous one, the old man at all, George. Oh, George Abbott. That's it. George Abbott. He hired George Abbott. You worked with bloody George Abbott. Yeah. And the night that I stopped the show the very first night-- He's here. He's here. Whatever that was, stop the show. And everybody started applauding and screaming.
And all of a sudden, I'm like turning and going,
"Tis nobody's helping me." So I turned to the audience. I went, "Thank you. Thank you. Oh my God. Oh my God. Was I making a mistake?" And so here's what I hear coming down the hallway after the show is over. And it's George Abbott. He banks the door open. He said, "What the hell do you think you were doing? What did you think you were doing?" And I said, "Well, I was so beside myself. I was scared out of my mind because he was so tall. And he was so old, I thought he was going to have a heart attack in front of me." And I didn't know what to do. I was like, "I don't know what to do." He said, "You never, ever thank the audience. In my show, I've never had anybody who was so stupid. How could you possibly do that in my show?" And I was like, "Well, I started to cry and he got pissed off and left." Because I thanked the audience. Oh, you broke the fourth wall. Thank you. You broke the fourth wall. Do you think I know what a fucking fourth wall was? I had no idea. I just sang the song and all of a sudden everybody stopped. And Gwen Verdon told me later on at some party at Sardis that she said, "Listen, don't feel bad because I did an audition and he made me sit backstage for four hours while he went through all the auditions. And then he took me to Roseland and we danced till four in the morning. What can I say that will convince you you were lucky?" It was over like that for you. And I went, "You see that crazy?" Yeah, that's pretty crazy. She said, "Well, he's not crazy. He's George Abbott." Yeah, but that's kind of crazy too. And you do what he says. Was it your first show? Yes. Yeah, maybe the first musical I did. First musical, yeah. Yeah. I think I was all of 20 something and I hardly ever talked to him again. As a matter of fact, it was his birthday. He was 103 or 104. They wanted to fly me back to have me sing that song. I said, "Fuck off." Good for you. Good for you. No.
I mean, be kinder than that for God's sake. It's hound-hound, John. Thanks to the wine, it's delicious. Oh, good.
Sorry you can't have any.
What was your greatest night on the Broadway stage?
Wow, so many.
I guess maybe the first night I was in a Broadway play and I got a lot of applause and I kept bowing unnecessarily.
There she goes again. She's too nice to the audience.
Yeah, that was my, "Everybody Loves Opal."
And Barbara was in, "I Can Get It For You" wholesale. Yes. So that's how we met. That's how you met Barbara for the first time. And we would meet in the middle of the street. She was in one theater. I was in the other one. We'd meet in the middle of the theater with that black hat of hers and that long black skirt. And she'd go, "So we're going to have lunch?" I'd say, "Yeah." So we'd go down to a little Chinese restaurant that was on that street where you go down the stairs. And it was a Chinese food and we'd go in there together and Elliot Gould was always late. He was also in, "I Can Get It For You" wholesale. I knew that we were babies.
(02:07):
Do you still come in touch? With who? Vammel Barbara? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She wrote about me in her book. We're good friends, yeah. You are a terrific person and a great teacher. The truth is, I think I've just reached the point. What point? The point that you know you'll never get married. Married? Yeah. What's marriage anyway? Oh, come on. A ring, a contract, fighting and compromising.
Now it can be more than that. I'd love it if someone knew me.
Really knew me. You're careful about certain things. Health.
Dying.
Certain things are too sensitive for her. I guess that's the one. Do you know what I mean? And as a friend, you're very careful. You don't walk. You don't walk that walk.
She'll look at you like she's very careful about her voice. Sure. And very careful about her health, which I respect. I respect that. I mean, if she doesn't get a rest, she doesn't have her strength. Do you know what I'm saying? I mean, she's a very delicate bird in a way. She's a delicate little bird. She would say that to me, "Brenda, you're so strong." As though it was a terrible thing. You're so strong. You know, I'd go, "Well, I mean, it served me well."
She looks at you.
But I think that's why we love each other because we're so different.
You just walk in and do a scene and know you're right. I said, "I'll hope I'm right, but I'll go in and do it." She goes, "She can't do that." She needs to think about it. She needs to talk to the director about it. She needs to just think and go over it in her head. You know, she's very cautious.
I just run right into the mirror.
You don't make it easy for me. You're supposed to make it easy for me, but you don't. I dare you, Jack. I dare you. All my life, all my life, I've been making it easier for you. Yeah. All my life, do you hear me? No, like, no, you're yelling now. There's been no walk in the park. That's right. There's been no walk in the park. I'm going to tell you something else. Nobody takes care of me. I want to ask you, who do you think takes care of me? I'm going to take care of you. Not you, Jack. Certainly not you. Right now, I'm going to take care of my brother. You do it for yourself, Jack. You're going to do it. How's that for news? You'll do it, Jack. Find by me. Find by me. I'm through with you. I'm through with it. Go ahead. Set the alarm. Who cares? You know, my mother said when I was little, I would crawl up and look in the mirror and do funny things. How old was she? She said too young.
Too young to be doing that, she said. But your grandmother, my mother would say, she's too to this. She's crazy.
She makes my mother would say, why? Because she's in the mirror making faces all the time. Something's wrong with her. She's crazy. No. And that was just me being a little-- Not crazy.
Creative. Speaking of Italy,
where's this good movie? Why don't we go? Let's all go. Let's go to Italy. Oh, to Italy? Should we go? Oh, yeah. We can do that. Great. I would love it. On the road with Brenda Vakar. We'll have a ball. You did a movie with Mr. Sinatra. The first Deadly Sin, 1980. Oh, God, you remember. In the city, there's a man loose who kills.
She's my whole world. You understand that? The first Deadly Sin, starring Frank Sinatra and Faye Dunaway. The first Deadly Sin.
From Filmways Pictures, rated R. It was the first feature movie role for Bruce Willis. He had a-- Bruce Willis wasn't in it. The first Deadly Sin.
Say he was, and I didn't know it, and he wasn't a star yet. Oh. Bruce Willis. That's possible. It's OK. Yeah, no, it was 1980. I feel terrible. It's OK. Sorry, Bruce. But you did the movie with Sinatra and Faye Dunaway. So Frank and Faye were the stars of the movie. But what are your recollections of that? Did you have any interaction with Sinatra at all? Oh, I loved him. I absolutely loved him. Tell us everything. He treated me so royally. He would have loved you. And my mother came to the central vision.
And my mother was crazy about him because she grew up with him, right?
So I had a trailer, and he came over. I don't know whether to talk to me or he saw my mother. I'm not quite clear what caused this togetherness. And so, you know, the trailer has the kitchen and the little window that you go like this, and then there's the sink. And I heard Italian.
So I thought, what is that? I go up to the window, and I'm over the sink, and I see the two of them talking Italian. When did you ever hear Sinatra talking Italian? But never. Yummy.
(02:28):
Never. And my mother, who, my father, they didn't talk Italian to each other. Nobody talked anything like that. She's talking Italian with him, and he's talking Italian with her. And I'm like, sneaking this peak and going, "Am I hearing what I think I'm hearing?"
And he was perfect in Italian. I mean, the accent, everything was perfect. And I thought, what the hell is going on? And he laughed, and he shook her hand and kissed her hand and walked away.
And so I said to my mother, "What were you talking about? None of your business."
I said, "But you were an Italian." Yes, she said, "Yes, why not?" And she said, "He's a very attractive man."
"Okay, Ma."
So I thought that was really kind of touching and sweet. So he told me, he said, "You know what? You get your beauty from your mother."
And this is when I went on the set, and I said, "Really?" I said, "Thank you so much. I'll tell you you said it." He said, "You don't have to."
He told her.
Did he have any enemies that you knew of? Enemies.
Of course he had enemies. He worked hard for a living. He saluted the flag. He loved his children. And after seven years, I think he even still loved me.
What hard-working person in this city doesn't have any enemies.
Sorry. He surprised me a lot, you know? Yeah. And I don't think he liked Faye Dunaway. I think he had a hard time with that. She was sick lying in bed playing like she was dying. I think he wished she would.
I don't think he was that crazy about her at all.
I think it was difficult to work with her for him. Well, she's a tough cookie, isn't she? Yeah. Well, I don't know what was wrong. She was also playing someone who was sick and, you know, and-- Yeah, no, she was dying. Whatever that part was, I think it had to do with her in the hospital. So maybe he just wasn't having a good time, because she's a phenomenal actress. When I worked with her, she was difficult, but she's good.
Oh, I can't really get the hang of this. Was he a gentleman? He was an elegant gentleman. He was a really big gentleman. The only thing that is important to let you know, I had a scene with him at the end of the movie, and he walked off the movie.
And I never got to do my scene with him. Oh, shit. Was another scene. I only had three scenes, and that one he walked off of. And as I walked off the set, I came out of my trailer. He was standing in the door of his. I walked right past him. I didn't look at him. I didn't say anything. I was mad at him.
He's not going to do the scene that I had with him, explaining my reasoning for being sad that my husband was gone, or whatever that scene was. And I thought it was not professional of him. I thought it was disgusting that he would do such a thing without even talking to me about it.
So he just decided that day I'm not doing-- Bye, bye. I'm leaving. I'm done. The car's waiting. That's it. That's that. Who's in the car? Jilly. Jilly. Oh, Jilly. Jilly. Yeah, Jilly. Did you see Sinatra after that?
He invited me to every goddamn concert he did. And one night, he invited me to sit on the stage with his family. So he pursued. And when he met Guy, the guy I was going with at the time, he just gave him dirty looks. But I think he liked me. I think he asked for me to be in the movie.
The director, he treated like shit. Because he walked off the movie before he ended it. But did I love Frank? I loved Frank. Poor Brian Hutton. Can you imagine? He couldn't finish the movie. It's a rough business. It's a rough business. Well, with Frank Sinatra in it, he was. But I still, I could see what Ava Gardner and everybody saw. I mean, a guy was sexy. He was unbelievable.
I liked Frank.
(02:49):
I want to show you something. Oh, show me. Oh, it's him. See these cufflinks? What is it? These are cufflinks. They're clowns painted by Frank Sinatra. Stop it.
Aren't you specific? Yes. Yeah. Any of them slipped into those little gold frames? Yes, he painted. Where did you paint it? You know that he painted, right? And he was, he was. I do know he painted. He was particularly enchanted by clowns. The fact that you go out there to make the people happy and laugh and smile. And then you get off stage and life goes back to being life. Sad clown. Sad clown.
That is magnificent.
Look at it. It's one of my cherished possessions. I can understand. Of course it is. We worry if we drop dead, somebody would come in and do a yard sale and put these in the 25 cent bin. Like these fucking ugly little clowns. No, no, man, 25,000.
So on the topic of Sinatra, Brenda, and we started this conversation with you wandering through Greenwood Cemetery with CBS Sunday Morning and our favorite TV show. And Sinatra was famous. He said he would say that he was an 18 carat manic depressive, the highest highs and the lowest lows. And I want to give you a quote that he was famous for saying, I'm for whatever gets you through the night. Be it prayer, tranquilizers, or a bottle of Jack Daniels. Okay. That sounds like it. What gets you through the night?
Just the right pillow.
I'm going to stop trying to be profound.
And a nice duvet.
Mel and May's answer to that was television. I am just so happy to be able to get into bed and be cozy. We're trying to find a twist on the actor's studio where James Lipton would ask all these profound questions. Oh, God. Yeah. I was bored out with my life. Did you not? Did you not enjoy those questions? You think? No, I didn't. I turned it off and he was so pompous.
I mean, wasn't his.
Whatever energy he put forth was pomposity. And I just thought, oh, give me a break. And that's why Bravo turned into what? But you know what I'm saying? I could be very wrong. It was the energy that he put out. It was kind of like he was above it all. You know, in the historian of it. And I felt like saying, yeah, sure. Give me a break.
What are you doing here? I came to give you this and this. Oh, big ring.
These are true confessions with Brenda Vaccaro. Thank you for tuning in tonight. Brenda, we have to put a button on this podcast so we can go to dinner. Nice to see you. Bye bye. Bye. Thank you. Thank you. Bye bye. My friend Kenny used to do that at the end of the evening. Nice to see you. Bye bye. Last question. One last question. You said something very, very profound that will stay with me for the rest of my life. Oh, stop it. Seriously.
Flowing, glowing. Flowing, glowing is really good. But you said earlier, you're not afraid of dying. No, I'm not. But you're not into it. You're not into it. Those are your exact words. Well, I'm not afraid of it. Why would I be into it? You're not into it. I mean, I don't know if it's going to happen. When I was a kid, when I understood the concept of death at about, I don't know, eight years old or something, my mother tucked me into bed. I finally got the gist of it. And when the lights went out that night and I thought, I'm not going to come back and play with my toys. I'm not going to have my toys and my friends and my... And I understand that. And I had to get out of bed and turn the lights back on. Right. And this haunted me for a long time. I think, well...
Because it was about the end. The end. But you were at the beginning. I was at the beginning at that time. But still you had a perception of the end. That's really interesting. But we talked about earlier, QTR, quality time remaining.
Really making the right choices in our life with who we spend our time with. That's right.
And I value that. Yeah. And I just...
I wondered if there's any last word of wisdom from Brenda Vaccaro.
I think getting older is really a gift. Because I think everything that you didn't understand before now becomes your wisdom.
And it becomes the way you live your life and who you spend your time with. And the choices of who they are in your life becomes one of the major things you have to decide. Is this worthy for me to continue this relationship?
Do you know what I mean? That's one of the gifts that you get as you get older. Is that you truly know who you should spend time with.
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