February 24, 2025 • 40 mins
Character actor/voice artist GILBERT MACK's daughter JUDY SAFFER remembers his decades of work in TV, stage, radio and animation, including stacks of Golden Records, voices for Famous Studios, and roles in classic shows like "Car 54, Where Are You?" "Captain Kangaroo," "The Adventures of Superman" and many others.
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(00:11):
Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, we love Head of our
Mirror. Welcome to the Fantastic World
of Hannah and Barbera, a celebration of Bill, Hannah, Joe
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Barbera and the thousands of people, past and present who
have shared in their entertainment tradition.
And now your host, Greg Garbar. Thank you, Chris Anthony,
welcome to the fantastic world. We have a really fascinating and
wonderful guest today who is thedaughter of someone that
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millions and millions of people have heard on radio and on
television and in cartoons, especially kids, because he was
pretty much in the 50s. He was the voice of Golden
Records and that person was Gilbert Mack.
And we are very delighted to have his daughter with us.
Judy Saffer, welcome to the show.
(01:14):
Well, I'm certainly glad to participate and fill in any
information I can about my father, about the individual as
well as the performer. He did so many golden records
and so deserves to be known better.
And I want to explain the depth of his skill and expertise and
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background, because they didn't just hire anybody to do these
voices on these records. They hired the best in New York.
Well, my father was a typical performer and loved being in the
center of the attention. On the other hand, he was a
little bit different than very many other people because he was
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very much a family man. His wife and his kids came
first. Everything came second.
I should say after that, his career and then everything else
was far below. He really was an incredibly
talented man, which was something I didn't recognize
when I was on child growing up. And I wished he was like
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everybody else's father and justput on a, a suit and a tie and
went to work in the morning instead of hanging around the
house half the day and then going to work.
I realized as I grew up what an incredible ability he had.
He was really remarkable. And I have my own theory, which
(02:44):
I, my sister shares with me, that a lot of his talent came
from the fact that he had an incredible voice.
Had he been grown up sort of in a different family or something
like that, he could have almost been an upper singer.
Maybe he could have been, he hadperfect pitch.
And the result was that when he did a dialect, everybody thought
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that was really the way he spokeand he could change his voice.
He often played against himself on radio.
When you could do that, you knowhe could take 3 characters on
the same show and nobody knew itwas in three different people.
Let's talk about your childhood.You're both your parents were
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performers, correct? Not exactly.
My mother was a speech teacher and she also was a drama coach
for children before I was born, and that's in fact how she met
my father. But she was always somebody
behind the scene. The performer in the family,
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originally anyway, was certainlymy father.
Subsequently, my sister and I both continued in his footsteps
to some extent, but not totally as he had done it.
But we were certainly more extroverted.
My mother was a behind the scenes individual.
He did radio, he did voices and cartoons.
(04:08):
Did you go to some of the sessions?
Did you go to the performances in front of an audience when he
did things like that? Somewhat.
I mean, we grew up in the New York area.
We grew up in the suburbs. And my parents were very
determined that both my sister and I had a typical quote, UN
quote, whatever that is, childhood, normal quote, UN
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quote, whatever that is, upbringing.
So we certainly went sometimes with him, but mostly we listened
to him on the radio or actually watched him on television and
went to the local public school with all the other kids.
Do you remember some of the shows that he did on radio?
Well, yes, I mean, I, I am now 82, just to put this in
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perspective. So I remember in the late 40s
sitting with my mother and sister at the kitchen table
listening to my father, and he would do things like Suspense
City Hospital, True Story, a variety of different early radio
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programs. And I remember the early TV
shows that he did. He was on the Jackie Gleason
Show, Superman, Captain Kangaroowho did Naked City.
He did Car 5450. 4 where are. You.
(05:36):
I was at 30. Yes.
Don't you Remember Me? I'm Tony.
I come around at the police station.
Shiny shoes. Oh, yeah.
Tony's shoeshine. I haven't seen you around.
I give up for the shoeshine. Now I'm in the stock market.
The stock market? Try.
I start with $800, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
(05:57):
Hey, look, officer, you and the rest of the boys always very
nice to me. Buy Pratt Plastics.
Is it good? Is it good?
I'm putting everything in myself.
Today it's $0.50 a share. Next week it's going to be $50.
He was a constantly working actor, frankly, because he was
very, very good. He approached the business on
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his own terms. It was very important to him to
be a family man. His own father had died when he
was six and he was going to be agood father and a good husband
and be home. And it did not go out with the
guys drinking and when a show was over or whatever, he came
home. But he found various people who
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had similar values and who were in the business.
Then I would be allowed to hang around on the outskirts of
parties and things like that of the handful of people who also
were like that and were concerned about their own
families and stuff, and they would meet or have dinner
parties at different people's homes.
(07:05):
So they were there people, but they were a select group of
grounded people. I certainly recall.
Well, this was a little bit later on because I was older.
The people that my father did Astro Boy with became very good
friends of his and would be at our house a lot.
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Probably more at our house than the other people's houses
because we had a house with a, you know, a big family room and
a backyard and all of that. So it made it easy for people to
congregate. Yeah, yes.
Speaking of Astro Boy, that's a major historical thing for
television because that was really the first.
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Anime is very, very well known now and has become part of
almost mainstream. It is mainstream and American
cartoons imitate it now, but back then that was unusual.
And After Boy was the 1st cartoon series on network.
Stumpy said once. This is a cruel, cruel thing.
You're doing it right in the. Public eye, it's a disgrace.
Remember, robots are living things too.
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Why? It's just like ancient Roman
gladiator We're gladiators, we're supposed to fight to the
bitter end. And the one who lost was.
I'm awfully sorry, but you see, every time I get mad, I sneeze.
And what was different then, then now is that it was people
who I guess the directors thought were qualified.
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They were not famous people. They were not stars.
They were the backbone of a particular genre of being able
to do film dubbing, which my father did a tremendous amount
of European films that were brought into the United States,
to which they added English. And my father once again found
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himself in a situation where he would play the voice of several
people in a movie, not just one.So it made it easy for the
director, 'cause they could hireJill Mack to do 3, sometimes
even four people in a movie. He did funny, weird things.
In a way. I mean he was how much is that
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doggie in the window arf arf? I thought it was the ARF ARF.
I know that record. How much is that doggie in the
window? The one with the waggly tail?
How much is that doggie in the window?
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I do hope that Doggie is for Sale was what he did, and he was
certainly during the late 40s, fifties, 60s, one of the busiest
actors in New York and yet people didn't know his name.
That was probably as a family, agood thing because he was able
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to have a so-called, quote, normal family life because you
didn't have to deal with the hassles of being in public
places and people knowing him and things like that.
He could focus on you. Yes, of course he never worried
about what other people thought.He was a rugged individualist
and he did what he wanted. And as a young adult, when I
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dabbled myself in show business and I got much better
understanding and appreciation for what he had been able to
accomplish, to remain the individual that he was and yet
to have this incredible career. I mean, my father never held a
regular job, quote, UN quote, whatever that is in his life.
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And he managed to support a wifeand two children and a nice
house, a dog, you know, the white picket fence, the whole
bit. It was really incredible what he
accomplished and he did it because he was very good.
Yeah, he was. Any one of the genres he would
do would be a career in itself. We're talking about a vast
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amount. He worked in radio during its
thriving days, but then continued to because he was on.
Yours truly Johnny, which was one of the last like 62, it went
off and then he kept doing radiowhen virtually none of it was
around because he was in the CBSmystery theaters, EG Marshall
hosted. Those were people like Mercedes
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Mccambridge and some of the greatest actors in radio were
still doing that show. There was just a little tiny bit
of radio left mostly because of people like Elliott Lewis.
Hyman Brown must have been a long time friend to his because.
Actually they were very good friends.
He was one of the people, you know, that's the families had
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become friendly. It's interesting that you
mention him. Yeah, he was the genius behind
Inner Sanctum and A Mystery Theater, which were virtually
the same show, but to be able tosustain that was remarkable.
We listen to that gosh, and you still can.
The nice thing about these shows, folks, is that a lot of
radio was transcribed and you can find it on archive.org.
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Sometimes people put it on YouTube.
These are not necessarily difficult to find.
So a lot of his work still livesand the Golden Records are
especially dear to people like me because I had the little
yellow discs, little 6 inch yellow discs, and then graduated
to LP's. Right to this way folks, for the
big puppet show. I've got no strings to hold me
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down, to make me Frick or make me frown.
Oh, morning, everybody's sheep. Pinocchio to sing in a dancing
puppet. I had strings but I wine free
there are no strings on me. And he was in so many.
And that was Arthur Shimkin, whowas also.
A friend was he of the family. That's another name that I
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haven't heard for years. It brings back a lot of memories
of friend and family, and I alsogrew up with those little golden
records. And in fact, as you must
remember, I do. The one side was a story and the
other side was a short piece of classical music that was
supposed to introduce children to classical music, to series
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music. And in fact it did to me.
To this day I hear something a Symphony and those, you know,
the main theme and I, I've got that little golden record in my
hand. Yeah, yeah.
What they would do is, and this was people like Mitch Miller,
who was the musical director there, Ben, Jimmy Carroll was
the arranger who was the arranger on the Sing Along
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albums. They would take classical music
pieces and they would simplify them with a really small
orchestra to make them kind of kid friendly.
They sound almost like cartoon music.
And they would play for maybe a couple of minutes or less.
But once you knew, you know, a Mozart piece or a Bach piece
from that, you know, it was justlike when Bugs Bunny Cartoons
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did it. There's Smurfs.
When you heard it later, you said, oh, that's Beethoven.
That's this, that's that. It was a great way to teach
kids. Yes, it was.
Anecdotally, you will find this humorous, of course.
And my father used to get, you know, a number of copies of the
different records that he made and he would pass them out to
friends and relatives and thingslike that.
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But he'd always teach something for himself.
And when he died at age 94 and my sister and I were cleaning
out my parents home, in the basement in one of the cabinets
was a big stash of records and my father's handwriting saying
do not touch. These are mine in capital
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letters. He was sure to keep one copy of
everything he did for himself. So he got samples.
Not all actors get them. I found that surprising as I got
more into entertainment was that, you know, the actors work
so hard. And sometimes I would go out of
my way if I worked on a project to get it to the actors because
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once the producers moved on, it's like, now we're moving on.
But he did get copies of everything.
That's great. Yes, he did.
He did some of the things that he did like he was the first
Curious George and when they came out, the first record, you
know, and it was a big success. Then I could be a semi big shot
at school because I could wave it around and tell everybody
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that was my father he used to give me because he personally
just didn't care. He had the right to vote for
Oscars and things like that because he was very involved in
the theatrical unions, didn't care.
So he would give them to me, hisballot to me, and say to me I
could pick who I thought ought to win.
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Of course, I would run to schoolwith it so all the other kids
could rule. As I said, they are, you know,
making this major selection. By the way, the same thing
continued. I ended up as an attorney in the
entertainment industry and I would vote for the Grammys.
And I would say to my kids, hey,you want to pick who's going to
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win, You know, then help me pickwho's going to win the next
Grammy, etcetera. So that tradition continued.
That's really, really cool. Were there certain records that
you like to play over and over again and.
No, I mean, I can't remember zeroing in on anything specific
to think except if something waspopular at the time.
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And of course then I wanted because it was popular.
My father was very much an entertainer, and he actually
started in show business in, I guess, the early 1920s with his
brother. They were a song and dance team
in vaudeville and he always wanted to be the center of
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attention and literally to the day he died when he was a song
in dance team with his brother, my father, again with this
wonderful instrument. His voice, though, he could play
the piano and he played the guitar and played the ukulele
all by ear. Never had lessons, but he did
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have perfect pitch. He was a fantastic Yoddler.
And when he was dying at age 93 in the hospital, having had a
major heart attack in the emergency room, the doctor's
examining him and he's denying that he's very sick.
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And he sits up and he starts knittling to the doctor and he
says, is this the race of a 93 year old man?
And the doctor said maybe not, but you do have the heart of it,
your old man. And you know he, he, he actually
died within the day which my mother was already deceased and
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he could not have been an insolent, it would have been
awful. So it was better he went out,
but he was yodeling in the hospital the day he died.
Yodeling in the hospital, that's, you know, hey, go out
with them. It's sort of like making that
curtain call. Yes, yeah, he was certainly
eccentric, but he had so much talent that you sort of put up
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with his eccentricities. And my husband and I later, but
you know, when we would have people over for a big dinner
party, a holiday or something, we always try to put the new
guest next to my father. So my father would have an
audience. And behind my father's back, my
husband would say to me, I just got some new meat tonight.
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He could regale them with anecdotes, and they were
fascinated. And of course, the rest of us
had heard them many times. And we didn't have to pay that
much attention because he had somebody new to impress.
Do you remember what some of those anecdote like famous
people and stuff? What were some of those stories?
They were mostly about his own experience.
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Those were the things that mattered to him.
He was never starstruck. I mean, that was, yeah, that
didn't mean anything to him. Then when he worked with famous
people, he had sufficient ego that he thought he was just as
good as they were, But he just wasn't as famous and and it was
meaningless to him. I mean, he worked on a film with
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Barbra Streisand. He didn't have the big part.
He talked about her after she was at home only because he
thought she was so very talented, but not not because
she was famous. And that was not significant to
him. It didn't matter.
He did 2 Broadway shows. One was Adele Ferdano and the
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other was a show called Springtime Folly.
And it was, as he admitted, a folly.
He was offered the lead in it and he came home and he said to
my mother and I guess my sister and I.
Maybe 8 and 10, something like that.
I don't remember the exact year,but he said, oh, this show is
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really lousy. But they've offered me the lead,
he said, and I'll get a chance to see my name on the marquee
and Broadway and it's lousy. So what?
And he did the show and it lasted 3 days before it closed
that he was able to take pictures of starring Gilbert
Mack. So he got out of it.
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What mattered to him most, you know, just the fact that he had
that one opportunity. But mostly he didn't do theater.
He changed along with the industry and did a lot of voice
overs and a lot of commercials. And I the commercials, of
course, is I think what made kind of the, the most money
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certainly in the later years. And then when he reached his of
all about 70, he said, OK, I've had it, not the performing part.
But he said, I will never go to another audition again.
That's it. I'm done.
And, you know, an agent would call, ask him to go and he'd
say, who else would you call? And they'd say, well, you know,
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that'd be this one. And that one.
He said, they're very good. You say I'm not a auditioning.
If they want me, OK, I'll come into New York and I'll do it.
But no, no, that's it. I'm done.
And he had enough money that he could live on the money that he
had earned in the earlier years of his life.
And. But if somebody happened to
recognize him when he went into the local delicatessen, he was
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thrilled. Oh, that's nice.
He did work with some of the biggest names like Gleason, and
in their early careers he was onStanley, which was a series with
Carol Burnett and Buddy Hackett.Just lots and lots of the major
things. And also cartoons for the famous
studios and like Casper cartoonsand things like that.
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Sir, is your name Montague? By Joe.
When you had something on TV, would you go like, oh, there he
is, I. Tell an anecdote of being a
young teenager about 1415 and considering myself somewhat
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sophisticated because I had beenbrought up in a show business
family. And I'm on a date and we went to
one of the art movie theaters and we're sitting there and it's
a French film and there's Brigitte Bardot with somebody, I
don't remember who. And the guy opens up his mouth
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and I just probably the top of my lungs, I said that's my
father. Well, not exactly, but it was
his voice. He had dubbed that role.
Whenever I heard his voice, because it was so much part of
my life, I recognized it was no doubt to me.
I could always recognize it and I would hear things.
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I'm not expected to be him because I didn't know or, you
know, I wasn't as certainly as Ibegan to grow up and wasn't
around the house constantly. And I just hear something and I
always knew it was him. And even to this day, every once
in a while, I'm flipping throughsomething or there's something
that I pick up online or some show and there's some little
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thing and I go, once again, I got, you know, Gilbert Max,
because sometimes things pop up like that.
Yeah. And he did so many narrations
for things that even if you think, well, I don't know the
name, Gilbert Mack, if you watched Captain Kangaroo, he did
narrations for some of those Weston Woods books.
It would be like a filmed version of a book and there
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would be a narrator. He did a lot of those.
Once Upon a time there were 4 little rabbits and their names
were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter.
They lived with their mother in a sandbank underneath the root
of a very big fir tree. Plus, they played Golden Records
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on Captain Kangaroo, so you werehearing his voice much more than
you thought. I mean, not just Gigantor and
Kimba, the White Lion and all ofthose films that were like the
Paul Tripp movies, that were foreign films for children, that
had New York voices, people likeyour dad and Corinne Orr and
Peter Fernandez. Lionel Wilson.
These are all great actors that don't get very much attention.
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It wasn't about that. It was about the work.
It was about acting. And a number of times he was
offered the opportunity to go out to as they Go with the West
Coast and he declined. He said no, my family's here,
this is where I want to be and give it to somebody else.
He turned over a lot of work to Mel Blank who was very, very
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confident, certainly very able bodied and a lot more ambitious
than my father. And he did impersonate Mel Blanc
on at least one of the golden Bugs Bunny records, The Merrily
We Roll Along one. That's him I.
Don't even remember? Good for you.
Yeah. Oh, that's definitely him.
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Merrily we roll a lot. So happy and free.
Yeah. What's up, dog?
I was funny. That's me.
I'm the brilliant cut. So butter, I'm going to try to
cut that little bird. Who?
Name it Pretty pie. I'm merry hug.
I like the duck. I like to say who?
I'm related skunky known as Pepper.
Love you. I'm Papa Pig.
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What a song as we merrily roll along.
I'm Alma Fred and I'm known as arabbit hunting fool.
I miss my muck at shooting, but my muck's so good at school.
I'm fucked for like oh I'm the boss, there's no one does to
fly. If I checked and I am, you'll
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see the feathers fly. I'm your little friend got
treated and I'd like to add justa tiny but don't ever get me
mad, I'm not. That we have a fucking pound I'm
your somebody Sam Bang Bang yourdeadly down.
Barely be rolling along the don't forget, get happy, don't
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forget how to smile. Barely yes, barely.
We all sing the song and we barely roll.
And that brings us to the Hanna Barbera stuff.
I mean, it's probably been a long time since you've heard
these, but he was the first actor who was not the original
cast. It was not Doz Butler or Don
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Messick. And in those days, they would do
what they called cover versions of songs and of films.
They did it on radio. They did it on records.
It was very normally done. So Golden Records hired your dad
to be every character that Daws Butler and Don Messick could do.
And we're talking like 20 characters on Little Records and
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then on LP's. So unlike in From Rough and
Ready, he did voices on those, He did Huckleberry hand voices,
he did Quick Draw, McGraw ones, Yogi Bear and all of those.
But I did read an article where he was really studying the
voices and doing the best he could because there's people who
say, well, it doesn't sound likethem.
But what folks have to realize is in the late 50s, you didn't
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have home video, you didn't haveDVDs and Blu rays.
He may have been supplied with audio samples.
I doubt that there were a 16mm films.
You couldn't watch Huckleberry Hound except like once a week in
those days. And plus the time, how much lead
time do you have to do the recording?
He did the very best he could, but he didn't have the same
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larynx as two other people, so sometimes he had to just wing
it. All about everybody.
Your favorite friends are all here.
There's Yogi Fair. Let's get this train on the
road. Pixie and Dixie.
Pixie. Have you seen Jinxie anywhere?
Lamb 2. Mises had better lookout.
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I'm Jinxy the cat, and I'd like to make the acquaintance of
them. Two Mises all aboard.
Everybody with your engineer. Huckleberry Hound.
It's all aboard. Today we're on a merry way with
Huckleberry. Come on, enjoy the fun.
There's room for everyone with Huckleberry.
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Two friends will all be there. There's Jinx and Yogi Berry.
So send. But what you're proving, and
what I usually say when people ask about this is this wasn't
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just anyone given this assignment.
This was someone who was so experienced at doing multiple
voices and different characters,but they gave it the very best
shot it could be given. And millions and millions of
people bought those records, millions of them.
They were real popular. Well, you know, I ended up with
a tremendous amount of respect for the man.
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The older I got and the more I began to see a bigger picture
and everything to recognize justhow incredibly talented he was.
And he made a whole life of it. And as a sort of slight aside,
if he didn't get hired for a couple of weeks, if he didn't
have any work, he'd start to panic.
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And he would say to my mother, OK, that's it.
I'm going to Macy's. I'm going to get a job.
I'm going to sell shoes. That was his threat.
And my mother would say to him, give it another couple of weeks,
you know, we're OK Give it another couple of weeks, you
know, And something else I didn't realize, in fact, until
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after he died, he kept very, very detailed little records, I
mean, handwritten records of allthe work that he did.
And I saw his notebooks and everything.
He earned a fair amount of moneyduring his life.
And we lived certainly nicely, but we didn't live
extravagantly. And the result was that when he
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had some periods when he wasn't working very much, they had
money that they had saved and they would do some savings.
And then when he would make a whole lot of money, they
wouldn't spend it right away. He had no financial acumen at
all, but he would put it in the bank.
If he had been smart and knew how to invest, I would have been
(31:19):
a very rich lady when he died. But it's OK, no complaints.
No complaints. Like I said, he paid for my
entire education and he did makemy own life possible and I give
him a great deal of credit for what he accomplished.
You said you dabbled yourself inthe career.
What kind of things did you do? Well, I started out as a young
(31:42):
lady wanting to be a dancer, serious dancer, ballet dancer
and I, which from the public school I was going to and went
to a professional children's school in New York so I could
take dancing classes, take 3A day, etcetera.
And I did dance for a short time.
I danced with ballet company andI made a couple of movies then
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and whatever. When I finally in my early 20s,
I said no, this is not what I want to do for the rest of my
life because what roomed ahead of me I saw not wrong ahead of
me was I end up being a dancing teacher and that was something I
very definitely did not want to do.
Anyway, I ended up as a lawyer in the music business and did
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quite well independently of my father and had a wonderful
career. Lawyer in the music business is
very interesting and we talk about that a lot because music
rights are very capricious and they're involve a lot of
complications and they're fluid.There's no set rate.
And so that could be so complicated and challenging.
(32:50):
That must have been quite a career.
Well, I was chief counsel at ASCAP and then at BMI and I also
was the president of the Copyright Society and very much
involved in lobbying in Congressto protect creators rights and
things. I had a very good career and.
(33:11):
Very impressive. You know, so I stayed close to
home in a way. And one of the advantages that I
had, I think, was not being the world's greatest lawyer.
But I have No Fear of public speaking.
Yeah. So I can testify comfortably.
I can talk before large crowds comfortably.
(33:33):
You know, my theater background certainly was an asset in my
legal career. Oh yeah, it's very theatrical.
Yeah. Lawyers are like actors in a lot
of ways. Well, certainly trial lawyers
are, you know, there are all kinds of lawyers and there are
some people who are busy making the deals and there are some
people who are really very good at drafting things very
(33:54):
precisely, et cetera. So within the legal profession,
it's like the medical profession, you specialize in
one thing and all you really know is the one thing you
specialized in. And even when you specialize in
a particular area, are you, you know, behind the scenes or the
person who's out front? It's different skill set.
(34:16):
Were your parents pleased with your career?
My father more so then my mother.
My father very much encouraged me.
Once I became very successful. Of course my mother was very
proud, but she did not encourageit.
When I said I wanted to go back to school and I wanted to go to
law school, she thought I was crazy.
Remember, this was in, you know,the late 50s, early 60s.
(34:40):
Women didn't do that. And she wanted me, you know, get
married and have kids and becomea school teacher.
And then you can be home at 3:00when your kids get home from
school. Only I didn't want to become a
school teacher. And it was my father who said
you can do anything you want to do.
You want to do it. You go do it, kid.
Go for it. You were quite a pioneer then
(35:02):
because that was not common then.
You probably ran into a lot of brick walls.
There must have been a lot of challenges.
Well, I was very lucky. I also had a very good,
supportive husband who was also a lawyer.
And I guess if you were writing a book, you'd look back and
you'd say, well, I had the father who was out mowing the
(35:23):
lawn when everybody else's father went to work.
And he said, I'm going to do what I want to do and pursue the
career I want to have. And he passed that along.
If I wasn't in school, I wasn't going to get a penny.
If you're not in school, you know, you go out and wait on
tables, whatever. But if I was in school and I was
(35:44):
pursuing a what he saw a legitimate goal and whatnot, he
would make sure that that could happen.
And I got very high grades. You know, they've been in the
bottom of my class. Maybe it would have been a
different story. It was a bargain.
As we said, my husband and I said to our kids when they were
(36:05):
growing up, you don't have to worry about having your school
paid for. This is a partnership.
We will pay for your school if you do well and get the grades
and you can get into a good school.
That's your part of the bargain.My father didn't word it that
way. That was the same sort of thing.
So he very much encouraged me. And then I did get married and
(36:28):
have children. So my mother was huge satisfied.
She got her grandchildren. You know, both of you chose
stuff that wasn't easy, but you worked hard and did it.
And there isn't anybody's life that doesn't have its
appointments and it's ups and downs and they may be different
for different people, but nobodyescapes unlocked.
(36:53):
Yeah. Are there other lessons you feel
like you've gained from your parents that you look back and
and say, ah, I picked that up from them?
Oh, very definitely. My father specifically.
I learned to have the courage ofmy convictions and above all, he
was incredibly moral. If something was not ethically
(37:18):
correct, even though it might benefit him or benefit his
career or whatever, he would nothave anything to do with it.
He maintained that very high level of integrity and I
certainly I aim to mimic it. Yeah, sometimes it's difficult
(37:40):
to speak up or to make a decision based on I really know
that this is not right, I need to say something or somebody.
It can cost you, but in the longrun, that's what my dad taught
me. You know, you got to have that
integrity or you don't really have anything and it ends up
biting you later. I would agree.
(38:01):
I would agree. I have 3 grandchildren and the
two children and three grandchildren.
One has two kids and the other has 1 and I have a 15 year old
grandson who never met my fatherand in fact his mother never met
my father and my son. My son's child, who is also a
(38:27):
lawyer and he's a trial lawyer but he has zero interest in
anything to do with show business.
My 15 year old grandson living in Colorado has been bitten by
the seer bug heavy. I love to say Grandpa Gill has
emerged. Grandpa Gill lives.
(38:49):
That's great to hear. And in the case of your dad,
there's concrete evidence they're running his cartoons now
on the ME TV Tunes channel because they're showing famous
studio cartoons and New York based cartoons as well as the LA
1. So they'll always be seen.
And the records, a couple of them are reissued, a lot of them
are still on YouTube and things like that.
(39:12):
And the radio shows, like I said, very easy to find.
So that's why we're so excited to get the chance to talk to you
because I wanted people to understand that when these
productions are done, they put really, really good people in to
do extraordinary work. And your daddy's work really has
touched millions of live. I'm so grateful that you took
(39:34):
the time to share these stories.I hope everybody else did too.
Thank you so much, Judy. Well, you're certainly welcome.
It's been a pleasure speaking toyou.
Thank you and thank you all so much for listening.
As always, please subscribe and if you want to comment, that's a
nice thing too. And until next time, bye bye.
(39:54):
We hope you enjoyed the fantastic world of Hannah and
Barbera with Greg Airborne. Please join us again and Many
thanks for listening.
Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, we love Head of our
Mirror. Welcome to the Fantastic World
of Hannah and Barbera, a celebration of Bill, Hannah, Joe
(00:32):
Barbera and the thousands of people, past and present who
have shared in their entertainment tradition.
And now your host, Greg Garbar. Thank you, Chris Anthony,
welcome to the fantastic world. We have a really fascinating and
wonderful guest today who is thedaughter of someone that
(00:53):
millions and millions of people have heard on radio and on
television and in cartoons, especially kids, because he was
pretty much in the 50s. He was the voice of Golden
Records and that person was Gilbert Mack.
And we are very delighted to have his daughter with us.
Judy Saffer, welcome to the show.
(01:14):
Well, I'm certainly glad to participate and fill in any
information I can about my father, about the individual as
well as the performer. He did so many golden records
and so deserves to be known better.
And I want to explain the depth of his skill and expertise and
(01:35):
background, because they didn't just hire anybody to do these
voices on these records. They hired the best in New York.
Well, my father was a typical performer and loved being in the
center of the attention. On the other hand, he was a
little bit different than very many other people because he was
(01:58):
very much a family man. His wife and his kids came
first. Everything came second.
I should say after that, his career and then everything else
was far below. He really was an incredibly
talented man, which was something I didn't recognize
when I was on child growing up. And I wished he was like
(02:21):
everybody else's father and justput on a, a suit and a tie and
went to work in the morning instead of hanging around the
house half the day and then going to work.
I realized as I grew up what an incredible ability he had.
He was really remarkable. And I have my own theory, which
(02:44):
I, my sister shares with me, that a lot of his talent came
from the fact that he had an incredible voice.
Had he been grown up sort of in a different family or something
like that, he could have almost been an upper singer.
Maybe he could have been, he hadperfect pitch.
And the result was that when he did a dialect, everybody thought
(03:06):
that was really the way he spokeand he could change his voice.
He often played against himself on radio.
When you could do that, you knowhe could take 3 characters on
the same show and nobody knew itwas in three different people.
Let's talk about your childhood.You're both your parents were
(03:26):
performers, correct? Not exactly.
My mother was a speech teacher and she also was a drama coach
for children before I was born, and that's in fact how she met
my father. But she was always somebody
behind the scene. The performer in the family,
(03:47):
originally anyway, was certainlymy father.
Subsequently, my sister and I both continued in his footsteps
to some extent, but not totally as he had done it.
But we were certainly more extroverted.
My mother was a behind the scenes individual.
He did radio, he did voices and cartoons.
(04:08):
Did you go to some of the sessions?
Did you go to the performances in front of an audience when he
did things like that? Somewhat.
I mean, we grew up in the New York area.
We grew up in the suburbs. And my parents were very
determined that both my sister and I had a typical quote, UN
quote, whatever that is, childhood, normal quote, UN
(04:31):
quote, whatever that is, upbringing.
So we certainly went sometimes with him, but mostly we listened
to him on the radio or actually watched him on television and
went to the local public school with all the other kids.
Do you remember some of the shows that he did on radio?
Well, yes, I mean, I, I am now 82, just to put this in
(04:54):
perspective. So I remember in the late 40s
sitting with my mother and sister at the kitchen table
listening to my father, and he would do things like Suspense
City Hospital, True Story, a variety of different early radio
(05:15):
programs. And I remember the early TV
shows that he did. He was on the Jackie Gleason
Show, Superman, Captain Kangaroowho did Naked City.
He did Car 5450. 4 where are. You.
(05:36):
I was at 30. Yes.
Don't you Remember Me? I'm Tony.
I come around at the police station.
Shiny shoes. Oh, yeah.
Tony's shoeshine. I haven't seen you around.
I give up for the shoeshine. Now I'm in the stock market.
The stock market? Try.
I start with $800, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
(05:57):
Hey, look, officer, you and the rest of the boys always very
nice to me. Buy Pratt Plastics.
Is it good? Is it good?
I'm putting everything in myself.
Today it's $0.50 a share. Next week it's going to be $50.
He was a constantly working actor, frankly, because he was
very, very good. He approached the business on
(06:21):
his own terms. It was very important to him to
be a family man. His own father had died when he
was six and he was going to be agood father and a good husband
and be home. And it did not go out with the
guys drinking and when a show was over or whatever, he came
home. But he found various people who
(06:44):
had similar values and who were in the business.
Then I would be allowed to hang around on the outskirts of
parties and things like that of the handful of people who also
were like that and were concerned about their own
families and stuff, and they would meet or have dinner
parties at different people's homes.
(07:05):
So they were there people, but they were a select group of
grounded people. I certainly recall.
Well, this was a little bit later on because I was older.
The people that my father did Astro Boy with became very good
friends of his and would be at our house a lot.
(07:27):
Probably more at our house than the other people's houses
because we had a house with a, you know, a big family room and
a backyard and all of that. So it made it easy for people to
congregate. Yeah, yes.
Speaking of Astro Boy, that's a major historical thing for
television because that was really the first.
(07:47):
Anime is very, very well known now and has become part of
almost mainstream. It is mainstream and American
cartoons imitate it now, but back then that was unusual.
And After Boy was the 1st cartoon series on network.
Stumpy said once. This is a cruel, cruel thing.
You're doing it right in the. Public eye, it's a disgrace.
Remember, robots are living things too.
(08:08):
Why? It's just like ancient Roman
gladiator We're gladiators, we're supposed to fight to the
bitter end. And the one who lost was.
I'm awfully sorry, but you see, every time I get mad, I sneeze.
And what was different then, then now is that it was people
who I guess the directors thought were qualified.
(08:30):
They were not famous people. They were not stars.
They were the backbone of a particular genre of being able
to do film dubbing, which my father did a tremendous amount
of European films that were brought into the United States,
to which they added English. And my father once again found
(08:53):
himself in a situation where he would play the voice of several
people in a movie, not just one.So it made it easy for the
director, 'cause they could hireJill Mack to do 3, sometimes
even four people in a movie. He did funny, weird things.
In a way. I mean he was how much is that
(09:17):
doggie in the window arf arf? I thought it was the ARF ARF.
I know that record. How much is that doggie in the
window? The one with the waggly tail?
How much is that doggie in the window?
(09:40):
I do hope that Doggie is for Sale was what he did, and he was
certainly during the late 40s, fifties, 60s, one of the busiest
actors in New York and yet people didn't know his name.
That was probably as a family, agood thing because he was able
(10:05):
to have a so-called, quote, normal family life because you
didn't have to deal with the hassles of being in public
places and people knowing him and things like that.
He could focus on you. Yes, of course he never worried
about what other people thought.He was a rugged individualist
and he did what he wanted. And as a young adult, when I
(10:29):
dabbled myself in show business and I got much better
understanding and appreciation for what he had been able to
accomplish, to remain the individual that he was and yet
to have this incredible career. I mean, my father never held a
regular job, quote, UN quote, whatever that is in his life.
(10:53):
And he managed to support a wifeand two children and a nice
house, a dog, you know, the white picket fence, the whole
bit. It was really incredible what he
accomplished and he did it because he was very good.
Yeah, he was. Any one of the genres he would
do would be a career in itself. We're talking about a vast
(11:15):
amount. He worked in radio during its
thriving days, but then continued to because he was on.
Yours truly Johnny, which was one of the last like 62, it went
off and then he kept doing radiowhen virtually none of it was
around because he was in the CBSmystery theaters, EG Marshall
hosted. Those were people like Mercedes
(11:36):
Mccambridge and some of the greatest actors in radio were
still doing that show. There was just a little tiny bit
of radio left mostly because of people like Elliott Lewis.
Hyman Brown must have been a long time friend to his because.
Actually they were very good friends.
He was one of the people, you know, that's the families had
(11:59):
become friendly. It's interesting that you
mention him. Yeah, he was the genius behind
Inner Sanctum and A Mystery Theater, which were virtually
the same show, but to be able tosustain that was remarkable.
We listen to that gosh, and you still can.
The nice thing about these shows, folks, is that a lot of
radio was transcribed and you can find it on archive.org.
(12:24):
Sometimes people put it on YouTube.
These are not necessarily difficult to find.
So a lot of his work still livesand the Golden Records are
especially dear to people like me because I had the little
yellow discs, little 6 inch yellow discs, and then graduated
to LP's. Right to this way folks, for the
big puppet show. I've got no strings to hold me
(12:52):
down, to make me Frick or make me frown.
Oh, morning, everybody's sheep. Pinocchio to sing in a dancing
puppet. I had strings but I wine free
there are no strings on me. And he was in so many.
And that was Arthur Shimkin, whowas also.
A friend was he of the family. That's another name that I
(13:15):
haven't heard for years. It brings back a lot of memories
of friend and family, and I alsogrew up with those little golden
records. And in fact, as you must
remember, I do. The one side was a story and the
other side was a short piece of classical music that was
supposed to introduce children to classical music, to series
(13:38):
music. And in fact it did to me.
To this day I hear something a Symphony and those, you know,
the main theme and I, I've got that little golden record in my
hand. Yeah, yeah.
What they would do is, and this was people like Mitch Miller,
who was the musical director there, Ben, Jimmy Carroll was
the arranger who was the arranger on the Sing Along
(13:59):
albums. They would take classical music
pieces and they would simplify them with a really small
orchestra to make them kind of kid friendly.
They sound almost like cartoon music.
And they would play for maybe a couple of minutes or less.
But once you knew, you know, a Mozart piece or a Bach piece
from that, you know, it was justlike when Bugs Bunny Cartoons
(14:22):
did it. There's Smurfs.
When you heard it later, you said, oh, that's Beethoven.
That's this, that's that. It was a great way to teach
kids. Yes, it was.
Anecdotally, you will find this humorous, of course.
And my father used to get, you know, a number of copies of the
different records that he made and he would pass them out to
friends and relatives and thingslike that.
(14:44):
But he'd always teach something for himself.
And when he died at age 94 and my sister and I were cleaning
out my parents home, in the basement in one of the cabinets
was a big stash of records and my father's handwriting saying
do not touch. These are mine in capital
(15:05):
letters. He was sure to keep one copy of
everything he did for himself. So he got samples.
Not all actors get them. I found that surprising as I got
more into entertainment was that, you know, the actors work
so hard. And sometimes I would go out of
my way if I worked on a project to get it to the actors because
(15:26):
once the producers moved on, it's like, now we're moving on.
But he did get copies of everything.
That's great. Yes, he did.
He did some of the things that he did like he was the first
Curious George and when they came out, the first record, you
know, and it was a big success. Then I could be a semi big shot
at school because I could wave it around and tell everybody
(15:48):
that was my father he used to give me because he personally
just didn't care. He had the right to vote for
Oscars and things like that because he was very involved in
the theatrical unions, didn't care.
So he would give them to me, hisballot to me, and say to me I
could pick who I thought ought to win.
(16:10):
Of course, I would run to schoolwith it so all the other kids
could rule. As I said, they are, you know,
making this major selection. By the way, the same thing
continued. I ended up as an attorney in the
entertainment industry and I would vote for the Grammys.
And I would say to my kids, hey,you want to pick who's going to
(16:30):
win, You know, then help me pickwho's going to win the next
Grammy, etcetera. So that tradition continued.
That's really, really cool. Were there certain records that
you like to play over and over again and.
No, I mean, I can't remember zeroing in on anything specific
to think except if something waspopular at the time.
(16:52):
And of course then I wanted because it was popular.
My father was very much an entertainer, and he actually
started in show business in, I guess, the early 1920s with his
brother. They were a song and dance team
in vaudeville and he always wanted to be the center of
(17:16):
attention and literally to the day he died when he was a song
in dance team with his brother, my father, again with this
wonderful instrument. His voice, though, he could play
the piano and he played the guitar and played the ukulele
all by ear. Never had lessons, but he did
(17:37):
have perfect pitch. He was a fantastic Yoddler.
And when he was dying at age 93 in the hospital, having had a
major heart attack in the emergency room, the doctor's
examining him and he's denying that he's very sick.
(17:59):
And he sits up and he starts knittling to the doctor and he
says, is this the race of a 93 year old man?
And the doctor said maybe not, but you do have the heart of it,
your old man. And you know he, he, he actually
died within the day which my mother was already deceased and
(18:23):
he could not have been an insolent, it would have been
awful. So it was better he went out,
but he was yodeling in the hospital the day he died.
Yodeling in the hospital, that's, you know, hey, go out
with them. It's sort of like making that
curtain call. Yes, yeah, he was certainly
eccentric, but he had so much talent that you sort of put up
(18:48):
with his eccentricities. And my husband and I later, but
you know, when we would have people over for a big dinner
party, a holiday or something, we always try to put the new
guest next to my father. So my father would have an
audience. And behind my father's back, my
husband would say to me, I just got some new meat tonight.
(19:12):
He could regale them with anecdotes, and they were
fascinated. And of course, the rest of us
had heard them many times. And we didn't have to pay that
much attention because he had somebody new to impress.
Do you remember what some of those anecdote like famous
people and stuff? What were some of those stories?
They were mostly about his own experience.
(19:33):
Those were the things that mattered to him.
He was never starstruck. I mean, that was, yeah, that
didn't mean anything to him. Then when he worked with famous
people, he had sufficient ego that he thought he was just as
good as they were, But he just wasn't as famous and and it was
meaningless to him. I mean, he worked on a film with
(19:53):
Barbra Streisand. He didn't have the big part.
He talked about her after she was at home only because he
thought she was so very talented, but not not because
she was famous. And that was not significant to
him. It didn't matter.
He did 2 Broadway shows. One was Adele Ferdano and the
(20:14):
other was a show called Springtime Folly.
And it was, as he admitted, a folly.
He was offered the lead in it and he came home and he said to
my mother and I guess my sister and I.
Maybe 8 and 10, something like that.
I don't remember the exact year,but he said, oh, this show is
(20:35):
really lousy. But they've offered me the lead,
he said, and I'll get a chance to see my name on the marquee
and Broadway and it's lousy. So what?
And he did the show and it lasted 3 days before it closed
that he was able to take pictures of starring Gilbert
Mack. So he got out of it.
(20:56):
What mattered to him most, you know, just the fact that he had
that one opportunity. But mostly he didn't do theater.
He changed along with the industry and did a lot of voice
overs and a lot of commercials. And I the commercials, of
course, is I think what made kind of the, the most money
(21:18):
certainly in the later years. And then when he reached his of
all about 70, he said, OK, I've had it, not the performing part.
But he said, I will never go to another audition again.
That's it. I'm done.
And, you know, an agent would call, ask him to go and he'd
say, who else would you call? And they'd say, well, you know,
(21:40):
that'd be this one. And that one.
He said, they're very good. You say I'm not a auditioning.
If they want me, OK, I'll come into New York and I'll do it.
But no, no, that's it. I'm done.
And he had enough money that he could live on the money that he
had earned in the earlier years of his life.
And. But if somebody happened to
recognize him when he went into the local delicatessen, he was
(22:04):
thrilled. Oh, that's nice.
He did work with some of the biggest names like Gleason, and
in their early careers he was onStanley, which was a series with
Carol Burnett and Buddy Hackett.Just lots and lots of the major
things. And also cartoons for the famous
studios and like Casper cartoonsand things like that.
(22:25):
Sir, is your name Montague? By Joe.
When you had something on TV, would you go like, oh, there he
is, I. Tell an anecdote of being a
young teenager about 1415 and considering myself somewhat
(22:47):
sophisticated because I had beenbrought up in a show business
family. And I'm on a date and we went to
one of the art movie theaters and we're sitting there and it's
a French film and there's Brigitte Bardot with somebody, I
don't remember who. And the guy opens up his mouth
(23:10):
and I just probably the top of my lungs, I said that's my
father. Well, not exactly, but it was
his voice. He had dubbed that role.
Whenever I heard his voice, because it was so much part of
my life, I recognized it was no doubt to me.
I could always recognize it and I would hear things.
(23:33):
I'm not expected to be him because I didn't know or, you
know, I wasn't as certainly as Ibegan to grow up and wasn't
around the house constantly. And I just hear something and I
always knew it was him. And even to this day, every once
in a while, I'm flipping throughsomething or there's something
that I pick up online or some show and there's some little
(23:55):
thing and I go, once again, I got, you know, Gilbert Max,
because sometimes things pop up like that.
Yeah. And he did so many narrations
for things that even if you think, well, I don't know the
name, Gilbert Mack, if you watched Captain Kangaroo, he did
narrations for some of those Weston Woods books.
It would be like a filmed version of a book and there
(24:17):
would be a narrator. He did a lot of those.
Once Upon a time there were 4 little rabbits and their names
were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter.
They lived with their mother in a sandbank underneath the root
of a very big fir tree. Plus, they played Golden Records
(24:38):
on Captain Kangaroo, so you werehearing his voice much more than
you thought. I mean, not just Gigantor and
Kimba, the White Lion and all ofthose films that were like the
Paul Tripp movies, that were foreign films for children, that
had New York voices, people likeyour dad and Corinne Orr and
Peter Fernandez. Lionel Wilson.
These are all great actors that don't get very much attention.
(25:01):
It wasn't about that. It was about the work.
It was about acting. And a number of times he was
offered the opportunity to go out to as they Go with the West
Coast and he declined. He said no, my family's here,
this is where I want to be and give it to somebody else.
He turned over a lot of work to Mel Blank who was very, very
(25:23):
confident, certainly very able bodied and a lot more ambitious
than my father. And he did impersonate Mel Blanc
on at least one of the golden Bugs Bunny records, The Merrily
We Roll Along one. That's him I.
Don't even remember? Good for you.
Yeah. Oh, that's definitely him.
(25:47):
Merrily we roll a lot. So happy and free.
Yeah. What's up, dog?
I was funny. That's me.
I'm the brilliant cut. So butter, I'm going to try to
cut that little bird. Who?
Name it Pretty pie. I'm merry hug.
I like the duck. I like to say who?
I'm related skunky known as Pepper.
Love you. I'm Papa Pig.
(26:10):
What a song as we merrily roll along.
I'm Alma Fred and I'm known as arabbit hunting fool.
I miss my muck at shooting, but my muck's so good at school.
I'm fucked for like oh I'm the boss, there's no one does to
fly. If I checked and I am, you'll
(26:31):
see the feathers fly. I'm your little friend got
treated and I'd like to add justa tiny but don't ever get me
mad, I'm not. That we have a fucking pound I'm
your somebody Sam Bang Bang yourdeadly down.
Barely be rolling along the don't forget, get happy, don't
(26:53):
forget how to smile. Barely yes, barely.
We all sing the song and we barely roll.
And that brings us to the Hanna Barbera stuff.
I mean, it's probably been a long time since you've heard
these, but he was the first actor who was not the original
cast. It was not Doz Butler or Don
(27:14):
Messick. And in those days, they would do
what they called cover versions of songs and of films.
They did it on radio. They did it on records.
It was very normally done. So Golden Records hired your dad
to be every character that Daws Butler and Don Messick could do.
And we're talking like 20 characters on Little Records and
(27:37):
then on LP's. So unlike in From Rough and
Ready, he did voices on those, He did Huckleberry hand voices,
he did Quick Draw, McGraw ones, Yogi Bear and all of those.
But I did read an article where he was really studying the
voices and doing the best he could because there's people who
say, well, it doesn't sound likethem.
But what folks have to realize is in the late 50s, you didn't
(28:00):
have home video, you didn't haveDVDs and Blu rays.
He may have been supplied with audio samples.
I doubt that there were a 16mm films.
You couldn't watch Huckleberry Hound except like once a week in
those days. And plus the time, how much lead
time do you have to do the recording?
He did the very best he could, but he didn't have the same
(28:23):
larynx as two other people, so sometimes he had to just wing
it. All about everybody.
Your favorite friends are all here.
There's Yogi Fair. Let's get this train on the
road. Pixie and Dixie.
Pixie. Have you seen Jinxie anywhere?
Lamb 2. Mises had better lookout.
(28:44):
I'm Jinxy the cat, and I'd like to make the acquaintance of
them. Two Mises all aboard.
Everybody with your engineer. Huckleberry Hound.
It's all aboard. Today we're on a merry way with
Huckleberry. Come on, enjoy the fun.
There's room for everyone with Huckleberry.
(29:07):
Two friends will all be there. There's Jinx and Yogi Berry.
So send. But what you're proving, and
what I usually say when people ask about this is this wasn't
(29:28):
just anyone given this assignment.
This was someone who was so experienced at doing multiple
voices and different characters,but they gave it the very best
shot it could be given. And millions and millions of
people bought those records, millions of them.
They were real popular. Well, you know, I ended up with
a tremendous amount of respect for the man.
(29:50):
The older I got and the more I began to see a bigger picture
and everything to recognize justhow incredibly talented he was.
And he made a whole life of it. And as a sort of slight aside,
if he didn't get hired for a couple of weeks, if he didn't
have any work, he'd start to panic.
(30:12):
And he would say to my mother, OK, that's it.
I'm going to Macy's. I'm going to get a job.
I'm going to sell shoes. That was his threat.
And my mother would say to him, give it another couple of weeks,
you know, we're OK Give it another couple of weeks, you
know, And something else I didn't realize, in fact, until
(30:32):
after he died, he kept very, very detailed little records, I
mean, handwritten records of allthe work that he did.
And I saw his notebooks and everything.
He earned a fair amount of moneyduring his life.
And we lived certainly nicely, but we didn't live
extravagantly. And the result was that when he
(30:55):
had some periods when he wasn't working very much, they had
money that they had saved and they would do some savings.
And then when he would make a whole lot of money, they
wouldn't spend it right away. He had no financial acumen at
all, but he would put it in the bank.
If he had been smart and knew how to invest, I would have been
(31:19):
a very rich lady when he died. But it's OK, no complaints.
No complaints. Like I said, he paid for my
entire education and he did makemy own life possible and I give
him a great deal of credit for what he accomplished.
You said you dabbled yourself inthe career.
What kind of things did you do? Well, I started out as a young
(31:42):
lady wanting to be a dancer, serious dancer, ballet dancer
and I, which from the public school I was going to and went
to a professional children's school in New York so I could
take dancing classes, take 3A day, etcetera.
And I did dance for a short time.
I danced with ballet company andI made a couple of movies then
(32:04):
and whatever. When I finally in my early 20s,
I said no, this is not what I want to do for the rest of my
life because what roomed ahead of me I saw not wrong ahead of
me was I end up being a dancing teacher and that was something I
very definitely did not want to do.
Anyway, I ended up as a lawyer in the music business and did
(32:27):
quite well independently of my father and had a wonderful
career. Lawyer in the music business is
very interesting and we talk about that a lot because music
rights are very capricious and they're involve a lot of
complications and they're fluid.There's no set rate.
And so that could be so complicated and challenging.
(32:50):
That must have been quite a career.
Well, I was chief counsel at ASCAP and then at BMI and I also
was the president of the Copyright Society and very much
involved in lobbying in Congressto protect creators rights and
things. I had a very good career and.
(33:11):
Very impressive. You know, so I stayed close to
home in a way. And one of the advantages that I
had, I think, was not being the world's greatest lawyer.
But I have No Fear of public speaking.
Yeah. So I can testify comfortably.
I can talk before large crowds comfortably.
(33:33):
You know, my theater background certainly was an asset in my
legal career. Oh yeah, it's very theatrical.
Yeah. Lawyers are like actors in a lot
of ways. Well, certainly trial lawyers
are, you know, there are all kinds of lawyers and there are
some people who are busy making the deals and there are some
people who are really very good at drafting things very
(33:54):
precisely, et cetera. So within the legal profession,
it's like the medical profession, you specialize in
one thing and all you really know is the one thing you
specialized in. And even when you specialize in
a particular area, are you, you know, behind the scenes or the
person who's out front? It's different skill set.
(34:16):
Were your parents pleased with your career?
My father more so then my mother.
My father very much encouraged me.
Once I became very successful. Of course my mother was very
proud, but she did not encourageit.
When I said I wanted to go back to school and I wanted to go to
law school, she thought I was crazy.
Remember, this was in, you know,the late 50s, early 60s.
(34:40):
Women didn't do that. And she wanted me, you know, get
married and have kids and becomea school teacher.
And then you can be home at 3:00when your kids get home from
school. Only I didn't want to become a
school teacher. And it was my father who said
you can do anything you want to do.
You want to do it. You go do it, kid.
Go for it. You were quite a pioneer then
(35:02):
because that was not common then.
You probably ran into a lot of brick walls.
There must have been a lot of challenges.
Well, I was very lucky. I also had a very good,
supportive husband who was also a lawyer.
And I guess if you were writing a book, you'd look back and
you'd say, well, I had the father who was out mowing the
(35:23):
lawn when everybody else's father went to work.
And he said, I'm going to do what I want to do and pursue the
career I want to have. And he passed that along.
If I wasn't in school, I wasn't going to get a penny.
If you're not in school, you know, you go out and wait on
tables, whatever. But if I was in school and I was
(35:44):
pursuing a what he saw a legitimate goal and whatnot, he
would make sure that that could happen.
And I got very high grades. You know, they've been in the
bottom of my class. Maybe it would have been a
different story. It was a bargain.
As we said, my husband and I said to our kids when they were
(36:05):
growing up, you don't have to worry about having your school
paid for. This is a partnership.
We will pay for your school if you do well and get the grades
and you can get into a good school.
That's your part of the bargain.My father didn't word it that
way. That was the same sort of thing.
So he very much encouraged me. And then I did get married and
(36:28):
have children. So my mother was huge satisfied.
She got her grandchildren. You know, both of you chose
stuff that wasn't easy, but you worked hard and did it.
And there isn't anybody's life that doesn't have its
appointments and it's ups and downs and they may be different
for different people, but nobodyescapes unlocked.
(36:53):
Yeah. Are there other lessons you feel
like you've gained from your parents that you look back and
and say, ah, I picked that up from them?
Oh, very definitely. My father specifically.
I learned to have the courage ofmy convictions and above all, he
was incredibly moral. If something was not ethically
(37:18):
correct, even though it might benefit him or benefit his
career or whatever, he would nothave anything to do with it.
He maintained that very high level of integrity and I
certainly I aim to mimic it. Yeah, sometimes it's difficult
(37:40):
to speak up or to make a decision based on I really know
that this is not right, I need to say something or somebody.
It can cost you, but in the longrun, that's what my dad taught
me. You know, you got to have that
integrity or you don't really have anything and it ends up
biting you later. I would agree.
(38:01):
I would agree. I have 3 grandchildren and the
two children and three grandchildren.
One has two kids and the other has 1 and I have a 15 year old
grandson who never met my fatherand in fact his mother never met
my father and my son. My son's child, who is also a
(38:27):
lawyer and he's a trial lawyer but he has zero interest in
anything to do with show business.
My 15 year old grandson living in Colorado has been bitten by
the seer bug heavy. I love to say Grandpa Gill has
emerged. Grandpa Gill lives.
(38:49):
That's great to hear. And in the case of your dad,
there's concrete evidence they're running his cartoons now
on the ME TV Tunes channel because they're showing famous
studio cartoons and New York based cartoons as well as the LA
1. So they'll always be seen.
And the records, a couple of them are reissued, a lot of them
are still on YouTube and things like that.
(39:12):
And the radio shows, like I said, very easy to find.
So that's why we're so excited to get the chance to talk to you
because I wanted people to understand that when these
productions are done, they put really, really good people in to
do extraordinary work. And your daddy's work really has
touched millions of live. I'm so grateful that you took
(39:34):
the time to share these stories.I hope everybody else did too.
Thank you so much, Judy. Well, you're certainly welcome.
It's been a pleasure speaking toyou.
Thank you and thank you all so much for listening.
As always, please subscribe and if you want to comment, that's a
nice thing too. And until next time, bye bye.
(39:54):
We hope you enjoyed the fantastic world of Hannah and
Barbera with Greg Airborne. Please join us again and Many
thanks for listening.
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