October 8, 2025 • 110 mins
WORTH THE WAIT! Johnny Whitaker is WAAAYYYY more than that cute little kid on "Family Affair". You will be amazed....and what a great guy. We have to say this podcast has opened up so many avenues to so many people with such amazing histories. We hope you enjoy this one as much as we did.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
I saw I'm sitting in the rim. Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
You're the Cocles, I'm Paul, I'm Bob, and I'm Susan
Cowcill and welcome, Welcome, one and all to the.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Calcil Podcast, where we have fun, fun, fun, even when
we're being serious every single week with our music stories
and weekly special guests from all walks of life.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
All of us can use a break sometimes take a breezer.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Right right right, Well, if that's true for you, then
you have a ride at the right place at the
right time.
Speaker 4 (00:37):
So we want you to sit back, bringing back and escape.
Speaker 5 (00:41):
With us and to our world of harmony, laughter and
tom foolery.
Speaker 6 (00:46):
So let's get to it. Here's today's episode of the Castle. Yeah,
we are here, right, We're on time.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Hey, look, I'm looking up a condition. Hi, everybody.
Speaker 7 (01:01):
We do have Johnny Whitaker here. We have some things
we can talk about. Not a lot, I guess, because
Johnny's going to come on at noon. But it's funny
because Johnny he texted us and said, hey, listen, you
know I got this condition CRS, so could you please
give me a heads up phone call so I don't
miss this episode? And I bit I looked up CRS.
(01:23):
It's some complicated medical thing. Okay, yeah, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 8 (01:27):
I'm so sorry.
Speaker 7 (01:28):
And now he's as old us. It meant it meant
can't remember shit. So it's like it's a good condition.
And man, I think all of us have that at times.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Can I can I please follow this up with him
and with this very thing. So y'all know my mother
in law Sydney, and I was just hanging out with
her and we were talking about this very thing because
sid is definitely on her way down Demnsha Road, which
she calls what the f so?
Speaker 4 (01:51):
But she says to me today.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
She goes, you know, I've been thinking about it. I'm
not worried about not being able to remember anything. She said,
I decided the most important thing now in my life
I need to remember is who gave me what gift?
Speaker 8 (02:05):
Oh okay, that's all I'm going.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
To care about from this point on. And I went wait,
and she was not kidding.
Speaker 7 (02:13):
She said, that's a good one. I thought you were
going to say, is when my next dose of medicine.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
Is No, she cannot know.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
No, you know no, she says to that, because we
have to give it to her now. So whoever gives
it to her, she'll say, well, she you're the twelfth
person tried to O D me since noon, because she's
under the impression she's already taken her meds.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
It's hilarious.
Speaker 8 (02:33):
That's good, it's fun.
Speaker 7 (02:36):
I got a quickie here at cascil dot com. We
have a guestbook.
Speaker 8 (02:41):
Now.
Speaker 7 (02:41):
The difference between the guest book and Facebook and everywhere
else is the way it's rigged is you go in,
you leave a message, and you get on with your life.
The people read your message, they get on with their life,
and the two will never meet. Okay, they don't leave
contact info. You can't say thank you, You can't say
what a beautiful thing. There's nothing I love boards like that,
(03:03):
by the way, they just want you to know something.
But this was good.
Speaker 8 (03:06):
This is from Rick in Edison.
Speaker 7 (03:09):
Okay, when Indian Lake came out, he and his brother walked.
Now they lived in upstate New York. They said the
nearest record store was seven miles and they walked when
Indian Lake came out, seven miles by that forty five
and walked seven miles home. And people, when we're old
like we are, and Rick is old like us, these
(03:31):
miles when I say I walked three miles to school.
I walked three miles to school unless Myers Lake was frozen,
and then it was a mile and a half. This
stuff's true, Okay. Now, Rick and his brother did this.
His brother died when he was forty eight in two
thousand and three, way too young. But he wanted us
to know that every time he hears Indian Lake, he
(03:52):
relives that walk with his brother, and that he knows
his brother is looking down on him. He doesn't do
the fourteen walking, he lives it mentally.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
That is super sweet, you know, without super good, good,
super good. And that reminds me of you guys talking
about walking in the Anchorage down to play basketball somewhere.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
You two, I don't know where you were going. You
walked from the house.
Speaker 6 (04:17):
We were going to the field house and house later.
Speaker 8 (04:23):
But you walk. You walked everywhere. No, Susan, you guys
did good. Myers Lake.
Speaker 7 (04:29):
We were in the fourth, fifth and sixth grade, so
you guys are very young. But mom and dad made
us walk everywhere, and we went to Saint Joseph School.
You look up, go ahead, I've seen the.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
St.
Speaker 8 (04:43):
Joseph School.
Speaker 6 (04:43):
We how did you go?
Speaker 4 (04:45):
What route.
Speaker 8 (04:46):
Could you have taken right up West End Avenue?
Speaker 4 (04:48):
Okay?
Speaker 7 (04:49):
And then you went up to the big highway. I
forgot the name of it. That's up there, you know it.
It's all I do.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
You turn off of it to go down to the house.
Speaker 8 (04:55):
Yeah, it's what the.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
Center was on.
Speaker 7 (05:00):
Yes, that's an area, but the street had a faith.
It's in there, you'd see it. But also when we
had choir, because we were in the choir, so in
the choir you had to take the six am Mass
for two weeks in the year. You split that up
between the choir members because they had a truncated choir,
like six of us for the six am Mess. Even
(05:22):
in that two weeks in the winter, in the snow
up hill, you went out. You started out at four
thirty or five, and you got there, okay. And what
happened to me, you guys, was there was a neighbor,
a couple, an elderly couple on that street that kept
watching me do that. They were up early, and the husband,
(05:43):
the dad came out and said, what are you doing?
Why are you out here? And I said, I'm walking
to I got the church. I got Mass at Saint
Jose's I'm in the choir. And from that day on,
for a week and a half, that guy got up
and drove me to Saint Jose. Oh wow, yes, and.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
You know what the conversation that house was four little
kids down the street, those poor little kids with these people,
let's help them out.
Speaker 8 (06:08):
I never thought of that there.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Oh yeah, that would have been my thing.
Speaker 7 (06:12):
I would have went, really, don't plows our driveway with
a shovel for five bucks?
Speaker 8 (06:17):
Wasn't that him? Yeah that's me, that's me.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
And we also in Canton, we lived on Smith Smith
Avenue or street.
Speaker 6 (06:26):
Street that was born and that was another walk. We
walked the other way towards Saint Joe's. But we had
to walk that walk too.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
We feel like that was closer, wasn't it on more.
Speaker 6 (06:37):
In the I don't remember.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
He's right.
Speaker 8 (06:39):
You walked everywhere.
Speaker 7 (06:41):
We we had serious bicycles, maybe starting on Indian Avenue. Seriously, seriously,
you walked everywhere. It just was amazing. I don't remember
a bike on Whopping Road. We must have had little bikes,
but I can't remember any.
Speaker 8 (06:54):
You walked. Everything was closer. Yeah we walked, Yeah, you walked.
And then that walk that's when I was around with
you guy.
Speaker 7 (07:00):
When it was winter on that walk, that three mile walk.
If myers late froze over, now here's how nutty of
your parents are. You got to stick and you know,
we were veterans of the lake. We could tell all
it's frozen about how deep is it frozen? So you
got to stick and you stayed near the edge, of course,
because you've got to cut across and right you're tapping.
Speaker 8 (07:20):
The ice to make sure it's solid.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
And because we all saw what happened, it's a wonderful life.
Speaker 8 (07:29):
Yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 7 (07:31):
And then the other thing. The last thing for me
is somebody said they saw us at Higgins High School,
okay years ago, and it got me going on the
high schools, the North Bergen. I think we played Indian
Lake High School itself even later when we went back
there that time, and how fun it was to play
high school auditoriums and gymnasiums. It would rock us.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
It was fun, must have been wild.
Speaker 7 (07:58):
Hey, as soon as we got not an auditory, but
if it was a high school gymnasium, we immediately thought
that any Beach Boys song we're doing, Hey.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
You guys wouldn't that be kind of of a kick
to do. It's just book a little, a little high
school tour.
Speaker 5 (08:17):
Well, you know what, in nineteen sixty seven, we actually
played here at Bend High School.
Speaker 8 (08:25):
Yes, yes, it's crazy.
Speaker 6 (08:28):
And somebody had a picture of it, and there we.
Speaker 8 (08:30):
Were and then remember Locra Santa High School.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Come on, yes, oh yeah, hey that's the day. Hey, look,
that's the day Lauren Stogel came. Lauren Stogel is the
daughter of Leonard's yea, And this little girl.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
Walked up to me.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
She could I guess we were in our twenties. And
she says to me, is it true? I mean she
just went high. Lauren Stogel, I need to.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
Ask you something, not how have you been nothing? Is
it true?
Speaker 2 (09:00):
My dad took all your guys his money. And I said,
I don't know if he took it all, but he arranged,
helped arrange for it all to be taken. And she
and she just started crying.
Speaker 7 (09:12):
Now, guys, just so you know, Lenny Stogel was our
manager at the time. This is his daughter years later.
Speaker 8 (09:20):
Millions years later, everyone too.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
And she really was. She was so sad.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
She was like, I feel so terrible and I'm like, honey,
I think you felt terrible enough. You lost your parents
and we're fine, and look, you know, but man, that
was sad.
Speaker 8 (09:37):
Yes, chriscenta, Hi, but it's interesting, it's very interesting.
Speaker 7 (09:40):
She took on a little bit of the pain of
that where anything mine our dad did or mine dad.
Speaker 8 (09:45):
He is like, going, that guy's a knucklehead man.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Thank god we were wired though for him.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
Yeah, the Crescenta Valley High shows, we made thirty thousand
dollars for all of the athletic departments at CV thirty
grand and what we had them do was like, so
the tennis, the girls tennis club, we gave them tickets,
We gave the football team one of those sixty six kids.
(10:13):
They we gave it to the swimming. Everybody got part
of this, and the and and whatever. Like the football
team sold, the tickets sold, they got that money.
Speaker 6 (10:23):
It didn't it didn't all go into a big pot.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
And then equally, you know, the girls tennis team of
five girls sold the most tickets to that show.
Speaker 6 (10:36):
And that next year they were riding in a van.
Speaker 5 (10:39):
They had brand new outfits all because of that concert.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
And it was just us.
Speaker 7 (10:45):
Oh yeah, it was a benefit concert.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Yes, Miranda was a baby. I remember everybody was freaking out.
It was like having an Sjay around because there was like, wow,
a baby.
Speaker 8 (10:54):
Wasn't it a Christmas show?
Speaker 6 (10:56):
It was Halloween? It was Halloween.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
It was Halloween.
Speaker 6 (10:59):
There was act of Hey, it had.
Speaker 8 (11:01):
A theme, right, Mark, we had to get.
Speaker 5 (11:06):
MARKA came and also Jeff Jeff Hillinger was there that night,
Llinger doing sound.
Speaker 8 (11:15):
Yeah, that was pretty cool.
Speaker 7 (11:17):
All right, So school Tour twenty twenty seven, Well, okay,
reaching out.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
I think it's a fun idea.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Guys hardly maybe colleges at least older kids who might
get a kick out of it.
Speaker 8 (11:28):
I love college. I love the high schools. Man. Everyone's
ignoring the high schools.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Right, Yeah, it was a high school reunion tour.
Speaker 6 (11:36):
Yeah, I mean, if we it's funny because.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
You know, you get the people from that year to
come back for you.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
But but how cool would it be for just us
to put out this thing saying, yeah, we want to
play high schools.
Speaker 6 (11:49):
We did it in the sixties, and.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
Who knows high schools would reach out and go, man,
come to our place, Bill kidding.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
I mean for real? And then even and then even
poster out and say Hey, you know you know who
you are.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
We played your high school in sixty eight sixty seven.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
And like, if you want to see a reunion show,
come on out and get your.
Speaker 6 (12:09):
High I love it.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
It's great.
Speaker 8 (12:13):
You're hearing us north Bergen.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Huh hearing us everyone here in high school.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
People who saw us at your high schools report in.
Let's get this rolling.
Speaker 8 (12:22):
Here's a cool council factoid.
Speaker 7 (12:24):
Okay, that just came in off of the ap clicker
thing there no.
Speaker 8 (12:32):
So who was it.
Speaker 7 (12:37):
There's a show coming out on Peacock, okay called Ponies
p O N I E. S. I think it's an acronym. Okay,
and it's about nineteen seventy seven CIA cole War Moscow.
Kind of that kind of show. Cool, and they doubt
because they would like to use two by two in
their show, and that is very exciting to us.
Speaker 8 (13:02):
I think most exciting part of that request.
Speaker 7 (13:04):
To me is that it isn't one of the three
biggest hits, and it's a song where I would have
personally thought, and I did think, like, how in the
heck did they ever come across that?
Speaker 8 (13:16):
So that's what's going to happen, and.
Speaker 7 (13:21):
It's probably gonna be next year because they're just getting
rights and stuff, so that means they're filming in their
underway now.
Speaker 8 (13:26):
But that's what it's called.
Speaker 6 (13:27):
Po N I E S.
Speaker 8 (13:29):
I think it was.
Speaker 6 (13:29):
I have it right here.
Speaker 5 (13:31):
Two secretaries at the American Embassy in nineteen seventies Moscow
becomes CIA operatives after their husbands are killed, uncovering a
Cold War conspiracy.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
Love it good like that?
Speaker 7 (13:44):
You know, it's funny. I should let everyone know when
they request a song like this from us personally and
not from our record company. They didn't get a hold
of Bombed of Bar. They didn't get all right. It's
like they tell you what episode it's going to be in,
and they are going to use exactactly one minute and
twenty seven seconds of two by two in this episode.
(14:05):
And I'm going, Wow, they're reminiscing about their husband's dying
or something. What two by two opened up the gate?
We know who's lord?
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Oh that's pretty heavy. But here's the cool thing, y'all.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Although CASSII people know this back there was a time
when we would hear about our songs being used in.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
This or that or this or that, and we.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Never got a dime Frankly, we obviously didn't care that much,
or we would have done something about it a lot sooner. However, now,
since Steven am Brown's came in long ago and got
our royalties given back, we actually get paid for this stuff.
So I wanted to acknowledge that it was years that
we did not and I am grateful.
Speaker 7 (14:44):
And the two by two story is a very interesting story.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
No no, boy boy, and I just learned it.
Speaker 8 (14:52):
Of how that song came into.
Speaker 6 (14:55):
Well, i'll tell you what. I'll tell you what I
was just going to say. I remember the night. Man.
Speaker 5 (15:01):
I don't know if we were at you know, eight
eighty eight or were we at a studio, but I
remember Bill coming in all frazzled and frayed, and I
remember him talking to Dad and David Ray and Bill
was there for money, man, and he just that was
what he was after.
Speaker 6 (15:20):
And I just remember that night.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
I remember.
Speaker 6 (15:23):
I don't remember hearing it going down, but I remember it.
Speaker 7 (15:26):
It was in California, not eighty eighty eight, because that's
New York.
Speaker 8 (15:29):
This is way you know that.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
But remember, but listen, what I wanted to know, guys,
is it Bob you recanted this story yesterday or we
were podcasting something. You said they went down and registered
with BMI as right a story. Wait wait, wait please,
I just want to get one thing clear. Did Dad
register as a writer when you said that or just David?
Speaker 8 (15:53):
No, both of them, so I had no.
Speaker 7 (15:57):
No, they didn't. They were desperate, guys. These are desper
for times.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
They were desperate. Bill was desperate.
Speaker 7 (16:03):
Understand another episode. We will share the you in my
mind story. Okay, that's that's for the future. Okay, tell me.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
I can't wait. I know nothing.
Speaker 8 (16:14):
It's horrific.
Speaker 7 (16:15):
So but with two by two, you know, we're still
on MGM and Bill's been thrown out of the band,
and right Paul said, and.
Speaker 6 (16:24):
He was wow.
Speaker 7 (16:26):
So that's who we bumped into at that time. He's
a mess, you know, and Paul's going to deal with that.
What we will get to the Bridey Murphy episode. People,
I've been getting emails sometimes and info at calcol where's
the Bridy Murphy episode?
Speaker 6 (16:40):
It's come in had a boy.
Speaker 7 (16:42):
So Bill was a mess. He needed money. He had
a song he wrote, two by two. So David Ray,
who was part of our management team and our dad
went that had no money. This is towards the end
two by two, we're hanging by a thread, folks as
a business. Uh So they went down to be in
my registered as writers and publishers and right writers and publishers.
(17:07):
Based on that, we're able to get a loan of
money that they could use to give to Bill to
get the song.
Speaker 8 (17:15):
And they gave it to Bill.
Speaker 7 (17:16):
I think it was three grand and Bill gave up
all the rights, the publishing and the writing right to
two by two.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
So so these two guys looked at Billy when he
came and said, I need money, guys, I need it badly,
went well, I'll tell you what we're gonna do.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
You got that nice little song, we want you to
sell it to us. S.
Speaker 7 (17:34):
I guess that's what you do to your kids. I
guess personally is Bill would not be that with it
in terms of them and doing this, but this is
as he's offering. Okay, it's like, look, I remember the
song is great. It's a good demo. You know it's great.
It was they were it was him and why and
(17:55):
you know those guys that did that heavy man and
maybe he co wrote it. I don't know. You know,
some people don't really say that when it's in this
kind of situation, I need money. But nonetheless, okay, So
decades later they this place wants to use two by
two and they got to chase down who owns the copyright.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Tell the cool story about David.
Speaker 7 (18:18):
They found us, the artists. We're fine, you know. And
now that, like Paul said, you know, Susan said, we're
in on this stuff.
Speaker 8 (18:27):
Now, guys sag after. We're all good if they use
our stuff.
Speaker 7 (18:31):
But now they came to info at cascil dot com.
Ponies did came to I'm looking through info at caulcil. Hey,
we're looking for you. You found us, so yeah, and
hey we need to know who.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
But look, look we need to make write the story
about David Ray and what he did. The man who
with my dad bought Billy's song for three thousand bucks.
He ended up calling us to say, hey, these guys
are looking for you, guys to give you.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
Money for you by two. I'm not taking it. Well
where do I send it?
Speaker 7 (19:03):
That's right, Well, that's important that after this last step,
so they find us through info and now, of all things,
you know, I gave him, I said, the guy that
runs this thing this song, David Ray, I gave him
his email address, and then so they then David got
in touched with the jests, and David got ahold of
us said, hey, look, you're not gonna believe this, but.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
That made me.
Speaker 8 (19:25):
Really it was amazing.
Speaker 7 (19:26):
Yeah, David said, I'm just gonna you want me to
close this deal, I'll just sign it over to you.
Speaker 8 (19:31):
And I say, absolutely.
Speaker 5 (19:33):
There's no way, there's no way David would honestly, god,
I mean, there's no way that he would have not
mentioned that to us and taken that money.
Speaker 6 (19:44):
Of course, no way, there's no way he would have
done that.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
No.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
And but here's what's so amazing.
Speaker 6 (19:49):
Too nice a guy, really, so right, and so you.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
Know, you watch these whole are lives and all these
things that happen, you know, and like you just it's
like it is a amazing to me that so much
wildness can go on. And now it is twenty twenty five,
and those of us who are left from this wild ride, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
It to me is a very beautiful thing that David Ray,
this old beautiful man friend of ours, said hey, knuckleheads,
here's your money.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
Yeah, they know this, and these older people know the
story better than we know the story he wrote it.
Speaker 7 (20:25):
But what's funny is David, when they signed up with BMI, uh,
they called their publishing company just in Time Publishing justin
jus T I N and the last name th h
y M. And the reason they called it that was
David says that they got to check just in time
and so they called it then a desperate there, the
(20:49):
desperation is going to get worse, okay, with you in
my mind. Actually, the desperation is going to turn into
fraud with you in my mind, and we're going to
have to take part in it because we did what
we were Okay, So I learned a lot from these podcasts.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
I gotta tell you, guys, Johnny.
Speaker 7 (21:05):
Whittaker, we'll put off, we'll have you in my mind
little conversation and other things we wanted to talk about.
Speaker 8 (21:12):
But we see right now.
Speaker 7 (21:14):
We're so excited because there, Yeah, what an uplifting background
you have.
Speaker 8 (21:22):
I like it with that blue sky. Look at you man, well.
Speaker 6 (21:28):
Look at all of you gorgeous human beings.
Speaker 8 (21:30):
Wow. I got to look for a minute. Oh my god,
this is the first.
Speaker 7 (21:35):
Time we're meeting Johnny guys. You know kind of a
quote unquote in person okay.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
Okay, and I'm just gonna see Johnny.
Speaker 5 (21:42):
I can see Johnny eleven, twelve year old Johnny in you.
Speaker 6 (21:48):
To see that a lot, but I'm seeing him. Paul.
Speaker 8 (21:51):
I did the same thing. I looked and I said, oh, yeah,
there is there.
Speaker 7 (21:54):
He is Binanza, gun Smoke. Those are the shows I
remember with I mean, I remember the TV show.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Of course.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
Let's let this guy.
Speaker 7 (22:04):
Epitomizes technicolor because every picture I see of him in
these old shows, that beautiful technicolor that I loved.
Speaker 8 (22:11):
It's not that way anymore. But he's in it.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
He's in it right now.
Speaker 8 (22:16):
No, and that you know what I mean by technicolor.
Speaker 6 (22:18):
Disney had absolutely you know my turn.
Speaker 8 (22:22):
We're doing all the talking.
Speaker 6 (22:23):
Hey, Johnny, how you doing. Welcome to the show. Well,
thank you very much, glad to be here with you all.
Speaker 8 (22:30):
Thank you.
Speaker 6 (22:31):
This isn't let the young lady say something.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Oh my god, you noticed me number one? Yay?
Speaker 6 (22:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
Those are my brothers and.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
So obviously hey, I've got one. I've got two brothers
and five sisters.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
Are you in the middle? Where are you in.
Speaker 6 (22:50):
The I am a middle child, which is why you.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
Just negotiated my time for me.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Paul is our middle child, and when he's not being
a pain in my butt, he's my associate.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Okay, Hi, Johnny Whittaker, and welcome to the Cowcil Podcast.
Speaker 8 (23:03):
Johnny Whitaker.
Speaker 7 (23:04):
Let me just wrap up the intro, ladies and gentlemen,
today's guest, and then I'll hand it to you, Susan.
And now Johnny understands because Susan had six brothers and
she never got a word in. So this is Johnny Whittaker,
he of Family of Fair fame, played Jody with Buffy
and all that, of the Disney movies. Of this guy
played Santa Claus. He's the first person I've ever personally
(23:27):
met who actually played Santa Claus in a movie, and
he did. I think that's a special thing. I don't
know if you took it seriously, but we'll get into that.
Speaker 8 (23:36):
But he's here. Is our guest, Susan. Take it.
Speaker 4 (23:39):
Thank you, Robert Paul Cowshill, Hi, Johnny.
Speaker 6 (23:44):
Hello.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
Look, I'm just gonna sitdre and be like, hey, I've
taken it. No, I am not, but I do want
to welcome you here.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
And needless to say, I am particularly excited that you're
joining us because why I was a huge family affair fan.
Speaker 6 (24:01):
Well, thank you, Okay, I watched.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
It all the time, and quite frankly, I thought maybe
if I got in touch with Uncle Bill, he could
maybe arrange for a fourth adoption because I thought I would.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
Fit in well with the kids. Yeah, so listen, I like.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
What I like to do is kind of take it back,
maybe a little bit before your fabulous career, which is
hard to do because you started so early.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
But right, so you're born in Van Eys.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Yeah, correct, nineteen fifty nine, at the end of the
Great fifties.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
And what's mom and dad do?
Speaker 6 (24:43):
Well?
Speaker 1 (24:44):
My father and mother met in college at Utah State University,
where my son now is head coach of the women's
soccer program.
Speaker 6 (25:00):
That is very cool, very cool.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
My uh, my parents met there. My mother got her
Mrs degree, and pH T missus and p h T
is putting Hovey through all right, remember, Okay, So that's okay,
(25:26):
So here you.
Speaker 8 (25:27):
Are, now you are.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
They moved to the brand new San Fernando Valley, which
had been a bunch of lemon, lime, orange and olive groves. Yeah,
and it was a brand new little part of North
Los Angeles. Dad started working as a junior high school
(25:53):
or middle school teacher for shop.
Speaker 6 (26:00):
He taught woodworking, he.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Taught metal and plastic and all kinds of cool things
that we all loved in junior high and Dad got
to teach it to junior high school students for the
next forty years.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
And I was born the fifth child on the day
before my parents' eighth wedding anniversary.
Speaker 6 (26:33):
And so I was not a surprise.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
No, and you're ruined the dinner out right.
Speaker 6 (26:39):
But my mother had been told by my father.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Who is in his family. I'm just looking in it,
says John Whittaker. Juanito, does that that's coming up on yours?
Speaker 4 (26:58):
Yeah, yeah, it's your history as well.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Yes, of course, but I just okay, there we go. Anyway,
So mom and dad and I was the fifth child.
There were three girls and one boy before me.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
Oh, and.
Speaker 6 (27:19):
My father was working three jobs. And we are very.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Especially at the time, very strong members of the LDS faith,
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints or
the Mormon Church, and the the Osmonds were living and
in the same congregation that we were in.
Speaker 6 (27:48):
Whoa cow and so you were always a ward? Correct? Yes,
we called them.
Speaker 5 (27:57):
Oh, so you've got to see the Osmonds if you're
in the war together.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Absolutely there because they were traveling. But when I was
three and a half years old or three and three
quarters years old in October, I was.
Speaker 6 (28:19):
A member of my mother's.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
A junior choir or the what they have, the children's choir,
and my sisters who my father, Well, when we were born,
my father told my mother that if all of his
children didn't come out singing a perfect sea, they.
Speaker 6 (28:49):
Were not his and my mother, my mother said, and.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
All of them saying a perfect see mom.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
But so you started singing right away. There was no
other path for you. You didn't want to be a fireman,
a doctor, a teacher, a ranger.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Well I wanted to be all of those things as well.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
Okay, but.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
After my my sisters were supposed to be singing the.
Speaker 6 (29:24):
Chorus to a new children's song.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
And I'm trying to get myself centered centered there anyway,
So my sisters were going to sing the chorus to
this new children's song, and this little girl was going
to sing the verses. It was a new song. All
of the kids didn't get to learn it in time.
(29:49):
So my mother took my sisters and this little girl. Well,
when my sisters weren't practicing with the little girl, they
practiced with me.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
Aha.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
So on the Saturday before the Sunday of the performance,
in front of the congregation of three hundred Mormons, the
little freckle faced soloist got the chicken pox.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
Oh my god.
Speaker 6 (30:21):
So the only.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
You know, I was the backup, and so I sang
the first verse, and the choir and my sisters sang
harmony to the chorus, and then the pianist played the
intro to the second verse. I forgot the words blazed,
(30:50):
and so now the the the pianist is playing the
intro again, and I just start singing words that were
not written.
Speaker 6 (31:05):
And of course my sisters are elbowing me.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
No, no, no, that's not right, and I'm just saying,
shut up, leave me alone. Just look out at the.
Speaker 6 (31:13):
Audience and smile now.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
And finally we got to the chorus, and then we
got the third verse.
Speaker 6 (31:24):
Could my sisters helped me with the third verse. And
after the.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Services, there was a member in the ward of the
congregation who came up to mom and dad and said,
a three and a half year old kid who can
hold his composure, not get scared and not start to cry,
and not get nervous with all these people watching him
making up words to a.
Speaker 6 (31:50):
Song that was already written.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
That maybe we should talk, And she said, my son
has done some commercials, and I think that Johnny should
go meet up with my agent.
Speaker 8 (32:06):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 6 (32:08):
And so I.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Did the next day, and that same day I got
my first job, which was an Okay used car for
Chevrolet Used Cars, and I played a.
Speaker 6 (32:22):
Used car dealer.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
Car dealer.
Speaker 8 (32:28):
Yeah, little Johnny Whittaker, right, Oh.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
It's easy to do. It's easy to do. I'm sorry
I got this.
Speaker 7 (32:35):
Yeah, you know. Is that kind of how because my
courses was with all the children.
Speaker 8 (32:42):
Why you?
Speaker 7 (32:43):
But I see, it's just the universe taking over and
it picked you at three and a half. It's not
like your parents said, ah, let's have this guy be
an actor.
Speaker 6 (32:54):
And my father, like I said, was working three jobs.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
He had a full time job as a teacher, and
he went in at six point thirty, cut all the wood,
got everything ready for the next day. Kids started to
come in by seven point thirty and eight o'clock of course,
the school bell rang, and he worked up until three
o'clock and at three o'clock he would leave to go
(33:24):
to his second job, which was a mechanic gas station,
so that he was part owner of and then lost
it all because of his partner being a bad person.
And then on the weekends, my dad was a weekend
(33:46):
warrior with the National Guard. And when I started working
and started bringing in in come, you know, Dad said,
maybe I can spend more time with the family.
Speaker 8 (34:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
So he just had the two jobs where the one
he did the weekend warrior stuff a couple of weekends
a month, and then also continue to teach for forty years.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
Wow, kind of you kind of allowed dad to.
Speaker 7 (34:23):
Take a bit of a breather at that young age.
Were you cognizant of your role and him being able
to do that or were you just living a happy, carefree,
happy I'm a little guy, I get to act life.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (34:39):
I had no idea.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
I mean I never saw one cent of the money
that I made. The only time that I saw money
was when we were on hiatus, which is when you're
not working and you're still kind of contracted for the
(35:01):
next season, but you're not making any money, so you
go to unemployment and at that time, we went to
the unemployment office and I had to be present, and
I had to sign my name, and I would give
the papers over with my mom next to me. Then
(35:22):
we would go to the cashier with the check that
they would hand over to me, and the cashier would
hand my mother the money.
Speaker 6 (35:30):
Chit chit chit, chit chit. And when I saw that,
I said, well, I signed for that.
Speaker 8 (35:39):
Okay.
Speaker 6 (35:39):
Oh so she gave me a five dollar bill.
Speaker 8 (35:43):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Okay, So Johnny, may I may? I ask as the
years toddled through, is that okay with you as it
sets now?
Speaker 4 (35:52):
Or is that not okay with you? How did that
fit into how does that fit into your well? I?
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Unfortunately, as time went on and I got older, my
mother and father always worked and they showed me the
importance of going to a job and working. Unfortunately, we
(36:25):
in my mother's last years, she and I did not
see eye to eye on a lot of subjects, especially financial,
and I had gone through a very devastating divorce. One
(36:45):
of the purposes was because of finances.
Speaker 6 (36:50):
And I, as most of us do, I blamed my
mother for it.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
She said, well, you don't see furs and limousines in
the front yard. We took your money and it was
all for one and one for all for.
Speaker 4 (37:15):
Sure, which pretty old school really, you know.
Speaker 6 (37:19):
And I supported that.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
And luckily because we lived in California, and two of
the main jobs that I had, family Affair and Sigmund
and the Sea Monsters.
Speaker 6 (37:37):
They were.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Contracted roles. And in the state of California we have
the Jackie Cougan Law, and the Jackie Cougan Law states
that any child working on a contract series or major,
(38:02):
like if you're under contract with the studio, that a
certain percentage had to be put away.
Speaker 6 (38:11):
So when I turned.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Eighteen, I got about a little under one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 6 (38:19):
Okay, got it for all that work.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Now, in the fourteen years that I worked, and quite
prolifically in those fourteen years, I made approximately about two
million dollars, and of that amount, I got about one
(38:47):
hundred thousand.
Speaker 6 (38:49):
So I was hoping and praying that my parents had.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Put aside of my money or the family's money into
some kind of a fund or something in that I
would find it or you know, it would be available
to me.
Speaker 8 (39:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
But in nineteen sixty eight, our family moved from Pacoima
which was a heavily Latino area, but a lot of
whites as well, and we went through.
Speaker 6 (39:35):
A darker portion of town which was where a lot
of blacks lived, and.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Martin Luther King had just been murdered, martyred, and we
had a white van, a white truck and another car
that was helping us move from San Fernando from Pacoima
to Silmar, at which time we went through the.
Speaker 6 (40:10):
Darker area of Pacoima and we.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Were pelted by rocks and whatever could happen because we
were a big white family coming through this darker part
of town. When we made it safely to San Fernando,
I asked my father, Dad, why do those people hate
me so much or hate us so much? And my father,
(40:37):
being a very wise, loving and culturally respectful individual, said, John,
they're not mad at us, they're angry at a situation.
Being Mormon, we knew what a prophet was. A prophet
(40:57):
is the leader of the Mormon faith. And so my
father said, for many of those people, their profit was killed.
Speaker 6 (41:09):
You remember Martin Luther King Junior.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
He was like their profit, and they're angry at that,
and so they took out their anger on us because
they felt they could. It's not right, it wasn't good,
but you have to understand the why of what they
were doing and.
Speaker 6 (41:32):
How they were feeling.
Speaker 8 (41:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (41:35):
Good, We moved into this big, beautiful home. We went
from three from three rooms to six rooms.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
And in that of course, I paid quite a bit
of the down payment and monthly mortgage because I was working.
And when my mother passed away my father had passed earlier.
(42:10):
In her will or it was that the home was
to be divided equally in seven in eight parts. And
I went to my mother's state president church leader at
the time, who was actually the person who was selling
(42:32):
my mother's home, and I just said, I'm not comfortable.
Speaker 6 (42:39):
With my mother's decision.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
And so I went to my brother who was the executor,
my younger brother, and I showed them my father's income
statements and my income statements for the same years. I said,
I don't want to make a big deal of all this,
(43:04):
because I know families have been hurt, harmed, and destroyed
by financial situations.
Speaker 6 (43:12):
But I worked and lost out on a whole lot
of stuff.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
Because I gave up my childhood to help keep this
family going and to live in the home that we're
about to sell. I don't want to make a big deal,
but I would like to make an offer that I
(43:40):
would take one quarter of the one hundred percent of
the sales, and that the three quarters would then be
split among the other seven siblings. And my one sister said, well,
you should get half of it or more, and I said,
I'm not looking for that. I'm not looking for money.
(44:03):
I'm looking for validation absolutely of the work that I did,
the time and the energy that I put into my
younger years. And there were a couple of holdouts, and
I said, if it's not unanimous, I will you know,
(44:27):
I will remove my request, but there will be animus
on my side and frustration, and I will feel that
none of you understood what I had to go through
right on, and my brother was able to negotiate with
(44:49):
the other two that weren't as excited and happy. And
today we still sing together, and we still are, you know,
in you know, my eldest sister had passed away by
the time my mother passed away in a car accident,
leaving behind.
Speaker 6 (45:10):
Six little children. But we, you know, we get.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Along pretty well. I mean, I don't know if any
of you can relate to you know, sibling rivalry and
yelling at each other and cutting out of each other.
Speaker 4 (45:39):
Boys except me. So there was a lot of yelling.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Okay, and then getting back together and being able to
sing a spiritual song together. And you know this weekend,
my brother and well, on Thursday, my brother and sisters
and I are going to my cousins opening night and
(46:09):
uh premiere of a film called.
Speaker 6 (46:17):
Yes, Oh, come on brain anyway.
Speaker 8 (46:21):
It's it sounds like us.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Look, we're just all took turns doing this. It's your turn, Johnny.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
Anyway. It's all about a come on, you can cut
this out when I'm uh.
Speaker 8 (46:38):
Yes, we can remember.
Speaker 5 (46:41):
A movie about the c I A no, no, no,
it's uh uh holy.
Speaker 6 (46:52):
Ruth and okay, take two.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
So this Thursday, my brother and sisters and I are
going to see a film that my cousin directed and
produced called Truth and Treason. And it's all about a
sixteen or seventeen year old.
Speaker 6 (47:16):
Mormon boy during.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
The occupation of the Nazis of Germany who decided that
he was going to get the truth about the Nazis
out okay, And he was decapitated for his actions but
(47:39):
was able to save a lot of people.
Speaker 4 (47:42):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
And so we're all going to get together to go
see that to support my cousin. And then we have
a family friend and we will be together on this
weekend in Palm Desert.
Speaker 6 (47:57):
And we'll be singing.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
And I don't know if they've invited us to sing
for the memorial service, but we will anyway together and
have a good old time. That is.
Speaker 5 (48:12):
So, just to backtrack just a little bit, So your
brother got the rest of the family to go quarter
for you.
Speaker 6 (48:20):
Three quarters for them. Exactly awesome, right on?
Speaker 4 (48:25):
Okay, all right, hi Bob, you get yours.
Speaker 7 (48:27):
Well, Okay, because Johnny, I just have a question in
the context of your family when you were all younger.
Now I understand how you started. It was just like,
you know, God had a plan for you. Okay, So
at three and a half implementation with all of your
great success as that was there. I know your sister
probably I think, became an actress. But didn't you get
(48:49):
to drag any of the other siblings into this business,
into this kind of success.
Speaker 8 (48:54):
I mean, you all had to be cute.
Speaker 7 (48:55):
I can't imagine you were the only cut and cute one.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
I mean, we all are pleasing to the site to
a certain extent, you know, some more than others, as
long as we have all of our teeth in.
Speaker 4 (49:16):
But did any of them follow down the path? Did
any of them?
Speaker 6 (49:21):
Well, all of my brothers and sisters.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
When I was given the role which I really didn't
have to fight for, for Tom Sawyer. An interesting little
side story, when I went to do the audition for
Tom Sawyer, my agent had told the producers, I've got
(49:46):
the only Tom Sawyer in Hollywood, and they said, oh,
Jody is too cute, and you know, he can't play
the role of Tom Sawyer. So the producers went all
around the country, meeting up with close to twenty five
hundred boys for the roles of Tom and Huck. When
(50:10):
I did the screen test, there were a few other
boys there that were you know, whittled down to a
few and I had done my first interview with the
screen test. Jeff East and Jodie Foster were there, Yeah,
she was Becky and the three of us did scenes together.
Speaker 6 (50:33):
And at the end of that.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
The casting director Ross Brown told my you know, and
when my mom and dad told me that I was
going on this audition for Tom Sawyer, I said, well,
I have been working every summer for the past X
number of years and I don't want to go. I
(51:00):
paid money to go to boy Scout Camp and I'm
going to a boy Scout camp, or are you? And
I said, They said, well, just go meet with them.
You know, it's important to go meet with people and
at least, you know, maybe on their next job or
(51:20):
their next you know whatever. Just go meet with them.
So I did, and I did the and when my
parents were asked to come into the production office, the
casting director Ross Brown said, well, Johnny, you certainly have
ugly up.
Speaker 6 (51:39):
You are Tom Sawyer?
Speaker 4 (51:42):
Are you freaking kid?
Speaker 8 (51:44):
That's good, that's great.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
And I said, what do you mean and he said, well,
we're giving you the role of Tom Sawyer. I said, oh,
thank you very much, but I'm not taking it. And
my mother and father looked at each other and look
at the casting directors.
Speaker 6 (52:03):
What do you mean?
Speaker 1 (52:04):
I said, I'm going to boy Scout Camp and production
begins on the fourth day of boy Scout Camp, and
I will not miss my boy Scout camp.
Speaker 6 (52:17):
So they made some arrangements and.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
I then would fly two days after the beginning of
production and with my sister, my oldest sister, who passed away,
and the rest of the family, and I told my
mom and dad that I would not do it unless
(52:42):
the whole family came out to Missouri with me.
Speaker 8 (52:46):
Well, aren't you the little tycoon?
Speaker 2 (52:49):
He's my hero right now, I should have pulled this
for my brownie, for us go ahead.
Speaker 1 (52:56):
And so.
Speaker 6 (52:58):
I got all of them to come out to Missouri.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
And instead of staying in the Ramata Inn, we took
the per diem money and the money for the rental
of the room for that month, and we got a
three bedroom apartment where we all lived right next to
(53:24):
the Ramada Inn, and a well, my one sister, my
one brother, who just got a job at McDonald's refused
to come right on, And but everybody else did come
out to the film, and they were all in the movie,
(53:47):
and I show a presentation with each of them where
you can see them running here.
Speaker 6 (53:53):
And my father, my mother didn't.
Speaker 1 (53:56):
My mother was doing all the ringlets, so she didn't
get a role. But my father was one of Muff
Potter's drinking buddies. And uh, you can see him in
Muff playing and drinking.
Speaker 4 (54:09):
And watch this tonight. I can't wait.
Speaker 8 (54:12):
That's pretty good.
Speaker 6 (54:13):
And I'll afterward.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
Here, I'll send you the uh, the video.
Speaker 6 (54:20):
Oh it would be.
Speaker 4 (54:21):
Great with with the family in it.
Speaker 6 (54:22):
That would be easy.
Speaker 4 (54:25):
Do I get to bring you back to family affair
at all?
Speaker 1 (54:28):
Sure? Absolutely?
Speaker 8 (54:29):
Brothers may I Yeah, you're next and then we're gonna
take turns. Go ahead, all right.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
I got to bring you back because like that's my
jam and uh, that's where you and I began. And
I was a huge fan and I've always wanted to
know And this is sounds so ridiculous coming out of
my mouth.
Speaker 4 (54:46):
At this moment, but it's it's what it is.
Speaker 2 (54:49):
How was it working with Brian with with with Kathy?
Speaker 4 (54:54):
Is that was that her name? Kathy? And and and
and so asked you, how was it? Did you enjoy it?
Speaker 2 (55:02):
Or was it? Was it complicated? I mean, you know,
and of course everything has all things? But was it fun?
And did you remain friends with Anissa as.
Speaker 1 (55:13):
It went along?
Speaker 8 (55:14):
All that?
Speaker 1 (55:17):
I had met Brian Keith the fall of nineteen sixty
five doing the film The Russians Are Coming, The Russians
Are Coming His We all stayed in a little motel
in Fort Bragg, North Caro, California, and that's where they
(55:45):
had built this little New England town to look like
it was something off of Connecticut or you know, Nantucket
or something like that, a little town. The only problem
is is that the sun rose on the town over
(56:09):
the ocean and would set behind. So they just had
to switch. Whenever there was a sunrise, it was a sunset.
Speaker 4 (56:18):
We had that in commercials. We're familiar with that moment anyway,
and as you get it on the sunset, who knows
any better?
Speaker 1 (56:25):
Right, right, right? Anyway, So Brian Keith and I became friends.
He had two daughters, didn't have any boys yet, but
wanted a little boy, and so we played ball.
Speaker 6 (56:41):
Out in the parking lot after work.
Speaker 1 (56:44):
And I'm writing a book and in my book I
talk about the fact that Brian Keith came over knocked
on the door, and my mother, of course, seeing this
gorgeous hunkah hunk, a man and movie star, knocked on
the door and said, can Johnny Whittako come out to play?
(57:09):
And my mom at the time, so that we could
save money my per diem, we purchased a little hot
plate and my mother was making me grilled cheese sandwiches,
but I called them boy cheese sandwiches because I'm not
going to eat a girl cheese sandwich. And we invited
(57:32):
Brian to eat with us, and he said, no, no, no, no,
You're gonna come with Jonathan Winters and I and we're
going to treat you to steak. And so that night
Jonathan Winters, Brian and my mom and I and of
course Jonathan Winters had lots of kids and had a.
Speaker 6 (57:57):
Great dinner with the two of them.
Speaker 1 (58:01):
But when it came time for family affair, Brian told
the producers that he wanted this little kid that was
in his.
Speaker 6 (58:09):
Film for some role.
Speaker 1 (58:13):
Now, the role of Jody was originally set for a
ten year old boy, the role of Sissy for a
sixteen year old girl, and the role of Buffy for
a six year old girl.
Speaker 6 (58:27):
Okay, so there wasn't a main role for me, but
they figured that.
Speaker 1 (58:31):
I could be a next door neighbor or friend or whatever.
So on the day of the screen test they brought
me in and I was the only six year old
boy with all these ten year old boys. But because
they wanted to appease Brian Keith, the main star of
(58:56):
the film, they had me read with a few of
the girls. Amissa was one of them. I also remember
pamelin Ferden. Oh.
Speaker 6 (59:08):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (59:09):
Lucy Krasnick's voice.
Speaker 1 (59:11):
Exactly was one of the other girls that I remember.
And when they saw that Anissa and I looked so
much alike, they said, this is Hollywood magic. This is
what we're going to change everything to twins.
Speaker 4 (59:29):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (59:29):
So I remember my mother on the phone talking to
my agent telling me that I got the role and
that I was going to be working with Brian Keith.
I got all excited because I thought he was just
a super nice guy and it would be fun to
work with him again. Now, Brian Keith had a contract
(59:52):
where he would only work three out of the nine months,
similar to Fred McMurray with my three sons, so that
he could follow his film pursuits during the other months
of the year. But he would only commit to three
months with us. So our filming schedule was all weird
(01:00:17):
because we had to do all of his scenes first,
and then for the next for the next six months,
then we would go ahead and do all the scenes
that he was You're.
Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
Doing things way out of context of when you're crying
your little heart at Uncle Bio, Uncle Bio, and you're crying, crying, crying,
and you haven't even lived out.
Speaker 6 (01:00:34):
What you're crying about yet exactly. So, acting.
Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
As an actor, I didn't really know what the whole
story was. I just knew my lines for that day,
which I think to a certain extent was beneficial because
then I wouldn't have to, you know, deal, if there
there's anything that I'm supposed to be talking about my mother,
(01:01:03):
would you know, queue me in and say, well, in
the scene and two scenes before, this is what.
Speaker 6 (01:01:09):
Happened, and now this is what's happening your.
Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
Right. But with Brian, when he was there, he was
like an uncle, just a fun uncle. He would pick
us up, throw us over his shoulder, you know, piggyback us,
ponyback us onto the set. And uh, when you see
(01:01:38):
the love that is between Brian and Brian and I,
it is a real connection. Wow. And that is something
that you cannot force or you cannot create.
Speaker 8 (01:01:55):
Yeah, I see it.
Speaker 4 (01:01:57):
I see it, Johnny, I see I watch I'm not kidding.
Speaker 7 (01:02:00):
I was what Sebastian Cabot more prim and proper.
Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
And well, you see, Sebastian came from Shakespearean the Eta theater, and.
Speaker 6 (01:02:16):
He told us that children ought to be seen and
not heard all right, I heard him say that on
the show, and.
Speaker 1 (01:02:34):
That but he had a daughter who was, uh, just
a little older than Anissa, and Anissa was almost two
years older than I, and.
Speaker 6 (01:02:52):
But young enough.
Speaker 1 (01:02:54):
Sebastian had three children, two older children, and then a
little surprised that he and his wife had And so
he knew how to deal with children to a certain extent.
But he also said, the actor prepares, So if you
children would like to run lines and prepare, I'm happy
(01:03:17):
to play with you. But we we prepare for the scene,
you know. And I learned, you know, Brian Keith would
be laughing with the crew or some other people and
then come in onto the set and be Uncle Bill.
(01:03:38):
And there wasn't a big difference in the character of
Uncle Bill then was Brian Keith? Now? The only difference
with Sebastian was if for some reason there was a
publicity event happening on the set, he would, oh, children,
(01:04:00):
come here, come here, children, children, would you like to
listen to Winnie the Pooh Oh?
Speaker 4 (01:04:08):
Please?
Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
We love to listen to Winnie the Pooh under the
voice of Sebastian Cabot.
Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
Mister French was Sebastian, and I mean, dude, he did.
Speaker 4 (01:04:28):
He scared me.
Speaker 6 (01:04:31):
He was a very a very kind and gentleman. But
it was all business.
Speaker 4 (01:04:37):
Okay, Bob Paul, you guys know I stole.
Speaker 1 (01:04:39):
Well, just just one more thing with Brian, yes, yes,
is that Brian.
Speaker 6 (01:04:48):
Did not like adults.
Speaker 4 (01:04:51):
Well, I love him more every second.
Speaker 1 (01:04:53):
He did not like the producers and the CBS hold
that it had on the on the show, and that
was one of the reasons that Family Affair was canceled
later on. But Brian was a loving, loving man, especially
(01:05:18):
to the kids.
Speaker 6 (01:05:19):
But he did not like doing publicity junkets. He would
not do them.
Speaker 1 (01:05:24):
He would do a few that were in his budget
or in his realm, but he wouldn't publicize anything. And
Anissa and I we would. We got publicized to the Hill.
Yeah there was Buffy dresses and Jody and.
Speaker 6 (01:05:53):
You know all of that.
Speaker 1 (01:05:54):
Buffy and Jody, bikes, Buffy and Joe. Absolutely, it was
a Brian. Okay, Brian Keith is the star of the show,
but not really.
Speaker 7 (01:06:04):
It's going to end up being well, of course we're
kids watching it, so the kids are the star anyway, It's.
Speaker 8 (01:06:10):
Just the parent, you know.
Speaker 4 (01:06:12):
Yeah, but I really you know again.
Speaker 7 (01:06:15):
I do have a question. And you guys, you can
look up all kinds of information. Uh okay on your own,
but this got my attention. Your schedule during the filming
of your TV show. You're up at six, you're in
the car. At seven, you're at the studio. At eight,
(01:06:35):
you're on set. You're offset into school. After school, you're
back on set. After that, you're back in school and
back on set, and then your day's over. My question
is memorizing, and I'm curious about it. You're so young,
there's so much do I want to know if you
had to learn about were you naturally good at memorizing?
(01:06:57):
Were was it easy for you to memorize scripts? Did
you take it line by line? I'm going to do
this scene tomorrow, I'll memorize it tonight. How does that work?
I'm fascinated by it.
Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
Well, the way in which I learned the lines was
on the way home from work. My mother would give
me the sides for the next day. Oh okay, I
could read at six years old.
Speaker 6 (01:07:30):
Show.
Speaker 1 (01:07:32):
I would read my lines, just you know, my lines,
and my mother would highlight my dialogue and I would
then get home, play with my friends, have dinner, watch
(01:07:53):
a little bit of TV. I didn't have any homework,
but my brothers and sisters did. But I would then
Mom and I would or one of my sisters would
read me my lines and we'd go over it for
just about a half hour, not.
Speaker 8 (01:08:12):
A long time, Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:08:14):
Then after all the kids were in bed and asleep,
my mother would come up to my room, in my
brother's room, and while I was asleep, she would read
my lines to me while I was sleeping.
Speaker 8 (01:08:29):
Wow, dedication.
Speaker 6 (01:08:32):
So I had this subliminal messages come in to me.
Speaker 8 (01:08:38):
How did you know I was sleeping.
Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
The next morning, on the way to work, I would
read my lines again and then get into the set
and you know, rehearse and go over them. In television,
most all of the scenes were three to five minutes long,
and you would break them up into you know, even
(01:09:04):
smaller bits, so you didn't have a whole lot to memorize,
especially at that time, and we could you know, ask
for line oh and get.
Speaker 6 (01:09:21):
The lines that we didn't know at the time.
Speaker 1 (01:09:26):
And at that time, I mean today we have a
video which everything is done and a lot cheaper there.
Speaker 6 (01:09:36):
When you are filming, it.
Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
Goes through the sprockets one time and that's it.
Speaker 6 (01:09:46):
So if you didn't know your lines or you didn't
do it.
Speaker 1 (01:09:52):
And you had to do a second or third take,
I was lucky to be known as one take whittaker.
Speaker 8 (01:09:57):
Oh there you go, Oh nice, there go?
Speaker 7 (01:10:01):
Because what the attitude to be a people you work
with if if you don't do your line, now you
got to do the scene over again.
Speaker 8 (01:10:07):
A Sebastian, because.
Speaker 7 (01:10:11):
I don't know what you went through on the set,
if things didn't always go smooth, you know, I guess
it's pretty cool account.
Speaker 6 (01:10:20):
So I just want to hone in on the school. So,
you know, we did a lot of TV shows.
Speaker 5 (01:10:28):
We understand that we always had to be at school
when we weren't working. It was John and Barry, Susan
and myself. We were too young not to be able
to say now we're not doing it. And so was
that your whole schooling?
Speaker 6 (01:10:41):
Though? Did you ever go to a real public public
school or Catholic school whenever? Mormon school?
Speaker 1 (01:10:49):
No, they don't have any more. Well they do have
Mormon school. I went to Brigham Young University.
Speaker 5 (01:10:54):
Well, yeah, my granddaughter is going to go there next
year on a Soul Road scholarship.
Speaker 6 (01:11:00):
Excellent. Yeah, what we were filming nine months out.
Speaker 8 (01:11:08):
Of the year, amazing, amazing.
Speaker 6 (01:11:11):
So our season usually started in April.
Speaker 1 (01:11:16):
We go April May, then June, July, August, your entire
summer months. Those three months we didn't have school, right
so we could work, and.
Speaker 6 (01:11:30):
Then September, October, November.
Speaker 1 (01:11:35):
And so during the off season when we were on hiatus,
I would go back to regular public school.
Speaker 4 (01:11:49):
And did you get the valley in Van Eys.
Speaker 1 (01:11:53):
Well started at Beechy Street Elementary, and then when we
moved to San Fernando, I went to gosh, what's the
name Hubbard Elementary? And yes, and all my other brothers
(01:12:14):
and sisters had been going to those schools before me,
or my older ones, so they knew about you, ye know, yeah,
and they knew what was coming.
Speaker 6 (01:12:26):
And of course, in order.
Speaker 1 (01:12:28):
To get ah a children's license to work in the
entertainment industry, you had to get a work permit. You
had to have above a C grade before they would
even consider you being able to have.
Speaker 6 (01:12:52):
A work permit.
Speaker 4 (01:12:53):
I think I.
Speaker 2 (01:12:54):
Remember Mom threatening something once, saying something. I remember complaining
we were doing the Craft, the our special NBC special
and saying I don't want to go to school.
Speaker 4 (01:13:03):
I don't like that lady. She's mean. And my mom said,
you can't work if you don't go to that school.
Speaker 6 (01:13:08):
So there you go. Guess I'm going right.
Speaker 4 (01:13:15):
Yeah, So.
Speaker 1 (01:13:18):
What continued was you know that I would go to school,
to regular public school. I never went to any private school,
but I mean on the set of course is private school.
But I got great education by missus Deani. She was
(01:13:39):
the teacher who was the set teacher for All a
Family Affair. She went on to be the teacher for
the Waltons.
Speaker 8 (01:13:49):
Cool cool, cool cool, And I have a question. Yeah, So, Johnny, when.
Speaker 7 (01:14:00):
When you started you were told and I'm sure you
believe because you could do it, that they said, well,
don't give him acting lessons. He's a natural, you know,
don't worry about that. This guy, this kid has what
it takes, you know, to do it. And you're getting
by a long time on that. Eventually, though, you're not
(01:14:20):
only gonna not have that attitude. You're going to teach acting.
And even if you're not an actor, you can teach
them to act, you know what I'm saying. So something
happened between childhood and what you're doing now that really
you morphed into I don't know about. Surely you see
kids with natural ability, but I don't think you tell
them don't get acting classes.
Speaker 8 (01:14:39):
You can't.
Speaker 7 (01:14:39):
You got it, but that's what you were told as
a young and you were natural, you know, But then
eventually you're gonna go no, I'm gonna take lessons and
I'm gonna teach it.
Speaker 1 (01:14:48):
So the producers told my mother specifically, when I couldn't
say my owls my art, that I had to practice
the Red Robin crosses the Road because they did want me,
(01:15:10):
because Anissa, being older, did not have a problem with
her rs. So the first season you can see that
some of the rs are a little more difficult to hear.
Speaker 6 (01:15:26):
But I was never given a lesson in.
Speaker 1 (01:15:36):
Acting. However, when I turned well, unfortunately nineteen seventy six,
my brother well fortunately it was the by Centennial.
Speaker 4 (01:15:48):
Oh I know it's coming, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (01:15:50):
My brothers and sister, My brother and sisters and I
had the Johnny Whittaker by Centennial Family's Variety show that
we took a round the country, or at least the
western United States, singing and dancing, and of course I
was the star, but my brothers and sisters participated with
(01:16:11):
me and sang some solos and had this this.
Speaker 4 (01:16:16):
Is featuring Every Little Boy Can Be President? Is that correct?
Speaker 1 (01:16:19):
One of them was every little Boy can Be President?
Friends and friends? But what.
Speaker 6 (01:16:32):
While we were in Salt Lake City.
Speaker 1 (01:16:35):
And we were staying with my older sister who had
been married and had one child at the time, I believe,
I turned on the television and Rona Barrett says, Mary
and Nissa Jones Buffy died yesterday of a drug overdose. Yeah.
(01:16:58):
That was rough. Yeah, And I stopped what I was
doing right there.
Speaker 6 (01:17:07):
You're sixteen, And I said, what is this all about?
Why did she die?
Speaker 1 (01:17:14):
Why did she have to die? So I immediately called
Les Kaufman, who was the publicity director for Don Fetterson Productions.
Speaker 6 (01:17:27):
The producer's a family affair.
Speaker 1 (01:17:30):
He was with Paula Jones, Anissa's mother and brother, but
somehow she was able to patch me into him or
calling Anissa's home, and I spoke to him and I
(01:17:50):
just said, you know less, I'm so mister Kaufman, I'm
so sorry.
Speaker 6 (01:17:56):
You know, is there anything I can do? Is there?
Speaker 1 (01:17:58):
You know, just let Paula and paul know that I'm here,
you know, to help them through if in any way,
shape or form. And at that point I started to
try to get out of show business. I went back
(01:18:18):
to school full time. I actually did one more series
pilot which was called Mulligan Stew where I played the
oldest brother. I saw it for NBC, and then when
it came time for it to be sold, I was
(01:18:39):
not invited to continue the role of whatever my name
was Mulligan, and so I took that as a sign
that I needed to go to college. And so I
went to Brigham Young University, coming up and learning.
Speaker 6 (01:18:59):
A lot of kids like lots of things.
Speaker 1 (01:19:02):
I loved languages, and from Missus Deani I learned Spanish,
and from Jody Foster and Missus Seaman I learned French.
And so I wanted to become an international interpreter, well,
(01:19:27):
an interpreter working with the State Department somehow. Was you
know what, I may be an ambassador of Goodwill something
like that. Yeah, because of course another child star, Shirley
Temple Black, was a Goodwill ambassador. So I was just
(01:19:48):
thinking maybe that could be my next role. So I
went to college. I took French, I took Russian, and
then was asked by my bishop or my ecclesiastical leader.
Speaker 6 (01:20:05):
If I had thought about going on a mission.
Speaker 1 (01:20:09):
I just turned eighteen, and I thought, well, you know,
I think I've served a good mission and been a
good example. He says, well, why don't you let God
decide that. Put in your papers and see what happens.
So I was. I put my papers in and I
was sent to Portugal. And I lived in Portugal for
(01:20:31):
two years, and Portugal is my second Patria. I love Portugal,
I love the Portuguese people, and.
Speaker 6 (01:20:42):
Just wonderful place to live and be.
Speaker 1 (01:20:46):
My son, who's actually my godson or kind of step son,
was born in Lisbon. I would have been fifteen years
old when he was born, but he was born there
(01:21:06):
and my almost wife his mother, I had baptized on
my mission. And then when I went through my divorce,
came back to Portugal and we started our relationship. And
at the same time, my son was getting into some trouble.
So I told him he had two choices. One was
(01:21:29):
going into the army or the other was coming to
California living with Grandma and Grandpa and completing school and
going into college. He chose door number two, and so
he lived with my mom and dad for about three
years two and a half years, and graduated high school,
(01:21:49):
went on to coach high school at Silmar High School
where I went and where he went, and then went
on to be an assistant coach.
Speaker 6 (01:22:00):
At UCLA, got his degree.
Speaker 1 (01:22:06):
At in cal State Pomona, and then was the assistant
women's coach at Oregon State Ducks women's soccer, and then
went on to Utah State where he's been now as
(01:22:27):
the head coach for the women's soccer program. There.
Speaker 8 (01:22:31):
He picked the right door. Yeah, I think it could
have gone south with the other door. You know, you
never know.
Speaker 1 (01:22:40):
Yeah, yeah, And I've got three grandchildren. Well, yes and no.
Speaker 6 (01:22:49):
Unfortunately, I was not in my right mind when.
Speaker 1 (01:22:55):
He first came to the United States. I was into
drugs and alcohol at that time.
Speaker 4 (01:23:00):
Understood and.
Speaker 1 (01:23:04):
The family had an intervention in twenty eight years ago.
I got clean and sober.
Speaker 4 (01:23:09):
Congratulations, but.
Speaker 6 (01:23:14):
My embarrassment.
Speaker 1 (01:23:15):
I love him and his wife and my grandchildren, but
there has.
Speaker 6 (01:23:21):
Been a good dinner because of lots of water that's
gone under the bridge.
Speaker 1 (01:23:29):
Yeah, but you know, I still consider them mine and
they call me Uncle John, And you know, whatever part
I can play in.
Speaker 6 (01:23:41):
The family I'm happy to do so, and.
Speaker 1 (01:23:45):
His mother and I continue to be very good friends
and we you know, we are a family when we
get together in Utah and.
Speaker 4 (01:23:58):
We understand.
Speaker 2 (01:23:59):
Look, I have six brothers and twelve sister in laws,
so we know about big family extended ups downs Inzide.
Speaker 8 (01:24:11):
Did you took us to Portugal?
Speaker 7 (01:24:14):
One of the things we do are aware of a
know about is this documentary on the drug policy in Portugal,
and I just wanted you to do you have a
few words about that? Is that something you want to
talk about or you see what I mean.
Speaker 1 (01:24:27):
The reason that I have the sky Blue Sky at
sixty five, which I turned in December of last year,
I decided that I'm going to throw out four Hail
Mary passes.
Speaker 6 (01:24:48):
Hail Mary pass number one is.
Speaker 1 (01:24:52):
A cruise that we took for my sixty fifth birthday
along the Mexican Riviera, and then this next year we're
going to to the Panama Canal. So we started that
(01:25:16):
and fans and friends and family can join me and
I play Santa Claus. This year, we went to an
orphanage and were able to give toys and presents in
March to the kids from Santa's brother Okay.
Speaker 4 (01:25:41):
Why would he be there in March if Santa's very busy.
Speaker 1 (01:25:44):
Well yeah, but I just said, you know, my brother
is actually in Haiti on vacation. I don't think there
was a lot of problems at the time in Haiti
or some other city, but enjoying the summer. And he
asked me to come and meet with you all. And
(01:26:07):
since I speak fluent Spanish, I speak five languages fluently, English, Portuguese, Spanish, French,
and American Sign language.
Speaker 6 (01:26:18):
Some kids like soccer and sports. I like languages.
Speaker 8 (01:26:23):
Yeah, yeah, so that's what I do.
Speaker 6 (01:26:26):
But so that was that's number one.
Speaker 1 (01:26:31):
Number two is a film that was going to be
a short called Sky Blue Yep. And that short is
all about a white supremacist who comes to find out
that he is the only living relative to his mixed
(01:26:52):
race granddaughter.
Speaker 8 (01:26:53):
That's a heck of a premise.
Speaker 1 (01:26:55):
Now, my grandchildren are Mexican American Frick, and so you know,
I'm not a white supremacist or prejudice or I have
my prejudices, but that's not one of them.
Speaker 8 (01:27:16):
All of us, of course, you know, all of us do.
Speaker 1 (01:27:20):
But for that we are now going to do what's
called a sizzle reel this fall and winter of the
film that is now going to be a full length feature.
And the short came about forty five minutes into the story,
(01:27:45):
and so now I'm working on the other forty five
minutes that my roommate, best friend and writing partner came
up with. And so that's number two. Number three is
my memoirs. I'm writing all of what you're hearing. I
always like to take notes before and after. It's a
(01:28:10):
history lesson through my through my eyes, and my my
my life.
Speaker 6 (01:28:17):
As an actor, and it's always added.
Speaker 8 (01:28:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (01:28:22):
So on that, Johnny, I don't mean to interrupt, but
but on your memoirs, you had your family did an
intervention on you.
Speaker 5 (01:28:35):
Yeah, right, and so so how did how did I
just done to know?
Speaker 6 (01:28:40):
How did that roll out for you? And were you
ready or you know? How what is that?
Speaker 1 (01:28:45):
As hell?
Speaker 6 (01:28:49):
I didn't want to give up drugs. I didn't want
to give up alcohol.
Speaker 4 (01:28:53):
Who the hell wants to do that? Oh?
Speaker 1 (01:28:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (01:28:57):
I mean, and who are you?
Speaker 1 (01:28:58):
You guys don't even do any of You don't know
what alcohol is like, you don't know the feelings you
get from this wonderful yeah yeah, and Mormon, but because
I was ld as Mormon and because of my propensity
(01:29:19):
for alcoholism and drug addiction. I could go on for
another half hour about how a person becomes an addict
in an alcoholic, but basically, there are four ways you
are acclimated to it from just living around it.
Speaker 6 (01:29:37):
Second, it's part of.
Speaker 1 (01:29:38):
Your blood, and I am Irish and I've got a
thousand years of Irish whiskey in this in these veins.
Then third is trauma, going through some major trauma, which
I did with my divorce and subsequent death of my
girlfriend and unborn child, which we can get into later on,
(01:30:01):
but uh, and some other situations. And then the fourth
is not feeling that you are a part of And
you guys can probably relate that when you went back
to school and in certain situations people thought that you
were that you thought you were better than other people,
and that they, you know, wanted to put you down
(01:30:26):
and didn't invite you and didn't make you a part
or when there was something that they wanted from you,
they would invite you. But so my best friend, yeah,
and so with that that, those are the four ways
in which a person can become an addictor and an
alcoholic mine, I had the family genes and I had trauma. Yeah,
(01:30:52):
and then you know, somewhat not feeling a part of everybody.
So and when my fourth Hail Mary is that in
twenty seventeen, my mother had passed and I had gotten
some of the money from the sale of the home,
(01:31:13):
I decided to begin a documentary on the drug policy
of Portugal. Being a person in long term recovery from
all mind altering substances, I learned about the Portuguese drug
policy that as of two thousand and one, all drugs
(01:31:39):
are not allowed. They are decriminalized in Portugal, all drugs.
Speaker 8 (01:31:51):
How's that going?
Speaker 1 (01:31:53):
Well, A whole lot better than Oregon did. Y. Oregon
tried to follow suit, but they didn't follow up, and
that was there the determining factor of their problem. In Portugal,
if someone has less than two grams of an illicit substance,
(01:32:17):
instead of being thrown in jail, you are given a
ticket to go to the dissuasion Commission, and persuasion to
make you do something, dissuasion to keep you from doing something.
And so in the dissuasion Commission you go there and
the first thing they do is give you what's called
(01:32:37):
an ASI or addiction severity indexer, where you meet with
a person such as myself, a drug and alcohol counselor,
and you go through your drug history, the drugs that
you like, your alcohol usage. Then they put a stamp
on it zero to ten as far as your severity index.
(01:32:59):
You then go before two judges maybe three. One must
be a psychiatrist or a psychologist, and the other is
a jurist or a lawyer on behalf of the state
of Portugal who is familiar with the laws of Portugal.
Then when you meet with them, they look at your
(01:33:22):
ASI zero to three. Get out of here, kids, you
bother me, don't come back. Your name's going to be
on a list for five years. If you get into
more trouble, the consequences could rise.
Speaker 6 (01:33:34):
Four to six. You may have a problem.
Speaker 1 (01:33:36):
We will set you up with whatever you'd like, inpatient, outpatient,
some kind of treatment, medically assisted treatment.
Speaker 6 (01:33:46):
Seven to ten.
Speaker 1 (01:33:47):
You a mofo attic, get your butt into treatment right now.
Speaker 6 (01:33:51):
And with that, nothing is ever forced or mandated.
Speaker 1 (01:33:57):
But what the documentary is going to do is follow
five individuals through the process. And now you guys, are
from Connecticut or.
Speaker 10 (01:34:14):
Rhode Island, of course, You've got lots of Portuguese in Rhoda.
Speaker 8 (01:34:27):
Of course.
Speaker 1 (01:34:28):
Yeah, my my, my ex A lot of her family
are there in Rhode Island.
Speaker 4 (01:34:33):
Listen, listen. I mean Portuguese is what I grew up with.
Speaker 1 (01:34:38):
Yeah, and all the great food, wonderful food from Portugal. Anyway,
So my documentary is fifty years after I came to
Portugal to give a message of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 6 (01:34:55):
I'm coming from.
Speaker 1 (01:34:56):
Portugal to the rest of the world to give a
message of love and understanding for the addiction and the
process of addiction and what Portugal has done to make
things better in the world, especially around addiction.
Speaker 7 (01:35:12):
It sounds good to highlight that absolutely, to ask a
sky blue question, sure that premise? Just I love it?
I just want to quick yes or no question. Is
it a comedic approach to this issue? Or is it
a dramatic approach to this issue?
Speaker 6 (01:35:28):
Well?
Speaker 1 (01:35:30):
I grew up on family affair, which was called a
drama edy.
Speaker 8 (01:35:37):
Oh never heard that, Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:35:40):
So a drama mixed with some comedy.
Speaker 8 (01:35:45):
Sure, a drama.
Speaker 1 (01:35:51):
And so the curmudgeon that I portray comes up with
some real good one liners and is a person that
you kind of love to hate and because of the way,
(01:36:13):
hopefully the way in which I will portray the character
and the young girl who plays my granddaughter, she wants
to love her racist grandfather, but is.
Speaker 6 (01:36:30):
Also having trouble. Luckily, there is a bit of comic and.
Speaker 1 (01:36:37):
Temperance in the caretaker of Grandpa, which happens to be
Grandma's best friend, and she plays kind of the mediator
between the two.
Speaker 6 (01:36:51):
And but we're going to be able in the.
Speaker 1 (01:36:56):
Long feature get to know some of the reasons that
Billy Bob Jensen, which is the role that I'm playing,
why Billy Bob became what he became, and some of
the difficulties that he's had. But all in all, the
(01:37:21):
question again was is it a comedy or a drama?
I believe that some of the best drama comes through comedy,
and that you can be laughing one minute and something happens,
and that laughter can immediately because it's on that red emotion,
(01:37:48):
that laughter can immediately turn to tears if it's juxtapositioned correctly.
Speaker 7 (01:37:56):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, anyone else want to asking himself? I
got one more here could take us through the early
life of Scotty Baldwin.
Speaker 8 (01:38:07):
Not appreciate that one.
Speaker 4 (01:38:08):
Hey, that's mine. Why did you see that?
Speaker 2 (01:38:10):
You don't even watch gh I cannot believe you did that.
Speaker 8 (01:38:14):
It's a store, you said, No, I said, did you?
Speaker 4 (01:38:17):
I was waiting?
Speaker 8 (01:38:18):
Oh, okay, can you ask it?
Speaker 4 (01:38:20):
Thank you, Bob. So what year was this that you
were the first Scottie Baldwin. Did you appear as a
baby or did you just show up as a toddler?
Speaker 8 (01:38:30):
We're talking about at the hospital.
Speaker 6 (01:38:34):
And I'm doing the reasons, give the names.
Speaker 1 (01:38:37):
Correct? Actually I have my contract. A fan found my
contract from General Hospital. Oh my god, and paid I
don't know how much he paid for it. I hope
you didn't pay a whole lot for it, but he
sent it to me. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (01:38:57):
And well, what do you think the year to be?
Speaker 1 (01:39:01):
I think it was sixty four?
Speaker 4 (01:39:03):
Okay, so you are a complete And how so you
were a baby?
Speaker 1 (01:39:07):
Yes, well my mother in there played nurse something Audrey.
Speaker 6 (01:39:14):
Yes, Audrey was my mother.
Speaker 1 (01:39:17):
I know.
Speaker 6 (01:39:18):
Then she was married Steve Hardy and she then married
doctor Baldwin.
Speaker 1 (01:39:25):
Correct. And so I was adopted by Baldwin to become
Scottie Baldwin.
Speaker 4 (01:39:33):
Hunreal, this is unreal, mom?
Speaker 8 (01:39:36):
Right?
Speaker 6 (01:39:36):
You mean an actress?
Speaker 4 (01:39:38):
Mom? But listen, listen, John, my grandmother.
Speaker 2 (01:39:43):
I have been watching General Hospital since I was born,
since you and I literally found out, I mean I
and I watch it to this moment, and then as
a week ago I reported into these guys, losing my
mind as if this Johnny Whitaker thing couldn't get any
heavier that you were Gottie Baldwin the first. I don't
even know what to say.
Speaker 4 (01:40:03):
I wish Graham and Mom we was here. It's all
I got.
Speaker 1 (01:40:07):
No.
Speaker 6 (01:40:08):
I remember.
Speaker 1 (01:40:12):
Going to ABC Studios up in Hollywood, in the Hollywood Hills,
sitting around and doing the read through. Oh my, and
my mother was there with me, telling me what my
lines were because I didn't read at that time.
Speaker 6 (01:40:32):
Old yeah, but you.
Speaker 1 (01:40:36):
Know, getting to do the scenes with them and then
going on the set and playing the role. I remember
some of it, not a whole lot, And unfortunately there's
not a whole lot of those kiniscopes, I think is what.
Speaker 4 (01:40:53):
They were going to ask you, have you seen any
visuals of it?
Speaker 6 (01:40:57):
No, the kinescopes were all they know.
Speaker 1 (01:41:03):
You don't know.
Speaker 4 (01:41:03):
That is tragic, but it was.
Speaker 1 (01:41:09):
I I liked, you know, got another role from it
that was and baby makes three with Joan Blondell. I
played the youngest bat boy for a a little series there.
Speaker 5 (01:41:29):
Anyway, I got a question, and this is quite a
juxtaposition if we think about it. You have you have
a record out and it's called Friends and it is
on Demon Records.
Speaker 6 (01:41:46):
Did you know the records D E. M O N Records? Friends?
Speaker 1 (01:41:52):
Well it was Chelsea was the original producer.
Speaker 6 (01:42:01):
And Wes Ferrell.
Speaker 4 (01:42:03):
And somebody want to tell him.
Speaker 8 (01:42:09):
Yeah, yeah, we know that.
Speaker 7 (01:42:11):
We worked with Wes Ferrow. One of our records is
called Indian Lake and West produced that with us in
the studio.
Speaker 6 (01:42:20):
Super and wrote it.
Speaker 8 (01:42:22):
Yeah, he did the whole Partridge family.
Speaker 7 (01:42:24):
But that's our connection, right, No, No, no, very cool
because Wes Ferrell and.
Speaker 6 (01:42:33):
Okay brain again Bobby Hart.
Speaker 1 (01:42:37):
Oh, we're the ones who uh did Family, did Sigmund
and the Sea Monsters Friends album?
Speaker 8 (01:42:48):
Okay? Yeah what a factorid I love it? Yeah?
Speaker 6 (01:42:53):
You have?
Speaker 2 (01:42:53):
Like this is what a wild, wild, very long ride
you've been on.
Speaker 1 (01:42:59):
Johnny, Well, it's been fun, it's been worth it. It's uh.
Speaker 6 (01:43:08):
But as far as Demon Records, I got to look
that up. I don't I don't try and do right now. Yeah,
if they sold the rights or what.
Speaker 8 (01:43:17):
I don't know ob.
Speaker 6 (01:43:20):
It is.
Speaker 1 (01:43:24):
I believe you. I'll have to.
Speaker 4 (01:43:25):
We can't see it very.
Speaker 5 (01:43:28):
Yeah anyway, Uh a demon music group.
Speaker 6 (01:43:35):
John friends.
Speaker 1 (01:43:38):
I guess they purchased the rights from Chelsea and West and.
Speaker 6 (01:43:42):
It happens his estate or something.
Speaker 7 (01:43:46):
Yeah, okay, so we're gonna it's an amazing thing, Johnny.
It's Johnny Whittaker dot com. Is that where where can
people go ahead and find you and all of this stuff?
Speaker 5 (01:43:57):
Man?
Speaker 8 (01:43:57):
It's amazing.
Speaker 1 (01:43:59):
Sure, yeah, go Johnny Whittaker dot com. That's one T Whittaker.
My younger brother bought that for me. Gosh, fifteen seventeen
years ago for Christmas. I've been able to keep it
up good, little by little and no.
Speaker 8 (01:44:18):
We went there. It's chock full of stuff. It's awesome.
Speaker 4 (01:44:20):
Do you have an Instagram? Do you have a Facebook?
Speaker 1 (01:44:23):
I do have an Instagram. My Instagram is John O. Whittaker.
Speaker 6 (01:44:27):
I think.
Speaker 4 (01:44:30):
He's like me, brother. It's okay, I get it all.
Speaker 1 (01:44:33):
But on Facebook you type in Johnny Whittaker actor and
become a member of my Facebook group. There you go
and with my Facebook group or anybody who's interested in
joining us. We have watch parties, which is like a zoom.
Speaker 6 (01:44:55):
Like we're doing here.
Speaker 1 (01:44:58):
We'll have I think I'm trying to get us together
for to do and gonna get my friend Scott Colden
to come on to do a watch party of The
Mystery and Dracula's Castle.
Speaker 8 (01:45:12):
Together.
Speaker 7 (01:45:13):
Are you commenting while you're watching? Is that what's going on?
Speaker 1 (01:45:15):
Or well, we'll we'll have we'll have some comments available,
but you know, questions before, in questions after, and.
Speaker 4 (01:45:24):
Fun just to it's like a video book.
Speaker 1 (01:45:30):
Club, right, yeah, something like that.
Speaker 6 (01:45:33):
Man, you take that and then take that on the
Fan and Friends cruise.
Speaker 1 (01:45:38):
Sure. Well, that that was a pop up that just
came up that my brother had talked to some of
the people that it would be fun to watch one
of my films while we're on the cruise.
Speaker 4 (01:45:54):
I would love that.
Speaker 1 (01:45:56):
You're all invited. It's uh March sixteenth, it's going out
of Miami, and you get two for one uh airfare
to Miami.
Speaker 4 (01:46:07):
From people who are you.
Speaker 7 (01:46:10):
Well, we have to tell you, Johnny, we're on our
own flower Power cruise during that time with sixties cool.
Speaker 8 (01:46:17):
So we're all doing that.
Speaker 7 (01:46:17):
We're coming out, y'all wave but on yours. Absolutely, it
would be great with your videos for real, I'll put
in all.
Speaker 4 (01:46:29):
I mean, you could do a panel, you could people
if I love that.
Speaker 8 (01:46:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:46:34):
Absolutely, we have May Pang coming on this one. Uh
you know who May is, of course.
Speaker 1 (01:46:39):
Uh huh.
Speaker 5 (01:46:41):
And what she does is that they set her up
in a little area and she tells all the stuffers
she knows about her and people can ask questions to.
Speaker 6 (01:46:51):
Her and they learn about the Lost Weekend.
Speaker 2 (01:46:54):
And she's got you know, she's a photographer, so she
has a gallery showing.
Speaker 6 (01:46:58):
Yeah, and that would be great for you.
Speaker 4 (01:47:00):
But you could absolutely come on one of these things.
Speaker 6 (01:47:02):
And where you guys, where are you guys cruising?
Speaker 4 (01:47:05):
Where are we going y'all?
Speaker 7 (01:47:06):
Well, we're going to uh Saint Thomas down to the Caribbean.
Speaker 8 (01:47:10):
It's where it's going time.
Speaker 5 (01:47:12):
We either do the Eastern or the Western Caribbean. We've
done this many years.
Speaker 6 (01:47:18):
Yeah, oh great.
Speaker 7 (01:47:19):
Yeah, it's a theme cruise like what sixties? Man?
Speaker 6 (01:47:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 8 (01:47:24):
Yeah, John, we cannot thank you enough.
Speaker 7 (01:47:28):
You gave us a lot of time and we knew
you were more than that kid on that show, and man,
you're way more.
Speaker 8 (01:47:36):
I'm telling you.
Speaker 2 (01:47:37):
I love fighting and and and really honestly, this is
a childhood like come true kind of awesome thing.
Speaker 4 (01:47:44):
I was a huge fan and I think you're an
amazing human and I'm really it is filled me with
with a good, inspired feeling knowing your journey I've enjoyed.
Speaker 8 (01:47:55):
Projects are fantastic. Yeah, so there is given to the
world projects. Love them all.
Speaker 6 (01:48:02):
They're different in every way, you know. That's what I like.
Speaker 8 (01:48:05):
Yeah, I like it. So thank you.
Speaker 7 (01:48:08):
You know what he's up to, and we're going to
stay in touch with you, Johnny.
Speaker 8 (01:48:12):
It's just been.
Speaker 7 (01:48:14):
Very good and thanks everybody. And this will be up
Wednesday night online. Forever we're all going to be off
the earth, it will still be up there.
Speaker 8 (01:48:22):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:48:23):
Holy My closing line is always do something today for
somebody else.
Speaker 8 (01:48:35):
It's a great, great line.
Speaker 1 (01:48:36):
And especially to those who need connection. If you've got
an aunt or an uncle, or a grandma or grandpa
or somebody who you haven't talked to or been with.
One of the most devastating parts of life is mental illness,
(01:48:59):
and that comes from being disconnected. And mental illness can
be helped through connection. And so make a connection today.
Speaker 8 (01:49:09):
There you go.
Speaker 7 (01:49:10):
We're gonna leave it at that because that was beautiful. Yeah,
all right, we will stay in touch with you and
follow you and enjoy all of these projects that you've done.
Speaker 8 (01:49:19):
Thank you so much for.
Speaker 7 (01:49:21):
Okay, goodbye everybody.
Speaker 6 (01:49:25):
Okay, I don't want to know about that hand. Now
you can have knuckles on the inside. But that was hilarious. Yeah, okay, everybody.
We hope you enjoyed visiting with us today.
Speaker 5 (01:49:36):
We definitely had a blast visiting with you.
Speaker 6 (01:49:39):
Don't forget.
Speaker 5 (01:49:40):
Each episode of the Coast is available to download on demand, so.
Speaker 4 (01:49:47):
Please subscribe and give us a rating thumbs up.
Speaker 5 (01:49:50):
You can also follow the Coustles on Facebook and atcousel
dot com, and of course we will see you in concert.
Speaker 4 (01:49:58):
And on the road.
Speaker 6 (01:50:00):
Until then, let's stay.
Speaker 5 (01:50:01):
In touch by tuning in each week for another episode
of the podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:50:11):
M m HM
I saw I'm sitting in the rim. Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
You're the Cocles, I'm Paul, I'm Bob, and I'm Susan
Cowcill and welcome, Welcome, one and all to the.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Calcil Podcast, where we have fun, fun, fun, even when
we're being serious every single week with our music stories
and weekly special guests from all walks of life.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
All of us can use a break sometimes take a breezer.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Right right right, Well, if that's true for you, then
you have a ride at the right place at the
right time.
Speaker 4 (00:37):
So we want you to sit back, bringing back and escape.
Speaker 5 (00:41):
With us and to our world of harmony, laughter and
tom foolery.
Speaker 6 (00:46):
So let's get to it. Here's today's episode of the Castle. Yeah,
we are here, right, We're on time.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Hey, look, I'm looking up a condition. Hi, everybody.
Speaker 7 (01:01):
We do have Johnny Whitaker here. We have some things
we can talk about. Not a lot, I guess, because
Johnny's going to come on at noon. But it's funny
because Johnny he texted us and said, hey, listen, you
know I got this condition CRS, so could you please
give me a heads up phone call so I don't
miss this episode? And I bit I looked up CRS.
(01:23):
It's some complicated medical thing. Okay, yeah, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 8 (01:27):
I'm so sorry.
Speaker 7 (01:28):
And now he's as old us. It meant it meant
can't remember shit. So it's like it's a good condition.
And man, I think all of us have that at times.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Can I can I please follow this up with him
and with this very thing. So y'all know my mother
in law Sydney, and I was just hanging out with
her and we were talking about this very thing because
sid is definitely on her way down Demnsha Road, which
she calls what the f so?
Speaker 4 (01:51):
But she says to me today.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
She goes, you know, I've been thinking about it. I'm
not worried about not being able to remember anything. She said,
I decided the most important thing now in my life
I need to remember is who gave me what gift?
Speaker 8 (02:05):
Oh okay, that's all I'm going.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
To care about from this point on. And I went wait,
and she was not kidding.
Speaker 7 (02:13):
She said, that's a good one. I thought you were
going to say, is when my next dose of medicine.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
Is No, she cannot know.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
No, you know no, she says to that, because we
have to give it to her now. So whoever gives
it to her, she'll say, well, she you're the twelfth
person tried to O D me since noon, because she's
under the impression she's already taken her meds.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
It's hilarious.
Speaker 8 (02:33):
That's good, it's fun.
Speaker 7 (02:36):
I got a quickie here at cascil dot com. We
have a guestbook.
Speaker 8 (02:41):
Now.
Speaker 7 (02:41):
The difference between the guest book and Facebook and everywhere
else is the way it's rigged is you go in,
you leave a message, and you get on with your life.
The people read your message, they get on with their life,
and the two will never meet. Okay, they don't leave
contact info. You can't say thank you, You can't say
what a beautiful thing. There's nothing I love boards like that,
(03:03):
by the way, they just want you to know something.
But this was good.
Speaker 8 (03:06):
This is from Rick in Edison.
Speaker 7 (03:09):
Okay, when Indian Lake came out, he and his brother walked.
Now they lived in upstate New York. They said the
nearest record store was seven miles and they walked when
Indian Lake came out, seven miles by that forty five
and walked seven miles home. And people, when we're old
like we are, and Rick is old like us, these
(03:31):
miles when I say I walked three miles to school.
I walked three miles to school unless Myers Lake was frozen,
and then it was a mile and a half. This
stuff's true, Okay. Now, Rick and his brother did this.
His brother died when he was forty eight in two
thousand and three, way too young. But he wanted us
to know that every time he hears Indian Lake, he
(03:52):
relives that walk with his brother, and that he knows
his brother is looking down on him. He doesn't do
the fourteen walking, he lives it mentally.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
That is super sweet, you know, without super good, good,
super good. And that reminds me of you guys talking
about walking in the Anchorage down to play basketball somewhere.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
You two, I don't know where you were going. You
walked from the house.
Speaker 6 (04:17):
We were going to the field house and house later.
Speaker 8 (04:23):
But you walk. You walked everywhere. No, Susan, you guys
did good. Myers Lake.
Speaker 7 (04:29):
We were in the fourth, fifth and sixth grade, so
you guys are very young. But mom and dad made
us walk everywhere, and we went to Saint Joseph School.
You look up, go ahead, I've seen the.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
St.
Speaker 8 (04:43):
Joseph School.
Speaker 6 (04:43):
We how did you go?
Speaker 4 (04:45):
What route.
Speaker 8 (04:46):
Could you have taken right up West End Avenue?
Speaker 4 (04:48):
Okay?
Speaker 7 (04:49):
And then you went up to the big highway. I
forgot the name of it. That's up there, you know it.
It's all I do.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
You turn off of it to go down to the house.
Speaker 8 (04:55):
Yeah, it's what the.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
Center was on.
Speaker 7 (05:00):
Yes, that's an area, but the street had a faith.
It's in there, you'd see it. But also when we
had choir, because we were in the choir, so in
the choir you had to take the six am Mass
for two weeks in the year. You split that up
between the choir members because they had a truncated choir,
like six of us for the six am Mess. Even
(05:22):
in that two weeks in the winter, in the snow
up hill, you went out. You started out at four
thirty or five, and you got there, okay. And what
happened to me, you guys, was there was a neighbor,
a couple, an elderly couple on that street that kept
watching me do that. They were up early, and the husband,
(05:43):
the dad came out and said, what are you doing?
Why are you out here? And I said, I'm walking
to I got the church. I got Mass at Saint
Jose's I'm in the choir. And from that day on,
for a week and a half, that guy got up
and drove me to Saint Jose. Oh wow, yes, and.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
You know what the conversation that house was four little
kids down the street, those poor little kids with these people,
let's help them out.
Speaker 8 (06:08):
I never thought of that there.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Oh yeah, that would have been my thing.
Speaker 7 (06:12):
I would have went, really, don't plows our driveway with
a shovel for five bucks?
Speaker 8 (06:17):
Wasn't that him? Yeah that's me, that's me.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
And we also in Canton, we lived on Smith Smith
Avenue or street.
Speaker 6 (06:26):
Street that was born and that was another walk. We
walked the other way towards Saint Joe's. But we had
to walk that walk too.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
We feel like that was closer, wasn't it on more.
Speaker 6 (06:37):
In the I don't remember.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
He's right.
Speaker 8 (06:39):
You walked everywhere.
Speaker 7 (06:41):
We we had serious bicycles, maybe starting on Indian Avenue. Seriously, seriously,
you walked everywhere. It just was amazing. I don't remember
a bike on Whopping Road. We must have had little bikes,
but I can't remember any.
Speaker 8 (06:54):
You walked. Everything was closer. Yeah we walked, Yeah, you walked.
And then that walk that's when I was around with
you guy.
Speaker 7 (07:00):
When it was winter on that walk, that three mile walk.
If myers late froze over, now here's how nutty of
your parents are. You got to stick and you know,
we were veterans of the lake. We could tell all
it's frozen about how deep is it frozen? So you
got to stick and you stayed near the edge, of course,
because you've got to cut across and right you're tapping.
Speaker 8 (07:20):
The ice to make sure it's solid.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
And because we all saw what happened, it's a wonderful life.
Speaker 8 (07:29):
Yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 7 (07:31):
And then the other thing. The last thing for me
is somebody said they saw us at Higgins High School,
okay years ago, and it got me going on the
high schools, the North Bergen. I think we played Indian
Lake High School itself even later when we went back
there that time, and how fun it was to play
high school auditoriums and gymnasiums. It would rock us.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
It was fun, must have been wild.
Speaker 7 (07:58):
Hey, as soon as we got not an auditory, but
if it was a high school gymnasium, we immediately thought
that any Beach Boys song we're doing, Hey.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
You guys wouldn't that be kind of of a kick
to do. It's just book a little, a little high
school tour.
Speaker 5 (08:17):
Well, you know what, in nineteen sixty seven, we actually
played here at Bend High School.
Speaker 8 (08:25):
Yes, yes, it's crazy.
Speaker 6 (08:28):
And somebody had a picture of it, and there we.
Speaker 8 (08:30):
Were and then remember Locra Santa High School.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Come on, yes, oh yeah, hey that's the day. Hey, look,
that's the day Lauren Stogel came. Lauren Stogel is the
daughter of Leonard's yea, And this little girl.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
Walked up to me.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
She could I guess we were in our twenties. And
she says to me, is it true? I mean she
just went high. Lauren Stogel, I need to.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
Ask you something, not how have you been nothing? Is
it true?
Speaker 2 (09:00):
My dad took all your guys his money. And I said,
I don't know if he took it all, but he arranged,
helped arrange for it all to be taken. And she
and she just started crying.
Speaker 7 (09:12):
Now, guys, just so you know, Lenny Stogel was our
manager at the time. This is his daughter years later.
Speaker 8 (09:20):
Millions years later, everyone too.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
And she really was. She was so sad.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
She was like, I feel so terrible and I'm like, honey,
I think you felt terrible enough. You lost your parents
and we're fine, and look, you know, but man, that
was sad.
Speaker 8 (09:37):
Yes, chriscenta, Hi, but it's interesting, it's very interesting.
Speaker 7 (09:40):
She took on a little bit of the pain of
that where anything mine our dad did or mine dad.
Speaker 8 (09:45):
He is like, going, that guy's a knucklehead man.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Thank god we were wired though for him.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
Yeah, the Crescenta Valley High shows, we made thirty thousand
dollars for all of the athletic departments at CV thirty
grand and what we had them do was like, so
the tennis, the girls tennis club, we gave them tickets,
We gave the football team one of those sixty six kids.
(10:13):
They we gave it to the swimming. Everybody got part
of this, and the and and whatever. Like the football
team sold, the tickets sold, they got that money.
Speaker 6 (10:23):
It didn't it didn't all go into a big pot.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
And then equally, you know, the girls tennis team of
five girls sold the most tickets to that show.
Speaker 6 (10:36):
And that next year they were riding in a van.
Speaker 5 (10:39):
They had brand new outfits all because of that concert.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
And it was just us.
Speaker 7 (10:45):
Oh yeah, it was a benefit concert.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Yes, Miranda was a baby. I remember everybody was freaking out.
It was like having an Sjay around because there was like, wow,
a baby.
Speaker 8 (10:54):
Wasn't it a Christmas show?
Speaker 6 (10:56):
It was Halloween? It was Halloween.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
It was Halloween.
Speaker 6 (10:59):
There was act of Hey, it had.
Speaker 8 (11:01):
A theme, right, Mark, we had to get.
Speaker 5 (11:06):
MARKA came and also Jeff Jeff Hillinger was there that night,
Llinger doing sound.
Speaker 8 (11:15):
Yeah, that was pretty cool.
Speaker 7 (11:17):
All right, So school Tour twenty twenty seven, Well, okay,
reaching out.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
I think it's a fun idea.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Guys hardly maybe colleges at least older kids who might
get a kick out of it.
Speaker 8 (11:28):
I love college. I love the high schools. Man. Everyone's
ignoring the high schools.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Right, Yeah, it was a high school reunion tour.
Speaker 6 (11:36):
Yeah, I mean, if we it's funny because.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
You know, you get the people from that year to
come back for you.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
But but how cool would it be for just us
to put out this thing saying, yeah, we want to
play high schools.
Speaker 6 (11:49):
We did it in the sixties, and.
Speaker 5 (11:50):
Who knows high schools would reach out and go, man,
come to our place, Bill kidding.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
I mean for real? And then even and then even
poster out and say Hey, you know you know who
you are.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
We played your high school in sixty eight sixty seven.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
And like, if you want to see a reunion show,
come on out and get your.
Speaker 6 (12:09):
High I love it.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
It's great.
Speaker 8 (12:13):
You're hearing us north Bergen.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Huh hearing us everyone here in high school.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
People who saw us at your high schools report in.
Let's get this rolling.
Speaker 8 (12:22):
Here's a cool council factoid.
Speaker 7 (12:24):
Okay, that just came in off of the ap clicker
thing there no.
Speaker 8 (12:32):
So who was it.
Speaker 7 (12:37):
There's a show coming out on Peacock, okay called Ponies
p O N I E. S. I think it's an acronym. Okay,
and it's about nineteen seventy seven CIA cole War Moscow.
Kind of that kind of show. Cool, and they doubt
because they would like to use two by two in
their show, and that is very exciting to us.
Speaker 8 (13:02):
I think most exciting part of that request.
Speaker 7 (13:04):
To me is that it isn't one of the three
biggest hits, and it's a song where I would have
personally thought, and I did think, like, how in the
heck did they ever come across that?
Speaker 8 (13:16):
So that's what's going to happen, and.
Speaker 7 (13:21):
It's probably gonna be next year because they're just getting
rights and stuff, so that means they're filming in their
underway now.
Speaker 8 (13:26):
But that's what it's called.
Speaker 6 (13:27):
Po N I E S.
Speaker 8 (13:29):
I think it was.
Speaker 6 (13:29):
I have it right here.
Speaker 5 (13:31):
Two secretaries at the American Embassy in nineteen seventies Moscow
becomes CIA operatives after their husbands are killed, uncovering a
Cold War conspiracy.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
Love it good like that?
Speaker 7 (13:44):
You know, it's funny. I should let everyone know when
they request a song like this from us personally and
not from our record company. They didn't get a hold
of Bombed of Bar. They didn't get all right. It's
like they tell you what episode it's going to be in,
and they are going to use exactactly one minute and
twenty seven seconds of two by two in this episode.
(14:05):
And I'm going, Wow, they're reminiscing about their husband's dying
or something. What two by two opened up the gate?
We know who's lord?
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Oh that's pretty heavy. But here's the cool thing, y'all.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Although CASSII people know this back there was a time
when we would hear about our songs being used in.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
This or that or this or that, and we.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Never got a dime Frankly, we obviously didn't care that much,
or we would have done something about it a lot sooner. However, now,
since Steven am Brown's came in long ago and got
our royalties given back, we actually get paid for this stuff.
So I wanted to acknowledge that it was years that
we did not and I am grateful.
Speaker 7 (14:44):
And the two by two story is a very interesting story.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
No no, boy boy, and I just learned it.
Speaker 8 (14:52):
Of how that song came into.
Speaker 6 (14:55):
Well, i'll tell you what. I'll tell you what I
was just going to say. I remember the night. Man.
Speaker 5 (15:01):
I don't know if we were at you know, eight
eighty eight or were we at a studio, but I
remember Bill coming in all frazzled and frayed, and I
remember him talking to Dad and David Ray and Bill
was there for money, man, and he just that was
what he was after.
Speaker 6 (15:20):
And I just remember that night.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
I remember.
Speaker 6 (15:23):
I don't remember hearing it going down, but I remember it.
Speaker 7 (15:26):
It was in California, not eighty eighty eight, because that's
New York.
Speaker 8 (15:29):
This is way you know that.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
But remember, but listen, what I wanted to know, guys,
is it Bob you recanted this story yesterday or we
were podcasting something. You said they went down and registered
with BMI as right a story. Wait wait, wait please,
I just want to get one thing clear. Did Dad
register as a writer when you said that or just David?
Speaker 8 (15:53):
No, both of them, so I had no.
Speaker 7 (15:57):
No, they didn't. They were desperate, guys. These are desper
for times.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
They were desperate. Bill was desperate.
Speaker 7 (16:03):
Understand another episode. We will share the you in my
mind story. Okay, that's that's for the future. Okay, tell me.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
I can't wait. I know nothing.
Speaker 8 (16:14):
It's horrific.
Speaker 7 (16:15):
So but with two by two, you know, we're still
on MGM and Bill's been thrown out of the band,
and right Paul said, and.
Speaker 6 (16:24):
He was wow.
Speaker 7 (16:26):
So that's who we bumped into at that time. He's
a mess, you know, and Paul's going to deal with that.
What we will get to the Bridey Murphy episode. People,
I've been getting emails sometimes and info at calcol where's
the Bridy Murphy episode?
Speaker 6 (16:40):
It's come in had a boy.
Speaker 7 (16:42):
So Bill was a mess. He needed money. He had
a song he wrote, two by two. So David Ray,
who was part of our management team and our dad
went that had no money. This is towards the end
two by two, we're hanging by a thread, folks as
a business. Uh So they went down to be in
my registered as writers and publishers and right writers and publishers.
(17:07):
Based on that, we're able to get a loan of
money that they could use to give to Bill to
get the song.
Speaker 8 (17:15):
And they gave it to Bill.
Speaker 7 (17:16):
I think it was three grand and Bill gave up
all the rights, the publishing and the writing right to
two by two.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
So so these two guys looked at Billy when he
came and said, I need money, guys, I need it badly,
went well, I'll tell you what we're gonna do.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
You got that nice little song, we want you to
sell it to us. S.
Speaker 7 (17:34):
I guess that's what you do to your kids. I
guess personally is Bill would not be that with it
in terms of them and doing this, but this is
as he's offering. Okay, it's like, look, I remember the
song is great. It's a good demo. You know it's great.
It was they were it was him and why and
(17:55):
you know those guys that did that heavy man and
maybe he co wrote it. I don't know. You know,
some people don't really say that when it's in this
kind of situation, I need money. But nonetheless, okay, So
decades later they this place wants to use two by
two and they got to chase down who owns the copyright.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Tell the cool story about David.
Speaker 7 (18:18):
They found us, the artists. We're fine, you know. And
now that, like Paul said, you know, Susan said, we're
in on this stuff.
Speaker 8 (18:27):
Now, guys sag after. We're all good if they use
our stuff.
Speaker 7 (18:31):
But now they came to info at cascil dot com.
Ponies did came to I'm looking through info at caulcil. Hey,
we're looking for you. You found us, so yeah, and
hey we need to know who.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
But look, look we need to make write the story
about David Ray and what he did. The man who
with my dad bought Billy's song for three thousand bucks.
He ended up calling us to say, hey, these guys
are looking for you, guys to give you.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
Money for you by two. I'm not taking it. Well
where do I send it?
Speaker 7 (19:03):
That's right, Well, that's important that after this last step,
so they find us through info and now, of all things,
you know, I gave him, I said, the guy that
runs this thing this song, David Ray, I gave him
his email address, and then so they then David got
in touched with the jests, and David got ahold of
us said, hey, look, you're not gonna believe this, but.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
That made me.
Speaker 8 (19:25):
Really it was amazing.
Speaker 7 (19:26):
Yeah, David said, I'm just gonna you want me to
close this deal, I'll just sign it over to you.
Speaker 8 (19:31):
And I say, absolutely.
Speaker 5 (19:33):
There's no way, there's no way David would honestly, god,
I mean, there's no way that he would have not
mentioned that to us and taken that money.
Speaker 6 (19:44):
Of course, no way, there's no way he would have
done that.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
No.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
And but here's what's so amazing.
Speaker 6 (19:49):
Too nice a guy, really, so right, and so you.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
Know, you watch these whole are lives and all these
things that happen, you know, and like you just it's
like it is a amazing to me that so much
wildness can go on. And now it is twenty twenty five,
and those of us who are left from this wild ride, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
It to me is a very beautiful thing that David Ray,
this old beautiful man friend of ours, said hey, knuckleheads,
here's your money.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
Yeah, they know this, and these older people know the
story better than we know the story he wrote it.
Speaker 7 (20:25):
But what's funny is David, when they signed up with BMI, uh,
they called their publishing company just in Time Publishing justin
jus T I N and the last name th h
y M. And the reason they called it that was
David says that they got to check just in time
and so they called it then a desperate there, the
(20:49):
desperation is going to get worse, okay, with you in
my mind. Actually, the desperation is going to turn into
fraud with you in my mind, and we're going to
have to take part in it because we did what
we were Okay, So I learned a lot from these podcasts.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
I gotta tell you, guys, Johnny.
Speaker 7 (21:05):
Whittaker, we'll put off, we'll have you in my mind
little conversation and other things we wanted to talk about.
Speaker 8 (21:12):
But we see right now.
Speaker 7 (21:14):
We're so excited because there, Yeah, what an uplifting background
you have.
Speaker 8 (21:22):
I like it with that blue sky. Look at you man, well.
Speaker 6 (21:28):
Look at all of you gorgeous human beings.
Speaker 8 (21:30):
Wow. I got to look for a minute. Oh my god,
this is the first.
Speaker 7 (21:35):
Time we're meeting Johnny guys. You know kind of a
quote unquote in person okay.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
Okay, and I'm just gonna see Johnny.
Speaker 5 (21:42):
I can see Johnny eleven, twelve year old Johnny in you.
Speaker 6 (21:48):
To see that a lot, but I'm seeing him. Paul.
Speaker 8 (21:51):
I did the same thing. I looked and I said, oh, yeah,
there is there.
Speaker 7 (21:54):
He is Binanza, gun Smoke. Those are the shows I
remember with I mean, I remember the TV show.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Of course.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
Let's let this guy.
Speaker 7 (22:04):
Epitomizes technicolor because every picture I see of him in
these old shows, that beautiful technicolor that I loved.
Speaker 8 (22:11):
It's not that way anymore. But he's in it.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
He's in it right now.
Speaker 8 (22:16):
No, and that you know what I mean by technicolor.
Speaker 6 (22:18):
Disney had absolutely you know my turn.
Speaker 8 (22:22):
We're doing all the talking.
Speaker 6 (22:23):
Hey, Johnny, how you doing. Welcome to the show. Well,
thank you very much, glad to be here with you all.
Speaker 8 (22:30):
Thank you.
Speaker 6 (22:31):
This isn't let the young lady say something.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Oh my god, you noticed me number one? Yay?
Speaker 6 (22:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
Those are my brothers and.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
So obviously hey, I've got one. I've got two brothers
and five sisters.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
Are you in the middle? Where are you in.
Speaker 6 (22:50):
The I am a middle child, which is why you.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
Just negotiated my time for me.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Paul is our middle child, and when he's not being
a pain in my butt, he's my associate.
Speaker 4 (23:00):
Okay, Hi, Johnny Whittaker, and welcome to the Cowcil Podcast.
Speaker 8 (23:03):
Johnny Whitaker.
Speaker 7 (23:04):
Let me just wrap up the intro, ladies and gentlemen,
today's guest, and then I'll hand it to you, Susan.
And now Johnny understands because Susan had six brothers and
she never got a word in. So this is Johnny Whittaker,
he of Family of Fair fame, played Jody with Buffy
and all that, of the Disney movies. Of this guy
played Santa Claus. He's the first person I've ever personally
(23:27):
met who actually played Santa Claus in a movie, and
he did. I think that's a special thing. I don't
know if you took it seriously, but we'll get into that.
Speaker 8 (23:36):
But he's here. Is our guest, Susan. Take it.
Speaker 4 (23:39):
Thank you, Robert Paul Cowshill, Hi, Johnny.
Speaker 6 (23:44):
Hello.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
Look, I'm just gonna sitdre and be like, hey, I've
taken it. No, I am not, but I do want
to welcome you here.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
And needless to say, I am particularly excited that you're
joining us because why I was a huge family affair fan.
Speaker 6 (24:01):
Well, thank you, Okay, I watched.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
It all the time, and quite frankly, I thought maybe
if I got in touch with Uncle Bill, he could
maybe arrange for a fourth adoption because I thought I would.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
Fit in well with the kids. Yeah, so listen, I like.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
What I like to do is kind of take it back,
maybe a little bit before your fabulous career, which is
hard to do because you started so early.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
But right, so you're born in Van Eys.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Yeah, correct, nineteen fifty nine, at the end of the
Great fifties.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
And what's mom and dad do?
Speaker 6 (24:43):
Well?
Speaker 1 (24:44):
My father and mother met in college at Utah State University,
where my son now is head coach of the women's
soccer program.
Speaker 6 (25:00):
That is very cool, very cool.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
My uh, my parents met there. My mother got her
Mrs degree, and pH T missus and p h T
is putting Hovey through all right, remember, Okay, So that's okay,
(25:26):
So here you.
Speaker 8 (25:27):
Are, now you are.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
They moved to the brand new San Fernando Valley, which
had been a bunch of lemon, lime, orange and olive groves. Yeah,
and it was a brand new little part of North
Los Angeles. Dad started working as a junior high school
(25:53):
or middle school teacher for shop.
Speaker 6 (26:00):
He taught woodworking, he.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Taught metal and plastic and all kinds of cool things
that we all loved in junior high and Dad got
to teach it to junior high school students for the
next forty years.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
And I was born the fifth child on the day
before my parents' eighth wedding anniversary.
Speaker 6 (26:33):
And so I was not a surprise.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
No, and you're ruined the dinner out right.
Speaker 6 (26:39):
But my mother had been told by my father.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Who is in his family. I'm just looking in it,
says John Whittaker. Juanito, does that that's coming up on yours?
Speaker 4 (26:58):
Yeah, yeah, it's your history as well.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Yes, of course, but I just okay, there we go. Anyway,
So mom and dad and I was the fifth child.
There were three girls and one boy before me.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
Oh, and.
Speaker 6 (27:19):
My father was working three jobs. And we are very.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Especially at the time, very strong members of the LDS faith,
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints or
the Mormon Church, and the the Osmonds were living and
in the same congregation that we were in.
Speaker 6 (27:48):
Whoa cow and so you were always a ward? Correct? Yes,
we called them.
Speaker 5 (27:57):
Oh, so you've got to see the Osmonds if you're
in the war together.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Absolutely there because they were traveling. But when I was
three and a half years old or three and three
quarters years old in October, I was.
Speaker 6 (28:19):
A member of my mother's.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
A junior choir or the what they have, the children's choir,
and my sisters who my father, Well, when we were born,
my father told my mother that if all of his
children didn't come out singing a perfect sea, they.
Speaker 6 (28:49):
Were not his and my mother, my mother said, and.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
All of them saying a perfect see mom.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
But so you started singing right away. There was no
other path for you. You didn't want to be a fireman,
a doctor, a teacher, a ranger.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
Well I wanted to be all of those things as well.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
Okay, but.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
After my my sisters were supposed to be singing the.
Speaker 6 (29:24):
Chorus to a new children's song.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
And I'm trying to get myself centered centered there anyway,
So my sisters were going to sing the chorus to
this new children's song, and this little girl was going
to sing the verses. It was a new song. All
of the kids didn't get to learn it in time.
(29:49):
So my mother took my sisters and this little girl. Well,
when my sisters weren't practicing with the little girl, they
practiced with me.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
Aha.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
So on the Saturday before the Sunday of the performance,
in front of the congregation of three hundred Mormons, the
little freckle faced soloist got the chicken pox.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
Oh my god.
Speaker 6 (30:21):
So the only.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
You know, I was the backup, and so I sang
the first verse, and the choir and my sisters sang
harmony to the chorus, and then the pianist played the
intro to the second verse. I forgot the words blazed,
(30:50):
and so now the the the pianist is playing the
intro again, and I just start singing words that were
not written.
Speaker 6 (31:05):
And of course my sisters are elbowing me.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
No, no, no, that's not right, and I'm just saying,
shut up, leave me alone. Just look out at the.
Speaker 6 (31:13):
Audience and smile now.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
And finally we got to the chorus, and then we
got the third verse.
Speaker 6 (31:24):
Could my sisters helped me with the third verse. And
after the.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Services, there was a member in the ward of the
congregation who came up to mom and dad and said,
a three and a half year old kid who can
hold his composure, not get scared and not start to cry,
and not get nervous with all these people watching him
making up words to a.
Speaker 6 (31:50):
Song that was already written.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
That maybe we should talk, And she said, my son
has done some commercials, and I think that Johnny should
go meet up with my agent.
Speaker 8 (32:06):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 6 (32:08):
And so I.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Did the next day, and that same day I got
my first job, which was an Okay used car for
Chevrolet Used Cars, and I played a.
Speaker 6 (32:22):
Used car dealer.
Speaker 4 (32:26):
Car dealer.
Speaker 8 (32:28):
Yeah, little Johnny Whittaker, right, Oh.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
It's easy to do. It's easy to do. I'm sorry
I got this.
Speaker 7 (32:35):
Yeah, you know. Is that kind of how because my
courses was with all the children.
Speaker 8 (32:42):
Why you?
Speaker 7 (32:43):
But I see, it's just the universe taking over and
it picked you at three and a half. It's not
like your parents said, ah, let's have this guy be
an actor.
Speaker 6 (32:54):
And my father, like I said, was working three jobs.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
He had a full time job as a teacher, and
he went in at six point thirty, cut all the wood,
got everything ready for the next day. Kids started to
come in by seven point thirty and eight o'clock of course,
the school bell rang, and he worked up until three
o'clock and at three o'clock he would leave to go
(33:24):
to his second job, which was a mechanic gas station,
so that he was part owner of and then lost
it all because of his partner being a bad person.
And then on the weekends, my dad was a weekend
(33:46):
warrior with the National Guard. And when I started working
and started bringing in in come, you know, Dad said,
maybe I can spend more time with the family.
Speaker 8 (34:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
So he just had the two jobs where the one
he did the weekend warrior stuff a couple of weekends
a month, and then also continue to teach for forty years.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
Wow, kind of you kind of allowed dad to.
Speaker 7 (34:23):
Take a bit of a breather at that young age.
Were you cognizant of your role and him being able
to do that or were you just living a happy, carefree,
happy I'm a little guy, I get to act life.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (34:39):
I had no idea.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
I mean I never saw one cent of the money
that I made. The only time that I saw money
was when we were on hiatus, which is when you're
not working and you're still kind of contracted for the
(35:01):
next season, but you're not making any money, so you
go to unemployment and at that time, we went to
the unemployment office and I had to be present, and
I had to sign my name, and I would give
the papers over with my mom next to me. Then
(35:22):
we would go to the cashier with the check that
they would hand over to me, and the cashier would
hand my mother the money.
Speaker 6 (35:30):
Chit chit chit, chit chit. And when I saw that,
I said, well, I signed for that.
Speaker 8 (35:39):
Okay.
Speaker 6 (35:39):
Oh so she gave me a five dollar bill.
Speaker 8 (35:43):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Okay, So Johnny, may I may? I ask as the
years toddled through, is that okay with you as it
sets now?
Speaker 4 (35:52):
Or is that not okay with you? How did that
fit into how does that fit into your well? I?
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Unfortunately, as time went on and I got older, my
mother and father always worked and they showed me the
importance of going to a job and working. Unfortunately, we
(36:25):
in my mother's last years, she and I did not
see eye to eye on a lot of subjects, especially financial,
and I had gone through a very devastating divorce. One
(36:45):
of the purposes was because of finances.
Speaker 6 (36:50):
And I, as most of us do, I blamed my
mother for it.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
She said, well, you don't see furs and limousines in
the front yard. We took your money and it was
all for one and one for all for.
Speaker 4 (37:15):
Sure, which pretty old school really, you know.
Speaker 6 (37:19):
And I supported that.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
And luckily because we lived in California, and two of
the main jobs that I had, family Affair and Sigmund
and the Sea Monsters.
Speaker 6 (37:37):
They were.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Contracted roles. And in the state of California we have
the Jackie Cougan Law, and the Jackie Cougan Law states
that any child working on a contract series or major,
(38:02):
like if you're under contract with the studio, that a
certain percentage had to be put away.
Speaker 6 (38:11):
So when I turned.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Eighteen, I got about a little under one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 6 (38:19):
Okay, got it for all that work.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Now, in the fourteen years that I worked, and quite
prolifically in those fourteen years, I made approximately about two
million dollars, and of that amount, I got about one
(38:47):
hundred thousand.
Speaker 6 (38:49):
So I was hoping and praying that my parents had.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Put aside of my money or the family's money into
some kind of a fund or something in that I
would find it or you know, it would be available
to me.
Speaker 8 (39:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
But in nineteen sixty eight, our family moved from Pacoima
which was a heavily Latino area, but a lot of
whites as well, and we went through.
Speaker 6 (39:35):
A darker portion of town which was where a lot
of blacks lived, and.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Martin Luther King had just been murdered, martyred, and we
had a white van, a white truck and another car
that was helping us move from San Fernando from Pacoima
to Silmar, at which time we went through the.
Speaker 6 (40:10):
Darker area of Pacoima and we.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
Were pelted by rocks and whatever could happen because we
were a big white family coming through this darker part
of town. When we made it safely to San Fernando,
I asked my father, Dad, why do those people hate
me so much or hate us so much? And my father,
(40:37):
being a very wise, loving and culturally respectful individual, said, John,
they're not mad at us, they're angry at a situation.
Being Mormon, we knew what a prophet was. A prophet
(40:57):
is the leader of the Mormon faith. And so my
father said, for many of those people, their profit was killed.
Speaker 6 (41:09):
You remember Martin Luther King Junior.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
He was like their profit, and they're angry at that,
and so they took out their anger on us because
they felt they could. It's not right, it wasn't good,
but you have to understand the why of what they
were doing and.
Speaker 6 (41:32):
How they were feeling.
Speaker 8 (41:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (41:35):
Good, We moved into this big, beautiful home. We went
from three from three rooms to six rooms.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
And in that of course, I paid quite a bit
of the down payment and monthly mortgage because I was working.
And when my mother passed away my father had passed earlier.
(42:10):
In her will or it was that the home was
to be divided equally in seven in eight parts. And
I went to my mother's state president church leader at
the time, who was actually the person who was selling
(42:32):
my mother's home, and I just said, I'm not comfortable.
Speaker 6 (42:39):
With my mother's decision.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
And so I went to my brother who was the executor,
my younger brother, and I showed them my father's income
statements and my income statements for the same years. I said,
I don't want to make a big deal of all this,
(43:04):
because I know families have been hurt, harmed, and destroyed
by financial situations.
Speaker 6 (43:12):
But I worked and lost out on a whole lot
of stuff.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
Because I gave up my childhood to help keep this
family going and to live in the home that we're
about to sell. I don't want to make a big deal,
but I would like to make an offer that I
(43:40):
would take one quarter of the one hundred percent of
the sales, and that the three quarters would then be
split among the other seven siblings. And my one sister said, well,
you should get half of it or more, and I said,
I'm not looking for that. I'm not looking for money.
(44:03):
I'm looking for validation absolutely of the work that I did,
the time and the energy that I put into my
younger years. And there were a couple of holdouts, and
I said, if it's not unanimous, I will you know,
(44:27):
I will remove my request, but there will be animus
on my side and frustration, and I will feel that
none of you understood what I had to go through
right on, and my brother was able to negotiate with
(44:49):
the other two that weren't as excited and happy. And
today we still sing together, and we still are, you know,
in you know, my eldest sister had passed away by
the time my mother passed away in a car accident,
leaving behind.
Speaker 6 (45:10):
Six little children. But we, you know, we get.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Along pretty well. I mean, I don't know if any
of you can relate to you know, sibling rivalry and
yelling at each other and cutting out of each other.
Speaker 4 (45:39):
Boys except me. So there was a lot of yelling.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Okay, and then getting back together and being able to
sing a spiritual song together. And you know this weekend,
my brother and well, on Thursday, my brother and sisters
and I are going to my cousins opening night and
(46:09):
uh premiere of a film called.
Speaker 6 (46:17):
Yes, Oh, come on brain anyway.
Speaker 8 (46:21):
It's it sounds like us.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Look, we're just all took turns doing this. It's your turn, Johnny.
Speaker 1 (46:28):
Anyway. It's all about a come on, you can cut
this out when I'm uh.
Speaker 8 (46:38):
Yes, we can remember.
Speaker 5 (46:41):
A movie about the c I A no, no, no,
it's uh uh holy.
Speaker 6 (46:52):
Ruth and okay, take two.
Speaker 1 (46:57):
So this Thursday, my brother and sisters and I are
going to see a film that my cousin directed and
produced called Truth and Treason. And it's all about a
sixteen or seventeen year old.
Speaker 6 (47:16):
Mormon boy during.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
The occupation of the Nazis of Germany who decided that
he was going to get the truth about the Nazis
out okay, And he was decapitated for his actions but
(47:39):
was able to save a lot of people.
Speaker 4 (47:42):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
And so we're all going to get together to go
see that to support my cousin. And then we have
a family friend and we will be together on this
weekend in Palm Desert.
Speaker 6 (47:57):
And we'll be singing.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
And I don't know if they've invited us to sing
for the memorial service, but we will anyway together and
have a good old time. That is.
Speaker 5 (48:12):
So, just to backtrack just a little bit, So your
brother got the rest of the family to go quarter
for you.
Speaker 6 (48:20):
Three quarters for them. Exactly awesome, right on?
Speaker 4 (48:25):
Okay, all right, hi Bob, you get yours.
Speaker 7 (48:27):
Well, Okay, because Johnny, I just have a question in
the context of your family when you were all younger.
Now I understand how you started. It was just like,
you know, God had a plan for you. Okay, So
at three and a half implementation with all of your
great success as that was there. I know your sister
probably I think, became an actress. But didn't you get
(48:49):
to drag any of the other siblings into this business,
into this kind of success.
Speaker 8 (48:54):
I mean, you all had to be cute.
Speaker 7 (48:55):
I can't imagine you were the only cut and cute one.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
I mean, we all are pleasing to the site to
a certain extent, you know, some more than others, as
long as we have all of our teeth in.
Speaker 4 (49:16):
But did any of them follow down the path? Did
any of them?
Speaker 6 (49:21):
Well, all of my brothers and sisters.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
When I was given the role which I really didn't
have to fight for, for Tom Sawyer. An interesting little
side story, when I went to do the audition for
Tom Sawyer, my agent had told the producers, I've got
(49:46):
the only Tom Sawyer in Hollywood, and they said, oh,
Jody is too cute, and you know, he can't play
the role of Tom Sawyer. So the producers went all
around the country, meeting up with close to twenty five
hundred boys for the roles of Tom and Huck. When
(50:10):
I did the screen test, there were a few other
boys there that were you know, whittled down to a
few and I had done my first interview with the
screen test. Jeff East and Jodie Foster were there, Yeah,
she was Becky and the three of us did scenes together.
Speaker 6 (50:33):
And at the end of that.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
The casting director Ross Brown told my you know, and
when my mom and dad told me that I was
going on this audition for Tom Sawyer, I said, well,
I have been working every summer for the past X
number of years and I don't want to go. I
(51:00):
paid money to go to boy Scout Camp and I'm
going to a boy Scout camp, or are you? And
I said, They said, well, just go meet with them.
You know, it's important to go meet with people and
at least, you know, maybe on their next job or
(51:20):
their next you know whatever. Just go meet with them.
So I did, and I did the and when my
parents were asked to come into the production office, the
casting director Ross Brown said, well, Johnny, you certainly have
ugly up.
Speaker 6 (51:39):
You are Tom Sawyer?
Speaker 4 (51:42):
Are you freaking kid?
Speaker 8 (51:44):
That's good, that's great.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
And I said, what do you mean and he said, well,
we're giving you the role of Tom Sawyer. I said, oh,
thank you very much, but I'm not taking it. And
my mother and father looked at each other and look
at the casting directors.
Speaker 6 (52:03):
What do you mean?
Speaker 1 (52:04):
I said, I'm going to boy Scout Camp and production
begins on the fourth day of boy Scout Camp, and
I will not miss my boy Scout camp.
Speaker 6 (52:17):
So they made some arrangements and.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
I then would fly two days after the beginning of
production and with my sister, my oldest sister, who passed away,
and the rest of the family, and I told my
mom and dad that I would not do it unless
(52:42):
the whole family came out to Missouri with me.
Speaker 8 (52:46):
Well, aren't you the little tycoon?
Speaker 2 (52:49):
He's my hero right now, I should have pulled this
for my brownie, for us go ahead.
Speaker 1 (52:56):
And so.
Speaker 6 (52:58):
I got all of them to come out to Missouri.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
And instead of staying in the Ramata Inn, we took
the per diem money and the money for the rental
of the room for that month, and we got a
three bedroom apartment where we all lived right next to
(53:24):
the Ramada Inn, and a well, my one sister, my
one brother, who just got a job at McDonald's refused
to come right on, And but everybody else did come
out to the film, and they were all in the movie,
(53:47):
and I show a presentation with each of them where
you can see them running here.
Speaker 6 (53:53):
And my father, my mother didn't.
Speaker 1 (53:56):
My mother was doing all the ringlets, so she didn't
get a role. But my father was one of Muff
Potter's drinking buddies. And uh, you can see him in
Muff playing and drinking.
Speaker 4 (54:09):
And watch this tonight. I can't wait.
Speaker 8 (54:12):
That's pretty good.
Speaker 6 (54:13):
And I'll afterward.
Speaker 1 (54:16):
Here, I'll send you the uh, the video.
Speaker 6 (54:20):
Oh it would be.
Speaker 4 (54:21):
Great with with the family in it.
Speaker 6 (54:22):
That would be easy.
Speaker 4 (54:25):
Do I get to bring you back to family affair
at all?
Speaker 1 (54:28):
Sure? Absolutely?
Speaker 8 (54:29):
Brothers may I Yeah, you're next and then we're gonna
take turns. Go ahead, all right.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
I got to bring you back because like that's my
jam and uh, that's where you and I began. And
I was a huge fan and I've always wanted to
know And this is sounds so ridiculous coming out of
my mouth.
Speaker 4 (54:46):
At this moment, but it's it's what it is.
Speaker 2 (54:49):
How was it working with Brian with with with Kathy?
Speaker 4 (54:54):
Is that was that her name? Kathy? And and and
and so asked you, how was it? Did you enjoy it?
Speaker 2 (55:02):
Or was it? Was it complicated? I mean, you know,
and of course everything has all things? But was it fun?
And did you remain friends with Anissa as.
Speaker 1 (55:13):
It went along?
Speaker 8 (55:14):
All that?
Speaker 1 (55:17):
I had met Brian Keith the fall of nineteen sixty
five doing the film The Russians Are Coming, The Russians
Are Coming His We all stayed in a little motel
in Fort Bragg, North Caro, California, and that's where they
(55:45):
had built this little New England town to look like
it was something off of Connecticut or you know, Nantucket
or something like that, a little town. The only problem
is is that the sun rose on the town over
(56:09):
the ocean and would set behind. So they just had
to switch. Whenever there was a sunrise, it was a sunset.
Speaker 4 (56:18):
We had that in commercials. We're familiar with that moment anyway,
and as you get it on the sunset, who knows
any better?
Speaker 1 (56:25):
Right, right, right? Anyway, So Brian Keith and I became friends.
He had two daughters, didn't have any boys yet, but
wanted a little boy, and so we played ball.
Speaker 6 (56:41):
Out in the parking lot after work.
Speaker 1 (56:44):
And I'm writing a book and in my book I
talk about the fact that Brian Keith came over knocked
on the door, and my mother, of course, seeing this
gorgeous hunkah hunk, a man and movie star, knocked on
the door and said, can Johnny Whittako come out to play?
(57:09):
And my mom at the time, so that we could
save money my per diem, we purchased a little hot
plate and my mother was making me grilled cheese sandwiches,
but I called them boy cheese sandwiches because I'm not
going to eat a girl cheese sandwich. And we invited
(57:32):
Brian to eat with us, and he said, no, no, no, no,
You're gonna come with Jonathan Winters and I and we're
going to treat you to steak. And so that night
Jonathan Winters, Brian and my mom and I and of
course Jonathan Winters had lots of kids and had a.
Speaker 6 (57:57):
Great dinner with the two of them.
Speaker 1 (58:01):
But when it came time for family affair, Brian told
the producers that he wanted this little kid that was
in his.
Speaker 6 (58:09):
Film for some role.
Speaker 1 (58:13):
Now, the role of Jody was originally set for a
ten year old boy, the role of Sissy for a
sixteen year old girl, and the role of Buffy for
a six year old girl.
Speaker 6 (58:27):
Okay, so there wasn't a main role for me, but
they figured that.
Speaker 1 (58:31):
I could be a next door neighbor or friend or whatever.
So on the day of the screen test they brought
me in and I was the only six year old
boy with all these ten year old boys. But because
they wanted to appease Brian Keith, the main star of
(58:56):
the film, they had me read with a few of
the girls. Amissa was one of them. I also remember
pamelin Ferden. Oh.
Speaker 6 (59:08):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (59:09):
Lucy Krasnick's voice.
Speaker 1 (59:11):
Exactly was one of the other girls that I remember.
And when they saw that Anissa and I looked so
much alike, they said, this is Hollywood magic. This is
what we're going to change everything to twins.
Speaker 4 (59:29):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (59:29):
So I remember my mother on the phone talking to
my agent telling me that I got the role and
that I was going to be working with Brian Keith.
I got all excited because I thought he was just
a super nice guy and it would be fun to
work with him again. Now, Brian Keith had a contract
(59:52):
where he would only work three out of the nine months,
similar to Fred McMurray with my three sons, so that
he could follow his film pursuits during the other months
of the year. But he would only commit to three
months with us. So our filming schedule was all weird
(01:00:17):
because we had to do all of his scenes first,
and then for the next for the next six months,
then we would go ahead and do all the scenes
that he was You're.
Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
Doing things way out of context of when you're crying
your little heart at Uncle Bio, Uncle Bio, and you're crying, crying, crying,
and you haven't even lived out.
Speaker 6 (01:00:34):
What you're crying about yet exactly. So, acting.
Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
As an actor, I didn't really know what the whole
story was. I just knew my lines for that day,
which I think to a certain extent was beneficial because
then I wouldn't have to, you know, deal, if there
there's anything that I'm supposed to be talking about my mother,
(01:01:03):
would you know, queue me in and say, well, in
the scene and two scenes before, this is what.
Speaker 6 (01:01:09):
Happened, and now this is what's happening your.
Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
Right. But with Brian, when he was there, he was
like an uncle, just a fun uncle. He would pick
us up, throw us over his shoulder, you know, piggyback us,
ponyback us onto the set. And uh, when you see
(01:01:38):
the love that is between Brian and Brian and I,
it is a real connection. Wow. And that is something
that you cannot force or you cannot create.
Speaker 8 (01:01:55):
Yeah, I see it.
Speaker 4 (01:01:57):
I see it, Johnny, I see I watch I'm not kidding.
Speaker 7 (01:02:00):
I was what Sebastian Cabot more prim and proper.
Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
And well, you see, Sebastian came from Shakespearean the Eta theater, and.
Speaker 6 (01:02:16):
He told us that children ought to be seen and
not heard all right, I heard him say that on
the show, and.
Speaker 1 (01:02:34):
That but he had a daughter who was, uh, just
a little older than Anissa, and Anissa was almost two
years older than I, and.
Speaker 6 (01:02:52):
But young enough.
Speaker 1 (01:02:54):
Sebastian had three children, two older children, and then a
little surprised that he and his wife had And so
he knew how to deal with children to a certain extent.
But he also said, the actor prepares, So if you
children would like to run lines and prepare, I'm happy
(01:03:17):
to play with you. But we we prepare for the scene,
you know. And I learned, you know, Brian Keith would
be laughing with the crew or some other people and
then come in onto the set and be Uncle Bill.
(01:03:38):
And there wasn't a big difference in the character of
Uncle Bill then was Brian Keith? Now? The only difference
with Sebastian was if for some reason there was a
publicity event happening on the set, he would, oh, children,
(01:04:00):
come here, come here, children, children, would you like to
listen to Winnie the Pooh Oh?
Speaker 4 (01:04:08):
Please?
Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
We love to listen to Winnie the Pooh under the
voice of Sebastian Cabot.
Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
Mister French was Sebastian, and I mean, dude, he did.
Speaker 4 (01:04:28):
He scared me.
Speaker 6 (01:04:31):
He was a very a very kind and gentleman. But
it was all business.
Speaker 4 (01:04:37):
Okay, Bob Paul, you guys know I stole.
Speaker 1 (01:04:39):
Well, just just one more thing with Brian, yes, yes,
is that Brian.
Speaker 6 (01:04:48):
Did not like adults.
Speaker 4 (01:04:51):
Well, I love him more every second.
Speaker 1 (01:04:53):
He did not like the producers and the CBS hold
that it had on the on the show, and that
was one of the reasons that Family Affair was canceled
later on. But Brian was a loving, loving man, especially
(01:05:18):
to the kids.
Speaker 6 (01:05:19):
But he did not like doing publicity junkets. He would
not do them.
Speaker 1 (01:05:24):
He would do a few that were in his budget
or in his realm, but he wouldn't publicize anything. And
Anissa and I we would. We got publicized to the Hill.
Yeah there was Buffy dresses and Jody and.
Speaker 6 (01:05:53):
You know all of that.
Speaker 1 (01:05:54):
Buffy and Jody, bikes, Buffy and Joe. Absolutely, it was
a Brian. Okay, Brian Keith is the star of the show,
but not really.
Speaker 7 (01:06:04):
It's going to end up being well, of course we're
kids watching it, so the kids are the star anyway, It's.
Speaker 8 (01:06:10):
Just the parent, you know.
Speaker 4 (01:06:12):
Yeah, but I really you know again.
Speaker 7 (01:06:15):
I do have a question. And you guys, you can
look up all kinds of information. Uh okay on your own,
but this got my attention. Your schedule during the filming
of your TV show. You're up at six, you're in
the car. At seven, you're at the studio. At eight,
(01:06:35):
you're on set. You're offset into school. After school, you're
back on set. After that, you're back in school and
back on set, and then your day's over. My question
is memorizing, and I'm curious about it. You're so young,
there's so much do I want to know if you
had to learn about were you naturally good at memorizing?
(01:06:57):
Were was it easy for you to memorize scripts? Did
you take it line by line? I'm going to do
this scene tomorrow, I'll memorize it tonight. How does that work?
I'm fascinated by it.
Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
Well, the way in which I learned the lines was
on the way home from work. My mother would give
me the sides for the next day. Oh okay, I
could read at six years old.
Speaker 6 (01:07:30):
Show.
Speaker 1 (01:07:32):
I would read my lines, just you know, my lines,
and my mother would highlight my dialogue and I would
then get home, play with my friends, have dinner, watch
(01:07:53):
a little bit of TV. I didn't have any homework,
but my brothers and sisters did. But I would then
Mom and I would or one of my sisters would
read me my lines and we'd go over it for
just about a half hour, not.
Speaker 8 (01:08:12):
A long time, Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:08:14):
Then after all the kids were in bed and asleep,
my mother would come up to my room, in my
brother's room, and while I was asleep, she would read
my lines to me while I was sleeping.
Speaker 8 (01:08:29):
Wow, dedication.
Speaker 6 (01:08:32):
So I had this subliminal messages come in to me.
Speaker 8 (01:08:38):
How did you know I was sleeping.
Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
The next morning, on the way to work, I would
read my lines again and then get into the set
and you know, rehearse and go over them. In television,
most all of the scenes were three to five minutes long,
and you would break them up into you know, even
(01:09:04):
smaller bits, so you didn't have a whole lot to memorize,
especially at that time, and we could you know, ask
for line oh and get.
Speaker 6 (01:09:21):
The lines that we didn't know at the time.
Speaker 1 (01:09:26):
And at that time, I mean today we have a
video which everything is done and a lot cheaper there.
Speaker 6 (01:09:36):
When you are filming, it.
Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
Goes through the sprockets one time and that's it.
Speaker 6 (01:09:46):
So if you didn't know your lines or you didn't
do it.
Speaker 1 (01:09:52):
And you had to do a second or third take,
I was lucky to be known as one take whittaker.
Speaker 8 (01:09:57):
Oh there you go, Oh nice, there go?
Speaker 7 (01:10:01):
Because what the attitude to be a people you work
with if if you don't do your line, now you
got to do the scene over again.
Speaker 8 (01:10:07):
A Sebastian, because.
Speaker 7 (01:10:11):
I don't know what you went through on the set,
if things didn't always go smooth, you know, I guess
it's pretty cool account.
Speaker 6 (01:10:20):
So I just want to hone in on the school. So,
you know, we did a lot of TV shows.
Speaker 5 (01:10:28):
We understand that we always had to be at school
when we weren't working. It was John and Barry, Susan
and myself. We were too young not to be able
to say now we're not doing it. And so was
that your whole schooling?
Speaker 6 (01:10:41):
Though? Did you ever go to a real public public
school or Catholic school whenever? Mormon school?
Speaker 1 (01:10:49):
No, they don't have any more. Well they do have
Mormon school. I went to Brigham Young University.
Speaker 5 (01:10:54):
Well, yeah, my granddaughter is going to go there next
year on a Soul Road scholarship.
Speaker 6 (01:11:00):
Excellent. Yeah, what we were filming nine months out.
Speaker 8 (01:11:08):
Of the year, amazing, amazing.
Speaker 6 (01:11:11):
So our season usually started in April.
Speaker 1 (01:11:16):
We go April May, then June, July, August, your entire
summer months. Those three months we didn't have school, right
so we could work, and.
Speaker 6 (01:11:30):
Then September, October, November.
Speaker 1 (01:11:35):
And so during the off season when we were on hiatus,
I would go back to regular public school.
Speaker 4 (01:11:49):
And did you get the valley in Van Eys.
Speaker 1 (01:11:53):
Well started at Beechy Street Elementary, and then when we
moved to San Fernando, I went to gosh, what's the
name Hubbard Elementary? And yes, and all my other brothers
(01:12:14):
and sisters had been going to those schools before me,
or my older ones, so they knew about you, ye know, yeah,
and they knew what was coming.
Speaker 6 (01:12:26):
And of course, in order.
Speaker 1 (01:12:28):
To get ah a children's license to work in the
entertainment industry, you had to get a work permit. You
had to have above a C grade before they would
even consider you being able to have.
Speaker 6 (01:12:52):
A work permit.
Speaker 4 (01:12:53):
I think I.
Speaker 2 (01:12:54):
Remember Mom threatening something once, saying something. I remember complaining
we were doing the Craft, the our special NBC special
and saying I don't want to go to school.
Speaker 4 (01:13:03):
I don't like that lady. She's mean. And my mom said,
you can't work if you don't go to that school.
Speaker 6 (01:13:08):
So there you go. Guess I'm going right.
Speaker 4 (01:13:15):
Yeah, So.
Speaker 1 (01:13:18):
What continued was you know that I would go to school,
to regular public school. I never went to any private school,
but I mean on the set of course is private school.
But I got great education by missus Deani. She was
(01:13:39):
the teacher who was the set teacher for All a
Family Affair. She went on to be the teacher for
the Waltons.
Speaker 8 (01:13:49):
Cool cool, cool cool, And I have a question. Yeah, So, Johnny, when.
Speaker 7 (01:14:00):
When you started you were told and I'm sure you
believe because you could do it, that they said, well,
don't give him acting lessons. He's a natural, you know,
don't worry about that. This guy, this kid has what
it takes, you know, to do it. And you're getting
by a long time on that. Eventually, though, you're not
(01:14:20):
only gonna not have that attitude. You're going to teach acting.
And even if you're not an actor, you can teach
them to act, you know what I'm saying. So something
happened between childhood and what you're doing now that really
you morphed into I don't know about. Surely you see
kids with natural ability, but I don't think you tell
them don't get acting classes.
Speaker 8 (01:14:39):
You can't.
Speaker 7 (01:14:39):
You got it, but that's what you were told as
a young and you were natural, you know, But then
eventually you're gonna go no, I'm gonna take lessons and
I'm gonna teach it.
Speaker 1 (01:14:48):
So the producers told my mother specifically, when I couldn't
say my owls my art, that I had to practice
the Red Robin crosses the Road because they did want me,
(01:15:10):
because Anissa, being older, did not have a problem with
her rs. So the first season you can see that
some of the rs are a little more difficult to hear.
Speaker 6 (01:15:26):
But I was never given a lesson in.
Speaker 1 (01:15:36):
Acting. However, when I turned well, unfortunately nineteen seventy six,
my brother well fortunately it was the by Centennial.
Speaker 4 (01:15:48):
Oh I know it's coming, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (01:15:50):
My brothers and sister, My brother and sisters and I
had the Johnny Whittaker by Centennial Family's Variety show that
we took a round the country, or at least the
western United States, singing and dancing, and of course I
was the star, but my brothers and sisters participated with
(01:16:11):
me and sang some solos and had this this.
Speaker 4 (01:16:16):
Is featuring Every Little Boy Can Be President? Is that correct?
Speaker 1 (01:16:19):
One of them was every little Boy can Be President?
Friends and friends? But what.
Speaker 6 (01:16:32):
While we were in Salt Lake City.
Speaker 1 (01:16:35):
And we were staying with my older sister who had
been married and had one child at the time, I believe,
I turned on the television and Rona Barrett says, Mary
and Nissa Jones Buffy died yesterday of a drug overdose. Yeah.
(01:16:58):
That was rough. Yeah, And I stopped what I was
doing right there.
Speaker 6 (01:17:07):
You're sixteen, And I said, what is this all about?
Why did she die?
Speaker 1 (01:17:14):
Why did she have to die? So I immediately called
Les Kaufman, who was the publicity director for Don Fetterson Productions.
Speaker 6 (01:17:27):
The producer's a family affair.
Speaker 1 (01:17:30):
He was with Paula Jones, Anissa's mother and brother, but
somehow she was able to patch me into him or
calling Anissa's home, and I spoke to him and I
(01:17:50):
just said, you know less, I'm so mister Kaufman, I'm
so sorry.
Speaker 6 (01:17:56):
You know, is there anything I can do? Is there?
Speaker 1 (01:17:58):
You know, just let Paula and paul know that I'm here,
you know, to help them through if in any way,
shape or form. And at that point I started to
try to get out of show business. I went back
(01:18:18):
to school full time. I actually did one more series
pilot which was called Mulligan Stew where I played the
oldest brother. I saw it for NBC, and then when
it came time for it to be sold, I was
(01:18:39):
not invited to continue the role of whatever my name
was Mulligan, and so I took that as a sign
that I needed to go to college. And so I
went to Brigham Young University, coming up and learning.
Speaker 6 (01:18:59):
A lot of kids like lots of things.
Speaker 1 (01:19:02):
I loved languages, and from Missus Deani I learned Spanish,
and from Jody Foster and Missus Seaman I learned French.
And so I wanted to become an international interpreter, well,
(01:19:27):
an interpreter working with the State Department somehow. Was you
know what, I may be an ambassador of Goodwill something
like that. Yeah, because of course another child star, Shirley
Temple Black, was a Goodwill ambassador. So I was just
(01:19:48):
thinking maybe that could be my next role. So I
went to college. I took French, I took Russian, and
then was asked by my bishop or my ecclesiastical leader.
Speaker 6 (01:20:05):
If I had thought about going on a mission.
Speaker 1 (01:20:09):
I just turned eighteen, and I thought, well, you know,
I think I've served a good mission and been a
good example. He says, well, why don't you let God
decide that. Put in your papers and see what happens.
So I was. I put my papers in and I
was sent to Portugal. And I lived in Portugal for
(01:20:31):
two years, and Portugal is my second Patria. I love Portugal,
I love the Portuguese people, and.
Speaker 6 (01:20:42):
Just wonderful place to live and be.
Speaker 1 (01:20:46):
My son, who's actually my godson or kind of step son,
was born in Lisbon. I would have been fifteen years
old when he was born, but he was born there
(01:21:06):
and my almost wife his mother, I had baptized on
my mission. And then when I went through my divorce,
came back to Portugal and we started our relationship. And
at the same time, my son was getting into some trouble.
So I told him he had two choices. One was
(01:21:29):
going into the army or the other was coming to
California living with Grandma and Grandpa and completing school and
going into college. He chose door number two, and so
he lived with my mom and dad for about three
years two and a half years, and graduated high school,
(01:21:49):
went on to coach high school at Silmar High School
where I went and where he went, and then went
on to be an assistant coach.
Speaker 6 (01:22:00):
At UCLA, got his degree.
Speaker 1 (01:22:06):
At in cal State Pomona, and then was the assistant
women's coach at Oregon State Ducks women's soccer, and then
went on to Utah State where he's been now as
(01:22:27):
the head coach for the women's soccer program. There.
Speaker 8 (01:22:31):
He picked the right door. Yeah, I think it could
have gone south with the other door. You know, you
never know.
Speaker 1 (01:22:40):
Yeah, yeah, And I've got three grandchildren. Well, yes and no.
Speaker 6 (01:22:49):
Unfortunately, I was not in my right mind when.
Speaker 1 (01:22:55):
He first came to the United States. I was into
drugs and alcohol at that time.
Speaker 4 (01:23:00):
Understood and.
Speaker 1 (01:23:04):
The family had an intervention in twenty eight years ago.
I got clean and sober.
Speaker 4 (01:23:09):
Congratulations, but.
Speaker 6 (01:23:14):
My embarrassment.
Speaker 1 (01:23:15):
I love him and his wife and my grandchildren, but
there has.
Speaker 6 (01:23:21):
Been a good dinner because of lots of water that's
gone under the bridge.
Speaker 1 (01:23:29):
Yeah, but you know, I still consider them mine and
they call me Uncle John, And you know, whatever part
I can play in.
Speaker 6 (01:23:41):
The family I'm happy to do so, and.
Speaker 1 (01:23:45):
His mother and I continue to be very good friends
and we you know, we are a family when we
get together in Utah and.
Speaker 4 (01:23:58):
We understand.
Speaker 2 (01:23:59):
Look, I have six brothers and twelve sister in laws,
so we know about big family extended ups downs Inzide.
Speaker 8 (01:24:11):
Did you took us to Portugal?
Speaker 7 (01:24:14):
One of the things we do are aware of a
know about is this documentary on the drug policy in Portugal,
and I just wanted you to do you have a
few words about that? Is that something you want to
talk about or you see what I mean.
Speaker 1 (01:24:27):
The reason that I have the sky Blue Sky at
sixty five, which I turned in December of last year,
I decided that I'm going to throw out four Hail
Mary passes.
Speaker 6 (01:24:48):
Hail Mary pass number one is.
Speaker 1 (01:24:52):
A cruise that we took for my sixty fifth birthday
along the Mexican Riviera, and then this next year we're
going to to the Panama Canal. So we started that
(01:25:16):
and fans and friends and family can join me and
I play Santa Claus. This year, we went to an
orphanage and were able to give toys and presents in
March to the kids from Santa's brother Okay.
Speaker 4 (01:25:41):
Why would he be there in March if Santa's very busy.
Speaker 1 (01:25:44):
Well yeah, but I just said, you know, my brother
is actually in Haiti on vacation. I don't think there
was a lot of problems at the time in Haiti
or some other city, but enjoying the summer. And he
asked me to come and meet with you all. And
(01:26:07):
since I speak fluent Spanish, I speak five languages fluently, English, Portuguese, Spanish, French,
and American Sign language.
Speaker 6 (01:26:18):
Some kids like soccer and sports. I like languages.
Speaker 8 (01:26:23):
Yeah, yeah, so that's what I do.
Speaker 6 (01:26:26):
But so that was that's number one.
Speaker 1 (01:26:31):
Number two is a film that was going to be
a short called Sky Blue Yep. And that short is
all about a white supremacist who comes to find out
that he is the only living relative to his mixed
(01:26:52):
race granddaughter.
Speaker 8 (01:26:53):
That's a heck of a premise.
Speaker 1 (01:26:55):
Now, my grandchildren are Mexican American Frick, and so you know,
I'm not a white supremacist or prejudice or I have
my prejudices, but that's not one of them.
Speaker 8 (01:27:16):
All of us, of course, you know, all of us do.
Speaker 1 (01:27:20):
But for that we are now going to do what's
called a sizzle reel this fall and winter of the
film that is now going to be a full length feature.
And the short came about forty five minutes into the story,
(01:27:45):
and so now I'm working on the other forty five
minutes that my roommate, best friend and writing partner came
up with. And so that's number two. Number three is
my memoirs. I'm writing all of what you're hearing. I
always like to take notes before and after. It's a
(01:28:10):
history lesson through my through my eyes, and my my
my life.
Speaker 6 (01:28:17):
As an actor, and it's always added.
Speaker 8 (01:28:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (01:28:22):
So on that, Johnny, I don't mean to interrupt, but
but on your memoirs, you had your family did an
intervention on you.
Speaker 5 (01:28:35):
Yeah, right, and so so how did how did I
just done to know?
Speaker 6 (01:28:40):
How did that roll out for you? And were you
ready or you know? How what is that?
Speaker 1 (01:28:45):
As hell?
Speaker 6 (01:28:49):
I didn't want to give up drugs. I didn't want
to give up alcohol.
Speaker 4 (01:28:53):
Who the hell wants to do that? Oh?
Speaker 1 (01:28:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (01:28:57):
I mean, and who are you?
Speaker 1 (01:28:58):
You guys don't even do any of You don't know
what alcohol is like, you don't know the feelings you
get from this wonderful yeah yeah, and Mormon, but because
I was ld as Mormon and because of my propensity
(01:29:19):
for alcoholism and drug addiction. I could go on for
another half hour about how a person becomes an addict
in an alcoholic, but basically, there are four ways you
are acclimated to it from just living around it.
Speaker 6 (01:29:37):
Second, it's part of.
Speaker 1 (01:29:38):
Your blood, and I am Irish and I've got a
thousand years of Irish whiskey in this in these veins.
Then third is trauma, going through some major trauma, which
I did with my divorce and subsequent death of my
girlfriend and unborn child, which we can get into later on,
(01:30:01):
but uh, and some other situations. And then the fourth
is not feeling that you are a part of And
you guys can probably relate that when you went back
to school and in certain situations people thought that you
were that you thought you were better than other people,
and that they, you know, wanted to put you down
(01:30:26):
and didn't invite you and didn't make you a part
or when there was something that they wanted from you,
they would invite you. But so my best friend, yeah,
and so with that that, those are the four ways
in which a person can become an addictor and an
alcoholic mine, I had the family genes and I had trauma. Yeah,
(01:30:52):
and then you know, somewhat not feeling a part of everybody.
So and when my fourth Hail Mary is that in
twenty seventeen, my mother had passed and I had gotten
some of the money from the sale of the home,
(01:31:13):
I decided to begin a documentary on the drug policy
of Portugal. Being a person in long term recovery from
all mind altering substances, I learned about the Portuguese drug
policy that as of two thousand and one, all drugs
(01:31:39):
are not allowed. They are decriminalized in Portugal, all drugs.
Speaker 8 (01:31:51):
How's that going?
Speaker 1 (01:31:53):
Well, A whole lot better than Oregon did. Y. Oregon
tried to follow suit, but they didn't follow up, and
that was there the determining factor of their problem. In Portugal,
if someone has less than two grams of an illicit substance,
(01:32:17):
instead of being thrown in jail, you are given a
ticket to go to the dissuasion Commission, and persuasion to
make you do something, dissuasion to keep you from doing something.
And so in the dissuasion Commission you go there and
the first thing they do is give you what's called
(01:32:37):
an ASI or addiction severity indexer, where you meet with
a person such as myself, a drug and alcohol counselor,
and you go through your drug history, the drugs that
you like, your alcohol usage. Then they put a stamp
on it zero to ten as far as your severity index.
(01:32:59):
You then go before two judges maybe three. One must
be a psychiatrist or a psychologist, and the other is
a jurist or a lawyer on behalf of the state
of Portugal who is familiar with the laws of Portugal.
Then when you meet with them, they look at your
(01:33:22):
ASI zero to three. Get out of here, kids, you
bother me, don't come back. Your name's going to be
on a list for five years. If you get into
more trouble, the consequences could rise.
Speaker 6 (01:33:34):
Four to six. You may have a problem.
Speaker 1 (01:33:36):
We will set you up with whatever you'd like, inpatient, outpatient,
some kind of treatment, medically assisted treatment.
Speaker 6 (01:33:46):
Seven to ten.
Speaker 1 (01:33:47):
You a mofo attic, get your butt into treatment right now.
Speaker 6 (01:33:51):
And with that, nothing is ever forced or mandated.
Speaker 1 (01:33:57):
But what the documentary is going to do is follow
five individuals through the process. And now you guys, are
from Connecticut or.
Speaker 10 (01:34:14):
Rhode Island, of course, You've got lots of Portuguese in Rhoda.
Speaker 8 (01:34:27):
Of course.
Speaker 1 (01:34:28):
Yeah, my my, my ex A lot of her family
are there in Rhode Island.
Speaker 4 (01:34:33):
Listen, listen. I mean Portuguese is what I grew up with.
Speaker 1 (01:34:38):
Yeah, and all the great food, wonderful food from Portugal. Anyway,
So my documentary is fifty years after I came to
Portugal to give a message of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 6 (01:34:55):
I'm coming from.
Speaker 1 (01:34:56):
Portugal to the rest of the world to give a
message of love and understanding for the addiction and the
process of addiction and what Portugal has done to make
things better in the world, especially around addiction.
Speaker 7 (01:35:12):
It sounds good to highlight that absolutely, to ask a
sky blue question, sure that premise? Just I love it?
I just want to quick yes or no question. Is
it a comedic approach to this issue? Or is it
a dramatic approach to this issue?
Speaker 6 (01:35:28):
Well?
Speaker 1 (01:35:30):
I grew up on family affair, which was called a
drama edy.
Speaker 8 (01:35:37):
Oh never heard that, Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:35:40):
So a drama mixed with some comedy.
Speaker 8 (01:35:45):
Sure, a drama.
Speaker 1 (01:35:51):
And so the curmudgeon that I portray comes up with
some real good one liners and is a person that
you kind of love to hate and because of the way,
(01:36:13):
hopefully the way in which I will portray the character
and the young girl who plays my granddaughter, she wants
to love her racist grandfather, but is.
Speaker 6 (01:36:30):
Also having trouble. Luckily, there is a bit of comic and.
Speaker 1 (01:36:37):
Temperance in the caretaker of Grandpa, which happens to be
Grandma's best friend, and she plays kind of the mediator
between the two.
Speaker 6 (01:36:51):
And but we're going to be able in the.
Speaker 1 (01:36:56):
Long feature get to know some of the reasons that
Billy Bob Jensen, which is the role that I'm playing,
why Billy Bob became what he became, and some of
the difficulties that he's had. But all in all, the
(01:37:21):
question again was is it a comedy or a drama?
I believe that some of the best drama comes through comedy,
and that you can be laughing one minute and something happens,
and that laughter can immediately because it's on that red emotion,
(01:37:48):
that laughter can immediately turn to tears if it's juxtapositioned correctly.
Speaker 7 (01:37:56):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, anyone else want to asking himself? I
got one more here could take us through the early
life of Scotty Baldwin.
Speaker 8 (01:38:07):
Not appreciate that one.
Speaker 4 (01:38:08):
Hey, that's mine. Why did you see that?
Speaker 2 (01:38:10):
You don't even watch gh I cannot believe you did that.
Speaker 8 (01:38:14):
It's a store, you said, No, I said, did you?
Speaker 4 (01:38:17):
I was waiting?
Speaker 8 (01:38:18):
Oh, okay, can you ask it?
Speaker 4 (01:38:20):
Thank you, Bob. So what year was this that you
were the first Scottie Baldwin. Did you appear as a
baby or did you just show up as a toddler?
Speaker 8 (01:38:30):
We're talking about at the hospital.
Speaker 6 (01:38:34):
And I'm doing the reasons, give the names.
Speaker 1 (01:38:37):
Correct? Actually I have my contract. A fan found my
contract from General Hospital. Oh my god, and paid I
don't know how much he paid for it. I hope
you didn't pay a whole lot for it, but he
sent it to me. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (01:38:57):
And well, what do you think the year to be?
Speaker 1 (01:39:01):
I think it was sixty four?
Speaker 4 (01:39:03):
Okay, so you are a complete And how so you
were a baby?
Speaker 1 (01:39:07):
Yes, well my mother in there played nurse something Audrey.
Speaker 6 (01:39:14):
Yes, Audrey was my mother.
Speaker 1 (01:39:17):
I know.
Speaker 6 (01:39:18):
Then she was married Steve Hardy and she then married
doctor Baldwin.
Speaker 1 (01:39:25):
Correct. And so I was adopted by Baldwin to become
Scottie Baldwin.
Speaker 4 (01:39:33):
Hunreal, this is unreal, mom?
Speaker 8 (01:39:36):
Right?
Speaker 6 (01:39:36):
You mean an actress?
Speaker 4 (01:39:38):
Mom? But listen, listen, John, my grandmother.
Speaker 2 (01:39:43):
I have been watching General Hospital since I was born,
since you and I literally found out, I mean I
and I watch it to this moment, and then as
a week ago I reported into these guys, losing my
mind as if this Johnny Whitaker thing couldn't get any
heavier that you were Gottie Baldwin the first. I don't
even know what to say.
Speaker 4 (01:40:03):
I wish Graham and Mom we was here. It's all
I got.
Speaker 1 (01:40:07):
No.
Speaker 6 (01:40:08):
I remember.
Speaker 1 (01:40:12):
Going to ABC Studios up in Hollywood, in the Hollywood Hills,
sitting around and doing the read through. Oh my, and
my mother was there with me, telling me what my
lines were because I didn't read at that time.
Speaker 6 (01:40:32):
Old yeah, but you.
Speaker 1 (01:40:36):
Know, getting to do the scenes with them and then
going on the set and playing the role. I remember
some of it, not a whole lot, And unfortunately there's
not a whole lot of those kiniscopes, I think is what.
Speaker 4 (01:40:53):
They were going to ask you, have you seen any
visuals of it?
Speaker 6 (01:40:57):
No, the kinescopes were all they know.
Speaker 1 (01:41:03):
You don't know.
Speaker 4 (01:41:03):
That is tragic, but it was.
Speaker 1 (01:41:09):
I I liked, you know, got another role from it
that was and baby makes three with Joan Blondell. I
played the youngest bat boy for a a little series there.
Speaker 5 (01:41:29):
Anyway, I got a question, and this is quite a
juxtaposition if we think about it. You have you have
a record out and it's called Friends and it is
on Demon Records.
Speaker 6 (01:41:46):
Did you know the records D E. M O N Records? Friends?
Speaker 1 (01:41:52):
Well it was Chelsea was the original producer.
Speaker 6 (01:42:01):
And Wes Ferrell.
Speaker 4 (01:42:03):
And somebody want to tell him.
Speaker 8 (01:42:09):
Yeah, yeah, we know that.
Speaker 7 (01:42:11):
We worked with Wes Ferrow. One of our records is
called Indian Lake and West produced that with us in
the studio.
Speaker 6 (01:42:20):
Super and wrote it.
Speaker 8 (01:42:22):
Yeah, he did the whole Partridge family.
Speaker 7 (01:42:24):
But that's our connection, right, No, No, no, very cool
because Wes Ferrell and.
Speaker 6 (01:42:33):
Okay brain again Bobby Hart.
Speaker 1 (01:42:37):
Oh, we're the ones who uh did Family, did Sigmund
and the Sea Monsters Friends album?
Speaker 8 (01:42:48):
Okay? Yeah what a factorid I love it? Yeah?
Speaker 6 (01:42:53):
You have?
Speaker 2 (01:42:53):
Like this is what a wild, wild, very long ride
you've been on.
Speaker 1 (01:42:59):
Johnny, Well, it's been fun, it's been worth it. It's uh.
Speaker 6 (01:43:08):
But as far as Demon Records, I got to look
that up. I don't I don't try and do right now. Yeah,
if they sold the rights or what.
Speaker 8 (01:43:17):
I don't know ob.
Speaker 6 (01:43:20):
It is.
Speaker 1 (01:43:24):
I believe you. I'll have to.
Speaker 4 (01:43:25):
We can't see it very.
Speaker 5 (01:43:28):
Yeah anyway, Uh a demon music group.
Speaker 6 (01:43:35):
John friends.
Speaker 1 (01:43:38):
I guess they purchased the rights from Chelsea and West and.
Speaker 6 (01:43:42):
It happens his estate or something.
Speaker 7 (01:43:46):
Yeah, okay, so we're gonna it's an amazing thing, Johnny.
It's Johnny Whittaker dot com. Is that where where can
people go ahead and find you and all of this stuff?
Speaker 5 (01:43:57):
Man?
Speaker 8 (01:43:57):
It's amazing.
Speaker 1 (01:43:59):
Sure, yeah, go Johnny Whittaker dot com. That's one T Whittaker.
My younger brother bought that for me. Gosh, fifteen seventeen
years ago for Christmas. I've been able to keep it
up good, little by little and no.
Speaker 8 (01:44:18):
We went there. It's chock full of stuff. It's awesome.
Speaker 4 (01:44:20):
Do you have an Instagram? Do you have a Facebook?
Speaker 1 (01:44:23):
I do have an Instagram. My Instagram is John O. Whittaker.
Speaker 6 (01:44:27):
I think.
Speaker 4 (01:44:30):
He's like me, brother. It's okay, I get it all.
Speaker 1 (01:44:33):
But on Facebook you type in Johnny Whittaker actor and
become a member of my Facebook group. There you go
and with my Facebook group or anybody who's interested in
joining us. We have watch parties, which is like a zoom.
Speaker 6 (01:44:55):
Like we're doing here.
Speaker 1 (01:44:58):
We'll have I think I'm trying to get us together
for to do and gonna get my friend Scott Colden
to come on to do a watch party of The
Mystery and Dracula's Castle.
Speaker 8 (01:45:12):
Together.
Speaker 7 (01:45:13):
Are you commenting while you're watching? Is that what's going on?
Speaker 1 (01:45:15):
Or well, we'll we'll have we'll have some comments available,
but you know, questions before, in questions after, and.
Speaker 4 (01:45:24):
Fun just to it's like a video book.
Speaker 1 (01:45:30):
Club, right, yeah, something like that.
Speaker 6 (01:45:33):
Man, you take that and then take that on the
Fan and Friends cruise.
Speaker 1 (01:45:38):
Sure. Well, that that was a pop up that just
came up that my brother had talked to some of
the people that it would be fun to watch one
of my films while we're on the cruise.
Speaker 4 (01:45:54):
I would love that.
Speaker 1 (01:45:56):
You're all invited. It's uh March sixteenth, it's going out
of Miami, and you get two for one uh airfare
to Miami.
Speaker 4 (01:46:07):
From people who are you.
Speaker 7 (01:46:10):
Well, we have to tell you, Johnny, we're on our
own flower Power cruise during that time with sixties cool.
Speaker 8 (01:46:17):
So we're all doing that.
Speaker 7 (01:46:17):
We're coming out, y'all wave but on yours. Absolutely, it
would be great with your videos for real, I'll put
in all.
Speaker 4 (01:46:29):
I mean, you could do a panel, you could people
if I love that.
Speaker 8 (01:46:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:46:34):
Absolutely, we have May Pang coming on this one. Uh
you know who May is, of course.
Speaker 1 (01:46:39):
Uh huh.
Speaker 5 (01:46:41):
And what she does is that they set her up
in a little area and she tells all the stuffers
she knows about her and people can ask questions to.
Speaker 6 (01:46:51):
Her and they learn about the Lost Weekend.
Speaker 2 (01:46:54):
And she's got you know, she's a photographer, so she
has a gallery showing.
Speaker 6 (01:46:58):
Yeah, and that would be great for you.
Speaker 4 (01:47:00):
But you could absolutely come on one of these things.
Speaker 6 (01:47:02):
And where you guys, where are you guys cruising?
Speaker 4 (01:47:05):
Where are we going y'all?
Speaker 7 (01:47:06):
Well, we're going to uh Saint Thomas down to the Caribbean.
Speaker 8 (01:47:10):
It's where it's going time.
Speaker 5 (01:47:12):
We either do the Eastern or the Western Caribbean. We've
done this many years.
Speaker 6 (01:47:18):
Yeah, oh great.
Speaker 7 (01:47:19):
Yeah, it's a theme cruise like what sixties? Man?
Speaker 6 (01:47:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 8 (01:47:24):
Yeah, John, we cannot thank you enough.
Speaker 7 (01:47:28):
You gave us a lot of time and we knew
you were more than that kid on that show, and man,
you're way more.
Speaker 8 (01:47:36):
I'm telling you.
Speaker 2 (01:47:37):
I love fighting and and and really honestly, this is
a childhood like come true kind of awesome thing.
Speaker 4 (01:47:44):
I was a huge fan and I think you're an
amazing human and I'm really it is filled me with
with a good, inspired feeling knowing your journey I've enjoyed.
Speaker 8 (01:47:55):
Projects are fantastic. Yeah, so there is given to the
world projects. Love them all.
Speaker 6 (01:48:02):
They're different in every way, you know. That's what I like.
Speaker 8 (01:48:05):
Yeah, I like it. So thank you.
Speaker 7 (01:48:08):
You know what he's up to, and we're going to
stay in touch with you, Johnny.
Speaker 8 (01:48:12):
It's just been.
Speaker 7 (01:48:14):
Very good and thanks everybody. And this will be up
Wednesday night online. Forever we're all going to be off
the earth, it will still be up there.
Speaker 8 (01:48:22):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:48:23):
Holy My closing line is always do something today for
somebody else.
Speaker 8 (01:48:35):
It's a great, great line.
Speaker 1 (01:48:36):
And especially to those who need connection. If you've got
an aunt or an uncle, or a grandma or grandpa
or somebody who you haven't talked to or been with.
One of the most devastating parts of life is mental illness,
(01:48:59):
and that comes from being disconnected. And mental illness can
be helped through connection. And so make a connection today.
Speaker 8 (01:49:09):
There you go.
Speaker 7 (01:49:10):
We're gonna leave it at that because that was beautiful. Yeah,
all right, we will stay in touch with you and
follow you and enjoy all of these projects that you've done.
Speaker 8 (01:49:19):
Thank you so much for.
Speaker 7 (01:49:21):
Okay, goodbye everybody.
Speaker 6 (01:49:25):
Okay, I don't want to know about that hand. Now
you can have knuckles on the inside. But that was hilarious. Yeah, okay, everybody.
We hope you enjoyed visiting with us today.
Speaker 5 (01:49:36):
We definitely had a blast visiting with you.
Speaker 6 (01:49:39):
Don't forget.
Speaker 5 (01:49:40):
Each episode of the Coast is available to download on demand, so.
Speaker 4 (01:49:47):
Please subscribe and give us a rating thumbs up.
Speaker 5 (01:49:50):
You can also follow the Coustles on Facebook and atcousel
dot com, and of course we will see you in concert.
Speaker 4 (01:49:58):
And on the road.
Speaker 6 (01:50:00):
Until then, let's stay.
Speaker 5 (01:50:01):
In touch by tuning in each week for another episode
of the podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:50:11):
M m HM
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